If you could travel through the countries where they do not know of Christ and do not worship Him, and then travel through Christian countries, where Jesus is loved and honored, you would soon see what a great difference there is between the two. We have railroads, steamboats, and telegraphs, and telephones, and phonographs, and every kind of cloth, and silk, and furs with which to clothe ourselves for greatest comfort, and when we sit down at our tables there is no good thing that is produced in any nation under the sun, that is not available even to those of limited means.
In the heathen countries it is not so. They are still riding in carts drawn by oxen. Without clothing and without comforts, the people in Africa are still groping through the bushes and jungles. And if you go to India and China and Japan you will find that only in so far as they have been brought under the influence of the religion of Jesus Christ, do they have even now the material blessings which come with the Gospel.
But there are other blessings which come to us with the preaching of the Gospel. In heathen countries they have no asylums to care for the orphans, no hospitals for the sick and the distressed and the dying; no institutions of charity and of mercy; but few schools, and these only for the rich and the upper classes. So you see that these things are among the gifts which God has given us with His Son Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate on Christmas day.
Then there are also the spiritual blessings and gifts. God's grace, communion with God, and the joy and satisfaction we have in our hearts in knowing that we are the children of God; that Jesus Christ has redeemed us from sin and death; that we are the heirs of everlasting life, and of everlasting glory. And the Bible promises us that in the world to come we shall enjoy everlasting blessedness, and happiness and joy--that we shall dwell forever with Jesus Christ; that we shall be made kings and queens unto our God. The Bible tells us, that it has not entered into the heart of man to think or to conceive of the things which God has in store for those who love Him. If we were to laden this tree with all the richest treasures of the world they could not adequately suggest the great blessings which God has in store for you and for me.