First-ever FGBMFI speaker Oral Roberts dies
 By Mike Wiltshire
He was the first speaker in the world at an FGBMFI meeting and a close friend of Demos Shakarian.
Evangelist Oral Roberts, who played a pivotal role in the early days of FGBMFI, died on Tuesday (December 15).
Prominent Christian leaders, including Dr Billy Graham (also 91), Rev Jack Hayford and Pastor Benny Hinn have heaped praise on him, describing Oral as “a man of God” and “a great hero of the faith”.
Oral’s influence upon Demos Shakarian is told in The Happiest People on Earth in Chapter (Clifton’s Cafeteria). Demos helped organize some of the early meetings of Dr Roberts, who also asked Demos over coffee what he would call the Fellowship. When Demos replied: “The Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International,” Oral he stared at Demos across the plastic table top and said: “That’s quite a mouthful.”
But Oral saw the purpose behind the long name, and agreed “to help launch this thing” – and so FGBMFI was born, with Oral as the first speaker (see page 129 of the book).
This week, Dr Billy Graham said in a statement: “Oral Roberts was a man of God, and a great friend in ministry. I loved him as a brother.”
Dr Graham said the two shared many quiet conversations over the years and Roberts spoke at one of his early international conferences on evangelism in the 1960s. The two had spoken just three weeks ago, added Dr Graham, during which time Dr Roberts told him he was near the end of his life’s journey.
“I look forward to the day that I will see Oral and Evelyn Roberts again in heaven – our eternal home,” said Graham, America’s most well-known evangelist.
Dr Roberts passed away Tuesday at a hospital in Newport Beach, Calif., due to complications from pneumonia.
“During his life, Roberts conducted hundreds of healing crusades, founded numerous organizations, wrote more than 130 books, and was among the early televangelists. But perhaps his greatest legacy as a Christian leader is Oral Roberts University, the largest Charismatic Christian university in the world.
Dr Roberts himself made his name as a healing evangelist, claiming to have laid hands on more than two million people for prayer healing. “I don’t heal” he would say, “God does it.”
He received the gift of healing, Dr Roberts said, at the age of 17 after God healed him of tuberculosis. As a teenager, Oral was sickly and feared he would die from tuberculosis, but God reportedly talked to him and said that he would be healed at a tent revival he was en route to.
“Son, I am going to heal you, and you are to take My healing power to your generation,” Dr Roberts said he heard God say. “You are to build Me a university and build it on My authority and the Holy Spirit.”
Dr. Jack Hayford, president of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, in a statement after the evangelist’s death, described Dr Roberts’ teaching and concepts as “foundational to the renewal that swept through the whole church.”
“If God had not, in His sovereign will, raised up the ministry of Oral Roberts, the entire charismatic movement might not have occurred,” he stated. “Oral shook the landscape with the inescapable reality and practicality of Jesus’ whole ministry.”
As with all evangelists, Oral Roberts attracted criticisms, especially from those who did not agreed with his emphasis on “seed faith”. But some credit him as being the “father of the seed-faith movement” – a teaching that is nevertheless now widely emphasized in churches ministries of many kinds today.
He was a joyful brother even to the end, full of faith and trust in Jesus, even though his long life was marked by tragedy. His daughter Rebecca and her husband were killed in an air crash in 1977. Five years later elder son Ronnie died. A grandchild also died. Oral Roberts's beloved wife, Evelyn, died in 2005, and he is survived by a son and a daughter.
Even in the last days of his life, groups of 20 or 30 pastors would go to Oral's home by invitation and he would encourage them preach the full Gospel and to trust God's Word with all their hearts.
“Doc” Roberts funeral service will take place on December 21 at Oral Roberts University.
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., 18/12/2009 |
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