THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN G LAKE (PART 2)

I said, "The baby is well! Letwaba, take me to the baby at once."

So we went to the baby. I took the little black thing on my arm and came out

of the hut praying: "Lord, take every cursed thing out of my soul that keeps

me from believing the Lord Jesus Christ."

As I related the incident to Mr. Seymour, he shouted, "Praise God, brother!

That is not healing It is life!"

In my assembly in Spokane, there was a dear little woman who had been

blind for nine years. She had received very little teaching along the line of

faith in God.

As she sat at home one day with her six children, she discovered that her

dirty brute of a husband had abandoned her and the children, leaving them to

starve. (A debased human being is capable of things that no beast will do, for

a beast will care for its own.)

You can imagine the effect this had on her little heart. She was crushed,

broken, bruised, and bleeding.

They were all sitting together on the front porch of their home. She gathered

her children around her and began to pray.

Suddenly one of them got up and said, "Oh, Mama! There is a man coming

up the path and he looks like Jesus! And oh, Mama, there is blood on His

hands and blood on His feet!"

The children were frightened and ran around the house.

After a while the biggest child looked around the corner and said, "Why,

Mama, He is laying His hands on your eyes!" And just then, her eyes were

opened.

That is divine power...

Some years ago there was a farmer in Indiana, w1io used to be a friend of

mine. His son, while in

South America had contracted a dreadful case of typhoid fever. Because he

had no proper nursing, he developed a great fever sore ten inches in

diameter. His whole abdomen became grown up with proud flesh, one layer

on top of another until there wore five layers. A nurse had to lift up these

layers and wash them with an antiseptic to keep out the maggots.

When he exposed his abdomen to me to pray for him, I was shocked. I had

never seen anything like it before. As I began to pray for him, I spread my

fingers wide and put my hand right on that cursed growth of proud flesh. I

prayed God in the name of Jesus Christ to blast the curse of hell and burn it

up by the power of God.

After praying, I took the train back to Chicago. The next day I received a

telegram saying, "Lake, the most unusual thing has happened. An hour after

you left, the whole print of your hand was burned into that growth a quarter

of an inch deep."

You talk about the voltage from Heaven and the power of God! Why there is

lightning in the soul of Jesus! The lightnings of Jesus heal men by their flash!

Sin dissolves and disease flees when the power of God approaches!

And yet we are quibbling and wondering if Jesus Christ is big enough to

meet our needs.

Take the bars down!

Let God come into your life.

In the name of Jesus, your heart will not be satisfied with an empty

Pentecost. But your soul will claim the light of God and the lightnings of

Jesus to flood your life!

One day, as a young man, I needed healing from Heaven, but there was

nobody to pray for me. I was not even a Christian in the best sense of being a

Christian. I was a member of the Methodist church and had seen God heal

one dear soul who was very dear to me.

As I sat alone, I said, "Lord, I am finished with the doctor and the devil. I am

finished with the world and the flesh. From today forward, I lean on the arm

of God."

Right then and there, I committed myself to God and God Almighty

accepted my consecration to Him although there was no sign of healing.

The disease that almost killed me and had stuck on my life for nearly nine

years was gone! It was chronic constipation. I would take three ounces of

castor oil at a single dose three times a week.

The place of strength and the place of victory is the place of consecration to

God. That victory will come when a man grits his teeth and says, "I go with

God this way."

There is no man alive who can define the operations of faith in a man's heart.

But one thing we can be sure of: When we cut ourselves off from every

 other help, we have never found the Lord Jesus Christ to fail. If there are

any failures, they are ours, not God's.

Edward Lion was a native man who, until a few years ago, didn't even wear

clothes. He was illiterate and knew nothing whatever of our conception of

scholarship.

But God anointed that man with the faith of God and a measure of the Holy

Ghost so intense that on one occasion when a multitude of sick folk had been

brought into a valley, the power of God came upon him and he went upon

the mountainside, stretched out his hands over the sick below, and poured

out his heart to God.

In a minute, hundreds were healed! Healing power fell upon them.

There is no such instance recorded in the New Testament. Jesus promised

that the Last Days would be marked by greater works than He Himself had

wrought.

In 1912 I was pastor of the Apostolic tabernacle, Johannesburg, South Africa.

One of the cardinal teachings of our organization was the ministry of healing

through fi6th in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The sick were brought from all

parts of the land; and thousands were healed through the prayer of faith and

the Laying on of hands of those who believed.

Our church was then enjoying a great period of spiritual blessing and power.

Various remarkable manifestations of the Spirit commonly occurred.

At a Sunday morning service, before public prayer was offered, a member of

the congregation arose and requested that those present join in prayer on

behalf of his cousin in Wales (7,000 miles across the sea from

Johannesburg), that she might be healed. He stated that the woman was

violently insane and an inmate of an asylum in Wales.

I knelt on the platform to pray; and an unusual degree of the spirit of prayer

came upon my soul, causing me to pray with fervor and power. The spirit of

prayer fell upon the audience at the same time.

The people ordinarily sat in their seats and bowed their heads while prayer

was being offered, but on this occasion 100 or more in different parts of the

house knelt to pray with me. I was uttering the audible prayer; they were

praying in silence.

A great consciousness of the presence of God took possession of me. My

spirit rose in a great consciousness of spiritual dominion, and I felt for the,

moment as if I were anointed by the Spirit of God to, cast out demons.

My inner, or spiritual, eyes opened. I could see, in the spirit and observed

that there was a shaft of seeming light, accompanied by moving power,

coming from many of those who were praying in the audience.

As the prayer continued, these shafts of light from those who were praying

increased in number. each of them reached my own soul, bringing an

increasing impulse of spiritual power until I seemed well nigh overcome by

it.

While this was going on, I was uttering the words of prayer with great force

and conscious spiritual power.

Suddenly, I seemed out of the body and, to my surprise, observed that I was

rapidly passing over o city of Kimberley, 300 miles from Johannesburg. I as

next conscious of the city of Cape Town on the seacoast, a thousand miles

away. My next consciousness was of the Island of St. Helena, where

napoleon had been banished; then the Cape Verde lighthouse on the coast of

Spain.

By this time it seemed as if I were passing rough the atmosphere observing

everything, but moving with great lightning like rapidity.

I remember the passage along the coast of France, across the Bay of Biscay,

into the hills of Wales. I had never been in Wales. It was new country to me;

and as I passed swiftly over its hills, I said to myself, These are like the hills

of Wyoming along the North Dakota border.

Suddenly, a village appeared. It was nestled in a deep valley among the hills.

Next I saw a public building that I recognized instinctively as the asylum.

On the door I observed an old fashioned 16th Century knocker. Its

workmanship attracted my attention and this thought flashed through my

spirit: That undoubtedly was made by one of the old smiths who

manufactured armor.

I was inside the institution without waiting for the doors to open and present

at the side of a cot on which lay a woman. Her wrists and ankles were

strapped to the sides of the cot. Another strap had been passed over her legs

above the knees, and a second across her breasts. These were to hold her

down.

She was wagging her head and muttering incoherently.

I laid my hands upon her head and, with great intensity, commanded in the

name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that the demon spirit possessing her be

cast out and that she be healed by the power of God. In a moment or two, I

observed a change coming over her countenance. It softened and a look of

intelligence appeared.

Then her eyes opened, and she smiled up in my face. I knew she was healed.

I had no consciousness whatever of my return to South Africa. Instantly, I

was aware that I was still kneeling in prayer, and I was conscious of all the

surrounding environment of my church and the service.

Three weeks passed. Then my friend who had presented the prayer request

for his cousin came to me with a letter from one of his relatives, stating that

an unusual thing had occurred. Their cousin, who had been confined for

seven years in the asylum in Wales, had suddenly become well. They had no

explanation to offer. The doctors said it was one of those unaccountable

things that sometimes occur.

She was perfectly well and had returned home to her friends.

After returning from Africa some years ago, I spent some time visiting my

brother and my sister. As we sat together one day, my sister said, "John, I

have some neighbors here who are elderly German people and they are

having a very hard time.

"First, the old man died; then one of the sisters died. This thing happened,

and that thing happened. Finally, the son, who is a shipbuilder, fell and was

carried to the hospital. Now gangrene has set in; they say his leg has to be

amputated.

"The old mother, a rheumatic cripple, has been sitting in a wheelchair for

two and a half years and cannot move."

My brother and I had been having a discussion over this very thing. Jim, a

splendid fellow, a professor and well educated, said, "Jack, don't you think

these things are all psychological?"

"Not much," I said.

Jim said, "I think it is. Don't you think healing is a demonstration of the

power of mind over matter?"

I said, "No. If that were all it is, you could give just as good a demonstration

as I could."

After a while, our sister said, "I have been across the street and have made

arrangements for you to go and pray for these people."

I said, "All right. Jim, come along."

When we arrived, I asked the old lady, "Mother, how long have you been in

this wheelchair?"

She replied, "Two and a half years. It is awful hard. Not just hard sitting here

all the time, but I suffer night and day, with no moment of relaxation from

my acute suffering for all this time."

As I listened to her, the flame of God came into my soul. I said, "You

rheumatic devil, in the name of Jesus Christ, I will blot you out, if it is the

last thing I ever do in the world!" Laying hands on her I looked to Heaven

and called on God to cast that devil out and set her free.

Then I said to her, "Mother, in the name of Jesus Christ, get out of your chair

and walk!"

And she arose and walked!

My brother said, ','My, it beats the devil."

I replied, "That's the intention!"

We went into another room to see the son whose leg was to be amputated. I

sat for a few minutes and told him of the power of God. I said, "We have

come to you with a message of Jesus Christ, and we have not just come with

the message, but with the power of God."

And laying my hands on the limb I said, "In the name of the living God, they

shall never amputate this limb!"

The leg was healed.

After about six months, I again stopped at my sister's home. The young lady

from across the street called and said, "You must come across and see my

mother and brother. They are so well."

When I called, I found the old lady was very happy. I asked about her son.

She said, "Oh, Jake, he is not at home. Why, he is so well that he went down

to the saloon and danced all night!"

I waited to see Jake and tried to tell him something about the living God that

he had felt in his body and who wanted to take possession of his soul and

reveal the nature of Jesus Christ in him.

Five years passed. When I again stopped at my sister's home, she said, "Do

you remember the people you prayed for across the road? Here is Jake now,

coming from work."

We sat on the porch and talked. I said, "Well, Jake, how is it?"

"Oh," he said, "I do not understand it all, but something has been going on. It

is in me. First, I could not go to the dance. Next, I could not drink beer; then

my tobacco did not taste good; and then a joy came into my heart. I found it

was Jesus."

This man had been born of God his nature brought into union with God by

the Holy Spirit. Blessed be His precious Name!

A few days after my arrival in Johannesburg, the superintendent of one of

the great missionary societies said, "Our native pastor, who has the church a

few doors from your home, must leave for six weeks. Will you occupy the

pulpit of the native Church until you are ready to undertake your own work?"

This was God's first door. I instantly accepted!

On Sunday afternoon I preached to a congregation of 500 Zulus through a

proficient interpreter, a woman missionary who had lived among the Zulus

for 30 years.

As the meeting progressed, a spiritual condition developed almost similar to

the dread silence the deep stillness that permeates the atmosphere preceding

a cyclone.

This condition in the Spirit climaxed suddenly as, by a single impulse, the

native audience burst into prayer. Everyone prayed, saints and sinners alike,

but no one came to the altar. No invitation was given.

God had come in overwhelming conviction for sin, and we were impressed

that it was not the mind of God to begin to reap until God Himself thrust in

the sickle.

I feel, out of life's experience as a Holy Ghost preacher, that great damage is

done by not waiting for a real ripeness of the work of the Holy Spirit in the

soul of an audience. So frequently, an invitation is given and pressure is put

on the audience to bring souls to the altar before God's ripeness of

Conviction unto repentance is complete.

At the close of the meeting my interpreter said, "In all my missionary

experience, I have never before seen such a spirit of prayer on a native

audience."

The next meeting took place at 7 o'clock that evening. A quiet stillness

pervaded the meeting. God was searching hearts.

I preached on repentance: real repentance, hundred fold repentance, Holy

Ghost repentance, heaven's metanoia, the completeness of separation from

the world, its sin and its spirit, like Jesus separated Himself unto all

righteousness at the River Jordan. (Matt. 3:13-15.)

Suddenly, a man arose in the back of the audience and started for the altar.

When he was about ten feet away from the altar, the Spirit of the Lord struck

him and he fell flat on his face.

Another man arose and walked calmly and steadily to the front. When he

came to where the first man had fallen, the Spirit of the Lord struck him and

he fell on top of No. 1!

One after another, they began to come forward. Each one in turn fell at the

same spot until fifteen men were piled, one on top of another.

It was a hot, sultry night. I was troubled because on the very bottom of the

pile was a little man lying on his face. The next man lay on top of him,

pressing the first man's face into the floor, and I was afraid he would smother.

I had never witnessed such a situation before. I had seen many wonderful

manifestations of God, but none like this.

Soon my human sympathy for the little fellow on the bottom of the pile

overcame me. I stooped down and tried to pull two or three of these men off

him; but they were so piled up, one on top of another, that it seemed

impossible to reach him.

The Spirit of the Lord spoke within my soul and said, "If God has slain

these, can you not trust Him to keep them from smothering?"

I replied, "Excuse me, Lord," and returned to my seat on the platform.

My interpreter was greatly disturbed. She said, "Dr. Lake, what will you do

now?"

I replied, "The Lord is doing this. We will just wait and see what the Holy

Ghost does and learn how He does it. Remember, sister, He made known his

ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel (Ps. 103:7). We have

seen His acts strange ones. Perhaps we can now learn His ways." We sat

quietly. In about fifteen minutes one of the prostrate men began to confess

his sin at the top of his voice. It was a wholehearted soul confession of such

evident thoroughness! After a short time, he arose with the light of God in

his face and returned to his seat.

By that time another man was confessing, and then another and another, until

the whole fifteen men had poured out their souls to God and returned to their

seats.

I indicated to the interpreter that I wanted the first man brought to me (the

little fellow for whom I had been distressed) so I could question him.

He was a Zulu native who worked for a Dutch family. They had given him a

Dutch name, Willum.

I said, "Willum, tell me: What took place while you lay on the floor?"

He said to me in Dutch, "Oh, boss, (This was the manner in which the native

always addressed a white man) while I lay on the floor, Jesus come to me,

and Jesus say, 'Willum, I take all your sins away.' And Jesus go away. Then

Jesus come again. And Jesus put His hand upon my heart, moved it up and

down, and say, 'Willum, I make your heart all white.' "