Sid: My guest is red hot for the Messiah because a young kid he was able to see A. A. Allen, and Branham, and Coe, he was able to talk to many of the people that were involved in the original Azusa Street Revival, and he has stories that are so important. And why is this so important? Let me read from the forward of his book, “They told me Their Stories.” And I’ll be interviewing shortly Tommy Welchel and this is by Billye Brim and you know Billye Brimm was a secretary for Kenneth Hagen. And she was working on one of his books “The Women Question,” that said that women could minister and she got up and reside her job and went out to minister because she didn’t know that a woman could minister. She thought that a woman had to be just a secretary. Well, she wrote the forward to his book and let me read a little section of it. It says, Charles Parham’s granddaughter, and Parham was one of the leaders of Azusa Street Revival. Charles Parham’s granddaughter told me a few years ago about an amazing prophecy given through her grandfather. He prophesized that in about one hundred years, and that occurred in the early 1900’s and about one hundred that means about now by the way. He prophesied that in about one hundred years there would be another great outpouring of the Spirit of God to surpass what happened in Act’s 2 to Topeka and Azusa. In this book William Seymour also gave such a prophecy. It goes on to explain the outpourings of God’s Spirit. This book is so wonderful because for the first time we have reports of eyewitness people of what happened at Azusa Street that great outpouring of God’s Spirit. And you see the founder, the one that God used, the most unlikely guy William Seymour he said, “A hundred years later there would be a major outpouring of God’s Spirit.” And I just recently got back from Lakeland, Florida where I was with Todd Bentley, and I saw what I believe to be that prophecy. Now Tommy tell me a bit about William Seymour, did he really put a box over his head when he was preaching?
Tommy: Every one of the Azusa Street saints told me that yes that there’s times that he’d set there with that box on his head for ten minutes, sometimes for over an hour. Sometimes he stick his head into a big wooden shoebox where they would ship shoes, and put a towel over his head and he would stay there until God told him to take it off.
Sid: There’s a certain obedience that is almost lacking today an instant obedience to the Holy Spirit. But I was told there was a time when he got a little sophisticated and took the box off of his head, and what he did he put the box on and was praying. And then when God gave him something to say he took the box off. But when he eventually got a little too sophisticated for the box, what happened to the presence of God?
Tommy: It started lifting and would assume it was the Shekinah Glory was gone.
Sid: You know one of the things that I’m told by friends of mine that have read your book is and they happen to be evangelists, they take your book; you were just a young kid when you met these people that told you what occurred at Azusa Street. They take your book and they read it out loud at a church service, and the presence of God comes down. I believe it’s the same anointing that was one Azusa Street.
Tommy: Yes, I do too.
Sid: Now, tell me about one church where you’ve told some stories, and what has happened in that church.
Tommy: Well, the biggest one is at A New Dimensions there in Yukon. I went to a regular service and the wife is the pastor, her and her husband the Rhode’s.
Sid: Now this is Yukon where?
Tommy: Oklahoma, about thirteen miles west of Oklahoma City.
Sid: Okay.
Tommy: They called me not soon after because I had gone there she got up and said that “God just showed me that Brother Tommy has the anointing that was at the Azusa Street.” And I didn’t say anything I just thought wow! You know like I usually do most of the time. But their young people, I went to them and spoke to them. My heart is to let young people know that they can be used of God just like us adults, and it just takes obedience. But they had us come on a Sunday morning at about 10:30 and this thing lasted for 3 ½ hours, the Shekinah Glory started on the platform and they were checking everything out to make sure it wasn’t the steamer or it wasn’t an air conditioner going bad. And it started growing and so Pastor David got up and said, “How many of you see this thing up here?” And everybody saw it and it went through the whole church and now they’re having, these people are having miracles of their own lives and their praying for other people and getting miracles not just at church, elsewhere.
Sid: Now, you know that’s one of the distinctions of this new move of God’s Spirit, it’s not confined to the four walls, it’s more like the Book of Acts than religion.
Tommy: Yes.
Sid: Now, let’s find out a bit about you. You were just a young kid and you found yourself in California in a strange place with no money and nowhere to go. And a woman by the name of Goldie took you in, who was this Goldie?
Tommy: She was a little old lady that lived in Venice Beach or most people know it as Muscle Beach, California. I was out, I was to set on a beach bench, and didn’t know what to do. She was an original Azusa Street Saint, Goldie just her and another lady came down and saw me and of course the Lord lead them over to me and pretty soon I was saved.
Sid: And you began to hang around these people that were involved in the original Azusa Street Outpouring, and they would tell you their stories. How did you know that you were supposed to write this book, “They Told Me Their Stories?”
Tommy: Well, they kept telling them to me for 6 years. Then in 1966 the Full Gospel Businessmen, with Demos Shakarian, were having their annual convention and they were having it at Angelus Temple. And the woman that took Amie McPherson’s place was Jean Darnall. And she came over and talked to a few of them and they told her if she wanted to hear the stories they were going to take a few of the saints down there, the people, Carnie, Anderson, and the Lankford’s to give their stories. And they told her, “You go over the Harold Hope office and talk to Brother Tommy Welchel, he knows our stories even better than we do. Well she pondered on that come on over there because I had some addresses and envelopes for her. Then she said, “Brother Tommy, come over here, I’ve got a message from the Lord for you.” Well, I come running over there, by now I’m real grown you know I’m twenty-three years old I said “Yes.” And she said, “The Lord told me that these stories you’re getting from these saints that one day you will put into a book and I said, “Okay, okay.” And of course it was forty years later.
Sid: Why did you wait forty years?
Tommy: Well, I kept getting people to talk to me and there’s many that wanted to sit down and get these stories in print, but every time the Spirit of God worked on me and said, “No, this is not the time.” So I made a few enemies doing that, but I do whatever God told me. Then finally here comes was a supernatural thing with Dr. Morris and the Pastors Paul and Samantha Roach, and they were graduates of Rhema, Kenneth Hagin’s Bible School. But I happened to come up supernaturally not wanting to come, but God said, “Go to the church and I live, see the church is in El Reno and it’s about oh, sixteen miles away. So I went down there and I took those, what God told me to take and Dr. Morris was there. And when he started hearing it he dropped everything and this was all he wanted to hear so sixty days later we had the book in print.
Sid: It was God’s time but I happen to believe we are at the beginning of the outpouring of the greatest move of God’s Spirit in history; it’s beginning to be released all over. Tell me very quickly about the woman who had her ear bitten off.
Tommy: Oh, that was Sister Carney told me that story, she just noticed the woman coming in with bloody bandages and talked to her and she had had a fight with the woman her husband was having affair with, and that woman bit her ear off. And sister Carnie, I say we called her we called her Azusa Carnie and that’s what I called her when I talked to her, Azusa Carnie. She would come in and she was right from the very beginning she looked at the thing and she said, it looked like a piece of raw meat and so she prayed for her and the woman said “It was in great pain but the pain left.” And all of a sudden she said, “The pain’s all gone.” So Sister Carnie pulled that rag back and she said she was looking at it and she said right before her eyes the thing started growing out.
Sid: But you know what I think is so amazing is when people read your book of stories like this that were the norm at Azusa Street that same Spirit comes upon them, in fact during this week I want you to tell some of these stories, maybe not even read it from your book that’s so polished, but just tell the stories as you heard them from the people that were eye witnesses. What do you believe is going to happen to people when they hear you telling these stories?
Tommy: Well, I believe what’s been happening, there’s a man down there at the Azusa Street Festival I was in this week was sitting there listening to me and taping me told him some stories and he said “He was getting faith, he had lung cancer” and there was a tremendous pain he said, “Tommy we’re setting right next to where they planted a tree where Seymour sat with his box on his head and he said, “I’m getting faith to be healed, would you pray for my lungs?” I said, “Sure.” I prayed for him and Brother he was healed instantly.
Sid: There’s something about the power of the testimony when you hear one testimony someone else gets that same miracle so I want you to talk about a lot of miracles all of this week.
Tags: It's Supernatural, Sid Roth