Fire Makes a Good Servant, But a Terrible Master

Fire Makes a Good Servant, But a Terrible Master
Government makes a good servant, but a terrible master. As long as government is limited and serves the people, it’s good. but once it becomes out of control like a wildfire, it becomes a terrible master.

With a country divided, the Republican risk and morality being redefined, it’s time to gather round the camp fire.
Get back to basics and spark the revival that this country so desperately needs.
This is the American Camp Fire revival with Cook Cameron.
I want us to talk, uh, a little bit more about this whole idea of of power.
Uh, people love power. People do, crazy things in order to gain power.
Uh, power often feels good when you have it. And when you have it, most people want more of it.
And the pilgrims, we talked about last night and the night before, they understood what it was like to be on the receiving end of bad church power and bad king power.
So you have the civil government king and the government can exercise bad power and a church can actually be very, uh, powerfully controlling in the lives of people as well.
But civil government is actually designed by god to be good. And so is church design to be good.
And we, as the family of faith, wanna understand the roles that they play in god’s view of the world so that we can have earth reflecting heaven and it’s it’s goodness and it’s rightness.
That was Jesus prayer. Lord may your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Heaven’s the pattern for earth. And so I wanna talk about that.
So as I said, we’re we’re going through the American covenants, the untold story, And, uh, the pilgrims got abused by big church religion because it was so powerful.
It was dictating to all the people. I love this quote. I believe it’s by George Washington.
Um, I believe it was him who said that government is power.
If if if you boil down what is government, it’s ultimately power. It’s force. Right?
It’s it’s the ones who make the laws.
It’s the ones who judge the people of whether or not you’re innocent or guilty of breaking that law.
And then you have those who enforce the law and punish law break years. Government ultimately is force.
Ultimately is power. And and and I believe George Washington also said that government is like fire.
It makes a good servant, but a terrible master. Think about that. That’s a great quote.
You should memorize that one. Government is like fire makes a good servant, but a terrible master.
If this fire is contained, and it is my servant. It’s serving me.
I can roast marshmallows over it. I can warm myself.
Uh, when I’m cold, I can cook my food over a fire if it is my servant.
In order for it to be my servant, it has to be it has to be contained.
But if it gets out of control, all of a sudden, it becomes a terrible master it if if fire has mastery over us, it becomes a a a tyrannical power.
And we here in Southern California know a lot about out of control fires.
It is a force so devastating that it just leaves nothing but ashes in its wake.
1000000 and 1000000 of acres of of forest and mountains and and buildings and property absolutely destroyed when fire gets out of control.
And it’s no longer our servants it has become our master. Government is like that.
According to George Washington, I think we could we can agree with the wisdom there as long as government is limited and it is serving the people, it’s good.
It’s helpful. But once it becomes out of control, like a wildfire, it becomes a terrible, terrible master.
And that’s what our founders understood, and that’s what the pilgrims understood, and that’s what their pastor understood.
In fact, he understood that that applied to church government as well.
And their pastor was this great man named John Robinson. He was the founding father of the forefathers. Right?
So you you got the founders And then you got the forefathers, then you got the founding father of the forefathers, who was their pastor, who was the man of wisdom, their spiritual leader who guided them.
And he reminds me of my friend and pastor Rex Holt.
I told you about that before, and he saw 3 forms of government in the world. He saw the monarchy.
He saw the aristocracy and he also saw the democracy. Well, we know democracy.
That’s where Well, how about the monarchy? You know what that is? A monarch is mono. There’s one.
The monarchy is the king. It’s the queen.
It’s the one who has all the power is vested in one person and they make all the rules they have all of the control.
An aristocracy is the power given to a few.
Not only one, but a few, but it’s it’s a few, a group that governs and has all the power and ability to force.
And then there’s the democracy, which is of course who has the power to democracy.
All of us, the people, it’s spread out for the many, everyone.
And this pastor said there is a place for all 3 and they’re good in the family of faith.
And this is so important because when church government empowerment gets off kilter and upside down, it becomes like a wildfire and it’s terrible when government power, civil government power gets out of control.
And it’s no longer contained. It becomes terrible. So that’s why we’re talking about this.
I’m not just a a a a church government geek or or a government geek.
I’m I’m I’m about my family and about my nation, about freedom, and we’ve gotta understand this.
He saw all three in their proper order good in the family of faith.
So in the family of faith, the church, who is the monarch? Who is the king?
God, the almighty. Jesus is the king of kings. Now it’s interesting here.
He is the king who has the sovereign power and authority. He has all power in heaven and on earth.
Right? He is the rightful monarch of the kingdom of god, which encompasses everything.
But he’s the king of kings.
And the king of kings Jesus we read in the book of Revelation has deemed all members of the family of faith you and me when we come to him in faith, we are deemed to be kings and priests in the kingdom of god for the service of the almighty.
So that means he has deemed you and me to be kings as well.
And do you know that the word citizen actually means co king?
You and I, if we are citizens of the kingdom of god, are co kings with Jesus, the king of kings.
He’s the king of us. And we are ruling and reigning with him in his kingdom.
But with all of these kings and all of these priests he calls us, by the way, we’re also priests, what does a priest do?
We are called by god as fellow believers to pray and to praise god and to offer our thankfulness for who he is and what he’s done.
And so we are a family of faith made up of kings and guess what our kingdom is?
Your kingdom and my kingdom is my life, my heart, the domain of my kingdom that I am king over is my heart.
And and if I can be a good king over the domain of my heart, unto god and his principles, and you can be a king over the kingdom of your heart.
Honoring the lord and loving your family and loving your neighbors, We then are called to democratically elect leaders within the family of faith to do the business of church.
To guide and to serve the people within the kingdom of god.
And those leaders are never to lord it over us. That’s an abuse of power.
The power is the power of god working in the hearts of you and me, the citizens of the kingdom, and then we select and elect those who have a heart to serve god and serve the people, you and me brothers and sisters in the family of faith, guiding and serving.
And the people have the responsibility and the authority to hold those leaders accountable and then replace them if they do not live up to their calling to submit to god themselves and serve the people in love considering others better than themselves and more important than themselves.
You see how that works? It requires humility It’s caused to give thanks to god for the authority being given to the people, not to a one man or one woman in the church, but to you and to me.
This is what pastor John Robinson understood, and he taught the pilgrims this so that they would be able for the next step in god’s plan for their lives.
And the next step was unbelievable they had escaped from England and the persecution there.
They went to hospitable Holland where at least their faith was tolerated They had a Bible with them and so they understood these principles and they studied them for 12 years.
And then they were ready to get on the Mayflower ship, which by the way, was a tiny little wine ship designed to go port to port in England never designed to go all the way across the Atlantic Ocean where they would encounter huge storms and waves But they were ready.
And their pastor, John Robinson, sadly, had to stay back In England, with the majority of the church fellowship, the family of faith that couldn’t fit onto the Mayflower, as 102 of the congregants of that family of faith set off into the ocean with what they thought would be a difficult trip to Virginia where they would build a new life and have freedom of their faith It turned into a dangerous, death defying demonstration of god’s perfect plan for them.
And his perfect love for them.
They had no clue what was coming and the storms that they would face and what they thought would maybe take a couple of weeks ended up taking a couple of months, and it was almost the end of them.
And if they hadn’t made it through, It is unlikely that you and I would have the kind of country that we have with the form of government that we have that provides liberty and freedom and justice and opportunity for all.
I can’t wait to tell you the next part of the story, but, uh, god bless you.
May the lord bless you and keep you?
May the lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you?
May the lord lift up his countenance upon you and your family? And give you peace.
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