Part 13: Preparing to See Jesus

By Andrew McChesney

The evil spirits have fallen silent. Father believes Christ won a victory over Satan with the baptism, and that is why the devil tried so hard to prevent it.

Image © Pacific Press

Peace has filled the family home. Mother is a church deaconess, and she still sings in the choir. Junior is 17 and finishing high school.

Father, who is 43, has shared his incredible story in churches around Brazil, and many of those who have heard it have committed their lives to Jesus. In Coari, where Father decided to follow Jesus, 16 people gave their hearts to Christ after hearing his testimony.

Father credits the Holy Spirit, not his story, for changing hearts.

“My experience is shocking, but I see the Holy Spirit working in their hearts as they listen,” he said.

In addition to sharing his story, Father sells Bibles and has presented them to his mother, his older sister, and his two younger brothers. He is praying for them. His mother stopped worshiping in the Candomblé temple long before his baptism. When she learned that evil spirits were trying to kill him, she resolved to have nothing more to do with them.

While Father is rejoicing in his new life in Christ, he remains watchful by praying and reading the Bible every day. He remembers 1 Peter 5:8, which says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (NKJV). He also is mindful of the warning in Matthew 12:43-45, where Jesus said, “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, ’I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”

But Father is not afraid. “Even now, the devil has no power over me,” he said. “That’s what I preach in every church that I visit.”

He dreams of the day when he will meet Jesus face to face. “I pray that the Lord will never give up on me. I also pray not to give Him up,” he said. “I pray that I remain faithful and persevere until the end. I have hope that I will see Him. That is my hope.”

Your Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will help open eight churches in the South American Division, including four in Brazil, where Father (Eduardo Ferreira dos Santos) lives with Mother and Junior (pictured).

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

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Further Thought:

Read Ellen G. White, “Gethsemane,” Pages 685-697, and “Calvary,” Pages 741-757, in The Desire of Ages.

“Three times has He uttered that prayer.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

Three times has humanity shrunk from the last, crowning sacrifice. But now the history of the human race comes up before the world’s Redeemer. He sees that the transgressors of the law, if left to themselves, must perish. He sees the helplessness of man. He sees the power of sin. The woes and lamentations of a doomed world rise before Him. He beholds its impending fate, and His decision is made. He will save man at any cost to Himself. He accepts His baptism of blood, that through Him perishing millions may gain everlasting life. He has left the courts of heaven, where all is purity, happiness, and glory, to save the one lost sheep, the one world that has fallen by transgression. And He will not turn from His mission. He will become the propitiation of a race that has willed to sin. His prayer now breathes only submission: ’If this cup may not pass away from Me, except I drink it, Thy will be done.” — Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, Pages 690, 693.

Discussion Questions:

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