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Spiritual Gifts, Volume 4b
at home or abroad. They draw nigh to God with their lips, while their
heart is far from him.
I was shown that the people of God should not imitate the fashions
of the world. Some have done this, and are fast losing their peculiar,
holy character, which should distinguish them as God’s people. I was
pointed back to God’s ancient people, and then was led to compare
their dress and apparel with the mode of dress in these last days. What
a difference! What a change! Then the women were not so bold as
now. When they went in public they covered their face with a vail. In
these last days fashions are shameful and immodest. They are noticed
in prophecy. They were first brought in by a class over whom Satan
has entire control, who, “being past feeling (without any conviction of
the Spirit of God), have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to
work all uncleanness with greediness.” If God’s professed people had
not departed greatly from him, there would now be a marked difference
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between their dress and that of the world. The small bonnets, exposing
the face and head, show a lack of modesty. The hoops are a shame.
The inhabitants of earth are growing more and more corrupt, and the
line of distinction must be more plain between them and the Israel
of God, or the curse which falls upon worldlings will fall on God’s
professed people.
I was directed to the following scriptures. Said the angel, “They
are to instruct God’s people.”
1 Timothy 2:9, 10
. “In like manner also
that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness
and sobriety; not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.”
1 Peter 3:3-5
. “Whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of
plaiting the hair and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but
let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible,
even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight
of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time, the holy
women also who trusted in God, adorned themselves.”
Young and old, God is now testing you. You are deciding your
own eternal destiny. Your pride, your love to follow the fashions of
the world, your vain and empty conversation, your selfishness, are all
put in the scale, and the weight of evil is fearfully against you. You
are poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked. While evil is increasing
and taking deep root, it is choking the good seed which has been sown