Sid: My guest Tony Kemp, I’ve just been studying the notes of what God’s been doing in his life, but I want you to get to know him a little bit and recognize at anything that he can do you can do too. And Tony that’s one of the exciting things about your walk, what’s going on with you and the miracles are outrageous, but what’s going on with you any true believer can walk in. Would you agree?
Tony: Absolutely.
Sid: I think the first believers in the Messiah, everyone of them could have had their own TV show, I like to joke about.
Tony: Amen.
Sid: So Tony, your father was a Baptist pastor and at 16 you got saved and filled with the Spirit and you felt the nudge to go to Bible College and you became a Baptist preacher. But as far as the miraculous that’s a twenty-five twenty-six year period, how many people would you say were healed?
Tony: Sid, I would say probably less than ten people were healed and I prayed for people, but nothing happened and those maybe ten people were healed, they would not what we consider serious cases. People with stomach aches, maybe a little bit of fever, a headache, a backache, a stomach ache something along those lines, but as people that were blind seeing, deaf hearing, lame walking, tumors disappearing I saw none of those kinds of miracles. And to be very honest with you Sid, I saw probably less than ten people get filled with the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. And when I began to look at my life Sid and I began to look at the ministry of Jesus and the book of Acts I was not satisfied with what I was seeing and I knew that there was more. And I began to pursue God for the more.
Sid: Now there was a certain point where God spoke to you that if you’ll do something gifts will start opening up; tell me about that.
Tony: Yes, I received Christ in 1972 so I want people to sort of have sort of a timeline. But in a, and I’ll never forget this because this was in July of the end of July in 1983 the Lord spoke to me and he spoke to me very very clearly and he told me to read the book of Daniel 3 times to fast for fourteen days and this of course was a liquid fast, no food whatsoever. And that He would begin to show me how to move in gifts of revelation and prophecy and particularly at that time it was the Word of Knowledge, Word of Wisdom and the gift of Prophecy.
Sid: Well, you did what He told you to do and what difference did it make?
Tony: The difference that it made was that it started out Sid I would be preaching and teaching the Word. And sometimes people would respond to the Word and they would come up for prayer and I would begin to pray for them, but I discovered that many times when I touched them the Holy Spirit would begin to give me Revelation Knowledge about their past or their present; things that they had been thinking, things that they had been feeling, different kinds of temptations or trials that they were going through; issues that they were facing and some cases sin challenges that they were wrestling with; and the Lord began to show me things and then I would begin to pray for them and minister to them and encourage them. And a lot of times it was letting people know okay the Lord sees me, the Lord hears me, the Lord understands and feel what I’m going through and some of those prophetic words were words of confirmation and affirmation. Occasionally they were words of direction that helped a person as they move through transition times in their lives and I was very blessed by being able to serve God’s people in this way.
Sid: But in 2003 you reached a tipping point, you were so desperate for more of God.
Tony: What happened Sid, was I was not seeing the results that I knew I could see and I was so frustrated and I felt like a failure in ministry. I wasn’t seeing people getting saved from their sins, I wasn’t seeing people being healed of sicknesses and diseases, I knew that there were people that had demons who needed to be delivered and set free from the enemy. I thought to myself, I should be seeing more people baptized in the Holy Spirit. And so because I felt so ineffective and I’d put in so much labor, but the rewards were few in terms of seeing people radically changed and transformed by the power of God that I actually went on a search. And in that search I went on the computer, I went on the internet and I began to research Christian programs and what happed in 2003 that I came across your program, “It’s Supernatural” and it’s as if Holy Spirit was saying to me, “You need to watch these programs, you need to listen to Sid as He interviews these people because I have given some of these people, many of these people keys the miraculous.” So I began to literally watch, I went into your archives I watched online and sometimes up to five or eight hours a day.
Sid: You know what it sounds like to me Tony? It sounds like that if God will just tell you something you’re going to do it because when He directed you towards going to our archives most people would watch two or three shows and that would be it. But you were really determined to be able to walk like the people in the Bible walked.
Tony: Well Sid, I was after a supernatural life in Christ and I wanted the supernatural ministry of Jesus and I was so hungry and so desperate, and you know I just literally…I wanted to meet God in a way I’d never met Him before. I wanted to know God in a way that I’d never known Him before and I was convinced that as I listened to the testimonies of others who had met God They had an intimacy with God that was lacking in my life and so I made up my mind if it can happen for them it can happen for me. And so I just began to read the Word of God, I began to pray, I began to fast, I began to listen to the testimonies. Some of the programs I watched over and over again and I took notes. I was looking for missing keys to intimacy with God, missing keys to miraculous healing and creative miracles. And as I watched the program I discovered at least a few of those keys and I began to see supernatural results in ministry.
Sid: But then there was another point where there was a major breakthrough in your life. One of the guests you saw that I interviewed his name was Renny McLean and through a mutual contact you arranged to have a cup of coffee with him, tell me about that.
Tony: Well, what happened when he was on your program, he and his wife Marina. He said some things that were very striking to me and I think it will be very striking to any listeners. He said, “You must court the Lord Jesus through your worship.” And it was as if Holy Spirit highlighted that to me. Because first it was the Word of the Lord, and number two it was worship and that just struck a core deep within me and then he said something to the affect that the revelation of God that you hear, follow, and obey is what moves you into the miraculous. And so I was serving this Pastor’s overseer in Texas and he was also a businessman and for whatever reason he contacted Dr. McLean’s office, talked to Marina. Marina changed his flight for whatever reason, I guess the Holy Spirit, it was no doubt the Holy Spirit and he changed his flight and he met me at a steak restaurant and we began to talk. And you know because I have respect for men and woman of God who serve Jesus I didn’t just want to take this man’s time and I brought and offering because I wanted to say, you know thanks for changing your flight, thanks for taking the time, you don’t even know me, we’ve never met but you were so kind and so gracious to just want to help me because I was seeking God. And so we also had a tape recorder there and he talked for forty-five minutes about the supernatural, worship, the revelation of God, how a Devine revelation will bring supernatural manifestations. And I listened and I received and I believed, and I went from there to Mansfield, Texas because I think we met in Irving, Texas and I had to do a service of Sunday morning, I think we met on a Saturday. And something happened that never happened before Sid, what was that? There were seven deaf people in that service and Jesus healed every single one of them. Every single one of them received their hearing totally and completely.
Sid: Are you saying to me that you had never prayed for a deaf person that got their hearing back previous to that?
Tony: Jesus totally radically changed me, I was not seeing the blind eye opened I was not seeing deaf ears hearing.
Sid: Seven deaf people get their hearing back the first time! Op we’re out of time.
