From the Pathway Studios in Johnston Proper, you are Live from the Path. And you're listening to Live from the Path. It is a balmy Monday evening here in the Pathway Studios. That's not really balmy. I don't know why I say stuff like that. I think it's kind of cool in here. Is the air conditioner on? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it is. Okay, all right. Anyway, you're listening to Live from the Path on livefromthepath.org. Thank you so much for joining us here on this Monday evening. We've got a real wingding of a show. I don't know what a scale of one to five would be with wingding being the five. What would be the one? Yeah, that would work. Between a pop and a wingding, this is definitely a wingding. All right. What? I'm in. It's just what happens. So it should be a really fun show. Ryan Sheeler is in studio. He's going to be sharing some stories, sharing some music with us. He is good buddies with a couple of folks you've seen recently, both Wayne Stewart and Todd Stevens. No way. Yeah. I've got good personal friends of mine.

It is just a happenstance that this thing happened. Did I tell you Wayne Stewart challenged me to a fisticuffs when he was here? No, he did not. Yeah. He was on. So, I mean, he was a super cool guy, right? He came in. He played some tunes. It was really awesome. And then he prayed with us, which was cool. And then we walked out of the parking lot. I said, thanks for coming, Wayne. He goes, would you like to fist fight? I said, Wayne? I don't know. He goes, good thing you didn't. You know, like he was definitely going to whoop me. And then he got in his car and left. It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Some of that story is not true. But, I mean, I didn't see that coming out of Wayne. He seemed like such a nice guy, you know? Seemed so mellow when he was here. Yeah. And then the fisticuffs, a brawl was about to break out. Wayne Stewart's fierce. Yeah, I'm telling you. You don't want to meet him in a lighted parking lot.

That's where the trouble happens. So, anyway, Ryan's here. And we'll be catching up with him here in just a little bit. Dan Custis is here. And he's going to address the question, is there a biblical precedent for self-defense? Are we going to talk about Jesus punching people in the face? He could have. It would have been totally biblical? Well, as long as he did it without sinning. I suppose anything Jesus does technically would be biblical. Yeah. No doubt. Jesus is like, I make the rules. Well, bam. Well, now, I think you need to make a distinction when you say biblical. Because, I mean, like, Goliath is biblical, as is Potiphar's wife. And Solomon's 900 wives. Yeah. Like, these people are in the Bible. So, technically, you could say they are biblical. That's true. Someone could say, yeah, it's biblically based. That's what I do. I marry 900 ladies. It's in the Bible. And always looking for more. Boy, Custis, I'm very interested to hear what you have to say on the subject. I got five verses for you.

Okay. I usually like to take one and take it out of context and run with it. That's how you started that nude church. Because that was really awkward. I didn't ever attend that one. Let's do it like before Adam and Eve got in trouble. They felt no shame. Come on, guys. What's the problem? That's us. It's biblical. That's where I came to the right show. Yeah. That's where the evangelical free came from. Shuler. I had no idea. You know, hey, we do what we can. We're here to serve. We'll not be shackled by this world. I'll tell you what. All right. So I'm interested in the self-defense discussion, so we're going to get going with that. Mike, so the question from a Joseph perspective was what? It was, you know, would you be living today any different if you knew for a fact it wasn't going to get any better for you? Until you go to live with Jesus. Like if you knew the rest of your days, you know, instead of every day you're like, ah, yeah, if I just get that different job, things would be greater. Man, my back hurts.

When this back thing goes away or this toothache stops, you know, things are just going to really sail. I can't wait until my kids get older. I can't wait until the house is paid off. Whatever. Like let's say none of these things were ever going to happen for you. It's just going to be like it is right now. It's never going to get any better, right? Would you start living your life differently if that was a fact for you? Like if you knew that for a fact, it is what it is. You're always going to do this. It's always going to be like this. This is always going to be a downer. Would you live differently? And did Joseph live differently? Joseph was in captivity for 13 years before he finally got put in front of Pharaoh and then, you know, basically upgraded to the right-hand man of the country, you know? And so, like, the Bible didn't purvey any type of discouragement, disappointment, drag. You know, he's being upset about what he's in, you know? And is that the perspective that I'm taking or that we're taking, right? Like am I living every day like it might get better? It might not get better. I don't care. I'm going to enjoy the grace and the love that I've been given. Or like, you know, am I sitting back waiting for the blessings to show up so I can really understand how great God is, you know? Yeah. Okay. So we'll hit that in the second hour because it's an interesting thought to think if you're – people always have the idea that their life is going to improve, like that their life is a journey and the journey always progresses to a wonderful end. As part of the living experience, things always improve. There's always a progression of things.

Things will get better. And if you take that perspective away, I think that's a good thought. Yeah. Because – yeah. Okay. We'll wait. So we'll hit that in the second hour. And also your chat. And Nathaniel is going to come by. He said he's got some more stuff to talk about. You know, just to hit this really quick. So we – Dan and I both were out of town last week. And Mike and Nathaniel and Troy and Pants were holding the fort. And I thought there was a very interesting discussion in the second hour last week about referring to – whether it's okay to refer to God as dog. Like whether you go – hey, dog. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I believe I was eating a Frosty at that time or something. Yeah, I think Dan was doing that. Yeah. Downstairs. I did a Frosty. Yeah. So anyway, you know, if you – if you happened to miss last week, I thought the – I thought the discussion was very entertaining. And an interesting talk about how you address God. Like what is your view of, like when you're – when you're praying or when you're thinking about God the Father. Like – and ultimately, you know, the characteristics of God that are both father and friend. And do you – does one weigh more than the other in your mind? And which one?

And how does that look like in your prayer life and how you think of God and how you pray and stuff? So anyway, I thought it was an excellent discussion. So I would encourage you, if you missed last week's show, to go hit the podcast and go check it out because it was a very interesting discussion. I agree. Yeah. All right. Well, let's get this party rolling and let's meet Mr. Sheeler. Ryan, thanks for joining us today. Yeah, thanks a lot. So I found you – I was – actually, the same way I found Todd and Wayne is I had – I was looking on Reverbation. You've got a Reverbation page. Yeah, yeah. And I was looking for some local musicians. And I came across your page and I thought that the music was very interesting. And I checked out your website and stuff. And you're quite an involved guy. Like you've got a lot of stuff going, a lot of varied musical things going on. I wear a lot of hats. You do. I wear a lot of hats. So maybe just – maybe tell me a little bit about yourself, how you got into – how you started playing music. Well, I've played guitar for about 30 years. Holy moly. Or so. Started when I was at age nine and I'll be 39 here in another month or so. So 30 years I've played guitar. I've played on the worship team at the First E Free Church up in Ames for 20 years or so. And Wayne's our new worship pastor up there.

He's a good guy. Has he ever challenged you to a fisticuffs? No. Be aware of that. I'll have to remember that. I'll see him tomorrow. Yeah. Just ask him what his deal is. But don't be threatening about it. Just kind of – Yeah. It'd be cool. He's into it. I've played in like cover bands and stuff since I was like 14 or so. And basically have done church music since I was in second grade or so, you know, long before I quote unquote got saved. You know, I was just a church goer back then. But that was my exposure to it. I was raised Lutheran, you know, recovering fundamentalist that I am. You know, before I got to the sort of evangelical thing and the Lutheran church that I was at, I don't mean to despise them or anything, but I didn't really hear it. You know, personal salvation didn't make any sense to me because I didn't hear it from the pulpit very much. Right. So that didn't even register with me until I was later on in, you know, high school, late high school age or so when I accepted Christ as my Savior, you know, and made that faith sort of real in my life. But I have been doing ministry, have struck out on my own, so to speak, as a solo artist in 2006 because I had music in me that I couldn't do in other situations and stuff. You know, I have a little home studio in my house and have started doing it and it's been pretty fruitful ever since, so. Very cool. And did I see that you were in a production of Rent? Yeah, of all things. Boy, that sounds fun.

Yeah, it was great fun. It was a challenge because, as you know, Rent has some morally objectionable material. I was like, Rent? I got roped into it at the very last minute. The musical director is a guy that I know because I have my music degree from Iowa State. I was in the program kind of before the Ice Age and he gave me a call because they all got my number out there. I'm kind of the freelance guitar player of choice around town kind of, you know. So I got this call and, you know, I had thought about it. I'd choose on it for a little while. I'm like, boy, I know that musical and it doesn't have the best of material. You know, what am I going to do about this? But on the other hand, I figured it would, you know, it would A, be a good witness, B, be a good test of faith, and C, be a good chance to play with some different people, just a different environment. You know what I mean? So I'm glad that I did it in the end, you know, because it was really a great time, really well run, and, you know, got to know some of the people and work with people that I haven't ever worked with before, you know. Yeah, I always wanted to be in the pit band of a musical production. I always thought that would just be the best time ever. It is fun if you get a good production. You know, if you get a poorly run production, you end up waiting around a lot. You know, I saw, so this might have a little bent to it, right, but I always loved the soundtrack from Jesus Christ Superstar. Yeah. And I saw it, they came to town when I was like, I don't know, 20, 21 or so up at the Civic Center. And, like, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. Like, I loved the soundtrack because it was full of, like, orchestral rocking. I mean, it's just a good sound, you know. And, you know, whether the motivation behind it was good or not, I don't know. But, like, I take a lot away from it.

But then, like, Jesus showed up in a white shirt and khakis, and then there wasn't, like, a full orchestra. It was just, like, a synth keyboard, and I was totally bummed. Like, the music was still cool, and the musicians did a good job. But, like, they didn't have the rock and string orchestra that I was expecting. I think that's a financial concern these days, as I understand it. Oh, yeah. Because I have buddies that play in the symphony and stuff. You know violins, they're just, I mean, they want a lot of money. They're outrageous. I mean, if you've seen a violin, it's like, this, buy this. Come on, you know. You're lucky if someone would give you ten bucks. Come out, play for that thing. It would be better if you just had the fiddle. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those harp guys, you know they want big money. You've got to drag that harp out. You can't drive a Geo Metro and play the harp. No, you can't. That's for sure. If I played the harp, I would demand big money as well, actually. Like, I ain't dragging this harp out for no 500 bucks. It's a thousand. I don't leave the house for anything less than a thousand. Brian, do you know any harp players? You know people who play big harps? Not personally.

Okay. We should get somebody in here. They're too expensive. They won't even be friends with Ryan. It's not like you could fold them up, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's kind of tough. One guy will show up with that auto harp that goes, foing, foing. Yeah, press the button down. See, you said it. Yeah, get out of here. You don't know harp. Well, I'll tell you what. Let's get right into the music. What do you got for us? Okay. I'm going to grab my git fiddle here. Okay. This is a tune. This is off my second solo CD, which was called Letters from North of Town in 2008. It hasn't went platinum or anything. I joke that my albums have since went wood. Or aluminum. Hey, that's a solid joke. Anyway, this is from 2008. This is the Letters from North of Town CD, which you can find on iTunes and CD Baby and most everywhere else.

This is a song called In My Eyes, and this is originally a piano song that I kind of grafted for guitar in terms of for live performance and stuff. And I feel like God kind of spoke this to me directly as a prayer. So I don't pull this one out very often, but it's a nice tune. So have at it here. All right. I've watched you grow, my child, through arms of joy. I was right there with you. It was also one of those first steps you take. And soon to fall, you stand and held your hand. I felt your sorrow these years. Inside of unspoken tears. Oh, my child, don't. Cause in my eyes is loved. My flock just to run. You lay my word inside your heart. Then you know. And I'm waiting here for you. I long do. So I gave a choice to you. To show my heart. To show my heart. To show my heart. To show my heart. To show my heart. But we're just going to sing the song. How far you've strayed. There's still a way back home.

This is my only song. My word, my love, the chosen one. When you see the farthest star. Deep inside your heart. I know someday you'll see. My flock just around you. Lay my word inside your heart. Then you know it's true. That in the end, I'm waiting here for you. Yeah, thanks. I like that one. Here's what, like, it's got, you know, it's got a feel and, like, some chord changes that just people don't use. I do that on purpose. Yeah. I just like it. Like, it just has a different flow and a different sound to it that's just a little bit off the beaten path, you know. People stick to what they know and, you know, what they can fire out quickly. And that, I don't know, it's just got some, it's the melody changes with the cool chord changes, and I really liked it. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I like that song. I don't pull that out very often, but that's a special song for me. All right. I feel the same way about khakis.

Yeah, exactly. Sometimes it's the day, sometimes it's not the day. Exactly, you know. I think that song answered your Joseph question. He's waiting for you. That means that I have to stop my blessing ways? I think that raises an interesting question. I was reading about that in Ezekiel the other day, you know, the magnitude of God's patience, you know, in terms of he really desires that everybody comes to be saved. And you realize that, you know, it's not going to work out that way, unfortunately. But I think that's God's heart, that he really wants everybody to be saved, you know. It's kind of an interesting thing when you think about life that way, you know. Well, I think about how your thought process isn't that way at all, right? Like how many people are like, okay, God, I'm saved. Let's wrap this thing up. Yeah. Yeah. It's time for us to get out of here. Hello, Jesus. Should I wear khakis? Not today. I've got a home in glory land, and I'm not concerned about Charlie. Now for the Gaithers. Here we go. Too bad you couldn't come. Too bad you couldn't come. That was Ryan Sheeler. And you can find more information about Ryan by going to ryansheeler.com.

There's a button at the top of his website for the store. And my ordering stuff on it. Exactly. You can pick up CDs. He's on the web. Did you know, Mike, did you realize that Ryan was on the web? I'll submit everybody's on the web. I think so. It's become like a pet rock. You know what I mean? My right foot's got its own websites, you know. There's a chronological show of when I cut my toenails. All right. All right. Well, so I tell you what, Custis, let's talk about this thing. I want to know whether Jesus says I can defend myself. Does Jesus love guns? That's my second question. Well, for the second question, guns weren't invented then. How does it? Well, I don't know Jesus. A healthy exegesis says I can shoot a weapon? Yes. Okay. So let's hear it. Dan Custis has done a biblical analysis on self-defense. What do you got? Okay.

For this crowd, I'm going to quote Jesus. I don't know. What are you implying? Why would you want to do that? The word of Dan Custis doesn't hold much water. Well, when you compare me to Jesus, yes. I part my hair differently. Okay. We start with Luke 22, 36. Jesus is getting ready to go to the cross, and he just was explaining how he's protected all his disciples up to this point. And then he says to them, but now the person who has a wallet and a traveling bag should take them along, and a person who doesn't have a sword should sell his coat and buy one. And at the time, the sword he's referring to is a Roman defensive sword. Is that a fierce sword? I don't know my swords. Is it a short one? Yeah. Yeah. Now, I don't understand. Is he saying that you should, like, don't worry about your comforts. Get ready. It's fighting time. Right. Well, he's sending us among the wolves. We're lambs among the wolves. We've got to beat the wolves up. Not metaphorically, right?

Right? Like spiritually defeat the wolves. I think that goes with fighting in the parking lot. Well, hold on. Is this a spiritual sword that Jesus is referring to, or an actual? This is an actual Roman sword. Or a short, defensive one. Sell your coat. Get a sword. Kill your own wolf. Wear the wolf. And then go fight people. Do we not make our own swords? That we're having to take the sword from the Romans? Yeah. Do the Jews not make good swords? Why do we got to steal Romans? No, the sword. I haven't got that deep. This is just questions. Okay. Yes. I'll have to do some more research. I want to note it, though. Like, look at the context of the verse, though. It says, but now the person who has a wallet and a traveling bag should take those along and a sword, Jesus is not, but he knows you're going to need some cash and something to put your stuff in.

I have very practical advice. And a change of underwear. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Undercoat. Okay, go ahead. What else you got? Okay, well, the biggest one I found is in Esther. This is when King Xerxes was in charge of all the Jews. And Haman, the Agite, I think that's the right term, has conned the king into killing all the Jews because it's supposedly something they did wrong or did against him. But the king found out about this. He had Haman killed, but he found out about the law still in effect. So he wrote these letters. This is from the Bible. By these letters, the king permitted the Jews who were in every city to gather together to protect their lives, to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the forces of any people or providences that would assault them, both the little children and women, to plunder their possessions. Now, I thought that was an interesting edict by the king because he's giving them permission to defend themselves. Yes. Just not long after saying, oh, we're going to wipe them all out. Oh, never mind. Go ahead and defend yourself. Well, the king was tricked. They weren't going to, I mean, I assume they would have defended themselves to begin with, but I assume the edict is because he's saying, I'm recognizing that you're going to defend yourself and I'm not going to send subsequent forces to come after you in repercussion of doing

so. Now, wait a minute. So where do both of those verses lead toward a preemptive defense? You've used two words that are not synonymous. You can't be preemptive and defense. Well, I mean, you can take a best defense is good offense. You know what I'm saying? Like if they're eventually going to kill you and you know it, can you kill them first? Yes. Well, verse necessary. That presupposes that you know that they're going to… It's 1 Timothy 5.8. Okay, okay. But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. He has to protect his family. So it is provide for his family. Are you saying provide protection? Yes. Because you could also say provide poison. Well, that would be taken out of context, Ben. Ignoring the full counsel of the Lord's word. I've always said that is like provide cable. Also, not the full counsel of the Lord's word. I don't have cable. I don't know. What verse is that again? Now, hold on.

1 Timothy 5.8. Yeah, but that's agreed, right? Because if especially like just take for example, like a man is in charge, is the spiritual leader of his household. And that includes not only his direct relation, his wife, his kids or whatever, but like any of his grandparents or his extended family, he's the kin. And, you know, and he's the leadership of that family in that day. And so, you know, if he's not going to protect them, who is? Right. So, I mean, I think that backs it apart. Okay. Okay. I don't know. I think that was weak. On self-defense, I think it's really talking about like, you know, making sure they have food. I mean, I can't get the strength. You know what, if the burglar comes in and robs your house, you've got to protect your family. That's providing. Well, what's the point of having a bowl full of food if you're dead, Dan? I mean, you brought the food home, you put it on the table, and then you went to sleep and allowed them to get. You can't help it, but they died. Hustle. You provided. Here's the food. You're on your own. That's on them.

I'm headed up to my right foot website. I'm busy. I mean, I agree with defending your family. I'm just thinking that one might be a stretch. That's the spandex of the verses. I don't know if I'm going to go before the father of creation and say, well, what about that providing? Come on. Well, what is interesting in the Luke part, Peter came forward. He says, I have two swords. And the 11 disciples are there at minimum. And he says, that's enough. And what's interesting with Christ, every situation is different. Every person has a different mission. And some, evidently, two swords are good enough between the 11 for protection, that some protection is provided, but not everybody will be providing the protection. Well, you know, actually, that's fairly true with almost every situation that you run into with Jesus. He's very situational. You know what I'm saying? Like, he doesn't make, I mean, most of the, like when he talks in parables to large crowds of people, he makes generalized statements to turn your life towards the father and live in a way that is glory to God, right? But, like, the way he handles certain situations are, they're just different in every situation

with the applicable lessons that he's already taught, right? Like, he takes the lessons that he already spoke of and he uses them for different outcomes depending on what the situation is, right? Like, Jesus never said, don't ever, you know, swing a sword at anybody. You know, but, I mean, he took an army's worth of beating and did nothing about it, right? Well, that was foretold. Well, but that's what I'm saying, right? It's a different situation, you know? And there's times when he says, like when he sent the disciples out, that says, you know, go from, stay at a house where you're welcome and if you're not welcome, you know, beat the dirt off your feet and head out, you're done here, you know? And that's situational opposed to, look, you need to tell everybody about me. Go out and spread the gospel, you know? But look, if they're not going to have it, they're not going to have it. You know, so it's not such a broad, sweeping thing. Like, people on the pro-defense side, on the way far pro-defense side, are like, you know, Jesus says to defend yourself and then they take that a step further and be like, now that they're instigating fights, you know what I'm saying? Like, they're trying to provoke people so they can protect themselves. And he challenged me to a fight, too. Wayne Stewart? No, this one. Yeah, I did that earlier.

Yeah, actually, you're going to gang up on me with another guy. He asked you if I would take you both on. I said yes, and you backed down. I totally backed down because Peter had both the swords. What church is this again? You want in or what? You don't want to hear how you have to get into this thing. I was going to say, what's your bylaws? Well, first you have to have a truck to pull the trailer. Yeah, exactly. 7 a.m. What? I didn't say anything. Well, what you're talking about, when Jesus sent out the disciples to protect everybody, he said, I protected you at that point. Then, just before he goes to the cross, then he brings up the fact you're going to have to protect yourself because you're going among the heathens, the wolves. Now, do you find that most often, like, evangelical Christians don't feel that it's their right to protect themselves? Yeah, because I've been challenged many times because I'm Army trained, and I know how to defend myself, and I'm willing to stand in between the others, my family members. Like, my motto is, it's all mine. It's my house, my town, my country, my state, my country. It's all mine, and I'll protect it. The country's in there twice. Yeah, I know. You don't know, I really missed it. It's county. I can't read my own typing.

You don't have to type to be able to shoot. Yeah, you know, I don't know, Ben, do you get the general consensus that, I don't know, Christians are weak-livered? They're not up for, well, emotional confrontation one or physical confrontation two? Emotional confrontation, I would say definitely. I think we don't, we mistake humility with meekness. Right. Like, with, even to the extent of backing away from truth, like, we will, there's a difference between being humble and recognizing the glory of God within what he's given in your life. C.S. Lewis talks about it, humility, says, like, a guy should be able to build the most beautiful cathedral in the world, and then he should be able to walk into that with a buddy and go, hey, man, this is the most beautiful cathedral in the world, without caring that he's the guy that designed and built it. Like, it's not relevant that he built it. It is or it isn't. Right. Truth is or is not. And, you know, sometimes we think humility is just being a little bit quieter or not, not demonstrating how awesome God is through our lives or through the lives of others. You know, like, maybe you've done something that has some worldly merit to it, something that's been great in your life. Why wouldn't you share that God has given you the opportunity to do that or the skills to do that as opposed to, like, you don't share that, and not only do you not get shared, but Jesus doesn't get shared through the process. Like, we have a, I think we definitely have that issue where we back away and just confuse humility for something else. Well, I think that's mostly done because the world judges things on a self-pride scale. You know what I'm saying? Like, let's say that I play in a band and we're a good band, you know, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, our band's good, you know. Don't, and I'm saying our band's good because God has blessed the people that are in our band and, you know, we do it for his glory and we're good. We do a good job of it and the Lord produces people that do good work. And if you take God out of it, then it just sounds like me being a blowhard for how great I am. You know what I'm saying? Like, people see it as you're saying, I'm great, when really, you know, from a Christian point of view or from a Jesus-loving point of view, you're saying, Jesus is great.

I'm glad he used me to do something this great. I'm amazed at what's come out, you know. And so I agree. I think there's a certain amount of, I mean, it depends. You have to know where you're at spiritually, right? Like, if you're a bit of a prideful beast, you may want to back away from that kind of talk because it's going to come out like that. Well, and you do have to be very careful with pride specifically. I mean, what's the big sin that the devil committed? You've got to still toss for pride, right? Like, we tend to, in our modern culture, we don't stab a guy in the face and don't, you know, have sex with his wife. That's what we're concerned about. Pride is a problem. Pride is a serious problem. It causes, ultimately, the downfall of humanity. That's pride. People would say pride is the worst sin because it, you know, I mean, this is a C.S. Lewis thing, too, where, you know, I mean, what you consider, and our country's in the middle of this, too, you know, I think pride and greed are big problems in our country. And, you know, when you compare it, you know, the more overt sins like murder and robbery and rape and all that stuff, when you compare what the damage that pride actually does to families and relationships and kinds of things, makes it infinitesimally worse, in my opinion, you know? Oh, yeah, well, it leads to a lot of the bigger ones, right? Like, I mean, how many people get murdered out of, you know, anything but pride? Like, you know, how dare you, you know? Yeah. Like, they feel that they've been wronged in some way and then a murder happens. Or, you know, something is owed to me and you're in the way of it and then a murder happens, you know? Yeah. Like, a lot of that is pride-based.

Yeah. And I think we, some of that self-justification, that self-glory, I think we lose ourselves in that to a certain extent. Like, we don't recognize it because we confuse it for what is the value in the culture. I've twisted a little bit of what the American dream is to the extent that it makes, I'm going to make something of myself. And it gives you the freedom to live a life that you wouldn't be able to live elsewhere. But it doesn't, you know, the ideal behind it wasn't to live a life of which you are glorified and anyone else who is not you is not glorified in the process. And that's a prideful confusion. And it's tough living in a free society, you know? It's awesome to live here. I mean, and the freedoms that we enjoy are great. But from a following Christ perspective, you know, you've been given opportunity to do things that in other countries you wouldn't be able to. And it's a risk that you run, that you self-glory in those things. And, you know, look what I've achieved. Look at the success that I've made. It's a worldly measure for a worldly gain that is a worldly pride that is not a, you know, not necessarily congruent with what Christ, you know, wants you to do with your life. It's difficult. So where are we at here? Well, what do you do on the flip side of this with the, was it several years ago, was it an Amish group where a gunman went into the place and was shooting everybody up and they all just kind of sat there and, you know, because they're not, they're pacifists. They're pacifists, yeah. They're just not going to do anything. You know, what do you do with that? You need to go talk to some of them. You need to sell them some swords. Well, they helped me ready for the next church service. And in our society where you've got people walking into churches and gunning people down and stuff, do you think it's a good idea to have people armed? Well, yeah. We live in an evil world and people do, evil people do a lot of stupid stuff. I think we should.

Well, we probably do. We put armed guards at the door? No. We're talking a little, I mean, you know. Welcome to church. Don't sit in the back. Half our church has a permit to carry, so maybe more than that. That was before the law changed. I'm probably 90% now. So what do you feel like they almost should have done, Dan? Should have fought back. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, you have to fight back. I can't imagine watching someone, I can't remember if the parents were there. I can't remember if it was a school or something. I just can't remember. I just can't imagine just letting someone shoot you and the person next to you. Okay, now hold on. I might jump in front and try to bring them down, and hopefully if they get me, someone's going to jump on, you know, I'll distract them, let them shoot me, and let someone else get them. But not if they're all going to say, oh, look at that. Well, that was kind of silly. I had this conversation with a guy that I was working with, and his church had instituted a, the guys serving communion were packing heat. Like everybody had to wear a suit. Communion gets a little feisty sometimes. And then all the guys, all the guys who were serving communion had to get permits to carry

for the safety of the church. Sure they weren't for the offering? It was not for the offering. People, you know what, they say we're taking communion. You know what I'm saying? You're giving it away. They're protecting the offering. Only one cup. And I thought this was extreme. Like, just ridiculously. You have to require it. It's kind of. Well, it depends on the community you're in. But out here in Iowa, we're more weight laid back. We're not as, have as many uptight people about certain things. But in some of the bigger cities, there's some people that really got some really bad vibes about churches. What are they doing in there? Well, plus churches that are right downtown in the middle of bad neighborhoods, you know, New York, Chicago, or whatever, you know. I just don't see it. I just don't see the reason. Like, here's the thing. Like, as far as I'm concerned, I'm the unarmed guy, right? I'm sitting, taking the, I'm sitting in the pew. If a guy wants to come in and start a shooting, okay, just do it now. Whatever. I don't, like, I just, it's not that big of a concern to me.

Well, I don't care either. Because I'm shooting your daughter. Take her. Jesus loves her. Take her. He'll take better care of her than I will. Please take her away. Does your wife listen to this program? Not very often. She might today. I just, I don't know. But that brings up the question, right? Like, is apathy a good enough reason not to protect yourself with a weapon? Like, I'm just, I look at it either way, right? Like, go ahead, shoot me. I don't care. I just don't care. Life's a vapor anyway. You don't take it. But, I mean, I don't know. I think you have to be really careful what you're defending. Like, I watched a video here in the last couple weeks of Muslims going into and burning down and trashing a church. I can't remember overseas in Sudan or something. I don't know. And, you know, that's not a time to start shooting people. You know, it's like, hey, whatever. You know, at what point is it okay then to start pulling out the sword and fighting? I mean, look at the stuff going on, especially overseas.

I mean, it is brutal what they're doing to believers. Well, I consider it like a last line of defense. It really sucks to bring a knife or a fist to a gunfight. If they have the, you want to have the biggest weapon there. And if they're drawing down and you pull out your own gun and say, hey, stop, you're on equal grounds. And the thing is there's only one Dan Hudson. We only have him for the preacher. And I will, and I'm willing to stand in the way so the church can go on. Dan, Gus, this is handy. I'm going to get you a T-shirt. There's a T-shirt involved here somewhere. You know, I mean, the Bible talks about laying down your life for a friend. So, I mean, it presupposes that there are situations in which you have to take the defense. But it doesn't, what it didn't say was, like, I mean, it assumes that you are actually laying down your life for your friend, not killing a guy so that your friend doesn't get taken out. Well, the thing is, I'd like to teach, tell them about who Jesus is. But there's, like… While they're bleeding out? Yeah. While they've got a little time, you better listen. This is a big mistake. This is a big mistake. You know what I'm saying? You can't get Dan and Dan involved in a pool game. You're insinuating what? I'll give you two minutes. I think I've made my piece. You better accept Jesus now.

You're going to see him any minute. I mean, I honestly don't know at what point, you know, it's one thing to sit here in a room and say, yeah, this is what I do, you know. At what point, if someone was in my house going after my family, I would not hesitate. You know, I mean, I do have weapons at home and I would, you know, I would not hesitate. Well, of course, I trained you. Well, exactly. It's all your fault. I do not know at what point you say, like I say, in a church setting, I mean, if they're going after innocent people, I guess I will put myself in the way. I don't want to just die for the sake of dying. I want to make sure I'm also stopping them from killing other people. So I wouldn't be afraid to charge the person, hopefully have a gun as well and say, dude, you're done. You know, one way or another, you're done. You guys are being foolish with this, though. Like a guy that brings a gun and is willing to use it is not afraid of you having a gun. He's not right in the mind. He's not expecting it, though, in our society. He's expecting it. He's not right in the mind. He's shooting people. You can't reason with the man. You know what I'm saying? I don't plan on reasoning with the man. I guess what I'm saying is, like, I don't think he's concerned whether you have a weapon or not. If a man is willing to shoot somebody else, you having a weapon, I don't think dissuades him at all. No, it doesn't. You just want to stop him.

The guy that, right. Well, some of them say, he's like, hey, I got a gun. He's like, oh, I don't care. You know, like, it's not going to do anything. That guy has already crossed a line. You might be able to dissuade a guy with some brass knuckles or a knife because you have the bigger weapon. But, like, the guy that's got the same thing you got is not afraid of you. He's already dumb enough to carry it around and brandish it. Well, that's why you're shooting first. You're becoming the target rather than, you know, the Sunday school little girl who's going to give mommy a hug. Of course. But that guy doesn't know Jesus. You do. You should buy him time. Exactly. I'll shoot him after he shoots me. And then we'll talk to Jesus. There's a case in Texas. It was actually at a tea shop. The lady, she had, she was meeting her parents there for dinner. She had to conceal carry, but the thing, law, it had a sign that says no guns inside, so she put it in her glove box. She was having a nice time with her parents, and then this guy comes in and just starts shooting people. Starts front and working his way back, and everybody froze. She was mad that she left her gun in the car because if she couldn't do anything to stop it, well, her dad finally made the motion. He went and attacked the guy. The guy wound up shooting him dead. He grabbed, she grabbed her mom and said, let's go. But he was able to delay it enough to get everybody out, but he still paid with his life.

And his mom, her mom, stayed with her husband, and she wanted to pay him with her life. But if they, there's a number of people that were shot and killed. But the thing is, if you're ready, you can stand in line. You can, it's a tough choice. And like I'm sure with Jesus, it's not everybody's job to do it. You only need a couple. Yeah, I think that's probably, though, if there's an overarching theme here, it needs to be that it is very situational. Like to take, you could take one of those and you could put up the banner that, you know, get the sword, we're heading out. That's for everybody. Get the sword, head out. But that's not true. It's, I mean, that happens a lot, actually, with biblical verses. You want to take something that is meant for somebody specific in a specific time, or even the nation of Israel, it tends to be the big problem. It's like, well, here's something that God is, or a prophet has specifically talked about to the nation of Israel. And suddenly it becomes something as if it's a dictate for your life. This is God's verse for me. Be like an eagle with wings. He wasn't really talking to you. I don't have a life verse. I have a life book. That's what I got. All right. All right. I don't know that we came to much. My concern. What? Well, there's safety that goes along with it. Okay, hold on.

Where do we end up on the guys handing out communion wearing weapons? It's unnecessary. I think the requirement is a little silly. I think there's some trumped up dudes that just want to wear a weapon. You know what? Stick a guy by the door if you're that worried about it. I don't think everyone has to be packing heat. Here's the thing. Most people know how to use guns for crime, know how to use guns better than you know how to use guns. No, they don't. Except for you, Custis. They don't have the training. They just get a gun off the street. How many people that have a concealed to carry are as trained as you are? Well, most of them because that's required for those trains. Don't you have to go? I know we have the training. I find that 50-50. I had to go through a CDL training to drive a giant vehicle, and I'm a terrible driver. They'd give that thing to anybody. Well, you might be the exception. But if I train them. Have you met a trucker? They give it to anybody. I know. Yeah, but if I train them. I think if you had people with guns at church and you were asking them to do that, you'd better make sure they are highly trained, not just went to a class.

I mean, regularly highly trained. Like you're talking about, you put a little bit of restriction on who you let serve in a public fashion anyway, right, for their walk with Jesus, and now you're handing a gun to them and saying, I need you to serve the walk with… I mean, these… The last thing is Barney Fife running them through church shooting tennis school girls instead of… No doubt. Well, he only has one bullet. Yeah, that's true. Just stick a guy… You know what? Just stick a guy outside. Put him by the front door like a security officer. You got two services. Put one guy in for one service. He watches the second service. Another guy comes out. It stands outside. You'd be surprised there's a lot of churches that have armed security. Nobody knows it, but they do. I mean, I know these things. Like the flight sheriff guys? The larger the church, the more visible the church, the more armed people they have. Sheila has a taser. Is that true? No. No.

But now that you mention it… Well, the trouble with the taser, the knife, or the brass knuckles, you got to get close to them. Doesn't the taser thing shoot? Have you seen those things, Brian? Well… Well, why would you just use one of those? It seems handy. Get water balloons. What about a big broom? Yeah, but they're… The thing is, a person doing that is hyped up on adrenaline and drugs, most likely. And if they're… And even after you kill them, they can still move 15 feet closer to you and still hurt you. After they're dead? Their body's dead, but their mind doesn't know. And they keep moving. It's like a zombie, isn't it? Yeah. Well, it's… I changed my mind. Give everybody one. It's some creepy stuff. It is. We're moving to Missouri. We've got zombie problems in Iowa. Well, but my last…

The concealed carry course I had, the guy made this interesting statement. He says, as you're living now, you're doing fine. You haven't been any place or done anything that requires you to defend yourself. Maintain that lifestyle. You don't… Now, because you've got a concealed carry permit, go looking for trouble. That's a good point. Because you will find it. It just… If you're standing out security outside the church, I feel like you're looking for trouble. We didn't have somebody doing security before. Yeah, because it's just preventing trouble. Isn't it the same thing? If you're in the position to prevent trouble, doesn't it mean you're also looking for it? I feel like that's the same thing. Well, the Secret Service, they're looking for trouble to stop it from happening. That's what I'm saying. It's the same thing. But when you say you're looking for trouble, you're meaning you're out looking for… To find it. To participate. So that you can engage it. That's exactly what you're doing. It's the other thing to engage it and stop it. Well, that's why we have a standing army. We have the best army in the world. And the fools that did attack us had learned right off the bat that that was a very stupid

thing to do. And they're paying the price right now. Okay, so hold on. Can we have guns at the communion or not? At communion? Yeah, yeah. Why not? Guns at the communion? Yes. Yes. The communion guys need to have weapons? I think select people as trained people, like Dan says, in different places because you don't want them all in one spot. Yeah, I think that's weird to say. If you're going to serve communion, you're going to wear… I think that's creepy. You're going to be carrying it. All right. All right. Yeah, you've been listening to Live from the Path. Thanks for joining us so far tonight. We're here every Monday night at livefromthepath.org. You can catch clips of the show. If you go to our YouTube channel, it's youtube.com backslash livefromthepath and catch performances from some of our previous artists, as well as our current artist, Ryan Sheeler, is in studio with us. He's gotten mixed up in some sort of weapon discussion. I think I finally got him off it.

So I tell you what, just before we hit the 11 o'clock break, let's get in some more tunes. What do you got next for us? This is a tune off of my newest solo album. My newest solo album is called Polk County Line. And it's an all-acoustic album that I kind of did in the vein of Springsteen's Nebraska album where he did the all sort of folk thing. And this album and this song in particular is pretty important to me because I went through some pretty tough times right before writing this album. And this song, unfortunately, is not mine, but it's on a list of songs that I wish I had wrote. This song is called Leave a Light On, and it's by Greg Ferguson, who is one of the worship team people at Willow Creek Church in Chicago, one of the worship arts ministries people. Yep. That little church over in Chicago. That tidy one. Yeah, that's like bigger than C.Y. Stevenson. Bigger than Ames. Yeah. This song is called Leave a Light On, and Greg, I don't know Greg personally other than through some correspondence, but he let me use this song for my project, and I'm very glad that he did. This song really asks some kind of important questions about life and living and following Christ and kind of looking at your own heart and what's inside of it. So this is called Leave a Light On. This is one of my favorite songs, and I wish I would have wrote this, but this is not mine. This is Ryan Shearer with Leave a Light On. Leave a light on for me by each other.

Leave a light on. I drive by this church so often. I pull up for just a moment, and I look inside the door. Leave a light on for me, because I've been a lot of places, and I've learned a lot of lessons, and the lessons take their toll, so leave a light on, so I can look for what's left my soul. Leave a light on for me, because my world keeps getting bigger, but my heart's been getting smaller, and it chills me to the bone. Leave a light on for me, because I thought I had the answers, but now I've got these questions. They won't leave me alone. Leave a light on for me, because I've always been a fighter, but I never knew how much of life was out of my control. Leave a light on, because right now I can't see where to go. I don't know why I'm driving by your door. I'm not exactly sure, just one eye moves there again, in the hope of me to shine, or to just keep out the night. I want to know. I want to know. Light on for me. Shine it out into the darkness, so I can always see it in the corner of my eye. Leave a light on for me. So when I drive by tomorrow, I believe the door's still open, and I might go back inside. Leave a light on for me. I've kept my distance from religion, but I always hoped there might be someone watching over me. So leave a light on, leave a light on, it's time to leave a light on for me. I do love that song. When it kicks up, like halfway through that, when it said that leave the light on for me and it kicks back up again.

Yeah, I like that. That's a good song. I like that. That's excellent. And that's on your most recent album, right? You can find that, it was called Polk County Line. That's what I thought, Polk County Line. You can get Ryan's most recent album, Polk County Line, on ryanansheeler.com. Also iTunes. Check them out. You can pick up those. Get the digital download. I like the digital download. An interesting sort of subtext to that song is I made a YouTube video out of it, and I took some of the tornado footage from Tuscaloosa and some of the things like that from the bad outbreak last year, because I kind of felt like I was praying, and it was kind of on my heart to do that. And I sent it to the mayor of Tuscaloosa and Joplin and some of the places, and they really appreciated it. Oh, cool. So that's on YouTube. It's right. The main video on my front page there, when you go to ryanansheeler.com, is the link there to that video. Now, Ryan, I've asked to be your friend on the Facebook, and you haven't agreed to it. What is the deal? It's because I haven't been online yet. I just did it while you were singing.

Oh, there you go. As did I. Yeah. Next time I'm online, I'll get you. Oh, I'll just have to wait for your friendship, I guess. Yes. Ryan and I have been friends for quite a while now. I just got to it right now. Yeah. Whoops. Well, you've been listening to Life in the Path. We are in studio with Ryan Sheeler and with Dan Custis. We just got done talking about self-defense, whether it's biblical to defend yourself. I think the position is that you can defend yourself, but you better be right about it. I mean, you better darn well be right about it. And frankly, if the guy that's going to shoot you knows Jesus or doesn't know Jesus and you know Jesus, and I might submit that the guy that's willing to shoot you may not know Christ. I'm going to say, yeah, I see. Like me. I would say in that instance, he probably needs the chance. We should all be pretty safe in this room with each other. Yeah. Even if we're all packing, we should be all. Yeah. It's going to happen. What? Mike's out. Mike doesn't like the violence.

No violence in. Too many people. Too many people with weapons. Mike the pacifist. Oh, yeah. That's me. All right. Well, I'll tell you what. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with you after the break, and we're going to get to that Joseph question. What does your life look like? I mean, what changes about your life if it doesn't change? Think on that. That's a quandary. Are you with me? That's a big quandary there. That's a big quandary. So, like, anyway, we'll call it the Joseph predicament. We'll get that into the second hour, and we'll get some more music from Ryan. And what, Nathan, you got something? I got a couple of news stories. All right. And we'll see what's going on in the news. All right. Just because I was talking about him just a little bit earlier, during the break, I'll let you hear, listen to a little bit of Wayne Stewart. He was in about a month ago, and he played this song. I happened to listen to this earlier today, and Ryan and I were both talking about it.

I really like it. This is called 78 by Wayne Stewart. We will catch you back on the other side of the break. You've been listening to Live from the Bath. Is 99 minus 22 enough times for us to say that we're both finished with this? I'm tired of fighting. You're tired of hurting. Is this the place we both walk away bleeding? Yeah. Yeah. Or is there a room? 70. There are words cut deeply into a heart like yours. I wish that I could take back the hurt I'm leaving and change the look that is your retreat. That 70 speaks so clearly that I'm a sinner in need of saving. And when I see just how much I've been forgiven, I see us with a different kind of vision. There is a way through 78. Hey, you're listening to Live from the Path. We are back. That was Wayne Stewart with 78. And, yeah, yeah, all right. Sure is. We're rocking in. You can catch more clips like that by going to the YouTube channel, youtube.com backslash Live from the Path. It's got information about, like, a bunch of the artists that have come on the show. Clips from the show. Go out and check out that blogger, that Christian blog called My Things Funny.

You can go check that out. That got some play. Yeah, it did. Also, the two-year anniversary clip is out there. In fact, during that Christian blog video posting from the YouTube, Chris Roloff is sniffing his armpit. He's taking a whiff of his own pit during that thing. It's funny. You should check it out. He says he's scratching his nose with his armpit. Come on. Yeah, right. Come on. No one's buying that. That's not what happened. So, anyway, you can check that out. Also, clips from the show today from Ryan Sheeler should be up within a couple days. So, you can go check that out at the YouTube channel. Also, if you go to livefromthepath.org during the week, you can sign up for the audio podcast. Check out a link to the video stuff. And you can buy the Live from the Path gear. Just a heads up, if you're signed up for the podcast through iTunes, it hasn't been updated in a couple, three weeks. So, I posted, well, so two weeks ago, it's because we're in the middle of the prayer room. Right. I posted, I posted yours tonight. I posted last week's show tonight. So, that should be showing up within the next, it should be there.

So, it should be rolling right up. I'm going to look. Okay. You go ahead and check it out. That, it's catching on a little bit here. We're pushing 119,000. That's right. Getting there. People like the YouTube. By the way, so, it's kind of cool if you go to the front page of livefromthepath.org. We're actually broadcasting our live streamings now through YouTube. So, like, you can get all the benefits of YouTube. You can share, you can like, you can dislike, and all that stuff. No doubt. Yeah. We're live streaming on YouTube. It's on a different YouTube channel, though. You have to go to youtube.com backslash thepathonline. And then that is our, that is this channel we're actually streaming on. But you can catch it at the front of the website at livefromthepath.org. Oh. Okay, got it. So, there you go. There you go. What do you got? The youth pastor, who thought he had the license to use certain obscenities, mistakenly voiced one at a church board meeting, earning an official rebuke. Ooh.

That's all it earned? What do you mean? Yeah. It was way out of line, says the chairman of the board. We're still trying to figure out why he felt he had the license to speak that way. The youth pastor says the senior pastor had given him permission to use the F-bomb. An F-y. What? That's kind of a big one. Excuse me. That's a big one. I'm sorry. How did that conversation come up? Hey, man. Can I use the F-y? Oh, sure. Yeah. If you only do it once a week, that's probably okay. Is it for Jesus? Here it comes. Yeah. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. That's it. Permission to use the F-bomb with unsaved or rebellious youths to surprise and engage them. But the senior youth pastor says he gave no such permission. I didn't know what the F-bomb meant, he says. I probably thought he meant flatulence.

What a square. Come on. People use language like that? Which I thought was crude enough. I'm sure. Okay, I'm not buying this. At last Tuesday's board meeting, a 3-D rendering of the church's master plan was revealed, causing the youth pastor to let loose the word. It was long and drawn out and sort of lingering in the room for a moment, says a co-worker. I think he meant it in a positive way, but everybody froze. The youth pastor says he had been practicing the word in his office, so it would roll off his tongue naturally when he uses it. With young people. I'll use it with my children. Yeah, that's what's going to be next. But then apparently it came too naturally at the meeting. Wrong context, probably, he says. He has been suspended from his pulpit duties for two weeks. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. One word. Wow. I think the most outrageous part of that story is that the lead pastor did not know what the F-bomb meant. I think the guy practiced it in his office. It's funny. I practiced it in my car when people cut me off. That's what I practiced. You're not going to say fart, are you? I'm telling you, if you think the Lord hates the kids, I guess you can say flatulence. But let's just keep that between you. Just don't make the noise.

All right. Now, seriously, if the congregation happened to read this particular story, I'm afraid that you're going to have to find a different guy. Not the youth guy, the lead guy. He's a funny-duddy. How can a guy relate the Bible to you and people like you when he claims to think the F-bomb means flatulence? On the other hand, the youth pastor is obviously extremely misguided, right? If you take an example from Jesus, you don't grab profanity to grab people's attention. You do it with the truth. Hey, guess what? Flatulence! That'll show you. Doesn't that bring you closer to Jesus? Peter, put down that flatulence sword. Just teasing. Get closer to me. Well, the lead guy is a coward because even if he misunderstood what the word was, he gave the okay. So it's on him. I mean, he's the man up and just say, you know what, man, wow, I didn't see it coming, but I gave him permission. Now, Dan, you hang out with pastor types. Is there anybody that doesn't know what the F-bomb means? Well, not the ones I hang out with, but there probably are some out there that don't. You hang out with pastors? I hang out with pastors that laugh about the church that has three large banners in the front of their church that says, Worship, Teaching, Fellowship, the large, very large WTF. And they're like, who put that out in that order? You know how often that happens at churches, right? Like well-meaning, unintentional pastors who try to do something like that, and then like the rest of the world walks to the church and goes, you've got to be kidding me.

And they were kind of debating, was it like the 85-year-old guy who really didn't know, or was it someone saying, oh, they'll remember it this way? There's a church that says WTFE. That's for me. Hey, I can really jump on board with that. It's the kind of language I use. They're willing to bend to the culture. OMG. I thought of something that a lot of youth pastors aren't doing. I think this is really going to help us out. Can I say iffy? I had this real mind blast in my office. That's a way to connect with the culture. If you think it's going to bring kids closer to God, absolutely. I've been working on this. Can I share it with you a couple times? Did you just see him in his office? Oh, yeah. Now it sounded good. Too much uh. I think it's ready. I think it's ready. The kids aren't listening during my sermons. Can I do this? Oh, man. That guy's ridiculous. I've got some nudie pictures I'd like to show. That guy really kind of breaks the ice.

That's a ring. They're tasteful. I'm from the E-Fee Church. We're going to take the youth out and violence people. Maybe that'll show up. Does this get your attention? Puts in the face. Okay, that guy's outrageous. That's funny. Alrighty. They all need to be fired. Everybody on the staff. I mean, what a funny-duddy, man. I mean, seriously, that's a bumpkin. One's out of touch. One's too in touch. I don't think that's true. That he did not know the F-bomb. Oh, it's impossible. But he's lying. Yeah. I think that's what it is. He's a coward. He's out. Either he's a total square or he's a liar. One or the other. I thought he meant… They were pretty egregious.

Although a guy who still used the word flatulence, it's got to be pretty out there. To Dan's point, though, to the thought that, let's say he thought it was flatulence, he still said thumbs up. He's like, hey, he's saying something that I think is raunchy, but I'm going to give permission for it. It doesn't matter what he thought the word was. It's still bad. Yeah, that's a problem. Yeah. Boy. What a jerk. Yeah. Sheila, do you have a standard joke that you tell? No. I got musician jokes if you want, but… Do you have one right now? Yeah. Okay, tell it. How can you tell the drummer's parked in a handicapped spot? I don't know. There are sticks in the windshield. It's gone wood. That's funny. Yeah. My album has gone wood. Yes. All right. All right.

Well, that's great. Do you have anything else? Yes. I have two more. Okay. Hey, wait a minute. You're not going to read it like a romance novel like you did the last one, right? I'll try not to. I might, though. I'm such a romantic. Rapture joke provokes heart attack. No pre-laughing. What if it's not funny? It's a rapture and a heart attack. It's got to be funny. Herbert Washington, whom co-workers at Significant Plastic Inc. says was unduly concerned with the rapture and the second coming of Christ, suffered a serious heart attack when co-workers pretended they'd been caught up without him. Last Tuesday, they laid their work outfits on their chairs and hid in a supply room. And when Herbert came back from the restroom, he thought the rapture had occurred. The janitor, an outspoken Muslim, pretended to have witnessed everyone disappear and ran around the office frantically, panicking. Herbert fell to the ground, clutching his heart, and screamed, I knew you'd forget me, Jesus. What did I do wrong? He was then taken to a local hospital. The employees emerged, sobered from the supply room, and gathered up the extra clothes. We didn't mean to scare him to death, says one woman. He was always talking about it. So today, we decided to turn the tables on him. Washington underwent bypass surgery and is recovering well.

And digging into the Bible like never before, says his wife. Maybe while he's digging, he can work beyond this pre-meal junk that is so prevalent. You're saying the left-behind books aren't biblical? Here's what I'm saying. That's funny. That's hilarious. You understand my prayer laughing now? I like that his thought of the rapture is that people are taken up in the nude. And they shed their clothes right where they were at. That's what all the 60s movies show. I'm not saying that I know either way how it's going to go down, but I just don't think you're going to go out stark raving naked. I don't know why I think that. I knew you'd forget me, Jesus. That's terrible. That is terrible. That is terrible. I've always doubted my faith. Now I know why. Now I know why. You know, maybe that does point to a lot of the rapture-heavy thinking that people have is they have a concern about it. Because ultimately, I'm not concerned about it. I put no thought into it at all. Jesus said, be ready. We're ready. We're ready to go. It's an air tomorrow.

I didn't put on my best duds. Apparently, he's going to take me in the buff anyway. The E3 guys are ready. You know, I don't know if it was the way to go to get the Muslim in. Oh, that's awesome. That was the way to talk. That really, yeah, made it. Hey, Abdul, here's what we're going to do to Frank. Oh, this is going to be great. Absolutely, I will help. I come out of… Is that Muslim stock? Yeah. I come out of supply closet. Red light showing everyone naked up to Jesus. That would sound like a Seinfeld. Okay, what do you got? What's the third one? Okay, virtual pastor pleases picky churchgoers. Oh, okay. Don Lawrence preaches three times a week to an appreciative congregation at Life Baptist Church. His sermon tapes often sell out, and this year he is leading the people through a study of Matthew's Gospels. But Lawrence is not a real person. He's a virtual on-screen pastor whose sermon topics, personality, and even mannerisms are chosen collectively by the congregation. We've never been happier, says Elder Louis Francesca. We finally got the pastor we all want. Oh, boy. Virtual Pastor, a UK company, began pioneering the virtual pastor model two years ago and has created a dozen lifelike on-screen avatars which preach, joke, and give personal anecdotes as if they were real people.

All their sermons and personal stories are scavenged from the internet. When a church subscribes to virtual pastor, each person in the congregation helps shape their pastor by entering likes and dislikes into a response box during the service. Wait, sorry, what's this guy's name? Don Lawrence. Okay, I'm going to see if I can find a video of him. We're going to have to take a look at him. Go ahead. I just want to double-check here. Like, how much do you have characteristics over, right? Like, all I can see is a bunch of dudes sitting at home and making a preacher lady with attributes and then waiting for the message to show up. Like, this does not seem like the best way to go about things. I don't understand what's going on here. This has problems on many levels. Yes. Like, who's actually giving the message? What do you mean? Like, who's doing the talking? The avatar. The person on the screen. Like, they give them different voices. They record over sermons that they found on the internet. And, like, you could choose, like, if they're funny or not funny. Yeah. Or it's pretty straight-laced. Yeah, that's coming up. One church put input that they wanted a lady to back pastor. So instead of wearing suits like he was the first few weeks, he now wears Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops. We unify churches and remove any reason for coring, says co-creator Gavin McReady, standing next to the servers in Scotland where all the virtual pastors reside.

It's a monumental achievement. The funny thing about that, wasn't it called Life Church? Yeah. Yep. Life Baptist. Yeah. And there's nothing live about it. Huge irony there. It is kind of funny that, like, I've always been under the biblical stance that God calls people into ministry. And you're basically saying, I call people to minister to me. Like, you know, like, no longer is it in God's hands who he will use or how he will use them. You will now choose how God's word is delivered to you. And that always seems to be a bad idea. Because, right, like, most of the most effective times where God has hit me over the head with something has not been my choice. Right. Like, very rarely do I close my eyes and go, okay, God, I'm ready for a beating with a pan. Go. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. He just does it when he wants to do it on his own time with whoever he wants to do it, you know? And now I'm saying, well, look, if you're going to beat me over the head, I want it to be a guy that's pretty funny. You know, kind of laid back. Pretty cool. He's got to drink RC Cola. Otherwise, I don't respect him. You hear? And so, I don't know. It's just a weird deal.

McCready and his prayer grammars also throw in random events in the pastor's life, such as an unexpected crisis, decision, or funny occasions. A virtual pastor might walk on screen one day and announce he's going on a diet to lose 35 pounds by Christmas. The theme plays out for the remainder of the year as he announces his progress week by week. To make it seem more like a real pastor, which you don't want. Interesting. Biblical? No. Oh, not at all. No. Uh-uh. No. It's consumerism. Yeah. Yeah. Iffy. Stop doing that. You do not ask for permission. Dan, could I say a shorthand version of the F-mom? Does that mean flashlights? All right. You're listening to Live from the Path. We're live in studio with Ryan Sheeler. Ryan's, you can catch more information about Ryan by going to ryansheeler.com. That's R-Y-A-N-S-H-E-E-L-E-R.com. There's links there. You can pick up his albums. Also, you can get a hold of him on iTunes and pick up his albums there. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you have posters? Do you have t-shirts? Not yet. Do you have bumper stickers? I'm working on them. Headbands? Sweet. It's all being an independent musician. You've got to have merch, you know? Oh, yeah. You've got to carry stuff with you. All right. All right. Well, I'll tell you what. Let's keep rolling with some tunes. What else you got over there? I'm going to pull out something a little different. Different. It's my Iowa accent. Say everything. Fur. This is a tune, actually. Sometimes I pull out, even in my secular cafe gigs, I pull out Christian stuff as a ministry kind of a thing, and I don't announce them, you know what I mean? This is one that I use. This is done by the Gaithers, which, you know, I'm 39 years old, and I like the Gaithers, so who'd have thunk it?

Mark Lowry does this one, and this is called Make It Real. I use this as a really kind of a ministry one. I play this a lot in my secular kind of gigs, but I don't announce it. I just kind of let it speak to people. This is a cool song. This is called Make It Real. A lot of crazy things done in your name I know the tricks behind the magic show I've almost thrown the towel in a time or two And walked away from everything I know I feel this emptiness inside of me The troubles of my mind So if you're really out there And you're listening to me that those who will find You can just see fit to show me some of who you are And shed some light in your heart Oh, the truth that I can feel To make it be some good reason Why you brought me in the shadows There's a mask to cover every face But your sweet face I long to see So if you think there's just the slightest hope In spite of all my questions In spite of all my questions and my doubts In spite of all my questions and my doubts Your still small voice I need to talk about Just see fit to show me some of who you are And shed some light in the sinner's heart I need to know the truth Something I can feel I need you to make it real I need to know that I can feel I need you Yep, I like it Now, is Mark Lowry, he's one of the singers for my deal, right? Yeah, he's the comedian, he's the goofy guy Yeah, he does crack jokes and stuff Mary, did you know, it's kind of his big famous one Yeah, that's his big name to fame Yeah, joke Joe Quacker No, I said joke cracker

Oh He cracked jokes Yeah Who's the piano man? What's his name? The blind guy? No, the guy that's I mean, he's a raucous piano player Gordon Mote, the guy that plays glasses Yeah, yeah, yeah It's a blind guy Yeah Now, I'm thinking of the other dude The other dude died What's his name? Anthony Berger? Yeah, Berger Yeah, yeah Yeah, Anthony Berger You heard Jesse Dixon died? Yeah Oh, man You know where, Jordan? That's because he was old You know where? He wasn't that old 74, 73, something like that That's pretty old

In the 70s Yeah, that's getting there When you get up there, it seems pretty young, though Yeah Yeah He gets younger all the time in there, Beck I know That's the point 70 old, that's like a pup Maybe his communion man should have had a weapon on him Everything would have gone Would have gone better for him Yeah, exactly Joseph So, if you were So, a quick recap of Joseph Right, like he was He had a family They didn't much care for him Even his brothers didn't care for him They sold him into slavery He gets hauled away And He's a slave And He eventually gets imprisoned Right? For what?

For Because his Because the Potiphar's wife Potiphar's wife Had accused him of Improper conduct Which he did not do It was a total lie She tried to offer him Improper conduct And he said no And ran away She accused him of the F-bomb She accused him of bad things Attempted if he Attempted if he So I'd like to find the Hebrew So Of knowing her He spent like 13 years in jail Before he finally gets brought out In front of The king of Egypt And The pharaoh Excuse me

And so The question is Things go better for Joseph After he gets The pharaoh finds out That he's a pretty sharp individual He knows some things He loves Jesus And He He becomes a man of prominence Within Egypt Right? He went from slave to prominence So There was 13 years Where he was in jail For being accused Of Of The attempted business And I don't know I was thinking about it And I thought You know There's no account In Genesis

About him Being disheveled When the time Was going to stop When this was going to be over You know God didn't come to him In a vision Or send an angel That said hey I'm about to bust you out of jail Things are going to be different for you It didn't say anything like that Right? So Let's say every day Is Of Joseph's life Is your day Right? Like let's say you are You're in prison for something That you didn't do And Your only hope is that tomorrow You know You're still going to be alive and kicking But it's still going to be in prison

And in pretty crappy existence You know So Would that change the way That you worship God? Would it change your perception Of who God is Or what God does? Like if you started to live your life As in Instead of thinking Well if I can just get a better job Things will start to be better for me Or When I get this house paid off Or when the kids get older Or maybe even when the weekend comes I won't be so busy Or maybe when this season of my life is done Where I'm not involved in so many whatevers You know Things will You know Things will start to be better And So what if What if you take that away? What if that's gone?

And you just Look at it as You know Stop going from blessing to blessing And more think And more live in the day that you are Not expecting it to get any better That this is This is what it is Does that change the way that you worship God? I think you have to be careful That That you don't get into the mindset Of worshipping The gifts Rather than the giver You know what I mean? And I think I think all Christians Sort of fall into this If you're not careful You know You want God's blessings More than you want God himself You know what I mean? And I think that's That's something that I think all Christians Especially American Christianity

In this day and age I think it has to keep in mind That you know I think that kind of goes into Into what you're saying You know I mean Is Is the value of your life Measured on the stuff that you have? You know what I mean? Yeah Yeah Or even the stuff that you That you think you May have Eventually Because Because I think you're right Like we are not We are a culture Which does not Really have to do All that much persevering Right We are We are Even

Even if it's If it's not reality That things actually show up We are a culture of hope We are a culture That has the anticipation That something That things can get better And that they will get better And that through whatever Either means that we take Or means that others take Ultimately It will produce An improved life Than what we have And as long as you have That vision Of something that's going to happen You don't You're not living in the reality Of where your life is currently at And so like If you were to come to the realization That my life will not change Like whatever it is right now Is where it will be There is no opportunity

For getting a different job There's no opportunity for You know My kids behaving better This is just like Everything that is in my life Right now Is how it will stay I think actually It probably levels A little bit more of reality In people's recognition Of who God is Because you're not relying On the world's product To otherwise carry you forward I think you have You have people like Like Jeremiah Who are in such a I mean Two people bought him Two people Guys Like preaching Like a mad fiend Like who is it Baruch

And like one other guy Yeah Believe him Everybody else is ignoring him He gives him He gives him a warning To not leave And what do they do They leave And they drag him with him Like this guy has no success From a worldly perspective He He has a good idea Of who God is What God does And what his provision is like I don't have a good idea Of God's provision A lot of my world Is worldly provision Now that's not to say That that's not That's not the hand of God Of what my worldly provision Looks like But Do I find myself

Leaning on that worldly provision For my happiness Sure Absolutely I do And it's a weakness And it's something That is a proclivity Of our type of society Where like You confuse God's providence With something That the world Is otherwise selling you But the thing With the world stuff Is that there's There's something That always comes along with it And you don't tend to Find that out until later Until it's been too late And you recognize That you've been following World stuff And not God's stuff So I would say I don't know how it couldn't If you actually

If you look at really Where your life is at If you were hit With the reality Of it cannot change Everything that is right now Those circumstances Will persist For the remainder of my days I think I definitely See God differently And better I think ultimately I probably see it better I'm supposed to talk last Sorry I can't say anything now I've always found Joseph to be rather inspiring Really for that reason That he just was faithful No matter what You know No matter what was before him I mean he had to have Those images Of his childhood dreams Going through his mind

And did he remember Those in faith Saying well It's going to get better Or did he say Well I guess I didn't see this coming You know I guess it's not You know You wonder how much That played in his mind About him You guys were talking It just made me think Of this Matt Redman song Blessed be your name And it's one of my Favorite songs Because it's so much Talks about It's everything You know Blessed be your name And the land is plentiful The streams of abundance flow When I'm found In the desert place

When I walk Through the wilderness Everything Every blessing you Poor I will turn back To praise You know Good time or bad When the sun's shining down When the world's All it should be Then it's really awesome On the road mark For suffering Though there's pain In the offering Blessed be your name I just love Every time I sung that I just love it I love it Love it Love it Because it's just It's just the story of life And our relationship with God That I'm not going to be On this roller coaster

Of yay God Boo God You know It's just whatever happens It's all from God I knew you would leave me Yeah I knew it Where's my God I mean You just You just stay faithful You stay obedient And When you look at life It's a vapor You know When you were talking I was thinking What was the worst thing You know I thought Okay Let's say On the way home tonight I get in a car accident And I'm a paraplegic And

I lose my sight And I lose my hearing So I can't move And I can't hear And I can't see I've been closed off From the world Now that would really stink And you'd have a lot of silence Obviously I mean It'd just be a lot of But you know what Life's a vapor I mean You just sit there And It's easy for me to say now You just And however you can You worship God And you say You just You just Take one day at a time One of these days You're going to see him You know

And It seems like Like a Because like To the world Joseph seems like a sucker An idiot Yeah You know Like a guy that That can't see That's weird He's like a guy With a microphone That doesn't work Yeah Anyway Like a guy that That can't see the world For what it is Like a guy that No matter what His circumstance comes He's just a happy Go lucky guy And you know People look at that guy And go

What's wrong with you You know His wife looks at him And goes You're never serious About anything Everything's just a big joke to you And really baby He's just got a good perspective You know He's like It is what it is You know Praise be to God Let's roll I also want to To my mind As you know You were kind of Laying out the idea Is Think of the nursing home We go do Serve Once in a while Those are all people That are It's never going to get better

I mean They're all in a place Where they're just Kind of hanging out I mean You know They know it That's why people resist Going to the nursing home They're like This is it This is my last home And From here And what a great Opportunity We have a handful of people In the church That run out there Pretty often And just encourage them You know We're just that little shot In the arm And singing their songs Their way And What an honor

To be able to be a part of that You know Because That's all they got And who's going to change The next bedpan I mean You know You know Here's the thing Is I went out there Last Sunday Yeah And Like I play worship piano In our worship band Right And they sing out of the hymnal I haven't played out of the hymnal In 15 years And It was a bumble It was a bumble Jesus I'm like A flat What's that other cleft for No one plays in A flat anymore

In the garden In A flat Yeah Holy cats That piano there Is way out of tune It's a little rough That makes it more fun I can blame I can blame the piano For a lot Boy boy Like No one in the room Knew the difference But me And the guy standing next to me And me trying to belt this tune out Right Because like I don't Modern worship Doesn't work like The church that they grew up in Right It was It was an extremely boisterous You know

Lead singer dude And then Like an organist Or a keyboard player You know And that was basically it Go in Yeah I mean Just a pound and away And so You know So I'm sitting here Trying to tinker around In the garden In A flat Not in a good singing range For old Mike And I'm trying to Sight read this music Which once again I haven't read music In forever I just Don't do it anymore And they didn't know the difference Because they're old You know

God has graced them With some hearing loss And you know They're out there Belting it out Like it's nobody's business And I'm like I gotta get out of here They're gonna think Who is this young punk When them jazz changes In there He's really in the garden So it was It was actually A pretty good time I was actually glad I took One of my kids With me And you know She got the opportunity And I actually saw I was kind of blown away That the gal That usually goes out there She brings her kids with her And I just watched her kids

Walk up to Walk up to Everybody You know Hi I'm so and so How are you How were you last week You know And like that was me You know 25 years ago My grandpa and grandma Used to do the same thing And I used to walk up And like Hi I'm Mike How are you Oh aren't you so precious I'm like You're kind of smelly Hello You know But like I'm doing it Because it seemed like The nice thing to do And I don't know It's just It's just cool to watch

You know People younger than me Giving a rip I mean just to put it blankly Like caring at all Instead of just going Eh this is just something My mama didn't drag me to You know They walk up They say hey They talk They look at them Eye to eye They care You know I mean Even to a kid You know 10, 11, 12 years old You get to start to see Some stuff in that nursing home And you're like You know You start to dart your eyes And divert Because some of that stuff Is weird looking

You know Skin where skin shouldn't be You know Boils where boils shouldn't be Warts where warts shouldn't be Really unfitting clothes You know I mean it's just For a kid that age You're just kind of like Creeped out a little bit Sure But they did it With the heart of Jesus They walked right up And they talked to him And I was I don't know It meant a lot to me For some reason Just to watch kids do that That's really cool I agree I want an encouragement To people that are just Living day by day Waiting to go see Jesus That's true

They don't fit the example though Because their life Is improving True Because people are coming by To sing to them Yeah It's not just staying the same Yeah Mm-hmm Something will You know That's really good Hey You know Just a casual observation You know You know I feel like It's like a Like a total God design Is that you can have Is that Large groups of people Automatically sound in tune Listening to them Because

We were at a We were at a Worship conference Or not It wasn't a worship conference It was just a Church conference last week And you know They play these songs And everybody's singing And you gotta know That like 20% of those people Are even decent singers 2% are like good Right So that means 80% of the people That are in your Particular auditorium Are not good singers But all those people Singing together Always sound on key Always Like listen to live Recordings and stuff Like you're not picking out

A wrong note That's sticking out Like you have a bunch of people All singing different Wrong notes But to the ear of someone Listening to like That big group of people They sound on key That's gotta be a God design right there Because there's no reason Those people should Sound like that It should sound like A jumbled mess But large groups of people Sound on key every time That's the design of the Lord Write it down We're a good sound man Put it on a bookmark As a little crowd track Large group Sign of the Lord Bookmark Put it in the psalter Yeah

Where's that sound In the Bible Some southern Baptist Will get you on that one Maybe they should get That virtual thing To be a designer choir I can design singers And musicians And I can just do them On the internet And I can choose My own worship band Do I have a praise band Do I like rocking No we want bluegrass We're gonna do reggae Sunday There you go Yeah we got Dear Live from the Path My son came out Of the closet last year My first reaction Was to tell him It was okay I had already suspected That he was I love him dearly

And we're a close family His brothers and sisters Also accept and love him My husband and I Are now struggling Because we're not sure How God really views Gays and lesbians To listen to some Religious people My son will go to hell I can't believe That God would create A person to be this way Then turn his back on him I tried reading the Bible But the wording Was hard to understand I don't want to talk To my pastor about it Because even though I've accepted my son For who he is I still have trouble Talking to people about it Because I'm not sure How they will react Do you believe

A gay person Will go to heaven That's a pretty big Can of worms there There is There is no such thing As a gay person That's the first problem There There is homosexual activity Which the Bible Specifically Says is sinful And is Among other sins Like greed And so forth Will keep you out of heaven As will heterosexual activity Outside of marriage As will Any other unrepentant sin Exactly Yeah Not even just an unrepentant Sexual sin Unrepentant sin in general Will keep you out

Exactly So to embrace The lifestyle Is to embrace A rebellion Against God You know If it was my child I would love my child I would not accept Their behavior And I would Plead with them Every single time I saw them To repent And turn to God Knowing they may never But that's That's the biggest farce Of society Is that they're They're born that way Or made that way Or whatever And it's I mean Even the study

That started that The whole Kinsey thing Later on They said Oh yeah We made that up I mean But you repeat a lie Over enough Enough times Pretty soon people Just accept it So here's the Here's the reason I chose to read that Right Because Dear Life from the Path Is actually Are you coming out Dear Life from the Path Is actually Stolen from Dear Abby And It was Dear Abby's response That troubled me Right I believe that

Entrance to heaven Is based upon A person's character Not his or her Sexual orientation Today Because of modern Scientific studies We know more about Homosexuality Than was known When the bible was written And that sexual orientation Is not a choice Wrong This woman gives Advice To the masses She leans I don't know She leans She'll hit biblical Every once in a while Right But it seems only for When it's advantageous to her You know And so

Like I was really disappointed By this answer Because it has no It's kind of like The Oprah Winfrey School of theology Yeah Very much so Like Because of my Modern scientific studies We know more about Homosexuality Than was known When God wrote The bible When God created people The one who designed The person that you're talking about Who created the world The people in it The way it works The organisms The cells The guy who's doing The scientific study We found out more Since this God character

Has come around And we're certain That we've got a pull On this thing And it's not It's not their choice Time Time has passed Of which God is not Dominated by Who knows all things All at once At every instance Of which there is not Actually an instance Because again Time Who sees all the time But just give it A little more of that A little more time And we will know More than Jesus I just I thought it was I thought it was Pretty disappointing That that was the advice

Going out to the masses Right Like If I was there I wouldn't even I stayed away And it's a matter It's a matter of character It's a matter of character God is concerned If I'm good enough God will love me As opposed God is good enough And he loves me anyway Like if that's the truth That's a God I don't want to know I don't I don't want to know a God That doesn't That I have to There's conditions Right That I can Right He has a conditional Love for me

That I can There's no way I can meet Yeah Right That's the whole point of Jesus The whole reason Jesus is here Right Like I just can't I can't earn it Because I don't deserve it anyway I mean we all should have been killed Pretty much after the age of Of understanding Which is about I don't know Seven Yeah Once you figure out What right and wrong is And you do wrong on purpose It takes some of us a little longer Yeah Then God's got a reason to kill you For sinning against him And he should I mean by all rights You should be dead At about seven

No one would be old And we couldn't procreate Everybody would be dead at seven Except for Dan Who would make it to like Eight Twelve Maybe I think we're under the We seem to be Under the sort of Post-modern American culture thing That we That we Tend to We tend to think God functions more like A hallmark card And he doesn't take sin Seriously anymore You know Yeah I think Yeah I think that's a serious mistake That's a Yeah That's a good

That's a good analogy It is like Oh that's cute He's He's troubled and sinful It's like No no no That's not the reaction Yeah Yeah So that That was the second I'm trying to remember The scripture I don't even know How to search for it Because I can't Grasp enough Maybe you guys Will remember There's something about Scripture About Mankind Basically Deciding We're smarter than God Getting to that point

We're just like Yeah we got this We don't need God And maybe that's Maybe it's a sermon I heard When I was a kid Or something There's some It seems like there's some Scripture Or maybe I'm thinking Of Genesis 6 You know When they did everything Right in their own eyes That thing Paul kind of talks about that In Romans 1 Where he talks about Homosexuality You know Worshipping the created Rather than the creator Exactly Exactly That's like Romans 1 Something or another I know it's Romans 1

It's in the same Where we're talking about What is Romans What are they talking about It's changing the truth of God For life It's in that same Yeah Yeah It's a tough call Because I think God's called us To love people You know To go out and love people You know But at the same time It's really difficult Because you can't push the sin aside But you don't want to be judgmental either Because I got stuff in my life That I mean all it takes is one And everybody's got at least one Everybody has at least one Yeah so there's two There's two sides of that coin Like there's two things There's

There's things that we can That we can both Both sides of the coin can learn Right Like on You know when you're dealing With somebody like that You're dealing with a person Just like every other person You've ever met It's just a different brand Of unrepentant sin Right I mean like That's everybody you've ever met And so Like you have to look at it From that characteristic They're not A person who's choosing to You know Disobey God They're just somebody Who doesn't know Jesus If they knew Jesus It wouldn't have It wouldn't be an issue for them Right

And then if they purposely do it Then they're disobeying God But like If you know Jesus You wouldn't do that anyone You know you stumble You fall But you don't purposely say I'll do what I want You know Same thing on You know That's a good point of view For us to know You know Because we tend to get The rallies against You know Gay and homosexual lifestyle Like they just drive me nuts Like you're just You're not You're not trying to love The person in Christ You're not trying to Be an example of Christ's love For them right You're just trying to attack

Their sin Which I mean We'd have everybody busy all day Just having a bunch of protests Against everybody We're going to have An anti-gossip protest Next week Yeah Right I think how big The anti-pride rally Would have to be And who's going to run it Good luck Yeah I'll do it And I'll do it well I'm the guy You know Like seriously Like you would never pull off Having enough protests Against every sin That you have That's unrepentant That's keeping you With a good relationship

With Christ And so You know You've got to watch I'm not saying You don't stand up against it But I mean There's a line Where you're You're after the You're after the sin And not the sinner And the sinner's The one we care about Care less about the sin Right The more attention You give the sin The more attention You're giving the devil To get on a bigger platform Talk about it Well then people get defensive And you know It's just like Our friend Mike Demastus Who had the

Gays then okay sign And I had a conversation With him I said dude You're using this As a verb And the homosexual community Is interpreting it As a noun And so you're not even Communicating the same thing You know They thought he was saying As a human being I'm not okay And he's like That's not what I'm saying Well that's what That's what they're reading Right You know Which makes it ineffective Exactly And that's what Much of what the Christian community says And maybe that's What the breakdown is

Sometimes We're throwing out These words And we both have Both sides Have definitions Behind those words And what you're saying Is what really We're trying to say It doesn't matter The sin I mean It could be You know You laugh at old people Yeah Sin is not okay Whoa man Are you seriously You can't laugh at old people I don't know I was just trying To think of something All right Come on You know Jesus When he laughs

When he touches The bone Old dick Boop Boop Take that old man I'm out to hear What's he talking Like a cotton farmer That's how he was Back in Jacob's day He doesn't exist in time He always talks that way Yeah I mean It'd be terrible To have Luke say By the way Jesus talks With a cotton farmer So keep in mind So you get the full grasp Cut off an ear up in here You're listening to Life in the Path We are on every Monday night From 10 to midnight Here on

Lifeinthepath.org You can catch us During the week By going to Lifeinthepath.org And clicking on Any of the links On the left hand side You can like us On Facebook Hey man I don't know How that Facebook Plug-in thing works But it's way overinflated It says 420 people Like the show That's not true at all It's barely 200 I don't think There's more than one or two Who really like it Yeah yeah I think they're just being nice You can just say it Oh yeah like I like courteous people I like cookies

And Life in the Path I mean Yeah Actually that's true I agree Somebody sent me To like a restaurant Which I've been to And it was alright But they asked me To like it And I'm okay I'll like it That's dishonest It becomes a fad It's like I like Pennzoil You know I definitely don't I'm very frugal With my likes I'll talk to Wayne tomorrow We'll see what you have to say About that I actually went out And cleared out a bunch of likes About a year ago I probably need to do it again

Yeah you can accumulate them Yeah I'm like I like meatballs And it's like Come on You know I don't know how this is Yeah I don't know I don't understand So anyway We're in studio tonight Visiting with Ryan Sheeler And you can find more information About him By going to RyanSheeler Dot com Also the clips From his performances tonight Should be up on that YouTube channel Within the next Excuse me 24 to 48 hours We'll see if we can get that out there As the night starts to wind down I would encourage you to go out To that website

And make sure you're keeping up With Ryan See where he's at He's got a live show Coming up towards the end of May And he's booking through the summer So just keep an eye out for him Try to get out and support Ryan Support local Christian music Those guys are out there Loving Christ And trying to entertain folks And to entertain folks You've got to put folks in there And that's you You are the folks Go out there Enjoy the tunes And buy Make sure you're checking out Where's that Green Grounds Who's hosting Did you call? No You need to have me I know I'll put it on the list

But they're a coffee house Here in Des Moines That are having a lot of Christian accent on Saturdays And if you go to SpiritMidwest.com Julie and Al Barnes They're the folks that run The Spirit Midwest music Festival But they also have a calendar Out there that has A list of Christian acts Here in the Des Moines metro area That they are sponsoring Or otherwise know of And you can go out And kind of check that out And just make sure you go out You know Spend some time They tend to be free They very rarely ever Charge a cover At a coffee shop Did you see they announce The dates of the Spirit Midwest music festival?

I did I did Those are at the front of If you go to that SpiritMidwest.com They've got the information Out there for it August 4th and 5th Yeah We're going to be out there Keep the Hey Be praying for a good Internet connection out there Oh man We're broadcasting Oh god With or without internet Yeah We'll establish internet Somewhere We'll send tapes Carry your pigeon Yeah That's right We'll run folks out We'll do it So anyway

Make sure you check that out So that's SpiritMidwest.com Look for the Green Crowns Coffeehouse And also again RyanSheeler.com Ryan let's Let's finish tonight With another tune What do you got? Yeah This is my biggest hit So to speak He started laughing I cracked myself up You know This has done fairly well On kind of independent Internet radio and stuff This is off my second album Called Chasing Heaven This is an original What I kind of did On this tune Is I kind of This sort of

Came about as I You know You kind of struggle With yourself And your own Self-hypocrisy Once in a while You know That some things Don't line up How you say it Versus you act And stuff So I kind of Turned that on its ear And made this song So This is called Chasing Heaven Ask yourself And wonder why Coming back What's your heart Eyes Back again Through the sunset Past you by Yourself

But who Kind From last shot It echoes Of a few stars Chasing Heaven And it seems So far Just let Leaves of Ray Sunshine Just around Last shot It's chasing Heaven And it seems The same Back again Times Changing times Would you leave When that shot In Our left behind This is Ryan Sheeler Make sure you check him out At ryansheeler.com For more information about him

You can pick up his albums Go to iTunes You can get it there And some of the clips From the show Featured some songs From those albums I would highly recommend Those go pick them up And again Keep an eye on ryansheeler.com To see where he's going To be at In the coming weeks And months So that you can go Go frequent His establishment See what's happening Also if you're just Driving through And you need a place To crash for Jesus You can hit up The Free Church in Ames Yep And I'm sure

They'd love to have you Out there Worship time Is there at what time? 9 o'clock And 10.35 Ooh 9 and 10.35 That's an extra 5 minutes On those 10.30 Partiers So you can get there At 10.35 You've been listening To Live from the Path Thank you so much For hanging out With us tonight Again you can catch us During the week Here at Livefromthepath.org On the left hand side Use the links Go to YouTube Check out the clips Sign up for the audio podcast

And buy the Live from the Path gear We do not make any money Because we're poor businessmen But we do love Jesus And I think you should wear that Thank you so much for listening And have a wonderful week