Sid: I have on the telephone a young man that was much younger the first time I met him. His name is Tommy O’Dell and I’m speaking to him at his office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Many of you are familiar with his grandfather T.L. Osborn. Tommy would it be fair to say that you’re grandfather has seen more miracles and more salvations than anyone on earth?
Tommy: I think that’s really possible because he’s been preaching for about 60 years now all around the world. Has maybe won more souls in front of huge audiences face to face, and seen more great miracles than any man that has ever lived.
Sid: Now listen your mom is his daughter; she’s a wonderful evangelist in her own right; your father’s in ministry; you’re raised in this family of people that love the Lord. How in the world did you slip into drugs?
Tommy: Well I think this is a mean world. You’ve probably heard the statement that God has children, but He doesn’t have grandchildren. Everybody’s got to make that personal decision, and that’s the beautiful thing about…
Sid: But you know what, I think most people take it for granite. If you have a family like that you’ve seen it all, heard it all, know it all, and you’re born again.
Tommy: Well it’s true a lot of people have that assumption, but you got to have that personal revelation, that personal experience.
Sid: Did you see miracles before you had that personal experience?
Tommy: Well I did, I did…
Sid: So how did you see miracles and not become born again? I don’t get it.
Tommy: I never doubted God’s existence because I was so blessed. Like the Bible says “That many prophets and kings have desired to see the things you’ve see.” They didn’t see them I saw them. I went on campaigns with my grandfather in Monterey, Mexico when I was I guess about 11 years old. I actually was the one that captured the picture of cripples walking that they used on the cover of Faith Digest his magazine. So I never doubted God’s existence, I knew that God was real. I knew that God was a healer, and I believed in Jesus. What I didn’t believe was that Jesus was the only way to be saved.
Sid: Out of curiosity, you had these doubts in the beginning stages. Did you keep them to yourself, or did you talk to your family about it?
Tommy: I think I kept it to myself at first, then later I was very vocal. When I began, they say experimenting with drugs, but let’s be honest most of don’t wear lab coats or have little beakers. It’s more for fun at first you think it’s just a big party. I didn’t have any conscious awareness that I was trying to numb some deep pain in my heart; I was just living it up just having fun. Then later, actually very quickly for me it became serious because I got involved in real heavy drugs, and ended up just burning out my brain.
Sid: Now your parents tried to help you out by sending you to a foreign country with some missionaries. Where was that?
Tommy: They thought the best thing we can do for Tommy, because I had already dropped out of school…
Sid: Oh here it is, Kenya.
Tommy: I dropped out of school, I ran away from home. They said “Tommy please would you go to Kenya?” Thinking that that would get me away from the peer pressure, not realizing the best thing they could of done for my friends was send me there because I was the peer pressure.
Sid: Hmmm.
Tommy: So went they sent me to Kenya, of course I found the same kind of people there. They looked different, but they still you know the same kind of drugs. There I got involved in Hinduism. That’s what really began… See before I was just I guess you’d call me a backslidden Christian. You know…
Sid: Except you were never really there in the first place, but I understand what you’re saying.
Tommy: Yeah. I was saved when I was 7 years old… I never had a vibrant spiritual life. The typical preachers kid of that era where you just kind of assume they’re all going to have their falling away time. That was assumed as part of your journey in Pentecost at that time. Of course what a horrible attitude because kids don’t have to have that experience.
Sid: Paint me a picture Tommy of what you look like, what was going on with you at the bottom when you were just totally out of control.
Tommy: Wow. See it all started all fun and games, but then it became very serious when the addiction just… it’s like an anaconda it just constricts and constricts until it becomes the only thing you can think about. At the end, I was living on the streets; I was covered with my own vomit. It wasn’t a pretty picture usually my pants were stained with my own urine…
Sid: Now how did you support yourself?
Tommy: I would drill selling drugs.
Sid: Hmm.
Tommy: Of course at that point… at the very end there was not even no concept of supporting myself. I slept wherever I passed out. My eyes would barely focus; I’d drool at the mouth; my hair was real long and even falling, you could just take and pull and hunks would fall out.
Sid: Now how old were you?
Tommy: I was almost 17.
Sid: Oh my goodness.
Tommy: It was already over my teeth were brown; my grandmother said I looked like an old man, but the old young man. You couldn’t hardly tell what age I was because I had just used so many chemicals.
Sid: How was your brain, your verbal skills?
Tommy: I could barely talk. To carry on a 3 word conversation was a real chore. My dad said I would walk humped over like a gorilla kind of humped over and a stupor; sometimes forget who I was what I was doing. At that point so many brain cells had died that there was no return for me. It wasn’t a matter of getting cleaned up and going back to a normal lifestyle I was permanently brain damaged.
Sid: Tell me about that worst and yet best night of your life… Did you overdose by the way?
Tommy: Yes I did.
Sid: So I mean it was only probably your parents and grandparents prayers that stopped you from dying in that state.
Tommy: Yeah I believe that. My grandmother said when she prayed for me she actually saw me like in a vision with some sort of dark murky substance like a dark cloud over my head, and staggering and trying to find my way. She prayed for me and interceded for me during that time. My father never gave up; my mother kept praying. That night I was with friends late at night, they were getting sick of being around me. Before I was very popular…
Sid: You mean your own druggy friends were getting sick.
Tommy: These were close friends.
Sid: Now tell me, how did your parents deal with this? How did your dad deal with this?
Tommy: Well my father it was devastating for him. People actually told him “The best thing you can do for Tommy is knock him over the head commit him to some institution and they’ll keep him there in a padded cell, or medicated somewhere where he can’t do any more damage to himself.” The best that they could hope for in the natural was to have me permanently institutionalized. You can go to mental institutions all over this country, all over the world, and see people that are burnt out just like I was. Hopeless, nothing you can do for them.
Sid: But your parents are believers. Now they’re praying. Was there a special way your dad was praying?
Tommy: Well my dad was working for Kenneth Hagin at the time. He went into Kenneth Hagin’s office and asked him. He said “I don’t know what to do, I’m at the end of my rope I’m desperate.” He said “Jerry every time you think of Tommy I want you to cover him with faith and love.” So at first it was real hard to do, but every time he thought and every time he wanted to worry he would do that. He would say “Father I put him in Your hands, I cover him with faith and love.” Then he would quote the scriptures “The seed of the righteous shall not perish,” then the devil would immediately speak to him and accuse. Righteous? “Yeah I’m righteous by the blood of Jesus. I cover him with faith and love.” In a short time, he wasn’t even able to worry about me.
Sid: My goodness that is realm of the Spirit we all should be. (Laughing)
Tommy: That’s right, well peace just flooded his heart. That’s what the Bible says to do instead of being filled with anxiety, and fear. Just make your request known unto the Lord and the peace of God which passes all understanding, in other words, there is no human reason for it; will fill you. So to answer your question, I was friends late that night and I began to overdose. I actually felt myself dying and they had looked back and thought I, in the backseat and thought I had already died. So they stopped the car and they were afraid of getting stuck with a corpse.
Sid: I can understand.
Tommy: We had a lot of stuff in the car and I think they didn’t want to go to jail. Getting stuck with a corpse there would be a lot of questions to answer. So they stopped the car opened the door and lifted me out of the car, and left me there next to the street and drove away. Never expecting to see me alive again. There in the darkness I felt myself dying; I actually felt my spirit leaving my body.
Sid: You knew that was happening?
Tommy: I knew it yeah, and I remember that very very clearly. I didn’t know if I had already died, but I called out on the name of Jesus. I didn’t call on the name of Buddha, although I had studied Buddhism, I didn’t call out on the name of Shiva, or Krishna, or any of the Hindu deities using chanting in my mantras.
Sid: I’ll tell you what, hold that thought
Tommy: Okay.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth