And as I looked at that, “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed,?  this was the smallest seed in Israel.  If you have faith that’s so small that you feel like you just have a little bit of faith – you have a lot of unbelief, but you have a little faith – if you have faith in the way that seed works, God has put life in a seed.  Everything in the world is from a seed.  I’m the seed of my parents.  My shoes are the seed of the hide of animals.  Every food that you eat is a seed from something planted.  You name it, and it’s a seed.

And Jesus is called the seed of David.  He’s called the seed of Abraham.  And what He was saying to me, He said when you start to give, it’s got to be a faith (can’t understand word) gift.   It can’t be just out of duty, which is the way I’d been taught. And one of the reasons that we preachers did that, we had the responsibility of the finances of the church, and if the people didn’t give, we couldn’t operate the church.  So we put our emphasis on the people giving.  But we never thought about that being a seed that God would multiply.

When you plant a seed, its very nature is to change and then to start growing new life.  So He showed me this:  When you give, take the gift, what ever the gift is – if it’s money, or if it’s time that you sow, or if it’s your talents that you sow – wrap your faith around that seed, around that gift, and don’t think of it as a duty, think of it as a seed.  Because a seed is going to go into action.  It’s not only going to help the cause you’re giving to, it’s going to be multiplied back to you.

He took me to Galatians 6:7.  “Do not be deceived.  God is not mocked.  Whatsoever a man soweth, that – that which he sows – that he shall also reap,? He shall also multiply.  “And be not weary in sowing.  For in due season, you will reap.”

There’s a season to sow, and there’s a season to reap.  I knew that.  We sowed our corn, sowed our cotton, and then 2 or 3 months later, we’d go out and reap the corn, reap the cotton. Shall I tell about the Oregon scene?  Have I got time for that?

I read that.  I read it in the pulpit.  I did that faithfully.  But the main thing that I did as a young pastor was to be concerned about whether the church would exist unless the people were tithers.  And my emphasis was on bring your tithes. And when I read the part about God will open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing where there’s not room enough to receive it, I knew I had never had that experience.  I never had more than I could receive.

Because that didn’t register with me.  It didn’t register with my denomination.  The whole emphasis was upon the tithe, that bring it to God’s house, that there be meat in God’s house.

Well, many people increased their giving, and soon there was three times coming into the church as when I arrived.  But they kept my salary at the same – $55 a week.  And we didn’t have a place of our own to live.

I never dreamed about seed-faith.  Never heard about it. Never read about it.  I never conceived that in the New Testament the thrust of the spirit of tithing becomes the seed that you sow. And that faith is wrapped around the seed that you sow.  And that faith takes on the nature of the seed that you plant.

I’d been raised on a farm until I was 14, and I’d helped my dad plant corn and cotton and things like that.  So I understood, in the natural, sowing and reaping.  But I’d never had any idea to connect it with the work of God and with our personal lives.  I didn’t know about God being my Source.  I trusted God the best way I knew how, and our favorite saying was, “Put God first in your life.”

But what I came up against was this: a terrible restlessness in my spirit, a dissatisfaction that my Christianity wasn’t working.  That my ministry wasn’t going anywhere.  That the miracles were so few.  I used to pray for God to save at least one soul each Sunday.  And I couldn’t conceive of God saving more than one soul a week, if that many.  And I had no understanding that much of my support would not come from the church.

 If I could look to God and make my tithes as a seed I sowed, and then would expect God to multiply it back to me, then God would supply all my need.  But I didn’t know that.  I wasn’t taught that.

And they came, but the crowd was such that they couldn’t get in until the last day.  And they didn’t get in the building until the service was dismissed and I had prayed for the last person.  And I was on my way out, and I was going down a long hall, and there was an open door and I looked in and there sat a little boy with crutches between his shoulders and arms and with his head in his hands.  And I stopped and went in and I said, “Son, what are you doing in here?”

He said, “I’m waiting for Oral Roberts.”  And I said,  ”Well, son, I’m Oral Roberts.”  He said, “Well, I’m supposed to be healed today.”  (Applause)

“Well,? I said, “Son, this is the last day of the crusade and I’ve prayed for over a thousand people by laying on my hands and I’m worn in my body.  I don’t know how strong my faith is.”  He said, “I don’t know about that, but I’m supposed to be healed today.”

And I realized pretty quickly he wasn’t depending on my faith.  This little boy had the faith.  And I touched him, and went on my way.  And they took Willie home, and when he got home he said, “Dad, take my crutches.  I’m going to walk.  And take this thing off my leg and this big built-up shoe off my foot.”  And Willie Phelps walked across the floor that night.  (Applause)

He said, “Mother, you promised in the morning to get me a new pair of shoes before I go to school.”  And the next morning she did.  And when he went to school, he almost broke up the class.

And the teacher brought him up front and said, “Tell us what’s happened, Willie,? and he told the story.  And she said, “It must have cost you a lot.”  He said, “No, it didn’t cost anything.”

But the Lord brought back to me just seven months ago or eight months ago the Willie Phelps healing.  The following year they brought Willie back because I brought my big tent to Roanoke a year later, and we took his picture and had him to walk on the stage and to talk on the microphone.  And it was a bona fide healing.  His leg was lengthened three inches, and he was just normal-all because he knew he was supposed to be healed that day.

What was it that entered that child’s mind?  What is there about a childlike mind that Jesus tells us if we’re like a child, if we have the mind of a child, if we believe like a child?

I know a man in his 8th marriage, and they’re the happiest couple that you’ll find on this earth, almost.  And they’re both serving God, and they both put their past behind them.  And besides, half of America is divorced.  Are we going to leave them out of the Gospel?  Are we not going to preach to the divorced anymore?  I say, if you don’t want the divorced, send them to me.  Send them to us.  Send them to us because we’ll preach a gospel of good news that you can start again, start again.  …APPLAUSE…

Yeah, I do come to the last part now.  I just looked. It’s 25 past 11, Mr. President Roberts.  Give me the absolute deadline because I’m coming to the main part of my message.  …LAUGHTER…  You wimp!  You wimp!  What?  Ten minutes.  By whose clock?  Oh, my mine.

Okay, quickly listen to this.  ?…and your heart with righteousness and you feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, taking the shield of faith wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.  Put on the helmet of salvation.  Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.  Then praying always, always, always, always…”    I’ve been asked, “Oral Roberts, when do you pray?”    I said, “I’m never not praying.”

You can get an attitude of prayer where you’re praying all the time.  Even when you’re talking to someone else, you can be praying under your breath in the Spirit.  One of the values of praying in tongues, you can pray under your breath and nobody hears a word, but God hears.

“Praying always with prayer and supplication.”  And most of them stop right there, but there’s another piece of the armor.  “In the spirit.”

Turn over to I Corinthians 14.  In the second chapter it says, “When a man prays in tongues, he prays not unto man.”  It’s not a horizontal thing when he prays unto God; it’s a vertical thing.  It’s me up to God.  And when I interpret, it’s God talking back to me.

And Paul said, “If a man speaks in tongues, let a man pray that he will interpret.”  For it says, “If I, if I speak in tongues, my spirit prayeth.”  

Oh, people, this is so serious.  I hope I can get it in the 9 minutes left.  He said, “My spirit prayeth.”  Not my mind, not my native language.

Remember the second chapter of Acts, when the church was born.  “And when the Day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord and in one place.”  And the crowd paid no attention.  And there was a great noise, like a wind, a hurricane.  And the crowd outside paid no attention.  Tongues of fire set on their heads, and they paid no attention.  And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they paid no attention.

Now, you ask me what this has to do with my sermon and with the reviving of the charismatic movement.  We’ve got to face the sexual thing.  And one of the reasons that we formed ICBM was to invite people here who are in trouble. There are people here who have gone wrong sexually, and nobody loves them anymore.  They kick them out.  They won’t listen.  They won’t give them another chance.

Well, we want them to come here.  We want you to feel and receive the power and presence of God so that what you did in your past is now past, and you have a new future, and you begin new.  …APPLAUSE…

I explained that to all the original trustees.  They all bought it except one.  And once we started and we began…and they saw some people present that they knew who were sexually sinful…resigned, because he wanted everybody to be perfect who came here.  Well, that would mean he couldn’t come.  …LAUGHTER…  And he hasn’t been back. And somehow we’ve managed without him.

Look, the Bible tells you you must not be part of the adulterous generation.  So then, when I came to this verse,  ”Girt your loins about with truth,? with integrity, make a commitment…  I’ve not touched any other woman except my wife since the day that I married her.  …APPLAUSE…  Is that worth something to you?

And my wife has not.  And how?  How did we do it?  First of all, we married in the Lord’s will.  You can’t just walk out and say, “I fell in love.  I want to marry her,? or “I want to marry him.”  What does God have to say about it?

We both knew God wanted us to marry.  Well, suppose that you got off on the wrong start.  It’s not over.  I’m telling you if you got off on the wrong start or you got on the wrong path, here at ICBM you can get a new start.  I don’t care if you’ve had 14 divorces.  You can have a new start. I heard the television preachers say God will forgive you for anything, until you commit adultery.  But committing adultery, as bad as it is, is not the blaspheming of the Holy Ghost.  You can get forgiveness, and you can start over.