The Life and Times of John G. Lake
John G. Lake, known as the "Apostle to Africa"
was born in Canada in 1870, his family soon relocated to
the United States, where he grew up. He began his
ministry as a Methodist preacher, turning later to
insurance work. In 1898 his wife was miraculously healed
of tuberculosis under the ministry of Alexander Dowie.
Lake joined Dowie's fast growing "Zion Catholic
Apostolic Church." Lake testified to an instant
experience of entire sanctification in the home of Fred
Bosworth, an early leader in the Assemblies of God. In
1907, he received the baptism of the Holy Spirit under
the ministry of Charles Parham, who visited Zion while
the aging Dowie was losing control of his ministry.
His healing and preaching ministry spanned the years 1898
until his death in 1935. In 1908, God sent him to Africa,
where his anointed miracle ministry resulted in what has
been described as "the most extensive and powerful
missionary movement in all Africa." As Gordon
Lindsay wrote, "during that time he spent five
history-making years in South Africa, engaged in a
ministry which in some respects rivalled that of the
Early Church." Upon his return to America, Lake
established a ministry in Spokane, Washington which
resulted in no less than 100,000 astounding miracles of
healing within the space of five or six years. He then
established a similar work in Portland, Oregon, which
also attracted widespread attention. Like Smith
Wigglesworth, John G. Lake had already experienced mighty
breakthroughs, powerful anointings and a real calling
from God for many years before Azusa Street and the
Pentecostal Revival.
John receives
the Baptism
From his own diary we learn that John has an earnest
yearning for more of God. After eight years in the
ministry of healing he wanted to experience "a more
intense longing for an intimacy and a consciousness of
God, like I felt the disciples of Jesus and the primitive
church had possessed." Two years later we read that
even after thousands were healed by his ministry,
"at the end of ten years, I believe I was the
hungriest man for God that ever lived. There was such a
hunger for God that as I left my offices in Chicago, and
walked down the street, my soul would break out, and I
would cry, `Oh God!' I have had people stop and look at
me, and wonder. It was the yearning passion of my soul,
asking for God in a greater measure than I knew."
Finally John was led to set aside certain hours of the
day - as times of meditation, and prayer. Months passed,
until one morning as he knelt praying, God spoke and told
him to wait until autumn. John submitted to this
willingly, even though many would say he had the baptism
of the spirit, he wanted also the baptism of fire! He
prayed, "God, if you will baptise me in the Holy
Spirit, and give me the power of God, nothing shall be
permitted to stand before me and a hundred-fold
obedience."
Then one night in a meeting at the house of Fred Bosworth
a Voice began to speak to John out of an intense light.
John says, "the Voice began to remind me of this
incident, and that incident of disobedience to my
parents, from a child; of my obstinacy, and dozens of
instances when God brought me up to the line of
absolutely putting my body, soul, and spirit upon the
altar forever. I had my body upon the altar for ten
years, and I had been a minister of the Gospel. But when
the Lord comes, He opens to the soul the depths that have
never been touched in your life. Do you know that after I
was baptised in the Holy Ghost, things opened up in the
depths of my nature that had remained untouched in all my
life, and that which was shadowy, distant, and hazy
became real. God got up close and let His light shine
into me."
Shortly after this experience, a brother called and
invited him to visit a lady who was sick. Arriving at the
home they found the lady in a wheel chair. All her joints
were set with inflammatory rheumatism. She had been in
the condition for ten years. John sat in a deep chair on
the opposite side of a large room. He recounts, "My
soul was crying out to God in a yearning too deep for
words, when suddenly it seemed to me, that I had passed
under a shower of warm tropical rain, which was not
falling upon me, but through me. My spirit, and soul and
body under this influence soothed into such a deep still
calm, as I had never known. My brain, which had always
been so active, became perfectly still. An awe of the
presence of God settled over me. I knew it was God. Some
moments passed; I do not know how many. The Spirit said,
`I have heard your prayers, I have seen your tears. You
are now Baptised in the Holy Spirit.' Then currents of
power began to rush through my being from the crown of my
head to the soles of my feet. The shocks of power
increased in rapidity, and voltage. As these currents of
power would pass through me, they seemed to come upon my
head, rush through my body, and through my feet into the
floor."
A new
ministry begins
Shortly after this experience, a working of the Spirit
began in Lake - a work which would spectacularly reveal
the nature of Jesus Christ to others. Lake began to
operate in the varied range of the gifts of the Spirit.
He spoke in new tongues and God flowed through him with a
new force. Healings were of a more powerful order. He
experienced a new level of discernment of spirit, and a
new revelation of God. Lake states that, "My nature
became so sensitised, that I could lay hands on any man,
or woman, and tell what organ was diseased, and to what
extent, and all about it. I tested it. I went into
hospitals where physicians could not diagnose a case,
touched a patient, and instantly I knew the organ that
was diseased, its extent, condition, and location."
Before obeying the call into full-time ministry, Lake
felt the need to dispose of his very successful business
interests. He sold everything, giving the money to God's
work, and embarked on full-time ministry with a heart
full of the fire of God. Soon afterward, when he was
ministering in a city in Northern Illinois, God spoke to
him clearly and distinctly: "Go to Indianapolis.
Prepare for winter campaign. Get a large hall. In the
Spring you will go to Africa." He began a fast, and
prayed fervently for God's will to be done in his life.
On the night of the sixth day of this fast the Spirit
said, `How long have you been praying to cast out
demons?' Lake replied, `Lord a long time.' And the Spirit
said, `From henceforth, thou shalt cast out demons.' An
opportunity to test this newly given anointing to cast
out demons came the following Sunday, when a violently
insane man was brought to Lake, who commanded the demon
to come out of him in Jesus' name. The man was instantly
delivered, and two days later was released from the
institution that he had been confined in.
After his experience, Lake abandoned the insurance
business in order to answer a long-standing call to
minister in South Africa. In April 1908, he led a large
missionary party to Johannesburg where he began to spread
the Pentecostal message throughout the nation. Coming
with him was his wife and seven children as well as
evangelists Thomas Hezmalhalch and J.C. Lehman. Before
the end of his first year in South Africa Lake's wife
died, some believed through malnutrition. Lake
nevertheless succeeded in founding two large and
influential Pentecostal churches in Southern Africa. The
Black branch eventually developed into the "Zion
Christian Church" (ZCC) which by 1993 claimed no
less than 6,000,000 members and, despite some doctrinal
and cultural variations, was recognised as the largest
Christian church in the nation. The white branch took the
name "Apostolic Faith Mission" (AFM) in 1910,
borrowed from the name of the famous mission on Azusa
Street. It was at this church, Smith Wigglesworth
prophesied the coming world wide harvest to young David
duPlessis.
Lake would often greet people as they came into the
crusade meetings. In South Africa, this posed a problem
because the power of God was so great upon him that
people would fall under it in the doorway when he shook
hands with them. There were times when people who came
within six feet of him would fall. To ensure people would
not be deceived into thinking he was pushing them, Lake
got into the habit of raising his hand about two feet
from them. David duPlessis described the healing crusades
of Dr. John G. Lake in Africa: "Every morning a
parade of dump trucks would come to the Crusade grounds
to pick up crutches, wheel chairs, stretchers and other
medical instruments literally by the ton load.... this
went on morning after morning, week after week for six
straight weeks uninterrupted."
Satan attacks
the work in Africa
Lake and his churches had one hundred and twenty-five men
out of on the field at one time. They were a very young
institution, not well known in the world. One day,
certain men in England and America began rumours about
Lake. Finances got so low under the awful attack, as
people withdrew their support, that they soon could not
even mail $10 a month to the workers. Then it got so bad
he could not even send them $2. Lake did not want to take
the responsibility of having men and their families on
the frontier under such conditions.
Staff at headquarters sold their clothes, jewellery,
pieces of furniture, and in one case their house to bring
those one hundred and twenty-five workers off the field
for a conference. One night in the progress of the
conference, Lake was invited by a committee to leave the
room for a minute or two. The conference wanted to have a
word by themselves. He stepped out to a restaurant for a
cup of coffee and returned soon after.
When John came back in, he found the chairs arranged in
an oval, with a little table at the end, and on the table
was the bread and wine. Old Father Van der Wall, speaking
for the company, said, "Brother Lake, during your
absence, we have come to a conclusion; we have made our
decision. We want you to serve the Lord's supper. We are
going back to our fields. We are going back if we have to
walk back. We are going back if we have to starve. We are
going back if our wives die. We are going back if our
children die. We are going back if we die ourselves. We
have but one request. If we die, we want you to come and
bury us." The next year he buried twelve men,
sixteen wives and children. Lake sadly recounted,
"There was not one of them, if they had had a few of
the things a white man needs to eat, but what they might
have lived.
.... That is the kind of consecration that established
Pentecost in South Africa. ..."
Life after
Africa
After his African missionary tour of 1908-1912, Lake
returned to the United States where he founded churches
and healing homes in Spokane, Washington and Portland,
Oregon before his death in 1935 Between 1913 and 1935
there were over 100,000 documented healings in these
places. In retrospect, the work of Lake was the most
influential and enduring of all the South African
pentecostal missions endeavours. According to Cecil
Rhodes, "Lake's message swept Africa. He has done
more toward South Africa's future peace than any other
man." Perhaps the highest accolade was given by no
less a personage than Mahatma Ghandi who said of Lake,
"Dr. Lake's teachings will eventually be accepted by
the entire world."
And thus was a mighty Revival begun in Africa, with many
healings, miracles and deliverances, which was to
profoundly impact the African continent for years to
come, even long after Lake was gone. The torch had also
been passed on to Elias Letwaba and others in Africa, and
the work went on there, in great power. Lake continued
his ministry in North America until his death in 1935,
and like Smith Wigglesworth, he fought an outstanding
fight and ran a great race, right to the very end.
References:
John G. Lake - Apostle to Africa, Gordon Lindsay
John G. Lake & the Dump Truck Parade, Ron Smith
Thesis John G Lake, Vinson Synan, Ph.D.
John G. Lake: A Man Without Compromise, Wilford Reidt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Andrew Strom & Robert Holmes.
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