We would see Jesus | SermonIndex

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pastorfrin Apr 18, 2007

“We would see Jesus.”
— John 12:21

Evermore the worldling’s cry is, “Who will show us any good?” He seeks satisfaction in earthly comforts, enjoyments, and riches. But the quickened sinner knows of only one good. “O that I knew where I might find Him!” When he is truly awakened to feel his guilt, if you could pour the gold of India at his feet, he would say, “Take it away: I want to find Him.” It is a blessed thing for a man, when he has brought his desires into a focus, so that they all centre in one object. When he has fifty different desires, his heart resembles a mere of stagnant water, spread out into a marsh, breeding miasma and pestilence; but when all his desires are brought into one channel, his heart becomes like a river of pure water, running swiftly to fertilize the fields. Happy is he who hath one desire, if that one desire be set on Christ, though it may not yet have been realized. If Jesus be a soul’s desire, it is a blessed sign of divine work within. Such a man will never be content with mere ordinances. He will say, “I want Christ; I must have him—mere ordinances are of no use to me; I want himself; do not offer me these; you offer me the empty pitcher, while I am dying of thirst; give me water, or I die. Jesus is my soul’s desire. I would see Jesus!”

Is this thy condition, my reader, at this moment? Hast thou but one desire, and is that after Christ? Then thou art not far from the kingdom of heaven. Hast thou but one wish in thy heart, and that one wish that thou mayst be washed from all thy sins in Jesus’ blood? Canst thou really say, “I would give all I have to be a Christian; I would give up everything I have and hope for, if I might but feel that I have an interest in Christ?” Then, despite all thy fears, be of good cheer, the Lord loveth thee, and thou shalt come out into daylight soon, and rejoice in the liberty wherewith Christ makes men free.

Spurgeon, C. H. 1995. Morning and evening : Daily readings . Logos Research Systems, Inc.: Oak Harbor, WA

Happy is he who hath one desire, if that one desire be set on Christ

A question:
If this is necessary for our salvation, that our desire be set on Christ:

Hast thou but one desire, and is that after Christ

Then should that not still be our one desire
and the problem then would be, He is not?

Is this the great falling away, Christ no longer
our ONE desire.

Luke 9:23-24
And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. [24] For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.

Any thoughts?

In His Love

pastorfrin

C

crsschk Apr 18, 2007

“I want Christ; I must have him—mere ordinances are of no use to me; I want himself; do not offer me these; you offer me the empty pitcher, while I am dying of thirst; give me water, or I die. Jesus is my soul’s desire. I would see Jesus!”

I would see ~~[i]~~Jesus![/i]
Yes brother, a thousand times yes ...

Is this the great falling away, Christ no longer our ONE desire.

~~[i]~~I know thy works, and thy toil and patience, and that thou canst not bear evil men, and didst try them that call themselves apostles, and they are not, and didst find them false; and thou hast patience and didst bear for my name's sake, and hast not grown weary.

But I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.[/i] Rev 2:2-4

I believe you may be right ...

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pastorfrin Apr 18, 2007

crsschk wrote:
“I want Christ; I must have him—mere ordinances are of no use to me; I want himself; do not offer me these; you offer me the empty pitcher, while I am dying of thirst; give me water, or I die. Jesus is my soul’s desire. I would see Jesus!”
I would see ~~[i]~~Jesus![/i]
Yes brother, a thousand times yes ...

Is this the great falling away, Christ no longer our ONE desire.
~~[i]~~I know thy works, and thy toil and patience, and that thou canst not bear evil men, and didst try them that call themselves apostles, and they are not, and didst find them false; and thou hast patience and didst bear for my name's sake, and hast not grown weary.
But I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.[/i] Rev 2:2-4
I believe you may be right ...

Brother Mike,
Notice Jesus statement,

After He says all this:

"I know thy works, and thy toil and patience, and that thou canst not bear evil men, and didst try them that call themselves apostles, and they are not, and didst find them false; and thou hast patience and didst bear for my name's sake, and hast not grown weary."

And it would seem with approval,
He closes His statement with these troubling words:

Rev. 2:4
Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

Do you hear the implications of this statement?

He goes on to say in:
Rev. 2:5
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

Do we really understand what this means? Some will say He is talking to a group, the whole church of Ephesus and not individuals, but He seems to dispel this idea in:
Rev. 2:7
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

Even though He is speaking to the body, it seems
directed to individual hearts;

Notice He says "to 'him' that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life"

We are responsible to return and make Him
'Christ' our ONE desire.

Brother, this seems to be mandatory, Christ must be our ONE desire. So what does this mean and how in the age we are living do we direct our
desire solely to Him?

In His Love

pastorfrin

sermonindex Jan 22, 2011

Is this the great falling away, Christ no longer our ONE desire.
Luke 9:23-24
And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. [24] For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.

Any thoughts?
In His Love
pastorfrin

We knew this man, "pastorfrin". Oh dear GOD, have mercy on us. We have lost him and Art and LORD, You know the only Scriptures that can describe to us their partings are -

Isa 57:1,2 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds (or couch) , each one walking in his uprightness.

Rev 14:13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

Dear GOD, Dear GOD, such a lost to us, but such a Gain for them.
Forgive all of us, that did not see the days that they crossed our paths, was a day that You Yourself were appealing to us - pleading with us.
My GOD, when will we learn, that it is the gentle giants that You will use?
This man "pastorfrin" was rugged, strong - built like the very work he did to support his Family and his Church that he loved even onto death. His physical presence alone would humble the biggest man here, yet he preached always - "Christian Non-Resistance" to the last, against much opposition at times and yet he remained - Wise as a serpent yet harmless as a dove. LORD I wonder how much of a part this stress didn't play in his/their deaths and yet Oh, such reward in Heaven. My GOD renew their messages to us all. Why did we not discern a prophetic preacher when one was among us? Why LORD do we have such twisted perverted views of YOUR KINGDOM? Oh Dear GOD, open our eyes - open our ears - whatever the cost - whatever the cost, before we find ourselves ashamed before you in Eternity.
Precious LORD GOD Almighty, we know that these cry out under Your Altar - we believe their burden stays with them. Christ give us the boldness to preach what they preached and continue the work that you gave to them to do.
Lamb of GOD - Lion of Judah - show us Yourself, we pray.
Continue to show us to have our eyes on You and You alone. That we might "Know You" and the fellowship of Your sufferings, being made conformable unto Your death - If by any means we might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Savior and LORD, give us the wisdom of these men. Give us their passion. Give us their message to carry on. Forgive that we might have been blind to who they were in You.
Yes - "We would see Jesus". Then, we pray, that we will see Jesus as pastorfrin and Art see Him now.
LORD, there aren't enough tears in this world to Thank You for giving us the time we had - though we had no idea how short of a time it would be, before You would allow these true prophetic voices to come Home to You and to rest from their labors - the anguish of their ministies.
Christ, have mercy on their families. Have mercy on us as well. Oh to die is gain but what a tragic lost to us who could have benefited from this present voice among us. This gentle counselor and "friend" to all. My GOD, what a tragic lost to his Family and us. Yet LORD, you knew that they had had enough suffering for Your Name sake and purpose. We believe that.
No words can express what we had here. No apologies seem adequate to explain our stiff-necked blindness while we had the chance to see Your Spirit and Your Nature lived out before us. How we took them both as just another of the many voices here - whether present or present with You now. There aren't adequate words LORD GOD for describing the blindness we had, but I know that You won't allow their toil to go to nothing. Raise up Voices that are worthy to be heeded. That cry out day and night for Your true Truth.
LORD GOD, we need to know what they know now - if You would have mercy to part the veil, just long enough to open our eyes once and for all, so that we might live out the rest of our days with Your Eternal Purpose as our only aim and goal.

Through weakness, YOU were made STRONG, through these now-eternal sons of Yours. My GOD, Oh what Glory.

Yes Dear LORD, We Need to See Jesus. Bind the enemies that blind our eyes and free Your Spirit's work within us and through us. Amen Dear LORD and Thank YOU!

H

HeartSong Jan 24, 2011

You KNEW pastorfrin? Oh what a blessing that must have been. Do you have any recordings of any of his sermons? Or do you know where I can find any? The LORD allowed me to meet Art Katz - so that I could see what a servants heart looked like. I do believe that the course of my life was changed as a result of that brief meeting.

My heart about broke at the passing of both of these precious souls. Oh to have the mind of CHRIST and the heart of JESUS. Yes, we MUST see JESUS. We truly MUST.

sermonindex Jan 24, 2011

What a Blessing that you got to meet Art. I believe everyone who met Art had a reaction of one type or another. It is so good that you saw him for what he truly was. Praise GOD!

Mrs. frin befrieded me over emails and some calls. We met when both of us were going through tsunamis, so to speak. Mine never stopped, but I just pray hers have - I pray much for her and her family. What a beautiful family they are.
Yes, she did mail me a few CDs of his preaching Sunday messages to his dear Church.
She and I would email every morning. I loved to wake up to her "Good morning", but then because of what I was going through we lost touch for a while - next my computer died and I lost all of the pictures of them and their children and beautiful grandchildren, all hanging all over their beloved grandfather. I lost everything of them. Some time after his passing, a brother contacted me to tell me that Pastor had gone on to be with Jesus. I desperately tried to find their phone number through 411 that also was in my dead computer. All those memories lost, so it's been a very grievious time. How I've wanted to talk to her. They lived several States away, so I never got up there - but with all the emails and photos and the CDs, they were like family to me. Well, of course they were Family to all of the redeemed, but this was as close to my meeting them all as I've ever had over just the internet - cut short by turmoils.

I was searching through past threads and finding this thread was the re-opening of all this time since he got sick again. When last I was in contact, he had just gotten the "cancer's all gone" report.
I'm shaking right now because I realized that when I found this thread, that I hadn't the time to grieve as deeply as I did on this thread. The tears coming again. When the brother told me that Pastor was gone - all I could do was pray for his dear family. Oh how they loved him and he them. It was the type of family that you would have loved to be a part of. They went through so much more than he ever let on to, yet they "kept on". I don't know how he did it. Posting here and doing all that he did, as sick as he was. I don't know how she held up though it all neither. Her Mom had passed away as well.
I just wanted to bring the "honor due" when I found this thread. I envy him for where he is now - but his wife and family stay on my mind and I just grieve inside - a deep deep grieving where words have been so difficult to find. GOD knows.

You so beautifully said: "My heart about broke at the passing of both of these precious souls. Oh to have the mind of CHRIST and the heart of JESUS. Yes, we MUST see JESUS. We truly MUST."

That's what gets the tears going - that I know, that of all things, this is what they are praying for us as well, now that they've entered in with the great crowd of witnesses and those who are asking - "How long oh LORD?".

If we could join together to pray for both their families and those who loved them, I'd feel better too. Thank you so much Sister.