Back in the nineteen fifties when I was 17 or 18 and a new Christian I read an autobiography of Oral Roberts. That was back when he was on radio and television and published a magazine regularly. Recently I read the last book he wrote before his death and I’ve been thinking about him and his ministry and that autobiography that I read over half a century ago. A couple of weeks ago at our midweek service, our pastor’s wife read
3 John 2 from her New Living Translation and then we read it from the King James Version and talked about it a little. I related the story I’d read many years ago about the impact that verse had on Oral Roberts’ life and ministry.
At the age of 16 he left home and moved to a different county in Oklahoma where he went to high school, worked and played basketball. One night he.. collapsed on the basketball court with blood pouring from his nose. HIs coach took him back home to his family where he was diagnosed as having tuberculosis in both lungs. He lost about one fourth of his body weight and looked like a 6 foot skeleton. He lost the ability to walk. He spent weeks in bed and although people prayed for him, he grew progressively worse.
An evangelist named George Moncey came to the nearby town of Ada, pitched a tent and began to preach on healing. Oral’s brother Elmer heard the preacher and saw miracles happening. He took his last 35 cents for gas and went to get Oral to bring him to the revival to be healed. Oral wasn’t even able to get out of bed so he helped him get dressed and carried him to the car. They put Oral in the.. back seat and Elmer and his Mom and Dad sat in the front. While they were driving to the town, Oral lay in the back listening to the buzz of the voices from the front seat. Suddenly it became very quiet and he felt like he was alone there in the car. The sound of the voices faded and he heard God speak to him saying, “Son, I am going to heal you and you are to take My healing power to your generation. You are to build Me a university and build it on My authority and the Holy Spirit.”
When they arrived at the meeting they placed.. him in a rocking chair with pillows around him because his body was so sore. The preacher preached that God not only saved but that He also healed and that supernatural gifts of the Spirit were available. After the service, Oral Roberts was healed after suffering from tuberculosis for months. He was also healed of a stuttering condition he had since birth.
12 years later he was pastoring a church in Enid, OK and going to college. Even though he had preached on healing, nobody in that congregation was healed. He felt in his spirit that it was time for a change in his ministry. He began to spend time in fasting and prayer and in the Word. He read the four Gospels and the Book of
Acts 3 times consecutively on his knees to see how Jesus and the early church ministered...
Then, one day, something happened. He tells about it on pages.. 71-73 of “Expect A Miracle” which is his autobiography that was published in 1995. He writes:
Not only was I reading the four Gospels and Acts at special times, but I was also reading other parts of the Bible during my regular morning devotions. One particular morning, I was in a rush, and my Bible fell open to the little book.. of 3 John. When I came to the second verse and read it, my thinking about God’s desires for our lives was changed abruptly and completely.
The words seemed to knock me off my feet. I almost could not believe my eyes when I read: “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”
I read the entire one-chapter book, and as I did, the second verse kept pulling at me. As I read it over and over, it was like dawn breaking.. after a dark night; it was like experiencing the goodness of God being poured out all over me. I was His beloved, and He wanted me to prosper in every area of my life. My soul was set free, and my spirit soared with ecstasy! God had revealed His character, His very nature and, most of all, His greatest desire for our lives to me. That one simple little verse made it all come alive in the flash of a second...
I couldn’t contain myself. I called to Evelyn in the kitchen. When she came in, I handed her my Bible and asked her to read
3 John 2 out loud. As she read, I tingled all over with the presence of God. Her first reaction was the same as almost everyone’s is to this day when I share that Scripture.
“Oral, is this verse in the Bible?’
“Sure it is. You just read it.”
“Did you know it was there before this morning?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Oral, do you mean to say you have read the Bible all these years and the past few months practically day and night, and yet you didn’t know this verse was in the Bible?”
“That’s right. I have read it many times, but I just didn’t see this verse.”
We stood there talking about this wonderful verse for several minutes. I asked Evelyn to read it just one more time. She read, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”
I asked, “Evelyn, can you explain what God means by that verse?”
She said, “Well, I guess it means what it says.”
I sat there examining this verse as if I had it under a microscope. The verse begins with “beloved.” It is a word a man uses for his wife, his mother, his child, or his dear friend. It contains the wish of God. What is that wish? His wish is that we prosper, that we have health even as the soul prospers.
True prosperity begins in the soul and springs out into the physical from there. As the soul is strong and healthy, so God wishes the body to be strong and healthy. As our souls and bodies are strong by God’s power, so He wants us to prosper in our daily lives. That includes financial prosperity but much more: the whole of our lives in Christ.
That was a revelation to my soul.....
...I found that there was a true scriptural basis for believing that God wants man to be happy, healthy, strong, and prosperous. I saw that mankind can be delivered in soul, mind, and body.
Third John 2 became a battering ram that began to tear down the walls for a new theology! It was exactly what I needed to complete my struggle for the power of God. It closed the door to the past and opened another through which I saw the hand of Jesus of Nazareth beckoning me to enter.
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Well, the rest is, as they say, history. His ministry expanded from that little church in Oklahoma to a world.. wide ministry and lasted for another 60 plus years until his death in December, 2009.
The little epistle known as 3 John is located near the back of our Bible grouped with several other small epistles. It has only one chapter made up of 14 verses. It was written by the aged Apostle John near the end of his life to a dear friend named Gaius. It is a personal letter but by its inclusion in the Bible, it has a spiritual message that goes beyond its primary first century application to a spiritual application to each of us who read it in 2010. In His Word, God is saying to each of us, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”
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