Have you been holding onto a dream, a vision that God has given you, but in the natural it appears there’s no way it will come to pass?  This isn’t the time to quit.  It’s the time to believe that the seeds you’ve sown and the vision God has given you are both going to come to pass.

I recently heard from a man who saw us on TV back in 1988.  He said, “I was living in a little efficiency apartment in Nashville, thinking my dream of being a songwriter was about to die.  I turned on the TV and your program was on.  You said, ‘There’s someone watching who’s about to give up on their dream.  Don’t do it!’

“That sparked something in me,” he told me.  “Over the next few days a song began to germinate in me, and a few weeks later I finished it.”  That song eventually became a No. 1 hit for country singer Randy Travis, and the songwriter has written fifty-five hits since then!

Now that man could have given up his dream of writing songs, but he heard the word of knowledge from God, believed it, and acted on it.  Some people hear a word from God and say, “That’s not for me.  That’s baloney!”  Those people make excuses for why their dream doesn’t come to pass.  But others hear God’s voice and say, “I stretch my faith, I release my faith, and I go into agreement.”  They put action to what they believe, and God honors their faith.

Do you have a dream or vision that needs to be restored?  Jesus said, Be not faithless, but believing (John 20:27).  So use your faith—believe God!

Not only can you overcome the devil’s shaking, not only can you overcome his rattling, but you can also refuse to let satan roll over you with his gigantic, demon-powered steamroller!

Have you ever watched the Roadrunner cartoons?  I love the Wile E. Coyote character because no matter how far he falls or what falls on him, in the next scene he’s standing up!  We ought to be like that.  No matter what happens to us, in the next scene we’re standing up!  Because sometimes situations in this life try to roll right over the top of us, leaving us feeling as flat as a pancake.

I know exactly what that’s like, because that’s how I felt when I became the President of Oral Roberts University and assumed a huge debt of several million dollars.  I had never owed anyone that much money, and it was no joyride!  I didn’t have a clue what to do, and everyone was depending on me.  The devil would tell me, “This university is going under, and it’s going to be your fault.  Your father built it, but you can’t run it.  This will mark you for the rest of your life.”  I developed an ulcer and I couldn’t sleep.  I was miserable.  It was as if one of those big steamrollers from the highway had rolled over me.  I was flattened on the road of life.

But then we began to sow our corporate financial seeds unto the Lord, and slowly but surely I watched the Lord slash ORU’s debt in half!  One day in the midst of it all, like a bolt out of the blue, a fresh baptism of joy exploded in my life.  I got a fresh understanding in my spirit that the joy of the Lord is my strength (see Nehemiah 8:10).  Praise God, I’m not being steamrolled anymore! We don’t have to put up with the devil rolling over us in any situation.  We can have joy!  And God’s joy is our strength!

The principles of God that are written in His Word are activated when we’re obedient to His Word.  One of the most dangerous things we can do is listen to the Gospel according to someone’s wrong opinion and then act on it, move on it, talk about it, and build on it as if it were true.

When you activate the Word of God according to what it says, God promises that He is obligated to watch over His Word to perform it (see Jeremiah 1:12).

God says in Malachi 3:10,11 to bring your tithes and offerings into His storehouse, and He will rebuke the devourer for your sake.  Whatever is being devoured¾maybe it’s your family, your marriage, your finances, your children¾as you sow unto God, He promises to rebuke the devourer and open the windows of heaven to pour you out a blessing where there will not be room enough to receive it!

Verse 12 continues, And all nations shall call you blessed.  People will recognize that the hand of God is on you.  They will say, “I don’t know what it is about them, but they’re blessed.”

When people see that you’re operating according to the Word of God and that God blesses you and multiplies the seed you sow, they will come to you and ask, “How did you do that?”  Your obedience to God’s Word is a great witnessing tool for the kingdom of God.

Sowing seed isn’t a matter of your making God do something.  You can’t make God do anything.  But when you operate according to His will and sow your seed, it activates the miracle of Malachi.  God works with His Word.  When we obey His Word, then He makes His Word come to pass in our lives.

And on the island they found an upright broken-down piano from the casino there.  And that was the only one that’s on the island. So they bring it out to this village and place it in this huge school room.  And here are 500 little Haitian kids surrounding me and I’m playing and they’re sitting there like awed, they’d never heard these sounds before.  And then when I was through they were reaching out to touch me and to hold on to me.  And my wife Cheryl was there and they were just reaching out just to and if that doesn’t do anything to you.  These are little children that are, that do not have food to be fed.  I mean, the poverty is incredible, and to be able to go down there and not just share my talent, but also be able to take a piece of bread and just hand it to them and say, “This is for you, representing the Christians of the United States of America.”

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Well, but you’re doing more than that, Dino. You’re getting involved in bringing medical help to the people through the hospital.  Now I understand your vision because, as you well know, that’s what our vision is, to take medical missions to the nations of the earth.  So I understand what you’re talking about.

SPKM DINO KARTSONAKIS You know, for years people have seen me play the piano and perform and wear all these wonderful outfits, etc., you know, and they say, that guy has got it made and he goes from one auditorium to the next, one church to the next, you know, and perform every night in spotlights and what have you. But there’s so much more to it.  You know, as Christians it’s not just an entertaining element.  We are to minister. We are called as missionaries and I am called.  I am called and I have a burden on my heart.  Glad Tidings Tabernacle, the little church I was born and raised at in New York City, that’s still there on Toidy-toid Street 33^rd , you know, in New York City.  We had a pastor that had a missions heart and I was raised with a missionary heart.

And again, not just till recently were we able to go down at the Haitian Community Hospital.  And I flew in midnight last night, took five flights to get here.  I must really love you, Richard.  And, anyway, I got here.  Cheryl and I arrived and we feel refreshed this morning with a victory in our hearts because we handed to them a check for $32,000 to complete the wing of that hospital, the radiation department.

And we praise God for that and for people who have given like this letter right here, it’s so inspiring.  God has blessed the United States of America because of people like this who have given from their hearts, that’s why God has blessed us.  And He will continue to bless us if we continue to give.

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS And when you open up your heart and when you give, then the Bible says God responds to your giving.  Now He describes how He responds to your giving.  The Bible says when you give, He will open you the windows of heaven and He will pour you out a blessing where there shall not be room enough to receive it.  And He will rebuke the devourer, the devil, for your sake. (Malachi_03:10-11 ) I’ve got good news, God does not need the devourer rebuked.  You and I are the ones who need the devourer rebuked.  And whenever I face a situation, Don and Dino, where I need the devourer rebuked, the first thing I think of is that Scripture where God told me what to do.

He said, “When you give, I will open you those windows of heaven.”  Whenever I feel like my windows in heaven and I’ve got windows up there and so do you and so do you whenever I feel like my windows are shut, I realize that God didn’t shut them, I did.  And I realize if I want them open I’ve got to give.  And then when I need the devourer rebuked, I know that when I give, God’s going to do it because His Word is true.  God’s Word is true, He cannot lie.  The Bible says, “He is not a man that he should lie.” (Numbers 23:19 ) God has given us a formula and when we work with His formula, then He multiplies it back to us.  And like this person said, I want to double my giving. He said, “I want to double my giving every year.”  And I just got a letter from a man in Philadelphia who had just sown a very large seed for our medical missions project.  And he said to me, “I’ve got a problem.”  And I thought, you know, I’m ready to pray.  And he began to laugh.  And I said, “You’re laughing, but why are you laughing, you say you have a problem?”  He said, “I have a problem.  Every time I give money to you, I get money back.”  And I said, “Well, what’s the problem?”  He said, “I just gave you this large gift.”  I said, “Yes, I know.”  He said, “The Internal Revenue Service just contacted me and told me that I have a tax refund for almost three times what I gave you, unexpected.”  He said, “My problem is, when I give you money I get more money back than I know what to do with.”  I said, “Well, I can alleviate you of some of that problem.”  But you cannot outgive God.

SPKM DINO KARTSONAKIS You can’t.

Peter, you’ve been  SU02 involved in a tremendous ministry in the African nation of Mozambique. And I particularly want to talk to you about that because when I was in Africa this past year, you and I met for the first time.  You began to share with me your vision for Mozambique.  Now if you will recall, I shared this story with you and I want to share it with the people, that before the president of Mozambique was killed in a plane crash, I suppose a little more than a year ago, is that about right?  Before he was killed in a tragic air crash, the Oral Roberts Ministry and his government had negotiated an arrangement for medical teams to come in. And then somehow after he was killed the negotiations broke down.  And then I met you when I was in Africa and you began to share with me your vision for Mozambique.  Can you bring us up-to-date on what your ministry has done and is doing in Mozambique?

SPKM PETER PRETORIUS Yes, certainly.  You know, we got involved in Mozambique in 1983. We’d heard what was going on in the country.  The famine was then three years it had been going, and it really culminated at the end of 1983, the first three months of 1984.  300,000 people died in the space of about four months. And really it was just the most catastrophic tragic type of situation.  And we got into the country about three months before that time.  We started going to the different distribution camps and the first thing that we did was to bring in food.  I went back home.  I took what money we had.  I phoned other churches, and within two weeks we were back on the road with 60 tons of food.  And that’s how we began.  We just knew that Jesus wanted us to reach the immediate needs of these people.

But that just opened for us the most incredible doors for the gospel. I mean, you must realize this is a Marxist country.  You know, the actual law of the country is you are not permitted to preach the gospel publicly.

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Yeah, Mozambique was a nation that was formerly under the control of the Portuguese.  And then when it gained its independence years ago, it became a Marxist Communist nation and that’s where it stands right now.  Very difficult to get into Mozambique to begin with.

SPKM PETER PRETORIUS It is.  And, you know, they tolerate the church.  They allow some measure of freedom within the church but nothing outside of the church.  When we started to come in we said we would be prepared to try and help and feed the nation, but we want to feed them spiritually as well as physically.  And they gave us permission to preach and to hand out material whenever we did a food distribution.  That led to our first–

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS In other words, the food was the ticket that allowed you (That’s right.) to preach.  You had to have a door opener.

SPKM PETER PRETORIUS That is correct, and that’s what I want to come to just now.  You know, I have something on my heart that I really want to say to you this morning.  And I want the people who are watching us today to understand the situation, how Africa is so ripe for the gospel and how certain things open the way today, whether a country is Marxist or whether it’s not Marxist. So we had our first citywide crusade in Mapuda(sp) at the end of 1984.  It was the most incredible crusade. We had asked them for the stadium.  They said, “You know, you never get people like that, only for a political meeting.”  So they wanted us to do it in a little church.  We finally persuaded them to give us an old big hangar building near the airport.

BRAD: Platelets are the cells that clot the blood, preventing bleeding and bruising.  The normal range for platelets is 250,000 to 400,000 per microliter.  Vicki’s was only 12,000.  Doctors quickly gave Vicki a platelet transfusion.  But a week later she started noticing bruises.

Then one night while brushing her teeth before bed, her gums started bleeding.  She didn’t think much of it and went to sleep.
VC: It just so happened that I woke up, and when I woke up, blood was oozing out of my gums.  You know, the blood was clotting in my teeth.  And so I called Kaiser, and they said, “Come immediately to the emergency room.”

BRAD: Doctors at Kaiser Hospital in Denver took a new blood count.

VC: And they said that my platelets had dropped to 3,000.  My liver was damaged.

BRAD: The next few weeks, doctors ran several tests and told Vicki she might have lupus, an autoimmune disease.  They then sent her to see a specialist.

VC: And he said, “Well, no, you don’t have lupus, but you do have lymphoma.”  And I said, “Well, no, I don’t have lymphoma.”  He said, “Yes, you do.”  I said, “No, I don’t.”

And then he showed me my name on the paper.  He said, “Isn’t that you?”  And I said, “Yes.”  And he said, “Well, then you have lymphoma.”

BRAD: Lymphoma is a type of cancer that begins in cells of the body’s immune system.  It’s a cancer that can spread to lymph nodes, tonsils, the spleen, and other organs of the body.

VC: The doctor said, “Well, come back on Tuesday and we’re going to do the bone marrow.”  And that week, that’s when I called Oral Roberts Ministries and I called the healing line and I called people I knew to pray for me.

The person who answered the phone was just so kind and loving and just, “Well, let’s just take it to the Lord in prayer.”  It was just what we did.

LADY: And we speak to her body to line up with the Word of God, and we call her healed.  We call her restored, in Jesus’ name.  Thank You, Father.

BRAD: Four days after praying with a prayer partner, Vicki went back to see the specialist, who tested her bone marrow, blood, and tissues.  Then she waited.  She waited some more and waited some more, until finally the doctor came in with a startled look on his face.
VC: He said, “There is no cancer in your body.”  And I said, “Thank You, Jesus,” because I knew God had healed me because one day during that two-week period I just felt prayers.  I just felt people praying for me, and I’d never felt that before.  I just felt prayers going up.

And God healed me, and I thank the ministry for praying for me because the Bible says, “The prayers of a righteous man availeth much.”

BRAD: Vicki is now cancer-free and looking forward to teaching again.  She also watches The Hour of Healing now more than ever.

VC: Listen to people like Lindsay and Richard, because they build up your faith, because they are such faith people and just a wonderful healing ministry to let people know that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  And He’s still healing people.  We just have to have faith and believe in Him.

BRAD: Vicki says she wanted to share her testimony to encourage others in need of a miracle from God.
VC: c(END OF ROLL-IN)

LR: We do have to have faith and believe in God.  And right now we have faith in God that heals.  Anybody that is listening to this program that has cancer, in the name of Jesus, just like Vicki got her diagnosis turned around, in Jesus’ name we speak to outlaw cells.  And we command those outlaw cells to wither and die and healthy cells to take over your body, for a healing and a cure, in Jesus’ name.

And I believe God for that.  I believe God for healing.  I am a miracle myself.  And people think, “You don’t . . .”  Oh, yeah, I do.  I can tell you stories that—you know how they say “will make your head spin.”  Well, I don’t want your head to spin, but I’ll tell you what, my father died of cancer when I was 12 years old.  My mom had an evil diagnosis shortly thereafter and several that followed it.

And then it turned around at 18, I started getting diagnosis—at 18!  And then by 23 and 24, and then I married Richard and then I had a tumor the size of a grapefruit.  And then and then and then.  I’ve had a tumor on my breast.  I’ve had an ovarian tumor.  I was in the hospital, in surgery for a hysterectomy, and God healed me in the middle of that surgery in front of all the surgeons.

I am living proof that God still heals today.  Well, how do we know that?  We know that by the word of people’s testimony.  And just like Vicki gave her testimony, if you have a testimony and you want to give it and share it with us, please call the Abundant Life Prayer Group, 918-495-7777.  Have our Abundant Life prayer partners pray for you, but also give us your testimony because we’d love to share it with other people.

And one thing I want to share with you—and I’ve got lots of requests for it.  I’m trying to organize this.  I’ve got calls on my calls on my calls.  But I want to do this before I forget.  I believe in sowing seed.  When I couldn’t have children, the hardest thing I ever faced was not being able to have children, two miscarriages, like I said, in surgery for a hysterectomy, many other surgeries that I don’t even want to go into.  And then I had a son that lived 36 hours and died.

I’m telling you, I understand what it’s like.  And in the middle of all that, the Lord spoke to me and said, “Give baby showers.”  And I’m like, “That’s ridiculous!”  And the Lord said, “No, you need to sow in famine to reap a hundredfold, to reap in joy.”

And I thought, Okay, what’s the hardest thing I could possibly sow?  That baby shower.  I would call people I knew that were having babies, and I would give baby showers and baby gifts.  In the meantime, I’d be having miscarriages, and in the meantime I’d be having dead babies and funeral services.  And yet I believed God that if I sowed in the very field I needed to reap in, God would honor me.

Now once I did that and sowed my seed—and sometimes I can tell you the honest truth—I have an upstairs in my house.  And I’d have the party downstairs and little baby flowers and everything, and I’m having miscarriages.  And I would run upstairs and I would throw up all over the bathroom, wipe off my face, come back downstairs and smile and say, “Oh now, aren’t we having fun?  Isn’t this exciting?”

We prayed for those little babies, and in my heart I was absolutely breaking.  But God told me that I had to give out of my need.  I had to give out of the very field that I wanted to reap from.  And as I did that, you all know my story—Jordan, Olivia, and Chloe later—three amazing, amazing daughters later.  God multiplied my seed into a harvest.

I believe I need to sow seed this week, and I want to give you this.  Now they’re helping me with the telephone number because I can’t see it over there—866—that’s a toll-free number—866 means it’s a free call—866-870-6932, 866-870-6932.  Or you can go to makeyourdaycount.com and go on-line.

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.