The Bible and Life

A. A. Allen/Google creative commons

Tuesday, January 13, 2026

You Failed To Pay The Price!

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

YOU FAILED TO PAY THE PRICE

By the fall of 1949, the Allens began to hear stories about miraculous healing meetings that were taking place. The evangelists conducting the meetings weren’t necessarily outstanding preachers. In fact, many preachers were more eloquent in their sermon delivery than these evangelists, but when these healing evangelists prayed for the sick, miracles happened so quickly, no one could count them. The Allens refused to believe half of the stories they were told, but their curiosity was certainly aroused.

One day, a friend gave Allen a copy of the publication The Voice of Healing. After reading it, Allen said, “As I read its pages, I laughed in ridicule. Fanatics, I thought, as I closed the magazine and laid it away in my study.” Some of his church members came from these tent meetings with glowing reports, but Allen discounted them and felt they were drifting into fanaticism!

Personally, I don’t believe that was his true heart in the matter. He might have spoken those words, but I believe he was incredibly stirred inside, because he knew this was his own call being manifested before his very eyes.

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However, it is possible to become so backslidden in one’s calling that the things one once held as precious and attainable are now a distant memory? Not long after this, some minister friends persuaded Allen to go to Dallas and attend an Oral Roberts tent revival. Along the way, he remembered the experience he had with God in his prayer closet many years ago, recalling the thirteen things that stood in his way of walking into the miraculous. Being out of his spiritual office and trying instead to be a pastor had caused him to shelve the vision God had given him.

As he approached Dallas, he became more and more aware that there he would witness the very thing God had called him to do. “But I had never paid the price for God’s miracle-working power in my life,” he added.

He was captivated by the tent meeting and by the power of God being displayed through Roberts, feeling as though he was living in the book of Acts. Miracle after miracle took place as he watched, but it wasn’t fanaticism; it was God’s miracle-working power.

As he sat watching the prayer line, he again heard the voice of God say, “My son, eleven years ago you sought My face.... Eleven years ago I called you into the same ministry.... But you failed to pay the price and to make the consecration. Therefore, you have failed to do this thing which I have called you to do.” With tears streaming down his face, Allen lifted his hands and cried out, “Lord, I’ll do it!”

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GOING, GOING, GONE!

Two Sundays later, he resigned from his pastorate. He would have left the first Sunday after his return, but his wife asked him to wait and make sure he was doing the right thing.

Immediately, pastors from all over the nation called for his services as an evangelist, and in less than a month, a new pastor occupied the pulpit!

The Allens kept the Corpus Christi, Texas, church as their home base and traveled out from there.

They moved all their possessions into a house trailer, and in less than three months after his “breakdown,” A. A. Allen was on the revival trail!

Allen began studying the list of thirteen requirements the Lord had given him eleven years earlier. He couldn’t believe all the time that had been lost. Eleven years! As he studied the list, he noticed that numbers twelve and thirteen had not been accomplished in his life, but that every other item had been marked through. Finally, with great determination, he was able to mark through the last two. After that, noticeable miracles began to take place through his ministry!

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In May of 1950, Allen sent his first report to The Voice of Healing magazine, the result of a great campaign in Oakland, California. Of the meeting, he wrote, “Many say this is the greatest revival in the history of Oakland.... Night after night, the waves of Divine Glory so sweep over the congregation that many testify of being healed while sitting in their seats.”

In 1951, Allen made a great leap. He decided to purchase a tent and advertise himself as a “healing” revivalist. He heard of a tent for sale, equipped with lighting, seats, a platform, and a public address system, all for $8,500!

But he had only $1,500, so he called the minister and made the offer of $1,500 as a down payment. The owner told him that another preacher had just called and offered the full price, but he would pray about the matter and call him the next day.

The next day, when Allen called the man, he wasn’t surprised to learn that the owner had decided to give the tent to him with a $1,500 down payment. The rest was to be paid in $100 payments, as Allen could afford, so the tent was his! On July 4, 1951, the A. A. Allen Revival Tent went up for its first campaign, in Yakima, Washington!

- God’s Generals ( A.A ALLEN )

Roberts Liardon

Google creative commons

Apostolic Church History

Tuesday, January 6, 2026

University Vision

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

A UNIVERSITY VISION

Oral Roberts University/Google creative commons

One night in 1952, Oral Roberts was driving around Tulsa, Oklahoma, and pulled his car up to a piece of property on the corner of 81st Street and South Lewis Avenue. Helping his children out of the car one at a time, Oral stood with them and Evelyn. In wonder, the children looked up at their father. What were they doing standing in front of this empty lot?

Oral said, “Children, we are going to pray. I believe someday the Lord wants a school on this property that will be dedicated to Him.”The family prayed and then drove away, leaving the outcome in the Lord’s hands. It wouldn’t be the last time that the Roberts family would lift this piece of property to the Lord in prayer.

It was the fall of 1961. For nine years, Oral and his family had prayed for the land on the corner of 81st Street and South Lewis Avenue. Oral believed in his spirit that it was the spot God had chosen for the university to stand. Five hundred dollars of seed money was all that Oral had at the time. Often, he would drive out and walk the land, praying in tongues and asking the Lord what to do and who to work with. He could picture tall, graceful buildings filled with students who wanted to bring honor to the Lord and spread His Word.

Oral Roberts University/Google creative commons

However, when Oral’s lawyer, Saul Yager, approached the property owners, they insisted that it was not for sale. They were a rich, oil family who had owned the corner acreage for years, and they wanted to keep it in their holdings. The attempts to purchase the property dragged on for weeks.

Oral continued to pray and wait. One day, while in California, Oral sensed the Lord’s voice say, This is the day. He could see the land in Tulsa in his mind —the buildings that would soon make up the campus, the students eagerly searching for the Lord’s answers to their life quests, the young people sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He called Saul. “Go today and buy that land.” Impatiently, Saul insisted that Oral was wasting his time. But Oral replied, “I’m telling you, Saul, I know today is the day. Buy it today.”

Saul got off the phone and called the owner’s attorney, who, like Saul, was of the Jewish faith. Saul explained Oral’s insistence that today the owner would want to sell the land.

The second attorney contacted the owner, and his response marveled them all. “I woke up this morning and decided that if Mr. Roberts’s lawyer approached me today, I would sell.” The attorneys were amazed at the way God had worked in the situation. Oral was thankful to the Lord, but not surprised by His unfailing faithfulness.

- God’s Generals ( The Healing Evangelists)

Roberts Liardon

Oral Roberts University/Google creative commons

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Open Yourself Up

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

WITH THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT FLOWING THROUGH YOUR LIFE, PEOPLE

WILL WANT WHAT YOU HAVE TO OFFER

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People came to hear me preach as a young man in 1947 in a gospel tent on North Main in Tulsa, Oklahoma, not because I was preaching about a dead God or a dead Bible or a dead, dry religious experience. It was the power of God's Spirit that made them flock to hear me, as a struggling young preacher coming out of these hills of eastern Oklahoma.

And when the Holy Ghost's power comes upon this little hunk of clay, there's a compassion that races through my being like a wind across a prairie and a fire that whips through my soul like a roaring inferno. A tenderness touches my heart like a mother pulling her crying baby to her breast and I want to reach out to the sick, the afflicted, the hurting, the demon possessed. I want to get at the thing that's hurting them, that's tearing them up and destroying them. I want every man, woman, boy and girl to be healed, AND THERE'S NO REST IN MY SPIRIT UNTIL THE HEALING COMES!

And, my brother, my sister, God can put a brand-new fire in YOUR bones, a force in your inner man that will lift you up, that will thrust you into an even greater dimension of fulfilling His mighty calling on your life! Oh, don't be shy or hesitant! Just open yourself up to His Spirit!

Oral Roberts ( unleashing the power of praying in the spirit)

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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Plug In His Power

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

Here is a great article about using God's power in your ministry.

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ITS GOD'S DESIRE FOR YOU TO PLUG IN TO HIS POWER!

Friend, it's the Lord's desire for you to plug in to His unlimited, unending power through praying in the Spirit with the understanding! Or perhaps you've already released your prayer language, but you haven't been fully using this great gift God has given you, and you don't see His power operating in your life.

I'll tell you, what you have available to you through the power of God's Spirit is like having a rare treasure in a locked room. But it's one thing to possess that treasure in a locked room, and it's another thing to FLING OPEN THE DOOR AND BRING THAT TREASURE FORTH!

This Christian life is designed to be a thrilling experience of power, with the Holy Spirit flowing through us as believers to perform the mighty works of Jesus. But yet in so many cases we Christians are filled with timidity, and this is a terrible, tragic thing. Terror strikes our hearts when we have the opportunity to witness for our Savior and we are intimidated when we try to believe for the healing of our bodies!

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But with Holy Ghost power surging through our beings, a great fearlessness takes possession of us! We feel like we could lick a den of hungry lions! And, like those early Christians, we can proclaim the Word of God with boldness and not be intimidated in giving our testimony for the Lord. We will stop worrying about being eloquent. Besides, people are not looking for some kind of high-sounding orator. They're looking for someone who has something real in his or her heart!

THAT'S WHAT THIS WORLD IS DYING FOR, SOMEBODY WHO REALLY KNOWS JESUS!

I'll tell you, the power of God's Spirit will put within you a brand-new enthusiasm as a child of the Most High God! It will set your soul on fire until you can't stand still! It will flood your heart with the joy bells of Heaven and fill you with His glory until your cup overflows! Then you'll just have to tell somebody about Jesus! And the Lord will send you into your world ON FIRE to win lost souls to His Son Jesus

Christ!

Unleashing the power of praying in the Spirit.

By Oral Roberts.

William James Roop

Wednesday, June 26, 2024

Oral Roberts

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

Here is an article from the book God's Generals that I wanted to share.

In August 1936, the East Oklahoma Pentecostal camp meetings were being held in Sulphur, Oklahoma. Oral was to be licensed as a minister in the Pentecostal Holiness church at one of the last meetings. When he arrived, though, his mind was set on far more than that ordination. He was determined he would not leave those campgrounds without personally experiencing the fire of Pentecost. Oral began to seek God with all his heart for the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

During one of the evening meetings at the Sulphur, Oklahoma, camp meeting, Oral Roberts cried out to God in prayer, feeling as though he could no longer wait for God’s Spirit to fill him. As the time of evening worship and praise began, Oral opened his mouth to sing and was baptized in the Holy Spirit. He began to speak with other tongues, as the disciples had at Pentecost in the book of Acts. (See Acts 2:4.) He had received God’s anointing to preach earlier in his ministry, but now he was empowered by the Holy Spirit as in the days of Pentecost!