LATE FORTIES TO LATE FIFTIES FAITH HEALERS:
WERE THEY SENT BY GOD?
Clip from Time Magazine’s archive (time.com) an
old news article regarding Oral Roberts.
Dated originally July 11, 1955!
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Religion: Deadline from God
Almighty God, says a handsome, snappily dressed Oklahoman, has personally asked him, in audible tones, to win a million souls by July 1, 1956. This theophanous request—especially with a deadline—might give pause to many a lesser man, but it is made to order for the special talents of the Rev. Oral Roberts, 37-year-old evangelist and faith healer and the U.S.’s newest religious comet.
Almost 2,000,000 people in the U.S. and South Africa have already heard Roberts’ orotund voice, been exposed to his high-pressure evangelism. He has conducted 20 successful crusades, set up regular programs on 223 radio and 98 TV stations throughout the U.S., gone into the publishing business with books, tracts and two magazines (total circ. 5,000,000). But his most valuable asset is his “healing” right arm, through which, he says, the power of God flows like a current of electricity.
On the Floor. “Getting saved made many great changes for me,” wrote Roberts in his autobiography (100,000 copies sold, at $1.50 each). This is probably the only understatement of which he has ever been guilty. The son of a struggling revivalist preacher in Ada, Okla., he was, at the age of 16, at “the end of the way,” afflicted with tuberculosis and stuttering. Despairing of his life, his family took him to a revivalist healer. On the way, God spoke to him for the first time in an audible voice. Said He: “Son, I am going to heal you, and you are to take My healing power to your generation.”
Roberts got well, became a preacher of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, traveled all over the U.S. For twelve years, he says, God did not give him the promised healing powers. One day he locked himself in his church study in Enid, Okla. and addressed himself to God: “I am going to find You. I will lie down on this floor before You and start praying. I will never rise until You speak to me.” After several hours, he recounts, God ordered him to get up (“He spoke like a military commander”), get in his car, drive one block and turn right. As he started the right turn God gave him the healing power. Oral drove to the parsonage, ran into the house and shouted to his wife: “Evelyn, cook me a meal; the Lord has spoken to me!”
On the Road. Roberts promptly moved to Tulsa and set up headquarters. From then on, he says, “the thing mushroomed.” Today, in a modern, air-conditioned building in Tulsa, an office staff of 155 keeps tab on Roberts’ highly organized Healing Waters Inc., using row upon row of files and machines to sort and answer thousands of letters that pour in daily, handling magazine, tract and book distribution and keeping books on the evangelist’s thriving financial affairs. On the road, another staff of twelve rolls across country in eight stainless-steel truck trailers. Their cargo: a 200-by-360-ft. tent that Roberts claims is the largest evangelistic tent in the world, an aluminum preaching platform that can hold 60 people, a 60,000-watt lighting and public-address system and sundry other equipment worth $240,000.
Roberts begins his revival meetings by warming up the audience with a session of lively hymn singing, then launches into a hellfire sermon, storming up and down the platform with microphone in hand. When he finally asks the unsaved to come forward, hundreds troop down the aisles past the shiny aluminum tent-poles. During the service Roberts also asks for contributions, which may average $2,000 for an audience of 10,000.
On the Offense. The laying on of hands is the climax. The halt, the lame and the blind file up, or are pushed or carried, before Roberts one by one. He prays for each one, sometimes seizing a head and wriggling it vigorously or pumping an arthritic arm up and down. “I ask the Lord to deliver our sister here from sugar in her blood,” he cries. “Heavenly Lord, take the head noises away from this woman.” Last week outside Harrisburg, Pa., an emaciated youth afflicted by polio and epilepsy rose unsteadily from his pallet after Roberts touched him on the first night of a 10-day crusade. “Oh, Jesus,” moaned the crowd. “There he goes.”
Thousands claim to have been cured through Roberts of everything from tuberculosis to menopause troubles, but most return home with the same ailments with which they came. Roberts’ critics have accused him of shrewdly selecting hysterics and effecting only temporary relief. Earlier this year in Phoenix, Ariz., a group of ministers offered, while Roberts was in town, to pay $1,000 for any proof of divine healing, got no comers. Of such doubters, Roberts says: “I’ll leave them to their theology. I’m out to save souls. I have more friends among doctors than among ministers.”
END OF TIME’S ARTICLE CLIP.
Late 40’ties to late 50’ties:
It Seems Like America Was Flushed Over With Healers.
Were They Sent by God?
JAN LILLEBY
I HAVE WRITTEN articles, even books, on the so-called ‘Faith healers’ from this time period.
Sifting through the ministries of T.L. Osborn, William Branham, Oral Roberts, A.A. Allen, Kenneth Hagin Sr., Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, and others.
I thought it useful just to let you have the opportunity to read this short article clip, which was published by Times Magazine in 1955.
They all have in common that they believe that Jesus Christ chose them and called them in particular to go and heal the sick. As well as preaching the Gospel. They all, eventually, managed to get on the TV-Screens of their time. Oral Roberts’ lied as he told the world what God had said to him in audible voice: “Son, I am going to heal you and you are to take My healing power to your Generation”. Referring to Roberts’ tuberculosis and his stuttering infirmities.
They all displayed a doctrine of faith which by no means conforms to the Bible’s statements.
For instance, we cannot ever find any apostle in the Bible, who was called and ordered specifically to go healing the sick!
Healing the sick is NOT a Biblical ministry.
However, the apostles of Christ were told to go preach the Gospel, and God should let His miraculous power follow them, such as signs through healing of the sick, casting out of demons, speaking in tongues. The Acts history is full of such signs following the ministries of the apostles. Not one among the apostles was ‘spoken to by God’ the Father, that He would heal anyone of them. It was Jesus Who spoke to them, whatever the topic. The only exception was when God told Peter, James and John to listen to Jesus, at the revelation on Mt. Tabor (Mat. 17:5). Oral Robert’s lie about God speaking to him audibly is way out of line of anything found in NT.
The mentioned faith-healers of the late forties and fifties in USA, all had/have a major false conception as to how we are to interpret the Bible. Do we find anyone in the NT who…upon their own free will and choice, just got going and went out to preach the Gospel? No, we only find the limited number of 12, plus that 1 apostle added to these: Paul (Acts 9). There were not hundreds of apostles roaming around and emptying the eventual overfilled hospitals of sick patients!
Looking more closely on what exactly the young Oral Roberts claimed in 1955, before the journalist from Times, we find that his ideas was total ‘bananas’ – that God Almighty had laid upon Roberts to ….quote, …save 1 million people before July 1, 1956…
None of the apostles were ever told to go and save millions…within one year. Such a claim from Oral Roberts seems entirely silly.
Oral Roberts, in other words, LIED regarding God having spoken to him by audible voice. Cause God has not called anyone in particular since He called Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. God did not send APOSTLES to us Gentiles, - He just sent us AN APOSTLE…one man only, namely Paul as we all know. No lying self-ordained TV-Healer or ‘prophet’ can just pop up and take over the stage. We were – in the eyes of Christ – granted ONE apostle, and that’s it. Today Paul’s Gospel is found almost everywhere you arrive. In any nation, with just a few exceptions.
After Paul died around 67 CE executed under Nero’s rule in Rome, there has not been sent any new apostle to the Gentiles. Paul left us his two Church-epistles to which we are to lean on regarding Faith Doctrine for all Christ believers from that time on. This is non-negotiable truth.
When these preposterous lying lovers of filthy lucre, self-ordained ‘evangelists/teachers/apostles/TV-Healers’, and what not, stood forth in public, we easily exposed them all as frauds. Their lifestyle gives them away! And their confusing ‘Bible doctrine’ attesting to us what sort of lies they all propagate.
One more – in my eyes ridiculous – ‘feature’ following these charlatans is that they all became rich and wealthy, beyond measure. They enrichened themselves by taking funds meant for evangelization and mission, and built themselves these huge mansions, plus big business high rises (take a look at ORU organization’s magnificent center here), City of Faith Hospital, a multi-million dollar enterprise so they could brag and be prideful. But that ‘City of Fait Hospital’ was forced to shut down in 1989 due to lack of money, since there was a latent ‘lack of patients’. It is about money-money-money…in the rich man’s world…quoting a known Abba-song!
They all are entirely different from any of Christ’s elect apostles.
They appear to me as such ones who, in lack of Bible understanding, and filled with greed, go on and disgracing the name of Jesus Christ. They have made merchandise of the Gospel and its believers. Grab their wallets, the faster the better!
It is said that …when the Gospel reached Europe it was turned into a religion; but when coming to America it was turned into a business!
This saying is very true.
Oral Roberts became known (or infamous) for his book on “Seed Faith” – you know, if you give money to his ministry then God shall multiply the amount you gave, and give you more back than what you invested. What a cynical lie!
This derives from an utter false Bible interpretation of what Jesus told in one of His parables. It has nothing to do with the Church dispensation, but He spoke of the future coming Kingdom of God on earth, the millennial rule of Christ (Rev. 20:4). At His Second Advent those who had given money to the apostolic ministry would be paid back with high interest rates, more like the stock-markets. We learn that Barnabas, Paul’s companion on his first mission tour in the Empire, he had sold his property and given all the money to the apostolic ‘bank’ under Peters super-vision (Acts 4:32-37). The ignorant and unlearned ‘Faith healers’ of our time does not have any serious knowledge in the Bible, especially the New Testament. They are in great error when they constantly are using the four Gospel’s – like for instance the parables of Jesus, as basis for their beliefs. It has to go wrong.
All signs, miracles, healings, etcetera, ENDED in the first century. These signs followed ONLY the thirteen apostles whom Christ had elected.
These signs were not ever given to others that to Israel’s believers, represented by the apostles (1 Cor. 14:21, 22). Paul wrote of tongues as a sign for Israel. However, Christ had mentioned several other signs which of course are included in this: Healing of the sick, casting out of demons, and more. Let me also mention protection from snakes, and from getting poisoned. Only the apostles had this power given to them (Mark 16).
Oral Roberts and all his fellow believers and followers, then and to this very day (2024) – are totally mistaken.
His son, Richard Roberts, is unfortunately carrying his father’s misconception of the Gospel, in that he promises healings and the lot. IMAGE: Young Brown, Jack Moore, William Branham, Oral Roberts and Gordon Lindsay – from 1948.
We are not to ‘follow our fathers’ – we are to follow Paul and the Doctrine of Faith he established for the Church dispensation!
Paul’s two ONLY epistles to the Church dispensation, Ephesians and Colossians, has not the least clue to any promises of miracles, healings, tongues, prophesying, casting out of demons, Seed-Faith-Giving, water baptism, confession of sins, Holy communion, - you name it. No signs, - and neither are there any ordinances or holy feast days or Sabbath (Col. 2:13-17). Also, Paul kept out even the Parousia –Greek for the Second Advent, as well as anything connected to end times on earth, such as the Anti-Christ and the Great Tribulation, not to mention the so-called Rapture theology. In Paul’s Church epistles we find zero of these things. It’s a ‘No go’.
Have a dose of Paul’s recipe for a balanced life as we are waiting for the ‘day of redemption’ –
Col. 3:1-4, NASB,
“1 Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.
6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience,
7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.
8 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.
9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices,”
Gracepano.com
