Our Guest Todd Smith

SID: New York Times. The New York Times newspaper had an article about tongues. What did it say?

TODD: Well, they followed a research that was done in United Kingdom, and it was a group of 1000 evangelicals that this research was conducted on. And the research came to the conclusion… Now listen to this, came to the conclusion that those who speak in tongues consistently and regularly have fewer mental disorders than those who do not. And the New York Times reported on that research and affirmed that speaking in tongues is valid.

SID: And how about the University of Pennsylvania study?

TODD: The Neuroscience Department of University of Pennsylvania led by Andrew Newberg conducted a study. It is just absolutely phenomenal, that when they took people that were praying in tongues said they analyze the brain. They looked at what was going on in the brain, the activity, they discovered that the frontal lobe, which literally controls the speech of a person’s life. When they were speaking in English and praying in English, it was firing, it was active. I mean, it was a lot of activity going on in their frontal lobe, but when they transitioned to tongues, when that individual spoke in tongues, all the activity in the frontal lobe went dormant.

SID: That proves it’s not coming from the brain.

TODD: It affirms what Paul said in First Corinthians 14, that when I pray in tongues, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. And this is a University of Pennsylvania led by a gentleman that literally had a degree in nuclear medicine in nuclear cardiology. So this is not just some kind of a cheap research. This was done at the University of Pennsylvania that says the front of a person’s brains goes dormant when they pray in tongues.

SID: No wonder Paul said, I pray in tongues more than any man. He knew that that was the secret of his power. Are you ready for evidence of how praying in tongues boosts your immune system by up to 40%? Next when we return.

SID: I’m here with Pastor Todd Smith. Todd, you say there is a disturbing trend going on in Charismatic churches and Pentecostal churches. What is that disturbing trend?

TODD: Sid as I travel around and preach, especially since the revival has hit our church, I have the privilege of going into Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. And I’m finding out that too many of them do not pray in tongues. And many of them don’t even know about the power of praying in the Holy Ghost. And these are Pentecostal, Charismatic churches where we should be talking about the significance of praying in the Holy Spirit. So here’s what I, as a Southern Baptist, I doubted the validity of tongues, but we’re discovering that Pentecostal and Charismatic pastors are de-valuing tongues.

SID: They’re taking it for granted.

TODD: Taking it for granted and not making it a priority of the people of God. I discovered in reading the scriptures, that the very first thing that Jesus gave the church, the first thing, when the Holy Spirit came was the ability to supernaturally communicate with him in tongues. The first thing that he gave, and now this trend is we’re minimizing what Jesus gave the church, the ability to talk to him supernaturally.

SID: Yeah. In a way I think is so amazing. Sometimes Pastor Todd is at a meeting where over 80 people are actually praying in tongues for the very first time. That’s almost like the original Pentecost. How did it that happened?

TODD: We were at Pastor Kevin Craig’s church in Apopka, Florida. And we were baptizing, and started baptizing at 9:30 at night, because I told the people about the vision on the water, fire on the water. And then when they get baptized, they’re going to be baptized with Holy Spirit fire. He told me that 80 of his members that he had pastored for years, when they got baptized and came up out of the water, that the fire of God touched them and hit them. And immediately began to speak in tongues. They started baptizing at 9:30 at night and at 9:30, the next morning. 12 hours of continuous baptism and people were getting baptized with the Holy Spirit. Pentecostal people, baptized Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues as they came up out of the water.