Light on the Hill

James Kaddis: Think about the bondage that people are in right now. You don't understand, I'm living in the hood. I come from a poor family. I'm going through this difficult time. I'm going through that difficult time. There's no way I could ever do what that person does over there. Oh, really?

God says that He created you for a purpose. And if you choose to accomplish the purpose that God has created for you, there's not a soul on the face of the earth that will prevent that from happening. The question is this: Will you be submitted to the will and to the purpose and to the cause of Christ? Will you look to the Lord and say, "God, I'm going to obey you and do exactly what you say"?

Guest (Male): Our mortal enemy, the enemy of our very soul, Satan, has left a path of destruction in this world through the ages. One day he will meet his demise. Revelation tells us about that moment in time, and the whole world will witness it. Turn to Chapter 20 and hear all about it today on Light on the Hill. Here is Pastor James Kaddis.

James Kaddis: Revelation Chapter 20. I absolutely love getting into this portion of human history. It's awesome to see where things are going to end because as we live in a world that appears to be getting darker and darker, it's always exciting to get into passages that tell us what to expect and let us know what's going to happen in the future because it gives us hope.

We know that we were to expect it. We know that as we see things getting darker, God has a solution for everything, and we can find so much hope, strength, and even joy in knowing that God told us what to expect. As a result, God prepared us for what we're seeing in the current day. It even enhances our faith and understanding of who our God is as we learn these patterns because God took the time to explain these things.

Where we are in Revelation Chapter 20 is really cool because what has happened thus far is pretty much the end of the world. If you think about it, we have already watched at this point the rapture of the church. We've seen the tribulation take place. We've even watched the false prophet and the beast being thrown in essence into the lake of fire.

Now we're beginning to see some interesting things take place as we look at the beginning of what people would refer to as the millennial reign. We look at the period of time on this earth that will last for a thousand years where in essence everything is going to be reset almost perfectly. It almost is going to feel like a post-Noatic type of a time.

When you think about when God just completely wiped everything off the face of the earth, cleansed everything from the effect of sin, and allowed a family of eight to restart the world, you're going to see an effect very similar to that with one major exception. That is the fact that Satan at this point will have been bound up.

He will have been put away in the same place where all of the demons in effect are incarcerated or a lot of demons have been incarcerated for the whole time of human history. Satan will be bound up for that thousand-year period. During that thousand-year period, all kinds of things will exist that we don't see today.

We learn about the idea that the wolf is going to be laying down side-by-side with the lamb or a kid would be able to reach into a snake pit in essence and not get themselves bit. There is going to be a time where there is going to be peace on earth. There is not going to be any wars or rumors of wars for that matter. It's going to be a completely different environment to live in.

What is interesting about this time period, of course, is that we are not going to see any of these things manifest, but man will still live with a sinful nature. There is a lot of things that won't allow man to execute upon what it desires to execute upon because Satan will be bound up. If Satan is bound up then we know that the demonic activity that we are seeing today in the current world and what we see in the world around us will not be around anymore because there is nobody to rule and command these demons.

The other thing is that you won't see people really acting on their fleshly desires because the reality of it is we, the body of Christ, who were raptured and who were in heaven during the time of the tribulation and come down with Christ, as we read about in the very beginning part of Revelation Chapter 20, will all be ruling and reigning with Christ.

During that thousand-year period, we are in essence going to be the police force of the world. When people say, "Don't you even think about that," we will literally be saying that to people. We will literally be saying, "Uh-uh, you're not doing this," and we're going to have a very exciting and thrilling life.

If you live in this world right now and you have a job in law enforcement and you really enjoy that job, you're going to really love the millennial reign because during the millennial reign you will be the ultimate enforcers and that is going to be a very exciting thing. All of us are going to get to do that.

This is going to be an exciting time period to live on this earth, but we know what we're about to read is the fact that is as well come to an end because at the end of the thousand-year reign there will be yet one final rebellion and a lot of things are going to happen in that rebellion. We have learned a lot already as into what's going to happen during that time period in the first six verses of Revelation Chapter 20.

Now let's pick up as we get into verse seven. There is a lot that we get to learn from just these verses and there is a lot of real insight that we can develop and grow from as we begin to think through and understand and discern what it is that God is telling us and what to expect. There are some very practical lessons that are very viable for us today, very important for us today even though these are describing events that are going to happen in the future.

Let's look at this. Verse seven is where we left off. It says, "And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison." We learned about Satan being bound and it is interesting to understand and to know that prior to the thousand-year reign, Satan is bound. This is the place of incarceration for the demons that are currently being incarcerated in the time in which we're living today.

It's interesting because when you learn of the story, there are lots of examples we can pull from the Bible that point to this area or seem to insinuate this. In this specific story, we find it on its face. We understand exactly what's going on. Remember the story of Jesus coming across in that area of the Gadarenes, coming across a demon-possessed person?

If you remember through the interaction that Jesus has with that demon-possessed person, that person was not possessed with one demon. That person was possessed with a whole lot more than one demon. As a matter of fact, the demons revealed themselves to be referred to as the Legion. We know that there were hundreds of demons that were inside of this person.

What happens is just before Jesus chooses to exorcise the demons from this man, the demons beg Jesus to not be incarcerated. They beg Jesus, "Hey, don't put us in that prison." Release us into the pigs, in essence. Then Jesus grants them their wish. They end up being released into all of these pigs. These pigs jump off the ledge and they all die as a result of them being possessed with these demons.

I would assume we can make a safe general assumption that these demons at that point were free to move on and do whatever it is that they were doing with the next group of people. What's really interesting is there was a very valuable lesson that was learned there in that the Jews were prohibited from being pig farmers. As a matter of fact, pigs were considered to be unclean animals.

They were prohibited from being those people, and so as a result, I think God was sending a message that says, "You didn't need these anyway because you're breaking the law," and he sent those pigs to their terrible death. It's a shame because that's a whole lot of bacon that was just unaccounted for, but that's a completely different story.

Pork is always better, but that's a whole other story. The idea here is that there has always been a place of incarceration for these demons and they've always been there. A lot of people have taught or have said because they make a general assumption based on what they've been told traditionally that when Satan is bound up in this prison for the thousand years that it would be him and his demons that were bound up together.

The reality of it is an overwhelming amount of his demons were already bound up in that pit at the time that Satan himself gets bound up and put in that pit. There is also a very strong conflation that oftentimes happens between Satan and the beast or the Antichrist. Remember the Antichrist becomes the beast when Satan possesses him and he sets himself up in the temple and demands to be worshiped.

When we refer to the beast, yes we are talking about Satan himself, but the person that Satan actually uses is the person that's been already thrown in the lake of fire. We will get into that in just a second because there is an important point to be made there. It's something that we should stop and consider because it is a very useful piece of information because if you care about your future and being blessed by God, then this fact should be critical to your understanding.

What happens here in verse seven is we know that Satan has now been in this shaft, the Abusso, he's been in there now for a thousand years and the Lord releases him again. There are always a lot of questions about this like why would God do that? If God knew the effect that Satan would have on mankind, why would God even allow Satan to exist?

It's really simple. The standard answer is I'm not God. I don't think like Him. I will never be able to think like Him. I don't understand why He does what He does because I can't see the future at the same time that I see the past and at the same time that I'm in the present. I can tell you this: God knows better than all of us put together.

God is all-knowing and all-understanding. His ways are beyond us finding out so I'm not going to question why God would do something. I'm not going to seek to continue to create the "why" question as a result of making some kind of a statement in anger against God. If I'm going to ask why, then I'm going to seek to understand the answer to that question without charging God.

There has never been a problem with asking God why so long as you're not charging God a way that Satan would charge Him while you ask the question. If you want to go to God and you want to say, "God, why would you allow this to happen?" or "God, why did this take place?" that's a very healthy question. I do that all the time when I study to prepare a Bible study for you or when I'm just meditating on God's word so I can better understand certain things.

It becomes a very wrong thing, a very dark thing, and a very evil thing when we say, "God, if you really do love me, then why?" Now what's happening is I'm going into the realm of the inquisitive to the realm of the satanic. I become accusatory towards God in making statements that I should have never made because I'm choosing to listen to the voice of the enemy thus mimicking what he says.

The idea here is there are people that will say, "Why in the world would the enemy be bound up for a thousand years and then be released after a thousand years of a perfect world?" I think perhaps the most significant part of this and the most valuable part of this is to understand the fact that God is in His just cause and in His perfection.

God is opening up the door yet again to demonstrate the fact that man chooses to rebel against Him because of the condition of their heart and not as a result of their environment. This is really critical to understand this because when we start asking why in this context it then completely changes how we look at society and how it works and runs today.

If we carry the general assumption that man is born basically bad and that we were born with a sin nature then it changes the way we approach absolutely everything. If we stop carrying that assumption and we believe that men are born basically good and we make the assumption that children at the time of their birth are actually perfect beings and it is what we tell them that makes them so unperfect, then it completely changes the approach on how we raise them up.

This is how we end up becoming a society that accepts all kinds of child exploitation because we carry the assumption that children are born basically good when in reality we need to understand that all human beings are born basically bad because they were born with a sinful nature. Think about it like this parents: you never have to teach your children how to lie, hustle, cheat, or steal. You don't have to teach your children how to get upset or throw a fit.

My 20-month-old boy, he did not sit down and was given lessons on how to rebel. He's 20 months old. He can't even speak. He only knows five or six words in his vocabulary. But there is one thing that he does know: he knows that if he makes a specific type of noise or a unique type of scream or have a specific type of fit he can get people's attention and he can get it pretty quickly.

He also knows how to manipulate his mother and he knows how to manipulate or try to manipulate his dad. Because what happens, he's got this look, and when he gets disciplined he kind of has this look like my heart is breaking. His mom looks at him and says, "Oh, my poor baby," and then it's not that big of a deal. I'm not kidding about this.

When dad comes around, he don't play. With me, he won't mess around and when I ask him to do something he'll do it right away and he won't even blink. But when he's around mom and I ask him to do something he'll get that really sad face that he knows grabs mama's heart and he looks at mama and he does this little look. I didn't teach him how to do that. He learned how to hustle before he could even say words.

He's that effective in what he does. He knows that I have an absolute weakness for his little lips when he goes to kiss Baba. It melts my heart when he does that. He knows it and he understands it. So when he does things that are extraordinarily bad, that is like his nuclear option. He knows that he just made Baba unhappy or upset.

I have this thing that I wear around my neck. It's got a little remote control. He has this terrible habit where he likes to just push buttons especially if they're boys. He likes to kind of dig his nails inside the button. So over time, he's beginning to rip the button open and the button's becoming more and more damaged and he knows. I tell him, "No, son, don't touch it," and he puts his hands away.

One day we are at one of my daughter's plays and we're having a grand old time. My boy, while I am paying attention to other things, I'm holding him in my arms, my boy decides he's going to have some fun and he starts picking away at the button. Except this time I look down at my son and I realize this look on his face like, "Uh-oh, what just happened?" and it's a bad look.

I look down at the remote and I notice that the remote's got a big hole in it. The kid broke off the button. I'm telling you these babies are destructive. I'm just warning you guys. Babies are destructive and so are children. He notices that I look at that and at this time he's 17 months old. He knows that I'm really upset. I'm like, "Why, honey? Why would you do this, honey?" and he just looks at me and this is all he does.

I tell you how much smarter I decided to be than him. I was so bothered by what he did, but he's a baby. You're going to spank a baby? You can't do anything like that. So I decided to take advantage of him a little bit more and so every two minutes or every 30 seconds I looked down at the button and I'm taking a breath like I'm going to say something because I know exactly what he's going to do.

He immediately just looks at me. I look down at the button, "What did you do?" That's my way of hustling him into kissing me all night. But you think about it, I didn't have to teach him how to do that. I did not have to teach him how to get his hustle on. I didn't have to teach him how to manipulate a circumstance or take advantage of mom's soft side.

The Bible tells us that through one man, sin entered the world. We know that. We can thank Adam for that. They were born with that. What is unique is when Satan is released from the pit, we know that what's going to end up happening is he is going to go right to work at really doing his best at manipulating mankind, speaking the lies to mankind, teaching mankind to dig deep within themselves and to bring the end result which is going to be destruction.

The problem is you're not going to be able to argue that you're a product of your environment. That's the lie that we're hearing right now. That's the very thing that's driving the lies behind critical race theory. It's the very thing that's driving the lies that you're hearing in the media. "Oh, well that person can't help themselves because they were never given the privilege that white people have."

Your environment doesn't mean a lick. What actually is the issue is that you were born with a sinful nature and when you choose to allow that sinful nature to take over, then you bring destruction. Think about it: Adam chose to rebel against God and his rebellion brought the eventual destruction of the world. Adam was not living in the hood. There was none of that nonsense.

Adam wasn't living in a dark place. Adam was living in the most ideal circumstance imaginable to mankind. Mankind has never experienced that type of euphoria. Adam was living in it. What did he choose to do? He chose to still rebel against God. The idea of being a product of your environment is such a bogus thought. It's a lie that Satan continues to communicate to people to do two things.

First, it's a lie that Satan communicates to people to cause them to embrace and accept sin because of the circumstances that the person may be in. The other thing that it does is it causes people who come from those environments to continue to make excuses for not being everything God wants them to be. Think about the bondage that people are in right now.

"Oh, you don't understand. I'm living in the hood. I come from a poor family. I'm going through this difficult time." Oh, really? God says that He created you for a purpose. And if you choose to accomplish the purpose that God has created for you, there's not a soul on the face of the earth that will prevent that from happening.

The question is this: Will you be submitted to the will and to the purpose and to the cause of Christ? Will you look to the Lord and say, "God, I'm going to obey you and do exactly what you say"? Because when you choose to say, "Satan, I'm going to obey you and do exactly what you tell me to do," you know what ends up happening? You end up experiencing the result of what the final Antichrist experienced.

The final Antichrist at one point in his life decided to say, "I'm going to give myself to the cause of Satan." When he gave himself to the cause of Satan, where did that land him? That landed him in the lake of fire. It might be fun initially, he might be lied into thinking that he's accomplishing all kinds of great purposes, but eternity in hell is what's going to happen to him.

When Satan uses you, you end up eternally dying. But when God uses you, you not only have eternal life, but the moments that you have on this earth become so much more powerful and fulfilling. Even when you rebel against God, He will still use you. He will still use you like a pawn or a puppet, but the problem is when God uses somebody because of their rebellion, it's a whole lot different than when God uses somebody because of their submission to Him.

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 OnePlace.com. It's also available through the Light on the Hill app. Pastor James, here in Revelation Chapter 20 we're told after the millennium, Satan is released and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to assemble them for battle. Is this the same battle that Ezekiel spoke of in Chapter 38 or something different?

James Kaddis: No, they're two completely different battles and the delineation that exists between what we read in Revelation here and Ezekiel 38 is very obvious. I believe that the occurrence of Ezekiel 38 happens probably immediately after the rapture or right around the time of the rapture, where this battle that we're reading about is going to happen virtually after the tribulation. So we're talking about two completely different battles here and when we use the term Gog and Magog, they actually mean different things.

Guest (Male): Thanks, Pastor James. I know you'll talk more about that tomorrow, so be sure and tune in for that for the many differences between the Gog-Magog war in Ezekiel 38 and what we read here in Revelation Chapter 20. 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' 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. 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.