The thing I had done, I had become a giver, but I really wasn’t looking to God as much as I should have.  And I was not expecting anything back.  This scene where I gave my week’s salary and this brother came to my house at 4 o’clock in the morning, was 7 times as much as I had given that night, was not something I expected, and I could have missed it.

The problem of settling on giving only and not looking to God and expecting God to move through expected sources and unexpected sources to multiply that and bring it into your life. And He told me flat out, He said, “Give out of your need.  Don’t give just because there’s a need in my church.  You give because you have a need, and you sow the seed against the need.”

We’re doing that right now.  There’s a debt on ORU, and Richard’s been having quite a struggle with it, but he and Lindsay and Evelyn and I and those who know about it have been sowing special seed, and we are looking to God.  And we are looking to Him to bring that in very soon, so that?.  It’s His university; He said, “You build Me a university.”  It’s not my university, it’s not Richard’s university; it’s God’s.  So the debt is on His university.

Now we’re sowing against that need, for God to move it.  And when Evelyn and I have any kind of need, the first thing we do in looking to God is to sow it; and then the next thing is to start looking.  And let me give an example, and then we’ll stop.

Some time ago, when the pastors found out that I couldn’t travel any more, they said, “We’ll come to you.”  So they’ve been coming to California, to our house with their cameras, for me to minister to their people.  And it’s been working out real nice. And they said, “When you come and preach for us, we give you a love offering.”  I said, “That’s right.”  “Well, we’ll just bring a love offering.”  So I got used to it.

And we were able to buy this apartment – it’s a condominium – and over the period of time we have paid it out, and there’s no debt.  There’s no debt.  We own the house; we own the car – no debt.  Which is what I’m praying for all of God’s people.

And one night I was doing what I’m telling you, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon me.  And I leaped up from the chair, and for a few moments I was totally well.  There was nothing in my shoulder.  There was no feeling adversely in my heart, and I thought I was totally healed.  I wasn’t, but I had a glimpse of what’s going to happen to me.  I had a glimpse.  (Applause)

Let me talk to you a moment about the Bible.  Do you remember the woman that the Bible talks about with the issue of blood 12 years?  The Bible says there was a certain woman who had an issue of blood 12 years and had suffered many things from many physicians and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.  When she heard of Jesus, and she came in the press behind and touched His clothes, for she said, “If I may touch only the hem of His garment, I shall be made whole.”

And Jesus said, “Who touched me?”  And they all denied.  He said, “Somebody did, because I feel virtue (or healing power) going out of me.”  And the woman seeing she was not healed sprang forward and told Him all the truth and for what cause she had touched Him.  In one day she had become a woman of cause, a woman with a cause.

I want you to think a moment, 12 long bitter years of blood seeping from a woman’s body.  And you only have so much blood in your body.  Can you conceive how weak she was at the end of 12 years, and the doctors with the state of medicine where it was couldn’t do anymore at that time. Maybe they could do more today.  But they couldn’t at that time.  She wasn’t better.  She was worse.

And then one day something good happened to her.  She heard of Jesus.  That didn’t mean she didn’t know Jesus was on the earth, because how could you be in the Holy Land and not know Jesus was going about preaching, teaching, and healing?  But she hadn’t heard of Him for herself.

And, you know, you and I can be in this audience today and not hear one thing I’m saying, not hear one thing from God.  We have to have a listening mind, a listening heart. We have to say, “Lord, help me open up so that I can hear the one thing that You sent Oral Roberts here to talk to me about today that will remove the thing for the rest of my life that’s affecting my body and affecting my life, so that it will be a moment.  It’s for a moment of time.  And now is the accepted time, that the nowness of God will dawn on me and that I’ll be a guinea pig on this, and I will help make it come to pass.”

And Paul said, “Finally.”  

Finally, take care of your loins.  And finally, learn to pray always in the Spirit.

Now, Brother Richard, I’m through.  …APPLAUSE…  I’m through.  I’m through.

I want to lead you in receiving your prayer language. How many of you already have your prayer language and you pray in tongues?  How man do not but you’d like to do it? May I see your hand?  Raise your hand up.  Wave it at me.

All right, I want everybody here in a moment to start praying in tongues.  Not shouting and screaming.  I hate this screaming business.  You don’t have to scream.  Just speak in your normal language.  And if you’re standing by them, listen, and then lift your voice.  Open your mouth, open your mouth, open your mouth.   Listen.  Start with them.  The Holy Spirit will take you into your own language, and the first thing you know, you’ll be saying the most beautiful language you ever heard in your life, and you’ll feel it in your belly.  Often when I pray in tongues, I’ll put my hand on my belly “cause I want to feel the rivers of living water, I want to feel the rivers of living water.  I don’t want my leaf to wither.

Do you see the connection here in Psalm 1 and Ephesians 6?  Now let’s just all in a normal voice just start praying in tongues.  And you that have not been baptized in the Holy Ghost, lift your voice.  …TONGUES… Take it. …RESPONSE…   Praise God.  You may be seated.  Richard, I want you to know I quit on time.

RR: Just in time for us to pray for your shoulder.  Stretch your hands out toward him.  Lindsay, you quoted that Scripture this morning where Jesus said, “Ought not this woman whom satan hath bound be loosed?”  And you also quoted that she was a daughter of Abraham.

This is a son of Abraham who has stretched his hands out in a violent way nearly two million times in his lifetime, praying over the sick.

The apostle Paul said he bore the marks of the Gospel in his body.  The attack of satan has come upon his shoulders because of his praying for the sick.  Ought not this man, who is the son of Abraham, be loosed?

Stretch your hands out toward him.  Several of you trustees in the front come quickly around and gather around behind us.

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 just want to tell you when you go home to start expecting.  You expect and you expect and you expect and you expect.  You keep expecting.

 Just recently I had a very bad hip problem.  This hip was just giving out on me.  And I thought, Well, I guess I’m going to have to have that hip replaced.  And I said to my husband, “I can hardly get up and down and hardly get up and down stairs.”  

And he said, “No, we’re not going to have surgery.  The devil’s going to take his hand off you, and you’re going to get healed.”  And he said, “Now we’re going to plant a seed of faith.  Get in there and write a check, the biggest check you can find and we’re going to get that hip healed.”

And so we planted the seed, and then the devil kept saying,  ”Well, it will never work.”  And I said to the devil, “It works for other people.  Why can’t it work for me?”  And so I’d sit on the side of my bed in the mornings when I was taking my exercise, and I’d say, “Devil, you get out of my room.  You quit lying to me.  I am being healed.  I am being healed.  I believe it.  I expect it.”

Then I’d go around saying, “Thank You, Lord, for my healing.  Thank You, Lord, for my healing.  Thank You, Lord, for my healing.”  And do you know today my hip is healed?  I have had no pain.  And that was the harvest I got.

Don’t go home and say God didn’t send the harvest because He’ll send it, but you’ve got to be expecting it.

RR: Amen.  Galatians 6:9, “Be not weary in your well doing for you shall reap in due season.”  God has a due season, and it’s on the way.  Well, let’s stand together one more time and lift our hands and praise the Lord. Father, we give You praise and glory and honor.  Stretch your hands out toward this offering now.  Heavenly Father, what’s happened here tonight is nothing less than Holy Ghost spontaneous combustion.  The Word was preached with anointing, and You showed up.  You even caused the sermon to end before it was supposed to end, but You knew where the ending point was.

You have done something that only You could do, and everyone in this building knows it.  And, Father, we give You praise and glory and honor.  We’ve sown this into good soil.  And now we have a Bible right according to Your Word to expect a thirty, sixty, one hundredfold return and for You, according to Deuteronomy, to make us a thousand times more.  (Response)  Now we call that harvest into being.  Everyone say, “Harvest, come to me now in Jesus” name.”  

And I discovered when I got tired, that is, after I preached the sermon like I’m preaching now, and then I made the invitation to the unsaved, and great numbers would come down the aisle, and I’d pray with them, and then we opened up for the healing line. And just prior to that I would go out into the invalid tent or area where there were possibly two hundred invalids brought every night for me to lay hands on.  And that’s how Kenneth Copeland got his start, by being by my side.  The first one he ever prayed for was a person dying with cancer, when I said, “Ken, this is yours.”  And he was eager to do it, thank God.

And when I got tired, I noticed my faith was weak.  And I learned that people were disappointed, that if I kept on praying there were not many healings, if any.  So I would abruptly dismiss the meeting and rush to my car, to the room, and get in bed and get to sleep as quickly as I could to recover for the next night.  And that became a rhythm in my life.

But the people never understood that.  They thought because I was anointed, I never got tired, but I did.  And the people would follow me to the car.  They’d grab my clothes, and I’d shake loose.  And they would touch me.  And in the Bible they were touching Jesus all the time and pulling at His clothes and all that, but I was so holy I didn’t want them to do that to me. I didn’t want the criticism of, you know, of the word getting out, “Oh, you can just touch Oral’s clothes or just touch him and you’ll be healed.”  So I was trying to walk that straight path and be free of criticism, so I didn’t want anybody pulling at me or touching me.  Besides, I didn’t want them disappointed because I was tired.

And it came to a climax one night when a woman came up behind me, took hold of my clothes, and whirled me around.  And I couldn’t get loose.  And I started to explain to her that when I’m tired I can’t pray for you.  I don’t have the faith.”  And she shook it off.  She said, “I have to go home tomorrow hundreds of miles away.  I’ve come here.  I’m deathly sick.  You’ve got to pray for me.  I’ve got to be healed.”

Well, I’m almost through.  I’ve got two more points.  I’ll quit now if you tell me to.  (No)  Shall I finish the last two? (Yes)  I’ll have to.  I’m out of water.

Number eight, very precious.  He said, “You tell the people I’ll never leave them or forsake them.”  And He took me back when I was 20 years old.  I’d been healed of tuberculosis since I was 17, and the church in the little town where I lay sick for five months in the bed called me to give my testimony.  And I went there, and there was a woman with her two daughters.  The oldest

daughter had tuberculosis and had been in the Oklahoma state sanitarium for TB over here in the mountains of Talihina.  And they had arrested her case.  She wasn’t cured, but she had an arrested case and she was home for a few weeks.  So she brought her to hear my testimony in case her faith might rise and she’d be healed.

Well, they invited me to spend the night with them, and I did.  I went to sleep, and at two o’clock, she woke me up.  She said, “Oral, you must get up and dress and leave.  I’m so sorry to tell you.  My husband has just come in.  He’s a good man, but when he drinks, he’s mean.  And he heard you’re here.  He doesn’t believe you were healed.  He’s scared to death for our daughter, so you’ve got to dress and leave.”

And it was dead winter, and I wasn’t dressed for it.  And I walked the streets of that little town two hours.  I nearly froze to death.  And I remembered the name of a family, and I knocked on their door.  And Brother Sorrels came to the door.  And I said, “Brother Sorrels, could you take me in?  Please take me in.”  They took me in and put warm blankets around me and thawed me out and put me to bed, gave me a good breakfast the next day, and I went on my way.

And this is what the Lord said to me.  He said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  I don’t know what that means to you tonight, but when God says, “I will never leave you or forsake you,” He means exactly what He says.

Now the final one, number nine, He said, “You tell the people this.  You give them Romans 4:17, call those things that be not as though they were.”

And Evelyn and I took one of God’s weapons, Matthew 18:18, “Whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  We knelt and we bound this man.  We never told a human being, just God and us two.  “Lord, when he eats, don’t let the food digest. When he sleeps, give him no rest.  When he works, give him no fulfillment until he makes this right and takes his hand off God’s anointed.”

Well, we moved to Tulsa.  That was the month of May.  The following December, I had a crusade in this city.  And I was preaching one night like I am now, and a man got up near the back and came down the middle aisle, stumbling and almost falling.  It was this young man, 29 years old.  And he came and threw his arms around my legs and he said, “Oral, I eat, but my food doesn’t digest.  I sleep, but I can’t rest.  I work, but I’m not fulfilled.  If you don’t loose me, I’m going to die.”  And he cried so hard, there were puddles on the floor.

And I called him by name.  I said, “Do you really understand what you’ve done?”  He said, “Yes, I do.”  “Are you ready to repent of this thing and never touch a man of God again?”  He said, “I’m not only ready, I have poured my soul out to God and I’ve driven over here for you to loose me or I’m going to die.” “If you really mean it.”  “I really mean it.”  And there before that whole crowd, I loosed that man with a weapon that is mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.  (Applause)  You are not without weapons.

And the fourth thing God said to write down, He said, “There’s been a slight decline in My healing power, but I’m going to bring healing back big time, including creative miracles.” Healing big time is knocking at the door.  We all know there’s been a slight decline.  But, friend, it’s coming back.

Right here three or four days ago I was going through Joyce’s seminar, and she began to pray for people.  There were tremendous miracles just broke out right here on this stage.  And there were miracles here this afternoon.  And before this thing is over, it just may explode.

But when He said, “including creative miracles,” I didn’t relate to that because I’d never had faith for creative miracles.  I thought that was for the resurrection of the body from the dead.