If there was ever a man who walked in the revelation of "God in man," it was John G. Lake. A man of purpose, vision, strength and character, his one goal in life was to bring the fullness of God to every person. He often said that the secret of heaven's power was not in the doing, but in the being. He believed that Spirit-filled Christians should enjoy the same type of ministry Jesus did while living on earth, and that this reality could only be accomplished by seeing themselves as God saw them. John G. Lake lived his life and

fulfilled his ministry in the earth with this type of spiritual understanding. If we would just grasp the reality of our position through Jesus Christ, as Lake did, every nation would ring with the praises of God.

• was responsible for raising over 1,000,000 converts, 625 churches and 1,250 preachers in five years of ministry.
  
• because of his resurrection revelation, had a deadly plague germ die in his hand, yet at the start of his ministry thought one could only be healed in Dr. Dowie's Healing Home.
  
• had such an incredible healing ministry, that according to statistics, the U.S. Government declared his city, Spokane, Washington, to be the healthiest city in America.
  

respects rivaled 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. The following is a condensed account of the spiritual hunger and preparation that Lake was taken through by God, near the beginning of the most anointed period of his ministry. (Taken from the book, 'John G. Lake - Apostle to Africa', compiled by Gordon Lindsay, and told in Lake's own words):
"Eight years passed after God revealed Jesus the Healer to me. I had been practicing the ministry of healing. During that eight years every answer to prayer, every miraculous

touch of God, every response of my own soul to the Spirit had created within me 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... Shortly after my entrance into the ministry of healing, while attending a service where the necessity for the Baptism of the Spirit was presented, as I knelt in prayer and reconsecration to God, an anointing of the Spirit came upon me. Waves of Holy Glory passed through my being, and I was lifted into a new realm of God's presence and power. After this, answers to prayer were frequent and miracles of healing occurred from time to time. I felt myself on the borderland of a great spiritual realm, but was unable to enter in fully, so my nature was not satisfied with the attainment..." (Pg 16).
"Hundreds, and hundreds of people were healed by the power of God during these ten years. But at the end of that 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. But my friends would say, 'Mr. Lake, you have a beautiful Baptism of the Holy Ghost.' Yes, it was nice as far as it went, but it was not answering the cry of my heart. I was growing up into a larger understanding of God, and my own soul's need. My soul was demanding a greater entrance into God, His love, Presence, and Power. And then one day an old man strolled into my office, sat down, and in the next half hour, he revealed more of the knowledge of God to my soul than I had ever known before. When he left I said, '... God, if that is what the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with tongues does, I am going to possess it.' Oh the wonder of God, that was then revealed to my heart!..."
"Finally I was led to set aside certain hours of the day that I dedicated to God, as times of meditation, and prayer. Thus a number of months passed, until one morning as I knelt praying, the Spirit of the Lord spoke within my spirit, and said, "Be patient until autumn." My heart rejoiced in this encouragement and I continued my practice of meditation and prayer as formerly. It became easy for me to detach myself from the course of life, so that while my hands and mind were engaged in the common affairs of every day, my spirit maintained its attitude of communion with God... I said, 'God, if you will baptize 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.'
"I prayed for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit for nine months, and if a man ever prayed honestly, and sincerely in the faith, I did. Finally one day I was ready to throw up my hands, and quit. I said, 'Lord, it may be for others, but it is not for me. You just cannot give it to me.' I did not blame God. One night a gentleman by the name of Pierce said, 'Mr. Lake, I have been wishing for a long time you would come over, and we would spend a night in prayer together. We have been praying for the Baptism for a whole year and there is not one of us baptized yet. Brother, I do not believe that you are either, so we can pray for one another." I was so hungry to pray, so I went with all intentions of praying for the rest, but I had not been praying five minutes until the light of God began to shine around me, I found myself in a center of an arc of light ten feet in diameter, the whitest light in all the universe. So white! Oh how it spoke of purity. The remembrance of that whiteness, that wonderful whiteness, has been the ideal that has stood before my soul, of the purity of the nature of God ever since.
"Then a Voice began to talk to me out of that light. There was no form. And 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