I want to speak upon a very tragic subject this evening, the subject of no room for Christ. No room for Christ. My text is found in the second chapter of Luke's Gospel and at verse 7. And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the end, because there was no room for them in the end. Man and woman have no room for Jesus Christ. This is a great fight in history, and it is a great fact in our contemporary society. The bitterness of sin in the human heart leads to antagonism to Jesus Christ and antagonism to the laws of the Master. And you can write over the palaces, and over the universities, and over the great schools, and over the great vast sphere of industry, and over the parliaments and the councils of the affairs of the world. No room for Christ. I wonder, my friend, can that be written over your heart? No room for Jesus Christ. I want to talk tonight about the things concerning Christ that sinners have no room for. I want to say, first of all, that they have no room for the person of Christ. You know, the worldly has a Christ of his own imagination. The modernistic preacher portrays a Jesus of his own theological thought. The philosophies of man and the schools of man's ideology produce a Savior. They pimp a Christ utterly and totally alien to the true Christ, the Christ of the Bible. Man have no room for the person of Christ. I would like to ask the question, who is Christ? You remember Jesus said, as He turned upon the scoffers of His day, and He penetrated their sneer and cut down to the quick of their conscience, He said, Think ye of Christ, whose Son is He? Who then is Christ? The Bible gives me four great answers which portray the Christ in all His fullness, in all His character, and in all His redemptive mission. First of all, Christ is the eternal Son of God. And when I call Him the eternal Son of God, I am calling Him eternally Godless. You are not dealing with a mere creature of day and dust. when you're in confrontation with Jesus Christ? You are not, my friend, called upon to make a decision this evening concerning a mere human being, no matter how great of a genius that human being might be. We are coming from the realm of humanity into the realm of Deity when I come to speak of Jesus Christ. We are coming from the realm of the natural to the realm of the supernatural when I come to speak of Jesus Christ. My friend, when Christ stands before you, He is eternally God. And that is why man's confrontation with the Savior is all important in the settling of man's destiny. Because God holds your destiny in His hand. If He was but a man, even if He were the most superior of man, You can afford to shrug your shoulders and pass him by on the other side. But the Christ of the Bible is the eternal Son of God. He's the one into whose hand the destinies of men have been divinely placed by the authority of his Father. He will be the final judge of all men. Do you remember Paul said, the times of their ignorance God winked at, but now hath commanded all men everywhere to repent, because there is coming a day when God will judge all men by that man whom He hath redeemed, whereof He hath given a witness unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. Jesus Christ is the eternal judge. Tonight in the gospel, my friend, you are confronted with Jesus Christ. One day in judgment, Jesus Christ will be confronted with you. And what happens in this gathering tonight will decide what will happen in that great last decide when God finally and forever decides your destiny. He is the eternal Son of God. Secondly, He is the incarnate Word of God. God has no other speech, no other message, no other declaration to make to man but His own Son. God who in sundry times, says Paul in his preface to the Hebrew, God who in sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, have in these last days spoken unto us by His Son. That puts all the new messages out immediately. God has no new message for man. God presents a Son. His Son is the eternal Word. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made. That was made, and Him was light, and the light was the life of man. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not, and the Word made Him. Christ and dwelt among us. He's the incarnate Word. God has no other message for you but His Son. And if you turn a deaf ear to Christ, you are turning a deaf ear to God's final and full message concerning your soul, Salve. Who is He? He's the eternal Son of God. Who is He? He is the incarnate Word of God. Who is He? He is the appointed Priest of God. The religions of this world present priests, sacrificing priests, interceding priests, sacerdotal priests, ritualistic priests. Priests with their garments and their ceremonies and their mumblings. Priests who pretend that they can get the soul to heaven and forgive the sinner's sin and bring peace to the troubled breast. But the priests of men are phony priests. They never once brought peace, real peace, deep peace, eternal peace. Peace that satisfies the conscience. Peace that satisfies the soul. Peace that is eternal and pure and cannot ever be changed. They cannot do it. But thank God my priest can forgive your sins. I've met a priest with an ill pierced hand who can forgive every sin that ever stained your heart. I met a priest with power to cleanse the filthy soul and make the man who only deserved eternal hell, make him fit for the company of God and the pure angels of eternal light in the celestial inheritance of the Lamb, it is fairer than they. who can lift your burden. I've met a priest who can smash your chains. I've met a priest who can absolve from every sin and set the soul eternally and absolutely free, and His name is Jesus. When we turn away from the priests of man, whether they be Romanists or whether they belong to the great contemporary religions, or whether they be the manufactured puppet priests of the ecumenical movement, we turn away from them all and we turn to Jesus Christ tonight. And I want to tell you that men have no room for Christ, because He is the sole priest, because He is the eternal Son of God. Because He's the incarnate Word of God. And let me go one step farther. Jesus Christ is not only the eternal Son of God. He's not only the incarnate Word of God. He's not only the appointed Priest of God. But Jesus Christ is the only way to God. No other way. You don't get to God by your baptism. A few drops in infancy or a large immersion older can never wash away your sins. Don't be deceived. I remember hearing John A. Cochran preach one night down in Port Stewart. And there were those along the front and they were preaching salvation by water. And this evangelist from Dublin said this, I'll always remember it. He said, Baptism? Do you think it will save your soul? You might as well rub Vaseline on a wooden leg and think it would make you have a new one. My, that's preaching alright, and that's the truth. Baptism cannot save you. Sitting at the Lord's table cannot save you. Church membership cannot save you. Works of righteousness and deeds of charity cannot save you. There is only one who can bring you to God, and that one is Jesus Christ. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other than Him under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved. Men have no room for the person of Christ. Oh, they like the ritual, don't they? They like their churchy anointing. They like the pomp and pageantry of ecclesiastical symbolism. They love the dull, the dim religious light. They love the actor at the high altar. It appeals to their artistic senses. A dear woman came to this church and she said, you know, there's nothing artistic about your preaching, Mr. Bailey. I said, thank God for that. I'm not an artist. I'm a preacher of the gospel. Let me tell you, it's the simple gospel that Jesus saves needs to be preached from every pulpit in this land. He's the only way to God. They have no room for the person of Christ. Let me tell you something else. Man have no room for the passion of my Savior. The gospel that I'm preaching is the gospel of the blood sharing. It's the gospel of the gore of Calvary and the suffering to the middle cross. It's the gospel of the agony of Christ. Oh, men like the ceremonies, but they don't want the cross. They like the sacraments, but they don't like the sacrifice. They love the ritual, but they don't love God's redemption. I want to tell you the passion of Christ is to the world's foolishness. And I take you to the hill crag tonight called Calvary. And we climb that well-beaten track, trodden by many a criminal on his way to the scaffold. And I point you to a cross, and on that cross there is the naked figure of the lowly Nazarene, the stranger of Galilee. And his head is crowned with thorns, and his blood, his hair is matted with the blood that has already come from his temples because of that cruel and awful crowning. And every bone of his body is out of joint, and his tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth, and his back runs rivers of blood. For they ploughed deep furrows upon the precious quivering frame of my Lord. And the hairs have been torn from His cheeks. And He has marred more than any man. And He has farmed more than the sons of man. And He is bruised. And He is broken. And He is battered. And He is in agony. And I point to that sacrifice And I tell you in God's name, it is through the passion of Christ that you'll climb to heaven. And if you reject that cross as a ladder to heaven, then you'll stumble down into the abyss of the bottomless pit of hell fire forevermore. Make no mistake about it. The passion of Christ is the way of salvation. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us who are saved it is the power of God. I don't want you to preach about the cross and the blood, about men being lost, about guilt transferred. about the doctrine of imputation, that He took my sins and my sorrows, that He made them as very own, that He bore the burden of Calvary and suffered and died alone. I don't want to hear that today. Tell us a story. Describe a sunset. Talk of nature. No, sir, I'll not talk of nature. I'll talk of nature's God in agony for man's redemption. I'll not talk of nature, but I'll talk of a rose that bloomed once on a hill called Calvary. It's the crimson rose of Sharon, and it bloomed for sinners on yonder hill. the passion of Christ they have no room for. And men and women in our meeting tonight have had no room for the cross. How many times have you turned your back on it, sinners? How many times have you walked away from the only place of pardon and from the only fountain that has power to cleanse away the inbred stains of wicked sin? How many times have you gone from the cross? No room for Christ in His person. No room for Christ in His passion. And they have no room for Christ in His people. If I identify myself with Christ, the world will have no room for me. There was no room For them, underline it, at the end. No room for it. If I line up with Jesus Christ, I'll bear the reproaches that fell on Him. The world doesn't love the people of God, never did, and never will. My, we saw that at the count. When we give God the glory, we saw the the snarling yelps of the sinners, saw that old liberal candidate, and my, the devil in hell was looking at him. And he publicly said, I hate Peaslake. I'm sure he does. I'm sure he was honest when he said it. And the curses that fall on the Savior will fall on you. I know I'm not going to Westminster to have an easy ride. I know that. I know I'll be cursed from one end of the land to the other. A dear man said to me, did you see the Sunday press today? He says, I thank God I don't read that tripe and dirt. He says, they're very hard on you. He says, do you expect the devil to give me a laurel, do you? No, sir, I don't. I expect to be vilified and slandered and kicked Why? Because the world has no time for Christ's people. You identify yourself with the people of God and you'll get the kicks and the ridicule. If they call the master of the house Beelzebub, what will they not call his people? No room at the end. Perhaps there's someone here and you have no room for the people of God. And by rejecting God's people, you've rejected God's Christ. For Jesus said, if they receive you, they'll receive me. And if they reject me, they'll reject you. And that's happening all over the world. And last of all, could I say tonight, they have no room for His pardon. No room for His pardon. And many men and women in our gathering have rejected the pardon of Christ. How many times He has stretched out His kneel-pierced hand to you. And what have you done? You have pushed it away. You have said, Lord Jesus, I don't want your pardon. I don't want to be born again. I don't want to be saved. And your friends have been saved. and your families have been saved. There's unconverted fathers in this meeting, and their whole family has come to Christ. And what has happened? They themselves have refused the Savior, trampled underfoot the blood of Christ, and put Him to an open shade. No room for His pardon. Is this going to be the end of the story for you? And when the last chapter of life's biography is penned, at the very end, will it be written over every page? No room for Christ. Or will that chapter close tonight? And will a new chapter written in golden letters come in? that this night Jesus Christ was received. This night Jesus Christ was received and He entered my heart and He made my life over anew and tonight I am His and He is mine forever. Will you come to the Savior? Will you trust Him? May God grant that many will trust Him tonight. For Jesus' sake, let's bow our heads. Our God and Father, we thank Thee tonight for the liberty given to us to preach the Word. And we pray now that souls may come to Christ It is the hour of decision, the time of reckonings come, when man must say yes or no to the Savior, when man must say yes or no to the Christ of God. O God, we pray in Jesus' name that thou wouldst do a work of grace in our midst. Do it now, we pray. As our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, in this meeting tonight, there are three classes of people. There are those in this great gathering tonight, and they're saved by the grace of God. Thank God for every Christian that's in the meeting. There was a time when you had no room for Christ. But thank God you have room for Christ tonight. You have received Him. You have trusted Him. He is yours. And you are His forever. Will you bow the head? Will you thank God for receiving you? And then will you do something? Will you pray as you have never prayed before? that God tonight will visit this church with old-fashioned salvation power. Pray for the man beside you that doesn't know the Savior, for the woman along the pew that's not seen. Pray for the unconverted that this night they'll come to Christ. Now as the people of God are praying, and every hand is bowed, and every eye is closed, I want to talk to people here who are backsliders. They once knew and loved the Savior. They once walked with the Lord in the light of His Word. But they've got away from Christ. They've brought to their hearts pain and woe. But praise God tonight, they can come afresh. to Jesus, will you return to Him? You're miserable. The pleasures of this world will never satisfy you. Come to the Savior now. Return to Him. And then there are those here who have never said yes to Christ. Sitting in these aisles among the pews, round the outside corridor of the ground floor, Up there in the gallery center, friend, God has spoken to you tonight. It hasn't been the preacher. It's been the Spirit of God. And you know you should come. And you know you need to come. And you know you ought to come to Christ. Will you come? God is calling you. You say, how will I come? The Bible says, whosoever. That means you. shall call on the name of the Lord. That's simple. Shall be saved. Will you call upon Him now? Will you call upon Him now? May God help you to call on Him. Saved by a call. I'm making a very simple appeal. If there's a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, in this house tonight, a backslider or a sinner, and you would like to come to Christ now. All right, friend. As our heads are bowed, as our eyes are closed, as the people of God are at prayer, I wonder would you slip your hand quietly above your head, and we'll remember you in the closing prayer. Will you do it now? Anywhere in the meeting, just slip your hand quietly above your head and say, yes, tonight I'll come. I'll take Christ as my Savior. Will you do it now? Anywhere in the meeting, just slip up your hand now. Let me see you. That's right. Just do it.