The Holiness of God-Part II | Senior Pastor Kenneth Carpenter

give your bibles and return with me keeping in mind our staff meeting keeping in mind that we started a series last week about being on staff here of course i just believe that everyone ought to want to be on staff or everyone ought to want to qualify their lives to be on staff here at first apostolic and say what a wonderful recital that we had today and to see the future of our sister erickson you are doing a superb job with the music department all the people under you wow simply phenomenal what was going on here today isaiah chapter 52 and verse number 11 depart ye depart ye of course that's an emphasis there go ye out from fence touch no unclean thing go ye out of the midst of her be he clean that bear the vessels of the lord be ye clean that bear the vessels of the lord if you put your bibles down and prepare your hearts right now prepare your hearts i'd like to ask everyone if you have a cell phone to mute it after prayer mute your cell phone so that for the next uh 40 minutes or so we don't have any kind of distraction here that would distract our minds from the word of god father i love you i thank you for your word lord i thank you for your word your word is our compass god when we don't know the way to go your word tells us the right road lord your word is so relevant to us god your word god is alive it's a living book it's full of life god and i i just thank you for these wonderful people god young and old that come to the house of the lord to hear your word god your calling god is upon this church i asked this evening lord that you would anoint me with your spirit help me lord to articulate help me god to be able to communicate what i feel in prayer that you would have to be spoken over this congregation tonight lead us o god in jesus name we pray amen and amen you may be seated god bless you for standing let me make a statement before we begin this evening um many many years ago there would be services that we could look around and there would they we didn't we didn't have a guest there so you could you could put the plow as deep as you wanted because because it was the church the church was there and you could you could preach to the church you could need be if you needed to rebuke the church you could rebuke the church and uh because there was no there was no guests there that were on a different uh level as far as their comprehension of the word of god but we don't have any services now that we don't have multiple guests that are here and i want to preface my bible lesson tonight by saying there are a lot of good-hearted people that have just never heard some of the teachings on holiness they've just never heard it they're not bad people they're not rebellious people they're not devils and harlots and they're they're they they've just never they just never heard it explained they've never they've never heard it i i see sister millsaps here tonight and sunday night she said yes to walk on with the lord in water baptism in jesus name she'd been coming here for for some time she had just never really heard about water baptism in jesus name she had heard it from from from a denominal slant that is not biblical she and she walked in the that that which she knew but she'd been coming around and she'd been listening and listening and listening and sunday night she just said i want to be baptized i want to be baptized tonight amen and so aren't you thankful for that so so there is uh there is thank you thank you that's my my illustrated sermon tonight right i still want to use it yeah the scripture and i said that because there are going to be things that we're going to teach that you may be setting here and you may be thinking oh my i never i never knew that was there oh i've offended someone oh i've come in here like this and no you have not offended us any more than sister millsap offended us by coming and not being baptized in jesus name we just realized he that when our souls is wise we realize that not not everyone has been privileged aren't you thankful that you've been privileged to hear some of the things on holiness the verse of scripture that i've used from a text tonight is taken from when the children of israel had served many years in babylonian captivity because of their sin jerusalem had been ravished the articles of the tabernacle had been taken and the people had been taken to babylon there they learned their lesson babylon is confusion there they learned their lesson there they long they longed to go back and worship the one true god there they long they they learn their lesson that they they they should not have they shouldn't have allowed their relationship with jehovah god to grow cold they learned their lesson and the day came that god said it's time for you to leave babylon and he uses an emphasis he says depart ye depart you get out of there get get out of babylon go out from fence touch no unclean thing in other words he was saying on your way out of babylon don't pick up any of their gods don't pick up any of their ways don't don't don't bring those ways back to jerusalem but not only that he said go out touch no one clean thing go you out of the midst of her then he uses these words be clean be clean the reason he's saying be clean is because not only were the people of god going to return from babylon to jerusalem not only were the people of god going to return but god was going to allow the instruments of the tabernacle to also return they were going to take the lamps back and they were going to take the articles of the tabernacle back but god said before you begin to bear the vessels of the lord he said i want you to be clean i want you to be clean now we know the bible says that the old testament is our school teacher a lot of things in the old testament is a school teacher that teaches us a new testament reality he said now before you go down and get the candlestick before you go down and get the table of shoe bread before you go down and get the instruments of the tabernacle he said be clean if you're going to carry if you're going to carry an instrument from the tabernacle he said i want you to be clean now in the new testament today there's an analogy that we must live by if we're going to carry the vessels of the lord in the work of god whether it's we're carrying a sunday school booklet or carrying an offering plate or carrying a camera whatever we're carrying we have the responsibility to be clean to have a clean life to have to walk as close to god as we can you see holiness holiness flavors your life holiness will eventually flavor every aspect of your life god will first fill you with the holy ghost and then every relationship in your life the holy ghost will flavor that relationship but it's going to take time it's going to take time you know i uh i saw this little illustration and i thought it would be good i have my favorite well me and my sweetheart's favorite tea we like uh this tea salted caramel black tea we we we liked that and i i got to thinking today about holiness and tea you know this is a clear glass with water in it hot water hot water to say that much and it's kind of like the holy ghost isn't it god gives us the holy ghost that water of life we have that water we have the holy ghost but that doesn't necessarily mean i'm holiness i have the holiness i have the holy ghost but i don't quite yet have holiness don't give up don't get discouraged because this tea bag here represents the bible it represents what will help you to become holy the bible the holy book will help you and age you into becoming holy so we put this tea bag as an illustration of the bible all right everybody look up here now you see that right there well i tell you what let me just go ahead and take that out wouldn't that make some wouldn't that make some good tea huh you see the problem with a lot of people the problem with a lot of people they don't leave the word in them long enough for the word to flavor their life and therefore they're weak they don't taste quite like water they're weak so if i'm going to get me some tea i got to learn how to keep that teabag down in that glass and if we're going to allow god to produce holiness on the inside of us we're going to have to continually come to the house of god sunday wednesday any other time we can have a bible read a chapter a day hey by the way aren't you thankful we've read the whole book of matthew how many glad we've read the whole book of matthew already well please don't just have an experience with god don't just get the holy ghost and then pull that bag out it was the word that told you how to get the holy ghost but don't pull that word out an exp experience with god is without comparison you cannot compare being born again but can i tell you an experience is not a relationship an experience is wonderful but there's nothing that can compare to a relationship falling in love we're going to marriage retreat we're several are going to be telling when they first saw one another and and and uh you know the first time i was actually preaching for this church i was preaching for this church brother sister harwood took me over to shonies on on alcoa highway because that was just about the only restaurant around here there wasn't the shonies up here on 321 uh and we walked in that the shonies that night and uh uh brother rwood and sister r wood walked in front of me y'all know brother or what's kind of a tall man and walked in and we were waiting to be seated when i looked to the right and man there was a little tanned blue-eyed girl i'm sorry to confess to you tonight i didn't know if she was in church buddhist i didn't know what she was all right but i knew i liked what i liked what i was seeing and so i cut my eyes at her and she was cutting her eyes back at me and brother would turn around and think you know and i'm the lord i'm the evangelist oh yes yes sir yes yeah yeah he said well that's robert and penny bennett i said you know them oh yeah i said they've just recently got the holy ghost and got baptized at the knoxville church i said brother rwood we must needs me go through samaria i said i you gotta take me over here i remember walking up to the i remember walking up to the uh to the booth where they were sitting uh mr bennett robert was sitting on this side petey was on this side and brotherwood introduced me to uh brother uh robert bennett and i remember doing this right here mr bennett is so good to meet you it is so good it is so good to meet you um i called and canceled out a few revivals because i was thinking i was in need of some rest and went back home to my home church and the rest is history now that's a wonderful story to tell but that was that was an experience do you know time would not allow me to tell you the relationship that we've developed and i want you to know although i love retelling the story of when we first met and i did tell brother arwood that night i told brother harwood we went and set back down i said brother orwood i said i just met my wife tonight he said you're crazy i said i know that part but i just met my wife tonight i just met my wife and all that's great but what has really made our life is not one encounter at shony's but it's been 38 years of having a relationship that's the beauty that's the beauty and yes receiving the holy ghost and the bells and the whistles and the speaking in tongues and the shaking and the falling of the floor that's all wonderful but there's nothing like the relationship with god there's just nothing like it flavors your life it flavors your life holiness will flavor your life the bible says in the book of hebrews chapter 12 verse number 12 this is how important holiness is hebrews 12 and 12 wherefore lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees and make straight paths for your feet lest that which is lame be turned out of the way but let it rather be healed follow this verse here paul said follow peace with all men in other words the bible is a book of peace it is a book of peace paul was saying pursue peace with all men get along with one another get along with one of pursue peace with all men but wait a minute he put some perimeters on it and holiness in other words peace has to be within the means if i can only have peace with you without holiness then i can't follow you that far if getting along with someone means i have to de-emphasize the relationship with god i'm sorry because look how important holiness is follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the lord in other words without holiness we're not going to be able to see the lord so that puts it in the proper perspective of how important my subject is tonight about holiness you see in the book of matthew chapter 5 and verse number 13 the bible begins to say that the church that you and i make up were a church of distinction we are a church of distinction we do not as elder johnny james says if the world fits you you're the wrong size we do not fit in never have and never should fit in to the world he says in matthew 5 13 ye are the salt of the earth but if the salt hath lost his savor wherewith shall it be salted it is fenced forth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of man salt is a preservative salt is what they rubbed on meat to preserve meat from rotting salt was that preservative and we the church tonight in the world act as a salt to try to preserve the morality to the best that we can but if the salt loses its ability to affect what it touches and what it touches has the ability to change the salt then the salt is good for nothing but to simply be cast out they would use salt that in the bible day salt that lost its ability to to preserve they would use it on rainy days to throw it out to cause a little grit on your feet so that you wouldn't slide so tonight we need to work as never before to affect and change what we touch the church ought to have the ability when it touches people for the world not to change the church but for the church to change the world amen now look at this distinction verse 14 ye are the light of the world a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel but on a candle stick and it giveth light unto all that are in the house let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven look at these salt what it touches changes a candlestick is not put under a bushel it's not put under a bushel to hide what god has given you and i in this wonderful glorious truth is not to be hid in the world it's to be put up on a candlestick it's to be put up high to give light to all the house what we have doesn't need to be hid what we nee have needs to be presented in our county it needs to be presented to this to this city and then i love this part he said a city that's set on a hill three things salt light in a city a city has a government of functioning a city is an organized place it is a place of magistrates it is a it is a place of streets it is a it is a place of organization is a place where people function so is the church what you and i have become a part of we have become part of a functioning body we have become a part of a disciple making body the christian school is a disciple make you you should have been here today you should have been here i couldn't believe it when i looked at my watch and i had been in this room for two almost two and a half hours listening to student after student play the drums play the piano sing songs and i just looked up there and i thought god we are we are we are educating an army of piano players we are educating an army of guitar players we are we listen i'm not just saying this church will never lack when we start churches all around us we're going to be able like we did last night in sevierville we're going to be able to take a whole team of of youth up there and let them play music and let them glorify god we're a city we're a city but we are a city that's set on a hill we'll have distinction about us we're not just a normal city we're a city set on a hill we're not just a light we're a light put on a lampstand we're not just salt or salt that has the ability to change what it touches now let me say this in it's off the subject for a minute but it's going to shine light to the subject the only way to understand the godhead is to understand the dual nature of jesus christ you will never understand why this church does not teach the third century catholic trinity unless you understand the dual nature of jesus christ you never understand it you you you'll read it and you'll be so confused but once you get a handle that jesus christ was son of god deity and son of man humanity he was man fully man he was god fully god there were times he spoke as a man don't you know that i must be about my father's business there were times he spoke as god lazarus come forth there were times he was hungry there were times he fed a multitude there were times he was human he slept in a boat there were time he was god he stood up and told the wind that he had created in the first place to be still and there was a calm once you understand the dual nature of jesus christ the godhead just falls into place it it just it just falls into place you will never understand holiness as it affects your lifestyle until you go back and oh how relevant our bible is and understand the distinction of the sexes you never understand holiness until you comprehend that god made male and female and we're living in a generation to that's being challenged to the hilt gender confusion well let me tell you something there's gender confusion in the world but not in the church in the church there is a clear-cut word of god that simply says in genesis chapter 1 verse number 27 so god made man in his own image in the image of god created he him male and female created he them so when we start talking about holiness as it affects dress as it affects hair we have got to go all the way back to the distinction that god made not two men not two women god made male and female distinction salt light city on a hill male and female i have a book that i i probably one of the best books i've purchased it's entitled well well versed by james garlow and the whole subject of the book is biblical answers for tough to for today's tough issues and i have read this before here but i want to read it again from the book well versed god is neither male or female the old testament writers use gender-specific metaphors to describe the indescribable sometimes the words used to describe god are distinctly masculine most obviously the usage of father or he at other times the phrases used to depict god are feminine such as he is referred to as a breast feeding nurse in isaiah and psalms deuteronomy during deuteronomy describes him as a woman in labor also he is described as a mother hen but the fact is god is neither a he nor is she god is neither a middle ground in genesis 17 1 god's name is the hebrew phrase el shaddai it is believed that el means mighty like a mountain thus the strength of masculinity shady i likely comes from the hebrew word for breast such as a feeding of a newborn thus nurturing feminine characteristic that single name for god includes the full spectrum of masculinity and femininity we are made in his image however a male alone cannot fully represent all the descriptors of the image of god for example a male by himself cannot manifest the full spectrum of god's features historically associated with femininity or tenderness thus no husband can represent the full image of god at the same time a female alone cannot do justice to his image either due to the lack of classic masculine strength in spite of the fact that we are created by god individually we express the fullest image of god only when the two halves of humanity complement each other and become one adam the man versus adam as humankind let's go deeper james garlow says let's go deeper in the hebrew language of genesis the traditional view of human creation is that god created adam put him to sleep took the rib created eve but the old testament was originally written in hebrew not english is the hebrew text saying that god created adam a male and then created eve a female from adam's rib i think there is something more profound in the hebrew old testament that reveals a deeper understanding of the genesis account in the beginning god created not adam the male but adam that is humankind don't picture adam the male the word adam pronounced adam means humankind or personhood it is later that adam is the name of a male but initially god created adam small a that is humankind after creating humankind god said it is not good that adam humankind is alone this was not a case of god creating a male and then saying it's not good that a male is alone so i will make it i will make a female that is not what happened i said i suggest a more correct reading of the hebrew would be it is not good for humankind to be at one let's not miss the point god made humankind then he said it's not good for humankind to be at one or one or to live in solitude and here we have the original splitting of the atom adam or humankind gets split apart we end up with male and female but what about the proverbial rib the word rib does not appear in the ancient hebrew text the word that is used is tesla what is tesla it can be translated half or side don't miss the significance of the next sentence instead of god creating adam and taking his rib to create eve the text says that god created humankind observed that it was not good for humankind to be won or alone and then took a side or half of humankind and created female eve what remained was male adam in other words the whole humanity that was created in the full image of god with both the strength of masculinity and the tenderness of femininity is now the two complementary halves of humanity male and female one of the reasons for the strong sexual attraction of males and females to each other is the desire for the two halves of humanity to come back together undoing the splitting of the atom and reuniting male and females as haves to make a whole now reflecting the full image of god see you can't understand the godhead if you don't understand the dual nature of jesus christ and we'll never understand why holiness affects our dress and our hair unless we truly understand that god made male and female the hebrew word for man is ish i s h ish the hebrew word for woman is i say i say i s h a h i shay here is the difference between ish and aisha ish is man i say is woman in the hebrew language there is one hebrew letter in ish man that is not in i say woman and that is the hebrew letter yah in the hebrew word for i say woman there is one hebrew letter that is not in ish man and that is the hebrew letter yea yah yay form the basis for the word yahweh yahweh the name that god uses six thousand eight hundred times in the old testament in the in other words when you put ish man and i say woman together you have yah hey or yahweh the full expression of the full image of god two men are not the image of god two women are not the image of god but you take what god created in the very beginning male and female put them together and you have the full image of god apostolic church we got to keep preaching this we have got to keep embracing this this is this let me just tell you something tonight if you get quiet on holiness preaching and you believe it you're actually sending a signal to people that don't believe it that they're right if you sit there and believe what i'm saying but you don't have enough fire inside of you to uh to say man you're saying to the carnal ones that are among us that are waiting for us to stop preaching this that hey look how quiet it is in here boy i'll tell you it gets quiet when that that's cause nobody believes in here we ought to blow this place up with amens we ought to absolutely blow the i mean when when when we say god made male and female it ought to be a roar of amen amen and let me say to be apostolic is to deeply love the homosexual community to be apostolic is to deeply love the lesbian and to deeply love all of those that are confused and in sin to be apostolic we don't call them queers we don't make fun of them they need what we got and you're not going to win them by making fun of them you're going to win them by loving them i never was so angry in all of my life one night eating after church on a sunday night at old charlie's and there was a waitre waiter there and he was effeminate and he went to wait on a table and they were church people but blessed god they were not our church people because i trimmed their trees well i get mad just think about it but when that young boy went over i'd take that order and he in an effeminate voice they burst out laughing a whole table of them till the boy dropped his head and walked off it so moved me i got that young man's attention and i said son i want to apologize i said now they're not a part of our church but i want to apologize for what those people just did to you son i want to apologize and uh he said oh it's all right he said they come in here they come in here often and he said i'm i'm used to it he said i just walk away till they can get their composure together and i will tell you right now he said a couple cuss words all right didn't pollute me because i'm salt he waited on me and sister carpenter we gave him a very large tip as a matter of fact we kept going back to that same restaurant and i would ask for him my name and i'd say i want him to wait on us tonight and i kept giving him large tip after large tip i invited him to come remember back when we used on easter to rent the clayton center i invited him to come and worship with us you know what he told me he was in his early 20s he said i've never been to church i said you've never been to a pentecostal church he said no i i've never been to church i said you've been to some kind of church he said i've never been i've never been to church i've never been to church and lost track of him i believe he did come to the clayton center for an easter lost track of him he popped up at another restaurant that we went to and he said i've been watching you preach i said man you get you get excited you get red face you get excited i said i'm like yeah you know i'd like to tell you i baptized him i like t he's got the holy ghost but i will tell you there's some man in this city or somewhere that has a little bit of the love of god from a christian group dripped upon him that'll change their life male male and female um look with me in uh genesis chapter 3 verse 20. i just kind of show you something genesis chapter 3 verse 20. and adam called his his wife's name eve because she was the mother of all living do you know when eve was named do you know when you know when adam because when god looked down upon male and female it was adam it was adam do you know when eve gets a name when sin enters the human race he was after the fall that adam would look because a promise had come upon eve god had made a promise to eve and said from your womb is going to come one that will bruise the head crushed the head and there was a promise and when the promise came it was time for the name to come and of course we know that the man and the woman represent a fuller picture it represents redemption because god is the man the church is the woman is it amazing that the bible opens up with a marriage in the book of genesis and the bible closes in revelation with a marriage between christ the man and the church the bride yeah wonderful and when sin came the first thing we needed was a name that is above every name and he gave us the name for salvation he gave us the name i'm just throwing that in there just throwing that in there god created distinction of male and female for the purpose of the image of god but now man falls into sin adam names his wife eve because she's going to be one that'll bring forth the seed of the woman but now man who was created naked and knew no shame because there was no sin but now sin has entered the human race and now in genesis chapter 3 verse 21 watch what happens unto adam also and to his wife did the lord god make coats of skins and clothed them why did god do that because of sin sin we're all a testimony tonight these things we wear call clothes is all a testimony of sin sin entered the human race and so there needed to be clothing and guess who was the very first tailor god so anytime we begin to think clothes really doesn't play a role not so god was the first tailor and god made coats of skins and clothed them he made one for adam he made one for eve now adam had tried adam had tried adam and eve got together and according to them the only shameful part of them was their midsection and so they believed that if they could just cover their midsection they would be clothed and they also used fig leaves well there's a couple of things wrong with this number one it's not enough clothing doesn't matter if man thinks it's enough it's not enough clothing not only that it's made of fig leaves they're dead they'll be shriveling up they're not enough to begin with and it become less and less and less so god didn't come down and say hey y'all have done a pretty good job at clothing yourselves just keep up the fig leaves guys just you know that that's a pretty no no god god came down and god said not enough not enough clothing woman is not modest man is not modest this is not the image god said i want so he made coats of skins leather durable he gave one to the man and he gave one to the woman now we understand by deuteronomy chapter 22 verse number 5. now i'm a little bit behind on my clock here when i want to be done i'm a little bit behind so let me tell you deuteronomy 22 verses 1 2 3 and four deal with the treatment of our brother in other words you see your brother's donkey that has got out of the pen and is wandering down the street it was your responsibility to go get it and to put it up or to take it back you see something of your brother that's went astray it became your responsibility so verses one two three and four are dealing with our responsibility toward our brother and then verse 5 comes verse 5 deuteronomy 22 5 the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man neither shall a man put on a woman's garment for all that do so are an abomination unto the lord thy god in other words a woman was not to dress like a man and a man was not to dress like a woman because it was in god's eyes an abomination it was skewing blurring the vision that god had male and female now let's just think about something if it was an abomination to god common sense should tell us all that god would not have broken his own law although the bible doesn't say that adam's robe was different from eaves and eve's was different from adams common sense tells you that if we had been standing there in the garden that day when god handed adam his robe coat and he handed eve hurt robe coat that there was something that identified eve femininity and something that identified adam masculinity there was something about their clothing that you could look and say that's eve's garment and you could look and say that's adam's garment and yes today we still maintain the biblical standard that there are clothes for women and there are clothes for men we still well just in case just in case you might be thinking well that's what you say here is some very noted scholars a very noted scholar and i'm just using i'm just using one of them but there's many noted scholars that are not even of the apostolic faith listen to one of them he comments on deuteronomy 22 5 and he says the vessels and clothing referred to include all the special articles of where and use particular to the one or the other sects for the lord did not want the children of israel to ignore the different difference of the sexes as it had been fixed in creation didn't come from an apostolic so don't don't don't don't let your mind play that this is an apostolic thing that that we apostolics do scholars of the bible say this verse was there this is the reason now it doesn't matter my standard of nakedness it doesn't matter what i view as naked i i don't set the standard for what nakedness is god does so if god help me tonight if god says there's something i call nakedness y'all want to vote on it i don't want to vote on it i don't it doesn't matter my culture or not i'm not voting on it if god says it's naked then it's naked it's naked in isaiah chapter 47 isaiah chapter 47 verse number two god is once again punishing israel for their sin of becoming like the other nations he says in isaiah 47 verse 2 take the millstones he's talking to the women he says take the millstones and grind meal uncover thy locks in other words take the veil off your head make bear the leg uncover the thigh pass over the rivers thy nakedness shall be uncovered yea thy shame shall be seen i will take vengeance and i will not meet thee as a man god said i'm going to tell you what you do you're going to have to run for your life and when you do said you're going to have to go through a river and when you go through a river you're going to reach down and get your robe and you're going to lift it up to get through the river and when you lift it up you're going to make your leg bare but not only that you're going to have to lift up your robe so high that your thigh is going to be seen your thigh i'm going to tell you i'm going to tell you you'll never understand holiness till you get this right here you you you you'll never you'll ne you'll never comprehend it it'll be a rule it'll it'll listen it'll be a rule and a regulation you'll do it you won't be able to explain it to people people ask you on your job why you wear a dress and you'll say because my pastor says wow what a witness you won't be able to say i'm a woman and be able to take them through a bible study follow me now please i'm very serious about this he said are you going to reach down you're going you're i'm going to put you in punishment you're going to reach down you're going to pull your robe up and you go through the water and when you do you're going to make bear your leg and you're going to bear your legs so much that it gets up to your thigh and then god calls it nakedness he said that your nakedness may appear that's why we have the standard that the women in leadership at this church wear a dress long enough to cover their knee we shouldn't have listen if we don't draw the line and thank god god drew the line god said you want to know where nakedness begins i'll tell you i made you your nakedness begins at your thigh if you show your thigh in god's eyes you're naked god's eyes are naked and if we don't draw the line of leadership see this is what we're always battling the battle line it just gets higher and higher and higher and now let me stop let me stop there for a moment there may be a woman here tonight and you have never heard this in all your life and your skirt doesn't come down or you might not even have a skirt on in the name of the lord jesus christ i am not talking to you tonight i am talking to people that have been bathed in this gospel this blessed truth this holy ghost this plan of salvation i'm talking to these women of this apostolic church that god said we all want to please god don't we come on ladies do you want to please god it's a nakedness women leadership let your skirt cover your knee we don't need to be seeing your thigh can i tell you something that that distinction of dress was given in a book to where we were to take care of your brother we have to see as men there's enough there's enough nakedness in the world that we have to turn our heads by and we have to and it's not the first look it's that second look there's enough of that junk in the world and we shouldn't have to come to church and i'm not talking about our guests i'm talking i am talking about our church members well and oh boy gonna look at me if i got one of them long dresses on i'm gonna tell you ain't no decent boy i'm gonna look at you either now boy boy it's got the holy ghost a boy has got a call of god on his life a boy that really wants to live for god that's not the kind of girl he went listen you need to be the kind of girl he wants to take back to mama you need to be the kind of girl she i'm not like all the other so i don't think clothes really matter well i'm sorry but you're wrong proverbs 7 and 10. let's just think about this for a little bit proverbs 7 and 10 and behold there made him a woman with the attire of a harlot let's think about that the attire of a harlot what is the attire of harlot to dress in a seductive manner it is the attire of a harlot all you lady all you women tonight know you could raise your hand tonight say oh god i don't want to have the attire of a harlot why because god made me and i have god's spirit in my life and i'm carrying a sunday school book and the bible says they that bear the vessels of the lord must be clean they that bear the vessels of the lord must be clean material tire of a harlot let's go to jeremiah 2 32 jeremiah chapter 2 verse 32 can a maid forget her ornaments or a bride her attire yet my people have forgotten me days without number can i tell you does anyone have to guess when you go to a wedding who the bride is you say you sit there shake your head and say hey who you think's a bride up there why you know who the bride is how do you know how because of her wedding gown a tire of a harlot the attire of the bride what kind of church do we want to be as a matter of fact in the book of revelation there's two women mentioned a harlot and a bride which one you want to be i know the answer to that i want to be the bride i want to be the bride it ends well for the bride it ends well for the bride first timothy chapter two verse number nine in like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel and in one of the reasons ladies and you may be sitting here you may think man you're really getting the you're really talking to the ladies tonight and i am and i'm going to get to the men don't you don't you worry about that you you'll be able to throw some elbows too here a little bit you don't don't you worry but you see god made man and woman and he made man to be visual and he made you to fulfill that visual in the eyes of your husband right that's the man you want his eye your husband so paul says in like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel look at zephaniah it's in the old testament zephaniah chapter one verse number eight it's an interesting verse i did some study on this today it's an interesting verse 1 8 and it shall come to pass in the day of the lord's sacrifice that i will punish the princes and the king's children and all such as are clothed with strange apparel now once again he's talking to backslidden israel that has been enamored by the nations around her and they have become like the nations and god says i'm going to punish the princes i'm going to punish the king's children and all such as our clothed with strange apparel once again i go to the scholars i go to the scholars men that are not apostolic i purposely did this so that you won't think this is just some kind of pentecostal denomination strange apparel listen to the scholars all those belonging to the royal family and all such as are clothed with strange apparel their dress showing that they are en estranged from the national spirit and customs again another scholar all such are clothed with foreign apparel the priests and leaders of judah were ashamed of their national identity so they loved to dress in foreign apparel they wanted to be as much like the worldly nations around them as they possibly could be therefore they forsook their israel dress and they picked up their strange clothing doesn't that happen don't we see it when people backslide out of our churches what's one of the first things they do change their dress because they want to identify with that culture stay with me just for a couple more moments numbers chapter 15 verse 37 and the lord spake unto moses saying speaking to the children of israel and bid them that they should make make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations and they shall put upon them the fringe of the border a ribbon of blue and it shall be unto you for a fringe that ye may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the lord and do them and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes after which you used to go a whoring that you may remember and do all the commandments to be holy unto your god i am the lord your god which brought you out of the land of egypt to be your god i am the lord your god now let me tell you something tonight we do not dress different so the world can see we're different we dress different so that we continually remind ourselves we're different god said you take a ribbon of blue and you sew it on the corner on the on the fringe of your garment not so that the canaanites can look at you and say oh there's an israelite look at how blue look at that ribbon on the on the hem of the garment no that wasn't it it was for them that they could look and remember i'm i'm i'm one of god's children can i tell you as children you have a little girl you put a skirt on that little girl you trained that little girl up from a from a baby that she's a girl you get in you you get it there you're a girl you get it in their mind there's clothing i don't wear there's things that i don't that i don't wear i just simply do not wear well i'm gonna let her wear this until she gets sick i got news for you mama she's gonna remember what you put on her she she gonna remember there was a day i wouldn't even want there to be pictures around that they could look and say look at what i used to be oh i'm going to trim her hair i'm going to trim her hair to keep it out of her eyes dear god of heaven get a hair band and put it around her but don't cut her glory don't cut her glory and i'll get to that next wednesday night but don't cut her glory we don't dress different so the world can look at us and see we're apostolic we dress different so we can understand we're not just an ordinary people we are the people of god clothing speaks of gender and relationship with god well this has been a strong bible study tonight it's been a strong bible study matter of fact you see some changing going on you know why it's changed it's been in there for a while you know how we're going to change let's stay in this for a while let's stay in this right hey i not only want this teaching to be with fallon and chad and lauren and zach and nolan and flannery i wanted to be with paris and windsor and london and hampton i wanted to be in our fam heather i wanted to be in your grandbabies whoa that's strong that's strong that's about strong like my teaching tonight but you know something won't we add a little sugar you know sometimes it's just time to give god a little sugar sometimes when i think about the lord and all he's done for me when i think about how he's brought me out a little pothead 16 year old pothead boy sniffing paint out of a plastic bag snipping gasoline out of any car or lawnmower i could to get high but god looked down from heaven filled me with the holy ghost i got baptized in jesus name i got news for you if the word's a little bit strong give god a little sugar god i'm going to do this cause i love you i don't have to understand it i don't have to always agree with it god if you love holiness i'm gonna give god a little sugar oh it's a lot better when you love him i said it's a lot better when you love him it's a lot better when you combine your uncut hair in the morning that you love him it's a whole lot better when you're walking in a place and everybody's half-naked and you got your clothes on it's a little bit better when you love it i might want to title this give god a little sugar remain standing with me you know there's only one god in the bible that jesus mentioned by name there's only one god only one false god that jesus mentioned by name he is called mammon mammon money god oh sweet jesus don't you tell me i'm just not going to do that i just won't be in leadership at church i ain't doing that and go right over here at alcoa and they tell you what kind of boots to wear and they tell you you will wear a hard hat and they tell you you won't do this and you won't do that and if you have tattoos you will wear a long sleeve and all that and you know what all of a sudden you say man that's 32 bucks an hour i mean you know what you're really saying when you can line up to alcoa standard but you won't out you won't line up to god's standard you're saying i love the god of mammon see if that god of mammon can buy your kids out of a drug house see if that god of mammon can buy your marriage out of divorce court see if that god of mammon can buy you some peace of mind no no a thousand times but the god of my salvation he can be my prayer answer he can be my whoa sweeter sweeter thank you jesus thank you jesus i read the other day and i'm closing i read the other day when they set little jewish boys and girls down to start teaching them the word that they'll lay a little tablet down that's got the word on it but they won't start reading it to them until they put a piece of candy in their mouth because somehow that teacher in that synagogue wants to equate sweetness in the mind of that little kid with what he's reading listen it's not called the ugliness of holiness it's called the beauty of holiness it's a beautiful thing for a woman to look like a woman it's a beautiful thing for a man to look like a man well i give him praise tonight i give him glory tonight honey there's one last thing i'm supposed to do right i'm supposed to dismiss all you trendsetters through that exit door right there sister carpenter is going to take you into is it the event center the connect room which was the old church prayer room that we outgrew you're a trendsetter won't you head over there with them right now if you're not a trendsetter and you love what you heard tonight it trendsetters are 50 and older brother claiborne told me today that he's thanking god his wife's a trendsetter so he can go over with her but let's do this as our trend trendsetters did pastor do all right tonight did i do all right tonight you you older folks y'all like did i do all right sister step did i do all right tonight tell you what i want to do if you like i'm going to give you i'm giving you a choice if you like the word of god tonight in just a moment i want you to erupt in praise if you didn't like it you just sit there don't say a word all right just just don't say a word if you love holiness teaching would you give god some praise right now