Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Here is Pastor James Kaddis.

James Kaddis: Time is the greatest asset that all of us have. Nobody has a greater tangible asset than time, other than, of course, the relationship we have with the true and living God and our families. But when we talk about an intangible asset, the greatest intangible asset that we have is time.

Why? Because time is something that is granted to us by almighty God. And because we are so comfortable with allowing time to pass by nonchalantly, we make the arrogant assumption that we have lots of time ahead of us. As a result, we begin to drag our feet and wait, and allow ourselves to not act on things today.

Instead, we wait until tomorrow or the next day. And the terrible part about it is because of your arrogance and because of your assumption about what you think tomorrow holds, tomorrow never came.

Guest (Male): Time is the most valuable commodity we have and it's a precious gift from the Lord. If we know that's true, then we'll stop being presumptuous about the days to come and grateful for what little time we have left. Let's join Pastor James Kaddis in James chapter four as we listen to part two of Time is Almost Up.

James Kaddis: Everything is predicated upon your relationship with God. Everything is based upon the willfulness that you have to show that humility that God would be able to work through it. So think about this for a second. Can we just talk about this for one minute?

So if you know all of that, and we know that that's true, and we all stipulate to this, we all concede to this, then verse 13 is not out of place. Verse 13 makes perfect sense because what is verse 13 telling us? Verse 13 says, "Go to now, you that say today or tomorrow, we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain. Whereas you know not what shall be on tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away."

So you guys that are sitting there and saying, we're going to do this tomorrow and this is going to happen over here, and I'm going to build my house, and this is all going to happen or whatever, be careful. The arrogance that you tend to display in your willfulness to be able to create a plan for yourself that you know you might have nothing to do with because you don't know what tomorrow holds.

You can be the most healthy man in the world. You could take completely great care of yourself, but what's to keep you from taking a bullet to the chest? What's to keep you from getting hit by a car? What's to keep anything from happening? Here's the thing that we have to understand, and this is the principle that the Lord is wanting to tell us.

Time is the greatest asset that all of us have. Nobody has a greater tangible asset than time, other than, of course, the relationship we have with the true and living God and our families. But when we talk about an intangible asset, the greatest intangible asset that we have is time.

Why? Because time is something that is granted to us by almighty God. And because we are so comfortable with allowing time to pass by nonchalantly, we make the arrogant assumption that we have lots of time ahead of us. As a result, we begin to drag our feet and wait and allow ourselves to not act on things today.

Instead, we wait until tomorrow or the next day. And the terrible part about it is because of your arrogance and because of your assumption about what you think tomorrow holds, tomorrow never came. And now that tomorrow has never come, the lack of humility that comes from your willfulness to not want to be drawn close to the Lord, to not want to resist the enemy, has allowed the presence of His voice in your life, and you have allowed yourself to be cheated out of the value of everything good that God wants to bring to the table.

Rather, what God is saying is this: walk in humility. Walk in humility knowing who He is. Walk in humility knowing who you are compared to Him. Walk in humility understanding that the men and women that are around you should be viewed with a modified lens, and that would be the lens of God.

Walk in humility understanding that not even tomorrow is promised to you. Walk in humility knowing that tomorrow can't even be guaranteed. I think it's kind of an interesting picture. Maybe I'm emotionally unhealthy in this sense, and maybe it's because of all the things that I've gone through as a police chaplain and many of the things I've seen, whether it be in law enforcement or all the death that I've been exposed to over the years and so on and so forth.

But I find myself in a conundrum oftentimes where I'm driving down the road or maybe I'm on my bike, riding my bike, or maybe I'm just in my mobility scooter and I'm walking the dog, and I'm just contemplating some facts. And I begin to think in my mind: What keeps the guy that's 10 feet away from me in a car from just making a wild turn and running into me? What's to prevent my heart from just not stop? What is keeping my heart even beating?

When I look at the supernatural miracle that is the life of James Kaddis, and I think of the assessments that many doctors and brilliant diagnosticians have made about whether or not I should even be alive at this moment, I think to myself: What's to keep that from all ending? Or maybe when I hear the news of somebody dying suddenly who was in perfect health, I think in my mind, "Why wasn't that me?"

I hear the story of a man who's raising five tender-aged children who dies in the line of duty. And I think, "He has an admirable job. He works hard. He's a lawman. He's righteous. He's a pastor in his off-duty time. He's God's man." But he died so quickly, so tragically, so suddenly. Why not me?

Do you ever have those moments? Do you ever stop for one moment to just reflect upon that? Or how about the fact that people tell me day in and day out, "Don't abuse your body, James. Don't stay up too long. Don't push the envelope. Don't do this. Don't do that. Don't do that." And I go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just busy, I'm busy." It's like I stop for a moment and I go, "What is to keep my heart from stopping right now?"

How is it that at the height of COVID, a guy who's in absolutely perfect health, ran miles and miles and miles, all of that, can get that virus and it feel like he never had anything? No symptom at all. None. I get it, and people expect that I'm going to die. And the same thing happened to me. No symptom. Nothing. You don't think anything of it.

Yet two weeks later, that same guy who survived a tour of duty, several tours of duty overseas in combat, got this virus and nothing happened to him, now all of a sudden drops dead of a heart attack. And by the way, he didn't take any vaccine. I'm just saying it has nothing to do with that. It had nothing to do with any of that stuff. It's just he has a heart attack and he dies. Why?

He did everything he was supposed to do. No major heart problems, no anything. Now that you're all depressed and worried about the future, think about this. Here's the reality. Is anything promised to us? Is tomorrow promised to us? Is the next hour promised to us? Do you understand that life is but a vapor? Do you understand that we're running out of time?

People think that I'm cuckoo because I say Christ could come at any moment. They don't believe me. Do you know what I told the last person that told me that I'm crazy for saying Christ could come at any moment? By the way, a reputable person. Said, "You're crazy for saying that. You need to stop saying it. It's not a good look for you. You just keep looking crazy." I said, "Okay, tell you what. You could have a heart attack at any moment. How about that? Let's just switch the phrase."

You could get shot at any moment. You could get in a car accident at any moment. You could die of this at any moment. You get chickenpox, monkeypox, whatever pox, and die at any given moment. You could die of a paper cut. And yes, look it up online, there have been people that have died from paper cuts. No joke. Kind of gnarly paper cuts, but they have died.

Think about that for a second. Take your pick. Let's just say you deny the idea that Christ could come at any moment. Does that mean you still have plenty of time? Just because you think Christ delays His return, does it mean that you have all the time in the world? That's an arrogant way of thinking. It's a proud way of thinking because you don't know what time you have.

And we could find ourselves 40 years down the line, 50 years down the line, 100 years down the line thinking, "Wow, we've lived a long, good life." But there's still going to be an end. At one point, there's going to be a moment we're going to meet our Maker. When is that moment going to be? We don't know. We're not given that.

Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and when vanisheth away. Look at what he says in verse 15. "For that you ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. But now you rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing is evil." Wow.

Isn't that funny? "Tomorrow we're going to do this. Tomorrow we rise to this level. By this time, I'm going to accomplish this." Great, enjoy it. Enjoy your boasting, but you're a fool. By the way, let me tell you what this is not saying. This is not saying don't be wise and plan. This is not saying don't be wise and prepare. Otherwise, Joseph would be the most sinful man that ever lived on the face of the earth because he prepared his nation for seven years. Actually for 14, if you know the whole story.

What it's saying here is: don't be so proud and arrogant in the accomplishments you think you made that you learn to grossly misunderstand or misappropriate or misestimate what is reality. My mom used to correct me on this all the time. My dad did it too, but my mom more so. I would tell my mom, "Mama, tomorrow, can we talk about it tomorrow?" Mama, she would sharply rebuke me and she would say, "Lord willing, Habibi. That's what you say, Lord willing." That's what she would say.

Why? Because my mom knew tomorrow wasn't promised to her. She walked with that kind of humility. But you know what it also gave her? It gave her boldness. I remember a story that I'll never forget. It felt like it was the end of my life. It honestly felt like it was the end of my life.

I'd just come on staff at the church as a young pastor. I was probably the youngest pastor that had ever come on staff at that church. And I remember the doctor telling my mom that she had a very serious heart condition and that that heart condition was in essence a dilation of her heart. And that she needed a heart transplant. And the only way that she would live is to have a heart transplant.

And she asked the natural question and she says, "Suppose I don't have a heart transplant. How long do you think I live?" And the doctor said, "Anywhere from six months to a year and a half. You won't live beyond six months to a year and a half. You're not going to live." At that time, we didn't have Google around and there was not a lot of those things that you could go up.

So you would start to ask people about different types of cardiomyopathies and you would ask lots of questions. You go to the library, you'd find medical encyclopedias and they all seemed to say the same thing. When you have the specific condition that my mom was diagnosed with, she's not going to live long.

I went to my mom when I found out, I was crying and I said, "Mama, we have to get the heart transplant." And she looked at me and she said, "No, we're going to the church on Saturday, we're going to ask the elders to lay hands on me, that's what we're going to do." And I was so mad. So they go lay hands on her and then we had a very aggressive confrontation that night, me and my mom. It was a very aggressive conversation.

And I said, "Mama, we have to put you on the transplant list. We have to." And my mom said, "Honey, no, we're not going to do it." And I told my mom, I said, "Mama, we need you." And we went through that same routine and my mom said this—and by the way, the only person I would ever believe it from would be my mom because her credibility was solid because she was a woman that knew how to hear God's voice. She wasn't one of these women that just didn't like doctors, so she blew them off. She was under the care of doctors for a majority of her life.

She said, "Honey, the Lord told me that my life is in His hands." Now mind you, this is the same woman who on a regular basis would come to me and say, "Lord willing, your tomorrow is not guaranteed." And I stopped and I thought about that. How could the same woman that always corrected me to say, "Lord willing, my life isn't guaranteed," be the same woman that says, "I'm not going to try to have a heart transplant because God told me."

How incredibly insane is that? That's what I thought about my mom. How incredibly insane. Looking back on it now, I recognize that it's a function of a woman who had the most incredible humility before the true and living God and knew how to trust in God. Funny statement, by the way.

The doctor said that if she had a heart transplant at her age, she would very likely live a quality life for at least another 10 to 15 years. That's what the doctor said. By the way, this was 1996 when the doctors said this. And they said actually it would be a quality life around the next eight years and then she would really start to struggle. And this was around '96 when they told her that.

And the doctor said that because of her age, it likely won't be that long, but if she was a young person having that heart transplant, then it would probably be around anywhere from 8 to 10 to 15 years, and the first eight years, of course, would be better quality, assuming that there's no other medical issues that come up, rejection of the heart transplant, all that kind of stuff, right?

My mom obeyed God and did what God asked her to do, and my mom ended up going to be with the Lord eventually succumbing to that condition in 2014. She lived a longer and more rich life than she would have had she had the heart transplant, assuming that everything went perfect with the heart transplant, and it was not likely that it would.

Why? Because my mom knew that tomorrow was not guaranteed to her, right? My mom knew that her life had always been in the hands of God. Not that that was a license to be reckless, but rather it came from a place of humility, understanding who God was to her.

Now, this is where it becomes really interesting because this is completely beautiful as it encapsulates the rest of the chapter. Look what it says in verse 17. "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is a sin." Interesting way of phrasing that, right?

He's not saying if you know what the right thing to do is and you do evil, that's a sin. He's not saying if you know that what you're doing is evil and you do it, it's a sin. He's saying, "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it's a sin."

What does that mean? That means if you're walking in humility before the Lord, you're going to be open to hearing His voice. If you're going to be open to hearing His voice, you're going to understand the message that He's given you. If you understand the message that He's given you and you know the expectation that He has put in front of you and you choose not to do it because you're worried about the ramifications of the confrontational aspect of it, or you don't do it because you're worried about the contingency that might be placed upon the others that you're doing it for, or if you don't do it for whatever reason you choose not to do it, you're sinning against God.

People get mad at me all the time when I say that there are people in ministry who, by virtue of their lack of willingness to do what's right, are sinning against God. Why? Because God makes His will known to us, doesn't He? I keep asking myself this question. I think it's a great question to ask, and that is this: How can I best illustrate this principle to people? What story could I tell them from my life that would best demonstrate what this principle actually means, because it can be a very hard principle to grasp?

And I realized that the greatest story to tell you about this principle is not found in my life, rather it's found in the life of a prophet that we read about in the Old Testament. Many of you know the story of Yonah, the prophet Jonah. You know the story of him.

God goes to the prophet Jonah, and he tells Jonah—and his existence is around the time of roughly 790 BC. There are several people that are ruling. Jonah is the prophet that we know of in the Bible that he's the only one that's documented to do this. Now don't get me wrong, there were other prophets that ministered to the Ninevites. Obadiah may have been one.

But Jonah is the only one that we read about in the Bible who was called to minister to them and to minister to them only. Jonah gets told by God to go to the Ninevites and tell them to repent. Now, Jonah did not want to tell them to repent because Jonah knew how terrible they were. He knew how evil they were. He knew that they were the original promulgators of modern-day terrorism as we understand it today.

He knew that they were terribly evil people. He had a deep-rooted hate in his heart for them because of the suffering that people in the Northern Kingdom underwent at the hands of them. He hated them. He knew that God wanted him to go to the Ninevites and tell the Ninevites to repent. And he got on a boat and he went as far away as he could from Nineveh. He went in the opposite direction. He went to Tarshish.

The funny thing about him doing that was he knew what the right thing to do was because God told him what the right thing to do was. But he didn't want these enemies of God to live and to get a second chance. He wanted them all to die and go to hell. That's what he wanted.

Jonah was the man who knew what the right thing to do was but did not do it because of his personal feelings. People think, "Oh, he was eventually honorable and went into Nineveh." No, that's not quite what happened. If you remember, a whole series of things had to happen in order to get Jonah to do exactly what Jonah was going to do.

And even after Jonah went into Nineveh and basically told them the most basic of messages, "40 days and you're done. You're all dead. You're all going to hell." He walks away and the Bible says that they had a deep-rooted repentance. It was perhaps the greatest example of the most significant spiritual awakening that had ever taken place in human history in a pagan nation with a message that came out of the mouth of a man who didn't even want to give it.

He finishes that. This amazing spiritual awakening takes place. And God decides He's going to teach him a lesson because He's mad. He didn't want them to go to hell. God didn't want them to go to hell, Jonah did. He wanted them to go to hell.

So what does God do? God creates this plant, kind of like a root, right? Makes it a really hot day. And this plant provided shade for Jonah. I think Jonah was kind of thankful, all things considered, that he had this shade. And God pretty much killed it. And Jonah lost his shade. And the way the story goes, everybody thinks that it's just some weird off-the-wall story of this plant dying and Jonah the story ending with Jonah being upset. No, there was a point to it.