Yes, that's right.  At one time in Peter's life it was an unknown rooster that brought peter back to his Lord.

The account could be outlined like this:

I. The Word of Jesus

II. The Witness of the Rooster

III. The Weeping of the Apostle
 

A LIFE CHANGING SOUND

Peter was standing by the fire warming himself - nervous, watching the Roman soldiers who stood nearby.  Then a little voice said, "And thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth."  Peter said, "I don't know what you're talking about" and hurried off toward the porch.  As he strolled toward the porch the rooster crowed.

After awhile the same little maid saw him again and said to the soldiers nearby, "This is one of them."  Again Peter strongly denied the claim of the maiden.

Then, the Bible record , after awhile the soldiers approached him and said that he was surely a follower of Jesus because his speech proved him to be.  This time Peter cursed and said, "I know not this man of whom ye speak."  At that moment a rooster in the yard began crowed again! The sound of the rooster came shrill and loud, leaving a shudder running down Peter's back.  Then Peter called to mind the words of Jesus which stated clearly that he would deny Jesus three times before the cock would crow the second time.  Peter couldn't put this out of mind.  The more he thought on the words of the Lord the more sad and disappointed in himself he became until the big fisherman had to hold his face in hand and break into sobbing.

That's the story all four of the Gospels record about Peter's denial.

Three things can be seen in the way Christ dealt with Peter:

1)  He is concerned with and provides for the sensitivity of Christian conscience.

2)  Even big preachers with robust personalities should have a conscience.

3)  A sensitive conscience is the only way back to God.  We are to do something concrete about our errors!  To merely acknowledge them is not enough.

How the Lord must have loved Peter, looking beyond his cursing and denials, giving Peter a sign of repentance when He would be taken away from him and unable to forgive him personally.  The shrill sound of the rooster's call worked upon the conscience of Peter as much as the Savior's voice would have.  The call of the rooster had become an extension of the voice of the forgiving Christ.

For this reason, the rooster has become a symbol of an aroused conscience.

Up until the last century most protestant churches, tucked away in the hills and dales of America, had perched on their steeples roosters and not crosses.   Now, across America those roosters have disappeared and the modern churches have taken on the plain "protestant cross."  It would seem very significant that the steeple which was a sort of finger pointing to the sky speaking of the coming of Christ would be tipped with the symbol of an aroused Christian conscience.

Today there are fewer steeples and no roosters.  Could it be that with the desensitizing of Christian conscience the rooster is disappearing as a meaningful symbol?

If you visit Portugal you will also find roosters everywhere!  They're embroidered on the linens, curtains and tablecloths and bedspreads.  They are seen by the thousands in every imaginable form of ceramics.  In fact, wherever you find the Portuguese, whether in the Canary Islands, the Azores, South Africa or Bermuda, you will find the embroidered and ceramic rooster.  You will even find them in the beautifully designed stone walks.  Although they have an unbiblical legend explaining their love for the rooster they make me think of the great Apostle Peter and what his life might have been without the proud strutting rooster who spoke for Jesus in His absence.
 

CONSCIENCE DEFINED

There are many good definitions of what conscience is.  It should be studied and understood to some degree by every Christian.

In psychology there is an extremely moralistic (consciousness of right and wrong or a sense of moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's own conduct) called the "superego."  This element of the ego seems to be aware of and sensitive to good acts as well as wrong behavior.  When a person's behavior falls below his moral knowledge his superego dictates commands and admonitions to the ego.  This is a common experience that occurs in every life reading these lines...daily.

The Bible warns us that the conscience can become "seared."  The Greek word for sear is used only once in I Timothy 4:2 which literally means to be cauterized or rendered INSENSITIVE by burning with a hot iron.

The Conscience and "Big Men" God reveals in these Scriptures involving Peter and the rooster that the conscience of even great men can become conditioned to dangerous denials and need re-sensitizing through the experience of regret and repentance.  Peter experienced a genuine emotional breakdown that flowed out from the soul God-ward in submissive repentance.  No matter what a man has done, when that man's spirit breaks down in a weeping, sobbing cry for God's forgiveness...He cannot deny.  Over and over again the Bible teaches us this God-uniting fact."  A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."

It is becoming common in Christian circles for us to practice

misrepresentation, exaggeration, indecency, immodesty, deception,

bankruptcy, divorce and remarriage, and outright disregard of what

Scripture teaches with seemingly no pang of conscience.  Some modern Pentecostal pastors' wives dress so sensuous and are so motivated by the philosophy of erotic glamour that in comparison they make the prostitutes of the last generation appear as ladies.  Many Pentecostal preachers and charismatic teachers practice looking, touching, admiring and embracing the opposite sex with such a freedom they would make libertines and criminals within our lifetime past appear as gentlemen.

Oh, God, send the roosters to arouse the conscience that can cause us to weep for our sins!

The Conscience Is God's Voice Within

There are terrible consequences to sin.  While a Christian does not practice sin he can commit an act of disobedience amounting to an act of sin.  There is a law with God that all sin must bear consequence equal to the badness of the act.  With God there can be no sin without a penalty equal to the crime.

At this point we must distinguish between the availing powers of the Calvary atonement for sin committed by the Christian in his past and the punishments Christ bore to wipe out the crimes of the past and an act of disobedience after one becomes a Christian.  Too many Christians believe too little in the consequences of sin after we become Christians.

A Christian does not become a privileged character and should not hold the belief that he can violate the moral law of God without there being consequences.

There are two reasons why we should suffer consequences.

(a)  Consequences suffered in wrongdoing amount to an experience that affects and changes my character.  Forgiveness doesn't hurt because it is a legal matter.  But consequences to disobedience are a character-changing process explained in Scripture as chastising.

(b)  Secondly, and probably the more important fact is that there is a difference between the guilt of sin and the consequences of sin.  David sinned against everything he knew and believed when he took Bathsheba away from her husband Uriah.  While God forgave David this ugly deed He also in the same breath pronounced judgements of penalty upon David that were not withdrawn (II Samuel 12:13,14).  The consequence was that by David's conduct he gave "occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme."  Here is a very graphic example of this spiritual law:  that to be forgiven the guilt of sin and the retribution or penalty as a consequence are two different things with God!

Although there was no rooster in David's life other than his conscience when he was first tempted...God did send a prophet.  If something had aroused his conscience before the act of adultery or even before consigning Uriah to his death, he would have avoided the terrible consequences.  It is not fair that we sin and God suffer all the reproach alone!  The guilt of sin God can legally forgive.  He insists that the consequences and reproach of sin we share with Him.
 

SINS ARE LIKE FEATHERS

The story goes that a lady who had been slandering her pastor for many years was finally moved to come and confess her sins to him.  As she sat in his study making the confession she burst into tears and asked him to forgive her.  He assured her that he did forgive her but asked first a favor.  "I want you to take the pillow from this couch you're sitting on and go to the marketplace and release all the feathers in the street and return here with the empty pillowcase."  Being eager to find release from her guilt she hastened to the marketplace, released the feathers and returned to the pastor's study, breathing very hard.  He said to her, "Now, my Sister, I gladly forgive you and commend you for coming to me in confession.  But there is one thing I wish to ask of you before I release you.  Legally, according to God's law, you are forgiven.  However, there is the matter of the consequences of your years of slander.  Now would you please go back to the market and gather up the feathers you released and put them back into the pillowcase?"  Of course, the woman was startled because it was impossible.  When she exclaimed to the pastor that it was "impossible" he then remarked.  "This is the terrible part of sin.  I can forgive you, God can forgive you the guilt of your wickedness.  But the consequences are impossible to correct."

At this point we make a clear distinction between the suffering we undertake in disobeying the conscience that admonished us regarding right and wrong and the terrible and impossible task of correcting consequences once sin is committed.  Conscience serves us before we sin as well as after we sin.

By this illustration we see that there is a reason for making a difference between the guilt of sin and the consequences of sin.  The one can be corrected by a simple decree.  But the other, the consequence, is impossible to retrieve.  For that reason there must be a different treatment.

AN AROUSED CONSCIENCE WILL DETER US FROM SIN THAT BRINGS

PAIN TO OURSELVES AND REPROACH TO GOD FROM HIS ENEMIES.
 

CONSCIENCE AND PRAYER

We must make a difference between an aroused conscience and a sensitive conscience.  A sensitive conscience speaks more of the state of the conscience in helping us avoid sin and disobedience by its admonitions.  An aroused conscience speaks of a person who has committed a wrong and suddenly becomes aware of that wrong after it's been committed.  This was the case with Peter.

It is more desirable to have a sensitive conscience.  Prayer probably serves us in the most valuable way in the effect it has on our conscience.  It has been said that a praying man cannot sin.  We have all had the experience of thinking a thing not wrong until we have prayed about it.  Prayer, or communion with God, sensitizes the ego to true spiritual,  Biblical principles and values and develops feelings for right and wrong and for others.  Prayer also serves the conscience after an act of disobedience.  Prayer should not be something we use in time of crisis or failure and then in looking back and seeing how we have hurt God with our disobedience, become contrite...nay.  It can indeed be a spiritual HABIT to break before the Lord in prayer and contrition.  There are many benefits to the habit of prayer and contrition.  There are many benefits to the habit of prayer and brokenness before the Lord.  But among the chief benefits would be the sensitizing of the conscience.  For the sensitive conscience leads us away from many hurtful things.
 

THE CONSCIENCE AND HUMILITY

It's better to have the rooster bring you down than to have sin bring you down.

The rooster is used by the Lord in just this one instance.  He seems to have no other great place in Scripture.  Nor does he seem to have any noteworthy topological qualities that make him noticeable or valuable in any other way.

HE SIMPLY CROWED WHEN HE WAS SUPPOSED TO.

In doing that he became the Bible's type of the aroused conscience to the New Testament Church.

He may not have many qualities but he has this name: that God used him to activate the conscience, making tender the heart toward God.  All the Gospels speak of his deed!  All the Gospel writers recorded this phenomenal fact regarding big stout Peter and his encounter with the humble barnyard rooster.

As I look upon the Church and see the multitudes who call themselves by the name of Jesus and see their pursuits, observe their spiritual habits, witness their preoccupation with non-essentials and their affinities with the world's passing vanities.  When I see how many have been gripped by the neo-Pentecostal's materialistic philosophies.  When I look around and see the erotica and cheap conduct that reflects spiritual ignorance and alienation from the Word of God...I say, "Oh, God send the roosters....Arouse our conscience!"

AND THE COCK CREW

The Historical Cycle Of Wrong Emphasis as the church fails to give the world proper moral guidance, as it becomes motivated by materialistic and professional philosophies, it will unconsciously develop into an amoral religion that tends to discredit personal righteousness and the supernatural character of holiness.  Science has no conscience and therefore, it has no conscience to offer to society.  So because we failed to give the sciences a conscience it therefore follows that the world we failed to be a conscience for will become intolerant toward us, the church, and like the swine that tramples the pearls will turn on us and rend us!  We, the church, will become the victim and the target of a fast developing antichrist spirit in the new secular minded society.  The church being the visible agent of God's moral laws will draw the fire of the immoral secular mentality that is now in the clear majority of the world populace.  We are living in the post Christian period of world history.  America is fast becoming a cosmopolitan nation of many ethnic groups which is the dream of the no-conscience one world dreamers who want to disolve the American constitution and bring about an American mentality that will fit into new world government.  In the last stages there will be a persecution of the remnant who dares not join it.  We are rapidly moving toward a secular conscience molded by humanistic secularism.

The early church was the victim of a generation of Jews who had much theology but very little personal conscience.  Their concern was total loyalty to a national religion and the maintaining of amiable relations between the Caesar of Rome and Jerusalem.
 

The World Needs A Conscience

They crucified Christ on trumped-up charges that would please Rome and gain them more favor with the "official heathen."  The preoccupation of the Jerusalem power structure was too much involved with the important official matters of establishing themselves with the government, and gaining the respectability and favor that would establish them as the preponderant religion of the people, to be giving any attention to such little matters as personal morality.

By making that mistake, they crucified the King of Glory and suffered untold destruction from the very worldly powers they flunkied for!

Rome persecuted the early church because Judaism failed to be a conscience to the Empire.  It failed first of all to be or to give a conscience to its own people.

Those that were giving attention to personal morals, fasting and the principles of a sound and simple way of spiritual life were ostracized and barred from favor.

Anna and Simeon, whose lives are recorded in the second chapter of Luke, are scriptural examples of the contempt that can be shown for spirituals...by individuals who are enamored with the more respectable pursuits of humanism.

When Jesus declared us the "SALT OF THE EARTH," He was speaking of our moral influence or the quality of our character and what good we affect in others by halting corrupting influences.  A Christian bringing to bear moral influence and personal convictions upon those in his sphere is doing the very best thing to preserve himself and his children from becoming the victims of people without a conscience.

Evil prevails all around us because evil men are bold in making their hellish philosophies known!

My Christian convictions asserted become God's influence on my community.  That asserted influence to a great degree becomes the conscience of my community, and the conscience of my community becomes the morality of the nation.  In the end, the morality of a nation is its righteousness, and righteousness exalteth a nation.  A peaceful existence is the reward God promises ultimately to the people who give to their nation a conscience.  (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Yes, the world needs a conscience!  Meditation in God's Word cultivates the human conscience and lifts it into the realm of moral excellence where we become one with God.  It is only as we think with the same moral values as God that we become like God.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports, Between 1960 and 1973 the number of juveniles arrested, for all types of offenses, increased by 144 per cent.  For serious crimes the increase was 116 per cent.

More recently 45 per cent of all the serious crimes committed in this country were done by 'juveniles - youngsters under 18 years of age.

By 'serious crimes,' the FBI....means such crimes as these:  killing, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary by breaking and entering, auto theft or larceny of money or valuable property.  (U.S. News & World Report, December 16, 1974).

It's Everywhere!  What's happening to America?  One thing is for sure - what we are reading about crime in America is becoming a startling factor in most of the nations of the world!

As we have traveled the nations of the world over this last three decades we have watched decadance merge and then abound.  In the three generations of my life span I have personally witnessed the corruption of society and the apostasy of the church to the point of no return.  I grew into manhood in a generation that had a conscience and that conscience was reflected in the sensitivity of society in general to moral conduct.  When I was young man abortion was illegal and violators were imprisoned.  The conscience of modern society has become so twisted and seared that our society murders one and a half million babies a year in abortion clinics supported with government funds.  This is only one sign of a generation of adults, who possess little or no conscience.  The fourth generation will be the generation of judgment.

A generation of young anarchists who despise civil authority and laugh at the idea of God has merged on the scenes of world history, well-conditioned to become the generation of the Anti-christ!

Where did this crime-prone, no-conscience generation really come from?

Can we blame it on the educational systems...public school teachers, college professors?

Can we blame it on godless parents who failed to take their children to Sunday school and church?

Can we blame it on poverty, prejudice, the ghettos of cities?

Can we blame it on materialism?

Maybe it's the generation produced by violence and sex on television?

Some say it's communism...or maybe it's a combination of all of these things.

These may be influences on behavior in a modern society, but a little reflection on where these influence come from and why and how they could have risen, believe it or not, is finally to be charged to the church.

IMPOSSIBLE?

God intended the church to be the conscience of the world.

The personal convictions of each individual Christian constitutes a collective force that can constrain a whole society to respect the laws of God.
 

THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE FACTOR

 But there has been a serious breakdown of the Christian's personal convictions.  The wholesale breakdown of society in general is directly related to the first stages of any society's moral stability...the personal purity of the Christian.

People inside and outside the church make criticism of Christians with personal convictions.  This criticism has a discouraging effect on many Christians until often personal convictions are dropped and we join the silent, conforming herd.

Conviction, or the state of being thoroughly convinced a thing is either right or wrong, is far more profound and far-reaching than it may seem.  There is a compounding effect to personal convictions.  These effects can reach into the social structure of the community and even beyond.  They ultimately set the pace for the moral practices of the nation and the world!
 

THE PURPOSE OF CONSCIENCE

The church by virtue of its moral influence becomes the conscience of its community.  A large church fellowship or even a man with broad influence can have a "conscience ministry" if they project their convictions in such a way the public is influenced.  If moral convictions are demonstrated and put on display to cause sinful society to become God-conscious or to perceive that self-destruction results from sin, it can turn the tide of moral decay.

In the Bible we have the book of Jonah to point this out as the desire of God!  Jonah's big barrier was his unwillingness to walk into the city of Nineveh, notorious for its sin, and announce something that was so ridiculous that it would be considered farfetched by the inhabitants...Or if they would be turned to repentance, God would reverse the penalty.  He didn't want to run the risk of criticism.  God wanted Jonah to simply become the voice of conscience.
 
 

INTIMIDATION OF THE RIGHTEOUS

When ministers and movements attack conscience ministries, making disparaging remarks about "holier than thou's," "clothesline preachers," and "legalism," and then apply those remarks in such a way and in such places and on such occasions that it shames men who teach personal convictions, it tends to silence even those who teach personal standards in a right way.  It's not the standards of right and wrong that are themselves wrong, but the methods, attitudes, and inconsistencies some men display who enforce the standard.

The remarks I have heard from some people makes them sound as if they are opposed to any moral standard at all in the Christian life.  It sounds as though the only real conviction Christians should have is that they are to be the last ones caught doing it.

It's also true that many times Christian convictions are attacked by men who don't understand really what conviction is and how it differs from sin itself.  Where the Word deals with actual sin, personal conviction deals with those things that lead a person into sin.
 
 

WE UNDERESTIMATE THE HOLY SPIRIT

I think we can safely say that what the scripture openly teaches as right or wrong should be faithfully declared and taught with the same openness of the Bible's treatment of it.  We then must trust the Holy Spirit to deal with the disciple as he receives the teaching.  This is the true role of the Holy Spirit in His relationship to the Word...to witness to the Truth of the Word and make all truth acceptable to the Spirit-born.

"Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth:  for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak...."  (John 16:13).

Too many times we apologize and explain away or relegate a commandment to some past era or ancient custom when it is not true at all.  We think the new disciple will not be able to accept such a teaching. When we do this we are underestimating the true power and actual ministry of the Holy Spirit!
 

The Christian Conscience Activated By The Holy Spirit.

Under the New Covenant God has made with man there is a whole new relationship between the God and man that is personal and transforming.  Under this covenant of blood we come directly into the presence of God and His Spirit  indwells in us activating the conscience and raising it to the divine level of sensitivity!

The conscience of the Christian is the conscience of the church and the conscience of the church is the conscience of the world!

Sensitivity to right and wrong produces lives that stand as examples of the divine morality!  Our silence on the issues of right and wrong amounts to a betrayal of God's high purposes for the church...to be to the world a conscience - a conscience that is vocal and expressive to the extent the world knows and feels conviction!
 
 

THE BACKLASH OF COMPROMISE

When the church fails to be the conscience of the world, the church is the first to suffer.

The real meaning of the cry for "freedom" from young activist groups is really the first sign of a generation that intends to put away once and for all, "the remnants of puritanism," "all of the prudish ignorance of the Victorian age" ....or, if you please, "the moralism of God and His church."

In the last few decades the fundamental church that should have been fulfilling their first responsibility to God as the conscience of the world has picked up philosophies that taught we must "conform to communicate." While we were preoccupied with the doctrines of conformation and communication, we somehow overlooked the true, scriptural teaching that CONTRAST BRINGS CONVICTION.  Today the church has become divided between these two basic principles in regard to personal moral life.

All of the woes and weaknesses of the church and world begin with the moral status of the personal life. We become the victim of our own failures.

We want to think that the coming oppression of the Anti-christ are just prophetic absolutes.  The coming persecution is the inevitable outcome of a generation of anarchists produced by a passive, silent church.

If the church fails to give the world proper moral guidance, if we become motivated by materialistic and professional philosophies, we unconsciously develop into an amoral religion that discredits personal holiness.
 
 

THE HISTORICAL CYCLE OF WRONG PURSUIT

The early church was the victim of a generation of Jews who had much theology but very little personal conscience. Their concern was total loyalty to a national religion and the maintaining of amiable relations between the Caesar of Rome and Jerusalem.

"AND THE COCK CROWED"
 Point to rooster to hear what Peter heard!

Review

 

TO THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE:   The rooster is a type of:  I.    Authority: One rooster rules the roost!  II.   Industry: He wakens man to his day of labor;   III.  Aroused Conscience: It crowed and the apostle         Peter repented!.   IV.  Servitude: He was used of God in a simple way.  V.   Faithfulness: Every morning faithfully, he crows!  VI.  Lowliness: God used the rooster, not an eagle.  VII. Meekness: An unknown nobody but saved Peter!

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