From the archives of Evelyn Roberts
When Oral first began preaching the message of God’s goodness years ago, we thought everyone would be happy about it. But everyone wasn’t. In those days, it was hard to convince people that God is a good God who still wants to heal and perform miracles.
At that time, I didn’t remember ever seeing a miracle in church…except one. I was about eight years old and we went to a healing evangelist’s meeting. A woman who was near death with tuberculosis was brought in on a cot. She was healed that night and she walked all over the place, rejoicing and praising God! I said to myself, “Now I know that miracles are from God.” And I cried on the way home, saying, “O God, thank You for miracles!”
Because of that, I knew miracles were real, but up to that point we had not seen any in our church. Actually, we’d not seen them in most churches because people were not ministering as Jesus did, which was teaching, preaching, and healing. But once Oral began following Jesus’ example, we started seeing wonderful miracles.
One time Oral was conducting a tent crusade in Durham, North Carolina. He prayed for an elderly lady who walked with a cane, and as she started to limp away, leaning heavily on her cane, he said, “Sister, you can walk without that cane!” The woman turned and looked at him. “I can?” she asked. “Yes, you can,” he said. Faith rose up in her spirit and the woman threw down her cane and marched around the building! The audience erupted in praises to God. After the service, we saw crutches and canes all over the tent that had been flung down by those who had been healed. People found out that night that God is a good God and miracles are real! (See Acts 10:38.)
