SPKM STEVE VICKERS Correct. I went down to Florida just to get away for a few days…. I rented a condo down there and stayed for a few days just to fast and pray and spend some time with God. And while I was down there the Lord impressed me, while I was just seeking the face of God, concerning his direction in the days ahead in our church, in our ministry. God impressed me that Denise was to come down also. Now we have four children and so she’s kept pretty busy, plus with the church and everything. So I called her and said, “Denise, I really believe that you are to come down. Just take a few days to come down and be with me.” I had already been down for three days, so she came down and really, it was during that time that God spoke to her to make an appointment at the Charismatic Bible Ministries Conference in June of 1986.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS What do you mean an appointment?
SPKM STEVE VICKERS Well, maybe she needs to share that with you. But, you know, God is real. And we can make an appointment with God and say, “God, at such and such a time I’m going to meet with you and you’re going to do so-and-so in my life.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS All right, Denise, were you saying, “I am making an appointment with God that at that Charismatic Bible Ministries Oral Roberts Conference last year I’m going to release my faith for miracles”?
SPKM DENISE VICKERS Yes, yes. I knew I could not come back from that meeting now healed. I knew I had to get healed. (APPLAUSE) I would do this. I would hold my hand over my heart and I would say, “Steve, I’m sick, I’m sick. My heart is sick.” I was disappointed in God. It was affecting my spiritually and, see, I knew it wasn’t God but I couldn’t understand how can you be healed and still be in pain, but I knew I heard God say that. And so for 2| years I suffered in this thing. And driving back from Florida in the car I was listening to a healing tape and I turned off the tape player and I said to the devil, “It is you, Satan…..” because, see, for 2| years I tried to deal with it with vitamins, nutrition, I quit eating for 6 weeks and tried to see if it was food. I did everything in the natural that I knew to do.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS And you’d done everything your doctors told you to do.
SPKM DENISE VICKERS I read everything the doctors told me, I took every medication, and they had to put me on stronger medication. I signed release forms for damage to my liver and to my eyes, going blind for this medication that I was on to keep me walking because they were predicting the wheelchair, Richard. I was in severe pain. And in the car I turned that tape player off and I settled it once and for all. It is not vitamins that is my answer, it is not nutrition, it is the devil that’s doing this to me. The devil was harrassing my body and I had to settle it. I would waver in and out of it. I would go in the natural and try to deal with it in the natural and the next minute I’d say, “It’s the spiritual.” And I did everything in the spiritual I knew to do.
SPKM STEVE VICKERS I want to say this, Richard, and it’s so important because we were in the middle of this and I saw what was going on. I was in it but also like an observer, and I saw this. Whenever you give the enemy a little ground, that’s not the end. When you allow him to compromise what you know to be the truth, he is not going to stop until he has destroyed all of the foundation of your faith.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS It’s like a song I heard a man write. He said, “Don’t let the devil ride cause if you let him ride, he’ll want to drive.”
SPKM DENISE VICKERS That’s right, that’s right. And let me tell you something. In the car I settled it. I said, “It is you, devil.” I settled it. Then I said, “Okay, God, I’m making an appointment right now.” Now I was driving home to Montgomery and I said, “God, I want to make an appointment with you,” and I knew if you make an appointment with God according to the Word, if you cry out to God, he’s going to hear you. (APPLAUSE) So I put God on the line and I said, “God, in five weeks I’m going to Tulsa.” And I knew… if you’re going to get healed, you ought to be able to get healed in Tulsa, you know. So I knew, I knew it was going to happen. I settled it.