Light on the Hill

James Kaddis: Are you facing what looks like an impossibility? Keep this in mind. Understand this: God is the God of the impossible. God is a God that makes the impossible look easy because He is a God that rules the world that we cannot see. He is the God that created the world that we cannot see. And that is a very important aspect of what we go over as we start the rest of this chapter.

Guest (Male): Where do you turn when you're desperate and facing what seems impossible? Parents, imagine your child has died and you're overwhelmed with grief. Well, today on Light on the Hill, we'll observe a father's response in a situation just like that and see how Jesus came through for him in a major way. Jesus has power over death, the devil, and disease. That should give us hope today, no matter what we're going through. We'll be in Mark chapter five. Here is Pastor James.

James Kaddis: An interesting moment I had earlier in the day today and I have to back up a little bit to talk about this because as a pastor, I find myself in a position where I do a lot of things very routinely. What may appear to be an anomaly to somebody or what may appear to be met with great difficulty to some people, for me is sort of commonplace. It's the normal space that I'm oftentimes in.

Sometimes that involves getting involved in very uncomfortable situations. Sometimes that involves confrontation that a lot of people aren't necessarily comfortable with. Sometimes that involves wearing multiple hats. What feels normal and routine to me every single day, to others is kind of earth-shattering in many ways. I think it goes with the ground with what we do. I think that the same element exists with lots of people in lots of different fields, working in lots of different ways.

For example, if you were to sit in a cockpit with an airline pilot who is flying a big jet like a 747 or even an Airbus, it is going to feel very ominous for you to be watching everything, to look at the instrumentation, to hear the radio traffic, and to make yourself acquainted with the things that are going on. You will hear jet engine noises that you won't hear inside the deeper portion of the pressurized cabin that might alarm you. You might hear all kinds of alarms going off in the cockpit that would bother you.

For an average pilot, they are half asleep thinking this is seriously no big deal. It is nothing to them. I have gotten this input on multiple occasions from people who oftentimes talk about this, and that is the issue with the police department. There are lots of everyday people who have no clue what it looks like out there to be in the midst of a situation a police officer might walk into on a day-to-day basis. When they go on a ride-along, it is like sensory overload.

They have such a difficult time taking in all the sights of the things that they see. Lots of people have never even seen a gun. When they see these guys using it day in and day out and doing the things that they do, what is routine to them is for everybody else a very intimidating and a very difficult thing. It is interesting because what happens with people who experience unusual things on a regular basis to where it almost becomes regular is you become so acclimated to that world that you are not moved by the things that you see in that world, even when other people are moved by it.

That is especially dangerous as a pastor because what happens is if you are in the business of ministering to people, caring for people, and loving on people, and you are so used to seeing the darkness that exists within so many people's lives and the hardships, it can be very easy to not be moved like everybody else is moved. For example, you could perform a memorial service and there could be people in there that are just absolutely heartbroken over the fact that a loved one has died.

Maybe there is a very emotional set of circumstances happening within the family. It is something that I see every day. When I go to that memorial service, I might appear to be cold and callous because in some context, sometimes I am because I see it so much. I think that this is a very common characteristic to have amongst people, depending on what situation in life you might be in.

I had one of those moments earlier where I did something that appeared to be relatively routine to me, and so routine that I forgot about it. I got a text message from Erika Kirk. She sends me a text and she says, "James, do you mind if I put up this video from our last Q&A that we did?" I said, "No, why should I mind? By all means, go ahead and put it up. If I didn't want it to get out, then I wouldn't say it. Please, go ahead."

She puts up this Q&A question that happened at AmFest. I completely forgot about the moment when it happened. My memory was completely jarred when I saw the video. But at the time, it just felt like something that happens every day. The question was a heavy question. When I got the question, it did shake me a little bit because of the nature of the difficulty of that question.

It was a mother who stood up and said that the reason why we're here in Arizona is to get a little bit of away time because my husband, who I had been married to for a very long time, passed away just a few months ago. He was a very good husband and we were close. Then she points to her daughter and says, "And she, of course, lost her father. So my daughter has a question for you."

The nature of the question was relatively difficult. It was not a simple question that the everyday person would just know how to answer on the fly. But for me, it's one of these things that happens routinely. I remember sharing the answer and I even remember at a moment being very emotional while sharing it because I was thinking about my own father and thinking about my parents and all the difficulties that oftentimes arise within the heart of somebody that just loses a loved one. Part of that was affecting me.

It wasn't until I listened to the question and the answer about an hour and a half ago that shook me a little bit in understanding just how monumental of a moment it was for the person that was actually listening to the answer that I had provided. I want to stop for a second, not necessarily to talk about the characters that were involved. I wanted to stop by reflecting upon an answer that I often share.

It's something that I say quite a bit, but it really impacted me specifically for purposes of the Bible study that we're going through tonight. The question related to heaven and if heaven is real. My statement to this precious woman was that the spiritual world is far more real than the physical world will ever be. That is a very difficult thing for people to understand because reality to us is defined by the things that we experience that involve our sensory mechanisms.

To me, real is something that I can touch. It is something that I can eat or drink. It is the vehicle that I drive or the home that I live in. It is the relationships with people that I have when I get to hold my daughter or my son and embrace them. That is defined by most of us as being real. In true reality, what is more real than any of those things and what is always going to be more real than any of those things will ever be are the hidden things that drive it. It is always going to be the spiritual realm that is more real than the physical.

The greatest problems that we have in our society and in our world today will always center around people not understanding that very fact. When you choose to say you are going to ignore the spiritual realm, you are also choosing to say that you are going to completely ignore reality. It means that you are checking yourself out from the things that matter the most and you will allow the most consequential things to suffer immensely because they are being driven by the world that you are choosing not to engage in.

I think that is why Walter Martin coined this phrase. I will always hold fast to it and I will always communicate it in multiple different ways. If you're a Christian and you refuse to engage in the spiritual realm, you will become the first casualty of it. The reason why you will become the first casualty of it is because you have been given every tool to understand and be aware of and discern what is reality.

You have been given every tool to be able to be aware of what's going on, and when you choose to make the things that are more consequential literally inconsequential, you allow yourself to enter into a world that brings for it destruction. I think about this a lot because there was a point in time in my life where I lived in a world where the most consequential things that could possibly happen were never concerns of mine because there was always somebody else to be able to take care of it.

When I was five years old, I didn't have to worry about the mortgage. When I was 18 years old, I didn't have to worry about the mortgage. There were certain things that were very consequential that I was not a guardian of. My thought process as a child was always that it will all get taken care of, and there is nothing to worry about. But as you get older, you begin to realize very quickly that those things are the things that more than ever you cannot ignore because they reflect a bigger issue.

I want to remind you of something concerning the ministry of Christ. The ministry of Christ centered around the understanding of the truth. The truth that cannot be broken is that the world that we cannot see is more real than the world that we can. The spiritual realm that we oftentimes ignore is the one that requires the most attention. The physical manifestations of the different ideas and culture and the acceptances of philosophies and thought processes are all a reflection of the things that are happening in the invisible that we've been neglecting.

Can I give you an example of this? I just saw a video of an Episcopal pastor, an absolutely evil man, who calls up people that he considers to be clergy in his church. One of them is wearing a dog suit and walking around like a dog with a muzzle on his mouth and a leash around his neck. As he's crawling up while being handled by another so-called priest, the crowd is actually clapping for it.

If this was even 10 years ago, the police would be over there, they would be arresting all of those that were doing it, and they would have them committed for evaluation because of what was obviously mental illness. But because the people who are supposed to be the most aware of the invisible realm have chosen to ignore it, they have become the greatest receivers of the darkness that comes as a result of that ignorance. They have become the ones that are affected the most by it.

As we've gone through Mark so far, we just finished dealing with Jesus exercising demons out of a man who had given himself to be in a position where he opened up the door for demonic activity to take place in his life. There were some significant consequences that came from the exercising of those demons. It was an absolutely significant and monumental circumstance for that man who was in bondage.

The people that surrounded that community were angry at Jesus because not only were their profits taken away, but because the way of life that they had become acclimated to was disrupted, even though disrupting that way of life was the only thing that was going to save it. Think about that for a second as we jump into the rest of this story.

Perhaps the most important thing that comes out of the thoughts that I've been sharing thus far is this: if you will give yourself to the truth and the understanding and the wisdom that's tied to the idea that the spiritual realm is more real than the physical, then your ability to trust in God to do what is the impossible or to accomplish the insurmountable will always be unblocked. It will always be easier for you to be able to do.

If you look at things from the realm of what cannot be seen and you choose to trust God in that realm as you engage in it actively, whatever the rest of the world says is impossible becomes an invitation for the very thing to be done. The overwhelming majority of the time when we see people give up the idea that something can be done by God that appears to be impossible to man, it's only because they choose to not allow themselves to acknowledge or be aware of the spiritual world that drives all of it.

If you understand what exists in the spiritual realm, then you won't have a problem with a phrase like "God spoke the world into existence." If you understand the principles that we're talking about concerning the spiritual realm, you will never have difficulty with the fact that God can take an impossible circumstance and make it look easy. If you understand the very things that you cannot see and the very things that you oftentimes pay the least attention to, then you will understand without a problem that there are no barriers in the realm that is least consequential.

This is hard for people to understand and hard for them to compute because we operate backwards. We place our emphasis on the things that are tangible, the things that can be seen, and the things that are superficial. We place our emphasis on the things that become the product of the things that we need to pay attention to, and we forget the root causes. We forget looking at the core of the issue. We forget considering the bigger problem.

I heard somebody from the Federal Aviation Administration make an apropos comment. When you think about the mindset that is going on right now with some of the air disasters and the mistakes that are being made, there is one thing that the FAA does more than most agencies, and that is they spend a lot of time focusing on the attitude of the person who is what they call the pilot in command.

They want to know if they had a good night of sleep, if they are easily corrected, and if they are looking at their instrumentation and aware of their surroundings. Are they arrogant? Are they proud? There are actual terms that they use within the FAA that they make you take tests on that describe what it looks like when somebody has a condition when they want to show off and why that is very dangerous when you are in an airplane.

Here is the thing that nobody wants to admit, and nobody at the FAA will admit it if they are not walking with God. All of those things come from a time when the Lord was the thing or the person that they were thinking about more than anything. All of those issues that they talk about—the intangible issues, the pride, whether you are a hotshot—those are spiritual issues. If you are not paying attention to those things, you are going to make some big mistakes.

Guest (Male): This is Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis, and we're currently going through the Gospel of Mark. Listen to this study and more at lightonthehillradio.com. Pastor James's teachings are also available through the Light on the Hill app and at oneplace.com. You can listen to us wherever you get your podcasts as well.

When you have a moment sometime today, send us an email. We'd love it. It's encouraging to hear what the Lord is doing in our listeners' lives and it's an opportunity to thank the Lord for what He's doing. There's a place to contact us at our website, lightonthehillradio.com.

We've been blessed by the feedback we've received thus far regarding Pastor James's new book, *The Last Book*. If you haven't ordered a copy yet, we'd encourage you to do so. This guide to Revelation covers the first half of the book, giving you what you need to know about the Rapture and the end times in a clear and concise manner. Request your copy today at lightonthehillradio.com or through Amazon.

If God is leading you to support this radio outreach, there's also a place to make a donation at lightonthehillradio.com. Throughout the week, you can watch our live shows and short videos, many of which relate to Bible prophecy and help you to see current events with a biblical worldview. Look for these at jameskaddis.com. Now, let's return to Pastor James as he makes one more observation concerning Jairus.

James Kaddis: Understand this: God is the God of the impossible. God is a God that makes the impossible look easy because He is a God that rules the world that we cannot see. He is the God that created the world that we cannot see. And that is a very important aspect of what we go over as we start the rest of this chapter. Look at this verse 21. "And when Jesus was passed over again by ship to the other side, much people gathered unto Him and He was nigh unto the sea."

Jesus goes to the other side. Earlier, there was a massive storm. Everybody was freaking out. Jesus was pretty much asleep. He stands up and everybody loses their mind because when He stands up, Jesus literally rebukes the weather. He literally tells the weather to stop and the weather stops. Then they cruise on across the Galilee. They get to the area of Gad and they run across a guy who is demon-possessed that nobody can deal with. He has thousands of demons inside of him and the demons beg Jesus for mercy.

These guys are probably astonished at everything that they're looking at. All of this is now done. I would bet you that the boat ride back to the other side was probably a lot more comfortable than the boat ride initially. I bet getting on that boat now they're probably looking forward to something like that happening so they could watch Jesus do what He did again. There's not a lot of discomfort in the boat ride coming back.

There's a crowd of people that are waiting for Jesus. Look at verse 22. "And behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw Him, he fell at His feet, and he besought Him greatly saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray Thee, come and lay Thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live."

Now this is interesting. First of all, there are a couple of things you have to immediately grasp on to that are really critical. Yes, he has a daughter that is nearing death. She is a little girl that is in deep trouble. Jairus is a man of great influence. He is a leader in the synagogue.

If he's a leader in the synagogue, then he is greatly numbered amongst the people who have been fighting the Lord from the very beginning. If Jairus were to go to Jesus, fall at His feet, and beg Him for mercy for his daughter, he would be regarded by everybody in his neighborhood as a loser. He would not be respected. He would literally commit social suicide. That's exactly what would happen.

He would no longer be accepted, valued, or respected by any of the men around him because Jesus is public enemy number one to this group of people. But watch what happens. He goes to Jesus and he falls down at the feet of Jesus because there's something very spiritual going on.

Number one, he's a father that is deeply affected by the idea that his daughter is about to die. I know we have a lot of fathers in this room and you certainly understand the emotion that he must be going through because there isn't a single thing that most of us would not do for our children. If my child were at the point of death, there is no level of humility that would keep me from wanting to ask for my daughter's mercy.

I don't care what people think of me. If I know that I can solve the problem, I will walk in humility because I love her. I am driven by my love for my children to do those very things. This man was undoubtedly desperate.

Here is something else you have to keep in mind, and this is the bigger issue than all the other issues put together. In the place of his greatest desperation, he did not go to the traditional areas that a man of his influence would go to. He didn't go to the greatest of doctors or the people that could probably do something to alleviate the circumstance. He didn't go to the medicine man. He didn't seek out the community that a lot of people in his situation might.

He goes straight to the person that he knows from the depths of his heart can solve the problem. He doesn't care if it costs him everything to be able to do it. That's a man who, for the first time in his life, is paying attention to an ignored aspect of the world in which he lives, and that's the spiritual. He sees something that is far deeper than the life that he lives, the sociological infrastructure that he's developed, or anything else that surrounds him. The most important thing to him right now is to save the life of his daughter and he doesn't care how he does it.