John G. Lake
We would also like to remember a few great men and women of God who have gone on before us and who we were very blessed to be able to quote and cite in “A Heart After God”…Corrie ten Boom, John G. Lake, and Smith Wigglesworth.
John Graham Lake was a mighty man of God who loved God deeply and was known for his uncompromising faith. John G. Lake was born in 1870, in Ontario, Canada. He grew up in a large family, one of 16 children. When he was twenty-one years old he became a Methodist minister, but later decided not to pursue that ministry and went into business, where he became very successful.
“Early in his career, Lake’s wife, whom he deeply loved, fell ill with a life threatening illness. Having a lifetime of suffering and bereavement behind him, he refused to accept this. He took the radical step of taking his brother who had been an invalid for 22 years to Chicago to see John Alexander Dowie. In a matter of just moments after healing ministers laid their hands on him, he was healed—he got up and walked out. Next, the Lakes took their 34-year-old sister who was dying from breast cancer. She had been operated on five times and had to be carried on a stretcher. She too was healed. Dowie and Lake then prayed for another sister who was bleeding to death, and she too lived. That left only Jennie. Yes, healing was coming, but this time, Lake decided it would be different. This time, he was setting the time for it. The time—9:30 a.m., April 28, 1898. Lake called and telegraphed friends, instructing them to pray at the appointed time, because at precisely 9:30 a.m., he would lay his hands on his wife and she would be healed. It was that simple. She was healed at that time, crying with a voice as big as her husband’s boldness that startled her husband, — ‘Praise God! I am healed!’” (John G. Lake-Wikipedia-The Free Encyclopedia)
“Lake received a mighty revelation of Divine healing while studying under the elder Dowie. Later he was filled with the Holy Spirit and attended the Azusa Street meetings for a period of time before ultimately moving to South Africa with his young family and an associate. Lake’s ministry in South Africa brought revival to that nation. Hundreds of thousands were healed under his ministry there. There was a tremendous awareness of the supernatural in his ministry. He returned to the United States around 1912 where he remained a highly successful evangelist. He began his famous Healing Rooms in Spokane, Washington.” (John G. Lake-Empowering Faith Ministries http://www.empowering-faithministries.org/john-g-lake.html)
John G. Lake “started more then 100 churches in South Africa and witnessed 100,000 confirmed and documented healings in the great “Healing Rooms” in Spokane, Washington.” (“John G. Lake A Man Without Compromise” written by his Son-In-Law, Wilford Reidt)
“The entire Bible is written about people that were extraordinary or unusually excellent and who deserve our attention because of being wonderfully different, and the Bible is also written about people who were the complete opposite, people who did everything, but bring glory to God. I believe God did that purposely so that we could study those people’s lives and have an example on how to live and how not to live. Out of the extraordinary men and women that the Bible talks about, they all have four things in common.
The first is that they all had their faults, from adultery, like David, to pride like Joseph. We all fall short of the glory of God-we all sin.
The second is that they all went through trials as God perfected them, matured them, and refined them; like Moses in the desert, to Jonah in the belly of the fish. These men and women were no different than any other human in the world in the fact that they still had sin in their lives and they still needed to be made more mature in God so that God could trust them with His works…
The third thing that these men and women have in common is that the men and women loved God, no matter their faults, with their whole hearts. They were all willing to give up everything for the God that they loved. Including, disobeying a law that went against God, knowing that the punishment was that they would be thrown into a fire or into a den of lions…
And the forth reason is, that because these people allowed God to refine them, and because of their great love for God, God was then able to use them in incredible ways to glorify Him. Using them to save entire nations, to heal the sick, and raise the dead. And the blessings on these people’s lives were more than most can imagine.” (Taken from “A Heart After God” by Erin Wolff Chapter 1 Jacob Vs. Esau Desire God More Than All Things)
We can learn from the people mentioned in the Bible and we can also learn from men and women who have lived since the days of the Bible; the men and women of faith who, although have had and do have their faults, have loved God with their whole hearts and have been used greatly by God. They have been used not only because of their great love for God, but also because of their hunger and their willingness. “…God is not a respecter of persons.” Acts 10:34 KJV God wants to do the very same things in your life and through your life that He did in the lives of the men and women in the Bible and also since that time.
Look to God for who He is, not to man!