Post by JEM on Dec 1, 2008 4:07:00 GMT
THIS IS A TRUE STORY OF A BOY CALLED BILL
=========================================
Bill was born in the year 1761, the son of a weaver of cloth, and they then lived in a remote hamlet, Pury End in the village of Paulerspury in Northamptonshire.
Today, millions of people are grateful that he lived, and the results of his life continues in 72 countries .
When he was 6 his Dad got an extra job, that of Parish Clerk, which carried with it the job of Village Schoolmaster.
With this job went a larger house, that made it possible for Bill as the oldest of 5 children to have his own room.
Bill loved practical science. Finding out what made things work, and all forms of living things,
Close by the village boundary was the Forest of Whittlebury, and often Bill was roaming around in it learning by observation, about it’s trees,. plants, birds, animals and insects.
Soon his room resembled a cross between a museum and a mortuary, with live birds and insects, and dead ones. He dissected beetles, small dead animals, and plants.
Bill loved company. In later life he described that as a boy his companions were bell ringers, choir boys. foot-ball players, and the society of the blacksmiths shop and that he, as many of them, was addicted to swearing, lying, and coarse conversation, and although his Dad warned him to avoid them he always found some way to ignore the advice.
He might have become a farm worker all his life on
five shillings a week but he suffered from a skin disease which required that he avoid being long in the sunshine.
He had to find indoor work so he became apprenticed at the age of 15 to a cordwainer. A man who made shoes. So he learned a skilled craft.
His boss was Clarke Nichols, a strict Churchman and a very honest moral man who hated lying, but sometimes drank too freely.
Bill was Christened according to the custom of the Church of England, confirmed and regular at worship and communion, though mainly to keep his parents happy, rather than to please God. By conviction he regarded himself as an Anglican who regarded people of any other congregation with contempt
He hated enthusiasm but enjoyed arguing .
Where he worked he had a friend, 3 years older named John Warr who was a Baptist and they argued a lot about their different beliefs.
One Christmas time Clarke sent Bill round the homes of the customers to collect their payments and settle up their accounts. Most tipped him fairly except One man, an Ironmonger, who tricked Bill by giving him a shilling. Today that is 5p but then it was worth £5
Bill counted up his tips and then went to spend them on things he really wanted .
When he came to pay he was horrified to be told that the shilling was a dud, it was a counterfeit coin.
What was he to do? He did not want to give up what he had bought.
So he took a risk. He’d been doing risks for years and lying his way out, if trouble threatened.
He exchanged the dud coin for a good one from his employers money. Next day was Sunday and the Vicar preached on the subject of honesty, and our Bill felt quite queasy and uncomfortable.
In those days stealing a shilling or less, was known as PETTY LARCENY but the penalty for that was anything but petty to be stripped naked and tied to a hurdle behind a horse drawn cart and whipped in public until well bloodied and then 7 years transportation in chains to work in the West Indies or the American colonies. Times were harsh.
At that time Bill; was passing through teenage change and did not really know what he wanted or needed.
His employer and his parents were already worried because his conduct suggested that he was becoming gay.
He wrote later that “ I wanted something, but I had no idea that nothing but an entire change of heart would do me any good”
He went home after Communion wrestling with his conscience as this theft and the consequent lying appeared to him to be so necessary
He prayed to God to see him safely through the next day and get him off the hook.
On Monday having handed over the money, his employer discovered the dud coin and Bill said that the Ironmonger had paid that coin when settling his account. The older apprentice was sent to sort the ironmonger out only to learn that he had paid in sound money but had played a trick on Bill.
Bill was very embarrassed. For weeks his shame and remorse was so great he dare not go out in public nor go to worship, for fear that by then the whole village would know. In fact nobody betrayed him.
But it made Bill realise that he needed outside help if he was to live an honest life. That simply going to church services or going through the motions of religion were not enough.
He gave up his other friends, and began attending prayer meetings with John. At one, the preacher’s message caused Bill to turn away from the wrong doing in his life and really trust God and commit himself fully to the service of Jesus Christ
Bill came to understand this Bible passage in Paul’s 1st letter to Corinthians chapter 10 verse 12 and 13 where he wrote
“So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out ,so that you can stand up under it. “
Bill had been severely tempted or as is the better translation tested, and had failed; but God gave him a way out, by the 3 other men who knew, instead of condemning him, supporting and helping him to become a Christian.
Bill was easy going, and satisfied with his life, before the incident with the shilling. He was confident. He believed he was a Christian, but he didn’t pay much attention to God. He was respectable when it was necessary. He was at home with his peer group, one of the boys until he realised he could not get on in life without some stronger outside help. Unbeknown to Bill, God had a big task for him to do, but he had to be humbled first and learn to obey. Bill discovered the meaning of
The first letter of John chapter 1 v 8 and 9
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and clean us from all unrighteousness.”
The encouragement of these verses to us is that even if we are not aware of God, He is aware of us and wants to help us cope with life, and when we foul up as everybody does, God has provided a solution or anti dote.
Admit to him you’ve failed, some call that Repentance
Ask him for forgiveness some call that Confession
Accept you have received it. some call that Assurance
Jesus told us we are to forgive one another 70 x 7 which really means always, If we are to do that it is clear that we can expect Him to do that for us when ever we
ask him to do so.
Bill become a Christian at the age of 17 still living in a small village in Northamptonshire but God had big plans for his life and he was just at the beginning of his adventure
But until Bill changed course from just being a village boy doing things his own way and learned to find out what God wanted him to be, the adventure could not begin.
Another outcome of the change in Bill was that his employer allowed him to borrow books from him, one of which was a New Testament with passages in Greek.
A young man in the village called Tom Jones who had dropped out of university understood Greek and was happy to teach Bill to understand it.
Bill later taught himself from books French and Dutch so he could read books in those languages. He later taught himself Latin, Hebrew, and Danish.
Bill was now 18 and just before he was 20 he married for the first time. Then he became a shoemaker and a Lay Preacher touring the village churches.
At the age of 22 he was baptised by total immersion in the River Nene.
and 2 months later his boss died and Bill took over the business, and the responsibility of looking after his boss’s widow and 4 children.
That winter was the worst of the century and he for 10 weeks tramped from village to village through the snow and ice trying to sell shoes.
A year later aged 23 Bill became a poorly paid minister of a Baptist Church.
He was so sure about what God had done for him that he wanted to share it with the whole world and in his school he produced a large hand drawn map and inked in all the known countries and from his reading added all the details about them he could. He later published this in a book. THE ENQUIRY
He found that most of the Christians were in one quarter of the world and that in most of Africa, Asia, and South America there were none and he determined to change that
Amongst Baptist churches he was unknown but he was asked to preach at an assembly of ministers and he preached from the text “Enlarge your Tent
No one took any notice
Disappointed that no one seemed interested in taking the news of Jesus to the millions of people outside Britain on the last day of the Assembly he persuaded the Chairman to propose a meeting be held at Kettering to discuss the matter, and that started of a movement that since has engulfed all branches of the Christian Church all started on a collection of £13.
His own Church was shocked to hear that he was going to India to be a missionary. They had prayed for years that someone would go, never dreaming they’d have to lose their friend.
It took several weeks to make the arrangements for a party 4 adults 3 boys and a baby. They needed £700 for 2 cabins, all they had was £315, so they all squeezed into one cabin on a sailing ship that took 5 months to reach India without putting in anywhere. Some of them were very sea sick.
At the age of 32 Bill was in India, on his own with his family. His companion had left. .
Bill got a job as manager of an Indigo factory making dyes with 90 employees all of whom he hoped he could persuade to become Christians,
Bill passionately wanted to share God’s message with people, everywhere, and improve their lives What he had not bargained with was that they did not want to know.
It was 10 years before the first Indian believed and became a Christian.
Before the work force would do a thing they insisted in sacrificing to the 4 armed long tongued idol goddess KALLY from where the name Kalcutta comes from
Bill preached against idol worship and refused to sacrifice. So they did it for him much to his disgust.
Then anything that went wrong they blamed on Bill for not making a sacrifice.
The Factory made little profit as it was badly sited and every year it flooded.
That first year his wife Dorothy and his eldest son Felix because of the damp conditions suffered dysentery for 7 months. His youngest son Peter aged 5 died of malaria.
Then his wife had a mental breakdown and for the next 14 years could not understand him nor talk to him,
So much for being a Christian being easy. It never has been. It takes determination. It’s surrounded with disappointments, can lead to despair and can lead to an early and brutal death. Jesus warned his follower that on Earth as He had had to suffer so they would.
Bill went onto to become a farmer and an expert in horticulture, indeed a famous botanist.
Then as he understood the Hindus and Moslems more and more he took up social issues such as poverty and the practice of widow burning. When a Hindu man died he would be cremated on a funeral pyre, a large bonfire, and his widow was expected to fling herself alive on the fire and burn too.
Bill campaigned against this practice until it was banned and so became a Reforming politician sought out by the Governor Generals for his advice ,and his work had a big impact on the European settlers and many came to worship with him and hear him preach
More missionaries joined him and he was enabled to set up a base at a better site, Serampore.
He founded and edited an Indian national newspaper,
He translated the Bible into 24 Asian languages including Chinese.
He founded a printing company, but in 1812 it was burnt to the ground and he lost many of his precious translations and had to begin them again from nothing. With help from England he rebuilt it better than before.
At Serampore He founded and tutored a college that has since trained thousands of men and women.
God used him and his sons Felix and William to establish Baptist Churches all across India
Bill was in fact William Carey through whose dedication and determination was founded the Baptist Missionary Society now called BMS World Mission that now supports missionaries in 34 countries and supports work in 36 others.
When Bill began stirring up British Christians to go abroad with Christ’s message there were few doing it across the whole world but all the hundreds of mission agencies there are today in Britain, across Europe, across America and around the world stem from the change Bill created
Bill came to be known as the Father of modern missions but he asked that when he’d gone we would not remember William Carey but Carey’s Saviour. So we do but of course we could not forget Bill Carey as he is an example to us all.
In his day there were worldwide a few score million Christians. Today there are over 2.4 billion.
Bill died in India in 1834 aged 73.
Late in his life Bill said “My business is the spread of Christ’s Kingdom, I make shoes to pay my expenses.”
Bill had a motto
Attempt Great things for God,
Expect Great things from God
Bill began with small things where he lived in England
As he was faithful in small things God led him on to bigger things.
What, I wonder, will you make with your life
Not much if you rely on yourself, but with God’s help anything can happen!
If you want a field of service look around you, where you live, learn, work, train, or spend your spare time. It teems with needs, and then there is the rest of the world.
You may feel you could not or do much anyway.
Remember that St Francis of Assisi is alleged to have said Witness everywhere, Preach Christ. and if necessary use words.”
Actions often speak much louder than words
There was a young man living in France called Pierre who became a Deputy in the National Assembly, as we would say here a Member of Parliament.
He got so fed up with Government delays to change or reform the country in which millions were desperately poor. During a harsh winter many Parisian beggars froze to death.
In desperation Pierre became a friar to work amongst the beggars that were left and to organise them
He divided them into teams to scour the city collecting bottles.
Then he led them to build a warehouse out of discarded bricks and got them to start a business of processing the bottles.
Finally he gave each beggar responsibility to look after another poorer than himself The project caught on and prospered and became a few years later the charity Emmaus. Soon there were few beggars left in Paris as they all grew richer. Pierre was worried less wealth would end the spiritual impact of their cause. He went to India and discovered people much worse off than his beggars. He returned to France and mobilised the beggars there to build a Leprosy ward at a hospital in India. He told the grateful patients “It is you who have saved us. We must serve or we die.
WE are SAVED to SERVE;
to change things and bring improvement. To love people.
DONT GIVE UP!
When things go wrong as they sometimes will
When the road you are trudging up seems all up hill
When funds are low and debts are high
And instead of a smile you have to sigh
When care is pressing you down a bit
Rest in God’s love...and never quit.
Life can be strange with it’s twist and turns
And many a failed man’s turned away
When with God’s help he’d have won the day
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow -
For you may succeed with another go -
Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver glint in the cloud of doubt
You never can tell how close you are -
The goal may be near when it seems so far.
So turn to the Lord when you are hardest hit
Put your trust in Him – and never quit.
=========================================
Bill was born in the year 1761, the son of a weaver of cloth, and they then lived in a remote hamlet, Pury End in the village of Paulerspury in Northamptonshire.
Today, millions of people are grateful that he lived, and the results of his life continues in 72 countries .
When he was 6 his Dad got an extra job, that of Parish Clerk, which carried with it the job of Village Schoolmaster.
With this job went a larger house, that made it possible for Bill as the oldest of 5 children to have his own room.
Bill loved practical science. Finding out what made things work, and all forms of living things,
Close by the village boundary was the Forest of Whittlebury, and often Bill was roaming around in it learning by observation, about it’s trees,. plants, birds, animals and insects.
Soon his room resembled a cross between a museum and a mortuary, with live birds and insects, and dead ones. He dissected beetles, small dead animals, and plants.
Bill loved company. In later life he described that as a boy his companions were bell ringers, choir boys. foot-ball players, and the society of the blacksmiths shop and that he, as many of them, was addicted to swearing, lying, and coarse conversation, and although his Dad warned him to avoid them he always found some way to ignore the advice.
He might have become a farm worker all his life on
five shillings a week but he suffered from a skin disease which required that he avoid being long in the sunshine.
He had to find indoor work so he became apprenticed at the age of 15 to a cordwainer. A man who made shoes. So he learned a skilled craft.
His boss was Clarke Nichols, a strict Churchman and a very honest moral man who hated lying, but sometimes drank too freely.
Bill was Christened according to the custom of the Church of England, confirmed and regular at worship and communion, though mainly to keep his parents happy, rather than to please God. By conviction he regarded himself as an Anglican who regarded people of any other congregation with contempt
He hated enthusiasm but enjoyed arguing .
Where he worked he had a friend, 3 years older named John Warr who was a Baptist and they argued a lot about their different beliefs.
One Christmas time Clarke sent Bill round the homes of the customers to collect their payments and settle up their accounts. Most tipped him fairly except One man, an Ironmonger, who tricked Bill by giving him a shilling. Today that is 5p but then it was worth £5
Bill counted up his tips and then went to spend them on things he really wanted .
When he came to pay he was horrified to be told that the shilling was a dud, it was a counterfeit coin.
What was he to do? He did not want to give up what he had bought.
So he took a risk. He’d been doing risks for years and lying his way out, if trouble threatened.
He exchanged the dud coin for a good one from his employers money. Next day was Sunday and the Vicar preached on the subject of honesty, and our Bill felt quite queasy and uncomfortable.
In those days stealing a shilling or less, was known as PETTY LARCENY but the penalty for that was anything but petty to be stripped naked and tied to a hurdle behind a horse drawn cart and whipped in public until well bloodied and then 7 years transportation in chains to work in the West Indies or the American colonies. Times were harsh.
At that time Bill; was passing through teenage change and did not really know what he wanted or needed.
His employer and his parents were already worried because his conduct suggested that he was becoming gay.
He wrote later that “ I wanted something, but I had no idea that nothing but an entire change of heart would do me any good”
He went home after Communion wrestling with his conscience as this theft and the consequent lying appeared to him to be so necessary
He prayed to God to see him safely through the next day and get him off the hook.
On Monday having handed over the money, his employer discovered the dud coin and Bill said that the Ironmonger had paid that coin when settling his account. The older apprentice was sent to sort the ironmonger out only to learn that he had paid in sound money but had played a trick on Bill.
Bill was very embarrassed. For weeks his shame and remorse was so great he dare not go out in public nor go to worship, for fear that by then the whole village would know. In fact nobody betrayed him.
But it made Bill realise that he needed outside help if he was to live an honest life. That simply going to church services or going through the motions of religion were not enough.
He gave up his other friends, and began attending prayer meetings with John. At one, the preacher’s message caused Bill to turn away from the wrong doing in his life and really trust God and commit himself fully to the service of Jesus Christ
Bill came to understand this Bible passage in Paul’s 1st letter to Corinthians chapter 10 verse 12 and 13 where he wrote
“So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out ,so that you can stand up under it. “
Bill had been severely tempted or as is the better translation tested, and had failed; but God gave him a way out, by the 3 other men who knew, instead of condemning him, supporting and helping him to become a Christian.
Bill was easy going, and satisfied with his life, before the incident with the shilling. He was confident. He believed he was a Christian, but he didn’t pay much attention to God. He was respectable when it was necessary. He was at home with his peer group, one of the boys until he realised he could not get on in life without some stronger outside help. Unbeknown to Bill, God had a big task for him to do, but he had to be humbled first and learn to obey. Bill discovered the meaning of
The first letter of John chapter 1 v 8 and 9
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and clean us from all unrighteousness.”
The encouragement of these verses to us is that even if we are not aware of God, He is aware of us and wants to help us cope with life, and when we foul up as everybody does, God has provided a solution or anti dote.
Admit to him you’ve failed, some call that Repentance
Ask him for forgiveness some call that Confession
Accept you have received it. some call that Assurance
Jesus told us we are to forgive one another 70 x 7 which really means always, If we are to do that it is clear that we can expect Him to do that for us when ever we
ask him to do so.
Bill become a Christian at the age of 17 still living in a small village in Northamptonshire but God had big plans for his life and he was just at the beginning of his adventure
But until Bill changed course from just being a village boy doing things his own way and learned to find out what God wanted him to be, the adventure could not begin.
Another outcome of the change in Bill was that his employer allowed him to borrow books from him, one of which was a New Testament with passages in Greek.
A young man in the village called Tom Jones who had dropped out of university understood Greek and was happy to teach Bill to understand it.
Bill later taught himself from books French and Dutch so he could read books in those languages. He later taught himself Latin, Hebrew, and Danish.
Bill was now 18 and just before he was 20 he married for the first time. Then he became a shoemaker and a Lay Preacher touring the village churches.
At the age of 22 he was baptised by total immersion in the River Nene.
and 2 months later his boss died and Bill took over the business, and the responsibility of looking after his boss’s widow and 4 children.
That winter was the worst of the century and he for 10 weeks tramped from village to village through the snow and ice trying to sell shoes.
A year later aged 23 Bill became a poorly paid minister of a Baptist Church.
He was so sure about what God had done for him that he wanted to share it with the whole world and in his school he produced a large hand drawn map and inked in all the known countries and from his reading added all the details about them he could. He later published this in a book. THE ENQUIRY
He found that most of the Christians were in one quarter of the world and that in most of Africa, Asia, and South America there were none and he determined to change that
Amongst Baptist churches he was unknown but he was asked to preach at an assembly of ministers and he preached from the text “Enlarge your Tent
No one took any notice
Disappointed that no one seemed interested in taking the news of Jesus to the millions of people outside Britain on the last day of the Assembly he persuaded the Chairman to propose a meeting be held at Kettering to discuss the matter, and that started of a movement that since has engulfed all branches of the Christian Church all started on a collection of £13.
His own Church was shocked to hear that he was going to India to be a missionary. They had prayed for years that someone would go, never dreaming they’d have to lose their friend.
It took several weeks to make the arrangements for a party 4 adults 3 boys and a baby. They needed £700 for 2 cabins, all they had was £315, so they all squeezed into one cabin on a sailing ship that took 5 months to reach India without putting in anywhere. Some of them were very sea sick.
At the age of 32 Bill was in India, on his own with his family. His companion had left. .
Bill got a job as manager of an Indigo factory making dyes with 90 employees all of whom he hoped he could persuade to become Christians,
Bill passionately wanted to share God’s message with people, everywhere, and improve their lives What he had not bargained with was that they did not want to know.
It was 10 years before the first Indian believed and became a Christian.
Before the work force would do a thing they insisted in sacrificing to the 4 armed long tongued idol goddess KALLY from where the name Kalcutta comes from
Bill preached against idol worship and refused to sacrifice. So they did it for him much to his disgust.
Then anything that went wrong they blamed on Bill for not making a sacrifice.
The Factory made little profit as it was badly sited and every year it flooded.
That first year his wife Dorothy and his eldest son Felix because of the damp conditions suffered dysentery for 7 months. His youngest son Peter aged 5 died of malaria.
Then his wife had a mental breakdown and for the next 14 years could not understand him nor talk to him,
So much for being a Christian being easy. It never has been. It takes determination. It’s surrounded with disappointments, can lead to despair and can lead to an early and brutal death. Jesus warned his follower that on Earth as He had had to suffer so they would.
Bill went onto to become a farmer and an expert in horticulture, indeed a famous botanist.
Then as he understood the Hindus and Moslems more and more he took up social issues such as poverty and the practice of widow burning. When a Hindu man died he would be cremated on a funeral pyre, a large bonfire, and his widow was expected to fling herself alive on the fire and burn too.
Bill campaigned against this practice until it was banned and so became a Reforming politician sought out by the Governor Generals for his advice ,and his work had a big impact on the European settlers and many came to worship with him and hear him preach
More missionaries joined him and he was enabled to set up a base at a better site, Serampore.
He founded and edited an Indian national newspaper,
He translated the Bible into 24 Asian languages including Chinese.
He founded a printing company, but in 1812 it was burnt to the ground and he lost many of his precious translations and had to begin them again from nothing. With help from England he rebuilt it better than before.
At Serampore He founded and tutored a college that has since trained thousands of men and women.
God used him and his sons Felix and William to establish Baptist Churches all across India
Bill was in fact William Carey through whose dedication and determination was founded the Baptist Missionary Society now called BMS World Mission that now supports missionaries in 34 countries and supports work in 36 others.
When Bill began stirring up British Christians to go abroad with Christ’s message there were few doing it across the whole world but all the hundreds of mission agencies there are today in Britain, across Europe, across America and around the world stem from the change Bill created
Bill came to be known as the Father of modern missions but he asked that when he’d gone we would not remember William Carey but Carey’s Saviour. So we do but of course we could not forget Bill Carey as he is an example to us all.
In his day there were worldwide a few score million Christians. Today there are over 2.4 billion.
Bill died in India in 1834 aged 73.
Late in his life Bill said “My business is the spread of Christ’s Kingdom, I make shoes to pay my expenses.”
Bill had a motto
Attempt Great things for God,
Expect Great things from God
Bill began with small things where he lived in England
As he was faithful in small things God led him on to bigger things.
What, I wonder, will you make with your life
Not much if you rely on yourself, but with God’s help anything can happen!
If you want a field of service look around you, where you live, learn, work, train, or spend your spare time. It teems with needs, and then there is the rest of the world.
You may feel you could not or do much anyway.
Remember that St Francis of Assisi is alleged to have said Witness everywhere, Preach Christ. and if necessary use words.”
Actions often speak much louder than words
There was a young man living in France called Pierre who became a Deputy in the National Assembly, as we would say here a Member of Parliament.
He got so fed up with Government delays to change or reform the country in which millions were desperately poor. During a harsh winter many Parisian beggars froze to death.
In desperation Pierre became a friar to work amongst the beggars that were left and to organise them
He divided them into teams to scour the city collecting bottles.
Then he led them to build a warehouse out of discarded bricks and got them to start a business of processing the bottles.
Finally he gave each beggar responsibility to look after another poorer than himself The project caught on and prospered and became a few years later the charity Emmaus. Soon there were few beggars left in Paris as they all grew richer. Pierre was worried less wealth would end the spiritual impact of their cause. He went to India and discovered people much worse off than his beggars. He returned to France and mobilised the beggars there to build a Leprosy ward at a hospital in India. He told the grateful patients “It is you who have saved us. We must serve or we die.
WE are SAVED to SERVE;
to change things and bring improvement. To love people.
DONT GIVE UP!
When things go wrong as they sometimes will
When the road you are trudging up seems all up hill
When funds are low and debts are high
And instead of a smile you have to sigh
When care is pressing you down a bit
Rest in God’s love...and never quit.
Life can be strange with it’s twist and turns
And many a failed man’s turned away
When with God’s help he’d have won the day
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow -
For you may succeed with another go -
Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver glint in the cloud of doubt
You never can tell how close you are -
The goal may be near when it seems so far.
So turn to the Lord when you are hardest hit
Put your trust in Him – and never quit.