ALL ABOUT ORAL ROBERTS, THE PREACHER WHO COLLAPSED AND NEARLY DIED, BUT WAS MIRACULOUS HEALED

  Oral Roberts was one of the most prominent religious figures in the twentieth century. He was best known for his healing ministry. He was born in 1918 in Oklahoma to Ellis and Claudius Roberts who were both evangelists in the Pentecostal Holiness Church. With his father struggling to earn a living, Oral Roberts experienced poverty and difficulty from an early age.

At the age of 16, he was struck with tuberculosis. During a basketball, he collapsed and nearly died. He remained on deathbed for several months before his family took him to a tent meeting near Ada in Oklahoma in 1935 and he was miraculously healed. Shortly after his healing, he joined his father in evangelistic meetings around Oklahoma. He received his license as a Pentecostal Holiness minister at the age of eighteen and then started his own ministry. During his first three years as an evangelist, he reported over 400 people saved, 125 sanctified and ninety-eight received the baptism in the Holy Ghost.

Oral Roberts got married on 25, December, 1938 to Evely Roberts. They had four children together. In 1946, he moved his family to Tulsa and began to hold crusades across the US. From 1947 to 1962, his large scale tent crusades changed the religious landscape of American evangelism. His name became synonymous with healing. Across the United States, millions of people came to his large tent crusades to hear his dynamic preaching and to witness first hand the power of God as he prayed with people.

Millions of people came to Christ and were healed in his ministry. With the success of his crusades, Oral Roberts went on television in 1955 where he broadcast his healing ministry to millions in prime-time television. After over a decade of healing crusades, Oral Roberts began to build a university. The Oral Roberts University was officially dedicated in 1967 with evangelist Billy Graham as the keynote speaker. Oral Roberts University drew students from a variety of theological backgrounds, all unified by a belief in the Holy Spirit and healing. 

By the 1970s, Oral Roberts University became one of the few places where racial integration was intentional. He spent his whole ministry integrating his meetings, believing that people were just people, no matter their skin color. Today, Oral Roberts University has won numerous awards for student engagement, teaching and technology innovation in Higher Education. Oral Roberts died on 15, December, 2009 at the age of 91.