Light on the Hill

James Kaddis: Today on Light on the Hill. If God is going to judge us based on his very word, wouldn't it be wise if we learned how to follow it? How do we learn to follow it if we don't know it? How do we learn to follow it if we're not reading it? How do we learn to follow it if we don't understand it?

Guest (Male): I have found the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you, because all I need is you. All I need is you.

We hope you're ready to get back into Revelation here on Light on the Hill. In our verse-by-verse study through this book, we return to chapter 19 today. In his first coming, Jesus came to the earth to seek and save the lost. When he returns, it will be much different. He will come as judge. We get a powerful description of this in Revelation chapter 19. Judgment is coming soon, so let's be prepared. Here is Pastor James Kaddis.

James Kaddis: Everybody, including the anti-bible prophecy people, will agree that the Old Testament prophets got it right concerning the first coming of Jesus Christ. Here's my question. I think this is predicated upon an intelligent approach. If they were dead on about the first coming of Jesus Christ, don't you think they'll be dead on about the second coming? It was the same prophets that spoke about the second coming. If they're right about the first, don't you think they'll be right about the second?

Your understanding of the gospel becomes incomplete if you do not build a better understanding of the message of the gospel through the word of prophecy that we were given every day. By the way, isn't it interesting that the same people who discount the message of Bible prophecy are the same people who actually have given themselves to the message of social justice?

Isn't it funny how they're the same people that have been giving in to the lies? Do you know that same guy on the radio show who gave that answer, who said exactly what he said, actually was in another state? He went to start a church in the other state, and the reason why he says he has not started a church service is because his team of people are white people, and he needs a few black people to be able to start the church service. Since when did that matter?

Because you do not understand the full counsel of God and because you do not understand the testimony of Christ, you are literally building a foundation that is based on wickedness and ungodliness and the secular humanistic philosophies of this world that drive you to a destructive pattern of continuing to believe a lie. That's exactly what this is. I don't know when we're going to come to a better understanding of what is actually happening in this world and what we're seeing. It's darkness, and I want people to see it for what it is.

The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Look at this in verse 11, "And I saw heaven opened and behold, a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true and in righteousness does he judge and make war." There's a massive conflation that takes place between the white horse that we read about in Revelation 19 and the rider of the white horse that we read about in Revelation chapter six. Just so that you know, to make myself very clear, the rider of the white horse in Revelation chapter six is not the rider of the white horse in Revelation chapter 19.

There are some distinctive differences between them. The rider of the white horse in Revelation chapter six has one crown. The rider of the white horse in Revelation chapter 19 has multiple crowns. The rider of the white horse in Revelation chapter six has a bow but not an arrow, and his main function is to create a premise of peace that is temporarily solved.

The rider of the white horse in Revelation chapter 19 not only has a multiple amount of crowns on his head, he does not have a bow or an arrow. He has a sword that comes out of his mouth. There's a distinct difference between them. The rider of the white horse has nobody accompanying him in Revelation chapter six. The rider of the white horse that we read about in this chapter has an accompaniment of a whole army of people, all riding white horses, wearing a specific type of clothing. We're that army. This is exciting stuff when you think about it.

There's a big difference. Some of you might say, "Okay, James, if they're different, then who is the rider of the white horse in Revelation six and who is the rider of the white horse in Revelation 19?" The one in 19 is obvious, just as the one in six is obvious. The one in Revelation 19, that rider of the white horse is none other than Jesus Christ himself. The rider of the white horse that we read about in Revelation chapter six, do you know who that is? The Antichrist.

I want to make sure everybody understands that. There's a big difference between the two of them. One is the true and living God. One is one who seeks to replace the true and living God. They're completely different. Revelation six, the bad guy. Revelation 19, the good guy. Let me make myself clear. Look at the descriptors that come with this rider of the white horse. This is super important. He that sat upon him was called faithful and true.

We're not just talking about consistent and we're not just talking about predictable. We're talking about a consistency and a predictability that is founded on the premise of truth. I can tell you this right now: the God that we serve is always going to tell us the truth because he himself is the embodiment and the full encapsulation of that which is true. If the truth is actually him because he himself is the word of God, then we know for a fact that he cannot deny himself.

We know for a fact that if he honors his word above his name, he will not go back on his word. The Bible tells us that he is faithful and that he's true. He's consistent. He never changes. The faithfulness that we see being projected and emanating from his persona is exactly a truthful projection. He's never going to go away from it. He's consistent, he's faithful, and he's true.

I think more than ever, parents, listen to me, especially if you're parents of tender-aged children. It's never too late, but especially if you're parents of tender-aged children, understand more than anything, your children need you to be consistent. That consistency, which in essence is faithfulness, better be predicated upon the truth. If you tell your children you're going to do something, you better do it. If you ask your children to do something, they better do it.

If you continue to make a claim to your children that something is the way it is, you better demonstrate the truth of that in any way possible. When you are asked or required to do something by God, that you actually function in the role that God has called you to function, and that is in faithfulness and truth. Why? Because God demonstrated it to us. If we're going to be parents and we want our children to walk with the Lord, we better demonstrate it to them.

Here's the thing that's really interesting about God being faithful and true. We know for a fact that we can rely upon him, and that reliance is founded in something that is substantive. We know that our reliance upon God is something that will never waver because what we have in God will not waver, because God does not move. God establishes the truth, and he never strays from the truth.

I think it's really funny to think about the fact that when that helicopter was going down, I can't even imagine what was going through their minds when they knew that they were likely going to die. When they met the true and living God, imagine what that must have looked like. Imagine what that must have felt like when they heard the words, "Go to hell, I never knew you." Allah, their God that they worshiped, even in their own Quran says that he's the chief of liars.

Imagine what it must have felt like when he went before God only to hear the fact that his false God, Allah, was a liar, because what he's experiencing is completely different from what he was told he would experience. I can make you this promise: when you die and you go to be with the Lord, you will not be dumbfounded by the fact that what you heard and believed your whole life was wrong. You'll be blown away and blessed to realize that God was right, and you made the right decision to follow him.

You'll be the recipient of all that God has for you, the blessings that he has for you because you made the decision to do what God asked you to do. Folks, I can tell you this right now, there is nothing greater than to know that we have a God who is faithful and true. Look at what it says here. This is really interesting. It says that in righteousness, he judge and make war. Think about that for a second. In righteousness, God in his righteousness executes judgment.

I think that's awesome because we live in a world today that does not execute judgment in righteousness. As a matter of fact, it's super critical that we understand that. Most of the judgment that is executed right now is founded in unrighteousness. It's founded in wickedness and selfishness and destructiveness. The flavor of justice that we're seeing right now is founded in unrighteousness, not righteousness. If it was founded in righteousness, we would never see the things that we're seeing right now.

Isn't it amazing right now that in the state of California, you could molest a child literally and not experience a real consequence for doing so, but yet, think about this: you could sit outside of an abortion clinic and pray for a woman going in who wants to kill her baby, save her from killing her baby, and actually go to jail for it? Do you know right now that they are prosecuting aggressively and actively people who are going to school board meetings and speaking up, and people who are standing up for these babies in abortion clinics more than they're actively prosecuting killers, murderers?

That's because we have a justice system that is predicated upon unrighteousness. Do you understand that the leader of Ukraine was a stripper and now he's one of the richest men in the world, or becoming one of the richest men in the world? Why? Because your tax money and my tax money has gone into his pocket. They make war to put money in their pockets. That's what they do. They want war to exist because war makes them powerful.

So their initiation of war is based on unrighteousness. Their initiation of judgment is predicated upon evil. The Bible says that when God initiates war and when God initiates judgment, we read this in Revelation, that he will do it in righteousness. Can you imagine the war that gets initiated as a result of righteousness? That'll be the war that ends all wars. Wars initiated in righteousness are wars that are necessary.

The completion of the mission that is built and commenced in those wars produces a result of peace. God is going to produce ultimate peace when he initiates the war that ends all wars, isn't he? That's what the Bible says. He's the righteous judge and he's going to make war in his righteousness, meaning he's going to judge people. "His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns, and he had the name written that no man knew but he himself."

We'll go backwards and we'll start at the end of the verse and we'll go to the beginning. The name written, we have no idea what that name is. People ask me, "What is that name going to be?" The answer is, I don't know. The Bible tells us that man doesn't know. So we're not going to know. Let's not try to figure it out. But let's go on because he says this: he has eyes as a flame of fire.

I think it's really interesting. The many crowns that he has on his head is indicative of the true and living God who will one day rule everything. But what's interesting about the flame of fire, the eyes that appear to be as a flame of fire, it speaks of righteousness and purity, doesn't it? Think about this. The closer you become to God and the more you walk with him, the more clarity you begin to develop in the things that you see from day to day.

Did you know that if you're in a place right now where you're confused in your life and you're lacking clarity, the best thing you can do is seek the Lord out like you've never done it before? Because the closer you get to the Lord, the more clarity you will begin to find in all that you pursue. Because God has a way of filtering your eyes. God has a way of bringing purity to the things that you see. When you look at things through the window of purity, it completely changes how you approach everything else.

The Bible makes that clear. It's not a surprise that one of the primary characteristics of Christ's vision would be tethered to the idea of there being an appearance of the flames of fire. It's a pretty heavy thing. But look at what it says in verse 13. It says, "And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God." The description of his clothes, vesture dipped in blood, the idea speaks of the suffering that he went through for us.

It was the blood that was shed on his body that gives him the authority to shed blood himself in eternal judgment. It's kind of an interesting picture that's given. Look at what it says at the end of verse 13. It's pretty powerful. It says, "And his name is called the Word of God." By the way, this isn't the same name mentioned in the previous verse. This is a completely different name. Isn't it funny that there's a direct tie here to the word of God as it relates to the function of judgment upon a lost and dying world?

Isn't it interesting how the word of God brings us around to everything? The discussion of the word of God centers around everything. Look, John tells us this at the beginning of his gospel. He says, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God." Later on in verse 14, it says, "And the word became flesh and did dwell among us." It's a pretty heavy statement. Jesus is the living word of God and the encapsulation of all that is true and all that is based in truth.

All that is absolute is in Christ Jesus. We see it. He's the living word of God, and it's interesting that this is connoted this way. When I was the dean of the Bible college many years ago, I had the reputation of also being the hardest professor in the school. I was. I was not an easy teacher to have. I made my students work very, very hard and some just couldn't hang. My classes had the highest attrition rates.

Actually, I had one class that had a higher attrition rate that was not an original language class. The classes that had the greatest attrition rates were original language classes. If I would teach Greek or Hebrew, there'd be so many people that wouldn't hang. But the class that had the highest attrition rate, the one where most people would bail out of, were books like Isaiah because of the amount of work that was required to be done.

What happened was there was a group of kids that I had. They were kids in the Bible college, younger age, and they were taking certain groups of classes together. This was the third class they were taking with me, the third or the fourth class, and they came to me and they said, "Pastor James, we just have a really important question that we really need answered." They're kids, they're hungry, they want to know the truth.

"Why is it that you don't assign a textbook in any of our Bible college classes?" Because a lot of my teachers assigned textbooks when they taught through the Bible college. I didn't believe in assigning a textbook. My belief was your textbook is the Bible. That was my belief. So they would ask me this. They would say, "Why is it that you don't assign us a textbook?" My answer would be the same, and I got asked this question several times by different people.

My answer was the same: "When you know the Bible better than you know yourself, then maybe I'd consider a textbook. But the reality of it is, why would I throw another book your way for you to study instead of studying the actual Bible that you're studying here?" I understand getting a textbook if you're learning original language. I understand getting a textbook if you need something that helps you organize your thoughts, like a reference book of Bible maps and charts. I get that.

But the reality of it is most of you don't even know the Bible well enough, yet you want a textbook that'll help you understand a Bible? I go to people all the time, or I used to ask this to Bible college students. I would ask them all the time the question I'm going to ask you, and I want you to do me a favor. If you are in this room, I want you to pay attention to the people that raise their hands. Please guys, listen to me. Pay attention to the people that raise their hands here.

How many people in this room have read through the Bible from cover to cover at least once? Anybody? Quick show of hands. Okay, there is a large percentage in this room of people that have raised their hands and said they did it. Second service it was the same way, first service it was the same way. As a matter of fact, in second service, there were way more people that raised their hands than people that did not.

I'm going to just tell you this right now: in Bible college when I would ask this question, these are people that have been studying the Bible for 10, 15, 20 years, and an overwhelming majority of the people did not raise their hands. I would be lucky if I got one or two people in a class of 40 that would raise their hands. Why? Because they're so caught up in their academic intellectual pursuits that they're not even taking the time to read the thing that's the most important thing, and that's the Bible.

I could go to somebody right now and I could say, "Name me ten very famous people in pop culture." Virtually anybody could tell me that. Virtually anybody could come up with ten famous people in pop culture. I could go to that same group of people that could give me ten famous people in pop culture and I could say, "Give me five of the twelve tribes of Israel," and they wouldn't be able to do it. Why is that?

Because their emphasis is upon things that are absolutely worthless and they don't listen to the word of God. But here's the advice that I would give you guys: if God is going to judge us based on his very word, wouldn't it be wise if we learned how to follow it? How do we learn to follow it if we don't know it? How do we learn to follow it if we're not reading it? How do we learn to follow it if we don't understand it?

I can tell you something that's happening with me that's scary. It is scary, to the point where sometimes I think I have some form of dementia. I read through the Bible from cover to cover on a regular basis. I do it all the time. I do it like I eat food. If I did it like I ate food, then I would have read through the Bible like a million times. But here's the thing, I do it with some regularity. I haven't read through the Bible from cover to cover one or two times; I've done it hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times.

The thing that's really interesting about that is every time I open up the Bible and I read a name or I read a story, it feels like I've never read it before and I think in my mind, "What in the world is wrong with me? How many times?" I was thinking about this the other day. How many times have I read through the book of Second Samuel? How many times? And I didn't remember this name. I've taught through Second Samuel at least 20 times that I can think of.

How is it? I'll tell you why. There's a spiritual component in it. If we are not dedicating ourselves to the word of God on a regular basis, then how in the world are we able to find the foundation that we need to be able to live the consistent life that God wants us to live? Folks, I can tell you this: you're going to be judged by that book. You are in essence saved by that book, so why not give yourself to that book? It's really, really important. You have to get to know it.

Verse 14, I love this: "And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, and clothed in fine linen, white and clean." This is us that it's talking about. We're being clothed in white linen, fine and clean. The idea here, I believe, the implication that it's giving us is we are wearing the righteous robe of Christ. We're wearing the righteousness of Christ as we accompany him on these white horses as he goes to do this judgment.

Now, I obsess over the white horse issue. I think about it a lot oftentimes because I think that my horse is going to have to be like a Clydesdale or something massive. I think about that a lot. But then I have these weird thoughts. As I got older, I started to think about gravitational forces and any of you that's a physicist will understand what I mean when I talk about turtles and all that kind of thing. I think about all this stuff.

The funny thing is I think in my head, "Well, if I'm riding on a white horse and we're in the air, then that means we're not subject to the laws of gravity, so that poor horse's back isn't going to be hurt, so it's probably going to be okay." I have all these thoughts in my mind. I think about all these things, literally. How does that work? All these things that kind of go through my mind.

But here's the thing that's really awesome. This is the thing that goes through my mind that probably excites me the most. We have so much to look forward to. Do you guys get that? We are going to rule and reign with Christ, folks. That's going to start with the very judgment that he executes upon an earth that rebels against him. Folks, do you understand how much God is going to make us a part of? Do you understand how much God is putting in front of us, how much God is going to enable us with, how much God is going to give us?

Can you understand how incredible the world is that God has waiting for us? Eternity is no joke, and what we experience in eternity is going to be awesome. For those of us that live long enough to see the Rapture taking place, can you imagine what that's going to end up looking like at the end of the seven-year period, at the end of the Tribulation? By the way, it's going to feel like seconds to us.

But at the end of the Tribulation, coming back down with Jesus on a white horse while he has that sword in his mouth, and with the use of one word, he just destroys all of mankind that rebels against him? Can you imagine what that's going to be like? I think for us it's going to be ominous. I think for us we're going to experience the glory of God being executed, the judgment of God being predicated upon truth and righteousness.

It's amazing when you think about the faithfulness of God and what he has waiting for us. Folks, understand this. Here's a good summary of your walk with God and what you can expect in the future: the best is yet to come. Let me say that one more time: the best is yet to come. We have a lot to look forward to. Amen.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor James Kaddis on Light on the Hill. He'll be right back with more. As we go through the study of Revelation, there may come a time when you miss a message or would just like to hear a program again. If so, visit lightonthehillradio.com and click on Radio or listen through our app. We have a Light on the Hill app available for iPhone and Android users. Just search for Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.

Light on the Hill is heard all around the world, and it takes a team to bring these shows to the radio and internet. With your help, we're able to reach people with the truth of God's word at a time when they really need to hear it. You can donate today at lightonthehillradio.com. You can also give through our Light on the Hill app.

As we're going through Revelation, this is a great time to mention Pastor James's new book entitled The Last Book. It will share what you need to know about Revelation, the Rapture, and the end times. This guide to Revelation is part one of two, and you can order it today at lightonthehillradio.com or at Amazon. We hope you'll join our online communities. You'll find James Kaddis on YouTube, Rumble, and Instagram. You can also hear our weekly prophecy show, Countdown to Eternity, wherever you get your podcasts and at countdowntoeternity.com. And now, let's finish our time in prayer.

James Kaddis: Father in heaven, we just thank you, Lord, for your word and we thank you, God, for all that you've done for us, Lord, because you are good and you are awesome, Lord. Lord, I just pray right now, Lord, that you would impact us in a way, Lord, that would just astound our own minds, our own way of thought, Lord, that we would realize the reward that comes from walking with you and serving you and seeking you. So Lord, we just love you. We thank you. We pray that you would go before us, that you would fill us with your spirit. We love you and we ask these things in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

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. I have found the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you, because all I need is you. All I need is you.