PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 94: BUILDING A HOME FOR GOD, PART 1
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
PODCAST 94: BUILDING A HOME FOR GOD, PART 1
Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies, it is so lovely to be with you again today.
Can we pray? “Dear Father, We ask that as we open Your Word today that You will open it to our minds, that You will show us wondrous things from Your Word, that You will open up new vistas that we have never seen before. “We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.”
How wonderful that we can come to the Word of God and find wonderful truths for us as mothers as we’re building our families. Dear wives and mothers, you are in the greatest vocation in the nation: building godly families. There’s no greater thing that you could be doing. It is so powerful.
MOTHERS DETERMINE THE DESTINY OF THE NATION!
As you build into your marriage to make it a beautiful and godly marriage and as you build into your family, to each child that God has given you, you are building a strong family that helps to build a strong nation.
If we have weak marriages and weak families, we end up with a weak nation. But when we build strong families, we become a strong nation because the nation is what its families are.
We as mothers in the home are doing a powerful work and the devil knows the power of motherhood. He knows the power and influence of motherhood and so he seeks to woo mothers out of the home. When mothers are wooed out of the home the home weakens because it’s a fulltime job of building your home.
It’s so wonderful that we can come into the Word of God and we can see from examples, even way back in the Old Testament, of how God wants to build our marriages and build our families.
I love the story of when David got a vision to build a temple for the Lord his God. He didn’t build it because God said to him, “It is good, David, that it is in your heart, but I don’t want you to be the one to build it.”
Isn’t it beautiful? David had a vision. It was a consuming passion of his to build a house for the Lord God of Israel. Although God was happy with David because he wanted to do it and He said to David, “David it is good that it is in your heart but you’re not going to be the one to do it.”
I love that because sometimes, ladies, we have things that are in our hearts. We have a vision. We have a passion about something and yet somehow it never comes to fulfillment. We wonder why we have got that passion or that vision? Maybe it’s to pass it on to someone else.
As God said, “Oh David, it’s good. It’s good that it’s in your heart but I want your son to build this house. You’ve been a man of war. You’ve shed so much blood. You are the one who has brought peace to the land so now your son, who will be a man of peace, he can build the temple.”
God wanted His temple built in a time of peace and rest.
So we go back to this story and we can read and get the feeling, vision, and passion that David and Solomon had for building this house of God.
David passed on his passion to Solomon. We read in 1 Kings 5 and Solomon is now speaking because David has passed on this vision to his son. In verse five he says: “And, behold, I PURPOSE to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God . . ..”
He didn’t just think it was a good idea or, “I might like to do that sometime.”
No, he said, “I PURPOSE to build a house.” He had a purpose, he had a vision and I believe, dear mothers, we need to have that, too.
Sometimes we can be mothering and going about our daily routine in our family and we just go from day to day, but we don’t have a vision.
I believe we need a vision. We need to know what we are doing. We need to have a passion and have a vision. To get that, ask God to put that passion and vision in your heart.
I remember as I was raising our children, there was a Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:23. It says: “ And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I took those words. I took that prayer as my purpose and my vision as I was raising our children. I wasn’t satisfied to only care for them physically. I wanted to build into their lives and not just physically but spiritually, emotionally, and mentally.
My longing was that I would be able to present my children before the Father on that day when we will all stand before Him, that they would be whole in body, soul, and spirit. Sometimes we have a vision and we may not totally fulfill it but if we have a vision, we’re going to be working toward it.
You may have a different vision and God will give you a vision as you ask Him. If you can’t think of anything else you can take that Scripture, too, 1 Thessalonians 5:23!
Anyway we are going to 2 Chronicles chapter 2. Here the same story is repeated because the story is repeated in Kings and Chronicles.
This time it says in verse 1: “And Solomon DETERMINED to build an house for the name of the Lord . . ..”
Here we see the word purpose and the word determine. They are strong words, aren’t they?
If we go back to the Hebrew, the word is actually ‘amar and it literally means: “To say, to declare, to boast, to publish, to report, speak, answer, command.” It is mostly used of speaking something out. This word is used nearly 6,000 times in the Bible. Only 18 times does it use a different word other than “speak” or “say” or “publish” as it does in these two Scriptures.
Let me give you some examples of where it uses the word “speak” or “say”.
Leviticus 20:1-2: “And the Lord spake {‘amar) unto Moses, saying (‘amar), Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel . . ..”
Jeremiah 34:2: “Thus saith (‘amar) the LORD, the God of Israel; Go and speak (‘amar) to Zedekiah king of Judah . . ..”
So usually it’s translated “speak,” “boast” or “command.”
When it’s talking about Solomon “purposed,” Solomon “determined” to build a house, you notice that he also SPEAKS about it. He spoke out his vision.
If you really have a vision, you’re passionate about you will speak about it so don’t be afraid, ladies, to speak about your vision of building a family for God.
When someone asks you, “Well what do you do?”
You can respond, “I am building a godly dynasty!”
That would really let them know what you’re doing, wouldn’t it? Have a good statement ready of your purpose and your vision.
“What am I doing? Oh I’m doing a great work! I’m building a godly family in this deceived world.”
Speak out your vision! As you speak it out it becomes more real to you.
You can even speak it to your children: “Children, this is my vision. I’m building a godly family. Children, we’re all in this together. You are building it with Daddy and Mummy. Together we’re building a family for God. Let’s all put our hearts into it.”
It’s good to confess out what you are doing. It is so important.
As we were reading in this passage here, 2 Chronicles chapter two, Solomon goes on to speak out what his vision is.
I mentioned this last week in our podcast when I was talking with Nadia. Let me read it again, verse four: “Behold, I build an house to the name of the Lord my God, to dedicate it to him . . ..” See, he is speaking it out, his purpose and his determination.
What is he doing? He wants to DEDICATE this house to the Lord.
Verses 4-6: “ . . . and to burn before him sweet incense, and for the continual shewbread, and for the burnt offerings morning and evening, on the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the solemn feasts of the Lord our God. This is an ordinance for ever to Israel. And the house which I build is great: for great is our God above all gods. But who is able to build him an house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him? who am I then, that I should build him an house, save only to burn sacrifice before him? . . ..”
That was his greatest purpose. He was saying, “Who am I to do this?”
Sometimes, wives and mothers, we feel like that, don’t we? Sometimes we feel like utter failures. Here we are, we’re trying to build this house and this godly family and, oh my, it doesn’t seem very perfect at all. Sometimes it doesn’t seem very godly. I know. There were times where I used to feel like a failure when I was raising our children.
It’s a huge task. It’s a bigger task than we are capable of in our own strength of course. But God is with us and we have to come to Him and seek His wisdom and strength because He’s promised to be with us and help us in this great task.
Although Solomon said, “Who am I to do this?” he also said, “But I am doing it for just one thing, the main thing! I’ve mentioned other things, but this is the main thing: to sacrifice before Him.”
He was talking about the morning and the evening sacrifices, which were to take place in the temple. They had taken place in the tabernacle but now the tabernacle had been destroyed. It had been in Shiloh for about 360 years but then their enemies took it and so they now want to build this temple.
I think this is something we should get into our hearts, precious mothers, because this is here in the Word of God. It’s literally telling us about Solomon’s vision but every word that was written is written for our learning and our admonition. Every single thing is a type for us today (Romans 15:4 and 1 Corinthians 10:11).
So we should have, like Solomon had, this longing, this passion, this understanding that this is the main thing I want to do in my home and that is to meet with God every morning and evening.
That’s what the sacrifices were about. Every sacrifice pointed to Jesus, to the Lamb of God Who would be the ultimate sacrifice. When Jesus came and when He sacrificed His body and His blood for our sins, it was ONE sacrifice. Never did there have to be another sacrifice for sins. All those sacrifices back there in the Old Testament pointed to Calvary.
But they also pointed to meeting with God because He says in the Scriptures, “There will I meet with you.” God was always there because it pointed to His Son coming to be the sacrifice for our sins.
God wanted them to do it every morning and every evening. They sacrificed upon the Brazen Altar. In Leviticus 6:8-13 it tells us how God told Moses to pass this on to the priests. He said, “You are to keep this fire on the altar burning continually. This altar where you are going to sacrifice, it must never go out.” (Leviticus 6:13).
The amazing thing is, is that when he dedicated this altar when they had built it, the fire of God came down. It was a supernatural fire from God, but God said, “You have got to keep it going. The way you will keep it going is to attend to it every morning.
“You come and take out the ashes and put on the wood but that’s not enough. If you leave it till next morning it will go out.” So they had to come and attend to it in the evening as well because God said, “This fire must never go out.” God repeats those words two times (verses 12, and 13).
He says the same thing to us. When we come to know Him and He lights that fire in our spirits He says, “I don’t want this fire to ever go out. I have lit this fire in your heart by My precious Holy Spirit, but I want you to keep it burning. You don’t keep it burning in your own strength. It will keep burning by the power of My Holy Spirit, but I want you to attend to it every morning and every evening.”
It’s a Biblical principle. So every morning we come personally to the Lord and then we come as a family. We gather our family around and we come into the presence of the Lord. If there’s anything in our hearts that is evil or it’s not pleasing to the Lord, it’s like the ashes. We’ve got to take it out and get rid of it.
Then we put on the wood. The Word of God is like the wood. It’s like fuel to keep our fire burning. So we read the Word personally and then we gather our family to read the Word to them because we want to keep this fire for God burning in the hearts of every one of our children and in our families. We want to be a home that is set on fire for God.
The only way we can keep the fire burning is to come morning and evening.
Did you notice about burning sweet incense? That was talking about the Golden Altar of Incense. That altar was in the Holy Place just by the curtain before you went into the Holy of Holies. The Altar of Incense, which they also had to burn . . . when? You can guess . . . every morning and every evening. They had to burn this beautiful sweet incense. It was called sweet incense. It filled the Holy Place. It was so beautiful. As the day wore on it would be fading and God said, “No, you’ve got to come back again. You’ve got to come back in the evening because I want My Home filled continually with My sweet presence.”
The Altar of Incense speaks of prayer and intercession and praise and worship. We see that in Revelation chapter five. Here it is in verse 8. This is John looking into the heavenly realm. It’s amazing, when John looked into the heavenly realm and he saw what was there, he saw an Altar of Incense. You see, the Altar of Incense back in the Tabernacle was only a type of the heavenly one. The Bible tells us that and so now John is looking at the heavenly one.
“And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odors [incense], which are the prayers of saints.”
There the Bible specifically declares what the incense is. It’s the prayers of the saints.
We go over to chapter eight of Revelation. John is still seeing things in the heavenly realm. Verse 3: “And another angel came and stood at the altar [this is the golden altar because it was covered with gold, The Golden Altar of Incense.], having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.”
Of course Solomon was building this Temple to put the golden altar of incense in it, in the tabernacle and Temple. It was right before the Holy of Holies, which contained the Shekinah Glory of God. Now as John looks into the heavenly realm he looks and sees this Golden Altar right before the throne of God and the prayers of the saints are coming up.
Oh precious, lovely ladies—this is not just some story we’re reading about in the Old Testament. We are reading about something that is now and is to come. John saw it in the heavenly realm and the prayers going up.
As we meet together as a family morning and evening our prayers are going up as incense before the Lord. How much incense is going up in your home, darling ladies? Is it just a little bit of incense?
Do you think: “Oh goodness me, life is so busy. How could I fit this in?”
Sometimes you have Bible reading or prayer together, so you have a little bit of incense. But that’s not the picture. God wants MUCH incense going up from our families. MUCH incense every morning and every evening.
Let’s get a passion like Solomon had.
Of course, we are no longer building a real literal altar or a brazen altar. We’re not doing sacrifices or lighting the candlestick in the Holy Place. That had to be lit every morning and every evening, too.
The morning and evening principle was so powerful back there, but it’s so powerful for us today. We’re not doing it literally with altars and sacrifices, but we are doing it literally by doing it and by coming into God’s presence and gathering our families around.
Precious mothers, can I ask you a big question? Do you have that passion and vision that David and Solomon had, to build a house for the name of the Lord?
The most important thing he wanted to do was to sacrifice before Him, to come into His presence, to pray to Him, to send up MUCH incense, to get fueled every morning with His precious Word.
His Word is our fuel, our sustenance, and our life.
If that is not your consuming passion for your home, what is? What is your passion?
Sometimes we get overtaken and overwhelmed with all we have to do and it’s just getting through each day. There’s so much to do. I know, darling ladies, I know. Sometimes you feel overwhelmed. There IS so much to do.
But we can’t do everything. I realize that. I can’t do everything. You can’t do everything. We have to work out what is the most important to do.
Do you know that we have to get rid of a lot of other things we do? There are so many superfluous things we do, so many things we don’t need to do. We have got to work out the most important things that we have to do.
Of course, when you are a new mother with little ones around you, you won’t get much else done in the day except to care for them, your nursing baby, and your little toddlers. You’re not wasting time. No, it’s powerful. It’s beautiful. God sees it as just beautiful unto Him. Do it unto Him.
As your children get older, then you get busier in different ways. You do not just have to do everything for these little toddlers. Now your children can do things for themselves. But now you end up running them around everywhere. You’re going here and there, and life today is just like a rat race.
Darling ladies, it’s not meant to be a rat race. Can you take a moment to get before the Lord? Ask Him what’s the most important.
Can we come back to this passage of Solomon and see what was the most important to him? He was a king and he made that kingdom of Israel the greatest kingdom of the world at that time. It was the richest kingdom of the world at that time. There was hardly a thing that Solomon didn’t do or think of! It was so unbelievable if you just read about it!
And yet still his greatest passion was to make that Temple a place where he would come as the king of a huge, incredible, rich and busy kingdom. He made time every morning and every evening to sacrifice before the Lord and to come into His presence.
Yes, we do have to sacrifice other things, but really, this word sacrifice, I’m not sure we use it in the right way.
Sometimes I hear mothers say, “Well, I sacrificed my career to come home to my children.”
Well praise the Lord they came home to their children, but I don’t really think it’s quite the right word. Maybe you have also done that, dear mother. But you really didn’t sacrifice your career to come home to your children because THIS IS YOUR GREATEST CAREER.
Now we are thinking of how do we fit into our family lives a gathering together of our family every morning and every evening? How can we possibly do that? Help! We are just too busy! We’ve got too many things we have to do.
No, you’ve got to put some of those things aside. It’s not sacrifice, because they’re not as important as the most important thing.
I have realized that the most important thing in our lives is to meet with our Maker, with our Savior, with our great God morning and evening. So in our home I arrange my whole life around these two times of the day. Everything else fits into them.
I don’t ever put them aside because they are the most important. If something else doesn’t get done, who cares? This is the most important.
Even back in the days when all our children were home, many years ago now, and our children were getting older and our sons were out at work, but still living at home, I still expected them as older children in their late teens and early twenties to be back home for the evening meal.
There we would enjoy fellowship together around the table. We would sit and talk and discuss and debate and really get into things together, heart to heart. It was really exciting! It was such a wonderful time. We would never leave the table until we opened the Word of God and prayed.
I would say to them, “You have got to be home unless there’s something specific on and there is a good excuse and you let me know. Otherwise you have to be home for this evening meal.”
It’s not, “Oh well we come if we want and if not, we just go where we like.”
No, it’s: “While you live in our home, this is the vision of our home, so you fit in with it. When you leave home and you begin your own family then you start what you want to do. But in our home, while you’re under our roof, you do the vision that God has given to us.”
This is what we are meant to do as parents. Dear precious mothers, there is something happening in our society today where parents are losing their authority. They are losing their grip on their children. Their children are just doing what they want, going here and there. They seem to rule the house.
No, you are in charge, you have the authority, God has given it to you, and He holds you responsible. Every child under your roof is still responsible to you and to your vision and your plan of the day until they leave home.
Sometimes we’ve just got to pull things back in again.
We’re reading about this passion in 2 Chronicles chapter two. Go back when you have some time and you can read this chapter over yourself. We keep reading down 2 Chronicles chapter two. Let’s go down to verse 9: “Even to prepare me timber in abundance: for the house which I am about to build shall be wonderful great.”
Wow, he uses two amazing adjectives there: WONDERFUL and GREAT. In verse 5 he also uses the word great.
We have to lift our vision, dear precious ladies, to not just build: “Okay, we’re just building a family like everybody else down the street.”
Instead lift your vision: “No, we’re going to have a BIGGER vision! Our vision is great! It’s wonderful! We’re building a family that’s actually WONDERFUL and GREAT.”
Before I even get on to talking to you about what those words really mean, we better look at the word “build” because that comes first, doesn’t it?
“ . . .For the house, which I am about to build . . ..” That’s what we are talking about, isn’t it, building?
Proverbs 14:1 says: “Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.”
The word “build” in the Hebrew is banah. It has more than one meaning like so many Hebrew words.
It means, of course: “To build.” We understand that, of course, don’t we? With building it’s something that you have to keep at. Building a house doesn’t happen in a day. It’s little by little, day by day; we build and strengthen our marriage and our home, just another little thing every day.
It’s good to think, precious ladies, of just adding a little more to your building project every day; just add a little something more to make it bigger. When you’re building you don’t get less, you get bigger, don’t you?
I’m sure you don’t want to build a little shack; you want to build a BIG home for God just like Solomon wanted to build this big Temple! So we add a little bit each day.
For example: building your marriage. Today, think of some little thing you can add to your marriage. Can you think of something special you could say to your husband when he gets home from work? Can you think of some way you could encourage him or bless him or have some special little thing waiting in the bedroom for him when he comes into change after a hard day’s work?
Just think of some little thing! That’s adding! That’s building up your marriage!
For your children, think of something special to do for them each day. Think of some new encouraging word to say to them. Keep building.
Also contained in the word build is the word “repair.” Oh my, we know, that’s part of building, isn’t it? We know life’s not perfect. Oh goodness me, there’s always hurts and rifts coming in relationships. Maybe it’s amongst the children or maybe it’s between husband and wife. My, these things happen because we’re not perfect. We are fleshly people and so we have to keep repairing.
If there comes a rift, we never let the sun go down upon our wrath, our anger. We always put it right. We say, “Sorry.” Keep short accounts with one another. We keep repairing and repairing.
Even our physical homes, they need repairing. We have things falling down around our ears! My, we have to put up new spouting around the house! We have to do this, and we have to do that, because it kind of wears out and it’s no longer working.
You have to do the same. It’s the same in our relationships. We have to keep working on them and repairing them.
There’s another thing about banah, too. You won’t expect this one and I’ll just finish with this on this session. It also means: “To bring forth children.” Wow. You don’t expect that from building, do you?
But go to The Strong’s Concordance and you will find it right there and right before your eyes it says, “To bring forth children.”
There are a number of Scriptures that use that word.
For example, Ruth 4:11 speaks of Ruth and it says: “ . . . The Lord make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel . . ..”
Now, how did Rachel and Leah build the house of Israel? Did they do it with hammer and nails? No, they did it by bringing forth children. They brought forth the twelve sons of Jacob and a daughter. There may have been more daughters, we don’t know. This is how they built up the house, by bringing forth children.
Every child you bring into your home builds up the family a little more and it adds so much to the family! I can’t even think of how people want to stop having children, stop at maybe two or three. My, that’s only a little building.
Of course we know that there are some who long for children and they just don’t come. That’s in God’s hands. God sees your heart. He sees your longing. He sees that it is good.
There are some mums who were only able to have two and yet the next generation God gives them many, many, many grandchildren.
It’s what is in our hearts.
It is also true, literally, that every child does build up that family more. They bring more blessing and more joy to the parents and more joy to the siblings.
Then of course, it’s building up the generations because each child we have is not just a child for us. It’s a child that one day will build another dynasty. We are building dynasties and generations for God.
When I started building our family it was just Colin and me. Then we had our first child. Then we had more and now we have many grandchildren and now we have great-grandchildren and the building is getting bigger and bigger.
But let me pray:
“Dear Father, We thank you for how You give us vision in Your Word. You don’t leave us just hanging and not knowing what to do.
“We pray that You will give us a vision like David had and like Solomon had to build a house for You, a family that is strong, a family that walks in truth in the midst of all the deception of this age. Lord God, help us to put into our homes that which is the most important. Help us to, Lord God, to see that the morning and the evening principle is Your plan. It’s the way we keep the fire going. It’s the way we keep the sweet incense burning in our homes. It’s a way we keep the anointing of the Holy Spirit continually burning in our homes.
“Please God, give us a consuming passion, just as David and Solomon had. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.”
Transcribed by Morgan Roth. Thank you, Morgan.