Interview With Derek Prince (Part 1)

Derek Prince: Father, we want to thank you for this opportunity to reach people through the radio with things that can really bless them and change their lives and bring them a sense of meaning and purpose. So, will You put Your hand upon each of us and all of us? Will You guide us, will You inspire us, will You show us when to stop, will You just break through by Your Spirit upon us and among us. And will You help us in everything we say and do to glorify You, to lift up the Lord Jesus and to minister Your grace to those who hear us. In Jesus’ name.

Geoff Buck: Father, we thank You that we can be together and we can recall your faithfulness over the years in so many different ways. So we pray that You would place the appropriate questions and the appropriate responses in our hearts so the people across America and ultimately around the world can be encouraged. We thank You for the power of personal testimony. We thank You, Lord, for the encouragement that’s going to flow out of this time together. [Derek-Amen] And, Lord, we thank You and pray for deep encouragement in the hearts of people—deep edification. We know that people that are not properly edified make bad choices and decision, so we pray for deep wells of encouragement to be opened up. Give Derek strength and clarity and ability as are his days, so shall his strength be, just give him strength all the way through the rest of this time together in this day. And we bind this time now to Your wonderful will and plan. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Geoff Buck: Derek, it’s been my pleasure to be associated with you over the years and watched and grown as I’ve seen your life unfold. And it’s my desire to ask some of the questions and to enjoy some of the fellowship that many listeners would like to have with you, and I appreciate your getting together and answering questions.

Derek Prince: Well, I’ll do my best. That’s all I can say.

Geoff Buck: As far as the radio broadcast it’s amazing to me but it’s been on the air twenty-one years as of now. And I wondered if you could share with us why you started the radio broadcast?

Derek Prince: Well the reason really is very simple. In 1979 I just felt that God was prompting me to start a radio broadcast in the United States. And I’d never considered myself to be a radio speaker and I didn’t have any very clear idea of what God had in mind. But in obedience I started. And I am by calling and by nature a teacher, so it was natural for me to choose certain important subjects and devote a week or sometimes two weeks of teaching for that subject.

But I had absolutely no idea what God had in mind. In 1984 we got a message from a man we had never met, a missionary who had been in China and he said he’d been walking in a race course in York in England and God had spoken to him and said, “Bring Derek Prince to China. Do you have any objections?” I said, “Anything you do, we’ll try to find the finance for.”

So my radio teaching began in China in 1984 and has been consistently on the air from that day until this time which is something like sixteen or seventeen years. And in order to make my teaching acceptable to the Chinese they gave me a Chinese name and a Chinese personality. Now I cannot pronounce my name the way the Chinese do but it is Ye Gwang Ming. And Ye is a family name and Gwang means Clear Light. So that’s my identity. And literally, I mean I’m not exaggerating, millions of Chinese really believe that Ye Gwang Ming is Chinese. And we had consistent responses all those years, some of them so touching. “I have no church, I’ve just met the Lord, do you have anything to help me?”

We need to bear in mind that though China is oppressed by a Communist Regime, the largest and fastest growing church in the world today is inside China. So persecution may not always be welcome, but it usually serves to build a church.

Geoff Buck: So obviously we began with a U.S. broadcast which then in several years became an international broadcast.

Derek Prince: That’s right.

Geoff Buck: But that was not something you foresaw?

Derek Prince: I had never had it in mind. Actually at this time I think my broadcast is in fourteen other languages. It’s in four Chinese dialects, it’s in Russian, it’s in Spanish, it’s in Arabic and it’s in some of the language that I don’t know like Malagasy which is the language of Madagascar. So, I mean, God took the little that I had and He multiplied it.

Geoff Buck: That seems to be one of the patterns of your life is that you have not sat down and forethought or planned out the way ahead. But you’ve taken one step and then allowed God to unfold it. Is that an accurate?

Derek Prince: I would say that’s accurate. Another thing that has played an important part in my life and the two are connected is God, when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, gave me the gift of interpretation of tongues. I was so inexperienced and unspiritual I didn’t know that you had to wait six months to get any spiritual gifts, so I just got it the night I was baptized in the Spirit and spoke in tongues.

And the first night I had the most wonderful succession of poetic messages in the English language and I have a background in English literature, I mean I’ve been a student of Shakespeare. And I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the language. But I only remember one very short passage which went like this, “It shall be like a little stream, the little stream shall become a river, the river shall become a great river, the great river shall become a sea, and the sea shall become a mighty ocean, and it shall be through thee.” I had really no idea what God was talking about. But within the next five years I had married a lady in Jerusalem who had a little children’s home and when I married her I got eight ready-made daughters the same day. And I realize now that that little children’s home was what God was referring to.

Later on when I was in Jerusalem and preparing to be released from the British Army I had a friend, also in the Army Medical Corps, who had a beautiful gift of prophecy. So I went to him one day and I said, “Now I’m going to be released here and I want know which if any of the missions here I should be joined with.”

Well he prayed a beautiful prayer for two Pentecostal missions and then he prayed for this little children’s home, which was a most improbable prayer. And he said as he prayed, “Lord, you know, You’ve shown me that little home will be like a little stream, the little stream will become a river, the river will become a great river…” right through everything that God had spoken to me five years earlier in my Army bedroom. So I said to him, “Thank you, Frank. I know what God has for me.” But I never, I never told him how I knew. I never told him that he had repeated the same prophecy that God had given me through tongues and interpretation.

Geoff Buck: That has been an inspiration to me to watch your life over the years how you’ve been led by the voice of God. I was thinking for example how you determined to marry Lydia.

Derek Prince: Yes. Lydia, we have to explain is the Danish lady that I married and got her eight adopted daughters in one day. Well she had a little children’s home just outside Jerusalem and during World War II soldiers in the Middle East, from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, United States, Canada, basically all the English-speaking nations were hungry spiritually. They had nothing. Life had nothing to offer them, and they discovered that you could get a blessing if you went to this little children’s home. So, I mean literally hundreds of soldiers made their way there and were blessed.

Well I was in the Sudan at the time, which is a long, long way from Jerusalem. But some fellow Christian soldier said, “If you really want a blessing there’s a little children’s home you should go to.” So when I got leave I went to the little children’s home and sure enough I got blessed, but I got a lot more than I expected because I got a wife and eight daughters.

But as to how I got the interpretation, well I visited the home. Lydia was really struggling, had very little money and eight girls to feed. And so I got a burden on my heart. So when I went back to where I was posted to I thought I’m going to pray for that Danish lady. And I did. And then I got this simple tongue and interpretation. “I have joined you together under the same yoke and in the same harness.” I thought, “You’ve joined us together. What does that mean?” But I’m not very discreet so the next time I saw Lydia I said, “God told me that He’d joined us together under the same yoke and in the same harness.” Her reply was, “Well He’ll have to work on both ends of the chain.” She wasn’t by any means too excited.