Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3396
“As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of Hosts, in the city of our God.” Psalm 48:8.
“As we have heard, so have we seen.” This is not always the case, but frequently it is the very reverse. Things are exaggerated. The imagination is largely drawn upon and we hear great things, but when we come to look at them, or try to practically enjoy them, the great things have become very small! It is so in the world generally. We have heard and were told in our youthful days by those who have been before us, that the paths of sin are pleasant, that there are great enjoyments to be found in the indulgences of evil passions, and that if we will give ourselves up to the general run and current, we shall find ourselves very smoothly floating along on a stream of happiness! Ah, how many who have sown their wild oats and looked for a happy harvest, have discovered that nothing but mischief comes of this! Jaded by the satiety of their lusts, and at last utterly destroyed by their own wickedness, they have sat down and wrung their hands in despair at finding out that things are not what they heard they were. As they have heard, so do they not see, but the very opposite—for pleasure, pain, for happiness, misery—even here, remorse—and afterwards an anguish that shall know no end!
Nor is it any better with the teachers of false doctrine. As we have heard, so have we not seen. We have sometimes been told that philosophy will civilize a nation—that the spread of education will most certainly cure the human heart and that the bias and propensity to sin will be put down by an increase of mental light. But as we have heard, so have we not seen, for philosophy has thrown many burdens upon men—but it has not touched those burdens to remove them with so much as its little finger! We hear a great deal of what is to be done for society by this scheme and by that, but nothing is done! Theories are propounded—windbags are blown out and brought forth—bubbles are blown, but we do not see much that is solid and valuable, produced! One after another of these eminent theorizers have arisen who were about to revolutionize and reconstruct society! Instead of making the causes of evil in the world to increase, they were to uproot them and turn the desert into the Garden of the Lord! But so it has not been—our eyes have never seen it. Rather has the bad been made worse and the good has been impeded by those who were so pretentious and loud in their professed benevolence! Take any of the false doctrines which are often affiliated to our holy faith and you will find that when you come to examine them and put them to the test, they do not hold water!
How often have we heard about “the dignity of human nature.” How congenial the heart of man is to that which is noble, and to that which is Christ-like! We are told that we have only to hold up Christ and there is such a beauty in Him that all the world will be sure to love Him! But as we have heard, so have we not seen, but we have seen men to be as God saw them—corrupt! There is none that does good, no, not one, and in the perfect light of Calvary, we have seen that even the perfections of Jesus will not be seen by a blind world, nor will they attract a corrupt world. “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” will be the verdict of humanity even upon the perfections of the Incarnate God. We have heard a great deal about the power of free will. We have heard sometimes that men come to Christ by themselves. That there is no power of Irresistible Grace which turns them from darkness to light, and from the power of sin and Satan unto God. Ah, we have heard this, but we have never seen it! To this moment, though we have mingled with all classes of Christians, we did never yet meet with a single Believer who declared that his conversion was the result of his own efforts and that his coming to Christ was entirely through the power of his own free will! We have been told, too, that God forsakes His people, that real saints, after all, turn back and perish! But we bless God that, though we have often heard this, we have never, never seen it—
“If ever it should come to pass, One of His sheep should fall away! My fickle, feeble soul, alas,
Would fall a thousand times a day!”
But being kept in safety by another and greater power than our own, and preserved in the midst of appalling temptations, we still hold to it that He does keep His people! We have heard it, and we have seen it, but the other doctrine we have heard, but, thank God, we have never seen! And so there are many other things that pass current in certain sections of Christendom as being true, which, if they were brought to a practical test, might be seen not to be so. We have heard them—heard them delivered with a glowing eloquence that might have convinced us, if we were to be convinced, but we have referred to the Old Book—and the Old Book has been more to us than all the siren-songs that sweetest oratory could raise! We have nailed our colors to the mast and could not take them down! We have found all here in this blessed Bible to be true, but man’s word, when it has come into conflict or even competition with God’s Word, we have found to be light as chaff and as easily consumed as the fat of rams upon the altar’s fire!
Now, just for a little time I thought we would illustrate this general Truth of God that in the things of God, and in the Church of God,” as we have heard, so have we seen. “Now, mark—