Oral Roberts Claims He Raised People From Dead

Evangelist Oral Roberts says he has raised people from the dead and that he has been told by God that someday he will return with Jesus to reign on Earth--in Tulsa.

“I’ve had to stop a sermon, go back and raise a dead person,” Roberts told more than 5,000 people Thursday night at the closing session of the Charismatic Bible Ministries conference.

“It did improve my altar call (audience response) that night,” Roberts said.

Rev. Jerry Falwell, who took over the PTL ministry from Jim and Tammy Bakker, today questioned the validity of Roberts’ claim.

“As one who has admired Reverend Roberts in the years past, I am sincerely hopeful that this is either a misquote or totally out of context,” Falwell said. “It is too ludicrous to give it any other interpretation.”

Roberts also said he has been told by God that Roberts “will be coming back with my son (Jesus) to reign”--and that he would be returning to Tulsa.

The evangelist said that after God told him that he, too, would return to Earth during the second coming of Christ, Roberts “got this picture that I would be coming to Tulsa.”

“I got a picture in my mind that he’s going to position us to rule and reign,” Roberts said. “Maybe we’ll have more power in the second try. . . . Watch what happens to (Oral Roberts University) when I get back.”

The evangelist said that while he was reading a spy novel in his bedroom in March, 1986, God spoke to him from the doorway about turning the Oral Roberts University medical school around and told him Roberts’ work “on the other side” is more important than the work he is doing on Earth.

He said he asked God how he should raise the money for medical missionary scholarships. He said God told him to ask for “no new money” but tell people already donating to the ministry to look at the way their money was being used in the mission field.

Earlier this year, Roberts drew fire when he made a plea for $8 million for the medical school, saying that God had told him to raise the money by the end of March or he would be “called home.”