PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 205: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, PT 16
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 205: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 16
The land of motherhood is a safe land and a plenteous land. Also, a special word to older mothers.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. Podcast 205! As I share this with you, I’m looking out the window, and everything is just beautifully, brilliant green. In fact, here in Tennessee, no matter what window I look out, everything is green. It’s so beautiful.
No. 8. IT IS A LIFEGIVING LAND
We are up to point number eight in our journey of going through the land of motherhood. It is a life-giving land. I wanted to give you a few more thoughts on this, before we go to the next one.
I wanted to say that when we take on being a life-stopper instead of a life-giver, we not only stop one baby, but we stop dynasties. This is the amazing thing. Sometimes we don’t think into the future. But when we close off our “time of life,” and maybe stop a baby coming into the world, it’s not just one, because that baby can grow up to marry and have children, and their children will marry and have children. We stop a whole dynasty. There are so many dynasties that we are eliminating, even in our nation today.
In the Bible, it was a very, very important thing to God, that the name of a family continue in Israel. That was why God had the practice away back then, that if a man died, his brother, his next brother to him who was not married, was to take his brother’s wife to be his wife. The first child that they would have together would take on the name of the brother who had passed away, so that, as the Bible says: “His name will not be blotted out of Israel” (Deuteronomy 25:5, 6).
It's interesting how God was so interested in the names, the family names. I think of our own experience when we started having grandchildren. We actually got to 15 grandchildren before we had a Campbell grandson. We already had grandsons, but we didn’t have a Campbell grandson. It wasn’t until grandbaby number 15 that we actually got a grandbaby who carried on the family name. So, there’s something very, very powerful about passing on the family name.
You usually need more than one son to do that, because otherwise it’s hanging on by a thread. I think of my maiden name, Bowen. I came from a very little family of only three children. I think I was deprived.
As we grew up, we were all living in different countries. Colin and I moved from New Zealand to Australia, and then America. My brother moved from New Zealand to, well, he went on the Anastasis, the YWAM ship. Of course, they were in many countries of the world. Then my sister immigrated to Canada and became a Canadian citizen, although she is now here nearby me in America now.
My brother, he’s away back in New Zealand now. So, we’ve always been quite apart. I think you need quite a number of brothers and sisters to keep having them around you and also to keep that family name going.
My father only had one son, my brother. He lives in New Zealand. He only has one son, and his son actually lives here, nearby us, here in Tennessee. But he only has one son with the Bowen name. This young man, it all hinges on him. May he be spared, and may he marry, and have more than one son, to keep that name going. Otherwise, if he marries, and he has no sons, that’s the end of that name. It's rather interesting, isn’t it?
A WORD TO OLDER MOTHERS
Another thing that I think is so important, and that is, if I could have a little word to older mothers who may be listening today. Dear older mothers, we have such a responsibility to encourage and teach and train the young mothers in God’s way, not the world’s way, not the way of our humanistic society today. But God’s way, according to His living Word, which is alive, and which has never become stale, and which is eternal. His Words are for every generation.
We go to that famous passage in Titus 2:3-5, where it says the older women are to teach the young women. It doesn’t say they’re to go out, taking great big seminars teaching Bible doctrine. No, they are to teach the subjects of marriage, and motherhood, and homemaking. This is what God has given them to teach.
There are very few who are doing this. I don’t know. I’m trusting I’ll live to 120, but I am getting a little older. I believe there needs to be raised up an army of older women who will become encouragers and teachers of the young women in God’s ways, teaching them how to love their husbands, and teaching them how to be life-givers, and embracing life, and enjoy motherhood, and know that it’s God’s highest career to women.
The trouble is today, most older women have no idea. I don’t know. Do they not read the Word of God? But if we read the Word of God, we’ll soon see that this is what we’re meant to be doing. It’s not time to pack up, and think, “OK, mothering days are over!”
No, we are in our mothering days until we meet Jesus, because this is who He created us to be. He created us to be mothers, nurturers, life-givers. So, we keep on mothering and nurturing when our children grow. Then, of course, the grandchildren are coming. But also, we don’t minimize motherhood, we maximize motherhood.
Because we now have more time. We can open our eyes and look around and see the fields that are white unto harvest. We see all these needy women. We see needy young mothers, and needy single moms, hurting moms. They all need help and encouragement. They all need truth! They need to know God’s ways. How can they receive them? Only through the older mothers!
We are seeing such a dearth of this in our society today, as mothers just, “OK, my children are grown. I can go and do my thing now.” They’re not taking up their mantle. The sad thing is, God holds us responsible. Even more sadly, many of these older mothers are not only not doing anything, but they are passing on the wrong message.
Most older women today are negative about a young mother having children, or having more than two or three, perhaps. They give a negative message. They encourage them to be life-stoppers, not life-givers. One day, we will stand before God to give an answer to this, because we hold this generation in our hand. We’re responsible for passing on His truth to this coming generation.
I have been doing Above Rubies now for many generations. Now there’s a generation that, they don’t know about Above Rubies. Please, I hope you do get more than one magazine. One magazine is so lovely to just read and be encouraged. But, oh, we’ve got to have a bigger vision than that!
This nation is bereft of mothers in the home. Most have gone AWOL. There needs to be a great returning of mothers to the home, where they will raise strong young men and women, and raise strong families, and strong homes. Because the nation is only what its mothers are.
If the mothers are out of the home, the homes are being fragmented. If the mothers come back with a vision in their hearts to know what God has called them to, we will not only raise great young men and women, but we will raise a strong and mighty nation. I would encourage every older mother to take up your mantle, to be an encourager and trainer of the young women, encouraging them to be life-givers.
But it’s not only the older women who are vacating their tasks that God has given to them, but even the pastors and the elders. They’re giving a wrong message. So many young couples who are courting, they go for counsel as they prepare for marriage, and what are they told?
“Well, you must prepare yourselves and get your home ready, and get everything before you think about children.” Of course, if they say that, then they’ve got to tell them what to do to stop having children, so they’re going to be talking about birth control, and contraception.
Can I ask, where do they get all that stuff? Do they get it in the Word? No, it is not there. It is the opposite to God’s heart who wants us to be fruitful and multiply, who every time He says, “I will bless thee,” He then says, “I will multiply thee.” The One Who created us to be life-givers. This is the Word of God.
Stopping life is on the devil’s side. We’re either on one side or the other. If we belong to the kingdom of God, which is the kingdom of life, we will be open to life, we will promote life, we will encourage life.
But on the other hand, if we are stopping life, if we are against life, if we are negative to life coming into the world, we belong to the devil’s kingdom. The devil hates life. He wants to stop life. That’s what he's in the business of doing. He just wants to bring contraception, sterilization, and abortion. That all belongs to the devil’s kingdom.
I think of when the children of Israel were taken, well, it was the children of Judah, really. They were taken to Babylon. There they were captives in Babylon. The Lord wants to speak to them and encourage them.
He brings a word through the prophet Jeremiah. So, Jeremiah speaks this word, saying: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the Lord of the armies of heaven, the God of Israel.” Then he begins to tell them seven things that He wants them to do while they are in Babylon.
Here they are, captives! Actually, what He’s doing is just telling them, “I want you to do what I told you to do, always! It doesn’t matter that you’re now in a strange land, that you’re captive. No, that’s not the point. You never stop doing my commands. They work, no matter where you are, no matter what generation. You keep obeying.”
It's so amazing actually. We go down to Jeremiah 29:5, and the first thing he says is: “Build houses and live in them.” Number two, “Plant gardens and eat the fruit of them.” Number three, “Take wives and have children.” Number four, “Have grandchildren,” and number five, “Don’t diminish.”
Here they are, captive, in a strange land. But God says, “Even there, don’t diminish! You have children, and then you get your children to get married!” He’s very proactive, yes. Jeremiah 29:6 says: “Give your daughters to husbands that they may bear sons and daughters, that ye may be increased, and not diminished.”
Then the next point is to pray for the peace of the city in which they live. The last one was to not be deceived. Now, we would think that would be an important one. God would say, “Now, don’t you be deceived by Babylon. It’s just filled with everything that’s against My ways, and deception and delusion. Don’t.”
But no, that’s not what He said. He said: “Don’t be deceived by the prophets who are in the midst of you.” Sadly, today, we have pastors, elders, who are in the midst of the church, who are counseling young couples to do the very opposite than what God has told them to do in His Word. We have to watch out for those deceptions, because we are in the land of motherhood, which is a life-giving land. He has chosen us to be life-givers.
UPSIDE DOWN
Let me just give you one or two Scriptures here. I love giving you the Scriptures. Let’s go to Isaiah 29:16. Here is says: “You turn things around. Shall the potter be considered as equal with the clay? That what is made would say to its maker, ‘You did not make me.’ Or what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding.’” That was the New American Standard Bible. The King James says: “You turn things upside down!” Yes!
Let me go to Isaiah 45:9-10: “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioned it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?”
All right. Let’s go to Isaiah 64:8: “But now, O LORD, Thou art our father; we are the clay, and Thou our potter; and we all are the work of Thy hand.”
Well, let’s go over to the New Testament, to Romans 9:19-20: “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?”
Here we see in these Scriptures, that how can we question God, the way He created us? He created male and female. He created us female. He created us to be life-givers. Why would we go against the way that He has created us? Let’s be life-givers.
No. 9. IT IS A SAFE LAND
Well, the next point, number nine: it is a safe land. That’s good, isn’t it?
Leviticus 25:19: “And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.”
Micah 4:4: “But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it.”
God wants our land of motherhood to be a land of safety. Then we go over to the New Testament, in 1 Timothy 2:13-15: “For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.”
The context of this Scripture here is that Eve was the one who was deceived. They were both in the transgression, but Eve was first deceived. The Bible says here that however, notwithstanding, if she embraces her childbearing, “notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing.”
“Saved,” the word is sozo, S-O-Z-O. This word actually means more than “saved.” The full meaning of the word is “saved, preserved, healed, delivered, made whole.” It’s exactly the same word that is used in the New Testament when many times Jesus healed people. The Bible says: “And they were made whole from that moment.” Made whole—body, soul, and spirit. It’s a beautiful, all-encompassing word of wholeness and healing.
It’s a glorious word, the word that was used when Jesus healed people. But it’s used right here for us as women. We will be saved. Yes, we can be saved and born again, but it’s more than that here in this Scripture. It’s in the context of Eve being deceived. We will be saved and delivered from deception if we embrace our mothering role. We will also, as we embrace it, we will be preserved and healed and delivered.
It’s a glorious word, a wonderful promise to women. And “childbearing” there, it can mean “childbirth,” but that is not the full meaning. The actual full meaning of the word there is the whole aspect of childbearing as a career of embracing children, and nourishing children, and feeding children, and teaching children, and raising children. It’s embracing the whole understanding of motherhood. In doing that, God promises that we will be saved. We will be kept safe from deception.
Now, in the last days, we are explicitly told that we are to watch and pray, lest we enter into deception and into temptation. “In the last days, even the elect will be deceived.” Deception is such a subtle thing. Often, when you’re deceived, you usually don’t know you’re deceived.
The only criterion to expose deception is the Word of God. If we’re not in the Word, if we’re not filling ourselves with the Word, if we don’t know the Word, we can be deceived. If we don’t know what the Word of God says about motherhood, we can be deceived.
That’s why I’m taking you through the land. All the 20 different points that God speaks about the land, every one of them is a truth for us to embrace so that we will not be deceived. Dear ladies, if you want to live in safety, if you want to be safe from deception, embrace your mothering role. Embrace your homemaking role. Not, “Well, I guess this is what I have to do. I’ve got these children, so I have to be home looking after them.”
No, you’re not going to get much out of that. No, it’s embracing the joy, knowing I’m in the very perfect will of God, knowing I am doing the most powerful thing any woman could do, knowing that I’m in a career that is going to impact the nation, and generations to come, and come, and come, because I’m involved in establishing a dynasty with my husband, and impacting eternity. As I embrace this, I will be in the very place where God will keep me from deception, because when we move out of the home, we’re moving out of the place where God wants us to be.
IN THE LAND
It’s like if we read through Deuteronomy, we read this phrase over and over again: “In the land.” God says “I will bless you in the land. I will do this for you in the land.” It’s all in the land. When we move out of the land, we’re moving out of where we have God’s safety and covering, and where we’re saved from deception.
So, women get out, they move out of their role in the home. They get into their career out there in the workforce, in the marketplace, out there in the man’s world, where God intended for the man. He didn’t intend it for the women. But as they are out there, they can slowly, subtlely, little by little, be brought more and more into deception. They eventually come to that place where they believe this is where they are meant to be.
In fact, I find, every day as I post a little post on Facebook to encourage marriage, to encourage motherhood, I will often talk about coming back to the home. I cannot believe the reaction. These are from Christian women. They’re supposed to be, I would hope, Bible-believing women. But they’re not really believing the Bible because what they’re doing is the opposite.
And because they’re out of the land, they’re in a place where they can be deceived, where they believe that what they are doing is perfectly right! But, you see, they haven’t got the Word that’s backing them up. We have to be in the Word, dear ladies. As we’re going through this, the land of motherhood, I’m constantly giving you the Word. Let the Word go into your heart and into your very being. Begin to live the Word and you will be in His perfect will. Amen?
No. 10. IT IS A LAND OF PROVISION
Deuteronomy 8:9 calls it, “a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness. Thou shalt not lack anything in it.”
Deuteronomy 28:11, and also chapter 30:9: “And the LORD shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers to give thee.”
Oh, there’s so much in that one Scripture there. Not only how He will provide for us, but it talks about where He will provide. In the land. Did you notice that? That phrase that comes over and over again, “in the land.” Yes, “the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the land, which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee.”
Once again, we’re reminded of His promise that it’s a gift to us, just as it was a gift to the children of Israel. They didn’t go and buy it. They didn’t go and purchase it. It was God’s gift to them. The land of motherhood, we may not have chosen it, but God chose it for us. It is His gift to us.
Now this word “plenteous,” “plenteous in goods,” and “plenteous in the fruit of your womb,” and “plenteous in the fruit of your cattle, and the fruit of your ground.” What is that word “plenteous”? It’s yathar and it means “to jut over.”
It’s not just, OK, just right there measuring it right to what you barely need. No, it’s “jutting over, exceeding, excelling, abounding, that which is left over.” So, it’s more than enough. That is the promise. Of course, that promise starts out in Deuteronomy 28, where it says: “If you will obey His commandments, and you will walk in them, then these blessings will all come upon them.”
As you know, Deuteronomy 28 is the blessing chapter. I love the blessing chapter. Don’t you? Do you often read it? Deuteronomy 28:1-14 are all the blessings that will come upon us if we hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord our God, to observe to do all His commandments. Then it goes on with all the blessings.
But it’s also the cursing chapter, and the curses are from verse 15 right over to verse 68. My! So much more than all the blessings! But let’s keep in the blessing part, shall we? And here we see, too, in this beautiful blessing part of Deuteronomy 28, we see how God blesses. Just have a look. Come on with me, ladies. I want you see how God does it.
GOD PUTS FIRST THINGS FIRST
OK. Here we are. We started in Deuteronomy 28:4: “Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, the fruit of your womb.” Did you notice? The first blessing. God always puts things first. Nothing is haphazard in the Word of God. This is the very first blessing that God gives. It’s His ultimate blessing, the fruit of the womb. God loves this. He loves the fruit of the womb.
But then, He doesn’t stop with that blessing. He keeps on giving blessings, and it goes on to say: “And the fruit of thy ground.” Wow! Your garden is going to grow so prolifically! “And the fruit of thy cattle. And the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.”
Do you notice the progression, ladies? First, the blessing of the womb, then God blesses the ground, and blesses the cattle, and blesses our basket and our store. What for? To provide for the first blessing, the blessing of the womb. There’s no need for the other blessings unless we have the blessing of the womb. That’s why God provides them! To provide for the blessing of the womb.
You see, you’ve got to get it in God’s order, lovely ladies. So often we are so concerned, and we’re just living, you know, just on our budget. We’re hardly making it. Well, I found that I could hardly ever keep to a budget. In fact, can I tell you a little secret, ladies? Colin and I have been married for 59 years, and we’ve never ever had a budget. I think we did try it in the beginning, but it never worked. We gave up, and we have never ever had a budget.
Well, the main reason is because we have always loved hospitality, loved having people in our home. If we had kept to a budget, we would never have been able to have anybody! Because we would never have made it on a budget. We have always lived far beyond our means. We just lived!
We just ask people, and because God is a hospitable God, and He loves to bless His people as we reach out to them, He comes down and blesses so we can see them! We usually find the more we bless people, the better we eat. That’s just how it is with God.
It’s the same with our having children. We think, “How could I have another baby? We can hardly survive now!” Well, you haven’t got the next baby yet! Forget it! Don’t worry about it! If God gives you another baby, what will He do? He blesses. He blesses the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your cattle, and your basket and your store. Oh, He just blesses it all to feed that fruit of the womb! That’s how it is.
Each baby that comes on, you think, “How will we ever manage another baby?” And God blesses! It’s just how God does it! It’s just so exciting!
We just have to do it God’s way. So, lovely ladies, trust God! This land of motherhood, it’s a land of provision when you trust God and you do it His way.
Well, let’s pray, shall we?
“Oh, dear Father, we just thank You for this land that You have given to us. Lord, it’s a wonderful land. You have given us everything we need to live in this land. Your promises and your blessings are not for out of the land. They are for in the land!
“So, Lord God, help us to embrace the land, and live in this land, and make it the most wonderful life for our husbands, and our families, and all those we bring in to enjoy it with us. We ask it in the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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