Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Next on Light on the Hill, Pastor James says beware of false teachers.

James Kaddis: Guys, there’s a lot of false teachers out there. Beware of them. There’s a lot of people that are building their empires based on what appears to be a reputation, but nothing substantive. I see them all the time.

I see guys in social media snapping pictures of them at events. I see guys wherever they go just constantly bringing attention to the fact that they are something, when in reality, their own minds and their hearts are so clouded with deception that if they wanted to, if they tried, they could not bring substance to the table. I see it. I see it all the time.

Guest (Male): Just as there are good and godly teachers in the world today, there are also many false teachers. They seek to manipulate, deceive, and even destroy the minds of those who genuinely seek God.

As discouraging as that may sound, the Bible has not left us without warning. Scripture clearly reveals who these false teachers are, what drives them, and how we can discern truth from deception. Here’s Pastor James Kaddis in Mark chapter 12 on Light on the Hill.

James Kaddis: All right, so there are some interesting things that we have already seen. Where we left off, there was a scribe who was actually commended by the Lord in what had happened. It was a pretty remarkable interaction, and we talked about that interaction a few weeks ago. I thought that it was very impacting and one that I think should cause us to really think through how God functionally operates with us, how we should be listening to the things that he says, and how we should be reacting to those things as we hear the insight that God wants to bring us.

I want to say this. It’s interesting because as we move forward into the next several verses, I want to remind everybody of a fact that you already know. I think it’s important to be reminded of it because the deception appears to be getting worse and worse, and that is the fact that we live in a world full of false teachers. We see people who are capitalizing day in and day out on things that do not rely upon the Spirit of God and do not rely upon the movement of God to work in our hearts to do the work that God would have us to do.

I was talking to a friend of mine today. We got to go to lunch, a very influential man. This is a man who has influence over millions and millions of people. He’s a very dear friend of mine. We’re sitting down and we’re talking about how grateful we were, just for a moment in our conversation, how grateful we were to the Lord that what God gave us with the people that we’re able to minister to was not given to us by man. It wasn’t built upon standing on somebody’s coat-tails. It wasn’t built upon by simply manipulating our way through, but that it was given to us as a responsibility, an honor, and a privilege by God to do God’s work.

I think that it’s interesting because we do live in a world today where we have lots of people who are trying to make a name for themselves by riding the coat-tails of somebody else. As a result, they’re bringing their deception into what they deem as the presentation of the Gospel, when in reality, all it’s doing is it’s corrupting the minds and the hearts of people that listen to them, who believe that the message that they’re giving is pure. When they recognize the fact that there’s no purity in the message, then they themselves are devastated and let down to recognize that what they perceived was Christianity was actually nothing but a big game, and it has been stumbling people.

This is why the Bible always made it clear to us that we needed to be aware of these people. We needed to understand that there were false teachers that were all around us and that they would do deceptive, evil, wicked things. As the body of Christ, we’ve been taught to basically remove the cancer from among us. We’ve been taught to understand the things going on around us, and we’ve been taught to be discerners, people who are able to see through all of the wickedness that’s happening.

Perhaps I think that might be one of the most powerful aspects of what it means when you are a person who stands filled with the Spirit of God. When you’re standing filled with the Spirit of God, you’re being given rich, deep insight that few people could perceive or understand. The inspiration of God brings to us an awareness of things we wouldn’t normally be aware of because we have, as Jesus would call, the great helper. That’s so important for the way that we’re living today and what we’re doing. We’re going to get some insight into this world for just a second as we dig into the rest of this story.

Let's jump right in now to verse 35. This is Mark chapter 12 where we left off, and it says this: "And Jesus answered and said, while he taught in the temple, how say the scribes that Christ is the Son of David? For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, the Lord said to my Lord, sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. David therefore himself calleth him Lord; and whence is he then his son? And the common people heard him gladly."

This is so interesting because basically what Jesus is doing is Jesus is going back and he is stepping in the opportunity to basically describe to everybody, without getting into the technical side of all of this, that Jesus is indeed the Son of God. He is the one who is in essence the fulfillment of the promise that was made to King David regarding the person who would sit on the throne and rule in perpetuity when that time comes.

By the way, it’s so interesting when you see the reference to all of this because you have to go back to the original story in the Old Testament of what happened between David and the prophet. David approached the prophet and the prophet actually said something that was out of line. He did something that he wasn’t supposed to do. If you remember the story, King David builds his palace. He just finishes building it. It’s a beautiful home. It is decked out with the most luxurious type of materials that money could ever buy.

As he is sitting looking upon the City of David, he looks up backwards at the area where the tabernacle is there on the Temple Mount, or what we know as the Temple Mount area, and he says, "Man, I’ve got this beautiful home. It’s made of cedar and it’s got all these wonderful materials, and I live in it and it’s wonderful, yet God still dwells in a tent. I’m going to build God a house." That’s what he wants to do. So he goes to the prophet. He says, "I’m going to build God a house." The prophet makes this terrible mistake and he says, "Well, yes, amen. God is with you."

The reason why he says that is because how would God not be with him? How in the world would God not be with David to build something so beautiful? What a spectacular, beautiful, wonderful opportunity. I think we think that way as believers. We look at these grand plans that we begin to develop and have for glorifying God, and we make the general assumption that God is going to be with us when we walk into these grand plans, thinking and feeling as though that it’s just by default going to be the right thing to do.

God says, "No, I’ve got other plans. If you had consulted me instead of pursued these grand plans, you might realize that my plan for you is far more grand than anything you could possibly ever imagine. So maybe you ought to listen to me and come to me first before you decide that something is of the Lord." That’s exactly what happened with the prophet because the prophet goes and finishes up for the day. God basically gets his attention and he says, "You’re wrong. You got this wrong. I wasn’t with David. I’m not with David. You go back to David and tell him his hands are too bloody."

Meaning he’s too much of a man of war to be able to build this house. You tell him. You say that he cannot build my house, that his son will actually build my house, which of course we know Solomon built that temple. That’s why we oftentimes call it Solomon’s temple. It probably should probably call it David’s temple in many ways. But anyway, Solomon was the one who built it, but he tells the prophet, "Hey listen, look, David cannot, you tell him, you cannot build this house, your hands are too bloody."

Then he tells this to David. He says, "But I," meaning the Lord God, "I will build you a house, David." Basically what he does is he goes on to give him this beautiful prophecy, literally speaking to the fact that one day somebody will come from David’s bloodline who will in essence rule in perpetuity. Now this is really interesting because when this prophecy was actually given to King David, keep this in mind. King David was the third king of Israel. The first king was God. The second king was Saul, he was the second human king, and then of course the third king would have been David.

David was ruling a unified Israel. In other words, a civil war had not taken place yet. As a matter of fact, the civil war had taken place with the introduction of Jeroboam leading a revolt to Rehoboam who was the son of Solomon, who was in essence what we would call the fifth king of Israel. If you think about it, the first king would have been God, the second would have been Saul, the third would have been David, the fourth would have been Solomon. Rehoboam would have been the fifth.

So Rehoboam being the fifth king of Israel, he was also the last king to rule Israel as a unified country until the split happened. When the split happened, then it was the Northern Kingdom of Israel comprised of ten tribes. Then of course the Southern Kingdom of Judah was the remaining of those tribes, and that’s when the big split had happened. So this is when the kingdom was unified. David was king and God makes it very clear.

He says this to the prophet, "You can’t build me a house but I’m going to build you a house." In essence what that meant was spectacular. Now I should also note this as kind of a side thing, and that is the fact that every single king that ruled in the Northern Kingdom, they were typically not related to one another. Most of the time that was the case. In the Northern Kingdom, obviously because of that there was no dynasty. There was not a single king that loved the Lord. They were all evil men. None of them loved the Lord, and some of them more infamous than the others.

In the Southern Kingdom of Judah, there were many men who loved the Lord, and every single one of those men were descendants of King David. As a matter of fact, it’s interesting because Daniel very likely as a prophet would have been a descendant of King David because he must have been in one way or another physically related to some of the people that ruled in the Southern Kingdom during that time. Ironically enough, and perhaps even more consequentially, to think about the fact that if he had been taken away from where he was, that would have meant he had to have been a relative of King David, very likely from the same line and so on and so forth.

Now it’s interesting because what that prophecy was was that in essence, Jesus himself would become the King of kings and the Lord of lords. This is so interesting because Jesus Christ as King does not exist right now. He exists as our priest. He exists as our intermediary, but he will rule as a king per what we read about in the Book of Revelation as that time comes. Now some people say, "Is it wrong to call him King now?" No, certainly not, because again, we are giving him a title that he deserves, but he is not going to be acting as king right now in this current moment, but he will eventually very soon as we read about in the Book of Revelation.

I should also point this out because it’s a detail that’s actually worth discussing as well. That is the fact that even the genealogies that we read about, for example, the one that we read about in the Book of Matthew and the one that we read about in the Book of Luke, makes it to where Jesus could be the only person that could have been that Messiah. How do we know that? I’ll make it very quickly. You’ve got to keep in mind that there was a curse that was issued upon a descendant of King David, upon a king by the name of Jeconiah.

He was cursed by God and basically God said nothing ever good can ever come from your loins, in essence. Nothing is ever going to come from you. Your whole bloodline is going to be cursed. Well, we got a really big problem because King Joseph, who was Jesus’s father, half-father for lack of a better term, actually came from the line of Jeconiah. He came from King David’s line but he falls right into Jeconiah’s place.

Now this is really interesting because the Bible in the Book of Luke tells us that Mary had a father by the name of Joseph, and that man came from a bloodline that was also tied to King David, but his bloodline did not touch Jeconiah’s bloodline. In other words, he came from a different king. Now this is also very important, by the way, a king from David’s downline, that’s what I’m talking about. So this is really important because that means that Jesus had to have been the person that was the Messiah.

Keep this in mind. None of Joseph’s DNA, which means none of what came from Jeconiah’s loins ever touched Jesus. Remember, Mary was miraculously inseminated by the Holy Spirit. Jesus, as a result, comes and the thing that’s so critically important about that is Mary’s bloodline ties into King David, and so the promise concerning King David was fulfilled exactly and perfectly. The curse by Jeconiah was also still honored by God and it also was cool because that means that if Jesus was the product of some kind of a fornicating act between Joseph and Mary, then Jesus could not be the Messiah because he came from Jeconiah’s line.

See how perfect that is? So in other words, the only way that Jesus could have come from Mary and actually been who he said he was is if it was this immaculate birth in essence, if it was this picture that was actually being drawn here that the Bible predicted would happen in the Book of Isaiah. So this is all very important stuff and it’s good to understand this because what Jesus is doing is he is asserting the fact that he is God based on this genealogy discussion that we’re having and also based on the promise that was made by the prophet to King David concerning who would come from his bloodline.

Jesus is the one that will eventually rule as King of kings and Lord of lords, and that’s why this is all so consequential. Now as the people are hearing this, the people are really excited. The scribes and the Pharisees are not liking it, but the people are absolutely loving it. The reason why the people are absolutely loving it is because they recognize right away that if what Jesus is saying is true, they have hope. You get it? They have hope.

I think one of the moments that affected me the most, and I wanted to disturb him when he did it, at this ceremony that happened in the White House was the President talked about how he was convinced that Charlie would be in heaven. He said, "I don’t think I’m going to make it there." He reiterated that. He said that I think on the plane, and then he reiterated his statement concerning that.

I just thought in my mind how simple it is to recognize that your salvation is not predicated upon your actions, that your salvation is predicated upon your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Isn’t that such a spectacular thing? Isn't it such a wonderful thing that we don’t have to look at how harsh we are, rough we are, tough we are, bad we were, good we are? None of that matters. What matters is the fact that we go into heaven based on the merits of Christ and not based on the merits of our own action.

It’s interesting to me to think that way because if I were to make an assessment of my own condition, if I were to decide in my own mind and in my own heart whether or not I’m going to heaven based on my actions, then I could tell you with grave confidence, and when I say grave, I don’t mean great, grave, with grave confidence that I’m going to hell. My actions have earned me the distinct punishment of hell. I could say that on all of you guys. Every single one of you, I could say that.

But yet, we’re not going to heaven based on our merits. We’re going to heaven based on the merits of Almighty God. I think that when these people were recognizing what Jesus was saying, they heard him with gladness. They were appreciative. Why were they happy about it? Because they were hearing the truth. They were recognizing that salvation became something so much more accessible than the spiritual leaders in the moment had actually described it to be.

These people, while this very emotion is being experienced, these scribes, these Pharisees are seeking to destroy the minds and the hearts built by God to walk in confidence for what he’s done. Guys, there’s a lot of false teachers out there. Beware of them. There’s a lot of people that are building their empires based on what appears to be a reputation, but nothing substantive. I see them all the time.

I see guys in social media snapping pictures of them at events. I see guys wherever they go just constantly bringing attention to the fact that they are something, when in reality, their own minds and their hearts are so clouded with deception that if they wanted to, if they tried, they could not bring substance to the table. I see it. I see it all the time. I see people memorize their one-liners. I see people draw the pictures of them being something that God never intended for them to be.

They’re everywhere. Why? Because their popularity does not determine their validity when it comes to the message of the kingdom of God. They think it does, but God says it works a completely different way. So much so that look at how God warns us concerning this. This is verse 38. "And he said unto them in his doctrine," so this is Jesus of course speaking to these people who were gladly receiving the message of salvation. He says, "Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces."

Think about this. Beware of these people that thrive on the attention that they get. Beware of the people who seek to put themselves in positions to receive praise for something they never deserve the praise for. Beware of the people who walk and act in false humility, seeking to gain attention that was never designed for them to gain. These are people that put on clothes and walk and talk and act in a way that draws attention to themselves.

He says beware of these people. They love to be praised. They love to have salutations in the marketplace. They’re all about the titles. They’re all about being recognized. "Oh, if they could see how far I’ve come. Look at me, I’m over here right now. Look at how I’m interacting with all the bigwigs." What does that mean? What does that even mean? Do you have any credibility in the ultimate bigwig? Have you spent any time seeking out what God wants for you? Are you walking in the kind of humility that God has called you to walk in?

The scribes, they don’t do that. They’re in it for their own gain. Look at how he continues to describe them. This is so heavy. So they love salutations in the marketplaces. Notice this: "and the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts." They’re what I like to call tile counters. You know what I mean when I say tile counters? There were a group of guys when I first came on staff at church, years and years and years ago, that literally they determined their validity.

I’m not joking. They determined their validity by measuring how much bigger their office was than somebody else. How would they measure? They would get in each other’s offices and they would count the tiles in the ceiling. If one person had more tiles than everybody else, they were the most valuable person because they got given that office. I remembered when I first came on staff there, this tile counting was a new thing that I had heard that they were doing.

Amongst at least four of these younger guys, they were counting their tiles and they were debating. It got to the point where it was so bad when they were counting the tiles that they were actually measuring the size of the tiles in their office versus measuring tiles in the other office. Meaning, one guy thought that it was rigged and that the tiles are actually smaller and that’s why he appeared to have more tiles. So they actually got to the point where they got on ladders and they measured the size of their tiles. Ridiculous.

One guy even went as far as to say that the actual measuring tool was rigged. It was just ridiculous. So my pastor asked me to come on staff and he goes, "You know, James, I want you to start right away. I really don’t have an office for you. You can just kind of go wherever you want to go." So he said, and Pastor Jeff told me this, he said, "You walk in anybody’s office that’s not using it, you can just use her office." I said, "No, I know better than that. Is there any room that just never gets occupied?" He goes, "Well, the boardroom, that technically never gets occupied. You just park yourself in a corner there. There’s a phone there, and of course, you can go work in that boardroom as much as you want."

A big, huge boardroom that just basically had a table and it had a phone in it. That was it. So I didn’t mind doing that. I liked the shagge carpet in there and it was kind of a fun time with me. They got into this whole ridiculous argument about the tiles, and so one day I just walked up to all of them and I said, "I got you all beat. You guys can all get lost. I got the most tiles in my room than any of you have it." "What are you talking about? What are you talking about?" I said, "Come into my office."

So I take them into my office where it’s actually the boardroom and I said, "I got three times as many tiles as all of you because the boardroom was three times as big." You know, they started getting mad at me. I’m like, "Do you guys really think I’m taking this seriously? Do you honestly think this makes you think this should make you feel any better?" You know, and of course, I’m young and kind of dumb and I don’t really have a lot of tactical sense in me.

I just basically called them all scribes and Pharisees because they’re so concerned with which is not really fair. I mean they’re all starving for a little bit of attention and love from their boss and I completely get it, but it is interesting how there are these large massive groups of people that thrive on that nonsense. "Look at where I was today. Did you see what I did? Oh look at what I can do. Oh wow, look, I’m the guy on the inside, look at me."

Well, great. That just, I mean in my opinion, forget even my opinion, how about we look at God’s opinion? Your value is not determined based on the places you are, the things that you do, or the people that you see. Your value is determined, your intrinsic value is determined by the one who gave it to you, and that’s the Lord.

Look what it says in verse 40: "Which devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation." These people, while they continue to pretend to be something special, while they pretend to be something great, then they are preying off the lives of so many people. They’re ripping them off. They’re taking advantage of them.

Boy have I seen this. I’ve seen so many pastors that are just absolute evil men, liars, thieves, cheaters. I’ve seen it happen so much. I watch it take place and my heart is actually broken when I see how they oftentimes victimize the people that need God the most. This is what they would do. They take advantage of people. They take advantage of the people that are the most vulnerable position. Here we see the picture with the widows. Funny how he would bring that up. He says that they shall receive greater damnation. In other words, look, enjoy your time now because hell’s going to be hot. Basically what he’s saying. It's not going to be good.

Guest (Male): Remember, you are the light of the world, a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.