PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 53 – How Can We Change The World? - Part 19
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
Podcast 53 - How Can We Change the World- Part 19
Rocky: Welcome to the podcast, FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy: Hello ladies, we are gradually getting through all the different attitudes that God tells us about working in our homes. We are up to number 13, and there's two that go together here, lovingly and laboringly.
No. 13. WE ARE TO WORK LOVINGLY AND LABORINGLY
Now, they seem opposite, don't they? Let's look at some Scriptures.
Galatians 5:13: “By love, serve one another.” We see how these two words go together. If we love, we will serve. That's part of love. When we serve, if we do it with the right attitude, we are showing our love. Love and laboring are twins; they go together. I love looking out for twins in the Bible. There's lots of twins that go together; God couples them together.
1 Thessalonians 1:3: “Your love has meant hard work.” There we see these twins again together, love and hard work. Sometimes, you feel as though you're working so hard in your home and all it is, is work, work, work, serve, serve, serve, and often, you do the same thing you did yesterday, you have to do it again today. Everything gets in such a mess and clean, clean, clean again. Well, darling ladies, as you serve, as you work hard in your home, you're revealing your love to your family, to your children and even to God. He sees your hard work, and He sees it as love.
Don't do it with a grudging spirit. Do it with a joyful spirit, do it with a spirit that says, “I'm so blessed to serve,” and you will find that it will make all the difference.
Hebrews 6:10 says: “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love.” Notice that phrase, “labor of love.” Have you noticed before that they are coupled together? Labor and love, it goes together.
Don't despise hard work. It's part of loving your husband; it's part of loving your family. The wonderful thing is it also brings reward. Let's keep reading. “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which you have showed toward His name in that you have ministered to the saints and you do minister.” That word “minister” just means to serve, serve the saints. Now, Paul is writing, or the writer of Hebrews is writing and saying, God's been noticing. He's not going to forget your work, your labor of love because you've been serving the saints, and you're still serving the saints. He says you have showed it toward God's name.
When we do this, we are doing it as unto the Lord. When you're working hard in your family, in your home, to keep your home right, to keep your home running smoothly, to manage your home, it takes a lot to manage a home, especially as your home grows. You start with a little baby but then another one comes along, and then maybe another one, and often you have more and more children, and more and more things happening. Because the more children, the more things happening, and the more things going on in the home, and there's more and more to manage. To run a home efficiently and smoothly it takes management and hard work. We're not just doing it because we have to, we are doing it as unto the name of the Lord. God says that He doesn't forget. He's not going to forget it. Darling ladies, He does not forget your work in your home. 1 Thessalonians 1:3. I have quoted that verse; I gave you the J. B. Phillip's translation. Here is another translation: “Your labor of love, in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father.” One translation talks about “the slavery of love.” It all goes together. Lovely ladies, please don't despise hard work. It's all part of your loving, the labor of love.
I noticed a most wonderful Scripture the other morning as I was reading, and it's in the book of Ruth. Actually, I was doing a study on marriage and all the different Hebrew meanings of the word “cleave.” Some time I will talk you through that study because it is so powerful, and there are ten different words to describe that word “cleave” in the Hebrew.
One of the words that is used, that is translated in the King James Bible is where Boaz said to Ruth, “Abide here, my daughter.” Most other translations say: “Stay here close, keep close, stay here.” Let me read you this whole Scripture. “Then Boaz said to Ruth, 'Listen carefully, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one but stay here close by my maids.'” When I read that Scripture, I got a wonderful understanding. Of course, it was spoken to Ruth. This is the wonderful thing about the Scriptures, all the stories about the people, yes, they relate, they're about that person or they are about Israel. They are practically talking about something that happened, but the Word of God is alive, and everything that is written is written for our example. It tells us that in 1 Corinthians 10:6, 11. Every word relates to us personally, and I believe that this is a prophetic Scripture for mothers in the home.
Listen to it again, lovely ladies. Listen as God speaks to you, for this is His Word, and it's His Word speaking to you personally. “Listen carefully, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one.” You see, lovely ladies, God wants you to glean in your field, in the home that He has given you. He has blessed you with a home. Maybe it's just a little tiny home, or a big home, it doesn't matter. It's your home where you can make a place for God. It's your home where you can make a lovely place for your husband. It's your home where you make it a beautiful place for your children, to raise your children, to nurture your children, to teach your children. God wants you to work in your home and to glean in your home. In fact, you will glean a harvest, but He doesn't want you to go to another field. No, and he continues, “But stay here close, stay close in your own home. Glean in your own field.”
As you do that my lovely mothers, you will be blessed, and God will bless you just as Ruth was blessed. She obeyed that command of Boaz, and she stayed in that field. She worked hard in that field, and she stayed there. Maybe other fields looked more tempting, maybe there was more to glean over there in those other fields. Maybe they had a lot more for her to pick up to take home to Naomi. But no, he said, stay here in this field, so we have to learn to be content.
Don't look at some other field. Sometimes you look out and think, “Oh goodness me, I should be out there in the workforce; I've got these lovely gifts, and I should be using them.” Lovely ladies, this is where God has you at this present time. This is His will, and this is where He wants you to learn and to work, so embrace it. Don't go to another field, don't leave the one God has given you. When you leave the one God has given you, you move out from His blessings. You stay in the one God has given you, you maybe don't think you are getting a lot out of it at this time, but you will; the reward is coming. God is not unrighteous to see your work and labor of love. God beholds. God watches. God rewards. He rewards our labor of love. He rewards us as we stay in this field, in the place, in the domain, in the home God has given to us. God has given it to you so don't go looking somewhere else. Amen? I was so blessed as I read that. Lovely ladies, enjoy your loving and laboring. Amen?
Let's go to the next one.
No. 14. WE ARE TO WORK MIGHTILY
Have you noticed it never tells us just to work? There's always an adjective. This one is Ecclesiastes 9:10: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” I'm sure that you have given your children this memory verse to learn. I gave it to my children when they were very young. I was always reminding them, “Whatever you do, do it mightily, do it with all your heart.” Perhaps if you haven't given this memory verse to your children yet, you could give it to them this week. It's a good one for them to have it in their hearts. Then, when they are doing a chore, and they're just meandering around and doing it so slowly, “Come on children, remember, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. Let me see those muscles! Show them to me.”
Come on, teach your children how to work hard. It saddens my heart to see children growing up who don't know how to work. Work is part of life. God gave the institution of work before the fall because it's a part of man's life; it's a part of who He is. He wants us to do it with all our might, and when our children see us working with all our might instead of doing things slowly and grumblingly, they see us doing them joyfully and with all our might, they are going to get that same understanding. When your children are doing the dishes, teach them to do it right.
I have watched people do the dishes, and I have to actually walk away. They take so long, and they wash one dish and put it into the rinsing water and then put it on the rack. I can't believe the slowness. I like to get stuck in and get those dishes done in just a few minutes. We should teach our children how to get stuck in. Yes, get stuck in. That's a good phrase. I believe that's so important to teach our children.
NO. 15. NEVER GIVING UP UNTIL YOU FINISH
That's a good part of working, isn't it? It's so easy to begin a job and then we flake out.
Zechariah 4:9 says: “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house. His hands shall also finish it.” That was talking about the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem when they came back from Babylon, but it talks here about starting and finishing.
Jesus also finished his work. In John 4: 34 Jesus said: “My meat, my food is to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work.” His prayer in John 17:4, Jesus said: “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” This is also a very important part of working. I know it's easy to start something with a hiss and roar and then as time goes on, we kind of lose the enthusiasm. I know this even with my doing Above Rubies. It's a magazine, which I trust you all get. If you don't get the magazine, Above Rubies, email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and I'd be happy to mail you some copies. I've been doing this magazine now for over 41 years.
I remember when I started. I had such a burden. In fact, it was one of the greatest burdens that came upon me in my whole life. I couldn't not do it. I had to do it. It was something that just came upon me. I knew that I had to get out this magazine that would keep coming to encourage women, encourage them in their marriages, in their motherhood and in their home life. I look back, and I think, wow, how come God chose me? I wasn't the right person; I didn't even know how to do it. I hadn't any experience in journalism. I didn't know how to put a magazine together. Who was I? I wasn't any great mother, but God put it in me. I obeyed. Of course, as it came upon me, I had great vision. I never thought of the future, I just got started, started with a hiss and roar.
Actually, I only started with printing 1500 copies. Even that seemed enormous at the time. I remember my husband saying to me, “Don't come back on me financially; we've got enough bills.” Because I felt to make it by donation, so I went ahead in faith and printed this first magazine. I had no clue what would happen to it. I couldn't even imagine, but I sent it out to a few people. I was speaking at a Ladies’ Convention, and I shared it and went back home to my children. I began to get letters from the top of New Zealand to the bottom. People writing in, “Thank you, I got your magazine, thank you for strengthening me in my convictions as a wife and mother.” They sent a donation. I was able to pay the printers. Hallelujah. Well, the next issue, the second one, I printed 5,000 copies. The next issue, the third issue, I printed 25,000 copies. In three years, in little New Zealand, I was printing 100, 000 copies. They were going out across the land. It was unbelievable. God was touching hearts and bringing mothers back to the home. It was a God thing. It wasn't easy, and it grew, and then we moved to Australia and established it there, and then another ten years after we moved to the States and we've been here now for 28 years now.
I have kept plodding on. They often say that when you get a vision, it's one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. The only reason Above Rubies keeps coming to you today is that I keep plodding on. I have never ever given up for all these over 41 years. It actually takes most of life, apart from all my family life. I do it as a labor of love. We've been talking about the “labor of love” which are twins, and Above Rubies is a “labor of love.” My husband and I have never taken any finance from Above Rubies. All that comes in for the magazine, for the books, for everything, goes to print the next issue of Above Rubies, which costs over 60,000 dollars to print and send out. That's why you're still waiting for the next issue, and I'm still waiting for the money to come in. Pray for a miracle. When the money comes in, I will print the next issue.
With anything, we have to keep working at it until the end. I plan to keep going. It's the same, of course, with the greatest institutions in life which are marriage and motherhood. God wants us to keep going to the end. I love Ecclesiastes 7:8 which says: “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning there of.” Ladies, it's not so much how we start, although it's good to have a good start, but it's how we end. Even if you haven't had a good start, you can still have a great end. Did you know that?
I want to encourage you today. Maybe you didn't get a good start in your marriage; that doesn't matter. With the help of God, the One who designed marriage, as you and your husband submit to His ways and to one another and begin to love and serve one another instead of yourselves, God is able to do beautiful things in your marriage because He designed it. He wants you to be blessed. He wants it to be so beautiful. Even if you had a rocky start, you can keep going so that it becomes better all the time. You talk to couples who have been married for years and years and years, like us. My husband and I have been married for 56 years. When you get to this stage, what is the testimony? My testimony is that marriage gets better and better every year. Our marriage today is much more beautiful than when we started. I could hardly even compare it. Don't despair. You have many years left. If you are willing and open to God to work, He can do glorious and beautiful things, and He can make your marriage greater and greater. You begin as a failure and end as a victor.
You can do that also in motherhood. Yes, maybe even in motherhood you didn't have a very good beginning. You started out and you didn't know what you were doing. I think many mothers, unless they've been raised in a big family and they've had babies coming on and they are used to babies around them. It's such a blessing for children to grow up in a big family. Because older children have babies around them, they learn to mother, the sons learn to father. They're ready for marriage. They're ready to face the whole thing of marriage and motherhood and fatherhood, but there are so many who grow up in a two-child family and right through their middling and teen years, they've never even had anything to do with a baby. I mean, there's not a baby in the house. None of their friends have babies, and they get married, and they've been trained and conditioned and brainwashed in feminism and humanism and their career is more important than motherhood.
They get married, and they conceive, and a baby is coming. Help! They don't know what to do. They're overwhelmed. They have no experience; they have no one to help them. When this baby comes, they love this baby because every parent loves their baby, but they still don't love motherhood, so they have this confusion going on in their head and goodness me, it's pretty hopeless. I mean, I even started off with all that confusion because I didn't understand about motherhood what I understand today, and God had to teach me along the way. I thought I was meant to be out there doing many other things, changing the world, not cooped up in this little house with a baby and then suddenly three children under 17 months because I had twins, and then I had four under four, and here I was with all these screaming babies around me.
God had to show me that I was in His perfect will, and I was doing the most powerful thing that He had intended me to do. I didn't start off knowing it all. In fact, I was clueless about so much. I had to learn as I went along. I think you have to too. You didn't start off well but darling ladies, even if you started as a failure (I've failed in so many ways), you can end a victor as you press on in God, and you learn His ways and you seek to do it His way. “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning there of.” Don't worry if you messed it up in the beginning. Don't worry if you were a failure. Press on. Press on to the victor's crown. Press on to the end. You will make it. Amen?
Not only did Jesus finish His work, but Paul did too. Let's read about Paul. In Acts 20:24 it says: “But none of these things move me.” What were those things? All the things that he was facing and had faced and was going to face, prison and afflictions, so many things: “Neither count I my life dear unto myself so that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus.”
What is the ministry you've received of the Lord Jesus? It's your motherhood. If God has given you children, that's it. If He's given you children, this is the ministry He has given you to do. He doesn't give them to you to give to somebody else to look after. He gives them to you, not only to care for and nurture but to train and to prepare for life and to prepare for their marriages one day. You've got this wonderful ministry, and you're going to do it. You're going to finish it. In 2 Timothy 4:7, he says: “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.”
We are going to look at three different F's in this Scripture. The first one:
1) Paul FOUGHT the good fight.
We are certainly in a fight for our families in our nation today, aren't we? Family is God's idea and the enemy is out to destroy it. Because motherhood is God's ultimate plan for women, the devil hates it, and he wants to destroy it. In this hour of history, we face a fierce fight. Feminism, humanism, the media, and public education have brainwashed the majority of women to think that motherhood is insignificant and not worthy of their time.
But because we know this is deception, we will not be tempted.
We will not be wooed.
We will stand against the tide.
We will not give in.
We will fight the good fight.
We will stand up for motherhood.
We will stand on the side of life. We not only have to fight for our own motherhood today, in the midst of a deceived society, but we have to fight for life in society.
We've got to fight for the family.
We've got to stand up for the family, for motherhood, for marriage, for a marriage between a male and female.
We will stand against same sex marriage.
We will stand against abortion because we stand for life.
Nehemiah 4:14 says when they were building on the wall, Nehemiah came back from Babylon to help them build up the wall and to rebuild the gates of Jerusalem, and they had enemies around them trying to stop them build. When we build for God, the enemy always gets upset.
You are a builder, mother, in your home.
You're building a family.
You’re building a marriage.
You’re building a godly generation.
You’re building into the eternal realm.
You're a builder, and the enemy doesn't like it because he wants women who will not be builders but those who will be foolish and who will let their families weaken and fragment.
We are those who stand strong.
We cement our family ties; we make them strong.
We build the family, but we will have enemies. They'll all be around us and Nehemiah said to those building on the wall: “Be not afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and terrible and fight. Fight for your brethren, fight for your sons, fight for your daughters, fight for your wives and your houses.”
Yes, lovely ladies, we have to fight today for our future generations. We have to fight for our children growing up in our homes for when they get married and have children because we are in such a fight in this nation because there is a huge section now of this nation who want to take this nation down a course of socialism. How they can even think of such a thing. It's only because they are brainwashed by our professors and liberal colleges today and our liberal high schools. They are being brainwashed and victimized and propagandized to believe all these lies, and these young people are growing up thinking that socialism is something good.
We only have to look at history, we only have to look at current events of what is happening in Venezuela. That's socialism. We have to fight this. We must stand and fight. We must stand for truth. No matter what. Don't crawl into your shell. Always stand up and speak boldly for truth. We fight the good fight.
2) Paul FINISHED the race
Paul finished the race. He said that. That was his confession. “I have finished the race.” He would not give up until he finished. Mothers, we are also in a race. Well, we're not racing, but we are plodding on. We are in this race till the end.
I love to talk about the Four Watches of Motherhood, the first, second, third and fourth watch. Maybe some time I'll get to tell you all about them. Sadly, there are many mothers who walk out on the fourth watch. That's when their children have grown and now there are no children left in the home, and they think, “Wow, I've finished motherhood. This is my time that I can go off and go on cruises and do whatever I like.” In fact, earlier this year, Colin and I went on a cruise. We were so blessed. Our daughter Pearly and her husband, Charlie paid for a cruise for us for a Christmas present. We did enjoy this lovely cruise, but we were so amazed to see a different lifestyle as we spoke to many couples, and many of them were older couples, and we would say to them, “Is this your first cruise, like it was for us? They would say “No, this is our 52nd cruise or something like that.” Just about every ne had been on so many cruises. This was their lifestyle, to go from one cruise to the other because all their children were all grown and had left the nest, but that's not actually biblical. I'm sure it's lovely to go on a cruise every now and then, but God has given a mandate to older women to teach and encourage the younger women. We don't give up motherhood just because our children have grown.
In fact, if we have been raising a family, we will already be beginning to have grandchildren. There should never even be an empty nest. The way God has planned it is that we have children, if God happens to bless us this way, until we reach menopause. If you have a child and you're trusting the Lord and by the time you get to about 45 or so and no more children are coming along, you may have a daughter in her twenties who is getting married and having a baby. You have a grandchild, so you have grandchildren coming around, and you have all these other mothers who need your encouragement and help. This nation is lacking; it is void of older mothers teaching the young mothers. We've got to finish our race to the end.
3) Paul was FAITHFUL to the end
The third F: Paul was faithful to the end. He remained faithful. He fought the good fight, number one, he finished the race, number two, and three, he was faithful to the end. Three F's in one Scripture, but time has come to the end again, so we will pray.
“Dear Father, we pray that You will help us to be those who don't give up halfway through or even three quarters of the way through or even nearing the finishing tape. Help us to be those who last the journey, who keep plodding on. Give us that tenacity, give us that enduring spirit, give us that plodding spirit to keep on, knowing we are walking in Your will.
Lord God, I pray for precious wives and mothers who've had difficult starts, Lord who've had a difficult time in their early years of marriage, in their starting motherhood. Dear Father, I thank You that You never leave us where we are. Give them hope today, to know, Lord, that You will lead them on. You want to take them to all Your blessings. You want them to end the race a victor. Oh God, I pray that You will, Lord, cause everyone who started in failure to end in victory. Those, Lord, who maybe feel overwhelmed, but Lord, you will help them to end overcomers. Lord, I ask this in the name of Jesus’ Amen.”