Bible Study with David Hathaway - (David Hathaway’s weekly TV programmes)

‘I said to the One who stood at the Gate of the Year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the Unknown.” And he replied, “Go out into the darkness  and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light and safer than a known way.” So I went forth gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of Day…’ (Minnie Louise Haskins)
This is so applicable to us all today. For myself, in 2025, I was looking back over 75 years of full-time ministry. But we’ve got to stop looking back; I’m looking AHEAD to the coming years, to the responsibility and ministry in front of me. Paul says, Phil 3:13-14: Forget those things that are behind… press forward to the goal, to the prize, to the high calling of God!
2 Corinthians 4:1 - this message is for you and for me: “Wherefore, seeing we have this ministry, seeing we have received mercy, we faint not.” We have received mercy, we have received a ministry - so we must not be afraid, we must not faint when we look at the enormity of the task in front! I must not faint when I look at the enormous task that is still in front of me in my ministry. Paul says, v3-4, the devil hides the Gospel from the lost and has blinded them, lest the Light of the glorious Gospel of Christ shine on them... But this is the Light we are called to bring to this dark world! 

Our world is in turmoil and distress. Millions of people are in distress. I want to give you a word of comfort from Psalms.

The message of the angels to the shepherds was 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men'. We don't have that yet. Everything about the Bible is a prophetic vision of the future. Isaiah 9 talks about trouble, distress and violence in the Land; this is appropriate for the days in which we live; there is so much chaos. Yet we do not despair, we have a hope in Christ. Isaiah chapter 9 is a very prophetic chapter: part of it was fulfilled in the Christmas story, which we celebrate during this season, but what I want you to understand is, the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy will be at Christ's Second Coming. 

An interesting ‘window’ on faith is found in Numbers 13. Moses and the whole of Israel had halted on the borders of the Promised Land after their arduous journey. There they were, within sight of their goal, the fulfilment of all God’s promises within their grasp. Surely this was all that they could ask for, the ultimate reward for the sufferings which they had endured both in the last days in Egypt and in the travelling. This was the reason why God had performed all the outstanding miracles both in Egypt and in the crossing of the Red Sea, in order to give them deliverance and to fulfil His promise to give them this land. 

The Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah whilst he was shut up in prison, ‘Thus saith the Lord, the Maker – that formed Heaven and earth – to establish it, “Call unto Me and I will answer!”’ Come on! So many pray in doubt… Remember how amazed the disciples were when Jesus cursed the fig tree and it died from the root? Jesus explained to them in Mark 11.22-24, “If you will speak to this mountain (the Mount of Olives) and command it to be cast down into the sea (the Dead Sea), if you speak it and believe in your heart without doubt, what you say will be done!” It’s time today, in the 21st century that we believed that God will honour His Word and do what He says!!! 

For me the most important chapter in the Bible on healing is Matthew 8. Jesus came down from the mountain and thousands followed Him. A leper came and said, ‘If You want to, You can heal me!’ Jesus said, ‘I want to!’ and it was done. Then Jesus came into Capernaum and a Roman centurion came to Him, ‘Lord, I have a sick servant at home.’ Jesus said, ‘I’ll come to your house.’ He said, ‘Don’t, I’m not a good man,’ and I don’t suppose he was if he was a Roman centurion! But the officer said the most amazing thing, ‘One word from You and my servant will be healed! I’m a man under authority, an officer in the most powerful army in the world. I have authority from those above, and over those under me. My men obey me! Jesus, I recognise in You the same authority.’

Acts 2.22-36 describes how Jesus was approved of God through the miracles, wonders, and signs that God performed through Him. The Power in the Gospel is indelibly linked with the miraculous. Throughout Jesus' ministry in the Gospels, and then with the disciples in the book of Acts, we read that it was the miracles which was the evidence of the message they preached. In 1994 I was preaching in Khabarovsk, Siberia. The Crusade on the Saturday night saw us under a powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit, and many hundreds crowded into the open-air of the football stadium as the praise and worship team ministered. Then when I made the appeal almost every person came forward, so many, that surely everyone who had come into that stadium, lonely, lost, without faith or hope, and without Christ, found Him that night. Their hopelessness and despair had changed into the glory of the reality of knowing Him who loved us with a dying and undying love.

In June 1991 I was, by a miracle, in Ukraine. The invitation came as a direct approach from the Soviet Union. Ukraine was still a part of the USSR, they didn’t declare independence until 24 August, exactly two months after our crusade. Somehow, they’d heard of me through people I was working with in Czechoslovakia, but they hadn’t really believed I would come… I arrived at their church in the middle of a prayer meeting – and found they had made no preparations at all. But the Holy Spirit undertook. The pastor got on the phone straight away to someone he knew who got us permission to use the open-air theatre in the park. The city administration broadcast advertising for our meetings all over the city through the old Soviet public announcement system – loudspeakers on the lampposts. Even the actual meetings were broadcast this way, including my preaching and prayer for repentance. It all took place that same weekend that I arrived. Miracles of healing were outstanding; I remember five blind people received their sight – and I met one of them many years later in some other city in the former USSR; he simply said, “Do you remember me? In Rovno? You prayed for me, I was blind. I can still see!”

Our God answers prayer – and He works miracles. I know miracles will happen when I pray; I don’t have any question about it. It’s no different from knowing that every morning the sun will get out of bed and show itself at my window. God works miracles every day – but it’s for us to believe that He can, and will in our lives. This is where faith becomes so important. 

(Filmed in Kazakhstan, 2025)As I celebrate 75 years in ministry, my job is not yet done, I’m still asking what will it be next time, what will happen this year? I still don’t have enough Power, I’m still not satisfied that God has answered me fully. How much longer must I live to get all the answers? I know that these answers will only come as I continue seeing God in action – that’s why I cannot stop, must not stop, He has so much more to reveal. All I know is that it is step by step by step, and I have not reached the end of the road yet; tomorrow will be more exciting than today.