PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 300: Is There a Better Word Than “Kids,” Part 4
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 300
: Is There a Better Word Than “Kids,” Part 4
Why does God call our children "olive plants"? And we begin talking about how God wants us to make "princes in all the earth."
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Here we are again, and this is podcast number 300! Last week I mentioned that if there are any of you who have managed to listen to the last 100 podcasts, that’s 200 to 300. If you’ve been miraculously able to do that, do email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. I’d like to send you a special gift because I think that is pretty amazing if you have done that. Don’t forget to let me know.
And don’t forget to keep passing on the podcasts. Let your friends and everyone on your social media know that we have this podcast that is especially for wives and mothers, to encourage you in your very high and noble calling. They can be encouraged too.
We are now up to our fourth one in the series of Is There a Better Word Than “Kids”? I’m currently giving you 20 different words that God calls our children. Today we are up to number 15.
No. 15. OLIVE PLANTS
God calls them “olive plants.” In Psalm 128:3, it starts off: “Your wife is like a fruitful vine within your home, your children, like olive plants, all around your table.” I wonder why God calls them “olive plants? Well, I have a few ideas.
Number one: olive trees are always a symbol of blessing to the Israelites. When they saw new olive shoots growing up around their olive trees, they knew they were blessed, because the olive tree brought such blessing to them in their daily lives. It was such a blessing. Of course, our children are blessings, aren’t they? That’s one of the reasons they are called olive branches, because they are such a blessing to us.
Number two: olive plants have to be cultivated or they will deteriorate and grow wild. To get the best fruit, they’ve got to be cultivated. Also, our little olive shoots that spring up around our table have to be cultivated and trained if they are going to grow up in wisdom and stature. That’s part of having olive plants—to train them, and to cultivate them, and often to prune them.
That’s not so easy. We don’t like having to do that, but as God prunes us to make us fruitful, we as loving parents need to prune our children from bad habits and from things that could go with them into adulthood and spoil their lives. Sometimes children can get into the habit of lying. Oh my. Children can lie very easily, and we must not ever let them get into that habit.
Some children can get into the habit of having a mood, of pouting, of just getting into a very sour state because things are going wrong. We mustn’t allow that to happen. Some parents may allow it, but we would never allow that, because that’s a habit that children can take into adulthood, which can spoil their marriage.
There are too many marriages breaking up today. But many times it’s because they are children who haven’t really been pruned. Now they’re adults and they have all these bad habits they’re taking into their marriage which will spoil their marriage. Moods will spoil a marriage. The pouting, just getting into a silent treatment, not talking, just putting on that huff because things aren’t going your way. That just spoils a marriage. Oh, and we must not let our children get into these habits. We have to cultivate them, train them, and prune them.
Number three: olive trees are a symbol of beauty. In Hosea 14:6, it’s talking about Israel. It says: “Your beauty shall be like the olive tree.” The Hebrew word for “beauty” there is hod, H-O-D. Although it’s sometimes used for people, it’s mainly associated with God, and means “splendor, majesty, glory, and honor.” This time it’s used about the olive tree.
God wants our children to grow up beautiful like the olive tree, revealing God’s beauty and glory in their lives. They are our children. God has made them so beautiful, hasn’t He? We look at our children and we just can’t believe how beautiful God’s creation is. But we want them to grow up not only beautiful on the outside, but beautiful on the inside. That’s why we’re seeking to cultivate them and train them.
Number four: the olive tree is very fruitful. Large olive trees can actually produce an average of 400 pounds of olives annually. Larger trees can produce even more! We trust also that our little olive shoots will grow up to be very fruitful olive trees. Fruitfulness is one of the hallmarks of the olive tree. Those are reasons, I think some of the reasons why God calls our children “olive trees.”
Number five: olive trees have a purpose. They’re not just ornaments. They’re not just to look beautiful. They have a purpose. We talked about that before when we were talking about how God gave Jeremiah as a gift, not only to his parents, but a gift to the nation and the nations. That was his destiny upon him. God has a purpose for each one of our children.
The olive trees, what purposes do they have?
Well, they are used for building. Even the two cherubims in the Holy of Holies, and the door into the Holy of Holies, were made of olive wood. Today, many people love to buy beautiful ornaments and useful things too, which you can use in your kitchen and bring them back from Israel, all made of olive wood. Recently someone gave me a beautiful carving of Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper. It’s all carved in olive wood.
But olive wood can be used for building. And, of course, our children are part of building our home. Also, they will be used for building, not just to become builders, because not every son is going to become a builder, but every man and woman will be building a home and a family. They will be building projects, building all manner of things into their lives.
Also, the olive tree was used for lighting. The menorah, that beautiful seven-branched menorah in the tabernacle had to be lit every morning and every evening. It was lit with the olive oil from the olive plant. It tells that in Exodus 27:20-21: “And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always.”
They were never, ever to go out. “In the tabernacle of the congregation without the vail, which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall order it from evening to morning in the presence of the LORD: it shall be a statute forever unto their generations.” It had to come from the pure olive oil.
Of course, we want our little olive shoots to grow up to be lights in this world. Jesus said: “I am the Light of the world,” but He also said: “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14-16). He doesn’t want us to hide our lamps. He wants us to reveal His light. He wants us to be great lights, especially in this dark, deceived world in which we are living. We are preparing our children to be lights.
Every Friday evening, we celebrate the Shabbat meal. Of course, it is the privilege of the mother in the home to light the Shabbat candles at the beginning of the evening. As I light the Shabbat candles, I love to pray again, and thank the Lord, thank God that He is the Light. He is the One who has given us life. And pray again, as I pray every Friday evening, that God will fill us with His light, that we will truly be great lights, shining in this dark world.
Sometimes, especially when we have lots of children around our table (we invite a family with children, or we have the grandchildren over) I will have a light for each person around the table. Maybe a little tea candle and we’ll each light them. We’ll all hold them up and we’ll sing, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.” We remind the children that they are shining lights in this world. They’ve got to keep their light shining.
Now, the next one. The olive oil was also used for the holy anointing oil. God gave a special recipe for that holy anointing oil. That’s in Exodus 30. Let’s go over to that. We see here that it was to be used, the oil was to be used for the holy anointing oil.
With that holy anointing oil, the priests were to anoint everything in the tabernacle; all the furniture, and everything there. Then they were to anoint all the priests and Aaron. Everything, and every person was to be anointed with the holy anointing oil, because the oil speaks of the Holy Spirit. God wants us to be anointed and filled with His Holy Spirit. He wants our children, our little olive shoots, to be anointed and filled with His Holy Spirit.
Isaiah 61is a prophetic word over Christ, saying how He would be anointed “to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound.” Jesus came to do that. But now He dwells in us, and He wants us to do that. He wants us to encourage our children to be these shining lights who are filled with the Holy Spirit to bring His anointing to those who are broken and hurting.
Then the olive oil is also food. Yes, the Israelis couldn’t do without their olive trees because it is their food. They could hardly survive without the olive tree, because that oil is used in all their cooking, and all their salads. The olives themselves, aren’t they so delicious? It is such wonderful food and so nutritious.
Proverbs 10:21 talks about how the righteous will feed many. Our little olive shoots, we want them to grow up to be those who are feeders. As they are growing, we are feeding them with God’s living Word, filling them up with His Word, filling them up with His truth, so that even when they are young, they can begin to feed others.
As they continue to grow into maturity, they will be those who can feed others, feed them with God’s truth because it’s already in them. But they won’t be able to do it unless we fill them up with that wonderful food of the living Word of God.
The last point about our olive trees, number six: olive trees live forever. Well, not quite, but just about! There is a saying in Israel that the olive tree never dies. On many occasions, I’ve been to the Garden of Gethsemane and looked again at those old olive trees there in the garden just at the base of the Mount of Olives. That’s where you look over to Jerusalem, and you see the golden gate. That’s the gate that the Bible says that one day Jesus will walk through into the city.
But those trees in the Garden of Gethsemane are all gnarled and so old. The guides will often say that they have been there for two or three thousand years.
Recently I looked up on the internet, and I found a source that says the oldest olive tree is in Bethlehem, in the village of Al Walaja. Experts determine it to be four thousand to five thousand years old.
Then another source on the internet tells of an olive tree in Greece. This tree is confirmed by ring-tree analysis to be two thousand years old, but many claim it to be three thousand to four thousand years old. Some say five thousand years old. And guess what? It’s still producing fruit! Isn’t that amazing?
Of course, as we were mentioning before, our children are eternal souls who will live forever. We are not destined for this life. We are eternal souls. We, of course, are so concerned that our children will be ready for God’s eternal kingdom, that they will never reject Christ, and never, ever be rejected from that kingdom. So, we pray for them, and we minister God’s Word lovingly into their lives. We woo them into God’s kingdom.
Mothering, dear mothers, is an eternal career, because we do not have only physical children, but they have eternal souls. Our mothering is never a waste of time. It is eternal. It is the only eternal career on this earth because we are preparing eternal souls for the eternal world. How absolutely amazing!
That’s all about our little olive shoots who are going to grow into amazing olive trees who will be a blessing in this world and reveal the beauty of Jesus, who will be fruitful, and who will show forth their purpose in this life, their destiny, and who will be a light to the world, filled with the Holy Spirit. They will become food for the hungry and the needy and the hurting. Amen?
No. 16. PRINCES
Number 16: this one is where the Word of God calls our sons “princes.” I love that. Psalm 45:16: “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.” Oh, wow! I just love that! Do you have sons? If you do, take hold of that Scripture. Make it a vision as you are raising your sons “to make them princes in all the earth.”
Wow, that is just so amazing, isn’t it? Princes, princes in all the earth. That takes them into another realm. That takes them into royalty. I have some thoughts about this, because I looked up this word “princes” in the Hebrew. The word is sar, S-A-R. That’s all it is, but it has a huge meaning.
It is, of course, first used about Jesus the Messiah Himself. In Isaiah 9:6, it talks about Christ, who is the Prince of Peace. Sar Shalom, the Prince of Peace. But He is called the “Prince.” Now, why is Christ Jesus, the Messiah, called the Prince? Because the word sar means “to be a head, to be a ruler, to be a master, to be a leader, to be a nobleman, and to be a priest.” It contains all those meanings. But here, it’s talking about our sons being princes.
Let’s have a look at those meanings, shall we? We can get a vision of how we are to raise our sons to be princes in all the earth.
Firstly, sar means TO BE THE HEAD.
What does it say in the Bible in Deuteronomy 28:13? Let’s have a look at this here. “And the Lord shall make thee the head and not the tail. And thou shalt be ABOVE ONLY, and thou shalt not be beneath.”
Such a wonderful promise, but there is an “if.” It goes on to say, “If thou harken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them.” So, yes, God wants our sons to be the head and not the tail. To be above only and not beneath. But this just doesn’t happen automatically. It happens when they walk in the ways of the Lord, when they obey His commandments and observe to do them.
Secondly, sar means TO BE THE RULER
To be the head means that we will not be defeated by the temptations of the devil and this world, but be an overcomer. That’s how we’re training our sons. If we’re raising them to be princes, they’re not going to be sons who are overcome by evil and all the things of this world that are alluring our sons. They’re not going to be just looking at their iPhones all day, people who don’t have any purpose. No, no. They are learning to overcome the enemy.
We need to encourage and raise our sons to know how to overcome the enemy. We can go to 1 John. I love this Scripture because it’s speaking directly to sons here, to young men.
1 John 2:13: “I write unto you young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one.” Go to verse 14, and he says it again: “I have written unto you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God abideth in you, and you have overcome the wicked one.”
What a wonderful testimony for young men! Oh, precious mothers, oh, take that Scripture. Pray over it and seek to raise your young men to be princes and to know how to overcome the enemy.
You see here three things. John is writing, and he says, “Young men, I’m writing to you because, 1) you are strong, strong in the Lord, and the power of His might.”
2) “the Word of God abides in you.” Isn’t that amazing? It doesn’t say, “Well, you know, you hear the Word of God at church on Sunday.” No, the Word of God abides in you! That’s how they become strong. We cannot make our young men to be strong in this difficult, deceived, and evil world unless the Word of God abides in them.
We have to get that Word into them. Hopefully you are having morning and evening devotions in your home where you are reading the Word of God to them and they’re getting it day by day. As your children get to a certain age, you encourage them to have their own quiet time. Well, they used to call it “quiet time.” I don’t know why people use that term “quiet time,” but anyway, you use whatever term you like.
But it’s a time where they get away personally with God. Before they start the day, you encourage your children to make that a habit of their life, that they start the day with God personally, where they open the Word of God, and they read it. You give them a reading plan so they know where to read. They read the Word, and they pray, and they have that personal time with the Lord.
Then, of course, we’re going to have our family time with our family devotions morning and evening. Little by little, day by day, the Word of God is getting into them.
3) “and you have overcome the wicked one.” Well, how did they overcome? Because the Word of God was abiding in them. That’s how Jesus overcame the wicked one when the devil came to tempt Him. We read in Matthew 4:4: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
We teach our children this is the way you live. Don’t live by your feelings. You live by the Word of God; every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Every time the devil came to tempt Jesus, what did He say? “It is written” and He spoke forth the Word of God. And the devil left Him. Every time we speak that Word.
Here we have the principles to raise our sons to know how to overcome the wicked one, because that’s part of being the head, and not the tail, isn’t it?
Of course, we will teach them not to be subservient to the lusts of this world, but to reign in life with Christ. Romans 5:17 tells us about reigning in life. One day we’re going to reign with Christ, but we have to learn how to reign now.
In Titus 2, it talks about that. I may give that to you in another point here. OK, because to be a prince means to be the head. It means you’re going to overcome the enemy. You’re not going to be underneath the enemy, and you’re not going to be bound down with bondages. No, you’re overcoming the enemy. You’re the head, and not the tail. It means to be a ruler. A ruler, yes! To rule! Amen!
I think this is one of the greatest Scriptures for our young people. It’s Proverbs 16:32. It’s a Scripture that I believe should be a memory verse if they don’t already know it. If your sons, in fact, all your children, don’t know this Scripture, I think it would be a great one to get out and make a memory verse in your home: “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”
That is powerful. That Scripture says that someone who can rule their spirit is more powerful than an army taking a city. So, we teach our children how to rule their spirit. We do this even by the way we treat them.
Often parents, even from an early age, gratify their children with every whim and fancy. When they whine for something, something we know we’re not able to give them, or would not be good for them, we say, “No.” But then they keep whining, and they keep on, and they keep on. Many parents will let them keep on whining until they get so sick of it, they’ll give it to them!
That is the worst training in the whole of the world! You’ve just taught your child that if you keep on whining and whining and whining, they’ll eventually get it. So, they think they’ll get what they want if they go about it that way. That is not someone who knows how to rule their spirit! When our children keep pestering, well, you’d better deal with it. They need to know that your “no” is “no.”
Even with food; I have seen parents who put food their child does not like, “Oh, OK, darling, well, would you like this?” And they’ll give them something else. [whining] “I don’t like that either!” Well, then they’ll find something else. How disgusting! You’re training your child for problems and defeat. They’re never going to rule their spirits. We have to teach our children how they have to overcome their feelings and their little wants.
Of course, we going to always give our children their real needs. We are parents, and we meet their real needs, but not all these little things that are not right and that are not necessary. They have to learn, even children have to learn how to deny themselves. Yes, little by little. They may not be able to learn it like an adult can. But little by little, it will be much easier if they learn it when they are little.
What does Titus 2:11 say? “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying,” do you notice that word? Denying. “Denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.”
In Matthew 16:24, Jesus also said, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” There’s that word “deny” again. There are things that children may want, but really, they’re not good for them, or they don’t need them.
They don’t have to have something every time they go to town. In fact, sometimes you’ve got to sit down with your children and say, “We’re going out. We’re going to get the groceries. Today we’re not buying anything extra. We’re just getting our groceries that will be our food for the this week. It will be all wonderful food to nourish you all up, and you’ll have plenty to eat. But don’t ask me for anything else.” Now, if you tell them that, you keep to your word. In fact, if they start asking you for something else, you might just have to go home. Take them home. Or you may have to deal with them later.
Or, you may like to say, “OK, children, today we’re going out to get groceries. I’m going to buy you each one treat, OK?” You can tell them what it is, or they can choose. “But don’t ask me for any other. We’re just going to have one.” But you decide whatever you want to do.
What you decide, that is what you keep to, so they learn, OK, that’s it. They don’t keep whining for other things. They have to be satisfied with what they have. OK? That’s all part of learning to be a prince, someone who knows how to rule their spirit. They can never be a ruler of anything in this world unless they’ve learned to rule their spirit. We first learn to rule our spirit.
The Message Bible is really a paraphrase, but sometimes it can say some pretty good words. I like this paraphrase of Colossians 3:5-6, where it tells us to: “kill off the tendency of doing whatever you feel like, whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That’s a life shaped by things and feelings, instead of God.” That’s a pretty good word, isn’t it?
Ladies, I just can’t believe it but our time has gone again, and I’ve still got more to tell you about raising princes. So, we’ll have to do that next time, because, oh my, it’s so important to raise princes.
Oh, and as you’re doing this, you can call your son your prince. “Oh, Danny, do you know that God has given you to me to be a prince? And He’s chosen you to be a prince in all the earth.” That’s what the Bible says, making princes in all the earth.
“Yes, now, Gilbert, do you know that God wants you to be a prince? That means you are royalty. You belong to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and He wants you to grow up to be a prince on this earth, walking in this world like one who belongs to the kingdom of God, who belongs to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”
We’ve got to take our children to a HIGHE PLANE. We don’t want to relegate them to “kids,” do we? No, we’re speaking words into them that will take them to a much higher plane. Amen?
“Oh, dear Father, we thank You for all the wonderful words in Your precious living Word. We thank You. We thank You, Lord, that as we look at them, You are helping us in our mothering, and in the training, and cultivating, and pruning of our children.
“Lord, I pray for every mother today. I pray that You will bless her and fill her with Your wisdom. Show her, Lord, how You want her to train her children, with love, and Lord, with affirmation and encouragement. But also raising them to a higher plane. Oh God, I ask that You will help them, and You will pour Your Holy Spirit into them. I ask this in the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Transcribed by Darlene Norris
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