(Excerpt from The Human Spirit, Volume One)
It should be noted with care that in the Garden of Eden the very first emphasis upon the need of a sacrificial offering was for a covering—the need for the skin of things. Here again, nakedness overshadows the earlier index of man's great need: sin must be covered—gotten rid of, indeed!
Across our beloved country of America and around the world, there needs to be a revival of the wardrobe, a revival of the dress and the suit, and the clothes of man and woman. The skin of things, the appearance of a Christian's body, must be adorned in humility, holiness, purity, and modesty. It is a sad commentary on the times the way professing Christians are carrying themselves in impropriety and actually providing and producing temptation for people to exploit them through assault and plunder upon their bodies with sin. We need a revival of a humble understanding of what a sanctified wardrobe ought to be. We need to take our stand for Jesus Christ by wearing a male wardrobe as men, a female wardrobe as ladies. Every male and female must be identified before the world as such; this vindicates some reality of the human spirit. The world is not a good judge of motive, of things in general; therefore, they often place the worst con-struction on our appearance because so many hearts are filled with sin and diverse lusts. Sexual identity is a part of Christian identity, as well as the propriety of each sex within itself. Summer sins are enumerated predominantly by the presence of immodesty.
We are living in a time that any preacher who dares to consider the skin of things is automatically considered a clothesline preacher, a legalist, and one who pursues the negative in the English language. We are not holding to the truth of the skin of things in a legalistic way; we believe we have come to an epidemic condition of lust. Generally speaking, in the world today we do not see that the appearance of a Christian's life should bespeak holiness, propriety, and purity. May God take these rather plain words today to our hearts, so we may better understand the skin of things.