How the Devil Checkmated Himself – Kirk Cameron
How the Devil Checkmated Himself
How the Devil Checkmated Himself
What man uses for evil, God can use for good for His will! God used the empires that denied Him to accomplish the purposes of God. The devil thought he had succeeded in defeating the Son of God by getting Him crucified on the cross, not realizing that the devil checkmated himself. By dying on the cross, Jesus defeated death!
With a country divided, the Republican risk and morality being redefined, it’s time to gather round a 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.
So I had lunch today with, a new friend moved out from Colorado, and, um, we got talking about the movie business.
And he said he was excited to be back in California.
I said, why why’d you come to So many people are leaving California.
He said, you know, he said, somebody said we need good people to come back to California.
And he said, I’m I’m seeing good things happening in California.
In fact, there were were revivals in the history of California, like the Azusa street revival, the Jesus Movement, and I thought, yeah.
You know what? You’re right. Campus crusade for Christ with Bill Bright came out of California, and the Billy Graham crusades were in the fifties.
Those big tent revivals in Los Angeles. And D James Kennedy, Coral Ridge Ministries.
There’s there’s all kinds of amazing things happening in the family of faith And he said, you know what?
I’m I’m sensing the rumblings and the shakings of revival in California.
And if something’s gonna go down in California, I wanna be there. And be a part of it.
I’m like, let’s go, brother. Come on. Join us around the campfire.
This is great because I believe that we are on the cusp of another great awakening.
I think revival is around the corner. The stage is set the circumstances are right.
We’re hungry for it. And I believe god’s gonna work through us and our humility our prayers and our obedience to bring about another great spiritual awakening.
Who knows? Maybe it’ll even start here in California and move across the country.
Wouldn’t that be great if California led the way for a biblical revival? That would be amazing.
So, uh, lord, let it be.
So we’re continuing to work our way through the American covenant book And, uh, I was speaking with the author earlier today.
He’s working hard on the updated version of it.
Should be, uh, available on line, uh, an eversion in a couple of weeks and maybe a month or so for the actual printed version that you can get your hands on.
So just hang tight. It’s coming.
So, uh, as I mentioned earlier, we talked about how god was setting man free and how much value god places on the individual.
We talked about Adam, and then we talked about, uh, the job that he gave Adam and Eve to fill the earth and to beautify and organize the whole world and to take care of god’s creation and how that went south.
And then Noah comes on to the stage. And he’s given the same commission. That goes south.
We keep reading the story, and then there’s Abraham.
A godly man who loves god and through his family, god promises to reconcile the world back into a right relationship with the creator and take care of his creation.
He gave him everything that they needed.
His laws, they gay he gave him how to do family, how to do church, even gave him his own presence And this nation called Israel eventually turns away from god again.
A prisoner of its own Mankind is a prisoner of its own selfishness.
And ultimately, you read in the story that this special nation of Israel uh, comes under the control of of the Roman empire, the great and powerful tyranny of the world.
And and the Roman Empire, the Roman leaders had the wrong view of god.
They had the wrong view of man. Man always goofs it up. Man always twists it and perverts it.
God tells us the truth in his word.
And the Roman view of man was that again, man was just uh, inferior to the greater purposes of the government.
Uh, any individual was just a little cog in the machine.
The only value that you served in the Roman Empire was as if you could bring value to the to the almighty, all powerful state.
And, uh, I’m gonna read a little bit from a from a historian here who says that, uh, um, actually then we we go on to the Greek empire and the Greek philosophy, and you guys got got guys like Plato and guys like Aristotle, which is Plato’s student, and they too had this view that this that the government or the state was what was important, and the individual was just absorbed into that.
And if the individual didn’t bring value or talent or, uh, or treasure to the state, then they were they were, replaceable.
You could discard them. You could delete them. You could cancel them because they didn’t matter.
Listen to what how how one historian puts it.
He said the state or the government regarded as of highest importance, not the man, but the citizen of the state.
See that his relationship is to the government.
That’s where his importance is, whose physical and intellectual forces it absorbed So the state would just say, hey.
You’re a good athlete. You’re a good musician. You’re a good philosopher. You’re a great engineer. Okay.
You have value because you can absorb be absorbed by the state and we get to, uh, basically use all of your talent and your worth, but you, your as an individual person apart from the government, now you don’t have any value.
That was the view in the Greek empire and in the Roman empire.
Uh, and if you had things going well for you in a in a in a government place like that, it was because you could do something for the state, and they would give you special treatment.
But if you didn’t offer something of great value, you got the shaft. You got hosed.
And that was really bad for those that, uh, didn’t get the special treatment.
This the government virtually ignored most of these people.
And this fell hard on the laboring men, the mechanics, the poor, the captives in war, slaves, and women.
No Bueno. For those folks, only the talented, only the the the the best of the best, were the ones who were really rewarded and valued, not as people, but as citizens, parts of the state.
And and here’s the interesting thing, and this is what I love about the story.
What man uses for evil, god can turn around and use for good.
It’s like it’s like it’s the it’s the most amazing switch up to accomplish what looks impossible and against all odds, all according to god’s plan.
So in these 2 empires and philosophies of Greece and Rome, these powerful empires that have a low view and a low value on you and me God uses them to accomplish his purposes.
Greece was known for its beautiful rich language.
They were the philosophers and the artists, and they were the the travelers and the the the colonists.
And so their language began to be spoken everywhere.
And then you have the Romans who are known as practical people.
The Roman empire, they were they were builders and they were famous for their roads and their great public buildings.
And they created an empire. They were administrators And the all powerful and majestic empire overshadowed the individual crushing him under its weight unless you could bring value to the emperor and to the empire.
The Romans loved order, and they had great administrative ability And they had this great sense of national life and pulling all the nations that they conquered into this one giant empire.
And they had laws to protect everyone.
And god used the Greeks and the Romans to ultimately connect the entire known world together at the time of Jesus where everyone was speaking the same language and had a profound ability to travel and communicate and ultimately used that system to communicate the gospel to the entire known world.
It’s he used the empires that denied god to actually accomplish the purposes of god.
It’s kind of like when when the devil Thought he had succeeded in defeating the son of god by getting him crucified on a Roman cross, not realizing that the devil had just checkmated himself.
By dying on the cross, Jesus destroyed death and the power of death, and Satan was done.
The devil had destroyed himself, thinking that he had stopped the plans of the kingdom of god coming to the earth.
Through Jesus, the great liberator, but he didn’t. God actually used him to accomplish his purposes.
And it’s in that that culture of darkness and tyranny and a low view and low value of individuals like you and me that Jesus steps onto the scene 2000 years ago, and he rocks their world with a new understanding of how god values man and woman as individuals and as superior to the great empire or the great state, the great government.
Listen to this story that Jesus told. Jesus told the story that went like this.
He says, who of you having a 100 sheep if he loses one of them does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after that one who was lost until he finds it.
And when he’s found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing.
And he returns back home and he calls together his friends and his neighbors and he says to them, rejoice for me, rejoice with me for I found my sheep, which was lost.
And he says, I say to you, likewise, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who turns back to god.
Than over 99 who don’t think that they need god.
And with that story, Jesus put value on the one who was lost.
And he left the crowd, the masses, those who who didn’t think they were lost.
He valued the one that he knew would perish unless he rescued him.
Jesus, god, values the individual, That means he values you.
He values me because you were made in the image of god on purpose.
And he has a unique purpose for you and your life.
As a mother, sacred calling, as a father, That is a a noble vocation to raise young men and young women.
To shape the hearts and minds of the young gen the next generation of human beings, to know god, and to know his world, and how to live in it in such a way, that we heavenize the earth, and we value people, and we set men and women free.
This is so exciting, isn’t it? This is the way that we need to learn history.
This is the way our kids need to understand history that god is in the middle of all of it.
I’m gonna read this from this historian one more time.
Christianity appears on the stage of the world with its central teaching that man was created in the divine image and destined for immortality, pronouncing in the eyes of god that all men are equal.
All men are equal.
Regardless of your race, regardless of how much melanin you have in your skin, regardless of what class you were born into or how much money you have in the bank account, what you do for a living, or who your parents are.
This asserted for the individual an independent value.
Man is superior to the state, and the state is designed to serve man, not the other way around, and that’s what our government is all about.
Those who are holding office, they govern at our consent by our consent.
The government or public servants serving we the people.
They’re designed to be servants for the individuals for families, for the citizens.
That’s the high value view of you and me. We count.
We matter. And that’s the kind of government that the United States of America was founded on.
And we’ve lost sight of that. We need to get back to that because that’s god’s view.
God’s plan of redemption was at last fulfilled in the person of his son, Jesus Christ, who brought a higher law to individuals everywhere.
A higher law that was addressed to the individual heart.
That higher law is more important than anything else.
The law that says love your neighbor, more than yourself, Love your enemies.
Pray for those who persecute you. Do good to those who treat you poorly.
Forgive them.
When they sin against you.
This is the higher law that Jesus lived by that god calls us to.
And when we turn to him by faith, he empowers us to live that out.
It changes us on the inside.
And then moms and dads, men, and women, with changed hearts can change their families.
And I know that there is hope for America because god values you and your family.
And if he can transform you and your family, he will then use you to transform your nation.
That’s how it works. From the inside out, transformation from the bottom, that’s the you and me, the individual, and our backyards are on a campfire, around the dinner table with our kids from the bottom all the way up to the top.
The government starts in our house and moves to the White House, freedom, liberty, starting in the heart, transforming the way we think and moving out into all sectors of our society and culture transforming the nation, and then we become a light to the world.
That was the vision of our founders, and that’s the vision.
That they’re passing on to us right now tonight.
Dear god, thank you for this night again.
Thank you for the 22,000 people at very moment who are gathered around a campfire.
I hope in one day, lord, we could all gather around a real campfire.
Somewhere in this country and just worship you and pray to you and praise you for all that you’ve done.
Thank you for giving us this nation Lord, show us how to completely care for your creation.
Starting with this little corner of it here in the USA.
We love you, and we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen. God bless you guys.
Have a great night.
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