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I'd like you to take the Word
of God, please, and turn with me to the very first book in
the Bible, the very first chapter, in the beginning, in Genesis
chapter 1, and one verse we'll mark together, Genesis chapter
1 and verse 27. So this is chapter 1 and verse
27. I will speak to the subject of
modesty and identity. Modesty and identity. The Bible
says in Genesis chapter 1 and verse 27, so God created man
in his own image. In the image of God created he
him. Male and female created he them. Notice carefully the
Bible says male and female. Male and female created he them. Modesty and identity. Not just
modesty, but modesty and identity. Now I want you to turn with me
in the New Testament if you would please. to the book of 1 Timothy
chapter 2, and 1 Timothy chapter 2, we'll begin reading with verse
1. The Bible says, I exhort, therefore, that first of all
supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made
for all men, for kings and for all that are in authority, that
we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty.
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.
who will have all men to be saved and come unto the knowledge of
the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God
and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for
all to be testified in due time. Whereunto I am ordained a preacher,
an apostle, I speak the truth in Christ and lie not, a teacher
of the Gentiles in faith and verity. I will therefore that
men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and
doubting. In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in
modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broided
hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array, but which becometh
women professing godliness with good works." Notice, please,
if you're in the habit of marking things in your Bible, I want
you to mark this expression, modest apparel. In verse 9, modest
apparel. We talk about modesty and identity.
Modesty and identity. I've written a definition for
modesty in the margin of my Bible. I'd like to encourage you to
do the same thing. Modesty is defined as behaving according
to a standard of what is proper or decent and pure. Behaving
according to a standard of what is proper or decent and pure. Especially not displaying one's
body. Especially not displaying one's
body. Behavior according to a standard
of what is proper or decent and pure. Especially not displaying
one's body. There's a whole idea of order
here. That God has an order in things.
Everything must be done decently and in order. Everything to be
done decently and in order. I have a young lady seated here
who is dressed modestly, whose hair looks like a lady. Modesty. I have a young man sitting here
who is dressed like a young man, whose hair is cut like a young
man. Identity. There's no question when we look
at this person that this is a lady and no question when we look
at this person, this is a man. There's modesty and identity. The Bible says that God created
man, male and female. and that we are to behave ourselves
in a certain fashion and to be clothed in modest apparel. I
don't know if you're familiar with the name of Bork, but there
was a man who was recommended to be a Supreme Court judge.
He went through the hearings and did not pass the congressional
hearings, and so his Supreme Court appointment was denied.
And I understand he's a decent man, a God-fearing man. He's
written a book called Slouching Toward Sodom, Slouching Toward
Sodom. It's a book about the decline
in America and our moving to the left and the moral decay,
the loss of values, no fixed point of reference, all the kind
of things you'd imagine you'd find in a book that's titled
Slouching Toward Sodom. One chapter in that book is on
the radical feminist movement. Now that's not women's rights,
it's the radical feminist movement. And that's the whole idea that
women do not need men. that you can have an autonomous
woman, like the court case recently in Vermont, where two women had
a baby. Of course, one of them had to
provide the egg and have artificial assimilation take place, and
then that egg from her body was planted in the other woman's
body, and so now they've judged that both of them are parents,
so both of them are mothers. And a whole different kind of
idea. They said, we don't need a man.
We don't, we can do this thing ourselves. We, we have the autonomous
woman, girl power. And so in his book, in a chapter
on the radical feminist movement, he says the feminists have redefined
the sexes. They now do not talk about male
and female sexes, but we're being taught in our public education
systems and sex education courses that there are five genders.
You may well remember what they say these are. You're either
male, female, bisexual, homosexual, or lesbian. You're one of those
genders. Or you may claim to be a woman,
or you may claim to be a man, you may be male or female, but
you have a gender preference. And sadly, in sex education programs
at the elementary level, they're targeting the age of children
that prefer the same sex playmates. For example, all of us who work
with children and know anything about child development, understand
that there's a time in the life of a child when boys hate girls. There's a time in the life of
a child when girls hate boys. And you give them competition
and you let all the girls compete against the boys and they will
do everything they can to beat the boys. I mean, we've got to
do everything we can to beat the boys. We've got to beat the boys because
we want to be with the girls. It's girls, girls, girls. That's
a certain elementary age. And then there's a time when
the boys want to gang up against the girls because they hate the
girls. And they just want to beat the girls. They like to
beat the girls. And then suddenly something happens. They don't
want to fight against them anymore. And they start noticing the girls. The other day I saw one of the
young boys who's grown up around here. His father works for us.
He was in his dad's truck. And I've known him since he was
born. And I know the age he was in when he was a girl hater.
I mean, just a real girl hater. I mean, the boys against the
girls. And so I thought I'd just do something cute. And I said
he was driving his dad's truck. He's just a little guy driving
his dad's truck just a short distance in the parking lot.
And I said, hey, I didn't know you could do that. If you're old enough
to do that, you're old enough to have a girlfriend. He said, yeah. I thought, uh-oh. He's gone from the girl hate
stage to the girl like stage. But isn't it something that these
people know, if they've studied child psychology enough to know,
that there's a certain age where boys like the boys and girls
like the girls, and they'll soon get out of it, but they're teaching
these children at that age that they really have a gender preference,
and the boys prefer boys, that means they're homosexuals, and
the girls prefer girls, and that means they're lesbians. And believe
it or not, they're sending these children home, telling their
parents, little boys telling their parents, I'm a homosexual. And little girls going home,
telling their mothers, I'm a lesbian. Now there are some people who
have a problem with modesty. There are other people who have
a problem with identity. There are people who do not dress the
way they ought to dress. They do not dress in a modest way.
They do not dress in an orderly way. They do not dress in a decent,
pure way. They do not avoid lewdness. As
a matter of fact, America is a nation that's undressing in
public. Not long while I was on a plane with a man from Europe.
And I just happened to sit down beside him. And of course, I'd
made a promise to the Lord. I witnessed the folks on the
plane do the best I can to try to win him to Christ. And as
we started the conversation, I found out this is a government
employee. He's visiting from Europe. He's employed by a European
government. And he was visiting America. And so just to start
the conversation, I said to him, what are your observations on
our country? And here's a man who's not a Christian, who's
a visitor to our land. And this is the first thing out
of his mouth. Well, to tell you the truth, he said, I don't know
what you do for a living either, but I will tell you, I've never seen
as much nakedness as I've seen in this country. Now, here's
a man from, from somewhere other than our country who makes an
observation that we are living in a land where there's so much
nakedness. And somebody said, well, I don't have that problem
with modesty. I don't have that problem with lewdness. I don't
have that problem with being indecent. Well, what about all this big
push going on with identity? Young men should look like young
men. They should dress like young men. They should behave like
young men. Their hair should look like young men's hair. Their
ears should not have earrings in them. They should not be adorned
like women. Women should look like ladies.
Their hair shouldn't be all removed and some butch kind of cut. So
they say it's easier to take care of. That's nothing ladylike.
The problem may not be, as they might say, modesty, but it is
identity. So we must deal with modesty
and identity. You must keep your identity and
clothe yourself modestly. And that's God's way of protection
in your life. Modesty and identity. These are
issues that must be faced, especially this generation. As a matter
of fact, One of the great issues facing this generation is this
issue of identity. The line's broken down. Men being
men, and the absence of manhood is so noticeable today that did
you know that the number of children without a father in the home,
when you consider all of conception in this country, every child
conceived in this country, One-third of the children conceived will
be aborted. One-third of the children conceived will be born
out of wedlock. And one-third of the children conceived, only
one-third will have a mother and father in the home. Something
has happened to bandhood. It's the effeminizing of the
man and then trying to make a role change in the life of a woman. Did you know that God will never
give a lady any greater thing to do than to be a wife and a
mother. Nothing greater. I read not long
ago about the CEO of one of the bottling companies, one of the
two major bottling companies in the world, beverage bottling
companies in the world, happened to be a woman. And one day she
walked out and said, I'm through, I'm finished with the whole thing.
I found out that this career does not bring the satisfaction
I thought it would bring. I'm going home, I'm trading my
computer for a vacuum cleaner, I'm trading my office for a living
room, and I'm going to have a family again. Now, there's someone who
tried a way that was sold and pitched to her with a promise
of satisfaction, who came to the top as far as her economic
level could be, who rose to the very top of the whole thing,
but said, in my heart, I'm not satisfied. Modesty and identity. I want us to just walk through
the Word of God and look at some things. Currently be pleased
to what the Bible says in the book of Leviticus, the 18th chapter.
In Leviticus chapter 18. And we'll take this approach
and go through the Bible this way so it's a little easier to
follow. But I want you to recognize these things. You ought to be
able to recognize when you see someone, you ought to be able
to recognize someone in public when you see that person, to
recognize if that person is a man or a woman. If there's a problem
recognizing this person for their identity, in other words, you're
driving down the road and you guys see some beautiful blonde
in a car and you hurry up to try to get up beside her and
then she turns around and she's got a beard, you know, there's
something wrong with identity here. The hair said she's a woman. It betrayed her identity. You
know, or you go out to a softball game. You see some slugger knocked
the thing over the fence. And by the way, there's such
an over emphasis on athletics with girls today and be careful
here because there's a role reversal taking place. There's an identity
problem here. So much of this, I wish I could
read everything that I have found. to make some of these points,
but there's a certain article that I found in U.S. News & World
Report about how women are having knee damage so often in the sport
of softball. And they've actually had so much
of this, they've examined so many women and the physical makeup
of their bodies, and they found that there is a degree in the
slant of their body that's not in a man's body, which causes
undue pressure on the knee in that kind of sport. And evidently
there's something in their physiology, there's something about their
physical makeup that was not designed for that particular
sport. I think God is trying to tell
us something. that there's an undue emphasis about girls being
as good as boys and knocking the ball as far as a boy can
knock a ball and throwing the ball as far as a boy can throw
the ball and, you know, let's get an arm wrestling contest
and I can beat any man. You know, the truth of the matter
is there's something wrong here with modesty and identity. There's nothing on a lady more
beautiful than to see her in a dress looking like a lady.
And to be able to recognize wherever you see her, that is a lady.
And there's nothing more becoming on a man than to see this man
looks manly and to be able to recognize him as a man. The immodest
person calls attention to the sexual zones of his or her body. And there are sexual zones in
the body. We should not wear clothing that calls attention
to the sexual zones in our body. That's immodest. It leads to
a lewdness. It is not decent and pure. You
may find a young lady who is dressed and even has a type of
dress on, but what she has on calls attention to the sexual
zones in her body. That's immodesty. But some folks
say, well, I don't have a problem with immodesty. Well, wait a
minute. What about the other crowd having a problem with identity? I want you to write some things
down. Number one, there's a high, holy standard God has set for
his people. There's a high, holy standard
that God has set for his people. When you come to the book of
Leviticus in the 18th chapter, you find what the Lord says about
his people being identified as his people. And so identified
so they can have a testimony and witness to other people.
And he lays down certain things. standards, high, holy standards
for his people. I'm going to take time to read
a large portion of this chapter, beginning with verse 1, Leviticus
chapter 18. The Bible says, And the Lord
spake unto Moses, saying, Speaking of the children of Israel, saying
to them, I am the Lord your God. After the doings of the land
of Egypt wherein you dwelt, shall ye not do? And after the doings
of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall you not do? Neither shall you walk in their
ordinances. He shall do my judgments and
keep my ordinance to walk therein. I am the Lord, your God. You
shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgment, which the man
do. He shall live in them. I am the Lord. None of you shall
approach to any that is near akin to him to uncover their
nakedness. I am the Lord. The nakedness
of thy father or the nakedness of thy mother shalt thou not
uncover. She is thy mother, and thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
The nakedness of thy father's wife shalt thou not uncover.
It is thy father's nakedness. The nakedness of thy sister,
the daughter of thy father or daughter of thy mother, with
her she be born at home or born abroad, even their nakedness
thou shalt not uncover. The nakedness of thy son's daughter,
of thy daughter's daughter, even their nakedness thou shalt not
uncover. For theirs is thine own nakedness.
The nakedness of thy father's wife, begotten of thy father.
She is thy sister. Thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's sister. She is
thy father's near kin's woman. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness
of thy mother's sister. For she is my mother's near kinsman.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's brother. Thou
shalt not approach to his wife. She is thine aunt. Thou shalt
not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter-in-law. She is thy
son's wife. Thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife. It is
thy brother's nakedness. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness
of a woman and her daughter. Neither shalt thou take her son's
daughter or her daughter's daughter to uncover her nakedness for
they are her near kin's woman. It is wickedness. Neither shall
thou take a wife to her sister to vex her, to uncover her nakedness
beside the other in her lifetime. Also thou shalt not approach
under a woman to uncover her nakedness as long as she is put
apart for uncleanness. Moreover, thou shalt not lie
carnally with thy neighbor's wife to defile thyself with her.
Thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to
mullet. Neither shalt thou Profane the name of my God. I am the
Lord thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind. It is an abomination Neither
shall thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith,
neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereunto."
It is confusion. Defile not yourselves, ye yourselves,
in any of these things, for in all these the nations are defiled
which I cast out before you. And the land is defiled, therefore
I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it. And the land itself
vomiteth out her inhabitants. In chapter 19 verse one, and
the Lord spake unto Moses saying, speak into all the congregation
of children of Israel and say unto them, ye shall be holy for
the Lord your God am holy. A holy God demands a holy people. Now you think about that. God
has a high, holy standard for his people. So here we are, we
say, well, the world dress a certain way. I don't dress as badly as
they dress. Our standard is not the world standard. Our standard
is what God has said. We're the Christian people going
to learn that we don't set a standard by what the world has drawn as
a standard for themselves. Some people have the idea, if
I just live a little better than they live, I'm living like a
Christian ought to live. Wrong. Wrong. Notice how many times
in the 18th chapter of Leviticus, God talks about nakedness, nakedness,
nakedness, and breaking down every sexual barrier. So anything
goes with anybody. Madonna said not long ago, and
I think everybody knows who Madonna happens to be, she said, we've
broken all the rules. There are no rules left to break.
All that's left for us to do is to start over, make new rules,
and then break them. You think about who the heroes
are. The unworthy heroes are for this generation and the standards
that are being set. There must be a generation who
says, we are God's children. We are God's people. We've been
redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. God has set a high, holy
standard for us. And the standard God has set
for us is not the world standard. And we won't think we're pleasing
God just because we're just a step better than the world. Modesty
and identity. And God says, mankind shall not
lie with mankind and womankind lying with womankind, it is an
abomination, an abomination. As Christian people, if you say,
I'm a Christian, if you say you've asked God to forgive your sin
and by faith receive Christ as Savior, the same principle applies
to us as it did to these Old Testament saints. God has placed
us in this world so that we live by a high holy standard so that
when we live We're different from the world and this separation
to God, get it right, separation to God and from the world is
not the enemy of evangelism, it's the essential of evangelism.
There must be a difference. And by the way, make sure you
know this. Everything I do outwardly should
be out of a desire to live a holy life. Nothing I do on the outside
makes me a spiritual person. No activity makes me a spiritual
person. Dressing any kind of way does not make me a spiritual
person. The desire to live a modest life, to dress modestly and to
be identified as a man, for me, and to hold God's standard as
the standard for my life comes out of a desire to live a holy
life and walk with God. Not long ago, I heard a man preaching
on the radio, and it's a fellow I enjoy hearing, and he had a
certain sermon series, and the series was entitled Disciplines
That Produce Godliness. And I'm thinking to myself, it
sounds very good, but the more I thought about it, it is not
discipline that produced godliness. It's godliness following after
God that produces discipline. And the reason so many people
have no discipline life is because they're not pursuing the Lord
Jesus Christ. And if all we're going to do is start on the outside,
try to straighten everybody out, we're still failing because this
has to start in the heart with our own devotion to Jesus Christ.
A heart for God. But let's mark it well that God
has a high holy standard for his people. Turn please with
me to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 22. God makes a separation for the
sexes. God makes a separation for the
sexes. The Bible says in a verse that's
not used often today, not referred to often because people are almost
afraid to use it. In chapter 22 of Deuteronomy,
verse 5, 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 so are abomination unto the Lord thy God." In other words,
there's a difference here. There's a difference. I've had
the privilege of traveling around the world, Asia, Africa, Europe,
South America, Central America, different islands of the sea.
And I find that when you're going to a bathroom to use the restroom
or a water closet, as they call it in certain parts of the world,
when you go to try to find a place to use the restroom, if you're
trying to find a men's restroom, there's a certain symbol on the
door, international symbol on the door. And if you're going
to find a lady's restroom for my wife, there's a certain international
symbol on the door. Interestingly enough, on the
lady's door, there's a figure with a skirt. On the men's door,
there is a figure with a pair of pants. Now, the truth of the
matter is, there's a difference. There's a difference. I remember
about 15 years ago, I was in Israel, and we had a guide who
wanted us to go by Tel Aviv and say hello to his family. And
while we were on our tour, we happened to be near there, and
his wife came out to meet him. She was a very lovely girl, and
he was a fine fellow, no problem there. But they had a conversation I
thought was a little different. When he, when she saw him, she
said, George, you have on my pants. And he said, I didn't mean to
wear them today. Well, they're mine. He said, those are my pants.
And when he got back on the bus, he sort of laughed and said,
you know, we interchange our clothes. Some days she wears these, some
days I wear them. And we just buy the kind of clothes
that we can all just interchange. And he thought it was fine because
they're saving money, buying fewer clothes and both wearing
the same thing. I honestly, I saw his humor, but I don't think
it's a humorous thing. Now I can rant and rave and get
loud here, but I'm trying to tell you something. God draws
lines. God makes differences. We should
not be trying to erase the lines God has drawn, change the differences
God has made. There's modesty and there's identity. Modesty. I read something the
other day that just staggers me. I don't believe it's true,
but it staggers me. Nonetheless, from a survey done on thousands
of teenagers, 18 year old teenagers, 7 out of every 10 18 year old
girls says that she's not a virgin. 7 out of 10, 18 years old. 8 out of every 10 boys age 18
say they're not virgins. I don't believe that's true.
Maybe you do. But it's a staggering thing to think about, isn't it?
Something has happened to a nation undressing in public. Something
is wrong in a world where you cannot identify men from women. Who is going to set the standard?
God has already set the standard. He expects his people to be obedient. I want you to know in a church
like the church I pastor, everyone is welcome. I often think that
when I'm preaching, I'm preaching to families who have children
who have caught up in what they call an alternative lifestyle
that God calls vile affection or abomination. I often think
about how heartbroken they are. I spoke with a woman this week
who's been in the ministry 41 years, who has a son in his thirties,
and by her description, he's a flaming homosexual. She wept
over the phone, she cried and talked about the bondage this
boy is in and how he needed deliverance, identity, modesty. I never shall forget going out
to my car. I'd been on a subject like this a few days earlier
in one of the church services. When I got in my car, there was
a large envelope in the front seat of my car. I had no idea
of knowing what was in it, so I opened it. And when I opened
it, there was all kinds of homosexual literature. magazines, all kinds
of graphic things, articles about how to seduce the boy who mows
your yard and all kinds of things like that. And there was a letter
inside and the letter said, Pastor, I love you. And I've grown up
in this church. I've been reading these kinds
of things and been involved in this kind of pornographic material
for quite a while. I'm still a virgin, but I don't
plan to be one long. This lifestyle is pulling me
in. I never knew who that was. I
don't know who that particular person happens to be to this
day. But I'm telling you, it's everywhere. Everywhere we go. God's people need to realize
that the Lord has made a separation in the sexes. I want you to turn
with me, please, to what the Bible says in the book of 1 Kings,
chapter And the third thing I want you to write down is that we
must use Bible language when dealing with this issue. We must
use Bible language when dealing with this issue. The Bible says
in 1 Kings chapter 15, verses 11 and 12, And Asa did that which
was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father.
And he took away the Sodomites out of the land, and removed
all the idols that his fathers had made. Notice the word Sodomites. It is not gay, it's sad. But it's more than sad, God calls
it vile affection. In this particular passage, they
removed all the sodomites from the land. It is not being a lesbian,
it's being a practitioner of what God says is vile affection
and an abomination. I understand there's a law in
Canada now, in the hate crimes laws in Canada, where you can
be arrested for saying certain things, certain derogatory things
they say, certain hateful things. People who are these homophobiacs,
as they call them, saying things they should not say. And this
is not a message intended to bash on the people who call themselves
homosexuals. This is a message intended to
show you what the Bible says. And that we ought to stop using,
excuse the expressions, we ought to stop using the words like
queer and that type of thing. We should use the very language
of the Bible. God says that's sodomy. God says
you're a sodomite. God says that's vile affection.
God says that's an abomination. The strong, clear language of
the Bible is the language we ought to use. The strong, clear
language of the Bible. Now, in that particular passage
in the book of Kings, they were going to remove all the sodomites
from the land. That's not going to happen. Not going to happen
in our land, not going to happen in our world. You can joke about
things like that if you want to. It's not going to happen.
But we must train our own people and train ourselves from God's
word about how to deal with these issues. I want you to turn to
the book of Romans just for a moment. In the book of Romans, the Bible
says in chapter 1, verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. who
hold the truth and unrighteousness, because that which may be known
of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made in
his eternal power and Godhead, so they are without excuse. Because
that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither
were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their
foolish heart was darkened. professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible
God into an image made like to corruptible men and to birds
and four-footed beasts and creepy things. Wherefore, also, God
gave them up to uncleanness." Now, I want to show you something.
This is not a picture of a God who's a weak old man, incapable
of dealing with the problems of this world. God said, if you're
going to live that way and go that way, there comes a time
when God says, all right, I'm going to give you up to that. And He
says it's uncleanness. Mark that word uncleanness. Through
the loss of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies.
It's dishonoring to your body. God gave you a body. God designed
a body, the Bible says, which is fearfully and wonderfully
made. And that type of living is dishonoring to your body.
We're finding out with what we call this AIDS pandemic. All
over the world, people are frightened. We don't go to the bathroom the
way we used to go to a public restroom. I know how you go and
you know how I go. We go inside, we don't like to
touch the door because we think someone else who's got germs,
perhaps deadly germs, or some deadly disease has touched the
thing. And we go over to look at the sink, we find out where
the towels are. We try to run the towels out from the paper
towel dispenser before we ever wash our hands because we don't
want to touch the dirty thing after we wash our hands. We don't want
to handle the thing to go into the restroom. We don't want to
flush the utility we use because we don't want to touch it with
our hands. And then when we go in like that, cautiously everywhere,
we finally try to wash our hands. And if the wastebasket isn't
where it ought to be, we're going to take that paper towel we've
used near the door and open the door because if we have to, we'll
throw that towel across the room to keep that door open because
we're not going to touch anything else after we washed our hands.
Why is this routine going on? Because we're frightened. And
so the world says youth are at risk. And the real risk, they
say, are these risks of disease. So let's talk to them about how
to have safe sex. There is no such thing as safe
sex. I don't want to go into all the
medical things. I'm not capable of that except for the things
I've read, the charts I've looked at, and the statistical information
I could quote to you. But let me just give you one
little common sense thing. How many times have you heard
a parent talk about children that they had that they didn't
plan to have? They tried to prevent from having, but yet the mother
became expectant. There is no such thing as safe
sex. God's standard is abstinence
from that type of behavior outside of marriage. That's God's standard. And by the way, when we practice
what God says about modesty and we practice what God says about
dignity, that's God's standard for us. That's God's, if you
will, that's God's method of keeping people the way they
ought to be. That's the Lord's way in the thing. The Bible says
here, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped
and served the creature more than the creator, who is blessed forever.
For this cause, God gave them up unto vile affection. It's
uncleanness. It is dishonor in their body.
It is vile affection. For even their women did change
the natural use of that which is against nature. And likewise
also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their
lust one toward another, men with men, working that which
is unseemly, and receiving themselves that recompense of their error,
which was me." And even as they did not like to retain God in
their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. Now,
what kind of mind is that? It's a mind that says black is
right, white is black, right is wrong, wrong is right. It's
a mind that stands toe-to-toe with those who take a Bible standard
and say, you're wrong, I'm right, and they're convinced they are
right. They cannot judge between what is good and evil. They cannot
judge between what is right and wrong. Their mind is now reprobate.
They cannot have a right thought, a pure thought, a holy thought,
because they've given over to this. And you argue with them
all you want to argue with. They're as convinced that they're
right as you're convinced you're right. Because they've made themselves
gods in their own eyes. And may I say something as discreetly
as I know how to say it. There's quite a charge in sexual
experience. If you have that charge, that
exhilaration, That feeling that God has designed
the body to have with the same sex, you're going to identify
that same sex with that feeling. Those type of experiences. But
if you give yourself to God and save yourself and don't dishonor
your body, enter into uncleanness, vile affection, and practice
this type of thing, which is against God and God's word, and
save yourself from marriage, I promise you something. Every
wonderful thing God ever promised you could have is yours in the
holy bond of marriage. And girls, you should not dress
in a certain way to try to turn somebody's head. No, no. Ladies, when you're married
in the privacy of your own home, you and your husband can enjoy
those types of things. But to wear no more clothes in
public than you would wear as underclothes in your home is something we know that a Christian
woman should not do. Hear me. Hear me, please. Check it for yourself. This is
the first generation of Christians, the first generation of Christians
that will dress this way so immodestly, and yet still dare to call themselves
Christians. This is the first generation
to do that. May God help us. Use Bible language. Turn with me again in your Bibles,
if you would, please, the book of Psalms, the closing part of the
90th Psalm. The fourth thing I want to tell
you is there's a difference between attraction and sexuality. And people so often confuse this. In the 90th Psalm, the Bible
says in verse 17, and let the beauty of the Lord our God be
upon us. Let the beauty of the Lord our
God be upon us. Think of that. and establish the work of our
hands upon us, yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.
Now let's look, please, in 1 Peter chapter 3. Would you turn there?
1 Peter chapter 3. The beauty of the inner man,
verse 3 of 1 Peter chapter 3, whose adorning, let it not be
that outward adorning, plaiting the hair and wearing of gold
or putting on of apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the
heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and
quiet spirit. which is in the sight of God
of great price. The beauty of the inner man.
Hear me, please. There's a world of difference
between what you are identifying as sexual attraction and real
attraction. Sexuality and real attraction.
If you turn their heads with something sexual, daring to be
immodest, lewd, and you know it turns their head, and by the
way, gentlemen, We don't need our heads turned like that all
the time. We need to ask God to help us not to be turning
our heads all the time. That's a great hurt to a woman,
to a wife. Any woman can dress immodestly.
Any woman can dress in such a way that she takes enough of her
clothes off to cause attention to her body. Any woman can do
that. It takes nothing decent and right and pure Nothing of
character and decency to do that. But if we consider that attractiveness,
then we miss the whole picture. Real attractiveness is the inner
beauty in the inner man. And many a man has been attracted
to something physical only to find out in a matter of days,
weeks, or months that that's not an enduring attractiveness. There ought to be a beauty inside,
the beauty of the Lord upon us, the beauty of the inner man.
My wife and I have been married for 34 years. She's a beautiful
girl. I think she was the most beautiful girl in our high school,
inwardly and outwardly. Beautiful. And I'm attracted
to her. She's gorgeous. And as beautiful
as she is on the outside, she is more beautiful to me on the
inside. But many people have tried to make themselves attractive
on the outside and use sexuality to do so, but have never developed
the inner man. And they violate the principle
of identity and modesty and what is in order in God's Word. And it will not work. The foundation
that you think you're building on is not a foundation at all.
It'll crumble like sand will crumble, and your heart will
be broken because of it. It's staggering. that more than
half the people in this country, in the country that leads the
world in divorce. Think of that. The country that
leads the world in divorce rate. More than half the people in
this country who get married have a marriage and divorce.
A marriage that ends in divorce. Know the difference between what
is attractive and sexuality. Turn again with me please to
the book of Jeremiah. Let's take down a fifth thing. Jeremiah
chapter six, the blush is gone for many in this generation.
The blush is gone. Look at chapter six, please.
The Bible says in verse 15 of Jeremiah, were they ashamed when
they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed. Neither could they blush. Therefore
they shall fall among them that fall. At the time that I visit
them, they shall be cast down, saith the Lord. Thus, saith the
Lord, stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths,
where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest
of your souls." But they said, we will not walk therein. And
we have a choice to make. The blush is gone. They could
not blush, verse 15 says. Look at chapter 8 of Jeremiah.
And verse 12, the Bible says, were they ashamed when they had
committed abomination? Nay, they were not at all ashamed,
neither could they blush. Therefore, shall they fall among
them that fall in time of their visitation, they shall be cast
down, saith the Lord. They couldn't blush anymore.
There's no blush left. I was reading an article about
two weeks ago on USA Today about Melissa Etheridge, the singer.
who says she's a lesbian. That's the title she gives herself.
And she had a woman, and they decided they would have a relationship
like a marriage, a woman to a woman, instead of a woman to a man,
as God has ordained, and that they would have children. So
they enlisted one of their friends, David Crosby, to provide what
was needed from a man so that they could have children, and
they had children together. The big article in the paper
says that the woman she had the children with no longer wants
to be, as they say, a lesbian. She wants to be married to a
man. And they say, what are we going to do now? We have these
children together. And she suddenly decides she wants to be with
a man. Think about modesty and order and decency and identity.
So they've had to buy houses that have adjoining backyards.
And one mommy lives now with her husband in one house with
an adjoining backyard to this mommy who has no husband and
has another woman living with her. What a world. But the selfish, self-centered,
self-worshippers who said they wanted children to love really
gave no serious thought to the place those children ought to
hold in their heart. They would just consume with their own lust
and behave that way. And we read things like that
and it's almost like, well, that goes on in the world. How do
we become a people who have lost our blush? A little girl is dressed
in a way where there's more of her body showing. She's just
a little thing, but she's dressed in a way where more of her body
is showing than it normally shows. And she feels a little uncomfortable
about it going out of the house, but mommy thinks she looks good.
Like the little girl in Colorado who was just a child, maybe looked
like a teenager. That's immodest. And then suddenly
she puts on a piece of clothing and it shows the midriff and
she's never gone out in public. Oh, mommy and daddy may have
seen her like that, but she's never gone out in public showing
that much flesh. And she's a little embarrassed
that she tries to pull on the top a little bit. Other girls
are doing the same thing. So why should she care? And she's
embarrassed by it. But after a while she gets used
to it. Parts of her arms and parts of her body and parts of
her legs are showing and then it gets skimpier and skimpier
and she gets older and more developed but she's already used to showing
that part of her body so she doesn't care anymore to expose
that part of her body because all standards of decency and
purity and modesty and identity are fading. And how she once
yanked on a little dress to make it longer and tried to cover
her midriff so you couldn't see it. Now she wants to display
her midriff and have her navel pierced so everybody could see
it and buy clothing that accentuates it. She wants to buy things that
are really too small for her to wear because she wants to
accentuate the sexual zones of her body. And she wants to wear
the bottom part of her clothing as low as she possibly can just
to try to infatuate the minds of people. And it doesn't make
any difference who she turns on, men or women, just so she
turns them on. She doesn't blush anymore because
her blush is gone. That's what we see on the outside.
But what's happened on the inside? Listen, God gave her a conscience.
And her conscience cried out. That's not right. Don't do that.
And we have a conscience that cries out. God made a spirit,
soul and body. In our spirit we have a conscience.
In our spirit is where God lives if we are saved. In our soul
we have intellect, emotion, and will. In our body we have five
senses. But that conscience cried out. You ought to have more clothes
on. You ought to look differently. That's not right. And so you
don't want to hear that conscience. And so you try to put it to silence. And you don't want to go anywhere
where people are talking about things that make that conscience
continue to cry out. And you start using things and
listening to things and behaving in such a way that silences that
conscience until long, listen, before long, listen, before long,
there's a searing process in that conscience and the little
voice that once cried out is no longer so loud. It's sort
of fading now. Searing over, hardening. It's
been violated. There's a hardness on the inside.
It doesn't make any difference what other people think now.
It's what I want to do and what I think, because that caring,
compassionate feeling doesn't matter now. And what we see happening
on the inside is only evidence of what's happening on the outside.
It's only evidence of what we see has happened on the inside. And that little girl or that
boy is no longer able to care and love and be compassionate
and to feel like they once were. And it's evidence because they
can't blush anymore. Something's happened to their
conscience. I want to tell you something, if you want that to
happen to you, then you get lost in this lost generation. You
get lost in this lost generation, they're lost. Let me tell you
what this generation thinks. A homosexual, he calls himself
a homosexual activist by the name of Swift, wrote this in
the gay community news a few years ago. We shall seduce your
sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, emblems of your
shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your
schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker
rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth
groups, in your movie theater bathrooms, in your army bunk
houses, in your truck stops, in your old mail clubs, in your
houses of Congress. Wherever men are with men together,
we shall seduce your sons. Your sons shall become what we
want them to become, and our bidding, they shall be recast
in our image. They will come to crave and adore
us." So he wrote. That type of rhetoric isn't heard
often anymore from that crowd because they realize it's a little
too hard sell. But now, let's just try to change
any standard God has of modesty and identity. What I'm trying
to say, if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, God has
a high holy standard for you. If you're a Christian, you do
not take your standard from the world. If you're a Christian,
you ought to be the person God allowed you to be born to be,
a lady or a man. If you're a Christian, you don't
dress immodestly and lewdly and lose your blush. If you're a
Christian, young ladies, you understand your hair should not
be shorn like some man just because it's easier to take care of.
If you're a Christian, gentlemen, you shouldn't be wearing ponytails
and earrings. If you're a Christian, you ought
to look like a man. If you're a Christian, people ought to
see you at a distance and know that's a man or that's a woman. If you're
dressed like a man, ladies, they can't tell that. If you're a
Christian, you ought to follow the standards of modesty and
identity. And we are living in a lost world
that's on a hurry to get to hell. They're going into the blackness
of darkness forever. And we need to reach them. We
love them. We care about them. They're welcome in our churches.
We want to preach the gospel to them. We want to bring them
to Christ. We want to lovingly plead with them to trust Christ
as Savior. But we will lose all influence when we become just
like them. And there ought to be some young
people who say, I'll keep God's standard of modesty and identity
in my life. Let's pray together, may we?
Modesty and Identity
Series Truth for Teens
| Sermon ID | 825091554329 |
| Duration | 51:09 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Language | English |
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