A Christian convert from Hindu Sikhism, Bakht Singh, died in India, in September, 2000, at age 97. He was one of India's most prolific church planters and a most remarkable evangelist.
In January 1915, a young lawyer from India, Mohandas Gandhi, returned to his homeland from South Africa with a new resolve to liberate his homeland from the domination of the British Raj. Elsewhere in India, in the northwest region of Punjab, a young Sikh named Bakht Singh Chabra had a dream. It was a dream that haunted him for years, a dream that would later catapult him to becoming one of India's most prolific church planters and a Christian evangelist of world renown.
"In my dream as a young boy" Bakht Singh writes in one of his more than sixty books, "I was climbing a high and steep hill. With great difficulty and struggle I would reach the top. As soon as I reached it, somebody would come along and hurl me down. As I fell, the sharp points of the rocks would dig into my ribs. I would be in great pain, so much so that I would cry out in my dream. But in the end I would find myself lying on soft silk cushions. I would wonder that the pain of falling down was worth landing on such soft silk cushions." That recurring dream proved to be prophetic of his conversion, later, to Christ.
Bakht Singh was born on June 6, 1903, in the northern region of Punjab that later became part of Pakistan. Born into a family who strictly observed the Sikh traditions, he would spend hours in gurudwaras (the Sikh temples) and observe all the religious rites. Sikhism, a derivative of Hinduism, was founded by Guru Nanak (1469-1539). The Sikhs believe in the unity of God and the brotherhood of man. A typical Sikh maintains the five Ks: kes (long hair), kangha (a comb), kirpan (a sword), kach (short trousers), and kara (a steel bracelet). The word Sikh means a disciple, and their common family name, Singh, means the lion.
Like others of his heritage, Bakht Singh hated Christianity from his childhood. He once tore the pages out of a Bible that was presented to him in school, keeping only the leather binding. Little did he realized then that God already had plans for his life.
In 1926 Singh sailed for England to study mechanical engineering at King's College, London. He promised his parents his loyalty to the Sikh religion, but his student years changed all that. He was captivated by the aristocratic lifestyle he observed at King's and, before long, he started smoking and drinking alcohol. He learned to eat with knife and fork, visited the theaters and dance halls, and wore expensive Western clothes. Most shocking to his friends and family, he also cut off his long hair - the outward mark of his religion. "I became an atheist," he said, "a socialist and a free thinker." Yet there was still a deep emptiness in his heart that haunted him. Eventually, despairing of his new lifestyle and his dark view of life, he began a search for inner peace.
An Awesome Power
By 1928 Singh had occasion to travel to Canada, and during the transatlantic passage he noticed a small sign announcing the Christian service held in the ship's main dining salon. This captured his interest. Curious to know what Christians do in worship, he entered the room and sat down on a back bench. He had never read the Bible or participated in any Christian service. He had never heard about salvation through Jesus Christ. But when he knelt with the others for prayer, he felt an awesome power lifting him up. "I was trembling," he wrote later. "I felt a divine power entering into me. Joy flooded my soul. Unknown to me, I was repeating the name of Jesus again and again. I felt great peace." he said. Thus, a once proud Sikh was won to Christ.
From that day on, Singh was known to spend hours reading the Bible - as much as 14 hours at a stretch. His former desire to read popular magazines, newspapers, and novels was replaced with a passion to know the Bible and to plumb its depths. He was baptized on February 4, 1932 in Vancouver, Canada, and immediately began sharing his testimony with those around him. As he matured in his faith and his understanding of the word, he felt called to full-time ministry, and began studying seriously to that end.
When Bakht Singh returned home to India as a Christian, on April 6, 1933, his parents met him at the Port of Bombay. Reluctantly, they accepted the idea of his conversion, but they urged him, at all costs, to keep his newfound beliefs a secret. But Singh refused to comply and, from that moment, his family deserted him. Suddenly homeless and driven by his passion for Christ, he began to preach on the streets of Bombay. Before long he was preaching to large crowds and holding revivals throughout the country. Crowds thronged to hear him. He was a powerful and winsome speaker, and the passion in his words attracted tens of thousands to hear about Jesus Christ. And his sermons were always followed by signs and wonders.
A Dynamic Witness
Singh's biographer and co-worker with him for over 50 years, Dr. T. E. Koshy, who was chaplain at Syracuse University, says, "The early years of his ministry were marked with signs and wonders. People fell to the ground crying for mercy." Dr. Ravi Zacharias, the most prominent Indian-born Christian teacher and apologist of our day, says, "I was a young Christian when I heard of Bakht Singh. His impact for Christ in India and worldwide has been immense."
Bakht Singh's preaching impacted the religious landscape of Hindu-Muslim India as no Christian teacher had ever done. People from all walks of life flocked to hear him. He eventually went on to plant thousands of churches all over the sub-continent and many other parts of the world.
The great British church historian, J Edwin Orr, said of him, "Brother Bakht Singh is an Indian equivalent of the greater Western evangelists, as skillful as Finney and as direct as Moody. He is a first-class Bible teacher of the order of Campbell Morgan or Graham Scroggie." American author Dave Hunt writes, "The arrival of Bakht Singh turned the churches of Madras upside down. Crowds gathered in the open air to hear this man of God. Many seriously ill were healed when he prayed for them. The deaf and dumb began to hear and speak."
"Singh's role in the 1937 revival that swept the Martinbur United Presbyterian Church inaugurated one of the most notable movements in the history of the church in the Indian subcontinent," notes Jonathan Bonk, in the Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions. But Singh did more than preach the salvation. He launched the indigenous church-planting movement that was so essential to the rise of Christianity in India, contextualizing the gospel to the local culture. Eventually he saw the formation of more than 10,000 "houses of worship," and he traveled the world, setting up churches in Australia, France, America, and England, as well as Pakistan.
In Total Dependence
Another missionary, statesman, author, and teacher, Norman Grubb, said of him: "What impressed me most on my Asian visit was my eight days with Bakht Singh of India and his co-workers and congregations. Here was to me a sample of the coming church of Christ ... In all my missionary experience I think these churches on their New Testament foundations are the nearest I have seen to a replica of the early church and a pattern for the birth and growth of the young churches in all the countries which we used to talk about as mission fields."
Singh was a friend to leaders such as Billy Graham, Francis Schaeffer, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, Jerry Falwell, and John Stott, to name only a few.
"Singh taught total dependence on God and urged people to get their own Bibles and study them. He was known to read the Bible on his knees," says David Adimoolam, who was for many years a member of the assembly organized by Bakht Singh. "He was strict yet gentle," he says. "Those were days when we felt the glory of God coming down. Singh was a man of prayer. He emphasized the importance of the word."
At his death in the Central Indian town of Hyderabad, his ministry headquarters, on September 16, 2000, at age 97, Christians worldwide commemorated the life of this man of God. An estimated 600,000 mourners attended the funeral. Some also reported that a mild tremor had hit the city a few hours before his death. And on the day of the funeral, the entire city witnessed a rare phenomenon - a rainbow over the sun as flocks of doves flew above the funeral procession. Coincidence or not, many took these events as a sign.
Today, as India is undergoing a new wave of attacks on Christian and their churches, there is good reason for alarm. The international community has been slow in responding, but the resolve of the church has only increased. Persecution, though terrible, cannot stop the progress of the Word of God, and the passion of Indian believers today, including those in the churches organized by Bakht Singh, are armed with conviction and a profound resolve to overcome and endure. And for those who knew him, the memory of the great evangelist, Bakht Singh, is an ongoing reminder of what God can yet accomplish through those who are wholly devoted to Him.
Reuben David holds a Master of Science degree in Journalism from Bangalore University and is currently a graduate student at Regent University. He is a visiting scholar at The Wilberforce Forum, a division of Prison Fellowship in Washington, DC.
Source : http://www.urbana.org/arti
God grant us more great men of prayer and Bible study! Raise up in these last days a people of passion for you and purpose to serve this lost generation!
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