SID: Hello, Sid Roth your investigative reporter here with Tommy Tenney. There’s a part of his book, on the book of Esther that I have to tell you is one of my favorite parts. At least that’s where God has me right now. Some people refer to this as soaking. Tommy has other descriptions for it. Tommy, tell me about Esther’s preparation with that oil of myrrh and perfume.
TOMMY: Esther, when she was brought into the palace, it’s not like they said, okay, take a shower, and tomorrow you see the king. There was twelve months of preparation. The first six months the Bible says that they soaked in oil of myrrh. That’s a very fragrant, aromatic perfume, and six months in oil of myrrh. The king must have really liked myrrh. And then six months with other spices until by the end of that process I think you could probably smell Esther before you could see Esther. They would say, here comes Esther. But I don’t see her. No, but she carried her own cloud with her. And that was the anointing. And the real purpose of that anointing, now think about this Sid, she walks through the palace. Every young man in the palace wants to say, hey Esther, let’s talk. To which Esther’s only legitimate response is, sorry, I can’t talk to you. But why Esther? You smell good, you look good; you’re walking good, beautiful dress. Esther would have to say, I’m sorry I can’t talk to you. Why? It’s not your oil.
Sometimes Sid, we prostitute the anointing to gain favor with anybody else in the palace. And one of the lessons I learned from Esther is, don’t flirt with lower lovers. Save yourself for the king. And that process of preparing, it was all about, the purpose of the anointing, the real purpose of the anointing, is to camouflage the stench of human flesh so the king can stand to be in the same room with you.
SID: If someone says, I’m going to, as we do here in the west, segment their life, and say, this part is for God, this part is for me. What’s wrong with that thinking?
TOMMY: Well, it all belongs to God. It would have been a travesty for a young lady to walk in and think that the palace was about her. It would have been a prostitution of the process to say this is all about me. In order to find favor with the king, you had to realize, think about these young girls, Sid. They come into this palace; they had never seen a palace like this. It would have been real easy, I’m going to tweak some religious spirits; can you handle it?
SID: I can handle it, the question is can you handle it?
TOMMY: They walk into this palace and it’s beautiful and it would have been real easy for these young peasant girls to fall in love with the palace. Esther’s secret was she didn’t fall in love with the palace she fell in love with the presence. She realized that the palace was just a big empty house without the king. Sometimes people fall in love with, church. And what they need to do is fall in love with the king.
SID: Tommy, I have a question. You’ve got this Hollywood motion picture, you’ve got book after book after book that’s bestseller. How do you, as my wife likes to say, how do you handle the “P” word? Pride?
TOMMY: Oh.
SID: That’s a toughie though.
TOMMY: You know it may be. But I know Tommy Tenney. He’s not capable of doing any of that. I couldn’t do it without Him. It’s not about me.
SID: What is your personal worship like, life like?
TOMMY: Very contemplative. I, most of my prayer time is spend listening instead of talking. I do have a few outbursts every now and then tell Him how I feel. But I’ve found that a good listener is more powerful than a good talker. And it works with my wife; works with people, and about the only time I’m really comfortable talking is when I’m up speaking. The rest of the time I would prefer to fade into the background somewhere.
SID: Just out of curiosity, are you more of an introverted type of person if you really could do what you wanted to do?
TOMMY: If I could do what I wanted to do, I’d live on an island, my wife, my family, my kids, write books and be in the presence of God. Quite honestly, Sid, I don’t get my kicks out of preaching. Preaching is my assignment; it’s what I’m supposed to do. Writing is my assignment. Where I get my life from, where energy flows into me is from worship. And there is nothing better that I like than to be in God’s presence. Not somebody saying He’s there, but Him really being there.
SID: For those that really don’t understand what we’re talking about, what does it mean, really, in words people can understand, to be in the presence of God?
TOMMY: I’ve been in the presence of Presidents, powerful people, in making this movie, had many, many nights of dinner with people like Omar Shariff, famous actors, and they are all interesting people, but there is nothing like being in the presence of God, your past and your future all rolled into one. Suddenly you see, and you don’t only see, you understand what you see. When I’m in God’s presence, I understand things, I know how things work, I don’t have to try to figure things out, you walk out, have you ever walked into a worship service and circumstances in life have you down, but you worship. You don’t just sing a song, you don’t go through a ritual, you somehow get into God’s presence, then when you leave that service, the circumstances that existed before you walked in are still there, but they don’t affect you anymore. Because of the divine perspective, you saw how it works.
SID: With what’s going on in the world today, how would you like to walk in that type of supernatural peace?
TOMMY: Favor.
SID: The whole thing that Tommy is saying is, he’s not special. What God has done for him, He wants to, I believe God has a greater desire for you to enter this arena, than you do. I think it’s time for it to be reversed. I think you should have a greater desire to enter it than God. But it’s actually the opposite. We’ll be right back, if that hasn’t confused you, come on back and I’ll confuse you a little more. Don’t go away. Singer: One moment in His presence…
