Legacies of Light: William Carey

Ash fell like gray snow while a lifetime of labor melted into pools of metal. That’s where we meet William Carey—not in a triumphant portrait, but in the ruins of a printing press that held ten Bible translations, handcrafted type, and years of hope. We walk through his journey from a little shop bench to the beating heart of India’s cultural and spiritual life, and we watch how one quiet verse steadied his hands: “Be still and know that I am God.”

We share why a poor cobbler plastered maps over his workbench, taught himself Hebrew and Greek, and dared to challenge church leaders who said sending missionaries was impossible. Carey’s story opens into a wide landscape: launching a missions society from scratch, recruiting a few bold “rope holders,” and then pouring himself into dictionaries, schools for girls, a newspaper, agricultural reform, and the largest press in India. He fought to end widow burning and the burning of lepers, proving that gospel conviction can change both hearts and laws. Along the way, grief was real—mental illness in the family, a child’s death, years of ridicule, and that devastating fire.

What turned the tide was not bravado but a biblical rhythm of resilience. Psalm 46 offers a map for storms: pause more, panic less; remember a present refuge and a promised peace. We unpack the Hebrew nuance behind “be still,” a chosen cease-fire with our need to control, and show how surrender cleared Carey to act with sharper focus. England’s opposition softened, support surged, and within months the press roared again. The takeaways are practical: name your “although,” anchor your “therefore,” and practice moving forward while sitting still—quiet heart, active hands, steady steps.

If stories of faith, history, and hard-won courage spark something in you, join us for this deep dive. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who needs strength for a setback, and leave a review to help others find the show. What’s your next step while sitting still?

Learn more: https://www.wisdomonline.org/

Transcript

Choosing Stillness Over Control

SPEAKER_00 0:32

The Hebrew language instead of as causative, which means we decide to do that. This is what we will do. We will stop striving. We will stop manipulating. We will stop trying to orchestrate events in our lives. We'll stop trying to manage everything perfectly. We'll stop trying to be in control of everything and everyone. We will sit still. God is effectively saying, stop my God! End of that I'm God. The Apostle Paul wrote this command to the church in Philippi: join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. In other words, keep your eyes on others who live a godly life. Learn from their example, their biography, so to speak. Watch how they demonstrate a life of integrity, whether it's on the job, the neighborhood, in the body of Christ. Learn from them. Be inspired by them. That's been our theme over these last few weeks. Now, if you've been around the Shepherd's Church for very long, you've probably heard me give an illustration or two from the life of a shoe cobbler who will become a renowned missionary. I want to dive in a little deeper and ultimately take you to this shoe cobbler's favorite verse. But I want to start at the beginning here. His name was William Carey. He was born in 1761 to a farmer and his wife in the south of England. As a little boy, he was given to exploration. He loved to hike, he loved to be outdoors, he loved to discover a new animal, a new plant, a new flower. He had read often of the explorations of Christopher Columbus, and he had talked about him so much so that his family nicknamed him Columbus. The problem was as he grew into his teen years, he developed severe allergies that would keep him from pursuing his love of being outdoors. He kept him from moving to North Carolina as well, where we suffer today. Well, as a poor farmer's son, without an education beyond what we would call an elementary school education, he had very few options ahead of him. He became, he writes, with some disappointment, apprenticed to a shoemaker, a skilled artisan who made custom, made shoes. And you ought to know, and I didn't realize this until reading his biography, that shoe cobblers were not shoemakers. In fact, shoe cobblers were at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak. They were only allowed, in fact, by law in England, to mend shoes. They were not allowed to make them. So he was a shoe cobbler. In fact, it's interesting, if I can fast-forward the tape for a moment, that after he became world-renowned and his name, a household name, a religious leader met him and rather snobbishly looked down on him and said to him, I hear you were a shoemaker. And he said, Oh no, I was a shoe cobbler. I only mended them and never made them. And in that, beloved, I think you find one of the reasons God used William Carey so greatly, he didn't care who got the credit, so long as God got the glory. Well, Carey married the shoemaker's sister-in-law, and they began scraping out a rather meager existence in a little village called Hackleton in central England. Now, by all outward appearances, if you were to meet him about this time in his life, you would assume that he would just sort of disappear into the English countryside as a poor cobbler with his wife and a couple of children and never hear from him. He would never venture outside that little village. But at his heart, he was still an explorer, a dreamer. He wanted to reach unbelievers somewhere in the world. So he drew the continents on large pieces of paper and pasted them together with cobbler's wax and hung them above his workbench. And he would write in the names of ethnicities, the names of different languages and religions, and he, while he mended shoes, prayed around the world. Now he figured that if God would ever be so delighted to send him somewhere in the world to reach unreached people, he would need to learn languages, and he'd never studied, and so he began to teach himself. He taught himself Hebrew and then he taught himself Greek. Now I had to pay$200 an hour in seminary to be taught Hebrew and Greek. He taught himself for free. Then he began to spend weekends traveling as an itinerant evangelist, talking to people about Christ, preaching whenever there would be a crowd gathering around him. He spent so much time in his twenties traveling on his free weekends that on one occasion one of his friends rebuked him for neglecting his business of mending shoes. And he responded rather famously, neglecting my business. I frankly wonder what it would be like in the church today if we all viewed our job that way. An assignment posted there to deliver the gospel. Well, eventually, at the age of 31, he became convinced, because God had laid on his heart, the nation in India, to preach the gospel there. Now you have to keep this in mind in 1793, England had never sent a Protestant missionary anywhere ever. Imagine this is only 250 years ago. So he reaches out to church leaders in the Church of England, which he was a member of, to band together and support he and his family to go to India. And they were appalled by this idea. They were so much scandalized that he would suggest such a thing. They thought he'd lost his mind. Evidently, they'd never read Matthew 28, they were to make disciples of all the nations. Sending missionaries from England to other countries had never been done in modern times. As I was rehearsing his life and preparing for today, I was reminded of one of my seminary professors who challenged us all in class by saying, in every generation, the church has missed something somewhere. Do you know what it is missing today? Well, after being rejected, Kerry decided to write a book to challenge, if you can imagine, a cobbler, challenging the Church of England. And he wrote it at the age of 31, an 87-page book entitled, which he would publish with his own money. Here's the title An Inquiry into the obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathen. That became a bestseller in spite of its title. And it ran, it actually created a firestorm in the Church of England. But the church leaders would not bend. They refused to consider his request, which means, well, he would leave the Church of England, and he did. He joined a group called the dissenters. We would call them today Bible-believing or evangelical, uh, conservative evangelicals. But this would mean he'd lose any possibility of support. He had no denomination to help him, no home church to pray for him, no missions agency to send him. In fact, there wasn't any such thing as a missions agency. So he started one. He called it a society for the propagation of the gospel among the heathen. We're so afraid of offending people today. He says, I'm going to go reach those heathen people over there, those pagans. He just started it. Four businessmen joined with him and promised him financial support. Like church leaders would write editorials openly in newspapers, and they would write that this shoe cobbler and his four friends were fools. Before they set sail for India, one of the four men wrote in his journal this, and I quote, there at the pier, William Carey took an oath from each of us that he was, as it were, about to descend into the pit. He made us repeat the promise. That as long as we lived, we would never let go of the rope. And they never did. As long as they lived. Their biographies have never been written. But without them, we may never have had the legacy of William Carey, who would become known as the father of modern missions. The first Protestant missionary from England. He will descend into that mine and he will serve for 40 years. Now, having read several biographies of William Carey, it's actually hard to grasp everything he did, so let me give you a very quick short list. He founded the Society of Agriculture in India. He taught farmers how to rotate crops. He introduced the concept for the first savings bank in India. He introduced the steam engine to India. He built the largest printing press in India. He wrote the first Sanskrit dictionary and grammar. He published the first science textbook. He taught Indians how to make paper for publishing. He personally composed and wrote the lyrics for the first Christian hymns in India. He wrote the first Bengali English dictionary for the nation. He established the first newspaper ever printed in India. He translated all or portions of the Bible into 36 languages and dialects. He founded the first university in India. He created the Indian Society of Horticulture. And that's just for starters. His mission compound, by the way, would eventually cover acres of botanical gardens with flower beds, growing orchids and tulips and daisies and bluebells. He imported birds to flourish among the 33 species of trees he planted and the 400 species of plants. Oh, by the way, he discovered that his allergies disappeared in the climate of East India. It's another good reason to become a missionary and leave North Carolina. We'll support you. Now I will add that William was afraid of snakes. He writes about it. I would say amen to that. That's biblical as far as I'm concerned. He would design a snake-proof hut in his compound among all the trees and flowers where he could pray without fearing a snake would interrupt his devotions. I also heard he didn't like cats. I made that up. All right, here we go. Besides planting churches, he built 100 elementary schools specifically for girls, which had never been done before. He stopped the Hindu practice of widow burning, which was legalized throughout India. He stopped the legal practice of burning lepers to death. The list of accomplishments is amazing. Especially given the fact that Kerry wrote in his journal often that he didn't feel worthy to be used by God. Maybe you felt the same way. Now, these accomplishments don't mean that his life was a garden. That he never suffered. He did. First and foremost, his wife Dorothy became ill soon after arriving, and she eventually lost her mental sanity. And William cared for her as best he could until she died a few years later. During the same time, their five-year-old boy Peter died as well. He carried this virtually alone. He married again, but after 13 years, his wife Charlotte died from local diseases. He suffered also from this rather brutal introspection of himself, which is not a good practice. The enemy loves that. Be careful, beloved. The more we search within ourselves, the more we're simply going to find depravity. We must take that to the cross and claim his forgiveness. But he would write this to himself. He never expected it to be quoted. I am defective in all my duties. In prayer, I wander and soon tire. My devotion languishes. My soul is a jungle when it ought to be a garden. I am perhaps the most inconsistent Christian of all. He was never happy with himself. Well, after 19 years of hard work, which included many of these accomplishments, he faced what could have been the final discouragement. He'd always struggled with financial pressure. He never had enough money. Churches in England wouldn't back him. Only these four men supported him. Missionaries were hard to come by. But he trained a number of volunteers, but he's still being treated, you know, with suspicion back home and ridicule. But he pressed on for 19 years. But then in 1812, when his printing and his translation work had reached a zenith, native translators hard at work, dozens of Indian typesetters, trained pressmen, bookbinders. They were working in a main hall that would have been about the size of this auditorium. And a fire broke out, evidently from a malfunctioning stove. Everything in there was combustible. And within moments it became a raging fire. Everyone escaped with their lives, but listen to a few of the things he lost. All the original manuscripts and copies of ten different Bible translations destroyed. There's no computer backup, there's no cloud. All gone. His Sanskrit dictionary, which was almost completed, was now a pile of ashes. Quantities, vast quantities of paper consumed. Even more significantly, thousands of typesets, the little letters and symbols that would be put into the press if they rolled a paper over it. All these languages had been designed and hand handmade over years of labor, now melted into unusable clumps of metal. Priceless dictionaries, grammars, deeds for properties, his accounting books, all of it destroyed. William Carey walked through the compound with an associate, and with tears in his eyes, he said, and I quote, in one short evening, the labors of years are consumed. He wrote to a friend, Oh, the providence of God is dark. I don't see any light. The following Sunday, he would stand before his associates and his volunteers, a few fellow missionaries, mostly believing Indians who'd come to faith in Christ. They were all sitting on the edge of their seat to hear what he would have to say. They assumed that he would quit. He stood to preach, and he turned to Psalm 46 and read a verse that would become a hinge moment. What we would call today his life verse. So let me have you turn there. Let's take a closer look. Psalm 46. We'll work our way quickly through this. But I want you to notice here in the lines before verse 1, you're given some background information. You notice how sometimes we're given that in the Psalms. It's called a superscription. It tells us that this psalm was to be sung according to or accompanied by the Alamot. Alamut is in the Hebrew word family referring to a young woman. We're not sure, but this psalm might have been selected for a choir of women, or perhaps a female soloist. It might also refer to a soprano type instrument played in the upper register, like a flute or a harp. What we do know is that Psalm 46 was intended to be sung with a soothing effect, reassuring, calming for the believer. Now the Psalm is divided, as you can see, in the three stanzas, shown as paragraphs, and each stanza ends with the word sila. You might see it in the margin or over to the right of your text. It appears at the end of verse 3, the end of verse 7, and the end of verse 11. Selah is a musical notation that means to pause. If you've taken music lessons, it's a rest. Period. Reflect. So the composer gets there and he essentially says, I want you to stop a moment and think about what you've just sung. Think about the lyrics. Slow down. Don't race through it. Pause for a moment on these truths. You know, it occurs to me that we would be so much better off with less panicking and more pausing. We need a little more sila in our lives. Well, now the first stanza opens in verse 1. God is our refuge and strength, the very present help in trouble. The word trouble is from the Hebrew verb that means to be cramped or in a narrow place or to be tuck, stuck in a spot that we can't seem to get out of. God is a help when you're stuck in life. He's your refuge, notice, in, he's your help in trouble. God doesn't promise the absence of trouble. He promises his presence in when you're in trouble. So it's as if he's saying, God is going to help you walk through it. Well, how bad can the trouble be? Verse 2 begins to describe it. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea. Though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling, sounds like a lot of trouble to me, you might circle the repetition of the word here, though. You can render it all though. Although the earth gives way. In other words, everything underneath you, everything around you has come unglued. It's all moving. It seems to be changing. Although the mountains dissolve, crumble into the pounding waves of the sea, although the waters roar and foam, it's bedlam. You've lost all sense of peace and quiet. He says, there and then we come to realize God is our only refuge, our only help. Makes me wonder today what the although might be in your own life. The trouble you're facing. Although my business just went bankrupt. Although my home was robbed, although a close friend betrayed me, although my marriage ended, although my retirement savings was lost through bad investments. Although that relationship didn't turn out like I wanted, although the hope of a baby never materialized, although my adult children have seemed to abandon me, although the doctor doesn't have an answer for me, although my loved one just died, although I just had that accident. Although, although, although, although the earth is shaking and the storm is raging, and everything around me is changing. God is my help, my strength. Selah, think about that. Think about that. Claim it. Reflect on it. Memorize it. Speak it out to your own heart and mind. Stanza number two begins now in verse four. There's a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. This has prophetic implications. Not only is God our present refuge, the city of God will be our permanent refuge. Verse 5, God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns. Everything's moving right now in your life. It's all swirling around. There's coming a day when nothing moves, as it were, settled, secure. So this means God is not only our present help, he is our prophesied help. And the day prophesied here, where peace will arrive, is when King Jesus reigns. Now at the moment, the kingdoms of our world think they're in control. They're the big shots. Now they defy God. They assume they're in control, but notice the psalmist writes in verse 6 the nations rage. The implication is against God. But the kingdoms will totter. He utters his voice. The earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah. Now, again, think about that. Don't just think about your present trouble. Think about your future triumph. When Jesus comes. Now where that stanza number three begins. It describes a future global peace. Verse 9 tells us that the Lord will make wars cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the chariots with fire. This is a prophetic promise that God's going to bring all war to an end. That is the universal language, war. God gets blamed all the time for war. God doesn't start the wars on earth. We do that all by ourselves. But one day, God will end all war. How encouraging would that be to our brothers and sisters around the world in conflicts? The psalmist isn't just speaking, though, about our troubled world. He's speaking to our troubled hearts. Think about this. Trouble eventually dissolves into triumph. Now, while the smoke of that devastating fire is on everybody's clothing and it's on everybody's mind, William Carey reads verse 10. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. Be still. In the Hebrew language, the stem is causative, which means we decide to do that. This is what we will do. We will stop striving. We will stop manipulating. We will stop trying to orchestrate events in our lives. We'll stop trying to manage everything perfectly. We'll stop trying to be in control of everything and everyone. We will sit still. The psalmist is quoting God here, and God is effectively saying, stop playing God and know that I'm God. And I'm in control. So be still. Think about that. Remember that. If I can take care of the planet, the universe, God is saying, I can take care of you. If I can handle the storms of defiant nations, I can handle the storms you're facing. If I can manage the trouble of this world so that my purposes are fulfilled, I haven't mismanaged your life. And the trouble you're facing today. Now, William Carey read this verse and then preached a sermon with two points. We don't have the sermon, but we've got the points. Point number one: God has a right to do with us as he pleases. Imagine preaching that with the smoke going up in little gray wisps. Point number two, our duty is to surrender to his will. He would tell a friend, and I quote, the Lord has laid me low that I may look more simply to him. Be still and let God demonstrate what only he can do. I have to tell you what happened next. When news of this fire reached England, they were still publicly, whenever he came to their minds, ridiculing him, refusing to support him. Many believed that he was foolishly wasting his life. But all of a sudden, God seemed to turn the heart of that entire nation around, and England rallies to his cause, recruits for missionaries, explode with applicants. Money begins to pour in from throughout Great Britain to such a degree that he's able to rebuild that the largest printing press in India in a matter of months. All the funds, new missionaries, volunteers, within 24 months, that press is rolling again. And they all just sort of rolled up their sleeves and said, it's obvious, God is with us. Let's start over again. So that fire isn't the final act, and you'd think it would be. Now it's all gone. But it marks the halfway point in William Carey's life and ministry. And it'll serve for 21 more years. Now instead of giving up, he wrote to a friend these words. And I think in these words, you'll find this balance. It's inspiring, it's realistic, it isn't blind to reality, and yet it moves. It'll move your heart like it has mine. Here's what he wrote. There are grave difficulties on every hand, and more are looming ahead. Therefore, we must go forward. This is what I'd like to call moving forward while sitting still. You're still in your heart, your spirit, your mind, trusting, depending on your Lord, but at the same time, you're moving forward in faith as God opens doors and closes others. Moving forward while sitting still. So let's sit still in quiet trust. Let's move forward.