"Your Witness, Worship & Wardrobe" - Pastor Doug Bachelor

don't want to offend him i hope you pray for the pastors because it is an awesome thing and it is an awful thing meaning full of all to to stand and say lord i hope that you will speak there's nothing in me that'll get in the way of what you want to say to your people so i hope you pray for the pastors and i've never ceased to feel that weight of responsibility and maybe more so today if you've looked at the sermon title your witness worship and wardrobe if i perish i perish i heard about a young pastor that was trying to get acquainted with the people in his district and so he thought he'd make some of those spontaneous visits you know sometimes pastors call and say can i come over but a good pastor just shows up every now and then and he went to this one door uh during the day and he knocked and he thought he heard some noise inside but no one came to the door and he knocked again heard a little more noise but no one came to the door and eventually thought well they're not coming to the door so he took out one of the business cards he had and said you know pastor john and and he wrote down a verse on the back and it said revelation 3 20 and next sunday at church after church the deacons came to him they said well you know we've counted the offering but someone put your business card in the offering plate and they gave it to him and they'd taken his business card where he'd put revelation 3 20 and they had put underneath it genesis 3 10. now you know revelation 3 20 says behold i stand at the door and i knock in genesis 3 10 says i heard your voice and i ran and hid myself because i was naked and what a time for the pastor to come well you heard our our scripture reading but we're going to return to that passage again and it tells us that the world began with a major wardrobe malfunction some of you remember in that verse was made that phrase was made famous following a a mid-time show at a super bowl wardrobe malfunction and genesis 3 tells us that after adam and eve sinned that the light went out uh in the very beginning of the bible we see a conflict over clothing man who was originally designed you know it says a man and woman were naked and they were not ashamed uh that does not mean adam and eve were streaking around the garden you read in revelation that god gives his people these artificial robes of the non-artificial i should say robes of light they're not made with any artificial clothing and when moses and elijah appeared to jesus in mark chapter 9 and those other passages they were shining and jesus was shining and the bible says with a light that no soap on earth can whiten clothes like this when moses came down from the mountain talking with the lord his face shone so bright they could not look on him they had to veil his face so they could even talk to him adam and eve in the garden in their holy state they they glowed they had no natural or artificial clothing but they did have robes of light but after they sinned the light went out by the way that still happens and they saw their nakedness and they knew right away something was not right even though they were married and so quickly they grabbed fig leaves which are pretty broad you know and says they sewed them together they hastily did some things to try to maybe take some twine or something from ivy or fabricate something they were probably very deft and intelligent back in the beginning and and they made aprons and they put them on it says the eyes of them both rope and they knew they were naked and they knew that because god had given them divine insight that came from the factory and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings and they heard the sound of the lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day he would come and visit with them and adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the lord among the trees in the garden and the lord called to adam can you hide from god and the lord called to adam and said where are you he said i heard your voice in the garden and i was afraid because i was naked and i hid myself and god said who told you you were naked that's interesting that even though adam has the fig leaves on he says he still feels naked obviously it was not enough who told you that you were naked and then you you're not going to go through the the curses that came on mankind because of the fall at the conclusion of chapter 3 it says and for adam and his wife the lord god made tunics of skin and clothe them this is the first reference you would have in the bible to the lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world god did not speak skin into existence this is where the sacrificial system is instituted that you see later followed by abel and it required the death of a lamb to cover their nakedness now do you realize that as you go all the way through the bible you can see this theme from the beginning to the end revelation 16 15 behold i'm coming as a thief blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments lest he walk naked and they see his shame not only the beginning and the end of the bible do you see this contrast between clothing and nakedness you see it also in the gospels jesus comes into the world and they wrap him in swaddling clothes it's kind of like job says naked i came into the world and naked i go out and at the end of christ's life they stripped him and gambled for his clothing and so we're going to talk a little bit about something that you deal with every day but seldom do you hear it addressed in church the subject of christians witness worship in their wardrobe what should we wear now there's probably about five different simple things i'm gonna share the really principles if you think that i'm going to give you a list of what is and isn't appropriate clothing i know better than that uh fashions change and you'll all be going around like the clothing taliban judging each other i'm going to give you principles and these are principles from the bible and you judge for yourself and if you ever feel like saying amen during this message i can use all the help i can get today first principle is modesty and humility i bundle them together because there's overlap there now this seems to be a vanishing virtue in our culture today would you agree with me that generally speaking the clothing of the culture we're in today is not as modest as it used to be would you agree with that now how to define that you probably would not agree with all of you but i think we could all agree that things have definitely changed there is a tire today that is generally accepted and permissible that would have gotten you arrested in the 60s as wild as the 60s were and there is clothing that they wore in the 60s that would have had them arrested in the 20s which means the trend is not getting towards modesty humility and godliness the trend of the culture is going back to adam and eve after they ate the forbidden fruit one farmer quipped says whatever it is adam and eve ate i wish more people would eat it so they'd know what naked is because it seems like people are losing this sense of modesty well right away in genesis when adam and eve send they saw they were naked they sewed together the fig leaves and they made aprons they did not make uh suits of clothing the word there is a chagor and it means an apron a girdle a belt a loincloth adam and eve quickly fabricated some bathing suits and we're not sure how much of bathing suit that eve had when god approached them because adam said i was naked even when god's speaking to him he still recognizes that he was naked later god gives them something that is called kanahoth kenoth it means robes in hebrew a tunic a cloak it is much more material and a higher quality of material god gave them something to cover their nakedness where the fig leaves were not going to do it's also interesting that jesus cursed the fig tree a symbol of sort of man's self-righteousness man made righteousness what was it going to require to cover their nakedness it was going to require a death of a lamb adam and eve thought that they could cover their sin with vegetable god said it would require animal cane what did he offer vegetable abel's offering was accepted it required animal the devil of a lamb you see a pattern here so to cover us you're not going to do it with uh watermelon rhine so modesty principle and dress now let me give you scripture first timothy 2 verse 9 and 10 in like manner also that the women now i know a lot of what the scripture says about modesty it talks about women this applies to women and men that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel with propriety and moderation not with embroidered hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing but that which is proper for women professing godliness because of our love for god our witness for god with godliness and good works someone has defined modesty in clothing is a mode of dress which intends to avoid emphasizing the figure or encouraging of sexual attraction in others shall i read that for you again modesty and clothing is a mode of dress which is intended to avoid emphasizing the figure and encouraging of sexual attraction in others now i don't know if you're aware of this but people can be sexually attracted by the form of the opposite sex well these days they say it's anything but uh god designed it that way that man would be attracted to the form of women none of us would be here today if that was not true it's part of the plan but it's supposed to be done in the appropriate time and way so that it's reserved for the marriage relationship and god wants us to dress in a way you know jesus said that you can sin in your attitudes and your actions not just your actions you can sin in your mind a man if he looks on a woman lustfully he can commit adultery in his heart and i think we would agree it works both ways with women and so god is telling us that blessed are the pure in heart they will see god it's not optional friends god wants us to be holy the bible says without holiness no one will see the lord which means that we need to be pure in heart now we've got our work cut out for us in this culture today because everywhere you go you see a lot of nudity legal nudity now i'm speaking to you as an expert matter of fact i am the ultimate pastor expert you are not going to find a pastor anywhere i challenge you who knows more about nudity than i do because i lived without clothes for almost a year and a half and i've seen both sides and i was living in a world there in that canyon where there's a it was almost like a nudist colony and and we all tried to act like we're going to throw off the inhibitions of society this is how god made us adam and eve we're naked they were not ashamed we're going to not be ashamed and there's nothing wrong with it i can tell you friends after that experiment it doesn't work that we would you know you'd not have anything on guys i'm hiking with they got nothing on we'd run into other hippies hiking up the canyon they had nothing on guys and girls and you talk to people and you're supposed to act like you don't notice that they're naked and we all kind of came to the conclusion we're kidding ourselves it was extremely distracting but we try to act cool like flower children yeah you know everything yeah let it all hang out and all but you know what it was extremely distracting and you can't get away from the fact that people are attracted to the form of the opposite sex someone did a survey a few years ago this is cited in a book that i saw online by don blackwell truth about moral issues they did a survey of high school boys in which they ask the following questions can a girl tempt a boy by the way she dresses 98 percent of the boys answered yes does fashion use sex appeal 96 percent said yes matter of fact leaders in the fashion industry would probably freely admit that a lot of fashions are specifically designed to sexually seduce and they're advertised that way and if you get into a weight program they'll say soon you can wear this slinky bikini and it's you know it's like that's what everyone strives for people want to be sexy we're told that's to be a goal in our culture do you believe the boys are stimulated by sight more than girls the high school boys 92 percent said yes whether it's true or not they thought so do you believe the passions of boys are more easily aroused than girls a b less easily aroused c the same 87 percent of boys said more easily aroused do you feel that girls understand the problem of immodest apparel 50 of the boys said no and there's more that i'm not going to read in the survey it gets very specific but uh the point of that is that if the bible says that a person can look and lust and you're a christian why would you want to dress in a way to encourage other people to look and lust years ago i was attending southwestern adventist university and i i was in a speech class and i gave a little talk and i don't remember exactly what i said but somehow what i said uh we got back to the girls dean and she said can you give that talk to our girls in the girls dorm i said sure and it was a talk about modesty and you know how it can be distracting and you out of love for your brother you want to dress in a way that you're not causing anyone to unduly stumble and yes i know there are women that'll say well the reason that you're stumbling is because you've got a dirty mind well you must just assume that all men have dirty minds and uh try not to make them stumble so i did this talk and at some point during the talk i remember i saw a girl that was sitting in the in the dorm for worship that day she looked modestly attired with a very long dress and i happened to know her name i said can you come up and could you help me with an illustration she said sure she came up i said i want you to stand behind me just where i can't see you now it's all it's the girls dorm and it's the lady teachers there's no men in there except me giving this talk and i said uh how many of you girls here would agree that cynthia i'm making up her name has a modest dress all the hands went up many of them thought she was way too modest their hands went up that's all right i want you to do me a favor i want you to pinch the sides of your dress on each side i want you to pull it up one inch and so i said did she do it she did it how many of you think it's still modest virtually all the hands still went up i said okay symphony you know what i'm going to ask you now another inch she raised it up another inch how many of you think well all of a sudden some of the hands were going down and i kept doing this where i had her bring up her dress one inch at a time until i said now how many of you think she's in modest and everyone said and so i turned around no i didn't do that i wanted to know you know what at what point do they think so my question then was if you know that there is a point and you're not exactly sure or agreed at what that point is is your goal to get how close see how close you can get to that point of the forbidden zone are you going to want to stay away from it does that make sense if if you know and this is girls looking at girls judging girls boys would judge differently so as christians when we're dressing and we know that i heard a pastor say it this way one time is typically as we see the values and morals of the culture going down the church always feels like we're holy if we stay a little better than the world so let's suppose that 60 years ago the morals of the culture were here the values and the morals of the co of the church were even higher but over time we've noticed that there's been a precipitous drop in the values of the culture and the morals and the modesty of the culture and the church just saying well as long as i'm better than the world i must be holy but imperceptibly over time what's happened is the values of the church have dropped lower than where the values of the world used to be but we think well as long as we're better than the world we must be doing it all right but maybe we're not to be using the world as our standard maybe we're to be saying what does god say and you will be called straight laced and you will be called fanatical i'm not recommending that people start going to the you know the getting the burqa you know to figure out what's appropriate dress but neither do i think that god is pleased that we're following the trends of the world and going to the other extreme you know this is not just for women this is also for men uh who has an emma watson that said the less you reveal the more people can wonder some people think well you know um i can show everything and get attention people sometimes think that you you got more hidden if you hide you got more going for you dressing modestly is one way of telling the world you don't play by its rules but you play by god's rules now when the priests were designing their garments as i mentioned it's also for men god said through moses nor shall you go up by steps to my altar that your nakedness may not be exposed on it you know you've probably seen some of the pyramids central america they had them in the middle east and the priests would go up these steep altars and you could look up the dress and god basically was saying look don't be approaching my altar on some steep place you know the altar of the lord was in a courtyard that was flat why that they not look upon their nakedness i'm not done exodus 28 42 when they're making the clothes for the priests not only do they have the outer garments he said you shall make for them linen trousers to cover their nakedness that they reach from the waist to the thighs and when it says to the thighs it doesn't mean it stops when it gets to the thighs and that would be a long cloth in hebrew this means covering the waist to the bottom of the thighs are what you would say from the waist to the knees and so god said even the men when they went in to minister before the lord they should be appropriately attired and that meant covering and john gill said they were to reach from above the navel this is in his commentary to the thigh which is the knee first peter chapter three verse one through four talking about women who might be married to unbelieving men says you can reach them as they behold your chaste conversation the word conversation means behavior coupled with fear whose adorning let it not be the outward adorning the plating of hair the wearing of gold or putting on of apparel but let it be the hidden man of the heart that which is not corruptable even the ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit which is in the sight of god of great price you know in the book education page 248 chaste simplicity in dress when united with modesty of demeanor will go for far towards surrounding a young woman with the atmosphere of sacred reserve which will be to her a shield from a thousand perils not only by behaving modestly are you preserving others you are preserving yourself from a thousand perils i don't think we realize what a difference it makes in the sight of heaven when we decide what we're going to wear and how we clothe ourselves angels in heaven says these angels in the presence of god they cover their faces they cover their feet and they cry holy holy holy is the lord of hosts now i'm not just talking about how we dress in church i'm talking about every day i think we'd all agree that there are extremes you know even in the bible if i was to say to you well that person dressed like a harlot i don't know what you conjure in your mind but that would certainly be provocative clothing would you agree you can read in proverbs 7 10 there was garments that were described that way there was a woman who met this man who got led like a sheep to the slaughter calf to the slaughter there was a woman who met him with the attire of a harlot in a crafty heart when david looked out the window and he got into trouble he saw bathsheba but he didn't just see bathsheba he saw bathsheba doing what bathing which indicates that maybe she wasn't fully clothed if it says david looked from his roof and he saw bathsheba baking bread or weaving baskets you might not have the same story in the bible but there was something that he saw that caused him to stumble and you know i can show you from the math that because of david's lingering lustful look and bathsheba may have been partly responsible we don't know if she knew he was looking she must have known where the palace was thousands of people died and that sin led to him losing four sons including the rebellion of adonijah and absalom which resulted in thousands of deaths and it can be traced back to that sin it does make a difference so you know i remember reading somewhere in sunday schools that used to have a little quip as a baptist and method of sunday schools telling the children raise your hands touch your toes if anything shows go change your clothes so one principle is modesty and humility another principle that god gives us in his word for dress and clothing and our wardrobe is a distinctiveness in gender i'm real old-fashioned in this way that there should be a difference between the clothing of a boy and the clothing of a girl a man and a woman a woman ought to dress like a woman someone once said a lady should wear uh should what not where how's it go a lady should wear enough oh i don't remember how it goes i think i got it written down here oh yeah here it is your dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman and loose enough to show you're a lady there you go deuteronomy 22 5 a woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man nor a man put on a woman's garment for all that do so are an abomination to the lord that's about the strongest language god uses you see i i believe that the devil is attacking god's people in the last days in genesis the principal areas where we are being attacked in the church and in the culture well marriage is under attack would you agree did god make a distinction between men and women in the garden of eden that's under attack and the sabbath's under attack those institutions of eden are under attack and i think we need to be aware of that first corinthians 10 i'm sorry first corinthians 11 verse 4 and 5. now i'm not going to explain this whole thing because i don't understand the whole thing but part of it cannot be misunderstood we get this question all the time on the bible answer program about a woman covering her head you know which one i'm talking about every man praying or prophesying having his head covered dishonors his head but every woman who prays or prof prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head the only thing i want you to notice about that is paul is saying that the way that a man and a woman covered their head was opposite that there was a distinction i can even go into what it meant whether it was cultural or or not but god said there's a distinction here one was honoring their head by covering it one was dishonoring their head by covering it and so god is saying that there ought to be a difference between the apparel in the garden of eden when god said to adam fig leaves that's not going to work uh i'm gonna bring you tunics that i have made especially for you now do you think there was a difference in the tunic that god gave eve from the tunic do you think that god said to adam and eve i made him unisex today take your pick whichever one you want which one do you want adam which one do you want eve i don't think so did god make the bodies of women different from the bodies of men yeah women are very different their bodies are designed with actual processes that men know nothing about we don't birth babies we don't have that monthly cycle we don't nurse these are things that are foreign totally foreign to our anatomy and in case you didn't know men are from mars and women are from venus between the ears where they were different in the way that we think and those differences are good god designed them that way and so god wants to highlight and celebrate those differences but we're in a culture where it's like they're going overboard to eliminate any sexual distinction i don't care what the supreme court says i care what the bible says and god said that if we try to blur those distinctions it is an abomination because we're going against his design god gave different robes to adam and eve all right so i talked about the distinction in the dress now someone's gonna say pastor doug are you telling me that women can't wear pants no i'm not telling you men can't wear kilts either i'm telling you that you should be modest and whatever the design is it should be clear that it's a woman's pants or a man's dress that still doesn't sound right doesn't it well you know i go to places in the world where the men do wear robes and uh you know we go to india and the men sometimes work but there's a big difference between the robes of the men and the robes of the women and i'll tell you in india they know right away which is which if you've got a woman sorry on or if you're wearing a man's garment they understand there should be a distinction and so whatever the culture is god says those distinctions should be modest humble and there should be a distinction in the dress something else that's a principle for our witness and our worship and our wardrobe is practicality and durability now i put those things together today we should get 102 or three degrees you're going to dress differently today than you will next february there's a practicality to it and if you're going to ride a horse or a bike or climb a mountain you probably man or woman you might dress differently from your shoes on up than you would if you're you know doing other things so consider what the function is of what you're doing when you dress and that's something to consider also the durability of the clothing i thought it was interesting that after the children of israel came out of egypt god said in deuteronomy 8 4 your garments did not wear out on you how many of you would like to have those garments you know why levi strauss became an international brand levi strauss during the gold rush he moved to san francisco and he started a business and he began to make tents he thought all these prospectors the gold rush millions of people came pouring into the northwest and he thought they're going to need tents and so he made these blue tents dyed with indigo blue and he would rivet them so that they would not tear in the wind and he just wasn't selling very many tents there's too much material they're too expensive and so while he was waiting figuring out what to do or how to increase business he decided to make himself a pair of pants out of his tent material and he thought you know if i use these grommets i use on the tents on the corners of the pockets i bet those pockets won't tear out and i'll put i'll put these bronze buttons on the zipper make it extra strong and he used tent building material to make pants all the miners saw these they said levi where do you get those he's what i made him say can you make me a pair levi's was born he took what he thought was going to be a terrible failure and it turned into an amazing success because the pants were so durable they're still selling them today so it's okay for a christian to have durable clothing dressing modestly does not mean that you need to look frumpy can you say amen i think that if you want to people say that and they use it as an excuse by the way even if you are going to be frumpy you have to make up your mind what's more important culture convenience cost or modesty modesty and humility trumps all the others you can't say well you know i saved money so i'm wearing a bikini today he was on sale oh you can't say well just so hot out i know i have hardly anything on you need to take into mind modesty don't let the others trump that but clothing can also be durable here's a quote from that book ministry of healing page 289 but our clothing while modest and simple should be of good quality and of becoming colors and suited for service it should be chosen for durability rather than display it should provide warmth and proper protection i'm wearing a sermon illustration today karen and i were in dubai on our way back from india about a year ago and i had one night to preach in dubai and one meeting but we didn't realize our bags got checked all the way to california so i get off the plane in dubai and they meet us at the airport and i asked the people at the airline i said you know i need my bags i said no you can't get your bags your bags are they're on their way to california this is a stopover and i thought about yeah we're only here like eight hours we were i was going to preach and then get my next flight well i don't wear the same clothes when i fly that i wear when i preach matter of fact any of you that know me people see me in a baseball cap almost all the time in the amazing facts office i got my baseball cap on people see me wearing a baseball cap and they say pastor doug are you trying to hide i said no it says amazing facts on my cap i'm not hiding i said my head gets cold i don't know why but um and you know i wear i'm wearing jeans or you know casual clothes when i'm flying and i got my baseball cap and my feet are big and flat and i wear tennis shoes so i get off the plane they say pastor doug you're preaching tonight i said now you know we got a little problem here i said i don't have any suits is this a formal meeting they said oh you can't wear that and i thought well i'm not sure what the solution is because this is all i've got i said i did bring a change of underwear if that'll help in my backpack but i said i don't have a suit and i said well you're gonna have to get a suit and this is dubai any of you been to dubai most expensive mall in the world this is dubai where they have no car on the street over five years old it is one of the most expensive cities in the world because all of the oil money that flows in there i mean it is just like i went to a hotel with a golden toilet seat it wasn't my hotel someone just showed it to me and they say we're going to take you to the mall you're going to have to buy a suit i said who's going to buy that suit it's your suit it's about preaching to you thanks for coming so they took me to the mall and in just we just had a couple hours and time was running i'm walking around i'm looking at the price tag going they kept taking me like pierre cardone and all these expensive and so finally i just swallowed hard and i thought you know i can't preach this is for god it's for my witness for these people it's not gonna look right with my my tennis shoes and my frumpy clothes and i had to buy this suit and it's turned out to be a really good suit because it's quality she did get it on sale she got but you know what they tell you we're going to give you 50 off 2 000 because we like you my grandmother had a clothes store you know the markup on clothes is outrageous and macy's they always want you to think you're getting a good deal and they're laughing all the way to the bank anyway so yeah we got it on sale and uh the tie the shirt the shoes i had to buy all of these things that day but you know what they're pretty good they're less they're holding up really good i remember once for years i used to go to walmart and i buy a garden hose i'd buy the cheapest garden hose i thought a hose is a hose as a hose and after a year sitting out in the sun it kinked and it cracked it fell apart i said this is crazy i'm paying ten dollars for a hose it doesn't last a year so finally i bit the bullet i went to home depot and i got a contractor's industrial rubber hose i've had it 15 years and i it's paid for itself so many times so when you're talking about clothing a christian does not have to wear burlap but you don't want to be ostentatious you don't have to try to dress in the brightest loudest colors you can find now if you're going to a wedding and everyone's wearing bright flowers wear bright flowers you won't stand out see what i'm saying but you shouldn't want to the whole thing is are you trying to attract attention to yourself by what you dress are you wanting to glorify god in your clothes because of your humility you're trying to reflect jesus amen all right well so your clothing should be what was i talking about durable practical and wear something that matters you know sheepskin is a whole lot more durable than fig leaves you aware of that and i've never heard of anybody going to victoria's secret so they can buy a sheepskin 90. so it's it's a little thicker a little more modest uh what about fashion do fashions change they do is it wrong to follow oh yeah look at those shoes that's not right how why would anyone wear shoes like that that's got to hurt you'll be wearing shoes like that and also king kong is going to come breaking through the city you're going to have to run for your life and you'll be taken off those shoes and throwing them at king kong that's why they call them stilettos yeah so you want to be practical in what you wear but talking about a fashion again i think it was um john wesley that said a christian should not be the first to adopt a fashion neither should we be the last but never adopt a fashion if it violates a biblical principle of modesty and propriety all kinds of different fashions that change but you should never sacrifice a principle of modesty and propriety and this also leads to the next section cleanliness and health i'm point four now almost done cleanliness and healthy now i put these two together because obviously being clean is being healthy but they could also be distinct here's your verse ephesians 5 25-27 husbands love your wives just as christ also loved the church and gave himself for her that he might sanctify and cleanse her with a washing of water by the word that he might present her to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle speaking of clothing or any such thing but that she should be holy and without blemish god wants us to be clean in our clothes in ruth 3 3 when ruth was coming before boaz who was a type of christ naomi said therefore wash yourself and anoint yourself and put on your best garment and i think it's important to use that as a principle before we come before the king esther before she went before a has you wears she washed she was fasting but she washed herself and she put on her royal apparel to go into the presence of the king joseph when he came out of the prison to go before the pharaoh he washed he shaved it doesn't mean everyone needs to shave but it's optional but he cleaned himself up put on different apparel because he's going before the king and when we come and meet before the king and i realize he got warm weather in the summer but you should still be respectful when you come into the house of god and you're going to worship god amen and health in your clothing you know for years i used to wear these dresses and stuff that had corsets on it that pulled so tight people couldn't breathe because of a fashion statement people and and then there's a fashion where the guy wears the underwear down around the knees and how you gonna run from trouble like that i i mean just some of these things are not healthy and they're not practical and god wants us to be clean moses told the children of israel before god met with them exodus 19 10 the lord said go too you know exodus 20 he gives the ten commandments go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow let them wash their clothes and let them be ready on the third day from the third day the lord will come down on mount sinai in the sight of all the people in the book ministry of healing page 288 our dress should be clean uncleanness in dress is unhelpful and thus defiling to the body and the soul you are the temple of god if any man defiles the temple of god him will god destroy in all respects the dress should be helpful above all things god desires us to be in health she's quoting of course from first john there health of body and of soul we're to be workers together with him for the health of both body and soul both are promoted by healthful dress you don't want things to be so tight that you can't breathe or uncomfortable to try to accommodate some fashion and so clothing should be healthy and yet so many they want to take the name of christ but they want to live for the world isaiah 4 describes this group and that day seven women will take hold of one man saying we're going to eat our own food and wear our own apparel but we want your name to take away our approach and there are a lot of men and women in the world today they want the name of christ but they won't be apparel of the world they want our own apparel but they want his name and christians should be dressing like christians can you say amen one of the most important reasons i talked about the morality and the practicality and the health and the cleanliness our witness it's not just our worship it's our witness among the heathen christians are often marked because of their flamboyant um in modest dress and we need to be praying that god is gonna some of you remember a few years ago there was a just there was a little epidemic in christian history where a number of very prominent televangelists fell morally some of the younger ones may not know what i'm talking about those of you who are a little older no they were they had television ministries and schools and institutions and and then it came out that they were living double lives and the world made so much fun of them and you know the thing if people even wrote songs about it the thing that stood out the most is these people claimed to be christians but their dress was so gaudy and flamboyant and loud and they they just would slather on the makeup and they talk about you know the prosperity how god has blessed me and uh people in the world who had some modicum of modesty would say that ain't right you can follow jesus so christians ought to be saying what is the world thinking of us in our making our decision what we're pulling out of the wardrobe from day to day paul said romans 14 21 it is good to neither eat meat or drink wine or do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or made weak you need to be considering you can't say well i'm just going to do what i want to do and if they've got a problem that's their problem well if you're a christian and if you have other options you got to think about that because you might make somebody stumble and if you look in the mirror and you have a question that might be your answer you're saying is it modest is this appropriate well do the safe thing it's kind of like this uh man in scotland had been wearing the same shirt for a few days and he held it up to the light he started to sniff the armpit and his wife called to him and said if it's doubtful it's dirty and it's often true that that's a rule matthew 18 jesus said woe to the world because of offenses offenses will come but woe to that man by whom offenses come you don't want to do anything that's going to make somebody else stumble and so when you're choosing what to wear realize you're advertising every day for christian for christ you may not be able to preach to people or teach people or pass out a track but you can try to look like christ would look in our culture today and i don't mean to wear a robe and walk around in sandals you know what i'm saying but the principles of modesty and humility that jesus emphasized now i'm almost done but you know i thought i've gone so far i may as well go for broke and you know when you're going to hit something hit it hit it hard and move on it's not specifically clothing but at its supplemental adornment what does the bible say about jewelry um let me read a verse to you isaiah 3 verse 16 to 21 moreover the lord says because the daughter of zion daughters of zion are haughty and that word haughty means proud and they walk with outstretched necks you know what that means and want an eyes i can't do it without my false eyelashes walking and mincing as they go do you want me to demonstrate that the swishing making a jingling with their feet they used to actually wear bells and things on their feet therefore the lord will strike with the scab the crown of the head the daughters of zion and the lord will uncover their secret parts in that day the lord will take away the finery the jingling anklets the scarves and the crescents the pendants the bracelets the veils the headdresses the leg ornaments the headbands the perfume boxes the charms the rings the nose jewels and god is saying that he connects us with the proud daughters of zion when the children of israel made a golden calf what'd they make it out of see when they spoiled the egyptians when they left egypt there was no paper money back then jewels and gold and silver that was money that was the precious rare metals and valuables and the egyptians gave them all these articles as payment for their labor but then they were wearing it because it says then aaron told them break off the gold and the jewels that are in the ears of your sons and your daughters they had the same problem back then we have today and they turned it into a god and they worshiped it so after that experience god says in exodus 33 4 that people heard about the judgment it says they mourned no one put on his ornaments for the lord had said to moses say to the children of israel you are a stiff neck that means a proud a stubborn people i'm going to come up into the midst of you in a moment and consume you now therefore take off your ornaments that i might know what to do with you so the children of israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by mount horeb you know uh self-denial this is from the book evangelism page 269 self-denial in dress is part of our christian duty to dress plainly simply and abstain from the display of jewelry and ornaments of every kind is in keeping with our faith paul said our peter peter says let it not be the goal paul says in first timothy 2 9 the women adorn themselves in modest apparel not with gold or pearls or costly array have you noticed in revelation there are two women one in revelation 12 1 in revelation 17. those two women represent two different churches one true one false one is the bride of christ one is called the scarlet harlot of revelation 17. neither of those women ever utter a word you know what gives them away what they're wearing the way you know the difference between the true and the false one is clothed with the light made by god the sun the moon the stars i told you we're going to wear robes of light in heaven the other gold and pearls and costly rain scarlet and she actually does have a paragraph in her forehead that says mother of harlots that's sort of a hint but their attire is different so as a christian which way do you want to lean the garments of light or the garments of the world no i don't think that god wants us wearing the jewelry one more thing on that well maybe a couple more things genesis 35 god said to jacob arise and go to bethel and dwell there and make an altar there to guard come to worship me who appeared to you when you fled from the face of your brother esau and jacob said to his household they've been living among the canaanites and the canaanites were influencing them jacob said to his household and to all who were with him his servants put away the foreign gods that are among you purify yourselves change your garments wash change your clothes let us arise and go to bethel and i'll make an altar there to god who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way that i have gone so they gave jacob all the foreign gods that were in their hands and the earrings that were in their ears and jacob buried them under a tree which is by shechem it's interesting they're going to come meet with the lord and to assign to get away from their compromise they buried their gods with their their jewelry i believe that god would have christians dress simply in that way you'll get a crown someday friends don't work don't worry about it you're going to walk on golden streets in heaven amen you'll get all you can handle of the gold and the silver and the precious stones in the new jerusalem but you know you must wonder what angels think um the streets are paved with gold in heaven angels look down here they see us put gold around our necks and in our ears and the angels look at each other and say why are they wearing asphalt just so it doesn't matter what we wear matthew 22 jesus tells a parable about a great wedding feast and the king came in to see the guests and he saw there a man that did not have on a wedding garment he said friend how did you come in here without a wedding garment the king said i provided garments for the wedding for everybody and he was speechless and the king said to the servants bind him hand and foot and take him away and cast them into outer darkness and they'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth for many are called but few are chosen in the final judgment you've got to have the right garment on you know i was doing a little search on wedding dresses where i talked about the church being the bride of christ and i saw this picture of kate middleton's wedding dress from her marriage to uh well what's the prince william i get the boys mixed up i'm sorry but you can tell i don't follow the royal family uh very well and uh her dress cost 388 000. now would you be a little nervous if you had to wear that to a spaghetti dinner a 388 thousand dollar dress you how hard would you try to keep that clean has the lord provided a garment for us does he want us to try and keep it clean the bible says we wash our robes and make them white in the blood of the lamb christ provides us with these pure garments by the way that's not the most expensive wedding dress most expensive wedding dress is 12 million dollars in beverly hills it's a diamond dress that a company made down there nobody's bought it yet but they make all the wedding dresses for the movie stars a 12 million dollar diamond studded wedding dress you'd want to make sure you had the right husband if you wore that yes you know in the book child guidance it says no education can be complete that does not teach right principles in regard to dress without teaching the work of education is too often and perverted without teaching these things god wants us to understand these principles revelation 3 verse 4 you have a few names in sardis who have not defiled their garments they will walk with me in white for they are worthy he who overcomes will be clothed in white garments and i will not blot his name out from the book of life god is offering you and i designer clothes god gave adam and eve designer garments they were designed to cover their sin through the death of the lamb god's garments that he gave adam and eve it was not fig leaves jesus cursed the fig tree it was the garments that came from a lamb they did not earn it it required the death of another all of our righteousness is like filthy rags friends we need the righteousness that comes from christ so what should we wear romans chapter 13 verse 14 put on the lord jesus christ and make no provision for the flesh galatians 3 27 as many of you as were baptized into christ have put on christ colossians 3 12 12-13 therefore as the elect of god holy and beloved here's what we put on put on tender mercies kindness humility meekness long-suffering above all these things put on love so when we talk about our righteousness as filthy rags and jesus offers us his robe of righteousness what does that really mean you really are putting on the robe of christ when you accept his forgiveness and then you try to live out his virtues put on love put on tender mercies kindness humility furthermore paul says we're at war you need to wear some practical clothing it's called the armor of god put on the whole armor of god that you can stand against the wiles of the devil a lot of us would win battles we've been losing if we would dress differently romans 12 13 the night is far spent the day is at hand therefore let us cast off the works of darkness let us put on the armor of light jesus says to you and me i advise you to buy for me gold refined in the fire so that you might be rich and white garments that you might clothe yourself that the shame of your nakedness be not revealed you know the bible tells us that when jesus died on the cross john 19 23 when they crucified him they took his garments and they made four parts to each soldier apart i always thought that was interesting four parts it's like he'll send his angels to the four corners of the earth that means something universal the righteousness of christ covers everybody who will come to him it's available to the whole world now his tunic was without seam jesus had a quality robe woven from the top in one piece there's no seam he was perfect seamless and they said among themselves let us not tear it but let us cast lots to see whose it will be that the scripture might be fulfilled that says they divided my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots therefore the soldiers did these things jesus jesus became naked that we might have our nakedness covered now if he paid that kind of price to cover our nakedness do we want to flaunt our nakedness do we want to spurn the gift that he paid for us with this sacrifice revelation 7 14 and he said to me these are the ones who have come out of great tribulation and they've washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb jesus poured out his blood now don't ask me friends how red blood can wash a filthy garment and make it whiter than snow but the bible tells us in isaiah it works that way and we you know i probably should have prefaced everything i said this morning let's go back and start over everything i'm saying now is only for those of you who are converted because if you don't love jesus this is just going to sound like rules but if you love jesus and you want to do his will and you've humbled your heart before him then you'll honestly ask these questions about lord can i glorify you and be a better witness and be better in my worship by what happens in my wardrobe but if if you've not surrendered to jesus you've got to go back to square one because otherwise this isn't going to make sense to you it's going to sound like a bunch of church rules and if that's the reason you're doing it it's the wrong reason you're still better off doing it but you need to be doing it for the right reason because you love him amen you want to be covered by christ righteousness and that's the first thing that's the most important robe and that's where it all begins we're going to sing about that i'd like to invite our song leaders to come up we're going to be singing that song cover with his life wider than snow and in your hymnals that's hymn number 412 let's stand together as we sing [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is is [Music] is [Music] is father in heaven lord i don't think that it's easy for us to comprehend the shame that jesus endured that we might have peace that we might be forgiven i pray lord that you'll save us from the values of the culture that just saturates our society help us to view these issues through your word i pray lord if there's any area in our lives where we need a transformation regarding uh how we dress and and how we advertise for thee and how we worship you with the choices that we make regarding apparel help us to have a revival in this department lord we want to be christians indeed but first and foremost we pray you'll forgive our sins help us to take up the robe that you've offered us at such an infinite cost washed in your own blood to cover our nakedness lord we thank you for that we want to stand in your presence robed when you come i pray your blessing in each person's life help us know how to process what we've talked about today and we ask that we can glorify you and be your witnesses praying all this in jesus name amen you could please be seated for just a moment want to thank you

Channel: Daily Hymns

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Length: 63min 55sec (3835 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 14 2021