I just finished reading a power book this week writing by Pastor Robert J. Morgan. I heard about it from one of Dr. David Jeremiah’s broadcasts. The book is entitled: Mastering Life Before It’s Too Late: 10 Biblical Strategies for a Lifetime of Purpose. It ranks up there in one of the top influential books I’ve read.
I want to share with you the story of John Song which I trust will encourage your heart on this Monday morning:
We might think we’re influencing people one by one and little by little, but God knows how to turn our addition into His multiplication, and His calculus is incalculable. Consider the great revival now sweeping China— millions upon millions of people are streaming into the kingdom. Much of what’s happening is the by-product of a few words by a fifteen-year-old girl, whose name we don’t know and who probably never knew what she had wrought.
I want to tell you the story of the influence she exerted on John Sung, who was born in 1901 into a Methodist preacher’s family in China. As a boy, John helped his father in the ministry and earned the nickname Little Pastor. But John’s main interests were intellectual, not spiritual. He was brilliant, always at the top of his class.
As a young man he came to America in pursuit of degrees. He earned a PhD at Ohio State University, where you can still find his chemistry essays and research documents in the university library. He is reportedly the first national Chinese to earn a PhD in America. Along the way, John got away from the Lord and lost his way in life.
In the course of time, trying to regain his bearings, he enrolled in New York’s Union Theological Seminary, which espouses a very liberal theology. This was the modernist world of Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin and Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick. In this faithless environment, John Sung became so confused he no longer knew what he believed or why. He grew depressed and was unable to eat or sleep.
One day during the Christmas season, a friend invited him to an evangelistic meeting where Dr. I. M. Haldeman, a brilliant New York City pastor, was scheduled to speak. Arriving at the meeting, John was disappointed to learn the program had changed. Dr. Haldeman wasn’t there. Instead, a fifteen-year-old girl, dressed in white and clasping a small Bible, rose to say a few words. John lost interest in the meeting but, unable to exit gracefully, he stayed. The girl read a few verses about the power of the Cross and gave a few words of testimony. That’s all, but that was enough. Her few sentences fell into John’s heart like seeds ready to burst into life. Shortly thereafter, John embraced Christ as his Lord and Savior and began sharing the news with everyone.
The administration of Union Theological Seminary, thinking him mad, committed him to an insane asylum. He spent six months there, read the Bible cover to cover forty times, and considered the asylum a better seminary than Union. He was finally released on the condition he would return to China, and he arrived in Shanghai in the fall of 1927. He started preaching the moment he arrived, and more than 100,000 people were saved during his ministry. He was called the “John Wesley of China.” He preached for fifteen years until he died at age forty-three from tuberculosis, but he paved the way for the explosive growth that China is experiencing today.
Morgan, Robert J. (2015-01-06). Mastering Life Before It’s Too Late: 10 Biblical Strategies for a Lifetime of Purpose (pp. 255-256). Howard Books. Kindle Edition.
That story was too good to not share with you. God’s arithmetic is far different than ours. Make your life count today.
Undivided: By Christ, in Christ, for Christ,
Bill Welte, President/CEO
America’s Keswick
Bill would love to hear from you: bwelte@americaskeswick.org.
Written by Bill Welte: President/CEO of America’s Keswick: Bill has been married to his childhood sweetheart for 40+ years and has four married kids and 12 amazing grandkids. He loves music and is an avid reader.
