Leviticus chapter 21, verses 1 through 6, and
I'm going to begin then on the historical
and the biblical significance of the beard.
I want you to see this from the
Word of God, and then I want you
to think concerning it.
Leviticus chapter 21, beginning with verse 1.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto
the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say
unto them, There shall none be defiled for
the dead among his people, but for his
kin that is near unto him, that is,
for his mother, for his father, for his
son, for his daughter, for his brother, and
for his sister, a virgin that is nigh
unto him, which hath no husband, for her
may he be defiled.
But he shall not defile himself, being a
chief man among his people, to profane himself.
They shall not make baldness upon their head,
neither shall they shave off the corner of
their beard, nor make any cuttings in their
flesh.
They shall be holy unto their God, and
not profane the name of their God.
For the offerings of the Lord made by
fire, and the bread of their God, they
do offer.
Therefore they shall be holy."
Now, this passage is dealing with the priest.
I want you to note, if you would,
God specifically forbids the priest, therefore, to make
any cuttings in his flesh, to make a
tonsure or a roundness on his head, that
is purposefully, and he also forbids him to
round the corners of his beard.
Now, not only is this true of the
priest in general, or particular, it is also
true of the people in general.
For instance, look back in Leviticus 19, verses
26-28.
You shall not eat anything with the blood,
neither shall you use enchantment, nor observe tithes.
You shall not round the corners of your
heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of
thy beard.
You shall not make any cuttings in your
flesh for the dead, nor print any marks
upon you.
I am the Lord."
It might interest you to know that tattooing
is forbidden in the Bible, as well as
mutilating the beard or mutilating the hair on
the head.
Now, let me begin by telling you what
I am not doing this morning.
First of all, I am not trying to
defend my beard.
My beard does not need defending, so I
am not trying to give a defense for
something that I have had for 15 years.
Secondly, I am not trying to bind my
convictions upon your conscience.
What your responsibility is, is to search the
word of God for yourself and to make
application from that word in your own life.
Certainly, as you hear the word taught this
morning, you ought to consider it and make
application as well.
Thirdly, I am not saying that a man
who has a beard is more holy than
one who does not have a beard, and
a man who does not have one is
less holy than a man who does have
one.
I am not saying that at all.
But I am saying that you and I
must deal with the scriptures that God has
given us concerning the beard.
Now, let me tell you what I want
to ask you to do.
First of all, I want to ask you
to do what our Lord says in John
7, verse 24.
I want to ask you to judge righteous
judgment.
Now, there is a difference between judging righteous
judgment and judging unrighteous judgment.
In unrighteous judgment, we go by appearance.
The Bible tells us that the Lord does
not look on the outward form of man
when he looks on the heart.
Most of us just simply look on the
outward form of man.
When we judge by appearance, let me give
you an illustration.
If we say, well, you know how it
is, just a clean-shaven face looks better,
well, I tell you what, let's go down
to the post office and look through all
the wanted posters.
You will be amazed that 90-95%
of the individuals on the wanted posters have
clean-shaven faces.
Therefore, we could conclude, if we are judging
by appearance, that all who have clean-shaven
faces are criminals.
Or at least most of them are.
Which, of course, that would be an unrighteous
judgment.
But I am saying we are not to
judge by appearance, but we are to judge
righteous judgment.
You say, on the other hand, then, well,
a beard oftentimes is associated with hippies.
And that is certainly the truth.
It has been like that for many years.
But that does not mean that a beard
is it wrong in and of itself.
Let's take a lot of the other doctrines
in the Bible.
Let's take, for instance, baptism.
We do know that there are individuals who
teach baptismal regeneration.
That is, that your baptism saves you.
Are we going to throw out the doctrine
of baptism just because some wrongly use it
and pervert it?
Let's take the doctrine of the Lord's Table.
The Roman Catholic Church takes the Lord's Table
and makes it transubstantiation.
They say that the bread and the wine
actually become the body and the blood of
Christ, which is certainly wrong and incorrect and
unbiblical.
Are we going to stop absorbing the Lord's
Table just simply because someone abuses it and
misuses it?
Premarital sex is wrong.
It is fornication.
It is whoremongering.
Are we going to throw out marital sex
just because some abuse it?
Well, of course not.
And likewise, just because there are individuals that
have abused the beard does not mean that
you just simply throw it out.
Incidentally, let me tell you what the going
thing is today, and it has been really
for twenty years now.
The going thing is what is known as
the unisex look.
Have you ever seen barber shops or beauty
shops with the word unisex on it?
Which means that they just cater to making
man and woman look alike as well.
So the thing today is the unisex look.
It is certainly not the beard.
Let me tell you one thing about a
beard.
One thing about a man with a beard
is this.
You can never, ever confuse him with a
woman, because usually speaking women do not have
beards.
Now, there are several things I want to
force you to do this morning if that
word can be used rhetorically.
What do I want to force you to
do?
First of all, I want to force you
to learn to think biblically.
In other words, most of us on any
subject that you throw out, we automatically have
preconceived ideas and we automatically say, well, I
think, or in my opinion, or whatever, and
we give forth our arguments.
What we want to do is to learn
to think biblically, this is what God says
about it.
The second thing I would like to force
you to do is to see that not
only is a beard not prohibited in the
word of God, but it is in reality
enjoined in the word of God.
Thirdly, I want to point out that the
problem today, especially with pastors, is that a
beard is a taboo.
Not God's taboo, but it is man's taboo.
We've got to come back to the place
where our consciences are bound only to the
word of God.
Let me just make one statement, and I'm
not going to get into this a great
deal.
If you study Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians
8, you learn a great deal about Christian
liberty.
There are a great many things in there.
The Apostle Paul tells us that we have
liberty of conscience to do.
By that, I do not mean sin.
No man has the right to sin.
Sinning is not liberty, sinning is licentiousness.
But when Paul talks about Christian liberty, he's
talking about things that are not sinful in
and of themselves, and he's also talking about
things on which men's consciences do not uniformly
agree.
And a beard, certainly, is one of those
things.
Men do not universally agree on the beard.
In fact, I know preachers who will tell
you, and I have heard them with my
own ears, say that it is downright ungodly
for a man to have a beard, which
is a false statement, an unbiblical statement.
But I'm just simply pointing out that there
are some who disagree, but they have not
studied the word of God, I can assure
you right now.
But in Christian liberty, the word of God
warns us not to be a stumbling block
to the weaker brother.
The interesting thing is, the word stumbling block
there is skandalos.
It's where we get our English word, scandal,
from.
And the skandalos was actually a trapstick.
It was a bit stick that was set
on a trap that the animal triggered, and
when the animal triggered it, the cage fell
down upon the animal and he was ensnared,
he was trapped, he was scandalized, so to
speak.
God warns us not to be a scandal
or a stumbling block to our brothers.
However, you have to read in the context,
and to be a stumbling block, you have
to encourage someone to do the same thing
that you're doing without having your knowledge.
That is what the word offense means in
the Bible.
We have taken the word offense and we
have perverted it and misused it.
We hear someone say, well, I'm offended at
that.
What they literally mean when they say that
is, I don't like it, or it upsets
me, or it makes me mad.
But when the Bible uses the term offense,
that we're not to offend our brother, we're
not to cause him to stumble, it means
that we're not to encourage him to do
the same thing that we're doing without having
our knowledge.
In fact, I had a woman come to
me one time when I first grew my
beard, and she said, I'm offended at your
beard.
I said, lady, you can't be offended at
my beard, because you couldn't do what I
was doing even if you had my knowledge.
So you have to understand what biblical offense
is.
The real problem is this.
Our consciences from our youth have been misinformed
and mistaught.
One of the hardest things that you as
a Christian will ever do is to re
-instruct and re-teach your own conscience in
things that you study from the Word of
God you find not to be sin, and
not to be wicked, and not to be
wrong, because your conscience will then begin to
scream and you'll have to say, just shut
up, I'm not going to listen to you.
God's Word says it's not sin, and I'm
going to listen to God's Word.
There is not a preacher, there is not
a Christian, there is not a scholar around
that can show one verse in the Bible
that is against a beard, not one verse.
By the way, let me point out that
a beard, just to begin with, is a
public and a private testimony.
You say, what in the world do you
mean by that?
Well, I mean it's a private testimony every
time you look in the mirror, because you
remember and recognize why God gave you that
beard.
And it can be a public testimony, because
I have had a tremendously large number of
individuals ask me about it, especially when I
first started growing the beard about fifteen years
ago.
I would be sitting in a restaurant and
I would have people come up and ask
me about the beard and I would have
an opportunity to sit down and witness to
them for thirty or forty minutes.
But now, let me point out, to begin
with this morning, the historical significance of the
beard.
Do you realize that you can look at
history and see the rise and fall of
Biblicism, that is, the rise and fall of
the influence of the Bible upon men and
women, or the lack of influence of the
Bible upon men and women, by studying the
beard?
It's an interesting phenomenon.
Did you know that Egypt was the only
nation in antiquity that forbade by law a
man to wear a beard?
And interestingly enough, the symbolism of Egypt is
that it is everything that is against God
and against the Bible.
Egypt signifies humanism personified.
But Egypt was the only nation that forbade
by law a man to wear a beard.
But isn't it interesting, and I don't know
if you have ever noticed it or not,
but on all the sculptors and on all
the steles and on all of the things
that show the pharaohs, it always shows them
with a false beard.
Now, when I say false beard, I've got
material here if you want to see some
of this.
I don't know that I've got one large
enough just simply to hold up to see.
But you will see a picture of a
beard coming down from the pharaoh's chin, and
then you will see the string going up
around his ears where the beard is tied
on.
Now, why in the world would they forbid
by law for a man to wear a
beard, and yet at the same time, when
the pharaoh's sculptor was being made, it was
always made with a false or a fake
beard?
Well, I think you will see that just
a little bit later.
Let me go ahead and point something else
out.
Usually, any false god that you see represented
in any of the hieroglyphics or any of
the steles or any of the artifacts, usually
the false gods are always clean-shaven.
Let me tell you what the Council of
Carthage in 200 A.D., a church council,
said concerning immodest dress.
Are you listening?
Ladies, I want you to make sure you
hear this.
This is immodest dress in 200 A.D.
The Council of Carthage said, any man who
appears in church with long hair and a
clean-shaven face will be excluded from communion,
for that man is immodestly dressed.
So the early church said a man with
long hair and a clean-shaven face would
be immodestly dressed.
Tertullian, the early church father, went on to
write his treatise on the beard and said
the main purpose was to keep down lust.
Interestingly enough, all of the early church fathers
spake concerning the beard.
The fourth Council of Carthage in 398 A
.D. gave this decree.
The clergyman shall not let his hair grow
nor remove his beard.
So there were church laws that indicated that
a pastor especially was obligated to have a
beard.
In fact, all men had beards in Bible
time.
When the barbarian hordes took Rome, they had
long hair and they had clean-shaven faces.
When those barbarian hordes took over Rome, the
Roman church was what we called Romanized, and
that is when the priests began to have
a clean-shaven face and they began to
wear the tonsure, which is the round bald
spot that is shaved in the back of
their head.
Incidentally, that was also in worship of the
sun god.
But during this particular time when the barbarians
took over Rome, when Rome fell, you can
see the effect of humanism because men then
had long hair and clean-shaven faces.
Then came the Reformation, and when the Reformation
came on, there was a resurgence of biblical
truth.
If you will study and look at the
Reformers, the Reformers all had beards and short
hair.
That continued up until the period of the
Enlightenment.
When the Enlightenment came in, which was nothing
more than the Renaissance, which was humanism, the
short hair and the beards went back out
and the long hair and clean-shaven faces
came in.
In fact, that was during the French Revolution.
In fact, it affected our own colonies because
George Washington, the father of our country, wore
what was his hairstyle?
Someone tell me.
Not a wig, a pigtail.
He wore a pigtail, and that was the
effect of the Enlightenment even upon our country.
But later on, after Washington, beards came back
in and the long hair went out, and
up until about the Civil War, the men
had beards again.
Look at Robert E.
Lee, look at Stonewall Jackson, look at Jeb
Stuart, look at all the men during that
time, and you will see they had short
hair and they had nice flowing beards.
Now, that continued up until the turn of
the century.
At the turn of the century, when German
liberalism and modernism came in, it went right
back then to the long hair and the
clean-shaven face, and it's been all that
time up until now.
In fact, today you have the unisex look.
Now, that's just a brief history concerning the
beard, showing the rise and fall of it.
Let me just begin now by telling you,
secondly, the beard is assumed in Scripture.
Now, the beard is like the doctrine of
God.
The doctrine you never find in the Bible
where the Bible tries to prove the existence
of God.
The Bible just assumes God is.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and
the earth.
And so likewise in the Bible, the beard
is assumed.
It is true there is no definite command
to grow the beard.
In fact, you don't have to have a
command to grow the beard.
The beard on a man is going to
grow regardless.
But although there is no definite command to
grow a beard, there are definite commands to
regulate that beard.
The interesting thing is this.
Those Hebrew rulers were called elders.
The Hebrew word for elder is zakin, and
it came from the Hebrew word zakon, which
means beard.
In other words, the word elder literally means
bearded ones.
The elder got his name from his beard.
So if a pastor is an elder, in
which the Bible teaches that, then of course
it has reference to a beard.
Now, what about the value of the beard?
Don't lose me, because we're fixing to start
turning into Bibles and Scriptures like you wouldn't
believe in just a moment.
What about the value of the beard?
Let me give you several quotes.
For instance, here is a quote from the
Universal Encyclopedia.
The Semites looked upon the beard as the
glory and the pride of man.
Similarly, another statement is, the glory of the
face is the beard.
Now, I want you to listen very carefully
as I give you a paragraph from Calumet's
Dictionary of the Bible, and listen to what
he said.
It's interesting, and by the way, if you
want to look through this, I only have
about 15, 20, 30 sheets just dealing with
this subject.
But listen as I quote from Calumet's Dictionary
of the Bible.
Among them, that is the Semites, the Hebrews,
it is more infamous for anyone to have
his beard cut off than among us to
be publicly whipped or branded with a hot
iron.
So the worst thing that you could do
now to a Hebrew or to a Semite
was to cut off his beard.
Now listen to it.
Many men in that country would prefer death
to such a punishment.
The wives kiss their husbands' beards and children
their fathers' beards when they come to salute
them.
The men kiss one another's beards reciprocally when
they salute in the streets or come from
a journey.
Now, wait a minute.
Let me stop there.
I told you a while ago that there
are some things in the Bible that you
can't understand without understanding the significance of the
beard.
Now, here is a statement from the Bible
Dictionary saying that women kiss their husbands' beard,
children kiss their fathers' beard, men kiss each
other's beards as they met in the street,
that is, friends, close loved ones, or when
they came from a long journey.
Can anyone think of any scriptures in the
New Testament that this would relate to?
What is one that everybody asks the preacher
about all the time?
Greet one another with a holy kiss.
Did you know that is found in Romans
16.16?
It is found in 1 Corinthians 16.20?
It is found in 2 Corinthians 13.12?
1 Thessalonians 5.26 and 1 Peter 5
.14?
There are five or six different scriptures that
say to greet one another with a holy
kiss.
How did they do that?
They did it by kissing the beard.
That was the custom.
That was the display of loving affection in
Bible times.
Now, I continue.
They say that the beard is the perfection
of the human face, which would be more
disfigured by having this cut off than by
losing the nose.
They admire and envy those who have fine
beards.
They pray and do but see, they cry,
that beard.
Very sight of it would persuade anyone that
he to whom it belongs is an honest
man.
If anyone with a fine beard is guilty
of an unbecoming action, what disadvantage is this,
they say, to such a beard?
How much such a beard is to be
pitied?
If they would correct anyone's mistakes, they will
tell him, for shame on your beard.
Does not the confusion that follows such an
action light on your beard?
If they entreat anyone or use oaths in
affirming or denying anything, they say, I conjure
you by your beard, or by the life
of your beard to grant me this, or
by your beard this is or this is
not so.
They say further in the way of acknowledgment,
may God preserve your blessed beard.
May God pour out his blessing upon your
beard.
In comparison, this is more valuable than one's
beard.
Notice, if you would please, they took oaths
affirming or denying anything on their beard.
I conjure you by your beard, or by
your beard this or by your beard that.
Do you realize that there are oaths today
based upon beards?
For instance, how many of you have read
the story, The Three Little Pigs?
Come on, everybody has read The Three Little
Pigs.
Now, the big bad wolf said, I want
to huff and puff and blow your house
down, and what did the little pig say?
Not by the hair of my chinny-chin
-chin.
The words, here's an oath based upon a
beard.
By my beard, says the little pig, you're
not going to do this.
So I'm saying, all this is filtered down
even in our society today.
This serves to illustrate, if you understand this,
several passages of scripture.
Do you remember in 1 Samuel chapter 21,
and especially in verse 13, 1 Samuel chapter
21, David had gotten into a Philistine city.
He was fleeing from Saul, and all of
a sudden, the men began to say, hey,
is not this the man that is said,
that's 1 Samuel 19, is this not the
man that is said, Saul has slain his
thousands, but David has slain his tens of
thousands?
And David began to fear, and someone tell
me what David did.
What did David do when he feared for
his life when he was there in that
Philistine city?
What did he do?
Anyone know?
It's chapter 21, I told you wrongly.
1 Samuel 21 verse 13, here it is,
and he changed his behavior before them, and
feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrambled
on the doors of the gate, and let
his spittle fall down upon his beard.
So David started drawing and scratching on the
walls, and at the same time, he spit
and let the spit run down on his
beard.
And look what happens, verse 14, then said
Achish unto his servants, Lord, you see the
man is mad.
Wherefore then have you brought him to me?
Have I need a madman that you have
brought me this fellow to play the madman
in my presence?
Shall this fellow come into my house?
Achish the king says, a man's got to
be insane to mess up his beard like
that.
He's spitting all over his beard, and he's
scrambling at the wall.
Now, you can't understand that unless you understand
the significance of the beard in the Bible.
And so David escaped from Achish by playing
insane, and one of the ways he indicated
he was insane, he then let that spittle
fall down upon his own beard.
Now, I mentioned before, when anyone wished to
express the value of something in the Bible,
they would always say that it is more
valuable than a man's beard, or the wife
would say it's more valuable than my husband's
beard.
Now, the beard in the Bible is always
a badge of honor, dignity, and respectability.
I want you to look in your Bibles
to the book of Proverbs, chapter 20, and
verse 29.
Proverbs 20, verse 29.
Here's what Scripture says, "...the glory of young
men is their strength, and the beauty of
old men is their gray head."
Now, let me tell you how the Hebrew
puts it.
The ornament of young men is their strength,
and the honor of old is the gray
hairs, or the hanging of the gray from
the chin.
In other words, the honor of old men
is their gray beard, is what it's talking
about.
Not just their gray hair on their head,
but the gray hair on their chin as
well.
So the glory of a young man is
his strength.
The glory of an old man is that
gray hair that's on his face.
Now, let me tell you just four things
very quickly about a beard, and I want
you to listen to it, especially the first
one.
To pull the beard is to inflict an
indignity.
Now, if you want to upset a man
with a beard, just pull it.
Not just because it hurts, it does indeed
hurt, but it is to put an indignity
upon him.
So to pull the beard is to inflict
an indignity.
To have the beard forcibly cut off or
mutilated is a symbol of disgrace.
To remove the beard voluntarily is a symbol
of mourning, and we're going to look at
that in the Bible.
To stroke it in preference to utter something
is to utter seeming words of weight.
Did you know that not only in history,
but in the Bible, battles have been fought
over a man's beard?
Entire battles.
Let me tell you about one in history.
In the year 1764, a pretender to the
Persian throne by the name of Kerim Khan
sent ambassadors to Mer Mahina, the Prince of
Bengerbeg on the Persian Gulf, and demanded tribute
of him.
But in return, he cut off the ambassador's
beards.
Kerim Khan was so enraged at this that
he went the next year with a large
army to make war upon this prince, and
he took the city and almost the whole
territory to avenge the insult.
This was 1764.
Now, I want you to look back in
your Bibles to 2 Samuel 10, because it
has not only happened down through history, recent
history, it has happened in the Bible.
In 2 Samuel 10, beginning with verse 1,
look at it.
It came to pass after this that the
king and the children of Ammon died, and
Hanun his son reigned in his stead.
Then said David, I will show kindness unto
Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father
showed kindness unto me.
And David sent to comfort him by the
hand of his servants for his father.
And David's servants came into the land of
the children of Ammon.
And the princes of the children of Ammon
said unto Hanun their lord, Thinkest thou that
David doth honor thy father, that he hath
sent comforters unto thee?
Have not David rather sent his servants unto
thee, to search the city, to spy it
out, and overthrow it?
Wherefore, Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off
the one half of their beards, and cut
off their garments in the middle, even their
buttocks, and sent them away.
When they told it unto David, he sent
to meet them, because the men were greatly
ashamed.
And the king said, Tarry at Jericho, until
your beards be grown, and then return.
And when the children of Ammon saw that
they stank before David, the children of Ammon
sent and hired the Syrians of Bethrehob, and
the Syrians of Zuba, twenty thousand footmen, and
the king of Maacah a thousand men, and
of Ishtar twelve thousand men.
And when David heard of it, he sent
Joab and the host of the mighty men.
Now let me just stop right there.
The rest of the story is this, that
David and his servants wipe out all of
these Syrians.
They just take them off the face of
the earth.
But I want you to know what started
the whole war.
David said he's going to comfort Hanun, because
his father died.
And David sends his servants over there, and
ambassadors, and David says, Look, I'm sorry that
your father's died.
If there's anything that I can do, let
me know, and we'll do it.
Well, Hanun's counselor said, Listen, do you think
that we're stupid?
We know what David's doing.
David doesn't care anything about you.
David doesn't care anything about your father.
He's sending these men to spy out the
land.
So instead of taking David's ambassadors at face
value at what the real reason David sent
them for, they took them and they shaved
off one half their beards.
And then they cut their garments in two
at the buttocks.
Now, the men were so embarrassed and so
humiliated, they would not even come back to
Jerusalem.
Now, let me ask you a question.
If you were out downtown Waycross, Georgia, or
downtown Atlanta, Georgia, and you had a beard,
and someone took you and forcibly cut off
half your beard, and then stripped you naked,
and left you in the middle of the
street for everybody to see, which would embarrass
you the most?
I believe I know it probably wouldn't be
the fact that your beard would be mutilated.
It would be that your hiney was showing.
But I want you to know, that which
embarrassed these men was not that their hiney
was showing, but their beard had been mutilated.
Look what David said.
Verse 4, Wherefore, a nun took David's servants,
and shaved off the one half of their
beards, and cut off their garment in the
middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them
away, when they told her unto David, he
sent to meet them, because the men were
greatly ashamed.
And the king said, Tarry at Jericho, until
your beards be grown.
It was the fact that their beards were
mutilated that so embarrassed them, and so insulted
them.
And here an entire war was fought in
the Bible, just because someone shaved off some
men's beards half-way.
An interesting thing is this.
James Ward, who lived from 1769 to 1859,
published a pamphlet entitled, here's the title of
it, A Defense of the Beard on Scriptural
Grounds, giving eighteen reasons why man was bound
to grow a beard unless he was indifferent
as to offending the Creator and good taste.
And then in 1860, a book was published,
and by the way, I don't have this
book.
If anybody ever finds it, I want it.
But here's the book that was published, here's
the title of it, Shaving, A Breach of
the Sabbath and a Hindrance to the Spread
of the Gospel.
I'd really like to see what he said
in the book.
But interestingly enough, if you will take a
pictorial review of all the men of God
from the Apostles until this century, you will
find that ninety to ninety-five percent of
them had beards.
Let me tell you something else.
Not only did Charles Haddon Spurgeon have a
beard, but he demanded that all of his
preachers and all of his deacons have beards.
And if you have a set of Metropolitan
Tabernacle, if you'll pull down one of the
volumes on the cover jacket, you'll see all
of Spurgeon's deacons standing there, their pictures on
one of those volumes.
I forget which volume number it is.
But if you look at his deacons, you'll
notice every one of them have full beards.
So Spurgeon then insisted that his deacons have
beards.
Now, since I've given you this historical background,
I know that you're wanting to ask this
question.
What, then, is the meaning of the beard?
I want to give you this.
There are at least four things that the
beard means.
First of all, the beard means life unto
God.
If you will look in your Bibles to
the book of Leviticus chapter 13, just several
verses I think that you will understand as
I read them.
Leviticus chapter 13, beginning in verse 29.
Here you have the law concerning the leper,
or at least part of this law.
We're not going to look at all of
it.
But in Leviticus chapter 13, verse 29, if
a man or woman have a plague upon
the head or the beard, verse 30, then
the priest shall see the plague, and behold,
if it be inside deeper than the skin,
and there being it a yellow thin hair,
then the priest shall pronounce him unclean, it
is a dry skull, even a leprosy upon
the head or beard.
Verse 33, he shall be shaven, but the
skull shall he not shave, and the priest
shall shut him up that hath the skull
seven days more.
The man that had leprosy was shaven.
Why was the man that had leprosy shaven?
Because leprosy in the Bible is a picture
of sin and death and judgment.
Do you remember when Miriam murmured against Moses?
What did God smite Miriam with, someone tell
me?
Leprosy.
And she had to stay without the camp.
Now, it is true Moses intervened for her
and interceded, and God healed her and restored
her.
But God said if she spit in her
father's face, she'd have to stay out of
the camp seven days, let her stay out
at least that long.
God healed her, but the judgment was God
smote her with leprosy.
What about Gehazi?
When he went and took wrongfully from Naaman
the Syrian, and he lied concerning what Elisha
had commanded him, and when he got back
from hiding the money and the garments, Elisha
said, Went not my heart with thee?
When that man turned around in his chariot,
he said, Behold, the leprosy that clave unto
Naaman shall clave unto thee.
And Gehazi was smitten with that leprosy.
Leprosy in the Bible is a type of
the judgment of God.
Leprosy in the Bible was a sickness that
could not be cured.
A leper in the Bible was sure of
certain death.
It was like age today.
You get age, you die, and that's all
there is to it.
There is no remedy for it.
And so the beard, which was a symbol
of life, was shaved.
Not just for sanitary reasons, not just that
that individual was under the death sentence.
You see, only live men can grow beards.
Dead men do not grow beards.
So a beard is a symbol of life.
It means that we have life under God.
Secondly, a shaven face meant submission to man
and being a slave to man.
Look in your Bibles to the book of
Genesis chapter 41.
Genesis 41.
Do you remember when Joseph had been sold
into slavery into Egypt?
And then he was in the house of
one of the chief stewards, Potiphar's house, and
of course his wife lied about him, and
Joseph was thrown in prison wrongfully.
And Joseph was in there and he was
trying to get out and praying about getting
out.
Well, God, of course, got Joseph out.
And God arranged it where Joseph would be
second in command in all of Egypt.
Now, note what happens in Genesis chapter 41,
and note verse 14.
And Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they
brought him hastily out of the dungeon, and
he shaved himself and changed his raiment and
came in unto Pharaoh.
Now, why did Joseph shave himself?
Why did he shave his beard off?
Because Joseph was going to be in submission
to Pharaoh.
Pharaoh said that you will be second.
I'm going to be number one.
And in the Bible, in New Testament times,
in Bible times, for a man to have
a clean shaven face indicated that he was
a slave, that he was indicative of a
servile attitude or in a servile position.
Listen to what the biblical encyclopedia says, and
I quote, to be deprived of a beard
was and still is in some places of
the East the badge of servility, a mark
of infamy, that degraded a person from the
ranks of men to those of slaves and
women.
I'm sorry, ladies, that was a good quote,
but that's what it said.
But notice it degraded a man to the
position of being either a slave or a
woman.
So first of all, the beard indicates life.
Secondly, the lack of a beard indicates servility,
slavery, submission to man.
Thirdly, the well-kept groomed beard meant separation
unto God.
Now, what do I mean by separation unto
God?
Here it is.
All of these other nations were idolatrous.
They worshipped idols.
God demanded a full, well-rounded beard.
Do you remember we read in Leviticus 21,
verses 5-6, it said the priest was
not to mar the corners of his beard?
And then in Leviticus 21, or chapter 19,
verses 26-28, once again the people were
not to mar the corners of their beard.
To mar the corners meant to shave their
beard right here.
If this was shaved right here, you would
have in essence a mustache and a goatee.
Do you realize that if you had a
mustache and a goatee, in Bible times, it
meant that you were a worshipper of Oratol,
or Bacchus, or Baal.
In other words, in Bible times, you could
look at a man's beard and tell who
his God was.
The heathen were to be punished.
They were the ones who rounded their beards.
They were not worshippers of Jehovah.
Now, look in your Bibles, first of all,
to the book of Jeremiah chapter 9.
I'm going to show you this in three
different places, and I trust that some of
your Bibles have marginal references anyhow.
But I want you to see what the
Bible is talking about.
Jeremiah 9, verses 25 and 26.
Now, look at it, Jeremiah 9, verse 25,
"...Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that
I will punish all them who are circumcised
with the uncircumcised."
Now, we can identify with that.
We know that the uncircumcised are those who
are not in the covenant, and those that
are in the covenant, the circumcised, those that
are wicked, God says, I'm going to punish
them along with the heathen wicked alike.
Verse 26, "...Egypt, and Judah, Edom, and the
children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that
are in the utmost corners."
What does it say?
What do you have?
Margaret?
Oh, "...having the corners of their hair pulled."
So, when he says he's going to judge
those that are in the utmost corners, literally
he's talking about those who round the corners
of their beard.
If you will look over in chapter 25,
and verse 23, you'll see exactly the same
thing.
Jeremiah 25, verse 23, "...Dedan, and Timah, and
Buz, and all that are in the utmost
corners are all that round the corners," that
is, of their beard.
When you round the corners of your beard,
it's indicative of idolatry.
Look in chapter 49, and verse 23 of
Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 49, verse 23, it's the same phrase,
same Hebrew construction, "...and their camel shall be
a booty, and the multitude of their camel
a spoil, and I will scatter into all
the winds them that are in the utmost
corners," that is, them that round the corners,
"...and I will bring their calamity from all
sides, and thereof saith the Lord."
So, God is talking about judging those who
round the corners of their beards.
The reason he judges them is because they
are idolaters.
Because God forbade a man to mar the
corners of his beard.
So, when a man had a well-kept,
groomed beard, one that was a full beard,
it was indicative of the fact that he
was not an idolater, that he was separated
to Jehovah God.
A full beard meant the blessings of God
upon his people.
Look in your Bibles to Psalm 133.
A full beard meant the blessings of God
upon his people.
Psalm 133, and let's read the entire psalm,
since it's only three verses, and I say
this because I think you will see the
significance of this.
He says, "...behold how good and how pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity."
I'm talking about brotherly love now.
"...it is like the precious ointment upon the
head, that ran down upon the beard, even
Aaron's beard, that went down to the skirts
of his garments, as the dew of Hermon,
and as the dew that descended upon the
mountains of Zion.
For there the Lord commanded the blessing, even
life forevermore."
So, here we're talking about the blessings of
God, and when God is showing you His
blessings, He says, "...it's like the ointment that's
poured out upon the top of Aaron's head,
that went down his hair, even to his
beard, and then flowed down into his garments."
So, the beard that was plucked out, the
beard that was shaved off, the beard that
was left unattended, was indicative of great mourning
or calamity or the judgment of God.
Now, the full beard meant the blessings of
God, just like it's talking about here.
But when that beard was plucked out, when
that beard was left unattended, when that beard
was cut off, it meant either mourning, calamity,
or the judgment of God.
Now, I want to show you this in
the Bible.
I want you to follow it with me.
Turn in your Bibles, first of all, to
2 Samuel, chapter 19.
I've made a statement from the Scripture, and
I want to prove it from the Scripture.
2 Samuel, chapter 19.
You'll remember Mephibosheth.
Mephibosheth was the seed of Jonathan.
You'll remember David took Mephibosheth into his family,
and he took care of Mephibosheth as his
own son.
But Mephibosheth was of the seed and the
lineage of Saul.
Of course, Jonathan was Saul's son.
And so now Absalom, David's own son, has
run David off the throne and is trying
to kill him.
And Ziba, who was Mephibosheth's servant, he comes
and he lies to David about Mephibosheth.
And Mephibosheth says, Now shall the kingdom be
restored to me in the house of my
father.
And the reason Ziba lies about Mephibosheth is
he wants all of the property.
Well, when David comes back home, Mephibosheth, someone
can tell me what his problem was.
One of his problems, I should say.
He was what?
He was lame.
He couldn't walk.
He was lame on both feet.
So David is coming back home.
Now Absalom is killed.
His army is scattered.
Look in verse 24, 2 Samuel 19.
And Mephibosheth, the son of Saul, came down
to meet the king, and had neither dressed
his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed
his clothes from the day that the king
departed until the day he came again in
peace.
Now Ziba had lied about Mephibosheth.
Mephibosheth was in mourning because David had been
driven from the throne.
And what did Mephibosheth do to indicate he
was in mourning?
He neither dressed his feet, that is he
did not take care of his lame feet,
nor did he trim his beard, nor did
he wash his clothes.
He was in mourning because of what happened.
Look in your Bibles to the book of
Job chapter 1.
You remember, of course, in Job how Job
had lost everything, plus his sons and his
daughters.
They were all killed in Job 1 and
verse 20.
The Bible says, Then Job arose, and rent
his mantle, and shaved his head, not just
the hair on his head, but his beard
as well, and fell down upon the ground
and worshipped.
See, when a man shaved his beard in
the Bible, or failed to keep his beard,
it indicated there was a great calamity or
there was a period of mourning.
Look in your Bibles to the book of
Ezra, Ezra chapter 9.
Back just a few books, Ezra chapter 9,
let's read the first three verses.
Notice, if you would, what Ezra did to
indicate his mourning and the calamity of the
sins of the people.
Ezra 9 verse 1, Now when these things
were done, the princes came to me, saying,
The people of Israel, and the priests, and
the Levites, have not separated themselves from the
people of the lands, doing according to their
abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the
Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the
Egyptians, and the Amorites.
For they have taken of their daughters for
themselves and for their sons, so that the
holy seed have mingled themselves with the people
of those lands.
Yea, the hand of the princes and the
rulers have been chief in this trespass.
Now watch this, the godly have been intermarrying
with the ungodly, and they are telling Ezra
what happens.
Verse 3, Ezra said, And when I heard
this thing, I rent my garment and my
mantle, and plucked off the hair of my
head, and off my beard, and sat down
astonished.
Ezra said, I was so hurt, I went
into a shock and calamity, and a period
of mourning, and I shaved my head and
I shaved my beard.
Now look in the book of Isaiah chapter
7, Isaiah 7, verses in the Bible concerning
a beard, but there are a multitude of
them.
Verse 20, now let me, before I read
this verse, let me back up.
I told you that the shaving of the
beard meant either a period of mourning or
calamity or thirdly, it meant the judgment of
God.
Watch what God says, Isaiah 7 and verse
20.
In the same day shall the Lord shave
with a razor that is hired, namely by
them beyond the river, by the king of
Assyria, the head and the hair of the
feet, and it shall also consume the beard.
Now God says, I'm going to judge my
people.
I'm going to shave them with a razor
that is hired, and my razor is going
to be the Assyrian empire.
And God says, I'm going to shave them
so closely, it will not only consume the
hair of their head and the hair that
is on their legs and on their feet,
it will even consume their beard.
So when God wants to tell a people
that he's going to judge them, the way
he does so is saying I'm going to
take your most prized possession.
I'm going to take your beard and I'm
going to shave it off.
I'm going to mutilate it.
You will know my judgment, says God, because
when I get through with you, I'll make
you clean shaven.
Now look at Isaiah 15 and verse 2.
Isaiah 15 verse 2.
Once again, indicative of the judgment of God.
The scripture says, he is going up to
Bajeth and to Diabon, the high places to
weep.
Moab shall howl over Nebo and over Medeba.
On all their heads shall be baldness and
every beard cut off.
Now he's talking about judgment.
In their streets they shall gird themselves with
sackcloth on the top of their houses.
In their streets everyone shall howl, weeping abundantly.
Why?
Because of the judgment of God.
And God says, I'm going to judge you
and the way that he proves he's going
to judge them, he said every beard is
going to be cut off.
Look in chapter 41 of Jeremiah.
Jeremiah chapter 41 and verse 5.
Jeremiah 41 and verse 5.
Jeremiah chapter 41 and verse 5.
That there came certain from Shechem, from Shiloh,
and from Samaria, even four score men, having
their beards shaven, and their clothes rent, and
having cut themselves with offerings and incense in
their hand, to bring them to the house
of the Lord.
Now here were some men who were in
mourning, and of course Gadaliah murders them, and
that's the context, but the fact is they
were in mourning and they had their beards
shaven and their clothes rent.
Look in chapter 48 and verse 37.
Jeremiah 48 and verse 37.
For every head shall be bald, and every
beard clipped, upon all the hands shall be
cuttings and upon the loins sackcloth.
Once again, judgment of God.
God said, I'm going to shave you clean.
Look in the book of Ezekiel chapter 5
and verse 1.
Ezekiel 5 and verse 1.
Now let me tell you about Ezekiel.
Ezekiel was a priest that God called to
be a prophet.
And Ezekiel was prophesying in captivity in Babylon.
And God took portrayal of Ezekiel in Babylon,
and gave to his people the judgment that
was still yet to fall on Jerusalem, had
Ezekiel to do certain things.
And here's what he had him do.
Look in Ezekiel 5 verse 1.
And thou son of man, take thee a
sharp knife, even thee a barber's razor, and
cause it to pass upon thy head and
upon thy beard.
Then take thee balances to weigh and divide
thy hair.
And then he goes on to tell him
what to do, which is indicative of the
judgment of God.
He says, this is exactly what I'm going
to do to Jerusalem.
So in other words, when God is going
to set forth his judgment, and when God
is going to show the severity of his
judgment upon the people, he does so under
the analogy of shaving them and taking away
their beard.
You see, the greatest indignity, the greatest insult,
one of the purest signs of the judgment
of God upon anyone is for his beard
to be mutilated or shaved off.
Now with that in mind, I want you
to turn back to Isaiah 50.
Isaiah 50 and look at verse 6.
I hope this verse means something to you
with this background in mind.
Isaiah 50 and verse 6.
Talking about our Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah,
our Lord says, I gave my back to
the smiters and my cheeks to them that
plucked off the hair.
I hid not my face from shame and
spitting.
You see, our Lord had a beard.
And what those wicked men did was they
took handfuls of his beard and jerked it
out, ripping his cheeks, mutilating his face, not
just to inflict pain.
Yes, they were intending to do that, but
in so doing, they were thus telling the
world that Jesus Christ is going to be
the one who bears the judgment of God
for his people.
That is why the word of God says,
He God made him Christ to be sin
for us who knew no sin that we
might be made the righteousness of God in
him.
So when Jesus Christ had his beard plucked
out, grabbed and snatched by the handfuls by
wicked men, it just was a sure and
absolute sign that he was the judgment bearer
for his people.
Let me cover one other thing this morning,
and that is the purpose of the beard.
Have you ever asked yourself this question, why
do men have a beard and women don't?
Why does God cause it to grow genetically
upon a man's face?
You know, there are many people who will
debate whether or not it is right or
wrong to have a beard, but that is
not the issue that is debatable.
That which they should be debating is whether
it is right or wrong to shave, because
a man has a beard.
And that is the most natural thing in
the world to do, is to let the
beard grow.
So it is not whether it is right
or wrong to have a beard because a
man has a beard.
You have got to determine whether or not
it is right or wrong to shave.
You see, beards were regarded as sacred ornaments
given by God to distinguish men from women.
Now, I want you to turn to one
passage, and I want to deal with it
just momentarily.
And I want to read you several commentators
on this passage.
Deuteronomy 22.5 is a highly controversial passage,
but I think that when you see it
in this light, it will certainly give you
clearer insight.
Deuteronomy 22.5, God says, The woman shall
not wear that which pertaineth unto a man,
neither shall a man put on a woman's
garment, for all that do sort abomination to
the Lord.
Now, it is true that one of the
things that is prohibited in this verse is
transvestitism, that is, men dressing like women, women
dressing like men.
It is true that transvestitism is associated with
idolatry, which I will deal with just a
little bit later.
But the main thrust on this verse is
a prohibition to break down the distinctions between
men and women.
Now, let me read to you what Kyle
and Delitch, two Old Testament commentators, say on
Deuteronomy 22.5. I quote, The immediate design
of this prohibition was not to prevent licentiousness
or to oppose idolatrous practices, but to maintain
the sanctity of that distinction of the sexes
which was established by the creation of man
and woman, and in relation to which Israel
was not to sin.
Every violation or wiping out of this distinction
was unnatural, and therefore an abomination in the
sight of God.
So every wiping out of this distinction was
unnatural and a violation in the sight of
God.
So what he is saying, in essence, is
this.
When a man shaves, it is a wiping
out of that distinction that distinguishes a man
from a woman.
Now, the Hebrew word for clothing here, when
it says in Deuteronomy 22.5, a man
is not to put on a woman's clothing,
does not just simply refer to a woman's
dress or a woman's garb.
And likewise, when it says that concerning the
woman shall not wear that which pertains to
the man.
But it even deals with the armaments and
it even deals with domestic utensils.
In other words, what it is saying is
this, that the man is not to get
into the place and the position of a
woman, and the woman is not to get
into the place and the position of a
man.
In other words, women have absolutely no business
being in military service.
And a man has absolutely no business being
in those areas which are reserved particularly and
especially for women.
In other words, this verse is direct against
anyone and everyone who would obliterate the distinction
between the sexes.
And of course our government today is trying
to distinguish, to obliterate this distinguishing, distinguishment because
they're saying that men and women are the
same and hence we've got the unisex and
there's certainly no difference between them in the
government's eyes.
But therefore what he's saying is this, that
that man is to look like a man
and the woman is to look like a
woman.
Now, how many of you have ever heard
of Venus?
The goddess Venus.
Venus is supposed to be the goddess of
what?
Love.
Okay.
Supposed to be the goddess of love and
pleasures.
Now, an interesting thing is this.
Sacrifices were offered to Venus by men who
were dressed like women and by women who
were dressed like men because they were transvestites.
There was a purposeful breakdown of the sexes.
Now, that's exactly the problem in Egypt.
The Egyptians were basically transvestites.
They were idolaters.
And the reason that Pharaoh had that fake
beard tied on him was to distinguish him
from his queen because they were all clean
-shaven and they had bad by-law for
a man to have a beard.
Now, an interesting thing about Venus is this.
If you have ever looked at a picture
of the goddess Venus, look it up in
any encyclopedia.
You will note this, that the distinguishing characteristic
of a woman is her breasts.
And Venus was pictured with a multiplicity of
breasts.
But she also had a beard.
So they put the distinguishing characteristic of a
woman on the statue and the distinguishing characteristic
of a man and they tried to make
Venus a unisex god.
And thus there was transvestiteism where the men
dressed like women and women dressed like men.
You see, even the pagans knew that a
beard was the distinguishing characteristic of a man.
Laying in his commentary on Deuteronomy 22.5
says, Divinely instituted distinction between the sexes was
to be sacredly observed.
And in order to this, the dress and
other things appropriate to the one were not
to be used by the other.
Whatever tends to obliterate this distinction between the
sexes tends to lie sensuousness, immorality, and confusion.
Whatever tends to render the male sex effeminate
and the female sex masculine is an injury
to both.
And that is certainly true.
There is one thing about a man that
has short hair and a beard.
You can never ever mistake him from a
woman.
Let me tell you what Herodotus, a fifth
century historian, said when the Scythians invaded Rome.
They had long flowing hair and clean shaven
faces.
Herodotus wrote that these Scythians were smitten by
a deity who had made them into women.
That is how they regarded men without beards.
Let me point out two other scriptures.
If you understand the significance of the beard,
look in your Bibles to 2 Samuel 20.
You will understand the duplicity and the wickedness
in Joab when he went to murder Amasa.
In 2 Samuel 20 and verse 9, And
Joab said to Amasa, Art thou in health,
my brother?
And Joab took Amasa by the beard with
the right hand to kiss him.
Do you remember?
Greet one another with a holy kiss.
I told you they kissed each other's beards.
So here Joab, he takes Amasa by the
beard with the right hand to kiss him.
But Amasa took no heed to the sword
that was in Joab's hand, and he smote
him therewith in the fifth rib, and shed
out his bowels to the ground, and he
struck him not again, and he died.
So here was Joab in his duplicity, in
his wickedness, says, Amasa, my brother!
And he bends over to kiss his beard,
which was a loving, warm, brotherly greeting.
Amasa was so struck with Joab's friendship and
warmth, he never even noticed that sword in
Joab's hand, and Joab murdered him, under the
guise of kissing him.
Now, someone help me out.
We won't turn there in the Bible.
Judas followed Joab's example, and he told those
Pharisees and Sadducees, He whom I kiss, hold
him fast.
So Judas, in his wickedness, went to take
Christ's beard and kiss it, just like Joab
of old, a warm, brotherly, affectionate greeting.
In so doing, he was deceiving and selling
his master for thirty pieces of silk.
You cannot understand the betrayal of Judas without
understanding the significance of the beard.
Now, let me tell you something.
A beard distinguishes a man as a creature
under God from a woman as a creature
under God.
The beard is a reassertion of our sanctification,
of our separation unto God.
And I'm going to tell you right now,
you will see more beards in the coming
years in the ministry, especially as persecution comes
along.
That's going to be a distinguishing characteristic of
those who are separated unto God from those
who are worshippers of humanism and wickedness.
Shall we pray?
Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ,
we ask you today to teach us thy
word, to build us up in the most
holy faith, and help us, Lord, to honor
the Lord Jesus Christ.
We ask, Father, that your will would be
done in our lives.
Lord, help us to judge righteous judgment.
Help us to see things in the word
of God based upon thy word, and to
organize and order our lives accordingly.
We're thankful for all of your love to
us.
Protect us, we ask in Christ's name.
Amen.