The Ministry of Multiplication (D)
Isaiah 54:2/59:21 By Daniel Baugh, Jr., Ph.D.
IV. PREDICTABLE POSSIBILITIES
With regard to the multiplication process in disciple-making, there are many degrees of potential, but the possibilities fall generally into two main categories.
First, there is the possibility of failure. This possibility is all too visible in the community of believers. Most Christians have never multiplied themselves in even one generation. Most believers have never even led anyone to faith in Christ, and they surely have not multiplied. The number of soul-winners in embarrassingly small among believers. And think about the tragic failure to multiply!
Why do people fail to multiply biologically? Why do they fail to multiply physically? There are several possible reasons. 1. They never marry. There is no union between the sexes. Thus, children are not born because there are no parents. The spiritual counterpart occurs when a person is not united to Christ by faith, or when a Christian does not practice union with Christ in a vital way. 2. They do not want to multiply. Many married people do not want children. Sometimes they are too selfish in wanting their own private enjoyment. Even so, many Christians simply do not want or intend to multiply. They may be ignorant of the demand and the delight of spiritual multiplication, or they may be indifferent to the process for selfish reasons. 3. They may suffer from disease or impairment to some reproductive part of their bodies. In a Christian’s life, this corresponds to sin in his daily experience. This sin blocks the reproductive process. 4. They are too immature to reproduce. Babies simply don’t reproduce. They may have all the organs of reproduction, but they are not sufficiently developed to allow reproduction and multiplication. The Bible discusses the baby Christian in I Corinthians 3 and in Hebrews 5:11-14. These passages should be studied carefully by every serious Christian.
Every Christian who does not understand spiritual multiplication, or is indifferent to it, or refuses to practice it, cuts the potential for fulfilling the Great Commission in his lifetime exactly in half. Read this sentence several times, and let it sink into your heart. The process of spiritual multiplication begins and ends each time with you, with me. Thus, no delegating of responsibility is allowable.
Everyone knows that Adolph Hitler attempted genocide, or racial annihilation, against the Jewish race. Using the Jews as his scapegoat, Hitler systematically killed at least six million Jews in the gas chambers of Europe during World War II. But he failed. Why? Of course there are several significant reasons for his failure, but we could simplify them into one reason. Hitler failed to destroy the Jews because he started too late. By the time Hitler arrived on the scene, the Jewish race was spread throughout the earth, and he simply could not reach all of them to destroy them. However, if Hitler had been present on Mount Moriah when Abraham was poised over his son of promise, Isaac, with a knife in his hand .... If Hitler could have gotten inside Abraham and controlled his hand for ten seconds, he could have annihilated all Jews forever! Since it was through Isaac that the Jewish race was proliferated, and since it was through Isaac that Jesus, the Promised Seed, came, Hitler could have accomplished his purpose on Mount Moriah with one stroke of his hand if he could have gotten inside father Abraham that day. In one act, he would have destroyed the entire possibility of reproduction and multiplication through Isaac.
Question: On the day that Cain murdered Abel (Genesis 4), and God said to Cain, “The voice of your brother’s blood cries unto me from the ground,” could God also have meant that all the potential children who might have been born through Abel’s loins were crying out in protest to Him? You see, when a person fails to multiply, he eliminates the possibility of an enlarging number of offspring, of innumerable descendants, of an inestimable progeny through all future generations. May God help us as Christians to see this tragedy, and repent of our part in producing it! The history of the Christian church proves the possibility of failure in spiritual multiplication.
But thank God, there is also the possibility of fulfillment, or success in spiritual multiplication. Think of this staggering reality: Every time one Christian is used of God to produce another visionary, world-impacting reproducer of others in kind so that they multiply in an enlarging way, the potential for fulfilling the Great Commission in his lifetime is exactly doubled. You see, Galatians 6:7 is a positive promise as well as a negative warning. “Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he who sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.” But sadly, we are so sin-oriented that we spend our time worrying about the coming harvest of judgment because of the sin-seeds we have sown, instead of rejoicing that the promise of God is true: As we build disciples for multiplication, the harvest will come. Isaiah 60:12 says, “One shall become a thousand, and a small one shall become a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in His time.” All God needs is one person with the constraining love of Christ in his heart, a passion for disciple-building in his mind, and a practical strategy for fulfilling his passion --and God is on His way!
I graduated from High School some forty-five years ago. The last High School reunion I attended was fifteen years ago. On that occasion, several questions were circulating among old classmates, questions such as, “Are you married?” “Do you have any children?” “How many children do you have?” “Do you have any grandchildren?” And they might even ask, “Do you have any great-grandchildren?” I firmly believe that Jesus Christ will have greater interest in these question, asked spiritually, when the Judgment Seat of Christ comes, than the questions about sin and malpractice that haunt us in our self-occupied kind of Christianity. “Are you married?” Yes, I am “married unto Another, even unto Him who has been raised from the dead” (Romans 7:4). “Do you have any children?” Yes, by Your mercy and grace, I have had the privilege of leading some people to You. And though they may have many teachers, they can only have one parent (I Cor. 4:15). “Do you have any grandchildren?” What a joy to answer, Yes, I have had the incredible privilege of seeing two, three, four, and even five generations of spiritual offspring, and many of them are funneling out into enlarging numbers as they continue to reproduce and multiply.
A great Argentine disciple-maker, Juan Carlos Ortiz, wrote these words: “Once an old woman in my country introduced me to a young girl. ‘This is my granddaughter,’ she said. I said, ‘Do you really have a granddaughter as old as this?’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘ I have great-grandchildren. One great-granddaughter is fifteen. If she gets married soon, I’ll have great-great-grandchildren.’ ‘How many children did you have?’I asked. She replied, ‘I had six!’ ‘And how many grandsons?’ ‘Thirty-six.’ ‘And how many great-grandchildren?’ ‘I don’t know. I haven’t counted them lately.’ ‘How can you take care of so many?’ I asked. “I don’t. I only took care of my six. And each of them took care of their own.” This is precisely how spiritual multiplication works, also.
Question: When truth reaches you, does it become terminal or germinal?
Question: Since the Greek word translated “disciple” (the word mathetes) gives us the root word for our word “mathematics,” and since God’s strategy is a mathematical strategy, could it be that the Christian’s Final Exam will be a math test? And the one question will concern multiplication?
Think carefully about it, Christian. Which would you rather have in the long run, a bouquet of flowers, or a packet of seeds? What do you suppose the Lord Jesus prefers, a self-centered “good Christian,” or a risk-taking, disciple-making, multiplier?
One man awake
Can waken another
The second can waken
His next-door brother.
The three awake
Can rouse a town
By turning the whole
Place upside down.
The many awake
Can make such a fuss
That it finally wakens
The rest of us.
One man up,
With dawn in his eyes,
MULTIPLIES!
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
“THE MINISTRY OF MULTIPLICATION” (C)
Isaiah 54:2; Isaiah 59:21 By Daniel W Baugh, Jr., Ph.D.
III. A POWERFUL PICTURE
The Bible presents to us an incredibly powerful picture of multiplication in the personal history of the Old Testament patriarch Abraham, the man who is identified as “the father of the faithful.” When Abraham was seventy years of age, he left the city of Ur of the Chaldees at God’s call and went out “to go into the land of Canaan” (Genesis 12:5). He stalled in a place named Haran, but then departed from there when he was seventy-five, “and into the land of Canaan they came” (Genesis 12:5). When Abraham departed from Ur, God had made this promise to him: “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great.” It is doubtful at this time that Abraham had much awareness of the extent of this promise, but he obeyed God and went to the land of Canaan.
In Genesis 15:1, “God came unto Abram in a vision,” and in the ensuing conversation Abram said, “Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? to me thou hast given no seed” (verses 2, 3). “And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, He that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be” (verses 4, 5).
Note that at this point in the story his name is “Abram.” The name means, “father of many.” The Biblical record tells us that Abram lived on the route of the camel caravans that carried the commerce of the ancient world between Egypt and the lands to the north and east. Abram was rich in cattle and financial wealth (Genesis 13:2), and he controlled the wells and water rights of the area. This meant that all the merchants and trade caravans had to depend on him for water and provisions as they passed through the area. The rules of Eastern hospitality meant that he entertained them. Thus, they spent much time in visitation and conversation. When they asked him his name, he was forced to make an embarrassing acknowledgment to them. “Really?” they would muse, “Abram .... father of many .... and just how many sons do you have?” Each time he answered, the bitter embarrassment must have increased. “None,” he would mutter, avoiding their eyes as he spoke, and always wanting to hurry to another, more comfortable, topic. This enabled him to not face the peculiar looks that passed back and forth among his guests, and to not see the furrowed eyebrows and sly smiles as they puzzled over the contradiction of his name and his history. Even his household servants must have gossiped over such topics as, “Who is sterile, Abram or Sarah?” The “father of many” was actually father of none. Was he really a full man?
I heard about a couple who were childless after several years of marriage. One day, someone asked the man why they had no children. The husband fumbled for words as he tried to explain the reason. First, he said, “I guess you could say my wife is impregnable.” Realizing this was unsatisfactory, he tried again. “No, no. I mean that she is inconceivable” Again, he knew that wouldn’t do, so in frustration, he said, “Let’s just say that she is unbearable.” I can imagine that Abram was at just such a loss time and again.
But Abram was not alone in his frustration. Sarai, his wife, must have especially felt the bitter inconsistency of the situation. She must have often wondered if it was she herself who was barren. So she did an unconscionable thing. Abram had brought a “handmaid” named Hagar back with him when he sojourned in Egypt some time before, and Sarah boldly said to Abram, “Go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai” (Genesis 16:1, 2). Verse 4 tells us that Abram “went in unto Hagar, and she conceived.”
Can you imagine the community gossip that was aroused when Hagar became pregnant, and everyone knew that Abram was the child’s father? Two women were talking. One said, “Tell me more.” The other retorted, “Listen, I’ve already told you more than I know!” People around Abram and Sarai were probably freely telling what they knew—and more! According to the text, this occurred when Abram was eighty-five years of age, and Ishmael, his son by this union, was born when he was about eighty-six years old. Now the “father of many” at least had one son, and some of the double stigma of childlessness and contradiction was gone. Surely Abram was extremely proud of that son, and he was equally proud of himself. The boy was his, and he was proud of his virility.
However, there was a major problem in the whole episode on God’s side. God intended to make a multiplier out of Abram according to His rules, not through a moral misadventure involving a pagan handmaid. The union between Abram and Hagar represents the maneuvering of human flesh to be productive before God. However, God clearly had other ideas. Genesis 17:1-2 says, “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; .... And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.” Just as the name of Abram was an important part of the story, the name God used for Himself is also very important. The name is “El Shaddai,” which contains the ideas of great power and great productivity. Someone translated it, “The God Who Is Enough.” “I am the God Who is enough,” he said to Abram, “and I will multiply you exceedingly.” The problem on God’s side was that He intended to fulfill these massive promises of multiplication through Sarai, Abram’s wife, who was eighty-nine years old at the time. However, Abram was beyond child-producing age and Sarai was beyond child-bearing age. But God was relentless in stating His promise and His purpose. In Genesis 17:5, God added insult to injury when He said to Abram, “Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.” Then in Genesis 17:15-16, “God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife .... I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations.”
At this point, Abraham showed all the vanity and false hope that a man can harbor in his flesh, and he exclaimed to God, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” It was a cry of unbelief, of ignorance, and of vanity, but it was typical of the proud flesh in every man. Even though we may be totally sterile as far as God’s command of multiplication is concerned, we may take false refuge in the artificial productivity of the flesh just as Abraham did. “Oh, but look at my record. I am a regular and faithful church member. I read my Bible often. I am not a bad person. Others have far greater failures on their record than I do.” Etc., etc. And all of these claims are echoes of Abraham’s cry, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!” Friends, the flesh will always hide in a substitute productivity, but God has no place for the flesh in His standard.
“Beloved self must be denied, And the mind and will renewed;
Passion suppressed, and patience tried, And vain desires subdued.”
There was no miracle connected with the birth of Ishmael, and if there is no miracle in the product of your Christian life, then you have missed the ministry of multiplication! Ishmael was born of the natural bodily powers of Abram. And God finally told him to send Ishmael away, just as He dismisses our best effort when we offer it as a substitute for the miracle of genuine spiritual multiplication He desires. God adamantly said to Abraham, “‘But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.’ And He left off talking with him.” No argument, no discussion, no questions. Conversation ended!
Note the ingredients of this story. Number one: it was God’s stated purpose to bless all the world through Abraham’s offspring. Even so, it is God’s stated purpose to bless all the world through your spiritual offspring!!! Number two: Abram was sterile and childless, a walking contradiction of God’s purpose. Even so, most Christians are sterile and non-productive (no multiplication whatsoever), a walking contradiction of God’s purpose. Number three: God rigged the history of Abraham so that he could only fulfill God’s intention by a miracle. Even so, God has rigged your personal history as a Christian so that His personal intention for you can only be fulfilled by a miracle. Number four: Abraham was forced to trust “the God who raises the dead, and calls those things that are not as though they were” (read Romans 4:17-21 very carefully). Even so, only miracles of resurrection and fiat declaration given by God will enable you to receive the miracle of multiplication that will bless the world to the ends of the earth and until the end of time. Dear Christian, if you are not multiplying yourself in others in such a way that future generation impact is guaranteed, you are a walking contradiction of the clear intention (indeed, the command) of God. However, God’s grace can cover the sin with His forgiveness, and God’s miracle will solve the problem!
Think long and hard about your responsibility to multiply spiritually, then focus your attention on the God Who quickens the dead, and counts those things which are not as though they were — and ask Him for a miracle! Then, begin to equip yourself to be a multiplier, and look for a disciple. It was to Abraham’s son, Isaac, that God later said, “I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven” (Genesis 26:4), and He added, “I will multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham’s sake.” Hebrews 11:12 summarizes the entire miracle of multiplication in Abraham’s life in these words: “Therefore there sprang of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seas shore innumerable.” And the same miracle is available, in a spiritual way, to any Christian who hears the Master’s Mandate to multiply, believes God for the miracle, and begins to equip himself to “raise the children” when God gives them. When God gives you the miracle of a multiplying disciple, and future generations are on the horizon, you will see that you never had a problem that a Divine miracle could not resolve. And soon, people will use your story as an example of the miracle of multiplication just as we are rehearsing the story of Abraham today!
Isaiah 54:2; Isaiah 59:21 By Daniel W Baugh, Jr., Ph.D.
III. A POWERFUL PICTURE
The Bible presents to us an incredibly powerful picture of multiplication in the personal history of the Old Testament patriarch Abraham, the man who is identified as “the father of the faithful.” When Abraham was seventy years of age, he left the city of Ur of the Chaldees at God’s call and went out “to go into the land of Canaan” (Genesis 12:5). He stalled in a place named Haran, but then departed from there when he was seventy-five, “and into the land of Canaan they came” (Genesis 12:5). When Abraham departed from Ur, God had made this promise to him: “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great.” It is doubtful at this time that Abraham had much awareness of the extent of this promise, but he obeyed God and went to the land of Canaan.
In Genesis 15:1, “God came unto Abram in a vision,” and in the ensuing conversation Abram said, “Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? to me thou hast given no seed” (verses 2, 3). “And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, He that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be” (verses 4, 5).
Note that at this point in the story his name is “Abram.” The name means, “father of many.” The Biblical record tells us that Abram lived on the route of the camel caravans that carried the commerce of the ancient world between Egypt and the lands to the north and east. Abram was rich in cattle and financial wealth (Genesis 13:2), and he controlled the wells and water rights of the area. This meant that all the merchants and trade caravans had to depend on him for water and provisions as they passed through the area. The rules of Eastern hospitality meant that he entertained them. Thus, they spent much time in visitation and conversation. When they asked him his name, he was forced to make an embarrassing acknowledgment to them. “Really?” they would muse, “Abram .... father of many .... and just how many sons do you have?” Each time he answered, the bitter embarrassment must have increased. “None,” he would mutter, avoiding their eyes as he spoke, and always wanting to hurry to another, more comfortable, topic. This enabled him to not face the peculiar looks that passed back and forth among his guests, and to not see the furrowed eyebrows and sly smiles as they puzzled over the contradiction of his name and his history. Even his household servants must have gossiped over such topics as, “Who is sterile, Abram or Sarah?” The “father of many” was actually father of none. Was he really a full man?
I heard about a couple who were childless after several years of marriage. One day, someone asked the man why they had no children. The husband fumbled for words as he tried to explain the reason. First, he said, “I guess you could say my wife is impregnable.” Realizing this was unsatisfactory, he tried again. “No, no. I mean that she is inconceivable” Again, he knew that wouldn’t do, so in frustration, he said, “Let’s just say that she is unbearable.” I can imagine that Abram was at just such a loss time and again.
But Abram was not alone in his frustration. Sarai, his wife, must have especially felt the bitter inconsistency of the situation. She must have often wondered if it was she herself who was barren. So she did an unconscionable thing. Abram had brought a “handmaid” named Hagar back with him when he sojourned in Egypt some time before, and Sarah boldly said to Abram, “Go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai” (Genesis 16:1, 2). Verse 4 tells us that Abram “went in unto Hagar, and she conceived.”
Can you imagine the community gossip that was aroused when Hagar became pregnant, and everyone knew that Abram was the child’s father? Two women were talking. One said, “Tell me more.” The other retorted, “Listen, I’ve already told you more than I know!” People around Abram and Sarai were probably freely telling what they knew—and more! According to the text, this occurred when Abram was eighty-five years of age, and Ishmael, his son by this union, was born when he was about eighty-six years old. Now the “father of many” at least had one son, and some of the double stigma of childlessness and contradiction was gone. Surely Abram was extremely proud of that son, and he was equally proud of himself. The boy was his, and he was proud of his virility.
However, there was a major problem in the whole episode on God’s side. God intended to make a multiplier out of Abram according to His rules, not through a moral misadventure involving a pagan handmaid. The union between Abram and Hagar represents the maneuvering of human flesh to be productive before God. However, God clearly had other ideas. Genesis 17:1-2 says, “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; .... And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.” Just as the name of Abram was an important part of the story, the name God used for Himself is also very important. The name is “El Shaddai,” which contains the ideas of great power and great productivity. Someone translated it, “The God Who Is Enough.” “I am the God Who is enough,” he said to Abram, “and I will multiply you exceedingly.” The problem on God’s side was that He intended to fulfill these massive promises of multiplication through Sarai, Abram’s wife, who was eighty-nine years old at the time. However, Abram was beyond child-producing age and Sarai was beyond child-bearing age. But God was relentless in stating His promise and His purpose. In Genesis 17:5, God added insult to injury when He said to Abram, “Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.” Then in Genesis 17:15-16, “God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife .... I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations.”
At this point, Abraham showed all the vanity and false hope that a man can harbor in his flesh, and he exclaimed to God, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” It was a cry of unbelief, of ignorance, and of vanity, but it was typical of the proud flesh in every man. Even though we may be totally sterile as far as God’s command of multiplication is concerned, we may take false refuge in the artificial productivity of the flesh just as Abraham did. “Oh, but look at my record. I am a regular and faithful church member. I read my Bible often. I am not a bad person. Others have far greater failures on their record than I do.” Etc., etc. And all of these claims are echoes of Abraham’s cry, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!” Friends, the flesh will always hide in a substitute productivity, but God has no place for the flesh in His standard.
“Beloved self must be denied, And the mind and will renewed;
Passion suppressed, and patience tried, And vain desires subdued.”
There was no miracle connected with the birth of Ishmael, and if there is no miracle in the product of your Christian life, then you have missed the ministry of multiplication! Ishmael was born of the natural bodily powers of Abram. And God finally told him to send Ishmael away, just as He dismisses our best effort when we offer it as a substitute for the miracle of genuine spiritual multiplication He desires. God adamantly said to Abraham, “‘But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.’ And He left off talking with him.” No argument, no discussion, no questions. Conversation ended!
Note the ingredients of this story. Number one: it was God’s stated purpose to bless all the world through Abraham’s offspring. Even so, it is God’s stated purpose to bless all the world through your spiritual offspring!!! Number two: Abram was sterile and childless, a walking contradiction of God’s purpose. Even so, most Christians are sterile and non-productive (no multiplication whatsoever), a walking contradiction of God’s purpose. Number three: God rigged the history of Abraham so that he could only fulfill God’s intention by a miracle. Even so, God has rigged your personal history as a Christian so that His personal intention for you can only be fulfilled by a miracle. Number four: Abraham was forced to trust “the God who raises the dead, and calls those things that are not as though they were” (read Romans 4:17-21 very carefully). Even so, only miracles of resurrection and fiat declaration given by God will enable you to receive the miracle of multiplication that will bless the world to the ends of the earth and until the end of time. Dear Christian, if you are not multiplying yourself in others in such a way that future generation impact is guaranteed, you are a walking contradiction of the clear intention (indeed, the command) of God. However, God’s grace can cover the sin with His forgiveness, and God’s miracle will solve the problem!
Think long and hard about your responsibility to multiply spiritually, then focus your attention on the God Who quickens the dead, and counts those things which are not as though they were — and ask Him for a miracle! Then, begin to equip yourself to be a multiplier, and look for a disciple. It was to Abraham’s son, Isaac, that God later said, “I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven” (Genesis 26:4), and He added, “I will multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham’s sake.” Hebrews 11:12 summarizes the entire miracle of multiplication in Abraham’s life in these words: “Therefore there sprang of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seas shore innumerable.” And the same miracle is available, in a spiritual way, to any Christian who hears the Master’s Mandate to multiply, believes God for the miracle, and begins to equip himself to “raise the children” when God gives them. When God gives you the miracle of a multiplying disciple, and future generations are on the horizon, you will see that you never had a problem that a Divine miracle could not resolve. And soon, people will use your story as an example of the miracle of multiplication just as we are rehearsing the story of Abraham today!
“THE MINISTRY OF MULTIPLICATION” (B)
Isaiah 54:2; Isaiah 59:21 By Daniel W. Baugh, Jr., Ph.D.
II. PHENOMENAL POTENTIAL
Secondly, these texts suggest a phenomenal potential to us. The potential of spiritual multiplication is the same as that of biological multiplication. The only reason we don’t recognize this is that the process of spiritual multiplication has been hidden beneath a thousand other practices and techniques which have prevailed in the church throughout its recent history. We have substituted the building of crowds and institutions for the qualitative building of individuals. Charles Spurgeon, who certainly did not minimize preaching, showed the difference between preaching and disciple-making in this illustration. Suppose, he said, that you place twenty small-mouth bottles some twenty feet away from you. Suppose you took a big bucket of water and tried to fill the bottles. Preaching would be like swinging the bucket in an arc from a distance of twenty feet and trying to fill the bottles by throwing the water toward the bottles. But disciple-making would be like taking the bucket to each bottle one by one, pouring in the water until it is filled, and then moving to the next one. In no way was Mr. Spurgeon (of all people!) depreciating preaching. He was simply admitting the limitations of it and showing the further advantage of New Testament disciple-making.
The fact is that Jesus was too smart to start large, but we seem to be too stupid to start small. The rules for multiplication could be stated like this: Start smart (with the wisdom of God, James 1:5), start small, start slow, start here, start now, and stay steady. Heavy emphasis must be placed upon each of these steps, with great attention given to the study of the standard Jesus followed in building His twelve men. His standard is astounding, and it is doubtful we will ever fathom all of its insights and riches.
I have often said that the multiplying Christian life—the one commanded in the New Testament—is like a game of dominoes. How is a game of dominoes played?
First, it is assumed that the player in the game agrees to play relationally—and according to previously established rules. In the matter of being a Christian, the believer must “play the game” relationally—and according to the previously established rules. There is no such thing as an isolated, free-lance, autonomous Christian! The rulebook must be mastered, or the believer will invariably fail in the game.
Second, the game begins with each player receiving a “hand,” or a “playing mix,” of dominoes. Even so, the Christian life begins at conversion, when the believer receives his “playing mix.” This mix includes the “birthday gifts” which Jesus brings when He comes into the person at salvation, as well as the personality characteristics with which he is endowed.
Third, the first move in the game is the playing of the biggest possible double, and all plays thereafter are made on the basis of that double. The entire Christian movement began when God played His Big Double, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is both God and man! And all plays made thereafter are made from the base of that Double!
Fourth, each player is required to reinvest his hand in the game according to the rules. Even so, the Christian is required to reinvest his life, his gifts, his ministry—his “playing mix”—back into the game, but always according to the rules. Are you carefully following this illustration? Are you practicing the standard set forth in it? Are you personally involved in the disciple-making process according to God’s rules?
Fifth, at the end of the game, the player who has reinvested his entire “hand” back into the game, wins. The player who has nothing left in his own hand at the end of the game wins!
Sixth, the player who has anything left in his hand has it taken away, and its value is given to the person who has reinvested his entire “hand” back into the game!!!!! In His parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus was speaking of a man who had received a “mix” from his master, a “talent,” but had failed to reinvest it in the game. Jesus said, “You ought to have put my money (the talent) to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received what was mine with a dividend. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him who has ten talents.” Dear Christians, we must be very, very careful with the principles and the practice of the game, because it is WINNER TAKE ALL! But he “wins” by giving everything away, by reinvesting all of his assets in the game. Jesus told us this when He said, “He that saves his own life (hoards his ‘hand’) shall lose it, but he who loses his life (reinvests it recklessly in the game) shall save it.” *I am indebted to my very good disciple-friend Dom Fosco, who is deeply involved in the multiplication process, for the refinement of this illustration.
Remember that New Testament disciple-making requires us to reinvest our total resources in other people according to the rules. The “rules” are modeled in the ministry of Jesus and in the practice of Paul and others in the early church. To see the phenomenal potential of multiplication, one may observe it in spectacular fashion in the world of living organisms. Speaking about biological cell division, Dr. Daniel Mazia, professor of zoology at the University of California at Berkeley, said, “The rule for life is double or nothing. With few exceptions a living cell either reproduces or it dies: the principle is so simple that no one has bothered to call it a principle. A cell is born in the division of a parent cell. It then doubles in every respect: in every part, in every kind of molecule, even in the amount of water it contains.”
Think of this process as revealed in human reproduction and multiplication. One fertilized human cell multiplies itself, in a mere nine months of pregnancy, no less that 120,000,000,000 times! And this does not occur haphazardly, but in such a way as to create the marvel of a human baby with all of its personality and the organic complexity of its human nature built into it. The same phenomenal potential applies to spiritual multiplication, but we are so accustomed to thinking in terms of addition (and division and subtraction!) that we have difficulty conceiving of the phenomenal possibility of multiplication in the spiritual realm. The New Testament, however, often refers to the Church of Jesus Christ as a “Body” of living cells, each one of which is expected to reproduce and multiply many times over.
Did you know that the principle of multiplication is even presented in the Bible in an astounding negative manner? In the Old Testament, whenever Israel followed the Lord and obeyed His laws, they were blessed abundantly (Leviticus 26:3-13). But whenever they disobeyed the Lord, if the nation did not repent, God said, “I will punish you seven times more for your sins” (Lev. 26:18). The former amount of discipline was increased sevenfold (see further, Lev. 26:19-20). If that does not lead to their repentance, God will increase the discipline in a multiplying ratio. Note, this is not mere addition. This is multiplication! “They have sown the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind,” the Bible says. By the time the third cycle of discipline has arrived, the original declared amount of the discipline has been multiplied forty-nine times! You see, dear friend, there is a great deal more judgment in our world, in our communities, in our lives, than we realize. The Eugene Peterson translation of Galatians 6:7 says, “Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest.” And everyone knows the staggering potential for multiplication there is in a harvest—if the farmer keeps re-sowing the seed that is produced in each season’s crop! A human being may continue in sin, but stand warned—there is an ever-enlarging harvest coming!
An old adage says, “Anyone can count the number of seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed.” Here is the power of multiplication again, and this time the illustration is positive and beneficial.
Some years ago, a strange exhibit appeared in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. It was in the form of a large checkerboard with the usual sixty-four squares. The square in the lower left hand corner of the board had one wheat seed glued on it. The second square had two, and the third square four; then, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one hundred twenty-eight. Then the process stopped. The rest of the board was empty. A plaque in front of the exhibit explained it. “Note that the wheat seed is doubled with each new square. At the eighth unit, the square was so full of wheat seeds that there was not room for the next succession in the next square. However, had we continued the process through the sixty-fourth square, doubling the sum each time, there would have been enough wheat seeds to fill the entire sub-continent of India fifty feet deep!” You see, this is very difficult for us to realize or appreciate, because we have great difficulty in conceiving such prolific multiplication. Tragically, this handicap applies to our spiritual understanding as well. Each Christian is intended to multiply in a nearly infinite way—but remember, God has established the rules of multiplication, and most Christians are “coloring outside the lines.” Let Christian pastors provide the illustration. Hear this quote: “Often today a pastor will spend perhaps thirty to forty years in the ministry, in perhaps eight or more churches, and would be hard-pressed to name a half dozen people who, as a result of his ministry, have become devoted and effective disciple-makers.” Of course, this statement is not universally true among pastors, but it is tragically far too typical. I was at lunch with a prominent pastor some years ago, and we were discussing the Biblical ministry of disciple-making (at his lead). When I had answered a number of his questions about the disciple-making process, he sadly acknowledged, “Well, after two long pastorates in which I have faithfully preached the Word and led the churches, I don’t think that I could name two multiplying disciple-makers who have emerged out of the two pastorates.” This was said remorsefully, but I fear that his statement echoes the truth of large numbers of leaders. And the rule holds: “Like leader, like people.” If the leader does not understand and practice spiritual multiplication by Jesus-standardized disciple-making, his people will not understand or practice it, either.
The rules of spiritual multiplication could be summed up in a simple succession which may be traced in several passages of the New Testament. We will use I Thessalonians 1:1-4 as an example.
Stage Number One: The Gospel must be confidently proclaimed in a widespread way in the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul wrote, “Our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance.” Obviously, evangelism is the necessary first step in disciple-making.
Stage Number Two: The life of Christ must be portrayed in the person of the disciple-maker. Paul said, “Ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.” The Jesus we preach and share must be incarnated in our lives. We must be what we want to reproduce, because everything reproduces after its kind.
Stage Number Three: Other people must volunteer (or be enlisted) to follow the disciple-maker. “And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord.” In I Corinthians 11:1, Paul said, “Be ye imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.” In I Corinthians 4:16, he said, “I beseech you, be ye followers of me.” Paul knew that all concepts and practices of the Christian life are best communicated incarnationally and close-up. He literally drew people to himself and shared his life with them. Like Jesus, Paul practiced on-the-job training. Paul wrote to his primary disciple, Timothy, “You have fully known my doctrine, lifestyle, purpose, faith, patience, etc.” Paul assumed the risk of giving his life away to his disciples, and so must we.
Stage Number Four: The disciple-maker must teach the disciple how to multiply through future generations, and hold him accountable to follow the prescribed rules to do so. “Ye were examples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing.” In every possible way, the disciple must be led to pass the message of the Gospel and the strategy of multiplication on to future generations. Follow the progression in these verses carefully: Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy —> the Thessalonian believers —> believers in Macedonia and Achaia —> “in every place your faith in God is spread abroad.” Here is another clear example of spiritual multiplication, and again, the phenomenal potential is revealed.
I want to “interrupt myself” at this point and explain the practical steps in the development of faith. It will be seen that these steps fit into the multiplication process.
Step One: Exposure. The “prospect” for anything Christian must first be exposed to the concept. Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Of course, this verse is referring to the imparting of Biblical truth, but it could generally be said that the truth may be walking or written. It may be communicated incarnationally or propositionally. It must be heard and/or seen by the “prospect.”
Step Two: Explanation. Somebody must explain what the prospect has seen. “Be ready always to give an answer (“apologia,” a propositional presentation) to every man who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you” (I Peter 3:15). Every Christian should be skilled in making this presentation, so that the prospect will clearly understand the truths, demands and benefits of the Gospel.
Step Three: Experiment. The prospect is responsible to repent of personal sin and trust Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. “As many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name” (John 1:12).
Step Four: Experience. The initial Christian experience is called “being born again,” or “the new birth.” It is as real an experience, and as radical, as physical birth. We are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and remains forever” (I Peter 1:23).
Step Five: Expression. The newborn believer must express his new faith and life. He must confess Jesus publicly. A newborn Christian can no more hide his new life than a newborn baby can hide its new life. Just as new physical life is expressed in a variety of ways—sound, movement, etc. —it is the same with spiritual life.
Step Six: Expansion. The newborn soul will “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18). Living things will grow. The new Christian will grow. And as he does, he will be the “exhibit point” for somebody else’s exposure to Jesus Christ and the Gospel, and the progression begins again. So these practical steps of a believer’s faith are a part of the multiplication process. What phenomenal potential there is in this process.
Let me resort to a well-known illustration. Suppose there was an evangelist (a Billy Graham type) who could and did win 1,000 people every day to Christ. Each of these persons is a genuine convert to Christ (but only a convert). Suppose you could “freeze” the present population of the world so that nobody else is born and nobody dies until the process of converting the world is completed. Do you know how long it would take to win the present population of the world to Christ at the rate of 1,000 converts per day? It would take roughly 15,000 years! If you had a Pentecost every day (3,000 souls a day won to Christ), it would still take 5,000 years to convert everybody on earth today! But if you achieved a multiplication process in which one maturing Christian trained and discipled another Christian for one year, until the disciple could do the same for someone else, and the two of them repeated the process the second year with two more, and then the third year, the four took four more (producing eight in three year) .... The most obvious thing about this process is that it is so slow; this is the reason many pastors and leaders cannot even imagine becoming involved in such a progression. However, this “slow” process would theoretically pass the evangelist’s rate of conversion at the beginning of the 23rd year—and this process is producing multiplying disciples, not mere converts. Spiritual multiplication, when properly done, has phenomenal potential for world impact. Do not misunderstand this illustration. The illustration is too “neat and tidy” to reflect the dynamic realities of actual relational life. The actual process is not this cut-and-dried, and will be far more erratic.
Isaiah 54:2; Isaiah 59:21 By Daniel W. Baugh, Jr., Ph.D.
II. PHENOMENAL POTENTIAL
Secondly, these texts suggest a phenomenal potential to us. The potential of spiritual multiplication is the same as that of biological multiplication. The only reason we don’t recognize this is that the process of spiritual multiplication has been hidden beneath a thousand other practices and techniques which have prevailed in the church throughout its recent history. We have substituted the building of crowds and institutions for the qualitative building of individuals. Charles Spurgeon, who certainly did not minimize preaching, showed the difference between preaching and disciple-making in this illustration. Suppose, he said, that you place twenty small-mouth bottles some twenty feet away from you. Suppose you took a big bucket of water and tried to fill the bottles. Preaching would be like swinging the bucket in an arc from a distance of twenty feet and trying to fill the bottles by throwing the water toward the bottles. But disciple-making would be like taking the bucket to each bottle one by one, pouring in the water until it is filled, and then moving to the next one. In no way was Mr. Spurgeon (of all people!) depreciating preaching. He was simply admitting the limitations of it and showing the further advantage of New Testament disciple-making.
The fact is that Jesus was too smart to start large, but we seem to be too stupid to start small. The rules for multiplication could be stated like this: Start smart (with the wisdom of God, James 1:5), start small, start slow, start here, start now, and stay steady. Heavy emphasis must be placed upon each of these steps, with great attention given to the study of the standard Jesus followed in building His twelve men. His standard is astounding, and it is doubtful we will ever fathom all of its insights and riches.
I have often said that the multiplying Christian life—the one commanded in the New Testament—is like a game of dominoes. How is a game of dominoes played?
First, it is assumed that the player in the game agrees to play relationally—and according to previously established rules. In the matter of being a Christian, the believer must “play the game” relationally—and according to the previously established rules. There is no such thing as an isolated, free-lance, autonomous Christian! The rulebook must be mastered, or the believer will invariably fail in the game.
Second, the game begins with each player receiving a “hand,” or a “playing mix,” of dominoes. Even so, the Christian life begins at conversion, when the believer receives his “playing mix.” This mix includes the “birthday gifts” which Jesus brings when He comes into the person at salvation, as well as the personality characteristics with which he is endowed.
Third, the first move in the game is the playing of the biggest possible double, and all plays thereafter are made on the basis of that double. The entire Christian movement began when God played His Big Double, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is both God and man! And all plays made thereafter are made from the base of that Double!
Fourth, each player is required to reinvest his hand in the game according to the rules. Even so, the Christian is required to reinvest his life, his gifts, his ministry—his “playing mix”—back into the game, but always according to the rules. Are you carefully following this illustration? Are you practicing the standard set forth in it? Are you personally involved in the disciple-making process according to God’s rules?
Fifth, at the end of the game, the player who has reinvested his entire “hand” back into the game, wins. The player who has nothing left in his own hand at the end of the game wins!
Sixth, the player who has anything left in his hand has it taken away, and its value is given to the person who has reinvested his entire “hand” back into the game!!!!! In His parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus was speaking of a man who had received a “mix” from his master, a “talent,” but had failed to reinvest it in the game. Jesus said, “You ought to have put my money (the talent) to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received what was mine with a dividend. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him who has ten talents.” Dear Christians, we must be very, very careful with the principles and the practice of the game, because it is WINNER TAKE ALL! But he “wins” by giving everything away, by reinvesting all of his assets in the game. Jesus told us this when He said, “He that saves his own life (hoards his ‘hand’) shall lose it, but he who loses his life (reinvests it recklessly in the game) shall save it.” *I am indebted to my very good disciple-friend Dom Fosco, who is deeply involved in the multiplication process, for the refinement of this illustration.
Remember that New Testament disciple-making requires us to reinvest our total resources in other people according to the rules. The “rules” are modeled in the ministry of Jesus and in the practice of Paul and others in the early church. To see the phenomenal potential of multiplication, one may observe it in spectacular fashion in the world of living organisms. Speaking about biological cell division, Dr. Daniel Mazia, professor of zoology at the University of California at Berkeley, said, “The rule for life is double or nothing. With few exceptions a living cell either reproduces or it dies: the principle is so simple that no one has bothered to call it a principle. A cell is born in the division of a parent cell. It then doubles in every respect: in every part, in every kind of molecule, even in the amount of water it contains.”
Think of this process as revealed in human reproduction and multiplication. One fertilized human cell multiplies itself, in a mere nine months of pregnancy, no less that 120,000,000,000 times! And this does not occur haphazardly, but in such a way as to create the marvel of a human baby with all of its personality and the organic complexity of its human nature built into it. The same phenomenal potential applies to spiritual multiplication, but we are so accustomed to thinking in terms of addition (and division and subtraction!) that we have difficulty conceiving of the phenomenal possibility of multiplication in the spiritual realm. The New Testament, however, often refers to the Church of Jesus Christ as a “Body” of living cells, each one of which is expected to reproduce and multiply many times over.
Did you know that the principle of multiplication is even presented in the Bible in an astounding negative manner? In the Old Testament, whenever Israel followed the Lord and obeyed His laws, they were blessed abundantly (Leviticus 26:3-13). But whenever they disobeyed the Lord, if the nation did not repent, God said, “I will punish you seven times more for your sins” (Lev. 26:18). The former amount of discipline was increased sevenfold (see further, Lev. 26:19-20). If that does not lead to their repentance, God will increase the discipline in a multiplying ratio. Note, this is not mere addition. This is multiplication! “They have sown the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind,” the Bible says. By the time the third cycle of discipline has arrived, the original declared amount of the discipline has been multiplied forty-nine times! You see, dear friend, there is a great deal more judgment in our world, in our communities, in our lives, than we realize. The Eugene Peterson translation of Galatians 6:7 says, “Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest.” And everyone knows the staggering potential for multiplication there is in a harvest—if the farmer keeps re-sowing the seed that is produced in each season’s crop! A human being may continue in sin, but stand warned—there is an ever-enlarging harvest coming!
An old adage says, “Anyone can count the number of seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed.” Here is the power of multiplication again, and this time the illustration is positive and beneficial.
Some years ago, a strange exhibit appeared in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. It was in the form of a large checkerboard with the usual sixty-four squares. The square in the lower left hand corner of the board had one wheat seed glued on it. The second square had two, and the third square four; then, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one hundred twenty-eight. Then the process stopped. The rest of the board was empty. A plaque in front of the exhibit explained it. “Note that the wheat seed is doubled with each new square. At the eighth unit, the square was so full of wheat seeds that there was not room for the next succession in the next square. However, had we continued the process through the sixty-fourth square, doubling the sum each time, there would have been enough wheat seeds to fill the entire sub-continent of India fifty feet deep!” You see, this is very difficult for us to realize or appreciate, because we have great difficulty in conceiving such prolific multiplication. Tragically, this handicap applies to our spiritual understanding as well. Each Christian is intended to multiply in a nearly infinite way—but remember, God has established the rules of multiplication, and most Christians are “coloring outside the lines.” Let Christian pastors provide the illustration. Hear this quote: “Often today a pastor will spend perhaps thirty to forty years in the ministry, in perhaps eight or more churches, and would be hard-pressed to name a half dozen people who, as a result of his ministry, have become devoted and effective disciple-makers.” Of course, this statement is not universally true among pastors, but it is tragically far too typical. I was at lunch with a prominent pastor some years ago, and we were discussing the Biblical ministry of disciple-making (at his lead). When I had answered a number of his questions about the disciple-making process, he sadly acknowledged, “Well, after two long pastorates in which I have faithfully preached the Word and led the churches, I don’t think that I could name two multiplying disciple-makers who have emerged out of the two pastorates.” This was said remorsefully, but I fear that his statement echoes the truth of large numbers of leaders. And the rule holds: “Like leader, like people.” If the leader does not understand and practice spiritual multiplication by Jesus-standardized disciple-making, his people will not understand or practice it, either.
The rules of spiritual multiplication could be summed up in a simple succession which may be traced in several passages of the New Testament. We will use I Thessalonians 1:1-4 as an example.
Stage Number One: The Gospel must be confidently proclaimed in a widespread way in the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul wrote, “Our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance.” Obviously, evangelism is the necessary first step in disciple-making.
Stage Number Two: The life of Christ must be portrayed in the person of the disciple-maker. Paul said, “Ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.” The Jesus we preach and share must be incarnated in our lives. We must be what we want to reproduce, because everything reproduces after its kind.
Stage Number Three: Other people must volunteer (or be enlisted) to follow the disciple-maker. “And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord.” In I Corinthians 11:1, Paul said, “Be ye imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.” In I Corinthians 4:16, he said, “I beseech you, be ye followers of me.” Paul knew that all concepts and practices of the Christian life are best communicated incarnationally and close-up. He literally drew people to himself and shared his life with them. Like Jesus, Paul practiced on-the-job training. Paul wrote to his primary disciple, Timothy, “You have fully known my doctrine, lifestyle, purpose, faith, patience, etc.” Paul assumed the risk of giving his life away to his disciples, and so must we.
Stage Number Four: The disciple-maker must teach the disciple how to multiply through future generations, and hold him accountable to follow the prescribed rules to do so. “Ye were examples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing.” In every possible way, the disciple must be led to pass the message of the Gospel and the strategy of multiplication on to future generations. Follow the progression in these verses carefully: Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy —> the Thessalonian believers —> believers in Macedonia and Achaia —> “in every place your faith in God is spread abroad.” Here is another clear example of spiritual multiplication, and again, the phenomenal potential is revealed.
I want to “interrupt myself” at this point and explain the practical steps in the development of faith. It will be seen that these steps fit into the multiplication process.
Step One: Exposure. The “prospect” for anything Christian must first be exposed to the concept. Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Of course, this verse is referring to the imparting of Biblical truth, but it could generally be said that the truth may be walking or written. It may be communicated incarnationally or propositionally. It must be heard and/or seen by the “prospect.”
Step Two: Explanation. Somebody must explain what the prospect has seen. “Be ready always to give an answer (“apologia,” a propositional presentation) to every man who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you” (I Peter 3:15). Every Christian should be skilled in making this presentation, so that the prospect will clearly understand the truths, demands and benefits of the Gospel.
Step Three: Experiment. The prospect is responsible to repent of personal sin and trust Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. “As many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name” (John 1:12).
Step Four: Experience. The initial Christian experience is called “being born again,” or “the new birth.” It is as real an experience, and as radical, as physical birth. We are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and remains forever” (I Peter 1:23).
Step Five: Expression. The newborn believer must express his new faith and life. He must confess Jesus publicly. A newborn Christian can no more hide his new life than a newborn baby can hide its new life. Just as new physical life is expressed in a variety of ways—sound, movement, etc. —it is the same with spiritual life.
Step Six: Expansion. The newborn soul will “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18). Living things will grow. The new Christian will grow. And as he does, he will be the “exhibit point” for somebody else’s exposure to Jesus Christ and the Gospel, and the progression begins again. So these practical steps of a believer’s faith are a part of the multiplication process. What phenomenal potential there is in this process.
Let me resort to a well-known illustration. Suppose there was an evangelist (a Billy Graham type) who could and did win 1,000 people every day to Christ. Each of these persons is a genuine convert to Christ (but only a convert). Suppose you could “freeze” the present population of the world so that nobody else is born and nobody dies until the process of converting the world is completed. Do you know how long it would take to win the present population of the world to Christ at the rate of 1,000 converts per day? It would take roughly 15,000 years! If you had a Pentecost every day (3,000 souls a day won to Christ), it would still take 5,000 years to convert everybody on earth today! But if you achieved a multiplication process in which one maturing Christian trained and discipled another Christian for one year, until the disciple could do the same for someone else, and the two of them repeated the process the second year with two more, and then the third year, the four took four more (producing eight in three year) .... The most obvious thing about this process is that it is so slow; this is the reason many pastors and leaders cannot even imagine becoming involved in such a progression. However, this “slow” process would theoretically pass the evangelist’s rate of conversion at the beginning of the 23rd year—and this process is producing multiplying disciples, not mere converts. Spiritual multiplication, when properly done, has phenomenal potential for world impact. Do not misunderstand this illustration. The illustration is too “neat and tidy” to reflect the dynamic realities of actual relational life. The actual process is not this cut-and-dried, and will be far more erratic.
“THE MINISTRY OF MULTIPLICATION”(A)
Isaiah 54:2; Isaiah 59:21 By Daniel W. Baugh, Jr., Ph.D.
“Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitation; spare not, lengthen thy cords, strengthen thy stakes.”
“As for Me, this is My covenant with them, says the Lord: My Spirit Who is upon you (and Who writes the law of God inwardly in the heart), and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your (true, spiritual) children, or out of the mouth of your children’s children, says the Lord, from henceforth and for ever” (Amplified Bible)
In this study, I am borrowing these two texts from the prophet Isaiah. Though these passages address another matter altogether, each contains a clear outline of God’s New Testament strategy for Christians. We can draw a massive New Testament principle from the Old Testament location of these passages. These passages follow the great 53rd chapter of Isaiah, which is the Gospel of the Cross presented in the Old Testament. The principle is that the Conquest must always follow the Cross. The Book of Acts followed hard on the heels of Calvary. It is the Cross that carries us into the territory of conquest, and it is the Holy Spirit who empowers us to conquer.
Look at Isaiah 54:2. Though it is an Old Testament text, it clearly reveals both God’s goal for the Christian and the plan to reach it. The goal, stated in picturesque language, is to “enlarge the place of thy tent.” This is an Eastern figure taken from the nomadic life of the Eastern shepherd. Your “tent” is your place of operation, your sphere of magnitude, your center of influence. So the verse tells you to expand your life, to enlarge your influence for Christ. The plan for accomplishing this goal is in the phrases, “lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes.” And we must not miss the strategic phrase, “let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations.” This suggests the strategic place of your disciples in advancing the multiplication process. The command to “spare not” lets us know that cost should not be a consideration, that any investment of time, effort, or money will more than repay the investor. This verse covers all the bases in disciple-making, and the disciple-making that is entailed here will produce a ministry of multiplication. The detectable steps are:
1. Educate your vision, so that it is increasingly a reflection of “God’s point of view”;
2. Expand your life and trust God to enlarge your influence for His sake;
3. Extend your outreach, a matter of ministry;
4. Establish a solid base of operations at home; and
5. Expect your disciples to enlarge your ministry beyond calculation.
Then look at Isaiah 59:21. The progression is clear: “My (God’s) words” are to be perpetuated through:
1. “Thy mouth”;
2. “The mouth of thy children” (Amplified Bible: “thy true, spiritual children”);
3. “The mouth of thy children’s children”;
4. “From henceforth and forever.”
In these texts we can clearly see our formula of “building world-visionary, world-impacting disciples who will reproduce the same in kind, and thus will penetrate and impact the world to the ends of the earth and until the end of time.” I believe that this formula can be conspicuously seen in the life and ministry of Jesus and in the life of the profiled early disciples.
I. A PROVEN PRINCIPLE
First, these texts submit a proven principle to us, the principle of multiplication. God’s plan is to reach the world spiritually exactly the same way it was populated—by multiplication. The first command God gave to the human race was to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28)—and this is probably the only command of God that man has obeyed! Starting with two people, our original parents, the earth is now bulging with some six billion (and more) people. The “corruptible seed” has certainly multiplied! I could wish that the “incorruptible seed” had multiplied as prolifically.
With regard to Jesus Christ and His Gospel, it is obvious that addition can never reach the exploding population of the world. Addition simply cannot keep pace with population expansion. Also, it is a statistical reality that less than five percent of the professing Christians of the world ever “add” anyone to Christ. Multiplication is the strategy of God presented in the Scriptures, and is a vital necessity if the world is to be impacted for Christ. What do we mean by “multiplication”?
Spiritual multiplication is God’s planned vision and strategy for reaching our present world population and all future generations through those we win and train now. Note that it is God’s planned vision and strategy. This plan is referred to again and again in Scripture, and leaps to the front in the strategic early chapters of Acts as the regular practice of the early church. Note the phrase, “For reaching our present world population.” The strategy of multiplication simply must be included as the top-priority goal in any viable, Biblical evangelism. Mere soul-winning, mere witnessing, mere adding of converts, as crucially important as they are, will continue to abort the purpose of God for world impact if the complete strategy of God is not implemented after converts are won to Christ. This last sentence must not be taken as a depreciation of soul-winning and witnessing, but rather as an acknowledgment that the task has only begun when people are won to Christ, just as life has only begun when a baby is born.
Motivational speaker John Maxwell said, “A leader who develops people, ADDS; a leader who develops leaders, MULTIPLIES.” Spiritual multiplication is one maturing Christian building another person in Christ and continuing with that person until he in turn is reaching and building others who will reproduce in kind. And another dimension must be firmly stated, though it might not find full favor as it is received. The strategy of multiplication by disciple-making must not be thought of merely as a strategy for building a local church, but for total world impact. A church that merely implodes to enlarge its membership and then incidentally adds world impact as a by-product of its growth will never satisfactorily impact the world, however large it may become. Total world impact should be the first ministry goal of every Christian and every local Body of Christ. The principle is simple: The light that shines farthest must necessarily shine brightest nearest home.
Spiritual multiplication is modeled by Jesus, by Paul, and in the early Church. Jesus Himself knew that only through multiplication could the Gospel be proclaimed to the ends of the earth and Christianity proliferated throughout the world and to the end of history. So, in the midst of the masses and while ministering to them, He concentrated on a personal ministry with twelve men, and for roughly three years, He prepared them for their ministry of multiplication. Through these twelve would come the first generation thrust toward world evangelization. Jesus saw in these men “the foundations of many generations.” Jesus was the perfect teacher, preacher, and counselor, yet disciple-making was the top priority of His ministry. And He fulfilled this priority through small group inter-networking dynamics, with one-on-one discipling done from the small group base when the necessity arose.
As an example of the multiplication process, look for a moment at Andrew, who was Jesus’ very first disciple mentioned in the Gospels. The multiplication chain could look like this: John the Baptist —> Andrew —> Simon Peter —> 3,000 at Pentecost —> Antioch (Acts 8:4) —> Barnabas and Saul. This is a general example, with assumed connections, of six-generation multiplication.
Another example: Paul (Acts 18) —> Acquila and Priscilla —> Apollos (“They took him unto them and expounded unto him the way of God more fully” - Acts 18:26) —> then (Acts 18:28), “Apollos mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.” Study this chapter carefully. Here is a clear example of four-generation multiplication, and many more examples could be given throughout Scripture.
Think again of II Timothy 2:2. “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” Paul —> Timothy —> faithful men —> others, also. Here we see both the practice of four-generation disciple-making, and the mandate of multiplication.
Isaiah 54:2; Isaiah 59:21 By Daniel W. Baugh, Jr., Ph.D.
“Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitation; spare not, lengthen thy cords, strengthen thy stakes.”
“As for Me, this is My covenant with them, says the Lord: My Spirit Who is upon you (and Who writes the law of God inwardly in the heart), and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your (true, spiritual) children, or out of the mouth of your children’s children, says the Lord, from henceforth and for ever” (Amplified Bible)
In this study, I am borrowing these two texts from the prophet Isaiah. Though these passages address another matter altogether, each contains a clear outline of God’s New Testament strategy for Christians. We can draw a massive New Testament principle from the Old Testament location of these passages. These passages follow the great 53rd chapter of Isaiah, which is the Gospel of the Cross presented in the Old Testament. The principle is that the Conquest must always follow the Cross. The Book of Acts followed hard on the heels of Calvary. It is the Cross that carries us into the territory of conquest, and it is the Holy Spirit who empowers us to conquer.
Look at Isaiah 54:2. Though it is an Old Testament text, it clearly reveals both God’s goal for the Christian and the plan to reach it. The goal, stated in picturesque language, is to “enlarge the place of thy tent.” This is an Eastern figure taken from the nomadic life of the Eastern shepherd. Your “tent” is your place of operation, your sphere of magnitude, your center of influence. So the verse tells you to expand your life, to enlarge your influence for Christ. The plan for accomplishing this goal is in the phrases, “lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes.” And we must not miss the strategic phrase, “let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations.” This suggests the strategic place of your disciples in advancing the multiplication process. The command to “spare not” lets us know that cost should not be a consideration, that any investment of time, effort, or money will more than repay the investor. This verse covers all the bases in disciple-making, and the disciple-making that is entailed here will produce a ministry of multiplication. The detectable steps are:
1. Educate your vision, so that it is increasingly a reflection of “God’s point of view”;
2. Expand your life and trust God to enlarge your influence for His sake;
3. Extend your outreach, a matter of ministry;
4. Establish a solid base of operations at home; and
5. Expect your disciples to enlarge your ministry beyond calculation.
Then look at Isaiah 59:21. The progression is clear: “My (God’s) words” are to be perpetuated through:
1. “Thy mouth”;
2. “The mouth of thy children” (Amplified Bible: “thy true, spiritual children”);
3. “The mouth of thy children’s children”;
4. “From henceforth and forever.”
In these texts we can clearly see our formula of “building world-visionary, world-impacting disciples who will reproduce the same in kind, and thus will penetrate and impact the world to the ends of the earth and until the end of time.” I believe that this formula can be conspicuously seen in the life and ministry of Jesus and in the life of the profiled early disciples.
I. A PROVEN PRINCIPLE
First, these texts submit a proven principle to us, the principle of multiplication. God’s plan is to reach the world spiritually exactly the same way it was populated—by multiplication. The first command God gave to the human race was to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28)—and this is probably the only command of God that man has obeyed! Starting with two people, our original parents, the earth is now bulging with some six billion (and more) people. The “corruptible seed” has certainly multiplied! I could wish that the “incorruptible seed” had multiplied as prolifically.
With regard to Jesus Christ and His Gospel, it is obvious that addition can never reach the exploding population of the world. Addition simply cannot keep pace with population expansion. Also, it is a statistical reality that less than five percent of the professing Christians of the world ever “add” anyone to Christ. Multiplication is the strategy of God presented in the Scriptures, and is a vital necessity if the world is to be impacted for Christ. What do we mean by “multiplication”?
Spiritual multiplication is God’s planned vision and strategy for reaching our present world population and all future generations through those we win and train now. Note that it is God’s planned vision and strategy. This plan is referred to again and again in Scripture, and leaps to the front in the strategic early chapters of Acts as the regular practice of the early church. Note the phrase, “For reaching our present world population.” The strategy of multiplication simply must be included as the top-priority goal in any viable, Biblical evangelism. Mere soul-winning, mere witnessing, mere adding of converts, as crucially important as they are, will continue to abort the purpose of God for world impact if the complete strategy of God is not implemented after converts are won to Christ. This last sentence must not be taken as a depreciation of soul-winning and witnessing, but rather as an acknowledgment that the task has only begun when people are won to Christ, just as life has only begun when a baby is born.
Motivational speaker John Maxwell said, “A leader who develops people, ADDS; a leader who develops leaders, MULTIPLIES.” Spiritual multiplication is one maturing Christian building another person in Christ and continuing with that person until he in turn is reaching and building others who will reproduce in kind. And another dimension must be firmly stated, though it might not find full favor as it is received. The strategy of multiplication by disciple-making must not be thought of merely as a strategy for building a local church, but for total world impact. A church that merely implodes to enlarge its membership and then incidentally adds world impact as a by-product of its growth will never satisfactorily impact the world, however large it may become. Total world impact should be the first ministry goal of every Christian and every local Body of Christ. The principle is simple: The light that shines farthest must necessarily shine brightest nearest home.
Spiritual multiplication is modeled by Jesus, by Paul, and in the early Church. Jesus Himself knew that only through multiplication could the Gospel be proclaimed to the ends of the earth and Christianity proliferated throughout the world and to the end of history. So, in the midst of the masses and while ministering to them, He concentrated on a personal ministry with twelve men, and for roughly three years, He prepared them for their ministry of multiplication. Through these twelve would come the first generation thrust toward world evangelization. Jesus saw in these men “the foundations of many generations.” Jesus was the perfect teacher, preacher, and counselor, yet disciple-making was the top priority of His ministry. And He fulfilled this priority through small group inter-networking dynamics, with one-on-one discipling done from the small group base when the necessity arose.
As an example of the multiplication process, look for a moment at Andrew, who was Jesus’ very first disciple mentioned in the Gospels. The multiplication chain could look like this: John the Baptist —> Andrew —> Simon Peter —> 3,000 at Pentecost —> Antioch (Acts 8:4) —> Barnabas and Saul. This is a general example, with assumed connections, of six-generation multiplication.
Another example: Paul (Acts 18) —> Acquila and Priscilla —> Apollos (“They took him unto them and expounded unto him the way of God more fully” - Acts 18:26) —> then (Acts 18:28), “Apollos mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.” Study this chapter carefully. Here is a clear example of four-generation multiplication, and many more examples could be given throughout Scripture.
Think again of II Timothy 2:2. “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” Paul —> Timothy —> faithful men —> others, also. Here we see both the practice of four-generation disciple-making, and the mandate of multiplication.
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