We Would See Jesus!

Have you heard the story of the young educated preacher who regaled his
audience week after week with all his knowledge and oratory? He was
gaining in popularity with certain classes in his congregation, but
there was one poor soul who detected the missing Saviour. After a few
weeks, this parishioner slipped into the meeting house and placed a note
on the pulpit Bible which read, in the words of our text (John 12:21),
*/“Sir, we would see Jesus!”/* When the young man ascended to the pulpit
that next Lord’s Day morning, smiling at his audience with all the usual
confidence and composure, then his eye saw the poor man’s note. The
smile faded, the words wouldn’t come; he stood speechless for a moment.
Then, when he could find the words he uttered: “Something is wrong, my
friends. We will not have a sermon today. Perhaps we shall have an
explanation by next Sunday. I would simply ask you to sing another hymn
and be dismissed.”

This young man then clumsily left the pulpit and went back to his house,
without speaking to anyone. He was in great remorse. Those words burned
their way into his soul—*/“Sir, we would see Jesus!”/*—and during the
long week to follow, after many struggles and much soul agony he was
blessed to find access at a throne of grace and truly to “see Jesus” as
he had never seen Him before.

At the church on the following Lord’s Day, the man preached Christ and
Him crucified with power. He admitted that he had previously flaunted
his learning and had bypassed the message of grace and the Cross of
Christ, but promised that by God’s help he would never fail to set forth
the Lord Jesus in his preaching. His old note-writer was greatly blessed
by that sermon, and so on the third Sunday when this young preacher
walked up to his pulpit, he found scrawled in the same handwriting as
before these words, */“Then were the disciples glad when they saw the
Lord” /*(John 20:20)!

From Your Encourager, W. W. Fulton