PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 131: NEVER COWER IN THE FACE OF TYRANNY

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 131: NEVER COWER IN THE FACE OF TYRANNY

Which do you like to celebrate? Hanukkah or Christmas, or both? We are the “both” family. Join with me as I talk about what we do. This year is a strategic time to remember the Feast of Dedication, and the story of the brave Maccabees who defied Antiochus Epiphanes and led a revolt against the Seleucid armies. Their bravery inspires us to never cower in the face of tyranny!

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Wonderful to be with you. It's wintertime here in Tennessee, but, oh, we are having the most beautiful day today! We've had cold weather, but now it's like summer weather. We seem to be going from summer to winter. But we just love every day, love the warm days, and we love the cold days. We've had one snowfall so far, just a small one. And we hope we'll have some more.

This morning I was making my homemade bread again. I always love to make my bread. In fact, when I run out of bread, well, I just don't eat any bread at all until I make my own bread again. I use sourdough starter, so it's a sourdough bread. It's not a white fluffy bread.

We make it with . . . I use rye and spelt. Sometimes I use kamut, but I'm using spelt at the moment. So, it's quite a dense loaf, but it's so delicious, and so healthy.

Another thing I've been doing lately is making pancakes from my sourdough starter. I only recently found out I could do this. I'm so enjoying it. All I do is I use one egg and one cup of my sourdough starter and a little bit of salt. I just cook it in the pan, and then have it with whatever we like, berries, or whatever. It's so delicious!

So that's my breakfast at the moment. I find that I have seasons of breakfasts. Do you? You get onto one thing, and you enjoy that for a while, and then you change to another thing.

Recently I have also been having oat groats, not rolled oats, not even steel-cut oats, but the oat groats, right from the very grain. I soak, well I don't soak them, I just put them into the crockpot overnight. In the morning they are all soft and ready to eat. And so delicious!

It says that you should put one cup of oats to three cups of water, but I find that I need more than that. I usually use at least four cups, sometimes more. It seems to come to a lovely consistency. I don't usually like eating rolled oats for some reason, but I enjoy steel-cut. But now I enjoy the oat groats even better.

Another breakfast dish that I love, and that's using barley, too. Soaking barley . . . And Serene, she loves to soak it for about two or three nights in whey, or in kefir, or something like that. And then, cook it up, and it's so beautiful. So, these wonderful breakfast grains are so great in their real original state.

I have to confess that one thing that I do not have in my pantry and that is boxes of cereal. I NEVER ever buy them. I always think, “Well, you might as well eat the cardboard, as much as the cereal inside,” because it's so changed. It doesn't even resemble the original grain at all. And it has so many added things. I mean, most are filled with sugar, but you can get some healthy ones. But even then, those are not as healthy as having those original grains. That's what I love to start the day on!

Anyway, well, today is, what is the day? I can't even remember the date. But when you get this podcast, it will be the fifth day of Hanukkah. There are eight days in the Hanukkah celebration.

We in our family love to celebrate. So, we love to celebrate the feasts of the Lord. We love to celebrate Hanukkah. And we love to celebrate Christmas. We celebrate everything!

Hanukkah is one of my favorites. It's the time when we remember the story of the Maccabees. I'm sure you’ve heard about the Maccabee family and how God, I know it was God, who raised them up to save the Jewish nation.

It actually all happened when, one day, Antiochus Epiphanes, who was ruling over Israel at that time, he sent one of his men to this little town of Modin. This is where the Maccabee family lived.

Antiochus Epiphanes, he was seeking to totally annihilate Jewish life, and all their religious rites. He wanted to get rid of everything. He wanted to get rid of the Jewish people. He was trying to get them to renounce their way of life, and to practice pagan observances, and to live like the Greeks.

Anyway, so he came to this town of Modin, and his officials were trying to get Mattathias to influence the people of his town, because he was the priest in that town. So, they were trying to use him to get the people to turn away from God. But I love his reply. You can read it in the Apocrypha.

It's the books of the Maccabees in the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha was not chosen to be part of the canon of Scripture. However, it is good history, and especially the books of the Maccabees. Here we can read about their history and it's a very powerful history.

This was his answer: “Mattathias said in a loud voice, 'What do I care if everyone in the king's entire kingdom turns away from their own religion, and starts obeying his lords? My family and I will always keep the promises our ancestors made to God. WE WILL NEVER GIVE UP O UR FAITH, or disobey even one of God's laws. We will not obey Antiochus!'”

That's what he replied. Well, he was making this great reply, when one cowardly Jew stepped forward to obey the king and offer a sacrifice. Well, Mattathias, he was so furious, he rushed over, killed the man, destroyed the altar, and killed the official who ordered the sacrifice!

After that, he and his sons ran to the hills, leaving behind everything they owned, because they knew that they would be killed. But from that they began to start their revolts. They gradually gathered an army. They began to conduct continual battles against Antiochus Epiphanes and his army.

After many years, they eventually delivered Israel and Jerusalem, and God's Temple, which had been desecrated. This is what the story of the Hanukkah is all about. Actually, it's the story of the Maccabees, but it's the commemorating of them rededicating the Temple.

When they eventually were able to deliver Israel from the power of this evil man, they got the Temple back. They rededicated the Temple, because Hanukkah is the Hebrew word for “dedication.” In fact, the word, chanak, the verb for Hanukkah, is used in Proverbs 22:6, where it says: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will never turn from it.”

That word, “to train up a child,” is the word chanak, coming from Hanukkah, “dedication.” So, when you are training your children, you are actually dedicating them to the Lord. Wow! That's makes a wonderful difference, doesn't it, in understanding how we are to train our children.

We're not just training them as we think each day and teaching them to obey. Of course, those are all important things. But everything we do in the raising and the training of our children is always a vision of dedicating them to the service of the Lord.

We're raising them in a way that they will be set apart for God's service. We are training them to be ready, and prepared for God's service, and to be totally dedicated to Him. That makes a big difference to our parenting.

We're not content to allow our children to get taken up with the status quo of this world. Because we're dedicating them to God! We're not like the status quo families down the street, who, maybe they're very good families. But they don't have the same vision for their children that we have. Our vision is above the normal vision. It's to dedicate them to God Himself.

That is what Hanukkah is all about. And when they were dedicating the Temple, and getting it all back together, because most of it had all been desecrated, they went to light the lamps, because they started to get everything back.

The Maccabee families were priests, so they knew the ways and the laws of the priesthood, and how everything should be conducted in the Temple. Of course, they had to make the bread once a week, and put it on the Table, the Table of Showbread. They had to light the Menorah. They had to light the Altar of Incense.

I guess by this time, they had got the brazen altar for the sacrifices all going again. But when they came to light the Menorah, they only had found enough oil for one day. But the story, history, tells us that there was a miracle.

While they had to make the anointing oil for the Menorah, they could only use the oil according to God's specifications. They couldn't use just any old oil. It had to be the right recipe. So, the miracle took place, and the light just continued, even though they only could light it for one day, it continued to shine for eight days, until they had the oil ready to light the lamps again.

That's why Hanukkah is an eight-day celebration, remembering that miracle. Jesus Himself went up to Jerusalem to commemorate, and to join in the festivities of the Feast of Dedication, as it was called. It also had another name. It was called the Festival of Lights. You can read about how Jesus went up to Jerusalem for that in John, chapter 10, verse 22.

So, what we do on the eight days of Hanukkah? I have a list of Scriptures for every day, under different subjects about the Light, about God being the Source of Light, but Jesus being the Light of the world. Scriptures about us shining the Light of Jesus to the world, and so on. A different theme about Light for the eight days. We read these Scriptures in our morning and our evening devotions. We really enjoy that.

Then we usually take one night of Hanukkah to make it a dedication night, because that's what it's all about. It was the rededication of the Temple. But we don't have a Temple today. There's no Temple in Jerusalem. We are now the Temples of God, the Temples of the Holy Spirit.

We also need to keep rededicating our Temples (our bodies). So, it's a good thing, we find at least once a year, I think we should do it more, but at least during the time of Hanukkah, we'll take a night where we will each one around the table, we will dedicate our lives anew to the Lord. It's so meaningful.

So, we are enjoying Hanukkah at this time. Then it will soon be Christmas, and we will enjoy that too. We are not one of those families who say no, we won't celebrate Christmas. I know that there are many who feel that it's pagan, but we don't look upon it as a pagan festival. We don't get involved with all the pagan stuff. We just want to remember the birth of Jesus.

Now, it's most likely that Jesus was not born at this Christmas time. No one knows exactly when He was born. I guess the majority would think that he was born during the Feast of Tabernacles, during the time of the fall, which means that Jesus would have been conceived during this Christmas time.

What an amazing thing! The Incarnation, that God Himself comes to this earth, as a seed in a woman, and is conceived by the Holy Ghost. This is so powerful! It's so glorious to remember.

I feel sad, because I think if Christians don't celebrate this time, when do they rejoice and celebrate the birth? Or the Incarnation of Jesus?

We just love to sing the Christmas carols from Thanksgiving on. We love the play the carols, and have them playing in our homes, to sing them. Then on Christmas day, we love to meet as a family. To us, it's just a family time. We meet as a family. We have a lovely big Christmas dinner and gather together. We just love the gathering together in celebrating as a family.

So, our Christmas day is pretty much like Thanksgiving, really. It's just a great big dinner, festival celebration in the day, where we also will have speeches and toasts. And then we'll have another big celebration in the evening with our dessert, because we can never eat everything at once! We like to have our turkey and lamb and whatever we're cooking, and all these things in the day. Then, oh, when we're feeling a little more like it, we'll have our dessert in the evening.

It's just a beautiful day of family celebration. So that's what we're doing. I guess you'll all be doing different things in your home. Everybody has their different traditions and their different ways. But the main thing is to celebrate with family, isn't it?

But I'm also getting back to Hanukkah, I'm really feeling this year, oh, that it's such a powerful remembrance. Because these Maccabees, the father and his five brave, amazing, courageous sons, they rose up against incredible tyranny that they were facing.

I mean, this Antiochus Epiphanes, he wanted to completely take away their whole lifestyle, and change it. Now, we're not facing exactly what the Maccabees faced back then, or what the Jewish people were facing then.

But we're beginning to face it, because it's coming if we continue to give in, because already we have tyranny happening in our beautiful free nation of America. Could you have imagined at the beginning of the year, that here we are, all these months later, and we are looking out upon a whole nation of masked people? Now that is beyond what we could ever have thought up in our brains!

And why is that happening? I trust that you understand that it's not because of this plandemic. This has been used for tyranny, to get us to be submissive, to come under their leftist liberal ideologies, because their plan is a global reset. It is globalism.

They are wanting to bring in a new economic world order. This is all the precursor. All the lockdowns, and all the social distancing, all this is just a precursor, and preparing us for the tyranny that is coming. For when this new economic world order comes, and we pray that it is going to be pushed back, and will not come as soon as they want to get it in.

Because well, there's only one person, and those who are standing with him, who are stopping this. This is why our President Trump is hated, not only hated in this country, but hated around the world, of those who are planning this new world order. He is a wrench in the spokes of what they are trying to do, because he does not believe in it. He believes in being a patriot and keeping this nation free. I think we have to come to understand this because there is this whole elite who are bringing in this tyranny.

What about churches? There are some churches that are still not back together. There are others who are still not singing in church. How come they have obeyed and submissively given in to this tyranny? Because this is tyranny. This is nothing else but that.

Can you imagine the Maccabees giving in? Goodness me, wow! I mean, they would have not given in to such things. These were men who were brave and courageous, and they would not give up anything of the lifestyle that God had given to them. These Maccabees, they teach us that we are NEVER TO COWER IN THE FACE OF TYRANNY. I think it's a great thing to remember at this time.

I was reading the other day in Revelation, Revelation chapter 21:8. It gives a list of those who will be thrown into the lake of fire. At the top of the list is “the fearful.” Now, OK, we've been told that's OK, because we all fear things. Fear can be a good thing if it's protecting us from something that's going to happen.

But the real meaning of the word is “the cowards.” Most translations translate it “the coward.” The Amplified is very powerful. It says: “But as for the coward, and the ignoble, and the contemptible, and the cravenly lacking in courage, and the cowardly submissive.” And then it goes on to mention the whoremongers and the sorcerers and the adulterers and so on.

I'm amazed that “cowardly” is put alongside those other evil things! In fact, it's at the TOP OF THE LIST! I believe, dear ladies, we need to get the spirit of the Maccabees in this hour, and rise up against tyranny, and claim our freedoms. Our freedom that is given to us by the Constitution, our freedoms that are given to us by God.

Oh, by the way, that's another thing I must tell you about. We have some other Christmas traditions. Actually, this week, we will be having one, no, two of our book parties. Because we also have Christmas book parties.

It started years ago when our children were raising their children. We'd come together for Christmas, and it would be such a racket with all the little children, you know. I thought, “Oh, these mums and dads just need one night when they can come and have a beautiful restful evening.”

So, I decided we'd have a book party. It would be just the couples. We'd come together, and we'd have a beautiful meal together. Then we'd have this book party. Well, we play the white elephant game, but none of us want junk, or stuff, or anything extra in our homes. We're trying to eliminate junk, not get it!

But we all love to read, so we just buy books. We wrap them up, and we put them in the middle of the floor. And then we have the numbers, and when it comes to a number, you choose.

We like to play it really radically. We encourage each other to get books that everyone will just die for, and they'll fight for! So, when it's their turn, instead of just, “Oh, going and unwrapping another book,” they'll be fighting for a book that someone else has! It usually turns into a real fight, and a real . . . It gets really exciting. But we just love it, for the fun of it.

So, we do that, but then we got too big, and then all the young, the new generation of young couples began to come. Now there's so many of them that we can't all fit together! We'd be going until midnight. So, we have a separate one for the young couples, and actually even the young girls, the singles. They actually have their own book party, because they all love reading too. So, we all love to do that too.

But why I was saying that, is that this year, I've already ordered my books for the book parties, because we'll be involved in two of them. Colin and I love to host the young couples one, as well as the older couples.

I have purchased, this year, all books about the Revolutionary War, because I've been thinking much back to that time, of when the people of this nation had to rise up against the tyranny of Britain. They were rising up against the greatest army in the world at that time.

Here they were, just farmers, and this and that, never been trained in war. Yet, because they so desired freedom, they could not take all their lockdowns, and all their tyranny that was put upon them. So, they rose up, and against all odds, they won! They won, because it was so strong in them to have their freedom.

So, I think we need to get back to a bit of this spirit, don't we? There were so many who lost their lives. They lost their lives for the freedom of this country! And now we're allowing our freedoms to be given away! How come? How can we do that?

We need to perhaps read about the Maccabees again and read some more about the Revolutionary War. Or perhaps get some good DVDs on it, and remind ourselves of the sacrifices that took place for our freedoms in this country that we will NOT give them away! Amen?

Oh well. That was my little introduction, because I'm planning to speak today, and will have to go on to next time, about 20different words of what God wants us to do about evil. I mentioned a few of these in a podcast a few weeks ago. I just got started and didn't have time to finish, and then I got on to different other podcasts. But I feel I do need to give it to you fully. So, I'll start again, so you can get back with me, of where we're going.

I found as I said, 20 different words, verbs, doing words, because, dear ladies, the Bible is a doing Book. It's a verbing Book. It's an action Book. It's the Hebrew word asah Book, which means “to do, to take action.”

Everything God writes in this Book, He doesn't write it for us to just enjoy reading it. “Oh, that is so lovely . . .” NO! He gives it to us for us to DO! Oh, just read through Deuteronomy, and read how over and over and over and over again that Moses speaks, God speaking through him: “I want you to keep and DO these words that I am giving you. I want you to keep and DO these statutes I am giving you.” And so it's all do, do, do, asah, asah, asah, which is the Hebrew word.

I was reading that in Deuteronomy and just seeing the power there. So then I thought, and I got onto the points about evil, because I thought, “Well, what does God want us to do about evil?” I found 20, can you believe it, of these. God doesn't just mention things, does he? He really gives them to us.

So, let’s look at them.

Number one: DEPART FROM EVIL

Psalm 34:14: “Depart from evil, and do good.”

Proverbs 3:7: “Fear the Lord, and depart from evil.”

Proverbs 14:16: “A wise son feareth and departs from evil.”

Proverbs 16:6: “By the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil.” This word, it means “to turn aside from, to shun, to rebel from it, revolt from it, remove.”

But it's not only translated “depart.” This is the amazing thing. When you read a word, you're reading “depart from evil.” If you go back and check the Hebrew word, and then you look up all the other places where that Hebrew word is used, you find so many different words! It's amazing.

I'm not going to give you all of them today, but here's a couple. This same Hebrew word for “depart” is also translated “beheaded.” Wow! In 2 Samuel 4:6-7, it talks about two guys who beheaded Ishbosheth. That was one of Jonathan's sons. And they took it to David.

They thought David would be pleased because Saul, his enemy was now dead. But, oh, was David pleased? No! He was absolutely indignant that they should do such a thing and should cut off a man's head in peace while he's lying on his bed. Not even in war? So, he then turned around and ordered that these two men should be killed.

But “beheaded.” Well, that really sort of gives it to us, doesn't it? And shows us what a powerful word it is. So, when we depart from evil, we are actually going to behead that evil. “That's it, I'm beheading it! I'm finished with it! It's gone, completely gone!” So, just remember that, that's a good word, “beheaded.” That's what you are doing about evil.

With all these words that we're going to talk about, we can relate them to what is happening now in our nation. The evil that is happening, and even the evil of our current election, where there has been so much fraud, just cheating, and stealing. This is what they plan to do, to steal this election. It is evil. Therefore, we should depart from it, shouldn't we?

Oh, here's another word, “eschew.” Have you ever heard that word before? Well, I don't blame you if you haven't, because it's an old word. It's found in the King James Bible. I don't think it will be in many other translations.

But it's the same word we're talking about, the same Hebrew word,” to depart from evil, to behead it.” But here, in Job, they translate it “eschew.” Isn't it interesting, how they use different words in different places, and it's exactly the same Hebrew word?

But let’s look at the one in Job 1:1: “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.” In other words, he departed from evil, he shunned it, he rebelled against it.

We go down to verse 8. This is where Satan and the Lord are conferring together. “The Lord said unto Satan, 'Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?'” Or rebels against it.

And one more time it uses it. Yes, it's in Job 2:3 where God speaks again and says, there's no one like Job: “one that feareth God  and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity.” So, there it is.

I'm sorry, ladies, here we've come to the end of this session, and I'm only given you the first point! Anyway, we've got lots of interesting ones to come. So don't forget to check in for the next session.

I won't be giving you a Christmas podcast. I'll be talking about ways to come against evil. I hope you don't mind, but I think it's important, because there's so much about it in the Word. OK, so come back next week.

“Dear Father, we thank You for this beautiful time of being near. Lord, I pray that You will save all these lovely, darling wives and mothers from rushing about too much, Lord, and just making life hectic for themselves. But Lord, they will rest, and bask in the beautiful, Lord, just remembering of Your birth, and Your Incarnation. And, Lord, lifting You up, Lord.

“For those who are celebrating Hanukkah, I pray that You will bless them too, Lord, as they just remember, Lord, how You are the Light of the world, how You want us to shine Your Light in this world. We do pray that You will help us to be shining lights, Lord, not flickering lights, but shining lights in this dark world.

“I pray for Your peace, Your rest, and Your blessing, to be on every family listening. In the precious Name of Jesus, Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell * www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.