Light on the Hill

James Kaddis: Giving God the glory and honor he rightly deserves, next on Light on the Hill. When you say you have what you have because of your hard work, you are grossly mistaken. You have what you have because of the work of God in your life. You have what you have, all the things that you have, the car you drive in, the life that you have, the income that you make, all the things that you have, you have it because of what God has given to you.

You have it because of the grace of God. You have your paycheck because of God. You have your job because of God. You have your intellect because of God. You have the assets that you have that produce the income that goes in your pocket because of God. God has it all, and he gave it to you. And you know what? He will not share his glory with you. He won't.

Guest (Male): Welcome once again to Light on the Hill. Today, we'll discuss what happens next in heaven after the second coming of Christ. You can be sure when the marriage of the Lamb has come, we will all be rejoicing greatly in heaven. What a special day that will be. Here to tell us about it from Revelation chapter 19 is Pastor James Kaddis.

James Kaddis: Revelation chapter 19. As we get into chapter 19, I do want to reiterate a very significant variable here, but I can't do that until we get into the first verse. Let's read the first verse. It says this: "And after these things." I'll stop there because that's really all I need to read. When we talk about "after these things," it's a very familiar phrase that I have gone over with you guys in the Greek language. It is the phrase *meta-tauta*.

The first time we see it in the book of Revelation is at the beginning of chapter 4, and the context by which it's actually used right here is significantly different than the context that it's being used in Revelation chapter 4. But when we do read the phrase "after these things," we have to ask ourselves a very important question: after what things? What are we talking about?

Let me just tell you this without getting into a whole bunch of significant theological stuff and starting to get into textual stuff and dating and timing and all that. Immediately, what we're actually talking about is the things that we read about in Revelation 17 and 18. But overall, contextually, we could mean it as after, in essence, the large portion of the tribulation. We are there. We're getting there. But I do think specifically we're talking about after Babylon, what we read about in Revelation chapter 17 and chapter 18.

This is really important because what you must know, what you must understand, what you must be aware of is when we talk about Babylon here, we are not talking about something symbolic of something else. I have a lot of people that write me these long, detailed letters. I get them all the time. Most of the time I don't even read them because the premise of them is just completely broken. They'll try to convince me that Babylon is the United States of America. I get that a lot. People tell me that Babylon is Rome, and that Babylon is this, and that Babylon is that.

I have news for you, and I stand on very good authority when I tell you this based on Revelation 17 and 18. You know what Babylon is? Babylon. Thank you. I appreciate that, you guys. When we are looking at chapter 17 and chapter 18, we are talking about a physical city. A lot of people say that when they look at chapter 17, they say this is spiritual Babylon and it has nothing to do with the city. I would agree with the fact that we are talking about the spirituality of the city of Babylon, but we are still talking about a city. Make no mistake about that.

As a matter of fact, when you get to the end of chapter 17, what does it tell us? Let's read it. In chapter 17, verse 18, it says this: "And the woman which thou sawest is what? That great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth." That great city. What great city? Babylon the Great. We see Babylon the Great in chapter 17, we see it in chapter 18.

What I do think is funny is the fact that so many people try to separate chapter 17 from chapter 18. They think that we're talking about two completely different systems, two completely different ideas. One deals with the spiritual side, one deals with commercialism. The reality of it is we are talking about the same city. One emphasis happens to be the religion of that city, which is idolatry, and the other one happens to deal with the commercialism of that same city.

It's very interesting because what you begin to realize very quickly is that when a city is indoctrinated by ungodliness, then the mechanics of that city will also be completely filled with the cancer of ungodliness. Think about it like this: if your religion happens to be wickedness, if your religion happens to be anything other than the true and living God, then your lifestyle will become exactly that. It will become wickedness.

So you should look at what we're seeing right now. When you look at the world around us, the commercialism that we see in the world around us is distinctly and uniquely fueled by wickedness. It's fueled by evil. We've talked about this. We've even talked about the early education system of our country, and if you've been here listening to us in the Christian Mindset series, you'll understand why I will never, literally, over my dead body allow my children to step foot in a public school ever.

Public schools are indoctrination camps. That's what they are. They are designed to teach your children to do nothing greater with their lives than to work in factories. That's exactly what they're designed to do. They're designed to teach your children to deny the true and living God. Think about it. They herd them around like cattle. They put them in rooms of 40 or 50 or 30, and if the school's really elite, you might have 20. They have one master, one foreman that runs their classroom. They're trained like Pavlov's dog to have a 15-minute break when a bell rings, and to go back to work when the next bell rings.

There are so many commonalities that exist with the modern-day factory. By the way, when you look at the people who created the schooling infrastructure that we have today in the United States of America, you look at guys like Carnegie and some of these other people, they all will say the same thing. They created the educational system as a mechanism to provide factory workers. That's all they wanted to do. By the way, they've been quite successful in it because the indoctrination camps and the prison camps known as the public school system are doing exactly that.

The public school system has produced nothing short of literal stupid since 1962 in absolute new ways, in ways we could never imagine. Why? Because in 1962, guess what we pulled out of schools? We pulled out God out of schools. When you pull God out of anything, when you pull God out of an academic pursuit, it simply becomes a pursuit. There's nothing academic about it. When God leaves the picture, stupidity comes into play, and that's exactly what we're seeing here.

When we look at Babylon and all of the implications of how it sits, it is very important to understand why Revelation tells us about the religious side of Babylon, the city of Babylon, and then brings us into the commercial practices of Babylon. It wants us to understand very clearly and very specifically how the religious side of the city of Babylon has in great effect damaged the commercial side of Babylon. When people take their eyes off God, then what you see is nothing but absolute corruption. It is everywhere. We're seeing it every day. It's completely wicked. It's satanic.

Understand, if you know the Old Testament, then you will understand that the beginning of Babylon was given to us. We see it in Genesis chapter 11. This is where they built the city of Babel, the Tower of Babel, and that's where actually Babylon comes from. Very interesting stuff. In Revelation chapter 19, here's the thing I want to tell you: if you are interested in your future, Revelation 19 is exactly what you need to be looking at.

I can tell you this right now: many of you are probably weary. You're probably a little bit over the deeper theological stuff that we've been talking about as we've been relaying all kinds of principles. You've gone over a ton of Greek word lessons, Hebrew word lessons, cultural lessons. We've done a lot of stuff as we've gone through the book of Revelation because you've had to have received an education in the Old Testament while receiving your education in this portion of the New Testament, and it can be quite tiring.

The reality of it is we go over it because it tells us exactly what is in our future. I think many of us are very excited to know what's in our future, and Revelation chapter 19 directly speaks about us and some of the things that we're going to be seeing as the church. So this is really interesting. After these things, after what? After the destruction of Babylon. Look what it says: "I heard a great voice of much people in heaven." There's already a crowd of people that we're talking about. There's a bunch of sets of characters that we're going to read about: the crowd of people, the multitude. We are going to learn of a great voice. We're going to talk about the four beasts, the 24 elders. There are a lot of people here that we're talking about in Revelation chapter 19.

They all bear significance. They all have significant meanings and implications tied to them. These people that we hear talking are very important people on many levels because they give us a better understanding of what the environment in heaven is like in this current moment. That's important to us because that's what we're going to be expecting to see in the future. I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying what? "Hallelujah."

Let's start with the very first word here: "Hallelujah." What does "Hallelujah" mean? It means "Praise God." But here's something interesting about the word "Hallelujah." Many of you guys are familiar with it. You hear that word being sung. It's in songs all the time. But did you realize, and I want to be corrected if I'm wrong, but I don't think I am wrong here, the first time we see the word "Hallelujah" being used in the New Testament is right here in Revelation chapter 19.

"Hallelujah" is used all over the Old Testament, specifically in the Psalms, or more spectacularly in the songs. But a lot of people tend to conflate the word "Hallelujah" with "Hosanna." I've had people come to me and say it's all over, look, during Palm Sunday they were saying "Hallelujah." No, they weren't, they were saying "Hosanna." They're a lot different than "Hallelujah." They're very different words.

What's very interesting when we look at this is why in the world is it that "Hallelujah," the first time it's being used in the New Testament, is after the destruction of the wicked city that drives the unrighteousness that has fueled the world? Isn't that funny? I think it's significant. I think it's really significant that the first time "Hallelujah" is used in the New Testament is right here. I think it's really powerful when you think about it because what that means is the praise of God or the declaration to praise God using that specific word is tied directly to God destroying wickedness around us.

Think about how significant of a variable exists when all of the wickedness in the world is removed because God destroyed it. Can you imagine what that's going to be like? God's going through a very great distance and length to make that happen when he commences with the destruction of Babylon. There's something very powerful about that, something that we should wake up to see because it is very unique.

Look at the next word that we see them saying: "Salvation." That's another big word. "Salvation" is a word that we should not ignore. "Salvation" is a critical word. Why? Because salvation does not come to us by things that we do. Salvation is not something that is predicated upon your actions. It's not predicated upon what you say or what you think or what your beliefs are because if it was, then we're all going to hell and I'm going to hell before you guys.

Salvation is not predicated upon any of those variables. What salvation is predicated upon is the perfect and finished work of Jesus Christ. He is the one who salvation depends on. We don't have salvation outside of the finished work of Christ. That's really good because if salvation was predicated upon my mindset and that mindset was being examined this morning starting at 4:00 in the morning, I'm in hell by 5:00. That's the truth. That's the reality of the way it is.

I'm actually in hell even sooner than that. I'm in hell by the time I go through the drive-thru at McDonald's to get a cup of coffee and the lady tells me they're closed because they don't want to open, even though I know that they're regularly open at that time. What happened in my mind at that moment? I'm already in hell. I'm serious. Praise God that my salvation is not predicated upon me because if you lived in my mind, you would never come to church again. I'm telling you that. I'm being real. I'm just telling you the way it is.

Our salvation is predicated upon the finished work of Jesus Christ. So it's amazing how in heaven they say, "Praise God. Hallelujah." That's what that means. Then they bring up salvation. Salvation is the next word that is said. Why? Because we are in heaven with the Lord at this point watching this happening. The next word that comes out is "salvation." Thank you, Lord, that we have everything because of what he did for us. Don't you think that's amazing?

If you think about that, stop for a moment and just recognize that your walk with God is not predicated upon you messing up. If it was, none of you would ever walk with God. You would all be a mess. You would all be, like, why are we even at church here? We might as well just go live it up and be nasty because the very moment you have a bad thought, the very moment you're angered, the very moment you slip up, the very moment you accidentally say something, you're in hell. But because Jesus is the one that brings our salvation, we have it all. It's pretty amazing.

Hallelujah, salvation, and look at this: "Glory." That's the next word. "Glory" is such a pretty significant word here. The word "glory," without me getting into the technical aspect of what it actually means because the derivatives that come from that word as it is given to us in the Greek language can be a very complex study. We could spend a lot of time talking about it, but let me just simply say this: the word "glory" here is critical to us in the context of this passage because what the word "glory" teaches us is that God will not allow you to take his glory.

He shares his glory with nobody. The world in which we live today, what do we do? We take glory every single day away from God, don't we? You think about this. We seek God, God blesses us for seeking him, we do well, and then all of a sudden what do we do? We talk about all the hard work we did to get us where we're at. Isn't it funny how we talk about that? "Man, I worked so hard for my house. I worked so hard for my car. I worked so hard for the money that I make. I worked so hard for this, I worked so hard for that." Who cares?

There's a ton of people around the world that work their butts off way worse than you do, way more than you do. There are people that put in way more effort than any of us ever will in the United States of America, and they're dirt poor. They don't have a house. They don't have water running in their house. They don't have a toilet to sit on. They actually don't have their health. They work harder than any of us, and they have nothing.

So when you say you have what you have because of your hard work, you are grossly mistaken. You have what you have because of the work of God in your life. You have what you have, all the things that you have, the car you drive in, the life that you have, the income that you make, all the things that you have, you have it because of what God has given to you. You have it because of the grace of God. You have your paycheck because of God. You have your job because of God. You have your intellect because of God. You have the assets that you have that produce the income that goes in your pocket because of God. God has it all, and he gave it to you. And you know what? He will not share his glory with you. He won't.

I think about this all the time. I look at all the things that God has done with the ministry that we have here at the church: the expansive power of how God has used the remarkable tools available in internet, in all these other things. It is so amazing to see how God has just expanded the ministry that we have here. We speak to millions of people, millions of people every month on the radio. We do the same on YouTube. We do the same on all the social media platforms. I mean, the thought of how vast the level of communication has increased and how we get out the message, the way that God has used us in this way is incredible.

You know what? We spend a lot of time working very, very hard in understanding this. You guys understand that when I prepare a Bible study to teach you, that's not just a "hey, let's just take a few seconds and figure it out." It doesn't work that way. It is hours, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours go every single month into developing just a few Bible studies that you guys can listen to and that you can learn. We put in, if you knew the kind of lengths that we went to to understand how YouTube works or how the radio works, if you knew the kind of things that we engaged in to do this, we work extraordinarily hard to bring you the best possible things that we can bring you.

But guess what? The things that you have and the results of that hard work have nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with God. It was God's grace. It wasn't our manipulation of the algorithm. It's God's faithfulness. It isn't the fact that I'm so articulate or I'm loud enough to keep people awake, that's why they come to church so they don't fall asleep, and it's nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with the faithfulness of God. It has everything to do with the hand of God.

Every single thing that we experience from day to day is because of God and he deserves the glory for it. None of us should ever bring ourselves to the point where we think we did any of this on our own. None of us did do any of this on our own. God was graceful enough to extend all of these things to us because he's good, not because we worked really hard, not because we did this or we did that. It's important to be obedient to God. It's important to do your best, to be people who give your whole heart to whatever it is that God's put in front of you. But you do not have what you have because you did it.

I'll tell you this right now to make myself very, very clear: God will not be mocked and he will not allow you to rob his glory. He won't. He won't. He deserves the glory for all that's been done in your life. It's plain and simple, and that's why one of the words is here. By the way, "honor" is really important because do you understand that you can acknowledge the fact that God is the one who's done all of these things and yet not honor him with your life?

I see that happening all the time. I see people come to me all the time and they go, "Pastor James, please pray that God gives me this job." They get the job and they say, "To God be the glory." And while they're working that job, they'll still say, "God deserves the glory for me having this job." Yet they don't honor him. They pretend as though he doesn't exist. You want to know why? Because they deny him through their actions, and they give more time to everything else except the true and living God. They go to the job and engulf themselves in that job without honoring God because they choose to give that priority instead of giving God priority.

Isn't it funny how that works? The funny thing about honoring God is that it requires you to believe that he deserves the glory. If you believe he deserves the glory, then in essence, you are going to end up honoring him. So they say, "glory and honor." Look at this: "and power unto the Lord our God." By the way, "power" is an interesting word. This word "power," by the way, is not the same word that we oftentimes use associated with that very thing that we need to keep the lights on. It's not used oftentimes with the type of word that we associate with a dam that produces power because of the water flow. "Power" here in this context is indicative of explosion. It's indicative of something that is not containable.

It's indicative of something that is so substantial. I don't know if you guys saw the video of that volcano that had erupted and the lightning bolts that were hitting it that were causing that volcano's tip to break open. It was a pretty substantial, actually real thing. Legit video was really happening. But it's amazing because that's the type of explosive power that we should be thinking about when we see this word "power" here. It is literally an explosiveness. That's God's power. God's power is something that is beyond our ability to contain, beyond our ability to understand, beyond our ability to be able to encapsulate, to bring into ourselves. All of it is something that is within God's complete purview to manage and God's complete purview to show and to execute.

God deserves all of those things. He deserves to be praised by us. He deserves to be acknowledged because of the salvation that we have. He certainly deserves the glory. He mandates that we honor him, and he is an all-powerful God.

Guest (Male): Pastor James is leading us verse by verse through Revelation here on Light on the Hill. To hear this message again, visit lightonthehillradio.com or oneplease.com. It's also available through the Light on the Hill app. Light on the Hill is made possible through the generosity of our listeners. If the Lord is leading you to support this ministry, please visit lightonthehillradio.com to donate or you can give through the Light on the Hill app.

I also want to mention the new book written by Pastor James. It's entitled *The Last Book: A Guide to Revelation Part 1*. As the world heads toward its final chapter, the Bible has already revealed every detail. The Book of Revelation is God's message of warning, hope, and promise to prepare us for what's coming. In *The Last Book*, Pastor James takes us through Revelation chapters 1 through 10 and shows us why we must live wholeheartedly for God, anchored in truth and awake to the times. You can order a copy today at lightonthehillradio.com or Amazon.

If you hunger for more Bible prophecy, you may want to seek out Pastor James's videos live or on-demand. Many of them relate to current events and Bible prophecy. You can access them at jameskaddis.com. You can also send us your questions about Revelation and Bible prophecy through the website lightonthehillradio.com. We hope to hear from you soon. Let's turn back now to Revelation chapter 19. Pastor James will pick up at verse 2.

James Kaddis: Verse 2: "For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand." So God is telling us that Babylon is a religious idolater, that Babylon is in essence a whore, and Babylon is a violent city. Here's the thing that's really funny about that: when you choose to walk away from the principles of God, when you choose not to follow God, you birth the mechanisms that drive a whore and you fill the land with whores.

You know what else you do? You bring violence into the land. I remember walking down Skid Row about five years ago with one of the most influential people in that area who has one of the largest ministries in that area. And that person told me, "I can tell you this and I know you won't take this the wrong way, but it almost feels like our ministry is no good anymore." Why? She says, "Everything that is here on Skid Row that you are seeing right now is what the people want."

They want it because the government has turned their hearts away from God and has made it easy for them to live on the streets. And when you were walking down the street, you could see it. There were cardboard boxes that had fax machines and printers that were in them, that had extension cords that were ran into businesses that did not want to give them power but had to because of the municipal code. You had people running prostitution rings, selling drugs, and just literally living a debaucherous life.

My whole point is when you deny the true and living God, you destroy a town. You destroy a town, and that town becomes the center of destruction for everything else around it. The City of Angels has become the City of Demons. It's the City of Fallen Angels. Look at what's going on around us. It's crazy.

Guest (Male): Join us next time when Pastor James Kaddis will continue through the book of Revelation. That's right here on Light on the Hill, a listener-supported ministry of Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.