LR:

Hi.  My name is Lindsay Roberts.  And I’m standing here in the midst of the Abundant Life Prayer Group where prayer has gone on in this place 24 hours a day, seven days a week, since probably the early 1960’s.  So we’re talking over 40 consistent years of constant prayer, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in this atmosphere.  And I tell you something, you can feel it.

And if you’d like prayer, we want to encourage you to go to your telephone right now.  Pick up your phone and dial 918-495-7777.  It’s a little after two o’clock in Tulsa here at Tulsa time, which is Central Time.

And if you pick up the phone and call right now, this is the very group of Abundant Life Prayer Group prayer partners that will be answering your phone calls.  And they’re going to be taking those prayer requests and giving them to me.  And we’re going to believe God for a miracle, along with your faith joined with our faith, joined with their faith.  And we are going to bombard heaven in your behalf.

A lady named Andrea called from Colorado, and she said, “While I was listening to Richard on The Hour of Healing,” she heard him give a word of knowledge that God was healing pain in the left leg and pain down the arm.

And she said she hurt herself when she was moving furniture.  She said, “That’s for me.  That is for me.”  And she said, “I called in to tell you, now all the pain is gone in my right arm and my left leg.”  And she said, “I’m telling you, it’s a miracle.”

If you need prayer, 918-495-7777.  You can go on-line at Oral Roberts Ministry website, orm.cc, write Richard Roberts and Lindsay Roberts at Tulsa, Oklahoma, 74102, or like I said, go to the telephone, 918-495-7777.

Then Cora called in, and she said her right knee had been hurting for over a month.  And while she was in constant pain mostly on the right side, she was not able to walk for a very long time at all.

Cora was watching The Hour of Healing and came into agreement with Richard for her healing.  And she said, “Now I can even go shopping.  I feel better right away.  I can walk to the grocery store, and I have no pain.”  Praise God!

And then a lady named Stephanie called in from Pennsylvania and said while she was watching The Hour of Healing, Richard gave a word of knowledge concerning pain in the hip area that was traveling down the leg.

Stephanie had been suffering from pain in her hip for many years, and she began to pray with Richard and reaching out her hands towards him in agreement.  Instantly the pain left.  She had also been suffering from a vitamin D deficiency.  Shortly after this time, she said she had her blood test that showed she had been healed from this disorder as well.

I’ll tell you something, I believe in the power of prayer.  I believe that there is a prayer of agreement, the Bible says, according to Matthew 18:18 and 19, where, “If two or three of you are gathered in my name, I am in the midst of them.”

Then He went on to say, “If you shall agree as concerning any one thing.”  We’re going to agree with you concerning whatever it is you ask us to pray for.  And we want to believe God for your miracle.  So don’t hesitate.  Pick up the telephone.  Call 918-495-7777.  We’re right here in the midst of the Prayer Group.

You know, if you can feel, when you walk into a room, you can feel tension, or you can feel stress or an argument.  Well, I’ll tell you something, you can feel the anointing in this room.  People who walk in here have said about it, “We don’t want to walk out of the room.  We get in this room, and we don’t want to walk out.”  I know exactly how they feel.  I’ve made jokes, “Do you think I could just like sleep here all night long?”  Because I’m not kidding, it is bathing in the presence of God in this room.  And we absolutely love it in here.

We want to take you down to Pennsylvania for a testimony from a woman named Kathy about a back being healed.  Kathy has a testimony how God miraculously touched her back while she was in Pennsylvania.  And while you’re listening to this testimony, I want you to call in your prayer request.  As soon as you hear this, we’re going to come into agreement for backs to be healed and a lot of other things on this program.  So just watch Kathy from Pennsylvania.

LP:  Kathy Pouncy, South Coatesville, Pennsylvania

BRAD:

For 60 years people have come to Oral Roberts Ministries to receive healing through Christ Jesus.  In the early days, Oral Roberts reached the hurting and the lost through tent crusades, television, and the radio.

OR:

Place your hand upon your radio cabinet as a point of contact as I reach forth my hand here as a point of contact to pray for you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

BRAD:
Kathy Pouncy was just a little girl when she found out from her parents she was going blind.

KP:
The doctor told them that I would be blind between five and six years old.  And my dad already had a brother that was blind by the age of five.  And he really didn’t want that for me.

BRAD:
The very next Sunday, she and her family were listening to Oral Roberts on the radio.

KP:
The preacher said that there’s someone that’s believing for healing for their daughter that got a bad report that she would be blind by the age of five.  So he said, “I want you, the parents, to take the girl’s hand and put your hand on the radio and believe God for her healing.”

And that’s what my parents did.  They took my hands, and I still remember the day they hold my hand and their hand was on the radio.  I remember him grabbing my hand, and he told my mom, “Get her hand, get her hand,” you know.  And I still see the picture today that they—I’m in the middle and they’re holding my hand, and they laid their hands on the radio.  And I received my healing.

I’m in my fifties now, and I’m not blind.  I never will be.  Praise God.

BRAD:
Kathy has lived in Pennsylvania’s Dutch country all of her life.  Forty years after her eyes were miraculously healed, Kathy was stricken with a muscle disorder.

KP:
They called it limb-girdle muscle disorder.

BRAD:
What followed, years of severe back pain and crippling back spasms.

KP:
I had them, at least seven or eight years I had back problems.  I would have spasms, and they were worse than the pain, than regular back pain.

BRAD:
Doctors prescribed all sorts of pain pills and muscle relaxers, and Kathy went through physical therapy to strengthen her back.  But she says the painful spasms would always return.

KP:
I couldn’t get out of the bed, you know.  I mean, I’d be praying and it would get a little better.  But then it would come back.

BRAD:

After living with these painful back spasms for eight years, Kathy could finally get The Hour of Healing on her TV set.  Remembering her childhood miracles, she started watching every night.  She hadn’t been watching long when one night she heard Richard give a word of knowledge about lower backs being healed.

RR:

Anyone who’s suffering in your back, let’s just have prayer right now.  In the authority of Jesus’ name—you may want to just come over and put your hands up against my hands right now as a point of contact.

KP:
He mentioned that there’s someone out there, more than one though, he said, that had lower back pain, you know.  And I said, “That’s me, that’s me.”  So he said, “Just lay your hands on your back.”  And he said, “Put your hands on the television if you can.”

RR:
Every pain, be healed.  At least three of you right now, another three of you have pain in your lower back, and also one of you in your tailbone.  And God is healing you right now.

KP:

After Richard got finished, the pain went away.  I got out of the bed after my back got stretched out, and I bent over and it didn’t hurt.  And I walked to the door, it didn’t hurt.  Went in the kitchen.  I just started praising God.  So I said, “I’m claiming it, and I’m going to keep it.”  And ever since then, I have not had no spasms.

BRAD:

Not one spasms?

KP:
Not one spasm since then.

BRAD:
After eight long years of painful back spasms, Kathy is finally and happily pain-free.

KP:
It’s been over a year now, I guess about a year since that happened.  And I don’t have no spasms and don’t have no lower back pain once.  And I was believing that it would never come back again.  And it hasn’t.  And it will not.

Every day I thank the Lord for my healing.  Every day I thank Him that I’m able to move and have my being, you know, every day.  I really appreciate it.  The Lord has delivered me from so many things in my life.  He’s a good God.

RR:  That’s a good word.  (Applause)  Dave, I know that you understand that young people, high school students, college students, look up to professional athletes.  They hold you in such high regard, in some cases they hold you too high.  They want to be like you.  They, if you’re a football player they want to run with the ball like you run or carry the ball, throw it or kick it or pass it.  Or if it’s basketball, they want to shoot like you shoot.  Or if it’s golf, they want to hit the ball like you do, or they want to stride down the fairway like a Jack Nicholas or something like that.  And young people hold professional athletes in high regard.  And what I want to talk to you about and ask you to speak to is, well, concerning the matter that happened recently with the young man from University of Maryland, drafted by the Boston Celtics, who wound up in this cocaine situation apparently for the first time in his life.  I don’t know that anyone will ever know all of the circumstances because in those kind of things we don’t always know exactly what happened.  They know what perhaps it appears that happened.  But I know of your determination against drugs and against that in professional sports, but what would you say to a young person, high school, junior high, college, that has athletic ability but somehow they have either somehow got with drugs or the devil is playing tricks with their minds, what would you say to them? Take a moment and talk out of your heart.

DB:  I would say three things to them.  The most important thing for a child or someone who is living at home with his parents is, number one, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right to honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and you may enjoy a long life in the land the Lord your God has given you.  Number one, to obey your parents.  Number two, the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Do not be deceived, for bad company corrupts good morals.”  So number one, to obey your parents and watch who you associate to, with.  And number three, oftentimes in life that every generation feels that our parents or another generation is obsolete and we have to experience everything for ourselves.  One of the ways we learn is from other people’s experiences.  Drugs, the use of alcohol, the abuse of alcohol, those are all dead-end streets.  How many people have to die before you wise up?  And for me, I don’t have to use drugs or abuse alcohol.  I don’t drink for that matter as it is because of all the people that look up to me, and it’s just really a dead-end road.  And it’s not glorifying to your body, for the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Obedience is the key. Obedience is the key. I bring you greetings, first of all, from Paul and Jan and all the TBN family. Boy, it’s so good to be with you. And congratulations on your baby. That’s so sweet. It’s so sweet. I know it. We’re thrilled. I brought you a gift too.

I want you to know, you know, we love you as well as I know many others. It’s so great to be part of the family of God, the body of Christ. when you, when you began to share about proving God, so many things came to my mind. But the first thing that came to my mind was the morning that I lay in the bus, I was traveling with a quartet.

And I had rebelled so against God. I knew I’d failed God. I didn’t need anybody to tell me that. I knew I was sinning. I knew I was blowing it. But I couldn’t, I couldn’t grasp the truth that He would really forgive me. And I know there are people watching today and I promise you if you will prove God, God loved us so much.

The devil is constantly trying to convince us that God don’t love us. (It’s right) And he’s trying to show us that he likes us and he wants us. I was witnessing to a man yesterday–was it yesterday, I think–and he was telling me how the devil began to show him that he wanted him and he didn’t know anything about the Lord.

Cheryl has become a regular member of our television family. Here is a testimony, Lindsay, from Texas. Today…. this came from the program yesterday. “Today Richard had a word of knowledge about someone being healed in a right leg.” She said, “He was talking about me.” Also she said, “I gave God all my problems and prayed with Richard on the program and after 23 years of deafness, my right ear is healed and I can hear.” Now that just happened, Lindsay, yesterday.

That’s terrific. I have a letter I’d like to share with everybody. This lady is as cute as can be. She said, “I was delivered as I was watching your TV show, Richard. I’d like to share this testimony with you. I’m 19 years old and I’m married and I just had a little baby boy. I’ve been a Christian for just a short time now. I was what you would call a luke-warm Christian, really.

When I had my baby boy my mother came to stay with me. Well, she was born again and Spirit-filled and she kept saying the Lord was going to deal with me. Well, I know he wanted me to be more on fire for him again but I needed to be delivered first. I needed to be delivered from drugs, drinking, and cigarettes.” She said, “I also needed to have the boldness of the Holy Spirit.”

Yes, we did. That’s right. And she said… she wanted it though. You know, you have to have the desire to give up the way you are if you don’t think it’s pleasing to God and she had the desire. And she said, “Praise God, I was searching for something on the television one morning and I found your show. I began watching it and I began to weep and pray in the spirit.

The Lord began to open me up on the inside.” She said, “I could actually feel the Lord working as he was doing a job on me inside. That’s when I received my full deliverance.” She said, “You began to pray and then you finished it off and told how a person could have authority over satan. You said that I should tell satan to get behind me, that he no longer ruled me because I’m a child of God, and praise the Lord, I received the boldness to tell satan to get behind me.”

Listen to this. She said, “What a package deal. That’s the best bargain I’ve ever had. I’m so grateful for your ministry. May God bless you.” This was from a lady in Florida. Bless her heart.

Winner of the Latin American International Star Search competition as a college student, with a suc­cessful latin american recording contract that fol­lowed, Adrian soon found himself living a life of rapid-fire success. But the “good life” was anything but good for this talented young man in his early 20s. What began with a promise never to compromise quickly deteriorated due to constant pressure of the many worldly trappings that surrounded him. Proud of her son’s success, but very concerned about where his life was headed, it was Adrian’s mom, Lety Compton, who threw out a lifeline to her son. Even when their own relationship became strained, she continually reminded him that God had something better for his life.

Finals school competition, Adrian began doing hu­manitarian and missions work in many Central and South America countries while still in middle school. Assisting a beloved teacher and mentor, he became a quick learner as he traveled, singing and ministering to those less fortunate, as their team worked in condi­tions of extreme poverty.

But the dream in Adrian’s heart was to make it in the music business. With the Star Search championship, that dream became reality…until it almost consumed his life.During that time, Adrian continued his missions work saying, “I would take time off and try to leave my world­ly living behind me so I could travel and minister.” But that became more difficult over time. Waking up one day and realizing that if he continued the path he was on, he would meet an early grave, Adrian “came to himself”—in the way the Bible described what happened to the prodigal son in Luke 15—and he gave his life back to the Lord. He realized his mother was right and that God did have something more for his life.

Today, Adrian—a recent masters of divinity gradu­ate—finds himself living a different kind of “good life.” This time around, it has nothing to do with the trappings of fame, but is defined by catching a plane before dawn to travel to poverty-stricken areas of the world where he can preach the Gospel, sing about God’s goodness, and help provide everyday necessi­ties of food and medicines to people in need through the efforts of Oral Roberts Ministries and Hunger Needs A Voice®’s medical and feeding outreaches.

Says Adrian, “I’m grateful I’ve had the opportunity to help open up some of the Latin American countries to Richard’s ministry. Besides helping to set up the contacts we need to get in, I’ve also had the privilege of going into people’s homes who are too sick to come to our crusades and praying with them right there. The needs are so great. And our being there really speaks to the people.”

A man brought his son to Jesus one day to be healed. The disciples had prayed for the boy, but he was not delivered. Jesus said to the man, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” The man replied, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:23-24 NKJV). Jesus did just that…and healed his son.

We all probably have a little pocket of unbelief—an area where our faith isn’t as strong as it should be. If that’s true with a problem you’re facing, let’s agree together in prayer right now for that doubt to be removed.

In the authority of Jesus’ name, I focus my prayers on that pocket of doubt where you are having difficulty believing. I pray that the full force of your faith will begin to believe God for all that He has for you. Amen.

My almost useless left arm is totally healed!

The problems with my arm started 20 years ago when I noticed lumps on my back and underneath my left arm. The lumps turned out to be blood tumors. I had surgery to remove the tumors, but afterwards I had a lot of problems recovering from the surgery.

The surgery left lots of scar tissue and weakened the muscles in my left arm. To make matters worse, I fell down a flight of stairs and broke my left elbow. And when I broke my elbow, it offset my wrist. In order to fix my elbow, it looked like doctors might have to re-break it, and they weren’t absolutely sure that would solve the problem anyway.

I didn’t want to further injure my elbow, so I decided to live with my elbow and wrist the way they were. Un­fortunately, that’s not all I had to deal with. I developed a horrible skin condition on my left hand. The itching was tormenting. It would wake me up at night and I would have to scratch it with a brush, just scrubbing it.

I suffered with these problems—a weakened shoulder and arm, offset elbow and wrist, and a tormenting rash—for more than 12 years. I thought my left arm couldn’t get much worse. But then my doctor found more painful tumors in my shoulder. By the time the doctor tried to repair my arm from the first surgery, plus remove more tumors, my arm basically had very little left to hold it up.

About that time, I began watching The Hour of Healing on TV. One night, Richard Roberts gave a word of knowledge from God that someone with a skin condition on their left hand was being healed. The next day, I realized that I hadn’t woken up in the middle of the night to scratch my wrist and hand. In fact, the rash was completely gone, and it’s been gone ever since.

Well, I knew if God could heal my left hand, He could heal the rest of my arm. I continued believ­ing God for my healing and watching The Hour of healing…and one day it happened! I was watching TV and Richard Roberts said, “The Lord is healing someone of a shoulder problem. If that’s you, I encourage you to begin to do something you couldn’t do before.”

So I stood up and immediately raised my hands. Before, I could only raise my left arm a little ways, but that time, I could raise it all the way up! And I put my hand down and turned it over—something I could not do before. Then I tried to open up my hand, and it opened all the way. I knew at that point that I was completely healed! My whole family rejoiced at my healing miracle.

Dianne from Florida

I’m Free of Tormenting Eczema!

As a Certified Nursing Assistant working in a nurs­ing home, I had to wash my hands several times a day. However, for 45 long years I had suffered with eczema on my hands, and this repeated washing was sheer tor­ture! Bleach, dish detergent, and even most hand lotions would cause my hands to break out in a terrible rash, and sometimes cause my fingernails to come off. It felt like the soap would eat the skin right off my hands!

Medication only calmed the reaction, but nothing the doctors did would make the terrible itching, red­ness, and blisters go away. All my husband could do was stand by helplessly, watching me suffer. Besides the pain, I was so embarrassed by the way my hands looked. But I didn’t know what else to do. After decades of misery, I had all but given up hope of ever be­ing free of the tormenting rash.

I started watching The Hour of Healing and loved hearing the testimonies of people who told about God healing them. One night, Richard Roberts encouraged anyone who needed a healing to lay their hands on their TV screen as he prayed, as a point of contact to release their faith to God. Longing to be free of this condition, I put my hands out in faith. I didn’t tell anyone what I had done, and pretty soon I forgot about it. But after a few weeks passed, I noticed I wasn’t scratching my hands anymore. Still, I wasn’t convinced it was gone for good.

Then Thanksgiving came around—the time of year that caused me some of the worst times of pain as I prepared lots of food for the holiday. But instead, I was able to announce to my family gathered around the dinner table that day that I’d been healed. Every­one could see my hands were as good as new. It was the most joyous holiday ever!

I haven’t had a problem with eczema since that won­derful night I prayed with Richard over the TV and released my faith for a miracle! Now I can do what­ever needs to be done—cleaning, cooking, even yard work—without any problems at all. Even after 45 years of agony, there’s no scarring of any kind. In fact, to look at my hands, you’d never guess anything was ever wrong with them.

My husband says, “It’s wonderful! We just give all the glory to God.”

Gay from Pennsylvania

Now, that’s an unusual thing for a snake to do.  Anybody who knows much about snakes knows, that should they bight someone, they immediately retreat.  But this snake didn’t do that.  This snake reminds me of the devil.  This snake fastened on to Paul’s arm, and clung to him, and continued to pump the venomous poison into his body.  And the people looked and saw it, and they knew history.  They knew that whenever that type of poisonous snake bit someone, they knew that that person would collapse, they would swell up, and it wouldn’t be long until they died.  Paul stood there with that beast, that snake, fastened onto his hand.  And he began to shake his arm until he shook that snake off.  But the people said, “He escaped the sea, but God has tracked him down.  Devine providence will take him out.  He must be a murderer.  He must have done something terribly wrong.”  And they waited for him to die.  Paul did not speak a word.

Now, that’s one of the hardest things in life to do.  One thing I have learned all through these years from my father, when something comes against you, when people come against you, when they sell all manner of evil against you, when they create things about you that aren’t true, it’s so difficult to keep your mouth closed.  But the Bible records that Paul did not respond.  He didn’t answer.  His faith was so strong, and after a while, the Bible says, after a while.  Once I was reading that scripture, and it reminded me, the phrase “after a while,” it reminded me of the movie, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”  I don’t know if you ever saw that western.  It starred Paul Newman and Robert Redford, Paul Newman playing Butch Cassidy, and Robert Redford playing the part of the Sundance Kid.

So many times on this program I send the Word, according to Psalm 107:20, which says, “He sent His Word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction.”  One day, Lindsay and I were on the program and God gave me a word of knowledge about a crippled foot.  I began to say, “There’s someone watching who has a crippled foot.”  I didn’t know there was a little girl named Emily, in Hayden, AL, who had been born with bowed legs.  I didn’t know that her feet were crooked and turned in.  I didn’t know that the doctors had said perhaps when she grows up her legs may straighten out, her feet may straighten out, and as she grew, one leg did but the other leg and the other foot didn’t.  I didn’t know that she was watching me on television.  But a miracle happened in her life.  And when it did, we got word, and we sent our cameras down to Alabama to get the story.  I want you to see the result of sending the Word.  Go with me to Hayden, AL and see Emily for yourself.

Living Proof: Emily from Hayden, AL

RR:  God healed her in the middle of the everydayness of her life.

The fourth thing I want you to notice about this story is that faith is when you reach a point where you can no longer doubt.  That’s when you doubt your doubts and you believe your beliefs.  Faith is a knowing that God is going to move in your behalf.  Little Emily knew, she knew.  She said it, she knew God was going to touch her foot, and heal the crookedness, and make it straight.

Second Kings 5 tells us about Naaman the Syrian, when he obeyed the Word of the Lord given by the prophet Elisha. As he dipped seven times in the Jordan River, he was healed of leprosy.

Now, this was a very unusual miracle for several reasons. First of all, Naaman was a powerful man—the commander of the Syrian army—and he was not a worshipper of the Lord.

But he was also a leper. In those days, leprosy was a frightening disease. It caused skin lesions that left people horribly disfigured. It damaged nerves and left its victims weak in their body. Many lepers lost the use of their hands and feet, and many died. It was a terrible disease that limited people physically and often socially!

The sickness that had come against Naaman was from the devil, not God. This is so important to understand! Why would God want to teach you something by making you sick, poor, or oppressed? Why would He go against the truth in the Bible which says, God is your Healer? I believe He wants to take the limits off your life so you can live fully for Him!