Orval S. Wintermute - "A Gift of Certainty" (May 30, 1971)
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| (choir singing) | 0:03 | |
| - | If we say we have no sin, | 4:09 |
| we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. | 4:13 | |
| Therefore, let us offer onto God, | 4:20 | |
| a prayer of confession and for pardon. | 4:22 | |
| Let us pray. | 4:27 | |
| All mighty and holy God | 4:31 | |
| searcher of the hearts of men | 4:34 | |
| who knowest us better than we know ourselves | 4:37 | |
| and sees, the sins, | 4:42 | |
| which our sinfulness hides from us. | 4:43 | |
| Hear had our prayer of confession. | 4:48 | |
| We confess the sorrows, which brought no softening of heart. | 4:52 | |
| The chastening which | 4:59 | |
| yielded no piece of fruit of righteousness. | 5:00 | |
| The rebukes of conscience, | 5:05 | |
| which led to no amendment of life. | 5:08 | |
| We confess the councils of thy word we have known | 5:13 | |
| and not loved. | 5:18 | |
| The gospel of thy Son we have believed | 5:20 | |
| and not obeyed. | 5:24 | |
| The leading of the spirit of truth we have acknowledged | 5:27 | |
| and not followed. | 5:32 | |
| Have mercy upon us, oh God. | 5:35 | |
| We humbly entreat thee, | 5:38 | |
| forgive us our sins, | 5:41 | |
| forgive them all for Jesus' sake | 5:44 | |
| and for our sake. | 5:50 | |
| Amen. | 5:54 | |
| And here are these words of assurance from the first | 5:57 | |
| epistle of John. | 6:00 | |
| Our sins are forgiven for Jesus' sake | 6:03 | |
| there for be good courage. | 6:11 | |
| (soft music) | 6:17 | |
| - | This being the Sunday of Pentecost. | 7:06 |
| We have selected as a morning scripture, | 7:10 | |
| the stories from Old and New Testament, | 7:15 | |
| which speak of the beginnings of two communities. | 7:20 | |
| The first, which is taken from the Old Testament | 7:26 | |
| describes God's call to Moses. | 7:30 | |
| The second, | 7:35 | |
| which is taken from the New Testament | 7:37 | |
| describes God's called to the early church. | 7:40 | |
| Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, | 7:47 | |
| the priest of Midian, | 7:52 | |
| and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness | 7:54 | |
| and came to Horeb, | 7:57 | |
| the mountain of God | 7:58 | |
| and the angel of the Lord appeared to him | 8:01 | |
| in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. | 8:03 | |
| And he looked and low the bush was burning, | 8:10 | |
| yet it was not consumed. | 8:14 | |
| And Moses said, I will turn aside and see this great sight. | 8:17 | |
| Why the bush has not burned. | 8:23 | |
| When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see | 8:27 | |
| God called to him out of the bush, | 8:32 | |
| Moses, Moses. | 8:36 | |
| And he said, here am I, | 8:40 | |
| then he said, do not come near, | 8:44 | |
| put off your shoes from your feet | 8:47 | |
| for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. | 8:50 | |
| And he said, I am the God of your father, | 8:55 | |
| the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob | 9:00 | |
| and Moses hid his face, | 9:05 | |
| for he was afraid to look at God. | 9:08 | |
| Then the Lord said, | 9:12 | |
| I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, | 9:15 | |
| and I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. | 9:21 | |
| I know their sufferings. | 9:25 | |
| And I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the | 9:28 | |
| Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land | 9:31 | |
| to a good and broad land, | 9:35 | |
| a land flowing with milk and honey | 9:38 | |
| to the place of the Canaanites, | 9:41 | |
| and the Hittites, the Amorites and the Perizzites, | 9:43 | |
| the Hivites the Jebusites. | 9:46 | |
| And now behold, the cry of the people of Israel | 9:50 | |
| has come to me. | 9:54 | |
| And I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians | 9:56 | |
| oppress them. | 9:58 | |
| Come, I will send you to Pharaoh | 10:00 | |
| that you may bring forth my people, | 10:04 | |
| the sons of Israel, out of Egypt. | 10:06 | |
| But Moses said to God, who am I, | 10:11 | |
| that I should go to Pharaoh | 10:14 | |
| and bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt. | 10:16 | |
| He said, but I will be with you. | 10:20 | |
| And this shall be the sign for you that I have sent you. | 10:24 | |
| When you have brought forth the people out of Egypt, | 10:29 | |
| you shall serve God upon this mountain. | 10:32 | |
| And now from the New Testament, | 10:55 | |
| our text for this day, | 10:58 | |
| when the day of Pentecost had come, | 11:02 | |
| they were all together in one place. | 11:05 | |
| And suddenly a sound came from heaven, | 11:09 | |
| like the rush of a mighty wind. | 11:12 | |
| And it filled all the house where they were sitting | 11:15 | |
| and there appeared to them, tons of fire, | 11:19 | |
| distributed and resting on each one of them. | 11:23 | |
| And they were all filled with the holy spirit and began to | 11:27 | |
| speak in other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance. | 11:29 | |
| Now they were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, | 11:34 | |
| devout men from every nation under heaven. | 11:38 | |
| And at this sound, | 11:41 | |
| the multitude came together and they were bewildered | 11:42 | |
| because each one heard them speaking in his own language. | 11:45 | |
| They were amazed. | 11:51 | |
| They wondered saying are not all these who are speaking | 11:52 | |
| Galileans, and how is it that we hear each of us in his own | 11:57 | |
| native language. | 12:02 | |
| Parthians and Medes and Elamites and | 12:04 | |
| residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, capita, Shia, Pontus, | 12:07 | |
| and Asia, | 12:11 | |
| cretins and Arabians. | 12:14 | |
| We have heard them telling in our own tongues, | 12:17 | |
| the mighty works of God, | 12:20 | |
| and all were amazed and perplexed | 12:23 | |
| saying to one another, what does this mean? | 12:26 | |
| But others mockingly said, they are filled with new wine. | 12:31 | |
| (choir singing) | 12:40 | |
| - | The Lord be with you. | 13:23 |
| Let us pray. | 13:26 | |
| Let us offer first our unison prayer of Thanksgiving, | 13:33 | |
| all mighty and most merciful Father | 13:38 | |
| from whom comes every good and perfect gift. | 13:42 | |
| We give You hearty thanks for all Your mercies, | 13:46 | |
| for Your goodness that created us, | 13:50 | |
| Your bounty, that sustained us, | 13:52 | |
| Your fatherly discipline that chasten then corrected us. | 13:55 | |
| Your patience that has (inaudible) with us | 14:00 | |
| and your love that has redeemed us. | 14:03 | |
| We are grateful oh Lord. | 14:06 | |
| For Your son, our savior, | 14:09 | |
| for Your spirit, our comforter, for Your church, | 14:11 | |
| our home, for the lives of all good and godly men. | 14:15 | |
| And for the hope of the life to come, we give You thanks, | 14:21 | |
| Oh God, | 14:25 | |
| Amen. | 14:26 | |
| Let us offer a prayer of intercession for the sick. | 14:31 | |
| Thinking, particularly of Kell West and our own hospital, | 14:37 | |
| and (inaudible) out in Texas. | 14:42 | |
| All mighty God, creator and Redeemer, | 14:47 | |
| to whose son the sick were brought that they might be healed | 14:51 | |
| and who did send none away without thy blessing, | 14:56 | |
| looking pity upon all who come to our university hospital | 15:02 | |
| and to thee, | 15:08 | |
| for healing of body, mind, and spirit. | 15:11 | |
| Send them not away without thy blessing, | 15:18 | |
| but now and ever more, grant thy healing grace | 15:22 | |
| for their sake and our sake, | 15:29 | |
| and thy sake. | 15:33 | |
| And let us offer a prayer of supplication, | 15:37 | |
| of grateful supplication, | 15:39 | |
| for the servants of the chapel. | 15:42 | |
| Oh mighty God whose house this is. | 15:47 | |
| We ask thy special blessing on many people | 15:51 | |
| as another academic year draws to a close, | 15:55 | |
| on those who have led the ministry of the word | 16:00 | |
| and of prayer at the lectern and in the pulpit. | 16:03 | |
| On those who have made up the ministry of music, | 16:09 | |
| choir directors, | 16:13 | |
| organists, carlener, choristers, | 16:15 | |
| who arising early in the morning, | 16:20 | |
| lead our prayers, voice our songs, | 16:22 | |
| make a joyful and harmonious noise unto thee, | 16:27 | |
| on our behalf. | 16:31 | |
| On those who have often unexpectedly | 16:35 | |
| made up the ministry of service, | 16:38 | |
| the chapel monitor who with a twinkle in his eye and | 16:42 | |
| confidence in his asking persuades enough worshipers, | 16:47 | |
| young and younger male and female to gather our offerings | 16:52 | |
| and to bring them to thy son's table, | 16:58 | |
| making of it an alter of Thanksgiving. | 17:01 | |
| And with them, we would remember the chapel hostesses, | 17:06 | |
| the secretary, the maid, the janitor, the PA electrician, | 17:10 | |
| and the mechanical wizard who manages somehow to keep the | 17:17 | |
| organ alive from Lord's day, to Lord's day. | 17:21 | |
| On the ministry of the pew | 17:28 | |
| on all who have made our worship (inaudible) | 17:30 | |
| by their presence and their prayer | 17:34 | |
| and their praising and their listening. | 17:38 | |
| Bless them all, oh Lord, bless them, everyone. | 17:42 | |
| And a special prayer in which Sunday, | 17:50 | |
| for the gift of the spirit. | 17:53 | |
| All mighty God our heavenly Father, | 17:55 | |
| send we beseech thee thy holy spirit into our hearts | 17:58 | |
| that we may be directed and controlled | 18:03 | |
| according to thy will, | 18:06 | |
| lead into all truth, | 18:08 | |
| defended from all sin, | 18:11 | |
| and enriched in all grace through Jesus Christ, our Lord | 18:14 | |
| who taught his disciples to pray saying, | 18:21 | |
| Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, | 18:26 | |
| thy kingdom come | 18:31 | |
| thy will be done | 18:34 | |
| on earth as it is in heaven. | 18:36 | |
| Give us this day, | 18:38 | |
| our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses. | 18:39 | |
| As we forgive those who trespass against us | 18:44 | |
| and lead us, not into temptation, | 18:48 | |
| but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom | 18:50 | |
| and the power and the glory forever. | 18:55 | |
| Amen. | 18:59 | |
| - | I greet you this morning as Christian brothers, | 19:20 |
| in the name of Jesus Christ. | 19:27 | |
| And in his name, I wish you all a happy birthday. | 19:31 | |
| For today is the feast of Pentecost. | 19:37 | |
| And with this festival, | 19:41 | |
| we traditionally celebrate the birth of our church. | 19:43 | |
| The beginning of the church of Jesus Christ. | 19:49 | |
| Our text for this morning, | 19:54 | |
| which has already been read, | 19:57 | |
| is found in the book of Acts. | 20:00 | |
| It tells the story of how a spirit from on high | 20:04 | |
| was poured out upon a confused | 20:09 | |
| and uncertain group of disciples, | 20:12 | |
| filling each of them with power | 20:18 | |
| to become witnesses in Jerusalem | 20:21 | |
| and in all Judea and Samaria | 20:24 | |
| and to the end of the earth. | 20:28 | |
| The mood which dominates this ancient text | 20:33 | |
| is one of ecstatic wonder and joy | 20:39 | |
| at the discovery that God was truly present | 20:43 | |
| in the midst of his people. | 20:47 | |
| A gift had descended from on high | 20:51 | |
| ordinary men, of modest intellect | 20:55 | |
| were suddenly filled with a sense of absolute certainty | 20:58 | |
| about the validity of what they had experienced | 21:04 | |
| in their life together with Jesus. | 21:07 | |
| And they felt compelled to bear witness to this life | 21:11 | |
| before the world. | 21:17 | |
| Now, do we not envy these men? | 21:20 | |
| Do we not envy them for their sense of certainty, | 21:24 | |
| for as 20th century men | 21:30 | |
| who looked down from our tower of doubt | 21:33 | |
| set upon a mountain of uncertainty. | 21:37 | |
| We are just a bit terrified | 21:42 | |
| by the sight of that simple fishermen, Peter. | 21:45 | |
| Who rose up on Pentecost to proclaim with certainty | 21:49 | |
| to men from all the world | 21:52 | |
| that Jesus of Nazareth was God's own Messiah. | 21:55 | |
| Now, how can we, | 22:02 | |
| as well-trained students who are ever conscious of our | 22:04 | |
| own doubts and acutely aware of the relativity of all of our | 22:09 | |
| values ever, except the witness of, so plain a man, | 22:13 | |
| a man so ready to speak with confidence about matters, | 22:20 | |
| which were interpreted quite differently | 22:23 | |
| by most of the scholars of his own time | 22:27 | |
| in the city of Jerusalem. | 22:31 | |
| This is our problem for today. | 22:34 | |
| As we ponder the meaning of this Pentecostal text, | 22:37 | |
| the problem is within modern man, | 22:42 | |
| who is thoroughly suspicious of his own ability | 22:45 | |
| to be certain about anything, | 22:49 | |
| but yet, if he is honest, | 22:52 | |
| he inwardly realizes that a meaningful life, | 22:55 | |
| a life, which is lived on purpose, | 22:59 | |
| demands a grounding in certainty. | 23:03 | |
| Perhaps the Bible can help us. | 23:08 | |
| We must begin by narrowing the Gulf between our world | 23:11 | |
| and that of the New Testament. | 23:16 | |
| If we have implied that our age is totally sophisticated | 23:20 | |
| and that the Christians of the first century | 23:25 | |
| were wholly naive, | 23:28 | |
| that is not true. | 23:31 | |
| We would do well to listen to the New Testament scholars who | 23:33 | |
| tell us that there is much more to this story of Pentecost | 23:37 | |
| than the memory of simple Galilean peasants. | 23:42 | |
| The story as it is presently told an Acts | 23:49 | |
| is based upon an early Jerusalem tradition, | 23:53 | |
| which has already been supercharged | 23:57 | |
| with theological doctrine. | 23:59 | |
| Peter's sermon, we are told, | 24:03 | |
| reflects the developed theological stance | 24:04 | |
| of an important sector within the early Christian Church. | 24:08 | |
| Nor are we right in assuming that ours is the only age | 24:14 | |
| given to skepticism. | 24:19 | |
| Peter began his sermon by countering the skeptics who | 24:22 | |
| assumed that the disciples were filled with new wine | 24:26 | |
| and nothing more. | 24:30 | |
| And point by point, | 24:32 | |
| the strong sermon argues hard | 24:33 | |
| to convince those who doubt the truth. | 24:37 | |
| Now, many things happened on Pentecost, | 24:42 | |
| but the writer of the account did not care to provide us | 24:46 | |
| with all of the detail. | 24:50 | |
| He simply notes that the date was Pentecost. | 24:53 | |
| They were all together in one place. | 24:58 | |
| Then writing as a theologian, rather than a historian, | 25:03 | |
| he calls our attention to the cymbals, the wind, the fire, | 25:08 | |
| the indwelling of the spirit, | 25:12 | |
| guiding the reader to interpret this New Testament event | 25:14 | |
| as parallel to the theophanies of the Old Testament, | 25:18 | |
| guiding the Christian in every age, | 25:24 | |
| to understand the spirit filled men of New Testament. | 25:26 | |
| As heirs of the charismatic heroes who spoke for God | 25:30 | |
| from the pages of the Old Testament. | 25:35 | |
| The story as it is presented is par from being | 25:40 | |
| the simple memory of fisher folk, | 25:46 | |
| who could easily believe fantastic notions | 25:49 | |
| about the exaltation of their Lord. | 25:52 | |
| As it is now understood, | 25:55 | |
| it is a very sophisticated document | 25:57 | |
| with heavy stress on theological interpretation | 26:00 | |
| and very little concern for historical data. | 26:04 | |
| Yet it is written in a literary style, | 26:09 | |
| which begs the reader to speculate about those fishermen, | 26:13 | |
| a style which invites the reader to take his place beside | 26:20 | |
| the participants in the story, | 26:24 | |
| and be overwhelmed by the same spirit, | 26:27 | |
| which was poured out upon them. | 26:30 | |
| Who were the men present at the birthday of the church? | 26:35 | |
| When we ask this question, we think of men, | 26:39 | |
| very like ourselves. | 26:42 | |
| Peter was certainly there and others of the 12, | 26:45 | |
| James and John, | 26:50 | |
| the sons of thunder and that splendid prototype | 26:51 | |
| of all serious scholars, Thomas the doubter. | 26:56 | |
| What was the mood of those men | 27:05 | |
| as they recalled their life together with Jesus? | 27:09 | |
| Now, I doubt that it was a mood of simple-mindedness | 27:13 | |
| and confidence that prevailed. | 27:19 | |
| The book of Acts describes a rather pathetic scene | 27:23 | |
| on the Mount of Ascension. | 27:27 | |
| Like sheep without a shepherd | 27:29 | |
| men who had a vision of the risen Lord | 27:32 | |
| stood staring into heaven. | 27:36 | |
| Surely they were stunned and perplexed and sorrowed, | 27:41 | |
| filled with a sense of loss | 27:45 | |
| as that vision left them, | 27:47 | |
| with a sense of finality, | 27:50 | |
| that vision was gone and they stirred into having after it. | 27:53 | |
| They were told to go home to Jerusalem | 28:01 | |
| without their master. | 28:03 | |
| How could they continue their life together when | 28:05 | |
| the certifying vision that they had known | 28:08 | |
| had just been taken from them? | 28:14 | |
| We are told that they prayed. | 28:18 | |
| Surely in their prayers they recalled their life together | 28:21 | |
| with Jesus. | 28:25 | |
| They were all weak men. | 28:27 | |
| There was not among them even the faintest guess | 28:30 | |
| that out of their prayers and life | 28:35 | |
| together would come a new certainty. | 28:37 | |
| They had no hope in any confidence arising from themselves. | 28:42 | |
| They had all failed too often | 28:49 | |
| to think of self-confidence. | 28:53 | |
| Peter, the impetuous one | 28:57 | |
| afflicted with a foot in mouth failing | 29:01 | |
| who placed himself upon the line | 29:04 | |
| and pledged a fearless loyalty to Jesus | 29:08 | |
| only to deny him three times. | 29:12 | |
| Peter had no claim to certainty or self-confidence | 29:17 | |
| about anything. | 29:21 | |
| James and John, the sons of thunder, | 29:23 | |
| calculating followers of Christ | 29:26 | |
| who conspired to inherit the place of honor | 29:28 | |
| in his kingdom and to drink from the cup of the king. | 29:32 | |
| Oh how twisted and confused was their understanding, | 29:38 | |
| they had not sensed that the cup was filled with sorrow. | 29:42 | |
| How could they ever trust their own understanding again? | 29:48 | |
| And one of our scholar, Thomas, | 29:55 | |
| he would insist upon a hard test for any half-baked fellow | 29:57 | |
| within the group who presumed to speak for God. | 30:01 | |
| He was a doubter who had learned that even doubt | 30:04 | |
| is not dependable. | 30:08 | |
| In spite of their self doubts, however, | 30:12 | |
| the disciples continued steadfast in their prayer. | 30:15 | |
| For their life together, somehow contained to reality | 30:20 | |
| that they could not deny or turn their back upon. | 30:24 | |
| And as they prayed, | 30:30 | |
| they most certainly must've read the scriptures. | 30:32 | |
| They read about the life of Moses. | 30:36 | |
| The feast of Pentecost itself and the ancient world | 30:39 | |
| celebrated Moses and the giving of the law. | 30:44 | |
| Their experience was described in terms of fire. | 30:48 | |
| And they were thoroughly familiar with the story of Moses | 30:53 | |
| at the burning bush. | 30:57 | |
| His mood was not unlike their own, | 31:00 | |
| driven from his former privileged post | 31:03 | |
| because of compassion for his fellow Hebrews, | 31:07 | |
| which led him to kill an Egyptian. | 31:11 | |
| He fled, he fled to Midian. | 31:15 | |
| At the burning bush, | 31:19 | |
| he came with all of his concerns for his people | 31:22 | |
| and the burning bush, | 31:26 | |
| those concerns were authenticated | 31:27 | |
| by a frustrating sort of certainty. | 31:31 | |
| Moses at the burning bush was convinced that he had met God | 31:36 | |
| and that is concern to free the Hebrew slaves | 31:41 | |
| was also God's concern. | 31:44 | |
| Moses was certain | 31:48 | |
| that God had called him to free his people, | 31:50 | |
| but he was not at all certain about how this could be done. | 31:54 | |
| Some of the most delightful literary vignettes | 31:58 | |
| in the Old Testament, | 32:01 | |
| describe the struggle of Moses with this certainty. | 32:03 | |
| He was always asking God how, | 32:09 | |
| he pleaded that he was slow of speech. | 32:12 | |
| As the Pharaoh's is heart hardened, | 32:14 | |
| he was constantly plagued by the sense that all of the | 32:16 | |
| miracles were just making matters much worse. | 32:19 | |
| But in the end, | 32:25 | |
| the certainty of the burning bush, prevailed. | 32:26 | |
| Now I suspect that the disciples in Jerusalem | 32:32 | |
| who read these stories, long themselves for a burning bush, | 32:36 | |
| but Moses was a special sort of hero. | 32:41 | |
| And they were just fishermen. | 32:44 | |
| And so they read on, | 32:47 | |
| they were familiar, | 32:51 | |
| not only with the stories (inaudible) too, | 32:52 | |
| but they were familiar as well with those stories | 32:56 | |
| in the book of Judges, | 32:58 | |
| stories about men filled with the spirit of God. | 33:00 | |
| Let me remind you of just one. | 33:05 | |
| It's one of my favorite stories. | 33:08 | |
| It's the story of the hero Gideon. | 33:11 | |
| And this story would tell the men of New Testament, | 33:16 | |
| something about the nature of God's spirit and its presence | 33:21 | |
| among them. | 33:25 | |
| Gideon lived a very decisive time in his country's history. | 33:27 | |
| They were threatened by a foreign aggressor, | 33:31 | |
| men from Midian. | 33:33 | |
| Men who had invented a secret weapon. | 33:35 | |
| They had domesticated the camel and with their military | 33:37 | |
| might, they swept all over the ancient near east. | 33:41 | |
| Year by year, they invaded Judah, | 33:44 | |
| year by year, they harvested the crops | 33:49 | |
| that the people of Israel had worked so hard to produce. | 33:53 | |
| Our story opens in the midst of this crisis. | 33:58 | |
| And the young man Gideon is beating out his wheat, | 34:02 | |
| hidden in a wine vat, | 34:05 | |
| so that he will not be found by the invaders. | 34:07 | |
| And as he is hidden. | 34:11 | |
| He complains. | 34:13 | |
| And the man of the Lord appeared to him. | 34:15 | |
| And Gideon said to him, | 34:18 | |
| pray, sir, if the Lord is with us, | 34:21 | |
| why then is all this be befallen us? | 34:26 | |
| And where are all his wonderful deeds, | 34:30 | |
| which our fathers recounted to us, saying did not the Lord | 34:33 | |
| bring us up from Egypt? | 34:38 | |
| But now the Lord has cast us off | 34:40 | |
| and given us into the hand of Midian. | 34:42 | |
| And then a strange thing happened. | 34:46 | |
| The Lord turned to him and said, said to Midian, | 34:49 | |
| go in this might of yours | 34:55 | |
| and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. | 34:57 | |
| Do I not send you? | 35:01 | |
| Gideon's reply like many of the heroes of the past | 35:04 | |
| very much like Moses | 35:09 | |
| was immediately to protest. | 35:11 | |
| How can I go? | 35:14 | |
| I am the weakest of all the clans. | 35:16 | |
| And when the Midianites came, | 35:21 | |
| we are told that the Lord poured out his spirit upon Gideon, | 35:23 | |
| and he called the armies together. | 35:29 | |
| And still, he was not satisfied. | 35:33 | |
| Still he had to test the Lord with a fleece, | 35:36 | |
| to find out whether the spirit of God was really within him. | 35:39 | |
| I suspect that some of the same misgivings | 35:47 | |
| were found among the disciples in that early church. | 35:51 | |
| Although the disciples were influenced by the Old Testament, | 35:56 | |
| influenced in such a way that they described what happened | 36:00 | |
| to them as fire and the spirit poured out. | 36:03 | |
| I do not believe that that is what finally persuaded them. | 36:08 | |
| It was their own experience, | 36:14 | |
| their own life with Christ. | 36:17 | |
| Thought they were a weak men, | 36:20 | |
| though they were failures, | 36:22 | |
| thought hey were sinners, | 36:23 | |
| their own experience with Christ built up within them. | 36:25 | |
| It was something that they could not let go of | 36:32 | |
| and as it grew greater and greater, | 36:37 | |
| even that was not enough | 36:40 | |
| for it is the testimony of the early church. | 36:42 | |
| That man is not persuaded in and of himself, | 36:47 | |
| but that at a critical moment, | 36:51 | |
| God sends a spirit, | 36:54 | |
| a spirit from on high, | 36:57 | |
| a gift which persuades one | 36:59 | |
| of that, which is authentic with in his own life. | 37:04 | |
| Oh, we cannot let this story of Pentecost go | 37:11 | |
| as simply a tale of ancient times. | 37:15 | |
| For I am persuaded | 37:19 | |
| that the same spirit is at work in the church | 37:21 | |
| and in the university today. | 37:26 | |
| We are in the same plight as those men of old, | 37:30 | |
| confused and perplexed | 37:33 | |
| unwilling to say with certainty that anything is right. | 37:36 | |
| And then our confusion and perplexity, | 37:41 | |
| I believe God might find a time to speak to us. | 37:45 | |
| There are two groups of people here | 37:50 | |
| to whom I would like to speak. | 37:53 | |
| For I believe that those young men and women among us, | 37:56 | |
| who as Christians are pondering their future course, | 38:02 | |
| might do well to believe firmly that God is with them | 38:06 | |
| and that which they truly feel within | 38:11 | |
| is the tugging of His holy spirit. | 38:14 | |
| I have great compassion, | 38:19 | |
| great sympathy as we all do | 38:22 | |
| for the young men who upon graduation | 38:25 | |
| must face a choice of being drafted. | 38:29 | |
| This is not only Pentecost, | 38:35 | |
| but this is Memorial day as well. | 38:38 | |
| I remembered how much simpler life was many years ago. | 38:42 | |
| 30 years ago on Memorial day, | 38:47 | |
| young children heard the drums | 38:50 | |
| and ran to join the parade. | 38:53 | |
| We marched to the cemeteries and there, | 38:56 | |
| the dead of our noble wars were honored. | 38:59 | |
| And all of the course of America | 39:05 | |
| and every one of its international involvements | 39:08 | |
| was held up to be glorious | 39:12 | |
| and to be good. | 39:14 | |
| Those were the good old days. | 39:17 | |
| But man is wiser now. | 39:19 | |
| Man can no longer speak on Memorial day | 39:22 | |
| as once man did. | 39:28 | |
| I have, in my hand, | 39:31 | |
| a page from a pamphlet | 39:34 | |
| prepared by the school districts of Wisconsin, | 39:37 | |
| the Memorial day annual for 1933. | 39:42 | |
| And in this, | 39:47 | |
| we have excerpts glorifying American involvement | 39:48 | |
| in the Spanish-American War. | 39:55 | |
| Let me read a few of these excerpts. | 39:59 | |
| We are told, | 40:03 | |
| and we are to tell children in Wisconsin schools, | 40:05 | |
| the Spanish War was important. | 40:10 | |
| Not only for its victory over Spain, | 40:12 | |
| but because it healed for all time | 40:16 | |
| the still open wounds of the Civil War | 40:19 | |
| and made the United States | 40:23 | |
| a recognized world power overnight, | 40:26 | |
| the men of the north and the men of the south, | 40:31 | |
| the boys whose fathers wore gray uniforms | 40:34 | |
| and the boys whose fathers wore blue uniforms | 40:37 | |
| during the Civil War conflict, | 40:40 | |
| march shoulder to shoulder in their consecration | 40:43 | |
| to a noble purpose and a common endeavor. | 40:47 | |
| The Philippines became our possession. | 40:52 | |
| Puerto Rico was out as our responsibility. | 40:55 | |
| Cuba was made free and the Republic established. | 40:59 | |
| Few, if any of the powers of Europe | 41:03 | |
| believed us when we said our objective | 41:06 | |
| was a humanitarian one. | 41:10 | |
| We prove to the world that a great country | 41:13 | |
| was willing to sacrifice men and treasure | 41:16 | |
| that other men, not their own might be free. | 41:19 | |
| Now, here in this university, | 41:25 | |
| the students for whom I am concerned | 41:29 | |
| have that studied war in a different bite, | 41:32 | |
| and it is not so clear to them as it once was. | 41:35 | |
| I feel that as Christians, | 41:42 | |
| they must struggle with this problem. | 41:45 | |
| They must struggle with the problem | 41:49 | |
| of their own involvement. | 41:50 | |
| And I would only give them the message | 41:54 | |
| of this morning's text. | 41:57 | |
| The message which tells us | 41:59 | |
| that with Pentecost, the spirit of God, | 42:01 | |
| which moved into the uncertainty | 42:07 | |
| of the early Christian Church | 42:10 | |
| and brought to the hearts and minds of those Christians, | 42:15 | |
| the gift of certainty. | 42:19 | |
| That spirit is available to you today. | 42:21 | |
| As you tried to decide between patriotism, | 42:27 | |
| as you try to determine what form of involvement | 42:33 | |
| is the highest for you. | 42:38 | |
| I am concerned as well for seniors who are graduating. | 42:43 | |
| I think of so many of our | 42:50 | |
| choice young ladies who come to Duke University | 42:52 | |
| chosen from the top of the class, | 42:57 | |
| they spend four years here at the university, | 43:00 | |
| competing with other students and in the competition, | 43:05 | |
| they are humbled and they come to their senior year | 43:08 | |
| with great uncertainty. | 43:14 | |
| Many of them will graduate this year | 43:17 | |
| and they wonder if there is a place in the world for them. | 43:21 | |
| And if they are Christians, | 43:26 | |
| they are wondering this matter in prayer. | 43:29 | |
| They are wondering whether it is better | 43:33 | |
| to seek a secure job | 43:36 | |
| or to put their life upon the line | 43:39 | |
| for the needy causes of the world. | 43:44 | |
| The spirit is available to you. | 43:48 | |
| As you ponder these problems, | 43:52 | |
| it will not explain to you what will happen if you make this | 43:55 | |
| choice for poverty and for need today. | 43:58 | |
| It will not assure you what you will be like | 44:03 | |
| 20 years from now. | 44:05 | |
| But if you ask God in prayer, | 44:08 | |
| the gift of the spirit is a gift of certainty | 44:13 | |
| that this concern you have within your heart | 44:18 | |
| is also God's concern. | 44:22 | |
| Let us pray. | 44:27 | |
| All mighty God. | 44:32 | |
| We thank thee for the power of a spirit, | 44:37 | |
| which has touched each heart here. | 44:43 | |
| With some nudging inclination | 44:49 | |
| to do that, which we know is God's own will. | 44:54 | |
| Grant, Oh God, that within each of us | 45:02 | |
| thy spirit might prevail. | 45:08 | |
| (choir singing) | 45:20 | |
| - | Here we offer him present time to the Lord, | 1:00:30 |
| our silver and our gold, | 1:00:33 | |
| the symbol of ourselves | 1:00:36 | |
| to be a reasonable, | 1:00:38 | |
| holy and lively sacrifice unto thee | 1:00:40 | |
| through Jesus Christ, | 1:00:45 | |
| our Lord. | 1:00:47 | |
| And the love of God, | 1:00:52 | |
| the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ | 1:00:55 | |
| and the fellowship of the holy spirit | 1:00:59 | |
| be with you all this day and forever more. | 1:01:03 | |
| (choir singing) | 1:01:14 |
