I Praise God by Richard Roberts
SPKM STEVE VICKERS It’s a joy to be here.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS SU04 It’s a joy for us to get to meet you personally and for you to share this story. It began, Denise, with you when the doctors told you that you had rheumatoid arthritis and it looked like you might very well end up in a wheelchair the rest of your life. Can you just share the story.
SPKM DENISE VICKERS I’d be glad to. I tell you, I’m going to pay the devil back for the rest of my life for what he did to me for 2| years. I’ll tell you what happened. In the middle of the night my body was electrified with rheumatoid arthritis. I was put in the hospital and they diagnosed it and I was healed…. God healed me after two months but then I let the medical field, which I praise God for the medical field, but I let men’s words convince me I was in remission because of being pregnant. They said rheumatoid arthritis goes into remission while you’re pregnant and I let those words take root in me. Then as soon as I gave birth, while I was in the hospital it came back on my body because I allowed those words…. see, the power of men’s words…. to take root.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Did you give up your faith at that point?
SPKM DENISE VICKERS I kept telling myself, “No, God healed me,”
but I let those words take root without realizing what I was doing because when I gave birth to my baby, when I was in the hospital the first thought I had was: How soon will it come back? And while I was in the hospital, it came back on me. And I went home and I was standing in the shower and I cried out to God because my body was hurting. I had pain in every joint in my body. There wasn’t a joint that wasn’t affected and I was standing in the shower and I screamed out, “God, heal me.” And when I did, Richard, it was like God slapped those words back in my face and he said: I did heal you. And I got out of the shower and I turned to Steve and I said, “Steve, how can you be healed and still be in pain?” And I went down a road, I went to hell and back for 2| years in severe pain, and I was on medication morning and night to keep my body walking. I tried to miss my medication one time and I had to go get shots in my hips to release my hip joints. And I mean, even though I knew what the Word of God says…. my husband is a pastor that preaches the Word of God, preaches healing, and yet the devil would torment my mind and say: Where is your God? Where is that healer?
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS What was happening in your mind while all this was going on?
SPKM STEVE VICKERS SU05 Well, you know, Richard, at night I would lay beside her in the bed and she would be crying. She would be saying, “Pray for me, Steve. I’m hurting.” And as soon as I would touch her she’d say, “Don’t touch me,” cause she hurt all over her body. I would start to pray for her but, Richard, it was like there were ten thousand demons around me saying: And you call yourself a man of God. Where is your God? Where is this Jesus you preach about? Where are the signs and wonders and miracles? You preach about them and you see them happening in other people’s lives, but you can’t even produce it in your own wife’s life. And he was trying to steal from me that boldness to stand firm on what I knew to be the truth.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Now you had already joined the Charismatic Bible Ministries Fellowship at that time, you had attended several of the conferences…..
SPKM STEVE VICKERS Every one of them.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS …. and you were making plans to attend another one.