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.

BRAD:
Coffee on the way to work, $51 a month; gum after drinking coffee, $12 a month, movie rentals on the weekend, $32 a month; filling up the gas tank—too much!  Changing the world?  You decide.

Your continued and new monthly partnership with the Oral Roberts Ministries make it possible to change the world, one person at a time.  The Oral Roberts Ministries, 60 years of making a difference.

LR:

Okay, I want to say this one more time.  Pick up your telephone, call the toll-free number, 866-870-6932, 866-870-6932.  That will be an operator, and that operator will talk to you about the stress book, and the stress book is my free gift to you.  Or you can write Richard Roberts and Lindsay Roberts, Tulsa, OK, 74102.  I want to sow seed into you.  So please allow me that privilege of giving this book to you.  It is a seed from my heart.

And, you know, I remember one day when I was writing it, I was so stressed out.  And my daughter came to me and said, “Mom, is it a little ridiculous that you’re stressed over writing a stressed book?”  And I thought, That is ridiculous.

And I got to the Word of God on my own manuscript, and I sat down and I began to read what I was writing.  And I said, “You know what?  God doesn’t want us to live underneath the mess.”  God said He wanted us to live exceedingly abundantly far above anything we could dare ask or think.

And He loves us so much that He wants to minister healing to us.  So this book was written not out of some la-la land.  This book was written out of my life and what I went through.  And you know what?  I think I could add a few more chapters to it lately.

But, you know, the most important thing is, God wants us to prosper and be in health, even as our soul prospers.  And your soul is your mind, will, and emotions.  And that’s where stress starts to hit us.  So please, 866-870-6932.  Call that number, and please allow me the privilege of giving that book to you.

I want to tell you a little bit more about some of the calls that have come in.  (Reading names)

In the name of Jesus, we just lift up every name, every need, every financial request, every ministry request.  Father God, in the name of Jesus, we just are asking You right now to minister to the needs of people.

I am asking for healing in every area, spirit, soul, and body, in the name of Jesus.  And right now I want to pray for you, whatever it is you’re going through.  Maybe it is in the soul realm, your mind, your will, and emotions.  I can’t even begin to tell you how many prayer requests I’ve seen for depression.  That’s not from God, and I am praying for God to break the spirit of depression off of you and you to be healed in your mind, in your will, in your emotions.  God’s not given you the spirit of fear, but power, love, and a sound mind.
Praying for your finances, for your family, for your marriage.  In the name of Jesus, whatever it is you have need of, I am praying for God to bless you from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet, in every area, in Jesus’ name.

Now don’t forget, 866-870-6932, 866-870-6932.  Please request this stress book and let me sow it to you as my gift, as my gift to you, as a privilege.  Please let me sow that book into your life.  If you need further prayer or if you’d like to sow a seed into this ministry, feel free to call the Abundant Life Prayer Group, 918-495-7777.  Or you can write Richard Roberts and Lindsay Roberts, Tulsa, OK, 74102.  Let us pray for you today, and make it count.

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.

Now when you see this book, the stress book, it has a price tag attached to it.  That’s going away today because I want to give it to you.  Don’t pay any attention to it.  Our prayer partners know the people at this number, 866-870-6932, know that when you call and order this book, this is a gift to you.  There is no charge.  It’s my Seed-Faith gift to you.

I believe in sowing seeds.  Am I a little stressed out lately?  You could say that.  So you know what?  I’m sowing my stress book into you, believing that as you read the book and God ministers healing to you, God’s going to multiply that seed back to me.  So 866-870-6932.

Are you pressured?  Sometimes.  Stressed?  Yes.  Frustrated?  Well, yes.  Overcoming Stress, take charge of the negative situations that come to attack you.  Overcome them with the Word of God.  So please call that telephone number, and please allow me the privilege of sowing seed into your life.

Now I want to tell you about a goofy phone call that I had from a very sweet lady.  She is a lady that is one of the hosts on QVC.  Now I had never met her, had not talked to her, didn’t know anything about her until she started contacting our ministry.

And as she contacted our ministry, she began preaching to us.  She began preaching Oral’s Seed-Faith message to us.  And today she called me, and she said, “Lindsay, I want you to know what I’m doing right now.”  And I said, “Okay.”

She said, “I am putting a check”—and it was a very sizable check—“into an envelope.”  And she said, “I am licking it right now, and I am walking to the mailbox.”

And I said, “Why are you doing that?”  And she said, “I want you to know that I have to sow seed into good ground.”  She said, “God doesn’t need my money.”  And I thought, Well, okay.  He walks on streets of gold, walls made out of jasper, gates made out of pearl.  I bet He doesn’t need our money.

But she said, “I have a need to sow it.”  She said, “There’s areas in my life where my needs are not being met, and I believe Malachi, that God will open me the windows of heaven, pour out a blessing where there’s not room enough to receive it, and rebuke the devourer for our sake.”

And I said, “Have you been listening to me on Make Your Day Count?”  She said, no, actually she works during that time.  And I said, “I want you to go on-line, and I want you to listen to what I have to say today because that is exactly what I have my Bible open to is the book of Malachi.”

And I want to show you something.  Malachi 3:10 and 11, and I know I’ve kind of been on this scripture a lot.  But, you know, until we get the revelation of it, let’s stick with something until it gets in us.

It says, “Bring tithe and offering into the storehouse,” or where you’re being fed spiritually.  If it’s this program, if it’s something where you are being fed, you’re to bring tithe and offering into that storehouse—“that there may be meat,” or resources, “in that storehouse.”

Now this is the only time in the entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation, where this word is going to appear.  And I’m going to read it to you.  It says, “Prove me.”  The only time in the entire Bible, all 66 books of the Bible, where God uses this word and says, “Prove me,” is right there, proving tithe and offering and opening the windows of heaven and rebuking the devourer.  That’s the only place He said, “Put me to the test.”

And it says it’s not like, “I dare you,” but it’s sort of like that in saying, “I want you to test this thing.  I want you to see how it operates.”

What I think God was telling us is that He wants to see in us, in our situation, He wants us to understand the system.  If you want God’s answers, then you’ve got to do it on God’s system.  If you want spiritual answers, miraculous answers, you have to do it in God’s miraculous way.

“Bring all the tithe and offering into the storehouse, that there may be meat,” or resources, “in my house.  And prove me now, says the Lord of hosts, and see”—prove Him now.  That’s a good one—“see if I will not open you the windows of heaven, pour you out a blessing where there’s not room enough to even receive it all, and rebuke the devourer for your sakes.

“He shall not destroy the fruits of your ground.  Your vine shall not cast her fruit before the time in the field, says the Lord of hosts.  And all nations shall call you blessed, and you will be a delightsome land.”

Well, when’s the last time all nations called you blessed and you were a delightsome land?  Okay, when’s the last time the devourer was rebuked for your sake?  If you’re being devoured in some area, there is a tie, like a connector, into God’s system.

If you want God’s answers and you want God’s miracles, what is that connector to rebuking the devourer and getting that answer?  He said, “Bring tithe and offering into the storehouse.”

So I want to read you what’s been happening around here.  Vivian called in—I’ve got such a stack.  I’m sorry, they’re kind of messy—Vivian called in, and she is in Canada.  And she said she has been sowing monthly seeds into Richard and Lindsay’s ministry.

But she said, “I want to report to you that I have received”—and she said the amount.  Her husband came home with a very large raise, as well as a very large Christmas bonus on the way.  She said, “I can only attribute this blessing to being a faithful seed sower into the ministry.”  And she said, “Praise God.”

This lady called in—actually it’s a husband and wife.  And the husband called in.  Bless his little heart.  This was just really precious to me.  And he said he was sowing a $25 seed because his wife has just been diagnosed with cysts on her ovaries.  And he said he is sowing his seed, believing for his precious wife to receive healing.

And like I said, you can’t buy a miracle, but there is some way that it is intricately tied together, that God said in Malachi 3, “Bring the tithe in, and I’ll rebuke the devourer for your sake.”  I’m not sure why He said it that way.  All I know is, He said it, and I’m obligated to believe it and act on it and do what He said.

Now this husband called in and said he really needs encouragement, sent a $50 seed.  This precious mama called in, believing for her daughter and her granddaughter, for her grandchildren to be healed, a $1,000 seed.

North Carolina, a lady called in, a $50 seed.  Lorie in Michigan called in and sowed a $20 seed.  Another Lorie called in from Colorado, “Believing God for wisdom,” sowed a $20 seed.  “Believing for salvation for a nephew,” a lady called in from Ontario and sowed a $25 seed.  A hundred dollar seed—Jane called in, believing God for her husband to know the will of God.

When you sow your seed, God promised He would open the windows of heaven, pour out a blessing, and rebuke the devourer.  That is good news.

This one I have to read, just because it’s from my hometown, Flint, Michigan, a $25 seed.  A woman called in, believing for healing and believing for wisdom.  The husband and wife called in.  And I’m in agreement with that.

In fact, there’s lots of seeds.  But right now in the name of Jesus, Luke 6:38 says, “Give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over shall men give unto your bosom.  For with what measure you give, it shall be given unto you again.”

We pray for supernatural multiplication of seed, in Jesus’ name.  I believe that’s God’s system.  That way I believe the system works, and I really do believe what God says.  He’s obligated to watch over His Word to perform it.  Stay tuned.  We’ve got a message for you, and we’re going to be right back and talk a little bit more.

LR:
And welcome to Make Your Day Count.  I’m Lindsay Roberts, standing here again live in the middle of the Abundant Life Prayer Group right on the campus of Oral Roberts University.

Now in Tulsa, Tulsa time, Central Time, it’s two o’clock in the afternoon.  I don’t know what time it is where you’re watching, but I tell you what, it’s time for a miracle.  And that’s what we’re going to be praying for throughout this program.

Now if you have somebody that does not necessarily get this program in their area, I want you to call them and tell them they can go to orm.cc, orm.cc, or makeyourdaycount.com.  That’s all they have to do on the Internet is go to makeyourdaycount.com.  They can click on this program, and they can get it live and be watching this program live from Tulsa, Oklahoma just like you are right now.

I want to talk a little bit—we’re going to go in just a minute to a living proof of a lady that was healed of cancer, and she’s up in Denver.  But I want to talk first about a lady that has called me.  She wrote me a letter and talked to us, talked to the Abundant Life Prayer Group, and she said she had breast cancer ten years ago and was treated for it.

She discovered another lump, and she is going back to be treated again.  She said there’s swelling in her lymph nodes, and she said, “The worst part of it is the pain that it’s causing.”

You know, Nahum 1:9 says, “This affliction shall not rise up a second time.”  And so not only do we want to pray here, but we want to show you a living proof about a lady that was healed of cancer.  And, you know, the Bible clearly says, “They overcame them by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.”

When you hear testimonies on this program, it’s to spark your faith to believe God for your miracle.  And just like the Abundant Life Prayer Group right here is praying, you can pick up your phone right now.  Dial 918-495-7777.  And this is a group that’s on duty right now right while we’re standing here live from Tulsa.  And they will be praying for your needs to be met according to the Word of God. Or you can write Richard Roberts and Lindsay Roberts, Tulsa, OK, 74102.

This is a lady that I told you about, Elaine in Pennsylvania.  Elaine, in the name of Jesus, we are praying for this cancer to go away and never come back, for lymph nodes, whatever this is, no matter what it is.  In the name of Jesus, the name that’s above name named in heaven and earth, we pray for that thing to dissipate and be no more, in Jesus’ name.

Another lady called in.  This lady’s name is Debbie.  Bless her sweet heart.  She called in and she said she’s praying for her sister who lives in California.  And she needs protection over—Candy is her sister—their home and their business because of the fires in California.

And, again, in the name of Jesus, we speak—the Bible talks about speaking to the winds and the waves.  That’s the weather.  And we pray in the name of Jesus for the weather in California.  We pray for fires to stop in California.  We pray according to the Word and the will of God for those fires to stop and for lives to be saved and property to be saved, in the name of Jesus.  That thing is just raging out of control.

You know, sometimes I know what it feels like to have an enemy raging out of control, and you feel like you’re just getting pelted on every angle.  Well, I think that’s how they must feel in California.  And we pray for them right now, for the enemy of fire to stop, in the name of Jesus.  And we’re in agreement, Debbie, for that to stop.

A precious lady called in and she said she’s in overwhelming depression.  You know, I don’t like the sound of that, and I can’t even begin to tell you how many prayer requests we have for depression.

But I believe according to the Word and the will of God that you shouldn’t be depressed, but in the name of Jesus, no breakdown, but a breakthrough.  And we are praying for you to have a breakthrough.

Depression, stop it, in the name of Jesus.  Stop it, in the name of Jesus.  We rebuke you, depression.  And the word rebuke means, “Stop it, that’s enough!”

And, sweetheart, in the name of Jesus, I am praying for God to lift that depression off of you.  This precious one is from Michigan.  And I am praying for God to heal you.

This lady called in, and she’s sowing a seed.  And she said, “I am really believing for my marriage to be healed.”  Honey, in the name of Jesus, I am agreeing with you—in New Mexico, you know who you are, sweetie—in Jesus’ name, for God to heal your marriage.

This precious one wrote in, and it’s a little bit hard to read because she is from Accra, Ghana, West Africa.  Her name is a little bit difficult to pronounce.  But in the name of Jesus, we are praying for her.  And we are praying for God to touch you, precious one, in Ghana, West Africa.

And I am thanking you right now from the bottom of my heart for your seed.  She sowed a seed, planted into this ministry.  And we pray in the name of Jesus for that seed to be multiplied and your needs to be met according to the will of God.

Now you may be saying, “What does sowing a seed have to do with it?”  In Malachi—we will talk about that in just a minute—-God strategically says how to get our needs met by sowing a seed, in the book of Malachi.

“You mean you buy your miracle?”  No.  That may be how the world interprets it.  But if you look at the way God says in Malachi 3 about sowing seed, it is completely and totally connected to the verse—write down Malachi 3:10 and 11.  It says, “God will rebuke the devourer for your sake,” when you bring tithe and offering into God’s house.

And so we’re going to talk about that and talk about using that seed as a strategic weapon to defeat the devil and rebuke the devourer in your life.  But right now I want you to go to a living proof with me and listen to a precious woman in Denver talking about her miracle.  And while she’s talking, let’s expect a miracle for you too in Jesus’ name.

LP:  Vicki Collins, Denver, CO

BRAD: Vicki Collins was just a little girl growing up in Texas when she first learned about the healing power of Jesus through Oral Roberts.

VC:
My mother used to listen to him on the radio.  And she followed him almost all of her life.  And one time my little brother was sick, and Oral Roberts was praying for the sick and she laid his hand on the radio and my little brother woke up the next day and he was healed.  So we’ve followed Oral Roberts for a very long time.

BRAD:
Vicki now lives in God’s country, Colorado, where she’s a Spanish teacher at a middle school.

VC:
It’s a new show every day.

BRAD:
But last year, Vicki’s school year was interrupted by a sudden illness to her liver, which in turn lowered her blood count.

VC:
They noticed that my platelets were low.  I didn’t even know what platelets were.  You know, I’d heard of them, but I wasn’t really sure.

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:

Anything you ask, God will do it because He honors our faith in Him.  So just have faith and believe 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.

DB:  Well, when, you know, now everything that I do I give glory and honor to God because that’s what I’m here for, you know, to bring other people to the kingdom of God and snatch them out of hell because this is a serious situation that we’re in.  You know, we’re in the last days.  And when I play in a football game, I’m doing it all as heartily as unto the Lord.  And I do my very best every single play and I relieve the results to God.  As long as I do that I know that I have success because I please God.  And that’s the one person that I’m playing before and that’s the most high God.

RR:  Here you are running one of those touchdowns right now onthe screen.  (Applause)

DB:  And so when I get an interception and I’m running back for a touchdown, instead of jumping up in the air and throwing the ball down and I’ve just decided that I bow a knee, that just by maybe my bowing on my knee that someone might see that there is a God in Seattle, Washington, because we know that there is. (Applause)  And so how that effects, you know, my teammates, you know, the guys particularly that knew me before I became a Christian eight years ago, they know without a doubt that there is a difference.  And, you know, there’s a guy who’s a news commentator, a few other guys that are on the team that are still not believers.  But when I see them, they know what I stand for, and I stand for God through Jesus Christ and I stand for His Word.  And because of that stand, I believe that some day, you know, I’m just planting seed or maybe I’m watering the seed, but only God can make it grow.

DB:  Ephesians 2:8,9.

RR:  All right now, when you came to Jesus through this man’s witness, what did it do?  How did it change your life?  How did it effect your fellow players?

DB:  Well, first of all–

RR:  Because you began acting in a way that you weren’t used to acting before.

DB:  First of all, you know, I had a strong wife.  My wife Rhonda who I’ve been married to for ten years now, she was a Christian at the time.  And she was just really a strong witness in front of me.  She always stood by me.  She was my support and really I just feel so fortunate and blessed to have a wife like Rhonda. And once I became a Christian and I started reading the Bible for myself and studying it and allowing God to work through my life just saying, in every situation, you know, I’ve made a choice this day to follow after You, Lord, to be the man of God that You called me to be.  And I don’t know what to do.  You just show me through Your Word and through my spirit, the Holy Spirit that You’ve given me, and show me how I am to live. And each day as I’ve been obedient to the Word of God I’ve been revealed more and more from studying the Word of God, spending time in prayer and fellowship with other believers and witnessing.  This is what I’m doing right now, just telling what God has done in my life. I’ve just grown and grown.  (Applause)

RR:  A question I want to ask is the reaction, the reaction throughout your teammates and throughout the NFL and the fans, because suddenly people began seeing you do things, like, for example, the time that you, that you intercepted a pass, ran for a touchdown, the second largest interception in NFL history, and when you got into the end zone you got down on your knees and thanked the Lord.  I’d like you to, I’d like you to talk about that, how people responded.  And also when they saw you after Seattle came up in the world and you wound up beating the Miami Dolphins in the playoffs, you all were having a prayer meeting back in the dressing room afterwards.  And cameras came in and the news media came in and saw all this.  What was the response of people?

RR:  Did you, was that the time when you really came to know Jesus as your Savior, through his witness?  out there may be.  I didn’t really want to give God my life.  I felt I had to be good in order to give my life to Christ.  And when he explained to me, you know, that God wanted me just as I was, that I could not be good enough for God, I’d never make it because the sacrifice of Jesus Christ who died on the cross for my sins and the sins of the world, just believe in God through Jesus Christ and ask Him to come into my life, to forgive me of my sins and be my Savior and my Lord, that He would.  And it took me about a year later.

RR:  And it took you a while.  You said something a minute ago that I want to ask you because a lot of people have said this to me and I picked up on what you just said.  You said, I didn’t feel like I was good enough to become a Christian.  What did you mean by that?

DB:  Well, what I meant by that is that, you know, oftentimes we think that we have misconceptions about what God’s Word says.  We base most of our information on what the Bible says from what other people tell us and what we hear and what we think God should be.  And oftentimes that’s a misconception.  That’s how the devil uses other people or false prophets, antichrist, to influence our lives.

RR:  You know it’s not true now.

DB:  No, no question about it.  You know, when I found out He died for my sins and it’s by grace that I’m saved through faith, it’s not a gift, it’s a gift of God.  I can’t work my way into heaven.

RR:  Nothing of yourself, but it is a gift of God.

RR:  Now that was a time when Tampa Bay, the Tampa Bay Buchaneers and and they had no tradition.  They didn’t have any tradition of winning or losing, it was a new team.  And so they started their own tradition, which at that time was lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose.  Now here’s a young man who won in high school, he was a star with the University of Michigan, the first round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers, win, win, win, win, win, go to the Super formed Seattle Seahawks, and suddenly it all comes crashing down around you.  What happened to you while you were there?

DB:  Well, no question, it was definitely different and I don’t think it had an effect on my character and I believed I still was a very, very fine, I was the best football player in my position. But again, I realized that it wasn’t just because of my ability I was able to do the things that I was, that I did.  I’d been very fortunate to have not ever missed a game of football in high school and in college, and my first year in professional football I missed one game.  And since that point I’ve only missed, I’ve missed six games.  I broke my leg in 1981.  But there was a guy who was on our football team, because at that point in time every team in the National Football League had put 13 players on a list and I was chosen off that list.  So we had guys from just about all the other 26 teams in the league.  And there was one guy in particular that I watched, because we had a group of guys on the team that they were different.  One guy in particular, he just seemed to have a smile on his face all the time, seemed to have something different.  And I watched him and he received an injury and his career was ended, and just because of his witness when he had the injury and all during the time when he rehabilitate his knee and his career was ended–

RR:  What was his name?

DB:  His name was Kent Hutchison.

RR:  And his witness had an effect upon you?

 DB:  No question about it.

RR:  Dave, I want to give you an opportunity to tell your story, and I guess maybe the best way to do that is for me to just ask you a question.  When you were young did you dream of, everydream that you’d wind up in the National Football League?  would be a professional football player. 

DB:  When I was real young, something like 8 or 10 years old, all the other kids were allowed to play football but my father wouldn’t let me play football.  I wasn’t football, and plus the other thing was that unless I got good grades I couldn’t do anything other than go to school.

RR:  So you had a strong family that believed in your education and wanted you to be healthy and was concerned that you might get injured or something in football.

DB:  That is correct.

RR:  By the time you were 15 things began to change in your life.

DB:  My father felt I was big enough to play, so I was allowed to play.  I had played baseball all the up to that point and basketball.

RR:  Now I know you played through high school and of course you went to the University of Michigan and you were the number one pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Was that in 1976 or 7?  (75) 75.  The number one pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers.  When you got to the Steelers right out of college and wound up, you know,in the Super Bowl.  What did that do to Dave Brown?  All during my first year playing football, bantam league, in high school and college, you know, all we ever did was win.  So I think in college I lost, in high school I lost four games, in college I only lost two games.  So I hadn’t been used to losing at all.

RR:  So you were ready for the tradition of winning with the Pittsburgh Steelers.  the expansion draft in 1976, God moved me from there to Seattle, and we lost 12 games in the first year and only won two.  And God let me know that it was only because of His grace that I was able to be fortunate enough to be playing on one of these teams.