An Asian Reawakening?
(Message delivered by Rev Dr Jeffrey Khoo at the True Life Church 10.30 am Service, Jul 1, 07)
Is another Asian Awakening in the horizon? According to Dr Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University, there is an “explosive expansion” of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In A New Christendom, Jenkins noted, “Over the past century, … the center of gravity in the Christian world has shifted inexorably southward, to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. … This trend will continue apace in coming years. … Christianity should enjoy a worldwide boom in the new century, but the vast majority of believers will be neither white nor European, nor Euro-American. … The era of Western Christianity has passed within our lifetimes, and the day of Southern Christianity is dawning. …Southern Christians are far more conservative in terms of both beliefs and moral teaching. …. Southern Christians retain a very strong supernatural orientation, and are by and large far more interested in personal salvation than in radical politics. … The newer churches preach deep personal faith and communal orthodoxy, mysticism and Puritanism, all founded on clear scriptural authority.”
Asian Christianity saw an “explosive expansion” in the 1930s, in the days of Dr John Sung, China’s greatest revivalist. It was through John Sung that our beloved pastor, Rev Dr Timothy Tow, was born again. Our pastor has been interviewed by a number of scholars researching on John Sung and his life. His biography on John Sung entitled John Sung My Teacher published in 1985 was a major contribution to literature on Asian Church History. This led him to be invited to London a year later to lecture on John Sung at the famed Metropolitan Tabernacle of Spurgeon. The London lectures can be read in Asian Awakening published in 1988 and reprinted in 2005. Our pastor has also translated John Sung’s sermons into English. His translation, 40 John Sung Revival Sermons, was published by the Far Eastern Bible College Press and can be purchased from the FEBC Bookroom at 9A Gilstead Road, Singapore 309063 (www.febc.edu.sg/bookroom.htm).
Christians are beginning to take an interest in Church history. Through the knowledge of God’s special, providential working in the Church and through His servants, will we see a revival of true or Biblical Christianity today not only among the remnant churches but also the denominational churches? What can we learn from the example of Dr John Sung and how the Lord had used him to do His mighty work of reviving the church in the days of the Asian Awakening? What can we do to reawaken Asia for the kingdom of God? I can think of three lessons from Dr John Sung:
Active Evangelism
For an Asian reawakening, there needs to be active evangelism, not in the power of the flesh through worldly methods, but in the power of the Holy Spirit through the unadulterated preaching of the gospel to convict and convert sinners. Evangelism would fail if not for the power of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Active and extensive evangelism was especially manifested in the days of the Asian Awakening through preaching bands organised by Dr John Sung. Rev Dr Timothy Tow recounts, “After we were delivered, we were challenged to join the Preaching Bands covenanting with God to go out at least once a week, most appropriately on the Lord’s Day afternoon, to witness for Christ. The Preaching Bands truly became the hands and feet of the Church. Many souls were brought into the kingdom through a new wave of witnessing.”
In the spirit of John Sung, students of the Far Eastern Bible College spread out to different parts of the city every Wednesday afternoon to distribute gospel tracts and preach the good news to those who would listen. Every semester, at least 10,000 tracts would be printed and given out. True Life Bible-Presbyterian Church and other evangelistic Bible-Presbyterian churches organise preaching bands to go out to share the gospel either weekly or monthly, especially on Sunday afternoons led by the deacons following the example of the first New Testament deacons, Stephen and Philip (Acts 6-8). We print gospel tracts and gospel bookmarks by the tens of thousands for personal use and distribution. Not a few have found the Lord and His truth through our tracts and bookmarks. One was delivered from a cult through our gospel bookmark on “God’s Perfect Gift,” and is now worshipping with us.
The Holy Spirit power that accompanies Biblical missions and evangelism will result in true and lasting conversions and fruits, not the superficiality and temporariness of humanly engineered “conversions” that take no deep root nor bear real fruit. Spirit-powered evangelism (not the charismatic sort) will produce good and true spiritual fruit, “some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Matt 13:23).
Faithful Indoctrination
Unlike modern-day hit-and-run evangelism and touristic missions, the days of the Asian Awakening under John Sung saw the preacher taking the time to teach the converts the Word of God. This was accomplished during the “spiritual nurture” meetings and month-long Bible institutes. Rev Tow recounts, “In Dr Sung’s month-long Bible Institute, thousands would sit at his feet to search the Scriptures from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21, two times a day, 3½ hours per session going through every one of the 1189 chapters.” This amounts to 210 lecture hours or 14 semester credits.
John Sung kept the Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20) for he not only preached the gospel but also taught the Bible from cover to cover, from Genesis to Revelation. The teaching aspect of the Great Commission is, however, sorely lacking today. There is great ignorance of the contents of the Holy Scriptures and the doctrines of the Christian Faith in the Church today. FEBC had students who confessed they were born again not in church but in the Bible College. In these last days, the churches at large are either sleeping or apostate, not knowing what the gospel is, preaching a half-baked gospel, or preaching another gospel altogether, denying the fundamentals of the Christian Faith.
If there is to be an Asian reawakening of the Church, I believe there must be a revival of the Bible College movement to teach faithful Christian men and women the whole counsel of God so that they might teach others also (2 Tim 2:2). I would urge and encourage all Sunday School teachers, Bible study leaders, fellowship group leaders, elders, deacons, and yes, every member of the church to study God’s Word intensively and systematically through the FEBC night classes, take the courses for credit, and earn the Certificate of Religious Knowledge or Certificate of Biblical Studies! You will be amazed to see your life enriched through knowing God’s Word deeply, and how the Lord can use you to help and counsel others in the things of the Lord when you are wise with His Word.
Biblical Separation
Every genuine revival is accompanied not only with many conversions, and true repentance, but also zealous separation from apostasy and compromise, warning against sin and error. The John Sung revival saw a fervent contention against theological liberalism. In his book on Dr John Sung, the Rev Dr Timothy Tow wrote, “John Sung was for separation from those who denied the fundamentals of the Faith. He himself separated from Union Seminary in New York City, and pointed out the unbelief of its professors. … This led Dr Sung to expose … liberal theology for he said, ‘If you starve you’ll not die. If you take poison you will die.’”
The doctrine of biblical separation (2 Cor 6:14-7:1, 2 Thess 3:6-15) must be practised in the spirit of John Sung. It is well known that John Sung minced no words to denounce the sins of the people, and the unbelief and heresies of the liberal and modernist teachers. He had drunk the theological poison of Union Seminary which he called a “Cemetery,” which had a Principal whose surname was “Coffin.”When the Lord by divine intervention saved him through a vision, he wasted no time to confront Prof Fosdick, his favourite teacher but a rank liberal, and told him off, “You are of the devil. You made me lose my faith!”
One might wonder how such an unpopular doctrine and practice of separation and the prophetic ministry of warning can make any church to grow. Some might think that such a divisive and schismatic doctrine and practice would only lead to self-destruction and church extinction. But the opposite is true: Biblical separation is God’s way to ecclesiastical multiplication. The Rev Dean Kelley in his book—Why Conservative Churches are Growing—commented that, contrary to popular opinion, the fundamentalist churches are the churches that grow and not the liberal ones. In his research on American Christianity, Kelley, who is no fundamentalist, showed that the so-called “Wrong” churches, ie, those that are supposedly “unreasonable,” “intolerant,” “non-ecumenical,” and “irrelevant,” are the ones that are growing numerically. Writing on Singapore Churches, Dr Keith Hinton, former lecturer at Singapore Bible College, likewise observed that “churches which were clear in their beliefs, strict in their membership requirements, rather isolationist [ie, separatist] and actively evangelistic, grew much faster than those with a social message, ecumenical associations, and easy membership terms.”
It goes without saying that the Bible-Presbyterian Church and all Bible-believing and Christ-naming churches not only need to evangelise the world and indoctrinate the church, they must also separate themselves from iniquity and falsehood, worldliness, and compromise in order to ward off spiritual decline or death. The day any church denounces or stops practising biblical separation is the day of its death. The denial of biblical separation is ecclesiastical suicide.
Are we not seeing signs of treachery and compromise today? May the Lord reawaken His Church in these last days!
