Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston Proper, you are live from the Path. And you're listening to Live from the Path, coming from the Pathway Studios here in Johnston Proper. Maybe you are, don't you? Yeah, come on. That's going to be my new kiss phrase all day. Hey, I read, I was reading, there was a blog about how to make people so they'll listen to your podcast. And they said the worst thing you could do is spend your first minute or two just kind of blabbing and sharp-talking. How are we doing with that? Was that an actual thing on the article? Yeah, it was. Years ago? What's that? In my recollection, you've talked about this on the show before. Yeah, come on. We didn't learn from it.

No. This article. Oh, maybe it keeps coming up over and over again. Yeah, you just keep hitting the same, oh, maybe we should stop doing that. You need to Google search the top ten tips for podcasting, and then we'll see if whether we cut the mustard or not. See if we're professional. Okay, yeah, that's a good idea. Mississippi don't push. Mississippi. I don't know why that's happening. Why are we saying Mississippi don't push? Where does that come from? Were you not around for this conversation? No. Oh.

There was a guy, a rapper, a young rapper at Spirit Midwest a few years back now. The music festival. Yeah. Yeah. A number of years back. His dad was doing the mic check before he went on stage, and that's what he kept saying in the mic. He said, check, check. Mississippi don't push. Huh. And I didn't know what that meant at the time. I still don't know what it means, honestly. Yeah, what does it mean? I don't know. I can sit in the notes and key syllables and a P to see how the P sounds in a microphone. But I've said it ever since.

Whenever someone says, hey, check that mic, I say Mississippi don't push. I got the exact phrase that is necessary right now. Hold on. Hold on. I'll Google search it. Well, I've looked it up before, and the closest thing I could find was, like, don't push drugs. Like, okay. That's good advice. A good message. Is that a defense or an accusation? Like, hey, Mississippi don't push, or Mississippi, and he's telling them, Mississippi don't push. I always took it as, like, him telling Mississippi not to push drugs. Okay. Well, I thought it was just, like, we're from Mississippi. We just don't push.

We don't push. We don't push. We don't push. I think we need t-shirts. That's all I can think of. Dig on. Here's the top ten results. Top five results from Mississippi don't push on the Google. Okay. One, miss don't push it on Facebook. Two, Mississippi don't have an equal pay law. Also interesting. Followed by, lots of Mississippi folks don't want COVID-19 vaccine. Yeah, I read that, actually. And then, to wrap it up, why do the U.S. people underuse the Mississippi River?

Like, it's talked about in other countries that we have the sweet river, and we're not taking full advantage of it. I don't know if you've been in the Mississippi River. I mean, it's like Wonka's Brown River down there. I mean, it's nasty. It's not a good river. Yeah, we can't have advantage of it to the one that's a take of it. I mean, is that, wait, do we know that's a foreigner? Is there, like, some guy who's, like, in the United States who's just disappointed that we're underutilizing the Mississippi River? I mean, Ben Wagoneer. I wonder if he brings it up all the time. Hey, man, let's go to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Hey, I think you're really underusing the river. Yeah, why? Okay, why is it that with modern technology, the U.S. has not diverted surplus water from the Mississippi River to drought-devastated California and other western states, as was done through the aqueducts by the Romans thousands of years ago?

Are you serious, friend? That's the same. That's because Mississippi don't push. Yeah, and Mississippi is, I don't know, 700 miles away from where you're talking about? I mean, do you think we've got, like, a specific pipe just sitting there in case water needs to come through? Yeah, I mean, the aqueduct system was relying on gravity. Yeah, like, gravity fed from, like, surrounding, there was, like, the Apennines, and there were, like, seven mountain kind of areas around these main parts of Rome. Not, hey, we decided to push it all the way over to modern-day Turkey. This is the problem with modern armchair quarterbacks of, like, what happens. It's people will sit and pontificate on stuff like this and realize that, like, to move, let's say, let's call it a 10- or 12-inch pipe, right? You've got to have a lift station every 50 miles to get it there. At least, normally it's between 30 and 50 miles. You have to have pretty much a 500-horsepower motor hooked up to this pipeline every 50 miles and push it all the way to California from the Mississippi River. And, mind you, California is a border with an ocean. Wouldn't it make more sense to try to figure out how to get this ocean water so we could use it?

Yeah, desalinate. Don't travel. Hey, man, let's pump this dirty fresh water from the middle of the country all the way to California. Hey, based upon that thing you just said, though, Dan's Mississippi Don't Push was underappreciated relative to sending the water to California. I mean, that was top-notch. He didn't get the credit he deserved, wasn't it? Thank you. Plus, just think of the head pressure going through the Rockies. Well, you'd have to get it all the way up there. That's what I'm saying. Think of the head pressure. I'd make the train tug it. You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah. I bet you could put it in container cars.

Oh, you're just going to ship it over? The pipeline is not a—I mean, it'll take—look how long it took us to get a train through the Rockies. I mean, everybody drives to get transportation of goods. Most of the pipelines stop. Right at the mountain. Because it costs too much to get one over there. So nobody does it. Why don't we just get a bunch of helicopters and get an iceberg and just bring it on in. Let it melt slowly. Make a river. Yeah, I've heard they're loosening it up. So we just chisel one out and bring it over to, like, San Jose and let them chisel off for a while. Yeah, are icebergs made of salt water? Are glaciers made of salt water? Huh.

I mean, you'd think they wouldn't freeze. Well, I mean, salt is—I mean, it eventually freezes, right? It's got to be real cool, yeah. What's the freezing point of salt water? I don't know. I think it has to do with the salinization level. Yeah, like how much—yeah. What does it freeze at? How much salt is it like—yeah. Yeah, that. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So here we go. Mississippi don't push.

Here we go. So, Mike, you said tips for a good podcast. Yeah, hit me. Number one, invest in decent equipment. Okay, we're actually there. We did all right. Yeah, I mean— Two, I put a new microphone on me today, as a matter of fact. I'm testing it out. Two, choose the right theme. Done. We talk about Jesus and open up with that working man song. We haven't swapped that out since day one. That's true. Okay, so far, hey, we're awesome.

Come out with quality podcasts. Oh. Hey. Did they ever come after you for royalties? No. They don't know. No, they don't know. I keep thinking I reach out to them and say, boys, I just want to tell you, this has been a real boon to us, but they're going to find out. I mean, they don't care. But, like, I'm sure their publishing company is going to be like, you owe us 83 cents. Okay. The freezing point of salt water is about negative six. Oh. Okay.

Well, then, yeah, that'll happen. In Fahrenheit, Hooser. Okay. It could very well be made of salt water. So, no joke, though, if we could pick up with this iceberg and kind of just drop it off. Yeah. I mean, we could tug it. We could get a couple ships in tandem. And just grapple it. Yeah. Although, I think if you, I mean, they're pretty difficult to deal with. The Titanic had to run in with one. And it was a while. Yeah. But that's what, yeah.

But they slalomed it. They were going to go a mano a mano with it. If we tugged it back behind as if we owned it like a dog on a leash. Don't run straight at it. But you still got to get it up in the land. I mean, honestly, Oregon gets a ton of rain. And Washington, wouldn't it be, once again, smarter just to pipe rainwater down from Oregon or Washington? Or from the mountains, like we were talking about. Yeah. Or the melting caps. I mean, the man who sat down and thought, you know what the solution to all the world's woe is? The Mississippi River. Yeah. It's just ridiculous. When it started, I thought he was going to be like, why don't we have more steamboats like we used to?

That's what I thought. Like, why aren't we using it for recreation or something? Yeah, exactly. But no. I've seen a guy on a seadoo out there on the Mississippi one time. That's, I mean. He was like. It's completely full of branches and nasty. No, he loved it. He was in like one of those locks or whatever. We let people play in those? Yeah. I thought those were for business only. No, he was a seadoo in. The lock and dam system?

Yeah. That'd be kind of fun to, like, hand paddle your way in there on a canoe or whatever. Yeah, and then sit there and wait for the water to drain out and it goes down. Take me up! Yeah, come on. Okay, come out with a quality podcast. So, I don't know. We probably don't. That's not right. We don't do that. Four, find the balance. Ooh, after some time, you'll probably start receiving comments and suggestions. Some listeners may want you to change the format. Others will have requests for special guests. It's never a good idea to pander to your audience.

Okay. Yeah. Right. Yeah, that's us. Make your podcast SEO friendly. What's that acronym stand for? Search engine optimization. Yeah. So, here's the problem. Actually, this is our greatest downfall. It's the name of the show. If you type in live from the path, Google will pull out from and the. And so, because it's looking for important terms. And so, it strips out things that it thinks are just like, aren't particularly unique. And so, then we're just searching live path or live path.

And like, every Johnny Cakes out there is doing some sort of lives. Anything that's live is going to get tagged above ours. And like, path, like, live your path. Be on your path. Bunch of self-help gurus. We're probably like, search result 2046. Wow. You can't find us in a sea of nothing. Now, but here's the thing. If you're searching for live from the path, like, why? Like, what caused you to search these words together? It's not like we're going to get random hits. Or someone goes, oh, I typed in live path and I found you. No, that's true. Maybe I want to know Jesus today.

Well, I think also, like, with your hashtags and stuff like that, can you get found? Actually, so, I help another, there's another dude I help with a podcast. And like, I'm involved with the two hardest podcasts to get anybody to notice. The market is saturated with financial advice and people in, like, spirituality, like Christian podcasts. Like, it's a noise. So, you don't stand out at all. Even if your podcast is unique, it's real difficult for you to get people to find it. What if we called our, what if we just took tail right now and changed our podcast name to Mississippi Don't Push? You feel like we, I mean, that's Google-able for sure. If, yeah, if someone would be happening and type that in, you'd want us to be number one. We'll leave the name or the logo the same. Everything will be exactly the same. We will just start. Here's how we get the right, the same audience, but with a name. We're going to rename, we're going to rename the show.

Maybe Judas didn't do it. What? What? Maybe Judas didn't do it. You think people are Googling that all the time? No, but they're Googling, Googling Judas, and then there's going to be someone like, what do you mean maybe Judas didn't do it? I never thought of that. And then we're going to get them with, like, oh, Judas definitely did. The Bible said it. I don't know why you even asked. Anyway, here's other stuff. Yeah, and they'll listen to every episode trying to figure out where we said such a thing. Yeah, we'll leave clues at the end of, like, hey, I don't have a tip. But we're like, did you ever consider, maybe it wasn't, maybe he didn't hang himself.

Maybe the word means danced a little. But we're saying maybes, because that's not true, obviously. You can say anything when you add maybe. Maybe Mississippi do push. Just a line in the sand, speaking of podcasts that are irritating me. That guy that's doing the Rise and Fall on Mars Hill was chucking an episode out every week for, like, the first five weeks. And now he's gone on to, like, once every three and a half weeks, he drops one. Yeah. And then acts like it's a bonus episode just to keep me quiet. Yeah. It's really irritating. Yeah. That's like making breakfast and lunch and then showing up with dinner and go, like, bonus meal. Like, no, man, that's part of the cadence. Yeah, you fired up a story that has a legit ending and then hit me with an episode every week.

And then I get hooked on this thing and want to hear more. And then he's like, oh, sorry, I'm having a hard time pushing out content. Why don't we just wait until you were done before you brought this package to my doorstep? Now I'm super irritated. Yeah. Yeah. Number six, get great guests and be a great guest. Oh, boy. Oh. We've had some good guests in here. Not great. I'm not sure great. Is that wrong to say? I don't know. I think that's our fault, though.

We're not very good. I've got to be honest. A good chunk of the people that have been in here have fallen away from the face. And, yeah, that's the reality. Yeah. And I don't know whether that's because we used to, but we tried to have touring, you know, mid-level touring bands come in, and some of them had some rough motivations for why they were involved. And Christian music is pretty easy to break into on the whole because people will accept anything. If you play a bagpipe and a flute at the same time and claim it in the name of Christ. The Lord's in it. People will show up with money in hand going, I want to see this. The spirit is Irish. Yeah.

And so, I mean, if you could be a hardcore rapper, you could be a heavy metal band, you could be a song duo with your wife. And, like, as long as you're under the name of Jesus Christ, people are like, yes, we'll bless your ministry. Yeah. Right? Because Christians are like that. They see anything that says good things about Jesus Christ, and they're like, let's throw some money at that, except for the important things. Then we start to retreat into our homes and act like it's none of our business. Yeah. I don't want to invest in these orphans, but this Christian rap's really making the scene. Yeah. I gave all my money to that Mississippi pipeline that's supposed to be giving the water out with California.

I think people are still talking about our By It's Own Name interview, though. Oh, By It's Right Name. That's right. Or By It's Right Name. I couldn't remember. Something like that. This is the worst. That's the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I should go find it. That was, like, within the first three months, I think, wasn't it? Yeah, because we were interviewing. The first thing we did when we started on was to interview bands for that Spirit Midwest Music Festival that Nathaniel was talking about. And so, like, we had no experience at all, and we're just inviting people on. And, like, we've subsequently had, I mean, I would say a good chunk of those guys did

have fallen away from the faith. And one guy who I think is still in the faith had written me explicitly and said, hey, will you take all my stuff down? I don't want to be associated with it. He tried to make it sound like, oh, it was just my younger stuff, but, like, it really felt personal. Like, I don't want my stuff coming off on your website anymore. Yeah. Wow. So, I mean, I just, I didn't really delete them. I just put them on private just in case I want to… Bust them back out later. Yeah, release them back. Yeah. I don't know if, it seems real spiteful to say, I know you didn't want your content on

my website. I mean, have we got any legit, like, bad emails or, like, terrible reviews or people just didn't like us at all? Apart from that one time we got involved with praying at the Atheist Convention, that was a pretty rough scene for there a couple weeks, but… Uh, yeah. Yeah, we got a few where someone had reached out and, like, was hosed off. And, like, every once in a while someone will comment super negative on one of the things on YouTube. But, like, they didn't really watch it. They saw, like, the title in the first eight seconds and then they're like, I think you guys are stupid. Well, that's right, but you really should read the rest of it. Yeah. That's not even enough time for me to put my foot in my mouth.

I feel like if you guys would have waited the full 45 seconds, I would have said something really offensively. That's right. We did some really good stuff. We bumble stump our way around. Like, you gotta at least be in for three to five minutes. Okay, yeah, so be a great guest. You guys ever… Hey, you ever be on another podcast? Would I or have I… Yeah, would you? Yeah. Okay. A guy I know at work keeps inviting me. He's…

Every day, he goes, hey, you still gonna be on my podcast? And he's building a podcast studio in his basement. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, he's like, we're gonna talk about news that people don't know about. Oh, no. Like what? Like, unknown news. He keeps saying unknown news. Ooh. What's that? It needs to be known. I mean, how do we know it if it's unknown? Hey, that's bad. And then he's sending me, like, articles from NPR. I was like, people know this.

I found a source called the AP. Yeah, I guess the only way that this guy's really on the cutting edge is he's making news and no one yet knows it. Like, hey, I heard a woman got murdered on Sixth Street. Anyway, I was recently on Sixth Street. Yeah, so he set up a group chat between us, or me and him, and two other guys we work with who he wants on this podcast. And so this is his whole premise for the show, is that we're gonna talk about unknown news. And he's the only one who ever posted in the group chat news articles that people do obviously know, because they're from, like, NPR or whatever. Right. And so I was like, ah, maybe I'll chime in, you know? Make old buddy feel happy about himself that he's got this jolly group of fellows together. Yeah. And so I'll just search the most random, like, two different words that I could think of,

and then news. Giraffe bodega news. Exactly. Exactly. And then whatever article comes up, I'll copy and paste it in there. Look what I saw, man. It's like, people need to know. It's weird the obscure things that go on that change the world, you know? I didn't know giraffes even did that. Okay, finally, be consistent. Ah, crap. No wonder our show's not very good. Okay. Anyway, we're doing all right. Here we go.

Here we go on the show tonight. I found one article. Ex-Satanist who hated Christians spent 33 years praising evil until a book mysteriously appeared on his jail cell floor. A man who spent more than three decades embroiled in the occult is sharing his incredible story of leaving Satanism behind, finding freedom in Christ, and now spreading the gospel to others. Brian Cole explained on the finale episode of the Playing With Fire podcast, there's a little boy. He didn't feel like he belonged anywhere. I didn't understand who I was in Christ, he said. I was 10 years old, and I had an abusive father. I was bullied at school, and my mom forced us to go to church. Cole said he was also emotionally abused at his church. Every dynamic in his life left him feeling alone and disconnected until he met a group of older kids who took him in.

They were talking to me. They were paying attention to me, he said. They weren't calling me names and beating me down. Cole soon realized the kids he befriended were involved in Satanism. You're a friendly neighborhood Satanist. A belief system polar opposite from his family's church experience. While he wasn't drawn in by the theology, Cole said he wanted to do whatever these kids were doing. So before long, he was partaking. Listen to Cole share his decades-long experience in the occult as well as his healing. One of the first rituals I was in, they were going to sacrifice a squirrel. I told him I would not do that, he said, noting that he had always loved animals. They said, well, Satan demands blood, so you're going to have to cut yourself. So I did. And that ended up being an addiction for 33 years, the cutting and the self-mutilation.

As time progressed, Cole said the fear of Satanism sparked and the rebellion further attracted him. Oh, sorry, the fear of Satanism sparked. At first, it wasn't a theological connection. Instead, it was more of a dabbling. He would trash Christian symbols in graveyards and smash nativities. I was kind of, does it matter that you smashed a nativity? No. No. I don't care about this. I find, well, here's the thing, is I find a, like, even his opening gamut was like the exact opposite of what we were from here in the church. I'm like, I don't know, it came from that. I mean, they both, you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know how they were mentally abusing him.

Oh, at the church? Yeah. As a 10-year-old. Ah, yeah, here's the thing. It's like, I was talking to some kids earlier this week that like, yeah, you know, I think we do that. So how so, though? By saying no, don't do that? Well, here's the thing. The thing is, like, I'd like to think it was because we ran up against behavior that wasn't consistent with what God had called us to. But, like, I grew up with a friend of mine who, he remembers, like, they went to church for some reason and he was wearing his Metallica shirt when he went. And they basically told him that he wasn't allowed to come back if he was going to dress that way.

And, like, I mean, this kid grew up about as poor as we did. It's all the guy had. Right? It's all he came from. It's all he ever knew. Yeah. Right? And so, like, yeah, I think it's stuff like that. You don't look like what we believe a Christ follower looks like or you don't act away or you got salty language or something. And, like, all of a sudden you're not good enough to be here. You know? Like, it's not a hospital for people who need a doctor. You know? And so I think it's that kind of stuff, like where the religiosity stuff hauls in.

I don't know whether that's true for that guy, but, like, I just, I know from experience, like, a lot of the people that I talk to, I mean, imagine, all the guys that I've talked to that have known who Jesus is and walked away have always been because of the people of the church. Whether they were confronted with an actual truth that the Holy Spirit was trying to work out or they were just religious jerks, either one could be true. He said, uh, he started ordering books on the occult and ceremonial magic and spent the majority of his days reading and studying, and that's not all. I got a tattoo of a cross on the bottom of my left foot so I could stomp on God whenever I walked. This is real childish. The whole thing is childish. You're going to take, you're going to take out a nativity scene? I don't care. It's not even legit.

You know what I'm saying? Ain't no wise man there when there's a baby. I guess that's, it's a good reminder that as you think about the work that Satan is trying to do, like, he's not a creator. He's only an attempted destroyer. To take something God designed for good and to somehow either destroy it or turn it to evil. And so, like, he's always just copying God. And so, like, these practices do seem very, very childish. Like, as an eight-year-old would go, I'm going to write your name on my foot so I can walk on you all the time. Step on a crack and break your mother's back. And once again, it's like, if you turn Satan or, you know, the opposition or evil into, like, this cartoonish, childish whatever, then the rest of the world, like me, looks at it and goes, this is childish and has no power here.

Right. It does. Right. There is legit evil. And it does have power. And it's not more than Jesus, of course. But, like, still, you don't want to underpin it or make it like it's not a deal. Like, Satan is not a goofy, kick-over-nativity kind of guy. You know what I'm saying? He's more like, God didn't say, and these people love you, and obviously these people from your church don't. All they want to do is come down on you. So, let's go hang out with these folks. So, he said, over time, he started to get uncomfortable with the role Satan played in his life and the power evil yielded.

In 1987, he shifted away from Satanism and toward other forms of the occult, but he often revisited his old ways and used tarot cards, among other tools. In the occult, I'd just sit down and allow myself to be possessed and just start writing stuff, Cole said, knowing that he even kept a dream journal. The most intriguing element of his story, despite believing in Satan, he didn't believe in God. I didn't believe Jesus existed, he said. I thought this Bible was another mythology book. One of my biggest religions was hating Christians. So, like, I've actually thought about this a number of times, and I don't think anybody would come, to be honest. But, like, I wonder, I always thought, like, what if you just did, like, a class at the library that said, look, we're not, I'm not trying to convince you of Christianity, but like, can I at least give you an intro to the Bible? Like, this is what it is.

This is a collection of books, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here's how you should think about reading it. Because I think the words of God will do the work here. Like, if you could help people, because, like, even, there's a guy, who's the, Bart Ehrman, he's a New Testament scholar, and he walked away from the faith. He no longer believes in the divinity of Jesus. But, like, he's a New Testament scholar, and, like, he was talking to a group of atheists, and basically he said, hey, this thing where you guys, some of you guys are ardently trying to make the case that Jesus didn't ever exist, he goes, you look stupid. You look ridiculous. There is no major historian of any faith that will try to convince you that Jesus of Nazareth was not a real person, that didn't walk the earth, that wasn't crucified on a cross, and did not have people who otherwise believed that he was someone sent by God, a prophet, or something like that. Like, no legitimate historian, like, thinks any of that stuff is not true.

Like, it splits with, was he actually God, did his death mean anything, all that kind of stuff. Like, there's legitimate people arguing about that. But he goes, like, this room for the basis, he goes, a lot of you guys will spend a bunch of time, you know, just spreading stuff that's, like, it just is not true. The biblical narrative, there's, in fact, I was listening to this podcast from a guy, super difficult to understand. He interviewed some, like, real thick-accented Italian dude about the Old Testament. And he talks about, like, the Assyrian, like, the Hebrew Assyrian, the Hebrew people, Assyrian people, and, like, the ancient Eastern laws, and how they kind of compare to the Bible and stuff like this. And, like, this guy is not a follower of Jesus. But, like, people were talking to him about, and he's explaining kind of how we should think about the history behind some of the Hebrew narratives and stuff. But he's, like, he goes, it's so disappointing.

Like, the Bible is an amazing book. He goes, it's an amazing book. And it's amazing history. And, like, you know, again, this is a guy who doesn't even believe in the God that the book is describing. But he's, like, to dismiss it, to act like it's not substantive history that you have to actually deal with. Like, you can't go around and act like it's not there. And that it doesn't sit in a context that has had the greatest impact over any, you know, written-down narrative anywhere in the world ever. He goes, it's just ridiculous. And the reason I bring those two examples up is because, like, there are pockets of atheism where, like, they're just, like, hey, I think your Bible's trash. Well, like, historians who don't believe it still acknowledge it's not trash. Like, this is a book of value.

Anyway, the broad point was, is that, like, I wonder if there's, if you could just get someone to show up and go, look, as long as you promise you're not trying to sell me something, can I just give you a quick, quick six weeks on, here's how you should think about this book that everybody reads. And then whatever. I mean, if God does the work with it, I mean, whatever. They start reading it. And then I think God will do that. But I just don't, I don't know if anybody would show up. I think you should try it. Just post it and show up. See what happens. I'm going to be at the library. You don't have to love Jesus. Yeah.

Say, uh, the, the Bible for people who aren't Christians taught by being do it virtually. Yeah. That's good. I set up a class. No, people don't trust online learning. You're right. The world's getting away from everybody. Actually, actually, it's funny. Um, the member, remember right when the COVID stuff started, took about two or three months and everybody's like, yeah, this is going to be the final push to get everybody to work from home. Like Google is threatening to like people who went to work from home that like they will decrease their pay if they don't show back up at the office. Really? Yeah.

Like they'll get to keep, they're not going to fire them, but like they're going to pay them less. What's the, what's the motivation? Are they finding that the people are, don't produce as much when they work from home? I don't know. It didn't say for sure, but I said, uh, um, my, I was surmising that, uh, like if anybody knows Google would know, right? Right. One, they track everything that their employees are doing most certainly, but like they also, they can tell you whether people are working all day or not and whether, whether it's different, whether it's coming from their, from home or for not from home, whether they work better. And so like, my guess is Google knows now they're not going to tell you cause they'd have to admit to how much they're actually looking at you. But like, uh, I think they definitely know that people are not working near as much as they used to.

Yeah. I think that's probably true. All right. Uh, hold on. We better finish the guy off here. Uh, he says, I didn't believe Jesus. One of the biggest religions was hating Christians, but everything changed in 2009 when Cole, then age 44 was once again arrested. He realized his life of crime wasn't working and that something desperately needed to change. Yeah. Oh, this isn't working. I'm in jail again. It's not working out. I had tried to commit suicide. I just didn't want to live anymore.

Cole started to cautiously explore the Bible as he embarked on a quest to get off drugs and change his life. Despite his skepticism and scoffing, he read and explored. Then one day he came back to his room and found a book randomly laying on the floor of his jail cell, Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ, a text that documents Strobel's journey from atheism into faith. When I got done with that book, I could no longer deny the fact that Jesus existed on this earth. He said, all my life I had sought truth. Cole found that truth transformed his life and is now a pastor. This has set me free in so many ways I can't even explain it, he said, as he became visibly emotional. Listened to his entire story on the finale of the Playing With Fire podcast. That's pretty cool. Yeah, that is pretty cool.

Wouldn't it be so awesome to have God have used you in such a way like Lee Strobel? Yeah. I mean, whatever. Pastor's work is awesome. I would say, like, tons of people who you never even met can pick up something that you experienced and then just wrote down and sent off. And so randomly, some guy came to know Jesus because some dude dropped this and his in his cell. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I bet Paul feels the same way. I bet. Yeah. Yeah.

Hey, man, you ever wrote to the Philippians? Yeah, I saw that letter. That wasn't for you. That was for the Philippians. Yeah, it was. Don't you mind your business, Robbie. The power of a testimony, though. It really is true. The power of a story. Yeah. I've been doing this lately, and it brings a smile to my face. But, like, people that I am struggling to have hope for or that I flat out just don't like, I just imagine that, like, I'm talking to them, and Jesus comes around the corner and smiles. And, like, I just imagine their face when they first meet Jesus, this big old smiling

Jesus, and, like, it just makes me happy. And so now I just do that with everybody that I don't like. So if you find me, you know, gazing off into the distance, that means I don't like you, and I'm imagining you meeting Jesus right now, and your face turning all happy and whatever, and, like, totally overwhelmed with the stuff that you didn't, your whole world makes sense, like, right now. Now I'm going to be real self-conscious about that. Yeah. I'm constantly looking over to see whether you're looking at people. It's got to be, if I'm 15 degrees to either side of you, that's what I'm doing. Oh. For sure. Okay. Okay, we'll do one more article, and then maybe we'll do some advice. Yeah, it says, evangelical leaders urge pastors not to forsake teaching Bible prophecy to

make sure you talk about the end times. Pastors who refuse to preach about Bible prophecy are failing to teach 20 to 40 percent of the Bible, said Jack Hibbs, pastor of Calvary Chapel, Chino Hills in Southern California. His remarks came as part of the Prophecy Q&A event held at Calvary Chapel, where the pastor was, I don't care who was there, Hibbs urged pastors not to forsake teaching prophecy, adding that the Book of Revelations, nope, chapter 19 tells us that Jesus himself is the spirit of prophecy. Jesus said, I give you these things in advance, so that when they happen, you will know that I am the self-existing internal God. He added that at some seminaries, Bible prophecy is no longer being taught, which he said is problematic, because courses in eschatology teach about the prophetic word given by God, about the Messiah, and about salvation. People are going to pay 100 grand to get their doctorate in theology and come out expected to become a pastor of a church, and the world around them is being prophetic, whether they like it or not.

It's happening, and they don't know what to do. They don't know what to say, so they avoid it because they have never been taught in the seminaries. Dan, you went to seminary. Do you feel like you're, did you get a good preparation on teaching prophecy and end times from Bible college? I got a lot of that post. I could have. I mean, you've got to choose your track, right? I mean, and most people don't take, I'm going the prophecy route. Right? Usually because, like, the biblical study route says, hey, most prophecy is forth-telling, not fore-telling, so stop it. Right? So it's conflicting departments there within the universities.

Oh, right, right, right. It says, even Jesus rebuked his disciples when they didn't believe in prophets and prophecy. What? Say that again? Yeah, but he didn't provide an example. Even Jesus rebuked his disciples when they didn't believe in prophets and prophecy. What's the top three reasons that Jesus rebuked his disciples? What comes to mind? Lack of belief. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, where Peter said, hey, you're not actually going to go to the cross and die. He got yelled at. Where they couldn't heal that kid who threw himself in the fire.

Yeah. And when they, over to the faithless generation, said, I don't know how I'm going to put it with you guys. Yeah. I don't believe in anything to do with prophecy. I don't remember that. Why don't you guys take in the prophecy? I mean, you could really twist it and say, well, like, you don't recognize who I am because you don't believe in prophecy. Yeah. But, like, that's a totally different thing because the reality was many Jewish people were chasing around people who claimed to be Messiah. So, like, they obviously believed that Messiah was an option. They just didn't believe Jesus was it. Yeah.

That was the grasp. Hmm. It says, as far as I'm concerned, when they leave prophecy out, it's the number one sign of the woke and progressive, and that's the progression of the world. Really? It's wokeness that's keeping people from talking about the revelations? Okay. I've got to admit something. I don't have any idea what that means. What do you mean? When people be like, hey, man, that's all woke. And I say, I don't know what that means. You're awake to all the problems of the world and all the ways. People are re-steering. Yeah.

All the ways in which the world really works and how it is harming people. Social justice. I don't understand. Once again, I just, I still don't get it. How can anybody be- You are not woke, Mike. How many people, how can you be that awake? Right? Like, don't make a sense of me. You're a middle-aged white guy. You're the problem. Like, I see how the world really works. You do not. There's no possible way you do. Honestly.

You only think that because you're on the internet. Yeah. I mean, you'd be the last guy that would, I think, feel like come off as being, like, super woke. You just need a teacher who says, you guessed right. I'm not super woke. You're supposed to wake up and realize men are evil and America's terrible and that kind of stuff. I mean, we got our finer points, both with dudes and America. There's some things we can improve upon. I don't think you got to be woke to figure that out. Just put a couple thoughts together and go, hey, man, we can improve. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you look around and go, yeah, that's not the best. Yeah. When God refers to you as fallen, I think, you know what I'm saying?

Like the broken world. I mean, when you need rescue, obviously things are going not well for you. They could say, hey, man, I think white people suck. Yeah. They're sinful from the mother's womb. Tell me about somebody else. Yeah. I'm ready. Yeah. You guys aren't woke. Yeah. It's both. You can't do the prophecy. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the problem. He said. What's that make him then? Slept? Yeah. I don't want to be all slept on this thing. Slept. Go to the ant, you sluggard. He says, the progression of the believers when they realize it was Jesus. The progression of the church that is not into Jesus is going down the road of shame, embarrassment, and sadness. I think that's true, although I'm not sure about no prophecy. I mean, nobody's even talking about not believing in prophecy. This just feels like overemphasizing things as if the Bible has called them specifically out to happen. Like, I was just teaching Daniel this week.

Daniel 11, which is like a hyper focus of a bunch of rigmarole. And, like, the whole point of the story was not about, like, there's some specific execution stuff in Israel's history. And really, the whole point is to be like, you don't control any of this. Kings are going to, like, totally jack with each other and rise and fall and rise and fall. And you're going to be in the middle of it. And you should just walk faithfully and know that God is with you. Like, it's the whole point of the story. And, like, we're cranking on, yeah, but when? Right. When shall I walk faithfully? Right now. You don't have to yet. Maybe this is, maybe you guys will disagree with me, but, like, I could literally talk about Jesus for the rest of my life and never mention the book of Revelation. It seems, it feels like a gift to me, to people who follow Jesus. But I don't find it necessary to preach the good news of who Christ is.

Right? Like, to invite people into faith, to share the good news of the things God has done. I mean, the book of Revelation to me is a giant gift to Christians, but, like, if we never talked about it again. In a sound snippet, if someone just came in and, like, started listening to the show, they would hear you go, I just don't believe it's necessary to teach the good news of Jesus Christ. Oh, yeah. Sorry. There's a comma in there. Yeah. But, I mean, do you get what I'm saying? Well, the prophecy guys have messed it up so badly that it takes three hours of trying to teach what it's about before you can even get into Revelation. Right. Or what it's not about. You're like, here's what they're not saying. Here's what's not what's going on, you know?

Yeah, but why not? But once again, like, I mean, honestly, I love reading the book of Revelation, but I don't go there all that often. So, actually, I think the distinction would be is if you were trying to lead people to Christ in rougher parts of the world, Revelation probably becomes much more helpful for them. I don't think you need it in America, probably unfortunately, because the natural reaction is, okay, I accept the good news of Jesus Christ, great, I get to live forever with Jesus, and I should probably be a better person. None of that requires Revelation to kind of bring home, but, like, when the notion of accepting Christ puts you at odds with the culture around you and your core belief system, your heritage, your family, the notion that you're going to run into some trouble, God has not left you, and by the way, kingdoms will come and go, Revelation is essentially the same story as Daniel 11, then, yeah, then it becomes a lot more important. And so I think it's probably your cultural context that makes, I think it's true, I think what you're saying is true, I do just think it's limited by some of the cultural context. Yeah, but they're having this prophecy conference in California. They come from the same culture I do. Yeah, here's the deal, if you have to rent out, like, if you've got a giant church that's got 35,000 people in it to have a prophecy conference,

I would, like, wipe your hands and go, we don't really, this doesn't apply to us, we should go do something else. Yeah. Let's do something else. They don't have any water over there. Yeah, that's true, they're in the straits. Mississippi don't push. Mississippi don't push. We ain't drinking this water. Well, he stressed that pastors should be teaching prophecy. Sarfati said people shouldn't stop attending a particular church simply because it doesn't teach about prophecy, because he added being around other Christians is important. These are the only two options? Yeah, I just need to be around Christians. I'll sit under the, I mean, if you thought it was bad or shallow teaching, no, I don't think it's necessary to go, like, go, I have to be here because Christians are here.

I think Christians might be other places, too. I could be wrong. Yeah, but I, I mean, that's hard, that's really hard to speak to because you give people an inch, they'll take a mile. They'll leave churches for the stupidest things. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's true. He said Christians in these scenarios, he said, should seek out knowledge about biblical prophecy and prophets from other avenues if their churches do not offer that information. It's like having a mistress. It's a church mistress. It's like if you're not getting it at your church, you can go find it out somewhere else. Yeah, I really love the worship music, but the pastor sucks, so I listen to podcasts all weekend, and then I have to just grin and bear it while he talks on Sunday. How many times have you encountered people who say, we don't have any church around 10, 20 miles of us? I'm saying this, if that's the only church around, go there and take food supplements. And the supplements are online, watching others teaching Bible prophecy. I guess, let's throw out Revelation for now.

What else would you be missing? Like, what would you have to skip? Well, I mean, parts of Daniel, for sure. Isaiah, Micah, right? Like, some of the minor prophets, obviously, and the major prophets. Yeah, but those are all, like, those are, I mean, I guess. But, like, I guess to your point, though, we're teaching Daniel because I think we misunderstand Daniel, and so we teach Daniel. Because I think it's a, every book of the Bible is the attempt to, as a microcosm, to help you understand the Bible as a whole, and so then you can go read it healthily on your own. We're just using different books to do it. But, like, I wouldn't go, hey, the people need to hear Daniel. I don't, I don't know. I mean, if the story of the virgin birth had not been prophesied, would it be any less amazing to you? No. As a matter of fact, that prophecy is a little weird.

It actually, like, that's not about that. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So, like, it actually brings up for, I think it's fine, but, like, having to deal with that is, if you just said, look, we didn't even hear anything about it, but some guy had a, there's a baby going on without a husband, I'd be like, well, that's interesting. Like, and, like, the New Testament authors tie that string together in a theme, but, like, yeah, actually, it makes it a little bit more tricky. Then you've got to deal with the fact that, like, that it wasn't what they were talking about. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the prophecy part is cool, but, well, let's call prophecy that predicts the future, which is not the majority of what a prophetic word is in the Bible, right? But, like, on the whole, people delivering messages to God's people as God uses a man to do it, that's, if we're considering that not the prophetic work that they're talking about, then we get to keep most of the minor prophets, you know? But very few of it is forward leaning. Yeah, most of the minor prophets are around, or laments or accusations because, hey, man, they finally got taken back from exile and they still suck. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and even, like, and think about, what some of this, some of this I think is spurred on simply because we're reading prophecy a little bit too narrowly. Like, if you look through things that Ezekiel's talking about when he's talking about New Temple and his measurements and all this jazz. But, and even the stuff in Daniel, again, like, you're looking for a specific outcome, but, again, I'm not sure why. Like, you're going to miss it? Like, let's say I believed literally that there was going to be a new temple built to the specifications that both Revelation and Ezekiel are talking about. Is it not going to come up? Is it only going to happen to these obscure news places that Nathaniel has access to? Like, you're going to know when the guy starts, when the red heifers are out and when the sacrifices fire up. Like, you ain't going to miss it. And I don't think it's any of that. I don't think that's what it's really speaking to. Like, and I think you're more likely to miss the subtle things that this is actually calling you to recognize. But, like, you get so hyper-focused on it.

Actually, we're having the same conversation around Antichrist. Like, let's say you knew this was a thing. I don't think it's a thing. I think it's like there's a whole bucket of anti-kings, anti-messiahs, people who are against the king. John talks in John 1 that there were a bunch of them. And so, like, I don't think it's going to be this big dude who's going to be it. I don't think actually even Daniel 11 prescribes that. But, like, let's say I did think that, and the Bible was telling you that. What are you going to do? Right. What are you going to do right now? It's not you're going to stop it or something. Right. You're going to kneecap him? Because the Bible didn't say you stopped it.

Put the Tonya Hardy to him. Yeah. Get him with a baton. Like, here's the deal. If your job was to go put a stop to it, it would have said that in Revelation 16. It would have said, and then them white fellas showed up who aren't woke as anything. With batons. Yeah. But they put the end to the Antichrist. No worries, boys. But that is not what it said. Right. And so, like, it said a bunch of people are going to be deceived. What's your liability here? Don't be deceived.

Cling to Scripture. Cling to the Lord Jesus. And you know what? You should do that today anyway, regardless of whatever else goes on. I guess. Okay. Go ahead, Dan. I was talking about that Sunday, actually, because I'm going through Revelation. Oh, yeah. And I'm like, I think part of the travesty of this, everybody looking for this man of lawlessness, this Antichrist guy, is we're so caught up in that. We're so distracted by that. We do miss the main point, and we're allowing ourselves to be deceived by all this false teaching going around. Yeah.

And we are drifting from Jesus because of bad doctrine, and we're thinking we're great because the Antichrist hasn't risen up yet. It's like, yeah, I think he's already got you. Yeah, right. Right. Like, you're keeping him at bay with your watchful eyes. Yeah. Doofus. You know it. Like, if you believed it, if you took it for what you think it is, he'd come in anyway. You cannot do anything. I think overall, I'm just, like, people seem to be really impressed about God's ability to predict the future. And there's three, at least three things wrong with that. One, it's not a prediction.

He sees time as a whole. Right? It's like he's waiting to see what comes around, and he's volleying a guess out. Yeah. Right. He's like, he's crystal ball. Oh, you don't see. Yeah. I feel like all the events should point to this. Let's see how it goes. Right? He already knows how it goes. He sees time all at once in one big strand. Right? Done.

And so, like, they seem to be impressed because we can't do it. Well, there's all kinds of things that God can do that we can't do that I'm impressed with. Right. The moment he created the world and, like, drafted a man out of the dust, we should go. It's not enough. Nothing shall surprise me. No. That's not enough. He's calling balls and strikes on small events. That Jesus is going to be from kind of stick town. And we're like, whoa. Nailed it. He knows exactly how big a temple should be. We're like, I cannot understand how that could be.

I know he did created you from nothing, but he knows the measurements. It's like, it's just a weird thing to be, I mean, be impressed, but it's a weird thing to hyper-focus on and be impressed on. Yeah. But once again, like, and the only reason we care about it is because we imagine if we had the gift, all the nefarious things we would do if we could predict the future. Right? Like, everybody's head off. What, that's the only reason you think people are in on this? Because they want to bet against the ponies? No, no, no. Like, back to the future? No. No, I think it's why people are impressed with prophecies, because they believe, like, they see it as the ability to predict the future or see what's coming, as if God already

does not know what has happened. It's already all happened. Right. It would be impressive if Nathaniel could do it. Yes. But if God can do it, like, there's no reason to raise it up above everything else that the Bible is talking to you about. Yes. You should be like, hey, God says, trust me, here's how things are going to kind of play out, and we should go, yeah, I expect he would know that. Now I have confidence. Now when I see it, like, the value in some of this stuff, and this was the value that Daniel 11, or even Daniel as a whole, and Revelation has, is that as these things continue, Christians aren't surprised. Like, when people get surprised, they get disoriented.

They're like, oh, is this, does the stuff that I believed and trusted in, is it still true here? That was the whole question the book of Daniel was trying to answer, is these exiled folks are sitting there going, hey, man, I know God was sovereign and faithful when we were in Israel, but we got punished because we didn't handle ourselves well. Is God faithful here in Babylon? Do we get to go home? Do we get to worship back there? Is God still with us? And the answer was, well, yes, I'll rescue you from the fiery furnace. Yes, I will send the dream to Nebuchadnezzar that he's going to see the nations fall. But like, the visions in Daniel chapter 2, Daniel chapter 9, and Daniel chapter 11 are all about, hey, these things are going to come and go, and God doesn't say, no, I'm going to stop it. He says, it's going to come and go, and I will still be with you.

That's what Daniel chapter 12 is about. And so, like, it's just the things that we're, what does it do for you? It helps me have confidence that God is still with me and God is still good. Even when I see things that seem super abnormal, like the ups and downs of the worlds and the shiftings of the rulers and such. And so, like, it has a place for it, but like, that's not how these fellows are looking at it. And we're missing the true value that's in it. When asked his thoughts on progressive preachers, Stegner said he avoids listening to preachers that deny the existence of prophecy and prophets. Who is possibly denying prophecy and prophets? I don't know. Hey, let me tell you a read from Ezekiel. Didn't happen. Well, does he mean like, you know, some people think there are prophets now.

You think he's talking about like modern day Stan. Yeah, Stan. I am a prophet, Stan. The prophet Stanley. Blood moons and such. I think there's prophets. Every one of those dudes, I think there are, but not in the way that they think there are. Like, not somebody who's added chapter 22 to Revelation. That's who I'm not looking for. Yeah, right, because Revelation 1 says don't do that. Yeah. So, like, the guy who shows up because God has sent a word from him who's going to, like, take to task God's people, like, with a specific message similar to all your minor prophets, I think that guy still exists. I do think that God uses, I think of a strong prophecy is God uses particular people who seem

to hear from him clearly as an affirmation of things that other people are hearing. So not just, hey, this is a person whose job it is to go tell the church what God is saying, but, like, someone who God also communicates with as he answers prayers and things from other folks, so that as you pray with your community, like, things can be affirmed. Yeah. Like, that you heard what you heard from God. So, like, I think God does work through people in that type of way. We generally bucket it off as, like, I work with, I pray with my community, but, like, I don't know, sometimes there's just people who seem to get it more than others, who seem to hear things, who seem to have an affirmation from God that so-and-so is praying on this thing. You can affirm the thing that they're doing. I think that does happen. I don't, in fact, there's nothing about the offices that Paul talks about that make me think they have to disappear, but, like, it's not tacking on, like, it's not the moons,

I guess, to that point. Like, I don't expect blood moons to be the problem. I think I've got everything we need in that kind of realm. I think they're more, like, they're more granular than that, the way that it's executing nowadays. That's just my, that's my band, anyway. Okay, finally. Oh, he says, I don't listen to this nonsense. It takes me too quickly to the phrase, shut up. He says, if you hear in church more about improving this life situation and solving society's woes, then you are hearing about being equipped to get people into the kingdom of God, leave. So that's not the same. Like, I agree with you there, actually, but that doesn't, that has nothing to do with, again, how I think we're talking about prophecy. Stagner said that, unfortunately, all throughout the world, many people are forced into the

only available churches in their communities that have pastors who are intimidated by the idea of teaching about prophecy and prophets. He said there should be no excuse for pastors avoiding parts of the Bible, and every pastor should put in the effort to study the Scriptures to fully understand all parts. Prophecy and prophets are part of the book. It needs to be taught as you come upon it in Scripture. You can't just skip over these things because they're hard. If we skipped over everything that was hard or difficult, we would be teaching John 3.16 every week because everybody knows that, but there are things in Scripture that are hard to deal with. Yeah, I mean, of all the stuff that's hard to deal with, actually, prophecy, I don't find that, there's a lot, there's a lot more quarrelsome items in there. Yeah. Things that really push back on what people want to do, how they see the world. That's, that's just one of them.

These, go ahead, Nathaniel. Where's this guy coming from? He makes it sound like there's a dearth of churches. Like, yeah. Especially if he's, like, hanging out in the U.S. Like, there's three churches on this street. Yeah. I live in a town with a population of, like, 1,500 people. There's three churches in town. Yeah. Yeah. But churches outnumber Casey's in most towns, too. And that's crazy. Yeah. That's wild.

There's four churches on this road. And that's actually, unless you, that's only in this, uh, of the interstate. You keep going the other direction, there's, like, a bunch of other churches. Yeah. Yeah. A year ago, I lived in a town of 13,000 people, and it had 42 churches. Which seems like a lot, and only because it is. Yes. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like he's characterizing a movement that doesn't actually exist. It's a straw man. He's got a church straw man in here. So, the church, uh, 20 miles away. No.

Yeah. Forcing me to believe all kinds of stuff. Okay. All right. So, here, we're going to tap this. Okay. This is great. We're going to cap this off. As the event came to a close, the panelists discussed how they view the end times. Why is this capitalized? And how, in the last days, the Antichrist will come on Earth. Hibbs predicted that the U.S. dollar will collapse. He says, Scripture says the Antichrist. That's the worst of our woes. Oh, what are we going to do with the value of the dollar?

The Antichrist is here, and the dollar ain't worth boo. Here's what I don't understand, though, is that, like, economic ruin and upending the world's structures tends to drive people to God. Mm-hmm. And so, like, if the Antichrist, I mean, either the Antichrist, like, maybe he shouldn't be afraid of him because he seems dumb. He's like, hey, I'm going to blow up all these societal structures and make sure people are poor. I mean, by dollars, the poor people love Jesus. Yeah. Because they have an understanding of hope when it's needed. The blindness that money brings keeps people away from stuff. And so, I just, I'm not sure this makes sense as a tact. It says, Scripture says the Antichrist is going to deceive the world. Something economically has to collapse.

That doesn't say that. The U.S. dollar's soon with what's happening, and there's going to be a need for a new economy, Hibbs estimated. The Antichrist is going to have the answer, and he's going to bring peace because there's going to be capital M mayhem. Who says mayhem? You ever say that word out of context? I mean, just, I guess, general speaking, you go around, you ever say the word mayhem? Only for the insurance advertisements. Okay, that guy. Nathaniel, when's the last time you said mayhem and everyday scratching? I don't think ever. It doesn't ever happen. Okay. There's mayhem in there.

I don't trust anybody that says it, actually. Well, maybe I said it at a trampoline yard with children. There's mayhem in there. Yeah, that could be. They're bouncing balls off each other's heads. Yeah, this is pure mayhem. The U.S. dollar's going to collapse. I mean, here's the thing. It's like, this is the, do we need a prophecy to tell us that? If the Antichrist is here, according to his reading of Scripture, the Antichrist shows up, all the governments are collapsing. Am I like, I can't believe the dollar is unstable? Like, I mean, it just makes perfect sense then. Yeah. I would expect the dollar to be unstable.

Yeah, that's right. It shouldn't be a surprise. If a believer is not eagerly awaiting the expectation of Jesus' return, he says, there's something terribly wrong with their understanding of the Scriptures. That's not a, I don't know. Do you think people are literally skipping prophecy? Like, when Jesus says, I will return, and we're like, nah, we don't speak about that. No. I can't be. I think he wants people to be as focused on the book of Revelation and the Antichrist and the end times as he is. He's Dan Rav. That's it. He's focused on that. Okay.

Yes. The believer has to have the expectation for the return of Jesus to take him there. Oh, sorry. The script speakers all agree that the world won't stay the same during the Tribulation. What? The whole geopolitical landscape is going to change during the Tribulation. Everything's going to change during the Tribulation. I mean, can't we just quote it once? That's why we call it the Tribulation. And then he said again, everything's going to change in a moment. If you're heavenly minded, you will want to do more good because you want to take people with you. We have a mandate from God, the Great Commission. Rescue those who are drawn toward death. We're here to save souls.

That's exciting. Tacked on behalf of God, Christians will be able to handle whatever comes their way during the end times. I don't want to listen to that guy no more. He who will not take the mark of the beast. When the beast will be here ruling the world, his head will be chopped off. It's not going to be a crime. I mean, the scripture's not that specific, sir. Head chopping. No, you're done with that, Ben. Yeah, no, that's the end of it anyway. Ready? Yeah, let's do it. Dear life from the past. My wife and I have been married for 21, mostly, happy years.

However, last year I had an affair that lasted for several months. Do what? I confessed to my wife and we separated for about a month while I tried to evaluate what I should do. In the end, I returned home and asked for forgiveness and reconciliation. Obviously, my wife has struggled with my infidelity, but to her credit, she's trying hard to make things work. During our separation, we had little contact and she told me that for revenge, she had slept with someone else. I know that's what's good for the goose is good for the gander, but the guy is less than half our age, and I'm struggling with the mental image and thoughts of trying to match his level of stamina and energy, if you know what I mean. Wow. Okay. And I know I messed up, but I love my wife with my whole heart, and I'm working hard

to demonstrate it. How do I purge my thoughts of the image of my wife with another man? Boy, somebody went to ride in the feel sorry for me train real fast after cheating on his wife. Holy cow. Yeah. So, I mean, here's the deal. You may find forgiveness and reconciliation, but it does not guarantee a purge of the lingering of that level of sin. This is the exact type of thing that I think Paul is talking about when he talks about sexual sin. Like, it sticks with you in a different way. You just can't purge it. But, like, Dan, I guess, so, as a comparison, you had said before you had the stealing club stuff.

Right. So, like, do you ever walk in a store and you get the old tingles? No. And, like, the images show up and you're like, I just want this Clark bar. Yeah. No. No, I didn't think so. If I do, I think, I guess I'll buy that. I guess I'll have it. Because I can. I'm buying it. I'm eating it righteously. I'll use my Antichrist money. But, like, it's different, though, like, your past sexual relationships, if you had some either before marriage or if you had some outside of your marriage, pornography,

like, these things will, like, they get into your soul and they are very difficult to get to pop. Like, I've talked to people who, I mean, they haven't looked at anything rough for, like, 20 years and still every once in a while, like, fresh as day, think and just pop right on up on them. And so, like, I think this is what we heed Paul well if we say we don't dabble in stuff and feel like it's shallow. And so, unfortunately, that the thing that you're running up against, like, you're going to have to trust her. Like, if she says, look, I'm back with you, then you're going to have to trust her in that. The doubts you may have, one, you sowed by creating the situation. And, like, it wasn't, this was not the good for the goose, good for the gander. It was bad for everybody. You blew up the whole house.

Yes. And that sucks. That sucks for your wife. But she's not going to shake that either, to be honest. Yeah. And, like… You forgot about that part. Yep. Yeah. Yep. She's going to be in a rough spot about that. And to be honest, like, this may continue to cause, like, problems in your marriage. Like, once you go to someone like that, the grass always looks greener. And so, you know, this is why, this is like the ha-ha, the midlife crisis of a dude who goes up and, like, breaks up his marriage, goes find someone that's 20 years younger and

thinks he's found the jackpot. And he's two years down the road and he feels old and fat and lonely because he was dumb. And he went chasing something that wasn't true and wasn't a reality. And so, I think that if we're being honest, I can't do anything about, I think, specifically about those thoughts. I mean, don't dwell on them. You need to bounce away from them. I think you need to have open and honest conversations between you and your wife. But, like, here's the thing. You can only have those so many times before, like, you're going to look really weak and annoying. Sorry, dude. Like, a lady doesn't want to be a guy who's constantly over there feeling like, oh, I wonder if she's thinking about somebody else. Like, you're going to have to go back and try to, like, hold court here because she doesn't

want to be in a marriage where you're constantly acting like this either. So, talk it out. Make sure that you've done a good job and tried to talk it out. You guys are right for therapy. This is a good time to go sit down with someone who loves Jesus and help you talk through some of your stuff. Unfortunately, I guess I think those images and those thoughts are going to be tough to shake. It just seems like a real doofus thing to worry about. You know, like, I cheated on my wife, and she cheated on me. Well, she slept with somebody else while we were broken up. But this dude that she decided to shack up with, he was half my age, and I'm worried I'm not going to be able to perform up to sniff. Hey, man. I believe this level of selfish buffoonery is probably what got you in the straits you

were in in the first place. No, that's true. I guess I didn't catch that. Like, that was, he wasn't just, hey, she was with someone who was younger. He was specifically focusing on he might be a real stud. He was half our age, and I can't keep up with all this stamina. She don't want to sleep with you right now. You just cheated on her. Yeah. They're trying to rebuild an intimate relationship, and you're already like, how am I going to outperform this guy in the sack? What's the matter with you? You've been lucky you've got a place to stay and live, a relationship to come back to, you one-sided doofus. I just, you know, I'm embarrassed for him.

He's a dolt on a cult, this guy. Yeah, yeah, and his wife pumped out, you know, honesty, right? Hold on, this is his phrasing, drives me nuts here. Hold on, he says, I confessed to my wife, and we separated for about a month while I tried to evaluate what I should do. Oh, oh, I see. He's just weighing his options now. He's like, hey, I told her I did it, and I'm trying to think of what I should do. And then I decided that in the end, I returned home and asked for forgiveness and reconciliation. It wasn't his first thought. He went through a month of saying, hey, man, I'm going to use all these better options I have. It took him a month to figure out, ain't nobody else want to hang around with him. There's no other option for him. Yeah, see, so this is the problem. This is where all this woke business comes from.

This guy. This is why people go, yeah, I think the patriarchy is evil. I think men are terrible. It's because this dishwater is out there roaming the crowds. Yes. Shaking hands and meeting people. Yeah. We don't have a good handle on him. He's representing the gender. No, that's true. That's true. We got these rogue parts of the organization who, like, when he cheated on his wife, instead, he immediately goes back and goes, hey, man, I messed up. I love you, but I understand you don't trust me for beans. You tell me what we'll have to do.

If you're interested, I will put all my effort into this, and I want to refocus on our marriage. And she turns around and spills just to start a clean slate, says, you know what? While we were separated, this happened, but let's, yeah, we're going to focus on our marriage. And then this guy's just sitting in the corner going, boy, that guy that she slept with, boy, he is half my age and probably a rock star. Yeah. How am I ever going to compete? You're not. You lost already. When you cheated on your wife, you are, it's not a competition with your wife and another dude. Right? You, you're in the marriage. I just, I'm embarrassed for this guy. It's really easy to pass this off and be like, hey, man, you know, you got to try to fight through these feelings or whatever. But, like, you might just be a jerk.

And I feel like you're, you're going to have a hard time getting past that, that point. Yeah, I guess, I mean, I would, I would use those, to the extent those thoughts are coming up, I might use them as a point of humility. Yeah. Like, I am, this thing popped into my mind, I am so blessed this woman took me back. Exactly. I should, I should worship and serve her every day. You know what you should remember, Brian? You're a replaceable friend. So you best be on your A game. You better be ready to give and serve and love and protect like Christ loves his church. And so whatever you thought you had going for you that day, that you're funny, farting in the bed and going, ha, ha, ha, stink tornado. You know, you better knock it off because she could replace you with a dude half your age. Yeah, that should be motivation.

He probably can stink tornado longer and more robustly. Yeah, that guy could do a seven second stink tornado. Make me look like a real amateur. I don't know, Nathaniel, any way to pull this man up and redeem him? No. No, no. He needs, he needs the Lord Jesus. Oh, man. Yeah. Yes, he does. Yeah, he does. I think the whole, like, the whole marriage really needs a blessing. Yeah. And the Lord needs to shine his face upon him because, like, this is a real mass. And unfortunately, there are things you can do to try to make this better.

But the reality is, is that your actions and decisions here will, I mean, they're going to follow you. So you're going to have to figure out how to deal with it. Yeah. And I mean, honestly, and people that have been in this situation before, you have to throw your pride completely out the window. It's not even available to you. If she wants to see anything and wants to know where you're at, wants you to check in every 10 minutes, whatever, you do it. You're going to do it because you owe her that. You broke this bridge, friend, and now you're going to show how you're going to rebuild it one nail at a time. Segular says, it may not be easy. Oh, the question was, how do I purge the thoughts of the other dude? Segular says, it may not be easy.

Don't you think that your wife has had similar mental images of you and the woman you cheated with, I'm sure. She's probably imagining the other dude based upon what I've heard about him. Yeah. Yeah. Boy, that seven-second stink tornado was dreamy. That's a middle-aged derecho. I just want a macho man that can win. Infidelity hurts everyone involved. You and your wife are working to remain united. Concentrate on that rather than preoccupy yourself with your insecurities, and you'll both be better off. Yeah. I mean, look, every once in a while, your mind's going to wonder, and every once in a while you're going to think about it.

You just stop it right there and go, ain't none of your business. It already happened. It's done. She forgave you. You forgave her. Put it down. Don't carry it no more. And you probably have to fight it off. Yeah. But you got to do it. You just, you have to do it. It's done now. Yeah. Dear Life from the Path, I am medically healthy and in my mid-60s. I have two adult children and my grandchildren range in age from 14 to 20.

I have a loving relationship with everyone. However, my family members are self-involved and have indirectly expressed that they do not want me to live with them when I am no longer able to live by myself. I have raised the subject and seen eye rolls and facial gestures between them. My daughter lives several states away and has said I'm welcome in her home, but as a snowbird only. Life from the Path, I don't want to be placed in a nursing home, only to be abandoned and alone. What do you advise? This is interesting because, like, does he, is this description of them being self-involved specifically related to the fact that they don't want them to come live at their house? Yes. Yes. Everyone is selfish because they don't want to have me at their place. Not, I'm selfish for wanting to live at everybody's place.

Yeah. To assume that someone, I should be able to live at their place. I mean, ain't nobody want to be in a nursing home. I get that. Yeah. So, so you got to look for different options. I mean, if that option is not there, you got, you got to find another option. I find a roommate, find, I don't know. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I don't know. Is it unreasonable for a parent to expect that somebody would let them live out their days at their kid's house? It's a very cultural thing, I believe. Yeah, I mean, it's not like this is, you're in the wrong place, man. You should move to the Middle East.

Yeah. They'll let you live anywhere. Yeah, China, Mexico. Yeah. I mean, just about everywhere, but like Western civilization in America. Yeah, these highly individualized Western nations, like this is just the wrong place to look for a nice joint when you're. Yeah, and I got to be honest with you, you bathed in that glory all your days, right? In this individualistic Western society, and you loved it, rolled around in it and got it all over yourself. And now while you get to the end of your life, you're like, hey, man, I want to come live with somebody. We're like, no, no, no. And so, I mean, it's a little bit unfair to reverse track at the end of your days and go, I don't like the way y'all are living.

You're all self-involved. I feel like you probably were self-involved through most of your life, and now you want the whole tables to turn and people to let you live at their place. I'd build you a separate shack. I've proposed this multiple times to multiple people. Look, man, you come live on my property, but you cannot live in my house. I don't want you in here. Right? We'll get you a little hobbit home. You can buy one of them hobbit homes that you can cover in dirt and plant grass on top of the roofs or whatever for like five, six grand. That's a deal. That's cheaper than the Medicaid. Medicaid will cover on the old nursing home. Yeah, yeah, yeah, hobbit home.

Yeah, I don't, it's tough. I think it's tough because it feels very selfish to be like, no, you can't live at my place. I guess, Dan, have you thought about this? Like, would you go, would you feel like living with your kids? I would hope that we have enough of a relationship that they would want to do that if, you know, the circumstances was there. I haven't thought much about it at my age. I thought about it with my parents, about I actually invited my mom to live at our house when she was starting to get sick because I figured, well, that's my responsibility as a son. Um, and, uh, I have approached that, uh, conversation with my wife, with her mom. When the time comes, uh, we should have her, you know, invite her. And the thing is, I mean, it's just a different dynamic because there's two of us, right? It's like, I can't just say, Hey, my mom's coming to live with us because I have a wife, you know, it's her home too and vice versa. Um, because she was not nearly as open to, uh, one of our parents living with us as I was.

So I just kind of backed off and never said anything to my mom. And it's not that, you know, she didn't want them or anything. It's just that I think it's especially, uh, difficult with women. Uh, you know, then you get the, the, the pecking order thing going on and, and who's the boss. And, and I think she just didn't want to play that game, even though I don't think it would have been there, but, but, um, I'm the dude. I tend to think, Oh, what's the big deal? Come on. Um, well, I, I, here's the thing is like, to be fair, um, and this is, I suppose I can only speak for my house, but my wife runs my house. I'm like a, I'm like a B character in this thing. You know, like she, she makes most of the decisions. The place runs the way it does because of her leadership in this area. And so I'm like, Hey, we're going to have this whole nother person come in here. It's a way bigger deal to her than it is to me.

Yeah. I don't have to, I don't mind what groceries we're going to eat, where people are going to sleep. If there's going to be enough time for laundry, who's going to, whatever, I don't care how much toilet paper we're going to go through. None of these things go across my mind. I'm like, well, we need a place to stay. I got a couch you can sleep in. And my mouth way overruns the practical thing that, you know, actually what it would take to, to make the house run, you know? Like in my case, I would not impose myself on my children. I, I, if they offered, I still might, I, yeah, cause I'm not there yet. Um, it, I would want to have my own private area. So I'm not messing with their family, you know, interfering so they can have privacy and raise their children and have their life.

Uh, um, yeah, that, that's a, that's, that's, that's asking. That's expecting a lot. I think from this guy, I guess that's what I was thinking something similar, which is like, I, I know, you know, having, you know, being where we're going through the process of, of being married, raising kids, like I would feel like I wouldn't want to be, um, feel like I'm taking away from that. Like part of my gift to them is to not, I don't want to say not be a burden on them, but kind of like not, not have them have to think about, um, you know, I don't know, taking me along on every, all the, your family events or whatever. Like I just, you know, if I think the separate thing on a, on a bigger property seems all right, a motor home, I might be all right with our kids. Yeah. We're going to have a motor home. We'll just go six months at each of your homes. Yeah.

We're coming by. Well, oh yeah. You don't have to hold, you don't have to hotel us up or anything. Right. We'll just let us park on the drive. Let's see. That kind of seems all right. I don't, I don't think I would have the assumption. It does feel a little bit self-centered for me to like, when are y'all going to put me up? I can't wait till my time. Like, yeah, I always thought that it'd be nice to offer to pay for it. Like, look, I, I want to live around family, but I don't want to, I want to, I don't want to cause you trouble. So let me, I will pay to build like a small cottage on the back of your property or whatever,

or you got, I'll buy the property, you know, in town and just live in a neighborhood close to you or something. But I'm just going to need some help as I get older. I'm not going to be able to do all this stuff, you know? So like the expenses on me, the burdens on me, I just want, I want to be close to you without interfering with you. And so I think there's, there's ways to get that done. You seem to think that like folks should have thrown open the gates of welcome to us immediately and said, Hey man, I'm in my mid sixties that, which puts, you know, if people got grandkids between 14 and 20, you had pretty young kids and they had young kids. Um, but I mean, at the end of the day, they're still, they're not, they're not in their sixties. You know, life isn't really slowing down to have to, you know, sit around and play canasta with you or whatever you're planning on doing. So, I mean, yeah, I would expect as you decline in health or, you know, ways of getting things done, you could buy a house in their neighborhood, rent an apartment close to them, something that

gives you separate space, but they can drop by and help you if, if need be. That seems a lot better. And I guess maybe to reiterate to your, to think about, you know, some of these in the Eastern cultures where this is more popular, uh, and more likely like a lot of these older folks, these grandparents and stuff are like, they're still doing stuff. Like they're still making dinner. They're still tasting chickens around. They're like, this is it. They, they tapped out at 65 and then now, Hey, what can someone put me up for a while? Like they were actively contributing to the family. Correct. Um, in fact, all, all members of the family were doing. And so like, it's just a different, like the freedom that comes with being an individual in our country means that like you have the freedom to actually sit on your, your tookus if you want to 65 plus.

And we're like, yeah, that seems all right. But like, it's a quite a deal to have nothing to do and then show up and live with your kids when they're, you know, 40 and trying to raise kids and live their lives and make choices. And you were just kind of sitting around thumbs down. Yeah. It's a ruckus. Thumbs down. Yeah. It's, it's, yeah, it's a ruckus. So yeah, just re, re, retool your perspective here on, on why you're so mad at these people. You're just, you're catching them. You're catching them at a, at a, at the middle of their life when they got a lot of stuff going on and you're looking to be in ease. And they're like, we just, we don't have a whole lot of ease going on right now to offer you, you know?

Right. Uh, okay. Secular says, because your children are averse to you eventually living permanently with them, start now to prepare for the time when you may no longer be able to live by yourself. Begin by talking to friends of both genders and find out if they may have a similar problem. Why? Why, why, why is that necessary? I don't, I don't know. If they do consider banding together and buying a house or a condo together so you can help each other. Why does it sound like they're trying to start some kind of old people frat? Hey man, let's band together and purchase property. This has worked for other seniors and it may be the solution to your problem. Boy, this is the way we give advice out now. Like, hey man, I thought of one possible solution out of a thousand.

Take this, take this route. I mean, I don't know. That sounds kind of fun to me. You know, if, if, obviously. To bandito with a bunch of oldsters. So you find, yeah, find three, four people, buy a house together. It's like we're on our own. We don't have, you know, a bunch of rules to follow from some apartment complex or something. And we take care of each other. We hire all the mowing and all that junk and it's like a party every night. This sounds like a movie with Terry Bradshaw in it. Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. Whatever it is, Terry's going to be there. Who wants to play bridge?

Yeah, yeah, okay. Okay, hey, you've been listening to Live from the Path. Maybe you feel like we've done some great advice here and you want to congratulate us. I understand. You can call the Live from the Path, Bob Eisner Complaint Line, 515-517-0085. That's call or text the Live from the Path, Bob Eisner Complaint Line, 515-517-0085. We'd love to hear from you. Love, hate to show, have comments for us. Either way, we'd just love to hear from you. In the meantime, I think we've, I'm not sure, we've got to come on towards the end of the year here. We might crack 30 shows. Hey. Which is not bad because we had a down year the last two years. Yeah. So we'll see.

We'll see how the trajectory runs. But we do intend to be in the office next week. So in the meantime, be faithful to the means. God will handle the ends. You've been listening to Live from the Path. We'll see you then. Bye.