The Prayer For Jabez

The Prayer For Jabez

Behold the power of prayer.

WILLIAM CAREY has been called the “Father of Modern Missions.” Born near Northampton, England, in 1761, Carey worked as a shoemaker from the age of fourteen to twenty-eight. Born again at eighteen, he began preaching in the evenings.

At the age of nineteen Carey married Dorothy Plackett, who was called Dolly. She was six years older than her husband and had very little in common with him. Whereas Carey had taught himself Latin by the age of twelve and went on to master Greek, Hebrew, French, and Dutch, Dolly was illiterate and signed her name with an X. As a journeyman shoemaker, Carey was never able to raise his family out of poverty.

As a young man Carey developed a great burden for unevangelized people in foreign lands. In 1792 he was instrumental in founding the first modern missionary society, the Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen, later known as the Baptist Missionary Society. The following year Carey went to India as the mission board’s first missionary.

At first Dolly refused to accompany her husband to India, wanting to stay behind with her two youngest sons, Peter and Jabez. Carey insisted that at least his six-year-old son, William Jr., go with him. Finally Dolly was pressured into joining the venture, and the whole family went together to India.

Once there, five-year-old Peter died of dysentery, and Dolly was pushed over the edge into insanity. She had delusions that her husband was having affairs with other women and would follow him down the street berating him. Finally he had to keep her in a locked room. Their deeply troubled family life had a devastating effect on the children. Throughout their early years the boys never experienced a functional family. They basically raised themselves because their father, though he loved them dearly, was too busy and too mild mannered to discipline them.

Years later back in England on June 24, 1812, the Baptist Missionary Society met to celebrate its twentieth anniversary. John Ryland, the pastor who had baptized William Carey years before, gave the evening sermon. As he was about to close his remarks, Ryland mentioned that he had gotten a letter from William Carey in which he wrote that one of his sons, nineteen-year-old Jabez, had brought much heartache to his father in India because he had never given his allegiance to Jesus. Carey had agonized in prayer for years over his son’s lost condition and now was asking his English supporters to join him in prayer for him. As Ryland explained about the lost condition of Jabez, tears streamed down his face, and he pleaded, “Brethren, let us send up a united, universal and fervent prayer to God in solemn silence for the conversion of Jabez Carey.” One of the men who had been in the room related that these words hit the audience like a clap of thunder, as nearly two thousand people bowed their heads in prayer for Jabez’s salvation.

The next mail the mission society received from India contained a letter that reported that Jabez Carey had recently put his trust in Jesus.

Reflection

Are you praying for the salvation of unsaved friends or relatives? If not, start now. William Carey prayed for his son for years, even when it seemed hopeless. Ask God for whom you should pray, and then ask others to join with you to pray for their salvation. Then keep on praying regardless of the time that passes.

As for me, I will certainly not sin against the Lord by ending my prayers for you.

1 Samuel 12:23