PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 265: It’s Time to Elevate the Role of Husband and Wife, Continued - Part 7
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 265: It’s Time to Elevate the Role of Husband and Wife, Continued - Part 7
In Malachi chapter 2, the question rings out, “What does God want from your marriage?” God comes back with His answer. Do you know what it is?
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, everyone! Colin and I are back with you, continuing to talk from Malachi 2:14-16, all about marriage. We notice another little thing here today. It begins with the words “The Lord hath been witness between you and the wife of your youth.”
I am thinking about the words: “The Lord has been witnessing.” Wow! That is pretty amazing, isn’t it? God is witnessing everything that’s happening in our marriage. He’s witnessing all our interactions together. He’s witnessing our attitudes to one another. It’s not hidden. It’s all there before the eyes of the Lord.
So, dear lovely ladies, wives, and maybe any husbands listening, we must remember that. Oh, what a difference it would make in our marriages if we were constantly aware of this truth that God is watching and witnessing. The paraphrase of The Message Bible says: “God was there as a witness when you spoke your marriage vows to your young bride.” That’s another thing He witnessed. He witnessed our vows. Wow!
That is powerful, too, because in every marriage we say vows. Are we keeping to our vows? Maybe you said something like this, which are very original marriage vows. I love to hear the original, powerful, and strong marriage vows. Sometimes young couples today like to make up their own vows. Sometimes they can be very wonderful too. Sometimes they can be a little wishy washy, full of love, and all that kind of stuff. But there’s more than love that’s involved in vows. There is commitment and there are powerful words.
I love to hear a married couple speak forth these words: “I take you to be my lawfully wedded husband, and forsaking all others, to have and to hold from this day forward. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey according to God’s holy ordinance.”
We go to Proverbs 2:17. It talks there about the wife who “forsakes the guide of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God.” Yes! When we make vows on our wedding day, it wasn’t only a covenant with our husbands. It was a covenant with God. And God was witnessing. Do you notice it? You’re most probably just listening to me but if you go back to your Bible later, you will see those words: “The covenant of her God.”
It is a covenant with God. What does the word “covenant” mean? That word in the Hebrew is beriyth, and it means “a compact made by passing between pieces of flesh as God did with Abraham in Genesis 15. A contract accompanied by signs, sacrifices, and a solemn oath which seals the relationship with promises of blessing for obedience and curses for disobedience.” Well, that’s the big meaning, but that’s the whole understanding of “covenant.”
That’s another thing. Marriage is OK. We come to marriage and we’re in love. But life is not perfect. Life is not easy, and things happen. Things are said, and things are done. Love can fly out the window. But marriage is more than just the love. It is the commitment. It is a covenant, a covenant that we make with God. Amen?
Colin Campbell: This covenant, as it brings out here, is so important to process and accept. To think about it and to accept it as it states here that it’s a covenant of the guide of her youth. She was happy to be guided by the Lord during her young days. Now she’s gotten married, and somehow . . .
Nancy: And her husband is now her guide.
Colin: Her husband is now her guide. Also, the Lord, as well. She’s forgotten the God of the covenant here. That’s what it mentions. She’s desecrated that wife life, entertaining others in a marital way into her life, a formicatory way into her life. This is tragic.
I think we need to realize just how the covenant we make is not just with our wives. So many people think that. I think its what people take for granted that, “My covenant is with my wife.” But no, this covenant is with the Lord as well. It’s such an important thing. I think that can revolutionize a lot of marriages if we understand that when we’re going into this covenant.
Nancy: Yes, OK. Let’s keep looking at this wonderful passage in Malachi 2:15: “Did He not make one?” And then it carries on in the King James and it’s a little difficult to understand, so let’s read another translation.
The BSB says: “Has not the Lord made them one, having a portion of the Spirit?”
The ESV says: “Did He not make them one, with the portion of the Spirit in their union?”
And then let’s carry on in King James: “And wherefore one?” In other words, why did God make the man and wife one? The question is asked. And then, back comes the answer. Are you ready for it? “That He might seek a godly seed.”
This is a very powerful truth for marriage because many couples go into marriage with not a thought of having children. Oh, well, one day they might have children. But so many couples go into marriage today, they have all their plans of what they’re going to do, and how they’re going to get their house paid for, and how they’re going to get everything they need. They’re going to be really set up, and they’re going to have time to get to know one another. Then they might be ready to have children.
But that is not God’s plan at all. In fact, God makes it very plain here. Why did God make us one? Because He longs for godly offspring. This is what God wants from our marriage.
Let’s read The New Living Translation: “Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit, you are His. And what does He want? Godly children from your union.”
The God’s Word Translation says: “Didn’t God make you one? Your flesh and spirit belong to Him. What does the same God look for? But godly descendants.”
God is making it very clear here that He looks for the godly seed. He looks for godly children to come forth from our union. So, when a married couple gets married, but they have no thought of having children, they’re not really ready for marriage. It’s not really a biblical, godly marriage. It’s just two people living together!
For out of marriage comes motherhood, and that’s God’s plan. In fact, this is a pretty powerful statement. If a couple do not want children, they have a different mindset than God. Can I say that again? If a couple going into marriage don’t want children, they have a different mindset than God. They’re on a different page than God. They’re out of sync with God because that is not His vision for marriage.
Colin: Especially if they’re delaying it. They may want children, but they want children later. You’ve got no guarantee that there will be children later. Because you want to get everything first—you want to get your home, and your business, and your marriage solidified, and so on, like that.
But in the having of children, that’s all part of marriage. If we realize that as we have children, our eyes get more taken up with children than just being critical with one another. This is a blessing in itself, just having children to bless your marriage. So many people are fighting with one another and not realizing how children can actually stop you from fighting with one another. It's a tremendous thing.
Nancy: There are some couples who, yes, they love the Lord with all their hearts. They are so wanting to serve the Lord. Therefore, they delay children for so-called “spiritual reasons.” I know many couples who have said to me, “Well, we don’t want to have children straightaway because we’re in the ministry. We’re serving the Lord. We don’t want anything to hinder our serving the Lord.”
In the days of mission boards, when missionaries would go out to the field, not like they do today, just a short-term mission. But they would go out for great lengths of time. Many mission boards would not accept people who had more than two or three children which was really against the Word of God.
Colin: And they didn’t want them to have children on the mission field.
Nancy: I know. And can you believe that? Here they are, going out to teach heathen people the ways of the Lord and they’re teaching them something foreign.
Colin: And sometimes those people have a greater relationship, even amongst the heathen people, Islamics for example, have a greater understanding of the value of children. Here, a missionary couple comes over to speak to them about Jesus Christ and the ways of the Bible, but they don’t have any understanding of the value of family.
Nancy: I know. The heathen that he is teaching are having children and they’re stopping children!
Colin: Just imagine how those people, who are so-called of Islamic faith, or something, can they receive anything from these people if they have no great value on the family? God is such a family God. He really wants people to get married and multiply. Replenish the earth, take dominion.
It’s through children, raising children in the godly ways of the Lord that will attack the enemy. We are raising soldiers. We are raising young babies, and we’re having them, and we’re raising them in the family to be a godly workforce, to be a godly influence in the land. We should not be holding back on God in that regard, because if we do, we hold back the ways of the Lord. It’s a phenomenal force. That is true.
Nancy: And it’s not just having children for the sake of having children, because what do we read here? “That He might seek a godly seed,” or as some translations say: “What does He want? Godly children from your union.” That word “godly” is actually, is literally, the word Elohim. It’s a very first word that is used to describe God, in the very beginning. “In the beginning, God . . .” “In the beginning, Elohim.”
Now we read this same word, “I look, I long for Elohim’s children, children who come forth in the image of God and are trained in His ways and will come forth out of the home to bring the image of God, to bring His light and His salvation and His truth to the world.” This is God’s heart. He longs for godly children.
OK, we are obedient to having children, but it doesn’t stop there. Then, our vision in life then is to raise these godly children, raise them in the Word, fill them with the Word of God, and prepare them to be lights and heralders of Christ in this world.
Colin: Yes. So, having these children, and multiple children, is so important to God. It’s not important in today’s modern church. They have no understanding of this. They do not even want to understand that point. They see children as being a kind of a nuisance and getting in the way of the couples’ mission of going overseas or anything like that.
This is happening, but it’s wrong. It’s not the way God wants it to be. Godly children are raised by godly parents. It’s bringing about the likeness and the image. We’re co-creators with God in the form of bringing our children into having godly education and having godly influence in their lives. They will come out of that home or be raised up in that home to be a godly influence in the world.
These children of ours are really raised to be agents made in the likeness and image of God. Each one of these children, you never know just how far and what great influence they can have as salt and as light. Whatever we are meant to be for God, so are we raising children in that same dimension. Even to go further than us.
Nancy: That’s so true. Another little thought. You know, I didn’t always understand these truths. I remember in the early days of my marriage struggling with this whole concept, because it wasn’t taught as I was growing up, even in the church. I was thinking, “Wow! Well, if I’m going to be home with all these children, how can I serve the Lord?” I think that’s how a number of couples think, especially those who love the Lord, and they want to serve the Lord.
But as I was grappling with this truth one night, the Lord woke me up and spoke these words to my heart. He said to me:
“The perfect will of God for your life will never contradict My existing commandments.”
Therefore, what was the very first command that God ever gave? The very first words that God ever proclaimed into the ears of man were these words: “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.” They were the very first words that God spoke to man!
Therefore, if we cannot receive them, we are in disobedience. If we think that, “OK, I can’t have children because, oh, I won’t be able to serve the Lord, or I won’t be able to do this ministry, or I won’t be able to do that,” it’s not God’s perfect will. It’s our own desires. Because God’s perfect will can never contradict what He has already said.
I believe that we can have children and serve the Lord. In fact, I think we serve in a greater way by embracing the children He wants to give us. We multiply our ministry. If it’s just going to be us who are doing it, it’s confined only to us. But as we train children in the ways of the Lord, our ministry is multiplied. The message of God is multiplied. The image of God is multiplied. The more children we have, the more we release of the image of God in the world.
Colin: Yes. When we deny God these children, we deny His image in the world, and increasing the image of God in the world to fill the whole world. We deny our own blessings with that. We deny so many eternities with that mindset.
This is something that might maybe be new to many people that are hearing this podcast today, but this is absolutely the truth. God is in this. There is nowhere you can find in the Bible that He’s against having children with the godly people that love Him and walk in His ways. He will bless them and will provide for them, and God’s image and God’s ways will be multiplied in the earth. God intends it to be this way.
Nancy: Now, we need to look at this a little bit more. That word that God said when he answered, “What does God want from your marriage? I want a godly seed.” That’s the word in the King James. Other translations use the word “children,” or “descendants.” But what is that word in the Hebrew? It’s the Hebrew word zera, Z-E-R-A, and this word literally means “it can mean the sperm, but it can mean also, little children. It can mean teenage children. It can mean adults. It’s a word that is used comprehensively from the sperm right up to until someone dies, really.”
It’s amazing. When we read the word “seed,” we just think of, OK, seed, well, that’s just a sperm. But it’s amazing, ladies. Isn’t it amazing that God uses the same word, “sperm, seed,” the word zera? He uses that same word for the word “sperm.” If we read in the King James language, it calls the sperm “the seed of copulation.” That Hebrew word is exactly the same word that is used to describe people! They’re no longer a sperm but now they’ve grown into little children. They’ve grown into young adults. They’ve grown into older people.
Let’s look at some Scriptures. Genesis 46:6-7 tell us how Jacob was coming down from Canaan to Egypt with all his family. “And they took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed [zera] with him: His sons, and his sons' sons with him, his daughters, and his sons' daughters, and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt.”
When Jacob came down from Egypt, did he come down with little sperms floating down with him? No. Although the Bible uses that word, “seed,” zera, it actually means “sons and daughters and grandchildren.” It’s little ones, and big ones, and adults. God uses the same word. That’s why it is so powerful when we destroy the sperm. There are some methods of contraception that destroy the sperm. We think nothing of it! But God sees beyond where we see. He sees that sperm as a future human being. Therefore, we have to be very careful what we do with the seed.
Let’s look at some other Scriptures, shall we? In Numbers 14:24, talking about Caleb. God says that Caleb “followed Me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed [zera] shall possess it.” God is not only wanting to bless Caleb. He wants to bless his future generations! He calls them “seed,” but they’re not little sperms. They’re growing into little children, and bigger children, and moms and dads, and older people. They are possessing the land that he took. This is how God sees it.
Imagine if Caleb lived in this day, and his descendants began to say, “Well, we don’t want to have too many children,” so they’re either having no children, or stopping at their one or two. Well, there wouldn’t be many people possessing the land, would there?
We think of Phinehas. Remember Phinehas? He was the high priest. When they were having that problem with the people of Moab coming in and committing adultery with the children of Israel, oh, there was one couple, a prince of Israel. He brought this Moabite woman into the camp. There they were. They were having sex together, and Phinehas, oh, he was so jealous for his God, and for the holiness of God, that he took a javelin. He went in and put the javelin through both of them.
God was pleased with his stand against evil. It tells us in Numbers 25:12-13, “Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: And he shall have it, and his seed,” there’s that word again, zera. “His seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God.” Once again, God was talking about future generations of people. But the word He used is the word that can be used for sperm or for people. God sees them as one. He sees that sperm will one day be a future person.
What about the New Testament? I love that Scripture in Hebrews 7:9-10. It’s talking about Abraham, and how he paid tithes to Melchizedek. But do you remember what it actually says? It’s amazing! It says that Levi, not just Abraham, but Levi . . . Levi, was he a grandson, or great-grandson? Yes, great-grandson!
He wasn’t even a twinkle in Abraham’s eye, but the Bible, the Bible says that Levi, who wasn’t even thought of by Abraham, Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek while he was yet in the loins of Abraham. God saw Levi, and even the descendants of Levi, in the loins of Abraham. God saw before they were even born. God goes even beyond the sperm to see even beyond them. He sees who He had planned to be born. Oh, my. It’s time we got a little bit in sync with God and begin to think how God thinks. Don’t you?
Colin: I do. And I think this is so important here, to regard the seed of man, the sperm of man, as a sacred thing, because with that, God brings forth His own likeness, and His own image through that seed. So, we’re not to treat it as a common thing, and as something to be dispensed with so easily, and to be manipulated and used in a wrong way. It’s very sacred to God. Very sacred to God, and I think it needs to be seen that way, very, very importantly.
Nancy: We see this over and over again, in the Word of God in many instances. I was thinking of another one. Cyrus. Do you remember Cyrus? “King of the four corners of the earth.” King of Persia.” And how God raised him up to be the one to allow the people of Judah to come back to their land?
Cyrus was prophesized. His name was spoken and written in the Bible 100 years before he was even born. He was a heathen king! And yet God spoke, not only that he was going to be born, but his name! It’s just amazing, isn’t it, how God sees. And I think of the church today. We think of the thousands, perhaps millions, of godly seed that God intended to be born to bring forth His image.
Colin: Just discarded!
Nancy: To show forth His salvation and truth to this world. And they are not here because God’s people were deceived and brainwashed. They limited their families. They limited them to maybe one or two which is the norm amongst so many thousands of so-called Christian families today. Oh, so tragic.
Colin: It seems to me, just thinking about it, even as we’re talking here, that even as we, as Christians, regard abortion as a wickedness before God, as something very, very wrong, and very evil, so should we regard the importance of preserving and protecting the sperm and the godly seed, seeing it as an living embryo that can be passed away or something like that, even though they go further into sin. . . but it has the power within that sperm once it’s linked with the egg of the woman, it has the power to create the image of God and bring it forth into this world. I think, may God help us. Thinking about this, just as we repent of abortion, I think we should also repent of the way we have treated the sperm that God has given to man. It’s to be treated honorably, because it bears within it the potential for the bringing forth of the image of God in the world.
Doesn’t this world need that image? Oh, yes, it does. Why is there not the army of Christians resisting evil today? Because we have refused to have them. Because we’ve had a mindset that really comes straight from the enemy himself. Deceived us with the media, even from the church platform very often. In many, many ways we have been deceived in this manner. We need to come back to it.
Nancy: Oh, I believe this. Oh, I think we need such a revival in this area. I’m thinking of a few years ago, Serene was talking with me on the podcast. I always remember she had her youngest, little Solly, sitting with her. Solly, I think she was about one year old then. She’s now five years old. My, how the time goes!
We were talking about life together, and I remember Serene saying, “Oh, my goodness! Little Solly is here beside me. Imagine if I didn’t have her! It’s just too incredible! And look at her personality. God had a vision for her. Imagine if I had said to God, ‘No, God. I don’t want her. I don’t care for Your desire to have her in eternity with You.’”
And, wow, that’s another powerful thought. When we stop having children, we don’t only just stop one child. We stop a dynasty, a whole dynasty!
Colin: That’s true, yes.
Nancy: Because our children grow up to marry and have children, and their children to marry and have children. We now have many, many great-grandchildren coming on. They are dynasties. But also, the most powerful, powerful thing of allis that when we say no to life, we actually deny a person who God intended to come forth into the world, and not just to this world, but to eternity. We deny them eternity.
You think, “Oh, well, what does that matter? They will never know that they ever were denied it. They never know!” But how can we think like that? Eternity! It is just so glorious. The glories of the eternal world, the glories that are beyond the scope of our human minds to comprehend, why would we want to deprive a child that God would give us of these glories to come? Oh, my!
We have deprived, the Christian church has deprived millions of glory, who could have been in the glorious eternity. Right now, we can never understand how glorious it will be. It will be beyond what our minds can ever, ever imagine. And who would want to stop a child from having the privilege of having eternity with God?
Colin: I notice you have written here, “The devil hates life, and his kingdom is a kingdom of death.” John 10:10 says: “He comes to steal, kill, and destroy.” The anti-life trio. He does this through contraception, sterilization, and abortion.
The devil wants to eliminate life before it’s even conceived. That’s an interesting statement. The devil wants to eliminate life before it’s even conceived through contraception and sterilization. Abortion, then, is just the back-up plan. That’s tragic. It’s the same spirit that tries to stop the seed from being fertilized. It’s the same spirit that wants the baby when it is fertilized, when it’s in the womb, to be destroyed.
Nancy: Yes. It’s time to pray.
Colin: “Lord, Lord, we thank You, that, Lord, You have given to mankind, procreativity, so that, Lord, Your glorious image, in all its fullness, shall be manifested across this world, to push back, to push back all evil and darkness. And Lord, it’s true that the righteous examples of life, as people go forward, Lord, and babies are born and are raised up in a godly home, when they come out of those homes to bring forth Your light and Your glory and to increase the knowledge of the Lord in their generation.
“Here we are, standing in a very, very difficult time, when the world is trying to destroy mankind, to bring down the population of the earth to 500 million from seven billion people, to bring it down. Lord, we see how wicked and how far away man has become. Forgive us, oh Lord, in Jesus’ Name.”
Nancy: Amen.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.