Prophetic Vision, Summer 2014, #72

David Hathaway No 72 Summer 2014

GOOD V. EVIL HOW MUST CHRISTIANS ACT?!

GOOD V. EVIL – HO Levushkan: Christians in the social media are talking a lot about political issues at the moment, especially about the human rights of Christians, especially in view of legislation and the interpretation of legislation which goes against Christian conscience.

David: We have to be extremely careful because spiritual issues are higher than politics. Forty years ago when I came out of a communist prison, I became involved in a prisoner release programme on behalf of people imprisoned for their faith in the Soviet communist countries. It became the largest and most successful Christian campaign ever held in Britain – and we got the famous preacher Georgi Vins, leader of the Russian Evangelical Baptists, out of prison. To achieve it we had to engage in political issues, but eventually I had to make a decision, was my future to be in the political arena or the spiritual? I chose the spiritual. If I had continued in the political sphere I would not be the evangelist I am today. As Christians we need to be concerned about political things, but we also have to be careful how we set our priorities.

I believe in the freedom of religion. Just as we want freedom for Christians, politically we have to allow freedom to other religions too. When I was fighting to get Georgi Vins out of prison, the strongest weapon that I had was that Russia had just signed the Helsinki Accord of Human Rights (this was in the 1970s). For the first time Russia had signed an international agreement which guaranteed freedom of speech and religion. It was this, technically a political issue, which we used to get people out of prison who were there as persecuted Christians.

President Putin is being heavily criticised in the liberal West for his stand for marriage between one man and one woman. I identify with Christians in Britain who are opposed to same-sex marriage, because the Bible is against it! I don’t believe governments or poli-

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tics should change this, but unfortunately our government in Britain has! Not only Britain, this is becoming universal.

So to this extent we have to be involved in politics, because the Bible raises a very big question: do we, living in society as Christians, obey God or man? The Bible clearly says we should obey those who have the rule over us – that’s correct – but not when the rulers are against the rule of God. Most people know my history as a Bible smuggler into Eastern Europe in the communist days. I was taking 2 tonnes of Bibles every time I went! For that I was imprisoned. When I came out by a miracle in answer to prayer, there were some Christians who attacked me publicly: ‘David, you should not have smuggled Bibles into Russia, Christians should not break the law.’ But it comes back to the question: ‘Do you obey God or man?’ One influential man in the media came to my rescue: ‘How can you attack David for smuggling Bibles into communist Russia? Three hundred years ago, Bibles had to be smuggled into England!’ They were printed in Holland and hidden in bales of straw and smuggled across the Channel. The man who translated the Bible into English from the ancient texts was burned at the stake!

Was it right to smuggle the Bible into Britain secretly? Yes, because of the importance of the Word of God! Levushkan: Some former Soviet countries are still dreaming of entering into the European Union. What is your opinion on this political issue?

David: Many of these countries wanting to join are weak in themselves. This is what happened with the Baltic States who are now part of the EU. They had obtained freedom from the Soviet Union, but they needed support to remain free. I warned them at the time of the danger that they would escape from one destructive political union only to come into another which would also control them. I fully understand the desire to break free from the relics of

communism and to obtain freedom in the EU. But there is a wider picture to look at – and this becomes a very big subject – the Bible speaks about ‘one world government’ in opposition to God. History shows that there have been many attempts to set up this ‘world government’. In modern history we have seen the Illuminati, the French Revolution, Napoleon, communism (which was actually exported from the West into Russia)... And now the financial powers. These are forces that are seeking to control the world, and the European Union is part of this world system. This world is in fact a battleground between good and evil. Between God and the devil.

The Freemasons also see it as a fight between good and evil – but they say God (Adonai) is evil, and the devil (Lucifer) is good! This is completely wrong! God is good and the devil is evil, and this world is the battleground. This is why we have such a battle as Christians! It’s not just a political issue, it’s a spiritual battle, and at this moment in time the devil’s power is on the increase. I see the political side, but I’m not going to get myself lost in politics. If I believe we are in a battle between God and the devil, then it challenges me to do what I do – to preach the Gospel! Because only the power of the Gospel can change men and change the world! God will win this battle – we know this because we have read the end of the Book! This is our strength – we know ultimately Christ will get the victory.

Levushkan: Many people are looking to the pastor, the leader, the spiritual ‘professional’ to do the job. They give money and they support, but they don’t see that preaching the Gospel is their job. What is your opinion?

David: Preaching the Gospel isn’t a job for the ‘professionals’! What I do is from my heart and not because I am a ‘professional’ evangelist! How can you convince anybody unless what you say

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W MUST WE ACT?!

David’s Interview with Pavel Levushkan, December 2013

comes from your heart?! I share the reality of a Christ who has changed my life! You can keep your ‘professionals’ – but I’m going to speak from my experience and from my heart.

When Jesus was dealing with the ordinary people, He saw their need, He ministered to them. I try to ‘minister’ to people, I’m not trying to force something on them – whether it’s healing, or dealing with addictions and sin – I’m looking to see people’s lives changed, healed, made whole. There are times when we have to be strong and speak against the opposition to the Gospel. And if we see sin, we can condemn it, but we have to be careful – Jesus taught us to condemn the sin, but to love the sinner!

I love sinners. I spent one year in a communist prison for Bible smuggling and for preaching in the underground churches under the worst years of the Soviet Union. I found myself with ordinary criminals, my best friend was a murderer! It enabled me to see who these people were – somebody’s husband, son, father, brother – ordinary people! That’s why God sent His Son into the world, so that He could live amongst us and love us as we are! Not to see us as ‘the sinner’, but to see our need! Our need of redemption! That’s what drives me!

think that the way to a ‘holy’ life is to be isolated – ‘don’t look on a woman, don’t touch money, don’t get involved in the world’... This puts you under tremendous pressure. No, my salvation and yours has to stand the test of living in the world! To me, holiness is not being shut up in a monastery or being isolated from the world so that you never see sin, never tempted. To me, holiness is living in a sinful world – like Jesus did – and the power of God in you overcoming the temptation.

Levushkan: There is a crisis in the Church – Catholics, Orthodox, Evangelicals, Charismatics – and everyone is talking about it. Will the Church survive the crisis?

David: This is a very big and difficult question. Having worked a lot with Jews recently has put a new perspective on things. The Messianic Jews who have come to believe in the Messiah are not

Evangelism has been my whole life for more than 60 years, but I do it, not as a profession, but because it’s a calling – from God – and a gift from Him. It is God who calls us as apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers and evangelists... So your life has to be right with God, and the Bible lays down a strict moral code and Christian character – we need to be obedient to this. But this all comes from an experience in our hearts. Sometimes the best preachers are the men who have come from the depths of sin. If you have been ‘right down there’ and God has delivered you – WOW – that is a powerful experience! So you will speak from personal experience, because you yourself have experienced deliverance, salvation! Yes, we’ve got to live a holy life, but don’t get this wrong... Don’t

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GOOD V. EVIL – HOW MUST WE ACT?!

united. Sometimes I think they are more split into different segments than the Christian Church! They argue over whether to keep the Jewish law, and which laws – it becomes so complicated, there are as many different opinions as there are different groups! Now l see the divisions in the Christian Church in this same way. My personal opinion is that the WHOLE Church has drifted away from God’s original concept! This happened in a significant way when the Church became legitimised by the Roman Empire in the third century after Christ. So many people were coming into the Church, they brought a lot of their paganism with them (festivals and ‘saints’ with special powers), mixed with an element of ‘Old Testament’ Christianity (priesthood, altar, sacrifices).

We’re living in an age where we must re-examine our faith. We must come back to a New Testament pattern, recognise how the early disciples worshipped and lived out their faith, what their priorities were.

This is a very important subject because we have to acknowledge that there are problems in the Church. The danger in any religious group is when we replace faith in the heart with ritual, eventually the ritual, what you do, replaces faith. Faith has to be an experience in your heart. We have to get back to the recognition of who Jesus is and base our belief on Him and His Word! The Bible says that only Christ is the Head of the Church!

When I first came to Lithuania four years ago, all the denominations worked together – Catholic, Pentecostal, Evangelical, Lutheran. What moved me was the letter I received afterwards from the heads of every denomination in which they wrote: David didn’t divide us, he united us in preaching the Gospel.

Preaching the Gospel is the first and the last commandment of Christ to the Church. I don’t think we will ever reconcile all the differences between the churches and the denominations. But we should come together on this one point: the declaration of the Kingdom of God, salvation from sin whoever you are, the belief in the return of Christ, and the judgement to come.

Levushkan: Because of the scandals

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and problems in the churches, many people are offended and have stopped trusting in Christianity. What would you say to such people?

David: I am aware of large numbers of people who have left church. Too many. Usually because they are disillusioned with what they see, because somehow what they are seeing and hearing is not what is in the Bible. In the Bible the nation Israel is a picture of the Church, a picture of the formation of God’s people. Over the thousands of years of their history they are ‘up’, then they’re ‘down’. God works miracles – and they serve Him. Then they turn their back on God and worship idols. Up and down. It’s the same with the Church.

We need a period of spiritual revival. I speak with some authority, living in Britain as I do, because we have had several significant revivals where there came a real move of the Spirit of God which restored faith. My father was converted in the Welsh Revival – it reached every church, and every church was filled. The churches and the people were changed! It also happened under John and Charles Wesley – members of the Church of England who received the spirit of evangelism, preached the Gospel – and were thrown out of the Church of England because they were told you can’t preach outside a church building! – John Wesley was preaching to tens of thousands of people in the open! But that revival changed Britain! I was taught at school that history

records that only one thing saved Britain from the destruction of the French Revolution – the preaching of the Gospel by John and Charles Wesley!

What we need in the Churches today is another revival of faith.

Our English word ‘revival’ is from a French word which means being brought back to life – something that had life, lost it, and is brought back to life. This is the spirit that the Church needs, a spirit that gets rid of what is dead and brings new life, a spiritual awakening! We are standing on the edge of that now. Every church needs this – Catholic, Evangelical, Charismatic – every denomination. It will not happen through politics or religious ‘professionals’ – it can only come one way, by a divine outpouring of the Spirit of God, the life of God. People need God, but they are so busy, have so many problems – with health, with work, money, family, marriage.

Unless the Church can give a practical life-changing answer to the man in the street, the Church is useless and irrelevant to him. This is what Jesus did – He came to give the personal answer – to the prostitute, the blind, the sinner – He brought the answer. Only Christ has the answer.

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Islam will not rule the world, nor will the Freemasons, the Bilderbergers, the Illuminati or the Pagans. Fear-mongering is big business today. The aim of every government is to create fear through its police and military forces, through negative reports such as global warming, international debt and global violence. This poisonous cocktail is drip fed to the population through TV and media, so that people are kept in a constant state of fear, worry and stress.

The Church, which is supposed to be the Light in a dark world, is in danger of being intimidated by the god of this world, Satan, through political systems that produce fear.

Communism is one of those systems that spread great fear by killing so far 94 million people. Another was the Nazis. Their racial warmongering resulted in 55 million killed in WWII. Effective as those political systems were, Satan’s next masterpiece surpasses them all. As an extremely intelligent being, the god of this world took his most effective weapons, the killing machine (of the communists) and the racial fanaticism (of the Nazis) and combined them in one single force, Islam. Fuelled by powerful AntiSemitic and Anti-Christian spirits, this menace is bent on wiping out Israel and destroying the Church.

But this won’t happen! The god of this world may be strong, but the God of all gods is stronger. The king of darkness may be powerful, but the King of kings is more powerful.

The lord of the flies may be mighty, but the Lord of lords is almighty, in fact He is called the Almighty! The Almighty God, in His perfect strategy, sent Jesus, Yeshua, the Light of the world, to invade the domain of the prince of darkness and take the fight to the enemy. Jesus’ words on the cross – ‘it is finished’ – was a prophetic declaration to the god of this world ‘you are finished’! When Jesus descended, he kicked down the gates of hell and took the enemy apart, disarming and disabling the whole satanic host: “Having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

(Col 2:15.)

over the last 2000 years which has brought millions into the Kingdom of God. It speaks about the mighty outpouring in our days, where 2.5 million people are coming to faith in the Messiah every year, compared with 865,000 who convert to Islam. The London Times wrote that 15% of Moslems in Western Europe are leaving Islam, 200,000 in the UK alone! Some statisticians say that every hour 667 Moslems convert to Christ, that is: 16,000 every day, 112,000 every week, 500,000 every month, 6 million every year! The reason I chose to believe these statistics is because Yeshua, the Saviour of the world, is pouring His Spirit upon all people from every tribe and every nation, including the Moslem nations! Many leading Moslems are having visions about Yeshua and about Israel. Recently one Shia Ayatollah said after a three hour meeting with Christians in Baghdad: “We as the Shia must love the Jews, we as the Shia must love and support Israel, people must tell the Shia that without Israel we have no future.”

He was not saying he agrees with everything Israel does, but he was saying that Israel is the sovereign homeland of the Jewish people.

American communication strategist and author of ‘The Last Jihad’, Joel Rosenberger, writes in his article ‘The Untold Story’: ‘The God of the Bible is moving powerfully in the Middle East to draw men, women and children to His heart and adopt them into His family in record numbers. More Moslems have come to faith in Jesus Christ over the last 30 years and specifically over the last 7-10 years than at any other time in human history. There is a revival going on among the ancient Catholic, Coptic and Chaldean Churches.

Today the Church is being resurrected in the land of its birth’ (joelrosenberg.com).

According to Catholic statistics there are over 180 million born again and Spirit filled Catholics worldwide. One of the largest Churches in the Middle East is the Coptic ‘Cave’ Church in Cairo, where 20,000 believers, many of them former Moslems, pray for revival.

In our time we have witnessed the amazing spectacle of people who were enslaved by the communists, coming to Christ by their millions! When the Nazis sought to wipe out the Jews and destroy Christianity, God spectacularly re-established the state of Israel in 1948 after 2000 years of exile, and sent great revivals to the Church resulting in 2.3 billion members worldwide today.

Islam will not rule the world, ‘for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.’

(Hab 2:14.) The world is not getting darker as many Christians fear, but the earth is getting lighter as we see ‘the sun of righteousness rise upon us, with healing in its wings’.

(Mal 4:2.) The earth is the Lord’s – it belongs to Yeshua who dethroned the god of this world and defeated him on the cross, making a public spectacle of him!

The spectacle of Yeshua’s victory over the powers of darkness is seen in the last days – our days – when God is pouring out His Holy Spirit: ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.’ (Acts 2:17-18.) This speaks about the continuous outpouring

This does not say that Satan won’t fight or that he will give up his obsessive desire to wipe out Israel and destroy the Church. This does not say that wars will cease and AntiSemitism will stop. Neither will be the wholesale slaughter and persecution of Christians.

This does not say that world governments will cease their fear-mongering or will try to protect Israel and respect the Church. But the devil’s dream of the One World Order is

destined to fail; it is falling apart at its seams even as you read this. Islam is going to be a spectacular failure. Although the silent and largely unreported Christian Holocaust at the hand of Moslems, who murder on average 200,000 Christians every year, appears like Islam is winning, in the end it will prove to be a spectacular failure as ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church’ (Tertullian). For every Christian who is martyred by the Islamic Jihad, thirty Moslems are turning to Christ. For every Church they burn, scores of Churches are raised up in Moslem nations around the world.

The enemy will continue to cause mayhem in his effort to stop the Church taking his territory, plunder his domain and release his captives. But he cannot stop the great spectacle of the people of God, clothed with the same power that raised Yeshua from death, going into all the world to conquer enemy-held territory and proclaim the Good News that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. And that He shall reign – not Islam, nor the Freemasons, the Bilderbergers, the Illuminati and One World dreamers who suffer from Satan’s delusions of grandeur.

Let this be our vision and our message and our focus. Because Yeshua said ‘fear not’, we shall not be afraid of the future or any so-called human or demonic powers, for greater is God in us than the god of this world. What the enemy is most afraid of, is these fearless conquerors who walk in the raw power of the risen Saviour! It is this Spirit that is being outpoured in the last days, dynamic Holy Ghost Power from on High! Against this the enemy’s weapons are useless! Through these people who are thus empowered – that is us – the Kingdom of God is advancing forcefully and the enemy’s rule will come to an end.

The kingdom of the god of this world government is going to fail spectacularly, but of the Kingdom of the Messiah, there will be no end!

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Anton and his Grandma tell their story – HOPE AGAINST HOPE – to camera, Israel, March 2013 Anton: Hello, my name is Anton. I am 32. I want to tell you an amazing story that happened with me 11 years ago in the city of Perm in Russia. This story is about the greatness of God, and about the great miracle that God created in my life.

Thanks to this miracle I’m alive today. Without exaggeration I can say that, thanks to God, because of His power, His grace, I am what I am today.

Previously, I led quite a criminal life, I was a drug addict. Naturally such a lifestyle involves frequent detention in police custody, frequent criminal records, disease. One time when I was in prison, in winter 2002, the cells were so overcrowded, I was living in such bad conditions, the result was I got gangrene in my leg. Everything happened so quickly I couldn’t keep track of it all. And of course the prison doctors told me they couldn’t help me.

The leg was full of necrosis – dead tissue – with the risk of necrosis of the bone. I couldn’t walk, eat, drink. I had blood poisoning, the strongest septicaemia. Most of the time I was either unconscious or unable to sleep. And no one treated me. It was a miracle that, thanks to my mum, I was transferred under prison escort to the city hospital. But there, too, I didn’t expect anything good when the doctors looked at my condition. I weighed

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only about 40 kg. I was exhausted, I almost never regained consciousness, I had severe pain. My leg was totally black, and due to the necrosis, it was rigid and I could no longer straighten it. The doctors said I had virtually no chance of survival – the only chance – if the leg is amputated, and it should be done as quickly as possible. And then unbelievers told us that Evangelist David Hathaway was coming to our city. My friends, my mother, my grandmother grabbed at this opportunity as a last hope, because I had no other chance. No one trusted the doctors, and even I did not believe that I would survive.

I was in a very critical condition. I was literally carried on a stretcher to the hall where the evangelisation was taking place. I was barely conscious.

David Hathaway prayed for me in the Name of Jesus Christ. First, it seemed

nothing happened. I was in such a weakened state, I remember those days in a haze. I was in such pain that I only ever regained consciousness momentarily and then sank away somewhere.

Grandma: Anton was ill and was hospitalised in a serious condition. I believe in the miracles of God and in His healing. And when David Hathaway came to Perm, the first day we took Anton on a stretcher to his service. The next day I ran to David and begged him to come to the hospital to Anton and again pray for his healing, because he was already on the point of death.

Anton: Sunday was the last service, and on Monday David came to me in the hospital. He came for five minutes only, but those five minutes literally changed my life. When he prayed for me in the hospital, I was lying down and couldn’t get out of bed. Already a decision had to be made about the amputation, and I had the consent forms to sign. And I wanted to do it, because I thought that in this way the pain would go away. After the prayer David said to my mum and grandma,

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“Whatever happens don’t let them cut his leg off...” Some might think that’s crazy. The doctors thought so.

When they heard that a preacher had come in and would not let my leg be amputated, they made the crazy sign, twisting their fingers to their heads, and wanted to kick me out of the hospital, because I do not obey their instructions...

Grandma: I was very devoted to God, I believed in healing and that God would help anyway. And through David’s prayer, God helped Anton!

Anton: It didn’t happen that in one moment my leg instantly grew out as new leg, all the old gone and all new grown – no. But only one week later I got up on crutches. Yes – just one week later I was up on crutches, I started walking to stretch the leg! And gradually, gradually... I have certainly been in different clinics where they did skin grafts, but once the healing process started – all the disease went.

There was no hope for me, that’s a fact. A committee of professors, doctors, surgeons gave me no chance at all. Everything was hopeless. But God began to act. And I began to believe

I could survive. The year before this my grandmother was also healed at one of David Hathaway’s crusades. She had very severe asthma, she coughed and choked. She had had it over 70 years. She received a real miracle, it completely vanished.

And the most amazing thing for me in this whole story – it is a miracle that amazes me – after that prayer, David said these words – how could he know, it was just amazing, it was such a miracle, that took a long time, many years to be fulfilled – David said, “You will testify with me in Israel!” He did not know that I have Jewish roots. But I had no thoughts, my mother had no such thoughts, to move to Israel. These words sounded like from outer space, unreal. And now, after eleven years, here I am in Israel, on my legs, healed.

God performed such a great miracle.

We believed the Word of God: that was the beginning of the healing that was to come. God healed my leg, my liver, changed my life. I have a beautiful wife, two wonderful healthy children, I’m not a criminal, not a drug addict, I do not suffer any diseases, I do not sit in prison, I’m totally free! I serve God, I’m in church, I play in the

worship group on the saxophone. And I love God. My life has changed dramatically. And here I am in Israel! It is one year and three months since our family immigrated to Israel. We live in the city of Ashdod. Praise God!

Grandma: I appeal to everybody, believers, unbelievers. Let’s trust God, make every effort to come to Him! Ask Him for help and He will help you! Do this, and do not lose hope if you

have someone sick or in sin, or if you are sick or in sin.

Hope, and God will help you!

Anton: I want to say to everyone who has a problem. I know what a desperate situation is, I know what a serious illness is, I know what it means to have one foot in the grave. I say this without exaggeration. But I came through it. I want to tell everyone who may have lost all hope and just do not see a way out. I want to say – do not lose hope! Do not lose faith! There is a God! In Heaven there is a God! Jesus is the Healer who can change everything, who can

give you hope, who can do amazing things that you can’t even think of! You can’t imagine that He can turn everything upside down, and all your troubles can turn out for good. Focus your attention on God’s Living Word. Learn to pray, pray aloud because it helps kindle faith in you. It is like a seed. Take this seed. Read God’s Word. And pray to God, believe God. With God, nothing is impossible, for Him there are no hopeless situations. God is great!

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I was once asked in a TV interview why I see so many miracles of healing in my meetings. It’s certainly not the ‘atmosphere’, the beautiful music, the smooth presentation, not even the awe-inspiring presence of the Holy Spirit. No, I remembered the dusty stadiums in Russia and Ukraine, broken seats, poor amplification, thousands of people fighting to be touched by the Lord, crowds out of control, cries of desperation, shouts of despair. Helpless people, dirty bandages, open wounds, stinking diseases. The middle aged looking so old because of their poverty and suffering. No medicines, no available doctors or hospitals. Over the whole stadium such a desperate sense that without Jesus, if He is not alive, unless someone knows Him, there is no hope. My answer was this: the reason I see so many miracles is the desperate need of the people to find Jesus – and the desperation of Jesus to find the people who really want Him.

In the comfort of the West, people say to me, “Pray for me, but if I’m not healed I will go to the doctor or the hospital, and they will heal me.” But in Russia, Poland and even Israel they say, “Pray for me. Without Christ I have no hope and I will die in pain!”

They are desperate for Him. In the Bible Jesus says, “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man will open the door, I will come in!” (Revelation 3:20.) Jesus is more willing to come to us than we are to receive Him! I try to tell people how simple it is to receive Jesus. All you have to do is be like a drowning man: stop struggling, let go of your tiny piece of flotsam and let Him rescue you. I understand that one problem the rescuer has is that the drowning person is struggling so much, it is hard for the victim to trust their saviour! That wonderful hymn writer put it so powerfully: ‘Just as I am without one plea, but that Thy

Please pray with me – in September this year we are holding our largest ever evangelism – in Poland. Poland stands in Central Europe, ravaged by both East and West in living memory, and the killing ground of Europe’s Jews in the Holocaust of World War II, notably in Auschwitz. We are expecting tens of thousands, a hundred thousand, more. The people need Christ.

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Blood was shed for me…I come!”

Healing, deliverance, forgiveness … stop struggling to rescue yourself, relax and let Him deliver you! In Russia, in East Europe, they want to be touched, they need to be loved, they want something personal. But that’s just how it is for us! So many of you reading this have secret problems you cannot share; they are too deep, too personal. Tell everything to Jesus. It’s the only way to be healed, delivered, set free. He already knows, He understands and He’s waiting for you to come to Him. He lived here on earth like you in order to understand all the problems we face, that’s why He did not condemn the prostitute, but gave her power to ‘sin no more’!

Talk to Him. He’s listening.

Ask Him to forgive your sin, to heal you. He loves you – He’ll answer!

Like Paul, I need you to send me, I cannot do this without your support. Paul wrote, ‘Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved. But how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent?’ (Romans 10:13-15.)

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These people are desperate for Jesus!

FESTIVAL OF LIFE – POLAND KATOWICE 5,6,7 SEPTEMBER 2014

IT’S EASIER TO GIVE IN David Hathaway, Horsens, Denmark 2014 I believe in a God of miracles! Romans 10:8ff says: ‘The Word is near you, even in your mouth and in your heart, that is the Word of faith which we preach...If you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved!’ But it’s impossible for us to be saved!! Come on! I’m an evangelist, a stadium evangelist, and I want you to know, it’s impossible for you to be saved!!

Look what you have to do!! You have to confess the Lord Jesus and believe the absolutely impossible, that God raised Jesus from the dead – and you will be saved!! Just to get into the Kingdom of God, you’ve got to believe in an incredible, powerful miracle!! You don’t get into the Kingdom of God just by going to church, not by reciting prayers, not even by reading the Bible! You come into the Kingdom of God by believing a miracle!!

Without a miracle there is no salvation, no deliverance – sin is still there. The only way into the Kingdom is by a miracle!!

When you believe!!

When I talk about miracles, people think I’m talking about healings. But that is only part. I think I have seen more miracles than any living man! I believe in a God of miracles, of power, of authority – a God of the impossible who changes things. Right now, God has to change your life and mine, then through you, He can change your nation. I have such a strong passionate desire to see His Glory.

The world doesn’t know who God is, they don’t understand Him. Until you and I KNOW who God is, KNOW His power, until we experience His Glory in our lives, the world out there will never know and understand who God is.

We’ve got to learn communication with God – prayer is communication with

God. But the church today doesn’t know how to pray! Prayer will revolutionise your life! I’m hungry for God, I want to KNOW Him. I want to KNOW His power in my life. At the beginning of this year I took a week to pray, in Austria, on one of the highest mountains, because I have big problems. But when God began to speak, revealing Himself, I found myself praying over Jacob, how he met with God. In Genesis 32 it says that Jacob WRESTLED with God, FOUGHT with Him. Why? Why this battle between a man and God? Was he resisting God? Or did God have to do something in Jacob’s life? But at the end of that battle, God turned to Jacob and said: ‘As a prince you have power with God! And power with men!’ (KJV.) If you want power with men, you first must have power with God. Not power FROM God, but power WITH God. The church has lost its power with God! We have to relearn how to pray.

How have I learned how to pray? – Through trial, through tribulation! When I was just a young pastor, a man in my church was dying of terminal cancer.

We prayed and God raised him, totally healed him, I saw the cancer coming out of his body! This wasn’t healing – they had cut out parts of his body; God remade him! I was just a young man.

When the son saw the power of God in his dad, God filled that boy with the Holy Ghost and he went on to preach the Gospel! That’s the power of God – He changes men!

But what changed MY life a few years later was when I had throat cancer. I was a pastor and evangelist, but now I couldn’t preach! I refused treatment, saying I believe in a God who answers prayer. I prayed three months, believed I

was healed, so went back to the doctors. They said, “There is no God, there is no miracle, your cancer has become so big, on Monday we will operate and remove your voice.” Did I say to myself, God doesn’t answer prayer, God can’t remove this, can’t work miracles...?

What kind of a God do YOU have?! Is He powerless? Or is He the greatest God in the whole world? MY God is the God of the Bible, powerful, glorious and who works miracles! There’s no God like Jehovah! But I wasn’t healed!! What did I do? I said, “Oh God, teach me how to pray!” I was a preacher, and evangelist, I had seen miracles of healing! Now I was on my face before God, “Oh God, is something wrong with me? – There’s nothing wrong with You Lord, it must be me! – Oh God, heal me!” Still nothing happened. Then I changed my prayer, saying “Oh God, if You want me to remain in my church, live in England – don’t heal me! But I believe You are a God of power and authority, who can change the world! If You want me to leave my church, step out in faith, go to Russia, then I need a powerful miracle – HEAL ME!” That night God healed me!

Next morning I went to the hospital, the surgeons examined me roughly, three times. And they were angry with me and accused me, “Who did it? What hospital, which doctor? We can see the scar where they cut the cancer out with a knife!” But I said, “His Name is Jesus! He can do what you can’t do!” But now I had made vows to God, so I went to my church and told them, “The good news is that God has healed me. The bad news is, goodbye...” I had made God a promise! How can we expect God to keep His promises, if we can’t keep ours? I stepped out in faith, and with no salary, no money, I bought a piece of land, built myself a new house – with no

Don’t let your prayer fall down the sinkhole!

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THAN TO PRAY! money – my own staff don’t understand how I do this, nothing’s changed in all the years – and I bought a brand new tour bus for the Bible smuggling – which cost two times the price of the house!

Why? Because if God could work that miracle and heal me – now I had learned something – then nothing is impossible! Absolutely nothing!

This year I have taken a lot of time to pray because we are facing an enormous crisis in the ministry. I found myself asking the question we all ask, WHY? Why this? Why that? And I was asking, why is it that people pray and don’t get an answer? Just one week before this, I read an unusual story in the newspaper: A family went to bed in their house at night, with their car outside on the drive.

In the night the ground opened up, the car was swallowed, and in the morning they found the car 10 metres down at the bottom of the sinkhole! God used this story and said to me, “I’ll tell you what’s wrong when you pray. You start praying, and I’m over here waiting to answer. But instead of praying your way through, you stop in the middle, and the ground swallows you up! You stop praying just when I’m about to give you what you ask!!” We pray and we pray, and then we say, “Oh God isn’t going to answer!” – And then we give up! And drop down the sinkhole! But God is there, waiting to give the answer and we’ve given up!

Another thing changed my life. When I was in a communist prison for smuggling Bibles behind the Iron Curtain, (I was a ‘professional’ – every time I went I took 2 tonnes in my tour bus – I set up a supply chain and we took hundreds of thousands of Bibles – it was an incredible operation, and after 12 years they caught me), the sentence should have been for 10 years. But I said, “Oh God, I want to get out!” God said to me, “Do you want the easy way or the hard way? The easy way is, you will stay full term, they won’t kill you, you will live on bread and water, and you will come out alive.” If that was the ‘easy’ way, what was the hard way?! He told me – “You can pray your way out!”

me in my cell! I had to learn how to find God! And in that prison something powerful happened. One day, early in the morning – I was in despair – God hadn’t answered my prayers. I had prayed for food, there was none. I prayed for my family to come, they weren’t allowed to visit. Everything I asked God for, nothing!

Heaven was like brass. No answer. I couldn’t get through. I said, “Oh God, I can’t pray anymore!” Then in my despair, I remembered the words of the disciples when they saw the secret of the prayer life of Jesus, how much time He spent with His Father, His communion with God, the power in His life, the ability He had to let the Holy Spirit flow into Him; and like the disciples I said, “Oh God, teach me how to pray!” – In a stinking, filthy prison, locked up 24 hours a day, the toilet – a hole in the floor in the corner of the cell. I lived like this day in, day out, not allowed out for a shower, food put through the door. It was HELL on earth. The reason why I preach the Gospel now is because if hell could be worse than that prison, I would give my life simply to deliver sinners from that hell.

my home, not with my family – but in a stinking, filthy prison cell. Do you understand what God had to do to change my life?! From that moment everything changed, God showed me the day that I would be released, I smuggled my Bible into my cell – don’t ask me how – 6000 prisoners, one Bible! And God confirmed everything through His Word.

Then He sent the British Prime Minister to rescue me, and I flew home on my birthday, exactly as God had said. I had learned how to pray! Communication with God!

In Israel I preach Christ to thousands of Russian Holocaust survivors. They listen to me, because I was in one of their communist prisons and because I learned how to pray my way out! And they want to know this God who can deliver them, who has power to deliver them!

Christian, the world does not want your emaciated, powerless God. They want a God who answers prayer, who works miracles. And if you don’t know that God, they won’t listen to you.

Now I’m beginning to find out what happened to Jacob as he wrestled with God. God changed his name, touched his thigh. When God healed my cancer, He touched my voice, He left a mark. It was a miracle, I’ve never been the same since. Look at Peter, a companion and follower of Jesus, heard the amazing teaching, saw the miracles – yet he was still a man and denied Christ in the judgement hall of the High Priest – fear destroyed everything. But who was the preacher at the first evangelistic crusade in history? – Peter!

But that day in the prison cell when I said I can’t pray anymore, the Glory of God came down. I jumped to my feet, crying and shouting the hymn, “Then sings my soul, my Saviour God to Thee, how great Thou art!” I saw the greatness, the power of God – not in a church building, not in

The church today is paralysed with fear.

We need that same baptism of fire and power that Peter had! Pray your way out, pray your way through! Let God change your life! Don’t go the ‘easy way’, don’t fall into that ‘sinkhole’. God is there, waiting to give you the answer. Don’t give up!

People don’t understand. God said it was easier to give in, to go with the tide, to let them do what they wanted to keep me in the prison... The hard way is to fight a battle with God and with man!

Now I understood what happened to Jacob! I had to learn how to pray – in the torture chambers, in 4 months of interrogation, in starvation – and in everything that they did to me in that communist prison! I was never alone, surrounded by men, murderers and drug dealers – there wasn’t a Christian with

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This is God’s plan of salvation for the whole world, this is what He foretold in Scripture: ‘It is a light thing that You should be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel. I will also make You a light to the Gentiles, that You may be My Salvation to the ends of the earth.’ – Isaiah 49:6.

Apostle Paul, seeing that most Jews in his day rejected Jesus as Messiah, wrote to the early Gentile Church that this too was part of God’s whole plan of salvation: ‘Has God cast away His People? God forbid, because I also

am an Israelite... God has not cast away His People...

Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid; but rather through their fall, salvation is come to the Gentiles...

For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?... For I would not that you be ignorant of this mystery...blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so shall all Israel be saved... This is My Covenant with them.’

– Romans 11:1-2, 11, 15, 25, 26.

Psalm 102:13,15 declares, ‘You shall arise and have mercy on Zion (Israel/Jerusalem), for the time to favour her, yes, the set time has come... So shall the Gentiles fear the Name of the Lord and all the kings of the earth Your glory. When the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in all His glory. He will regard the prayer of the destitute and not despise their prayer. This is written for the generation to come (this generation – pay attention to this) – that a generation yet to be created shall praise the Lord...to declare the Name of the Lord in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem! – And all over the face of the earth, in every place, in every nation, the Name of the Lord will be praised!’

From the time when I was born, the world has witnessed the return of the Jewish people to Israel, once again declared to be a nation in 1948 after 19 hundred years of exile – separated from their homeland, separated from Jerusalem, separated from Jesus their Messiah, for the most part without God. But after the Holocaust (1933-1945), we didn’t know where was God? Then we witnessed, in 1967, the miraculous Six Day War when God restored Jewish sovereignty to Jerusalem! In six days He created the Heaven and the earth, and in six days, after 19 hundred years, He restored Jerusalem to the Jewish people! We’re living now in the time of God’s mercy to Israel, we’re living in the beginnings of a revival – not like in other nations – but slowly, step by step, line upon line, precept upon precept. It’s still not the time for all Israel to be saved, but many people like myself have been coming to believe in Yeshua, the promised Messiah. God moves in mysterious ways in each of our lives. This is what happened to me: I was born in New York City, in an Orthodox Jewish home. My grandpar-

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ents were refugees from Russia and Poland, and my parents were born in New York as ‘American Jews’. I was the first Jew in my family to believe in Jesus, probably since the time of the first disciples back in the days of Jesus! I grew up being taught that Jesus had nothing to do with the Jews, that He was the ‘God’ of Christianity, that He had something to do with the Vatican and the Pope and Mary and the Roman Catholic Church.

In fact I thought Jesus was a Christian! I thought His Name was ‘Jesus Christ’. I believed what the rabbis and my family told me, I did not believe in Jesus. But I was fascinated every year when I heard the beautiful Christmas carol, ‘Born is the King of Israel’! I was always wondering, who was this King of Israel?

I grew up in a very turbulent time, in the sixties, when many of us were searching for the meaning and purpose of life.

Deep questions. Does God exist? Is there a Heaven? Is there life after death? Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? We studied the philosophers, Freud, Engels, Marx, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle – none of them knew the answer – all of them philosophers trying to solve the problems of the world without God. When a Jew turns 13 years old, he celebrates the ‘Bar Mitzvah’, the day he’s supposed to be a ‘man’, when he stands before God, his family and his friends in the synagogue, and reads from Moses and the prophets. On that day he becomes responsible to keep the 613 commandments written in the Law of Moses. I didn’t want to do that, to spend my life keeping 613 commandments. So, like many others, I went out and partied. That was the beginnings of the days of the Beatles, drugs, rock and roll – and we had the Vietnam War – all kinds of things were going on in that generation. In the midst of all that, the

Prophetic P rophetic

mysterious ways of God – the mysterious mercy of God – touched my life!

ship between Jesus and the Jewish prophets!”

I came across the famous painting of Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, which depicts Jesus with His Jewish disciples celebrating the Jewish Passover!

Now as a child the most important Jewish holiday for me was Passover.

Every year the whole family gathered together to have the Passover meal, to remember the Exodus from Egypt, how God on the night of the Passover with great signs and wonders took our forefathers out of Egypt, led them through the Red Sea which He parted, through the Wilderness to Mount Sinai where He made the Covenant with Israel and gave the Ten Commandments to Moses.

So when as a child you hear this every year, you are in awe. What was Jesus doing at the Last Supper celebrating the Jewish Passover? I thought Jesus was a Christian!

Now I had to put aside all my preconceived ideas, and ask God to show me who this Jesus was! I read the remarkable story of how John the Baptiser baptises Jesus in the Jordan and the Spirit of God comes down and the voice from Heaven says, ‘This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, listen to Him!’ – I said, “Oh my goodness, what am I reading?!” I had never read the New Testament in my whole life! Matthew 5,6&7 – Jesus on the mountain – when I read these words I was astonished, He taught like one with authority, not like the rabbis or the scribes or the Pharisees, but as one greater than a prophet! I read on, about His miraculous ministry of mercy – mercy to the lost sheep of the House of Israel – how He healed the sick, the demon possessed, raised the dead.

As I continued to read the account of Matthew, I become more and more perplexed, “Who is this Jesus?!” And I come to this place where it says about the Last Supper where Jesus celebrates the Jewish Passover, and He’s betrayed

by His friend Judas, arrested by the Roman soldiers, taken to the High Priests, sent to Pontius Pilate – and Pilate finds nothing wrong with Him, but he flogs Him and says, “What shall I do with Him?” And the crowd was incited and cried, “Crucify Him!” And at the crucifixion of Jesus, above His bleeding head, as He’s suffering for the sins of the world, they nail the accusation: ‘This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.’ I said to myself, “Why did they write, ‘the King of the Jews’?

Why didn’t they write, ‘this is Jesus the false messiah, the blasphemer’? Why did they choose ‘the King of the Jews’?” As I struggled with this amazing accusation, I begin struggling in my Jewish soul, in my heart and in my mind, with this paradox:

So I bought a full Bible with the Old and the New Testaments. I began in Matthew and for the first time in my life read Matthew 1:1 (the book of Matthew is about the King and the Kingdom), where it begins, Jesus the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham!!! I said, “Oh my goodness, Jesus is a Jew!” I was stunned! I couldn’t believe it! I read it again and again! And then I read His miraculous birth. Each one of us is born from a seed. Jesus was born miraculously, conceived by the Holy Spirit. The Angel said to Joseph, ‘Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife! You shall call His Name Jesus because He shall save His people from their sins. This was done to fulfil what was spoken of the Lord by the prophet Isaiah! – A virgin shall bear a child and call His Name Emmanuel, God with us!’ (Matt 1:19-23.) I said again, “Oh my goodness, so there is some relation-

The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy – Revelation 19:10.

All the Jewish prophets bear witness and give testimony to Jesus. During His time of ministry, He said to the unbelieving Jews, ‘If you had believed Moses, you would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me. But if you believe not his writings, how shall you believe My Words?’ (John 5:45-46.) After the crucifixion (and His resurrection), Jesus spoke to two of His disappointed disciples

how could the God of Christianity be the King of the Jews?! Or, how could the King of the Jews be the God of Christianity? Impossible! And then, in a moment of time, suddenly like the clicking of fingers, the Holy Spirit came upon me and began to take away the veil of spiritual blindness. And in that moment of time I said, “Oh my goodness, it’s You, Jesus, the promised Jewish Messiah, the King of the Jews!”

I broke down weeping, wailing and crying uncontrollably, because He was crucified, and I recognised Him, like when Joseph revealed himself to his brothers in Egypt. I had never been witnessed to, never been told in my whole life the truth about Jesus. Not one person ever told me, not one Christian.

I read on, and in Matthew 28, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb with the other two women with spices, there’s a great earthquake and the angel of the Lord descends, the Roman soldiers are terrified, and the angel says to the women, ‘I know you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified, but He’s not here! He’s risen from the dead!’ I said, “Oh my goodness, He’s alive! He’s risen from the dead! Hallelujah!” I didn’t know what the ‘sinners prayer’ was, I just fell on my knees and said, “Dear Lord, You are alive and I give my life to You!” And I’ve been following Him for over 40 years! He’s my whole life, He’s my Lord and Saviour and King forever!

Shmuel Suran Director of Jerusalem Vision www.jerusalemvision.com www.pamelasuran.com

on the way to Emmaus, who, not recognising Him, told Him that they had trusted that Jesus was the one to redeem Israel, but that He had been crucified... But Jesus said to them, ‘Oh fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?’ And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:13-27.)

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In March David was invited to minister to Slovak Gypsies – believers and their non-believing friends – in Sheffield, UK. Their singing raised the roof, and when David spoke the Name of Jesus, the hall erupted in loud cries of praise!

gypsies came to the meetings. A large group of them, with their gypsy pastor, now live in the UK as migrant workers.

The leading pastors who organised for us in Poprad fly over regularly to disciple and encourage them.

David was in prison in their country, Czechoslovakia, under communism, and when he was invited to evangelise in Poprad in Slovakia in 2008, many

David said: “The world wants to prove there is no God, but we are the evidence! God wants to demonstrate His power through your life and mine!

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When you put your life in His hands, He works miracles, heals your sickness, forgives your sin. Jesus promised you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you – this promise is for you!

I challenge you – God does not see you as Gypsies or Refugees, but as His Children and He has brought you to the UK for a purpose – preach the Gospel! Then signs, wonders and miracles will follow you!”

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