The Amazing Life of John Sung — E.A. Johnston

When I study Christian biography, there are a few individuals of the caliber of the great Chinese evangelist, John Song. He was an intellectual genius. He spoke four languages, Chinese, German, French, and English.

He earned a Ph .D. in chemistry in America and was offered high-paying jobs from top universities all over the world. But what is most impressive about John Song is his story of his conversion and the story of his revival ministry throughout China, primarily in the 1930s.

Very few of us today are familiar with John Song, so the purpose of this message, friends, is to acquaint us with a remarkable man whom God used in a remarkable way. The title of my message this evening is The Amazing Life of John Song, for his life was truly amazing.

I have about five books on his life. The most well-known is the biography by Leslie Lyle entitled John Song, Flame for God in the Far East. Also worth mentioning is I Remember John Song by William Schubert, who was his colleague and knew him well.

I have all the books by Song's disciple, Timothy Tao, and they are each powerful biographies, but the most fascinating account of his life is from his own lips. There is a massive book out called The Journal Once Lost, and it is the diary of John Song, as related by his daughter, Levi.

This book is worth its weight in gold. I highly recommend it, friends. I want us to study tonight some aspects of John Song's life, which help to explain why he was so mightily used of God. His amazing life is like a chapter out of the Book of Acts.

John Sung’s Revival Ministry and Conversion

During his 15-year public ministry, he had several hundred thousand converts. He was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the underground church in China today. He was a human instrument of revival, quite on the same level as George Whitefield.

His preaching was as powerful and his results as incredible as Whitefield's. As a Christian biographer, I always find it interesting how God builds a man, how God builds a person to serve him, to bring him glory.

Allow me to take the next few brief moments to share what I know about the amazing life of John Song. We must begin with his conversion experience, which occurred in New York City in 1927. He came to America from China to get his education, to become a preacher, but once here he took up studies in chemistry instead and earned a Ph .D. with top honors in less time than it takes one to earn a Ph .D.

This man was a genius. He taught himself German for his dissertation, and after he graduated Ohio State University with his doctorate, he enrolled at Union Theological Seminary in New York City to study theology.

But what John Song did not realize at the time was that this particular seminary was a hotbed for liberalism and neo-orthodoxy, and Song soon lost what little faith he had in God there. He said that he was enrolled in a cemetery who had a president by the name of Coffin, and it was true.

Pretty much everybody who attended Union lost their faith from the liberal professors there who did not even believe their Bibles to be the word of God. Young man, let me warn you to be careful in what seminary you choose because you too can end up in a cemetery and graduate with a degree, but with little faith.

I believe one of the hottest regions in hell is reserved for seminary professors who damned their students with their devilish doctrines. Anyway, John Song ended up at Union Theological Seminary, and while there he experienced a remarkable conversion experience.

He became truly saved and ran through the dormitory sharing his testimony with his fellow students and professors who believed he had lost his mind. He stormed into the office of the famous professor Henry Emerson Fosdick and told him, you are of the devil.

You made me lose my faith, and you are causing these other young men to lose their faith. The unconverted seminary professors were so convinced that John Song was insane that they committed him to an insane asylum.

He was locked up in Bloomingdale Hospital for 193 days, and during the time of his incarceration there he read through his Bible 40 times, and God gave him the key word for every chapter in the Bible which he used during his mighty preaching ministry back in China.

Those 193 days where he read through his Bible 40 times was his true seminary. And on the boat back to China, he tossed all his degrees overboard into the ocean, except his Ph .D. to show his father upon his return home.

He turned down top job offers to teach physiological chemistry in Germany and China's top universities, to become a poor preacher of the Gospel of the Son of God to his countrymen during the time between the two world wars.

John Sung’s Conversion and Call to Ministry

But one of the most startling aspects of his life was the evening of his conversion on February 10, 1927, while in his dorm room at Union Theological Seminary, he claimed that Jesus appeared to him in his room.

Allow me to read you, friends, this account of his conversion as taken from his own lips, from the words from his diary. As the days passed, my spirit was so weighed down by sin that I felt no peace. On the night of 10 February 1927, I wept and prayed in desperation.

From about 10 o 'clock that night, the scenes of my own sinful life played out before my very eyes, even those hidden ones, and the protagonist was none other than myself. I recalled that there was a copy of the New Testament Bible right at the bottom of a chest.

I dug it out and flipped open Luke 23. I felt as though my spirit had floated out of my body and was following Jesus with the cross on his back as he walked to Golgotha. I could also feel the weight of my manifold sins almost crushing me to death.

There was the Lord hanging up high on the cross and blood was oozing out from his hands. What a tragic sight to behold. I dropped on my knees in humility and pleaded with the Lord to cleanse me with his precious blood from all unrighteousness.

Then the Lord said, Son, your sins are forgiven. I looked up at his face that was glowing with light and the marks on his hands and he added, You must change your name to John. The Lord explained that it was John the Baptist who had prepared the way for the Lord and made straight the path for him.

It was one o 'clock in the morning and my body was aching all over, yea, every inch of it, my bones, sinews, innards and all. I felt as though I was suffering from a major injury. The Lord was reminding me and helping me understand what it was like to be crucified with him.

The series of visions that I witnessed that night reeled into seven volumes. It started with knowing the truth about my own sins and ended up with my call from the Lord. Then it was daybreak. Listen friends, what is so remarkable about this conversion experience of John Song is this, Jesus gave him a prophetic look into his evangelistic ministry across China.

The Five Prophetic Periods of Sung’s Ministry

Jesus told him that he would have a 15 year ministry that would be separated into 5 periods of 3 years. Each period of 3 years had a name. These periods were Water, Door, Dove, Blood, and Tomb. Allow me to read you from William Schubert's account.

I remember John Song regarding these 3 5 year periods because John Song revealed this to his friend William Schubert and it all came true with remarkable precision. Here now is the account from William Schubert who was a missionary to China at the time.

John Song told him the following. The plan Christ revealed to John Song included 5 periods of 3 years each, of which Dr. Song told me in 1931. The first, typified by Water, was a preparatory time. Jesus gave him a new name, John, and he was to prepare the way of the Lord.

The Water period began in November 1927 when he was brought back to China. The second period was the Door period from November 1930 to November 1933. It was during this time that the door opened for him to leave his own province and begin a wider ministry.

And it was during the beginning of the Door period that he was with us in Nanchang and told me all this. I wrote it down in my pocket notebook and it was fulfilled to the letter as I later checked it from time to time.

The fact that all this came to pass in such detail is proof to me that Jesus did really appear to John Song in New York and tell him these things. The third period was the Dove period, November 1933 to November 1936.

During this time, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church in China and Dr. Song himself had some 100 ,000 converts. The fourth period was the Blood time, from November 1936 to 1939. It was during this time that Japan attacked China and China bled as its soldiers stood up and fought.

Dr. Song himself bled during this time having fistula and bleeding bowels until he could no longer travel and had to go to a hospital in Peking. The last time he preached in Indonesia, he had to sit down and the very last time he lay on a camp cot and preached.

Then he entered the fifth or Tomb period or Sepulture time, during which he was shut up in the hospital or in his home in Western Hills and people came to him and he held three meetings a day, lying on his bed.

At this time, China was also shut up tight by the Japanese blockade which closed all ports of China. When he told me of these five periods in 1931, Dr. Song did not know the details of course. He only knew that there were to be five periods and their symbols were to be Water, Door, Dove, Blood, and Tomb.

John Sung’s Role in the Chinese Church

Listen friends, I believe that Jesus revealed all these things to John Song because John Song was to be a human instrument of revival in China to bring God glory and to save millions. Song was used of God to lay the groundwork for the underground church in China today.

God had a divine purpose for China during the communist takeover where it seemed to the world outside that Christians no longer existed in China at all. Little did we know that God was building his church in China all through those years of hot persecution for the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church and John Song was a key figure used of God to initiate this great move of God's grace throughout that mighty continent.

Prayer, Scripture, and Consecration

Why did God use John Song? I believe because he was a man wholly sold out to God and wholly consecrated to him. He was entirely dead to this world. He was also a praying man. William Schubert relates how when Dr. Song was a guest in his home that he kept burning out the oil in his night lamp before daylight each day and kept asking for a bigger lamp.

Finally, one evening around midnight, Schubert snuck into his room with a fresh lamp of oil and found Dr. Song on his knees with his Bible open and he was fervently praying. This is what he was doing all night.

His daughter, Levi, makes the comment in the introductory section of the book on her father that it was not uncommon for him to pray successively five hours at a time each day on his knees. He also read at least 11 chapters of his Bible every day, even when he was preaching three times a day for two-hour sermons at a time and having interviews and consultations with converts and those who'd been awakened all throughout the day.

Faith, Suffering, and Burning Out for Christ

But what impresses me most about this amazing man was his great faith in God, friends. Early in his evangelistic ministry, he took out a blank check and wrote upon it, 100 ,000 souls from the bank of heaven.

And he believed God would give him 100 ,000 souls. And when God did, he wrote another check for another 100 ,000 and God gave him another 100 ,000 souls. His faith was as big as his God. He was also a great sufferer for Christ and his gospel.

He literally broke his body in the cause of Christ and saving souls. In this, he was much like George Whitefield, who too slept little at night and burned out for God as well. John Song was very much like the Apostle Paul in that he neglected his own comforts for the sake of souls.

Dr. Song was a man who truly burned himself out for his God and his generation and his country. And it reminds me of the poem that C .T. Studd composed, which goes as follows. Only one life will soon be passed.

Only what's done for Christ will last. And as I lay dying, how good it shall be. If the lamp of my life is burned out for thee. That was John Song, friends. May each of us pray to the God of John Song that he would give us each an ounce of John Song for our day.

Let us pray.