Sid: You know Jesus puts it really well He’s the Word of God that became flesh; the Word of God in Revelation says “I’d rather you be hot or cold, but if your lukewarm I’ll vomit you out of my mouth.” Could it be the greatest placebos on planet earth is religion? Lukewarm religion? Those are strong words you say Sid. Hah they’re not my words they’ve God’s words. Speak for yourself I have on the telephone someone that does know the difference; his name is Tommy O’Dell. His grandfather most of you have heard of T.L. Osborn, but just because he had TL Osborn or a mother like the Osborn’s daughter LaDonna Osborn who is an Evangelist in her own right. Just because his father was in ministry, doesn’t mean you have intimacy with God and although he went forward perhaps was born again he really didn’t have an experience with God. He quickly got into drugs, became a vegetable and should have died except for the prayers of his family that prayed him through. They surrounded him from Kenneth Hagen who his dad was working for senior and Hagen said “Just surround your son with faith and love.” And his father dared to just kept doing that. Any time he’d worry he said “I’d just surround my son with faith and love; faith and love. And then he would quote some scripture and he got to the point where Tommy you told me that your dad he could not worry he was in such supernatural peace.
Tommy: That’s exactly right.
Sid: Anyway could only say a couple of words his brain cells were burned out. He yelled out the name of Jesus and he understands now the power of the Name of Jesus. Tommy correct me if I’m wrong but it wasn’t a formal prayer that you might say with Billy but it was just Jesus.
Tommy: So many of my brain cells had been destroyed that I was incapable of praying anything elaborate. My whole prayer it’s almost comical was “Jesus okay” that was the whole thing.
Sid: (Laughing) That’s all you could get out?
Tommy: That’s not the most eloquent prayer I ever prayed.
Sid: Now, would you say almost immediately your brain started functioning correctly or was it gradual?
Tommy: It was instantly, the power of God just perked in me…
Sid: Wait, wait wait if we had a doctor right here he would say “Impossible yes brain cells can regenerate over years and years of time maybe, maybe. But not instantly.”
Tommy: No.
Sid: It can’t happen.
Tommy: No that’s true in the natural in medical science it’s impossible but with God nothing is impossible. And so when we experience the supernatural power of God like that…
Sid: Well, let me take you to Ghana now you were talking about a campaign in Ghana; describe what happened.
Tommy: Yes, there was one boy in Ghana that I’ll never forget one of the campaigns we had there right there in the beginning. That was a leper there was a leprosy had eaten so deeply into his leg that it had eaten into the nerves he was leprous but he became paralyzed and he couldn’t even move his legs from the waist down. His mother was not a believer they lived in a small village far from the city and somebody came a friend came and told her about the wonderful miracles that were happening, and she misunderstood and thought that I was a witchdoctor. So she got together her meager belongings to come and meet me the witchdoctor to pay me so that I would do some mumbo-jumbo and take the curse off.
Sid: Hmm.
Tommy: And so she put the boy and carried him many miles to the campaign that we were having. It was marvelous she saw this great crowd of people; she saw way up on the platform this guy preaching these wonderful things about the love of God. She had never heard the gospel before not even once and as she heard me preaching she got so excited because she realized I wasn’t a witchdoctor; I wasn’t somebody that you pay money to and I was going to cut off a chicken’s head and squirt some blood around that don’t work, but she came to a living God. I began to pray for people to receive Jesus she reverently bowed their heads and they received Jesus. And then I told the people “Now I want to pray that you be healed lay your hands where ever you suffer. And wherever you lay your hands I believe that Jesus the Messiah will lay His hands. And they did; she laid her hands right on his leprous legs; they were just oozing and just lifeless. And the power of God went into the boy’s legs instantly, the leprosy dried up; instantly life began to pour into his legs and he began to move them. She said “Boy I have carried you long enough, and she reached down and yanked him up and he took off running, it was the most remarkable thing for him. He was running back and forth and this woman his mother came up following him stumbling and screaming and crying for joy. It was incredible, when we found out what God had done the whole multitude rejoiced because of miracles like that every night tens of thousands prayed to receive Jesus.
Sid: Are you getting this Mishpochah a 19 year old kid just off of drugs and should have been dead or should have been a vegetable in a mental institution all of his life. How many people came to that first campaign?
Tommy: The first campaign there was at least 40,000.
Sid: Forty thousand; are you getting that. You realize that most who devote their life to evangelism don’t reach 40,000 people in a lifetime.
Tommy: That’s absolutely right and now we’ve been going for 25 years and have seen those kind of miracles all around the world some thousands of times. We’ve had hundreds of those kind of outreaches.
Sid: Is there just out of curiosity I find that many people, many ministries almost there are certain things that are almost automatic that people get healed of. With me it’s physical pain, with you is it everything or is there a specialty area?
Tommy: Well, it seems to be everything, but there are certain campaigns where we see a large percentage of blind people healed. If I have any specific gift it would probably be healing those totally blind. And we had a powerful outreach in Serowe, Botswana we counted 27 people healed of blindness. Up in the northern area of Ghana in a city called Bawku was almost entirely Muslim. If you looked at the crowd everybody was wearing the Muslim skull caps. The woman were all covered up.
Sid: Why did the Muslims even come to your meeting?
Tommy: For the miracles. They came because the Muslim Hadgees and the Imams they don’t provide healing they don’t pray for the sick. That’ not within…
Sid: But in the African culture these witchdoctors do.
Tommy: Well, the witchdoctors are mostly just crooks, you know and they don’t do anything. And a lot of times when you go the witchdoctor you are demon possessed or worse off because they don’t heal by the power of Jesus.
Sid: And they don’t have the money to go to a doctor, they don’t want to go to the witchdoctor there Imam isn’t going to heal them. So you’re the only option Tommy. (Laughing)
Tommy: In Africa and much of the developing world the poverty is such… they don’t have health insurance if they get sick they suffer, they die. If they beg, if they get in a car accident. There was one man A.K. Niazne who was a professional dance instructor. He was hit by a truck, they left him in a ditch and carried him to his hut and he healed that way. He developed a large hump on his back his legs withered up and drew atrophy and he was like that for 10 years. One day we came to his city for a campaign, and he said “Bring me to that place,” and so they carried him and he was in horrible, just excruciating pain. He laid there on the ground and they picked him up and take him back to his hut and bring him back. It was on the sixth night he felt something stabbing into his hip and he tried to look in his condition because he honestly thought that some rascal was stabbing him. And when he looked there was nobody there, then he felt that invisible knife leave his hip and all the pain went out of his body immediately then. He felt life, the living God flow through.
Sid: Tommy it reminds me of the power of God that flowed through your body right after you had your encounter when you had your marvelous healing of your brain being instantly restored from drugs. And you got a hold a book that was out of print by your grandfather called “Miracles Proof of God’s Love.” Did you remember the time that you read that out loud and what God did to you?
Tommy: That was a very very significant moment in my life because I was so fresh; I read my grandfather’s marvelous book. Really what it does it paints a picture and he develops a case like a lawyer would do. The fact that God still does miracles today, it’s for us now.
Sid: Not only does he prove that as an attorney would, but I’ve read that he doesn’t have to prove it to me I’ve read this book and it just reinforces who we are in the Messiah and that all of us the works of Jesus.
Tommy: That’s it and that’s what excited me about the book. When I was first …
Sid: I mean that’s what probably thrusted you out into ministry.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth