We ask you, Lord Jesus, to once again
reveal yourself in our midst.
Lord, we pray that our coming to church
won't just be churchianity, which confuses many people,
or which is just the habit of many
people, but let it rather be a meeting
that we might leave here being changed by
your grace, Lord.
Amen.
So that's 2 Samuel, the 22nd chapter, verse
2.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress and
my deliverer.
And going on to verse 3, the God
of my strength, in Him I will trust,
my shield and the horn of my salvation,
my stronghold and my refuge, my Saviour, you
save me from violence.
At the end of verse 3, it says,
my Saviour, you save me from violence.
There's much that can
be said about this, and I just branch
out on one point regarding clothing.
A certain girl came, I had mentioned as
I was speaking regarding the braided wigs that
girls put on to extend their hair length.
She said to me, Pastor, since I've come
here, my head is itchy, it burns.
It seems like this which I'm wearing on
my head is like a fire on me.
And she said also, my navel ring, because
you find it's now fashionable that they wear
halter necks that come down, not so low,
but the belly button shows.
She said, before I came here, I had
just pierced my navel.
She said, I have such an itchiness around
my navel.
She said, I also wear pants.
She said, I don't know what it is,
but since I've been wearing them, I'm troubled
by lesbianism.
I have an overwhelming attraction to the female
sex.
She said, when
I wear a skirt, I feel normal, but
when I wear these pants, it just seems
to arouse within me this raging lesbianism.
Now, there is a fortress which is spoken
of here in the Bible.
Now, in this text which we've read, our
Saviour extends His saving power even into the
domain of our clothing.
Yes, it is said that God doesn't look
at the outward, He looks at the inward.
But it was John Bunyan who said, the
outward depicts the inward.
And we examined the history of all of
this, all of these different things.
Mary Quant began the fashion.
She began the miniskirt fashion.
She is known as the high priestess of
fashion.
She is the one who began the miniskirt
fashion.
She said, She designed the miniskirt so that
it would be a statement, an announcement that
women are available for sex in the afternoon.
She is saying that this is a statement,
a fashion statement where women say to the
opposite sex, I'm available for sex in the
afternoon.
And then she was asked what type of
character should the women of today be.
She replied that the women of today should
be a sexual creature.
That's all.
A woman must be a sexual creature.
Must be a sexual creature.
This is something from way back in 1964.
Now, some may not know what this means
and the symbolism of it, but I believe
that in the heart you can find such
an influence.
In other words, even if they don't know
the origin, nevertheless it resides in their hearts.
Even though it is true that a woman
is not the same as a man, in
the
sense that a woman is not easily touched
by a visual harassment in comparison to a
man.
A female might not feel anything.
Although we do live in a time of
perversion and of sexual promiscuity poured out by
the devil upon this world.
There was the case and somebody mentioned that
in testified that as a wife not feeling
loved and treasured by her husband, she put
on tight trousers in order to attract the
opposite sex only to provoke him to see
her as more desirable.
Not only trousers, clothing.
To the point that her husband To the
point that her husband took note of it
and said, don't you notice that other men
are looking at you?
And she said that's exactly what I wanted
to do.
I wanted to be provocative so that you
would, because you do find that some wives
feel that they are not treasured by their
husbands.
So clothing does play a very important role.
Even though the statement, as I've already quoted,
God doesn't see the outward, he sees the
inward.
Even though there is truth in that, the
one who stands by that from beginning to
end and that is their sole argument, that
is a plain lie.
That's just a blatant lie.
Satanic.
To make use of that word.
And that word is A to Z.
The Bible
can
be the strongest weapon in the hands of
godless people and worldly people.
The Lord's response to Satan was yes, it
is said like that, but it also says,
In other words, that's just one side of
the argument.
You can read from right at the beginning
of the Bible.
Right from the very creation of Adam and
Eve.
When she had eaten of that forbidden fruit,
she took it and went to her husband
that he too should partake.
She took it and went to her husband
that he too should
partake.
Some try and make it out to be
as if that was sexual sin, that it
was sex.
It's not the case at all.
That is an argument that is ridiculous.
This was the fruit which they partook of,
which God said they should not touch for
it is the tree of knowledge of good
and evil.
That is the fruit which they partook of,
which God said they should not touch for
it is the tree of knowledge of good
and evil.
God had already married them.
They had already been commanded to procreate and
to reproduce.
But this was the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil.
Something which Satan made use of in trying
to provoke a question saying, Did God really
say, is it really like that?
Maybe God really knows that you'll become wise
if you eat of this fruit.
And so in taking of it, her eyes
were opened and she brought sin into this
world.
There was also another tree in the garden
and that was the tree of life.
Where God said, if they eat from that
tree they won't die.
Now just imagine if God wouldn't have chased
Adam and Eve out of the garden, we'd
have this wicked people.
They wouldn't die and live forever.
What a terrible curse that would be.
It's good that this sinner has got to
die, that his wicked ways stop in this
world.
God having seen this was greatly disturbed.
Adam and Eve patched together some fig leaves.
The fig tree being very symbolic in the
Bible of being spiritual.
The fig tree speaking of the nation of
God and of the people of God.
Adam and
Eve patched together some fig leaves.
Now it's surprising, it's ironical that they didn't
use something more practical for covering like a
banana leaf.
Much easier to sow and put together.
But instead they chose something of a biblical
symbolism, the fig leaf.
Very difficult to patch together but something which
provided more of a religious covering for them.
A person who is promiscuous and dresses provocatively
doesn't try and defend themselves using arguments from
the world, from paganism.
No, they will rather use arguments from God
himself and they'll get it from the Bible.
And then God said, Adam where are you?
Notice men that God doesn't come asking the
woman where she was.
And this also sets the pattern that God
holds the man accountable in the family.
Even if your wife is off the road
and your family is off the road, you
are the one who is accountable before God.
He comes and asks you first.
And if your wife does wrong, it's your
responsibility.
So the men that just bow to the
wives and say yea and amen are doomed
and damned.
Because God will say, why is your wife
like that?
And it's your failure, your sin, your shortcoming.
Even raw heathens when they are at a
beer party and the woman maybe has had
too much and she starts laughing and joking
and acting as she shouldn't do.
The men and the headman won't address the
wife.
He'll tell the husband, take care of your
dog and that men will be punished.
That's the heathen.
I'm not treating women underfoot.
But I'm speaking in the presence of God.
You husband are guilty if your wife doesn't
behave as she should behave and dress as
she should dress.
Even the responsibility of the children is on
the men's shoulders.
So men pray that God will make men
out of you.
Now you can understand when my wife died
and she said, the king is coming, the
king is coming.
I felt like jumping and I said, oh
God, you've wiped away my tears.
And my heart saw that my wife could
leave me and this world saying, the king
is coming.
She was meeting the king and the king
was coming her way.
I said, thank you Lord.
That's like a crown on my head.
I needn't have another crown in heaven.
That's enough.
I know what it is to be a
man and to be married.
And be conscious of the fact you are
responsible for that person.
And I was married to a teacher.
And you know what teachers are like.
They've just got children in front of them.
And students, they tell them what to do.
They like nurses.
Is there a nurse here?
No nurse, not even one.
Lift your hands.
No nurse.
How poor we are.
Where?
Right at the back.
Where at the back?
There.
Oh.
Is that a woman or a man?
A lady.
A male nurse or a female?
A lady.
You know what nurses are like.
They only have to do with the patient.
And the patient has to pay.
And the nurse?
And we have a patient.
Not good.
Yes.
If you marry a nurse or a teacher,
you need to reckon with what type you
are married with.
You must reckon with that.
You need godly authority.
Otherwise that person can sit on your head.
Now I'm not saying this to strengthen you
foolish men.
Some men.
I praise God that I'm not a woman.
If I have to be married to such
men, they want the woman to obey.
And they behave like babies and stupid people.
If you want your wife to bow to
you, you must be able to bow to
Christ.
Otherwise you've got no right to expect that
she'll bow to you.
And I teach the women, if your husband
doesn't tell you what God tells you, don't
listen to him.
If your husband tells you to go and
steal a chicken, don't obey him.
Of course you need to answer in the
right way.
If your husband tries to forbid you to
go to a service, you need to seek
a way to get there.
So the accountability is upon the shoulders of
the husband, the man in the home, if
his wife does not live in a biblical
way and the children.
But let me leave that and continue with
our subject.
Spurgeon said, do not be a slave of
fashion.
London obtains
their fashions from Paris.
And Paris from hell.
And so, the
Bible speaks much about clothing.
If it would be true, what the young
girls tell us, God doesn't look at the
outside, he just looks at the inside.
Why didn't God allow Adam and Eve to
go around naked?
Because he doesn't mind.
They could have gone around naked.
But he created them in his own image.
Not the animals and men.
When he created you, Eve, he made you
in his image.
You are not made just
like
a beast, not like a cow that goes
around in its naked form showing around its
udders.
You are not made like that.
If you are a cow, you can do
it.
And if you feel that you are of
monkey descent, you can do it as well.
Only go to the doctor and ask him
to stitch on a tail at the back,
because you are not exactly as your forefathers
and great great great mothers.
Do
it
completely.
If you really are just a result of
evolution, then do it properly.
Get the tail, go and live in the
forests and eat the bananas with apes.
But if you are really created in the
image of God, then you as a man,
start by looking at how your wife is
clothed.
Clothing tells us volumes.
Of course, let the girls and the wives
and widows dress as should be appropriate, as
is attractive, and as is glorifying to God.
If you do wear a dress and you
say, alright, I'll wear a dress, but you
make it so tight, you are in the
same boat as the one who wears very
tight jeans.
That you
think sex openly.
So Mary Quant's emphasis, the gist of it
was, let your message, your clothing be a
sexual message, let it be provocative to the
opposite sex, let it be a statement about
your sexuality all the time.
We are very concerned, there is much complaint
about the awful violence, the terrible attacks and
the rape statistics.
We've got to have the death sentence again.
But very few people ask why.
I don't speak about the murderers on the
farms, etc.
etc.
Rape, etc.
Some girls do put themselves into vulnerable positions
because of their provocative clothing.
A certain well-known preacher in America who
publicly spoke about clothing and about the bikini
type of fashion, the clothing that the Quants
would have promoted.
Two particular girls fought against this preacher.
And they said no.
They even went to church with their bikinis.
This morning just before I came to the
service I was reading in the book of
Proverbs and I was so inspired I felt
like I could start preaching about what I
find there immediately in this sermon.
Just read about the harlots, how they dress.
And how they bring down men.
These two girls went into a divine service
with their provocative clothing.
They were adamant that they would persist in
their own clothing.
And they did.
They persisted.
The first one was followed around by males
like flies cling to dung.
Boys were around the girls all the time.
After 10 days they were pregnant.
It didn't take long, she fell pregnant like
a beast of the field and had an
illegitimate child.
Zulu is a very good language.
You can express things so nicely.
A cow doesn't fall pregnant.
And then one uses that word and the
Zulus understand that.
The second girl came to a prayer meeting
wearing tight jeans.
You know what jeans are like when they
buy them brand new, they're already washed out.
They're made like that.
The rebels of 1960 went against everything that's
good and decent.
So they started with the jeans, you know
what they like, as a pupile.
And so you found that those fashions, any
manner of rebellion, any statement of resistance against
authority.
And so in the 60s it was the
decade of rebellion.
Jeans that are made like it's a motor
mechanic who's been under a car.
They're made to be withered and washed out.
And be torn purposely so that it's in
tatters.
You are familiar with that, aren't you?
She wore such jeans, the type that is
very low slung, hipsters, torn and worn already.
At the back, low down it was written,
smile Jesus loves you.
Do you like that Christianity as well?
Look, I don't want to make you angry.
I like to be friends with you.
And I don't say that you should wear
decent clothing.
If you don't like to wear it, write
on your backside, smile Jesus loves you.
With a ring in your navel.
I don't want to make you angry.
I like to be friends with you.
And I don't say that you should wear
decent clothing.
If you don't like to wear it, write
on your backside, smile Jesus loves you.
With a ring in your navel.
If you don't like to wear it, write
on your backside, smile Jesus loves you.
But one day she arrived in an awful
state at the prayer meeting.
She was bleeding, she had been hurt.
She said, a boy along the way tried
to violate me.
I was fortunately able to escape.
God says to the men especially, if you
look at a woman lustfully, you have already
committed adultery in your heart.
Do you see what God says to men?
How God will judge the men?
Jesus said, if you look at a woman
lustfully, you have already committed adultery with her.
If you go, woman,
dress in a purposefully provocative way
in order to pull and attract the desire
of the opposite sex.
Jesus, do you think that God will judge
men so severely as we mentioned and let
you off the hook?
You woman, you are also guilty or accountable.
You find that the clothing with women, it's
not just the problem of it being from
the bottom so high but also so low
from the top.
A certain deacon of another certain denomination One
of his duties in the church being passing
around the collection plate going from pew to
pew Went to
Went
to
Went to his minister of that church and
said, reverend, I'm resigning my post as deacon.
I don't want to be stumbled any longer.
As I pass the plate around and I
see the women dressed with these low cut
dresses that are so vivid and so clear,
I don't want to have a stumbling block.
Now you Eve, why do you do it?
What is your intention?
Is it that you're a widow and you're
after other men you're trying to be inviting?
We mentioned during the youth conference as well
about the slit skirt and how you find
some that will wear a deep slit from
the back or from the side or the
front.
We excuse you if you just are ignorant
and you've grown up with it being the
norm.
And you think, well, the obvious reason is
because of the practicality of walking.
You can't walk like a dove where you've
hardly got any leg movement because the skirt
is so tight at the bottom.
You can't
walk like a dove where you've hardly got
any leg movement because
the
skirt is so tight at the bottom.
Now there was a service not so long
ago where the girl was the chorus leader
leading the singing.
She had a slit in her skirt, this
long slit going right up.
And she didn't know that this is a
fashion statement, the originators of which said, this
means that you are stating to the men,
come, I'm available brother.
Don't worry, I'll come to you.
You can live in hope.
She'll come to you.
On the side slit, meaning I'll follow you.
In the front, I'm ready and available.
My wife told me this, that after a
service right here, that at that very door
she noticed that as a child of a
co-worker was exiting, she had a slit
in her skirt where the wind blew and
blew the skirt up that it revealed right
up the thigh.
What type of girl was this?
Indeed, when she walked, could be seen right
up.
A child of a co-worker didn't amaze
me and doesn't amaze me that they have
left.
Are you amazed?
God doesn't look at the outside, he just
looks at the heart.
That is the language of prostitutes.
And you know what a prostitute is.
And if you dress accordingly, you are one
at heart.
This body is the temple of the most
holy God.
Women, wives, teach your daughters how to dress.
They are to dress as unto the Lord,
with Jesus in their hearts, being the temple
of the Holy Spirit.
They are not to dress in order to
provoke the opposite sex, but as unto the
Lord.
We are told when this fashion started, they
noted that the shorter the mini-dress, the
cheaper the girl was.
So
I
hope that you men, if you leave today,
it won't be necessary for me to tell
you again concerning dress.
Look at your wife and ask, is that
how a married woman, who is the temple
of the Holy Spirit, should dress?
And if it's not, you preach to your
wife.
Open the Bible, there are many verses that
speak clearly about this.
In Deuteronomy
22, In
Deuteronomy 22, In
verse 5, A woman shall not wear anything
that pertains to a man, nor shall a
man put on a woman's garment for all
who do so are detestable to the Lord
your God.
There's always got to be a difference between
a man and a woman.
From the top, from the head, right to
the bottom.
These days it is difficult to distinguish.
You can walk down a street and ask
whether the person comes from the front or
you see them from the back.
It's difficult to distinguish in these days of
unisex, is this a male or a female.
In 1964, when the miniskirt fashion began, The
statistics of rape incidents went up by 68
percent there.
In the United States, that was by 68
percent.
In England, it increased by 90 percent.
That just shows you, statistically, what it implies.
In Genesis 35, verse 2, In
Genesis 35, verse 2, So Jacob says to
his whole household and to all who were
with him, Put away your foreign gods that
are among you, And now listen to what
the foreign gods say.
Purify yourselves and change your garments.
They should wash themselves as well.
When jeans arrive, they say, People are told,
don't use deodorant.
Don't wash your hair.
So it's rebellion against everything that's pure and
clean and good.
I was quite happily contented with the thought
that, Well, all this will never come to
Africa.
This is just the depravity of the West.
But I apologize, I was mistaken.
I didn't think that black Africans would be
so easily deceived.
In Johannesburg, in a certain newspaper, A group
of men wrote a letter to the editor,
Complaining, saying, you women, our fellow African women,
Why do you dress like this?
You're doing it far worse than the European
women.
You got it from the whites.
But now you're more extreme than what they
are.
At the same time, I want to tell
you, You can dress decently, But if you're
not dressed spiritually, And Christ is not alive,
You will go to hell with your good
clothing.
You might say, but I dress so well.
You'll still go to hell if you don't
have the Holy Spirit, The Lord Jesus Christ,
ruling in your heart.
I'm drawing to an end.
A group of men wrote a letter to
the editor, Complaining, saying, you women, our fellow
African women, Why do you dress like this?
In Hamburg, in Germany, There's
a certain red light district called St. Paul
Street, And it's named after him, And this
is a red light district, This is a
prostitution area.
One of the worst prostitute places in the
world.
And it's called St. Paul.
Now, as part of the ring, He would
go on a recruitment drive To try and
find cheap young girls.
He would frequent discos To try and look
for girls.
Now, the German law states That you're not
to be sexually involved with a girl under
the age of 18.
Whether it's still like that, I don't know,
But years past, it was.
He would just confront a girl in the
disco, And say, you're 14, aren't you?
And provocatively, she would say, no, what do
you mean?
I'm 18.
And then he would know their age.
But I forgot to tell you a little
detail before that.
When he would go in And do a
surveillance check on the girls, Firstly, He would
look at the type of shoes they wore.
Isn't that interesting?
What has a shoe got to do with
it?
But the first thing he did, He looked
at the shoe the girl was wearing, And
that told him, alright, yes or no.
Just imagine, a shoe.
What has a shoe got to do with
it?
But he said, A shoe reveals Whether it's
a moral girl or not.
And then he would provoke the girl and
say, you're 14, aren't you?
No, I'm 18, she would squeak.
And then he would say, tell me, How's
the old man at home?
If she would object in the slightest way,
And say, don't speak like that about my
father, He would drop her like a hot
potato, And look for someone else.
But should she say, yes, the old man
is a pain in the neck, Then he
would ask, how's the old lady?
And she would answer, she's as bad as
the old man.
For him, she was caught, she was already
in the net, And he would be able
to get her into a brothel working for
him.
Do you see how the family is important?
Do you see how the family is a
protection?
Mother, father, grandparents, It is a shelter provided
by God for the children.
So you children who still have a mother
who's alive, or a father, Thank God for
your parents, because they are a shelter, Like
a covering, an umbrella, That is covering and
protecting you.
That which they tell you which is of
the Lord, Honor, respect, and live in obedience
to what they tell you, And you'll be
respected and honored in this world and the
next.
Jesus is our Savior.
He is our fortress, our shelter, Obey Him,
live for Him, And you'll be saved eternally.
Mary Quanton, her type, said, We want to
break all taboos, Whatever form or fashion we
want it to be completely, To break all
the norms from the top and the bottom.
We want to bring about total liberation and
freedom.
That is a hellish freedom.
It doesn't go with heaven.
Shall we pray?
Lord, teach us, according to Your Word, How
we should walk, how we ought to live.
Even in our clothing.
That Your glory, that heaven's glory, Would be
upon us and be evident in us.
Speak by Your Holy Spirit.
Teach Your people, O Lord, How they ought
to live.
At the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ
And the holiness of God the Father, God
the Holy Spirit would be evident.
Amen.