Thus there is terrible apostacy abroad among us; a forecast of approaching apostacy in circles, in which the fear of the Lord is still alive; and the old, childlike humble faith in what the Evangelists tell us of Bethlehem’s crib, is only left in those narrower circles, where making light of the fixedness of the Word is never tolerated, and the question: “What must I do to be saved?” still burns in every one’s conscience.

But for this very reason in those narrower circles Christmas joy has become so much the more serious.

Much more yet than ever a holding of oneself fast to the Word, knowing that he who once departs from this, must with that Word at last lose everything. Much more than formerly a serious looking forward to evil days, that await the church of Christ, since it seems that the very elect are being tempted away. But also much more than in earlier days a warm giving of thanks and praise at the remembrance and frequent meditation on the unspeakable gift, which in that crib of Bethlehem God the Lord has bestowed upon the world.

“So God loved the world, that He has sent His only Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The old, but ever new and eternal youthful Gospel for every child of man, that thirsts after salvation and atonement of his sins, and in that thirst does not lose the love of compassion for a world so deeply sunken and fallen away from God.

For the love of God for the world never addresses you so strongly, as when you see, how sinfully cold the world is, in its treatment of that love of God.

That was not so evident, when it seemed as though the whole people believed and thanked God for the gift of His Son. But since the mask of inner untruthfulness fell away, and the tone-giving class of society became estranged from that love for Jesus, and scarcely anything more is felt of what is given us in the Christ, that ice-cold unthankfulness, that coolness of heart, and offensive unemotionalism of the world comes out in such striking colors, that you almost despair of understanding, how God the Lord has given His own dear Son to such a world.

That it rose up in rebellion against God, so long as Christ did not appear; and that it rejected the prophecy of the Messiah Who was to come, as almost unbelievable; this you can enter into. The heathen knew of nothing and lay bound in the bands of death and of darkness.

But that a state of society such as ours, now that Christ is born, having honored Christ for many centuries, closes its eyes to His divine majesty, and after all the blessing which the Crib of Bethlehem has spread abroad among the nations, can still be so untouchable of heart, as, notwithstanding this highest exhibition of God’s love, to cipher away the highest act of love on the part of our God, is so tragic an utterance of inner corruption, that you almost ask yourself, if the salt has thus become saltless, wherewith it can yet be salted.

What more can God yet have to do? He who after the Crib of Bethlehem does not believe in the love of God, by what higher exhibition of love can he become convinced?

Is there then yet more with God, that He can give us and thus far did not give? Can there be a still higher revelation of His divine compassion thinkable!

This was possible in the days of Noah and Moses and David, when the Christ had not yet come. Then at least more still could come, for God had not yet given the earth His Son. And when Christ came, that gift of His Son excelled everything and put into the shade, what thus far had been done for the salvation of our race.

But how can there anything more happen now? He who, when God gives His Son to the world, is not moved, what then can move him? God gives no less than His Son. That Son of His love is the brightness of His glory and the express image of His substance. That Son God generates in His own Being. In that Son of His good pleasure God Himself is. Through that Son He has created the world and poured out in that Son all His treasures of love, power and wisdom. And so nothing can be thought, neither in heaven nor on earth, that can surpass that Immanuel in richness and in worth of majesty.

With that gift of the Son the inexhaustible richness of God’s compassion is exhausted.

There is no higher. There remains nothing more to give.

And God Who gave His only-begotten Son to the world has no more that He can give that world, above Him.

More and richer and fuller love the world, He can not. In that gift of His Son to the earth the love of God for that world is consummated.

“So God loved the world, that He gave it His Only-begotten Son.”

And now God can go no further. And just that makes the sin of unbelief and apostacy, which now has overtaken the world, so dreadful. This threatens to become sin against the Holy Ghost; sin of hardening against God’s eternal love.

God loves the world.

Of course not in its sinful strivings and unholy motions. As such is enemy of God whoever is called a friend of the world. But God loves the world for the sake of its origin; because God has thought it out; because God has created it; because God has maintained it and maintains it to this day.

Not we have made the world, and thus in our sin we have not maltreated an art product of our own. No, that world was the contrivance, the work and the creation of the Lord our God. It was and is His world, which belonged to Him, which He had created for His glory, and for which we with that world were by Him appointed. Not to us did it belong, but to Him. It was His. And His divine world we have spoiled and corrupted.

And herein roots the love of God, that He will repair and renew this world, His own creation, His own work of wisdom, His own work of art, which we have upset and broken, and polish it again to new lustre.

And it shall come to this. God’s plan does not miscarry, and with divine certainty He carries out the counsel of His thoughts. Once that world in a new earth and a new heaven shall stand before God in full glory.

But the children of men meanwhile can fall out of that world. If they will not cease to corrupt His world, God can declare them unworthy of having any longer part in that world, and as once He banished them from Paradise, so at the last judgment He will banish them from the world, banish them from this earth, and cast them out into the outermost darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And therefore whoever would be saved with that world, as God loves it, let him accept the Son, Whom God has given to that world, in order to save the world. Let him not continue standing afar off, let him not hesitate, but flee to God’s cities of refuge; and those cities of refuge are Bethlehem and Golgotha, where God has revealed His impenetrable compassions.

Be there in this sense, be there in that spirit again among God’s people a keeping of our wondrous Christmas feast.

No rejoicings of oneself in outward jubilation; no pleasing of oneself with what stimulates the nerves and soothes the feeling; but a penetration to that unfathomable love of God, to drink in again afresh that love, and, intoxicated with that love, to thank God for His unspeakable gift.

Also with your children you must not play at Christmas. They too have been baptized, they too are called to repentance, they too should have fellowship not merely with the Crib and the shepherds and the angelic hosts, but fellowship, soul’s-fellowship of faith and love, with the Only-begotten Son of God.

Preaching of the love of God in Bethlehem’s crib should not pass over the heads. It must warm the heart, move the soul, awaken the conscience, and fill us with something of that holy love for the world, whereby God was moved, to give to that world His Son.

God so loved not merely Israel, but the world. Israel was but a middle link, inserted in the life of the nations, to bring about, that from David’s tribe the Messiah could be born. Israel is the blade, but He is the rich full ear, which by God is offered to the world as the Bread of life.

And therefore the Lord can not return upon the clouds, until first His Gospel is preached to all nations and peoples. Otherwise God’s love would not extend itself to the whole world; for in that world every people has its significance, and every nation must be a pearlshell, from which early or late a pearl is added to the crown of Jesus’ glory.

The Lord doeth wondrous things. Even now He stretches out again the hand of His compassions over Africa. A whole continent, that lay swathed in pitchdark night for perhaps four thousand years, and of which even Christendom thought at times, that it lay excluded outside of the circle of God’s compassions. And now the light dawns also upon that continent. And thus no single part of the world lies outside of the reflection of His eternal love.

And therefore each Christmas must be to us again a call, to co-labor in that great work of God in all the world, that the Cross of Christ may be carried from pole to pole, and the song from the fields of Ephrata make a psalm of peace to be heard in the ear of all peoples in all the earth.

Provided for the sake of those many peoples outside, you do not forget your own land and people.

Here especially God has done wondrous deeds. In a very particular way our Country has been called to be a witness for the Son of God. And therefore your Christmas accuses you, when, cold-hearted and self-sufficient, you do not concern yourself about your own people and land, and when it does not interest you, whether that Babe of Bethlehem shall bless that broad multitude of your own people, that does not know the law, and still less the Gospel, and whether He shall pour down the beams upon it of His glorious light.

But above all look to your own flesh and blood, to your sons and daughters; not merely to the younger, but especially to the older. They hear so many voices from that world, that lead them away from God. Temptations are so manifold. And what becomes of your young men and maidens, when they close their ears to the angel-voices that once sounded in Ephrata’s fields the message of God’s peace to the world and in that world to them. Halfway measures do not avail. They must be altogether won. They must be converted to the Lord their God, to love Him for His unspeakable love with all their heart and all their soul and all their senses. Definite choice alone saves.

He who is not for Jesus, becomes more and more against.

And then look to yourself.

You too must keep Christmas. Not alone for others, but also for yourself. At Christmas angel-fingers must also traverse the strings of your soul. The heavenly music of God’s love in the gift of His Son must also entice an echo from your breast. And you too must find in your own unworthiness the standard, by which to measure the unfathomable depth of Divine love, that gave for you His Only-begotten Son, and moved toward you, to save you from destruction.

The loveliness of Bethlehem you only understand, when over against it you put the awful detestableness of hell. For hell tells you, what it is, towards which Satan entices you; what the place is, which he has prepared for you; and what the unblessed company is of the lost, towards which he is forever calling you.

And over against this God puts His Bethlehem. That is the spot towards which He calls you. In those angels He shows you, into what blessed glorious companies He wants to bring you; and that Babe of Bethlehem He places over against the Tempter who entices you.

And when at Christmas Satan continues his call: “Bow your knee unto me and you shall be as God!” and those angels continue their song of God’s good pleasure in men and of glory to God in the highest, and of peace on earth—let then your own soul know to what voice it lends a hearing. If in your soul there is jubilation in Christ, do not boast of your own piety, but give God, and God alone the glory, yea, thank your Father Who is in heaven, that you also are deemed worthy, to follow the Lamb, whithersoever He goeth, and to hail that Immanuel as your Redeemer, to Whom once every knee shall bow, and Whom once every tongue shall confess, that He is Christ the Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

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