grew up with a strange digestive disease, like many in his family, nearly killed him
suffered for 9 years with the disease and the treatments
8 of his siblings died from this disease
At 16 moved to Michigan with his family
He received Jesus as his Lord and Savior at Salvation Army Meeting and joined the Methodist Church
The experience of seeing so much sickness and death as a child made him realize that sickness was evil
It sparked in him a rare and intense desire for the power of God
Still sickness and death was with him
“Finally, he could wait no longer—something had to be done. And it looked like it would be up to him to do it. He later wrote, “There was nobody to pray for me…As I sat alone, I said, “Lord, I am finished with the world and the flesh, with the doctor and with the devil. From today, I lean on the arm of God.””1
The digestive disease was gone
Rheumatism was still with him and caused his legs to grow “out of shape”
His church couldn’t help him, instead his pastor told him that his “sickness” was glorifying God.
How many churches do people experience this same, twisted, powerless dribble?
This is the TRUE EPIDEMIC
“What Lake really wanted was another miracle. So again, his heart stretched toward God. As he did, a flash of truth pierced the deception of his mind, and in the light of God’s Word, Lake caught a glimpse of God’s will. “I discovered that (disease) was not the will of God at all, but the will of the dirty, crooked-legged devil that wanted to make me like himself.”2
Lake went to Chicago to John Alexander Dowie’s Divine Healing Home
“There in Chicago, the power of God surged through Lake’s body and straightened his legs. Lake caught hold of the power of God and the fact that Christianity is “a strong man’s gospel.”
Lake left Chicago healed and with a bold gospel that declared ”heailing for everyone”
Lake had a lot of formal education in the area of chemistry and electricity.
He changed his studies and became a Methodist minister
His wife of 5 years, Jennie, was diagnosed with tuberculosis and they moved back to Michigan
In Michigan, he had sickness all about him, an invalid brother, a sister dying from breast cancer, a sister slowly bleeding to death, and now his wife.
Lake took these family members 1 by 1 to Dowie’s Healing Home in Chicago for their healing.
The sister with the issue of blood was healed at home through prayer by Dowie.
Jennie was different, because of her circumstances he didn’t take her to Chicago.
Again his church did not help but instead tried to prepare him for her death.
John threw his Bible on the table in frustration and it opened to Acts 10:38
Acts 10:38 MEV how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.
“There it was—Lake saw it! The light of the Word shone brightly into his soul, revealing the truth and the power: Jesus is the Healer and Satan is the oppressor. Satan was the one who had been dousing Lake and his family with oppression and sorrow, sickness and death. Satan was the problem—Jesus was the solution. It was so clear!”3
“In the past, though Lake clearly saw that sickness, disease and death were obviously not from God, he still had not fully understood that behind all these tragedies was the devil. And just as importantly, he saw that God was with him. God was not just with Jesus, John Dowie and other famous healing evangelists and preachers, but God—and His power—was with John Lake. John Lake could pray and the sick would recover. He had the same faith and the same Holy Spirit available to him.”4
“Well, that changed everything. He had stumbled onto a powered web of boldness that was about to explode.”5
With his new found understanding, Lake set an appointment with God for Jennie’s healing…9:30 a.m., April 28, 1898. He called and telegraphed friends to pray at the appointed time because that was when he would lay his hands on Jennie for her healing.
They did, Lake did, and Jennie was healed.
Because John Lake had such traumatic experiences with sickness and death as a child, his focus, his hunger for the Lord, was directed to healing and how it worked.
Now, mind you, this all happened without the Baptism in the Spirit.
In October of 1907 after having fasted and prayed for this baptism off and on for 9 months, John heard the Lord say to him, “I have heard your prayers, I have seen your tears. You are now baptized in the Holy Spirit.” That’s when the power came—a power like never before. Lake was still sitting in the chair when a downpour of electrical-like currents surged through his body, causing him to convulse nearly out of control. And moments later, he began speaking in tongues.”6
The Holy Spirit, through John, performed so many miracles, so many healings.
Here are some of the examples of what Lake experienced with the Holy Spirit:
“My nature became so sensitized that I could lay my hands on any man or woman and tell what organ was diseased, and to what extent.” Lake tested this new wonder by going to hospitals and touching patients to determine what their ailments were. And to make it even more challenging, most of them were cases that even the physicians could not diagnose. Nevertheless, time after time, Lake’s diagnoses were proven to be correct.
But for him personally, the ultimate test was to demonstrate before the eyes of medical science just how the power of God affected the human body. So at one pointy, Lake submitted himself to a series of experiments at a well-known research clinic. It was because of his formal education in science and medicine that the was even allowed access to such clinics. During one of these experiments Lake told the professors, “Gentlemen, go down in your hospital and bring back a man who has inflammation in the bone. Take your instrument (a powerful X-ray machine with microscopic attachments) and attach it to his leg. Leave enough space to get my hand on his leg.” Lake reported that “When the instrument was ready, I put my hand on the man’s shin and prayed, “God, kill the devilish disease by Your power. Let the Spirit move in him; let It live in him.”
“Then I asked, “Gentlemen, what is taking place?” “They replied, “Every cell is responding.”” The scientists were astounded at what they saw. For, as best as they could tell, they were witnessing some sore of re-creative process that was taking place in the leg of a dying man—and it was happening right there under their own microscope! 7
The next miracle I want to discuss happened in Africa in 1910.
Read from God’s Generals pages 182-183.
Two things that have impacted me through learning about his ministry is:
Sickness, disease, and death had plagued him in life and this is what drove his hunger for knowing and understanding healing. He developed such a faith in God in the area of healing that the Holy Spirit was able to perform so many documented healings through him in front of medical personnel.
His belief that disease couldn’t take him, summed up in this statement, “Brother, if is the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. I believe that just as long as I keep my soul in contact with the living God so that His Spirit is flowing into my soul and body, that no germ will ever attach itself to me, for the Spirit of God will kill it.”8
For me, one thing that I intend to apply to my life is Lake’s simple, child-like faith and belief that what God says He will do, HE WILL DO. There’s simply nothing else that He could do, He must perform it.
John G. Lake, His Life, His Sermons, His Boldness of Faith, page xiv ↩
John G. Lake, His Life, His Sermons, His Boldness of Faith, page xiv ↩
John G. Lake, His Life, His Sermons, His Boldness of Faith, page xvii ↩
John G. Lake, His Life, His Sermons, His Boldness of Faith, page xvii, xviii. ↩
John G. Lake, His Life, His Sermons, His Boldness of Faith, page xviii ↩
John G. Lake, His Life, His Sermons, His Boldness of Faith, page xxi ↩
John G. Lake, His Life, His Sermons, His Boldness of Faith, page xxi, xxii ↩
