Compel Them to Come In

Spurgeon takes the parable's command — "Compel them to come in" — as his personal marching orders and spends the entire sermon in direct, urgent address to unconverted sinners, working through every class of person: the spiritually poor, the maimed who know they cannot save themselves, the halt who waver between two opinions, and the blind who cannot see their danger. He moves through an escalating series of approaches to reach the resistant sinner — first announcing the gospel, then commanding repentance with apostolic authority, then warmly exhorting from his own experience of Christ's welcome, then appealing to self-interest, then threatening with the certainty of death and judgment, and finally answering every excuse one by one. He closes by admitting that only the Holy Spirit can do what no preacher can — actually open the heart — and surrenders the whole effort into God's hands, trusting that the Spirit who holds the key of David will accomplish what earnest pleading, tears, and prayer have set in motion.Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on December 5th, 1858.