PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 118: WE ARE GATEKEEPERS OF OUR HOMES, PART 2

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 118 - WE ARE GATEKEEPERS OF OUR HOMES, PART 2

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies. We are now starting our second podcast in the series, We are Gatekeepers of Our Homes.

We didn’t get to it last week because we began to tell you of all the different stories that were happening to people and the beautiful triumphant home going of Maria into eternity. I know you would have been so amazingly blessed by that session.

But here we are again, finding out how to be gatekeepers of our homes.

I was telling you about some Hebrew words that talk about guarding. We were talking about tsaphah from Proverbs 31:27 where it says: “She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.”

The Hebrew word for “she looks well” is the same word I told you last time, but I’ll tell you again. It’s exactly the same word that is used of a watchman of a city or a watchman on the wall. Like in 2 Kings 9:17: “And there stood a watchman on the tower . . ..” There are many Scriptures about the watchman.

It means: “To lean forward, to peer, to observe, espy, keep the watch.”

And so it is a guarding. Guarding, we learned last time, comes from God. God is our ultimate Guarder. As we are created in His image we also want to guard.

We have to guard personally, guarding our own lives even as the Bible says in Habakkuk 2:1: “I will stand upon my watch . . ..” Wherever you watch like a watchman, on the tower, or on the city wall, or at the gate, wherever he is watching.

“ . . . And [I will] set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.”

We can take that Scripture personally. We have a special watch where we spend time with God each day as we ask Him to show us things in our lives that are not pleasing to Him so we can get them right.

We also watch over our children in prayer during those times.

Proverbs 4:23 says: “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”

Psalm 141:3 says: “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.”

Those are speaking about a personal watching, but we are going to go on and talk more about watching over our homes.

NEW TESTAMENT GREEK WORDS FOR GUARDING

I’d like to tell you two more New Testament words. I told you two last time and now I’d like to give you the other two.

In Mark 13:34 Jesus is telling the story and He is saying: “For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work . . ..”

You notice how everything was organized. He didn’t leave and just leave them all to work it out. No, He left every person with his task that he was to accomplish.

“ . . . And commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.”

In that passage it talks about the porter. That’s a watchword.

The word porter has two Greek words, thyrōros, meaning: “door” and ouros meaning: “To guard, to keep watch over.”

Do you remember when I told you the meaning of “keepers at home” in Titus 2:4 where the older women are to teach the younger women to be keepers at home? The word in the Greek has two words oikourgos, which is “home” and then ouros, the same word again, ouros, which means “to guard, to keep, to watch over.”

The “keeper of the home,” she is guarding over her home. The” keeper of the door,” he or she is guarding over the door.

Then it has the word “watch,” which is grēgoreō, which means “to keep awake, to watch.” You can’t keep watch if you’re going to sleep on the job, can you?

Matthew 24:43 uses this word also: “But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.”

That’s a powerful Scripture, isn’t it?

Why did the house break up? Because the ”goodman of the house,” the man of the home, or even the woman, was not watching.

We can stop things from happening in our homes and to our children if we are guarding and watching over them.

Matthew 26:41: “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation . . ..”

Mark 13:37: “And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.”

We have now found four different Greek words about guarding in the New Testament.

OLD TESTAMENT HEBREW WORDS FOR GUARDING

But let’s go back now, shall we, to the Old Testament. Back in David’s time in David’s tabernacle he appointed 4,000 gatekeepers. Isn’t that amazing?

There WEREN’T 4,000 working at a time but there were 4,000 rotating work so that the tabernacle, and then the temple, was always guarded at all times, 24/7.

In 1 Chronicles 9:22-29 it talks about a lot of these gatekeepers. In the King James version it calls them porters, but most translations call them gatekeepers.

The Message Bible calls them “security guards,” all meaning the same thing.

The interesting thing is that these gatekeepers or door watchers or whatever we want to call them, they had to be specifically chosen. They had to have certain characteristics about them before they could be chosen for this great work.

It wasn’t a little work. It was a very important task.

It says that they were chosen, they were ordained, they were given oversight, they were given charge, and another verse says they were appointed.

The word “chosen” in the Hebrew is barar and it means “examined, cleansed, polished, purified, purged, and made clean.” They had to be really examined, polished, and purified before they could take on this job.

Would you like to come with me as we go into the Bible and we see the criteria or the resume of a gatekeeper?

When you used to be out in your career, maybe before you got married and maybe before children came along, you may have got used to sending out resumes with everything that you have accomplished in your studies and in your work.

But here the Bible gives us a resume for gatekeepers.

Here, precious ladies, you are the gatekeeper of your home. You are the watchdog of your home. You are the guardian of your home and did you know that you actually need a resume?

Let’s look at these things, shall we?

No. 1. GATEKEEPS MUST BE TRUSTWORTHY

The gatekeepers in the Bible had to be trustworthy. David and Samuel actually appointed the gatekeepers and it says they appointed them to their “trusted positions” (1 Chronicles 9:22 HCSB).

I like The Message Bible where it says that David and Samuel the seer handpicked them for their “dependability.” Actually that is the correct word. A number of translations use “dependable.” It means “moral fidelity, faithfulness, stability but especially to be dependable.”

It’s so important for us as mothers to have that dependable attitude, that dependable characteristic. Our children should see that we are dependable; we keep to the same convictions. We don’t do one thing one day and something else the next that doesn’t add up.

No, WE ARE DEPENDABLE.

I think of another beautiful thing when we think about dependability, that is one of the salvation names of God and that is Jehovah-Shammah. That literally means, “The Lord is There.”

He is always there for us.

Isn’t that wonderful, ladies? When you need God, He is there. He is waiting. You can call out to Him.

It says in Jeremiah 33:3: “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”

We don’t call up God and get an answering machine saying, “Oh sorry, He is out at the moment. Try again in three hours.” No, He is always there for He is Jehovah-Shammah.

Ladies, as we mother in our homes, it’s not insignificant. We can reveal the character of God. We can show to our children what God is like. One of the most beautiful things you can show them is that God is there by you being there.

You think, “Oh goodness me, what’s that? Just being there? Goodness me, I just want to get out of this place.”

No, dear ladies, the fact of you being there in the home is a very powerful thing. You are showing to your children what God is like: that He is always there and that you are there for them when they need you.

So many babies, yes even babies, and so many toddlers and little ones are in daycare these days. They are taken to daycare every day while women go out to their career.

They are looked after physically and they are cared for but not spiritually, not emotionally, not mentally, no— a little baby, a little toddler, even an older child, they long for their mother.

No one will ever understand how they feel inside, longing for their mother, and it is a mother that they long for. They need their mother there.

MOTHERING MOMENTS

Now as your children get older, they don’t need you every minute like a little baby.

You are always there for them (your babies) because it won’t be long before you put them down and they want to nurse again. As they get older, you’re not attending to them every second, but you have MOTHERING MOMENTS.

I remember one day, several of us were talking together and a mother was complaining, “Oh I just feel so lousy as a mother because I just want to give to my children those specific and quality times but I’m so busy looking after them all and so busy keeping the house. Oh goodness me, I just can’t give this quality time!”

She just had this in her brain that she should give each one a certain amount of time.

I said to her, “That’s not how it works. You can’t make that work in life because life doesn’t work like that. Your children need you there for those mothering moments.”

Just at that moment, her little boy had been playing out with his friends. We were all gathered together for a church fellowship. They were all happily playing together but then he hurt himself and he came crying to mummy. Of course he didn’t want anyone else but mummy.

She was able to comfort him and put him on her knee and just cuddle him and comfort him. That’s what he needed.

But soon he stopped crying and jumped off her knee and off he went to play. He didn’t need his mother to sit on her knee for the rest of the day.

He needed that mothering moment. That’s when he needed her. He was happy to go out to play because he knew that if he needed her, mum was still there, and he could run to her again.

You see, precious mother, that’s what being there is like. You’re there. Your children may not need you every moment but there will be moments throughout the day they will need you. Things happen and little ones run to you. You’re there to comfort them, cuddle them, and pray for them, to help them, to show them whatever. You are there for those mothering moments.

They can be happy playing without you for a little while because they know you’re there if they need you.

I remember growing up, that’s a long time ago back when I was a child and going to school (we didn’t know about homeschooling in those days). When I came home my mother was there. She was a stay at home mum.

But sometimes she was out. Maybe she was running late with getting her groceries and I would come home from school. But usually she was home and as I got older, I would just throw my bags in the door and rush out to play with the children on the street. That was before I was older and there were homework days.

But I felt free to do that. My mother was there. I would say, “Hi Mum,” and throw my bag in the door and head out to play.

But then if I came home and she wasn’t there, I didn’t know what had happened to her. Wow, goodness me, had the Lord come? Back in those days the coming of the Lord was preached very frequently. We don’t hear so much about the coming of the Lord today.

But back in those days I think every week we heard messages about the coming of the Lord and, “You’d better be ready!”

My, if everybody had gone and nobody was in the home I would think, “Maybe the Lord has come and I’m not ready!” or I would wonder what had happened to my mother. I wouldn’t run out to play. I would mope around because I didn’t feel that security until she came home.  

Wow, here she was! I was free! I could run out and play again.

It just shows the power of a mother’s presence and how it has such great stability upon the child. It gives them stability and it gives them that knowingness. They can trust God because they can trust their mother.

They can trust God to always be there— Jehovah-Shammah, the Lord Who is present, the Lord Who is there.

You can reveal that to your children as you are a dependable gatekeeper.

No. 2. GATEKEEPERS MUST BE CLEANSED

Number two on the resume: We must be cleansed. The King of Judah, Jehoiada . . . it says in 2 Chronicles 23:19 that he stationed gatekeepers at the gates of the house of the Lord so that no one could enter in who was in any way unclean.

Gatekeepers were responsible to guard the temple from any unclean person entering it. They had to make sure that nothing impure or unholy got past those gates.

They guarded the Holy Temple.

They were meticulous gatekeepers. They couldn’t even allow a little bit of uncleanness into the house, not even one tiny bit.

As we know as the Bible says: “ . . . Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?”

Ezekiel 44:9, talking about Ezekiel’s temple says: “No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary . . ..”

And so lovely ladies, we are at the gates of our homes watching over them, making sure that nothing unclean comes into our homes. Nothing unclean comes into the bedrooms of our children. Sometimes they might sneak things past the door into their bedrooms and maybe hide them under the mattress.

No, we’ve got to watch out for every unclean thing. We are living in an unclean, adulterous world. We are living in a society where so many of our children will have iPhones and they have so much access to uncleanness.

We have to be gatekeepers who watch over what our children have, watch over what they are seeing, watch over what they are reading, and watch over what they are doing.

We must guard them from uncleanness.

I remember my own mother. Back in my day they didn’t have to face what mothers face today with all the social media and all the unclean things that are there on iPhones and TV’s and computers today.

But she even watched over what we did have. What did we have back then? We didn’t even have TV!

We had books. Yep, that’s all we had: Books. That was pretty good. We had books to read. I remember one time bringing home books from school from someone who had leant them to me.

Of course, as usual, my watchdog mother with her beady eyes, got hold of these books and she looked through them and they weren’t to her satisfaction. They weren’t wholesome.

So she said to me, “Young lady, you will take those books back first thing tomorrow morning, back to whoever gave them to you. I will not have them in this house.”

She was a watchdog mother. How I am so grateful to her. Even though she didn’t face what we face today she watched over what we did see. I am so glad.

I guess this sounds pretty amazing but I actually grew up and I had not watched or listened to anything that was evil or unclean and I didn’t have unclean things in my mind that I had to get rid of because I had a mother who had watchdogged over me and guarded me.

I am so grateful for that.

See, we face it so much more powerfully in this day in which we live. Ask God for wisdom. Ask Him to show you how to deal with all the social media in your home.

Most of all, pray over your children. Many, many families get programs they put on their computers and so on to stop things from coming in. I think that’s a very, very good thing.

But I think, to me, the greatest protection, yes outward protection is very important, but the greatest protection is inward protection where our children grow up with such a hate and abhorrence for evil that when they face these things they will not be tempted by it.

I have two illustrations.

HORRIFIED!

One, a few years back, we were in the UK. Colin and I were speaking throughout Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales. We went to the four countries in the UK.

Our lovely granddaughter, Chalice, came with us. She was only 14 at the time. She was traveling with us and we were sitting on the bed. I was preparing for a message and I said to her, “Chally, you do home school on your computer and your iPad. Tell me, if anything should pop up that was evil, what would you do?”

She didn’t sit there and think about it before answering me. Immediately, it just rose up within her.

She said, “Oh Nana, I would vomit! I would be horrified!”

I was so blessed as I heard that because she had a protection that was on the inside. She had grown up to know that things that are unclean and evil, they are abhorrent to God and because God hates them, I hate them. She had a hate towards them and so that was her protection.

I believe that we need to have that. The Bible talks about the difference between the clean and the unclean.

The priests back in the Old Testament, that was one of their jobs. It was to teach the difference between the clean and the unclean. That is one of our great tasks as parents: To teach the difference between the clean and the unclean (Leviticus 10:10, 11; Jeremiah 15:19; Ezekiel 22:26; and 44:23).

We are always lifting up that which is beautiful, lovely and holy as the Bible says to think on these things that are pure and lovely and so on.

If something evil comes around and we hear about it, what do we do? We must tell our children, “This is horrific.”

THE SUPREME COURT OF OUR LAND DEFIED GOD

Let’s just give an example, perhaps when marriage was no longer made a marriage between a man and a woman, and they made same sex marriage just on level with godly, biblical marriage. I mean, I still cannot get over how that happened in our land? Do you? Or do we get used to it?

You see, it is very easy to get used to things. We must not let ourselves get used to things.

When that happened, what did you do? Did you rise up and speak to your children and say, “This is a horrific thing that has happened in our nation. This is an abomination in the eyes of God.”

Now all sin is evil before God, but the Word of God talks about some sins that are an abomination and that is one of them.

It is an abominable thing. It is horrific to the eyes of God. It is a slap in His face because He has created male and female to create a marriage that could bring forth children.

This same sex marriage completely obliterates that.

We have to watch in other things, uncleanness, fornication, adultery, we must call our children to have a hate towards these things that are evil so that will be in them because God doesn’t want anything unclean in His temple.

That means in our temple, too, because our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. In our home we make it a temple and a tabernacle for God. He doesn’t want the unclean in it.

Not only do we watch unclean things coming in, but also, we have to be cleansed ourselves.

In Nehemiah 13:22 Nehemiah restored the gates of Jerusalem and he commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves and that they should come and keep the gates. After he had restored and built up the gates of Jerusalem, he was going to put gatekeepers at every gate. There were 12 gates in Jerusalem at that time.

He repaired and strengthened each one of them. But then, once they were all built up again, because they had all been burnt with fire and were all broken down, he had to get the gatekeepers in.

But he said that before they could even be keepers at the gates, they had to cleanse themselves. And so, dear mothers, we need to be cleansed mothers if we’re going to be keeping the cleansed gates. Amen?

Oh, a while back I read on Facebook, and it was a friend of mine, and on his Face book he said, “I have just confiscated five phones, four laptops and two tablets. I will bore these children into shape.” He was being a gatekeeper.

Sometimes, though, ladies, things may creep into our home. Oh goodness me, yes, they can creep in. If they do creep in, we have to make sure we do something about them.

In King Josiah’s time he ordered the priests and the gatekeepers to bring out of the temple all the vessels that were made for other gods. What did they do? They burned them to ashes. That was in 2 Kings 23:4.

If you find anything unclean in your home or you find your children involved in it, well, you’ve got to take some action.

You do whatever you have to do but cast them out and get rid of them.

Yes, 2 Corinthians 7:1 says: “ . . . Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

AN EARTHLY PLACE FOR THE HOLINESS OF GOD

I was just reading this morning in my early morning Bible reading and I read Hebrews 9:1 and it says here: “Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.”

Well, that is King James. What is it really saying?

Let’s go to ESV and it says: “Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness.”

In other words, God had on this earth an earthly place of holiness. You see, the tabernacle, ladies, was built in the likeness of the heavenly one. Did you know that?

Sometimes people don’t know much about the tabernacle. We read about it in Exodus and Leviticus, but they have never really been taught about it.

But it is a very powerful thing to know because it’s not just a thing that’s way back there in Exodus and Leviticus—and how boring. No, it is a picture. It was built in the type of the heavenly one, which is now, which is still in Heaven, which John saw with his very own eyes and tells us about in the book of Revelation.

It was made in the likeness of the tabernacle in heaven.

This Scripture is saying that there was a tabernacle on earth to be an earthly place for God’s holiness. The J. B. Philips translation says:  “ . . . A holy place in this world for the eternal God . . ..”

Don’t you love that? Can I say those words again? “ . . . A holy place in this world for the eternal God . . ..”

The tabernacle, and then later the temple when it was built in Jerusalem, they were specific holy places on this earth for the eternal God. For in the Holy of Holies God resided in His Shekinah glory. He came and He filled that Holy of Holies with His presence and with His glory.

Now we don’t have a tabernacle and we don’t have a temple, that’s all finished. But now God has another temple. He has the temple of our lives.

We are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

First Corinthians 6:19-20 says: “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.”

Ladies, that word temple is the Greek word naos and it doesn’t only mean temple, it is the actual word for the Holy of Holies.

The Holy of Holies is where God dwelt. Back in those days, no one could go into the Holy of Holies; only the High Priest and only once a year because this was where God dwelt and he could not go in unless he took the blood and was covered with the blood.

But now my body is the Holy of Holies for God’s presence. Your body is the Holy of Holies for God’s presence.

Your home, God wants to fill your home. He wants to make your home a holy place on earth for the eternal God. Isn’t that amazing? We don’t want to bring anything unclean into this holy place for the eternal God.

NOT ONLY YOUR HOME BUT ALL AROUND YOUR HOME MUST BE HOLY

Just one more thing as we close, ladies. Did you know that it wasn’t only the temple that was to be holy?

The Bible tells us and talking about Ezekiel’s temple in Ezekiel 43:12 it says: “This is the law of the house; Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house.”

I’ll give it to you in another translation, in the ESV: “This is the law of the temple: the whole territory on the top of the mountain all around shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the temple.”

This is saying that not only in your home but all around your home. You see, it was not only the temple but all around the temple.

God wants us to keep our home a place of holiness on this earth for Him but also all around. Our backyard, however much land we own. It might be only just a quarter of an acre or it might be 15 acres or whatever, but God wants the land around your house that you own to also be holy unto Him.

You watch not only what goes on in your home but also what goes on around your home. Who comes around your home? Who hangs out with your children? What is happening on the inside? What is happening on the outside?

We have a responsibility to keep our home and all around our home holy. Amen?

Can I give you that again? “ . . . A holy place [your home and all around your home] in this world for the eternal God . . ..”

“Oh Father, We thank You for Your Word that shows us what You want. Oh God, Lord, help us to see our homes as You see them, a holy place for You. In this sin sick world we make holy temples for You.

“Oh God, I pray that You will help each mother, Lord God, help her to be a dependable and cleansed gatekeeper, keeping her home clean from the uncleanness that’s all around us in society. What a huge task You have given us, Lord God. Help us, Father. Give us wisdom and anoint us by the power of Your Holy Spirit. Help us Lord. We ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

Transcribed by Morgan Roth