My Testimony

Short Testimony for a Flyer for FGBMFI or similiar
Pastor David Measures is an international speaker and is presently the leader of The YTF Church (Yesterday Today and Forever) in Leicestershire, England. The Lord has used him in healing and deliverance and he has witnessed many people being wonderfully set free. The Lord has used him in this ministry since his dramatic spiritual experience in 1988 when Jesus set him free. Until then his life had been fraught, led by the enemy through 30 years of fear and spiritual bondage. This was all as a result of watching a television film at the age of 12 years.

David was a successful builder for many years working in house construction and renovation, until the Lord called him to His service. David has been married to his wife Helen for 49 years and she also ministers at his side. His desire is to expose the devious works of the enemy for those seeking answers for their broken lives. He and his wife have travelled to many nations preaching in crusades and churches, seeing many wonderful signs through their ministry.

David also leads teaching conferences on deliverance in the UK as well as other countries exposing witchcraft, the occult, freemasonry and allied organisations, bringing wholeness and healing by the power of the Holy Spirit to people’s lives. David has authored 4 books titled “Knowing Your Enemy”, “Up Hill and Down Dale”,“Agents of the Enemy” and the “Parable of the birds”. David has also produced a number of teaching DVDs including “Freedom in Christ” and “Masonic Deception”.

Alternate Short Testimony for Flyer
Pastor David Measures is now an international speaker and is presently the leader of The YTF Church (Yesterday Today and Forever) in Leicestershire, England. The Lord has used him in healing and deliverance and he has witnessed many people being wonderfully set free. The Lord has used him in this ministry since his dramatic spiritual experience in1988 when Jesus set him free. Until then his life had been fraught by the enemy after 30 years of fear and spiritual bondage through watching a TV film programme at the age of 12 years when an evil spirit had entered his body. Would you believe it, David was directed to FGBMFI where a lady told him they would understand his problem – nobody else would ! David has been married to his wife Helen for 49 years and she also ministers at his side.

David is able to deal with all sorts of occult – freemasonry, spiritualism, fortune telling, new age therapies, and his desire is to expose the devious works of the enemy for those seeking answers for their broken lives.

On a mission to Kiev, Ukraine with David Hathaway, despite having paid for hotel rooms and speaking venues all places were locked and they were banned. Logical or illogical ? What could they do ? They called upon the Lord.

In Haiti they were attacked and beaten by Voodoo men with iron bars. Why did the voodoo men run away in disarray. On ventures to Brazil and Bulgaria miracles took place.

Come and hear how a once workaholic house construction worker is now a foundation stone of the biggest spiritual building on earth just as you should be. Come, build the Church and be encouraged in your God given gifting.

Jesus paid the ultimate price for you on the cross.
He died that you might live.
What could it cost you, who having received all this don’t introduce
someone to a testimony that could change their lives eternally ?

Testimony of David Measures
Every day has something special for us, for the scripture tells us that ‘new every morning is the compassions and mercies of the Lord.’ It was on such a day that my life started to turn around. I was a builder and a workaholic; I became a workaholic not just because I was a materialistic person, but it was the only way I could find peace in my life.

One Sunday in December 1988, my mother who was a devoted Christian invited me to her church for the Christmas service. At first I declined the invitation, but later as I was working I felt that I would go to please my Mother. My wife Helen came with me and we went to this church service. It was whilst I sat in this service and not even taking any notice of the preacher or what he was saying that something unusual happened to me.

I felt a warm feeling come all over me, at first I wanted to leave the Church, but my wife persuaded me to stay. Then a still small voice spoke to my inward person. “Would you like to become a member of the Church” again the same voice spoke, “Your Mother would like it”. All I wanted to do was to leave that Church, so at the first opportunity I went to go out of the door.

The preacher stood at the door shaking people by the hand and thanking them for coming. As I met him, I put my hand in his and said “I would like to become a member of the Church”.

He seemed surprised, but nowhere near surprised as I was, as I did not understand why I had said such a thing. Instead of going out of the Church, he asked me to go back inside to have a drink of tea/coffee and he would come to speak with me later.

When he returned I told him that I could not understand what made me say that to him and that I wanted to think about it.

He graciously left it at that and said that he would come to see me after Christmas, at first I felt relieved because I thought he did not know me or where I lived, but praise God for Mothers who love Jesus as she must have had a talk with him because sure enough after Christmas there was a knock on my door; it was the minister of the Church.

I found it easier to become a member that not and maybe if there was a heaven then I would on the front row if I was a Church member were my thoughts.

He told me all I had to do was to have 6 lessons to qualify. This seemed like a good deal to me, so I agreed. I attended the 6 lessons with 3 other people; we needed to receive 2 lessons on the subject of the Holy Spirit as the whole concept of the Holy Spirit made no sense to me or the other people.

Even after those 2 lessons we gave up the idea of learning about the Holy Spirit as we could not grasp what he was saying.

I was made a member and even gave a testimony, but at that time I was not ‘Born Again’.

After this the minister came to see me and to share with me about my responsibilities of being a Christian,

1/ Attending Prayer groups
2/ Bible study.
3/ Giving to the church.

I now was wondering what I done, in becoming a member, and surely he was not serious about Prayer and Bible studies? He assured me that he was very serious about everything, so I asked him which days he conducted these meetings. Then he told me the Church did not run any, because he could not encourage anyone to attend. This seemed to bring out the cavalier attitude in me, so I asked him to run some meetings for me.

Now I was reading the Bible, it seemed so exciting being around Jesus as everywhere and everyone He touched were receiving miracles, this made me so disappointed that I had been born in the 21st century; my choice would to have been one of those men fishing on the Lake of Galilee 2000 years ago who worked along side Him.

I told the minister that I wanted to do some work for the Church, so he proceeded to ask me to repair the building and to plaster the walls of the Church building. This was not what I meant, even though I had no problem in doing that, I told him I wanted to do more than those jobs.

“Do you mean you want to work for God, is what you mean, then you must receive the Holy Spirit? He said.

“How do I get that” was my reply.
“It is a precious gift from God that He wants to give you” He said
“You mean God has a gift for me, if that is so then I do not mind what it costs me, I want it” was my reply.
“Coincidently for the first time in this Church we are to have a healing and wholeness service next Sunday and I will be praying for those who wish to receive the Holy Spirit at this particular service”. He said.
“Okay I will go for that” I replied

Now little did I know that the minister had only received the Holy Spirit himself one month previously, now I thought everyone in the Church would be excited about next weeks service, so I went around all the Church members telling them that I was going to receive a gift from God this week. That did not create quite the response that I had expected. I think they thought that I had come from another planet or something.

The time came for the Church service, we took communion at the front rail as is customary in the Methodist Church and I stayed at the rail to receive the Holy Spirit. The minister laid his hands upon me, I did not feel any different; then an elderly lady laid hand on me, then both of them laid hands on me, I still felt the same. I am sure the congregation was wondering what I was doing all this time at the altar.

Eventually the minister asked me to return to my seat. I was about to go out of the Church, when the elderly lady who apparently had been part of a Pentecostal Church previously stopped me, she asked if I would talk to her about my life as she believed that I had not received the Holy Spirit from God when they prayed.

I did not understand, but I agreed to meet her in 2 hours time.
I called at her home and she asked me about my life.
“I have committed many sins, but I have asked the Lord to forgive me” I said
“I am not interested in your past sins, but I wish to know if you have been involved in any spiritual activity” she said

I told her that I did not understand what she meant by things spiritual, so she proceeded to ask me questions.

She asked me if I had any connections to secret societies, example: Freemasonry or other allied organisations. I knew nothing of those and certainly as far as I knew neither myself nor my ancestors had taken the oaths and rituals.. She then asked me if I had been involved in Spiritualism or any connection to the occult or witchcraft, like fortune telling or any new age healing therapies. Again I had no known connection; but I did have a problem.

I thought no-one could possibly understand. I felt if I ever shared the problem that I would be frowned upon and would feel everyone’s rejection. Then I started to cry, something that was very unusual for me to do.

Eventually I shared my problem with the lady; it was when I was a little boy of 13 years that I was watching an undesirable television programme, my Mother or Father would never let me watch a horror film or such like. They went out of the house for the evening, so I thought as most do that I could handle anything, so I watched the programme.

It was a film of a Hypnotist, who was hypnotising people and then they would walk in their sleep and do evil things, even to kill people. I was very fearful, but I watched the film to the end.

After I had seen the film, I went to the bathroom for a wash, when something evil came upon me, it came upon my head and went through my body like a snake.

From this moment something happened to my life, and I felt evil..

I could never seem to get peace in my life; I had a fear of sleeping, I became fearful in case I was not in control of my mind.

Once in my life I spoke with a voice that was not mine.

Another time my wife needed to change the bed clothes after 10mins of going to bed as I had perspired so much through my fear that the bed clothes were totally wet.

I had often been on tablets and had taken tranquilisers from the medical profession, the tragic affect of that film never left me for 29years.

The lady told me that an evil spirit had entered me at that point. This made me feel even worse as I had read in the Bible where Jesus was the only one would could deal with evil spirits and He had died 2000 years ago consequently there was no hope for me now.

The lady’s next statement changed my life.

“David! Don’t you realise that He rose from the dead and He sent the Holy Spirit to His Church to do the same things today?”

Suddenly the Bible was no longer in Black and White it was now in ‘Full Colour’ to me.

The lady prayed for the power of the Hypnotist to be broken in my life, and asked me to go straight back to the minister of the Church and to explain to him.

This I did immediately, when I told him about an evil spirit he could not understand what I was talking about. Nevertheless he said he would pray for me again, as he did earlier in the day.

As soon as he touched my head, a burning feeling went through my body, then I seemed as though I was beginning to choke but in fact I started to speak in tongues and to sing in tongues. This was new to me as I had not been in a Church which spoke in tongues, so I have never heard this before, except when the lady earlier prayed for me that was the very first time I had heard speaking in tongues.

I now felt so wonderful, and for the first time in approx 30years I felt the real David had come back.

That night I tried to sleep, yet I was speaking in tongues all night as I did not want the feeling to go, I did not realise that the gift would never leave me.

Whilst I was speaking in tongues I had a series of visions given to me by the Holy Spirit.

1/ I saw a most beautiful Star, so bright yet I was not dazzled; this I believe was the Star of Bethlehem. All the time I was having these visions I was speaking in this new language that the Lord had given to me.
2/ the next vision I saw was like a field full of different coloured and different size flowers, all beautiful yet different.

I have come to believe as Christians, we are all different, races, creeds and ages but we all have a place in Heaven which has been prepared for us.

3/ the next vision I had was in a garden setting and I was running towards the garden, it was at a time just before sunrise, on the left of the garden was a tomb, and towards the right the contour of the ground was covered in grass and seemed to rise quite rapidly. The tomb seemed to be in a hollow. At first I had no idea what this was, but since that time I have had the privilege of going to Israel and to visit the garden tomb, where some say is the burial place of Jesus. Others say it is at the Catholic church of the Holy Sepulchre, but I know which it is. The tomb is just like the one I had seen in the vision. Also where the grass was; now it is the place in the garden for people to reflect or have a time of prayer and partake in communion (bread and wine).

4/ the next thing that happened to me were a feeling in both my index fingers, as though they had become very powerful and a feeling of them growing 3 times the size. I had never read the scripture in Matthew Ch 12 v 28 which states: “If I cast out demons by the finger of God, surely the Kingdom of God has come upon you”.

Since that time by the grace of God, I have been used to set many people free from evil spirits that have troubled them, and many have had miraculous healings as a consequence.

5/ next I had a vision of an incredible bright light, brighter than the noon day sun, yet it did not seem to hurt my eyes. I really just wanted see more of this vision but that was all I could see. A pastor told me once that this was a vision of the glory of God and I will not see anymore in its fullness until I die.

6/ after this came another vision and that was of a cloud with a figure that I thought was the Lord in the cloud.

7/ lastly there was a vision of what seemed to be all the Stars of the Universe that were coming together and coming upon my head. This was too much for me so I asked the Lord to please take it away.

Though next day when I was talking to the minister of the Church, this vision came back and landed upon my head, suddenly I started speaking in tongues again.

This combined with all the visions etc; was all too much for the minister, so he called for a medical doctor, who in turn send for a physiatrist from the mental hospital, he said he could find a bed for me if I needed it. This was so devastating to me after all the blessings I had received. He told me he was a Christian but he did not speak in tongues. I responded by telling him that he needed to ask God why he did not speak in tongues. He asked me many other questions. I was getting rather fearful at how things had turned out. He then asked me what my relationship to Jesus was, I knew that many people had been put inside mental institutions and in the past the authorities had thrown away the keys, because of inmates thinking they were Jesus. So at this I said something that afterwards I regretted, but to me it worked out good for me.

I said to him “Jesus! Oh! He was a madman who wanted to put the world to right”.

He replied “Well I do not understand you now, just take a couple of tablets and have a good nights sleep and you will be alright”. After that he left me and went back to his hospital.

The Lord came to my rescue even through my seemingly stupid answer.

Because of these proceedings and how I felt treated by the minister of the Church, I stopped going for a while to the Church.

One day I was working in a nearby town and I decided to go into the Parish Church for a cup of coffee, as I entered a Lady stopped me and said that the Lord had just spoken to her; she told me the Lord had told her to ask me of how I met Jesus?

Why did this experience affect me so much and not everyone?

After being in ministry for some time, I can now understand the question above. Many of us can be born with a spiritual weakness, or something can happen to us at an early age, for me it was the latter. When I was 3 years of age my step Grandmother died at the home and in those days it was customary to have the open coffin in a spare room. My mother told me to go and kiss the dead body so I would not dream about her ( an old superstition ). As I did I was extremely frightened, also she was like a block of stone marble. I now have come to realise that this practice was totally against God’s Word and many references can be found to this evil and deceptive practice in the OT in the book of Numbers and Leviticus, one such one is in Numbers Ch 21 v 11: ‘Nor shall he go near any dead body, nor defile himself for his Father or Mother’ . In these cases the persons are already emotionally attached.

It states that a person will become defiled ( demonised) by this practice. Of course my Mother did not know that this was the case, you see a little knowledge can be very bad for you, it was just that it was a tradition in some circles and still is. Consequently I became demonised at a very early age, now my life had an open door to the evil spirits.

I shared all my testimony with the Lady, she told me that most people would not understand and then she advised me to go to a FGBMFI (Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International) dinner meeting, because the men at that fellowship would understand what had happened to me.

I did and also joined the FGBMFI and I am a member to this day. Since then by the grace of God, I have spoke at their meetings and have been to Bible School. The Lord has been so kind and gracious to me and He continues to bless me every day and in turn He gives me the ability to bless others.

The scripture in Psalm 91 v1 – 6 seems to sum up my life.
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High, Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God in whom I trust.” Surely He shall deliver you (me) from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He shall cover you (me) with His feathers, and under His wings you (I) shall take refuge; His truth shall be your (my) shield and buckler. You (I) shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor the of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.