PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 243: Mothers Are the Transmitters of God’s Truth to the Next Generation, Part 1
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 243: Mothers Are the Transmitters of God’s Truth to the Next Generation, Part 1
Are we drifting with our current liberal society or are we holding fast to God's truth? Are we effectively getting it to the next generation? Have all our children come to know Jesus personally, even our little ones?
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Today we are starting a new series. We, as mothers, are the transmitters of God’s truths, His ways, and godly traditions to the next generation. I believe this is something we really have to wake up about, precious ladies, because I am noticing that there is such a big drifting away from God’s truths and even from godly traditions.
We live in such a liberal and deceived society. It’s so easy to drift into what everyone else is doing all around us. We are truly, like God says we are, we are sheep. Sheep are beautiful creatures, and God loves to call us His sheep because sheep need a shepherd. That’s why we are His sheep. We need a Shepherd.
Nearly every other animal in the whole of the world can fend for themselves. But a sheep can’t fend for itself. It needs a shepherd. My father was a great sheep man. Of course, we came originally from New Zealand which is a sheep country. My father was a sheep shearer. He was the world champion sheep shearer. He was, in his day, the fastest shearer in the world.
Many times, I have walked over the fields with my father. I remember one time we were walking, and there was a sheep . . . it had got caught in a thicket.
My father said to me, “Come on, Nance! We’ve got to get this sheep out of here. If we don’t, it will die.” If any other animal gets caught in some briars or something, it can get itself out. But not a sheep. This sheep was totally stuck! It was upside down! We had to pull it out. We got it out, and then, it just went away. It was happy to go along with the other sheep. But if the shepherd had not come around to care for his sheep, that sheep would have died in that thicket.
My husband also grew up on a sheep farm. They had many, many sheep. He often tells of how he noticed a whole flock of sheep can be out on the hillside. If you have ever driven through New Zealand, you’ll drive through these beautiful green fields, covered with these little white sheep. They’re all there, munching away on the grass.
Sheep love to stay together. That’s another thing about sheep. They are a flock. Yes, and God calls us His flock, too. “You are My flock, and the sheep of My pasture.” Sheep are not individualistic. They love to be a flock. That’s how God wants us to be as His people, too. Because they’re a flock, they follow one another.
It can happen how one sheep can see a little hole in a hedge, and it wriggles through, and goes through into the next field. And, of course, there are other sheep nearby. So, they begin to follow. They go through into the next field. Now the sheep are way, way out on the hillside, because in New Zealand we don’t have little flocks of sheep like they do in the Middle East. A Bedouin shepherd will have his little flock of maybe 15 or 20 sheep, sometimes smaller even.
But in New Zealand, we have thousands of sheep in our flocks. There are these sheep away over there on the hillside. They have no idea what these sheep are doing . . . just little by little, going through the hole in the fence. It may take a few days, or more, but eventually that whole flock of sheep are in the next paddock. Well, that’s actually what we call our fields down in New Zealand, a paddock. And there they are. They don’t know they are in a new paddock. They have no idea! But there they are! Because they followed that one sheep.
That’s like us. Many times, we follow what is happening around us and what everybody else is doing. Even what everybody else is doing in the church. We don’t even know that we have come into a new field! We have no clue! We’re just there! And we’ve just drifted there. That’s what happens to sheep. We do have to watch carefully.
I’m thinking of Hebrews 2:1: “Therefore, we ought to give more earnest heed.” Do you notice some adjectives there again? I’m always reminding you of adjectives, aren’t I? The Word of God is filled with adjectives. Here it doesn’t say we ought to give more heed. No, it says, “we ought to give more earnest heed.” Two adjectives! “We've got to give more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time,” at any time, “we should let them slip.”
The Amplified Translation says: “We do not, in any way, drift away from the truth.” Most other translations use the word “drift.” It’s a good word. It’s a picture of, maybe we’re out, perhaps just floating, swimming, or even boating on a river. If we just let ourselves go, or let the boat go, it will drift according to the currents. It will always drift wherever the current is going.
Now, lovely ladies, we have got to guard that we don’t drift with the current, the current tide of our culture. We’ve got to make sure we stay in biblical culture, and that we don’t begin to drift out there in our liberal culture of our society today. It’s so easy to drift.
The Amplified Classic Version says: “Lest any way we drift past them.” That means past the things we’ve been taught, past the truth, and we slip away from it. Oh, my.
I think of how when we go to the beach. I love to go to the beach in New Zealand because it’s a, well, three islands. North Island, South Island, and Stewart Island. We are really just islands. We’re always near the coast, surrounded by the pounding Pacific Ocean. How I love to go to the ocean and swim in the pounding waves. It’s my favorite thing.
Of course, when, after being in New Zealand, we moved to Australia, we were there for ten years. In Australia we lived on the Gold Coast, right in Surfer’s Paradise. Of course, we were right on the beautiful Pacific Ocean. But when we came to America, well, now, we are in Tennessee, miles and miles away from the sea. First time in my life I never lived by the sea.
Now, we love to go down to the Gulf because we have a yearly Above Rubies Family Retreat there. We go down for that. If we do manage to have a family holiday together, we’ll go down to the Gulf again. It’s not the pounding breakers of the ocean, but it is wonderful water. We do love it.
If I’m out there swimming with the children, I will notice that we will always drift. Sometimes it’s just a very soft current. Sometimes it’s a stronger current. But we will always be drifting, either up or either down, whichever way the current is going. I will have to say to the children, “Come on, come on! Let’s get back! See our marker back there? We’ve drifted all the way down here! Come on, let’s all walk back, or swim back!” We’ve got to keep coming back to our marker where we went into the water. If we don’t keep coming back, we’re just going to drift further and further and further away.
It’s the same in our lives. I remember one day I was swimming with a friend. We were there together, and that day, we were at Laguna Beach in Panama City, Florida. There was a strong, strong riptide. My, I think it’s the strongest one that I’ve ever felt down there. Because I’m not challenged with the pounding waves like I’m used to, back in New Zealand and Australia, and it’s more quiet here. “So, I’ll just float on the gentle waves.”
But this time, when I began to float, wow! I was being carried away! It was unbelievable! I said to my friend Katie, “Hey! Why don’t we just go for a ride?” We lay out and floated and let this riptide take us! It took us right down, down, down, down, down. It was so glorious! We’re taken down like a sailing boat although we were only floating with this incredible, strong riptide.
Eventually, we thought, “Help! How far are we getting away? We’d better get out!” We got out, and it took us about half an hour to walk back to where we got in the water. It certainly didn’t take us that long to get down! We just ripped down there on this riptide. It was so fantastic, but we had to have a big walk back.
The further we let the tide take us, the harder, and often the more difficult it is to get back. The best idea is to not let ourselves drift! But that we keep coming back, keep watching to see where we are, that we are not just floating further and further away.
Well, there’s always that tide taking us away. But at this time, at this time in our society, I think we are facing a really strong riptide. It’s taking people down the current of destruction, and down the current of deception very, very quickly. Things are happening quickly. They are even changing our language quickly. It is amazing.
Most of you are aware, I am sure, that they have now changed already the dictionary meaning of the word “woman.” Most dictionaries all had a similar meaning for the word “woman.” The Johnson’s Dictionary said, “the female of the human race.”
The Cambridge Dictionary, a very popular dictionary, called, past tense, a woman “an adult female human being.” But last year, on the 27th of October, 2022, they have now added a new meaning of the word “woman”: “An adult who lives and identifies as female, though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth.”
BUY UP OLD DICTIONARIES
Now they are including a transgender meaning of the word “woman.” This is now printed in the dictionary. I would encourage you, dear ladies, to make sure you buy up a few old dictionaries. When you’re homeschooling your children, it’s good for them all to have their own dictionaries. Dictionaries are wonderful things. We constantly need to be looking up and learning new words. Each child needs their own dictionary.
But I would caution you now about buying any updated dictionary. I haven’t checked them all, but we know especially, the Cambridge has already changed, and others will be following suit, we know for sure. I think it would be a good idea, when you’re looking in a Goodwill store, second-hand store, a place where they have second-hand books, just look for some older dictionaries. Buy them up for your children so that you make sure you’re not going to have these deceptive dictionaries in your home. Amen?
They’re changing so many words. You’ve heard, of course, that they now want to call “mothers” “birthing people.”
What do they call the mutilating of our precious young people and children, who only have to mention that they don’t know whether they’re a boy or a girl, and they’re confused? Immediately they’re taken into counseling, and then appointments with doctors to change them physically into the opposite sex. And what do they call that? “Gender affirming care.”
Such a beautiful euphemism. Such a lovely phrase. Sounds so beautiful, to describe something so horrific, of the mutilating of these young people and children’s bodies.
Now, what do they call “abortion”? “Reproductive health care.” They are changing the language to make it sound so nice, so lovely, when it is actually horrific. The word for “abortion” is “murder.” It is the outright killing of a precious child being formed in the image of God. An eternal soul that is growing in the womb, for this life, and for eternity.
So, dear ladies, we have got to watch, even in our language, that we don’t drift to this language they are bringing in. We must not give in! In fact, recently, my husband and I were listening to a preacher, Pastor Ray McCullum, speaking into what is happening in our nation today. It was so powerful.
THE SAME LANGUAGE
He was speaking about the building of the Tower of Babel, and how we all know that, at that time, they all spake the same language. You see, language has such power. For anything to happen, to change a nation, to change culture, they’ve got to get everybody speaking the same. So, they’re bringing all these new words, these deceiving phrases, into our vocabulary. They’re becoming more and more part of the vocab of this current culture. They want people speaking the same language.
Of course, we know what God did. He came in, and He confused the languages, and sent them all out into the world. That is not God’s plan. In fact, how did they build the Tower of Babel? They built it with bricks. Yes, did you get that? Bricks. Bricks have to be all made the same. They have to be uniform. They have to fit together.
That was the first incidence we read of a new world order of bringing in total tyranny. They had to make it with bricks. That’s what they are trying to do today, they want to make bricks. They want to make us all think the same, speak the same language, conform us to their way of thinking.
I REFUSE TO BE A BRICK
But listen, ladies. The only way that they can actually influence you is if you become a brick! You don’t have to become a brick, you know. I refuse to become a brick! Because God builds with living stones. That’s what He tells us in 1 Peter 2:5, “As living stones,” and that’s what God builds with.
Even back in Exodus 20:25, God is talking to His people there about building altars. He said, “You can build Me an altar of earth, where you could worship Me and listen to what I have to say to you, but if you want to build an altar of stones, you must never get these stones and cut them into uniform things. No. You’ve got to take them as they are.”
“If you use stones to build My altar, use only natural uncut stones. Do not shape the stones with a tool, for that would make the altar unfit for holy use.”
As God build us as living stones, He is the One Who shapes us into His image. But He does not start with something that’s already been cut and made uniform. He starts with the original, with the uniqueness, and that’s the wonderful thing about the Body of Christ. Every member is unique and different and special. Yet we’re all fitted into this beautiful building. But we’re not bricks! We are living stones.
HOLD ON FAST TO TRUTH
So, ladies, we have got to hold on, hold on to the truth.
I love Revelation 3:11: “Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.” Hold it fast.
Job 27:6: “My righteousness I hold fast, and I will not let it go.” Don’t you love that?
We’ve got to get our convictions strong, get our affirmations strong. I love affirmations, don’t you? Get some good affirmations and speak them out and hold onto them. Hold onto God’s Word. Memorize His Word so you can speak that out.
God’s testimony of Job, what did God say about Job? “Job holdeth fast his integrity.” He was speaking to Satan at the time. “Although thou movest me against him, to destroy him without cause.” And yet God said to Satan: “He holds fast his integrity” (Job 2:3).
Proverbs 4:13: “Take fast hold of instruction. Let her not go. Keep her for she is thy life.”
So, ladies, I want to talk to you about this. About holding on, holding fast, not letting the truth go, not letting it slip away, not allowing ourselves to drift with the current of this society! Oh, no, let’s be those who hold fast.
Well, there are going to be many things that we will talk about as we hold fast and transmit them to the next generation, because if we don’t hold them fast, how will we pass them on to the next generation? They’ve got to be, not just something, “Oh, well, yeah, I believe that.” No, we’ve got to strongly believe it. It has to be a strong conviction, so much so that we are so desperate to get it into the HEARTS and MINDS and LIVES and MOUTHS of our children and the generations to come.
Yes, and this is what God wants us to do. I often quote this Scripture to you and I want to give it to you again, because it is so powerful. It’s God’s mandate to parents.
And He says, in Isaiah 59:21: “As for Me, this is My covenant with them, saith the Lord; My spirit that is upon thee, and My words which I have put in thy MOUTH, shall not depart out of thy MOUTH, nor out of the MOUTH of thy children, nor out of the MOUTH of thy children’s children, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever.”
Do you get it? We’re not mothering just for today. We’re mothering for tomorrow. We’re mothering for, not only our children, but our children’s children, and their children, “Henceforth and forever, says the Lord.” And it’s more than getting it into their hearts, which we must do. We have to get it into their mouths so they are speaking it out. Amen?
LEAD YOUR CHILDREN TO JESUS WHEN THEY ARE YOUNG
We’d better start, of course, at the beginning. We always start with first things first. I do believe that the first thing that we should be concerned about as we’re passing on God’s truths to the next generation is to lead each of our children to Jesus at a young age. Yes, I said “a young age.”
I find that it is amazing, even in Christian homes, that many children are not born again until maybe later in their age group. But I believe that God wants our children to come to know Him at an early age. Now, this can happen in a Christian home.
It won’t happen in a non-Christian home. I believe that every child is born with something of the light of God in them (John 1:9). In a Christian home, that light is going to be fueled and fed. It’s going to grow more and more. In a non-Christian home, that light can be stamped out. It will always be there, but it can be stamped out so that, oh, goodness me, nobody would know it was there.
But in a Christian home, a godly home, where the Word of God is being read daily in the home, and dear ladies, dear precious mothers, the Word of God shall be read daily in our homes. Well, I know you know that and I’m sure that that’s what is happening in your home.
But let’s look again at 2 Timothy 3:14, 15: “But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
Now, we know that Timothy learned from his grandmother Lois, and his mother Eunice, as they taught him the ways of God. We read that in 1 Timothy 1:5: “When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.”
Do you notice what it says there? “From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures.” When did he begin to learn the Scriptures? When he was getting at an age of learning? Oh, no. Even before that. From a little babe. Now, that word “child” there in that Scripture is the Greek word brephos. That word can mean a baby in the womb.
Actually, that’s a word that was used when Jesus was in the womb. That is the same word that was used.
It’s used of a little baby. That word was actually used again, of Jesus, when he was a little babe, and they found him as a babe in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes. “The babe,” it was brephos. It can mean a baby in the womb, a baby that is just born, or a little toddler, or a child.
I believe that Timothy was hearing the Word of God, maybe even while he was in the womb of his mother Eunice. Right from the womb! Dear lovely ladies, we can begin to put the Word into our children right from the womb! The last three months of pregnancy, the baby can hear, even in the womb. As you are sitting close to your husband and he’s reading the Word to you, and to the family, your little babe in the womb can hear this Word.
When the little baby is born, and you’re nursing your baby, you’re having your family devotions, and your husband is reading the Word, and you’re sitting there by him, you’re nursing your baby. Your baby is hearing. Now, your baby doesn’t understand, but it’s hearing the Word. The Word of God is not a normal book. It is alive. It is powerful. It is active. And that Word is going into the very being of your little babe. Even as your little one gets a little older, that Word, that Word is going in. Understanding can come at a very early age, yes, quite an early age.
I have a little book here. It’s called How to Have a Family Altar by Norman Williams. It’s out of print but it’s an amazing little book. You can actually find it on the internet and download it for free. Look out for it.
But he says in this book, “A child of three months is too young to understand Galatians 5:22-23, but he’s not too young to enjoy it. The greatest secret of shaping the life of the child from day one to six years of age is to make Galatians 5:23-23,” (that’s the fruit of the Holy Spirit), “the very spirit and life of your home. Then your child will literally feed on the love of God, both emotionally and spiritually. He will absorb that out of his environment, which will make him emotionally and spiritually healthy and strong.”
He goes on to say, “Our aim is to lead our children to Christ as soon as possible. Many parents object that a four-month-old baby is too young to understand the Word of God. Therefore, they reason he should not hear it. But God’s Word says: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Your duty, dear parent, is to let your baby hear the Word of God. Somehow, by the action of the Holy Spirit through the Word, that child will receive faith. Babies have ears to hear with. They have hearts to believe with.”
Again, in another part, he says, “The parent’s great privilege during the first six years is to make his child acquainted with Christ as his Maker, and his loving Friend. Before the child is three-and-a-half, he should be saved, and know that Christ made him and loves him. The child should learn to lovingly speak the Name of Jesus right along with the name of Daddy and Mommy.”
That’s pretty interesting. Do you mean to say that at three-and-a-half, a child could be born again? And come to know Jesus? Well, not every child is going to do that at that age, but there are some who will. And I believe the more that little babe, that little toddler, that little child hears the Word of God, the more they become ready to receive, because faith is built up in their heart as they hear.
What does it say in our Scripture, 2 Timothy 3:15? That the Holy Scriptures are able to make them “wise unto salvation.” I remember when my beautiful granddaughter Breezy, yes, Breezy is 13 now. You would think that she was maybe 18 or 25. She’s grown so tall. She looks so much older. She is so mature for such a beautiful young lady.
But I remember when she was three, and I remember, we were having family devotions. She was staying with us at the time. It was just amazing; the anointing and the presence of God came. My husband could see it all over Breezy. The presence of God was all over her.
He said to her, “Breezy, would you like to ask Jesus to come into your life?” And she said, “Yes!” She prayed this prayer after my husband. It was amazing. She went around singing. Oh, the next few days, she’d be making up songs and singing about Jesus in her life. It was so real and amazing! And she is still walking with Jesus today. Oh, I just love it when Breezy’s in the prayer meeting! Because in our prayer meetings, we don’t just have adults. We have the children. She’s only 13, but my, prays a long, powerful prayer just like any adult.
Just as I close, and at this point maybe I should share about some of our own children, just some of their testimonies. Let me see. Because I have these written down. The reason I have them written down is because when I was writing, it was quite a number of years ago, the book Gatekeepers of the Home, How to Guard Your Home, which you can get off the Above Rubies store. Go to aboverubies.org, and you can pick it up there.
This is a wonderful manual on how to guard your home. I take it from Nehemiah 3, where Nehemiah was building up the 12 gates of Jerusalem. Each one has a name. Every one has a powerful meaning. I relate them to the gates of our homes. But nothing in the Word of God is haphazard. Everything is perfect. Everything has meaning.
Nehemiah started at the Sheep Gate. That’s powerful. He started there. God orchestrated that he would start there, because what does the Sheep Gate speak of? The Sheep Gate is where they brought the sheep in through that gate, ready to be sacrificed. Every day there was the morning sacrifice, and the evening sacrifice of the lamb, all pointing to the Lamb of Calvary, who would one day die for our sins. The Sheep Gate speaks of the beautiful picture of salvation, and Christ, Who became the Lamb of God.
This is where we start in our homes, dear lovely ladies. We start at the Sheep Gate. We start bringing our children to Jesus, to the Lamb of God, who is able to save them.
When I was talking and writing about the Sheep Gate, I thought, “Wow! I’d better check out on my own children!”
So, I called each one of them and said, “Tell me, can you remember when you actually came to know Jesus?” It was so great to hear from them.
Pearl was five years old.
Let’s see, Evangeline was four years old. Evangeline is 57 years of age today. I’m going to read you her testimony that she shared with me. This was at four years of age. She’s 57 today, and still walking closely with the Lord from that moment of this happening at four years of age. So, I’ll share her little testimony. Maybe a couple of the others in our next session next week.
She said, “God saved me at four years of age. Even today, it is still the most vivid and powerful experience of my life. I was lying in bed. I still remember the orange bedspread cover. My mother came into my room and said, “Stephen has just asked Jesus to come into his life! Would you like to, also?”
At that moment, the world stopped, and the fight between the powers of darkness and heaven began. My whole body was shaking. With all my heart, I wanted to ask Jesus into my life. But the pull from Satan was so strong! “No, no, no!” The voice of Satan pulled at my heart. The struggle was powerful! Eventually I said, “Yes. Yes!” With all my heart!
I followed my mother in prayer, asking Jesus to come into my life. At that moment I knew God. I experienced the reality of God. He came into my life and filled me. He opened my mind to Him. I was saved for life. No turning back. I have known His powerful presence in my life ever since. Instantly I felt peace. Instantly I was not afraid of the big owl outside my room, or of anything. I’ve never been afraid of anything from that day.”
And so, there it was, four years of age! But now today, she is still walking with the Lord as closely as ever. Oh, I believe God wants to get the hearts of our children at a young age. Let’s pray.
“Dear Father, we thank You with all our hearts for the way You teach us, the way You show us the way. Lord God, we pray that You will save us from drifting, drifting, Lord God, into the ways of this current culture. Oh, God, help us to be those who stand strong and hold fast that which we have, that no man takes our crown. We ask it in Jesus’ Name. Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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