I love to tell this story because it is the story of a hungry man. A short time after I went to South Africa and God had begun to work very marvelously in the city of Johannesburg, a butcher who lived in the suburbs was advised by his physicians that he had developed such a tubercular state he might not live more than nine months.

He wanted to make provision that his family would be cared for after he was gone, so he bought a farm and undertook to develop it that when he died his family would have a means of existence.

One day he received a letter from friends at Johannesburg telling of the coming of what they spoke of as "the American brethren," and of the wonderful things that were taking place.

Of how So-and-so, a terrible drunkard had been converted; of his niece who had been an invalid in a wheelchair for five years had been healed of God; how one of his other relatives had been baptized in the Holy Ghost and was speaking in tongues; other friends and neighbors had been baptized and healed, of the powerful change that had come in the community, and all the marvels a vigorous work for God produces.

Dan Von Vuuren took the letter, crawled under an African thorn tree. He spread the letter out before God, and began to discuss it with the Lord.

He said, "God in heaven, if You could come to Mr. So-and-so, a drunkard and deliver him from his sin and save his soul and put the joy of God in him; if You could come to this niece of mine, save her soul and heal her body and send her out to be a blessing instead of a weight and burden upon her friends; if You could come to So-and-so and they were baptized in the Holy Ghost and speak in tongues; Lord if you can do these things at Johannesburg, You can do something for me too."

And he knelt down, put his face to the ground, and cried to God that God would do something for him. And don't forget it, friends, I have a conviction that that morning Dan Von Vuuren was so stirred by reading that letter that his desire to be made whole got bigger than anything else in his consciousness.

His heart reached for God, and bless God, that morning his prayer went through heaven and God came down into his life. In ten minutes he took all the breath he wanted; the pain was gone, the tuberculosis had disappeared, he was a whole man.

But that was not all. He not only received a great physical healing, but God had literally come in and taken possession of the man's life until he did not understand himself anymore.

In telling me he said, "Brother, a new prayer from heaven was born in my spirit. I had prayed for my wife's salvation for eighteen years, but I could never pray through. But that morning I prayed through. It was all done when I got to the house. She stood and looked at me for two minutes, until it dawned in her soul that I was gloriously healed of God. She never asked a question as to how it took place, but fell on her knees, threw her hands up to heaven, and said, 'Pray for me, Dan, for God's sake pray for me. I must find God today,' and God came to that soul."

He had eleven children, splendid young folks. The mother and he went to praying and inside of a week the whole household of thirteen had been baptized in the Holy Ghost. He went to his brother's farm, told the wonder of what God had done, prayed through and in a little while 19 families were baptized in the Holy Ghost.

God so filled his life with His glory that one morning that God said to him, "Go to Pretoria. I am going to send you to the different members of Parliament." He was admitted into the presence of Premier Louis Botha.

Botha told me about it afterwards. He said, "Lake, I had known Von Vuuren from the time he was a boy. I had known him as a reckless, rollicking fellow. But that man came into my office and stood 10 feet from my desk. I looked up, and before he commenced to speak I began to shake and rattle in my chair. I knelt down, I had to put my head under the desk and cry out to God. Why he looked like God. He talked like God. He had the majesty of God. He was superhumanly wonderful."

Then he went to the office of the Secretary of State, then to the Secretary of the Treasury. Almost the same thing took place in every instance.

For eighteen days God kept him going from this one to that one; lawyers, judges and officials in the land, until every high official in the land knew there was a God and a Christ and a Savior, and a Baptism of the Holy Ghost, because Dan Von Vuuren had really hungered after God.

"Blessed are they which do hunger."

Source: John G. Lake: His Life, His Sermons, His Boldness of Faith Excerpt permission granted by Kenneth Copeland Publications