You shall Keep My Statutes
In Leviticus 19:19, God told Israel, "You shall keep My statutes." And if we follow that word "statutes" to its roots, it means "that which is engraved, carved or unalterably ordained in nature and fixed by God." Or as a Freemason would say, "You shall not deviate one hair's breadth either to the right of to the left from the strict path of virtue".
Israel was taught to abhor everything that was unnatural or unholy, so Moses continues to cite examples of behavior contrary to the unchanging engraved Word of the Lord. Leviticus 19:19-29, "You shall not cross breed your cattle: you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed: neither shall you wear clothes made of linen and wool.
If a man seduces a bondmaid betrothed to another, the matter shall be investigated and they shall be punished but not killed because she was not yet released. And he shall bring his trespass offering to the LORD at the entrance of the tabernacle. And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the LORD for his sin which shall be forgiven him.
When you have come into the land and planted all kinds of fruit trees, then you shall count the first three crops as uncircumcised or defiled. In the fourth year the entire crop shall be devoted to the Lord in praise. But in the fifth year it shall be yours to eat.
You shall not eat anything with the blood: neither shall you use magic, nor predict events by the stars. You shall not shave your head in the tonsure, or clip the edges of your beard.
You shall not cut your flesh nor tattoo yourselves in connection with funerary rites: I am the LORD. Do not prostitute your daughter lest the land becomes full of wickedness." And he recites a series of unnatural acts contrary to the unchanging Word of the Lord.
God clearly set forth His requirements for mankind, and for the uninstructed heathen, nature teaches what is natural and good. God is reflected through nature for it is his holy creation.
I Corinthians 11:13-16, "You be the Judge: is it right for a woman pray to God with cut hair? Doesn't even nature itself teach you, that uncut hair is humiliating to a man? But if a woman has uncut hair, it is a honorable, for her hair is given her for a covering. If anyone wishes to dispute this, faith is not known by debate but by revelation in all the churches of God."
Romans 2:14, "For when the Gentiles, who don't have the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, they are a law unto themselves". If your motive and objective are right, although you have never been instructed in the Word, you may see the revelation of right and wrong by observing nature. By keeping these statutes, you become a law to yourself because you are walking in His Word.
I've been laying a foundation for Deuteronomy 22:5, "A woman shall not wear that which pertains to a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination to the LORD your God."
The distinction between the sexes is natural, being established by God in their creation. And their creation is the manifestation of His infallible and unchanging Word. Creation is the expression of God's Attributes, which is Himself. Genesis 1:27, "male and female He created them", and any confusion of that distinction only leads to perversion and the infraction of the laws of God.
When women and men cross-dress or follow popular fashions that are in actual fact cross-dressing, they are clouding the distinction between the sexes. Deuteronomy 22:5 demonstrates the unnaturalness of the man (husband) as the original creation having to obey the voice of his wife, the derived man (or byproduct) which produced the original sin. Thus the woman is distinguished from the man in her dress.
God's wrath reveals itself from heaven against every perversion of the sexes, in the disturbing results of that wide-spread and ever spreading female domination, and in male servitude.
Romans 1:26-27, "For God gave them up to vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was appropriate."
Brother Branham taught us that homosexuality has increased because woman have made themselves so common. Their immodest dress shows every shape of their form and their morals have become so low that some men no longer desire them. That sin started because ministers looked the other way when sin walked into their church and fathers failed to discipline their sons and daughters. God will hold those men responsible for breaking His image.
Man is made to rule over his wife in love, not to be a wimp! Man is made in the image of God for the glory of God, and the woman is made in the image of man for the glory of the man. God will judge the man who breaks that image by permitting his wife to domineer him.
Paul says, "keep the ordinances AS I delivered them to you". Or as Moses said, "You shall keep God's statutes." I Corinthians 11:3-5, "But bear in mind, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
Every man praying or prophesying, having uncut hair dishonors his Head, who is Christ. But every woman who prays or prophesies with cut hair dishonors her head, who is her husband: for that would be the same as if she were shaven." In other words, an adulteress.
Uncut hair is a sign that a woman is separated to her husband and under his authority. And he is therefore her covering, bearing her responsibility upon his own shoulders. A woman who cuts her hair signifies she has rejected the authority of God and man. God does not receive her prayer and her husband can put her away and marry another: she has dishonored him as if she had committed adultery.
God established a natural order or hierarchy: God, Christ, man, woman, children. And when we break God's order, society spins out of control as it has today. Were the Sun, moon and stars to get out of equilibrium, the natural world would collapse. We must each find our place in the Word and our position in the Body, and stay in it. When we modify the ordinances Paul delivered, we are adding to and taking from God's Word which is Life and peace, perverting it to death.
God said every seed must bring forth of its own kind (Genesis 1:11). He gave every seed its own body (I Corinthians 15:38) and a seed in the Bible is the Word of God. Each manifested Word must bring forth the kind of life God spoke it to be. If it's a man it must be manly and bring forth the fruit of masculinity, taking the responsibility over his wife and family. Ruling them well and also providing and caring for them. If a woman, it should express that kind of a nature - keeping herself wholly devoted to nurturing her own family and husband, being a mother and wife, pleasing him, being his glory, not trying to make some other man look at her. I appreciate the modesty of the Moslem women. You won't catch them by the eye. They still know how to look the other way.
We are the reproduction of God's spoken Word. If we don't produce the Life of the Word spoken in the beginning, we are a perversion and not His Word. And He can not redeem anything that is not His Word.
We are each actors, but the only role that will win Christ is that which He ordained for man or for woman. We can pervert that role and win an Oscar, but we'll lose Christ and eternity. Let your yes be yes and your no, no. Let your Light shine so that others may clearly see Christ in you. Changing masks or roles is folly. It is unnatural, causing confusion, and it is sin. If you are a woman, dress like a woman is supposed to dress. If you are a man, don't dress like the pox doctor's clerk.
It is equally abominable for a woman to wear clothing that pertains to a man as it would be for a man to dress in women's clothing. It's as unnatural and evil as boiling a kid in its mother's milk (Deuteronomy 14:21). Can you imagine a man dressed in woman's clothing going to war (as in Deuteronomy 20)?
Zephaniah 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."
The outer garment was a four-cornered cloth with a hole for the head, and tassels or fringes with a blue ribbon as a reminder of the commandments (Numbers 15:38-39). Hence, strange clothing was accounted a mark of apostasy, serving to please the customs of foreign heathen nations and as perverted as wearing clothes pertaining to the opposite sex.
The more wealthy a man becomes, the more he indulges in such vanities to manifest his pride beyond the bounds of moderation. In this way the rich upbraid the poor, bringing contempt upon them. It isn't sufficient for them to be clothed for their comfort, and by adding ornaments and splendor, they show by their superfluous abundance that they alone are worthy of such display, while others are shamed and made bare. Such absurd affectation is damned.
Jesus expresses much the same sentiment in Matthew 11:7-8: "As the multitudes departed, Jesus began to say concerning John, "What did you go to the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? What did you go out to see? A man clothed effeminately? Behold, those who wear sissified clothing are in kings' houses."
John was no moral weakling. The people who proved too weak for the test that awaited them were compared to papyrus reeds that grew to fifteen feet on Jordan's banks where John baptized, and bent with every breeze. John was inflexible on his Doctrine, telling king Herod to his face, "You are living in adultery".
Many prophets lived in the king's court where they dressed in fine robes and prophesied in the Name of the Lord words they knew would please the king. John had nothing to gain from his prophesying except the approval of God. Righteousness.
Jesus said, "take no thought for clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?"
But clothe you with what? What is God's dress sense?
Brother Branham said Christ's Bride is to be dressed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Word for the hour. She'll be washed in water by the Word, clothed by wearing His righteousness. She won't be known after the flesh -- what she can say or do -- but by the Life of Christ, the Token on display.
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or drink, or with what shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:28-33).
Amen! The Christian is to be dressed in "His righteousness".
Paul said, "Women should adorn themselves in modest apparel, with reverence and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (as becomes women professing godliness) with good works" (I Timothy 2:9-10; 5:10).
Women should dress modestly with decency and propriety so as to reflect the Spiritual character of Christ, not to advertise their physical attractions or wealth. Braided hair interwoven with gold, pearls and expensive clothes portray a caricature of the worldly nature of wealthy women.
What people should note in Christians is not the outward show of apparel but character. "Henceforth we know no man after the flesh but discern the spirit within".
Fine clothes are external accessories that do not grow from faith and hide what is inside. Character is real, clothes are a mask. Like Jesus, Paul wanted women to be seen for the righteousness of their consecrated inner life like the beauty of a lily which comes from within the plant.
I Peter 3:3-6, "Let women's beauty not be dependent upon outward adorning of coiffure, gold jewelery, or fashionable clothing; But let it be the inward adorning and beauty of the unseen soul united and delighting in a clear understanding of the revealed Word which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a gentle and quiet spirit which is so precious in the sight of God. For this kind of deep beauty was seen in the holy women of old, who trusted God and had no sensual desires. They did not usurp their husband's authority by imitating his dress. They subordinated themselves to their own husbands as secondary and dependent on them, like Sara who obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters you are if you obey in faith, being anxious for nothing."
A woman's proper attire is modesty, rather than expensive garments and excessive artificial adornment. In Isaiah 3:18-24, God says He will remove these vanities from the Bride. A woman serves God as she obeys her husband (Genesis 3:16) knowing by faith that because she is in the will of the Lord, He will provide all things needful through Christ to her husband who is her head. This is His natural and ordained protocol.
God has spoken an innate natural order in all creation. We call it instinct. No one teaches the newborn babe to suckle its mother's breast, it's an instinctive value wrapped in every little package. And little girls are a by-product of God's spoken Word who was the man Adam. Unlike almost all the other females in creation, who are descendants of God's spoken Word, the woman is beautiful and the man is plain. She is made so she can deceive and be deceived. The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life focus upon women. A bad woman is a powerful weapon in Satan's hands.
Woman is made to bring forth life and is a type of the creation of God Himself: Jesus Christ and His elect Church -- which is eternal Life that will one day be manifest in glorified flesh. Like His Church, the sacred duty of womankind is to sanctify herself and to preserve her virtue for her husband, to reproduce holiness in new life, and to serve him as the Church serves Christ in prayer, and to honor her husband who is her head as the Church honors the Word Who is her Husband.
So you be the judge. Is it not dishonorable for a woman to pray if she cuts her hair? She signifies she has rejected the authority of her husband and therefore of Christ and God. You judge whether it is appropriate for a woman to go mixed bathing, dress in shorts or slacks, jeans or revealing clothes? Jesus said, "He who looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matthew 5:28).
In the parable of the marriage of the king's son, each invited guest received an identical garment. Rich man, poor man, beggar man or converted thief, it made no difference, each was given an identical garment by the Holy Spirit when they entered the Door. The invitation is the Gospel, the dress is the Life of Christ on display through the baptism of the Holy Spirit or new birth, the marriage has been in progress throughout the Gentile dispensation, it is the invisible union or new birth on earth between the true Church and Christ. The wedding supper is yet to come and will be in another heavenly dimension (Matthew 22:1-14).
That is how God wants men and women to be dressed. Not expressing what we have gotten by the work of our hands or business acumen, but what He has accomplished and given us by grace through faith. bb990426.htm