Hospital Riot in Newark


In 1960 God led me to anoint people with oil during the crusade services. Sometimes I asked them to take their shoes off so I could anoint their feet. Then, I anointed their hands and their head. I would just pour oil on them.

In those days, I gave a bottle of oil to fired-up believers and sent them out with it. "Go out there and find somebody who is sick," I would tell them. "Anoint them with oil so that they may be healed." In reality, oil is a symbol of the Holy Ghost.

Years ago, during a crusade in Newark, I laid hands on a young man. On this particular night, I gave him a bottle of oil and spoke those same words to him. I didn't see him for a few nights. Then, his best buddy came and told me, "He is in jail."

"Why is he in jail?" I demanded. He said, "For listening to you."

Now, if he was in jail because of what I had said, I wanted to go bail him out. But the Lord said, "Leave him alone." That is the trouble with us. We want to mess things up. Just let the Lord have His way.

On the fifth night, the missing man came bouncing into our meeting. I never saw a young man on fire like he was. I prayed, "Lord, if jail will do that for folks, put all these people in jail." He was on fire!

I called him to the front and gave him the microphone. I wanted to hear what he had to say. As it turned out, I didn't get to preach that night.

He told the audience that when I gave him the oil and told him to find someone who was sick, he didn't even go home. He went to the nearest hospital—where the sick were. He didn't have a minister's card. He wasn't ordained. All he had was a bottle of oil and an edict from the preacher saying, "Go find somebody who is sick."

He went to the hospital. It happened to be the largest hospital in the city. Without signing in with the nurse, he headed straight for the elevator. When he reached the fifteenth floor, he got the bottle of oil out and started laying hands on the sick. He told everybody he laid hands on, "Get up and go home. God has healed you." He cleaned out the whole floor. Isn't that wild?

Those hospital patients had better sense than many church folks. They were going to do what the man of God told them to do, "Rise and walk."

After he got rid of the patients on that floor, he went down to the fourteenth floor. He was planning to anoint every patient in that hospital. Can you imagine folks going out the front door in slippers, pajamas and overcoats and the nurses asking what they were doing? "The doctor said we were healed and told us to go home!"

The young man went to the next floor. He walked into a ward of about 180 people. There were five doctors working with a woman who had just passed away. The young man didn't run in. He waited until the doctors left. After the last doctor left, they pulled a sheet over the woman.

He went to her and pulled the sheet back. Everybody in the ward was looking in his direction. As they watched, the young man poured oil on the woman and rebuked death in the name of Jesus. He called her spirit back into her body. Suddenly, the woman sputtered about a half a dozen times, got up and out of the bed. She started shouting and running around the hospital room.

This, of course, isn't my story. I am just telling you what the young man told us. It blew us away. Can you imagine the chaos that broke loose in that ward? When you go in with a bottle of oil and something like this happens, they aren't going to ask you what church you represent or for your credentials. There is a dead woman jumping and screaming.

Every patient on that floor was saying, "Hey! Bring that oil over here. If it will raise that woman from the dead, it will heal me!"

This is the reason I anoint people with oil. I want to stir up that gift in them. When you do what God has called you to do, you will have people crying out for help. There is a world out there waiting for the Church to come alive. Today is the day we can say,"Look out, devil!"

But the young man's story isn't over yet.

The nurses called the police. They arrested the young man. He was charged with disturbing the peace. He was guilty—yes, he was. He was disturbing the devil's peace. Don't you think it is about time the Church disturbs the devil's peace? The devil has been disturbing our peace all along.

The authorities put him in jail and left him there for four days. The judge was aggravated when he saw the paperwork on the case. He said, "Why would this man be kept in so long?" He told them to go and get him out. When they brought him, the judge apologized to him. "Your Honor, don't apologize," the young man said. "Jesus put me there."

The judge was mystified. "I have heard everything blamed on Him, but never this," he replied.

The young man told the judge the story I just told you. He said, "Your Honor, when they arrested me I still had some oil left. I have gone to all the prisoners and anointed them—every one of them. Just five minutes ago the jailer got saved. You got me out just as I finished."

The judge looked over his bench.

"Case dismissed," he said. Then he added, "Son, go get some more oil. God knows the Church isn't doing what He called it to do. Thank God there are young men being raised up to obey God."

I will never forget this story as long as I live. I tell it everywhere. Some folks don't believe it. But I just figure, they don't believe the Bible, why would they believe this?

Now you know why I anoint with oil.

From his book Miracles