We recently visited an old restored fortress, now a museum, containing clothing, furniture, cooking utensils, rifles and other things from an era well over two hundred years ago, when it was used. Many of those interesting items, which made up the fabric of daily life then, are now quite valuable. Each individual room was roped off to keep visitors from touching or handling the antiques. Everywhere we looked, whether in the fortress’s private living quarters or its large public rooms, we noticed signs displaying the same warning: “Look, But Don’t Touch.”
Those signs, wise and reasonable, were meant to protect that historic environment and its artifacts.
Unfortunately, twenty-first-century Western culture uses these very same words as one of its guides for morality—becoming a kind of mantra for a godless, licentious lifestyle increasingly marked by unrestrained violence and corruption (see Gen. 6:5).
Moral Darkness on Display
Western lands, once guided by the light of Christianity, are presently engulfed in hedonistic (pleasure-seeking), materialistic (possession-seeking) and humanistic (self-seeking) lifestyles all using “look, but don’t touch” as a common tenet. The abandoned morality of these philosophies, marking almost every facet of life, is specially evident in much of the clothing fashions available for women.
Unclothed Idols
In cultures previously regulated by Christian morals, the female has been made the supreme idol of unbridled lust. Many styles of women’s clothing display the female form with the express purpose of causing men to look at that which they are tacitly forbidden to touch.
Reaping the Results of Idolatry
North America is daily reaping the appalling results of such blatant godlessness (Gal. 6:7). Over half of all marriages are ending in divorce, adultery is rampant, and many couples now live together outside the marriage union. Physical intimacy (a wonderful delight God has reserved for marriage; Heb. 13:4) is accepted as normal, expected conduct within casual male-female relationships.
Worse yet, “look, but don’t touch” as a moral code has spawned unspeakable crimes of violence and lust against women and children—awful, abominable debauchery which victimizes even little boys and girls—while at the same time society is flooded with pornography glorifying wanton nakedness.
Gods and Goddesses of Immorality
Though the natural heart of man—“deceitful above all things and desperately wicked”—is the root of such decadence, we firmly believe the entertainment industry, especially movie and rock stars, have taken the lead in promoting the debased standards of immoral conduct and immodest dress prevalent today. Sadly for many, they have become twenty-first-century role models (though some are young teenagers themselves), promoting vile standards of dress and conduct for young people and children. Satan seeks to use their abandoned licentiousness to destroy the people of God today, even as he used Pharaoh’s violence to destroy them in Moses’ day.
A Loving Entreaty
Without their realizing the potential dangers and consequences, dear Christian sisters’ attire may also be affected by the “look, but don’t touch” code. This is not said critically or to propose rules concerning acceptable sisters’ clothing. But in view of unseeming and suggestive clothing common today, we lovingly beseech beloved sisters to prayerfully, in God’s presence, consider the manner of clothing they wear so “that the younger [women] . . . give no occasion to the adversary in respect of reproach” (1 Tim. 5:14 JND), and “the aged women likewise . . . be in behavior as becometh holiness” (Titus 2:3).
Dishonor and Danger
Wearing immodest clothing renders public dishonor to the Lord of glory, while for sisters, especially, such attire presents another great danger.
Scripture is clear that in the last days of professing Christianity the spirit of apostasy causes man to act as “natural brute beasts” (2 Peter 2:12; Jude 10). No intelligent person would light a match by an open container of gasoline, yet dear sisters who wear provocative, revealing clothing risk igniting an uncontrollable explosion of passion—becoming victims of unspeakable brutality and depravity.
Pride in Nakedness
Let us soberly consider what Scripture says as to the roots which have produced seductive clothing—styles which promote and glorify nakedness. Before they sinned, Adam and Eve in innocence were naked and were not ashamed (Gen. 2:25). But they sinned, and the “eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and . . . made themselves aprons” (Gen. 3:7). Having lost their innocence, they realized it was now wrong to be uncovered. And the death of an animal to provide them suitable coverings proved nakedness was no longer acceptable before God. Yet today man delights in uncovering as much of the female body as current social standards will allow.
The Shame of Nakedness
How solemn to consider the Lord’s assessment of Laodicea’s moral condition—so spiritually dead they didn’t feel their “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” state. His remedy was that they buy from Him (not the world) clothing “that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear” (Rev. 3:17-18). Oh! what an awful insult to God’s holiness is immodesty and nakedness—what sad dishonor by it is done to that blessed name of Jesus that we bear!
A Word to Sisters
Beloved sisters, there will be a cost to you if you submit to God’s desire that you clothe yourself in modest apparel (1 Tim. 2:9)—a real, felt and painful sense of reproach and scorn from the world. But is not the Lord Jesus, who “became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich,” infinitely worth the world’s reproach for dressing modestly to honor Him? Surely the intensity of His suffering for you demands nothing less than such a response.
A Word to Parents
By example and by command, see that your daughters are taught from their earliest years to dress modestly (Prov. 22:6). Be especially careful of the seemingly harmless heroes and heroines of fantasy presented by entertainment giants such as Walt Disney. The clothing that the Hunchback of Notre Dame’s Esmeralda or the Indian maiden Pocahantas or The Little Mermaid wear shamelessly accentuates those parts of the female body that godly modesty would cover. It is in such seemingly innocent, harmless fiction that tender, impressionable little ones quickly learn to accept and desire (as normal) corrupt Babylonish garments (Josh. 7:21).
A Word to Brothers
Brothers, what do we feed on in our private, daily lives—the new man in Christ or the flesh? What do our eyes see when no one else notices—Christ in glory or an immodestly dressed woman? Regardless of age, we all have the flesh with its lusts. Let us be careful that we do not feed its desires, for what we feed on will have a marked effect on others too—our wives, our daughters and our sisters in Christ. Act like men—men of God (see 1 Cor. 16:13). Let us individually appreciate the beauty of holiness characterized by modest, Christ-honoring clothing and seek grace to help others learn to value it too.
“I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes” (Psa. 101:3). “Mine eye affecteth mine heart, because of all the daughters of my city” (Lam. 3:51).
Let us not submit to “look, but don’t touch”; rather, may the world see “the name of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . glorified in you” (2 Thess. 1:12).
Ed.