In this week’s edition we are going to break into the series we are doing on the Name of Jesus. You know we have engaged this series for many weeks now and we are going to pick it back up next week. But in this week’s Light on Life, we have a special guest in our studio and we are going to be doing a special podcast with our special guest. His name? Maxwell Abishai. Maxwell is a missionary to the nation of Ghana. We are going to interview him. We are going to talk about Missions. We are going to talk about the Great Commission. We are going to talk obeying Jesus words and going into all the world and preaching the gospel and making disciples of all nations. We are going to talk about establishing the gospel among the Muslim people of Ghana. A special Missions podcast. That’s what we are talking about in this week’s Light on Life.

Listen to the Audio

Click Play to Listen | Right Click to Download | Subscribe in Stitcher Radio

[Tweet “The media is almost totally ignoring the incredible global progress of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”]

Read the Notes

You can view a basic transcript of this podcast at the bottom of this section.

Accept the Challenge

Each week’s podcast contains a call to action. The Word of God will not produce in your life unless you put into operation.
This week’s call is:

Consider supporting Maxwell Abishai’s ministry of planting churches in the nation of Ghana.

Join the Conversation

Each week’s podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony. Testimony is vital to a believer’s life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11).
This week’s question is:

Question: Do you think it’s important to financially support missions around the world? Please share your comments, in the comments section below.

About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 40 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 35 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

Subscribe to the Podcast

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe.

 Stitcher Radio                      Google Play

iTunes                                         PlayerFM

Share the Love

If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate it on Stitcher Radio and leave a review. If you have a suggestion for a Bible topic you would like to see taught, or if you have a question, please e-mail me at emery@emeryhorvath.com

_________________________________________________________________________________

Podcast Notes

• Well first let’s introduce Maxwell Abishai.
• Now Maxwell I was doing some research on missions to get ready for this podcast because I am not a missionary, I am a Bible teacher.
• That’s one reason why your here is to help us understand what missions is all about by allowing us to view it through your eyes.
• I was reading a book by a Pakistani missionary, a missionary to the nation of Pakistan whose name is C. Gordon Olson.
• And in his book ‘WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOD DOING? ¹ He says mission is exploding across the globe.
• A fact you really don’t hear about from our secular media.
• Olson was converted and called to ministry while studying engineering and majored in theology at Dallas Seminary. Ministering in Pakistan (1956-64) he founded the Pakistan Fellowship of Evangelical Students, and today 1600 students participate in 95 Bible study groups. He received a doctorate in missiology from Trinity Int. Univ. and is currently a Bible/missions conference speaker. His wife, Dottie, was a missionary to Zambia and Korea. ²
• The media is almost totally ignoring the most important world news item imaginable. The incredible global progress of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in the last three centuries, in your lifetime, and even in the last decade, is actually the most world-changing reality. Now about 546 million people around the world can be considered evangelical Christians and with 248 million Charismatics brings the number of possible believers to about 800 million. However, it all had small beginnings. ³

Missions Statistics

1. Worldwide evangelical growth has continued substantial with about 546 million (7.9%) now reported, and a growth rate of 2.6% per year.
2. Church growth in sub-Saharan Africa is so rapid that a majority of Africans are now professing Christians (57%). Now more people are turning to Christ than to Islam.
3. In Latin America over 91 million are Evangelicals (16.7%) and church growth. A. Considering that in 1900, there were only 50,000 Protestants in Latin America and the early converts endured severe persecution, progress can only be termed phenomenal. B. Fifty years ago the ten million Quechua descendants of the Incas were unreached and unresponsive to the gospel. Today they are turning to Christ by the hundreds of thousands; in some areas half are Christians. C. Evangelicals in Peru have multiplied 40-fold in fifty years. In most countries more Evangelicals now attend church than do Catholics!
4. In the Pacific islands about 18 percent are Evangelicals—converts from cannibalistic, stone-age peoples. Similar fruit has been gathered among similar animistic peoples in the northeast of India, the tropical jungles of Latin America, and many other areas.
5. Although response to the gospel has been somewhat spotty in Asia, church growth in the Philippines and Korea has been most encouraging. A. About 17 percent of the people in South Korea are Evangelicals and some of the world’s largest churches are found there. B. There are about 12 million Evangelicals in the Philippines, with rapid church growth being seen especially in recent decades. C. Indonesia has seen a number of revivals in recent decades, with about 13 million Evangelicals at present. D. Some areas of India, especially in the south and northeast have a substantial number of Evangelicals, but in other areas there are very few Christians. Thousands of national missionaries from south India are starting churches in the needy areas of the north. Although foreign missionaries were expelled from Myanmar in 1966, there are reports of hundreds of national missionaries going into needy areas.
6. The incredible church growth among the 1.3 billion people of mainland China arises out of a unique situation. When the missionaries were forced out in 1950, there were less than one million Protestant church members, who suffered over thirty-five years of persecution under the Communist government. A. Recent figures indicate well over 100 million Evangelicals among 125 million professing Christians, mostly in house churches.
7. In the former Soviet Union there are about 1.7 million Evangelicals, despite the government’s determination to stamp out Christianity. There are now astonishing new opportunities to help the Christians in eastern Europe in their witness. A great harvest is beginning in Russia and Ukraine, and other republics are opening to missionaries. The massive influx of missionaries into eastern Europe is starting to have an impact on church growth from a small base. Some central Asian Muslim republics have opened up significantly.
8. A number of formerly ‘closed’ countries, such as Nepal, Turkey, Mongolia, Albania, and other eastern European countries have been penetrated with the gospel, and churches are growing. Refugees from Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq are hearing the gospel for the first time, and many are responding.
9. Although the Muslim world has been the most resistant to the gospel and serious mission efforts to Muslims got a belated start, real breakthroughs are beginning to be seen in many parts of the Muslim world. The underground churches in Iran now are conservatively estimated at over 300,00 believers, compared to the 300 in 1979. A. There is strong gospel exposure on the internet, TV and radio, with incredible response in Egypt. The recent regime changes and war in Algeria, Afghanistan and Iraq have meant greater gospel penetration into these formerly closed countries. ⁴
10. So this is what the news media is not telling you that the church is approaching one billion believers on planet earth. We are eighty percent of the way there. The foundations of this growth have occurred over the last three hundred years.

Questions for Maxwell about Maxwell

• Now we have with us in the studio today, Maxwell Abishai, who is a missionary to the nation of Ghana.
• He and his wife Gifti Abishai have a burning passion to build churches among the Muslim people in both the Northern and southern parts of Ghana.
• Maxwell and his wife are part of the Lighthouse class which meets at the The Assembly in Broken Arrow, a great church lead by Pastor Ron Woods.
• The Lighthouse meets at 10:45 AM on Sunday mornings in Room 242 so if you are ever in the neighborhood stop by and visit us.
• Tell us how you came to Jesus.
• Tell us how about how got the call to became a missionary.
• Tell us about why God laid the nation of Ghana on your heart.

General Information about the Nation of Ghana

• Ghana is in the western part of Africa.
• It has a population of 26 million people.
• Ghana is a stable country with a multiparty democratic form of government.
• Gold, cocoa and more recently oil form the cornerstone of Ghana’s economy and have helped fuel an economic boom.
• Until recently Ghana was hailed as a model for African growth but since 2013, its economy has endured a growing public deficit, high inflation and a weakening currency, resulting in it seeking an IMF bailout.
• Life expectancy is 64 years for men and 66 years for women. ⁵

Questions for Maxwell about Your Mission

• Tell us about your vision to build churches in Ghana.
• Tell us about the living conditions in Ghana.
• Tell us about some of the Muslim people you’ve met in Ghana.
• Tell us about some of the Christians you are connected to in Ghana.
• Tell us about your most recent trip to Ghana where you are involved with training pastors.
• Tell us about the importance of bringing food and clothes to the people you are trying to reach.

Those Who Stay by the Stuff

• David was being pursued by Saul because Saul knew God had appointed him as king to replace him.
• And it got so bad for David that he fled Israel and lived with his band of men among Israel’s enemies as a fugitive.
• So he’s hanging out in among the Philistines in the city of Ziglag and while he’s away from his home with his men doing covert raids against the Philistines – David is living this kind of double secret agent life, the Amalekites attack Ziglag and carry off all his family and all the families of the men who were with David, about six hundred men.
• His men get all upset over losing their families and losing all they own and they speak of stoning David.
• David encourages himself in the Lord and by the Lord’s direction he pursues the Amalekites. On the way they come to a brook named Besor and leaves two hundred of his men their who are too exhausted to continue.
• The other four hundred men track down the enemy and recover everything, wives, children all their possessions, and additionally the spoil from their now defunct enemy.
• You know to the victor goes the spoils.
• They come back to the brook where they left the two hundred exhausted men and get ready to divide everything up among them all and some of the four hundred object.
• The objectors say the two hundred are not entitled to the spoil because they didn’t go and fight the battle. They stayed by the stuff.
• Here’s David’s response to these men.

1 Samuel 30:23–25 (KJV) 23 Then said David, Ye shall not do so, my brethren, with that which the LORD hath given us, who hath preserved us, and delivered the company that came against us into our hand. 24 For who will hearken unto you in this matter? but as his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part alike. 25 And it was so from that day forward, that he made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel unto this day.

• David made a law in Israel that those who stay behind and support get the same reward as those who go to battle.

How You Can Help Build Churches in Ghana

• So in the case of missions, we all can’t go, some have to stay behind and do what the Lord called them to do at home but we all can support those who are going to the front line.
• We can support by prayer.
• We can support financially.
• Now the Lighthouse did just this and we raised special offering to go directly to Maxwell’s ministry of building churches in the nation of Ghana.
• We have already done this.
• Now we are going to give you the listening audience an opportunity to sow financially into this ministry.
• Here’s how you can do it.
  • Send a check to the church – send it to ‘The Assembly in Broken Arrow.’
  • And send it in the care of Maxwell Abishai.
    • That means write the check to the Assembly and on the memo line at the bottom write Maxwell’s name.
• Here’s the church address.
  • The Assembly at Broken Arrow
  • 3500 W New Orleans Street
  • Broken Arrow, Oklahoma 74011
• Now if you like put a little memo or letter stating that this is a missions offering for Maxwell Abishai’s ministry to the nation of Ghana.
• The church knows about this offering. I’ve talked to them about this. This is how they told us to do this. Write the check to the Assembly, they will do all the accounting and forward the fund to Maxwell’s ministry.
• I want to be very clear about what’s happening here – very clear about this – we are raising financial support to build a church in Ghana.
• The first church will be a base of operations to launch more churches into the northern and southern part of Ghana.
• All this money, the money we raised, and the money through this podcast, one hundred percent goes towards Maxwell’s ministry.
• Prayerfully consider and ask the Lord what he wants you to do about this vision.

________
References: