About the Book
"The Two Covenants" by Andrew Murray explores the differences between the Old Covenant of law and the New Covenant of grace. Murray contrasts the legalistic approach of the Old Covenant with the freedom and power found in the New Covenant through faith in Jesus Christ. The book emphasizes the importance of living in the grace of the New Covenant and experiencing the fullness of God's love and blessings.
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.
I Lay My Life in Your Hands
Down through church history, Christians have referred to the seven statements Jesus spoke from the cross as the âlast wordsâ of Christ. According to tradition, the very last of these last words, which Jesus cried out before giving himself over to death, were these: âFather, into your hands I commit my spiritâ (Luke 23:46). It was a powerful, heartbreaking, poetic moment. God prayed to his God by quoting God-breathed Scripture. The Word of God died with the word of God on his lips. And it was a word of poetry, the first half of Psalm 31:5. Most of those gathered on Golgotha that dark afternoon likely knew these words well. They were nearly a lullaby, a prayer Jewish parents taught their children to pray just before giving themselves over to sleep for the night. So, in Jesusâs cry, they likely heard a dying manâs last prayer of committal before his final âfalling asleep.â And, of course, it was that. But thatâs not all it was. And every Jewish religious leader present would have recognized this if he were paying attention. For these men would have known this psalm of David very well. All of it. They would have known this prayer was uttered by a persecuted king of the Jews, pleading with God for rescue from his enemies. They also would have known it as a declaration of faith-fueled confidence that God would, in fact, deliver him. For when Jesus had recited the first half of Psalm 31:5, they would have been able to finish the second half from memory: âYou have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.â What Was Jesus Thinking? The most maddening thing for the Jewish rulers had always been trying to get inside Jesusâs head. What was he thinking? Who was he making himself out to be (John 8:53)? âThe Word of God died with the word of God on his lips.â Well, he had finally confirmed their suspicions at his trial: he believed himself to be Israelâs long-awaited Messiah (Matthew 26:63â64). It was true: he really did see himself as âthe son of Davidâ (Matthew 22:41â45). Now here he was, brutalized beyond recognition, quoting David with his last breath â a quote that, in context, seemed to make no sense in this moment: You are my rock and my fortress; and for your nameâs sake you lead me and guide me; you take me out of the net they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge. Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. (Psalm 31:3â5) What had Jesus been thinking? This should have been a moment of utter despair for him. David had prayed, âLet me never be put to shameâ (Psalm 31:1), but there Jesus was, covered in nothing but shame. David had prayed, âIn your righteousness deliver me!â (Psalm 31:1) But Jesus was dying a brutal death. In what possible way could he have believed at that moment that God was his refuge? David proved to be the Lordâs anointed because God had delivered him âout of the netâ of death. David committed his spirit into Godâs hand, and God had been faithful to him by redeeming him. But this so-called âson of Davidâ received no such deliverance, no such redemption. King Who Became a Reproach Yet, as they looked at that wasted body hanging on the cross, with a sign posted above it that read, âThis is Jesus, the King of the Jewsâ (Matthew 27:37), and pondered his final words, might some of them have perceived possible foreshadows of messianic suffering in this song of David? Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away. Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me. (Psalm 31:9â11) This psalm recorded a moment when David, the most beloved king of the Jews in Israelâs history, had become a reproach. He had been accused, blamed, censured, charged. He had become an âobject of dreadâ to all who knew him; people had wanted nothing to do with him. He had âbeen forgotten like one who is deadâ; he had âbecome like a broken vesselâ (Psalm 31:12). Had this at all been in Jesusâs mind as he uttered his last prayer? David, of course, hadnât died. God delivered him and honored him. Surely he would do the same, and more, for the Messiah! After Death, Life Yet, there were those haunting words of the prophet Isaiah: âWe esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquitiesâ (Isaiah 53:4â5). Pierced. Crushed. Indeed, It was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. (Isaiah 53:10) It would have been unnerving to recall that Isaiahâs âsuffering servantâ is first âslaughteredâ like a sacrificial lamb (Isaiah 53:7) and then afterward âprolong[s] his days.â After death, life. Not only that, but God himself commends and promises to glorify him for his sacrifice: âBehold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exaltedâ (Isaiah 52:13). Had Jesus really believed, even as his life drained away, that he was the King of the Jews bearing reproach, the Suffering Servant? Was this woven into the fabric of his final cry? âMy Times Are in Your Handâ This self-understanding would make sense of Jesusâs physically agonizing yet spiritually peaceful resignation to the will of God as he died. Even more, it also would fit with his previous foretelling of his death and resurrection â something these leaders were quite cognizant of at that moment (Matthew 27:62â64). All this again aligned with the childlike faith and hope David had expressed in Psalm 31: I trust in you, O Lord; I say, âYou are my God.â My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors! Make your face shine on your servant; save me in your steadfast love! Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind! (Psalm 31:14â16, 19) If any of the Jewish leaders (and others) had been paying careful attention to where Jesusâs words were drawn from, they would have heard more than a desperate manâs prayer before falling into deathly sleep. They also would have heard a faithful manâs expression of trust that his God held all his times in his hands, including that most terrible of times, and that his God had stored up abundant goodness for him, despite how circumstances appeared in the moment. Let Your Heart Take Courage I can only speculate what may have passed through the minds of the Jewish leaders as they heard the very last of Jesusâs last words. But I have no doubt that the words, âFather, into your hands I commit my spirit,â were pregnant with meaning from the entire psalm when the Word cried them out. âGod can be acting most faithfully in the very moments when it appears heâs not being faithful at all.â Which makes Jesusâs quotation of half of Psalm 31:5 the most profound and powerful commentary on this psalm ever made. We now read it through the lens of the crucified and risen Christ. And one crucial dimension we must not miss is this: at that moment of his death, no one but Jesus perceived the faithfulness of God at work. He shows us that God can be acting most faithfully in the very moments when it appears heâs not being faithful at all. We all experience such moments when we must, like Jesus, sit in the first half of Psalm 31:5 (âInto your hand I commit my spiritâ). As we sit, we can lean into the faithfulness of God to keep his word, trusting that he who holds all our times will bring to pass the second half of the verse when the time is right (âYou have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful Godâ). We can also, with David, sing the psalm all the way to the end: Love the Lord, all you his saints! The Lord preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride. Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord! (Psalm 31:23â24) Article by Jon Bloom
