The Word of Jesus by Richard Roberts

They needed a daddy who could hear their troubles and their problems and their burdens. They needed a daddy who could hold them in their arms when they came home from school and say, “I understand, but let’s find the answer and it’s in the words of God and in the words of Jesus.” And I was too busy trying to make a living out in the world, and I almost lost my family.  And I lost everything that I had.  And had a beautiful wife who continued to pray.  And in 1979 I faced 150 years on 30 counts of conspiracy to violate the control drug acts.  Went to the federal courtroom for two weeks, and it had been plastered all over the newspapers in Spartanburg and Greenville, South Carolina — I remembered calling up all my friends of the world, the doctors, and the lawyers and the politicians.  I tell this to young people on high school campuses and in churches — all over America — I found out we won’t have any friends out there in that world, not one of those friends would show up.  When your money runs out your friends run out.

When your drugs run out your friends run out.  When your sexual popularity runs out and you are used and misused and abused by the world your friends will run out and kick you aside and they want to marry a virgin.  I hope you keep your body cleansed for the temple of the Holy Ghost and marry that young man that is a Christian that loves Jesus Christ.  I found out the only friends I had, Richard, were Christian friends who would lift me to the throne of grace and pray for me.  (APPLAUSE)  High school quarterback, Dave Walton, he came into that courtroom one day and he sat down beside me — you know, there is a scripture in John 15 and 12, and I tried to memorize the Bible when I was in prison.  I found that Gideon Bible in a trash can and I read that David had hid the word in his heart that he might not sin against God.  And I want to be a man after God’s heart, I want to be broken bread and poured out wine for a lost and dying nation, that we might see revival in our high schools and junior highs, and in our nation, and we can do it through prayer and through the study of the Word.  And I had a high school friend that came in and one of his favorite scriptures was,  SM05 “Greater hath no man than this that he would lay down his life for a friend.” ( MS_John_15:13 ) That is what I see you and Brother Oral Roberts doing here, Oral Roberts University and throughout the world, as your mission outreach goes out with medical missionaries and doctors going into the foreign fields, (Yes) sharing love, medicine and prayer, and the touch of Jesus Christ, we still (Hallelujah) serve a Master (APPLAUSE) who can reach down from heaven and touch the cripple, and touch and heal that (Yes) drug addict or that alcoholic.  Dave Walton came in and sat down beside me.  He was a friend who had prayed for me for 12 years. And he put his arm around me that day in the courtroom and he said, “Don, I’ve come one share with you.”  And I said, “What is that, Dave?”  He said, “I’ve come to share that I love you just like a brother.  No matter what you’ve done I still love you, but Jesus loves you, Don, and you need Jesus where you are going.”  I said, “Dave, man, I can’t receive Jesus today, I’m a cocaine addict, I’m an alcoholic.”  I didn’t realize that Jesus would take us right where we are.