Richard Roberts LIVE with Guest Wayman Tisdale Part Seventeenth

RR:  God, I thank You for Wayman, for his witness and for the athletic ability You’ve placed in his heart.  Lord, I thank You for Ted Owens as our athletic director.  I pray a double portion anointing to be upon him as he leads our entire athletic program. Lord, we are in athletics for a reason, and that is to be a witness for Jesus Christ, that the young men and the young women who represent this university, Oral Roberts University, would always be a witness, a bold witness. For the Bible says to go into every man’s world, preach the gospel. Lord, there are lots of people that are in the athletic world and they’ve not been reached for Jesus Christ.  May we be an extension of Your hand to reach them for Jesus Christ and to make a_ difference, but not just a difference, to make the___ difference in their lives.  I thank You, Father, for the Spirit of God that I feel upon me right now.  And I want to say a special word to those of you that are young persons and perhaps those of you that are older persons who have either been experimenting with drugs or you’ve been offered drugs and you don’t know what to do.  Perhaps there’s been all kinds of peer pressure on you that you must take them or that you won’t be one of the crowd.  I want to say something to you.  In my lifetime I’ve been offered many things.  When I was a high school student, when I was a college student I was offered drugs.  Yes, even back in the sixties there were a lot of drugs that were going around.  They didn’t make the national headlines like they did in the seventies and the eighties, but they were going on.  They were available to me any time I wanted them.  And even though I was not serving Christ at the time, something inside me told me not to do it.  Now I know now that was not a something, that was a Someone.  That was the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit moved on me to stay away from that.  And then there came a day when I received Christ as my personal Savior.  I was deeply involved in athletics.  I played basketball in high school.  I played golf in high school on teams.  I love athletics.  I’ve always loved athletics and played sports.  But I avoided drugs. And I want to say this word and it’s a strong word and it’s a good word for you, pay no attention to the young person who comes up to you and says, “You’re not going to make it, you’re not going to be in the group, in the click, unless you take drugs.” Pay no attention to that.  That’s a lie of the devil. Disassociate yourself with that person.  Now that’s what Wayman said.  He said, “I didn’t do it to try to be better than anybody else.”  He just said, “I knew that wasn’t for me.”  Put that thing aside.  And also, for the person who would come up to you and say, “You will be a better athlete, you’ll perform better if you’re high while you’re playing sports.”  That’s also a lie of the devil.  Don’t swallow that.  Forget it.  Put it aside.  God has given you all of the ability that you need.  And the way to get more of that ability out is to take the coaches that you work with and allow them to work with you.  Here is a young man who is a star in the NBA, but here this summer he’s been here and he’s been some right here on our campus talking and working always trying to improve himself, but not through drugs and alcohol and things of that nature.  You can live without it.  That’s a good will set you free.”  (Applause)  Praise God.  Wayman, God bless you for your strong witness.  Ted, God bless you for your strong witness.