Speaker 1: Welcome to Go Mission, a monthly program on the Thee Generation Podcast designed to highlight amazing accounts of gospel advance and equip you to join Jesus in His Go Mission.

Mark Gilmore: Welcome to the Go Mission podcast. I’m Mark Gilmore, and I’m greeting you today from the great land of India, where I’m traveling in Delhi, Assam, and Manipur. After just the last few days in Delhi, I’m struck with what a huge metropolis this city really is.

32 million people, the second largest city in the world. It’s nothing to drive for three hours and still be in as much city as when you started.

side street after side street of multi-level apartments built so closely together that you could almost reach out from corresponding balconies and touch fingertips you certainly could touch broom handles the narrow streets and alleyways with the ever-present web of tangled electrical cables hanging overhead watch out for that passing motorbike or mini car or full-size cow or anything else you might imagine.

And of course, everyone has in their hand a touchscreen smartphone, a newfangled generation in a culture that will never quite reach to modern times. There’s simply too much poverty, mainly because there’s too much pantheism. When your god is a cow or an idol that you shaped with ceramics or cement, how much can such a god really do for you?

Cultures are transformed not by economics and education. They’re transformed by encountering the true creator, God, who revealed himself in his son, Jesus Christ. The gospel transforms lives and families and nations.

And India is a nation of nations that need transformation. And I’ve witnessed some of that power in these days. I stayed with a mission-minded Bible teacher and a man of faith who’s restored a whole network of churches to biblical teaching.

That’s a miracle. I’ve met pastors who are leading new churches that are growing. In fact, I want to tell you about a young, single, 21-year-old man named Bebek who was in one of these churches.

Not long ago, he came to Christ out of Hinduism and incredible brokenness. Those who reached him are people of fasting and prayer. so he’s learned the power of God.

He gave an amazing testimony in church on Sunday in light of his mother, who was baptized the previous day. After coming to Christ, Bebek became burdened for his mother, Pana, who, of course, was Hindu. He knew only God could reach her, so he decided to fast and pray.

However, as he began to fast, he recognized that there were idols in his own heart that were keeping him from truly seeking God. First loves, he called them. loves that were ahead of God himself.

Two specific issues were his love of friends and what they thought and his ambition to become a popular musician who could make a lot of money and achieve a comfortable life, something that he’s never had. He testified that before God he gave up both of these first loves as he went to prayer. For 21 days he remained in his room, reading his Bible, worshiping God, drinking only water.

At the end of that time, his mother did not ask to speak to him, but she said to call for the pastor who led her to faith in Christ. Bebek was rejoicing. He said, giving up his dreams for a nice home on earth was well worth his mother receiving an eternal home in heaven.

By the way, he said that at the end of his 21 days of fasting, he was fatter than when he started. I don’t know all the details of what happened during those 21 days or if he occasionally took some food, but no doubt Bebek credited God with sustaining him in a very special way. Praise the Lord.

We need more of that kind of faith in the lives of new and old believers, including teenagers. Now, let’s talk about missions and multiplication as it might apply to a city like Delhi. Let’s approximate that we’ve got a mission field then of 30 million souls.

If we were to reach 10% for Christ, which would be a very reasonable Great Commission goal, that would be 3 million believers. If 50% of those being saved were gathering in local churches, that would be 1.5 million in church. How many churches would that take if the average size of the church were 100 members?

That would be 15,000 churches. Now, if the average size were 50 people, which would be very reasonable, that would mean 30,000 churches are needed to accomplish the Great Commission in Delhi. 30,000.

You’re probably thinking, that’s a crazy number. How is that even possible? But what I want you to think is, yeah, that really is what the Great Commission calls us to, 30,000 churches.

If we don’t think this way, are we actually taking Christ’s command seriously? Or are we actually living contented with literally millions with no hope of hearing of Christ? Now, let’s take these numbers from a different angle.

Let’s suppose we have a church of 50 believers in Delhi. That’s a very reasonable starting point. In fact, there are many churches of 50 believers in Delhi.

Now, if every one of those believers walked with Jesus and gave the gospel to one person every day in the course of a year, those 50 would give the gospel over 18,000 times. Surveys of believers who came to Christ out of Hinduism have discovered that on average, a Hindu hears gospel truth 18 times before they become a believer.

So let’s divide those 18,000 gospel presentations by 18 to estimate that the result of this daily gospel witness would produce 1,000 new believers in the first year. Now, if those 1,000 believers added to the existing 50 were to all give the gospel daily the following year, that would result in over 383,000 gospel presentations. If a soul was saved on average every 18 times the Gospels presented, that would result in over 21,000 new believers.

If the third year saw 22,050 believers witnessing daily, that would be over 8 million Gospel presentations with the possibility of 444,000 new believers. The fourth year at the same rate would produce 9.5 million new believers. At this point, in four years, we’ve reached 30% of Delhi, well beyond our original goal of 10%.

Well, let’s adjust our calculation just a little bit to take in the fact that not every new believer will become a faithful daily witness of the gospel. Working with the assumption only 10% of new believers will begin to witness on a daily basis, how long will it take for us to reach our goal of 3 million? Well, in nine years, we’d reach over 3.3 million souls.

You say, can this really happen? Well, that’s exactly what did happen throughout the book of Acts. Acts 8 records, They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word, and Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ.

Ordinary believers were going everywhere preaching Christ, and new churches were gathering out of their faithful gospel witness. The great key to the Great Commission is not what a few pastors and leaders can do. The key is what every faithful believer can do.

Give the gospel every day and teach the next believer to do the same. This is the foundation of being a disciple of Christ. Do you remember what Jesus said to those first few he called to follow him?

He said, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Are you ready to follow Jesus like that? If you are, we can glorify Jesus by completing his great commission in our generation.

Now, before I conclude today, I’ve just got to share something that is exploding inside of me as I view what God is doing in our world. I know I’m here in Asia right now, but I want you to think about Africa because I am convinced that Africa is so wide open for the gospel. Young person, if you could see the harvest as it is ripe across our world today, you would be begging God to send you to Africa.

You may remember that I was in Uganda, East Africa, in November, partnering with Phil Prediman. He reports that the gospel advance is exploding across his region of the West Nile. Over 20 distinct projects are underway, including a village that Phil’s team was in recently for just five days.

There, an existing church welcomed them. And after clear gospel teaching over several days, the pastor, the assistant pastor, and over a dozen others were wonderfully saved. They literally planted a church in an existing church that didn’t understand the gospel.

I was in Cameroon, West Africa in January, where I personally saw souls ripe for harvest. Right now, there are teams, three different teams, and there’s other churches as well that are out evangelizing and discipling new believers in new villages. At one recent baptism, an observer who just happened to be standing by inquired if she could too be baptized.

And after reviewing the gospel with her, she was immediately baptized the very same day. Just a few days ago, a missionary friend of mine texted this amazing open door he’s found in Zambia, Central Africa. Here is what he writes.

What amazing open doors for the gospel are in this country. Never have I seen a people so open to hearing the gospel. We met with the retired general of the military, and he has put in motion an open door to preach to every military base and provide Bibles to the soldiers.

In fact, he was begging us. The head of the police chaplaincy has requested Bibles and training and given us open doors to come back and preach to the 24,000 police officers. There’s a possibility in the Ministry of Education to bring our creation science teams to the schools and preach the gospel there.

We’re doing Bible studies in several areas where we’ve had fruit from street evangelism. The harvest truly is plenteous. Young person, please don’t consider Africa like some crazy remote place where only the most unusual of missionaries go.

Not at all. Africa should be a common destination for young people, both short-term and long-term. I beg you, don’t waste your life.

Get to Africa. From north to south, from east to west, it is a harvest that is ripe, ready for the investment of a lifetime, your lifetime. Remember, the only way to know peace in a world of turmoil and uncertainty is to stay on mission with Jesus in his Go Mission.