The First Christmas Carol by Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men. From Luke chapter 2, verse 14.

It is wrong to worship angels, but it is appropriate to love them. Although it would be a great sin and a crime against the sovereign court of heaven to pay the slightest adoration to the mightiest angel. Yet it would be unkind and inappropriate if we did not give holy angels a place in our heart's warmest love. In fact, he that studies the character of angels and notes their many deeds of compassion with men and kindness towards them cannot resist the impulse of his nature the impulse of love towards them.

The one incident in angelic history to which our text refers is enough to bond our hearts to them forever. How free from envy the angels were! Christ did not come from heaven to save angels when they fell. When Satan, the mighty angel, dragged with him a third part of the stars of heaven, the Christ did not stoop from his throne to die for them, but he left them restrained in chains and darkness until the last great day of judgment. Still angels do not envy men. Though they remembered that he did not save angels, yet they did not murmur when he decided to redeem the seed of Abraham. And though the blessed master had never condescended to take the angel's form, The angels did not think it beneath them to express their joy when they found him, Christ, arrayed in the body of an infant.

How free, too, were the angels from pride! They were not ashamed to come and tell the news to humble shepherds. I think they had as much joy in pouring out their songs that night before the shepherds who were watching with their flocks as they would have had had they been commanded by their master to sing their hymn in the halls of Caesar. Mere men, men possessed with pride, think it is a fine thing to preach before kings and princes, and think it is great condescension now and then to have to minister to the humble crowd. not so the angels. They stretched their willing wings and gladly sped from their bright seats above to tell the shepherds on the hillside at night the marvelous story of an incarnate God.

And note how well they told the story, and surely you will love them. Not with the stammering tongue of him that tells a story in which he has no interest, nor even with the imaginary interest of a man that would move the passions of others when he feels no emotion himself. But they sang with joy and gladness, such as angels only can know. They sang the story out, for they could not stand to tell it in ordinary language. They sang, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill to men. I think they sang it with gladness in their eyes, with their hearts burning with love and joy, as if the good news to man had been good to themselves. And truly it was good news to them, for the heart of compassion makes the good news of others good news to itself.

Don't you love the angels? You will not bow down before them, and that is good, that is right. But won't you love them? Doesn't it make up one part of your anticipation of heaven, that in heaven you will live with the holy angels, as well as with the redeemed believers of all the ages? Oh, how sweet to think that these holy and lovely creatures guard us every hour. They keep watch and deflect evil away from us, both during the brightest noonday sun and also in the darkness of the night. They watch over us no matter what we are doing. They lift us up in their hands, lest at any time we should strike our feet against harmful stones. Unceasingly, they minister to us who are the heirs of salvation, watching over us night and day as our guardians. For don't you know that the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him?

Let us turn aside. Having just thought of angels for a moment, to think of this song, rather than the angels themselves. Their song was brief, but as one has remarked, it was well worthy of angels, expressing the greatest and most blessed truth in so few words.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill towards men.

We will, hoping to be assisted by the Holy Spirit, look at these words of the angels in four ways. First, instructive thoughts. Then emotional thoughts. Prophetical thoughts. And finally, perceptive thoughts.

First then, in the words of our text, there are many instructive thoughts. The angel sang something which men could understand. something which men ought to understand, something which will make men much better if they will understand it. The angels were singing about Jesus who was born in the manger. We must look upon their song as being built on this foundation. They sang of Christ and the salvation which he came into the world to work out. And what they said of this salvation was this, they said first, that it gave glory to God, secondly, that it gave peace to man, and thirdly, that it was a token of God's goodwill towards the human race.

First, they said that this salvation gave glory to God. They had been present on many glorious occasions before, and they had joined in many a solemn chorus to the praise of their Almighty Creator. They were present at the creation for the Bible says, the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy. They had seen many planets formed between the palms of the Lord and spun by his eternal hands through the infinite space. They had sung solemn songs over the many worlds which the great one had created. We don't doubt that they had often sung Blessing and honor and glory and majesty and power and dominion and might be to him that sits on the throne. I also don't doubt that their songs had gathered force through the ages. When the angels were first created, their very first breath was a song. So when they saw God create new worlds, then their songs received another note. they rose a little higher in the scale of adoration. But this time, when they saw God stoop from his throne and become a baby, nursing on a woman's breast, they lifted their notes still higher, and reaching to the uttermost stretch of angelic music, they gained the highest notes of the divine scale of praise, and they sang, glory to God in the highest. for they felt that God's goodness could not go any higher. Thus they gave to him their highest praise for the highest act of his divinity.

If it is true that there is a hierarchy of angels rising tier upon tier in magnificence and dignity, if then the apostle teaches us that there are angels and authorities and powers and thrones and rulers among these blessed inhabitants of the heavenly world, then I can suppose that when the news was first communicated to those angels that are to be found in the outskirts of the heavenly realms, when they looked down from heaven and saw the newborn baby, they sent the news backward to the place where the miracle first proceeded, singing, angels from the realms of glory, wing your downward flight to earth. You who sing creation story, now proclaim Messiah's birth. Come and worship, worship Christ, the newborn King.

And as the message ran from the lower ranking angels to the higher ranks, finally the angels in God's presence, those four cherubim that perpetually watch around the throne of God, those wheels with eyes took up the course. and gathering up the song of all the lesser ranks of angels, surmounted the divine pinnacle of harmony with their own solemn chorus of adoration, upon which the entire host of angels shouted, the highest angels praise you. Glory to God in the highest.

Yes, there is no mortal that can ever dream how magnificent that song was. Then note this. If angels shouted with joy before and when the world was made, their hallelujahs were now more full, more strong, more magnificent, if not more hearty, when they saw Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, to be man's redeemer, glory to God in the highest.

What is the lesson to be learned from this first part of the angel song? It is that salvation is God's highest glory. He is glorified in every dew drop that twinkles in the morning sun. He is magnified in every flower that blooms in the deep forest, although no one sees its beauty and its sweetness is wasted in the forest air. God is glorified in every bird that chirps on the branch and every lamb that skips in the meadow. Don't the fishes in the sea praise him? From the tiny minnow to the huge sea mammal, don't all creatures that swim in the water bless and praise his name? Don't all created things glorify him? Is there any beneath the sky except man that does not glorify God? Don't the stars exalt him when they write his name upon the blue sky of heaven in their golden letters? Don't the lightnings adore Him when they flash His brightness in arrows of light piercing the midnight darkness? Don't thunders extol Him when they roll like drums in the march of the God of armies? Don't all things extol Him from the least to the greatest?

But sing, sing, O universe, till you have exhausted yourself, and still you cannot produce a song so sweet as the song of incarnation. Though creation may be a majestic organ of praise, it cannot reach the range of the golden hymn, Incarnation. There is more in that than in creation. More melody in Jesus in the manger than there is in singing about worlds spinning their grandeur around the throne of the Most High.

Stop, Christian, and consider this for a minute. See how every attribute here is magnified. Look at what wisdom that is here. God becomes man that God may be just and the justifier of the ungodly. Look, look what power, for where is power so great as when it conceals power? What power that a member of the Godhead, God himself, should unrobe himself and become a man. Look what love is revealed to us when Jesus becomes a man. See what faithfulness, how many promises are kept on this glorious day, how many solemn commitments are fulfilled at this very moment. Tell me one attribute of God that is not manifest in Jesus, and your ignorance will be the reason why you have not seen it. The whole of God is glorified in Christ. And though some part of the name of God is written throughout the universe, it is here best read, in Him who was the Son of Man, and at the same time, the Son of God.

But let me say one word here before I leave this point. We must learn from this, that if salvation glorifies God, glorifies Him in the highest degree, and makes the highest creatures praise Him, This one reflection must be added that any doctrine which glorifies man in salvation cannot be the gospel. For salvation glorifies God. The angels were not Arminians. They were not believing that man decides whether he will accept the gospel or not with his own free will. They sang glory to God in the highest. They believe in no doctrine which uncrowns Christ and puts the crown upon the heads of mortals. They believe in no system of faith which makes salvation dependent upon the creature, and which really gives the creature the praise. For if the whole dependence of salvation rests upon man's own free will, then a man really saves himself. Know, my brothers, There may be some preachers that delight to preach a doctrine that magnifies man, but in their gospel the angels take no delight. The only glad tidings that make the angels sing are those that put God first, God last, God middle, and God without end in the salvation of His creatures, and put the crown wholly and only upon the head of Him that saves without a helper. Glory to God in the highest is the angel song.

When they had sung this, they sang what they had never sung before. Glory to God in the highest was an old, old song. They had sung that from before the foundations of the world. But now they sang as it were a new song before the throne of God, for they added this stanza. On earth, peace. They did not sing that in the garden. There was peace there, but it seemed a natural thing and not something worth singing about. There was more than peace there, for there was glory to God there. But now man had fallen. And since the day when the cherubim with fiery swords drove out the man and woman, there had been no peace on earth. except in the hearts of some believers who had obtained peace from the living fountain of this incarnation of Christ. Wars have raged from the ends of the world. Men had slaughtered one another, heaps and heaps of dead humans. There had been wars within man as well as wars around him. Conscious had fought with man. Satan had tormented man with thoughts of sin. There had been no peace on earth since Adam fell.

But now, when the newborn king made his appearance, the cloth that wrapped up the baby was the white flag of peace. That manger was the place where the treaty was signed, whereby warfare should cease between man's conscience and himself, man's conscience and his God. It was then, that day, that the trumpet blew, put away the sword, old man, put away the sword, old conscious, for God is now at peace with man, and man is at peace with God. Don't you feel, my brethren, that the gospel of peace is peace to man? Where else can peace be found but in the message of Jesus? Go, legalist. Work for peace with toil and pain and you will never find it. Go, you who trust in the law, go to Sinai. Look to the flames that Moses saw and shrink and tremble and despair. For nowhere is peace to be found but in him of whom it is said, this man will be peace. And what peace it is, beloved. It is peace like a river. and righteousness like the waves of the sea. It is the peace of God which transcends all understanding, which will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. This sacred peace between the pardoned soul and God, the one who pardons, this marvelous atonement made between the sinner and the judge, this was the peace that the angels sang about when they said, peace on earth.

And then they wisely ended their song with a third note. They said, goodwill to man. Philosophers have said that God has a goodwill towards man, but I never knew any man who derived much comfort from their philosophical assertion. Wise men have thought from what we have seen in creation that God has considerable goodwill towards man. or else his works would never have been so constructed for mankind's comfort. But I never heard of any man who would risk his soul's peace on such a faint hope as that. But I have not only heard of thousands, but I know them, who are quite sure God has goodwill towards men. And if you ask them their reason, they will give you a full and perfect answer. They say, He has good will towards man because he gave his Son. No greater proof of kindness between the Creator and His subjects can possibly be afforded than when the Creator gives His one and only and beloved Son to die.

Though the first part of the carol is godlike, glory to God in the highest, and though the second part is peaceful, and on earth peace, this third part, goodwill towards men, melts my heart the most. Some think of God as if he were an ill-natured being who hated all of mankind. Some picture God as if he were some abstract essence taking no interest in our affairs. Listen, God has goodwill towards men. You know what goodwill means. Well, all that it means and more, God has towards you, you sons and daughters of Adam. You who swear, you who have cursed God, yet he has not executed his curse upon you. He has goodwill towards you, though you have no goodwill towards him. Unbeliever, You have sinned greatly and your sin has been unrelenting against the Most High. He has said no unmerciful things against you, for He has good will towards men. Poor sinner, you have broken His laws. You are half afraid to come to the throne of His mercy for fear that He would reject you. Hear this and be comforted. God has good will towards men. so good a will that he has said, and said it with an oath too, as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die? Moreover, so good a will that he has even condescended to say, come now, let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are as red as crimson, they shall be like wool. And if you say, Lord, how will I know that you have this goodwill towards me? He points to the distant manger and says, Sinner, if I did not have a good will towards you, would I have parted with my Son? If I did not have a good will towards the human race, would I have given up my Son to become one of that race, that He might, by doing so, redeem them from death? You that doubt the Master's love, you look to that circle of angels, see their blaze of glory, Hear their song and let your doubts die away in that sweet music and be buried in a veil of harmony. He has goodwill towards men. He is willing to pardon. He passes by evil, misbehavior and sin. And mark this, if Satan will then add, but though God has goodwill, yet he cannot violate his justice. Therefore, his mercy will be ineffective, and you will die. Then listen to that first note of the song, my friends. Glory to God in the highest, and reply to Satan and all of his temptations, that when God shows goodwill to a repentant sinner, there is not only peace in the sinner's heart, but it brings glory to every attribute of God. and so he can be just and yet justify the sinner and glorify himself.

I do not pretend to say that I have uncovered all the teachings contained in these three sentences, but may I perhaps direct you into a train of thought that may serve you for a week? I hope that through the week you will have a truly merry Christmas by feeling the power of these words and knowing the comfort of them.

glory to God in the highest, on earth, peace, goodwill towards men.

Next, I have to present to you some emotional thoughts, some emotional thoughts. Friends, doesn't this verse, this song of angels, stir your hearts with happiness? Then if angels ushered in the gospel's great Savior with singing, shouldn't I also preach with singing? And shouldn't my listeners live their lives with singing? Shouldn't their hearts be glad and their spirits rejoice?

Well, I thought, there are some gloomy religious people who were born on a dark night in December that think a smile on the face is wicked. and believe that for a Christian to be glad and rejoice is to be inconsistent. I wish these gentlemen had seen the angels when they sang about Christ. For if the angels sang about his birth, though it was no concern of theirs, certainly men ought to sing about it as long as they live, sing about it when they die, and sing about it when they live in heaven forever.

I long to see in our churches more of a singing Christianity. The last few years have been breeding in our midst a groaning and unbelieving Christianity. Now, I don't doubt its sincerity, but I do doubt its healthy character. I say it may be true and real enough. God forbid I should say a word against the sincerity of those who practice it, but it is a sickly religion.

It has been well said, religion never was designed to make our pleasures less. Christianity is designed to do away with some of our pleasures, but it gives us many more to make up for what it takes away. So it does not make them less.

Oh, you that see in Christ nothing but a subject to stimulate your doubts and make the tears run down your cheeks. Oh, you that always say, Lord, what a wretched land this is that yields us no supplies. Come here and see the angels. Do they tell their stories with groans and sobs and sighs? No, they shout out loud, glory to God in the highest.

Now, imitate them, my dear brethren, imitate them. If you are professors of Christianity, Always try to have a cheerful manner. Let others mourn, but why should the children of the king go mourning all their days? Fix your hair and wash your face so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice.

Especially this week, do not be ashamed to be glad. You need not think it a wicked thing to be happy. Doing penance and whipping oneself and other terrible things those in false religions do are not virtuous things. The damned are miserable. Let the saved be happy. Why should you hold fellowship with the lost by feelings of perpetual mourning? Rather, why not anticipate the joys of heaven? and begin to sing on earth that song which you will never need to end. The first emotion then that we ought to cherish in our hearts is the emotion of joy and gladness. Well, what next? Another emotion is that of confidence. I am not sure that I am right in calling that an emotion, but in me, it is so much like it that I will venture to be wrong if I am.

Now, if when Christ came on this earth, God had sent some black creature down from heaven, if there were such creatures there, to tell us, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill to men. And if with a frowning brow and a stammering tongue, he delivered his message, if I had been there and heard it, I would have been reluctant to believe him for I would have said, You don't look like a messenger that God would send, stammering fellow as you are, with such glad news as this.

But when the angels came, there was no doubting the truth of what they said, because it was quite certain that the angels believed it. They told it as if they did, for they told it with singing, with joy and gladness. Now, if some friend, having heard that an inheritance was left to you, came to you with a serious face, as if he just returned from a funeral, saying, Do you know, so-and-so has left you a million dollars? Why, you would say, Yes, I dare say, and laugh in his face.

But if your brother should suddenly burst into the room and exclaim, I have the most unbelievable good news. You are a rich man. So-and-so has left you one million dollars. Why, you would say, I think it is very likely true, for he is so happy about it. Well, when these angels came from heaven, they told the news just as if they believed it. And though I have often wickedly doubted my Lord's goodwill, I think I never could have doubted it when I heard those angels singing.

No, I would say, The messengers themselves are proof of the truth, for it seems they have heard it from God's own lips. They have no doubt about it, for see how joyfully they tell the news. Now poor soul, you that are afraid that God would destroy you, and you that think that God will never have mercy on you, look at the singing angels and doubt if you dare.

Do not go to the church of long-faced hypocrites to hear the minister who preaches with a nasal twang, with misery in his face, while he tells you that God has goodwill towards men. I know you won't believe what he says, for he does not preach with joy in his face. He is telling you good news with a grunt, and you are not likely to receive it.

But make a beeline to the place where Bethlehem shepherds sat that night, And when you hear the angels singing out the gospel, by the grace of God on you, you cannot help believing that they feel the preciousness of telling the good news. Blessed Christmas that brings such creatures as angels to confirm our faith in God's goodwill to men.

I must now bring before you the third point. There are some prophetic utterances contained in these words. Some prophetic utterances contained in these words. The angel sang, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill towards men. But I look around and what do I see in the wide, wide world? I do not see God honored. I see the heathen bowing down before their idols. I note the Roman Catholic bowing down before the rotten rags of his relics and the ugly figures of his statues. I look around me and I see tyranny lording it over the bodies and souls of men. I see God forgotten. I see a worldly race of mankind pursuing money. I see a bloody race pursuing false gods. I see ambition riding like Nimrod over the land. God forgotten, his name dishonored. And was this what the angels sang about? Is this all that made them sing glory to God in the highest?

No, there are brighter days approaching. They sang peace on earth. But I still hear the clear trumpet sound of war and the cannons hoard thunder. They have not yet turned the sword into a plow and the spear into a pruning hook. War still reigns. Is this all that the angels sang about? And while I see wars to the ends of the earth, am I still to believe that this was all the angels expected?

No, brethren, the angel song is loaded with prophecy. It labors in birth with glories. A few more years, and he that lives them out will see why angels sang. A few more years, and he that will come shall come and will not delay. Christ the Lord will come again, and when he comes he will throw the idols from their thrones. He will strike down every kind of heresy and every form of idolatry. He will reign over the whole earth with unlimited authority. He will reign when the blue heavens have been rolled away. No strife will disturb Messiah's reign. No blood will be shed. They'll destroy the useless weapons of war and study war no more.

The hour is approaching when the temples of the false gods will be shut forever and all the false religions utterly destroyed. The day is coming when the wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like an ox, and the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child will put his hand into the viper's nest. The hour approaches. The first streaks of the sunlight have brought hope and some joy into the age in which we live.

Look, He comes with trumpets and with clouds of glory. He will come for those who are waiting for Him with joyous expectation, whose coming will be glory to His redeemed and confusion to His enemies. Yes, brethren, when the angels sang this, there was an echo through the long aisles of a glorious future. The echo was, Hallelujah! Christ the Lord, God omnipotent, will reign. Yes, and doubtless the angels heard by faith the fullness of the song.

Hark, the song of jubilee, loud as mighty thunders roar, or the fullness of the sea when it breaks upon the shore. Christ the Lord omnipotent reigns.

Now I have one more lesson for you and I will be done. That lesson is perceptive. It is perceptive. I wish everybody that celebrates Christmas this year would keep it as the angels kept it. There are many persons who, when they talk about celebrating Christmas, mean by that that they would never forget to go to church on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. Yet their way of celebrating the rest of the day is very remarkable, for it would be with gluttony and drunkenness. There are many who think Christmas cannot be celebrated except with a lot of merriment and festivity in the house, and added to that the noisiness of sin.

Now, my brethren, we, being true followers of Christ, will not keep the day in any religious sense whatever, attaching nothing more to it than any other day. believing that every day is a Christmas day in the sense that true believers continually celebrate the incarnation of Christ. Yet, we must try to set an example for others, showing them how to behave on that day, and especially since the angels give glory to God, let us do the same. Once more, the angels said, Peace to men, Therefore, let us strive if we can to make peace this coming Christmas day. Now you parents who may have wayward children, you may not have welcomed them into your homes because they have offended you. Go after them this Christmas. Peace on earth. You know that is a Christmas carol. Make peace in your family.

Now brother, You have made a vow that you will never speak to your brother again. Go after him and say, oh, my dear friend, let us not let the sun go down on our anger. Go after him and give him your hand of fellowship. Now you, Mr. Businessman, you have a rival in your business and you have said some very harsh words about him lately. If you don't make the matter right today or tomorrow or as soon as you can, then do it for sure on Christmas Day. This is the way to truly celebrate Christmas, peace on earth and glory to God.

And oh, if you have anything on your conscience, anything that prevents you having peace of mind, then celebrate your Christmas in your closet. Praying to God to give you peace, peace on earth, peace in yourself, peace with your fellow man, and peace with your God. And don't think you have properly celebrated that day until you can say, oh God, with the world, myself, and you, I dare not sleep till peace is made through and through. And when the Lord Jesus has become your peace, remember there is another thing, goodwill towards men.

Do not try to celebrate Christmas without keeping goodwill towards men. You are a gentleman and may even have servants. Well, try to warm their homes and hearts with a large portion of festive food just for them. And if you are men of great wealth, Remember you have poor people in your neighborhood. Clothe the naked and feed the hungry and make glad those who mourn. Remember it is goodwill towards men. Try if you can to show them goodwill at this special season. And if you will do that, the poor will say with me that indeed they wish there were six Christmases in the year.

That each one of us go from this place determined. That if we have been angry all year long, this Christmas week will be an exception. That if we have complained at everybody last year, this Christmas time, we will strive to be kind and affectionate to others. And if we have lived all this year with a hatred towards God, I pray that by his spirit, he may this Christmas give us peace with him. And then, indeed, my brother, it will be the merriest Christmas we ever had in all of our lives.

Young people, you who are going home to your father and mother, others of you who are going from your workplace to your homes, remember what I preached last Christmas season. Go home to your friends and tell them what the Lord has done for your soul. And that will make a blessed round of stories around the Christmas fire. If each one of you will tell your parents how the Lord met with you in the quietness of prayer, how when you left home you were lighthearted, wild spirit, but now you have come back to love your mother's God and read your father's Bible. Oh, what a happy Christmas that will make.

What more shall I say? May God give you peace with yourselves. May he give you goodwill towards all your friends, your enemies, and your neighbors. and may he give you grace to give glory to God in the highest. I will say no more except at the close of this sermon to wish every one of you the happiest Christmas you ever had in your lives.

Now with angels around the throne, cherubim and seraphim, and the church which is one, let us expand the solemn hymn

Glory to the Great I Am.
Glory to the Sacrificial Lamb.
Blessing, honor, glory, and might,
and dominion infinite,
to the Father of our Lord,
to the Spirit and the Word,
as it was from time before,
is and will be evermore.
Amen.