Holding the Ropes   

The year was 1792. William Carey had challenged his Baptist brethren to obey their responsibility to take the Gospel to unreached lands. Baptists of mid-England formed the Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel Among the Heathen. They appointed Carey and John Thomas to go to India as missionaries. In 1793 Carey said a tearful farewell to his church in Leicester, England. On a Wednesday the Society came together for a farewell service as Carey and his son prepared to leave. Sometime during that all-day meeting, Carey met with the four leaders of the Society. These men promised Carey “that, as he went forth in the Society’s name and their Master’s, they should never cease till death to stand by him.” Andrew Fuller, one of those men, later described the occasion with an illustration.

Fuller said that the mission to India seemed like a few men who considered going into a deep, unexplored mine. It was as if Carey said, “Well, I will go down, if you will hold the rope.” The meeting, in Fuller’s mind, was as if he and the other brethren gave their word that “whilst we lived, we should never let go the rope.”

The four leaders of the Baptist Society kept their word to Carey. They served the Society, prayed for Carey, and raised needed funds. History records that each man “held the rope” until he died.

More than 200 years have passed since Carey first volunteered to go.  Times have changed, and Carey would not recognize our modern world.  Godly missionaries labor for Christ around the world today. The work on which Carey embarked and the work missionaries do today is the same.

Will you “take hold of the rope” with us and support our General Fund so we can more efficiently and effectively serve these faithful, modern-day servants of Christ?

Missionaries today continue to go “down into the mine” seeking to win lost men to Christ, baptize and disciple them, and plant New Testament churches. Some go to places that are dangerous. Some go into locales where exotic illnesses threaten. Others go to countries where poverty makes life difficult. All of them go to lands where people by the thousands need our Savior. These missionaries, like William Carey, need someone to “hold the rope” as they embark on their Great Commission task.  

Selection taken from BWM website.  http://www.baptistworldmission.org/get-involved/pray/1000-holding-the-ropes.html