‘The Devil Came to My Room Just a Few Nights Ago’ : Money Furor Sent Him to ‘Hell and Back,’ Roberts Says

Evangelist Oral Roberts says he has been “through hell and back” since he said on his television show last month that he would die in March unless followers donate $4.5 million for a medical missionary scholarship program.

“All of sudden, it was like the world went mad,” Roberts said in an appearance on his son’s television program, “Richard Roberts Live.”

“People were making me the worst person who ever lived because I wanted to (give scholarships to) medical school students,” he said. “For a little while, I got so low that if I would have died they would have had to jack me up to bury me.”

But Roberts said on the program this week that he is confident his followers will see him through.

“I’ve been through hell and back,” Roberts said. “But on March 31, I expect to be alive--to live!”

Roberts said he expects the money to be raised to fund the program for Oral Roberts University medical students.

On Jan. 4, Roberts told viewers that God warned him in March, 1986, that Roberts had to raise $8 million for the project “in one year or I will call you home.” About $3.5 million has since been contributed.

The money will allow Oral Roberts University medical students to graduate debt-free and become missionaries in Third World countries, Roberts said.

The furor over the evangelist’s remarks, which he has repeated on other television programs and in letters sent to his “prayer partners,” has prompted some television stations not to run his weekly program.

“If pressure and stress can kill you, they would have killed Oral Roberts,” Roberts said on his son’s show. “If demons and Satan coming against you can destroy you, then they would have destroyed me.

“The devil came to my room just a few nights ago, and I felt those hands on my throat and he was choking the life out of me. I yelled to my wife, ‘Honey, come!’ ”

Roberts said his wife, Evelyn, came to his room.

“She laid her hands on me and rebuked the devil and commanded the devil to get out of my room,” he said. “I began to breathe and came out of my bed strong.”