In other words, expect great things from God: "You will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities" (v. 3). We will take the world. We'll take the hope of Christ to all those who are spiritually "desolate," until they know our God. When you attempt great things for God, then and only then can you expect great things from him.

When Carey arrived in India, he found women sacrificing their children to the Ganges River which they worshipped. Widows were burned along with the bodies of their dead husbands. Lepers were murdered. The nation knew nothing of the love of Jesus and the light of heaven.

The English cobbler translated the entire Bible into six languages and parts of Scripture into 29 others. He founded a mission in India which continues today, and a college which enrolls more than 2,500 students. He brought about reforms of great significance in their society. And God used him to begin a missions movement which continues today and has done more to reach the world than any such movement in all of Christian history.

Within 12 years of the founding of William Carey's Baptist Missionary Society, five other such societies began. In 1814 the Baptists of America began what is today the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Today 40,000 career Protestant missionaries go to every part of the globe. And more than 48,000 missionaries come from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Historians trace the Modern Missions Movement to one English shoe cobbler and his sermon from our text.

Today 3,500 new churches are born every week around the globe. Some 28,000 persons convert to Christianity every day in Communist China. As many Africans come to Christ each day. South Korea is 30% Christian; Indonesia, officially a Muslim country, is 25% Christian. Missionaries are going where missionaries have never gone in history. God is continuing the "great things" he began in a new way with William Carey. You can "expect great things" from God.

But only if you will "attempt great things" for him. Jeff Lewis challenged us last week to understand that God has called each of us to minister to the nations, starting where we are with those we know. Where will you begin? Where is your India?