Tulsa World: Roberts will begin vigil sunday

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Roberts will begin vigil sunday

By Cathy Milam
Published: 3/21/1987
Last Modified: 3/26/2008 1:56 PM

Evangelist to Ascent Tower and Pray

Evangelist Oral Roberts will go into the 200-foot gold and glass prayer tower on Sunday for what he says is the most important prayer vigil of his life.

The vigil marks the climax in Roberts' most ambitious -- and most controversial -- campaign focused on Roberts since January, when the evangelist/college president told his nationwide television audience the God had given him a mandate to either succeed in creating a worldwide medical missionary program by the end of March or "God will call me home."

Members of the press are expected to converge on Tulsa's Oral Roberts University campus during the prayer vigil. But they are in for a surprise. ORU officials have declared the campus off limits to all press representatives.

Richard Roberts, Oral's son and an evangelist with his own national television show, Friday raged against reports that have characterized his father's trip to the prayer tower as a "death watch" or "countdown to April 1."

"From the beginning, the media have picked up only on one thing, that my dad needed to raise $8 million. They have ignored the larger issues," Richard Roberts said.

Earlier in the week, a ministry spokesman had down-played the prayer vigil, pointing out that Oral has made such a trip to the prayer tower 70 or 80 times in the past. Traditionally, Oral Roberts has announced to his followers his prayer partners -- both through his television program and by letters of an impending vigil, asking that they send in prayer requests.

But Richard Roberts said Friday that this is indeed different.

"This vigil is the most significant trip to the tower to date, since its construction in 1967," said Richard. "This vigil marks a momentous occasion for the entire body of Christ.

"This prayer vigil isn't about money, it's about the rebirth of medical missions throughout the earth. My father will be in the prayer tower really travailing to rebirth what was created by the Apostle Paul and Doctor Luke 2,000 years ago -- the combination of prayer and medicine," he said.

Roberts said the Sunday broadcast of his father's "Expect a Miracle" show was taped in the prayer tower. When it is aired, his father already will be inside his private prayer room, located midway up the tower, holding the letters from thousands of prayer partners who have sent prayer requests for this vigil.

"On that Sunday show, we're asking our partners to set aside one hour during those nine days (March 22-31) to spend in prayer with us," said Richard.

"We're not just asking that they pray that our financial need be met, but that the missionary heart be reborn in the body of Christ - that's the crux of this whole thing.

"Without the rebirth of the missionary heart in the body of Christ, the medical missionary program cannot survive. You have to have the money, yes, but you have to have the spirit also," Richard said.

"I really believe that because ORU medical school is the only Holy Spirit-filled medical school in the entire world, if we don't succeed in the rebirth it may be another 2,000 years without it." he said.

Richard denied rumors that the school already has received the entire $8 million needed to provide scholarships for all the medical students at ORU. "That's just not true. We haven't made it yet. We have about $1 million left to go."

The design for the medical missionary program is that for each year a medical student is given a full scholarship, he or she will serve a year at one of the ministry's clinics in a Third World developing nation after graduation and serving residencies.

Oral Roberts said all prior attempts to get medical school graduates to become medical missionaries were foiled by the fact that upon graduation, the new doctors found their schooling debts too great. Instead of going to underprivileged nations, they set up profit-makeing practices.

The elder Roberts' statements linking a failure to launch the medical missionary program with his death sparked a worldwide furor.

Richard Roberts said his father's life is no the line because he was ordered by God to bring "healing to the people of his generation."

"My father's purpose on this earth, the reason God placed him here and spoke to him, is to bring these medical missions into being. If he doesn't, he will be in disobedience to God, and he will have no further purpose on this earth," Richard said.

Roberts' spokesmen said he has not waivered from his belief that he must fulfill what the evangelist called his "mandate from God."

Roberts stressed that belief when he wrote his partners earlier this month about the proposed vigil. "So with God's leading, on March 22 I am going to make the most important trip I have ever made up into the prayer tower," Roberts wrote in a February letter. "I'm going to be in and out of the prayer tower praying and fasting until victory comes or God calls me home.

"...If I go from there to Jesus I will see you in heaven," he wrote. "But I believe that won't happen, because I believe our God will do this mighty thing and at the end of March, you and I will know the miracle has happened and the gospel will go to the nations."

Richard Roberts said he and his father also are "in agreement that with a victory," with the joint prayers of their followers and the money collected "that God will answer the prayers of the thousands of people who have sent us letters.

"...To become united as the body of Christ, to come into agreement and to win a victory for the medical missionary program would be answered by God's blessing. I truly do believe that," Richard said.

By Cathy Milam

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