Our Guest Todd Smith
SID: I’m here with Pastor Todd Smith on location right by the Jordan River. The exact spot where historically we’re told Jesus was baptized. You can’t get much better than that, Todd. Okay, I said it was the biggest misconception… I believe this misconception is so bad, that it has stopped you fulfilling your destiny and caused you to even question God when prayers were not answered. Explain that misconception.
TODD: Well, I believe a lot of us are living our lives contrary to Scripture. I believe because of the hyper grace message, that is doesn’t matter how we live–
SID: What do you mean by hyper grace?
TODD: That it really doesn’t matter how we live now, God accepts us just as we are. And there is an element of truth to that, that God does accept us just the way that we are.
SID: It’s truth out of proportion.
TODD: Exactly. We’re not talking about purity. We’re not talking about righteousness from the pulpits. We’re not talking about holy living. We’re not talking about abstaining from evil in our lives. We’ve opened up the church doors and embraced everything. So the church has filled our corridors and our hallways and our sanctuaries with a soft Gospel. It’s a Gospel of accommodation.
SID: Well you can’t have a mega church without that.
TODD: Well, we’ve become more seeker sensitive than we have Holy Spirit sensitive. We don’t want to offend anybody. We don’t want to deal with the tough issues. We don’t want to deal with personal holiness.
SID: If we don’t, who will? The politicians? Give me a break.
TODD: Yeah, so therefore it’s very difficult to find, in the culture, Christian and un-Christian. We just mingled these together.
SID: I want to take you back to that misconception that we’ll call, they don’t know Jesus sat down. What happens when people really capture this in their lives?
TODD: You know, in the book I wrote, He Sat Down, I’m reading the Scripture, Mark chapter 16, where Jesus says to his disciples, “Here’s what I need you to do. You’re going to take the Gospel to the world. You’re going to cast out devils, you’re going to lay hands on the sick. You’re going to speak in new tongues. And if you drink any deadly thing it’s not going to hurt you.” And then I read verse 19 where it says he ascended to heaven and he sat down. The Lord spoke to me and he said, “Todd, read that again.” I said, “Lord, you ascended to heaven and you sat down.” He said, “Read it again.” And he said, “Ascended to heaven and he sat down.” He said, “Todd what am I doing right now?” And I said, “Well according to this, you are seated. You’re sitting down.” And he says, “Exactly.” He says, “I am still sitting.”
And it dawned on me that right now Jesus is in heaven, he is sitting, and that means he has completed all of the work that he’s going to do on the earth in his flesh and bone body. And he said, “Todd, what I now do on the earth, I do through my body.” Everything, really 98 to 99% of all that God accomplishes on the earth, he does through his local body. Me, you, all of our viewing audience. What he accomplishes on the earth he does through us. And if we don’t do what he’s asked us to do, his work doesn’t get done.
SID: So many people misunderstand that. We’re here on location at the Jordan River, and when we come back, we’re going to show you footage of people on our tour group, because what happens… the special presence that Pastor Todd has, hits wherever people are being baptized, the fire comes. I personally have talked to people that have been baptized when he’s done this. I mean people with absolutely incurable diseases, which I might add, why do you go to such lengths to get things documented before you release things about major miracles? Why do you do that?
TODD: Because we know that the world is skeptical about when we say something that’s happened, that God did something. We want to medically document it so that we can prove to the world that Jesus still heals.
SID: I mean but this is actually ridiculous. 50 malignant stage 4 tumors in a PET scan I saw before my very eyes, and then she gets water baptized, and the next day takes a PET scan and I saw before my very eyes, all 50 tumors… where’d they go Todd?
TODD: The Lord took them completely out of her body.
SID: What happens when that fire hits the Jordan River at the exact spot Jesus was baptized in?
