Oral Roberts and healing

Terry's comment about the many healings done through Oral Roberts got me looking into him a bit. I found this video about him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19sbUluAzDs. He says some very helpful things so I will transcribe some of it.

Oral Roberts

Towards the end of his life Oral Roberts said this about his healing meetings:

"The word of God was paramount followed by which you saw people convicted of their sins and then the healings began. And even in my failures, and I failed on so many people I prayed for - the people saw the failures - you know it's some experience to have them come across the platform in front of you and pray. One gets healed and the next one does not. One gets healed and the next five don't. Five get healed and the next two don't. I'm very exposed and very vulnerable sitting there. But you see I knew I wasn't a healer. And if God wouldn't heal them there wouldn't be any miracle. But if I preached his word he promised in the last verse of Mark's Gospel 'I'll confirm my word with signs following'. I really believe that. I believe that. And it happens. And the confirmation of my preaching by signs following brought the crowd into the faith and many of them got healed sitting out there in their chairs. They didn't even have to come into the healing line."

I think this is absolutely brilliant. Here is a man who has seen God's word and obeyed it. What's more he's lived in that place of "now and not yet". Not only has he seen people wonderfully healed he's watched them walk away still sick. Even today he remembers the failures. But they didn't stop him. He had seen and been changed by God's word. He lived in the gap between his personal experience and biblical expectation.

   

The clip cuts to him live at a rally in his younger days.

"It's true that I cannot heal, and I haven't made any claims like that because we know that God alone can heal. But God uses servants, instruments. And I feel that this is an hour where his gifts are being given especially to the deliverance of people from sickness and affliction. We have fine doctors in the world today, some of my very dearest friends are medical men. And I appreciate these men. They have done a lot for me. They are doing a lot for other people. We also believe that God heals through prayer. And that God can do what no earthly power can do. God can do it. But we must have faith. Believe. Release our faith. Let our faith go to God."

That sounds exactly like what we might say today. Not a sniff of "going to the doctors means a lack of faith". God heals through medicine but he also heals miraculously in the name of his son Jesus. Bravo!  

The Older Oral again:

"I kept telling them I can't heal you. I would if I could. But your faith, Faith comes by hearing the word of God. So we had a balanced ministry of the word of God first and then the healing services followed. There were about 40 or 50 sermons over the years that I had preached, say in a 16 day crusade. Not all 40 or 50 [in one crusade] but I would feel led to use a number until they were seasoned sermons. I came to believe that a sermon has to be preached 20 or 30 times so that it consumes the preacher, he becomes the sermon and when I walked out I was that sermon. And the people could feel it and hear it and I didn't have to grab for words. They poured out of my mouth. They poured out of my inner being, my belly area."

The word and the Spirit are powerful allies. I also like what he says about the preacher becoming the sermon. That's why it takes me so long to prepare a preach. My brain can't regurgitate stuff from my head very well. It needs to be in my heart as well.

Younger Oral still going for it in the rally talking about a person's faith:

"He must release that believing. He must get into action. For it is one's active faith, his released faith, his faith turned loose that heals him. Because the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up. All of it is action. You release your faith, God releases his power. You believe and God heals. You do something, God does something. You turn to God, God turns to you.  You believe in him and he sends his power down to your life."

He's right. Faith is active. I remember well Bill Johnson saying there is a time to stop praying and ask the person to do something they couldn't before. ie "stretch out your arm" or "bend down". Often in that action they are healed.

All in all Oral Roberts comes across as very genuine and there is remarkable consistency, certainly in the clips that I saw, in what he said 40 years ago at the beginning of his ministry and what he said at the end. As I listened I heard a man who had read God's word, particularly God's desire to heal, and was living it out. He knew the challenges. Some got healed and some didn't. He felt exposed. He felt vulnerable. He just had to give it to God and carry on in the obedience that comes from faith. God give me his genuine trust in you.