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About the Book
"The Life And Death Of Mr. Badman" by John Bunyan is a moral allegory that follows the life of Mr. Badman, a deceitful and wicked man who engages in various immoral and dishonest activities throughout his life. The book explores the consequences of his actions and ultimately leads to his downfall and death, serving as a cautionary tale about the dangers of leading a sinful life.
William Carey
"Expect great things; attempt great things."
At a meeting of Baptist leaders in the late 1700s, a newly ordained minister stood to argue for the value of overseas missions. He was abruptly interrupted by an older minister who said, "Young man, sit down! You are an enthusiast. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he'll do it without consulting you or me."
That such an attitude is inconceivable today is largely due to the subsequent efforts of that young man, William Carey.
Plodder Carey was raised in the obscure, rural village of Paulerpury, in the middle of England. He apprenticed in a local cobbler's shop, where the nominal Anglican was converted. He enthusiastically took up the faith, and though little educated, the young convert borrowed a Greek grammar and proceeded to teach himself New Testament Greek.
When his master died, he took up shoemaking in nearby Hackleton, where he met and married Dorothy Plackett, who soon gave birth to a daughter. But the apprentice cobbler's life was hard—the child died at age 2—and his pay was insufficient. Carey's family sunk into poverty and stayed there even after he took over the business.
"I can plod," he wrote later, "I can persevere to any definite pursuit." All the while, he continued his language studies, adding Hebrew and Latin, and became a preacher with the Particular Baptists. He also continued pursuing his lifelong interest in international affairs, especially the religious life of other cultures.
Carey was impressed with early Moravian missionaries and was increasingly dismayed at his fellow Protestants' lack of missions interest. In response, he penned An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. He argued that Jesus' Great Commission applied to all Christians of all times, and he castigated fellow believers of his day for ignoring it: "Multitudes sit at ease and give themselves no concern about the far greater part of their fellow sinners, who to this day, are lost in ignorance and idolatry."
Carey didn't stop there: in 1792 he organized a missionary society, and at its inaugural meeting preached a sermon with the call, "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God!" Within a year, Carey, John Thomas (a former surgeon), and Carey's family (which now included three boys, and another child on the way) were on a ship headed for India.
Stranger in a strange land
Thomas and Carey had grossly underestimated what it would cost to live in India, and Carey's early years there were miserable. When Thomas deserted the enterprise, Carey was forced to move his family repeatedly as he sought employment that could sustain them. Illness racked the family, and loneliness and regret set it: "I am in a strange land," he wrote, "no Christian friend, a large family, and nothing to supply their wants." But he also retained hope: "Well, I have God, and his word is sure."
He learned Bengali with the help of a pundit, and in a few weeks began translating the Bible into Bengali and preaching to small gatherings.
When Carey himself contracted malaria, and then his 5-year-old Peter died of dysentery, it became too much for his wife, Dorothy, whose mental health deteriorated rapidly. She suffered delusions, accusing Carey of adultery and threatening him with a knife. She eventually had to be confined to a room and physically restrained.
"This is indeed the valley of the shadow of death to me," Carey wrote, though characteristically added, "But I rejoice that I am here notwithstanding; and God is here."
Gift of tongues
In October 1799, things finally turned. He was invited to locate in a Danish settlement in Serampore, near Calcutta. He was now under the protection of the Danes, who permitted him to preach legally (in the British-controlled areas of India, all of Carey's missionary work had been illegal).
Carey was joined by William Ward, a printer, and Joshua and Hanna Marshman, teachers. Mission finances increased considerably as Ward began securing government printing contracts, the Marshmans opened schools for children, and Carey began teaching at Fort William College in Calcutta.
In December 1800, after seven years of missionary labor, Carey baptized his first convert, Krishna Pal, and two months later, he published his first Bengali New Testament. With this and subsequent editions, Carey and his colleagues laid the foundation for the study of modern Bengali, which up to this time had been an "unsettled dialect."
Carey continued to expect great things; over the next 28 years, he and his pundits translated the entire Bible into India's major languages: Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Hindi, Assamese, and Sanskrit and parts of 209 other languages and dialects.
He also sought social reform in India, including the abolition of infanticide, widow burning (sati), and assisted suicide. He and the Marshmans founded Serampore College in 1818, a divinity school for Indians, which today offers theological and liberal arts education for some 2,500 students.
By the time Carey died, he had spent 41 years in India without a furlough. His mission could count only some 700 converts in a nation of millions, but he had laid an impressive foundation of Bible translations, education, and social reform.
His greatest legacy was in the worldwide missionary movement of the nineteenth century that he inspired. Missionaries like Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, and David Livingstone, among thousands of others, were impressed not only by Carey's example, but by his words "Expect great things; attempt great things." The history of nineteenth-century Protestant missions is in many ways an extended commentary on the phrase.
you don’t have to know god’s will
You don’t have to know God’s will if you are confident in God’s word. If that raises objections, trust me, I understand. Like you, I have significant questions that I don’t have answers for. I have personal quandaries, parenting quandaries, ministry quandaries, financial quandaries, etc. Some are massively important and I’m not sure what to do. This can tempt me to fear. I’ve prayed about these things, some for quite a while. Clarity has not yet come. But over the decades I’ve followed him, Jesus has made something very clear to me in the Scriptures, the lives of eminent saints, and my own stumbling experience: Living in the will of God is more about knowing and trusting his specific promises than receiving specific direction (Hebrews 11:8). It’s more about resting in his sovereignty than wrestling with my ambiguity (Psalm 131:1–2). I’ve learned and continue to learn that embracing God’s will for me largely consists in transferring my confidence from my own miniscule capacity to understand what’s going on and why to God’s omniscient and completely wise understanding (Proverbs 3:5–6). Our Felt Need Is Often Not Our Fundamental Need As the result of the fall, we all come into the world wildly and irrationally over-confident in ourselves. When God redeems us in Christ, he enrolls us in a discipleship program uniquely tailored to the purposes he has for each of us. He knows that for us to live according to his will, our fundamental need is a significant loss of self-confidence and a significant gain in God-confidence. But this is usually not our felt need. The need we typically feel is to know specifically what we’re supposed to do, where we’re supposed to go, how our needs will be provided, or why the terrible thing happened. “Living in the will of God is more about resting in his sovereignty than wrestling with your ambiguity.” What we’re seeking for and hope to find in those answers are certainty and security — peace. But due to our manifold limitations on every level, the answers we think we want would rarely provide us the peace we seek. God knows his explanations would not even make sense to us since we lack the capacities to comprehend the complexity of the equation. That’s why Hudson Taylor counsels us to, “make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has the right to do as He pleases with His own, and he may not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you.” (A Camaraderie of Confidence, 31) Our infinite Sovereign knows that our fundamental need is to learn to trust him over our very finite selves. He knows that trust will provide us what explanations won’t: the peace that surpasses understanding (Philippians 4:7). That’s why when we pray about God’s will for us, God’s answers often aim at addressing this fundamental need: learning to trust him over our understanding (Proverbs 3:5). But because we are focused on our felt needs, we often fail to recognize God’s answers at first. He is addressing a need we have, but don’t feel. So it can seem like God is ignoring our need for the peace we long for. How God Meets Our Need for Peace But God is most certainly not ignoring our need for peace. He has promised that we will experience peace through believing (Romans 15:13). Believing what? Believing his “precious and very great promises” (2 Peter 1:4). This is what I mean when I say that we don’t need to know God’s will if we are confident in God’s word. When God’s direction and purposes for us are unclear, his promises are always crystal clear. God frequently calls us to stand on the rock of his promises and faithfulness in the murky, swirling fog of perplexing circumstances (Hebrews 10:23). Is this not the story of almost every biblical saint? “When God’s direction and purposes for us are unclear, his promises are always crystal clear.” God’s promises are the checks that are accepted at the bank of heaven. They are God’s promissory notes to us, guaranteeing that he will make good on the value they represent. No matter how things appear at any given time, no matter how dark, foreboding, lonely, depressing, even hopeless things look, God always makes good on his promises. And he wants us to cash them. That’s why Charles Spurgeon said, “When I pray, I like to go to God just as I go to a bank clerk when I have [a] cheque to be cashed. I walk in, put the cheque down on the counter, and the clerk gives me my money, I take it up, and go about my business.” (A Camaraderie of Confidence, 54) That almost sounds flippant. It’s not. It’s experience. If there is anything we can legitimately name and claim as Christians, it is a clear promise of God. We cannot claim it on our own terms or timing, but we can in good conscience hold God to it, because it is God’s will to say yes in Christ to every promise he makes to us in the Bible (2 Corinthians 1:20). God’s word is as good as God. Listen to the Cloud of Witnesses: Cash the Checks! If you struggle to believe these things, join the club. It doesn’t come natural to any of us to trust God’s promises over our perceptions. God knows this and knows how to cultivate trust in us. And one way he does this is through the testimonies of others who have put his promises to the test. This “cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1), those who have known God best, all cry, “Cash the checks! They’re real!” Listen to them speak from the Scripture and church history. “God always makes good on his promises. And he wants us to cash them.” One of my favorites, a man whose example convicts and encourages me every time I turn to him, is George Müller of Bristol. And speaking on behalf of the great cloud he says to us: “Everyone is invited and commanded to trust in the Lord, to trust in Him with all his heart, and to cast his burden upon Him, and to call upon Him in the day of trouble. Will you not do this, my dear brethren in Christ? I long that you may do so. I desire that you may taste the sweetness of that state of heart, in which, while surrounded by difficulties and necessities, you can yet be at peace, because you know that the living God, your Father in heaven, cares for you.” (A Camaraderie of Confidence, 83) God has given you the checks of his promises and you are invited to take them to the bank of heaven. If you want peace, the peace that surpasses understanding and guards your heart and mind during your most embattled, stormy, confusing, and frightening moments, you must cash the checks. For this peace comes only from trust. If you do, you will be able to live at peace in the midst of many quandaries not yet knowing God’s specific will because you are confident in God’s specific word.
