Prophetic Vision, Autumn 2013, #69

David Hathaway No 69 Autumn 2013

, Y A D R E T S E Y ISRAEL – !

R E V E R O F D TODAY AN

Levushkan: The church is in crisis! - Is there an answer?

David: Yes, Christians have a tremendous crisis to face today, its roots can be found in the way that we interpret the Bible. Today the world is trying to change the church’s thinking! We have to get back to the authority of what the Bible says. For me, this means we have to get back to the simple Gospel of Christ as we did in Lithuania in 2009, 2010, so when all the churches came together for evangelism, it broke down the barriers and brought a renewing in all the churches. Evangelism is the work of the Holy Spirit. My background is Pentecostal, but still there needs to be a renewing in the Pentecostal churches today. I am probably one of the last living people with an active connection to the Welsh revival. My father was converted in the Welsh revival, a strong move of the Holy Spirit through prayer and recorded in history as a renewing of the existing churches and a return to Biblical standards. It affected Wales, and reached the world. What happened then we need now – not just Bible teaching, but the practical operation of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

I see a crisis when the church is regarded as irrelevant, and more people are converted to Islam than to the Christian faith (especially in Britain today) because we neglect the authority of the Bible. Every part of the church – Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Pentecostal, Charismatic – is facing this challenge.

I was very struck by what the last Pope said when he visited England, that the biggest threat to the churches is secularism. It is! People outside the church look at us and say, if there is a God, He’s irrelevant. I’ve not had an easy life: God has brought me through so many difficult experiences so that I realise we all need to get back to practical issues, how God can materially change our lives. I went to Bible College, then became a pastor, but after 15 years, God said, “Stop talking, I’m tired of listening to you, I want you to put everything you talk about into practice! Only talk about it when you’ve done it!” I’m over 80 years old, my

faith is stronger now, more practical, and it’s based on my life’s experience – this is what we have to bring back into the church, through the Holy Spirit. But at the moment we have a very serious crisis – the world is changing the church! That’s never God’s intention! The church must change the world – and only the Holy Spirit can do this. That’s why we must come back to the simple Gospel of the truth of God’s Word and Biblical authority.

Then the church will change the world by the power of the Holy Spirit!

Levushkan: David, when there is a scandal with a church minister, it becomes a stumbling block to the faith of many Christians – how can we support them? We see in the former Soviet countries like Latvia, Lithuania, people don’t just leave that particular church, they leave the church altogether. We’ve seen it in Germany. In Poland there is a whole move of people who want to ‘un-baptise’ themselves, they come to the church and demand that their names be removed, blotted out of the church record book, as if they had never been baptised.

They say the church is a corrupted structure, too many scandals. But losing their trust in the structure, they also lose their trust in Christ. How can we help them?

David: If a minister or a priest is involved in scandal, there needs to be, not just confession but a change.

Confession of sin doesn’t stop you going back into your sin. Real repentance is leaving your sin. When Jesus met the woman caught in adultery, He said, “Go your way, your sin is forgiven – but you must change your lifestyle!”

The reason people leave the church is that they don’t see this change. The Bible says that repentance, renewing, has got to begin in the church. It’s too easy to ‘come into’ the church, people join for many for many reasons.

Baptised as a baby, in search of an ideology or a psychology, even for political reasons. Thousands of young people come into the charismatic churches because of the music. Yes, they ‘hear’ the message, but their lives are not changed. In the Bible Jesus said the only way to become a real believer is to be ‘born again’. That’s why the Pharisee asked, “How can I be born again?” – It means death to the old life, born into the family of God. I’m an evangelist because of something in my heart, in my life, and I want other people to have this experience.

We have to begin with a complete revolution in the church.

Levushkan: Yes, we have a move in the Catholic Church we call ‘new evangelism’ which is about a new relationship, a personal encounter with Jesus.

David: This is why I want to work with Catholics – and Protestants – whatever denomination. You are exactly right, it requires a new evangelism which has to start in the church. It was Smith Wigglesworth who brought David du Plessis the prophecy to take the move of the Holy Spirit, the Charismatic move, into the mainline historic churches. He started this work. I believe that it is part of my commission to fulfil this prophecy, to see a renewing

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in the established churches. To answer your question, how are we going to deal with the negative effect of the scandals in the church, we have to come back to this ‘new evangelism’. I see this ‘renewing’ in my meetings, in Russia, in Lithuania, in Georgia, in Israel, and in other religious countries.

Levushkan: You said you are not in the church for the money or the career. This is what Pope Francis is saying, that we should be careful, not to build a ‘career’, not to use religion to fulfil your own ambitions. He called on Catholic clergy to be ‘ministers’, to give themselves as ‘servants’.

David: In Britain, it used to be a tradition in upper class families that the oldest son inherited the title, the land and the property. The second son went into the army. And the third son went into the church – often frustrated, not there for a genuine reason! I had a calling from God to give my life in service. My father was the Superintendent in the Elim churches in Britain for over 30 years, I could have followed in his footsteps. But I realised, the problems we see in the political sphere are also in the church when it becomes an ‘organisation’ and the danger is, we get the same scandals, unless men’s lives are changed by God. We must come back to a new life, a born again experience. In my meetings, people not only ‘repent’, but God changes their lives. A large number of drug addicts, alcoholics, when they come to Christ in my meetings, are so changed, they surrender their lives and begin to serve Him. They have a genuine testimony of a changed life – we have to bring this experience back into the church! We cannot stop people leaving the church until they see this change. If you look at the political situation in Britain – people don’t trust the government, or any political party any more because they say one thing with their mouths, but they do the exact opposite. This is true worldwide, this is what caused the Arab Spring, the uprisings – they have a revolution, get a new government, and then they are against the new government because there’s no change! People are abandoning pol-

itics, they realise voting means nothing. It’s the same in the church, people are disillusioned because they don’t see the change in the lives of the leaders. The priests, the pastors have got to change! Then the people will come back. Look what happened in the Bible with Jesus. Israel was a very religious nation, but Jesus had to condemn their religion because they didn’t practice what they preached! We’ve got to have that same renewing in the church now. Or the church will die. That’s the danger.

Levushkan: We’ve been speaking about the sincerity of the change in the lives of the people, how do you see the ‘holiness’ of the ministers in the church? We realise that the minister is an ordinary man with weaknesses, but on the other hand he must be an example. From your experience, should he be a ‘saint’?

David: What is ‘holiness’, a ‘saint’? – I’m not a saint! I’m a married man, with a wife, three daughters, grandchildren, great grandchildren – they don’t see me as a ‘saint’! They see me as a father, grandfather – it is relationship. And for us as leaders, we’ve got to have the right relationship with God. To me ‘holiness’ doesn’t come from your apparel or from an expression of poverty – poverty itself doesn’t make you holy – poor people are neither holy, nor an example, nor does anybody listen to them. We have to come back to a changed life! When I was in business, in investment banking, I was very successful because I used Christian principles, I was honest, people saw what I did and trusted me. Both ministers and the ordinary people in the church have got to have a changed life, a changed character, so that others can see them as an example.

When I preach the Gospel, I tell people I’m not a ‘holy’ man. I had a year in a common communist prison, I was living with murderers, drug addicts, criminals, but I tried to live as a believer and they listened to me. I slept on the floor, wore the same prison clothes, ate the same food as they did. Holiness isn’t about separating yourself – I think you will have more impure thoughts if you are iso-

lated in a cell, but you’ll have a better life with wife and children! We need a transformation that will affect the whole life of the church. Holiness is our relationship with God. God is not interested in outward things – He sees your heart. With all my heart I love God – I serve Him with my heart.

Levushkan: But sometimes there is a disconnect between the real life of a person and the function or position he holds and it becomes an inner conflict. There are many ministers today, pastors and priests, monks, who are depressed and disappointed – I know many who take antidepressants and go for counselling, even over many years, but cannot overcome their depression.

David: If anybody has a difficult life, I do! And if anybody is depressed, I should be! Now that I’m 80 years old, I think I ought to have an easy life, but it gets harder and harder! The answer is in our relationship with God. God always HAS an answer. I don’t recite prayers or read from a book I simply talk to God like I’m talking to you, then He talks to me, that’s prayer. It’s not reciting a formula, it’s personal from my heart, so I don’t hide my problems saying “I’m a holy man”, I say, “Oh God, You are my Father, I’m coming to You as Your son, I’m asking for advice” – but I’m not ashamed to tell God as it is, “This is the position!” I talk to God on a per-

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sonal basis. I’m not afraid to tell Him the truth. If I’ve made a mistake, I tell Him and I ask Him to help me to change. If I’m in trouble, I tell Him, I ask Him for advice, “Tell me what to do, how can I solve this problem?”

Yes, problems cause depression, but talking everything through, not with a human counsellor, but with a Heavenly Father who knows me better than I know myself, solves the problem. But how does God talk to me? I believe the Bible is God’s Word, personally to me – I accept and believe its promises and find comfort in them.

When I was in the communist prison for Bible smuggling, a lot of Christians criticised me, “You broke the law, you deserve to be in prison.” I said, “No, my Bible says that we should obey God rather than man. I’m suffering for Christ because I have seen the need in the communist countries.”

Paul and Silas were in prison, they prayed, God sent an earthquake and broke the prison open! I said, “Lord, if You could do it in Bible days, do it today! Break this prison open!

Get me out!” Also Peter was in prison, the church prayed, God got him out!

In answer to prayer! So prayer changes things! I determined in the prison that I would put all my faith into practice, and if my faith was real and if my relationship with God was real, He would get me out! I would not stay 10 years! I need to prove that God works miracles! I prayed!

After 9 months I managed to smuggle my Bible into my cell! I was

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putting my faith into practice! I was the only person in the prison with a Bible! I said, “God, speak to me!”

And God showed me clearly the day that I would come out of that prison!

He showed me from the Psalms that I would be out for Easter, that I would be speaking in the largest auditorium in London – and I said, “Well, Lord, You are my Father, if You can do that miracle, my birthday is 4 days before Easter this year, I want to come out on my birthday!” I asked God to show me a specific verse where it says the prisoner is released from his chains. I found that verse, I knew God had given me the answer – and this is where faith comes in – I had to decide to believe God! The day before my birthday, the officer in charge of my section was angry with me, “Why are you telling the prisoners you are getting out of this prison? It’s impossible! Look at the walls, at the armed guards, the dogs!” What happened? Within 20 minutes that same man who said it was impossible to get out, called me, “I’ve just had a phone call from the government, you are to be released!” The British Prime Minister had come to rescue me! And which day did I come out? On my birthday! It was on the television, in all the newspapers, and they invited me to speak in the largest auditorium in London at Easter to 10,000 people!

God is practical. He spoke to me through His Word and He did what He said!

Communication with God needs to be from your heart. Put your prayer books away, get a relationship with God, and He will have a relationship with you and talk to you. The first sign of a breakdown in a marriage is when you don’t talk, no communication. Why do nations go to war? Communication has broken down. The problem in the church is a breakdown of communication with God! Reading prayers is not talking to God, you’ve got to speak from your heart! As a married man, you don’t talk to your wife from a book. My wife would not have mar-

ried me if my only communication was from a book. She wanted to know what I think! It’s the same with God! Depression and all our other problems – let’s talk it through with God! God has an answer! How can pastors and priests, who have a problem with depression, lead the people if they haven’t got that relationship with God? One of the ambitions in my life, is that I believe God has called me to be a practical demonstration of what Christian life and faith is. We need a relationship with God through Jesus Christ – He IS the answer!

Levushkan: Prayer is very important for the minister and the evangelist.

Can you explain a little bit more the place prayer has in your life, how do you get answers from God and how do you know?

David: Three ways. One, when I know in my spirit that what I’m asking pleases God. Two, when the actual answer comes! But three, God speaks to me through His Word. In the prison I became determined to prove that the miracles that happened in the Bible can happen today. God said it, I had to hold on to it. What God says, He does. Always. The fact that these things are in the Bible builds my faith.

God isn’t a man, He does not lie, He doesn’t change His mind. That’s what the Bible says. I’ve proved it.

When I had throat cancer 50 years ago, I prayed for 3 months, then went back to the doctors saying I believed God had healed me. They examined me but the cancer had grown so big (this was Friday), they said, “On Monday we have to operate. We can’t wait.” The growth was on my vocal cord, I would lose my voice. I had prayed 3 months – no answer, now only 3 days! Now I had to learn how to pray!! I desperately wanted the answer, in writing, from God’s Word! Not comforting verses! So I asked Him are You going to heal me or not? Simply Yes and I’m healed.

No and I lose my voice. I read in Romans 8 where it says, ‘When we know not how to pray, the Holy Spirit prays for us – according to the will of God!’ That hit me so hard I jumped

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up, “You said yes! It’s according to the will of God!” With that I went to the doctors the next morning, 3 of them, all waiting with their knives!

Here comes a Christian believer and we doctors know there is no God! They put the instruments down my throat 3 times – they were angry – “Who did it? Somebody has cut this cancer out with a knife – we can see the scar where they cut it! Which hospital? What doctor?” I said, “The God you don’t believe in, He did it last night!” The miracle is not just that God healed me, but that He left a scar, so that they could see where He had operated! God did what the doctors couldn’t do, He cut the cancer out and left me with my voice!

But how did I know? – God told me, in His Word!

years a Christian and never grow.

Even Paul said you’ve got to give up your mother’s milk and go on to solid food. We’ve got to be like that spiritually, literally ‘grow up!’

of that tree? He didn’t say, ‘God didn’t say.’ – Just a seed of doubt, that’s all the devil needs to do, raise questions. But I ask God to give me the ‘gift of faith’.

Levushkan: How can a regular Christian get such a strong faith, first to receive the revelation and then to see the Word that God said happen?

Maybe they get a revelation, but they don’t have enough faith to see it fulfilled in their life.

Levushkan: In my experience I’ve seen situations where a person first believes as a baby in faith, he trusts God like a little child, and miracles take place in his life because he trusts God. But once he grows, especially if he becomes a minister, he learns theology, he finds there is a historical background to consider, and when you start talking about miracles with him, he says, “Come on, we’re grown people, what are you talking about, what miracles?” – Even though as a minister he sees miracles happening because of the faith of the people who believe in God – but the minister himself has lost this childlike faith, his trust, his relationship.

David, you have been in the ministry for more than 60 years, how did you manage to keep that trust, even though you know the problems, and you’ve had theological training?

David: There is a very simple answer.

In business, it’s not easy to trust someone to keep an agreement unless you really know that person. Trust comes when you prove them. My trust in God has grown over the years. I didn’t know God like this at the beginning. Looking back now over more than 60 years God has never failed me. My faith comes from first ‘hearing’ God’s Word, then from my experience. You start with ‘baby faith’, but as you go on, your faith will grow. When I was in the prison, the one thing that gave me faith that I would get out was the miracle of the throat cancer. I said, “Lord, if You could cut that cancer out and preserve my voice, then getting me out of prison is child’s play!” My faith had grown! This is the wonderful thing about Christian life – you start as a ‘baby’! I heard a story about a couple who asked a pastor to pray for their son who had never grown. The pastor prayed for the child then asked how old the boy was. They said, “Twenty-five years old!” – He had never grown! What a tragedy!

But there are Christians like that, 30

David: You have to be careful of theological training. Theology, science and too much knowledge does weaken your faith. They can destroy childlike faith. Jesus looked at the children they brought to Him, and then He looked at those learned people, religious people – and He said to them, “Unless you become as one of these children, you won’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

We’ve got to fight to retain that childlike trust. Faith is trusting somebody. If you ‘learn’ about faith, it’s abstract, it’s not tangible, you can’t touch it. But to me, faith is trust in a relationship, if you keep that relationship with God, you won’t lose your faith. But, if you allow other things to come in, doubt will weaken your faith. The same in business: you trust a business partner, then someone brings in doubt and you question, “Can I trust this man?” When the devil tempted Eve, he simpled sowed the seed of doubt by saying did God say don’t eat

If my faith was based only on those 2 early miracles – my throat cancer, the prison – I would probably doubt today, my faith would be weak. But I still have to trust God every day! I sometimes think now that at 80 years old, my life is a great deal harder than it was in that prison! I have to pray and trust God every day – I have so many problems only God can solve, it keeps my faith alive! If you plant a seed, you have to cultivate it to make it grow, otherwise it will die. Faith is the same, I can’t simply live with the faith of those early days. Some years ago, travelling across Europe by car with some of my staff, I said aloud, “Oh God, I’m tired of talking about those 2 miracles that happened years ago – 1964, 1972 – I want a bigger miracle!” Then I stopped, because if I wanted a miracle, I’m going to have a problem first! You don’t get miracles without problems. Miracles are the answer to the problem, and I ended up with lung cancer, so I needed God all over again! Right now I have financial problems – I usually do – how to pay for the work we are doing. My problems are bigger than yours! I need God! But that’s what keeps my faith alive!

Levushkan: Wonderful! Thank you!

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We left England for Germany on the Monday evening, 13 May, then flew on next day to Moscow. And then, after a cramped and uncomfortable seven hour overnight flight from Moscow, we finally landed in Chita, Siberia at 8.00am on the Wednesday morning! In England it was still Tuesday, 11.00pm at night, and our staff would be comfortably tucked up in bed! But however travel-weary we were, David would be holding evangelism in a few hours’ time! After so many years’ absence, we had truly forgotten how far away Siberia is!

With Israel only 3 weeks away, why on earth had we agreed to come here?!

We should be in the office, trying to solve every crisis, trying to make plans.

But it was the wisdom and blessing of God that He had brought us back here to Chita at this time, to remind us of, and challenge us with, His faithfulness

to do the absolutely impossible, here in Siberia, twenty years ago.

It was in 1993 that David was first invited to Siberia, to Chita, and it was here that God spoke to him and gave him a strategy to win Russia for Christ.

Communism in Russia had only just finally collapsed, many cities in Siberia were still ‘closed cities’ – no one, not even Russians, could get in without a special permit. Chita itself had been a closed city until 3 years before, built for prisoners exiled first by the old Tsarist regime, and then under communism.

Because of the extreme conditions – working in the mines, the cold (minus 45-50 degrees centigrade in winter), lack of food – thousands died. Even the roads were laid on the bones of the prisoners who had perished in great suffering, many were believers who had been exiled for their faith. In this godless city of 400,000 there was just one church, pioneered only 2 years before, in 1991, by missionaries from Belarus. In 1993 David and his team were the first British to enter the city!

Back then David wrote: ‘It was going to Chita and Duldurga in Siberia in 1993 that touched my heart. I found here a nation almost totally without God, one of the least evangelised areas in the world; 65 million people; a land mass 52 times the size of Great Britain, a land mass so large that well over a million square miles of space would be left over if the United States were placed in its centre; 4,000 miles from east to west, 2,000 miles from north to south; a land whose history was of

exile, prison camps, torture and death, yet where cities of over half a million exist; a land potentially wealthier than America, yet its people die in poverty; a warm, loving, hospitable, caring people, yet for so long tortured, imprisoned and killed. Here God began to unfold to me an unprecedented challenge – to reach the whole of Siberia before another curtain would come down to prevent evangelism – a task so large, so tremendous, it could only succeed by a mighty demonstration of the Power of God’s Holy Spirit!’

The plan was to hold in 1994 17 crusades in 17 cities in Eastern Siberia (known as the ‘Dead Heart of Asia’) and in the Russian Far East (Pacific Coast), taking with him 400 street evangelists (200 from the West, 200 from the Russian-speaking East European countries and Ukraine where David was already working fruitfully and seeing revival). In each location, first 7 days of intercession and street evangelism, followed by 3 days in a stadium (with David as the evangelist), then another 7 days’ teaching and church planting.

If you had known the costs and the logistics involved, the fact that even when he set out from Manchester airport for that remote region beyond the reach of today’s technologies and banking systems, David had only part of the cash that he would need, you would have agreed with his advisors, “Don’t go! It can’t be done!”

But God had said, “Go!” And to those who are cautious, God says in His Word, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent!’ – 1 Cor 1:19 KJV. God had spoken. He did not fail us in 1994 – we did it all! As God said in Isaiah 29:14, ‘I will do a marvellous work among this people, a marvellous work and a wonder!’ – and He fulfilled His Word!

I was a member of David’s ‘central team’ that travelled with him everywhere, as one of the intercessors and as the scribe!

For 63 days we battled the impossible. We lived by miracles every day! We visited 17

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cities, held 55 separate meetings, planted new churches, travelled 30,000km on scheduled and chartered flights and, despite rampant inflation with costs going up overnight as we slept in our beds, paid all the bills! It was estimated that 50,000 repented, the spirit of conviction so strong, that many came forward weeping. In every crusade practically everybody, except the few existing church members, streamed forward to receive Christ! And in every meeting, David said, “For 70 years under communism, you have been taught that there is no God, that He is ‘dead’. But I can prove and demonstrate that He is alive. I have no power of myself to heal the sick and crippled, but if the Gospel of Jesus that I have told you is true, miracles will happen tonight!” I personally recorded, standing at David’s side with the interpreter, over 1000 amazing miracles of healing...

We went back in Summer 95, Winter and Spring 96 and continued to work there consistently for 10 years. But as David foresaw 20 years ago, the window of opportunity to evangelise Russia has now closed, it is impossible to rent public buildings or public spaces to preach the Gospel. Nevertheless, during these 5 days in May, here, in the church in Chita, we held 2 days’ evangelism – 100 repented, many were healed.

We held a teaching conference attended by pastors and leaders from all over the region (in 2 days – 1000 came), and 2 Sunday services.

The church thanked us for the real revival David’s ministry brought to the whole of Siberia in the 1990s, a revival that has not gone out. The powerful miracles that happened then

have never been forgotten, nor have they stopped. The military officer who repented on the Friday night in Chita in 1994 and brought 500 of his men to the stadium on the Sunday, became a pastor! They told us that, as a result of David’s campaigns in 1994, 95 and 96, today more churches have been planted in this region than in any other part of Russia!

And the church in Chita is still a missionary church – every member is regarded as an evangelist who must go out into the villages and personally reach the people for Christ. For the last four years, every six months, a new team of volunteers give up their time and their jobs and travel to the remotest places to take Christ to the hopeless – because, they say, “Our region is a region of alcoholics, drug addicts, victims of HIV Aids and Hepatitis C, all desperately need Jesus.” David commissioned one such team to go out during his time here in Chita. Yet others, who were touched by the Spirit of God in those early campaigns, now go as missionaries to China, Iran, Israel – and the rest of Russia!

If our outward journey had taken us three days, the return journey was accomplished in one single 33 hour day! Getting up at 6.00am in Chita (9.00pm the day before in England!), we arrived in Moscow at breakfast time (after a seven hour flight), then via Frankfurt to England, touching down just before our office closed for the day! But now, jet-lagged, we would have to translate the confidence of the preaching and the experience of who God is in Siberia, to the situation facing us here at home and in our mission programme for this year!

1. Valentina was completely and miraculously healed in David’s evangelism in Chita in 1994. For 8 years she had multiple sclerosis, her legs were very weak and she was deteriorating. Instantly healed, taken off the disability register, now nearly 20 years later, she continues strong, in full health, is a key organiser in the church, and a dancer in the praise and worship team!

2. March 9th 2001, Vladimir was brought to David’s evangelism in Chita on crutches – he had broken his ankle on a construction site 5 days before. A new believer, he was due to be baptised, but now annoyingly he had a pot on his leg… Completely healed, he walked away from the meeting without crutches, and next night came back without the plaster cast! Now he could be baptised after all!

3. Irina saw a poster in a taxi advertising David’s evangelism in the stadium in Chita in 1995. Sick since 1987, she said she had become ‘a body, not a person’ – unable to walk, there was no cure for her. “It was an appointed day in my life – I walked away from the stadium on my own and took the tram home. I am a living testimony of the love of God!” Today she sings in the choir in the church, and her daughter is a tank commander in Israel!

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By a miracle in 2011, 2012, 2013, for the first time since the days of the early church, the Good News about the Jewish Messiah, who came for Jew and Gentile alike, is being preached to thousands and thousands of Jews in the land of Israel. June this year was our sixth great event! That we have continued is a miracle in many ways – despite many attempts, the Orthodox cannot stop us – there is a long waiting list of those who want to come – we have continued despite a major financial crisis – there is a real urgency because Israel is on the point of war.

Once again our meetings in Israel in June were held at a time of crisis for the nation. The news broke on the last day of our festival, that the UN peace-keeping forces had abandoned their border posts on the Golan Heights where they had been since the Yom Kippur War in 1973, thus potentially exposing Galilee (and Israel) to hostile attack from Syria for the first time in 40 years. Buses from all over Israel, from Qatsrin in the Golan Heights to Eilat in the south, had brought Russian-speaking Holocaust Survivors and WWII Veterans to the largest arena in Tel Aviv to hear the news of who Messiah is, that Yeshua was and still is God’s Son and is ‘come down to deliver!’

David began: ‘I know the situation you are in today in Israel. We must pray for your nation. The UN has pulled their soldiers off the Golan Heights and the Syrian rebels are threatening on television today to attack Israel. But I believe in God and the power of God to deliver. I want to bring you one of the most important verses in your Scripture: Four thousand years ago when Israel was in slavery in Egypt, God said to Moses, “I have seen the affliction of your people, I have seen your suffering and I am come to deliver!” I would say to your Knesset, to every Israeli, and particularly to those of you here today – God has spoken – let us call on God to deliver: “Oh God of Israel, defend and protect Israel – the nation and the people. Deliver Israel from every attack, send angels and the very power of Heaven to defend and protect Israel – not your military ‘Iron Dome’, but something far more powerful, that the very hand of God would cover and protect this nation, protect every person here, every survivor from the Holocaust, every veteran from the Second World War, every young person, your families, those you love. Oh God of Israel, You promised to Moses, You said, “I have seen the suffering of My people” – and You said Oh God – “I am come down, I am already here to deliver.” And I pray Oh God, at this very moment, that You would deliver and protect Israel – because You are our God and we are Your people. I declare to the whole world, this is the land of the God of Israel, this is the land of the people of Israel, and the God of Israel has all power to deliver. Do it now, Oh God, in the Name of Yeshua! Amen!”

‘If you look at the history of Israel, God has always delivered.

God will not fail you in this crisis. – I want you to understand that we have power with God through prayer. Your Scripture tells us about Jacob who wrestled with God in prayer until he got the victory. I want to tell you – not about defeat – but about power and victory. I want to show you how the power of God can change your life. Whatever your problem, God has promised that He will deliver you. I want to show you how you can experience that deliverance. Your ancestor, Jacob, wrestled with God, he had a personal encounter with God –

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he was resisting God – but finally, God touched him and said, “I will change your name, no more will you be called Jacob, but you will be called Israel.”

Your nation began with a personal encounter with God Himself! God wants YOU to have a personal experience with Him that will change your life and deliver your nation! That is the promise of God. God is already here, He has come down to deliver, God was in Israel before you were born, He has never left this land, God has never left His people! God can be with you in whatever circumstance, whatever you go through, God is concerned about you, not just as a nation, but as an individual – that’s why the Bible teaches us to pray, because through prayer we can have a relationship with God. My life is the living evidence that God answers prayer. When God says, “I have come” – you know from your Scriptures, it’s not possible for you to see God in the flesh. But the miracle is this, God sent His own Son to deliver and redeem and rescue the world, to rescue YOU! Isaiah 53 tells us that God put YOUR sin, YOUR sickness on HIS Son, Yeshua, so YOU could be delivered. He’s a God of love, He loves you, that is why He will work a miracle and heal and forgive you today!

‘The Old and the New Testament introduce us to God’s Son, Yeshua, Jesus. His name means: God saves, God delivers, God sets free. You who are here have been delivered from the Holocaust, suffering and war – God did this and brought you here to Israel! In Deuteronomy 4:32-34, Moses reminds the people of Israel about the greatest miracle, their deliverance out of Egypt.

But in Jeremiah 16:14, God speaks of a greater miracle, a greater deliverance from the ‘land of the north’. You Holocaust survivors are the fulfilment of the prophecies of Scripture! I believe in the God of Israel who prophesied that you would come out of Russia and Ukraine – you are the evidence of God’s power, of His Salvation, of who Yeshua is!

But if you want peace in your heart, you have to forget the past, you have to forgive. It’s almost impossible for us to forgive the suffering which you have experienced. That is why Yeshua, asked this question, “Which is easier, to forgive sin or to heal the sick?” Both are impossible!

But the healing, the miracle that you need, that will be the demonstration to you today of who Yeshua is and that He will forgive your sin!’

Back pain for 3 months – completely healed!

Losing her sight after childbirth – “Now I can see faces again!”

Pain in knees after surgery – pain completely gone!

Abdominal and back pain – all pain gone!

Diabetic – refused insulin because he “trusted God” – after prayer today feels “really good”!

Broke her back years ago – in strong pain – all pain gone!

Herniated disc in neck caused heart attack – needed steel plate – but now neck completely healed!

Crippled leg healed!

Thrilled – all pain in legs gone!

Pain from breast cancer – gone!

Pain everywhere – gone – “I can walk now!”

Heart feels better!

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It was in Chita that David’s ministry in Siberia began 20 years ago. The church is still under the leadership of the same pastor and his wife, and continues to grow and to send out missionaries to China, Iran, Israel and the rest of Russia. It was here, in 1993, that God gave David His strategy to win Russia for Christ. Everyone told David back then that it was impossible, that his vision was too big.

But like Abraham, he obeyed and went. The result was not just a revival, but an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and miracles in evangelism that has lasted. But more, this miraculous ministry in Siberia is also the foundation of David’s ministry to Russian-speaking people in Israel, and in the former Soviet dominated countries of Catholic Europe today – because through this, God supplied the Russian organisers who share his vision, and because here God gave him a deep love and understanding of these people groups.

If critics told David back then that his vision was impossible, that it was too big, they tell him all the more so now... And they are right, what we do IS impossible! For this reason during these 5 days in Chita, to encourage himself, David spoke on the power of prayer and trust in God to do the impossible things, and to accomplish what He has put in your heart! Whoever you are, however big your problems and however small your

faith, God wants YOU to succeed in what He has put in YOUR heart.

In 1992, when God began to prepare David for this current phase in his ministry, God warned him of an unspecified period of extreme testing, but promised that if David would hold on and not let go, God would give him that thing which is in his heart. If in your period of testing you ‘let go’, then God can never give you what was in your heart – because you have let go of it! If you are battling over something, then this series of messages from Chita is for you – watch it, listen to it! You can see and hear the whole series on the internet via our website: propheticvision.org.uk/media.

Here are four short key points from David’s teaching in Chita: ‘In my life, in my ministry, I have learnt the power of God through prayer. I have learnt to trust God. However impossible, if you pray, in faith, and believe, God will do the impossible things. We can accomplish nothing for God without prayer. The older I get, the more I have to pray. It’s only through prayer that God makes the impossible happen. Miracles, healing... – I can’t heal anybody, and I never want to be called a healing evangelist. Only God works miracles. I can’t. Only God CAN, and God DOES. And I want Him to get the glory for it, not me.

Whatever the problem, God always has an answer – miracle after miracle after miracle – day after day after day – it’s real! – And the world needs to see and to know this power of God to do the impossible, through you!’

‘If you are in leadership (pastor, evangelist, youth leader, worship leader, whatever it is) and you want to serve God, I will give you a challenge: If what you are doing is possible, leave it to somebody else! If the job God has given you is so small that it is possible to do it – let somebody else do it!

I challenge you to do only those things which

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are totally impossible – and then, only you and God can do it! If you do the things that are possible, everyone will pat you on the back, “You’re wonderful, look what you’ve done!” – YOU did it! If it’s impossible, they will say, “Only God could have done that!” This is the challenge by which I live my life. What I am doing at this moment in my ministry is totally impossible. So when it’s done, only God could have done it!’

‘In Luke 11, the disciples came to Jesus – they had seen all the miracles happening – and suddenly they understood, these things were ONLY happening because Jesus, the Son of God, could ONLY work the miracles when He spent the night in prayer! Suddenly this realisation now dawned in the disciples like an explosion of light! – Even though Jesus was the Son of God, the miracles were ONLY happening because of the link that He had with His Father in prayer! So now the disciples turned to Him and said, “Lord, teach us how to pray!” We all know this, the Lord’s Prayer... I hear this prayer many times in churches, but if it’s just a formality, it means nothing!!! Yes, Jesus taught it (Luke 11:2-4), but only then did He begin to teach His disciples HOW to pray! It’s only when you get beyond vain repetition, beyond those familiar words, when your problem is desperate and you need an answer, only when your crisis is serious, when you keep ‘banging on God’s door’ and you won’t go away – Jesus said, “That’s prayer!”

– asking God and not going away till you get the answer! (Luke 11:5-13.) That’s how I’ve learnt to pray – I keep asking, until God answers!’

‘I want you to know the power that God has, which we can have from Him: I challenge you with the story of Jacob who wrestled with God, until God touched him (Genesis 32:24-28). God said, “Because you have wrestled with Me” – and this is so symbolic of prayer – real prayer, not just simply saying words, but when you wrestle with God and won’t take ‘no’ – God said to Jacob, “As a prince you have power with God and with men and have prevailed!” (KJV.) Christians, you will never, never, never have power with men until you first have power with God. The blessing of God comes from this experience, when you also learn how to win power with Him! We know He HAS power. Why must you pray, why must you wrestle with God? Because when you pray, you are linking yourself directly with God – and God has ALL power, ALL authority. We must wrestle by faith and believe that we can take that power into our lives. No man can stop God, He WILL do the impossible through men and women who pray!’

Curved neck from childhood – healed!

Pain in knees for 20 years – healed!

Cataract for several years – healed!

Rheumatism from childhood, couldn’t bend knees – healed!

After stroke could only drag her leg, they were going to operate on her knee – healed!

After stroke 7 years ago couldn’t use her arm – healed!

Blind in right eye and almost no sight in left eye – now he can see faces with left eye!

Left side of face paralysed – but now she can read again!

Poor sight from birth – now he can see clearly!

Hepatitis C for 10 years – swelling gone, liver shrank!

Pain in all joints, especially hands – all pain gone!

Damaged shoulder muscles and tendons – all pain gone!

YOUR GIFT WILL HELP US BRING THE PEOPLE IN! PLEASE SEND YOUR GIFT TO Eurovision Mission to Europe International Office, 41 Healds Road, Dewsbury WF13 4HU, UK Tel: + 44 (0)1924 453693 Fax: + 44 (0)1924 465326 email: uk@propheticvision.org.uk

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Prophetic P rophetic

There are not many people alive today who have the real experience of revival in Britain that I have. My father was converted in the 1904/1905 Welsh revival and later became part of the Apostolic Faith Movement, which was the first Pentecostal Movement in Great Britain.

In the 1920s he served as Superintendent of the Apostolic Churches in Scotland, then was invited to join George Jeffreys, the greatest healing evangelist Britain has ever seen, as Superintendent of the Elim Pentecostal Churches. When I was born George Jeffreys dedicated me to the Lord and I am told he wanted to adopt me as his own son – so only God knows what he then prayed over me.

Fifty, sixty years ago Europe was not considered as a mission field. But I knew from the very beginning I was called to Europe. Since 1961 my ministry has been in Israel, in Central and East Europe, and in Russia. I have personally seen revivals come in Hungary and Bulgaria under communism, Ukraine and Russia following the collapse of communism.

Today, in Lithuania and Poland, I am ministering to Catholics. I am sometimes criticised. But the Catholics are the majority – up to 90% of the population! – And the Government of Lithuania is so moved by what God did in their whole nation in 2009 and 2010, that they have offered us the 15,000 seat Siemens Arena free of charge if we will come back December 25-26 this year! And the combined churches in the whole country will pay 50% of the other technical/transport costs! This will then be part of the National Christmas Celebration for the whole of Lithuania!

Shortly after my ministry to the Catholics in Lithuania in 2010 (where we reached up to 15,000 every day), I received a

prophecy and encouragement from an evangelical pastor in Lithuania, of Russian origin, Vitalijus Rumbutis.

He wrote: There are spiritual things about to happen in Lithuania that will shake the world. Lithuania is considered quite insignificant, yet work will take place here that is going to be far more important even than the collapse of the Soviet Union. When God said this, I wondered what it could be. However the feeling that Lithuania will have a major part in the turn of history didn’t leave me. I perceived changes in our country that will rock entire nations, and serve as a turning point in our tiny country, in the Catholic Church and in all the Christian world. This revival will reach Israel and will set the world aflame with the unstoppable fire of the Gospel.

(Obadiah 1:17; Matthew 3:10-12.)

these events. But we need to ask the Lord to send more workers into His fields.

Every believer needs to step forward and preach, every believer is called by His Master. We cannot afford to be passive.

Revival, when it comes, will reveal a community of born again believers who will become a powerful global network of God’s devoted men and women.

Differences between denominations will disappear. The Bride of Christ will be pure and will call upon the Lord, “Come quickly!” (Revelation 19:1-9; 22:17-21.)

I saw an old dry tree, branchy like an olive tree and high like an oak, it was so high it reached the sky. It was a symbol of the Catholic Church. I understood that the huge Catholic tree is coming into leaf. A charismatic movement has begun in Lithuania and elsewhere. This is good news from the Lord. We have to be ready for an awakening. For us in Lithuania it is an opportunity to proclaim the Gospel and spread the message of the Lord to our people, the majority of whom are Catholic. A good example to us is David Hathaway, who held the two biggest evangelistic events in the history of Lithuania in the past two years (2009, 2010). Over ten thousand Catholics found personal relationship with Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour during

EUROPE TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH! It was Smith Wigglesworth (1859-1947) who brought God’s message to David du Plessis (1905-1987), a South African Pentecostal minister, to take the ‘charismatic move’ of the Holy Spirit into the mainline historic churches. Du Plessis became known worldwide as ‘Mr Pentecost’. The following prophecy is attributed to Smith Wigglesworth in 1947: During the next few decades there will be two distinct moves of the Holy Spirit across the church in Great Britain. The first move will affect every church that is open to receive it and will be charact-

erised by a restoration of the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit. The second move of the Holy Spirit will result in people leaving historic churches and planting new churches. In the duration of each of these moves, the people who are involved will say: “This is the great revival.” But the Lord says: “No, neither is the great revival but both are steps towards it.”

When the new church phase is on the wane, there will be evidenced in the churches something that has not been seen before: a coming together of those

with an emphasis on the Word and those with an emphasis on the Spirit. When the Word and the Spirit come together, there will be the biggest movement of the Holy Spirit that the world has ever seen. It will mark the beginning of a revival that will eclipse anything that has been witnessed within these shores, even the Wesleyan and the Welsh revivals of former years. The outpouring of God’s Spirit will flow over from the UK to the mainland of Europe, and from there will begin a missionary move to the ends of the earth.

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Online: eurovisiontv.org.uk UK Broadcast Schedule: TBN Europe: Tuesdays 13.00 GMT/BST Sky 583 LoveWorld UK: Monday-Friday Sky 588 – check channel listing for times Europe and Rest of World: CNL-Europe: Sundays 19.00 CET Hotbird 13°E, 12,207 MHz www.glorynet.eu: Tues, Weds, Thurs 20.00 CET STV (Estonia): Mons & Weds 08.00, Sats 19.00, Suns 10.00 EET CNL-USA: Intelsat Americas (IA5) Satellite 97°W CNL-Russia: Sundays 21.00 Moscow Time LoveWorld South Africa: Monday-Friday Botswana TV: Weekly Top TV Uganda: Thursdays 22.00 Local Time

David’s on-demand TV programmes / LIVE webcasts / repeat webcasts / documentaries

eurovisiontv.org.uk

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Recently one of our readers wrote to me about an open experience of Heaven that she once had in a public prayer and worship meeting. She saw the brightness of Heaven’s courts and the busyness of Heaven’s angels. Everyone in the meeting became aware of this unusual phenomenon and everyone focused on it. But after the meeting was over no one spoke about it, and now many years later she was still wondering what it meant. Her letter struck a chord in my heart and I wrote back:

Dear Stella Thank you for your letter sharing your experience from all those years ago.

Your letter touches me deeply regarding something that is very important to me.

It is wonderful to have had such an experience of the reality and activity of Heaven, which is so rarely perceived in our daily lives. As you have done, treasure it for ever – in our dark world it is a blessing to have this bright comfort.

I have never been privileged to see such things, but what means so much to me day by day is that I know, from the Word of God, that in any situation, at any moment in time, I can enter direct into God’s presence to find ‘help in time of need’ – Hebrews 4:6.

This is very important to me in the midst of my daily experience of pressing problems and concerns – my Heavenly Father is so close, so real, there is no high

level of praise or special elevated spiritual experience that I have to rise to, I can just go straight in by the Blood of Jesus! He died so that we could! – Heb 10:19-22. To enter God’s Presence we don’t need to find a special atmosphere, we don’t need to search for some special anointed person of God, we don’t have to bind demons and powers and authorities – you and I can go straight in and talk to Him! Immediately! On the spot! I could not live the life that I do if I did not know this. Every time that I am disappointed, afraid, discouraged, I go straight into His Presence, to Him! For help!

appear before Him, even whilst here on earth! Then finally there comes a day when truly we will live with Him forever – Heb 9:28; 12:28. Re-read the whole book, and let the Holy Spirit impress upon you what you need to know. I hope what I have written may be of help to you.

Katie Morris Editor, Prophetic Vision

This is the reason I love the Book of Hebrews so very much. When I am in difficulty, this book tells me that Jesus, although as the Son of God was perfect, He was made ‘more perfect’ because He lived like us, suffered like us, He knows how hard it is to live in this world, and it is He who intercedes for us and ushers us into His Father’s Presence as the children whom God gave Him! – Heb 2:10,13; 7:25; 5:7-9. So we have the right to enter into God’s Presence and

David Hathaway My hobby is sailing – I have sailed in many storms – and I have endured many of life’s storms too. Today politicians and economists tell us that we are in uncharted waters. Because I am a sailor I know all too well what that means. I have nearly been shipwrecked, but thank God, I found my position in the chart, and at the last moment I was able to save the boat! When you are in uncharted waters, whatever that situation may be, you are in a situation with no precedent; often you are like a ship adrift on the ocean, tossed and driven by every wind that blows. You do your best to avoid the perilous rocks and currents, but eventually, unless you gain full control of the ship, you will sink. But for us believers, the Word of God is our chart, it is the answer!

Psalm 107:23-31 (Amplified) says: ‘Some go down to the sea in ships to do business in great waters. They see the works of the Lord, for He commands and raises up the stormy wind which lifts up the waves in the sea.

Those aboard mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths; their courage melts away because of their plight. They reel to and fro and are at their wit’s end ... Then they cry out to the Lord in their trouble and He brings them out of their distresses. He hushes the storm, so that the waves of the sea are still, and He brings them into their desired haven! Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness!’

As for me, I would rather be in a storm with Jesus than live at peace without Him!

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The Ministry of

David Hathaway

PROPHETIC VISION© is published by Eurovision Publications Tel: + 44 (0)1924 453693 Fax: + 44 (0)1924 465326 email: uk@propheticvision.org.uk This is a prophetic ministry of David Hathaway Editorial Director: David Hathaway Editor: Katie Morris Designed by Carl Varley ISSN 1358–698X

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