PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 148: WHAT DOES GOD SAY ABOUT HAVING CHILDREN? Part 2
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 148 – WHAT DOES GOD SAY ABOUT HAVING CHILDREN? Part 2
Find out how God loves to bless us? Of course, you love your children, but do you love motherhood? Check out the difference.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello again, ladies! Well, I wonder if you were able to write a letter to Aldi's about that terrible transgender sign in their new shops. I hope you have. If you didn't, I know life is busy, and I give you a gentle reminder to please write. I think it is so important. We cannot just go and look at a sign like that, and think, “Oh, well,” and just carry on. Because it is totally, totally against everything of how God created us.
I will post the picture again at the end of this transcript to remind you.
In fact, I was thinking, it's quite interesting, I've never thought of this before. I see these signs all the time when it has a male bathroom, and it's got the picture of the lady with the skirt, sorry, with the pants! And then the female bathroom, the picture of the lady with the skirt. Man with the pants, lady with the skirt. I'd better get it right!
OK, isn't it interesting? I was thinking how they show the picture for the female with the skirt. And yet, today, hardly anyone wears a skirt! Isn't that amazing? And yet, that is still the picture that society shows to show which bathroom it is. Because sometimes there are foreign people, and they don't understand the writing. But they can see the picture.
The picture is that a woman is really revealed by a skirt. Interesting. Not so much these days, although I think it is so much more feminine. I'm not saying you can't wear pants. I'm not saying that. But I think I should say, I think it is correct to say that it is more feminine. We do look more like women when we wear a skirt. It is so interesting that that is the sign, and it's all over the world. Amazing, isn't it, and yet how we are turning away, even from that.
All right, I said that I would share a few more Scriptures with you about the blessing of children. Well, what God thinks about children, because we've got to work out, who are we really listening to? Are we listening to God, or do we go by what society says?
I told you last time, well, I didn't tell you, sorry. I read the Scripture of how the very first thing that God did when He created male and female was to bless them. Bless them. To bless them with the anointing of fruitfulness.
Now, that wasn't a one-time thing. After the flood, God reiterated that blessing. In fact, this time, He didn't say it once like He did at the beginning. This time He said it two times. In Genesis chapter nine, verse one, it says: “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth.” And He said it in verse one and verse seven. Twice. He wanted to make sure they got the blessing, and that they knew what the blessing was.
Go to Genesis 17:15-17: “And God said unto Abraham, 'As for Sarai thy wife,” she wasn't Sarah yet, “thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her.'” Twice He gives the blessing. Twice. Interesting.
I don't think that God wastes words. And when He comes to the woman . . . When He speaks to the man, He says it once. When He speaks to the woman, He says it twice. He gives the double blessing, because she is the one . . . although the man and the woman are going to receive the blessing, she is the one who conceives and grows this baby in her womb. And so the blessing is given to her two times.
We go to Genesis 22. And talking to Abraham again: “In blessing I will bless thee, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore . . . And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed My voice.”
Speaking of Rebekah: Genesis 24:60 “And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, be thou the mother of thousands of millions.” Whoo, can you imagine it? Can you imagine the minister giving you that blessing on your wedding day? Wow! I'm not sure many married couples would be ready for that. But that was the blessing that they gave over Rebekah. “Be thou the mother of thousands of millions.” And that prophetic word came to pass.
In your mothering, ladies, do you think of the future? You see, it's not just today. We do not mother just for today. We do not have children just for today. It is ongoing. It is for the future. And the interesting thing is, ladies, that when we decide that we are going to say “no” to a baby . . . “Oh dear. I don't think we've got . . . It's just not working out at this time. Oh, we haven't got enough finance. Help! No, we can't do it.” And we say “no.”
When we say “no” to a baby, we don't say “no” to just one baby. We say “no” to a dynasty, because if we do conceive (and we can't make ourselves conceive, it is only the hand of God), if God gives conception, and a little baby comes forth, that baby invariably, unless something happens, will marry and have children.
BUILDING GODLY GENERATIONS
Their children will have children, and their children will have children. It is ongoing, down the generations. The greatest thing that we are doing as a married couple is building godly generations, is establishing a godly dynasty to go down the generations. It is important to think generationally as we are mothering, that we even pray generationally, that we don't pray only for our children now, but for their children, and their children and their children. We pray for the generations to come.
My husband, he shares the testimony of how he is blessed through the prayers of his great-grandmother. She was a great intercessor. He didn't really ever know her, but she did live in their home when he was a little baby. He said his mother said she was continually praying. She was in her 90's at that time.
She would sit in her rocking chair in the corner and be quietly praying. She'd be praying for people, praying for the family. People might even hear their name mentioned. But she didn't know because she was blind. And then it would be bedtime, and she'd go to bed, and she'd still be praying. And then they would hear her say, “Lord, let thy servant go to sleep now.”
But his mother, my husband's mother also said, she didn't just pray for the family, and people around her, but she prayed something quite significant. And what was it? She prayed for the coming generations, even a powerful prayer. And so, as she did, these prayers came to pass.
My husband is one of nine children, and all the family are all working for the Lord. Many of them are in full-time work for the Lord, pastors, and evangelists. They know it's a result of this great-grandmother's prayers who prayed for the coming generations.
So it's not just the children we have now. It's who will come from them. That's an exciting and amazing thing, isn't it? I'm already up to the fourth generation in my lifetime (see below to see that I am really in the sixth generation)! Because we had, my husband and myself, first generation, or I should go back, really, to my . . . and then my grandparents on both our sides. We had godly grandparents, so let's go back to that.
My godly grandparents, OK, we'll take that as the first generation that I have known in my lifetime. My parents, second generation. Colin and me, third generation. Our children, fourth generation. Their children, fifth generation. And now I'm still living and my grandchildren are now having children. I have at least twenty great-grandchildren now (fifty grandchildren, 20 great-grandchildren so far). Of course, there will be many, many more of them to come. Praise the Lord!
Isn't it amazing? In my lifetime, from my grandparents, who I knew, it is now the sixth generation in my lifetime, still walking in the ways of the Lord! I guess I will be gone if the Lord doesn't come before that, for the seventh generation, well, unless something miraculous happens and I live to 120, haha! But at least I'm seeing the sixth.
But I am praying that even beyond what I won't see, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth generation, they will still be walking in the ways of the Lord! It makes me think of the Scripture, oh, it just blessed me many years ago. Let me go to it. I think it's in Zephaniah.
Zephaniah chapter one. Yes. “The Word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah, the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.” OK. Well, what did I get out of that? Help! Well, and sometimes it could be even other generations in between. Sometimes they missed some out.
But here, yes, it's talking about the son of Hezekiah. It's “Hizkiah” in my King James Bible, but it's Hezekiah. So here is Hezekiah, one of the good kings of Judah, praise the Lord. “He did that which was right, and that which was good in the eyes of the Lord.” So we go back from Zephaniah, to his father, to his grandfather, to his great-grandfather, and then great-great-grandfather, all in one verse.
And I thought, “Wow! This is powerful! This is Zephaniah now and he is a prophet to the nations. He came from Hezekiah, who was a good king, but now, down the line, he is still walking in the ways of the Lord, and a prophet to the nations.” And I said, “Oh, God, thank You, Lord! This is my prayer, that my children will still be serving You and following after You with all their heart, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth generation, and beyond!” Is that your prayer too?
BLESSING THE WORLD WITH GODLY OFFSPRING
Well, anyway, that's the vision that we are meant to have about having children. Blessing the world with the godly seed! Yes, because every child that comes into this world comes with the Image of God. As we train them and prepare them and teach them in the ways of God, they can go out into this world to shine for Him to reveal His love, and truth, and mercy, and justice in the world. We're bringing God into the world.
But when we stop, when we say “no” to a baby, we don't only say “no” to one baby, but to a whole dynasty! Think of how many generations are missing out on the blessing of God because we say “no”! Isn't it unbelievable?
OK. Yes, Genesis 28:3 speaking to Jacob, “God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people.” Do you notice that every time these words are spoken, it's first said, “God Almighty bless thee”? “BLESS THEE.”. You see, fruitfulness is the blessing of God. We either want to live and walk in the blessing of God, or not! Which do we want to do?
WALKING WITH GOD AND HAVING CHILDREN
I'm just thinking now of Enoch. Let me see if I can find where it talks about Enoch. Enoch, where was he? Oh yes, in chapter five of Genesis, Genesis 5:21: “And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah.” We know Methuselah lived for 969 years.
And then it goes on to say: “And Enoch walked with God.” He was a man who walked with God. But he did something else:“ After he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: and Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.”
So, after he begat Methuselah, it says that “Enoch walked with God,” but he didn't just walk with God, what else did he do? He “begat sons and daughters”! And he was walking with God! And he had such a glorious walk with God that God just took him.
But you see, that is a wonderful encouragement. Sometimes, dear darling ladies, you think, “Well, what am I doing in life? I'm just having these children and all my life is taken up with looking after these children! What am I doing for God?”
I know how you feel. I felt like that when I first started having my children. At that time in my life, I didn't have a clue or understand anything about motherhood! I was just catapulted into it! I had our first baby, and then, seventeen months later, we had our not just our second baby, but our second and third babies! We had twins! We had them unexpectedly. Didn't know I was having them until I was giving birth! I actually gave birth on my due date, having twins, and they were 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 6 lbs. 13 oz. so they weren't wee little preemie babies. They were big babies!
But I didn't know I was having them. That was back in the days when there were no ultrasounds. In fact, when the midwife was checking me in the hospital with the old doppler and listening with it on my womb, and listening in her ear, she said, “That's strange, I can hear another heartbeat! Oh, just could be an echo. We'll wait and see.”
So, we waited to see! Evangeline was born, and then she felt my tummy. “Oh yes, there's still another one there!” So about five minutes later, Stephen was born. And that was the biggest surprise of our lives!
So in those days I suddenly had three little children in 17 months! We'd just come back from the mission field. We were living out of suitcases. I was just overwhelmed. I hardly knew what I was doing. I just couldn't believe it!
Colin and I had gone out full time for the Lord when he was engaged. We had been in the mission field. We were out to change the world, and here I was, stuck in four walls with three screaming babies, with not knowing what I was doing. No help. We'd just got home from the Philippine Islands. Didn't know anyone, and I wondered what was happening to my life. I thought I was finished. I thought, “That's the end of my Christian life! Goodness me, can't serve God, just stuck with these babies!”
But I cried out to God, “Lord God, what am I doing? Help me, Lord God!” And He began to show me, because I was crying out to Him, little by little, He showed me I was in His perfect will. Wow! I thought I was meant to be out saving the world! He showed me that this is who He had created me to be. Oh wow! I'd never thought of that before. I always wanted to be out doing the adventurous man-things, not stuck in a home with babies!
But He showed me, He began to reveal to me, that I was created with breasts, with a womb. This is who I was. Wow! And gradually, I came to it. Gradually, I began to embrace it. And as I began to get the revelation of truth into my heart, into my soul, and embrace it, it was the first time in my life I'd ever embraced who I was as a female, as a woman, as a mother. As I did it, I began to have peace.
Instead I was in turmoil, frustration! “I'm meant to be out serving God! I'm meant to be doing this! I'm meant to be doing that! I can't waste my life stuck in these walls!” But God showed me I was doing the most powerful thing that I could ever do in my whole life. I was bringing forth children to affect this world for God. Bringing forth children, not only for this world, not only to bring forth generations, but for eternity! I was fulfilling an eternal calling!
And so, I just came into, began to . . . instead of being frustrated, to love motherhood. Because there's a huge difference, dear ladies, between loving your children, and loving motherhood. I loved my precious children. Oh, yes, I was just a gonner. I loved them. You love your children. But do you love motherhood? Big difference. I used the word “gonner” meaning “I was over the top in love with my baby).
We have to come to that place of not only loving our children, but loving motherhood. Embracing motherhood, because this is who we are, and who God created us to be. It's the greatest purpose He's given us in this world! And it's such a powerful purpose! As I said, there's not one thing going to happen in this world without the womb, without our bringing children into this world, to accomplish the things that God has for them.
And so, what Scripture were we up to when I got on to all that? Haha. Oh, yes. It was Jacob, how God was blessing him.
Then we go on to Leah, Genesis 30:13: “Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed. And she called his name Asher,” which means “blessed.”
Let's go on here. Isaac, now Genesis 49, no this is Joseph. Yes, we read that one. “The blessings of the breasts and of the womb.”
Let's go to Deuteronomy 1:10, 11. I'm not giving you every one. We'd be here all day! I'm just giving you a few to show you that it just lines up. Every time God says: “And God blessed them,” then He says: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Deuteronomy 1:10, 11: “The Lord your God hath multiplied you, and behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude. (The Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as you are, and bless you, as He hath promised you!)”
Deuteronomy 7. Oh, I love this passage! Deuteronomy 7, verse 12: “Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which He sware unto thy fathers.” The word “mercy” there in the Hebrew is chesed, a glorious, glorious word, meaning “God's love, and His commitment in His covenant to his people.”
Verse 13: “And He will love thee and bless thee.” And how does He love us, and bless us? The next phrase: “and multiply thee.” You get it? Every time it says, “I will bless you,” then it talks about fruitfulness and multiplying. “He will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy ground, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which the Lord gave you.”
Now this is an interesting one, ladies. So many think, “Oh, no, I can't have another baby, because help! We're in such financial stress! How could we ever afford another baby?” Well, lovely ladies, God doesn't ever give you all the finance you need for another baby before you have that baby! No! You don't need it now. You haven't got another baby.
But when He brings another baby to you, then He provides. Did you notice it? What does it say? “I will love you and bless you and multiply you. I will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land. Your corn, your wine, your cattle, your sheep.” You see that blessing comes after the blessing of the womb. And when He blesses us from the womb, then He blesses us to provide for that child.
We see that again in Deuteronomy 28:3, 4: “Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy womb,” and then it goes to say: “and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.” Those blessings come after the blessings of the fruit of the womb.
Sometimes we do it all the wrong way round. We think, “Oh, well, we've got to get a house, we've got to get our house paid for, we've got to get this, we've got to get that, we've got to have everything. Then we can have a baby.” Or “Then we can maybe have another baby.”
But no, God's way is, “Let Me bless you.” It's God Who blesses us as we trust God with our womb. It's not just me to say, “We're going to have another baby.” It's God's doing. Sometimes a baby doesn't come straightaway. Sometimes it does. It belongs to our Sovereign God. But when this baby comes, then He has given us the promise, “And I will bless your ground, and your cattle, and your store, and your basket. And I will provide for the needs of that baby!”
Oh ladies, just get it! God has shown it all to us. Isn't it wonderful? Yes! So let's give you one or two more. Oh yes, go over to Deuteronomy 13. We start off this passage in verse 12. And it's very negative at the beginning, It's talking about how, if you hear about some folks in a city, or a town, and they are following after other gods, well, you'd better check it out. And you've got to find out if it be the truth.
It says here, verse 14, you've got to ask diligently, “and, behold, if it be the truth, and the thing certain, that such an abomination is wrought among you,” you will then, you've got to go and smite those inhabitants of the city “with the edge of the sword,” and destroy them utterly.
So they had to get rid of the evil, and those who were following after other gods, because otherwise, it would be like leaven. It would filter right through all the tribes of Israel, and they'd all begin to start following after other gods, which they did so many times. Of course, if they had put this into practice, it would have been stopped. So God is speaking to them here about arresting that evil.
But then it carries on, and it goes down, and we get to verse 17. It says that if they do that, “And there shall cleave nought,” nothing, “of the cursed thing to your hand,” and if you will do this, and you will destroy those who are following after other gods, “Then the Lord may turn from the fierceness of His anger and show thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee.”
Oh, two beautiful words! Actually ladies, they're both the same Hebrew word! And yet they use two different English words. They are the Hebrew word racham. “And show thee mercy.” What is that Hebrew word racham? It is the word “womb.” It actually means to, really, how would I put it? To be soft, to be compassionate, to love this baby in the womb. It literally means “compassion” and “mercy.” Those are the two words that are mentioned here, mercy and compassion.
And that's what the word “womb” means. You see, ladies, we are not only physical, but transcendental. Our breasts are physical, but we not only have physical breasts. God has put within us, as females, an innate nurturing anointing.
And then we have the womb, which is physical, to nourish a child in the womb, but it's also spiritual, too, in that this word “womb” speaks of God. It's interchangeable. This word racham is interchangeable. Sometimes, it speaks of the womb of a woman. Other times, it speaks of God's love, and mercy, and compassion. And we see it here.
“I will show you mercy and compassion. I will show you My wombness. I will show you racham and racham.” Not just once, it's mentioned twice. And then after that, it says: “And I will multiply you.” You see His blessing of mercy and compassion, then after that comes the multiplying.
Before being fruitful and multiplying, it is always the blessing of God: “I will bless you. I will love you. I will show you mercy. I will show you compassion.” It's so amazing, how that word is interchangeable.
When we embrace our womb, and a little baby is growing in the womb, there is a great anointing of compassion and mercy that comes over us, because we are revealing the mercy and compassion of God. This is the most amazing thing, precious ladies.
When we embrace who we are, and when we embrace the womb, we're showing something of God to the world. When we nurse a baby at our breast, and we show that love, and tender care, and protection to our little one, we're showing what God's love, and nurturing, and nourishing, and protection is like. We're a picture of God. Of course, it's not a full picture. It's like a shadow, but we're just showing something of what He is like.
So, OK, time's going. Let me just give you a couple more Scriptures of blessing. Let's go to Deuteronomy 28:63: “The Lord rejoiced over you, to do you good.” And how is He going to do them good? “To multiply you.”
Deuteronomy 30:5: “He will do thee good, and multiply thee.” Yes, and so it goes on, and on, and on. So many Scriptures. God blesses, then He gives us the blessing of conception and fruitfulness. This is Bible language, ladies. Let's get the Bible language, OK?
Let's pray.
“Dear Father, we just thank You so much for Your Word, and for showing us the way You feel, the way You think, the way You have planned for our lives. Help us, Lord, to be on Your side, and not the devil's side. Oh, God, help us to be women who embrace who You created us to be. We ask it in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
Transcribed by Darlene Norris
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