Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2014
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, March 18, 1888
“As we ha ve heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of Hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it forever.” Psalm 48:8.
“As we have heard, so have we seen”—this is seldom true. In many places we see what we have not heard and what we have heard we do not see. Time was when many simpletons believed that the streets of London were paved with gold. I am sure I do not know any part of London in which a single lump of that metal can be found in the footway. Ten thousand idle tales there are in every country of mines where fortunes may be dug out of the earth and plains where wealth forces itself on the immigrant. But how seldom do we hear the good news, “As we have heard, so have we seen.”
But when you come into the “City of the Lord of Hosts, in the city of our God,” the reports about it are true and the truth exceeds the report. For, like the Queen of Sheba, we cry, “The half was not told me.” When we speak of the privileges of the Church of God on earth it is impossible to exaggerate. “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” Behold, what blessings, what riches, what royalties the Lord Jesus bestows upon His chosen! How cleansed they are by His blood! How quickened by His life! How honored by His glorious enthronement at the right hand of the Father!
You cannot speak of Zion and her prosperity in too exulting a style. Happy are you, O Israel! And if we speak of the city of God as it shines in full splendor above, words fail us to set it forth. I doubt not when we arrive at its blessed abodes and tread its golden streets and wear our crowns of immortality, we shall not only say, “As we have heard, so have we seen,” but we shall be lost in wonder and surprise at the overwhelming revelations of Divine love.
It is always true of the things of God and of the Church of God—“As we have heard, so have we seen.” What His Word promises His work performs. This thought will be the clue of my sermon and my line of discourse will be guided by the text. May the Holy Spirit make it useful to us all!
I. Our first observation upon the text is this—IT IS MOST IMPORTANT THAT WE LISTEN TO TRUE WITNESSES. Otherwise we shall not be able to say, “As we have heard, so have we seen.” If we listen to false witnesses, the more we believe them the worse for us—it will not be faith but credulity and in due time there will be a sad awakening from idle dreams. It is of the first importance to you all that you should hear the Word of God and receive the Truth of God as it is in Jesus. So that both in the throng of life, and when you stand upon the borders of death and in the changeless state of eternity, you may be able to say, “We thank God for the Gospel which we heard. For what we heard with our ears has been verified in our lives.”
The Israelites who sang this forty-eighth Psalm had heard of Jerusalem and its Temple, of Jehovah and of His sure defense of His chosen city—how had they heard of it? They had heard of it by reading for themselves, or listening to the reading of the Word of God. They had five books of Moses and other writings. In these books they read marvelous stories of what Jehovah had done for His people. They would remember well how the Lord worked for His chosen in Egypt and how He brought them out of the house of bondage with a high hand and an outstretched arm. They would read the record of God’s merciful provision for the tribes in the wilderness, of His victories over their enemies, such as Og, king of Bashan and Sihon, king of the Amorites.
They would read with wonder the conquest of Canaan by Joshua and the overthrow of tyrants by Gideon and Barak and Jephthah. They would see what the Lord worked by His servant, David, and by others who trusted Him in the old times. All this would raise high their confidence in Jehovah—and now it had come to pass that while Jehoshaphat was king, the holy city had been beleaguered by confederate Moabites and Edomites and Ammonites. And once more the Lord had made bare His holy arm and given a glorious triumph to Judah—without it being necessary for His people to
strike a single blow. The adversaries, moved with mutual jealousy, had fallen upon one another and become their own executioners. When the men of Judah saw this, they cried, “The old Book is true. Jehovah has worked wonders before our eyes. As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of Hosts.”
My Brethren, attend carefully to what this Book records and reveals. It is now enlarged for your greater edification. Let this record be the report which you hear concerning the Lord our God and His ways of Divine Grace. Let us give earnest heed to Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists who wrote in the name of the Lord. For in that case we shall hear the Truths of God which shall be so verified by experience as to make us joyfully exclaim, “As we have heard, so have we seen.”