The Old Paths Author:Knut Seehuus Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Third Sunday in Advent. Gospel Lesson, Matth. 11, 11-15. During the season of Advent we look forward with joy to the Christmas festival, which commemorates... more » the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. The church has chosen for this season a series of texts that are intended to impress upon us the supreme importance of this event, and to so prepare and dispose our hearts that we may celebrate Christmas in the right Christian spirit. The coming of Christ is the general theme of these texts. Our attention is directed to his coming in the flesh as the promised Redeemer, to his coming in the gospel as the dispenser of grace, and to his coming in glory on the day of judgment. And those who, by the grace of God, have come to the knowledge of the truth, and rejoice in the coming of Christ, and trustfully surrender themselves to him as their Redeemer, Savior, and King, are rightly prepared to celebrate Christmas. Our text to-day also helps to show the importance of Christ's coming to the world; it speaks of John the Baptist, whose mission it was to prepare the way for Christ. High praise is here given to John. But we are told that, while it was a glorious privilege to be the forerunner of Christ, to herald the coming of the promised Messiah, it is a still greater thing to be a member of the New Testament kingdom which Christ came to establish, to live under the new dispensation which he came to inaugurate. We are tempted to undervalue our privileges and opportunities. Let us, therefore, give attention to this text, and consider to-day: How blessed we are who live under the New Testament dispensation! For thousands of years, the people of God had been longing for the coming of the Messiah, that had been promised the fallen race of man. In the prophecies, types, and symbols of the O...« less