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About the Book
"His Word is Now" by E.W. Kenyon is a Christian devotional book that emphasizes the power of God's word in the present moment. The author explores how believers can experience the reality of God's promises and miracles in their daily lives through faith and obedience to God's word. The book encourages readers to trust in God's faithfulness and promises for their lives today.
John G. Lake
John G. Lake was born in Ontario, Canada on March 18th, 1870. He was a family man, person of integrity, honor, a savvy businessman and a good father. If you knew him you wouldn’t otherwise know that he would soon become one of the greatest men of God the world would ever know. He had a genuine love for the Lord Jesus and was known by his friends as a man who dedicated himself to intimacy with The Lord. It was out of this place that he loved his wife, was a man of integrity and built a very successful business career. To give you perspective, by 1905 John G Lake was making $50,000 per year this sum would be like upwards of 1.3 million dollars per year annually today. John grew up in a family environment which was plagued with sickness and death, it is said that his earliest memories were of sickness, death and funerals. Lake was from a large family, he had 16 siblings, 8 of which tragically died of various diseases. It is no coincidence that “the man of healing” was tormented from a young age with death and disease. The enemy will often oppose destinies with radical circumstances through a distortion of the very thing that we are called to walk in. Lake Was exposed to dramatic healing when he visited John Alexander Dowie’s ministry and was, in prayer, instantly healed of a rheumatism which had caused his legs to grow incorrectly. Just two short years into their marriage, Jennie Lake was diagnosed with tuberculosis and heart disease. Over the next couple of years, the condition worsened and the doctors resigned to the fact that it was only a matter of time before she would die. John allowed this situation to provoke him into faith, after being exposed to such death and disease from a young age he had a hatred for such things. When he would read the word of God he saw that his Christian experience was less than the promised “power of the Holy Spirit”. As Jennie was on her deathbed and perhaps taking her final breaths Lake was overcome with anger over sickness and threw his bible against the fireplace mantle! When he went to pick up his bible it was opened to Acts chapter 10:38 which says: "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.” Lake had a surge of faith in that moment and sent a telegram to Dowie asking him to pray. Within an hour of Dowie praying she was fully healed! Not long after Jennie was healed, God began to speak to Lake about going into full time ministry. After some time of contemplation and seeking the Lord, God confirmed to John and Jennie separately that they were to move to South Africa to begin their life of ministry. John and Jennie then gave away all that they had, John forsook his mega-salary and they went on their way alongside some of their friends as ministry partners.
When they arrived in South Africa, they had no money. The problem was, that they needed at least $125 in order to clear customs. they nervously waited for their turn in line, rehearsing what they would say to the immigration officer They were in desperate need of a miracle, as the law read that they would be subject to deportation as quickly as they arrived in South Africa. Just as they were about the get to the front of the line, John felt a tap on his shoulder… A man was standing behind John and said “excuse me sir, can I have a word with you?” John nervously steps out of line at the man’s request and the man said “when I saw you and your family in line, the Lord told me to give you $200 cash”. The Lord provided just enough money for John and his family to enter the country. But their needs didn’t stop there. The Lakes and their crew had no ministry contact in Johannesburg. Soon after they cleared customs, a woman approached John’s friends and asked how many people are in their family, when they told her, she responded “no, not you” and went over to John and asked the same question. John replied “9” and she said “you’re the ones!” She went on to tell John that the Lord had spoken to her last night that she was to give her home to a family of 9 people who are coming from America to do God’s work. John, Jennie and their crew rejoiced in the dramatic provision of the Lord. Their time in South Africa was marked with waves of revival, there were multitudes saved, healed and delivered over the course of their 5 year ministry tour in South Africa.
By far my favorite story from this season of Revival takes place shortly after the Lake family and their team arrived in South Africa. A mighty plague was sweeping through the nation, the death count was climbing dramatically. So much so that there was a surplus of corpses who were victims of the plague and there was no one to bury the dead; if someone was to come in contact with a dead body they would most certainly become infected and their death sentence would immediately begin. John G. Lake astounded the medical officials because he, without any gloves or protective clothing began burying the dead. Physicians in a panic approached John and rebuked him for coming in contact with the dead, John boldly responded "when the disease comes in contact with my skin, you can watch it die". The doctors thought he was insane, so he challenged them to put a drop of the plague on his skin and watch it under a microscope. When they did so, John was right! The plague cells literally burned up the second they came in contact with his skin!
It is tough to understand what would happen towards the end of the Lake’s missionary journey in Africa. One day while John was away on a ministry trip, his wife Jennie suddenly passed away. The cause of her death was malnutrition and exhaustion. It wasn’t uncommon for the sick and broken to line the lawn of John G Lake’s home and Jennie, as an act of sacrifice, gave away all their food and any resources she could to the broken which frequented their house.
Although John and Jennie’s faith and sacrifice is commendable we must learn from this fatal mistake. John’s priorities clearly became altered as the demand for ministry raged on. He failed to guard and keep the very precious gift that God had given him, he allowed the demands of ministry to distract him from the needs of his family unto the tragic and preventable death of his wife. In the wake of Jennie’s death their children became bitter with John and subsequently God. Some of his children left the faith and the most recent accounts of them suggest that they died not following Christ. To this day some of John’s great grandchildren do not follow the Lord. John’s failure to obey the basic command of scripture for “husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church” and his preoccupation with the demands of ministry opened up the door for the enemy to ravage his family. After Jennie’s death John moved back to the United States and remarried. He would then pioneer his famous healing ministry based out of Spokane Washington. Unfortunately John did not learn his lesson the first time, in the midst of more flames of revival he continued to be a poor father, emotionally disconnected from his children.
when they hurt you with words
The spirit of the old adage “words will never harm me” is not the sentiment of the Scriptures. Words can hurt, even when directed from an unknown profile online. God made a world in which words are powerful. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). And as public discourse falls to new lows in the digital age, God has not left us without a guide for how to respond to the pain when we are persecuted with words. Leaf through the New Testament, and you’ll find verbal attacks on Jesus, his apostles, and his church on nearly every page. At times, these attacks escalate to physical persecution — the stoning of Stephen, the martyrdom of James, the imprisonments of Peter and Paul, the crucifixion of Christ — but what remains constant, and significant, is a torrent of verbal persecution against Jesus and his people. And verbal persecution is not less than persecution because it’s verbal. Have You Been Reviled? Slander  and revile  are two of the main words for verbal attack in the English New Testament, and both occur frequently. Early Christians were so accustomed to being spoken against that they developed a rich vocabulary (if you call it that) of being slandered, reviled, insulted, maligned, mocked, and spoken evil against (at least six different Greek verbs, along with several related nouns and adjectives). Of the English terms, revile  may be the least common in normal usage today. One dictionary defines it as “to criticize in an abusive or angrily insulting manner.” To take our cues from specific biblical texts, revile  can mean “to speak evil against” (Matthew 5:11; Mark 9:39; Acts 19:9; 23:4); it is the opposite of verbally honoring someone (Mark 7:10). Reviling is an attempt to injure with words (1 Peter 3:16). We see it at Jesus’s crucifixion, where “those who passed by derided him” with their words, and the chief priests, scribes, and elders “mocked him,” and “the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled  him in the same way” (Matthew 27:39–44). But Jesus not only endured it; he prepared us for it as well. He and his apostles, and the early church, model for us how to receive and respond to slander and reviling. 1. Expect the world to say the worst. Amid this rich vocabulary of verbal attack, the New Testament sends no mixed signals as to whether Christians will be maligned. We will. Jews and Gentiles together bombarded Jesus and his disciples with verbal attacks. Physical persecution came and went, but reviling remained constant. When Paul arrived in Rome, the Jews reported to him, about Christianity, “With regard to this sect we know that everywhere it is spoken against” (Acts 28:22). For Christians, being reviled is not a matter of if  but when : “when they speak against you” (1 Peter 2:12). Unbelievers “are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery” — so what do they do? “They malign you” (1 Peter 4:4). After all, should we not expect the world, under the power of the devil (1 John 5:19; Ephesians 2:2), to lie about us? The Greek for devil ( diabolos ) actually means slanderer (1 Timothy 3:11; Titus 2:3). As Jesus said to his revilers in John 8:44, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. . . . When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” 2. Consider the cause. We should not assume that all verbal opposition we receive is good. Being reviled for Jesus’s sake and for his gospel is one thing; being reviled for our own folly and sin is another (1 Peter 3:17; 4:15–16). As far as it depends on us, we want to “give the adversary no occasion for slander” (1 Timothy 5:14). Slander itself is no win for the church. We want to do what we can, within reason and without compromise, to keep God’s name and word and teaching from reviling (1 Timothy 6:1; Titus 2:5). “Do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil” (Romans 14:16). But when the world speaks evil against us because of Jesus, we embrace it. “If you are insulted for the name of Christ , you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Peter 4:14). 3. Do not revile in return. Christ’s calling to his church is crystal clear: Do not respond in kind. Do not stoop to the level of your revilers. “Keep your conduct honorable” (1 Peter 2:12). “Speak evil of no one” (Titus 3:2), including those who have spoken evil of you. Do not become a verbal vigilante, but “entrust yourself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23). And as his redeemed, taste the joy of walking in his steps: “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return” (1 Peter 2:23). Paul took up the same mantle: “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat” (1 Corinthians 4:12–13). So also Peter charges us to respond “with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame” (1 Peter 3:15–16). When we do not “revile in return,” we put our revilers to shame. Christians do not respond in kind. We lose the battle, and undermine our commission, when we let revilers make us into revilers. And it’s not just a matter of strategy, but of spiritual life and death. “Revilers,” 1 Corinthians 6:10 warns, “will not inherit the kingdom of God,” and Christians are instructed “not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is . . . a reviler” (1 Corinthians 5:11). Christ expects, even demands, that our speech be different from the world’s, even when we respond to the world’s mean words. 4. Leap for joy. Leap for joy? That might seem way over the top. Can’t we just take our cues from the apostles in Acts 5:41? “They left the presence of the council, rejoicing  that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.” Amen, rejoice. Yes. Jesus’s own words in the Sermon on the Mount guide us: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad , for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11–12). But Luke 6:22–23 doesn’t leave it at simply rejoicing: “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy , for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.” Whether you’re just rejoicing in God deep down, or finding the emotional wherewithal, in the Spirit, to “leap for joy,” the point is clear: When others dishonor you, and exclude you, and utter all manner of evil against you, and even spurn your name as evil — and that on Jesus’s account , not on the account of your own folly — this is not new, and you are not alone (“so their fathers did to the prophets”). You have a great cause for joy. Their reviling you for his sake  means you are with him! And you will know him more as you share in the verbal persecution he endured (Philippians 3:10). 5. On the contrary, bless. There is one more shocking possibility for Christians, even more astounding than leaping for joy: “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless , for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing” (1 Peter 3:9). This indeed is the spirit of Christ, and gives the most striking testimony of the Spirit of Christ at work in us. The grace and power of God not only enable us to expect and evaluate reviling, and not respond in kind but even rejoice, but also repay reviling with blessing . This is Christlikeness. This is Christian maturity (Matthew 5:48). This reflects the magnanimous heart of our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:45). This is the enemy-love to which Jesus not only calls us but works in us by his Spirit. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). In Christ, we have found ourselves blessed when we deserved to be cursed. We have come to know a Father who does not revile those who humbly seek him (James 1:5). When reviled, we now have the opportunity to bless undeserving revilers, just as we have been blessed from above — and will be further blessed for doing so (“that you may obtain a blessing,” 1 Peter 3:9). The swelling ocean of reviling in our day is not just an obstacle to be endured. It is an opportunity for gospel advance — and for deeper joy.
