FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 162 –  LET’S GET BACK THE GLORY, Part 4

Allison Hartman joins me again as we talk about dressing in a way to glorify God. And we continue discussing how to teach our children God's ways in the midst of a worldly culture.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Here I am again today, with Allison Hartman. Well, she's still staying with us. So we're doing another podcast while she is here. We're on this subject of clothing. We're looking into the Scriptures to see what God has to say. And we're talking about it. So I'm going to start with some Scriptures again today, and then Allison and I will get talking and we'll see what happens.

I hope you are enjoying this series, and that you still love me. Well, actually, it's not me. It's what God wants us to know. I have to say that I have been learning as I have been going into these Scriptures too. I haven't always dressed appropriately, especially growing up. I had to learn gradually God's ways. So we're all on a learning process.

But we all have to have soft hearts to hear God speaking to us, don't we? Let's keep soft hearts. Let's be open, even if we have to be open to change because that's how we grow, ladies. When we think, “Oh, goodness, no one's going to tell me that! We're going to stick to what we do!” You're in a rut! Look, when we are not open to change, we are in a rut. And a rut is not a good place to be. You're stuck, and it's usually muddy, and it's usually dirty. It's not a growing place. So let's always be in that place of growing.

I constantly pray, “Oh, Father, give me a soft heart, a soft heart to hear Your voice.” That was one of the prayers I prayed so much for my children as I was raising them. “Oh, God, give them soft hearts to hear Your voice.”

Oh, that's such an important prayer to pray over your children, that they will keep soft and humble hearts, and meek toward the Lord, because the Scriptures says: “the meek will He teach His way” (Psalm 25:9). If we don't have a meek spirit, we'll never learn the ways of the Lord.

NO. 5. GOD WANT US TO COVER OUR SECRET PARTS

Now, we're up to point number five. God wants to cover our secret parts. I'm going to take you to a beautiful passage of God's Word. I wonder if you're familiar with it. It's Ezekiel 16, and it's an allegory. Our God writes so many allegories so we can understand. It's talking about Israel and how He found Israel, and birthed Israel, and made them His people.

Oh, as I read this, you're just going to love the language. It's all in the language of clothing. It's amazing. And so, as we read about it, we get God's understanding of clothing. But the actual whole bent of the Scripture is what God has done for Israel. Just be blessed as I read it.

I'm going to read it from the New English Translation and you'll notice so much about covering and clothing as I read it. God says: “I spread my cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I swore a solemn oath to you and entered into a marriage covenant with you, declared the sovereign Lord, and you became Mine.

“Then I bathed you in water, washed the blood off you, and anointed you with fragrant oil. I dressed you in embroidered clothing and put fine leather sandals on your feet. I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with jewelry. I put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck. I put a ring in your nose, earrings on your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head.

“You were adorned with gold and silver, while your clothing was of fine linen, silk, and embroidery. You became extremely beautiful, and attained the position of royalty. Your name spread among the nations because of your beauty; your beauty was perfect because of the splendor which I bestowed on you, declares the sovereign Lord.”

What a beautiful passage of Scripture! I'd love you to read it again in your own time, whatever translation you love to read. The end part of that, in the King James, it says: “And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through My comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God.”

And it's speaking here of how God is covering us with His salvation, and with His robe of righteousness. And we became perfect, not through our own righteousness, not through our own beauty, for it says here, it wasn't your own beauty, but “My comeliness.”

Now the word there is the Hebrew word hadar. Do you remember how last week I told you all about the word hadar? It means glory, and how God is clothed with glory, and how He clothes us with glory, and how He wants our clothes to be glorious. Here He says that it's “My glory, My beauty which I put upon you.” That beautiful word hadar comes again, which means, “glory, magnificence, splendor, excellency, honor, majesty, dignity.” This is what God puts upon us, His glory.

Let's look at few little things here. Where it says, “I spread My cloak,” the King James says, “I spread My skirt over thee.” My skirt. He covers us with His skirt. The Hebrew word is kanaph. It means, “the edge, or the very extremity of a garment.”

So He doesn't just put a little bit of His garment over us, He puts the whole garment, right to the very edge of that garment and wraps it all around us. Oh, it's so beautiful! That is what God has done in the spiritual realm.

This is not only talking about Israel, but what happens to us when we come to Christ. And we're covered with the blood and covered with the robe of righteousness. It's not just some little covering. We're totally wrapped in the very extremity of His garment.

That word also means, “the wings.” We're covered with His wings. And then it says: “I covered your nakedness.” Now here's another Hebrew word. I was telling you there's 23 different Hebrew words, I won't give them all to you, but just some of them.

Here's another one, kacah (pronounced ka-sa). This means, oh, listen to this one, “to cover for secrecy, to clothe, to conceal, to hide.” Did you get that, ladies? When God covered our nakedness in the spiritual realm, He totally hid it, and He covered it over because He didn't want anyone to see.

This is what this particular word means, “to cover with secrecy, to cover those secret parts.” God doesn't want those secret parts of our body exposed to every “Tom, Dick, and Harry.” Our secret parts, as women, are only for our husbands. They're not for anyone else.

What is it, what is it, let's ask the question to ourselves, what is it that makes us want to expose our secret parts to, it doesn't matter who? Anybody? Young men, people, anybody who's around? What is it? That's not from God. That is not from God. Dear precious ladies, we need to go before the Lord, and let Him deal with our hearts.

I do understand, because I understand that this kind of clothing today, it is so “normal.” It's not normal (in God’s eyes), but it's so in society that we think it's normal. You see, we cannot live by society. We have to live by the Word of God. And God's Word is that He wants our secret parts to be covered.

Covered means covered. Not a little bit showing, whoo-oo, yes, because some want to show everything. But just to show a little bit? Yeah. I mean, I look at women I know, and goodness, I know they love the Lord with all their hearts. And yet I'm wondering, why are they having to always even having to show a little bit? What is it? What do you think it is?

Allison: I really think just, like Satan did in the garden, just questioned, “Did God really say? Did God really say you can't touch just a little? Just try a little bit?” And so culture is, we all know how wicked culture is, right? We're trying to basically change our worldview of everything that we believe that is based on God's Word.

So culture is slowly but surely, and more, less slow. They're actually doing it very, think about the TV shows. Think about what's on the movies. So when we're watching this garbage day in and day out, and you're seeing it, and you're seeing it, it's like boiling a frog. You don't really feel it.

All of a sudden, the frog's dead. All of a sudden, we're watching, and we're watching, and we're looking, and we're seeing, and we're, oh, this friend wearing less and less and less. You're just getting, we're just getting used to it. And so . . .

Nancy: It is. That's what it is, it's getting used to it. And I think many people have no idea. They are not willfully, in any way, trying to be fleshly. It's just, in fact, when they go to buy clothes, the clothes that they don't quite cover . . .  when you find clothes that are covering.

And that's what clothes are for, to cover, not to uncover. They are to conceal, and to hide, not to be uncovered. That's what we have clothes for. That's why God clothes us spiritually and He even clothed Adam and Eve physically from the shoulders. You know that's how it is, that's Bible.

Allison: Go to any clothing store right now. Go see what's on the racks, and you'll see what they're pushing, And so these young girls, my girls love Ross and TJ Maxx. That's their favorite places. So you go into Ross and TJ Maxx, let's say. We don't go to the mall because we don't ever buy anything retail.

But you've got your cropped top shirts, that stop right under your chest, and then the whole stomach and midriff is wide open. You've got your short, short, shorts. You've got the holes in the jeans all the way up. So, that is what is on the shelf.

Practically speaking, if you're a young, you're a mother, and you're letting your daughter, like me, I let my girls shop for themselves. They're 22, 19, and 17, so they take their money, and they go buy clothing. So what is our responsibility as parents? Do we just let them go blindly to go buy whatever wardrobe they want?

Or do we give them some . . . I really think we've got to change our mindset, because I'm learning things just as we're sitting here talking. When we put on clothes every morning, we need to ask ourselves, “What is our purpose, what is our goal?” Is our goal to attract other people? Is our goal to attract our husbands? Because I can promise you, our husbands, they're attracted to us completely, covered or uncovered.

My husband will normally say, “Oh, that's a little short.” He wants me to dress, he looks for me to be modest. He loves that. And we . . .

Nancy: Because he doesn't want you to be exposed to every other man out there. You are for him. And I think this is something, because we're not, we're talking about young people. Now we're talking about marriage. I think in marriage, OK, what we wear in the bedroom, or don't wear in the bedroom, is so totally different than what we're going to wear for other people.

We, today, it seems as though people take the sacredness of the bedroom out into the public marketplace. It's unbelievable!

RAISE OUR DAUGHTERS TO BE LEADERS

Allison: Because they want to fit in! They want to look, let's say, the young ladies my girls' age, they want . . . They don't want to stand out and look like the, maybe the homeschooler that's wearing the denim jumper. They don't want that. They want to fit in. So they look at what their friends are wearing.

Well, guess what? Church friends, church children, are wearing the same thing as worldly children are. And we have to got to raise, I said this last podcast, we've got to raise the leaders that are willing to create a fashion that others will want to follow. We want them to be leaders, and girls that are wearing something that looks beautiful and is modest, and other girls to say, “Oh, I want to dress like those girls!”

That's what we've got to do. We've got to change our hearts. And we, as mothers, we have to be good examples. I'll tell you, when I was raised, when I was growing up, I really, truly, went through a phase where I remember wanting to wear, every time I would get dressed, try to find something that would attract boys to me. I really did. I'll be honest with you. That was in my heart.

Which is why I really do have a heart for these young girls, because they're craving attention from young men. I say that for two reasons. One, to encourage fathers that you must have your girls' hearts, so that they won't have that desire to always be with a boyfriend. In order to do that, you have to spend time with them. You have to spend hours sitting on their beds, talking to them, finding out, “Why do you want to wear . . .?”

Don't just say, “You're not wearing that! Go home, and go to your room, and change!” Explain to them. Have a conversation with them. I don't think a thirteen, fourteen-year-old girl, when she's putting on, say, short shorts, she's not thinking that some, maybe grown man is going to lust after her. She's not thinking that. She's thinking, “I want to look like my friends when we go to the mall.”

But the father's and mother's responsibility is to explain to that young girl that that is, again, like I said, you want to cover the areas that you don't want young men's attention drawn to. Unfortunately, with today's fashions, you're going to have to be creative. So if you have a shirt that you love that has the low-cut, wear a tank top underneath it. Be bold parents, to where you're willing to possibly upset your child, because we aren't made to be best friends with our children.

Thankfully, I feel we ought, I am best friends with my girls, but that's not my goal. That's not my purpose. My purpose is to raise godly women so that they're godly wives and godly mothers.

Nancy: Absolutely. I think that is so important. So often, so many mothers and fathers are just trying to be best friends, and to please their children. Nowhere in the Word of God does it ever say that we are to please our children. No, we are in the place of God, raising them up. Raising them to a higher standard, raising them to what God wants, raising them to a biblical standard, and a holy standard.

Because God's passion for clothing is holy, and glorious, and beautiful. It's holy, but it's glorious and beautiful. I look at your girls, and they wear beautiful clothes, and always look so beautiful. That's another thing. Beauty seems to have got forgotten in this fashion today because most of it's not beautiful. It's actually very plain and ugly. There's nothing very beautiful about this at all. I think we should encourage our girls to be beautiful.

But if our daughters come out of the room, and they're wearing something that is not appropriate, we have to be faithful as parents. As you say, don't say, “Get back in that room!” No, we say, “Hey, look, you can't wear that out, especially if you're going to church. We're not going to the beach today, we're going to church.” Or, “We're going out into the public, and that's not suitable.” You know? We have to do that.

Allison: We want it to be their decision. You want them, as they're getting dressed in the morning, to make those choices on their own. But they're not going to possibly get there right away. You're going to have to parent them. I mean, that's our job. We're going to have to instruct, and explain, and encourage them to do the right thing.

But be willing to, you might have a slammed door. I mean, it's not easy. We can make it sound, like, “Oh, that's so easy. You just say, ‘Go change,’ and ‘Oh, yes, Mommy, I would be glad to.’” That's not even realistic. But the goal is to get into their hearts, to where they want and desire to be modest.

Nancy: And, of course, we're teaching our children how to receive instruction. I can remember an incident, not just when I was young. Actually, perhaps I didn't face it so much growing up, because, even in the secular world, when I was growing up, this fashion wasn't even around. We actually did clothe ourselves.

But I can remember, I was a mother. I had three little children. And I was, I thought I was modest. But I was also trying to sort of be, pretty cool. I went downtown, and I didn't know. I was bending over to see to my little twins in their pram. Back in those days, we used to have these big prams. Do you know what I mean? They're so old fashioned now!

But I would have the twins in this pram. Anyway, there was a lady in our church. She must have seen me. She must have been somewhere in the street, and she came to me later. Maybe it was the next Sunday. She said, “Nancy,” she said, “Nancy, I have to tell you, your skirt was too short. And when you bent over, I could see everything.”

Allison: Wow! Oh, no!

Nancy: Oooh! And I was the pastor's wife! (laughing)

Allison: Oh, my goodness!

Nancy: But I thought this skirt looked pretty OK when I was standing up. But you, see, it's very different when you bend over! And people often forget about that. They forget when they lean over, they forget when they bend over, and all that.

So, I had to receive instruction. I had to realize, wow, how that is terrible, and what a testimony. You know, I had to throw that out, and make sure my skirts were longer. We have to be open to learn from one another.

Allison: How encouraging that that lady took the chance of offending you. She could have offended you. That is so good, because we . . . There was this friend of mine, that her daughter posted a picture on Facebook of prom. The cleavage was so bad that I really lost respect. I'll be honest with you, I lost respect for this family.

I really wanted to go and tell her that, “I think you guys need to think more about the way you let your daughter dress.” But I never did, and I think about that often. Shame on me that I wouldn't be bold enough to go and tell her.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU “LIKE” ON FACEBOOK

Nancy: I know. We don't like people to think negatively of us, do we? But talking about that, I think we have to be careful. And young people, if you're listening, be careful. Think about this. In fact, all of us, is what you like on Facebook?

Because often I will see a picture of someone I know, and I see it's not appropriate. Their clothing is revealing too much. I cannot believe it because I see these “likes” of Christians I know! And I think, “How are they liking it?” When you like that, and press the “Like” you are saying, “I agree with this revealing of the flesh. I agree with you showing off your breasts, and your cleavage!”

We have to be careful. I will not like, in fact, there are many pictures that I could never, like you say, I could never show my husband. I would hate to show it to him. Why do I want to violate his mind, and that's what it's like. It's just beyond it!

Allison: If you're a mother listening, tell your daughters that, because I just recently saw that one of my girls “liked” a girl's wedding pictures. But yet, privately, we talked about how immodest, and how revealing, and how sexual this girl's wedding dress was. And it was embarrassing that she would wear something like this.

And I said, “You don't ever “like” a picture like that again!” She said, “But I mean, I just, you know . . .” I said, “No! Don't do it!” Because it sends a message to your friends, to the world. . .

Nancy: To everybody else! Yes, we need to stop “liking” every single picture that is not appropriate. Otherwise, we might as well be doing it ourselves. We are just siding with it. Yes.

Allison: I think another thing we need to be really sensitive of, and I won't go into it heavily. We met a man a couple years ago, and sadly, he passed away very unexpectedly. But his name was Bill Tollis. His whole ministry was to help men, and women get out of the addiction and the sin of pornography.

I met him at a graduation. It was the first time we really got to talk. He came up to me. He was just a neat guy, had a curly mustache, and just a great attitude. He loved everyone. He said to me, “I have noticed your family for a while now,” because we went to church with him, but we didn't know him well. He said, “But one thing I have noticed is that your girls, strikingly, dress beautifully, but modestly.”

And I thought, “Wow, that's kind of amazing, that a man, a married man, would even notice that. And I said, “You're in this pornography ministry,” so he helped thousands of men. It wasn't a small outfit. It was huge, what he did.

In fact, at his funeral, we could not believe it. They decided to do an open mike, and they let other people talk about how, what he did to affect their lives. Man after man after man after man stood up, admitted in front of everyone, “I was into pornography, and if it wasn't for Mr. Bill, I would still be stuck in it.”

They were honoring him at his funeral. But what he said that day, I'll never forget. He told my girls, I said, “Do you mind sharing with my girls what your thoughts are on how pornography . . .”  He said, “You know, pornography doesn't just start with a man looking at the worst of the worst. It starts way, it goes way back, to the way a young lady dresses.”

And it starts with that idea, like I talked about in the last session, the idea of nudity, where you're seeing just a little sliver of the breast on either side. He said that, and that's where I heard it, he said, “That is way more attractive than just a girl that has her shirt off. To see a sliver of some cleavage is way more of a turn-on to a man than that.”

He said, “The way men are wired,” he said, “I can undress a girl in a burka. So if they're dressed, and they're covered with a burka, I can still, mentally, undress them in my mind.” And his point was, as you get dressed, ladies, think about what men are going through when they're struggling with maybe an addiction to pornography. Be considerate as you're dressing.

And fathers, mothers, I can't say it enough, to encourage your girls, and not just encourage them, but really make it clear, that this is what you are going to ask them to do. Don't make it an optional thing. I really think you've got to set the standards when they're young, and then stay on it.

Don't let just one thing, “Oh, well, they're going out with their friends. That's fine, just go with what you're wearing.” No! Make it something that it really should be an issue that should be discussed.

So anyway, I think about this man, and he just recently passed away. But I'll never forget that he took time to share with me that he was appreciative of my girls attempting to dress in style, but in a way that didn't show off everything. He said that was so helpful when it comes to men that struggle.

Nancy: Oh, yes. So, talking about your covering the secret parts, it's not just covering the breasts, but it's even parts of the body that shouldn't be shown. Today, the fashion is the tight pants. Some can get away with it, but many of them, you cannot believe it, because every single line and form is shown. It's just so revealing. They might as well not have anything on, because you're seeing every single little thing, because they're so tight.

And it's the normal fashion, but as parents, we shouldn't allow it, and advocate it. Because that's the whole thing. God wants to cover, not to expose. That's the whole thing of clothing.

I remember going to a meeting one time. It was a big meeting where many young people come. In fact, I have been a few times. It was quite amazing, because it happened on more than one occasion, that young people, I didn't even know these young people! I didn't have a clue who they were.

They came up to me, and they said, “You look so beautiful.” I thought, “This is weird,” because here they were these beautiful young people. I'm older, I'm past the prime of my beauty. But I thought, “Help! Why are they saying that?”

I was dressed stylishly, but I just sort of had this long, pretty cool dress on. It was about three-quarter length. I was totally covered, and it was beautiful. But I realized, it wasn't because I was beautiful. I believe they just saw something of what they really want as a woman. They saw femininity.

And here they were, beautiful young girls, just gorgeous. But all in their tight jeans and tight pants, and just the normal thing everybody wears, even to Christian events. I guess I was different. But they were drawn to it. You see, it was something that, “Wow, now that's beautiful!” And that's because no one else was wearing it.

They were just so used to their norm which really wasn't beautiful. They might have been beautiful faces, and gorgeous girls, and loved the Lord, but really, what they were wearing wasn't beautiful at all.

Allison: Well, I remember in high school, it seemed to be where everybody wanted to look like each other. Remember?

Nancy: Yes. To me, even jeans have become a uniform. I always hated uniforms. When I was growing up, back in my day, when we went to school, you had to wear uniforms. Well, I have never been a conformist. So therefore, I couldn't stand uniforms! Oh, goodness me!

Allison: I can imagine you not being a conformist! (laughter)

Nancy:  Uniforms! That was just the worst thing in my life And yet I notice now, that people, I don't know, they get into the groove. They just wear uniforms. Everybody has the same thing. They all just wear their tight pants, or their jeans, and their top. You know, it's the uniform!

Allison: Yeah. I was just thinking, maybe it's encouraging advice, or an idea. I still think that that as parents, this is where I'm at in life. I have eleven children, from age one all the way to 22. I'm pretty close with my girls. We go shopping a lot.

And so, one idea I have is to the mothers. Take time to be interested in what your girls wear, and what they like to do. It might just mean taking them on a shopping trip, and saying, “Come on, I'd like to go buy you a pretty dress!” And I think there is not a girl out there that would not jump at the opportunity.

Instead of always saying, “No, no, no. Go change, go change, go change.” Make it something that they're looking forward to.

And even fathers, my girls would just pass out if Daniel said, “Let's go shopping,” because he hates shopping! It's a big waste of time. He has about five different things and he re-wears them all the time.

If a mother says, “Let's go shopping. Let's go to Ross, and let's find . . .” And there's some really pretty, cute dresses at Ross. Just say, “Let's go find something.” And then, as they're picking things off the shelf that maybe is not a good idea, you could say it. “Ooh, that's too short. Let's keep trying.”

And once they find something that really is a good length, it's good on the top, don't be difficult, and say, “Oh, well, that's too expensive,” or whatever. Just buy it for her! Let her enjoy you blessing them with something that they would really feel beautiful in. That's just an idea I had.

Nancy: I think that's wonderful idea. And also today, have you noticed, Allison, that you can buy beautiful dresses now, online? There are so many companies now that are making beautiful dresses. They're three-quarters, or they're longer. And they're just absolutely beautiful! And they're very cheap. You could go, “Hey, let's look at some dresses online! Look at these, oh wow! Isn't that beautiful? Hey, wow, why don't I buy that for you?”

I have been amazed myself, how the most beautiful dresses you can buy online. Some of them are just so reasonable. So that is . . .

Allison: When I saw Serene, Serene, the last few days I've seen her, she keeps wearing these, I don't know if you've noticed, but they're elastic-waist skirts. They go down a little bit past her knee, maybe between the knee and the ankle. And they're the cutest skirts. They have two big pockets.

I said, “Where did you get your skirts?” And she said, “Oh, I bought them online. I bought one in every color.” They're a skirt my girls would totally like, and think are in style. So I went on Amazon, and I already put several in my cart. They were only, one was on sale for $10. Most of them were about $20 -$25.

Nancy: Yes! It's so cool!

Allison: But, you know, if you had two or three of those, I love wearing skirts. I love wearing dresses, but it's hard when you're nursing to always have a dress on. But I just think it's fun to, yes, and that's doing something that's building that friendship with your daughter, but yet, not allowing them. I was sharing with you at the break about when I was raising my daughter, we had somebody we knew, who I guess was a close friend, that was also raising a daughter that was the exact same age.

And now, looking at where both of our girls have ended up, the other one has really not done well. She's not made good choices with boyfriends, just her life. She really has been, it's been quite. quite sad. But I remember going back to where, just when they were little, what we would let them wear.

I have never been a fan of bikinis, two-piece bathing suits. But a lot of people think it's cute to put on little girls. “Oh, it's no big deal! It's cute!” I remember this particular friend of mine, she would always dress her daughter kind of cute in kind of seductive clothing even when they were little. So when it got to be her turn to choose what she wanted to wear, she would go out . . .

Nancy: And get what she was used to!

Allison: Oh, yeah. A sports bra, or whatever, tight shorts, and that's what she got to wear. But what I noticed is that their goal as parents was one hundred percent to be the best of friends with their daughter. That's all they wanted, was just to be super-great friends. And you know, I want that, too. I want to be my girls' go-to when they're having a problem.

But you can do both! You can be your children's best friend, and good confidants and advisors, and those that they'll come to. My daughter is now married, and we talk several times a day. She asks me everything, from little teeny, tiny questions that don't seem like it would matter to really big decisions.

But I never went down that path where I ignored truths about what she was wearing because I wanted to be her friend. So I think that's so important.

But I don't want you mothers to be discouraged, thinking, “I'm a single mom. I've got this young teenager and all she wants to do is look like her friends.” I get it. That's a tough spot to be in. Sadly, it didn't just get there overnight.

Even if you're at a point now where it seems like you're too old, I don't think it is. I think you can really think of productive, intentional things you can do to spend time with your daughters, to where they would desire to have that modest heart.

Nancy: Amen! Well, time has gone again. So I pray that you have been blessed and encouraged. We'll pray together.

“Father, we come to You in the Name of Jesus. We thank You that we can talk about these things, these everyday things. It's every day because every day we clothe ourselves.

Lord, give us wisdom, as mothers, as wives. We pray that You will help us to dress the right way, Lord, to glorify You, and to be an example to our families. Give us wisdom as we . . .  Lord, I pray for every precious mother, that You will give her wisdom as she raises her daughters, Lord, for You.

Even our sons, Lord, raising them in the right way, Lord, that they will be prepared and know, Lord, what to do in this hour, and that they would even dress appropriately. But we ask, Lord, for Your wisdom, and Your blessing. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell * www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Would you like to email Darlene and thank her so much for faithfully and freely transcribing these podcasts every week for your benefit?

KEEP IN TOUCH

ENCOURAGING EMAIL DEVOTION TO YOUR INBOX

This meaty devotion comes to you weekly (or when I get to it) to your email Inbox. Join by going to:

http://tinyurl.com/SubscribeWomensDevotional

PERIODIC NEWSLETTERS

Join to receive a Mini Above Rubies newsletter from time to time or any urgent news or sales we may have:

http://tinyurl.com/SubscribeARNewsletter

BE ENCOURAGED EACH DAY

Each day I write an encouraging post to wives and mothers which you can find on social media: Go to Above Rubies on Facebook, Gab, MeWe, Parler, Gab, USALife, Twitter, and Instagram.

 

 

THREE ABOVE RUBIES FAMILY RETREATS COMING UP SOON!

Check out the following Above Rubies Family Retreats. Try and get to the one closest to you. You will be so blessed. Great fun. Great fellowship. Great teaching. Great uplifting for you and the whole family. Tell other friends and family.

AUGUST 13 – 15 in MISSOURI

Location: LOVE AND PURITY CAMPUS

5027 Wayne 380 Lot 10, Patterson, MO 63956​

For more information check out the event web page at: www.loveandpurity.com/above-rubies

Submit housing inquiries to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. * Ph: 573 525 1900

AUGUST 20 – 22 in CALIFORNIA

Are you desperate for fellowship with like-minded families? Come and be blessed.

Location: Pine Valley Bible Conference Center, San Diego County

Contact: Gary and Trish Evans

Ph: 951 681 4858 or 951 323 6398

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Bondedtogether.org for pricing and additional info.

SEPTEMBER 3 – 6 in CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI

ENJOY LABOR DAY WEEKEND AT THIS GLORIOUS FAMILY RETREAT

Location: TIMBER CREEK CAMP 

8113 Morton-Marathon Rd, Pulaski, MS 39152 * Ph: (601) 536-9012

Contact: Les Lanford (225) 953-1970

Or Connie Lanford (225) 335-3969 * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Website: www.lanfordlegacy.com

This family camp will take place on the beautiful grounds of Timber Creek Camp.  It is located in central Mississippi and is run by a cheerful, sweet, and friendly Christian couple and their employees, (Christian campground).  It is surrounded by a beautiful pine forest.  On site, there is a beautiful lake.  There are accommodations for families in cabins, (family cabins).  There is also an opportunity for sports, fun, and fellowship:  Foosball, basketball, volleyball, Ga-Ga ball, canoeing, trails through the woods, and more.  There is a chapel for sessions on campus and a dining hall with scrumptious meals made by the Timber Creek Camp staff.

This family retreat will take place on the beautiful grounds of Timber Creek Camp. Surrounded by picturesque woods and a peaceful lake, Timber Creek Camp is a perfect place for families to be refreshed and encouraged by each other, other families, and Colin and Nancy Campbell.

Bring your children, teens, adult children, and friends to enjoy the foosball, basketball, volleyball, climbing wall, Ga-Ga ball, tunnels, canoeing, and trails through the woods. You are sure to be touched by God and other godly men and women of faith.

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 161 –  LET’S GET BACK THE GLORY, Part 3

We discover today that God's plan for clothing is to cover, not uncover. Allison Hartman from Pensacola joins me as we talk about how we can teach our daughters to dress biblically without giving into legality.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: I have a guest with me today, although she's not so much a guest, but an old friend. And Allison Hartman has shared a number of times with me on this podcast. Every time they come to stay, I say, “Allison, it's time to do another podcast!”

She and her husband Daniel and family have been staying with us for the week of Fourth of July. They come up each year for this time and we have such a great time together. And we had a marvelous Fourth of July, didn't we?

Allison: We sure did. It was wonderful. Being a Sunday, we just did a little short service and prayer service. That was amazing. Then we headed down to the river and had just a really fun time with lots of food. We loved watching the children saying the Pledge of Allegiance. It was wonderful.

Nancy: Oh yes, and then, of course, we went all day. And then barbecue and fireworks at night from our front lawn. It was a pretty big fireworks. It gets bigger every year!

Allison: Oh yes! Those young men did not spare any expense! Arden and Cedar headed it up and they had all the young boys following them, learning their ways. But thankfully no one got injured and everybody had a wonderful time.

Nancy: Yes, and they were saying to me, “It's going to be even bigger next year!”

Allison: We had a couple visitors too, that came, that had come to our family camp. It was so neat to see them. A couple of the families, the Grahams, and Will and Shavona Shaw. That was fun having them.  We were like old friends, even though we just met a couple of them at the retreat.

Nancy: Some of you may not realize that Allison and Daniel are the ones who organize our Above Rubies Family Retreat in Panama, which is down in Florida on the Gulf, right on the Gulf. So it's become a very, very popular family retreat. This last retreat in April, we had about 800 folks there. It was just the most glorious time.

But really, Allison, it hasn't really finished, has it? It just kept going.

Allison: It really did. Now, I started doing ladies' retreats for you when my girls were young. I can't quite remember, but maybe 15 years ago. And then we headed into family camps. And just like most people, when they go to a summer camp, you meet friends, you become besties, and then you get each other's phone numbers or addresses, like when I was growing up. And then you might reach out to them once or twice, but then, that's it.

And then the next summer, you'll think, “Oh, I hope I'll see my friend again.” But that’s just the way it goes. So typically, with these family camps, we will have lots of great connections, a lot of friendships built. But typically, we'll notice on the group chat, which we do during the conference. . .

Nancy: Which you do on WhatsApp, right?

Allison: Right, we use WhatsApp. But after the retreat, though, people are posting: “Here's a picture of my family.” Don't forget me kind of things. “And here's pictures from the retreat.” And then maybe a few prayer requests. “Hey, pray that we get home safely.”

But then, everybody starts leaving the group chat. You can tell, because it says, “So-and-so left. So-and-so left.” But this is so interesting that almost no one has left this group chat. And we're talking 70 to 80 families involved that came to the last retreat. It's just amazing.

In fact, just today I made a post and people said, “Man, I was just so thankful that we're still coordinating, and talking, and sharing.” In fact, someone did share that over the Fourth, two families that met at the retreat got together and spent the Fourth of July together. They live in different states, and they've just become friends. I'm hearing this over and over.

One young man who has a young little girl, he's single. He's a widower, just recently. The family had him come stay with them for a couple of weeks.

Nancy: That was lovely. That was Jether.

Allison: Jether, yes.

Nancy: I did a podcast telling you about Jether, because it wasn't this last retreat, but the retreat before, where his beautiful young wife passed away. She was dying of cancer. If you can get to listen to that podcast, it is unbelievable. But how lovely that someone reached out to Jether. *

Allison: Yes, they had him come stay, and they said they were blessed by him. But how neat, a young, single guy goes and stays with a family that has 14 children and they immediately became friends. And this was all because of this conference, that all these strangers met and left as friends. And they're continuing their friendship. It almost gives me chills thinking about it.

And I honestly think it all goes back to this deep desire for fellowship that has been created by this pandemic, plandemic, covid thing that our government, as we all know, has put this thing in place. But to me, how neat, and how wonderful that something good has come out of something so terrible. And the fact that these families are just starving for fellowship.

And many of them, the churches are still not meeting that. Many of them had not been around other people. Maybe their family doesn't want to be around them. That's very common. Even if you're not concerned about covid, all your family might be concerned, to where they don't even want to fellowship with you.

So it was amazing. We do have another conference, retreat, coming up. We have two coming up in the next year. You want me to mention them now? OK.

Typically, what we have done, we have done an annual conference. Normally that's in April. We've done that for, I don't even know, ten years or so. It's grown from 50 people to a hundred to two hundred. Like Miss Nancy says, last time it was almost 800 people, from all over, from Canada to California.

So we are going to do that annual conference again. It will be April 20th through the 27^th, 2022 That's the full week, if you want to come to be on the beach and fellowship with all the families. The conference itself will just be during the weekend. To find out more information to register, and I will say, it is almost three-fourths full now, already. Just because of the families that came last year, they've already rebooked.

But the website is AboveRubiesGulfCoast.com. You'll find out all the dates, and all the details, and how to register. However, because of covid, we had to cancel April, 2020. So instead of just canceling, we went ahead and made it in August. Because of that, this conference center we're going to, this Christian camp, has allowed us to have the August dates as well.

So instead of putting on two full conferences, we've decided to do what we're going to call the Above Rubies Family Reunion. There are so many families who can't wait to get together again. Have potlucks, have cook-outs, have fellowship time, head for the beach together. So we decided to allow that to be August 18^th through the 25^th.  Again, that information can be found at  AboveRubiesGulfCoast.com. Or you're welcome to reach me on Facebook, Allison Hartman.

But that's going to be a wonderful time for fellowship. We're going to be doing some breakout sessions that will be very spontaneous. “Hey, head down to So-and-so's if you want to learn about homesteading.” Or “Come here for this dad. He has something he wants to share on raising boys.” Or whatever.  You see the possibilities will be endless. We would love to have you come and join us.

Nancy: Yes, so good! If you're interested, you have to book now to get into both those, because that's filling up so fast.

At the moment, we are in the middle of a series called “Let's Get Back the Glory.” We're talking now about getting back the glory God wants us to have, even in what we wear. So we talked about some points last week. I'm going to go on with that today. So, Allison, you can just join me and hop in, whatever you want to say, and whatever's on your heart. It will be good to have both of us talking about this.

NO 4: GOD WANTS US TO WEAR CLOTHING THAT COVERS

So we are up to, I think it's point number five, actually, now. Or maybe point number four. Yes. God wants us to cover when we clothe ourselves. We go to Isaiah 61:10: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath covered me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels.”

Now this is talking about God covering our sins, because this is what He does. When we repent of our sins, He covers our sins with His precious blood. Then He puts on us His robe of righteousness. It's His robe, not ours, because we don't have any righteousness of our own. But God gives it to us.

So this is talking spiritually, but I believe it is also talking about clothing. In fact, God uses the allegory of clothing to describe what He does spiritually. When we get rid of our sins. I also believe that, when I read this Scripture, when I see that God has covered me and clothed me, if He has done that spiritually, I think that should work out in my life physically.

How can we be covered with the blood of Jesus, clothed with His robe of righteousness, and yet still go around scantily clad, especially in public. I don't think it adds up.

What we're going to do is look at some of these words. I have so many other Scriptures. As you know, ladies, I'm going to take you into the Scriptures little by little. Even on this subject, the subject that is, goodness me, we can find Scriptures about this! But there are so many in the Word of God.

I am just amazed. I'm always amazed at the Word of God. I'm always amazed at how practical it is, and how God gets down to the nitty-gritty of life, and how He talks about clothing, and how He wants it to be. God doesn't leave anything out of His word.

All right. So let's look at some of these Hebrew words to understand what they really mean. When it says “For God has clothed thee,” the word is labash in the Hebrew. It's a verb. It an action word. It literally means, “to put on.”

So when God clothes us, He puts on clothing. Now He uses the allegory of clothing, although this is a spiritual thing that happens inwardly, but it’s “put on” as so many of the Scriptures are even translated “put on.” This is what is means. It means “to properly wrap around, to clothe oneself.”

Now there are so many different words for “clothing.” I think there are about 23 different Hebrew words for “clothing” in the Word of God. Then there's also a number of New Testament words. God doesn't use just one word. He has so many words, even for our clothing. But this particular word, labash, is used 111 times in the Bible.

Here are just a few examples.

Genesis 41:42. Pharaoh “arrayed Joseph in vesture of fine linen.” So the word is “arrayed” there. It's amazing how the Bible will translate a Hebrew word, and they will use different English words to translate it.

In Exodus 40:14, God commanded Moses about Aaron's son, and how he was to clothe him. He said: “Clothe them with coats.”

In Job 29:14, Job is speaking, and he says: “I put on (there it is, labash, to put on. You see, God's idea of clothing is that we put it on. We don't take it off. It's to put on, to cover, to wrap around). So, “I put on righteousness, and it clothed me. My justice was as a robe and a diadem.”

Psalm 132:9: “Let thy priests be clothed” (labash) “with righteousness.”

Isaiah 59:16-17. Here this Scripture is talking about God Himself. It says: “He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore His arm brought salvation to Him; and His righteousness sustained Him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.”

Wow! That's pretty amazing, ladies, because there, two times, God Himself says the words, “I put on righteousness.” In other words, “I clothed Myself with it. I put on the garments of vengeance. I clothed Myself with it.” In fact, if we read this over again, we will find six words about clothing in this one Scripture.

OK, “For He put on,” labash.

“He put on (again) the garment,” two, that's labash.

“Garment,” third word. That's beged. 

“Clothing,” another Hebrew word. That is four.

“Clad,” He was clad with zeal, another Hebrew word, five.

And He was clad with a “cloak.” That was six. Six words about clothing in one Scripture where God is talking about covering. It's pretty amazing, isn't it?

Psalm 93:21: “The Lord reigneth, He is clothed, (labash) with majesty.” “The Lord is clothed (same Hebrew word again) with strength wherewith He hath girded Himself.”

Psalm 104:1-2: “Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, Thou are very great; Thou art clothed (Here's God. He is clothed, labash, the same word. He is clothed) with honor and glory. Who coverest Thyself with light as a garment.”

Once again, all these words about clothing. And I could go on and on. But you're getting the idea, aren't you?

But let's go back to the very beginning, because that's where we always have to start. Because in studying the Word of God, there is a law which is called The Law of the First Principle. And it's something which all Bible students look for.

When God says something, or He states something, or there is an action about something, the first time God is establishing a precedent for that subject. He will add to it, and it will be developed throughout the Word of God but that is the foundation.

It's the Law of the First Principle. God never takes away from what He says the first time. That's a good thing to remember. That's why Genesis is so important. Even the first three chapters of Genesis give us so much of what God wants us to understand because it's His foundation.

So, we go back to the story of Adam and Eve. We know how they sinned, and then, after they'd sinned for the first time, they realized they were naked. They had never really seen their nakedness before. It was so pure and innocent.

But now, now, because they'd tasted of that fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, now they understood nakedness. And they had to do something! So what were they going to do? They did the best thing they could do. They gathered some kind of leaves, or whatever they were, and they made aprons for themselves, the Bible says. And they girded them around themselves.

What does it actually say? Yes, Genesis 3:7: “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed (that's interesting. Wow! They sewed. I wonder how they were even able to do that?) But “they sewed fig leaves together (it must have been some leaf that was very big, I'm sure) and made themselves aprons.”

Now the word “apron” comes from a root word, chagor, which means “gird on every side.” So they girded their loins. That was interesting. They at least covered that. But it was not good enough. They tried to cover themselves, but it didn't really work.

When God came on the scene, what did God do? He, first of all, had to kill an animal, and blood had to be shed. Blood was shed, right there, for their sin, because sin can only be redeemed through the shedding of the precious blood of Jesus.

And through the shedding of blood, then God took those skins. Then He made them clothes. What does it say? We go to Genesis 3:21: “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them.”

Now there's that same word we've been talking about, labash. The Hebrew word, which means, “to put on, to wrap around, to clothe ourselves.” And so God was the one Who first clothed man. Well, they tried with aprons. Leaves didn't really work too well.

GOD WAS THE FIRST CLOTHES DESIGNER

But God actually, it's amazing, God is the first of everything! God was the first clothes designer!

Allison: That's right.

Nancy: Yeah! I mean, the devil’s taken that up and taken that away from God. God was the first clothes designer. And I am sure that those clothes that He made for Adam and Eve would have been glorious. They would have covered them, but they would have been stylish and beautiful.

Because you remember, ladies, last week we talked mostly about how God wants us to clothe ourselves with glory and beauty. And so that's in God's heart. He loves beauty. He loves glory. So those beautiful leather garments would have been absolutely glorious.

Have you seen pictures? I have, of  Adam and Eve being cast out of the Garden of Eden. They've got  animal skins around their backs, and they're going out from the Lord. But that's not true. God would not have given them a skin, and said, “Put that around you.” No! He made, do you notice the word? He made, He made, God, the Creator of the universe, made their clothes.

Can you imagine what they would have been like? They would have been glorious. They would have been beautiful, stylish, comfortable, to keep them warm, or to keep them cool. They would have been incredible. They would have been perfect, because all God's works are perfect.

But, we see another thing. OK, now we see that He made them “coats.” That's what it's called here in the King James. He made them “coats of skins.” That Hebrew word is kethoneth. It means, “to cover, a coat, a garment, a robe.” It comes from the root word katheph, meaning (and this is there, wow, I had never noticed this before. Whoo! The root word means, “ the shoulder, the upper end of the arm. A place from where the garment hangs. A side piece.”) That's the full meaning of that root word of the clothes that God made.

So therefore, He made them from the shoulders down. That's how He clothed them. He didn't clothe them with bare shoulders. He didn't make Eve’s dress a strapless dress. It was clothed from the shoulders down. And I guess I haven't thought of this before. Probably you never thought of this before. But you see, when we understand what the Bible says, and this is the Law of the First Principle, we need to say, OK, is my clothing lining up?

I think of wedding dresses. Help! I mean, most brides come to the altar today in a strapless dress. Bare shoulders. That's not how we're meant to come to the sacred wedding altar.

And really, I don't know how you think about this, Allison, but I go to weddings, and really, it can be so embarrassing, because the bride is in this strapless wedding dress, and then all the bridesmaids are in their strapless dresses. Some are big-busted, and it's hardly fitting on and showing all their bust. And others, their little dresses are barely hanging on. It's really quite a joke.

And it doesn't even look very nice! And it's not how it's meant to be. I believe a bride is meant to come to the wedding altar covered. Covered. And it's her husband's privilege to uncover her. Can you believe how we just, you see, we do so many things in our society that we take for granted. We think they're normal. Normal! You know, a wedding dress. Where do you find one that's not a strapless one? It's pretty hard to find today. And yet, the bride is showing off to everybody her flesh even before she gets to her husband.

And then, you know, we went out to dinner the other night. Oh, tell us about that.

Allison: Yes, we were at a restaurant. Right next to us was a wedding dress shop. And so they had their (you usually put your most popular dress that you want to entice people to come in) so they had this white, long, very elegant wedding dress. And I pointed it out, and you noticed it separately.

And what it was, and I pointed it out to my husband, because there are pictures on Facebook I can't even show him, because they're so, I don't even know. I think they're pornographic. They really show so much. This particular wedding dress was in downtown Dickson, TN.

Nancy: Little, wee, downtown Dickson! Here we are, just out in the woods. You know, it’s not like some up-fashion sort of place.

Allison: Right. And so what they did, was this wedding dress, it started the vee, if you will, where your cleavage would be, the vee cut all the way down to the belly button, I would say. It was showing everything.

I've heard that men are even more attracted to just the idea of nudity than nudity itself. Meaning just having a little glimpse of what a breast looks like is more attractive and causes lust more than a completely naked, naked . . .

This bride is wearing white, because it was a white gown, to show . . .

Nancy: Show her purity.

Allison: Show her purity. But yet, her poor husband is having to share her body with everyone who comes to the wedding. It's just, it's embarrassing.

Nancy: Well, you see, they just go from one thing to the other. For years now, you see a strapless wedding dress. But now that the fashion, and I had noticed this on Facebook, even before I saw it in the window. I sort of thought, “Oh, well, that must be just certain people.” But then now I see that that's what they're selling, where it's just about see-through, and the vee right down to at least the waist.

Where are we going? The trouble is, we know what happens in society. People take for granted, and think it's normal. But it is not normal, or in the Bible.

Allison: Think about who the dressmakers are. Who are the fashion people? Are they people that are seeking God on a daily basis? Are they people that have a moral compass? Are they people that really desire to keep young girls' purity? Absolutely not! And it's not just the wedding gown. It's these homecoming and prom.

Nancy: You know, because you've. . .

Allison: Oh, my goodness! I try to just keep my husband off the phone!

Nancy: Allison and Daniel have probably the biggest photography business in Pensacola, and they do many proms. Well, you have just about a thousand children at schools, haven't you?

Allison: Proms and homecomings, and yes, even the home-school prom they have in our town is kind of a joke in our opinion. They pray before they sing. But other than that, the clothing's the same, the short, short dresses that show everything, the low cleavage. The thing is, I've always said to my girls, we have six girls and five boys. We have six beautiful girls. So we have raised young ladies. They're 22, 19, and 17 (and two younger ones).

I've always said to them, “Whenever you get dressed, you're selling something. What are you wanting to sell? Because there's going to be something that captures a young man's attention. What type of man are you trying to draw in? Are you trying to attract the one that wants to look down at your cleavage, or are you trying to attract the one that wants see into your heart, into your eyes, into what you're all about?”

Goodness, we literally talk about the practical. Being a mom in today's culture, being a father in today's culture. With teenage girls, you send them off to go buy clothing. What is our responsibility? Do we instruct them on . . .  Because a lot of people can get into, “Oh, well, it has to be two inches below the knee, and it has to be this and that, and it can't be spaghetti straps.”

I know a lot of ladies might be thinking, “Oh, that sound so legalistic!” So all these anti-legalistics, you know what they're doing? They're throwing it out the window, and they're saying, “Oh, let's not be legalistic. Let's let our girls wear whatever they want. We want to be their friend.”

We were talking about this the other day. These mothers, I am amazed at these Christian mothers and fathers that I know personally. They love the Lord, they're trying to raise their kids. But they literally let their girls go out of the house half-naked. And these are young, beautiful, unmarried girls.

They're sending them, with a young boy, to prom, to be alone, where I can't even show my husband their picture because it is so seductive. How do they expect that sixteen-year-old young boy to not look at her breasts all night, look up her skirt all night. You're just inviting it! I think there has to be a better answer than all legalistic and all freedom. There has to be . . .

I have some ideas. I don't know if we have time. But I think you're right. It goes back to, that God has an opinion on this. We as parents . . .

Nancy: I think it's not an opinion. God has His law of the first mention. He has His heart. He has His whole plan for how He wants us to clothe ourselves. He's showing it in the very beginning. We're either going to live by society and what has society produced? Havoc.

There is so much fornication among young people, even Christian young people. It's not meant to be like that. Clothing has a lot to do with it. It's not like we we're talking about weddings. Of course, it's not just weddings. It's the whole of life. It's even coming to church, you know? And even going out in public.

I am amazed. I cannot believe. Often I have met in town, you know, in a shop, and I'll meet a friend, well, someone I know. Surely I hardly know where to look, they have so much cleavage showing. Their husband is supposedly a Christian, and I think to myself, “How does he let his wife go out, just showing herself?” If a husband truly, truly loves his wife, he's not going to want her to go out and show to the world what is so sacred and special for him.

Allison: But it's so cultural. It's so in style. It's what everyone's doing. You understand, this is what all these young girls, they just want to keep up with what everyone else wears. Here's my challenge: we need to be raising those who are willing to be set apart. WE NEED TO RAISE LEADERS, NOT FOLLOWERS! That is so important in fashion.

I think we all would agree that modesty must be a heart issue. If you force it, my dad, growing up, he had rules that he made me do. But there was no, necessarily, I didn't actually desire to please him. So when I would get on the school bus, I would change clothes so I could wear what I wanted. It has to be a heart issue.

I know with our oldest, she really, thankfully, desired to be modest. It's funny, I did a poll down here at the Hilltop the last time I was here. I had a bunch of the young boys. We were talking about modesty. I know girls, they really think they want to dress immodestly, because they think that's what boys want.

But I asked about ten young men here, unmarried, what would you really rather see a young lady? Would you rather a young lady be dressed very beautifully and modestly, where you're not seeing any part that you shouldn't. Or would you like to see the cleavage, and the short skirts, and the tight pants?

Every single one of them, except one who's just an honest young man, he said, “Oh, I like seeing it.” Every other one said, “I would definitely prefer seeing a modestly dressed young lady. It's beautiful to me. It's what attracts me.”

If there's two girls next to each other, and one is just dressed beautifully, but yet her shirts are higher, she's either wearing a skirt, or something that's not showing everything, that's what he's attracted to.

See, these fathers need to be telling their girls this. They don't need to take a back seat when it comes to dress. And a lot of men do. They think, “Oh, that's the mom's job.” And then the mom wants to be best friends with the daughter, so she doesn't give an opinion.

And honestly, they just let them wear whatever they want. And it has to be a big deal.

Nancy: That's not parenting. But I think what you, a little phrase you said, really, is the answer. Beautifully and modestly. It's not that you go around drab, looking like you come from a hundred years ago. No. You can dress in a style that goes with society that's modest. You can make anything modest, and you keep it beautiful. That's what God wants. He wants beauty and He wants covering.

Let me end this session with some little statements:

“Clothes are to cover, not uncover.”

This is another thing I wrote down:

“The further people get away from God, the less they want to wear.

The closer people get to God, the more they want to cover.”

So let's pray, and I think we'd better do another session on this.

Allison: I think that you're really getting wound up! (laughter)

Nancy:

Lord Jesus, we thank You that You love to show us the way. We thank You for Your Word, Lord, for without Your Word, we're in the dark. But Your Word shows us, Lord, how You want us to dress. Lord, we pray that You will give us open hearts and meek spirits that hear Your Word, to be willing to obey You, and, Lord, to take notice of Your Word. We are asking in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell * www.abovwerubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Would you like to email Darlene and thank her so much for faithfully and freely transcribing these podcasts every week for your benefit?

 

TO LISTEN TO THE STORY OF JETHER, THIS IS THE PODCAST:

PODCAST 117.

ACCIDENTS, DEATH, LIFE, AND THE GOODNESS AND GLORY OF GOD

My daughter, Evangeline joins me today as we talk about these things. I can’t even tell you in print. You’ll have to listen to find out. Amazing.

KEEP IN TOUCH

ENCOURAGING EMAIL DEVOTION TO YOUR INBOX

This meaty devotion comes to you weekly (or when I get to it) to your email Inbox. Join by going to:

http://tinyurl.com/SubscribeWomensDevotional

PERIODIC NEWSLETTERS

Join to receive a Mini Above Rubies newsletter from time to time or any urgent news or sales we may have:

http://tinyurl.com/SubscribeARNewsletter

BE ENCOURAGED EACH DAY

Each day I write an encouraging post to wives and mothers which you can find on social media: Go to Above Rubies on Facebook, Gab, MeWe, Parler, Gab, USALife, Twitter, and Instagram.

 

ABOVE RUBIES FAMILY RETREATS COMING UP SOON!

Check out the following Above Rubies Family Retreats. Try and get to the one closest to you. You will be so blessed. Great fun. Great fellowship. Great teaching. Great uplifting for you and the whole family. Tell other friends and family.

AUGUST 13 – 15 in MISSOURI

Location: LOVE AND PURITY CAMPUS

5027 Wayne 380 Lot 10, Patterson, MO 63956​

For more information check out the event web page at: www.loveandpurity.com/above-rubies

Submit housing inquiries to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. * Ph: 573 525 1900

SEPTEMBER 3 – 6 in CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI

ENJOY LABOR DAY WEEKEND AT THIS GLORIOUS FAMILY RETREAT

Location: TIMBER CREEK CAMP 

8113 Morton-Marathon Rd, Pulaski, MS 39152 * Ph: (601) 536-9012

Contact: Les Lanford (225) 953-1970

Or Connie Lanford (225) 335-3969 * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Website: www.lanfordlegacy.com

This family camp will take place on the beautiful grounds of Timber Creek Camp.  It is located in central Mississippi and is run by a cheerful, sweet, and friendly Christian couple and their employees, (Christian campground).  It is surrounded by a beautiful pine forest.  On site, there is a beautiful lake.  There are accommodations for families in cabins, (family cabins).  There is also an opportunity for sports, fun, and fellowship:  Foosball, basketball, volleyball, Ga-Ga ball, canoeing, trails through the woods, and more.  There is a chapel for sessions on campus and a dining hall with scrumptious meals made by the Timber Creek Camp staff.

This family retreat will take place on the beautiful grounds of Timber Creek Camp. Surrounded by picturesque woods and a peaceful lake, Timber Creek Camp is a perfect place for families to be refreshed and encouraged by each other, other families, and Colin and Nancy Campbell.

Bring your children, teens, adult children, and friends to enjoy the foosball, basketball, volleyball, climbing wall, Ga-Ga ball, tunnels, canoeing, and trails through the woods. You are sure to be touched by God and other godly men and women of faith.

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 160 –  LET’S GET BACK THE GLORY, Part 2

God is clothed in glory. He also wants us to clothe ourselves with glory. He wants us dress in a way that represents His glorious, majestic, and royal kingdom. What does this mean? How can we make this happen in our lives?

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, again! We are talking about “Let's Get Back The Glory.” I hope you were blessed last week as we talked about that beautiful revelation of God dripping down His glory, right to the hem of our garments. And we learned how that, when God has filled the tabernacle, and filled the temple, now He wants to fill us, because we are now His house, that it was just His footstool. We are His footstool.

I'd love you to just say that with me.

“I am God's footstool.

I am God's feet on this earth.

I am God's feet in my home.

I am created to reveal His glory.”

So, whatever you're doing today in your home, once again, God wants to drip that anointing down, right down to the very edge of your garment, right down to the skirt, right down to the hem. To bring His glory, to bring His healing, to bring His comfort, to bring whatever need our children have.

We can bring it to them, because that's what God wants us to do. We are mothering on His behalf. Isn't that wonderful? We're not doing it on our own. We're mothering, we're parenting on God's behalf. He gives us our children, and so we are now caring for them, teaching them, training them, parenting them for Him.

All right. So, we do this. Of course, we reveal God's glory through our lifestyle, through our attitude, through our actions, through our speech, and through our clothing. Now, ladies, we're getting on to this point that I didn't share with you way back when I did that series on “The Glory of Motherhood.” I was a little scared. I mean, I've always been radical and bringing radical things to you. I thought, “Oh my, I wonder what they will think if I start talking about clothing.”

Because it seems to be a controversial subject today. But it's something that I have looked at in the Word of God. In fact, I was reading, going through my journals again this morning. I was looking at a study that I did on all the Hebrew words and all the Greek words about clothing.

When I did this study, it was just amazing to me. I have to admit that I had to step on my own toes. God had to show me things that I had never looked at or thought about before. I have been meaning to share these with you. I looked back and thought, “Wow, I did this over three years ago!” So it's time that I did.

But it's not all going to be bad. It's going to be great! Really great, because this point is, God wants us to dress with glory. This is all part of the glory. I think this is something that we don't, well, maybe you haven't looked at these Scriptures. So I want to take you today into these beautiful, glorious Scriptures.

First of all, let's go back to the one I started off with last week, Lamentations 1:6: “And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty (all her glory) is departed.” Now I do believe that this has happened with the clothing of God's people, because number one point (and there will be many pointers. we won't get through them all today).

NO 1: GOD WANTS US TO E CLOTHED WITH GLORY

Number one point is that God wants us to be clothed with beauty and glory. God Himself clothes Himself gloriously.

Isaiah 63:1: “Who is this that is glorious in His apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.”

This is speaking of God and speaking of His glorious apparel. Yes, it talks about God's clothing! God clothes Himself and His clothing is glorious. It's the word hadar. We learned about that last time, that beautiful word hadar. Remember what it means? “Glory, magnificence, splendor, beauty, excellency, honor, majesty,” and so on.

Let me give you some other translations of Isaiah 63:1.

The Common English Bible: “This splendidly dressed One, striving with great power.” Many translations use the word “splendor.”

The Complete Jewish Bible says: “So magnificently dressed, so stately in His great strength.”

The New English Translation says: “Who is this One, wearing His royal attire?”

And the New Living translation describes Him “in royal robes.”

You see, precious ladies, we belong to a royal king. We belong to a royal kingdom. And our God is dressed, clothed, with royal, glorious, magnificent, splendid clothing.

The Young's Literal translation says: “He is honorable in His clothing.” We read in other Scriptures, Psalm 104:1-2: “O Lord my God, Thou are very great. Thou art clothed with honor.” Now that's another Hebrew word, hode, which is meaning “beauty, excellency, glorious, honor, majesty.” You notice, they all have similar meanings.

“And majesty. Who covereth Thyself with light as with a garment.” So once again, we read that He's covered with beauty and majesty. But once again, ladies, what is ascribed to God is also ascribed to us.

I read that verse from Proverbs last week. Here it is again, Proverbs 31:25: “Strength and honor (or glory, the word hadar) “are her clothing.” We also are to be clothed with glory. Now, of course, that's going to mean our hidden glory, that which emanates from us, but also what we put upon our body.

The clothing on our bodies. It's also meant to be glorious, glorious. Well, this really gets to me. I mean, as I look into the Scriptures, and we'll look at many today. Maybe a few more podcasts to get through this. I've had to keep stepping on my toes all the time, because, wow, I can't really testify that I just wear glorious, majestic, beautiful clothing all the time. Especially around home. Goodness me, I don't always look very glorious as all!

I do like to, when I go out, when I go to church, when I go to a function, I do like to dress as gloriously as I can. I'm sure it's not really to the biblical standard but I do it as much as I can. Because this is not my idea, ladies. This is the Word of God. If God, Who is the Head, and we are His body on the earth, if the Head Himself is clothed gloriously and magnificently, so shouldn't we, His body, be clothed gloriously and magnificently?

Let's read Psalm 145:10-12: “All Thy works shall praise Thee, O Lord: and Thy saints shall bless Thee. They shall speak of the glory of Thy kingdom, and talk of Thy power; To make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His kingdom.”

Ladies, are we really getting it? Do I really get it? We belong to a kingdom. Not just any kingdom. It's God's kingdom, a royal kingdom. The glorious majesty of His kingdom. And God uses two glory words to describe His kingdom. One word is not enough. “Glorious” is kabad, and “majesty” is hadar. Two Hebrew words that speak of God's glory and yet which are also ascribed to us!

And so, if we truly believe that we belong to a glorious, majestic kingdom, don't you think that it will change the clothing that we wear? Truly, don't you really think that we should seek, to even in a little way, clothe ourselves gloriously and majestically? Because we belong to this glorious, majestic kingdom.

Aren't we meant to represent His kingdom on earth? I'm sure that's what we're meant to do. I know I fall short, but I want to begin to reveal more and more that I belong to a glorious, majestic kingdom.

I believe, dear mothers, that we should be training our daughters. and our sons, who we are raising to be princes in all the earth. That's what it talks about in Psalm 45, that we are raising princes in all the earth. And we are raising daughters who are princesses who belong to a royal kingdom.

And yet, we let them go out dressing like rags. Well, not quite. I mean, they're fashionable rags. But when you think about it, now I'm going to say something here that some of you may not like. I'm not going to say it in that, “Oh, well, you can't do this.” You can do what you like.

But as I think of these Scriptures, do you really, truly, do you really think that holey jeans that are all tattered at the knees, and holes everywhere, do you think they really can be equated with God's royal, majestic, and glorious kingdom? Oh, I know they're the fashion. Yeah, they're the fashion.

But isn't it amazing, how we, even as the people of God, are so taken up with fashion. We just do, and we're all prone to doing it, we all do what society is doing. I'm not saying, “OK, you can never wear those.” Young people love them. They think they look great. But they really, actually, look horrible.

I mean, they look fashionable. But truly, are they beautiful? No, they're not beautiful. They're not majestic. They're not glorious. OK, they're good for around home, but I think if, you know, we're going out, if we're going to church, we should rise to who we are, subjects of a royal kingdom. It's worth thinking about, isn't it? You go to think about it.

OK, let's go to some other Scriptures, shall we? Exodus 28:2. Now, this Scripture is in the chapter that talks about the high priest's garments. Now the garments that God planned for the high priest to wear were absolutely glorious. They were made of glorious colors of blue and purple and scarlet. And he wore on his breastplate these beautiful jewels that were shining and sparkling. There were beautiful jewels on his shoulders. The garment was just one piece of glory.

Exodus 28:2: “And thou shalt (now this was a commandment) And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother (speaking to Moses) “for glory and for beauty.” Isn't this amazing? When God wanted clothes for His high priest, and he was just going to be there in the tabernacle, later in the temple, in the Presence of God, God wanted to behold beauty. God wanted to look upon glory.

Because as the high priest, he was representing God. And, therefore, he couldn't just wear any old thing. He had to wear clothes that represented God. God Himself was clothed with majesty and glory. So He commanded that the clothes of the high priest were also to be majestic and glorious. “For glory and for beauty.”

Now ladies, here in the New Testament, the Word of God says that we have been “made unto God kings and priests” (Revelation 1:6 and 5:10). We are now priests unto God. And therefore, He wants us too, to wear clothes that are for glory and for beauty.

So, when we're choosing our clothes, the first thing, because this is our point number one, the first thing we're going to think about, “Is this beautiful? Is it glorious? Will it represent God's kingdom, which is a kingdom of majesty and glory?” So that's number one thing to think about when you're choosing clothes. Will they glorify God? Will they match His kingdom that we represent?

Then we go to Psalm 45. Oh, this is a beautiful Psalm. Here it's talking about the king's daughter. And it says: “So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty.” Did you know that God loves beauty? Yes. He made a beautiful world. He made so many beautiful things. His creation is beautiful. And He delights in beauty.

I mean, as we have just read, He said, when you make the high priest's clothing, it's got to be for beauty and for glory. “So the king greatly desired thy beauty. . . The king's daughter is all glorious within. Her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework.”

The king's daughter. Are you a king's daughter? Yes. Yes, if Christ dwells within you, you belong to the King. You are the King's daughter. You belong to a royal kingdom.

Please, dear mothers, please impart to your daughters and your sons that they belong to a royal kingdom. Encourage your daughters to dress like daughters of the King. Amen? Yes.

Oh, and that word there, “The king's daughter is all glorious within.” She's glorious and beautiful  within and without. That word is not kabad, but the word that comes from that is kebuddah. It means “magnificence, carriage, the way you carry yourself, stately, interesting.”

Now, it's talking not only about the clothes we wear, but how we wear them. How we walk. Our carriage. We have to even teach our daughters how to carry themselves, how to walk stately, how to walk like a daughter of royalty. All these things are in the Bible, ladies.

Let's go to Ezekiel 16:14. This is a beautiful description of Israel, and how God found Israel, and what He did for her: “And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty (here we have another Hebrew word, yofee) for it was perfect through my comeliness (that’s hadar) which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord.” And so, here again, He's talking about clothing with beauty.

We'll go to 1 Chronicles 29:25. Now it's talking about King Solomon here, but we also learn something if we read this Scripture: “And the Lord magnified Solomon exceedingly in the sight of all Israel, and bestowed upon him such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him in Israel.” This is just a little tiny picture of God's royal majesty.

You see, God revealed little glimpses on earth of His heavenly majesty. And He did this through Solomon. Solomon revealed this. God bestowed upon him, but he also revealed it, this royal majesty. And he dressed in a way that revealed God's royal majesty. That word there is the Hebrew word hode, another word for “glory,” meaning “glory, grandeur, imposing form and appearance, beauty, excellency, glory, majesty.”

NO. 2: GOD WANTS US TO DRESS WITH DIGNITY

All right, number two. God wants us to not only clothe ourselves with glory and beauty, but to look dignified. Now this is all part of the same Scripture, Proverbs 31:25: “She is clothed (the virtuous woman is clothed) with strength and honor,” or strength and glory. When I looked this Scripture up in other translations, I found nineteen different translations that used the word “dignity.” And there could even be more because I didn't exhaust every translation of the Bible.

This was the one that was used mostly to describe that word hadar. “Dignity.” Dignity goes along with royalty and majesty, doesn't it? This is the thing I think we have to come up to, ladies, in our clothing, is to get away from, perhaps, that which is not really dignified.

You know, there's a lot of clothing today that's not dignified. Can you believe it? I have even seen a lady preacher preach in holey jeans. Not h-o-l-y, but you know, h-o-l-e-y, with holes. OK, maybe go around the house in them. But to preach in them? Shouldn't someone who is holding and imparting the Word of God dress with majesty and dignity? I believe we've got to raise the standards up to a royal standard. Amen? Can you get with me, ladies?

NO. 3: GOD WANTS US TO DRESS IN A HOLY WAY

All right, number three. God wants us to wear holy clothes. We're going back to another Scripture we've read, Exodus 28:2, about the high priest's clothing. And it says: “And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty.” So, we see three adjectives there—holy, glory and beauty. So, they're triplets, all going together, holy, glory, and beauty.

That's another thing we need to ask ourselves when we're choosing our clothes. Is this going to be holy? Not holey, with holes, but holy unto the Lord. Is it something that will give an impression of holiness? That's a big thing, isn't it? But it's something we do have to ask ourselves, because this is what God commanded for the clothing of the high priest.

And let's remind ourselves again. We are now His priests. You see, it all changed from the Old Testament to the New. We are now His priests. Amen? So we've got to begin to dress like priests. Well, we won't use the exact clothing the high priest used, of course, but we will seek to wear clothes that will have something about them that is holy. And of course, glory and beauty.

HOLINSS AND BEAUTY ARE TWINS

and

HOLINESS, BEAUTY, AND GLORY ARE TRIPLETS!

Psalm 110:3 talks of the beauty of holiness. Some people say, “Well, how can you have holy clothes and beauty going together?” They've got this idea of holy clothes being boring old clothes. Long dress down to your feet, all drab and bland, and just looks so boring.

No. Holiness and beauty go together! You combine them, ladies! God wants both! He wants both holiness, and He wants glory and beauty! That's who our God is. He is holy. He's clothed with majesty and glory and beauty.

And so, this is what He wants us His people to do, because we are His representatives. We are manifesting Him on this earth. I believe, on this point, that we should learn to use discretion in our clothing, because we do use different kinds of clothing for different things.

USE DISCRETION

Now, you're not going to go out to the garden in your beautiful, glorious, long, gorgeous dress that you would wear out to a function. No! Goodness me, when I go out to the garden, I put on my oldest clothes because I'm kneeling down in the dirt. Many times, it's been raining and I'm kneeling down in the mud. I come in, and my old pants are caked with mud, and my gardening shoes are caked with mud, and I'm just really dirty.

And so, we have clothes for getting down in the dirt when we're out in the garden. Maybe you're out riding horses, or if you're doing some kind of sports. When you're going to do sports, you're going to put on your shorts and go out to the volleyball court. You're going to play the sport that you love to play. OK, you're not going to wear this glorious, long, beautiful dress. You're going to wear clothing that is suitable for what you are doing.

So of course, you'll wear shorts for those kind of things. But even when we're wearing shorts, well, I don't wear shorts now. I did when I was younger. But even when we wear shorts, be careful how short they are. So many shorts today, even on lovely, God-loving Christian girls, are so short they just barely cover their bottoms! Help! And all you can see is these legs! Oooh!

I mean, I think shorts are short, but you don't have to make them skimpy. Remember, even shorts, if we're going to be out there playing sports, doing things and all this kind of stuff, well, just have them reasonable. Let's have a little bit of the fear of God about it.

But of course, you won't wear those kind of clothes to church. This is the sad thing today. I am amazed, because we have to use discretion. I've seen people come to church as though they're on their way to the beach, I've seen them come in shorts to church. I beg your pardon? I don't mind shorts for sports and doing those things. You're going to the beach. But coming to church?

In Ezekiel 42:14, it's talking there of how the high priests had to change their clothes. They could not wear what they wore amongst the people when they went in to the Holy Place to minister unto the Lord. They had to change their clothes, to wear suitable clothing if they came to minister unto the Lord.

And so we also should use discretion when we come into the house of God. We're going to change from the things we wear out on the sport field, or out on the beach, and we're going to come in something more appropriate for what we're doing. I think it's just common sense, don't you, to wear clothes that are appropriate for what you are doing.

When you come into the house of God, when you come to a prayer meeting where people are crying out to God, you're not going to come in shorts. I've seen people come in shorts and I find it really takes my mind off what I'm doing, because what I'm seeing is these legs—and this is in the holy place of prayer?

OK, it doesn't matter if you're on your own in your bedroom. You can do it there. But we're amongst the people of God. We learn to use discretion. And learn to use appropriate clothing for the situation where we're going to be. I believe it's time for people to come dressed ready to minister unto the Lord, just as God wanted His priests to change their clothes when they came into the Holy Place, to minister unto Him. We now are the priests. We're coming to church to minister unto the Lord, to worship Him, and to meet with our fellow brethren in the place of the Presence of God.

So we're not going to wear what we wear to the beach! We're going to wear appropriate clothing. And for glory, and for beauty. We're not going to come with cleavage. Oh, goodness me. You see that in church today. Unbelievable! Even bare shoulders. No, that's not for church. That's not for church. It can be a hindrance to people. It can be a hindrance to young men. Yes, it really is a hindrance. We have got to guard what we wear in the house of God. Let's use discretion, and wear appropriate clothing. 

Even just going to certain things. Recently there was a function. It was a party. It was going to be where people had to get dressed up. One of my granddaughters, I saw her getting dressed and she was just in jeans. I had to say to her, “I beg your pardon? You're going to a very special function, where you should dress up. You don't just wear jeans. Go and find a lovely dress.” And so she did.

We have to think. Today, people don't think. They think, “Oh well, you can wear jeans to church and jeans to a beautiful function.” No. There's certain clothes for certain things. Let's have discretion. Amen?

Well, lovely ladies, we've got lots more things to talk about. So, I hope you're going to tune in next week and find out what more the Word of God has to say. because there is so much more. Oh, goodness me! It's unbelievable. In fact, when I come to do a study in the Word of God, I always find so much more that I can hardly believe it. So I want to take you into it so we can know what God says.

You see, I think mostly, and sometimes these things I've been saying to you, people who do these things, oh, goodness me, I know some of these people. And they're such beautiful hearts who love the Lord! Oh, goodness me! And they just don't know because they haven't read the Scriptures.

But we do have to know the Scriptures, don't we? We have to know God's heart, what He says for us to live and belong to this beautiful, royal, majestic, glorious kingdom.

Father, we thank You that You do not leave us in the dark. We thank You that You have shown the way for how we are to live. Lord, Your Word is filled with such practical things, even how we're to dress. It's all just for us. We pray, Lord, that You will teach us, that we will be teachable, and we will learn to dress, Lord, in the way that is a beautiful testimony to Your royal, majestic, and glorious kingdom to which we belong. In the precious Name of Jesus, Amen.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell * www.abovwerubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Would you like to email Darlene and thank her so much for faithfully and freely transcribing these podcasts every week for your benefit?

KEEP IN TOUCH

ENCOURAGING EMAIL DEVOTION TO YOUR INBOX

This meaty devotion comes to you weekly (or when I get to it) to your email Inbox. Join by going to:

http://tinyurl.com/SubscribeWomensDevotional

PERIODIC NEWSLETTERS

Join to receive a Mini Above Rubies newsletter from time to time or any urgent news or sales we may have:

http://tinyurl.com/SubscribeARNewsletter

BE ENCOURAGED EACH DAY

Each day I write an encouraging post to wives and mothers which you can find on social media: Go to Above Rubies on Facebook, Gab, MeWe, Parler, Gab, USALife, Twitter, and Instagram.

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 159 –  LET’S GET BACK THE GLORY, Part 1

God is clothed with glory and honor, but the amazing revelation is that He wants to clothe us with glory too! He brings His glory right down to the nitty-gritty of our lives. He wants us to hold on to the glory He has given us. Find out how you are God's glorious “footstool” on this earth.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, lovely ladies, young people, and even children who may be listening. Today I am starting a new series, well, no, it's not really a new series. It's the ending of a series I did quite a long time back. It was called “The Glory of Womanhood,” and I did ten podcasts on that subject. Can you imagine it? If you didn't ever listen to them, you can go back. They were numbers 68 to 77.

And now we are at 159! Anyway, this session, and coming up in the next few weeks, is going to be called “Let's Get Back the Glory.” And as I said, it's really a continuation of the glory of womanhood. There was one point that I never got to talk to you about.

I've now gathered up courage to talk to you about it. But I'm not even going to start today. Before I get on to it (you'll have to keep listening each week, I think we'll be able to start it next week), I want to share a few more points about the glory. They won't be the same as I shared before, but new Scriptures. Well, not new, the Scriptures have been there forever, but bringing out more Scriptures about the glory, and the glory of womanhood, because God is all about glory. God IS glory. And He wants us to reveal something of His glory.

Now of course we cannot reveal the full glory of God. But even if we can manifest some little bit of His glory, we are doing something wonderful in this earth.

In Lamentations 1:6, it says: “And from the daughter of Zion, all her beauty is departed.” Isn't that a sad Scripture? “From the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed.” Now the word “beauty” there in the Hebrew is hadar. It is a word that means “glory.” This word, this Hebrew word, is mostly translated “glory” in the Bible.

Here it's saying that all the glory is departed from women. And that's why I am entitling this series “Let's Get Back the Glory,” because God has invested glory in His creation because we are made in His image. He has invested glory in His female creation. Our glory is different from the male glory.

HADAR

God has given each one of us a different glory which is a different aspect of His character that we are to reveal to the world. Now this beautiful word hadar means . . . In fact, I think I've shared with you quite frequently that, when we look up a Hebrew word in the Bible, we find so many more adjectives to describe this word. It means “glory, glorious, magnificent, splendor, beauty, comeliness, excellency, honor, majesty, dignity.” Wow! So many different words.

I remember having one of my Above Rubies girls. She came from Jerusalem, and her name was Avigail. We loved having Avigail with us. It was quite an amazing experience, because Abigail, although she has American parents, has lived in Jerusalem all her life, and has lived amongst the Orthodox Jews. It was quite interesting. Of course, before she came, I got this email saying. “I will be sending ahead of me my kosher foods.”

I thought, “Help, what's going to happen here?” We had this great big parcel arrive and it was frozen. It was all her frozen meat to eat while she was with us. When she arrived, she brought her special pans because she couldn't cook in our pans.

She cooked kosher. She would always do her own meat in her own pans. Avigail was very, very Orthodox, but she loved Jesus with all her heart. She was so precious. When we would have our family worship, our family devotions morning and evening, we'd come to prayer time. Avigail would start out to pray in English, but she'd never survive. She'd go into Hebrew, because that was her native language.

She'd begin to pray in Hebrew. It was so amazing. Wow! You just felt the anointing when she'd get going in Hebrew.

But often when we were reading the Word, a word would come up, and we'd say, “OK, Avigail, how do you use this word?” It was a very biblical word from the Word. “But are you using this word in your language today in Hebrew?”

And one day, the word “glory” came up, and it was the Hebrew word hadar, this word we're talking about. And I remember saying to Avigail, “Tell me, Abigail, what does this word mean in modern Hebrew today?”

And she thought for a little while. And she said, “This is what is means to us today.” She said, “It's beyond honor. It's beauty from above. Glory.” And she said, “Many Hebrew mothers, many Jewish mothers, love to call their daughters Hadar because of the beauty of its meaning, meaning that it's God's glory. It's beauty from above.” It is such a beautiful word.

We go to Proverbs 31:25, where it's used: “Strength and honor are her clothing,” and this Scripture says; “And she shall rejoice in times to come.” The word “honor” there is hadar. When we are reading the Word of God, they often use different words for the same Hebrew word. So sometimes it's translated “glory.” Sometimes it's translated “honor.” Sometimes it's translated something else.

That's why it's so great, going back to the Hebrew to know what this really is. It's “glory.” That's the picture of the Proverbs 31 woman. She is clothed with strength and glory. Now ladies, the amazing thing is, that this word hadar, and it's here talking about us, talking about the woman who's clothed with glory, it's exactly the same word that's used to describe God.

In Psalm 104:1, it says: “Thou art clothed with glory and honor (hadar).”

1 Chronicles 16:27: “Glory and honor (hadar) are in His presence; strength and gladness are in His place.”

This glory, of course, is God's glory. This word describes the glory of God. But what amazes me, dear ladies, is that the same word that is ascribed to God, is given to us. Isn't it amazing? I find that so hard to take in. But you see, God created us in His image, and He wants us to reveal just some of that glory. Not that we will ever, ever even comprehend all of His glory, but something of His glory, for every part of His nature and His character are His glory. And He wants that nature, those characteristics that are in Him, to be revealed in us.

This is how we are meant to walk on this earth, revealing the glory of God.

Psalm 8:5-6 says: “For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and honor (hadar). Thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet.” This is talking about man that God created, although it's also a Messianic prophecy of Christ, which is repeated in Hebrews 2:7-8.

That's one of the Hebrew words for “glory.” There are so many different Hebrew words. There's about ten different Hebrew words for “glory.” I'm going to tell you about some of the main ones.

KABOD

Another word is kabod. The meaning of kabod is very similar to hadar, meaning “glorious, gloriously, glory, honor, honorable.” And it also means “to have weight and heaviness.” It's to be weighty and heavy with glory.

This word is also ascribed to God to describe who God is. It's used 202 times in the Bible. It's the most common word for “glory.” But this is also ascribed to us as women!

Proverbs 11:16: “A gracious woman retains honor.” The word is kabod. Glory. This weighty, heavy glory. Isn't that amazing?

And what does it say? “A gracious woman retains her glory.” The Douay-Rheims Bible translates it, “A gracious woman shall find her glory.” But I like the word “retains.” In the Hebrew, it's tamak. It means “to keep fast, to hold up, to maintain, and don't it let it go.”

You see, lovely ladies, we have already been given glory. When God created us as females as His feminine creation, to reveal His nurturing anointing, He put this specific glory in us. And He wants us to reveal this glory to the world. And He wants us to hang onto it. He doesn't want us to let it go, like we read in Lamentations, how “the daughter of Zion has lost all her glory.”

Have we lost our glory, or are we keeping it? Are we hanging on to it? Are we living in it? This is the challenge. We're to LIVE in it.

We are living in an hour of great deception. We have such deception today, as the liberals and the (I don't know, all these -isms, these feminisms, and these humanisms, all these -isms, are bringing in this transgender, and everything that is against how God created us.

We must stand against this, dear ladies. We cannot get used to it. There are so many evil things that are coming into our society, that are becoming the norm. We must be careful as we're raising our children, that our precious children and our young people do not accept them as the norm.

We cannot allow them to accept them as normality. Because more and more around us, in the schools, and in the colleges, and in society, it's becoming normality. But it is not normality. It is against God, and we must stand against it. We must hang on to the glory that God has given to us, given to us by creation, given to us as His female creation.

We are to reveal the glory, and the beauty, and the excellency, and the majesty of the femininity and the womanliness of the nurturing anointing that He has put within us.

We will hang onto it. In the midst of deception, can you hang on to truth? Can you hang on to the glory that God has given to you? Oh, I encourage you today, dear ones, and young people who are listening. DHANG ON TO YOUR GLORY! There is so much coming against who God created us to be. In the midst of deception, we must hang onto it. We will not let it go!

Psalm 4:2 asks the question: “How long will you turn My glory into shame?” When we, as women, turn away from our femininity, from our womanliness, from our motherliness, from our nurturing anointing, we are turning the glory that God gave us into shame.

That's why it says in Titus 2, where it encourages the older women to teach the younger women to love their husbands, and love their children, and be keepers at home, that if they do not fulfill these mandates, it will blaspheme the Word of God. It will be shameful to the Word of God.

In Jeremiah 2:11, it says: “My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.” That's a testimony of so many women today. Out there in the secular world, and sometimes even in our church world, many precious women who, they love Jesus, they love God with all their hearts, their hearts have been cleansed by the Blood of Jesus, but their minds have not yet been transformed according to the Word of God.

They’re thinking like society around them. They are, without sometimes even realizing it, changing their glory into that which doesn't profit. They're wooed out of the home into a career. They're taken away from where their glory is, where God wants them to shine with their glory, and taken into that which does not profit.

They put all their lives into that. Will they take it into eternity? No. We can only take our redeemed soul into eternity. Everything else will be left behind, except the redeemed souls of our children. Oh, that's an eternal Word.

We see the opposite of kabod in that story of Phinehas, when Phinehas' wife. . .  He was one of the sons of Eli, who was the priest before Samuel came on the scene. He had two sons who were living sinful lives, even though they were supposed to be the priests of God.

At that time, the Philistines came against Israel, and so they took the Ark of God out of the Holy of Holies. They took it with them into battle, thinking, “Oh well, the Ark will protect us!” But the Ark didn't protect them because God wasn't with them. They had turned away from God and God didn't protect them. The Ark was captured.

When the news came, Phinehas' wife was in childbirth, and the shock of the Ark being captured by the Philistines, it was more than she could bear. She died in childbirth, but before she died, the son whom she'd birthed, she called Ichabod. The correct pronunciation is Eekabode, because “kabod,” meaning, “the glory of the Lord has departed from Israel.”

We are either living in the kabod, in the glory, or we are becoming Ichabod, the glory of God has departed. We're seeing the glory of God departing from womanhood in our nation. But let's be those who will stand for what God wants, for His glory, and we will maintain the glory that He has given to us because that's what God wants.

TIPHARAH

And now we're going to come to another Hebrew word, tipharah. This word is another word to describe the glory of God, and also the glory that He gives to us.

Isaiah 46:13. God calls Israel “My glory.” It means “glory, an ornament, beauty, bravery.”

Isaiah 60:7: “I will glorify, I will beautify, the house of my glory.” Tipharah. We are now His House. Once there was a House in Jerusalem. Before that, there was a Tabernacle where God dwelt. And then when Solomon built the Temple, it was a beautiful, glorious temple, covered in gold and precious jewels. God dwelt there in the Holy of Holies.

But then that was also destroyed. And now God dwells in us, if we have been born again, and we have received and invited Him to come and be Lord of our lives. He has come to dwell and live with us. We have become His House, His Temple.

Isaiah 62:3: “Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.”

Lamentations 2:1: “How hath the Lord cast down from heaven unto earth the beauty (or the tipharah) of Israel, and remembered not His footstool in the day of his anger!”

Now here's another interesting thought. The footstool. Back in the Old Testament, in the time of the Tabernacle, and then the time of the Temple, God called it His footstool. He came to dwell in the Holy of Holies on this earth, but it was really just His footstool. All of His glory was not there because, well, God's glory is so vast. I mean, how could it be contained in the Holy of Holies? It was like the footstool of His glory.

In 1 Chronicles 28:2, David said: “Hear me, my brethren and my people: I had in mine heart to build an house of rest for the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God.” David understood too, that this glory that God would bring to fill the Tabernacle, and later fill the Temple, was just the footstool of His glory.

And just as we have now become His House, we are really His footstool. Isn't that a beautiful thought? We are His footstool on this earth.

John Gills, who is a Bible commentator who lived many years ago (but I love reading his commentary), he says of this Scripture: “This is denoting that the church is the place where the Lord grants His presence through Christ, the antitype of the mercy seat and Ark; and which is the seat of His rest and residence; where He takes His walks, and where His footsteps of rich grace are seen; where His lower parts, His feet, His works, His acts of grace are beheld; where He favors with communion with Himself; where His power and glory are observed, and His beauty is upon His people.”

That's a beautiful description of the footstool of God, which was originally the Tabernacle and the Temple. But now it's us! Yes, we are His footstool. Yes.

In Isaiah 60:13, God says: “I will make the place of my feet glorious.”

Ezekiel 43:7, speaking about the glory of the Lord filling Ezekiel's temple, that's another temple that's yet to come: “And He said unto me, 'Son of man, the place of My throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever.”

We get this understanding that it's His footstool, the place of the soles of His feet. And so, lovely ladies, this is what you are. Yes, it was the glory of God. The glory filled the Tabernacle. The glory of God filled the Temple. The glory of God wants to come and fill our temples, our earthly bodies. Yes. But we are really just His footstool. We cannot contain all the glory of who God is.

But we can experience some of it. We are His footstool. We are right here on the earth, in the nitty-gritties of life. You are there in your kitchen, with your children all around you, with all that you have to do each day in your home, and caring for your children and your little ones, and all you have to accomplish. In the nitty-gritties of life, in the duties of life, this is where you are at the footstool of God.

And He comes down, down to fill you with His glory. Can I take you to Psalm 133? I love this beautiful Psalm. Only three verses, and it's the psalm of unity: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” And there's an exclamation mark there.

“It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down” (Do you notice that, ladies? “Went down, down, down, to the skirts of his garments.” This is just so amazing. It's talking about the anointing that God poured upon the high priest. He poured His anointing oil upon him.

But that oil did not just stay on his head. That oil flowed down over his face and over his garments. I often think about this, because the high priest's garments were the most glorious, beautiful garments that you could ever read about. I haven't got time to talk about them today. But they were just incredible.

And yet God got this oil pouring all over them. And they go right down, and they ran down, down, down, to the very bottom, to the skirts, to the hem of his garment!

I love the Passion translation. It says: “It's as precious as the sacred scented oil, flowing from the head of the high priest Aaron, dripping down upon the head and running all the way down to the hem of his priestly robe.”

Dear lovely ladies, oh, this is what God wants to do for you in your home. He wants to pour out His anointing oil all over you, pour out His glory all over you. And it drips down, right down to the hem of your garment. Right down to the skirts. Right down to the nitty-gritty.

Lovely ladies, when you are doing the most mundane job in your home, when you're down cleaning up a mess that's on the floor. When you're kneeling down changing diapers, when you're right down in the nitty-gritty of it all, the glorious God is there with you. He lets His glory run down to the skirts of your garment, right down to the hem.

You see, God comes down to where we are. He's right there with you, where you are now. Oh, yes. And don't little ones love to hang onto the skirts of your garment? I remember when my little ones would want to hide under my skirts. Well, not really hide if you're wearing your skirt too short, can they?

But oh, so many times, people would come, and when they're little, they're shy, and they'd hide under my skirts. And maybe when I was going somewhere, they'd be hanging onto my skirts. Even around the home, sometimes I could hardly walk because they're hanging onto my skirts! Because they just want Mummy! They always want Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!

This is the life of motherhood, our little ones hanging onto our skirts. Oh, don't despise the fact that you're down in the nitty-gritty of it all, because this is where the glory is. The glory comes right down to the hem. Amen?

Let's pray. “Oh, dear Father, we thank You with all our hearts that You are the God of glory, glory beyond what we can ever fathom, and how we'll hardly even be able to comprehend even in the eternal realm. And yet You give us something of Your glory. And You want us to reveal Your glory.

Lord God, You want us to manifest it, even in our homes, with our little ones all around us, Lord God, right down to the hem of our garments.

Oh God, we thank You, we thank You that You didn't keep the glory in heaven. Lord, You let it fall down. You've let it run down, right down to where we need it. We thank You in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Nancy Campbell * www.aboveuribes.org

I’m also on Facebook, Parler, MeWe, Gab, Twitter, Instagram, and USALife

Transcribed by Darlene Norris