PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 355: WE MUST NOT BE DECEIVED, Part 2
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 355: WE MUST NOT BE DECEIVED, Part 2
What are the areas where most women are deceived today? Come on in and check it out.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Here we are together again, and another little reminder for the April Easter Family Weekend coming up at Laguna Beach in Florida. This is our annual family retreat in Florida. Make sure you don’t miss! Oh, you're going to so love it! If you've never been before, you're missing a most wonderful experience. It’s not just for parents, but for young people also, and for the whole family. Go to AboveRubies.org, and you’ll be able to find the information there.
We also have another family camp booked for Gatlinburg, East Tennessee. That’s in August, the 22nd through the 25th. So, you can pop that on your calendar too. And married couples, if you want to get a special getaway together, you can have your wonderful time alone together. But also, time for getting together with other wonderful couples. That’s going to be in June in Cancun, Mexico.
You can look up the webpage, AboveRubies.org, to find the information on that, too. That’s going to be special. They’re now closing the rooms booked especially for us and opening them to the general public. But you can still get in. The more we get in pretty quickly, the more we will have of our togetherness which will be so wonderful.
Well, today we are continuing on this subject of deception, and especially how we, as women, can be prone to deception. We ended last week on Romans 1, how that not only was it the woman who was the first to be deceived back in the very beginning of time, but also, we see that she was the first one to turn away from her natural maternal function.
It’s interesting that I often think, I mean, those people would hate to even think of my mentioning this, but it’s a fact that women were also the first to change their way of clothing into wearing more men’s clothing. Today, most people, most women, and most women even in church, wear men’s clothing. Not exactly like men, of course, but they wear pants.
And yet, it’s interesting, it was the women who did that first. Even today, if we see a man cross-dressing and wearing a dress, we want to vomit. That’s just disgusting. And yet, somehow the women brought that in. We have to watch this, women, of how we can be deceived, and how deception has such power, because Eve’s deception, and we learned how she was “thoroughly hoodwinked,” her deception had power to convince Adam to sin.
I know, even in my own life that we, as women, although God has planned that we are to honor and to submit to our husbands that they are the leaders. But at the same time, we also have such incredible power to influence our husbands for good or for bad. If we are influencing them in the wrong way, that can have devastating consequences.
God created us to be their helper. We know that. God said, “I am going to make a helper for you, Adam.” This is who He created us to be. Now that doesn’t mean to say we are inferior in any way. No, of course, we are to help our husbands but we’re not just an inferior helper. We are a divine helper.
It’s an amazing mandate, because that word “helper” is first used about a woman, but it is actually the same word that is used of God’s attribute of Him as our Helper. Oh, how wonderful that we have God as our Helper, who comes to our aid! This same word is a divine word. It’s one of God’s attributes and yet it was first given to the woman.
And God has given us attributes that are specifically designed for us. They’re different from the man but they will bring such help and blessing to the man. He has attributes that we don’t have. This is the glorious thing about God’s creation of male and female. Each one is so different. Each one of us have godly attributes that are different from the other. We don’t have to try and be like the other. We as women don’t have to try and take the man’s place. Let’s just embrace our role. As we do, it all fits in so beautifully, and we live in the blessing that God has designed for us.
Now, let’s look a little bit more at 1 Timothy 2:14. We saw there that she was “fully deceived.” But then I want to look at another part of that Scripture, and some different translations.
The Complete Jewish Bible says: “It was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman who, in being deceived, became involved in the transgression.”
The Young’s Literal Translation, a very literal translation. This was the guy who wrote the Young’s Concordance. We have the Strong’s Concordance, and we have the Young’s Concordance. This one says: “The woman, having been deceived into transgression came. It was her deception that caused her to transgress.”
Now, what is that word “transgression”? It's parabasis, meaning, “a going over, a violation, a stepping over the line, a going beyond a command.” This is what Eve did in the very beginning. As she listened to the serpent and as she was being deceived, what was really happening? She was taking on her husband’s role.
Instead of submitting to him, instead of saying, “Wow! Let me talk to my husband,” or “Adam,” because Adam was right there. “Adam, what do you think?” Instead of coming to Adam, she took on that role of leadership. That’s the word “transgress.”
It was going over beyond where she was meant to be. It was a stepping over the line. What happened there was an exchange of their distinctive positions and functions. Eve was the one who began leading, whereas Adam began listening to his wife. It tells us that, right here in Genesis 3:17.
We read here, when God spoke to Adam, and He says: “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife (because you listened to Eve) and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat oft: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.”
But the first thing God said is, “Adam, you listened to your wife. I made you the leader. I told you; I was the One Who told you first about the Tree. You are the one to teach, and lead, and cover, and protect your wife. And you were standing right there. But you listened to your wife instead of Me.”
Wow, that’s challenging, isn’t it? We want our husbands to listen to us, of course. It is good that a husband will listen, and, of course, he’s meant to listen to his wife talk to him. But he has to be also guarded that he doesn’t listen to deception, because we can get into deception When we get into the deception of our stepping-out of our role and taking the leadership. It can be very destructive. Really, that’s what happened there, back there in the Garden.
So, we see this here in 1 Timothy 2:14. I’m going back to it again. “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 love and holiness and self-control.” Here, this passage is in the context of deception. It is a deception of the truth.
But it says here that the woman will be saved. She’ll be saved from deception. It’s not talking about being saved and being born again, and that she’s going to miss out on eternal life. No, she’ll be saved from deception by embracing childrearing and mothering. This is her role. This is what God created her for.
Ultimately, not every woman is going to get married, although the majority will. And not every woman will have the privilege of birthing a baby from her womb, although the majority will. This is what God primarily created us for, for the bringing forth of His children, His Image into the world, and nurturing, and mothering, and training these children that God gives to her. This is our ultimate career.
The Word of God is saying here, “Yes, we can be prone to deception, but if we will embrace our role that God has given us, this maternal role, this mothering role, this child birthing role, that we will be saved from deception.”
This is very true, because when a woman decides to leave her home and her mothering, that which God intended for her, and even created her physically for, she can be prone to become more deceived in other areas. In fact, she will be deceived into stopping more children because it’s very difficult to keep having children in the home and training them for God when you're out in a career. It doesn’t quite work. There will be many other areas where she will be deceived.
GOD’S WONDERFUL PROMISE TO WOMEN
But this word “saved,” “She will be saved in childbearing,” it’s not meaning that she’s going to be saved from a painless childbirth, although there are some women who do have painless childbirth, but that is not what it is saying here. She’ll be saved when she embraces this role. That word “saved” is sozo.
Oh, what a glorious word it is! It doesn’t only mean “saved.” It means “saved, delivered, protected, healed, and made whole.” Wow! That is incredible! Wow! You couldn’t get anything more wonderful than that. Do you want to not only be saved, but delivered, protected, preserved, healed, and made whole? Well, that’s the promise to you when you embrace your childbearing and childrearing.
That word where I said, “made whole,” those are the very words that Jesus used so often when He was healing people. He would heal them, and He would say: “Your faith has made you whole.” That’s the word sozo. Every time you read those words, “And they were made whole,” it’s sozo, because that is the full meaning.
That word is used for salvation. It is also used for healing. It’s also used for preservation, and what a wonderful promise that is! You will be preserved, even physically. You’ll be saved from deception. You’ll be preserved. Your body will be preserved.
There are many women who are so deceived that they think, “Oh, goodness me, if I have too many children, well, that’s going to be too hard on my body. I want to preserve and look after my body.” We all want to preserve our bodies physically. But you're going to be preserved through childbearing. God created your body to function this way, and you will actually be preserved.
Oh, it is such a wonderful promise! But once again, women today, in our society, are deceived. They think that mothering and birthing and breastfeeding will be a negative to their physical body. No, it is absolutely the opposite. We only have to look at these examples.
I have around me so many women who are part of my life. This is just personal. I’m sure you know so many too. Maybe this is a testimony of yourself as you are listening. But some of them have six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven children, and they are perfectly beautiful. Their physical bodies are still glorious! They still look wonderful. They’re not out of shape.
It is not having babies that gets you out of shape. It is the way we eat and the way we live. No, there are mothers with big families, and they are in perfect shape. There are mothers with only one or two children who are out of shape. That’s not determined by childbearing. We can claim that promise of preservation.
OK, we must guard against these deceptions, even the deception of home. This is such a deception today, because we look out across the church today. You can go to many churches. Of course, there are many where there are lots of wonderful, big families, but there are other churches, perhaps the main churches where there are hundreds or thousands of people going.
What is the testimony of all the mothers? Most of them only have one, two, or three children. Most of those mothers are out at work. Most of those mothers are putting their children in daycare. This is looked upon as the norm in the Christian church. But that is not the norm according to the Bible.
Even the passage in Titus, where the older women are to teach the younger women, they are to teach them to be “keepers at home” because there in the home they are raising their children. They’re embracing their childbearing, and their childrearing, their mothering. We cannot truly mother if we’re not in the home watching over our children.
When God gives us a baby, when He gives us children, He doesn’t give them to us to give them to somebody else to raise. He gives them to us! He’s given us a home. Yes, our home is our gift to us, a sacred place for us to raise our children in peace and in joy, and without all the storms that are around us.
Oh, as women go out into the workforce, into that career world, they face so many storms and difficulties. Of course, we face difficulties in rearing children too, but we are in the home. It’s amazing how we can find blessing and help and deliverance for the difficulties we face when we are in the home. When we are out of the home, we are not being covered. We are not really where God’s covering is. His covering over women is in the home.
IN THE RECESSES OF THE HOME
I love that the New Testament talks about “keepers at home.” We go back to the Old Testament, and we read that picture of God looking upon the family. He says in Psalm 128:3: “Your wife is like a fruitful vine in the heart of your home.” That’s a modern translation. It’s the true meaning, but the actual Hebrew word is the word yerekah. It literally means, “in the recesses of the home,” which is the heart, the heart of the home.
The true mother is in the heart of the home and her heart is in her home. This is where God sees the mother, in the very recesses, in the heart of the home, in that protected place, raising her children for God.
There will come a time when she has to let them go. In fact, when she is sending them forth to be arrows in this world, to reveal the Image of God, and children who will be walking in truth, and fulfilling all the principles that she has poured into them. That day will come. It comes too soon, actually, far too soon.
I remember, as each one of my children was ready to leave home. I always said, “Oh, but I haven’t had enough time! I haven’t had enough time to put into them all that I wanted to pour into them!” Oh, dear, dear precious mothers, mothering is not just some part-time job. It is your life! There’s never going to be enough time! It’s going to go so quickly.
You’ve got to use every moment to pour into your children God’s ways and His principles, and His lifestyle, and living that lifestyle in your home, so they will grow up to live it in their homes. This is what He wants us to do. Make the most of it. It will go so quickly. And then, OK, they’re out on their own. They’ve only got what you put into them.
Yes, that’s what it talks about, isn’t it, in Proverbs 6. I’m just thinking of that now. Proverbs 6:20. What does it say here? “My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the teaching of thy mother: Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.”
That’s talking there, of putting into them when they’re young, for when they go out, that teaching, that which we have put in them will continue to lead them. It will keep them, even when they’re sleeping. When they’re awake, it will talk with them and remind them of the lifestyle they’re meant to live. This all comes back to the mother in the home.
And what does it continue? “Thy wife is like a fruitful vine in the heart of thy home. Thy children, like olive plants, all around your table.” Breakfast, lunch, and supper, sitting around the table, eating together. When a mother is out in her career, she’s not there at the table with her children. Oh, that is one of the biggest things she’s missing out on. And it totally grieves me.
When I hear of mothers, oh, they may just be doing a part-time job. Oh yes, you're only working part-time. “I just go out in the evenings because my husband is home then.” But ladies, you are missing out on the most important time of the day because I believe the evening meal is perhaps the most important.
It’s that time of the day when you’re not so busy. You’re not rushing to this and that and fathers leaving for work, and you've still got all these things to get accomplished during the day. Evening is time to rest and fellowship. It’s time for you to prepare a meal. That doesn’t happen at the last minute.
Often, you've got to be in the kitchen at four o’clock or at least five o’clock, preparing that meal, preparing that nutritious meal for your family. And then, sitting down together, teaching them how to set a beautiful table, how to sit together at the table, how to have dialog and communication.
And then, of course, that’s all paving the way for the most important part of hearing from God through the Word and praying together. Are you going to miss out on that every evening? That grieves me. No, the mother is meant to be there in the home.
Then we go back to the very, very beginning and we see that when God created the man, He created him before He created the home. It tells us in Genesis that God formed the man, and then He put him in the Garden (Genesis 2:7). But He hadn’t yet created the woman. Oh, no. He had the home ready for her first.
In fact, in that chapter, Genesis 2, we don’t even read about the woman until right down in verse 18! Then it talks about how God is going to create a “helper” for Adam. But he didn’t have her at the beginning. God was getting the home ready. Now He created the man before the home was ready. Not quite sure how he survived. And I’m not sure how it all happened, but I don’t think he left Adam staring into space while He created the first home which was a delightful home, the Garden of Eden.
Eden means “delight.” The first home was a home of delight, the prototype of all homes to come. He created this home. I’m sure He took Adam with him and showed him the principle right at the very beginning of creation that the man is to prepare the home and get it ready for his wife. And then, when the time came when Eve was created and came forth into this world, where did she wake up? She woke up into her home. The home was ready for her, because this was the place where God had planned for her.
Sadly, so many women are deceived about the home today. They think they can just leave their homes and go off in their careers but that is not the truth of the Word of God. Many women too, think much the same thing, really. They really haven’t got the full understanding of their motherhood. Yes, they love their children. Oh, goodness me! Every mother loves her children. Yes! But they don’t love motherhood.
You see, there’s a big difference between loving children and loving motherhood. We can love our children, but we’ll never enter into the total fullness of motherhood if we don’t love motherhood, because motherhood is the ultimate career that God has given to us as mothers.
When He gives us a baby, we enter into motherhood. I know what I’m talking about, because I remember back, back when I first started my motherhood. Well, I loved my babies. I remember when I had my first baby. I didn’t know it was possible to love so intensely. I had never felt so much love in my whole life! Then I had twins. I had three babies in 17 months, and I loved these babies. They were my life.
But I have to confess, I didn’t love motherhood. Oh, I loved my children, but I wasn’t enjoying this motherhood. I thought, “Help! What have I done?” And I wasn’t even going out into a career, but I was, “Oh goodness me! What have I done?” I had up until that time been serving the Lord with my husband.
He had gone out full-time for God when we were engaged. We had been out in the Philippines when we got married, serving the Lord. Now, at this stage, we were back in New Zealand when I had the twins. I thought, “Help! I can no longer serve the Lord! I’m just stuck here in this home, and my husband is still out doing great things for God. And I’m just here with these babies and I’m wasting my life!”
And I cried out to God. God was so good. Little by little, He began to show me, yes, I was in His perfect will! This is how He created me! For this purpose. I was in His perfect will. I was fulfilling the very mandate that He brought me into the world for. I was to embrace these children and mother them and train them for Him and for His kingdom.
And actually, it was the first time in my life, although I’d been brought up in a Christian home, that I embraced my femaleness. I’d never done that before. I always thought, “Oh, wish I’d really been a man. They have a more exciting life.”
But as God began to speak to me and show me, I came to that place for the first time in my life. I said, “Oh God, I thank You for making me a woman, for making me female. You chose to create me female. I embrace with all my heart. I embrace my motherhood. I embrace this role You’ve given to me, to raise these children.”
And as I embraced it, instead of being frustrated, I began to live in the joy of it and the fullness of it. The more I came to understanding of it, and the more I embraced that understanding, the more I was able to walk in the fullness of motherhood, the mandate of a mother being in the home, where this is God’s ultimate plan.
Oh, I know there are mothers who are on their own, even husbands have passed away. They’re on their own. Single mothers, and they’ve got to provide. Some have had to go out to get jobs. God understands. Oh, He understands the mothers who are on their own. God fights for them. The widow, the single mother, God’s heart is for you.
And yet, it’s amazing how even many single mothers and widowed mothers have been able to find a way to work at home. Do something with a webpage or do something where they can do it at home. There are many things that can be done at home. God is able to even work them out.
But I just want to share as we close with some things for those who may be tempted to leave the home. Sometimes we can think, “Oh, we’re not surviving. But maybe I need to go and get a job.” Well, dear ladies, it doesn’t really work. If you trust God, if you trust Him, God will show up, because there are great implications when we leave the home.
I remember reading a quote from a beautiful woman of God, Connie Holmquist, who has now passed away. But she said, “Can you imagine any woman in the Bible leaving their own home, and going out to build up the kingdom of another man or household? No, the virtuous woman puts all she has into building up her own husband’s kingdom.”
Now, there are just one or two things I’d like to mention of what happens when a mother leaves her home.
No. 1. When she leaves her home for another career outside the home, she leaves the sphere God intends for her, the sphere that He planned for her at the very beginning of time.
No. 2. When a mother leaves her home for another career outside the home, she leaves her babies and little children who God has given to her as His love-gift. He doesn’t give them to you to give to anyone else.
No. 3. When a mother leaves her home for another career outside the home, she goes out to make another man wealthy. She serves him, rather than her own husband. She spends finance on cars, gas, clothes, daycare, fast food, and so on.
She can bless her own husband more by being at home with her children, and cooking from scratch, and making everything from scratch. You save so much money by being at home! Oh, you can’t believe how much you can save! Wow! As my husband says, “A husband cannot afford for his wife to go to work outside the home. Too much is at stake.”
No. 4. When a mother leaves her home for another career outside the home, she is no longer fulfilling the biblical pattern God has given in His Word. This may not be modern theology, but it is Bible theology, and it is motherhood theology.
No. 5. When a mother leaves her home for another career outside the home, her children are deprived. No other woman, no matter how caring and affectionate, can take the place of Mother. No one but the mother truly understands the inner needs of her children.
Oh, and it’s unbelievable. You know that today there are many people who raise dogs and so forth to make money. Most dog breeders will not sell their dogs until they’re at least eight weeks. And yet today, mothers will leave babies at six weeks to go out into their career outside the home! Can you even believe that? Even dog breeders will not allow that.
And I was talking to a daycare person recently. She said to me, “I cannot even understand it. Many of the mothers don’t even bother to ask, ‘Well, did my child have a nap today?’ Or how many foods or ask questions about it so that they know when they’re going. They don’t even ask a thing.” Can you believe this? They were made to be mothers.
No. 6 (the last one). When a mother leaves her home for another career outside the home, there is no one at home guarding and guiding the home. We, as mothers, are the watchdogs of our home. Even as our children get older, they may be able to come home from school (because most home mothers are homeschooling) but most working mothers have their children in school. The children can come home and look after themselves. They’re able to do that. But what are they doing? What are they watching? What are they getting into? We are needed in the home as a watchdog. What’s the use of having a watchdog if he doesn’t know how to bark and guard the home? What’s the use of having a mother if she is not there to guard her home?
So, dearest, precious, wonderful ladies, I know that most of you who are listening to me are not deceived. You are in the home. You’re home-workers, home-lovers, home-keepers, oh, home-everything. Praise the Lord! Don’t be ashamed. Never be ashamed of being in the home. Lift up your head and know that you are in the perfect will of God. Share the joy of it with other mothers, so they’ll have such a desire to come home too. Amen.
“Dear Father, we thank You that You have given us our homes to raise our children. They are sacred places that we can fill with Your presence, and Your joy, and the way You want us to live. Help us, Lord God, to create a biblical lifestyle in our homes, a heavenly lifestyle in our homes.
“I pray that You will bless these beautiful homes, loving homes, working homes, making homes, children-raising mothers. Bless them abundantly today. Fill them with joy. Provide miraculously for all their needs. I pray in Jesus’ Name. Amen”.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Transcribed by Darlene Norris
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