our father in heaven thank you for uh giving us such a a beautiful world to live in god you’ve given us this world and and yet uh we’ve not appreciated it and we’ve not recognized our total dependence upon you lord we we we see things heading in the wrong direction morally and spiritually in our country and in our world lord uh we’re tempted to think that we can fix things by throwing money at it or or looking for a political leader to remedy the problem but we understand that our problem cannot be fixed with political solutions

as important as as those are all the money in the world cannot change the the human heart only you can do that and we we’ve learned that without a transformed human heart there’s no hope for renewing civilization and so god we ask you to revive us to restore us to reconcile us to you and to one another we ask this in jesus name amen well i’m in a new place tonight i got a new campfire pit behind me um same flag and the same american covenant book and uh i’ve got some more friends that i’ve met that have uh lended their campfire and they’re home

to us tonight so we’re going through the american covenant and this is a chapter in the book that uh it goes over this important principle the jesus strategy for transformation of his world and it’s an inside out strategy in the bible proverbs 25 verse 28 says this he who has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls now we understand that if you have a city that is broken down and you have no walls the city’s been destroyed uh it’s got no protection uh it’s a dangerous place to be

and and god says in his word that that’s what it’s like when a man or a woman cannot rule his own spirit when when you when you have no self-control you’re headed for destruction you’re you’re going to live a dangerous life you’re going to be danger to yourself and to others if you can’t rule your own spirit and the truth is is that if we don’t own rule our own spirit we’re people who are actually going to lose our real cities we’ll lose our entire nation if we can’t rule our spirit we certainly have no ability to rule

a nation and so we got to start with the little kingdom in our heart the bible says and then begin to expand to the kingdom of our family and then all the way out to the larger kingdoms of nations and the world now there’s a great quote by a gentleman named hugo groteus is his name hugo grotius i don’t know if he was english but sounds kind of english and uh he said this in 18 i’m sorry 1654 so this is way back before like just after the pilgrims this is before america was even america uh and before the the civil war

but listen to this great quote and he and he beautifully stated the pattern of uh of of of rule beginning in the heart before rule can ever take place in a good way in government check this out he said he who does not know how or no he knows not how to rule a kingdom who cannot manage a region and nor can he can he rule a region who does not know how to order a city nor can he order a city who does not know how to regulate a village nor can he regulate a village who cannot guide a family and nor can that man govern well a