Seeking the Lost — Rolfe Barnard

The Need for Revival and Unadulterated Preaching

Shut up to a miracle in our country. The day has passed when the preacher can preach a pure unadulterated message from the word of God and receive a big period. And unless God is pleased in these days to send a great revival, then I don't know what the answer is.

And therefore, we believe the Lord has sent his servant, his prophet, to bring us a message that is not always easy to hear and apply, but one that we realize to be the voice of God speaking through his word.

And now, Brother Rothbarnard, you bring us what the Lord has laid on your hearts. I fell in love with this young man last March a year ago, and his dear wife, the graciousness is not to be excelled anywhere.

He just sang, Will there be any stars in my crown? She'll have a lot to put up with him, won't she? I had B .B. Caldwell many years ago preaching for him, and he got up one night and said, Brothers and sisters, tomorrow evening, God willing, I'll bring you a message on such and such, unless the rapture occurs.

In that event, your dear pastor will preach for you. I guess I'd better not make such a move now. Aren't you old yet? We're going to have to clean up a bit. I'd love to get you two straightened out, if you will.

Hearing the Word and Seeking the Lord

Can't you see that the generation would like to get to heaven, but they just haven't got time? When I started out 36 years ago, I could build a crowd and keep it for a while, and that way somebody would listen to the word of God, and since no man has saved in faith, God has to give it to men, and he gives it as men hear his word.

Why, they hear the word, and that's why they say that's God talking, and that's when the fellow gets saved. But now, it's off again, on again, coming again, planning again. But we hope that by the end of the week, we may build a solid crowd.

I see three or four faces that we had last night, but many visiting from other churches, and we thank God for you. But we know that it's not quite fair to you. You cannot hear me just once. You've got to hear me all the while, or I'll confuse you, and everything else.

I don't mean to do it, but that's what they say. Every message, I'm not here to indoctrinate the people, or to straighten you out, but the pastor, he and I have been talking a little bit about second coming, and we differ a little bit.

That simply means he's wrong, of course. But I'm not here to straighten you out. I'm here to do one thing, and that's to proclaim the claims and demands of God and his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And every message is preached so to know, and as we preach tonight, we're preaching on seeking the Lord.

Tomorrow night, we hope to preach on the message God uses to induce son to seek the Lord, to induce son to seek the Lord. Remember that everybody that God promised Abraham is going to be saved. You're not going to lose a single one.

Remember that if God can get you lost, he'll save you. And I'd go crazy if I didn't believe this. This isn't fatalism, this is just so. And if God can get you still long enough to let a little of his word seep in and grant you faith, he'll save you.

But chances are, you're so busy, you'll just have to live a while and go to hell. You just ain't got time to get saved. You haven't got time to get saved. Now, you had time to make a confession and join the church, but you haven't got time.

Had time to have what this says, a personal confronting of the soul by a gracious redeeming God. This leads to repentance and faith. This leads to the terminating of a self-centered existence and the commencement of a Christ-indwelled life.

That's what it means to be saved. You have to meet God, Christ, is that right? And it'll take you to get saved. It might take a half second, it might take you 40 years, but it'll be time well spent. If you'd gotten to Christ, wouldn't you?

A sovereign God, you can't limit him. He can do things in a second, he can take 40 years if it seems good in his sight. You can get your glove and try to whip him, put him out of business, or you can just submit to the ways of the sovereign God.

The Biblical Command to Believe and Seek

Tonight we're speaking on seeking the Lord, tomorrow night God uses to induce some to seek him. Once in a while in the scripture, for instance in the book of Acts, a man asked, what must I do to be saved?

And the answer was, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. But that was no, in no circumstances was that answer ever given to anybody unless the work of grace had already begun and they were in a repentant state this time in the decision.

The other injunction to men and women today and always is seek the Lord. How long? Till you find him. Every Christian gather night will testify to these words, I saw the Lord and afterward I knew. He moved my soul to seek him.

Seeking me, I walked for the whole of love. It's but my answer, Lord, to thee. For thou worked long beforehand with my soul, me. That's the testimony in the heart of every child of God. You know, I found out a long time ago that God's people are all right in their theology in the heart.

They're crooked in the head, you know. But when we get on our knees, God's people join and they give the glory to God and they know salvation to the Lord. They say, Lord, speak to my boy. We don't need to fall out.

Some of my doctrines don't suit you. Don't get mad at me. If you're a Christian, you pray for me because if I can get you on your knees, your little differences, you'll find out they just cause you ignorance, or I am one, or both of us.

But in our heart, we're saved. And we pray for God to save them. If you turn tonight to the book of Psalms, at chapter 24, tomorrow night, the message God uses, not to induce all, but, thank God, to induce some.

He never set out to save everybody. He set out to save everybody. He promised Abraham. Is that right, brothers and sisters? He made a covenant with Abraham. He said, you see, you won't be able to count it.

I'm going to give it to you. And God made a covenant with Abraham. And Paul says in the book of Galatians that Jesus Christ is the covenant. Now, if you don't like the way God runs this show, if you can get him off the throne, why, maybe he'll let you run to the wire, but unless you can, we just shut up to what the word of God reveals.

It's not what God ought to do, but what he has done. And the gospel is just the covenant that God made with a man by the name of Abraham. He said, I'm going to give you a seed, David. And the Lord said he ain't going to lose another one, hallelujah.

Every last one of them, the Lord's looking for him, and he's going to save them. Might save you, I don't know. Don't expect you got time, have you? Huh? I mean it. I don't expect you got time to get saved, have you?

Salvation as a Gift of a Redeeming God

The message God uses to induce everybody. It's not God's fault, but it just induces some to become seekers after the Lord. Not seekers after what the Lord can do for you. That's what you folks in Park Avenue do.

Thank the Lord for what he's done for them. You wouldn't know the Lord if you met him in the road. Nowhere in the scripture to seek him for what he can do for us. Any fool would do that. You thought I'd given away a dime.

You'd just hide Taylor down the street at me, wouldn't you? In this generation, they heard the Lord giving away something, but he hadn't given away something. He had given himself. The gospel is Christ, and Christ is the gospel, and salvation is Christ, and Christ is salvation.

Salvation is a gift, but it's the gift of a person, not a thing. Isn't that right? Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could have salvation, not have to put up with the Lord? That's what this Sunday morning gang of so-called Christians come out to honor God when I worship him.

Think they're doing God a favor? They want to get to heaven, but they don't want to have nothing to do with Jesus. But you walk with him, or you go to hell. Is that right? Seeking the Lord. In the sixth verse of the 24th chapter of the psalm, we are didactically given the statement that everybody that gets saved is a seeker after the Lord.

This is the generation of them that seek him. You had time to seek the Lord, a vital union with him, for it is not knowing about Christ, but knowing him that counts. It's not a mystical admiration of Christ, but a vital devotion to him that counts.

It's not just energy of the flesh displayed in service, but a spiritual service of being and doing, which will lead to a complete, to a sovereign Christ. To know Christ, all changed lives come from him who sits on the throne.

And to know Christ is to love him, it's to serve him with utter loyalty and devotion. Somewhere down the line, in order to accommodate ourselves to this damnable stuff they call the gospel for 60 years, we invented some terms.

He's a consecrated Christian. There ain't no other kind. You do not love the Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart, you're not saved. You do not serve him with utter loyalty and devotion, you're not saved.

That's the God's truth. God tells people the truth. We're speaking peace when there is no peace. This half-hearted stuff most church members give out is just going to land them right square death in hell.

To know Christ is to experience him. His power comes in your life when you experience him. It's to love him. And the mother who loves the child serves the child with utter loyalty and devotion. God bless you, my friend.

There ain't no other kind of people except my sheep listening to my voice, and they follow me. That's what the Bible, the Lord says. Those who come to know and experience, those who are seekers after him.

After him. That's a tremendous question. Ascend into the hill. That's a good question, isn't it? Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place? In the Old Testament, many times they'll say the same thing from a little different direction.

That's what he does. The question is this, who's going to go to heaven when he dies? We can understand that. Who shall ascend into his holy hill? You counting on it, Brother Finch? Who shall stand in his holy place?

Would you kind of like to? Would you? I sure would. Well, I'll tell you, verse 4 describes the folks that are going to do that. See, this fits you. He that has clean hands, a pure heart, that's the guy that's going to ascend into God's holy hill and stand in God's holy place.

A perfect righteousness of your own, or you need to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ. No halfway measure, Brother. It's got to be perfect. You need to make your own heart pure, or to get in touch with him who promises in the gospel a new heart.

No halfway measure will do. Conduct's got to please God. And your outer conduct comes from a pure or an impure heart. Is that right? The rider of rock of ages cleft for me had it right, be of sin, a double cure, save me pure.

Who's going to ascend into God's holy hill and in God's holy place? And in women who've been operated on, bless God, and their lives now are following the path that God predestined for them before they were ever born.

Ephesians 2, 9 and 10, he created you under good works which he hath before ordained that you should walk. You do not choose your manner of living, it's been chosen for you, if you're a Christian. Do you believe that?

And I take care of that with conduct. And then the blood of Jesus Christ, on the basis of it, God gives us a new heart and purifies it daily by that w-o-r-d word. Freedom, of course, you're a Christian, you go to the word every day.

You can go two days without it, you're going to hell. You know nothing about salvation. We're made clean through the word. Isn't that what Scripture says? People, all these people who get a pure heart and clean hands, this is the generation of them that seek the Lord.

Repentance, Prayer, and True Revival

It's about the Scripture men that seek him, seeking the Lord while they may be found. Somebody says, the Bible teacher will tell you, that is to the Jewish nation, I know, but most of the Jewish elect nation were going to hell.

They heard the gospel, but they didn't mix faith with it and died and went to hell. Isn't that what Scripture says? And in the Old Testament, it says, if my people who call by my name would humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I'd hear them from heaven heal the land.

But that's not the recipe for revival, that's how for a sinner to get saved. Well, that's talking to a bunch of unsaved Jews who had access to the blood of the covenant but never took time. They just didn't have time like you to ever take time out to mix faith with the here and now.

That's right, isn't it? Don't Paul tell us that only a little remnant of that gang were Jews? Inwardly, sure he does. And you ought to quit building your revival theology on language addressed to a bunch of unsaved Jews that went whoring after every new preacher that came to town and worshiped the doll of the new prophet.

And the prophets would have to come and call them back to formal worship. That's revival notes, isn't that right, brother? No, God's people don't need to be humble. People don't need to praise me. The mark of spiritual death is prayerlessness.

You either live a life of prayer or you don't know God. People don't need to seek his face. The second Corinthians 3 and 18 tells us that the main occupation of God's people is beholding in the same, the glory of God.

They are changed into the same image from glory to glory. People don't need to turn from thy wicked ways, bless God. The scriptures say nevertheless the foundation standeth sure. The Lord knoweth them that are his and let everyone that name is the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.

You can tell a Christian he's running from sin, he's not living in it. He's not yet perfect but he's on his way, brother. It was the old time back if you say the tenor, t-e-n-o-r tenor, the mainstream of his life is devoted, seeking and doing the will of God, that's right.

He stumbles but bless God he gets up and his face is in the way of the will of God, amen. Oh, I wish we'd start telling Sunday morning church members a little of the truth instead of combing their hair and sending them on to hell.

To seek the Lord in the day thou shall seek me with all thine heart, I shall surely be found of thee. But God does a whole lot more than invite men to seek the Lord. I'd ask you if you were to turn in the book of Acts to the 17th chapter.

God’s Providence in Calling People to Seek Him

And this shocked me so years ago. It'd been in the Bible all the while but I never had seen it. I'd read it a whole lot but I found something here that I'm going to take the time to read and show you to what lengths almighty God has gone to get men and women to seek the Lord.

Absolutely startled me the first time my little old dumb brain ever saw it. Beginning in verse 22 of the 17th chapter of Acts, then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said, ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too religious, too superstitious.

Well it means religious, as religious as all get out. For he said, as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. They had a lot of them, maybe they'd left one out, didn't want to offend him, so they built an altar over here and put this unknown God.

We don't know whether you're out there or not, but if you are, we're for you too. Now Paul says this unknown God whom therefore he ignorantly worshiped, talked to you about, him declare I unto you. Now let's see what God did.

And he did everything I'm going to read now for just one purpose, that men should seek the Lord. First God that made the world, this unknown God, the one that's unknown to the church people of Lynchburg.

They'd never experienced his power. You know what he did? Not the God you worship, but the God of the Bible, the God who called the Lord Jesus Christ, not the God who fills the churches full of people on Sunday morning and the picture shows and everything else on Sunday night with the same crowd.

But this unknown God, do you know what he did? That's the God Lynchburg doesn't know. This unknown God, ladies and gentlemen, with a sob in my heart, I'm not a crank. He's unknown to American people too.

He's the God of power. Touch him, blessed God, and dynamite from him will come into you. You'll live a transformed life, not a perfect life yet, but a transformed life, as different from the way you used to live as daylight is from God.

Unknown God made the world, everything's in it. He's the Lord. He's the master, the despot, the dictator, the ruler of heaven and earth. He doesn't dwell in temples made with hands. He doesn't get neither worship with men's hands or so he needed anything.

This God does this too. He gave it all to all life. He gave you your life. He created you. He gave you your life. He gives you that breath you're breathing with now and he's given you everything you've got, the jobs you've got.

He gives power to get wealth, everything else. Is that right? And he's done something else. He's made of one blood, all nations of men for the dwell on the face of the earth. And of course you wouldn't believe this.

You don't believe in the sovereign God, tell me all over this country, but he has appointed the times before appointed. And he has appointed the bounds of their habitation. You know why you live in Greensburg?

God. Huh? You know why you were born in America instead of Africa? God fixed that. This is the trouble he's gone through. He's created the world and everything in it. He's given all men life and breath, everything they've got.

He's made us all of one blood and he's determined the bounds where we live. And he went to all that trouble. Verse 27 says that in order that they should the Lord, if have flesh, they might feel at him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.

For in him we live and move and have our being and so forth. Listen to me in this solemn moment. You see, nobody on God's earth, your relationship or lack of it to the Lord Jesus Christ except you. Nobody can say another person is a Christian.

I think I will say, I tell you that that fellow, go, he's a gracious young man. So nice to visit and preach. You know, I believe he's saved. That's as far as I can go. I know he's saved. Oh, it's just between you and God, honey.

If you're interested, it might be well for you to do what the scripture said. Let a man examine himself. I can't examine you. God sure has gone to a lot of trouble to induce you to seek the Lord. Unless my arithmetic's wrong, this sounds like this whole, what this thing's all about.

He created the world. He fixed the place where we live. He gave us everything we've got. For one thing, seek the Lord. If we do not spend our lives doing that, we've missed the boat. We've missed the boat, brother.

Persevering in Christ and Experiencing Salvation

New Testament doesn't know anything about this stuff they call salvation, where you got saved and that settled it. New Testament knows about tasting of Christ and coming back the next day for another taste, of eating him today and coming back tomorrow for another meal.

Talking with him and enjoying him, bless God. In the book of Psalms, deepest Christianity in the Old Testament, given early in the morning, I will see the water. Even so, I can't ask to be the living.

I've stuffed pigs that have been told that they've been converted. Might be caught every day of their life. But men and women who've tasted of him and he's good. Never get too much of seeking. He's the face they want to look into the first thing in the morning.

They want to see as they close their eyes. Men seek the Lord because God commands it. The whole thing's about it. But in this desperate day, I bid you seek the Lord. Seek a vital meeting with him, Jesus Christ, who when we were here in the days of this flesh would say, thy sins be forgiven thee.

Go thy way in peace and sin no more. He's alive and he still speaks to me and grants to them the knowledge and consciousness that their sins are forgiven. He still speaks peace that the world cannot give nor take away.

And you are a fool if you'll take anybody's word for it except his. Don't you call yourself a Christian until he gives you the knowledge your sins are forgiven. Don't you call yourself a Christian until he speaks peace to your troubled soul.

He still does it, brother. He's alive. He's alive and he still deals with seeking men. In this day of presumption, when we substituted salvation by decision for what's been all the time salvation by revelation, faith is Christ made real in death.

And this is a day not of faith but of presumption. I asked you if you're a Christian immediately you'll tell me something you've done, but I didn't ask you what you've done. I asked if you as a Christian.

A Christian is the product of God's grace. Christian is a result of something God's done. He's always the giver. All we can be is the receiver. But there's no merit in receiving a gift, is there? And you wouldn't brag about your receiving it, would you?

Well, why don't you cut it out? That time somebody asks if you say, oh yes, I said to you Christ my Father's Savior. Nobody asked you what you did. Ask you whether God's done anything or not. Your language betrays you, dear one.

You're depending on what you did. It ain't worth a dime. It's what he did and what he is that counts, isn't it? I bet you if in our churches we quit claiming the credit for saving ourselves, the glory might start giving the glory where it's due to God.

And men and women say I'm a Christian because God saved me. All I did was to benefit. He did all the work, all the dying. All I could do is the receiving, ain't it? But we've been bragging about it. We're saying it because we accepted Christ.

But salvation is by God's revealing of Christ through the Spirit, through the Word to your soul. And the decision that the Bible demands, we'll bring that message Friday night, Christ the Great Demanded, is in response to the reveal of Christ.

What you dear folks have done, you've accepted an unknown Christ. He's never been revealed to your heart. You took him on Mama, say so, or the preacher. And there's no power in your life because you don't have Christ.

But faith is Christ revealed to your inmost being, and you know it, and you experience it, and you taste it. This is the day of presumption, not the day of faith. This is the day when men and women accept the one thing God ordained for you to seek, and that's the Lord.

Faith Comes Through Hearing the Word

Men have been taught that the sinner has the ability to believe of his own will. Thus we do not call on men to seek Christ, but the sinner does not have the ability to believe in Christ. God's got to make him able.

He does it as you hear the Word. That's so, my friend. You better seek him. He alone purchased saving faith for his people. It's his to give. He bought it with his blood. You haven't got it. Seek him, and cry to God.

You said just pray, and that's a good way to get saved. Good way to get saved. By this generation, people have been taught that God's done his part. Now it's up to you. That's a lie out of here. God's done his part.

Thank God for it. He's still working. But it is to you. All on God's earth you can do is to seek, but you can't save yourself. You can't give yourself faith. You can't work repentance in your heart. That's the reason whether we have a crowd or whether we don't, we're going to be preaching every week.

Why this church, why this government, pastor, going to all this trouble. We know what we're up against. Ain't nobody got time to get saved now. It'd be a miracle if anybody does, always has been. You've got so many irons in the fire, you're just going to have to go to hell.

Haven't got time to listen to God now. I know what I'm talking about. I know what I'm talking about. We'll have time to get in the crowd. Half of you won't be back. You'll have to go pick your somewhere tomorrow night.

You ain't got time to get saved, but listen to me. We're going to keep on because the only way on God's earth anybody ever is able to believe on Jesus Christ is through the hearing of the word of God.

It's a miracle, God. That old boy's carrying and he keeps on listening and a miracle. Like Lydia says, the God's word puts in a miracle. Hath he born of the incorruptible what? Word of the living God.

It's a miracle, isn't it? We're not hard-shelled. We don't believe people are saved apart from the hearing of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're not free whalers. We don't believe that a fellow make up his mind, believe I'll take Jesus.

No, sir. We're in the hands of God who delighteth in mercy and takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked and went to the trouble of creating a world and fixing the place where you live and giving you everything you got, hanging his head on a cross, raising from the dead, sending the Holy Ghost and establishing this church and sending the gospel out.

So you seek the Lord. You feel after him. You might find him, though he's not far from you, just as far as your faith is. That poor woman is having a premillennial conference in the city of Jerusalem, discussing whether or not she's going to take the four, the place before, during the acts of tribulation.

The Bible, teachers, people with the notebooks was all there. And they're just crowding the Lord. And the little old woman that had suffered at the hands of many physicians, she said, if I could just get to him and touch the hem of his garment, I'd be made whole.

And somehow or another, he pressed through that gang of religious Bible students, never did intend to pass it on to somebody else. A lot of people were some sinners just want to be smart. Seek him, he's the giver of all.

Seeking Christ with Supreme Desire

Shall sinners seek the Lord? Three places. They are the same, but I approach them in three different ways. Where shall a sinner seek the Lord? Seek him at the place of supreme desire. You'll never find him unless you want him supremely.

Want him. Not this damnable stuff about getting something out of him, but wanting him. Not this business of using him as a fire escape from hell, but seeking him. He's the lily of the valley. He's the bright morning star.

He's the fairest of 10 ,000. Everybody ought to know who Jesus is. Seek him. Seek him. I wish we could get to the people. I guess it's too late. I guess this generation's bound to go to hell. This is God's world.

God's purposes cannot be defeated. I'm happy in the Lord. If you're not in him, I'd love for you to be in him, but I can't put you in Christ with the Holy Spirit. Christ will not share you with anything else.

You'll seek him with all your heart or you'll never know him. In the day thou shall seek me with all thine heart, I shall surely be found with thee. Seek him. Seek him. If you ever find him, the words I quoted a while ago will be yours.

You'll know that he sought you before you ever sought him. But you needn't worry about that now. You seek him with all your heart. You haven't got time to do that, have you? Most folk, the place of supreme desire.

Old Job is Oh, where is he? That I may find him. He's right there at the end of your seeking him with at the place of supreme desire. Everything is today. Seeking him shall sell everything up. God will do anything.

Says the merchantman of that parable to find that pearl. If you ever want to come into a vital union with the Lord Jesus Christ, he'll become the object of your supreme search. Seek him where? On holy ground I am now.

Seek him prostrate at the feet of a sovereign God. Not dictating, but I mean stretched out. You'll bargain with him. Him but redeeming grace and faith. Knowing he alone can give it, you can't. There's danger there.

Seek with fear and trembling of the sovereign God and an unworthy sinner. But praise God. The sovereign God that ruleth in the heavens is a redeeming God who so loved the world that he hung his only begotten son on a cross.

Seek him like the drunken man reeling to and fro coming to wit's end corner. Nowhere else to go. Lord God, I got no claims. I'm swapping things. If thou wilt, make me whole. The pastor said, the dear Lord said to him, I will.

I think he said it to me. He might say it to you. You don't have to. Seek him where? At the place of supreme desire. Seek him where? Prostrate at the feet of a sovereign God, but to live in his hands at his mercy.

He can do what he pleases. Is that all right? Did you know, my friends, that a hundred years ago, if you wished to become a member of any Baptist church in America, you stood up on your hind legs at the front of the altar and they asked you this question, are you willing to be sent to hell if it'll bring glory to God?

Unless they were willing to be sent to hell, if that'd bring glory to God, they weren't received as members. You'll never be saved until you quit trying to use God and just surrender to him. The archbishop of Canterbury, two archbishops removed, made this graphic statement in his soul.

The only people who walk the streets of glory in heaven are the people who are willing to be sent to hell. The only unselfish act you have ever performed, if you have, is when you stood before God, not demanding, not claiming, but willing, redeeming God to do with you as it seemed good in his sight.

You can be unselfish. You better listen to this old preacher telling you the truth, honey. You better throw away your claims and demands, and you better submit yourself to the mercy of a God who can do with you as he pleases.

Only cry his Lord if thou wilt, you can, you don't have to, I got no claim on you. Who knows, he may say I will. David, be thou whole. Seek him where? Seek him in the last place in the appointed way. Two men went up to the temple to pray.

Coming to God Through the Cross

One of them prayed in the appointed way with his face toward Jerusalem. How do we do it now? We turn our face toward Calvary, and you can't bypass the cross, no you can't bypass the throne. On the merits of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and make him your divine wonderful Lord.

Instead of bitterness you've got peace. As Henny would say, many went away declaring they were comforted by the Lord. Take nobody else's word for it, except his. Come to the altar of the cross, that's the only altar there is, but don't trust the altar.

Come by way of the blood of Christ, the broken body of Christ, that's the altar. And stay there looking into the face of him on the throne until does, he's not believing some facts, salvation is being united to a person.

Stay there until they have been made one. How long will it take? I don't know, maybe a second, maybe 40 years, okay. Seek him until you're joined to him. For you can't have the benefits of the shed blood without having him.

Amen. This is Jesus, you're in key. Let's sing that old song. You got any book you reckon? Number 257, let's stand and sing it, will you? 257, redeemer, blood bought this world, he can do as it is he pleases.

This verse of scripture is true. He's about your doctrine of your peculiar beliefs, ragging on Jesus, the waitress, the body just with you.