Sid Roth

Sid: Hello this is Sid Roth here with Tommy Reid. Tommy before we went on the air I was talking to you about your experiences with Dr. Cho. You went there just as was really getting started. And he had never… when you met him did he really tell you he had never seen a miracle?

Tommy: Well he had seen some healings that they interpreted for him but he never seen a great miracle, he never seen a miracle that was kind of earth shattering to him.

Sid: He’d seen a neck being healed from pain which if someone has a pain in the neck and some people do right now you’re being healed. But he had never seen a blind person see, a deaf hear, a dead person come to life that’s what you’re talking about.

Tommy: Yeah, and he look at me and he said “I don’t even know if I believe this.” Now he had been healed as a young man about 18 or 19 so he saw his own healing but he had never seen a miracle take place in church before. I remember I looked at him I was just a young evangelist and I was probably not too kind sometimes maybe. And I looked at him and said “Bother Cho you will see great miracles during the next few weeks” because he was going to travel with me all over the nation. And we did see that, I mean I would look out at the audience I have pictures that I can’t find right now some place in moving they got lost but a lot of people would… every night there would be a cripple walk, there would be a blind eye see, and that’s why so many people came to our meetings. I mean I remember times when we would be carried out on people’s shoulders because they would get so excited about the miracles of God and he saw that and began to believe for that.

Sid: Well tell me about one of the first major miracles he saw.

Tommy: Well one of the first major miracles and God used him in this and he began to believe for miracles we were holding a meeting in a Presbyterian Church a large Presbyterian Church that was jammed with people 1000’s standing on the outside. And I had to go on to the next city so I went on to the next city with another interpreter he stayed and did another week because the Holy Spirit was moving so greatly in that city. One night it came to him and said “Brother Cho there is a person dying in the hospital if you don’t come down right now he may not live until the service is finished.” So he left the service; went down the hill to the hospital walked in and the man was dead. They had pulled the sheet over his head and the doctor said “No use praying for him he’s dead.” Brother Cho now that he gotten this new impetus on healing pulled the sheet down off of his head, commanded the man to walk. He got up off of that bed now put his clothes on and this was a very steep hill between there and the church and he walked him all the way up that steep hill and he walked into the church and said “The dead man is alive!” The first miracle that he saw and that I remember him seeing that was under his own ministry was a dead man brought to life.

Sid: But you know what I believe Tommy I believe we are at the point right now that we are going to see the greatest miracles the world has ever seen. I mean creative miracles, I mean people without limbs the limbs just pop right out. I can’t wait to see see… I just as you talk about the world inside is more real and more important than what’s going on in the outside; on the inside of me I see not just me but I see the average believer that’s listening right now walking in miracles beyond what we’re even talking about.

Tommy: Oh, I have no doubt of that that is the world that is inside of me. I believe that we are on the precipice; we’re on the cusps of seeing miracles like the church has never seen before in its entire history. You know we’ve seen great miracle of healing I’ve seen eyeballs that were growing in people, I’ve seen great miracles of healing but we are on the cusp of seeing something greater than any of us have seen before.

Sid: Tell me one of the most amazing miracles that happened to you in the Philippians.

Tommy: Yeah, this was an amazing miracle I’ve seen many cripples walk but we had gone to a town in the Southern tip of the Boson Island. And there was a group of young people that were opposed to the meetings. And so they were so opposed that we ended up not being able to hold the first nights meeting. So we went out to the country to a little tiny barrio of about 2000 people and set a PA system up and the whole barrio came 2000 people came and jammed that barrio. The little plaza in the center of the Barrio and the Lord said to me and this is unusual because when you’re a healing evangelist you pray for the easy cases first. The Lord said to me “Pray for the hardest case in this place tonight it’s a cripple if you will call them out I will heal them.” So I looked around and so I saw this woman on a stretcher and so I said to the interpreter “What’s wrong with her?” They said “Well, she is unable to walk and I said “God’s going to heal her.” So they brought her up and they kind of dragged her out of bed and put her up on the stretcher in front of me and I said “God is going to heal you tonight; you’re going to be healed and you’re going to walk.” And I asked “What’s wrong with her?” And they said arthritis so I prayed for the arthritis, I rebuked the arthritis as an evangelist will do and she couldn’t walk. And all of a sudden something said inside of me God said to me “Tommy she doesn’t have arthritis you prayed for the wrong disease you must be specific.” So I said to the interpreter “I prayed for the arthritis she wasn’t healed that’s not what’s wrong with her.” Well, they got between Tagalikan and Elik they’d gotten the wrong interpretation and they said “No, she is paralyzed.” She had some kind of a stroke or something and she’s 100% paralyzed in the right side of her body and at least 50% more on the other, she cannot walk.” With that grabbed her and I said “In the name of Jesus I command you to walk.” And she got up and leaped off of that stretcher, began to walk and then she began to run and she ran around and around and around the audience. She as obviously healed there was not doubt about it so I said to her “Well, we’re going to have this big crusade in the capitol city would you come and give your testimony tomorrow night? Well I wanted to be sure she was still healed; oh yea of little faith you know I wanted… so the next morning we drove out to the barrio to see if she and all of the sudden the whole town they saw the little yellow Ford come toward, the whole town 2000 people began to just surge towards us and she was leading them. “I’m still healed, I’m still healed.” And so she came to the audience that night she came to the big meeting and she gave her testimony and when she did these young people who were opposing the meeting said “Oh, the Americano is a rich man he paid her a 100 pesos’ to say that, she wasn’t really healed.” And so it kind of interrupted the meeting and you can understand they didn’t know whether to believe the boys or believe me or to believe the woman. And so the meeting was okay a few people got saved but there were no other miracles. And when we left town to go to the next city all of the sudden I heard the news that the young man who had opposed the meeting came down with the same amount of paralysis 100% in the right side and 50% in his left side. And as far as I know did not walk another day in his life. Now I don’t understand the end of the story all I know it was probably the greatest miracle I’ve ever saw.

Sid: Well the one thing that I do know is if you come against God you’re in big trouble; that was big trouble. You know something that was so amazing to me is tell me about the time your father was dying in Manila.

Tommy: Oh, that was probably the greatest miracle we ever had in our family except my own healing. We had gone to the Philippines on a one way ticket it was interesting how we got there I had sold my Cadillac convertible to pay our way and it paid a one way ticket and enough to stay there a couple of weeks. And we had planned to stay with missionaries and we had everything set to have meetings. We got there and everything fell apart just everything. The place we had to stay the missionary went home; we checked into a hotel we had no money to pay our hotel bill and no ticket back home. And in the middle of all of that my dad laying in that bed contracted some kind of an oriental disease. And got sicker and sicker every day he’d be more and more ill and I’d go into his bedside and want to pray for him. And my dad said “No, no don’t pray for me, pray for our destiny, pray for where we’re going, what we’re going to do.” And then I would say “Let me pray for the finances we need money to go back home; ‘No, no we’re here for a reason, pray for the reason.’” So I walked in there and he wouldn’t let me pray for us, he wouldn’t let me pray for his meal, he wouldn’t let me pray for money, he wouldn’t let me pray for money; he wouldn’t let me pray for a ticket, he wouldn’t let me pray for the hotel bill none of that he wouldn’t let me pray for. Then one day he said “It’s time for God to answer our prayers; that phone is going to ring Tommy and we’re going to be Pastors of Bethel Temple.” I said “That will never happen, I’m 26 years of age they’ll never want me to pastor the largest church in their denomination, they’re not going to want you to pastor you’ve been a businessman you haven’t been a preacher; they’re never going to ask us to pastor the church.” He said “Tommy, that’s the prayer I wanted you to pray destiny; pray for what we’re here to do.” The phone rang and the voice of the Missions Department of Springfield Missouri said “You have been chosen as the new Pastors of Bethel Temple.” Well it solved all of our problems, the money problem, the ticket problem, the place to live problem, then Morris Cerullo walked in and paid our hotel bill.

Sid: But your father was dying I don’t get it.

Tommy: I know I don’t get it either except to know this that God has our destiny in mind. God has a voice that says to us “This is the way, walk yea in it.”

Sid: So was he healed gradually or what happened?

Tommy: Oh no, he was not sick anymore. From the time that that telephone rang and he saw the end of the story at that point he was healed. The fever was gone, the sickness was gone he was perfect.

Sid: Now you have a great love for the nation Israel. The thing that I think is so amazing is in 1948 you were in school and the teacher made an announcement. Tell me the announcement and tell me why it had such an effect on you.

Tommy: It had an effect on me because I lived in the 1930’s when we had all of the prophetic teachers come by our church. A little boy sits there and sermon’s don’t necessarily can’t understand all of them. But when the prophecy teachers would come with all of their charts I could see the pictures I understood that. And they told me that Israel would become a nation, the Jewish people would come back home, and Israel would become a nation again. So I grew up with this knowledge I knew that the Israel would be reborn, I knew the people would come back home; I knew the Jews would be restored to their homeland. So I remember sitting in the classroom in 1948 as a young man in Junior High I remember when the teacher walked in and said “We just heard the announcement Israel is a nation.” And I knew that the word of God was true there was no doubt that what I’d been taught was true. But I had a lot… my dad absolutely love Jewish people. But a Jewish person walked in you would have thought Jesus walked in with my father. He lived to witness to Jews, that was his mission field. We frequented and we would go to Philadelphia and we go to 5^th Street and visit all of those little Jewish shops, and every Jew along that street was my dad’s friend. He loved Jews I was taught to love the Jewish people because they were God’s chosen.

Sid: But you know I still… I want to take you back to that… you were in school and a Social Studies teacher you’d been taught your whole life to love the Jew and then one day Israel would be a nation. Well it was impossible for Israel to be a nation but in 1948 tell me the emotion that went on through you inside of your when your teacher says “Israel has just become a nation?”

Tommy: Well I think the first reaction I had is the word of God is true by the time you’re in Junior High and even though I’ve seen the miracles there’s a few dots that begin to come in. All of a sudden I realized this book the word of God is the word of God and it does come to past and I had lived to see one of the greatest events of the history of the world. Sid, I don’t think we can realize even though we say it we can’t realize the immense miracle that God did in the rebirth of Israel, it was a miracle that goes beyond our comprehension.

Sid: I mean it was like if today there was no Israel and tomorrow President Obama says “I declare that Israel is going to be a Jewish homeland.” That would have been impossible for him to say that, it was impossible in ‘48 for Israel to be a nation. But God said “A nation will be formed in one day, and from the 4 corners of the earth the Jews were returned to their homeland.” He even said the ancient language would be spoken in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time I mean Hebrew was just for the holy books, it wasn’t a spoken language today. I mean there were so many miracles that occurred even today why is it that you give your missions money always including going to the Jew first?

Tommy: Well you know God spoke to me and I as you know a lover of Israel Robert Sterns is now the man who is Pastor of the church that I pastured for 50 years. One of the reasons that I wanted Robert here was I wanted to be sure that this church was a recognition of what God was doing with the Jewish people and with Israel. And of course we’re tremendous supporters of Israel. But what I don’t understand is there is not greater miracles except maybe the resurrection that has taken place in the history of the world, than for God not just to save a person, not just to resurrect a person but to resurrect a nation because He made a covenant with them. Tto me it’s the most amazing thing but then I have to realize what God said to Abraham. Abraham said “How do you know, how do I know you’re going to give me this land?” God said “Well I’m going to swear by myself.” And he showed him this picture of the smoking furnace and the pillar of fire representing the Godhead; I’m going to swear by Myself that this is your land.” It is the… how can I believe the covenant of God to heal me if I don’t believe that covenant?

Sid: Tommy our time is slipping away but … When you wrote the book “How to Live Out of a Dream” what did you hope to accomplish?

Tommy: I live in a world that’s different than most preachers; I think I hear things different than most preachers. You know I’m kind a academic when I’m preaching but I can tell you that I don’t want to preach things that I don’t know God has said to me. I want to wake up in the morning and hear Jesus and say the things that He wants me to say. I don’t even want to be on your show and just say things by rote. I want to know that when I speak to you and speak to the world that I’ve heard what God wants me to say. I am firmly convinced that one of the messages that God has for the world today that the problems of our world could be solved, the world could be evangelized if we only heard God’s voice. Most people just don’t hear God’s voice, they don’t listen, their parents tell them you know that’s just your imagination and they cut off the very source of God speaking to them. I want to go out and teach the world to hear God’s voice because I believe its only possible, it’s absolutely mandatory.

Sid: You know there’s so much doom and gloom in the news today that even Christians talking to one another they’re saying “Oh, do you see what’s going on with the morality in America? Do you see what’s going on with the economy? Do you see what’s going on with disease?” But I believe that those that are listening to us right now this is their greatest hour… when we come back I’d like you to teach how we can hear His voice. How we can dream His dreams. I mean you say that it’s simple and I know that it’s simple. Tommy the next broadcast that I do that people will hear I will have just returned from Jerusalem. I’m leaving in a couple of days for Jerusalem. I am going to have a meeting Jerusalem, Israel and we have reservations of 400 people we’re expecting over 500 unsaved Jewish people. What I do is I call it a lecturer on the supernatural and I really I don’t say I’m going to talk about God I say I certainly don’t say I’m going to talk about Jesus. I say I’ve spent the last 35 years studying the paranormal I use that word I want nonbelievers and the supernatural. I’m going to speak an many people are going to be physically healed in their seats, I’ve done this all over the world. But do you realize just as a historic as it was for Israel to become a nation, it is historic for 4 or 500 unsaved Jewish people to hear about the good news of Jesus, witness miracles in their own lives. People will stand up, 30, 40 people are going to stand up and say I’m Jewish nonbelievers I’ve just been physically healed and I believe and I’m believing for 100% a 100% of these Jewish people will stand up and make professions of faith. Now to me that is …has never happened in the history of modern day Israel but we’re in a new time. I’m telling you the move of God has begun.