The Revelation 4:2-3 | Episode # 1029

September 18. 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

The Revelation 4:2-3

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Applying God's word to your daily life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years.

I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life.

I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name.

It says, immediately,

I was in the Spirit.

All right?

He says, immediately I was in the Spirit.

Now,

you need to understand this because we have many that just don't like to deal with the Holy Spirit.

Okay?

And I'm going to tell you why you don't like to deal with the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit's going to be changing you.

He is. And you're not going to like that. The Holy Spirit is going to be telling you things you ought to do that you don't want to do and the things that you shouldn't be doing that you aren't doing or that you are doing.

And so if you're dealing with the Holy Spirit,

he basically tells you right from wrong. If you don't know what I'm talking about, right, he tells you right from wrong. And if you don't want to hear that,

then you're going to push against the Holy Spirit. In fact, your whole battle with God as a human being redeemed on the earth is really a wrestling match with the Holy Spirit.

It really is. And so the Holy Spirit is difficult for people and understanding that you can operate in the spirit or you can operate in the flesh.

Once you kind of understand that there's a difference between the two,

once you realize that there's a difference between the two,

the spiritual becomes less spiritual,

it becomes more reality.

You realize that the spiritual is real and the flesh is not.

Okay?

And you realize the flesh is just a manifestation of God, who is spirit.

And so when you kind of get that, when you understand that it's important now, there's another important reason why he calls us up in the spirit, or if this is a call for the church to go up in the spirit, you don't take your bodies with you in the sense of you're your flesh,

your sinful flesh with you, okay? When you get to heaven,

you're not going to have this body.

Now, I do think that you will have the same genetics,

just none of the bad.

Okay?

And you go, what do you mean by that? Well, you're going to see John say he sees the people of heaven. And he's going to say, I see men from every tribe and nation, tongue and language.

Well, that obviously means they're black, white, red, yellow, tall, short. You know, all the. He says, I see people from every tribe and nation. Which means that when you get to heaven, we're going.

I know y', all,

we all want to fight over what color Jesus is, but I can tell. I don't know what color exactly Jesus is. I can't give you a skin tone for him.

I know he ain't lily white, okay? Just letting you know that. All right? But I know what color you going to be.

It's the one you are now.

Okay?

It is.

And why? Because God has a promise that he wants to redeem some from every tribe and nation, tongue and language. And obviously that's important to him. And it's obviously important to him that he made us this way.

And so understanding that we were made this way and God made us to be from different places and have different looks to us, makes us unique, makes us who we are.

And we should love that and embrace that.

That is scriptural.

Okay?

That's the way we ought to be. And that's the way we. That's the way we should live our lives. And so when, when, when he. When he. When we go up in the flesh, I believe you're going to have.

I believe you're going to have the body that God originally meant for you to have genetically,

but imperfection.

Which means I'm losing 70 pound, 80 for sure. You know what I'm talking about? I am. I mean, I'm going to be rocking out some way better than what I got right now,

all right? And I'm looking forward to it. No gray hair.

No gray hair growing off my neck. All. None of that bad stuff, none of that.

None of that all. No need for Botox,

got perfect skin,

the whole nine yards. Except, and I believe this too, which I think, I think a lot of parents struggle with,

you know,

the whole idea that, what are your children going to buy? Like, are you going to recognize them? Yeah, you're going to recognize.

The only ones you're not gonna recognize is all the ones that died in the womb before they were born.

And you say, well, they gonna be in heaven. Yeah,

they sure are. And so you're Gonna have them. You're gonna have a whole group of them that you don't even know. That's so wonderful about heaven. And by the way, that's one of the wonderful things about the book of Job,

okay?

When God gave him twice as much, he gave him twice as much of everything. Except for who his children gave him the same amount of children back.

Why?

Because once he gave the same amount back, he had twice the amount. Because your children,

those who are your treasure in heaven, they don't go away.

They're already on deposit in heaven. And so Job got everything back double except for his children,

because the children that were gone were still his.

And so understanding that I have a client today, she's got. There's all kinds of issues going on there. But. But the, the medical report that I read a couple weeks ago says that her womb was toxic to her children.

That's what it said. And it said, I don't know how they can read this, but it said they had been 11 pregnancies and only one of them had gone anywhere near term.

So that woman had had 10 pregnancies that had failed.

So she's got 10 children in heaven that she don't even know about.

Which I think is really cool.

It's really cool.

I was almost gonna send Kathleen to have her scanned, but to no avail.

Kathleen, lookin at me like you crazy. You don't have one anymore. I know, I'm sorry. We should have checked it before they did, but I didn't know to. All right.

He says,

so John is not in heaven in his flesh.

He left his flesh behind. And you need to understand that because his flesh can't be before God. It would die.

His sinful flesh would die before a holy God. And so his flesh can't be there. He's up there in the spirit, but we're not up there in the spirit.

That's not what's going on with us. It says in verse three.

Now let's move back to verse two. A throne, it says, I was in the spirit. And behold a throne set in heaven.

And one sat on the throne.

Okay?

Now he's talking about a singular throne.

And that throne is in heaven. Now I'm going to give you a little bit of.

I'm going to tell you on the front end who it is. It's God the Father himself. It's God himself on this throne.

Okay?

Jesus has been sitting on the throne. He's been sitting on the mercy seat. But I want you to hear me. There's no Longer any mercy,

okay?

He's moved from sitting on the mercy seat in the throne room of heaven and taken back on the role. He's already done the role of redemption.

Now he's going to do the role of avenging, okay? And understanding that's important. And understanding that John, when he gets to heaven, he's going to see the Father. Now you go, well, don't you want to see Jesus first?

Well, no, that's the truth is, is no, you're not.

You're going to want to see the Father first. And I'm going to tell you why.

Because the whole purpose of this whole plan is for you to have a relationship with the Father.

The whole purpose of this is so that you would have a renewed relationship with the Father.

And so the whole purpose of you being redeemed is so that you can be around that throne, that you now can be in the presence of a holy God. And so God wants that, he desires that and you are going to be a part of it.

And I'm gonna show you how it says. And he who sat on the throne was like Jasper and Sardis stone. Now there's two stones here and people are going to do all their kind of researching and things like that, but I'm going to tell you that these stones are scripturally.

The Jasper stone is not a diamond, but it's likened to a diamond.

It's clear, okay?

And the Sardis stone is what we modern day call a ruby, okay? And so the appearance of the one who sits on the throne is clear and red like blood,

okay?

So if he had to describe the appearance, but you got to remember now, God is unapproachable light. The light that he sees from this throne,

the one that sits on it has Jasper,

which is clear,

and ruby, which is red. Now the interesting parts of those stones are the high priest had an ephod in which he could speak with God.

If you've been studying through the first book, five books of the New Testament or the Old Testament with me, you know about the ephod and you know about the stone.

The first stone stands for Reuben.

It's the Jasper. No, hold on,

because I get this all mixed up.

It is the Jasper, okay?

He's the first.

The ruby stone or the red stone,

which is the Sardius or Sardius stone stands for Benjamin, okay? And so if you were to look at the breastplate of the high priest, you would have the first stone and.

The last stone, okay?

And so he has the appearance of the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

All right, Starts with the first son,

son of the promise. Starts with the last son, the son of his right hand, which is a picture of the promises of God that would be Judah and the promises,

the,

the power of God, which would be Benjamin, the son of promise and the son of, of the power of his right hand. I'm just giving you the figurative places. I want you to just think through these things.

But the whole, his whole appearance is tied to and connected to how he's revealed himself in scripture.

Okay?

And so can you spiritualize these things? Well, you better sometimes because you're going to miss out on a whole lot if you don't.

Can you over spiritualize them? Well, perhaps, perhaps you can go down some rabbit holes,

you can dig some holes and dive into them and end up somewhere you don't want to be.

But these stones are clear in scripture.

They represent two tribes.

We know the whole point of those tribes, the whole picture of those tribes. In fact, Abraham,

he blesses them that way, not Abraham,

Jacob blesses them that way.

And so when he gives his blessing, we know that the first son is, even though he was hot headed, he was a son of promise. How do we know he's the son of promise?

Well, he meets all the standards of God promising to make a great nation. He's the beginning of the great nation. And then Benjamin is the son of his right hand because Benjamin was always right there beside Jacob.

And so there's a picture. Those pictures are clear. And you see the Father.

I want you to notice this is not Jesus.

This is the Father who is picturing scripture.

Even though Jesus is the word made flesh,

remember,

Jesus is the full manifestation of the Father in the flesh.

And so all these stories point to Jesus,

but they also point to the Father.

All right?

It says here he was like Jasper and Sorda stone in appearance.

And there was a rainbow around the throne in appearance,

like an emerald.

Now the rainbow has been stolen by somebody recently, okay?

It has been stolen, but it's not the rainbow that our modern society likes to use, okay?

It's not.

It is. It is. The, the rainbow in scripture is a picture of God's promise that he will not utterly destroy,

that his wrath won't be full and complete against all humanity ever again.

Okay?

It's a picture of God's. It's a picture of God's promise of redemption, okay? His promise of redemption.

And so when you see God on his throne,

you see him in his holiness.

The sounds that come from his throne are gonna be the sound of thunder and many waters. We're gonna talk about that in just a second. But you see that he's the first and the last.

And you see that around him is a picture of redemption and a picture of God's promises.

And those promises are fulfilled in Jesus, but they come from the Father.

And understanding that is really, really important.

By the way,

so many times we pray and we'll pray to Jesus and we'll pray to the Holy Spirit. I'm going to tell you that that's not scriptural.

That is not scriptural. You're supposed to pray to the Father.

You're supposed to pray to the Father.

Now, I mention the Holy Spirit when I pray. I talk about Jesus all the time to the Father, right?

But. But I'm talking to God. If you'll notice, when I pray, I'm intentional about prayer before you.

Okay?

Because when I'm praying, I'm not just praying for me.

I'm praying for the whole congregation.

And I want to make sure that I'm theologically correct. And I want to make sure that I'm teaching you not just in the songs that we sing,

we want to learn from the songs. The songs ought to reflect God's word,

not just from the sermon that's preached, but the prayers that are said should reflect solid scripture. By the way, we had Pastor Jimmy preach this Sunday. Man, that was some solid scripture, wasn't it?

I mean, some real solid food.

It is good to have men to serve with.

You don't know how much of a blessing that is for a pastor to have that.

It says that his. His appearance was like an emerald as you go. Today I pray that the Lord will.

Bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.