Sid Roth - Miraculous Story of Freedom from Communist Prison
Sid Roth: Our visions for today: my guest was sentenced to life in prison in Czechoslovakia. But God gave him a vision showing the exact date of his early supernatural release on this edition of It's Supernatural.
Sid Roth: Hello. I'm Sid Roth your investigative reporter. My guest David Hathaway, it should never happen you, it should never happen to anyone, but the truth is it happens to people. He got that horrible diagnosis, the big "C", cancer, cancer of the throat.
David Hathaway: Yes.
Sid Roth: You had people pray for you, and I know you have a lot of faith in God, but I understand nothing happened.
David Hathaway: Well they diagnosed that I had cancer, but I had it in a difficult position. It was on the vocal chords, so that meant an operation probably to remove my voice. So they doctors wanted to operate and I said, no. I said, I believe in God, I believe in miracles. I said I won't have the operation. Well people prayed, I prayed and this went on for three months, and I wasn't healed. Then two days before finally they said I've got to go for the operation, I was at home. Now I was really concerned because this is critical with cancer.
Sid Roth: I'm sure.
David Hathaway: And I remember talking to God and saying, I believe that God was calling me to go to Russia, and I said something very dangerous, because I said to God, o God, if you want me to stay in England, don't heal me. Now I've never heard anybody talk like that to God like that before. I said, don't heal me.
Sid Roth: And what happened?
David Hathaway: Ah, but I said, if you want me to go to Russia, then I said, I want a miracle and I want it now, and I want you to take that cancer away. And in that instant, the cancer went.
Sid Roth: How did you feel? How did you feel with cancer, that losing the ability to speak and in an instant you went from had cancer to being whole?
David Hathaway: Well I felt very strange. But what I knew I had to do was the next day I had to go to the hospital, because if this is a miracle then the doctors are going to testify. And I remember the next day going to the hospital and they can put instruments down your throat.
Sid Roth: So you're telling me you didn't know for sure you were healed or did you feel you were?
David Hathaway: I knew I was healed, but I wanted them to tell me.
Sid Roth: Yes.
David Hathaway: So I didn't say a word to them. I didn't go and say I'm healed. I went as if they were going to operate on me. So, all right, they started to put the instruments down, they pulled them out. They put them the second time and they were beginning to get a bit angry with me. I didn't know what the problem was. They pulled out and they put them down the third time. And when they pulled them out they were so angry.
Sid Roth: Angry?
David Hathaway: Yes.
Sid Roth: Why?
David Hathaway: Well because they said to me, these were their exact words, this is on my medical records, they said, "Who did it"? I said, "What do you mean"? They said, "Who performed the operation"? They said, "We can actually see, we've looked three times and we can see the scar. It looks as if someone cut the cancer with a knife. Who did it"? And I said, "But I had no operation". I said, "God, last night, worked a miracle. The God that you don't believe in cut that cancer out as if with a knife".
Sid Roth: And you know something, David, I know why God cut that cancer out, because you're going to see a clip now from Ukraine and Siberia of what David did after God healed him, right now. Yes.
David Hathaway: "I command the cataract to go. I take it out in Jesus' name. So you can see perfectly now. Now look and see. Now, you can see"!
David Hathaway: Okay, so what is the problem here?
Woman: Thank you sir, thank you!
David Hathaway: Thank Jesus! Thank Jesus!
David Hathaway: I wonder if we can get up on the platform.
David Hathaway: She said she was born that way, but now she can hear! In the name of Jesus I command these ears to come open!
David Hathaway: Listen, listen.
(Russian woman weeps for joy as she talks about how she had pain in her feet for 10 years, and is now healed)
David Hathaway: 10 years!?
Woman: Da (yes!)
Sid Roth: What you were watching were miracles taking place. David Hathaway, what was going on?
David Hathaway: Well I'll tell you. I said a few minutes ago that God healed me of cancer. Now I realize the power of God to work miracles. The second thing was I said to God, if you want me to go to Russia then you've got to work a miracle in me. So when God healed me of cancer I had to go to Russia. And now I travel all of Siberia, the Ukraine.
Sid Roth: No, no, in that video clip, tell me what miracles were going on.
David Hathaway: There you saw a girl was born deaf, suddenly she can hear for the first time. There was an older man, he's jumping up and down. That man was dying of cancer. He had cancer in his legs, completely crippled, completely healed, just in a moment, in an instant of time, and he's jumping up and down, just completely delivered. And you see miracle after miracle like that.
Sid Roth: When you were a child you were dedicated to God by a great man of God who prayed for you. I believe that you had something supernaturally happen. Now I'm reminded of the movie "Roots". I don't know if you ever saw when the father holds his baby up and dedicates the baby. When you were dedicated, who was that man and what happened?
David Hathaway: Yes. My father was a close friend and colleague of one of the greatest healing evangelist ever in Britain. A man called George Jeffreys came out of the welsh revival in 1904, going back a long time. And so consequently when I was born, my father asked this healing evangelist to take me in his arms and pray over me, and bless me. And it's as if that moment on there was a supernatural power, and I began to give my life to God and began to see a lot of miracles coming from that.
Sid Roth: In addition to miracles, you've also had some challenges in your life. In Siberia, the witch doctors came after you. What happened?
David Hathaway: Well what happened was this. I had been to a town right up in the north of Siberia, because God called me to go and evangelize all over Siberia and Russian. And in obedience to that, I took a big team and we went up to the far north. And the first time I was there I was in the football stadium. Crowds came. And when I finished telling the people, talking about Jesus and then I began to minister to the sick. And I can't remember them all. I remember this, one woman, crippled feet, came out of the hospital, instantly healed. And she turned to me and she said, "David, tomorrow, come with me into the hospital". So the next day I went into the hospital with her and went up to one of the wards upon the fourth floor, went in, spoke to the first man through an interpreter. I said, "What's the problem"? He said, "My back is broken". I put my hand on him. I said, "In the name of Jesus, I just break the power of the devil. I set you free. Be healed". He got out of bed and walked, broken back. Second man, exactly the same, he had a broken back. Got out of bed and walked. I came to the third one. I said, "What's the problem? Your back isn't broken". "No," he said, "I'm blind". Now he was a blind man in the far side of Siberia and I just reached out my hand to him, put it on him. I said, "In the name of Jesus, I command your eyes to open, just like in the Bible. Instantly, his eyes came open. Now we've got a test. If a person is blind and God has healed them, I take a Russian Bible from my interpreter, but it in the man's hands. I said, "Read it". That man, he took the Bible, he ran all over that hospital, he was shouting at the top of his voice, "I can see! I can see! Look, I'm reading the Bible! I can see! I was blind and now I can see"! Now I didn't need to do anything. He went all over that hospital. The next day, well that night, the stadium was full and in only two days, a quarter of the whole town came to know about Jesus.
Sid Roth: But what happened with those witch doctors?
David Hathaway: Well one year later, I went back.
Sid Roth: I'll tell you want, when we come back, you're going to find out that God not only has power against the evil of sickness but he has power against witch doctors. Don't you dare go away.
Sid Roth: Hello. This is Sid Roth. I find this unbelievable, but wonderful. I'm speaking to David Hathaway. He's in Siberia. A quarter of the town, because of the miracles that took place, have experiences with God. But then I said, David, what happened to those witch doctors?
David Hathaway: Well the interesting thing was that after I left, an orthodox priest who was connected with the cossacks, which are the descendants of the Mongolians.
Sid Roth: Right, the ones that killed so many Jews.
David Hathaway: Yes. Now they began to attack what I had done and they went to the people that were healed, saw these miracles, and they began to curse God. This was the orthodox priest. They began to curse God. So one year later, I went back to that town and they were so determined to stop me, they put a curse on every auditorium, on the football stadium. And so they forced us into the open. And so what we did was we began to speak, put all the equipment up right in the center of the town. And then they sent the witch doctors, and one man, he came and he began to walk around and to curse everything that we were doing. He said, "I'll curse you. I'll bring the power of the devil on you to destroy you and to stop you doing anything here".
Sid Roth: Were you fearful when you heard this?
David Hathaway: No, angry.
Sid Roth: Angry.
David Hathaway: Very, very angry.
Sid Roth: Why not fearful?
David Hathaway: I'm not afraid of them. My God is bigger than their gods.
Sid Roth: Okay, what happened?
David Hathaway: So what happened was then he said, "Look," he said, "This town is surrounded by hills. I'm going to call a violent storm and it will come destroy your meeting". And he began, he said, "I've got power". And he did it. And we saw the storm clouds come. The clouds came over to this big open area where we were. The rain started to fall. Then I became angry. So I went to that man and I began to bind his power in the name of Jesus. I said, "My God is bigger than your devils". I said, "Jesus, in your name I have power and authority to break the power of this man. I command you," and I began to speak to this man, this witch doctor, "I command you in the name of Jesus to go"! Well suddenly, there was a flash of lightening that seemed to touch the man. He fell to the ground. He then ran down the street and the storm actually went against the wind and followed him down the street, and went away. We had no rain and no problem. Now that's an absolute miracle.
Sid Roth: Now I can see why you're a little fanatic over God.
David Hathaway: Yes.
Sid Roth: In fact, you're so fanatic that in the days of communism you were passing out Bibles in Czechoslovakia. What happened?
David Hathaway: Well I wasn't just passing out Bibles in Czechoslovakia.
Sid Roth: What were you doing?
David Hathaway: What happened was this. I had a travel company, a tour agency, but I owned a fleet of tour buses. And what I was doing was I had licenses to operate in all of Eastern Europe. Actually, we were taking tourists into Israel. That was just by the way. But we had licenses to operate in all of Eastern Europe. And I saw the problems. I was actually going there into Eastern Europe when it was under communism. I'm going back 30 years. And I saw that the people had no Bibles, no bread, no money, no homes, no Bibles. And they began to ask me for Bibles. Well it's no use just taking six or ten Bibles. So what I did was I converted my tour buses to carry two tons of Bibles.
Sid Roth: That's not just a Bible, I understand.
David Hathaway: Oh no.
Sid Roth: Two tons?
David Hathaway: Two tons.
Sid Roth: Are you using that as an expression or really two tons?
David Hathaway: No, it was at least two tons.
Sid Roth: That's a lot of Bibles.
David Hathaway: Yes. It nearly used to break the chassis of the bus, it was so much. We could carry, I'll tell you many we could carry, we could carry 12,000 New Testaments, or 4000 or 5000 full Bibles, big Bibles. Now you can understand the weight.
Sid Roth: Yes.
David Hathaway: And we were doing this for years. We had licenses to go in. We had to have a lot of cheek, a lot of boldness. I mean, I remember going into Romania and it was in the winter, and we wanted to smuggle Bibles in. It was difficult. So we had the full two tons and got to the border, and the border guards began to search the thing. That's what they used to do, keep us for several hours, pull the bus apart, looking and asking us questions. They didn't find anything. We got in to Bucharest, which is the capital of Romania, unloaded the Bibles. Then I went to see the minister of tourism, and I began to argue with him. I said, "Look," I said, "I'm a tour operator. If you want me to bring tourists here, why do you stop my buses for three hours at the border"? I said, "I refuse to bring tourists in if you stop them and you do this". And he apologized. He said, "I'm so sorry". He said, "We want the tourists. I'll make arrangements. Your buses will never be stopped and never searched again at the border". So that gave me freedom to smuggle Bibles in.
Sid Roth: But obviously you got caught. What happened?
David Hathaway: Well what we set up was the most sophisticated operation of all time. We were doing this for years. I was doing this for about seven or eight years. And then we're on the way with Bibles. We had 5000 Bibles for Russia. But we were going through Czechoslovakia. When we came to the border the inevitable happened. They found them. So what they did was they almost tore the bus apart. Eventually they found them. So they let the bus and the tourists go, but they took me away. It's quite interesting because before I left the border, they made me wait for 36 hours. They brought up television cameras, filmed me with the Bibles.
Sid Roth: Why?
David Hathaway: To show as propaganda on their television. And all the people who were waiting for the Bibles from me knew where it was because they saw me. I was known all over the east block because I was shown on television smuggling the Bibles. So they then put me in prison. Now they were very angry with me for two reasons. The first was that they discovered the size of my operation that I was operating legally with licenses and taking the Bibles in. We had the biggest operation ever known to do this, and we worked with a big network of believers all over Eastern Europe, so they kept me. And the reason they were so severe was they kept me under interrogation for four months to find the names and addresses of the believers. Now what they said was the sentence for Bible smuggling was five years. But then I didn't stop preaching. I was preaching while I was in prison.
Sid Roth: In prison.
David Hathaway: You know, I was witnessing, telling everybody about Jesus because everybody knew, everybody in this communist prison knew I was in for smuggling Bibles. So they'd all ask me about it. They said, why did you do such a stupid thing? I said, "This book is life. This book is real".
Sid Roth: So what did they do while you were talking about Jesus in prison?
David Hathaway: They said, right, that's another serious offense. They quoted the law. They said that's another five years in prison. That would have made ten years.
Sid Roth: Ten years.
David Hathaway: But then they said, "Look, we're not going to let you out of this prison alive". They became so angry with me.
Sid Roth: How do you like that? A life sentence in prison. He's so fanatic over Jesus, he's going to spend his life in prison. But a great miracle happened in that place, after this word.
Sid Roth: Hello. This is Sid Roth with David Hathaway. He gets life in prison in a communist prison, in Czechoslovakia. And David, that must not have been any fun. I don't think they had nice furniture and heat, and air conditioning.
David Hathaway: No, no.
Sid Roth: So you're in prison now for life. What happens?
David Hathaway: Well the thing was they tried to make it official. So they brought me before an official court in front of the British ambassador. My wife was invited, some of my family and so on. So what they began to do was accuse me of the heinous crimes and they said I was so dangerous. Heinous crimes and they said I was so dangerous. I mean, they used to handcuff me. I was such a dangerous person to them. And so they found me guilty. They sentenced me. I came back from the courtroom. I was lying on the floor in the prison cell. Now I was desperately unhappy. But then two nights after my sentence, I had the most amazing dream.
Sid Roth: What was that?
David Hathaway: Well in the night I saw myself out of the prison, back home in London where I was born, and in the largest auditorium in London telling everybody a story about a miracle.
Sid Roth: So obviously if that is true, you're not going to be there rotting for the rest of your life.
David Hathaway: Right. Now I knew that it was Easter because of the connection with the particular time in that auditorium. So I began to ask God for a miracle. Because you see, I believe the Bible and I believe that two evangelists in the Bible were in prison. And what happened, at midnight they were praising God and a miracle happened. God sent an earthquake and got them out. So I'm saying, o God, you're going to work, send an earthquake, work a miracle and get me out of this prison. But remember, I was in a communist prison. God showed me, I began to pray, God showed me the exact day that I would be out of that prison for Easter that I would be home, I'd be in this largest auditorium in London. Now when God showed me that I then turned around to God, I said, "Look here, if you're going to work this miracle I believe it, I believe you're going to do it. My birthday comes four days before Easter. I want you to work a bigger miracle and send me home on my birthday".
Sid Roth: Okay, so what happened, David?
David Hathaway: Well what happened was this. The day before my birthday one of the guards came to me. He said, "Hathaway, what are you talking about? Why are you telling other prisoners you're going home"? I said, "Well because God is going to work a miracle. I'm coming out of the prison and I want everybody to know this isn't you, this is God working a miracle". He said, "It's impossible. Look at the walls," he said, "20 feet high. Look at the machine guns, the automatic rifles all around there, the barbed wire and everything". He said, "It's impossible". I went back to the bench where I was working. I was in a labor camp. Fifteen minutes later, that same officer came running back. He said, "Hathaway, I got a telephone call from the government in Prague. You're to be released immediately". Now they didn't release me that day, but first thing the next morning, they took me out of the prison in a car, took me to the airport, put me on an airplane. And when I got on the airplane I found the British prime minister, this was Harold Wilson, and actually Harold Wilson had flown all the way from England to Czechoslovakia to argue for my release from the prison.
Sid Roth: David Hathaway, are you special? Why would God do that for you? Why would God do that for you, to have the prime minister on a plane get you out of a communist prison you're supposed to rot in for the rest of your life?
David Hathaway: Well I'll tell you why, because this was to change my life. Now I'm to believe, look, I already had a miracle of healing from cancer. That's why I got in the prison. Now look what's happened, Sid. Now I've had another miracle. This shows this God is real. There's something dramatic, there's something powerful about this God. He can do something. And if I'm going to go into Russia I want to believe in this kind of a God, a God that works the supernatural and miracles. And I'll tell you, when I got out of that prison, I got home, two things happened. The first thing I found it was my birthday. That's exactly what God had said. I found because it was the prime minister, it was on nationwide television, not only there, but all over the world. It was the headlines in the newspapers. And as a result of that, I was asked to speak in the largest auditorium to 10, 000 people in London and tell them what had happened.
Sid Roth: Okay. I'm going to get a lot of people unhappy if you don't look at that camera and pray very quickly for miracles to break out, the miracles they need right now.
David Hathaway: Well I believe in a God of miracles, and I'm going to pray, o God, we thank you for the power that you demonstrated in my life. You changed my life. You healed that cancer, you cut it out with a knife. You came in obedience to your word. You got out of that prison by a miracle. Now o God, I just reach out my hand to those people out there who are watching and listening, and I ask you for miracles, the most powerful miracles to demonstrate here in America and around the world that you are a God that can heal every sickness. And I speak to that sickness, and I command that every pain, every disease, every sickness will come out of these people, and sick people put your hand where the sickness is and just command it in the name of the God of the Bible, the God of America, I command my sickness to come out of my body in Jesus' name. Now o God, I ask you to work demonstrative, I ask you to work creative miracles in order to show America today, America needs this God. America today, America needs this God. Amen.
Sid Roth: David, I believe that there are people all over the world that are being touched by the power of God. In fact, I see someone right now whose neck was hurting and they just moved their head. And I'll tell you, if I was you, I'd be jumping up and down and praising God, and being so excited right now. But there is a purpose for miracles. The purpose for miracles is to know God is real, turn your life to God, make your Jesus your Lord and Savior. Repent of your sins and come to know him and make your life count. There must be something more, one of you prayed. I tell you there is something more. That's to know God, to experience his love and to communicate his love to other people. He's more than religion. He's reality, he's purpose, he's meaning, he's destiny, he's everything. Open your heart because God is real.