PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 361: THE UNBELIEVABLE REVELATION OF GOD'S HEART FOR YOUR HOME, PART 2
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 361: THE UNBELIEVABLE REVELATION OF GOD'S HEART FOR YOUR HOME, PART 2
You may feel hidden in your home, but it is the most sacred and glorious places that are hidden. Find out more about our hidden God.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. Always lovely to be with you. I notice that we are now up to podcast 361! You’ve had many podcasts to listen to, haven’t you? Of course, we will do many more together.
Now today, we are continuing from last week about this wonderful revelation of THE HEART OF THE HOME. And today, I want to give you from the Word of God, because we only want to hear stuff that is from the Word. Isn’t that true? It’s only the Word. That is our foundation for everything. I want to give to you four similarities from the Word regarding Heaven, the Holy of Holies, and our Homes. It’s amazing how the things that God says about these things are all related.
No. 1. GOD’S PRESENCE
Of course, when we talk about Heaven, none of us know how glorious Heaven is going to be. It will be beyond our wildest, wildest imaginations. But of all the glory that will be there, and the beauty, and the wonder of things that we have never, ever seen on this earth, the ultimate of Heaven is the presence of God. Everything else will fall into nothingness compared to the presence of God.
Then, of course, in the Holy of Holies we talked last week about how it was filled with 23 tons of gold. It was awe-inspiring. And yet, that was nothing, compared to the presence of God. And God chose to dwell with His people on earth. He came, and He said, “I want to dwell with you.” He dwelt in the midst of His people!
He dwelt in a temporary dwelling because the tabernacle was temporary. They carted it from place to place, and God went with them from place to place. But He was there in all His shekinah glory although He was hidden there at the very far end of the tabernacle, and later the temple when it was established. Once again, it was the presence of God that was the ultimate thing.
And, of course, God wants His presence also to fill our homes. What He wants more than anything else is to come and be with us in our homes. He is a dwelling God. He dwelt with His people in the wilderness. He comes to dwell with us. And now, of course, He comes to dwell in our hearts, in our lives, by the power of His Holy Spirit.
I just love these Scriptures. We have two Scriptures, actually. 1 Corinthians 6 and 2 Corinthians 6. They both tell us the same thing.
1 Corinthians 6:19: “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God, and ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
Now today, there’s no longer a temple in Jerusalem, but God still has temples on earth today. But they are living temples. They are our bodies. That’s exactly what it says here. Your body, my body, is now the temple of the Holy Spirit. Isn’t that amazing? Yes, once God dwells in us . . . especially in Jerusalem, the temple was so incredible. It was all paved with gold, just as in Heaven. Even the streets are going to be paved with gold there. But now we have become God’s temple. More than anything else, He want to live in our flesh and blood.
This word “temple” here actually means, not the whole temple, but the Holy of Holies where God dwells. We have now become His Holy of Holies. That’s enough to blow your brains! Sometimes we read the Scriptures, and we don’t see the enormity, the enormity of what they’re saying. But now God wants to fill us with His presence.
We go over to 2 Corinthians 6:16: “And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God hath said, ‘I will dwell in them, and walk in them.’” Yes, wherever we go, He walks with us. Dear mother, in your home, in your kitchen, wherever you are with your children, whatever you're doing, God not only dwells in you, but He walks with you. Wherever you walk, He walks. He goes with you. He is with you. It is so amazing. “And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
Then, over in Revelation, we get to Revelation 17. It’s a wonderful Scripture that tells us that even in the eternal realm, God’s delight is to be with us and dwell with us. That is who He is, a dwelling God.
I’m just thinking now of John 14. This is something Jesus said when He was here on earth. Here it is. John 14:23: “And Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘If a man love me, he will keep My words, and My Father will love him.’” And listen to this, ladies. “And we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” Now Jesus is talking here. He doesn’t say, “I will come.” He says, “We, We will come, My Father, and Myself, and the Holy Spirit. We will come and make Our abode with him.” The triune God comes to dwell with you.
Oh, precious mother in your home, you are not forsaken. You are not on your own. God is with you. He is in you and loves to dwell in you. And He loves to dwell in your home because He is a dwelling God. He loves to be in your home. He wants to sit at the table with you. When you say your grace at the table, remember to invite Him in, to invite Him to sit at the table with you, because that’s where He loves to be.
We go to the Lord’s prayer. It says, if you know it: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” Whatever is happening in Heaven, God wants it to happen on earth. His presence fills Heaven and He wants His presence to fill you and fill your home.
In the Luke part of the Lord’s prayer, where it repeats it . . . it’s in Matthew, but it’s repeated again in Luke. It just says these words: “As in Heaven, so in earth.” So very simple, but so powerful. “As in Heaven, so in earth.” We could say, “As in God’s house, so in my house.” That would be something wonderful to write up and put it on your wall, wouldn’t it?
“As in God’s house, so in my house.”
Here's another lovely Scripture, Hosea 6:2: “After two days, He will revive us. And the third day, He will raise us up, and we shall live in His presence.” God wants us to live in His presence, and He wants to bring His presence to our homes.
I love this quote from F.D. Gordon. He wrote a book called Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. In this book he says, “The influence exerted by the mother is great beyond the power of our minds to think, or of our words to tell. The making of a child’s character is in the mother’s hands to a degree that is nothing short of startling.”
In another passage he writes, “The atmosphere of the home is breathed in by the child and exerts an influence in his training more by far than all other things put together. The child receives more by unconscious absorption than in any other way. He is all ears and eyes and open pores. He is open at every angle and point and direction, and all between. He is an absorbing surface. He takes in constantly. He takes in what is there, and what he takes in makes him. The spirit of the home is the one thing on which the keen mind and the earnest heart of the father and mother will center most for the children’s sake.”
That’s all about bringing the presence of the Lord to your home so your children are going to grow up in His presence. “Well,” you say. “Goodness me, I don’t feel as though the presence of God is in my home. Sometimes I think it’s the last thing that’s happening!”
But dear ladies, we don’t go by feelings. We go by the truth. I love that Scripture in Isaiah, a beautiful Scripture for mothers. Isaiah 49:15, 16: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget. Yet will I not forget thee.”
Wow. It seems impossible, just about, for a mother to forget her nursing baby. I think it is impossible. It could be possible for a mother who’s not nursing her baby, because she doesn’t have the same hormones as a mother who’s nursing her baby. But it would be so rare. God says: “Even if they could forget, I will not forget you. I have graven upon the palms of My hands. Your walls are continually before me.” Isn’t that a wonderful promise?
The walls, even the walls of your home where you are, in your kitchen, or whatever room you are in the home, those walls are continually before the Lord. He is watching over them. He wants to be in your four walls. He wants to be part of everything that is going on.
Invite Him in. Go through your home. Invite Him into every room of your home. Into your kitchen where everything is happening, into your lounge, into your dining room, into your bedrooms. Yes, invite Him to come in because He longs to dwell with you. This similarity is the teaching of Heaven, and the Holy of Holies, and, of course, God relates the home to it too.
Not only does the presence of God fill Heaven and the Holy of Holies, but also the glory of God. The glory of God fills Heaven. But even before we get onto that, I think I’d like to talk about another aspect. And we’ll make this number two.
No. 2. HIDDEN PLACE
Heaven is a hidden place. We know that it’s somewhere in the north, but we don’t know where it is. The Holy of Holies was a hidden place, open only to the high priest once a year.
And God has also made the home a hidden place. You notice, you remember the word that we learned last week? “Your wife is like a fruitful vine in the inner recesses of your home.” That’s the Hebrew word yerekah, “recesses, hidden, the inner rooms, the far end,” that is what it means.
But lovely ladies, you may feel as though you are hidden, and you wonder what you are doing sometimes there in your home. But because a place is hidden does not mean to say it is unimportant. No, God hides His most special and most glorious things.
That’s why God’s presence was hidden in the Holy of Holies. It wasn’t out there on display for everyone. We have to come in, and we have to seek His presence, because things that are common are there for everybody to look at. But that which is most sacred is hidden.
Even the womb of the woman is hidden. It’s a hidden place within the mother but does that make it an unimportant place? No. It is such a powerful place. In fact, the womb, the womb is our most distinguishing characteristic as a woman. We are womb-men. We’re a man with a womb. In fact, there are only two kinds of people in this world, and that is a man without a womb, the male, and a man with a womb, the womb-man, the woman. It’s from the womb that everything in this life comes.
Now, I’d like to give you this quote. This is a quote from me, but I’ll read it, because it’s so important. “Let’s think for a moment of all the amazing things that have happened, are happening, and will happen in this world. The remarkable inventions, the amazing feats, both intellectually and physically. The astounding advancements and the brilliant discoveries. None of this happens on its own. Every single thing that happens in this world happens through a person. And that person comes through a womb. The womb of a woman. Without the womb, nothing happens in this world. It all comes to a halt.”
Another quote: “All the great things that take place in the world happen because of a mother’s womb. The womb is the place of destiny.”
And that’s so true, ladies. Without the woman, without the womb, the world ends. It comes to a halt, because everything comes forth from the womb. And yet, the womb is a hidden place. But it brings forth everything for this world. So powerful.
Yes, the hidden place, the hidden place is very powerful. Even God, the Bible tells us, God hides Himself. Isaiah 45:15: “Verily, Thou art the God that hideth Thyself. Oh God of Israel, the Savior.”
Then we go to Isaiah 8:17. Obviously it’s Isaiah crying out, and he says: “I will wait upon the Lord that hideth His face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for Him.”
There are times, dear ladies, when God does hide His face. Our God is a hidden God but He’s also a revealed God. He reveals Himself to us through His Word and ultimately through the cross where He came to save us from our sins. We can’t really find God apart from those places. We can try. We can try to find Him and seek Him in our own minds, our own imaginations, or science, or what this one says, or that one says.
But no, the only place we’ll truly find God is where He is hidden in the pages of His Word. Often then, it’s not on the surface. You’ve got to dig to find. Here Isaiah is saying, “Oh God, You’ve hidden Your face! I can’t feel You, I don’t see You, but I will look for You!” So, lovely ladies, there are times, there are seasons in your life where you don’t feel God. You feel nothing.
But please, can I encourage you? Never, ever rely on your feelings. Feelings are so fleeting. Feelings are not the truth. Feelings come. Feelings go, but truth remains the same. And God has promised, “I am with you. I will never leave you or forsake you. Never, never, never” (Hebrews 13:5, 6). In the Greek, that is repeated three times because our God loves to dwell with us.
Really, ladies, this is how I live my life. I have learned, and I had to learn this way. I didn’t start off this way, but I have learned to live my life not ever by my feelings, but by faith. By faith in the Word of God. By trusting in His Word. What God says. If God says it, I believe it! That’s it. It doesn’t matter whether I feel it.
So, lovely ladies, lovely mothers in your homes, maybe at this time you feel discouraged. You feel down. You’re full of self-pity. “Poor me,” and you don’t even feel God is with you. No, that is not the truth. Don’t listen to those thoughts from the enemy. Don’t listen to your feelings. Trust in the living Word of God. And even in those times when God may seem hidden, He is still there. He is with you.
That word where Isaiah said: “I will look for Him,” it means “to look eagerly for, to patiently tarry,” Sometimes we have to just wait. Yes. I think that’s something that we all have to learn, how to wait. How to wait for God. How to wait for Him to show up, because sometimes God doesn’t show up immediately. Sometimes He hides from us, even though He’s there because He wants us to seek him.
If God was always showing us His love and His presence was with us and so mightily manifest, oh goodness me, we’d never have to seek Him, would we? We’d just live in the glory of His presence, as we will one day in the eternal realm.
But now, we live by faith. God has determined for us to live by faith. “The just shall live by faith.” That is how we live our Christian lives.
2 Corinthians 5:7: “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” If we can feel God, if we can see God, if He is always manifesting Himself to us, we would not have to live by faith. We would not have to seek Him. And He longs for our presence. He wants us to seek Him earnestly.
What is that Scripture in Hebrews 11? The beginning of the faith chapter, and this, of course, is how the faith chapter starts, isn’t it? Hebrews 11, the faith chapter here: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” We live by that, ladies, by the things which we do not see.
Verse 6: “But without faith, it is impossible to please God, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that seek Him.” No, it says: “of them that diligently seek Him.” Don’t despair, ladies. Know that God is with you even if you do not feel Him. And even in the times when you feel He may be hiding, He’s still there. You may not feel Him, but He is there. And He wants you to come and seek Him diligently. He wants you to walk by faith, not by sight.
Let’s go to 2 Corinthians 4:16. Beautiful passage here: “For which cause, we faint not, but though our outward man perish, yet the inner man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
Oh, those are powerful words, dear mother. Dear wife, dear mother, are you going through a difficult time? Are you facing an affliction? Are you facing trouble and you just don’t know how to get through? I want to encourage you today. Just stay upon your God. Don’t give up. Continue to trust Him.
He says here, “your affliction.” You think, “It’s so heavy! I can’t bear it!” But God says, “In the light of eternity, it’s a light affliction.”
You think, “This is going on forever!” Forever! When is it going to end? I don’t see an end! I can’t even see any light at the end of the trouble, of the tunnel!” And what does God say? “In the light of eternity, it’s but for a moment.”
God wants us to begin to look at things in the light of eternity. And He wants us to look at the reward that we will receive. Look at this. Oh, God loves to use adjectives! I’m always telling you that, aren’t I? Because there are so many adverbs and adjectives in the Word of God to describe what God is trying to tell us because one word is not enough! Because everything in God is not normal. It’s above the normal.
And here He says: “This is what happens. This is your reward, even when you cannot see but you continue to trust. This is your reward. It is working for you. Listen . . .
FAR
MORE
EXCEEDING and
ETERNAL
WEIGHT OF GLORY!
How many adjectives for glory? Far, more, exceeding, eternal, weight of glory. Goodness, that’s five adjectives to describe the glory that will be revealed in us because we chose to trust, to walk by faith, and not by sight.
And know without a doubt that even when we don’t feel God, even when we think He is hidden, He is there. Amen, precious ladies. Oh, go to the Song of Solomon. This can be read as a picture of Christ and the church.
We read here in chapter five, verse six: “I open to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him. I called him, but he gave me no answer.” Verse eight: “I charge you, O
daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him that I am sick of love.”
We see there the bride reaching out for her Beloved. But in this little season, He’d gone. He wasn’t answering. She didn’t know where to find Him. But He was still there. He was just hiding. He was waiting for her to seek him. So, lovely ladies, be encouraged. Yes, our God is a hidden God. But of course, he does reveal Himself so gloriously through His precious Word. But we have to seek Him. We have to look for Him to find Him. But He is always there. Amen.
Well, it’s so interesting, because I had just been speaking this very word about how even though we’re hidden in the home, it’s such a powerful place. I was speaking about this hiddenness and then, last Saturday evening, we went into the city, where Colin and I go every Saturday night unless we are away ministering.
We go to hear this pastor, Pastor Ray McCollum. It’s at the Celebration Church. We love to sit under his teaching, even though we have been pastoring ourselves for over 60 years. We still love to go and be fed by others and have that accountability as well. Well, it was so amazing! The word he gave last Saturday was called, “Jesus Incognito.” How Jesus, and of course, God Himself, does hide Himself.
He began with a very interesting illustration. Actually, he played a video of it. It was about Joshua Bell. I guess you know who he is, one of the most famous violinists in our country. This guy, Joshua Bell, you may know that he owns a Stradivarius violin. It was put together in 1713. He purchased it in 2001 for just under $4 million. But they say the estimated worth of his violin now is $14 million. It’s 300 years old, by the way.
Well, anyway, Joshua Bell, this famous violinist, did this experiment. Back in 2007, Joshua Bell went down to a Washington DC subway during rush hour. Dressed in his jeans and sneakers, looking very incognito, he began to play his “just under $4 million violin.” He began to play some of his most intricate pieces.
Well, they had a hidden video camera behind the scenes, and this is what they found. While he played there for 45 minutes, 1,097 people passed by. Out of all those people, only seven stopped to listen. He managed to make, by people throwing in a few little bits and pieces, $32.17. People did not realize who it was. And yet, only two nights before, he had played at a sold-out theatre in Boston where the seats averaged $110! Isn’t that amazing? Just because he was incognito, they didn’t know who was playing for them.
He used that illustration. I thought it was rather marvelous. But it’s so true, dear ladies. Jesus, how did He come? Jesus came incognito. Jesus came hidden. The shepherds were the only ones, really, who knew He’d come that night. Of course, the angels came to tell them. But they were the only ones who knew. He didn’t tell the very important people of Jerusalem.
In fact, He didn’t even send His beloved son, the glory of Heaven, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords . . . you’d think He would have sent him in a golden chariot to let everyone know. He is royalty! Even in England, when they have royal weddings, they drive in these glorious coaches. But God sent His Son, hidden. Even as He grew, His family didn’t know who He was.
Twelve years old. You remember how He stayed behind in Jerusalem and was talking with the elders of Jerusalem. He was about His Father’s business. His mother and father didn’t even understand when they found Him. As He grew up, His brothers and sisters didn’t know who He was. He was just normal to them.
In fact, back when He was being dedicated at the temple as a baby. The temple was always filled with people coming and going, worshipping, things happening. But there were only two people in that whole temple that day who recognized who Jesus was. It was Simeon and Anna, two old people.
Even when Jesus came to the cross, oh ladies, this gets me more than anything else in the world. We read in 1 Corinthians 2:7-8: “But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory, which none of the princes of this world knew. For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
You see, dear lovely ladies, Jesus had to come hidden to this world. He had to come incognito, because if He had revealed Who He was, which is the Lord of Glory, oh, if He had manifested Himself in His glory, not one person would have crucified Him because they would have been down on their faces, worshipping Him. But they didn’t know.
And Jesus Himself had to make Himself hidden, incognito, from who He really was, so that He could go to the cross and bear our sins and take our punishment. And yet, He really was the Lord of Glory. One day he will come as the Lord of Glory, and every eye will see Him in all His glory. Then He will bring all the nations of the earth into subjection to Him. All will come under subjection, and all will be brought to justice. That day is yet to come.
In all this, we do see the hiddenness of God. But dear ladies, you too are hidden in your homes. I think back when we were living on the Gold Coast of Australia. We lived ten years in Australia after leaving New Zealand and before coming to the States.
We lived in this very prestigious street. We were very blessed that we lived in this glorious home which was given to us with a very small rent because my husband had started a Bible school in Singapore. This woman who owned the home had been one of the students there, so when we came to Australia, she wanted to bless us with this home. Beautiful home.
We lived on a canal. Walked out the door and there was the pool. We pressed a button and out came this awning right over the back yard. Just walked down a few steps, and there was the jetty, although we didn’t have the boat to go with it.
Anyway, here I was, in this home, raising our children, very hidden. Every morning, all these women would be going out to their jobs in their flashy cars, going out to their careers. I think they must have wondered, “What was that woman doing in her home? She didn’t even go out to work! Help!” But they didn’t know what I was doing, that I was preparing children, not to stay in this home, but to come out of the home and to touch the world with His glory, and with His image.
I remember writing one day in our boys’ bathroom in that home. I used to love to write things in the bathroom and in places where the children would see them. I wrote that morning, because this is where we lived at 18 Wellby Street. I wrote these words: “Australia waits to see what will come out of 18 Wellby Street.” I noticed the boys coming out. They had left school by this time, and they were out in the workforce but still at home. I noticed their big smiles. Yes, they’d read it there.
But it was a true statement. In fact, it wasn’t really fully true. It was only half true, because not only Australia, but the world was waiting to see what would come out of my home. And out from my home have come children who have impacted the world, nations of the world. I’ve been to so many nations. But our children have been to even more nations to minister the gospel and to touch lives with the gospel of Jesus Christ and with His truth.
So, dear mother, it is the same for you. The world waits to see what’s going to come out of your home. You may feel that you are hidden, but oh my, you are doing a mighty work. You have yet to see what will be accomplished. Be encouraged, dear mother; in the heart of your home, you are accomplishing great and mighty things.
“Dear Father, we thank You so much for Your wondrous truths, and for showing us, Lord God, we’re not out there for all the world to see as we mother and nurture our children in the home. But we thank You, Lord, that You are with us, and we thank You that You have given us the mightiest work that is on this earth. There is nothing greater than to train, and nurture, and prepare Your children, which You’ve given to us for Your purposes, and for eternity. We thank You in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”
Well, lovely ladies, I haven’t even finished yet talking about all these similarities, so we’ve still got to do more next week.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Transcribed by Darlene Norris
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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THIS PODCAST, “LIFE TO THE FULL” WITH NANCY CAMPBELL.” DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF. IT IS ENCOURAGEMENT FOR ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS.