Light on the Hill

Host (Male): Living in the last days is our focused. Next on Light on the Hill.

James Kaddis: Go out of your way to look for these things. Be aware. Keep your eyes open. Be sober about your surroundings. Develop an understanding of of what these things look like. Because if you're not aware, it will hit you. You won't recognize what's going on. You won't realize what's taking place.

Host (Male): It's becoming clearer as the days go by that we are so very close to the Lord's return. Today on Light on the Hill, we're going to spend some time talking about how we're to be living in light of the soon return of Jesus. Pastor James Kaddis says we're to remain awake, be alert, watch, and be sober. That's the emphasis of his study based in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

James Kaddis: Look what he says and this is verse 2 and it's interesting. He says this. He says, for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. Well, how does a thief in the night come? This is kind of an interesting thing, right? A thief in the night comes when you're asleep, right? Under the cover of darkness, when you're not aware, kind of a sneaky thing that begins to happen, right? I had a experience that scared the snot out of everybody here at the church. Uh well, all of my staff members where um this may have been before I got married or before I even met Nicole, where I'm sleeping on my office chair.

Like I fall asleep on my office chair and I have these instinctual reactions, you know, about things. And so sometimes I can be a very very light sleeper. And my sister goes to wake me up. All the staff is there to pray. I had no idea that they walked into the room to pray. I'm already asleep and my sister goes to wake me up and I almost broke her arm in half. Like I grabbed her arm so hard cuz I had no idea like who had touched Like I was so out of it that I grabbed her arm and literally almost broke it in half and and like stopped.

I realized, oh my gosh, that's my sister. What am I doing? You know, and you you sort of realize it. Why? Because when that person overtakes you while you're asleep, you're overtaken by surprise. It's a shock. It's like, oh my gosh, what? You know, what just happened? And you freak out. You realize, oh man, this is bad. This is not a good thing, you know? And by the time you realize that the thief is in your midst Not that my sister is a thief, right? But when you realize that the thief is in your midst, you you begin to freak out.

You realize, man, this is too late. This really isn't going to work, right? This is kind of a a sort of a dangerous place to sort of be in. And so the idea is is you know that Jesus Christ is going to come when you don't suspect him. He's going to come, you know, as a thief in the night. Now look what he goes on to say. This is kind of interesting. He says, for when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child and they shall not escape.

In other words, you're going to you're going to look around you going, hey what are they talking? Everything is great. It's a beautiful day, you know. We are the world. We are God's children. We're all this stuff and everybody's all getting along and everything's fine and we're making peace in the Middle East and everything is so wonderful and there's no more problems in this world. We're civilized now and so on and so forth. And when everybody says peace and safety and everything feels like it's getting better and good and you know, the world is a better place, guess what?

Bam! He comes. And you're all we're all going to be taken away, right? We're going to be taken away by the Lord. And the funny thing about this is is we are yes aware of the seasons, but that very moment we're just not going to know, which is why we need to be prepared for when it actually happens. Right? Look at this in verse 4 and this is where it becomes interesting. He says, but you, brethren, are not in darkness that the day should overtake you as a thief. This is an interesting distinction that he makes.

Who's the day? What does he represent? What is he talking about the day represents? Well, of course, Jesus Christ represents the day. So it says that Jesus Christ is going to come as a thief in the night, but the representative of the day is not going to surprise you. Why? Because you are readily waiting. There's an anticipation. You're expecting him to come back. If you're expecting him to come back, even if it's a bit of a surprise, it's still not really a surprise. You know what I'm talking about? You kind of know. You just sort of know what to expect and so and the reason why it's not so difficult to be able to contemplate or understand or accept this because for a while you've been anticipating it.

Sort of this anticipatory uh mentality that you begin to develop where you just realize, hey the Lord could come back today. Hey it might be today. Hey the Lord could come back today. It might be today. When he comes back, you're like, man what took you so long? Right? You're anticipating it. You're excited. You're going for it. And when he comes, you're not freaking out. As a matter of fact, when he comes, you're actually excited that he's here. I don't know about you, but I'm really excited for Jesus Christ to come back for me. There's a lot of great things that I get to experience in this world and there's a lot of cares also that we have in this world, a lot of bad things that we experience in this world and you know, truth be told I can't wait to know what it feels like to have a day where my body works perfectly, right?

I think all of you can agree with me. All of you are in that same category. I can't wait to be able to experience what it feels like to never feel hunger or thirst again. I I can't wait to to know what it feels like to be able to be in a body that is just completely unlimited in everything that it can do to experience the bliss and the joy of what heaven is going to be like. I cannot wait to to be somebody who just gets to to see what is waiting for me on the other side.

And in this case, the grass indeed is greener on the other side. As a matter of fact, there's no grass on the other side. There's straight gold. Right? It's funny by the way. It talks about the streets being paved with gold, you know, in that place that we're going to go to one day. By the way, it does not mean that the streets are going to be paved with gold. Like you can have lots of gold waiting for you. The point is this. What is considered to be the most worthless part of your journey is going to be the most valuable part of your life here on this earth.

In other words, you put the greatest premium and value on gold and gold will be like the garbage that you collect in the on in that world. In that world, all you'll step on gold, it's dirt. Isn't that amazing? You think about that. That's the least precious object. And that you think about the the staggering significance of something like that. And to be waiting for that and expecting it. I don't know. I for me, I would be excited. I I am excited to see what God has waiting for me. Look at this in verse 5 and it says this.

He says, well, and just to preface, he says, look this shouldn't be overtaking you as a thief because you are not in darkness, right? You don't live in darkness. If you lived in darkness, then the day would surprise you. You know, you live in darkness when the lights turn on, the darkness goes. Have you ever noticed that? You could be in a super dark room, but when you turn on the lights, guess what? The darkness instantly disappears, doesn't it? The room is now illuminated. That's the way it works. That's the picture that we get. So if you're already walking in the day, this should not be surprising you.

That 's the the idea that he 's talking about. So he says in verse 5, he says, you are all the children of light and the children of the day and we are not of the night. Notice this nor of darkness. Your children of the light, your children of day, you're not of night, you're not of darkness. There's a comparison that's there, right? He says, therefore look look at this. Here's the command. And by the way, it is a command. Okay? In the Greek, present active imperative. There is a very distinct, very specific command. There's an exhortation that's being given here and it says this.

It says, therefore let us not sleep, right, as do others, but let us watch and be sober. In other words, what you are supposed to do is you are supposed to not be sleeping. You are supposed to be watching and you 're supposed to be sober minded. Now there's a couple of there's three commands that you want to pay attention to. The first one is don't sleep. I'm pretty good at obeying that command, by the way. I sleep very little in my life and so you know, sleep is for the dead. I get that, right?

That's not what it's talking. It's not talking about literal sleep. If it was talking about literal sleep, I'd be one of the most obedient men on the face of the earth, right? What this is talking about is it saying, hey do not choose to make the decision to be ignorant. Do not allow yourself to be ignorant. Don't allow yourself to go bye bye. If I just ignore this long enough, it's going to go away. No, it's not. No, it's not. There's a lot of things in this world that if you ignore long enough, they're not going to go away.

As a matter of fact, they're going to come and they're going to they're going to bite you, right? You have a nasty infection. No way it's going to go away if you just kind of leave it to be on its own. You've got to go deal with it. If you don't deal with it, you're going to die. So the idea is don't sleep. In other words, don't allow yourself to become oblivious to what's going on. Remain awake, remain alert. But look what else he says. This is an interesting command. He says, let us what? Watch and be sober.

Okay, well, let's talk about what those two things mean. First of all, when he says watch, watch is a very very specific very calculated very purposeful word that's being thrown out here. In other words, what he's saying is he's saying go out of your way to look for these things. Be aware. Keep your eyes open. Be sober about your surroundings. Develop an understanding of of what these things look like. Because if you're not aware, it will hit you. You won't recognize what's going on. You won't realize what's taking place. As the girls were doing worship, you know, my day is is non-stop.

I actually went to bed. This is this is bad, right guys? I go to bed at 2:00 in the morning on Saturday night only to wake up at 4:00 in the morning so I could be here by 5:30, right? And so normally my saving grace is in in the in between time, in between the the third service and the last service here, I just take a little nap and everything's all good and you come back and and you know, you do your thing. Well, unfortunately that was not the case cuz I had a commitment with my family, my uncle actually.

And uh my cousin's getting married and I wanted to meet the my cousin's fiancee's parents, which was kind of a nice time. You know, it was nice to go meet them. It was very very busy. At my last meeting here at the church was uh almost 4:00 and I drive all the way back from here to the Downey area to go meet for 10 minutes with my family only to turn around and come back here and uh and I get here as you guys know about 5 minutes before church started. So as church started, I plucked myself on the chair and I sent this text, do me a favor bro, please do not let me sleep through the end of the worship set.

You know, I 'm so tired. I have to close my eyes which I it's I don't really like sleeping while worship music is going on. I think that's really really bad, right? Uh I I like to participate while it's going on, but unfortunately, you know, it's going on and and so I say, hey wake me up. Well, why do I say that? Because I know that if I give myself to falling asleep while the girls are doing worship, I mean they sound pretty. It's soothing. Oh you know, you fall asleep, guess what? You guys will be sitting out here going, where's Pastor James?

Where's Pastor James? Or I'm in the back going, you know, just sleeping. And so that would not be a good thing. Well, what does that mean? That means be watchful. If you're asleep you can't watch, can you? Keep your eyes open. Be aware of your surroundings. But then look what it also says. It says be sober. That's the other command. Be sober. That's a literal command. They want you not only to not sleep, they want you to watch and then the other command is we want you to be sober. What's that mean? Well what good is it if you're watching if you're not sober enough to be able to compute what it is you're seeing?

Ever think about that? Does a drunk person have vision? Sure. Is their vision diminished considerably? In some cases, no. Is their judgment about what their vision is showing them diminished considerably? Yes. Right? I can't tell you how many times we get called out to an accident scene. You see dead people on the road. Often times it's pedestrian and many times it too many times it's been children. And where I was a chaplain you would always get those types of accidents around the corner from the casino where everybody would be drinking. Someone gets hit. All too common to put handcuffs on the person who is driving.

I had seen that maybe I don't know four or five times with fatalities. What blows my mind is every single time they don't realize what they did until the next morning. Even when they blow a .08 which is right at the legal limit, you know? Even when it's a half a beer or whatever. By the way, there's an interesting statistic about alcohol. Do you know that you could literally have one shot of a harder liquor like tequila and actually be over the legal limit to drive? Did you know that you could have three quarters of a beer and in many cases still blow more than a .08?

Interesting how that works, right? I got a piece of advice for Christians. Maybe you don't drink at all, right? That's probably a better idea. Stay away from the alcohol period because you know, it's another thing that takes away from your sobriety. But I use alcohol as an illustration, but truth be told, alcohol is not the one thing that I 'm more concerned with in terms of losing your sobriety. Losing your sobriety, the easiest way for a person to lose their sobriety to be able to lose their ability to be able to discern what it is they're seeing is what sin.

Sin is the number one cause of a person's inability to be able to see things clearly. Think about it. When you When a person gets drunk, they see the same thing that you see, but they don't compute. They don't understand that there's a danger there. They don't get it. They don't They don't know how to process what they're looking at because their brains are dramatically slowed down by the consumption of alcohol. And I would say that the Bible is saying is you could be a watchman till you're blue in the face. You could watch watch watch watch watch watch watch until you're sick of watching, but if you're not sober, you're not going to know how to compute what you're watching.

If you're living in a sinful lifestyle or a sinful pattern or you're living in a sinful way, guess what? You're not going to be able to understand what it is that you're seeing. That's why I think it's kind of funny the ones who are in the The ones who are the greatest enemy of biblical prophecy today are the ones who are walking the least with the Lord. Because their sin blinds them from being able to see what it is that they need to be seeing. It blinds them from being able to look at things sober mindedly to realize, oh my gosh, I'm running out of time and man the Lord's going to come back quickly so we better start acting like it, right?

Sin does that, doesn't it? Think about it this way. Look. If I'm filled with bitterness in my heart towards somebody and even somebody does something right, they do it good, but I still hate them, guess what? It's still what they do is going to still be bad, isn't it? Right? I was talking to a guy uh a fellow pastor recently. Sort of a long story about that situation, but he was beginning to rip on the the Bible study that another pastor taught. He says, yeah, and I have a problem with this and I have a problem with that and I have a problem with this and I have a problem with that.

And I said, you know what's really interesting? I could take any Bible study that any person teaches and I could figure out a way to rip it in pieces. Couldn't I? I mean it's easy. Super super super super easy to do. It takes two things to be able to do that. It takes a lack of willingness to listen objectively, right? And it also takes you being bitter at the person. If you don't like the person that's speaking, they're never going to say anything right, are they? The point behind it is things that we do that are sinful will greatly influence our ability to be able to discern that which is in front of us, right?

Why do you think sobriety is so important to people that are a part of these great organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous or some of these other 12-step type Why do you think Why do you think sobriety is such an important word? Why do you think people get chips for being sober for 6 months or sober for a year or sober for 5 years or sober for 10 years? Why do you think those are such celebratory times? I'll tell you why. Because it is the celebration of the very day you gave up your inability to be able to see things.

It's it celebrates the very day you chose to live life to its fullest. It represents the very day you chose to actually experience everything around you and be aware of everything around you and smell and see and hear and experience the fullness of that which is around you. It's that day. That's what you celebrate. So look you got to be sober if you're going to be watchful. But you got to be awake if you're going to do either of those things, right? Very interesting how he says this. So look, I love this in verse 7.

He says, for they that sleep sleep in the night and they that be drunken, notice this, are drunken in the night. In other words, if you're living these sinful patterns you're going to always live with those patterns in the darkness, right? No one talks about some drinking problem without it being very deep and dark within the closet that exists, you know? And by the way, I know people like this. Like I know people that are so addicted to alcohol that literally they could blow a 2.0. Okay? Like literally they could blow almost three times the legal limit and pass a field sobriety test like nobody's business.

They're sharp. They don't, you know, stagger at all. There's no nystagmus issues in their eyes, nothing like that. You want to know why? Because their addiction is so intense and is so deep and is so well endowed within them that basically it's no longer drinking to get a buzz. You don't drink to get a buzz. What happens is you drink to what? So that you can feel normal. That's where the transition takes place. And the picture that he's giving us is the people that sleep at night, the people that are drunken at night, these are the people in essence that that is a part of them now.

That's what they do in order to feel normal when they are so far away from normal, it's not even funny. See that's the picture. That's the idea that I think that we gather. Look you think about this. So think through the picture here. Think through the the idea of what this is trying to say. What this is basically trying to say is keep yourself in purity. Keep yourself in a place where your walk with God is all that matters to you. Because it will begin to open your eyes to see those things which are important to see.

This is powerful stuff, guys. This is powerful. Look what he says. This is beautiful verse 8. He says, but let us who are of the day be sober. It's funny that he talks about being sober again, right? Putting on the breastplate of faith and love for a helmet. And notice this, the hope of salvation. Now we'll start again at verse 8. We're going to finish right here in verse 7. But I do think it's very fitting to be able to say that he's beginning to talk about living in the last days. As he's beginning to talk about living in a place where Christ is returning imminently, he's saying that there's things that need to be made the priority in your life that need to be made the priority in your walk, the things that need to be made a priority in your heart.

And that is this, your faith in God. Your trust in the salvation that God has provided for you. Why is trust in the salvation that God has provided for us so important? Because it's the very tool that God uses to keep us sane. It keeps us from losing our minds. So a lot of things that can go wrong in this life, aren't there? You think about all the things that could happen and the things that have happened and things that go wrong. There's always trust in the fact that we have salvation. You know, when my mom went to go be with the Lord, that was the only thing, and I mean the only thing that kept me from losing my mind.

Because in my heart all I wanted to do was lose my mind. I literally in my heart my mind I wanted to check out of reality, but the one thing that kept me from losing my mind, the one thing that it's funny that they always call it the helmet of salvation, right? It keeps your head right? Keeps you from losing your head. I think about this. I think that when I recognize, when I realize, when I remember the fact that my mom loved God with all of her heart while she was on this earth, what keeps me sane, what gives me sanity is knowing that she's in a place that I only hope to be in one day, right?

And I will be with her on that day. That's exciting. Listen, we're not living in the dark, are we guys? We're living in the light. If we're living in the light, if we're not living in darkness if the picture of our life is covered with Christ shedding light on those areas that are dark, well then you know what we should be expecting the return of Jesus Christ. We should be expecting the fact that he's going to come back for us and there's make no mistake about it. It's happening. It's going to happen. No way in the world it's not going to happen.

It is going to happen. The only way the only way you're going to be able to be sober minded enough to be able to see that is if your walk with the Lord is intact, right? You have a close relationship with God. Seeing it is not going to be very difficult. And by the way, looking forward to it is going to be a natural part of the way you live every day. Pretty powerful stuff, huh guys?

Host (Male): Jesus is coming soon and today on Light on the Hill, we learned how weird to live in these last days. Pastor James Kaddis will pray with us in just a few moments. Our current series is called Living in the Last Days, an end time study in first and second Thessalonians. If you missed any part of the series or just want to hear it again, visit lightonthehillradio.com or listen through our app. You'll also find us on oneplace.com and most of the major podcast platforms. Light on the Hill is made possible in part through the generosity of our listeners.

If you'd like to support us with either a one-time gift or ongoing donations, please visit lightonthehillradio.com. Pastor James Kaddis teaches most Sundays and Thursday evenings at Calvary Chapel Signal Hill. If you'd like to visit, we would love to welcome you. We study the word and worship together on Sundays at 8:00 a.m., 9:45 a.m., and 11:30 a.m. And then again in the evening at 5:00 p.m. We also have a Thursday evening service that begins at 7:00 p.m. Visit Calvary Chapel Signal Hill dot com for more information or to live stream. Now to finish up today's Light on the Hill with prayer, here's Pastor James.

James Kaddis: All right, let's pray. Father we thank you Lord for your word and what a great passage, a great area that we can look into and be excited about what your word has to say. And Lord as we finish the book of Thessalonians next week, we we pray God that you would keep us looking to you in that way, Lord. Keep us looking with sober mindedness and and just that the idea that we need to continue to carry on thinking about that which you have for us. Help us to preserve our sanity, Lord, in the way we think and and keep us, Lord, lifting that shield of faith, the faith that protects us, Lord, knowing that you have something special for us.

So Lord, thank you, Lord. Keep us loving you. Keep us looking to you in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Host (Male): We'll talk more about Living in the Last Days next time on Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. Remember you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.

Guest (Female): I have found the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you. Cuz all I need is you.