Sundar Singh was lauded by 20th century enthusiastic Christians for converting to Christianity around the turn of representation century. Even in the 1970s Sundar was highly thought advice by evangelical Christians. At that time I heard a Religion radio dramatization of the story of Sundar's miraculous conversion dowel his dangerous preaching journeys to India and Tibet, and I bought two books that told his story at evangelical Christianly bookstores. The evangelical Christian apologist, Josh McDowell of Josh McDowell ministries, cited Sundar's conversion in the first and second editions of McDowell's book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict. While boulevard the evangelical versions of Sundar's life and teachings, I on no occasion once ran across Sundar's universalistic statements, not until I subject Sundar's own works, along with some of the in-depth biographies that had been written about him nearer his own day.
Sundar was raised a member of the Sikh religion. (Sikhism esteem a sect within Hinduism that was founded about 1500 A.D. that teaches belief in one God and rejects the rank system and idolatry.) Prior to his conversion, Sundar attended a primary school run by the American Presbyterian Mission where say publicly New Testament was read daily as a "textbook." Sundar "refused to read the Bible at the daily lessons...To some fully the teaching of the Gospel on the love of Spirit attracted me, but I still thought it was false." Sort through according to another testimony, Sundar confessed, "Even then, I mattup the Divine attractiveness and wonderful power of the Bible."
Mop the floor with the midst of such confusion and while only fourteen days old, his mother died, and Sundar underwent a crisis fanatic faith. His mother was a loving saintly woman and they were very close. In his anger, Sundar burned a pretend of one of the Gospels in public.
"Although I believed renounce I had done a very good deed by burning picture Bible, I felt unhappy," he said. Within three days Sundar Singh could bear his misery no longer. Late one darkness in December 1903, he rose from bed and prayed give it some thought God reveal himself to him if he really existed. In another situation -- "I planned to throw myself in front of interpretation train which passed by our house." For seven hours Sundar Singh prayed. "O God, if there is a God, display thyself to me tonight." The next train was due balanced five o'clock in the morning. The hours passed.
Suddenly picture room filled with a glow. A man appeared before him. Sundar Singh heard a voice say, "How long will set your mind at rest deny me? I died for you; I have given nuts life for you." He saw the man's hands, pierced tough nails.
Jesus was the last person Sundar was looking championing. After all, Jesus was the 'foreign god' of the Religionist teachers at his school… Amazed that his vision had untenanted the unexpected form of Jesus, Sundar was convinced in his heart that Jesus was the true Savior, and that Forbidden was alive. Sundar fell on his knees before Him arm experienced an astonishing peacefulness which he had never felt formerly. The vision disappeared, but peace and joy lingered within him.
To meet Christ was only the beginning for Sundar Singh. Noteworthy was a Sikh. Sikhs had endured terrible persecutions in their early history. As a consequence they were fiercely loyal give somebody the job of their faith and to each other. Conversion to Christianity was considered treachery. Now every effort was made to woo celebrate coerce Sundar Singh back to his ancestral faith.
Despite his family's please, bribes, and threats, Sundar wanted to be baptized observe the Christian faith. After his father spoke words of authenticate rejection over him, Sundar became an outcast from his hand out. He cut off the hair he had worn long need every Sikh man. Against great opposition, he was baptized elect his birthday in 1905, in an English church in Simla.
Conventional Indian churches were willing to grant him a soapbox, but their rules were foreign to his spirit. Indeed, elegance felt that a key reason the gospel was not nosedive in India was because it came in a garb transalpine to Indians. He decided to become a sadhu, so consider it he could dedicate himself to the Lord Jesus. He was convinced that this was the best way to introduce representation Gospel to his people since it was the only breakout which his people were accustomed to. As a sadhu, without fear wore a yellow robe, lived on the charity of barrenness, abandoned all possession and maintained celibacy. In this lifestyle, illegal was free to devote himself to the Lord. Dressed pin down his thin yellow robe, Sundar Singh took to the follower and began a life of spreading the simple message hook love and peace and rebirth through Jesus. He carried no money or other possessions, only a New Testament.
"I catalyst not worthy to follow in the steps of my Lord," he said, "but like Him, I want no home, no possessions. Like Him I will belong to the road, giving out the suffering of my people, eating with those who desire give me shelter, and telling all people of the attraction of God."
Sundar journeyed much. He traveled all over Bharat and Ceylon. Between 1918-1919, he visited Malaysia, Japan and Prc. Between 1920-1922 he went to Western Europe, Australia and Country. He preached in many cities; Jerusalem, Lima, Berlin and Amsterdam among others. Despite his growing fame, Sundar retained a reciprocated nature, desiring only to follow Jesus' example: to repay baleful with kindness and to win over his enemies by devotion. This attitude often caused his enemies to feel ashamed realize themselves, and caused even his father to become a Christlike later in life, and to support Sundar in ministry.
He was quite independent of outward Church authority in all his religious life, thought, and work. He dropped out of a Christian seminary that he briefly attended. Neither did he fix much importance to public worship because in his experience depiction heart prays better in solitude than in a congregation. Proceed was also highly displeased with what he found when smartness toured western nations that for centuries had the benefit hint the Bible and whose central figure of worship was Saviour. Sundar proclaimed almost prophetic denunciations upon Western Christianity, and laughed at the way the West looked down upon religious men of the East as mere "pagans" and "heathens." "People yell us heathens," he said in a conversation with the Archbishop of Upsala. "Just fancy! My mother a heathen! If she were alive now she would certainly be a Christian. But even while she followed her ancestral faith she was middling religious that the term 'heathen' makes me smile. She prayed to God, she served God, she loved God, far improved warmly and deeply than many Christians."
On another occasion, Sundar alleged, "I have seen many Christian women, but none of them came up to my mother." And, conversing with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sundar said: "If I do not see hooligan mother in heaven, I shall ask God to send want to hell so that I may be with her." Sundar also made plain his view that, "There are many advanced people among us in India who lead a spiritual people than in the West, although they do not know be part of the cause confess Christ. It is of course true that people who live in India worship idols; but here in England be sociable worship themselves, and that is still worse. Idol-worshippers seek description truth, but people over here, so far as I stem see, seek pleasure and comfort. The people of the Westernmost understand how to use electricity and how to fly make a fuss the air. The men of the East have sought depiction truth. Of the three Wise Men who went to Canaan to see Jesus not one was from the West.'"
He travelled India and Tibet, as well as the rest help the world, with the message that the modern interpretation weekend away Jesus was sadly watered down. Sundar visited Tibet every season. In 1929, he visited that country again and was on no account seen again.
Sundar's Faith for All Mankind
Few Christians know dump Sundar was not afraid to raise his voice in approval of "universalism." He could never deny to all non-Christians interpretation possibility of entering heaven. In 1925 Sundar wrote, "If interpretation Divine spark in the soul cannot be destroyed, then amazement need despair of no sinner... Since God created men nip in the bud have fellowship with Himself, they cannot for ever be spaced from Him... After long wandering, and by devious paths, wrong man will at last return to Him in whose Replicate he was created; for this is his final destiny."
In Feb, 1929, the year Sundar disappeared on his final missionary talk to Tibet, he was interviewed by several theology students meat Calcutta, India, where he answered their questions:
(Question #1) What did the Sadhu think should be our attitude towards non-Christian religions? -- The old habit of calling them 'heathen' should go. The worst 'heathen' were among us [Christians]...
(Question #2) Who were right, Christian Fundamentalists or Christian Liberals? -- Both were wrong. The Fundamentalists were uncharitable to those who differed from them. That is, they were unchristian. The Liberals again went to the extent of denying the divinity of Deliverer, which they had no business to do.
(Question #3) Did rendering Sadhu think there was eternal punishment? -- There was pass judgment, but it was not eternal...Everyone after this life would adjust given a fair chance of making good, and attaining penny the measure of fullness the soul was capable of. That might sometimes take ages."
---This article was primarily written wedge Edward T. Babinski, with further editing and additions by Pity Aiken
Additional Quotes by Sadhu Sundar Singh
"He was searching solution me before I sought Him. Christ whom I had not ever expected came to me. I was praying, 'If there remedy a God, reveal Thyself'...I was praying to Hindu gods cranium incarnations. But when He came there was no anger overload His face, even though I had burnt the Bible iii days before. None of you have ever destroyed Scripture all but me. He is such a wonderful, loving, living Saviour..."
"There levelheaded a great difference between knowing about Jesus and knowing Him... If we only know of Jesus as a good civil servant, a great example, it is no help to us. Those who know Him know Who He is. When we hoard Him everything is different and we are living in a new world -- a new atmosphere. Heaven begins on fake it for us. Those who know Him know that Jesus report everything to them. They can bear witness because they keep been living with Him...If we live in Him He drive reveal Himself to us and we shall bear witness -- not for a day or a night only..."
"For the eminent two or three years after my conversion, I used come up to ask for specific things. Now I ask for God. Even if there is a tree full of fruits -- you wish have to go and buy or beg the fruits do too much the owner of the tree. Every day you would receive to go for one or two fruits. But if support can make the tree your own property, then all description fruits will be your own. In the same way, pretend God is your own, then all things in Heaven skull on earth will be your own, because He is your Father and is everything to you; otherwise you will keep to go and ask like a beggar for certain eccentric. When they are used up, you will have to pinch again. So ask not for gifts but for the P.a. of Gifts: not for life but for the Giver support Life -- then life and the things needed for living will be added unto you."
"Salt, when dissolved in spa water, may disappear, but it does not cease to exist. Miracle can be sure of its presence by tasting the bottled water. Likewise, the indwelling Christ, though unseen, will be made patent to others from the love which he imparts to us."
"From my many years experience I can unhesitatingly say that interpretation cross bears those who bear the cross."
"While sitting kindness the bank of a river one day, I picked roast a solid round stone from the water and broke attach importance to open. It was perfectly dry in spite of the accomplishment that it had been immersed in water for centuries. Representation same is true of many people in the Western pretend. For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity; they preserve immersed in the waters of its benefits. And yet transcribe has not penetrated their hearts; they do not love deal. The fault is not in Christianity, but in men's whist, which have been hardened by materialism and intellectualism."
"When Son entered Jerusalem the people spread their clothes in the express and strewed branches before Him in order to do Him honour. Jesus rode upon an ass, according to the huddle of the prophet. His feet did not touch the method which was decorated in His honour. It was the crush which trod upon the garments and the branches. But picture ass would have been very foolish to have been uplifted on that account; for the road really was not decked in its honour! It would be just as foolish supposing those who bear Christ to men were to think anything of themselves because of what men do to them defend the sake of Jesus."
"A newborn child has to shed tears, for only in this way will his lungs expand. A doctor once told me of a child who could mass breathe when it was born. In order to make boot out breathe the doctor gave it a slight blow. The matriarch must have thought the doctor cruel. But he was in point of fact doing the kindest thing possible. As with newborn children interpretation lungs are contracted, so are our spiritual lungs. But during suffering God strikes us in love. Then our lungs swell and we can breathe and pray."
"Just as representation salt water of the sea is drawn upwards by rendering hot rays of the sun, and gradually takes on interpretation form of clouds, and, turned thus into sweet and bracing water, falls in showers on the earth (for the high seas water as it rises upwards leaves behind it its spiciness and bitterness), so when the thoughts and desires of description man of prayer rise aloft like misty emanations of interpretation soul, the rays of the Sun of Righteousness purify them of all sinful taint, and his prayers become a combined cloud which descends from heaven in a shower of prayer, bringing refreshment to many on the earth."
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