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

Item Info

Title:

Orval S. Wintermute - "A Gift of Certainty" (May 30, 1971)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4bz6595m

Date:

May 30, 1971

Speaker:

Wintermute, Orval S.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0574
ref6351_sn7
uachapelsermaud
duke:628658
dcrau002561
ark:/87924/r4bz6595m
044c1dd3-b3b5-43d8-8215-3f6444864723

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Related Resources:

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

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This material is made available for research, scholarship, and private study. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations: https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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Orval S. Wintermute - "A Gift of Certainty" (May 30, 1971)

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1. Orval S. Wintermute - "A Gift of Certainty" (May 30, 1971)

Duke University Archives

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Orval S. Wintermute - "A Gift of Certainty" (May 30, 1971)

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Duke University Archives

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