Light on the Hill

Guest (Female): What are the seven thunders mentioned in Revelation chapter 10? What was really heard by the Apostle John? Why would he be told to be quiet about that encounter? What does it all mean? We'll get some answers on today's Light on the Hill as Pastor James Kaddis continues our study through Revelation. Here he is now with today's message.

James Kaddis: Okay, so we always talk about this, we have been talking about this, the patterns that we've been looking at. We have so far gotten into the seals, all of the seals, the scroll that had the seven seals on them. We've been talking about the trumpets being blown and we talk about this pattern that emerges, where you have these seals come up and then there is sort of an, I guess for lack of a better term, kind of like a prelude that exists before the last seal is actually opened.

And the opening of the last seal ushers us into the trumpets actually being blown, and that's when the first of the trumpets happen. And of course, we see a pattern like this emerging between the trumpets and what we know will become the bowl judgments. This is kind of an important thing because we even see this early on in the book of Revelation where we read Revelation chapter one, we get a summary of everything, we get a very large broad scope of what to be expecting.

Then we talk about the church or what I would call the church age in Revelation chapter two and chapter three. In Revelation chapter four, the very beginning, we see that after these things, we are actually raptured. Revelation four and five function as yet another interlude that ushers us into or brings us into or prepares us into the opening of the seals.

Really, if you think about it, chapter four is that interlude, chapter five sets us up to be able to understand what those seals are. Because in chapter five, we see Jesus claiming back the title deed to the earth, which of course is something that's very difficult for people to understand if they don't understand the Old Testament. Because if you understand the Old Testament, you will know that the earth, because of Adam's behavior, was surrendered to Satan and Satan from that point on had possession of the earth, but Christ will one day take that back.

Now, it's interesting, he's already paid the price to take the earth back. We talk about that all the time, and the way he paid the price is by dying on the cross. So by him dying on the cross, he now has the right to be able to buy or he did purchase that scroll back, the title deed to the earth, but what's interesting is he has not come to claim it yet.

And so what we read in Revelation chapter five is we read in essence Christ claiming that, and then we begin to see his claiming of those seals be the commencement of some significant judgment. And of course, we spent a lot of time talking about the first four seals, which were what people oftentimes refer to as the horsemen of the apocalypse. We get into the seal number one, which is the white horse, seal number two, which is the red horse, seal number three, which is the black horse, and seal number four, which is the pale horse.

And then we start getting into the discussion of what all of that means. And then of course, then we read the interlude that brings us into or ushers us into the blowing of the trumpets, which what we refer to as the trumpet judgments. And now that we've seen six of seven of the trumpet judgments, we are now bringing ourselves into yet another interlude before that last trumpet blows and we begin to see what ends up happening.

And so this is some pretty important stuff as we look at all of this. It sort of allows us to develop a big picture of, number one, what's actually happening and how it is in essence the reconciliation of all that we read about in the Old Testament. But the other thing that it's doing for us is it's giving us yet another pattern that we can put into place and really establish the rhythm of how God actually executes his judgment.

And there is an ebb and flow and we even understand the deltas of how that ebb and flow works through what God is telling us. By the way, somebody asked me the other day what I refer to when I mean the delta. It's a term that we use, well, there's lots of areas that we use that term, but in essence, when I use the term delta in this specific context, delta is in essence the measurable value that exists from the top of the wave or the top of the hill to the bottom of the hill.

So how much of an expanse is there? In other words, how extreme are the movements? So when I talk to you about the term delta, that's what I mean. I mean an ebb and flow, meaning there's always a sort of a flow that goes with something. When I talk about the deltas, the deltas refer to how extreme the top is from the bottom when we examine the regular ebbs and flows of what exists here in the Bible.

And by the way, I do think it is really interesting because these can be very mathematical terms and there's a lot of mathematical associations that are oftentimes built into the Bible. And yet, I think it's so crazy how this recent movement that is founded in racism continues to call mathematics a function of white imperialism and racism when in reality, mathematics is something that has some very, very deep roots.

Matter of fact, outside of anything that would be identified as a European colonization function, it's kind of interesting how all that works, but mathematics is a creation of God. And God has designed mathematics, he built it in, even into our cell structures, it's built into our DNA, it's built into the language that we speak.

Matter of fact, it's interesting because if you're a language person like me and you start analyzing the function of language, you begin to see mathematics in even the way that we actually speak. And it's interesting because right now we are actually in the process of translating my YouTube page into other languages. And one of the major issues that we're finding is that in certain languages, it's very offensive to scream.

And I'm not a screamer, I'm just loud. And so it's not really received in some languages, the screaming, what people perceive as the screaming. So now as we're doing some of the translation, we're learning that for the loudness, we're compensating the loudness for speed, because in some languages, when you speak faster, then the emphasis is received the same way.

But it's interesting because as we're making the calculations in how to do that and we're thinking about it, it's all based on math. There are algorithmic functions that we utilize that's based on math to be able to understand what the right formula is to do those types of translations. And it's kind of cool, the first language we're going to be doing Lord willing is Spanish and all of the tests that we've been doing there are pretty awesome, it's been a lot of fun.

I've had to learn a lot more Spanish, which has been really good. But the reality of it is it's been very interesting and the process has been long and in some cases arduous, but it involves something very important and it involves the idea that we look at the core of how God created us. And when we begin to understand the mechanics of our creation, although we'll always be limited because we'll never have the infinite mind of God, you begin to be able to be better at what you do.

And by the way, if we were created in the likeness and image of God, then we should as human beings be great creators. When I talk about creators, I'm not talking about creating nothing or something out of nothing. I'm not talking about taking the place of God and saying, okay, well, now you can create something like God yourself. What I'm saying is if you're created in the likeness and image of God, then you are to be a builder and not somebody who in essence tears down.

And I don't know if you noticed this, but when you look at the world of the hard left, the only thing they know how to do is to tear stuff down. Why? Because they're not God-inspired, they're demonically inspired. And when you're demonically inspired, you tear things down, you don't build things up. It's kind of funny how all that works and that's kind of the world that we live in right now.

You can always trace it back to the Bible. The Bible gives us insight into every single pattern that we see, everything that is there, the Bible gives us a kind of insight and that's why we look at it this way. So it is important to recognize these patterns and by the way, these patterns are very Old Testament established types of patterns, so none of this should be a surprise.

Okay, so let's get into verse one here. It says this, "And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud and a rainbow was upon his head and his face was as it were the sun and his feet as pillars of fire." Now, I know that there are a lot of people that will look at the description of this angel and automatically assume that we're talking about Christ. There's a reason why I will not make the assumption that we're talking about Christ here.

By the way, there are some amazing Bible teachers who are gifted in this area and have been teaching a lot longer than me that will say that this is Christ. I'm just not ready to completely buy into that just yet for several reasons and I'll talk about that in just a minute. What I do know is that we are talking about an angelic being here. We are talking about a spiritual being and we are talking about one that is very high-ranking and one that has a lot of authority.

So this is kind of an important notation for us to make and I'm not throwing out the idea that this is Christ, I just there's several reasons why I don't see that as such. Perhaps the most dominant of those reasons is that if it was Christ that we were talking about, then John would have immediately identified him as Christ and he would have told us that who he was looking at was Christ.

Because John was by far the closest disciple to Jesus and would have easily recognized what he was looking at, just like he did when he was describing what he described in Revelation chapter one. Or if you look at Daniel's description of what I believe to be Christ in I think it was Daniel chapter six, you can very, very clearly see the distinctive patterns that clearly identify him as being deity. It's not very difficult to be able to see that.

When you look at the description here in chapter 10, you are seeing a description of an angel that has some characteristics common to that of how Christ is described in chapter one of Revelation. And of course, what we might read about in like Daniel six or Isaiah I think somewhere around 11, 12, 13. But the reality of it is I'm not sure that we can say with confidence that we're talking about Christ.

Especially when we get into the section of him swearing. And when I say swearing, I'm not talking about using a curse word, I'm talking about actually swearing. It's kind of a difficult place for us to be able to do that with. Now, you can also use that as an argument that makes it very convincing that it's Jesus and I'll explain that in just a second.

All right, so let's get into verse two because what is happening with this angel? Okay, here it is. Verse two, "And he had in his hand a little open book." Now, of course, when we talk or little book open, so we're talking about a scroll because again, books as we know them today did not exist back in this time.

So he had in his hand a little open scroll and he set his right foot upon the sea and his left foot upon the earth. And he cried with a loud voice as when a lion roareth and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices. Okay, so something pretty expansive is happening here. And this is where you can argue reasonably that we are talking about Christ, because we're talking about somebody that has dominance over the earth.

He puts his right foot on the sea, he puts his left foot on the earth. The idea here is that whoever this is, this person has dominance over whatever it is that mankind is fearful of. And so the idea is he's standing on one foot is on the sea. The idea behind that is the sea was the final frontier for many people in that day. It was the place that so many were fearful of.

But the whole idea here is that this person is standing with the authority of God, basically saying I want you to understand that I am speaking to you with the authority of God and I'm asking you to do something pretty substantial here. And so he then begins to speak and what happens is very unique because he cries with a loud voice and seven thunders uttered their voices.

So he starts speaking and as he speaks, then there are seven different thunderings that come from the sky, presumably, that John is hearing. And by the way, what he's hearing is clearly discernable. It's language. He's hearing some type of a proclamation being made. He's hearing some information.

Now, this is where we get into the grand question because a lot of people ask me, "What are the seven thunders?" James, "What are the seven thunders in the book of Revelation? What are they saying?" Well, let's look and see what the Bible tells us, because it's really important to look at what the Word says.

Verse four, "And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered and write them not." Now, that's kind of a heavy statement because what basically happens is John hears these things. What he hears is so absolutely critical that he feels the need to write these things down.

By the way, we talk about going to the Bible to get practical advice and wisdom concerning things that are so important and there are so many things you can learn from the Bible. I think if I made one tragic mistake early on in my walk with the Lord, perhaps the most tragic of mistakes that I made was I did not document things as well as I do today. And even today, I wish I could have documented things a lot more.

But when you're young, you make this weird assumption that you're always going to be around and you're always going to have access to your same memory and you're always going to realize things. But it is very important that when you see the Lord speaking or when you hear God's voice, that you write those things down. Like, it's really critical that you spend some time to speak, write down what God has actually told you.

And it would seem as though John, who loved the Lord, who was the closest disciple to the Lord, had this habit about him. By the way, praise God that he did because we wouldn't have the Gospel of John, we wouldn't have first, second, and third John, we probably would not have the lessons that we learn in Ephesus, even though Paul wrote that letter, and we certainly would not have any real understanding of the book of Revelation because it was John who wrote these things down for our benefit.

And what's interesting is these seven thunderings go down, John realizes, I got to write this down, this is pretty critical stuff, and God tells him, "Don't write this down." So a lot of people ask me, "What are the seven thunders?" And the answer to that question is very simple and that is, I don't know.

And the reality of it is there are lots of people who make these assumptions about what those seven thunderings were. Some people tie them into the seven spirits of God, some people will tie them into some other things that are biblical numerology-based. The problem with that is it's hugely erroneous to come to any conclusion regarding what those thunderings are because God commanded John to not write them down.

And if God commanded John to not write them down, then that means we have no way of knowing what they are. And if we have no way of knowing what they are, we are wasting our time and we're probably misleading people by creating an argument for what they might be. Now, why is that significant?

And why is it, for example, when I put up our YouTube post for the live video that we're doing, I actually write the title, The Seven Thunders of Revelation 10. If I'm going to emphasize that, then why in the world would I come up with an answer that basically says I don't know? It's really simple because when we think of the seven thunders, there's a lot of things we should be thinking about immediately, right away.

I'm not going to talk about how they symbolize something, I'm not going to talk about the metaphorical implications that might sit or not sit behind it, I'm not going to make an argument for the fact that it's a simile. A lot of people do that kind of thing, I don't think that any of that is necessary. I think that's all superfluous.

I think the thing that we should do when we look at the story of the seven thunders and we understand what's being said here is that we realize several very amazing things. Number one I already talked about, right? That as we hear the Word of the Lord, we should be writing it down. John in this case was told not to write it down. God had a reason for not writing it down. God had a reason for not wanting John to write it down. He didn't want us to know about it.

Perhaps it would be one of those things, one of many things that we're going to find out at a later time and that brings us to the second point. The way God has designed our futures and the way God has designed the world and the way God has designed so much of what's around us, we have so much to look forward to.

We have so much to look forward to. I was talking to somebody the other day who was telling me that they were going to bring bad news to somebody very close to them. And that there was some time that they had to bring them that bad news. And they said something that really struck me and it was very encouraging to see this.

They said that they were going to wait to bring that person bad news until the day before church, because that person loves doing children's ministry, looks forward to going to children's ministry and serving in children's ministry, and knew that if they got that bad news the day before, they would be cheered up because they had hope of the idea that they would go and serve in children's ministry the next day.

And I love something like that because that is the way God engineered us. God engineered us with the understanding that there is hope and that hope is founded not only in the moment that we're in, even when we're discouraged, but there is hope in the future. And we have hope in the future and we're reminded of that hope in the future when we read the Word of God.

And what's exciting about reading the story of the seven thunders and recognizing that there is no message that was written down regarding what those seven thunders were saying is that we're reminded of the glory of God that awaits us and the fact that we are going to know these things and eventually we're going to be aware of those things. And when it does come together, it's going to be spectacular.

I think of when God told Daniel to seal up the words that he was writing down, right? And I think of all the prophets that wrote in the past, all the different things that they wrote about concerning the future of what would take place. You guys understand that virtually none of those prophets knew what they were talking about.

When I say that, I mean, it isn't like they were dumb, they didn't know what they were talking about meaning they were ignorant, they didn't know what they were saying. No, they didn't know what they were talking about in that when they were writing these words, they had no idea what the construct of words even meant.

They were writing these words not even realizing what they were talking about. I mean, think about what was written when Isaiah wrote the story of the crucifixion of Christ. I mean, you would have thought that he actually watched the crucifixion and then wrote about it later. I mean, the way that it was just written so spectacularly.

So it's kind of funny when you think about this, but so many of these men were told to write things down that they didn't understand. Even Daniel when he was told to seal up the book. Think about this, he was told to seal it up knowing full well that we would at a later time be able to understand it because God said that.

And God has multiplied knowledge, he's increased knowledge in the world in which we live today and now we know the book of Daniel. If you would have read Daniel at the time that Daniel wrote it, sometime around 400 or 500 BC, sometime around that time, then it would be very puzzling. I mean, you would look at that, actually it would have been much later than that, probably Daniel probably would have written that wrote the book around 540 BC.

But anyway, that's beside the point because remember when Daniel was first taken away, he was taken away in 605 BC by Nebuchadnezzar. And so by the time he was already writing Daniel chapter nine, that probably would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of I'm guessing probably around 435 BC.

Anyway, so we know that Daniel had been written by that point and the funny thing about it was a lot of stuff that Daniel wrote was sealed, no one understood it. If you had read it right around the time that Daniel had written it, let's say you even read it around 200 BC, you wouldn't have understood anything of what Daniel was saying, it wouldn't have made any sense.

Other than some of maybe an account of what happened with Antiochus Epiphanes and so on and so forth, that would make sense when you match that up with a certain portion of the end of Daniel. But what's really funny is now that we look back on Daniel and now that we look back on the Gospels and now that we look back on what we know in the New Testament, Daniel comes to life. It's easy, it makes sense.

Now that we have the book of Revelation, Daniel, it's almost like Daniel literally wrote a history book. What's interesting is it's so convincing that even secular critics that look at Daniel actually believe that Daniel wrote it at a much later time and it wasn't the real Daniel. Except they have a really hard time with that because how do you reconcile the stuff that Daniel wrote about that's beginning to happen right now?

Do you understand that? So it's kind of interesting and pretty much the existence of the Dead Sea Scrolls shut up that argument because we found fragments of Daniel, critical fragments of Daniel in the Dead Sea Scrolls which predate any of the times that people said this new author may have existed to actually write what Daniel wrote.

But that's beside the point, the whole idea behind what I'm talking about is the fact that when God says to seal up these words, don't write it down, understand the idea that it leaves us something to be excited about and to look forward to because that's another area of our knowledge that's going to grow and increase.

And that's the wonderful thing about serving God, right? When we worship God, we're never going to arrive. We're always going to walk in this expansive way, we're always going to learn, our intellect is always going to grow, we're always going to increase in our stature, in our knowledge. Such a powerful thing when you think about it.

And I really believe this, I mean, I think we should probably do like a clinical test because I think it would actually be the numbers would probably be absolutely astounding. Like find somebody that has an average IQ, I would love to see this happen, I don't know if they've ever done a study like this.

But find somebody that has an average IQ and doesn't know the Lord, and this will be hard to kind of replicate. Get their IQ test, find out what their intelligence quotient numbers are, and then allow them to experience walking with God, serving God, allow them to basically entertain a large regimen of reading the Word, getting to know the Word, and then a few years later go back and test their intelligence quotient.

By the way, it's interesting a lot of people say your IQ numbers don't really change with time, your IQ is your IQ and that's what you've been given. I actually have a theory, and allow me to pontificate a little bit, that as you start growing closer and closer and closer to the Lord, your IQ increases.

I do believe that your intelligence quotient increases substantially because as you open yourself up to the creator of the universe, the creator of the universe begins to open you up.

Guest (Male): Pastor James, a lot has happened in Iran, Israel, and the Middle East in recent weeks. As you know, Ezekiel 38 predicts a future war involving Israel and Iran. Israel will be a land of unwalled villages at the time. Is it possible the dismantling of Iran's leadership and nuclear capabilities lead to this letting down of the guard necessary for this surprise attack spoken of by Ezekiel?

James Kaddis: Yeah, I mean, that's a brilliant question and I think we both know that based on the imposition of your question, we already have the answer and that is the fact that we do see a murderous, evil, wicked, demonically inspired group of people who in the name of their false God believe that the right thing to do is to destroy American lives and Jewish lives.

And that's because they hate God. And so by them neutralizing this, by our country stepping in and doing what we're doing and by Israel doing what they're doing, I do think we will see a condition of peace. I don't think this will be another forever war as a lot of people are wanting to call it.

I think we'll see a condition of peace, I think there's no better leader to do it under than President Trump and Bibi Netanyahu. And I think that we will see what I believe will be the beginning of the condition necessary that must exist in Ezekiel 38, I think that's a verse 10 or 11. But the idea here is that we are dealing with unwalled villages, so there must be peace. And Israel must be surprised by their attacker and Iran is one of their attackers. So undoubtedly, I believe that's what's happening here.

Guest (Female): Very interesting, thanks, 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.

I also want to mention the new book written by Pastor James. It's entitled The Last Book, a Guide to Revelation Part One. As the world heads toward its final chapter, the Bible has already revealed every detail. The Book of Revelation is God's message of warning, hope, and promise to prepare us for what's coming.

In the last book, Pastor James takes us through Revelation chapters one through 10 and shows us why we must live wholeheartedly for God, anchored in truth and awake to the times. You can order a copy today at LightontheHillradio.com or Amazon. You can also send us your questions about Revelation and Bible prophecy through the website LightontheHillradio.com. We hope to hear from you soon. Join us next time when Pastor James Kaddis will continue through the book of Revelation. That's right here on Light on the Hill, a listener-supported ministry of Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.