Hear Ye Him | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 10, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 47.

“Hear Ye Him.”

This was the command and exhortation which came to the disciples in audible voice out of the heavens, when they were with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. Three times did God, with such a voice, testify to the divine character of Jesus Christ, and to his personal relations to himself. “Hear ye him.” Moses and the prophets hitherto had been to the people the authorized teachers. Indeed, they had become so venerated that their character as inspired teachers of God’s word had almost been forgotten, and they were resorted to as though their words were their very own. Moses was more to many of them than God himself. He was as God. It is not unnatural for us to exalt the messenger above the message, especially if for any reason he becomes especially the object of our admiration or attachment. It was not the fault of Moses and the prophets that they had almost displaced God in the minds and affections of the Jews, in the days of Christ; for they did not testify of themselves, nor did they ever speak in their own name. From the days of Abraham to the last of the prophets, they all prophesied of Christ. Nevertheless, when Christ came, the very people to whom Moses and the prophets were the very fountain-heads of authority, did not receive him of whom they all did testify.

As if to remind them of the fact that Moses and the prophets were not to be exalted above, or even retained on a level with, the one of whom in the law and the prophets they did testify, Moses and Elias appeared in visible presence before their eyes, talking with Jesus. It was as though these chiefest figures of the Old Testament dispensation now appeared to lay down their commissions at the feet of him from whom they had originally received them, saying, by their presence with him, “This is he of whom we spake, both in the law and in the prophets.” At the suggestion of Peter that three tabernacles be built, one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elias, these two Old Testament worthies vanished out of sight, taking themselves away from being even the occasion of such a suggestion. Then it was that the voice came out of Heaven, saying: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.”

There is a great present practical lesson in this to us. One of the evil habits of our day is that people go to hear men talk about Christ, rather than to hear what Christ has to say to them. The teacher gets in the way of the Master. The word to-day is, “Let us go and hear Dr. So-and-so, or Mr. This, or Rev. That.” These are the men who have acquired the greatest reputation for eloquence, learning, or sensation; and striking style of rhetoric or of pulpit manner and matter. It is not to hear Him, but his messenger, that they go; and not so much for the message, as to hear and see how the messenger will deliver it. It is rarely that the ordinary church-goer starts off Sabbath morning with the thought: “I will go up to the house of God to hear what he has to say to me.” It is rather: “I wonder what the pastor will have to say to us.” No doubt there is the implied thought of hearing the divine message, but the danger and tendency is to exalt or magnify the messenger. For is it not common, if a favorite pastor is away and a stranger occupies the pulpit, even though he comes with God’s message, that many will take that occasion to “go and hear some one else to-day”? If the question were asked, “What are you going to hear?” it would be a chance if the motive were much higher than a curiosity to hear the man on account of his fame as a preacher, rather than the fame of his messages. A sermon is as different from the message it bears, as a coach is from the passenger it carries.

This tendency to hear men rather than Christ, leads to most of the bad habits of the pulpit. Young preachers learn to pay more attention to the composition of their sermons than to the matter of them; more to their manner and style of delivery than to the message they have to deliver. Unconsciously they prepare their sermons more with the thought of how the sermon will be received than how the message will be received. The man who preaches is far oftener discussed than his message. Whereas, if we all took to heart this Heaven-given injunction, “Hear ye him,” we would demand that Christ should be made to speak to us, rather than our pastors. We would insist on more of the word of God, and less of the “topics of the day;” more upon having things new and old drawn from the store-house of revelation, than the original thoughts of the preacher.

It was the apostle Paul who went with this determination to his congregations: “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” And again he says: “We preach Christ.” He came not with excellency of speech, nor with words of man’s wisdom, but the words suggested by the Holy Spirit and drawn from the Scriptures. The result of this deliberate laying aside of the mere graces and captivating tricks of oratory was, that he managed to leave us epistles which speak of Christ, rather than of Paul; that set the divine Saviour before our eyes, evidently crucified for us. It is the matter of his epistles which makes Paul so great a preacher. He is, indeed, seen in them; but as being behind them, and, as it were, lost in Christ. For him to live and preach was Christ. Indeed, so identified was he with Christ, that the life he lived in the flesh was so in the faith of Christ that he could truly say that it was Christ that lived in him.

“What did you think of him?” said an earnest Christian friend to one whom he had brought with him to church. “Well,” was the reply, “I thought him to be in earnest, but not very fresh or original. Indeed, I must confess that he seemed to me a little dull. I should think you would tire of that kind of preaching. It was a mere stringing together of scriptures.” “Oh!” responded the friend, “I did not mean the pastor. I meant the Master, the one altogether lovely and the chief among ten thousand; of whom the pastor spoke.” “Oh! really, I was not thinking of him at all. It had not occurred to me to make up any judgment about him. I suppose he is all right. We all believe in him, you know.” How many go to church in this same mood; not to hear him, but the pastor; not to make up any judgment as to his words, but only to sit in judgment either for or against the style and literary worth of the pastor’s sermon. “Hear ye him.”

—Independent.