Countdown 2 Eternity

Voiceover: Welcome once again to Countdown to Eternity with Pastors James Kaddis and Tom Hughes, a weekly radio ministry from Calvary Chapel Signal Hill. Together, Tom and James examine current events and connect what's going on in our world to Bible prophecy.

James Kaddis: Well hello my dear brothers and sisters, I want to welcome you to another episode of Countdown to Eternity. And boy, are we going to rock and roll today. Tommy, I look, before we start, I just have to say that this world is going absolutely berserk.

Tom Hughes: You know what James? It is. Listen, people are completely crazy and you want to know something? The Bible prophecy world maybe some of the craziest. And I know you and I are both in it and so people right now are going, "You know what world you guys are in?" And I'm like, come on you guys, stop with the nonsense.

It's crazy. I just had to turn it off just recently, listening to somebody talking about, "Oh yeah, we're going to be raptured tomorrow." I mean, it's ridiculous. It is beyond ridiculous. And every year, these predictions come about. Listen, all right, so here's how it rolls everybody. There's people in the Bible prophecy world.

I'm going to - here it is, James. You and I are going to tick off a whole lot of people today. Because, listen, in Galatians or Colossians where Paul wrote and he said, "Because I tell you the truth, I've become your enemy." Right? So, this is where we're at. And every year, every year we deal with it.

People say, well it's the high watch times. I mean you've heard it, right? So what that means is we go into the fall feasts of Israel, those are the high watch times. So high watch for the rapture, high watch for whatever. Okay, so that's fall feast. All right, does that mean the rest of the year is low watch times? Does that mean you're not looking and anticipating the coming of the Lord? Oh, well we'll forget it, the fall feasts are done.

Okay now I'm going to preface this before we go any further, and I know this is going to tick off people, but every single year we have to do this. And so I look at James when somebody takes the fall feasts, the feasts of God for His people Israel, right? Somebody takes them, we think of Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot and so forth, and they say this applies to the church or the rapture of the church, specifically the rapture of the church.

To me, that's a form of replacement theology. Because what you've done is you've taken something that is clearly for Israel and you've said that no longer applies to Israel, that applies to us, the church. Okay, and I'll take it a little bit further. So you take the spring feasts. We have Shavuot, which is the last of them. We have Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, right?

So we look at the spring feasts and people will say, well that applies to the church, therefore the fall feasts apply to the church. No, the spring feasts were Jewish. In fact, who is Jesus celebrating Passover with? It is Jewish disciples. The Jews are celebrating Passover. The Feast of Firstfruits. What is this? Jewish.

Okay and then you say, well Pentecost was the Gentile. No it wasn't. Pentecost was these Jews in Jerusalem that the Holy Spirit came upon when the church was birthed, it was birthed with Jewish believers. Jews. There were Gentiles sprinkled in but it was Jewish. So the spring feasts were Jewish, they were fulfilled and Jesus so fulfilled those. I believe Jesus will fulfill the fall feasts also, but through the nation of Israel, the church will get benefits from those things. But no, I mean to say that somehow this applies to the rapture of the church, that's just so wrong.

James Kaddis: Well it's absolutely ridiculous and it's unbiblical. The associations that are oftentimes made are very, very broken. I've seen this discussion go as far as the picture that's being given by the marriage supper. There are so many other ideas that people take and run with this.

And the reality of it is, looking at the passage within its context is far more important than trying to read into something that doesn't even exist. And I think that that's the big problem that we have. When it comes to Bible prophecy, look, let me just be open about this. When I was a kid and I was first studying Bible prophecy and I first got saved and I started teaching the Bible 34 years ago, the average Bible prophecy person could get up there and say all kinds of crazy things that were not true, and they got away with it.

I mean, they would literally get up there and they would say the craziest wild, like I got top secret connections to this government official and kind of like what they just recently did with the whole UFO thing. And people would buy it hook, line, and sinker not because people are stupid or not because people are crazy, but because people look at these men who are supposedly men of God who are teaching the Bible and they take what they say at face value when in reality many of those men are not only lazy about the assertions that they make, but they don't spend any time really truly developing a critical thinking mindset that helps to bring out the value of the Bible.

Rather they bring in their own value because in their hearts they discount where the true value is. Now that happens, and then the other thing that happens is you have people who just simply are too lazy to pull it out so they create it on their own. And I was just telling you about a guy that I talked to recently who was having a conversation with somebody online that was the whole time the guy was lying. I mean the whole time the guy was just saying stuff that was just not true.

And then it's a shame because you have people saying, oh this is so good, oh this is so great. No it isn't. The problem is you're not so adept to things, you're at the point where you're not so well-tied into what you need to be that you're doing a disservice. And if you're going to bring value to people, you have to tell them the truth.

And I'm going to make the argument and I think that this argument is really, really important. I'm going to make the argument that if you truly understand the feasts the way they were designed to be understood, directly associated with the people of God, with the Jews, with Israel, then the benefits you gain as a believer today as a Gentile and especially as somebody who studies Bible prophecy are far greater than the many fabrications that are created.

When this replacement theology mindset comes in and you begin to create metaphors for everything and then come to conclusions like we're going to get raptured tomorrow. And I think we should pull at least a good solid three to five reasons or examples as into why this is the case. Very concise, and I think we should talk about it for a second because there's a whole lot more than that, but it's something that we should come up with immediately.

And I don't know if we make a flashcard, you know like this is the test because here we go again. We're going to have people making whole reputations almost like the Candace Owens of Bible prophecy.

Tom Hughes: Well there, okay, I want to say this. So that and what you already said, you have to take things as symbolic. Here's a typical Bible prophecy person, which you and I are, right? We look but we say, no, we gotta take this literally. So a lot of these people will come up to us say, "I agree, we gotta take it literally," except well over here we decide to take it symbolically because this guy on TikTok said there's these eclipses and therefore it's pointing to the rapture and all of the planets lined up and so forth.

So all of a sudden you do the Candace Owens stuff, you go, "Well I'm bringing the receipts." Well what are the receipts? Well the receipts are all symbolic. So check this one out James, this came from someone who follows us, an astronomer from Idaho, AC Katz writes this.

And this is about the eclipses to put it into the right perspective which just confirms everything you just said. The upcoming lunar eclipse on August 28th, because they're pointing to the eclipse, then Rosh Hashanah, everything, right? The upcoming lunar eclipse on August 28th will be - are you sitting down? Yes you are. Listen, the 4,759th lunar eclipse since Olivet Discourse.

The average number of lunar eclipses over 10 years is 23. There are 230 lunar eclipses in a 100-year period per century. From 32 AD to 100 there were 136 lunar eclipses. From 100 to 1000 there were 2,300 lunar eclipses and then you get it. So they write, that means the upcoming lunar eclipse on August 28th will be the 4,759th lunar eclipse since Olivet Discourse when Jesus said in Matthew, Mark, and Luke the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.

So these are just normal - this happens. What's being written about where Jesus says that, he's talking about during the tribulation. It will be incredibly - it's this great time of judgment. Friends, we're not there yet. So it's just doing these things. You saw some guy on TikTok that said the Euphrates River is drying up, therefore the sixth bowl judgment is poured out.

Are you kidding me? It's like you gotta stop with the nonsense and people, James, are led astray. They don't look at the facts. They create anxiety. All of a sudden they're going to do all kinds of crazy things and then you know what, the fall feasts are going to be come and gone and they're going to get mad at us for bringing the truth. "You took away my joy." No I told you not to get involved with this because it's harmful to you spiritually and emotionally. It really is.

James Kaddis: Yeah, and I think look, this is such a critical place for us to be in right now. And look, I have to calm myself down a little bit. I have to take it down a few notches because quite frankly, there's a part of me that just wants to lose my mind over this because of how serious this is. I think if there's a concise way to argue this, people have to understand this.

How about we just talk about the feasts for a minute? Could we just talk about the biblical feasts? Because that's what people place an emphasis on, okay? The biblical feasts, they make far more sense when we understand them the way God designed them, okay? And the way God designed them is in direct connection with Israel and the Jewish people. Gentile believers, us, oh yeah look we'll benefit from their prophetic meaning undoubtedly, undoubtedly.

But we do not need to replace Israel or turn everything into a metaphor in order to receive the benefits that God intended. And that like that to me is the part that just bothers me the most. Look, the feasts that we're talking about belong to God.

Tom Hughes: Amen. God said it, He said they belong to me and they were directly given to Israel. What does Leviticus 23 say? I know this because I just finished teaching through Leviticus. Leviticus 23, can I read it? New King James, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, "Speak to the children of Israel," so it's a message to Israel, "and say to them the feasts of the Lord which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations. These are my feasts." So God says to Israel, "These are my feasts, the feasts of the Lord."

James Kaddis: But did you notice Tommy, did you notice what you just read? God commanded Moses to proclaim them to the children of Israel. So we can learn from them easily, I mean we can easily learn from them without transferring Israel's identity to the church. Bingo. And I think it's a bigger deal. All of those feasts that we're talking about were designed by God to demonstrate that He fulfills prophecy. He fulfills promises in real history.

Literally, it's not some abstract, "Well we think this is going to happen tomorrow." How about we look at them the way that they were intended to be looked at and actually see how they have fulfilled things in the past which give us strength to be confident in what happened in the future. The Passover is a great example. Jesus died what, as our Passover? Hebrews talks about it. He rose as the firstfruits. I mean, he died as our Passover, he rises as the firstfruits.

The Apostle Paul talks about it like on a regular basis. First Corinthians 15 is riddled with it when he talks about the resurrection and the Holy Spirit does what? Let's talk about it. You know what feast I'm going to talk about next. Pentecost. I mean these are things that we can celebrate by tangible moments in the Bible that we don't need to create metaphors.

And by the way, if you look at those events, they're not spiritual metaphors. They were literal, actual events, actual events that were connected to God's times that he had appointed for a very specific purpose. For example, the Joel prophecy that you had just mentioned. The Joel prophecy was mentioned by the Apostle Peter specifically saying it's fulfilled today in this moment. Not all of it obviously, there's a partial fulfillment, but the point is they were connected to Israel at very specific appointed times and we became the beneficiary of it.

The fulfillment here actually strengthens the literal interpretation instead of the replacement interpretation that everybody takes. This is why they screw up so bad when it comes to the book of Revelation and the prophetic implications by the way of all of this. If anything, related to the future, they preserve God's promises for Israel. That's the thing, and you mentioned that already. Israel's future spiritual awakening, that's the term that I'm looking for, right?

Their repentance, the restoration that God promised. All that stuff, the blessing that comes from the kingdom of God now becoming something that's directly tied to Israel's future. All of those things, they all fit the pattern of the fall feasts that everybody's going berserk over right now. Zechariah 12 is a great example. It presents Israel recognizing the one who they pierced. Zechariah 14 is the same thing.

If you think about it, these are all connected to the Feast of Tabernacles. Actually quite frankly Zechariah 14 connects that moment to the Feast of Tabernacles. Like you can't just remove that, but that's Israel. That's Israel in the moment in which God does what he's going to do and he touches his foot down on the Mount of Olives. I mean I don't know how much more. Look, even Gentile believers, those of us that are not Jewish, we receive the blessing through Israel, we don't receive it by replacing Israel.

So why are we spending a bunch of time trying to create these weird, well this means the rapture. No it doesn't. Romans 11 makes it very, very clear. If you understand the feasts properly, then you have to understand that it teaches gratitude and humility for what God has given us through His people rather than this arrogant, cocky, "Oh we finna get raptured tomorrow."

And I'm sorry, I'm kind of mocking a little bit but it's ridiculous. And that's the other thing, like did you notice a bunch of these guys in Bible prophecy, they're arrogant. Like there's no humility in the representations they make because although they claim to jump on the Israel bandwagon, they literally smash Israel in the name of their own interpretation.

Tom Hughes: They do, right at these particular things. It drives me nuts Tommy. Well you do and here's the other problem. So then the fall feasts come and go and they say, "Well I didn't say it would, I said it could." Oh yeah, it can happen anytime. It could happen on - they backpedal with their lies, bro. Yeah and that's how they keep the audience going and stuff like that. Listen, this is very dangerous.

And so when we look at these things, what happens when we have Jesus fulfilling Tabernacles? That's when He dwells with men. 100 percent. And then you recognize, well wait, what's the millennial kingdom? You already said it, Jesus stands on the Mount of Olives. Mount of Olives splits in two. The kingdom age begins. So this is when these prophecies are fulfilled.

What's Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur? The holiest time, it's when Israel realizes who they are, their sins year after year. But the real fulfillment of that is Zechariah chapter 12, verse 10, when they look upon him whom they've pierced and they mourn as one mourns for their only son. So we see those things for Israel, but the church believers, we're blessed because we're grafted in.

James Kaddis: I mean, think about this bro, the literal framework that exists behind the feasts are designed by God to protect us from reckless speculation instead of us giving into it. If you think about it, you look at the feasts and you study them the way God designed for them to be studied, those feasts reveal God's prophetic order and purposes.

By the way for Israel, but they don't authorize us to declare that the rapture has to occur tomorrow or on a particular feast day. Typology can give us patterns undoubtedly. I'm not debating that for one stretch of the imagination. But it doesn't give you permission to be reckless by inventing dates that God actually completely condemned.

And I think the point is simple. When Israel remains Israel, when we make a commitment for Israel to remain Israel, the church remains the church and the feasts remain connected to the people and the purposes for which God established them. Bible prophecy becomes way clearer when that happens. You get to understand it way clearer. We gain real insight without manufacturing metaphors or erasing Israel or making predictions that God never made.

I'm going to tell you this right now too Tommy, I'm running with that statement. I'm running with you telling me that it's a soft version of anti-Semitism. I'm going to run hard with that statement. Replacement theology, sorry, I'm running with that. I think that is a powerful one-line statement. I'm going to steal it and I'm going to literally, I'm going to make a t-shirt.

Tom Hughes: You know what? It's true. When we think of it, the church was grafted in, it was not swapped in. I love it. So we would say that with replacement theology, well what happens when we look at the feast days? Same thing. All of a sudden we're swapped in. Well what? How did that happen? It doesn't according to God's Word.

James Kaddis: I love it, I love it. Yeah, and replacement theology is the word, not anti-Semitism. But I'm telling you bro, that's great. I think it's brilliant. So bro, what do we tell these people? What do we tell these precious people that we love, that we minister to every day, that we hope to give the hope of God's glory to? Like what do we tell them about these liars that are about to come out and say well the rapture is happening.

I mean you remember we even had a Calvary Chapel guy tell the whole world that the rapture was going to happen on September the 23rd a few years ago. And it's come and gone. Or what about, oh we can see the rapture happening before September the 19th because of the bright and morning star passage in Peter. You remember that cuckoo?

Tom Hughes: And there's more. I mean, there's more and they're just going to keep coming. All we can do is keep warning and letting people know. And people are going to choose to not like what we have to say. I'm sure you get the same things I get from people who say, "You're stealing my joy. I can't believe you would say something like this." "They are such a good brother." Well if they're such a good person, why do they make up these things? Why do they lie to you?

So again, when we look at it from the biblical perspective, we would be failing to not tell you the truth. And listen, we're going to be standing before the Lord. We're not going to stand before one person, ever. It's not going to happen. They may call us names here, they may put things in the comments, they can send us all the hate mail, they can tell us they're judging us.

Well on the day that we stand before the Lord, the Lord isn't going to say to us, "Hey, why didn't you repeat that lie about the blood moons? Why didn't you repeat that lie about the fall feasts being the rapture? You're a terrible person for not repeating that lie." No, that's not what the Lord is going to say. It's whether or not we're truthful in what we tell them regardless of the persecution and the challenges that come our way and the people that say, "Hey we're not going to follow you anymore, we're not going to support you guys anymore. We're going over here because this guy tickles my ears and he makes me feel better when I listen to him. He tells me funny stories and I really like what he has to say even if he's wrong, he makes me feel better."

Listen, we're going to stand before the Lord. We're not going to stand before anybody like that. We're not here to itch people's ears and we realize that there's many people that may have been offended just in our first few minutes here together already. But you know what, Jesus said many will be offended because of me and that includes many who actually read the Bible and there's many in the Bible prophecy world. James, you and I, we've had this frustration a lot lately, we've talked about it, where the Bible prophecy world has gotten away from Bible and it's got to predictions and the predictions only get more and more prevalent the further we go down this path.

I'm reminded of this in Daniel chapter 12. I was coming home from a conference just recently and you know got a lot of time on the airplane, so I'm reading Daniel chapter 12. You know that passage where Daniel writes in context - in fact we may have talked about this the other night - but in Daniel chapter 12 the context is where Daniel's looking for - he's asking the angel, "Hey show me about this." He wants to know about the great day of destruction that's coming to Israel.

And the angel tells Daniel different things. One of them is "seal up and close the book, it's not for you to know, it's for the people living at the time." But he says this, that people will run to and fro and knowledge will increase. And people all over the prophecy world will run with that and say, "Look, travel's everywhere and knowledge is going to increase because of the computers." That is not it. That's not what the angel's telling Daniel about.

Daniel wants to know, "What does this say? What's the understanding of this?" The angel is telling him, and it's also quoted in the book of Amos too, to and fro is specific to running to and fro through the scriptures and knowledge increasing is the knowledge of the things that Daniel asked about. "Tell me about the tribulation of Israel that is coming."

So the knowledge will increase and the people run to and fro through God's Word wanting to know the truth. So I know this, as much as the false predictions are out there and the fake speculation and all of that and the people that say, "Why don't you just be nicer and be funnier and stuff like that?" No, we're going to stand on what God tells us in the last days. The people increase that want to know the truth about what God's Word says and that's where they're going to turn. So we'll stand on that, we'll stand on the truth of God's Word.

James Kaddis: Yeah, amen. And again, just going back to all of this, it's got to stop. The laziness that exists in this world, especially with people coming to these crazy conclusions, a lot of the times it's simply them not even taking the Word of God literally. And that it's becoming a bigger and bigger and bigger problem.

And as more sensationalism is growing, you know I hate to say this Tommy, but sometimes I feel like some of the guys that are out there feel like they have to say something more outrageous because it keeps up their click rate. I mean it's a crazy thing.

Tom Hughes: Yeah, I wouldn't deny that, you know, and you can almost see this person's got to one-up this person, has to one-up this person, has to one-up that person and you really do sense that. It's like wait a minute, let's go back to what the Bible says. Remember, let's go back several years, you and I. Many years ago when we were doing Bible prophecy conferences together when we began, they were Bible prophecy conferences.

And then somewhere it started to veer because people just I don't know they just got their ears itched or whatever. In fact we have our conference coming up in Santa Barbara just this coming week, this weekend, this Saturday, and I'll be there Sunday too, but you'll be with us David, Artel, Kathy Ireland, right? And then also we've got Bondarenko there, Bondarenko we're doing the KGB's Most Wanted. But it's Bible.

And I know if we talked about some of the sci-fi related stuff, the numbers would boom off the charts. But friends, we're - I mean God isn't going to - we're not going to stand before the Lord one day and he's going to go, "Hey, why didn't you talk more about sci-fi stuff when you did your conferences?" I don't know, I digress. But it's true. I mean, it's the sad reality of the insanity that is this circumstance.

James Kaddis: There's going to have to come a point in time where we're going to have to teach people to think through this critically. Because I also believe that as knowledge increases, knowledge of the Word of God increases, so will the responsibility that we have to be methodical about how we understand it. We are going to be held to a higher standard.

When I started studying the Bible 35 years ago and I had to do a Greek word study, if I went to my professor and I told my Greek professor, "Hey you gave me five hours to do a word study that takes me five hours to do and you're upset at me for not giving you the information on two or three word studies where I could only do one." He can't say anything about that. He's I'm right. He gives me a word study and I have to open up the books, I've got to methodically crack through it all that stuff.

Today that same word study takes me a minute and a half because of technology. So what's the excuse? I can no longer say I don't have the time to do those things. I actually now have the time to do it better. I have the time to spend more time understanding the mechanics of it, making myself aware of it. I'll take the liberty to say something that you told me in private earlier this week when you were at my church doing the prophecy conference. You said it. You said, "Man, I just have to read more. I have to research more. I have to study more."

And you were talking about more of the Bible prophecy stuff. Well my goodness, how much more do you have to do? You've dedicated your life to it. Well the reality of it is, you have a consciousness within you that is distinctly aware of the need to study more because of the days that we live in. And very few people understand it like that.

It's all about oh man let you know what let's just go ahead and it's almost like you're gambling and you know you're going to lose and the guys that are telling the lies are the house and they know they're going to win until of course God tells them a thing or two about what they're doing. It's the same thing. And by the way Tommy, it's the whole reason why a lot of people don't want to do things as simple as manage their own finances. They're not thinking about the next generation because in their minds there won't be a next generation because Jesus is coming back next week.

Tom Hughes: You know how many people do we know, you know we've both been in ministry for many years now, that have come and gone, you know they were a little bit older than us, thinking I don't need to provide for my family because we're getting raptured or whatever. And now they've passed away, there was nothing to help them.

James Kaddis: Do you know how many pastors' kids I've spoken to bro that tell me how resentful they are that they have nothing to show for because the blood, sweat, and tears that their dad put into the ministry was just simply to talk and never to build. And so when dad dies or when things get to the point where it's obvious time has gone by and they don't have anything like a house to put their children in. Do you understand how damaging that is to the gospel?

Tom Hughes: I do, I totally and the family itself. Absolutely. But you know what? We're out of time. We've been talking for a long time. I got on the bandwagon.

James Kaddis: But you know what bro, let's end it on a hopeful note. Because as I said before and I think it's really important, right, when we understand that Israel remains Israel and the church remains the church and all the feasts are in their proper context, God uses this to give us more clarity. He brings more depth to the things that we study.

And the more clarity we develop, we gain real insight without having to manufacture anything. And that real insight is dramatic. It's life-changing. It's the type of thing that the Bible invites us to do. And I want to encourage everybody to do that.

Tom Hughes: Amen. And you know - so let me conclude with this. So this astronomer who wrote to us talking about all these lunar eclipses that have happened and people get so caught up in one, wrote "a normal lunar eclipse is not what Jesus was talking about and not a biblical sign and it's not rare. So look up, give God the glory for His creation and be thankful for your friends and loved ones that they have more time to turn to Jesus." That's beautiful.

It is. It's so well said because that's - and you know it's discouraging because I know we're over on time, but you look, you go, there's so many people that are caught up in Bible prophecy. They're "come today, come today Lord." Well what about all those who still need Jesus? I want him to call us home in his timing. In the meantime, there's people that are going to die that don't know the Lord that are our loved ones and our friends. And I think God's trying to wake us up to that.

James Kaddis: Amen. And I think God has given us this incredible gift to live, at least for those of us that are in the United States, to live in literally the freest country in the world. And because we're not using the advantages God has given us, we're about to lose them. I mean there's no more - I don't have much to say more about it. So be it. No, we really are out of time. We could go on a lot longer.

Okay, guys we love you. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Focus on the inheritance for your children's children. If you knew the Lord was going to come back tomorrow, what would you do? I hope the answer is you plant an apple tree. You know what I mean? It's that same - I think that was a question that got asked to Spurgeon, you know?

But the point is, prepare because the Master is coming. You need to be found doing the work that God has given you to do. Fulfill the command of Genesis chapter 1. Be fruitful, multiply, subdue, have dominion over, replenish. That's what God told us to do. So let's do it.

All right, we love you guys. We pray and hope that you enjoyed watching this and listening to this as much as we've enjoyed making it. We love you. God bless you. Keep fighting the good fight. Bye everyone.

Voiceover: You're listening to Countdown to Eternity with Pastors James Kaddis and Tom Hughes online at countdown2eternity.com. You can listen to this episode again right there at countdown2eternity.com. I should also mention Tom Hughes is online at hopeforourtimes.com. Take a look at his available resources and some of the top stories at hopeforourtimes.com.

Pastor James has a new book called The Last Book. Revelation isn't a book of fear, it's a book of hope. The Last Book is a guide to Revelation, giving you what you need to know about Revelation, the Rapture, and the end times. Learn what the Bible says about the days we're in and what God's promise is for believers in The Last Book by James Kaddis. Available right now at countdown2eternity.com or amazon.com. If you'd like to support what we're doing at Countdown to Eternity, there's a place to give at countdown2eternity.com then click the Give tab. And then join us next time when the Countdown to Eternity continues. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.