PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 158: FROM GOLD TO BRASS, Part 3
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 158 – FROM GOLD TO BRASS, Part 3
What is happening behind your four walls? Are you going for gold, or are you living a replacement lifestyle? Check it out.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. Today we are continuing our sessions about gold for brass. Which one are we living?
I'm going to talk about another area today, where we perhaps need to see if we've got the gold, or we've got the brass. I’d love to talk about Family Devotions, because I believe this is another area where what we have today is considered normal, but it's not really the normal.
I think that most families today most probably, husbands and wives, didn't grow up having Family Devotions in their homes, or whatever you like to call it in your home—Bible Time, or Worship Time, or Family Gathering Together Time, whatever you call it. I mean, it doesn't matter what you call it, but a time when we gather as family, a gathering of the whole family every morning and every evening to meet with the Lord.
That is a very powerful thing. It is something that was just part of godly homes for so long, I think really, up until when TV came in. I think that was what stole Family Devotions out of the home.
The family devotion book that we use in our home is called The Daily Light. It's just the Bible. That's why we use it. Many families may prefer just to use the Bible, just find a chapter, find a book, and read a chapter each day. Or if you have little children, just a couple of verses.
But we love to use The Daily Light. It's actually called The Daily Light on the Daily Path. It was put together years and years ago by a family, about 150 years ago. It's just Scriptures on a certain theme for the morning and for the evening. The reason they did that was because back then it was normal.
Yes, it was the normal for families to gather morning and evening to read the Word of God together and to pray. That was normality. So I love this book, because it has the Word of God waiting for you for every morning and evening. It is a wonderful thing for families who have never been used to doing this, especially a man who is to lead his family in the ways of God and teach them the Word of God.
But if he hasn't had it in his home life growing up, he can feel very insecure about doing it with his own family. He may feel, “Well, where do I read? What do I do? How do I go about it?” I can understand that because you do things by example. This is why this book is so great, because all you have to do is go to the date. The husband sitting at the head of the table, at the end of the meal, he picks up the Bible, well, The Daily Light. All he does is go to the date. “What's the date today?” My husband usually has to ask that every day. “What's the date?”
Then there it is! If it's morning, the Scriptures for the morning are right there in front of you. The evening, the Scriptures are right there in front of you. It takes all the sweat out. You've got no more excuses. There it is.
You may have a Daily Light already. If you don't, you may like to get one. I have two available at Above Rubies. I have the New King James Version, and I also have the King James Version. We use the King James Version ourselves. We love it, I think because we grew up with it. The language is familiar to us.
But I know there are some who just find, “Oh well, we like a more modern translation.” That's fine. you can even get The Daily Light in even more modern translations, The Living Bible, and so on.
But I do have a little word to challenge you. That is, this specific Daily Light that's the King James that I have available through Above Rubies, I have added something special to it. It's just the same Scriptures in every Daily Light that you'll ever pick up anywhere around the world.
But at the beginning of each chapter, I have given some ideas of how to keep your children on their toes, how to keep them listening. Because even though there's only a few Scriptures, it's amazing how children, and I have to confess, even me, can get into a dream. My husband starts reading, and before long, I'm thinking about something else! Oh, you don't want to, but there you are. You're doing it!
So, we give ideas of what we do in our Family Devotions of how to keep people interested, asking questions. Sometimes Colin will read the wrong word. Well, if nobody notices, it shows that they're not listening. Or maybe he'll stop halfway in a verse, and say, “Who can finish it?” Lots of different ideas, just keeping the children interested all the time. So it's a great one for you to buy.
Now, you may think, “Oh, how can my children understand King James language? They just need to get nice easy translations.” But I wonder, why do we try to limit our children's vocabulary?
Some of these modern translations . . . (I should say, although I read the King James, I'm a connoisseur of translations. I love reading different translations of the Bible, especially some of the old translations. Some of the new ones are very good. Some, well, they've been just made so easy that we are really limiting our vocabulary, and they've been written for a limited vocabulary).
But I think when training and teaching your children, I'm sure you don't want to raise them with a limited vocabulary. I'm sure you want to enlarge their vocabulary. Sometimes when you're reading the King James, you'll find a word that's not used very much today.
But it's a fun thing to say to the children, “What do you think this means, children?“ They'll give you their ideas. Then of course, if they didn't get it right, you tell them, and they have learned a new word! It's good for them. It's good for them to learn new words, even words that are not used so frequently.
Today, in our Daily Light reading, there was a passage from Luke 18 about the story Jesus told of the widow who would not give up and consequently received her request from the unjust judge. But also, the story in Luke 11:5-8 telling the story of the guy who wanted some bread. So he went to his neighbor and knocked on the door. And, oh, his friend didn't want to answer. He said, “No, I'm in bed with my children. Go away! Go away! I'm asleep.”
No, he wouldn't give up. He just kept banging, knocking on the door. In the end, the Bible says, “Because of his importunity, he gave him what he wanted.” The whole message of course, is continued, persistent prayer. We never give up. And God says, when we have that attitude, He will hear us and answer.
But nobody knew what that word “importunity” was this morning. So we had to talk about it. So they learned a new word. And we know that it means “persistent.” Most translations say, “Because of his sheer persistence, he got what he wanted.”
So, you find words like this that are not used so often, but it's good to learn new words, So, don't feel as though, “Oh, I've got to keep my children at their very limited vocabulary.” No! Why not widen their vocabulary? You'll have fun doing it. It's really great.
Back to this whole idea of Family Devotions. We get a vision of what we are to do from the teaching in the tabernacle in the wilderness. We go back there. We find a principle that God gives. It's called “the morning and the evening principle.” You can go to my web page and look it up, so you can learn more about it.
But I'll give you some little glimpses today. We remember how they sacrificed the lamb, every morning, every evening. There's something powerful about this morning and evening principle. In fact, when we come together, and it's time for us to pray, every single day I love to take a moment to thank the Lord for His great sacrifice, and for taking my place upon the cross, for being the Lamb of God who shed His blood for my sins.
You see, back there in those days, every morning and every evening, they sacrificed the lamb. But every single sacrifice pointed to Christ, the Lamb Who would take away the sin of the world. When Jesus died, there was no more need for any more sacrifices, because He did it ONCE AND FOR ALL.
But I love, I'm no longer looking to that, but I love to look back and thank Him. I want to show my thankfulness. So I love to do that, morning and evening, when we come together.
But that was not all. In the Holy Place they had the candelabra. They had the golden candlestick. Golden. Remember, we're talking about gold instead of brass. They had the golden candlestick. It was pure gold. It was beaten out of one piece of gold. The priests had to come every morning, every evening, and they had to take out all the muck and clean up the wick.
So it was kept clean. Then they would pour in the oil to keep the light burning. The message we learn is that God said the light in the Holy Place had to burn continually. It was never to stop, ever, ever, ever, ever. And the only way they could do it was to light it every morning and every evening.
You see, precious ladies, if they only lit it once a day, it wouldn't keep going. They had to do it twice a day. That applies to our lives. We start the day with the Lord, but my, as the day goes on, things have, maybe you've even lost your temper with the children. “Oh, goodness me!” Do you ever get through a day where you are perfect?
Somehow, we get contaminated throughout the day, and we need to come again at the end of the day, to receive forgiveness and cleansing, a renewing of the Holy Spirit again. Because as they poured in the oil, it speaks of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. And we need the refreshing anointing of the Spirit on our lives, not just once a day, but we need it two times a day if we're going to keep the oil burning, if we're going to keep the light burning.
You see, that's the principle. If you want to keep it burning in your heart, if you want to keep the light of God burning in the hearts of your children, and your growing children, and your teens, and your adult children, you've got to do it twice a day. That's the principle God gave.
And then, you come to the Altar of Incense. Once again, it was a golden altar. It was covered with gold. It speaks of prayer and praise and worship. Every morning and every evening, once again, twice a day, the priest had to light that incense. It wasn't enough to do it once a day because it would fade out.
It was a beautiful sweet incense. It tells you all the spices that were used in the Word of God. They were sweet spices, because God wanted a sweet aroma filling His house. And He wants that sweet aroma of His presence—of worship, of praise, of prayer, filling your home. But once a day is not enough. They had to come back in the evening, and they had to relight it again so that it would continually burn, because that incense had to burn continually. Yes, it was a continual burning.
Now, prayer and praise and worship. We see, we go over to the New Testament. As I mentioned before, what is in the Old, we'll find it in the New. We go over to Revelation 5:8. Here John is looking into the heavenly realm. This is amazing, dear ladies, because, OK, we can read about the tabernacle back in Leviticus, and we think, “Oh, how does that relate to us today?”
Oh, it does, because everything that happened there was done after the pattern of the heavenly. It tells you about that in Hebrews, that it was a pattern of the heavenly. And now John is looking into the heavenly realm, and he sees it. He sees it in the present, not back in Leviticus. He's seeing it in the present.
It is now, even in our day, this is eternal. And what does he see? And we read:
“And when He” (that's the Lamb, the Lamb of God, having been slain).
“When He had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odors” (meaning “incense,” every other translation has “incense.”)
“Full,” (not a quarter full, not half full, but full of incense).
“Which are,” what are they? “Which are the prayers of saints.”
Dear precious ladies, our prayers are incense. That's what the Bible says. And it tells us how we have to come, morning and evening, to light this incense and keep it going.
We go over to chapter 8, and again, John is looking into the heavenly realm, and he sees:
Revelation 8:3: “And another angel came and stood at the altar” (that’s the golden altar of incense) “Having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense.” Not a little bit, “much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.”
Your prayers, as you cry out to God, as you come together and you cry out to God as a family, they are going up before the Lord as smoke and incense. The incense wafted and filled the house of the Lord. Our prayers, it fills our home, but it goes right up into God's heavenly home. And He hears us.
Revelation 8:5: “And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.” Wow, great things happen when we pray, don't they?
And then, of course, there was the brazen altar in the Outer Court before you ever go into the Holy Place, or the Holy of Holies. That had to be attended to twice a day as well. Now let me go to that in the Word. Yes, Leviticus 6:8-13. And God is commanding Aaron and telling him that this is how it was to be done, that the fire on the altar was to burn all night until the morning.
In fact, we go down to Leviticus 6:12: “And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out.”
And down to Leviticus 6:13: “The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.”
But the only way they could keep it going, ladies, was to attend to it morning and evening. You see, it was a command. “The fire must not go out.” So He says, “You've got to come in the morning. You've got to take out all the ashes. And then you've got to put on the wood to keep that fire burning.”
But if they left it till next morning, it would be out. Instead, they had to come again in the evening. And once again, take out the ashes, and put on the wood to renew that fire and keep it burning.
And it's the same with our lives. When we're born again, God lights a fire in our hearts. It's supernatural. In fact, when this fire was started on this altar, it was supernatural. God came and lit the fire. It was supernatural! But then He told the priests they had to keep it going. It's the same in our lives. God comes and we are born again, miraculously, by the power of the Holy Spirit. But then He wants us to keep it going.
“Come on now! every morning, every evening, you've got junk in your life. Take it out, confess it before me. And then put on the wood! Get into the Word! Let My Word renew you, and fill you, and comfort you, and strengthen you, and make you strong in your faith, so the fire will burn brightly.”
But it’s not enough once a day, because it will go out. The fire requires at least a minimum of two times a day, a morning and an evening. So we get this principle.
Lovely ladies, is this normal in our society today? No. It's not even normal in the church! If you were to go round at church and ask the families, “Oh hey, do you have family Bible time in your home morning and evening?” They’d kind of look at you with a strange look on their face. “What are you talking about?” They wouldn't even know what you're talking about.
So, we're living in a replacement lifestyle, where the gold, the gold, ladies, this furniture, they were gold. It was the Golden Table of Showbread, the Golden Lampstand, the Golden Altar of Incense. They were gold. They spoke of something that was pure gold. They spoke of Christ. They spoke of His Word. They spoke of what keeps us going and keeps the fire burning and keeps the light burning.
It's the renewing of the Holy Spirit. It's the Word of God. It's prayer. It's praise. And it's coming to do it, morning and evening, twice a day, that keeps it going in our lives. That's the gold. That's the gold. And yet, so many have brass today.
They get up from their meals. They've only half-finished their meals, because when we come to the meal table, it's not only a place to eat food, not only a place to fill our body, but to fill our soul and to fill our spirits. If we send our children away from the table without having given them the Word of God, we haven't given them the full meal.
I love the way families in the Netherlands call Family Devotions. They call it “Finishing up the Meal.” Isn't that cool? They don't leave the meal table until they finish the meal with the Word of God. So there we go, ladies. Do you think you can get back to the gold? You're not going to be satisfied with it being stolen from you by the devil?
Because the devil has stolen Family Devotions from the family. He's stolen that Bible time. He's stolen that prayer time. He knows how powerful prayer time is. He knows how powerful it is for families to be praying together, impacting the nation, impacting the world from your little home around your table!
Of course, he's going to try to steal it from you. And what do we do? We fill it with brass. We get up from the table. We go and watch TV, or everyone goes here and there, on their iPhones, on their social media. And the gold is being stolen. Get back the gold, ladies.
Well, let's look at some other areas. I'm thinking even of church life. And oh, I have to confess here that wow, I don't think I'm even living in the gold either. Well, let me share. OK, I shared the other week, I'm 80 years of age now, so I go back a little while, even though I still think I'm only so young.
But when I was growing up, we had church three times a day. Well, two times, and then we had Sunday school. So we would go to church in the morning. We'd come home and we'd have a meal around the table. Then us children would walk back to the church to have our Sunday school.
We didn't have Sunday school while church was on as most churches do today. We were there as families for the whole service. We would come back to the church for Sunday school where we'd have special classes for us children. We would walk back to church, about a mile and a half or so, have our Sunday school, walk home, and then there was the evening meeting at nighttime, and we would all go back to the evening meeting. And so we would have church actually two times a day.
Well, we got to the next generation, and that's when we were raising our children. We degenerated a little bit in that we still kept to two services a day. Colin was pastoring, and we had our service in the morning.
Then we would come home and bring loads of people home for dinner to sit around our table and sit around our deck and sit around our pool. When we were living on the Gold Coast of Australia, we were renting a home which the Lord provided, but it was beautiful home and had a pool.
So Colin and I would ask folks, and our children, who were growing up to be young people by now, they would ask their friends, and our home would be filled with people. So wonderful! Colin and I have always loved hospitality and especially on Sunday. We have always invited folks home after church to fellowship, because Sunday is the Lord’s Day (unless you worship on Saturday (and that is the Lord’s Day). Well, it's the Sabbath, and some of you will be Sabbath keepers and worshipping on Sabbath. Others will be worshipping on Sunday. But whatever day you are worshipping, it is the day that is the day unto the Lord.
So as we were growing up, it was a day unto the Lord. The whole day was for God. We didn't do anything of our own desires on that day. In fact, back in those days, even society was with God's Word. Nobody opened any shops. There were no shops open. You couldn't even buy or sell on Sunday because it was the Lord’s Day. Even the heathen had to keep the Lord's day, even if they didn't go to church. They couldn't go and buy and sell.
But we're up to my generation now, raising my children, of course. By now, shops are open. Everybody starting to do things on Sunday, but we would keep to our two services. We had church in the morning and fellowship with everybody. The children didn't go back for Sunday school, because we had by then got in the groove of having Sunday school during the church service, which I, OK, maybe that's fine, but I don't believe it's the ultimate.
So then we would all go back for church in the evening. Two times a day. Well, there's nowhere in the Bible where it actually says, “Thou shalt go to church two times on Sunday.” But I do believe that it happened, and it became tradition, out of this same principle of the “Morning and Evening Principles.” We are doing it in the home, so we do it in church.
You see, the home is the first institution. God established the home first before He established church, before He established government. That's all secondary. The home is the first institution. And what happens in the home comes out into the church, and then into society.
So because back in those days, God's people would meet morning and evening in their homes, it was normal to meet morning and evening on Sundays. The only difference was, you were meeting with all the other families. It was just an extended meeting of families. And so that's what happened.
But now I have a terrible confession to make. Now we're into the third generation, and we are still pastoring. But we only have one service. I hate it. I so miss our second service, but somehow, we've just got into this groove of most of society today, which is one service in the morning.
Oh, my. And then we do have a fellowship meal. What we do now, because we have church in our home, but it's not like a little lounge meeting. We have our great big social room, which is our Above Rubies packaging room. We can pack if we want to, squash 100 people into that room.
FELLOWSHISP WITH ONE ANOTHER
So, we have church there. And then afterwards, everybody brings a meal, and we all stay on and fellowship. It's just so wonderful. Oh, I'm such a great believer in fellowship. The early church came together to fellowship, and to break bread, and to be taught the Word of God. They didn't just have a meeting and go.
I think, you know, I think it's because so many don't understand real church. Church is not just, “OK, I go to church. I listen to a message, and I go home.” No, it's fellowship. Fellowship with one another. Love one another. Pray for one another. Oh, there's so many “one-anothers” in the Bible.
You can't one-another unless you are together!
And I find every Sunday, as we have our service, which is always so wonderful. And then we sit down to eat and often the young people will go out and play volleyball. The children are running around. Adults are continuing to fellowship, to pray for one another, to talk over things they're going through, to share with one another, to share more revelation. You haven't got enough time in the service to do it all.
It goes on and on. Sometimes we're there till late. So we are having a pretty great Sunday. But I don't know what happened to our night one. Somehow I think we've got to get back to that. But it does show you, doesn't it, how we can sort of degenerate away from the gold.
Well, I see time is going again, ladies. One other thing I was thinking about too. Just a little comment on it as we close, and that is our clothing. Yes. I'm wondering, what are we experiencing today? Are we living in the gold, or are we living in the brass?
When I look around today, and even in the church, I have to think we're living in the brass. It seems as though modesty and femininity have been stolen from the people of God. Well, of course, you expect it out in the world. You know, they don't know the ways of God. But why is it that the people of God have followed the ways of the world?
I mean, help. I don't even know how to say it. People will come to church, I mean, ladies, I've seen young people come to church in shorts. I mean, OK, I'm not saying let's outlaw shorts. They're great for sports and swimming and the volleyball court, and out there.
But not for church! Don't we have any respect for God, for holiness? I mean, they often come with brief shorts, they come with cleavage. Oh help, you don't even know where to look. They come with tight jeans. You can see every tiny little thing. People say, “Oh, well, that's just the fashion of the day.”
Well, what kind of fashion? Is it gold or is it brass? Oh yes, I know it's normal today. I know it's just normal for young people to wear holey jeans. Well, that's just the norm. I'm not saying you must not wear them at all. All I'm saying is, they're not feminine. They're not beautiful. And many times they're so tight they show everything. They don't line up with beauty or femininity.
No wonder, even when the people of God can succumb to that sort of thing. I mean, I've seen preachers preaching in holey jeans! I mean, I'm talking about lady preachers. Goodness me. Yes. And I think we have actually degenerated into brass.
Anyway, goodness me, I'd better get you onto a happy note, hadn't I? Well, the Lord love you and bless you. I hope you still love me. Let us pray.
“Dear Father, I ask that You teach us Your ways. Oh God, save us from accepting the normal as though it's normal. We've not seen any other way, so we think it's normal. But it's not Your gold, it's not Your ultimate plan. Help us to be those who go for the gold, and who are not content with brass. In Jesus' Name, Amen.”
Nancy Campbell * www.aboverubies.og
Transcribed by Darlene Norris
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THE DAILY LIGHT ON THE DAILY PATH * PLUS CREATIVE WAYS TO READ GOD’S WORD TO YOUR CHILDREN (KJV)
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THE DAILY LIGHT ON THE DAILY PATH (NKJV)
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