Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston Proper, you are Live from the Path. And you're listening to Live from the Path. We're broadcasting here from the beautiful Pathway Studios here in Johnston Proper. It's gorgeous. It is gorgeous. Good stuff. I tell you what, the weather was just outstanding today. I was out hot footing around the countryside, and it was a pretty sight. And I really like getting out and about in the pretty weather. Ben, what are you even talking about? I don't know.

What is hot footing? I don't know. It means you're walking fast. Walking fast? Like those hot coal things? Power walking? Yeah. You're walking so fast that the bottoms of your feet are getting hot. You're hot footing. I've never done such a thing. My stuff ain't working.

I stroll. Maybe you should start really working out then. Here's what we've got going on here at Live from the Path today. The God is Imaginary guy is back online. Yeah. He was only temporarily down. So we talked last week. We were looking for Proof 25, and we checked him out last week, and he was gone at GodIsImaginary.com. Did he update the website? No, no. No, it's the same thing.

He's just back up and running. I think he's running into hard times financially. Could be. He's always upset about the Lord not spreading the blessings around, and maybe it's more personal than we thought. So anyway, we're going to hit Proof number 25, and if you're not familiar, we've stumbled upon GodIsImaginary.com. He's got 50 proofs that he says prove that God is imaginary. So far, God 24, imaginary man zero, but we're going to look at Proof number 25. It's a little bit entertaining to walk through, but also, we should be able to provide an answer for people who this is a stumbling block for them and in their faith, so we'll

be able to walk through this week. Proof number 25 is understand evolution and abiogenesis. So we'll hit that a little bit. I'm very excited for this one, because this is where Troy claims to be a student of the sciences. Abiogenesis? I don't think I ever claimed that, but we'll see what happens. Yeah, we're going to see how it goes down. You'll have to help me out. Actually, there was a girl that I met in ninth grade. Her name was Abiogenesis.

Hey, hey, hey, yes, you're quite right. Oh, good one. So we're also, you know, we didn't get to this a few weeks back, but when the hurricane, Hurricane Sandy came through, and there was discussion among certain Jesus circles that this was a God's wrath type of item, and I thought, you know, that might be worth talking about, just fleshing out a little bit as to whether God does that type of thing, and whether that's in his character for sending hurricanes at people. So we'll talk through that just a hair. Also, we got your chat, and Dear Life from the Path, people need help, and I have Pope style advice, and so does Troy. You're listening to Live from the Path on livefromthepath.org.

I feel like we're going to start walking through this proof, Ben. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. I've just been slightly distracted. I've been lamenting the Twinkies. All right, so here we go. We're on godisimaginary.com. We're looking at proof number five, and in proof that God is not real, he wants us to understand evolution and Abiogenesis. So I'll read a little bit of what he has listed here. It says, recently there's been a remarkable change in the Christian community.

Many members of the Christian faith are embracing evolution. And he gives like a couple of examples. 10,000 clergy members, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All right. The interesting thing to understand is that when you accept evolution, what you are automatically doing is rejecting the concept of a soul. Here is why. As soon as you accept that evolution is true, you also accept that the creation story in the Bible is false. It is pure mythology. The concept of the soul, which comes from the same book, is exactly the same sort of

mythology. Simply think through the logic. What the theory of evolution says is that every living thing on this planet has evolved through a complementary, excuse me, a completely natural process. Every species that we see today is derived from simple, single-cell organisms over the course of hundreds of millions of years. In other words, there was no supernatural creation process for humans as described in the Bible's book of Genesis. As you think about this, what you will realize is that evolved beings have no souls. Human beings are no different from any other animal, insect, plant, or bacteria in the way that we have evolved.

In the same way that every other living thing on planet Earth is soulless, humans are soulless. The whole notion of a soul is a figment of human imagination. This makes complete sense. The biochemistry of life powers evolution. That biochemistry is amazing and complex, but it is nothing more than a set of soulless chemical reactions. When the chemical reactions cease, you die. There is no soul mixed in with the chemicals. Where did the first cell come from? Many believers will argue that God magically created the first living cell. This, of course, is silly.

The scientific principle that describes the origin of life is called abiogenesis. In the same way that there is no supernatural being involved in evolution, there is no supernatural being involved in abiogenesis. Both the creation of life and the evolution of species are completely natural processes. There is no supreme being in heaven who reached down to create life on Earth or human beings, nor is that being answering any prayers. There is no soul. There is no everlasting life. Science tells us all these things with complete clarity. God is imaginary. Open forum.

Go. Okay, so I'm kind of disappointed in this one, because I've heard some excellent arguments for evolution. Excellent arguments. And this is not one of them. The argument for evolution is not, God's not real, because science explains it with clarity. And then he didn't explain it. He didn't say anything on the basis for his observations. And frankly, you know, it was Darwin, Darwin wrote the theory of evolution. Darwin said, once it's shown that an organism has adapted to the point where it couldn't survive in between its adaption, then my theory is irrelevant.

Like, he said it himself. And so he disproved his own theory on just about everything, because if you look at, especially mammals in general with their circulatory system, you can't have half a heart. You know what I'm saying? You either have a heart or you don't. And either your blood's pumping or an ache. And so in the meantime, when you go from, say, amoeba style to a functioning heart, you know, you can't be halfway in between. And then it's so, like, your evolution was so smart that it just saw that the heart was going to function and went, okay, let's flip now. Now you're going to start using the heart, right?

Like, there's no science that proves that. There's no science that shows any evidence of that. And so, like, his main sweeping point is that some Christians are adapting to evolution. Now, there's nothing wrong with Christians subscribing to science. There's things that we can prove that are, you can say provable. Every science is a theory, right? But, like, and I think we've talked about this before, that science is generally, as far as I'm concerned, just the explanation of how God did something. And so you're basically looking at a God who created the universe, and you're figuring out how he did it. Some of that's pretty cool.

Some of it's probably none of your business, but you want to stick your face in there. That's fine with me. But it seems to be a very odd place that you have a creationist point of view, and you buy into every bit of evolution, because I think you're going to have a hard time marrying those two things together. And he did a great job confirming my disbelief in evolution. I mean, because I've always had the creation, six-day creation stance. That's how it's described in Genesis. I just believe that's how it is. I can't disprove it or prove it more than he can. However, his statement of a soul, bringing the soul into it, because I understand that

when God breathed life into Adam, that was the soul. And he didn't do it to animals, he just did it to mankind. And it's a great point. You don't have a soul evolve. I mean, it either happened or it didn't. Well, it happened. And he's right. These churches are wrong. Yeah, and here's the broader sweeping problem. Because if I was an evolutionist, I would look at what he just wrote, and I'd be just smacking my head against the table going, are you kidding me?

This is the guy that's representing me? I feel the same way about most Christians who throw their hat in the ring of the evolution topic. There's things to understand. There's scientific principles to know. You have to know where they've taken some liberty with some data and where they haven't. Because some of them are fairly good theories. You know, like in so much as most people just skim page one and go, yeah, that sounds dead on. But by the time you get to page 10, you realize, well, they don't really know some of these things, so they just took a guess and plugged these numbers in as a result.

And so you're a fool to be taken in on either side without actually looking into it. You know, like I went, in fact, I did a study for this because I had to talk about it one time. And I went back and forth. Every time I'd find something that I thought was a fairly good stance for creation, I went and tried to find the science that was going to disprove that. And I just went back and forth, back and forth. And I mean, I'll be honest with you, God ends up winning. He just flat out ends up winning. Because when it all boils down to it, their scientific theories, they're very good and they're very well thought out until it gets to the point where they don't know anymore.

And then they're taking a theory and they have to add six theories to make that theory work. So now you're not just working on one unknown, you're working on 15. And then your science is starting to flow out the window because now you're Nostradamus. Now you're just making crap up and plugging it into a formula to try to make it look like X comes out. And where I feel very comfortable saying, I'm not really sure how this went down, but an all-knowing God who's kept a Bible consistent, relevant, and the same since the beginning of time. And I can live in his creation and have a relationship with him. I have a much easier time trusting that to be the truth than I would, you know, someone

trying to come up with a formula to plug in the numbers. You know, honestly, I would agree entirely with both your points. You know, when it comes to the scientific portion of it, when it comes to Darwin talking about his own theory being disproven, you know, with mammals in the heart, evolution, the way that it is described in modern science is not possible the way that it works. So, with the situation, you know, we've got the mammal, and I mean, more specifically, there's specific animals that you can break down that evolution would not have been possible. We would not have the animals that we have on this earth today if it were for evolution just because of the extinction of so many animals that have, you know, adapted into where they're at now. You know, the giraffe, the bombardier beetle.

I mean, I can go into specifics on why those things could not have been evolved from different forms of themselves because the way that it works, it can't work that way. You know, giraffe has so many ways of its circulatory system where, you know, if you think about it, a giraffe being as tall as it is, if it puts its head down all the way to drink water, all the blood that's being pumped from its heart is going to shoot into its brain and kill it, essentially. What has happened is there is a small sponge-like form at the base of the brain of the giraffe that the blood collects at the bottom there. And what it does is it collects all that blood so it doesn't rush into the brain and then it slowly secretes it into the brain so it can keep a natural blood flow. And then when it tips its head back up, its neck actually has a way to fight that as well.

So the heart wouldn't be able to pump that hard to get the blood all the way up to the brain when its head is 10 foot, 11 foot over its heart. The way that the valves work and the veins and capillaries work on a giraffe, it fills up one pocket of the vein at a time and then it pools. Like a Tetris game. Right, exactly. I don't know if it's exactly like a Tetris. Kind of like a Tetris, right, Troy? You were too quick to agree to that. Yeah, I kind of was. Generally speaking, it's like you wouldn't have time to evolve that type of thing because

every time the giraffe bent down, he would die. There would never be one left to continue to evolve. Exactly, exactly. Bent down dead, bent down dead, bent down dead. And that's, you know, when it comes to his argument here, it's not even really for or against, you know, creationism or evolution. It's saying that both of the exact same thing of evolution with the Big Bang and then creationism where something is made from nothing in both cases. Well, so I was looking through this a little bit earlier and it's just a poorly constructed argument even. So, like, if you say something like, as soon as you accept that evolution is true, you

also accept that the creation story in the Bible is false. That's, that one does not logically lead to the other. He's just throwing stuff out there as if, as if it's a logical collusion. So the concept of the soul, which comes from the same book, is exactly the same sort of mythology. Now, first of all, the concept of the soul is not purely based on biblical doctrine. I mean, that's where I believe that God has established it and he, that is, he breathed that into man, right? But pagan, pagan thought of that same era certainly believed in the soul. Oh, yeah. I mean, you could find, you could, Socrates mentions the soul.

I mean, Greek, Greek mythology mentions the soul. Yeah. I mean, it's a very broadly accepted construct in all major religions. I mean, in Baha'i, the Hinduism, like, all that stuff is, there's a soul construct in there. So, like, just because, let's say you could somehow prove that the Bible was false, it doesn't eliminate the soul being true just because that one book is false, and it's not. And so, I mean, that's a poorly, it's a poorly set up argument. The second thing he said was, and this is, this is very disingenuous, he said, the scientific principle that describes the origin of life is called abiogenesis. So, abiogenesis is the study of how biological life could arise from inorganic matter.

It's not what it's called, it's not the solution. It's just what you call it that people are studying to figure out how it could have happened. Because it's never happened. Well, correct. They can't make it happen. There's a ton of, there's, you know, 50 different ways that they think that it may have occurred. Okay. But, like, to say that, oh, this has been solved through abiogenesis, which is just the title. So, let's say, Mike, we're trying to figure out how we can make frogs fly across a room, and it's called the Mike Frog Institute.

Hold on, is it you and I as a team? No, no, just you. You've opened an institute. Oh. Okay. So, but that's similar. Thank you for your contribution to my scientific endeavors. I'm not buying into it. But, like, that's like saying, you know, the problem with pigs and flying has been solved based upon the Mike Frog Institute. Yeah.

Like, he's working on it. Thank you. But it's not the answer. And so, it's, you know, that's a disingenuous position to say that that's the answer. Did you even read my paper of how I did this thing? Nope. I feel like you should at least give it a once-over, you know? Abiogenesis, most evolutionists will say we're proved in a lab, like, but when it's proved in a lab, when you mix chemicals together in a lab, it's kind of a higher being doing the mixing. Yeah, true.

It's a non-cerative, because, like, you do have someone creating it, yes? Yeah. Right. Someone's creating it. And then, like, what they don't tell you also, like, they get a few amino acids. They get a few… The amino acids come together as a protein. Is it a useful protein? Building block of life? No. It's not.

It's a useless protein that's going to die. Yeah, it's just the branch chain of amino acids. I've been called that myself. Useless protein? Just because it chains up doesn't mean that it's going to do anything. Well, once again, he doesn't prove that God's imaginary. He proves there's some bad theology in churches. Yep. And he proves he doesn't quite understand how to argue his point. Yeah, here's the thing. As a person who loves Jesus, here's what you should take away from this discussion.

Don't be this man on Jesus' team. Don't be this guy. You know what I'm saying? Find out what you're talking about. Will you? Just do some looking into it. Make sure that you know what you're saying. You should be able to defend the Lord's creationism against a lot of misguided scientific theory. Now, don't be so foolish to think that science cannot explain anything because that's not the truth. God and science are not fighting. They're friends.

Science explains what God does. And so, you know, but go in there with an open mind and an open heart and God will, you won't be found wanting. You know what I'm saying? And you'll find where God is and where he wants to be and where he is as part of his creation. And you'll find out where you're being, the scales are being tipped in a direction to make you think a certain way. So don't be this man on God's behalf. If you're going to speak on evolution and if you're going to speak to creationism versus evolution, that's not a conversation for everybody. But if it's a conversation for you, please know what you're talking about. Get some learning. Don't just walk in there like a doofus and go, Genesis, blah, blah, blah, says, because that guy that you're talking to probably has not read Genesis. And so it would be best if you can Paul style, meet them where they're at, talk to them where they're going to be.

And you just might be able to talk to them about Jesus by the time the conversation's over. Yeah, Genesis 1, 4. Eat it. Take that. But the Bible says, well, I don't believe in the Bible. Oh, crap. Dang, that was my whole… Well, that was… The whole canon, that was my cornerstone. Never mind. Not even the Romans or nothing?

No. Well, I give it a Wikipedia and… All right, that was 25. I'm going to give that one to God. 25 and 0. Next week, we're going to look at proof… You know, is it bad to say that I'm glad he's still here? The Godisimaginary.com guy? No. He brings up some interesting conversations. I agree.

Okay. Ooh, proof number 26. Next week, notice that the Bible's author is not all-knowing. It's probably a good thing that he's still alive. Oh, he's got a list of… Mr. Tyndale? One, two, three. He's got like 10 verses here. These verses feel like utter nonsense, don't they? I feel like you should do one. Okay, so here's one of them.

Deuteronomy 25, 11, and 12. If men get into a fight with one another, and the wife of one intervenes to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching out and seizing his genitals, you shall cut off her hand. Show no pity. Well, how does that prove that God is not all-knowing? Yeah, why is that? Proving that the writer of the Bible? Well, I think the basic concept is going to be… Isn't that silly? Yeah.

It seems kind of ridiculous. Shouldn't a Bible inspired by God fill you with amazement? It seems like a firm policy. I think in this situation, that fill you with amazement. I feel like one of those guys is going to be supportive. Yeah, exactly. Go ahead. Cut that off. All right. All right. So anyway, we're going to hit that next week, and that's Proof 226.

You've been listening to Live from the Path. Thanks for hanging out with us so far. We're here every Monday night from 10 to 11 p.m. Central Time at livefromthepath.org, or you can check us out on Saturdays starting at 10 p.m. as well on 99.3 KTIA. And we thank you for listening to both. We're going to take a real quick station break, and we'll be right back with you. Thanks for listening to Live from the Path. And now a word from Valley Services Cleaning. The state of Maine. I don't see it.

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Because you don't want to imagine what dust bunnies can be. You just want them to go away. 277-5611. Dude, look at this shirt. What is that? That's my face. It looks like a raccoon. Does that say the beast man? It says the best man. You spelled it wrong. If you're going to make a shirt, do it right.

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Opened up our eyes when you told the truth. You told the truth to the sacrifice. You lived possible to be born twice. I don't need any other. Won't keep him for myself. No more running for my cover. I don't need anybody. Come down to the sacrifice. You've been listening to Live from the Path. Thanks for coming and hanging out with us. If you're listening to the 99.3 KTA on a Saturday night, the Lord has blessed you because you missed that internet break.

Oh, buddy. It was pretty sad. It was. But just in case you're curious, you can catch us on Monday nights from 10 to 11 p.m. at livefromthepath.org. There's a live chat that goes along with the show, so you can let us know just how poor you think the show is going. And we'd love to hear from you. So one of the things that we didn't get to talk about a few weeks back is that the hurricane came through, Hurricane Sandy. And there was some discussion in what I would say, at least in certain circles, that this was a wrath of God type of thing. The Lord is taking his vengeance upon New York City. Mike, what are your thoughts on that? Here's the thing.

I suppose I'd have to. It just doesn't seem like the God I know. That's all I'm going to say. Like, I just, I don't know. So I was running across some folks on Facebook, and I was reading there, and they were just blowing up about this thing. They're like, God's wrath is descending on the East Coast. And most of it was because it had to do with the United Nations, because they made a move against Israel, and because the United Nations is centered in New York, this hurricane was coming to go. And I'm like, that is a sloppy, low-rent God if that's the way he's operating. You know what I'm saying? I'm saying, like, here's the thing.

If God wants to take a man out, he doesn't send a hurricane to destroy the East Coast, to destroy the United Nations building with the people that are generally doing business there, not even in it. They're back in their own country. You know what I'm saying? Like, I just, I thought, if that's the God that you're worshiping, I would be really disappointed. It's like God's an angry teamster. Yeah, like, just take the whole block out. Oh, no, not the union. Okay, so, clearly, in Scripture, sometimes God does do that. And he's the one who declares it. It's not Sam down the road saying, okay, this happened, and it's from God.

Okay, that's where I get leery. We don't have the authority to say, this hurricane happened because God's mad at the UN, especially over bad doctrine. Right. Okay, Israel is irrelevant. Okay, 90% of the Christian community gets mad at me when I say that. They are, have you read Romans lately? We are the engrafted branch. We are Israel. We are Israel. Israel is, if they have rejected Jesus, they are not the people of God.

The only people who are the people of God are those who are, we are descendants of Abraham now because we are the church. The church is Israel. Everybody misses that. I don't know why. They throw that out. They'll read that verse and go, yeah, it's really great. And then they forget it. And then they say, yeah, but there's Israel. And God's more concerned that they haven't believed them in the Messiah than he is, you know, anything else.

Yeah. How are the borders going in the nation state of Israel that were created in 1948? Exactly. I feel like that's a pretty, you know, recent item. It's a pretty recent item. I, you know, it just, I don't like, and there's, I mean, there's biblical examples of God sending weather-related wrath, right? Like, you can find it, but he says it. But he says, here's what I'm going to do. And it's generally at a people group. Like, he doesn't kill 15 people when he's after one.

You know what I'm saying? Like, it's not like, they're just collateral damage. Did you see the people that, I mean, there's people that died in that hurricane and they were not part of the United Nations. They were just a guy who got hit on a, with a tree limb. Most of the people who died, died from fallen trees. Yeah. And so they were just outside going to take their dog out to go to the bathroom and they got hit by a tree limb. If he wants to take an individual down, he could do like Herod and have him suddenly eaten by worms.

Yeah. That's kind of cool. Yeah. That makes a statement. There's a million things to do. It's, and you're, you're, you're, oh man, you're armchair quarterbacking on what God's got going on. Here's the thing. Like it irritates me, but, but more, more than that, I just, I feel like you're making a huge mistake. Stop talking on the Lord's behalf.

If, if, if, if you are not Jesus Christ, then you should probably be quiet about what is going on. He knows what he's doing. It's really none of my business. That's a, that's a pretty big thing to make an error on, right? Because what is the view of the, of a person who doesn't know Jesus when they get hit by a hurricane, right? And it affects their circumstances and there's some blowhard somewhere on social media or on the news or whatever. And he's like, Oh, this is definitely God's wrath. I saw that happen.

I saw someone write about that. And I saw someone right in and right next to him and be like, Hey, listen, I'm from New York. Are you saying that, that God was coming after us? You know, I'm like, how are you going to answer that? How are you going to answer that now? You opened your mouth. You shouldn't have said anything. Why did you even do this? Because God wants you to be able to drink a big soda. And that's the problem.

It just really doesn't seem like normal doctrine. It seems more like, I'm not going to name any names, but it sounded a little bit like some West Perot, if you know what I mean, doctrine. I don't know what that means, Ben. It doesn't matter. It's the guys with the multicolored side. It's, it's, it's actually, there's a, there's a, there's a small contingent in almost every area of the country where it's, they want God to be on board with the thing that they're pissed off about, right? I'm upset with such and such. I'm upset with so-and-so.

I think someone's doing wrong. Uh, the Lord is, is obviously bringing justice in relation to whatever I think. Right. Here they go. I think that's the deal. You said Westboro funny. Yeah. Was that the joke? That was, yeah. Well, I didn't get it. I'm like, I thought Ross Perot, he runs his own sect of religion now.

Somebody said West Perot. And I'm like, I'm just going to leave that out. Okay. That makes better sense. I threw up air quotes. So, I guess the people on. So, I guess broadly to Mike, to what you were saying is, I mean, just, just be careful. If your first thought is, your first thought should be to shut your mouth. Right. I, yeah. Like, I mean, you probably, you should be praying for years before you can open your

mouth on, yeah, God sent this disaster upon someone. Because you've, you've just nailed the character of God to something that you can't be entirely confident about. Yeah. Here's the thing. If you're going to, if you're going to, if you're going to spot off at the mouth and you're going to do it from the Bible, from scripture, you do that all day long. No filter. Out it goes. Say exactly what God said. You can do that all day long with no worries.

Conscious clean. No, nothing. Listen, but as soon as you start coming up with your own ideas, this is especially gets dangerous because people do this a lot. The Holy Spirit is leading me to blank. If that, the Bible is now your filter. It's a coffee pot. Everything that comes up in your big coffee ground pile has to go through the Bible filter before it can be served to others. You know what I'm saying? And if it doesn't go through that, you don't see people eating coffee grounds straight, right

off the spoon. Everything gets the water and the filter before people start to drink it. That applies to you. If I'm not saying though, I've seen it. The Holy Spirit leads people to do things. The Holy Spirit talks into people's life. The Holy Spirit will give you direction on things that he chooses to, but that needs to go through the Bible. It has to go through the Bible filter. Yeah, they just heard some bad preaching and they're just repeating with some bad doctrine. I'm sure there's one guy that needs to be blamed then.

I'll find his name. Well, there's a lot of them, I'm afraid. Two guys. Sorry. Two guys. Four tops. Like, here's the thing. Like, I laugh about it now, but like when it was happening, I was really irritated and I didn't know Christianity wise. I didn't know as a follower of Jesus how to answer this, right? Because the people I'm seeing this coming from, I know they follow Jesus or they try,

you know? And so here's the thing is like, we ran into the same line. Remember when we had into times guy on here, uh, when he's like, listen, if he makes a wrong prediction, we're like, uh, the Bible says he's a false prophet. You know what I'm saying? Don't listen to the man. He's like, well, he just kind of made a guess and it wasn't right. And I'm like, ah, I don't know what my grace line is here. You know what I'm saying? Like, I really wish you'd be quiet and not talk on God's behalf, but I know you're just a human and valuable and Christ died for you.

So like that puts you in a real weird position. I feel like we need to have a chat, uh, about, about the things that are coming from you, but, uh, I still love you. I just need you to stop saying these things that are none of your business. You know, I don't really, maybe other people aren't under the same feeling, but like, as soon as I just, I feel like none of that is any of my business, the end time stuff, how God runs his business, what he does. I feel like it's just none of my concern. I, I followed what Jesus does and I read my Bible and I try to do what he tells me to do. And apart from what that, whatever he does on his own, I just like you're holy and sovereign. Do whatever you want.

Just include me in the end. I don't care. I don't care. It's going to go down without your interference, right? It's not like the Lord is waiting to bring his vengeance upon the world, uh, subject to you posting on Facebook first. Hey, I saw this coming three months ahead of time. You know, dear Lord, make it happen. Right. It's like, Oh, well now that they've identified it, I might as well do it. That I thought was so funny about, about people getting fired up about the UN not supporting

Israel. Like we're going to ground up some troops and send them over there and they're going to tone down God's wrath by protecting Israel. Like you guys don't have any part of this. Let's say it was, let's say it was what they think it is, right? Yeah. What are you going to do? We're going to bring a tank and a plane. Good luck. He sent a hurricane. You're outnumbered.

If that's your brand of thinking, it's you're, you're just, it is, you're not one hand's not talking to the other. You can't believe one thing and then still believe the other. And, and they kind of contradict themselves usually because these are the same group that are waiting for this massive war to happen against Israel. Yeah. You know, so they're waiting for it to happen, but they're saying, no, it can't happen. Right. Well, actually they believe it's going to happen. Yeah. As far as you're concerned, if you send troops over there, you're holding back the Lord's

return. Just let them find it out. You know what I'm saying? I'm ready to go home. I don't know. I find that's just such a weird line for me because like I said, they just, it irritates me. I'm not a theologian. I'm not a biblical history scholar. I guess I don't know all the lines of, of a revelation on how this tribulation is going down because frankly, I read it.

And after I read the book of revelation, I just thought, man, God's awesome. He does some amazing stuff and it sounds to me like he can do whatever he wants. And that's the point of revelation. That's all. You got it. That is all I took from revelation. You didn't have to have fancy charts. It's none of my business. God is great. That's all. That's all.

Because frankly, the rest of it just sounds like it's all God stuff to me. God sized things are happening. Mike sized brain is going, God's pretty cool. That's all. I went out and bought candlesticks and ate a scroll. Was that the wrong move? I read it differently. Was it bitter? I walk among the candlesticks every day. How you doing? Hello, number six.

You're in trouble. Where's this beast coming out of the sea? Oh, it's a frog. It's flying. This is my cat, Laodicea. Okay, you're listening to Life on the Path. Thanks for hanging out with us. Whatever. I'm not in or not in support of Israel. The point is putting words in God's mouth. That's the big deal.

Whatever. I don't care. For the record, I do support them. Yeah. I'll say that. I actually do, too. All right. You're listening to Life on the Path. Thanks for hanging out with us so far. You can catch us during the week at livefromthepath.org. We got past clips from the show.

Hey, you can check out that Bethany Joy Johnson clip from last week. Now, she was a lovely woman. And sang very cool songs. Made the mistake of letting us sing on that last one. Yeah. But, hey, that's catchy. It's been hanging around in my head a little bit. Yep. You know what else sticks in my head? You remember that song Roloff was on? And it was called Who Was on the Lord's Side?

Yep. Who was on the Lord's Side? I'm telling you. I tried to get him to play it again. It's catchy. Wings of the King. It's good. Hey, it's on the site. All right. Go to livefromthepath.org. You can check that out.

That thing is in my head probably like once every two days. And it sticks in there for hours. Ah. It's a good move. Anyway. And it sounds like Gomez. Yeah. And the Bethany Joy Johnson clips, they're burning up the YouTube, man. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

They're doing right well. So, yeah. Go check out those performances. The whole show is pretty fantastic. So, yeah. It's definitely worth your time. And you can check out more information about her by going to bethanyjoyjohnson.com. And she's got an upcoming Christmas show. I think that's on the 16th, 15th, 16th somewhere. 16th. It's at First Baptist Church in Indianola.

630. It's free to get in. Make sure you check that out. Should be a great show. She's playing with a full band. What you got, Mike? Uh, let's do a question here. So, people, they need help, Troy. We got some crazy stuff going on in the world today. We got the election that just happened. We got all the hurricane that's going on.

You know, people are coming to us saying, you know, we got some crazy stuff going on in our lives. We don't know what's going on. We need some advice. And here's what they said, Troy. This will blow your mind. Dear Live from the Path, I host a lot of gatherings at my home and sometimes when I'm on vacation. I put a lot of thought and effort into them. Some are themed parties, such as Valentine's Day or a luau. Do you think it's rude for guests to show up 10 or more minutes early? I enjoy hosting, but I need the last few minutes before my party time for me. So I can get dressed, light candles, put out the food, or just plain relax for a few minutes.

Your thoughts, please. 10 minutes before time? Plan further ahead? Now, I say this. I can relate to this person because I'm the guy who's always late. And so I assume everybody else is going to be late. And so I say it's going to start at 5. I'm not ready until 5.10. And so when they come at 10 till, they're 20 minutes early. But that's my problem, not theirs. I don't get upset with them.

I think, well, I should have planned early. Look at me. I was slow again. I think, okay, let's take the friend that you have that's the earliest friend you know. I would say that is consistently, at the most, 20 minutes. I would expect people to show up 15 to 20 minutes early because you're always going to have the early friend that they just show up early. It's their deal. We used to have a dude come into a small group about a half hour early every week. Yeah. And it was just like, this is really when we eat supper? Yeah.

That's okay. We weren't asking your permission. Okay. Well, then you won't mind waiting on the porch then. Exactly. Thank you. Go ahead and go sit in your car. Yeah, I feel like 10 minutes early, I mean, that's cutting it by the skinny. Even people I know that are generally just regular on time show up 10 minutes early. You know, I don't know. I feel like that's not out of line.

Yeah. Yeah. I think you got to give yourself a bigger buffer. Here's what Secular says. I agree with you. Guests with good manners show up at the appointed time. Man. While arriving 15 minutes late is acceptable. To arrive early is an imposition on one's host. Really? Is it awkward to sit out in the car, though?

Is that all right? I mean, is it creepier to, like, pull up? Let's say you just like to be places early and you're sitting out in the street, hanging in your vehicle. It's better to, if the host knows you're out there, to have you stay out there than to, you know, then they know they better, you know, scurry things up a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, but you know the guy in the car is looking in the window to see what's going on, looking for movement. You know what I'm saying? Like, they're basically spying on you.

Just, well, let them in. That's okay. Why is that okay? You're spying on them, too, or you wouldn't know. Well, you could see them as you were. It's kind of a mutual spy. Run past the window to see what they're doing. I don't know. I don't think that's too bad. Here we go. Dear Life on the Path, my young married daughter, Megan, has a problem with a neighbor.

This woman has a family of her own, but is in Megan's business so much that she is now actually taking my grandbaby out to eat at restaurants and seems to want people to think the baby is hers. That's weird. I have spoken to Megan about this. She doesn't like what is going on, but feels powerless to stop it. Oh, boy. This neighbor does a lot for my daughter, and Megan doesn't want to hurt her feelings. What can she say that will put this woman in her place and make her realize that my daughter's family is not up for grabs? I don't know.

I don't know what to say to this. I don't even know what to say either. First of all, how does this woman know that, that she's trying to pass it off as her own kid? Yeah. There's so many just odd statements in that letter. Yeah. Have you met my new daughter? Yeah. Here's the thing. Here's how you know this can't be true.

When someone says, I've asked her to say something, and she's like, I feel powerless. She has stolen my child. With my child. Yeah. I feel powerless to get her back. You need to move. You ever heard the term Mama Grizzly? Right. Go take my baby. You can go ahead and clean it. That's called kidnapping.

You can't be powerless to take your own child. Just say, look, you can't take my child anywhere. You know, that's just weird. Yeah. It's what it sounds like is a mom that doesn't see. It's a grandma that is that wants to spend more time with the grandkid and it's not happening and she's upset. That's what it sounds like to me. And she and she's probably just speculating. She says, oh, you know, I wonder why that woman wants to spend so much time with the kid. And she's got like five things she thinks might be causing the problem.

I was like, oh, she's probably just trying to pass it off as her own kid. That could be. Or, I mean, it could be that maybe the daughter needs to talk into her and say, hey, take responsibility. You're the mom. If they want to take your child, you can say no. Yeah. I mean, if that's really happening. I mean, it's very, but my guess, though, is that the mom doesn't care because it's not a big deal. And grandma's just like got an itchy wig or something and is upset.

Give me the mom's like, I got a break. What do you think about this thing? Move away from your crazy neighbor? I wouldn't move. Stand your ground. I can't be forced to move just because grandma's wigging out. You never said you had to. That was your advice. What if the lady is actually trying to pass it off as her own kid? What do you say to her? Hey, that's not your kid.

Yeah. Seems pretty easy. Hey, have you met my daughter? That's my daughter. Not yours. Certainly not. Well, let's chop her in half and see who's done. I wonder what constitutes scenes like she's trying to pass off that that's her kid. I would want to know the circumstances. I mean, if she's just doting over the child, I mean, people do that. You know, good looking kid, a little baby or whatever.

Oh, look at a baby. Everybody does that. Even ugly babies get attention like that. What is it? What is it? Actually, I'm not sure, but honestly, I feel like it's from my husband's side. Now, we used to take my nephew out when Cheryl and I were young. We didn't have any children of our own, and we'd take him out, and he looked kind of like me, and so people thought they were our child, and we didn't, you know, get into a big explanation. Oh, no, he's not my child.

He's my nephew. I mean, so maybe they're just like, no, it's actually my neighbor's child, and they just kind of smile and nod, because really, I mean, you're just… Yeah, is it worth the effort? Small talk. No, it's not my kid. No. Are you serious? We're dressing much better than that. I mean, yeah. Yeah, that's just oddball.

Yeah. Okay, here's what Secular says. Megan is not powerless. As the mother of that child, all she has to do is start saying no. The neighbor asked for an explanation. She should reply that what's going on is making her uncomfortable. Period. There's no need to be unkind about it. Just firm. I find that hard to do. I feel like that's a real skinny line.

Unkind and firm. Because most people take firm unkindly. You know what I'm saying? Because obviously they disagree with you. So if you're giving firm no, they're going to say, they have firm explanation. They want to know what's happening, you know? People don't take that very well. And actually, that kind of leads into my Pope-style advice. Okay. I feel like, okay, what was the premise, Ben? Okay, so Pope-style advice is you're the everyman.

But you walk out your front door and there are 10,000 people waiting for you to get some advice from you for this week. Before they move any more forward in their week, they want to hear your advice. Okay. And you're forced to give it. You have to provide advice. Okay. So here's what I would say. I would say that you need to have a firm grasp on your decision-making tree and then stick with it. And so if I had to kind of sum this up is I heard a preacher once say that, and this

has become from a man perspective, but like your four main duties are going to be Christ follower, husband, father, employer, in that order. That's your decision tree, right? And so what I see a lot of, and actually I've been guilty of this, is that like you're going to get a lot of kickback if you follow that system well. Because you're going to have to start telling people no. You're going to have to say, no, I can't go. No, I can't be at this thing. And you're going to feel guilty about it for a while. And if you're a guy that overextended himself and got himself involved with a lot of things, even if they're great things, even if they're church ministries or they're donating volunteer

time with people, even if you're doing great, awesome looking things, you're misusing your time and you're just not applying them how it's been set out for you. And so I guess what I'm saying is it's not a sin or the wrong thing to do to help other people out and see what they got going and really share the love of Christ with people. But your first four duties are, as mentioned, in that order. And so Jesus comes first, followed by your wife, followed by your kids, followed by your job. Everybody else is five and under, five and under. So that means that every time they have a bake sale, you don't have to go. You can say, no, I had to work a lot this week. I missed times with my kids.

I'm going home with my kids. You're going to get people are going to get irritated at you. They're going to feel like you don't show up. I'm one of those guys. I'm one of those guys that's get irritated with people unjustly because I'm like, well, so and so wasn't here. What could they possibly be doing? I'm here. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is me. And so this kind of stinks being on the other side because I realize that I'm a big jerk

about this. Right. But the truth of the matter is, is they're probably just taking care of the family like they're supposed to. Right. And I'm sitting on my pious chair trying to set up an event going, well, where is everybody? I can't believe no one showed up to help when they're probably just doing their job. And actually, it wouldn't be near as a strain on a lot of people if if the people in God's church did what their talent was. Like if God has given you a tendency or a an interest or the ability to do something, if those people generally just did that, we wouldn't have to be grabbing people off the

bench to go fill those voids. You know what I'm saying? There's plenty of people that has got it. God has given the heart and the ability to like work in the nursery or or be with with kids. Right. And some of those people aren't volunteering for that job. And so we're grabbing people that are just like to volunteer for anything and putting them in that position when they have no business there. You know what I'm saying? They just like to help.

And really, they have no business being around kids. They don't they're just not fun with them or really care about them at all. They're just trying to help, you know. And so if if if people took responsibility of just what their responsibility was, then that kind of evens it out. Boy, it sounds like communism, doesn't it? So that's not really the deal. It's but in general, I guess what I'm saying is, is that I noticed this in my life and actually noticed it on either half on the other side of my life that I that I get judgmental over what how I feel that people run their time. You know, I feel like people are not doing a good job stewarding their time.

Well, and they're not. If I'm at an event, I assume that you should be at an event. And and really, if they're following the the four stipulations of Christ, husband or spouse, kid and then job and then everything else is below that, you know, maybe you did have something more important going on. And really, I think there's probably more than enough downtime to go around to fill all those holes without overtaxing a person. I would say like if you look at it, I suppose, what do I know? Right. Maybe I've not been been around long enough to say, but I feel like like a lot of time is overcommitted that doesn't address those things like you might be able to peripherally

say, oh, yeah, you know, this is going to help me be a better husband, spending time with the guys, you know, and like some of that's true. But but I feel like like just in general, but when you're talking about, you know, people doing stuff, you know, within their own family or doing stuff within the church, like people are just spread thin. They are spread thin. And, you know, and this is not the exact usage of this, but in Matthew 9, it says when Jesus talked to disciples, the harvest is harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. I mean, that that applies to, you know, discipling people for Christ, but it also applies in you tend to have people, a small group of folks that are that are willing and wanting to work at something and will do anything.

And then you just got a bunch of people that are scattered around. And and you're right. If the priorities were in the right place, I don't think you have that problem. I don't think you're running into that issue near as much. But but but life is just busy. Like we're connected with a bunch of stuff and people we don't want to miss opportunity. People are busy for the right reasons with the right motivation, but ultimately with the wrong consequence, I think. Yeah, you say, you know, that's why you sign your kid up for three things, right? Because I want to do my kid a disservice and not put him in the soccer and I put the kid in the in the extra tutoring and then like three other things.

I'm like, I want to give him a chance. I want them to be able to be the best person that they can be. So I'm going to spend I want to make sure I get him hooked up in here. I want to be the best dad I can be. So I'm going to hook myself with a couple other classes and read all these things. And the mom's going to do the same thing. And like we spend all our time preparing to be the best people we can be without ever actually being the best people we can be. Or sometimes even the people that live a normal life in the first place. No, that's that. That's true.

I think here's what I think you'll find. And look, this this is hard. This is not coming from a heart of judgmental capacity at the moment, because I actually had to go through this with myself and it's hard because I don't do anything. I'm probably the most boring dude you've met because I say no to everything. I don't go out. I get asked all the time. Hey, my friends at work will go out and they're like, hey, we're going out this and there. And I'm like, no. Every time they ask, I always say no, because you know what? My first four priorities, I just don't have time to go out with you guys.

I just don't have time. You know what I'm saying? There's a lot of church things that, you know, that I'd really like to help out with. But the answer is no, because I just the first four priorities will take up 95 percent of my time. I have like five percent to to fool around with. And I try to steward that time extremely well. But I feel like if you if you if you strengthen that family unit and you strengthen your relationship with Christ and you're a good, solid employee where you're supposed to be, like, I just feel like all these things will would like the decisions won't be so hard. You won't have to feel guilty about it because you've you know that you're stewarding it correctly

because the thing is, your emotions can't be trusted. You make terrible decisions on your own. I feel like I need a break. So I'm going out with the fellas. That's not true. I don't really need a break. I've wasted my time this week. I haven't stewarded it well. And I feel like I need a break because I've wasted all the other time I've had. So now who's getting the short end of the stick? I'm cutting short my Bible reading.

I'm not loving my wife and I'm not reading my Bible with my kids because I feel like I needed to break because I wasted all my time. My emotions can't be trusted, right? The system, I always think it sounds so lame. People are like, I want you to write down your priorities and how would you think through something? I have to do this. I'm one of those people that has to write it down and remember it. I have to look at it and go, that's what I need to run this through. That's the filter this stuff needs to go through because my emotions will, they'll betray me. I make terrible decisions based on the heat of the moment.

People, they can now disperse from your lawn and go head out to their first four priorities. Get them done. I feel like they spent a lot of time in your yard and they really need to get back to their family. They could be home. They do. Talking to their wife. Stop talking. What am I doing here? Stop coming here looking for advice all the time. I will say that I may invite these people over to my lawn real quick though.

Okay. If that's okay. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. I know that. Pope Joy's stepping up to the balcony. I don't want to take up much of their time, but I think that they need to head over my lawn real quick because I honestly started thinking about this week. Here's my, my Pope style advice. We need to stop confusing, emotionally letting go of what people have done wrong to us and biblically forgiving them.

So I think that we as a society, as a church or, you know, more society have confused actual forgiveness with letting go of the emotions that you have for being wronged, the emotions that you have. So if you go up to someone, someone, you know, let's say we'll go small time, called you a name, just something in passing, whatever. You may say, you know, a week down the road, I forgive you. Did I deserve it though? Regardless of if you, if you deserved it or not, if they called you a name, they're still wrong. So we're not really called to call people names regardless of if they deserve it or not. You called Mike cranky pants, right?

I called Mike, Mr. Cranky Pants and he didn't like it. Okay. And he comes up to me about a week later and says, Troy, I forgive you. But what he's actually done is just let go of the emotions that he had. But if he brings that up a month and a half later, two months later and says, Hey man, you know, I don't appreciate the fact that two months ago, you called me cranky pants. That wasn't very nice at all. You haven't forgiven that person. You have let go of the emotions that you had, but forgiveness, you have stored it away. Right. Exactly.

Forgiveness is where you actually take someone's, whatever they did, their sin, their wronging to you. Forgiveness is completely absolving them of any guilt for that, any punishment that's going to come afterwards, that you can't bring that up. That is to be forgotten and never to be brought up again. First Corinthians 13, love keeps no records of wrongs. That's an accounting term. It's to be removed from. Absolutely. It says it's often used in accounting as well. No, in the Greek, the Greek was.

I actually use that, that sounds bad when I open it that way, but I use that verse on my wife's morning. Hey honey, keep no records of this, okay? That's kind of how it went, because I'm terrible. I let the kids stay up too late. Like they don't take naps and they're supposed to go to bed earlier. And then I don't put her to bed earlier like I'm supposed to. Like we just keep pushing it back because I don't want to stop doing what we're doing. Yeah. And so, and then of course then I get up the next day and I go to work and they're stuck at home with her.

Well, that's because you spent time in Mike's yard. You know, you got to play with your kids. No doubt. Get out of here. Get out of my yard too. So she goes, she goes, you keep the kids up late like that, they're going to get cranky. I say, ha, ha, ha. You know, so I'm laughing. So I get a text from my wife about, you know, 9.30 this morning. She goes, for the record, the kids are cranky today. And so then I said, check out First Corinthians 13.

Don't keep a record. And she said, I'm choosing to be bad. I will be keeping a record. Excuse me. I just, I don't mean to interrupt here, Ben, but if you could go over the chart here again, it's Christ follower, spouse, father, employee. I feel like you might have two and three moved around a little bit, Ben. Actually, I'm across the board in bad shape because I was texting at work when I was supposed to be doing other things. It was a total fail. Anyway, don't keep a record of wrongs.

You guys should have forgotten about it already. Don't just let it go. Don't green screen yourself onto the highway of forgiveness. So, Troy, now let me ask you this. Is it because we don't know how or we just don't have the heart for it? I think it's we don't have the heart for it. We understand the concept of forgiveness. God lays it out multiple times in the Bible what forgiveness truly is. You know, the forgiveness of our sins, it isn't about, God's never going to bring that back up. I would submit we don't understand that, though.

How many times have you prayed on a sin that continues to haunt you in one way or another, right? And when you pray again, it's in the back of your mind that I'm coming back to this table again with the same thing. You know what I'm saying? Like the thought of even to recognize, if I were to say, a persistent sin would imply that you remember the last time you did it, the last time it came up. And you go to God with that in your mind. And that's that's not understanding God's grace because it's not in his mind. OK, and I would I understand entirely where you're coming from there. Let me ask you this, though.

You know, say we have that persistent sin in our life like we all do. We have that, you know, one or a hundred things that keep coming up. You have a hundred persistent sins in your life. I wouldn't be surprised. I am a horrible, horrible person. I'd start whittling that down a little bit. I'm working on it. I am a little boy in Christ. I'm working my way to become a man, but I'm not anywhere near it. But so say we have this persistent sin in our life. So are are we are we accepting the forgiveness that we're getting from from from Christ dying

by, you know, each time asking for forgiveness for that sin? As long as we're not dwelling on what we've done beforehand, we're worrying about that sin that we need to confess. Yeah, I think that's fine. So as long as as long as we're not dwelling in the past on, you know, well, I did. I swore, you know, today. Well, I did that last week, too. As long as you're not thinking about what you did last week and and asking for for forgiveness of that one. Well, I guess what I'm saying is, is, though, is to I think we do have trouble regardless of how clearly God has stated.

I think sometimes our minds have trouble recognizing what true grace and forgiveness looks like. I would agree with that. OK, so so I think some of that's the reason is we try to let stuff go, but we don't we don't understand or necessarily comprehend completely what that looks like, even though God has laid it out that way, because it's such a monumental thing to wave that stuff and say, look, it's gone. So when it comes to forgiving other people, I think we like the power of remembering. Yeah, right. We hold the guilt over their head because that's what the human thing to do is. But, you know, it says I'm not sure where it says I'm working on being able to quote direct quotes, but I know it's in there.

You know, it says if your brother comes to you seven times in a single day for the same thing, we're giving all seven times and keep going seven times seven, 70 and keep going. You've been listening to Life on the Path. If you would be so kind as to forgive us for the show, we would appreciate it. Seventy times seven. That's how often you got to listen. So oftentimes you got to forgive. You can catch us every Monday night from 10 to 11 p.m. at live from the path dot org or Saturday nights on ninety nine point three KTIA. Thank you for listening to Life on the Path. And now a word from Valley Services Cleaning.

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