No Room in the Inn

I want to call your attention to a verse that you will find in the 2nd chapter of Luke, a part of the 7th verse:

“And they laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for Him in the inn.”

I want, if I can, to show that the human heart is very much like that inn at Bethlehem — no room for Christ. Every true child of God for four thousand years had been looking out into the mist of the future, and had been listening that they might hear the sound of His footfall. Away back in Eden, when man fell, the promise came that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head; and from the time that Cain was born they were looking for that child. Most Bible students agree that when Eve said, “I have gotten a man from the Lord,” when Cain was born, she thought that he was the promised One. For four thousand years they had been watching and praying and waiting for the coming of the promised One, and yet the very first sound that falls upon our ear when lie arrives upon earth is that there is no room for Him. Mark how He might have come, with all the pomp and all the glory of that upper world. It would have been a great condescension for Him to have been born in a palace, rocked in a golden cradle, and fed with a golden spoon, and to have had the angels come down to be His nurses. But He gave up all the glorj1- of that world, and was born of a poor woman, and His cradle was a manger, the lowest position that He could take on earth.

Then, for a moment, just think what He had come for. He had come to bless, not to curse; to lift up, not to cast down; to seek and save that which was lost; to give sight to the blind; to open prison doors and set captives free; to reveal the Father’s love; to give rest to the weary; to be a blessing to the whole world; and yet we find that there is no room for Him.

I was in Chicago in the ‘50s when the Prince of Wales came to this country, and I remember how anxious that Western city was to get him out there. When the news came that he had accepted the invitation and was coming, they thought there wasn’t anything in that city good enough for him. The best hotel was at his disposal, the freedom of the city was offered him, business was suspended, and every band of music within a hundred miles was brought into Chicago. When his train came near the city every bell was rung, cannons were booming, bands were playing, and there was intense excitement. The papers were discussing for days what he was coming for, and after he had gone, what the object of his visit was. I don’t know that he ever told anyone what he came for. Some thought that he had come to look into the republican form of government. Some thought he had come for his health. Some thought he had come to look into our institutions. Some thought he had come to go out to the prairies, as he did, and have a buffalo hunt. He came and went. I don’t know that Chicago was made any better by his coming; I don’t know tha’ any one was made any better by his coming; I don’t know that he accomplished much on his mission. But I do know that when the Prince of Heaven came into this world He came on no secret venture. He proclaimed what He came for, namely, to bless the world; and yet there was no city that gave Him the freedom of it; there were no bells rung, there was no shout of welcome from the sons of men when He arrived. In fact, He was the most unpopular man that had ever come into the world. During all the six thousand years from Adam to the present time there never has been one that has come into the world that was thought so little of as the Son of Alan. Only thinlc what He wanted to do for men and women on the face of the earth — what God had sent Him to do!

I can imagine some of you saying, “If it had been known who He was, it would have been altogether different.” But when those three wise men from the East who came to Jerusalem and wanted to know where 1 Ie who was King of thejewswas horn, and when it was found that lie was born in Bethlehem, Herod sent down to Bethlehem and ordered thai all the little children under two years of age should be put to death that he might destroy that child. He drew the sword, and it was never sheathed until it pierced the heart of the Son of God on Calvary.

AX UNWELCOME VISITOR.

Do you tell me He was a welcome guest anywhere during the time He was on earth, in anyr city or town He visited? If you will read His life carefully.

you will find no town or village wanted Him. After He had been baptized by John and was on the way back to Nazareth He performed a miracle. You would have thought that little town would have been highly honored to have such a townsman. He was greater than Jeremiah, or Isaiah, or Elisha, or Elijah, or Moses, or Abraham, the great patriarch. He was far greater than anyone that ever came into the world, and no little town in the history of this world could have been exalted like Nazareth if it had given Him a welcome. But we read that He went into the synagogue, as was I lis custom, on the Sabbath day, and found the place where it was written in Isaiah, and began to read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to th captives, and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” Then He closed the book. The next sentence was, “And the day of vengeance of our God.” They might have been angry if He had read that, but He didn’t. He will come back by and by, and take up the Book, and commence to read where He left off. The day of vengeance is coming. Then He began to teach them at Nazareth. Never in the history of the world would a town have heard a better sermon than they would have heard in Nazareth if they had let Him go on and preach. At first they were awed by His manner, and by the wisdom that fell from His lips. I see one man touch another, and he says: “Isn’t this the son of Joseph? Isn’t this the carpenter s sono Where has lie got all this wisdom?” He had been anointed from on high. He had received the miction of the Holy (I host to preach. Some men were anointed to destroy. Samson was anointed to kill, and you will find all through history men who were anointed for certain kinds of work. Christ was anointed to preach the gospel to the poor, and they were very poor at that time; and oh, what a sermon they would have heard! Hut when He recalled the acts of God with the Gentiles they thought it reflected on their nation, ;iikI they began to gnash their teeth. They got so angry that they hurried Ilim out of the synagogue, and if He hadn’t taken Himself out of their hands miraculously they would have taken the law into their <>wu hands and hurled Him into perdition. Nazareth didn’t have any room for Him. You never hear of Nazareth being proud of owning such a citizen. You do not hear of their sending a deputation afterwards to have llim come back and visit their town.

I have often tried to realize the feelings the Son ot God must have hud as 1 le left Nazareth to go down into Capernaum among strangers, to think that He had been cast out of 1 lis own town! In all the after years when people crowded about Ilim they would say that lie was not welcome in His own town where He had been brought up, that they wouldn’t allow Hun to stay in the town, but had cast Ilim out. That is the way He commenced His ministry

He went down to Capernaum, and for a time He was very popular. He was heard by immense crowds, He cast out devils, and there wasn’t any fine in the town that wanted to be blessed that He wasn’t ready to bless It wasn’t long before His fame spread all over the country, and they came up from Jerusalem and the towns of Judea into that little town of Capernaum, and for a little while He was quite popular, and crowds surged up around him. But by and by it got too hot for Him in Capernaum. They would come up from Jerusalem and from other places, and stir up the citizens of Capernaum against Him. You will find Him going from town to town healing the sick, raising the dead, and casting out devils, and no man for three years ever did such a work on earth, and at the end there was no man so unpopular. You read of His going up to the annual feast at Jerusalem; you never read of Jerusalem giving 1 lima welcome. Although He had wrought many miracles, and many parables had fallen from His lips, although the most wonderful sermons that were ever preached’ on this earth were preached by Him, there was hardly anyone speaking a kind word for Him. Almost a universal hiss was going up against Him.

In one place you read that He looked towards heaven and sighed. I can imagine as He looked around Him and saw death and woe and misery, while so few people were willing to let Him bless them, and then looked to that world where all knew Him and honored Him and loved Him, where He had never been mistrusted, or called a blasphemer, or imposter — that was common all around Him when He was on earth — I can just imagine how, as He looked toward that world, He sighed, and longed to get back.

In another place it says He had been lifting up the standard very high, and many of His disciples “went back, and walked no more with Him.” It is one of the sad scenes in His life. In another place it says: “Everyman went to his own house, and Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.” He didn’t have any house to go to. He that was once rich became poor for your sake and mine. He that created all things had emptied Himself and become one of the poorest of the land. On an occasion like that He uttered the words: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.” His cradle was a borrowed one. The only time that He ever rode on a beast it was a borrowed beast. His grave was a borrowed one. He hadn’t an inch of ground that He could call His own. When He went to the Mount of Olives, the ground was His bed, the sod was His pillow. 1 can see Him with His locks wet with the dew of the night.

1 often think if I had been living in those days I would like to have had a home in Jerusalem, I would have liked that very night to have asked Him to my home. But I presume my house would have been closed against Him like the others in the city of Jerusalem.

NO ROOM IN AMERICA.

Nearly nineteen hundred years have roiled away; the Son of God has been in glory these nineteen hundred years, and probably there is no part ot this world where His gospel has been preached more faithfully than right here in America. Probably there has been no part of the world where Christ’s character has been held up, and Christ has been pictured to the people and preached to the people, as He has in this country. And what do we see to-day? I would like to ask if you think human nature has changed one bit? Isn’t it the same to-day? No room for the Son of God! Plenty of room for everything else, but no room for Jesus Christ personally.

I am not talking about religion. Almost everybody has some sort of religion, almost everybody goes to some sort of a church, and they will talk churches, and ministers, and elders, and deacons, and bishops and Pope; but when it comes to the personal Christ, there are very few that want the Son of God, there are very few that will make room for Him to-day. Don’t think that I am exaggerating; I believe I am telling the truth. I believe the cry goes up from the earth to-day, “There is no room for the Son of God.” I believe the heart of many a man and woman in this hall to-day is like that inn at Bethlehem, no room for Jesus Christ.

I would venture to say if it could be put to a popular vote to ask Christ to come back to this earth from which we have cast Him out, there isn’t a state in this republic would vote to have Him back. Not only that, but I don’t believe there is one county in all the twenty-seven hundred counties in this republic that would vote to have the Son of God come back. I don’t believe there is a town or a precinct or a hamlet that would really vote to have Him come back. Perhaps you doubt that statement — you don’t believe it. I want to say I believe it emphatically. Xot but what they would vote to have churches and church-fairs and all that, but I am talking now about a personal Christ. That makes all the difference in the world.

The human family is all divided up into sects and parties and societies, but I don’t believe you will find a society that would vote to have Christ come back and reign in person, and have the will of God done in the earth as it is in Heaven. It is one thing to make that prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven,” and quite another thing to desire it above everything else and do all we can to advance the Kingdom of God and bring about that state of things. Do you tell ie that there is a society of all the societies you knc r that would vote to have 1 lim come back? Do you hink the Free Masons would want I lim as one of t eir members? I believed He would be black-balled by every lodge in the country. Do you thin’: the Odd Fellows would want Him? What polil cal party would vote to have Him? Do you thin: your bon ton society would want I lim? I thin; He would break up some of these progressive euchre parties, don’t you? 1 think He would break up some of the rotten things that are going on in political parties, don’t you? You think that the world wants Christ yet? It is one thing to be religious and talk pious on Sunday, but it is quite another thing to live out the principles on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday. We have a lot of Sunday religion, but it doesn’t amount to much. If your religion doesn’t carry you right through seven days of the week I wouldn’t give a snap of my finger for your piety; and if you are very religious during Lent and then serve Baal during the rest of the year, I wouldn’t give much for your Lent services. There is a class of people who try to serve Jehovah on Sunday morning, but Baal the rest of the time. You can’t do it.

All the whiskey men, all the saloons, would vote solid against Him, and no man who is dishonest in his business would want Him to come back — he wouldn’t want Him to look over his ledger and see how his business is going on. No man or woman that is leading an impure life would want Him.

The fact is, there isn’t room down here for the Son of God. He made the world, but the world hasn’t room for Him. When He made your heart and mine He made room for Himself, but other things have come in and taken His place.

Have you ever had the feeling in your life that no one wanted you? I had it for about forty-eight hours once, and I shall never forget those two dark days and nights as -long as I live. Oh, the sadness, the. loneliness! And I cannot help feel that my Master must have been very lonely down here, to be called an imposter, a deceiver, possessed with devils, influenced and controlled by the lord of filth. How keenly He must have felt it, He who knew no sin! You know what His reward was: Gethsemane, Golgotha and the grave. When He had finished His three years’ ministry, although He had blessed everybody that would take a blessing from Him, His disciples were only a little handful, Jerusalem didn’t have room for Him. People say that if we could have truth and righteousness embodied the world would fall down and worship truth. Don’t you believe it! Truth was embodied in Jesus Christ, and the world slew Him. That reveals the human heart.

THE HOME AT BETHANY.

When the darkness was gathering around His path, and you could hear the mutterings of the storm that was going to sweep Him up to Calvary, there is one star that shines out over the eastern slope of Olivet that is very bright in my estimation. I can imagine one afternoon He stood in the outer court of the temple — for He was never admitted into the inner court — they never allowed Him in the place where the priests were, although it was His own 1 em] ple — and a woman came in to worship. She saw the crowd, made inquiries as to who the speaker was, and was told that He was the prophet of Galilee. She says:

“I have heard a great deal of that prophet, but I never heard any good about Him. I am told He is a deceiver and an imposter. I think I will go and hear Him myself.”

I can see that woman. She gets just as near to the speaker as she can, and stands there listening. That afternoon Christ, perhaps, uttered something like this: “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly oi heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls; for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

“Ah,” said that woman, “that is what I want. I have sought rest, and have never been able to find it. I have sought it in the law, I have sought it in the prophets, I have sought it here in the temple service; but my heart is so sad and lonely. Mother is gone, father is dead, and I want comfort. That man speaks of giving comfort; I never heard anything like that before. He doesn’t speak like one of the rabbis. He doesn’t teach like one of the Sadducees or Pharisees. I have never heard anjTthing so sweet.”

It may be that her prejudice and unbelief began to wear awajr, and she said:

“I have a good mind to ask Him out to my home. But,” she says,“If I do, Mary, my sister, will be very angry. Lazarus doesn’t believe in Him; he will be angry if I should ask Him. And then I will lose so many of my old friends; they will cut my acquaintance. I don’t know of anjT of my Jerusalem friends here that believe in Him; they all think He is an imposter. It will never do to ask Him to my home. I will lose a good many of nry life-long friends. I cannot afford to do it.”

Perhaps the greatest struggle of her life went on there for fifteen or twenty minutes, but when He got through teaching, and the crowd began to disperse, she said:

“I will ask him.”

She went and asked Him out to Bethany. Now listen: Christ has never refused an invitation during all these nineteen hundred yrears. I don’t care how dark the home is; it may be the home of the vilest drunkard; it may be as dark as midnight; but ask Him to your home, and see how quickly He will accept the invitation. When Martha asked Him out to Bethany He accepted the invitation.

I can just imagine the first night when she got home and told her brother and sister what she had <fone, there was a good deal of opposition. The first time He entered that home, I see Mary looking at Him in a very suspicious manner. Lazarus, perhaps, doesn’t speak to Him. But He hadn’t been there a great while before He won His way into their hearts, and all three became His disciples. There was a dark cloud hanging over that home in Bethany. Martha and Mary and Lazarus didn’t see it, but the Son of God saw it. He knew what was going to happen; He knew the hour was coining when they were going to need Him a good deal more, perhaps, than they did just then.

From that time on, when Christ was tired and weary with His work in Jerusalem, He would leave the temple, go out the eastern gate, cross over the brook Kedrou, past Gethsemane where I [e suffered, climb Mount Olivet and go over beyond Bethphage, and down its eastern slope to that town of Bethany. Martha always had a room ready for Him. They loved to have Him come; He received a warm welcome. He alwaj’S comes where He is wanted.

My dear friends, I want to ask you a question: Wasn’t it the best day’s work that Martha ever did when she received Christ into her home, when she made room in her heart for Him? Can you do a better thing while you are on earth than to make room for the Son of God? He has gone up on high to make room for every one that will believe on Him. John caught sight of the eternal city. He gives us a description of the home Christ has gone to prepare: “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” Don’t let us become so engrossed with the world that we forget Him who has gone to make room for us in another and better and brighter world. Don’t let the world come in and crowd that blessed Master out.

Mother, do you remember when that little child of yours died? Didn’t you get a good deal of comfort out of the fact that the Son of God would take care of your child — that He had made room up there among the angels and archangels for your child? And will 3tou let this world crowd Him out of your heart? Won’t you make room for Him down here? A few years ago I was reading of a good mother. A neighbor called on her one morning, and she was weeping bitterly. The neighbor said: “What is the trouble?”

She answered, “You know I have only one child, and that child is fourteen years old to-day. Ever since she was born I have given my time to her. I have left society. Every night I have taken care of her, and there never has been one night since that child was born that I haven’t been up some part of the night with her. And after toiling and working for fourteen years” — the child was idiotic — “that child doesn’t know me from you. If she would give me one look of recognition, I would be paid for all I have ever done. It is so hard to think that that child doesn’t know me to-day from you.”

How many of us have received one blessing after another from the Lord of Glory, and we never have once looked up and said, “Thank you, Lord Jesus; I will make room in my heart for you. You love me and I love you. I will serve you.”

Be wise; make room for the Son of God. He comes knocking at the door of your heart, and while He knocks just open the door of your hearts and say:

“Yes, Thou art welcome, O, Son of God, into this heart of mine.”

I remember one of the first times I ever spoke out of Chicago. It was in the state of Indiana. A gentleman met me at the train, and took me to his house. He said his wife was busy preparing for the meetings; there were to be quite a number of Sabbath school teachers there, and she was to entertain them, and she would like to be excused; and he had an engagement, and he wanted to be excused too. I asked him if he hadn’t any children that I might go out and play with them.

“I have one, but she is not here,” he said; and presently he said, “Air. Moody, my only child is in heaven; I am glad she is there.”

“How is that? Was anything wrong with her
while she was living?”

“0, no,” he said, and he went across the room, took up one of those old-fashioned daguerreotypes, opened it, and handed it to me. It was a picture of his little girl. The curls lay back upon her neck, and she was a beautiful child.

“How old was she when God took her?” I asked.

“She was seven 3’ ears of age.”

“And you are glad that only child of yours is gone.”

Yes; I think I can honestly say I am glad; yes, sir.

“Would you tell me why?”

“When that child was alive I worshipped her. She was the idol of my heart. I had no place for God in any of my plans, everything centered in that child. Every night that I could get away from business early I would take her out riding. Sundays I used to take her out riding and walking. I gave up my time to that child on Sunday. WTe never went to church; we didn’t care for church.

“One day I came home from business and found the child sick. She never had been sick. I thought she would soon be well, but before I knew it my child was dead. I accused God of being unjust. While others had large families of children, and God had spared them all, He had come into my home and taken my only child. I cursed, and was very bitter. The third day I buried the child. Up to that time I had eaten nothing; I hadn’t shed a tear — my grief was too great. When I came back to my home it was as dark as the grave where I had laid my child. I walked up and down my room cursing. All at once I thought I heard her little feet coming towards me. The second thought came: No, they are silent in the grave — I shall never hear them again. Then I thought I heard her voice, and the second thought came: No, that has been silenced by death — I will never hear that voice again. My anguish was so great that I threw myself on the bed and began to weep. While I lay there weeping I fell asleep. I suppose it was a dream, but it always seemed like a vision. I dreamed I was crossing a barren field, and suddenly came to a river. It looked so dark and cold that I drew back. But I happened to look across the river, and saw the most beautiful land that my eyes had ever rested upon. It was far better than this world, and I stood there gazing upon that land in my dream. I dreamed that death and sickness and sorrow had never entered there. Presently, what was my joy and delight to sec beings there, and they all seemed so good and so happy! As I stood there gazing upon them, wishing that I was there, that I could get into that land where death could not come, what was my joy and delight to see my own darling child! When she caught sight of me, she left the company and came running down to the banks of the river, and she beckoned with her little hand, and said:

‘Father, come over the river. It is beautiful here. Come right this way, father!’

“In my dream I went down to the river’s edge and thought I would cross it, but when I got there I found that it was too deep. I couldn’t ford it; I couldn’t swim. I tried to find a bridge or ferry, but I could find none. And that little voice sounded sweeter than when on earth, and she kept saying:

“‘Father, come right this way, it is beautiful here.’

“All at once I heard a voice; it sounded as if it came from heaven, ‘I am the WayT, the Truth, and the Life; no man cometh unto the Father but by Me.’ The voice woke me from my sleep. I thought it was God calling me. I knelt that very hour by my bed, and gave nryself to Jesus Christ; now my wife has been converted; I am superintendent of the Sabbath School; eight children in that school have been converted, and I no longer look upon my child as sleeping in the grave where I laid her, but it seems to me as if I see her in that world of light beckoning me to a better world. Every night as I lie down it seems to me as if my child is calling me. Every morning when I get up it seems to me as if my child is saying, ‘Come, father, right this way.’ I expect to spend eternity with her.”

Am I not speaking to many to-day whose fathers and mothers have gone before them, and if they could speak, wouldn’t they say, “Come this way, my son; come this way, my daughter?” Am I not speaking to parents whose loved ones have gone before, and who want to make room for ytou up there? Thank God, nineteen hundred years ago the Son of God crossed the stream, and to-day He is calling you. Oh, man, woman, won’t you make room for Him?