David Hathaway

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!

God has NOT forgotten His Promise to you. He will deliver you! I’ve had cancer twice, both times God healed me! I’ve been in prison – God has delivered me. Whatever I do, God will always deliver me. All those years, working under communism, God delivered me. And that promise is yours! God is saying to you today, I have come to deliver you! Take it by faith and God will bless you!

“I will be with you!” God has promised He will never leave us or forsake us. It touches me to know that my life was planned from my conception in the womb. At my age I can look back and say, “God must have made this decision for me, God must have done that…” Through all the suffering, all the pain, God will be with you. Yet, what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later (Romans 8:18, NLT).

Don't let the Fire of God in your life burn out! Rather, stir up the flame. I love the command to the priest in Leviticus 6:13 that they mustn't let the fire go out! The Fire of God, the relationship we have with God, must NOT change! The Fire must NOT go out! The responsibility is on us. When we receive the Baptism of Fire how long will it last? A few hours, a few days, a few months – and die out? The Fire must NEVER go out! 

“I have seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, I know their sorrows – and I am come down to deliver!” I love that! God is not remote, He’s not distant! God is omnipresent, He’s everywhere, and, as David said, you can’t escape from God! The very Name of Jesus means, ‘GOD SAVES’! He is Emmanuel, God with us!

One of the devil’s strongest, most powerful weapons against us is, not stopping us, but distracting us – until we divert our energy and attention to something that God never intended. It can occur in our families, in business, in so many spheres... I had to become aware of this danger, very much so in the early years of my ministry. Proverbs 4 urges, 'Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet; stay on the safe path. Don’t get sidetracked; keep your feet from following evil.'

We are living in perilous times and we need the Power of the Holy Spirit to infill us and empower us.  Jesus said to his disciples, "YOU will receive Power!" This is the message to us all today, YOU WILL receive POWER after the Holy Spirit has come upon you! BUT there must be EVIDENCE. Amongst Pentecostals, it is generally agreed that scripturally, the initial evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is speaking with tongues – but I also believe that integral to the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is the working of miracles. 

We need a clear vision of ourselves, of our own powerlessness... But a vision of Christ and His Glory and His Power which enables us! And a clear vision of the world where we have to go! Vision is when God gives you a clear vision of what He and you can do together – and you have to go out and do it! Somebody has to get out there and fulfil the vision, fulfil the prophecy. This is the challenge of Proverbs 29:18, where there is no vision, the people will die! If we don’t have a vision, that threefold vision, the people out there will die! 

We need a vision of Jesus! A vision of His Power, His Glory – of who He really is. If only we could glimpse His unlimited Power, His tremendous Glory, we would fall on our knees in wonder and awe before Him. But we also need a vision of our own selves: the Apostle Paul taught that before taking communion we should ‘examine ourselves’. When you examine yourself and see what you are capable of through Christ, and have a vision of what we can do, not alone, but with God – you’ll declare with the Apostle Paul, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!’

There is a connection between a vision and prophecy, but there is also a crucial difference. Vision is something you receive, but not every vision is necessarily from God – people can have some very strange visions... In a God-given vision, you see something, almost like a picture. Whereas prophecy is an anointing, a gift from the Holy Spirit, foretelling what will happen in the future, SPEAKING out what God is revealing…