Tests of Manhood

The last year for which I can get a figure, over $412 billion was spent in America on advertising. Of course, we know that almost $1 billion of that amount was spent to elect the man who is in the White House now, which, if nothing else, shows the effectiveness of advertising. Advertising is used in so many ways: the t-shirts which people wear, banners hanging across the street.

The two most effective advertising words are “free” and “sale”. I have one catalog which features nothing except for sale signs on every page, every size, every imaginable color. With enough money and enough advertising and you can be successful in any type endeavor. Hitler said his minister of propaganda had the ability to make a circle into a square, and a square into a circle.

Advertising is nothing more than a pressure to conform, and very few are strong enough to fight the urge. (Romans 12:2) I have been told that when fishing for crabs, you the put crabs into a bucket, and if one tries to escape by crawling up the side of the bucket, the others will reach up and pull him back down. Within self is a great fear of not conforming, you will have your inner most doubts about yourself and even your manhood. Cutting me like a knife, being called a “sissy” as a young boy because I would not sink into the quicksand of sin and temptation as did others. One does not want to be called different, we all want to be accepted/popular. In the college dormitory, when all the others were drunk, cursing, playing with fire extinguishers in the hallways, making a pigpen for someone to clean, even then, I did not like to be referred to as different.

The meanest, most irascible, ne'er-do-well boys in school, were always the most attractive to the girls. The girls thought they were so cute, they loved their acrid, cursing tongues, their intemperate attitude towards their fellow man, their jokes about the disabled, even their own parents: “my old man”, “my old lady”. It was considered weird to be different, to be ambitious, most of all to be Christian. A man with an ego, a man who thinks he is so exceptional can be easily compromised (a “sell-out”). Where family identity is strong, peer pressure will be weak; next to your eternal salvation, your most precious personal possession is your genetics. My mother always told her boys before they left the house, “don't forget who you are.”

I heard General Colin Powell, speaking at a Republican National Convention say, “shame is a lost word.” As a totally blind, 100% disabled veteran I learned long ago that “concern” is also a lost word in most vocabularies. I don't believe it is possible to shame anyone anymore about anything. If the girl of a family cannot be shamed about pregnancy without being married, if the son of the family cannot be ashamed about an arrest for illegal drugs, if the father of a family, the father of children, cannot be ashamed by an adulterous affair with an employee (John Edwards, Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, etc.), if the mother of a family, the mother of children, cannot be shamed with her name appearing as a corrupt politician (Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Maxine Waters, etc.)...IF as in most cases, the well-worn news mantra “lets move on” applies to everything, all the time, then there is little redemption for society.

If a culture which at one time called itself Christian (even the Supreme court called this nation Christian) cannot see the evil in the killing of children (genocide, abortion), the evil in same-sex marriage (gay agenda), the evil in excessive taxation ($14.4 trillion debt), the evil of financially protracted warfare (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya), the horrendous killing and wounding of innocent woman, children, elderly, animals, then younger generations will think be fooled into thinking that nothing is wrong.

When the proletariat masses of the world see the intelligentsia/elitist opinion-molding leaders of the world, grabbing at every tentacle of evil, they think that evil is good and acceptable because the greatest advertisement for wrongness is its capture of rightness. “How can sin be bad when it feels so good?” “How can unhealthy food be bad when it tastes so good?” “How can illicit, cruel lyrics be bad when they sound so good?” “How can satanic forces of evil be tempting and sensational when they look so good?”

I have found in a long active life that the greatest fear of most people, a fear greater than the fear of death or hunger, is the fear of not being loved/accepted by the world. Most women feel that their appreciation from a man comes from them dressing like a street whore. Most men feel that they must speak, act, show all the animus of the world in order to be accepted or successful as a street hustler. Believe me, more so than the fear of war, fire, disability, is the fear of rejection. The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death. (Proverbs 14:27) The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe. (Proverbs 29:25)

Learn concern for what God knows about you, not for what people might think about you. Forget that age-old umbrella we have all been covered with from youth up, “what will people think?” Who cares what people think! Concern yourself with what God knows, He does not stockpile His vengeance. He Is Boss. You can trust that He will take care of everything.