Interview With Derek Prince (Part 6)

Geoff Buck: This is Geoffrey Buck. This personal interview with Derek Prince was one of the highlights of my life, in sitting down as his longtime friend in asking him personal questions about the private man behind the public figure. One of the things that people would not understand about Derek Prince without some personal fellowship with him, is his incredible and wry sense of humor. It never ceases to amaze me how Derek will come up with some kind of a story or a quip or a yarn and the thing about Derek is, the more relaxed he is the more that humor comes forth. In pastoring Derek’s local church for twelve years in South Florida I’ve seen Derek in all types of situation, easy and difficult. And I’ve seen him under pressure, I’ve seen him in large settings and small settings. I think you will listen to this interview and gain a real appreciation of the health and stability of the man. I have loved Derek Prince, the minister, but I have more equally and fully loved Derek Prince the man. I would say that Derek Prince is one of those people in my life, very few by my observation, who are more impressive in private than public. Listen to his sense of humor and as an older saint in the Lord, his stability, balance and freshness as a man still in his eighties leaning forward into all that God has for him.

Geoff Buck: What does Derek Prince do for fun?

Derek Prince: I really don’t do anything for fun. I mean, I have plenty of enjoyment in my life. I used to be a very keen tennis player, but I’m not… Well, actually, when I married Ruth, she’s not a tennis player, and to play tennis you need a court, you need somebody to play with, you need racquets. I thought it doesn’t fit in with the kind of life that God is leading us into. So I gave up tennis, but I enjoyed tennis. In fact, I’ve enjoyed almost all games that are played with balls—soccer, all sorts of other games that American people don’t know much about. So I’m not in the least bit opposed to sport, but it just doesn’t do for me what I need at this time.

Geoff Buck: But watching you, you obviously thoroughly enjoy life. It seems that relationships play a large part in your life. Some people, I think, have the picture of you as being rather aloof and withdrawn and yet those of us who have had the privilege of knowing you, know how much relationships mean to you. What part do people play, these days, in your life?

Derek Prince: Well, I think it’s been a progressive development in my own life. If people look back on me fifty years ago they could well say that I was at times somewhat aloof. What I only discovered gradually was that when people come to you with a problem from the Bible, you can answer the problem but you may not have met the need of the person. You have to look beyond the problem to the real need of the person. I have now become much more sensitive to peoples needs. And I go for their needs. But I mean it’s been a development process with me.

Actually, I didn’t mention that God’s original calling on my life was to be a teacher of the Scriptures in truth, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus for many. And it’s been in that order. First of all I was a professional philosopher. I was very much concerned with accuracy and truth and so I focused on that. Then I realized or it became clear to me that truth without faith doesn’t do much. You need faith to apprehend the truth. And now in this third phase of my life I have seen the all importance of love. There’s a hymn that’s based on the song Danny Boy, you know the Irish song? And one of its phrases has just gripped me, this hymn; it’s not in the song. It says about God “He looked beyond my faults and saw my need.” And that’s how I hope and try to deal with people, to look beyond their faults and see their need. I’m always on my guard against any kind of error or heresy and I intend to remain that way. But even when I’ve seen that I realize I have to look beyond the fault and see the real need in the person.

Geoff Buck: So what are your desires and your plans for the future?

Derek Prince: Well, if I’m to tell you like it is this may sound very presumptuous, but I’ve got to be honest. God has told me that I’m to be a prophet to the nations and He has released me and in the next few months I will be in at least ministering to people in at least seven different nations. Some very surprising: I’m to minister to one thousand Iranian Christians who are believers outside of Iran. To me that’s a tremendous privilege. I just see and have a feeling I’m going to be in the Far East again. It’s not my choice. It’s just God’s program for me. But I do also believe I have a special obligation to my own nation, Britain.

And I believe finally my ultimate responsibility will be in Israel for the people of Israel. I don’t think the time has fully come for that. That’s one reason why I try to take care of my body because I think it’s going to take quite a lot longer for me to fulfill the things God has for me.

Geoff Buck: But you have been spending more time in the United States in recent, in the last couple of years than before, and I wonder why the change in your strategy. Is there a new interest in the United States or burden for this country?

Derek Prince: Well, first of all I’m very grateful to the people of the United States. They received me, they welcomed me, they honored me, they supported me financially, they treated me with real honor, so I feel an obligation to them to repay whatever I can. Then again because God gave me that prophetic utterance, “There shall be a great revival in the United States and Great Britain,” I feel I have something to contribute to that revival in the United States. But I have a further responsibility in Britain. So it’s really a question of where does God direct me. I’d be happy to go to any little island in the South Seas. It would be exciting to me to speak to people whose language I’d never heard. I mean I’m no, I’m not tied to the big important situations or people. But I don’t question in my own mind that because of their past history America and Britain, the two main English speaking nations, have sown a lot that still has not been reaped.

Geoff Buck: It sounds to me like if you see God moving anywhere you want to be in the center of it.

Derek Prince: No, not exactly because I think there’s lots of places God is going to move I will never go near them. I really want to be where God has told me to be. That’s my main motive.

Geoff Buck: I know that you don’t think in terms of happiest or happiness necessarily, but what would you say were your happiest or most fulfilling years?

Derek Prince: My happiest years were when I married Ruth, without a doubt. And I look back on that happiness with great gratitude to God. When I married Lydia it was a very unusual marriage. She was much older than I was. We had a ready-made family of eight. There were many things normal to a marriage that we didn’t enjoy. But when Lydia passed away, and I was quite prepared to live a celibate life, God showed me in a vision that Ruth was the woman I was to marry, and we had a real romance. I mean I was age sixty-three at the time. Believe me no teenager ever had more romance than I did. And I sympathize with that and I like to see people enjoying romance. I think it’s something God has provided.

Geoff Buck: I don’t know if you remember this, Derek, but we were in 1978 in April the year that you married Ruth, you had a group of young people. We were all together in Germany and we took an overnight flight through Austria, ultimately to Israel. And we had to get up at 3:30 in the morning and go to Vienna and a terrible ordeal of traveling. I remember how tired you looked, but once we got off the plane and then the shuttle came out to us, a beautiful blonde haired woman hopped onto the tram and I remember looking at you as a young man and seeing as it were, twenty years drop off your countenance.

Derek Prince: You have to say the woman was Ruth.

Geoff Buck: The woman was Ruth.

Derek Prince: I mean, we had a real romance. We had, some friends invited us out and we had champagne and my dear friend, Bob Gibbons you probably remember, who is a trained operatic singer, sang operatic arias in the restaurant for us. I mean, nobody could have planned a celebration like that except God. So I really trust God. I mean, He’s the best planner and He enjoys celebrations. I’m not against them by any means. In fact He ordained celebration. And it’s an interesting thing that He actually told people at certain times of year, “You’ve got to be happy.” It doesn’t depend on your situation. It depends on a higher level of life than that.