Episode 24: The Awe and Wonder of Life in the Womb

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Beginning the new series of discovering the glorious and biblical description of a baby conceiving and growing in the womb. There's more to discover from Psalm 139:13-18 than you could dream.

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

Nancy Campbell: Today ladies, I'm going to start a new series. It's called “The Glorious Biblical Description of a Baby Conceiving and Growing in the Womb.” Of course, we're going to look at the passage in Psalm 139, verses 13-18.

Perhaps you are an older mother who is listening, and you think, “Oh, I don't need to listen to this. I'll skip this podcast. I'm past childbearing.”

Just a minute, dear grandmother, dear single lady, whoever is listening. You don't have to be a mother who is having a baby to listen to this podcast. I believe that every person should hear what we're going to talk about in the next, however long it takes. Every child, every young person, every young mother, every older mother.

These words we're going to look at, they were not written by a mother having a baby. Who wrote these words? Of course, they are the inspired Words of God, but they were written by David, and David was a man. He never conceived or grew a baby in his womb. Yet it's a man, writing about the awe and the wonder of the beginning of life.

Every one of us, we began in the womb. I believe that God wants us to understand more of the awe and wonder of it. So, if a man, a real man, could write about it, I think every one of us should be listening, don't you?

I mean, who was David? David was a lion and a bear-killer. He was a giant killer, a king, a mighty warrior, a war strategist, a military war hero, a city builder, a skilled musician, an inventor of instruments, an anointed worshiper, and writer of poems. He was a father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. And yes, in the midst of this incredible life as a warrior, he took time, and the inspiration of God, to write about life beginning in the womb.

Recently, I was reading over it again, and I thought, “I'm going to look up some of these Hebrew words.” It was then that I was blown away. That's why, dear ladies, I want you to come with me, and look at this passage in a way that you've never looked at it before.

First of all, I'm just going to read it from the New Living Translation. And then we're going to go back to the King James and look at each Hebrew word. We will see so much more than we've ever seen before. This is the wonderful thing about God's Word. It's a book of adjectives and extravagant words. In fact, the words in this passage are already extravagant when we read them.

Then we look them up in the Hebrew, and we get more extravagant words to explain the fullness of the meaning. You're going to find it so exciting! Oh, come with me. I am just so excited myself!

But let’s just read it first, in the New Living Translation:

“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body, and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank You for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in Your Book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are Your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, You are still with me!” (Psalm 139: 13-18 NLT).

Now, let's go and find out the depths and fullness of this picture, this revelation God gives to us.

My first point is . . .  

No. 1: God owns us. In verse 13, it says: “For Thou hast possessed my reins.”

First of all, what are “our reins”? In the Hebrew, it's the word kilyah, and physically, it's speaking of the kidneys. It's a plural word, because we have two kidneys.

But figuratively, because many words in the Bible are used figuratively, the word “reins” speaks of the mind, the heart, the very innermost recesses of our being. We read in Psalms 7:9: “The righteous God trieth the heart and the reins.” God looks and searches into the innermost depths of our being.

Ladies, and young people, and children, and older ladies listening, we see that God is involved, not only in the creating of our physical bodies, but in the creating of our inner souls and mind from the very moment of conception. He is involved in every part, from the very beginning. God is working, not only to create this physical human being, but the inner workings, the heart, and the soul, and the mind. Isn't that amazing?

If you have a little baby growing in your womb, God is already working on the very inner part of this child, too.

Now it says that God has possessed, possessed my reins. What does that mean? The word “possessed” in the Hebrew is qanah, and it means “to create, to procure by purchase, to own, to possess.” The word in most other Scriptures where that same word is used, is translated, “to purchase,” or “to buy.”

So, God begins, right at the very beginning in the womb, with ownership. From that moment of conception, God owns the baby. God owns each child. He's the Creator of the child. He owns. In Genesis 14:18, here we have Melchizedek saying: “Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor” (or owner, because that is the meaning,) of heaven and earth.”

If God owns heaven and earth, and everything in it, He also owns every single one of His creations. So, we are owned by God. Whatever age we are, we’re owned by God. We were owned from the very beginning of conception. If we are born again, and a believer in Jesus, we have been owned twice. We've been purchased twice, once at the very beginning of our lives (conception), and then, because of sin that took us away from fellowship with God, Jesus came and shed His blood to purchase us back. Such a beautiful thing!

Now, before I was married and still living in New Zealand, I used to work with Child Evangelism Fellowship. Some of you may be familiar with CEF. It's a wonderful organization that reaches out to children.

Before I was married, I would often go away on trips with Child Evangelism Fellowship. We'd reach out to the children on the beaches, and all the different places we could find children. We'd gather them, and we would tell them stories about Jesus. We'd use flashcards and different things to gain their attention.

One of the favorite stories I can remember sharing with children, and I had these flashcards to go with it, so the children could see the pictures as they listened to the story. I'd love to tell you the story. It won't take me a minute, but it's a beautiful story.

It's about this little boy. He painstakingly built a model sailboat. He spent so many days and weeks building it. When it was finally completed, he decided to test it out in the open water close to where he lived. So off he went, down to the water.

This little boy loved his boat, and he was so proud of it. First of all, he made sure the sails were set properly. And then he excitedly put the boat into the water. With great anticipation, he gently gave it a push. Off it went!

Oh, it sailed so perfectly! He was so excited. But unexpectedly, before the boy realized what was happening, the sailboat just kept going! It didn't stop. He hoped the wind would shift, but it didn't. The sailboat sailed rapidly off into the distance.

The boy waded out in the water to catch it, but it had gone too far. Gradually, the boat faded off into the distance and disappeared. It was gone. His precious boat that he had spent so much time making!

He went back to his home, crying to his mother. “What's wrong, what's wrong?” she asked. “Didn't it work?”

“Oh, it worked,” said the little boy. “But it sailed away! And now I haven't got my boat!”

Sometime later, the boy was walking downtown, and he passed a second-hand store, There, can you believe it? There, in the window, he saw the little sailboat that he had labored so hard to build. He just went up to that sailboat, and he picked it up, and he said to the store owner, as he was walking out, “Hey! This boat's mine!” Off he went, out the door, holding it in his arms.

But the owner shouted, “Hey, wait a minute now! That's my boat! I paid someone for that boat!”

The boy said, “No, no, no, it's my boat! I made it! Look, look at the little scratches. Look, look, this is where I put my initials on the bottom.”

The owner said, “I'm sorry, sonny. If you want it, you're going to have to pay for it.”

Well, this poor little boy, he didn't have any money. So he went home, and he had to start working. He had to get jobs to earn money. So he'd ask his mummy for jobs, and asked his neighbor if they had any work so they could give him some money, so he could save up for his very own sailboat.

He worked hard. He saved his pennies. Then one day, he had enough money. He went back to the store, and the little sailboat was still there. He bought back his own boat. As he left the store, holding the sailboat close to his chest, he said, “Little boat, you're my boat. You are twice my boat. First, you are my boat, because I made you. And second, you are my boat because I bought you.”

This is such a beautiful picture of us and our God. He owned us. He created us. Because He created us, He owned us, and it says it right here in this Scripture. He owns us, right in the womb. He owned us, right back there.

If you have a little baby growing in your womb, God owns your baby. Yes, it's your precious baby, but it's more God's baby. He's the One who created it. But then, of course, we turned away from God. We sinned. We cannot have fellowship with God when there is sin because He's a perfect God, But He sent His own beloved Son, Jesus, to give His life, to buy us back!

So when we receive Christ and His salvation, we are bought again. We are owned twice. First, He owned us by creation. Second, He owns us by salvation, and by giving His Son to shed His precious blood for us. There we have it. Let's go on.

No. 2: God covers us. Verse 13 continues, and it says: “Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.” The word “covered” is the Hebrew word, cakak. It means “to fence in, to overshadow, to cover over, to protect, to hedge in, to shut up,” and “to defend.” As I said, ladies, we read these beautiful words in God's Word, and when we look them up in the Hebrew, we get so many more words to describe the fullness of the meaning. How beautiful that is.

Every baby that's growing in the womb, God is covering this baby. He's overshadowing it. He's protecting it. He's watching over it.

Our daughter Psalmody, she had a little baby a few months ago. But when she was only about four months into her pregnancy, her womb, her cervix began to open. It was quite scary for a little while. She went to the hospital, and they were very concerned about it. She had to go on bedrest for a few days.

They wanted her to come back so they could keep checking her. They were hoping they would be able to just stitch up and give her a cervical cerclage. But when she went back, it was still too soft. They couldn't even do the cerclage.

So, back to bedrest. She called out for prayer. We prayed over that little baby, and prayed that God would close up her cervix, and protect, and hedge, and shut in this little baby while it grew in the womb. God was so good; He answered that prayer.

When she went back again, she was fine! It was just a miracle, and she carried her baby to full term. That was such a beautiful miracle.

Now this same word that is used here, “to cover, and to hedge in, and to overshadow the baby in the womb” is the same word that is used of the cherubims in the Holy of Holies.

You will know that in the Holy of Holies, they had the Ark of the Covenant. On the Ark of the Covenant there was the Mercy Seat. Over the Mercy Seat there were the cherubims. The Bible tells us how their faces looked down on the Mercy Seat.

Now, talking about the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle, it says here in Exodus 25:20: “And the cherubim shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; down toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be.”

They were looking downward with awe and wonder. They couldn't believe it, because in the Ark of the Covenant was the Law. Nobody could keep that Law, but over the Law was the Mercy Seat, speaking of Christ and shedding His precious Blood.

Just as the high priest had to go in once a year and sprinkle the blood over the Mercy Seat, that covered the Law that nobody could keep, it's only through Christ that we can find salvation.

Then we go on to the Scripture about the cherubim in the Temple. When Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem, in 1 Chronicles 28:18, it says again that the cherubims spread out their wings, and they covered the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord.

I always like to look up other Scriptures that use exactly the same words. So, the word we have for God covering the baby in the womb, we get other pictures.

Let's look in Exodus 33:22, 23: “And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover thee with My hand while I pass by.”

This was God speaking to Moses, because Moses wanted to see God, but oh, he couldn't see the Face of God. So, God said: “I'll just cover you with My hand, and I'll make my glory pass by you, so you can stay alive.”

Psalm 91:4: “He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust,”

Psalm 140:7: “Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle.” Isn't that good? Starts off, God covers the little precious baby in the womb. Then when we get out into life, He's still covering us, and He even covers our head in the day of battle to protect us!

But do you remember? This word, “to cover,” also means “to defend.” That's very powerful. TO DEFEND. God is not only covering the baby in the womb, He is defending it. God is the Defender of the baby in the womb.

Psalm 5 11 says the same word that's used to cover the baby in the womb, the same word . . . it says that God defends those who put their trust in Him. But dear ladies, because God is the Defender of the baby in the womb, don't you think that we should also be defenders of the baby in the womb?

This is an hour in society when babies in the womb are at terrible risk. We've had 60 million precious babies murdered since Roe vs. Wade. Oh my. Why is that? Have we not been defending? Have God's people been too silent?

What does it say in Proverbs 31:8, 9? These are the two Scriptures immediately before that Scripture we all know, “Who can find a virtuous woman?” So, her price is far above rubies. Just before that Scripture it says: “Open your mouth for the mute, for the dumb, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend, defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

Dear precious ladies, we must be defenders of babies in the womb. We defend our own babies in the womb. We stand up to defend babies in other peoples' wombs. We stand up against abortion. We are not silent. We cannot be silent! God expects us to stand up.

This is often a challenge that comes to mothers, especially older mothers as they go in for their check-ups with doctors. Precious ladies, we don't have to go through all those tests, because we wouldn't do anything about it anyway, even if there was something wrong with our baby! Because we believe in life! We defend the baby in the womb.

We must remember that God has not finished while the baby is in the womb. Sometimes an ultrasound can show up something that doesn't look right, or the baby is behind where it should be. God is before us. God is doing His thing in His time.

I remember meeting a lovely young mother just recently. An ultrasound showed up that her baby had great problems in the womb, and caused such a great fear into her, and negativity during her pregnancy. It's a problem. These tests only put fears and negativity into young mothers. Anyway, her father said the very same words that I said to her. “Look, God hasn't finished yet. Trust God. He is working. He is creating your baby. Trust Him!”

And this baby was born. The problems that they had diagnosed did not come to pass. How many precious babies are being diagnosed with this and that, and even Down's Syndrome? And when they're born, if the mother keeps them, they are born perfectly fine!

Even if they aren't born perfectly, they are still life, and they are still God's creations! We must defend the babies.

Now right when I am speaking, there is a movie that is in some of the theaters in our nation. It's called Gosnell. It's about this abortion serial killer who aborted so many babies. It's a true story. I actually haven't been to it yet. I am hoping to go after this weekend, because I have to go away and speak this weekend.

Maybe you missed this movie. Maybe it didn't even come to your theaters. In fact, it came to the AMC Theaters near us. The very first weekend it played, it rose to number ten movie in the nation! Now that's pretty good. You'd think that the theater would keep it going.

But no, they just put it to the times of twelve o'clock, three o'clock. The people who are working could not go to see it. I was wanting to go, but I could not go in the day. I had too much to do in the day. They didn't even put it on at night. Then it abruptly disappeared from all the AMC Theaters!

So, we have been calling. I am encouraging others to call too. If you have an AMC Theater near you, and it didn't come to you, or just came very quickly, you can call them at 913-213-2000, and ask them why didn't this movie continue when it was very popular?

Fortunately, we have just found another place where they are showing it in a different theater. We will have to travel to go and see it, but we're going to see it, because apparently, it's the most powerful movie that's ever been put together on this subject. It's something that the whole nation needs to see. So we'll see what happens there. But let's be defenders of mothers and babies! Especially of precious babies growing in the womb.

Well, lovely ladies, we have just started out on this glorious description. We're going to find many more wonderful discoveries as we continue. But we'll continue next week.

Let's pray.

“Father, we thank You so much, that You are our Creator. You are the Creator of the baby in the womb. Lord God, from the very beginning of conception, You give life. You hold and You overshadow the baby in the womb. You own that baby from the moment of conception. We thank You, that You are so involved, oh God.

Oh Father, help us to see that Lord, You are involved. When babies are hampered, and worse, when they are murdered in the womb, oh God, that we are sinning against You, oh God, the very Creator, the Life-Giver. Oh Father, we cry out to You for the babies in the womb, and for Your protection over them. We pray for changes of heart in mothers.

We pray, oh God, You will move in our nation, and there will come changes in the laws in abortion. We pray that more and more will become defenders of the baby in the womb. Help us to always be defenders of the baby in the womb, and that we will open our mouths for the babies that cannot open their mouths. Oh God, we ask this in the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Episode 23: You Are Queen Of Your Home

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Rocky: Welcome to the podcast FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy: It’s a joy to be with you again today. Last week, we talked about the headship of the male in the home, how God has given governing to men, but we also talked about how He has given the mandate to the women to reign. I want to talk a little bit more about that today. I would like to read you a quote.

This quote comes from Dr. J. Holland, and he says: “Home, based upon a Christian marriage, is so evidently an institution of God, that a man must become profane before he can deny it. Of this realm, woman is queen. The home takes its cue and its hue from her. If she is in the best sense womanly, if she is true and tender, loving and heroic, patient and self-devoted, she consciously, or unconsciously organizes and puts into operation a set of influences that do more to mold the destiny of the nation than any man, uncrowned by power or eloquence, can possibly effect.”

There is another beautiful quote written by Reverend T. DeWitt Talmage. He says: “Thank God, O women for the quietude of your home and that you are queen in it. Men come at eventide to the home; but all day long you are there beautifying it, sanctifying it, adorning it, blessing it. It may be a very humble home. There may be no carpet on the floor. There may be no pictures on the wall. There may be no silks in the wardrobe; but, by your faith in God, and your cheerful demeanor, you may garniture that place with more splendor than the upholsters hand ever kindled.”

I want to remind you again today, dear wife and mother, of the blessing of being a queen in your home. I want you to rise to this queenship, to this realm where God wants you to reign. There is a beautiful Scripture in the Song of Solomon. Now, you know that the Song of Solomon is a picture of Christ and His bride. It can also be read from the husband to the wife.

In Song of Songs 4:8, in the Knox translation, the bridegroom says to his bride: “Come to me, my bride. My queen you shall be.” I loved those words when I read them. The bridegroom wants his bride to be a queen. He is king and she is to be queen, and there is queenliness in every woman. I believe we innately desire it. Our husband desires it, for he is king, and he wants you to be his queen.

We see this even in our little daughters. Do you notice that when they are little, they play with their dolls, and they love to be mommies? They are practicing without realizing it. They are practicing to one day be a mommy. Then, when it’s time to play dress up, as I know your children love to do (my children always loved to dress up and my grandchildren love to dress up). I have a dress up box. That’s one of their favorite things when they come to my home. They go to the dress up box.

When the little girls go to the dress up box, what do they do? They always dress up as princesses. I don’t always have the most beautiful princess dresses in my box. I try to keep some there. I will put in old lace curtains, things like this that they can make up to pretend to be a bride or a princess. I’m amazed at their creativity. How they dress up is unbelievable. No one tells them, “Now children, it’s time to play dress up.” We never tell them that. They just want to do it anyway. We never say, “I think you should dress up like a princess.” No, we never say anything like that. That’s just what they do. They inherently do it because it’s in them to dress like a princess. They want to be a princess. There’s nothing they want more.

I remember, on some occasions, we have celebrated Purim. That’s when you tell the story of Esther. We love to do that with the children. Evangeline’s husband, Howard, likes to tell the story. He is very good at telling stories and making it exciting. Whenever Haman is mentioned, they all have to “boo.” When Mordecai is mentioned, they all have to cheer, and they love that.

Everyone comes dressed up. The guys will all get dressed up, some as Haman, some as Mordecai, some as the king, but the girls, oh, everyone that’s coming is Queen Esther, everyone, because they love to dress as a queen.

It’s interesting how the inherent things that are in us when we are little somehow seem to fade out as we get older. Why do you think that is? I think one of the reasons is the society we live in. As children go to school, as children are gradually brainwashed by society, this inherent desire leaves them. When they were little, they wanted one-hundred babies. Now that they are older, they don’t want any! When they were little, they wanted to dress like a princess. Now, they don’t look anything like a princess, hardly even feminine. I believe, if we keep to our inherent thing that’s in us, that’s really what we are meant to be doing, isn’t it?

We should continue with this queenly attitude, just as our husbands should walk in a kingly attitude. Well, some of them don’t live like that. Do you think that if we became more queenly in our homes, that that would inspire them to be more kingly? I think so. You may not live in a palace; you may live in a little humble place. That doesn’t matter. Whatever you live in, small or large, ordinary or palatial, it’s the attitude of queenliness that makes our home a palace, a castle.

One of the meanings of queen in the dictionary is “a woman who is eminent or supreme in any given domain.” That’s you, dear mother. God wants you to be supreme in your domain. He’s given you a domain. This domain is your home and your family and all the creative ideas that God is going to put in your heart to do in your home to bless your family and to bless others around you who you bring into your home. You are supreme. You reign over this realm. I want you to see that.

Sometimes when someone asks a mother, “What do you do?” “Well, I’m just a housewife.” No, lovely mother. You are a queen. You are supreme. Yes, your husband is the head, and you submit to his covering and protection of headship, but he gives you the supremacy to manage your home, to manage your home well. That’s what we are to do. It’s managing. That’s what it says in Timothy 5:14: “I will therefore that the younger woman marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.” Those words, “guide the house” mean “to manage and rule over the home, not rule over our husbands but to rule and manage the home and keep it in good ship-shape.” That’s what it means to be a queen.

You queen over your whole home. You rule over your kitchen, making sure your husband and children are daily nourished with life-giving meals. You preside over the education of your children. You manage the cleaning of your home. You direct the ideas and projects and plans that you want to do with your children in your home. You practice hospitality, and you scheme and think about who you are going to invite and what families you are going to bless, what young, single mother you can ask into your home to encourage her. You work on assignments with your children about reaching out to the poor and the needy. You’re constantly making your home a creative, interesting, glorious, sacred place to live. 

Then, you plan and plant and work in your garden. Your life is full. There is so much to reign over. Are you like me? You never have enough time to do what you want to do in your home, to make it beautiful, to make it a sacred place, to make it a sanctuary for God. You never have enough time to invite all the people you want to gather around your table, to bless them and encourage them. All the ideas you have that you want to do, you can’t fit them all in.

I don’t know how people have time to leave their homes and go out and do something else because the home is such a powerful place. Not only for you and your family but from which to impact and to influence so many people and to bless so many people. You are queen of a queendom. It’s so amazing! How do you get bored? I don’t know.

I was an English subject; well, I guess I still am because I still hold my New Zealand citizenship. We belong to the English commonwealth, but I am now a U.S. citizen and also belong to the U.S.A. We grew up always being aware of the queen, Queen Elizabeth II. In fact, when we were children, back in New Zealand, it was part of every child’s life, well, every little girl’s life, to keep a scrapbook of pictures of the queen and the princesses.

Every day, we would look at the newspapers or a women’s magazine. “Are there any new pictures of the queen? Or of the princesses or the princes?” We would cut them out and paste them into our books. It was something that every little girl did back in those days.

The queen of England has a number of castles, and when she is visiting or dwelling or residing in a specific castle, they fly the flag, so everyone in the country can know the queen is there. When they see the flag flying on that castle, they know the queen lives there at this time. Dear precious ladies, you’re queens of your castles.

Are you flying your flag? Let’s fly the flag. Let’s let everyone know that we are in our home. We delight to be in our home. We have such vision for our home and for our children and for our family and for building this dynasty. We are here. We are doing something powerful in the nation. There is nothing more powerful, I believe, that can affect a nation more powerfully, than to build a godly, strong marriage and to build a godly, strong home and to build and train godly strong people, who will eventually go out into the nation. Let’s fly our flag, fly the banner of motherhood. The banner that says “I love motherhood. I love being in my home. I’m queen in my castle.”

Lovely lady, are you queen in your castle today? Perhaps today you were feeling rather miserable. Perhaps you were groveling. No, come on, that’s just the enemy putting those thoughts into your mind. Rise up to who God wants you to be. Remember these words of Song of Solomon, when the bridegroom says to his bride, and that’s talking to you, “Come to me, my bride, my queen you shall be.”

One day, there is going to be a great wedding feast and Christ is going to be there as the bridegroom to welcome His bride, the one Who He died for and shed His blood. The whole of the Bible is the theme of marriage and of how God Himself wants a bride. There’s going to be a day when we have this great wedding feast, and we will be His bride, His queen.

Let’s get practicing now and begin to act like a queen. Often, we don’t feel like it, but it’s not how we feel. It’s embracing the truth and walking in it. Lovely ladies, why not start walking like a queen? Think about it . . .  walk like a queen. When you go out with your little ones, you go out into the street and into the supermarket, don’t just look so haggard and bent over and “poor me with these little children.” No, put your head up, put a smile on your face. Walk with dignity, walk like a queen, for you have come from your castle, where you rule over a domain, and you are a queen.

Speak like a queen. Dress like a queen. When you dress like a queen, you will act more like a queen. In fact, when you get up in the morning, how do you dress? Do you just put on your dressing gown? I don’t know what you call it here in America. We call it a dressing gown in New Zealand . . .  or your housecoat. I don’t know, whatever you put on. It’s not getting dressed. It’s something that’s between bed and work. No, you are getting up to be queen of a domain: dress accordingly. When you get dressed, you know you are ready for the job.

You’re not going to do everything. When you have little children, you are going to be doing everything for them, and you don’t have any helper, but lovely moms with little ones, these little ones are going to grow; they are going to get bigger. You can begin to train them. As you train, you will begin to reign more and more.

Now let me read you a little testimony. This was part of a testimony that I printed in Above Rubies many years ago. It’s written by Candy Zacky who is a wonderful mother of many children, and then she adopted many children. She ended up with a very large family. She writes here:

“Are these all your girls?’ asked a young mother, recently at a baby shower. Her eyes were bulging out as she watched me interact with four of my daughters.

“Oh no,” I replied smiling. ‘These are only half of my girls.” I let the news sink in. Now her eyes were not only bulging, her jaw dropped open. She was struggling with her squirmy two-year-old and had that frazzled young mother look about her.

“You have eight daughters?” she asked in amazement.

“Yes, and three boys,” I added.” (By the way, she has had more since, and she adopted about six or seven or eight children as well).

“The next question was the one that always follows this conversation, the one that I love to answer: “How do you do it all?” This dear mother in under the misconception that I am doing for each of mine what she is doing with her two under four. I smile and tell her that, believe it or not, it was much harder for me when I had only two or three. I remember the days when our third (we jokingly call her our last child). I had three under three and a half and that was hard.

(By the way ladies, one time I had three under seventeen months because I had cheated, and I had twins for our second pregnancy. But three in seventeen months. Wow, that was rather overwhelming. Then I had four under four. My, those were hard days but wonderful days. Do I regret them? No! I would bring them back tomorrow if I could).

Anyway, let’s get back to Candy. She says: “I remember putting on my sneakers in the morning and not resting my feet until I crashed into bed at night, never sleeping the night through. I remember lining three up on the floor to diaper them all before bed, in cloth diapers I washed myself of course. Those were exhausting, wonder-filled, precious days. Wonderful days I don’t think I’d have the energy to repeat.

“But thanks to God I do not have to do it myself anymore. Now, I am a royal queen in my household. I don’t wash dishes or do laundry. I don’t clean the kitchen or scrub toilets. I don’t vacuum the carpets or sweep or wash floors. I don’t even make meals and rarely ever shop for groceries or anything else. I now live the life of a queen. Why should I do all these things when I have all these ladies and gentlemen in waiting who need practice and training to run a castle, for my home is a castle. Where else would you raise children of the King of kings but in a castle? I have princes and princesses around here. One is lord of lunches; one is chief dishwasher. One is head maid of the bathrooms and so on.”

Then she goes onto say” “Mothers if you train, you will reign.”

That’s a very true statement. Do you want to take that one? If you train, you will reign. Young mother, if you have little ones around you, and this is your season, your season where you are doing everything for these little ones, don’t despair. The season will change. The seasons of motherhood change. This is when many mothers think, “Oh, I can’t do this.” They stop having children. They don’t understand. They haven’t got to the next season yet. They haven’t even got to the reward time. They haven’t yet got to be queen. That is coming . . .  but be faithful to train.

Start training your little ones. As the next baby comes along, you’ve got helpers and then, when the next baby comes, you’ve got bigger helpers. Then, it gets to those days when you have teen children. You have girls who are eighteen or nineteen, and they know how to run a home; they know how to run everything. A new baby comes and you sit in your rocking chair like a queen because everything runs smoothly all around you. There are the different seasons in motherhood.

Precious, lovely ladies, as we finish these few thoughts about queenship, I want to encourage you. Proverbs 12:4 says: “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.” A crown is a symbol of royalty. Embrace it. Become more like a queen, and your husband will become more like a king.

QUESTION TIME

Another question, ladies. “What do you say to people when they say, ‘I’m done.’”

Of course, you know what they’re meaning, don’t you? That means they are not having any more children. I’ve often had people say this to me. When you ask them, “Are you planning to have another baby?” “Oh no, I am done.” I wonder where that statement come from? I think it is something that we do need to look at. I have a few thoughts about it. You may have thoughts too.

No. 1. It doesn’t come from God’s heart.

That’s not His plan and not His heart. As we read the Word, we find all the way through that God’s heart is for children. His very first words He ever said into the ears of the very first man and woman were: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” That was His plan from the very beginning. He didn’t say it once. He repeated it again after the flood. He came to Noah. He said the words, twice this time, not just once like He did the first time. Two times we read in Genesis 9, and then it is continued throughout the Scriptures.

I love that Scripture in Deuteronomy 7 12-13. God is speaking to His people, and He says: “God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy.” That is a beautiful word. Chesed in the Hebrew. It’s a word which means “lovingkindness, and it’s a picture of God’s kindness and love towards His people. In the Old Testament, it was towards His people, Israel and how He would always be true to them. In fact, because they sinned against him and their sin become so vile, He eventually had to spew them out of the land, out of the promised land that He had given them.

This word, chesed. Because of His love, because of His commitment to them, because of His lovingkindness to them, and because of His covenant (we’ve just read the words “covenant, to give the covenant and the mercy,” even though He had to do this, but there will come a time when I will bring you back. We are incredibly living in these days and have been since 1948, even before that, when God established the nation of Israel again. The people of Israel, of Judah, the Jews, have been coming back to the land from the four corners of the earth.

If you’re talking to somebody, and they say they are an atheist and don’t believe the Bible, they are being ridiculous. It’s totally ridiculous to not believe the Bible when we have it unfolding before our very eyes. I mean, here we have Jews coming back from all the nations of the world, coming back into Israel, speaking all their different languages, over 80 different languages. They have to go to an ulpan and learn Hebrew, so they can all speak the same language. Because God is fulfilling His promise. Not one promise but hundreds of promises.

He said, “I’ll bring you back.” I wonder, have you ever read the story of Eliezer Ben Yehuda? He was the man who God raised up to restore the Hebrew language. The Hebrew language was lost. It wasn’t a spoken language. It was still there but not spoken. There were literally thousands and thousands of words that were no longer in Hebrew. God raised up this man, before Israel ever became a nation, to restore this language. It was a massive task. He gave his life to it. He was persecuted for it. He suffered for it, but he was faithful to it, and he did it. When God caused this nation to be born again in 1948 and the people began to come back sovereignly, according to the promises of the Word of God, there was the language. The language was waiting for them to speak. God is amazing. You can read about this in the book, Tongue of the Prophets: The Fascinating Biography of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Father of Modern Hebrew by Robert St. John.

How did we get onto that? Oh yes, God keeps his covenant, and it is His lovingkindness toward His people. It says here: “I will keep the covenant and the mercy that I swore to your fathers, and I will love you and I will bless you.” How is He going to do that? How does He show His mercy? How does He show us His love? How does He bless us? His next words are: “And I will multiply you, and I will bless the fruit of your womb.” Those words seem foreign to us in our society, but these are the words of God. This is His heartbeat. This is how He wants to bless us, how He wants to show us His love and mercy, by blessing the fruit of our womb. “I’m done” doesn’t come from God’s heart.

No. 2: It doesn’t come from God’s eternal Word.

His word, which was settled in Heaven forever. The Bible says: “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times” (Psalm 12:6). From the beginning, from Genesis 1:28 right through the Bible, we see God speaking of the blessing of the fruit of the womb, the blessing of fruitfulness. “I’m done” doesn’t come from the Bible.

No. 3: It doesn’t come from our innate femaleness.

We kind of got to be real here, don’t we? We have to look at ourselves and say, “Who am I? Look at me, I have a womb where a baby can be conceived and grow and come fourth into life.” Not only for this world but for eternity. “I have breasts to nurture and nourish and sustain a life. These members of my body are not just appendages, popped on my body to make it interesting. No, they are part of who I am. They are me. They are femaleness because this is how God created me, a female.”

When ladies say, “I’m done,” they are really speaking against who God created them. They are speaking against their body. Come on now, we get used, in our society, to all this deception that we think deception is truth. We think it’s normal. It’s totally abnormal! We are growing up in a society where woman think that to have another baby is detrimental to them. No, it is a positive because this is what our bodies were created to do.

Genesis 49:5 speaks of the blessings, blessings plural, of the breasts and of the womb. The “blessings” is plural, and the word is “blessings.” The womb and the breasts that God gave to the females are our blessings and for the blessings of the world. In fact, when a mother is pregnant and when she is nursing and using her womb and her breasts, she has hormones operating in her body which are such a blessing to her.

One of the hormones that is elevated a thousand times when you’re pregnant is estriol. It’s one of the estrogen hormones, and it’s, as I said, elevated a thousand times when you’re pregnant. Did you know, estriol is one of the anti-aging hormones? They put it in anti-aging creams for your face. You don’t have to buy expensive creams, just have another baby.

When you’re pregnant and you’re nursing, you have prolactin and oxytocin. These hormones are stress-free hormones. They are calming hormones, love hormones, bliss hormones. These hormones bring blessing to our lives that, when we aren’t pregnant and aren’t nursing, we aren’t even enjoying. 1 Timothy 2:15 says that we will be PRESERVED. Our bodies will be preserved and delivered through childbearing.

No. 4: It doesn’t come from the true essence of Christianity.

Let’s get back to the root. What does Jesus say in Mark 8:34-35? Jesus said: “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life, will lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life, for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall find it.”

Here is a basic principle of Christian living. We are to deny ourselves. When we say, “I’m done,” usually, we are trying to look after ourselves. We are not prepared to maybe have another baby. “I’ll have to have some sleepless nights, I’ll have to work, oh poor me.” We are not even prepared for a little bit of denial of ourselves for the sake of life.

What does Jesus say? When we seek to save our lives, we actually lose them. When we are prepared to lose them for the Gospel’s sake, for the blessing of the world, for bringing in children who bring God’s love and salvation to the world, we find them. This is God’s principle.

2 Corinthians 5:15 says: “And Jesus died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.” That Scripture is such a challenge to me. Is it a challenge to you?  We are not meant to, any longer, live for ourselves. When Christ Jesus comes into our lives, no longer do we live unto ourselves but unto Him. We are living a life, not just to please ourselves but to please God, to do His will.

Well, if “I’m done” doesn’t come from these, where does it come from? I have four more thoughts. Let’s start at the bottom, the most negative one.

No. 1: Does it come from rebellion?

Now, I know that wouldn’t relate to any of you that are listening today, but in our society, there are many young women today who have rebelled against their femininity, against who they are as a women. They don’t want anything to do with it. They want to abort their babies, and they demand abortion, right up until, as in many states in our nation, the day before birth. This is what they demand. They have rebelled against, not only their own bodies, but against God. 

No. 2: Does it come from selfishness?

Often, we say “I’m done” because we are too selfish. We want to live our own life and do our own thing, but life is so much more than that. It’s when you lay down your life; it’s when you die to yourself that you find life. Jesus said that a seed has to go into the ground and die before it can bring forth life (John 12:24). There’s so much in life that we have to die to ourselves if we are going to bring forth life.

No. 3: Aare we listening to our own wisdom?

Often, our own wisdom looks really good. Our own wisdom always looks good, feels good, sounds good, so we listen to it. Often, it is opposite to God. In Psalm 147:5 it says: “His understanding is infinite.” But my understanding is finite. I don’t always think straight. I’ve got to get into the Word. I’ve got to find out what God says, or I’m not thinking straight at all. Let’s not rely on our own wisdom. Let’s go to the Word.

No. 4: Is it deception or ignorance?

Many mothers are deceived by our society, by their education that they have received, from the media, by all the atmosphere of our humanistic world around us. They are deceived. They are ignorant of God’s perfect will for them, of His plan, of His blessing. Precious ladies, my answer to that question, “I’m done,” well, I’m so sorry, but it has nothing to do with God. It has all to do with self and ignorance and deception.

I know because I was there once. I was deceived; yes, I was deceived. God had to come into my brain and waken me. It was like a whole new revelation I had never thought of or understood before. At first, I couldn’t receive it, but I wanted God’s will. As I sought God, as I searched His Word, I had to see my thinking had been opposite to God. I had to get in line with His thinking. I had to walk according to His will. I began to come into the full revelation of God that’s in His Word.

Ladies, let’s never let those crazy words come from our mouths. When you hear people saying those words, well, you won’t be able to give them a great big lecture like I’ve given you today, not that I’ve given you a lecture. I’m just sharing these answers, but you can maybe take one thing from this. Ask them, don’t just say, well, well, well, ask them, “What do you think about this?” Take just one of these thoughts that I’ve shared with you today.

Let’s pray.

“Father, we thank You so much for Your wonderful Word, Lord. This is our roots; this is our rock. We can go nowhere else except to Your Word. Help us to be woman who only go to Your Word. We don’t go elsewhere. We don’t go to our own wisdom; we only go to Your Word. Help us to be faithful to embrace Your Word and to walk in it and to be living testimonies of it. Father. I pray for your blessing on every mother and wife listening today, every daughter, every child, in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

Episode 22: Men Govern, Women Reign

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

God established men to govern. But are women subservient? No. Women REIGN! God wants us to be queens, ruling and managing our household domain.

I also answer the question: “How do I as a young mom, learn to find my identity in Christ and not in motherhood?” What the answer?

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

Nancy Campbell:  Hello ladies. I come to you again, on this beautiful day today, in Tennessee. It's a lovely fall day. Hope it's lovely where you are.

We are going to continue today the last two points of the subject I was talking about last week. That was about how God, in His divine wisdom, had planned for the man to be the head of the home.

As we talked last week, we know that there are many people who don't like this subject, but we do have to teach God's Word. And God's Word is for our blessing, for the blessing of all mankind. If you didn't hear last week's podcast, go back and listen to it, so you'll get the buildup for today.

No. 7: Marriage is a picture of Christ and the church.

This picture is revealed from the beginning of the Bible to the end. In fact, the whole theme of the Bible is of the Bride and the Bridegroom.

It starts with marriage, right in Genesis, chapter two, which is a picture of Christ and His Bride. It ends in Revelation, with the wedding feast of the Bridegroom and the Bride, and how Christ will have His Bride that He died for. It's all about a bride. Oh, that's why God sent His Son, Jesus.

So now, marriage. Oh, I don't think that any of us, not one of us, really has a true understanding of how God sees marriage. If only we could. We would be so different in our marriages, because God wants us to portray a picture of the relationship of the church to God, and to Christ Himself.

We know that the church does not order God around. I mean, we submit. As a church, the church submits to Christ because He is the Head of the church. We all know that. The Bible says it.

If marriage is a picture of Christ and the church, we will also have that spirit of submission to our husbands. So once again, God gives this picture to show that He has given the headship to men.

Can I remind you again, we're not talking about the picture where so many people think of tyrannical patriarchy? No, that's not of God. That's a distortion of Satan. God's picture of leadership is revealed in Christ, who was willing to lay down His life, give His life, even shed His blood to get a bride.

In Ephesians five, it says this is what the husband is to do. He's to love his wife like his own body, and lay down his life for her, because he's the head and the protector of her. That's the picture we're talking about.

So, we need, as the wife, to release our husbands to that place that God has given them. It's not easy, because when sin came into the world, there came that distortion of our roles. There's something within women who want to take authority and take the lead. But that's not from God.

There's something in men, that often they just abdicate, and they become a wimp. They don't take that lead, which they need to. We need to get back to God's plan.

Now I have lovely girls living with us, who come to work with me and help me with Above Rubies. They stay in our home, and they stay for about two months, although some stay on even longer. Some stay even longer still, because they've ended up getting married to some of our grandsons, which can be so beautiful.

These girls who come, they are just lovely girls, the cream of the earth. Colin and I always call our Above Rubies girls” the cream of the earth,” because cream rises to the top. Often, when we're sitting around the table, we of course, love to talk and discuss different subjects.

Sometimes, when I've had my granddaughters over, and we've got a lot of ladies around the table, I'll ask this question. I'll say, “Girls, what kind of character do you want in the husband that you would like to have?” They love to talk about this, of course, and they've all got their ideas. They go around the table and share about it.

I've always found it interesting that there's one thing that every one of them says. They all say, “I don't want a wimp!” Isn't that interesting? As a woman, we do want to have a husband we look up to. He is our leader. We can go to him for counsel. We can trust him. He leads us. We need a leader. He's our anointed leader, and we are his anointed helper. Both roles are powerful. Both are from God. Neither is insignificant.

So, we do want to have a man who is a leader. That is within us. Of course, feminism has tried to drive that out of us. The young generation has grown up, “I'm not going to have a man rule over me.” That is the psyche today, because it has been brainwashed into girls in school, and in college. They're coming out with this terrible understanding of man. And it's all from Satan.

Satan is distorting the images, the image that God gave for woman, the image that God gave for man. Satan wants to distort them, even as he seeks to distort the home, because it's such a powerful role. Satan, our enemy, knows the power of motherhood. He knows that women who get a revelation, an understanding of who they are, and that God created them to be mothers who come back to the home to embrace children and raise mighty sons and daughters for God—Satan is scared of those women! These are women who are impacting the nation. These are women who are raising children who will have impact and influence the nation for God. The more children they have, the more influence they have for God.

He's scared of these kinds of women. He is scared of motherhood. He wants to get the children out of the home. He wants mothers out of the home so he can get his hands on the children. But let's be up to his tricks. It's Satan who's trying to distort these glorious roles that God has given.

Now the last point that I have is . . .

No. 8: God gave the government to the men in the church.

We notice where it talks about bishops and elders, it gives the description of who they can be, the ones who are leading the church, how they're to be the husband of one wife. It doesn't say, “Oh wow, you are to be the wife of one husband.”

“No, you are to be the husband of one wife.” It shows clearly that it's speaking to men, and how you raise your children well. It's speaking to men. God has given government to men.

Now that doesn't mean that women cannot get up and have opportunities to share in the church, share testimonies and prophesy, because the Word does say that a woman can prophesy in the church if she covers her head. So obviously women can prophesy, and thus speak the Word of the Lord, and share testimonies. They can pray. They can do all these things.

But the government, the governing of the church, God has given to man. Of course, that is in the family first, because the family comes first. The family was the first institution that God ordained. He ordained this principle in the family, that the leader would govern. He doesn't lord it over, but he's governing.

I think, that doesn't mean too, that he's going to make all the decisions. No, in a beautiful marriage, the husband and wife talk together, discuss together, decide together, and usually they can work it out together. They find the right decision that's going to be the best for all of them.

But sometimes it doesn't work out. And maybe the husband feels that this is the way God is directing them. Or maybe he's not even a Christian, and he's thinking, “Right, we're going to move to so-and-so,” or whatever. And you don't feel right.

Well of course, you're going to share, not getting uptight, la-da-da-da-da, but you're going to just share your heart, and ask him the questions that you're concerned about. If that doesn't change his mind, well then, there always has to be one who makes that final decision. That government God has given to the male.

But once again, dear ladies, oh, listen to this! I was actually reading another little quote. Oh, I love it! Let me see if I can find it here. Yes, the one who wrote it is Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Before I give you this quote, can I read you another of his quotes?

He says: "To a great extent the level of any civilization is the level of its womanhood. When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, and goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its women."

But in another quote, he says: “The man governs the home, but the woman reigns.” Oh, I love that. That is so true. Dear precious mother, you reign in your home. Did you know that you are queen of your home?

Let me take you to a Scripture in 1 Timothy 5:14. It says: “I will, therefore, that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give no occasion to the adversary, to the enemy, to speak reproachfully.” So here, we read God's heart, and His plan is for women to get married, and then, when they get married, to bear children. Isn't that interesting?

Well, you'd think you wouldn't even have to say that, but you do in our society today, because women get married and decide not to have children. Did you know that that is opposite to the Word of God? Opposite to His plan? It's what marriage is all about. God brings us together. Of course, it's far more than this, but this is the basic. He makes us one flesh, and from our one flesh comes forth children.

We get married, we bear children, and then what happens next? We guide the house. Children come along, one by one, sometimes two at a time. So, we grow the family, and now, OK, we've got lots of work to do!

I wonder how many children you have? Have you got lots of little ones running around? Maybe a two-year-old, and a four-year-old, and a six-year-old. Maybe you've got a baby in your arms. Maybe your children are now middling age, or even grown. But wherever we are, we have to guide the house.

Now, what is that word? I want to take you to the Greek, so we understand what it's talking about. The word in the Greek is oikodespoteo.  It comes from two words: oikos, “home,” so it's talking about the home. The other word, oh my, this other word is despotes. This word means “ruler, master.” It's actually the feminine of oikodespotes. The verb is oikodespoteo, and the noun is oikodespotes, meaning, “to rule, to manage.”

God is saying here, dear precious ladies, get it, that you have been made a ruler and a manager. Oh, you like that, don't you? But we've got to get it in its context, because the word is not only despotos, the word is oikodespotes, coming from home, oikos, home.

So, we are to manage the home. Do you get it? There's the revelation. It's simple. God has given us a realm where we are to reign, reign as queens. Your husband is the king, but you are the queen! And a queen rules a domain. God has given you a domain to manage, to manage well.

This is where women have got into deception. You see, let's go back to the beginning again. We see there that the very first words that God said to man were: “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.” He didn't stop there. He went on to say: “and subdue and take dominion.” He spoke those words to both to male and the female.

Therefore, it is within us, it's in us, to also want to take dominion. Yes. So, God has given us a realm where we can take dominion. That is our home. Oh, lovely ladies, embrace your home. Rise up to be queen of your home and manage your home well.

If you've got lots of little children, you've got a lot to manage. Even as you have bigger children, maybe your family is growing. There's lots to manage. You have a garden. You have things going on in your home. Maybe you're one who is open to hospitality.

There's lots going on in your home. You manage it, you rule it. It's your beautiful domain, and you are queen! So, remember, even though your husband governs, you reign. Oh, never forget that!

When you wake up in the morning, don't stay slovenly around the house in your night attire. No! Get dressed! Get dressed for the job. You can't do your job if you're not dressed for the job. It's true. When you get dressed for something, whatever occasion it is, you can kind of gear for that occasion.

All right, we're getting dressed to get up, and rule and manage our home for the day. So, you get up, and dress for the job. You start out, “Oh thank You, Lord, for this domain that You have given to me. Lord, thank You for this responsibility. Help me to do it well. I am queen in my home today. I reign. Help me to be a good queen in my home today.”

So, we embrace our queenship. The more you are queen, the more you release your husband to be a king. Then you have this royal household, king and queen. And you're raising these beautiful princes and princesses.

Now I've got lots more to say about this, so we might have to do it next week. But I want to stop for a minute, because I need to be faithful to answer some of your questions.

Announcer: Now it's time for Q and A. Nancy Campbell will answer your questions.

NC: OK, ladies, here is another question. I should say, forgive me, that I haven't kept up with answering your questions. I always seem to have so much I want to tell you. In fact, next week, I've got to finish off a little more about our being queen in our home. Maybe I'll do another question.

If I don't get around to it next week, we'll start the following, because I want to start a new series. It's going to be exciting. I want to share about a subject from a Scripture that I have read so many times, that, oh, I have never ever before seen such glory and teaching. I want to tell you all about it. So, keep listening each week, won't you?

Now this lovely lady says: “My husband and I have four children, 6, 3, 16 months, and three months.” This precious mother, I hope you're listening today, you have your hands full! But your hands are full of blessings.

That's a good answer, too, ladies. When you go out and about, and you have your little ones with you, and people say, “Oh, my! Oh goodness me! Are all these yours?! Your hands are full!” Well, don't feel intimidated. Look up with the most wonderful smile on your face, and say, “Yes, my hands are full of blessings! We are so blessed! We're even hoping for more!” Let's tell the world, Amen?

Anyway, this mother goes on, “After our youngest son was born, my husband said he was ready to move onto the next stage of life and stop having babies.” That's sad, we'll see if we can talk about that sometime.

But then she goes on to say, “I know that logically speaking, four children is a lot of work, and I still have a large task in front of me. But being pregnant and having babies has been such a large part of my life. I'm realizing that so much of my identity is in motherhood. So how do I, as a young mum, fully devoted to my home and to raising and schooling my children, learn to find my identity in the Lord, and not in motherhood?”

Now that is an interesting question. I would like to say, at the very beginning, dear precious ladies, yes, our identity is in Christ. Because the Scripture says: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Oh, I love that Scripture. This is the true essence of Christianity. It is not only that I have asked Jesus to forgive me of my sin, and asked Him to come into my life, be Lord of my life. But the true essence of Christianity is that Jesus not only died, He rose again. He is alive, and He comes to dwell in our beings. It is Christ in you, in you, in YOU! We are one with Christ. Wherever I go, Christ goes. In my home, in my kitchen, with my little ones, all my children around me, and them all screaming at once. Oh, help!

Christ is in me. This is what enables us to walk in victory instead of yielding to our flesh, and yielding to our feelings, and yielding to our overwhelmingness. So, we yield to Christ. He is with me. Thank you, Lord Jesus! You are my Strength, You are my Rest, You are my Peace, You are my Longsuffering, You are my Patience.

We have everything in Christ! Oh, just go and live your life, knowing Christ dwells within you! This is your victory. But dear precious ladies, our identity in Christ does not negate our identity as a mother. Now, did you get that? Our identity in Christ, which of course, is the fruit of our Christianity, does not negate our identity as a mother, because, that's who I am. God created me to be a mother.

So, when He comes into dwell in me, and it's Christ in me, am I no longer a mother? No, that is not true. Dear ladies, no, you are still a mother! Your identity is as a mother, a mother who has Christ in her! Yes, as a mother! Just think about it.

A little baby . . . its identity is that it's a baby. Yes, a baby, hopefully with fat chubby cheeks, and roly-poly thighs and arms. Oh, don't we love rolls of fat on babies! Isn't it amazing? It's the only time that we can drool over fat. I love it! You just drool over fat and rolls, because they're a baby. We just want our babies to be a baby. And that's its identity.

We think of a male, our husband, the father of our children. What is his identity? It's as a male. He should be showing forth the identity of a male. If he's married, the identity of a father and a husband.

We've been talking about the role God has given to man, to rise up as a serving, loving leader of his home, taking that responsibility to protect, and to lead, and to provide. He has this identity, this is the identity he should have as a male. A godly, loving husband, a godly, loving father, taking his responsibility in these areas.

That is not negated because Christ is in him. No, in fact, it's just enhanced. His identity as a father becomes greater if Christ is in him.

It's the same with us, dear precious mothers. Never forget it. You do not negate your identity as a mother. I've had many people say this to me, and it is total deception. No, you don't suddenly become nothing! You don't suddenly become somebody else! No, you're still a mother!

God created you as a mother, with a womb to conceive and bring forth children. He created you with breasts to nurture babies. He put that nurturing instinct within you, to care for your children, and gather them round you, and love them, and nurture them.

He's put within you this homing instinct, to make your home a home. A beautiful home, where your husband loves to be, and your children, and people love to come. God hasn't put that in males. He can't nurse a baby! He doesn't know how to make a home a beautiful sanctuary. It's just a bachelor's den if there's only a man in it.

No, God has put our distinctive anointings in us. They don't go away because we're a Christian. No, they are only enhanced. Your identity as a mother is more powerful because Christ is in you. He enables you to mother, with His patience, and His longsuffering, and His joy, and His rest. Because He's living in you, and He is all these things.

But you're still a mother. You're just a better mother. Are you getting it? Be encouraged today. Embrace your identity as a mother. In fact, the more you embrace your identity as a woman, a feminine woman, a wise mother, the more you glorify God, because this is who He planned you to be.

If you try to negate your motherhood identity, you are squashing the picture that God wants you to reveal to the world. He's chosen you, as a female, to reveal His nurturing anointing, to reveal His maternal heart. The more you embrace this, the more powerful you are for God, the more you glorify God.

So, embrace your identity as a mother. Of course, with Christ in you, it will be more exciting, more joyful, more powerful, and more influential. Amen?

All right. Let's pray, shall we?

“Oh, Father, we thank You so much for the glories of Your truths, Your truths that stand the test of time, Your truths which stand forever, Your truths which are for all generations. Thank You that You created us as women to be the queens of our home.

Give us a revelation of queendom, that we have a realm, a domain, that we are to manage, and to rule over. We don't rule over our husband, we don't go rule over some organization out in this society. No, we rule and reign and manage our homes. This is where You want us to be. Beautiful queens, powerful queens in our homes.

Lord, just give these precious women a revelation. Lord, make them queens. Let them rise up into this queenship. Let them rise up into the identity of who you created them to be, Lord, as a mother, an anointed, maternal woman reaching out to love and nurture her family, to make her home a God place, where You live.

Oh Father, let her embrace her identity You gave her from the beginning of creation, because this is the identity You put on woman! Oh God, we never give this up, we embrace it more and more. The more we do, the more we glorify You. Lord, let us be women who glorify Your Name as women. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.”

Episode 21: Is Male Headship Biblical?

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Rocky: Welcome to the podcast, FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy: Hello, lovely ladies. It is good to be with you again. I wonder where I am talking to? I know that so many are listening over the USA, but I know that many of you are listening in different countries too. I am glad that I get to speak to you all over the world. I would love you to drop me a note if you have time, just a little email. My email is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. If you live in a different country, drop me a line and tell me where you are listening from. I would love to hear that; it would be so exciting.

That reminds me of many of the letters in the New Testament and how Paul, and even Peter, wrote to the saints in so many different places. In 1 Peter 1, it says: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” Wow, they were all over the empire. Peter was writing to them all. I hope I’m speaking to lots of you in different countries today. By the way, have any of you ever traveled or been to Cappadocia? We visited this country, or this part of a country, when we were taking a tour to Israel, and then on to other countries.

We went on to Turkey. Cappadocia is way out in the middle of Turkey. It’s the most interesting country I’ve ever been to in my life. When you go there, it’s like you are walking on to the moon. It has all these cone-like structures coming up everywhere. There is no normal land of just grass fields; it’s all these cone-like structures. People lived in these structures, and they dug out their homes from them, and they even dug out underground cities. It was to Cappadocia that a lot of Christians fled to hide from persecution. It’s a most interesting place.

Then Peter goes on to give his salutation to the people. I love what he says; I would like to make it my salutation to you today. I would like to read it to you from the Passion translation. And it says: “You are not forgotten.” He was talking to those in many different places, just as I’m talking to you in many different places today. “You are not forgotten. You have been chosen and destined by Father God. The Holy Spirit has set you apart to be God’s holy ones, obedient followers of Jesus Christ, who have been gloriously sprinkled with His blood. May God’s delightful peace cascade over you many times over.”

That’s my prayer for you: that God’s peace and His love and His joy and His rest will cascade over you all throughout this day and all throughout this week. I bless you in the name of Jesus. Let’s go back to the King James Version. I’ll read it again. We notice something wonderful in this Scripture. “Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Holy Spirit and to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you and peace be multiplied.” Did you notice there that God the Father, and Jesus Christ the Son who is God, and the Holy Spirit who is God, are all mentioned there in revealing the plan of salvation? Each one in the triune Godhead took part in salvation. Isn’t that amazing? So wonderful.

This last week when we were having family devotions in our home, and this is my favorite part of the day. Every morning and every evening, Colin reads the Word to us. Of course, he asks questions, and we discuss it together. Then, we pray. I was taken by a Scripture he read this last week. It’s in John 20:17 and Jesus was talking to His disciples. It was getting near to the time He was going to return to His Father in heaven.

He said these words: “Jesus said unto her, ‘Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brothers and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your father.’” I was captivated by those words.

 How amazing that Jesus, who was the beloved Son of His Father (I mean, He had this most beautiful relationship, the greatest Father-Son relationship in the whole of the world . . . the Father with His beloved Son . . . there is no greater relationship), yet our beloved Father (because if He is the beloved Son, the Father is the beloved Father) , was willing to give up His beloved Son and send Him into this world. To not visit this world and say, “Hi,” but no, to lay down His life. To give His life. To shed His blood so that we could have salvation, and we could be redeemed and so that we could be His beloved daughters. Isn’t that amazing?

Jesus shares His Father with us. I wonder, would you like to share your father with someone? I had a wonderful father, and I was blessed to grow up with a wonderful father-daughter relationship. I do not know if I would want to share my father with the world. He was my father. Yet, Jesus was willing to share His Father with us. Isn’t that wonderful? Not only to do that but to die to so that we could have this wonderful blessing of knowing God as our Father, just as Jesus knew Him as His Father.

I wonder if you know the Father in this way. Is He your intimate friend? He is your dearest, precious Father. I know that some of you might not have had a great father relationship when you were growing up and that can affect your own relationship with God the Father. Dear precious ones today, I want to encourage you that Jesus is sharing His Father with you, and He is the ultimate Father. Even if you haven’t known what fatherhood is like because of your experiences, you can know what fatherhood is like because God will reveal Himself to you as a Father. Maybe I can pray for you now.

“Father, I come to You now in the name of Jesus, and I pray for any precious mother or daughter today who has not experienced a good father relationship. Father, I pray that You will put Your loving arms around them, that You will gather them in Your arms. You will draw them to Yourself, and You will show them that You are there for them. That You are their beloved Father. That this is who You want to be to them. I pray that You will manifest Yourself as father to them, and they will know the anointing and preciousness of fatherhood in their lives. I ask it in the precious name of Jesus. Amen”.

I would like to share another Scripture that was in our same daily reading this past week. In Ephesians 3:15 it says: “For this reason,” This is Paul praying. “For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and in earth is named.” The actual meaning is “that from whom all derive their source. All fatherhood on earth and any fatherhood in heaven. It doesn’t matter where it is. It derives its source, its origin, from God our Father. In fact, we can’t even have family without fatherhood because the seed of life comes from the father. He is the origin of family. A family is a father and a mother and children. All are needed. Of course, you know that, but I am saying it again because we are living in such a deceived society where women are trying to put down manhood, fatherhood, and that word “family,” that every family finds its source in the Father God. That word in the Greek is patria. It means paternal. It comes from the word “father,” and the Greek word for father is pata.

Family comes from father. That’s its origin. Isn’t it sad, dear ladies, that we are living in a day when so many are rejecting fatherhood? They are rejecting patriarchy. It’s a scary word in our society today. I have been asked to be interviewed on TV on quite a number of occasions, and when I’ve been interviewed on TV or radio by the secular world, it’s amazing. They never fail to come up with this question. “What do you think about patriarchy?” Of course, when they say that word, they are thinking of men who are tyrants who are keeping their wives in subjection, lording it over everyone in the family. They have this terrible picture in their minds of patriarchy, and it’s the man lording over everyone.

That’s not the Bible picture of patriarchy. Patriarchy is fatherhood; it’s the picture of the beloved Father and His beloved Son. It’s fatherhood and family. Of course, we know that many times that picture is true of the tyrant. There are many families where that happens because Satan hates fatherhood. Every plan of God, that God has planned for us, which is for our blessing, for our highest happiness, Satan hates, and he seeks to distort it and bring it down. He tries to bring down fatherhood, bring down motherhood. We cannot reject fatherhood and motherhood because of that.

We have to acknowledge that it is Satan who is distorting the beautiful roles. In fact, if we go back to the very beginning in Genesis 1, when God first created the man and later the woman, He brought the woman to the man. At that beautiful moment, God said these words: “Wherefore, shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” This is the very first reference to father and to mother in the Word of God. It’s right back there at the very beginning, in Genesis 1.

Dear ladies, apart from reading about it, where was the Father and mother? There was no father and mother at that wedding ceremony that day. There was no father and mother in sight. Adam and Eve had never heard of a father or mother. “What’s a father and mother?” “I don’t know.” Do you see something amazing? God was establishing His plan right at the very beginning, before any person had ever seen a father or mother. God spoke about His plan because all God’s plans are perfect. All His ways are perfect. We sing that beautiful worship song, “The ways of the Lord are perfect.”

Every word of God has been tried. Psalm 12:6 says: “The Word of the Lord is tried, purified in the furnace seven times.” God’s plan is glorious and perfect, and He established it before we ever saw it. That’s the importance of fatherhood and motherhood. It was spoken about before anything else. This establishment of the family, of father, of mother, was the thing that God established before He ever talked about the church, before He ever talked about government, before He ever talked about all the other things we experience today. It starts with father and mother.

We even see a picture of the family in the triune God. We have our Father God; we have the Son, who is also God; and then we have the Holy Spirit, who is also God. Now, the Holy Spirit is never mentioned as a mother in the Bible, but we do see that picture over the working of the Holy Spirit. We go back to Genesis 1 and read how the Spirit brooded, like a hen broods over her chicks. He brooded over the waters. We go to the New Testament, and we see that He is called the Comforter, and the one who comes alongside. We see this beautiful picture even in the Godhead.

That’s the picture. It’s not half a picture, just a mother and a child; no, it’s family. Father, mother, children, and it’s so sad when we live in a day when fatherhood is being trodden down. It is sad because God has created the father to be the head of the family. Feminists hate it when you say that. Even so-called feminists in the church.

I don’t like to hear the words, “I’m a Christian feminist.” I don’t really think they go together because they don’t like to embrace that the father is the head of the family, but we see that in the Godhead. Ephesians 4:6 says: “One God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all.” He is above all. He is the head. God, in His plan (and God’s plans are best, no matter what we think, His plans are the best plans), created the male as head of the family.

Relax. Of course, that doesn’t mean to say he lords it over the family. No, because the Word of God plainly reveals that all His creation are equal. Both male and female are equal in value, equal in worth, equal in every way, but we have different functions. Even in our functions, God created the male to be the head, the protecting, providing, loving, and leading head. Now, we see this in a number of ways as we go right back to the beginning.

We see:

No. 1: Man was created first, then the woman.

God didn’t even create them both at the same time. I wonder why. He could have done that, but no, God in His plan, in the way He chooses, because God chooses what He will do. Because God is God. I think, don’t you ladies, we’ve got to get a hold of this? We have got to stop thinking that we are God and that this is the way we would have done it. We have to relinquish to God that He is God. He is Lord over all.

He is Omniscient; He knows all things.

He is Omnipotent; He is all-powerful.

He is Omnipresent; He is everywhere.

He is Omnibenevolent; He is a good and kind and a loving God.

He is Omnisapient; He is the only wise God. Three times in the New Testament it states these words: “To God only wise.” He is the only one who is truly wise. Yes, He gives godly wisdom to man, but He is the only one who has ultimate wisdom. None of us could ever truly know like God knows. He knows from the beginning to the end. Therefore, He can make the right decisions because He knows what’s going to happen. He holds the whole future in his hands. He knows everything that is going to happen from this moment on, for all eternity. This is our God.

 How can we go against His plans? I love this Scripture in Proverbs 21:30: “No wisdom or understanding, nor counsel can avail against the Lord.” No matter what argument someone puts up, no matter what they think, it can’t stand against God’s plans. His plans are best.

I love Psalm 33:11: “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations.” When God created male and female in the beginning, when He established the plan, when at the very beginning He talked about father and mother before we’d ever seen a father and mother on earth, He was establishing His counsel. It stands forever. That’s what the Word says. We either believe the Bible, or we don’t. His counsel stands forever. The thoughts of His heart are to all generations, right up till now, this very generation in 2018. It stands forever. It’s as relevant today as it was then.

No. 2: God caused Adam to represent the human race.

In 1 Corinthians 15:22 it says: “As in Adam, all die, so also in Christ shall be made alive.” Now, we all know that when Adam and Eve sinned, sin came into being. God doesn’t say, “Ok, it was a problem with Adam and Eve.” No, he says, Adam. Adam is the one who represents the human race.

No. 3: God gave Adam the responsibly to name Eve.

When someone names another person or names even an animal (Adam named the animals, and he had authority over them), God also gave him the privilege to name Eve. Once again, that doesn’t give him the option to lord over her, but he is her head, her beautiful, protective covering.

No. 4: God called the man and the woman “Adam.”

He didn’t say, “Adam and Eve.” We go back to Genesis 5:1,2 and it says: “Male and female created He them. And He blessed them, and He named them male.” It says “Adam” in the King James version, but the word just means man. He named them man when they were created. Both were created totally equal. Both were created to have worth. Both were created special. In fact, God left the creating of the woman until last. She was His final and most blessed creation of all. She was the one who was left to His last special, amazing creation.

I remember reading a quote about this. This was written by Richard Helman, and he says, “God’s glorious creation began with things such as dirt.” Well, actually, isn’t it interesting? How was Adam created? Out of the dust of the earth. How were the animals created? Out of the dust of the earth. How was Eve created? Dear ladies, she was not created from the dust of the earth. No. How about that? God took her out of Adam, out of an existing creation. She didn’t even touch the dust of the earth!

Anyway, this quote goes on to say: “God’s glorious creation begins with things such as dirt, then vegetation, then animals. It kept getting better and better. God then created His great love interest, His adopted children, human beings, yet man was created only second to last. Woman is the crescendo. The last and greatest of all God’s creation. God has created nothing more beautiful, more loving, more tender-hearted, more nurturing. That is why women are perfectly positioned to be wives and mothers, because women are the pinnacle of all God’s creations. “

There we see that, although she was left to this last glorious creation, God still called the man and the wife “man.”

There was, in God’s eyes, a headship. There is, in God’s heart, headship, even in the trinity.  There is no difference of worth between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each one is equally God, and each one has different functions, but they are equally God. Part of the function of the father is to be the head.

Yet feminists hate this truth. They hate this word. Do you remember recently when there was the battle for judge Brett Kavanaugh to come into the Supreme Court? The Hawaiian senator stood up and said to all the men of this country, “Just shut up.” This is coming from the leadership of our land, telling the men to shut up. “They don’t have a voice; it’s we woman who have the voice.” That’s not God. That’s not His plan.

No. 5: God created the man accountable.

In Genesis 3:9, after Eve had sinned and then she had also given the fruit to Adam, God came into the garden, walking in the garden in the cool of the day as He did, for He loved to come and talk with Adam and Eve. He loved fellowship with them. That’s why He created man because He loves our fellowship.

When He came into the garden, of course He knew what had happened, but He called out, and what did He say? “Adam, where are you?” He didn’t say “Adam and Eve, where are you?” No, “Adam, where are you?” God held Adam accountable for Eve’s sin because his responsibility, as her head, was to be her protector, to keep her from that sin, to protect her and woo her away. God came to Adam. He was the one that was held responsible.

No. 6: God made Eve a helpmeet for Adam.

When God said He was going to make someone for Adam, what did He call her? He said: “I’m going to make a helpmeet.” The words in Hebrew are two words: ezer kenegdo. The word ezer in the Hebrew simply means “helper.”

No, He didn’t say: “Adam, I’m going to make you a leader; she’ll be the one who’ll direct you and show you the way to go.” No, He didn’t say those words, ladies. He said: “I will make you a helper.” Now, don’t get too sad. “Helper” is not an insignificant word, ladies. We are not insignificant because God made us a helper. Did you know that that very same Hebrew word ezer is a word that’s also used to describe our God? God, who is our help and our shield--it’s the same word. Its an attribute of God. As helper to our husbands, we are being God-like.

He (our husband) cannot do without us. He cannot do without our help.

The next word is kenegdo, which means “corresponding to.” In other words, God created each one of us differently, uniquely, specially. We are not the same. With our differences, we dovetail together. As we come together, we are made one. You can think of a picture of a seatbelt. I’m sorry it’s such a basic picture, but when you put a seatbelt together and it clicks, the two parts are not the same. If they were the same, they would not fit together.  Each one is different, therefore, they become one. They become one, precious ladies. God could not make two the same to make them one.

God’s plan and purpose for marriage is that we be one. One flesh and also one in spirit and mind and heart. ONE. We have to be different to be one. Let’s take another basic picture of a puzzle. When you’re fitting one piece of the puzzle into another, you can’t find two that are the same shape. If you do, they won’t fit. You can put it on top of the other, and that’s not God’s plan. His plan is not for the husband to be on top of the wife. He’s the head who is leading her.

It’s not His plan for the wife to be on top of the husband. Opposite, it’s absolutely opposite. We are different. Isn’t that amazing? Kenegdo, corresponding to. We are different, but we come together, and we fit. Praise the Lord! God’s ways are so wonderful. He created the man to be the leader and for the wife to be the helper, but both positions are powerful, and none is less than the other.

Well, time is going again, ladies, and I have a couple more points. I’ll talk about them next week. Let me pray for you.

“Dearest Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. I want to pray for very mother and daughter and grandmother listening today. I pray that Your truth will go into their hearts. They will receive it from You, Father. Help us to receive Your divine truth from You, not to listen to the ways of the world. They can sound so good; they can sound wise, but they are not Your ways, Lord. You laugh at the foolishness of the wise. It’s just foolishness to You for You are the only wise God. Help us to be those, God, that hear Your counsel.

“Help us embrace who You created us to be. Help us to release our husbands to be who You created them to be. When we do that, we will dovetail together, and we will truly be one.

“Father, I pray for the husbands, oh God, of every wife that is listening today. I pray for these men. Men have been so put down in our society today. Their role has been downtrodden. I pray that You will lift them up, Lord God, lift them into all the glory, the glory, the glory, and the status that You have given them, oh God. Not to be tyrants over their home, but to be loving, serving leaders. Providing, protecting, gathering their families around them and under their wings.  Oh God, I pray that You will raise up the anointing of fatherhood in the home of everyone listing today. I pray that You will raise up the anointing of fatherhood in this nation and the nations of the world. I pray, oh God, that you will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, to their families. Oh God, that they would come back. In the midst of this deceived generation, You will give them a revelation of who they are, and they will return, oh God, to Your plan which is for their glory and Your glory and the glory of the nation. We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.”