Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Pastor James Kaddis encouraging us to make the most of the time we have left.

James Kaddis: The time is before us, folks. If there's any appeal I want to make to you right now, it's this: don't waste time, please. Don't waste time. It's a limited, precious resource. Don't be like the person who buried his talent and said, "I know God's coming soon, so I'm just going to waste my time." Don't do that. Take what you have, multiply it.

"Well, if the Lord's coming soon anyway, why would I want to save up for a house? Or why would I want to do this, or invest in this, or buy that?" No, no, no. Occupy until He comes, and understand that when He comes, you want Him to find you faithful. You want Him to see you being faithful with the stewardship that He's entrusted you with. Why? Because—ready guys? Here it is—Christ could come at any moment.

Guest (Male): Jesus is coming again, and when He does, it will happen quickly, faster than we could even imagine. And He could come at any moment. That should impact the way you live and affect how you use your time. As we'll see today on Light on the Hill, Pastor James Kaddis is near the end of the book of Revelation. We'll be covering verses 7 through 10 of the final chapter.

James Kaddis: Boy, do I love this one. "Behold, I come quickly! Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book." Okay, first thing we have to talk about for just a second is He says, "Hey, watch out, pay attention, I come quickly." Now, I want to say this for the record because I think it's important.

When He says, "I come quickly," the use of that term "quickly," I believe, is more of a function or carries more of the function of an adverb as opposed to a verb. Now, you guys remember from school what an adverb does? An adverb actually describes the very verb that it's associated with. So when Jesus says "I come quickly," I believe "quickly" is the adverb to the verb "come."

And I think it's really important to understand that because when we look at the picture that's being created for us here, Jesus says when He comes, it will happen fast. It will be faster than you can possibly imagine. It'll just be He's not here one moment, He's here, and boom, it's done. Now, I look at one specific guy who's been talking about the phrase "Jesus is coming soon" and speaks about it not really liking it—Don Stewart. He's been saying that a lot lately.

I will tell you, I get into disagreements with Don all the time, and most of the time, Don wins. He is a smart man. He's brilliant. And the reason why Don says he doesn't like people to say "Jesus is coming soon" comes from the understanding of the way this text works. And his understanding of this text is correct. He is not wrong when he says that.

But you have to understand, this is where he and I will disagree. And I think, again, he's a brilliant man, but this is where I'll disagree. I still encourage the use of that phrase, not with the delineation that creates a promise of a specific date. That's not why I use this term. I use this term to communicate the principle of imminency. Meaning I want you to know the fact that Christ could rapture His church at any moment.

And that's a technicality that Don likes. He would rather that I say "Christ could come at any moment," which is actually the more biblically correct and more biblically sound term to use. But I oftentimes say "Jesus is coming soon" because we see the same terms being used here. But I think, more importantly, there's a dualism that's associated with this.

And that dualism is designed to, yes, be an adverb to the verb of coming. In other words, the intent here by the author, by Jesus Himself who said these words, was to explain to John that when He comes, it's going to be faster than anything you can possibly imagine. That was clearly the intent. But there's a dualism.

There is not only something that is didactic in nature, which is that when Christ comes, it's going to be faster than anything anybody understands, but there's also a prophetic element in this, in that Christ wants us to understand the imminency of His return, meaning He could come at any moment. There's nothing that has to happen according to the Bible right now in order for Christ to rapture His church.

He could rapture us right now. I think that would be great, by the way, if we got raptured while I was teaching the Bible. Man, that would be like my dream come true. I mean, could you imagine? Because my thing would be this: if it was happening while I was teaching, then when we got caught up, I'd be like, "Ha! Told you so!" I'm just joking.

But I mean, I just think it would be awesome. It would just be awesome. But the point is this: the point is Christ could come at any moment, and I can make a sound biblical argument for that. I can make a definitive, very powerful biblical argument that Christ could come at any moment. So the picture here is to not only explain the fact that when Christ is back, that it's going to happen quickly.

It's going to happen very, very fast. But it's also speaking of the fact that He could come at any moment. There's an imminency that exists. And this is the why, and I think it's more semantics, it's the reason why Don Stewart might not want us to say "Jesus is coming soon." It's because he desperately wants us to qualify that statement. And he's right to do so.

He's right to say we have to qualify it with the understanding that when we say "Jesus is coming soon," what we mean is He could come at any moment, which is a lot more desperate sounding than He could come soon. Think about that for a second. He could come at any moment and we should be ready. And I think it's really important.

By the way, it is interesting because when you look at the phrase here at the end of verse seven that says, "Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book." What does it mean when it says "keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book"? In other words, blessed is the one who obeys the word of God.

You know, it's funny, in a world in which we live today, where we are filled with knowledge and filled with information, the church—and I'll say this, I'm going to bring it to a local picture here—the greatest danger that exists within our church, yes, Calvary Chapel Signal Hill chapter of the church of Jesus Christ.

The greatest danger that we have in this church is to assume that our spirituality is based fundamentally in our scope of knowledge. I would like to think, and hopefully you guys can agree with this, I would like to think that I work harder than most to give you the best experience you can have in learning the word of God.

I would like to think that I work hard to become masterful at the craft that God has called me to, in not only communicating but in teaching you. I spend a lot of time studying, a lot of time developing a better awareness of the things that I'm teaching so that you yourselves will be able to master it. That's my goal.

The danger is this: we make the assumption that our spirituality is centered around what we know, when in reality our spirituality has nothing to do with what we know. Rather, it has everything to do with what are we going to obey and what are we not going to obey. You see, the spirituality of the believer centers around whether or not we choose to obey the word of God.

And yes, there is a part of it that does develop an awareness of the fact that we have to know what God's word is in order to obey it. But the reality of it is, our spirituality is fundamentally predicated upon whether or not we choose to obey the commands of God. And that's a very, very important principle for us to know. The problem is this: we don't, and because we don't obey, then we don't develop the knowledge that we need to.

Now, this is David Tall. You guys know the time that I spent with him in recent years, every single week now we're making videos, we're talking about what's going on in Israel. I've known David for a long time. I've known David for probably 10, 12, maybe I would probably say closer to 15 years. And you know, the funny thing about David Tall, oh my goodness, probably closer to 20 years now.

Actually 20 years. The funny thing about David Tall is this: for years and years and years in Israel and here in the United States, we would have drag-out, yell at the top of our lungs arguments. To the point where we'd go to the burger stand here in Signal Hill when he would be in town, and the people at the burger stand actually wanted to call the police because we were so loud.

And we'd turn around and, "We're from the Middle East, like let us go, it's all good." And we would argue. And my thing was this: you're going to go to hell. You get that, right? Like, if you die today, you're going to go to hell. Jew or not Jew, you're going to die and go to hell. And we would argue and argue and argue. And actually, the funny thing with David was, David argued because he had a genuine desire to want to know.

It wasn't like, "I'm arguing because I hate God." No, he wasn't that kind of man. But it wasn't until David four years ago chose to obey God with the knowledge that he had that God actually changed his life. His spirituality became something completely different. His knowledge of the word of God began to transform because there was an awareness of God's word that took on a new level because he obeyed.

Can I give you an example of this? We're in the car a week ago and, not even a week ago, maybe a few days ago, we're on the freeway and my children are taught: you are not allowed to unbuckle your seatbelt unless you ask permission. So my six-year-old says, "Can I unbuckle the seatbelt?" I look at her—"Baby, no."

I'm thinking in my mind, "Are you crazy? We're on the freeway. You can't unbuckle your seatbelt." Even when we pull into the driveway, they're not allowed to unbuckle their seatbelt until they get permission. They have to ask. And so she just, "I want to unbuckle my seatbelt." You can't. "Well, I want to get my bear." Well, Mama can reach down for the bear and give it to you, but you're not allowed to unbuckle your seatbelt.

She's a pretty obedient girl. She says, "Okay, Baba," doesn't unbuckle her seatbelt, waits for Mama to get the bear. And about four minutes later, I hit the brakes so hard that everything in the vehicle flies. Everything. I came within inches of getting into a really, really bad car accident.

My daughter went from knowing something to be a fact to experiencing the benefit of her obedience regarding that fact. Her knowledge of the instruction to keep her seatbelt buckled has now changed. You see, here's the thing: God's word never changes. It never does.

But we change, and that's why God's word becomes dynamic in our life even though it's very static. Because as we obey God, our obedience opens up our eyes to understanding new things, and there is where we get the blessing. By the way, it's interesting because when you go through the book of Revelation, the book of Revelation promises blessings to a lot of different situations.

I went through and I gathered some of the blessings that the book of Revelation gives us. Let's go through some of these blessings, okay? We'll start at the very end of the book of Revelation. The last blessing that we are promised in the book of Revelation, and this is in chapter 22, verse 14, it says it's a blessing upon the citizens of the eternal city.

Are we going to be a citizen of the eternal city? Yes. That means we are promised that we're going to be blessed into eternity. Let me do this, let me switch it around. Let me go from the very front of this because this is important. The first time we're given a blessing is in Revelation chapter 1, verse 3. It's a blessing upon the reader and the hearer of the book of Revelation.

The second area that we're blessed, and that is not for us specifically, but for a different group of people—there's a blessing upon the tribulation martyrs. Martyrs is the operative term. Those people who don't take the mark of the beast, those people who say, "We're not going to listen." They get that blessing in Revelation 14. That's coming from the message of the angels that comes down.

How about this? Blessing for those that are spiritually prepared. I love that one. Blessing for those that are spiritually prepared. Revelation 16. By the way, let's talk about spiritual preparation for just a second. All of you, when you look at conducting your family businesses—which by the way, we should talk about this, each and every single one of you should have a family business.

And when I say a family business, that doesn't mean that you have to go sell something or own an asset. What I'm saying is, you should look at the family that you have as an enterprise. Why? Because God has not called you to provide for your children. God has called you to provide for your children's children, which means you must have a family enterprise. You must treat your family as such.

So it's not just an important thing to look at taking care of all of your assets, making sure they're taken care of. You all should be doing things like wills and trusts. You should be planning with insurances. You should be doing all of those things. All of those things are critically important.

Why? Because you want to protect your assets, not for your generation but for the next generation, and for the next generation's generation. It should be something that should be happening. Because if you do that, you are almost guaranteeing the fact that your children will be raised in the ways of the Lord.

And in doing so, they will understand more deeply when they are less prone to being influenced by the world. Think about it like this, folks: if your children are raised up in a way where every single dollar that they have to spend in order to survive involves them being a slave to somebody in the world, how likely is it that they're going to be molded by the world?

But if the family business provides for them the very things that they need in order to be sustained, and they become the type of people that become the employers instead of the employees, how much more likely will they be to change the culture? A lot more likely. You think about that. Why is it that the devil blesses so many people who are extraordinarily wealthy?

I'll tell you why he does it. He goes out of his way to make them wealthy because he knows that the more wealth they have, the more influence they have. And the more influence they have, the larger their scope begins to increase, and that's why some of the richest people in the world right now are some of the most evil.

You think it's a coincidence when you think about guys like George Soros and so forth? Imagine if Christians thought about that differently. But here's the thing that's crazy: with all the work that we do to prepare our families—many of us will heartily agree, "Amen, we should manage our properties, we should manage our business, we should look at our savings, we should look at what we invest, we should look at retirement."

All those things are important. But the funny thing is, we don't spend a dime or a minute seeking to prepare our children for the spiritual. And God says, "I bless those people that prepare the spiritual." I bless those people that prepare for the spiritual. Why? Because if you are prepared for the spiritual, what happens in the physical will be a reflection of the preparation that you've done internally.

People that are prepared for the spiritual won't be the people that bury talents, folks. People that prepare for the spiritual will not be the people that throw away everything that they've been given on something that is nominal. People that are prepared for the spiritual will always be ready for the physical because it's the spiritual preparation that gives them the foundation necessary to be able to manage through those other issues.

That's one of the blessings that the Bible gives us, just in the book of Revelation alone. How about this? You'll be blessed to be at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Those of you that are invited to be at the marriage supper of the Lamb, that's us. We're blessed for that. We're blessed by just simply walking with God and experiencing the benefits of walking with Him.

How about this? The blessing upon the participants of the first resurrection. You realize that we will be participants of the first resurrection. If the Lord raptures us, what does it say? It says the dead in Christ will rise first, then we'll be taken up. We'll be participating in that very resurrection. God will bless us for just that.

And then, of course, as we've already read, we'll be blessed for reading and heeding the book of Revelation. It's blessing after blessing after blessing. Why? Because we're obeying God's word. We're listening. And more than any other book, Revelation should be one that we pay attention to.

Look at this, this becomes really interesting. Verse 8: "And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God."

I'm going to tell you a little story about something that happens that's really interesting. When you are a person that begins to give God's message to people, God's message will always, always have a powerful and impacting effect on their lives. It always does, especially when people receive it.

So the danger that comes—and as a pastor I'm the one that should heed this warning the most—the danger that comes from being the person who delivers the message of life to people is that when people are so radically changed by it, they start to look up to you and they'll begin to praise you. It happens a lot.

When I was in Israel last, I think it was 2016, the last time I was there—we're overdue. I was with Nicole, and when David and I got to Masada, we were at the top. David and I decided we're going to get a cup of coffee and we're just going to chill out at the very top, the little area while the whole group went up.

Nicole wanted to go up with her mom and walk around that area because they'd never been there before. And so David and I were just hanging out in the receiving area and just talking and joking and stuff. And something weird happens, and there's this massive group of Japanese tourists that start surrounding me.

And I kid you not, they make almost a circle around me. They're all talking in a language I don't know, they're pointing at me, and they're giggling and they're laughing and they're looking at each other and they're talking. And I look at David and I say, "Dude, what the heck is going on?"

I think about it a little bit and I go, "David, I know what's going on, bro. I know exactly what's going on." And he says, "What?" He says, "Bro, the Japanese have an infatuation with sumo wrestlers." And it's true! No, that's true! They are the athletes of their culture, right?

And I guarantee you, David, they see me as a sumo wrestler. I guarantee you, bro, they think I'm a sumo wrestler. I'm a big fat dude, they think I'm a sumo wrestler. And I'm looking at this and David's like, "Yeah, James, I think you're right. I think they're looking at you that way."

So one guy comes up to me, kind of a shorter guy, and he speaks very broken English. And he says, "Pastor James, you're not a sumo wrestler." And I say, "Yeah, no, of course I'm not." He says, "The people that are here are not looking at you because you're a sumo wrestler."

"They're looking at you because, although they've never seen you, they recognize your voice because they listen to you in Japan." Wow! So they wanted me to sign... it was weird. It was like I was a celebrity, it was kind of interesting. They wanted a ton of pictures got taken. I'm on a bunch of Japanese social websites right now, I don't know. But it was a very interesting experience.

But here's the thing: this happens to me everywhere. Everywhere I go now. I was in the airport once where these people in TSA were just giving me a hard time. They were tagging me, riding me really, really hard. And a Homeland agent—this is in Texas—a Homeland agent comes up and he says, "He's okay," walks me through a different way because I'm in my mobility scooter so I can't go the way the TSA agent wants me to go through.

This professional, this guy's a Homeland investigator with a bomb dog, he's really professional and he helps me through and he does all the things that I'm supposed to go through. And he whispers in my ear and he says, "We love you, Pastor James. God bless you. You minister to a lot of us." I'm like, "Dang!" It's a Homeland agent! Like, wow!

But the point is this: it's really easy. It's really easy to accept the worship and praise of people. But what you have to learn to do is you have to learn to say, "It's not me, it's the Lord." You say the things that you say to praise me because you don't know me. You say the things that you say to praise me because the word of God has changed your life.

So what are you supposed to do? Worship God. Now, that does two things for us. First of all, for those of us that have a scope of influence where we're ministering to people and changing their lives, it teaches us to remain humble and to always give God the glory and give Him the praise.

But the other thing that teaches us is do not worship man. Always worship God, because the breakthroughs that you have are always a result of God using man in your life. You don't worship the tool that He uses, you worship Him. It's that simple. It's a very, very easy principle to understand.

Verse 10: "And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand." This is my favorite portion of the text that we're reading today and that's this: God made it clear to John, don't seal this up, don't hide it. He says, "Let everybody know." Why?

Because the time is at hand. You know what that means when it says the time is at hand? That means the time is now. The time is before us, folks. If there's any appeal I want to make to you right now, it's this: don't waste time, please. Don't waste time. It's a limited, precious resource.

Don't be like the person who buried his talent and said, "I know God's coming soon, so I'm just going to waste my time." Don't do that. Take what you have, multiply it. "Well, if the Lord's coming soon anyway, why would I want to save up for a house? Or why would I want to do this, or invest in this, or buy that?"

No, no, no. Occupy until He comes, and understand that when He comes, you want Him to find you faithful. You want Him to see you being faithful with the stewardship that He's entrusted you with. Why? Because—ready guys? Here it is—Christ could come at any moment.

So let's get to it. We don't have a lot of time. The time is at hand. Let's move. Amen? Father in heaven, we just thank You, Lord, for Your word, and we thank You for the insight that we gain from it, Lord, that we develop from it, Lord. You're faithful and You're good. And so, Lord, we just love You, we look to You, we thank You, and we ask these things in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Guest (Male): Pastor James is leading us verse by verse through Revelation here on Light on the Hill. To hear this message again, visit lightonthehillradio.com or oneplace.com. It's also available through the Light on the Hill app.

Pastor James is back with us now. Pastor James, today you encouraged our listeners to be prepared as Jesus could come at any moment. When He does return, there will be those who are surprised and caught off guard, right?

James Kaddis: Oh certainly. And the Bible makes that very clear. As a matter of fact, we're going to continue to see things begin to form and shape in the direction that emphasizes the imminency of Christ's return. And I'm not talking about the second coming, I'm talking about the rapture of the church.

That is imminent. And as we continue to see signs that point to the very fact that that is imminent, people are just going to continue to ignore it. And I think that what's going to happen is people even after the rapture has happened and the second coming takes place, people will be shocked.

And it just speaks to the condition of the human heart, it speaks to the state of disbelief that exists within the many that choose to reject the true and living God, and it is truly a tragedy.

Guest (Male): Thanks, Pastor James. Light on the Hill is made possible through the generosity of our listeners. If the Lord is leading you to support this ministry, please visit lightonthehillradio.com to donate, or you can give through the Light on the Hill app.

I also want to mention the new book written by Pastor James. It's entitled The Last Book: A Guide to Revelation Part 1. As the world heads toward its final chapter, the Bible has already revealed every detail. The book of Revelation is God's message of warning, hope, and promise to prepare us for what's coming.

In The Last Book, Pastor James takes us through Revelation chapters 1 through 10 and shows us why we must live wholeheartedly for God, anchored in truth and awake to the times. You can order a copy today at lightonthehillradio.com or Amazon.

If you hunger for more Bible prophecy, you may want to seek out Pastor James's videos live or on-demand. Many of them relate to current events and Bible prophecy. You can access them at jameskaddis.com.

You can also send us your questions about Revelation and Bible prophecy through the website lightonthehillradio.com. We hope to hear from you soon. Join us next time when Pastor James Kaddis will continue through the book of Revelation. That's right here on Light on the Hill, a listener-supported ministry of Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.