when wrestling with this King; for when the King said: "Let me go," Jacob answered: "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." Gen. 32, 26. That is the right kind of reception; grasp Him, saying: Here Thou art and here Thou shalt abide; for Thou art my King and I will not let Thee go, mine Thou shalt remain.

If you thus receive Him as your King then you will be ready to do as the multitude in our text did. You will be ready to take your garments, that is, whatever you possess in this world, and laying them under the feet of Jesus you will say: These things I possess as though I possessed them not, but Jesus is mine, mine forever; He is my wisdom, He is my righteousness, He my salvation. And if He is thus become your one and all, your heart will join in with the multitude entering Jerusalem and will sing: "Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest." Amen.

II. SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

TEXT: And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not pass away. And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Luke 21, 25-36.

man.

For as a

The advent, or the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ into the world, is threefold. His first advent was His incarnation, when He came into the flesh to redeem the world by His suffering and death. In this manner He will come no more. After He was once offered on the cross He will not be sacrificed again, because entering in once into the holy place by His own blood, He obtained eternal redemption for us. His second coming is His spiritual coming to the hearts of men through His Word and the holy sacraments. Through the Word of the Gospel and the holy sacraments He comes to us, knocking at the door of our hearts and offering us grace, pardon, righteousness and eternal life in His blood shed for the remission of sin, as He commanded John to write to the church of the Laodiceans: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he with me." Rev.

3,20. His third advent is yet future; it will take place when He comes to judge the quick and the dead, and to consummate all things.

His first coming was done in poverty and great lowliness; for He was born in a stable and was laid in a manger. His last coming will be done in majesty and great glory. The snows of the north and the burning sands of the south will yield up their dead, and all nations will be gathered before Ilim. On that day all things will be made right. They that loved and honored Him will receive the kingdom, and the despisers will be banished from His countenance forever; for He is just and will judge righteously.

When is He coming? On what day and date will resound the trump that wakes the dead? Time and again presumptuous men have fixed the day and the date of the Lord's coming, only to find themselves deluded. It is a vain and idle, yea, even a presumptuous undertaking for men to name the day and the date of the judgment; for what God has kept hidden no man can search out. Of the day appointed for the judgment the Lord said: "Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." Mark 13, 32. What the angels of heaven cannot cipher out, what Jesus Christ Himself in the state of His humiliation did not know, no man should attempt to unravel.

Christ fells us the object of God in hiding the date of the judgment, when adding to the words already quoted: "Take ye heed, watch and pray for ye know not when the time is." To inspirit. our hearts unto watchfulness and prayer let me speak to you: ON THE COMING OF CHRIST UNTO JUDGMENT.

I. He comes without delay surely;

II. He comes to the unbelieving terribly;
III. He comes to the believers comfortingly.

I.

We live in those times of which the apostle Peter prophesied when writing: "There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the prom

III. SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

TEXT: Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet: For this is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. Matt. 11, 2-10.

All our faith, all our consolation and all our hope rest on the fact that the Son of God was made flesh to establish a tabernacle of God with men, and that Jesus Christ born in Bethlehem, educated in Nazareth and crucified on Calvary, is the promised Seed of woman, the Salvation of Israel out of Zion. On the certainty of these two facts rests all our hope of salvation; for if the Son of God had not been made flesh, we would yet be in our sins; and if Jesus Christ were not He that was promised to the patriarchs, we would be deluded people. Were it not true what Christ Himself testified: "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father," John 16, 28, were this not true, then we would be without hope in the world. But, thanks be to God, the fact that Jesus Christ is in deed and in truth the promised One, is established beyond a doubt. The history of His birth, life, suffering, death and resurection; His miracles, His doctrine and the fulfillment of all the prophecies of the Old Testament in Him, prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that He is Jehovah, our righteousness, the

root of Jesse, the glory of Israel and the light of the Gentiles. He is the One; for He is "declared to be the Son of God with power," Rom. 1, 4, and "all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen." 2 Cor. 1, 20.

What the fathers most desired,
What the prophets' heart inspired,
What they longed for many a year,
Stands fulfilled in glory here-

Permit me to-day briefly to set forth:

THAT CHRIST IS INDEED THE PROMISED MESSIAH.

This He proves in our Gospel

I. By His miracles;

II. By the Scriptures of the Old Testament.

I.

The object of this Gospel, as well as of that for the following Sunday, is, to demonstrate that He who came to the daughter of Zion, conducted into the city of Jerusalem by a multitude of people with singing and shouting, is truly the Savior sent by God, the Same who will come to judge the world.

But before speaking of this we must take notice of an item in our text, which might appear very strange to some and which infidels sometimes abuse to make it an argument against the Bible. It is the question of John the Baptist: "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" Should John not have known that Jesus was the promised Messiah, or should he, perhaps during his imprisonment, have fallen into doubt? Neither the one nor the other can be assumed. It is, of course, true that the greatest saints of God may fall into doubt and sin, yea even into idolatry, for which Solomon is an example who, in his old age, was seduced by his heathenish wives to build altars to idols. It is not to be denied that John the Baptist might have fallen into doubt, but that he did not is indicated plainly enough in the Scriptures. John had seen the Holy Ghost descend in the form of a dove and remain on