Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Pastor James Kaddis encourages us to go to the word of God for more clarity with the decisions we face in life.

James Kaddis: If you're in a position right now in your life where you're having a significant struggle about whether or not you should take a step or whether or not you should do something or you're emotional about a condition or a matter that hasn't changed in a while, go to the word of God. The word of God will help you to see things a little bit more clearly. It will discern. It will help you shed a light on the issue that's going on. It will encourage you. It will awaken you. It will build you up. When I sit down with people for premarital counseling or marriage counseling or any kind of other counseling, it is my number one goal to bring them back to the word of God.

To bring them back to the word of God, the word of God will do what? The word of God will shine a light on their situation like they've never seen before.

Guest (Female): I have found the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you. Cuz all I need is you.

Guest (Male): Welcome to another week of Light on the Hill and our continuing series called In Spirit and in Truth. If you're a regular listener, you know we're all about teaching the word and for good reason. We'll discover what it can do for us through our time together in the word today. Hebrews 4:12 describes the Bible in practical terms and lays out some of its characteristics. By the end of our time together, your appreciation for the word will grow. Here's Pastor James Kaddis.

James Kaddis: How many of you have ever worked really hard at a profession or maybe you've had a a time in school where you're trying to get through something and you know that feeling that comes when you finally figure something out. You know what I'm talking about? It's like that feeling you get where you're like, wow, I never understood this before. I understand it now. It's a pretty good feeling, isn't it? It's a pretty great feeling. I want you to have that feeling every time you come to the word of God. I want you to be able to come to the word of God and say, man, this was powerful.

Wow, this changed me. Why? Cuz God's word is capable of doing that. Right? That's what he says. It's living. It's breathing. It's active. Notice what else he says. He says it's powerful. This word powerful is an interesting word. It literally means explosive. It means that it's capable of launching you off of any pad that you can imagine. That literally that when you experience the power of God's word, that the power of God's word is capable of driving or maneuvering anything you could possibly hope to drive or maneuver. That when you open up God's word, you know that God's word will dramatically and radically affect you and impact you.

That when you open God's word, it's not going to be just some minor moment where you go, oh, cool, that was fun. You know, but it'll be something that you'll look at and you'll be able to say, wow, my life was radically changed because of what I just heard. You know what? I cannot believe it, but this just unlocked the key to making something huge happen in my life. This is the book right here that can completely impact me and completely transform me and change me from one direction to the other. That's the kind of power it's talking about.

You know what other kind of power it's talking about? It's a kind of power that is necessary to make you alive when you're dead on the inside. It's the kind of power that will actually encourage you when you're discouraged. It's the kind of power that will put a smile on your face when you have a brutal sad face. It's the kind of power that will give you physical energy to do the work of God when you have no physical energy to do the work of God. It's the kind of power that will supernaturally inspire you to move and to walk in different ways and in different places, in circumstances and in times that are so remarkably difficult, you have no ability to be able to navigate through them.

The kind of power that this is talking about is a kind of power that says, I will my life will be dramatically and radically changed because of the experience I've had reading and learning from the word of God. By the way, in case you don't know it, the word of God has all of that. It's capable of completely impacting you in ways that you never thought possible. That when you walk away from your experience with the word of God, that it could dynamically transform you in such a a massive way that when you look back on it and recognize how much of a of a work God has done, you'll you'll be able to say, to God be the glory, great things he has done.

It is the word of God that is capable of changing your mind and your heart about the things that you see from a day-to-day basis. It's the word of God that will inspire you and motivate you and move you to think in a completely different direction than the direction that you're thinking in right now. It's the power of the word of God that will take somebody who's looked at one thing their whole life and cause them to think completely differently. That's what the word of God does. It's powerful that way and it transforms us. It's it's it's something that is so unique, something that is so significant, something that is so powerful.

It's capable of taking anything that's dead and bringing it back to life. If you're discouraged right now, if you're depressed, if your heart broken, if you're feeling like there is no way out, maybe someone's passed away recently and you're mourning the loss of that person, you know the word of God is capable of bringing you peace in every single one of those situations. The word of God is capable of restoring your heart to a place that is better than the place it was in beforehand. That's what the word of God can do. So it's worded as powerful and then it says it's sharper than any two-edged sword.

Let me just explain what what the two-edged sword was. A two-edged sword back then was exactly what it implies. It was a sword that had two edges on there, both very sharp, so sharp literally that this sword if it was swung hard enough could literally dismember any body part. Okay, you're talking about a tool that was very very effective in the hands of the Romans and the Jews alike at this time. At the time that he's actually talking about this, this was a tool that was not just used as a killing tool, right? This wasn't just a defense tool or an offense tool as some people might say, but it was a tool that you would never see with somebody without if they went outside the city walls.

You see, if they went outside the city walls, they needed to defend themselves from wild animals. They needed to use it to cut through vegetation. It was a very very practical tool and it was very very capable of doing a whole lot that was necessary to sustain the lives of the person who actually owned it. And so when he uses the idea of of the word of God being as a two-edged sword, he's basically saying that no matter what way you swing with that sword, it'll cut, right? If you go one way, it's going to cut.

You go the other way, it's going to cut. You go one way, it's going to kill. If you go the other way, it going to kill. That's exactly what it does. So what does he say that this two-edged sword does? Cuz it not just alone to say that the word of God is a two-edged sword, he's going to actually describe what these two edges actually do. He says this, it pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. So in other words, it literally is capable of puncturing the man who is hard-hearted, that does not understand the context of God's will in their life because of the status of their emotions.

Let me explain this or or let me just ask you this question. How many of you guys in this room have been affected by your emotions? How many of you would say that your emotions have affected your decision-making ability? Quick show of hands? Yes? Quick show of hands? Okay, that's great. That's most of you. For those of you that aren't raising your hand, you either don't pay attention, you don't care, or you're lying. It's one of the other ones, right? But it's one of those things, right? Because every single one of us have had our major decision-making ability affected dramatically by our emotional state of being, right?

It's it's the truth. Why do you think the police academy is so valuable to a young police officer before they become a police officer or a military boot camp is so important to a soldier before they go into active duty? The the major reason why that type of training is important is because it teaches you to ignore the emotional state that you are in based on what you've seen so that you can react without that and not allow your fears to move you into a place that you don't want it to move you in, right?

Because when you are overwhelmed with fear, it completely changes the way you behave. There's two types of typically two types of reactions when somebody is attacked and fear overcomes them. It's the one where they just run away and if you did that as a police officer, you would probably die. That would probably be the the moment you died, right? And then the other reaction is you fight. But when you fight, you fight in a crazy way and you can see this happening. You can see someone, you know, they get punched in the face and then all of a sudden they just freak out and in their fear, they punch the person back and they won't stop punching the person until the person's dead.

You've seen that kind of thing happen, right? Emotions can very much affect you. How about this? How many people have made I'm not going to ask for a show of hands here because I don't want to embarrass anybody, but how many people have made a really bad financial decision based on fear? I'm really scared that I'm going to lose my business, so maybe I should do this. Or I'm really scared that I'm going to lose my house, so maybe I should do that. Or I'm really scared that this is going to happen, so I should do that.

Fear can absolutely motivate and manipulate us. And that's not the only emotion that can motivate and manipulate us. Look at Hollywood. Hollywood does it really really well, right? They make these movies and they get you all emotional and in kind of invested in the movie and to make you happy or sad or whatever and you buy into it. We all buy into it when we watch it, right? We all buy into it when we watch it. I got into an argument years ago with the person about the movie Titanic. I mean, how many of you guys remember the movie Titanic, right?

First of all, it was a good movie for me because I fell asleep the whole time. It was a 4-hour movie. I got great sleep. I never really watched it, right? But here's the thing. People any and Christians especially, I ask them, I go, what do you think of the movie? They go, oh, it was so great. I was so heartbroken. It was sad and it just broke my heart or whatever. Okay, that great. That you're looking at that and you're reacting to that movie through what? Through the lens of your emotions. See, Hollywood has taught you to look at that.

You see it emotionally. It the lens of your emotions. You go, oh, how beautiful. It was so sad. What a wonderful love story. Whatever, right? You look at it through the lens of God's word and you say, yeah, it's not sad. It's tragic. It's a horrible movie. You're sitting there watching for 4 hours a lot of people who are about to lose their lives and go to hell and you see the movie featuring and glorifying two people committing fornication. That's what you're doing and that's the you're looking at it through the lens of God's word or through the lens of your emotions.

Your emotions are going to go, oh, how lovely. Oh, this is wonderful. Oh, this is great. God's word says, no. There's nothing lovely. There's nothing great about it. We've been having this problem lately in the city. Those of you that live in the city and many of you, you'll know with these coyotes showing up in the evening. Some of you have been seeing them, you know, and you know, when I go walk the dog in the evening, I believe it or not, oftentimes I'll carry a taser because you I mean literally this is no joke, 20 ft from me, probably 20 30 ft.

Tuesday night I'm coming home. There's a coyote just goes right in front of me, you know, and a few others following him. They're dangerous. They're very very dangerous. Now, there are some people that would look at that dog or look at that animal and go, oh, how cute. And they run over there. They'll try to embrace it and it will be the last time they ever tried to embrace anything, right? Because they're very very dangerous animals. The emotions lead them to destruction, but understanding the facts would save them, right? And they do. They kind of look these they're like baby coyotes running around right now.

They kind of look cute. The problem is you go to pick one of those things up, Daddy's coming for you. And so is Mommy and you're done, right? So the word of God enables us to be able to see clearly through the emotions. It is a discerner of those things for us. He's going to get to that at the end of this verse, but it divides asunder the soul and the spirit. In other words, it helps us to be able to determine what the flesh wants to do and what the spirit wants to do. That when the flesh desires to do one thing, the word of God will encourage us to do what the spirit wants.

And the word of God will teach us, this is not the right direction. We don't do these things for this reason. You may have not had enough life experience to know what will happen, but you do it because God knows and he tells us and we should listen because if we don't listen, we're going to have problems. That's what the word of God does. Folks, let me explain something to you. If you're in a position right now in your life where you're having a significant struggle about whether or not you should take a step or whether or not you should do something or you're emotional about a condition or a matter that hasn't changed in a while, go to the word of God.

The word of God will help you to see things a little bit more clearly. It will discern. It will help you shed a light on the issue that 's going on. It will encourage you. It will awaken you. It will build you up. When I sit down with people for premarital counseling or marriage counseling or any kind of other counseling, it is my number one goal to bring them back to the word of God. You bring them back to the word of God. The word of God will do what? The word of God will shine a light on their situation like they've never seen before.

And it will transform them and if you will make it a habit to go to the word of God every day, you will find more and more and more and more clarity. Every single day you'll find more and more and more clarity. That's exactly how the word of God works. That's what the scriptures teach us. And notice this, it's end of the joints and the marrow. Now, by the way, why does he mention at the joints and the marrow? Because when you're talking about the marrow from the joints, you're talking about a very intricate operation.

If you want to separate the joint from the marrow, you look at this in a in a medically from a medical perspective, you're talking about two different types of intricacies, two different types of disciplines, two different types of ideas. You know, there are doctors right now that are doing what are called robotic operations. You know what I'm talking about? They have these robots that are very intricate, right? They have this ability to get in and to deal with tiny little things and the doctor puts on these gloves in another room and he's looking through the window.

The patient's laying down and then the they do everything. They cut the patient open. They go in there. They pull. They do this. They do that. And these robotics are insanely cool because they're very very capable, very very sharp objects, very very sharp knives, very very intricate little clamps and everything things like that. And it's amazing what these robots can do, right? They're very intricate and the Bible says that the word of God is like that. It's that sword that can deal with the intricacies of the internal mechanisms of your heart and your mind, even of your body, that in the times where man things seem so gray, they just seem so blah and you really don't know the difference, God's word takes it all out.

He takes the gray out of everything. He literally gives you direct and perfect and exact insight in the situation that you're facing. That's why I always hate the statement where everybody says, well, God's a great God. Well, no, he's not a great God. He's not a great God. The reason why he's not a great God is because his word is not gray and when he speaks to us, he speaks to us specifically. So what he might be instructing you based on his word might be something slightly different than what he's instructing somebody else, but we all are following the same commander, the same leader, and the same instruction set.

So there is no gray in the word of God. God's word is clear. It's articulate. It allows us to be able to do all of these work through all of these intricate mechanisms that exist within us. By the way, I think it's a safe statement to say that we are complicated people, aren't we? Human beings are very complicated, are we not? We are. There's a lot of complication in us. God's word has a way of seeping through all of that and dealing with it to where you just don't ever have to worry. You don't ever have to be concerned about any of those things because the word of God has a way of just dealing with it.

The word of God has a way of just radically just uncomplicating everything that literally it deals with every little aspect of everything that's being held. That's why, you know, people tell me this and my response makes them angry sometimes. They say, James, I really need some time with you. I really need some counsel. I really need some good counsel. And I always tell them this. I say the best counsel you're ever going to get from me is you sitting in the teaching of God's word. And people don't get that until they actually start doing it and taking it seriously because through the teaching of God's word, the teaching of God's word will deal with the intricacies of my heart, right?

That message might convict someone on one matter while the same message will convict somebody else on another matter. Why? Because it's doing that fine surgery. It's separating the joints from the marrow. That's what the word of God does. It's capable of doing all of that. Look at the last statement that he makes concerning the word of God. It's a discerner of what? The thoughts and intents of the heart. In other words, it is capable of seeing through all of the hogwash that we create. It's capable of looking through all of that nonsense. It capable of fixing and addressing every single aspect.

It is not ignorant of any of those things. It literally gives you the ability, you personally, the ability to be able to see things that you for God to see things in you that you can't even see within yourself. It literally gives you the functional discernment that you never had concerning every situation that's going on in your life. When you find times of confusion, when you find times of difficulty, when you find times of hardship and you just don't know you can't see the answer, spend time in the word of God. You spend time in the word of God, it will completely clarify everything.

It will make what is black and white look very very clear. It will all of a sudden completely change the perspective that you have on virtually everything. That's what the word of God does. Now, let me make this last statement about the word of God because now that we've been educated about it, let me make this statement. If you do not make it a part of your life every day, I can promise you this, you're dead in the water. Let me say that again. If you do not make it a part of your life every day, okay, you're done.

You got killed before you launched. You must make it a part of your regimen every single day. Now, there's lots of creative ways of doing it, but you just have to do it. It's the bottom line. You know, anybody who's been to law school will tell you that for the most part your first class is typically contracts. I remember that was my first class and actually do contracts, torts, and criminal. All those are the three classes you typically take your first year of law school. Any first year student will do that. The first thing they tell you before you take any of these classes, actually my contracts professor was the one that had the deed of doing it with us.

He gave us a stack, I don't know, 2018 2019 pages filled with definitions, hundreds of definitions. He throws them on the table. I'm seeing it on video because I'm I'm doing this online. He throws it on the table and he says, if you don't memorize these right now, you're done. Don't even bother taking my class. Don't bother taking any other class because you will fail. And I thought, oh, well, that's kind of an arrogant statement. That's kind of what I thought, you know, until I actually started getting into it and I realized, oh yeah, I need to memorize this stuff.

And you know, the funny thing is is those things that he said we need to memorize were the building blocks that everything else built on. Without my knowledge of that, without me constantly going back to that, I couldn't do anything else. And here's the point. The point is this. The word of God is that way. If you do not do it every single day, if you are not in it every single day, you're going to fail. You will never make it. You will never make it. Why? Because you need the word of God to provide for you all of the things that it can provide for you because it will not only help you to survive, you'll thrive.

And as Paul says, you'll become more than a conqueror. You will have victory. Now, what are some of the practical ways you can get the word of God in? Well, really simple. You read, right? Now, here's the thing. Some people will say, James, it's just too hard. I don't get it. Now, assuming that you have a reasonable translation, okay? Because if you're telling me it's too hard to read the Bible and you don't understand it and it's difficult and you're reading through a King James, there's your answer, okay? Don't read through a King James. Read something like a new King James or read something that's a more modern translation.

The HCSB is pretty good. There's a couple of really good modern translations out there where the translators did a good job and they're speaking in more common English. Well, of course, that's what you want to do, right? If you're reading a Spanish Bible, I think it was it's the Reina Valera, that's the the complicated one. You know, whichever one you're reading, make sure you read something that's in more tangible terms. Read something that's easy to understand. If I'm not telling you to read a comic Bible, okay, but you know, which they do have and they're good for kids, but the point is is read something where you can actually understand the language.

Now, if you're reading something where you can understand the language and you're still frustrated with it, you still feel like it's doing you no good or you don't like doing it, well, here's the illustration that I would give you. When I weighed almost 700 lbs, when I started working on losing the weight, one of the things that they told me is they said you needed to exercise as much as you can and I hated every minute of it. When I first started to do it, it was 5 minutes at the gym and I hated those 5 minutes.

I literally the day before I had to go to the gym on that night when I slept the night before I had to go to the gym, I would literally not be able to sleep. I had sweats freaking out about going in the next day because of how hard it was, how painful it was, how difficult it was, how much I hated it. Well, when I started losing weight and I started getting healthier, not only did I start enjoying it, but I got to the point where I can't feel normal unless I do some kind of physical activity.

Even if it's a day where I'm sitting all day and I'm doing nothing, I have to stand around and walk around for a little while. There's no way around it. Even on the days where my nerve disease has the best of me and I have absolutely no balance, I've got to hold on to something and walk. The reason why is because now I'm healthy. And so if you're in a place right now where you're reading the Bible and you're like, oh man, this is frustrating and I don't like this and oh then okay, chances are you're probably still very sick.

And so if you start reading it, no matter what you start getting into it, I guarantee you you're going to start loving it because you're going to get healthy. The word of God's going to make you healthy. As you get healthy, you're going to enjoy it. Now, you don't even have to read it. You know, there's very interesting ways of being able to to take the Bible in. You know, there's lots of people that can read the Bible for you, right? If you go on our app, the Calvary Chapel Signal Hill app, our app actually can read the Bible to you.

There's lots of other apps that you can download that do it. You know, actually on my computer I actually have James Earl Jones reading the Bible. It's really cool. It's like Darth Vader reading Genesis 1:1. It's great. I love it. There's lots of creative ways to get the word of God inside of you, right? That's another one. You can go on our app and a thousands of Bible studies you can download and you can listen to on a regular basis. There's lots of ways of being able to get God's word inside of you and the more you invest in God's word, the more it will begin to radically transform your life.

But whatever it takes, you got to get it inside of you every single day. You got to make it a part of your life. If you're not making it a part of your life, folks, that's the thing that's missing, right? I bring this up now because if this part of the foundation is not established, everything else that we talk about in the future goes by the wayside. Everything. And everything that we've talked about in the past, it goes by the wayside. This book right here is living. It's dynamic. It's breathing. It is designed to get inside of you and to radically change you and to make you a new person.

Make a commitment and you'll watch God radically transform your life. Amen.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us today for Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. We'll get back to the study in just a few moments. To listen again, go to lightonthehillradio.com or listen to us at oneplace.com or wherever you get your podcasts. The Light on the Hill app is another great way to access these teachings. It's free and can be downloaded today providing access to our present series called In Spirit and in Truth. On the subject of resources, we encourage you to visit jameskaddis.com. There you'll find a weekly devotional from Pastor James, live streams, and videos dealing with current events and End Times Bible prophecy.

Enjoy these resources and more at jameskaddis.com. We love to hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives. Send us an email today. Our email address is radio@calvarychapelsignalhill.com. That's radio@calvarychapelsignalhill.com. As we continue to share God's word on stations across the nation, perhaps you'd like to support us. This would be a great time to do so. You can make a secure donation anytime online at lightonthehillradio.com. Pastor James, today you pointed out how important it is to have daily time in the word. I think we've all experienced it. We sit down to read the Bible and we get distracted.

We start thinking about other things or maybe even fall asleep. Do you think some of that is just spiritual warfare?

James Kaddis: Now, I know the little laugh that you have in asking me that question centers around my sleepiness sometimes, but I will tell you uh look, reading the Bible is a spiritual activity and one of the things that people have to understand is that when you engage in spiritual activity, you will be distracted. There will be things that will try to seek to take your mind and heart away from what it is that you're reading. And so one of the things that you have to do is recognize what it is, go in there with a prepared mindset, ask God to give you the strength to be able to endure through the time that you're going to spend and actually look for the benefit that you know is going to come from dedicating yourself to it.

The other thing is put yourself in an environment that optimally sets you away from anything that would distract you. You don't want to sit down and read the Bible in the midst of things playing in the background and so on and so forth. You want to be able to get yourself to a point where you are not going to allow yourself to be distracted and that takes some preparation.

Guest (Male): Thanks, Pastor James. Tomorrow on Light on the Hill, Pastor James will be talking about prayer and personal devotions and we'll spend some time in Daniel chapter nine. It's all part of our series In Spirit and in Truth. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.

Guest (Female): I have found the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you. Cuz all I need is you.