Oral Roberts Says He Has Raised Dead

Television evangelist Oral Roberts says he has raised people from the dead and that God told him Roberts will return with Jesus to reign over the Earth.

“All of us in the ministry could talk about that--of certain dead ones raised--died right while I was preaching,” Roberts told more than 5,000 people Thursday at the closing of the Charismatic Bible Ministries conference.

“I had to stop and go back in the crowd and raise the dead person so I could go ahead with the service. That did increase my altar call (audience response) that night.”

Roberts also said God told him he would “be coming back,” and he “got this picture that I would be coming to Tulsa.”

“I’m looking to the world to come because I’m not going to stay over there,” Roberts said. “I’m coming back. And I’m going to help bring that world to come with me and put it right on top of this world right here that’s been persecuting me. And I’m going to get my rightful place. I’m going to rule and I’m going to reign. You look at Oral Roberts University, what happens to it when I get back from the other side.”

His comments on the last day of the three-day meeting were broadcast Friday on his son’s television show, “Richard Roberts Live.”

Richard Roberts said on the program that he recalled a tent sermon when he was a child in which his father brought a dead child back to life.

“Right in the middle of my dad’s sermon, a woman came running up to the platform with her baby in her arms screaming, ‘My baby has just died. My baby has just died,’ ” Richard Roberts recalled.

“The child had died during the service. My dad had to stop in the middle of his sermon and lay hands on that child. And that child came back to life again,” he said.

He referred to another instance in which he said his father and another minister brought a dead woman back to life at her house.

“There are probably dozens and dozens and dozens of documented instances of people who have been raised from the dead,” Richard Roberts said.

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

The fund-raising goal was met shortly before the end of March of this year.

Seven years ago, Roberts based a fund-raising campaign on a vision of a 900-foot-tall Jesus.

Richard Roberts acknowledged that his father’s comments Thursday could be controversial. He displayed a newspaper story about his father’s comments.

“The good news is--they’re printing the truth,” Richard Roberts said. “I’m so glad the newspapers are beginning to get the story right. . . . It has stirred up some things in America.”