FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 133: ATTITUDES TO EVIL Continued

We continue talking about the 20 different words God uses in His Word to show us how to resist evil. Don't miss learning about each one. God does  not want us to tolerate evil, but to drive it out.

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

Nancy Campbell: Good morning, ladies! Well, it's good morning here in Tennessee, but you may be listening at another time. I'm so sorry this podcast is late getting to you. It was meant to come out at six o'clock on Tuesday morning. However, although I had recorded it, we just could not get the sound to come. So I'm now starting all over again, recording it for you again now.

Now it is Thursday, and it is the last day of 2020. Isn't that amazing? What a year it has been! In fact, I must read to you a poem. I just got it this morning and it's from a dear friend of mine in England. She has written about this last year and I think it's pretty cool. She pretty well sums it up, what has been happening.

GOODBYE TO 2020,

THE YEAR THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

Twenty, twenty, what a year!

A rollercoaster built on fear.

Bats were blamed as sickness spread,

We’d no idea what lay ahead.

Dead bodies lay on China’s roadside,

Caught on film and shared worldwide.

The Chinese guided us with care,

Taught world leaders everywhere

How to lock their nation down,

How to silence every town.

Our leaders gently took our hands,

Led us gently as was planned.

They made it fun, we clapped and danced,

Our eyes on screens, quite entranced.

We learnt to Zoom, we didn’t mind,

Not seeing Granny now was kind.

Shaming people next was taught,

Granny killers must be caught!

Beaches filled with families playing,

Home was where they should be staying!

Protesting was quite accepted,

If black lives should be protected.

But dare to speak of lockdown’s pain

Your voice was silenced, all in vain.

Masks were next to keep the pace,

To keep us focused on the race.

To find the vaccine was the mission,

We had to share this global vision.

Then testing came to raise the fear,

And keep us locked up for the year.

Testing ramped up, cases grew,

False positives were not a few.

Healthy people were no more,

Silent carriers ‘caused’ this war.

Healthy people stayed inside,

Touch and love all were denied.

Until our lives became a shell,

Each day for many, living hell.

As days wore on and winter dwelt,

The toll of lockdown could be felt.

No more dancing or doorstep clapping,

Now tempers fray with families snapping.

Desperate people, broken now,

Looking to the sacred cow—

The vaccine is their promised Saviour,

Let’s add it to the new behaviour.

They’ve said we’ll have to keep the mask,

Still keep our distance, they have asked.

Add the vaccine, we need all three

To make the COVID trinity.

So what lies ahead in this new year?

More of the same for those who fear.

BUT GOD HAS BETTER PLANS AHEAD

FOR THOSE WHO TRUST IN HIM INSTEAD.

Yes, how true! When we see what we have faced this year, and how people in our nation here in America, and all over the world, have come under tyranny, for that is what it is. And we have now come to understand that this virus is not much more than like a flu. In fact, it has a 99.99% recovery rate. Even for those who are older, it's still about a 90% recovery rate.

And yet we have still been told to lock down. Thanksgiving, Christmas, we could only have a few people in our home. Of course, we didn't keep to that at all. I mean, for Thanksgiving, I made a sit-down meal for our family. I think I wrote about 109 name places for our family.

I mean, where is the reality? Were they going to expect me to get all my beloved grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and, of course, our own children and spouses, line them all up, and say, “OK, which eight of you will I have for Thanksgiving? And who will I have for Christmas dinner? Let me choose which eight. The rest of you are discarded.”

I mean, how ridiculous! This is not even normality. This is beyond, beyond even, beyond common sense. It's gone ridiculous. And that even family, there's so many families that have with eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve children! Goodness me! And they can only have so many in their house. Oh, what narrow minds these people have.

But it's all just for tyranny, and lockdown, and the precursor of what is to come. For their whole aim, and I have shared this before, is to bring in The Global  Reset, and the World Economic Forum, which is, when we read it, and they've already posted it. Just recently they posted the eight projections for the World Economic Forum. The very first one is:

Number one: “YOU WILL OWN NOTHING, BUT YO WILL BE HAPPY!” I'm not sure how. But it's pure Communism.

And so I pray that as we go into this New Year, dear precious folks who are listening, that you will not bow to this tyranny. As you face a New Year that you will claim your freedom and walk in the lifestyle that God created you to live in! Amen?

Well, let's carry on. For this, today, is the third session of 18 different verbs (actually 20) or attitudes, that God gives us, of what we are to do about evil. God doesn't just give one word. I found 18 (actually 20) different verbs, and I believe that when we read the Word, that we can't just take one little thing. We have to know fully what God says. When I'm studying a subject, I don't want to know one little aspect of it. I want to know the fullness of what God is saying.

So I have to find every ne. Maybe I've missed one, I don't know, but I've found 18 different verbs (actually 20). I think it's important for us to hear what they are. We've got to know what God says in His Word. As we go into this New Year, dear precious ones, we've got to be women of the Word.

Oh, we've got to know what God says! Because we will live our lives accordingly. Even now, we are living our lives either according to what we constantly hear daily on the fake media, or we are living our lives according to the truth of the Word of God.

Now, by which standard are you living your life? Are you listening to the fears, and the tyranny, and the deceptions of this fake media? And all that the elite are trying to put on us? Or are you living by the Word of God? Matthew 4:4 says: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

If we are believers, we've got to live by the Book! This is our Book! This is our letter that God has given to us to live in the world, even if it's not easy. Right through history, people have lived by the Word, even in the face of persecution and everything that's different around them. We don't live according to the standards of this world. We live according to the Word. In fact, I think I'm going to do some sessions on this in the coming year.

But let's get . . . I mustn't get carried away now! We are currently up to number nine.

9.  GUARD YOURSELF FROM EVIL

God wants us to guard ourselves. We read in 2 Samuel, it's David speaking. Let's read his confession, shall we? 2 Samuel 22, verses 22-24: David said, “I have kept the way of the Lord . . . ” The word “kept” there is the Hebrew word shamar. Oh it's a beautiful word, I love the word shamar. It means, “to guard, to protect, to watch.”

God Himself shamars over us. He guards us. He protects us. But He wants us to also guard our lives, Here David confesses, I have kept, shamar, the way of the Lord. I have guarded it. “And have not wickedly departed from my God. For all His judgments were before me: and as for His statutes, I did not depart from them.”

Do we walk by His statutes? Or does not fitting in with society's way drive us apart from them? That's a big question, ladies. Do we continue walking by God's statutes even if they are so opposite to the ways of the world?

“For all His judgments were before me: and as for His statutes, I did not depart from them. I was also upright before him, and have kept myself (there it is again, guarded, myself from mine iniquity.” So there we have it.

That word shamar, the very first time it is used is in Genesis, Genesis chapter two, verse 15. It's very important to always go back to the very first time a word is used. It is the Law of the First Principle. That's very important in the Word of God. When God uses a word the very first time, He is laying a principle for that word. He will build on it as we continue reading. But we will never get away from that foundation.

So what is Genesis 2:15? It is where God put Adam into the garden. And it says here, “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it, and to keep it.”

He gave him two things to do:

One, to work in it. The word there is “work,” and it means “to work hard by the sweat of your brow.” Isn't that interesting? This is before the fall.

When I was a little girl, I had this notion that work came in after the fall of man, and that it was a curse upon people after the fall and after they had sinned. I guess I didn't like work very much when I was a little girl.

But of course, as I grew, I found out that was not true, and that God gave the principle of work before the fall. It was God's plan for us. Ladies, God gave work as something to bless us. Yes! Work is a wonderful thing. We do a good day's work and then we're ready to go to sleep. We earn our sleep.

As we work, we benefit our bodies and our minds. As we do things, we learn how to do them better. This is how all the great inventions that we have in the world today have come, because as people are working, and they're doing something, they think, “I can do this a better way. I can invent something that can do this better.”

So things get better and better. It all comes out of work. Work is therapeutic. So don't deride work, dear ladies, even as you work in your home. You have to manage your home. You have to keep it clean. You keep the laundry up to date. You keep all those dishes done, and cook your meals, and scrub your floors, and look after your little ones.

Yes, work, work, work! But don't despise it. Embrace it! It's God-given.

So God put the man in the garden, to work and to guard it. Two things, work and guard. In fact, they are also given to us in the New Testament. We go over to Titus. Titus, chapter two, and if you are familiar with the Word of God, you will know Titus, chapter two, verses 3-5, is that wonderful passage where it speaks to older women to teach the younger women. One of the things that it teaches the younger women is to be “keepers at home.”

That word also is the word that means “to guard, to watch over.” It's a picture of the keeper of a castle who holds the keys. He will not allow anything into that castle, or any person who was not allowed to come in. He guarded it.

And God has given to us, precious ladies, precious mums, the guardianship of our homes. And just as God put the man and the woman in the garden to work in it, and to guard it, yes, it goes over to the New Testament and we have the same parallel. We are in our homes to work in them, and to guard them. To guard them from evil. To watch over them with our beady eyes.

We are the watchdogs of the home. We are watching. We are watching that no evil comes into our homes. Oh, it can come in so subtly, so easily. That's why we have to keep our spiritual eyes, and even our physical eyes, wide open, so that we are always in a state of watching and praying. Because we are the guardians.

So we guard over our own lives, as David was speaking here. We guard over our lips. We guard over our thoughts. We guard over our emotions that we do not give in to self-pity and depression and despondency, which women can get into so easily.

I think self-pity and despondency are some of the easiest things we can fall into. We're prone to it. But we guard, you see? We guard. Yes! Self-pity and despondency, they're not just nice little things that we can play around with. NO! They're sins! They're sins. And we have to guard them, watch that we don't fall into these things.

So, we're watching over our own lives. We're bringing every thought into captivity to Christ. Now that doesn't just happen. You have to be on the warfare, to make that happen. But this is how we live as we guard over our lives, and we're guarding over our homes, and over our children's lives, God wants us to guard, to guard ourselves, and our homes. Amen?

10. DRIVE OUR AND DESTROY ALL EVIL

We don't play around with evil. We destroy it. We drive it out.

 Now let's go to a Scripture in the Old Testament. I'll give you two or three Scriptures here. These are Scriptures where God is speaking to the children of Israel about what they have to do about all those enemies and those evil people who were in the Promised Land, that was waiting for them.

The people of Canaan were an evil people. God wanted them driven out. He said, Numbers 33:52-53: “Then shall you drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and pluck down all their high places. And you shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess.”

Did you get the spirit of that Scripture? Did you get those words?

Destroy.

Drive out.

Dispossess.

You know, that was speaking about a literal enemy that they had to face back then. But dear precious ladies, everything that was written in the Old Testament was a type for us today. There was not one thing that was written that does not relate to us right in our lives, right now, even in our homes.

We look at 1 Corinthians 10:11 and it says: “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples.” That word “ensamples” in the Greek is the Greek work tupos and it means “a type, a pattern, a symbol, an emblem of what is higher.”

And so everything, every story, every word, every line, it was a type for us, a pattern of how we are to live today, and what we are to do.

These Israelites, they had to go and actually destroy these people. Now, we're not going around destroying people, but we are having to destroy evil in our lives, in our homes, and around about us. We have to have this attitude toward evil. You see, we're talking about the different attitudes toward evil.

This one is to destroy it. That's the kind of attitude we have to have. You don't toy, you don't play with it. We just, OK, when we face it, we're going to destroy it. We're going to drive it out. We drive it out of our own lives, we drive it out of our homes, and we see where we can, to drive it out of our own communities, and cities, and nations.

Because everything starts with the home, ladies. It all starts with the home. We can't have a righteous nation if we don't have righteous homes. It all starts in the home.

“So now all these things happened unto them for ensamples, (for a pattern, for a type) and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world have come.” Right for us today.

We go to Romans 15:4 and it says again: “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience (that word literally means “cheerful endurance”) and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”

So all these stories that happened in the Old Testament, they are a pattern for us today and for our learning for us today. I love that old saying which says, “The New (that's the New Testament) the New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed.” Do you like that?

All right. Here's another one. Deuteronomy 7:2 and onward to about verse six says: “Thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them . . . You shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.” Are you getting the picture?

These are the words, the attitudes, the action words that God wants us to have about evil. You'll notice in the Numbers passage, it says that when they have destroyed and driven out their enemies, that then they will possess the land. Dear ladies, we cannot possess all that God has for us until we drive out the evil that's in our own lives, and in our homes, and, of course, ultimately, the nation.

All the greatest blessings come to us and we begin to live in all the fullness of what God wants us to possess when we drive out the evil first. So few of us live in all the fullness of all that God has for us. Often, because we still have evil lurking around. Maybe just a little bit! But He wants us to drive it all out.

I noticed in Numbers it says: “Then shall you drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and pluck down all their high places.” And so on. It wasn't, “Oh well, we'll get rid of a few of them.” NO! A-L-L!

All right. Deuteronomy 12:2-3: “You shall utterly destroy . . . and ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and you shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.”

Wow! Are you getting the picture? And remember, these Scriptures are for us today. Yes! Today! Right now!

All right. Remember David's testimony again in Psalm 101? I talked about this last time, where David said, “Every morning I will destroy all the wicked of the land, wiping out all evildoers from the Lord's city.” Well David did that literally, but of course, we don't even think about doing that today.

But we have this attitude about evil. We don't make friends with it. We destroy it.

1 John 3:8: “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that  He might destroy the works of the devil.” Jesus now lives in us to accomplish this same thing, for when He came into this world, He came to destroy the works of the devil.

“Christ in you, the hope of glory.” But yes, Christ in you, destroying the works of the devil! All right?

Well, let's look at number eleven:

11. LET NO EVIL REMAIN

Now, we're going to read of what Joshua did when he went into the Promised Land. Joshua 10:33-40: “So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and the vale, and the springs ,and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded.”

Joshua 11:8-12: “He smote them and chased them until they left none remaining. They smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them. There was not any left to breathe.”

You see, OK, that sounds pretty horrific. But it's a type, it's a type. It's a type for us to understand the attitude God wants us to have toward sin. I think we're living in a day where we don't really hate sin. People embrace sin today.

TOTAL ANNIHILATION

But God wants us to have the attitude that we will so drive it out that there will be none left. None left remaining. Nothing left to breathe. Woo! Wow! That's what God intends. Now this is the thing. It's total annihilation. We deal ruthlessly with sin and evil. No tolerance. Not one vestige remaining.

We live today in a church, well, in America, where many churches could be called the Church of Tolerance. In fact, I think that's the new name for many churches today. They tolerate sin. They've become lukewarm.

I wrote this little quote sometime back:

“If we don't know God's Word, we'll be a tolerating Christian.

If we know God's Word, we'll be a trembling Christian.”

Remember what God says in Isaiah 66: “God looks for those who tremble at His Word.” 

So, we're either doing one of two things. We're either a person who says, “Yes, I love God, but um, you know, well, you know, I wouldn't do that, but well, I can't really say anything about it to that person who's doing it. I mean, you know, that's just them.”

And so, we take a very sort of passive attitude towards sin.

But God doesn't tolerate it, and He doesn't want us to tolerate it either. And if we really know His Word, and what He says, we will tremble before Him. Do we even have a trembling spirit? A trembling heart? I don't know whether we have this very much. But that's who God is looking for, the one who trembles at His Words.

So let's see, what's our time? Thirty? Woo. Thirty, that was thirty a while ago. OK. All right. I think we've got time for number 12.

12. PUT AWAY EVIL FROM THE MIDST OF YOU

 Now the word “put away evil” is the Hebrew word ba'ar and it means, “to consume, especially by fire, to burn.” It's a total consuming of it. So we could even call this “consume evil.” That's a better title for this point. Consume evil.

Now we see this phrase, “so shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.” We read this phrase over and over again in Deuteronomy, chapters 13-24. So if you get to read those sometime, right throughout those chapters you'll see that  phrase, “so shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.” Or consume it.

I won't give you all the Scriptures. You can read those in your own time, although Deuteronomy 21:18-21 is, wow, I'm always so kind of wowed by this Scripture where it says: “If any man have a stubborn or rebellious son which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not harken unto them...All the men of the city shall stone him with stones, so that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear and fear.”

Wow! That's rather incredible, isn't it? They took a strong stand against rebellion. Yet today, we have a generation of rebellious and stubborn young people. Well, today, we don't live as they did in the Old Testament. We wouldn't be doing such things. But it just shows us what kind of an attitude we should have to rebellion and stubbornness.

As we know, the Word says that “rebellion and stubbornness is as witchcraft” (1 Samuel 15:22, 34). We deal with these things dear parents when our children are young. We don't wait until it grows and grows when they are teenagers, and they are these rebellious teenagers.

This is not a word that's even in the Word of God. In fact, the Word of God doesn't even accommodate a teenage stage. The Word of God speaks about children, and children growing into maturity (Psalm 144:12). Even from a very young age, we have allowed the teenage years now to become a certain era of a person's life when God does not. He never ever envisioned that at all.

Children are to be constantly growing into maturity, so that by the time they are reaching even the ages of 13 and upwards, they are beginning to do, to live maturely, to take on responsibility, and to do great things as we read in the Word of God.

We even read in history, and we even read of the early fathers of our nation, the things they were doing when they were in their early teens. They were doing what men do today.

So we need to be training our children right from young, dealing severely with stubbornness and with rebellion because this is the thing that God hates. It turns to . . . it’s as witchcraft. So we don't ever want our children to get to this stage. We want to make sure that we are driving it out before they ever do.

Chapter 22, that chapter has a lot about sexual sins. Every time it says “so shalt thou put away evil from among you.” In chapter 24:7, it talks about kidnapping, and how you have to put that evil away from among you.

We go to the New Testament, and in 1 Corinthians 5:13 it says: “Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.” Yes, God doesn't want evil in the midst.

All right.

13. CAST OFF EVIL

Romans 13:12. By the way, ladies, I am giving you so many Scriptures, that this podcast is filled with Scriptures. Now I give you the reference and if you're washing the dishes as you're listening to this, or you're going for a walk with your headphones on, or you're doing something else, well, you're going to forget the reference, of course.

But I do transcripts. And in about a couple of weeks, the transcripts will come out. And I will have all the references, and if you really want to dig into these Scriptures and read them again, you can go to the transcripts, and look them up, and study them more.

So here we go. Romans 13:12: “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.”

Now, that word, “cast off,” what does it really mean? Well, let's just look here, look at some . . . yes, let's look at some other translations. They may help us to understand.

The Amplified says: “Fling away the works of darkness.”

The Passion Translation says: “Strip away.”

The New Living Translation says: “Get rid of all the filth and evil from your lives.” So “casting off” literally means “to get rid of.”

Do you have here in America, I'm sure you do, that saying, “Good riddance to bad rubbish” ? Well, I grew up in New Zealand, and we often used to say that phrase. We had a couple of phrases, actually. Sometimes we'd say, “Goodbye and good riddance!” Do you say that?

Well, that's really what this Scripture is saying. Because that phrase literally means, it's an expression of pleasure actually, but pleasure that you've got rid of something you don't want, something undesirable and unwanted. You've got rid of it!

So this is the attitude we have to have about sin, and about evil. We get rid of it, and then we can say, “Hallelujah! Good riddance to bad rubbish! I'm finished with that!” Isn't that good? Yes! Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Let’s read Ephesians 4:22. Same Greek word, and here it says in the New Living Translation: “Throw off” (or you could say, get rid of)“your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit bring you your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God.”

So, we put off and then we put on. Colossians 3:8: “Put off,” and it tells you all the sins to put off. And then it goes on to say, “and put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of Him that created us.”

One more Scripture as we close. Hebrew 12:1: “Let us lay aside every weight,” (or once again, let us get rid of) “every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” Amen?

So, lovely darling ladies, we get rid of these things in our lives, and then we can say, “Good riddance to bad rubbish! I'm finished with that! I'm free! Hallelujah! I can walk in the fullness of the new man of Christ Jesus, Who now fills my life, and I'm living His life. I'm not giving into the old flesh, and the old life. I'm yielding to the new life of Christ Who dwells within me.”

Dear Father, we just thank You for Your Word. We've just been, oh, God, just confessing your Word. I pray that Your Word will become part of these, each precious lady listening, Lord God. You will help us, Lord, to think like You think, to have the attitude You have, and to see evil and sin like You, Lord. And that we will truly be those who do not tolerate it, that we will never become tolerating Christians, but we will be those, Lord God, who get rid of all evil in our lives, and in our homes. We ask this in the Precious Name of Jesus. Amen.

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 132: DO YOU HATE EVIL?

Evil is so abhorrent to God that He sent His only beloved Son to die on the cross to take the judgment of our sins upon Him. God hates evil, and He wants His people to hate evil. He also hates injustice, which is an abomination to Him.

I found 20 different verbs that God wants us to do about evil. Come on in and find out what they are.

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

Nancy Campbell: Blessings to you today, each one who is listening! I'm back to my second session about talking of all the different words that God gives us in His Word about what we are to do about evil. Last week, we mentioned number one, depart from evil.

 1.    DEPART FROM EVIL (Check last week’s transcript).

 2.    ABHOR EVIL

Romans 12: 9: “Abhor what is evil; cleave to that which is good.” Now the word “abhor” is also not a word that we use a lot today. It's a very powerful word. In the Greek, the word is apostugeo. I hope that's how you pronounce it. It means “to shudder with horror, to detest evil.”

I wonder whether we really, really have the attitude that God wants us to have about evil. I wonder whether I do. I mean, we can get used to evil, can't we? But God wants us to absolutely abhor it. That means to shudder, to actually shudder.  It makes us shudder. We're just so appalled.

Abortion should make us shudder. I mean, what is abortion? We get used to

 the word. And yet it is the murdering of a precious life being created by God in the womb. That should make us shudder!

Especially the fact that we have politicians who want babies to be murdered right up to the time of birth! Even this person who wants to be president, Joe Biden, he believes in murdering babies up to the time of birth, and afterwards! If they have been designated for abortion, and they survive, well, they'd better be killed! I mean, doesn't that make you shudder?

How can there be Christians who would vote for this?  Or who did vote for this? It's rather unbelievable. Well, let's move on.

3.    REJECT EVIL

We are to reject evil. Psalm 36:4 tells us how the wicked do not reject evil. That means if we're righteous, we will reject it.

4.    HATE EVIL

The word means “to hate violently.” I'll give you just a few Scriptures. Once again, there are so many.

Amos 5:14-15: “Seek good, and not evil, that you may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.”

Now, ladies, look at the three promises that we will receive when we hate evil.

Number one: Justice will be established in the gates of the city and the nation. We don't have that at the moment. We don't have justice. What does it say in Isaiah 59, yes, verses . . . Let's see, where will we start? Maybe verse 12.

“For our transgressions are multiplied before Thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them. In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. And judgment is turned away backwards, and justice stands afar off: for truth is fallen in the street. And equity cannot enter. Yes, truth fails, and he that departs from evil makes himself a prey: and the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no judgment. And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore His arm brought salvation unto Him; and His righteousness, it sustained Him.”

We are seeing this today, even in our, this election. I mentioned it last session, and I must mention it again, because this is exactly what is happening. Truth has fallen in the street. Justice is afar off.

We are currently facing a fraudulent election where they have sought to steal it. There have literally been hundreds and hundreds of people who have come forward to expose the fraud. There have been literally hundreds and thousands of votes that are illegal. Votes from dead people . . . I saw one YouTube of this guy, and he was showing one of the voting things and said, “Look, here it is, here's the person. Here's their voting card. OK, here's their death certificate. They died in 1984.” And that was just one of hundreds! In one state, there were 200,000 illegal votes!

I mean, what does God think about this? You see, God is a God of justice. Justice surrounds His throne. He is justice. This is what God talks about, things like this election. In Deuteronomy 25:15,16. It says: “But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. (That's a good promise for long life, isn't it?) For all who do such things, and all who do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God”

See, this is how God sees injustice. He says that when we hate evil, and when we hate injustice, that justice will come back to our gates! The gates speak of where our laws are made in our cities, and in the nation, in Washington, DC. These are the gates.

So we've got to get back. We can't just turn a blind eye and say, “Oh, well, this has happened. It's just, you know, it'll all pan out.” No! We have to have the same attitude God has, to see it as an abomination.

2 Chronicles 19:7 in the New Living Translation says: “The Lord our God does not tolerate perverted justice.”

Proverbs 11:1: “A false balance is an abomination to the lord, but a just weight is his delight.” And so, when we hate this kind of thing, God says, yes, that He will establish justice in the gates. Don't we long for that?

And secondly, the God of hosts, the Lord of the armies of heaven, will be with us. And thirdly, He will be gracious to us, and show us His favor. All because we hate evil!

Even in the church, evil has been allowed to mix amongst the people. There are people sitting in churches who are actually living in adultery. They're in idolatry. They're doing all kinds of different sins, and the church is allowing it. It's not speaking out against things. We're not hating evil.

Talking about this injustice, I came across this beautiful passage just the other day. It's in 2 Chronicles 19:4-11. I'd love you to read it later, when you get a chance. It's talking about King Jehoshaphat, who went through the land to bring the people back to God. Then he appointed judges throughout all the cities, and then he told them how God wanted them to judge. So, here we get principles of the way God wants us to judge.

Now this is important for every judge who is a judge in any court. In a little town, or a big town, or a city, or in the land, and up to the Supreme Court judges. All judges must judge according to these principles.

And also us, as parents. Did you know, dear mother, that we also are to be judges? Well, we do it every day! We're judging our children. We are seeking to have justice in our home. In fact, if we don't, well, we won't have a very peaceful home! You only have peace when you have justice.

Let's look at these things, shall we? Number one. Oh, before I do, yes, I want to take you to a Scripture, because I'm saying how this relates to us as parents, too. Let's go to Genesis, Genesis chapter 18. This is speaking about Abraham, who was the pattern father.

Verse 18 says: “Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him.” Did you notice those words? Abraham commanded his children, and his household after him. He didn't leave them to, “OK, just whatever seems right, you do it. I can just trust you.” No! He commanded! He took control.

“And they shall keep the way of the Lord.” And what is the way of the Lord? To do justice and judgment. So this is how Abraham conducted his household. He commanded them in the ways of the Lord, to do justice and judgment.

So dear ones, because God is a God of justice. He wants us to parent our children with justice. Now that's not all religiosity and law. It's with fairness, and just balances, and just measures, and that which is right. And so, we have to seek the Lord for that which is right and begin to judge righteously.

So OK, here we go, for these points. These are for judges, and for us, as parents.

Number 1: You must take heed to judge according to God's judgment, not man's.

Number 2: God is involved with you in judging, for God is a God of judgment. Judgment ultimately belongs to Him.

Number 3: You must judge in the fear of God. Two times, in that passage, it says, “In the fear of God.” All these points are coming from this passage in 2 Chronicles 19.

Number 4: You must take action on the verdict, and don't let it slide. Now, that's a wake-up for us, as parents, isn't it? Sometimes we can, we can just let things slide. We don't deal with them. And when we don't deal with them, what happens? They just get bigger and bigger, and then we've got more to deal with! The Scripture says: “Take heed and do it!”

Number 5: You must not have respect of persons in judgment. Never show partiality.

Number 6: You must not take bribes. Deuteronomy 16:19, in the New Living Translation says: “Never accept a bribe, for bribes blind the eyes of the wise, and corrupt the decisions of the godly.”

Number 7: You must judge faithfully.

Number 8: You must judge with a perfect, undivided heart.

Number 9: You must warn the guilty not to sin against the Lord. If you fail to do this, God will be angry with you.

Number 10: You must judge courageously. That's good, isn't it? Sometimes it takes courage to execute the justice that we know that we should. We hold back. We don't want to do it, but we must have courage. The Hebrew words for this phrase are asah chazaq; asah meaning “to do” and chazaq meaning “to be strong, courageous, valiant.” And so we put them together. We are to do valiantly.

Now, those are all the points in that one passage. But there are more principles in the Word of God, so let's carry on and find them in other places.

Number 11: You must judge righteously (Proverbs 31:9).

Number 12: You must judge fairly (Deuteronomy 1:16.)

Number 13: You must not be afraid of the face of man (Deuteronomy 1:17). That's a good one, isn't it? We're not to fear man. We fear God because He's the God of justice. We fear Him. We do what He wants us to do and we don't fear the face of man, and what they think.

Number 14: You must never twist justice (Deuteronomy 16:19).

Number 15: You must pursue justice (Deuteronomy 16:20). You have to run after it, to chase after it.

Number 16: You must investigate thoroughly before making judgment. That's a good one, isn't it? We have to do that with our children too, don't we? Have you found that someone will come, and they'll tell on the other one? But then you've got to find out, really, who did it, and why, and what happened. We have to investigate thoroughly. We read about that in Deuteronomy 13:13-15 and chapter 19:18.

Number 17: You must judge according to God's judgment, and the statutes in His Word (Ezekiel 44:24).  .

Number 18: You must bring justice to all who are oppressed.

So there were 18 points about justice. Let's move on. Oh, no? We're going to give you a few more Scriptures about hating evil.

Psalm 97:10: “He that loves the Lord hates evil.”

Proverbs 18:13: “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil”

Oh, Psalm 101 is an amazing psalm. Read the whole psalm sometime, and you'll understand how David looked upon evil. So many things he says that he hates in the psalm. Let's read it from the New English Translation. David says: “I hate doing evil. I will have no part of it. I will have nothing to do with a perverse person. I will not permit evil. Each morning I will destroy all the wicked people in the land, and remove all evildoers from the city of the Lord.”

Wow! Did you get what he's saying there? Wow! You can hardly believe it. Here's David . . . he gets up every morning. This is what he says every morning. “I will go out, and I will destroy every wicked person. I will get rid of every evildoer from the city of my God.”

Wooo! We couldn't imagine anyone doing that today! Well, they would never get away with it, would they? But that's what David did because he hated evil, and he wanted the city of Jerusalem to be a city of holiness.

But I believe we can take that Scripture, because when we read the Scriptures, we read them literally, but we also take them spiritually. This is a type of the attitude that we should have toward evil.

So every morning when we get up, if there's any evil thing in our hearts or in our minds, we don't go through the day with it. What do we do? We get rid of it! We destroy it! We remove it from our minds! We come against it in the Name of Jesus. And we resist the enemy, and we resist evil.

So that's the attitude we should have. And if there's any evil lurking in our home, or any evil that's crept into our home without our realizing it, and we become aware of it, we will deal with it. We'll cast it out of our home. We will deal with wickedness and evil.

So even though we would not do what David did, go round killing off every evil person, we're going to kill off every subtle evil attitude. That's the attitude we should have toward evil, the kind of hatred we should have.

5.    TURN BACK FROM EVIL

2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my Name, shall humble themselves and pray, and turn from their wicked ways (here we've got it. This is what we do this time) “Turn from their wicked ways.” It's a turning away from, and a turning back to God. That's what the word means.

The Message Bible. Some people don't like to read the Message Bible, it's more like a paraphrase. But many times, it says such powerful things. It says in this translation: “turning their backs on their wicked lives.”

So that is part of our getting revival in the nation. Yes, we've got to humble ourselves. We've got to pray, which I trust we are all doing. I'm sure you are also praying every day against this fraudulent election. You're crying out to God to bring truth, to bring clarity, to expose the evil, and that which is an abomination. So we need to be praying for these things.

How we need a revival in our nation, a turning back to God! Oh, there is such evil, and we need to have such a turning back. But when we do that, not only pray, not only humble ourselves, but turn from our wicked ways, then God says, “He will hear from heaven and will heal us, and heal our land. “That's what we long for, isn't it?

6.    AVOID EVIL

Proverbs 4:14-15: “Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.” And so, when we encounter evil, we need to, well, when we see it, we're not going to get involved in it. We're going to avoid it. We're going to pass from it, turn from it.

That reminds me of these Scriptures in Proverbs. Proverbs 13:20 says that “He that walks with wise men will be wise: but a companion of fools will be destroyed.” What a powerful Scripture! And it is so true! I raised my children on this Scripture. I raised my teens on this Scripture. They all knew it by heart. Because it is so true, isn't it, ladies?

I find, especially as our children get into the teen years, that it's their peers that have such influence upon them. Teens love to have friendships. They love to get in the groove and hang out with friends. It is so important that they hang out with the right company, with friends who are wise, and who are godly, and who are walking in the ways of the Lord.

Pray much about the friendships of your children, dear mothers. It's such a powerful, important thing. I have seen many young people go astray, even from godly parents, and you wonder, wow, they were godly parents, how did their children go astray?

Well it wasn't the fault of their parents; it was the fault of their peers. Well, maybe their parents allowed them to get in with those peers. Dear parents, this is one of the biggest things we have to watch is who our children are hanging out with.

I think it's very important to get into a good church fellowship. It doesn't have to be a big church, but make sure it's a church where, hopefully, you can find other families with children round about the ages of your children, so they can establish those friendships, even while they are young. So they go into their teen years with these friendships from other godly families. That's a very beautiful thing.

I had that blessing with our children. We were pastoring in New Zealand when our children were growing up. There were so many beautiful godly families with children the ages of our children. And I fostered those friendships. We showed so much  hospitality. We would invite these families into our home. The children became friends.

Often, they would stay at their home, or they would come and stay at our home, because we trusted these families. It was such a blessing for our children. They grew into their teen years with these friendships. These were who they hung around with. They didn't have to get pulled away by evil friendships.

Another thing we have to watch is if children are in the public school system. Oh, my. This is another area where they can find these ungodly friends. We have to watch that. That's one of the great blessings of home schooling, that you are taking them out from that influence of ungodly influences. And many have been pulled away, just because they've been in public schools, and got into the wrong company.

Of course, I mean, it can happen, even in homeschoolers. You've got to watch. It's not just, “Oh, they're homeschooling. They'll be fine.” No, you have got to get to know the families of the children your children associate with.

You have to know their parents. You have to be part of their lives. It's not just, “Oh, I know them.” No. Do you really know them? Have you sat around their table? Have you invited them to sit around your table? There are many times they've sat around your table. You've opened your home, and had barbeques, and you've had celebrations, and they've been part of it. And so you've got to know them.

Get to know the parents of the children your children are friends with, because it's so true. “He that walks with wise men will be wise, but a companion of fools will be destroyed.” Yes, destroyed. They can be totally destroyed by wrong company.

Even we as adults, we are influenced by our company. And therefore, we should always be seeking out godly company, that we inspire one another, and encourage one another. There's so many Scriptures in the Word of God. Maybe I'll have to, oh, I think I have done a session with you about all the “one another’s,” and how we're to love one another, and be kind to one another, and show hospitality to one another. That's all part of a real, living lifestyle, the lifestyle that God wants us to live in. We are, as we're doing that, our children will be blessed, because they'll be growing up in that lifestyle of godly friendships, which is such a blessing.

Proverbs 14:7 says: “Go from the presence of  a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge.” Teach your children these Scriptures. Make them memory verses. Teach them. You know, if they find they're in the presence of other young people, they may even be homeschoolers, they may even be children or young people who are in the church, but if they perceive that they don't have wisdom, and they don't have the lips of knowledge, and they're not walking in righteousness, well, you remind your children, “You leave. You go. You don't stay hanging out with them.”

7.    PURGE OUT EVIL

We're going to the New Testament here. 1 Corinthians 5:7: “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump.” Back in the Old Testament, at the  time of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and of Passover, the first thing they had to do, the mother would go through the house to check if there was anything leavened, if there was any leavened bread. That means bread that's made with yeast. Because yeast speaks of sin. It's a type of sin. Because when you put yeast in bread, it makes it spread and puff out, and that's what sin does. It never stays on its own. It always spreads, and that's why we have to get rid of it.

And so, God had them do very tangible things so they could understand truth. So they would go through the house, and if there was any bread lying around made with yeast, or even if there were any crumbs, they would have to gather them up and get rid of them!

In fact, in Jewish families today, the mothers will put breadcrumbs around the house. Then they will take the children with them, and, oh, when the children see the breadcrumbs, they will bring them into the little pan. So they're going to throw them away. It speaks of getting rid of the leaven of sin so there will be no sin in the house.

So here Paul is writing to the Corinthians because they understood what he was talking about. They were used to doing this every year. He says to them: “Purge out (it just means to clear out, get rid of) the old leaven, that there may be a new lump.” So we have to keep getting rid of the old stuff. Amen?

8.    ABSTAIN FROM EVIL IN EVERY FORM

Now, 1 Thessalonians 5:22 in the KJV says: “Abstain from all appearance of evil.” Although most translations say: “Stay away from every form of evil.”

Or “Steer clear of evil in any form.”

The Amplified says: “Abstain from evil, shrink from it, and keep aloof from it, in whatever form, or whatever kind it may be.”

So these Scriptures bring out the fact that it doesn't matter what form it is, you've got to stay away from it and steer clear of it.

But in the King James, it says: “Abstain from all appearance of evil.” I think that is an important fact also, because sometimes you may not be doing anything evil, but it could give the appearance of evil.

That's why I am against young people who go out and they get apartments. They will . . .  maybe they're at college, or something like that, or working in a different city. And they'll get an apartment, and they'll get others in to help them pay the rent. And they are not using wisdom in only having the same sex, but a guy may get in some girls, or a girl may get in a guy. That is wrong.

Now there may not be anything sinister going on behind the scenes, but it has the appearance of evil. If a guy and a girl are living in the same apartment, well, what do you think? I mean, it gives the appearance of evil.

And as the people of God, we don't want to give any appearance of evil. We don't want to give any room for the enemy at all, to say anything derogatory against God's people. And so we have to teach our children these things.

I remember when we were first married, Colin and I actually went out full time for God when we were engaged. And then from there we were married, and we went into fulltime, well, OK. I'll start there. While we were engaged even, and then, yes, when we were married, we were blessed to be part of Tell New Zealand Crusade, taking the Gospel of John to every home in the nation, and then later, Tell the Nations Crusade, going out to the Philippine Islands.

But we were blessed that the leader of this vision was a man named Campbell McAlpine, a very godly man. He was a man that when you were around him, you didn't just talk lightly. You were aware of the fear of God. It was a great blessing to know him and to be part of his vision.

I remember him speaking to those who were involved in our mission, because there were many involved, and saying how important it was (he spoke to the men particularly, as those who would be leaders in God's service, and say), “Now never counsel a woman on your own. It may be completely fine, you have no problem with it, but others can look on and see. You are behind closed doors with a woman who is not your wife, and it also can lead to temptation.”

And he said, “You may be walking down the street. It is pouring with rain. Someone from your church stops. It's a lady. 'Hey, get in, get a ride!'” He says, “No, don't accept the ride. What if someone sees you riding in a car with another woman? Now, you may have had no kind of ulterior motives, but others can see things. It's an appearance of evil.”

So he gave these very important things to look out for, throughout our lives. I must close this session, but I must let you know, there were others who listened to those same godly words of advice. And didn't hear them. I think of one man, a beautiful couple that were working with us. He didn't listen to those words. As the years went by, he did counsel women. He was a counselor. He counseled women on his own. And he fell into adultery.

I am thankful that my husband has always kept to these words of advice, because although they can be a sacrifice to make sure you don't do them, they avoid the appearance of evil. If we are people who truly hate and abhor evil, we won't even want to give the appearance of evil.

Well, time has gone again. So let us pray.

“Dear Father, we love You. We thank You that You are so concerned about our lives. You want us to live lives of holiness. And Lord, You show us what we are to do about evil, because evil only brings destruction.

“And Lord, You want to save us from evil, because all You want is our good. You want us to live a long life, and a good life.

“And, Lord God, we pray that, as we are looking at all these different verbs about what we are to do about evil, we pray that You will help us to take action. And that You will put in us, Lord, these attitudes, that we will not condone it, and we will not get used to it; but we will truly hate evil, and abhor it, Lord God. And avoid it, and resist it, and cast it out. We ask this in the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

Continuing the rest of the points next week.

 

 

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.

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 130: IF GOD FIGHTS FOR US, SHOULDN’T WE FIGHT FOR OTHERS?

We have many promises that God fights for us to save us against our enemies. However, we learn two principles today.

1. If God fights for us, shouldn't we fight for those in need, for the unborn, who cannot speak for themselves, for those who suffer persecution, for those who need healing and deliverance, for the downtrodden, and for those being unjustly entreated?

2.  Although God fights for us, we can't sit back and do nothing. God wants us to get in the battle and do our part to fight, too.

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Today we are going to finish our third podcast about God being A MAN OF WAR. It is been so amazing to see how much is written in the Scriptures about God, who fights for us, and how He wants us to fight, too.

OK. Now today, we are up to the sixth Hebrew word. Remember, I found 10 different Hebrew words, I think it was 10, that I found. Yes, let me have a look and see. No, I found 12! Goodness me! I found 12 Hebrew words about battles and fighting. Most of these words all relate to God, as well as to us.

LACHAM

So number 6 is lacham. We find this in Exodus 14:14 where it says: “The Lord shall fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.”

Deuteronomy 20:4: “For the Lord Your God is He that goeth with you, TO FIGHT AGAINST YOUR ENEMIES to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.”

Now, there are many, many other Scriptures where it talks about God fighting for us. In fact, when I do the transcripts of this podcast, I will put all those other Scriptures in for you, so you can look them up if you are interested.

The word fight is lacham, as I said. It means “to battle, to prevail, to fight, fighting, war.” It is translated “fight” or “fought” 149 times in the Bible. You notice how these words are used over and over again. God is a God of rest, but He is also a fighting God. That fighting spirit that comes over you when you want to rise up, and fight against evil, and fight against wickedness, that comes from God. Because He fights against wickedness.

Now, we talked about this in the first series, on these subjects, how that God created us, as women, to be nurturers. We have this anointing from God to nurture, and we have that beautiful anointing upon us, to be gently nourishing and caring for our children.

IF GOD FIGHTS FOR US, SHOULDN’T WE FIGHT FOR OTHERS?

But we also have a spirit of fighting to protect our children, and to push back the enemy from coming into our homes. But I was thinking about this, and thinking that if God fights for us, shouldn't we fight for others, just as Jesus intercedes at the right hand of the Father, continually? We also should intercede for others.

So I believe that we also should have that fighting spirit. We should be fighting for the unborn, because they cannot fight for themselves. I think of Proverbs 31:8, 9, where it says: “Open your mouth on behalf of those unable to speak, for the legal rights of all the dying. Open your mouth, judge in righteousness, and plead the cause of the poor and the needy.”

The unborn baby in the womb, it cannot speak for itself. It cannot rise up for itself. It cannot have justice for itself. So we need to fight for the unborn in whatever way we can.

I love to sign petitions, don't you? Any petition that is for caring and for protecting the unborn, I will sign it. Of course, the biggest thing we can do is pray, and also be a voice, always speaking up for the unborn, always speaking up for life.

When we were in Australia, we used to go and stand outside an abortion clinic every week. That was a very powerful thing to do. We're no longer doing that now, but we have one of our families on the hilltop who go every second week down into Nashville. They take lots of our young people with them.

They stand there as a voice for the unborn. They go there to pray, and to be available to speak to anyone they can. They have lots of wonderful opportunities to speak to those who have been going in, and have even been able to save some mothers from going into that wicked place.

So we fight. We have to stand up, and fight against that which is evil. I believe we have to fight the fight of faith for those who need healing and deliverance. We all know those who are going through difficult times physically. Sometimes it's life and death. We can stand in prayer for them, and with them, fighting the prayer of faith.

When someone is in very dire circumstances, you know, we can do more than just say, “OK, I'll pray for you.” Sometimes we can meet with them and pray with them regularly.

Right now, we have a precious couple in our hilltop families who are in great need of prayer. So we meet nightly to pray over them, because there's something about that consistent prayer. Remember that word: “Because of his importunity, he got what he wanted.” That means he did not give up. He kept coming and coming, and not giving up in prayer. God wants us to have that tenacity in prayer, that fight of faith in prayer. (Read Luke 11:8 and Luke 18:1-8).

We fight in prayer for our precious saints who are suffering persecution. Oh my, there are so many in the world today who are suffering persecution. We often forget about them, don't we? Because here, we who live in America, everything is wonderful . . . although it's not becoming quite so wonderful at the moment as we face all this dominion over our lives with masks and lockdowns. Many leftist states are facing tyranny, even over this Thanksgiving period. Some states have said they can't even have anyone else in their homes to share Thanksgiving. Now that is absolute tyranny! That is unbelievable in our free country of America!

And yet, we're still not suffering the persecution that many of our fellow believers are, who have been thrown into prison, who are suffering torment in their bodies . . . the things they have done to their bodies! I'm always challenged by Hebrews 13:3. In the New Living Translation it says: “Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourselves. Remember also those mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies.”

Often, it's hard to feel that, because maybe we're not feeling pain. We can't even. . . we wonder, how can we really feel what they are going through? But God wants us to do that, as much as possible.

I remember last year, I think it was last year. Serene, my daughter, she was up on their second story of their home, which is still being built. It's pretty high. There was a ladder going up. She was coming down the ladder with a long skirt on. It got caught. She and the ladder went flying down, and she landed hard on her back. She was immediately in, oh, most terrible pain!

She said to me, “Oh Mum,” she said, “I was in such pain. I remembered immediately the persecuted church, how we are to feel their pain in our bodies. For the first time, I could really cry out to God for them! And I was crying out, and praying for them, because I was feeling pain in my own body.”

I thought, “My, I was quite challenged by her doing that.” And anyway, she was fine in the end.

But we have to fight for these different areas. We need to fight for the downtrodden, and those who are unjustly treated. We should always be fighting on the side of justice. We should be fighting against the horrific sex trafficking that is even going on in our nation.

We should be constantly standing up against these evils and praying through for them. Because I believe, although we do everything we can, we speak out, we stand up, we do what we can, but always our greatest fight is in prayer, isn't it?

I believe we should be fighting, at this time, for our President. I mean, we are, at the moment, facing a fraudulent election. I guess all of you are aware of so many different things that have come to light, showing the fraud of this last election.

We've also heard lately of course, about the Dominion voting system, which has interference from overseas, and foreign and international interference that is tied to Venezuela, and Cuba, and China. Even as Sidney Powell, who is one of the lawyers who is working on these things, she said that these Dominion voting systems that were used in so many states across this nation have always been used across the world to defy the will of the people, and those who want freedom.

Of course, the left deny all this. If you were to go to the internet, and look this up, you will find that it says, “fact checking,” to say that this is false. Have you noticed that fact checking has become quite ridiculous? Any article that is speaking truth, it's just, immediately, there's a fact check. “This is false!”

I remember posting, or trying to post one day, an article that I found about a guy who had been working in the election. He showed, before our very eyes, someone who had voted, and it showed his vote. Then it showed that he actually died in 1984! And there it was, in front of your eyes. He showed it clearly.

But then, up came the fact checker! Immediately! “This is false!” They are bringing out this over every little bit of truth that people are seeking to get out. Someone was saying the other day that they posted a picture of the American flag. Immediately, up came fact checking! “This is false!” So, it's getting a little bit ludicrous. We can't really trust the fact checkers at all these days. It's all simply crazy.

But I do believe that we should be praying for our President, praying for a honest election, and that this will not be decided until it is proven to be honest. Whatever happens, after an honest election, we must accept with all our hearts. But it must be honest! It has to be true!

What does the Bible say about these things? Proverbs 11:1: “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight.” Now, that's really just the same spirit of fraudulent elections, when they're seeking to cheat with votes.

Proverbs 19:36 in the New Living Translation, it says: “Your scales and weights must be accurate.” Voting systems, voting machines, voting papers, whatever they're using, must be accurate!

Micah 6:11 says, “Shall I count them pure with wicked balances, and with a bag of deceitful weights?” God hates any deceit, cheating, anything that is unjust.

Deuteronomy 25, I'll just give you one more Scripture about that, although there are many. Deuteronomy 25:15, 16, “But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”

Isn't that amazing? We have the promise that God will lengthen our days if we are children who obey their parents. Children who obey their parents have that beautiful promise, that they will live a long life.

Now here comes this similar promise: “Your days will be lengthened if you have a perfect and just measure.” When you do things accurately, you do not cheat. It goes on say: “For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.”

This election, in the sight of God, is an abomination, because there has been so much fraud. Dear precious ladies, let's keep praying for God to come through, for everything to be exposed.

We are fighting a huge, huge machine. It is very powerful. It is a Goliath. Every little bit of truth that comes forth, they stamp on it immediately. It's denied, it's called false, the fact checkers come out and they just stamp “FALSE” all over it. It is just so difficult to even get the truth out. I believe it can only happen as we pray. So let's keep praying and fighting the battle! Amen? Fighting the battle against wickedness, against evil.

In 1 Samuel 25: 28, it tells us that David fights the battles of the Lord. What battles was David fighting? Were they his own battles? When he went out to fight the enemy, were they his battles? No, the Bible calls them the Lord's battles. God ordained the battles. God is in the battle.

In 1 John 3:8 it says that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. Now Jesus dwells in our hearts, and He still want to destroy the works of the devil. So we keep on doing that. We have to keep on fighting. We'll always be fighting while there is evil around. Amen?

GOD FIGHTS AND WE FIGHT

Yes. I've written here, God fights for us. But He wants us to fight too. There is an amazing principle in the Word of God. I want to show it to you now. I want you to get hold of this principle. It's the principle that although God comes and fights for us, He doesn't do it all. He wants us to be part of the fighting. It's us working together. God works, and we work. God fights, and we fight.

OK. Let me take you to these Scriptures. We'll have a look at a few examples.

Deuteronomy 7:2, 16, “When the Lord thy God shall deliver them before you,” (that's God fighting. OK, God is delivering them. He's delivering the enemy)“Thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver you.” (you fighting). And so we see here, God delivers the enemy into our hands, and then we have to destroy the enemy. You're both working together.

Deuteronomy 7:24: “He shall deliver their kings into thine hand.” That's God fighting. “And thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven.” That's you fighting!

Deuteronomy 9:3: “The Lord thy God, which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire, He shall destroy them” (talking about the enemy) “and He shall bring them down before thy face.” This is God fighting for us. Then it goes on to say: “So shalt thou drive them out and destroy them, as the Lord thy God hath said to thee.” That's you fighting! Are you getting the picture?

God does His part, and then He wants us to do our part. We can't just stand there and say “OK, God, fight my battles for me!” Yes, God does come, and He fights for us. But He wants us to also take up that mantle of coming against the enemy and destroying the enemy.

1 Chronicles 14:15, 16. This was a strategy that God gave in one of the battles for Israel: “When thou shalt hear a sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt go out to battle.” That's you fighting. “For God is gone forth before thee, to smite the host of the Philistines.” That's God fighting. “David therefore did as God commanded him: and they smote the host of the Philistines from Gibeon, even to Gazer.”

So right there, we see God was fighting. He smote the Philistines, but that wasn't the end. They had to also go out and smite the Philistines.

OK, I'll give you one more. Jeremiah 51:20, 4. This is God prophetically speaking through Jeremiah to Israel. “Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee,” that's you fighting, “will I break in pieces the nations.” That's God fighting. “And with thee,” you fighting, “will I destroy kingdoms,” God fighting. “And with thee,” you fighting, “I will break in pieces the horse and his rider.” God is fighting. “And with thee,” you fighting, “will I break in pieces the chariots and his rider.” That's God fighting!.

So do you get that picture, ladies? That's a wonderful principle to remember as you face battles. God is fighting for you, but you've got to do your part. You also have to fight and smite the enemy.

QRAB (kerab)

All right. Number seven: qerab. We find this in Zechariah 14:3: “Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle.” This word means “hostile encounter, battles, war,”  and it's used nine times in the Bible. But here we see it's used of God, God going forth to fight.

Then we read in Psalm 144:1, David said: “Blessed be the Lord my Strength, which teacheth my hands to war,” (that's qerab) “and my fingers to fight.” God is the One Who teaches us to fight.

NASHAQ

Number eight: that is nashaq, and it means, “armed men.” Yes, 1 Chronicles 12:2. OK, here it talks about the helpers of the war who came to help David. “They were armed,” (that's the word there, nashaq) “with bows, and could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow.”

CHALATS

All right, the next one, number nine, is chalats or qalats. If you get the transcript for this podcast, which we do transcripts, they usually come a couple of weeks or so afterwards, you'll get the correct spelling of the Hebrew words, and so on.

OK, we find this one in Numbers 31:3, 4: “And Moses spake to all the people, armed,” (that's the word chalats) “armed men from among you for the war, to attack the Midianites, and execute the Lord's vengeance on Midian. You must send to the battle a thousand men from every tribe, from all the tribes of Israel.”

MA-ARAKAH

All right, number ten: I wonder how I meant to say this: maharawkaw. And that's a Hebrew word that means “military array, army, fight, set in order for the war, rank.” When David was preparing to fight Goliath, he mockingly asked the giant, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies, (ma-arakah) the armies of the Lord God?” (1 Samuel 17:26).

And then, when he faced Goliath, he confessed, with boldness, his trust in the Lord: “Thou comest to me with a sword, and a shield: but I come to thee in the Name of the Lord of Hosts” (1 Samuel 17:45) Remember, ladies, that's another Name of God, another war-Name of God. “The Lord of Hosts” is the Hebrew word tsaba, and it means the “God of the armies of heaven, the God of the armies of Israel, the God, our Warrior, Who fights for us.” And David came to Goliath “in the Name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies, (ma-harakah) of Israel, whom thou hast defied.”

“And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose. and came and drew nigh to meet David, that David hasted, and ran toward the army (ma-arakah) to meet the Philistine.” (1 Samuel 17:47) So that is that word.

S’OWN

Number 11, s’own. This is a word meaning “military boot,” or “battle.”

SA’AN

And number 12, sa’an. It means “a soldier shod with a shoe, a warrior.” Also found in Isaiah 9:5.

So that completes the 12 different Hebrew words I found for battle and fighting and war. They are used over and over again in the Word of God.

Here's a couple of interesting Scriptures. Here's a Scripture that describes David when he was a young man, even before he was king. In this Scripture, there are three different Hebrew words for battle and war.

In 1 Samuel 16:18, it says: “Behold I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing (We all know he was the beautiful, sweet psalmist of Israel) and a mighty” (that's the word gibbor, that’s the first word we talked about) valiant man (chayil, so he was a mighty, valiant man, it’s two Hebrew words there, gibbor and chayil). And a man of war (milchamah) and prudent in matters, and a comely person.” That word actually means “beautiful.” David was obviously beautiful. There's another passage that talks about his eyes, and that he had very amazing and beautiful eyes.

Yes, the Bible talks about this. Isn't it amazing how the Bible talks about little things that we wouldn't even think about? I have read other things about David, and where it talks about his eyes. Some writer believed that he had green eyes. I don't know where he got that, but the Bible does say that he had very beautiful eyes.

Then it finishes, “and the Lord is with him.” Of all the beautiful descriptions of David in that one Scripture, there were three words relating to war.

Now here's another Scripture, 1 Chronicles 7:11. In this Scripture, there are four, just a little Scripture, and yet, four different Hebrew words relating to war:

“All these, the sons of Jediael, by the heads of their fathers, mighty (gibbor) men of valor (chayil), were seventeen thousand and two hundred soldiers fit to go out for war (tsaba) and battle (milchamah).” Four strong, powerful Hebrew words about battles.

We can't get away from it, lovely ladies. We are in a battle because we belong to the Kingdom of God. It is antipathy to the kingdom of darkness. We are at war with the kingdom of darkness. We have it all around us. We have evil.  In this hour, the darkness is, I believe, getting darker.

It's like it says in Isaiah chapter 60:2: “And gross darkness is covering the earth.” There seems to be more and more evil and deception. But in the midst of this darkness, what does God tell us to do? To just sink into our homes and into our despair, and say, “Poor me!”

NO! It says to arise! And shine! This is what we have to do in this hour. We have to take up our armor as it talks about in Ephesians chapter 6. And we've got to put it on. We've got to fight. We have to fight the battles we face daily, fight the evil that is around us, and shine with the love of Christ. And shine with His truth. And shine brightly as the Scripture says.

Now one little thing more I want to say to you about being in the battle. That is, it is so hard to be in the battle on your own. But do you know, lovely ladies, God doesn't want you to be in the battle on your own. He wants others to come along and be with you. And He wants you to get alongside other, and be with them.

Because, although we are soldiers, because that's what we are called, the Word of God says that we are to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 2;3, 4). But a soldier is not really a soldier on his own. Yes, he can be a soldier, but he's not in the battle until he gets together with all the other soldiers.

When there's a battle, they're all called. They have to get together. They've all been trained, and they know what to do. Now they come together to go and fight the enemy. We do have to come together to fight the enemy.

I was reading a while back and noticed this principle in the Word. I'm going to give you just two or three Scriptures. It's over and over again that we see it.

Judges 7:23: “And all the men of Israel gathered themselves together and pursued after the Midianites.” They just didn't go out, one person trying to fight the Midianites. They couldn't do it without an army. They had to come together as an army.

We see over in Judges 20:11: “So all the men of Israel were gathered against the city, knit together as one man.”

2 Samuel 12:29: “And David gathered all the people together, and went to Rabbah, and fought against it.” Do you get the picture? We can really only destroy the enemy when we gather together. There is power in corporate prayer. God wants us to be a people who unite together to pray, because then it is more powerful.

Yes, you can pray on your own. It is important to pray on our own. But, of course, we can pray as families. That's gathering together. That is powerful. The more you have in your family, the greater gathering that you have.

We love to do that in our home. Every morning, every evening, we gather, whoever is in our home and pray together. But then we can go even beyond that, and pray with others, even outside the home. Even in this hour in which we are facing this election, which has not yet fully been decided, we need to be praying. It's something that can only really be handled in real intercession and fighting in prayer.

So why don't you ask another family over to your home to pray with you? Or some other families? We gather families every night here and pray together over this election.

Let me just close with one Scripture, Leviticus 26. And this here, it's talking about war and chasing your enemies. In verses 7 and 8, it says: “And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase an hundred.”

You know, even five, mom and dad and three children, that's five, you can chase 100 enemies in prayer! Because that's the greatest weapon in war. But then it goes on to say: “And an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.”

The more you gather together to pray, to fight in prayer, the more enemies you will destroy. So be encouraged. Pray, but gather your family to pray. Then gather others to pray too. Amen?

Dear Father, we thank You that, Lord, You don't leave us in the dark. You show us that we're in a battle, Lord God. And we thank You that, as we have been going through Your Word, we see, Father, that You also are the God of battle.

Lord, You fight battles. You fight battles with us, Lord, and You want us to come alongside You and fight Your battles against all evil and wickedness and that which is an abomination to you, Lord God.

Oh, Father, help us to be faithful. Help us to be strong in the fight, Lord God. Help us, Lord, to not give up, as we continue, because You have said, Lord, that as we fight, we will destroy the enemy.

I pray, Father, that You will encourage each one listening today, encourage them in their faith, Lord God. Those who are feeling, Lord, down, and just helpless, I pray that You will lift them up, and You will strengthen them to fight the fight of faith, Lord.

We think of Paul, who at the end of his life, he was able to say, “I have fought a good fight.” Help us, Lord, to be continually fighting the good fight. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

GOD FIGHTS FOR YOU SCRIPTURES TO LOOK UP:

Deuteronomy 1:30; Joshua 10:14, 42; 23:3, 10; Nehemiah 4:20; 2 Chronicles 20:17; and Zechariah 14:3.