PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 391: FOLLOWING JESUS, Part 5
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 391: FOLLOWING JESUS, Part 5
We continue talking about LEARNING OF HIM. Did you know that not only God has statutes? The devil has statutes too. Whose statutes do we follow? And the last two letters, O, ONLY JESUS. He must have the first place in our affections, our lifestyle, and all our decisions. And lastly W, Willingly.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to the Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies, a magazine bringing strength and encouragement to families across the world.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Wow! This year is going so quickly, isn’t it? Isn’t it amazing how every year seems to go quicker the older that you get? It’s like one blink of your eyes. In fact, life does go so quickly. I just think of my mothering years. I remember when my eldest son was born. That was, goodness, 62 years ago. Well, no, 61. We’ve been married 62 years, 63 years in March.
But it’s like one blink of my eyes! It’s amazing. No wonder the Bible says that this life is just like a vapor. It just goes and it’s gone. How we need to take time to enjoy our mothering! Dear mothers of young children, oh my, sometimes you just feel as though you’re floundering in the midst of it all. But realize these are the most precious days of your life. They won’t be for long. They’re going so quickly! And your children grow so quickly. So, take time to enjoy them. Amen?
Well, it’s coming up Christmas in a few days, so those who are celebrating Christmas, may you have a blessed time with your family. That’s our celebration of Christmas. It’s gathering of families, getting together as families.
Some of you will have been celebrating Hanukkah. That’s already over for this year. We love to celebrate Hanukkah too. When we do that each morning and each evening, we read all the Scriptures about God bringing light into the world and bringing light into our lives. We love this time of the year also.
Now today, I’m hoping to finish this series called “FOLLOWING JESUS.” We are doing an acrostic on the word “follow,” F-O-L-L-O-W. We are continuing today the part of “L” where it says, “learning of Him.” We’ve got a few more Scriptures about that today.
When we come to Jesus, Jesus says: “Come unto Me and learn of Me.” It’s more than just following along after Jesus. It’s becoming a disciple and learning of Him. We talked last time of how the Bible tells us of the multitudes that followed Jesus and He healed them all. But it was only the few who became disciples. So, lovely mothers, are we only following, or are we disciples? What about our children? Are we training them to be disciples?
Now today, I am starting off with a couple of Scriptures that are really warning Scriptures. Deuteronomy 18:9: “When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.”
Last week, we were talking about two Hebrew words that are used for “learning” in the Bible. One is limmud, and the second one was lamad. We’re continuing with these Scriptures. That word here, “Thou shalt not learn” is also the word lamad. In the transcript, I will give you lots more Scriptures, because I won’t have time to give them all to you. There are so many.
Then we go to Psalm 106:35: “They did not destroy the nations concerning whom the Lord commanded them, but were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works.” Isn’t that so sad? And how we have to be careful, dear mothers, living in this deceived world, that we don’t imbibe some of these deceptions that are all around us, because many of these deceptions have come even into the church.
I often think of those words of the late Francis Schaeffer. He passed away many years ago. But he said these words: “Tell me what the world is saying today, and I will tell you what the church is saying seven years down the track.” Isn’t it so sad that the church, which is the pillar and ground of truth, who should be holding onto the words of God, somehow gradually begins to fit in with the ways of the world?
In fact, the statistics from George Barna reveal that only four percent of Christians have a biblical worldview. That’s very disheartening. And sadly, that statement comes back to us as mothers, because who is it who is passing on the truth to the next generation? Yes, the fathers are involved, but the mothers, we are there with our children all throughout the day.
And we are meant to be teaching them. As the Bible says, when we’re sitting in our house, and when we’re walking by the way, and when we’re living life together. And so, what has happened? What are the mothers teaching? We have to know God’s Word and be teaching them His Word so that the truth is passed on from one generation to the other.
In Isaiah 29:13, it says” “Their fear toward me is taught (that’s lamad) by the precept of men.” Precious mothers, we must be careful that we are learning the precepts of God, not the precepts of men, and that we are teaching the precepts of God to our children, not the precepts of men.
We know, of course, that God has statutes, and commandments, and ordinances, and precepts. We see these words coming over and over again in the Word of God, but did you know that the devil also has precepts, and ordinances, and customs? Yes! And it’s the same word. The same word lamad that is used for the statutes of the Lord is also used for the statutes of the devil. Did you know that the devil has statutes?
Sometimes we think, “Oh, goodness me, if I’m walking with God, I’ve got to be obeying all these statutes and all these commandments of the Lord!” But we forget that those who are heathen also have statutes. We have to choose which ones we are following.
2 Kings 17:8: “The children of Israel” (this is not the heathen. This is the children of Israel) they “walked in the statutes of the heathen.” Wow! Sometimes that can even happen in the church. We can begin to walk in the statutes of the heathen. That is actually happening.
In churches, in many churches, and perhaps the majority in those churches, the families are limiting their family. They limit their families to maybe two children, perhaps three. But they don’t believe the God of the Bible. They don’t have a truly biblical worldview because that is not the God of the Bible.
The very first words that God said to man after He created male and female were: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” God has never retracted, never reneged those words. They are His heart. When we think, “Oh, but I could never afford to have more than two or three children!”
Well, what kind of God do you believe in? Is the God that you believe in a God Who can only provide for two children? That is not the God of the Bible! The God of the Bible will provide for all the children that He sends. So, most Christians have a mindset of the world. They have a limited understanding of their God.
We see, really, where are we? What kind of biblical worldview do we have? It seems as though people would rather try to be like the world. We don’t want to look too different. We’ve just got to fit in, and look like the world, so we’ll be able to get to them, and they’ll think we’re great, and they’ll come into Christianity. But no, that’s not the way.
God says, back in the Old Testament, “I have severed you from among the heathen. I have separated you” (Leviticus 20:24, 26). I love that word “severed.” Even in our normal society, it’s amazing, even amongst the church today is even the way we dress. It’s not really very biblical.
Today you can go into a church, and you can see cleavage, and bare backs, and short, short skirts, and holey jeans. This is even in church, let alone anywhere else! Is that really godly? Is it really biblical? No, it’s not. But we get used to things. It’s amazing how we get used to things, isn’t it? Anyway, let’s carry on with the Scriptures.
Let’s read this one here. 2 Kings 17:13-15: “Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep My commandments and My statutes.” But the Bible goes on to say: “They rejected His statutes, and His covenant that He made with their fathers, and His testimonies, and went after the heathen . . . that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them. And they left all the commandments of the Lord their God.”
What a sad Scripture! Did you notice those words: “That they should not do like them”? We’re not meant to live like the world and dress like the world. No. God specifically states:
Leviticus 18:3-5: “After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.” Do you notice that ladies? “Ordinances.” That’s a word that’s used of God’s statutes, His ordinances.
But it’s also used of the ordinances of the heathen. They have ordinances. Oh, yes, they have their strategies, and they have the way that they’re living. They have a set of ordinances. But God says we’re not to go after their ordinances. We’re to go after His ordinances.
Leviticus 18: 26-30: “Therefore shall ye keep My ordinances, and that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, and that ye defile not yourselves therein. I am the Lord your God.” Yes, the devil’s ordinances are abominable. God’s ordinances are holy. We have to choose which we are going to live by. We can’t be sucked in, so subtlely, to the ways of the world around us.
Leviticus 20:22-26: “You shall keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, to do them . . . And ye shall not walk in the manners.” This is that same word lamad. “In the manners (or statutes) of the nation, which I cast out before you.” And so, dear ladies, these Scripture are very, very powerful, aren’t they? They are the Word of the Lord.
A DISCIPLE KNOWS THE VOICE OF JESUS
But we can go to the New Testament now. That was Old Testament. So, let’s go to the New. We go to that beautiful chapter in John 10:4, where it talks about Jesus being the Shepherd. Here it says: “And when he putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him: for they know His voice.”
This is really also a picture of discipleship. The sheep know His voice. A disciple is one who is getting to know the voice of the Shepherd. How do we get to know the voice of the Shepherd, dear ones? We must keep close. Yes, close. The little lambs keep close to their mother sheep. And the sheep and the lambs keep close to the Shepherd.
Now, I come from a sheep country, from New Zealand, where we have literally thousands and thousands of sheep. Our shepherds and sheep farmers in New Zealand don’t shepherd their sheep the way they do in the Middle East.
This is a picture that Jesus is talking about, because in the Middle East, and in Israel, a shepherd doesn’t have thousands of sheep. He just has a little flock, a flock of sheep. It’s not two or three. Two or three is not a flock, but he will have maybe 12 to 15, maybe 20 or 30 sheep. Some are smaller, some a little bigger, but not thousands.
So, this little flock, the shepherd knows his sheep. He knows them by name. The sheep know him. They know his voice. They keep close to him. Even at night, he still stays with them. They are very close to the shepherd.
So, to be a disciple, to truly follow Jesus, we’ve got to keep close to Him where we can hear His voice, because God doesn’t shout at us. Did you know that? Maybe there are sometimes when He really has to wake us up, but mostly God speaks to us in His still, small voice. He speaks softly, and we’ve got to lean in close to hear Him speak. We’ve got to be in His Word, not just rushing over it, but taking time to listen, to wait on it, to meditate, to hear His voice.
A DISCIPLE DOES NOT LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF THE STRANGER
Then it goes on to say: “And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” Did you notice that? They do not hear the voice of the stranger. They don’t listen to the stranger’s voice.
Oh, precious ladies, it’s so easy to listen to the voices of society that are all around us because they’re blatantly shouting into our ears. It’s coming from everywhere. It’s coming to our children. Oh, they are going to get it too. So, they have to know the Shepherd’s voice. They’ve got to get to know His voice so that they will recognize the voice of the stranger and run from the stranger.
This is what we have to do. We have to, when we get in this alternative thing, it can seem normal because everybody else around us is doing it. But what is our discernment? Our discernment is the Word of God. That’s why we have to be continually in it, because if we don’t know the Word, well, we can be easily sucked in by the voices of the stranger. But we’ve got to know God’s voice, and we’ll know it from His Word. Amen.
Oh, as I was reading this over again, these beautiful verses in John 10, I was writing all this. What I’m sharing with you, I have already studied and meditated on in my own time with the Lord. Each morning, I get up, and I go to my special little trysting place where I wait upon the Lord.
As I was reading these Scriptures, I wrote down this little prayer. Often, I will write the Scriptures down, and then I write what I feel God is saying to my heart. Then I will write a prayer to the Lord. I wrote, “Oh, Lord my God, how I long to know Your voice clearly. I want to know it more and more. I want to be able to hear Your whisper. I want to reject all voices of the enemy. Amen.” I’m sure that’s your prayer too, isn’t it?
OK, lovely ladies, that was about LEARNING OF JESUS. Now we are onto the next letter.
O: ONLY JESUS
If we are following Him, it’s only Jesus. He’s the only One that we follow. In fact, we start off with the very first command God gave us in the Ten Commandments.
Any children listening today? Children, do you know in what chapter in the Bible we read the Ten Commandments? Do you know? Oh, I hope you know. We should all know where we read the Ten Commandments in the Bible. Yes, it’s Exodus 20. And the very first one is: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” God is the only One we follow. Not Him and someone else, and something else, and this and that.
No, ONLY Him. Let me read a few Scriptures to you. Really, these Scriptures are so powerful. I really don’t need to say anything. Just let the words of Jesus, and these Scriptures, go into your heart as I read them.
In Matthew 10:38Jesus said: “And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me.”
Luke 14:26-33: “If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple. So, likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he has, he cannot be My disciple.” Jesus reiterated those words three times. “He cannot be My disciple.” Well, maybe we can follow Jesus from afar off, but to be a disciple is total forsaking, even or our own life.
Matthew 6:24: “No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, or love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
Galatians 1:10, now it’s Paul speaking, and he said: “For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”
In Colossians 1:18, it says: “And He is the head,” (this is Jesus Christ) “He is the head of the body, the church: Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence.” That word “preeminence” means “to hold the first place.” So, Jesus has the first place. In all our thoughts, in all our actions, in all our decisions, Jesus comes first. Not what we want to do, not what we think, but Jesus comes first. He has the preeminence.
Then we go to Philippians 3:7: “But what things were gain to me, those I count as loss for Christ.” It goes on to say, there in that passage, “For me to live is Christ.” Yes, stop living for anything else. It’s Jesus only.
James 4:4: “Know ye not that the friendship of the world is the enemy of God. Whosoever therefore be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” Wow! That’s pretty powerful, isn’t it? In fact, all of these are so powerful.
2 Corinthians 10:4-5: We just read this Scripture this morning at our family devotions. I thought, “Wow, this really relates to this point, “ONLY JESUS.” It says here: “(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)” And listen to this: “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”
Many times, we can have thoughts that are not putting Jesus first. But anything that’s not putting Jesus first is a “high thing.” If it’s higher than Him, this “high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God,” we’ve got to bring it into captivity and bring it down.
Some other translations say: “Every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God.” Oh, it’s so easy to have our own opinions, isn’t it? “I think this and I think that.” That is more important to us than what God says.
I am amazed, you know, ladies. Sometimes when I’m writing a post, I seek to write a post to you each day on Facebook and other social media and then I also write a bigger devotion once a week. That comes out every Thursday. You can get it straight to your email. If you want to get that, go onto the website, and you can find out where to get that because both my daily post and my weekly devotion are all to encourage you as wives and mothers.
But sometimes when I do a post on Facebook, I’ll type a Scripture out, or have a few comments on it, but it’s a Scripture. Then I’m amazed! I’ll get this feedback, and people counteracting it, and writing “I don’t agree with that!” And this, this, and that. I think to myself, “Help! That was in the Scripture!” Do they really not take any notice of the Scripture?
I don’t mind if they don’t take notice of what I say, but they don’t seem to notice that it was even a Scripture! I am totally amazed. And so, we have to bring down “every lofty thing that is raised against the knowledge of God.”
Another translation says: “All arrogance raised against the knowledge of God.”
OK, time is going! Let’s go on to the last letter, lovely ladies. It’s . . .
W: WILLINGLY
Our following of Jesus should be willingly. Let’s be willing to follow Him, not afar off, not lagging behind. Isn’t it terrible when you go for a walk with someone and they just wander along and lag behind? You have to stop and wait for them to catch up. I think, “I wonder how God feels when we’re lagging way, way behind?” He’s waiting for us to keep up with Him, so we can hear His voice. You don’t hear His voice when you're lagging behind, do you?
In Psalm 63:8, the psalmist cries out: “My soul followeth hard after Thee.” That’s a “willingly” kind of following, isn’t it? It’s not following lagging at the back. That’s another reason why I can’t quite work it out. Please forgive me if I tread on your toes when I say this. I often tread on people’s toes, but please forgive me. I love you so much, and really, I just like to share how I feel.
But I’m amazed when people come to church and they always want to sit at the back. Well, I know with family, you can feel, “Oh, goodness me, we’d better sit at the back because our children are going to be a nuisance sitting up there at the front! They’ll be a distraction.” So, families tend to sit at the back.
Actually, I’ll tell you a little secret. Your children will be better behaved when you sit them right at the front, because they’re right under the eye of the preacher. Wow! They won’t be wanting to do all these things that they can do at the back. Because when they’re at the back, they can look around, see what everybody else is doing, and they see this and that. They get distracted, so then they become a distraction. But at the front, wow! I used to find that really worked. My, when they were right under the eye of the preacher, well, if they were going to do something that was very distracting, they might get pulled up in front of the whole congregation!
But anyway, even young people, oh, they’ll just sit at the back. It’s just a lagging behind attitude. If we really are following up close, even when we come to church, we want to be at the front! Because there’s something within us that wants to be right there, as close as we can get. We really show our attitude by our actions, don’t we?
Now those words, “following hard after Thee,” it is the word dabaq, and it means, “to follow closely, to pursue.” The same word is used in a number of Scriptures about warriors pursuing after their enemy. Some of them say: “And they pursued hard after them. They followed hard after the Philistines.”
Now, when a warrior is following hard after his enemy, he’s exerting every ounce of his physical strength and mental concentration. His adrenaline pumps! The sweat pours off him. He’s not thinking of anything else but capturing that enemy. That’s the word “pursue.” “My soul follows hard after Thee.”
Guess what? That is the same word for the word “cleave” in Genesis 2:24, where it says, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his wife. And they shall be one flesh.” The man is not only meant to pursue his young lady to get her, but to continue pursuing her all his life. Oh, pursuing, following hard, putting his whole effort into keeping her. And, of course, we should have that same attitude toward our husbands. So, let’s willingly follow.
There’s a beautiful Scripture, Psalm 110:3. It says: “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.” God wants us to have a willing attitude. We think of the Proverbs 31 woman. In that passage, it says: “She works willingly with her hands.” God loves this willing attitude, not only toward Him, but in our homes, managing our homes, and working in our homes. We work willingly with our hands because we’re doing it unto the Lord.
All right. I don’t know where time goes, but let me, as I close, dear ladies, just give you some specific things that God wants us to follow after in the New Testament. I won’t have time to give you all the references, but I will put them in the transcript. But all these things are specifically mentioned as attributes that we are to follow after . . .
Peace (Romans 14:19; 2 Timothy 2:22; Hebrews 12:14; and 1 Peter 3:11).
Edifying one another (Romans 13:9).
Holiness (Hebrews 12:14). Wow, I must pop in here. At last, I have finished finally editing Volume 5, One Hundred Days of Blessing. So, I hope that sometime soon I will get that published for you. Well, actually, it’s not One Hundred Days of Blessing. I’m working on that one and have nearly finished that one.
This one is called Look Up. It’s 365 days, one for every day of the year. As I was going through it, I noticed the word “holy” quite often. I thought I’d check it out and I found out that I had actually used the word “holy” or “holiness” 232 times in this book. Really, it was mainly the Scriptures. I realized how much God wants that word “holy” to do with our mothering, to do with our home.
Anyway, we are also to follow after . . .
Love (1 Corinthians 14:1; 1 Timothy 6:11 and 2 Timothy 2:22).
Spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:31, 39).
That which is good and right (Deuteronomy 16:20; 1 Thessalonians 5:15; and 3 John 1:11).
Righteousness (Psalm 15; 94:15; Isaiah 51:1; 1 Timothy 6:11 and 2 Timothy 2:22).
Godliness (1 Timothy 6:11).
Faith (1 Timothy 6:11 and 2 Timothy 2:22).
Patience (1 Timothy 6:11).
Meekness (1 Timothy 6:11), and
To follow those who through faith and patience inherit the promises (Hebrews 6:12). Amen?
Well, I have more things to share with you, but time has gone, and I pray you have been blessed with our little study on FOLLOWING JESUS. Can I pray for you?
“Dear Father, oh, Lord God, all the words that we have spoken in these last five sessions have been mainly right from Your Word. Lord Jesus, You’ve called us. You say, ‘Come and follow Me.’ You call us to follow after You. You call us to come and learn of You. Lord God, help us all, not to be followers who are following far behind, but following You close up, becoming disciples, learning of You.
“Help us, Lord God, as we train our children to be disciples.
“I pray for each mother today, that You will pour out upon her the power of Your Holy Spirit as she seeks to show to her children, Lord, the way You want them to live, and to teach them the way You want them to live. I pray that You will anoint her mightily as she makes disciples and trains godly sons and daughters who will impact this nation and many nations of the world.
“Lord, strengthen each mother today. Oh, pour into them Your strengthening, and enabling, and wisdom, and anointing, I pray. Bless them.
“Bless every young person listening.
“Bless every little child. I pray that we will all become true disciples of You. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Transcribed by Darlene Norris
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