Saving Souls

If we want to win the lost to Christ, we’re going to have to have the supernatural.  That’s why the world is flocking to the movie theaters.  They’re looking for the supernatural.  That’s why they’re turning on HBO and Cinemax.  They’re looking for the supernatural.  And God is the originator of the supernatural. We’ve got a corner on the supernatural.  Teaching, preaching, and healing.

It’s not a one third Gospel, it’s not a two thirds Gospel. It’s a full Gospel, teaching, preaching, and healing.  Wherever Jesus went, He was teaching or He was preaching or He was healing or He was doing all three at the same time.

Lindsay has something that she loves for me to do.  When we drive around Tulsa, all of a sudden she’ll stop and she’ll say, “Would you please pull into that QuikTrip or that Get-n-Go or that convenience shop and would you get me one third hot water, one third hot coffee, and one third hot chocolate?”  She calls it a third, a third, a third.  “I want a third, a third, a third.” And so now she’ll just say, “Well, I want a third, a third, a third.”  Well, I know what she means.  So I pull into the convenience shop and I go inside and I get her one third hot water, one third hot coffee, and one third hot chocolate, and I bring it back.  And she says, “That’s what I wanted.  I wanted a third, a third, a third.”

One day I went in and they were out of hot chocolate, and so I tried to mix the water and the hot coffee.  I brought it back. I said nothing.  She took one sip and she said, “This is not a third, a third, a third.”  I said, “How do you know?”  She said, “I know the difference.”

And there’s a difference when all you do is teach and all you do is preach without mixing the healing power of God.  Jesus wants you to have a third, a third, a third.  Teaching, preaching, and healing.

Do you know why most ministers don’t pray for the sick? They’re afraid they’ll fail.  The first time the anointing came on me for healing, I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  I said, before I knew what I said, I said, “Anyone with arthritis and you need healing, stand up.”  And to my amazement, 500 people stood.  I was in a state of shock.  I said right out loud, “O my God, what if I fail?”  In my spirit, I heard the Holy Spirit say, “You’ve already done that.  Besides, you’re not going to heal them; I am.”

I said, “Come around here and put your hands on the front of this car, and we’re going to praise the Lord, because this came from Him.  This car came from the Lord. “And there we were, standing on the highway, beating that car and praising the Lord. And I didn’t really care who saw me.

I said, “Oral, this is something that will show our people that God cares.”  (tearfully) You know, some people don’t know that God cares, but He does.  And if you’re going through a problem right now that you think God doesn’t care, He does care about you.  He wants your needs to be met.  He doesn’t want you to go in poverty and wearing old stringy clothes and showing your people that God can’t do anything for you.  He wants to meet your needs.

And He met our needs that day with that car to show our people.  Because I knew Oral was going into the healing ministry. And if he was going into the healing ministry, he couldn’t tell the people that God would prosper them, because we hadn’t been prospered.

But this car was the first step toward knowing that God would meet our needs.  And I thank you so much.

OR: That was the best smelling car inside that I’d ever smelled. I tell you, it had a wonderful smell inside.

ER: Thank God.

OR: Now you were talking about my going to the church and lying down and staying there until I heard God’s voice.  He told me to get on my feet and go get in my car and to drive 1 block left, and turn right.  And when I turned right, He said, “From this hour, you will have My power to lay your hands on the sick.  And you’ll feel My presence coming down your right arm and in your right hand.  And you’ll have My power to cast out demons.  You’ll know their number, the number of them in a person, and their name. You’ll call the demons by name.  You’ll call them out.”

I said, “Come around here and put your hands on the front of this car, and we’re going to praise the Lord, because this came from Him.  This car came from the Lord. “And there we were, standing on the highway, beating that car and praising the Lord. And I didn’t really care who saw me.

I said, “Oral, this is something that will show our people that God cares.”  (tearfully) You know, some people don’t know that God cares, but He does.  And if you’re going through a problem right now that you think God doesn’t care, He does care about you.  He wants your needs to be met.  He doesn’t want you to go in poverty and wearing old stringy clothes and showing your people that God can’t do anything for you.  He wants to meet your needs.

And He met our needs that day with that car to show our people.  Because I knew Oral was going into the healing ministry. And if he was going into the healing ministry, he couldn’t tell the people that God would prosper them, because we hadn’t been prospered.

But this car was the first step toward knowing that God would meet our needs.  And I thank you so much.

OR: That was the best smelling car inside that I’d ever smelled. I tell you, it had a wonderful smell inside.

ER: Thank God.

OR: Now you were talking about my going to the church and lying down and staying there until I heard God’s voice.  He told me to get on my feet and go get in my car and to drive 1 block left, and turn right.  And when I turned right, He said, “From this hour, you will have My power to lay your hands on the sick.  And you’ll feel My presence coming down your right arm and in your right hand.  And you’ll have My power to cast out demons.  You’ll know their number, the number of them in a person, and their name. You’ll call the demons by name.  You’ll call them out.”

And there was a thing that wrapped itself around us, especially me, where I could never amount to anything in God.  And the rest of my life I’ll be with little churches like this, and nothing was going on in the spirit realm that was worthy of giving my life.

ER: Tell them about when you? when the Lord gave you the three principals.

OR: I had to say that, Honey, to make the next statement.  God revealed Himself to me in these words:  “I am a good God.  And the devil is a bad devil.  There’s no goodness in the devil.  And no badness in God.  I am totally good, and the devil is totally bad.”  

And it was like He opened my eyes.  And I got up and started preaching that and ran into opposition.  That God puts sickness on people – why are you praying for God to take it off of them?  I ran into that all over this country in the late ’40s and early? 50s.  Why are you telling people that they can prosper?  People will get the big head, and they won’t serve God.  And all that mess.

I got a call in the ’60s, right after we had built ORU, from the largest denomination in the full Gospel realm in the country, from the Board that ran that church, the general superintendent and so on.  And to meet them in Kansas City in Muleback (?) Hotel.  For me to bring my Board, and I’d meet their Board, on the issue of whether God’s totally good, the devil’s totally bad, whether seed-faith worked – we’ll get back to this in a minute, how seed-faith developed in our minds.

And when we walked in the door, the first thing Demetrius (?) said to me, “Seed-faith is not in the Bible.  And you’re not preaching the Gospel.”

And I was so shocked.  I said, “Would you say that again?”

He said, “I just said it.”

I said, “Say it again.  Because you say it one more time? you see that door?  I’m going to walk out of that door, and I’ll never step inside a Pentecostal church again till the longest day I live.”  And there was a hush.  I said, “You say I’m not preaching the Bible.  Here, take my Bible.  Show me.  Show me I’m not preaching the Bible.  Show me that this Bible teaches God is a bad God.  Show me that we’re not to sow our seed that we’re not to get into sowing and reaping.  Show me that God will not multiply the seed back.  Show me that God doesn’t want to heal everybody, not just a hand-picked few.  Show it to me.”  They wouldn’t do it.  “Well,? I said, “there’s something wrong with this whole deal.  I came out of this kind of an attitude when I left Enid and came to Tulsa and started my ministry.  And if I have to go to Rome, I’ll go to Rome.”

And we’d been called to Enid, Oklahoma, 130 miles to the west.  And a wonderful little church, with about 150 people.  And it was the year that God had intended me to begin my healing ministry.  I had known from my conversion and my healing of tuberculosis, 12 years before, that God had called me to take His healing power to my generation, and someday, to build Him a university based on His authority and the Holy Spirit.  But I didn’t know the time.

And so I went ahead to pastor churches and to conduct revivals in different churches over the country.  And waiting for that time.

We happened to be ordained by a small Pentecostal movement; and it was caught up in the traditions of the way they had been reared, like most of us are.  Mostly what we are, we were taught in our homes, and as we married and got out and found the Lord and went to church, we found whatever denomination we entered had its own way, its own tradition.  And the group we were in had some wonderful people in it, and some wonderful ministers, and I loved them very, very much.

But they were not forward-looking people; they didn’t have a world view.  They were mostly poor people, what was called blue- collar people, not very many that had this world’s goods.  And when we were called to this church in Enid, they didn’t have a place for us to live.  And we didn’t have money to rent.  And in those days, we made $25, $30, $40 a week, and at the most, $55 aweek, with a family.  And we really didn’t have enough money to pay our way through school and to live.  And those people were the same way.  They didn’t have too much, either.

And we got there, and no place to live, and not interested in getting what was called a parsonage.  And one of the families at church took pity on us and invited us to spend time with them  until maybe the church would pay down on a place for us to live.

And, Evelyn, I guess we were there 6 or 8 weeks with this dear family.

And then II Corinthians 4:17, “For we have this light affliction, but for a moment.”  You see, the devil was trying to make me believe that this pain in my shoulder which required a pain medicine, which threw me into side effects and threw me out of gear in my body, affected adversely my balance, made it dangerous for me if I wasn’t careful how I walked, made me believe that I was going to have it the rest of my life, that they actually possess the right to my body.

But here these demons gave it away.  “Have you come to torment us before our time?”  There’s a time limit on every negative thing that attacks us, our souls, or our bodies, or our minds, or our finances, or our families, or our marriages.  Anything that we have of God is under attack by the devil, and he puts a time limit under his own control.

One of the things the pain medicine does is to dry my mouth, so if I drink a little water, don’t pay any attention to it.  This is the first time I have spoken publicly in seven months, and forgive me-(Applause)-if I am slow and take my time, please understand because I have made a decision to attack the time limits of the devil.  (Applause)

I have taken the Scripture of the Lord and scenes from the Bible as for myself and made myself the guinea pig.  And I sat there that day, I remember it well, when I made this decision, “Devil, I will not have the pain in my shoulder the rest of my life.  I will not be on this pain medicine the rest of my life.  I will not have my heart attack the rest of my life.  My heart is going to be normal.  And, furthermore, it’s going to happen in 2003, this year. (Applause)  I am not your property.  You take your hands off God’s property, me, Oral Roberts.”

I want you to say that and call your name.  Devil, take your hands off God’s property, me, your name.  (Response) Now say it again, ready?  (Response)  Did you say your name?  (Yes)  How does it feel?  (Good)  It feels good, doesn’t it?

You think about the problems that you’re facing and there’s nobody here that’s not facing problems, and some very serious problems, some life-and-death problems.  Think about sickness in your body, and there’s nobody here that’s totally well that I know anything about.  If so, I’m glad. But most of us have some kind of affliction in our bodies, and we’re attacked from time to time.