PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 102: SHOULD CHURCHES BE MEETING TOGETHER? Part 1

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 102: SHOULD CHURCHES BE MEETING TOGETHER? Part 1

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

Nancy Campbell: Good morning. Well it may be “Good evening” where you are. Actually it is “Good afternoon” here.

Anyway, ladies, today I would like to jump on my little soapbox. Would you let me do that? I don’t think it’s a very popular soapbox but it’s a burden on my heart at the moment. I want to talk to you about it. You may not agree with me but that doesn’t matter. My husband always says, “We don’t have to agree with one another, but we do have to love one another.”

Even if you don’t agree, keep listening because I am going to bring a lot of the Word of God into what I’m saying.

Now what’s my current little soapbox? My burden at the moment is that people get back to church to worship together. It really grieves my heart that the body of Christ are not getting back together.

Some of you may say, “Nancy, aren’t you thinking of our dear older people? Those who are immune compromised and those how have diseases with heart problems and diabetes and high blood pressure and all these things who can be susceptible to COVID-19. Aren’t you thinking of them?”

Well, yes, I am. Actually, I guess I would have to put myself in the category of the older people, but I never think of myself like that.

Oh goodness me, Colin and I think we belong to the young people. When we hear about the older people we’re thinking about some other section of society, even though my husband is eighty and I’ll be eighty next year. But we’re in the young people’s section.

But okay, these precious people, if they are not well or they have some compromise in their health, we would not expect them to attend church. That’s just common sense. That’s common sense for any time of life, not only when there is a pandemic in our world. No! That’s common sense at any time. People just don’t go out when they are sick, and we wouldn’t encourage anyone to go out when they are sick.

But healthy people! Why are healthy people compromised? Why are healthy people quarantined? Why are healthy people kept at home? It doesn’t make sense.

Even in Bible times they had quarantine. They had to quarantine the leapers. They were infectious. They couldn’t come near healthy people and that is right. It’s always the same. You just don’t go out amongst healthy people if you are infectious.

Also, I believe that we as the people of God, don’t we really realize who we are? The Bible says in Romans 8:11 that the Spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us.

If people are getting together to worship God and they have indwelling in them the Spirit of God with the power that raised Jesus from the dead, how can we all be getting sick?

No! We have living within us the One Who is our Healer, our Savior, and our Deliverer!

Let me just share a few things on my heart.

I would like to go to Hebrews 10:24, 25. You know the Scriptures: “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”

Now that word was written to the Hebrews. The book of Hebrews was written prior to A.D. 70,  the full of Jerusalem. They were tumultuous times. They were not easy times. Yet the Word of God tells us to not forsake the assembling of yourselves together.

That’s the King James. I love the King James, but I also love to look at other translations, too.

The Moffat translation says: “Not ceasing to meet together.”

The Knox translation says: “Not abandoning, as some do, our common assembly.”

The Amplified Classic says: “Not forsaking, nor neglecting, to assemble together.”

The Common Jerusalem Bible: “Not neglecting our congregational meetings.”

The J. B. Phillips says: “Let us not hold aloof from our church meetings.”

It’s pretty plain, isn’t it? It doesn’t say that you are not to neglect them in “good times.” No, it just says not to neglect them whatever the time because this is part of our Christianity to meet together.

We are a together people. Yes, we have individual salvation, but we have been brought together to be one body. We are the body of Christ upon the earth. Jesus is our head. We are His body, not one individual but all of us collectively together.

God loves us to all meet together. It’s always been part of the church.

I was reading the other day about Daniel. It’s a Sunday School story of how Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den. It’s more than a Sunday School story, isn’t it? Let’s read it over in Daniel chapter 6. We read the story there and it’s a story that’s worth reading to your children. I believe this is a time to read it to your children; not just as a little Bible story but as principles for how we are to live.

Daniel of course was a very intelligent, faithful, and diligent man. King Darius decided to appoint three presidents over all his specific counties.

He had to appoint three presidents over all his specific counties. He had 120 divisions of his land and a prince over each one and three presidents over that. The head president was Daniel.

Because Daniel was the one who was made to be the head, all of the others got very jealous of him, and they decided they wanted to come against him.

They couldn’t find one bit of fault with his whole life. But they found one fault and that was that he didn’t pray to their gods but to the God of all gods, King of kings and Lord of lords.

He prayed every day and they thought, “Wow, we’ll get him on that.”

You know the story of how they went to King Darius and said, “Oh king, will you establish that law that anybody who asks of any god or man a petition apart from you, oh king, for the next thirty days, will be thrown into a lion’s den” (Daniel 6:7). The king, I guess being the king and thinking he was so important, he signed the decree.”

Now listen, he signed it, yes. It was signed and sealed, obviously with his signet ring or however they made it absolute.

It says here in verse 8 that he signed it according to the law of the Medes and Persians, “ . . . which altereth not.” In other words, it could not be changed. There was no way to change it once the king had signed it.

Verse 10 says: “Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, [and he knew that it could not be changed and that he would have to face the consequences] he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.”

Daniel didn’t change his habit. His habit was to go before the Lord three times a day. Now there are a few others in the Bible who went before the Lord three times a day. Do you remember who they were?

There was David who came before the Lord, morning, noon, and night.

Of course, there was Daniel; he came three times. It was his habit.

It was the habit also of Jesus to attend the synagogue and go into the house of God. In Luke 4:16 it says: “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was . . ..” Or in other words, as was His habit. It wasn’t something He did every now and then or whenever He felt like it. It was a habit, ingrained in Him from an early child.

Also Paul had this same habit. It says in Acts 17:2 that Paul went into the synagogue as was his habit to do every week.

Let’s go back to Daniel. He did not change. Ladies, I have been challenged by that in realizing here we are facing this situation where churches are no longer meeting together. In some states they are told that they will not be allowed for many months and yet there is no signed decree.

Did you know that? Nothing has been signed. We’ve just been told to do this. Daniel faced something that had been signed and could not be changed and yet he did not compromise.

What has happened that we have compromised?

Why am I talking about this, dear ladies, when all my podcasts are to encourage you as wives and as mothers. Well this is very much part of who we are as wives and mothers because, dear precious wives and mothers, churches are made up of families.

That is what church is. It is an extension of the family. The first institute that God ordained was the family; that came before church; that came before government. Then as the church was established and born in Acts chapter 2, from that very moment in Acts chapter 2 believers have met every week.

It has become a part of who we are: the togetherness of the body. It’s made up of families. We as families have to make the decision of what we are going to do.

Along with our husbands, we have to have strong, biblical convictions.

Are we going to go according to what man says? To what ungodly men say? What liberal socialists and very pro-communist men are saying?

Or are we going to go along with the Bible?

Mothers, we have to have strong convictions. We have got to have biblical convictions because if we don’t, where is this world going to go? If we as the mothers don’t have Biblical convictions and don’t pass them on to our children, where are the convictions going to be?

They’re going to fade. They’re going to be lost.  We are the ones who carry on the biblical convictions and we have got to be strong in our convictions and not just wimpy, not just tossed to and fro, not just going along because this is what everyone else is doing.

No, we have got to be strong in the Word of God.

So I have been very challenged to read this because every Word of God is for our learning. Every story in the Word is not just a story. It’s God showing us the way as it tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:11 how every word was “written for our learning on whom the ends of the world have come.”

They are for our learning and so we learn from this. What do we learn? What is biblical and what are our godly convictions. We don’t just give them up because somebody said we can’t do it.

The Bible says we ARE to do it. Who do we obey?

We don’t even have an edict saying that we’re going be thrown into the lion’s den and yet we are still compromising.

But even though Daniel knew the consequences, he did not change. He could have still done it in hiding. He could have gone into his house and hid it behind closed doors. He didn’t have to kneel at his open window as he had always done. He did that because he was looking towards Jerusalem.

He could have compromised there perhaps. Isn’t that what they tell us to do today? “Oh yes, now you can still just have online worship and zoom worship and all this.”

That’s all good and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m sure many people are being blessed out of that.

But is that what we were doing before? No and Daniel didn’t compromise. He didn’t just go into hiding and pray before his God. He could have easily said, “I’m still praying three times a day to worship my God” and done it in hiding.

No, he didn’t hide. He honored God.

I think of that Scripture: “Them that honor me I will honor” (1 Samuel 2:30).

I am thinking of the words of Jesus: “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32).

Now of course we know the story and how Daniel was thrown into the den of lions and God was faithful to him.

I love verse 23. This was after that long night. The King, who loved Daniel and did not want to throw him into the lion’s den, he hardly slept that night as he waited to see if God would save this man.

God did and so “ . . . Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he trusted in his God.”

What a principle we learn here, precious mothers: he trusted in his God. Who are we trusting in at this time?

Are we trusting in man? Are we trusting in all these numbers and projections that are given to us, which have all turned out to be wrong? If you’re keeping up with the numbers on this corona virus, you will know that they keep coming down in numbers all the time. It has been nothing like they have projected. It was fear mongering. It was to bring this whole world into fear.

Oh when are we, the people of God, going to be people of faith and trust God instead of living in fear?

And so Daniel trusted his God.

I wonder what we are prepared to do?

Of course, remember when Daniel’s friends, the three men would not bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar’s image.

That was a different king, but they were still in Babylon. They said, “NO! We will NOT bow down! We will only bow to our God. We believe God can deliver us. But even if He doesn’t deliver, we will not bow down” (Daniel 3:16-18).

They were prepared to be thrown into the fiery flames. But once again, God DID deliver them. Of course our trust is even if we’re not delivered.

Go over to Daniel 11:32. It is a wonderful Scripture. I have quoted this Scripture all my life. But I was reading it again the other day and noticed that I had forgotten a very big word.

Any way, it says: “ . . . the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.”

That’s King James again but when you go to the Hebrew you find the word exploits is not actually in the original. They have put it in there but it’s a great word. There is nothing wrong with it because we want the people of God to do exploits.

But this is how it really goes. Let me look at another translation here.

The ESV says: “ . . . but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.” Many translations say, “Take action.”

But really, in the original it should be: “The people who know their God take action and do.”

I like that: “And DO.”

Then again, I was reading it and I noticed that there was a “but” in the Scripture, “BUT.”

There’s a word but: “BUT the people who know their God.” Do you notice that? But do know their God. In times like these, ladies, we have to be people who know our God; not know about Him but KNOW Him and know His Word.

We get to know Him by knowing His Word. As we know His Word, we know Him.

The whole context of this Scripture is that the king of the North was coming down and bringing great persecution on the people of God.

It says Daniel 11:28 (NLT): “He will set himself against the people of the holy covenant, doing much damage.”

Verse 30: “He will vent His anger against the people of the holy covenant and reward those who forsake the covenant.” I believe that these times are coming when people, even Christians, will be rewarded when they go along with the deception and forsake the Word of God.

Verse 31: “His army will take over the Temple fortress, pollute the sanctuary, put a stop to the daily sacrifices.” Now that’s interesting. The king of the North was going to come down. This is all prophetic, this word in Daniel. “And put a stop to the daily sacrifices.”

Of course that’s talking about the Jewish sacrifices, but we can relate that to what we are going through now. They have put a stop to our weekly sacrifice when we go to meet with one another and assemble together as a body of believers.

They have been putting a stop to this.

It’s the same thing here. It goes on to say, ladies, after telling us all about all that is going to happen and how they will put a stop to the daily sacrifices. We could even say, in our day, putting a stop to weekly worship.

BUT. “ . . . BUT the people who know their God.”

BUT. Did you get it? It’s the BUT. There it is: “ . . . but the people who know their God shall be strong and resist him.”

A number of translations put that in because that is in the context. That is why they are rising up: to be strong.  They are resisting the enemy as he comes against the people of God.

We go on to verse 33. This is the remnant because it was really a remnant that stood up. ”But these teachers will die by fire and sword, or they will be jailed and robbed. During these persecutions, little help will arrive, and many who join them will not be sincere. And some of the wise will fall victim to persecution. In this way, they will be refined and cleansed and made pure until the time of the end, for the appointed time is still to come.”

That was all back in Daniel, but it relates to us today, precious mothers.

There are people who are putting a stop to what is Biblically mandated and not only biblically mandated but also where we are given a mandate in our constitution.

A couple of podcasts ago I read to you our first amendment. As I close this session, I want to read it to you again because we have to know. We have to know the WORD.

I think I am going to do another session, ladies, because I’ve got so many more Scriptures, I want to give you. We have got to know the Word and we’ve got to know the First Amendment because this is what this country is based on.

“We the people.” Of course that’s how it starts, then . . . “The First Amendment (then it goes on) “to the United States Constitution prevents . . ..”

Did you hear that? PREVENTS.

“ . . . Prevents the government from making laws which regulate an establishment of religion, prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.”

Dear ladies, there it is in black and white: the right to PEACEABLY ASSEMBLY. We’ve got it in the Word, and we’ve got it in the Constitution.

It also says here in Title 18 U.S.C. Section 242, talking about the First Amendment: “Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both . . ..”

Then it goes on to say more.

So we hear, lovely ladies, in black in white, that the imprisonment or just going after people who are doing wrong is to the people who are stopping God’s people from peaceably assembling.

That’s the Constitution. Look it up, know it, and teach it to your children.

Here’s something else. This was a ruling of the United States Supreme Court shortly after the Civil War which still stands to this day. Let me read it.

Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2 (1866): “Neither the legislator nor any executive or judicial officer may disregard the provisions of the constitution in the case of emergency.”

Section 98: “Therefore anyone who declares the suspension of constitutionally guaranteed rights to freely travel [that has been stopped in many states], peaceably assemble [that is where churches are free to gather together], earn a living [people have been stopped from carrying on their business and going to work], freely worship, etc., or attempts to enforce such suspension within fifty independent sovereign continental United States of America is making war against our constitution and therefore we the people.

“They violate their constitutional oath and thus immediately forfeit their office and authority and their proclamations be disregarded with impunity and that means anyone, even the governor and President.”

That still stands today, ladies.

And so why as families are we not going back to church? Why are pastors not drawing their people back?

I don’t dream in the night. I wish I did. I would love to have amazing dreams like lots of people have but I don’t. I just go to sleep and wake up.

Anyway, I have a dream in the day. It’s a vision, really, a burden. It’s more a burden.

My burden is that the people of God will obey His Word, who will live by their rights they have been given according to the Constitution and get back to church. I would love to see the whole of God’s people, millions of believers, getting back on one day.

The first day, all together, just all go! Every believer just filling the churches!

Oh, can you imagine? Can you just imagine what would happen to this nation? Can you imagine if believers got out of their homes with joy on their faces and their families with them in their cars and drove to church, whatever church they go to, and fill them like they’ve never filled them before?

Wow. It would cause revival in the nation.

Oh, can you make that dream? Let’s pass it on to make it happen.

Let’s pray:

“Dearest Father, We thank You for Your precious Word. Every little word is showing the way to live, not just in good times but in challenging times

“Oh God, I pray that You would help us to be people of the Book, people of the Word, people who not only read it but people who believe it and people who act on it..

“Oh God, I pray that You will stir Your people up, Father, and Lord, that You would bring a mighty revival to this nation. We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

 

Transcribed by Morgan Roth.