PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 237: What Does God Want Us to Do in the Land, Part 12
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 237: What Does God Want Us to Do in the Land, Part 12
Today I tell you three secrets about myself. Please don’t tell anyone else!!! We also ask ourselves some questions today. Do I know the ways of God for motherhood? Do I have a willing heart? Do I know how to wait for God’s promises? Am I walking in the fear of God? All part of living in the LAND OF MOTHERHOOD.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Ladies! Can you believe it? That this is the last week of 2022? I really can’t believe it. Every year goes by so much more quickly, doesn’t it? Well, I do hope that you had a very beautiful Christmas time with your families. Or maybe you were celebrating Hanukkah. Those lovely celebrations.
We like to celebrate both actually. Of course, when we celebrate Christmas, we’re not doing it in all the tinsel, materialistic way. But we love to get together as families. We love to sing the carols and remember the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Well, we are still on the series, “What God Wants Us to Do in the Land?” We’re up to . . .
No. 7. YOU MUST KNOW THE GOD OF THE LAND
I have an interesting story to read to you. I will read it from The Living Bible because it’s easier to understand if we read it as a story.
2 Kings 17. This is when the children of Israel, the children of Judah, actually, had been taken to Babylon. Then the king of Babylon decided that he would bring some of his people from Babylon and places around there down to Israel to take up the places of all the Israelites, all the Judeans that he had taken away captive.
It says here: “So the Assyrians,” this is verse 24 if you want to check it in your Bible. “So the Assyrians took over Samaria and the other cities of Israel. But since these Assyrian colonists did not worship the Lord when they first arrived, the Lord sent lions among them to kill some of them. Then they sent a message to the king of Assyria: ‘We colonists here in Israel don’t know the laws of the god of the land, and he has sent lions among us to destroy us because we have not worshiped him.’
“The king of Assyria then decreed that one of the exiled priests from Samaria should return to Israel and teach the new residents the laws of the god of the land. So, one of them returned to Bethel and taught the colonists from Babylon how to worship the Lord.”
Because God was not pleased with them following their own ways of worshipping their gods in His land. This land belonged to Him. Therefore, God should be worshiped in the way He intended in His land.
And it is the same today and the same for our land of motherhood. We have to live in the land of motherhood the way God intends for us, the way He has planned for us. We must do it according to the way of the God of the land, the God of our kingdom, the God of the land of motherhood, because He is the One Who designed motherhood, who planned it. So, we must do it His way.
Sadly, so many young mothers today don’t know His way. Out there in the world, and many times, even in the church, they don’t know the way. And why? Because the older women have not been teaching them.
In this new addition of Above Rubies #100 that has just gone out in the land, in my editorial, I talk to the older women and remind them of the mandate that God has given them. Because God has given a mandate to every older woman to teach the younger women His ways. He tells us specifically what to teach them.
Actually, just before, I was looking up in the Young’s Literal Translation. This is a translation by the Young who wrote the Young’s Concordance. It’s a very literal translation, according to the Hebrew and the Greek. I was most interested to see what it says here.
In most translations, it says that the older women are “to teach,” or they are “to train” the younger women. But in the Young’s Literal Translation, it says that the older women may “make” the young women. That’s interesting, isn’t it? Not just to teach them, not only to train them, but to “make the young women sober-minded, to be lovers of their husbands, lovers of their children, sober, pure, keepers of their own houses, good, subject to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be evil spoken of.” (Titus 2:5 YLT98)
I had never noticed that before, that they were to even “make” the young women. Well, today there are rarely older women teaching the young women. Sometimes, when they do want to teach them, the young women don’t want to listen. Recently I had an older woman sharing with me how she was wanting to share with some of the young women ways that could help them in the disciplining of their children and in their homemaking tasks. This woman is an amazing homemaker.
But she said they weren’t really interested at all. So, I think it does work both ways, doesn’t it? There should be a willingness of the young women to learn from the older women. And then, of course, the older women taking up their mandate.
But they have to know what they’re going to be talking about! Sadly, many of the older women are no longer in the home. They’re out doing their own thing. They really haven’t a clue of what God says about motherhood.
So, dear mothers, I know some of you are young mothers who are listening. Some are middling. And some of you are older mothers as I am an older mother now. What I find very sad is that many older mothers think, “Oh, well, I’m finished with motherhood. I’ve raised my children. That’s it. I can get on with something else.”
No, darling mothers! We are mothers until we meet Jesus. This is who God created us to be. Yes, we’ll do many, many things. We all have different gifts. We all do different projects. We all have different interests.
But who we are is mothers. That is who God created us to be. He created us physically for this task of mothering. We are created with a womb. We are created with breasts. We are created innately with this nurturing anointing, not only physically, but innately within us. Our little daughters want to mother right from the time they are little. They’re mothering their teddies, and their babies, and their dollies. It’s just in us. It doesn’t suddenly stop being in us when our children are raised.
We’re pretty young, even when our children become adults. We’ve got many years ahead. Many, many years. And those years are to be years of being examples to the young mothers and teaching them. What a difference it would make if the whole of this nation of older, godly mothers would rise up and teach and encourage the young moms instead of just poor young moms not knowing what they’re doing, or even leaving their children and going out of the home.
Today, who teaches the young moms? Our public education system! Our humanist people all around. They teach them. They show them. They tell them, “Hey, you can’t stay at home! Goodness me! You’ll be wasting your life! Get out in your career.” They are taught daily, through the media, and through our public education to completely vacate motherhood.
Oh, yes, they may suddenly become mothers by having some children, but they’re not giving themselves to motherhood. They don’t know God’s ways. Dear ladies, there is so much. God has provided everything we need to know and yet we don’t know it all yet.
Every day I am still seeking God for His ways and His truth. I’m still learning. I’m still learning. We’ll always be learning. There’s always more. We’re always finding new things in His Word and new understanding. We can’t say we’ve made it. No, but we should always be seeking and always learning. As older moms, always passing it on to the young moms, so that we will know the ways of God for motherhood.
We can’t do it our way. We can’t do it a humanistic way. We can’t do it a worldly way. No, we’ve got to do it God’s way. That’s the only way that works. Because if we do it our way, we will find that the lions will come amongst us, the lions that the enemy sends in. Lions of deception, and all these things that roar about us in our homes because we’re not doing it the right way. That is so important in our land of motherhood.
No. 8. WE MUST HAVE A WILLING HEART
Isaiah 1:19-20: “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.”
It’s so important to have a willing heart. Everything starts with the heart, doesn’t it? A willing heart. A willingness to be open to God’s ways. A willingness to hear instructions.
That’s not an easy thing to do, to hear instructions. Sometimes people will speak to us and point out something we’re doing wrong. Maybe even our husbands will seek to show us something we’re doing wrong and we kind of get our hackles up. We just don’t like to be told. But there are so many Scriptures in the Word of God of how to receive instruction belongs to the wise. It’s the foolish who do not receive instruction. We learn so much as we receive instruction. We must have a willing heart.
Let’s look at a few other Scriptures about that in Exodus 35. This is where Moses asked for all the different materials to come from the people so they could build the tabernacle. In verse 21, it says: “And they came, every one whose heart stirred him up, and every one whom his spirit made willing.” It starts in the heart. It starts in the spirit. That’s where our willingness begins.
It’s such a big thing, ladies, to cultivate that willingness in your heart. Yes, cultivate a willing heart. “Everyone whom his spirit made willing, and they brought the Lord’s offering to the work of the tabernacle. . . both men and women, as many as were willing hearted, and brought bracelets, and earrings, and rings, and tablets, all jewels of gold.”
Yes, go down to verse 25: “And all the women that were wise hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen. And all the women whose heart stirred them up in wisdom spun goats' hair.”
Verse 29: “The children of Israel brought a willing offering unto the Lord, every man and woman, whose heart made them willing.”
I love that. “Whose heart made them willing.” Now we read “willing” more than once in that passage. One of the Hebrew words for “willing” there means “to volunteer, to present spontaneously, offer freely.” That’s verse 21.
In verse 22, “willing hearted” is a different Hebrew word. It means “to be generous, to be magnanimous, liberal.” It’s a really big-hearted willingness it’s talking about there where they brought all their jewels, their earrings.
Just reading “earrings” there, yes, that’s interesting. They had to bring earrings, and rings, and jewels of gold, and so on. It made me think of how there was a time when I didn’t even wear earrings. I was brought up in a denomination that was pretty conservative. I think everybody in that denomination would wear earrings today but back all those years ago, it was frowned upon. So, I didn’t wear earrings.
Then, as I got older, I noticed Scriptures in the Word of God that talked about earrings. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that often we do things, or we don’t do things, just because of tradition. We really have to find out what the Bible says, don’t we?
I have to tell you a little secret, ladies. Don’t tell anybody else, will you? But I actually didn’t start wearing earrings until I was 70 years of age! Wow! But then, I had come to realize as I was reading the Word of God, “Wow, they actually did wear earrings! Well, I am a biblical woman, so I’d better start!”
I thought, “OK, well, I’ll go and get my ears pierced.” So, I thought, “If I’m going to do it, I'll really do it!” So, I got two piercings in each ear. I thought, “Right. Might as well do it properly!” But then I didn’t keep wearing the second. I just wore one pair of earrings, so they gradually closed up. That’s when I started. Isn’t that amazing?
Let’s see some Scriptures here, because every single thing I do in life, I like to have Scriptures for it. In Ezekiel 16:10, it’s an allegory, a beautiful allegory. You can read the whole chapter later, but it’s how God chose Israel and what He did.
He said: “I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers' skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck. And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head. Thus wast thou decked” (real King James language there) “Thus, wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work.” This is God speaking. And He uses all these beautiful descriptions of a woman clothed with beauty and jewels and even earrings in her ears. Wow, I read that and think, “Yes, I’d better get on the job!”
What else do we read? We go right back to Genesis, and we read how when Abraham’s servant came to find a bride for Isaac, and he found Rebecca, that he gave her jewels of silver and jewels of gold. Genesis 24:53.
And then we go to Exodus 3:21. When they were leaving Egypt, God told the Israelites, “And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians: and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty: But every woman shall borrow of her neighbor, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters.”
And then Isaiah 61:10 talks about how God covers us, like a bride adorns herself with jewels. So, we read lots of other Scriptures. Actually, ladies, oh, I’d better tell you the rest of my secrets. Can you believe it? OK, I was 70 when I first started wearing earrings. And guess what? I was 70 years of age when I started drinking coffee! Can you believe that? What a crazy lady.
But, you see, once again, I grew up with a mother (shows you how powerful your mother is!) and she did not believe in coffee. She thought it was bad for you. She didn’t drink it and we never drank it in our house. I grew up not drinking it and thinking it was bad for you. If anything is bad for you, well, I don’t eat it or drink it. Until, of course, later on down the years, and getting near 70, I actually began to realize that coffee is an antioxidant, and it’s actually good for you! Wow! I had been deceived all those years! So, at 70 years of age, I started drinking coffee! Wow!
Can you guess what else I did at 70 years of age? Now, this is really crazy, so don’t tell anyone else, will you? Oh, it was that year that I became very nauseous. I felt so sick. It was just like morning sickness. Oh, I felt like I was pregnant, and I couldn’t eat that. It put me off. But then I had to eat other things. It was just as though I was pregnant!
I thought, “Goodness, what on earth is happening to me?” Guess what? I took a pregnancy test. At 70 years of age! Of course, it was negative. But my husband and I were so sad because we were hoping it would be positive. Now, how crazy can you get? [laughter] Those are my little crazy secrets. Will you still keep listening to me, I wonder?
Let’s get back to being willing. It’s a beautiful thing to have a willing heart—
willing to hear God’s voice,
willing to hear instruction,
willing to submit to my husband.
Oh, that’s not very popular in our humanistic age in which we live. But it is Bible. And it is beautiful. And it will bring such blessing in your marriage.
Willing to embrace God’s plan for you, as a female. Yes, in this age in which we are living, we must be willing to be female. There is such blurring of the sexes, more and more in this day, in every way; in our roles, in the way we even live, the way we dress, and every way. There is such blurring of the sexes. Are we willing to be female?
If God has created us female, I believe we should embrace our femaleness, our femininity, our womanliness, and be that in everything. Amen? Let us be willing in the day of His power. That’s a beautiful Scripture.
Psalm 110:3: “Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power.” Yes, are we a willing woman?
No. 9. WE MUST WAIT UPON THE LORD
Psalm 37:34: “Wait on the Lord, and keep His way, and He shall exalt thee to inherit the land.”
That word means “to look to the Lord, to look expectantly, to look patiently.” Many times we have to wait, don’t we? Things don’t just happen when we want them to. I read something the other day, that “When God gives us a promise, He does not give us a calendar.” I thought that was very, very good.
Yes, God’s promises do not fail. Maybe they’re not fulfilled right away. God doesn’t give us a calendar when He gives the promise. But you can hang onto that promise and if it’s in God’s Word, in His infallible Word, you can stake your life on it. But sometimes you’ve got to wait patiently but wait expectantly. No, we don’t just wait with, what is the word? With no expectation. No, we’re to wait expectantly even as we wait patiently. Amen?
No. 10. WE MUST FEAR THE LORD
Let me take you to Deuteronomy again.
Deuteronomy 31:12-13: “Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law: And that their children, which have not known anything, may hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land.”
Now, God is bringing all the people together. In fact, whenever God wanted to say something specific and important to His people, He gathered them together. When God gathered His people together, He gathered everyone, the fathers, the mothers, the children, the little ones, the babies. They all came.
It’s interesting here where it says: “Gather the people together, men and women, and children.” That word “children” there is the Hebrew word taph, T-A-P-H. That word is a word that means “the little children, the little toddlers. It’s the tripping gait, or short steps of the little toddlers.” That is so interesting.
Actually, in my study manual, The Power of Motherhood, I have a chapter where I give all the Hebrew words that God has in the Bible for “children.” There are 50 Hebrew words, all different stages of the child’s life, from birth, right up to older. Of course, taph is one of them, the toddler. I think that’s so amazing.
I think of church life. Many churches today refuse to have the children in their services, especially the toddlers, because it’s that toddler stage that is the most difficult in a service. They’re just learning how to sit. In fact, they hardly know how to sit still. They’re learning how to stay quiet, and they don’t always know how to stay quiet. So, we’re little by little training them and teaching them.
But God wanted them with the whole family when He was bringing His Word forth. He wanted everyone in the family. I believe that is His plan. When we meet together at church, it is to have the whole family. God does not want us to be separated. He doesn’t want us to come to church and drop our children off at the nursery, then the next class, then the next class, and then the next class. We drop them all off and then we walk in, just Mom and Dad. All the children are separated.
No, God wants us to be families with everyone present. Of course, that takes training of the children. But yes, that’s what we’re meant to do as parents. We’re meant to be training them, aren’t we? I wonder what kind of church you go to. Do they have all the family sitting together? That’s how it’s meant to be.
Deuteronomy 6:13: “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve Him.”
Deuteronomy 10:12: “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee? But to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all they heart, and with all thy soul.” And so many other Scriptures.
I do believe that the fear of the Lord is . . . and the Word of God says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” There is so little of the fear of the Lord today. In our homes, and in our churches, I really believe there needs to be such a revival of the fear of the Lord. What does God say? He says: “In the land.”
In the land of our motherhood too, He wants us to fear Him. That means we’re not scared of Him, but we are in awe of Him. We do not want to do anything that would displease Him. We’re putting Him first in every aspect of our lives, even of our family life. Our children know that He is paramount.
Yes, He is the One that we listen to. He is the One that we obey. He comes first in every situation. Our lives are not ruled by our circumstances but by walking in the fear of the Lord. Oh, precious moms, just pray about how we can bring the fear of the Lord more and more into our homes.
Not only we ourselves, but that our children will walk in the fear of the Lord, that they will have soft hearts toward God, that they would fear to displease Him in any way, that we may hear the Word of God. They hear it with awe. They don’t just take it for granted. I think this is also very important. How we listen to the Word of God, how we read it. We can just take it for granted.
But do we come with a heart of awe to His Word? When we read something, we don’t just gloss over it. We take it to heart. We tremble at it. The Word of God talks about those who tremble at His Word. Those are the ones that He looks to (Isaiah 66:2).
May God help us to walk in the fear of the Lord, to teach our children the fear of the Lord. As we walk in the fear of the Lord in our homes, well, then, there will be more of the fear of the Lord in our churches. It won’t be all this worldliness that we see today in Christendom. I think the fear of the Lord should affect every aspect of our lives. Not only the way we live, but the way we speak, the way we treat our husbands, the way we dress.
WOMEN CAN BE CLOTHED AND YET NAKED!
It is so sad that so much of the church of God today does not dress according to the fear of God. They dress according to the fashion of this world that exposes so much of the flesh. I can’t believe it! People come to church exposing the flesh! I can’t believe it. People come to church, actually clothed and yet naked!
Did you know that, well, most people, I don’t think they know. But when they wear the tight pants that many females are wearing today (not only the young people, but even some older ones) you can see everything! When they walk, they don’t see their behinds. But people walking behind them see every single nook and cranny and curve and wrinkle. They’re clothed but they’re naked. Help!
What does it do to the men walking behind them? Wow! I think it’s time for the fear of God to come back to us as families and to the church. Because how is it that we, as mothers, allow our children to go out of our homes dressed in these ways? And looking like this? I’m not quite sure. It doesn’t equate with the Word of God. It doesn’t equate with holy living. I think we are in need of a great revival, don’t you?
Anyway, time is gone. Love you all so much! May you have a glorious and wonderful and amazing new year, as we go into the New Year this weekend.
“Lord God, we thank You again for all Your goodness over this past year. For Your faithfulness, for Your provision, for answering our prayers. Lord, You are so good. We give You thanks.
“We thank You we can go into this New Year, trusting You, knowing that You are our God, and You are faithful. We pray, Father, that we will go into this New Year, walking in the fear of the Lord, that there will come such a greater fear of the Lord into all our hearts, and into the church of God. We ask it in the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.