Of Dressing and Demon Control

I attended a seminar a few weeks ago where I heard a very interesting statement that has had me pondering over since.

‘You hide what you value’. In other words we do not go on displaying our valuables to all. I have never seen anybody displaying a lot of money on the streets unless in places where the currency is not worth much or where crime is nonexistent. And even then it is not for display but due to the hassle of spending.

We have safes to keep our most valuable documents and property.

In Swahili we have a saying, ‘kizuri chajiuza, kibaya chajitembeza’, meaning it is the worthless thing that seeks to display itself as the good one is its own market.

There are places in cities that one has to camouflage his status to visit due to the disparity of incomes. I know places in Nairobi that deals in millions yet it is very rare to find people dressed rich due to the past reputations. There are places you would be a fool to walk with your trendy handset and expensive watch.

What has this to do with dressing? We talk of private parts. What are they? They are parts of our bodies that are sacred as they are reserved for one special person I will be vulnerable to. They are our most cherished body parts that deserve all our protection as their use, if it can be called that, unless it is by the ONE person is called defilement. Touching someone’s private parts or even ogling over them is called harassment, even abuse. That is how precious they are.

Who should see those parts? I don’t conceal my valuables to my partner. I don’t hide them from someone I fully trust. I hide them from strangers. The reason they are called private parts is because they are meant to be displayed to the person I have totally surrendered to.

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:25)

This is the context of the revelation of our private parts.

What happens when they are displayed outside the marriage bed? Why are they displayed outside the marriage bed? What happens if you carried a full wallet in your hands? What happens if you carried your safe on the streets? It makes people imaginative. How much money is in that wallet or safe? Where is he taking it? Why is he flaunting it? What would I feel if it was in my hands? Etc.

That is what such dressing leads to. Just as there are leading questions where whatever answer you give would lead you to the place the questioner wants, such dressing is not simply what people call suggestive, it is simply leading to the bedroom. There are also clothes that leave very little, if anything to imagination. Sometimes it makes one wonder why they did not walk naked. Transparent, revealing, tight, made of material used to make nightdresses and petticoats etc. is it the tailor to blame or did they just follow instructions?

The Bible talks of the attire of a harlot. It takes no education to identify a prostitute. Her dressing simply and clearly says ‘ready for sex’. I am sure that Judah thought Tamar was a prostitute because of the way she was dressed (Genesis 38). Then he couldn’t require haggling and fight to commit adultery. In fact the opposite is true. A prostitute short-circuits the process by making sex so easy; requiring no struggles as the ‘battle’ has won itself even before you arrive and food is already on the table. No wonder a harlot multiplies the unfaithful among men.

We know that drug abuse is a doorway to demon control. Drugs do not contain demons, surely we know that. But what is a drug? A drug is a substance that alters the functions of the body to achieve a particular purpose. A painkiller simply kills the sensitivity of the body to pain. When we take painkillers to be able to torturously punish our bodies in exercise or body building we are abusing painkillers.

The body was custom made to be able to do certain things to a certain level. Pain is the thing God created to tell us when we are exceeding the limit. When we abuse painkillers, we are in effect faulting God with creating pain to give us limits. We want to exceed the limits to ‘be like God’ as Eve was deceived to believe. Agreeing to abuse painkillers then opens our spirits to the spirit of rebellion. That is what demon possession is all about. We have surrendered our spirits to the devil simply by wanting to be more than what God created. The same can be said about sleeping pills and any other medication, even beverages.

I have talked about ‘innocent’ drugs so that you can appreciate the fact that drug abuse is not so far from us. If you can’t sleep or keep awake without this then you are opening yourself to the devil. By the way even the hard drugs were initially used for medicinal purposes. Some are even today used that way. The difference between a medicine and drug abuse is the purpose. When a drug becomes essential to your life, then it has become your master and behind it is the senior master, the devil. Simply said, drug abusers are demon possessed, and that is a verifiable fact.

What has that to do with dressing?

But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn (1Corintians 7:9)

Sex has a physiological function with desires to that function. Of course it has higher functions which are not easily visible or verifiable. We talk of sex appeal. What does that mean? It simply means that the person so deemed is desirable for the purposes of having sex with. It is like food aroma. It is simply the scent food sends to the nose that makes us simply desire to eat that food. It is food that can induce hunger even when it is not there.

In our city there are hawkers. They are always fighting the authorities over their right to display their wares on the streets. They are always refusing to take their wares to their designated places. Why? Simply because when they are in their designated positions I will visit them when I want to buy whatever. I don’t go there for the sake of going. But when they are on the streets they are simply taking advantage of my eyes. I will see something I don’t even need displayed and it looks so desirable until it appears essential because of its ‘beauty’. The price also appears very affordable, simply because I don’t even know how much it costs in a shop or what my budget looks like. Of course I have not budgeted for it but it appears like the offer of a lifetime. I therefore will buy something I may never need for the price that may be astronomical.

I stopped buying from the hawkers one time I saw something I needed but which was not a priority. What made me make that decision was that I bargained and they halved the price, yet when I went to the shops I found out that I paid three times more than its worth in a shop, and it was not a few coins!

What does that have to do with dressing? You are asking. Well, a woman’s attraction should be her character as the Bible teaches. Of course we are also attracted to her beauty which will include her face and figure. The texture of her breasts do not add to that attractiveness. Her thighs are not part of the package that will attract a man to a woman. Those are private parts. They draw a man to crave sex with you. The reason they want to hug and pet you is to come as close to sex as they can, and that because they fear you will not agree or tradition will frown on it.

A woman who exposes her private parts, be it the cleavage or any part of the leg above the knee is attracting men sexually, whether she agrees with me or not. When men are drawn to you it is not to your person, but to you as a sex object. Your attractiveness is like the attraction to food when you pass a kitchen preparing good food, and that whether you will eat or not. This is the reality however noble men will try to convince you otherwise. Your attractiveness gives them a sexual kick and nothing else. Even if they will want to marry you it is purely for the purposes of sexual fulfillment which is the reason very few attractive girls are able to maintain a good marriage. Simply because the man did not consider anything else apart from meeting his sexual and probably display needs.

What happens when a man is thus exposed yet is not in a position of meeting those sexual needs he will be as frustrated as a person next to a kitchen cooking very good food yet he can’t access it. He will feel hungrier than he really is, eventually become very frustrated.

But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn (1Corintians 7:9)

This is the pressure a man is put in by women who dress bedroom in the streets. If he is not married that pressure will seek an outlet somehow, which many times will be the most vulnerable female around. Ever wondered how all those mad women get children? Or the weak and sickly? Even some who are shabby or dirty? Sometimes it is the girl entrusted to one’s care; of a driver, a teacher, a pastor, an uncle etc.

With all the craze about women empowerment, some wives deny their husbands sex for whatever reason. I think that may be a reason fathers are even turning to their daughters for their sexual release.

Now I am not defending men in the least. Sin is sin and is not dependent on the temptation.

Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry; But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house. But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. (Proverbs 6:30 - 32)

The fact that overexposure of bedroom body parts will excite and bring frustration on a male does not explain away fornication or adultery. Nobody has a reason to sin.

What I am saying is that such dressing has a direct bearing on the explosion of sex sins and abuses we are seeing nowadays. Perverts and sinners will always be because of the sin nature in each of us. But I think I can not really be an innocent victim if I enticed the criminal. I can’t blame the slum dwellers for stealing my very expensive handset if I was parading it in their need. They might steal it just to punish me for showing off my stinginess, something that I may never have noticed.

Where do the demons come in? I am sure you are wondering. When you become self centred in your use of attractiveness, you are playing in the devil’s league. In my book ‘Perceptions’ I explored modest dressing as the Bible teaches. Modest is simply dressing that draws no attention to itself or the wearer. If my dressing will draw stares my way, I am not modest, and this includes even dressing in sacks! This is why the Bible advises against expensive clothes, gold or pearls as it is certain to attract attention to self (1 Timothy 2:9) if the Bible advises against dressing that draws attention to itself, what do you think it has to say about dressing that brings the bedroom to the street, even the church?

We know that when Christ is enthroned in our lives, He takes ascendance over everything, including self (John 3:30). This means that it is the devil I am submitting under if I am dressing in a way that draws attention to me. As such I am allowing the devil to start controlling me as I believe being invisible as God says in His word is not a good thing. In my search to be marketable I have departed from the faith as my lifestyle is saying that God’s prescription is senseless. And just as the case with drugs I want to go farther than God set, break through the boundaries God set.

If I am a Christian, this will start quenching the Spirit but I will start explaining away the guilt saying sexy is the new way of dressing. Eventually, and slowly, I allow the devil to help me deal with the guilt his way, which is by simply helping me get enough justifications for that. I am slowly allowing the devil to run my life, a thing he is very good at, especially by linking me with friends more deeply sunk in that control and so may not even be ashamed walking naked as they are fully in his clutches. But he will take you so gradually that you will not even notice. He won’t refuse you going to church as he knows that is where he needs to use you. Making your conscience to sleep is the only thing he needs to do especially as pastors are nowadays scared of preaching against such dressing, as they are scared against other sins.

Eventually I will start being comfortable in sin, allowing the devil to lead me lower down as he is now able to give me rationalization for sin. Then he starts to use the latest argument of ‘you shall not judge’ to kill opposition to your sin not caring to know that the Bible says that saints will judge angels and therefore are qualified to deal with disobedience, especially on people who claim to belong to Christ.

I don’t want to talk about possession, obsession or the rest because I want to avoid picking theological arguments. Suffice it when I say that you are simply giving the devil permission to run your life. Whether he is in your life or outside is not important at this point. The devil leads you deeper and deeper into sin so that you even are not able to see it. He can even convince you that what you are doing will bring glory to God like many people who marry non believers to bring them to Christ against God’s word, or like this girl who told me that God had asked her to have sex with me as the answer to her problems.

Let us explore another thing sexy dressing leads to. We have already explored the fact that it leads man to desire sex. It physically sexually excites a man.

What happens when there is overexposure?

Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it. (Proverbs 25:16)

Two things, the first is an obsession with sex leading to a lot of experimentation and hurt. This is because sex as God created it is meant for one partner. This is especially with the young people who are exploring to understand the issues of life. The pleasure and the fantasy that desire for sex arouses in a young person lets them imagine that the act itself will be heaven. But sex for its own sake is depressing. Sex without commitment, apart from leaving a lot of guilt will leave someone unfulfilled.

Chances are that the young person will think that the partner is the problem, making him go on ‘testing’ until they find just the right person. But this, apart from battering and draining the youth physically, emotionally and even spiritually will expose him to health dangers. Their body is not mature enough to handle all that experimentation and of course there are complications that come into play. There is pregnancy that can mess their education and especially diseases that they are likely to contract, some which have no cure.

Of course we know some will be taught the facts of sex by people who appear to be more knowledgeable, who don’t know much because they are most likely their peers. Some have taken conception blocking pills against the recommended usage, some dealing their productivity a death blow as they will never conceive. Some young men on seeking even greater thrill have resorted to take aphrodisiacs and died in the process especially because they do not understand what they are doing and they can’t risk asking an expert’s opinion because they know they are ‘stealing’.

But the worst part is the youth may dismiss the whole idea of sex as being beautiful due to the many wounds it has inflicted on them. They think that the beauty of sex is a lie. They will then seek experiences that are different and ‘less risky’ especially as concerns a pregnancy. This is where they seek to be involved with their own sex, what is known as homosexuality, something God calls an abomination. Others will dismiss marriage altogether. That is where the devil wants the world to head because without marriage there is no birth, the only thing the devil has tried to counterfeit without success.

Some will detest girls and look at them as pests, especially when they are so dressed. The dressing therefore becomes counterproductive and the loser is the one who started the whole process. They will realize that the peers they dressed to impress fail to notice your presence, leaving you frustrated since you might find them pursuing your conservative friends. Ever noticed that a man will play with and use glamorous girls yet retreat to their primitivity to look for a wife, some taking even an illiterate one? And this even before the craze of exposed bedroom parts came around.

And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. (Mark 9:42)

In conclusion I want to clearly state that if your dressing reveals in any way what you are ashamed of displaying in front of respectable company, God says that you have opened yourself to the devil to lead you to fulfill his agenda on earth which is contrary to what God has in store for you. God gives life but the devil steals, kills and destroys and seeks to use you to do it before eventually doing the same to you.

If you feel that I have been too harsh, please pray and ask God to clarify to you what I have written. I do not contain all revelation. I am just a Christ’s slave and am writing what He is teaching me with the hope that it will rescue someone from this perverse generation by seeking to live as God directs. You see, if your dressing in a small way contributes to leading someone to stumble, you can be sure that you will be judged whether you believe you are led by the devil or not.

Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! (Matthew 18:7)

May God teach us to listen to and obey Him in all aspects of our life.

God bless you