Light on the Hill

James Kaddis: Here's the big takeaway from today's lesson in Mark chapter 11 on Light on the Hill. If we truly want to understand the very core of what God has available to us, we have to be truly willing to answer the difficult questions. We have to be truly willing to have a significant confrontation with ourselves and be willing to put it all out on the line in order to become the beneficiary of the person who will provide the answer to us.

Guest (Male): We all have lots of questions, but there's only one way to find answers. If you can't find those answers, you have nobody to blame except yourself. We'll explain today on Light on the Hill as we finish up Mark chapter 11. Here Jesus has an encounter with the religious leaders at the temple. They're trying to trap Jesus with their questions, and through it all, Jesus is about to teach us a valuable lesson. Here's Pastor James Kaddis.

James Kaddis: Look what happens next, because this gets so powerful. And Jesus again, this is the wisdom of Jesus. And Jesus does something that he normally doesn't do, but he's doing it here, and he's doing it I think for two reasons. First of all, he's trolling these guys in a way. It's the ultimate troll. I'll explain that in just a second. But then on top of that, the other thing that he does is he is immediately holding them accountable to the conclusion that they are coming to by making the statement that they're making.

Look what he says here. This is very interesting. And Jesus answered and said unto them, "I will also ask of you one question, and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things." So, Jesus basically just took on the personality of the same teachers that are trying to entrap him. Jesus is now beginning to do something that's outside of his nature to do, or outside of his representation to do.

And he is now doing what all the rabbis do. He is now seeking to answer a question by the imposition of a question. So, the people are probably looking at him with their eyebrows raised, going, "Whoa, he doesn't do that. What's up with that?" And then he imposes this question. And this question is remarkable. Why? We'll see. "The baptism of John, was it from heaven or of men? Answer me."

Now, you understand why that's such a crazy, wild, smart question to ask. You understand why that's such a powerful question that we'll get into it in a minute. Let's talk about what they instantly did and how they worked through it when Jesus asked the question. "And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say from heaven, he will say, Why then did you not believe him? But if we shall say of men, they feared the people, for all men counted John that he was a prophet indeed."

So, what's going through their mind is we really can't answer this question because if we say that John the Baptist is of heaven, then we're acknowledging that by default Jesus is God because of how John spoke of Jesus in saying he was preparing the way. John actually said that I'm not even worthy to unbuckle your sandals. That's what John is basically saying here.

So, if they say that John is of heaven, then they're immediately acknowledging that Christ is the Messiah. If they say John is not of heaven, then the mob's going to kill them because the mob thinks that John is absolutely a prophet. And Jesus himself said that John was the greatest prophet that had ever lived. So, we know for a fact this is hugely entrapping.

And most people will look at Jesus and say that it was one of the most remarkably genius questions that Jesus could have ever asked. But let me tell you where the real genius is in this. The real genius is not in Jesus trolling these guys, which he kind of is doing a little bit. The real genius is that Jesus is taking a modern, common tactic of these people that they would use to teach or to so-called teach, and he's using the same tactic to now teach the crowd, not the guys.

Not the people coming against him, but to teach the crowd. So, he's doing two things at the same time. I'm going to explain them. I'm going to make it come together in a second. The first thing that he's doing is he is using the tactic of these men, which is in essence a bit humiliating to these men. But what he's also doing at the same time is by the imposition of the question and his ability to understand what they're going to say, he's using it to embarrass them.

He wants to show the hypocrisy of their lack of willingness to actually learn by refusing to answer the question, while at the same time, he's showing the crowd this is how you really use questions to learn a lesson. This is how you really lead people in questioning to be able to understand the more definitive picture. And by the way, the guys are completely lost.

They have no idea what Jesus is doing. God is literally 15 steps ahead of them. They have no idea. This is beyond 4D, 5D, 6D chess. This is the Lord so far ahead of the game. I'll explain it right now because it's meaty stuff. Look what they say. "And they answered and said unto Jesus, We cannot tell." Which by the way is a lie.

What they're basically saying is, "Well, we really don't know. We don't know if he's of God. We don't really know. We just really can't tell." So, it's their way of not answering the question. It's their way of avoiding the whole situation so that they avoid the consequence. And then Jesus says this. Now, a lot of people will read this and think it's just Jesus being petty, basically saying, "Well, I'm not going to answer this if you're not going to answer my question." But that's not what's happening here.

Watch this. "And Jesus answering saith, Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things." By the way, he's not even addressing the "who gave it to you" question. He's talking about the "by what authority I do these things" number one. But here's the thing that is so spectacularly important, so critically important because to the person who is paying attention, to the person that is analyzing it, to the person that is studying this, to the person who is watching this and paying attention, the first thing that Jesus does is he puts them in a position to shut their mouths.

Because he's making the statement that if it requires any moral clarity at all, and that moral clarity can put them in a position of self-harm, they will not allow themselves to be harmed in order to bring the better message through. In other words, they're cowards. They won't tell the truth because they're concerned about what people will think if they say the truth.

They won't tell the truth because they're concerned about the fact that their livelihoods will be affected and everything else will be affected. You know, it's unfortunate. There's a lot of people going to a lot of churches right now who are sitting under men that they will never be able to trust, really believe what they preach because during the time of COVID, they were so cowardly about the things that they said and they did that they ran away from doing what they were supposed to do because of their fear of death instead of actually doing what God had called them to do.

Jesus just exposed them for what they were. Jesus just basically said their cowardly hypocrisy actually keeps them from giving you the real truth because they do not want to put their neck on the line in order to see you benefit. These are not the people that you should be leading. But the bigger statement and perhaps the more consequential and the more important statement is this: You know better.

You were doing what you were trying to do nefariously because you know what the real answer to this question is. But let's assume there are people in that crowd that don't know the answer to that question, and let's assume they're being genuine when they impose the question to Jesus. You know what other statement that Jesus is making that's even more consequential and more significant than all of the other points that I've put together?

All of them put together are not as significant and consequential as this last message, and that's this: If you're not willing to confront the truth in your own mind and heart when being questioned about the truth, you have also closed yourself down to hearing the truth. You're not willing to answer the question that I'm asking you because you are not willing to confront yourself.

You are not willing to deal with what you need to deal with, and as a result, I will not give you what you claim to be looking for or what you need to be hearing because you've closed yourself down to hearing it. I hate to say this, and it's very, very harsh when I make statements like this, but people come to me all the time talking to me about being professional victims. They blame everything in the world for why they are in the place that they're in.

I hear everybody make excuses for their financial situations. I hear people coming to me telling me it's this person's fault that this didn't get done or it's that person's fault because that didn't get done or any of that kind of stuff. And in reality, almost every single time I hear that nonsense coming out of somebody's mouth, my almost immediate and default position is to go back to them and say, "What did you do within your own self-confrontation that closed the door for you to be able to hear what is obvious to everybody?"

What's just blatantly obvious. I think that happens every single time when people come to me and they give me every kind of an excuse in the book for why something is not or is the way it is. Most of the time they're not willing to confront the question. I had a kid come up to me recently, young kid by the way, good kid by the way, he means well, he's a sweetheart. And he's maybe in his early 20s.

And he says, in a small room, there's only a few people in the room, and the other people in the room aren't really listening. One of them is his wife and she knows all this stuff. And he says, "Pastor James, I really, really need help. I need good, sound advice on how to manage my financial situation because it really feels like I'm never going to be able to buy a house, and it really feels like I'm not going to be able to do this and I'm not going to be able to do that."

And my statement then was hogwash. Stop making excuses for what you can and can't do. "Well, that's why I'm talking to you. I need advice. I really, really need advice." Okay, let's start with some basics. How much money do you make and where are you spending your money? He looks at me. "Well, can we talk about this at another time? Like, can we talk about another time?"

I said, "No. You either want the information now or you can go figure it out yourself. But I'm telling you this right now: if you don't speak about it comfortably, it means you're not willing to confront yourself, which means you're willing to deny your own culpability in the circumstance that you've created, which means you will be in the position that you're in for the rest of your life because you are too cowardly to speak the truth even if the truth harms your perceived thought about who you are because of your carelessness."

They didn't like it. It was very harsh. But the reality of it is, until you're willing to confront the reality about your circumstance, your perceptions, your views, your thoughts, you're never going to find the answer that you're looking for because what you realize is the only person to blame is yourself. The only person to blame is yourself.

Now, we have people in the church that have come to me asking me the same question. We just had a guy recently come to me asking me the same question. And I asked them the same very tough questions. What about this? What about that? What about here? What about there? No hesitation. This, this, this is what it is.

Every single time that happens, it is sometimes not even years, it's months before they achieve the desired results because they realize what's going on. I had a guy come to me years ago complaining about a financial distress he was in. And he's telling me how hard things are financially and how his wife has to go to work and that means the kids can't be taken care of anymore and so on and so forth. And I really need help.

I just really, really need help. I said, "Okay, let's sit down and talk. What's your income?" "This." "Wait, give me that number again." "This much." "You realize you're in the top 1% of earners in this country. And you're telling me you can barely afford to go out to eat? Okay, let's start asking some very important questions. Is any of it being garnished? Do you owe the government? Is there something?"

"No, no, nothing like that." "Okay, what are you spending your money on?" "Well, simple stuff: rent, this, that." "Is your rent $19,000 a month?" I'm serious. Is it $19,000 a month? "No." "Hmm. Well, let's talk about what you're spending. Okay, what's your rent? Okay, this, that. Everything you say you're spending every single month is roughly about 8% of your monthly income. You understand? It's an incredible number. 8% of your monthly income. You either live like you're on peanuts or you're making a huge amount of money. Where's the rest of the money going?"

"Wait, do I really want to answer that question?" "Yeah, you do." Now he's starting to cry. He's in tears. "I get drunk every day. I hang out with my friends and I'm partying. I buy all their weed. I buy all their meth. I drink with them all the time." Hmm. We got a bigger issue we gotta deal with. Let's forget the money and let's forget all the other issues that you're asking about. You've got to give this addiction to the Lord and you've got to let him take it away. All right?"

So he does. I don't do any more financial counseling with him. I don't talk about. I don't do financial counseling. That's not what I do. He does the things that I instruct him to do. He comes back to me completely flabbergasted. He says, "Pastor James, I'm making so much money now, I don't know what to do with it." I said, "Did you get a raise? Kind of hard to imagine you make more than what you already make. Did you get a raise?"

"No, I just stopped drinking." Then he realizes something. When he was drinking, while he was inebriated, he was spending more money than he didn't realize he was spending. He'd go out and buy fancy clothes or he'd go out and do this or he'd go out and do that. He'd go to a waitress and the waitress would take more money out of his wallet because he didn't even know how to pull money out of his wallet because he was so drunk. Think about that.

There was nobody to blame for his circumstance except himself. Jesus was communicating the same message to these religious leaders. The take-home for us is this: It's very important. If we truly want to understand the very core of what God has available to us, we have to be truly willing to answer the difficult questions. We have to be truly willing to have a significant confrontation with ourselves and be willing to put it all out on the line in order to become the beneficiary of the person who will provide the answer to us.

Now how that practically applies for each and every single one of us, being that we're not living at the time of Herod's temple and being that we're not floating around in 33 AD watching Christ do what he's doing and having interaction with him, the way that it applies to us practically is very easy. And that's this: Are we honest with what is going on in our own lives in light of what God's word is saying? Are we good followers before we're good leaders? Do we place a premium on obedience more than we place a premium on anything else?

Are you willing to confront yourself at the higher level that's necessary? By the way, I've learned this. This is going to sound very discouraging. I don't want it to be discouraging. I just want it to actually motivate you to move to new action. I have found that an overwhelming majority of the time people are not willing to do that, which is why an overwhelming majority of the time I don't counsel people anymore.

I don't sit down and have conversations like this anymore. I think that there's more value in me sitting in a group environment like this and teaching the word of God and allowing the word of God to provide the conviction and the counsel necessary because I can't hold a person's hand and force them to confront themselves with the level of honesty that I can't even conceive or perceive. And there's not going to be any change with people who continue to harden their heart.

Now, I will say this, even during the times of people coming to me after a service and wanting to talk, they're very offended by some of the approaches that I take with respect to some of the more difficult questions that are imposed. Why? Because if you cannot take the time to examine the condition of your own heart by allowing God to do it for you, you will never be able to get the more important answer. Now that applies to some people in very different ways.

For some people, it's addiction to some kind of sinful activity that's causing them to be blind and keeping them from being able to answer the real questions. For others, it might not even necessarily be sinful activity. It could just be an overindulgence in something that distracts them and provides noise when they should really be listening to the signal, when they should be seeking signal.

For some people, it just involves developing a different mindset about how they approach certain things as to develop the discipline of doing what God has asked them and called them to do. I've gotten sick and tired of how many times people have come up to me and said, "Oh, must be nice, James." And my answer almost every single time is, "Where were you when?"

Where were you when I spent countless nights doing what I was doing, confronting the things that you should have confronted? It's a very difficult picture to draw for people. Why? Because people don't want to submit to God to correct themselves because it's very uncomfortable. It does not feel good. But God says in order to do it, in order to win, in order to create the circumstance that I intended for you to have, you've got to confront the truth.

This is a perfect example as into what not to be. And it's a great reminder for how important it is to be willing to invoke the most important aspect of your life with respect to sharpening your relationship with God, and that's self-confrontation. Where are you? What's going on? How are you keeping God's will from literally permeating in your life?

We're going to, by the way, Saturday with the men, we're going to confront that very deeply. There's going to be a lot of that confrontation going on because every single person that shows up on Saturday is going to recognize the only culpability in the undesirable circumstance that they are complaining about going through lies with them and nobody else. It's as simple as that. What will you do within the context of what is happening in the current moment that you're facing?

That's the more important question. And it's the one that oftentimes the overwhelming majority of people are very incapable of answering, not because they lack the physical capacity to do so, but because they've already made the decision to distract themselves with the noise instead of allowing the signal to become the priority. It's that simple.

My prayer for us is that we will recognize how to hear from God through his word and understand and discerning what his will is, and ignoring the noise that would keep us from pursuing it. Asking the very difficult questions and using those questions to invoke a certain level of self-confrontation that will bring the result that God desires for us, not the result that we want. By the way, the result that God wants for us is so much greater. So much more powerful, so much more effective, beyond our capacity to be able to understand or discern. So that's where we have to go with all this. Amen?

Guest (Male): This is Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis, and we're currently going through the Gospel of Mark. Listen to this study and more at lightonthehillradio.com. Pastor James's teachings are also available through the Light on the Hill app and at oneplace.com. You can listen to us wherever you get your podcasts as well. When you have a moment sometime today, send us an email. We'd love it. It's encouraging to hear what the Lord is doing in our listeners' lives, and it's an opportunity to thank the Lord for what he's doing. There's a place to contact us at our website, lightonthehillradio.com.

We've been blessed by the feedback we've received thus far regarding Pastor James's new book, The Last Book. If you haven't ordered a copy yet, we'd encourage you to do so. This guide to Revelation covers the first half of the book, giving you what you need to know about the rapture and the end times in a clear and concise manner. Request your copy today at lightonthehillradio.com or through Amazon. If God is leading you to support this radio outreach, there's also a place to make a donation at lightonthehillradio.com. Throughout the week, you can watch our live shows and short videos, many of which relate to Bible prophecy and help you to see current events with a biblical worldview. Look for these at jameskaddis.com. Closing our time in prayer, here's Pastor James.

James Kaddis: Father in heaven, we just thank you, Lord, for your word and we thank you for the opportunity that your word brings to the table, Lord. And we pray that these lessons would be lessons that we very much accept, that we understand and recognize, Lord, as you've determined for us. Help us to really invoke this aspect of self-confrontation to do as you will for our lives. So, Lord, we love you and thank you. We look to you, and we ask these things in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Guest (Male): More from the book of Mark coming up next time on Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. This listener-supported program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.