No Room for Christ in the Inn

Spurgeon opens by marveling at the hidden hand of providence that used Caesar Augustus's wounded vanity, a punitive census, and an overcrowded Bethlehem inn to accomplish simultaneously what prophecy required — both the legal registration of Christ's Davidic descent and his birth in Bethlehem — before dwelling on why the manger was itself deeply fitting: it announced Christ's full humiliation from cradle to cross, declared him King of the poor who could trust him precisely because he shared their worst conditions, extended a wordless open invitation to the most vile and beast-like of sinners since no one needs permission or entry-fee to approach a stable, and proved that without his presence even the most sacred place reverts to being a feeding trough. He then surveys the many places in his own day where Christ finds no room — in palaces where kings love war and grandeur, in parliaments where his golden rule embarrasses every party, in polite society where his name disrupts fashionable conversation, in commercial markets where honest dealing costs too much, in philosophy where learning forges the nails for his crucifixion, and even in churches where his most ferocious enemies have always worn the clergyman's collar — before turning to the inn itself as a picture of public sentiment, general conversation, the workshop, and the tavern, all of which have room for everything but Christ. He closes with the sermon's sharpest and most personal question — "Have you room for him?" — meeting every objection a humble heart might raise (too base, too foul, too sinful — but the manger was all of these) and urging every hearer to open the door of their heart today, since Christ needs nothing but room and will transform the humblest manger-heart into a golden throne, while warning new believers that the price of having room for Christ is that the world will at once have no room for them.Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on December 21, 1862.