Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Next on Light on the Hill, we look forward to the great tribulation and the coming of the Lord, and many won't be ready for it when it comes.

James Kaddis: All of these things that are coming are coming at a designated time, and when they happen, they will happen quickly. They're going to take a lot of people off guard. They will. The Bible says that the coming of the Lord will be as a thief in the night. In one Bible passage, it says the day of the Lord shall so come as a thief in the night. The idea behind the description of someone coming as a thief in the night is you didn't expect it. And because you didn't expect it, you weren't ready when it happened.

And when it happened, you were taken off guard, and there was nothing you could do about it.

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

Guest (Male): Today on Light on the Hill, we turn back to Mark chapter 13 where Jesus is prepping his disciples for what will happen in the end times. Fast forward to now where I think it's safe to say we're living in the last days. These are words we need to pay heed to. First, we'll hear about the final Antichrist who will be the epitome of a totalitarian ruler. Here's Pastor James Kaddis.

James Kaddis: Maybe you want to study how governments work. You want to study your own constitution. Maybe you want to get to know the law. One of the most fascinating discoveries I ever made when I went to law school was I recognized that virtually every government in existence that has ever existed can be found as a pattern in the Bible in one way or another. The Bible lists every type of government that you can think. Representative government, democratic government, it represents what oftentimes would be defined as communism. Believe it or not, communism is quickly and very easily identifiable in the book of Acts.

But the reason why government is all over the Bible and and people tend to be shocked they're like, wow, this is so shocking that government is all over the Bible. Like, James, that just sounds so out of whack. That sounds so wild. Well, the reason why that is not a wild assertion, the reason why that is a beautiful assertion, the reason why that assertion is dead on is because the very definition of the church is wrapped up in the statement that I'm making. When you look at the word for church, Greek word you know what it what it technically stands for?

It is an extension of the worldview of those who are the recipients of God's salvation into the public square. Literally, what it means, the all encapsulating definition of the term is the application of all that has been internalized from the regenerate status that we have as a result of giving ourselves to the Lord in being able to publicly disclose and interact and speak about these things. It is in essence Listen to this. This is very important. It is the application of our biblical worldview in the public square. That's the definition of the church. It's not a building.

It's not a pastor that that has rulership over a bunch of people. The definition of the church is in essence the application of all that has been internalized as a result of the regeneration that we've experienced into the public square and the ability that we have to do it not only collectively as a result of individual accountability, but even more so and perhaps more significantly, very, very, very much vertically. In other words, my relationship with God heavily determines how I view government. It heavily determines how I walk in the political arena. It heavily determines how I function and walk and talk in this place.

By the way, make no mistake about it. This is why the greatest political leaders that ever lived were ones that had the greatest anchors as it relates to their relationship with God. They were the ones that did the best with it. I think that's why Abe Lincoln did as well as he did, especially near the end of his presidency. You think about it, there is a derivative that always comes from somebody who recognizes the responsibility that they have to live their walk with God publicly. And that's exactly what it is. So when you look at these political infrastructures, you see it.

And by the way, it's once you see it, you can't unsee it. You You just can't. And by the way, the Bible warns us about totalitarian rule. You don't even have to get into the distinction between communism or socialism or or what a lot of people might call economic or cultural Marxism. They're both two completely different things. One is way worse than the other. Obviously, cultural is far worse than what we would call economic. But the reality of it is all of it is laid out for us in the scripture. And the big difference between Bible prophecy within the context of understanding governments and the the time in which we live is the where where Bible prophecy begins to speak about the involvement of totalitarian governments.

It speaks about the effect of a totalitarian government outside of the context of the presuming influence of the church. That's scary. Why? Because 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 says that the church filled with the spirit of God is the restraining force in this world. We are the people that restrain evil from coming into fruition. Imagine what happens when the rapture takes place. By the way, let me just explain something to you. When you start talking about totalitarian rule, understand how the Overton window gets pushed by totalitarian rulers. What do they do? They come on and every single time they come on, the overwhelming majority of totalitarian rulers who function in the spirit of Antichrist, meaning they replace Christ.

They literally take on the role of Christ so that the collective consciousness of Christ is gone. That's what they do. But this is what totalitarian rulers do. Totalitarian rulers will convince you that there is something necessary to up you to the next level, to get you something that you normally have not been able to get. It's all about that if you know what I mean. Like, let's just spark it up. We need a revelation. We need to fix this. Guys, do you understand that the reason why actually won in New York has absolutely nothing to do with his Islamic views?

You understand it has absolutely nothing to do with any of that. It has everything to do with the fact that he was able to use the same kind of tactic that any totalitarian ruler has used throughout the years who has been filled with the spirit of Antichrist. He has taken advantage of what he identifies as economic frustration within the culture of a subset of young people, specifically speaking to many of the group of people who can't seem to afford to be able to pay for their rent or can't afford to be able to buy a home or any of those things.

Ironically, it's the same culture of people that's told it's fully acceptable to finance pizza, right? It's that same subset. Okay? My My whole point behind what I'm trying to say is he appeals to that group of people and he says, I can give you something that you have been oppressed. You have been suppressed from being able to have. I can give it to you. Donald Trump's not going to give it to you. The Republicans aren't going to give it to you. There are even some Democrats that aren't going to give it to you, but I'm going to give it to you.

And I'm going to promise the whole world to you even though I have no ability to be able to deliver it. And then what I can't deliver it to you because I outright lied and I know that the promise I'm making is actually empty, what I'm going to tell you is I couldn't do it because I didn't have enough power. There were too many people on the other side opposing us. So we must all stand in a revolution together to take over everything. And once we do, then all will be well. You understand the effect of totalitarian rule in the last 200 years has cost the lives of close to 300 million people.

300 million. Do you know the pattern of totalitarian rule? Let me tell you how it typically works. It's not this way all the time, but typically you have a totalitarian ruler who without war Now, there are some that bring war to the table. Many of them that have. But without war will convince someone that they need to give up their rights to everything in the name of being able to obtain what is this utopian promise that's being made. They believe it. And once they gather as they begin to recognize after the formation of of mass psychosis they begin to recognize they're not getting what they wanted, then war has to be ensued.

That 's the next thing that they do. They bring war into play. It could be internal war, it could be external war. That's what they do. They bring that next. After that, the next thing that happens is economic collapse because economic collapse is the inevitability that exists when war is put out and totalitarian rulership is put out predicated upon war. And then what happens is what, of course, we know is inevitable and that is the destruction of human life. Now, this is interesting because you're looking at me and you might be saying, okay, James, well, that's great.

That sounds wonderful, but I don't see that in the biblical pattern. I don't know where you can even establish it in the Bible. Okay, how about we talk about what the Bible says is going to happen in the future? How about we talk about the fact that Jesus tells us to look for the abomination that causes desolate? We're going to learn about that. That's taught to us in Daniel chapter 9. What is the abomination that causes desolate? It's the Antichrist walking into the temple, demanding to be worshiped as God because he represents himself to be as God.

He is the ultimate totalitarian ruler. If you don't think you see a biblical pattern here, well, let me just run a few things by you. Okay? Number one, the Bible tells us that the Antichrist, the final Antichrist cannot even be revealed to the world until the church is raptured. That's 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 3. It's not talking about an apostasy. It's talking about a departing. And that departing is the church being raptured. He says that there's no way that the Antichrist can even be revealed to the world until the church is raptured. Now, think about this.

Once the church is raptured, then the typical pattern of government that we see associated by totalitarian rule is now put into play. And if you want to have a description of it, if you want something that is very, very powerful in your ability to be able to rearticulate to anybody, you can go no further than Revelation chapter 6 because when you go into Revelation chapter 6, you read about the riders of four horses. The first horse is the rider of the white horse. The rider of the white horse is described in Revelation chapter 6 as having a bow but no arrow.

What does that mean? By the way, he's not to be conflated with the rider of the white horse that we read about later on in Revelation, I believe it's chapter 19. The rider of the white horse in 19 is Christ. The rider of the white horse in chapter 6 is a totalitarian ruler. He is the final Antichrist. He has the bow in his hand with no arrow. What that means is this. He's going to bring people in under his rule without aggressive force. Interesting how that starts. Then the next rider, the rider of the red horse represents war.

That's what comes next. Oh, have we heard this pattern before? Totalitarian rule, then war. Now, here's an interesting one. Then when you get into Revelation chapter 6 and you start right at verse 6, rather it's verse 4, you read about the rider of the black horse. Now, the rider of the black horse represents economic failure. But there's an interesting phrase when you read about the rider of the black horse. The rider of the black horse in those two verses, it says this. Do not touch the oil and the wine. Don't disturb the oil and the wine.

What does that mean? It means that when economic collapse takes place there will always be a ruling class that will not be touchable. The George Soroses of the world, the Clintons of the world, the Gates of the world. Those are the characters that exist when the preserving influence is still on this earth. Imagine what those guys are going to look like in Revelation chapter 6. So you got the rider of the white horse. You've got the rider of the red horse. You've got the rider of the black horse. You have, you know, totalitarian rule. You have war that comes as a result of it.

You have economic failure. Then you've got the rider of the pale horse. That's the last one. And the rider of the pale horse brings death. Now, it's interesting. Remember how I mentioned it? I said over the last couple hundred years we've seen at least 300 million deaths of human beings as a result of totalitarian rule. We'll understand this, guys. Take that 300 million and turn it into 3 to 4 billion. Think about that for a second because what Revelation chapter 6 tells us is a quarter of the population will die as a result of the rider of the pale horse.

That is as a result of the government pattern that we see. And that's what happens when no Christians are on this earth to be the preserving influencers. Think about that for a second. Jesus is talking about a time that has not yet come, and one that we can thank God Absolutely thank God that we're not going to be here for. So he tells us that the sun, the moon will be darkened. He tells us about the stars from heaven from heaven falling down. And then look at this, verse 26. And then they shall see the son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.

That's going to be at the end of the tribulation. Christ is going to come at the end of the tribulation. A lot of people will say, well, this is the end of the thousand year reign. No, it's at the end of the tribulation. And that's when lots of very heavy things begin to happen. But he's going to come Notice this. With great power and glory. And then notice this. And then shall he verse 27 Then shall he send his angels and shall gather together his elect from the four winds from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.

By the way, when he talks about the elect, who is he talking about when he 's talking about the elect? Of course, we know who he's talking about. He's talking about his ancestrally chosen people, the Jews. Those are the people that he is going to gather up. Everybody says, well, that's the rapture right there. No, it isn't. Again, you you This is such a difficult thing for people to understand. And by the way, I should also note this because there are some people that will have not taken the mark, but they will be somehow And it's going to be a rare group, but they will have survived and they will be living in the millennial reign.

They will be living during that time. Guess what, guys? We won't be here for any of that. And what we will be here for will be seeing from a completely different perspective because we're going to return with Christ in a completely different way. It's not going to be the way that so many people tend to teach it because they don't understand the full and complete context. Folks, I want to say this because it's really important. All of these things that are coming are coming at a designated time, and when they happen, they will happen quickly.

They're going to take a lot of people off guard. They will. The Bible says that the coming of the Lord will be as a thief in the night. In one Bible passage, it says the day of the Lord shall so come as a thief in the night. The idea behind the description of someone coming as a thief in the night is you didn't expect it. And because you didn't expect it, you weren't ready when it happened. And when it happened, you were taken off guard and there was nothing you could do about it. I remember years and years and years ago when I was on staff at Calvary Downey when Pastor Jeff was pastoring the church.

We had a problem with somebody breaking into the church late at night and stealing money from the offering boxes. It was weird. It was almost as though they knew when we were going to leave money in there. They had to be familiar with the inside operations of our church. And this guy would come in and he would literally try to break in. And then he would successfully he would break into the boxes. He would take a bunch of checks, wash the checks out, steal an just an enormous amount of money. And it was bad and it was a pattern.

It was happening and it was happening again and again and again. So when they were in a pastor's meeting and one of the guys has this idea, and I thought it was the dumbest idea. I I literally thought it was like, come on, man, your idea can't get any dumber, right? And his idea is, let's turn off the lights in the sanctuary. Let's all as pastors camp out in the sanctuary and let's set up microphones all over the foyer. It's a dumb idea. I think it's a dumb idea. Well, turns out it was a great idea.

Right? I remember the night that we did it. We set up a bunch of these wireless microphones in the foyer so that we could hear everything. We blasted it through the sound system in the sanctuary. And we're sitting there playing card games and we're laughing and joking and, you know, eating snacks and having fun. And one guy's taking a nap and another guy's, you know, trying to clean something on the pew. And we're just all like just doing whatever. And no one who might walk into the foyer late at night would know that we're there because all the lights are off and we're very quiet.

We're trying to be discreet about it. And around midnight, maybe a little bit past that, I finished running my mouth about how dumb the idea was. That was the dumbest idea I ever heard. We're wasting this night. We don't even get paid for it. You know, and I'm I am complaining, just mad. Like, why do we even do this? You're ridiculous. And then all of a sudden, we hear this very faint. And we couldn't even hear it through the microphone initially. Initially, we just felt the vibration in the in the building. We just hear this faint from a distance.

That's what it sounded like. And the loudness is getting closer and closer. And pretty soon it's beginning to come through the microphone. And you can really hear it in the microphone now to the point we have to turn off the turn down the volume a little bit. And we realize what's happening is this guy is looking for an open door. He's pulling every handle, pulling every handle. We didn't notice it at the time, but he's jamming a screwdriver in there as he's pulling the handle, hoping that any of the doors that were not partially locked it'd be able to have a way in.

And so finally he gets to the point where he gets in. And he's in one of the main doors of the foyer, of the main sanctuary. You hear the door open. You hear the creek. You hear the steps of his shoes as he's walking towards the first offering box. You hear him beginning to fiddle with it. And all of a sudden, it's a foot chase. The foot chase is on. And all the guys, all the pastors come out. They're ready to confront him. By the way, it's interesting. I'm the youngest pastor in that group, but I don't run.

Okay? All the other guys are in their 40s and 50s and a couple of guys in their 60s. And they all felt for whatever reason called to run that day. And they start running after that guy. And pretty soon they get the ghetto bird up there and the police are there and they've set up a perimeter and we we didn't find him. We found out who it was later by the way. Actually, it was an usher at the church. It's kind of a sad story. No, I I don't think the guy was a believer, but very, very sad story.

But it's interesting because when the guy tried to break in, he was a thief. When he broke in as a thief in the night, none of us were surprised. Now, don't get me wrong. I was surprised cuz I thought the idea was dumb and I thought that we wouldn't be able to find the thief. But when the thief came, we were definitely ready. We like we knew. And the Bible says that the coming of the Lord when that happens, the day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night, meaning the people who will be the recipients of the judgment of God in those moments will not be expecting the second coming to happen.

Why? Because they're not students. They're not aware. They don't recognize. They don't know what the Bible says about the moment. And I think the God has called us to remember the fact that he has equipped us as such to know these things that we might be prepared for the time that's coming. Next week, he's going to talk about the fig tree. I've already kind of done the little spoiler for it. But he's going to say, look, look at the tree. Look at how it acts when it's in season. When it's in season, the figs come out.

Figs don't represent Israel, folks. It's a simple illustration from nature. He says, likewise, when you see all of these signs happen, when you see these things that I warned you about, Daniel 9, understand this will be the generation that will not pass until the coming of the Lord. Very important to recognize that. Look, Jesus is prepping his disciples for what is to happen in the end. And I think that if Jesus saw it fit to prepare his disciples for what would happen in the end, even though he knew they would die well before that time period would take place, how much more important is it for us to be able to study it, especially those of us who are living in these days?

How much more critical is it for us to understand? I'll tell you how. The more you dig deep into all of these things, the better rounded you become about the world in which you live. The more aware you become about the circumstances that you face, everything changes. Literally, everything changes. Nothing is the same. Why? Because you prepared yourself. You knew what was coming. And when it came, it did not come as a surprise to you. It didn't come as a shock. You knew what was happening. And you made yourself to be in a place of peace because you knew the one who holds your future.

There's no fear in it. There's nothing but peace because the Bible told us what to expect. And as we study each and every single one of these details, it begins to change everything as we understand it and everything as we know it. Amen.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us today for Light on the Hill. What you just heard is one part of a study in Mark's Gospel from Pastor James Kaddis. You can hear it again at lightonthehillradio.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Pastor James is back with us now. Today's passage in Mark encouraged us to be prepared for what's ahead. What would you say to a person who's thinking right now, I'll be raptured before all this occurs, so why should I be prepared for it?

James Kaddis: I would simply use the words of Jesus that he calls you actually wicked, and not that I'm wanting to call you wicked, but I'm just using the words of our Lord. Look, it's very simple. The person who buried the talent was referred to as a wicked person. And the context of the parable of the talents dealt with what Jesus just said in Matthew chapter 24. Remember in Matthew chapter 24, Jesus was talking about the things that would happen leaning into the time of the second coming. And then he said, the information that I've given you, you need to take.

And in essence, you need to multiply it. And so the parable of the talents, first and foremost, although it gives great insight into money issues and business issues, really did speak to that issue right there. So for those of us that recognize the eminency of the return of Christ for his church, knowing full well that we could get raptured any day, at any moment Christ could come for his church at any moment, that is our motivator, our primary motivator to live and walk in purity and to be excellent in literally everything that God has put in front of us.

That means we don't let things burn to hell because we think that a greater time is coming. It actually means that we get caught serving the Lord with all of our hearts, investing, building, creating, moving forward, and living as though we're going to be here for a thousand years, understanding we could be here for a thousand seconds.

Guest (Male): Be excellent in what is good. Be innocent of evil. Thanks, Pastor James. Not long ago, Pastor James released his new book on the first half of Revelation. It's entitled The Last Book. He points out that Revelation isn't a book of fear, but rather a book of hope. Pastor James will help you understand the world we live in and current events through a biblical lens, preparing your heart for what lies ahead. Get a copy by going to lightonthehillradio.com or through Amazon. We're so grateful for your support. Each donation that's sent in is an investment in what God is doing over the radio and internet.

Lives are being impacted daily for the glory of God as a result. If you'd like to stand with us through providing either a one-time donation or ongoing monthly support, please visit lightonthehillradio.com. While you're there, you can also send us an email. It would be great to hear from you and have you share the station you listen to as well. Just visit lightonthehillradio.com and then click on contact. Remember, you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.

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