p. 59 | NO ROOM FOR CHRIST

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 17, 1876

NO ROOM FOR CHRIST.

For four thousand years the Jews had been looking for Christ, and now he had come. And the first thing we read of him is that there was no room for him in the inn of Bethlehem.

The sinner's heart is very much like that little inn at Bethlehem; it has no room for Christ. If a prince comes to this country from some foreign land, there is sure to be room for him, and the best you have is not good enough to bestow upon him. When the Crown Prince of England came to America, a few years ago, there was plenty of room for him; every mansion was open to him, and the nation received him almost as one man. Yet here is the Prince of Heaven—the Prince of Peace—come to earth, and there is no room for him in the little inn at Bethlehem!

Think what he was come for! He had come to seek and to save that which was lost—to redeem a lost world. He might have come with all the pomp and grandeur of Heaven; he might have had a million of angels in his train. But he left behind him all the glory he had with his Father, and stooped from the throne and went down into the manger, that he might get his arm under the vilest sinner and lift him up to the heights of glory.

Some one has said that the Jews did not know he was the Messiah, or they would have given him a glorious reception. Would they? Why, we read that when the wise men came with the glad tidings that he was king of the Jews, Herod and all Jerusalem were troubled. There was no one in Jerusalem that wanted him, any more than in Bethlehem. Herod hunted for his life as if he were some terrible murderer, so his parents were obliged to flee into a foreign land.

Has the world grown any better during these eighteen hundred years? Is Christ wanted to-night? If he should come, would he be welcome? Would the nations of the earth receive him with delight and gladness? What nation would make room for him to-night? Is there any nation under heaven that would invite him to come back? If it were put to the public vote, what nation would vote to have him come back to be their king? That nation does not exist.

Talk about England and America being Christian nations: do you think either of them would invite him to come? Has America room for him?

Eighteen hundred years have rolled away since he went away, and more has been written about him and said about him than any other man, or thousand men, or million men, and yet there is no nation under heaven that wants him. When he was down here, there was not a village in any part of the country that wanted him. He went to Nazareth, where he was brought up; he went into the synagogue and began to declare the glad tidings. They took him to the brow of the hill, and would have cast him into hell if they could. They put him out of the town. And there is not a town or village under the sun to-day but would do the same. People say the world is growing so much better; but, as I have said there is not a nation anywhere to-day that wants him. Does Germany, or France, or England, or America?

Not only that; there is something a great deal worse than that. There is hardly a church in Christendom that wants him. Go to any of the churches next Sunday, and ask if they would vote to have him back. Why, my friends, the church has not got room for him. She is not praying and longing for his return. Go down to the exchange, and ask if they have room for him. Why, a great deal of the business would have to be done on different principles. Men would say, “We cannot make quite so much money, and we don't want him.” If it should be put to the vote in congress would they have him back? Is there room for him among our statesmen and those who are making our laws? Would they invite him back? Why, there would be a great commotion among the nations of the earth if he were to come. If I should stand up and tell you that I had a message that Christ was coming to-morrow, I think the people would be terrified. I don't think there would be a shout of joy going up. The fact is, there is no room for him in the world yet. Our homes, our churches, the nations of the earth are like that little inn at Bethlehem. There is room for everything else; but in the church and world to-day is “no room for him.”—Sel.