The sermon explores the biblical view of clothing, emphasizing its connection to justification by faith. It discusses the five purposes of clothing: covering shame and nakedness, displaying beauty and glory, representing manhood and womanhood, reflecting God's passion for purity, and distinguishing worldliness in foreign apparel. The sermon encourages believers to think biblically about their clothing choices and to understand the deeper meaning behind their attire.

Please open your Bibles to Romans chapter four. Romans chapter four. Fine verse six, Romans four, verse six. Verse 6. Romans 4 6.

This is the inerrant, all sufficient, sweeter than honey." Word of God. Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works, Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin." Then I want to finally read Psalm 132 verse 9. Let your priests be clothed with righteousness and let your saints shout for joy. The grass withers, the flower falls off, but the word of our God stands forever.

Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for this passage. Thank you so much that you've given us all things for life and godliness and to teach us your ways in all of our ways in the world. What a blessing you are, oh Lord, to provide such good guidance and counsel to us. I pray, Lord, that you would equip the saints today.

Amen. Please be seated. So over the next few weeks, we'll be delivering various topical messages. We started with supernatural gifts last week. We'll be giving a topical message on the giving of tithes and offerings, the government of the tongue, duties of church members and things like that.

But today our topic and probably for a couple of weeks until I can get through what I want to try to communicate, we're dealing with the doctrine of clothing. The doctrine of clothing and modesty. Now throughout our studies in Romans, we've been examining Paul's delight in justification by faith, which is the imputation of Jesus Christ's righteousness upon the repentant sinner. This is the clothing of the converted sinner that Christ's righteousness drapes the believer. He is given robes of righteousness.

And the Apostle has made it very clear. He's not just not ashamed of the Gospel. He's so delighted in justification by faith. He's boasting in justification, you know, all the way up until where we are now in chapter five in Romans. And he's been explaining the details of specifics of justification, the need for justification, the danger of mankind, that the outright pagans, the religious people, the moral people are all under condemnation without faith in Jesus Christ.

And he's been proving this. We entered into chapter five, we started chapter five, and we've been examining the blessings of justification Where the Apostle begins he says therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with God and we have access into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. He's just boasting, exalting in justification by faith. And there are many more blessings of justification by faith that we'll cover when we get back to Romans. There are actually 66 references to righteousness or justification in Romans.

So as we've gone through this doctrinal treatise on justification by faith and the righteousness that clothes the believer, it's been difficult to keep out of my mind the doctrine of clothing in the Bible because the doctrine of clothing is intimately connected with justification by faith. And I'm gonna take you back to Genesis today, but if you go back to Genesis, you'll quickly realize that the internal work of justification is something that we do, it is pictured in clothing, in the clothing that God provides his people. Justification is pictured in something that we do every day. We put on clothes. And the Lord does not want us to mindlessly put on clothes, but to mindfully and biblically think about it in the way that we clothe ourselves.

And this outward everyday activity called putting on clothes was designed by God to picture an inward reality. And so clothing is actually a picture of justification and it's a reminder of this inward work of imputed righteousness that God has done and your clothing covers the outer body and It's It's a picture of covering nakedness and shame. It pictures the beautification process of sanctification. It pictures the protection that clothing is, that the gospel is, that Jesus Christ is to his children. It pictures the outward manifestation of humility in a gentle and quiet spirit, not in ostentation and pride and wealth, but being clothed.

Even in the New Testament, you find this language of being clothed all over the the letters to the churches to be clothed with Christ, clothed with compassion, clothed with humility. These are all actual commands for the church of Jesus Christ. The church is clothed by God. And so I'm preaching this sermon and this sort of series to try to help our church understand God's purposes for clothing. It's something that we do every day.

But it's really important that we think biblically about it and everything else that we do. Everyone who puts on clothing is making a statement. Clothing makes a statement. It just implicitly makes a statement. You can't put out on clothing without making a statement.

And even if you're not self-consciously trying to make a statement, you're still making a statement. And so when you stand before the mirror, are you asking yourself if you understand what you are doing in clothing yourself? Because everything really is under God's authority. Everything, even our clothing. Abraham Kuyper is famous for saying there's not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ who is sovereign over all does not cry mine and even our clothes as believers are designed to be owned and operated by the Lord and So my methodology though in this is what is called a biblical theology.

I wanna give us a flyover of biblical theology, of clothing over the next couple of sessions or so. Biblical theology is distinguished from systematic theology, practical theology, pastoral theology, exegetical theology. Biblical theology, it actually traces a doctrine from its beginning all the way to the end. The way that the doctrine unfolds in the Bible. And so that's what I plan to do here.

In biblical theology there's an unfoldment of the doctrine in installments from Genesis to Revelation. So that's the methodology that we'll be following in these messages here. What I want us to understand at the beginning is that the biblical teaching about clothing goes far beyond what we call modesty. When we hear the word modesty, we immediately think of the modesty text in 1st Timothy 2 and 1st Peter 3. These texts are only the tip of the iceberg regarding the doctrine of clothing.

And further, when we hear the word modesty, we automatically think of women's clothing. Somehow, in our biblical illiteracy and our confusion, we think of clothing only in terms of women's modesty. And it really is a reflection of biblical ignorance. But if you do a biblical theology of clothing, you quickly realize that the focus of the biblical teaching is not mainly about women at all. The Bible does not really allow you to isolate this matter of modesty to women because the teaching in the Bible speaks really of the broad meaning of clothing.

And so this doctrine of clothing is applicable both to men and women. And frankly, most of the biblical instruction is to both men and women. And men have different issues with clothing that have to do with modesty. You know, increasingly men wear, you know, tight clothing, the increasingly unisex men's clothing, the gender-blender clothing that we find today, And we find men who feel the need to show off their muscles, draw attention to parts of their anatomy. This is no different than what often is found in this matter of modesty with women.

It's just simply the same kind of pride that both men and women struggle with when they put on their clothes. Want to make a statement and draw attention to something. And but the question we're really considering here is what does the Bible say about clothing? And the Bible actually teaches you how to dress in both the Old and the New Testament. Here, you're getting instruction, biblical instruction on how to dress.

When we get to the New Testament, we get the apostles are telling the women in the church how to dress. And so we'll be doing that as well but not just the women because the emphasis as I said isn't just for isn't women it's really the whole category but the Bible the Bible makes it so clear that clothing is a picture and but it's like almost everything else in nature. You know, God has appointed clothing to communicate meaning, but here's the deal when it comes to this doctrine. There is not one square inch of anything that falls outside the authority of God. And I really do believe that this whole subject falls under the matter of the preeminence of Christ.

That in all things Christ might be preeminent in all things in everything and everything that you say do hope are everything everything is under the preeminence of Christ there's nothing better for the human soul than to come under the authority of the preeminent Christ. Jesus Christ is such a good shepherd. He always leads you to paths of righteousness and living water. He is so good. But here I want us to put on the mind of Christ regarding this matter of clothing.

The Bible actually calls a Christian a slave, slaves of Christ. That's who we are and I'm so glad to have such a good king. But from Genesis to Revelation there really is a unified and yet unfolding thread that teaches what clothing means. And we'll get to some of the details of that. It is in summary, it's a gospel portrait.

God gave you clothing as a portrait of the gospel, not for self-expression, not for the manifestation of your pride or your look, but for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You know, it's like that within creation. Within creation, there are pointers to, there are earthly pointers to heavenly things. The trees point, the door, the windows, the light, everything points. You can, you can, you can, you can give a sermon on the gospel in trees.

You can give a sermon on the gospel in trees, you can give a sermon on the gospel in light, you can give a sermon on the gospel of rivers, because the gospel actually is communicated in these things. And the gospel is also communicated in clothing. So when you stand in front of the mirror, it's really important that the believer knows what he's doing. And the Bible will tell you, you know, the meaning of clothing in many ways is a message that God intervenes. He takes action.

He takes action to cover the sins of sinners. He takes action to beautify the person who comes to him. This ongoing beautification is demonstrated in the clothing that we wear. But the problem is we often just become puppets of the Gentiles in our clothing. Our clothing is often a manifestation of the fashion industry, which is always moving.

Anna Wintour said fashion, the fashion industry is about what is going to happen. And that's true. I want to give you five purposes of clothing from the Old Testament. We'll move to the New Testament the next time we meet, but I'm going to try to isolate myself as best I can to the Old Testament. But I want us to begin to think of this question, you know, when I'm standing in front of the mirror, what am I thinking?

What am I doing? Five purposes of clothing from the Old Testament. The first purpose, you have an outline in front of you, you can see where I'm going. It's evident how far we're going to go with this today. But the first purpose of clothing is for covering nakedness and shame." And we find this in Genesis chapter 3.

Please open your Bibles of Genesis chapter 3 and find verse 7. Of course, verse seven follows the narrative of the fall where both the husband and the wife disobeyed God. They wanted something better than God. They wanted something that God had forbidden, He forbade it in His goodness. And when we come to verse 7, we find the beginning of this matter of clothing or coverings, in this case it's fig leaves.

Verse 7, then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves covering. This is an example of Adam and Eve covering themselves out of their own wisdom, out of their own autonomy. They covered themselves. And there's a very sharp distinction in the Bible about those who cover themselves and those who are covered, covered in the rubbs of righteousness. And that's what we find here.

If you skip down to verse 12, and God said, who told you that you were, oh, I'm sorry, verse 10. So, The man said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And verse 11, and he said, who told you that you were naked? And then after that God describes the the judgment upon the human race as a result of the sin but then God describes his mercy Toward them as God he actually kills an animal and creates robes for them. There's a sacrificial animal that is the creation of these robes, something far more substantial than the fig leaves, far more substantial than what man in his own and his own autonomy, in his own self-righteousness, would create.

And so God closed Adam and Eve, verse 23 also for Adam and his wife the Lord made the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them So you have this picture of Adam and Eve clothing themselves and God not being pleased with the way that they had clothed themselves. And so he made clothing for them. Clothing like a tunic. We don't know exactly what that is but it was most likely from the shoulders to the to the feet or even the it can in some places mean to the thighs, but this, it was a full clothing rather than an inadequate clothing. The clothing that Adam and Eve clothed themselves with was inadequate.

It was insufficient clothing. And whenever you stand in front of the mirror you should ask, is this insufficient clothing? And you see this autonomy and their self-righteousness in verse 7. And they sewed leaves together and made themselves coverings. Greg Nichols suggests, I think with a touch of humor that they assumed roles of fashion designers.

They became their own fashion designers and this was a manifestation of self-righteousness. You know Isaiah chapter 64 verse 6 speaks of this when he says, but we are all like an unclean thing and all our righteousness, all our righteousnesses are filthy rags. We all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities are like the wind, have taken us away. So there is a self-righteousness that is like filthy rags. This was the equivalent, I believe, of the fig leaves that was autonomously, independently attached.

But what you find here in the first mention of the doctrine of clothing is God's zeal to cover shame. God desires to cover the shame of sinners. And if you're a person who's not converted here today, Just recognize God's zeal to cover your shame. He wants to cover your shame He wants you to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that that he can cover you with his Robes of righteousness and your robes can be washed clean in the blood of the Lamb. You can be free of guilt and shame forever.

You can have robes of righteousness. Job, you know, you find this theme all through the Bible, perhaps the earliest book of the Bible, the earliest personality after Adam and Eve is Job. In Job 29, 14 He says, I put on righteousness and it clothed me. My justice was like a robe and as a turban. Here Job, he's comparing clothing with a robe of righteousness and a turban on his head, which we will learn even more that the priests themselves were clothed with turbans.

In Isaiah 61, You find the same thing. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness. Clothed, covered.

This is the language of justification. In Isaiah chapter 11 5, Isaiah says, righteousness shall be the belt of his loins and faithfulness the belt of his waist. Again, the clothing bears witness to the righteousness of God. In Revelation chapter three, verse five, We read, He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments. That's code for salvation.

That's code for having your garments washed clean and white and bright. It's code for justification by faith. And then he says, and I will blot out, I will not blot out his name from the book of life but I will confess his name before my father in Revelation 19 8 and to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen clean and bright for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. And then he said to me, blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb because you're clothed with wedding garments. But even in the earth, before you get to heaven, you're clothed in wedding garments, but they are the righteous robes of Jesus Christ.

Psalm 132 verse 9, let your priests be clothed with righteousness, Let your saints shout for joy. You have this remarkable story in Zechariah. In Zechariah, Zechariah is encouraging the captives that have returned and They're seeing how lightweight everything is compared to the old temple. And he's encouraging it, but he's saying, hey, don't give up. Look what God is doing.

God is establishing his kingdom. And he just gives one illustration after another in Zechariah of this glorious kingdom. It's absolutely stunning. The language is just phenomenal, but he tells a story in there about Joshua the high priest who's standing before the angel of the Lord, and the devil is condemning Joshua the high priest because he has filthy garments on and then and then the Lord the Lord says take away the filthy garments from him and to him he said See I have removed your iniquity from you and I will clothe you with rich robes. Clothing, covering, robes, this is all the language of justification by faith alone.

And he said then, let them put a clean turban on his head. So they put a clean turban on his head and they put the clothes on him and the angel of the Lord stood by. These are all pictures of justification by faith alone. So when you stand before the mirror, recognize that God has given you a symbol, a reminder of His covering your nakedness and covering your shame because these physical garments are a type of spiritual garments. We need outer clothing to remind us of our robes of righteousness that are spiritual.

So clothing is a picture of the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. And every person in our church, I hope, is asking, who is my fashion designer? Am I my own designer? Or am I thinking biblically about my clothing? The second purpose of clothing is for beauty and glory.

You find this in many different places. Ezekiel 28, the entire chapter, it's so long, we can't read it, we can't read very much of it, but I'll just read verse two. It really is a picture of beauty and glory. God created clothing for beauty and glory. There's no shortage of beauty in the kingdom of God.

Both men and women should dress in a way that could be characterized by beauty and glory. I have several passages of scripture you can read that are in your notes there. Exodus 28 verse 2, and you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother for glory and for beauty. And these are the garments of the priests. And you, if you read this chapter, you'll, you'll see that these garments were worn as a manifestation of their consecration.

The Christian is a consecrated being. They consecrate themselves to God. They dedicate themselves to God. And the clothing of the priests was a sign of their dedication to God, their consecration before God. In fact, they could not minister without this consecration, even the consecration of their garments, their outward garments, because the outward garments were bearing witness to something inward.

If you graze through this passage you'll see they are made by gifted artisans, that's verse three. They were filled with the spirit of wisdom, and they made Aaron's garments to consecrate him. Verse 3. That he may minister to me as priest. And these are the garments that they shall make and then it just speaks of the beauty, the colors, it's just stunning what is what is seen here the gold, the blue, the purple, the scarlet threads, the fine linen, It's just amazing for beauty and for glory.

And then we learn in verse 36, you shall make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it like the engraving of a signet, holiness to the Lord. Everything for holiness to the Lord. The priests were required by God to have everything holiness to the Lord, even their clothing. Now of course there's no longer a priestly class, but in the New Testament all believers are priests. Martin Luther said faith alone is the true priestly office today.

In 1st Peter chapter 2 verse 9 we read this, but you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. For you were once not a people, But now you are the people of God who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. The picture, the shadow of the priesthood In principle is applicable today for every Christian You don't have to dress yourself exactly like the priests but the principle the general equity of The law for the priests actually applies in principle to the New Testament. Believer, if you want more detail on that, read the Baptist Confession of 1689 on the law of God. And I'll give you a very clear statement of why I said it the way that I did.

But the royal priesthood in the Holy Nation does not just go back to Exodus 28. It is not just capsulized in the New Testament in 1st Peter, but it also even goes back to Exodus 19, where in Exodus 19 God tells his people that all of them are priests. They were always priests and yet there was a specific office set aside for the service and work in the temple to offer sacrifices and intercede and things like that. They were set aside for service in the same way that a New Testament believer is set aside. He abandons the world and is set aside for God.

Everything is set aside for God. Every square inch of his life is under the authority of God. Praise the Lord for that. As we are a kingdom of priests, as believers in this church, we draw near to God boldly into His presence. We come together and we intercede for one another just like the Old Testament priests do.

We offer sacrifices of praise just like we were doing all morning singing this morning. And our garments as priests ought to represent the spiritual anointing and consecration that we're set apart. We don't dress like the world. We don't act like the world. We don't talk like the world.

We don't work like the world. We don't have our families like the world. We're not worldly. We are a kingdom of priests unto God. Several years ago, Sam Waldron wrote a book called The Father as Priest.

It's a great book. It's short. But in that book, he talks about fathers who actually, in principle, function like the priests of the Old Testament. They are intercessors, they gather for worship, they teach the Word of God. So like the priests who were clothed with beauty and glory, when you stand in front of the mirror, you should think about that.

You know, Is there any virtue in sloppiness? Is there any virtue in going around in torn clothing? Is there any biblical virtue to that? Torn clothing is very popular today. You just pay a lot of money to have somebody else tear your clothes and then you put them on.

What's that all about? I've never really understood that. You know, the New Testament as well is full of language. We'll cover this later on in another session, But let me just read you some of the language in the book of Romans But put on the Lord Jesus Christ if you read any commentator on that almost all of them are gonna say this is language of clothing It's really funny. You find this language of put on and put off and it's the language of putting on and put off clothing.

It's this identical language. In Colossians 3 10, since you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him." So clothing is for beauty and glory. This is the doctrine of clothing. It's thrilling, isn't it? It's amazing.

It's amazing what God has done with creation and even the threads that we put on our bodies. The third purpose of clothing is for manhood and womanhood. We find the primary text for this is Deuteronomy 22 verse five. And so, and when you stand before the mirror, you should ask, am I exemplifying, Am I trumpeting my manhood or my womanhood? 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." Deuteronomy 22, 5. There are different levels under which we can consider this command of God that men dress like men and women dress like women. Today the fashion industry tries to make it hard to tell whether it's a man or a woman. And you can actually listen to many songs and even Christian songs, and I can't even tell if it's a man or a woman. We live in a very feminized culture.

The pressure of gender blending and feminization is just astounding in our culture and the church should resist it. The church is here to make a statement against it. Clothing is one way you make that statement. When someone looks at you they should know immediately whether that's manhood or that's womanhood. You know, when our girls were growing up, Deborah and I wanted them to appear in their clothing as distinctively women.

And we wanted to make sure the contrast was clear in our daughters. And so as a result of that, they wore dresses. Almost all the time they wore dresses. And They wore dresses because dresses are distinctively feminine. When a man wears a dress, it's not distinctively feminine.

And I recall my daughters actually being shamed. They were actually shamed, sometimes even by other girls in the church and other women in our church. And they would walk down the mall and you could tell, you know, there were women coming at them saying, oh there's the dress brigade. Well, I didn't really care how the other people in the world were dressing, but I wanted my daughters to be distinctively feminine, whatever they wore. And you know, the Brown family was under my jurisdiction, They were under my care.

So I was leading them into femininity and into masculinity as well for my son. And the truth is, how is masculinity and femininity governed in a family? Well, it's governed by the head of the household. That's the way that God has designed it. You know, the pastors of the church are not governing the dress of your daughters and your sons.

We are not their governor. We're going to teach the doctrine and we pray that it falls, you know, on hearing ears. But the truth is, you know, this is the territory of a husband or a father to determine the dress, whether it is feminine or masculine. But whenever we stand in front of the mirror, we should ask, am I proclaiming a distinctive manhood or womanhood in my dress? And then the fourth, the fourth purpose of clothing is to display God's passion for purity.

To display God's passion for purity, I'll just, you know, cite Proverbs 7 verses 10 and 11 in Matthew 5, 27 through 29. In Proverbs 7, you have this word attire that appears for clothing. It was a woman, there's a particular kind of attire. There's it's a classification of of clothing and And there a woman met him with the attire of a harlot and a crafty heart. Two things.

There was a particular classification of clothing that this woman was wearing and it was alluring clothing it was sexually attractive it was an eye magnet and but but in this case It actually came from her heart from a crafty heart. So it was clothing that was reflecting her heart. And here, you know, and there are two key players in this alluring drama that you find in Proverbs chapter seven. You find it in chapter five and other places in Proverbs. First of all, you have the crafty attire in the classification of a harlot.

It's alluring, sexually explicit, sexually alluring attire. And then you have the eyes of a man, the lustful eyes of a man that are prone to wander. The eye magnets that are out there, women ought to be very careful that they don't become eye magnets in what they wear same thing with men but Jesus teaches on lust he says in Matthew 5 27 but I say to you that whoever looks to a woman, it looks at a woman to lust for her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. So in this passage the the responsibility is placed on the man's eye not on the woman's eye magnet.

Now there was an eye magnet. Women do have a responsibility not to cause their brothers to lust, not to draw attention to areas that would cause them to desire something sinful. And that's what Matthew 5 is teaching. And so women should be very careful with the classification of their attire that is alluring, that draws the eye. I remember, I heard, I believe it was Paul Washer, I heard him say that his wife's admonitions to women was if your clothing draws attention to your eyes, then you're probably dressed appropriately.

But if it draws attention to other parts of your anatomy, it's probably not. I think that's wisdom. I was listening to Albert Martin and he talked about these various kind of eye magnets. I'll just list the things that he identified. Dresses are skirts with lengthy slits.

Number two, dresses are skirts which hug the buttocks. Number three, any upper garment that hugs the breasts. Number four, unbuttoned blouses, low necklines, or cleavage on any upper body garment. Number five, sleeves, blouses, or dresses with large armholes. Number six, low rise skirts or pants.

Number seven, see-through clothing of any kind, clothing that does not cover your undergarments to the point where no one can see them. It's very popular today for women to have their undergarments showing. That's what he's referring to. Number eight, skirts and dresses that are just plain too short. Number nine, slacks or pants or jeans that hug the buttocks, the thighs, and the crotch.

Number ten, bare midriff and back. And with men, you can make similar lists, but basically you're talking about what's too tight, what's too low, what's too high, what follows the curves of your body, and why are you doing it? That's really the issue there. But Christian men and women ought to be careful not to cause anyone to stumble with their clothing. But often men try to draw attention of women by their clothing in an inordinate way.

We've already said that clothing is for covering shame and covering nakedness, but it's for beauty and glory as well. In other words, there's no diminishing of the beauty and the propriety of clothing. But there are these other matters of clothing that are dangerous to the soul, actually. And then the fifth purpose of clothing is to distinguish the worldliness of foreign apparel. I'm gonna take us to Zephaniah one verse eight here.

Zephaniah one eight. This idea of Foreign apparel appears in different places in the Bible. I'll just read the text. I will punish the princes and king and the king's children and all such as are clothed with foreign apparel. Clothed with foreign apparel.

Isn't that an interesting phraseology? It's most likely it refers to clothing that reflects popular fashions that are emanating out of idolatrous nations. It's clothing that's actually arisen out of the idolatry of paganism. Albert Barnes explains Zephaniah 1.8 like this. The choice of the strange apparel involved the choice to be as the nations of the world.

Quote, we will be as pagan as the families of the country. So I think he's talking about this desire to follow the fashion industry, to follow the fashion designs that are actually pagan, that are like, as we've already spoken, they don't cover shame, they don't cover nakedness, they're not for beauty and glory, That they are alluring, that they are of this classification of clothing that is the attire of the harlot. It's that kind of clothing. It might, some say it's just excessive clothing, just radically ostentatious clothing, weird clothing. You know, you can see some of the weirdest clothing in the fashion industry.

Gigantic hats. You know, you wonder, where do you wear these? You know, only on the runway. It's the only place. And so, but it's insane, it's foreign clothing.

It's very odd clothing. Matthew Poole said it like this of this text in Zephaniah. Some say the strange apparel of idolatrous priests. Others say more likely the garb of foreigners imitated by wanton Jews. But hey, the truth is we all know that the fashion industry is driven by paganism, so we always have to be careful.

One of the most difficult things about this whole subject is the matter of culture. And I'm not here to say that I understand every bit of it. Let me just make a couple statements. Every single person in this room, I myself am clothed as a result of the cultural fashions. All of us are, okay?

And you know, as I look out into this crowd, we are clothed according to the fashions of the day, but we are not all immodestly dressed. So there's a way that you navigate this matter of modesty and propriety and appropriate clothing within the culture, even using the styles of a culture, but being very careful that the styles of the culture don't impinge on the beauty of the gospel which is the purpose of clothing. And fashions and styles change. Well in Jesus' day all the men were running around in robes. Today, you know, if you run around in a robe in our church, the elders are going to talk to you.

Okay? Well, that's just ridiculous clothing, you know, it's it doesn't it's not the clothing of manhood So this is a different this is actually One of the most difficult matters because styles Do change and my my view is that whatever it is, a clothing should be distinctively masculine or distinctively feminine in that culture, and that clothing should be distinctively modest and not alluring, and it should distinctively cover shame, and it should distinctively cover nakedness, and it should be for beauty and glory. That's my doctrine of clothing. The devil hates modesty. The devil hates modesty because he hates the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

He hates modesty because he hates purity. He hates modesty because he hates true beauty. He hates modesty because he hates the government of God over all things. He wants to pollute every square inch of creation, and God is recovering it through his gospel. So, Why am I preaching these texts?

I want particularly the rising generation to excel far beyond their parents and their understanding of clothing. I want the younger generation to understand that the word modesty doesn't even hardly contain the doctrine of clothing. It's only a tip of the iceberg. It's far greater than what I taught my children about modesty and probably what you did. It's far deeper, far more wonderful, far more powerful, far more declarative.

And I want the younger Generation to understand that and I and I want them to be more biblical than my generation more holy than my generation I want them to take it farther more effective in all of these things more beautiful more glorious more pure than my generation. I was in my mid-40s, mid-late 40s, before I ever heard a sermon or read anything about modesty. Totally clueless as a pastor for years. But as I began to read the Bible, I began to see the patterns emerge and they're so beautiful really they're so compelling We will all serve somebody by what we wear Your fashion Your fashion designer will either be the world or it will be the Lord Let's go with the Lord Peter Said no longer should we live the rest of the time in the flesh for the lust of men, but for the will of God. For we have spent enough of our past lifetime doing the will of the Gentiles.

And doing the will of the Gentiles happens every day when we stand in front of the mirror or doing the will of God. So the purpose of clothing is to cover shame and nakedness. It's to display God's devotion to beauty and glory. It's to declare manhood and womanhood. It's to preserve purity.

And it's for the identification of worldliness in foreign apparel. So the next time we address this subject will be in the New Testament. And in the New Testament you do find this matter of modesty to be prominent, but it picks up the other themes of the doctrine of clothing in the rest of the Bible. And I pray that in this church there would be a distinctively biblical culture of modesty that is preserved and built. It's so important that you do that because God designed your clothing for a purpose and God wants to deliver you as your own fashion designer and he wants to be your fashion designer.

Isaiah 52, one, I'll close with this. Oh Zion, put on your beautiful garments. Oh Zion, put on your beautiful garments. Would you pray with me? Lord, your word is so remarkable.

I pray that you would use these things to so thrill us, to inspire us, to see the beauty of your kingdom and all of what you've done. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. Your kingdom is a kingdom of everlasting joy. Rejoicing in the garments of salvation, the robes of righteousness with which you have clothed us. Oh God, you are so kind to deliver us from all of our sins and to clothe all of our shame.

Amen.