PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 116: WE ARE GATEKEEPERS OF OUR HOMES – Part 1

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 116 - WE ARE GATEKEEPERS OF OUR HOMES – Part 1

Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies. 

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies. Today I would like to talk to you about guarding our homes. I think it may end up being more than one session, but we’ll see how it goes.

Guarding is something that God loves to do. He is a Guarder.

When we read about the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21, we read that God will have angels guarding the twelve gates of Jerusalem. I think if God needs guardians at the gates of His home, I think we need to have guardians at the gates of our home, don’t you?

Of course, we are the mothers who are at home. We have that responsibility to guard our homes. I think it is a beautiful thing, because with everything, there is hardly a subject that we begin to talk about, and it begins with God.

In the beginning God! in the beginning He was the first of everything. He was the first Guarder. That is Who God is: He watches over us. He guards over us and as we are created in His image, He wants us to be guarders, too.

In fact, we are to be guarders of our homes, but also countries have to be guarded and cities have to be guarded. Shepherds guard their flocks. When God is talking about pastors and elders of churches, He talks to them about shepherding and guarding their flocks (Acts 20:28).

Then it comes down to us as the fathers and mothers of our homes and we are to guard them.

Before we get down to the nitty-gritty of guarding our own homes I have been thinking very much about the guarding of our nation. As I think about that, I think about our coming elections. I want to put a little plug in here for every God-fearing person listening to me that we be ready and prepared to vote for this election.

I don’t say that as being political. I say that as someone who is burdened for our families and for the future generations for our nation.

I think about it often. Do you think about it? Do you think about your children? Do you think about your grandchildren? And do you think about what kind of a nation that they are going to live in?

Sadly, we have to face the facts that this election is far more than just an election of, “Do we vote for President Trump or do we vote for Joe Biden?”

I mean that’s even no longer the issue. The issue is: are we going to vote to save our nation? Because if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris get in that will definitely be the end of our nation as we know it today.

They will open all the borders. It will not be a nation that is guarded.  That is one thing about President Trump: He has protected our borders. When he came into power there were caravans of thousands coming up from the Southern border. He put a stop to all that. We have nothing of that now. He has sought to guard the borders and the gates of our nation because He loves this nation. He is a nationalist.

But Joe Biden and all his pack, they are for open borders. Anyone can come in--terrorists, it doesn’t matter who they are, it’s just, “Come on in. We’ll look after you. We’ll pay for you.”

It doesn’t matter about the citizens. They can hardly survive but they will look after any person who comes into this nation, coming in totally illegally.

Now we came into this nation from a foreign country but my! We had to pay a lot of money. We had to work hard to first of all spend time to get our Green Card, then after having that for many years, getting our citizenship. That was a wonderful day for us. We are so blessed to be citizens of this great country.

But there will be no protection if they get in. There will be terrorism. Police, as they are being defunded, will be defunded all over the nation.

They will open the doors to China. That is their agenda, to open the doors to China. China will be able to come in and take over our businesses, they will take over our government buildings, and they will take over the land. Russia will come and will take over  . . . it will become full of anarchy.

In fact, you can do a little experiment. Do you want to try this?

At our church fellowship on Sunday one of the ladies said to me, “Nancy, I couldn’t believe it. I put into my Internet antifa.com as I just wanted to check out what their agenda was, and I couldn’t believe what came up.”

Can you believe what came up? Immediately the moment you put in antifa.com Joe Biden or Kamala Harris come up. That’s the first thing that comes up.

They are tied to Antifa.

That’s hard to believe, isn’t it, that someone who is running to protect our nation is tied to Antifa. They’re all one.

Try it yourself; it’s unbelievable. You just can’t believe it.

Therefore, we have to be sure that we are prepared to vote and that all of our children who are 18 years or older are registered to vote.

There are going to be thousands and thousands of young people across this nation who have been brainwashed and propagandized in our universities by liberal and communist professors who will vote for this extreme socialism, which is really communism.

What about us? We’ve got to get our young people voting so make sure they are registered.

Perhaps you are someone who has never believed in voting. Well, I’m sorry to say, when you don’t cast a vote you are casting a vote. To not vote is to vote. When you don’t cast a vote for righteousness and the protection and the saving of this nation, you are casting a vote for communism because that is what’s going to come in.

So as we begin to think about guarding, even guarding our homes, guarding our families, we have to guard our nation.

I want to guard the type of nation my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, of which I already have many and so many are coming on, what kind of a nation will they live in.

It would be devastating, as we have seen in every country that has gone to communism, like Venezuela. I mean, it was a rich and amazing country and now it’s just poverty-stricken and we don’t want this for our children.

As we talk about guarding our families, we have got to take a strong stand. We have got to take action. We do have to vote so that we can guard the future of our precious children that they will live in a nation founded on the Constitution, which it is meant to be.

Already we are on a downhill slide in our nation because of Roe versus Wade. We have 63 million precious babies who have been murdered in the sanctity of the womb.

I mean, we cry out for God’s mercy and yet we deserve His judgment.

Yet if this Democratic Party gets in, it will be open slaughter for they totally believe in abortion for any reason right up to birth and after birth, which is infanticide. I mean, God vomited the children of Israel out of the land of Israel for that very thing and so we have to vote against that.

Our President is Pro-life. This other party is totally pro-abortion and not just abortion, but infanticide.

I mean they embrace the homosexual agenda and the transgender. It’s everything that is against God.

I believe that we as God-fearing, Bible-believing people, we must take a stand. We have to vote against these evils, and we must vote for righteousness.

All right, so now let’s come down to the nitty-gritty of our homes. How do we guard our homes?

First of all, let’s go to the Word and see what God has to say.

NEW TESTAMENT GUARDING

There are two words in the New Testament about guarding and there are two words in the Old Testament. There may be more, but these are the main ones.

In the New Testament we go to Titus 2:4-5 where God is telling the older women to teach the younger women how they are to live. The Bible says we are to teach them to be keepers at home.

“I beg your pardon,” I hear you say, “So you are telling me that I just have to be at home and that’s all I’m good for.”

Well, let’s look at what the word really means. If we go back to the Greek, we find that this phrase is actually translated differently according to what early manuscript it came from.

One manuscript translates it as: “Workers at home.”

It is two words, oikos, meaning “home,” and then the other word, ergon, meaning “to work.” And so it means “workers at home.”

Dear mother, you are doing the most wonderful job in your home as you raise your children and as you watch over their lives.

Some of you may be doing extra work in the home and that is wonderful, too, because as it says, we are workers at home. Of course we do have to watch the seasons for that. For those of you with little children all around you, that takes every moment of your day. You don’t have to feel that you’re not accomplishing much. No, you’re doing great work.

Some of you are older mothers and you have older children who are such a wonderful help to you, and you are able to do other things in your home. They are things that can be reaching out to those who are needy and those who are poor. Maybe you have a business in your home and your older children are helping you with it.

But you are very busy in your home and you are right there. That is the main thing, that you are right there because you can watch over your children. You see, the enemy’s ploy is to get you out of your home so we can’t keep our beady eyes upon our children. He doesn’t want us to be guarders of the home

He wants us out of the way because when the devil can get mothers out of the home and mothers out of the way then he can get his claws on our children and into the minds of our children, putting in the seeds of deception that can turn them away from God.

We have to be there, always there, watching over them.

The other word is also an oikos word;  oikos meaning “home” and ouros meaning “to guard, to watch, to keep, to have the oversight and responsibility for something.”

It also means not only a home worker but a home guarder where we are a watchdog, watching over our home, watching over the doors and the gates of our home.

The word also means “a stay at home mother.” That’s also the meaning that the Strong’s Concordance brings out.

But she’s not staying home just because she has to stay at home. No, she’s staying home for a purpose. She knows she is needed. She knows she is the guardian of the gates of her home. She is a watchdog.

She is like the keeper of the keys of the castle. That keeper, that guarder of the castle, he will not let those keys go to anyone, to any invader, or to anyone who would come in who should not. No, we are the ones who stand sentinel at the door of our homes to guard over them.

So we see that word and then we have another word in the New Testament. The next New Testament word is found in 1 Thessalonians 5:23. Here Paul is praying for the Thessalonian believers and he says: “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

When I was raising our children, this was the Scripture that I took hold of. I made it my vision when I raised our children.

My aim was that when I stand before the Lord, as I will one day, and as each one of us will and we will stand there to present our children before Him, I want to present them the to the Father WHOLE—spirit, soul, and body, and that they would be preserved blameless at the coming of Jesus.

That’s the other word, it’s the word preserved. It’s tēreō and it means “to watch over, to guard from loss or injury by keeping the eye upon.”

Once again it is a close guarding where we are watching with our eyes—with our physical eyes, and with our spiritual eyes as we watch in prayer. We are guarding over our children.

We are not only guarding their bodies because, you know, it’s easier to care for the physical bodies of our children. We just watch that they’re fed, and they’re clothed, and they’re housed. But it’s a bigger thing to watch over their souls and to watch over their spirits.

That’s a greater mothering. That’s a greater nurturing. That is a greater guarding. That takes being there.

You can’t watch over your children’s souls and spirits if you’re being wooed away from the home.

I love this little quote. I think it’s so true:

“The devil woos women out of the home;

God woos them into the home.”

 We have to watch who we are being led by.

I think if you would like, you could also take that Scripture in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 as a beautiful vision for raising your family. I found it such a wonderful Scripture.

OLD TESTAMENT GUARDING

Then we go to the Old Testament and we see another two words that I’d like to tell you regarding guarding.

The first one is shammah and it means “to keep safe, to preserve, to guard, to protect, to watch, to hedge about.”

The very first time that we read this word is in Genesis 2:15, right at the very beginning. God has created the man and then He puts the man in the garden. Then it says that He put him into the garden to “dress it.”

The Hebrew word there means “to work in it” and also “to keep it” and that’s the word shamar meaning “to guard and preserve and protect and keep watch.”

Now isn’t it interesting? Did you pick up on that, ladies, that the words, “keepers at home” is either translated from either two manuscripts. One being “keepers” or “guardians of the home.”

Here we are right back in Genesis at the very beginning and at the beginning God shows the way for the rest of time. In the first three chapters of Genesis God revealed His plan for mankind, His plan for marriage, His plan for motherhood, and His plan for the home.

He laid it all out and here He is giving it again. The garden of Eden was the first home. It was the type of home to come. It was called “The Garden of Eden.” Do you know what the word Eden means? It’s the Hebrew word for “delight.”

So it is called “The Garden of Delight.” And this, being the first prototype of the home, is how God wants our homes to be today. He wants them to be a delight.

Of course it takes time to make them a delight, doesn’t it?

In this home, God said, “I want you to do two things: I want you to work in it and I want you to guard over it.”

We see it in the Old Testament, and we see it in the New. God gives the principles of what He wants us to do in the home. He wants us to work in the home, make it our life and, dear precious ladies, you make your home what you want it to be.

Is it boring? Do you feel like a prisoner? Well, obviously that’s what you’re making your home to be like.

You can make your home the most wonderful place on earth, such a delight that you don’t even want to even leave.

That’s what we’re meant to do. To make it a delight for our husband, a delight for our children, a delight for everyone who comes and a delight for ourselves because we long to be there and we come to realize what an amazing place it is.

Yes, it is a sanctuary where we can raise our children but it’s a place where we can minister to so many people.

You have the gift of a home. God has given you a sphere where you can invite people to come in. You can bless them, you can feed them, and you can encourage them. You can make wonderful things happen.

You can do projects. From your home you can minister out to so many needy people. The home is where you can do such creativity and such great things can happen.

We’ve just got to get a vision for our homes, don’t we?

But we’re talking about guarding and also how that God is our Guarder and God is our Shamar. Did you know that dear ladies? That same word God gave to us to guard our homes, that is Who God is called.

He is the Keeper of Israel. He is the Shamar of Israel.

Don’t you love Psalm 121 where it says: “He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.” That is the word shamar. He’s guarding over you, protecting you, watching over you, and hedging you about.

“Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” Once again, that is the word shamar.

“The  Lord  is thy keeper [shamar]: the  Lord  is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil . . ..”

That’s shamar. There it is. It just comes over and over again.

“ . . . He shall preserve thy soul . . ..” Yes, shamar again. He’s guarding over your soul as you yield to Him.

“The  Lord  shall preserve [shamar again] thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.”

Dear ladies, this is a picture of God, Who is our Guardian, our Keeper, our Protector; the One Who hedges us about. This is God. This is Who He is.

When you are in your home and when you are taking up that anointing to guard your home, you don’t just think, “Oh here I am stuck at home with these children.”

No, you have a great career and you have a task. It’s a God-given task, a God-like task and when you are guarding your children you are being like God.

Read Psalm 121 again and when you read about how God guards you personally and how He guards His people of Israel, think about how you can guard your children like that.

What can be more powerful, more influential, and more incredible in the whole of the earth than to be like God and to do what He does?

We read in Psalm 34:7: “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.”

I love Deuteronomy 11:12 where God is speaking about His people and the land that He was taking them into. He says: “A land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.”

Isn’t that a glorious promise?

That was spoken over Israel but I believe that as we put our trust in God that we can claim that promise that His eyes are always upon our homes and that He watches over us from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.

That should also be our heart for our children too.

We also read another different word in the Old Testament and it’s found in Proverbs 31:27. That’s in the virtuous woman chapter. It says: “She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.”

Let’s look a little closer at that Scripture, shall we?

It says: “She looketh well . . ..” Do you notice that pronoun SHE?

Yes, did you know that there are some schools that are now trying to take out those pronouns? They don’t want she. They don’t want he. But these pronouns are God-given. God created male and female. God created she and he.

God gave different tasks to each one and as we read the example of this woman in Proverbs 31, we read over and over and over again the pronoun SHE.

When you have a moment go and read it again and go and put a little circle around, SHE. Every time it talks about what she is doing, what she is doing in the home.

It’s not what the man is doing. No, he is out working to provide for the home; but this woman is in the home doing great and mighty things.

I hope I got my count right, but I counted that the word SHE occurs 18 times in Proverbs 31. And get this, the word HER occurs 30 times in Proverbs 31.

How about that? Yes, it’s all about SHE and HER!

The phrase “her household” occurs three times. Yes, it’s HER household that God has given to her to create, to make it what she wants it to be, and to guard it, watch over it, and protect it.

Then this phrase: “She looketh well.”

Now that phrase is the Hebrew word tsaphah and it is exactly, can you believe it, the same word that is used for a watchman of a city?

When it’s talking about the watchman on the wall, it’s the word tsaphah and it’s the same word here. Instead of saying “She is a watchman” it says: “She looks well to the ways of her household.”

But that’s the word in the Hebrew. It’s watchman, or should we say, “watchwoman.” It means “to lean forward, to peer into the distance, to observe, to espy, to keep watch.”

Dear ladies, this woman, she’s not only watching over her children just for the day. She’s not like a babysitter, “I’m watching over these children for the day.”

No, it’s her life work and she looks into the distance. She peers into the future because she is guarding them from what is to come. She is creating now what she can do to make the future a safe place for her children. She is getting her children ready to go out and face the world.

She is strengthening them. She is making them strong in truth, strong in their convictions, strong in faith, strong in purity, and strong in righteousness because she is getting them ready for the future.

She knows that she has to do this because when we are nurturing children, we are not just babysitting them for a day.

No, we are preparing them for the future. We are preparing them to go out of our homes into this deceived and evil world. We are preparing them to stand, to be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

This is what this woman is doing. She watches, protects, hedges about, and guards the ways of her household.

“The ways of her household” is another lovely phrase.

“She looketh well to the ways . . ..” The next phrase is “to the ways” and it means: “walking, a procession, or a march.” It’s a going. It’s talking about action here. This mother at home is not just sitting on her sofa getting taken up with social media and the hours are going by.

No, she actually has purpose in her walking and in her going. It’s like a processional or a march because she knows what she is doing.

It’s the same word that is once again used of God. I love it, don’t you, dear ladies, when we read a word in the Bible that relates to us but then we read that same Hebrew word where it relates to God.

We read in Habakkuk 3:6 where it says that God’s “ways are everlasting.”

There is another Scripture, I forget where it is, but it talks about the goings of God in His sanctuary and it’s the same Hebrew word.

There we go. We saw two words in the New and two words in the Old about guarding.

Now how are we to guard our families and our households?

We’re going to look at it a little more closely and we’re going to find out what our resume should be because if we actually do have to have a resume to be a guardian of the home.

We could call ourselves a “Gatekeeper” too. That’s another good name.

We look back as we go back in the Bible and see what the Gatekeepers were like. As we go back to David’s time we found that during the time of David’s tabernacle he appointed 4,000 gatekeepers, which weren’t all working at the same time because they did it in courses that had different times and then others would take over.

But there were 4,000 of them to keep watch over the tabernacle. The gates were north, south, east, west and the entrance gate and they were never ever to be unguarded.

Once again, our time has gone so next week we are going to start talking about the resume because not just anybody could be a gatekeeper.

You couldn’t just say, “Oh I think I’ll be a gatekeeper at the tabernacle and watch over the temple.” No, they had to have certain criteria. They had to have certain characteristics and we’ll see how God wants us to be as the guardians and the gatekeepers of our homes.

I know that you are going to look forward to that next week.

Let us pray:

“Dearest Heavenly Father, We thank You so much that You created us in Your image. You created us to be like You. You are a Guardian. You watch over us. You protect us.

“I pray Father, that You would pour that anointing over each one of us that we would truly learn to guard our children and guard our homes in the way You watch over and guard us.

“Help us to be faithful guardians and faithful gatekeepers of our homes. We ask it in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.”

 

Transcribed by Morgan Roth.