JOHN SUNG CONTRASTED WITH TODAY'S EVANGELISTS

Text: Phil. 3:17-21

"Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."

We have seen how the Asian Awakening in the thirties had stirred mightily through the dedicated ministry of one man as in the days of the judges and Prophets. It came by John Sung, whom the Lord had specially prepared and anointed. Divine power in no small measure was poured upon him. To use a mathematical illustration, his work was not one of adding units and tens, much less by subtraction as we saw recently in Australia where church buildings were put up for sale, but of multiplying by scores and hundreds into thousands and ten thousands. Out of a population of one million Protestants in China before she fell to the Communists in 1949, several hundred thousands were born again and filled with the Spirit under his hand. His ministry was not so much of evangelism as of revivalism. His messages were directed at dead-wood Church members than at those outside the Church, though of his converts a portion were from a heathen background.

When I think of John Sung and consider what I see and read of present-day evangelists, he towers like an Everest over the latter, the foothills. Is this an overstatement by a lover of John Sung? We have the appraisal from the pen of William E. Schubert, veteran missionary to China from his book "I Remember John Sung". Schubert says, "Dr. John Sung was probably the greatest preacher of this century. I have heard almost all the great preachers from 1910 until now, including R. A. Torrey, Billy Sunday, Henry Jowett, the great holiness preachers, the Methodist bishops, including Bishop Quayle, even Harry Emerson Fosdick, who set a great example of the homiletic art, though I did not agree with him, and finally, Billy Graham. Yet John Sung surpassed them all in pulpit power, attested by amazing and enduring results." Indeed, his ministry is one attested "by amazing and enduring results," while those of present-day evangelists is much like the sprouting from shallow, stony ground which withers away in a short while. Let me contrast John Sung's ministry with the ministry of today's evangelists, under six heads.

1. The Old Message of the Cross vs. The New Message of the Social Gospel

The thirties were marked by great poverty, not only in China but also in Southeast Asia. Remember, there was the worldwide Slump, now euphemistically called Recession, of 1929 and 30. The years that followed were still years of a great economic struggle. In those days of my boyhood our family, which depended on rubber when rubber's price was at rock bottom, was so poor that one of my brothers had to forego schooling for a season. The monthly fee was S$2.50, which seems so small today. But my grandfather's stipend, received from the English Presbyterian Mission, was only S$30 a month, while S$1.00 could buy 40 pounds of rice. I can still remember how it tickled my nostrils as I breathed in the tantalising sweet odour of smoked ham when walking past the entrance to the Cold Storage, the European superstore. But the result thereof was like what Isaiah says, "It shall even be as when an  hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awakeneth, and his soul is empty . . . " (Isaiah 29:8).

Now with the hungry masses in South America, there has originated in this decade what is known, even among politicians, as the Liberation Theology. In John Sung's days the equivalent of this more drastic form of Marxist theology was the old social gospel.  When John Sung travelled all over China with her multi-millions of hungry mouths, preaching the old-fashioned Gospel, some asked him why he did not peak on the social gospel. His answer was Paul's famous statement to the Corinthians, "For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" I Cor. 2:2). He explained the reason why. (To put it in a figure for John Sung, to teach a man to fish is better than giving him a fish). His reason for preaching the old Gospel of the Cross rather than the new one of "tea, rice, oil, salt" (the basic items of Chinese food for subsistence) is that when a man s converted he has already saved for himself the strength usually dissipated on the four proverbial Chinese sins of womanising, gambling, drinking and smoking." When a man repents from his sins and comes to  Christ, he not only can get his bowl of rice by the honest sweat of his brow, but also eat two bowls with a healthier appetite.

During these days of recession in Singapore, I have discovered in my pastoral ministry that there is little retrenchment among our members, while Christian business-men are able to turn over more easily than the non-Christian. For, has not the Father in heaven promised to supply by what in theology is called a "particular providence" the material needs of His children? "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt. 6:33). Let John Stott who writes a foreword for Leslie Lyall's book on John Sung but who has now veered to the social gospel, hear John Sung at this point. While stressing on the old fashioned Gospel, John Sung did not forget the poor (Gal. 2: 10) nor relief of suffering brethren (Acts 11: 27- 30), as attested by the charities liberally given by the Singapore chapter of his Preaching bands, even to this day.

2. Every Church Member a Witness for Christ

Under a Chinese poverty-stricken economy, there was bare-bone exploitation of the poor by the rich. What happened in the secular was followed up in the ecclesiastical. Seeing this anomaly, John Sung rebuked the Church for exploiting the pastor. Since the pastor was paid by the Church, he was treated like an amah. Now the amah was the Chinese version: of a domestic servant. She stayed in the master's house like is a prison wherein she was at his beck and call day and night. Every little chore was hers to perform. Chinese pastors had to do everything in a Church because he was its paid servant. He had to do visitation of members almost single-handedly, and if some did not come, it was blamed on him. Do you treat you pastor like an amah in England today?

The first thing Dr. Sung did to mobilise the whole Church to action for the Gospel was to organise Preaching Bands. Two persons or more could form a band. These would witness for Christ once a week, every Sunday after worship, under a convenant with the Lord. Every Church that was revived in John Sung's campaign would have a few teams at least. These became not only the Church's feet but also her hands. For team members would often "bring them in" to swell the Sunday congregation. Though there were the remaining who did not join the Preaching Bands, yet they who went through the Revival were become lively stones and no more the dead-wood which in process of time became dry rot.

Young people who had dedicated themselves for fulltime service were helped by the Church to study for the ministry. After the Sibu Pentecost in Sarawak, which is part of Malaysia: today, it is noted four young persons were sent for seminary training in Nanking, China.  What is more  noteworthy  is that  during the Japanese occupation of World War II, not a few of the Preaching Band leaders played the role of pastors when both sheep and shepherds were scattered. How do these vibrant results compare with those of citywide campaigns today?

3. Independent Workers Arose "Living By Faith"

Those were Colonial days when John Sung came to Singapore. As the people relied a great deal on a paternal government, so the Chinese congregations were by and large dependent on missionaries, their pastors being paid from funds received from England and America. We were both spiritually and financially dependent on our missionaries. Could we call this ecclesiastical colonialism?

When the Reivival breathed new life into the Chinese parishioners, suddenly they stood up, like the lame man healed by Peter at the Beautiful Gate. The people automatical­ly gave to those who lovingly served the Lord, particularly, to Golden Link (Chin Lien) Bible School, founded by Miss Leona Wu, interpreter and successor to Dr. John Sung. An English missionary who knew Miss Wu even from her father, a pastor supported by the English Presbyterian Mission in Amoy, South China, with much trepidation asked her how she could run a Bible School without mission or church support. To which Miss Wu confidently replied, "Hasn't Paul asssured us, `But my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus'?" (Phil. 4:19), On no Mission or Church paylist did Miss Wu serve all the days of her life, nor did she solicit funds like the way it is run today. How does such a fruitful life compare with the products of modern-day mass evangelism? Nor was ever one collection taken in all of the John Sung campaign in Singapore. In contrast, the Luis Palau crusade in Singapore June 1-7, 1986 had to pass the hat after the service. Hudson Taylor's words are true in this context : "God's work done in God's way does not lack God's support."

4. Not Tongues in Confusion But Tears in Confession

During all the 15 years of John Sung's ministry, there was not a single place where he ministered that the Holy Spirit had sent the gift of tongues. As John Sung lashed out against the sins of the people, calling them to repentance and to a new birth through the blood of Christ, the phenomenon of revival was one of sincere tears of repentance and the resultant joy of sins forgiven. Many tears in confession of sins, one by one, were shed and the Cross warmly embraced. Quarrels in the Church were settled. Stolen monies were returned to the owners, and if not possible, given to the Lord's Treasury. Chain-smokers, even of opium, and drunkards, were deli­vered snap on the spot.

Therefore, when so-called Holy Spirit Churches in North China demanded to speak in tongues as proof of a needed second blessing when their members had never bowed the knee in repentance of their sins to God, John Sung refuted them. Without sin being washed out from within, there was no possibility of the Holy Spirit filling them. The prerequisite of a filling of the Spirit is the cleansing of sins from our lives. In an unspoken positive reply to the charismatics, John Sung would preach two hours solidly out of the Bible. And what volume of power from God's Word was released in contrast with the cumulations of unintelligent, hollow sounds babbling from lips under a man-engendered compulsion. John Sung would "speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousands words in an unknown tongue" (,l Car. 14:19). Often he would reason thus: Unless our sins are washed away, how could the Spirit that is Holy come in to fill us who are so unholy? And for cleansing there was none other, as he stressed, but the precious blood of Christ. John Sung choruses were centred on the Blood, but today's charismatic choruses, what are they ? We believe in the old classical Gospel hymns and not these modern ones set to the tempo of jazz and rock. Tears in confession, not tongues in confusion!

5. God Power vs. Man Power

To get one of the "big boys" of evangelism today, which include Cho Yonggi from Korea, the new evangelicals of Singapore, including the charismatics, have to spend well over one million dollars to field a five or seven-night campaign. The criterion of success is numbers - as they say it in USA, "Bigger is Better". Advance workers have to come to our city, if not for a whole year, at least for the good part, to lay the groundwork. Thousands and thousands of dollars are spent on publicity of a man, not of the: Son of God. Millions of man-hours, literally, to match the million dollars, must be expended to every organisational perfection. Buses are chartered to bring the hearers; even planes were booked in advance, as in the Billy Graham Crusade of 1978. Counsellors by the hundreds and choir members by the thousands are trained and rehearsed to add to the human punch. At Grady Wilson Counsellors' preparation at the National Theatre which I attended many years ago, counsellors were told to "watch and pray" when the evangelist was giving the invitation. "Watch and pray" means that while the evangelist is praying before the appeal, counsellors are to open their eyes to watch the ones sitting beside or in front of them, and to approach those who appear to be responding to the message and walk them to the front. Such human effort was harnessed beforehand to make sure the campaign looked successful. I need not go into an analysis of the results of the Billy Graham Crusade in Singapore in 1978. You have the OMF publication of Keith Hinton's book on Church growth in Singapore that gives a gloomy report of the results. (Read "Truth Will Out, Reality catches up with crusades," an analysis of Keith Hinton's analysis, in your own "Sword and Trowel" 1986, No. 1).

When God's power rests on His servant, like the whirlwind on Elijah, he needs no publicity or human help. Indeed he comes "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit"(Zech. 4:6). When John Sung took Singapore by storm in 1935, not a single dollar was spent on publicity. He forbade to have his photograph displayed anywhere, not even in magazines! He had no advance party but the fear of a Holy God going before him. He had no soloist, no army of counsellors, no battalions of songsters. He had God with him, in power. What an awesome contrast!

Neither in the strategy of evangelistic outreach did our Lord concentrate on one place, such as the capital city of Jerusalem, as these "big boys" would in citywide campaigns. Jesus spoke to only one woman at Jacob's well, and that witness spread to the whole of Samaria. John Sung, as well as his disciple Lim Puay Hian who has a separate write-up by me on his life, would go to big and small churches, in big towns and small villages. With lesser people and closer contact and ten times more preaching of the Word, they had done a more thorough work of conversion. John Sung had easily visited a couple hundred towns big and small throughout China and Southeast Asia, inasmuch as Lim his disciple has given us a total of 230 in his 30 years of ministry. Going "to the streets and lanes, to the highways and hedges" (Luke 14:21-23) is the Divine way. Going to big cities only, our human way! The Divine stresses quality; the human, quantity. "For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart"( I Sam. 16:7).

6. "Spiritual-nurture" Meetings and Month-long Bible Institutes

After a church was revived, John Sung would hold no more revival meetings in the same place, except after a long interval. A step and more steps upward for the new life of the born again one, he would conduct follow-up "spiritual nurture" meetings. These would take usually a week, also at three sermons a day, two hours each. These meetings would have graduated topical Bible study or the selection of certain books appropriate to the situation. In Singapore, in a ten-day convention, he took us through three books of Moses and three in the New Testament. He used charts, maps and pictoral presentation.

What has been acknowledged by Dr. Paul E. Kauffmann of Asian Outreach as some spiritual marathon unheard of in Church history was Dr. Sung 's month-long Bible Institute held in Amoy, South China, July 10 to Aug 9, 1936. There were gathered here from all over China and S.E. Asia 1,600 participants plus 400 locals, totalling 2,000. These sat at his feet to "search the Scriptures" from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21, two times a day, 3 1/2 hours per session. He went through every one of the 1189 chapters. There were two other Bible Institutes also held by John Sung, but of a shorter duration. Nevertheless when the seed of the Word was sown in the hearts of leaders of the church and of the Preaching Bands, were these not become the lively seed of God's children scattered to the uttermost parts of the earth? This lively seed of God's children were surely instrumental in the saving of thousands of others after John Sung's death, during Mao's oppressive rule when the true Church went underground. China watchers estimate there are at least 50 million Christians today, but I am not wrong in saying John Sung's part in the Asian Awakening in the thirties had been used of God to bring forth 30, 60 and 100-fold in the generation after his death, in the sprouting of thousands of underground house churches where the faithful still meet.

The secret of Church growth is to implant the seed of the Word in the hearts of God's children that they might become the lively seed to be sown among the children of the world. How much good seed is sown after every citywide campaign is not measured by grandiose schemes as advertised, but by what is actually done. John Sung's "spiritual nurture" meetings and three marathon Bible Institutes have found a kindred spirit, I'm sure, at this School of Theology in Spurgeon's Tabernacle.

In conclusion, let us review in contrast  John Sung's ministry vis-ŕ-vis that of today's evangelists.

1.   He preached the cross, not the social gospel.

2.   He mobilised the Church to witness through the Preaching Bands.

3. By his revivalistic preaching a colonised church became financially independent overnight and a Bible School was established with no  mission  help.

4. His ministry brought no tongues in confusion but many tears in confession.

5. His ministry was characterised by God-power vs. today's manpower.

6. His follow-up with "spiritual nurture" meetings and month-long Bible Institutes has no parallel today.

Amen.