Something GOOD is going to happen to you!  Thank you.  Thank you.  Well, good morning, everybody.  (Response)  You sure look great to me.  I’ve not seen a crowd like this since December, the first Sunday, and I’m delighted to be back in the pulpit.  Praise God!  (Applause)

This antique dealer was always on the lookout for a bargain, and when he traveled he would go to secondhand stores and other places that handled antiques and was always looking for a bargain.

And he came to this secondhand store and looked in the door, and there was a cat drinking milk from an old bowl, a beautiful cat.  And he watched and was admiring the cat, and suddenly he realized that bowl was not an ordinary bowl.  It was an antique worth a lot of money.

And he said to himself, “This old boy won’t know that. I can buy this for a little of nothing.”  And he went in and picked up the cat and began to stroke it and said to the merchant, “What a beautiful cat!  I’ve been wanting a cat like this for a long time.  Would you sell me this cat?”

And the merchant said, “Sure.  If you’ve got $50, the cat’s yours.”  So he paid him and was stroking the cat and reached down and picked up the old bowl and said, “By the way, I notice he’s used to this bowl.  I believe I’ll just take it along with me.”  The merchant said, “You put that bowl down.  That’s the best cat seller I’ve ever had.”  I don’t know why I told that.  I just felt like telling it.

My goodness, Richard, what a beautiful, beautiful crowd.  I’m here this morning to share not only the Word of God with you and a new revelation from the Holy Spirit, but to talk to you a little about my life.  I’m 85 years old, and I’ve never been 85 before.  And Evelyn is a lot older than I am.  She’s 86.  She’s nine months older than I am. I’ve always wanted an older woman.  She’s been a great help to me in guiding me along the way.

But what has happened is that getting to be 85 and 86 slipped up on us.  We never really realized we were getting that old.  We never thought about being old.  We got to be 80, 81, 82.  Things were fine.  And then we began to slow down some.  We began to feel pains that we hadn’t felt before.  And certain things began to attack us.  And prayers didn’t seem to get through quite as readily as they did when we were 30 and 40 years of age, particularly for pain in our bodies.

 And when that man died, I went to his funeral out of respect.  There were 30 people, and he had helped 20 Christian colleges.  Not one president was there “cause he had been so stingy with them and held them down, and their little schools are badly located and have 300 to 400 students, and they have a hard time operating.  That’s the kind of legacy he left in the world.

Well, I’m going to be leaving the world in a few years, but I want to leave something more than concrete blocks. …APPLAUSE…

Well, I’m going to get off of the first Psalm and go to Ephesians 6, because this sermon has to do with the beginning and the ending of the Christian witness.  Listen carefully to me, not because it’s me, but because I’ve worked through this.  I’ve received revelation that God took David, who is the father of Jesus Christ…  Jesus Christ is the seed of David.  David is the first man that God really had on this earth that he could really do something with. It was David who provided the money and the plans for the temple.  David personally wrote a check for a half billion dollars for the new temple for his son, Solomon, to use.

It is David who wrote most of the Psalms.  It is David who really is the father, from a spiritual standpoint, of the Messiah.  And when you read the first chapter, God is laying out the plan for His people for all ages.  And we’re not to think that the Old Testament is meaningless.  God laid out the beginning of what we are in the first Psalm.

Just read that first Psalm over and over till you memorize it like I’ve done.  I say it every day of my life and every night of my life.  And become like a tree planted.  God put you where He wants you.  He plants you there.  He plants you by the rivers, and the rivers are flowing up out of your belly.  And the Holy Ghost is coming up, and you’re praying in a new language, and you’re solving problems inside yourself.

I have been hit so hard and knocked down so many times there’s no way I could be sitting here alive this morning. But I’m telling you, I have prayed in tongues and interpreted so many times, the devil has not been able to kill Oral Roberts.  …APPLAUSE…  And I want you to know that I pray in tongues every day of my life, every night of my life. I pray to interpret what God is saying back to me because in that way I heard His voice.

And in the early 60s, when God told me the time came to build Him a university based on His authority and on the Holy Ghost, then He began to raise up people like Father Bennett of the Episcopal Church, and Dr. Howard Irvin of the Baptist Church, baptized with the Holy Ghost.  And the spread of speaking in tongues started over this nation in a brand-new way.

And it began anew in me as I walked these desolate grounds with no buildings, and no money, and no know-how to build God a university, the speaking in tongues rose up within my inner being as I was out here by myself, with nothing out here but a house and a barn and a command of God.

And I didn’t know how to interpret, as the Bible had said.  “He that speaketh in tongues, let him pray that he will interpret.”  Well, after I had spoken in tongues, it just flowed up out of me out of my desperation for God to show me what to do.  Then the interpretation came, and I didn’t even know it was an interpretation at the time.

And I saw the vision of what you are in now.  What you’re in now, I saw everything, and it came through speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues and the prophetic power of God that came upon me.

I went to our house and told Evelyn, and she knew I spoke in tongues, but not often.  And I really did not understand speaking in tongues.  I just knew that it was in the Bible and you should have it.

And she thought maybe I had gone off the deep end at first.  But when she saw that it was real, she said, “I want you to help me go into it.”  And she was having a difficult time bringing forth the tongues, although she had spoken in tongues at times.

I said, “Honey, when I start praying in tongues, I’ve learned I can pray in tongues at will.”  And as the tongues came up, I said, “Just lift up your voice, open your mouth. You can’t talk if you don’t open your mouth.  Lift up your voice and start with me.”    She said, “You mean, start as you start?”

“Yes.  But the Lord will then take you into your own language.”

And she did what I said, and God gave her a beautiful language, which has gone from language to language.  And she and I out here on these grounds were the beginning of Oral Roberts University.  Praise God.  …APPLAUSE…

If I drink a little extra water, pay no attention, because since surgery my mouth has been dry.  But I hope it will loosen up.

Of course, we didn’t have any money for it, and I got ten of my men together.  We walked down on this flat piece of ground, and I said, “Let’s each give the biggest bill we have in our wallets and plant the seed to start the building of this center.”  And we all reached in for our biggest bill, and we laid it on the table, and it came to $211.  And we started an $11 million building with $211.  (Applause)

But we planted out of our need, and we aimed our seed.  We aimed it toward this building.  And not only has it been the place where we went to the Final Eight in basketball and became nationally known immediately in 1974, but millions of people, over sixteen million people have been in this building in events like this, and ballgames, etc., since that time.

And now if you had to rebuild this place with our studio, it would cost $30 some odd million.  We started with $211.  We aimed it.  God aimed His Son as His seed toward our salvation. Whatever you do, give out of your need and aim it.  You folks who are giving tonight, aim it.  Aim it at a need in your life, at what you want God to do in your life because your seed is not physical.  It’s your faith.  Your seed is your faith, and your faith is your seed.  Say, “My seed is my faith.  My faith is my seed.  That’s why I plant my seed out of my need, and I aim it toward a desired result, toward a harvest.  And I’m going to receive.  Then I’m going to give again and receive again.  And I’m going to get in a rhythm of giving and receiving, of sowing and reaping, of seedtime and harvest.  And I’m going to get my needs met, all of them.  Amen.”  (Response)  (RR talking in background)

Okay, Richard, if you keep on, I won’t get through tonight. Last year in the month of February of last year I was struck down by the devil’s attack on my body, like Job was in the Bible.  And for three weeks I was unconscious.  And my wife and a neighbor of ours, who is sitting by my wife tonight, were there almost day and night praying in tongues.  And the ten doctors were working feverishly that I wouldn’t die, because it wasn’t my time to die.  But the devil was trying to kill me.

And when I came to and looked around in the hospital room, saw Evelyn, I said, “Honey, how much money do we have in the bank?”  She said, “I don’t know, Oral.”  I said, “Find out, and write the biggest check that you can as a seed and aim it toward my healing.  The devil is not going to kill me.  I’m going to live out my days.  I’m going to preach the Gospel.”  (Applause)

And I came here last June with a tube in my side, being fed by that tube in my side and I was to preach.  And the devil said,  ”You will fall out while you preach.”  But just before I came here I pulled that thing out.  Really, I didn’t pull it out.  I authorized the doctor.  He didn’t want to, but I said, “If you don’t, I will.”  And he pulled it out.