The Truth Is Setting Women Free
Leslie Basham: Here’s Nancy Leigh DeMoss.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss: God’s heart is for the nations, for the peoples of the world. “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
Leslie: This is the Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Friday, May 2, 2014.
Nancy: I can remember when I was a little girl that in our family’s breakfast room, we had a large map of the world up on the wall. It had pins on it that represented different missionaries that our family was involved in supporting with pieces of yarn that went off to the outside of that map with pictures of those missionaries. My family would regularly read letters from these who were serving Christ in other parts of the world and we would pray for them.
I’m so thankful that from my earliest years the Lord put in my heart a burden to see the gospel go forth to the nations of the world. And that’s God’s heart. His heart is for the world. His heart is for the nations.
I was reading earlier today from Psalm 67 that says, “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us” (v. 1). Now, that’s a great prayer, and that’s the revival heart of Revive Our Hearts that God would bless us, that He would cause His face to shine upon us. But that is not just for our own enjoyment and our own benefit.
What’s the result of that? Verses 2–3 says so: “That your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!”
And then verse 7: “God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear him!”
Well, one of the greatest joys I have here at Revive Our Hearts is getting to read the emails, the Facebook messages, and sometimes the letters that come from listeners whose lives have been impacted through this ministry. It’s always an encouragement to read them, and I especially am thankful for the many that we receive from women in other parts of the world.
So today I wanted to take some time to read some of those letters from women who are writing from other countries outside the United States. As I share these, I want you to be encouraged about the fact that God is at work; that He is spreading the fame of His name to other countries of the world. I want you to rejoice with us at what God is doing in the hearts of these women.
As I read these letters (and we try to share some of these with our listeners from time to time), you might want to ask the Lord what He wants to say to you as you hear the stories of these women who have been saying, “Yes, Lord,” as they’ve heard His truth.
So we begin with a pastor’s wife who wrote us from a small town in Northern Ireland, and she said,
This Saturday, around forty-five women will meet in our church hall for a coffee morning to launch a study series using True Woman 101: Divine Design.
I love this! Earlier this week we heard some table talk that related to the True Woman 101 resource, and now to see that God is using that resource not just in the United States but in other parts of the world. This pastor’s wife says,
To do something like this has been on my mind and heart for a long time, so it’s exciting to see how the Lord has brought this about in His time. I thought I’d let you know, for your encouragement and to ask for your prayers. I’m so aware that Satan could be very busy over the next while.
May the Lord bless you all as you continue to provide resources and support on these important issues.
And I want to take time at the end of the program to pray for women like this one and for groups like this that are meeting around the world as she has asked us to do.
Well then, moving to another part of the world, this woman says,
Dear Nancy,
I’m writing you from Nigeria. I listen to Revive Our Hearts at work over the Internet. I just wanted to let you know that Revive Our Hearts has blessed my heart soooo much. [And she has, I don’t know, about 15 “o’s” on that “so much.” It’s a cute email she sent.]
A friend shared the link with me, and I’ve shared it with many of my friends. Over the years I’ve had repeated issues in my marriage. There were so many things I didn’t know how to handle. Revive Our Hearts provided that place of comfort and direction for me. It helped me to find healing even when things appeared to get worse. It helped me understand that God uses our hurts. You gave me the courage to do the right thing even when it was very difficult to do. God has touched me in a permanent way. I am a survivor, physically, emotionally, and spiritually because of Revive Our Hearts, and I am determined to help others survive, too.
It’s so neat to see how people who get the truth, get the message, and then become ambassadors to share that message with others. This lady goes on to say,
Revive Our Hearts has been such a great source of blessing to me that I have downloaded messages on my phone and USB and repeatedly listen while I drive, cook, walk, lie down, etc., just about anywhere and anytime I am able to do so. It has so blessed my life that I even went all the way back to the messages from 2001. I haven’t listened to all of them yet, but I am working my way through as the need arises.
I’m a better Christian because of Revive Our Hearts. I’ve come to learn that change starts with me, and that God is good and all He does is good, and I’ve seen myself step into the place of a woman mentoring other women.
A friend of mine is going through a difficult phase in her marriage and kept pointing the finger at her husband until she started listening to Revive Our Hearts messages. Today she’s looking to God to change her and not her husband. She has hope. I just want to let you know that your ministry is affecting lives, even in far-away Nigeria.”
I’m sorry this is really long. I planned to write three sentences until I started.
Well, I’m so glad this lady from Nigeria took the time to write and share how God has been at work in her life.
And here’s another one from overseas. This woman says:
I’ve been listening to your radio programme [spelled the British way] through the Internet for years now, and it has helped me so much in my walk with God and to get through some difficult times.
When I first started listening, I was in a same-sex relationship. It was a secret relationship, and I was dying on the inside and wanting out of it. It so conflicted with my relationship with the Lord. Through listening to your teaching and also through some email contact with members of your team, I found the courage to talk to one of the leaders in my church and move away from that lifestyle.
Ever since then, my walk with the Lord has strengthened, and I continue to listen to your program. It has led me to some amazing books and resources that continue to feed my spiritual life.
I would love one day to come over to one of your conferences. Maybe I can do that some day.
I do hope that this woman one day will be able to come and share with us on this side of the "pond" her testimony about God’s grace in her life.
And then I received recently a message on Facebook from a young woman in the Dominican Republic. She says,
Hi, Nancy.
I’ve been blessed in an amazing way through your program. The Lord has made wonderful things in my life after hearing my first ROH program in Spanish with Patricia. He took me from being a feminist young woman, selfish, and with earthly desires to a new, young woman. The Lord used you for getting me closer to His Word and finding the path He wanted me to cross.
I didn’t want to get married or even have kids. I was studying medicine with the intention of just being rich and economically powerful. I was pretty opposite of God’s design for me. Now I’m mourn of happiness because of what He’s done in me.
Now, you can tell that English isn’t her first language, but I just love that wording. She says, “I mourn of happiness.” I think she’s just saying the happiness is pretty intense in my heart because of what He’s done for me. She’s goes on to say, "After digging in His Word"—and I love that! Because it’s not just the Revive our Hearts transcripts or programs. They are pointing her to the Word of God, which is what is changing her life day after day.
After digging in His Word, everything began to change—my desires, my goals in life, my purpose—everything. Now He made me love my design, and I can’t stay quiet about this with the other girls. I understand His will for my life, and here I am giving up medicine for studying the Bible. It looks like craziness to people, but I know whom I believe.”
This is just another story of God’s revival, but I deeply thank you for everything. I’m nineteen now, and most people stay stunned about what the Lord has made. I really would love to meet you personally and give you a hug. I pray for your life and your beautiful ministry. Keep on doing it the way you are and rest in Christ.
[And then this line that so encouraged my heart.] You might not see all the fruits together now, but somewhere could be little girls like me being transformed by the Word preached through Revive Our Hearts.
Wow! What a precious testimony. And then, speaking of young women, here’s a twenty-one-year-old wife who says,
I’m a student from a small country in Europe, Austria, so forgive me if my English isn’t perfect. I’ve been listening to ROH for about half a year now, and I figure it was time to write and thank you for letting the Lord use you. I don’t really know how I can describe what Revive Our Hearts and the daily twenty-four minute, fifty-five seconds means to me.
It’s uplifting, encouraging, and at the same time challenging and eye-opening (and eye-wetting, if that’s a word). Well, I think that’s a great word—eye-wetting. And I know that happens to my own heart sometimes as I just deal with these precious truths the Lord is allowing us to share.
Two months ago I married a wonderful godly man. Up to our engagement, which was two years ago, I thought myself to be a nice, God-fearing person. But God humbled me very much and showed me how incapable I was at having a relationship that honored Him without His grace every day.
At one point, our relationship was so broken that my then fiancé had no strength to move on because I tore him down with my words.
And, by the way, how kind of the Lord to show this to this woman before she got married so that He could begin to change her and that she wouldn’t tear down that marriage with that kind of speaking.
God opened my eyes at that time and spoke in so many ways into my life. Shortly after that breakdown, I stumbled onto ROH, or rather, the Lord gave me what I needed. This is still a wonder to me. It changed me. I began to understand that it isn’t the change of my fiancé’s heart God wants me to pray for, but He wants me to see my own sin, and He wants me to respect my fiancé regardless if he deserves it or not like I want to be loved even if I don’t deserve it—and I don’t.
I learned to go to Jesus to get my needs met, not to a man. My now husband loves Revive Our Hearts because he says it has transformed me and our relationship. Where there was quarreling and shouting, there is now much more peace. Of course, you know what I mean. God changed me, and to Him alone be the glory, but I wanted to tell you this so that you have faith and move on. Don’t be discouraged because the Lord is doing a great work through you even in countries far away.
Of course, this isn’t a recovery for all time. I have to fight my flesh every day, and there are weeks when I lose my sight of the Lord because I don’t make Him a priority, and then I have to repent and turn around again. [And to that I would just say, “Same story with me!” I know exactly what she’s talking about.] But ROH is always a big part in reminding me of what is most important.
I love that you teach truth and don’t give in to the superficial waves of health and wealth prosperity gospel that floods today’s Christianity. But you provide sound and biblical doctrine that is meaningful and yet in simple words so that everyone can understand it. You gave me a whole new perspective on suffering, and I so adore that God is getting all the glory from your teaching.
Wow! How precious is that?! I love the way she says that: “I so adore that God is getting all the glory from your teaching.” And then we see this young woman’s becoming a spiritual mother, a reproducer. She says,
You have instilled a burning desire in me to be a true woman of God and to pass on what I learn from God to other women and the next generations. [Wow! Thank You, thank You, Lord!]
Thank you for strengthening us women. We need it so much. Please go on and don’t stop even if it’s hard sometimes.
You know what? It is hard sometimes. And when I read notes like this, I’m just so thankful to see the fruit in lives like this young woman who’s been so transformed by the truth.
Though I don’t know any of you personally, and probably will never meet you here on earth, I’ve grown to love you. I’m so looking forward to meeting all of you in heaven where you will be rewarded for what you do. I pray for you. We are so dependent on the Lord. In love, (and then she signs her name).
Now, this twenty-one-year-old young woman, a new bride in Austria, and her husband recently sent a pretty sizeable contribution to Revive Our Hearts, and it was a pretty odd amount. So one of the gals on our staff took note of that, and she contacted this young woman and asked her to just tell a little bit about the background of why they had made that donation. And here’s what this same young woman said in return.
ROH had a huge effect on my life and my husband’s. I hope it encourages you to keep on doing the great work that you are currently doing. Others in my area are also listening. I recommend ROH to all my friends and the women in my church. I also wrote an entry on my husband’s blog to encourage women to listen to the programs. It isn’t easy for the older generation to listen because most of them do not understand English very well. This often creates an urge within me to do something similar in German. Who knows what the Lord has in store!
Well, it wasn’t all that long ago that there were some women in the Spanish-speaking world who said, “We have to get this message in Spanish,” and now as a result, today on the air, every day, five days a week, the program is in Spanish—Aviva Nuestros Corazones. And we have other people talking to us about other languages with a similar burden, so she’s absolutely right. Who knows what the Lord has in store. Maybe one day we’ll get to hear that this message is going out in the German language.
As she closed, this woman said,
Currently, I’m doing the Divine Design True Woman 101 Study with a friend of mine. And in our church’s woman’s circle, we are reading Lies Women Believe in German. So I hope this also encourages you.
Well, it does. It encourages me greatly. I’m just so thankful for how God is at work, and I hope you’ve been encouraged by this little sampling of how the Lord is moving and stirring in women’s hearts, not only here in the United States, but virtually in every other continent and many different countries of the world. This is thanks, in large part, to the gift of the Internet as we’re able to share this content, this message, day after day with women around the world.
I think of how over and over again in the Scripture we hear that God’s heart is for the nations, for the peoples of the world. Psalm 72: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things”—things like what we’ve been hearing over these last few moments. “Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory!” (v. 18–19).
And then Psalm 96: “Tell of His salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations . . . Say among the nations, 'The Lord reigns'" (vv. 3, 10).
And then Habakkuk chapter 2: “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (v. 14).
O Lord, as we’ve heard these stories, we’ve heard these testimonies from these precious women, many of them young women, and how You’re working in their lives, and how, in Your kindness and providence, You’ve made these resources available to them. They’re hearing with their hearts, and they’re saying, “Yes, Lord!” and they’re spreading this message, and Your glory is going forth among the nations.
Lord, that makes us long for the day and anticipate the day when the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
As we said we would do, these women have asked us to pray for them. They’re having Bible studies. They’re using some of these different resources in their churches and in their circle of friends, and many of them don’t have the wealth of teaching available and the resources that we have here in the United States. So I pray, Lord, that You would bless their efforts; that You would encourage them; that You would protect them from the evil one.
In many of these countries where there’s such a small population of true believers in Christ, would you use them and their efforts to spread the gospel that the nations may hear; that the nations may know that Jesus is Lord, and that His name may go forth, and that souls may be converted and sanctified and satisfied in Jesus. And for all of this we give You thanks in Jesus’ precious name, amen.
Now, I hope you’ve been encouraged by those stories that I’ve shared today. I hope that it’s given you a little glimpse into what God is doing day after day through the ministry of Revive Our Hearts. And perhaps, as we’ve listened to these stories today, the Lord has spoken to your own heart about some area of your life that is not pleasing to Him. Perhaps a relationship, as the woman said, you’re tearing down your husband or your fiancé with your tongue, and you need God’s grace to be an encourager, to lift Him up. Maybe someone’s struggling, as one of our listeners was, with a same-sex relationship, and that woman found freedom in Christ, and so can you.
Maybe you’re feeling lonely, you’re friendless, and the Lord wants to help you see that He is the truest friend you could possibly have, and He wants you to find your encouragement and your hope in Him.
Well, thank you for rejoicing with us in God’s goodness and in His wondrous works. We should take time to praise Him and thank Him as we see Him at work. And thank you, many of our listeners, who pray for me and who pray for Revive Our Hearts. I agree with that one letter that said, “We are so dependent on the Lord.” So thank you for praying.
I’m so thankful for those who give financially to support this ministry, for our Ministry Partner team who give monthly so that we can have all these different outreaches—the Internet ministry, the various resources available in numerous languages that we can send to minister to women around the world.
In order to continue this kind of ministry, we’re asking the Lord to provide at least $435,000 in donations during the month of May. Now, you might wonder why the month of May is so important. Well, it’s at the end of this month that our team closes the accounting books on another fiscal year. And in order to keep up on our current levels of ministry, we’re asking the Lord to help us end this fiscal year in a healthy financial position. That will also help us as we head into the summer months when donations typically dip a bit.
And if you’ve never supported this ministry before, your gift will be doubled by some dear friends of Revive Our Hearts. They’re matching each first-time gift this month up to a challenge amount of $70,000. And if this is the first time you’ve given, we want to say, “Thanks,” by sending you a copy of my book that captures the heartbeat of biblical womanhood and revival. It’s called, Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free.
Just ask for a copy of Lies Women Believe when you call us at 1–800–569–5959, or you can visit us online at ReviveOurHearts.com.
Thanks so much for supporting Revive Our Hearts as we share the truth that sets women free in your area and around the world.
Leslie: Thanks, Nancy.
Think of women in the Bible who had a meaningful encounter with Jesus. How many can you think of? Next week Erin Davis will begin helping us to know eight women who encountered Jesus. I think you’ll relate to a lot of those women’s stories. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.
Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.
All Scripture is taken from the English Standard Version.
*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.