The former Assemblies of God minister was indicted in Oklahoma after an NBC News investigation revealed decades of missed warnings.

Joe Campbell was arrested on Wednesday.Greene County

Joe Campbell, a Pentecostal preacher who for half a century ministered to thousands of children across four states, has been arrested on child sex abuse charges, the Oklahoma Attorney General`s Office said Wednesday.

Campbell was charged with one count of first degree rape and one count of lewd or indecent acts to a child under 16, according to the charging document. U.S. Marshals arrested him Wednesday morning in Elkland, Missouri, and brought him to the Greene County jail in Springfield, where he was awaiting transfer to Oklahoma. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.

It wasn`t clear if Campbell, 68, had an attorney. He couldn`t immediately be reached for comment. His arrest represents a long-delayed breakthrough in a 40-year effort by some of his alleged victims to seek justice.

The charges come seven months after an NBC News investigation revealed a pattern of child sex abuse allegations against Campbell and repeated failures by pastors, police and prosecutors to intervene. Five women said he sexually abused them as children in the 1970s and `80s when he was an Assemblies of God minister; nine others, including four men, said he showed them pornography, made lewd comments or touched them inappropriately during the same period.

Campbell`s rape charge appears to be tied to the alleged abuse of one of those women, Kerri Jackson. Jackson, now 53, says he molested her for years in Tulsa in the early 1980s, beginning when she was around 9. The attorney general`s office presented the case to a multicounty grand jury in Oklahoma City last week and the panel returned the indictment - a milestone Jackson and some of the other women had pursued for most of their lives.

Kerri Jackson, pictured in her childhood bedroom, says Campbell molested her once to twice a week for three years starting when she was about 9. At right, Jackson with her brother and younger sister.September Dawn Bottoms for NBC News; Roberto Daza / NBC News

"I don`t even know how to react right now," Jackson told NBC News moments after learning of Campbell`s arrest. "After all these decades, it`s a miracle."

Past attempts to investigate Campbell in Oklahoma and Missouri failed after police and prosecutors said the statute of limitations had lapsed. But the Oklahoma Attorney General`s Office says that clock stopped running when Campbell moved out of the state in the 1980s. To charge him in connection to a decades-old allegation, they`re applying a frontier-era statute that pauses the statute of limitations for suspects who flee or reside elsewhere.

Prosecutors recently used the same legal theory to charge former megachurch pastor Robert Morris with sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in Oklahoma in the 1980s. Morris, who founded the nondenominational Gateway Church in Texas, pleaded guilty in October to five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with all but six months suspended.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond called Campbell`s alleged crimes "horrific."

"There can be no tolerance for child sex predators, particularly adults who exploit their positions of authority and the faith of their victims," he said in a statement. "My office will vigorously work to ensure justice is served for the women who have carried this trauma for decades."

Oklahoma authorities opened their probe into Campbell after NBC News published its investigation in May, which traced allegations of abuse to his earliest years in ministry. The accusers described a magnetic preacher who cultivated trust in children and their parents, only to exploit it behind closed doors.

Joe Campbell was the children`s pastor at Eastland Assembly of God in Tulsa in the early 1980s when he met Kerri Jackson.Obtained by NBC News

Children saw Campbell as an almost mythical figure, blessed by the Holy Spirit with the power to speak in tongues, cast out demons and heal the sick. He gravitated to girls from broken homes. They later described being molested in a church nursery, in Campbell`s car and at his home while his wife and children slept upstairs.

Beginning when some of them were still teenagers, the women reported Campbell`s behavior to pastors, law enforcement and child welfare officials, only to watch him deny the allegations and continue preaching.

Jackson was among those who came forward to church leaders. In early 1988, at age 15, she traveled to Springfield, Missouri, to testify before a panel of Assemblies of God officials. Jackson said the men asked her to describe the abuse in graphic detail and invited Campbell and his wife into the room to challenge her account. Despite receiving letters from other alleged victims, which had been collected to add weight to Jackson`s story, the pastors allowed Campbell to remain in ministry in Missouri, clearing the way for him to abuse another girl, according to interviews and police records.

The Assemblies of God finally expelled Campbell the following year after Phaedra Creed, at age 14, reported that Campbell had been abusing her for months while she lived with him and his family.

Creed went to the police in 1989 and Campbell was charged with forcible sex with a minor. But after being harassed by church members, Creed said her mental health deteriorated, and she backed out of testifying, leading to the charges being dropped.

Phaedra Creed was 14 when Campbell invited her to live with him in 1988. The sexual abuse began within weeks, she later told police.Courtesy Phaedra Creed; Roberto Daza / NBC News

For decades, as she watched Campbell continue working with children, Creed said she carried guilt over her decision. She cried when she learned of his arrest Wednesday.

"I was speaking the truth then, and I`m speaking the truth now, but I`m no longer going to be silenced," Creed said. "I am so happy justice will finally be served."

Assemblies of God leaders did not immediately respond to a request for comment following Campbell`s arrest Wednesday. In an earlier statement, denomination leaders said Campbell was reported to authorities in 1989 and added, "Our hearts go out to those who have bravely shared their stories."

Campbell continued ministering to children. Around 1990, he founded a nondenominational church and opened Camp Bell, a Christian youth camp in the Missouri Ozarks, where he ministered to thousands of kids over the decades. Campbell`s new church became a refuge for several convicted sex offenders, NBC News` investigation found.

In 2016, he joined the PTL Television Network, a Christian station founded by disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker, which broadcast Campbell`s teachings nationally until earlier this year, when the network quietly removed years of his sermons from its website following NBC News` inquiries. PTL didn`t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Campbell`s national influence and his decades of work with children sickened his accusers, who tracked his ascent from afar.

Clockwise from left, Kerri Jackson, Kim Williams, Lisa Ball and Cheryl Almond each say they were sexually abused by pastor Joe Campbell as children.September Dawn Bottoms for NBC News

For the women, his arrest carried spiritual significance - the fulfillment of a mission they believe God entrusted to them decades ago.

Jackson said she long bore the weight of that responsibility like a ball and chain. The burden began to lift when she saw his mugshot.

"Finally," she said. "We just needed someone to believe us."