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Seventy years have passed since God first called me by His servant John Sung. That one call has shaped my entire life until this day, a life of joyful service for God’s kingdom which has sent me into cities and countries around the globe.
“Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me, ” I say with the Apostle. Yes, it is only “by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain... I laboured more abundantly than they all..." ( 1 Cor 15:10 ).
Writing of the joy of being in God’s service, as “labourers together with God” ( 1 Cor 3:9 ), the words of Psalmist David come to mind, "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" (Ps 8:3,4 ).
Truly I am amazed at the divine condescension, that God should call a rebel sinner to be a servant and a son.
Kluang days were days of prayer and preparation. For six months, Mother led us to pray for revival. “Dr John Sung is coming! We must all pray for blessing. ” When the revival came, it was like refreshing showers upon a parched and torrid land, like cooling streams in the desert. Surely, the Lord was answering our prayers from the first day of our meetings at Telok Ayer Methodist Church, Singapore, in August 1935.
By God’s appointment I was one among the thousands who came under the sound of the Gospel and the gracious call of God: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matt 11:28-30 ).
The good doctor opened the Scriptures to us: our eyes were lightened, our hearts thrilled with the words of truth and life. The infinite worth of the soul was impressed upon my youthful heart. "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Mk 8:36,37 ).
Thank God that Father and Mother brought me to hear God’s servant. It was a heavenly feast which instilled in me new life, even life from the living Word, which has become in me"... a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (Jn 4:14 ).
For two full weeks, I drank in the soul refreshing words of life, so earnestly and powerfully delivered by God’s servant, three times a day, and two hours each time. That two-week experience began in me a good work of the Spirit which has endured to this day.
Three years later we followed the good doctor to Muar. At that meeting in 1938, I received the call to life-long service for God. Dr John Sung challenged us to surrender our lives to the Lord for His use.
On that blessed occasion,"... it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen... "(Gal 1:15,16 ).
As a youngster of thirteen, I was stirred in my soul. There and then, I yielded to the Spirit’s prompting, and together with a dozen others, I knelt down for Dr Sung’s prayer of consecration and the putting on of his hands on my head. There I received the “holy calling... according to his own purpose and grace... ” ( 2 Tim 1:9 ).
Shortly afterwards, the Pacific War broke out, bringing death and destruction to Malaya and Singapore. Japanese bombs, shells, bullets, and bayonets, brutally installed a new imperial power over Southeast Asia.
Great Britain, the mightiest power the world had ever known, capitulated to the “bicycle army” from the Land of the Rising Sun, sweeping down the Malay Peninsula from the north. Singapore, the “impregnable fortress” fell in seventy days.
The day before the British surrendered, a Japanese shell scored a direct hit on the next-door bunker. It sent a shrapnel through our neigbour’s leg, and a reminder to me: forget not your consecration vow! Surely I had been spared for a purpose. As I reflected on the incident, I renewed my promise of 1938. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. ”
Vows made to God are no light matter. The Word of God says, “When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay” (Eccl 5:4,5 ).
God forbid that I should neglect to pay my vow to the One who had shed His own blood for my soul’s deliverance from eternal damnation.
The years of Japanese rule proved the unfailing goodness and faithfulness of God. True to His Word, during the forty-two months of the occupation, we were spared the atrocities for which the Japanese army were notorious. We did not so much as lose a hair, for even these hairs are numbered by the Almighty God in His meticulous care of His people.
In September 1945 the British returned and life gradually returned to normal. God’s blessing saw me through school and university, and into working life. Unprecedented success did not detract me from the holy calling and solemn vow. But the Lord by His Spirit, kept me true to Him.
High honours in America and the United Kingdom could well have derailed my consecration course. The distinction of being visiting professor to universities such as London, Manchester, Liverpool, Belfast in the UK, and Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, George Washington, UCLA, Stanford, and others in the US, failed to blur my consecration vow. All these, and the rich monetary reward of private practice, paled into nothing at the prospect of our Lord’s soon return and the urgency of pressing on with the Gospel work in the months and years remaining.
In 1968, the thirtieth year of my consecration vow, the time came for me to act. My five-year bond to the University for supporting my overseas studies had been repaid by 1964. My responsibility as Head of Department and Chief Executive had been more than fully discharged.
In May 1969, I said goodbye to the Department and KK Hospital, severing a fourteen-year bond. This move opened the door to amazing expansion of the Gospel effort. It freed me from the administrative responsibility of the Department (one of three keystone Departments of the University, the other two being Medicine and Surgery), the burden of some three hundred medical students, and the demands of a dozen official committees related to the chair.
Shedding off these official responsibilities meant the freeing of much time and energy for the call of the Gospel. In addition the greatly increased financial mobility allowed God’s work to be expedited and accelerated beyond all normal expectations.
But in the context of the work of God and the advancement of His everlasting kingdom, it was (in the words of hymn-writer Mary D James) “All for Jesus”
“All for Jesus, all for Jesus!
All my being’s ransomed pow’rs:
All my tho’ts and words and doings,
All my days and all my hours: ”
The right way and the best way of paying one’s vow is the Lord’s way: He acted always with purpose and with urgency, and so should we. At Jacob’s well in Samaria, Jesus sacrificed His “lunch break” to minister to the Samartian woman. To the wondering disciples, Jesus said, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest" (Jn 4:34,35 ).
God’s servant John Sung followed closely in the Master’s steps. The Lord had revealed to him that he had but fifteen years to his Gospel ministry. In the light of this knowledge, he literally “burnt out” for the Lord, blazing a “scorching Gospel trail. ” He died in 1944, the fifteenth year of God’s promised period.
In all his campaigns, John Sung preached three sessions of two hours each. His pulpit exertions were so strenuous that his sweat often soaked through his Chinese gown. (In those days there was no air conditioning).
Of all preachers that I have known, none comes anywhere near his total devotion and utmost urgency. Social events and entertainment were not part of his agenda.
By God’s gracious enabling, I have endeavoured to follow in John Sung’s steps, recognizing that “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last. ”
God’s Word reminds: we live in perilous times ( 2 Tim 3:1 ), and God’s servants must order their life accordingly, "redeeming the time, because the days are evil" (Eph 5:16 ).
In the time in which the Lord has been pleased to use me, He has given me an ever increasing sense of urgency.
Speaking with young people, the question has been posed: “How did you know it was God’s call when you responded to Dr Sung’s invitation? ”
It is a question I have asked myself and it has caused me to ponder. Consecration or the giving of oneself wholly for God’s use is a solemn and sacred undertaking. No less than the marriage bond, it is not to be lightly entered into, but only after sober and careful consideration.
It is a spiritual matter, and the witness of the Spirit is crucial. Just as, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Rom 8:16 ) at the time of conversion, so the Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are labourers together with God when we respond to the preacher’s invitation at the time of consecration.
Again, let me stress: the call of God is a spiritual matter, and things of the Spirit must be “spiritually discerned” ( 1 Cor 2:14 ).
When it came to the decisive step of leaving the University, the competing stakes were weighed in the balance of God. On the one hand was the prestige and glamour of an academic appointment in an institution of world fame. On the other hand was the preaching of the cross of Christ and the kingdom of God with “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” ( 1 Cor 1:18 , Rom 14:17 ).
It was the indwelling Spirit itself which made the decision, an act in which I consented to be an instrument for God’s use. When one is in the Spirit, all personal and private considerations fade into nothing.
God’s call to others in Bible times has taught me precious lessons and given much ground for confidence.
Samuel, yet a child, received the call of God three times by an audible voice. His response, so child-like and submissive was: “Speak, for thy servant heareth” ( 1 Sam 3:10 ). So should every servant of God respond with child-like simplicity and submission.
Isaiah, the Gospel prophet, when called, realised that he was “... a man of unclean lips” (Isa 6:5 ) and needed to be cleansed before God could use him. Then one of the seraphims touched his lips with a live coal from off the altar of God, and pronounced, “... thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. ” Then, and only then, could Isaiah respond to God’s call: “Here am I, send me” (Isa 6:6-8 ).
How great is the need for cleansing for any man who is called. And this cleansing is a daily and recurrent washing by the water by the word (Eph 5:26 ).
Jeremiah, the weeping prophet and patriot of Israel, when called, received this assurance from God: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee... whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak... for I am with thee to deliver thee.... Then the LORD... touched my mouth... and said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth" (Jer 1:5-9 ).
When the Lord calls, He also enables and equips fully for the task in hand: this is the confidence given to every true servant. This lesson also I have learnt.
Paul, once a blasphemer and a persecutor of Christians, obtained mercy and forgiveness ( 1 Tim 1:13-16 ). He was to be"... a chosen vessel... to bear (Christ’s) name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel, ” and to suffer for Christ’s sake (Acts 9:15,16 ).
If God could use Paul, the chief of sinners and once injurious to the church, surely he can use you and me to fulfil His eternal purpose. This lesson also I have learnt.
1. My first response is to borrow the words of the apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 1:12 : "And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry."
I count it God’s greatest blessing shown to me when he called me to publicly confess Christ my Lord and Saviour in 1935, and when He led me to consecrate my life for His service in 1938.
These events have determined my entire life course in the service of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2. In following Christ my Lord, I have traced the steps of the apostle Paul even as he followed Christ ( 1 Cor 11:1 ).
My life has been therefore closely patterned after the apostle’s. "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Phil 1:21 ), and"... I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ" (Phil 3:8 ).
3. Difficulties and disappointments in the ministry have come as messengers sent to try me. But I take heart in the sure knowledge that the Lord is with me, as He promised,"... lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matt 28:20 ).
In times of sore trials, I find help and encouragement from the words of the apostle Paul, "But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20:24 ).
In this God-given spirit, "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil 3:14 ).
The call of Christ is a life-long call which ever looks steadfastly toward the day of our Lord’s glorious return and our final victory over the present evil world system.
4. The call has opened to me doors of gospel opportunity in a global mission field, which has seen Bible-faithful churches established in a dozen countries around the world. It has also called me to the ministry of warning against the entrance of “grievous wolves... not sparing the flock” (Acts 20:28-31 ).
This end time ministry is a necessary and vital part of the Gospel call, for we are in the “falling away” foretold in 2 Thess 2:3 , and the great deception which has overtaken the church everywhere.
I count it all joy that the call of Christ is to be labourers together with God ( 1 Cor 3:9 ) and also contenders for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints (Jude 3 ).
5. God’s wonderful grace has kept me in the path of righteousness and fervent service these seven decades. Like the apostle Paul, I can say, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith" ( 2 Tim 4:7 ).
My daily prayer is that the Lord will keep me faithful to my heavenly calling until I see my Saviour on that day. Until then, let all who love the Lord press on with the Gospel work with joy and steadfast faith. Amen.