RR: Dad, I was sitting here thinking back over the years as you were talking. You know, there’s no group of people in the history of this country that have done what the partners of this ministry have done. I remember as a little boy how we had a farm and you’d pitch a tent and our partners would come from all over America and Canada and from foreign nations and how you would say, “We’re going to build a university, will you help me build dormitories, will you help me build classrooms, will you help me start with nothing?” And those partners, somehow, I don’t know how, but somehow that got in their soul. It got down in their gut where they live. And they said, “Yes, I’ll help you. I’ll sponsor a mattress. I’ll sponsor a, I’ll sponsor a door. I’ll sponsor some tiling, some carpet. I’ll sponsor the ceiling. Yes, I’ll help you buy books for your library. Yes, I’ll help you build that Prayer Tower.” You know, here we are this summer, we’ve been remodeling some of those original dormitories. And I was thinking of that. And I thought to myself, where else on the face of this earth are there a group of people like the partners of this ministry who have singlehandedly built a university? And I thought, where else on the face of this earth have partners, have men and women like you stood together to raise the only medical center of its kind where the doctors and the nurses are Spirit-filled, they have great medical abilities but they also know to pray? Where else on the face of this earth? (Applause) And I was thinking, there’s no other group of people, there’s no group of people on the face of this earth. You say, what are you trying to say? I’m trying to say what Paul the apostle said to the church at Philippi when he wrote in the 4th chapter, when he said, “Nobody communicated with me except you concerning giving and receiving.” There’s nobody that’s done what you’ve done. There’s no one who has built a university like what you have built through this family. There’s no one like you who has built a medical research center where prayer and medicine science are being joined together. Nobody has done it. Nobody has built a Healing Outreach Center with the Journey Through the Bible like you’ve built. And the good news is, it’s only in its first phase. There’s lots more to come. When you go through the Journey Through the Bible this summer or this fall or whenever you come to Tulsa, the first part is only done and you only get through Genesis. There’s the whole Bible all the way through Revelation to be done. But my point is, nobody has done what you’ve done. And I believe that the partners of this ministry are going to rise to the occasion because we are on the way now. We are not going to lose. We’re going to go over the top for God and the nations of this earth are going to be reached with the medical missionaries. Hallelujah!

OR:  Well, I can only tell you that when God said if I don’t turn it around He’s going to take me to heaven, that I’ve asked Him does He mean it literally.  I know you, do you remember what you said to me when I told you that morning that God had spoken to me?

ER:  Yes.  You said that God told you you were on the last rung of the ladder.  And I said, “Well, honey, that could mean 30 years.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that right now you’re on the last rung of the ladder and you may go tomorrow.”  But then when He spoke to you again and said, “I’ll give you one year to turn this around,” I asked you, “Does He mean literally one year in time as we think of time or in God’s eyes time may mean a different thing?  But why is He so urgent about this?”

OR:  Well, I can only reply in two ways, whether He means literally in 12 months, only He knows.  I know I’m going to obey Him.  But I think for sure He’s trying to get our attention. (Yes, yes.)  Because he’s not got the attention of the church. We as a church have neglected the nations.  There are only 50,000 missionaries in the whole world, only 400 medical missionaries in the whole world.  We have 480,000 preachers in the United States, 530,000 doctors in the United States, only 50,000 missionaries and 400 medical missionaries.  If it takes my life to get people’s attention, sobeit.  But if we obey, in fact, I believe we’re going to obey and God is going to let me live. (Applause) But the second thing is this, I believe God has said this because He’s concerned about the healing of the sick.  Jesus preached and He taught and He healed.  The signs and wonders must be restored to the gospel.  And God raised me up to take His healing power to the people in order to win souls and change lives.  Now I want you to think a minute.  Fifty-one years ago there was a 17-year-old boy lying dying with tuberculosis in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma.  Three doctors, Dr. Shy, Dr. Craig, and Dr. King worked over me.  Finally they took me for prayer and God restored my life.  Don’t you think He is just as concerned about a 17-year-old boy with tuberculosis in Africa, in Asia, in South America, in some nations where the gospel is not allowed to go, where they are desperate for doctors?  Don’t you think He’s concerned about sick people everywhere?  Don’t you think God cares?  I think that’s what this is all about.  And, you know, I’ve only got two months before we open our medical school for the fall semester, 48 brand-new freshmen.  There are 192 in all four classes. I need your help.  I need you to make a two month Seed-Faith pledge and redirect some of your giving where you don’t know for sure it’s winning souls and healing the sick. Because this is good soil.  And He said if you planted in good soil you will get a hundredfold return and He will restore you seven times what the devil has stolen from you.  (Applause)  Pray about this.  I have a good feeling about it.  I feel so good about it.  I’m encouraged about it, and I’m asking you as my partner who stood by me.  I didn’t build all this.  I was just an instrument.  You partners have done this, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  And God’s going to reward you, you can count on that.  And I’m asking you for a pledge for this month and next month, say $50 this month, $50 in August or $100 in July and $100 in August, or whatever amount, it’s smaller or it’s larger.  I’m talking to somebody who can sponsor an entire student.  I’m talking to some church that needs to redirect your missionary giving to where you know without a doubt that you will win souls and heal the sick.  My mailing address is Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Or Oral Roberts, Tulsa, Oklahoma.  In Canada, Oral Roberts, Toronto, Ontario.  And I tell you, I’d love to hear from you.  In fact, I must hear from you.  And God will put you in His reward system.

LR:  You know, one of the things the Lord spoke when He had Oral open up the school was that the students’ work would exceed Oral’s work and in that God will be well pleased.  Well, you know, you’ve got to travel a lot of miles and lay hands on a lot of people and pray for a lot of people to exceed Oral’s work. But this is one way that that prophecy can be fulfilled, because when we send out our teams, they’re going to all the nations where we can’t go as individuals.  One man or one woman can’t go to all those places.  But the more medical teams we send out, the more students we send out, the more healing teams we sent out, they’re going to infiltrate the entire world.  And that promise will be fulfilled then.  (Applause)

RR:  Well, dad, everything is on the line.

OR:  Pardon?

RR:  Everything is on the line.  We must do what God told us to do. And I’d like to just interrupt and say something.  I’m not saying this because my father is here, I’m not saying it because I’m his son.  I’m saying it because it’s true and the truth isworthy to be heard.  Here is a man who was dying with tuberculosis, his sister came in and said to him, “Oral, God is going to heal you.”  He was converted, received Christ because he saw Jesus’ countenance in his own father’s face, in my grandfather’s face, Ellis Melvin Roberts.  He was converted.  He was carried to a healing crusade where a preacher was preaching and praying for the sick.  His brother Elmer, my oldest Uncle Elmer, took him.  And God spoke to him in the back seat of that car and said, “I’m going to heal you and you’re to take My healing power to your generation.”  For more than 25 years he traveled the nations of this earth, more than 46 nations, preaching the gospel, winning many times more than a million souls a year to Christ.  All right, he did what God said.  Then God said, “You are to build Me a university.”  And as you look right now you can see this great campus.  You can see a university that’s unlike any university on the face of this earth, Spirit-filled young men and women, Spirit-filled faculty, staff and administration, students who are learning how to hear God’s voice and how to prepare themselves to go to the nations of the earth.  When God said, “Build me a university,” friend, you’re looking at it.  Then God said, “Build the City of Faith and put prayer and medical science together.”  He had no plan of building a hospital.  He was told to put prayer and medicine together.  But the other hospitals, for some reason, for some reason which only they know, they decided not to allow our medical students to do their clinical work in their hospitals. So we had to build our own hospital attached to the City of Faith.  But thank God, it’s over there.  Prayer and medicine are being merged together right there at this very minute while I’m talking to you.  (Applause)  God said, “Build the Healing Outreach Center and build a Journey Through the Bible.”  The first phase is open.  We’ve been talking to you about it.  And you say, well why are you telling me all this, Richard?  Why are you giving me this history lesson?  I’m doing it because here is a man who has said, “God told me to do this and I did it.  Now God told me to build a university and I did it.  God told me to build the City of Faith and I did it.  God told me to open the Healing Outreach Center with the Journey Through the Bible and I did it.”  All right, here is a man who has credibility in America.  If any man in the United States of America has credibility in what he says God told him to do and then he did it, then his name is Oral Roberts.  (Applause)  Now I’m not saying this because he’s my father.  I’m saying it because he’s a prophet of God. He is an evangelist.  He is an apostle.  He is a trailblazer, and God has said to him, (Applause) “Turn your medical school around.”  Now I think–there are many things that I love about my father–but I think the thing that I love most is the fact that he will die, he will die doing what Jesus told him to do.  He will be obedient.  And the Bible says, “Obedience is better than sacrifice.”  (Applause)  I’ve seen him make many personal sacrifices in his life, but that is no comparison to the obedience of God.  And here is a man who is willing to pay the price, who has been willing for many years, who continues to be willing, and is saying to God, “God, I want 20 more years.”  And when Oral Roberts says, “I want 20 years,” he doesn’t mean ten years of health and then ten years like a vegetable.  He means 20 years of health, 20 years of doing God’s work.  (Applause)  And God said to him, “You must do this.”  Now he’s a man who is obedient.  And you need to hear what he’s saying today because this not only can turn the medical school around and turn foreign missions around and put God’s medical presence in the earth, but, friend, as a direct result it can turn your life around.  It can turn your shattered life into a miracle and bring you the needs, get your needs met in your life.  And I’m serious about this. This is, this is something that is a mandate from God.

OR:  You remind me of–

RR:  They are one of those 34.

OR:  –yes, of a pastor down in Texas who heard about this and met his deacon board and they reexamined their whole missionary program.  And they found that in some places their money wasn’t winning souls and healing the sick.  Richard, you remember he flew up here with a $45,000 check from his church to sponsor one of the ORU medical students to be a medical missionary in a nation.

RR:  And he said, “This isn’t the last of the money you’re going to get, you’re going to get more than this project,” he said, “because I’m with you.  (Applause)

ER:  Honey, let’s get back to the point of why God wants this done and why He’s so urgent about it?  To me the whole result of why He said, “If you don’t turn the medical school around, I’m going to take you home,” the reason He said that is because He’s concerned about hurting medical people in there because a medical person opens up a country so that the other team can get in.  And as an example–let me tell you this–tell the people this.  You know the story and Richard and Lindsay.  But our people don’t know it.  I may have shared it on television once before.  We had a medical team of students who went to Africa a summer or two ago just for the summer and they took some singers and ministers, etc., a whole group of students went.  And they went to a little clinic in Africa.  Two of the young medical people had been examining the patients there because they didn’t have a permanent doctor.  And one night a young woman came in to that clinic and she was just as heathen as she could be.  She’d never heard of Jesus, but she was bleeding to death.  And the young doctors examined her and they said, “This woman has to have blood or she won’t live.” So they went around to all the team to examine their blood to see who had the kind of blood this woman needed, and it happened to be one of those medical students.  And he gave her a blood transfusion of his own blood and saved her life.  The next morning when she came to, they said to her through an interpreter, “Do you know what has happened to you?”  And she said, “Well, I know I’ve been very sick.”  And they said, “This young man right here gave you his blood and saved your life.  But the most important thing that you should hear is that two thousand years ago a man spilled all of His blood on a cross thatyour soul might be saved and you might have eternal life.”  And that young woman accepted Jesus Christ lying right there on the bed.  (Applause) Now that is the end result of what these healing mission teams can do. We who are at home can participate and help to open up a country.  We may not be able to go like the young doctor who will open it up, but if we give to this program the Lord will give–our reward will be just as great.  I really believe that.  Our reward will be just as great if we take a part in helping to open up a nation as the young doctor who was in there and helps to open it up.

ER: No, I’d have to have a computer.

ORU: Around 142 left, I think. Let me tell you, in two monthstime that’s what God has done. (Applause)

RR: Can I, can I share a story? (Yes) Recently–my dad and my mother know this story but I’ve not shared it with anybody on television. Recently I went up to a city to preach. I had gone to ORU with a young man. He and I had graduated from ORU together and I’d gone up to preach at their church up in Indiana. And I was telling them this story about what God had commanded us to do, to put the medical students on scholarship. And I’d preached for two services that morning and then we were having lunch with their family the story, asking them if as a family, ministers of the gospel, if they would pray. And the senior minister looked at me as I told the story and the tears were streaming down his cheeks. And he said, he said, “I wondered who God would send.” And I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “For 30 years I’ve been in this ministry. I came to this city 30 years ago. I’m celebrating my 30th anniversary.” It was the anniversary week. He said, “Every time we get on the brink of a miracle for an answer from God we have to have, every time we get near, God will speak in my heart and say, ‘I’m going to bring about this miracle, but I don’t want you to forget the world.’ Now,” he said, “instantly I knew what God meant. He was talking about missionary projects around the world.” He said, “Every time we get to the brink of a miracle, God always sends a man or sends a woman to present a missionary project.” He said, “We are on the brink of opening a new television station in our city. There are only four television stations. There’s the NBC, there’s the CBS station, the ABC and there’s one independent station.” He said, “God laid it on our heart to open up 24-hour-a-day Christian television on a U television station with the largest tower built in our state. And we’re having a great deal of problems getting it opened, but we’re on the brink of getting it opened and I’ve been wondering who God would send because the other night God spoke in my heart and said, ‘I’m going to bring about this miracle, but don’t forget the world.’” And with the tears streaming down his cheeks as I told him the story, he looked at me and he said, “Our church, our church will take one of those medical school students. We’ll sponsor that medical student. They’ll be our medical doctor in the world and God will bring about this television station,” and they’re doing it.

RR:  Now that’s the key.  That’s the key.  

 ORU:  And I asked Him what I must do.  He said, “Take your Bible and study My reward system.”  Now, partner, I had never heard that term, God’s reward system.  I knew God is a good God.  I’m one of the men who originated that phrase, God is a good God, back in the late forties.  And I went to my Bible and as He directed me, I went to Mark’s gospel, chapter 4, about the four ways how people plant their seed.  And Jesus told, some plant by the wayside, some plant in stony ground, some plant among weeds, and of course the seed does not grow and produce.  But the fourth way, He said, “Some plant in good soil and they receive a thirtyfold return, a sixtyfold return, and a hundredfold return and they can determine the percentage of their return thirty, sixty or a hundredfold by the quality of the soil that they plant in.”  And He said, “Don’t ask your partners for new money. Don’t ask them for new money.  Ask them to redirect some of their giving where they don’t know that money is causing souls to be saved or the sick to be healed, to redirect some of that money into the scholarshipping of the medical students of Oral Roberts University School of Medicine and they will not have to have those debts, so they can go to these nations and open them up for the gospel.  (Applause) And if they do, I will give them a hundredfold return, either in money or in what money cannot buy.” Then he directed me to a Scripture that I knew about in the Bible but I had not paid a lot of attention to. Here in Proverbs 6, verses 30, 31, “Men do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his soul when he’s hungry.  But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold.  He shall give all the substance of his house.”  Here God says through Solomon that when the devil, and that’s what He’s referring to, the thief is the devil, when he steals from us–and who hasn’t been ripped off by the devil?–God will give us a sevenfold restoration.  And that, as I said, I knew about that, but I had not really studied it.  Then He led me to Joel, chapter 2 and verse 25.  He says, “I will return to you what the locust has stolen,” or taken away, “what the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, the caterpillar and the palmer worm.  I will restore those years which the locust hath eaten.”  Now we know who the thief is.  John 10:10, Jesus said, “The thief (or the thief) cometh not but for to steal, to kill, and to destroy.” We know who it is that restores.  God said, “I will restore the years that the locust hath eaten and the cankerworm and palmerworm,” all forms of locusts.  He said, “I will restore them.” And in the sixth chapter of Proverbs, He said, “I will restore seven times what has been stolen from you.”  So I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “The hundredfold return for the seed that you plant to put My medical presence in the earth,” and I caught that term “medical presence.”  I said, “God, I know that Jesus said He came to preach, to teach, and to heal.”  Preach, teach, and heal.  “Now You’re saying that You must have your medical presence in the earth.”  He says, “Yes, because many of the nations will not take ministers and evangelists unless doctors open up the way.  And I also heal through doctors.  I heal through medicine, and I heal through prayer.  Now,” He said, “you tell the people to redirect some of their giving.  Don’t ask them for new money, to redirect some of their giving where they don’t know for sure that it’s winning souls to Christ or it’s healing the sick.  And I will restore to them one hundredfold and I will return to them (Applause) seven times what the devil has stolen.”  And now here it is in July.  And, partner, you have a letter in my hand in which I’ve asked for a two months pledge, a pledge this month and a pledge next month, for we open school around August 20th and we have 48 in the medical freshman class, have 192 medical students in all. And God told me to scholarship everyone of them and have them sign a contract that for every year of their scholarship they give a year as a missionary doctor, even in this country where there are areas not covered by medical science and the gospel and in Canada certain areas, but mostly in the nations in the Third World.  And do you know, Richard, as of today of the 192 scholarships we have to raise, it’s $8 million a year, God has given us the money for 15 in cash and 34 are pledged.  We only lack, let’s see, 49 from 192. Anybody help me out there?

RR:  Now that’s the key.  That’s the key.

ORU:  And I asked Him what I must do.  He said, “Take your Bible and study My reward system.”  Now, partner, I had never heard that term, God’s reward system.  I knew God is a good God.  I’m one of the men who originated that phrase, God is a good God, back in the late forties.  And I went to my Bible and as He directed me, I went to Mark’s gospel, chapter 4, about the four ways how people plant their seed.  And Jesus told, some plant by the wayside, some plant in stony ground, some plant among weeds, and of course the seed does not grow and produce.  But the fourth way, He said, “Some plant in good soil and they receive a thirtyfold return, a sixtyfold return, and a hundredfold return and they can determine the percentage of their return thirty, sixty or a hundredfold by the quality of the soil that they plant in.”  And He said, “Don’t ask your partners for new money. Don’t ask them for new money.  Ask them to redirect some of their giving where they don’t know that money is causing souls to be saved or the sick to be healed, to redirect some of that money into the scholarshipping of the medical students of Oral Roberts University School of Medicine and they will not have to have those debts, so they can go to these nations and open them up for the gospel.  (Applause) And if they do, I will give them a hundredfold return, either in money or in what money cannot buy.” Then he directed me to a Scripture that I knew about in the Bible but I had not paid a lot of attention to. Here in Proverbs 6, verses 30, 31, “Men do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his soul when he’s hungry.  But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold.  He shall give all the substance of his house.”  Here God says through Solomon that when the devil, and that’s what He’s referring to, the thief is the devil, when he steals from us–and who hasn’t been ripped off by the devil?–God will give us a sevenfold restoration.  And that, as I said, I knew about that, but I had not really studied it.  Then He led me to Joel, chapter 2 and verse 25.  He says, “I will return to you what the locust has stolen,” or taken away, “what the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, the caterpillar and the palmer worm.  I will restore those years which the locust hath eaten.”  Now we know who the thief is.  John 10:10, Jesus said, “The thief (or the thief) cometh not but for to steal, to kill, and to destroy.” We know who it is that restores.  God said, “I will restore the years that the locust hath eaten and the cankerworm and palmerworm,” all forms of locusts.  He said, “I will restore them.” And in the sixth chapter of Proverbs, He said, “I will restore seven times what has been stolen from you.”  So I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “The hundredfold return for the seed that you plant to put My medical presence in the earth,” and I caught that term “medical presence.”  I said, “God, I know that Jesus said He came to preach, to teach, and to heal.”  Preach, teach, and heal.  “Now You’re saying that You must have your medical presence in the earth.”  He says, “Yes, because many of the nations will not take ministers and evangelists unless doctors open up the way.  And I also heal through doctors.  I heal through medicine, and I heal through prayer.  Now,” He said, “you tell the people to redirect some of their giving.  Don’t ask them for new money, to redirect some of their giving where they don’t know for sure that it’s winning souls to Christ or it’s healing the sick.  And I will restore to them one hundredfold and I will return to them (Applause) seven times what the devil has stolen.”  And now here it is in July.  And, partner, you have a letter in my hand in which I’ve asked for a two months pledge, a pledge this month and a pledge next month, for we open school around August 20th and we have 48 in the medical freshman class, have 192 medical students in all. And God told me to scholarship everyone of them and have them sign a contract that for every year of their scholarship they give a year as a missionary doctor, even in this country where there are areas not covered by medical science and the gospel and in Canada certain areas, but mostly in the nations in the Third World.  And do you know, Richard, as of today of the 192 scholarships we have to raise, it’s $8 million a year, God has given us the money for 15 in cash and 34 are pledged.  We only lack, let’s see, 49 from 192. Anybody help me out there?

RR:  Hallelujah.  Come to Tulsa this summer.  Tour the Healing University.  Make your clinic appointment at the City of Faith. Come and see us in Tulsa this summer.  And speaking of miracles, I’m happy to present to you God’s man and God’s woman for this hour today, Oral and Evelyn Roberts, my dad and my mother. (Applause)  Praise the Lord.  Dad, I want to talk to you, Dad, because I know that God has been dealing with you over these past days and weeks very heavily concerning the future of this ministry, concerning what His next move for you is to make.  And I felt like that today was the day that you should share it with the people.

OR:  Well, this is a rather shocking announcement and experience. And, Richard, people will have to hear with their spirit because many are not accustomed to God speaking to a human being like He does me and some other people.

RR:  Well, if that’s so then, before you start, could we just stop and pray that people will hear in their spirits?  (Yes) Everybody just join hands.  That’s a good word.  (Yes)  Father, in the name of Jesus, You’ve given my dad a special message for everyone watching this program today.  And I pray that they would hear with more than their ears.  I pray that they would hear down in their hearts and receive this word which is from You, in the mighty name of Jesus I pray it and I believe it and I expect a miracle to happen because of it.  Amen and amen. 

ORU:  Well, just before I tell you how God came to me in my room and spoke to me about a major turning point in the nations of the world that involves your life and mine, let me remind you that know and tell you that do not know that God raised me up from tuberculosis as a 17-year-old boy, saved my soul and told me to take His healing power to my generation.  Then later He told me to raise Him up a university and in that university raise up my students to hear His voice and to go where His light is dim in this world, where His voice is heard very small, His power is not known and even to the uttermost bounds of the earth.  And that their work would go far beyond mine, and in that He was well pleased.  And He gave me a call to take His healing power through myself, through my associates, through my students, through my parents, and we have been doing that, in crusades across America, around the world, in the Oral Roberts University with thousands of students, going in summer missions and some going in the nations, but all over America and Canada.  And then building the City of Faith, the Medical and Research Center to merge His healing streams of medicine and prayer.  And millions of people have been touched for God.  And I really thought I had pretty well done what God had told me to do, and did I get a shock in my spirit.  When I became 68 this year, the following morning God spoke to me again and He said, “You’re on the last rung of the ladder and your next move you’ll be standing before me telling Me why you’ve not sent the healing teams from ORU to the nations of the earth.”  And I said, “God, I’ve tried everything I know.  I raised up my students to hear Your voice, I’ve told them how to go to the ends of the earth, I’ve built the medical school that You told me to build.  We’re turning out young doctors and ministers and all kinds of workers.  I’ve done everything I know.”  And He said, “You will not be rewarded just for trying. You will be rewarded for doing.  You are saved by grace.  It’s a gift of God.  But you will be rewarded for your works.”  Now that was not entirely new to me, but in the context in which God spoke, it really struck deep in my heart. And there was a flash, just like you have a flash across your eyes and you are able to see something.  And God pulled back the curtain and let me see the cross.  He said, “Do you think that I told My Son to go to the cross to die for the sins of the world?  And I said to Him, ‘Now, Son, you get up on the cross and you try and you do Your best. And if You can’t do anymore than try and you come down from the cross and you’ve not done it, why everything will be fine.’” I said, “No, that’s not what You said to Him.  You told Him to die for the sins of the world, and He did it.”  God said, “That’s right, He did it.”  “I didn’t call you and your partners just to try.  I called you to do, and you will be rewarded for your works.”  And I said, “God, all my life I’ve been taught that if we get to heaven, that’s all we can ever ask for.  In fact, I’ve heard people all my life say, ‘If I could just get my foot in the door of heaven, that will satisfy me.’”  And God said, “That is not true because there’s more on the other side of life than coming to heaven.  (Applause)  There’s a mighty work that you’re to do once you get to heaven.”  And I’d not really thought of that. And I said, “What do You want me to do?”  He said, “I want you to turn the medical school around and I want you to put your spirit into your medical students.  And I want you to send them as medical missionaries.”  Now that was not new.  That was the reason that we established the Oral Roberts University School of Medicine in 1976 and opened it in ’78.  And all of our students have known that and many of them have been excited about going to the ends of the earth.  But we’ve had great difficulties because the students are not from rich families and they are common young people who are very skilled.  As a matter of fact, only one in ten thousand can get into medical school so you know that they have to have a great mind and ability to learn the things about the human life, the body, the earth, and medicines and skill and compassion.  But they have to borrow money.  Medical education is the most expensive education in the world and it may be the most difficult to obtain.  It takes a rare dedication.  And when we graduate them they come out of medical school for the most part owing thousands upon thousands of dollars because it’s expensive, even beyond what we ourselves raise and put in the medical school. And they have to go out and practice in order to get that money and pay their debts back.  And by that time most doctors then somehow don’t feel deeply again the missionary call that God puts upon so many of them.  As a matter of fact, there’s a startling figure that you should know about that I have learned, there are 530,000 doctors in the United States, 530,000 doctors in the United States.  In the whole doctors.  I have ministered in 46 nations and I’ve only met one medical missionary.  And he took me to his clinic and hospital and because he was a Christian and believed God heals through prayer also, he had me to lay hands upon every patient in the clinic and in the hospital and I was able to be of assistance to him and he of course to the gospel.  And we did a great work for God together.  And in the Bible Luke, the doctor, and Paul became a healing team.  They were the things I have known.  But the problem has been a debt one, where the young people coming out of the Oral Roberts University School of Medicine have to face their debts, sometimes $75,000, $100,000.  And so they have many offers to practice medicine across the land or in Canada and they have to choose the offer and go and then pay those, wasn’t aware how deeply God felt.  Oh, I knew He called me to open the medical school and I knew that we had brought in these young people who felt the call, but somehow we just were not pulling it off.  God said, “If you don’t turn the medical school around, I’m going to call you to heaven.  Your work will be done.  You will be able to do no more.”  And I said, “Lord, I want at least 20 more years to preach and to heal and to reach humanity for the gospel, and I’m counting on that.”  And He said, “Then turn the medical school around and scholarship every medical student, everyone of them, so that they will give a year to the mission field in a missionary nation for each year that you scholarship them. (Applause)  And they will not come out with all these debts. They will be ready to go when they finish their residencies to the nations.”  You see, the nations have been closing up to the gospel.  The rise of nationalism, the rise of communism in certain countries, have been shutting off these nations from the gospel.  But they are desperate for doctors.  And God knew that when He had us to open up the Oral Roberts School of Medicine. As a matter of fact, later this month Dr. Winslow, who I call my Luke, we are going to East Africa to meet with the president of one of the great nations there who has asked us to give him doctors for his nation where there’s only a few score in a whole nation of 30 or 40 million people.  In fact, there are areas of one million people in that nation that doesn’t have one doctor. Do you know in Tulsa, Oklahoma where there’s a half million people in greater Tulsa, there are 900 doctors. And in some of those areas of a million people there’s not one doctor whether Christian or non-Christian?  They are desperate for doctors. And if we will give them a doctor, they will take the rest of our healing team, evangelists and nurses and other kinds of workers.

Think about Oral Roberts University. Think about those 4,600 young people. Think about them this summer as they’re out ministering across America and in foreign nations around the world. Think of those healing teams being raised up to send medical doctors and nurses and dentists and evangelists and others to the nations of the world to treat people medically, and treat people spiritually, physically, to help them to understand that God wants them to get their needs met.

I’ll tell you, in the face of all the adversity, we’re talking faith talk, not
doubt talk. John Wesley Fletcher, the Lord won’t let me wait any longer. Get over here. Come on, give him a good welcome. John.

Meadowlark, give him a microphone. John, I told you many times that we make our plans for this program, but we want the Spirit of God to come forth. And what’s happening today is not anything that we planned. It’s what the Spirit has planned and it’s not, it’s not unusual that the Lord would send you our way on this day.

It seems that I show up when things like this happens enjoy it. I rather enjoy coming. I heard recently your father make a plea on one of the Sunday telecasts and out of that as I was upstairs in the dressing room, God spontaneous gave me something. You see, it’s scribbled. And it’s not prophecy but it is the basic ingredient of all of this that God has done through your father, you and all of those that God has given you to work with.

This place is what  is writing about. I just wrote it out. And I will say to all of you, the university and the City of Faith is a place where faith flows into peace and courage and hope spills at the feet of hope and gives life to this wonderful world. Where a traveling river forges its way into the setting sun to give a drink to the edge of many long nights. A place where love is married to God and research has a love affair with education. A place where towers of study press the heaven’s skies and kisses a doubting cloud and fills it with faith and knowledge to teach faith that will defy death where little children may live and not die.

You’re not, honey. They’re mistaken. If I were the devil, now hear me, come in here real close to me, if I were the devil, let me tell you who and where I’d attack. I would attack a university where students are being raised up to hear God’s voice and to take His healing power to the nations of the earth. If I were the devil I’d attack that place that’s raising up students to hear God’s voice, to go where His light is dim, where His voice is heard small, where His power is not known.

If I were the devil I’d attack a place like Oral Roberts University. No, I wouldn’t attack the secular universities of America because the secular humanistic universities don’t really believe in the healing power of Jesus Christ. And they’re not raising up students to hear God’s voice and to go to the nations of the earth with His healing power through medicine and dentistry and nursing and business and law and theology and education and many other majors.

No, that’s not what their reason for being is. I don’t know what their reason for being is. I’m not concerned over that because I wasn’t called alongside my father to build Oral Roberts, or to build a secular humanistic university. I’m called here as part of the Oral Roberts Ministry. But if I were the devil, I’d be attacking Oral Roberts University.

But as a Christian, as a believer in the healing power of God, as a believer that God is a God who can turn things around, I’ve got to get out of that negative doubt talk and get out of all that heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy concern over the devil’s attack and start talking faith talk and encouraging you that not only are we going to refuse for Oral Roberts University to close, but we’re going to refuse for your doors to close.But the devil’s not going to stop you.