PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 43 – How Can We Change The World? - Part 9
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
Episode 43: How Can we Change the World? Part 9
Rocky: Welcome to the podcast, FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy: Hello lovely ladies, lovely to be with you again today. Sorry, I don't have Serene with me today. I'm on my own. However, I still have a few more thoughts of what we were talking about in the last three sessions, about the preciousness of life and how, if we are going to be those who change the world, we have to be those who not only believe in life but we adamantly advocate for life.
I have quite a few more things that are on my heart. Remember, we talked about how abortion is murder, but there's even more, because we talked about how even contraception and sterilization stops life. In fact, I think that this maybe one of Satan's greatest accomplishments. Through contraception and sterilization, Satan, because he is the mastermind of getting rid of life, has been able to eliminate literally thousands and millions of lives of precious people who have never come into this world, who have been deprived of life, deprived of eternity, yet many were in God's heart. This is how he eliminates life more than every other way.
Of course, there is abortion, which is horrific, but that's a back-up plan. If life is conceived, we've got life, but we still have got to get rid of it because Satan comes to rob, kill, and destroy. He uses contraception, sterilization, and abortion. When we get to understand this, it gets a little personal, doesn't it? It gets a little challenging.
Maybe you're thinking, help, that's all very well, but does that mean to say that I have to let God be in control of my womb? Wow, that's huge. Well, have you heard that little saying? I've heard preachers say it many times: “If He is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all.” To tell you the truth, that is correct. If God is only Lord and master of just the things we want Him to be master of in our lives, but we keep back what we want to control, is He truly Lord? It's a big question, isn't it? Now, I'm not speaking to you as some holier than thou, “I've done it all correctly,” because I haven't. I think back with great regret.
The other night we had a beautiful family sitting around our table and they looked up at our family picture on the wall with our six children (that was before we adopted more children from Liberia). They said, “Oh, what a lovely picture.” I replied, “Yes. it is a lovely picture, but it also a sad picture because there are children missing from that picture.” That is true. I look at that picture, and I think of the children that are missing, even though there were six there at that time.
At that time of my life, I was a victim of society, a victim of our humanistic ways and thinking, and I didn't understand like I do now. When God revealed the truth to me, wow, it was such a revolutionary truth. When I understood God's heart for life, I had to repent. I don't think I have ever repented about anything so much as stopping children that God wanted to come into the world. I was on my knees for days repenting. Of course, I know that when we repent, God forgives, but I still have times of repenting because it is a huge thing.
We do pay the consequences for our actions, and I have missing today children that I knew I was meant to have, and that is a very sad thing to me. When we say No to children, we do deprive ourselves. In fact, we deprive quite a number of people. We not only deprive ourselves, because, is there any more wonderful gift that we can receive than a baby? This is a baby. This is precious.
There are people, even in-laws and out-laws, perhaps some of you will have faced this when you conceived, and you're having another baby and you're too scared to tell your parents or your parents-in-law because you know what they are thinking about babies and they are going to be not very happy about it and so negative. I know some couples who don't even tell them right till the end.
Sometimes mothers will call me, “Nancy, I'm expecting another baby, and we are actually so happy about it, but we are too scared to tell our parents.” I said, “Look, don't worry, because when this little baby arrives, they will love this baby.” It's so true. It's not that they don't love babies; it's that they have been propagandized in their brains by society which hates life. They are programmed to be against life, but when that little life is born, this is a bundle of life, a bundle of cuddles and smiles and joy and blessings and, of course, they love that baby. Sometimes you have to wait until the baby is born.
A baby is always a blessing even when you conceive, and you think this is not a good time. We are going through this, and we've got no money, and you think help, help, help. Yet a baby always fits into the family and into every situation. A baby always is a blessing. God's Word never lies; it is true that children are a blessing.
Not only do we deprive ourselves of this blessing, we deprive our other children. Children love brothers and sisters. The best thing they can ever receive in life is another brother or sister. I see, as my children have had babies, and as the new baby comes in to the family, the joy. Not just the joy of the parents, the joy of the whole family. I remember one time, it was one of Serene's babies that was born, and she was in one of our bedrooms at our home with the newborn baby. The baby was born there. All her children came in to see the baby, not only all her children but all the cousins. The room was filled with excitement and hilarious joy that there was a new baby in the family. Everyone was wanting to get close to see this baby and hold this baby, and some of the cousins missed out because there were so many that wanted to have a turn with this baby. They were so upset because this baby was the delight of not only the family but the whole extended family!
Babies bring such a blessing, and babies are a friend that you'll have for life. The more you grow older, the more you realize God's way is so beautiful and family is the most powerful thing on earth. Family ties are so powerful. As you get older, you have many friends throughout the years. Colin and I have had so many friends throughout the years, back in New Zealand, then when we lived in Australia, and now here in the States, and friends are so precious. We love friends.
There's nothing like family. When something happens in your life, it's family that gets together; it's family that bears the burden; its family that shares the joys. Colin and I have just been back to New Zealand to see some of my family and his family. They are getting older and some are in their eighties now and what joy to be with family. You see, the brothers and sisters that we have, they are family for life. It's something we have for life.
Colin is blessed to be one of nine siblings, so it's a lot to get around all of his siblings. Half of them live in New Zealand and half in Australia, so we didn't even get to the Australian ones this time.
What joy.
Sadly, I was only one of three children. My sister and I, Kate, who lives here not far from me now, often say, “Wow, we were deprived.” As we grew older, we went to different countries; the three of us were living in different countries for many years of our lives, and we didn't even get to enjoy one another. Sometimes, you need a lot of siblings to be able to enjoy them as you get older.
We also deprive our grandparents. Couples get to a stage where they are just longing for grandchildren. I have to admit there are some who don't seem to care and have raised their children into careers, and they just accept that lifestyle. There are others who are longing for grandchildren, and many of them are waiting and waiting. Sometimes, I meet older couples on our travels, and they are our age, and I'll say to them, “Do you have any grandchildren?” And some of them will say, “No, and we don't know when we are going to get them. Our children are in their careers, and they don't have time for children.” You see the longing and sadness in their eyes. Others will light up and say, “Yes, we've got two.” Those two grandchildren are the delight of their lives. They don't know if they will get anymore, so I guess they are just spoiled and spoiled and spoiled because they don't have many to pour out their love upon. Then sometimes I will reply, “Well, we've got 47 grandchildren so far, hoping for more.” They look at me as though I am from outer space, yet this is meant to be the glory of grandparents, their grandchildren. We are living in such deluded world, aren't we? It's opposite to how God intends.
Stopping children deprives grandparents.
It deprives society because every child that comes into the world, especially of godly parents and raised by godly parents, is going to grow up knowing the Lord. We trust that they will be born again and follow Jesus and they will go out into this world to shine with His love and His glory and bring His truth and His gospel to the world. The more children we raise to serve the Lord, the more impact we have upon society.
We deprive society. We deprive the world when we stop having children. In fact, we have deprived the United States of America because, at this time that we have, where it's neck and neck of those who are conservative and want righteous values and who stand for life and righteousness and those who are liberal and pro-abortion and pro homosexuality and everything that is against God's ways, and here we are, there's this neck and neck. It's not meant to be like that.
I think I shared with you that passage in Exodus one where the children of Israel were in Egypt and how they multiplied, and they grew “more and mightier” than the Egyptians. That's how God intends it to be, that His people will be more and mightier than the heathen. There's only one way they can become more and mightier than the heathen, and that is by multiplying, by embracing the children He wants for them.
The very first words that God ever spoke into the ears of man were: “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth,” but then He goes on to say: “Subdue and take dominion.” It is a progressive principle, a progressive, eternal law. The people who multiply will be people who become more and mightier, the people who will then take dominion. At the moment, God's people are not taking dominion. We have this fight on our hands. It should not be like that because God's precious people, many through ignorance, have held back the godly seed.
That passage in Malachi 2:14, it's a passage here in the last book of the Bible, and it's talking about divorce, how God hates divorce. Of course, He loves divorced people, but He hates the spirit of divorce because it affects children. It touches the children's lives. There's no child who has been a victim of divorce that has not been negatively affected in their lives. God doesn't intend this. In this passage where He's talking about it, and “What does God wants from your marriage?”
“I want a godly seed. I want godly offspring.” That word seed there is zerah. We talked about that in another session how that word is the same word that is used for sperm, the same word used for offspring, for people, little ones, middling ones, adults, and this is what God looks for from our marriage.
Who else do we deprive? We deprive society. We deprive the generations to come. This is huge, ladies, this is huge. We think, “Oh goodness me, I really don't have time to have another baby; I've got so much to do, and I've got all these plans. Actually, it's not a good time because, you know, we are just barely making it financially, so we will make sure we stop any babies coming.” We have no idea of what we are doing, of who we are depriving. We also deprive the generations to come because when we say No to one child, it's not one child, it's a dynasty.
Every child, well most children on the average, will grow up to marry and have children hopefully. There are some who don't marry, and some who maybe can't have children, but the general rule is that they will grow up, they will marry, they will have children. This is God's plan for the building of the generations, but when we say No, we stop not just one child but a whole dynasty. The next generation and the next generation and the next generation. We are only thinking of my little situation at the moment and my little problem that I don't think I can fit in another child, and we forget that we are depleting generations, and we are stopping the continuing of godly generations.
We deprive the church. Yes, we should be filling the churches with the godly seed. How wonderful to be in a church where there are lots of families and children and little ones coming on. It's how it’s meant to be.
We deprive eternity, yes, eternity. We think nothing of stopping a child, yet we deprive eternity. God wants to fill eternity. He loves to bring people into His promise of eternal life. My mind can never even fathom the glories of eternity. The Bible says that it will take the ages, and that word is a word that speaks of eternity, of its unending ages. It will take the ages and ages to come to understand the glories and the enormity of our salvation and even the glories of living in this eternal realm. We deprive our own children, who could be our own children, of enjoying this incredible blessing, more than living here in this life.
Lastly, we deprive God. As I was reading in Malachi, “What does He look for”? He says: “From your union, from your marriage union, I look for godly offspring.” I'm always amazed and challenged by that word. That word: “I look for godly offspring.” That word, godly, is the word Elohim. Now, I'm sure you are aware that that's one of the names of God. Elohim. What is God saying here? He's saying He wants children who are like Him, who will grow into His image, who will be born again and conformed to the image of His Son and who will go out into the world to reveal that image and that glory. That's God's ultimate plan.
We're not just having children or not having children because of what we decide. It's all God. We have them for God, for His plan, for His purposes, and we don't want to thwart or defeat His purposes in the world. It's a powerful thing, isn't it? You can imagine, as I began to understand these things, I did a lot of repenting.
Now, my husband, I can remember him saying, what a lot of rot. Can you believe that? He was a pastor too and still is a pastor today. Sadly, there are thousands and thousands of pastors who are deceived. Wonderful men of God, but they don't understand His truth and His heart on this matter. Anyway, of course, because my husband wants to know truth, he began to get into the Word, as I began to get into the Word, and we began to see, our eyes were opened to see what God said. As he got into the Word, God challenged him. He had to completely change his whole thinking. He had to repent and turn back to God's ways. I remember, about this time, he had an invitation to speak at a men's conference, and he said to me, “Well Nancy, I see that this is the truth of God's word, it's God's heart, but I can't speak about it because if do, I'll never get another invitation again.” He went off to this men's conference, and he wasn't going to speak about this subject, but he got home, and he said to me, “I opened my mouth, and I began to speak and that's all I spoke about.” My husband is one who always speaks about what's in his heart. He never holds anything back. The amazing thing was, he said, was that it was well received. Because the men saw from the Scripture, what could they say?
It was also from that time why I wrote the book, Be Fruitful and Multiply, and I was writing all that I saw in the Word, and that book is filled with Scriptures, the Word of God. Sadly, at the moment, it's out of print, and we are planning to reprint it. You can still get it by an audio version. You can go onto the website, aboverubies.org, put into the search, Be Fruitful and Multiply and up will come the audio version which is often better anyway. I know that most husbands don't like to read, and they'd rather listen, maybe as they are traveling on their way to work or home or whenever. You can listen to it as you're working around or going for a walk or something like that. It's wonderful to hear the Scriptures and what God says.
Even when you begin to hear about this, you think, how can I walk this? I don't feel emotionally prepared, and I don't know how we could do it financially. That's why it is important for us to know what God says. We have to know the Scriptures. We've got to get into the Scriptures. That's why I encourage people to listen to or if they have a copy of Be Fruitful and Multiply, and there's lots of other books out there as well.
What does Romans say? “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” I think it's difficult to walk in the truth of any scriptural truth in the Word of God. If we just hear somebody talk about it, that's not enough. We've got to go to the Scriptures and find out what God says. As the Scriptures become part of us, and they fill us up, you know what happens? Faith arises; faith grows, and as faith grows, we can walk in it. That's the only way you can walk in this truth, as faith builds up in your heart. The only way faith will build up is as you know the Scriptures. That's how it works.
Some of you may be thinking, “Well, I'm so overwhelmed now, how can I ever cope with another baby?” Well, that's another interesting thing. I love that Scripture in 1 Timothy 2:15 and it talks there about how women will be saved through childbearing. Do you remember that Scripture? Some people think, “Oh, that means I can be saved from having a painful child birth.” No, that's not what this Scripture is saying. Although, I do know some people who have had pain-free child births; I wasn't one of them. Although, I have to confess that all my births, although they were not pain-free and they were true labor, that's what the word really means, it's laboring, sometimes groaning labor, but they were all so glorious, perhaps some of the most beautiful experiences of my life. It's not saying that here.
Do you notice the word is childbearing? It is the picture of embracing motherhood and embracing the role of childbearing. The Bible says that it is in this, that we will be saved, the embracing of this lifestyle. The word there in the Greek, to be saved, is sozo. It's actually pronounced sodzo, although spelled S-O-Z-O. This word means more than saved.
This word is used a lot in the New Testament, usually translated saved, but the full meaning, and we must know the full meaning. It is important to know what something truly and fully means. This is what it means ladies. Listen for it because this is powerful. It means “to save, deliver, protect, heal, cure, preserve, keep safe, and make whole.” This word is often used in being saved. We think of Romans 10:13: “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Yes, we are saved from our sin, from the guilt of sin, the power of sin when we call upon the name of the Lord, but that Scripture also means more than just saved, it means the full meaning. We will be delivered, protected, healed, preserved, and made whole. This is the fullness of our salvation, ladies.
What does it say in Romans 10:9, 10? “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Yes, saved from your sin but delivered from the power of sin, preserved, and made whole, and healed. It's a full salvation. I remember one commentator when I was reading about the meaning of this glorious word, sozo, he said, “As I understood the full meaning, every time I come to a Scripture in the Bible where it is translated “save,” I will speak out the full meaning. I speak it out loud and I say all the words.” He will say, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, delivered, protected, healed, cured, preserved, kept safe, and made whole.” Wow. If you begin to speak that out loud every time you read those Scriptures, you'll get the fullness of your salvation.
The amazing thing is, ladies, do you notice that this very same word is used to describe what happens to us as women when we embrace childbearing? What does it say again? That women will be saved in childbearing. The New American Standard Bible says that women will be “preserved.”. There's that beautiful word. Isn't that lovely? Women will be preserved through the bearing of children, the lifestyle of bearing children. Preserved, wow, that's the Word of God.
Many women think, “If I keep having babies, poor me, my poor body, what will happen to me?” No, lovely ladies, God created your body for childbearing. Yes, your body is created to function in this way and as you embrace it, you will be preserved. Yes, way back, a number of magazines ago, I did an article about women being preserved in motherhood. This is issue 77. That's a long time ago, isn't it? I wonder if you still have one of these copies.
Arden, look. There's a picture of Arden and Bowen just came back from fishing. These were when Arden and Bowen were young boys, these are our grandchildren, and now they are both married. Bowen has a little baby, and Arden and Esther are now having a little baby. If you don't have this magazine, you can go to the website, aboverubies.org and you can go to Articles and Stories. Under Articles and Stories, ladies, I have so many subjects about family life, you can click on any subject you want and under it there will be loads of articles and testimonies relating to it. Then click on Motherhood and under that you will find “Preserved through motherhood.” I'd love you to read it because it gives so many scientific studies of how as women embrace childbearing and the more babies they bring to birth and the more babies they nurse at the breast, the less instances of ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer and so on . It's very powerful.
There's another one you can look up on the website and that's “Preservation Testimonies.” Testimonies of women of how they'd been going through medical and physical things and how childbirth completely preserved them and healed them. Anyway, time has gone again, ladies. I've still got so much more to share. Can I share with you more next session? Let's pray, shall we?
Dear Father,
We thank You so much for Your living, wonderful Word that reveals Your way to us. Lord God, we are living in this deceived age. I pray that You will help us all to live by, not what we hear in society, but by what You say. Help us to embrace with meekness Your Word, to embrace it with submission. Help us to get Your Word filling up our lives so then we can walk in faith.
Father, I pray that You will bless every precious mother. Some are struggling, Lord, with maybe opening themselves to have another baby. Lord God, You only want to bless us. Lord God, Your whole heart is for blessing, and Lord, Your Word says when You give us a child, You're blessing us. Lord, I pray that they will understand that this is Your blessing to them and to their body and to their family, to the world and for generations to come, and for eternity, and Lord God, they're walking in Your perfect will.
I pray that You will minster Your grace and Your tender love and mercy to them and show them that Your way is perfect, and it is for their blessing. In the name of Jesus. Amen.”
Check out:
PRESERVED THROUGH MOTHERHOOD
http://tinyurl.com/PreservedThroughMotherhood
PRESERVATION TESTIMONIES
http://bit.ly/PreservationTestimonies
BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY * AUDIO VERSION
http://tinyurl.com/BeFruitfulAudioUS