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About the Book
"Taking God's Power" by Morris Cerullo explores the concept of tapping into God's power to overcome obstacles and fulfill one's purpose. The book offers practical steps and guidance on how to access and unleash the supernatural power of God in everyday life. Through personal anecdotes and biblical teachings, Cerullo inspires readers to walk in faith and experience the transformative power of God in their lives.
Oral Roberts
Granville Oral Roberts was born January 24, 1918 in Pontotoc County, near Ada, in Oklahoma. His parents were deeply religious. His father was a farmer who also preached the gospel and established Pentecostal Holiness churches. His mother regularly prayed for the sick and led people to Christ. While she was still pregnant, Robert's mother committed Oral to God's service. Even though Oral had a very strong stutter his mother would tell him that one day God would heal his tongue and he would speak to multitudes.
The Roberts family was desperately poor. When Roberts was 16 he moved away from home, hoping for a better life. He rejected God and his upbringing. He started living a wild life and his health collapsed. Roberts had contracted tuberculosis. He returned home and eventually dropped to 120 pounds. He was a walking skeleton. God spoke to his older sister, Jewel, and told her that He was going to heal Oral. During this same time Oral turned his heart back to God and gave his life to Christ. A traveling healing evangelist named George Moncey came to Ada and held meetings in a tent. Oral's elder brother was touched when he saw friends of his healed in the meeting. He decided that he should get Oral and bring him to be healed. On the way to the meeting God spoke to Oral and said "Son, I'm going to heal you and you are to take my healing power to your generation. You are to build me a University and build it on My authority and the Holy Spirit." Once at the meeting Oral waited until the very end. He was too sick to get up and receive prayer, and so had to wait for Moncey to come to him. At 11:00 at night his parents lifted him so he could stand. When Moncey prayed for him the power of God hit him and he was instantly healed. Not only that but every bit of his stutter was gone!
After Roberts was healed he began to travel the evangelistic circuit. He met and married Evelyn Lutman, a school teacher from the same Holiness Pentecostal background as Roberts. They had their first child Rebecca and then the entire family began traveling as ministers. In 1942 they left the evangelistic field for a while and Roberts became a pastor. He also returned to college to further his education. While a pastor he prayed for a church member whose foot was crushed. The foot was instantly healed. God continued to speak to Roberts about his call to the multitudes. God called him to an unusual fast. Roberts was to read the four gospels and the book of Acts three times consecutively, while on his knees, for thirty days. God began to reveal Jesus as the healer in a new way. God also began to give Roberts dreams where he would see people's needs as God saw them. God called him to hold a healing meeting in his town. A woman was dramatically healed, several people were saved and Roberts' ministry changed overnight.
Roberts resigned his church in 1947 and began an itinerant ministry. Notable healings began to occur. One man tried to shoot Roberts. God used the story to bring him media attention, which expanded his ministry very quickly. Roberts felt called to purchase a tent and take his evangelistic ministry to larger cities. His first tent held 3,000 but he quickly exchanged it for a tent that held 12,000. In July 1948 The Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association was established. Oral began traveling continuously throughout the United States. Like many of his Pentecostal brethren Roberts held inter-racial meetings. This brought him a lot of negative attention from groups who didn't like his stand. He even received death threats for not holding segregated meetings. In 1956 Roberts was invited to Australia. He held meetings in Sydney and Melbourne. In Melbourne there were outright physical attacks and destructive gangs. He was literally driven out of the city for praying for the sick. Often when people discuss the healing revival of the 1950s Oral Roberts and William Branham are listed as the most widely recognized leaders of the movement. Others came along side and many emulated them, but they were the most widely recognized personalities.
Roberts was a man who understood and used the media for his benefit. Roberts began publishing a magazine almost immediately upon starting his ministry. He grasped the power of radio and television. In 1954 Roberts began filming his crusades. He began playing his sermons on radio and then airing the crusade tapes during evening television prime time. Unfortunately there is some evidence that healing meetings were scripted ahead of time, and not all healings were genuine. People began writing to the Ministry headquarters by the thousands. They were accepting Christ as their savior after seeing a person healed on TV. By 1957 the ministry was receiving 1,000 letters a day and he was getting thousands of phone calls. He established a round the clock prayer team to answer calls and pray for people who contacted the ministry. In 1957 Roberts claimed 1,000,000 salvations. Between 1947 and 1968 Roberts conducted over 300 major Crusades. Money was flowing into the organization at an unprecedented rate.
In the late 1950s the healing movement was waning and ministries were under attack for their lack of financial accountability. Roberts began to move on the vision God gave him to build a University. It was chartered in 1963 and became open to students in 1965. Roberts was having a significant national impact in the late 1950s and early 1960s. For several years his named appeared in the Top 100 list of the nation's most respected people. Although Roberts continued to hold healing meetings his focus shifted to the University and the television programs.
The 1970s and 80s brought many crises to the Roberts family. Their daughter Rebecca and son-in-law Marshall were killed in a plane crash. Their son Ronnie struggled with depression after serving in Vietnam and also declaring himself gay. He grew despondent after losing his job and committed suicide. Richard Roberts got a divorce. After Richard remarried he and his wife lost a new born son within two days. Roberts began teaching a doctrine of "seed faith" where he claimed that if you gave to his ministry then God would pay you back in multiplied ways. The television ministry received heavy criticism for the constant requests for money. The Roberts were living an extravagance lifestyle while many of their supporters were not wealthy. Financial questions were raised in how Roberts used University endowment funds to purchase personal homes and cars.
In 1977 Roberts had a vision to build a hospital where people not only received care but received healing prayer. It was to be called City of Faith. Roberts put his heart and soul into the project, believing that God would build it as He had the University. The hospital struggled along and Roberts called his followers to give to the project, believing he had a vision from God to raise the money. Roberts even claimed twice that if money didn't come in that Jesus would "take him home." The hospital was built, but never succeeded financially, and finally closed in 1989. Financial giving was plummeting for both the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association and Oral Roberts University.
Roberts retired in 1993, at the age of 75. Roberts, with his wife Evelyn, moved to California to live near the coast. Evelyn died in May 2005. Although Roberts influence waned after the problems of the 1970s and 1980s, he was still recognized for his pioneering work on the "sawdust trail", television evangelism, and building a Christian University. He often appeared on religious broadcasting networks as a recognized leader in the healing movement of the last half century. He died December 15, 2009 at the age of 91.
Oral Roberts' legacy is a mixed one. Roberts brought the truth of God's healing to the public in a way that few others accomplished in his lifetime. His financial and personal issues and increasingly extravagant claims eventually brought his ministry into disrepute. The University he established continued to have financial crises under the leadership of his son Richard Roberts. It was only after Richard stepped down in 2009 and new leadership took over the University that it stabilized financially. The University is no longer connected to the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association.
keep him from his knees
My Dear Globdrop, Most regretfully did I receive your last letter. Slumped over at my desk for nearly the entire day, I failed to detect the slightest evidence of rational thought. You coughed and sneezed all over the page and still thought to send it, did you? Next time you desire to unclutter the pockets of your mind, rifle through the lint and half-gnawed bones with one of your peers instead of your superior officer. The only nugget I found (and I admit to having slogged through only half of the small booklet you called a letter) was the bit about your man’s resolves to “give more time to prayer.” I hope, for your sake, that you have not applied standard protocol to such a vile practice. In other pursuits, we consider it sport to let the game run free for a bit. We allow the patients to exercise new levels of self-control, discipline, purity, and the like. The joy they feel when they assume themselves finally free heightens our fun when, to their horror and despair, we recapture them in old habits. And this is not just for entertainment: The last state becomes worse than the first. The merry-go-round of failure weakens their will to fight back, and soon, they won’t attempt to run free even when the door is flung open. Their fresh starts make for more bitter endings. But we do not trifle with prayer, ever . Have you forgotten that one stands on the other side of them, listening ? Keep the Prey from Prayer This ought to be painfully apparent. Would you allow an all-but-conquered army, surrounded and besieged, to send out even one letter pleading for reinforcements? Would you not hunt that messenger down, put arrows in his back, and burn the letter? It is bad enough that our bitter Enemy — I have it on credible report — actually wants  to help them. No, silence toward the Enemy is hell’s only policy. You must silence him as soon as possible. A few pointers. 1. Distract him in his closet. This first step is almost too simple to be devious: show him his surroundings. When he has time to sit and observe — something he otherwise would rarely do — show him everything. The more bothersome, the better. Let him hear that horrid Mr. Snoodle bark at a squirrel down the street. Let him see the mailman walk irreverently across his yard. Let him notice the chipped paint upon the windowsill, the small crack in the ceiling fan, the children’s play toys left disobediently about on the carpet. Once he is divided, end the affair promptly with something he can quickly do — he should clean the dishes or vacuum the carpet. Assure him, of course, that this will only be a temporary detour that will allow for greater focus. Send him away after anything and everything. 2. Remind him of righteous deeds to do. Now, don’t be afraid to use even — and my pen recoils to write it — “righteous distractions.” This, I hope you can finally begin to appreciate, reveals how much we loathe the time he spends upon his knees — that place where all horrid events begin. Get him to say, as one of their generals has said, You wouldn’t believe how many good things keep me from praying — not sin. Sin does not keep me from praying; righteousness keeps me from praying: answering holy emails or just checking out one more piece of relevant news to pray about. . . . It’s not evil that keeps us from praying; it’s good things. So — only in times of deepest desperation, mind you — suggest a million fine deeds he could otherwise be doing: a friend could use an encouraging text message. The elderly man next store could use his driveway shoveled. Perhaps he ought to call and check in with that sister who is struggling. We can destroy those resolves in due time. The act at hand, the speaking directly with the Enemy, stands priority. Without refueling, they can only get only so far. 3. Remind him how little he has prayed. Perhaps you naively assume that this misses the point — why remind a starving man that he has not eaten enough bread? But this squanders an opportunity. If he is set on yelping to the Enemy, prostrating himself on the floor like a spaniel, two courses of action can proceed: either he gets fed and returns to the banquet over and over again — and we lose him  — or we spoil the bread in his mouth by inducing a sense of guilt . Instead of allowing him to begin where he is  — one meal at a time, as it were — suggest all the ways he falls short of where he should be by now . As he finally begins to intercede for his sister, ask, Why have you waited so long?  Should he pray for our humans to follow the Enemy, inquire, Why were you unbothered by their plight till now?  If he begins that wretched way he taught them, “My Father,” let the name turn to guilt before he finishes: Do other sons fail so much at prayer?  Ten minutes of prayer seems like such a weak window for someone who has been a Christian so long. A steady diet of shame turns prayer inward ¬— a gaze into the mirror at imperfections, not a gaze at the Enemy or his alleged perfections. Make prayer a reminder of everything your man is not, rather than a communing with all the Enemy is. Press blame upon him, and he soon may return to his unencumbered, guilt-free starvation. 4. Remind him that he is free  from taking prayer too seriously. Label all prayer habits as legalism. Planning to spend thirty minutes in prayer a day? That is law, not grace. Where — be sure to ask him — does the Bible say he needs  to wake up at 6:30 in the morning? Anyone who tells him he must  spend time communing with the Enemy doesn’t know what freedom  the Enemy affords. Tell them that he is perfectly free  to be prayerless before the Enemy — of course, by this we mean that he is free to stand clueless, weaponless, and defenseless before us. Let him be regular in checking social media, regular in watching his shows, regular in playing Ultimate Frisbee and going to concerts, regular in walking the dog, eating, sleeping, and playing the saxophone — but make the idea that he might be regular in prayer works based . Keep him from prayer, and he shall surely become prey. 5. Remind him of tomorrow. He works hard after all. Working two jobs. Busy with countless Christian activities. What does the Enemy really expect of him? The Enemy’s Son sought to rouse his drowsy disciples to their prayer posts on the night everything changed, but he couldn’t . They were too tired to “watch and pray that they may not enter into temptation.” The spirit may have been willing, but the flesh was weak. We licked our lips as their eyelids drooped. You can always pray tomorrow morning  was our lullaby. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little tapping of the alarm clock, and we shall come upon them like a thief in the night. Lead Them into Temptation The Enemy instructs them to pray that they might not enter into temptation  — I hope you see the seriousness by now. He even commands them to pray daily with the wretched words, “Lead us not into temptation.” Keep them from all of this. Leave them over-busy and exhausted, pushing prayer to the bookends of their days until it is little more than a half-conscious moan or sigh. At all costs, do not let them truly believe that God is and, most of all, that he rewards those who seek him — with himself. Your tried and tempted uncle, Grimgod
