Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Pastor James Kaddis on being doers of the word in every area of life.

James Kaddis: You understand it's a lie from the pit of hell when a pastor tells you, all I want to do is preach the gospel, and they do that under the auspice of actually saying that they don't get in politics because all they want to do is preach the gospel. There is no bigger lie than to hear that statement because the reality of it is they have fundamentally demonstrated to you that they do not understand the gospel. Because the gospel involves bringing the good news of Christ in every sphere of influence. And no, I'm not a dominionist.

But what I am saying is there is no area in our life that we should void ourselves for being doers of the word. We bring it into the political arena, we bring it into the private life, we bring it into the public life, we bring it into everywhere we go.

Guest (Male): Welcome to the weekend edition of Light on the Hill online at lightonthehillradio.com. Our teacher Pastor James Kaddis is in the book of James. In chapter one, we're reminded of the danger of being hearers only and not doers of the word. Pastor James encourages us now to put the word into practice in all aspects of life and ministry.

James Kaddis: Verse 22. But be you doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself and goeth his way and straightway forgetteth what manner man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. Woo. What does he mean when he says that?

First of all, you don't get to second base without getting to first. First base is be quick to listen, slow to speak, don't allow the the anger to overwhelm you, remove the filth from your life, allow it to be filled with the word of God. And when you have done that, put the very word of God that you hear into action. Now this is where it's going to be controversial to some. And I know it won't be controversial to you because you go to this church. But it is amazing to me how many people in the name of what they called preaching the gospel, which is a lie.

How many people in the name of being spiritual or Christlike or Christian will continue to be hearers of the word but not doers. What do they tell you? You have no business being in politics, pastor. I heard that. I hear it I hear it every day. Give no business being in politics. Okay. Answer this question. What other part of my life do you want me to compartmentalize from the Lord? I'm not allowed to bring the Lord into politics. What else am I not allowed to bring the Lord into? Am I not allowed to bring the Lord into schools so that we can let the the drag queens teach our children?

Am I not allowed to bring the Lord into anything? Maybe I should leave the Lord out of my wallet, too. No, seriously. Maybe I should leave the Lord out of my wallet and spend my money in places that continue to hate our God. Let's go buy season tickets to the Dodgers, right? We're not we're not allowing ourselves to you know be influenced by that because there's certain places where we have no business talking. You understand that's a lie from the pit of hell? You understand that? You understand it's a lie from the pit of hell when a pastor tells you all I want to do is preach the gospel, and they do that under the auspice of actually saying that they don't get in politics because all they want to do is preach the gospel.

There is no bigger lie than to hear that statement because the reality of it is they have fundamentally demonstrated to you that they do not understand the gospel. Because the gospel involves bringing the good news of Christ in every sphere of influence. And no, I'm not a dominionist. But what I am saying is there is no area in our life that we should void ourselves for being doers of the word. We bring it into the political arena, we bring it into the private life, we bring it into the public life, we bring it into everywhere we go.

If I'm going to take God into the inner and most deepest part of my thought life, how much more should I be taking God everywhere else? He's saying a person that hears the word and doesn't do it is like the guy who walks in front of the mirror, sees all kinds of detailed pictures of what they look like. And five minutes later, forget what their image of them looks like. They spend hours in front of a mirror, they get a picture handed to them. Oh, who's the guy in that picture? Bro, that's you. They don't know.

Why? Because they've allowed themselves to be so hardhearted that they will not take a moment to examine what is real. Hearing the word is not just the issue. It's practicing it. I uh I I've heard guys like Eric Metaxas say things that I don't agree with. Eric's a friend of mine. I've heard him say things that I would I would argue with him are not necessarily the most biblical thing. But why is it that I would still a call a call a man like that a hero? Not just a hero but a national treasure. A man who loves Jesus.

He's not a pastor. He's subjecting himself to ridicule, anger, hurt, pain, suffering, people threatening his life to basically communicate the message that what happened in Nazi Germany took place because the Christians allow it to happen. That what's taking place in this country right now is a direct result of Christians allowing that evil to take place. Now some of you might say, well James, we know what it's going to be like in the end days. The Bible says that in the days of No you know in the last days it'll be as the days of No as the days of Lot.

So why don't we just let it all burn? Okay. You do me a favor. Go into your private prayer closet, and when you have a chance, go flip God off. Do it. That sounds harsh, but that's exactly what you're doing. You're saying God, I'm going to listen to your word but I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to I'm not going to obey. You want to rebel against God, that's fine. So the Bible tells us guys, you understand that? We are being given instruction in his word and to not do that instruction is detrimental to not do those things.

And then it's not like James changes the subject here. He's building upon the principle that he just shared with us. By the way, I I will tell you this. How many of you with a quick show of hands have heard somebody saying if you go to Calvary Chapel, you've gone to Calvary Chapel for any length of time, you've probably heard this phrase. Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship. How many of you have heard that? Raise your hand. Okay. You know that that's unbiblical, right? Like you understand that that's not true, right? Christianity is a religion of relationship.

Religion is a biblical term. Religion is a biblically appropriate term. Look at what James says because it goes with everything he has just told us. This is not like some weird out of place statement. James then tells us, if any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is in vain. You know, you want to call yourself a religious person but you don't live consistently that way and you allow yourself to be unmitigated and uncontrolled in your actions, your religion is not really the right religion.

Your religion is being practiced in vain. What does religion mean? Religion means a function of habit, right? When you're religious about something, it means you are habitually pursuing it. Look at his definition of what pure religion is. And it looks like it's out of place, but I'm going to put it all together for you here. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself what? Unspotted from the world. A lot of people look at this last verse and think it's completely out of context and out of character with everything that James just told us.

So let's rehearse through it quickly, okay? Let's go through the water issue, right? The underlying issue, right? Let's talk about the area that floats everything. James tells us, be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. Anger doesn't produce righteousness, and then he tells us to walk away from evil, to throw away the excess of unrighteousness. Literally walk away from it all and make a commitment to the word of God. Then he takes it a step further. And he says, not only do I want you to make a commitment to the word of God after you have abandoned evil, I want you to practice it with your actions.

I don't want you to just listen to it. I want you to practice it. By the way, why does he say hear the word of God? The reason why he said hear the word of God was because 99.999% of the people that he was addressing in this letter were illiterate. Okay, just so you understand that. So when the word of God was being given to them, it was being given through a reading so they would sit and they would listen to the word of God, and that's why it says what it says. That 's why he says hearing the word of God for us, it's reading, hearing, you know, whatever.

The whole idea is it's taking in the word of God. So he says, after you have heard the word of God being given to you, the expectation is that you act on it. You function according to what the word of God tells you. You cannot sit there and watch the building burn. Cowardly woke Christian will say, look at all the things that are going on, the building is burning. And you know what they'll do? They'll run for the exit. That's what they do. And then they'll stand outside the structure and praise God while it's coming to the ground.

The believer will say, no, we're going to prevent the building from burning. We're going to fight this because the word of God has given me the tool to be able to extinguish the flame of destruction. So I am going to stand in the place that might not be comfortable but I'm going to fight it. I'm going to do the very things that are not easy because that's what the word of God called me to do. So then he just described the person that allows anger to settle in and walks in the flesh and doesn't hear the word of God.

He says if any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is in vain. What does that mean? Well, bridleth his own tongue goes right back to the first part of this where he said, be slow to speak. If he doesn't bridle his own tongue me matter of fact, he's quick to speak, then the resulting issue is that his heart will be corrupted. So if he chooses to speak and he allows his heart to become corrupt, this man's religion is in vain. If he opens and runs his mouth, he doesn't listen to the word of God being communicated and he doesn't act upon those things, his religion is fake.

He can call himself Christian all he want. He can say, I preach the gospel till he's blue in the face, but the reality of it is he's a hater and an enemy of God. I've shared with I've shared this before. Story of a man who's an active board member at a church in California who was handing flyers out to people in his church, begging people to vote no on prop one. The pastor who continues to say we're all about preaching the gospel told his board member, don't ever do that again. Don't ever hand those documents out to anybody again.

That pastor's religion is in vain. He should quit the ministry because what has he allowed himself to do in order to facilitate the comfortable state of mind that he wants to maintain? It is now upon his back and the blood on his hands to see the death of the future. He claims to champion black people, right? Yet they're the first victims of abortion. We'll just leave that alone. What a hypocrite. It's a liar. His religion is in vain. He says, pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is to do what? Visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and do what?

Keep himself unspotted from the world. What's the least rewarding thing you can do in this world if you could think about it? If there was anything you could do to put your faith in action that you would really not get much out of if you think about it from the world's perspective. Helping a needy widow? That might be a a good picture, right? What are you going to get out of a needy widow who doesn't have any income, doesn't have anything to bring to the table to you? Especially in those days. Or going to a place that might not necessarily be a desirable place to go.

To visit the fatherless. Do you know how hard it is to minister to the fatherless? When children don't have a father, they act out. That's where the real work takes place, right? When you take on children that do not have a father and you become their father, do you understand the labor of love that 's involved in that? Do you understand the work that is involved in taking that child that at one point never had a father and saying, I am going to be your father and I am going to give you the love that you have always deserved because God placed it upon my heart to bring you into my family, to adopt you into my family and to be the father that God has always called you to have.

Let me tell you what you get out of that. You often times get heartache out of that. Your wallet gets emptied all the time. There's so many things that happen that you would not consider to be anything that's valuable or easy. But you do it because your religion is pure. You do it because your father in heaven adopted you when you were an orphan without a father. You are now going to heaven and inheriting everything that you could never have on your own. And your religion is expressed in hearing that God has done that for you and now going and doing it for others.

This verse is not some weird verse that's out of context. Okay? This is a verse that is saying, when you have heard what God has done for you, you now take that very word and you put it into practice. You bring it to life. Then the last part that he says is what? To keep himself what? Unspotted from the world. You can be as religious as you want. In some cases, you can go out you can do all the spiritual things. But the very moment you allow the world to influence you, the very moment you allow the culture to become the trend setter for the way you live, the very moment you allow the influence of this world to direct what your next step is, guess what?

Your religion is in vain. Look, I'm going to just close with this thought because this is important. We are living in a world today whereas believers, we are the only ones that understand this. Real believers. We are the only ones that understand the cost associated with the adoption that is taking place of us in the heavenly. We're the only ones that understand the place that we were in and the place that we're now going. We're the ones that understand where God has delivered us from and the promise of where we are going. But there is a satanic movement going on right now even amongst people in the church that are being inspired to go back to the place that God adopted them away from.

I am sick and tired of sitting at tables with pastors that are drinking, especially pastors that were delivered from that habit only to go back to it because they've allowed the world to spot them. I am tired sitting in the midst of men who claim to be representatives and teachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ who line themselves up with the ideals and the philosophies of the heart of the world only to think that somehow and in some way they're going to be effective in their witness by embracing evil. When are we going to take a stand?

When are we going to stop for one moment and recognize I have no desire to go back to the place where God delivered me from. When are we going to realize as Christians that pure religion for us is to reach out to the most vulnerable and yet at the same time becoming the most vulnerable and not allowing ourselves to be spotted by the world and to actually spot the world by our lives. When are we going to be the trend setters? When are we going to affect the culture? I'm dying to know. Look, I don't know about you but the days are getting very clearly darker.

They are. Make no mistake about it. The way I know the days are getting darker is I'm watching righteous men or men that call themselves righteous or associate themselves with righteousness doing dark evil things. There's a falling away that's happening. There's a capitulation to darkness and evil. And it's coming back to one very important issue. And that is the blatant disregard of the fundamentals that God has given us to follow. And the result leaves a wake of devastation that is beyond our functional or relational capacity for that matter to be able to discern or understand.

It's time for us to open up our eyes and to live a religion that is undefiled, that reaches out to the most vulnerable yet while at the same time becoming unspotted by the world. Let's look at what's really happening, folks. And let's never be apologetic about proclaiming the truth because if we are hearers of the word and we are not doers, what we do is in vain. It never works. It's time to open up our eyes and to live a life that becomes unaffected by the darkness of this world and is inspired by the righteousness of of of God, of the kingdom of heaven, of his word.

We are not of this world but while we're in it, it's time to make a difference until the Lord calls us home. Whether we're raptured or whether our lives are taken, either way, the call is to remain consistent, walking away from evil, embracing the word of God and then acting on it.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to the weekend edition of Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis and part of our study in the book of James. Listen to this study and more at lightonthehillradio.com. Again, that's lightonthehillradio.com. Pastor James's teachings are also available through the Light on the Hill app and at oneplace.com. Listen to us wherever you get your podcast too. We'd love to hear from you. It's encouraging to hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives, and it's an opportunity to thank the Lord. There's a place to contact us at the website lightonthehillradio.com. If this is a ministry you would like to support, there is a place to make a secure donation at lightonthehillradio.com, or you can give through the Light on the Hill app.

Throughout the week, you can watch our live shows and short videos, many of which relate to Bible prophecy and help you to see current events through a biblical worldview. Look for those at jameskaddis.com. Pastor James, you were speaking about being doers of the word in every area of life. If someone is willing to do that in some areas of life but unwilling to be that way in other areas, what does that say about his or her heart?

James Kaddis: Well, it speaks volumes of their heart. It means basically that their heart is not willing to be fully yielded and submitted to the Lord. Now some of that can be the direct result of very bad teaching where people don't sense the obligation or the need to walk in obedience in these areas. But for the most part, if the spirit of God lives inside of you, then you're going to understand the responsibility and obligation that you have to walk in complete and total obedience. And if you are not willing to walk in that kind of obedience, if you're not willing to submit that area to the Lord, well then it's indicative of the fact that you have places of hardness, and that has to be dealt with.

And hopefully it will get dealt with by your own actions rather than wait for the Lord to deal with it because God's breaking is a lot more painful. Nonetheless, the obligation that sits in front of us is to bring the word of God into everything. We get the most benefit and gain that comes from it, and we live lives that are a lot more full and complete.

Guest (Male): Thanks Pastor James. Now let's go to the Lord in prayer as we close.

James Kaddis: Father, we just thank you Lord for your word. And we pray God that you would give us that heart, that desire Lord and that ability to want to do that Lord, that we would act upon your very word as it's given to us and spoken to us, Lord. Father, one thing is is true. You're faithful and you are good. And we love you God. We thank you. We thank you for your goodness and your righteousness. Go before us Lord, fill us with your spirit. Keep us looking to you and seeking you, Lord. We ask these things in Jesus's name we pray.

Amen.

Guest (Male): Judgment is coming. Are you guilty? We'll consider that very question next time on Light on the Hill as Pastor James Kaddis begins chapter two of James. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.