PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 275: God Loves Togethering, Part 5
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 275: God Loves Togethering, Part 5
We are in a battle for the soul of this nation. Are you willing to assemble for the battle? You will hear some personal family stories on this podcast.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, everyone! Good to be together again! I’m still talking about this amazing word “assembling,” at the moment from the Old Testament. Actually, I started out telling you that I found 12 Hebrew words that mean “assembling, coming together, congregation.” But then, I found 14 words.
And then, can you believe it? This last week I found another one! So, now I have found 15 Hebrew words to describe the assembling of God’s people together. There are so many verses on each one of these Hebrew words. It’s amazing. When you begin to look it up in the Old Testament, and then later in the New, it’s filled with the words of the assembling of God’s people. It is something that’s so much on His heart.
We were talking at the end of last session about this word asaph, which means “to assemble together for a purpose.” There were many different purposes. One of the purposes was for battle, of course. I have a few more Scriptures about that. From that beautiful chapter in Judges, chapter five, this is Deborah’s song about the battle when they went out to fight against king Jabin and his general Sisera who had 900 chariots of iron.
And yet, the children of Israel hardly had a weapon in the whole of the nation. But Deborah encouraged Barak to go out to war. He said, “OK, well, I’ll do it if you come with me.” In her song, Deborah says, Judges 5:2: “Praise ye the LORD for the avenging of Israel,” because God did avenge them, and they won the victory “when the people willingly offered themselves” to the Lord.
Judges 5:9: “My heart is toward the governors of Israel, that offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless ye the LORD.”
Verse 15: “And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah.”
Go down to verse 18: “Zebulun and Naphtali were a people that jeopardized their lives unto the death in the high places of the field.” Deborah was blessing the ones that had willingly come to the battle.
But sadly, some of them didn’t come to the battle. We see in verses 12-17, and verse 23 in the New Living Translation: “In the tribe of Reuben there was great indecision. Why did you sit at home among the sheep fields? To hear the shepherds whistle for their flock? Yes, in the tribe of Reuben there was great indecision. Gilead remained east of the Jordan. And why did Dan stay home? Asher sat unmoved at the seashore, remaining in his harvest. Curse ye Meroz said the angel of the Lord. Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof, because they came not to help the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.”
In Deborah’s great song, she praised those who willingly came, but she was not very nice in what she had to say about those who didn’t come to the battle. I think that’s always much the same, isn’t it? There are those who are willing to get into the battle, to stand for truth. There are those who are willing to get in the battle, to pray, and to bring the blessing of God and the move of God and to come against the evil and the enemy that is in encroaching upon our land.
You see, prayer meetings are where we really get into the battle. Prayer meetings are battle meetings. My husband loves to talk about “battering ram prayer meetings.” He loves battering ram prayer meetings. Well, he takes that, of course, from how they went to warfare back in those days.
The Bible speaks about the battering ram and how there would be a whole lot of soldiers. They would get this big, long pole or log, and it would have a sharp point on the end of it. They would all hold it. I don’t know, maybe they could have had . . . twenty, fifty, maybe a hundred men. They would all run together against the walls and the gates of the city, to ram them! They would run and ram this battering ram into the walls.
Of course, it may not work the first time, so they would go back. Then they would come, and they would ram it again! Then they would go back, and they would ram it again until they broke through the gates and the walls of the city to get to the enemy.
My husband loves battering ram prayer meetings (Ezekiel 4:2 and 21:22) where we’re not just sitting around praying little prayers, but we are really coming against the enemy to fight the battles of the Lord in the prayer meeting, because this is where our greatest battles are fought. We’re not fighting against flesh and blood. We are fighting against principalities and powers, as it tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:5.
I think it’s the same. There are those who want to come and get in the battle of the prayer meetings. But then there are those who never come. They just stay home, do their thing. That really saddens me, because, especially in this hour in which we are living, we are seeing such evil encroaching upon our nation. Evil like we have never seen before of this sex trafficking. It is becoming so incredible.
I was listening this morning to a podcast about what is happening down on the southern border and how many of these children are really being used in sex trafficking. It is horrendous. And nobody is doing anything. Well, there are people who are trying to do stuff, but no one in government is doing one thing about it.
We’re facing this transgenderism and the mutilation of children, changing from the sex that God gave them. It goes on and on. I wonder how people can just sit back and watch a movie and not feel the need to get into the battle! And precious mothers, yes, even though we are busy with our children and our families, we’ve got to get into this battle too, because the future of our children is at stake.
Our children are either going to grow up in a nation where this evil is going to grow worse and worse, or where, through prayer, we see a mighty revival and the turning back to God. What kind of a nation do you want your children to grow up in? We have such a responsibility. You may think, “Well, how on earth do I ever get to a prayer meeting with all my little children?” Well, you would be surprised. It’s really what you want to do.
Last night was our weekly prayer meeting. We have one at our home here on Monday nights and Wednesday nights at Serene and Sam’s. We were at Serene and Sam’s last night. Oh, it’s just amazing to look around and see the families, to see the mothers with their little toddlers and their babies. One mother just gave birth a month or so ago, and she’s there with all her 11 children and her 11th nursing baby!
We don’t have prayer meetings where it’s just the adults. We have all the family, all the children, and all the little ones, just like it says in the Word. When God brought His people together to hear something He wanted to say, or for prayer, or to cry out to Him, He told them, “Bring everyone! The mothers, the fathers, the young people, the little taphs.” That’s a Hebrew word that means “the toddlers.” It speaks of the running of little children, just the ones. We think, “Oh, goodness me, they shouldn’t be there. They would be such a disturbance.” But God wants them there. And the nursing babies.
And, let me share this with you. We had a big accident on the Hilltop this last week. Monday night, one of our young teenage boys living here on the Hilltop, he is a twin 16-year-old. He had a four-wheeler accident. It looked very, very bad. His leg was twisted up to right angles. They thought other bones were broken in his body. His head was all gashed open.
The ambulance came and they realized they would have to life-flight him. They called for the helicopter. He was life-flighted into Vanderbilt Hospital. But we were all praying, all praying. We were having a barbeque that night, but we all got together to pray. Everyone was praying, and God did miracles, amazing miracles. By the time he got to the hospital, this leg that was right out sideways was just about back in place!
He had to go into surgery. We were praying and he came out of surgery, his father was telling us, he came out praising the Lord! He was just about blowing the hospital down; he was praising the Lord so hard! It was just amazing. And miraculously, it was a total miracle. He came home late Wednesday afternoon. They thought they’d have to get him in a special bed to rest.
You know what? This young man, only 16 years old, he comes to every prayer meeting, and he is always praying. He has such a heart for God. His heart is on fire for God. You know what? He said to his parents, “I’m going to the prayer meeting.” He would not miss. So, after coming home from hospital, after being life-flighted two days earlier, he was at the prayer meeting last night. Doesn’t it show you? It’s not even circumstances. It's our hearts. It’s where we are. Who will come to the battle of the Lord? Amen?
In fact, it does take sacrifice. It takes effort to go to a prayer meeting. It’s much easier to stay home, read a book, watch a movie. That’s easy. But it takes effort to go to a prayer meeting. I think it’s even easier to go to a Bible study where you can just sit back and listen, or talk a little bit, and add a bit, than to come to a prayer meeting where you have to actively get involved and pray! Because that takes work. That takes getting into the battle. But it’s time for that. Can you say “amen”?
Now if you don’t have a prayer meeting anywhere around you, you can start one in your home. You can invite some others, even if it’s one other family who has the heart to pray and get together and pray. Of course, you can have your battering-ram prayer meetings every morning and evening with your own family, can’t you?
Another reason why people were called together, the word asaph, Jacob called all his family together to bless them. That’s a beautiful thing too, isn’t it? A powerful thing, to bless your family. This was coming to the end of Jacob’s life. He was giving a prophetic blessing over all his children. Genesis 49:1-2: “And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days. Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.”
I can remember when Serene’s husband Sam, when his father passed away. It’s an incredible story about his passing. Will I take time to tell you? Maybe just briefly. His father got cancer. He began to get this huge growth under his arm. It was so huge. He was looking absolutely like death warmed up. We knew that this was pretty serious.
At that time, this was many years ago, Serene had been reading about how raw food and juicing can help to eradicate cancer. Those of you who know Serene know she is one of these psychos, so, “OK, if you’re going to do something, you do it!” She said to her father-in-law, “Now, Dad, if you will do this, maybe you will get healed.” She said, “I will help you.” He was living with them at the time. “I will help you. I will juice for you every day. We’ll make raw foods.”
This was when Serene got onto her raw food fad. Well, I’ll have to tell you about the end of that. But anyway, she decided she would eat only raw to be with her father-in-law.
Colin, my potato-and-meat-eating husband, said, “Now, James, if you’ll do it, I’ll do it with you to support you.” I couldn’t believe it! So, even Colin did it! I thought “Help! If he’s doing it, I’ll do it!” So, we all went raw.
But then Serene juiced. They bought in 40 pounds of carrots a week as well as all the other stuff, and she juiced it. Do you know what? We watched a miracle! We watched this man, whose face was gray, and his face began to become pink again. This huge tumor began to fade away until it was gone! And he was healed! It was totally amazing!
Well, a few things happened after that. Colin thought, “OK, that’s it! Praise the Lord! He’s healed! I can get back to eating what I want!”
So did James. He thought, “Oh, I’m healed! So, I can get back to eating what I want!” And he ate a lot of junk food.
Well, Serene thought, “Wow! If it can do that, this is how I’m going to live!” She began her raw food lifestyle. Well, I guess if you know her story, she did that for seven years. But of course, she realized eventually that that kind of thing can be used miraculously to help eradicate cancer, but it’s not a lifestyle. It began to have negative effects upon her health.
In the end, she came to realize that this wasn’t right, and that she wasn’t living in the perfect will of God, because God has all the five food groups in the Bible. Therefore, she needed to eat every one of them. That’s where she and Pearl started their journey, to seek the Lord for His mind and they began Trim Healthy Mama.
What about James? He was healed! But he went back to the way he was eating before. He ate junk food. A year or so went by, and this cancer came back. This time, he didn’t want to face the challenge. Serene would juice for him. He was now living in another place. She would take juice around to him and it wouldn’t even be touched. He wouldn’t even touch it. So, she had to give up.
What happened this time? Instead of watching him change, come back to health, and his tumor disappear, instead he began to get gray again. This tumor became bigger and bigger and bigger. As the months went on, he was really just about all tumor, and his body was skin and bones. We were watching him die.
But to get back to my story about blessing your family, I will never forget the ending of his days. I remember at the end; he brought all his family around him. He prophetically blessed each one of them. Colin and I were so close to him, too. He even blessed us, spoke words over us. It was a beautiful thing.
We were there, actually, as he passed. It was a beautiful passing. He was there with us and blessing right to the end, until he went into an unconscious state, just breathing, then barely breathing. Then he was gone. It was so peaceful . . . into the presence of the Lord.
When they built the coffin for him, Sam got it done specially, because it had to be so wide, to fit in this tumor.
Which reminds me of another story. I’m thinking of this story now. This is a story of my niece. Two of my nieces just came from New Zealand recently. One of these nieces, a beautiful, beautiful mother, well, she’s now a grandmother. A while back, her husband passed away. He passed away due to a very, very, very radical cancer, a cancer that they said that he wouldn’t even last two weeks.
But they began to believe God, and they moved into such a place of faith and trust in God even in the face of the medical profession saying he could never last another day, just about every day. He lasted another seven years. They had another beautiful seven years together. She was believing for his total healing but it didn’t happen, but she was blessed with another seven years.
She was telling us the whole story. I am giving you a little tiny bit of it today. Around our table, just the other week, in fact, we had all the family with us. There was hardly a dry eye around the family. But she was telling us about his going into the presence of the Lord. You know, I was thinking, it’s such an amazing thing when a baby is born. Oh, is there anything more amazing in the whole of the world? To see a new life, a new baby, coming into the world? I don’t think so.
But then, I think there is another amazing thing. It’s not incredible like the wonder of new life, but there’s something amazing about it, of when someone goes into the presence of the Lord, and you’re feeling the atmosphere of heaven. Have you had that experience? It is so amazing.
Heather was telling us about her husband. He said, “Oh, where is Heather?” She was right beside him. So, she came around where he could see her. She said his eyes were not on her. His eyes were upon the Lord. He was seeing the Lord. They watched him going into the presence of the Lord as his eyes were upon the Lord.
But then, after he died, something amazing happened. Actually, it was after he was laid out. One of her children was looking at the body and they said to their mother, to Heather, “Mum, I can’t see this tumor!” Because it was big. It was huge. It was noticeable. She said, “Well, OK. Let’s take down the sheet.” They took down the sheet. His body was perfect! There was absolutely no sign of where that tumor had been.
God healed his body as he went into the presence of the Lord! Isn’t that amazing? Serene piped up and said, “Well, yes, that is a miracle! That is not something ordinary, because I remember when Sam’s father passed away and we had to build this extra-special huge coffin for him to fit in this tumor.” But here, amazingly, God took it away as he went into the presence of the Lord! Isn’t that amazing?
Anyway, I’ve got onto a few sidetracks there, didn’t I? Let’s move on. Oh, another reason this word is used so much in the Bible, asaph, is the gathering of God’s people back to the land of Israel. Oh, and there are so, so many Scriptures about that! Oh, goodness me. I’m just going to read you one or two.
I can’t help it, because I just love these Scriptures about the returning of God’s people to the land. And, you can actually go to my webpage, AboveRubies.org, and if you go to Articles and Stories, and then Israel and the Land, you can look up “Everlasting Possession.” There I have all these Scriptures written out for you to check out, all these wonderful promises. Our God is going to bring back His people to His land.
Let’s just look at one or two of them.
Ezekiel 11:17: “I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you [asaph] out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.” Of course, we are living in the fulfillment of these prophetic words. For many, many years, and then especially when Israel became a nation in 1948, more and more of God’s people began to come back to the land from the four corners of the earth. Israel is now a thriving nation. “A nation was born in a day,” as the Bible says. But God is still bringing His people because they’re not all back yet.
Micah 2:12. Now as I read this, just listen. In this Scripture, there are five references in one Scripture to the gathering of God’s people back to the land. Then, there are two other words that we could also add. But there are five words about assembling. See if you can pick them up.
“I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men.” OK, did you find them? I’ll go over it again.
“I will surely,” that is asaph. “Assemble,” asaph. God uses the word two times. He is so adamant about it. This promise will be fulfilled! “Surely I will assemble thee, O Jacob, all of thee.” Not just some. “All of thee. I will surely,” qabats. That’s another word for “assembling.” “I will surely gather,” qabats again. Another word for “assembling.” “The remnant of Israel; I will put them together,” yachad, “as the sheep of Bozrah.”
There were five different Hebrew words for “assembling.” My! God could have said it once. He could have said, “I will assemble you.” But no. He doesn’t. “I will surely assemble thee. I will surely gather thee. I will put you together.” Five words, and then He says, “as a flock.”
Well, that’s not singular, is it? It’s plural. And “in the midst of their fold.” That’s also a plural word.
“They will make a great noise, because there will be such a multitude of them.” Another plural word, of them all gathering. Wow! That’s just wondrous! Isn’t it amazing?
But you know what? Oh, and I’ve just been thinking about this lately. You see, as they have been coming back to the land, it’s the Jews who are coming back, mainly from the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and the Levites, the priesthood. But where are the ten tribes? The ten tribes were cast out of Israel well before the tribe of Judah. In 586 BC, the Jews were taken to Babylon because of their sins.
But the ten tribes had already gone (722 – 721 BC). Where are they? Does anybody know where they are? I don’t know where they are. I don’t think anyone knows where they are. But God says, “I’m also bringing back all My people, not just Judah, but all of them, and Israel too.” Dear ladies, we have yet to see some amazing miracles happen.
Let’s have a read here. Jeremiah 3:18: “In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.”
Isaiah 11:12-13: “He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel,” Israel, “and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” Ephraim always speaks of the ten tribes. “Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.”
Hosea 1:11: “Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head.”
Now, I’ve got to tell you this Scripture. It’s Jeremiah 16:14-16. I think this Scripture is talking about the miracle that’s going to happen to reveal these ten tribes and bring them back to the Land. “Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be said, The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.”
You see, perhaps the greatest miracle that we’ve ever seen in the history of the world were the children of Israel coming out of Egypt, and those plagues that God brought upon the Egyptians so that they would free them. Then they’re coming through the Red Sea, and those waters piling up high, and them walking through on dry land. Have we ever seen anything like that since?
But this Scripture says that people will no longer say, “Wow, the Lord God has brought them out of the land of Egypt.” No. People will say, “The Lord God has brought the children of Israel out of all the lands where He cast them out!”
He goes on: “Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the LORD, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. For Mine eyes are upon all their ways:” Listen to this: “they are not hid from My face, neither is their iniquity hid from Mine eyes.”
At the moment, they are hidden from all of us. We don’t know where they are. But they’re not hidden from God. Isn’t that amazing? In the transcript, I will give you lots of other Scriptures that you can look up, about God specifically saying that He’s going to bring back Israel as well.
Well, I don’t know where time has gone, but we’re going to have to close this session. Let’s pray.
“Dear Father, we realize, as we live in Your Word, how much You love the assembling of Your people, the gathering of Your people together. Lord God, You never want us to be an isolated people. You want us to be a together people. Help us to be those who come together with the saints, who come together to pray, who come together for battle prayer meetings, and battering ram prayer meetings.
“And, Lord God, help us to be also those who are aware of what You are doing in this hour, how You are bringing Your people back to Your land. Lord, You have promised You are going to bring back even those ten tribes. They’re not lost, and they’re not hidden from You.
“So, we ask Lord, for the great fulfillment of all Your promises. Help us to always be listening and watching and waiting, Lord, to know what You are doing in this hour. Save us from having our heads in the sand. Lord God, teach us of Your ways. Let us be like the children of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel should do. We thank You. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”
1 Chronicles 12:32: “The children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do . . .”
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.
GOD IN NOT ONLY BRINGING BACK THE TRIBE OF JUDAH BUT THE 10 LOST TRIBES:
Isaiah 11:11-13; Jeremiah 3:18; 12:11; 16:14-16; 31:27; 30:3; 31:31-34; 33:14, 24; 50:4, 5, 33; Ezekiel 20:40; 36:10-12; 37:16-28; 39:25; Hosea 1:11; Zechariah 8:13; 10:16; Hebrews 8:8.