Light on the Hill

Guest (Female): Today on Light on the Hill, we're introduced to two witnesses who will enter the scene during the Great Tribulation. Pastor James observes some great news we can glean from Revelation chapter 11.

James Kaddis: This is probably the most valuable lesson that we learn from today. God gave them the call to do something, and you know what he did? He supernaturally empowered them to be able to do it. They did things that you never thought were possible to be able to do.

It's funny because when God calls you to do something, he almost makes it look easy because when you see his hand in the midst of it, he puts it all together for you. It's really cool. So when God calls you, God equips you. When God equips you, he supernaturally empowers you. Here's the great news: nobody's going to be able to be done with you until God is done. That's the great thing.

Guest (Female): Welcome once again to Light on the Hill. We're continuing our verse-by-verse study through Revelation with Pastor James Kaddis. Last time, we had just begun to learn about the two witnesses described for us in chapter 11 when we ran out of time. Today, Pastor James will bring us the rest of his message. As is the case with much of this book, debate has raged over the real identity of the two preachers, and Pastor James will point out the varying opinions that exist and offer his thoughts too.

James Kaddis: Who are these two witnesses? There's a lot of fight as to who they are because there's a lot of debate. We know for sure one of the witnesses is Elijah. We know that for a fact; that is not even a disputable issue. The reason why that's not a disputable issue is we are right now in the last book of the Bible, which is Revelation. Let's go to the last book of the Old Testament.

This is important; we've got to establish this. You know the Old Testament, you're going to know the book of Revelation. This is Malachi chapter four. Let me read just for a little bit of context, verse four. It says, "Remember you the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."

Remember the verse that I read you, verse four, for context, which talks about Moses. Let's stop for a second and let's just start on this right away. We know for a fact that we're talking about the prophet Elijah as being one of the witnesses because Malachi predicts this. He tells us this. It's a pretty closed and shut case.

The question is, who is going to be the second person? Let's go over what a lot of people say will be the second person, and there are many arguments. One of the arguments, and this is one that is very widely accepted and one that I completely disagree with, is that we are talking about Enoch. The Bible says that Enoch was a prophet. We know that, but we don't know much about Enoch in that he walked with God, they had a close relationship, and God took him up.

The reason why people say that it's Enoch is because they say that Enoch was the only other person in the Bible that did not die. Then they misquote a verse that is terribly misunderstood that says, "It is appointed once for man to die, then the judgment." People look at that and say, "Well, since a man has to die, and Enoch didn't die, and Elijah didn't die, they were both taken up, then they have to be the two witnesses."

Except for one major problem: who is in heaven right now? Who is in heaven right now at this time that these two witnesses appear? The Church. How did the Church get there? They were raptured, which means they didn't die. They were taken up just like Enoch. So if you wanted to argue the fact that Enoch was taken up, so it has to be him, then you can also argue that it could be any member of the Church.

There are some people that say Zechariah is the second person, and they say that based on what we read in Zechariah chapter four. Although I'm not convinced that that's the case, I have a very difficult time with believing that because there are a lot of arguments that bring that into play. There are some people that will go as far as to say that we are talking about potentially the apostle Peter or maybe the apostle Paul, but the arguments for them being that person is also very broken because that argument is just as sound as any member of the Church actually being one of the witnesses.

There's another argument that gets thrown out by a lot of people that the second witness could very likely be John the Baptist because John the Baptist, as Jesus said, came in the spirit and the power of Elijah. We know that Jesus called John the Baptist the greatest of all the prophets that had ever lived. Except the problem is you have two prophets that are coming down; they will be doing the work of a prophet, but it just doesn't make sense because John the Baptist doesn't really represent what the second witness should be. It doesn't fit.

I believe that God did not tell us who that second person was for a reason, and it's one of those things that we're going to have to find out. If I were to pontificate on who I think it is, I actually think that the second person is Moses. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of people who believe this as well, but I believe it's Moses for reasons that are somewhat different from what the mainstream might think.

First of all, one of the things that we have to look at is when you look at Elijah, what did Elijah do in his ministry? He called down fire. That was something he did. You remember what happened at Mount Carmel, all the water getting poured on, and then the fire licking it all up. How about the stories of Elijah when the king went to go get him? You remember the first guy that goes to him? He goes to get Elijah, and what does Elijah do? Fire comes down. It kills the guy. Second guy comes, and what happens? Fire comes down. The king told me to come get you, fire comes down and that guy dies.

Third guy comes, and this third guy is a little smarter. He goes, "Look, I'm just telling you right now, I'm just doing what the king told me to do. I got children, I got a family, I don't want to die. Please don't kill me." What does Elijah do? He says, "Come on, I'll go with you." Elijah was a guy that called down fire. One of these witnesses, we know for a fact that we are talking about definitely Elijah. Look at the characteristic that's given here; these are men that are going to be able to call fire down. Elijah fits the profile.

Look at what the other thing that these guys are able to do: plagues, turning water into blood. Who did that? Moses. Moses was the guy that did that. The other thing that we should also understand is the general belief is that the culmination of the law and the prophets are being represented by these two witnesses. Who's the ultimate sign of the prophets and the law? The ultimate sign of the prophets is Elijah; the ultimate sign of the law is Moses.

Perhaps my greatest reason for thinking that it's Moses is in the verse that I already read you. If you go back to Malachi, it mentions Moses in this context. He says, "Remember the law of Moses." That's why I think we are talking about Moses here. God on purpose did not tell us who this second witness was. There's a reason why we don't know. We've just got to drop it. I do think it's Moses, and I think that when we're taken up into heaven, we'll find out.

Look at what it says in verse seven: "And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them." So they're going to die. Not that they die, but think about this: God gave them a call to do something. This is probably the most valuable lesson that we learn from today. God gave them the call to do something, and he supernaturally empowered them to be able to do it. They did things that you never thought were possible.

When God calls you to do something, he almost makes it look easy because when you see his hand in the midst of it, he puts it all together for you. It's really cool. So when God calls you, God equips you. When God equips you, he supernaturally empowers you. Nobody's going to be able to be done with you until God is done. That's the great thing. God put it out; he says, "You guys can try to hit these people all you want, but you're not going to be able to touch them for the time period that they're ministering."

I think this through with so many of you. So many of you have learned to adopt, especially since this insanity that started several years back. Many of you have learned, "I'm just going to do what God told me to do and I know it's God, and if it is, then it's his obligation to worry about me." I'm not going to worry about it. I've watched you guys become very supernaturally empowered to do the things that you've done, and it's been really awesome. When God is done with you, he'll be done with you.

This is not your opportunity to be the type of people that are going to be amicable to the idea of just being reckless because you say God will take care of me. That's foolish. Just think it through. If you're not getting out there and being visibly and actively involved in God's call on your life, and you're just preoccupying yourself with things that feed your flesh, then you're basically spitting at God. You're saying, "God, I'm not going to do what you want me to do," but don't expect God to protect you. Don't expect to get God's protection because if you're not in his perfect call, if you're not doing the things that he wants you to do, then you shouldn't expect for you to go down in that direction. You're not. God's not going to bless you.

Look at the culture that we have today. How is it that people continue to spend money on things that notably do not make them happy? But they continue to go like a moth to the fire. They just continue to keep walking into it because they think that what they do is going to satisfy them when it never really satisfies them. I talked to somebody recently who's in the video game industry, and he told me, "All we have to do with video games is we have to get people to enjoy them once to get them hooked, and once they're hooked, they're done, they're customers for life."

Why? Because they get lost from the real world into the world that they're in. It's the same way with drugs. Drugs get you all tied up into something and you're in this world where you're completely taken away. What do you want? You want more of that; you want to numb yourself up. You don't want to do anything. But God says, "Forget those things that distract you."

There's people that play video games for recreation or a hobby; there's nothing wrong with that. But when you're doing it in a way that blocks you from the call that God has placed upon your life, then we have a problem. For me, my hobby is flying radio-controlled helicopters. But there's a lot of money involved in that, there's a lot of time, and there's a lot of energy.

There are guys that I fly with that will mortgage their homes to be able to buy more and more of these things. I know guys that will do that. I know guys that won't spend time with their children, I know guys that will not spend time with their wives because they've just got to do the next thing. For me, it's like I can do it when I can do it. I'm not going to let that keep me from doing what God's asked me to do. I'm not going to let that keep me from experiencing all that God wants me to have.

When it comes to these two witnesses, the lesson that I learn is when God calls you, he supernaturally empowers you. Go for it because when you're done, then you get to go home with him and experience the reward of it all. By the way, these witnesses, I think were pretty ticked off because they died and I'm certain they were excited about the fact that they're done and they're getting their reward, and then three days later, they're back. I would have been mad. If I died and was in heaven and then they stick me back on earth, I'd really be struggling with that one.

"And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." This is the city of Jerusalem, and these men die there. "And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves." You have to understand, if they're not going to suffer to see their dead bodies put in graves, that means they're disrespecting these men. They hate these men. Why? Because in the Middle East in our culture, if somebody dies, you must bury them that night.

So if they die at midnight, you must bury them before sundown the next day. You have to. If they died at three o'clock in the afternoon and sunset is at six o'clock, you have three hours to bury them. That's our culture. That's what we do. So to leave these bodies and not even to bury them and just leave them out in the open is the ultimate form of disrespect. They hate these men. Of course they're going to hate these men. They represent everything that man completely hates. If they don't know God, it makes perfect sense.

The whole world is going to see them. "And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts to one another because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth." So they're going to be super, super happy that these guys died. By the way, it's interesting, what we're reading about right now in this current moment could not have even happened 20 years ago.

I listen to Pastor Chuck teaching on this from 20 years ago and he says this stuff couldn't have happened 50 years ago because now we could see this through satellite TV. And I'm thinking about that and I go, "Well, actually, no, there's a gross miscalculation in that because you have places in some of the most primitive parts of the world that would never be able to get satellite TV that have never even seen a TV station."

But here's where it's changed now in the last 15 years. Right now, you can go to the most primitive parts of the world. You can go to the Amazon, you can go to central parts of Africa, you can go to places where there is nothing there except what was indigenous to that land. You won't find anything there, but you know what you will find? You will find solar panels that have chargers tied to them for your cell phone. You'll see cell phone repeaters in the middle of the Amazon.

All of these people have cell phones and all of them use it for internet access, use it for all kinds of things. Right now in the day and age that we live, the whole world would be able to see something like this happening at once. Do you know how viable it is right now with languages alone? I could take a Google device right now and I could put the camera in front of any piece of text, a menu that's written in any language, and I can have it translated to me in English in real-time.

I don't have to speak any language other than my own in order to be able to communicate with you in any part of the world because of the technology that we have. Very soon, we are going to be releasing a Calvary Chapel Signal Hill website that's going to have all of my Bible studies in Spanish, perfectly articulated in my voice, all the same pace, same energy, same everything. We're going to do that in German, we're going to do it in Arabic, we're going to do it in many other languages.

I love the nuances of some of these languages. I've always loved the Spanish language, for example. Often times I'll talk to people and they immediately come to me and they start speaking to me in Spanish because they assume that I'm from Mexico. They look at me or they think I'm Samoan. They never say Middle Eastern. People often times come up to me and ask me if I speak Spanish. I tell them the same thing every single time. I say I don't speak Spanish. I try to explain to them in Spanish that my mom and dad are Egyptians, I speak Arabic, I don't speak Spanish, but Spanish is a very, very beautiful language.

I try to explain that to them like I love the language, I think it's beautiful, but I don't really speak it. I understand a lot but I speak very little. I'm not a really great Spanish speaker, but I love the language. We're going to use the modern tools that we have in technology to be able to take all my existing material and translate that in a way where it's going to just feel natural to you. No subtitles, no anything like that. We've worked very hard. This is the 22 hours a day lifestyle that I've been living lately, but it's been for that because we think that we can reach a large population.

30 percent of the world listens to the English language. That's 70 percent of the world that we can reach out to. Technology today, everybody's going to know what everybody is saying. When you see these prophets die, they're going to be seeing it. But look, this is the part that I love: "And after three days and a half, the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell upon them which saw them."

Can you imagine? They're all rejoicing, handing each other candy, "Hey, eat a Snickers, they're dead." All right, the party, everything's really fun. Then all of a sudden, you just see them come to life. Can you imagine what that's going to look like? That would be the ultimate "want to get away?" commercial. You're laughing, you're dancing over their bodies, and then they just wake up. I mean, give me a break. That would make even me run. Just think about that; I just think it's an awesome scenario.

So God allows them to be killed, and they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, "Come up hither," and they ascended up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beheld them. I just love it when the enemies talk smack against God. I love it when they put him down because one day, they're all going to see the foolishness of that. I'm not going to find pleasure in seeing the ungodly go to hell, but I will find pleasure in seeing God vindicated. I will find pleasure in seeing the people recognize that God is real and he's true.

"And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and a tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand, and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven." A tenth of Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem, just falls apart. Seven thousand people die. People go, "Wow, that was the Lord." Especially when they know that the Bible predicted this would happen. Can you imagine being in Jerusalem just reading this and laughing at it, and then a massive earthquake happens after you hear this noise in the sky? It would put the fear of God in anybody.

The seventh angel sounded and there were great voices in heaven saying, "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. Amen." Amen and amen. "And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces and worshipped God saying, 'We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art and wast and art to come, because thou hast taken to thee thy great power and hast reigned.'" Isn't that amazing?

Guest (Female): We're halfway through our series in Revelation. There's a lot to come, so please keep listening each day on Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. This program is furnished to you on this station by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.

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As we're going through Revelation, this is a great time to mention Pastor James's new book entitled The Last Book. It will share what you need to know about Revelation, the Rapture, and the end times. This guide to Revelation is part one of two and you can order it today at lightonthehillradio.com or at Amazon.

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