It was recorded in the Bible that
Jesus once said:
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses
his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” – Mark 8: 36-37 NKJV
“人就是赚得全世界，赔上自己的生命，有什么益处呢？人还能拿什么换生命呢？” – 马可福音8：36-37 CUVMPS
And it was these very same verses
from the Bible that became the driving force behind one of the greatest
indigenous missionaries and revival evangelists the Middle Kingdom and its
global diaspora has ever known.
To churches in the Chinese-speaking
world, the name John Sung (宋尚节, Sòng Shàngjié) (1901 – 1944)
is indeed no stranger at all. Sung was born into a Methodist Christian family
on September 27, 1901 in a small village near Putian (莆田, Pútián), situated in the
province of Fujian (福建, Fújiàn) which was then under
the rule of the Qing Dynasty. He was raised by his devout parents, in which his
father was the pastor of a rural Methodist church established by American
missionaries. Sung himself was also actively involved in church activities,
sometimes even replacing his father in giving sermons whenever the latter was
too busy or ill, consequently earning himself the moniker of ‘Little Pastor’ (小牧师, Xiǎo
mùshī).
Sung completed his primary and
secondary education in missionary schools in China, after which he was sent to
America to pursue further studies in 1920. He enrolled at Ohio Wesleyan
University, graduating three years later with a Bachelor of Science degree. He
thereafter enrolled at the Ohio State University, graduating with a Master’s
degree in Chemistry and subsequently a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in
1926, earning many high academic honours along the way despite working
full-time in menial jobs at times in order to support his living.
His sterling academic achievements
opened many opportunities for him including lucrative offers from Peking
University and a research fellowship in Germany, but he chose to pursue studies
in theology at the Union Theological Seminary in New York. Shortly after
beginning his studies there, he was gradually influenced by the liberal
theologies expounded by the lecturers in the seminary, which in the course of
time started to distress him and caused him to doubt all that he had learnt
from his father and church ministry back home. It was also during this time
when he did a lot of his own reading in matters pertaining to history and
worldly philosophy, which only served to further push him into backsliding and
doubting his understanding of the Bible.
Under the liberal theologies
expounded in the seminary, Sung was exposed to various theories that challenged
the very core of Christian beliefs. Every tenet of Christianity was
rationalized or dismissed, including the authority of the Bible, the virgin birth
and bodily resurrection of Jesus, the existence of miracles, the existence of
heaven and hell, and the power of prayer. In his own words, the seminary soon
became a cemetery to his troubled soul, in which his soul “was lost in a desert
country. I could not eat or sleep. My faith was like a storm-tossed ship
without captain or compass. My heart was filled with misery and sadness.”
Despite all these, Sung started
attending a series of evangelistic meetings in December 1926 to January 1927, in
which he felt that he could sense a power not ordinarily present in normal
church services, much less at his seminary’s chapel hour. Nonetheless, it was
not until February 10, 1927 that he experienced an amazing renewal in his faith
during a time of prayer. He described this day as such:
“This was my spiritual birthday! Although I already believed in Jesus
since my early childhood days, this new experience is a life changing one for
me…The Holy Spirit poured onto me, just like water, on top of my head. The Holy
Spirit continuously poured onto me wave after wave.” – A Biography of John Sung by Leslie T. Lyall
His spiritual renewal brought about
a complete change in his life. He began to preach the gospel fervently to his
lecturers and peers in the seminary, calling them back to the truth of the
Bible and warning them of eternal punishment if they did not repent. This, of
course, did not go down well with many of them who were heavily influenced by
an understanding of Christianity based on liberal theology. The seminary
authorities reckoned that he had become insane, and with the approval of a
psychiatrist, he was sent to the Bloomingdale Mental Asylum in New York, where
he was confined for 193 days.
Conditions in the asylum were
undoubtedly less than comfortable, and being surrounded by psychiatric patients
put Sung through great mental torture. This, however, did not discourage him,
and he kept himself sane by reading the Bible over and over again, and engaging
in frequent prayer. He read the Bible from cover to cover about 40 times during
the entire duration in the asylum, and as a result became very familiar with
its contents. Sung would later go on to describe the asylum as his true
seminary, and the period of confinement as a preparatory period from God for
his lifelong ministry.
Dr. Rollin Walker, an American
missionary and friend to Sung, was shocked to discover what had happened to the
‘Little Pastor’ upon his return from Europe, and he immediately demanded his
release. A letter written by Sung to the Chinese ambassador in the U.S. also
prompted an inquiry which led to his release into Dr. Walker’s care. Sung then
spent a month with the missionary and his family in Cincinnati before returning
to China.
Finally, in November 1927, Sung made
his journey back to his homeland. While at sea, he decided to throw away all
his academic awards into the sea, keeping only his doctorate diploma as
evidence for his father of having completed his academic pursuits. This he did
to indicate his full commitment to the gospel and the ministry to which he has
been called to serve in.
Shortly after his return to China,
he started teaching chemistry and the Bible at the Methodist Christian High
School in Fujian for a year in order to earn some money to help put his younger
brother through college. Around this time, he was also married to Jean Yu (余锦华, Yú
Jĭnhuá), and was actively involved in preaching and teaching in the Minnan
(闽南, Mĭnnán)
region, especially in rural churches, at the request of the Methodist bishop of
the region. In 1930, he joined the Bethel Bible School of Shanghai (上海, Shànghaĭ),
and it was here where he met a few other graduates from the school to form the
Bethel Evangelistic Band (伯特利布道团, Bótèlì Bùdàotuán). Together,
he and his band travelled all over China to preach and sing the gospel, which
impacted the lives of many and led thousands to the knowledge of Christ.
John Sung (standing, first from left) with the Bethel Evangelistic Band
After three years serving in the
band, it was finally dissolved in 1933 and Sung then became an independent
itinerant revivalist and evangelist. For the next 8 years of his life, he devoted
his life to travelling all over the Chinese-speaking world to preach and
evangelize. His ministry brought him not only to many different parts of
mainland China, but also to the islands of Taiwan that were then under Japanese
occupation, as well as to many Southeast Asian countries where sizeable Chinese
communities could be found, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the
Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. He was a preacher who was in high demand
throughout the Chinese diaspora, receiving numerous invitations to speak in
large and small churches in both major urban centres and rural villages. And
his presence on the pulpit often drew large crowds and led countless people to
Christ.
Hundreds gathering for an open-air revival meeting with Pastor Sung in November 1934 in Gulangyu (鼓浪屿, Gŭlàngyŭ), Xiamen (厦门, Xiàmén)
One of Sung’s main focuses in his
sermons during his spiritual revival meetings was the issue of sin. He took the
issue of sin and repentance very seriously, and would often mention specific categories
of sins in which he would ask those who have committed them to come forward and
repent. He could also point out specific sins committed by pastors and church
leaders with prophetic accuracy, leading some to repentance and others to
resentment. His meetings often drew many from the congregation to come forward
and repent for their sins in tears and cries for divine mercy.
Nonetheless, alongside his fervent
preaching of sin and the need for repentance, Sung was able to move his
audiences with the message of Jesus’ tender and unfailing love in a way that
few others could. His style of preaching was always filled with intense energy
and emotions. He would often pace up and down the aisle, jump up and down in
front of his audience, run from one end to the other on the platform and even
leap over or stand on the Communion rail when delivering his sermons.
Additionally, he would bring in props to illustrate his message (such as a
coffin to signify death from sin), or sing a hymn all of a sudden in the middle
of his sermon. Once during his sermon, he produced a coffin in front of his
audience, shouted “Get rich! Get rich! Get the coffin!” (发财！发财！发棺材！, Fā Cái!
Fā Cái! Fā Guāncai!), and then laid himself down in the coffin, in order to
illustrate through a play of Chinese words that chasing money will not bring
eternal life.
Pastor Sung delivering a sermon with an interpreter beside him
Sung’s ministry and personal life
was also one filled with prayer, healing and miracles. Besides drawing
thousands to his revival meetings and touching the hearts of many to repentance
and belief in Christ, his ministry saw numerous incidences of physical and
spiritual healing. Wherever he went preaching, he laid hands and prayed for
thousands of people, healing them of various sicknesses, infirmities and
addictions. Many witnesses, some even initially skeptical, reported witnessing
with their own eyes the blind seeing, the lame walking, the demon-possessed
delivered, the disabled healed, and the opium addicts going cold-turkey. Many
would also send him personal prayer requests, and it was said that wherever he
went, he would carry a worn-out leather briefcase filled with these prayer
requests and photos of the requestors so that he could spend time praying for
them.
Pastor Sung with his well-known worn-out leather briefcase
The frank manner of preaching and
prophetic calls to repentance that became characteristic of Sung’s ministry
undoubtedly earned him some enmity and slanderous threats wherever he went, but
that never stopped him from fervently proclaiming the gospel of Christ wherever
he preached. At times, he would organize large Bible conferences that may even
last for weeks, in which he would expound the whole Bible book by book for his
audience. It was said that as a result of his ministry all over East and
Southeast Asia, more than 100,000 Chinese came to a faith in Christ, with
countless other previously nominal Christians returning to their faith in
increased fervour. There were also reports that some of the churches he
preached in saw a dramatic increase in membership and activity after he left,
not to mention the establishment of numerous evangelistic bands that went out
from their churches to spread the gospel every weekend.
Pastor Sung with one of the evangelistic bands that he established after a revival meeting in Taipei (台北, Táibĕi), Taiwan
Hundreds of people whose lives were touched by Pastor Sung's preaching coming to bid him farewell as he boarded a ship from Singapore
For the most part of Sung’s later
life, his days were fully packed with a long string of revival meetings and
preaching engagements. Right after wrapping up a revival meeting in one town or
country, he would step onto a ship or train bound for his next revival meeting in
another town or country, sometimes with little respite in between. This
consequently took its toll on both his family life and physical health. His
wife and children remained in Shanghai and hardly had the chance to see the man
of their house spending time with them at home. Sung frequently lamented the
fact that he wasn’t able to even be present when his wife gave birth, and he
often regretted the way he treated his family with his long absences, strongly
advising others around him never to follow his example when it comes to family
life.
More than his absences from his
family, his physical health suffered the most from his hectic preaching
schedules and travels. What began as a bad case of haemorrhoids during his
college days gradually became painful anal fistulas complicated with frequent
bleeding from what was probably colon cancer. To add insult to the injury, his
deteriorating condition was also compounded by tuberculosis of the bone that
caused much degeneration of his hip joints. At times while preaching on the
pulpit, he had no choice but to sit down and bend over to lessen the pain.
Pastor Sung and his family
Nonetheless, Sung never saw these as
reasons for regret. In the last three years of his life, his life saw an almost
regular cycle of surgery, hospital recovery, temporary good health and
ministry, followed by relapse. These cycles became shorter as time passed. Sung
and his whole family relocated from Shanghai to Beijing (北京, Beĭjīng)
where he received his medical care. Whenever he was confined to his recovery
bed, he spent time reflecting upon his life, his ministry and the Bible. He
continued receiving visitors from friends and letters from all those places
where he had preached in, and he even got to spend more time with his wife and
children. Sung saw his deteriorating physical health and pain in the light of
what Apostle Paul wrote in the Bible:
“Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this
reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the
flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me – to keep me from exalting myself!” – 2 Corinthians 12:7 NASB
“又恐怕我因所得的启示甚大，就过于自高，所以有一根刺加在我肉体上，就是撒旦的差役要攻击我，免得我过于自高。” – 哥林多后书12:7 CUVMPS
Sung acknowledged that among his
main shortcomings in life were his short temper, his pride in looking down upon
others and his tendency to exaggerate things even in his sermons, and that his physical
suffering was a ‘thorn in the flesh’ that God gave him in order to keep his
pride in check.
Sung passed away peacefully in the
presence of his family in the early hours of the morning of August 18, 1944 in
Beijing, at the age of 42. Though his passing was a great loss to the Chinese
Christian world, his legacy as the great ‘Servant of the Lord’ (主仆人, Zhŭ Púrén)
lives on, and until today he is recognized as one of the giants of the
Christian faith in the Chinese-speaking world whose revival ministry changed
the lives of countless people throughout the Chinese diaspora of the 1930s.
John Sung's tomb in Xiangshan (香山, Xiāngshān), Beijing. It was said that the site where his tomb lies today once belonged to a church that Pastor Sung himself had established. This simple tomb now lies in a sad and lonely state in the middle of a junkyard compound, hidden away in a solitary spot located near several simple residential quarters on the slopes of Xiangshan
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