David Hathaway

We are ‘two times’ God’s!!! He made us. And when we were launched onto the ocean of the world, when we were caught by the wind and blown far away, the Bible says, we were lost! And the only way God could get us back was to find us, pay the price and buy us back! So now we belong to God two times! Firstly, because He made us, and secondly, at an incredible price, He paid a ransom! There is a story I love to tell. It’s about a boy who, with his dad, made a toy sailing boat. They carved the wood and shaped it, painted it, made sails for it – took it to the seaside and launched it. It was wonderful! It was floating and the wind caught the sail – and took the boat out of reach! They couldn’t get it back. It was lost! The boy was so sad. A few days later, looking in a shop window in the town, he saw a boat – HIS boat! He went into the shop, “Hey! That’s my boat in the window, I made it!” The shopkeeper said, “You can’t have it, it’s mine! I bought it. If you want it, you’ll have to pay the price!” The boy went bac

WHO IS JESUS? It’s still a question today, definitely among non-Christians and even in some churches. Yes, we celebrate ‘Christmas’ and ‘Easter’, and everyone recognises it’s all connected with Jesus. But so many, like Nicodemus, don’t recognise WHO JESUS REALLY IS, and why He came! John 3:16 is not an isolated statement, but part of the answer that Jesus is giving to Nicodemus. HE, Jesus, not a ‘preacher’, is saying – “For GOD SO LOVED the world…”  This one verse, John 3:16, has been in my mind so much that I am bursting. I have to speak about it. It’s as if the Holy Spirit is burning something into my mind, and yet it’s probably one verse in the Bible that is preached more than any other: ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’

“We are all members of one Body in Christ, and everyone members of one another. We, being many, are one Body”, and although we have different gifts, we should employ the gifts as God gives us the grace! This is the Body of Christ; we are united not just in ‘love’ – but honouring and respecting the ministry of the others. Paul also urges us to “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, instant in prayer…” and to “Bless those who persecute you, bless and curse not!” It is all part of our Christian witness and service.

The perfect Will of God is something which is in your heart to do! According to the measure of faith He has given you. Wherever you are, God is with you. But is where you are right now simply according to your mind and your will – or according to the perfect Will of God? When I launch out and do some of the crazy things I do, people ask me, “How much time did you pray? And did God tell you to do it?” But so often I’ve done it because it’s in my heart! 

What is the Will of God for your life? Speaking to the Christians in Rome, Paul says in his letter to the Romans, Chapter 12:1, “I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” When I was growing up, we used to sing a song, ‘Lay your life on the altar for God’! I don’t hear this teaching from preachers today. Later Paul was to literally lay his life on the altar, he died as a martyr in Rome. But here Paul sees that as followers of Christ – and he’s appealing to us – to lay our lives on the altar of sacrifice!

'What shall separate us from the love of Christ?... For I am persuaded that neither death not life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!’ Nothing! This was to comfort me when I was in the communist prison, because the whole time I was in prison from 1972 through 1973, I KNEW that what I was doing, what had brought me into the prison, was by the WILL OF GOD! Whatever they did to me, however they tortured me and beat me – all the time I was there, I had the peace of God which passes all understanding! When the other prisoners were suffering – broken marriages, broken lives, suffering with the ‘prison-shake’ – the peace of God kept me, because I was persuaded, and I KNEW, that neither cancer, nor death, nor danger, nor principalities, nor powers, nothing – no height, no depth – could separate me from the love of God in Christ!

The Spirit helps our weaknesses, for when we don’t know what to pray for correctly, the Holy Spirit Himself makes intercession on our behalf, with groanings that cannot be uttered! There comes a time when the Spirit within us, who is transforming us, helps us! In v27, ‘He that searches the hearts, knows the mind of the Spirit!’ Here is the direct involvement and action of Jesus Himself, who searches our hearts, and knows our hearts, and at the same time, He knows and understands the mind of the Holy Spirit! Do you understand how powerful this is? Christ knows our thoughts, knows our desires, and at the same time He knows the desire and will of the Holy Spirit! 

I want to talk to you on a subject which is very dear to my heart and encourage you to pray, based on a very strong and powerful experience in my life from Romans 8. In 1964, as many of you know, I was diagnosed with throat cancer. I had refused ALL medical treatment. Yes, I had had the X-rays and the camera down my throat, many different tests, and every one of them confirmed that I had throat cancer. But I determined to pray my way through, in part because I was pastor of a church which had been founded on my evangelism and the miracles that took place in that evangelism. The miracles were recorded in the local newspaper – blind eyes, deaf ears opened, cripples healed! So I determined, NO medical treatment, I’ll fast and I’ll pray and God will heal me!

We need to pray one for another, encouraging each other in the faith. The Apostle Paul exhorted in Romans 1:9-12, “God is my witness, that without ceasing I make mention of you in my prayers that I may be able to come to you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, to establish you, so that TOGETHER we may be comforted by our mutual faith.” This has been one of the problems with the lockdowns, when we haven’t had the normal services – because the whole purpose of our faith and our meeting together is to strengthen one another. Not to criticise, not to condemn, but to come together to build ourselves up, to grow spiritually in the faith.

We are called and set apart for a purpose: it is a divine calling. We are to regard ourselves as a servant of Jesus Christ, following the Master’s Voice. Jesus Himself said, “Many are called, but few are chosen!” We need to serve in such a way as to be considered worthy of the calling of Christ. 

God is saying to Jeremiah, “Call unto Me and I will answer – and show you great and mighty things you don’t know!” (33:3.) Not only will God answer, but when He answers, He will show miracles, powerful things, bigger than anything we can imagine! And in v6, God is saying, “Behold, I will bring health and healing, and I will heal them and reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth – the abundance of blessing!” It jumped out at me, I knew God was saying that to ME!!! Health and healing! God promised me healing – I knew at once He would heal my body of lung cancer. But not only that, He would also give me health – that means, I don’t get sick! Come on, nearly 20 years later, I’ve got more energy, more vitality now than at any time – it was part of the promise! God does what he says!

God does what He says! When I am seeking the Lord in prayer over some specific issue, I want to see His answer in writing: I don’t want a ‘word’ or ‘impression’, I want it written in the Bible! Twenty years ago, when I was battling lung cancer, God gave me the clear answer that I would be healed from the very Scriptures that I want to share with you in this message!

God has given me a clear vision of the revival that is to come. In 1889, God gave British missionary to China, Hudson Taylor, a vision that in the last days the last great revival would begin in Russia, and the Russians would bring it into Europe, and then the Lord would come back! And the amazing thing is, I have seen that great revival, I’ve been part of it – my job has been to fulfil that prophetic vision! 

I’ve always believed in a coming end-time revival. In Joel 2:23 the prophet says, ‘Be glad you children of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for He has given you the former rain moderately, and He will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.’ 

We are in constant spiritual warfare – and God is calling us to fight! I want you to be strong, I want you to put on the full armour of God, so that together we can stand and defeat the enemy – and see the Glory of God, the Glory of Christ here on earth!   

The fruit of the Spirit in you is the evidence of the new life you have: The Spirit of Christ in you, being revealed through your mortal body! Our human bodies HAVE to be made subject to the Spirit, so that we don’t ‘grieve the Spirit’. We’ve got to put off the flesh and put on the Spirit of Christ, in order that we can truly represent who Christ is! And so that we can share in the Kingdom which is to come.

It’s essential that we grow into the likeness of Christ, that we share His desire, His passion... It was only a few years ago, going on one of my prayer walks, I was saying, "Holy Spirit, You know more about Jesus than anyone, I want You to share with me the secret of how Jesus ministered, how He was successful in evangelism, how He was successful in the ministry of healing. Holy Spirit, I want to learn more about Jesus, I want to be more like Him."  I had one young man work with me many years ago, but unfortunately he wanted to copy ‘other people’. Yes, we can learn from other people, but I don’t want to ‘copy’ somebody else! I want to be myself, because God who made us, made us unique! We are not to be ‘imitators of other people’, of another evangelist, of another pastor. We are to be imitators of Christ! After all, He is the Head, from whom the whole Body is fitly joined together.

I am moved by the very great depths of this letter Paul wrote to the Ephesians, and I want to speak about Ephesians 4:11-13 where he is talking about the fivefold ministry of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. The purpose of this ministry is to bring the Church, the members of the Body of Christ, the ‘saints’ into the place where they can contribute in some way into the ministry, to ‘edify the Body of Christ’ – until we all come to a sense of unity in the faith, unity in the knowledge of the Son of God – into maturity!

We were created by God to fulfil a Purpose! In your life, God sees and God knows the future. I want to encourage you to seek the Lord. Recognise from Isaiah 30, that although the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction in your life, your ‘teachers’ will not be removed from you, but you will continue to see the way through – and your ears will hear a Voice behind you saying, “This is the way, walk in it!” All my life I’ve heard that Voice. And today I’m hearing that Voice again, knowing that it gives me the confidence to live through the adversity and the affliction, because I have heard! Even in this God is saying, “This is the way, walk in it!” I pray God will give you the courage!

When you are a child of God, when you are walking in the Will and knowledge of God, many things which happen in your life – some of which may be painful now – are like an instruction, a teaching, to prepare you for the future! In Isaiah 30v20, ‘Although the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction…’ I’m sensing, that although your life’s experience will be of adversity and affliction, yet they will become the very thing which God will use for His glory. When I look back on my life and my 70 years of ministry, it is very clear to me that in order to come to where I am today, the Lord had to take me through adversity. I would not be where I am, seeing the power of the evangelism and the phenomenal miracles unless I had had cancer twice and been in prison.