Light on the Hill

James Kaddis: The gospel cannot be in existence as God intended for it to be had it not been predicated upon the declarations of His word through prophetic utterance. In the Psalms, what does it say? In the volume of the book, it is written of who? It’s written of me. The spirit of prophecy is in Christ Jesus, we read that in the Book of Revelation. You think about the picture that's being drawn here, you cannot separate the message of the gospel from Bible prophecy. It cannot be done. The moment you start to do that, that's when you begin to go in the woke direction that a lot of these people are going in.

Guest (Male): We hope you're having a good day in the Lord and thankful we can share a part of it with you here on Light on the Hill. Pastor James Kaddis is early in a new study in Mark's Gospel. Today, he'll be in the opening verses in chapter one. It's interesting that Mark immediately delves into Bible prophecy. He first shares what the Bible says concerning the future and then compares it with what's going on in the present. Here's Pastor James.

James Kaddis: All of the stuff that we've been talking about even over the last 15 minutes or 10 minutes or so goes back to the same premise that I continue to communicate, and that is we are indeed engaged in a spiritual battle. The spiritual battles that we continue to face are becoming more and more significant because the operations that we see happening are becoming more and more spiritual, and the world is becoming less and less aware of that spirituality.

I think the problem that we continue to see as this happens is that as the world continues to grow ignorant of the things that are invisible, it is the things that are visible that continue to be more maintained and changed and manipulated by that which the world continues to ignore on more and more of a basis. That's something that's very important for us because if we choose to separate the spiritual matters from the physical matters, then the physical matters will run amok because the spiritual matters will actually move in the direction that will bring darkness over the land.

This is something that we have to continue to recognize. As Christians, when we refuse to engage in the spiritual realm, we become the first casualties of it. We've seen examples after examples after examples of this. One of the passages that I oftentimes hear people misquote all day, every day, all the time is the parable of the talents. I hear some of the Christian money guys talk about the parable of the talents and it being the primary source that they use to teach you what to do with your money. Don't get me wrong, although the parable of the talents can be a fantastic principle to learn on what you should do with your money and resources, it has something to do with something much bigger, much more significant.

Everybody forgets about the context of the parable of the talents. The parable of the talents is Jesus just spent a bunch of time engaging with His people, teaching them about things that are in the invisible realm. He was teaching them about Bible prophecy. He was telling them about the things that would be coming. He just finished talking to them about the circumstances behind the second coming, behind what would take place when Jesus, like it says in Zechariah 14, touches His foot on the Mount of Olives.

We begin to see this dramatic and radical change when Christ comes back literally seven years or more than seven years after the church is raptured. The thing that's even more unique and interesting and perhaps very impacting about the words that He shares is He tells the disciples, what you are being given is a treasure. The information that you are being given is valuable and you're being entrusted with it. It's a resource.

He says it is like the parable of the talents. Take into account the parable that's being given here. You have a master and the master has a bunch of stuff that he wants to give to you while he goes away. He goes and he gives one guy one talent, another guy he gives a certain amount, another guy he gives another amount. They all take their talents and one guy chooses to take his talents, he's the guy that's given the most, and he trades it around and he makes the best of it and he doubles that amount.

Another guy does the same thing. He was given a certain amount, it was not as much, but it was a certain amount and he took it and he doubled it. They were both praised for their resourcefulness, the fact that they were willing to extend what they had and do something with it. They were praised for the fact that they were faithful with the things that they had been given and so God was going to bless them with so much more.

But then there was this one guy who said, well, I knew you were coming back. I knew that you were going to come back, so you know what? I’m taking the talent and I just buried it because I know you're a hard man. Quite frankly, I didn't want to mess it up so here it is. Here's the talent that you gave me. Jesus basically said that that man was worthy of hell.

Why? Because the talent that Jesus is talking about, the talents that Jesus was talking about in this specific context, was a knowledge of what would happen in the future based on biblical precedent. Those are the talents He's talking about. Jesus is saying, I sat with you and I gave you some of the most powerful information that you could pull from ever.

I revealed to you what was going to happen in the future. I told you what was going to happen when the Son of Man came back. I told you what the words of the prophet Daniel were and how they apply. I told you that your generation, the fig tree generation, would be the generation that would see the sign of the second coming. That sign was what? The sign was the abomination that causes desolation that Daniel spoke about in Daniel chapter nine. I told it all to you.

Now I expect you to take that information and be fruitful with it. I expect you to take that information and allow that information to be the tool that is utilized for your productivity. What do we have today? We have knowledge of the word of God. We see evidence of the fact that the word of God is real. We look around at the Middle East, we look around at the geopolitical infrastructure of the whole world in that area, and we say, yeah, the Bible said it.

We can expect it. The Bible says this, the Bible says this, and anybody who knows and loves the Bible and studies Bible prophecy and does it well can be uniquely brilliant at being able to analyze geopolitics. You could come to me right now with any issue happening in the world and I could sit down and give you solid geopolitical analysis. You want to know why? Because the Bible heavily influences my understanding and knowledge of what's going on because I know what the endgame is going to be.

If I know what the endgame is going to be, I don't have to spend a whole bunch of time understanding the current game because all I need to do is see where they are and understand where they're going to end up going. You could sit down and talk to me about some of the problems that are beginning to develop around Western Sahara just south of Morocco, or you could sit down and talk to me about that area around the Lake Chad region. We could talk about those countries, we could talk about Algeria, we could talk about Spain, we could talk about anything around Eastern or Western Europe.

We could even talk about Antarctica. We could sit down and talk about this. You could sit down and have a conversation with me about the implications of what's happening with respect to the major disagreement that's being had right now between the Philippines and China over the location of the South China Sea and how that affects the position of Japan currently as they're trying to create a new demarcation zone and how that begins to affect not only operations in the Pacific, but how it dramatically affects what will happen in the Persian Gulf.

We could sit down and we could talk about that all day. All that stuff is easy. Why? Because if you know where things are going, then when you sit down and hear where things are, then it begins to make a whole bunch of sense. If you don't believe me, go back and study what the implications, the full implications are of a passage like Ezekiel 38. Combine it with what you read about what will happen in Revelation chapter six, specifically the first four seals, and then sit down and just browse for just a second some of the headlines that relate to Pakistan or some of the headlines that relate to India.

Just do that and your eyes will open up. You'll recognize. Or spend some time looking at the issue with Turkey and Azerbaijan and the Armenians. You'll begin to understand something. Your eyes will begin to open. Just spend time studying countries that are in the region of Magog. Just go look and read any titles from any of the stans: Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, any of those. Sit down and just look at a small little brief on areas of that region and if you know what the Bible says, you're going to look at those things and you're going to say, oh yeah, that's a natural fit. I understand why that's going there. That theater is clearly setting up. The stage is being set. It all begins to make sense.

My point is this. Jesus gave us something that is worth far more than any gold you could ever possess. It's worth more than any financial gain you could ever make. What Jesus gave us is a knowledge of the future according to His word, and He's given us the supernatural talent, skill, and ability to be able to rely upon Him to better understand where it's going. He said if you take those things and you bury it, then in essence you are worthy of something that involves destruction for your eternity.

Unfortunately, what are we seeing right now, especially in the Bible prophecy circles? What do we see in a lot of people? Man, why are you even bothering to talk about politics, James? I’m out of here. I hear that a lot. The world is coming to an end. Jesus is coming soon and I don't care about any of that stuff. Jesus says that mentality is the one that causes you to be worthy of hell.

I’m not trying to tell anybody that their salvation is in danger, but what I am saying is that God took time and went out of His way to entrust you with prophetic utterances concerning things that would happen in the future. Look at the parallel with the parable. Listen to the parallel. The man who was condemned by God to be thrown in the fire told the master, I knew you were coming back. I knew you were coming soon, so I buried the talent that you gave me because you're a hard man.

Jesus gave us talents and He said I’m going away for a short period of time, but I’m coming soon. What are you going to do? Are you going to say, oh, I buried the talent? I didn't even pay attention to it. I dare you to take that risk. Actually, I don't dare you. I don't want you to take that risk because the consequence of you taking that risk is going to be destruction. Why in the world would you want to drive yourself in that place?

I bring all that stuff up because Mark uniquely does something here. It's really, really important. You cannot miss the subtlety in the first few verses of what Mark does. What he does is he brings this principle into fruition. He brings the prophetic outright, just brings it right up. He tells us what the Bible says about what would be coming, and then he goes out of his way to tell us the story of what is at that current moment after he has shown us what the Bible said would happen.

How often are we doing things like that? How often are we sitting down with people and saying, hey, did you know that the Bible says this, this, and this about what's coming? By the way, knowing what the Bible says about what's coming, can you just stop and take a look at the rest of the world? Can you stop and just take a look at what's happening in any part of the world?

Guess what? When you look at what Jesus said would happen, when you look at what the Bible says would happen, when you look at the words of the prophets, you begin to see the things that are happening in the modern day and you can see it all come together. Now, I’m not one that will ever tell you I know when Jesus is going to rapture the church. I don't know. The Bible even tells us that we won't even know the day or the hour of the second coming of Christ.

A lot of people argue while they will because once you know that the antichrist sets himself up in the temple and demands to be worshiped, from the very second that happens it'll be three and a half years. Yeah, you're right. But how do you know that the moment that the world sees is the moment that he actually did it? He could have done it several weeks before the whole world saw.

We talk about these normalization agreements that are a big deal. Do you think that the deal for the normalization agreements was made or the doors were shut on it and it was ironclad by the time they went and actually signed the document in front of everybody else? Folks, those deals were already made months and months before anybody signed anything publicly. So we don't know when these things are going to actually happen. Even if you're living in the tribulation, you won't know the day or the hour when Christ is going to come. But we will know the generation that will see the second coming of Christ, that's the generation that sees the abomination that causes desolation.

My point behind it is when you start with the premise of an awareness of what God's word says concerning the future, then your understanding of the future changes literally everything. Everything. So look at what Mark does here. This is important. He says the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. By the way, I think it's really cool when you see this. What he's expressing to you and what he's expressing to me is he's saying I just want you to know this is a beginning of the story of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He's saying, let me just tell you all about it. I’m going to tell you what the beginning is. Now, it's funny because why would he say something so apparently obvious? Like to me, the very first time I saw this 30 years ago from the perspective of somebody teaching it, the very first thing that went in my mind is, well, it was young Mark. This must be some elementary kind of a stupid assertion that he makes where he's just like, it's the beginning. Let's start. It's like he put up a sign that says starting now. That's what I think this looks like.

But that's not what he's saying. I want you to stop and I want you to look a little bit closer because what he's trying to tell you is he's trying to tell you that the gospel of Jesus Christ starts at what the prophet Malachi just told us. Look at what he says. By the way, he doesn't just quote one person. He quotes two people. He quotes Isaiah and he quotes Malachi. He wants everybody to know the gospel starts with these prophetic words. The start of the gospel happens when what we were told would happen happened.

I think it's really interesting when you think about it because when you stop, first of all, there are so many people that don't understand what the word gospel means. All these woke guys that are walking around talking about the gospel means you have to do this and become all things to all people and this is what the gospel has. Can I just make a statement that I think will be received as somewhat controversial by some people?

Let me say this. God did not tell the church to go preach the gospel, what he told the church to do is make disciples. There's a big difference between the two, right? Now don't get me wrong, we're supposed to be ready in season and out of season. We're supposed to preach the gospel. We're supposed to tell the people the good news of Jesus Christ. Undoubtedly we are. But the first command is to make disciples. Making disciples is very different from the dedication to preaching one simple message.

My point behind it is Mark, even in the way that he writes this, when he writes this is the beginning of the gospel, he immediately gets into Bible prophecy. I think that's a pretty spectacular introduction, that when he says the very beginning of the gospel starts in the prophetic words that are being given by the people of God. Let's look at this. The very, very second verse says, as it is written by the prophets, behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.

Now, this is interesting because when you look at the story of Malachi, we recently talked about Malachi. Malachi ends up becoming the very last message ever preached from God to warn a nation. The first time God makes His voice manifest again publicly to the nation, it is with the prophet that Malachi prophesied would come to do the work that he was going to do. Is that kind of funny?

So God offers a word of prophecy to all of Israel, warns them to repent. The last message of Malachi is repent. That's the last message. And the first message that comes up from the guy that Malachi said would be coming, and of course Isaiah as well, the first message is repent. Funny how that works. God is saying you must change the direction you're going. You must stop what you're doing. And the only way you can stop what you're doing is by putting your faith and trust in Me.

You can't do it by your own actions. You're not going to be able to just wake up one morning and go, okay, I’m not doing this anymore. No, it's looking to the Lord for a supernatural anointing in doing the work that He would have you to do. Look what he says. This is Malachi. By the way, 397 years before Christ, before He's even born. You're talking about 397 to 405 BC is probably when Malachi is writing this. Look at what he says.

Behold, this is verse one of chapter three. Behold, I will send my messenger and he shall do what? Prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to His temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom you delight in. Behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. Wow. Already Mark is saying the start of the message of the gospel comes from a prophetic utterance made by these prophets concerning a prophet that would come.

We know who this prophet is, by the way. We're going to find out if you don't know who it is. It's very obvious. So he reads this in verse two, he writes, as is written by the prophet, behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare the way before thee. And then look what he says in verse three. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. That's pretty heavy. Isaiah chapter 40. Let's go there real quick. You do not want to be ignorant of this one. This is a very important one.

I ask oftentimes who Jesus quotes in the Old Testament more than anybody else, and most people will tell me Isaiah. They assume it's Isaiah because of one of the prominent passages that Jesus quoted in Isaiah, but actually Jesus quotes the first five books of the Old Testament more than any other in the Bible. As a matter of fact, very specifically, I believe it's from the Levitical law that He quotes, and if my memory serves me correctly, I think it's Numbers of all of the books. I think it's Numbers. Either way, it's pretty amazing when you think about this.

But Isaiah chapter 40, look at the way he phrased this in Mark chapter one, verse three. Look at how he phrases this at the very beginning. He says, prepare you the way of the Lord after he says the voice of one crying in the wilderness. And look at what Isaiah does in chapter 40, verse three. He says this, the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord. Notice this, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

It's pretty heavy. You're talking about prophecies concerning a person who would make the way clear for the coming Messiah. So not only do you know that the Messiah is coming, but God is saying that when He does come, I will send somebody who will prepare the way. Mark says the gospel starts with two very important principles. The gospel starts not only with the prophetic word concerning what would come, but the gospel also starts with the actions of obedience by the people who are commissioned by God.

John the Baptist was noted here to be the one who would come into fruition to prepare the way for Christ Jesus. John the Baptist in his obedience was a part of the beginning of the gospel. He was a part of the prophetic word that was uttered concerning what would happen for Jesus Christ. Think about the significance of something like that. If you don't think Bible prophecy is important to study, if you don't think Bible prophecy is important to learn or understand or discern, you got something else coming because the only thing you're concerned about is the gospel as some knuckleheads have said before, then you've got something else coming.

One of the most ignorant statements I think that was ever made in my presence on a live radio show was the very last time I was doing a live radio show where we were answering Bible questions. And the new host that was with me basically said that we were talking to a girl who was absolutely scared of the rapture. And he basically made a note where he said that the apostle Paul and many of the people like him were not concerned about end times and they were not concerned about Bible prophecy or the second coming or any of those things. They were too busy being concerned about the gospel.

And I just think in my mind, you've been so busy reading so many books that teach you how to share big words that you yourself don't understand, that you forgot to study what the word of God said concerning what the gospel is all about. And the reality of the gospel is that the gospel cannot be in existence as God intended for it to be had it not been predicated upon the declarations of His word through prophetic utterance.

In the Psalms, what does it say? In the volume of the book, it is written of who? It’s written of me. The spirit of prophecy is in Christ Jesus, we read that in the Book of Revelation. You think about the picture that's being drawn here, you cannot separate the message of the gospel from Bible prophecy. It cannot be done. And the moment you start to do that, that's when you begin to go in the woke direction that a lot of these people are going in.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us for Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. Pastor James, when you closed today, you pointed out how Bible prophecy and the gospel go hand-in-hand and that many Christians won't touch prophecy or politics with a 10-foot pole. Wasn't John the Baptist also very much involved in politics and even lost his life because of it?

James Kaddis: Yes, as a matter of fact, John the Baptist was referred to by Jesus as the greatest prophet that ever lived. And as the greatest prophet that ever lived, just like virtually every prophet that we know of in the Bible, with maybe the exception of Enoch and even then I can't make that guarantee, they all involved themselves in speaking to power. They all got involved in politics, many of them in ways so substantial that it's very hard to fathom.

And yes, in the case of John, his head was removed as a result of him getting involved in political issues for the glory of God. So absolutely that is correct. And I think that's a picture of what God requires of us. Politics emanate from the pulpit and people who think that there should be a separation between church and state, as so notably written about by Jefferson during the Danbury Baptist Association writing, well then maybe they need a new pastor because the reality of it is we are supposed to be integrated within the context of what's biblical with our worldview, and that definitely means politics.

Guest (Male): That's a great reminder. Thanks, Pastor James. 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. 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 with a biblical worldview. Look for these at JamesKaddis.com. More from the book of Mark coming up next time on Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. This listener-supported program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.