A FATHER OF THE FAITH PASSES AWAY: DEREK PRINCE, 1915-2003
September 24, 2003
By: ICEJ News
Dr. Derek Prince, a distinguished Bible teacher and author and long-time Jerusalem resident, died on Wednesday morning following a series of chronic illnesses. He was 88.
Derek Prince birthed a teaching and healing ministry that would touch six continents over seven decades. He is survived by 11 children and an extended family of over 150 relatives.
Born Peter Derek V. Prince in Bangalore, India in 1915, he received his education in England at Eaton College and Kings College, and was a senior research student at Cambridge University.
When World War II interrupted his academic career, he entered the army as a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps, where he met the Lord in a billet in Yorkshire in July 1941.
When the British army posted him to Jerusalem at the end of World War II, he witnessed the Jewish people returning to Israel from around the world and realized he was seeing biblical prophecy fulfilled before his eyes. Israels restoration was to become a main focus of his growing worldwide teaching ministry over the years.
In 1946, Derek married his first wife, Lydia Christensen from Denmark, who ran a childrens home near Jerusalem, and he thereby became a father to eight young girls six Jewish, one Arab and one English.
In the late 1950s, the Princes adopted another daughter while he was serving as principal of a college in Kenya.
Lydia died in 1975.
In 1978, Derek married his second wife, Ruth Baker from America, a single mother to three adopted children. Together, they continued with his teaching, healing and deliverance ministry, which had an expanding worldwide reach.
Ruth died in 1998.
Derek Princes life and work has impacted the Christian world like few others, and he leaves behind a legacy of over 50 books on Biblical subjects, including devotionals and works on the Holy Spirit, faith, marriage, deliverance, healing, prayer and fasting, and Israel.
Of the Jewish people, Derek said: We owe the Jewish people an enormous debt. Without them, the church would have no patriarchs, no prophets, no apostles, no Bible and no Savior. My most precious possession in life is my Bible, and I owe it to the Jewish people.
His books Our Debt to Israel, The Last Word on the Middle East, and The Destiny of Israel and the Church and his speaking have helped awaken multitudes of Christians throughout the world to their Scriptural responsibilities to Israel and the Jewish people.
Derek demonstrated his own confidence in the prophetic Scriptures by living in Israel from the time he left the army and standing with the Jewish people through the pressures and trials of daily life.
The funeral service will be held at Baptist House on Narkiss Street in Jerusalem on Friday, 26 September 2003. A memorial service is to be held in Charlotte, North Carolina soon after.
In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that donations be made to the Derek Prince Memorial Fund, for the ongoing work of Derek Prince Ministries. Please see
www.DPMusa.org for more information.
The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem wishes to honor this devout servant of God and pillar of the Christian Zionist movement.
Well, it seems that we've had
two of our generals promoted in the past week...It also seems that major changes are taking place in the church, the Lord must be fixing to raise His body up to a higher level of anointing and individual service...the Day of the manifestation of God's sons and daughters must be around the corner!
Praise God, Derek Prince is in our future! We really didn't lose Derek, he just beat us home, that's all. He will be missed, though...
