The sermon on modesty challenges the common perception that it is a topic only for women, advocating instead for a broader understanding that includes both genders. It addresses issues raised by church members about the way some women dress, suggesting there's been a drift in standards. The speaker divides the discussion into Scriptural context and practical matters, emphasizing that modesty should be rooted in the sufficiency of Scripture. Key themes include the importance of dress codes, avoiding legalism, understanding Christian liberty, and recognizing the cultural pressures that influence clothing choices. The sermon highlights that clothing is a profession of godliness and a reflection of one's inner self. It explores the typological significance of clothing, relating it to the righteousness and salvation described in Isaiah 61. A series of Biblical passages is used to illustrate these points, urging believers to consider clothing as an expression of faith and godliness, not as a tool for self-glorification. The sermon also discusses male modesty and presents guidelines for addressing immodesty within the church community, emphasizing the need for a supportive culture that guides both new believers and more mature members in understanding and practicing modesty.

We have to recognize that usually when people use the word modesty, they only think of women. They think about this as a woman's message. And that's actually not accurate. It's broader than that, and we'll talk about that. Now we decided to deliver this message particularly because over about the last year at our church, that includes the times that we were together as one church, Actually several men have come to the elders and have said hey, I'm really struggling with the ways that some of the women are dressing in our church and I don't know what to do about it.

And so they've come to us and said this is not an isolated problem. It's not just you know one or two people there's just sort of there's a little bit of slippage was sort of the message. And so we've been hearing this for about a year and we resonated with that with that concern as well. That There's probably been a little bit of drift. So we're giving this message for a reason.

It's not just an interesting controversial subject or anything. We actually think it applies to us and that we should really consider the matter. Now what I want to do this afternoon is I want to raise a bunch of different issues to help us think about it. And then I've divided what I want to cover into two parts. The first part just talks about passages of Scripture to consider.

And the second part is really focused on practical matters. And those practical matters include things like, what about male modesty? So I'm going to talk about that. They include matters about, Are there rules? Should we have rules?

How do we deal with that question? And then I also want to talk during this practical section, how should this be handled in a church? Like I told you, we had some people come to us. How should they have handled it? Did they handle it right?

I'll try to answer that question. And then I also want to talk about the culture that you build in a church. Because there's a very specific culture that we believe should be built in handling an issue as sensitive as this. And then just finish up with a number of other connections that will help us understand the whole matter of clothing. Now, of course, the fundamental principle that we're always dealing with when we're dealing with particular subjects is the sufficiency of Scripture.

And we have to ask ourselves, is Scripture sufficient enough to help us know how to dress. Does the Bible tell you how to dress? Are there principles that guide you about how to dress? And of course, we answered that question with yes, absolutely. Scripture is really the only place that you ought to go to get definitive answers about about how you should dress.

There are a number of other questions. Should there be a dress code in your family? Should there be a dress code in your church? Or maybe the question is better stated, what's your dress code? Because everybody has a dress code.

And you either get that dress code from your own brain, You get it from the people around you. Hopefully all of what you've gotten from around you is informed and governed by Scripture. But all of us have a dress code. So we need to suspend the idea that we don't have a dress code here. We do have a dress code here, and we always ought to have a dress code, and it's right to do that.

Now, dress codes cause tension. They cause tension between fathers and daughters. They cause tensions between husbands and wives. I'm just going to speculate for a minute that there's not a husband and wife in this room who haven't had a little bit of tension discussing this problem. I'm going to be the first one to sign up for being on that list.

This is not foreign territory to me. Probably not to you either. In the midst of all those discussions, we have to make sure that we keep our wits about us and try to keep ourselves governed by the principles of Scripture. There are very few subjects that raise the L word as much as this one does. That's the legalism word.

How do you define legalism? And is having a dress code legalism? Is an older woman tapping a younger woman on the shoulder and saying, hey, I'm not confident that's actually the best way you should dress, is that legalism. And so we want to define legalism by saying that legalism is creating laws that are foreign to scripture. And legalism is pretending that keeping any kind of law somehow makes you acceptable to God.

So what we're talking about is not legalism. We have to consider the matter of Christian liberty as well. What is Christian liberty? Right now, in the Christian community, Christian Liberty pretty much includes a woman taking off almost all of her clothes at the beach. That's called Christian Liberty.

And if anyone had walked in here dressed like that, I think it would be a problem. Or almost really anywhere in public, it would be a problem in the town of Youngsville, or Wake Forest, or Rollsville. But we're calling that Christian liberty right now. And I think we have to understand our times. We live in a particular period of history where the principles of modesty have pretty much been kicked under the bus.

And so we need to bring them back. It's an important subject because it really affects every single day of your life. Every day we stand in front of our wardrobe and we ask ourselves what are we going to put on today? How you make that decision really matters. Do you make that decision out of the wellspring of Scripture?

Is it, how cool do I want to look today? What are the questions that you ask when you stand before that wardrobe? And those questions matter. And asking these just, they cause so much tension. They're tensions with fathers who are not biblically informed.

And they're not able to engage in a biblical conversation with their family members. You have passive fathers who've kind of delegated the whole matter to the crowd or how everybody else is dressing. You've got wives who they either don't understand, or they're clueless, or their idols are so gigantic that pretty much what they want to do is look good, defined by what they've seen in the magazines. And they're sort of driven by that. There are enormous tensions that are raised by just common issues that are before us.

Sometimes you have wives that are rebellious. Sometimes you have friends that don't agree. Sometimes you have people who criticize you for the way you dress and they make jokes not just behind your back but in front of your face. So there are lots of tensions that we have to face when dealing with this subject. And then there's confusion in the church.

There are people in the church who don't know Scripture. There are people in the church who don't understand history. They don't understand their times. And You find people who are immature, their understanding of Scripture is low, so they're going to dress in a certain way based on their maturity. What do you do about that?

We're going to talk about that later. There might be new believers who've shown up, and they're dressing really immodestly. How do you deal with that? That just causes tension in church. And a church needs to know how to operate.

I pray that today you'll have some clear points for how does every little girl in this church operate when an immodestly dressed girl walks in? I want you to, when you leave today, I want you to understand how you should operate. And also the men and the women as well. How do you treat these people who are either immature, unbelievers, or some semblance of that? I want to define modesty here at the beginning.

Webster's dictionary has a great definition of modesty. I'm going to use one from Jeff Pollard. Here goes. Christian modesty is the inner self-government rooted in a proper understanding of oneself before God, which outwardly displays itself in humility and purity from a genuine love for Jesus Christ rather than in self-glorification or self-advertisement there." So what this basically means is that when we use the word modesty, we're not just talking about clothing. We're talking about something far bigger than just clothing.

We're talking about the inner person of the heart, and then what that person does with clothing, with words, with everything, with actions, with, you know, You name it. So modesty really is a subject that covers every other area of life. You've seen this in the Beatitudes haven't you? Jesus is dealing with really fundamental issues of the heart that have enormous implications in public life. But it begins in the heart.

And that's the same way with modesty. All of our talk about modesty has to begin with matters of the heart, because everything flows from it. Now, I think one of the most important things that we need to understand about modesty is that something typological is here. That modesty is a type of something else. That clothing is a type of something else.

In the same way that many of us have adopted children, the adopting of these children is really a picture of something greater. There's something greater in the adoption of our children than just the physical adoption of these children. It's a picture of the Gospel. It's a picture of orphans being made sons and daughters. And clothing is the same way.

It's a picture of something greater. And so the glory of the Gospel is explained or defamed by the way that we dress. And if you turn to Isaiah 61, there are a number of places we can go to talk about this, but in Isaiah 61, here's what we read. In verse 10, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God.

He has clothed me with garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with jewels." And so Here, of course, this is a picture of salvation, and there's rejoicing in being clothed with the garments of salvation. That really takes the mind back to Genesis, where God killed animals in order to clothe man. And God clothed man to cover his shame. Clothing has a meaning.

When we get dressed every day, it has a meaning. And it's up to us to display that meaning in our clothing. When we sinned, when man sinned, God killed animals to clothe mankind. Man tried to clothe himself the first time inadequately. And that's often what happens.

When we do it out of our own flesh, for our own purposes, out of our own shame, then we misunderstand and we might make thick leaves. God says, no, I'm going to kill animals and I'm going to completely clothe you. So clothing has a typological meaning. And I guess I'm just praying that all of us will have a greater sensitivity to our clothing as representative of something far, far more wonderful than just threads, because we're saying something with our clothing. In the same way that God was saying something in the clothing of His sinful children, so we too are sinful children, and our clothing should depict the clothing of righteousness that Isaiah is speaking about here.

So, I want to start just to give you seven passages of Scripture, and then we'll go on to more practical matters. The first passage is 1 Timothy 2, 9 and 10. And what we learn in this passage is that clothing is meant for a very specific purpose. And here's what I don't want you to forget. It's a profession of godliness.

Your profession of godliness doesn't just come out of your mouth. Your profession of godliness doesn't just come out of your mouth. Your profession of godliness doesn't just come out of your deeds. But actually this passage makes it clear that clothing is part of a profession of godliness. And you're making a profession of faith when you dress yourselves.

Now there are many really important words in 1 Timothy 2, 9, and 10. And all of them have bearing on helping us to understand clothing. In like manner that the women adorn themselves, that's an important word, in modest apparel with propriety and moderation. All these words are being loaded up to help us understand about clothing and how you should dress yourself. Not with braided hair or gold pearls, costly clothing, which is proper for women, professing godliness with good works.

So clothing has to do with professing godliness with good works. That's the picture. So, most people don't understand that this is why God made clothing. It's a profession of godliness. And so, God speaks about appearance in His Word.

And here, what Paul is doing is he's speaking to the women in Ephesus, and he's telling those women how to dress. He's giving them a kind of a dress code, principally. And these women were in a pagan town, in a Greek town, in a town where the body was glorified. The exposure of the body was glorified. And Paul is speaking to them about their dress because they're living in a pagan society and their salvation should be demonstrated in the way that they dress.

What it appears to me is that the women in Ephesus weren't exactly dressing this way. I'm pretty sure this was like a fire bomb in the church when the Apostle Paul wrote this to them. And So he uses a number of words. The term cosmeo or order for orderly clothing. In other words, clothing should have functionality and beauty to it.

It should be put together. It's orderly. It's not rumpled and sloppy. He uses the term, actually a verb, cosmeo, that signifies action. In other words, you're to take action.

It's something that you do. You know, The desire that women have to dress themselves beautifully, it's a good desire. It actually is a fulfillment of what's here, that you take action to bring orderliness to your clothing. That's a good thing. And honestly, I am so grateful for the way that the women dress in our church.

They dress beautifully, they're not sloppy. There's sort of this picture of the homeschool sloppy woman, but I don't see that in our church at all. I think there's excellent attention to this principle here in our church. And then the term Modest, again, here the word is used twice in the passage. And then the term shame-facedness in the King James version of the Bible.

Modest clothing is the term in the New King James. And shame-facedness has to do with a state of mind. It's a respectful timidity. Like when my daughter was young and I would put her on the back of my motorcycle, she would always say, push it, Papa, push it, because she wanted me to go fast and jump and all that kind of stuff. Well, that's the opposite of what this word means.

Don't push it. Come back from the brink. It has to do with understating rather than overstating. So while a woman's apparel should be beautiful, it shouldn't be a pushy, push the limits kind of, if you've got it, flaunt it kind of a mentality. It's something that pulls back from the brink and attempts to be what the Bible calls shame-faced, not attracting attention, honoring others.

So there's a blend of humility in this. Humility and sobriety. That's really the content of this word. And it has to do with reserve. William Hendrickson, the Bible commentator, says it like this, a shrinking from trespassing the boundaries of propriety.

I think that really nails it right there. And this clothing is a profession of godliness. So the term that Paul uses for profession is the word that's used to make a public announcement. So your clothing is a public announcement. I think we already knew that anyway, right?

That our clothing is a public announcement. But it's a public announcement of godliness to actually profess godliness. People say, you know, actions speak louder than words. And there's a sense that clothing can actually speak louder than words in that sense. So clothing is meant to glorify God through a profession of faith and to identify with God and the Gospel.

To identify with the work of redemption, that we've been clothed with garments of righteousness. Now, so what that means is that clothes, hair, jewelry, all of those things exist for a divine purpose. And that is to make an identification. It's meant to identify with God. Now this whole matter of identification I think is important to consider.

The clothing manufacturers have created various brands. And the whole principle of branding of a clothing manufacturer is to have human beings identify with the brand and the philosophy and the worldview of that brand. So for example, let's take Calvin Klein. When I say that word, images come into almost everyone's mind. Perhaps if you've ever been to a mall, certainly, or if you've ever opened a magazine that has Calvin Klein ads in it, you know that there's a particular worldview, there's a particular style, and The heart of Calvin Klein is spread immorality.

That's pretty much it. So clothing manufacturers understand this whole subject of identification. And clothing is actually meant for identification. So when Calvin Klein makes a brand, they're actually doing something that God has done. God desires that sort of the brand of his people is an identification with God and with godliness.

Of course, Calvin Klein wants to identify people with their morality Abercrombie and Fitch is another one. There's a very specific worldview and brand if People have to have to really ask themselves whether they're comfortable wearing branded clothes like that that have very specifically connected themselves with various looks and world views. If a girl is wearing Calvin Klein or a guy is wearing Calvin Klein across the front of his shirt or her shirt, he or she's identifying with them. And either the person who sees it is either gonna think that to one of two things, either that girl is clueless or she's a harlot. One of those two.

So branding is critical to understand. And that's what Paul is talking about when He says that clothing is meant for a profession of godliness. So clothing is really a brand. You're branding yourself, but to what? What that means is that our clothing choices are really not our own.

We shouldn't be thinking, how good can I look today? We should rather be thinking, how can I glorify God? How can I dress in such a way in which I'm actually making a profession of godliness? We know what a profession of Calvin Klein or Abercrombie and Fitch is. That's obvious.

But is it as obvious to you when you stand in front of your wardrobe that you're dressing in order to make a profession of faith. And that goes for both men and women. For some reason, it seems to be much easier for men in this culture than women to dress in any way modestly. In fact, it's almost impossible for women because the clothing manufacturers have so co-opted women's clothing. And I don't really understand why it's that way.

But clothing is a profession of faith. Okay, John Angel James, the pastor of the 19th century, said this about this passage, study your profession and thoroughly understand what it implies and enjoins. Consider well what sanctity and conduct, what spirituality of mind, what separation from the world in spirit and taste, what devotional feelings, what faith, hope, and love, and humility is communicated by your profession." So it's a profession of faith. Okay, here's what immodesty is. Immodesty, therefore, is a profession of yourself.

It's drawing attention to yourself. One element of immodesty is the guy or the girl who's just trying to find a look for his own glory, or to fit in to something. Immodesty is identification or association with godless cultures regarding clothing. Immodesty is an obsession by continuing to just legitimize oneself through clothing or hair or jewelry or or anything like that. Immodesty is it's an insensitivity toward the temptations of men.

It's lack of love for your brother. Immodesty makes you make someone else an object. Immodesty destroys love. It inflames lust. Immodesty arising out of this center that the Apostle Paul is talking about is something that makes it very clear that clothing is not a neutral area at all.

It's been given by God to declare His glory in the world like Everything else. You have to ask the same question that you ask about the stars. Why the stars? Why the ocean? Why all this beauty around us?

Why clothing? The answer to all those questions is the same. It's for the glory of God. It's to demonstrate the goodness of God and to identify with Him through a profession of godliness. So modesty is a profession of faith.

It's an external expression of things that you love and want to identify with. It's a reflection of holiness. It's a demonstration of humility. It's a display of self-control. And it tells the story of the fact that mankind needs to be covered in robes of righteousness.

So our clothing should take us back to the beginning of time in the Garden of Eden, where God covered up the shame of man by killing an animal and covering him completely with those skins. What happened there in the garden should help us to understand how we think about clothing. So that's the first point. It's a profession of godliness. That might be the most important principle in the whole thing.

That clothing is meant for the glory of God. That God has given us such an opportunity to think heavenly things in very physical things that seem so normal. Okay, so number one, it's a profession of godliness. Number two, it's an expression of the hidden person, of the heart. And here we find this very similar principle here in 1 Peter 3, 1 through 6.

In verse 3 Peter starts out with a prohibition regarding clothing. Do not let your adornment be merely outward, arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel. Rather, let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is very precious in the sight of God. For in this manner, verse 5, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid of any terror." Now there are three categories of outward adornment that are mentioned in the text. They're obvious, hair, jewelry, and clothing.

So the achieving of modesty isn't just about your clothing, it's about other things too. Other external things like hair and jewelry. Now, I don't know anyone, I don't personally know anyone, and I actually have never read a commentary that claims that this means that women should wear no jewelry and they should never fix their hair. I just haven't run into anyone who's written that down. I've heard of people who believe that, that this is a prohibition against all jewelry and a prohibition against braiding your hair.

And everyone I've ever read on this speaks that, there's a principle here about an overwhelming focus on those areas, like an obsession on fashion. He's talking about that. He's not talking about a proper arranging of the hair and even the wearing of jewelry. Now, there are many passages of Scripture that we see where it seems to be a godly thing that women get jewelry. Even the Bride of Christ is bejeweled and is absolutely gorgeous.

So we're not talking about some sort of a plain, drab, nothing kind of look. But what we are talking about is an obsession on outward things, and that's the basic principle here. And in this passage, there's the whole subject of external modesty without internal modesty. And here, Peter is going back to the hidden person of the heart again. All outward modesty goes back to something that happens inside the heart, and that's the basic principle.

And the idea is the attitude of the heart bears fruit in outward apparel. And if your heart desires to draw men to yourself or women to yourself. If your heart is seeking approval, then if that's going on in your heart, then it will just come out in your clothing. And that's the principle that he's speaking of here. And we could go to Isaiah chapter 3 to give a brilliant description of this.

The daughters of Zion are haughty, they're walking around with outstretched necks and wanton eyes and mincing as they go, jingling, jangling at their feet. They're just trying to get attention. They're dressed like harlots. And it's totally opposite of what these women in former times who dressed by trusting God, adorning themselves with submission. The adornment was internal.

They had submission in their hearts toward their husbands, because that's the heart of modesty. The heart of modesty doesn't begin with checking out your outers. It begins with checking out your insides and what you think and how you feel. It's interesting, the Westminster Larger Catechism makes modesty one of the sins against the seventh commandment. What is required of the seventh commandment?

Our neighbor's chastity in heart, question 70 and question 139, and immodest apparel. Those two things are used as examples of breaking the seventh commandment. Thou shalt not commit adultery. So our spiritual forefathers believed that the way that we dress had to do with the seventh commandment. And Peter is dealing with this in 1 Peter chapter 3.

The next passage of scripture is Deuteronomy 22 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 an abomination to the Lord your God. So it's just a very, very clear passage of Scripture. Women don't wear anything that pertains to a man, but men are a little bit different.

They don't put on women's clothing. They're similar, but they're distinct in this sense. The prohibition for women is broader. Anything that pertains to a man. So it has to do with whatever men do to be men, whatever they use, it can imply military accoutrements, things for work, and things like that.

But women are to have a distinctively female focus in their apparel. And they're not to put on anything that pertains to a man. That's why if you read John Calvin's commentary on this passage of Scripture he talks about the women who wear the hack butte which what's that? Well it's a gun. Women walking around Geneva carrying guns.

And he's saying that's a wicked violation of Deuteronomy 22.5, that women are acting like men. The whole US military has really majored on this. If you belong to the U.S. Military and you're a woman, you actually cease to become a wife. You cease to become a woman.

Our dear brother, Dr. Vagnier, has found this out, that really there's an actual stripping of womanhood and motherhood and being a wife in the role of being in the military. It's really astonishing, because that's kind of where it goes. So this is called androgyny. Women who dress like, look like men, and men who put on women's clothing.

And This Deuteronomy 22.5 exists in a section of Deuteronomy where Moses is doing exposition on the sixth commandment, you shall not murder. He's giving lots of different applications of what it looks like to murder and we went through this when we were together but right here in the midst of it is this law about clothing And it seems strange. It seems like it's just sort of out of place. It has been talking about the military, but then this thing about women. There are different examples about what murder is and what murder isn't in this section of scripture.

It goes from chapter 19.1 through 22, verse 8. We're in 22.5 now. So he's at the end of the section of doing exposition on thou shalt not murder. And he's been dealing with unintentional killing, shedding of innocent blood, cities of refuge, killing a man's inheritance by removing the ancient landmark. And then he talks about this issue of manhood and womanhood.

And what we think he's saying here is that there is a way that you kill manhood and womanhood by the way you dress. That you put to death who you really are by the way that you dress. And, You know, it was many years ago, our family was reading this passage of Scripture. It was well over a decade ago. And we came to this passage.

And there we were in our living room. And there's like this gigantic light and lightning bolt came down. We thought, whoa, what's that all about? And we had to grapple with this as a family. And my daughters especially had to grapple with it.

And we had to ask ourselves, what is distinctively male and female dress? And if you look at pictures of our family 15 years ago, we got the pictures to prove it, that we weren't all that clear on this matter. And so This passage was like a big bomb in our family. One of the things that we realized was that this whole thing has a history, that our family had a history. We existed in a certain period of history.

And one of the things that we didn't understand about history, one of the things that we didn't understand about our own lives is that some of the things that we were wearing would have been, would have been anathema in the church 50, 75 years ago. And that around the turn of the century, women started wearing pants like never before. And at first, pants were made to facilitate the entry into the US military in World War I. And then that just kept accelerating. The clothing manufacturers picked it up and began to promote androgyny through it and also allurement through it.

It was a scandal for women to be seen in pants in 1900. Only certain kinds of women wore pants. They were either feminists or they were harlots. And so that's kind of the history. Now, we now live in a world where almost all women wear pants today, right?

I mean, that's the norm. But if you look at what the fashion designers say about blue jeans and things like that, it's very clear that they are made for a purpose, and they're made for the purpose of allurement, and that's why we have the pants that we see today. And so there was this turn in the 20th century where the church felt that pants were sinful. There were great scandals at that time when bicycles came out a little bit earlier and women wanted to wear bicycles. It was a scandal for a woman to ride a bicycle wearing certain kinds of clothing.

And so there are all kinds of issues here that are playing upon us in history. Now, clothing always has a cultural element to it, Always does. And so whatever principles there are, those principles have to deal with whatever cultural elements that you have in the culture today. I don't think anybody here would say, well, we have to go back and dress in Roman togas. Please, I hope not.

But the people who were, the Christians who were born in Rome at that time had to consider the cultural element. What was distinctively male and what was distinctively female dress. Because you have to ask yourself, is this distinctively male and distinctively female? And in our family, here's how we worked it out. While I don't think pants are the issue.

The truth is, how we applied this in our own family is that we wanted, I wanted my daughters to be distinctively feminine. I wanted there to be a real difference so that it was very, very clear. I didn't want there to be blurring. There was much blurring going on. The culture wants to blur manhood and womanhood.

It's a wicked thing. Actually, he calls it an abomination here in Deuteronomy 22. It's an abomination for a woman to dress like a man and a man dress like a woman. So if it's an abomination, we ought to think really, really carefully about it. We ought to think about, we have to be very careful how much we're comfortable in blurring the lines.

But dress, dress is always, it ought to be always distinctively female or distinctively male. And men ought to dress like men and women ought to dress like women and boldly so in a culture that wants to constantly blur it. And I think that would be my general counsel to all of us in these churches, is that we dedicate ourselves to distinctive male and female dress. And that we're willing to boldly be that way in this culture. And how everyone else applies it, they have to take the principles and apply it.

But let's be really clear. You're born in a culture, and you have to ask yourself, what is distinctively male in that culture and female in that culture and is it alluring or not. Those are the two big questions that you have to ask and answer. So in the Brown home the girls wear dresses and the men wear pants And you're in a battle where evil is called good and good is called evil. And you live in a world where men dress sort of like men and women dress sort of like women.

And my encouragement is be a light to the world and and dress you know boldly for you know for male and female identification and but you know I hope we can agree on this one point that our apparel should be distinctively male and female and it should identify the genders very, very clearly. I think we all agree about that. I want to go back to a time where we used to say, you know, who wears the pants in this house? You know, that phrase used to have meaning. It doesn't really have that much meaning anymore.

But there's a reason. I mean, you know, Our brother Dan Horn said this about this subject. He said, we need to be very careful to understand that the reason that 50 million babies have been aborted goes back to the same root cause of why women started wearing pants in the beginning of the 20th century. There was a throwing off of biblical womanhood. Here's something that should really take our breath away.

When you destroy womanhood, you don't just get fewer babies. You don't just get fewer moms. You don't just get women in the workplace. You get something far worse. When you take biblical womanhood and you destroy it, what you get, you get millions of women who are willing to commit murder.

That's what you get. Let's be very careful to understand when you blur the lines, it takes you in a direction. And I think Dan's right about that. That you can draw a line from feminism And even what began the women of wearing pants in this country, you can trace it back to that same philosophy that has caused us to put to death over 50 million babies. You don't just get fewer mothers.

You get murder is what you get. Same thing with men as well. A couple weeks ago we went down to this homosexual festival. And you might say, well, live and let live. Let the homosexuals be what they want to be.

They're not harming anyone, right? It's just between two consenting adults, right? No, that's not true at all. When you throw off manhood, what do you get? You get the average age of the homosexual male lifespan at age 42.

That's what you get. So we should not be playing games with manhood and womanhood, which is why God calls it an abomination in Deuteronomy 22.5. The fourth passage of scripture is Proverbs 7, 4-27. And the point is it can be an allurement. It can be an allurement.

The power of the visual in a woman's dress and the whole thing of understanding temptation. In verse 10 of Proverbs 7, And there was a woman who met him with the attire of a harlot. The attire of a harlot. In other words, there's a way that a woman can dress that is alluring. That's the principle that he's dealing with.

The power of the visual is being spoken of here. David saw from this high place down to Bathsheba, who was beautiful to look upon. The Apostle John speaks of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes. So it's a responsibility that women have to protect the eyes of men, to protect their purity and their sanctification. Of course men are responsible.

Men must guard their eyes. Men must make a covenant with their eyes and keep their eyes focused in a certain direction. But women are also responsible for what she incites in a man. And there should be a sense of shame for having a distracting kind of appearance. I mean, here are a few things that cause men to stumble.

Low tops, that's one thing, low tops. Tight tops, just tight fitting tops are very difficult for men to try to navigate. Straps across the chest, Most women are not aware of this. Under clothes that are exposed or tight pants. Again, the issue is not pants or not.

Short skirts that draw up in certain ways that are too tight or draw up above the knee. You can be wearing a skirt and be just as immodest as the woman who's wearing a tight pair of pants. The issue with pants is the same way, is the same issue. It exposes the buttocks and it draws the attention of men's eyes. You know, fathers, you need to understand, you understand that.

And if you're gonna have your girls dress in pants, you need to understand what tight pants do. And you have to ask yourself, are they alluring in any way at all? Are they shame-faced? Do they come back? Do they come back from the brink in that sense?

A woman who hates sin should have a sense of shame of drawing men's eyes in the wrong direction. Jesus said, whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he'd be thrown into the sea. We're going to go over to my house today and you're going to see a big millstone sitting on the ground. It's there for a reason. It's there to tell a story.

A tell a story about stumbling, causing people to stumble, causing children to stumble. And parents need to be very careful that they're not causing others to stumble by their policies regarding modesty. Jesus said, if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. That's how important it is. We need to consider one another that we might build one another up and spur one another on to love and good deeds.

And that's the principle that's there. So the whole matter of allurement. And then we come to the matter of nakedness in Genesis 3, 21. If you look at what scripture has to say about clothing, you'll find that it's meant to cover the body completely. There are many passages of scripture that we could deal with regarding nakedness.

The covering of nakedness is an important category of Scripture. When Peter stripped off his outer garment and was naked, he actually had his inner garment on. The young man in the Gospels who ran away and his robe was left there. He was called naked, but actually had his outer garment on. Our concept of nakedness is kind of far off of the concept of nakedness in Scripture.

We've lived for so long in an immodest culture that we're very insensitive to what nakedness is. And so, you know, our conscience needs to be informed by Scripture and Scripture alone. And, you know, so why clothing to cover nakedness? That's why. And it all goes back to the Garden of Eden as well.

Now God made clothing to be a symbol of the coverings of righteousness. Here's a question that you should just consider. If clothing is a paradigm, if clothing is a type of being covered with righteousness. How covered do you want to be? Do you want to be a little bit covered?

Or a lot covered? Which way do you think you would? Do you want just some of your sins covered? Now, I don't think any of us believe here that you have to have... We don't believe like the Muslims, like you have to cover your face with a black veil.

We don't think Scripture teaches that at all. But let's ask ourselves, how covered do we want to be? How much of our shame has been covered? It's an important question to ask. But the Bible speaks very clearly about nakedness, that we should be covering our nakedness in our garments.

The next passage of Scripture is really about the divine purpose of clothing, Romans 12, 1, and 2, and that we present our bodies as living in holy sacrifices, that even our clothing is part of that dedication of ourselves unto God. That We're not conformed to this world, but we're transformed by the renewing of our mind. And so there's a way that we possess our bodies that is meant explicitly for the glory of God. And so clothing has a purpose, and that is to be a demonstration of one's dedication, not to the world, but to God. And then The seventh passage of Scripture, the last, is Matthew 6.28.

It can include an obsession with outward appearance. This is about worrying about clothing. Jesus said, why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field. Richard Baxter, in commenting on this passage of Scripture, he talked about an obsession with outward appearance.

And basically what he's saying is if you're obsessed with your outward appearance, you're basically telling the world that there's nothing there. That you're empty, that you're vacuous, that you're silly, that you have nothing to offer if all of your focus is on your outward appearance. Baxter is saying when you dress like that, you're just telling the whole world that you are empty and you're a shell and you have nothing on the inside to give. And so we have to ask, does our clothing reflect sin? Is it an expression of pride?

Is it an expression of fear of man or distrust of God to want something or someone that God has not given to us? Is it a fear of obedience? Is it discontentedness? Have we made a God out of fashion? There can be an obsession about clothing that causes us to fall into sin.

Okay, so I want to talk about practical matters now First of all I want to talk about male modesty So it would be it would be wrong to assume that the requirement for modesty only applies to women. And we need to make sure that we understand that that's not true. That the modest spirit also exists in men as well. The sword cuts to both genders. And with men, I would just like to suggest the same principle applies to us.

And that is that exalting yourself in your heart can lead to exalting yourself through your clothing. You know, there seem to be fewer men that are absolutely obsessed with their clothing, to me. Maybe that's true. But at the same time, men who are too obsessed with their clothing have something wrong in their hearts. They have immodest hearts.

They're seeking to present themselves. They may dress for their own comfort. They may dress for their preferred sport. They may dress for their own image. But the heart of immodesty is the same.

And that is a violation of shame-facedness. It's a rejection of humility. If a man just wants to show that he's just buff as buff can be, it's the same thing as a woman who's wearing a tight top. It's no different. He just wants to show it off.

If you've got it, flaunt it. It's the same heart. You know, Dan Horn was telling me a story about his father. In the 1940s, his father went to work for Arthur Anderson, the CPA firm, and you could get yourself fired on the spot with no questions asked at Arthur Anderson by doing something with your clothing. And it all had to do with modesty.

It was about shame-facedness of manhood and the way that a man expresses his modesty in public. And it was this, if an Arthur Anderson employee was ever caught outside in public without a hat on, he'd be fired on the spot. It was considered immodest in 1940 for a man not to wear a hat outside. You've seen it in the movies. Go watch a movie from the 40s.

All the guys have hats on. That's why it was considered modesty. I'm not saying that we all have to wear hats when we go outside. What I am saying though, is that it's always been thought that biblical principles of modesty apply to men as well. We don't think so in our culture now.

We think it's a woman thing. And that's actually inaccurate. Men should be thinking along the same lines. Are they understating, shame-facedly presenting themselves to the world? Or are they trying to be something or be somebody in a way that comes from a prideful heart.

And of course the issue is the prideful heart. He wants to make a name for himself rather than for the glory of God. There are two different things. What's driving you when you get dressed? Is it the glory of yourself or the glory of God?

Does a man ask himself, how can I best glorify God with what I put on today? We should ask that question as well. There are examples of immodesty in scripture. You have Absalom and his hair. It was a source of pride, absolutely.

It was. You have the priests who were required to cover their legs when they went up steps of the temple, to cover their nakedness. There's actually a new company that's just come from the United Kingdom to America called Men in Kilts. Maybe you haven't heard this. They're establishing their first franchise in no less than Seattle, Washington, where it's a perfect place to do it.

Men in Kilts. So these Men in Kilts are, It's a power washing and window washing business. It's a franchise. And their motto is don't peek. Obviously, Male modesty is a category.

I mean, I actually know some men who've worn kilts. Actually, some large men have worn kilts. And I just want to say it's really awkward. They actually reported to me very awkward moments, Like, for example, sitting down. They seem to be far more drafty than normal male apparel.

Men should ask themselves the modesty question. Pants that are too tight. Shorts that are too short and too tight. Things like that. Some would say shorts are immodest.

We can talk about that later if you have any questions about that. I have some thoughts about that. But when the Lord Jesus Christ was stripped naked and put on the cross, there is meaning to that. There is shame in that nakedness. And Jesus Christ in His sacrifice on the cross was taking our shame for our own nakedness and our many violations of modesty and every other kind of violation of internal modesty.

But God uses covering as a sign, and men need to be covered with the same principles that women should be covered. Men who desire to show off their muscles and wear tight shirts and show off their stuff, they just have to ask themselves, is that what they're trying to do? And if they are, they just ought to be honest about it and figure out whether they need to make a change or not. So that's male modesty. So let's talk about rules.

Are there rules? While Scripture is sufficient to help us know how to dress, God does not provide us with an explicit dress code. God doesn't provide us with rules, He provides us with principles. And He does that in many areas. And my personal opinion about that is the reason God did that is because the Gospel goes into all these different cultures.

And manhood and womanhood are portrayed in various ways, And you have to take those into account. But the principles should always be applied in every culture. Pagan cultures are overwhelmingly naked. The Gospel comes, they should cover up their nakedness. Their clothing is all wrong.

Most cultures get their clothing wrong in the same way that Adam and Eve got their clothing wrong in the garden when they made clothing for themselves. They needed wisdom from heaven, and in this case they needed God to actually intervene. So God has not given us exact rules, but he has given us very clear principles to help us to understand how we ought to dress. And those principles, they govern every single piece of clothing, every lock of hair, and every piece of jewelry, or every pair of shoes you ever put on. Those principles should guide everything.

And we have to ask, Is it extravagant? Is it alluring? Is it too tight? Is it too skimpy? Is there too much skin?

Those are the questions that we have to ask when we consider matters of modesty. Now, how should it be handled in the church? What should different people do? For example, if a young man is being stumbled, should he go to the girl and say, hey, your clothing is making me lust after you? Or If a married man is being stumbled by another married woman in the church, should he go up there and say, you're making me lust?

Or should he go to her husband instead and say your wife is making me lust after her? Our recommendation is absolutely don't do any of those things. You might say, you're just being pragmatic, Scott. That's not from Scripture at all. So here's why we would recommend a totally different way of handling this.

First of all, older women should be instructing the younger women regarding matters of chastity. This is a matter of chastity. And so older women are under divine obligations to be counselors to younger women. So Titus 2 exhorts older women to play this role in younger women's lives. So the older women, we think it's your responsibility to help the younger women to deal with that.

That's one way, one legitimate way to deal with it. The younger women should be looking to the older women and the older women should be coaching the younger women when they find themselves immature, clueless, or actually sinning. You know, one of those three. And you know, in the same way it would be appropriate for a young man to go to the elders of the church and say, hey, this is a problem, can you help me with this? Am I right?

Am I wrong? Is it just me? What should happen? And then I think elders can consider the matter and see if there might be a way to handle it if it's necessary. For example, even though we've had men come to us in our church over the last year, as elders we've not felt free before the Lord to go and speak to specific women or their husbands.

We just haven't had that. We thought we'd rather preach on it, actually. So, there may be ignorance, and a wise, more experienced woman or an elder can kind of help deal with the situation. So, what about the culture of a church? How should a church together think about and handle various expressions of immodesty?

First of all, in the culture of our church, we want to encourage that we're very clear that we ought to be bold in making a clear line of distinction between men and women. That's a principle that we want to really make sure that we understand. We want to make sure that in the culture of the church the older women are coaching the younger women. We want to have a church life where temptations are really minimalized. We live in a hyper-sexualized culture.

And honestly, there should be a safe place in the church. The church ought to be a place where women are not dressing in a alluring way so that the brothers can be free like they've never been free before. It shouldn't be like the mall. And it's not like that in our church, by the way. I don't want anybody to misunderstand.

I mean, we don't think that there's some rampant, gigantic issue at stake here. Let's be clear about that. But we do think that there's been a little bit of drift here and there that needs to be addressed. Now, The culture of this church should be that it's a place where the immodestly dressed are not treated wrongly or unlovingly. I'm going to say that again.

So that the immodestly dressed are not treated wrongly or unlovingly. Now, I'm not talking about the normal church member kind of person here. I'm talking about two kinds of people. There are the immature believers. And they need encouragement, loving counsel, and acknowledgement of a process of sanctification, and they need loving mentors to speak to them graciously and biblically about the matter and to give them time.

So that's one thing. What about the unbeliever who comes in? Let it never be the case that an immodestly dressed unbeliever walks into this church and is shunned or is gasped at or is rebuked for that. Let that not be the culture of this church. An immodest woman should be able to walk into this church and be loved by every young lady and every older lady in this place.

And cared for and blessed and evangelized. The immodesty is not really actually the problem. I mean it's way down there. It's way downstream. It's not her biggest problem and we have to understand that.

So the church, this church should be a safe place for the immodestly dressed unbeliever. Let that be the case with us. And then if there are immature needing instruction that there's patient loving instruction from the older women to the younger women. You know Should Sunday be the only place of modesty? No.

Are there two sets of books? Can one violate modesty when they're not in the meeting of the church, no. So everything proceeds from the Gospel. The Gospel changes everything. And it ought to change our apparel.

So this is not an argument against beauty. It's not about making women unattractive or old-fashioned or anything like that. In Psalm 45, we know with certainty that that is not the direction that we ought to be going. The royal daughter is all glorious within her palace. This is Psalm 45.

The princess is decked in her chamber with gold-woven robes. In many colored robes she is led to the king. With her virgin companions, her escort in her train, with joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king." This is the way that it ought to be. Women should be dressed beautifully but modestly with shame-facedness, with an awareness of sin and the temptations that are there. So the way to modesty is the way of the Gospel.

It's entered into with humility of heart that desires to bring glory to God in everything including dress. A woman can be dressed modestly on the outside and have an immodest heart and have an unconverted heart as well. It happens that very nicely dressed ladies are not modest inside. We have to recognize that. The outward shell is not the only story.

So what it is for us here is that when we stand before our wardrobes, that we would think about the robes of righteousness. That we would consider that clothing has a divine purpose and that it's meant to declare the glory of God. And what greater glory of God is there than that sinners have been covered with robes of righteousness. And that's really the whole point of apparel. That's why God gave us clothes so that we would declare that.

Let's pray. Lord, we have much to learn. We have such distance to travel in our pilgrimage as disciples. Oh Lord, I pray you'd help us to be faithful to you in these matters. That we would let everything that has breath, praise the Lord, that we would use everything for your glory