Hold Fast to That Which You Have — John Follette

Surrendering the Will to God

Which every Christian that's moving with God should do. First beginners don't know much about it, but they will find it if they follow on. When you make your decision, say, let thy will be done. I accept it, Lord.

Here's mine. Now I want just your will wrought out in my life. Now always remember, when you surrender your will to God, that he should work. That always includes, I call it two bones, two little bundles we bring to Him.

The will is just like that. In it are the things which we know, and in the other are things we do not know. You get that or don't you? We surrender things which we do not know because we haven't come to it.

But in our will, we have said, all right, Lord, yes. So when the decision is rather pinching, he says, didn't you make a surrender of your will to me? Oh, yes, Lord, I want to do your will. Well, this is it.

Well, I never knew. No, of course you didn't. Because when you made your surrender, I didn't put out as a panorama before you all the things that's gonna be included in it. He did with me. Did he with you?

No, he did not. You gave your surrender, and you made a discovery in the panorama of all the things. Some of them clicked beautifully, and other of them, it clicked horribly. You see, because we had to say, all right, Lord, that's right, I've made my decision, but I didn't know it was coming this way.

Well, he said, you said yes. So we say, help me in this adjustment. I really don't want my way, but Lord, I see it now. Help me over this. He says, I don't blame you for seeing the difference. I don't expect you to come through life without ever making another decision or having another battle or wading through another difficulty.

I don't expect that at all. I expect that you have now made this decision to follow along with me. And when it comes to the things you don't know, I can reveal them. People don't know that, and so, you see, they make their, settled in God, they've made their choice forever.

I have made my choice forever. Remember we used to sing that? Yes, that's true. We've made our choice forever. How many of you think you know all the things that come in that choice? No, you don't. You've chosen his will, but you and I don't know what's included in that will.

We always think in the positive side that they're all the delicious things. I've chosen the will of God. There is heaven. And my sins forgiven and everything. Isn't that lovely? Just the sweet will of God, and all of a sudden, God comes down and says, this is my will also.

Christ Pursues the Lost Sheep

So, like that, this is the sheep. He's gone astray. He's gone out of the fold, and he's wandered way off in his subtle form of self-will. Not that he gets out, but now that he's out of the fold, here he is, lost, and he's rambling around toward the mountainside.

But the Lord sees that, and then he pursues us. Oh, how he pursues us. He just comes after us, after us, after us, hunting, hunting, hunting. Well, he pursues us long after our initial pursuit has been accomplished.

Long after he has brought us into salvation. How do you know he still pursues you? Don't worry. If he isn't on your track, there's something dead wrong somewhere. You're either asleep or petrified. I don't know which one.

He is always pursuing. He is always after us. To get us saved? No, no, no, no, no, no. This pursuing element is always present in God. Whether we are still to be pursued as a lost sheep or afterward, because he wants more of us and to do more in us.

Therefore, he still keeps coming. Behold, I stand at the door and knock, is the eternal picture of the Lord's attitude. Eternally at your door. That's this. So he pursues this sheep. And we find that finally he discovers it.

And then the reaction is so wonderful. He picks it up, poor, poor, strangled, broken thing. And he said, you dirty sheep. You know that you should have been in the bowl. Why in the world did you get out there?

Now look where you've gotten. Now I've got a mess on my hand. And he took his stick and he gave it a good beating. And the sheep always remembered after that that he was not to leave the foal. And all of us said, what a sweet story.

Well, no, that's about the way people would do. These people who are so afraid that people won't have what belongs to them. That sinner, that backslider. They're so afraid. Have you ever met them? They're always, they come to me sometimes.

They're so afraid that that person isn't going to get his comeuppance. We'll leave that to God. He knows how to do it. We couldn't measure out what was good for him. God does that. Well, he ought, no.

Now let God do it. It doesn't say anything about licking this sheep at all. He can't treat him from that angle. He's going to treat the son from another angle entirely. However, they are just different aspects of the same person, this person.

This is the sheep aspect of our being. The self-will of a man that's born and voters draggling on, following his own inclinations in nature and in flesh. And what do you find? He's lost. He's complete.

But he comes pursuing us and he gets us, places us on his shoulder and he's so rejoicing that he calls his neighbors in for the festivity. And he says, the sheep that I've lost, I've found. Now, that's Jesus, isn't it?

Sure. That's the good shepherd. He has found every one of us in the sheep relation. In the sheep relation, he's found us. People, the whole world is like that. So he said, if you want to know how God feels toward lost things, I'll tell you this story that goes into this threefold picture.

This is late night, we won't go out too much with this sheep, but how you can see a lovely field in there for your study. Get your Old Testament pictures, then get Jesus' dealings with the sheep. And I am the shepherd and I am the door.

Oh, it's all so beautifully there, that whole field. Now he changes the type of the thing. Now he changes it. And he says to them, I'll show you how God feels toward the lost in another story. Either, now if you want to look at this another way, this is another way.

Either, if you don't see it that fashion, either look at it this way then. Either, here are two, three ways to look at it. If the sheep doesn't appeal to you, you don't know about sheep, sheep language, I'll tell you now in another passage.

The Lost Coin and Rejoicing in Restoration

Either, either what? Either what woman, having 10 pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, does not light a candle and sweep the house and see diligently till she find it. And when she has found it, she calls her friends and her neighbors together saying, rejoice with me.

How many of you get your rejoicing again? It's always with this sense of rejoicing. There was rejoicing when he got the sheep. Rejoice with me, for I have found the peace which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God.

Over one sinner, that repented. Now that's good. Now we have another story. Probably Vera could help us some of it too because she's been in the Orient, especially in Palestine. And you have seen them, this headdress that the woman in the house will wear.

And usually the olden days had 10 pieces. I won't let me do it anymore. The old, old order was 10 pieces of silver to decorate her headpiece. And of course they have this elaborate front too of decoration.

They do that in India too. And the reason they do it, I don't know, perhaps in Palestine alone, but they do in India. The woman in this hall has chains and beads and jewels and all, oh, till it's just like a great big network that's hanging about her neck.

Now that is her wealth. That is a display of her wealth. That's what she has. It's put in money. I have seen them myself in India where they will take that chain and go to the silversmith and have it hammered now and joined, soldered on, so she can't take it off nor can anyone snatch it from her.

I've seen that. Now this is her wealth. And there's this suggestion in it when Paul is teaching about what? The display of your wealth, this jewelry, all of this finery, which is a display of your natural stuff.

He says, not that, but let the adornment be well. His spiritual inner grace. He doesn't care if you're wearing a breast pin or seven strings of beads. I don't think he's half interested in the stuff that most people are fussing with.

I really don't. I really don't. Because he's dealing with spiritual values. And so he said, don't have this decoration. Like these, in India they did it. They had these lovely decorations of their, that was their wealth.

And they were saying to the world, I'm worth so much. How many know flesh will do that with their decoration? Not of jewels, but I mean the other display, or don't you? How many know flesh can display its wealth beside beads and breast pins?

I have seen women who display a terrific display of self when they wouldn't wear a string of beads or a breast pin. I have. They couldn't wear a breast pin, they couldn't wear beads, but there was a display continually of most terrific self.

Which do you think was more annoying to the Lord? Oh, no. What he saw, what he saw. Now this woman has, and it's a type of their marriage, isn't it? Do you remember? It's a type of their marriage. And these 10 pieces of silver are a part of her marriage, like your wedding ring would be.

It's a token to the people about them that she's a married woman and she wears this. That is in the olden days. I don't know if some of it hangs on yet, I guess in Palestine you can see them yet with their bangles on them.

Well, it originally started with the fact that that was a part of a token of marriage. Now get that. How many see it? It has now to do with a token of marriage. Of marriage. How many can see the teaching of the bride coming up?

Betrothal to Christ and the Bridegroom

Or can't you see it? Can you get it? How many can see the church is the bride? Can you get it? She is what? Betrothed to. She's betrothed to. There will be a loss even in that field. Even in that field.

Not just a sheep, but he says this woman has her headgear and 10 pieces of silver, which is the token of her betrothal and her marriage and her status as a woman. But let that be lost or disfigured. And instantly in the common talk of the women, you know what they think?

Well, they have bad thoughts. Why? Well, that is a sign that there's been a breaking somewhere in their marriage covenant. And a woman who would lose a spangle, she would search, she would do anything on earth to restore it so that her status and her position and her place would be back where it actually belonged.

Now, she loses that. So she searches for it. That's a good word. She searches diligently for it. Even with a broom. Even with a broom to get into every crevice. This is very intricate searching. But she finds it and she says, rejoice with me.

I have found my silver piece that I am actually in touch. My status is still maintained. Everything is well, everything is good. Now, when you come back to see what we're teaching, he's teaching a lostness, not only in a sheep, not only in a coin, but he's telling it to us.

There is a betrothal of the soul. You know that. How many know the heavenly rite? There's a betrothal. We're betrothed unto God. Well, whenever we lose anything which would bear the symbol of that, why, that's a tragedy.

How many get that contact, that communion, that fellowship, that understanding of the bride, when the bridegroom has been injured or distorted or absolutely broken? How many see that's a silver? That's a silver coin that's lost.

It's lost. And it has to be found at a restoration. Yisrael was the bride of Jehovah. And she had in spirit her token of it. She had the spangles in spirit, in symbol, spirit of that relationship. And what happened?

She lost it. She lost it. Through all of her sins and idolatry and all of these other things, she lost that lovely relationship. And that's why we have the story in the Old Testament of the bride, you see.

That's Yisrael in the Old Testament. Now we have the same thing in the New Testament, the church, this lovely church that he's calling this group of people. He says they are like a bride. They will be the bride of the bridegroom.

In our relationship to him, he has given us, we don't look at and count, but he has established a certain relationship between our heart and his heart, which can be symbolized by the tokens which this woman wore, the spangles of her headdress.

If unfortunately, there is a loss of that symbol coming and going, how many can follow me? In our experience, what is it? Then there has to be the searching and the getting down before God, looking into, the desire to find what?

Salvation? No, we're not talking about salvation now. Please don't do that. We're talking about a relationship in the spirit which some way has been lost or forfeited, but which must come back again to its place.

How many remember the story of the song of Solomon? Do you see it there? You remember? Where her communion was broken, don't you remember? Where she lost her silver coin of her headdress? Well, certainly.

And what a time she had of searching for it to have it replaced. Well, now you want an hour in there. You really need an hour in there to make your analogy and find out what God is saying to us as Christians under the symbolism of a betrothal to the bridegroom.

The bride and the bridegroom, the language, the custom, the approach, the message, all of that, and there is in spirit, and it's in our conduct, in our manner, in our approach to him, in our surrender, all of that, we have 10 pieces of silver that bespeak to the heavenly and speak to him of our union with him, that we are betrothed, we are the bride of this Christ.

Holding Fast to the Crown

But he says, watch it carefully. Now, where do you get another one like that? Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. Do you get it? That's the same teaching, only he's putting it over in Revelation under another symbol.

Hold fast that which thou hast, that no one take your crown. Diligence, diligence, watchfulness, carefulness in every way. There, he's putting it under the symbol of a crown. Watch diligently that no one snaps off one of your pieces, yes?

It's interesting, you know, Brother Follett, that in the Greek Orthodox service, the bride and the groom are both crowned, and they call the wedding day a keel.

I had to serve at one with a Greek Orthodox bride to one of our American groom, and she said, Mr. Follett, I want to have something added to my ceremony that isn't customary in America. I'm a Greek Orthodox, and I have to be crowned, and will you please include that?

And she had a floral crown, a lovely floral crown, and was crowned, the same idea. I'm glad you spoke of it, dear. And I said, that's all right. And she had her bridesmaid, and it was quite an elaborate thing.

I was marrying them, and it was American, and I had an American ceremony, of course, and they were married. But she carried over that same idea. The bride, to be crowned, the bride has this symbol of her relationship, a relationship.

And it says, what woman, if she loses one spangle, one coin from her headdress of identification, will not seek diligently until she finds it? And when she does, she rejoices with all of her Christian friends and says, thank God I have a victory.

Thank God I have a great victory. I have found and restored to its place. Now, we'll touch on this a little later. But so far, I want to help him. Well, I think I better not break in on that, because it'll be all broken up.

We go out to dinner, and we can't hook on again. But I want to finish just a little in there, and then I want to get this Project of Sun platform. I want you to see this Prodigal Son. I believe as God would have us to see him, and not as tradition has usually painted him.

Tradition, Religious Images, and Mary

How many know tradition can pervert the whole teaching that God has for us by traditional pictures and patterns? Yes, they do. That's why I'm awfully wary about pictures and things that you use to teach children.

A child's mind is very open. It's very open. And if you push out of that mind a thing which is not really correct, how many know it'll carry through life with just that thing? I'll close with this, this always annoys me.

Of course, they do it to pay honor to the Lord. They think they're paying great honor to him. I don't think he thanks them for it any more than the Virgin Mary thanks people for having all this paraphernalia that's been dragged around about her.

How many think Virgin Mary appreciates it? I think if she knew anything about it, she'd drop dead because she's not that type of woman at all, not at all. But you see, in their devotion, in their desire, in their, oh, you know, love and devotion, they'll do anything most.

So they have built all about her, all this paraphernalia, which doesn't have any at all of scriptural basis, and not the least, but it has become a religious sentimentality, a religious sentiment, an emotion of the natural flesh trying to push up into a religious realm, a spiritual realm, and they've got all of that.

That doesn't belong to her, has nothing to do with her, not at all, not at all. We are to respect her and remember her with love, thank God for her, that's all. Says she's to have that from all flesh, all humanity, is to recognize her, she is the mother of Jesus, not the mother of God, she's the mother of Jesus.

Don't get that all twisted up. She's the mother of his humanity, of his human form. He is born of God, God is the father. Well, how can God the father, who brought the virgin in, how could she be the mother of God who is doing all this?

You know, it's such a nonsensical thing. She's the mother of the humanity, she's the mother of Jesus, God is the father. Well, that's been a big build up. Of course, when the Catholics and the children are brought up with that, that they're bedridden, they see it morning, noon, and night, and it's very difficult to deliver them from it, but it's a horrible bondage that they have to come out of.

Critiquing Traditional Images of Jesus

Now, we Protestants have just about a bad racket. When you make pictures of Jesus on these chars and these scrolls, why do you persist in making him such a distinct character with a halo about him? And all so that he is so very distinct that you have the sense it is God.

Now, when Jesus walked the earth, no one knew him as the son of God, they did not. He was thought to be the son of Joseph, and was a man just the same as any peasant that walked up and down the hill, exactly the same.

There was nothing distinctive about him that we should want him, Isaiah says so, Isaiah says so. There's nothing in his flesh distinctive that you should desire or want, there wasn't. I can imagine, though, this is my imagination, that he was a very agreeable person, I can see that.

I can see that, you can too. He must have been an agreeable, pleasing personality to accomplish the things that he done, but no one saw him walking around with a light over his head. And no one, no child, no man ever spoke of him as the Lord.

Why? Because they didn't know him as that. It wasn't until almost the end of his career that we remember he called them in, and at last he said, who do folks think I am? Well, if he'd been passing all this time as the wonderful son of God and Savior, how many see that's a silly thing to ask?

They did not know him in that fashion at all. They knew him as a peasant. It was Peter who at last penetrated through and saw that he was not only a man, that's one, he was a prophet, that's two, he saw that he was the Messiah, that is three, and four, he says he is not only a man, a prophet, a Messiah, but he is the son of God.

And Jesus turns to him and says, blessed be thou at last. Flesh and blood has not revealed that to you. You didn't know that from any flesh and blood contact, but God hath revealed it to you. How many see a difference between a revelation and something you just see and look at?

They didn't know it from anything they could look at and touch, but it came as a profound revelation that behind these husks of the natural phenomena shine the lovely truth, radiant, but hidden, hidden.

And so they don't go past that. Then to pay honor to him, they make these pictures and they are so misleading. They are so misleading. He didn't look like that. He had nothing distinctive about him, wearing a white gown and a halo over his head, not at all.

He was supposed to be the son of Joseph like, and you know he is. Now when you find that truth, how do you see it? A lot of our traditional bric-a-brac has to go down. Do you see how it goes down? I want it to.

I would rather have the sense of the consciousness of him as he really was, than to think I have to have this artificial thing. It's what artists do. We call it the idealization. It's the idealization.

The artist or the poet takes that liberty to take that which is not discerned too cleverly or is most commonplace and he idealizes it. He idealizes it. It is idealized. And the same as we do in art, we call conventionalizing.

I mean, you know in art, that's what we do. Perhaps we're gonna make a border here and we're gonna use a tulip or that palm lily. Now we're gonna use that as the motive. That's gonna be the motive for my decoration as I make this freeze.

Do I always put it just exactly as it is? No, you conventionalize it and you will maybe make it quite different, but how do you know it is still a palm lily? It is still a tulip. It is the tulip, conventionalized.

Symbolism in Navajo Art and the Butterfly

In the Indians with the Indians, I have a collection of Navajo rugs and some of them I use when I talk to the schools on different things I say to them. I still have my finger in the school pie. I go to schools and lecture and teach.

I've been doing work in the high school this spring in literature. It's fascinating. I love it. I love that. Then you get some people do something. Well, anyway, I give lectures sometimes on Indian craft, especially the Southwest.

And so I take some of my Indian rugs with me and in their designs, you see, that is all a symbol. Their colors are all symbolic. The moving of the lines are all symbolic. The characters, which they weren't, that's all symbol.

Well, there's one that looks like this. Now we can talk about Indian rugs, but nevermind. Maybe it'll help you. There's one that looks like this. How many have seen it? I think some of you have seen it in Indian work.

Now, do you know what that is? That is a conventionalized butterfly. Do you get the idea of the wings? How many get the idea of the wings? Do you get it? Now, here's his body. How many have seen this?

If it were carried out, it would be wings. Well, now that's a conventionalized butterfly because with the Indians who believe in immortality, use the butterfly as the symbol for he dies, but he's a worm and he comes up and he lives.

How many have seen the perpetuation of the life principle? Now, the Navajos and those Indians, they believe in immortality. They believe you live. You don't die like a dog, you live. And what will they do?

Well, sometimes they bury your things with you so that in the next world, you will have them like the old Egyptians did. And so in symbols with the Navajo, oh, they're fascinating. I love their mountains in there.

Oh, I won't get in there because that's too much, but I teach a lecture from these in their art classes. Sometimes I've gone up to college to their art class and take nothing but this Indian idea. And it's good.

How many know I have to have something as a release or don't you know? I can't stay in the, just in that word, it would over compel me. But sometimes I say, all right. The voice says, go along, go along here, go along.

I said, I'm going now. And I dropped that and I'm over here at school. And I'm working out a lovely scheme with those students and we have a grand old time, just a grand old time. And I'm helping them to see something that's in the mind and heart of a primitive Indian.

Oh, see Indians, dumbbells, they don't know much of anything. Well, I said, now wait just a minute. What they've done dirty things, they smell. Is that only thing you ever think of an Indian, you smell?

Do you know that a lot of white folks smell? Do they ever think that, no, but go to them. Look at his rug. You'd be amazed to know what's in the mind of that Indian squaw as she sits there before her room.

I'll just illustrate just for a minute because I want you to get it. Here we would have say, then I'll come back to this lost point because it's all, it's all, it's all, all. Here's this Indian rug. Now, maybe she'll have, maybe she'll have that here.

Then she has a whole row of this here and then a whole row of this here. And then she maybe has very few circles because that's a very difficult thing to get in weaving. It's all on the geometric, geometric design.

Maybe it's this, all that. Well, how do you know that this side is always like that one? All right. Does she sit down and weave all that? She certainly does not. She sits down before her, her room out under some tree.

And as it's strung up here with all these lines on it, she never would lower herself to make a picture to guide her. She's astounded at American women who do crochet and they look every 10 seconds at her.

She thinks that's the most terrible thing, that they have no minds at all. They're very stupid. That's what she thinks. She says, well, they're profoundly stupid. They have to look every second or two what they're doing.

She doesn't. She never has a pattern of a rug. Well, where's the rug? It's in her head here. I've watched them. I've been down to the reservation. I've watched and seen them and I have the rugs. What does she do?

She starts here and she makes this end of the rug. She gets up to about here. Well, after she's worked just about this far, that is all rolled under on a stick and she continues a little farther. Well, she thinks, now how I did that.

Now, what I wanted next was this. So she starts, well, she can only reach this far because she's sitting on a sheepskin, sits on a sheepskin down here and she can't reach up on there. So she rolls this under so that the work is always immediately before.

Do you get it? It's always immediately before. So she rolls all of this down until she comes to the middle. She comes to the middle here and she's over her rug with all of this intricate working in it and she's got it half done.

Now, she has rolled this all up, you know, till the middle of the rug is way down here again. It's all rolled under till here's the middle of it. Now, what does she do? She has to remember and throw in reverse every bit of the design which she has been so busy making because it's all rolled under and she can't see it.

Now, she's got to remember so that when the rug is finished, all of this is perfectly duplicated here. Here, she has the end of the rug and runs it toward the middle. Now, she starts from the middle and runs it toward the end so that it's balanced.

How do you get that? Well, if you want to do something that's interesting, try one. All of these wise folks who say, the poor, stupid, dumb Indian that always tries me. They're marvelously, wonderfully clever, wonderfully clever.

And there she'll make that rug and now she's weaving. Well, every sign is the symbol. She believes in immortality. What will she have to symbolize it? A butterfly that changes continually, continually, continually changing.

So, she put that in. Now, we'll come back and then we'll go. With this headgear, she has lost it, but she has found it. Now, that's just one phase of this idea of lost business. If you want to take it, you may take it.

To me, a soul that's saved, that won't hurt you. You can take it to mean that it symbolizes the failure on the part of one who has united to the Lord and has lost out, has to have its restoration. How many of you can see that?

And that's the whole story of the Song of Solomon. Then you'll come to the child, or the boy, and I think I'll take him tonight because he's so interesting. But we'll have to look at it as God puts it, not as our tradition.

Reading Biblical Stories Beyond Tradition

Don't think of them in our traditional pattern. Think of them as this. Too much of the things of God have been dissipated and wasted because we have traditional things. They're horrible. There's no real truth in them.

They are traditional, traditional pictures, traditional everything. You can't go by it. When Jesus was here, as we said a little while ago, he looked like a man, like an ordinary man. And John, what does he say?

He was told that the one that the dove would come down light on would be the one. How many of you remember that? Well, if he's so picturesque and known all over as this wonderful shining white son of God, how's it come that John has to have a sign from heaven and he says, the one you see the dove come on, he's the one.

You remember that? Well, why doesn't somebody ever paint that or tell him? I don't know. I do painting. I paint some, but I've never tackled some of the pictures. I'm going to paint the millennium. In the millennium, I'm going to make a series of pictures of the Lord Jesus in attitudes and conditions which have never mentioned.

I'm going to paint that. Now there's one I always like so much and that's with Peter. It always disturbs me. So why when those artists makes the pictures of Peter walking on the water, they can't make one of him walking, but they have him frowning in the water up to here.

Do you remember how he looks frantic and scared and his whiskers are blowing and his hair all torn up and the waves dashing and he's making his last gasp at the Lord. Oh, my back hurts. And then you see the Lord pulling him up.

How many of that picture? That's the common picture. That never was like that at all. How do you know? From the way it reads it. And when he began to sing. Well, when you're up to your neck, how do you know your past began?

How do you know when you're up to your elbows, how do you know your past beganning to sing? No, it says, and when he began to sing, I don't think his feet got worn over his ankles, the water, I really don't.

I don't think that water got over his ankles because that's when he began and Jesus twigged it and sensed his beginning to sing. And he said, stop it. Where's your faith? Now don't do that. Come on. No, he didn't.

It says he reached out his arm and caught him. And then he doesn't look at him talking. He says, oh, vow of little faith. Why don't you continue? You started so well. Well, it's to rebuke. Where is the man when he gets to rebuke?

In the arms of Jesus. He's in the arms of Jesus. Now that's the safe place. And Jesus knew it. He's half scared to death now singing. Then have the Lord say, where's your faith? He'd gone on a sort of.

He didn't try. But you see, he didn't do that. So I love that. So when I paint the picture, I'm going to sort of have in the shadow of where he is just sinking. But that's not the real lovely thing. How did he ever get back to the ship?

The Lord picked him up and carried him in his arms and said, you made an awful failure, this Peter. Now I can't even think of you walking on the water. You made a mess of it. Come here, I'll carry it back.

And he walked on the water and carried Peter. And when he got to the ship, he rolled him over and says, never try that again. No, he didn't. Do you know how he went? I think they went right together. Peter walked on the water.

Oh, well, he started to sing. The pictures, I've seen the pictures of them. Well, I say, what camera did they use? No, you didn't. Now, the reason of that, I think the reason is that, is that this artist wants to show that as a sinner, you are overcome with, you know, the terrible life and all this distress, and there's no salvation except in Jesus, there's no salvation.

And so he puts the man way down in the water as far as he can go and reaches up. And it makes a picture of Jesus saving humanity. It wasn't that, it wasn't that. Now there's a tradition.