Meet with Jesus

All my life I have been desperate to meet with Jesus, to see His power and glory here on earth. Why did I first go to Russia, why do I have the ministry I have today? My first visit behind the Iron Curtain was over 50 years ago. I was an evangelist, a pastor in England, yet I had seen how the church had lost the anointing, lost the power. I was determined that I would have an experience with God that was incorruptible, that would last until the appearing of Christ! I had heard that the first World Pentecostal Conference in Jerusalem would be held on the Day of Pentecost, in May 1961. - I was determined to be there to receive a new baptism of fire! My Bible says that the church of God began in fire on the Day of Pentecost, and the church will end in fire when Christ returns!

I was married, with twin girls, how could I get there? I could not afford the air fare, but I was determined to go! I decided to go by road, which was impossible, no one had ever done it before! Prayerfully God gave me a plan to organise an expedition from England to Jerusalem. I was warned that I would have to go through the communist countries, be killed by bandits crossing Turkey, and going through Syria, arrested as a spy and put in prison. But God was with me.

When I got there I was so disappointed. I had gone for only one reason: to be in Jerusalem believing God would send another Pentecost. There were 3000 in the conference: 2999 tourists, and me! Nothing happened, nobody laid their hands on me, I didn't fall over, I didn't feel any power, nothing. I had done everything to be there, spent two years organising in order to meet with God, and nothing, absolutely nothing happened! It was exactly 40 years later, when I was again in Jerusalem, that I realised my entire life had changed because of that trip; God had answered my heart's cry in a very unique way.

When you meet with Jesus, when His fire comes into you, you become a changed person: from a powerless individual into a mighty man of God.

'The Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon you, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person' (1 Samuel 10:6).

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Give God Everything

When we give God everything, He fills us with His Spirit; it becomes a tangible presence in our lives. But to receive this anointing we have to surrender everything first, so that God can fill us with all His power and glory. When I was a child God didn't call me as an evangelist, pastor or missionary, He asked for everything, a life fully surrendered to His purposes. - God asks the same of you; will you surrender everything to God so that He can give you the gift of His Spirit?

God so impressed Romans 12:1 on me when I was a teenager: 'I beseech you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.' God is talking about normal service, nothing exceptional - for every believer - the norm. Today the churches are talking about being normal, taking care of yourself, not working too hard... But the challenge is 'reasonable service' - giving your whole life as a 'living sacrifice'! Everything! God didn't call me to be an 'evangelist' or a 'preacher' - He said He wanted ALL of me!

If you want to receive the fire of God, the point at which the fire falls is at the altar of sacrifice! In Leviticus 6 the command of God is, that when the priest lights the fire on the altar, that fire must never go out! What did the fire consume? Not just the wood, but the sacrifice! The way you keep the fire burning on the altar is by putting on more and more sacrifice! If we want to see the increase of the fire and the power and the glory of God in our lives, we've got to put more sacrifice on the altar! Then the fire will come!

We need to spend more time in prayer and seeking the Face of God in order to build that altar, then when we put ourselves on it, the fire of God will come down and consume our lives!

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God wants to fill you with fire

God wants to fill you with fire and power! I was so excited when I read in Leviticus 6.13 that when the priests lit the fire they were told it must never go out! I received the fire of God when I was 13 and it has never gone out! I've seen too many people who allow the fire to fade, but if the fire and power is from God, the command is that you must not let it go out! How did the priests keep the fire burning, by adding sacrifice; if you want the Fire of God to burn in you, then you have to add more sacrifice.

I have met with God. I know Him. I have seen the fire. More than that, the fire is in me, burning in my soul. There is a power that transforms me when I preach the Gospel so that I am not the ordinary David Hathaway. I have a power - yes a fire - from God. That is why, when I declare the Word of God, miracles happen. It's not me; it's God. He wants you to know, to see the evidence of His fire.

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The Glory of Heaven

When I was in a communist prison in 1972 for smuggling Bibles into the Communist Bloc (2 tonnes every time I came), I was pastor, evangelist - but I had to learn all over again HOW to pray. For the first six months, it seemed as if there was NO answer.  In my utter desperation the Spirit reminded me of the Lord's Prayer. So I began to say, "Our Father", but I argued, "That's plural, I'm alone in here. I'm not in church. I have to say, 'my' Father!" Suddenly I knew, He's MINE! He's my FATHER! I'm HIS child! I'm locked in this stinking prison, but He's not only MINE, He's my FATHER! Then I came to the next part, 'Who is in Heaven...' - But I argued, "You're in Heavenly glory, with angel choirs, worship, power... I'm not in Heaven, I'm in a filthy cell, in a hell on earth! Oh God, You're up there in Heaven, don't You understand?!! I'm in a living hell!!!"

Then I remembered, God so loved me, He sent His Son, not only to live on earth, but to go into a prison like me. God allowed His own Son to be incarcerated, beaten, tortured - so much, He should have died under the beating, there and then in that prison cell, even before He reached the cross! God allowed it. Who am I if I am called to suffer?

And then I came to the next part, 'Hallowed be Thy Name'. What does that mean? I have never understood until my time in prison for Bible smuggling. But it was as if the Lord said to me, "This is where you have to worship." But HOW could I in the circumstances I was in? I tried to 'praise' God through clenched teeth. Can you imagine?!! I was in rebellion, there was no reality. HOW could I praise God in the depths of hell? Suddenly, as I began to say those words, 'Praise the Lord', it was if the roof of the prison opened. I could hear the angel choirs, I heard the music of Heaven, I sensed the glory of Heaven - something happened in that cell. The glory of God came down! It was as if I was transported into Heaven and the glory of God came on me. I leaped up off that stool and began to run around that cell, singing, shouting, "Then sings my soul, my Saviour God to Thee, HOW great Thou art!" The glory of God filled my soul. Never in a church or prayer meeting have I ever experienced the glory of God, the very presence and power of God - as I did in that hell on earth.

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God is my Father

'When you pray say, "Our Father"' (Luke 11:2)

Things were difficult in the prison in Czechoslovakia where I was imprisoned for Bible smuggling; in the first few months it seemed as if God did not answer any of my prayers. When I prayed for food, there was none, when I prayed that my wife would come, she was not allowed a visa to visit me - it seemed that every prayer that I prayed, God said no. I began to despair. We had to get up at 6.00 am every morning and sit for hours on a wooden stool embedded with nails. It was torture. In the first six months I wasn't allowed out of my cell - my food and my toilet were in the cell. I lost so much weight. However, I would try to pray in those early hours before the guards brought the mouldy black bread and foul tasting, drug laced drink which was our only breakfast.

One morning when I had been three months in that cell, I cried out in desperation that I could not pray anymore because, I said, "Oh God, every time I pray, You say no! When I want the food parcels my family send, or a visit from my wife, or for me to be found not guilty in the court and be set free, always the answer is no! I don't know how to pray anymore, everything I ask for, it's no!" I sat there, not knowing what to do. "Oh God, if You don't hear me, I'd rather die, because life has no purpose, no meaning if You don't answer me." While I was still saying, "Oh God, I cannot pray anymore", I remembered the words in the Bible (I had no Bible in the prison - it was forbidden) when the disciples had asked Jesus how to pray, and He said, "When you pray say..." - and I began hesitantly to say those words, 'Our Father' - but as I did so, I began to argue, I cannot say 'our', that's plural - I'm alone in here, no family, no friends, no believers, how can I speak in the plural? I have to say MY Father. Suddenly I knew the reality of those words, He is mine - He is my Father!

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Wrestling in Prayer

God has been revealing to me, the difference between receiving what most are seeking, which is power from God, and what is even more powerful, how we can receive power with God. In Genesis 32, we have the story of how Jacob wrestled with God all night. At the end, God turned to Jacob and said, "As a prince, you have power with God and with man, and have prevailed!"

If you want to be active rather than passive as a believer, then you need to have power not only from God, but also power with Him! You cannot have real power with men until you first learn to have power with God, hence this wrestling (in persistent prayer). That is why I have so many battles in my life - in the communist prison, cancer twice - so that these last twenty years have been the most effective in my whole life!

The greatest thing in your life is to learn how to pray - and that is one of the hardest things to do. I have been a Christian for over sixty years and I still ask, "Lord, teach me how to pray!"

Wrestling with God is a question of learning how to pray. Any one can 'pray', especially in a crisis. But it is prevailing prayer, learning to pray until we get the answer, which is the hardest lesson. It is a privilege when God places us in extreme circumstances so that we can learn how to wrestle with Him! My life seems to go from one crisis to the next, until I even say to God, "Isn't it time You made my life a little bit easier?" But He has a simple answer, "Without the crisis you will stop learning!" That is why, old as I am, however many years I have been evangelising, I am still saying, "Lord, teach me how to pray!" So thank God for the crisis in your life!

The important thing with prayer is, like Jacob, to prevail with God until He answers!

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Last Great Revival

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 upon the Church, poured on the Church, until the Church is going to be living and vibrant and working and believing and moving into spiritual victory - all in the preparation of the glorious return of Jesus. Those days are going to culminate with the sound like a trumpet, and that sound is going to echo from every building, and that trumpet will herald the return of Christ and suddenly in a blaze of Glory sweeping across the sky from the East to the West, Christ is going to take control, bind Satan, cast Him into a prison for 1000 years ... I'm prophesying what the prophets have been prophesying for 2000 years. And I believe that this last great revival will begin amongst the Russian speaking peoples, sweep across Europe, and upon this revival, Christ will return, just as Hudson Taylor prophesied in 1889.

If you only knew what is about to happen, you would be so excited! God is exciting me because I see in the Word what He's about to do now. The greatest Glory, the greatest Power, the greatest ministry, the greatest miracles ... we're going to see miracles of healing we have never seen before in our lives. I'm excited - we're going to be saying exactly what Deuteronomy 4 says, 'Ask of the days that are past...' go back, ask history, go back to the Welsh Revival, to the days of Smith Wigglesworth, George and Stephen Jeffreys, go back to the beginning of time since the day God created man on the earth, ask every saint and say, "Has God ever done anything such as He's going to do in the Church?"

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