The 13th chapter of Acts tells us the story of the ordination and sending forth of the Apostle Paul. Paul never writes of himself as an apostle until after the 13th chapter of Acts. He had been an evangelist and teacher for thirteen years when the 13th chapter of Acts was written, and the ordination took place that is recorded there. Men who have a real call are not afraid of apprenticeships.

There is a “growing up” in experience in ministry. When Paul started out in ministry he was definitely called of God and was assured of God through Ananias that it would not be an easy service but a terrific one: for God said to Ananias:

“Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth … he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Acts 9:11,15-16).

Paul…was not going to live in a holy ecstasy and wear a beautiful halo, and have a heavenly time and ride in a limousine. He was going to have a drastic time, a desperate struggle, a terrific experience. And no man in biblical history ever had more dreadful things to endure than the Apostle Paul. He gives a list in his letter to the Corinthians of the things he had endured:

“Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:24-27).

They stripped him of his clothing, and the executioner lashed him with an awful scourge, until bleeding and lacerated and broken, he fell helpless, and unconscious and insensible; then they doused him with a bucket of salt water to keep the maggots off, and threw him into a cell to recover. That was the price of apostleship. That was the price of the call of God and His service. But God said, “bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15). He qualified as God’s messenger. Beloved, we have lost the character of consecration here manifested. God is trying to restore it in our day. He has not been able to make much progress with the average preacher on that line. “Mrs. So-and-so said so-and-so, and I am just not going to take it.” That is the kind of preacher with another kind of call, not the heaven call, not the God call, not the death call if necessary. That is not the kind the Apostle Paul had.

Do you want to know why God poured out His Spirit in South Africa like He did nowhere else in the world? This example will illustrate. We had one hundred and twenty- five men out on the field at one time. We were a very young institution; were not known in the world. Our finances got so low that there came a time I could not even mail to these workers at the end of the month a ten dollar bill. It got so I could not send them $2. The situation was desperate. What was I to do? Under these circumstances I did not want to take the responsibility of leaving men and their families on the frontier without real knowledge of what the conditions were.

Some of us at headquarters sold our clothes, sold certain pieces of furniture out of the house, sold anything we could sell, to bring those hundred and twenty-five workers off the field for a conference.

One night in the progress of the conference I was invited by a committee to leave the room for a minute or two. So I stepped out to a restaurant for a cup of coffee, and came back. When I came in, Old Father Van de 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 I buried twelve men, 16 wives and 9 children.

John G. Lake ( 1900’s)
Edited By Betty Mckinney
Contributed by Jim Brown- Dahlonega, Ga.
(TO BE CONTINUED)