PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 360: THE UNBELIEVABLE REVELATION OF GOD'S HEART FOR YOUR HOME, PART 1
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 360: THE UNBELIEVABLE REVELATION OF GOD'S HEART FOR YOUR HOME, PART 1
It is amazing that God uses a phrase to describe three very important things in the Bible, and they all begin with H: Heaven, the Holy of Holies, and yes, your Home. You'll want to find out what it is. Every mother needs to hear this revelation.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Today I want to share with you something that is so precious to my heart. It’s a beautiful revelation of the Word of God, which I believe is so important for all of us mothers. I actually shared this at our recent Above Rubies retreat down in Florida.
But, of course, only a certain number were there. And so, I feel to share it with you all, all across the world, wherever you are, in this United States or in other countries. I know so many are listening right Down Under in Australia and New Zealand, and also the UK, and in many parts of the world. We welcome you all. Welcome into this podcast, where we’re going to go into the Word of God together about something that really relates to us as women.
I’m beginning with a familiar Scripture that I know you all know, Psalm 128:3. OK, who can say it? Can you say the words immediately? Or I wonder if you're thinking, “Well, what is that Scripture?” I believe this is a Scripture that we should all know because it’s a picture of who we are as mothers in the home.
It says: “Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house, thy children like olive plants, round about thy table.” That is a beautiful picture of the mother in the home. It’s so interesting that when God describes the mother, He describes her in the home, in the heart of the home. Because that word, that phrase I read, “By the sides of the house,” that’s King James language. It doesn’t really relate very well to us.
But if we go to the Hebrew, we find that it means, “in the very heart, in the recesses of the home.” This is where God pictures the mother, in the heart of the home. This is where she’s meant to be. And where are the children? They’re not scattered everywhere. They are also in the heart of the home. We see them pictured sitting around the table. The table is a piece of furniture that is in the heart of the home. So, this is a description that God gives of a family that’s blessed of the Lord.
But this phrase, “By the sides of the house,” is rather interesting. One day, I was reading in 1 Kings 6. I got to verse 16. It was talking about how Solomon was going to build the temple. It says these words: “And he built twenty cubits on the sides of the house.” Now, when I read that phrase, I thought, “That’s interesting. I remember that phrase.” Of course, I remembered it back to Psalm 128:3, where it’s talking about the wife in the home. I thought, “Wow, that is interesting!”
Then I noticed other Scriptures. I noted a Scripture about Heaven. This is actually talking about when Satan rose up against God. But in Isaiah 14:13-14, it says, well, actually this is what Satan was saying: “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.” And there was that phrase again! I thought, “Wow, this is getting interesting!”
So, I looked up again this phrase, which I already knew, because I had looked it up many years ago. The Hebrew word is yerekah, and it literally means “in the recesses, in the very heart, in the innermost parts, far away, at the far end.” I began to see that God describes three different places, using this phrase, “by the sides of the house,” which, of course, when we get down to understanding it in real language, it means, “In the very heart,” or “in the far end, in the recesses.”
So, let’s start with this first place, shall we? By the way, these three things all start with “H,” Very interesting. So, the first one is HEAVEN. Now, ladies, where is Heaven? Do you know where Heaven is?
Well, not any of us really know where Heaven is, but God gives us a little inkling in His Word. We see that Heaven is somewhere in the north. Now, we don’t know whereabouts in the north, but it’s somewhere there. Let’s look at a few Scriptures, shall we?
Psalm 75:6-7: “For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge.” We notice there that these things come from east, west, and south, but not the north. But God, who is the Judge is in the north.
Then I read the Scripture about Satan rising up in the sides of the north.
We go to Psalm 48:1-2: “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.” We get this, “the sides of the north.”
We go to Exodus 40:20-23. God is telling Moses how and what to do for the tabernacle in the wilderness. He told him, and then Moses did what God told him. He put the table, which was the table of showbread, in the tent of congregation, “upon the side of the tabernacle northward and he set the bread there.” That was the showbread.
In the Hebrew, that is lechem ha panim, meaning “the bread of faces.” The bread upon the table represented the faces of Jesus Christ. As we feast upon the bread, of course, Jesus is the bread. Also His Word is the bread. As we feast upon Him, as we feast upon the Word, we get to see Who He is. He is not one face, for He is represented in many faces, many attributes. We don’t stop at one.
Jesus has so many attributes. We keep finding out more and more as we seek Him. But God says that bread had to be put on the table which was to be placed northwards. It was to be placed looking towards Heaven, because Christ Himself was in Heaven. That also pointed to Heaven.
We go over to Leviticus 1:11. Here it’s taking about the sacrifices. It says: “And he shall kill the sacrifice on the side of the altar northwards, in the presence of the Lord.” Once again, every sacrifice upon the altar pointed to Calvary, pointed to the Lamb of God, who would take away the sin of the world. Jesus was the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world. This was upon Him from the beginning, in the eons of eternity, in the Heavenly realm.
And so, even the sacrifices had to be done northwards, facing the heavenly realm. So, we get this phrase, “On the sides of the north,” meaning in the very extreme recesses of the north. We don’t know where Heaven is, but it’s somewhere. It’s hidden. It’s somewhere in the far recesses of the north.
Now we go to second “H.” This is where I began to get this understanding of where I read of how Solomon was building this special place by the sides of the house. But then we find it’s the word yerekah, which means “in the recesses, at the far end.” What was it talking about, ladies? It was talking about the HOLY OF HOLIES. That starts with “H” too.
Let’s go to some modern translations so we can understand it more fully.
The New Living Translation says: “And he partitioned an inner sanctuary, the most holy place,” not the holy place, but “the most holy place at the far end of the temple.” They are translating that Hebrew word which means “the recesses, the far end.” They are translating it correctly “at the far end of the temple.”
Verse 10 says: “He prepared the inner sanctuary, the holy of holies, at the far end of the temple.”
The English Standard Version says: “The inner sanctuary he prepared in the innermost part of the house, to set there the ark of the covenant of the Lord.” So, ladies, we see that when Solomon was building the temple (it was the same when Moses was preparing and building the tabernacle in the wilderness), they were all patterned after the same pattern, which is a heavenly pattern.
The Holy of Holies was not at the entrance of the tabernacle or the entrance of the temple. No, it was at the far end, because in the Holy of Holies was where God dwelt in His shekinah glory. God is not put on display. We have to seek to find God.
So, when you came into the temple, what did you see at the beginning? I’m sure, if you're familiar with the tabernacle and the temple, you will know that the first thing that you see as you enter into the gate (and how many gates are there?) Of course, we don’t have a tabernacle any longer.
How many gates are there to the temple? Well, we don’t have a temple any longer either, do we? But back then, do you remember how many gates? Well, there was ONLY ONE. Everything was a type. There was only one entrance, one gate, because there is only one way to God, and that is through Jesus. “I am the Way, the Truth, the Life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6).
There is only one door. But as you go through that one entrance, there is the brazen altar where they did the sacrifices, which of course, point to Jesus, the Lamb of God. That is the first thing. We come to Jesus. We come to Him as our Savior, the One Who shed His blood to cleanse us from our sins.
Then the next thing that we see is the brass laver. It was a place where they had to bathe, where they had to cleanse themselves. They had to do this before they even went into the Holy Place. And then, in the Holy Place, there were three pieces of furniture. It was all in the shape of a cross, pointing once again to the theme of the whole of the Word of God, Christ’s redemption upon the cross for us.
And then, on the north side, as we were sharing, was the table of showbread, facing the north, facing Heaven. On the other side was the menorah, the golden candlestick, and then, there was the table of incense. The golden altar of incense just before the curtain, just before you went into the Holy of Holies.
Back in those days, only the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies. As you know, he could only go in once a year, carrying blood. If he did not carry the blood which he had sacrificed for his own sins, and the sins of his family . . . Then again, he had to sacrifice for the sins of the whole nation. Unless he carried that blood into the Holy of Holies, he could have been struck dead. He had to have the blood.
He also had to carry the incense, filling this Holy of Holies, filling it with that incense, because he could not look upon God. It had to be filled with incense. Of course, today we are living in the glorious day of grace. When Jesus died upon the cross, that thick curtain that separated the Holy of Holies was torn from top to bottom. Now we have access into the Presence of God, through the precious blood of Jesus. Oh, how wonderful! How glorious! How blessed we are!
But we don’t come blatantly into the Presence of God. We have to come first through the sacrifice of Jesus, through embracing His blood that was shed for us, through the cleansing of our sins, and through baptism. And then through the waiting on the Lord as we feast on His Word, and we receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit each day, which is represented by the menorah that they had to light by pouring in the oil, the oil which speaks of the Holy Spirit, every morning and every evening, and so on.
The Holy of Holies is there at the far end because it is the inner place. We have to come in the right way to find that fellowship with God. And then, dear lovely ladies . . . Oh, but before I go on, I must tell you a little bit more about the Holy of Holies in the temple. Back in the tabernacle, it was a 15-foot cube, that is high, deep, wide, whatever. It was a cube. It was 15 feet.
But when Solomon built the temple, he built it twice as big. It became a 30-foot cube. Now we have to realize what it was like. Did you know, ladies, that that Holy of Holies was made with cedar? But it was covered with pure gold. Not just gold, but pure gold. Ceiling, floor, sides, every part.
Then it was not only completely covered with gold, but on the ark of the covenant were two cherubim. I have seen pictures of the ark of the covenant with the cherubim on top. Most probably you've seen pictures too. You see these little cherubim covering the top. But according to the Word of God, that is not the true picture, because in the Word, it says that these cherubim filled the Holy Place from wall to wall, a 30-foot span.
There were two cherubim with two wings each, of course. Both 7-1/2 feet, which made the wings of one cherub 15 feet with both wings. The wings of the other cherub, 15 feet with both wings, which means they touched from wall to wall, the 30-foot cube. And they were covered with gold.
Now, can you guess how much gold was in that Holy of Holies? This is not the whole temple. This is just the Holy of Holies. Well, the King James Bible tells us there were six hundred talents of gold in the Holy of Holies. But we don’t really know what six hundred talents of gold are, but in the New Living Translation of the Bible, it relates it to what we can understand today.
It says that there were . . . wait for it, ladies. There were 23 tons of gold in that Holy of Holies! Can you believe that? Twenty-three tons? Actually, the Good News Bible says 25 tons. And every nail that was used was also made with 20 ounces of pure gold. Can you even imagine what it would be like to go into that much gold? But ladies, that was nothing. Nothing, compared to the Presence of God that filled that Holy of Holies. That was the real glory that filled that place.
So, we see that even though it was so amazing, and so special, so incredible, God didn’t put it out there for everybody to see. Oh, no. God’s most precious and most holy things are hidden. The Holy of Holies was hidden.
But now we come to the third “H.” And ladies, this is where it gets to us, right in our homes, because the third “H” is the word “HOME.” For this is the very same word that God uses for Heaven, for the Holy of Holies, and now He uses it for the home. “Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house.” Or let’s look at it in modern language. “In the heart of your home.”
Let’s look at some translations, shall we?
The New English Translation says: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine in the inner rooms in your house. Your children will be like olive branches as they sit all around your table.”
The New King James version says: “Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house.”
The Amplified Version says, “Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the innermost parts of your house.”
And so, these translations, and so many, many others, are translating it correctly from the Hebrew word yerekah, which means, let me tell it to you again. The exact Hebrew rendering is “in the very heart, the inner rooms, the recesses, at the far end.”
And so, ladies, we see two things here. One, we see that this is God’s picture of the wife. He doesn’t picture her out in her career, leaving her little ones with someone else to mother. No, He doesn’t picture her driving around in her car everywhere, always here and there, out and about, running her home from the periphery of her home. No.
Well, we live in an age when every mother has a car, and of course, she’s got to go out to do her shopping, do her groceries, do this, do that. But the real picture is that God sees the woman in the heart of her home, in the inner rooms of her home, in the recesses of her home.
Now, I know this seems so foreign to the modern picture of the wife today. But ladies, we have to admit that God’s Word hasn’t changed. God’s Word never changes. The Word that He gave in the beginning is the Word that He gives today. His Word is for all generations. It never changes. This is His heart.
I believe that we need to be women who want and long and seek to adhere to God’s Word, to His heart. This is His heart for His mothers. He provided the home for them. The home is the place that God provided for women to raise their families.
If we go back to the very beginning in Genesis 1, and I’m sure I would have shared this with you before. But we see here in Genesis 2, actually, let’s go to Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”
What do we read next? OK, it talks there that God formed the man. But we don’t read of him yet forming the woman. The very next thing that we read, the next verse, is verse 8: “The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.” OK, He created the man. Then He created the Garden of Eden, the home that he made for man to live in.
But there’s no mention of the woman yet. In fact, we don’t even read anything about the woman until verse 18: “And the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for a man to be alone. I will make him a helpmeet for him.” Now we’re hearing about the woman, but she’s still not created yet.
The next thing it goes on to say is how He created all the animals, and the beasts in the field, and every living creature. They were created, and still the woman is not created. But eventually we get down to verse 21 where we read, “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.”
The word there “made” is totally different from how He created the man. God said He formed the man from where? From the dust of the earth. Was woman made from the dust of the earth? No. No, she was the only thing that was not made from the dust of the earth. She was made from an existing creation. God brought her out from the man.
The word there is banah, “to build.” God built the woman. Very interesting. Totally different word. He built her, this intricate creation. She was His highest creation. She was left to the very last. She was the very highest creation of all, and built so intricately, to bring forth life into the world. Dear ladies, we are so blessed. We are so honored that we are one of the creations who God chose to bring forth His image into the world, to bring life into the world, and ultimately for eternity, to fill eternity.
But where was Eve when she woke up to life? Where was she? She was in her home. Do you see that God didn’t create her until He had the home ready? He created man without the home. I don’t quite know . . . Well, it wasn’t too much longer that He made the home. He was showing Adam what to do. He was showing Adam, “Adam, this is what we do. We got the home ready for this helpmeet that I am bringing to you.”
It is the man’s responsibility to prepare the home, provide the home. We see this right back in the very beginning. Then He puts the man in this beautiful garden home. It was a home, but it was a garden home. He had to till the garden and look after it.
Did you know, ladies, that a garden is synonymous with home? We don’t have to make that happen today because we live in this modern age where you can go to the supermarket and buy anything you want, from any country in the world, or any season of the year. You don’t have to worry. Just go and buy it. You don’t even need a garden.
Back there they needed one, but I believe it’s still God’s passion that the garden is part of the home. So much so. Did you notice what I read in verse 8? This is amazing. Let me go back to verse 8 here. “And the Lord God planted a garden.” Did you hear that, ladies? How did God create everything?
Let’s go back to chapter one. “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God said, ‘Let the waters under the Heaven be gathered together,’ and it was so.” And God said, and it was so. And God said, and it was so. He only had to speak the word, and it was so.
Well, God could have said, “Let there be a garden, and it was so.” But no. What does it say? “And the Lord God planted a garden.” God Himself got down on His knees and put His hands into the very earth and soil He created and planted. God was the very first gardener. Dear ladies, isn’t that amazing? Yes. Sometimes we can talk, “Goodness me, I don’t want to get my hands dirty in a garden.” Well, God was the first gardener.
Yes, and then we go back to how He built the woman. He built her so that she could then be the builder of families, and the builder of cities, and the builder of nations. How was the whole nation of Israel built? Well, we read back in the book of Ruth, where the people came to Naomi and they said about Ruth, “The Lord make the woman that has come into thy home like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel.”
I beg your pardon. Did Leah and Rachel build the house of Israel? I thought it was the twelve sons of Jacob. But no, God says Leah and Rachel built it, because that word “build” in the Hebrew, the word banah, means “to build, to repair,” but it also means “to bring forth children.” That is the very Hebrew word of banah. So, God created the woman to be a builder, to bring forth children, to build nations. Yes, because if there were no children, we wouldn’t even have a city.
In fact, the Word of God is so beautiful. Many times, you’ll read, and it says: “And build cities for your little ones.” Why do we have cities? That’s to provide for the families, for everything they need to build a house, for them to eat, for everything they need. If there were no families, you wouldn’t even need a city. Even cities are built because of families. It all happens through the woman and the home.
Dear ladies, can you get this revelation today? That God has equated you, as the mother in your home, with the Holy of Holies, where the Presence of God dwells in His shekinah glory. He also equated with the same word that He describes where Heaven is. Dear ladies, to be in the heart of your home is not insignificant. You may feel hidden. You may feel, “Oh, I don’t know what I’m doing here.” But I want you to know that you're in the very place that God intends for you, where He loves you to be, where it is His heart for you to be, and where He describes it in His Word.
OK. Next week, we didn’t get time to get onto it today, but next week we’re going to continue. And I’m going to bring to you four different things about Heaven, and about the Holy of Holies, and how these things relate to our homes. This is so powerful, dear ladies. Don’t miss this next session next week because God wants you to know the power of your homes, and it all relates with Heaven, and with the Holy of Holies. May God bless you.
“Dear Father, we thank You for the revelation that you give us in Your Word. It is so awesome. It is so powerful. And Lord God, we are living in a day when women are wooed out of their homes, out of the place where You have designed for them to be. Lord God, You are the One Who woos women into their homes. It is the devil who woos them out of their homes.
“I pray, dear Father, that You will bless every mother in her home today. Let her know she’s in this glorious place where You want her to be. Let her see the power of her home, and what she can accomplish in her home. Lord God, I pray that You will, oh, just come to her today, and let this revelation fill her heart, and she will rejoice and be filled with joy at the wonder and the glory of having a home where she can raise godly children for this world, and for eternity. I ask it in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”
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.