Then satan came in and tried to tempt him.  The king came to him and said, “Take the spoils.”

And Abraham said, “No, I will not even take a shoelace, lest you say you made Abraham rich.”

What he was saying was, “My eyes are on God and not on people.”  Have you noticed when you expect from people, they will let you down?  But God, who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, will not let you down.  He knows who you are.  He knows where you live.  He knows what you’re going through, and He is most high, the possessor of heaven and earth, and the one who delivers you from all of your enemies.

Abraham said, “No, I won’t take your spoils, lest you say you made Abraham rich.”

He made a faith stand.  But not long afterwards, fear tried to grip his heart.  And God spoke to him, said, “Oh, yes, it’s me.  I’m your God.”

Then He said a curious word.  He said, “I a your shield.”  I have studied that word shield.  That word shield means, “I am your exceeding great reward.”  That’s what you call harvest.  Everybody say, “Harvest.”

When you plant a seed, don’t you expect a harvest?  You grow beautiful crops in Nigeria.  Today as I drove, I saw the bananas that had just been picked.  And I saw the huge yams, yams this big!  You grow big yams in Nigeria, big yams.  Hold your hands out like this.  Say, yams, big yams.  They’re big.  Biggest yams I’ve ever seen.  And beautiful vegetables.  (Applause)

Anyone who plants a crop expects a harvest.  If you plant a banana tree, you expect bananas.  If you plant yams, you expect yams.  You don’t plant tomatoes and expect carrots.  You plant tomatoes, you expect tomatoes.  You plant carrots, you expect carrots.  You sow unto God, you have a right to expect Him to bring you the harvest.

And God said to Abraham, “I am your exceeding great reward.”  That’s harvest.  Every time you sow a seed, if it’s your love, if it’s your time, if it’s your money, if it’s your prayers, if it’s a smile, if it’s a pat on the back, if it’s a hug, if it’s a good word, that’s a seed.  And you have a right to a harvest from God.

Put your hands together and give Him praise tonight.  (Applause)  For He is most high.  He’s the possessor of heaven and earth.  And He’s the one who delivers you from all of your enemies.

Number three, know that Jesus took the stripes on His back for your healing.  Every stripe was for a sickness and disease. With every lash, the stripe was for sickness.  They meant it for harm, but God meant it for healing.

Medical science today has put sickness and disease in thirty-nine categories.  Isn’t it amazing that medical science and the Bible are in harmony?  For He took thirty-nine stripes on His back.  Those thirty-nine stripes represent every type of sickness and disease.

Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil.  And He hasn’t changed.  He said, “I am the same yesterday, today, and forever.  So what He did, He’s still doing.  What He did in Jerusalem, He’s still doing.  What He did in Jericho, He’s still doing.  What He did at the pool of Bethesda, He’s still doing.  What He did in Bethsaida, He’s still doing.  What He did in Bethany, He’s still doing.  What He did in Nazareth, He’s still doing.  What He did on the first night of the crusade and the second night and the third night, He’ll do tonight in Ibadan.  Wave your hand and give praise unto the Lord.  He took the stripes on His back.  He’s a healing Jesus.

Number four, expect a new miracle every day.  Not just a miracle, but a new miracle and expect it every day.  It’s one thing to say, “I expect a miracle,” but it’s another thing to say, “I expect a new miracle every day.”

And I said, “Lord, this is so simple.”  And He said to me, “I am not complicated.”  He said, “You people make me complicated, but I am not complicated.  I am simple.”

Don’t complicate it up.  You know, if the recipe doesn’t call for all these other ingredients, don’t use them.  Don’t mess up my beans and cornbread by putting the wrong thing in it.

And we Christians can foul things up so quickly if we just don’t follow His simple instructions.  He said, “I am going to speak to ten people at $5,000.”

And He said, “Richard, your ministry, the Oral Roberts Ministry, is to be number one.  You sow because you’re facing a need.”  I said, “I am facing a need, Lord.”  He said, “You sow the first, so you be the first of the ten.”  I said, “Okay.  I’ll do this.”  I’m making a pledge right now.  Our ministry will be the first $5,000 pledge.

Then He said, “I will speak to nine others, and they will be calling in.”  He said, “I will speak to thirty people at $1,000.”  And then He said, “I will speak to 200 people at $100.”  He said, “Tonight you declare a $100,000 Cornerstone divine moment.”  And so I’m going to do it.  It’s not complicated.  It’s not difficult.

Right now is the best time for you to sow, not tomorrow.  You can’t sow yesterday.  The only unit of time you have is now, right now.  He’s a right-now God who deals with your right-now seed.

And so tonight I’m going to pray.  And as I pray, the Holy Spirit is going to begin speaking in people’s hearts.  He’s going to speak to nine others to make a gift or pledge of $5,000.  He’s going to speak to thirty people—could be a man, a woman, a couple, could be a family, could be a business, a ministry—He’s going to speak to thirty of you at $1,000 each.  And He’s going to speak to 200 of you at $100 each.

“How can she have given more than them all?  She gave so little, and they gave so much.”  He said, “She gave out of her want,” or she gave out of her need.

Well, the first thought that crossed my mind concerning a divine moment is, what need are you facing tonight?  Now when we’re headed toward $5-a-gallon gasoline, there’s going to be a problem in the natural in the United States.  If that happens, it’s going to slow commerce down.  It’s going to slow business down.

And when you have what appears to be a recession coming, that’s when people do the absolute worst thing they could possibly do.  They turn God off, and they look to their natural circumstances.  “I can’t afford to do this.”

It reminds me of the story—I don’t know if you ever heard it—my dad used to tell it about this guy who was earning $70 a week, and he began to tithe.  He was giving his $7.  And he was doing just fine.  And God began to increase him, and suddenly he was making $700 a week.  And so he gave his $70 tithe.  And he was doing fine, and then God took him up to $7,000 a week.

And he realized his tithe was $700.  And he said, “Wow!  I can’t afford to give $700 a week.  That’s just too much.”

So he went to his pastor, said, “Pastor, I have a problem.”  “What’s your problem?”  He said, “Well, I was fine, you know, before with a $7 tithe and a $70 tithe, but now it’s a $700 tithe.  What do I do?  I don’t know what to do.  I can’t afford it.”

The pastor said, “I know how to solve your problem.  Get down on your knees.”  And he did.  He laid his hands on him, said, “God, he has such a problem now.  He was okay when he was giving $7.  He was okay when he was giving $70.  But now that it’s a $700 tithe, he just can’t handle it.  So would You please take him back to $70 a week so he can afford to give $70?”

In the name of Jesus, every lung condition, open up and be healed.  Bronchial tubes, open up.  All this emphysema, all of the asthma, all of the lung condition, even those of you who have had a lung removed and you’re about to lose your other lung.  In the name of Jesus, I send the word to you tonight for healing.

Yeah, yeah, now He’s going to heal crippled legs.  In the authority of the name of Jesus, there’s healing going into legs.  There’s healing going into legs.  There’s healing.

It makes me feel like I’m back in Niger.  I was in Africa this year, 20 cripples were healed the first night of the crusade.  I had armloads of crutches and canes.  And God’s doing the same thing now on TBN

In Jesus’ name, every crippled limb, in the name of Jesus—here it comes—be healed.  I send His word to you tonight for healing, crippled legs, crippled arms, arthritis, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, brittleness, be healed, every muscle, every bone, every joint, from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet.

And, also, you who are suffering with ulcers, every time you eat, I won’t call it what you call it, but in the name of Jesus I come against that thing that just backs up.  It backs your whole system up.  Yeah, I’m talking about colons and intestines.  I’m talking about gall bladders.  I’m talking about kidneys and liver.  You’re just blocked up.

Now lay your hand on your ears.  In the authority of the name of Jesus, everyone that has this loss of hearing, the deafness on one side or both sides and you’re reading my lips tonight or you have this blockage, in the authority of Jesus’ name—at least 17 people are receiving healing in their ear right now.  In the authority of Jesus’ name, ears, open up.  Deafness, come out, and it’s coming out in the authority of Jesus’ name.

It’s like warm oil is being poured into someone’s ears right now, and suddenly you feel your ears, you say, “Wow, it’s like my ear is draining.”  That’s healing coming into your ears right now.

And there’s a cataract that just fell off someone’s eye.  You’ve been completely blurred and now all of a sudden, it’s just like someone turned the lights on.

In the name of Jesus, I speak the word to glaucoma and to cataracts and blindness and this coreoretinitis.  In the name of Jesus, be thou made whole, w-h-o-l-e.  Be healed in your eyes, and somebody’s getting healed of blindness right now.  Somebody, you’re blind in one eye, and all of a sudden your eye is opening.  I can see you.  I can see you sitting there watching tonight.  You’re being healed, in the authority of Jesus’ name.

Now there’s lungs.  God’s going to do Holy Ghost surgery on lungs right now.  Lay your hand on yourself, you suffering with emphysema, with any type of asthma or breathing problems or you’re on some type of oxygen tonight and it’s almost like you’ve been waiting to die.

That’s what you were talking about, how I hear in my spirit.  It’s like you’re waiting to die because you can’t get your breath.  You can’t even move without the oxygen.  In the name of Jesus Christ, I send His word to you tonight.  He sends His word and brings healing.

“I’m on top of my game,” Elijah must have said, when he got a voicemail from a woman named Jezebel, “About this time tomorrow, I’m going to kill you. I’m going to do to you what you have done to my prophets.” One voicemail took him out.

How many voicemails have taken you out? How many messages have you received? How many times have you been in a situation when right in the midst of victory, you have been snatched into the jaws of defeat? When you thought everything was up high, suddenly the bottom fell out. As Frank Sinatra used to say, “Riding high in April, shot down in May.”

How many times have you faced it? How many times have I faced it? And what have you done when you faced it? Did you do what Elijah did, because he did what most Christians do. He ran. Any of you ever run? Don’t put up your hand. I will not ask you that question.

He ran, first to a tree, where he wanted to die. Some of you have come to this conference and you feel like dying. You’ve been dying on the inside in your ministry, and you have said by your mouth, “I have got to have a word from God, or I’m quitting.” You may be the reason why I told that story about that fleece, those three fleeces by my father. That was a word in season for someone here tonight.

And then when the tree didn’t bring results, he found himself in a cave, until God spoke to him and said what He said to me in that dormitory room at the University of Kansas, “What are you doing here? I’ve not called you to be here. I’ve called you to be there.

“Get over yourself, Elijah. Get over your critics. Get over those who are seeking to destroy your life and ministry. Stop whining and griping and complaining and having a pity party for yourself. So somebody burst your little pretty balloon. So what? Who cares?

“Get off this mountain, and do what I have told you to do. Elijah, your destiny is not here; it’s there. Anoint Hazael to be king and anoint Jehu to be king and anoint Elisha to take your place. Get back into the rhythm of ministry. Get back into the rhythm of living. Get back to being obedient and doing what I told you to do.”

Let me tell you, this son of mine, Richard, is now president over the most unique university that’s ever been built because it’s built on God’s authority and on the Holy Ghost.  …APPLAUSE…

And Marilyn Hickey would not be the chairman of the board.  How about that, Marilyn?  You love it, don’t you?

Well, we were talking about the leaf.  “And his leaf shall not wither.”  And the next line will blow you away.  ”And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”  …SHOUTS…  Say it again.  …  Now say, I … whatsoever I …  Now just hold it.  We just must not make the mistake of our lives. Time and time again I hear it, people picking this one verse out of the first chapter of the Psalms, “Whatsoever I do shall prosper.”  And it won’t work “cause you’ve got to go back and examine if you’re blessed by not taking the advice of ungodly people, by not being a stumbling block to sinners, by not being a gossiper and a scoffer and a critic and a worn-out miserable person.

And your delight is in the Word of God, and you know the books of the Bible.  You are least know the books of the Bible.  I’m dealing with people all the time, and they say, “Where is that?”  

“Well, it’s in a certain book.”  

“Well, where’s that book?” and they’re going like this.

They don’t know 10 percent of what they should know, and yet they pick out a verse and say, “Well, I’m a child of God.  Therefore, I’m to prosper.  I’m prospering.  I’m prospering.”

Christian prosperity does not work like that.  But on the other hand, it does work like that when you do what the Word of God says.  …RESPONSE…  And all the people who jump on us for the message of Christian prosperity are so dumb they don’t know what makes it get dark at night.  …LAUGHTER… They’re dumb in the Word of God.  They don’t know the Bible.

I know I was jumped on once by the board of one of those large groups, telling me I was a heretic, that I wasn’t preaching the Bible when I was preaching Seed-Faith.  I stuck my Bible out and said, “Show me.”

Not a one of them would take my Bible.  I said, “Come on.  Take it.”  From the superintendent on down, not a one of them would take it.

He’s looking to you and to me.  We are His hands.  We are His feet.  We are His voice.  And it’s time for us to rise up on the inside and recognize who we are and get rid of the here in our life and go to that place called there, wherever that place is.

Now how do you do that?  How do you get from here to there?  That’s the natural question.  Three things I want you to write down tonight. 

And, my friends, this is not rocket science.  You don’t have to be a Princeton graduate to figure this out.  You don’t have to study it on the Internet.  This is not rocket science.  It’s very simple.

Number one, do what God says.  I mean, what’s so hard about figuring that out?  Billye, do what He says.

What did Mary say to the people at the wedding in Cana?  “Whatever he says do, (do it).”  Just, number one, do what He says.

God speaks to you, say, “Well, let me pray about it.”  No.  “Well, God, I’ll sleep on it overnight, and I’ll see if that’s really You.”  No.  Do what He says.

Number two, do it at once.  When He says, “Jump,” ask “How high?” on the way up. 

Isn’t that what He said to the disciples after He had risen from the dead?  “Go at once to a place of prayer and tarry and do it immediately.”

So, number one, do what God said.  Number two, do it now.  And number three, stay there till something happens.  It doesn’t have to have a scientific formula.  Stay there till something happens.

What happened with those men and women?  The power of the Holy Spirit fell.  He said, “You be endued with power.”  And He said, “You will have power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Judea, in Samaria, and the uttermost parts, Jerusalem, the uttermost parts of the earth.”

And I want you to look carefully, think about 2 Samuel, the 17th chapter.  You don’t have to go there.  But in 2 Samuel, the 17th chapter, everybody knows the story of David and Goliath, right?  What’s Goliath’s older brother’s name?  Oh, got you, don’t I?  His name is S-a-p-h, and in the story of Saph in the Bible, it actually means the container, the containment.

And a friend of mine—wherever you are, Frank.  I know I saw you in here a minute ago—Frank Hultgren gave me an idea on this.  And he said, “I want you to go study the word S-a-p-h.  It means container, containment.”

And I began to think on that.  And the more I began to think on that, God spoke a word in my heart and He said, “What’s in your container?”

And I said, “What?”

And He said, “What’s in your container?  What are you connecting yourself with?  What are you putting in your container?”

And I began to think.  I began to think about the people in my container.  And I began to think about the dreams in my container and the junk in my container that had no business being in my container.

And the Lord gave me a vision on the things in my container, and He showed me a rope.  And I thought, A rope?  What do I need a rope in my container for?

And He was filling things in my box.  He showed me a box, a container.  He showed me the box God wanted me to have, and He showed me an identical twin, the box satan wanted me to have.  Satan can’t create, but he can counterfeit, and he counterfeits good.

And I’m sitting there looking at these two containers, and God said, “The world will want you to put the counterfeit in the container,” and God wants you to have the real in the container, but it’s up to you to know the difference.

And He said, “Examine your container.  Examine what’s in your container.  Is it fake, or is it real?”

And I remembered that silly song that God always reminds me of, “I didn’t know the devil would have blue eyes and blue jeans.”  Everything is going to look so good, but is it God?  Everything may look so appealing, but is it God?  Everything may look like it’s peachy, the building may look perfect, the girl may look perfect, but is it God?