06/01/2026
John G. Lake was a missionary to South Africa from 1908 to 1913. While there, a horrific bubonic plague broke out. John Lake was caring for the sick and burying the dead. Britain sent a ship of medical supplies and a corps of doctors to him. The doctors asked Lake how he had protected himself from the deadly plague. His answer was, “I believe ‘the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death (Rom.8:2).’
As long as I walk in the light of that law [of the Spirit of life], no germ will attach itself to me.” In scriptural context, this verse speaks of Jesus’ work of salvation bringing the life of the Spirit of God to us and freeing us from “the law of sin” or, in other words, from everything evil that came into the world through sin, such as disease, poverty, addictions, spiritual death, and early physical death.
The doctors were unconvinced, so Lake insisted they do a microscopic experiment on him. Lake showed them that if one of them took bubonic plague foam from the lungs of a dead person and put it under a microscope, the disease cells would still live. If they put the foam in Lake’s hand, and then looked at it under the microscope, they saw that all of the disease cell’s instantly died, proving what Lake said to be true.
Credit: Jack Welch
