Light on the Hill

James Kaddis: Coming up on Light on the Hill. Think about the replicable patterns that we see here throughout the first 10 verses or the first 11 verses in the Book of Mark. We see Bible prophecy coming into fruition. We see obedience based on scriptural precedent. We see God taking our deficiencies and using them as great strengths.

We see the Lord taking the people of the world that appear to be rejects and crazy and using them for the great changers, the life-changers of all seasons. We see God supernaturally empowering His people to accomplish His purposes, and we see God redeeming a world who is completely lost and has destroyed themselves. God can do the work that God wants to do because He's faithful and because He's good.

Guest (Male): Welcome again to Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. Today we're going to learn the lesson of someone else instead of learning our own lesson the hard way. Be sure to listen to the complete study because what you're about to hear is life-changing. Here's Pastor James with his message, Get Your Affairs in Order.

James Kaddis: So look what it goes on to say. "And there went out unto him all the land of Judea and they of Jerusalem and were baptized of him in the River of Jordan confessing their sins." That must have been a pretty spectacular moment. If you've ever been to Israel with us and you've gone to the Jordan River, you would know exactly how meaningful that very moment is in the trip. It's a pretty meaningful moment.

As a matter of fact, I remember being in Israel during one of the most challenging times of my life physically. I was significantly heavier than I am now and I had injured myself pretty severely while I was on the trip. I could barely walk, which was really bad. To get into the baptismal area, it's impossible to do unless you're in relatively good shape. But the people that I was with, we had 40, maybe 50 people that really badly wanted to be baptized in the Jordan, and they wanted to be baptized by their pastor. They wanted to be baptized by me.

It was really interesting because I'm on this trip with a couple of guys that are able-bodied guys, and they're all telling me, "Bro, don't even do it. Just pray for people. We just need to do it. Just don't even do it." My thought process behind it was, "Look, I've been in these waters a lot of times, and I know that it's challenging, and I know that it's difficult, and I know that I'm taking a risk because I have no feeling in my feet because of my nerve disease. I could step on something sharp and I don't know it," and all the other nonsense that you tell yourself in the back of your mind.

But there's this supernatural aspect of it all that I just felt like the Lord was really telling me. This happened on multiple occasions. I remember doing this during rainy days. It was some of the craziest moments where it's 10 times harder than you would normally think, and you just do it because you know that there's something very spiritual happening in that moment. It's supernatural. You go there in the middle of the day, you don't leave until the very end of the day because of how long it takes, but you do it because you know that God is with you.

For me, every single time I've walked in there when I was not necessarily the most able-bodied to be able to do it, I just went to the Lord and I said, "God, give me Your supernatural ability." It's almost like He gave me a new body for the moment. You just go and you do it, you trust in the Lord, you watch it happen, and then you witness the mighty hand of God doing great things. Do you want to know why? Because that is the God of the gospel. When you seek to meet Him where He wants you to meet Him, He will always be there for you. When you take the extra effort to say, "Lord, I repent, and I want to show an outward symbol of a condition of my heart, something that I'm doing," God always honors it.

This is very interesting. Many people from around the country were going to be baptized by John because they knew there was something special about making that declaration. Verse six: "And John was clothed with camel's hair and with a girdle of a skin about his loins, and he did eat locusts and wild honey." Here's something that I find a lot of comfort in. He looked like he was crazy to the rest of the world. There was nothing about him that was attractive, there was nothing about him that was fitting. He was like a sore thumb that stuck out amongst the crowd.

It was really funny. I got asked to speak at a conference a while ago, maybe a year and a half ago. I remember going to this conference, and I only wanted to be in and out. I think it was in San Diego if I remember correctly. We drive down there early in the morning, and I'm one of the guys that's speaking. I want to make myself clear. The only way that I fit in that crowd, the only thing about me that fit in that crowd was that most people in that room said they love Jesus, and that's the only thing that we had in common. I am nothing like these guys that are pastors that are in this room.

Nothing. Some of the guys that are in that room are these big, pretty-looking TBN-like type people. Every bit of their clothing is custom-tailored. Their hair is done, their makeup is done. It's honestly ridiculous. I am so different from the overwhelming majority of everybody in that room, and the thing that I always just get a kick out of is I just don't care. I go in there and I realize I'm nothing like any of you people, but I don't need to be like any of you people.

As a matter of fact, quite frankly, I like being different and I like sticking out like a sore thumb in a way because it just continues to be God's evidence of the fact that He uses anybody as long as that person is open to being used by Him. I don't have the looks for half the things that they say I should have to do. I don't have the physical agility to do half the things that they say. There's nothing about what I am that fits. I just don't fit.

I recognize that. I don't fit in. I kind of think that's cool because Jesus said that the greatest prophet that ever lived on the face of the earth was a man who ate locusts and honey and put on a camel skin and walked around like a nut job. He looked like a nut job to people. He did. Yet he was a man that walked in the spirit and the power of Elijah, and he was a man that got to do the most honorable thing that anybody could ever do, and that is baptize the Creator of the universe. Can you imagine what that would be like? Baptizing the Creator of the universe. Think about that for a second. Think about the brevity of something like that. That's wild.

Look what happens. He preached saying, "There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose." In other words, "I am not worthy. I'm not worthy to be that person. I'm not worthy to be the person that will baptize Him. I'm not even worthy to be the guy that will take His shoes off to clean His feet, take His sandals off to clean His feet." It's such a significant thing.

Look what happens here. "I indeed have baptized you with water, but He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost." I think if I were to say anything about the ministry that God's put in my hands and the ministry that God's given me, I would say this. If I did not have the Spirit of God living inside of me or enabling me, then this job would be over. I would have quit, walked away, and left within the first probably four weeks of me being in ministry 31 years ago. I'd have been done. It would have been over. Bye-bye. I would have just quit right away.

I still remember this. The very first day that I taught the Bible, I got asked to go speak at the high school ministry of our church. I was 16 years old. I had worked for a guy, and this is an interesting story. I worked for a guy who was a mechanic. He was kind of like an old-school, first-generation-to-become-a-Christian mechanic. His dad was a mechanic. His dad was just an old, angry, "I don't care about you" crusty guy. His name was Jack, and he was a chain smoker. He probably smoked a carton a day. He just smoked that much. A lot of his money was spent on smoking.

I used to run parts for this guy who was a mechanic. I just got my driver's license. I was driving a little tiny Nissan truck. I looked like a trained bear driving that truck. Then I got asked by the high school pastor at the time to go teach a Bible study. I remember it was my first Bible study that I had ever taught, and it was outside of a home study environment because I did a lot of my teaching in a home study early on, but I got asked to teach in high school ministry.

I got myself all prepared, I got everything all ready. The guy who was the original owner of that business, his name was Jack. The guy who owned the shop, his name was Jeff. It was his dad that originally owned that shop, and his dad didn't know the Lord. I was about the only Christian that he liked talking to. He didn't even like talking to his own son in some situations. I mean not just in general, he just didn't like talking to anybody about the Lord unless it was me.

I remember distinctly having the opportunity to lead him to the Lord, which was really cool. There was a few of us that were there for that and it was a pretty spectacular situation. It was really neat. I had gotten very attached to him. He was an old fragile man who could barely walk, but every single day he showed up in his mechanic's outfit. Although he sat in the office and chain-smoked and just watched everybody come in. "What are you looking at? Don't complain about what it costs. I should charge you more." He was just one of those types of guys.

It was a Wednesday morning, and I still remember it like it was yesterday. Wednesdays were very busy for them in the mechanic shop. I remember how bad it was. I pulled in because I knew that I had to, I think I was picking up a paycheck. It was something that I needed to do, and it was the day that I was going to be teaching. I was going to teach that night. I pulled my truck up right in this area that's outside where the entryway is to the mechanics bay, and I noticed that everything was closed. "What in the heck is going on? I see Jeff's truck here, what in the world's going on?"

I bang on the door like, "Hey, what's happening?" As I go to open the door, I see Jeff and his wife and his children sitting in the room and they're all just crying. There was a sign up there that was just handwritten that said, "In memory of Jack," and it was just like I stared and I looked at that and I just couldn't deal with it. I thought, "I don't want to do anything today. I really loved this guy, I really cared about this guy. I don't want to teach, I don't want to do anything. I have no desire to communicate or do anything, I just want to go home and mope."

As I'm getting over this, as I'm just trying to process everything, I got this dirty-looking truck driver who basically bangs on the door. We're like, "We're closed!" I'm mad, and he's like, "Well, I need to talk to somebody because I just hit something." What did he hit? We open up the door and he says, "Is that your little truck out there?" I said, "Yeah." "Well, I ran into it with my semi-truck." We couldn't even open the door, he smashed it in so bad. I had been driving that truck for probably maybe a couple of weeks. Thank God that Jeff knew how to fix all that stuff.

I just walk away from that situation only to get in a car that I had to pull as hard as I could to be able to open the door to get in and drive, hearing the tire scraping on the fender and just thinking in my mind, "I have no idea why I'm even going to attempt to try to teach." Mind you, to give you some context, I was never good at speaking in front of people. I never did, never even tried. If I had to stand in front of five people, I would get nervous and put my head down. That was me. I was not the type of person that you see today.

I just remember this thought going through my head. "You're not going to teach based on your skill set, your power, your ability. You never have been able to do that. You've never done it before. You need to trust in Me." One of the things that I recognized in that very first night that I went up there and did it was God taught me how important it was to feel incapable of doing what I do when I go behind the pulpit. Every single time I go behind the pulpit, He set that precedent for me the very first time I did it to remind me and to never let me forget that it is the power of the Holy Spirit who gives us the ability to do the things that we do in everything that we do.

I think about my body the way it is today. I think about the barriers that I run into, the average person can stomach and what they can't. I think about the insane hours, the 21-hour days. I think about all the things that I do on a day-to-day basis, and I can tell you this right now: the average doctor who looks at me says there's no way that anybody in his condition can do it. To them, I would always say, "You're right. You're 100% right. In your experience, you've never seen it."

But because of God's grace and because of the empowering of His Holy Spirit and because of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, He has given me the type of present mind to be able to do what I do on a day-in and day-out basis. He's given me the ability to see through the pain, He's given me the ability to ignore the weird things that happen with my body, He's given me the ability to basically not be concerned about what anybody thinks, and He's taught me how to learn to open my mouth and let Him speak.

Every single one of us have that promise made available to us. Every single one of us have been given the promise of the Spirit of God indwelling us and giving us the supernatural ability to do things that when people look at your life, they will be able to say, "There's no way that's him. The only way that that could be happening is if it's a miracle." That's when you say, "To God be the glory, great things He has done." You're just able to say, "God, I'm going to do what You've asked me to do, and I'm not going to be worried about what the world says."

I'm not going to be worried about what my flesh says, I'm not going to be worried or concerned about the issues that are coming our way or not coming our way. We're just going to do what we're going to do. I'll give you one other quick story about this. This is one that Nicole doesn't like me telling. We had just got married, we hadn't been married even for a year. We did a church trip to Israel. It was the last church trip that we did to go to Israel. We haven't done it in a while, we'll probably do one next year.

But as we do this, I make it very clear I want to take my wife. There's no way my wife isn't going on this trip. We were all excited. My dad came along on this trip, her mom went along on this trip. It was one of these fun trips. About a day and a half before we left on the trip, I got deathly sick. I just want to explain something to you guys. For those of you that know me, when I get sick like bad sick, very rarely does it affect me.

As a matter of fact, the last time I supposedly got bad sick, it was because of COVID, and the only reason why I stayed at home was because I didn't want to get anybody else sick because we still weren't completely aware of all the implications. But I don't care how sick I am, I still work and I still do what I do. As a matter of fact, when I had COVID, both times I was still working. I locked myself up in the studio and I was still working. That's just the way it was. It never really affected me, but this time it affected me.

I was so sick that I could not even get up out of my bed. It was that bad. It was a type of sickness like I had never felt before. It was perhaps one of the ugliest feelings that I had ever had. We get to the point where we've got to start packing and we've got to start getting ready, and while I'm sick in bed, Nicole's packing. She's like, "We just can't do this." I said, "Babe, we're going." I remembered being so sick out of my brain, and I can't think straight, I'm looking down, I can't even comprehend the conversations that are happening.

We get in the plane, we load up in the plane, and I'm really thankful because these seats are awesome. They've got these makeshift beds. I don't ever sleep on planes. I'm not good with doing that. I've tried. I'll fall asleep for 30 minutes here, 10 minutes there, but there's no such thing as falling asleep for hours. It's just not the way it is. I get on the plane, I'm so sick that I'm knocked out and I fall asleep literally through everything. 15-hour flight. They're trying to wake me up to give me food. I'm not having it, I'm sleeping. I don't want anything. I'm just completely out. I'm done.

We get to Turkey, and while we're in Istanbul there's a nasty layover. I'm not doing so well. I can barely move around. It's not good. Finally, all that's done, we get to Tel Aviv. What a nightmare when we got to Tel Aviv. They didn't make plans for my mobility scooter. It was just a big old mess. We get into Netanya, which was the hotel that we were staying in. I'm getting so sick that on the first day that we're touring, it's like this is a big problem.

So one of the guys who owns the company there, who's a very good friend of mine, he says, "James, we'll just send a doctor over to the hotel to go see you." I said, "Do me a favor, make sure he's not a doctor that's from South Africa or somebody who doesn't speak Middle Eastern language. He needs to be able to speak. Oh no, all of them speak Arabic and Hebrew." I said, "Great." So the doctor shows up and he starts doing an examination and he finds something on my leg that was infected pretty bad.

What I didn't realize was what was happening on my leg was the reason why I was sick and it wasn't a virus or anything else. The guy starts talking to me very concerned in English, and I tell him immediately, "Talk to me in Arabic. We're talking in Arabic." Because my wife is in the bedroom and she's hearing the conversation that I'm having and she knows it's bad because I'm telling the guy to start speaking to me in Arabic.

We're having this conversation, and I walk after the appointment's over and all is well, I walk in there and my wife is crying because she doesn't know what's going to happen. To make a long story short, this doctor prescribed to me these very heavy antibiotics and this medicine that was pretty strong stuff. After a lot of prayer and all of that, to make a long story short, I recovered relatively quickly. I recovered within four or five days. Nobody on the tour knew how bad it was, but I recovered within four or five days.

On our way out, one of the doctors, or the doctor who had actually treated me and gave me the medicine, he just basically said, "You're a very lucky man." So I get home to the doctor that's working with me, and the doctor says, "Yeah, James, when you reached me overseas I pretty much didn't want to tell you this but I pretty much expected you to come home in a body bag. We thought that you were going to die based on everything that was being said."

The doctor said, "What medication did he give you to pull you out of this?" I told him the medication. He said, "You know what's really funny? The fact that you got that medication overseas was probably the thing that saved your life because in the United States we're not allowed to prescribe medication like that to people. It was the medication that you were given that's experimental that actually saved your life and caused you to not lose your leg and caused you to not basically perish like you should have perished."

Not only was that did that happen, but because of that doctor who was a brilliant doctor, he brought attention to something that I didn't notice that had I not dealt with, I wouldn't have a leg today. I'm not even going to get into the technicals of how that actually happened because how it happened was the most insane, crazy, like if it had happened to anybody else who was half my size they would have died. It's weird how that works.

The funny thing about it is when you stop and you look, you realize God orchestrated every aspect and every moment so divinely and so perfectly and so radically just immensely sovereignly that He used it to just save my life and I didn't even know that my life was in danger. I just thought I'm sick and I'm just going to get over it. That's what it looks like when the Holy Spirit gets involved in people's lives.

When you're submitted and open to the voice of God and you will do what God asks you to do, you begin to find yourself in a place of deliverance even when you don't even know you're being delivered. That's what John the Baptist is actually saying. And look what happens here because this is so heavy. Verse nine: "And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized of John in Jordan. And straightway coming out of the water," read this anybody that doesn't believe in the Trinity, "straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens open and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him. And there came a voice from heaven saying, 'Thou art my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.'" What an incredible moment.

There's so much we can learn from here. The one thing that I would tell you and the thing that I would hope that you would be able to gather and understand from the storyline that we have read is how supernaturally God wants to intervene in your life, how much God wants to use you. The fact that you let Him is in essence the continuation of the story of the gospel throughout the ages transcendently through the life that you live day in and day out.

If you will become models of how the beginning of the gospel took place, if you will become models of what the propagation of the gospel is supposed to look like, you will be a person who continues to show the rest of the world that God is the one that is working and not you. The more they begin to see God working in your life, the more they begin to trust in Him, and the more you begin to prepare the way for the true and living God and the more glorified He becomes in the lives that we live.

Think about the replicable patterns that we see here throughout the first 10 verses or the first 11 verses in the Book of Mark. We see Bible prophecy coming into fruition. We see obedience based on scriptural precedent. We see God taking our deficiencies and using them as great strengths. We see the Lord taking the people of the world that appear to be rejects and crazy and using them for the life-changers of all seasons.

We see God supernaturally empowering His people to accomplish His purposes and we see God redeeming a world who is completely lost and has destroyed themselves. God can do the work that God wants to do because He's faithful and because He's good. God is a God of restoration. God is a God of redemption. God is a God of power and God is a God of strength. God is a God who brings purpose to us to do the work that He wants to do, and it all starts with understanding what He says concerning our future. The question is this: are you willing to make that investment? Are you willing to spend time studying these things, looking into these things, discerning these things, learning these things? Because if you will, God has a message for you. God has something He wants to show you. God has something that He wants to tell you for His glory. It's a pretty powerful thing when you think about it. Amen?

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us today for Light on the Hill. What you just heard is one part of a study in Mark's Gospel from Pastor James Kaddis. You can hear it again at LightonthHillRadio.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Not long ago, Pastor James released his new book on the first half of Revelation. It's entitled "The Last Book." He points out that Revelation isn't a book of fear, but rather a book of hope.

Pastor James will help you understand the world we live in and current events through a biblical lens, preparing your heart for what lies ahead. Get a copy by going to LightontheHillRadio.com or through Amazon. We're so grateful for your support. Each donation that's sent in is an investment in what God is doing over the radio and internet. Lives are being impacted daily for the glory of God as a result.

If you'd like to stand with us through providing either a one-time donation or ongoing monthly support, please visit LightontheHillRadio.com. While you're there, you can also send us an email. It would be great to hear from you and have you share the station you listen to as well. Just visit LightontheHillRadio.com and then click on contact. Let's finish our time in prayer now with Pastor James.

James Kaddis: Father in heaven, we just thank You, Lord, for Your goodness and Your faithfulness to us, Lord. We thank You for the fact, Lord, that You continue to show Yourself strong on our behalf and that, Lord, You indeed are faithful and You are good. So Father, we just love You. We pray that You would go before us, that You would teach us and inspire us to live the way that You've called us to, Lord.

That we might be able to serve You all the days of our lives faithfully, Lord, and wholeheartedly. So we love You, we thank You. Go before us, fill us with Your Spirit now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

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.