Revive Our Hearts

Danna Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says she never wants to be offensive to others for the wrong reasons. But when the truth is off-putting, what am I to do? Stay the course. Be faithful. Proclaim the Word and do it for as long as God gives you breath.

This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free. For September 10th, 2026, I'm Danna Gresh.

Danna Gresh: As Christians, we try not to become a stench in the nostrils of the world around us. While we have to stand up for what's right without compromising, we don't want to be obnoxious or unnecessarily abrasive in how we go about representing Jesus, right?

Let me tell you, that's something people who are out front or have a more public ministry have to think about quite a bit. And it is getting more difficult than ever. At True Girl, the ministry I lead for tween girls, we have a monthly subscription program. We provide discipleship tools like daily devotions and mom-daughter conversation plans.

We like to include some fun things in those boxes too, like Daisy crowns, candy apple kits, and the world's cutest little panda magnets. They're kind of like object lessons. They help the girls remember the biblical truths they've been studying. And we buy these little gifts by the thousands. What that means is that we are good customers.

And in the past, we've had vendors who were so incredibly excited about the sale. They were about to make suddenly in our correspondence say, we cannot sell our product to you. My team would ask why, and they would respond, after seeing your website, we cannot support an organization like yours.

Like mine? Like what? Like one who loves Jesus and takes a stand for and embraces being a girl and all the Bible says about that? You see, these were vendors who were offended that we were reinforcing the biblical and practical and physical distinctives of being female.

And I wish I could say it only happened once, but it happened three times in one year. The world considers anything associated with two distinct genders to be offensive. But God's Word not only affirms those two genders, but also instructs us how to live like godly women.

Today, we'll hear from our host, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, as she tells us candidly about some of the ways she's had to wrestle through thorny, controversial issues over the years. This week, we're pausing to thank the Lord for 25 years of Revive Our Hearts being on the air. What a blessing. And you know, we can't do this apart from his strength, his grace.

Nor can we do it without friends and listeners like you. If you've ever prayed for Revive Our Hearts, if you've ever made a donation to the ministry of Revive Our Hearts, if you've ever told a friend to listen to a program or to read one of Nancy's books, if you've ever dropped us an email or called to say thank you, can I say thank you to you? It's been good to hear from some of you how God has been using this ministry in your lives.

Annette took some time out of her day to call and leave us this word of encouragement. She lives in Arizona and listens to Revive Our Hearts online.

Annette: I just wanted to call and I'm so glad I have this opportunity because Revive Our Hearts is really, really changing my life. Especially the power, wisdom and reward of a gentle word podcast. Proverbs 15:1-4 is not something I'm struggling with right now, but it's how I used to be. And God has changed my life.

But I've been listening to Revive Our Hearts for the last year. Thank you, Nancy. Thank you, Danna, for everything that you do. I know it's a lot of work. Thank you for being such a great inspiration.

Danna Gresh: And thank you, Annette. That's so encouraging for me to hear. Believe me, I needed those reminders from Proverbs 15 too. In commemoration of our 25th anniversary, Nancy sat down behind the microphone with radio veteran and her dear friend, Bob Lapine. They spent some time looking back on the early years of this program, Revive Our Hearts, and what has grown into a national and international conference ministry. Let's listen.

Bob Lapine: I remember the phrase came up. We were asking ourselves, who is discipling women in the United States? Who's who's the primary discipler of women?

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Are we actually going to say this?

Bob Lapine: Yeah, I think we should. We think most American women were being discipled and many of them still are today by Oprah.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Yeah. And I remember thinking that in many Christian women's lives, women who were sitting in churches Sunday after Sunday, that they were being more discipled by what they were getting from Oprah and that kind of teaching than they were from their pastor.

Bob Lapine: Worldly wisdom was what they were getting and they were building their lives on that. And our vision, our hope, our prayer was that God would use Revive Our Hearts to be a part of transferring women's thinking from worldly wisdom to biblical wisdom and that that would build a new foundation under their lives as they began to soak in the truth of God's Word rather than in the speculation of a psychologist or the latest author of a book or whatever the fad of the moment was.

We got to a point where I remember saying, I think we need to look at some kind of an event for women, a national event for women. You had spoken regionally in churches and locations. You'd gone for a weekend and do a conference where you would speak three or four times. But our advisory board as we got together, I I just sensed it was a moment for getting women together from all around the country.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Yeah. Do you remember how big my eyes got?

Bob Lapine: Do you remember? Yeah, this was this was another one of those those vision ideas that you thought could we really pull this off? The first True Woman event happened in Shaumburg, Illinois.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Was it 2008?

Bob Lapine: 2008.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And you recall that one, that conference sold out. 6300 women 10 weeks before the event. Which we haven't done that since. It was unheard of and it was like there was this pent-up.

Bob Lapine: A hunger.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: But also just days or a week before that conference, the bottom fell out of our economy. And so that was all the talk and the news and there was a lot of fear and anxiety about that. So we were looking at each other like, how's this going to affect everything? But you were there, Bob. I was there and many of our listeners were there and remember when those doors opened on Thursday night on that October. I want to say October 9th, 2008. It's like this gosh, this flood of women, including over 100 women from the Dominican Republic, who we didn't know who they were at the time, but they made their presence known and they added a lot to that particular weekend. They were so eager.

And there was a I think for so many women, here's what I sensed. I felt like they were many of these women who had felt for years that they were kind of alone in believing a biblical perspective on womanhood and their calling and design as women.

And they looked around and found that there were 6,000 other women who had a similar DNA and sense of mission and there was this awareness. Women came from many different countries and and we're looking around and we're saying, we're not, you know, Elijah had said, I alone am left who worships the Lord. And God says, no, there're 7,000 who haven't bowed the knee to Baal. And there was that sense, there are others. We have support. There was encouragement.

And we saw the Lord move, bringing women, Yep. providing the resources financially, the speakers, moments in that event that were what we always ask him for, and those are God moments where you can't explain what happens apart from God. And really from that day, there was a greater sense of movement. That's where we uh, released the first True Woman Manifesto.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: We believe that God is the sovereign Lord of the universe, and the creator of life, and that he created all. We admit that sin has separated every human being from God, and made us incapable of reflecting his image, as we were created to. We realize that we live in a culture that does not recognize God's right to rule, does not accept Scripture as the pattern for life, and is experiencing the consequences. We believe that Christ is redeeming this sinful world and making all things new, and that his followers are called to share in his redemptive purpose. We desire to honor God by living countercultural lives that reflect the beauty of Christ and the Gospel, and we affirm that Scripture is God's authoritative means of instructing us in his ways, and it reveals his holy pattern for our womanhood, our character, our priorities, and our various roles, responsibilities, and relationships. We glorify God and experience his blessing when we accept and joyfully embrace his created design, function as redeemed sinners. We cannot live out the beauty of biblical womanhood apart from the sanctifying work of the gospel, and the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Men and women are both created in the image of God and are equal in value and dignity. But they have distinct roles and functions in the home and in marriage. Marriage as created by God is sacred, binding, lifelong covenant between one man and one woman.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Dr. John Piper spoke at that conference and he talked about how Christian women are not to be wimpy women.

John Piper (Audio Clip): Wimpy theology makes wimpy women. Wimpy theology does not give a woman a God big enough, strong enough, wise enough, good enough to handle the realities of life in a way that enables her to magnify him and his son all the time. It's not big enough. Wimpy theology is plagued by woman-centeredness, or as we usually call it, man-centeredness. Wimpy theology doesn't have a granite foundation of God's sovereignty underneath it. It doesn't have the steel structure of a great, God-centered purpose for all of human existence, including the worst of it. God's ultimate purpose for the universe and all of history, and your life, is to display the glory of Christ in its highest expression in his dying to make a rebellious people his bride. That's the reason the universe exists. That's not wimpy. And it doesn't produce wimpy women. True womanhood is a distinctive calling to display the glory of the son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood. Married womanhood has ways to magnify Christ that single womanhood cannot. Single womanhood has ways to magnify Christ that married womanhood cannot. So whether you are married or single, do not settle for wimpy theology. It's beneath you. God is too great, Christ is too glorious, womanhood is too strategic. Don't waste it. Your womanhood, your true womanhood was made for the glory of Christ.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Mary Kassian talked about the history of the feminist movement.

Mary Kassian (Audio Clip): By the late 1960s, the image of June Cleaver being happy at home and her role as wife and mother had fallen by the wayside, replaced by the 1970s Marlo Thomas image of a pretty single woman in her 30s pursuing a career at a television station.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And the ideology and how that had influenced everything, the air we breathe was filled with this.

Mary Kassian (Audio Clip): And whether or not you would admit it, whether you not you know it, all of us in this room have been profoundly affected by feminist thought.

Danna Gresh: So many powerful memories from that first True Woman Conference in 2008.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Nancy spoke too about how God was raising up women who were willing to swim upstream like salmon and to be countercultural, and we knew this was going to be a remnant movement, that it was never going to be the "in" thing, but we realized we had sisters.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: She lives intentionally. She's not just drifting, letting the circumstances of life pull her along. She's willing to be a salmon, swimming upstream to live a countercultural, godly life in an unholy world. And we got our marching orders. We got our calling, and we left that place affirming that True Woman Manifesto and saying, we will, by God's grace, be women of God, submitted and surrendered to his kingdom purposes.

And women left that conference, went back to almost every state in the Union, many different countries, hundreds of different churches to take the message, to take the change that God was bringing about in their lives and to reproduce and make what was the beginnings of a grassroots movement that we're still believing God for.

Bob Lapine: And it was catalytic. Each one of the subsequent True Woman events has been catalytic. We we sow a seed there, not even knowing the ground it's going into, and we watch a harvest come up.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: We're still enjoying some of the fruits of that 2008 harvest and that's because our Spanish language outreach, Avivando Nuestros Corazones, was conceived in that conference. In fact, on November 13th and 14th, they're hosting their own True Woman conference, Mujer Verdadera 2026. It's taking place in Miami, Florida. And if you're a Spanish-speaking listener, you can still register. Find more information at MujerVerdadera2026.com.

Danna Gresh: We're listening to Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth in conversation with Bob Lapine as they reflect back on 25 years since the very first Revive Our Hearts program was released.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: You know, the message of revival and biblical womanhood, that term is even really out of vogue today and it's and it conjures images in people's heads of things that we don't mean and we're not saying, but it carries some baggage with it today. And certainly even the biblical understanding of manhood and womanhood and gender and sex and what it means to live a sacrificial life. These things they're not they're not popular messages. And sometimes when we're talking about these issues, have you ever sat back, whether it's listening to me or listening to the True Woman conference and thought, 'Ooh, I don't know how that's going to be received'? You know, maybe kind of wincing or saying, 'Boy, prepare for fireworks' or as you've watched us proclaiming a countercultural message, what's gone through your head and heart?

Bob Lapine: For the most part, I've been cheering it on because I resonate so much with that countercultural message. And there were times when I think you would take a stand on an issue and I would think, yes, that will be off-putting to some. And I I think we had conversations about what's the best way to say this in advance or do we do we edit that out so that it's not a stumbling block for people?

But we've always been committed, you've always been committed, and I've resonated with that to not being intimidated by what's going on in the culture and pulling back from proclaiming hopefully winsomely, and I think you've done that. We want to be winsome in our proclamation, but to as Ephesians 6 says, stand firm even with with that winsome approach.

And I think you've you've modeled that. I I think all of us would look back and say there are ways we said things years ago that we could not say today in the same way because it would be heard differently.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: This is why I went back and revised Lies Women Believe.

Bob Lapine: Right.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Not because the truth changes to fit the culture, but how the culture hears some truths changes. And and I think by God's grace and with help from friends like you and others, I've tried to temper. You've asked me at times, okay, when you take a stand on this, do you believe this is absolute for everyone or is this something you're just saying as a a wisdom issue? So you've helped me to to try and process. Is this something that women when they hear you say you recommend this, do they think they should all do it this way? Or are you just giving an example that they may want to consider for their lives? So trying to be winsome.

Bob Lapine: Yeah.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: To realize that the truth is not only right, but it's also good and beautiful.

Bob Lapine: Well, a classic example of that is when you wrote on the subject of contraception in Lies Women Believe.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Yeah. And counterculturally said, I think maybe it's wise to reconsider the unquestioning acceptance of contraception, which has become the norm among Christian women. And what I heard you saying is this is something that should be approached prayerfully. You were not saying no one should ever practice any kind of contraception or birth control. Again, you said it differently when you revised Lies Women Believe. And I knew in saying it the first time.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Yeah, you told me.

Bob Lapine: This will get some.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: We knew that there were people who just even raising the question.

Bob Lapine: And because because it's so countercultural, people are going to go, this is just a throwback. This is a person who's who's just not even up-to-date with the times. Well, we've never been guided by the spirit of the age.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And to make clear for those who haven't read the book and don't know what it says, we didn't say contraception was wrong.

Bob Lapine: Right.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: What we said was, what I said in that book was, if Christ is Lord of every area of your life and he is, and we say he is and should be, then this is an area where he needs to be Lord as well. So for us in this or any other area, just to be making our own decisions and going with the flow of the culture without stopping to critically think, why am I doing this? Why am I thinking this way? What is influencing my thinking? Do I have a biblical perspective and worldview on children, on family? And even raising those questions is hard.

Bob Lapine: Yeah.

Bob Lapine: And I have always appreciated the fact that when you've come to an issue like that, it is not something that you have just rushed in with a quick opinion on.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Yeah.

Bob Lapine: You have kept silent until you've had time to process and pray and study and consider. And you may come to a countercultural conclusion, but you do not come to it lightly. And even in proclaiming it, you want to proclaim it boldly and yet at the same time carefully.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And humbly, to realize that I don't have the corner on truth. I'm not God.

Bob Lapine: Right.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And I'm not trying to point people to my opinions.

Bob Lapine: Right.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: It does help when you have to answer emails and letters and deal with calls from people who either misunderstood what you said or vociferously disagree with what you said. But I've often said that even our critics, and there have been those, there are those, but those actually help you clarify your message, shape it, and say it in a way that doesn't put unnecessary roadblocks in people's paths.

Bob Lapine: And those of us who do this cannot imagine the context into which we are speaking when we speak.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Right.

Bob Lapine: There are tens of thousands of contexts. They're hearing what you say with all kinds of different, what about my situation? And and in your situation, we might shape the message a little differently, but if we're anchored in what the Word says and we can say we think biblical wisdom would point us here.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And you've always been careful to do this.

Bob Lapine: To say the people who can help you best with the issue you're dealing with are not people on the other end of the radio, they're people in your church. They're people in your community, people who know your life and your context. And that's where we want to point people for the ultimate answers and for the ultimate wisdom in these kinds of situations, people who are anchored in the scriptures, know your context and can apply that well.

Our hope is just to provoke you to to bring every area of life under the Lordship of Christ, rather than a friend of mine says most of us are more catechized by the world than we are by the church or by the by the scriptures. It's time for us to think biblically and not worldly, and that's what Revive Our Hearts, that's the mission here that you have been faithful to.

And so, to your question, I've known that there were things you were saying that were not going to be popular. Most of the time I have said that's a good thing. There are times for a prophet to speak knowing that his or her words will not be liked. I was having a conversation last night with some friends about the ministry of Charles Simeon. And for more than 50 years, he was the pastor of a church in Cambridge, in England.

And there was a 10-year period in his ministry where he was not well received. He he people wouldn't show up. In those days, you paid for your pew and you had a a lock on the door to the little cage that you sat in. And people would lock their cages so nobody else could sit in their seats and wouldn't show up. And he was preaching to a nearly empty church.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Faithfully.

Bob Lapine: For 10 years.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Yes.

Bob Lapine: And it was his faithfulness in ministry even when people weren't showing up that the Lord honored, and it's why we remember his name. One of the reasons why we remember his name today. So the popularity of what you're saying, all of us want to be liked, but that's not what ultimately guides what we say is whether it's going to be well received or whether it's going to be liked. And so when you've said things that I knew were countercultural, for the most part, I have said, I'm glad you're saying these things and and I hope people have ears to hear.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And I'm so glad I've had friends like you, pastors, others that I've been able to use as a lifeline and say, I'm wanting to address this, but I want to do it in a way that's careful and wise and biblical. And I've had friends like you who've helped me think through those things, help me articulate them, and you know, in the in the multitude of counselors. There is safety. So I thank the Lord so for a team of people who not only helped me to be more faithful to the word and deliver the message, but who also have encouraged and supported when those attacks came and said, you know, be faithful.

Bob Lapine: Yep.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Stay the course. In fact, I can remember there was a season in this ministry where the kind of teaching we were doing was not was falling out of vogue in the broadcast world. And it seemed for a time, we wondered like, would programs like this even still be around? Now, that's been weathered and I think the ship has been more or less righted on that. But we didn't know.

And I remember the Lord taking me to Second Timothy 4, written to pastors, but I think with application that was helpful to me in in my setting. And Paul charged Timothy, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Rebuke, reprove, exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when men will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, etcetera. But he says, as for you, this what the world is doing. They're they're wanting something that's going to make them feel better about themselves. But he says, as for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry, for I am already being poured out as a drink offering. And the time of my departure has come.

And God used that passage in in that season to just remind me that the measure of success was not how well the message is received. Now, I don't want to be the obstacle. I don't want my personality or my being rough or unloving or lacking meekness. I don't want that to be what is off-putting to people. But when the truth is off-putting, what am I to do? Stay the course.

Bob Lapine: That's right.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Be faithful, proclaim the word and do it for as long as God gives you breath.

Bob Lapine: And you have.

Danna Gresh: Yes, Nancy, you have, and we've all been the beneficiaries of that tenacity and that commitment to God's Word. So, friend, thank you. We've been listening as Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and Bob Lapine look back on some of the bigger moments in the history of Revive Our Hearts. It hasn't always been easy, but God has been faithful.

The first True Woman conference was held in 2008. Then we had True Woman 10, 12, 14, 16, 18. True Woman 20 had to be canceled because of the pandemic, but we were able to gather again for True Woman 22, then 25. And even now, we're getting excited for True Woman 27 in Indianapolis, September 30th through October 2nd of next year.

Now, in many ways, this conference will call back to the very first one in 2008, inviting women to embrace God's design and shine as beacons of God's glory in a lost world. Nancy encouraged us to swim upstream all those years ago, and that's still what we are called to do today. In fact, I think it's more important than ever.

Super early bird pricing is still available. So tell your friends, tell your sisters, tell your mom, your grandma, your next door neighbor. All of you can sign up today at TrueWoman27.com. Now, while you're on the website, check out our gift for the month of September. For your donation of any amount, we'll say thank you by sending you Devoted, six women of the Bible who said, 'Yes, Lord.' It's a beautiful new book drawn from Nancy's teaching over the years.

Learning about a life of surrender from biblical women like Hannah, the woman at the well, and others. You can find out more at ReviveOurHearts.com or by calling us at 1-800-569-5959.

Tomorrow, we're going to take a look back at the last 25 years here at Revive Our Hearts. Now, how can you cover all the things God did over a quarter of a century? Well, you can't. But we'll hit some highlights. It's a way to brag on our great God. Hope you'll join us tomorrow for Revive Our Hearts.

Danna Gresh: This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.