Our Guest Tommy Combs
Sid: My guest Tommy Combs I’m speaking to him at his office in Dora, Alabama suburb of Birmingham. Tommy told us on yesterdays broadcast the most amazing thing at 10 years of age shortly after he became born again he contracted Hepatitis C; his liver shut down; he just had days to live. Oral Roberts just happened to come on the television and his mother just happened to touch Oral’s hands and agree that her son would be healed and a blue mist came into the bedroom and when this blue mist touched Tommy he was totally healed. I mean this blue mist was so real Tommy is it true that an orderly came running in with a fire extinguisher?
Tommy: Yes, doctors and nurses at the nursing station left their nursing station ran to my room because the light had exploded with such an explosion. An orderly actually brought a fire extinguisher with him. Because he thought that some machine or something in the room had exploded with fire; and there was fire in the room alright it was a healing fire of our Savior Jesus Christ that’s what it was.
Sid: And then even more exciting than that God deposited the gift within you that you didn’t even understand and had to be developed; it was sort of like knowing things. Now out of curiosity before that blue mist came into your room did you have that gift?
Tommy: No, did not have the gift; did not understand the gifts, did not understand the gifts of God even after that day. It had to be developed, had to study had to learn it was part of me and had been part of me that day on till this day the gifts of God operate through our ministry and what we do for God.
Sid: Okay, I’m going to take you now to 1992 and you were on a tour of Israel; you found yourself in the Garden of Gethsemane and what was going on?
Tommy: I was with our good friend Perry Stone he spoke to us about the garden what happened there where Jesus prayed there and then he told us go somewhere and pray. So I walked over under some olive trees next to some rocks and sit down on a small rock form there and begin to pray to God and ask Him to lead us, guide us and direct us. And he spoke to me in that still small voice right into my mind and said “Tommy you’re not doing what I want you to do.” Now I had been in the church many years teaching Sunday school my wife and I started Christian School she was the principal. We were tither’s and offering; he was building churches all through South America sending on trips around the world supporting the gospel to be preached all around the world. And God speaks to me that day in the Garden of Gethsemane and says “You’re not doing what I want you to do.” Well I had enough sense to ask the question.
Sid: I mean that’s kind of a scary thing for God to say that to you.
Tommy: Just spoke to me, and I said “Okay, what do you want me to do?” He said, “I’ll tell you tonight,” it’s 4:00 in the afternoon and we are going on some more visits to some holy sites around the city of Jerusalem and He says “I’ll tell you tonight.” Well at 8:00 our tour group ends up in the upper room; I think it’s right above David’s tomb which you can go in visit it where they say maybe this was the place where the last supper took place, the Passover supper, maybe this is the place on the day of Pentecost so we celebrate that as that room it happened in. We go in and we stay about thirty-five – forty-five minutes of a service; during that service our good friends from Gainesville, Georgia Jensen Franklin’s preaching and he preached about fifteen minutes and called me out. “Tommy Combs come up here please” I walk to the front. He says “Give me your hands” and I held my hands out in front of my body. He said, “God’s said to tell you something,” see God will confirm things with other people. He will tell you something and someone else will help you confirm that what God is saying to you.
Sid: Now God did not want you to say “I’m going to test this to see if this is God.” He already made it clear that He was going to speak to you that evening. This must have been a very important revelation. So, what did he say to you?
Tommy: He said to me, “Give me your hands,” I held my hands in front of my body. He took anointing oil, he anointed my hands with oil and said these words, “God said to tell you when you lay hands on the sick He would heal them,” not I would heal them, “God would heal them.” And then he laid his hand on me and I’m on in the upper room I am out under the Spirit of God in the upper room service. That’s when I knew that God had called me to lay hands on the sick.
Sid: But up to this point had you been praying for the sick?
Tommy: Praying for the sick in church services like we all do in some of our church services. You know they come to the altar at the end of the service to pray you would ask them you know “What can I help you pray about.” There would be numerous needs there but never had I seen anyone healed of blindness and cancer leave their body, anything like that.
Sid: Okay, so 40 days later and I’m sure you’re aware of this Tommy 40 is a very important number in the Bible, so you were in the upper room that’s tied in with Passover, 40 days later you’re back in Birmingham and you’re minding your own business, I guess driving on the interstate and God speaks to you again. What does He say?
Tommy: The same still small voice comes right to me and says “What are you going to do about this man; gave me the man’s name and said, “What are you going to do about it?” And you know I had not seen the guy in 6 or 8 years and I know him but I haven’t seen him in many years. So I call my mother on the cell phone and I say “Mom, God just gave me this man’s name I’m driving down the interstate and God just spoke to me about this man.” She said, “Tommy, that man is dying with pancreatic cancer at UAB Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama he has a week to live, 10 days at the most.” I turned around at the next intersection, went downtown Birmingham, went to UAB Hospital, went upstairs and found him. He’s laying in a hospital bed; tubes in his arms, he’s absolutely dying. I said, “What’s happening?” He said, “I’m dying.” I said, “What’s the problem?” He said, “I have pancreatic cancer.” I said, “What’s the doctors doing?” He said, “Watching me die, there’s nothing they can do, they are just observing me trying to learn from this terrible disease that’s took my body.” I said, “I don’t think you’re going to die; I think God’s going to heal you.” And he just shook his head at me like yes you know. I took my coat off I had a coat and tie on, I took my coat off and I layed on him, I took my hands and I laid on his body and I reached over and laid across his bed with my body and God healed him, total healing of pancreatic cancer.
Sid: Now any healing is a miracle, but what was wrong with his…did he have any of his pancreas left?
Tommy: No, the cancer had eaten his pancreas; his pancreas was totally gone.
Sid: So in order for him to survive he’d need a creative miracle a new pancreas.
Tommy: He would need a new pancreas and that day God gave him a new pancreas. He could have went home that hour, they kept him two days. They gave him test after test, x-ray after x-ray CAT scan you name it they gave it to him and they say “You do not have any pancreatic cancer, no cancer is in your blood.”
Sid: How does a handle when someone has no pancreas and then all of a sudden they have one when someone is dying and you’re using them as a guinea pig to find out about pancreatic cancer and all of a sudden they… “What did the doctors say?”
Tommy: The doctors said exactly what you and I were saying, the doctor’s said “Son, God has healed you.” That’s what the doctor told him, “God has given you a new pancreas, we didn’t do anything, God has healed you.” He went home in 2 days totally healed with a brand new pancreas no cancer in his bloodstream, no residue of cancer in his bloodstream.
Sid: So Tommy what’s going on inside of Tommy Combs when he sees a miracle of that magnitude?
Tommy: I go back to the upper room; I go back to when God spoke to me in the Garden of Gethsemane. I go back to that and God used that healing to build me to where He wants me to be. Now there’s not anything I cannot believe God for; any healing I can believe God for. My faith is on upper, upper, upper level I am there where God wants me to be because I know Jesus is the healer.
Sid: Tommy, you’ve had so many amazing experiences since but there’s something that kind of is just personal and it intrigues me. In my notes it says that you started several orphanages and one is in Chernobyl. Why Chernobyl?
Tommy: I went to do a Bible teaching school up near Chernobyl, and while I was there I taught in the school for new preachers that we were developing put them through Bible school. So as I was there I got to visit the area, I wanted to visit Chernobyl and when I did I came to this village, I came to this sight and there was an orphanage there with no support. Children were stillborn with blind, stillborn with no fingers or hands; the reactor is actually still burning in the earth. And so there I met the lady that ran the orphanage and she touched my heart and so we started supporting the orphanages and we’ve been doing that for over 10 years.
Sid: Sounds Biblical to me.