Live, from the Pathway Studios in Johnston Proper, you are Live from the Path. My name is Ben Foose. Thanks for being with us here tonight. What? I can't hear anything going on. Okay. Welcome. I'm in. Alright, hey. You're listening to Live from the Path. My name is Ben Foose. Thanks for being with us here tonight. There's a ton of stuff going on for the start of the year. What are you looking at? Everybody's looking at me funny. Anyway, yeah. Alright. I don't know. We just got a ton of stuff going on. We're going to be talking about predictions for 2012. The question as to whether Jesus cares whether you are a speeder or a jaywalker. Yeah, boy. Mike. Ah, we're going to talk about it. You got me on the edge of my seat. Also, we don't do a lot of politics, but frankly, this is not a political discussion. I think we have a godly discussion when it comes to the Iowa caucuses. So, we don't tend to hit on this very often, but I think my question is for a guy that if you're just stepping into this thing, where do I start? From a biblical perspective, how do I start evaluating people? I can tell you what seriously irritates me, but we'll talk about that when we get to it. But I think there's a really fine line when it comes to Christianity and politics. And sometimes I think that people use their Christian podium to push their political views. And I don't know. Like, there's certain political views that, as a Christian, you just inherently have. Like, they're just there. Like, it doesn't necessarily make…

Like, you can be a liberal Christian to some extent. There's certain things that you can't vary from. Like, you know, your stance on life in general. You know, where life is, when it starts, if God knows them. That's obviously not an option for you if you're a Christ follower. That God said it was what it was. But, like, you can have a little bit more of a liberal social outlook. You know, and that's not necessarily a sin or against the Bible in certain aspects. And I'm not even liberal. But I don't… Like, I think there's certain things that are… Like, kind of like we talked about last time. A hill to die on. And there's certain things that are like… You know, if they're not defined in the Bible, then they're up for discussion. And they're up for decent discussion. But I think some people take their… You know, they take their political views and they say, Well, I'm a Christian and I believe this. So, obviously, this is what Jesus believes. Here, I'm going to write around everything I own. You know, I think also that… Sometimes the political world gets into the Bible world. And that's where they get in trouble.

And then people say, How come you're talking politics? Because I'm just talking Bible. You know? And I can't help it if the politicians are grabbing our issues. And trying to politicize them. Yeah, and I think it's making a discussion there on what's political. And, like, what is a spiritual issue regardless of who's talking about it. You know what I'm saying? Like, abortion is a spiritual issue regardless of whether it also plays out in the political arena. And to be silent on that issue because you're trying to stay away from the political arena is a spiritual mistake. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I don't think that's necessarily the way to go. But I think there are ways to go about it that aren't… Oh, how can I say that? That make… I don't know. I'll rephrase myself by the time we get there. I know what I want to say, but I know if I say it how I'm thinking about it right now, it's not going to be correct. Okay, fair enough. And we'll have it on record. And we'll use it. Yes. The Lord told me to be quiet more than enough. So I'm going to listen this time.

I had people actually tell me they were surprised I didn't talk politics Sunday. It never even occurred to me. We'll talk about it later. There's time. Okay, so we're going to do speeder or jaywalker, whether Jesus cares, talk about some Iowa caucus thoughts. Also, getting off your godly high horse, I'll give you kind of a synopsis of this, which is when you look around and the way that we judge people, and I think we tend to do it, we try not to be judgmental of people in general. But I think as a group of folks trying to follow Christ, one of our biggest mistakes is looking around and calling them as we see them, right? Because we see them wrongly. Generally speaking, God sees them cleanly. We see them wrongly. We don't know the whole story. Yeah, exactly. And so I'll give you just a little snippet of a small blog that a guy wrote about the next Billy Graham might just be the drunk guy next to you. And so I thought this was interesting and a solid reminder to shut up and get off your high horse. You know, try to walk like Christ and influence people appropriately, but stop waving your finger. You don't have a place to do it. It's not your call. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. So predictions for 2012, stuff coming in from the chat. Also, just there is a – there's a ton of things going on from bands that we've had on Live from the Path, and I'll update you on that a little bit. But a big show coming up for Syndrome of Fire. They're going to be playing with Cutlass in February, and I'll encourage all you guys to go out to that. Three of the folks that have been on our show, Syndrome of Fire, Saved on Sunday, and Double J, all going to be at a show on the 7th. So coming up this week.

And Jess Anderson is in town for a couple weeks playing some shows. So we'll talk about that in a little bit. We'll have to get her to come in. Yeah, but I want you to make sure you're – I don't know about that. It might be tight. She's only got a couple weeks, and she's got a lot of shows coming. Yeah, and we've kind of explained this before. Once they get to be a certain level of caliber and talent, you know, it'd be foolish for them to stop in. Yeah, yeah. So it's a good idea. That hurts. Go check out these folks before they refuse to associate with the program anymore. Fair enough. All right. So that's what's going on on Live from the Path tonight. Also, if we get to it, we'll be doing some advice. And, yeah, I'm excited. Yeah, me too. We've got big stuff. Okay, I have one small question, and then we can get into the stuff I talked about. The question is, is what happened to the handkerchief? I don't understand why the handkerchief went out of style, because I tell you what, I'm about tired of walking into the bathroom and tearing off three squares of toilet paper. You know what? That's the truth of it, too, because the woman has been upset at me because I've had a cold this week.

Not upset, but she – you know, like every time I go into the bathroom – That sounds cold-hearted. To get another Kleenex, because Kleenex, the brand, is expensive. And she uses them as decorations. Every bathroom gets one. Exactly. I do the same thing. I use toilet paper. And so I've exhausted, like, five boxes, because I just keep going – I hunt them out like a raccoon. I go room to room until I find more Kleenex. And so I've exhausted all – and she's like, do you know what it costs to replace all these Kleenex boxes? You know, the bathroom's going to look stupid with a Kleenex holder. I don't put no Kleenex in it, but it's going to cost, let's say, 18 bucks to replace all these Kleenexes, you know? So she's like, you're going to start using the toilet paper. So I switched to the paper towels, which are just as expensive. Oh, man, those hurt. Yeah, after a while, I mean, yeah. Those are rough. So, you know, I'm like, can't I just keep a rag in my pocket? You know, that's – I do it at work, you know, but at home it feels kind of, I don't know, low rent. So I'd totally be okay with going back to the handkerchief. I've never really used one for – I used to use one when I was young because back when I used to wear suits to preach in all the time, you know? And then it just got hot, you know, and I used one to kind of wipe the sweat because I just got all worked up and stuff. Other than that, I've never, like, you know –

Been a nose-blowing handkerchief man? Just the whole idea of, like, you're doing it again. I mean, it's like – what if it's still there? But that's what I'm saying. It's gone out of vogue, right? But every time you see some of these period piece movies in the Old West or the, you know, the 1800s English Society, even the uptight dudes are blowing on a hanky. And that seems to me the thing to do. You got something on you all the time. You got a wide range. By the time you circle around it and, like, use up the real estate, the previous real estate's kind of dried off and not causing the same problems. I agree. I'm back in. It needs to come back. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, I mean, especially if you do the fold vesting, you know, use it, fold it, use it, fold it, use it, fold it. You could probably get a good amount of that thing. Maybe you guys have less to get rid of than I do. But, man, I fill up. I fill all the way. That's actually the problem I find myself in is that I always – I overblow the Kleenex or whatever's in there. And then I have to deal with it. And it's getting caught in my mustache. All right. I don't see that there's anything wrong with getting the extra large life from the path anchor chief up on the market.

I'd probably pay seven, eight bucks. Let's do it. Maximum. I blowed my nose in that. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. You're listening to Live from the Path. We hear every Monday night from 10 to midnight. You can catch us during the week at livefromthepath.org. Tonight, the big question of the day – Pants, I want you to put the think on this. The big question of the day is, does Jesus care whether you are a speeder or a jaywalker? Mike, you're speeding. There's no biblical problem with speeding. But it is a law of the land. No, so here's where my concern came in, right? So the first of the year here in Iowa, we've had like a year's worth of probation on texting while driving. Okay. So the first of the year, it becomes illegal to text and drive. It's been illegal, but they weren't taking for it. So to further that, like if you're a commercial driver, if you hold a CDL license, you can't talk on your phone while you're driving. Or to even further it, like let's say you work for a company and you work as like a service worker. And the company says, look, it's our company policy that you don't talk on your cell phone while you're driving. If you get caught doing it, it's your ticket to pay.

So I talk on my cell phone while I drive. I do. Like I'm usually pretty excited for that particular activity because that means if I'm driving, I have time to talk to you right now. I'm not working or I'm not, you know, I'm not busy doing something else. So it's a perfect time for me to call up. You know, I'll usually call my mom while I drive. You know, hey, mom, what you doing? You know, not good to talk to you. I want to know what you're up to, whatever. And so like this kills me. And then I thought my attitude towards this is like, well, screw it. I'll, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll call people if I want to. You know, if I get busted, I'll pay the ticket. You know, I got, I got busted. And then I thought, you know, am I falling into sin category here? You know, like, am I taking the laws of the government and saying, well, screw you. I'll do what I want. I'll, I'll pay your consequences. You know, if, if, if you happen to catch me, you know, I'll pay the ticket and do my duty there. But like, I don't really want to stop calling people on my phone. I think it's a ridiculous law. What do you think, Dan? You know, you know, I, I argue with myself on some of these sometimes too, because I'm kind of inconsistent. I wish I could tell you, I have a real consistent, you know, hard line.

I mean, Jesus made it pretty clear, you know, the law is a law. You do, you follow the law. Paul made it pretty clear. And so technically you, you, you should, I have this rebellious spirit myself. Sometimes it goes, yeah, but I don't want to. Well, see, that's, and that's the thing. And, and, and, and, and basically like I needed, and, and I was talking to pants about this and I talked to my wife about this. We had a pretty good discussion about it. And it kind of, it kind of made its way into, you know, illegal missionaries in China. You know, like the law of that government is to not have them. And these are, but I think these, these, and scripture sorts this out a little bit, you know. About which, which issues are, are, are God issues and which issues are just issues of the government. If the Bible does not directly speak against it, if it's not part of God's law, part of what Jesus has said, then it is up to interpretation of the government that you live in. And the government that you live in decides you can't talk while you're driving. I think I'm going to have to obey that. And I really hate that. Right. So, so here's some of the scripture around it. A lot of happens in Romans 13. Romans 13, 2 says, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. Continuing on in Romans 13, it says, for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good.

But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not beat the sword in vain. He does not bear the sword in vain, for he is a servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. And again, in 1 Peter 2, it says, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. Yeah. No speeding, Mike. Well, see, and I think. It's got to stop. That's the thing. It's like, it's kind of poignant that this is when it came up. But, you know, and I kind of looked at it as Jesus kind of dealing with my pride issues a little bit, because these are things that I would flippantly say. I'll do what I want. Seriously, I think this is a dumb law. But, like, the truth of it is, like, and I really should have looked the verse up. But it's like, you know, one of the qualifications to be an elder of church is to be above reproach, you know, in the eyes of man. And man wrote the law. You know, like, and there's certain cultural laws, you know, like if they were to cross a line and say, you know, make abortion a legal act in areas, I have a problem with that. And that is against God's law. That is not something where I can move. That's not something where I can say that's acceptable. That's where, yeah, we will be God rather than man. Right, and so, but God didn't say, Jesus did not speak to the act of talking on your cell phone while driving. Our government tends to.

And so, and I don't see anything against God's law that says that I should be able to talk on my cell phone while I'm driving. So, the real crux of it is that I'm having a hard time handing that over to Jesus saying, I don't want to pull over every time I get a call. Well, in this case also, you're working for a company, so it's not really illegal by the law, but by your company policy. Well, it's actually both. Well, it's illegal by the law, too. Now, a standard issue driver, I believe, can still talk on his cell phone. I don't think they can roast you about that. You can't text. I mean, that's the whole idea of submission, like in Ephesians 6, Ephesians 5, 21, everyone submits one another out of reverence to Christ. He gets into husbands, wives, and so forth. But it's also the government side there of saying, I put myself under your authority. And so, you have put yourself under the authority of our current government by living here. You know, you could live somewhere else in our society. Hey, move to Canada, you know, move to Cuba. They're lawless, you know. Right. Or also. Lawless Cubans. Sounded good. You've also put yourself under the authority. Gracias Castro, I do what I mean. Of your employer at the moment. And so, you have two sides right there saying, don't do it. You know what the funny part is, though?

And you'll find this true with most employers. And I don't know that my employers are this way. I think they're a pretty straight-up company, right? But, like, most of that stuff is done with a wink and a smile. Like, it's done with, here's what we're writing down to cover us. So, in case there's trouble, you take the fall for this thing. But on the other hand, I expect the same amount of produce out of you. And here's what I'm going to expect. So, if I got a phone call, you know, I tend to get a lot of phone calls during the day. So, every time that I'm driving down the interstate at 70, pull over, take the phone call, and get going again. And that's going to add 45 minutes to an hour of my day, you know? And they'll say, yeah, that's absolutely what we want to do. That's what we want, you know? And then, you know, three months later, you're going to be like, listen, your productivity is down. We're going to let you go. We want to know what's going on here, you know? So, you know, and that seems to be, and I don't know if there's a lot of people that deal with this in the working world, but a lot of stuff is done, a lot of company policies are done with a wink and a smile. Now, they're done with, here's how it's going to lay out, here's what we want from you. And if you follow that to the T, you're going to be the guy that produces less because you're just, you're confined by rules that you're attempting to follow. I don't know, but I think that puts us in a difficult worldly position in what's something that should otherwise be easy spiritual decision, right? I mean, the rules are the rules.

The law is the law. I am submitting to the authority of this company. The question then becomes if the authority of this company is the wink and the smile, right? It's not really leading someone and saying, here's the rule. They're saying, here's the rule. I don't care whether you do it or not or actually don't want you to do it, but we have to use it as our stated policy. You're beholden to what? The wink or the smile? Well, that's the thing. And you know what? That's probably a topic that gets really hard for people in sales. You know, that's a topic that gets really hard for people in the financial industry. I mean, those things get to be really wish-washy. You know, where's the line? What can I say? You know your company, Polly, is really restrictive, but you also know that, like, especially people who are in, like, phone banks or people that you're calling to sell things, and you have to leave, you know, the protocol is to leave a little bit of information out that you're not necessarily want to pump out. And if they, you know, the customer will ask you a direct question, they're like, here's the answer we want you to give them. And you're like, that's not the whole truth. That's like half the truth because you still want them to buy what we're selling, you know?

And so some of that's an ethical, you know, decision that you have to try to turn a gentleman. It's like, can I even work for these people, or do I just tell the truth and let them fire me? You know, do I just say, look, the truth is the truth. Here's the deal. You know, here's what you want me to say, but I'm not going to lie on your behalf, even for your money, because now you're taking blood money. You know what I'm saying? You're a hired liar. They're paying you to tell lies to people, you know? And a lot of people don't see it that way. They're like, well, it's just my job. And that's where the means equals the end. You know, with the Christ follower, the means are the whole thing. How you conducted yourself, how you lived your life, how you portrayed the truth and love of Jesus Christ to others with your actions. And if you're willing to portray that for $16.50 an hour, then maybe you're, you know, you're saying, well, I've got to feed my family. Jesus said he'll take care of that. I clothe the lilies of the field. I feed the birds. You know what I'm saying? I will provide these things for you without you having to sell your integrity in me. Right. The consequence is never that you have to violate my love or abandon my law

and my direction for your life simply to do the basics of life that I said I would otherwise take care of. Right. And you know what? And the simple fact of this truth really should reveal a lot to you about your past life. Like, look at your past life and look at the things that you compromised for your job or you compromised for a social situation. You know, to make a buddy or to, you know, just make something easier that day and realize all the times that you tied God's hands. God gave you the right direction and told you how to do it. And this is how I want you to live. And you're like, well, there's no way that the Lord expected me not to make more money. You know, and actually, I think that for the most part describes the biggest issue that people can look at Christianity as a hypocritical religion because people are constantly ceding ground. No one's willing to stand on principle. No one's willing to, like, we're willing to give up at any given point. I have to go along to get along. No. You don't ever go along if, even if it's the sacrificing to get along. Right. You know what I'm saying, like, even if it's the extent, well, you know, everybody clocks in, you know, a half an hour early. I don't.

You know, everybody takes an hour and a half lunch. It's totally cool. I'm not going to. Right. You know, it's that kind of passiveness to say, well, it's okay here. Like, all you're doing is getting in cahoots with a band of brigands, right? All you're saying is, is I'm willing to sacrifice this so that I can be well-liked or acknowledged by people other than God. And so the question is, who is your authority? You know, are you choosing to say my authority is going to be the guy who will let everything slide, who has no real stance, who has no real authority, no real line of which what is morally good and morally bad? All I'm saying is that I'm willing to do that so he likes me. And it's a principled thing, and I think sometimes we have a problem with laying it out there and saying, look, who do I really serve? That's why I really like the phrase, is God on his throne or is he? Because, frankly, if God is not on his throne, if God is not who he says he is, he's not on his throne, my life looks way different, right? I take three hours worth of lunch. What do I care? Right. They're not going to fire me. Everyone does it. That's fine.

Whatever you can get away with. Yeah, exactly. There's no moral standard on that. But if God is who he says he is and God is on the throne, my life has to look differently or I'm, frankly, acknowledging truth and lying with my life. And the thing is, it's nice to make a big stance like that, but the truth probably is that I'm lying in little bits every day, right? My life reflects a lie in a little bit every day. It reflects a lie that God is not on his throne. When I'm willing to seed ground in, you know, guilty, do I show up to work on time? Yeah, I have real trouble with it, right? But that's a lie. That's a lie about God not being on his throne because what I'm saying is that, like, I don't have to do this. You know, if I really wanted to enforce that thing, I would be there. I wouldn't be five minutes later. I wouldn't be five seconds later. I would be there on time because it's important, because I'm subject to that authority that is my work. You know what I'm saying? So, like, I think sometimes we don't realize how we're just lying every little bit with our lives. It seems like it's a worldly mulligan, but it's a godly problem. And it's not because God is restrictive or unloving.

He's way more free than our society. God doesn't say anything about jaywalking. You know what I'm saying? You want to talk about freedom, you know, I don't want to be shackled by religion or by following Christ. Christ, God will let you speed. Right? Drive that car, man. You know why? Yeah, I was thinking about this is I thought, well, you know, isn't it kind of implied that you wouldn't speed? If there was no law but you were following Christ, would you still speed? That was my thought. And I think the thing is, and this has to do with kind of your Iowa caucus or your political question, is like almost every item is a moral item, right? You're dealing with something that is moral in almost every respect. Now, whether it's a detrimental moral or responsibility or who's responsible for the morality of the situation is kind of an open question for me when it comes to like government and people. But speeding, for example, is a moral issue, right? Because the question is, is do I care enough about my fellow brother to not drive recklessly, to put him in danger by my driving? Am I saying my appointment is more important? My time with so-and-so is more important. And how fast I want to go is more important than the safety of this guy.

It's a moral – speeding is a moral issue. And so the question would be, what would your life look like if the government did not have any regulations on things like speeding and jaywalking? Would you still – would you still do it? Sure. Dan would. He'd be speeding like a maniac. I mean, if there's no one saying not to, unless, you know, I mean, if I wouldn't be reckless. You know, I go back and forth with – when I'll set the cruise control, I think, okay, if the speed limit is 70, and I'm thinking, I'll just set it on 74. Right. They won't fool with me over four. Well, yeah, the limit is 70. So that's the limit. You're not supposed to go beyond that. And I think, well, I'll just go ahead and, yeah, do that extra four because I won't get caught. Yeah. Not because it's right or anything like that, you know. And I've struggled with myself throughout the years. Sometimes I refuse to do it. I'll go back to 70 and say, that is the limit. That's where I'm going to go. Then I think, well, I'm not going to be a legalist. I'm not going to be a Pharisee.

You know, come on, lighten up. You know, get 70, you know. You know what? It's so hard because I really think that the reason that we struggle with this so hard is because I think it's a pride issue. You think 70 miles an hour is the correct speed limit. I think that's ridiculous. I'm moving to Europe. And so, you know, I'll do what I want. With something like that where, like Ben said, like with speeding and jaywalking, not that big a deal. But, Mike, you said earlier, yeah, you'll pay the fine. That's right. So would that make a difference? Yeah, the penalty's not like death or something. Actually, see, that's my concern, right? They won us the speed because that pads the budget. I'm doing them a favor. My big question is, like, am I in sin territory? I could care less if I'm breaking a law. I care if I'm sinning towards my father. And if my father says I have to follow the law, then, yeah, that's what I'm doing. You know, and you can't get – I don't know. I go – it gets tough because you don't want to go so legalistic on this that you are, you know, pharisaical. But the point is, like, the Pharisees were pretty okay on their following biblical law. But they added things.

That's the problem. They missed the heart of it. But they missed Jesus in it, and they added to the law. That's the problem. When I say not only can you not go 70, but I don't want the appearance of you looking at speeding, so now you go 65. Exactly. That's pharisaical. Just following the law, that's obedience. Yeah. That is not different. Yeah, but I think your example is probably a good one, though, is that they set the limit at 70, and your limit at 70. If they started to – if we said – if you got up in the church and said, look, to make sure that you don't go over it, go 65, that's pharisaical. But, I mean, the law of the land is 70. Right. Now, the question would be, is it implicitly okay to speed in certain circumstances, and then if you get caught, you have to pay the fine? Because, like, if they were that restrictive, they wouldn't make cars that would go above 70. Yeah, I mean, if the government was in the business of saying, look, you absolutely can never go above 70, they would set a restriction that says you can't build a car that does it. So then the question is, is it implicit in kind of how they regulate to say, look – That's the thing. You have to pay us to do it. It's the wink and the smile. It's the wink and the smile. It is. We don't want you speeding, but we need enough speeding tickets to keep our law enforcement working.

It's really working out well for us. So it's just – you know, it's the same thing as drunk driving. Like I've said this before that, like, you want to stop drunk driving, make it a life in prison. If we bust you, you're going automatically. Done. You know, and they don't want to do that. And why don't they want to do that? Because it sounds like cruel and unusual punishment? Nah, no. Drunk driving is very expensive. You know what I'm saying? And I think they run the numbers and they levy the risk and they say, you know, people can rehabilitate and whatever. Don't give them that many chances. Just say, look, if we catch you out drunk driving, you're just going to jail forever. That's it. No parole, nothing. You'll see drunk driving incidents go down. Other than that, you'll see a bunch of drunk driving deaths go down as well because all the drunk drivers are in jail. Yeah. I don't see any reason why you should give second chances for things like that. If the possibility is that you're going to kill somebody, then whatever. Get off the road. You're done. You know, don't even – don't give them the wiggle room to take that risk.

But then you take the same tact with speeding. If you say, look, speeding kills people. It's proven that speeding cars are 30% more likely to kill you than non-speeding cars. And they say, sorry, you're going to kill a guy. You were caught going 72. You're done. Jail for you. You know? That's not fair because I would go easier on the speeders because I'm a speeder. I'm not a drunk driver. Yeah. So I don't know. So to answer the broader question, does Jesus care if you speed? Our answer is – Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think he does. He does care if you're speeding. It's just because you can get away with it from a worldly perspective doesn't mean it's appropriate in God's eyes. And it's not because we are adding on to what God said. We're saying that we should be above reproach and should follow the laws of the land as instructed. Well, see, I think if you could take that scripture and still go, I'll do what I want. You know what I'm saying? I think that's God directly working on your pride.

I think that's exactly – It's part of humility before God saying, I will submit myself to this authority. I don't want to. I think it's stupid. It's going to be a tough one, Dan. It's going to be – I'm going to do it. I think I'm going to do it. I can – now that you mention it, like I can think of all the – like the – not even just the laws really, but rules of establishments that I've disobeyed and I've thought, eh, whatever. You know, I'll do what I want. But, you know, and all – and like – and it's funny because people get into a situation. They're like, man, I just don't feel close to God. I don't understand. And then if you look at it from this perspective, you're like – you can realize that you didn't tell one major lie or cheat on your spouse. But you've been disobeying slightly – you've come accustomed to disobeying laws, to not humbling yourself to any type of authority. So how do you expect – you can't just say, I humble myself to my all-loving God and then screw everybody else and you're a prideful beast everywhere else, right? Like being humble is a lifetime of humble servitude. Yeah, that's true. What we do is we choose where our authority reigns and where it doesn't. We say, I'm allowing God to be my authority when it comes to how I treat my wife, how I raise my kids. But I will not permit God to be the authority into how I conduct myself in the world and what I consider to be a nominal manner. It's not a big deal to me. And, I mean, it sounds like – you know, when we talk about the wink and the smile technique, like it sounds like the whole world looks like that. But the world still respects – I don't care how messed up the culture is.

The world still has respect for a man of integrity, and that's exactly the man that we're talking about. So you look at all the things that you think you have to seed to fit in with the culture, but the culture still looks at a guy with integrity and goes, you know, if he said that's what he did, that's what he did. If he said that's what happened, that's what happened. You know, and that goes a lot in a long ways. You know, if a guy says, you know, that's what I did at work. I don't cheat my time. I don't leave early, you know, without taking money for it. You know, whatever. Like, the world still has a certain amount of respect for that because God still installed everybody with a conscience and a device that, whether they choose to ignore it or not, they still have a reverence for a man like that. Well, and a solid question from the chat, kind of looking at it from the other angle, is if there was a Christian cop, is he obligated to give a ticket to a person that's speeding even one mile over the limit? Or is there, like, a spirit of the law? Well, I'll bet you there's got to be some, I'm speaking ignorantly, surely there's some type of, what am I trying to say, criteria code or something. Guidelines or something. Guidelines, as I'm trying to say, that the department tells them, hey, when they're, you know, they suppose that they want to be a pickle. But that's the thing, right? If your employer sets up loose guidelines for you, like if the state patrol office says, look, it's 70, that's our limit, and we write tickets. Because, you know, if you know the limit's 70 and the company policy is to write a ticket at 76, you know, is the company policy right? Are you ignoring the laws it's written because the guy that you work for is up to loose interpretations? Well, even like the camera ones they're doing now, aren't those so many miles over the speed? Yeah. I think they have to be with speedometer differences. Like, they have to factor in a certain amount of engineering. I think it's two or four different. You know what I do now?

I go, like, 50. If I'm over on 235, I just go 50. I do say a thing, actually. You guys are a danger. I know. I don't want to get caught by them cameras. I don't know. I think it's a good question when, say, like a policy of an enforcement comes up against the law that's set. The institution could just be flat out wrong. Then the question becomes, do you continue to work for the institution? I don't know. There comes a time, maybe. I think maybe the second thing is if you had that going on where the Christian patrol guy was willing to pull everybody over for one mile over, you'd see an influx in Christians working for the state patrol because that's some money. If there's a cross on the bumper, you let them go. I've said this before, but, like, people should be on the street holding up a street corner looking to hire Christians. You should be working your tailbone off because if you're working for the Lord, as it talks about in Colossians, people should be looking, trying to find a Christian. The book ethic should be. Like, I've got to get me one of those to work in my place. Right. But I hope he doesn't work for the state patrol. Disaster. You're listening to Live from the Path. So we're talking through whether Jesus cares whether you're a speeder or a jaywalker. I jaywalk, like, every day.

Yeah. I'm going to have to stop jaywalking. I think I – and here's the deal. I think I knew that. I'm pretty sure I knew that. You know, I don't think I've been taken aback by a revelation of what the Lord has given me in a while, but this is really going to suck, and I really don't want to do it. I really do not want to stop calling people while I'm driving. I love to do it. I love it. There's policies that I break all the – I smoke where I'm not supposed to smoke all the time. All the time. And that's got to stop. Like, it's just – and I hate that. But it's got to quit. It has to quit. And maybe, you know, maybe that's what the Lord wanted. You know, maybe he looks at – and, of course, it's not conversation just applied to me, but, like, you know, maybe it's God working on my heart going, look, you know, you say you want to humble yourself before me, but you're a prideful jerk everywhere else. I'm not buying it. I'm not buying your phony story. Well, you know, and I guess just to make sure we're clear on what the distinction is here, if it was not illegal for a commercial driver to talk on his cell phone in his truck, then what do we care? You know what I'm saying? Like, do whatever you want. If you could – like, wherever it's legal to smoke, smoke. So, the question isn't whether you're adding stuff onto the laws that exist.

The question is, are you submitting to the authority that God has put in place and said, here are the laws? Right. You don't want to add things or take things away for appearances, right? Yeah. Like, that's where you get in pharisaical territory, and that's where a lot of people buck the system at the church. Like, you know, like when they say, you know, when you – like the Christian schools, you know, where, like, you've got to wear khaki pants and a black shirt, and we don't accept anything other than khaki pants and a black shirt. Ah, a bit pharisaical. You know what I'm saying? You're adding things to it. You're adding things to God's law. You know, just – If they said God doesn't accept you in a khaki pants and a black shirt, that's different, right? If it's a school policy, you know, to keep out gang and – Put yourself under the authority of the school. You know, I had to deal with that going into Bible college. I had – you know, I didn't have a curfew since I was – I don't remember ever having a curfew. And I went to the Bible college, and we had to be in by 10 o'clock on weekdays, and I think it was midnight on weekends. And I'm like, seriously, I'm an adult now, you know. And so I was laid about every night just – you know, I had rebellious problems in those days. I don't know, Dan. That shirt's a rebellion. Take this, culture. I do what I want. But you look at – you know, you've got to look at the heart of the law, what's going on.

I mean, when is it okay to break the law? You know, Daniel is facing a law where you're not supposed to pray. You can only pray, you know, to the king. And so he opens his door and prays to Jehovah. You know, he did that so they would see him. He could have closed the windows and done it quietly and still prayed. He wanted to make sure they knew he was praying. You know, you look in the New Testament where not the law of the land but the religious leaders, you know, were like telling the apostles to stop preaching. They're like, well, we must obey God rather than man. And there are times the higher authority wins, and that's God. And if you're at a – okay, a big thing going on now with hospitals and abortion. If you're in a Catholic hospital that does not believe in abortion, and then they're starting to make – they say, hey, you know, you've got to start doing this. Now when a patient comes in and wants an abortion, you've got to do it. And they're hitting some really major ethical issues. Who do we obey, God or man? And then we lose funding for the hospital, you know, and there's some big stuff going on right now. You know, and the thing is is this wouldn't be as such a surprise had we not ceded ground in a bunch of circumstances up until now. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's like people should know. I remember that Steve Dace had said this once. He had come to something for the church and talked and said, look, they don't come to me and ask me to do certain commercials.

They know very well that I'm going to say no. You know, like – and it kind of reminds me of the principle of when Paul's talking, say, look, let your yes be yes and your no be a no. Like people should know where you stand. And frankly, people will respect that. Like regardless of whether they agree with you or not, if you're a person of integrity, your life starts to preach a gospel which reflects Christ because Christ was not a wish-wash guy. I mean he said what it is, and he got killed for it. He got killed for the truth of that. But he was a man of integrity. You know, things didn't change. And I think that sometimes the go along to get along, especially in a person that is trying to follow Christ, it's like, well, you know, if I can just get in here, I can help reach him for Christ. It's like, but you're trying to do it by giving a bad example, by saying that I can free flow and do whatever I want. I don't have to obey God in this instance so that I can get in to talk to you, to try to convince you of the authority of God when I just abandoned it and neglected it to try to get into this place. Because the other thing that it also says is that God is not powerful enough to get me in here to talk to somebody unless I, you know, screw the rules for a while and try to sneak in. And then God will absolve me of it later as opposed to – Right. I did the right thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's tough. It's – this particular thing is tough because it very much smacks of a legalist. It very much smacks of someone saying, you know – Right. It very much smacks of a church that I never want to go to. Yeah.

You're trying to – I don't want to go to a church that tells me this. It's like I'm like, oh, this place is restrictive and crappy, and I love Jesus. I don't want to be part of a church that thinks like Jesus. Right. I just want to love Christ and speed a little. Right. And shouldn't that just be fine? An acceptable amount. And you know what? Doesn't that suck, though? Like three years ago you brought this at me? If I would have walked into our church and you were preaching this, I would have been like, forget this guy. Seriously. Who does he think he is? What a stuffed shirt jerk. You don't have to be this way to be a Christian. You know? And the thing is, yeah, you can. You know, you got to love Jesus. You got to realize that you're a sinner and that you need a Savior, and then you got to let God do his work. And God's work is you being humble. That's the crappy part, right? Like you got – you got to – you know, it's not like that when you first meet Jesus.

You have to know Jesus first, you know? But like if you want to progress at all with God, you have to let him do what he wants to do with you. You just confirmed one of our core values as a church is that intimacy with God changes people. I don't need to get up and preach sermons about, you know, the evils of going two miles an hour over the speed limit and sound all legalistic and all that stuff. I can decide for myself what's right or wrong based on my relationship with God. But as people connect with God at a higher level, he begins to convict them, his spirit begins to work in them, and you start questioning things like, oh, should I be doing this? Yeah. And I don't have to tell you. I don't have to beat you upside the head. I just thought of a – we should have a picture of a sign with Mike on it that says, I must decrease. My speed. Jesus was increasing. Oh, you're listening to Life of the Past. Stop speeding. Go forward and stop sitting. Do it. Now, we – several years ago, I went to China with a group of people, and we all – several of us smuggled in Bibles, which was against the law of the land, you know? And, you know, this guy was kind of creepy going in, and there was these guys with machine guns, you know, with the radar, you know, going through the little checking bags. We were a Bible smuggler? We were a Bible smuggler. That's awesome. Maybe. You want to get the heart pumping. You're going like, I honestly don't know.

And then you're thinking, well, they're not going to shoot me. And it's like, well, they're going to cover a lot of things that, you know. They didn't shot a hit. Well, but I don't know what happened to him. He was in a taxicab. But – and so, you know, sometimes you just break the law for – again, like I said, for the higher authority. You say, well, we're there to save people, and regardless of what the law of the land is, you take some risk. But that didn't include speeding. Nope. Nope. And the – it takes, I think, a mature follower of Christ to make that discernment as to what is advancing the gospel. Well, not because we were just talking about, like, the guy that says, well, if I can just get in with these people, I can share Christ with them. But I think there's a distinction saying, you know, like, well, I'm going to sell dope for a few years so I can get in with a dope smuggler. Right. As opposed to, like, I'm smuggling in the Word of God. I don't – maybe there is a distinction. I think there is. I think – and it's a – I think it's a mature thing, and I think it's a Holy Spirit thing. And I think you need to be mindful of, you know, before you're smuggling Bibles in that you're praying to make sure this is a God thing. Because, frankly, if it's not a God thing, they're going to shoot you. Right. I mean, that's not a solid witness. Like, people aren't going to believe you as the guy that you say you are. If you're saying that you're some kind of pot smoker or some kind of heroin smuggler, you know, and you got in with the heroin smugglers, you're like, you should really get to know my Jesus.

And we're like, you've been lying to me for two years. Who did that? You've just heard of the band Insane Clown Posse? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're like maniacal dudes. Just, I mean, filthy, and their songs are gross. I mean, they're full, like, drug use and stuff. And so they went through, and they've been around for a very long time. And they came out, like, two years ago and said, no, we really, we love Jesus. It was just a way in. If you go back and listen to our songs under that, guys, like, you'll see it. We really love Christ. And this interview is, like, full of expletives. So I'm like, are you effing love Jesus? And I don't know that it's wrong. Like, who knows? I don't know. Maybe they do love Jesus. But they're not, haven't matured completely. No, they're just misguided. Yeah, you don't have to, to love and follow Christ doesn't mean that you suddenly are like, you know, a stuffed shirt. You start dressing like Dan, and you start, you know, talking. It'll come.

It'll come. You guys wait. God's been maturing me for years. We're waiting for this moment. I'm just saying I think it's worth praying for a man who's, you know, proclaiming Christ and then swearing in the next sentence. Yeah. There's just something that he's still missing about that relationship. But it was that same thought that, like, I can do this for a while, and it'll get me in, and then now I have access to them. When you have a band like the folks at Syndrome of Fire who, you know, who incorporate that kind of stuff into their – they play a lot of secular venues. They have a very – they have a sound that fits in well with that community. And, you know, we've seen that a couple times. They don't shy away from that stuff. They don't – they're not flying a flag or anything, but, you know, they're providing – we have hope in our lives, and it's Jesus. And if you want to know more about that, come talk to us. Have a great night. You know what I'm saying? Like, I mean, they're not dodging the thing, but they're doing it in a way that I feel like is very effective, in a way where people can say, like, I can see life like theirs. I can associate with that. It's authentic. Yeah, exactly. So – No jaywalking. I must decrease my speed. Dang it.

I'm really not looking forward to this. Jesus is being a little working on me. That – Spangler? What's up? So I know that you – I know that you just got here, but we've come to the conclusion that Jesus is not okay with you speeding or jaywalking. You didn't speed. It's the law. It's the law of the land. It's the law of the land. How fast were you going down Merle Hay Road? 35. I'm proud of you. I was an idiot when I was younger and got a lot of speeding tickets, so nowadays I have to make sure that I'm going the right speed limit. 500 on the interstate. You're listening to – you're listening to Life in the Path, and it's a real one. It's time to change your life. I'm boomed. Turn to burn. So, hey, so before I forget, let's talk about – there's some upcoming shows from some artists that are with Life – that have been on Life in the Path. I want to make sure you're aware of them coming up. Now, this is on Saturday, January 7th from 7 to 10 at Eagle Vision Church. It's at 9120 Southwest 9th. Saved on Sunday is debuting their acoustic double album Power Outage. So they're going to be performing.

Syndrome of Fire is going to be there. Double J is going to be there. So all three groups we've had on the show, and they're going to be performing on the 7th on Saturday from 7 to 10 at Eagle Vision Church. Go out and support those guys. I'm excited for – they've done some acoustic stuff, Saved on Sunday has, in the studio. Is everybody playing acoustic there? I don't know. I don't think so. That would be something crazy. I don't know. She'll be pretty good. Okay. So anyway, I'm excited for that. So make sure you check that out. I don't know if you can buy it. Ooh, the YouTube girl is going to be there. Remember that song that they played while they were in here? Yeah. YouTube girl. Yeah. YouTube girl. That's it. So I think she's going to be there or has done something. That's cool.

Yeah. Special video – oh, no. Special video from the famous YouTube girl. Oh, cool. What time is that? 7 p.m.? Yeah, 7 o'clock. Eagle Vision Church on Saturday the 7th. So check that. Go out and support those guys. It's free. I think they'll probably do a donation because they're raising money, I think, to pay for the CD. Isn't that like kind of buying it on credit? They've already done it. They're looking for payments. Anyway. Okay. You want to help them out? Oh, Dark Horse will be there. Yeah, yeah. Tons of folks. Anyway, check that out. Speaking of Syndrome of Fire, they are going to be playing with Cutlass at the Seven Flags

Event Center on February 24th. Get your tickets for that. You can go to the Seven Flags Event Center. That's sevenflagseventcenter.com. If you go to the events section, the Cutlass show is at 6 o'clock. Doors open at 5. It's an all-ages show. $22 in advance. You can get it at redtrucktickets.com or the Event Center box office. Check that out. That's going to be a pretty cool show for Syndrome of Fire. Yeah, no kidding. So go out and support them. That's on February 24th. I'm going to try to make that. I'm going to have a hard time paying $22. That's stiff. You know what I'm saying? Like, I know you guys. $22. I wouldn't pay $3 to see Ben do anything. Man. It's going to be a good show. I agree.

And here's the deal. Syndrome of Fire is doing a lot of cool stuff, and I'm really interested to see kind of their live stuff when they have a chance to play on a big stage with a lot of their toys. So check out Syndrome of Fire. They're going to be playing with Cutlass. And again, that's February 24th at the Seven Flags Event Center. You can go to sevenflagseventcenter.com or redtrucktickets.com to pick up the pre-sale tickets, $22 in advance. Get them before they're gone. Oh, and Jess Anderson is in town. So she's got shows. Well, she's got a lot. She's going to be at Willow Creek Baptist Church on January 4th, Grace Fellowship on January 8th, two shows that day, first federated on January 4th. Wait a minute, January 4th, does that mean they're probably in town today? Yeah, I think so. Dang, man. You should have had him come in. You should have at least had him not want to come in. Just like Rick Santorum. I invited Rick Santorum on the show, no response. No response from the campaign. He'll probably be here any minute. He was at the Pizza Ranch in Altoona.

See, that's what it was. Are you kidding me? People go to the Pizza Ranch, they'll come on his show. Should have offered chicken. You know, I should have. I love the pizza. Here's the thing is I should have coded my email with like, so if you really want to connect with the Christian right, our show is the one. And then we'd have to hide the numbers that shows there were like five members of the Christian right watching the show. We could have told him. We knew him and no one knew who he was. He was right behind us in the, was it Urbandale Parade? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We were like hanging out and talking. We probably hit him with some candy. Yeah. Take that. He said, come on. Remember, we go back to July 4th. Come on. Come on.

You know what? I was excited to have a politician in here, but then I was like not excited because I hate, I hate that political discussion, especially from politicians because they won't shut up. You know, we talked about that. We were at the Spirit Midwest Music Festival and Michelle Bachman showed up and they're like, you know, we'll see if we can get you to talk with Michelle Bachman. We thought, you know, we just aren't the guys. Yeah, we don't want to talk. We don't want to do that. We just, I don't handle people well. Like, it's her job to kind of, I, I, I, I like Michelle Bachman. I'm sure she's a wonderful person, but like, I'm sure she'll dominate the microphone and talk about a bunch of stuff. It's just the way they talk, like, even if they're like, okay people to the heart of it, like, they're like talking to salespeople, you know, you know, the whole, you got it. It's, it's quite a competition out there. It's, it's, it's ridiculous. They're like, they're going to survive. Just kidding. But what would happen? Like, can't they just get a guy that talks normal? You know, like the whole time they're talking, like we sat across from a politician that was on this show a year ago, you know, and they're talking the whole time, I'm thinking, I can

see right through you. Will you just be quiet? I'm the constituent. Let me tell you what I think. You know, they're like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, just 20 minutes straight, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Actually, that, that particular interview I think will go down as why no other politician will show up here. We may or may not have asked whether he thought anybody else in the political world was smelly. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's right. You guys did. It was a little tense after that. Here's the thing. Whatever, grow up. That's how you know he's a politician, right? Because he wouldn't answer the question. He didn't want it. It would be politically, it'd be politically bad for him to say that Tom Daschle is smelly. Here's what I would have said. Here's the answer I would have given him and said, hey, look, I would say, yes, someone is. I'm not going to tell you who, but yes. So there's a smelly guy. That's fair.

That's a fair answer. That's an honest answer. Somebody's always smelly. That's what I would say. I think that would have been fair. I'm not going to say. Well, come on. I mean, you can say. You know what? That's what I would have asked one of the politicians. If we were going to show, like, is it hard to follow the exact rubric we've been talking about? You know what I'm saying? Is it hard to follow God's law, especially if you have to do with changing the rules of the government? You know what I'm saying? And if it's your job to influence how laws are written and interpret the way the country is going to be run, is it hard for you to follow the current rules when you don't believe that? And it's your job to try to get it changed. That seems pretty tough. You know, it seems pretty tough not to say. Because, you know, like, they say, you know, here's what I believe, here's what I want you to vote for me for.

But, you know, you have to have a certain amount of the population that is not, you know, the Christian right, the conservative, evangelical. I'd never make it. Right. You know, so do you cede just to grab it so you can do some good? That's what kind of drives me a little crazy with, like, what's going on right now with the caucuses. The Christians are out there trying to find the perfect Christian candidate. It's like, we're not hiring a pastor. I mean, they don't exist. And if they do, most of the world's going to not vote for him. Well, they're not going to be able to get into Congress, definitely. I mean, if they're truly a Christ follower, that's not popular. That's embarrassing. Look at that guy. I would not vote for him. Thank you. So, you know, that brings up a good question. And one that I've been thinking about today is, I'm not a registered Republican, so I'm not participating in the caucus. But I was thinking, you know, let's say I was, and I was going to go to this caucus thing. Where do we even start vetting these guys out? Because to Dan's point, we're not hiring a pastor.

I mean, you could have Dan run on the Bible platform. He's the Bible party. Dan is not getting elected. No. Even half the Christians won't like it. Because then you start, you know, splitting hairs between denominations. Are you a pre-mill? It's like, no. What? You know, you're no good then. You know, so what is the responsibility of a someone that is trying to follow Christ when it comes to the political process of evaluating people? Because you are always choosing from imperfect choices, right? Christ is not on the ticket. Right. Right. So you have a bad vote. You're going to vote for someone who is a person who is imperfect and is a sinful heathen. Right. So I know that's going to be the case. Where do I start? How do I start evaluating these people? Get it from a biblical perspective. Yeah.

That's the toughie. I was talking about this with my oldest daughter, Danielle. Because she's getting an aid suddenly. She's like, hey, you know, she voted in the last election. And now she's like, you know, has no interest in caucusing and stuff like that. She loves Rod Paul. Does she really? No. Okay. The guy scares me. It's just interesting. A lot of the younger generation likes him because they don't have him. Anyway. It's a separate point. I look at, in my world, my view, number one is where are they on life? If they don't have respect for life, then why would they respect anything else? I mean, zero. It's gone. They have no respect for, there's no fear of God. Okay. They have to at least have some acknowledge. They don't have to be a Christ follower. I wish they would. But again, I know they're not going to be.

So that's, in my world, number one. If you're not going to vote, represent me in life, I won't vote for you, period. I mean, it's just over. And honestly, that's probably your big qualification. That's it. Is vote on life. From there, I look at other areas, you know, their ability to lead, you know, just their personality or their stance on other issues. I'm not smart enough to know all the issues and even pretend to, you know. Like, I watch the Facebook everybody debating each other on different people and they act like they know everything on everything. It's like, dude, you haven't been in that battle. You know, none of us have been there. I don't, I could pretend to know, but that's like the armchair quarterback saying, if he just went four steps left, you know. It's like, dude, you haven't had a 700-pound linebacker coming after you at 50 miles an hour. That's a little exaggeration. You're trying to, you know, break your neck. I think that ability to lead is a little bit bigger qualification than really most people think. You know, they're like, where do you stand on the issues? Who cares where Pant stands on the issues? He couldn't lead an ant, you know, through a crack in a sidewalk. So, you know what I'm saying? Like, if you can't get a…

Pants, you're ineffective. But we love you. That is completely true. That's what I'm saying. Like, I couldn't lead anybody to do anything. Who cares what I think about, you know, the fiscal policies of Paraguay, you know. Well, and no matter what you come up, whatever the issue, whatever you come on your conclusion, whatever your issue is, that half the country is going to hate you for it. Can you withstand that? Right. Whether you're pro-life, half the people hate you. If you're pro-death, half the people hate you. You know, same issue. So, you've got to be tough enough to make it through that and say, on principle, here's why I come up with this, and I will not change my vote. So, is there something incorrect about looking at the moral stances of individual candidates and taking the guy, if you get a plus one for every moral stance, and look across the board and just go with the guy that's got the highest? Is that lazy or correct? That's kind of how I do it. You even… In Harrisburg, we get… People are, like, tearing apart all these candidates because of things they did 20 years ago or something, you know, in their personal lives, you know.

I want to know how they're going to represent me. I could look at King David and look at his personal life and say, man, you are worthless. You know, had people killed, had an adulterous affair. You know, I could just keep going down the list of saying, this way, you're not qualified. God looked at him and said, hey, you're a man of my own heart. They got that stuff worked out. I would vote for a King David because he would represent me because of his values, even though he didn't always, you know, live up to them perfectly. I don't know if I'm going to answer your question, but… Well, I guess the reason I ask is because I think you have a series of people where you have folks who would maybe fit my values profile that maybe I subscribe to, but frankly are probably ineffective leaders. Yeah. So I would not be a good president. You know, I thought I was actually… I actually like something that President Obama said this week. He was giving an interview on something. It was a speech of some kind, and he's like, you know, we agree on this thing. You know, like the Republicans agree and the Democrats agree, and our House and our Congress agree. It seems like we agree on this thing, and we still can't get it done.

He goes, doesn't it seem like we have an ineffectual system where we agree on something and we still can't pass a law about it? He goes, that seems outrageous. And I thought, that's a reasonable point. And that's what leads me to, like, I really wanted to ask somebody that was running in the Iowa caucus, can you really do anything? Like, be honest with me. Like, is there anything you can really do? Let's say we elect you to president, and you walk up there with all my exact same values, and we agree, and you're going to hit this hard. You know… They still got to have Congress. There's like 85 steps to get anything done. King David could be president, and he still may stink. Yeah. He still can't get anything. Oh, man. This is… It's a fickle field. It really is, because, I mean, you look at the whole political landscape, and this kills me, right? Because people go, like… My political views aside, whether I'm a liberal conservative, it doesn't really matter. I look at the… They haven't really gotten anything done.

And the thing is, like, if I was put in that same position, I don't know how I could do that. Like, they say, you know, we really want to pass X law. You know, and they say, well, we're in a stalemate. And so the one side says, well, here's what we want to do, but the other side won't cede. They won't even meet us halfway. And I'm like, well, I can't meet you halfway on that. That's ridiculous. I refuse to meet you halfway on a principle that I'm against. And so they're not going to give up. They're like, well, we believe in it. We're not going to cede. And so how do you ever get anything done with two opposing parties that don't… That refuse to cede on something that they don't want to give up on? You know what I'm saying? I think it's difficult. I would agree with that. I would be an ineffective politician, because there are things I can't cede. I can't cede life, for example. I just can't. It's a godly position. Well, if I can't trust you with the life of my grandchild, how can I trust you with my money? I mean, really, how can I trust you with what the speed limit is? Because I know you're already broken. You're already messed up.

You can't even figure out what life is. But see, let's say you're looking at a real life… Like, let's say I'm trying to make an honest choice, and I'm looking at all the candidates out here, and they got a track record of, look, they ceded, and they went with the opposing party on this. And I'm like, you know, as a leader, you've got to do that somewhere. Otherwise, you honestly will get absolutely nothing done. I mean, because they're just as pig-headed as you are. I can find two of the most stubborn people in the room and expect nothing to happen. You know, so I mean, at some point, if you want to get X done, you've got to give X. You know, at some point, you have to do that. But I guess this probably just boils down to what you're willing to bargain with, right? If you're not willing to bargain on life, then you're a step ahead of a lot of people. Well, and so maybe here's where it's at for me. When it comes to some of the moral stuff, I can't cede that. I lean conservative when it comes to how involved the government is. But if I got a guy that has a strong moral foundation, but is frankly willing to let the government take more part than I otherwise would like, am I likely to vote for that guy? Yeah, probably. Probably if his stance is strong where there's something that I actually really, really care about. Are people going to hell because the government is more involved in my life than they were last year? No. No. You know what I'm saying?

I don't like that. That's not a perfect guy for me. But you tend to find the opposite. You tend to find where people are fiscally conservative but socially loose. I'm probably the opposite. Only to the extent of the things that I will tolerate, the things that are like I'm willing to vote for something that is strong morally and probably a bit more populist when it comes to government intervention, only because one is really, really, really important to me. The other one I'm probably just disappointed in. Yeah, because I want less government. I want no gun control. I'm like Mr. Conservative Guy in it. But I'll vote for someone who doesn't completely line up with me if they'll line up on life. But usually, you know, and so far that has not been an issue for me to compromise other areas. And I think this is one of the things we need to be careful on is if you look at – sometimes we look at the church and say, look, it's not the church's responsibility to get involved in politics. And we talked about this just a little bit before the show started. But that's a mistake to take to pull God out of something of which God belongs, right? The discussion on life is a God discussion. Amount government is involved in people's lives, I don't know. I mean you could – there's ways where there's moral issues someplace in there. And frankly, it tends to be on the – I don't think as an individual people are being morally responsible and the government is having to step in and then wanting to step in.

But it is a mistake to take that out of God's hands and say that's a political thing, not a church thing, not a moral thing. That's the foundation of the issue, and it's not – this isn't a political discussion when it comes to life. That's a biblical discussion. It just happens to be something where they're also treading in on it. I think that's kind of tough though because, I mean, let's say you find somebody that's willing to negotiate on, say, abortion, and they're willing to waver slightly on that, but they have a pretty strong policy on going to war whenever they want. They're kind of warmongers, right? Like they don't mind sending ships over and killing people. So he's flexible on life and he's a warmonger? That's a no. I don't vote for that man. Well, but what I'm saying is that he's – how can I say that? Oh, no, don't flip that around. So he's pretty tough. He's not willing to cede abortion. Like he's not willing to kill unborn babies. He says no. But then he has no problem going over and killing a bunch of foreigners. That's still a life question for me. I don't have a problem. It depends on why we're doing it, not just randomly. But that's what I'm saying. If we're protecting lives. But that's what I'm saying.

Aren't you taking life and deciding which life you think is more important? I'm not. I'm actually – I'm not with Dan on that. It's a life protection regardless of whether it's unborn or otherwise. Because now you're putting your justification on whether that life is important or not. Some people are just evil. I'm not going to protect their life. But do you trust man to make that decision about who's evil and who's not? I mean there's simple guidelines. If you've got people out there slaughtering people and they're trying to slaughter us, take them down. I don't think that's – I think that's tough, Dan. Somebody comes into my house. They're going to rape my children and you know what? I have a loaded gun. Let's say there's 300 innocent people in the same house as that guy is and they bomb that house anyway. I don't know. I can't – I can't – See, that's tough, isn't it? Yeah. Because now you're making the decision whether that life can be had or that life cannot be had. Yeah. Because you'll stand all day long and say you will not kill an unborn baby.

But then you look at collateral damage when they have to go over and bomb a guy to get the main dude out of there. Yeah. These are different issues. It's just like some people won't do capital punishment because it's life. It's like – that's clear. If someone crosses a certain line, they deserve to die, which is the way it is. It's to protect the society. Psalms does describe that it is a ruler's responsibility to protect the weak. I mean those are responsibilities of governments and institutions. So it's not that the responsibility doesn't exist. I think if you've got a guy who's a little bit too much of a free will – like if you respect life, I would expect you to respect it across the board. Even to people who you – it doesn't matter what their station is in life. It doesn't matter what they believe. The question is what are they doing? Are they doing something that requires that type of justice to be delivered? Under – I guess I wouldn't consider partaking in anything like that except under heavy prayer and the Holy Spirit is going to be shoving and doing it. You know what I'm saying? Because like I think you run a very serious risk of overstepping those bounds and not recognizing the sanctity of life just because it happens to be six foot tall. I think that's a very real risk. And I think sometimes to Mike's point, I think people devalue life that is older than three months old in the womb. And that's just as much of a problem for me and I think it should be protected in the same way. The difference between the what's in the womb and what's out is the one out can cause their own demise. I think it's the innocence is the issue.

I'm for the sanctity of all innocent life. If you're a murdering whatever, then, yeah, let's get rid of you. You know, it's – I don't know. Anyway. What? Dan's a warmonger. At times. I mean I'm not going to go out there looking for a fight. But if someone has their – you know, they're trying to nuke us or something. They're going to blow up. Let's say pretend someone was going to fly airplanes into our buildings or something and kill innocent people in daycares and office buildings. Man, take them out. Yeah, I think that the distinction probably would be you're more precarious when you're talking like preemptive things, when you're talking about it's not retribution or it's not like urgent danger or whatever and you're just saying I think these people are like X and it's painting with too broad a brush. Well, that actually brings us to something interesting. There was an article, a blog post by a guy named Russell Moore and the post was the next Billy Graham might be drunk right now. And what he talks about is he was asking a guy, a theologian named Carl Henry, and he said, you know, like I'm concerned about the visual shape of the church. I feel like we're not really discipling people. Our preaching is very shallow. And do you see any hope in the coming generations? And the guy goes, you know, why do you speak as though Christianity were genetic? Of course, there is hope for the next generation of evangelicals, but the leaders of the next generation might not be coming from the current evangelical establishment. They are probably still pagans. Who knew that Saul of Tarsus was to be the great apostle to the Gentiles? Who knew that God would raise up a C.S. Lewis?

You know, these people were unbelievers who once saved by the grace of God were mighty warriors of the faith. And so, you know, he goes on to kind of talk about, you know, the next Jonathan Edwards might be the man driving in front of you with the Darwin fish bumper decal. The next Charles Wesley might be a misogynist, profanity spewing hip hop artist. The next Billy Graham might be passed out drunk in a fraternity house. The next Charles Spurgeon might be making posters for a gay pride march right now. But the spirit of God can turn all that around. And so the question is, are we at times on our high horse about who or who is not following Christ and who will? Because some of that is taking God's power away from him again and saying, this guy, this person is lost. Like, if you can look at someone and think about them in a certain way as either, you know, a not a following child of God or someone where you're making a judgment about them, what you're also saying is that God does not have the power to change them. Like, if you've written them off, you're saying God is not able to move that man. I do that a lot. And I think that's a serious, it's a serious danger. There's a, you know, Paul's obviously the classic example. He's a murderer and murdering Christians when, you know, Jesus grabbed him and changed him. But, I mean, I think that's a real danger of making judgments on the world. And some of it's a pride thing, similar to what we talked about earlier about, you know, I'm the one who's going to say, you know, that guy, that guy's lost for God. He doesn't have the ability to change. Because at the time that I say that that guy's lost and doesn't have the ability to change, I'm saying God does not have the power to change him. And that's a mistake. But the reason I thought of that is when it comes to that just war thought is I can look at a country of people or I can look at a group or a faction of people and say, look at those guys. They don't, they're not following Christ. They're evil in their hearts. They're evil in their minds. Take them out.

Because they're violent people and they're going to hurt people. At that point, I'm also saying God can't change the evil in their hearts. It's the evil in their minds. And it's up to me to take them out. That's why I think we're dangerous. I think it's dangerous. That's why the only missionaries we currently support are missionaries in the Middle East. Because I'd much rather bring them to Jesus. And there's a huge revival going on in that area of the world within the Muslim community where they're coming to Jesus. It's a revival. But evangelism explosion is happening, which is kind of cool. God is doing some stuff over there. So I would much rather send missionaries than bombs. Yeah. But at the same time, I want someone who's going to protect my country. Yeah. I guess maybe the broad point when it comes to someone leading is you've got to be confident that that is a discerning individual. That that is a person that is not catering to one side or the other and that is willing to say, look, I value life. Even if the life is six foot tall and believes nothing I believe and probably even hates me. Unless that guy is coming at me with a knife in the face. I'm not going after him because because God is powerful enough to change that man's heart. And I'm not going to take away that opportunity that God will do that. And I think that's I think that's that would be the danger of that side. Because I think if you have a person that is non discerning in that area, you run a very serious risk.

Protection and justice always sound like great things. But, you know, as part of that protection and justice, you better make sure that you're right on that deal because you're you're taking away. You're saying that God is not going to do anything here. And you better be right about that. So I don't know. That's a tough deal. Like you caucus. No, I'm not a registered. Spankenhauser, you a caucuser? Nope. Why not? I'm not going to give you guys a lame answer and say that. Well, I'm not. Don't open with. I'm not sure about that. I'm going to be honest. I have I've no idea about 90 percent of the stuff that they they know there. They support. I don't know what all I'm for. I can't even tell the difference between half of them. You don't say they all talk the exact same. They're talking code. So the average person doesn't have a clue. Oh, man.

They get buzzwords. I mean, I obviously went to school and they said, well, you know, you got to worry about this kind of stuff. This is going to happen. And you got to really start thinking about what kind of candidates and what you believe in now, because this can affect you when you're 40 years old and you have grandchildren and all this different stuff. And I was the kid in economics and government class was just like, OK, I'll do my best on the test, but I'm not really going to worry too much about that. My dad tried to get me involved in it, and I just I never don't claim a kind. Don't claim a time. I know there will. I haven't been proactive in trying to figure out what what candidates I believe in, what candidates I agree with and which ones I don't agree with. I know my standings on a couple of things morally, not necessarily just politically. And I mean, I would go off of that. Yeah. I you could start casting lots after you're after my moral equivalents are met beyond that. And then it's a leadership issue for me. There's a couple. There's one guy that looks like a looks like a he runs a mortuary. I'm not going to say who it is, but he's got. Huh? OK, he's in the mortuary. Pants, how about you? Are you in? You coxed it tomorrow? I just looked at my just looked at my registration card. Apparently, I guess I am registered Republican.

So you're in. Yeah. Oh, pants. I don't have a choice. I have to. I want you to keep a keep a man diary about it and tell me how it goes. I'll do that. My wife's afraid to cox. Well, I think it's fun. It looks creepy. I was the one guy who went for Fred Thompson last time. Really? My dad wasn't with you? Well, I mean, there is. There are a few of us. I was going to say, because I thought my dad and Trey went with. Actually, he might have actually. My dad was all about Fred Thompson. Wait a minute. What does the caucus mean? Is that just voting? A preliminary vote? No, it's actually. It's really unusual in Iowa.

It's like you get a bunch of people from the same area. And you get up and you try to talk people into your guy. And then you kind of, it's like really informal. And you kind of write a piece of paper. Okay, I'm going for Fred Thompson. And they, I was part of the people who counted the votes just because I was like, hey, do you want to count the votes? You know, okay. You know, you're for Fred Thompson, right? I said, yes. There's people from each candidate. So they're just, you know, I'm trying to be making sure no one's, you know, patting their pile. But it's very informal. And people get up and stomp their person. And, you know, it's kind of, that part of it is a little bit annoying because I'm like, come on, dude. We've heard all this for the past two years. You know, we know where they're, you know. Right. And the Slick Talkers already said it. We don't need your podunk rendition of what you think is going on. But that's why they talk about how huge it is about organization in Iowa. That if a candidate is not well organized, they don't have people in every precinct all over the place. They're going to struggle because they need people who will stand up, preferably a leader in the community, and say, hey, I'm really for this guy right here. And here's why, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And there are people who go in there and change their mind.

Which is beyond me, I think. So the chat says, see, I don't want anything to do with it. I just want to mark my vote and go, I don't like these group projects. Yeah. I agree with you. It's kind of creepy. But you talk about, like, what do you call it, platform issues and stuff, too. I mean, you go beyond. It's not just, hey, I'm for Joe. You know, it's like, okay, what are the big issues of the party? And that all goes up in the national stuff and state stuff. I can't imagine that it's just not melee. Like, that is an absolute melee when you walk. Some kind of pompous dude standing up on a chair saying, vote for this guy. Here's the blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, shut up. Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to go. I'm out. I'm not doing that. It's actually fascinating. No, it sounds terrible. It is total American. It sounds like going to the Walmart.

Bunch of weird people standing on stuff, yelling, trying to get me to do stuff. I'm excited to go now. I'll be there. Try these cheese doodles. I don't like cheese doodles. Yeah, you do. There's trans fat in here. You love trans fat. This is where I go to vote for Obama, right? It's been fascinating to watch. Whoever you're for, and I've been for about four different people, I think, as I'm kind of processing through the whole thing. It's just been fascinating. I love the process of these people knowing half the stuff's a game. It's a huge game that goes on, and they're all thrown out. It disgusts me when people are just trying to get the Christian vote, and they go somewhere else, they're trying to get that vote. Okay, we want the union vote here. We want this vote here. And it's like, just tell me what you really believe, and I'll let you know if I agree with you or not. That's all I want. I just want someone honest, and you can't find that. I don't think they have them.

I don't think they have them. Pence is not going to make it. We'll see if Pence comes out alive at this caucus thing. It seems pretty dangerous. I don't like it. I don't like it, but there is both a civil and, I think, a moral responsibility to participate in the process because we have a government that is our responsibility to elect. And I don't think you can just bow out. And how cool is that? I don't think you can just bow out of it. I have a say in it. I mean, most of the time my guy makes it, which makes me feel good, but not always. And it's like, well, I had a piece of that, you know? Fred Thompson owns a couple car dealerships today. Yeah, he's doing great. He's doing all right. Yeah, this last election didn't turn out so well, but previous ones have… And then afterwards, they're like, they do their own thing anyway, you know? Yeah. It's like, I wouldn't have voted for you if I knew that. Too late, you know? You've told me lies. All right. Hey, you're listening to Live from the Path.

We are on every Monday night from 10 to midnight. You can catch us during the week at Live from the Path. Until the government shuts us down. Dot org. They're not listening. Rick Santorum's coming up. Yeah, we know Rick Santorum tonight. Mike invited him to come on to no response. I'm like, I'm 0 for 5 on the people I've invited. I'm going to start sending my emails to everybody and letting you guys… You know what? We won't do that on the show. I will show you the emails that I send out, and you can tell me why no one responds to my emails. There's nothing that irritates me more than… I booked a couple dudes today. …that people cannot… That can't just say, no, thank you. Send an email back. You know what I'm saying? I need to respond. Stop posting your picture on there. I don't. My picture's not on there, Pace.

I didn't even tell Del Tackett I was against him. I just said, hey, Del, we'd like to talk about blah, blah, blah. And no response. Absolutely nothing. Del Tackett is guided by the Holy Spirit. He knows what you're up to. Yeah, all right. So here we go. We're on every Monday night, 10 to midnight. If you go to livefromthepath.org during the week, you can catch stuff from us. You can catch our YouTube archives, clips from bands that have been on the show, especially check them out before you go to the show. Like I said, Syndrome of Fire, Saved on Sunday, and Double J, all going to be at Eagle Vision Church on the 7th. Jessa Anderson is in town. If you go to jessaanderson.com, you can check out her stuff. And she's got some shows that are in Iowa for the next couple weeks. And there are clips out there from her. And just a lot of cool. And that Syndrome of Fire show that's with Cutlass on the 24th. Apparently, the ladies at the Pathway Church are making blankets that night. I don't know if we can move that operation over to the Seven Flags Event Center. Blanket making. You know, putting something together.

Is it like a quilting bee? Quilting circle? I think they're tying, you know, making those tie blankets. Oh, just generational lazy. What happened to the little quilters? It takes a while. I was going to say, I love getting those. So if you weren't here for the first hour of the show, just to recap, one, if you were a speeder or a jaywalker, Jesus is upset with you. It is not okay to violate the terms of the law. It's time to shut it down. Just because people wink and smile. The whole thing. No smoking means you can't smoke there. No jaywalking means you can't jaywalk there. You have to start following the small little rules that you thought, eh, I do what I want. Yeah, the Lord has put the authority in place. We're not tacking extra things on laws. That's pharisaical, but the laws of the land are the laws of the land. You can work to change them, but in the interim, you should be obeying them, thus to be above reproach and not a man that slips and slides and winks and nods his way through life because that does not reflect Christ. Don't act like you follow Jesus on your knees in humble submission when you're still the guy that's parking in the handicapped spot just because it's only going to be five minutes

in the storm. Yeah, I'm an expectant mother, definitely. Definitely. I really obey the authority of my Lord Jesus Christ. I'll park wherever I want to park. Yeah, yeah. I'm very godly and important. Send me to the front of the line. Did you know me? That's not going to fly. You're out. Sorry. 13 items is super close to 12. I belong in this line. Thank you, Jesus. The six… Yeah, never mind. All right, so no speeding, no jaywalking, no small laws. Quit lying with your life. Quit seeding small grounds. Start living your life like you're supposed to. Quit taking 18-minute breaks when you should be taking 15. I don't care who else at your company does it. Yeah, put yourself together.

Restroom count. Stop sitting. Poop on your own time, Dan. Don't poop on company time. Hold it or get a Klossby bag. Those are your two options. All right, so that's out. Voting. Go out and vote tomorrow. If you're a Republican. If you're a Republican. If you're a Democrat. Aren't the Democrats doing something, too? What? Their candidates already… Yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't caucus. Well, you get one guy like Obama. Oh, yeah! Well, they still do platform stuff. Okay, Dan. I don't think… I don't know that they are. I don't think they're doing it.

I don't care. So anyway, make sure you go out and do it. And I guess the only thing, if I had to give any type of advice to someone, is know where your folks stand on the issues that God is vocal on. Yeah, and if you don't know where they stand, do the internet research. The internet will tell you exactly how everyone feels with exact precision. Actually… Good luck finding any true information about what your guy thinks. I bet you could get the same number of results with, Ron Paul loves bacon and Ron Paul hates bacon. You'll get the same number of people going, you know what? He really loves bacon. You know what? He's a bacon-hater. I've got a quote of him right now. I'll check it out. I'll see if I can't find somebody that says, Ron Paul loves bacon. Yeah, I'm surprised that we really… I'm surprised we're in a nation of like four major parties. Because both… You know, you have the two major parties, but both of them are really divided between extremes, left and right, and then each of their parties. Or maybe one big middle party. Ah, no, there's too many differences. Who knows how this is going to go?

I mean, we've been, you know, the country's been through ups and downs of these party systems throughout this history, and I just think it's a shake-up coming, and I don't know what it is and when it's going to happen, but… Did you look up, Ron Paul hates bacon? Ron Paul loves bacon. He's quoted. Apparently, Kevin Bacon is voting for him. But it says, why is Ron Paul so popular? Ron Paul skips over the blame and says, hey, we're in a tight blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Ron loves bacon. Okay, let me check, Ron Paul hates bacon. I'm checking that now. Okay, see what you can come up with, Pace. That is awesome. All right. He said that at the Beat Producers convention. I've always hated bacon. Don't you know it. I was going to say pork chops. That's still pork. Never mind. Pace, you got any movement on that? Hey, man, did you get my video rigged up from yesterday? No, I forgot.

I didn't get around to it. Sorry, man. That's too bad. We had a video rigged up a couple weeks ago when Kevin Lindgren was in. You were here for that. They had a conversation about what really makes you mad, you know? Oh, yeah. Dan went on like a 30 to 45 minute, 30 to 45 second diatribe on how he just can't stand it when, you know, everyone's doing set up and tear down and people are supposed to be tearing stuff down. And there's like five people working and then one guy's just sitting on his bum doing nothing. And so I had Ben filmed for like 30 seconds, Dan sitting on his bum doing nothing while everybody else was working. And it was classic. It would have paired right with this. It would have been hilarious. But unfortunately, Ben didn't get it edited up. That's great. But ever since Dan said that, I've been watching him during set up and tearing down and counting how many times he's not doing anything just to see if he gets mad at his own self and punches himself in the face. I tell you what, this double service thing, I'm not nearly as helpful as it used to be. It takes a lot out of you? Well, and the whole doctors don't lift things has really limited my – I've just really, this past year – Really taking it easy. Really taking it easy. Yeah.

So I make myself angry. Damn, you're so upset. I better take a rest. I'm going to sit down and stew about this for a while. So here's the question. I was reading through 15 faith predictions for 2012. Oh, this is great. I'm in. Okay. So let's check and see how many that you perhaps agree with. I'll start from the number 15. We are seeing the divide between younger generation evangelicals and older generation get wider every year, both theologically and culturally. 2012 promised to widen the gap even more with Generation X and younger evangelicals having trouble understanding why the traditional lines make sense or just outright rejecting those lines. You know, if that is the case, I'm pretty sure the church needs to reconsider what they're teaching. You know what I'm saying? There should be no reason why any generation shouldn't understand why God has done what God has done. Are what you're saying is like when they assume traditional lines, they're saying perhaps non-biblical lines that traditions have asserted? They should probably give those up. I would agree with that. Or at least provide an avenue where they're not – you know what I'm saying? That you're not in pharisaical range. You know what I'm saying? Let's say that your church as a whole enjoys like a certain tradition. Like, I don't know, you processional the Bible and the candle up at the beginning of every service, right?

No, we should start doing that. And people dig on that. You know – It's creepy. That's totally okay. It's not anti-Bible as long as you say you don't have to be – like to love Jesus, you don't have to participate in this processional. It's just something that we do. Right, if you don't stand and stare at this Bible, it goes down. And if you find that becoming an issue, don't hold on to your tradition so tight like it's more important than the gospel. You know what I'm saying? Either provide a separate avenue for people who don't have to deal with your stupid, you know, weird parade crap or get rid of it. You know what I'm saying? Look at where your priorities are. If your priorities are getting people to know Jesus, then, you know, drop the robes, put on a pair of jeans, and talk to people like they love Christ. You know what I'm saying? And if people love the robe and more people come to Jesus because they like the feeling of tradition and organization and that's how they feel comfortable, do that. Put on the robes. You know, we're kind of spoiled being in a new church setting because we don't really have any of those things. And I forget that once in a while. I'll be on vacation or something. I go somewhere and visit. Or I'll be in meetings and hear people converse about their churches. And I think, dude, why do you do that? You know, and to them it just makes so much sense.

Well, of course we do that. Yeah. They can't get beyond that. The Bible wants us to. God wants us to. Why? No one ever asks. It's part of their tradition. Yeah, I went to a church that had that one of those issues with they used to nameplate the pews. Oh, yeah. Like, you know, like some great tombstones. Right, yeah. And so they die and then they leave money to the church and be like, this pew bought in honor of Mary J. Thompson or whatever. And I'm like, what is this even doing in here? Mary Jane was in the 60s. And then what you end up doing is they remodel the place. And then you've got a basement full of pews that they can't throw away because some, you know, husband and wife, dead 80 years, bought it. And their grandson still goes to the church and they're like, you can't throw away my grandma's pews. It's special, it's special. Come on, dude. My grandma's not here, but her pew is here and I can sit on it and feel close to her. And you know what? That used to drive me absolutely nuts. And it was a little because I was young and kind of fiery and misplaced.

But, like, I'm like, your name doesn't belong in God's church. Stop putting your name on stuff. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, the sign above the cross says, you know, whatever. It's Jesus' cross, you know, in his blood, in his body. And you're writing your name on the pew like you had something to do with it, you know? If you follow Jesus faithfully, you said, my God, do what you want. I'm out. You know, buy a pew with my money. I don't care what you do with it. I don't know. That really bothered me for a long time. That doesn't bother me as much. But I still think it's unnecessary. Yeah. So the name-plated pews you think are unnecessary? Yes. What about the books in there from the library of Sean Igledar? What about it? I mean, it's the same basic concept, isn't it? No. He gave books and put them in the library, not these books are in dedicated memory too. Oh, okay. All right.

No, I understand where you're coming from. Yeah, it's not like we had a sign made up that said, you know, this is the Sean Igledar Memorial Library. Can we do that? No. How much you got? Like, I think I got like 35 cents right now. I will take that and we'll put up the Jesus Memorial Library. I like that way better. That's cool. Okay. All right. All right. I don't think that divide exists, but I think it's a secular divide. It's a way that they – like the non-Christian world wants to classify it, frankly, to exploit it and saying that it's – we're following away from – it tends to – they take the traditions that are, say, 50, 60 years old of people who probably added like no shorts to service, like things that are like outside of the Bible but people tacked on. And then they try to portray that as if that's Jesus and that's the Bible, and as that starts to disintegrate, then they say, well, see, the Bible is not modern, and that's disintegrating because it's not a modern document. And so it chips away at the underlying theology or the underlying doctrine of the Bible because stupid traditions that people have put in are also starting to fall away. And it's a successful thing to do from a secular view to say let's turn this page to not be what God designed it to be. It's a false view, but I think that's where a lot of that comes from is that divide doesn't really exist for people that are actually following Christ, but it does tend to exist from a moral perspective if you look from a secular view and say, you know, look, they're not wearing shorts to church. See? The Bible was old. Right. Well, Brian, I mean, are you not grabbing the younger generation because you have a 15- to 20-minute dirge when communion time comes around? Like, you've got six guys wearing all-white coats, dragging it out, you know, and somber, scary, whatever. Like, look at your church service, and if these things are turning people away because the culture just does not deal like that anymore.

Like, the Bible doesn't address how you do communion. If communion can be brought and the message can be brought in a way that people understand it, why don't you find a way to become culturally relevant and get people to know Jesus instead of holding on to, like, if you guys don't do things the way we do things, we don't want you here anyway. That's no good. And like I said, if you still have a good amount of traditional-minded folks, you know, and they're still growing in the faith, keep that service. Just open up a second one. You know, start running two services with maybe a little bit more generational friendly. You see a lot of services have contemporary and are traditional. That used to really irritate me. And then, you know, I got off my high religious horse and thought, not everybody worships like I do. Some people really dig the traditional, and I'm glad they keep it. My wife is about to set the place on fire if she doesn't start seeing some hymns. That's it. Yeah, mine too. Leaning on Jesus, leaning on Jesus, safe and secure from all along. No? Leaning on Jesus. Wait, wait, wait. I agree with that one. I do love that song. I was looking for it today. I decided that I wish I had a good recording of it. There's just a bunch of cheesy recordings. There's not good recordings. It's tough to find some of those hymns done correctly.

If it ain't done by the Gaithers, you can't pretty much find it anywhere. The Statler brothers do, um, uh, I'm gonna have a little talk with Jesus. I'm gonna tell them all about our truth. That's a little southern gospel. That's good stuff, man. Okay, go ahead. Here we go, 14. America's evangelical community will have its hands full addressing both a presidential election and offering a biblical response to end of days Mayan prophecies surrounding 2012. There is no biblical response. The Bible doesn't say anything about it. We're still here. Jesus said he'll come back when he comes. That's the thing. Like, it's always the Bible. You want to know that people even have a chance to deny God's existence because it's always the people of God against everybody else. Someone has made some kind of outrageous petition. Well, what do the people of God say? You know what I'm saying? They're like, oh, we don't really believe in God, but let's ask what the Christians say because they always have an opinion. People, the benchmark is always Jesus Christ. It's always the Bible and it's always what God says. And then they deny that God exists. It kills me. They're like, well, the Mayans say it's going to end.

What does your God say? Like, there's no other God that they'd look to for a comparison. I don't know. I don't understand this. I don't understand why a society that has not been able to set itself up to even survive this long is now the one dictating when the end of the world is going to be. Who trusts a society that cannot perpetuate itself? Right. They failed. The world's going to end long after we've been here. Like, there's not a Mayan alive that can vouch for the system. Now, I saw a comic. He died off a long time ago. I saw a comic on Facebook where it was actually a big wheel and the guy just ran out of space. And the guy goes, yeah, they're going to be a great discussion about this someday. And they were all laughing. Oh, you know, like we just ran out of space on their calendar. That's goofy. I find that to be a stupid prediction. You know what the issue is? It's like everything is potentially legitimate. And you legitimize it by talking about it as if to say, the Mayans say it's 2012. What is in your Bible to refute such a thing? As if God saw it fit to provide commentary on some doofus saying the world was going to end X number of years from now. Now, listen to me, Paul.

I know you don't know much about this, right? But in about 2012, the Mayans are going to predict this. I want you to just make a note that says, by the way, that's ridiculous. Just put it at the end of Corinthians. No one will know the difference. And they're going to launch new Coke in the 1990s, and it's a bad idea. I want to be on record that it was bad. You look at your Hebrew Bible, and there'll be a study note that says, original Hebrew transcript. The meaning is unsure of what these Mayans are about. What is this Coca-Cola? All right. Why are they Korean? I was hoping no one would mention that. You bring no Bible here. Go ahead. Number 13. All right. In 2012, ooh, the lines between the sacred and the profane will get even more blurry. Let's see. I'm trying to think what he has to say about that. No, he didn't really explain it. He just said the lines between the sacred and the profane will get even more blurry. Scientists will religiously maintain their search for the elusive God particle, which they won't find.

Evangelical sports superhero and Denver Bronco quarterback Tim Tebow will continue to be both an inspiration to the faithful and an object of scorn to skeptics. At least one well-known religious leader or leading religious politician will be brought down by a sex scandal. That's cheating. That's true. And the nuns, those who don't identify with one religion, will grow even more numerous and find religious meanings in unexpected places, such as the TV show Lost. That's true, though. Did you say the nuns? Yeah, like N-O-N-E-S. Oh, okay. Not the N-U-N. You're right. Wait a minute. They have a… No affiliate Catholic. The nuns are kind of lost. Wait. No, I mean, no. Lost. Okay. Sorry. So what are your thoughts?

Yep. Was that all of them? Yeah. Well, no. That was one guy. That was 15 of them? It's predicting people are messed up. Yeah. I agree. I don't understand the lines between the sacred and the profane will get even more blurry, except for the fact that people will continue to try to make evil sound right, right sound to you. Yeah. Or take God off his throne by… Like, you know, the pictures, there's been paintings of, like, Christ taking a whiz on something or, you know, whatever. Like, people just taking something that otherwise are high and mighty and trying to bring it down to a level which is a think piece, an art, an artistic rendering. Art's funny. I kind of took that the other way. Like, they thought that the modern-day evangelicalism is not full of pomp and circumstance, and they're saying that evangelicalism or the preaching of the gospel as we kind of know it will get more laid back and not as, I don't know, traditionalized. I thought they meant they were going to be filming episodes of True Blood in a church.

I'm sure they have. Yeah, yeah. I bet they have. Probably. All right. Here we go. See, it's blurred. Occupu Church, a movement away from counterfeit churchianity, cult of personality and religion toward authentic, grassroots, personal faith based on living and loving like Jesus. More churches will lose the moat-dragon mentality, lower the drawbridge, and dispatch members beyond the church service to church service, applying their faith in the community through volunteerism and outreach. A renewed global emphasis on prayer, especially for peace and reconciliation. Are these separate ones that you're saying? No, this is the same guy. Okay. A renewed global emphasis. Let's see. As individuals and leaders recognize that personal spiritual peace in one's heart provides the only lasting foundation for physical peace among families, friends, neighbors, even nations. I think I'm all right with that. Yeah. Get people on the drawbridge out the door. Well, we're kind of doing that.

The whole serve both thing. Yeah. We encourage people to go out and serve. And then we'll talk about it and celebrate it. And a renewed global emphasis on prayer. I hope these are true. I like both of those. That sounds awesome. Let's see. Women in the Middle East and around the world will rally in protest about the woman who was beaten, stomped on, and stripped down to her blue bra during a demonstration in Egypt. Women everywhere who have been oppressed by the religions will rise up as they have already done. Some area. I don't see it in the Muslim countries. They'll rise up and just get cut down. So you think they'll be an attempt but will not be successful? I don't think they'll be an attempt. Let's see. Here we go. The year 2012 promises to be a time of great spiritual stirring in our nation. People are seeking both practical and spiritual answers to their problems. We can expect to see the numbers of megachurches and super megachurches continue to grow. Culturally, there will be marked return to helping the poor and political and social engagement

by younger, more racially diverse evangelical people. That's probably okay. It depends on how you choose to help the poor. Like, if it's government style, then that's probably not as good. If it's people to people, that's probably awesome. Pants, how do you feel about it? It hurts me to say it, but I agree with Mike. I don't think Pants see the pain. I wasn't. I disagree. Yeah, I don't know. All right. Troy, where are you at on it? I don't… I agree with Mike. You guys are scintillating color men. I know we are. How can I bring more people in? He goes different directions on each one. You get that first statement, you're like, okay, then you just keep going. That's why I thought you were reading the whole list at the same time. I'm like, well, pick one and provide commentary instead of bowing out. You know, I was really planning to think about whether they sell the burritos. Hey, man, me and Dan didn't do that.

You're mad at Pants and Troy. I know. I think the megachurch thing… The best color man in the business. I'm concerned with the growth of megachurches. I mean, I think they're valuable and they're great and it sounds… But there's also a concern that there's a lot of people who don't legitimately get into community. I mean, they try. They do their best, the ones I know of, to get people in small groups and serve in their ministry. They do some great things. But it seems like the identity is with the show that happens on Sunday often. And it's kind of creepy sometimes. You talk to people who go to megachurches and they're just like, oh, it's the greatest thing. You know, and you're just kind of like, what, is Jesus? I mean, what about Jesus? Is Jesus the thing you're attracted to or is it they have cool speakers? You know, I've read some stuff on some megachurches and there's some megachurches that I'm very, very impressed with and some megachurches that I'm very, very apprehensive of. Like when their main message, and this kind of goes back to our discussions over the last couple of weeks, right? But when their main message is hope, like when they skip the part where you're a sinner and you need Jesus. And sometimes life is hard. Right. And sometimes things are just el crapo. You know, when you skip that part and sell it.

Like I'd be afraid to walk in front of Jesus when you have a bunch of half people. You know, people who think that they're okay with God and they're not. You know what I'm saying? When they never did the humble thing. When they never submitted their life to Christ. When they just said, okay, Jesus will help me get things. They wore a suit. Right. God loves me. That's cool. I feel better now. I know that God loves me. And then you don't ever do anything about it. Yeah. So like that's the issue with just choosing which parts of Christ you're going to follow. Right. Like I can fully admit and submit to the authority of Jesus as king. Right. And also fully embrace his grace and the hope that I have through it. Those are not two separate things. They are two virtues and aspects of a sovereign God. Right. But the whole problem is to say is to not lie. You're not lying if you say there's hope in Christ.

Right. But you're lying by omission because you're not saying part of that is recognizing who he is. He's the sovereign king. And submission to that is what brings the hope, is part of that hope. And so in fact, I guess they are lying. I don't think about it. It's a scary proposition. That's all. I'm not saying that they're doctrinically wrong or they don't love Jesus. Maybe they do love Jesus. I don't know, but I think you have to be, you know, when the Bible kind of says that people who are in leadership are going to be held more accountable, man, you ought to take that seriously and realize what's coming out of your mouth. And make sure you're sending out a rounded message that you're not saying things just to get people in your church or get butts in the seats or make your small group explosion show up. You know, people have to realize that, like where they're at in the food chain, that you are a sinner and that you do need a Savior and God provided that Savior. That's, you don't have to, you know, Brian Peterson did a little bit of sermon work at the Pathway this Sunday. Yeah. And he said one thing that I thought was a really good point. I kind of wish he'd expounded on it more. But he said, you know, you feel, some people feel like their theological knowledge and their doctrine knowledge is not really up to snuff and they're apprehensive to talk to people about Christ because they don't have enough, you know. And he goes, well, start with what you know. And what do you know? Well, you know that you're a sinner. You know that Christ died for your sins. And you know that God sent Jesus Christ to do that. So you know that you're loved.

That's a really good starting point. I don't care what else you know about the Apostle Paul, you know, the Pentateuch, or what happened to Joshua. You know what I'm saying? All those things are great things to know in your walk with Christ and to fine-tune your servanthood for God. But really the basics are is that you are not living up to God's expectations. The punishment for those things is life in hell when you're done here. And God loved you so much that he sent his son to die for that. That's a really good place to start. I don't care how much you know about Christ. That's enough. That's enough to start that conversation. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Well, yeah, and that teaching thing I think is tough. That's one of the big questions when it comes to the megachurches is like, who are you actually responsible for, right? Like if God is going to hold the people that teach responsible for the people that they are teaching, to whom am I responsible for? A lot of those, the bigger churches will have like a head guy, and then they'll have like a campus dude who is then kind of responsible for that group of people. And it's a little better delineated. But you have some where there's like one guy and 30,000 people, and they try to break that into smaller groups so that they're being shepherded by a smaller group of people. But if you've only got, say, 40% into small groups, and you've got 3,000 people, that's a lot of people not being shepherded. And they're just showing up for the show on Sunday. Well, but, you know, that's the thing is how do you design your church service to, I mean, it's not like you don't want them there. You do want them there. Right.

And you can't force them into the small group. You know, so that's kind of hard, you know. And I suppose as long as the gospel, like the true representation of the gospel is preached, people will make their own decisions. Like as long as you, as a leadership of the church or as, you know, the way that your church is organized, as long as you're preaching the gospel and you're giving the whole picture, you know, you can't force people. And I think people who, I think some people look down upon like a teaching pastor and then shepherding pastors just because they don't think like one person should be teaching X amount of people. And actually, I don't know that I don't, that I have much of a problem with that in, in, in just the, I mean, it depends. I mean, it can get to an egotistical thing where it's kind of ridiculous, but like there's, God has given the gift of teaching to certain people. And there's no reason to, you know, not allow that teaching to happen because you think as a formality, you shouldn't have X, more than X number of people at a location. You know what I'm saying? Like if there's a, if there's a one teaching person giving the message and he's an excellent Bible teacher and he shows, and he says it how it is. And then you have another pastor who's more of a, a loving, caring, you know, he's that kind of pastor and he's not a theologian or a Bible teacher. He just loves Jesus. And what other people love Jesus? I don't see anything wrong with letting the teaching pastor do the teaching and then let the loving pastor shepherd the people that he's in charge of. I, I think that's, that's way in God's plan. I don't see anything wrong with that. Dan agrees. I think. Is that an agreement, Dave? Sure. I agree with Mike. To quote pants. That's what I said. Oh, that's a mistake.

I agree. God gives us different gifts for different things. It's his church. It's his body. It's what he's going to do. Right. Well, I think that, I think that inherently, because I don't think a lot of people look down on mega churches right off the bat. You know, I'm very wary of them myself. I'm not going to say that I'm not. There's a lot of. I don't like big crowds of people in general. No. They freak me out. But a mega church is not exactly. This doesn't always mean that the lead pastor is in it for the money, the fame, the whatever. You know, they're not all like that. A lot of them could very much appear that way. But, like, you'd be hard-pressed to find a guy to say that about Billy Graham. Billy Graham taught in front of thousands, if not millions of people. You know what I'm saying? He was considered the evangelist of our time. You know? And no one could point at Billy Graham and say he was in it for the money, the fame, the whatever. He was a lead pastor of a lot of people.

Just even just revivals. Right? And so, I've fallen in the trap where I see a big church and I'm like, sacrilegious. You guys have a lot of people. You must be taking, you know, selling a watered-down gospel or catering to people's, you know, wants and needs and making them just feel good about themselves and not preaching Jesus. And, you know, that's not necessarily the case. And I do that a lot. On bigger churches, I automatically look at them and go, not preaching the gospel. I can tell from the road when I'm driving by, you know, and that is not necessarily the case. You're listening to Live from the Path. We're here every Monday night from 10 to midnight. You can catch us during the week at livefromthepath.org. Spankenhauser, how you doing over there? Wake up. You look like the world is upon you. How are you feeling? I'm doing good. How is the new year treating you? So far, so good. What can I expect to see in the life of Martin Spankenhauser this year? Martin Spankenhauser this year. Hopefully a couple things. Hopefully some big changes.

Not being such a pansy in a lot of different situations. We were just talking about that. I'm sure we were. It doesn't surprise me. I get multiple texts, multiple calls from multiple people over and over again. Call me a joke. In a good time, Gary. And I want to get involved in school this year. I want to change up a couple things. I'm going to revamp my diet so that I can keep losing weight more and more and more faster. Well, not faster. I shouldn't say that. It's not always healthy. Have you considered illegal drugs? No, I have not. Okay, I'm just making sure. Go ahead. Let's double check it. I have not. I'm kidding. No, I won't do that. I've done it healthily so far, so I'm not going to give that up. Just a lot of different stuff. I just want to start moving more and more towards becoming not only a man of Christ,

which Hans and I talk about on a weekly basis, that first and foremost, obviously, becoming more and more of a man from a man whose heart is after God and everything like that, but becoming a man myself, 20 years old, and I'm not doing anything with my life, and I want to start doing so. What are you going to take at school? What direction? I have no clue. Can you make that public yet? Do you have different hats? I'm going to Iowa. I have no clue what I want to do. That's one of the things that I really need to see. Well, what are you not going to do? Beauty school? I'm not going to do beauty school. Okay, we can check that out. I've been joking around with people saying that I want to do paleontology just in case Jurassic Park ever happens. They immediately call me because I think that would be pretty cool. I feel like there's a number of paleontologists who might have the jump on you. I mean, I could be wrong, but you're just now getting into it. I don't know, man. You can ask, Dan. I'm pretty good at this stuff. No doubt.

Paleontologist. Pretty good. I would think so. What are your strengths in life? You're like the armchair paleontologist dig man. Like, you sit at the couch and watch other people on TV do it and go, no, no, no, man. I would have used that brush on the other one. Use the number nine brush when you're going to do the femur. I'm not saying I would be good at that kind of stuff from the get-go. Get yourself a business degree. Well, what do you think a paleontologist does? You're a leader. You're going to lead something. Well, hardly many paleontologists actually do fieldwork. So you want to do paperwork? That's your aspiration? If we're being honest, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, how many scientists do you really think do a lot of fieldwork like that? Well, hopefully the ones getting paid. I would hope the guys are making money as a scientist. A lot of them end up being in a lab or teaching at school. Which is what a scientist does. I'm talking about like fieldwork out in like the African Sahara finding different dinosaurs.

I understand. Maybe you shouldn't give up on beauty school so fast. That's what I'm saying. Oh, dude. That reminds me so bad of a – I don't know if I should tell it because Trey might kill me. Fine. I'll do it just because it's funny. No one prodded you. I know. I'm going to do it because I want to do it. Don't pressure me, but I'm going to tell it. Back when I was younger, I actually was big into paleontology. Like I had books upon books upon books. I mean I corrected the curator at the Denver National History Museum when I was like – I'd probably say 10. So you were a turd. I was. I was. But I wasn't trying to do it out of being mean. I was actually just trying to tell her. Sure. And I was big into it. I mean my dad spent thousands of dollars on like educational videos and programs for me to learn more and more about paleontology. And Trey never really understood what it was about as much as I did. And we had a job fair at my school back when I lived in Polk City.

And he went to the cosmetology part of the job fair because he thought it had something to do with paleontology because it had the ology at the end of it. Sure. That's a pretty big miss there. Yeah. He couldn't have been further off. So he walks into the class and his teacher is a lady with spiked green hair and immediately realized what was going on because everyone was sitting there styling hair and doing makeup. And he's sitting next to – I'm guessing it was mainly female. There may have been some other males there. Who knows? Was she an albino? Because I mean I can see you making that mistake. Yeah. I don't know. He just went to cosmetology part of the job fair because he wanted to understand more about me. Did he get a panther? Did he get an albino? Pale? Paleontology? Did he get it? Okay. Just making sure you got it. It wasn't great. No, it wasn't great at all. I've been thinking about that for six minutes.

But I honestly – I mean I'm good – I don't want to say I'm good at a lot of stuff. I was good in school with a lot of different things, with different sciences, histories. It was English, math I was really good at. And I have no clue where to go from for there because I don't know what I want to do with my school career. But I want to get plugged into just general ed so I can start. You should be a private detective. Yep. But why would I – why – what part of me would you think would describe me as a private detective? Well, you like bones and you're kind of a gossip. Yeah. That's a private detective. So what part of me says I like bones? It's a paleontologist. Yeah. There's no living dinosaur. Maybe you don't know what paleontology is about. I don't think – There's bones in it. I don't think the bones part of it just like literally – There's like one or two living dinosaurs still left. You know what I'm saying? One or two. They're all pretty much bones. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. I'm not going to go into that. Cretaceous period. You like to get information based on no inference at all? You know? Like no one really prodded you for the story and you told it anyway so you know how to get information out of people? I think you should be a private detective. I agree. Do you have a camera? No. I think my dog's going next door and eating the tomatoes. Find it. That's you. Can you drive creepily slow or sleep in a car? No. Oh, boomer. Well, never mind. You're out. You're not going to get a lot of work done. That's what I'm saying. Pants, you can be a private detective. No. Okay.

Pants is in. All right. All right. So, I mean, did you do a – I'm going to borrow your car. No. Okay. Never mind. You're out. So, I mean, you feeling all right, too? I mean, are you just tired? You're looking a little beat down. Do you not know anything about politics or religion? I told you. No, I don't. Nothing at all? I have no idea. Like I said – I think we just picked topics that maybe Troy doesn't flourish at. Okay. The chat thought he was sleeping. Oh, no. I promise I'm not. Well, they're not up there.

Okay. Anyway, what's the life in the path? Keep an eye out for Troy at the cosmetology school. Keep an eye out for him. At a school near you. I have a school of beauty. Oh, man. School's expensive. I've been thinking about going back to school, and that's a pricey beast. See, that's one of the things is I need to make sure that I can fill out the FAFSA. I need to get the FAFSA. You don't need to go. Just don't go. Well, my school's covered. No. I don't have parents that'll help me. I mean, my school is covered pretty much entirely by the federal government. Well, so I'm paying for your school. So you're saying I'm paying. Yeah, me and dad have covered. I appreciate it, guys. Well, let us give you some more guidance. Yeah, why – Now, are you guys against – you just don't go.

What are you going for? Don't go for Gen Ed. Know what you're doing before you start paying. Give us a business degree. I don't want a business degree. You can do a lot of things with business. $200, I'll give you mine. Your whole life is business. Holy cow, pants. Pants, would you just eat the microphone? Seriously, if you have something to say, you could talk to it, but you don't have to stick it down your muscles. That was outrageous. I can barely talk. I'll tell you something. Holy cow, it's $20. You can have mine. Pants has a business degree. Look what he does with his stuff. I don't want your business degree. He graduated a four-year college with a business degree. I did DECA for a year. That's the exact same thing as getting a business degree. I did, too.

I know you did. We've talked about this, Pants. I'm just saying. No, business degrees produce middlemen. That's terrible. I don't want to do that. I work for a bunch of people with business. That's bad. I'm talking about starting a business. Entrepreneurial stuff. Well, you don't need a degree for that. You don't need a degree for anything important. I know, but you can spend a lot of money. You can solve the principles. You don't have to get a degree. On the infomercials at 3 o'clock in the morning, I'm going to sell empty bottles of water and put a little powder at the bottom of it that's not in any way harmful. It just dissolves. And say it's dehydrated water. And I'm going to sell it at 3 o'clock in the morning so that people are so tired, they're like, I need that. See, the school's not going to do anything. Seriously. He's on a bad curve already.

Exactly. Never mind. See, business degree. Completely out of the way. You're wasting my money going to school. There's nothing important you can do in life that requires you to get a college degree. Nothing. It opens doors. That's all. No. No. Not with a business degree, it doesn't. That's too generic to say an A degree. No. It is not. If you're going to be a doctor or a lawyer, you go to college. Anything else, I wouldn't do it. Now, here's what I'll say, Dan. I do believe that that was probably true when you were going to school. I don't think it's true anymore. I do not think it's true anymore. It depends on your field, too. Like, in education, you can't get anything without an education because that's their game. I mean…

Yeah, you have to play into there. Best teacher in the world. You don't have the great… You have to play into the psychotomy. You're not going to go anywhere. True, but I would also say that, like, unless you're aiming for an educational field… Yes, I mean. Which, that's… Of degrees, that one tends to pay off the least. I'm like… Oh, I agree. You shouldn't be an educationalist. You really want to be there. Not, like, I love this field and I should end up in education. That's a bad spot. Like, you have to love it. You have to have a reason to be there. Very similar to a pastor. Yeah. Yeah, but it's the same. Like, it's not… They're not glorious professionals. They don't make much money. If God has not called you to be a pastor, you should probably not be a pastor because it is a crappy

job if you don't want to do it. Yeah. Yeah. So… That's what people are telling me. They said, tell me that I should go to Bible college and I… I don't know. I would actually think, if you had the money for it, I would always recommend Bible. Like, studying your Bible is always good. But, I mean… Is there anything else to get from a Bible college besides a seminary degree to be a pastor? Yeah, there's a… Like, seminary is separate. Tends to be a separate… Oh, can you just go… Yeah, there's different majors. It's like a… It's your graduate degree would be your seminary. Oh. Okay. Like Danielle's college, there's people majoring in nursing, education, business, performing arts, blah, blah, blah, or Bible ministry. I mean, there's all kinds of… Seriously, it does not require a degree.

Either you can play the violin or you can't. You know what I'm saying? You're good enough to get the job or you are not good enough. I can't imagine a piece of paper. They're still going to make you audition. You know, can you play the violin? Yeah, you're pretty good. Do you have a piece of paper? No. Oh, you're out of here. Seriously. You can't play that violin. I have the institution. Well, education aside, the institution's at, especially if you're starting your own business, I would, generally speaking, I would pick and choose what I took. Exactly. But I don't know that I would go for a degree. Like, I don't know that it's worth it. I'd take the money you're going to spend on education and buy stuff with it. Like, stuff to start your business. Like a deep fryer? Yeah. It depends. I think it would also depend on what type of people you have around you, right?

Like, if you have people, leaning on people more than on information and books, I think is important, right? If you have the right people in your lives and you can kind of use them in a way that is, like, not harassing to them to start something, I think that's going to be way better experience than having to go through the process of going to school and getting it and have some guy who, like, has not done it for 30 years and that's why he's teaching. Actually, that's why I like community college. Community college tends to produce people who are still doing it. You get that there are higher institutions in learning which produce people who are prepared for a system that does not exist, who are prepared for a world that is created and taught in the confines of a university that does not exist outside of that. There are way more variables than they account for. Their information is always three, five years behind, even in management, right, because they're always trying to catch up with something that has just happened and then trying to teach you how to avoid it as opposed to being predictive about what could happen in the world. Higher education is like that. It doesn't have any choice. It's well-learned. It's well-studied. It just tends to be behind and it'll be just a hair stale. That's not true across the board. But, I mean, generally speaking, those institutions are tough. So, basically, what you're saying is I should not go to school to become a paleontologist. Yeah, I think there's enough people studying white, you know, pale people.

Pale people? Is that what you said? I think it's time to give it in. There's not that many mimes left. Now, if you want to… No, I'm not. We're going to talk later. Yeah. I have a couple of them. I think you should skip it, but that's just me. My grandma's going to kill you. I really hope she's not listening. She might drive up here. Do you know what people… Do you know how many college graduates I've met that are just… They're not even worth the price of my left shoe? That's what I'm scared of. I don't want to go to college to be stagnant when I leave. So maybe it's going just to start your gen ed is a mistake. Yeah. Figure out your passion. Yeah, don't follow it. Unless you're passionate for caffeine. I don't really know where I'm supposed to start with finding my passion.

Yeah. Rather than just jumping around from job to job and then sitting at a library and researching different jobs. Which I did that in career development freshman year. And they told me I should be a psychologist, which I have no desire to be. If you didn't have to work, what would you do? If I didn't have to work… Unloaded, unlimited amount of money and you had to fill your time with something. I would do a hundred different things. I would love to learn more and more about molecular biology. I love organic chemistry. I love math. I love teaching. So you need to work for Pioneer. Archaeology, anthropology, sociology, psychology. You want to be a movie director. Do you know who John Acuff is? No idea. Start reading John Acuff's blog. He's the man for you. Go to stuffchristianslike.com and start reading John Acuff's blog. Just do it. It will certainly help you out. And it's free. It is free.

Absolutely free. No college necessary. Why? Long story. It shouldn't be. You either are paying for it or you're not. Are you not paying for it? Our computer crashed. So we don't have anything to hook up to our modem to get us internet. That's why we don't have internet. If you went to college, you could probably afford one. Yeah, exactly. If I was a paleontologist, the school would probably let me have some internet. That's also becoming more or more not true. They'll tell you that. And that's true for certain things. There's a certain place you can't get a job without a college degree. Like an anesthesiologist. Right. So you have certain things where those tend to bring much more money. But you also have a ton of people who do not have a college degree that are doing the same job as someone who does have a college degree and they're making the same amount of money. It just depends what you're going for. Like you can't be a nurse without a nursing degree. And I support that.

But like I can work the company I work without a degree. Absolutely. There's a guy, my brother-in-law works at a company and he's as far up as you can get without a degree. And like they would hire him to move up to the next one except for he doesn't have a degree. But like it's a goofy restriction. Hey, you're qualified. Hey, you've been working here for a while. We'd love to hire you for a while. But we require you to have a degree. It's a non-discition. What a foolish company. Yeah. Foolish. I still don't understand it. Who would bind their own hands like that? You know what I'm saying? Who would tie their own wrist and say, man, I find the best guy for the job, but I've made this tradition that I want to stick with. Very similar to the evangelical church. I've decided long ago that we gold plate pews. And we can't buy new pews unless someone's got to pay for the gold plate. We need more people to sit. No more people can know Jesus until people are willing to pony up money to buy the gold plates. National Geographic Channel in Latin America is in trouble. By posting the following poll.

Christmas special is coming to National Geo. Who do you think is responsible for the death of Jesus? What? You've got to know that was a bad idea. What are they? Here we go. The multiple choice responses. Oh, these are awesome. What are the options? The multiple choice responses were Pontius Pilate, the Jewish people, the high priests. There are only three options. On Wednesday, the Weisenthal Center announced that the National Geographic Channel in Latin America had removed the poll and apologized for it. Wow. Where was the me option? I did it. I'm a dirty sinner. Responsible. How do you think there is a growing worldwide anti-sinism thing going on? I mean, people hate the Jewish people. And they're chanting it and they're growing. A lot of the Occupy people, there was something that said quotes from videos from, you know, chanting against Jewish people and stuff. I mean, is it truly a spiritual thing where, you know, I don't think, I don't, it's, but you have an answer. We can't, if we're talking on that concept, we can't blame the Jews for that. Well, no, right.

But I mean, I'm just going back a step and saying, somebody wanted to rile up people against the Jews. That's why they did that poll in the first place. Yeah, that's ridiculous. We all did it. It was God's. What would be, that it would be really obvious if they're like, who killed Jesus? Jews, people other than the Jews. Yeah, that looks really obvious. That would be kind of black and white. I mean, there are people who want them dead. It was God's plan 100%. Why is that? It wasn't anyone's fault. God wanted it to happen, so it happened. I mean, the people who, who did it. Well, the answer is I did. Right. Yeah, I mean, every single one of us did it. It's a responsibility. But why do people hate the Jewish people today? It has nothing to do with Jesus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's exactly true. The people that are upset, like, that are anti-Semitic are not anti-Semitic because they think the Jews

hate Christ. Well, no. That's not why they're anti-Semitic. Like, people will try to paint that as the case, and then you got some, like, bandwagon anti-Semites. I don't get it. But, like, that are saying it's because they killed Jesus. Yeah. See? Because if you were… Who killed Jesus? If you cared about the death of Jesus, you would realize that that's a non-starter. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, so you obviously don't. But I don't know. I don't get it. But anyway, that was dumb. That was some dumb movements on the National Geographic. Latin. Who killed Jesus? The high priest. How is this an opinion question? Like, what color should I paint in my living room?

Also, who killed Jesus? These are the same people that you're asking. What color do you think the moon is at nighttime? White, orange, green. I know the answer to that. Is there a new moon? I'm telling you, there's something with Jerusalem, there's something with the Jewish people going on big this year. You know, it's probably the end of the times, Dan, according to your pamphlet. I think you're right. I sold something on eBay. What did you tell? That phone? Yeah. No kidding. Boy, I'm excited. You got to sell stuff on eBay? Dude, I just bought something on eBay. I just got a phone. Sweet. You owe me big money. Hurry up. Papa needs some Rice Krispies. Papa needs some Rice Krispies.

You have been listening to Live from the Path on livefromthepath.org, broadcasting every Monday from 10 to midnight on this station. You can catch the YouTube clips after the show. I'm going to try to cut some up, dice it, give you the best of the best. Yeah, we got some stuff to talk about. I'm going to try to get to that this week. We got to get some of that stuff posted. We've got a lot of artists coming in over the next month or so. Jeff Arendelle is releasing a new CD, and he's going to be in with a couple guys at the end of January. Also, some folks that you haven't seen before. Todd Stevens is a local guy. So is Wayne. I got the names wrong. Anyway, they're coming in. We got some dudes coming. Chris Day is going to be in in March. So, exciting. Make sure you go out and check out the shows. On the 7th, big show, Syndrome of Fire, saved on Sunday's album release. Double J is going to be there performing. It's a free show, Eagle Vision Church, and that's on the 7th. Go out and check that out. Jess Anderson is in town.

This is her, and we will see you next week. Thanks for listening to Live from the Path here on livefromthepath.org.