Light on the Hill

James Kaddis: We have a lot to look forward to. There is nothing that you can conceive, not a single thing that you can conceive right now that would be even remotely better than the worst thing in heaven. Nothing. God is so good. He has so much waiting for us, guys. We are going to live in perfection in a place that we belong forever.

Forever. It's a pretty incredible thing. It's a pretty astounding thought to have, that the place we settle in forever will be the place that we belong. Never to be ripped away, never to be in a position where we can't experience all that God has for us, never to be threatened or ripped off, never to worry about locking up our doors. We have it all waiting for us, and all we have to do is say, "Christ, I accept your gift."

Jane: You may have visited some pretty great places over the years—Maui, the Great Barrier Reef, the Amalfi Coast, or Iceland's Golden Circle—but nothing compares to the beauty and perfection we'll hear about today on Light on the Hill, which will descend out of heaven from God. Receive a tour of your heavenly home as you join us in Revelation chapter 21. It's enough to take your breath away. Here's Pastor James Kaddis with all the details.

James Kaddis: I love the fact that this city is referred to as the bride and the Lamb's wife because it means that God is saying, "I have a place that I'm building that you will fit in. I have a place that I'm building that is literally named after you." We're going to find out how much it's named after us in just a second.

And by the way, it's interesting, earlier Revelation tells us that we will be named after the city. One of the names that we will have upon us will be the name of this holy city. Pretty heavy. Look at what it goes on to say here, continuing in verse 10. It says, "And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God."

By the way, those two other names that we see here, these are the other two names. Remember I said there were four names? The first of the names that we talked about was the bride and the Lamb's wife. Those were the first two names, and then the third of that name is the great city, and the fourth name is the holy Jerusalem. By the way, if you were in Israel right now and you were to say the word Jerusalem—which by the way would not sound that way in Hebrew.

By the way, when you speak Hebrew, you use different letters, and there are letters that exist in the English language that don't exist in the Hebrew language. For example, the "j" sound doesn't exist in the Hebrew language. And there's lots of letters like this. For example, if I were to say the word Jerusalem right now, for most people that word would not be familiar to them if they heard it in Hebrew.

We have lots of words like this. For example, if I were to say Jerusalem, it's Yerushalayim. It's not Jerusalem. You would hear that and you wouldn't understand. You wouldn't be able to identify somebody saying that in the Hebrew language. Same thing is going to exist and, very importantly and quite openly, with other words. This happens a lot. This is a language thing, but imagine hearing the word Jerusalem being spoken to you.

Yerushalayim being spoken to you and you're a Jew. It would bring all kinds of emotion to you. Why? Because Yerushalayim is the core of their life. It's the core of their existence. It's everything that centers around all that is beautiful to them. It is literally the very heart of Israel. So imagine the idea that one of the names is called the holy Jerusalem, meaning the Jerusalem that is set aside solely for the purpose of God.

Without any blemish, without any failure, without any falter, without any bombers or suicide murders, homicide bombers, without terrorists. It's a city that stands in total and complete perfection. That's a really cool name to have, by the way. This is a beautiful city, you guys. It's a beautiful, beautiful city. And look at this. It says that it descends out of heaven from God. That's how we know this city already exists. It's descending out of heaven from God, meaning it's going to come down.

Now look what it says about this. It says, "Having the glory of God, and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." It's a very valuable stone, by the way. But imagine having some semblance of that color, but it being as clear as crystal. I don't know what that looks like. I don't think you can find anything like that. There's nothing describable in this world that shows us that.

John is using terminology of something that he recognizes to describe it. Imagine it being like that with that kind of tint of color in a crystal clear. That's where we get the term crystal clear from, crystal. It's as clear as crystal and it is, in essence, the structure of the city. Just keep that in your mind because it's really cool. Keep that in your mind, okay?

Let's move to the next verse. This is just super cool. Verse 12: "And had a wall great and high and had 12 gates, and at the gates 12 angels, which names were written thereon, which are the names of the 12 tribes of the children of Israel." I have never understood, nor will I ever understand, the mindset of Christians who are anti-Semitic.

If I meet somebody who isn't a believer and they're anti-Semitic, I'm not shocked one bit because they're of their father, the devil, and the devil inspires the hatred of Jews because the Jews are God's ancestrally chosen people. And I think the devil inspires the hatred of Christians. We see that we're going to see an increase of this based on what we read in the book of Zechariah. We know that the hatred of Jews and the hatred of Christians is going to grow in the last days, and boy, we are watching it grow, aren't we?

But it doesn't make sense for Christians to hate Jews because Christians owe Jews everything. Do you understand, guys, that if it were not for the Jews, we would not have the Bible that we have? If it were not for the Jews, we would not have the Jesus that we have? If it were not for the Jews, we would not have the salvation that we have? Do you understand that our heritage comes directly from the Jews? That we would not have a heritage as Christians if it were not for the Jews?

Yet the Jews' heritage doesn't come from the Gentiles. Do you understand that? It comes straight from God, but we were grafted in. How much more should we be thankful? And here's the reason why I say this: you better get used to loving the Jews because they are going to be a massive part of this city that we live in. As a matter of fact, the gatekeepers at these gates are going to be named after each and every single one of the tribes of Israel.

That should say something pretty substantial. It should mean something. By the way, God is going to deal with the Jews during the tribulation period and they're going to come to know the Lord. Some radical work is going to happen. They're going to be the evangelists of the world during that time. Salvation came through the Jews in the very beginning, and at the end, it's going to come through the Jews. Think about that parallel for a second. Funny how God works that way. We should love them for that. We should respect them for that. We should be blessed by that.

I was thinking about this a while ago. My mother, before she went to go be with the Lord, she was so proud of me when I started serving the Lord in the ministry. Every single time we grew as a church, it was a proud moment for her. I remember when we moved into this sanctuary, and she used to tell me this all the time, she says, "You're going to outgrow the sanctuary." I said, "No way, Mama. No way. We're never going to..." "Yeah, we need to. We're in bad shape."

We really need to go to a bigger sanctuary; otherwise, we're going to have to go to five services. Но she sat, my mom would plant herself on that chair right there, the very back wall, and she would sit there for service. She sat during every single service, morning and evening. After church was over, there was never a line for people to come talk to me. The line was for people to go talk to her. Unless my mom was absent and I was here speaking, then they'd come and line up with me and talk to me. My mom was respected that way.

Now, don't get me wrong. My mom was respected because of who she was. My mom was an extraordinary woman. My mom went to seminary and medical school to learn how to be a midwife and a nurse before I was even born and was a missionary in Yemen years and years before I was born. So she was a woman that understood God and the power of God, and she served God with her whole heart. She was an amazing lady.

Initially, people respected my mom because of the fact that without her they wouldn't have a pastor, right? Think about the respect that they owed her. They owed my mom that respect. That's why people respect my wife. They respect her because of who she is in and of herself. That's why they respect my sister. They respect her because of who she is in and of herself. But they also recognize that these ladies, before I was married, Jade had that supportive role in my life. Still does, in many ways. She still supports our family.

But my wife, if it wasn't for my wife, I could not do what we do in the church today. I couldn't. So people respect them as a result. This is why, by the way, I constantly am telling people to stop disrespecting Mary, the mother of Jesus. Okay? Look, I understand that you think you're making a point that you disagree with the Catholic Church by disrespecting Mary. But how about you actually disagree with the theology and have respect for the mother that God pointed out?

From all of humanity, God picked her to be the mother of Christ. Maybe we should give her a little bit of respect, right? Same thing here. Shouldn't we respect the Jews because of what they've given us? Look, I was embedded with this. My grandfather, who was a pastor in Egypt for 65 years, his wife, my grandmother, did not allow my dad or my uncles or aunts to listen during the '73 war or in the '60s. She didn't allow them to listen to Egyptian radio. She said they were lying. It was fake news.

She made them listen to Israeli radio. Why? Because she wanted to protect the heritage of her family. She knew that one day they would be abiding in heaven together where the gates are labeled with the names of the 12 tribes of Israel. Okay, look what it goes on to say because this is really cool. "On the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates." By the way, we're talking about a cube here as we're going to find out. This city is a cube and we'll get into the measurements in a minute.

"And the wall of the city," notice this, "had 12 foundations, and in them the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb." Wait, wait, wait, hold on. The names on the gates were the 12 tribes of Israel and the names on the foundations of the wall are the apostles. So that means the church is also named in this city. Think about how spectacular that is. We're going to experience eternity together, experiencing and having the heritage of God—the heritage that He gave to the Jews first, then to the Gentiles. How awesome is that going to be?

How incredible can you imagine? And guess what? You'll all fit in. You get that? Every single one of you are going to fit in. I love it. I love the promise that's waiting for us here. Look what it goes on to say: "And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof." I would have loved to have seen this golden reed. This is a measuring rod, basically. I would have loved to have seen what that looked like because it had to have been a massive measuring rod. Can you imagine, right? It's a big old reed.

So it's a golden measuring rod. Look at this in verse 16. It says, "And the city lieth foursquare." So this is how we know it's a cube, right? "And the length is as large as the breadth, and he measured the city with a reed, 12,000 furlongs. The length and the breadth of the height of it are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, and 144 cubits according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel."

Okay, it's interesting. I want to point something out. I want to point out the mistake that virtually all commentators make here, and I got sick reading these. By the way, just so you know, when I study the Bible for a Bible study, I never go to the commentaries first. I always finish my study, and then after my study is finished, then I'll read a few commentaries for entertainment, right? It's kind of like my way of unwinding. Almost every commentary that I read in this section say that these measurements are metaphorical because they're impossible to achieve.

Here's the reason why they're dead wrong. Here's the reason why they're out of their minds. First of all, God is literal, number one. Number two, if God can create the earth in six days, He can produce a city this big. Here's the other reason why they're wrong. It's a big reason because the Bible tells us they're wrong. Verse 17, look what it says: "And he measured the wall thereof, 144 cubits according to"—what?—"according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel."

In other words, the angel is giving us measurements that mankind have established. This isn't metaphorical in any way. This is very specific. God said, "These are the measurements using your terms, your terminology." There's no way this is metaphorical. Funny how that works. Think about this for a second. If I were to be in the middle of NASA and somehow were able to address every single person that was involved in the Apollo project—if I was talking to the people in mission control, if I was in Houston, if I was talking to people in Florida, if I went everywhere and talked to every member during the time that we went to the moon.

Around the time of Apollo 9 or even Apollo 11 for that matter, and I said, "If you take all of the computing power that is available to you in all of NASA and your subcontractors and everybody else and you put it together, it is not even a fraction of the computing power that sits in this watch," they'd laugh at me. They'd go, "That's ridiculous. That's impossible. For just one of our computers, we have to have a room the size of this sanctuary. How in the world does it work?"

Well, you say it's impossible because you can't conceive it and you can't perceive it and you don't understand it. Yet today, we know it's very possible. Yet today, we understand it because times have gone. Just because you can't understand something doesn't mean it's not possible. It is very possible. Why? Because God said it and that's all that has to happen. Look, I even remember when I was a kid people saying that what we are talking about when we talked about the Antichrist was a myth because how on the world are you going to be able to buy or sell without cash?

How in the world is that going to work? You remember? Even when they had the checks, they said, "The check is kind of like a cash. You're just writing it in. It's like a fill." And then as credit cards came out, and it was like, "Oh-oh, wait, hold on," you know? And now you don't have to have a credit card anymore. Now it measures your biometrics, your eyes. It's crazy how it works. It's really, really crazy.

Still to this day, when I go through the drive-thru, I want to buy something at the drive-thru, give me my cup of coffee, and they look at me like I'm a psychopath because they hand me my coffee and then they say, "Okay, that'll be three dollars" or whatever. And I'll go, "Here." "What are you doing? Your hand is empty. I three dollars, please." "Oh, scan my watch, please," you know? And they bring out their credit card scanner. "Oh wow, it works," you know? They don't get it. You go to the gas station and you put your watch right on the scanner.

It's like that's how much things have changed. Just because you don't understand it or just because it's not fathomable to you doesn't mean that it won't exist. And let's talk about the measurements of this city so you get an idea of how big this city is. First of all, let me just say this: if you were to take the continental United States and you were to start at the West Coast, from the top of the West Coast to the bottom of the West Coast, and you were to pull it out and you take yourself to around the middle of the United States—maybe take it a little further out—the city fits in that area.

That's how big the city is. This cube, this big old cube, that's how big the city is. And people would be like, "No way, that's so large. So large." Let's go over the specs on this. By the way, of all the commentaries, Charles Ryrie did this. First service, I had to print it out in a hurry and it came out micro-sized. It wasn't supposed to and I didn't correct it second or third service, so I'm just going to take my glasses off and read this to you.

But I like how he puts this. Charles Ryrie says this: "Shaped foursquare like a cube, the city is 1,380 miles." By the way, for those of you that are on the other side of the pond, that's 2,220 kilometers. "So 1,380 miles on each face, including height with a wall"—ready for this?—"72 yards, which is in essence 66 meters thick." You understand that with the thickness of this wall, you could land a 747 on it. It's going to take a good pilot or a really good autopilot, but you could do it.

There are runways that are being used—the runways in Long Beach are not nearly as wide as what we're looking at in this Bible passage. It's a big, big wall. It's a massive wall made of the material that we just talked about. Can you imagine what that's going to look like? 1,380 miles on each side. For those of you that are wondering about how many people it could fit—and by the way, these are verifiable. I verified these numbers. As a matter of fact, I think that these numbers are conservative compared to what it really could be.

But look at what Ryrie goes on to say. He says, "It has been calculated that even if only 25% of the space were used for dwellings, 20 billion people could be accommodated spaciously." Spaciously! If 25% of this city was used for dwellings alone, it would accommodate 20 billion people spaciously. That's why you don't trust these fools that are part of the World Economic Forum that tell you we have a population control problem. What a lie. What a complete lie. What a total lie. It's just ridiculous.

You know, there is a whole group of people that basically believe that there are many countries, especially the ones who have adopted abortion, that actually are in danger of becoming an endangered species basically—that there are going to be whole populations that die off if they continue to do this nonsense. Do you understand that? Kids are such a blessing from the Lord, you guys, right? Have big families. Believe me, have big families.

You understand the reason why Muslims all over the world are beginning to take over in many ways is because they're having tons and tons and tons of children and they're raising them up bismillah, in the name of their false god, Allah? And look at what's happening. Look at what's happening. It's crazy. Boy, do we need to go back to living this way, to living for the Lord. Now here's the thing. We have a lot to look forward to.

Do you understand that? There is nothing that you can conceive, not a single thing that you can conceive right now that would be even remotely better than the worst thing in heaven. Nothing. God is so good. He has so much waiting for us, guys. We are going to live in perfection in a place that we belong forever. Forever. It's a pretty incredible thing. It's a pretty astounding thought to have, that the place we settle in forever will be the place that we belong.

Never to be ripped away, never to be in a position where we can't experience all that God has for us, never to be threatened or ripped off, never to worry about locking up our doors. We have it all waiting for us, and all we have to do is say, "Christ, I accept your gift." Incredible. How incredible is that? Guys, you have a lot to look forward to. In the world in which we live, with the news that we're hearing, can it be an inspiration to you to do two things?

Number one, take really good care of the place that you're in temporarily, okay? Because yes, we know it's going to go, but God expects you to be a good steward. So fight like you've never fought before for the things of righteousness. And the other thing that I would tell you to do is use what you know you have on this earth to be a tool to get you encouraged about what you're going to see later on.

Jane: 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, today we learned about our heavenly home, but sadly, not everyone can go there. The Bible also speaks of the reality of hell. Recently, there's been a lot of chatter about annihilationism. What is it, and is it biblical?

James Kaddis: Jane, it's a great question, and oftentimes the terminology associated with annihilationism is very conflated with the term nihilism and other words like that. But let me just simply say that the gist of that view centers around the fact that people who do evil will not be eternally tormented in hell. In essence, they're denying the existence of hell, and what they say rather than that is that the person will just be, in essence, as it's implied, annihilated—meaning they don't exist. They just are completely gone.

Of course, that's a completely unbiblical view because we know heaven is real. We also know hell is real. The Bible talks about hell more than it talks about heaven, and those who even take on the annihilationism view even agree to the fact that heaven is real sometimes. Sometimes it's not. I know it's a little confusing, but it is a blatantly and openly unbiblical view. Heaven and hell is real, and it is a place of eternal torment when we're talking about hell, and when we're talking about heaven, of course, it's beautiful.

Jane: Thanks for sharing that, Pastor James. 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. Now here's Pastor James with some closing thoughts.

James Kaddis: Quick story I'll close with. We're done with the day yesterday. We were here most of the day, me and my family, and we get home, and I jump in the shower. We're all done with all that. And I get behind my desk in my office—I have an office at home—and I'm starting to work, getting ready for tomorrow. It's about 8:15 or so, maybe 8:20, and the sunset has kind of already happened, but there's still some beautiful colors in the sky.

And I get a text from Pastor Dell. He says, "Dude, the moon is rising. It's gorgeous." Now, in my neighborhood, there's a place that you can go to that is like at the center of my neighborhood where there's an elementary school campus where it's just all very flat, where it's so visible that you can see the sun or the moon when it's rising. It's like the perfect spot in our neighborhood to see this, especially during this time of the year.

So I immediately call my oldest daughter, "Go ahead, come on!" and she comes over. And my little daughter was taking a nap and she woke up—and it's not good for your children to take naps that late in the day because then it's really hard to get them to sleep. It's just bad. We thought she was in for the night. So she wakes up when she hears me calling her older sister, "I want to go! I want to go!" Okay, honey, okay. So I put her on my back and we get in my little mobility scooter and we just scoot as fast as we can to the center of our neighborhood.

We get to the center of our neighborhood and as we're driving that way, before we make the left-hand turn where you get to see the moon, my youngest daughter is on my back. She goes, "Baba, Baba, that's my favorite color! That's my favorite color!" And my oldest daughter says, "Your favorite color is blue. That's not your favorite color. What's your favorite color?" And she says, "Whatever that is!" My three-year-old, imagine a little voice, "Whatever that is right there!" And she's looking at the beautiful sky.

It's just got that beautiful blend of reds and oranges. It's like it's a very rare day when the wind's been blowing all day and there's no smog and it just looks—which is very rare here, you know. And you just see it and it's like, "Wow, that's spectacular." And I'm thinking in my mind, oh baby, I mean, it can't get any more beautiful than this. And so as we turn to the left, I realize, oh yeah, it can. Because now you're seeing the beautiful colors to your right, and you look at this massive moon. It's extraordinary-looking.

And me and my kids are like, "Whoa, whoa." My youngest, "Baba, Baba, look at the moon!" and your heart's melting and you're all excited. You see everything. And then we go home, and my 20-month-old is really, really mad that he didn't get to go out with us and all that. That's okay, we got over that. And then I go to bed, I wake up, you know, 3:00 in the morning or whatever it is, and I get going to church here. I'm in the car on the way to church, and it's almost 5:00 in the morning.

And I see that same moon that we saw earlier rising. It's almost down. It's like where it's at the horizon. And you just think, "Wow, the moon looks even more spectacular as it's setting." And you just think in your mind, what a beautiful earth this is that God has created. And then you think very quickly, almost immediately, imagine that the most beautiful things we see on this earth will be like the garbage that exists in the heaven that we're going to see one day. Come on, guys, how can you not be excited about that?

Jane: Hear all about God's great reset as you join us tomorrow for Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis, a listener-supported ministry of Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.