FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 82 - TABLE TIPS

Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello to you today. I pray you are being blessed and enjoying the presence of the Lord in your home.

Last week we were talking about the table and the Table of Showbread in the Bible. On the table of showbread there was showbread. That is why it was called the Table of Showbread. Actually, the table and the bread were considered as one. They were like twins. You couldn’t have one without the other.

It’s interesting that when the priest would come in to change the bread each week, because every new week they baked 12 new loaves of bread for the table because God said it was to be continually upon the table. It was also called the continual table.

When they came in, they would have one set of priests who would take the bread and the vessels off the table. As they were taking it off the table, they would have another set of priests who would immediately put more on the table so that there absolutely not a second when bread wasn’t upon the table.

So the bread and the table were synonymous just like mother and home are synonymous. A home without a mother is not really a home and how can a mother really be a mother without a home? They’re really synonymous terms.

A home is meant to have a mother just as the table is a place where we’re meant to eat. Did you get that point, ladies? The table and the bread, or the table and the food, are synonymous.

In other words, the Bible reveals to us that we are meant to eat at the table. We don’t eat wherever we would like.

It’s time for mealtime and everyone is hungry. Maybe the mother calls, “Come and get it” and everyone comes and gets what he or she want and eats where they want.

No, that is not how we eat meals. We are meant to eat meals around the table.

Now we have tables that we sit at today. Back in Bible days or Middle Eastern times they had low tables. They still sat at those tables, but they sort of reclined in a sitting position and maybe sat on the floor because the table was low.

There is one Hebrew word for table where it was a mat on the ground. The people or the family would come and sit around the mat and the food would be in the middle.

See, the whole concept of the table is to gather people around. No matter what the situation, if it’s some beautiful high-class table or some humble table or a little low table or even a mat or tablecloth on the ground, it’s a table. It’s a gathering place.

We need to get that concept so that in our homes we don’t get away from the habit of sitting at the table.

I’m sure that is normal in your home but sadly there are many homes today that are forgetting the table because their lives are so busy. They’re often out here or there and getting fast food. Even when they’re home people are just getting what they want to eat and eating wherever they’d like.

We’ve forgotten the true concept of the table.

Now remember last week I told you that it’s not only a Biblical principle but also a heavenly principle. God has a table in His kingdom.

Well, I would think He has many, many, many tables because in the tabernacle there was one table of showbread. But when Solomon built the temple, he built ten tables of showbread because it was a much larger place (2 Chronicles 4:8). So I can’t imagine how many tables God has in His Kingdom!

If it’s a heavenly thing, shouldn’t it bring a little bit of Heaven to our home?

Perhaps you don’t feel like that. Sometimes you think, “Help, you should come to my place, it’s not very heavenly around here. It’s just one big shambles.”

Well ladies, today I would like to give you a few little practical tips. They are from the Bible and also from my experience. It’s amazing how much practical stuff the Bible has. I’m forever amazed at how God shows us about everything in His Word. It’s amazing!

SET THE TABLE

The first tip I want to give you is to set your table. I believe it is important to set your table and not just to throw some silverware on the table and some plates with the food and yell, “Come and get it.”

No; let’s set the table.

What does it say in Proverbs 9:1, 2? “Wisdom has built her house . . . she has also set her table.”

I believe it is very important to set a table because it draws people to it. We should make our table a place where our family, even our little children, want to come, because it draws them.

I think it is lovely to put a tablecloth on a table. I myself don’t like to sit down to a naked table to eat my meal.

In the daytime sometimes I have a naked table, although I usually have some kind of centerpiece cloth on my table. But it’s still half-naked during the day.

But when we come together to eat our meals, I love to put a tablecloth on. It’s mealtime so we’re not going to have the table just as it’s been. We’re going to make it special because now we’re going to eat together.

I remember a friend staying with me. I was preparing the meal and I said, “Oh, would you like to set the table?”

I found the tablecloth for her. She said, “Oh goodness, do you still use a tablecloth? I’ve never used one, and all of the friends I know, none of us use tablecloths.”

I said to her, “Wow, do you mean to say you sit down at naked tables?”

But anyway, you may think, “Well I’ve got little ones and that’s just too much work.”

We go through different seasons in our lives. But even when we do have little ones it’s possible to buy a beautiful tablecloth and put clear plastic over it. All you have to do is wipe down the plastic. You’d have to wipe down your table anyway, but you’ve still got something pretty underneath. So that’s something you can do.

As your children get older you find there comes a time in your life when you actually don’t have clear plastic over it any longer.

I find that even though I use a tablecloth every night I don’t wash my tablecloth every time. It’s amazing. It doesn’t seem to need it. We just shake it out. It lasts for two to three or sometimes even four meals before it really needs to be washed.

But I think that’s a beautiful thing. It adds a touch to your table.

Then you set your table correctly.

Now of course, dear mothers, you don’t have to be doing all this yourself because you’re training your children as they grow.

Even little ones, even four and five-year-olds, can set the table. It’s a job they just love to do. Oh they just love to choose the tablecloth.

When you show them how to set the table, they learn.

I’ve had young people come to my home and they don’t even know where the knives and forks go. I can’t believe it! But you can teach your children from little where you put the knife and fork and they are learning as they go.

You can encourage them to make something special for the table like a centerpiece. Maybe they can go outside and find some leaves or maybe find some wildflowers. They can find something that they can put in the center of the table or maybe they can draw a little card or something. It just gives them a little incentive and releases their creativity.

It may not be perfect, but who cares about that? It’s made special. There’s thought into it.

When everybody comes to the table there’s a little talking piece: “Oh, what is this you’ve put in? Oh, it looks lovely!”

They feel so special. You’ll find that as you give each of your children turns, they’ll become very competitive as to who is doing the best table.

It’s something your children can do. They learn how to do it correctly. They learn how to make a beautiful, creative table that draws people to it.

Then you put your food out on the table that you’ve been preparing (just put it in some dishes). Have it looking lovely, looking set, so it’s something that draws people to it.

I believe the table should draw our family to it. Oh, this is so lovely! They just want to come and sit around.

You may have heard me say this before, but I remember watching a movie years and years ago. When I watched it, it was black and white. It was rather slow moving and subtitled. Today you can get it in color and it’s in English and it was called, Babette’s Feast.

It’s the amazing story of this religious community and how they became so disgruntled with one another. But this woman behind the scenes made this glorious, glorious meal. Nobody knew that she was once the cook of a great restaurant in France. There was someone at this meal who had been to her restaurant. He got up and said, “This reminds me of a woman I know. A woman who knew how to make every meal into a love affair.”

I caught those lines. I loved those lines. I have taken them ever since. Sometimes I have it happen more than others. I love to have it as my vision for each table, to make every meal a love affair.

That’s a beautiful thing to do, mothers, because your meal table is so important. Your family is going to gather around. Don’t you want to make it a love affair? Don’t you want to make another memory? Don’t you want to make it something special for them instead of something that’s so boring and ordinary?

MAKE IT ORDERLY

Let’s go on to the next point which is very similar and that is making it orderly.

There is a Scripture, once again about the Table of Showbread. It is Exodus 40:4 (and 23). It says: “And thou shalt bring in the table [that’s the Table of Showbread], and set in order the things that are to be set in order upon it . . ..”

God had told Moses about the bread, about the vessels, about the utensils, about the frankincense. He told them about everything that had to be on the table, and it had to be on the table in a certain way, in order.

In verse 23 it says: “And he set the bread in order upon it before the Lord [in the presence of the Lord]; as the Lord had commanded Moses.”

“As we set an orderly table, our children will become more orderly. They follow the pattern of the table.”

God loves things orderly. He doesn’t want us to have a table that’s all haphazard with everything just thrown on it. No, God loves order. I believe, ladies, that as we set an orderly table and we set a lovely table that our children will become more orderly. The children will follow the pattern of the table.

If we don’t put much emphasis on the table and we just throw out the food and say, “Here, come and get it” and they can gather where they want and just grab a plate and put the food on, it’s not set out for each specific person. When it’s just like that it’s easy for them to give in to negative behavior. But when they see an orderly table, somehow it makes them want to be more orderly.

You see, practical things help the atmosphere. How we create the atmosphere will determine a lot of how our children will behave.

I want you to try out these little secrets, dear mothers, and see what will happen at your table.

SIT AT THE TABLE

Another little practical thing is about sitting at the table. Did you know that the Bible has lots and lots to say about sitting at the table?

I’m not going to give you all the Scriptures, but I have just done a study and I have written pages of Scriptures about sitting at the table and the Hebrew and the Greek words that mean “to sit” at the table.

Even some of the words for dwelling, the dwelling of the home, some of those Hebrew words also include the meaning of the word “sitting” or “sitting in the home.”

It’s a very Biblical thing.

We could perhaps first go to the Old Testament. In 1 Samuel 20 it tells the story of David and Jonathan and how David is currently living in King Saul’s palace.

But Saul is getting very jealous of David. You will remember how David went out to battle and how when the men would come home from battle all the women came out and they would sing the victory songs. They would sing, “Saul has slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands” (1 Samuel 18:7).

I don’t think Saul liked that very much. He also had a problem of an evil spirit coming upon him and getting mad and angry. David would play his harp to soothe him but even then, sometimes he would throw his javelin at him.

David was feeling hated and he was thinking, “This time I’ve got out of this palace.”

He and Jonathan were out on the fields making plans of how they were going to do it.

David said, “I’m going to go back home for three days. Tonight you’ll go to the table and my place will be empty. Let me know what’s going to happen.”

So anyway we go to verse five where David says: “ . . . I should not fail to sit at the table with the king . . ..”

Because everybody in the palace who were allowed to be at the king’s table had to be there when it was mealtime. They had to be there, and they had to be in their seat.

We go down to verses 24 and 25: “ . . . And when the new moon came, the king sat down to eat food. The king sat on his seat, as at other times, on the seat by the wall. Jonathan sat opposite^, and Abner sat by Saul's side, but David's place was empty.”

Do you notice there, ladies, that the Bible takes time to tell us this? Did the Bible really have to tell us where they were all sitting at the table? I mean, what are we going to get out of that?

Well, I’ll tell you what we’re going to get out of it, ladies: it’s important for each of our children to have a seat at the table.

God wants us to sit down for our meals and He wants every ne there. Now David’s place was empty, and Saul was going to notice. He didn’t say anything the first night because he thought, “Oh well, maybe he’s had to go urgently somewhere.”

But the next night when his seat was empty, wow. He was angry! He got to Jonathan to find out what was happening. Of course the end of the story is how Jonathan realized his father was so angry with David that David knew it was time to flee the palace and he left.

But getting back to the seating. That’s amazing. The Bible talks about where each one sat. It says that the king sat as he did every other time. They all sat at their assigned seating. That’s interesting. Maybe it’s a good idea to have assigned seating.

I had a mother come to me recently and she said, “Nancy, my children fight and squabble at the table about where they’re going to sit.”

I said, “Do you just let them sit anywhere?”

“Yes,” she said, “but they’re always fighting. One wants to sit by Daddy, and one wants to sit here.”

I said, “Try assigned seating because it’s Biblical.”

When we have a certain place for each child they know where they’re going to sit so they don’t have to fight or argue over it. Of course you could change it. Maybe every few months you could change it so that some have a chance to sit by Daddy or by Mummy or by someone.

But you keep that assigned seating for a certain time because it’s another way of having order. People know where they are coming, and they sit at their seat with no bickering or fighting.

There we go. Isn’t it amazing? God has a Biblical answer for every little thing we face in our home.

Let’s go over to the New Testament and we’ll look at that wonderful story where Jesus fed the five thousand men plus women and children. Remember, He had been speaking to them for so long and they were tired and weary and HUNGRY.

Jesus said, “We can’t turn them away when they’re hungry like this” because Jesus is the Bread. He wants to fill us with sustenance from Himself, spiritually. He wants to fill us physically, too. He feeds us with good things.

He said, “What have we got?” They had five loaves and two fishes.

Before Jesus did anything and before He broke the bread and began to pass out the food, we notice something. We notice it in every Gospel. Can I read you a little verse out of each Gospel on this story?

In Matthew 14:19 it says: “And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass . . ..”

Then in Mark 6:39-20 it says that Jesus “ . . .commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks . . ..”

He was commanding His disciples to make (notice the two words here: command and make all, not just a few, but all of them sit down.

“No food until everyone is seated!”

Jesus did not give out any food until they were all sitting down. No food until they were all seated. That’s a good rule for your house.

Then in Luke 9:14: “ . . .And he said to his disciples, Make them sit down . . ..”

In John 6:10-11 (this is in every Gospel): “And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.  And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down . . ..”

Do you notice how Jesus refused to give out any food until everyone was seated?

There is something about sitting down for a meal. You see, when we come to the table, ladies, it is more than just for food.

This is another thing that is synonymous: food and fellowship. They go together.

We sit down not only to eat, but to fellowship. You’re sitting at the table; you’re not sitting down at the TV or wherever you’d like. It’s sitting together at the table.

Jesus got the people on that day to sit down in companies. They were there so they could fellowship together in companies. That’s all part of eating.

So we benefit physically. Scientific studies have been done that when you walk around and work, doing what you have to do while you’re eating, you really don’t even remember what you’ve eaten. You’re not physically getting the nutrients that you should get from your food and which you would get if you were sitting down and taking time to eat and talk with others.

That’s the way food is meant to be eaten.

Now lovely, darling mothers, especially with little ones, you have to watch that. It’s easy for you to be feeding the children and you’re standing up and eating a bit as you’re doing it.

You think, “Oh well, I haven’t got time to eat now.”

No, work it out somehow that you can also sit down with the family and sit down with your children. Maybe you’re sitting down and you’re feeding them at the same time, feeding the baby in the highchair beside you, or the baby that is sitting in your lap, or maybe even just nursing the little baby while you eat.

Maybe you have a baby that is a little older now and knows how to chew or is learning to eat. You may be feeding the little one from your plate. Perhaps they’re in the highchair and you can just give them some finger foods while you’re eating.

But try and sit down with the family. It’s establishing a habit, even with your little ones. It’s amazing what you can do as you plan to make it happen.

So sitting down is very important.

As you think about the assigned seating, I do hope your husband sits at the head of the table.

I think that’s a beautiful thing because we don’t have to get our children around and give them a lesson saying, “Oh, now Daddy is the head of our home.” No, we just teach them that by the way we live, by our lifestyle. Daddy comes to the table, he sits at the head, and he gives thanks for the meal. He is leading the family. The children see him there at the head of the table.

Maybe you sit at the other head of the table or maybe you sit by your husband.

I think it is great for your husband to sit at the head of the table. There is just something very special about it. I think it causes a man to rise up into who he is.

I remember once when we were leaving Australia. All of our furniture was ready for the junk heap. We got rid of it all. When you’re leaving, not just a state, but a country, you have to get rid of so much.

But I didn’t know what to do with our beautiful table because my father had bought it for us. It was a beautiful table made with wood from New Guinea. It could fit twelve or fourteen people around it. It was beautiful.

We gave it to Val and Bill. Val is the head of Above Rubies in Australia and looks after it down there. At that time her husband was not a Christian, but he has now come to the Lord. They had a little round table but when they sat down around our big table and Bill sat at the head of the table, she said it was amazing. Without any prompting from her or her saying anything, he gave thanks for the meal. It was as though something came upon him as he was there at the head of that table.

I remember a time when I was having a meal with a friend on the way out of New Zealand. We fly out of Auckland and so I went there for a meal on the way out. This woman cooked the most beautiful meal. She’s a great cook.

It was time to come to the meal. Her husband came to the table and the girls came. They just sat anywhere, the husband sat at the side of the table ,and it seemed to me so sad because there was something missing. The meal was beautiful, but the husband wasn’t there at the head of the table. In fact, when he had eaten his meal he just left. When the girls had eaten their meal, they all just went, and I was left there sitting with my friend.

It was so sad because they are missing so much. Those girls missed out on seeing their father at the head of the table. They missed out on their father leading them in Bible reading at the end of the mealtime. It was just a bit of food and then that’s it—gone!

The meal table is far more than that.

Another thing about sitting, too, is that I don’t think that we can expect really little ones to sit up straight at the table.

Of course when they are able to, then we are going to train them to, but when they are still little wee toddlers, maybe they could be there for a little while and then they will come and sit on our knee. Maybe one will be on Daddy’s knee and perhaps you have the baby.

Many of you have a bigger family with all different ages, with teens and middling ones and little ones. Actually it becomes so much easier then, doesn’t it? An older child can hold a little one, especially as you get to do family devotions.

Maybe they can have a little time of training and learn to sit up and eat their food. Then it comes time for Bible reading and they are getting a bit fidgety. An older child can take one on their lap and cuddle them and hold them. Maybe Daddy or Mummy can take another one and you just rock and cuddle them as the Bible is being read. They are in a place where they can receive it.

You’ll have wisdom about that as you’re training your children to sit at the table.

NO IPHONES AT THE TABLE

Another thing about the table (and this is something we would have never had to talk about years ago) but suddenly now we have to talk about it. And that’s iPhones at the table.

Oh precious mothers, I hope that you don’t allow iPhones at your table. They are rude. They are an intrusion. They say, “I’m not really interested in anyone around this table, thank you.”

You see ladies, we’ve got to realize that the table is not just food for our bodies. The table is food for our soul and food for our spirit. It is where we feed the whole man and it is a place where we gather our family to communicate, to dialogue, and to talk to one another. It is where we talk about things together. It is where we discuss things. It is a place where we talk to one another. It is where we cement our convictions and hone our ideas and learn new things.

We can’t do that if there are people with iPhones. Oh goodness me! Help! That’s not a gathering together at the table.

If our children are so addicted that they can’t let their iPhone go while they’re at the table, then they have got a problem, and you’ll have to deal with it.

I know some of your children may not have iPhones yet but it seems there is coming a time where most children get them these days and as they do you’ve got to teach them how to use them just as we do ourselves.

Sadly, there are some fathers and mothers that use them at the table. You better get out of that habit, too, because we are teaching our children. We have to learn how to use iPhones so that they are our tools and we’re not their victims.

That takes self-control. But isn’t that one of the things that the older mothers are to teach the younger mothers? We are to teach the young mothers to have self-control, to be sober.

That meaning of sober is “to gird up the mind and to have self-control.” We as mothers have got to learn to have self-control with our iPhones so that we use them as a tool. They can be used as a tool or you can become a victim to social media on them.

We especially have to teach our teens and our children and put boundaries on them when it comes to time on their iPhones. Whatever boundaries you put will be different in every family. But at least, oh precious mothers, don’t ever allow them at the table! It is an intrusion on your family life, and your togetherness, and your heart and soul communication.

You will have to watch with your beady eyes. We have lots of people come to our table and I have sometimes noticed children, and even teens, with their eyes cast down and they’re looking actually past their food plate.

I think, “Oh my! They are looking at their iPhone. How did they get that to the table?”

So you do have to watch.

 A good idea is to maybe have a basket where you can say, “Okay, drop all iPhones in here. Come children!”

Make sure it’s far enough away so they don’t hear dings and beeps, so they’re not tempted to run and get it.

Isn’t it amazing? People are total victims. They are victims today to dings and beeps. Can you believe that? Dings and beeps and they run to them!

Goodness me, we must learn self-control.

In fact, iPhones are a good, wonderful, and amazing way to learn self-control, aren’t they?

DIRECT THE CONVERSATION

Here are a few other things that are a good idea when you all come to the table. Direct the conversation.

Ladies, if you just let it go however it’s going to go, guess what? It’s going to go nowhere. It will get to shallowness and nothingness.

You have got to direct it.

I have found that it’s just as important for me to think about what we’re going to talk about at the table as it is for what I will prepare for the meal.

You can go to my webpage where you can pick up a list that I have put together that is about conversations for mealtimes. It is somewhere on the family meal table subject. If I can’t think of something new, then I can go to my list.

But I will bring a question or a subject for discussion. It may be political, biblical, geographical, or whatever. It may be an interesting question. “Okay, children, what about this? Let’s talk about this.”

Sometimes we will go around and have a question where each one has to go around and answer such as, “What is something new you have learned today?”

Direct the conversation so that you can have a positive time at your table.

And, of course, don’t leave the table, lovely ladies, until you have fed your children completely. The table is to feed their body, soul, and spirit. You feed their bodies. You feed their souls as you dialogue together.

But the most important is their spirit. You’ve got to feed their spirit. Don’t leave until you open the Word of God and your husband reads from the Word of God.

In our home we use The Daily Light on the Daily Path because it’s just Scripture and it has it for every morning and every evening of the year so it’s always there waiting for you. It’s a great blessing to do that.

Back in Holland in the early days they used to call the Bible reading “Finishing up the meal.” Isn’t that great? I had never heard that until I was in Holland one time and this lady told me.

I thought, “How amazing! They always finished the meal with the Bible.” That’s how they finish it up. They fed their spirits. Then your children are being completely fed: spirit, soul and body. Isn’t that good?

Don’t grow big, physical children with starving spirits. There must be so many children whose spirits are starving and famished because their spirits are not fed with the Word of God.

PLACE THE BIBLE BY YOUR HUSBAND’S PLATE

Just two little tips as we close: When we first began to do this, as my children were growing, my husband would sometimes forget. I mean, he didn’t want to forget. But you know men, they have a one-track mind and if they are thinking about something else, they forget about reading the Bible.

So what I would do was, I would bring the Bible, or The Daily Light and I would put it by his plate. I would do that as the meal was coming to a close. I would put it by his plate so he would subconsciously put out his hand, pick it up, and read, because he wanted to do it, but maybe he would forget and that was a little reminder.

WAIT TO CLEAR THE TABLE

Another thing is that we don’t, in our home, scrape the plates and pick up the plates and take them to the counter to have a lovely clean table to have our Bible reading.

No. I have found, ladies, that if we do that and everybody starts scraping and cleaning and starts walking over to the counter and clearing all of the plates, do you know what happens? Oh goodness me, I can’t get them back again!

One runs to the toilet, one runs here, and I can’t get them back.

So, I don’t let them go and we have our Bible reading as we end the meal, and do you know what? We’ve never noticed the plates on the table. Never noticed.

But at least we keep the beautiful atmosphere of the meal.

Time is up. I hope these were a blessing to you.

“Dear Father, we thank You for Your precious Word and how You teach us so much. Oh, we thank You. Thank You for showing us the way.

“I pray that You will give every precious mother such a vision for her table that this coming year will be a year where the table becomes such a focal point in their homes of gathering the family around.

“Lord, give them such beautiful, precious ,and wonderful times around the table and precious times of sharing together, and most of all, wonderful times in the reading of Your Word and praying together.

“Oh Father, bless their homes, bless their tables I pray in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.”

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 81 - GOD’S PERSONAL LOVE TO HIS PEOPLE

Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies! Well tonight is New Year’s Eve, so HAPPY NEW YEAR to you and your family.

I pray that it is a blessed New Year. In saying that, of course, none of us know what the new year holds, and I guess we’ll all face challenges this year. But praise the Lord we have God with us as we face these challenges. Isn’t that such a wonderful, wonderful blessing?

And we have His Word. His Word is our sustenance and it’s our comfort and our guide. It’s everything we need, isn’t it?

I hope you had a blessed Christmas or Hanukkah or just resting and enjoying each other as a family.

I must tell you about another of our celebrations we love to do around Christmas or New Year.

We have a BOOK PARTY. It’s a couple’s book party.

With loads of grandchildren coming along (and even while we were raising our children) there is always lots of noise. Many of them are adults now and it’s another different season.

But in this time when they were all little boys and girls I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a lovely evening with just the couples?” So I asked all our sons and daughters and their spouses and said, “Let’s get together for a couple’s evening and we’ll have a book party.”

None of us want extra gifts that are just junk in our homes, but we all love books. And so we started this quite a number of years ago and we’ve continued it. It’s such a wonderful time.

In fact, as I’m sharing this, we haven’t even had our party yet for the New Year. We now have three different book parties because, of course, everything keeps growing.

Our granddaughters who are in their teens and twenties have their own book party. They’re all book lovers and they’ve already had theirs. We’re yet to have ours and it will be an amazing time.

We also have one for the young couples, too, because now we’ve got so many of them.

So what do we do? We come together for a lovely meal. We each bring a dish and enjoy fellowship together.

Then we have all of our books. We wrap our books, put them in the middle and we play the white elephant game, but we use books instead. We are rather strict about it because we don’t allow anybody to bring any boring book or even any self-help book.

I mean there are lots of good books, wonderful books, but we must try and bring books that people will fight for, books that they really want. If it’s just a good book but it’s just ordinary and no one’s going to fight for it . . . and instead they’re just going to go to the pile and look for another one . . . that’s totally boring.

Have you been to white elephant games where nobody fights over anything? They all just politely go over to the pile of presents and pick out another one. Then the next one goes and picks out another one and the game just ends.

Well we want to have a bit of fun together so we try and bring books that everybody will want to fight over. We usually end up doing that and people are just fighting, fighting, fighting one to the other to get the book.

Oh goodness me, sometimes they’re even really fighting (all in fun of course!)! Everything is in fun.

We just have a great night together. It’s just so fun. We do it every year. That’s just another thing that we do.

Now we are getting into the New Year and it will soon be back to work again.

I was thinking, “What will I talk to you about today?”

I thought that I would talk a little more about the table because I am sure at this season you have been spending much time around the table as a family, gathering with extended family and grandparents, having festive occasions together.

The table is such a blessed place, but I don’t believe we should keep it only for festive occasions.

I think the table is perhaps the most important piece of furniture in our homes. We should make it a very preeminent place, not just for festive occasions but also for every day of the year. Don’t you think so?

The very first mention of table in the Bible is called the Table of Shewbread. We can read about that in Exodus chapter 25. From verse 23 onwards you’ll read about the Table of Shewbread.

Now what on earth is the Table of Shewbread? It was one of the pieces of furniture in the Holy Place in the tabernacle in the wilderness. It was actually the very first piece of furniture that God told Moses to put in the Holy Place.

He had first talked to Moses about the Holy of Holies and how that in the Holy of Holies he was to place the Ark of the Covenant.

But now in the Holy Place, the very first piece of furniture is the Table of Shewbread. It is the first piece. Now everything in the Word of God has significance. There’s not one word that is lost or out of place. It is all anointed.

Therefore when God puts this at the first, we should take notice.

And so He told them how they were to make this Table of Shewbread. It had many different names as we read about it in other places in the Bible.

It was firstly called “The Table of Showbread.”

It was also called “The Pure Table.”

“The Continual Table.”

“The Golden Table.”

It was called ”The Table of His Presence.”

It was also called “The Table of Faces.”

That’s perhaps the most correct to the Hebrew, which is, when it’s talking about the table its shulchan ha paniym. When its talking about the bread on the table, the showbread, it’s

lechem ha paniym. Lechem is “bread” and “faces” is paniym.

“Bread of faces”— what does that mean?

The bread upon the table pointed to Christ. Everything in the tabernacle pointed to Christ. When Jesus came to this earth He said, “I am the Bread of life.”

He is our life, our sustenance, our everything. As we look to Christ and as we look into His Word, which the bread on the table portrayed, we find more and more of Him. Christ does not have only one face, but many faces and many attributes. There is so much in Him and we will never ever fathom all that is in Him.

Colossians 2:3 says that in Him “ . . . are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

They are all in Him. He does give us some of them, but we will never know it all because He is God. We will never know all of Him.

I love that Scripture in Job 26:14. It says: “Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him?”

Another translation (ESV) says: “Behold, these are but the outskirts of His ways; how small a whisper do we hear of Him!”

NET: “Indeed, these are but the outer fringes of his ways! How faint is the whisper we hear of him!”

That is so true. Even though we have the Bible, God’s living Word, filled with His wisdom, knowledge and His ways for us, they are just a little of the outskirts of His ways. Even though He speaks to us through His Word and He speaks to us through His Holy Spirit Who indwells in us, it’s just a little whisper of Who He is.

We can continue to press in to feed and know more of Him. That’s why it’s called “The Bread of Faces,” lechem ha paniym.

It was called  “The Golden Table” because it was made of acacia wood, which was just a very common wood speaking of Christ’s earthly ministry and how He became a man for us. But it was covered with pure gold and of course that speaks of the divinity of Christ.

It actually speaks to us of our tables, too, because it comes right back to our tables in our homes.

As we sit around our tables with our families, I’m sure you will confess, as I have had to confess, especially while raising our children, that often our table was very, very earthy.

Oh my, children aren’t perfect. Children play up at the table. They grumble, they argue, they fight, and try to get up and down from the table.

The table is such a training ground for our children, isn’t it? Don’t despair, lovely ladies, if everything is not perfect. Just keep on training and don’t give up because sitting around a table is a habit that we must make as a very important thing in our families.

Although it can be so earthy, God wants to come and cover all our earthiness with His divinity because this table is covered with gold speaking of the divinity of Christ. Mother, He wants to come to your table with His presence and with His divinity. He wants to come and cover all the goings on at your table.

Especially as you begin the meal, invite Him to come to your table. He will come and you will find that even though it is made of acacia wood He will come and cover it with His gold.

It is called the “Pure Table.” It is also called an “Altar” in Malachi so that is seven different names for the Table of Showbread.

There is another layer of truth here because on the table there were twelve loaves of bread. Of course you will realize that those twelve loaves of bread represented the twelve tribes of Israel.

Not only did the bread represent the faces of Christ and everything that is in Him, but the bread also represented the faces of His chosen people.

He wanted them in His presence and as He looked upon the bread, He saw all their faces, every one of them. Every one of them different, every one of them unique, all there, represented in His presence.

Every loaf was exactly the same measurement, which is interesting. Even the little tribe of Benjamin had the same measurement as the bigger tribes. Even outcast Rueben had the same measurement as the royal Judah and so on. But they were all there, equally presented, before the Lord.

I love this Scripture, Deuteronomy 11:12. It is one of my favorites. I think of this Scripture when I think of how God wanted the faces of His people before Him in His presence. This is now talking about the land that God was bringing them into and it says:  ^“A land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.”

Isn’t that beautiful?

I believe that is a promise we can take for our homes. What a beautiful promise as you begin this New Year, mothers. That would be a beautiful promise that you could type out or write out in big letters and pin it up in your kitchen.

Tell the family, “Let’s make this our promise for the year.”

Of course there are always conditions to promises because the very next verse says: “And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the  Lord  your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, that I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil.” And He continues on with all the blessings.

This promise is how God’s eye is upon our home from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Of course it’s conditional on our seeking Him, our loving Him, and our obeying His commandments. But as we do this, we can claim that glorious promise. Isn’t it beautiful? His eyes are continually upon us.

That makes me think of another beautiful promise in Isaiah 49:16 where it says: “Your walls are continually before the Lord.”

When it says in the King James translation “before the Lord” it actually means “in the presence of the Lord.” So dear mother, this is not something insignificant, nor are you left on your own, but God is with you.

Concerning your walls, the walls of your home, where you are in your home watching over your children He says, “Your walls, mother, are continually before Me. They are continually in My presence.” He sees everything that is happening. He knows what is going on.

You can lift your heart and eyes up to Him and know that He is with you.

When you face challenges, when the children are sending you crazy, when they are bouncing off the walls, just look to Him.

Don’t start screaming and yelling; just lift your eyes to Him. Take that moment and say, “Thank You Lord. I thank You that You are here. Thank You that you’re watching over my walls.”

As you do that, you’ll find you’ll have wisdom. You will know what to do. You’ll have anointing to go and deal with the situation.

What a beautiful promise.

Not only did God want the bread upon the table to represent His people but oh, He did something else! I think this is just so amazing!

You go over to Exodus 28. This chapter is a whole chapter about the priest’s clothing and what God wanted them to wear. That is back in the Old Testament but now in the New Covenant the Word of God says that we are kings and priests unto our God. We are priests. Every born-again believer is a priest.

Let’s just look a little bit at the priest’s clothing. We won’t go into it all because we would be going for weeks; but I will read you the very beginning of the chapter.

Exodus 28:1: “And take thou unto thee Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him, from among the children of Israel, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office . . ..”

Verse 2:  ^“And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for GLORY and for BEAUTY.”

Isn’t that interesting? God loves beauty. He wanted the priest’s clothing to be for glory and for beauty.

That’s a lovely thing to think about when we are clothing ourselves. God wants us to clothe ourselves beautifully, holy, and in a way that will glorify Him.

Let’s go on. We will go down to verse nine. God told them to make an ephod and then on the ephod it says: “ And thou shalt take two onyx stones . . ..”

We know that today onyx stones are not that beautiful, but I think they are different than what we know today. I think these were glorious stones. “ . . . And grave on them the names of the children of Israel. Six of their names on one stone, and the other six names of the rest on the other stone, according to their birth.”

Isn’t that interesting?

God is interested in every detail. Nothing is haphazard about God and He wants the names, starting with the oldest down to the youngest, all in order. They were to be engraved on these beautiful stones.

Verse 11: “With the work of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a signet, shalt thou engrave the two stones with the names of the children of Israel: thou shalt make them to be set in ouches of gold.”

They were to be in little sockets, each stone in the socket of gold.

Of course every time we read of the gold, it is speaking of God Himself, the divinity of God.

Each name was to be put in gold. They were to be put in this socket of gold, speaking of God Himself. He wanted them right in Him. Oh, it is so beautiful.

Verse 12: “And thou shalt put the two stones upon the shoulders of the ephod for stones of memorial unto the children of Israel: and Aaron shall bear their names before the Lord upon his two shoulders for a memorial.”

In other words, it’s a remembrance before the Lord.

So when Aaron went into the Holy Place every day and the Holy of Holies once a year, he had on his shoulders all the names of the children of Israel, each tribe engraved in a beautiful socket of pure gold.

The shoulders in the Bible speak of carrying burdens. God wanted Aaron to carry that burden on his shoulders, the burden of God’s people.

This is a type, ladies, a type for us today. We are priests and God wants us as husbands and wives to take our children into His presence on our shoulders because the shoulders are where we bear a weight. It’s where we carry a burden.

I believe that we have the responsibility to carry the weight and the burden of prayer upon our shoulders before the Lord (in the presence of the Lord), to take them into His presence in prayer, to remind the Lord of them.

Do you pray for your children? Oh I know you do! But do you pray with your husband for your children? That’s the big question. I believe that we should pray as husbands and wives for our children.

What does the Bible say? “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them . . ..”

This is a powerful, powerful Scripture and promise for married couples.

When I was married, over 56 years ago, I remember taking this verse into our marriage thinking, “My, this is incredible. I now can work this Scripture out in reality because there’s two of us who can agree and go into the presence of the Lord together, agreeing.”

What power there is in that! Of course the greatest thing that we should pray for, firstly, as married couples, is for our children. Because, dear mothers, if we’re not praying for them, can I ask you, who will be praying for them?

Maybe you have godly grandparents praying for them but really, who else really loves them and has the burden on our hearts like we do?

Perhaps if you’re not praying with your husband you might like to talk to him. Now, don’t tell him that this is what you must do because when you tell your husband what to do, he usually won’t do it.

The best idea is just to talk to him and share with him and say, “Darling, I’ve been thinking how much our children need our prayers. I’ve been concerned about this child and I feel that I need you to help me pray for him. “Do you think that we can maybe make a time each day when we could bring our children before the Lord and just bring their names before Him?”

Do you know that in this little passage I read to you about the names on the shoulders, the word “names” is mentioned five times in that little passage? The names. Yes, God wants the names brought before Him.

Sometimes when Colin and I are praying for our children, we love to have time to really pray and pray about the things that we really want to pray about for their lives. Then there are other times where we really don’t have time because I think we have more to pray for than you do because we have 48 grandchildren and now, we have 15 great-grandchildren and more coming on. So there are many, many in our family and we like to bring every name before the Lord.

Sometimes we only have time to bring their names before the Lord. So if we don’t have time to pray specific things, which is wonderful, we will just bring the names.

Even if you can bring the names before Him, that is so important.

And that wasn’t enough. Not only were their faces represented on the table, not only did he have them engraved on the beautiful stones and sockets of gold on his shoulders, but there is more yet!

Let’s go to verse 15: “And thou shalt make the breastplate . . ..”

God told him to make a breastplate and it was also going to be beautiful of gold, blue, purple, scarlet and fine twined linen. On this breastplate there were to be twelve stones again, representing the twelve tribes of Israel.

They were to set them in settings of stones, even of four rows of stones. Every stone was a different gleaming, glorious, sparkling jewel.

Verse 21: “And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names . . ..”

Do you notice how God wants the names? Are you getting this? Those names, the names you chose for your children, you didn’t just haphazardly choose them. Those names have meaning. As you bring those names before the Lord, it is beautiful to pray over them the meaning of their names, too.

The names were to be on the breastplate and where did the breastplate go? It went over Aaron’s heart.

Now let’s read verse 29: “And Aaron shall bear the names [there we get it again, the names!] of the children of Israel in the breastplate of judgment upon his heart . . ..”

We had the shoulders, but now the names are also on his heart.

Continuing with verse 29 through verse 30: “ . . .When he goeth in unto the holy place, for a memorial [to remind the Lord in His presence] before the  Lord continually. And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron's heart, when he goeth in [to the presence of the Lord] before the  Lord: and Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart [in the presence of the Lord] before the  Lord  continually.”

I am in awe of how much we, His people, mean to Him. His people of Israel were represented on the table with the bread. They were represented on the shoulders of the high priest and upon his heart. Oh, how much God loves His people. And how much He loves us.

Then, as we love our children, we will take this and we will bring the names of our children into His presence, on our shoulders and on our hearts.

God is so amazing. Do you notice how He didn’t just say, “Okay, Aaron. Now you need to take the names of the children of Israel on your shoulders and I want you to have them on your heart, figuratively.”

No, God showed Him something tangible. God loves doing tangible things. He got the names on beautiful, glorious jewels and He had them over His heart.

Now, we can’t really get beautiful jewels but if you’re a creative person you may like to think of something very creative that can have the name of each one of your children. It could be a special thing for each of your children that you can bring before the Lord when you come to pray for them, a tangible thing.

Now I must confess, here I am telling you to do that and I’ve never really done anything terribly creative.

I am one of those people who is always typing and always writing and so I always have a pen in my hand or am at the computer typing. So all I have ever really done is written out the names of each one of our children.

Many times as I am praying, I lay that list of names upon my heart. Even though we are going to say each name, I just put them on my heart. If I haven’t got the paper with me, I will lay my hand on my heart. I will at least do something tangible.

There is something about doing something. Even as I just lay my hand on my heart it becomes more meaningful and more powerful as I pray for my children.

You can do that, too, but you may think of something more creative than I have and that would be so great. (I’d love you to tell me about it – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

But isn’t that so beautiful?

It goes to even more layers. The bread pointed to Christ. It also then came down to point to His people. Then we learn from it ourselves for our lives today because the table is very important to God and you will notice that when we look at other Scriptures.

Here is one, Psalm 128:3. I am sure you know this Scripture off by heart. It talks about the woman in the home.

“Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house, Your children like olive plants all around your table” (NKJV).

That’s the picture God gives of a family that is blessed of the Lord. They are all sitting around the table. They have their meals together at the table. They gather for mealtime.

They don’t come and just grab some food, go to their room, or sit where they’d like. They don’t sit in front of the TV with a TV tray. No, that’s not what the Bible portrays!

The picture God gives is of a family sitting around the TABLE.

Oh yes, tables are very Biblical. But ladies, they actually go far beyond the Bible. Do you know where they actually originate? I wonder if you know.

In case you don’t, I will tell you.

Tables originated in Heaven. God had a table in His Kingdom before we ever had tables on earth.

In fact the Table of Showbread was a type of God’s table in His Kingdom.  The whole of the Tabernacle was a type of the Heavenly sanctuary that was not only there at that time but still is now. It’s eternal.

When Jesus was here on earth He often talked to His disciples about His table. He would say, “I want you to come and sit down at My table in My Kingdom.”

Another time He said: “They shall come from the North and the South and the East and the West and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob at My table in My Kingdom” (Matthew 8:11 and Luke 13:29).

You see, tables are not only Biblical they are Heavenly. And so when we gather around the table, mothers, we are bringing a little bit of Heaven to our homes.

Don’t despise your table. It is very important in the eyes of God. Remember, it was the first piece of furniture that God told Moses to make for the Holy Place. It’s the first piece and perhaps the most important piece of furniture in our homes.

Well we’ll talk more about it next week. Let’s pray.

“Dear Father, we thank You for Your Word which shows us Your heart and shows us Your ways. We pray that You will teach us more and more of Your wonderful ways.

“We pray that we will constantly look to You and feed in Your Word that we will learn more and more of You and understand more and more of Your attributes and Your ways. Help us, Lord, to see how You see the table and help us to make it a very special place in our homes.

“I pray for every mother and every family as we now begin another New Year. I pray for Your blessing upon them. I pray that Your eye will be upon them from the beginning of this year right up until the end. I ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 80 - CHRISTMAS AND HANUKKAH

Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello everyone! Well tonight is Christmas Eve, so I am sure you are having the busiest day. Perhaps you won’t even get to listen to this today. Maybe you will listen to it after Christmas.

I thought today we would talk about Christmas celebrations and other celebrations. I know that some of you love to celebrate Christmas and some of you don’t celebrate Christmas. Some of you celebrate Hanukkah.

Let me tell you what we do. As you know, we are one of these celebrating families, so we love to celebrate everything! So we celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah. We do them both because they are both so very special.

So first of all, about Christmas. We don’t like to celebrate all the tinsel and the commercialism and the Santa Clause of Christmas. That’s not what Christmas is about at all.

Christmas is about Jesus.

Now of course we all know that Jesus wasn’t born at this time of the year. It just doesn’t even fit in with Scripture. It talks about when the angels came to herald the birth of Jesus that the shepherds were out in their field in the night. So it wasn’t wintertime.

Back then the shepherds would keep their sheep on the fields from about April to October. In the winter months they brought them in because it was too cold and sometimes even snows in Jerusalem. So we know it wasn’t at that time.

It also was the time when Augustus Caesar sent out the decree for everyone to come and register and they wouldn’t do that in winter when it wasn’t safe for everyone to travel and it wasn’t safe.

From Scripture and from the time frame of when the angel came to Zacharias and told him that his wife would have a baby and we work out the times, most scholars believe that Jesus would have been born around the end of September or early October during the time of the Feast of Tabernacles.

But of course He obviously would have been conceived at this Christmas time.

This is the time when we remember His immaculate and miraculous conception when God sent His Son into the world into a womb of a virgin and she conceived by the power and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.

It was an immaculate and miraculous event and something I believe we can celebrate. It is so awe-inspiring.

I think that this miraculous conception of Jesus, how He Who was God came to this earth as a seed in Mary’s womb (I mean, it is just too much for us to hardly even think about) at that moment He was God in eternity and then He was God in the womb of Mary.

He was not, like some people say today that a baby in the womb is just a clump of cells. He was the Son of God even at that moment—at the moment of conception.

This truth reveals again that a baby is a living person the moment they are conceived. It is an incredible thing.

We love to celebrate His conception and His birth, and we just love the carols.

I have sitting beside me today my wonderful husband. Colin and I have been married for over 56 years. I just thought I’d get him on our podcast today. I’m talking away here, but soon I’m going to ask him a few things of how he feels about Christmas.

But we love to sing the carols. You love to sing the carols, don’t you darling?

Colin Campbell: Yes, I do, I certainly do.

NC: It used to be that all the shops would have the Christmas carols playing, but they don’t so much now unfortunately.

But even though we know it wasn’t the time when He was born, we can still celebrate it. I mean we need to celebrate the birth of Jesus because it is such an amazing thing.

 I love that Scripture, John 1:14: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us . . ..” He came and dwelt. The word is actually the word “tabernacle.” He “tabernacled amongst us.”

The word means: “To tent, to encamp, to reside as God did in the tabernacle of old.” It’s a symbol of protection and communion. Just as God tabernacled in the Holy of Holies back there in the wilderness, now Jesus came. He came temporarily because He belonged to the eternal realm. He tabernacled for a while and He came in the tent of flesh.

I love some other translations. The Young’s Translation says: “And the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us . . ..” Isn’t that beautiful? That is the correct, original word in the original Greek.

“. . . And we beheld his glory, glory as of an only begotten of a father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 Young’s Translation).

It’s interesting that He would have been born at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles which is when the Israelites remembered how they tabernacled in the wilderness and how even God tabernacled with them.

I love that Scripture back in 1 Chronicles 17 when David wanted to build a permanent temple for God.

God came to him and said to David in verses 4, 5: “ . . .For I have not dwelt in an house since the day that I brought up Israel unto this day; but have gone from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another.”

God was prepared to dwell in this temporary tent and it’s interesting that Jesus came at that time of the Feast of Tabernacles remembering that.

Many believe that the true, ultimate fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles will be maybe when Jesus will come at that time. But we don’t know the day or the hour, but some speculate that this will be the time when He will come and completely fulfill that feast.

Of course then we will be with Him forever.

He uses the same word tabernacle again in Revelation 21:3. The apostle John was on the island of Patmos. He was looking up into the heavens and he saw the new Jerusalem coming down.

Verse three says: “And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell [that’s the same word tabernacle again where it says Jesus came and dwelt with us] with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.”

Isn’t that wonderful? We’re remembering when Jesus, the Son of God, the Lord of glory, came to tabernacle with us.

He is Immanuel, Christ with us. He made Himself one of us.

Oh goodness, we surely need to celebrate that. We don’t need to celebrate all the tinsel and the commercialism, but we can celebrate His birth. Isn’t that so beautiful?

Anyway, I’ve got to ask my husband: what does Christmas mean to you, darling?

CC: Yes, well, it means a lot to me, actually. It was just a few years ago that I got a revelation about this time. I was just driving down the road and I got to thinking about it. It came across to me quite strongly and I believe it was from the Lord.

I began to understand the great lesson of humility that there is in this Christmas season. Of course we have the tinsel as my dear wife was talking about and the commercialism of Christmas and it puts people off and that’s fair enough.

But it was profound to me that from God’s perspective it’s a time of a tremendous lesson that He gave to mankind of how humble God is.

He displayed it through the provision of His Son, the Son of God who is the King of kings and Lord of lords. God, who is so high and is the highest of all, should humble Himself and come to this earth in the way that He came. It is an incredible lesson of humility.

I think that man needed that lesson. I believe the entire world needed to see that God indeed believes in humility. It speaks in the Scriptures about how He lifts up the humble and puts down the proud.

Just thinking about Joseph and Mary, how poor and humble they were. Mary said in her song, The Magnificat, when she prophesied in that, she said: “He hath scattered the proud” and “He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaid.”

She was obviously a very humble woman, perhaps the humblest of all women. That’s the reason that God chose her to be the mother of the Savior of the world because of her incredible humility, as she said: “He has regarded the low estate.”

Then she spoke about how He has put down and rejected the prideful. Even amongst all the women of the world, the one who would bring forth the Christ was the humblest of all women of the world at that particular time.

I think God had planned it that way.

Of course Joseph himself was a poor man. He didn’t have a tremendous amount of money. Though I do believe in builders. I think builders are incredible people. I wish I could build like some of the builders that I know. But in Israel it was never regarded as a great career to be a carpenter.

But when Jesus said: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me to preach” and so on, the people said: “Is this not this Joseph the carpenter’s son?” They were kind of prideful about it and thought that there is no way that this could be the Christ; there was no way that the carpenter’s son could be the Savior of the world.

He was born, of course, in a very humble place, a place called Bethlehem, as we know. The Scriptures prophesied about that and talks about that.

In Matthew 2:5,6 says: “And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda [in other words, princes as far as cities are concerned]: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.”

That comes directly out of Micah 5:2 in the Old Testament. It says: “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands [of villages and cities] of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”

He was everlasting. He was there with God before the world was created and it says “from everlasting” so He was the Son of God. It’s just profound to me the fact that God particularly chose such a humble place; even the city itself was the humblest of all the towns of Israel.

NC: I love it, too. I think how amazing it was what the King of kings decided for His Son. If we, just from our human standpoint, would think that He would choose some very important man in the city, but no. When God chose Joseph, He chose him because he was a just man. He wasn’t a rich man, but he was a just man.

That is such an important part of parenting. God didn’t look for riches and for them to have everything. No, He just looked for humble hearts and for those who were walking in righteousness. These things are far more important than going after all these material things.

You know, getting back to our families, we don’t have to have everything. I was just talking to someone recently and this person was brought up in beautiful rich homes and had everything she ever wanted. She’s married now and she said to me, ”That’s not what I want for us. I just want to have love. I just want to have a marriage.”

Actually, she was looking at Colin and me and said, “I would just like to have a marriage like you.” Starting off her married life, she knew what was the most important. It’s so true.

I think, too, of how some people say, “Oh well, you think God would choose a home where there was a room for every child and there would be bedrooms for each one.”

But no, Jesus was later a part of a big family. Yes, a poor family, not a rich family, but a rich family in children and family life because there would have been at least seven in Jesus’ family.

There may have even been more because there was time in Scripture (Matthew 13:55, 56) where it talks about His brothers and it mentions the names of four brothers—including Jesus, that’s five sons. There were five sons in the family and His sisters. That’s plural. Now that means there was a minimum of two sisters so that would be seven. But there could have been five sisters like there were five sons. There could have been ten in the family or more, we don’t know.

But it was a big family, and this is what God wanted. He wanted His Son to be brought up in a loving family—the riches of family life not the riches of things.

Even when Jesus was older, He said: “The birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man does not have anywhere to lay His head.” Isn’t that true?

CC: It is true. I think that if we don’t celebrate Christmas we could miss out on this incredible lesson of humility. I know that probably a lot of people don’t think about that.

But when you think about giving gifts, it’s appropriate that we do give gifts to one another, but not to get taken up with that to the point where we miss the incredibleness of the greatest gift of all when Jesus came down to this earth.

God gave Him as a gift for our salvation, which is a gift. I think we need to realize that.

Once I was traveling in South East Asia in an Islamic country. It was in Malaysia. There in the middle of Kuala Lumpur, which is the capital of Malaysia, on Christmas Eve, the Islamic population permitted a nativity scene in the middle of that Islamic city.

Everything around was just Islam, Islam, Islam, but there in the middle of the capital city, right in the square, right in the middle of the city, was a wonderful, beautiful nativity scene. I thought, “How wonderful.” I prayed that God would speak to the people about that.

But where was Jesus born? It’s a very interesting thing.

We all know that He was born in a manger, but if we didn’t have a Christmas time, we probably wouldn’t be going over these beautiful things of Scripture. We probably wouldn’t be thinking about the manager. We wouldn’t be thinking about the humility of Christ if we didn’t have Christmas.

It says there was no room for Him in the inn. I think God planned it that way. I think God knew that before the world was ever created when He planned our salvation.

There was no room in the inn. That’s tremendous humility that God permitted that His Son would be born in such a poverty-type place.

I don’t necessarily think that God is against a beautiful home or a palace. He’s not necessarily against that but He does want us to be humble people.

Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 8:9: “ . . .though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor . . ..”

We need to remember that Christianity is couched in the whole atmosphere of being poor in spirit, poor in heart, and poor in attitude.

NC: I noticed, too, how it was the angels that didn’t come to the elite people of the city or the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They came to the shepherds who were considered the humblest people. They came to just these Bedouin shepherds out there on the fields with their sheep. Jesus came to them. It was to the humble people who were of no esteem for whom He put on this incredible, angelic display that filled the sky.

CC: I think that if I was God, that if I was King of kings and Lord of lords, and I lived in Heaven where the streets are paved with gold and the foundations of the city are made of amazing stones and the gates are made of pearls, I would have thought of something different for my only beloved Son.

I wouldn’t have been so humble about His birth. I would have wanted to have the biggest fanfare that Heaven could provide for earth to confirm that this was my Son.

But that’s not the way God thought. He wanted it to be very, very humble.

He was born in a manger. Who would have thought that God, the Son of God, God in the person of man would come to be born in a manger?

It was outside the inn and was a place where cattle or horses or whatever who were traveling through would come and eat.

It was such a tremendous thing. He was born in a manger and in my margin(of my bible) that says: “the trough.” It was a place where they fed the animals in a little trough. Obviously, they took out and cleaned out whatever was in there and put straw or hay and then that’s where she laid the baby— the Son of God. It’s just mind-boggling.

NC: I notice, too, that when it came time for the dedication of Jesus, they couldn’t afford a lamb, which was the usual to bring a lamb. Instead they had to bring just a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons, which was for the poorer people.

CC: That’s what it says. In Leviticus 12:8 it says: “And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons . . ..”

They brought the turtle doves or the pigeons. I’m not sure which one they brought because it doesn’t say in Scripture, but they obviously didn’t have the money to pay for a lamb. It’s really amazing.

The other thing is, did Jesus have His own house? It seems like He didn’t, although He would have been born to Mary and Joseph and I’m sure they lived in a house somewhere. But when it came to Himself, He didn’t have any earthly possessions of His own. He said: “ . . . The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.”

When somebody said: “I will follow You wherever You go” He reminded this scribe that He never had anything that He could call His own.

Who was invited to His birth? As my dear wife just said, it was not the elite of Israel. Where was the king at the time of His birth? Where were the high priests? Where were all of the people like that? They were not there. It was the humble shepherds God chose to be at the birth of His Son, humble shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night. That was not a career that people would do that seemed to be significant in Israel. It was probably the humblest of all careers.

Of course, wise men did come from the East, but they weren’t wise men from Israel. They were from the Eastern country.

NC: Getting back to the shepherds and the sheep, I just love this thought.

One time I was watching this little children’s movie about Christmas. It showed the shepherds with all their sheep going to the place to find Jesus. I thought that was amazing that when Jesus was born, He would have been surrounded, not only by the shepherds, but also by their sheep all around. Well, you know, it was a place for animals any way.

Shepherds would not leave their sheep on their own out in the fields for the wild animals to come. Shepherds looked after their sheep at night. Usually they would put them in a fold and a shepherd would lie at the gate of the fold to protect them. They never left their sheep unattended.

So isn’t that amazing? All the sheep would have followed them, and they would have been around Jesus at His birth. Of course He calls us His sheep, doesn’t He? We’re His lambs, we’re His sheep, we’re the sheep of His pasture and they were there at His birth, too.

CC: The angel came and spoke to the shepherds and said, “You go to Bethlehem and you will find the baby lying in a manger.”

While this angel was speaking, this is an interesting thing, it says: “Behold, there came a multitude of angels.” The whole sky would have been lighted up with angels singing “Glory to God.”

 I think the significance of such honor being given to humility and how God thinks so much more of humility than man could ever imagine. I think that we have to understand that God looks at the humble, He lifts up the humble, and puts down the proud.

Here were these angels now, telling them to go to Bethlehem and find a baby, the Son of God, in a manger and then all of a sudden all these angels burst out, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, and goodwill toward men.”

NC: Amen, so I’ve got to have time to tell you what else we do at Christmas, too. We love to think about the birth of Christ, but we also celebrate Hanukkah. Now I know some of you already do this but some of you may have not heard of Hanukkah so let me just tell you a little bit about that.

Actually, Hanukkah has already started because it started on the evening of Sunday the 22^nd. But you can still get in on it because we celebrate Hanukkah for eight days.

What is this Hanukkah business? It is a feast that is celebrated by the Jewish people, but it is a feast that Jesus also celebrated. We read in John 10 that Jesus went up to Jerusalem to enjoy and to take part in the Feast of Dedication.

Hanukkah has a few different names. It’s called “Hanukkah.” It’s also called “The Feast of Dedication.” That’s what Hanukkah really means. In the Hebrew the word chanukkah means: “to dedicate.” So Hanukkah means “dedication.”

Why is it called “The Feast of Dedication”? It is the story of the brave Maccabees. Have you ever heard of the Maccabees? It’s an amazing story! If you haven’t heard about them, I’m sure you can look up online and find out so much information. You can also go to the Apocrypha.

The Apocrypha, which is in quite a few Bibles, but it’s not part of the canon of Scripture. The books of the Apocrypha were not chosen to be part of the pure canon of Scripture, but they are very interesting to read, especially the books of the Maccabees.

They tell this amazing story of what happened at that time. Back in 167 B.C. Antiochus Epiphanes tried to completely extinguish the Jewish people. He was out to totally wipe them out.  Anyway, this family of Maccabees, just a family, they rose up in revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes. They began to war against him and gathered more to them.

God was with them in a mighty way. Eventually they were able to overtake him and claim the temple because Antiochus had already taken over the temple. It was in disarray. They say he had even dedicated a swine in the temple; it was just so sacrilegious.

You can read amazing stories about these brave, incredible Maccabees in the Books of Maccabees.

When they eventually got back the temple, of course, it was overgrown. There was were even shrubs growing in it. It was just totally wiped out. All the glorious things in the Holy Place—the Table of Showbread, the Altar of Incense, the Menorah, they were all just broken down.

God had said that the seven-branched-candlestick, the menorah, was to never go out. But of course it had been out for a long time. So when they had got the temple back, they wanted to dedicate it and they wanted to light the menorah again.

History and tradition say that they couldn’t find enough light to keep the menorah going. They could only find enough light for one day. Then they had to make the new anointing oil according to the Scriptures because this was holy anointing oil. It couldn’t be any old oil. They couldn’t just throw in some olive oil.  It had to be according to what God had prescribed.

While they were making that, history says that the light miraculously kept going for the eight days until they had enough to keep lighting it every morning and every evening.

So that was the miracle of Hanukkah. They rededicated the temple back to God.

That would have been an amazing dedication.

It’s also called “The Festival of Lights” because it was the relighting of the menorah.

The menorah in the Holy Place speaks of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, especially on the revelation of the Word of God because opposite the menorah was the Table of Showbread on which were the twelve loaves of bread.

This bread, “The Bread of His Presence,” or “The Bread of Faces,” as it was often called, pointed to Christ, to looking at Him and Who He is. It also spoke of Jesus as the Bread and the Word is the Bread, which is our life.

The menorah, the light shone down to bring revelation, so it’s also about the lighting.

Over this Hanukkah period we love to read the Scriptures about the light in the Word of God. I have listed out Scriptures for the eight days of Hanukkah. They are wonderful and I have them listed under headings for each day.

Day 1 is God is the Source of Light and the Scriptures about that.

Day 2 is Jesus is the Light of the World.

Day 3 is shine Jesus to the world.

Day 4 is the Word of God is our light.

Then it goes on for the eight days.

We read them for our morning and evening devotions during Hanukkah.

If you go to this link you can find these Scriptures and print them off to read with your family.

It’s just: https://tinyurl.com/hanukkahscriptures and if the link doesn’t work, you can just email me and I will send you the link. I also have a daily post for each of these days of Hanukkah. I know you will enjoy that.

What we also do during one of the days of Hanukkah, we usually choose which day is the best, and we will have a dedication meal because that’s what it’s all about.

Back in the time of the rededicating of the temple it was the literal temple that they were rededicating. But God no longer lives in the temple. I mean, they no longer have a temple in Israel. In A.D. 70 the temple was wiped out completely.

But now Christ comes to dwell in different temples. He comes to our temples. Our bodies are now the temples of the Holy Spirit. In fact, more than that! In 1 Corinthians chapter 6:19 is where it says that our bodies are actually the temples of the Holy Spirit. But that is actually not the right word. In the Greek the word is naos and it literally means “The Holy of Holies.”

It wasn’t just the tabernacle or just the temple. It was the Holy of Holies.

That Scripture is saying that you and I, we are now the Holy of Holies where God wants to come and live and dwell with His Shekinah Glory!

One of the translations of John 1:14 says: “The Word became a human being and lived with us, and we saw his Sh’khinah, the Sh’khinah of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.” Now He wants to come and dwell in our Holy of Holies with His Shekinah Glory.

But somehow with life we kind of get jaded and maybe we’re a bit like that temple that gets a bit overgrown with weeds and junk and everything’s broken down. It’s good to have a time where we can rededicate out temples to God. We can rededicate again and give our lives back to Him.

So we like to do that, each one of us personally around the table and then the father can dedicate our whole family to the Lord to renew our dedication to Him.

That’s something lovely you may like to do over this Hanukkah period.

So I just thought I’d tell you about how we love to celebrate the birth of Jesus and how we love to celebrate Hanukkah.

You can find more about—just  email me for the link if you can’t remember the name.

The Lord bless you today. Let’s pray, shall we?

NC: Darling, I think you should come and pray. Pray for all these wonderful mothers and families.

CC: Yes, let’s pray, shall we?

“We thank You, oh Lord God, for this tremendous display that You brought forth in the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“We thank You, Lord God, that when we honor You that we seek to learn and understand that message of humility and how You came in such a humble place, a little baby so innocent and so unable to defend itself, but subject, Lord, to the looking after by the mother and the father.

“We thank You Lord that You planned this whole Christianity to be based on this rock of humility. We give You praise, and we thank You, oh God.

“Bless all those that are celebrating Hanukkah as well and let us all be lights and rededicate our temples afresh to You just like they did back then. In Jesus name, amen.”

NC: Amen.

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 79 - NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT!

College, Vasectomies, and Vaccinations! Join in as Brittany Howell and I talk about these controversial subjects.

Nancy Campbell: Hello again, ladies. At the moment, Serene and Sam and three of their boys, and Pearl and Charlie, and Kendall and Meadow and their little boy are down in New Zealand and Australia. They are going back to their roots. This is where we were all born and bred. We actually come from New Zealand and then we lived for ten years in Australia. So this is the very first time they will have taken their husbands down to the bottom of the world to see where they lived. So it’s going to be such a precious time.

So we have some of the girls and precious little Remmy staying with us. Breezy just passed by so I called her to the podcast seat.

Breezy, can you hello to the ladies?

Breezy Allison: Hello!

NC: Breezy is ten years old and on Friday evening we had Breezy’s Ball. Every year we have Breezy’s Ball and it all started when she was four years of age. Breezy always loved to dance and loved to dress up like a princess and be a princess and one day marry a prince.

Breezy: Yeah!

NC: [Laughing] So anyways, Serene said, “We’re going to have a ball for Breezy and I want everyone to dress up like princesses and all the men to dress up like princes or knights or men in armor or whatever. And it was just the most glorious night, because when we have a birthday party, even for a little child, we have a family party. So, it was so great, we made it a tradition. So now, we’ve just had Breezy’s ten-year-old ball.

But anyway, Breezy, why don’t you just tell the ladies your latest Bible memory verse. Can you say it?

Breezy: Yep, okay. John 15:7: “If ye abide in Me and My words abide in ye, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” John 15:7.

NC: That is so great. Great darling, you can pop downstairs now, and how are you getting on with your story?

Breezy: I finished it

NC: Oh you finished, good on you!

Well ladies, I’ve got Brittany with us again for this session. So I know we are going to have a great time. We don’t quite know what we are going to talk about yet, but I know its going to be great. Yes, we got on to talking about homeschooling in our last session. Then after the session, Brittany and I got to talking about college and how so many students and even their parents are getting into debt over this, and it’s really quite a negative on their life. Tell me what you were sharing with me, Brittany.

Brittany Howell: So many of my friends have debt. One of the moms that’s in my little group, she has a couple children and she is my age and her husband has over $100,000 in school debt that they have not been able to pay off. She told me it’s such a burden. Like it’s always there in the back of her mind, knowing that she has to pay it off.

NC: Yes, and is he fulfilling the degree that he got? That’s huge.

BH: No, he’s doing something different.

NC: Exactly, I know. You find that this happens over and over again. Young people go to college, and they go because, well that’s what you do, so off they go. And they end up with all this debt. And they get through college and they don’t even use their college degree. Most times they get into something different, so it has already been a waste of time.

And I think it’s something we do have to think about ladies. Some of you have got children, you know, maybe going to college, maybe some are getting ready to go, maybe some are just little ones and you’re thinking, how will we pay for it all? This is why a lot of parents limit their families. They stop having children because they think, we will not be able to afford to send more children to college. If we can get two through college that will be amazing! Really, it is a ploy of the enemy to stop the godly seed coming into the world. There are other ways.

Did you know, ladies, we don’t have to do everything status quo, just like everybody else does? There are always ways. Today we are so blessed with a whole computer age, that young people can do their college degrees online without even going to college and without spending so much money. That can be a wonderful idea.

There are some that do, definitely, need a college degree, especially men who are growing up and that is their bent where they are going, they’ll need a college degree. But there are many who don’t actually need a college degree. They just go to college because that is what you do. And they can get on with life and do amazing things. In fact, I think the statistics are that most of the millionaires and billionaires in our country, not one of them has been to college.

BH: True, most of them dropped out at high school is what I read.

NC: Yes, of our six biological children, I have to confess, not one has been to college and yet they are all doing things that people with college degrees haven’t gotten around to doing.

So, you know, our life is not dependent on a college degree, it’s dependent on the gift God has put within us. My father always used to say, “A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before kings.” That’s not just my father’s words, by the way, it’s a Scripture, in the Word of God. But He believed it, and he raised us on it, and it’s true. It was true for his own life, in the things that he did in his life. They brought him before kings. He had a number of opportunities where he spoke with the queen and so on. You know, this is what happens. Your gift makes room for you in this world.

BH: And God provides where you need to go as well, to step out and go into debt, He hasn’t given you that provision to be able to do that yet, He hasn’t provided the money. For my husband, when he decided he wanted to go to seminary, he bought and flipped a house and took the profit off of the house and that paid for his entire seminary so that when we got married we had no college debt, no anything, because he was committed to not going into debt over it and assumed if God wanted him to go to seminary, or anywhere else, He was going to have to provide the money for him to go. And that was his conviction.

NC: Wonderful testimony. Yes, it’s just a matter, I think, of thinking outside the box. Well, I should say there’s a better way of saying that. I think it’s just thinking Bible. Instead we think humanistically. What does society do? We just go along with what everybody else is doing.

And so, I think if you are in this time, this season, where you have children getting ready for college, think about these things before you send them off because that’s what you do. There are other ways. Maybe they could do their college degree online.

I know a family, and I’ve stayed with this family, and she has written a little book and you can order it, it’s on my Above Rubies webpage, www.aboverubies.org. It’s called “His BA was only 8K” and this is about her 16-year-old son who got his BA when he was only 16, never going to college. She homeschooled all her children.

Those who were needing college degrees have just continued to study and then they would go the college and just do the tests, and she learned how to do that. And that’s all they had to do. They didn’t have to put their vulnerable young people into these colleges, which one time, years ago, were great places for learning, but now they are breeding grounds for socialism. They are not the place to send our very young people.

So, they were still able to get their degrees and their young son got a BA at sixteen. Wow, when he had that on his resume, it just opened the world for him, doors everywhere. You see, there are other ways of doing things. I think it’s important to pray about it and I don’t believe God intends our children or us to get into debt over college.

BH: And it’s not just the debt, it’s the time lost, too. If you go for four years, you need to think about how many thousands of hours you are spending learning. Is that what you want to learn? Is it what God has called you to learn? It’s a time/cost analysis of what you’re not doing. You’re not able to be working as much to be saving up money to buy a house for your future wife to be more prepared. So for us it was a blessing when we came together in marriage, since both of us had no debt and we had a bunch of money saved up. There wasn’t so much pressure on us that so many young couples feel. Not only did we not have debt, but we were actually able to work and do things in the four years we would have gone to school to actually make money.

NC: Yes, that’s wonderful and I think this is what we need to put into the hearts of our young people as we’re raising them, that they are preparing for marriage. Now most young people today, it’s not even in their brain, they’re not even thinking about marriage. In fact, the statistics are for USA that the average age of a man marrying today is 29 years of age and for women it is 27.5 or something.

Just think of all those beautiful twenties, just gone. And those are the most wonderful years of childbearing, they are just lost. And what have they been doing? Just getting debt, and yes, studying many times, and sometimes they will purposefully use those, but many times they don’t even use those degrees.

So we have to give them purpose. “What are you going to do in life? God’s intention for you is to get married and raise a family.” That is God’s original intention. My, even in the Christian church today, young people don’t even know God’s original intention. Their parents haven’t even told them. Their pastors don’t even preach about it. My it’s time we got back to the Bible. We’ve gone out so far on a limb and we’ve got to just come back. But what you have to know dear mothers, is God is with you and He is for your children and He is working it all out. And you’re going to be surprised at what God will do. Amen?

And I’ve got another book about college. What is it Gosia? What is it called?

Gosia (Above Rubies Helper): Chucking College.

NC: That’s right,” Chucking College.” That’s another book you could get by checking Amazon. This is written by Melanie Ellison. She went off to college. She started off there and, oh my, she just didn’t find this was where she was meant to be. She saw what was going on and didn’t feel it was going to really help her life, so, she chucked it. Anyway, she didn’t chuck it and do nothing. No, she felt that she could accomplish more in life by establishing herself in business. I think that she has actually done about three different businesses that have all been very, very successful. So, that’s another book you could read as you’re thinking and praying about these things.

Okay, now another thing we got to talk about yesterday at our mother’s luncheon, we got talking about that V word. There are a couple of V words. I wonder which one we’ll talk about first. Let’s start on Vasectomy, that V word. Actually, you know, that’s just so common today, isn’t it? So many men are getting what they like to call, “get the snip, “and they like to think nothing of it.

And not even in the secular world, but in the Christian church, so many men just go along with society. Okay, we have two or three children. And I think men, are perhaps, you know, they are affected by society too. They are working out amongst men and all their mates have got the snip and all their mates have got a couple of children and they’re all struggling to think how they’ll put their children through college one day so we’ll just fix this, it’s easy, let’s just go and get the snip. But I believe there are repercussions and I think it is something we have to think very carefully about.

In fact, I believe myself, I’ve always felt that I don’t think we can do anything to our bodies to change the way that God created us, because God’s works are perfect. You know that Scripture, “All His works are perfect” and all His creation is glorious and perfect, and His highest creation was male and female.

Every single little tiny way He created our bodies is perfect and when we go into our bodies and seek to completely change the way it works, I don’t think we get away with it. What do you think?

BH: No, anytime we mess with God’s design there are going to be consequences for it—physically, emotionally, maritally, and spiritually, in all of the realms.

NC: Yes, I know and yet, you will find if you go onto the web, you could put in something like that, “Are there problems if you get a vasectomy? What are the repercussions?” and you’ll get all these articles coming up saying “No worries, mate.”

They don’t quite say it like that, but oh yes, you get these articles from doctors saying “Oh yes, you know, everything’s fine. We don’t have any problems, it’ll all be okay, you just go ahead.” But behind the scenes, that’s not actually true. Have you heard of any situations?

BH: Yes, it’s been surprising, actually, a couple years ago, I think someone had actually shared an article with me about the concerns of vasectomies and I had posted it or something and I started getting so many messages and so many moms reaching out and talking to me, because, I didn’t even know there were so many complications following vasectomies.

One of the bigger ones that’s just recently come out are autoimmune issues. Because when they do the vasectomy, God designed the man to produce sperm, the sperm can’t be stopped from production, they’re just rerouting it. So where does it end up after about a year and a half? In the bloodstream, and then your body begins attacking itself. I’ve even been finding this true even just in general life, if I come across men who have autoimmune issues and I’m able to ask, “Have you had a vasectomy?” it’s almost always, yes they have, and a year or two later these major symptoms start showing up.

NC: Absolutely, I know someone very personally who has struggled with autoimmune problems for years and I know it was from his vasectomy. In fact, in one of our retreats, a family retreat, Colin and I were speaking there, and this man, this husband, was in a wheelchair, and that was after his vasectomy. And he had been a great sportsman and so active and Colin just shared with him and said, “You know, you can get a reversal?” and he did. He got a reversal and he came out the wheelchair.

BH: That’s amazing. And I think the less common or the less known about side effects were what surprised me the most. In a couple of the Mom’s groups I’m in, many of them shared that after the vasectomy, their husband has such pain afterwards during lovemaking that it has been so hard for them to deal with that amount of pain and that no doctor warned them about that first and some of the moms were arguing saying, “It didn’t affect my husband, we’re great.”

And then one of the moms actually came back about a year or two later and said that her husband had just shared with her how much pain there has been but he hasn’t wanted to say it or share it because it’s a sensitive topic for men. They don’t want there to be any issues there and so many of them are in pain in that time with their wives and don’t admit it anymore. So I think it’s one other attack that Satan is using and bringing against couples and keeping them apart.

NC: Yes, absolutely. This is where, you know, the very first thing that God did when He brought the male and female together was, He said they’ll leave their father and mother and be joined and become one flesh. Now, everything that God has ordained, the enemy comes against. He seeks to distort it and to destroy it and so he will do anything to come against this one flesh experience because it’s God-ordained.

And even, you know, that incredible oneness, even flesh oneness, and the oneness of spirit and soul. Oneness is also revealing the oneness of the triune God, you know, the Holy Spirit, the Son, the Father, they are intertwined as one in total unity. We, as male and female, are revealing the image of God.

How does God reveal His image? He does it in flesh and blood, He does it through us. This is a revelation of the oneness of God and the enemy comes against it in so many areas and this is just another area. So these are things, dear wives and mothers, people just take them for granted today, even doctors and things you read on the internet, “Oh it’s all okay” but we have to think seriously because there’s too many incidents behind the scenes they don’t publish. And who would want it, I mean, I would be too scared to go ahead and think oh that could happen. That could be the end?

BH: Yes, permanent issues.

NC: Yes, and I’ve had a book in my library for years, actually it’s an old book, but you can still get it on the internet. The statistics are still the same, it was back in 1993 it was published by H. J. Roberts (Dr. Roberts), and it’s called “Is Vasectomy Worth the Risk?” and he brings out the statistics there that after a vasectomy, that the risk for cancer goes up 56%, but after a man has had a vasectomy for 22 years or longer that then his risk goes up 89% for prostrate cancer, which is almost 90%.

And, you know, we do see that in society, don’t we? We see so many men with prostrate problems today, who now have cancer. And of course there are other cancers, too, with those statistics. Where did I read that? Somewhere.

BH: And there’s marital tension many times that comes about when the husband and wife aren’t in agreement., I know moms have shared the most hurtful thing in their marriage has been when their husband has gotten one and they haven’t been in agreement on it.

NC: Yes, oh yes, that’s so hard, yes. We were, Colin and I, were asked to speak at a marriage seminar, quite a number of years ago, and when we arrived there, we met the pastor  and his wife, and they both looked yellow. Oh goodness me, they were yellow! And we found out it was because they were carrot juicing and they were juicing so many carrots that their skin had gone quite yellow. And the reason they were juicing was because he had prostrate cancer and he was seeking to do everything in his power to overcome it.

So anyway, that was fine, but I was speaking to the women on marriage and Colin was speaking to the men separately and he was talking about marriage, and then someone piped up with a question. This was towards the end of one of the sessions, and he said, “Well, I’ve got the feeling that you don’t agree with vasectomies and birth control and all that. Can you tell us what you think about that?

So Colin thought, well, I am here under the covering of this pastor so I will have to put it to him. So, he said to the pastor, “Would you be happy for me to talk about this subject?” and the pastor said, “Yes.” Then Colin talked for a while and the pastor got up and he said, “My congregation, I have not ever told you this before, but you all know that I have prostrate cancer.” And he said, “I know it was because I got a vasectomy.” And he was very aware that that was the source of it.

BH: And it’s sad that it’s not being talked about in churches. That great churches, that love the Lord, are completely leaving the topic of birth control out. I remember when me and my husband went to get married, one of the premarital questions that was asked, was like, “So which birth control are you guys going to use?”

NC: That’s usual isn’t it?

BH: It’s terrible that it’s not being talked about. And so vasectomies, I agree, are in the church, too, because there are no men of God that are really speaking out against it so a lot of men are either feeling pressure from their wives to do it because their wives are done, or pressure from others.

NC: Yes, yes. And even tubal litigations. The statistics are that most tubal litigations will eventually lead to a hysterectomy. So we can’t tamper with our bodies and get away with it. I remember way back in the beginning days, before I understood what I do today, and before I had the revelation of God’s heart for children, and, you know, we were saying, “Oh, well perhaps we’d better use something to stop having children.” And before we ever got to knowing God’s full revelation, I knew I could never use the pill. And it was becoming so common, and something inside me, although I didn’t know  at that time, well I was just coming into God’s wonderful understanding of the blessing of children, but I knew I couldn’t ever do that because it was going to tamper with the way God created me. And we know all the side effects that happen from that, but people just don’t seem to care. Don’t they understand the intricateness of their body? It’s perfect, and God made it, and it was made for a purpose.

BH: And I think that God’s grace is there, that there are vasectomy reversals, that not every decision, every mistake we have made, can we reverse and there’s always going to be consequence of it. But if you’ve had one done, or your husband has and you feel convicted, I would say, don’t let the cost of a reversal throw you off. Because I know they can be several thousand dollars but I’ve also heard amazing stories of couples who humbly went to God and repented, you know, and either did it out of ignorance or disobedience, whichever, and said, “God forgive us and give us the funds to be able to reverse this, to put my husband’s body back the way You designed” and God has miraculously provided for them each and every time. And so many couples have been able to get it reversed.

NC: Oh, Yes. And there are doctors who do it at a reduced rate. You can email me for that. I can give you the names of those doctors. And the testimony of so many mothers that even I know who’ve had reversal babies. I have a dear friend, she has, I think she may have five reversal babies. They started off and then got the snip, because they were just victims of society, but along the way God revealed to them His plan and oh, they just wanted to have more children.

Of course what happens too, often after a vasectomy or tubal, the couple begins to long for children again, especially the wife, the mother, because God created us this way, He created our womb to long for life. As it says in Proverbs chapter thirty, there are four things that never say, “It is enough” that are never satisfied, and one is the barren womb. It longs for life and a mother may feel kind of overwhelmed with her little two or three children all around her, “Oh, this is too much” and they do something permanent. But then, that womb begins to long for life again, but they can get it reversed.

But this couple that I know, they said, “We had friends at the same time, they all did the snip, we did it together.” She said, “Now I look at their lives, and their two children, they’ve grown up, and they are totally bored, they’ve got nothing. We have these children all around us, and now some of the older ones are getting married and grandchildren are coming on. We have a life! It’s just so amazing! And we’d have missed out on it if we hadn’t done that reversal, you know.”

Well, there’s another V and it’s a controversial one too. And that’s Vaccination. Did you vaccinate any of your children?

BH: Our adopted child is partially vaccinated as required by law, but no, not the others.

NC: So, what caused you to make that decision?

BH: For us, it honestly started with, we just wanted to know what was inside the vaccines. We started with that because we thought we are careful with what we put in our children’s bodies, you know, we cook from scratch, we don’t give them dyes, we don’t want all that stuff. So it was just natural to be like, okay, a doctor wants to put these inside them, let me just see what the ingredients are.

So I just started looking up the ingredients, and I was horrified to learn what was inside of them, probably the most concerning being aborted fetal cells, which I did not even know that when my oldest was getting his partial vaccines as he was being adopted. I did not even know that there were babies that were murdered and aborted and used in, I think 26 of the vaccines have the aborted baby’s DNA and proteins in them.

So, as someone who is pro-life who has adopted, who has worked with many abortive moms, who goes to the abortion mills regularly, that was horrifying, that I could stand up for life and take in children and foster children we’ve had several times, and stand up in front of an abortion mill, and turn around and at a doctor’s office inject some of a baby into my child, that alone was horrifying. So of course, you know, I began looking up that. How many hundreds and hundreds of babies were used in the process to develop the vaccines. We just kept looking at other ingredients, I mean many other, monkey, sheep, pork, blood, many other things that we are commanded against to not consume, you know it’s not wise for us either, they’re also in vaccines as well. So it started for us with just looking up the ingredients.

NC: Yes, and then, of course, we see what has happened to so many children through these, although, once again, if you go to the internet and you look up about vaccinations, you’ll see nothing, it’s all fine, there will be no problems. It just seems as though we’re dumbed down with all this information. And yet, then we hear the testimonies. In fact, the first testimony I ever got was when I was a young mum. I started off vaccinating my children because once again I was a victim, I can’t believe how I was a victim in those days. Oh goodness me! I’m nothing like a victim now. It’s true that we grow in knowledge and we grow in our convictions, don’t we?

And so, praise the Lord, they didn’t hardly vaccinate much back then, it was just a few basics, but anyway one day, I was just going down the road, with my children in the stroller. No, maybe my twins in the stroller, and my little boy walking beside me, and this lady was at her gate, and I stopped and got to talk, and she said, “Oh, lovely to see your children. I have a little girl who’s the same age as your little boy. Would you like to come in and see her?”

So I came in. I walked into the bedroom, and there was this little girl, lying on the bed, a vegetable. She couldn’t see, hear, talk, do anything. She was a complete vegetable, but beautiful. This mother said to me, “She was a perfect baby until she had her three-month shot, and that was that. When I saw that, before my very eyes, that finished it for me. I mean, before I even got into really learning and finding out all the information, that was it. I never, ever, vaccinated again. That was enough for me. But, of course, you know, there are so many testimonies, and of course you can find out also the true studies and so on. But they’re trying to vaccinate our children more and more aren’t they?

BH: They added new ones to the schedule. There are hundreds just being tested.

NC: And yet, that’s not all the diseases there are. If they wanted to protect us from all the diseases, we’d just be a total vaccinated person, wouldn’t we?

BH: There’s over two thousand active diseases in the US. For example, leprosy kills several hundred people a year. But you never hear about leprosy on the news, no one scares you about leprosy, because there’s no vaccine for it, so its not even out there, but there’s many, many active diseases.

NC: Yes, yes. And so I think a lot of mothers do it out of fear, don’t they?

BH: Fear from their doctors that will scare them and use all sorts of manipulated statistics to try to convince you that your child’s going to die if you don’t do this. Which the Bible says, obviously we’re not supposed to do anything out of fear. And then also the fear of man and “What will my family members think?”

Many moms have confessed that they’ve done it even though they knew they shouldn’t, or they’ve heard something in their conscience, you know, that mom voice saying “Don’t do it.” They did it anyway because of pressure from their mom, or their aunt, or their in-law.

I encourage them, you know, your doctor, your mom, your aunt, your in-laws, they will never answer to God for the decisions for your child. You are the only one that God has made the mom over this child, and you’re the only one who has the special knowledge and wisdom for this child, and you’re the only one who will stand before God for your choices, and this is a choice that you cant be ignorant in. It’s not a morally neutral choice, it’s not a gray issue of maybe this, maybe this.

This is big for the abortion industry, and I didn’t tell you this yesterday, Nancy, but in a moms group that I’m in, one of them was sharing how about a year and a half ago, her sister went into the OB with her ninth child to get tested. So she went in for her normal checkup, and the OB came to her and said, “I would like to give you a proposition.” And she was like, “Okay.”

And she said, “Would you consider having an abortion?” And the Mom was like, “No, like why would I do that?” And the OB was like, “Well I’m asking you to donate your child for scientific research because your child has a rare type of blood and we need more of this for vaccines, so I want to know if you would donate your child for medical research to do more vaccines.” And, in America, flat out asked for her child for vaccines!

Because I’ve heard many Christians argue before and say, “Oh, it was only one or two children used for vaccines and it was a cell line that was developed in the sixties.” That has been their argument, but that is not true at all. There are many babies being aborted on a regular basis to keep creating new cell lines to do testing on.

If you look up Stanley Plotkin, he’s the grandfather of vaccines, and he’s not anti-vaccine at all, but if you just Google it and watch any of his videos, he will testify how many hundreds of babies they went through to develop one vaccine and there’s over twenty six of our vaccines that have aborted baby DNA and protein in them.

NC: Yes, so these are things, you know, we have to think about, we have to be proactive mothers. Dear lovely mothers and wives, if I can just encourage you today, don’t become a victim.

Remember, the other week, I shared that scripture from Nehemiah where it says: “They have dominion over our bodies” (Nehemiah 9:37).  Oh my, what a terrible testimony. And this is what is beginning to happen even in our nation today, where we are meant to be the Land of the Free. We cannot give up our freedoms and our rights to decide what we will do with our children.

Don’t give up your rights. Don’t give up your freedoms. Whatever you decide to do, if you are a mother who decides to vaccinate your children, or if you are a mother who decides not to, you have to do it after study and research, and be proactive about all these things. These Vs, the vaccinations and the vasectomies, and so many issues that we are being faced with today, and we are being crowded in more and more with all these liberal and socialistic things which are all anti-family and anti-God’s original plan.

So let’s keep close to God, dear mothers, let’s keep in His Word, because the Word, just having the Word in you, is the antidote to deception. When you have the Word, somehow when you hear things, or even things in society, or even things everybody else is doing, you get that check in you. And when you feel that check, take notice of it, and don’t give in to becoming a victim.

We’re not victims, God has called us to freedom, and we’re slowly losing our freedoms in this country, but we’ve got to hang on to them, we’ve got to fight for them. Amen?

BH: Amen.

NC: So fight for your freedoms, amen.  Let me read you as we close, just a couple of quotes here. This quote says, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but not so popular.” Sometimes we have to go outside of the box, go against the grain, be looked upon as weird because we’re choosing truth. But we are going to be those who stand.

This is actually in this book, Is Vasectomy Worth the Risk? which you can order if you’re interested. And I read this prayer, it’s a Jewish prayer, you can’t imagine anyone praying it today, but this is what it says: “Blessed art Thou, O God, King of the world, Who formed man in wisdom and created in him various offices and tubes. Before Thy glorious throne it is revealed that if but one of these be opened or closed, it would be impossible to exist and endure in Thy presence. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, Who heals all flesh and works wondrously.”

What a prayer. I mean, remember how, if someone was not perfect, they were not allowed to come into the holy presence of God, and I think that’s taken from that. Okay, something is contaminated, it’s changed, it’s not like God created the perfect man. And so, you know, let’s just get back to God’s ways.

Time has gone again, so let’s pray.

“Father, we thank You for these times when we can talk together about issues that we all face, because these things are all around us in society. Help us to be those who seek You, who seek after Your Word. We know the little saying, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” and sometimes we just have a little bit of knowledge but help us to be those who really seek after Your knowledge. We thank You that we can find all our answers in You. In You are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

“Help us, Lord, to live in You, live in Your word, and to be strong. I pray for every wife and mother and daughter listening today, that You will strengthen them, strengthen them in their convictions. O God, give them grace to stand true to truth, and not become victimized. And Father I pray, that as they stand, You will fill them with Your grace and anointing. Because, Lord Jesus, You came to this earth and You revealed Yourself, You were full of grace and truth and we want to also live that way, we want to never compromise on truth but we want to be full of grace as we share. So we ask that You will give us this anointing and enabling, in the Name of Jesus, Amen.”

Transcribed by Stephanie Johnson

BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

IS VASECTOMY WORTH THE RISK?

A Physician’s Case Against Vasectomania

By Dr. H. J. Roberts

Go to Amazon.

HIS B.A. WAS ONLY $8K

Quick, Fun, College for Ages 12 – 99 Years

 By Kathy Cooksey

Go to Above Rubies Book Store

https://aboverubiesbookstore.mybigcommerce.com/his-b-a-was-only-8k-quick-fun-college-for-ages-12-to-99-years/

CHUCKING COLLEGE

By Melanie Ellison

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