Rev William E Schubert on

Dr Sung's Last Days

A Great Revival Promised

August 5. 1941, Dr John Sung wrote to me: "Peace to Mr Schubert, Fellow-laborer in the Lord: Since we parted at PUMC (Peking Union Medical College) I have remembered you without ceasing in my prayers. On June 7 when I left PUMC Hospital there were three wound mouths. By God's blessing, two of the three were entirely healed up while I lived in the home of Dr Hsu, head of the Peiping Gospel Teams."

"On July 3 my wife hurriedly returned to Shanghai because of the serious illness of our son. The same day I came to Hsiang Shan (Fragrant Mountain) and temporarily rented a house for a summer retreat. I have already been here a month. and the mouth of the wound is nearly healed."

"Many years ago God used his child to do the first step of His work. Now God has been using more than two years of illness to prepare His child to accomplish the second step. a much deeper work, not only to lead His children out of Egypt and across the Red Sea into the Wilderness, but also to lead His children across the Jordan River into Canaan to receive that Eternal Rest."

"In my prayers God has shown me clearly that the great revival time of the Chinese church will come. This great revival is not through man but through the work of the Holy Spirit Himself exercising the hearts of a certain class of workers, moving them with one accord, one heart and mind to unite in an out-of-the-way place for a long time of prayer, to do prayer work in the Spirit."

"During this time of prayer in the Spirit. God Himself will begin the work, will lead them into the depths of truth, will lead them to utterly die out, will lead them to want, not self. just want the Lord alone."

"God will lead them with one heart to run with united footsteps, will lead the members to strengthen each other, and in the Spirit to have mutual fellowship, to edify them­selves in love."

"He will lead them to love what the Lord loves, to see as the Lord sees, to hate what the Lord hates, to pray as the Lord prays, to complete what the Lord would complete, will lead them to break every fetter, to be free in the Spirit, to use faith to finish the work that God would finish."

"God during this time will do a wondrous work. There are many things I cannot write with a pen, but I hope you will pray much about this, and I believe the Holy Spirit surely will speak in your heart, so I will not say more."

"In my prayers. God also entrusts you with responsibility for the great revival of the Chinese church. May the Spirit that works in my heart also work in your heart, together with the Lord to hear still small Voice, in these last days to finish the work He himself would finish, even a work with 'gold, silver and precious stones,' which can go through trial by fire. Isaiah 62: 1,2,6." These last words of Dr Sung to me were no doubt a prophecy of impending persecution for the church.

All the Missionaries Would Leave

About that time Dr Sung also told a missionary friend of ours that God had revealed to him that there would be a great revival in China, but that the missionaries would all leave first. A few years later the missionaries were all forced out by the communists. Now we look for the revival. It is interesting that in his August 5, 1941 letter John Sung speaks of the "trial by fire" The church in China surely went through, and is going through, that time of testing. The Lord had used John Sung to raise up a people scattered through­out China that were able to stand the test, some even unto death, but others whose spark will be fanned by the winds of God's Spirit until the flame of revival will burn away unbelief and materialism and atheism with Holy Ghost fire. Our work is to pray for this.

A Continuing Influence

Why did John Sung's ministry have such lasting results?  He was different from all others I have ever known in his prayer life. In Nanking, we were in adjoining rooms, and I heard him pray. He had hundreds of prayer requests, even thousands, on prayer blanks. In each place where he held meetings, Dr Sung would have seekers come to him for group or private interviews. In order to have such a prayer interview with Dr Sung, each of them must bring a prayer blank (costing one copper each) with name, address, sex, age, photograph, prayer requests, and a testimony. These represented never-dying souls, hearts open to His gaze.

By the nature of the prayer requests, usually three or four each, he could tell how far along the seeker had come spiritually. Some asked for selfish benefits, such as a job, etc. Others felt their need for heart purity or holiness, or were concerned for the salvation of others, or for revival in their home churches. Dr Sung kept all these prayer blanks, and carried them with him, thousands, in two big suitcases, and he would pray fervently for these people afterward, even while preaching three times a day and having many interviews, besides hours with the Word.

In Nanking I heard him weeping and groaning, in agony of soul, praying for these people in places where he had held meetings previously. I don't know how he did it, except that he had a great spiritual passion, even an obsession, which very^, few have, and which is to be coveted. "Seek earnestly the better gifts." More exactly Paul says. "Covet earnestly the best gifts." I Corinthians 12:31. This gift of intercession is surely one of the greater gifts. It takes dedicated will power to exercise it, and that will power comes from a God-given love for souls. I Cor 13.

Some who have written about Dr Sung thought he was proud, but he could not have lived so close to God as to intercede in this way if he had been proud, because "God resisteth the proud." (James 4:6 and I Peter 5:5). John Sung's humility came from having seen and talked with Jesus, and from living in the light of Jesus' Cross and the daily searching of the Word of God. Most of us are too busy and proud to pray in this way.

Daily Intercession for Others

That is one secret of his success, and of the lasting results of his ministry: that he prayed for the seekers after he left them. He prayed one day for all the seekers in Peiping, another day for all those in Tientsin, then for those in Shanghai, Foochow, Hinghwa, etc. So wherever John Sung had been, there were Christians who remained true and faithful. Wherever I have been in China, including Taiwan, the most faithful and dependable members in the churches were those who had been saved and blest in Dr Sung's meetings. Others have said the same. This is because he prayed for them afterward. Not long ago I talked to a pastor from Indonesia, who has a thriving church during this great revival time there, and he said that the forty strongest members and best soulwinners of his church in Indonesia were the product of John Sung's ministry.

So as the Lord promised John Sung, it will happen again, and in even larger measure. As Robert Porteous predicted: "The desecrated churches and chapels of China will yet resound with the praises of God."  For that we wait and pray.

Dr Sung's Last Illness, Sorrow. Humility, Death

The fifth period of Dr John Sung's ministry was the "Sepulcher" or "Tomb" period. Near the end of the "Blood" period, when he was in Indonesia, Dr Sung had to sit down to preach, and in his final meeting there he lay on a camp cot and preached. Then he came home to Shanghai, and was unable to travel anymore in evangelism.

During this time of illness in Shanghai, Dr Eugene Erny, chairman of the Oriental Missionary Society, himself a fervent evangelist and soul-winner, went to see Dr Sung. In the course of their conversation, Dr Erny asked why Dr Sung was so sick when God had used him in the healing of so many others. Sung replied that he needed someone to pray for him. However, none of us were able to pray effectually for him, and he got worse, and had to go to Peiping to the hospital for several operations. Later, they found that he had cancer. Evidently he had "run his course."

This was the "Tomb" period, 1939-1942, in which Dr Sung was shut up. And China was also shut up: all the ports of China were closed by the Japanese blockade. There wasn't as much bloodshed as there had been, because the Chinese had learned guerrilla warfare and had gone into the interior, but China was definitely sealed. At first, Dr Sung was in the hospital, then he and Mrs. Sung went to the Western Hills in the mountains out from Peiping. He was in bed, and people came to him from all over China. He still had three meetings a day, preaching from his bed, and two Chinese lady secretaries wrote letters for him.

Dr Sung's Criticism of Missionaries

While Dr Sung was in the hospital in Peiping, and I was living in Shanghai, some of the Fukien missionaries in Shanghai asked me to take his wife to Peiping, as I was going there anyway to hold meetings. Mrs Sung went with me, to see him, and of course I visited him in the hospital. At that time he said to me with tears. "Oh, Mr. Schubert, God has been dealing with me. God tells me that I have been too critical of missionaries." I replied, "No, Dr Sung. we needed it; I think it was of God that you found fault with us." He insisted, "No, you left your homes and families, and your own land, and made great sacrifices to preach the Gospel in China, and yet I criticized you." So he said, "I ask you, on behalf of the missionaries, to forgive me." So he showed his humility.

My "Morning Worship"

There had been times when Dr Sung did have a critical attitude toward us. Once he told me I "might amount to something" if I would not give so much time to my family. When he was staying with us in Nanchang in 1931, he came down to breakfast one morning, and saw me down on my knees by the couch playing and talking with our baby Lois. She was our first child after thirteen years of marriage, and was very precious to us. Dr Sung said, "Oh, I see you are having your morning worship."

He himself always put God and God's work ahead of his family. Some criticized him for that, but I never felt he was wrong in it. He was merely taking the call of God seriously, even "hating his own family" as Jesus said one must do if he is to he worthy to enter the kingdom of God and he Christ's true follower. The rest of us do not take God's call and God's work seriously enough. He had a one-track mind. How wonderful if we could all be that way. One had to know Dr Sung, and see him work and the results, to appreciate his attitude in his respect.  His own family appreciated him; Mrs. Sung seemed to feel he was doing the right thing. I never felt that she was critical of him. His own daughter became a Christian young people's leader, and the communists put her in prison because she had too much influence. In 1974 she still had two-and-a-half years to serve.

His Only Son Died

When Mrs. Sung got back to Shanghai from that trip to see Dr Sung in the hospital, she found their son seriously ill. It was a fatal illness, though we prayed for his healing. Dr Sung told me when I saw him again in the hospital in Peiping. "Shu Sien-sen, God had only one begotten Son, and He died. I had only one son and he died." It is true that John Sung in many ways typified the ministry of God in the world, especially as regards China. His ministry, in his own body, typified the sufferings. and the spiritual victories of China and the church in China and the Far Fast. China was in agony, and John Sung had this great sorrow in illness.

When we began to come to the end of Dr Sung's fifteen years of ministry, of which Jesus had told him in his room in New York City, I began to pray about it. I wept and prayed, and I said. "Lord, we need him. Please continue his ministry. Extend the time as you did with King Hezekiah." He did live two or three years after the fifteen years, but without any public ministry. He died August 18, 1944.

Greatly Blest by Dr Sung's Memory

At the close of the war, in the autumn of 1945, 1 was in Peiping, and I went out to the Western Hills and saw Mrs. Sung. She took me to Dr Sung's grave, As I stood there by the stone cross, I was greatly blest by the memory of his wonderful life. At that time Mrs. Sung gave me one of two personal copies of his Chinese chorus book. I used it in many evangelistic and revival meetings in mainland China and in Taiwan. as we broadcast the Gospel back into communist China and around the world.

This chorus book is the one used in the Nanking meetings. Dr Sung's personal copy lies before me as I write just now. It has his name in his own writing in Chinese on the cover. It is one more thing to challenge and inspire me to be more faithful in my soul-winning and intercessory ministry. However, I despair of even approximating Dr Sung's zeal in Bible study and prayer. But we hope that God will raise up others who will be inspired by his life to a similar ministry in the Orient or the West.

So, as we remember John Sung, we pray that God will produce another, perhaps even greater, evangelist in this century. God often calls His leaders from the ranks of Jesus' persecutors. When this man, or men, come on the scene, then China and the Far East will be aflame for God with the preaching of the irresistible Gospel.