Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 18, 1994 TAG: 9403180108
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In a soft voice, at first barely audible above the audience's shouts of "Praise Jesus," "glory" and "hallelujah," evangelist Morris Cerullo said hello.
"I am pleased to greet you tonight in the name that is above every name - Jesus Christ, the son of the living God."
Hands shot heavenward as the cheering, calling and shouting of the name "Jesus" roared out.
"God has already spoken to me about this service for Roanoke. . . . It was not an audible voice, but he spoke into my spirit: `Tonight, son, the very devil himself will tremble at this meeting tonight.' "
Sustained, thunderous applause rattled the chandeliers.
"God said to me, `Son, this building is literally filled with hungry hearts, people that want everything that God has to offer.' "
Cries of "amen" and "hallelujah" again filled the hall.
Indeed, hundreds had jammed into the hotel Wednesday night - overflowing its parking lot with cars - hoping for a miracle. Cerullo, an Assemblies of God minister with a worldwide evangelistic mission, is well-known - if not a household name - from his daily program on religious television. Even ardent local supporters, however, expressed surprise at the strength of the turnout.
Though this meeting hadn't been advertised except on his own TV program and in a brief news item in the Roanoke Times & World-News, it drew far more people than the room could accommodate.
The 800 chairs in the ballroom were filled, and another couple of hundred people lined the walls and aisles. Hundreds more filled the hallways outside the ballroom.
A quarter-hour before the meeting began, hotel employees already had warned some of those connected with the "Healing and Miracle Explosion Rally" that the crowds were exceeding the fire-code limits.
By the time Cerullo came onto the platform, he had been alerted to the overcrowding problems. "If you want to sneak in" more of those standing in the halls, he said, they would have to come in through the least conspicuous set of doors at the back of the hall.
"The fire marshal will be here and close this meeting down that fast if you don't behave yourselves," he warned.
It was an instruction - along with others - he was prepared to enforce. One man near the platform whose shouts of praise were deemed inappropriate by Cerullo was embraced by an usher who put an arm around him to calm him down.
Mothers whose children were crying or talking near the platform were escorted from the hall at Cerullo's direction, and those chewing gum in the crowd were singled out with instructions to stick their gum "under your chairs." A man in the back who stood up was ordered to sit down.
Cerullo then gave the crowd its directions for the night. They were not to look at one another, not to read their Bibles, not talk to one another. "I want your full, undivided attention to be given to Jesus. Not to Morris, but to Jesus."
After leading the audience in a few preparatory hymns, Cerullo noticed the newspaper photographer who had been ushered to the front and told his staff to remove her.
"Please show this wonderful photographer out. No pictures are allowed in our meetings; you know that." He gave the photographer one minute to take a picture while explaining, "We didn't come here to put ourselves on exhibition.
"I know they mean well, but we're not looking for publicity." He didn't want or need the "evil" media, he said.
What he had come to do, he said, was to inspire those in attendance to "turn Roanoke upside-down, inside-out for Jesus." He promised "personal" prophecy, healing and miracles before the night was over.
Those who arrived "with an open heart, an open spirit, I promise you will not leave this building the same way you came in."
For the next 3 1/2 hours, Cerullo fired up the assembly. Slipping his coat off, he ranged across the raised platform, his voice magnified by the wireless microphone.
Making a strong point, Cerullo bent forward 90 degrees from the hips, his head aimed straight at his audience, and screamed the ends of his sentences in a rising crescendo. Other times, he lapsed to a near-whisper as he begged the audience, "Don't get mad at me now," as he prepared to chastise the Pentecostal movement or Roanokers who haven't done enough to spread the word of God.
He gave a little of his life story. He is a "little Jew preacher," he said, who was raised in a Jewish orphanage in New Jersey. When he was 14 1/2, God revealed to him that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. He left his Orthodox Jewish heritage to become a Christian evangelist, who at one point was "raised up to heaven to see God."
Today, he claims to have preached to more people than anyone else in the world - mostly in Africa, Asia, India and South America. His worldwide mission has been to raise up indigenous armies of believers on those continents to carry the message of Christ to their own countries. Now he is taking the work across America in a 30-city tour.
"Repeat the word `pour,' " he said. The audience did. That was how the Holy Spirit was to come over them.
Taking a glass of water from the rostrum, he walked to the edge There are 20 miracles for breathing right now. I would not be surprised if everybody in this building is healed tonight. Morris Cerullo Assemblies of God minister of the platform and dribbled a few drops onto someone seated near the platform. "The anointing" was not going to come like that, he said. Then he flung the water from the glass onto the crowd on his left. Another glass was used to wet those on his right. That was what the spirit's visit would be like - a drenching.
It was well after 9, more than two hours after the beginning of the service, when Cerullo called those who wanted "the Spirit's anointing" to come forward to face the platform.
Hundreds crowded in front of him, a steady droning of "tongues" drowning out any other sounds, seemingly intensifying the heat that had built up in the room. Cerullo stood center stage, eyes closed, his arms stretched straight out from the sides of his body and waving slowly back to front as if forcing a tide of water onto the undulating mass.
The Holy Spirit, he said when he sent them back to their seats, had told him that he should ask those in attendance to donate $1,000 to his ministry and that everyone should donate "at least $100." If they didn't have the money that night, they should just sign the card and promise to send the money next week, he said.
The collection would be used to fund a new mission effort in Israel, Cerullo said. God had led him to designate this the "year of the Jew," he said, and he was going to concentrate on spreading the Christian message in Israel.
It was almost 10 p.m. before the collection buckets all were retrieved and removed from the room. Then began the part of the service most had been waiting for: the demonstration of God's power in healing and prophecy.
Closing his eyes, Cerullo said he could feel the Holy Spirit's healing power at work in the crowd. In an almost breathless, continuous stream, he described displaced vertebrae, arthritis, asthma, lung conditions, all being healed as he spoke.
The crowd responded with a steady cacophony of speaking in tongues and shouts of praise.
"There are 20 miracles for breathing right now. I would not be surprised if everybody in this building is healed tonight."
Putting his hand to his neck, Cerullo said "somebody has a pinched nerve in the neck. That's being healed. Somebody with cancer has just been healed. Somebody with a walker, with a brace - get up and walk! A stroke has been healed.
"Wait a moment, God is speaking. This is the answer. Someone with a tumor pushed in [on his body] and the hardness is gone, the pain is gone, the tumor is healed. It is gone! It is gone!
"Six people have instantly been healed of sugar diabetes. Someone with an ulcerated stomach - no more medicine is needed. You can eat anything you want.
"Somebody is getting a healing of an eye condition. You used to see double vision. Now you're healed, healed, healed."
After perhaps 20 minutes, Cerullo stopped the descriptions and called everyone who had felt "healing power" to come forward. More than one-third did, and Cerullo asked several to describe over the microphones what happened to them.
"I was deaf in one ear. I can hear out of it now, praise God."
Cerullo then put his hand near or onto the face or forehead of the person and pronounced her healed in a shout. She dropped to the floor, as did most of the long line of others that followed.
"I've had pain in my back since 1988. Tonight I was healed."
"My sinuses healed. . . . I said `I want healing,' and you said it was happening right now. It did," a woman said as she inhaled several breaths for the microphones.
"I have cancer. The pain in my kidneys is gone."
"I have sugar diabetes. When you called out, I felt the warmth of the Holy Spirit. I just know I've been healed."
"My back has been cured."
"My feet don't hurt any more."
"God not only healed you," Cerullo told one woman, "he healed your mind. . . . Your depression is healed."
By the time it was over, it was nearly 10:30. He still had a "personal prophecy" to come, Cerullo said, but he had another message first. For the first time in four years, he is conducting a school of ministry in California this August. Registration is normally $150, but "since you've already given $100 tonight," the fee would be only $50 for those who registered Wednesday.
"Here is your personal prophecy: `God's anointing my life with his spirit, with his life, with his very own personal being. His light, his spirit, his very own personal being. God is anointing my life.' "
"God bless you," he said, throwing a kiss to the crowd on his way out.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***