Herbert Gezork - "The Dangerous Gift of Freedom" (April 26, 1959); Creighton Lacy - "The Conversions of Peter" (May 3, 1959) / Duke Chapel Recordings / Duke Digital Repository

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May the words of my mouth

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and the meditations of our hearts

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be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord

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our strength and our Redeemer.

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Amen.

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It is told that a lady arriving in Boston

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and descending from Back Bay Station

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saw a taxi idling at the curb

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and called out to the taxi driver,

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"Are you free, good man?"

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And he answered back immediately,

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"Lady, Plato has said many years ago that no man is free."

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While I do not know if this story is true,

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or if it is invented by some Bostonian

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to prove that in this hub of the universe,

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even the taxi drivers read Plato.

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But the question is, was he right?

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There's a great deal of talking and writing

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going on about freedom,

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but how free are we really?

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Those of you who have taken a lick or two at philosophy

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will remember that

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there are two opposing theories about this matter

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called determinism and indeterminism.

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Perhaps, they are best described

1:40

that one quotes from poetry,

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here is Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat.

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"Life's but a chequer-board of nights and days

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Where Destiny with men for Pieces plays:

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Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

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And one by one back in the Closet lays."

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This is determinism,

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saying that man really is not free

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even if he imagines he is,

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that his choices are really nothing

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but the product of factors and forces beyond his will.

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And are we not living in a time in which

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such theories of determinism have had

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and are having a great vogue?

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It's the biological determinism of the Nazis

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who just had their day

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who said that race and blood determines everything

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and there by faith,

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the Germanic Nordic race destined to superiority

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and the low Jewish race destined to inferiority

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and all this belief led

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to many of the tragic things that happened.

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This economic determinism of Marxist communism saying that

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ultimately material and economic factors on foster shape,

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not only the fate of the individual,

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but of societies, of cultures, of civilizations as well.

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There's a great vogue of psychological determinism today

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saying that all our overt actions

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are merely the keyboard on which the invisible hands

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of our subconscious place get tunes, which are our lives.

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And of course, all of us are still familiar with the

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determinism of our radical Calvinism which says that

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God is so powerful and so strong

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that man really has no choice whatever

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even about his salvation or damnation.

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But if all of this or any of this were true,

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if we are nothing but the play balls

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in the hands of powers and forces

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that are stronger and greater than ourselves,

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then not only freedom would be a hollow word,

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but also our model of responsibility,

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our spiritual endeavor.

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Then there could be no guilt, no sense of guilt,

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no sin.

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Or that's the opposite.

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Again, a poem,

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William Ernest Henley's famous "Invictus"

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in which the last verse runs like this,

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"It matters not how straight the gate,

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How charged with punishments the scroll,

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I am the master of my fate,

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I am the captain of my soul."

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Sounds very brave, but is it true again?

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Whoever is the full master of his fate.

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Are we not on all sides bounded in

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and limited by factors and circumstances

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that are beyond our making and control?

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None of us had a choice whether we

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wanted to come into this world

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to be men or women,

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to live in the 16th century in the 20th.

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Most of you born into America, I born into Germany,

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we had no choice about that.

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Some of us coming into the world black, some white,

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no choice about that.

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This face I got, I have never liked it, I never will,

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but it's the only one I got

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and I can't do anything about it.

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If I were a lady,

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perhaps temporarily and superficially I could.

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But even then, it's still the same old face.

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Then perhaps it's not the truth somewhere in between,

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there are factors that determine our fate,

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many that set limits to our freedom,

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but within that frame,

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there is an area in which we exert our freedom.

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Ours is the freedom to ask questions about ourselves,

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about the universe

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so which we are taught about the meaning of our existence.

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Ours is the freedom to accept or reject

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those categorical imperatives of which Kant spoke.

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Ours is the freedom to make decisions,

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to make choices,

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some of them having long range significance

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and consequences in our lives.

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I always remember here

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the sign that a traveler found up in Northern Canada

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at a cross-road in the middle of winter

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where it gave the different directions

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and then underneath it said,

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"Choose your route carefully.

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You will be in it for the next 20 miles."

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This is the way life is.

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Ours is the freedom to dream

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and to transform our dreams into reality.

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Although we are creatures of this earth,

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animal-like in so many ways

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and almost every moment reminded painfully

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of this our earth boundedness

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yet there is at the same time that in us

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which transcends the animalic in us.

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That is why the Bible says of man,

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"Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels."

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Here in this freedom lies the ground for man's greatness,

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his grandeur,

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but here also lies the ground for his misery and tragedy.

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Does not here lie also one at least

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of the answers upon the question so often asked,

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if God is a God of goodness and love,

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why is there so much evil and suffering?

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As you look out upon this world,

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so many curses, hunger, despair, suffering.

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Do you not realize that much of this

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is the result of man's wrong choices,

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his false decisions, individually made or collectively made?

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And so the question then comes,

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could God not have created a world

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without the possibility of making the wrong choices

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and bringing upon men these dire consequences?

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And here the answer is,

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this is the price which we have to pay for our freedom

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which lifts us up off the animals,

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without which we would be nothing

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but spiritual and moral robots.

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There can be no beauty, unless there is ugliness.

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There can be no good unless there is evil.

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Gilbert Chesterton once exclaimed,

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"I demand the right to be dammed."

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And however provocative this sounds,

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I agree with him.

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I want a word that would give us a Moses,

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and the Francis of Assisi, and a Gandhi, and a Schweitzer,

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and above all, a Jesus of Nazareth.

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But I know that we'll have to be a word

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which will also have its Judas,

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its Jezebel,

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its Nero,

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its Hitler,

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its Stalin.

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There would be no evil without freedom,

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but there also would be no goodness without freedom.

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So, freedom is a dangerous thing.

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Is it any wonder that men, again and again,

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have been not only willing,

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but eager to give up their freedom?

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Dostoevsky and his Brothers Karamazov

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had the grand intuit to say,

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"Believe me, man knows of no more pressing concern

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than to find one to whom he may give up as fast as possible

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that gift of freedom with which

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the miserable creature was born."

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And another great Russian Nikolaj Bajev has said,

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"Men are slaves because freedom is difficult

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and slavery is easy."

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And is history not full of examples of people

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that were frightened by freedom,

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trying to escape back into slavery?

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They where the Hebrews.

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After centuries of oppression and slavery in Egypt,

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a liberator and leader had arisen through them

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in the person of Moses

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and let them out of bondage in Egypt into freedom.

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But now they are in the desert

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and freedom, first,

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such a heavy whim proves to be difficult,

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full of insecurity and peril

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and so they say wistfully to each other,

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"Were it not better for us to return into Egypt,

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better to be a slave in Egypt

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than a free man in the wilderness,

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better a full stomach under the whip

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than an empty stomach under the stars?"

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I cannot help thinking here of my own native Germany

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between World Wars One and Two.

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How well I remember those years when I was a student

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as most of you are now.

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Surely, we had freedom, we had civil rights,

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we had democracy,

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but we had also hunger, cold, no work, no security.

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And so like a modern Pied Piper of Hamelin,

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Hitler came with his luring call, follow me.

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I will give you work, bread, security,

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and thrown in for good measure, glory, power, empire

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and the siren songs fell upon open, willing years.

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And so the flight from freedom began

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and soon the slogans appeared everywhere,

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(speaking in foreign language)

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leader, command, we obey.

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One leader, one will, one people

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and freedom had become a word of scorn,

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something for the egged heads, the dreamers,

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but nothing for the realists.

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This is the perpetual view of totalitarianism.

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And we know from experiences in only recent years,

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even in this land, born and bred in freedom,

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how in times of strain and stress,

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many are willing to sell their precious birthright

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of freedom down the river.

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But this temptation exists even in religion.

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How hard freedom there can be,

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how lonely it can make one.

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As you wrestle with the deep questions,

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the problems of reason and faith,

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of belief and unbelief, of guilt and forgiveness,

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of time and eternity,

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how tempting it is to flee into the warm comforting shelter

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of some authoritarianism,

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the authority of a church to be obeyed unconditionally,

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the authority of a crate to be accepted unquestioningly,

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the authority of a book to be believed literally

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from cover to cover,

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is that not also a flight from freedom

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Because freedom is too difficult, too dangerous?

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And so religion can become a prison house

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cashing man's soul,

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instead of being wings, it becomes a weight

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making a spiritual robot out of man.

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But man is made for freedom

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and he cannot rest content for long in any enslavement,

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social, political, or spiritual.

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It may be years,

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it may be centuries,

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but some day a Martin Luther comes

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and nails his 95 Theses to the church door

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and says, "Standing before all the powerful of that time,

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here I stand, I can do no otherwise

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God had me striking a blow for freedom."

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And so someday a little band of brave men and women

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sail in a frail ship to mayor flower

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across the dangerous seas

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to establish a new life in freedom.

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And so some days, students and workers in Hungary

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with their bare fists, fight against tanks and armored cars,

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tragically beaten down, yet freedom glowing in their hearts.

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But one question remains,

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what freedom?

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What freedom?

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There are two kinds of freedom.

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Imagine here is a tree saying to itself,

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"I want to be free,

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free from the soil that holds my roots in its grasp

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and imprisons me and ties me down."

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And so this tree pulls up it's roots and then it is free.

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This is the freedom of uprootedness,

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the freedom of self destruction,

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the freedom of death.

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Imagine another tree,

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accepting the conditions set for it existentially

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by its nature,

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sending therefore its roots deep down into the soil,

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being nourished by it, it starts growing,

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thus fulfilling it true destiny.

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This is the freedom of proper functioning.

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It is the freedom of self fulfillment,

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the freedom of life.

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Are not many people like that imaginary tree

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that wants to be free,

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forever talking about their right to do as they want to?

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Aldous Huxley in his novel, "Eyeless in Gaza"

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describes people like that,

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highly educated, greatly sophisticated,

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utterly emancipated from all the old taboos

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but at the same time pathetically empty, aimless,

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drifting along on the shifting tides

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of their ever-changing whims,

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I might paraphrase Henry Thoreau's word,

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living lives of noisy despair.

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In those days at least,

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they seemed to have lived lives of quiet disappear

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but the despair is becoming very noisy in our time.

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How much of the unhappiness,

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the psychological disorder, the neurosis

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may go back to this desire for a false freedom,

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the freedom of uprootedness.

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And is this not most marvelously described

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in the parable of the prodigal son,

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"I want to be free." He says to his father.

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So, he pulls up his roots,

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travels into a far country,

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lives a life of aimlessness.

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The only quest, the quest for new thrills,

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the only authority, the authority of the passing whim,

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and so he loses literally his humanity

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and sinks down to the level of the swine.

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And yet underneath the shrilled dissonances

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of his tormented existence,

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here rings a little clear silver bell,

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"This is not what I was made for.

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This is not the kind of freedom I really want."

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And then he remembers the father's house.

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"That is where I belong.

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That is the place for which I'm destined.

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There is my real freedom."

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And he arose and came to his father.

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And in response to his father's love

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and in obedience to his father's will,

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he finds true freedom,

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the freedom of proper functioning,

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the freedom of self fulfillment,

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the freedom of life.

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And so we are once more back to our taxi driver's quotation

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from Plato, "No man is free."

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This is the great paradox of freedom.

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Man having struggled for his freedom, his self assertion,

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then always rendering it to some loyalty.

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It may be the loyalty of a false ideal,

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a degrading purpose, a self destructive end

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or it can be the loyalty of a higher ideal,

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a noble purpose, a creative end.

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When Moses stood up before Pharaoh and said to him,

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"Let my people go,"

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he wanted, not merely to free them

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from the service to the Egyptians,

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but bind them to a higher service.

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In place of the slave laws of Pharaoh,

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he gave them the commandments of God.

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And this leads us into the very heart

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and center of our Christian faith.

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Namely, the conviction that there is no true freedom for man

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except in his surrender to the will and purpose of God.

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And it is our faith

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that this will and purpose has been disclosed to us

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uniquely and supremely in Jesus Christ

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who came to show us not only who God is,

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but also who we are to be.

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In following Him, we find our true destiny

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which is our true freedom.

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That is what Jesus meant when he said,

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"You shall know the truth

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and the truth shall make you free."

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Let us pray.

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(indistinct)

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Guard our heart from the fear of freedom

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which denies our human birthright.

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Guard us from the false freedom of uprootedness

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which leads to despair

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and self destruction.

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Bind us to thee, O God

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in whose will lies our destiny

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and in whose service

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we find perfect freedom.

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And now may the lord-

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Did you ever drive behind the car with a placard saying,

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"You must be born a new."?

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My impious reaction to that situation last week

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was to figure that the driver needed a radical conversion

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in his driving habits.

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Have you ever had a loquacious seat mate inquire,

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"Brother, are you saved"?

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Have you ever heard a glowing account of the precise hour

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and day of the new birth?

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Most mainline Protestants are resentful

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of these people and these tactics,

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perhaps because we have a subconscious jealousy and guilt

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that we are never quite so sure as that.

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We know that St. Paul had a blinding transforming experience

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on the Damascus road,

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we know that John Wesley felt his heart strangely warmed

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at quarter after 9:00 on Sunday, May 24th, 1738.

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But Paul admitted doing things that he did not will

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and not doing things that he ought to have done.

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Wesley in his journal,

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just a few sentences after the Aldersgate account wrote,

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"After I returned home,

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I was much buffeted with temptations,

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but cried out and they fled away.

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They returned again and again."

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So, what profiteth a second birth?

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Besides these were the good old days.

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Our grandfathers had this kind of experience,

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but we are not so sentimental.

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If we were raised in a genuinely Christian home

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and attend Sunday school and church and youth fellowship,

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we are already Christians

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and we don't need someone else to ask us if we are saved.

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Nicodemus had a point.

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How can a man be born when he is old?

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Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb

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and be born?

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Now, perhaps he met that challenge literally

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as a satirical bar

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or perhaps it was a figurative inquiry,

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whether a ruler of the Jews,

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whether a representative of the Pharisees

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could really change his fundamental attitudes.

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We are all Pharisees.

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We are the regular church goers,

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the practicing Christians,

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faithful to our traditions and complacent in our goodness.

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Your fraternity brothers,

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sleeping off his Joe College hangover right now,

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perhaps needs to be born again, but not you.

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Jesus does not let us off so easily.

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"Truly, truly I say to you,

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unless one is born of water and the Spirit,

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he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

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That which is born of the flesh is flesh

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and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

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So, it is wrong to ignore the scripture

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and to deny the need for a second birth,

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but it is equally wrong to assume that the new birth,

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that a conversion experience is final and sufficient.

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We need to be asked whether we have been born again.

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The relentless questioner has a valid question,

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but he usually makes three mistakes.

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First of all, his methods antagonize rather than persuade.

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Second, he probably claims that

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he has been saved once for all.

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And third, the dramatic conversion which he is describing

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is very often, far from a turning together

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of the whole man toward Christ and his way of life.

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A few years ago, a study was made of the converts

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of the Billy Graham crusade in Greensboro.

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And the interviews were being held

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with those who had made decisions for Christ,

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some of whose attitudes might be labeled unredeemed.

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And one of these people being interviewed

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suddenly caught on to the way the questioning was going

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and he said,

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"What are we doing talking about grace?

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I thought we were talking about my religious experience."

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Perhaps part of the trouble is that

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we need to read more of John 3,

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beyond the words to Nicodemus, "You must be born again."

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We need to go beyond the most familiar center

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of the entire scriptures, John 3:16

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to the last verses that were read this morning,

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whether this is part of the words of Jesus

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that should be in quotation marks

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or whether it is the keen insight of the gospel writer.

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"For everyone that does evil hates the light

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and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed.

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But he who does what is true comes to the light

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that it may be clearly seen that his deeds

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have been wrought in God."

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So one who is truly born again

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is recognized by his love of light and truth.

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Furthermore, he does what is true.

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Being saved is not an emotional flurry,

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it is an expression of the love of Christ in us.

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Nor is an emotional flurry inside of us being saved

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unless our deeds are wrought in God.

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Christianity Today, a magazine that frequently pleads

28:07

for twice born man, acknowledged in a recent article that

28:11

quote, a true born again experience is not the real answer

28:15

to highway safety or polio or communism, unquote.

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To repeat then,

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it is wrong to deny that we need to be born again,

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in a very deep sense of that phrase.

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It is also wrong to think that having been born again,

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we have arrived at a state of salvation.

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Now in simple and dogmatic form, I have preached my sermon

28:46

and those who are fully convinced may go home at once.

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But for the majority of you

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who still seem somewhat hesitant,

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let me illustrate from the life of Saint Peter.

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You all know something about him,

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Simon, the big fishermen,

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Cephas the rock,

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Peter, the prime pontiff of the Roman church.

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You remember that he tried to walk on the lake

29:17

and almost sunk,

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that he had a mother-in-law,

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and that he denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed.

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Despite these handicaps,

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Peter became a courageous leader of the early church,

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a saint and the martyr.

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Somewhere along the line,

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he must have had a conversion experience.

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Sometime in his erratic life,

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he must have been born again to become a new man in Christ.

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When?

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Where?

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How?

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You may wish to add or subtract a number

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or a subheading here or there,

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but I would suggest that there are

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at least 10 conversions of Peter recorded in our scriptures.

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Yes, 10 in the gospels and in Acts.

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And to use a famous mountaineering epitaph,

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he died climbing.

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He had not yet arrived.

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First of course, there was the call.

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The four gospels differ in detail.

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It does not matter whether Peter was fishing alone

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or mending nets with his colleagues,

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it does not matter whether he heard the summons directly

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or was brought to the master by his brother Andrew.

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What counts is that he heard the invitation of Jesus,

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"'Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.'

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And immediately they left their nets and followed him."

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This is what conversion means to most of us,

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the decision to follow Christ,

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to leave our concerns and go where he leads us.

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It may mean a change in vocation, as well as in purpose.

31:09

It may lead to distant places and even to martyrdom.

31:14

But for every Christian, being born again in this sense

31:18

is only the beginning, not the end.

31:23

Before long, a true follower becomes also an apostle,

31:28

a missionary, a sent one.

31:32

Jesus called the 12 and sent them forth

31:35

to cast out unclean spirits and heal every disease

31:38

and every infirmity.

31:41

Notice, they are not yet ready to preach

31:43

and interpret the gospel.

31:45

It was a limited authority bestowed temporarily by Christ.

31:47

Now, we have no hand of the effect of this mission

31:53

on the disciples.

31:56

Peter's name as usual appeared at the head of the list

31:57

and we can assume that this experience

32:01

deepened his understanding of human need

32:04

and of his own dependence on divine aid to meet that need.

32:08

That is a second conversion experience for many people.

32:14

The third is described only by Matthew.

32:19

In a storm, Jesus came to the disciples across the water.

32:23

They were frightened and even doubted.

32:27

Peter challenged him saying,

32:29

"'Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water.'

32:31

And Jesus said, 'Come.'

32:35

But Peter saw the storm and was afraid

32:38

and he began to sink and he cried, 'Lord, save me.'"

32:41

That was the impulsive Peter,

32:46

the one who frequently leaped before he looked

32:47

and obviously his motives were mixed.

32:51

He was not only eager to be with Jesus

32:54

and to test the master,

32:56

He was perhaps most eager to demonstrate

32:59

that he could share Christ's power,

33:01

and in that he dismally failed.

33:04

We are often like Peter.

33:08

We lose faith when we find ourselves inadequate

33:10

to meet the storm.

33:14

We appeal for rescue

33:16

when we did not trust Christ sufficiently

33:18

to lead us through in the first place.

33:21

How often Jesus says to us as he said to Peter,

33:24

"Oh man of little faith, why did you doubt?"

33:28

And yet this was a conversion experience

33:34

for Peter and the others because it is written

33:37

that after the storm, they worshiped him and said,

33:39

"Truly you are the son of God."

33:42

Sometimes it takes a crisis to bring us to worship him.

33:46

We acknowledge his sovereignty

33:51

only when we feel ourselves sinking in the tempest

33:52

and this too is an essential factor in being born again,

33:56

to surrender our weakness to his strength,

34:00

our helplessness to his mercy.

34:04

The fourth conversion was a casual conversation

34:10

at Caesarea Philippi.

34:12

"Who do men say that I am?"

34:14

And dissatisfied with the labels of John the Baptist

34:18

or Elijah or Jeremiah,

34:21

Jesus pushed the question, "Who do you say that I am?"

34:24

And Peter responded with a confession

34:29

that has changed the history of the world,

34:31

"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

34:33

This was a turning point, a new birth,

34:39

not only for Peter, but for the whole world.

34:41

Paul Tillich in his second volume

34:45

of systematic theology says,

34:47

"Christianity was born,

34:49

not with the birth of the man who was called Jesus,

34:51

but in the moment in which one of his followers

34:54

was driven to say to him, 'Thou art, the Christ.'"

34:57

We need no argue whether the reply of Jesus,

35:03

"You are Peter and on this rock, I will build my church,"

35:06

referred to the man or to the confession.

35:11

Paul and James may well have contested

35:14

the keys of the kingdom in later years,

35:16

but it is important in tracing the spiritual growth of Peter

35:19

to remember that the rock of faith and recognition

35:23

becomes, in the very next paragraph,

35:27

a stumbling block to the Lord,

35:29

"For you are not on the side of God, but a man."

35:32

We too may make the supreme confession

35:37

and then become an obstacle to him

35:40

because we are still in our hearts

35:43

on the side of men, rather than God.

35:46

And then there is the transfiguration,

35:51

the emotional mountain top experience

35:54

where God confirmed what Peter and the others

35:56

had already confessed that this was his beloved Son.

35:59

And in a moment of ecstasy,

36:03

they fell on their faces and were filled with awe.

36:05

Similar moments come to us at Twilight vespers,

36:10

when the deepest organ notes

36:15

reverberate through this chapel,

36:16

in the igniting words of the Bible or of some wise teacher

36:21

or of some beloved friend,

36:25

we too may rekindle our spark of faith and dedication.

36:27

We too may receive directly from God

36:31

the assurance and confirmation

36:35

of what we had learned in earlier conversions.

36:36

But awe and wonder quickly fade,

36:41

emotional rebirth is the most shallow and transitory kind.

36:44

And too soon, we are back on the draft planes

36:49

lacking the healing power of faith

36:52

and arguing over who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

36:55

Peter by now was more convinced of his own loyalty

37:00

and of the Christ he followed.

37:03

At the last supper, he asserted belligerently,

37:05

"Even if I must die with you,

37:08

I will not deny you.

37:10

I am ready to go with you to prison and to death."

37:11

Yet, a few hours later in Gethsemane,

37:17

he failed his Lord by falling asleep

37:20

when he was asked to watch.

37:23

And this meant not only that he was physically tired,

37:28

but that he still failed to grasp the full significance

37:33

of his Lord's suffering

37:37

for no matter how many times we are born again,

37:39

we cannot really share the pain of others

37:42

until we pass through the valley of temptation

37:45

and the spiritual agony ourselves.

37:49

And Peter's trial was nearer than he guessed.

37:52

Then came the sixth

37:57

conversion in Peter's denial.

38:01

When he realized how completely he had betrayed his Lord

38:04

and broken his own vows, he went out and wept bitterly.

38:07

And this inner cleansing,

38:12

this penitential tear is a familiar conversion experience.

38:14

Paul, on the Damascus road,

38:20

the convicts and the defiant ones

38:23

slugging out their bitterness and resentment,

38:26

Peter's vehement declaration of loyalty

38:29

and equally vehement denial,

38:32

are purgatives which showed his true self

38:34

and which produced a new self at the same time.

38:38

And yet, there is no mention of Peter at the crucifixion.

38:43

When the women brought for the disciples

38:47

the glad tidings of the resurrection,

38:49

they did not believe.

38:51

In fact, John says pointedly that

38:53

when Peter and a companion ran to the tomb,

38:55

the other disciple believed.

38:58

And a verse in Luke says,

39:01

"Peter saw the linen clothes and went home wondering."

39:02

And so the seventh conversion like the first

39:09

occurred beside the lakeside

39:12

while the disciples were fishing.

39:13

And Peter had to be told by his colleagues

39:15

that it was Jesus speaking to him.

39:18

And so he put on his clothes in a rather remarkable verse

39:20

and sprang into the sea.

39:26

But after breakfast,

39:29

when Jesus thrice questioned Peter's love

39:31

and thrice adjured him to feed his sheep,

39:35

Peter's rebirth was very weak

39:39

for he was not only grieved at Christ's persistence,

39:42

but at the very moment of the command, follow me,

39:47

he was jealously concerned about the status of his rival.

39:50

And then there was the ascension.

39:57

Peter headed the list of those

39:59

who returned after the Ascension to the upper room

40:01

with one accord to devote themselves to prayer.

40:03

Peter was who took the initiative

40:08

in drawing lots for a replacement to succeed Judas.

40:10

Peter it was, who emboldened

40:16

by his ninth conversion experience at Pentecost

40:18

stood up and testified to the multitudes

40:21

that this Jesus whom you crucified

40:25

has been made both Lord and Christ.

40:27

Many regard this as the climactic religious experience

40:32

of the disciples.

40:35

Many claim that the church began here

40:37

rather than at the baptism

40:40

or the confession

40:41

or the resurrection.

40:43

certainly for doubting wondering Peter,

40:45

it was a tremendous peak.

40:48

And we find him in succeeding paragraphs

40:50

healing the lame and sick by his very shadow,

40:53

raising Dorcas from the dead,

40:56

rebuking Ananias and Sapphira,

40:59

going to prison because we must obey God

41:01

rather than man.

41:04

Over and over we are told that

41:06

Peter was filled with the holy spirit

41:08

and those who marveled at the boldness of Peter and John

41:12

concluded only that

41:16

they had been with Jesus

41:18

for they did not cease to teach and to preach Jesus

41:20

as the Christ.

41:25

And then there is a final transforming experience recorded,

41:28

the vision of the animals, reptiles and birds

41:32

that Peter was commanded to kill and eat.

41:36

This so shocked the Orthodox Jew that he did not understand

41:39

until he had an invitation

41:43

to go and see Cornelius, a Gentile.

41:46

Now at Pentecost, Peter had assured the inquirers

41:49

that all they needed to do was to repent and be baptized.

41:53

"The promise is to all that are afar off," he said,

41:57

"as well as to those that are near,

42:00

to everyone whom the Lord, our God calls to him."

42:04

But this was theoretical.

42:09

God's tolerance didn't yet involve Peter.

42:11

Like "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell,

42:16

all people are equal,

42:19

but some people are more equal than others.

42:20

As one of the 12, as a faithful Jew,

42:23

Peter was obviously more equal than the Gentiles

42:27

and yet, as he described it later,

42:31

"God has shown me that I should not

42:34

call any man common or unclean.

42:37

Truly, I perceive that God shows no partiality,

42:40

but in every nation,

42:44

anyone who fears Him and does what is right

42:46

is acceptable to Him."

42:49

This conversion meant not only preaching and baptizing

42:51

those who were uncircumcised,

42:56

but it also meant living and eating with them.

42:58

Twice, Peter was someone before his peers in Jerusalem

43:03

to defend his actions.

43:06

And he said, "God made no distinction between us and them.

43:08

Who was I, that I could withstand God?"

43:13

Alas, how many of us

43:18

who claim to have received the second birth,

43:20

still withstand God at this one point?

43:24

10 conversions, various kinds and various degrees,

43:31

10 opportunities to try again

43:36

to obey the original summons by the lake shore, follow me.

43:39

How many other times Peter may have fallen

43:44

and scrambled up again?

43:46

We do not know.

43:47

But this is not the end of the story.

43:49

We do not know the end of the story

43:52

although tradition says that Peter was martyred in Rome.

43:54

But the scriptural account has one more episode

43:58

which Paul describes in his letter to the Galatians.

44:02

Peter slipped again.

44:06

After his courageous stand at Jerusalem,

44:09

after eating with the Gentiles in Antioch,

44:12

he backed down and drew apart

44:16

when advocates of the circumcision came from Jerusalem.

44:18

As the interpreter's Bible puts it,

44:23

"The man who quailed before a servant maid, quailed again."

44:25

And his hypocrisy not only betrayed his own resolutions,

44:32

but it led others, including Barnabas into insincerity.

44:35

And Paul was so shocked and horrified by this,

44:40

that he opposed Peter to his face

44:44

rebuking and reminding him,

44:46

we are justified by faith in Christ

44:48

and not by works of the law.

44:51

Here ended the story, sadly and tragically, perhaps.

44:56

This is no TV finale

45:01

in which the good guys are all vindicated

45:02

and the bad guys are all dead

45:05

for Peter was a good guy.

45:07

He had responded immediately to the summons of Jesus

45:10

and followed him.

45:13

He had gone forth on a divine mission.

45:15

He had affirmed that his master was in truth the Christ,

45:18

the Son of the living, God.

45:22

He had received power from on high

45:25

and declared the good news far and wide.

45:27

He had learned that no conversion is acceptable to God

45:31

if it does not include all men of all races and clans,

45:35

not as objects of charity, but as brothers in truth.

45:41

And still, Peter was weak,

45:46

still he was in desperate need to be born again.

45:49

For the hope of salvation is not in any human experience,

45:54

however emotional, however transforming,

45:57

the assurance of salvation is to be found

46:00

in the verses of Paul which follow

46:03

and to illuminate his reprimand to Peter.

46:05

"I have been crucified with Christ.

46:09

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,

46:12

and the life I now live in the flesh,

46:17

I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me

46:20

and gave himself for me."

46:24

Nowhere in this earthly pilgrimage

46:27

are we worthy of that love.

46:31

Nowhere can we presume to say I have arrived.

46:34

Nowhere can we announce as I completed fact,

46:38

I have been born again.

46:42

Edmund Perry, who was on this campus last weekend,

46:45

says in his latest book, "The Gospel in Dispute,"

46:49

"No man makes a complete change of his life all at once.

46:52

Any man who stays alive mentally, morally, and spiritually

46:56

cannot remain static."

47:02

We are always slipping and climbing.

47:05

We are always sinners standing in the need of grace.

47:09

We are rocks, which are often stumbling blocks.

47:14

Have you been born again

47:20

once?

47:23

Twice?

47:25

Thrice?

47:26

10 times?

47:28

A hundred times?

47:30

Still Christ continues to say

47:33

to each of us,

47:36

you must be born again

47:38

and again

47:42

and again.

47:44

Oh God of mercy and love and forgiveness,

47:54

we thank Thee that thou has continued to offer us new life

47:57

through Thy Son Jesus Christ.

48:01

Guard us against the complacent assumption

48:04

that we do not need to be born again by Thy Spirit

48:06

or that we have already reached perfection.

48:11

Teach us that to follow Thy Son Jesus Christ

48:15

is not merely to affirm our belief,

48:18

but to feed his sheep.

48:21

Now, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ

48:25

be with your spirit.

48:29

Herbert Gezork - "The Dangerous Gift of Freedom" (April 26, 1959); Creighton Lacy - "The Conversions of Peter" (May 3, 1959)

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1. Herbert Gezork - "The Dangorous Gift of Freedom" (April 26, 1959)

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Herbert Gezork - "The Dangerous Gift of Freedom" (April 26, 1959); Creighton Lacy - "The Conversions of Peter" (May 3, 1959)

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