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   I've been meaning to give since I heard a very fine sermon at the Feast by Mr. Art McCarroll. Mr. McCarroll's sermon, to me, was in many respects the highlight of the Feast of Tabernacles this year. He gave one, for those of you who didn't hear it, on the nature of true religion. And there was one section there especially that contained a few points that I want to expand today. He was going through II Timothy 1:7, so we'll pick it up there. It's a very beautiful scripture, very important scripture, one that has a lot of meaning to me.

   I know I try to study, to learn what is the right way to think, what is true sound-mindedness. And here's the scripture that talks about it. You'll recall what it says here in II Timothy, chapter one, verse seven: 'God has not given us a spirit of fear'—fear being very defeating to healthy thinking—'but rather He's given us a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind.'

   Mr. McCarroll was describing a sound mind as a mind that can cope with the central problems of life he was talking about, a mind that can cope. You know, there's a drug on the market called Cope. It's a tranquilizer. You can go down and get a bottle full of Cope. And then when you feel like you can't cope, you can take some Cope and then you can cope, according to the manufacturer anyway. That's the wrong way to cope with life's problems—with drugs, alcohol, tranquilizers. What have you is not the way God intends for us to cope.

   There are basic issues in life that he was talking about: basic survival needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. He was talking about the need for love and approval. He was talking about the very central issue of life and death and the fear of death. He was dealing with the biggies in that sermon, and he was saying true religion helps us to deal with the really big issues of life. And if it can't do that, it's not true religion. And that's certainly true.

   Coping with life's problems, especially in our age, is one of the most critical issues that any of us has. Either we can or we can't, be they physical problems or spiritual problems. Coping might be just a modern-day expression for overcoming. Either you can overcome the problems you're faced with or you can't. Either you can get a handle on them, as we say, live with them, wrestle with them, resolve them successfully, or they do you in. And a lot of people in our day and time, it seems, can't cope. And by the hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands, lots of people are locked up in mental institutions because their coping mechanisms right up here have just totally broken down. They cannot stand the problems of life anymore.

   Then he gave at least three—what I'm terming for today's sermon—radically different ways of understanding this problem, which I think explains why Christians especially have had so much trouble coping. A radically different way of looking at some of the problems than we're used to looking at, as we'll see as we go along today.

   He said we're all a little bit crazy. He quoted Mr. Ted Armstrong as saying a lot of the voters were acting kind of insane. He said, 'No, let's just call it crazy. We're all a little bit crazy.' In other words, we don't always have perfectly sound minds. We don't always cope real well. Do you always cope real well? Do you always see everything in a rational, reasonable manner and just get right on top of it? Oh no, I don't think you'd claim that. I think you'd admit that there are a lot of times when you're kind of going up the wall, as we say, barely making it, barely hanging on to your sanity.

   I know I felt that way at times. I think everybody's come back from the Feast—the general mood in the church that I sense is a real boost and an uplift. And I think this time of year finds most people up, but I'll guarantee you as the winter months roll on and you get further and further away from that festival, the long dreary rainy days you send down upon us by midwinter, early, late spring, you'll probably be back where you were last spring. I mean, that was a very long time in my life. Incidentally, I tell you, it kind of wrung me out. I was so glad to have summer come, and the Feast really was a shot in the arm for us.

   But anyway, here's Art McCarroll making this point: we're all a little bit crazy. That can sound kind of negative, but there's a positive side to that as well that I'm going to show as we go through this today. When it's properly understood, that statement amounts to accepting the fact that we're all fallible human beings who make mistakes. And there's no use in kidding yourself about that. It's a good place to start.

   The second statement he made is that we've got to learn to live with things the way they really are—that maturity consists in large part in accepting reality. And he quoted a couple of scriptures in that regard. One of them was Philippians 4. Paul seems to have attained this kind of maturity and speaks of it in Philippians. He says in verse 11, 'I'm not speaking with respect to want, for I have learned'—Philippians 4:11—'in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know how to be abased, I know how to abound; everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.'

   Paul could handle the extremes of life. He could handle the reality that life dealt him. He didn't have to have it just a certain way. If things were going well and he was abounding, fine, he could take that. But if not, he could suffer want as well and still be content. I think there's every evidence of the fact that the Apostle Paul did a very good job at dealing with the realities of his life.

   And then the biggie, the real big one he laid on us down there—I hope you caught it if you were there—human life wasn't intended to work. That's deep. And you've got to think about that one for a while. He gave Matthew 10:39 as a scriptural proof of that fact, and then he gave a classic illustration of it as well."

   Matthew 10:39 is the scripture that says, 'He that finds his life shall lose it. He that loses his life for my sake shall find it'—just a total enigma, sounds backwards. But there's a truism there that human life is not an end in itself. State it a little differently: human life is not the purpose of human life. You could be perfectly successful in building a wonderful human life and make it work, so to speak—make it work financially, make it work in some other way—and not attain the purpose of human life. However, you could lose a lot of things that other people would say, 'Hey, that's great, that's success.' You could throw that all away and be successful.

   Now, that's a pretty good scriptural proof of the fact that human life wasn't intended to work—that is, in an absolutist sense, in a final sense, in a total sense. God never intended that human life work from the standpoint of going on in a state of perfection forever. And then he gave the example that I thought was really a classic of life stages. And he pointed out the fact that just about the time you master one of the various life stages—be it childhood or adolescence or young or middle adulthood or maturity or old age—let's take adolescence as a classic case in point.

   You know, you go into those painful, awkward years of adolescence. It's a crisis time, a lot of built-in problems finding your identity and growing into your sexual identity and all this is going on. And just about the time you get on top of that, you know, and you really know how to be a good teenager—BAM! They kick you up into adult status and now you're a young adult. You don't know anything about being an adult.

   Kind of like the kids go through in school. They just get on the top of the pile and they're the oldest kid in grade school, and they send them to junior high and then the bottom of the ladder. And then they work up and they're in the ninth grade and they're on top of the junior high set, send them to senior high and then the bottom again. This is life—just about the time you think you're getting on top of something, you're plunged into what he called a whole set of new growth patterns and challenged by a whole bunch of new problems.

   You're just getting used to learning to be single and like it, what are you doing? Getting married. And you're just getting the bugs worked out of your relationship and what happens? You have a kid. And you're just finding out who he is or who she is and you have another one, you know, and you just learn how to be a parent. You got it all together and they leave home, you know, and this is what we're always going through in life. And then when you finally feel you've got your maturity and your wisdom over all these years pulled together in one neat package... you die, you go down to your grave.

   That's just a classic illustration that human life wasn't meant to quote 'work' unquote in that final perfectionistic sense of the word. And it's good that we understand that. You'll never fully arrive in this life. Did you think you were going to one of these days? You're not going to.

   Philippians 3 was the scripture Mr. McCarroll properly used to demonstrate that fact. Neither physically nor spiritually are you ever going to arrive and just be there and come into your own. Paul says he was striving for the resurrection, and he didn't think for a moment—verse 12 tells us—that he had already attained or arrived at that point, either were already perfect. But he says, 'I'm seeking after.' And that's what life is: one long quest of seeking something that's always ahead of you.

   Which of you have arrived? No hands. Me neither. I'm not. I haven't arrived. I'm never going to—that might be a little hard to accept, but I'm never going to in that final total sense until I've seen the Kingdom. Rather, Mr. McCarroll pointed out, life is to be seen as a training ground, and each level of human experience holds new learning experiences, new growth patterns, greater opportunities to attain maturity. That's the stress of the scriptures.

   Another way of saying this—it's often used in education or business terms—is that we're concerned, and we're looking at it this way, with the process and not just the product. The process is the key, not just the product. You know, the product of a human life viewed from one standpoint anyway is what? A worn out, decrepit, and ultimately decaying human body. That's all. I viewed another way—I know you could say the product would be spiritual character. In that sense, you're right. But it's the process that we're engaged in that makes that character. Whether we have an awful lot other to show for it or not isn't really too much important in some respects. A lot of times we won't. But in the process of living a human life, we can qualify for eternal life.

   Okay, so much for his sermon. What's so important about all that to us anyway? Why did I think it was so important? Well, I'll tell you why. I think what he was saying speaks to the very issues that the church has been going through and torn up over for the last four or five years. And let me tell you how he hits that.

   I want you to get this: our perfectionistic notions. It explodes the myth of the perfect church and the perfect work of God. It attacks the notion that we either have or soon will produce our own little utopia, complete with perfect people, perfect leaders, perfect everything, perfect Ambassador Colleges or what have you—the idea that everything is supposed to just go together and work in an absolute sense of the word here and now.

   And we have had that notion, many of us have. I'll be the first to admit I have. I think we were schooled on that notion. I think we were preached that notion. I think we picked it up at every turn—that basically we saw things just going together in a near perfect pattern. And then when we saw any evidence that that wasn't going together that way—ministers started leaving and people started dropping out and doctrinal division and confusion and trouble and problems—boy, a lot of people were shattered fundamentally right down at their mainsprings. They start asking, 'What's wrong? I never dreamed we'd ever have all these problems. Where's God gone? What happened? Where am I? Where did everybody else go?' And all these deep searching doubts began to hit them.

   This is the myth of false idealism which I'm going to really get into today. And Art McCarroll is reminding us, 'Hey, we're all a little bit crazy.' You know, human life just doesn't work, and we better learn to accept reality. And realism has always been at the opposite end of the pendulum from idealism. Those two have warred with each other down through time. You've always got your hard-nosed realist and your lofty idealists, and the two have often jostled with one another.

   Art McCarroll, from my perspective, seems to be pretty much the hard-nosed realist, and it's good that the Work has some. Not just that—it's good that the Work has the idealists. I think idealism is fine. I've been idealistic. I think young people tend to be idealistic, but I think there's a right balance. And I think some of the things he's saying are profound in their implications for us in the church.

   Closely associated, I want to show you, with false idealism is the human tendency toward hero worship and heroism on a personal level. And I hope to expose both today. Ted Armstrong has often said the Bible is pretty hard on its heroes. And we're going to see there's a good reason for that. The Bible doesn't very much do very much to advance the idea of either false idealism or heroism or hero worship.

   First of all, I'd like to begin this afternoon by seeking to understand this about ourselves: the fact that we all would like to be heroes or heroines, that's just in us to want to be that way in a certain few important and critical dimensions. How many times—I suppose maybe this would be more true for the fellow than the ladies—have you had daydreams? Kind of like Walter Mitty? Remember reading the book 'The Secret Lives of Walter Mitty' or seen the movie by that name, this little guy that's kind of a timid, little mousy character, but he had these big dreams of all the wonderful things he would do.

   And the reason for the popularity of that same book was the fact that we're all a little that way. You know, deep in our little heart of hearts, we have these daydreams of maybe saving somebody's life or rescuing a damsel in distress or having just the right answer just the right time, working it all out and just having people look up to us and say, 'Boy, he's the one we needed in the clutch, and he really came through with a critical play in the last moment.'

   I wonder how many of you pursued lines of reasoning like that. Maybe you're sitting in the Feast and Mr. Armstrong walks in, you're right by the aisle, you know, and he's not even going to notice you. And so you're sitting there thinking, 'Well, boy, what if somebody tried to attack Mr. Armstrong? I'd throw my life down to save Mr. Armstrong. I'd let him shoot my body full of holes, but they wouldn't get him.' You know, have little daydreams like that because for one brief shining moment that way we could go out with a blaze of glory and be a hero. And then they'd know, boy, that we were really good. Maybe they didn't see it all along over the years. But finally, then they'd be forced to recognize there was a good guy.

   I'll tell you that appeals to us. I don't know what the feminine version of that story is. I can imagine a few lines. But anyway, that's kind of the masculine version anyway, because everybody has a secret longing to be special, to be important, to be needed and wanted and appreciated.

   William James said mankind's common instinct for reality has always held, get this: that the world is essentially a theater for heroism, a place where you act out your heroism, where you do your deeds, little deeds or big deeds. And in this book, I'm gonna read you a couple of quotes from 'The Denial of Death,' Pulitzer Prize winner by Ernest Becker. He says we'd like to be reminded that our central calling, our main task on this planet, is the heroic.

   Now, let me give you a couple of examples of what he means by that. From pages four and five here, he says, speaking of how people view themselves—he's speaking to man here—'must desperately justify himself as an object of primary value in the universe.' It's just another way of saying we need to feel important. There isn't a one of you that would really like the idea of feeling useless, worthless, unimportant. How many times in counseling with people I've heard people express that as their problem: 'I just don't feel useful to anybody or myself,' and when a person feels useless, that's a real serious problem.

   So he's right when he says that people need desperately to justify themselves as an object of primary value in the universe. He must stand out, be a hero, make the biggest possible contribution to world life show that he counts more than anything or anyone else. Boy, I should condemn when I read that one phrase, 'make the biggest possible contribution,' because that's one of my hero myths—that I, Dave Albert, have to make this lofty fine contribution to the Work and God and the church.

   Well, there's nothing wrong with wanting to do so in a realistic manner. But if it gets inflated and exaggerated and I become self-important in the process, that's the direction that type of thing can run in. He goes on to say that underneath the mask that we usually show the world, there throbs the ache for cosmic specialness. We want to be special some way. Now again, you could deny that if you want. But I think if you'll think about it, you'll see there are bits and pieces of that in all of us.

   It goes on to say here: 'It doesn't matter whether the cultural hero system is frankly magical, religious and primitive or secular, scientific and civilized. It's still a mythical hero system in which people serve in order to earn a feeling of primary value.' Brethren, that's true. People desperately seek to earn the feeling of being of value. It's a truism and it runs deep in human nature because nobody can stand the idea of not having value, not having worth as a person.

   So there's this feeling that we need to earn it by some means—heroic or quietly up along behind the scenes or whatever—of cosmic specialness, of ultimate usefulness to creation, of unshakeable meaning. They earn this feeling by carving out a place in life, by building an edifice that reflects human value: whether a temple, a cathedral, a totem pole, a skyscraper, a family that spans three generations. The hope and belief is that the things that man creates in society are of lasting worth and meaning, that they outlive or outshine death and decay, that man and his products count. In this sense, everything that man does is religious and heroic.

   That's the way in which this author is using that concept. And it explains a lot about what goes on inside our heads—an attempt to make meaning out of life so that life becomes, as you're saying, kind of a theater for heroism, a time and a place to prove oneself to oneself mostly because most of this proving has to be to ourselves. Now, we often say it's somebody else—we say we're doing it to them and for them, and that can be partly true. But the person we most want to convince is us. To us, we want to have this worth and value and meaning.

   But now, how would this explain the human tendency toward hero worship? Isn't that contradictory? If we want to be heroes, why would we have to worship somebody else as heroes? It seems at the face of it to be self-contradicted. But they're certainly not, because let me tell you simply stated: little heroes need big heroes. It's true. People need people bigger than themselves to give them things they can't give themselves—lots of things: causes, recognition and approval, someone bigger and stronger to rely on, inspiration, direction, hope, an example. There is a need, so to speak, for somebody like that in our lives.

   People need heroes, larger than life characters in whom to hope and believe and look up to. I think there's a healthy side of that. That's all right. I think there's a sick side of that, as I was touching on last week, that can really get overboard and extreme. So really, people need both. They need to be heroes in a sense. They need to have heroes and champions and leaders, and you see it all the time, including in the political race for 1976—people carving out their champions and making heroes out of these political figures. Kind of sad.

   So a little would-be hero pegs his hopes and hitches his wagon to his big real hero and star that he figures will help him out and lead him on and with whom he can act out his secret dreams and give his life greater importance. 'Yeah, that's his man.' He's going to vote for his man and then everything is going to be well.

   Now, I think if you'll get a hold on this concept of heroism and trace that theme through your life, you're going to see it come up time and time again—unless you're just such a rugged individualist that you've never even thought that way. And maybe there's one or two such animals out there, but most people aren't. Most people feel this way about it.

   Now, I mentioned also about idealism. Heroes have their ideals usually, they're perfect solutions. And so Jimmy Carter comes on the scene and he's promising at the same time full employment and less government spending. That's part of his idealism that he's offering out to the American public, and some people are going to buy that. He says we're going to curb inflation and we're gonna do all these wonderful things, we're gonna solve all America's problems—and people believe it, I guess a lot of people seem to. Ford's got his own version of it. Some will believe that, but it's false idealism because it bears no resemblance to reality. It isn't in touch with reality.

   He's not gonna do all these things. Nobody is, nobody can. And that's what a lot of people know. That's why a lot of people are turned off. There are enough people that are realistic to say it isn't going to work no matter who you vote for. If you're hurt to see somebody quit, it's a good thing. Both of them can't win. You know, they can only have one of them in at a time. That's the one good thing you can say.

   This is the real problem with hero worship and false idealism, brethren, because they go hand in hand. They both tend to break with reality. And anything you're doing in your life to get you out of touch with reality is a problem to you, and anything that puts you back in touch is a potential blessing even though it might be painful.

   So Art McCarroll comes along with his very realistic notions and he loads up his six-gun with three big bullets and he goes: BANG! 'Everybody's a little bit crazy.' BANG! 'It ain't all gonna work out in this life.' BANG! 'You better believe it and get in touch with reality.' And he shoots big old 45-caliber holes in a lot of people's myths and notions, whether they liked it or not, whether they heard it or not.

   I don't think everybody even heard it, but I heard it. Did me a lot of good, and that's why I'm talking about it. I want to make it do you a lot of good. Some people probably went away saying, 'Well, we'll still make it work. We're still going to pull it out of fire. We're going to make it go. I'm not crazy. My buddies aren't crazy. My heroes aren't crazy. They've all got white hats, ride white horses, have silver bullets in their six-guns. It's going to work. What are you telling me? That's crazy stuff. You're crazy. The rest of us are good guys.' That's just a human tendency.

   But now listen, this is just Art McCarroll's message. The Bible presents a powerful case for realism, hard-nosed, feet-on-the-ground realism. And you'd be a stronger, healthier Christian in connection with this case sermonette tend toward being far more loyal, as I'll explain to you, if you've got both feet on the ground than if you tend to be a pie-in-the-sky idealist. Those are the people that traditionally have gotten smashed worse than anybody, and for good cause—they got out of touch with reality.

   I think of the classic example of Noah back in Genesis 6 because it illustrates my point. His life is only one of the many—I don't mean to pick on old Noah, not really fair to pick on Noah. He's in his grave and he can't even talk back. But you know, Noah was a pretty good man, and it says of him in Genesis 6 verse 8 (Genesis 6:8-9), 'Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.' 'These are the generations of Noah,' verse 9, 'Noah was a just man and perfect.'

   So Noah was perfect, right? No, not really. He was just perfect in his generations. He was racially pure. He hadn't had admixture of the races at that point. Noah was just, which is like saying he was fair, but he certainly wasn't perfect. And that the Bible later reveals. Now God chose to save humanity through Noah—you and I and everybody on this earth is a direct lineal descendant of Noah. That's plain from the Bible.

   We always usually go back to Adam and Eve. You don't have to go back that far. Humanity got narrowed down to one little family, and mom and dad were Noah and Mrs. Noah. That's quite an honor. Quite a distinction. What if God did that for you—save the world and humanity through you? Quite an honor.

   But boy, the Bible brings us and everybody else right back down to earth when you get over to chapter 7, or excuse me let's make that chapter nine, and verse 20, and right after the flood, and you read about everything kind of settling back to normal there in chapter nine and his sons going forth—and what's Noah do? You remember perfectly well what he did. The Bible records it, records the good and the bad. The Bible's hard on its heroes, as Ted says, Noah began to be a farmer, husbandman, and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine, and he was drunk, and not only that, he was naked in his tent. So right after the flood, Noah gets stoned, and there's Noah out of it in the tent, naked as a jaybird, and his sons have to cover him up.

   Not to me, that's a classic example of how hard the Bible is on its heroes. You can go away with the impression that Noah was perfect. No, Noah wasn't perfect. Noah was a fallible human being just like you and me. And it was a long time on that ark with nobody but his own family and all those animals and all the bad things animals were doing in the ark all the time, having to clean that stuff up. You know, that's a long time, throw all that overboard or live with it once. And so we can give him, I guess, a few human reasons why he might have done that. But regardless, he was an all-too-human hero.

   And so you can go right through the pages of the Bible. I won't take the time to go through everybody in the Bible, but you can do that. David seems to be everybody's hero. Boy, everybody loves David—poet, prophet, king, artist, lover, musician, general. You name it, David did it. But he's got his other side, right? His very human side. He was also an adulterer, a murderer, an indulgent parent, a maker of bad decisions, a very human hero. Maybe that's the part we liked about him in some respects. But again, it proves the point that the Bible is hard on its heroes.

   Now, why? You know, God didn't have to record this little blurb in here about Noah getting drunk. It's been a lot—they just could kind of leave that out. I mean, we could live without that. You didn't have to know that, but I think there's a reason why God acquaints us with this other side of human beings. And the biggest reason I can tell you is to acquaint us with reality—that we're all, no matter who we are, fallible human beings who make mistakes and who goof up. And also to teach us that the notion of human perfection is a myth. That's why we always talk about hero myths and hero legends, because they are myths and legends. They don't bear any resemblance to facts.

   Well, now moving on a little bit, what about the concept of things working? When Art McCarroll says that in this human life, things aren't meant to work—that is, go together in kind of a utopian way—the Bible bears that out. The history of the human race sure proves that.

   God gets mad at people because they're sinning so bad before the flood, right? And He says this isn't gonna always be that way. 'We're gonna make a clean sweep of things, kill off all the sinners and save the good guys,' right? So He does solve the problem for once and for all, right? Well, 100 years later: Tower of Babel, Nimrod, the whole thing. You know, a couple of generations later, God's having to divide the nations because of the same thing—human weakness, human problems.

   Giving of the law—God lays down the law for humanity. This is going to make things work, right? People didn't know what's right and wrong. Well, tell them what's right and wrong. Give them the law. Have you read the book of Judges? A couple of generations later? Everybody did what was right in his own eyes.

   Hence, it is all the way through the time of the Bible. Anytime you want to point to in the Bible—time of David, Solomon, Israel in its glory around 1000 B.C., 900-some B.C.—Israel is all falling apart. The tribes are divided and a few hundred years later, they're going into captivity. Never is there a time that you can put your finger on in the Bible when things just all went together and worked.

   Well, that's the Old Testament. 'People didn't have the Holy Spirit then, they didn't know any better.' What about the New Testament? New Testament era is basically what you read about in the scripture—is less than 100 years old. It's more like 60 or so or 70 years long. The whole thing you read about from the birth of Christ, or let's say the beginning of Christ's public ministry to the end of the Book of Acts—just a few short decades and then it's all over and everybody dies and the church is persecuting about goes out of existence. It didn't work again in the absolute sense of the word—it didn't become or stay perfect.

   When did things ever do that? They say, 'Now, now that's different—that was back in those times. But today, we've got the chance to set it up and do it right. We're going to be the first ones to do it.' That at least is the popular and prevailing notion, brethren, that many of us have held, whether we've expressly stated it right out or held it secretly in our little heart of hearts. It's been there.

   But I ask you, is God building through us a perfect work of God, even in the sense of preaching the gospel? Are we gonna do the perfect final total job of that? And then say, 'Well, God, there it is, we preached the gospel'? No. And I read in my Bible that we're going to get into this just about as far as we can and go as far as we can with the task, and that this is a temporary phase in the plan of things that will probably end very imperfectly.

   And then God is going to have to go on where we leave off—supernaturally with the two witnesses, with miracles and signs, and finally an angel coming down from heaven preaching the gospel of the kingdom before Christ's second coming. So this isn't the time when we're just doing the ultimate work. The preaching of the gospel, while very important as Mr. Case was saying, quoting Mr. Armstrong, is critically important to God at this time, but it's just a brief temporary part of the overall plan of God.

   We're preaching the advanced news of the second coming of Christ. Once Christ gets here, that's going to be history. It's gonna be all over with and then we'll be doing something else. In fact, we'll probably see, you and I, the time when the church isn't even busy with the job of preaching the gospel. That's a fact. You in the great tribulation—we're not gonna be sending in tithes and offerings and having the broadcast caught on radio and television the way it is now, publishing all kinds of things. That just won't be.

   So let's take the same view on this thing. Let's get an overview so that we understand that we aren't going to usher in a little utopia or put together the perfect package that's going to last forever and we build it. It won't. This work will probably end in many respects in a state of disarray. You better allow for that—with persecution coming in from all sides and betrayal from within and people falling out as we've already begun to see and going in who knows how many different directions.

   And if you picture this monolithic work, you know, just noted for its eternal stability and strength and everybody in it a pillar of stability in himself—forget it. If you believe that, you're in for some hard times, and God's already breaking the news to you: it's not happening that way. And I'm telling you in large part why and how you can avoid some of the problems.

   Now, let me assure you that my point in telling you these things is most emphatically NOT trying to excuse anybody's problem, be it Noah's drunkenness or David's adultery and murder or whatever. I'm not excusing anything. I'm not justifying anything. I'm not making it right for you to go out and do those things, and don't get me wrong about that. That's not my point. And if you use what I'm saying that way, it's your mistake, it's your folly, it's your sin, and the blood will be on your head. Don't hear me wrong. Don't use what I'm saying as an excuse for a devil-may-care attitude. I don't mean that—that's not what I'm trying to convince you of today for a moment.

   But I am speaking expressly to the fact that many Christians in recent years have demonstrated that they've had a hard time accepting reality. They have tripped all over heroism and false idealism. And I know whereof I speak, and I can think of classic examples, and I can think of Bible examples. I can illustrate it out of pages of the word of God. I can illustrate it out of the people I've known intimately and personally. I can see it in myself. It shouts at me and it says Art McCarroll knows what he's talking about and he gave us something worth considering.

   Give you Peter's example once again. We've been here before. Peter seems to illustrate a lot of things—Matthew 16. I guess that's because the Bible does more talking about Peter than any of the other apostles of Christ or disciples. But I am absolutely convinced that Peter had false idealism, had heroism operating within himself, and saw Jesus Christ as a hero. Now, that isn't too bad. You wouldn't think you could go wrong seeing Christ as your hero, could you? What could possibly be wrong with having Christ for your hero?

   Well, it backfired on Peter the way Peter believed in Christ as his hero. He was not prepared to hear what Jesus Christ had to say. That's that fascinating passage in Matthew 16, beginning in verse 21 (Matthew 16:21), when Jesus 'from that time forth began to show his disciples how he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed.'

   Now, Peter's conception of a hero didn't allow for that. I mean, you're not supposed to die if you're a hero—you're supposed to win in the gunfight at the OK Corral. You're supposed to get the bad guys and then go away, you know, walking off into the sunset. The bad guys aren't supposed to get you. Peter couldn't accept this fact. It was a reversal. It was a setback in the program, and the way Peter was wired up in his head, which is all too common for human beings, he couldn't have it that way.

   So he took Him—why did he take Him with such force?—and began to rebuke Him, saying, 'Be it far from you, Lord, this shall not be unto you.' Was it only out of concern for Christ that he said it? No, I don't think so. I think Peter's stubborn refusal to have it, or not have it so, was that he couldn't accept what it did to him. Where does it leave Peter if his hero gets cut down? Then what becomes of Peter? He's pegged all his hopes on Christ.

   He didn't even hear the part about being raised again the third day. And if he did, he'd probably laugh. 'Nobody comes back from the grave. Let's be serious. You know, if you're dead, you're dead.' We know from the account the disciples didn't believe it. Peter didn't believe it.

   I'll tell you what Peter wanted to believe—not only Peter, but all of the apostles. The clue is given in Acts chapter one in verse six rather. And I'm sure time and again they thought this—it's part of the total package. Christ is the conquering King. And what happens when Jesus Christ becomes the King of Israel? He ushers in the kingdom. And they were asking on the eve of Christ's ascension into heaven, 'Lord, will you at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?' Time for the kingdom, isn't it, Lord? That's what they wanted to believe.

   They knew Christ was the King and boy, it's time for the kingdom. And let's set up utopia and chase these Romans out of Judea and put things back right again. He wanted to believe that, and so did all the apostles with all of their being. Things had to work out perfectly according to him.

   And Christ was trying to tell him, 'Peter, I want you to get ready for something. It's not going to be that smooth. It's not going to be that easy. There are going to be what you're going to see as some terrible setbacks.' Peter said, 'I can't have that. Lord though they all forsake you, I will never forsake you. You're my hero and I'm gonna be a hero. And if you need any saving, I got my sword and I'm ready to use it. Now, whose ears need to get whacked off?' See how it works? Peter's life illustrates it beautifully, just exactly the way people think if they're given to this type of thing.

   Now, what happens if you are and you're given to heroism and false idealism and sure enough the bubble bursts? What did Peter do? John 21: 'I'm going fishing,' right? 'Forget it. If that's where you're going, I quit. If it isn't gonna work out here and now, count me out. I'm going fishing.' Classic statement. Totally frustrated, totally confused, crushed, disillusioned, maybe even embittered, feeling ripped off. 'Boy, I thought we were going to get the whole thing together and now they went and killed him. I'm going fishing'—tossing in the towel, 'I've had it.'

   That is the inevitable result if you follow the cycle of false idealism and heroism onto its logical conclusions. The bubble inevitably bursts, and then the individual who has been floating along on an inflated cloud of romantic idealistic notions suddenly dashed to the ground has no defense in his head at all. Has nothing to hang on to as he falls and tumbles and then lands there in a pit of depression and gloom with remorse, with disillusionment just oozing out of every pore. He's got nothing to hang his hat on.

   Art McCarroll threw out to 5,000 people at the Feast in Squaw Valley something to hang your hat on. That's a lot better than Peter had when the bottom dropped out, folks. And I just want to underscore the point because it's precious. It's valuable to see this.

   And thus, for this moment in time, Peter was unable to make any positive contribution whatsoever. He had had it spiritually and otherwise. Now I ask you brethren, isn't that exactly what many have come to in recent years in this church and work? Doesn't that perfectly illustrate the cycle that they've gone through? Doesn't it perfectly explain why top ministers walk out and quit with an all-or-nothing-at-all attitude?

   'If it isn't going to be the way I thought it was gonna be, and I hoped it would be, and I planned for it to be, and I worked for it to be, and I was trying so hard to make it be...' Then I quit—and they stomped off in a huff, in a black foul mood of depression. Either to go into oblivion or start doing their own thing, setting up a new shop to act out their heroism on a different stage is all it amounts to.

   It explains it perfectly because their own perfectionistic utopian bubble would burst, they fell apart. I didn't see their error at the time, every time. I've had a lot of opportunity to reflect deeply on their error since. I don't know how many of you have asked me questions like, 'How could good old minister so-and-so ever have left the work?' I've just given you the best explanation I know—the one that really makes some of the best since. They got hooked on their false idealism. They need to either be or have a hero. And when it didn't work out that way, boy, they came tumbling down and didn't have a hook to hang on, so to speak.

   And I want to give you a fascinating quote from pages 209 and 210 of Becker's book. Once again, the title is 'Denial of Death'—kind of heavy reading, but it's fascinating material. Get this: When do people bog down in mental problems and mental illness? 'Mental illness,' Becker writes, quoting Adler, 'is a way of talking about people who have lost courage, which is the same as saying that it reflects the failure of heroism.' It was Adler who saw that low self-esteem was the central problem of mental illness.

   When does the person have the most trouble with his self-esteem? Precisely when his heroic transcendence of his faith is most in doubt—when he doubts his own immortality, when he doubts the abiding value of his life, when he's no longer convinced that his having really lived really made any difference. From this point on, we might say that he bogged down in mental illness.

   When do people really slip?—when that bubble burst. When did Peter really fall apart? When all of those notions and fallacies and ideals that he had held so near and dear suddenly weren't there, and then he didn't have anything to build his life on anymore, and he just fell apart until Christ had to resuscitate him, so to speak, revive him by saying there was still hope.

   But when do people have the worst problems with self-esteem? When their hero games they're playing in their heads run out, and when they can't make sense of it anymore based on that peculiar and very egocentric view of the world they have held—give way, and then it's all up in the air, then it's a real scramble.

   So when the whole hero myth stands in doubt, then people bog down in real serious mental problems. And let me tell you something, folks—when some of the top people that left this work went out, and I know from close-hand personal observation, their state of mental equilibrium was not good, really. They were imbalanced. They had what I would have to call, from my own personal observations, mental problems.

   I don't say irreversible ones. I think they could pull out of it possibly, and maybe some have or will, but they were very unstable. They did not have a sound mind. They were not coping with life's realities very well at that point in time, which tells you they couldn't have been motivated by the Spirit of God because God's Spirit gives us the necessary equipment to be able to deal with reality the way it is, not just the way we would like it—and sometimes there's a big difference.

   OK? I can accept that, can you? But some people, it seems, have to have it only the way they want it, and it doesn't work too well in life. So depression hits, mental illness hits, and people start throwing in the towel and saying 'I quit.'

   Now again, brethren, doesn't this view of the work or the church—which we're particularly applying it to today—tend then to revolve around the individual himself, not God, not the leaders God has picked, not the plan of God or the purpose of God or the work of God, but around the individual? It's like saying the work exists for me. It's my theater, my stage, the place that I go to be Mr. Big or Mrs. Big or Miss Big or what have you.

   But follow—in other words, it's just another way of understanding human vanity and how it works. Just different words to explain in a little bit different and hopefully a helpful way how vanity works in human beings. That's why it's so universal. It's there in all of us to one extent or another.

   So I ask you, do you have any such illusions? And 300 human minds say, 'No, not me. He sure preached about other people real good today, but he hasn't come close to me.' Now, I hope you didn't say that. I can say I have had such illusions, and I still tend toward them, but I'm getting weaned off of them awful fast. Life is trying to teach me something. God's trying to teach me something, and I'd be blind in both eyes not to see what it is.

   For example, does the local church revolve around you in your own head? Chances are it does. That's the way it looks to us. Wherever you're sitting, everybody else is sitting around you. You're the center to you, and you can interpret the local church that way, or the church at large that way—a stage on which you act out your central role in things. But that kind of thinking has big dangers, real flaws to it.

   I think David gave a beautiful antidote to that, an attitude of mind that I think is well worth repeating in Psalm 84. I think you'll remember the scripture when we get there. It's probably been a while since we quoted this one, but it's one that I think the attitude is beautiful. I'm not saying for a moment David really anticipated this was going to be his lot in the kingdom, but it does express a good attitude.

   He says, 'A day in your courts is better than a thousand. And I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.' Good attitude. I'd rather be a little guy than to jump off and wind up in the wrong camp—in the tents of wickedness is where a lot of people have wound up, folks, you know, really. They're in the tents, the dwelling places of the wicked, doing wicked evil things. They would have been far better to take a doorkeeper attitude.

   And again, I have to qualify that because as many people have already pointed out, God, I don't think, is raising up eternal doorkeepers, you know, just to open doors forever and ever. God has something far more important. But the attitude, that's the thing—not to have to have a big important central role is the beautiful thing.

   And David had that. Or—and I've also read you this before—from Clement's letter, extra-biblical material from the first century to the Corinthians. You recall, he said, 'Learn to submit yourselves, laying aside the arrogant and proud stubbornness of your tongue. For it is better for you to be found little in the flock of Christ and to have your name on God's roll than to be had in exceeding honor and yet be cast out from the hope of Him.' Same attitude. It's a real good solution to the problem.

   If it's that human vanity, it interjects a note of humility—and really, isn't that a lot closer to reality? We are all little in the sight of God. We're little in the work. Do you think it would make some huge important difference to the work of God if I died on the freeway on the way home tonight? No, next week somebody would be up here giving the sermon, the Eugene church would go right on, the work would go right on. I am not indispensable. Nobody is indispensable.

   Some people may be relatively more important than others. Nobody is indispensable. And that's a good point to keep in mind. We all really have only a small part, much more like the doorkeeper than the chief executive when you get right down to it. And the people that I've known over the years that have been able to maintain that perspective and have been humble are the ones who seem to ride out the storms, make it from one time in one season to another and come back for more because they maintain a humble perspective.

   So what I'm saying is, don't let false idealism and heroism or hero worship rule in your spiritual efforts or in connection with what Nick was saying, let you or cause you to become disloyal with the attitude that, 'Well, if they're not going to play the game by my rules, I'll just take my marbles and go home,' you know, and that's the attitude so many people have had—stomped off in a huff and said... 'Lord, to whom shall we go?' Where else is there when you're thinking straight?

   Rather, let's get in touch with reality and learn to live with it. James 3—James had a very realistic perspective of himself and the ministry. James is credited for having a lot of wisdom and his book has a certain emphasis on wisdom. Well, here's deep wisdom. First of all, it says in verse one of James 3 (James 1:3): 'Brethren, don't let everybody try to be a master, a big deal, a teacher, a minister, somebody important'—knowing that the first thing you get out of that is just a greater burden, a heavier judgment, more responsibility. It isn't just more fun and games and glory. It's a heavier burden of responsibility and a stricter judgment. That's what you'll get. So let's not rush into that.

   And furthermore, right on the heels of that he wisely adds, 'We, in many things we'—the masters, the teachers, the ministers—'we do what? We offend everyone.' You want that job? You can have it. You can get yourself in a position so you can offend everyone. Easily. I imagine I offend somebody at least a little bit in every single sermon I give. I thought we offended somebody today. I imagine there's already somebody sitting out there saying, 'I don't think much of this sermon. I don't think much of him either.' You know, it's almost inescapable that somebody's gonna think that.

   You can't please all the people all the time. James is right—in many things, consciously or unconsciously, and usually it's unconsciously, we offend all the people, at least some of the people. He can offend some of the people some of the time and all the people... I don't know, but I'm sure we do it.

   That's wisdom. Human leaders can't help but be offensive at times when their humanity shows—and it can't help but show as long as they're human. Now, realists can accept that fact and say, 'So what else is new? Isn't everybody human? I'm human. He's human. Sure, that's just the way the game is played, of course.'

   But idealistic and Christians are the worst at this. Can't accept it that way—that wounds them, that offends them. They stack up the cards against the human being by saying, 'Look, he's got the Bible. He knows the Bible better than any of us. He's been to Ambassador College. He's in the ministry. He ought to know better. How dare he be imperfect? He's a Christian. He claims to be a Christian and not just a Christian but a minister! Now in view of that...' So at least he could be a Christian—and if he's not going to be perfect, well he's just not a minister, that's all, any how what's going on? Here they ought to do something about it. Get rid of him and get somebody out here who is a perfect minister, like me.'

   Look, Christians are really bad that way. They're bad on each other. You do that to each other. 'How in the world could that person be in the church all these years and not know that by now?' Don't say things like that and say things like that. We expect a lot of ourselves. We expect even more of our leaders.

   Christians have to have perfect heroes. Now, we had a guy here in the local congregation who used to think ministers were nearly perfect. And boy, did we fix his wagon—who ordained him! And now he knows better. Jim Hanson doesn't have any nutty notions about perfect ministers anymore. You talk to Jim Hanson, he'll tell you all these ministers are human. They might carry around that olive oil bottle, but don't kid yourself, they're human just like me. You know, he was telling me that just recently. His whole view of the ministry is different now. The whole ministry just slipped a big notch when he got in. He knows that all ministers are fallible, mortal human beings just like him. His eyes have been opened now.

   I hope he's not too bitterly disillusioned. I hope you're not either. But there is that notion—we've had it for years—to put ministers in a separate category. They're just way up here somewhere, you know, beyond the taint of human suspicion or anything.

   I John 1 and verse 8 doesn't do much to bear that out, does it? You recall that (I John 1:8)—'If we say,' and this is a minister writing, an apostle writing, John, 'that we have no sin, we're kidding ourselves, deceiving ourselves. The truth is not in us.' Every minister in the Worldwide Church of God has sin in himself, brethren. That's what the scripture says. Maybe that goes contrary to your notions of ministers, but that's what the Bible says and we better learn to live with that fact as just a fact of life.

   And because it's true, we're never going to have a perfect church with perfect decisions and perfect policies and programs. Guess what? The Y.O.U. program isn't perfect yet. They probably never will be. And Ambassador College isn't perfect, and the Medford Church isn't perfect, the Salem Church isn't perfect, and Portland Church isn't perfect, and we're supposed to come to be perfect here in Eugene, but most of these other churches are quite imperfect. No, we're imperfect. We're not a perfect church. There isn't the perfect Worldwide Church of God. You know, anywhere in the world they're all composed of fallible mortal human beings like you and me.

   Problems? The church has got problems, folks. People ever approach you that way? 'Don't you know, down at headquarters these days they've got some really big problems. I mean, Ambassador College has really got problems these days.' That's right. That's true. They always have and they always will have problems. 'Problems' is probably the most frequently used word at headquarters. That's what you're just buzzing all around every corridor and locker room and executive suite—problems, problems, problems, problems. Sure. That's just the way it is. We're always going to have problems.

   The only really critical question that I'm dealing with today is: what will your response to these problems be? Will you say with Peter, 'I quit, I'm going fishing. I'm gonna revert right back to where I came into this whole church. I'm going to go right back and pick up where I left off in this room'? I've seem so many people do that—give you classic examples. If people go back to the same city, go back to the same employment, try to go back and pick up where they left off with their old life. The only thing they know to do.

   Well, that's a pretty poor response. Or on the other hand—and this is totally different in its orientation—can you accept the fact that yes, there are problems, always have been, always will be, and then get about doing what you can to solve the problems, to bring about constructive change?

   What did Peter quitting accomplish? What did anybody quitting in our organization accomplish? Did it help solve the problems? You know, one of the ironic things about it to me, brethren, is that the people that made such big noises about the problems went out, then we proceeded to deal with many of those problems and got them solved exactly the way they wanted to see them solved. You think they'd come back in? No, they had quit by this point in time. So even after the problem was solved, they were still on the outside looking in.

   What does that tell you? It wasn't just the problem that was the problem. It was their thinking about the problem, their whole notion about the problem and what the fact that we had problems proved. How they blew that thing up so big in their minds that even when we resolve the problems perfectly, they couldn't humble themselves to say, 'OK, fine. I'll come back in. Let me be a doorkeeper or anything else. I just want my part in the work of God.' I think that's a very telling comment.

   So I urge you to take a mature view of the matter—to accept our imperfections, to accept our limitations. God says to this whole church area, era ratter, 'You have only a little strength' in Revelation. It's a little church with a little strength. Well, that's true.

   Now, as for perfectionism, as for idealism, I don't ask you to cast it to the ground and forsake it altogether. If you want to have any perfectionistic notions, I give you the right to continue with them, but put them in the right place. Put them in God. Put them in Christ. Don't put them in any man. Put them where they would be justified—in God. You'll never be disillusioned that way. He alone and Christ are the perfect heroes.

   But I'll tell you something about those perfect heroes. I bet you that God has a lot better ability to accept the reality of doing His work through imperfect human servants than most people do. And I'll give you one reason why—God's been doing it for 6,000 years. If God had any perfectionistic notions, I bet—I bet He lost them by the flood. I bet He lost them with the first family. You know, they eat of the wrong tree, fall from grace, one kid kills the other, and there you go, you know, in the first few hundred years. He could have lost any notions He had about perfection in the flesh.

   So God has a very seasoned view. I bet you God can live with that a lot better than a lot of human beings. Kind of take a tongue-in-cheek attitude, let it in. You know, 'I could use rocks, I could use angels, but it wouldn't serve My purpose. And as long as I'm going to use human beings, that's the way it's gonna be.' So, I just thought I'd add that about God, whom I suspect has a very seasoned and mature view.

   Now, brethren, truth in this—let me say that I feel strongly that today I've given you, but at least to me is a very valuable truth, a truth that many fine men and women in the Church of God failed to understand in time to avert spiritual disaster. Right? I'd like to dedicate this sermon to them. They taught me a lot by their example. They made me challenge certain things and question certain things and ask why and come up with answers. And I'd like to thank people like Art McCarroll for being the kind of hard realist that he is so that those lessons can be shared and these points can be understood.

   Many more will quit the Church of God in the future because of false idealism and heroism. You know that's true. Some people came back and at the Feast thing, you know, I heard somebody else is thinking about leaving and we lost another one or two, including one longtime faithful member of the church up here who dropped by after attending the Feast up at Crooked River or whatever it was—Redmond. And that came as a blow. And then people say, 'Yeah, there's gonna be more.' Yeah, there's gonna be more.

   There are gonna be a lot of people who will never figure out what I told you today and it will cost them dearly. They won't be able to accept the stark reality that the Bible and life itself forces upon you. They won't learn to live with reality and when the bubble bursts, they'll come crashing down.

   So I urge you to grab ahold of what I'm saying to you today and search yourself for these attitudes and pray about it and think about it and reflect deeply on it and change it. If you're given to those notions and get it right down—don't drop over in the opposite ditch of hardened cynicism. I'm not suggesting that for a moment and I'm not going that way myself, but I'm going to be very careful about my idealism, about my perfectionism in others.

   Now, I can strive for perfection myself as I was explaining last week without laying that trip on somebody else. I'm gonna stay sealed in my 50-gallon drum from that standpoint. And if you will grab ahold of what I'm saying, you too will be armed against a spiritual trap that's taken many lives and will take more. But I'm with this understanding, brethren—I'm not going to let it happen to me and it didn't happen to you either.