The Billy Graham of Asia
My life has fallen into a few stages.
As a child, I lived in Box Hill when it was village. I then became pastor to the slums of inner Melbourne for eight years. I was then a country parson and a teacher at a one teacher bush school out at Jackson Creek in Western Victoria and then for 13 years, I was a suburban minister in one of Australia’s largest suburban ministries.
And then, for more than 27 years I’ve been Superintendent in Sydney of Wesley Mission, Australia’s largest church ministry.
I’ve told you stories of people in each of these places.
Tonight I want you to come with me into the heart of the city.
Over the years I have met many remarkable people. I have interviewed and have been interviewed by world famous people. One of the most dear was in fact a man who was to become a close friend. I had known about him for many years before becoming Superintendent of Wesley Mission. But now I came to know him face to face. From 1979 on we would regularly meet together once a year to have a Chinese meal together. We used to go Yum Cha in Chinatown or else have crispy friend lemon chicken at the Imperial Peking Restaurant in the base of the Sydney Hilton Hotel. There I would ask him about his early life.
His story began as a young student in India watching an emaciated body of a young orphan lad lying on the ground covered with putrefying sores that filled the air with a foul revolting odour. Kneeling beside this scrap of humanity was a clean, well-dressed English lady. Her hands were busy applying some healing ointment to the festering sores while she murmured soothing words of comfort.
The student recognized her—one of India’s missionaries doing what she did every day, personally applying Christian love in action. It made a profound impact on the student’s mind. A couple of years earlier he had left Malaya where his family lived, to undertake further studies in India. He had been brought up by his father, well indoctrinated into Hinduism and had been warned to steer clear of every sign of Christianity. His father had taught him that for a Hindu to embrace a Western religion was a disgrace.
One night that student was unable to sleep. He looked around for something to read to kill the time. He had a copy of the Bible that he had brought to the student’s quarters as a matter of interest and because he had been told not to read it he turned, by chance, to Isaiah 53 and read the words, “He was wounded and bruised for our sins. He was chastised that we might have peace, he was lashed and we were healed. We were the ones who strayed away like sheep. We left God’s path to follow our own. Yet God laid on him the guilt and sins of every one of us.”
Something wonderful, almost dramatic, happened to him at that moment. As he told me, “For the first time in my life I came face to face with the fact that I was a condemned, miserable sinner, and that I was heading toward a lost eternity.”
Like every good Hindu he used to visit the temple regularly. He had memorized important parts of the Vedas, the Hindu scriptures. He added to his merit by fasting every Friday. But all of these religious observances counted for nothing as he now felt. They seemed to fall like a pack of cards before God’s magnificence.
My friend continued, “We were not allowed to use the electric light in the dormitory after 10pm so I found myself reading the Bible in the dim, flickering light of an oil lamp. Suddenly, the room was filled with a blinding light and in the centre of that light I saw the very form of Jesus Christ, as if He were dying then and there. This vision was so glorious that its full impact defies description. For the first time in my life I realized that Jesus Christ loved me, and that He had sacrificed His life for me. The idea of a God of love was altogether new to me. I had never known the love of a mother and a father because my mother had died when I was very young and my father was seldom sober. The idea that Jesus loved me was too wonderful to grasp –I just sat there in utter amazement. Christ’s love and sacrifice presented me with a tremendous challenge. With tears streaming down my face, I knelt down alone in my room and accepted the Lord Jesus as my personal Saviour. This decision was to bring me much pain suffering and opposition, but the joy that I found in my new Saviour was so great that my suffering seemed a ridiculously small price to pay for it. I had become a Christian.”
We were sitting in a Chinese restaurant in the basement of the Hilton Hotel as my good friend told me his story. Dr G D James is a man I have come to admire in the deepest way.
After he became a Christian in 1973 he wasted no time in telling his family that he had become a Christian. His father, uncles and other relatives lived what he described as a sinful life. They squandered all they earned on wine, women and song. Their dear ones were neglected and their children ill clad and poorly fed. Homes were broken and peace and happiness seemed to be an elusive dream. Tempers flared on the slightest pretext and turmoil enveloped each of them. “But” Dr James continued, “as I began to tell them the story of Jesus, something happened. Jesus touched them one by one and they were never the same again. Their homes were completely transformed. Instead of squabbles and abuse there was prayer and the reading of the Bible. Hatred and misunderstanding gave way to peace and love. Nagging and swearing were replaced by hymns of praise. This was nothing short of a miracle and those miracles continues practically every week.”
Dr James told me, “The first to receive Christ was my step mother. Several others followed. My father would attend most of these meetings completely drunk and would make a nuisance of himself to almost everyone. I gave him a Tamil Bible, which he would read when he was sober. One day, he surprised me by saying he had received Jesus Christ as his Saviour. It was true enough. The change in him was so remarkable that many of my relatives were attracted to those meetings. Within 6 months of me preaching the Gospel to my family, no less than 30 of my people emerged from the mysticism and superstition of Hinduism to receive the Christ of God as their Saviour.”
G D James as a young man was on the way to becoming a powerful international evangelist. In March 1940 as a young preacher he went through the villages and towns of South India speaking to individuals or preaching to tiny groups of people here and there. He was lonely, homeless and penniless. Very often he went without food. Many a time the only nourishment he had was a couple of bananas and cold water. But there was a radiance in his face and a confidence in his step as he went about sharing with people the love of God.
During the 3 ½ years of Japanese occupation of South East Asia he was trapped with his wife in Malaya where they suffered trials and traumas. But they faithfully served the Lord, introducing many to Christ and encouraging the suffering church in Malaya where he had lived since childhood. On a couple of occasions the Japanese were at the point of killing him but his life was miraculously spared. Gradually they had the joy of having children and they moved from Malaya to Singapore where he blessed people over the next 30 years in a most remarkable ministry.
Singapore became his base for ministry from the end of the 1940’s. Dr James always believed in adding his education and from his earlier education in Malaysia and then in India, he pursued higher studies through correspondence from Cambridge University and completed an intensive course in journalism in London, England. He then earned his Doctor of Theology and Doctor of Divinity from the Maranatha Bible Seminary in Florida, USA.
Dr James has been an inveterate traveller, making lecture tours throughout European, USA and Canada and scores of other countries. He frequently lectured in great world congresses, conferences and in universities. He has delivered papers at some of the most significant international conferences on evangelism. He has preached in some of the world’s greatest churches in various part of the world.
In 1969, Dr James spoke at the World Missions’ Congress at Wheaton when more than 100 young people offered themselves for missionary work around the world. In 1969 and 1973 he addressed the London Missionary Conference, which drew about 3,000 people on each occasion. He addressed more than 25,000 Christians in Finland where more than 150 young people dedicated their lives to full time Christian service. He has spoken in large-scale crusades in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Sri Lanka. He has preached in every capital city, regional centre and large town in Australia.
1960 he established the Asia Evangelistic Fellowship. This has become a major missionary organization employing today more than 200 national missionaries in 15 different counties of the world.
On top of preaching to large crusades and conferences, Dr. G D James has held large-scale evangelists crusades in Asia and around the world, thrilling his audience with wit and humour. He was the main speaker of “Love Hong Kong Mission” in 1987 when more than one million people were exposed to the Gospel through his direct preaching, radio and television. Hundreds of people were counselled for decision and dedication. Over the Years Dr. James has spoken to more than seven million people face to face and to hundreds of millions on radio and television. He is known widely as the “Billy Graham of Asia”. Dr James is not only a great speaker but also a good writer. He has published 24 books and several small booklets. One of these, “The Man You Must Confront”, has been published in several languages and more than five million copies have been published.
Around the world there are many Christian leaders who are the fruit of his evangelists ministry. Archdeacon Tan Teng Wai of the Anglican Church indicates that Christ came into his heart when Dr James spoke at an Intervarsity Christian Fellowship camp in 1959. He is the principal of St Andrews College, Singapore.
In the east end of London there is a very large church led by Rev Simon Yong. Nearly 30 years ago, Simon was a lion dancer and gangster, dreaded in Singapore. He made his commitment to Christ at the conclusion of a sermon by Dr G D James and today he heads up this important London based ministry.
Every Sunday in Singapore there is a church with more than 1,000 people praising and worshipping God, and it’s pastor, Tang Ek Kwang, was a young man who committed his life to Christ during one of Dr James’ evangelists meetings. One young lady who also became a Christian following his preaching is today Dr Ng Peh Cheng, who is senior lecturer in the Singapore Bible College. In England, David Pickard gave his life to serve the Lord as a missionary and is today the general director of the great International Overseas Missionary Fellowship. The same could be said with hundreds of other Christian leaders throughout India, South East Asia, Europe, America and Australia.
Over the past 40 years, Dr James has lived without any church or organization paying him salary. He has simply trusted God to move different people to send a love gift to him. Those love gifts were enough for him and his wife Rose and his family of six children to live comfortably.
His children are all committed Christians, helping in God’s service.
One son David, a lawyer, practices in Sydney; Joyce, an educationalist who has completed her PhD in Linguistics; Grace has a Bachelor of Education degree; Violet is a Doctor of Philosophy from Aberdeen University and a lecturer at Singapore Bible College; Daniel is a medical doctor in the Broken Hill Hospital; and Jonathon is the international director of the Asia Evangelistic Fellowship, working out of Perth and is currently a PhD candidate.
Life for Dr James was never easy. Over the years he has been maltreated, maligned, falsely accused, bombarded with countless pressures, trials and traumas, including some Hindu fanatics who threatened his life, bouts of malaria that impacted upon him during his travels in South East Asia and two heart attacks.
For most of his last fifty years he has averaged more than 1,000 miles of travelling every week lecturing, preaching and crusading.
Dr James is no well past the years of retirement but he has never retired. When I asked him about his plans for retirement he replied, “I retire every night to bed! During the day time there is no retirement for anyone in the Lord’s service.”
I have interviewed Dr James many times on radio and on television. I remember asking him about his belief in the future and he replied. “I believe there is a heaven in the hereafter and I shall be there with Jesus and with all who love Him. I know that to be for a fact. God assures me in His Word that no matter what takes place in the political world, no matter who comes out victorious in the battle for power between Government; I know that the kingdoms of this world are reserved for Jesus Christ, the king of kings. I believe firmly in His second coming as much as I do His first. I expect Him to come at any moment, and look forward to the time when chaos and conflict will give way to peace and love.”
Dr G D James has become one of my closest friends and men whom I admire most in this nation. Some might call him the Billy Graham of Asia, but I call him simply G D —my friend.
The city of Sydney would grow to be one of the world’s great cities and Wesley Mission would grow to be one of the world’s great churches and I was privileged to spend each day in the heart of both.