The Bible and Life: South Africa

Tuesday, April 7, 2026

Elias Letwaba

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

One day I sat talking to Father Seymour (William J. Seymour) in Los Angeles. I told him about the following incident in the life of Elias Letwaba, one of our native preachers in South Africa:

I went to his house one day in the country, and his wife said, "He is not home. A little baby is hurt, and he is praying for it."

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So I went over to the native hut, got down on my knees, and crawled inside. I saw Letwaba kneeling in a corner by the child. I said, "Letwaba, it is me. What is the matter with the child?"

He told me the mother had been carrying it on her back in a blanket as natives carry their children, and it fell out. He said, "I think it hurt its neck."

I examined the baby and saw that its neck was broken. It would turn from side to side like the neck of a doll. "Why, Letwaba, the baby's neck is broken!" I did not have faith for a broken neck, but poor old Letwaba did not know the difference. I saw that he did not understand. He discerned the spirit of doubt in my soul, and I said to myself, I am not going to interfere with his faith. He will just feel the doubt generated by all the old traditional things I have learned, so I will go outside.

I went to another hut and kept on praying. I lay own at 1 a.m. At 3 o'clock Letwaba came in.

I said, "Well, Letwaba, how about the baby?" He looked at me, so lovingly and sweetly, and said, "Why, brother, the baby is all well. Jesus do heal the baby."

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I said, "The baby is well! Letwaba, take me to the baby at once." So we went to the baby. I took the little black thing on my arm and came out of the hut praying: "Lord, take every cursed thing out of my soul that keeps me from believing the Lord Jesus Christ." As I related the incident to Mr. Seymour, he shouted, "Praise God, brother! That is not healing, it is life!"

_ Letwaba was John G Lakes Associate.

- John G Lake ( Adventures in God )

Roberts Liardon

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William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

Apostolic Church History Podcast

Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Witch Doctors!

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

John G. Lake said years ago.

Almost all the denominations had missionaries in South Africa, and John Lake was invited to go to Africa to visit a group of these missionaries. These missionaries were greatly disturbed because they’d been unsuccessful in dealing with the witch doctors’ witchcraft power. Many of the missionaries were ready to give up in despair.

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They said, “What are we going to do? These witch doctors exercise great power.” And the witch doctors did do phenomenal, miraculous things. So John Lake said to the missionaries. “Well, why don’t you cast the devil out of them?” (Lake was just that kind of person; he was very forthright.)

One Christian missionary replied half-jokingly, “Cast the devil out of them? Why, they’ll cast the devil out of you!”

In other words, this missionary wasn’t saying that Lake had a devil in him; he was saying the witch doctors had more power than Lake. Lake said, “They don’t have more power than I do, because greater is He that’s in me than he that’s in the world!” (1 John 4:4).

By invitation, Lake would go to worldwide spiritist or spiritualist meetings, where thousands of people would be in attendance. Lake would say, “I’ll come if you’ll give me two hours to address the people.” Then he’d go to those occult meetings and talk about the power of God for two hours!

Lake would say, “You people are acquainted with phenomenal spirit activities in the spirit realm. Let’s see you do a bigger miracle than I can do.” He was bold about it, bless God, because he knew the Greater One —the Holy Ghost — was in him! The Greater One is greater than all the devils and demons put together.

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Lake once told about being in Africa in the bush country where a chieftain said to him, “I heard a witch doctor say he was going to put a curse on another chieftain on Sunday and that the chieftain would die.”

So Lake rode on horseback as fast as he could to reach that chieftain by Sunday, the day the witch doctor had said he was going to put the curse on him. It took Lake two days to reach the chieftain.

It was a custom with these chieftains to go out and look their flocks over. It was Sunday entertainment with them to go out and count their cows.

Lake said, “I rode out to see the flock with this chieftain who was going to be cursed by the witch doctor. And suddenly, he began to get hot all over.” (The witch doctor, miles away, had said: “On Sunday I’m gonna burn him up.”)

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Well, the chieftain began to get warm, then hot, and he began taking his clothes off to try to cool down. Then, suddenly, the chieftain sort of passed out and fell off of his horse. Lake, who knew something about science and medicine, said, “From all observation, it looked like the chieftain was about to have a stroke. His face was red all over.” Lake continued, “I just wanted to see if that witch doctor over there from many miles away could actually put a curse on someone. Then I saw that the attack had gone far enough.

There was no doubt in my mind that the chieftain would die. So I grabbed hold of him and said, ‘In the Name of Jesus Christ, I break this thing!’” In the Name of Jesus Christ, Lake commanded the devil and all his cohorts to leave, and the man rose up well and all right!

- Kenneth E Hagin (The Healing Anointing)

Roberts Liardon