David Hathaway

Faith is a tremendous challenge. Because James 2.20, ‘Faith without works is dead!” In other words, if your faith is not something that is operational and practical, something by which you are living, something you are going to DO SOMETHING ABOUT, that faith is NOT faith! Faith is only evidenced by what you do, by how you live! I cannot myself find stronger words than James uses here, faith without the work to accomplish it is dead! Dead! There are so many whose faith is dead. Simply because it only exists in theory, but never in practice.

Your faith is a firm and secure anchor. Faith is not a theory, it’s not a ‘religion’. It’s some thing different. It’s a gift, and it works! James 1.6 says, ask in faith without wavering, because he that wavers – is like a wave of the sea! I’m a sailor. I’m all too familiar with the waves – and the wind that drives the waves and tosses them about. The stronger the wind, the bigger the waves! James is saying, your faith MUST NOT BE LIKE THAT! It’s got to be consistent; it’s got to be stable and strong. Not UP and DOWN, UP and DOWN! So many of us Christians, one day we’re up, and the next day we’re down. We’ve got to be consistent, because v7 says, if we’re not, ‘Let not that man think he shall receive anything from the Lord!” You’ve got to be consistent, and you CANNOT, like so many people, be UP one day and DOWN the next! Your faith has to be – LEVEL!!! God doesn’t waver, God doesn’t get blown about by the wind, God isn’t like the sea! God is consistent and stable. Our faith has to be anchored in that – in the

Faith is more valuable than gold! Even gold can perish and wear out, but faith, when it’s tested through fire, won’t fail. Faith that has been through the test will be found to praise and honour and glory when Christ comes back! When Christ comes, our reward, our witness and our testimony, is that we possess a faith that doesn’t fail! A faith that doesn’t give in, that doesn’t buckle under pressure. We need a faith that doesn’t bend, a faith that is constant and reliable – even when it goes through the ultimate test!

Without faith it is impossible to please God! I have discovered that if I want to please God, I have to let my faith loose, I’ve got to go out and DO the things which God has called me to do. That’s what pleases God! If you want to please Him, go out in faith and to do the impossible! But thank God we don't do these things alone. Hebrews 12 tells us that we are surrounded by a great crowd of witnesses to this life of faith, so run with endurance the race God has set before us.

By faith we overcome. What did faith do in the Old Testament? According to Hebrews 11 they subdued kingdoms, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire… Women received their dead raised to life… Yes, they were even seeing the dead raised to life… (v35). Come on! Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection… This act of faith, what they were seeking for, was something that was still to come in the Kingdom! Others had trial of cruel mockings, scourgings, bonds and imprisonment, they were stoned, cut in two, they were tempted, slain with the sword, wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy… I want to challenge you, live in faith that God will give you the reward in the Kingdom, that you will be part of the Kingdom… We are not citizens of this world. We’re citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom! I’m already living in the anticipation of what is to come, of what will come in the Kingdom. N

We’re living in an age where a large section of the Church doesn’t expect miracles, saying that miracles were for the times of the Bible, they happened for the early disciples, how can we expect them to happen today? But look at how powerful the miracles were, not just in the days of Christ, not just in the days of the early apostles after the coming of the Holy Spirit, but how powerful the miracles in the Old Testament were!!! Hebrews 11.32 says, ‘What more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets who – and this is intriguing to me – through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions…’ What was happening? In the Old Testament there is such a level of faith in the promises of God – strongly revealed right through every part of your Old Testament!

Our Faith is in the coming Kingdom of Christ. We make sacrifices now, knowing that what we deny here on earth, we shall receive in the Kingdom! It is this belief in the Kingdom of God which drives me. The older I get and the nearer I get to the Kingdom, the more my faith drives me forward. I’m not looking at the past, I’m looking at the future. We share the testimony of Moses in Hebrews 11, ‘It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to share the oppression of God’s people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his great reward.’

We receive all the promises of God by faith. When I had the throat cancer in 1964, and I said, “Lord if You want me to stay in my church, don’t heal me, but if You want me to leave my church and go to Russia and to Israel as an evangelist, I need a miracle,” – God healed me – and it was by faith that I went! Looking back, I can see that my life has been the fulfilment of all that we’re reading in Hebrews 11. I went by faith! And by faith I have receive the promises of God.

How do we please God? So many think we please God by what we do, and in a sense that’s true. But it’s more. Verse 6 says, ‘without faith it’s impossible to please God’! Wow. So, we’ve got to have a level of faith that’s beyond the simple, nominal faith of salvation. It’s got to be a faith that somehow gets translated into ACTION and becomes a driving motive.  Faith has been the motivation behind my life! Right from the beginning I’ve wanted to please God. When I received the Holy Spirit aged 13, I knew 1 Corinthians 12 says there are nine gifts, and Paul says choose, covet the best gifts… I can pray in tongues ‘more than anybody’, I can prophesy. But the one gift I wanted more than any other was the gift of faith. I saw faith as a GIFT, not just as a way of ‘thinking’, but as a GIFT that would change my life and enable me to do all the impossible things that, at that time, I didn’t yet know God was going to ask me to do! 

Faith that is demonstrated by what we do! Not just by what we say, but by our ACTIONS. Looking back on my life, I’m suddenly realising that this is what has happened with me. Faith is something practical, it’s substance, evidence – of ‘something’. But remember, right from the very beginning, we’re ‘saved by faith’. But by faith in what? We’re not saved by ‘having faith’… We’re not saved from sin ‘simply by faith’ – we’re saved by faith in Christ! It’s faith in Him, it’s specific. It’s very strong!

I want you, together with me, to look at this question of miracles, the gift of faith and how to receive healing. Miracles will come, but it’s not always easy. There are times when I am facing challenges so great that I have to say to the Lord, “Why can’t I do it?” Those of you who are seeking to pray with the sick and see miracles… When it doesn’t happen, ask the question, get alone with Jesus… Wherever your ‘place’ is where you go alone in prayer. I’m laughing at the joke that every man should have a ‘man cave’, a place where the husband can get away from his wife… But we need that equivalent with God. The Bible speaks of going into your ‘closet’, that’s simply somewhere where you can be alone with God in prayer…

We all walk through the valley of despair and heartache. In our spiritual experience we desire to stay on the mountain, in the glory and splendour – but God needs us in the valley where the problems are! You cannot live forever on the mountain. We have to come down as the disciples did from the Mount of Transfiguration. Recently, somebody sent me a message of encouragement, referring to my frequent prayer times on the mountains, he said that I face the valleys with the strength I receive on the mountain… Isn't that true for all of us? 

We all go through temptations and trials, because, they 'show that your faith is genuine' (1 Peter 1.7). I wouldn’t be where I am now if I had not experienced my cancers and imprisonment. There never comes a point when we are not tested. If you are trusting in God, this does not mean you won’t have trials and temptations and difficulties. You will! Because it’s through the trial and the fiery furnace that your faith grows. It makes me think of the three Hebrew children who were thrown into the fiery furnace, or Daniel when he was thrown in the lions’ den! This is the test of your faith. You go through the fire, you face the lions, you face the tribulations, the difficulties that you will have – tomorrow may be more difficult than any other day in the rest of your life! But your faith must not fail because it is being tested.

Faith is step by step, climbing higher! God can do amazing things! In my life, faith has grown through the trials and tribulations I’ve been through. The more miracles I saw, the more I expected. From my teenage years I had seen some small miracles, but when I was about 21, 22 – pastor of a church in Harrogate – one of my senior men, on whom I depended for support, was found to be terminally ill with bowel cancer. They removed most of his insides and sent him home with a colostomy and a catheter and only 3 weeks to live. The Holy Spirit put in my heart to pray that God would heal him. The miracle was so big, he was totally healed and back in the church. He never died of cancer! So you see, my faith was growing step by step. That’s what Peter is referring to, it’s putting your faith to the test. Sometimes your faith has got to go through a fiery experience in order to prove that it really works.

James 5 says that the prayer of faith shall save the sick. This is faith in a more powerful sense. It’s the action of praying and believing that sees the miracle. People know that I’ve been healed of cancer twice, but on both occasions, it was a far bigger miracle than you can realise. On neither occasion did I have any medication, not a tablet, no chemo, nothing. I took a step of faith and I was completely healed. I was standing very clearly by a very strong element of faith. 1 Peter 1:7 says, the trial of your faith is more precious than gold – gold perishes, faith doesn’t – although it’s tested with fire – this faith lasts! The real question of faith is when it’s put to the test.

I want to encourage you to seek the Lord in a new way. I know we are going through difficult times. Throughout my life I’ve been through difficult times. But through it all God has always made a way of escape, that’s His Promise, 1 Corinthians 10:13. In your greatest difficulties, God makes a way through. We’ve not been called to live a life of comfort and luxury, but we are called to ‘live a life’! In Psalm 37 David is urging a confidence in God. This is what I want you to have – confidence. God is in control and will give you the desires of your heart if you will commit your way to Him.

When your delight is in the Lord, when your pleasure is in the relationship you have with Him, He will give you the desires of your heart. When you love somebody, you ‘delight’ in them, you are happy with them. If your relationship with the Lord is like that, then, Scripture says, He will give you the desires of your heart. Many times when I’m praying, I’m asking for things which are not just my needs, but which are also the desire of my heart… I’ve always from my youth desired to be an evangelist. I never dreamt my ministry would be as amazing as it is. My dream was just to do it. To get on with the job. But it was my dream – it was a delight, and my delight was in the Lord! And God has given me far more than I could ask! 

When we commit our way to Him, even our steps, our direction, are ordered by the Lord. They are planned by Him, in advance, fore-ordained. Because the Lord knows the end from the beginning. And if a man’s steps are ordered by Him, v23 says, ‘He delights in his way.’ This means, God will be delighted in the way that you are going! We need to put our lives in God’s Hands!

‘The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures… Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.’ The valley of the shadow is where the light of the sun is cut off. I love walking in the mountains. On the mountain top the sun can be bright, but when you drop down into that valley, there’s no sunlight, it can’t penetrate the valley walls – that is the valley where the light of the sun is cut off! I want to tell you that wherever you go in your life, whatever trial, whatever problem, whatever difficulty you are going through – even if you feel the light of the sun is cut off – then God will not fail you. He says His rod and His staff will comfort you, and you will come safely through.

I love the promises in Psalms. There comes a time in your life and mine when only God can satisfy. In my teenage years my prayer was, “My flesh longs for You Lord, I’m thirsting for You, I’m hungry for You,” – but more, the next verse, I’ve never forgotten it, “to see Your Power and Your Glory, NOW, as I have seen You in the past, in the sanctuary” – this is my heart’s desire, NOW! That just as I have seen the Power of God in the past, I want to see MORE, NOW, IN THE FUTURE. I have to live, I cannot die, they can’t take me until I see Your Power, Your Glory, NOW – GREATER THAN ANYTHING I HAVE SEEN IN THE PAST!