PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 81 – GOD’S PERSONAL LOVE TO HIS PEOPLE
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.”