RR: Hello, everybody, and welcome to the campus of Oral Roberts University and the City of Faith Health Care Center and the newly opened first phase of the Healing Outreach Center with the Journey Through the Bible, and welcome to little Jordan Lindsay Roberts. Jordan, can you wave at everybody and blow them a kiss. Blow them a kiss. Blow them a kiss. (Applause) Can you hug your daddy? Oh. We just thought you’d like to see little Jordan. She’s almost 15 months old and we sure do praise God for her. She is a little miracle baby, Lindsay.

LR: She is. She was our little belief that God could really give us a second chance. We had tried and tried and failed and failed by the world’s standards, but God had a miracle for us and this is our little result of never giving up on God because He never gave up on us. This is what we got to show for keeping holding on to our faith. It pays to hold onto your faith because God really blesses you.

RR: Who are you looking at, Jordy?

LR: She likes to sing in your microphone.

RR: What does the cow say? (Moo) Moo. What does the kitty cat say? (Laugh) No, that’s what Billy Joe says. Laugh like Billy Joe Daugherty. (Laugh) What do you say when you go over to the doctor at the City of Faith? (Ah) What? Ah. The doctor says, ah. What does the lion say? (R-r-r) Well, we’re delighted that little Jordan is with us today and as we open this program. What are you going to do with my microphone? You want to sing? I want to sing, want to sing. Well, daddy will sing. Do you want to stay right here while I sing? O.K., well you just stay right here. In a few moments my dad and my mother have a very special announcement for you. God has been dealing with Oral Roberts again and he has a special message for you. So don’t change the channel. Stay right where you are. And, Lindsay, why don’t you and Jordan just stay right here next to me, and I may need help. I don’t know what Jordan is going to do when I sing this song. But I want to sing a song and as I’m singing this song, show you some of the people down at the Healing Outreach Center as they tour the Journey Through the Bible and to remind you the Journey Through the Bible is opened this summer and ready for you. And this is a song that is dedicated to the healing power of prayer. It’s the place for miracles. (Singing “This is the Place”) (Applause) Now here’s a special message just for you. Blow them a kiss. HEALING OUTREACH CENTER SPOT (Applause)

LR:  And don’t ever be ashamed where you’re at.  If you’re on the street today, don’t be ashamed of that.  You’re you.  You’re unique. You are irreplaceable before the eyes of God.  You’re special.  If you are a bartender in a bar listening to my voice right now, you’re irreplaceable to God.  If you’re thinking of taking your life for suicide, don’t do it because there’s not another you.  There’s no business failure, there is no job failure, there is no marriage failure bad enough to take your life because there’s not another you. There’s always more money, there’s always another car, there’s always another job, but there’s not another you.  You are the very best product of you that God has to work with.  Right now I want to pray for you.  I want to pray for you if you want to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.  Maybe you’ve been listening to what we said and you said, “That’s fine, but I don’t know Jesus.”  Do you want to know how simple it is?  All you have to do is confess Him.  All you have to do is say this–I want you to repeat this after me. Father, in the name of Jesus, I confess my sins to You.  I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and my Savior.  I pray You will forgive my past and forgive my sins.  And, Lord, forget them, as Your Word promised.  And in Jesus’ name, make me a new creature.  In Jesus Christ.  All things that are old are behind me, and my past is forgiven and forgotten.  And I am a new creature in Christ, reading to start over.  Thank You, Jesus, for saving me.  Amen and amen.  And I want to pray for you right now, whether your need is physical, spiritual, financial, emotional.  Maybe you have a job that you need and you’re not getting it.  Lord, in the name of Jesus, right now I pray for every need to be met, whether it’s a spiritual need, a physical need, a financial need, an emotional need.  In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, be healed.  In Jesus’ name, be healed from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet and make today the very best today you can make it.  Be your very best.  Do the best you can today and accept yourself as God’s instrument, that He can use you and use you to the fullest, in Jesus’ name.  Amen.  Rhonda, we appreciate you.  We appreciate your witness for Jesus Christ, and may you go on to do whatever God has called you to do, in Jesus’ name. We’ve run out of time right now, but I want you to take these words with you, no matter what the devil throws in your face, no matter what it looks like in your life, I want you to know this, God can take the situation that you’re in right this moment and He can turn it around for your good.  Amen.  (Applause)

ANNOUNCER:  Richard would like you to have a copy of his new personal Bible Commentary, which includes the Four Gospels and the Book of Acts.  In this handsomely bound special edition, Richard shares from his heart on Scriptures concerning salvation, the Holy Spirit, healing and Seed-Faith.  To receive your copy, send your Seed-Faith gift of $25 to Richard Roberts, Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Or call 1-918-495-7777. Call or write today.  I’m Bill Nordstrom, inviting you to join us tomorrow for another exciting program.  And remember, God can turn it around in your life.

 ORUS:  Singing “Turn It Around”  APPLAUSE

LR:  –but while we’re there, while we’re expecting our miracle, be content carrying Jordan for seven months, eight months, nine months. Now let me tell you, after seven months and when you gain 51 pounds, you’re not very content.  You’re big as a barn and you want to say, “I want this over with now.”  I said to Richard one day, I said, “Richard, I want this baby born tonight,” when I was seven months pregnant.  I said, “I can’t get any bigger.  If I get any bigger I will burst.”  And I was so huge.  And Richard said, “You don’t want that baby born tonight.”  I said, “Oh, yes, I do.”  He said, “Oh, no, you don’t.”  He said, “That baby is only seven months along.  If that baby is born now, it’s premature.  Your harvest isn’t complete.  That baby doesn’t have all the parts ready.  If you have that baby now, it’s wrong, it’s not in God’s perfect harvest time.  You want that baby born when that baby is ready to be born, in God’s perfect timetable.”  And I said, “You know, you’re right.”  We try to hurry our harvest along.  We try to be–we’re so discontented during the growing time that we sometimes want our harvest too soon and it’s the wrong harvest.  It’s not ready.  It’s like an apple, you want it red and ripe and if you eat it when it’s green and too soon, it will sour your stomach and make you sick.  You want it when the harvest is right and ripe.  You don’t want it too soon.  Be content where you are during the growing time, knowing, knowing that God has the perfect timetable for that harvest.  Don’t get so down and dwell in that little puddle that you’re never going to get out.  But have an attitude of expectancy–my harvest is coming, my harvest is coming. I’m not going to moan and gripe and complain about where I am because my harvest is coming.  And expect that miracle.  Expect it, and make a statement of faith right now that you’re going to get out of the mess you’re in by faith, by planting your seeds of faith unto God and turning your life over to God and God will work that miracle and that harvest time will come in due season.  (Applause)

CPS:  Well, what made you go back when you would lose and you would lose, see, because there’s a lot of people, and like I’ve said earlier, it’s not–

LR:  You didn’t always win either.

CPS:  No, I lost, year after year after year.  I don’t even tell–one time I entered a pageant.  Usually I tell because I was the first runnerup, then I was second runnerup, then third runnerup, and then, I mean, I was going the wrong way but I was at least in the top five. But one pageant in there I entered that I didn’t even make the top 40 and I don’t even tell that one. It’s too embarrassing even to me. But what kept you going back?

RC:  Learning.  I would learn more about the pageant and learn things to do that were different, but it was–

CPS:  But did you learn about Rhonda?

RC:  Yes, it was a desire inside and how to overcome the other things that would get in my way, like when I first entered the Miss Illinois, allowing Satan to have control of me instead of the Lord.  And just the desire to try again and try one more time.

CPS:  Well, honestly, what taught you more, the years that you lost or the year that you won?

RC:  The years that I lost.  It’s the times when they were down that taught them the most. I really believe that.

CPS:  And that’s hard because we don’t want to hear that, but that’s really the truth.

LR:  Exactly right.

RC:  Sometimes the Lord allows us to get down so low so that we can finally look up.  I was talking to a gentleman on a plane and we were talking and he said, “Well, I pray when I’m down, but it seems like when everything starts going good, I forget to pray.” And he was asking me about that.  I said, “That just takes spiritual growth to learn that when things are going good to praise Him for it and to keep the vibrance and the life in you glowing and to keep working on that.”

CPS:  And that doesn’t mean that the Lord wants us to lose.  It means that when we are losing, He wants us to learn.

 LR:  See, I believe that.  I believe that we need to be content in the situation where we’re at.  Not the fact that we need to stay in it–

CPS:  But that while we’re there–

LR:  Amen, that’s right.  And, you know, what if your desire is to become a nun.  If your desire is to become a nun and everyone is saying to you, “You can’t do it because you’ve done this, this and this,” God can cleanse you.  If your desire is to be a mother, praise God for it.  That was my desire.  And, you know, the Lord tried everything to bless me and the devil tried everything to rob me, and I had to make a decision to either quit and give up or try again.  And I had to make that decision.  I had a dream in my heart.  If your dream is to be Miss America, if your dream is to be a nun, if your dream is to be a lawyer, if your dream is to be a doctor, if your dream is to be a priest or a pastor or an evangelist, or if you know God has turned you into a prophet of God, don’t give up your dream in the face of adversity.  The devil isn’t going to make the road to God easy. He’s not that dumb.  One thing about the devil, he’s not dumb. He knows where your weakest points are.  When I saw my precious little son go to be with the Lord after two miscarriages, I finally said, honest, this is the truth, I looked in the face of my husband and I said, “Don’t you ever ask me to get pregnant again.”  Don’t ever do it again.  Now that was the devil talking. That was the “give up and quit” talking.  Had I quit, I would have missed my precious beautiful little Jordan Lindsay.  But the Lord finally gave me a peace and He said, “Now you know better than that.  I told you try again.  I gave you a strength.  I gave you a peace.”  And the Lord gave me the strength to try again when I was pregnant.  The whole time I kept saying, “This is God’s baby, this is God’s miracle, this is my little miracle.” Every time I look at her, I said, “I named you Jordan Lindsay, but your name is miracle,” because she is a miracle.  But it began with my conscious decision to say, “I’ll do it again.  I’ll get up.  I’ll get up from the ashes.  I’ll get up from the”–I was in the heap, I’ll tell you what.  I felt like I was in the floor, I was a failure.  It wasn’t me that caused that baby not to live.  The doctors to this day don’t have an explanation.  I couldn’t, I couldn’t physically say, “I did this wrong, I did that wrong.”  But I felt like a failure.  Even though I had nothing to do with it, I felt like a failure.  But, see, God didn’t make failures.  God doesn’t create, He doesn’t supernaturally give you birth to be a failure.  That’s not His plan and His purpose.  He gives you birth to be a child of God. And He said, “I will put you in high places, not low places,” like Miss National Teenager and Miss America.  He said, “I put you to be the head and not the tail.  That means I made you to be the top and not the bottom.”  If you’re living on the bottom right now, that’s not where God wants you to be.  You have to be content in the fact that God is in control.  But you’ve got to be tenacious in the fact that God has a plan for you to get up and get out of that mess and become what God created you to become. He called us all to be winners. (Applause)  And whether you ever win the crown or not, you’re still a winner.  If you’re the second runnerup or the third runnerup or the fifth runnerup or you never get to the pageant, you’re a winner in God’s eyes.  If you’re doing what God called you to do, you are a winner.  I really believe that.

CPS:  Well, isn’t it, as a teenager, and life in generally really, but as a teenager, the one thing we hate the most is for somebody to tell us what to do.  I mean, it’s like, you want to say this even though sometimes we’re not smart enough and we’re not to that position in our life, but we say, “I’m an adult.”  I may be 15 or 14 or 18 or 19, but you think, “I’m an adult, I can make my own decisions.  Don’t tell me what to do.  Don’t tell me what to do.”  And yet you’re allowing your body and/or the devil or both to tell you what to do.  You’re letting the devil tell you you’ve got to take drugs.  You’re letting him tell you that you have got to drink or you’ve got to party to be accepted, when all you really want is to stand up and say no, I can tell myself what’s right and what is right is to leave all that alone and be who I am.  

RC:  Another thing that teenagers right now have their parent, parents to discipline them and they’re in the age where maybe punishment for being out too late, and so when Jesus Christ, they learn about Jesus Christ, they think of Him as someone out there that’s going to shake His finger.  They don’t realize Jesus is not out there to hurt you. He’s out there to help you.  And like you said, He’s not out there to take everything away from you and send you away and maybe, oh, some people think, He’s going to make me a missionary or something.  He wants to give you the desires, (That’s right.) the desires of your heart.  And like, I would watch that TV and watch like Miss America be crowned and that was just a dream I never imagined that it would happen, and He allowed it to happen to me, to reach out to the other people. And so He’s not out there to shake His finger at you.  He wants to make you the happiest.  Don’t take God’s second best, take His first best.

CPS:  It’s a tool.

LR:  That’s right.  I had a little puppy that had a, we made, we took, you know they call them tube socks, they’re like sweat socks, and we tied a knot in it and the sock was so much bigger than the puppy, we thought he’d never be able to manage it.  But he grabbed that with his little teeth and he wasn’t going to let go.  I’ll tell you, I thought we’d rip the teeth out of his mouth before we’d get the sock out.  He was so strong in his conviction to hold on to what was his, that he wouldn’t turn it loose.  You know, we’ve got to become so strong in our convictions that no matter what the world says, we won’t turn it loose.  When I was 18 years old I was like you, Rhonda, they called me Miss Goody Two Shoes.  They called me every name they could think of, Susie Won’t, you know, all of it, the whole nine yards.  And when Iturned 18 years old, nobody would take me anywhere for my birthday.  I was the kid in school without a date.  Why take her out, she won’t drink, she won’t party, she doesn’t smoke, she doesn’t do drugs.  I was the kind that was no fun, so I didn’t have any dates.  But, you know, that didn’t stop me because I believed that the Lord had something for me.  I didn’t know what, but I didn’t–yes, but I didn’t–do you know what I said?  It was so silly, but it was so real to me.  “Why should I pay good money to get drunk and make a fool of myself, when I can make a fool of myself for nothing?”  I really meant that.  Why should I waste hard-earned money if you’re just going to excuse me–but go throw it up later, you know.  All my friends would drink until they got sick, the people that I knew.  They would drink until they got sick and then they were sick.  I didn’t want to do that.  Look at it in the natural.  If you’re on drugs, are you really happy.  Do you enjoy what you’re doing to yourself?  See, God said our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and if you’re doing something that you don’t even believe in yourself that it’s right, then it’s very simple to stop.  Don’t worry about the peer pressure. I made it without a date in high school.  I lived through it.  I thought it would kill me, but I made it.  You can do it.  You can make it and you can make what I call reverse peer pressure.  You put the pressure on them for being silly enough to do it.  You can say to yourself, self, I’m worth more than this destruction of drugs and alcohol.  I’m worth more than that.  There’s more to life than getting so drunk that I don’t know what I’m doing or getting so high on drugs that I’m out of control of myself.  God created your body and He wants you to take care of it so He can exalt you and He can make you something.  Don’t destroy God’s working tools.  You are God’s tool.  You are God’s instrument. Don’t mess up the instrument.  God loves you and He loves you even if you’re on drugs right now.  But He wants to straighten that mess out so you can become something really wonderful for God. And He will make you happier than you’ve ever been.  He will make you more prosperous than you’ve been.  He’ll put a crown on your head like one you’ve never seen before because you’ve submitted your life to God strength to do it if you believe it. (Applause)  He will give you the strength.  He gave you the strength, Rhonda, and the faith to reverse these.  He put a crown on your head.  (That’s right.)  God will do it.

LR:  Amen.  You know, the world tells us when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you’ve got to give everything up.  That is not the truth.  It’s not.  You don’t have to give up one thing, except the things of the devil.  You don’t have to give up your joy.  You don’t have to give up your finances or your peace or your crown or your glory in Jesus.  You see, the world tells you you’ve got to give something up to get something.  Let me tell you what you do, you give up the destruction of the devil’s territory and what you get in return is God’s glory into your own territory and He can work the miracles in your life.  Cheryl didn’t lose Miss America.  She, you had the boldness.  In fact, the other day when Cheryl was moving we were flipping through some of the things of her Miss America year and we were looking through the scrapbook and you know, the newspapers had the nerve to carry your healing testimony and that didn’t destroy you. You still won.

CPS:  No.  They thought it would hurt me and it helped me.

LR:  They’re going to laugh at you.  They tried to make a mockery out of some silly little girl getting her leg healed with a face full of stitches thinking she could be a Miss America.  And they laughed at you.  And you know what?

CPS:  They printed it headlines, thinking that it would be against me. And the Lord turned it around and made it for me.

LR:  That’s exactly right.

CPS:  Which He’ll do every time in our lives.

LR:  God can turn our tragedies into miracles.  He really can.  I believe that with my whole heart.  (Applause)  But, you know, it begins with us.  It begins with our self-image.  It begins with our–I call it tenacity.  You’ve got to be tenacious against the devil.  I used to–

CPS:  The milkman.

LR:  The milkman said, “Some day you’re going to be Miss America.” But a car accident said, “You will never make it.”  If you believed your circumstances, you would have–well, first of  all, you would have died physically.  You would have died in thenatural.  (That’s right.) But, first of all, God saved your life. If God can spare her very life, He can certainly spare the details around it.  If God can change our lives and keep us whole and safe in the midst of a total disaster, then God can take care of all the little details around it.  I really believe that.

CPS:  And there are a lot of teenagers that are watching, I believe a lot of teenagers are watching today.  A lot of parents have pulled those teenagers down and said, “Sit down and watch Rhonda today,” because I believe in my heart that you have something good to say to them and you go around and you speak and you get to sing and you travel a lot all during your year.  What is it that you say to a teenager above all else?  I mean, you know where teenagers are. You’re right there.  I mean, you may have a crown on your head, but their life between happiness and sadness every day?

RC:  What teenagers are looking for and most of them don’t realize it, is Jesus Christ.  They’re looking for happiness, they’re looking for peace, and that’s in Jesus Christ.  And they get caught up in the drugs.  And, first of all, what I try to tell teenagers is set your values.  Don’t wait around for your friends to decide them for you. Set your values and like she said, whatever your dream is, envision that dream.  You have to expect that dream.  Set your values and then stick with them and with the Lord you can stick to your values.  And if you don’t want to drink, don’t drink.  And people will stand with you. When I made my stand, the Lord gave me other friends, and we stood together.  And then, like she said, you can be the peer pressure for the world and they can look at you and say, “How can she be having so much fun at that party and she’s not drinking?” Because of the Lord, you don’t need that stuff, and that is what I want to tell teenagers, that if they’re looking for happiness, looking for that emptiness that they have, they’re looking for something to fill that emptiness, and it’s Jesus Christ.

I had that when the doctors told me I’d never walk again. Richard Roberts was laying in the hospital. My left leg was completely crushed. There wasn’t anything left in my left leg. And yet I kept thinking to myself, OK, do I accept this? I didn’t have any teaching either. No one taught me that I could believe. No one taught me that I could confess. But I said to my father, I first of all found out what God was like and I found out He wanted me whole.

And then when I found out He wanted me whole, I said, “OK, I’m not going to look at the leg. I’m not going to look at the circumstances. I look to God.” And even my Sunday school teachers and the nurses and the doctors and everybody would come in and say, “Honey, you’ve got to accept that you’re going to be a cripple the rest of your life.” And I would say, “No, because my God is like my father. The Word says my God is like my earthly father.” And Richard Roberts watched my earthly father and he wanted me whole.

And so I thought, all right, if he wants me whole, then God wants me whole. I was a little girl but I believed it and I received it. Just preach it. People need to hear what you have to say. Well, I know it works because I tried it. I was just a little girl but I believed that if God is like my daddy, and He is, my daddy cried tears of compassion. He wanted me whole but he couldn’t make me whole. My daddy could not make me whole, but he could pray.

And he prayed and I believed and I went to God and I looked at Him as my Father. And I said, “Father, You are God. Yes, but You’re my Father and You want me whole. So I ask You to heal me.” I didn’t tell Him how He had to do it. I didn’t tell Him when He had to do it. But I knew that He wanted me whole. So I trusted Him. And every time somebody would tell me, “No, you cannot have this. No, you won’t be whole. No, you’re going to be a cripple. You are going to be a cripple,” I’d say, “I will not receive that. I will not believe that. God is my God. He’s my Father and I receive it.” That was, that was doubt talk that you were hearing.