David Hathaway No 99 Spring 2021
70 YEARS OF MINISTRY 1950-2020
2021
JESUS – ABOV David Hathaway My father always used to tell me the most spiritual book in the New Testament is Ephesians, and what I want to say to you will bring a spirit of joy and blessing and thanksgiving – which is needed very much at this time! Paul begins his letter saying, ‘Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the Will of God.’ This is an amazing thought: to replace Judas, the eleven cast lots, but the one who realistically replaced Judas was Paul – an apostle of Jesus Christ BY THE WILL OF GOD, rather than by the choice of man. Paul continues his letter, v3, ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ’! Jesus’ WHOLE message was about the Kingdom of God. As I write, there has just been an American election, in Britain we’re going through Brexit – but we need to be reminded that the message of Jesus was focused on the coming Kingdom, the blessing of the Kingdom! Not the kingdoms of this world! Jesus said, “My Kingdom is NOT of this world!” It’s a heavenly Kingdom. And Paul is reminding us that God has already blessed us with spiritual blessings in heavenly places. As we experience the blessing and the love of Jesus through our relationship with Him in our hearts, that translates us into a spiritual, heavenly place – even while we’re still here! It’s true! I’m moved with the sense of the wonderful relationship we have with Jesus, how strong and how powerful and precious that is! If we understand what Paul is saying, our spiritual blessing is not through ‘Church’, through ceremonies or formalities – our real spiritual blessing is ONLY in Jesus Christ! We read on in v4, God chose us in Christ – BEFORE the foundation of the world! That we should be holy before Him in love, having ‘predestined’ us to be adopted by Jesus Christ, as children of God Himself, according to the good pleasure of His Will. This is remarkable! We were
chosen BEFORE the world began! Jesus Himself is referred to as the ‘Lamb slain from BEFORE the foundation of the world’! 1 Peter 1:18-20, Revelation 13:8. Only God, as a Heavenly Father, could make a way of escape BEFORE we commit the offence! It gives me such a sense of joy and blessing! BEFORE we sinned, the way of salvation was made!
governments – I’ve just been watching a documentary series on ‘Hitler’s War’ and the terrible things that were done – when you look at all the terrible things in history – God DIDN’T PREORDAIN that this would happen. But He prepared, IN ADVANCE, the Glory of the Kingdom that is to come! From the beginning God saw the desperate need!
BEFORE I was put in prison in 1972 by the communists, God had ALREADY made the way of escape! We have to understand the foreknowledge of God! BEFORE we were born, when we were in our mother’s womb, God had foreordained a plan and a purpose for our lives!
We can’t see this future, we live one day at a time. But what I love, as believers, is the certainty that we have, our confidence in God. I cannot overemphasise the peace that I have, and the peace that you should have – and this peace is based on God’s foreknowledge! God knew before I was born what would be happening in my life, that I would become the evangelist, and I can look back on the things that led me in this direction. God was and is in control! Our confidence comes from His foreknowledge!
To most people what happens to us and around us is by accident, or by chance. Maybe we don’t understand why. But God does. When we look at the idea of ‘predestination’ we have to be a little bit careful. Some misinterpret it to believe that God has predestined us, either to be saved, or to be lost, that He has decided, rather than us, whether we become a Christian or not... But this is how my father described predestination to me: it’s like a father on a cliff top having a wonderful time with his son, kicking a football – but now the ball is going towards the edge of the cliff, and the young boy, in his lack of knowledge, is running to save the ball – but the father is crying out “Stop!!!” – because he knows, if his son follows that ball, he will fall off the cliff! The father hasn’t ‘predestined’ the son to fall off the cliff, he’s seeking to stop what he knows in advance will happen! God has not ordained that you fall off that cliff! But He knows that if you carry on in your present way you will! He’s doing everything in His Power to stop you!!! Paul is saying here in vv4-5, that God has prepared and chosen us from the very beginning! This makes me so full of wonder and blessing when I think about it – when we look at the sin of the world and the corruption, and the battles between
What is clear from Paul here, is that everything comes from and is dependent on – not ‘Church’, an organisation – but on Jesus! The person of Jesus Christ! All our hope, all our glory – everything is through Christ! Personal experience, personal relationship with Jesus Christ! Church is ‘collective’. Yes, we need the collective support, thank God for the Church, which is the Bride of Christ! But each one of us within that ‘collective’ is an individual. It’s as an individual, through the personal relationship we have with Christ – that we’re predestinated, v5, to be adopted, to be the children of God! It’s by JESUS CHRIST we’re accepted in the Beloved, by the Glory of His Grace, v6! According to the pleasure of His Will! It was His Love, His choice! We have, v7 says, redemption through His Blood, the forgiveness of sins – according to the riches of His Grace! He has abounded to us all wisdom and prudence, making known to us the (previously unknown) mystery of His Will, of His good pleasure, that in the dispensation of the fullness of time (still in the future), He might gather together ALL THINGS IN CHRIST – vv8-10 – AND MAKE US ONE IN HIM! Paul continues in v11 to speak of the ‘inheritance’ we have received in Christ, being predestinated according to the Purpose of Him who works all things according to His Will! In other words, God ALWAYS INTENDED, from the beginning, from the very foundation of the world, before God created Heaven and earth, God had ALREADY PLANNED – ANOTHER KINGDOM! A far more glorious world! Here is only our training school, our preparation... Jesus taught us that, for what we do, we will receive a reward! There are rewards in the Kingdom of God based on our faithfulness here on earth!
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VE ALL!
Our whole life experience is looking forward to something future! The Christian life you have at the moment is not the end, it’s only the beginning. What we have down here is not the whole Glory of Salvation, it’s not the whole Glory of what we have in Christ – it’s just a foretaste, a glimpse into the future of what will be ours! Paul writes in vv12-13, God has chosen us to be the ‘praise of His Glory’, we who first trusted – IN CHRIST! All of this is coming because of our trust IN CHRIST! What Paul is doing in this letter is turning things away from ‘formality’. Paul, of all men, so learned and trained in the Jewish religion as a Pharisee in the highest school, can now see beyond religion – that Jesus Christ transcends all earthly religion, all earthly concepts – Jesus Christ is the true centre of the Church, the Head! Christ whom God raised from the dead and set at His own Right Hand in the Heavenly Places, far ABOVE ALL principalities, power, might and dominion, ABOVE EVERY name that is named, not only in this world, but in the spiritual world that is to come, vv20-21. Christ is the Head, He’s ABOVE ALL OTHER authority – even governments – ABOVE ALL principalities, ALL powers, ALL might, ALL dominion and ABOVE every single name – pop idols, world powers – CHRIST IS GREATER! In this world, the highest Authority, the highest Power, the highest Name – is JESUS! He is the Centre, He is the Glory – and in Him, we are already partakers of the heavenly blessings! Look back at v3! Paul writes, Jesus Christ has blessed us HERE with spiritual blessings in heavenly places – already – by faith, by trusting in Him! We’re already experiencing the Glory – we can and should do! We don’t have to wait until we get to Heaven. Too many say, oh when we get to Heaven...
Yes, I know, but live and experience it now! Today. Whether you are under Covid, under persecution, whatever is going on in your life, we must realise that, as we trust in Christ, we transcend... we see and go beyond... What kept me sane in that communist prison? When the other prisoners around me said everyone develops the ‘prison shake’, I didn’t. Why? Because even in the darkness of that prison I could experience the Presence of God. There was one day when the Glory of God came so visibly and powerfully into my prison cell, that I could hear as it were the Angels in Heaven, as if I were taken up out of that prison and translated into the Glory of Heaven. The most wonderful experience in my whole life was not in Church, but in that prison when the Glory of God transcended ALL and became ABOVE everything else! I look back and thank God for that day, a foretaste of the Glory we will have! When we put our trust – implicitly – in Christ! Look beyond your suffering, your sickness, your pain, beyond the weakness of the flesh. I want you to begin to live in anticipation of the Glory that is to come. When I came out of that communist prison with my experience of that Glory, I knew that there is something far more than anything the world can offer. Everything the world offers is transient, lasts for a time and then it’s gone. I feel so sorry for people whose idea of a good night out is to get so drunk that they lose consciousness, their only joy, their only happiness appears to be when they lose touch with the reality of what surrounds them. No, that’s not the way out. The joke in Russia, during the worst times under communism, was that the quickest and only way out was a bottle of vodka. No, no! Our joy is in Christ, this transcends
everything else, the Glory is before us! This is what Paul is trying to share with us in this letter. In vv17-19 he prays that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, would give to us the spirit of wisdom and revelation, that the eyes of our understanding could be enlightened, so that we may KNOW what is the hope of His calling and what are the riches of His Glory, of His Inheritance IN US! That we may KNOW the exceeding greatness of His Power towards US! If only you could understand the greatness, the riches of Glory, that is coming from Christ and which is beyond everything we can imagine! Paul is praying that the eyes of our understanding will be opened, and this is what I pray for you – that you will see, with your spiritual eyes what our hope is, what are the riches of that Glory which is the inheritance we have IN CHRIST! I want you to look up, look beyond! I’ve had suffering, I’ve had pain, I’ve lost my parents, my brother, my sister, my wife – but I don’t weep, I look beyond, because I know there is a day of reunion in the Kingdom with those who have passed away before! Our hope transcends, comes above all our earthly panic and pain! I was a boy in the blitz on London. We used to shelter in the downstairs toilet, it was the most secure place in the house, between the garage and the kitchen. My mother was anxious, praying, but as boys, we didn’t see that, because in those young years I was already seeing the Glory beyond! Heavenly Father, in this time of trouble, open our eyes to see the future Glory that Christ has prepared for us – in the coming Kingdom!
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David Hathaway Christmas 2020 was celebrated by many of us in the midst of lockdowns, and worldwide, in the midst of a pandemic unprecedented in modern times. But everything about Christ’s birth for us as Believers is happiness and rejoicing! Isaiah 9:6-7 is one of the famous prophecies of Christ’s birth, ‘For unto us a child is born...’ But this prophecy is set in a time of ‘dimness, vexation, suffering and affliction’, v1, yet in v2, ‘the people that walked in darkness have seen a Great Light, they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, on them has the Light shined’! The very emphasis, right from the beginning, there in the Old Testament is on joy – Light shining in darkness! Whatever the problems we have, whatever the difficulties, we can celebrate Jesus! Our secular Christmas traditions have little to do with this, even the giving of gifts (like the wise men) has become so commercialised, the whole media focus is on the money we are going to spend... My childhood Christmases during the war were simple ones, maybe just one special item. My father died in the early hours of one Christmas morning. Later in 1972, I spent one Christmas in prison – the men’s only goal was oblivion, to save up some tablets and medication, to enable them lose consciousness, they even attempted to make their own alcohol but failed... It was such a time of sadness – for them and for me – away from our families. The cards and presents my family sent me never reached me. Nothing. But none of this alters the message of Christmas. In Isaiah the prophecy is for a time of persecution, suffering and darkness! But Christ’s birth is described as a ‘GREAT LIGHT’ – a time of great joy. In Luke 2:6ff, when Mary gives birth to her firstborn son, the Angel of the Lord
appeared to shepherds, and the Glory of the Lord shone about them. They were afraid, but the Angel said, “Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people!” The birth of Christ is the greatest celebration! The greatest joy! To the whole world! One carol we sing says, ‘Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King!’
Christ is just as great for us as the Glory and the joy for Mary! His Name is Emmanuel, GOD WITH US. We carry within ourselves the image, the character, the very personality, the Spirit of CHRIST IN US! Think about it! That’s the Hope and the certainty of the Glory – Christ WITH US! It’s not about circumstances, or what we can get – it’s the sense of ‘Jesus – WITH ME’!
We need to bring this joy back into our faith! It’s not about worldly celebrations, or how much money we can spend – or how alone we may feel... Our joy is that CHRIST HAS COME! This Christmas I saw something I’ve never noticed before. It was in Luke 1 where the Angel appears to Mary, “Hail, you who are highly favoured, the Lord is WITH YOU!” This is the first thing the Angel says to Mary before he announces she will bear a son. He goes on, “The Holy Ghost will come upon you, the Power of the Highest will overshadow you. Therefore that Holy Thing which shall be born of you will be called the Son of God!” Of course, Mary questioned, “How can this be?” And the Angel replies, “With God nothing is impossible!”
I want to bless and encourage you, that whatever is happening, it’s no different to the time when Jesus was born! He wasn’t born into a welcoming situation! He was born in a stable, and the country He was born into, Israel, was a captive, subjugated nation. First ruled by the Greeks (that’s why the New Testament was written in Greek), then the Romans… The people were suffering and persecuted. And Herod, who was ruling under the Romans, was so jealous when he heard of this newborn baby that was born to be King, he ordered that every child under the age of two in Bethlehem to be killed! A slaughter of all the little baby boys – all because of the birth of Jesus! That’s why Joseph was warned in a dream and they fled to Egypt to escape!
As I was reading this, an unusual thought came to me, that Mary, physically in her body, was to carry the Son of God, Jesus! The whole message of Scripture is CHRIST IN US! We talk about ‘receiving Christ’, receiving Him into our life – CHRIST IN US! Paul says, “CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY!” In a way the very birth of Christ through Mary was prophetic and symbolic. Just as Mary was to physically carry the Son of God, so we today, spiritually, CARRY THE SON OF GOD! Jesus is WITH US, Jesus is IN US!
We may be in a time of difficulty – pandemic, separation, loss – but this is only a reflection of what happened two thousand years ago. It doesn’t change the fact that the message to Mary through the Angels was of joy, happiness – GOD WITH US!
Just as Mary bore Jesus, so we bear Jesus! The joy and Glory of the birth of
CHRIST IS IN YOU! He’s WITH YOU, and will be, until that Day when He takes us into the Kingdom! His Promise to you is that He will never leave you, never forsake you! Father, take away pain, take away loneliness, and put a sense of peace into all our hearts. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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GET INTO ACTION! David Hathaway
Wake up Church to the times we are living in! The reason I’m concerned is that there is an attempt to keep to the Church silent. Vocal Church leaders say, yes the government recognises we’ve got soup kitchens, we’re looking after children – and we have a social ministry! Yes, the government needs this! But they don’t want our Jesus! The government has no idea of what the Church really is! The interesting thing is, the devil is very cunning. Instead of openly stopping us, up till now he has been satisfied simply to cause us to be diverted from our real mission, into either political issues or social ones. As I write this under lockdown, there was a report of one church that opened in Wales, the police went in, arrested them and closed the church! I’m saying this because there still is an argument that, as Christians, we should obey the law. One of the church leaders told me, his biggest problem was not the authorities, he can cope with that, but members of his own congregation who criticised him for holding services! One very strong Scripture comes to my mind, in Acts 5:11, it’s following the sudden deaths of Ananias and Sapphira who had lied to the Holy Spirit, and we see that ‘fear’ fell upon all the Church and on those who heard these things… This ‘fear’ was not because of the authorities, this was fear of lying to the Holy Spirit! Of deceiving God! Now look what the very next verses say! Because of the fear of God that fell, the Apostles wrought many signs and wonders among the people, many people who were witnesses of this were afraid to join them, but many, many unbelievers were added to the Lord, converts, both men and women! All this came out of a problem within the Church! God dealt with it in such an unusual way – Ananias
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and Sapphira fell down dead – such fear of God fell, that the Apostles went out and preached the Gospel with ‘great Power’, and many were added to their number! It was an explosion of Power! When God begins to move and to deal within the Church, unbelievers are added. This is a phenomenal challenge to us to get it right within the Church now! How can we expect the unsaved to come if the Church is not right with God?! We need to be obedient to the Word of God. By Acts 5:15 we find they brought the sick into the streets, put them on beds and couches, so that even the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them and bring healing! And there came a multitude out of the cities round about Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those vexed with evil spirits – and ALL were healed!!! EVERYONE!!! If only I could have been there!!! I remember one time, I was preaching in a church near Odessa in Ukraine at the time when communism was collapsing – it was a Pentecostal church, so strict, you weren’t allowed to laugh. I don’t make a lot of jokes in church, but sometimes it eases tension, relaxes the people, gets their attention. I must have said something and some people laughed. After the service an elder came and said, “You can’t do that, it’s a terrible thing when you make people laugh in church! God will punish you. When you evangelise this afternoon in the cinema, there will be NO miracles of healing!” Fortunately, not everything he said was translated, I only knew he was angry. That afternoon in the cinema, many people repented, they were hungry for the Gospel, it was a powerful meeting. And when I began to pray for the sick – they crowded forward – it was recorded that every single person who came for healing was miraculously
healed! After all that elder had said to me!!! The impact in that city was incredible. The mayor was in the cinema, he found Christ! He asked me to stay in his town, offered me an apartment for free, if only I would carry on with the work. When I didn’t answer, he offered to give me a little old Russian Lada car as well! I couldn’t stay in just one place, but it showed how dramatic the demonstration of the Power of God was, even though I had been criticised by the church elder! So in Acts 5 you see that, despite the disturbance in the Church, once it was dealt with, powerful miracles happened! They were in Solomon’s Porch in the Temple. But in v17, you find that the High Priest ‘rose up and all those that were with him’, Sadducees who were in league with Rome and didn’t believe in resurrection. They threw the Apostles out of the Temple into prison! What concerned the High Priest and his party wasn’t just the miracles of healing, but the preaching of Christ risen from the dead! So now in v19, God worked another miracle, the angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought the Apostles out – and told them to go back to the Temple and preach ‘the words of this life’! Look! They had just been put in prison for preaching the Gospel – and the angel who lets them out says, “Go on doing it!” When I came out of the communist prison by a miracle in 1973, as God had foretold, I was invited to speak in the Royal Albert Hall at an Easter Conference to 10,000 people! But 3 weeks later, when they asked me, “What are you going to do now?” – and I said, “Go back!” – they said, “What?!” God had got me out of that prison by a miracle, and God told me to go back and go on preaching, so I was shocked when they criticised me and said, “You’ve had a year in prison for preaching, you can’t go back!” They
offered me a church, to be a pastor as I was before I began working in the communist countries. I said, “No, I have to go back, I love those people!” I learnt to love them in the prison, I saw them as people for whom Christ had died, and I longed to get back! But do you know what happened to me? I was excommunicated from my own church denomination because I said I would go back! And I did! I went back! When the angel of the Lord brought the Apostles out of prison and commanded them to go back to the Temple and carry on teaching the people, it was still early in the morning. Meanwhile the High Priest called his Council together and sent to the prison for the prisoners! I love what it says next: the officers went to the prison and found it securely locked up with the guards outside the doors, but when they went in – nobody was there!!! The miracle was so powerful, the angel had brought the Apostles out of the prison without the guards even knowing!!! If you want to see this Power of God under persecution, then I challenge you, get into action! Start doing something! Begin witnessing and testifying! I was taught as a boy, the man who has a testimony is never at the mercy of a man who has an argument. If you have a personal testimony of Christ, that will destroy any argument against you! They can argue religion or argue politics, but if you have found Christ, you should have a powerful witness, a powerful testimony which no one can deny! Tell them, yes, you were a sinner, you may have been a drug addict, an alcoholic, you may have been in prison – but see what God has done! He’s changed your life! I’ve seen so many miracles with drug addicts, with criminals. I remember evangelising in one town in the Ural Mountains, I had called all the pastors together for lunch, every single one of them (except one whose father was secretary of the communist party), had been in prison! Not for preaching the Gospel like me, but for drugs, alcohol, every kind of crime! Yet God had so changed them, He made them into the pastors and leaders!!!
But let’s get back to these Apostles. They were just ordinary men with a powerful witness, and testimony! They had obeyed the angel who had brought them out of the prison, and gone back to the Temple to preach. Now the officers found them, rearrested them, and brought them before the Council! The High Priest accused them, “Didn’t we command you not to teach in this Name? And behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine!” That’s v28, and so now, those of you who think we should obey men, pay attention to v29: Peter and the other Apostles said to their accusers, “We ought to obey God rather than men!” They continued, “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you slew and hanged on a tree – Him has God exalted with His Right Hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins – and we are the witnesses!” In court you can only be counted as a witness if it’s something you’ve seen or experienced yourself, not second-hand – ‘somebody told me’…! If you have experienced the Power of God in your life, YOU are the witness! What we need in the Church today, more than theologians, is people with a living witness of the Power of God! I love to share the Power of God that I have seen in my life. I pray with the sick, because I’ve twice been healed of cancer, no medical intervention, and a lot of other things too. And yes, God got me out of prison by a miracle like those early Apostles! Come on! Get an experience with God that is so powerful, that you become the living witness of the Power of God! The members of the Council were so angry, they wanted to kill the Apostles. However, Gamaliel stood up and said, “Hold back from these men, let them alone. For if this work is of man, it will come to nothing. But if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it – lest you be found to fight against God!” Gamaliel is saying, when people come against you, if God is with you, they’re not fighting you, they’re fighting God!
the government realise that if they restrict the churches, or punish Christians and put them in prison, they’re not fighting against the preachers, the evangelists, the Christians – they’re fighting against God Himself! And I know from experience – God will support you, God will deliver you. Everything I have gone through, from World War II in London, through my time in a communist prison, through persecution and attempts on my life – every time it is God who has come to deliver, God who has defended me! So the Council listened to Gamaliel, had the Apostles flogged – commanded them again that they should not preach in the Name of Jesus, and let them go. They left the Council, not defeated and miserable, but rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame alongside Jesus! What happened? They went back into the Temple and in every house – not just the Temple – and they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ! Come on! That’s what happened in the Acts of the Apostles with the early Church! What’s up with the Church today?! We should be out there, witnessing to the Gospel! Obey God rather than man! Get a powerful witness, a powerful testimony in your own life until your life is the evidence of the Gospel you preach! What’s going to happen if we are silent? Who’s going to be the witness? Who’s going to be the evidence? Did Christ die in vain? When He died, He left only eleven who were faithful to that witness. If they had failed to preach the Gospel, failed to bring the multitudes into the Kingdom – Christ would have died in vain! If the Church fails to witness, fails to preach the Gospel, did Christ die in vain? He died to save the world, not just you! Yes, we are in difficult days, and it’s not going to get any easier! I can only promise you sweat and blood and toil and tears. We’ve got to get back to the Power of an Apostolic mission! And at the end of it, I KNOW how great will be the Glory of your reward in the Kingdom when Christ comes! Amen!
With all these Covid-19 restrictions, does
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WHO WE HELP IN ISRAEL Despite the difficult circumstances, fear and despair under Covid, the Ministry of David Hathaway in Israel continues to deliver humanitarian parcels and pray for the most vulnerable. We cannot do it by our strength, only by God’s Power. And because God opens the doors for us, many are accepting Jesus into their hearts as their personal
Milia was born in 1933 in Vinnitsa Region, Ukraine. Her family were the only Jews in the village. Every Friday night, her father dressed in the tallit and prayed, always ending with one phrase that little Milia remembered for the rest of her life: ‘Next year in Jerusalem.’ At the very beginning of World War II, just 8 years old, when the Nazis invaded Ukraine, Milia and her mother ended up in a concentration camp. Usually children were shot on the spot, because the Nazis needed labour only. But Milia’s mother, Riva, hid her daughter under her clothes, and so Milia survived, hiding in rags. But not for long. Someone reported them to the Commandant, and finding the girl, he aimed his gun at her mother and said he would kill them both. Mama Riva shouted, “Milia is not a child, she’s 16 years old, she’s a dwarf!” From that moment on, this 8-year-old girl worked for 3 years on a par with adults. “Barefoot I pulled stones out of the sand and carried them to another place. The Commandant watched
Saviour. It is amazing to see how God’s love and power brightens the hearts of these former prisoners of the Nazi/ Soviet ghettos. Through your generous support we can reach even more with the love of Jesus. Below is just one story, to read more visit: www.eurovision.org.uk/event-reports
me and my mother closely, so my mother would take a larger stone, put it on my shoulders and say, “Be patient, daughter, carry it, otherwise they will kill you and me.”” Little Milia’s health began to deteriorate rapidly. She began to struggle to breathe... They had two supervisors: ‘Commandant’ and ‘Engineer’. The Commandant was a terrible man, an evil and a vicious killer. The Engineer was more humane, and as it turned out, later he helped them escape. After the war, Milia tried to find out what happened to the Engineer, writing letters to the Embassy of the GDR, they gave her an address in Frankfurt am Main, but she could not find anything out about him. “I really wanted to express my gratitude to him.” He understood that she was still only a small girl and that her mother had lied. But he did not betray her, instead he took pity on her: on his shift, he took her away from hard work, fed her, and shod her in footcloths and galoshes so that she didn’t have to go barefoot. But the most important thing that the Engineer did at the end was to give Riva and Milia a cover note that they could take to the nearest village – this was the last time Milia ever saw the Engineer – it turned out to be the salvation of their lives and got out them out of the concentration camp unharmed. A few days later, the Nazis left the camp and the corpses of the Jews who had worked there – they had all been shot... After the war, she and her mother and two sisters returned to their native village, built a house, and planted an
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orchard and a vegetable garden which fed them. They, like everyone else, worked on the collective farm. After finishing school, Milia decided to fulfil her dream – to live by the sea. Odessa became for her a safe, calm haven for many years. She graduated from the university, married and had a daughter and grandchildren. But in the 1990s, ‘bandit’ people appeared in Odessa, they were looking for Jews – and the chaos began. Milia’s daughter got scared and made aliyah with her family to Israel. Milia and her husband followed. For 25 years now, she has been an Israeli citizen living in Bat Yam. Here she worked for 10 years as a carer for elderly women, though sometimes she was older than some of her ‘old ladies’ herself; she looked after them, washed, cooked, cleaned. She had a very responsible approach to her work. Today she is 87 years old and has her own round-the-clock young carer. Physically it is very hard for her, for many years now she has suffered from oxygen deficiency, sleeps in an oxygen mask, lives with tubes. When we visit her, she is always glad to see us and to talk. When she’s not in the mood to chat, we read the Bible, pray, hold hands, thank God for saving her life, that she is still alive, for good memory, for health. When we were listening to her life story, for the first time I felt God knew everything from the beginning. These people who have gone through difficult times love life very much, want to live, and every day go to the window and thank God for life!
To read more stories visit:
WHO WE HELP IN UKRAINE David Hathaway’s Ministry, working with Philadelphia Church Kiev, has been supporting displaced persons since the war began in east Ukraine, early 2014. Also, working with the Ukraine Bible Society, we help in the distribution of
Bibles and supplies to the military living in the highly militarised zone far away from their families. To read more stories visit: www.eurovision.org.uk/event-reports. David's weekly messages are broadcast in Russian, now also in Ukrainian.
Violetta: When the war began, I was living in Lugansk with my husband, 17-year old son, and younger son, two and a half years old. On April 6, 2014, the Security Service of Ukraine building in Lugansk was seized by Separatists. On June 2, at four in the morning, we heard explosions. We ran out to the street, the earth was shaking. People were in pyjamas, dressing gowns. There was panic. It was the night all our children were out celebrating their graduation. Parents rushed to bring them home. This is how the school prom turned into the begin-
ning of the war, constant shelling at night, armed men, barricades... It became dangerous. My husband put me with my children on a train to my cousin in Kiev. I spent whole days with the small child on the street, but I said, better to be in Kiev on a bench, than in Lugansk under bombs. I thank God we found out about Philadelphia Church from other internally displaced people. The church helps people not only materially, but also spiritually. When you visit this church, you feel good in your soul. Thank you all very much.
Tatiana: Before the war, I had my own business in Lugansk. In April 2014, the first planes began to fly over the Regional Administration building. I wanted to lie down on the floor and just dissolve. I continued to work in Lugansk until June 20, 2014 when I barely made it home. By July, there was a shortage of groceries, and the running water was no longer chlorinated. We kept bags with some food and documents by the door so that we could leave quickly in case of bombing. On July 26, at night, shelling began where we lived. Me, my daughter and
grandchildren fled. It was terrifying. We settled in Kiev. To survive we had to sell everything. We lived on two disability pensions (mine and my grandson’s). I heard about Philadelphia Church. Me, my daughter and grandchildren have been attending church services, home groups, and the grandchildren go to Sunday school. We have a place where we can pray, have fellowship, and get support. We thank God, the Church and David’s ministry for taking care of us.
Letter of Thanks to You – from the Ukraine Bible Society Dear Friends, let me share a miracle that happened here in Ukraine. And you all are part of it! We have been visiting the frontline for six years since the war in the East began. In mid-October 2020, we were there again with Bibles for the military. Children’s Bibles are especially popular – to take to their kids. At one of the camps in the woods, the commander asked for a Children’s Bible, and said that it would be the second Children’s Bible he received from us. Apparently we met him on the frontline two years ago. He wasn’t a commander then. He had asked prayer for him and his wife to have children, as medically it was impossible, and after we prayed, he had asked for a Children’s Bible! His wife got pregnant, and she read stories from that Bible to the child in womb! Then they found
out it was twins – two boys! They gave them biblical names, Peter and Paul. The commander now explained, he wanted one more Bible so that, being far away on the battlefield, he could read the stories to his sons over the phone, and, holding the same Bible – Peter and Paul could look at the pictures with their mother! Our Almighty Lord works miracles among us! He sees people’s hearts and speaks to us in wonderful ways through His eternal and unchangeable Word. Thank you, our dear friends, that we have something to give to these thirsty souls! Because of your support, God is touching more and more people through His Word. With gratitude, yours in Christ Anatoliy, Deputy of the President of Ukraine Bible Society
www.eurovision.org.uk/event-reports 9
OP TO I want to start again with Ephesians 1:15-16 and I agree with Paul when he says, “After I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love to all the saints, I cease not to give thanks for you…” Many of you reading this know my ministry – and I’m so dependent on you for your love and support, I thank God for your faith, I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers! What a joyful thing this is! I echo what Paul is saying! Paul continues to pray, vv17-18, “… that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give unto you the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the Knowledge of Him…” Paul is revealing here the Trinity, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, One God, but Paul also reveals the separation, and he’s praying that we may be given the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in knowing Christ – it’s part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit to reveal the Father and the Son to us. Paul is so earnestly desiring that we should have that Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation, that the eyes of our understanding be enlightened, that we may KNOW what is the Hope of God’s Calling and what are the riches of the Glory of His Inheritance in the Saints. God wants you to see! Paul is praying that the eyes of your understanding would be enlightened, opened – to receive REVELATION! Unless you receive the Holy Spirit, you can never fully comprehend who and what Jesus is, and all that He means to us! Paul is praying for revelation, that we might KNOW what is the Hope of His Calling. He has called us, chosen us! Jesus said, “You have not chosen Me, I have chosen you and ordained you that you would bring forth fruit, and that your fruit would remain.” John 15:16. We are called of God! It’s so much deeper than our choice. Our spiritual experience is responding to the call of the Holy Spirit, who called us into the Kingdom. And Paul prays that we might KNOW the RICHES of the
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GLORY of His Inheritance IN US, the saints! So according to Paul, we don’t have to wait until we get into the Kingdom of God to enter into the Glory. It’s IN US! Yes, we know, when we get into the Kingdom, there’s going to be great Glory, a great Inheritance… We look forward to this. When we lose our loved ones, especially in a time like this in a pandemic, as long as our loved ones know Jesus, we shall meet again! In exquisite Glory! I had just such an experience of the Glory when I was in the communist prison, when suddenly it was as if the whole roof of the prison flew off, and I could hear the angels, the choirs of Heaven – such a sense of the Glory that is Heaven! Heaven is Glory, it’s Blessing, Power and Love… The more I think about it, the more I want to go there! Non-Christians don’t know what happens after death, but as Christians we have KNOWLEDGE! This is what Paul is trying to share with us here, the RICHES of the GLORY of the Inheritance! We HAVE that Inheritance, now, because Christ has died! You know, you only get an inheritance when someone dies… In the difficult days of communism, that’s what every Russian dreamed of, having a rich uncle in America who has died… But what Paul is teaching us in this letter is that we HAVE that Inheritance THROUGH Christ, NOW! ALL the Glory of Heaven – we don’t have to wait until we get there! We can experience the Glory down here! In our worship services, when we are together, when the Holy Spirit comes down, and we are lifted up – something of the Glory of Heaven enters into our soul, and we glimpse and KNOW the riches of the Glory that we HAVE! And it gets better! Paul want us to know, in vv19-21, what is the EXCEEDING GREATNESS of God’s Power! I’m mystified that so many Christians don’t understand the greatness of His Power!
To me, God has ALL Power and ALL Glory – and we inherit that Power and that Glory down here! So that I can live and operate in the Power and the Glory – because it’s my Inheritance! I have it! NOW! Why do I see so many miracles? It’s because I’m living in the Glory and the Power of the Inheritance. NOW! I don’t have to wait till I get to Heaven. Paul says, I want you to “understand the exceeding Power of His Greatness towards us who believe, according to the working of His Mighty Power which He wrought in Christ”! What God has done is this, He demonstrated the Greatness of His Power in Christ when He raised Him from the dead! Yes, resurrection from the dead is wonderful, but it’s the fact that God SO EXALTED Christ, our Jesus – He’s set Him at His own Right Hand in the Heavenly Places, FAR ABOVE ALL principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that world which is to come! God the Father has EXALTED Christ above everything – given Him the Highest Name, the Highest Place, the Greatest Power – ALL this God has put in Christ when He exalted Him – AND THAT IS OUR INHERITANCE! Oh, come on! You need to understand who Jesus is! You need to understand the Glory of this Man who came down and took on Himself our human form, but was the Son of God, who gave His Life to rescue you and me from our sin! And as a result of His faithfulness, God raised Him from the dead, and EXALTED Him! EXALTED Him above every power, above everything, and set Him at His Own Right Hand! This gets me so excited. Because Paul teaches us that this same Jesus is interceding for us, NOW! That’s why He’s in Heaven, He is living there as our intercessor. That’s why He’s in the Glory! And because He knows you, He is interceding with His Father for YOU! All the time! People ask me to pray for them, and of course I do, if you are
S E Y E R U O Y N PE SEE! David Hathaway
sick, if you have a need, I pray for you, as Paul also did. But the GREATEST Intercessor is Jesus Himself. He’s in the Presence of the Father, at the Right Hand of the Father – praying for YOU! Of course you want the pastor to pray, you want me to pray for you, but I’m more concerned that JESUS is praying for you. He is! That’s what the Scripture says. Jesus is praying for YOU! Romans 8:34, Hebrews 7:25, 1 John 2:1-2. And He’s praying for me! I need prayer, I’ve always needed prayer, I need prayer every day, when I go to bed I need prayer, when I get up in the morning I need prayer – I’m committing everything to the Lord! But I’m down here with you… yet I’ve got Somebody up there, who’s already in the Glory, in Power and in Authority! And through Him, we can have that same access into ‘Heavenly Places’! THE EYES OF OUR UNDERSTANDING NEED TO BE OPENED so that we can understand, vv18-19, the Hope of the Calling, the Riches of the Glory of the Inheritance IN US, and the exceeding Greatness of His Power TO US! We have to understand how GREAT HIS POWER IS TOWARD US! I’m trying to release the Power all the time, to let it come into my life, into my ministry. Men send rockets into space. If you watch them sending a rocket to the space station, it’s released with such power, it’s going to get right up to that heavenly orbit! We’ve got to understand that what God wants to do in your life and mine is to release the ‘Greatness of His Power’ which will bring us spiritually into Heavenly Places… far above…! That’s the demonstration of His Power, released in us, which Paul reveals! Paul is trying to explain that it’s not just the Power Jesus had here on earth, it’s His EXALTED POWER! We need to have that rocket booster, that Power, in order to live for Him! What has God done for Jesus? He raised Christ from the dead and set Him on His Right Hand in Heavenly Places! And WE are seated in Heavenly Places IN HIM!
NOW! Not when we die! I don’t have time to die, I’m too busy even at my age! Because that Power Christ has – is released IN US down here! All the Power that Christ has, all the Authority and Power that God has put in Him in the Heavenly Places – we in Christ live in that same Power! Down here! Because I’m not just living in this world, I’m already seated in Heavenly Places IN CHRIST! That’s why I can testify that the greatest spiritual experience in my life was when I was in that communist prison, locked in my cell 24 hours a day. We weren’t allowed out for the toilet, or for a shower, we weren’t allowed out for food. We were just in that filthy, stinking cell with no window, just glass bricks – almost opaque – to let some light in. And yet in that moment when the Glory of God came down, I sensed myself already in the Glory that Christ has in Heaven! Down here we are already seated in Heavenly Places IN CHRIST! I GET SO EXCITED! Look in vv21-23, at the Power God has put in the Name of Jesus! FAR ABOVE ALL principality, power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come! God has put ALL things under His feet and gave Him to be Head over ALL things to the Church. Christ is the Head of the Church! Not the pastor, not the bishop, not the Archbishop, not the Pope! Christ – is the Head of the Church! And the Church is His Body! We’re His Hands, His Feet, His Eyes, His Mouth – we are the outworking of the direction of the Head! ALL things are under His Feet! Jesus, the Christ, is the Head OVER ALL THINGS, to the Church, which is His Body, the FULLNESS OF HIM THAT FILLS ALL IN ALL. In other words, the Church should be the FULL DEMONSTRATION of the Body of Christ! This is the challenge to the Church! The Church has to become the Body of Christ – on earth! Come on! The
Church has to manifest all these things that God has put in Christ! In reality, when Jesus was on earth, His Power was limited. But when He was exalted, set at the Right Hand of God the Father, God at that moment anointed Him with ALL POWER AND ALL MAJESTY AND ALL DOMINION! And we have, not what was in the limited earthly Body of Christ but, because we are now seated in the Heavenly Places in Christ, we have ALL THE POWER, ALL THE AUTHORITY that Jesus now has in Heaven! Our Inheritance is not just as when Jesus was on earth – the Power and the Glory that we have is what He has NOW – in Heaven! Because we are in Christ, seated in the Heavenly Places in Christ, ALL THAT POWER AND GLORY – that Paul describes to us here in Ephesians Chapter 1 – is ours! It’s in the Church! But so often the Church doesn’t manifest this Power. Some do – and YOU are part of the Body of Christ! YOU! You are His Hands, His Feet, His Eyes, His Mouth – YOU are the only manifestation of Jesus that the people on earth can ever see! And they HAVE to see that Glory in YOU! The Inheritance, the Glory – is in Christ, in Heaven. But I am trying to tell you, Paul is trying to tell you – we ALREADY HAVE THAT INHERITANCE! Jesus has already died! When that rich uncle dies and leaves you that wealth, you inherit it – it’s yours! Now! You possess it. You walk into that mansion. But this is what Paul is saying, Christ has died and WE ALREADY HAVE THE INHERITANCE – NOW! I live in it, I love it, I’m filled with Power and with Glory – because it’s IN CHRIST! It’s not me, it’s Christ living in me! That’s what Paul said. OPEN YOUR EYES! Let Christ live IN YOU! Come on! Enter into the Power and the Glory! Father, let the Holy Spirit open our eyes, so that we can see the Glory in Jesus’ Name! Amen!
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2021
– A NEW VISTA IN ‘TAKE HOLD OF HIM WHO HAS TAKEN HOLD OF YOU!’ David: I’m with my very close friend, Dennis Greenidge, and we want to talk to you about the New Year 2021 and what it means. Dennis is a pastor of a praying church, an evangelist and missionary, I was a pastor for 15 years – but God delivered me! I enjoy the ministry I have, which is evangelism. My father, for 36 years, was the General Superintendent of the Elim Pentecostal Churches in Britain, but his own heart was to be an evangelist, because he’d met with George Jeffreys, the most well-known and powerful healing evangelist in Britain. Some people talk about Smith Wigglesworth – working in Russia I found every Russian thought Wigglesworth was American, because in fact he was better known for his healing ministry in America, but he was British! My father was very close to Jeffreys, worked with him to establish the Elim Churches, and it was Jeffreys who dedicated me to the Lord as a baby. I have a wonderful heritage! What drew my father to Jeffreys was the evangelism, because he saw that evangelism is the most important thing we have in the Church! But it wasn’t God’s choice for my father – he became a great Bible teacher, interested in Bible prophecy and Israel, and he was a leader. I’m so glad I could follow in his footsteps. Dennis, you’re just the same… Your father was a leader and a great man, and we have this in common together… We both had fathers who were an inspiration…
thing to start with. Fathers. At the beginning of a New Year, I tend to look at Philippians 3:12ff, ‘Not as though I have already attained or were already made perfect… but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forth to those things which are before…’ As we stand at the start of a New Year, for many of us, 2020 is best forgotten! Dennis: Yes, it’s been a time of great loss and of great pain and a time of great frustration. Many dreams have been shattered. People have seen so many things we rely and depend on – fail!
Dennis: Yes, we had fathers we could look up to, mighty men of God and we thank God for their impartation to our lives. But in the light of walking with the fathers we had, I think we saw our shortcomings very easily! That’s the struggle…
David: For me, 2020 prevented much of my ministry. This was to have been a breakthrough year in Central Asia. I’ve worked all these years in Russia and Ukraine, in the former communist countries of East Europe, seeing the Power of God – 70 years in ministry – what God has done has been a very great miracle. Most people at my age – 88, nearly 89 – are just looking at the past. I’m not! I’m looking at the future! I’m seeing the whole future opening up. That’s why Paul says, ‘Forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forth into those things that are in front of us!’ I want to encourage you not to look at 2020, but let’s realise that the tomorrow we have is more glorious than the yesterdays. The future in front of us becomes more and more glorious, and powerful, and precious. Paul encourages us, ‘I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.’ Philippians 3:14. It echoes what he said in v13, ‘I don’t count that I have apprehended’ – because he hasn’t yet reached the goal, he hasn’t yet reached what he has to fulfil. He’s still, still pressing forward…!
David: The Apostle Paul says, you have many teachers, but not many fathers. 1 Corinthians 4:15. As we come into this New Year, fatherhood is a good
I want to encourage you, wherever you are, whatever you’ve achieved, always keep this sense that there is something more in front of you. Once
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on holiday with my family in the mountains in Switzerland, we had gone up in the cable car to the top station. Me, my wife, one of the twins who was 15, and my youngest daughter who was about 3 years old. I left the little one with my wife, and I said to the older daughter, “Come on, let’s get to the top!” But every time we thought we’d reached the peak, there was always another one in front! It’s only when you get to that level, you see the vista and the view that’s still in front! That’s like our spiritual experience. However high we get, however close we get to the Lord – now I’m looking back at our past years, Dennis – now standing at the threshold of 2021, it’s like standing with a whole fresh vision in front of us! Come on folks! I want to challenge you! Stand up! There’s a whole new vista in front of you! And it’s exciting! Come on Dennis, let’s do it together! Dennis: When you get stirred up David, I get stirred up! I think about the Apostle Paul and the maturity he had in the Spirit, and yet still he would say words like, ‘not that I have already attained’… He knew and understood that he was what he was by the Grace of God. It hits me in my heart. Many of us leaders and preachers, even if we don’t say it, still we develop an attitude, ‘I know better than most people’… It’s the humility we see in the Apostle Paul even in spite of all the things he did attain! When I read the Acts of the Apostles and the letters, who else can he be compared to? Yet still he says, “I haven’t already achieved, but I press on!” 2020 has been a difficult year for many, even with our own families, we’ve all received news that could have been quite detrimental – had not God stepped in! David, we’ve come through this year because of the ‘pressing on’, that attitude of gratitude helps us to understand, ‘Lord, I am what I am because of the Grace of God’! That attitude, that thrust that
FRONT OF YOU! David Hathaway in Conversation with Dennis Greenidge
you have to press on, excites us – and I believe God has given us His Grace, and His Grace is our elevator that lifts us up to meet the demands of Truth. But we’ve got to work with Him! We’ve got to be willing to press on. Tell me more David, go on! David: If we talk about pressing on, and if we look at this New Year, this brings us to prophecy – there’s fulfilled prophecy and there is prophecy that is yet to come. Twenty years ago I produced the film, The Rape of Europe – it’s actually being fulfilled right now, and recently I wrote a book on prophecy, Babylon or Jerusalem – a Tale of Two Cities. Now if you look at what has happened in this past year, 2020 – all the difficulties, all the things we’ve gone through – I see it as fulfilment of prophecy. All the things – good and bad – we must see them all as fulfilment of prophecy. I would not be where I am today if I had not gone through the communist prison. Sometimes it has to come through suffering. If Jesus had not endured and suffered the Cross, He would not have entered into the Glory! As we are standing, looking at the coming year, I believe we’re going to see much of the tragedy of 2020 revealed as prophetic in 2021. The terrible year we have gone through has accelerated the fulfilment of what God has planned to do. God has a remarkable way of doing this. We can never understand the mysteries or the workings of God. We celebrate Christmas, but at the time Christ was born, nobody understood how important this was. But I want people to understand that in 2020, prophecy has been accelerated, and in this coming year, 2021, we’re going to understand and see what this prophetic fulfilment is. I don’t call myself a prophet, but all my life I have been interested in seeing prophecy fulfilled. Going back, God revealed to me the collapse of the
Iron Curtain, but I was involved in it, so much so that, as the Iron Curtain was opening, I was invited on BBC and ITV to explain what was happening in the light of Scripture! At that time I was backwards and forwards through the Iron Curtain into Eastern Europe, and I knew more than the politicians and the BBC! And as Christians, we do have a much clearer understanding of the future than any politician! Dennis: As Christians, David, we have God’s roadmap and we’re actually going ‘back to our future’, we know because of the prophetic. As you’re speaking, what’s stirring in my heart are Paul’s words here, ‘That I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.’ Paul was pressing on for what Jesus wanted! The way we deal with what’s ahead of us is to press on for that which Jesus wants from us. Talking with you is taking me back to over 36 years ago – sometimes we need a negative situation to catapult us to the next place where we have to take hold of what God has for us – I was in Haiti, held at gunpoint. They were chopping the missionaries’ hands off! Everything had gone haywire! I was with my father, not knowing this was going to be my last trip with my father before he was to die. After leaving from England, seeing millionaires giving their lives to the Lord – I thought I’d ‘arrived’, ‘this is it’! The Lord spoke to my father, “Speak to Dennis to come to Haiti with you” – the very source and centre of voodoo at that time. I went with him and, to cut a long story short, we were held at gunpoint in an airport – people were crying out because they knew we were finished. I had sat for three and a half hours, reading the Bible – and when they came and held us at gunpoint, I couldn’t remember a word of what I’d read. I went to pieces. All I could do was stand there, and I remember tears coming down my eyes, and I heard
the words of my mother who always used to sing when she was washing up, ‘When peace like a river attends my way, and the storms like the sea billows roll, whatever my lot, He has taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul’. Tears were coming down my eyes, they had us at gunpoint. And suddenly my father put his hand on my shoulder – gentle touch – and said to me, “Son, God never brought us to Haiti to die, He brought us to give life to those who were dying.” Only two people left that airport that day, my father and I – by a divine miracle. David, I was serving the Lord in the best way I thought – but I had not taken hold of what God had taken hold of me for. David, I’ve seen the miracles God has done in and through your life, I’ve had the privilege of being able to walk a part of your journey with you. But what challenges me, as you brought what God put on your heart, is that you have taken hold of Him who has taken hold of you! Let’s pray as we go into this New Year, that we will rest in the Lord, forget even all those good things, accept that we’re not perfect, that we’ve not attained all that we should. David: There’s only one in Heaven who is perfect, and that is Jesus! Let me pray for YOU, please pray with me: Lord encourage the readers of this magazine, to not look at the problems in their past life, or in this past year, but to look to the future. I pray for a glorious future for everyone, that we will press forward, however hard it is, that we will climb to that higher height, and that in this new year, spiritually, even materially, we will reach a higher level. Lord, lift me up and let me stand on higher ground, a higher place than I have found. Plant my feet on higher ground in this new year. In Jesus’ Name. There is so much more that God can do in your life and mine! God bless you! Amen!
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AN OPEN DOOR Katie Morris
Towards the end of last year I had an experience that made a deep impression on me. During a brief relaxation in the Covid-19 regulations I was able to meet a young woman, new to the family, far away from where I live. I knocked at the door of her house. When it opened, I walked in – straight through the door of her heart! Beautiful. Sunshine. Glorious light. She received me and I received her. Relationship. What happened in that moment of welcome is an image of things the Lord has been teaching me for many years! In 1988 He said: “When you light a lamp, you put it on a lampstand, so that those who come in can see the light!” Luke 11:33-36. He spoke so strongly, that the Words He spoke that day brought a change in me, even before I grasped them. Of course, Jesus is the ‘Lamp’ who shines – on us, in us, through us! Luke 11:34,36; John 1. And when we are focused on Him, we can be ‘full of light’! When others see us – shouldn’t they see this? The light of a welcome, open door – straight into the heart?! Shortly after that bright ‘open door’ experience, I was outside another door, a dark one, into a dark house where there was no welcome, and the figure inside had closed down the inner shutters of the heart. The impression on me was as strong as the open door that had been so full of ‘light’. I thought a lot about this. Sometimes, as Psalm 23 says, shadows do pass over our lives… In those verses from Luke 11:33-36 which the Lord first highlighted back in 1988, He said, “SEE TO IT that the light within you in not darkness...” He put the responsibility on me, “SEE TO IT that the light – within YOU – is NOT darkness!” I have to admit, when some dark thing has affected me, I
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have allowed His Light in me to become dim… Something bad that happened or was said, or some wrong attitude of mine, or wrong thing I have done – all these things from time to time have brought a shadow, where Light should be shining... When the Lord first ‘knocked at the door of my heart’, April 1979, it was as if He was actually sitting in the whole right side of my house, the whole night long. He was seated in my home! He wanted me. Now He belongs in my ‘house’, my life, my heart (down here), and I belong in His House, in His heart (up there)! I love Him! My heart is His ‘welcome place’, it’s His bright home where He wants to be! Jesus said, “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.” John 14:11. He’s saying, I’m here on earth, but at the same time, I live in My Father’s Heart, in His House in Heaven – and He lives in Mine down here! There was an open door between Jesus on earth and His Father in Heaven! This ‘open door’ experience is for us too! Jesus said, “When I go to be with My Father, I will send you the Holy Spirit, He will live IN YOU, you will live IN HIM.” He said, “I am the door of the sheep – if ANY enter in, he shall be saved!” John 10:7,9. Jesus said of His ministry, it wasn’t Him! It was the Father working IN Him! John 14:10-11! Paul challenges us, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling” – which really can make us tremble, but Paul reassures us immediately – “because IT IS THE FATHER who WORKS IN YOU to will and to do His good pleasure!” Philippians 2:12-13. God IN your ‘house’, your heart, HE will do His works through you!!! Wow!!! If we will let Him… For the first time recently the words, and the tune, came back to me of a
song once sung prophetically over me in a difficult season, more than 25 years ago: ‘It’s Me, in you, that will show them that I love them, don’t do things on your own, don’t do things in your own strength, don’t do things on your own, do it in Me!’ Yes Lord, I will back off and give You the control of my ‘house’ and I will let You do Your Works through me – it will be so much better than anything I can do on my own! AN OPEN DOOR – INTO HEAVEN! I have read that the very first word in the Bible, in Hebrew ‘Beresheeth’ (In the beginning’), is in itself alone a complete revelation of God’s plan for us from beginning to end! The very first letter of this very first word, ‘Beresheeth’ (In the beginning’), is a pictogram of a house – God’s House in Heaven which, the six pictogram letters show, He leaves in order to come to our home on earth to die on the cross – the last letter of this prophetic word being the Hebrew ‘tav’, in ancient Hebrew, a pictogram of a cross – so that we can live with Him in His Home in Heaven – forever! John 1:1,14; John 14:1-2. This is our destiny as children of God. My own father used to say to me in troubled times, “My house is your house.” Isaiah 46:9-10 says: “I am God… declaring the end from the beginning the things that are not yet done,” so that Psalm 23 rightly ends, ‘And I shall dwell in the House of the Lord – forever!’
CAMPAIGNS IN PREPARATION
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David Hathaway No 82 Winter 2016
UKRAINE CENTRAL-ASIA POLAND GEORGIA
YOUR GIFT HELPS US BRING CHRIST TO THE PEOPLE
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Online Donations: eurovision.org.uk/donation Eurovision is a Registered Charity No 1126438 (a Company Limited by Guarantee Registered in England No 6638375)
POWER THROUGH FIRE! THIS BOOK is very fresh, a series of messages given by David during the lockdown which deal with the immediate challenge that Covid-19 has presented to the Church! The demonic spirit of control, uncovered in his last book, ‘Babylon – or – Jerusalem’, is moving forward fast. He speaks prophetically, because the problem is much more dangerous than it appears on the surface. One must question whether there is some sinister spirit of control involved. David believes there is! He also believes we’re living in the last days, the days of the Return of Christ, the days when we are going to see Revival Fire bursting on the Church, poured on the Church, until the Church is going to be alive and working and believing and moving into spiritual victory – all in preparation for the glorious Return of Jesus!
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YOUR GIFT EMPOWERS THE GOSPEL! Please send your gift to: Eurovision Mission to Europe, International Office, 41 Healds Road, Dewsbury WF13 4HU, UK Eurovision is a Registered Charity No 1126438 (a Company Limited by Guarantee Registered in England No 6638375)
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PROPHETIC VISION© is published by Eurovision Publications Tel: + 44 (0)1924 453693 email: office@eurovision.org.uk This is a prophetic ministry of David Hathaway Editorial Director: David Hathaway Editor: Katie Morris Designed by: Carl Varley ISSN 1358–698X
Donations can also be made by bank transfer: UK Bank transfers: Eurovision Barclays Bank, Leicester, LE87 2BB, UK Sort Code 20–35–84, Acc No 80000221
International Bank transfers: Eurovision Sterling IBAN: GB65 BUKB 2035 8480 0002 21 SWIFTBIC: BUKBGB22 US Dollar IBAN: GB08 BUKB 2035 8443 4348 66 SWIFTBIC: BUKBGB22 Euro IBAN: GB98 BUKB 2035 8455 8597 22 SWIFTBIC: BUKBGB22
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