RR: Olean and I were friends for many, many, many years. And Russ, who is up in heaven looking down, Russ said, “Richard, stick with the healing ministry.” I’ll never forget that. And from time to time, in fact several times, he and Norma would bring me up here. We did The Hour of Healing several times live here from Cornerstone Studio. Sometime we need to do that again.
RON: Oh, we’ve got to.
RR: And have a healing service.
RON: All right, let’s make a note of that. Let’s do it.
RR: In the ten years that program has been on the air, we’ve had 116,000 healing testimonies.
RON: Thank You, Jesus.
RR: The apple of my heart.
RON: The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree either. Your daddy started that many years ago.
RR: Well, thank God for Christian television that allows, you know, the moving of the Holy Spirit. You know, as I said, we spent a few days at Disney. But on the Disney Channel tonight, they’re not going to have any miracles.
RON: No, they’re not.
RR: Not on A&E, not on CNN, not on NBC, not even on FOX, you know, my favorite station. They’re not going to have miracles—nor the Weather Channel. But they are at Cornerstone tonight.
RON: I tell you what, I want you to get on preaching because I’m anxious to hear it.
RR: Well, I have something on my heart.
RON: We’re going to go to song, and then we’re going to come back and just rip it. Oh, we’re not going on a song? I guess we’re not. Are you ready to go? Do you want me to step off?
RR: Why? Just stay with me.
RON: Okay. I’ll be Amen Charlie.
RR: We’ll just take this tie and we’ll just fix this tie up right here.
RON: Okay, there you go. Go for it, Richard.
Number one, get a source for your life. Everything in life has a source, and God is your source. Turn to the person next to you and say, “God is your source.” Turn to the other side and say, “God is your source.”
Every river has a source. It is from the source that the waters flow. From the source, the waters flow. Some years ago I conducted a crusade in Kampala, Uganda. I’d been invited by President Museveni for a crusade. And he assigned his minister of state to me for that week.
I had studied the geography of Uganda, and I discovered that the great African River, the Nile, gets its source from Uganda. That river flows from south to north. It begins at Lake Victoria and flows all the way up through Africa, through Egypt, to the Mediterranean Sea.
On the last day of the crusade, the minister of state took me to where the Nile River begins. And I stood there and looked at the little beginning of the Nile River. It was so small, and yet as it flowed north it got bigger and bigger and bigger. And it became the source of life for millions of people.
I said to the minister of state, “What would happen if someone turned off the source?”
He said, “Millions of people would die because they are dependent upon the Nile River for life.”
So it is with you and me if we turn off the source, if we don’t have a source. Then we begin to die on the inside. Everyone needs a source, and God is your source. Not your job, not your business, not your husband or wife, not your children, not your bank, not your government, not your church. God is your source.
Raise your right hand. Say this: God is my source. Say, “God is my source.” Turn to the person next to you and say, “God is my source.” That’s number one, God is your source.
And when they got there, they also voted for other candidates who were of godly origin, and they elected, reelected a President.
One man who ministers in Ohio, Brother Rod Parsley, and hundreds of people went door to door throughout the state. It was all over the national news. And what satan tried to weasel into our country was totally turned around by the total change from apathy to involvement by the American people. (Applause)
America, what are you doing here? And you say, “Well, we can’t speak out on that.” Who said you cannot speak out about issues? Who told you that? The government cannot tell you that you cannot speak out on issues. Yes, you are not allowed to endorse candidates, I understand that. But you are allowed to speak out on issues.
We faced a situation right here on our own campus with an issue, with a creek that went across our campus. And it had gotten wider and wider and wider and wider. And some of you may know the story.
And over the years of ORU, instead of being a little tiny creek that in the early days of ORU, you could literally step across. Now when it rained, you would have to have a boat to get across it. Fred Creek would become Fred River.
And we worked and we worked and we worked, and we couldn’t get anywhere. And the mayor at that time of our city came out because there was a referendum before the entire city of several hundred million dollars. And they were willing to put $15 million into that to renovate this creek and to take care of the continuous flooding problem that we seemed to have every year here at ORU. One year we had what they called a 500-year flood, did $5 million worth of damage on our campus.
And the mayor came and said, “This is an issue. This isn’t a political thing. This is an issue. We’re facing an issue in our city. We need the improvements in our streets and in our sewers and other things, water systems here in the city. And we also need to fix Fred Creek, which starts about three or four miles to the east of here and runs all the way to the Arkansas River. And we need to fix the whole thing, not only that which runs across ORU, but on other properties as well.”
And there was a woman watching, I think if I remember right, she was from Wyoming. She put her hands against mine. She had two inoperable brain tumors, both were cancerous. She put her hands against my hands, and there was an operation of the gifts of healing.
She felt the power of God go into her head. And she went back and had all the examinations, including the MRIs done. She telephoned us several days later, “The doctors can’t find any tumor. The cancer is totally gone.” It was an operation of the gifts of healing.
Acts Chapter three, Peter and John were on their way to prayer. The man is carried there each day, he can’t walk. Some 40 years he’s been there. Peter and John said, “Such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk, and he put out his hand.” That was an operation of the gifts of healing. Those gifts will operate through you.
You know the main reason why ministers of the Gospel will not lay hands on the sick? The main reason is because they feel like they’ll fail. Well, I’ve got a little secret for you this morning. You can’t heal them! If you could they would already be well. GOD is the healer! Turn to the person next to you and say, “God’s the healer.” (RESPONSE)
My father could tell you he’s probably had more failures than successes, but he always prayed. My wife will tell you that Oral Roberts is the only one who prayed the prayer of faith over her father in 1968 when he was dying with cancer–when their pastor said, “Why don’t you just let him die in dignity?”
People never forget someone who prays, someone who tries. Well, I’m just not comfortable laying my hands on someone, you know. There’s something special about your hands. The doctors say that you’re made up of one sixth skin. And God showed us what He’s like by sending His Son in skin. There’s something special. The gifts of healing will flow through us.
You talk about enlarging crowds. You talk about the word spreading. It’s the operation of the gifts of healing–it’s miracles. The Bible says in John 6:2, “The multitudes followed Jesus, because of the miracles that He did.” They stayed tuned for the preaching.
I often tell the story about how once I was in Nigeria, and there was a young man who was like this man at the Beautiful gate there in Jerusalem. He had never walked. Some 22 years of age, he pulled himself along the ground. Lindsay and I will never forget him pulling himself along the ground. He had taken Coca-Cola cans and cut them in half and smoothed them down, so he could put his fist inside and pull himself along the ground. He pulled himself to the service. His name was Abdul, he was a Moslem.
I learned that years ago from one of our trustees, Pastor Ralph Wilkerson. Back in the days when I was singing only, back when I was a teenager, I remember one night being at Melodyland and he was there. And he had me come up, and I sang two or three songs. And he jumped up and grabbed the microphone and gave an altar call. And I wanted to say, ”Brother Ralph, nobody’s preached. Nobody?-and he turned to me and said, “The anointing’s here right now for people to get saved.” And hundreds of people came rushing to the altar and gave their lives to Jesus.
You know, God doesn’t operate the same way every time. He won’t be boxed in. And if you’ll allow Him to flow and if you will be willing to step out there on the edge-that’s that faith realm out there where you don’t know what’s going to happen, where you might not necessarily be totally in control, when you are afraid of pandemonium breaking out, that’s when God will move.
And I’ve got news. You can’t organize a miracle. And you can’t control one either. The people went berserk when there was a miracle in the Bible. I mean, they came running from every direction when Jesus healed because you never knew when something miraculous was going to happen.
Now He put His stamp of approval on nine gifts of the Spirit, and they will flow through us. He’s put His stamp of approval on laying on of hands. I grew up under the ministry of my father, watching him lay hands on the sick. And I watched him be willing to lay his hands on anybody.
I remember one night, I was a little boy, and his custom was after he preached and gave an invitation, while they were preparing the healing line-and some of you who were there will remember-he would go to an auxiliary tent where invalids had been brought on stretchers and on wheelchairs and on beds from hospitals, people who were too ill to stand in the prayer line. And he would minister to them first. You remember that, Brother Derstine. Oftentimes people never knew that was going on because he never made an announcement of it. But those are the ones he ministered to first, sometimes to a hundred people. And I would walk with him amongst those who were sick with cancer and everything under the sun.
And I remember one night I was right by his side, and he walked up to a man who was in the last stages of cancer. They’d brought him from the hospital. And if you’ve ever been around someone who is in the last stages of cancer, the odor will almost knock you out. And the odor of that cancer was so foul that when my dad reached forward, he stepped back and threw up all over the floor. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.
And he whirled around to walk the other way. Now I didn’t know what I’m going to tell you now until I was grown. All I was as a little boy and I saw my dad turn away. Then suddenly I saw him go back around and put his arms around the man and take him in his arms and pray for him. I didn’t know what happened in the meantime. It wasn’t until I was grown that my father said, “When I stepped away that night,? He said, “the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, “If you’re not willing to pray for him, you’re not worthy to be My child.?”
Well, that’s when he turned around and took that man in his arms. I saw it. I was there. Now that’s compassion. That’s that irresistible urge to rid the person of the problem. And when that compassion comes up in you, that’s the time to act. That’s the time for you to get your hands on somebody.