Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Coming up next on the weekend edition of Light on the Hill. If we're not supposed to judge one another in the sense that we look at the fruit or the things that people bear or we begin to call people out based on actions that we see, then we would never be told to be judges.

Right? So what James is talking about here is how we interact with one another in light of the heart and the mind of humility that God has called us to. It's a very important principle.

Singer: I have found that peace only comes from You. I have found the joy only comes from You, because all I need is You.

Guest (Male): It's time once again for Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis online at lightonthehillradio.com. Today, we'll be in James chapter four, verses 11 through 17. We're about to be encouraged to interact with one another in humility. With a lot to cover, let's get right to it.

James Kaddis: Speak not evil. This is verse 11. Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law and judgeth the law. But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.

There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. Who art thou that judgest another? So this is very interesting. I have had people quote this verse to me so many times I can't even remember every single time I make a video that they don't agree with. Every single time I talk about somebody who's doing something evil or something that's wrong.

And the question that I would always ask is, is the person that I am supposedly speaking evil of in violation of what James says here, is that person a brother? Is that person actually walking with the Lord? Or how about this? What if that person was walking with the Lord?

Am I speaking evil of that brother by calling them out and putting to the light the evil that they're doing? I mean, think about that for a second. If I go to my daughter who's misbehaving, especially when I've asked her to do something completely to the contrary of what she's actually doing, and I point it out to her.

I say, "Honey, did you do this?" "No, I didn't do it, Baba. I didn't do it." "No, honey, did you do this?" "No, I didn't." "Honey, did you do it?" "Yeah, I did it, Baba." I know you did. I watched you do it. The problem is you can't do that. Now you have to be punished.

You disobeyed your dad. And because you disobeyed your dad, I am being forced right now. You forced my hand. I didn't do it. You forced my hand to make a judgment call and to provide for you a consequence for the action that you chose to capitulate to. Now, was I as your father speaking evil of you by making an accusation of wrongdoing?

No. I simply observed the wrongdoing that you committed and as a result, I called you on the carpet so that I can lovingly and caringly discipline you to provide for you the rails and the wise constraints that will keep you from going off the road and destroying your life.

Right? So there's a context here. And the context is the person who is seeking to promote self, the person who is thinking about self, the person who is inwardly focused will be the person who will seek to elevate themselves by making evil something that is not evil.

And if you want to know what a picture of that looks like, how about we stop for one moment and reflect upon those people who are standing on what they believe to be righteous ground as they are putting down righteous men and women of God for standing up for truth. Think about that for a minute.

How many times are righteous people in this society right now being called evil? How many times are righteous people in this society right now being called out for taking a stand, for doing the things that have been literally called by God for them to do?

Think about the idea behind that. Those that are evil, who seek to always promote self, are oftentimes not only tied to secular humanistic philosophical ideas, but they, in essence, adopt and oftentimes embody the spirit of Antichrist.

Why? Because they seek to remove the consciousness of God by standing in place of God, by becoming God themselves. And in removing consciousness of God, you also remove consciousness of your failure, which means you allow pride to enter in.

And when pride enters in, you deem evil whatever you want to be evil and you deem good whatever you want it to be good. And what you end up doing is you call good evil and evil good. It's a condition of the last days in which we live.

So when the Bible tells us to speak not evil of one another and speaks concerning specifically of our brethren or other brethren, he's talking about the idea of those that we stand amongst that are righteous among us. And I think that that's pretty important, how we have to be careful of that.

But here's the thing that's interesting. And I want you to understand this because James has already done this in this text. He's actually done it since the beginning of the letter. People look at verse 11 and 12 and all of a sudden build whole doctrines around it.

When in reality, verse 11 and 12 is a supporting statement to provide a practical application of the wisdom given to us in the previous verses. And the wisdom given to us in the previous verses is humble yourself in the sight of the Lord.

Allow God to lift you up. Do not walk in a mindset of pride and arrogance. Allow your mind and heart to be completely subjugated to the spirit of God. Allow yourself to recognize and realize who God is and do not become a promulgator of that which Satan desires to do in your life.

And you must resist Satan by your willfulness to submit to God in your desire to draw close to Him. And as you desire to draw close to Him, you will grow in your humility because as your awareness of God becomes a lot more capable, then you are going to recognize just how unbelievably ignorant you are of the truth.

How unbelievably wrong you are. How wicked you are. The more you get to know God, the more you begin to realize those truths and as you realize those truths, everything changes. Absolutely everything changes.

It's kind of funny how it works. Familiarity in many cases oftentimes builds a better appreciation for the things that are actually being viewed when oftentimes a lack of familiarity with those things doesn't mean anything because if you don't know what's involved or the implications of what's involved, then it actually means completely nothing.

I was listening to the radio traffic the other day and I just grabbed one of my radios and I decided to listen to all of the flight traffic that's coming out of the tower here at Long Beach for the airplanes because about three or four weeks ago we were driving near Long Beach Airport and I watch a series of airplanes completely reroute their normal paths.

And normally that's kind of a common thing to happen. Anybody who has any experience with aviation understands how this works. When you have a small municipal airport like Long Beach, there's a series of reasons why they reroute, where they direct traffic, where they land things and where they take things off.

Most of the time, the most common reason is the change in wind. So your approaches and takeoffs tend to be different. But because the airport is so small, there's a whole bunch of reasons why things can actually be deferred or a reason why things can be changed and so on and so forth.

So I'm out in the parking lot waiting for Nicole to do some grocery shopping as I'm watching one of the kids that are asleep in the car and all of a sudden I hear this sound of a quick jet engine change and I look up in the sky and I realize that one of the smaller jets, like a business private jet, is completely diverting itself.

As a matter of fact, it's interesting how hard of a bank it's making and how it's coming around for a different approach. And I'm watching it and I'm thinking, "Wow, this is weird. The Cessnas are going the same way. Lots of these they're changing the direction and there's nothing in the weather that would give me any kind of indication as into why they're doing so."

So I decide to listen to the radio. So I'm listening to the radio and it actually turns out that there was a very emergency order that came out. Sometimes this happens, by the way. Normally when an emergency order comes out by the FAA, you get a notice concerning that. They're called NOTAMs, Notice to Airmen.

Now, because of the whole gender thing, they call it Notice to Air Missions. I still call it a Notice to Airmen. And they give us information that tells us about the conditions of the sky in which we fly. And sometimes that can be really frustrating because you get a Notice to Airman as a pilot and part of that is what they call a TFR, Temporary Flight Restriction.

And they say you're not allowed to fly in this area because we have VIPs coming in or this is coming in or that is coming in. When Air Force One recently landed in Long Beach, most people didn't know that, by the way, but Air Force One landed in Long Beach very subtly and very quietly for only a moment of time.

We had those TFRs issued to us in one case a week before it actually happened, so we knew when these things are happening and that type of thing. And so sometimes that doesn't happen. Sometimes what happens is traffic diverts because it has to because of an emergency condition, whether it be a crash landing condition or something like that.

And the tower actually has to tell everybody over the radio, "You need to divert here, you need to go this way, we're changing this route, you need to go here, you're no longer authorized to land over here, how much fuel do you have?" And there's all kinds of crazy traffic going on.

So I listen to the radio and I notice that everything is diverting and no offense to my wife, she jumps in the car and it just sounds like mumbo jumbo to her. She's not used to listening to aviation traffic. Most of you people that if you were to listen, you wouldn't understand anything that's being told unless you have a background and understanding.

Same thing with listening to law enforcement traffic or anything like that. If you listen to NASCAR guys communicating with one another, there's things that don't even make sense. It's like they talk in their own language and in their own world.

So I start listening to the radio traffic and all of a sudden I'm hearing an air traffic controller that I'm actually used to listening to speak with a very elevated voice and I know the voice. But most people that don't regularly listen to the radio are going to go, "What in the world?" You know, it's just average everyday traffic.

"10-4, divert 24 right." You don't think anything of it. Well, I hear this elevated voice going on and I'm like, "Uh oh, he's calling out a tail number." That's kind of rare. You normally don't see that. Something is changing. Why is he doing this off the cuff?

And all of a sudden he starts establishing communication with an airplane and the kids are beginning to talk. Like, "Everybody quiet. Quiet, I want to listen to this." So I'm listening and I turn around to my wife in about 30 seconds, 40 seconds, and I say, "Babe, hear that voice that just talked right now? Yeah, that's a pilot, that guy on the radio. Guaranteed he's losing his license today."

"Why? Why? What happened?" "Well, it's a subtle thing. You might not hear it, but it's very fast traffic. It begins to make sense because you're familiar with the voices and you're hearing an air traffic controller beginning to panic and tell the guy who's getting ready to land that he's not authorized to land on that runway and he ends up pulling a Harrison Ford."

And he goes to land on a portion of the runway that was authorized for a takeoff to take place and there was a near disastrous condition that actually was met. Thank God that the jet that was actually it was a Southwest jet, by the way, that was getting ready to taxi to fly out, knew what was going on, stopped right at the end.

They diverted that Cessna to go where it needed to go or whatever it was that needed to go. I didn't catch what kind of a plane it was. And I was just telling my wife, I said, "Yeah, that guy's losing his license. That guy's not going to have his license."

I don't even think my wife heard me when I said that. Just, "Oh, wow. Okay." And I'm listening and I'm listening and I'm listening. And it didn't mean much to her because she has no familiarity or background of what it is. And I'm thinking just from four sentences, I'm thinking, "Wow, that guy's life is over."

I hope that this was just a leisurely thing he did and it wasn't some commercial thing or whatever because he's going to get his license pulled. And my point behind saying this is the more familiar you become to certain voices, the easier it is for you to be aware of the circumstance that you're in.

And you begin to carry a whole lot more brevity for the thing that you're looking at. And you think about it. Like you tell your kid, "Do not cross the street." And they don't listen to you. They run across the street. And as an adult, you've seen kids that have been hit by cars and you watch your kid run across the street.

Your kid does not realize just how close they came to getting hit by a car, but you saw the car that went by. Your kid didn't see the car that went by. But because of the familiarity you have of the particular circumstance, the humility by which you approach vehicles on the street that are coming in your direction while you're walking or while your kids are walking is a lot more significant than the humility that your child might have.

Because the lack of life experience that your child has produces a lack of humility in that area because their ignorance causes them to look at something completely different. So when James is telling us to refrain from saying such things or not to do such things, it relates to the idea of the fact that if you are a person who grows familiar with the voice of God, then your awareness of your own shortcoming is going to be something that is so significant that you will think twice about the assertions you make concerning other people.

So much so that you will only make those assertions when God has called you to make those assertions because you yourself have had such an experience with the true and living God that you know the dangers of what happens when you choose to not humble yourself.

And just like that guy flew down the runway and lost his career and only a few people listening to the radio would understand what that means, we oftentimes don't understand the full implications of what it means to talk evil concerning another person who never warranted it.

Because our lack of humility based on our lack of familiarity with the spirit of God and what God has put in front of us has conditioned us to make representations that make absolutely no sense. You guys get it?

So the statement that he's making here in these verses is basically the contention that the natural result of our walk with God in standing before Him in humility will regulate the statements that we make concerning our brethren. Right?

Isn't that important to understand? We're careful about the things we say about brothers. We're careful about the things we say about our sisters. And I think that this is a difficult time that we're living in to do this because what I'm realizing, especially when I examine the call that God has placed upon my life to shout certain things from the rooftop and to expose the kind of evils that exist in our world, is I'm realizing more than ever now that my necessity to be closer to God than I ever have been has increased exponentially.

I've realized now that I can never be good at what I'm called to do unless I learn how to be so close to the Lord that my desire to lean in on Him for all my wisdom and understanding has to be predicated upon His knowledge, His grace, His ability to give me the insight that I need because I don't know what I'm talking about.

I have no discernment. I have no ability to understand the things of God unless I'm leaning in on Him because I'm the one that's patently unwise while He is the one that is infinitely wise. You follow what I'm saying?

So when we go and we lean on His infinite wisdom, it regulates how we interact with other people. It regulates how we speak with one another, how we continue to talk and walk and function and move and communicate. It changes everything.

And so the idea that he's saying here is he's not building a doctrine on, "Don't go talk about these people." He's saying, "If you are aware of your position before God and you walk with Him in humility, then in essence you will understand what I'm exhorting you to do in being careful to go to a brother that does not warrant the accusation of evil and to accuse him or her of evil when you have chosen to do so from or resulting from a mindset that says I will be like the most high God."

And when I don't humble myself and I don't allow God to lift me up, then how in the world can I create an expectation within my heart that God is going to give me the wisdom necessary in order to handle the circumstances that exist?

God gives us the wisdom to be able to do that, doesn't he? By the way, it's very interesting. If we're not supposed to judge one another in the sense that we look at the fruit or the things that people bear or we begin to call people out based on actions that we see, then we would never be told to be judges.

Right? So what James is talking about here is how we interact with one another in light of the heart and the mind of humility that God has called us to. It's a very important principle. By the way, it is interesting because so many people will look at this and they'll say and you know what's really weird about this passage and I've heard pastors say this.

You read verse 11, you read verse 12 and then it seems to abruptly stop and then you instantly get into another subject in verse 13. When in reality they're all intertwined. There is no abrupt stop because all James is doing is reinforcing the principle of humility and how it affects interpersonal relationships.

Think about it like this. I tell this to people all the time in premarital counseling. I say this. You better learn to love God more than you love your spouse. You better learn to love God more than you love your kids. If you don't love God more than you love your spouse and you don't love God more than you love your kids, you'll worship your kids.

You'll worship your spouse. And in doing so, whether or not you admit it or verbally or vocally want to say it or even are consciously aware of it, you begin to put them in a place that God deserves to be put in.

You put them in the place of prominence that God deserves to be put in and you know what you end up doing? You end up sacrificing them. You end up destroying them. You end up hurting them. You end up causing them to suffer because you never gave them the demonstration and the foundation for what it means to place a priority on God.

And I say this all the time, you will never learn how to love your spouse if you don't learn how to love God more than you love your spouse. If you learn to love God more than you love your spouse, then you will always be able to love your spouse.

That is the peace that I have in my heart for why I know my wife is never going to leave me because although I am worthy of being disliked the way I smell in the morning and in the evening and the loud mouth that I have and the complete opposite personality I am of my wife and you know I just can't function on a chiseled body alone, you know what I mean?

I mean with all those different characteristics that exist within my marriage, I don't have to worry about how my wife is going to feel about me or not because I know she loves God more than me. And because she loves God more than me, she will allow the spirit of God to regulate how she interacts with me and to show her how to love me.

And that's the same thing. That's the thing that keeps me awake in the morning. This is why I despise the trans movement or the trans contagion. I despise it because the movement that we're looking at right now is teaching men how to be effeminate, teaching men how to be complete cowards.

Teaching men how to be individuals that don't recognize the obligation set forth in front of them by the Lord to humble themselves in their love for God and the expression of that love is to put themselves out there to stand in front of and on behalf of and to continue to demonstrate what it means to deny yourself before everybody for God in the hope of glorifying God before your family and allowing your children to watch what that looks like.

I've been told this before and I don't appreciate it. I have been told, "Be careful about being so aggressive defending your daughters. That can backfire a little bit." Really? I have news for you. I don't give a rip. I don't care what you think or anybody else thinks.

I want my daughters to understand what a man is in their life that will defend them at all costs because he understands his biblical and God-ordained call to not only defend them, but to serve them and to love them even as Christ loved the church.