China’s Greatest Evangelist

China’s Greatest Evangelist

He didn’t expect his theological training to include a stint in a mental institution.

JOHN SUNG was born in 1901, the son of a Methodist minister in southeast China. When he was nine, a great revival swept through the city of Hinghwa, and John gave his life to Jesus. He immediately began assisting his father in his ministry. Throughout his teenage years, he gave himself completely to evangelism and study.

In 1919 Sung had a dream that he would one day become a great evangelist. He came to America to escape the political climate of China, which he felt would restrict his academic pursuits. Once in America, he threw himself into studying physics and chemistry at Ohio Wesleyan University and then at Ohio State University, where he earned a Ph.D. in chemistry in just twenty-one months. He started to pursue a degree at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, but he felt his faith in Jesus slipping away as his studies of rationalism, Taoism, and Buddism influenced his thinking.

Then in February of 1927 he attended an evangelistic service at a local Baptist church, where he heard a fifteen-year-old girl read from the Scriptures and speak of the gospel with incredible conviction and passion. It touched him profoundly. He deeply desired the faith and power he saw in the girl, a faith he had once had. Later as he read the story of the death of Christ in Luke 23, he experienced deep repentance as he realized that his sins were indeed forgiven. He could not contain his joy and newfound peace, and he ran throughout the campus shouting for joy and singing the praises of his Savior.

Sung’s enthusiasm for his reclaimed faith was not seen as positive by all at the seminary. Because he had previously been an intensely serious student and now was running around jumping for joy and telling everyone of his spiritual experience, the president of the seminary thought that Sung had lost his mind and had him committed to a mental institution. It was only due to the intervention of the Chinese consul and a professor friend at Ohio Wesleyan that he was released from the mental hospital after six months on the condition that he would return to China.

Back in China John Sung’s driving passion was to proclaim to everyone the joy of the gospel of Christ Jesus. During the next fifteen years he was a highly effective evangelist, leading many thousands to Christ throughout China and Southeast Asia. His two-hour sermons focused on the need for repentance, with the Cross as the remedy. His unique preaching style and his scathing reproaches of lukewarm leaders and missionaries created a stir wherever he went.

Finally Sung’s long neglected health began to deteriorate, and in 1940 he was diagnosed with cancer and tuberculosis. Over the next three years he underwent multiple surgeries, still preaching whenever possible. In June of 1944 his condition worsened. No longer strong enough to preach, his days were spent reading the Bible, singing, and praying with family and friends.

On August 16 he told his wife that God had shown him he would die. He fell into a coma but recovered enough to sing verses of three hymns the next day: “Sweet By and By,” “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross,” and “Jesus Is All the World to Me.” His last words to his wife were “Don’t be afraid! The Lord Jesus is at the door. What is there to fear?”

John Sung died the morning of August 18, 1944, at the age of forty-two. As he was carried to his grave, the crowd sang many of his favorite hymns, a fitting tribute to a life characterized by singing praise to Jesus.

Reflection

John Sung was so passionate and joyful about the forgiveness he had found in Jesus Christ that some thought he was crazy. Do you experience joy in serving Jesus? Do you share that joy with others?

I was chosen for this special joy of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ.

Ephesians 3:8