PHIL: It’s a great honor to have with us today Dr. Richard Roberts.  I’d like you to give him a great welcome to TBN.  Blessings to you.

RR: It’s an honor to be here.

PHIL: Well, we’re going to get right into the ministry of healing.  I just wanted to say that of course all of us, we love the Roberts family.  In fact, today we were just, dad and Richard and I were together with dad.  And I just want to tell you, at 90 years of age, he is a fireball.  And, Dr. Roberts, God bless you.  I know you’re watching right now.  And we just love you.  And we’re very excited about what God has done.

And in the future, we’ll be able to give you all the great details.  But I know many of you know there’s been a lot of changes that’s taken place, and they’re all good.  We’re so thankful and all.  And a lot of the goodness that’s happened at ORU and the transition that’s going on is because of your prayers.  It’s also because of the integrity and the heart that Richard has for the kingdom and for the legacy and for God.

And now Richard Roberts is involved in doing what his calling has always been, and that is to bring the voice of healing and hope to the world.  And, man, I’m so excited to see you just like a bird that is now with both wings flying into the mantle and the dimension that God has for you.

RR: I feel it all over me, Phil.  In fact, as you were talking tonight and Cynthia was giving her testimony, as Randy was preaching, as Dino was playing, I heard the Lord say, “I’m going to heal crippled legs tonight.  I’m going to heal blind eyes tonight.  I’m going to heal deafness.  Cancers are going to fall off people’s bodies tonight.”

And thank God for TBN that allows that type of Holy Spirit ministry.  God’s going to heal people tonight.  And that’s a confirmation of His Word.  That’s what Randy was talking about.  That Word has to be confirmed with miracles and signs and wonders.

They say we live in a sight-and-sound generation.  Well, we live in a touching generation too.  People want to touch, and they want to be touched.  It’s like that little woman who said, “If I can touch the border of His garment, I’ll be healed.”  She made that garment a point of contact.

What she was saying was, “When I release my faith, I’m going to receive the touch of God.  I may just touch His clothing, but my faith is going to touch Him.”  And people are going to touch Him tonight by their faith, and miracles are going to be the result.

You talk about scaring the willies out of you!  And then my dad moves to California, build this monstrosity in Tulsa, leave it with me and move to California—and laugh at me.  Every time I called him, he’d laugh and say, “I’m so glad it’s yours, not mine.”

I’d call him, “What are you doing?  Are you on your knees?”

“No, I’m on the golf course.”

“Well, aren’t you going to pray for me?”

“Yeah, when I finish playing golf.”

I’m back here dying, in my pity party.  And it looks like the university is going under back there.  I hadn’t been on the job for more than eight months, until it looked like the whole thing was going south and I would preside over the funeral of this institution, the institution that is now becoming the university of choice for the charismatic community of the earth.  (Response) 

ORU is now becoming to the charismatic world what Harvard is to the brainiacs and what Brigham Young is to the Mormons, and what Notre Dame is to the Catholics.  ORU is becoming the university of choice for the charismatic community.  (Applause) 

Did you know that the Who’s Who of families of the charismatic leaders all over the world are sending their children here?  Out of our 5,000 students, more than 600 or 700 of them are preacher’s kids, minister’s kids. 

And I didn’t know that until Benny Hinn came to speak in chapel and said, “I want to lay hands on your 40 or 50 who are minister’s kids.  Six hundred came to the platform.  Benny got a workout that morning, and he laid hands on every one of them.           

And I’m having my pity party, and God says, “Why don’t you shut up?  Why don’t you come away from here and find there?”

“Well, what are You talking about, God, You didn’t call me to be here.  I am here.  You put me here.”

That’s not what He meant.  He wasn’t talking about my changing physical locations this time.  He was talking about me.  He was saying, “You’re here, but I want you there.”

“Where’s there?”

He said, “That’s where joy is.”  He said, “You’re wallowing in your pity party of trying to figure out in the natural how you’re going to pay $60 million of debt, when you’re not ever going to do it in the natural because nobody is remotely interested in helping you get out of debt.”

The word of wisdom operates through believers, but we’ve got to be willing to step out in faith.  Sometimes things we say like that…. We don’t know.  We don’t understand, but we’ve got to be obedient to God. That will work through us.  It will work through you.

Don’t suppress it.  Don’t say, “I don’t want to do that.”  So many times God has me do things that I don’t want to do.  Anybody here that God has ever told you to do something that you didn’t want to do?  Put your hand up.  The rest of you are lying.

Number two is the word of knowledge.  The word of knowledge is supernatural information that’s not available to you by any natural source.  In II Kings chapter 6, every time the king of Syria made a battle plan against Israel, God gave Elisha a word of knowledge and gave him the battle plan to the game.  He gave him so many words of knowledge about the battle plans of Syria, that the king of Syria thought he had a spy in his own camp, in his own bedroom.  That was an operation of the word of knowledge.

When Jesus met the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4 He said, “Where’s your husband?”  She said, “I have none.”  And Jesus, by operating through the word of knowledge said, “You’re right.  You don’t have one; you’ve had five.  And the one you’re living with now is not your own.”  That was an operation of the word of knowledge.

How many times have you faced a situation where suddenly you knew something about someone and you know there is no way you could have known it?  What do we do as Christians?  We often say, “Well, I wonder where that came from?  Why that was unusual.  Oh, I can’t say that, they might be embarrassed.”  That’s the time that we have to be bold and be strong.

I remember I was invited to meet the President of Zambia some years ago.  I had been preaching in South Africa.  The Prescient of Zambia called me.  It happened to be one of the 40 nations that God had spoken to me about.

So I traveled up with another minister to Lusaka, the capitol of Zambia, had lunch with the President and his wife.  While we were praying on our knees, he invited me for a national crusade.  And I was so excited, because that’s the reason that I had gone. I knew that God had said to me, “The President of Zambia is going to invite you for a national crusade.”

I had my invitation.  I was ready to fly back to the states and make my plans when God said to me, “Tell Mrs. Chiluba that between her third and fourth child she developed a problem.  She was hospitalized and she’s not well yet.”

I said, “God, I don’t want to tell her that; You’ll mess up my crusade.”  (LAUGHTER)  “You tell her.”  And it came again and it came again.  That’s one way you can tell it’s the Holy Spirit; He just keeps on coming.

How many of you have come into a room and all of a sudden you say,  ”Huh, huh, huh, something doesn’t?-we would say-?doesn’t smell right, or doesn’t feel right.  Oh, that’s just?-no, it’s not just, just, just. More than not, it’s the Holy Spirit.  He’s showing you there’s something there.  He’s wanting you to prick up your spiritual ears and listen and hear.

The gift of the word of knowledge, the best description I can give of how the word of knowledge works-and it will work through every minister of the Gospel who will open themselves up to it-the best explanation I can possibly give is that a word of knowledge is supernatural information that comes to you when there is no way on earth you could know it.  And it will come, as we say, out of the blue.  And you’ll want to say, “Where did that come?  That’s the most unusual thing.  Where did that thought come from?”  It came from God.

I promise you, satan is not going to give you a word of knowledge.  It will not be for healing.  And you can always tell.  Someone said,  ”Well, how can I tell the difference between the voice of the Lord and the voice of the devil?”  I said, “If you can’t tell the difference between the voice of your best friend and your worst enemy, then you need to get saved.”  Because you can tell.

Now how does it operate?  Well, it operates through people differently.  Through me, I feel something in my body, like right now there’s a catch that’s in my right knee.  And there’s no catch in my right knee, and that’s God’s way of showing me that somebody’s getting healed right now in their knee.  It seems so simple, it seems so different, it seems so unusual, and yet it happens every time.

 There are at least six people being healed in their knee right now.  I know because I just felt my knee pop.  And if you people that I’m describing will stand up and begin to move your knee, you’ll find that the knee pain is totally gone.  Now it’s an operation of the word of knowledge.  Go ahead, kick your knee. Come out in the aisle, examine yourself.  At least six of you.  Why six?  I don’t know.  God said that.  I didn’t say it.  Why not seven?  I don’t know.  He said six.  He said at least six.  It happens like that.

Now how many of you can tell, just now, you feel a warmth, and now there’s a healing in your knee and you know it?  Wave your hand at me. Well, that’s more than six.  Somebody give glory to God.  (Applause)

A reporter once said, “How do you describe the word of knowledge?”   The Holy Spirit said, “Don’t answer his question.  Ask him how long he’s had arthritis in his shoulder.”  And so I did, and he said,  ”Several years, but how did you know that?”  I said, “Because the Lord just gave me a word of knowledge about your shoulder, and your shoulder is healed.”