Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Today on Light on the Hill, Pastor James sends out the warning: attack is imminent.

Satan is a liar and a thief. His whole purpose is to steal, kill, and destroy. He’s targeting you and, believe it or not, he’ll do it through religious people. We’re to be aware of his tactics because he’s good at what he does. Today on Light on the Hill, we’ll share what you need to know when he reverts to his most common tactic. Let’s join Pastor James Kaddis now in Mark chapter 7.

James Kaddis: Alright, let’s jump in. I will say this, I sort of was debating whether or not I even intro in with this, but I’m just going to do it because why not? I am really getting sick and tired of the sentiment that people continue to share regarding the fact that pastors should never get into the political, that we should never have a conversation about things that relate to anything that relates to what they would call political.

I’m just here to tell you guys, and I’ve said this before and I know I sound like a broken record when I say things like this, but that is just such an obscene conclusion. I think it’s completely broken because, as I have said on multiple occasions and of course I stole it from one of my senator friends but I still think nonetheless it’s a great statement, and that is politics emanate from the pulpit. It always has and it always will.

The precedent that the pulpits of America set will, in essence, be the political precedent that's set for the rest of the nation because any real leadership is going to start with the house of God. I think that it is obscene that somehow, some way, over the last 50, 60, 70 years, we’ve managed to creep in this weird, ungodly dogma that seems to say that Jesus was a very a-political person.

In reality, he was a-political and he didn't really encourage us to be fearful or careful about the things of the world in terms of as it relates to politics or the things that we do. Somehow the knowledge of Jesus Christ coming soon for his church is a license to get into debt, not pay it off, to not be concerned about the things of the world around us, and certainly to ignore the political infrastructure and environment around us.

I can tell you this right now: nothing is further from the truth. That is just complete and total hogwash and absolutely none of it makes any kind of sense and, quite frankly, none of it is even remotely biblical. Perhaps one of the greatest arguments that you can make for this, besides the fact that all throughout the Old Testament was just a bunch of church leaders getting involved with political leaders and, of course, in many cases, religious leaders were the political leaders of the time.

But when you look at Jesus and you look at the life of Jesus, Jesus interacted with the political infrastructure of his time and perhaps the most significantly political infrastructure of his time was represented by the infrastructure created through the Pharisees and, of course, through the office of the chief of priests. It's really interesting to understand the fact that if you will recognize that fact for what it is, then being able to understand how to navigate through the political becomes a whole lot easier because it all relates and it all means something.

Perhaps one of the most political infrastructures that is in existence, specifically in the United States of America, happens to be what everybody calls the church of Jesus Christ. There can be no more political infrastructure oftentimes. That’s why it’s really important to stop for one second and put all of this into perspective. If you, as the body of Christ, want to understand how God wants us to live in our everyday lives, then it has to be riddled with the understanding of one fact: God wants us to take our biblical worldview into everywhere, into everything.

Our biblical worldview belongs in every space, it belongs in every conversation, it belongs in everything that we do. The moment we separate the Bible and our worldview from one another, then we have something that is just left to secularism and that secularism brings nothing but destruction. As a result, we have to be people that continue to remind one another that we need to bring our biblical worldview into everything.

To understand what the Scriptures teach and then to apply the scriptural precedents that are given to us into the everyday life that we live. That applies to our finances, to our interactions with one another, to our interactions with government, to our interactions in society, that applies to everything that we do. If you do not bring Christ and the Scriptures into it, you will find whatever you have left the Bible out of to be empty and worthless and meaningless.

In essence, it contributes to an infrastructure that brings you literally nothing but frustration and, I think in many cases, anger and hate and all kinds of other things. Why? Because the Bible is the very tool that we use and that we must use in order to be able to understand the more simple and yet very complicated things in life. If you leave all of those things aside, you have a big problem.

It’s interesting because I think one of the greatest dangers that exists is when we choose to, in the name of religion, ignore the voice of God in our everyday lives. I think this is perhaps one of the most common ways that Christians remove themselves from everyday practical aspects of their lives and tend to compartmentalize church from everything else by basically saying, "Well, church has its space, it’s only for this place, and it doesn't belong in any other area in my life."

The reality of it is, the moment you choose to compartmentalize God’s word, the moment you choose to compartmentalize church and everything that goes with it, becomes the very moment that you see the condition that we are about to read here in Mark chapter 7. On purpose, I took only a small section of Mark chapter 7 to go over with you today because it is worthy of spending some time with.

If we did not have a time limit in the amount of time that we discuss these passages, then I could teach you for the next two and a half hours, then I would probably go through the rest of the chapter with you. But because I have that limitation, I am going to split it up because I think there is a significant and very consequential point that needs to be brought in, and that is what do we do with the insight, the wisdom, and counsel that God has given us?

Is it something that we use for a ceremonial type of living where we compartmentalize everything, put it all in one section and don't bring it into anything else? Or do we apply the principles that we learn, the life that we are told to live, and everything that goes with it into literally every nook and cranny of everything that we participate in? I think that the answer to that question is the latter and not the former.

Because if the answer to that question is the former, then what you bring is destruction. By the way, in case you haven't noticed, I have spent this whole introduction telling you the same thing about eight different ways. Did you notice that? I think it’s important. I think it’s really important because I need it to be embedded within your mind and your heart. God and his word has to be taken with you in everything that you do.

He has to be taken with you in every business plan that you make. He has to be taken with you in the plans that you make for your travel. He has to be taken with you in how you manage your finances. He has to be taken with you with the things that you do in your interpersonal relationships. He has to be taken with you everywhere and it must be applied in all of those contexts because this is the way God’s word works.

You either apply it in everything or you apply it in nothing because if you apply it in everything, it works in everything. If you apply it in only one or two things, then in essence you will disregard all the other areas and the compartmentalization that you choose to live according to will actually make your life worse. In other words, if you use this philosophy where you only bring God’s word into certain parts of your life, you will use God’s word to justify doing evil deeds.

I’ll explain that in just a second because God’s going to give us an incredible example of this as he interacts with the Pharisees. Let’s jump in verse 1 of chapter 7 and it’ll all make sense in just a moment. Look at this, verse 1: “Then came together unto him the Pharisees and certain of the scribes which came from Jerusalem.” By the way, it’s interesting how Mark would point that the Pharisees and the scribes that approached him actually came from Jerusalem.

There’s a reason why he points this out. He points it out that they came from Jerusalem because Jerusalem was in essence the very center of where all of the brain work was being done in order to create the kind of religious world order that was being facilitated within this whole area. Jerusalem was the think tank of all that was religious. It was, in essence, the Washington D.C. of all that existed within Judea, Samaria, and the outermost parts of all of the area known to Jewish life.

In essence, Jerusalem was not only the capital city, the ancient capital city of the people of Israel, it was also the ancient capital city for lack of a better term of all that was religious and all that was biblical and everything that had anything to do with culture that existed within that time. So if these people were coming from Jerusalem, undoubtedly they were coming to entrap Jesus.

They were coming to oppose Jesus because Jesus was speaking against virtually every single precedent that those in Jerusalem had established over the last several hundred years. I think it’s really important to note. By the way, this is where it really helps to be able to understand your history of the nation of Israel and this is where having a knowledge of the Old Testament can really broaden and enhance your ability to be able to see through so many of the things that's very, very hard to understand or discern as you go over some of these stories.

Because when you look at the history of the nation of Israel, you will see a regular ebb and flow of a very specific type of pattern that existed with the Jewish people under the instruction of the Lord that makes a lot of sense, especially when carried over into the time of Jesus’s life. This is typically the way it went: God makes a covenant with his people. It starts with Abraham, right?

Basically, you serve me, you walk with me, you seek me, I’ll bless you. I’ll be your God, you’ll be my children, I’ll watch over you, I’ll protect you so long as you walk in obedience to me, I will bless you. The Shabbat, the Sabbath will be a symbol of the covenant that we have between us and so long as you bring me everywhere, I will bless you everywhere.

As a matter of fact, it’s interesting and we will eventually get there, when you go to the book of Deuteronomy, the most consequential aspect of understanding the book of Deuteronomy is fundamentally predicated upon the understanding that when Moses writes the book of Deuteronomy, it is his dying decree. The reason why Deuteronomy exists is because it exists as a final exhortation by Moses to the people before he dies.

Perhaps the most consequential section of the book of Deuteronomy can be found in Deuteronomy 28 where for the first 15 verses Moses, in reiterating all of the matters that have been before him according to the law of God, he tells the people of Israel, "Listen, if you will obey the Lord your God, if you will follow his commandments, if you will listen and hear and harken steadfastly to his word, if you will be somebody who will walk in obedience to him," he says it, he starts it off, "Blessed will you be in the city, blessed will you be in the country, blessed will be the things that you put your hands to."

Literally, your enemies will come into attack you and they’ll run away scattered. He says, "I will bless you everywhere. I’ll bless your children, I’ll bless your family, I’ll bless your descendants, I’ll bless the food you eat, I’ll bless the money that’s in your pocket, I’ll grow everything." For 15 verses, he goes on to say how much they’ll be blessed. Actually, it’s closer to 13 verses because you’ve got the first verse that says sort of the "if you will," then you go from verse 2 to roughly verse 14 where he gives all of the blessings.

Then you go to verse 15 where he basically says, "And if you will not diligently harken to the voice of the Lord your God or to the word of the Lord your God, if you will not obey him, if you will not follow his commandments," then he goes on to say, "Cursed will you be in the city, cursed will you be in the country, cursed will you be when your enemy comes in after you and they’ll walk away taking you away and scattering you from the land."

He says, "You’ll be cursed in every aspect, you’ll be cursed even in your physical relationship with your spouse." It actually says you’ll be cursed in every aspect. But guess what? It doesn't go on for 13 verses to counter the first 13 verses, it goes on to almost 65 verses where he says, "Cursed, cursed, cursed, cursed, cursed, cursed, cursed." Quite frankly, it’s really interesting because the way that God very specifically articulates the curses that are associated with not obeying the word of God, it’s designed to show you just how bad it becomes when you ignore God’s word.

In ignoring God’s word, you allow the compounding effect of the cursings to completely overwhelm and destroy you from here until generations to come. Why? As very effectively demonstrated in the book of Deuteronomy, when a father and a mother chooses to allow themselves to be given to sinful patterns and sinful lifestyles, they teach that to their children and their children take on the advanced sinful practices of their mother and father.

They get better at mastering those sinful practices and the consequences that come as a result of that sin happens to them at a much younger age and thus this is why you see what people oftentimes refer to as a generational curse when in reality it is just simply a curse that was obtained to them because they were taught to do the thing that brought the curse in. It’s funny how that works.

I’ll give you a great example of this: the very first time we finally, I finally broke down and said, "Okay, Jane, I’ll let you go on a ride-along with me." This is in a police department that is southeast Los Angeles and basically it is a very, very active, busy police department. Quite frankly, when I first came into the police department, I learned how to develop a speech with all of the officers where I would tell them it’s not a matter of if you’re going to get in a shooting, it’s a matter of when. These are the things you need to be prepared for spiritually.

For every single officer I’ve ever worked with, that speech was correct. I still remember like it was yesterday, Jane could confirm this for you. We’re sitting around at the dead end of a street kind of in an alleyway and we’re beginning to after a very long night already break bread as we would speak, right? Have some hamburgers and soda on the deck of the car with two cars kind of guarding each other, two police cars, and we’re just standing around and we’re talking.

Before we could even put the first bite of food in our mouth, we hear nothing but gunshots. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom! Then pretty soon the radio traffic comes along, we already know what’s going on, Jane is confused, she has no idea what’s happening. We realize we’re about to get a call for shots fired, so we might as well just kind of put our food away really quickly and drive as fast as we can towards where we heard the gunshots.

Jane is confused, we tell her to get in the car, just trust us. We all get in the car and pretty much halfway on our way there is where we get the radio call, shots fired, shots fired. My sister got to see her very first homicide actually on her very first ride-along and what did she see? She saw three dead children. Oldest 12, youngest four years old, all with gunshot wounds in front of a gangster party.

My sister naturally was pretty remarkable in that she was not as shocked as everybody thought she would be. She wanted to help the detectives put up all the crime scene tape and all the other fun stuff. The detectives were really impressed with her. But my point behind it is, when you see children that are anywhere from the age of darn near infancy to the age of 12 or 13 or 14 or 16 for that matter, who were shot and injured, gone to meet their maker in front of a gangster party, that is the effect of fathers and mothers who teach their children that a lifestyle unacceptable to God is normal and the consequences that they bring upon themselves for living that lifestyle becomes very apparent.

It’s a tragedy, it’s terrible, but that’s what he says in the book of Deuteronomy. He says, "If you will obey my law and hold fast to it, I’ll bless you. If you don’t, I’ll curse you." Then when you get into the book of Judges, what does he do in the book of Judges? In the book of Judges, God effectively demonstrates to us this ebb and flow that was associated with the patterns of Israel’s life and the way that they lived day in and day out.

They would get to the point where God would say, "I’ll be your God, you’ll be my children." They say, "Okay, that’s a great plan." They get blessed by God because they do God’s word, they obey what God says, they get blessed, they get blessed, they get blessed. They get to the top, they go, "I got this, no problem." They forget about God, they go into captivity, they’re under suffering and pain and they finally say, "Oh God, we messed up."

They ask for help after they’ve messed up and then what happens? They get uplifted again and it’s this natural ebb and flow that comes as a result of them getting cocky and arrogant, thinking they’re self-made, only to be blown up. When they’re blown up, they finally go back and go, "Okay, God, sorry, I ask for forgiveness." And then God lifts them up. It’s the ebb and flow and it is a very practical picture of the very word and the very command that had been given to them that they were to honor God and if they did not honor God that there would be a consequence.

Then that’s when of course other things were given to them. During the time of Moses, it started with the building of the Tabernacle. By the way, oftentimes the Tabernacle was referred to as God’s house or a temple, believe it or not. The difference between the Tabernacle and the actual temple that we know of today was a Tabernacle was made of tent material, right? It was a soft tent-like structure where the temple was actually all these building blocks and stones and so on and so forth.

So there’s a significant and consequential difference between them. But what wasn't different was the place that they both carried. What was not different was the fact that there was a Holy of Holies, that there was a place of sacrifice, that there was a place where people came that they might give honor to the true living God, that they might worship him. And there were rules from within the temple that were to be adhered to strictly by God and if those rules were not adhered to strictly, there would be consequences, significant consequences.

So the temple for many years was a place where people congregated, where they praised God, where they walked in obedience to God, where they came together and they offered sacrifice to God to find redemption, at least a kophar as it says in the Hebrew, a covering for their sins. The pattern was something that was like clockwork. There was a remarkable period of time where they utilized the infrastructure that was provided to them by God to worship God and to do it.

And then later on, the temple was used as an infrastructure to defame the people of God. It was used as an infrastructure to take advantage of the people of God and it happened again and again and again and again. Of course, God accentuated this commandment that was given to him by Moses or through Moses in a way where he practically applied the very truths of the warning that he gave in Deuteronomy by effectively showing what would happen again. We see it happening. And as a matter of fact, when the people of God chose to ignore the voice of God, God showed grace in bringing in prophets to warn them.

Guest (Male): This is Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis and we’re currently going through the Gospel of Mark. Listen to this study and more at lightonthehillradio.com. Pastor James’s teachings are also available through the Light on the Hill app and at oneplace.com. You can listen to us wherever you get your podcasts as well. When you have a moment sometime today, send us an email. We’d love it. It’s encouraging to hear what the Lord is doing in our listeners’ lives and it’s an opportunity to thank the Lord for what he’s doing.

There’s a place to contact us at our website, lightonthehillradio.com. We’ve been blessed by the feedback we’ve received thus far regarding Pastor James’s new book, The Last Book. If you haven’t ordered a copy yet, we’d encourage you to do so. This guide to Revelation covers the first half of the book, giving you what you need to know about the rapture and the end times in a clear and concise manner. Request your copy today at lightonthehillradio.com or through Amazon.

If God is leading you to support this radio outreach, there’s also a place to make a donation at lightonthehillradio.com. Pastor James, today you made some convincing points as to why we should engage in the political realm. As you know, there’s a big election coming up not only nationally but here locally. I think it’s safe to say if we were to cite the statistics of Christians that don’t vote, it would be staggering. If Christians did vote according to biblical principles, we’d see a big difference on election day. Don’t you agree?

James Kaddis: Absolutely, Jane. Look, there’s no doubt at all that we would be sitting in a completely different world right now if Christians took responsibility for the call that God had placed upon their lives. It’s amazing to me how many people identify themselves as being committed believers in orthodox Christianity, they believe the fundamentals of the Bible, yet they completely have X’d themselves out of politics. It’s sad, it’s actually tragic. If we did engage and we did it using the numbers that we know exist, even California would be a conservative state.

Guest (Male): Well said. Thanks, Pastor James. Now let’s return to our message as Pastor James speaks for a minute about the relevance of the Old Testament.

James Kaddis: I keep saying this to everybody: the more familiar you become with the Old Testament, the more aware you will be of everything that follows in the New. I cannot stand the movement that exists within some parts of the church, and yes, even dare I say Calvary Chapels, that say the Old Testament is old stuff, it’s not grace, it’s none of that, we’re all about the New Testament.

Actually, the New Testament has no validity unless it is built upon the foundation of the Old. If you don’t know the foundation of the Old, the New Testament becomes completely useless and valueless because it’s not built on anything. For example, here’s a really simple thing: how in the world does Jesus have the authority to forgive you of your sins?

If the Old Testament were not valid, then he has no authority to forgive you of your sins. He can’t just forgive you of your sins by him saying, "Yeah, yeah, go ahead, I’ll let you off." It doesn't work that way. God honors his word above his name. If you don’t have the Old Testament which gives the authority to Jesus to forgive us of our sins, you have no redemption. Why? Because the Old Testament says that there cannot be any forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood.

So you think about that. The whole idea here is that you cannot throw away one without the other and this is why you have to know the Old Testament and you have to know the history of the Jews and the Old Testament in order to understand the validity of what’s being represented here in the New.

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