David Hathaway Ministry of David Hathaway

When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, ‘Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.’
Peter answered: ‘May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.’
Then Simon answered, ‘Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.’
After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.
Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Go south to the road – the desert road – that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means ‘queen of the Ethiopians’). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. The Spirit told Philip, ‘Go to that chariot and stay near it.’
Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Philip asked.
‘How can I,’ he said, ‘unless someone explains it to me?’ So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:
‘He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.’
The eunuch asked Philip, ‘Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?’ Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
As they travelled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptised?’ (Acts 8.18-37, NIV)

'Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralysed or lame were healed. So there was great joy in that city.
Now for some time a man named Simon had practised sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, ‘This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.’ They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptised, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptised. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, ‘Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.’
Peter answered: ‘May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!' (Acts 8.5-20, NIV)

If we believe we are living in the last days, we need the same Holy Spirit desperately! The reason I first received the Holy Spirit was because I knew I had to preach the Gospel – with lives changed, souls saved into the Kingdom! I found Christ when I was 8, was baptised in water aged 12. The first time I spoke in my church I was only 13. I advertised, the people came; I preached, but nobody repented! I was shocked because I had grown up with some of the greatest evangelists. I went home and asked my father, who was a great preacher, one of the founders of the Pentecostal movement in Great Britain, what was wrong? I had preached the same Gospel – from the Bible like my father – but nobody repented. My father said, “Because you have not yet received the Holy Spirit!” That night he laid his hands on me and prayed that I would receive the Holy Spirit – but I did not receive – no fire, no power! But from that moment I had only one desire, to meet with God and to receive His power in my life.
For 3 months I prayed without receiving. But I knew that without the power, the fire, the anointing of God, I could never see men’s lives converted. At Easter we used to have three Pentecostal Conventions in London. I determined to go and not leave until I had received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit! The preaching was so long in the morning, there was no time to pray for people to receive the Holy Spirit! As a 13-year old I went up to those great men of God on the platform and said, “I only came to receive the fire, pray for me!” They took me to a small room, laid their hands on me, but their minds were on their lunch! I did not receive the Holy Spirit.
I was searching for something which does not come from men, the real power of God. One of those pastors saw my heart, opened the Scripture to me, then when he prayed and laid hands on me, it was as if the roof came off the building, I saw the Glory of God and felt the fire! The fire of the Holy Ghost, the power of God and the Glory of God came into my life! Now I had to become an evangelist! I had to preach Christ, and see the Power! That baptism was only the beginning! 
If you want to be effective in ministry, you MUST be filled with the Holy Spirit! There is a danger today that we do not understand the reality of what the baptism in the Holy Spirit means.
In Acts 1:5 Jesus said to His disciples, “You have been baptised in water, but you’re about to be baptised in the Holy Ghost!” – It was to be the power to change their lives, yet immediately the disciples got their minds on prophecy: “When this happens, will You then restore the Kingdom to Israel? Get rid of the Romans?” Jesus said, “Hold on, before that happens, you’ve got a job to do, and that’s why I’m telling you, when the Holy Spirit comes, you will receive power, fire, miracles – and you will be My witnesses!” This only confirmed the earlier words of John the Baptist in Matthew 3:11 that Jesus would baptise them with the Holy Spirit and fire. – If we are truly living in the days before Christ’s return, we have to be His witnesses, that’s what our job is! And we NEED this baptism of fire to spread the power of this miraculous Gospel!
I was dedicated to the Lord in infancy by George Jeffreys, the greatest healing evangelist the UK had ever seen. In his old age, he prayed for the Fire and Power to come down on the future evangelist Reinhard Bonnke as a Bible student. But when I was dedicated to the Lord as a baby, Jeffreys was at the peak of his ministry, and my father had the honour of establishing the Pentecostal Elim Churches in Britain together with him. I was told that Jeffreys, who never married, wanted to adopt me – my mother was 40 and was not expecting two of us! I often wonder about what exactly Jeffreys prayed over me, and whether it precipitated God’s calling in my life.
I accepted Christ as my Saviour at the age of 7 years and 11 months because I knew that if I did not

On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison. Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. (Acts 8.1-4, NIV)

Then the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these charges true?” To this he replied: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran. ‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’
“So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Harran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. He gave him no inheritance here, not even enough ground to set his foot on. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child...
...“You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him - you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”
When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep. (Acts 7.1-5; 51-60, NIV.)

Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people. Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called)—Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia—who began to argue with Stephen. But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.
Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, “We have heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God.”
So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. They produced false witnesses, who testified, “This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.”
All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel. (Acts 6.8-15, NIV)