The Revelation 5:2-5 | Episode # 1037

September 30, 2025

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

The Revelation 5:2-25

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.

If you would like to revisit today’s Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. 

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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.

All right, so as we're. As we're thinking about it, it says, then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, all right?

It says,

oh, by the way, in Roman law, because of this. Because of these things,

any sealed document that had seven seals under Roman law, any document that had seven seals dealt with some aspect of life or death, okay, so you would have a title deed that deals with life or death.

If you go by the Roman pictures, then the Romans would have seen it that way. Okay, now would everybody see it that way? Not necessarily. But you got to remember that John is writing this in a time of the Roman age.

He's writing this during the Roman age. In fact, he's writing this while in exile on a Roman penal colony. Okay? And so it says, then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals.

So there is a pronouncement made by a powerful angel.

Okay. Doesn't describe the angel. Just says, the angel makes this pronouncement. The angel says for all to hear,

but mainly for John to hear and for him to tell us what's going on.

He's pronouncing it. He's saying, who's able to open the seals?

Now,

the word he uses there, who is worthy.

The word in the Greek actually means,

who is heavy enough.

Okay,

so apparently, Harrisons can do some really,

really good stuff in scripture. But it says, who has the weight? What does that weight mean? Well, that weight means who has the authority, the spiritual authority,

who has the worthiness by their lineage and by their position and by their accomplishments,

who is able to open the seals?

All right, now you go, well, why do we want the seals open?

Well, because they've been shut,

which means that the earth, until somebody takes back control and makes things right. Until that happens,

well, we're all under a Curse, aren't we?

We're under the curse because no one has full power. No one has full authority. No one is acting to fix the problems of the earth. And if you sat around those tables tonight as we ate,

I'm sure y' all discussed some of the problems of the world. Am I right?

And I'm sure y' all came up with some great solutions. But who's gonna be. Who has the power to implement those solutions, right?

Who has the authority or the ability to fix those issues?

Well, I'm sorry, Even if you have the answers, but you don't have the authority.

Well,

you can't fix it.

And let me say this.

The older you get, the more you realize that if I don't have the authority,

then I can't fix the problem even if I want to fix the problem.

He asks, who has the authority? Who is worthy to open and loose its seals?

And it says, and no one.

And you can actually translate this? And no,

not one.

In fact, it's probably better translated that way.

And no, not one in heaven or on earth or under the earth, if y' all notice, that comes up a lot.

All right?

No one in heaven,

on earth or under the earth,

he says,

was able to open the scrolls or to look at it.

Now, a lot of the older. The one. The one older manuscript, the oldest manuscript of this, does not have or look at it in it, but it doesn't really matter.

If you can't open it, you sure can't look at it, right?

All right? He says, here,

now, listen,

John says,

I wept much y' all with me.

Which means he realizes the significance of this.

He realizes that all the things that he's experienced for years and years and years, and all the struggles and all the pain he's watched and the death and the bondage that people are in, he realizes that all this pain and suffering and death,

there's nobody to fix it.

There's no answer to the problem.

And you can imagine his emotions would be, as Pastor Terry would say, would be running amok up there. Being in this vision, seeing all these wonderful things,

seeing this mighty angel stand up,

seeing this scroll in the hand of God Almighty himself and God the angel, saying, who's worthy of. To open up the scrolls? And then he looks around and there's no one that's worthy.

Now, I want you to get this,

because the actors are important in this story,

all right?

There is God who has the scroll.

There is a mighty angel who makes a pronouncement in heaven,

and then there is another one who comes along and gives the answer.

It says that.

It says so I wept much because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroller, to look at it but one of the elders,

the church,

one of the ones who had access directly to the throne of God,

one who had the ability to have the revelation of God and the understanding of God,

one who had the Holy Spirit. I listened to someone preach this morning at school and, and at the. At the high school. And he. He was. He. He was so on the money because the Bible says that the natural man hath not understood the spirit, the.

The things of the spirit because they are spiritually discerned.

Which means that if you're trying to study and you're trying to figure out what God's word says or what God is saying in a certain situation,

if you're trying to do that and you're trying to figure those things out,

if the Holy Spirit is not revealing it to you,

you cannot understand spiritual truth.

This is of the utmost importance. I told you the story of my professor,

who was a genius about books and literature of the antiquity. And then when he took up just one of the epistles written by the apostle Paul, it was as if he was a buffoon.

He didn't understand it. He didn't get it. It befuddled him. And he even said during one of his two lectures, he said, I don't get what he's trying to say now.

As a Christian, sitting in the. In the audience, sitting in the classroom, sitting in the lecture hall, as a Christian, I sat down and I said to myself,

self,

well, that's just.

That's just so simple. I don't understand why. I don't get it.

But by the way, I'm not raising my hand because I didn't want them to know my name.

Every class I was ever in, I never did want them to know my name because if they looked at me and saw me, they knew I played football,

okay?

And I didn't want them to know that I was a football player. So associate my name with a football player. And then a lot of times I would have to wear my military uniform on campus.

And so about half the classes I was in, I would have to wear my uniform to class. I didn't have time to run home and change. And if you don't think I actually did that, I did at Princeton a whole lot because I didn't want them to associate me with either being a football player or from Princeton.

And I also had the added. It Issue that if I opened my mouth and began to talk, they'd know I was from Alabama or Georgia or Mississippi somewhere down yonder, okay?

And so I didn't want them to know that either. And so I didn't open my mouth. But I thought to myself, that is the most simplest thing.

I could explain that real easy to you. But he couldn't understand it.

Because if it was a spiritual discernment and those things, those things that are taught by the Holy Spirit cannot be discerned by your flesh.

Your human mind cannot conceive the things of God. They are foolishness to him. To you,

only your spiritual mind.

That's why all of a sudden, some. How many y' all were. How many y' all were born again as an adult? How many of y' all were born again as an adult?

How many of y' all do remember that time when your mind just opened up and you realize, look at all this stuff that's happening? Do y' all remember that?

Look at it. This is.

Wow.

Do y' all remember that? A lot of times when you're a young person, you don't really remember the stark difference between the two,

and you begin to be enthralled by God's word, and it really attracts you, and you start reading and.

And you start searching through it, and it just begins to. In your mind, open your mind up in ways that you never, ever understood before.

And so there's always hope for people, and you always remember, need to remember that, because a lot of people are ignorant because they have no spiritual discernment. They don't have the ability to know these things,

okay? And so when John is looking out and the question gets asked,

who's able to open the seals? And nobody can open them. He.

He. He breaks down.

That's that,

you know, this is a. I'm in a spiritual place.

I'm. I'm. I'm seeing. I'm seeing the eternal things that are going on. And there's no one. There's no one able to fix this problem.

But the elder is.

The elder knows the answer.

The elder has.

Has the answer to the problem.

He says, it says. But one of the elders said to me, do not weep.

And this is what. This is the verse that was on the painting,

which is somewhere,

but we don't know where.

Do not weep.

Behold the line of the tribe of Judah. The root of David has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.

Now,

you need to understand that Jesus comes from the tribe of Judah,

okay?

He's from the tribe of Judah. And in Genesis, chapter 49, where.

Where Abraham blesses, I mean,

Jacob blesses his sons, each one of them, his son, Judah is blessed. And the Bible says that the scepter shall not depart from Judah until shallow come or till peace come.

And that is a prophecy about the coming of Jesus.

Jesus is the line. Spiritual authority, spiritual power.

He is the line of the tribe of Judah. He is.

Then he goes from Judah to who?

To David, the root of David, Meaning he is a son of David. I want you to hear me. He is a son of David. In Matthew and Luke,

Matthew takes you from Joseph, his earthly father, all the way Back to David, 14 generations.

Matthew, Luke takes you from his mother, his actual physical mother, which he received his humanity from his physical mother back 14 generations to David.

He is the line of the tribe of Judah.

And if you're sitting there trying to figure out what kind of cousin he was to himself,

he was a 14th cousin to himself. Okay, just letting you know he's a 14th cousin.

That's fine. There's no big deal.

You probably are the. At least most of the people in this room.

If you grew up in an area that your family grew up in for a long time, you're probably at least a fifth or sixth cousin to yourself.

Okay? Just letting you know that's a very high likelihood that you're at least a fifth or sixth cousin to yourself.

Jesus was a 14th cousin to himself because you could go back through both genealogies and get all the way back to David.

Now, the Jews knew that because genealogies were important to them.

And why are genealogies important to the Jews?

Well, because they're in the Bible.

So you got the genealogies of scripture,

and that's exactly right. The land,

the way I'm tied to the land, is my historical heritage back to the land. What land? The Promised land. What did the promised Land represent?

Well, it represents a place that God has given me, and it represents the promises of God.

And so your attachment to the land is very important.

It's of high importance.

And so they spent that time seeking after to know, to understand,

to have.

Have a tie back to the generations behind me and the land behind me. But notice he doesn't say. He doesn't just call him the son of David,

although he is the son of David.

He calls him the lion of the tribe of Judah, which means he has a royal scepter.

He is of the firstborn.

He is. He is the firstborn of many brothers. He is. He is he has the royal throne of David. In fact, when he sits on the throne in heaven, the name of the throne that Jesus sits on is the throne of David.

The throne in heaven that Jesus sits on is the throne of David.

And so he has that authority. And notice what has he done.

He's overcome.

And he has the power to open or the authority or the weight to open the seals,

which means he's from a royal line,

which means he is equal to or greater than the one who possesses the deed.

Now, I want you to hear me.

That means he is God.

Because the one who sits on the throne is God the Father.

The only person that can open the seals is one who is of higher weight or equal weight to the one who sent it.

He is the one who is equal to God.

That's what that passage says.

He says, don't weep.

The lion of the tribe of Judah has overcome. What has he overcome?

He's overcome sin and death.

He's overcome sin and death.

How did.

How did humanity lose the title deed to the earth,

the dominion over the earth through sin.

And then as a relative result of that sin, death through Hebrews says, through one man, sin entered the world and then death.

So also through one man, life.

Jesus Christ.

So understanding that Jesus has the weight to open the scrolls because he's overcome sin and death,

how's he overcome sin and death?

Because he's not just a lion,

he's a lamb.

If I told you about a picture I got one time tell y' all about that picture or none. She'll probably go and find it at the house. She knows exactly where it's at.

All right. He said.

He said he has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals 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.