DO 2164 4/85—And About Beards & Shaving!

1. IN DANIEL 7:9 IT'S TALKING ABOUT THE JUDGEMENT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MILLENNIUM, & IT TELLS YOU WHO IS SITTING ON THE THRONE! "AND THE ANCIENT OF DAYS DID SIT!" Who's this? (Fam: God.) "Whose garment was white as snow & the hair of His head like the pure wool." Why in our Posters do we make our representation of God to look like a man? Well, here He is, pictured right in the Bible! How are you going to get a concept of God as electricity & Love & the Power of the Universe? For little ones you've got to make a picture of it, even for you! So God Himself made a picture of Himself here as the Father‚ telling how He was clothed & what He looked like with a big white beard & white hair, looking very ancient‚ very old. Right? So are we justified in having our artists paint this type of concept of God in our pictures?—Yes!

2. THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE WHO ARE VERY OPPOSED TO THIS CONCEPT, THEY HATE THE CATHOLICS, THEY HATE CATHOLICISM, THEY HATE IMAGERY, they hate idols, they even hate pictures of Jesus! They don't think you should even draw pictures of Jesus. Did you know there are fanatical people like that in the World?—Believe it or not! I've known Protestants like that in the United States who wouldn't even have a picture in the house because they said, "It's idolatry, graven images, you're worshipping them‚ blah blah!"

3. THANK GOD FOR PICTURES! I'M SO THANKFUL THAT THEY HAD SUNDAY SCHOOL PICTURES IN MY SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASSES to give me some kind of an idea, an impression, of Jesus & the Disciples & Mary & God, the Apostles & all the rest! To a small child's mind, you've got to have some kind of concept, some picture, some imagination, some idea of what they might have looked like! It helps a child to understand. It helps them understand much better if they can see a picture of it.

4. SO THAT'S WHY GOD SAID HE GAVE US THESE VISIONS! God Himself said it to us! And He said He reserved it for us, this ministry of pictures! So don't tell me it's not of God! But there will be people who will be opposed to it, maybe even some of our own people who are a little sceptical, a little critical. "Huh! Well, how does he know that's the way it was? How does he know that's the way it's going to be? How does he know that's what it looked like, blah blah?" Well, for one thing I've been There! I never saw a vision of Jesus but once, but we're trying to make Him look as much like my vision, along with John's vision of Him, as we can, as well as a concept of God given right here in the Bible as being an old man in a long white robe with white hair & beard!

5. ISN'T THE BEARD PART OF THE HAIR OF A MAN? "The hair of His head", that includes the hair on His chin, right? In the Seventh Day Adventists' Bible Story books they have an awful lot of clean-shaven short-haired people. They were trying to be ultra-conservative, because in the day when those books were written it wasn't popular to have beards or long hair. Everybody was clean-shaven & close-cut, all the nice people‚ especially the church people! Anybody with a beard‚ you looked at them like‚ "What kind of a weirdy-beardy is this, anyway?"

6. ISN'T IT FUNNY? ALL THOSE YEARS THAT I WAS SHAVING FROM THE TIME I WAS A TEENAGER‚ IT NEVER EVEN OCCURRED TO ME TO GROW A BEARD! It was just the custom & you were told to shave. Right up through the days of World War 2 a man was supposed to be clean-cut, clean-shaven‚ Burma shaved. And all the highway signs down the road told you you'd never be happy, you'd never find love‚ you'd never have a girl even give you a second look if you weren't perfectly clean-shaven. All the nice people, the church people, the good people, the heroes, the soldiers, were all clean-shaven & had close–cut cropped hair.

7. IN FACT, THEY USED TO HAVE THESE BURR CUTS IN THE MILITARY. When you first got in the army they nearly shaved your head as well as told you to keep shaving! They didn't allow you to grow beards or anything. A few of them got away with moustaches, that's about all. You weren't allowed! It was against the culture! Against the rules! Against good behaviour! Against churchianity for a man not to shave or let his hair grow long. Isn't that funny?

8. AND YET IN ALL THOSE PICTURES IN SUNDAY SCHOOL, ALL THE APOSTLES & JESUS HAD LONG HAIR & BEARDS! It's all right for Jesus & the Apostles, but a sin for church men! And that was fairly recent too, because at the turn of the century beards were still quite popular. They even had a saying that a kiss without a moustache was like potatoes without gravy! The women loved beards! They wanted a man to be manly!

9. THERE ARE WOMEN TODAY THAT GLARE WITH HATE AT MEN WHO HAVE BEARDS! You know why?—It's the one thing a woman can't do! These Women Libbers want to be men, they want to dominate the men, & there's one thing they cannot do & they hate, is seeing a man's beard, because they can't grow beards! Well, I saw a woman in a sideshow once that had a beard, but she was a freak! She had too many male hormones or something. Nowadays they would probably have had a sex change & she'd have turned herself into a man! They can do that sort of thing today in operations & blah blah & give them overdoses of male hormones & grow beards & moustaches & everything.

10. WHEN I WAS YOUNG YOU SAW QUITE A FEW MASCULINE WOMEN IN THOSE DAYS WHO HAD PRETTY HEAVY MOUSTACHES, BELIEVE IT OR NOT! Some of you might even be inclined to that yourselves, I don't know. You must keep'm pretty close-shaven, I don't notice it. But some women have rather heavy hair on their upper lip, which shows they got a little extra dose of masculinity or male hormones‚ & usually they're very strong personalities. Most of them I've ever known that had that heavy hair there were strong personalities & make good leaders. So don't knock it!—But you don't have to grow it, you can still shave.

11. BUT IT NEVER EVEN OCCURRED TO ME TO NOT SHAVE, BECAUSE IT WAS THE CUSTOM. And I believed all the signs in the ads, that I was never going to get a girl to kiss me if I wasn't nice & smooth & clean-shaven! It said that they didn't want to kiss a scrub brush or a wire brush or something like that.

12. WELL, I'LL TELL YOU, SOME GUYS REALLY DO HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THEIR BEARDS THAT ARE VERY HEAVY. Poor Big Josh, he was that way! It just actually was agony for him to shave. His beard was heavy & bushy & wirey & tough! He sometimes had to use two blades for one shave! Guys like that, they wear out one blade in one shave! So shaving for some men can be quite a problem, but in general we advocate it nowadays to fit in better with the System!—And not attract undue attention.