“And you be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”
– Genesis 9:7
I point Genesis 9:7 out in particular in light of the connection with Genesis 1:28 when God said, after creating Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.” Now, in Genesis Chapter Nine, right after the flood and things are kind of starting over with Noah and his family, God says the exact same thing, “Be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth, multiply in it.” Again, God wants his grace, his goodness in his image bearers to fill the earth. He wants human life to flourish on the earth, multiplying. His blessing in the middle of all of that, this is just the goodness of God that he desires to fill the earth with his goodness, with his blessing, with his grace.
God wants His grace and goodness to fill the earth. We must devote ourselves to getting God’s gospel where Christ has not been proclaimed.
This Verse Wants Our Faith To Multiply Across The World
In Genesis One, we thought together on that day when we were looking at that passage. We prayed together about how that is happening even today, how his grace and blessing flows throughout the earth as we make disciples, as we multiply the life of Christ, this renewed life in Jesus reconciled to God. We want to multiply across the earth. I try, on most days, to pray for an unreached people group each day. I often times use the Joshua Project app toward that end. Today, the people group that’s highlighted is the Fulakunda people in Senegal. The Fulakunda people in Senegal are a Muslim people group, about 1.8 million of them in Senegal. They are classified as unreached by the gospel. There are only a few, like a handful, of known followers of Jesus among the Fulakunda tribe.
There’s a lot of barriers to the gospel. It’s hard to get the gospel to the Fulakunda in Senegal because of, not just their Muslim beliefs and even strongly held Muslim beliefs, but some of the remote nature of this people group, some of the unique challenges with those who have tried to bring the gospel in the past but have kind of tried to import different cultural things that were unhelpful instead of just proclaiming the gospel and helping that be worked out in that culture.
Genesis 9:7 Prays For The Fulakundra People
I want to invite us today, in light of Genesis 9:7, to pray specifically for the Fulakunda tribe in Senegal, that the blessing and the goodness and the grace of God in Jesus, would multiply to them, would spread to them, would increase in Senegal among these who right now don’t know the grace of God in Jesus.
God, we pray, in light of your global purpose that has been there since the beginning of the Bible, to bless the nations, all the peoples of the earth, and so we pray right now together for the Fulakunda in Senegal. God, we pray for this handful of believers, these few brothers and sisters, our family in the middle of the Fulakunda people. So God, please give them strength, give them grace. God, help them to walk with you. Help them to share your grace with those around them.
God, we pray for other believers in West African countries around them in Senegal, from other tribes and other people groups, God, that you would grant grace for many of them to go and to share the gospel among the Fulakunda. God we pray that you would raise up missionaries from other places, from North America, from East Asia, from different parts of your body around the world in Europe, and God, to go to the Fulakunda with the good news of your grace, to multiply and fill this part of Senegal, this people group in Senegal with your grace and your love and your blessing with good news of your mercy available in Jesus. Salvation, eternal life available in Jesus.
Genesis 9:7 Prays For His Word To Multiply
God, may that message multiply, we pray, among the Fulakunda. God, we know, as we pray for this tribe, there are thousands of other people groups like them. So God, please, please, please, help us to be obedient to your commission. Not just from Genesis One, Genesis Nine, but Matthew 28, Mark 16 and Luke 24 and Acts One, God, help us to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. Please oh God, cause your name, your grace, your love, your salvation in Jesus to spread and multiply and fill the whole earth so that men and women from every people group on the planet know and enjoy your blessing. God, fill the earth with your glory, we pray. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
