BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

I’ll never forget my first experience with what I call the Tent Anointing. The year was 1967. I was a 30-year-old freshman at Oral Roberts University, working as a co-pilot flying Brother Roberts to his healing meetings…and I was standing next to him in a room full of the sickest people I’d ever seen. What I was supposed to do to help him that day had initially sounded simple. I was assigned to the invalid tent, where the people were too sick or too weak to manage the crowds in the large tent. My job was to listen to Brother Roberts’ message over the speakers, outline it, and then while we were waiting for him to come, I was to go back over the main message points and prepare the people to have hands laid on them for healing. When he arrived my first night in that job, I finished my remarks and stepped back so he could lay hands on the people and pray. At least, this is what I’d been told would happen. As it turned out, however, Brother Roberts had a different plan. When he walked into the room, he caught me by the shoulder of my coat and said, “You’re going to do the praying and you’re going to lay hands on them.” Looking up at him, I felt all the color drain from my face. What? I thought. I’d never prayed for anyone in this kind of situation! He saw my reaction and laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “If you make a mistake, I’ll be right here. I’ll fix it.” Then he added, “Don’t touch them until you’re ready to release your faith.” Unsure of exactly what that meant, I thought of what I’d been studying about the power and authority of the Name of Jesus. So I decided that would be the moment to release my faith. I would say, “In the Name of Jesus!” then I’d touch them. The first woman I prayed for was lying on a little Army cot. Barely more than skin and bones, she weighed only 75 or 80 pounds and her stomach bulged with a cancerous tumor. She was too weak to even sit up so, when we came over to minister to her, the nurse who had come with her lifted her up onto her side a little. I started to pray for her and say, “In the Name of Jesus,” but before I could finish I heard a roar like the Lion of the tribe of Judah come from behind me. “You foul, unclean spirit, take your hands off of God’s property!” Brother Roberts thundered. With those words, an anointing swept into the room that literally took my breath away. It charged the atmosphere with God’s power and right in front of my eyes that woman blew the tumor that had been growing in her belly out of her mouth and onto the floor. I’ll never forget what the thing looked like. It was about the size of my fist and had tentacles coming out of it. It looked to me like a jellyfish. She jumped up from the cot and started running around the room screaming, “I’m healed! I’m healed!” while her nurse chased right behind her, afraid she was going to die any minute. It was an astounding sight. But I soon realized, it was just the beginning! I saw one miracle after another that day, and many more meeting after meeting, invalid room after invalid room! I remember one young girl about 12 years old they’d brought in a wheelchair, strapped to a board, completely paralyzed. Brother Roberts had preached that evening. “Even if you can’t move anything but your little finger,” he said, “start moving it in the Name of Jesus. Do something you couldn’t do before.” BVOV : 5

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