PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 395: WELCOME TO THE LAND OF MORE AND MORE, Part 4

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 395: WELCOME TO THE LAND OF MORE AND MORE, Part 4

We continue taking about the abundance available to us in the "waters to swim in." God has given unique gifts and talents to each one of us and to each one of our children. God expects us to hone these gifts, to develop them, and to multiply them. Those who bury their talents forgo their blessings. The rewards come to those who "work hard to gain more.”

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to the Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies, a magazine bringing strength and encouragement to families across the world.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, lovely ladies, again! I’m always so glad to be with you, sharing with you from this wonderful, wonderful Word that God has given to us. We ended our last session about waters to swim in. I’d love to share one or two more things.

Actually, I have often thought about this passage in Ezekiel 47 and have written about it. But just recently, I thought, “Oh, I’d love to know what Spurgeon says about this. I wonder if he’s written anything about it.” And I found that he had. If you would like to go to Spurgeon.org and put in the search “Waters to Swim in,” you will find the most wonderful, wonderful sermon from him.

It’s pretty long, but there were some beautiful things in it. I thought I’d read them to you because they so blessed me. Once it gets to “waters to swim in,” he writes a little about our glorious salvation. I’d love to read it to you.

He says, “God has not only pardoned us, but He has received us into His family, and He has taken us there, not to be His hired servants, as we once thought He might do, but has made us His own sons; and what is more than that, He has made us heirs, and not secondary heirs either, but “joint-heirs with Christ Jesus”; so that we have come right up from the place of the slave into the position of the heir of all things. Our Lord Himself, our dear and ever blessed Saviour, was not content to pluck us like brands from the burning— not content to make us His sheep, whom he should watch over with tender care— but He has taken us to be His spouse, and He calls us His Beloved. Yea, He has done more. He has taken us to be members of His body, and we are of His flesh and of His bones.”

Interrupting there, that is a Scripture. It’s not something Spurgeon is saying. There’s a Scripture that says: “We are of His flesh and bones” (Ephesians 5:30). This is too much to take in, isn’t it? Carrying on, “Was there ever such an exaltation as this? When Scripture speaks of lifting a beggar from the dunghill, and setting him among princes, surely it falls short of this wonder— that of taking a worm of the dust, a sinful wretch that was only fit for hell, and putting him into union with Christ Jesus, so that he should be a part of the mystical body of the Son of God. This is marvelous; and, as I think of it, I feel that I have brought you to the seashore and shown you an ocean to swim in, the depth of which you cannot fathom. Oh, the depths of the mercy of God!”

I love that. I think we often take our salvation too easily, too shallowly. Oh, I don’t think, dear ladies, that even in eternity we will ever, ever, ever fathom the greatness, and the sacrifice, and the enormity of the salvation which Jesus paid for us to make us His Bride. Not only did this be sons He brought into His kingdom, but we, His Bride. He says we will reign with Him forever and ever. Oh, no wonder that hymnwriter wrote:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were an offering far too small,

Love so amazing, so divine,

Shall have my soul, my life, my all.

Oh, the love of God is an ocean to swim in, isn’t it? You all know that beautiful hymn, “The Love of God.” Let me just remind you of some of the words.

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell.

Refrain:
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure:
The saints’ and angels’ song!

I love this stanza:

Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill
And ev’ry man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Tho' stretched from sky to sky.

I think of that lovely little chorus we used to sing when we were children. I taught it to our children. I wonder if you have taught it to your children. Do you know that one that says, “Wide, wide is the ocean,” (and you do the actions with it? Putting out your hands— “High as the heavens above, deep, deep as the deepest sea is my Savior’s love.” Oh, it is an ocean. It’s waters to swim in. Oh, lovely ladies, let us come into all that God has given us and seek to somehow comprehend it, not that we ever will be able to ever comprehend it all.

And then, as Spurgeon continues to talk, he has another paragraph here: “There is no fear that either the heavenly granary or the celestial fountain shall ever be exhausted. The manna was without limit except according to the capacities of the people; and so, the bread which we eat, even Christ the infinite One is not measured out to us by weight, but each may have according to his eating. We are never straitened in Him, if stinted at all, we stint ourselves. After feeding millions of saints upon Himself for these hundreds of years, Jesus is as full, and as precious, and as soul-satisfying as ever He was. O blessed food! How well has God stored his granaries for all His people! And the heavenly drink is equally abundant.”

Don’t you love the writings of Spurgeon? And how true. God’s table is full. We can come and feast from it every day. It never, ever, ever ends. It’s always more to feast upon. It’s just more and more.

Oh, talking the Word He says, “Now, there is nothing contracted in the Bible. It is a great book of a great God, inspired by a great Spirit, and calculated to give men great minds, for it is, in the great subjects of holy thought, ‘waters to swim in’ . . . If a man should have the largest mind that ever existed upon the face of the earth—if he should be a Newton or a Locke— still, if he would set himself down and prayerfully study Scripture, he would find that the themes for meditation are altogether boundless ‘waters to swim in.’”

Oh yes, that’s what the Word of God is. It’s “waters to swim in.” He goes on: “If you had learnt the book through and through, and knew all its texts, you would have much to remember above that, to remember its inner meaning, and its conversations with your soul, and the mysterious power it has had over your spirit, when it has touched the strings of your nature as a master harper touches his harp strings and has brought forth music which you knew not to be sleeping there. There is no faculty, but what will find room enough in the Word, if we will but obediently bring it to the service of the Lord. There are in this respect ‘waters to swim in.’”

Oh yes, and yet so many folks just read a little bit of the Word here and there. They’re just dipping their toes in the water. And yet, there is an ocean to swim in. There is always more and more and more and more, lovely ladies. This is the land that we live in.

Just this morning, I was reading about the Land. Here God was saying that He wanted to, Deuteronomy 19:8: “give thee all the land, which He promised to give unto thy fathers.” So, God promised that land of Canaan to His people, to their generations. It was an everlasting possession (Genesis 17:8). He says in the Scriptures that He wants them to possess ALL the land. Not just some of it, but ALL THE LAND.

God has given us a land. He’s given us an ocean to swim in. He’s given us a table to feast at. He wants us to come in, and not just dabble, not just put our toes in the water, not just, “OK, have a little bit . . . put it on our tongue and see if we like it or not.” No! There are waters to swim in. There’s a land to be possessed. There’s a table to feast at. And there’s more and more.

OK, let’s go on to some of our “more and mores.” We’ve got so many. I’ve got so many to tell you. We are up to . . .

No. 10. MORE EARNEST PRAYER

When Jesus was nearing the time of His agony on the cross, it says in Luke 22:44 that “He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

The more agony Jesus was in, and He was in great agony, even before He faced the cross, let alone as He faced the ordeal. It was so much so that He sweat drops of blood. The more agony He felt, the more He prayed. None of us will ever face or get to that agony ever, because not only was He facing the physical agony, but the agony of taking upon Him the sin and the sicknesses of the world.

But we can also learn from Jesus that when we face difficult times, when we face agony in our own soul, what are we to do? We don’t despair. We pray “more earnestly.” Of course, we always pray when we’re in need, don’t we? But we need to pray “more earnestly.”

James 5:16: “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Yes. I believe God is looking for those who will pray, not just have a little prayer, “Lord, bless my children. Watch over them. Keep them safe.” But no, “more earnestly” praying.

ARE YOU A HEDGE BUILDER?

I was just noticing some Scriptures this morning. In Ezekiel 22:30, God says: “I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.” The phrase, “to make up the hedge,” speaks of prayer. When we read the story of Job, we read how God had put a hedge of protection all around him. Nobody could see it. You couldn’t see that hedge, but it was there in the spirit realm.

But many times, even in our own lives, we can have a hedge, a spiritual hedge of protection around us. Sometimes sin comes in, and things come in to make a gap in the hedge. There are gaps in the hedges of many lives and many nations. God looks for someone who will make up that hedge. We make up that hedge in prayer.

ARE YOU A GAP STANDER?

Then it goes on to say: “Who will stand in the gap?” That’s another illustration of praying, standing in the gap for someone. You see, intercession is standing in the gap for someone else and praying for someone else in their need. Prayer is a sacrifice. You have to give up your time, when you’d rather be doing something else. Oh yes, there are so many things you want to do, so many things I want to do.

But prayer time, oh, that’s when we stand in the gap for nations. We stand in the gap for others. God is looking for those who will be gap-standers. Yes. Are you a gap-stander? Is your family a gap-stander? We can be gap-standers as families as we pray for the nations as a family, as we pray for the persecuted church, as we pray for Israel which God has commanded us to. Isaiah 62 says that we are to be “on the wall night and day,” until we see Israel made “a praise in the earth.”

Let’s go over to Ezekiel again, chapter 13:5. This one says: Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.” This is what prayer is all about. It’s making up the hedge and standing in the gap for the needs of people we know around us, people who are hurting.

Oh, there are just so many needs. We can’t even pray for them all. But God will give you the burden for certain needs, and certain people, and certain nations. Let’s be available to do that. We can do this in our family times as a family. And we’re doing something together as a family at the same time. In fact, it’s the most powerful thing we can do as a family, to pray, and be those who stand in the gap and make up the hedge for others.

Then we go to Isaiah 63:5. What does this one say? “And I looked, and there was none to help. And I wondered that there was none to uphold. Therefore, mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.” Here God had to move in Himself, because nobody else would. And yet God is looking.

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO INTERCEDE?

We see this also in Isaiah 59:16-17: “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. For He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon His head; and He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke.”

Jeremiah 10:25: here it’s speaking about families: “Pour out Thy fury upon the heathen that know Thee not, and upon the families that call not on Thy Name.” This, to me, is the most challenging Scripture, because here God is saying that “My people, My families, if they don’t call upon My Name, well, they might as well be the heathen.” The heathen do not call upon the Name of the Lord.

Well, if we, as God’s families, are not those who call upon the Name of the Lord daily, morning and evening, can we really count ourselves as God’s family? That is a powerful Scripture, isn’t it? I think, for all of us, we can all come to that place of more and more in our prayer life, more and more earnestly praying. More and more up to our knees in the waters. So, we’re praying.

No. 11: MORE EFFORT AND DILIGENCE

This is taken from a parable that Jesus told. You will know it when I read it to you. It’s the parable of the talents. In Matthew 25, verses 20 onward, it says, well, actually before that. He tells the story and then says: “He that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou delivered unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.”

Because this man did not squander what God had given him, but worked hard to gain more, he received his reward of “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” He doesn’t want us to squander what He gives us.

God gives to every person He creates unique gifts, unique abilities, unique talents, and they are given from God. He wants us to use them for His glory. He wants us to be productive in them. He wants us to really hone in on them so that they will multiply. In fact, they will multiply into more gifts and talents.

It is an amazing thing that when you do use the gift that God has given you, it actually enlarges into other gifts. That is a very true thing and it’s amazing. We see that here too. It’s exactly what this person did. He gained more talents and he worked hard to gain more. He didn’t just sit there and hope it would happen like the one who was only given one talent.

We remember, don’t we, that, what did he do with the one talent that he was given? “Well, I’ve just got one talent. That guy’s got five. What am I doing? I might as well just bury the one I’ve got.” So, he went and buried it. He didn’t use the one he had. But even if we only have one, if we use that and we use it with all our might, it will increase into more.

But what did the master say? “Take the talent from him, and give it to the one who has ten talents,” because the master had given one ten, one five, and one only one. So, both the one who had the ten, and the one who had the five gained more by hard work and productivity, and embracing all that the master had given them.

But the one who had one, the master said, “Take it, and give it to the one who has ten talents, because I know he’ll use it.” “For everyone who has more, more will be given, and he will have abundance. But from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. Cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness.”

When we read this, it seems opposite to the way many in society think today. People think those who have nothing, well, you’d better give everything to them. That’s what the democrats love to do. They want to take money from the rich and give it to the poor. Well, that sounds wonderful. And yes, we do have a responsibility to care for and to give to those who are in need.

But God doesn’t quite see it that way, because He sees that often the rich (well there are some who have it passed onto them) but mostly the rich have worked hard to get where they are, and they also provide work for hundreds and thousands of others often. They are actually working on their gifts, producing more from their gifts, and honing in on those gifts, and making more to bless more people.

God sees that, and He loves that, because that’s what He intends. Often the poor are sitting around doing nothing, lazy, expecting everything to be done for them. God doesn’t like that. No, He says, “From those who have nothing, who will do nothing with what I’ve given them, well, I’ll give it to the one who has more.”

I’m not making this up. This is the Bible. This is God speaking here. We do have a responsibility to do, and to take action, and to be motivated to use the gifts that God has given. Not for ourselves, but for others. That’s what God gives us gifts for, for the blessing of our family, and the blessing of others.

Another wonderful thing, ladies, to remember. These gifts that God puts within us, there’s a Scripture that says: “The gifts and callings of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29). He doesn’t take them away. He’s actually talking about Israel in that Scripture, but it applies, I believe, to all the gifts and talents that God gives us.

He gives them to us eternally, and even when we go into the eternal realm, we will take our gifts with us. We will still be who we are in the eternal realm. We’re not going to be some little spirit floating around on a cloud. No, we are going to be the person that we are, except we will be given a resurrected body, a body that cannot sin, a body that is indestructible, a celestial body.

It will be so amazing, but we will still be who we are. We’ll be known. We’ll know each other. People will know us. And these gifts that God has given us will be enhanced even more in the eternal realm because we will not be limited the way we are here on earth. We will have resurrected bodies and resurrected minds. Just think of what we will do with these gifts that God has given us. No wonder He says that we will reign with Him upon the earth because we will be doing amazing things with these gifts. So, I believe we should hone in on them now.

OK, we should be developing them even now, because I believe we will take them to eternity. What we have prepared now, how we have developed our gifts here now, on this earth, that will be a starting point, even in Heaven. But they will be greater there.

And even in our knowledge of the Word. We will take that into the eternal realm with us, into the ultimate end.

If I’m to die in the next few years or whenever God takes me, and He hasn’t yet come for His people, I will go to some temporary heaven where I will be with Jesus. But it’s not the final end, because God says over and over in His Word that He is going to make new heavens and a new earth. We will actually have heaven on this earth, but it won’t be like this.

This earth is going to be burned up. It says in Peter that it’s going to be purged and cleansed and burnt up, every evil thing, and all that’s not of God (2 Peter 3:10-14). Then He will make it all new, glorious, heavenly, incredible. We’re going to live as people who will function with the gifts God has given us on this new earth in our new resurrected bodies.

So, dear, precious moms and children, and young people listening today. Don’t take your gifts and talents for granted. Don’t despise them. God gave them to you. We notice that too, don’t we, mothers? As you see your children come along, you notice each one of your children is so unique and different. Each one has different gifts and abilities.

As I watched our children grow into adulthood, of course, most of our children are grandparents now. But as I saw their giftings develop, they were all so different. I saw gifts that I didn’t have. My husband didn’t have them. Where did they get them?  Not from us. They got them from God. They came from God. God puts in your children greater things even than in you. Different things. But they’re all from God.

It’s so amazing to see them develop. We know that they will develop even more and more in this new earth. So, lovely ladies, we don’t just, “OK, well, that’s my gift. Maybe I’ll use it, or maybe I won’t.” No, we are to use it more and more! We are to develop it more and more. We are to be productive in it more and more. Then we will find other gifts evolving too from that, which we will use for the glory of God. Amen? Isn’t that so exciting?

Maybe we will finish this session, and we’ll start on another “more” next session. And, lovely ladies, we have so many of these “more and mores” to go. The Word of God is filled with them. I hope you're getting the message. I hope you are getting it, that God does not want us to be stagnant. He does not want us to be average, the status quo. No, it’s more and more, all the time. Yes.

Remember the Scripture we began with, Proverbs 4:18: “But the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Even in your mothering, you're mothering more and more. Don’t just give up on your mothering. Don’t get stale in your mothering. Seek the Lord for His anointing and blessing on you to mother more and more the way God wants you to mother in your home.

Everything you're doing in your home, MAKE IT MORE AND MORE. Tell your children about this truth. You’re only beginning in it. We’re going to learn more and more as we go ahead in these sessions. Bring your children into them so they can hear it too, so that we can all begin to live this MORE AND MORE LIFESTYLE”

“Dear Father, we thank You that we’ve been brought into this glorious kingdom that You have for us, this kingdom that we live in now, and the eternal kingdom that will one day be our portion. So glorious that our minds cannot even fathom it. Lord God, we pray that You will help us to live for that final day, to live for eternity, to live for that ultimate eternal world where we will eventually live forever. This life is now preparing for that time. Help us to count every moment and every gift and talent to prepare for our eternal destiny. We ask it in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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