God changed my life

In 1964, only three and a half years after my first visit to Jerusalem, I lost my voice. Unable to preach in my church, I went to the hospital to be told I had throat cancer and needed an operation. I didn't have time for an operation and, believing God for a miracle because I had seen so many healings in my ministry, I prayed for 3 months. Then, because my faith was strong, I told the doctors that I was healed. They laughed at me, they said that there is no God and the cancer was now so big, I must have an operation within 3 days to remove my vocal chord! I went home in shock - I was an evangelist, a missionary in Israel - and, only 32 years old, my ministry was finished!

I fell on my knees and said, "O God, teach me how to pray!" - It's one thing to pray when they say you have cancer, it is totally different when you only have 3 days before they take away your voice! I remember crying out, "Oh God, I haven't yet seen Your power in my life! Oh God, my dream, my vision is not fulfilled! Oh God heal me! I've seen so many miracles! But now I need a miracle!" My church members said, "It is so easy for David to see God work miracles when somebody else has cancer. Now he's got it!" At the end of that day I was not healed.

The next day I changed my prayer to the most dangerous one of my life: "Oh God I believe you are telling me my ministry should be in Russia. If You want me to leave my home, my family, then I need a miracle! Take this cancer out now!" I went to the Word of God. The relationship I have with God is that I say, "Lord, if You want to talk with me, tell me direct and show me in writing, in Your Word!" Men lie, but God is not a man, He cannot lie! The Bible is the most powerful book in the world! All the power and authority that God has is revealed in His Word! - What He says He does! I turned to Romans 8, and read: "When we don't know how to pray, the Holy Spirit prays for us, according to the will of God." In that moment, I knew I had the answer. It was the will of God!

Next morning, I went to the hospital. There were three doctors, they put the instruments down my throat, pulled them out - three times - and they were angry and began to accuse me, "Who did it? Who operated? - Somebody has cut it out with a knife! The surgeon who operated has left a scar!" I said, "The God you don't believe in, He did it last night!" God had touched my throat, and touched my life! Now I had to tell my church that I would leave and go to Russia!

In 1961 I went to Jerusalem seeking a new anointing, a new fire, three and a half years later I received this fire when He healed my cancer. My experiences with God have never been in a church or a conference, but step by step, trusting God through every mountain and valley. 'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff protect, guide and comfort me' (Ps 23:4 AMPC).

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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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