The Person God Uses

Share the Word of God with us. Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm glad to be here, folks. As I said to one of your folks, when you are 64, I'm glad to be anywhere. I'm a third generation Baptist from Brazil. This is rare. considering that the Baptist population in Brazil is no more than 2%. So I'm a rare creature. When my grandfather had been married for about six months, a missionary from Pennsylvania came to Brazil and led my grandfather to Christ. And he was so impressed with his new faith that he decided that anybody being born in his household was going to have a biblical name. So, my mother was born. She was the first one. Her name is Mary. And then came my Uncle Proverbs. And then came my Uncle Leviticus. And my Uncle Psalms. My Aunt Ruth. Martha. And the last one, there were 13 kids. The last one was Uncle Duto. Uncle Duto Runnymede. Before you think I'm telling a story, I'm not. This is for real. My father came along. My father had grown up as nothing. He had gone to the Catholic Church to be baptized and was waiting for him to die so he could go to Catholic Church again. And he began to eye my mother. In those days, they did not date. They just eye each other. You understand that? My grandmother, who was very smart, saw that my grandfather was eyeing my mother in a different way. So, she sent a message to him through the coffee vine. She could not send a message to him through the grape vine, because there was no grapes where I grew up. So, she sent a message to him through the coffee vine, and to tell my father he could not eye my mother. And he got the idea, and he went to church. Because that's the best place to hire the girls. OK, some people go to Christ, to church to see Christ and some others go to see Christina. So my father went to see my mother in church and then he got dumped. You know, he went through the baptistry. He was not saved until 1970 when I had the privilege to lead my father to Christ. But he was dumped in a Baptist church. So he could get closer to my mother. And he married my mother and had a first child. And his name is Genesis. And then came a girl. Her name is Bernice. You know Bernice from the Bible, New Testament. And then Huldah, the prophetess from the Old Testament. And then Eliel, God is God, also from the Old Testament. And then my name, 1 Chronicles 7, verse 2, Jeriel, which means may God see. I like that. When I came to America, one of my dreams was to change my name. Who in the world is called Jerry L? Well, when I found out that Jerry L meant, may God see, I came to realize that indeed, all through my life, God had been watching over me. He had been seeing me. He had separated me. And he was going to use me for his glory and honor. So when I became an American citizen, there is a little place that, you know, I could never change my name in Brazil because it costs too much money. I couldn't afford it. So when I came to America, I was going to become an American. And there is a little line that says, do you want to change your name? What name are you going to use? But by that time, I knew who Jerry L was. And I said, Jerry L. No more change. Hallelujah. So, I'm glad to be here today, folks. I'm really glad to be here today. I like what your deacon said. He said I was going to be a substitute preacher. That's good. The only thing is this, a substitute is somebody who imitates his master. So, or somebody who's taken the place of his master. Your pastor told me that he preaches 40 minutes, so I cannot do any less, okay? So, be prepared. It's Brian's fault, because he introduced me as substitute. If he had introduced me with anything else, I would preach less. But since I'm going to be a substitute, I'm going to preach for 40 minutes. Praise God. I don't work for the International Mission Board. I really don't work for the International Mission Board. That's wrong. I work for Jesus. I just collect my paycheck from the International Mission Board. So, I have been working off of the board for 19 years. And I'm a candidate consultant. And what I do, I just interview folks who are from the West Coast. So anybody from the West Coast who would like to serve with the International Mission Board, I do the interview and I present them to the board so they can be appointed. I also pastor a small church in Richmond, Virginia. It's a Brazilian church. I was so glad when he told me, when he mentioned here that I moved from Brazil to Portugal in 1963 because I began to think that I was in Portugal so I could preach in Portuguese. But he corrected himself, so that's okay. So I preached to this, I pastored this small church in Richmond, Virginia. It's a Brazilian church. We began this church in January. Before that, my wife and I began a church in Washington, D.C., a Portuguese church as well. And we worked in that church for 14 years, just going there on the weekends, put over 1 million miles driving from Richmond to Washington on the weekends. And now, fortunately, just two months ago, we passed a baton to another pastor in Washington, D.C. and they are averaging right now probably between 250 to 300 people. So, God really blessed the church in the last 14 years for His glory and honor. And with me, there's one of the deacons of the small group we started there in Richmond, Virginia, Brother Octavius, his real name is Octavio, but in English you say Octavius, so Brother Octavius is with us, Octavius Cruz. And he is back there. He is the chairman of the deacons of the church I have the privilege to serve. And he's my bodyguard. You cannot come to strange countries without a bodyguard. So I brought one, okay? I brought one. We're glad he's here with us. What I'm going to share with you today. Well, I'm the kind of preacher that I like to open the Bible and tell the story, okay? And then at the end, we just get three or four, or if I get enthusiastic, I may get five and six, okay, applications from that scripture. If you are kind enough to open your Bibles in Isaiah chapter 6, okay, Isaiah chapter 6, is a story, is a well-known story. And if you're just following your Bible, I'm not going to read, I'm just going to tell the story, because you know the story already, and you follow me. If I make a mistake there reading, you correct me, okay? I don't mind if you raise your hand and say to me, Pastor, that's not so. And I remember being a pastor of a church in Riverside, California, that was so interesting. I used to be preaching, and you know how preachers ask some questions that are just not, they don't want anybody to answer. They're just rhetorical questions. They ask the question and they expect themselves to answer. And they'll say, do you know who Jesus was? And the lady would yell, my savior. So in case that I ask a question, you decide to answer the question. Just raise your hand and answer the question, okay? But let's see if we can go to this scripture and tell the story. This is a call by God to a man called Isaiah. The Bible says that the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord. Well, if you remember, King Uzziah was one of the kings who ruled the longest in Judah. He ruled for about 40 years. The only thing is this, he was a good king, but at the end of his kingdom, at the end of the time that he was close to his death, he decided he was going to offer sacrifice himself. You know, sacrifice was supposed to be offered by the priest. And the king decided that he was not going to wait for the priest. He was going to offer the sacrifice himself. And as a result, the Bible says that God sent upon him some leprosy. And for the last seven years of his kingdom, King Uzziah was in a house by himself, and his son took over the kingdom, and the king just run the last years until his death. Now, tradition says that Isaiah was a cousin to King Uzziah, was from the family of King Uzziah. And certainly, it was very common when a new king came, and anybody from the family who was available, who was around, would be certainly done away with. And if his Isaiah was related to King Uzziah, and the new king was coming in because King Uzziah had died, certainly this man was fearing for his life. And what did he do? He goes to the temple. And he goes to worship. What a better place there is but to come to God's house when things are not going too well in our lives. You see, I always say that the church is a place of those who are sick. People who are well should not come to church. Because Jesus said, I came to seek and to save those who are lost. Jesus said, the well does not need a doctor but a sick person. That's what Jesus said. So His church is a place for those who feel they are in need. And indeed, Isaiah was in need and he came to the temple. And the Bible says that when he came to the temple, he saw God sitting down upon his throne. Beautiful thing. And he said that his dress just covered the temple, symbolizing that God's presence was there at the temple completely. You recall Solomon in the Old Testament, when Solomon prayed for the temple, the Shekinah glory of the Lord covered the temple. Meaning that God was taking the temple completely. Now in Isaiah's language, was the train of God's robe was covering that temple, taking completely the temple. God saying to him, my presence is here. How many times I have come to God's house and as I hear the preacher, as I preach myself, I find the presence of God in that place. What a good place to meet God, His place, His church. Oh folks, I keep on wondering how many of us really come to realize that this is not just any building, even though we say that the church is the gathering of God's people. But this place is not just any place. This place is dedicated to God, is dedicated to His service. And as I preach in my own church, I can say to you, if you're going to say something harsh, it's better to say in the church that you're visiting, because after all, you're not going to see the people anymore. So, okay? So let me say to you, you need to take good care of God's house. I keep on thinking once in a while when I come to a church I'm going to bring a little plate and before I preach I just ask the deacons to pass the little plate and those who are chewing gum just put their gum inside the plate. That's God's house. That's God's house. Or when you pass your hand underneath the seat, all those guns there in the seat, that's God's money that bought those seats, folks. Now I'm saying to you this because I know you don't do this, so the best thing to do is for us to save people who don't do things like that. But you understand what I'm saying. You understand my point. This is a place that was dedicated to worship of the living God. And Isaiah saw God in that temple. And folks, when you meet God, something happens to you. And the Bible says that Isaiah began to shake. when I passed in San Jose, California, the reason I mention San Jose, California in my illustrations is because San Jose, California is very far and nobody's going to dare to live here and go all the way across from California to find if that was for real. So I like to mention places and if I mention somebody from the church, it's always from San Jose because nobody's going to leave here and try to find that person, San Jose. But when I was passing San Jose, You know, the pastor, after he has been in the church for a while, he knows exactly where people sit. They sit exactly, people sit exactly on the same chair every Sunday. Every Sunday. And indeed, the pastor knew where people sat down. And I came to church at 7 o'clock in the morning. Our first service began at 8.30. We had two services, one at 8.30, one at 11 o'clock. And I came to the church about 7 o'clock in the morning, and I went through the pews and said, God? Brother Joe is going to be sitting down in this pew today. And Brother Joe is sick and he needs to be touched. Please God. And I'll go around by myself in all the auditorium just looking around and sit down in each pew and praying for the person who is going to be sitting down in that chair. And then I always finish myself just kneeling at the altar and asking God for His presence and His touch. And I remember one morning that suddenly came upon me that God's presence was in that building. And I began to shake. And I was so afraid. I was so afraid to open my eyes and see an angel before me, because if I would see an angel next to me, I would probably pass out and wouldn't be able to preach that Sunday. When Isaiah saw God in the temple, he began to shake. And he began to cry out and say, Woe is me! Woe is me! For I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips. And I live among people unclean lips. I like that order, don't you? I like that order. He began with himself first. He was a man of unclean lips, and he lived among people of unclean lips. Normally, we're different. We see others first. We always want to say it's the fault of the other person, not me. And Isaiah called out and said, Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and live among people of unclean lips. At that moment, Those seraphims were guarding God's temple. One of them went to the fire, grabbed one of the embers, live, came to Isaiah, touched his lips and said, now you're clean, cleansed. Now you're cleansed. And then he heard a voice that said, who will go for me? Who will go for me? And Isaiah said, hear my Lord, send me. You know this story, don't you? Have heard it before? Did I tell it right? All right. What can we learn from this story? What can we learn? I'd like to share a little bit in context of this story on the subject, the person God uses. I was going to say the man that God uses, but I know I'm living in a modern age where if we say the man that God uses is not right, besides this, God is in the business of using whoever He wants to whenever He wants to. Makes no difference if you're a male or female, God wants to use you, He's going to use you. So let me say to you, there's no distinction between a male and female, those who God is going to use. The requirements are the same. And in this scripture here, this man that God was planning to use, I see here the requirements of a person God's going to use. And here they are. Write it down, please. First of all, if you're going to be used by God, the person that God uses, first of all, needs to have had an encounter with God. an encounter with God. He was Isaiah, he went to the temple, and he was, he faced God himself. Folks, we cannot run in the coattail of our family. I am a third-generation Baptist, but I'm a first-generation Christian, because you see, there's no second-generation Christian, only first-generation. God has no grandchildren. You get that? And if you believe that just because you grew up in a church, as I talk to folks daily, I ask them, how'd you get saved? They said, well, I was born in a Christian home. I said, that's great. I love people who are born in a Christian home. Even though I hear, I love to hear testimonies in church when a person stand up and say, I was this kind of person, I chased women or I chased men, and I was involved in drugs, I was involved in alcohol, I was involved in this, and then God touched me and I was saved. That's a beautiful testimony. But may I say to you, it's a more beautiful testimony, a person who can say, I was born in a Christian home, I never tasted the world, I got saved when I was a child, and I have been serving God since. Folks, that's a beautiful testimony, because in today's society, that's almost impossible. But I also find many people who grew up in a church, as I grew up in a church, third generation Baptist. I sang in the choir. And if you know me, I do have a voice. I sang in the choir. I sang in the quartet for a long time. I taught Sunday school. And folks, I was as lost as a goose. I was living in the world and I was living in the church. I was one foot in the world, one foot in the church and that cannot be, that cannot happen. We cannot be living in the world and cannot be living in the church because the Bible says those who love the world and the things of the world have nothing to do with God. And the problem in America today is that over 70%, put this down, over 70% of the church members never had an encounter with God personally. And you need to come to a point in your life that you can say, I had a personal encounter with God. I had a personal experience. And the experience I live in is not the experience of my father. It's not the experience of my mother. It's not the experience of my family. My experience is my own personal experience. I saw the Lord. That's what Isaiah did. He had a personal encounter with God. Second thing, if you're going to be used by God, not only are you going to have a personal encounter with God, but you need to be cleansed. It must be a time that you confess your sin to God and you feel the cleansing of God in your life. Here's Isaiah. He saw God. And he yells, whoa, it's me. And the Bible says that the seraphim took an ember, came and touched him and said, you are cleansed. You see, folks, dear many people have had an encounter with God. But when the encounter was over, They went home the same way they came. You see, if this is God's house, if this is God's house, you came in today and you had an encounter with God. How many times have you been to this place? And every time you come here, folks, every time you come here, you have an encounter with God. This is God's house. His presence is here. We say it's here. And if you have come here today, you have had an encounter with God. Are you going back home the same way you came? That's the question. Is this God's Word? I believe this is God's Word, this infallible God's Word. This is inerrant God's Word. I believe it. Do you believe the same way? If this is God's Word, every time I open this Bible, it's God speaking. God is going to face me every time this book is opened. Is God facing me? Is God talking to me? I'm having a personal encounter with God. You see, when I finish, if I continue to be in the same way, My encounter with God was worth nothing. Not Isaiah, you see. The moment he encountered God, he looked into himself. And he asked, how can I compare myself with God? No comparison. Because I'm a sinner. And I must cry out for help. Woe is me! And when you do this immediately, God's power cleanses you. And the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17, Whosoever is in Christ Jesus is a new – talk to me – creation. Old things are passed away. New things are coming to be. And every time we have this encounter with God and we recognize how sinful we are, immediately we're cleansing by His holy power. His blood takes away all of our sins. And suddenly, I undone, I sinful person, I'm touching by the living God, and now I'm cleansed. Old things passed away. And a new life begins. Oh, I remember on June the 24th, 1961, when I had that personal encounter with God. And I still remember, after going through a difficult time that almost died, somebody almost killed me, I opened my Bible and came to Psalm 51. And I read Psalm 51 is David talking about his own sin. And I look at my life and said, I'm doing the same thing. I'm going the same direction. And then in my Bible, see in Brazil, churches don't offer hymns, hymnals. Don't offer hymnals. You have to bring your own hymn to church. So, what the companies did, they just make a Bible as a songbook in the Bible. So, I had a Bible as a songbook. And I remember, after I read Psalms 51 and saw the sin of David, I just pick on my hymnal and just put my finger and open it, and the song went like this, What do you, young man, want to do? Whatever you sow, you're going to harvest. And I look at my own life and found out how I was harvesting what I was sowing. My life was a mess. And I call upon God. I call upon God. And He heard me. And on June the 24th, 1961, I, third-generation Baptist, became a first-generation Christian. I found Jesus Christ in my life. And folks, He changed my life. He changed my life. And the reason I come to America, I'm in America today, is the change that God brought to my life. Not that everybody that God's changed overseas, He brings to America. That's not this. But God brought me here for a purpose. And I have no question in my mind that it was God who touched me and nobody else. But there's one third and last one. I'll finish with this. You see, as a third-generation Baptist, I used to sit in the first pew. As a little boy, I remember going back to the church where I grew up and sitting there in the same pew and remembering that my legs couldn't even touch the floor in those days. And in those days in Brazil, as in America as well, some of you like my age can remember, there used to be some boards on the side with attendance and the offering. Do you remember that? Shake your heads. Come on. Come on. I know you remember. I used to sit down, especially when I began to learn how to add and to subtract and to multiply and to divide. I used to sit down and I used to be watching the board and adding the numbers up and down and multiplying until the pastor said, finally, and then I woke up. Finally, folks, here it is. First of all, you remember, the first of all, if you're going to be used by God, you need to have a personal encounter with God. Second, if you're going to be used by God, you need to be cleansed by God Himself. Giving yourself to God, recognizing you're sinful, asking God for forgiveness, and being cleansed by Him once and for all. But there's a third and last one. If you're going to be used by God, you need to offer yourself. You need to offer yourself. And here it is. Isaiah saw the Lord, and he heard a voice that said, Who shall go for us? Who shall we send? Isaiah said, Here am I. Send me. I read some commentaries on this scripture and one I like the most because, you know, I like the most because it's agreed with what I want to say. You know how it is. We always agree with the commentary that's going to. That's saying what we would like to say so I just comment there said and I liked it He said that when God says Who will go for us? It's really because God saw the situation in Israel the king had died and God saw the situation and God knew where Israel was And God needed a prophet at that time. So God called all the counts of heaven. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and all those who are the helpers of God, because the seraphims were there. So certainly all the others besides God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were there. The situation was so grave, the situation was so important, that God called a whole council of heaven. God the Father called a whole council of heaven. And there He began to show to them the situation of Israel. And then God was asking His own council, who will go for us? Who should we send? And Isaiah had been observing all that. And he raised his hand and said, here am I. Send me. Oh, folks, I think one of the greatest things that happened to my life as I came to work for Jesus at the International Mission Board was the fact that I began to be aware of the world. Until then, I was so secluded in my own personal life, with my own personal problems, with my own personal needs, and the needs of my children, the needs of my family. But God began to open my eyes, and I began to see the world. And if you please, just see what God can show you today. Americans are blessed people. You are a blessed people. The poorest of you are rich in comparison to the rest of the world. Walk with me, please. Walk with me in the streets of India. Poverty everywhere. Filthiness everywhere. work with me in West Africa. How many times, folks, I stopped in West Africa on the side of the road and I took my own food because I wouldn't dare to go in some restaurants there. So I'd go to visit the village and I'll take with me, I'll take in the car some food and some packages of sandwich for me to eat and I'll choose one place where I couldn't see any house at all and I'll stop the car and put the latch down or the pick up so it could eat and put a little a little towel there and begin to eat and drink something. And I would hear some noise coming from the bushes. And all those little kids with big belly, with bones all over the place. And they came to see if they could get some food. And I couldn't eat anymore. Just give my food to them and hit the car and take off. You don't have this here. Today you're going home to eat and half of the food placed on the table is going to go to the garbage. Am I wrong? Walk with me to China. Just five weeks ago, five weeks ago, I was invited to speak in a church, church in China. There are 36 people in that house. And when I was, the fellow who picked me up is a medical doctor who is also a pastor of that group. As I went in the car, he spoke English beautifully, well, he spoke English well. His wife is also Chinese and she graduated with a PhD from Harvard. And this guy took me in his car and he told me, Pastor, We can speak English now, but as soon as we get out of the highway, that we come into the community, please, please, don't say anything anymore, because they have all the listening, and every time I come here, they have all the instruments listening inside the car, and if you begin to speak English here, and they hear you, they'll come after us. And he said, don't speak English anymore. And when I come to the house, he said, when I come to the house where the church is located, the lady is going to open the door. I'm going to stop the car at the door. You jump out of the car and go inside the house. You're dark-skinned and it's night. They will think that you're Chinese. They couldn't see my eyes. So he did. He stopped and I went inside that house. There were 36 people there, besides me, the pastor, and his wife. And I began to speak, it was 8 o'clock p.m. At 9 o'clock I finished to preach. I preached one hour. And when I finished, I said, let us pray. He looked at me and said, Pastor, in this church, we preach until 10.30. You have an hour and a half more than you preached. And for the next hour and a half, I just said, brother, I finished the sermon. I'm just going to ask if anybody has questions on the Bible. And for the next hour and a half, those people ask me questions on the Bible, and I answer those questions from the Bible. You come to church at 11 o'clock and want to go home at 12. you have a temple I drove back and forth in the street today because I did not know where your place was until I got to downtown and the lady was kind enough to she said follow me and she brought me all the way here and in the way we pass at least 15-20 churches all beautiful buildings like this and in that house in China there's 36 people We are people everywhere. No more people are there because they didn't fit there anymore. Yet your churches, you go to every one of these 15 churches and probably will be just like here, more seats emptied. Folks, you're blessed. You're blessed. America is a Christian country. Just think with me today for a few minutes, okay? The world today has 6.5 billion people. 6.5 billion people. Of the 6.5 billion people, it's said that 33% are Christians, and Christians means Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, confused, okay? If we begin to strain down this 33%, probably less than 10% are real Christians. But the fact is, 33% have heard the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, have heard the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But do you know that out of this 6.5 billion, 1.5 billion people never heard one time that Jesus was born? lived, that Jesus died on the cross, that Jesus went to the grave, that Jesus was risen, that Jesus went to heaven, and Jesus coming back someday for his church. 1.5 billion people in the world never heard about this. How many times have you heard? How many times? Do you really believe that you and I have the right Do you really believe that you and I have the right to hear again? Until this 1.5 billion people have a chance to hear at least once? And the question comes, how will they hear? And Paul answers and says, if they're preachers. If they're preachers. And the need is presented to you today. Is the Word of God presenting to you the need? The needs of the world. 1.5 billion will never heard the Gospel. A whole population of one million people who never heard the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and they're all dying right now if you've set your watch. And I'm not trying to be nice to you. I'm not trying just to scare you. I'm not trying just to make you to feel obligated. That's not what I'm trying to say to you. I'm trying to open your eyes and see beyond yourself, see beyond your church, see beyond your family. And the whole population, if you begin to march and touch your watch right now and set one minute, in the next minute 144 people are going to die. 144 people are going to die in the next minute. And probably 127 of them are going straight to hell. Why is this? That's the need of the world. You want to be used by God. Just say to God, here am I. Send me. Here am I. Send me. You say, preacher, you say because you don't have children. Yes, I do. I have three children. Two of them are in China as missionaries. You don't know what grandchildren is. Grandchildren is better than children. I know this. As a matter of fact, I always say that if I knew that to have grandchildren was so great, I would have had grandchildren instead of children. I know what it is to see those grandchildren get in the airplane and fly away, and you don't know if you're ever going to see them again. But I say to you with all my conviction of my heart, I'd rather see my children dying for Jesus in the mission field, sharing the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, leading people to Christ, than for them to live in America, happily ever after, away from God's will for their lives. I told you five weeks ago I was in China. I also spent 20 days in India. 20 days in India. Oh, what a time. And so interesting. I'm using this mic, right? I'm using this mic. I can walk around. I recall that you go to India, folks. They're always beggars after you. I mean, beggars. Beggars all after you. They look at you and you're different. You're in for some time, okay? They stay after you. And they stay hours following you. They stay hours following you. And the missionary told me, don't give any money to them. Don't do. Because if you do, they'll mug you here. There'll be a hundred of beggars after you. And as long as one is following you for two hours, one hour, two hours, three hours, okay. But the moment you open your pocket and give to that one, then you're going to have all the others coming for money. So, I kept on thinking, how can I get rid of these people? I can't put up with this. All these little kids, I mean, little kids of all age just coming to you and they stay for two hours following you everywhere you go and begging. And they'll touch their stomach like this and touch their mouth and do like this. So I devised a plan. I said, I'm going to get rid of these people. When they come to bag me, I'm going to bag back to them. And they'll touch me and say like this, and I'll touch them back and I'll do the same thing. And they'll take off, I mean, they'll take off. But one little girl, this much, her little clothes was filthy, I mean, filthy. Her little sandals were just horrible. Her little leg all white. I took some pictures of this little girl. And then she told me. And I touched her back and touched my stomach, my mouth. Don't know what she did. She took two rupees from her pocket and put in my hands. That girl had nothing. Yet what she had, she gave me. You and I have so much. And most of all, we have something that nobody else does. We have Jesus Christ in our lives. Who will go for me? Couldn't you give a little bit? You have. For 1.5 billion who has nothing. Father, here it is. The Word is before you. The questions already asked, who will go for us? And I pray, Lord, that those who have been touched, those who had an encounter with you, those who have been touched, now can say, here we are. Send us. For Christ's sake. I mean, Brother Brian, time is yours. Thank you for that message. We have our time of commitment now, if you have had the encounter with God.