Questions & Answers
Questions 283 (COD Page 1007)
Brother Branham: Questions: Should a Christian woman wear simple jewelry, as necklaces or pearls?
64 Well, Sister, I know this means a lot to you, and it means a lot for me for you to place your confidence I’d tell you the truth. Now remember, the Bible said, “When you adorn, do not adorn with–with costly jewels, and pearls, and all kinds of wearing of jewelry, but let that be the adorning of a peace, and quiet, and meek spirit (which I just quoted), which is a great price before the Lord.”
65 Now, I don’t mean by that, Sister, that if you had a pin...Now, this is me not the Lord. If you had a pin that you wanted to wear, or a little necklace your husband give you, or maybe your–something like that that you wore, now, to me, I don’t think that’s bad. Now, that’s just me. Now remember, I make myself clear; that’s my opinion. But I think it’s the approach to it; it’s the way you do it. See? It’s the motive behind it. And when you see it’s getting ahold of you, then leave the thing alone. But I think if you wore your wedding ring...
66 Now, I know you Nazarene people, it used to be that you wouldn’t even baptize a woman with a wedding ring on. See? I–I don’t believe, that as necessary. In the Bible they wore wedding rings, only it was a tablet they called it, around their head, nine pieces of coin in it. But I...to show that they were married. Now, I think that’s all right.
67 If women want to dress and–and make themselves look decent, clean, ladylike, why, I think there’s not a thing to that, to me. But when you get to going to put that thing into making it a little pride, then you’re wrong. It’s your attitude.
68 Do you women remember here not long ago they had what they called “scandle skirts”? I think they’re coming out again, or they got worse. Be...Yeah, they’re, “scandalous” now, instead of, “scandle.” But they used to have a play back not long ago...They had the girls, young women...And course, the old ones would do it too, ’cause they’re–all want to be young. I don’t mean you sisters, I mean the women of the world. And they’d cut their–their skirt up high, about a foot high every time, then wear some kind of a underneath garment look pretty. And when they would make a step, it would show this underneath garment with the lace, and frills, or whatever it was on it. Which, you know...
69 There was a–a girl come to me, which was a Dunkard girl, had just received the Holy Ghost. She belonged to the Assemblies of God, and that was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where I was married at. And she come to me, a fine little lady, and she said, “Brother Branham, I want to ask you a question.” I said, “All right, Sister, what is it?” She said, “Do you think it’s wrong for a girl to–Christian girl to wear a ‘scandle skirt’?” I said, “Sister, this is one thing I–I just can’t understand. What is a ‘scandle skirt’?” And she told me what it was. I... She said, “It shows the underskirt.”
70 I said, “What–what is in a women that would make her want to show her underneath clothes to some man? What would...What–what business has a Christian girl got doing a thing like that? Could you imagine a Christian?”
71 Now, look, a man, there’s not much to him when it comes to a body. And he, if he went half naked, it would–there wouldn’t be no scandle to it. Not holding for man, but they...You know that–what kind of a woman would be tempted by a man with his shirt off and shorts on or whatever he had? The big old burly-looking thing, it looks sloppy and sickly, I–horrible. See these man out here...Well, I think it’d make a woman vomit to look at such a thing. If she had...But now, you take a woman and put her like that, that’s a different temple. You understand? All right.
72 But I think as far as a necklace, or...Now, if you go loading yourself up like you went through the ten cent store down here with a magnet on you, I–I think that...Excuse that, I didn’t mean to say that like that, but that that’s wrong.
73 If anything turned me the first time against my–made me ashamed of America, was...I was in Switzerland one day, and Brother Arganbright and I had found a good place way down by Lausanne where we could get a big, fine steak, about so big around, weigh about three-quarters of a pound, I think, for around thirty cents in American money. Oh, we were living like kings! Every day we’d go down there. And all of them there drink wine, you know; their water’s no good. And I wouldn’t drink that wine, so I got me a little jug from the–a drugstore that had distilled water. And I packed that jug wherever I went. I guess everybody thought, “That boy carries his own brand.” So I had it in my hand. We went down there to this place where all the–selling these steaks, and one day Miss America drove up. About a ’28 model Chevy, had a poodle dog setting on the lap and brought that in there, and she had enough...Them two women had enough ten cent store jewelry, great big, long things, and earrings, and hanging way down, and paint; and both of them fifty years old, as old as me. And you’d thought they wanted to be fifteen. But what are they trying to do? They’re trying to drive life’s road looking through a rear-view mirror, looking back to what they used to be.
74 Now, Christian don’t do that. A Christian don’t try to be what he used to be; he’s not looking where he’s been, he’s looking where he’s going. See, see? Don’t pay no attention to what you was then; you’ve done lived that out. You’ll never return to it; that’s in the past. And any man that drives life’s road looking through a rear-view mirror will go to wreck; and so will you on this Christian road. Don’t look back what you was, look what you’re going to be. Paul said, “Forgetting those things which are in the past, I press towards the mark of the high calling.”
75 Now, but it made you ashamed. They brought this little, old stinking dog in there and set it upon the table! Now, that would make anybody vomit! And fooling with that dog right there, setting it right up there with their hands, and then going to eat with them same hands! And the waiter come over there, and blabbed off something. Dr. Guggenbuhl was with me; he started laughing, and turned his head.
I said, “What’s–what’d say?”
Said, “The waiter said, ‘Take that off!’”
They said, “No, she’s an American; let her alone.” In other words, “She don’t know any better.” See?
76 When I come to Saint Angelo at Rome (now, think of this), at the Vatican in Rome, Italy, they had a sign up at Saint Angelo: “To the American women: Before entering this catacomb, please put on clothes to honor the dead”–the Catholic church. See?