Christ Crowded Out

“And Mary brought forth her first born child, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” —Luke 2:7

Those of us who believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures, believe in “the inspiration of selection.” That is to say, we do not have in the Gospels a full and complete account of all that Jesus said or did. We have only those events, narratives, incidents, and sayings which were necessary to record for the redemptive purpose for which Christ came into the world. There are many other things that Jesus said and did, which are not written in the Gospels, but everything that is written is, therefore, exceedingly important. This little verse which I have chosen as my text, “There was no room for him in the inn,” is exceedingly significant. It records not only the reception that Christ met with when He first came into the world, but is a prophetical picture of the reception Christ would meet and has been meeting since He came into the world. He has always been crowded out. I am not talking about sitting room; I am not talking about living room—He has not even standing room in many lives.

Crowded out! Perhaps not always intentionally, nor always with the consciousness of the majesty of the guest, but crowded out of life nevertheless. What is the twentieth century sin against Christ? It is not unbelief. There are very few men today who do not believe in Christ in some way. Men are not fighting Christ the way they used to. Men are admitting all Christ’s claims, but they do not let Him in. They are not insulting Him. I do not think those people who opened the door of their homes in Bethlehem only to refuse admittance to Mary and Joseph, insulted this holy couple as they knocked and asked admission. One would think that the delicacy of Mary’s condition would lead them to be kind and considerate. They may have courteously said, “No, I am sorry; but the house is full already.” Perhaps some of them did not even speak, just nodded their head, and closed the door. No room. So Joseph and Mary, that humble couple, went from door to door, from house to house. Not a home into which they could enter. Finally they were permitted to find shelter in a place where cattle are kept. Shut out of the mansion, shut out of the palace, shut out of the home, sheltered in a stable, Mary brought forth her first born Son and Christ, the Saviour of the world. Crowded out of homes of men, Christ was born where the cattle find shelter.

When, therefore, we speak of men crowding Christ out of life, we are not to understand that men insult Him, or do not believe in Him, or rudely slam the door in His face—not that. There are very few men—you would find it difficult to put your hand on one—who have not splendid things to say about Jesus Christ. They may not go all the way with the Christian, and admit the full claim of Christ’s deity, but they will say, “He is the best man that ever lived, the finest moral example, the highest ideal of human nature, the one perfect in life. They pat Him on the back as you pat a blue ribbon horse at the show. They damn Him with praise. It isn’t that men do not believe in Him, nor is it so much that they pass Him up or doubt Him. You know there is a vast difference between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is not being persuaded because of lack of evidence; unbelief is a refusal to believe, even in the face of—yea, and in spite of—evidence. It was ignorance that shut the door to Christ on that first Christmas of our age.

The trouble today is not like that of those people in Bethlehem. They did not know who this woman was, nor the nature of the child to be born that night. Had they known, every door would have been flung wide open, and Mary and Joseph would have received a glad welcome. Twenty centuries of Christian history have demonstrated the truth of the claims of Christ, and it is not a matter of doubt with you tonight. You believe all that. They did it ignorantly; they shut the door in His face unwittingly. The Jewish rulers crucified Him ignorantly—you know better. When you shut the door of your heart towards Christ, you do it with twenty centuries of knowledge and history back of you. Courteous treatment may be given Him; you may call Him Master and Lord and Saviour and Son of God, but you do not let Him in to your heart and life. He is not born in you.

He appeals to our intellect, and says, “What think ye of Christ?” “Well,” you say, “to tell you the truth, I am not thinking much about Christ. It takes all my thinking to make a living, to get along in life, and I am so filled with thoughts of business, and profits and losses, debits and credits; I have so many domestic cares and the problems of life to think about that I haven’t any time, or room for thoughts of Christ.” It is not that you do not believe in Him, but you are just so filled with other thoughts and plans that you haven’t time to think about Him. Even those of us who call Him “Master” have not, I fear, made Him Master, as we should do, in the realm of our thinking. We have room for other teachers, other books, other instructors; but Christ and His Word are not given their rightful place in the intellectual life. We are so busy with our studies, with our books, and with what other teachers are telling us that Christ is crowded out.

He appeals to our affections; stans at the door of our hearts, and asks for room there, but what does He find? The heart already occupied with other affections, and loves. Other wooers have won our hearts and our affections. We believe in Him all right; we believe He has a claim to our hearts, and our lives, our love; but there are other ambitions, and pleasures, other loves and claimants in our hearts that crowd Him out. So He finds no room in our affections.

He would enter into your homes. What place has Christ in your home? No place in the home of the unconverted, certainly not. We do not expect that; but, Christian men and women, it should be expected that Christ is the Head and unseen Guest in the house in which you live. Yet, you go into the average Christian home, and what is there to remind you of Christ? Not a Christian motto on the wall anywhere, not a Christian picture on the walls that remind you of Christ, no family altar, the Bible seldom read, fathers and mothers not seen kneeling with their children in prayer—not one thing in that home to remind you of Christ. There is the bookshelf filled with books: “The Life of Washington,” “The Life of Lincoln,” “The Life of Carlyle.” “The Life of Napoleon,”—but no “Life of Christ.” I did not say that you did not believe in Him, but simply that you have crowded Him out of your bookcase, off your walls, out of your domestic and home life.

I remember hearing a preacher say at a conference once that his father came to visit him when he had finished his home and taken his wife to it. He said, “We had fine carpets on the floor and nice pictures on the wall and everything beautifully fixed up. I looked at father and mother and said, ‘What do you think of our home?’ Father cast his eyes around the walls and looked at the pictures and went from one place to another. He said, ‘Son, I will tell you something, I could not tell from this home whether you belonged to God or the devil.’” It wasn’t that the son did not believe in Christ—He was just crowded out, that’s all. No room. That is our trouble today. Room for art, of course, but none for Christ; room for other books, for reading them, too, but not for the Word of God. Time to talk, but not time to pray. We are so busy. Mother has so much to do in the morning, and father has to catch that early car, and so we do not have family worship. It is not that we do not believe, but we simply crowd Him out.

Christ asks for room in the church. The choir was singing a moment ago, “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man will hear my voice, I will come in and sup with him and he with Me.” We think of that text as portraying Christ standing at the door of a sinner’s heart and knocking, asking admission. Nothing of the kind. Those words are addressed to one of the churches in the Book of Revelation. It is the picture of Christ standing at the door of a church that had wealth, luxury, refinement, culture, organization, splendid work, excellent finances, and wonderful preaching—in short, that had everything but Christ, and He is seen standing outside knocking, awaiting an entrance.

A man told me he went into one of our city churches. He heard a wonderful address, listened to marvelous music, but at the close of the service came away with a hungry heart, saying, “Here is the fire, and here is the wood, but where is the Lamb?” He was right. Read the topics of your Saturday paper, announcing the preaching topics for the following day, and you will find out Christ is crowded out. It isn’t that people do not believe in Him, but they simply do not make room for Him. This is the twentieth century sin; crowding Christ out. Not fighting, not opposing, nor cursing, not denying—just crowding Him out, that’s all.

Now, I want to ask this question, “Why do men crowd out Jesus Christ from their lives? Why do they not make room for Him? Why do they not let Him in?” The choir sang, “There’s a stranger at the door. Let Him in.” Why don’t you let Him in? Why do men crowd Him out? It is my purpose to suggest to you some reasons why men crowd Him out.

In the first place, I think the reason why people crowd Christ out is because they are ignorant of Him and of what He has to offer. Do you think that the people of Bethlehem would have closed their doors had they known what kind of a child was to be born that night? No, had they known, they would have “doubled up,” they would have made room. They learned of their mistake a little while afterwards. Now the world knows of the mistakes. Over that very spot where Christ was born the people in Bethlehem have raised a magnificent edifice. Nothing but ignorance caused them to close their doors that night.

Said Jesus to the woman of Samaria, “If thou knowest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and he would have given thee living water.” “O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathered her chickens under the wings, and ye would not! If thou only knewest the things that belong to thy peace!” But they did not know. They were ignorant of it. Christ was a king in disguise; they failed to make room for their King.

A poor man once came into and took a seat at the back of an empty church. He wanted the sexton as he moved around cleaning the church. Finally he approached the sexton as he was dusting the organ, and said, “I wonder if I could play a little on that organ.” The sexton said, “Nobody can play on this organ except the organist who plays on Sundays. This is a magnificent organ, and I can not let anybody play it.” The stranger said, “I wish you would allow me to play. I am just longing to have my fingers on the keys again.” Finally, after much persuasion, the sexton permitted this plain-looking man to open the organ. The man sat down and began to play and dream as he played. I think it was a storm scene he began with. You could almost hear the thunder roll, and see the lightning flash as his fingers went up and down the keys. Then there was a rift in the clouds, and then, calm. Then the birds began to sing. Then it seemed as though a pall had fallen, and there was quiet, and sorrow. The sexton sat there listening forgetting to breathe. As the stranger came down from the organ seat, the sexton asked, “What is your name? Who are you?” He replied, “I am Mendelssohn.” “What! Mendelssohn, and I almost refused you to play?”

Is there a man in this tabernacle tonight, think you, who would close his heart to Christ—if he knew, it he knew. It is because men are ignorant. People have misrepresented Christ and have misrepresented the Gospel to you. For instance, there are some people who say, “The reason I do not let Christ into my heart is because I want to be free, and I know if I let Christ into my heart, there are some things I cannot do, some places where I cannot go, some games I cannot play. I do not want to put my life into a narrow groove. I do not want to be prohibited from doing this or that after I have had my freedom, and well, I want to be free, and the Gospel is narrow and restricted, and prohibitive, and self-denying.” So you shut your heart to Christ, and you shut out the Gospel. Do you know that the greatest men that ever lived and the broadest men have been Christian men, men who have opened their hearts to Christ. Who was the greatest metaphysician the world ever knew? Jonathan Edwards, the Christian. Who was the greatest statesman? Gladstone, the Christian. Who was the greatest writer on law the world has ever know? Blackstone, the Christian. Who discovered that wonderful law of gravitation? Newton, the Christian. The brainiest men of the ages have been Christian men. Bismarck, Garfield, McKinley, Longfellow, all were Christians.

I just came from Winnipeg, and the pastor of a church there has just a returned from England, where he had an interview with Lloyd George. In the course of a conversation, Lloyd Georg said, “Doctor, I want the world to know this, that every morning, noon, and night, I lift my hands to Jesus Christ my Saviour and ask Him to guide me, for unless Jesus Christ helps, the British Empire will go to pieces.” And the biggest men of the British Empire is a professing Christian man who makes room in his heart and plans for Christ. Somebody misrepresented the Gospel when they told you that it was a narrow thing; it is big, broad, large, magnanimous.

I had a nice canary in my home, a beautiful canary in a beautiful cage. I do not suppose that it is the proper thing to keep a bird in captivity. At least, whether I thought so or not, my oldest boy did not; and one day he opened the door of the cage to let the bird come out. It did not come out at first; when it did come out, it just hopped around the cage and went back again. Freedom seemed too good to be true. Then it hopped just a little distance from the cage, and finally discovered the power of its wings. It flew about the room with beating heart, and then through an open window it took its flight in God’s great open. Was that bird enslaved or free when it flew away? Was it not in its natural element when it flew into the great open? What my boy did to that bird, Christ does for the human soul.

I waited, one morning, for a man to come out of jail. He had been there for some years. I shall never forget the event. As he came out, he looked around, and said, “Let me breathe. Oh!” he said. “This is God’s air. Am I free? Can I go anywhere I want to?” Free! What liberty was and did for that prisoner, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is and does for those who believe. No man really finds himself, or is really free until he is found by and bound to the Christ. The heart never is glorified until it finds an owner. Before that, body and soul, are listless; but when the owner comes, when love enters the heart, then body and soul leap up together, the eye sparkles, the cheek mantles, the feet bound, the laugh rings, the pulse beat clear and quick, the voke becomes easy and the burden light. That young man never was free until by the golden chain of love he was bound, and his heart found someone that held it in her grip. And I want to tell you—I want to lift up my hand and to heaven tonight swear by the Christ that ever since I have known Him I have gloried in the glitter and the gleam of His golden chain, that His service has been perfect freedom, His yoke has been easy, and His burden, light. And I say to you that you are ignorant of Christ, you are ignorant of what He has to bestow, if you think you are to be narrowed and restricted in receiving Him. You know no man gets the vision of romance, of bigness, until he comes to Christ. I think sometimes that is where we preachers make a mistake. We look at a big shouldered, massive soul, hiding in the breast of a man of big affairs, and we fail to realize that the big soul in that big man is longing for a master for its largest development, and we are afraid to claim that big soul for Christ. We are not afraid to claim the drunkard, the man that is down and out; but the millionaire, the big man, the capitalist, the great scholar, the university man, the big soul, we are afraid to lay hold of, to challenge for Christ. We are not bold enough to claim him for the Master. Sometimes some men are bold enough. There was a man in this city with a faith big enough to see a great man of affairs, and to claim that big soul with all his world-interests for Christ, and I have always thanked God for the man who saw the big soul of Henry P. Crowell and challenged and won it for Christ. Oh! That we could see the bigness that comes to men when they yield to Christ.

When that young ruler came to our Lord, he came with big thoughts in his mind. He was prepared to do big things. He said, “Lord, what things shall I do that I may be perfect?” He had a big plan, a big program. The Lord said, “Sell all that you have right out at once, so that you can never be benevolent again, you can never dispense money any more, so that people cannot call you a philanthropist any more and then come—follow me and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.” Our Lord was giving him the chance of a great spiritual romance.

Ours would be a poor Gospel if it contained nothing more than a message for broken men. It would be too bad if the church were one great Salvation Army. The triumph and glory of the kingdom of heaven is that the kings of the earth do bring their glory into it, and the brainy men bring brain into it, and that big men come to Christ.

Paul was a Hebrew with a Hebrew passion for religion. Many centuries of Jewish blood was flinging itself through his veins, and it was religious blood, too. When under arrest one day, he said, “I would like to talk to these people.” The officer looked at him and said, “Canst thou speak Greek?” He said, “Greek! Why, I was born in Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, I am a citizen of no mean city. I was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel.” All the culture, philosophy, and science of the Greeks was Paul’s. They were preparing to beat him one day, when he said, “Is it lawful to beat a Roman?” The soldier looked at him and said, “You are not a Roman, are you?” “Yes, I am a Roman.” Said the centurion, “I paid a great price for that privilege.” “But,” says Paul, “I was Roman born.” A Roman with a great passion for a universal empire! When Jesus Christ captured that man and called him to understand the joy of living and adventurous apostleship. He captured a man who had a Hebrew passion for religion, the culture of the Greek for scholarship, and the passion of the Roman for world evangelization. The glory of the Kingdom of Heaven is that the “kings do bring their glory into it.” So once for all I would have you disabuse your mind of the thought that Christ’s coming into your heart will cramp it.

“Well,” you say, “that is not my difficulty. But, really, my life is so crowded already that I haven’t time or room for Christ or religion. I am full up already.” So the plea of over-fullness is made. Never believe it for a moment.

You take the world of trade. If a man receive a contract from the government to build a warship, he does not say, “I cannot take that contract,” or “My ship building yards are not big enough.” I’ll tell you what he would do. He would go and mortgage his business, yea, even his home, and borrow money on everything he had; and he would say, “I will make room,” and he would work over time and give his men double pay for it. In the business world you never hear a man say, “I haven’t room.” He says, “I will make it.” Men think that religion is something like your Sunday suit, something worn on Sunday, put away on Sunday night, and do not take it out again until the next Sunday morning. Some people have an idea that religion is an extra, an excess baggage, something that you can do without, something separate from one’s self. My friend, it is not. Shall a tree say, “I have no room for sap”? Or a locomotive, “I have no room for steam”? Or a man say, “I have no room for health”? Then men say, “I have no room for religion.” God made you for it. No room? Does a man talk that way when he falls in love? Does he say, “My heart is so full already that I haven’t room for any more affection? I have so much on my hands that I cannot think of starting a home and taking new responsibilities on me and care for a wife.” Nothing of the kind. He will make room. He will look at you and say, “Now, see here, it does not take any more for two to live than it does for one.” No, men do not talk about matters of business, or of love as they do of religion. It is only in things of the soul that men talk so foolishly. “No room?” When you come to realize your need of Christ, you will make room.

Here is a man who says, “Well, I believe all that, and if there is one thing in life that I would love to do it is to let Christ come into my heart. But, do you know that the more I think of Christ and His bigness, and His greatness and His purity, the less I feel that I have a right to call Him into my life. My life is so small, so sinful, so unworthy.”

It was in an industrial school in England, and it was Easter Sunday morning. The children were being taught the lesson of purity from a lily. Each child came around to the superintendent’s desk, and was handed the lily to hold and examine. One child would look at it, and then pass it to the next. Finally it was handed to one little girl. She withdrew her hands and let the lily fall to the floor. The superintendent said, “Why did you do that?” She said, “That lily is so white and my hands are so soiled.”

So, as you think of admitting Jesus Christ into your life, you might be led to say, “Were Jesus Christ man, my own equal, that would be different; but He knows my heart, how sinful and unworthy it is; He knows me as I am; can I dare ask Him to come into such a life?”

The other day, a young fellow proposed to a girl. She accepted him. Sometime afterwards he said to her, “How in the world did you dare accept me? Why, I have done this and I cannot do that.” And he began to narrate his shortcomings and his unworthiness, and to say that he was not fit for her. He asked, “Would you have said ‘yes’ to me if you had known?” She said, “I knew all these things before I said ‘yes’ to you.” And so, my friend, before ever Jesus Christ came to the door of your heart, He knew all about you. If He was willing to be born in a stable, He is willing to be born in your hearts.

May I say this closing word to you? Would that I could tell you of all the blessing that would come into your life the moment you made room for Christ. The guilt of sin all removed. No more consciousness or fear of condemnation. Without Christ, sin remains; with Christ, sin is gone. Never until Christ crosses the threshold of your life will the sin question be settled. Never until Christ enters the door of your life will the greatest possibilities within you develop.

If you do not let Christ into your heart; what then? Well, I do not like to think of it? For every man and woman in this tabernacle tonight who says, “No” to Christ reveals a sad condition of heart. To see Christ as He is, to know what He has done, to hear His pleading voice and be deaf to all His entreaties, to refuse to let Him in reveals a hard, ungrateful heart.

You know Mark Anthony did not have to plead with the Roman populace to enrage them against Brutus. All he had to do was to uncover the body of Caesar and let the populace see the dagger thrusts of Brutus. Anthony did not need to plead; Caesar’s wounds were eloquent; Ceasar’s wounds pled. And it seems that all a preacher should have to do is to point to the cross and let you see the Christ suffering for your sin. That should be enough to move you to tears. But, alas, it is not so always. Let me say this word to you, my friend, and it is a solemn word. If, my friend, and it is a solemn word. If you refuse to let Christ into your heart, you shut the door of heaven in your own face tonight and maybe forever.

As I stood looking, over in Europe one day, at a marvelous picture of “Christ Before Pilate,” this thought came into my mind: “I wish someone who had the vision and the skill would paint the sequel to that picture—of ‘Pilate Before Christ.’” Not “Christ Before Pilate,” not Pilate saying, “What shall I do then with Jesus?” but “Pilate Before Christ,” Jesus saying, “What shall I now do with Pilate?” That scene will be enacted some day. Today, Christ is knocking at the door of your heart. Tomorrow you may be knocking at the gate of heaven. I think the most solemn words in Scripture are those, “Strive to enter in at the straight gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are. Then shall ye begin to say, Lord, we have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets.” Then shall He say, “I tell you I never knew you; depart from me into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

I visited my home six years ago across the water, and I wanted to be sure to see the old church I used to attend when a boy. I recall one very sad experience in connection with that church which I shall never forget as long as I live. I was a librarian in the Sunday school which met each Sabbath morning. At the close of the Sunday school session, I had, oftentimes, to run in order to reach the church in time for service. I never had missed the Lord’s Supper so long as I could remember. I had been to the church the Friday night before and received my token. Sunday morning came, and I had put the books away. I was a little late, and I ran as fast as I could to the church. As I turned the corner of the street leading to the church, I saw the sexton locking the iron gate. I saw him turn the key, and I called out, “Wait, Oh, wait. Let me in.” But the sexton passed into the church, and I can remember I went up and held the bars and said, “Let me in,” but nobody heard. I was just a boy then, but Oh! How deeply pained was my young heart! I paid a visit some years ago to that church. I went up to the gate and held those bars, and believe me when I tell you, that a pain shot through my heart, as I recalled after all those years, that hour when I was shut out from the communion in the church. What, think you, will be the awful anguish of the soul that comes up to the gate of heaven and sees it clang shut in his face. Someone will knock, and will not be heard, vainly will strive, but the door will be barred. Tonight, Christ is knocking at  your heart’s door. Will you let Him in? Tomorrow you may be knocking at heaven’s gate, asking Him to let you in. If you shut Him out of your heart now, you will shut yourself out from heaven then. I want you to think of the solemnity of the matter now.