David Hathaway

Jesus ever lives to make intercession for us! With His bodily wounds and scars, He stands before the Father and pleads on our behalf. I want you to really understand this reality: Intercession is made in Heaven for us – by Jesus! HE is the One who intercedes for us!  Who better to pray for you and me than Jesus?! And Jesus will come back for us. We are not abandoned here on earth, we have a heavenly Kingdom. 

What is happening now, in the very words of Jesus, are the signs and the evidence of the times immediately before His Return. God knows what is happening here on earth. He is not distant or remote. The only lasting peace will be when Jesus returns. When we look at the horror of war, it is easy to give into despair. But, JESUS IS COMING BACK! And I believe this must be very soon. I want to tell Christians and non-Christians, if Jesus is coming back to rule the world for one thousand years – as the Bible says – then God, who is in control, KNOWS what is happening here now. When Christ returns to rule the world, there will be PEACE for a thousand years – an end to all fighting, religious and political – ONLY Jesus can do this! Not priests, preachers, evangelists or presidents. This miracle can ONLY happen in and through the Person of Jesus. God is in control, and all these things are leading up to Christ’s Return!

The promise of Jesus is that He will return! Acts 1v11, two angels say, “Why are you gazing up into Heaven? This same Jesus that you have seen go up will return, in the same manner as you have seen Him go.” So, when Jesus leaves, the promise is – THIS SAME JESUS IS COMING AGAIN. From the beginning to the end, the emphasis is on the Person of Jesus! Who was, and is, and is to come.  

We are living in one of the most difficult, testing, periods for the Church. And what we desperately need is revival! This word ‘revival’ occurs in the King James Version about seven times. In Psalm 13:3 David says in effect, ‘O Lord my God, revive ME or I DIE!’ I echo those words sometimes, ‘Unless YOU revive me, and quicken me with Your Power – I DIE!’ And in Psalm 138:7, and in Habakkuk 3:2, ‘revive Your Work O Lord!’ We need God to move today – in a miraculous way – to revive His Work! The Church needs to be revived! ‘Revived’ means to be brought back to life, something that had life and has lost it… Whatever you think about ‘revival’ – we desperately need the Church to come ALIVE! We need the people of God to come ALIVE! 

In our worship and in our living, we have to be fulfilling the prophecy of Scripture! Peter said in Acts 2, quoting Joel, that God would pour out His Spirit on all flesh! We need to see this outpouring of God on all flesh! And that must come with signs and wonders – your daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. At my age, 89, I’m not old, I’m still seeing the visions, I’m not ‘dreaming’… Joel quite clearly also said, God will show wonders in heaven and signs on the earth, blood and fire and vapour of smoke…

After the Holy Spirit fell on the Day of Pentecost, in Acts 2:14-21 Peter stood up and spoke to the multitudes, "These people are not drunk, but this is the fulfilment of Joel's prophecy where God says: it shall come to pass in the last days, I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh… And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved." This was the beginning of the Church! The Church did not really exist until this outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It was accompanied by remarkable signs and wonders

Right from the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, He was talking about the coming Kingdom of God! In John 3, where Nicodemus, a leader of the Pharisees, comes to Jesus by night, saying, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God, because no man can do these miracles that You do, except God be with him.” - Firstly I want to say, the miraculous was the evidence that God was with Jesus. Secondly, Jesus replies very simply, “Truly I say to you, except a man be born again from above, He cannot see the Kingdom of God!” There is a coming Kingdom, and the actions we take today, determine whether we will be part of it.   

Jesus came to preach the Good News of the coming Kingdom. In John 3, where Nicodemus, a leader of the Pharisees, comes to Jesus by night, saying, "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God, because no man can do these miracles that You do, except God be with him." Do you understand what Nicodemus said? The miracles were the evidence that God was with Jesus. But Jesus replies very simply, "Truly I say to you, except a man be born again from above, He cannot see the Kingdom of God!" 

There is a generation, according to the prophecies of Jesus, that will not pass away until it sees the fulfilment of the return of Christ. I believe the things which you and I are seeing and experiencing, are the signs that the age in which we live, is the age immediately before the Return of Christ. And because I want to be, and expect to be, part of Christ’s Kingdom, I’m not afraid of what I see! 

We are living in the Last Days. In Luke 21, the disciples are asking Jesus what are the signs of the Last Days. In verses 9-10, Jesus says, “When you hear of wars and commotions, don’t be terrified, for these things must first come to pass, but the end is not yet... Nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom...” This touches on the situation we have at the moment. We are living in a time of war, famine, and pestilence. I believe the Kingdom of God is near!

Ask God for the gift of faith to believe that – with Him – nothing is impossible. I’m trying to push the bounds of faith further and further out! When I’ve believed for something in the past, I want to believe for something bigger and better in the future! Because God says, in the Last Days He will pour out His Spirit on all flesh! We’re living in the Last Days. Expect the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, pray for it! And when you pray, act as if you’ve got it! 

We are living in the age when God is going to fulfil every single promise! That’s why I’m not looking at the negative, I’m looking at the positive. We’re living in a time, a generation, and an age, when God is going to pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, and the whole earth will be filled with the Glory of God!

God is going to restore what the enemy has stolen! Many of you have suffered sickness, heartache, and distress, and yet God says, “I will restore to you the years the locust has eaten!” Jesus Himself assured that if you willingly let your life go, you will save it. Joel 2.26 encourages, “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the Name of the Lord your God who has dealt wondrously with you – AND MY PEOPLE SHALL NEVER BE ASHAMED!” I have stood on this verse so many times in my ministry – if we put our trust in Him, if we demonstrate our faith in Him – WE WILL NEVER BE ASHAMED! GOD WILL NEVER FAIL TO KEEP HIS PROMISES TO YOU!

Don’t look at the past; but look to the future! People are amazed at the energy and strength that I have at my age, 89! But I’m not looking at the past. I’m looking at the future, and to the greater things, the greater miracles God is going to do! I want to encourage you with this. Look forward to what God is going to do! I want to build up your faith in the Power of God! 'Be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things!' (Joel 2:21, KJV).

Our God is a healer! I know He still works miracles. My life is the evidence! Many of you know my story of lung cancer, 2002/3. I said to the Lord, “I cannot go back into Russia and preach this Gospel from this Book if I have had chemotherapy or my lung removed, because I have to be the witness of Your Power!” That’s why God healed me! I was 70, coming up for 71, at the time, now I'm nearly 90! I said, “Lord, if I’m too old, if you don’t need me anymore, take me Home. But Lord, if you still want me down here, then You’ve got to work a miracle.” And God did. And I would suggest that the biggest miracles came after 2003. Let’s get back to the Authority of the Word of God. We have no other foundation. If you build a church on any other foundation than the Authority of the Word of God, you’re building it on sinking sand. 

We serve a God of miracles! Jesus EXPECTED the miraculous to continue AFTER His death, and beyond the ‘Biblical’ period. I often say there is one unfinished book in the Bible – yes, I know there are still a lot of unfulfilled prophecies – but the book that is not yet finished is the Acts of the Apostles. This book is simply the record of what the Apostles and His Followers did after Jesus had gone. It was the record of the early Church. You and I are still writing this Book. We have been commissioned by Jesus to go into all the world and finish what He started. 

I want you to have confidence in your own future. Confidence that God has got your future mapped out for you. I’m not far off my 90th birthday. I know that, just as my past was planned by God, so is my future - and yours! Put your trust in God! In Philippians 3:13, Paul says, forget those things which are behind, and press forward towards the mark of the prize of the high calling of God which is in Christ Jesus. My past in ministry is a testimony to the Glory and the Power of God – I’ve seen revival come in three nations, I’ve seen enormous, phenomenal miracles, my own life has been a miracle, I have the visible, actual mark of God in my throat where He cut out that cancer in 1964. But I want to forget the things in the past. Because I believe the future is far more glorious! This is my word to you for 2022. Forget the problems of the past, forget the glories. Forget the joys, the pain, and let’s press forward into the future with confidence in God.

Don’t let fear destroy or disturb your life. Don’t cast away your confidence. Confidence is trust. Confidence is the knowledge that God will do what He said. I want you to move into 2022 with confidence that God is in control. 

I want us to have a confidence and a hope for this New Year. I want to share this Scripture with you from Hebrews 10:35, “Cast not away your confidence which has great recompense of reward.” Our faith, our confidence, is based on the faithfulness of God. 2022 is ‘unknown’ and we need that confidence that God is in control. He is! God has foreseen the end from the beginning! 

You never have to be alone again. Jesus is called ‘Emmanuel’ – ‘God with us!’ Jesus lives in our hearts through the person of the Holy Spirit. I talk with Him every day. He is not absent, He is here – like the old hymn says, ‘He walks with me and He talks with me, and tells me I am His own, and the joy we share…!’ I walk with Jesus. I talk with Him. His Presence is with me. When I was alone in a communist prison, Jesus was with me. When I had cancer, Jesus was with me. And Jesus is with you!