Hope Alive: Applying God's Word to Your Daily Life
Hope Alive: Applying God's Word to Your Daily Life
The Revelation 6:9-11 | Episode # 1041
October 6, 2025
Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life
The Revelation 6:9-11
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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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.
So we are in verse eight.
And, and remember, this is preparation for really the Antichrist coming on the scene.
This is God kind of telling them.
This is me laying the framework, laying the groundwork for the end times to take place. The seals opening begin God's framework for his.
Well, really it's for his judgment of the earth, judgment of his creation, judgment of, of those who have rejected him. And so it says,
the second angel sent.
That is not right because I'm in verse eight. I'm in chapter eight,
chapter six,
verse seven.
He opened the fourth seal.
Well, verse nine.
Shall we start over? See, he's laying the framework for the. He's laying the framework for the Antichrist to come. Verse 9.
Then he opened the fifth seal and I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.
Okay?
All right. Now that is how they overcome is by the word of God and by the power of their testimony.
And so they overcome that way, but they also have been slain.
They are martyrs. And the word martyr actually means witness.
Okay?
So they are the people who over the years and over the generations have been killed for the good news of Jesus Christ.
Now I want you to hear me because it's important.
They are killed for the good news of Jesus Christ. They're not killed for the bad news of Jesus. Jesus Christ.
Okay?
Oftentimes we want to become martyrs by making a stand in some way and say, you know, that we're being mistreated and the world hates us and we become very combative with the world.
And I'm just being honest with you, and I've already had the conversation with many of you here on Wednesday night about the perils of constantly watching the news,
right?
And how that attitude, how the attitude that comes from that can cause you to not have a proper God centered mindset, okay? It can cause you to have a problem in your head.
And before you know it, you begin to operate in the non spiritual gift or the anti spiritual gift of hatred rather than love, right?
And so these people are dying for their expression of the good news of Jesus Christ, of the gospel of Jesus Christ, okay?
They are dying for the expression of God's revelation. And you go, well, they're telling God's word. I want you to hear me.
Jesus is the word of God,
okay?
And so the message that we have is a message of life.
It's a message of hope.
It's a message of knowing God and walking with God.
And so if you're knowing God and walking with God and you got that message of hope and life,
it's so hard for believers to get this.
But remember why you were made.
Were you made for to reveal God's judgment and wrath?
No, you were not.
No, I mean, you were not. In fact, the Bible says that hell was made for the devil and his angels.
Will there be human beings there?
Yeah, but it's made for the devil and his angels,
okay? And so,
so if you were made for,
for God's grace and mercy and then you have been redeemed to that grace and mercy,
then your message,
your message to the world has to be a message of grace and mercy and hope.
Okay?
Now are people martyred for that message? Yeah, they absolutely are.
Okay?
Are some people killed because folks just can't stand to listen to them anymore because their message is not a message of hope?
I would dare say sometimes that's the case also,
okay?
We need to understand that we were made for God's grace and mercy. We were made to glorify God's grace and mercy. And you can't glorify God's grace and mercy without being a source of the good news.
All right? Now I've said that once the Rapture happens, once chapter four begins,
it's not about God's grace and mercy anymore.
It's about God's judgment,
okay?
The people who are being dealt with in this passage are the people who,
who have, who have gone out into the world and,
and proclaimed the good news of Jesus Christ. And they've been killed for it,
okay? They've been murdered for it. And by the way, that continues to happen today all over the world.
The last century was the largest century of Christians being martyred for the good news of Jesus Christ.
Okay?
Now there's a couple of things working toward that.
First of all, there were a lot more Christians last century than there were in the centuries before.
But there are a lot of places in the world where the good news of Jesus Christ, when it's proclaimed and it is a, it is a, it is a, it is pariah to the, to the community.
They, they want people dead. So, so especially in Muslim countries,
especially in Marxist countries,
where you either have a false God or,
or a God that is humanity.
Marxism is, is godless in that it denies a overarching power of the world. But remember,
humans worship one of three things.
They either worship God,
they worship something God made,
or they worship themselves.
Okay, humans worship one of those three.
And so when we get to this, these are the people who not only worship God, but they have, they have been promulgating God's word. They've been spreading God's word in the world.
The good news of God's word. They have lived by the word of God and the power of their testimony. Notice, he said, he says, he says here that they are, they are slaying for the word of God and the testimony they held.
Remember, the testimony they held is the redemption of Jesus Christ.
You got to get that. You got to hold on to that.
Their testimony is the work of Jesus Christ in their life.
Okay?
That can't be condemning.
It's not condemning.
Y' all have heard me preach for a good long while now, and I, I, I would have made a real good hellfire and brimstone preacher.
And a lot of times when I was young in ministry, people say, you just going to be one of them hellfire. Well, and the more I got into it, I thought, man, that'd be great Elijah type preacher, right?
Huh?
And then I started reading what happened to all the prophets and the hellfire and brimstone preachers. And most of them got killed. I was sitting there thinking, well, you know, that might not be a good job for me.
And then I started realizing that the New Testament message is not a hellfire and brimstone message. New Testament messages hear God's voice. Turn to. If you hear his voice today, turn to that voice.
It's a message of hope.
It's a message of life.
And so these people, these people who are the witnesses, who are the martyrs of this seal, are the people who, who are spreading the good news of Jesus Christ.
And it is a good news,
he says. And they cried out with a loud voice saying,
how. Now notice they're the people of the gospel.
And I can't move on without saying this. In order to experience forgiveness in its fullness,
you must practice forgiveness in its Fullest fullness.
Did y' all hear what I said?
That which you bond on earth will be bound in heaven. That which you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. The only thing that binds a person is their sin.
Okay?
The only thing that loosens them from their sin is forgiveness,
is the forgiveness of God.
Believers are trophies or they are the. They are the source of God's glory through grace,
which is the forgiveness of sin.
So if you do not have forgiveness in your heart,
you limit the grace where it might abound.
How many times, Lord, should we forgive?
And he asked him. They asked seven times. And he said, what?
Seven,
70 times seven?
That's a lot of forgiving.
And that's for each person, for each act.
Okay?
So you can't say, well, I forgave him a thousand and fifty times, I'm good to go, God. I'm into condemnation now.
Okay, you can't do that, all right?
That's not how that works. Jesus is saying perfection and Perfection to the 10th power times each other.
Okay?
What he's saying is it is. It is a. It is a first perfection that has to be carried out to its fullest.
All right?
You cannot forgive unless you cannot be and walk in forgiveness unless you are forgiving.
Are y' all following me?
That is a. Let me say this.
That is a highly important principle in scripture.
That is a. That is a discipleship.
Salvation,
Walking in the light message.
If you do not forgive,
you cannot be released.
Okay?
You can't be released.
You're going to continue to walk in bondage.
Do I need to hang? Hang in here and just worry about the other part next week.
Just asking,
because I can hammer it home today.
He says here they cried with a loud voice saying,
how long, O Lord, holy and true?
Now they ain't talking about his goodness and grace there, are they?
They're talking about his holy and true until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth.
Now this brings to light that goel that Jesus is.
He is the Old Testament goel. They are asking for an avenging of their blood.
All right, why?
Because the church has been removed.
The grace has been removed.
The judgment has begun.
All right, before that,
before they were killed, would they have been the ones who were asking for judgment?
No,
they would not.
The reason they were killed was for the good news of Jesus Christ.
They are asking for judgment because it's time for judgment.
And remember, the goel is the kinsman redeemer. He's the one who redeems you To God.
Is he going to be the kinsman redeemer in this?
No.
In the book of the Revelation, he is the avenger of blood,
he says.
Says. Then a white horse rope, a white robe was given to each one of them.
Meaning they're holy.
They're completely holy.
They've been cleansed by the blood of the lamb.
They've been washed by the blood of the Lamb. Well, how do they do that?
Well,
and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who would be killed as they were, was complete.
So God's not going to avenge their blood until the fullness of the sin of the earth is completed.
I missed something there. It says they were under the altar of the souls of those who had been slain. These. These.
These people are under the altar. And you go, well, what are you talking about?
Well, first of all, you do. Do need to notice as you're. As you're. As you. They're not in soul sleep.
They're alive.
Okay?
And it's their souls.
It's their souls that are.
Are beneath the altar. And you go, well, where is the altar? Well, it's not the throne room.
It's the altar of the tabernacle that Rome, that Hebrews tells us that Moses saw in heaven and was told to make one on the earth that looked like that one.
So there's a tabernacle in heaven,
and they are under that altar.
They are beside the altar. They're beneath the altar. And the altar is a place where the sacrifices were made. It's where the blood flowed down.
So the souls of those who are witnesses for Christ and killed for the message of the Gospel,
they congregate at the place where the blood flows down,
and that makes them holy.
They are holy from that blood.
All right,
so. So God says he opens the seal,
which means he opens the possibility and the probability and the actuality of God bringing about his vengeance on the earth,
and yet he holds it back even longer.
Okay, now you go.
Well,
when does God decide.
Decide to bring about his vengeance? When does God decide to bring about his holiness? Well,
it's always when his grace is complete and can be no more.
Are you following me?
It's always when his grace is complete and can be no more.
All right, how do I know that? Well,
why did God wait 400 years for. For the children of Israel to stay in bondage in Egypt rather than pulling them out in 40 or 80 or 100 or 200 years?
Why does the Bible say that?
Well,
he had to say that the, the evil of the. The evil,
the wickedness of the Canaanites had to reach its fullness.
Okay?
So the wickedness had to reach its fullness so that there is no more room for grace.
There's no more room for it.
All right?
And that is a place for when we deal with believers who are going to the pig pen, who've decided to live their own life.
That is, that is a problem because those who decide they're going to waste God's blessing,
waste their inheritance on the world,
God will allow them to get there till there is no more grace.
And there are a lot of believers. I get asked all the time, well, what about the person who claimed Christ when they were a teenager and they walked with God and then they decided to live a.
A life of decadence and sin and they. And then they die.
Well, I know what happened.
They walked far enough away to the fullness of the wrath of God against. Their sin was complete.
And there was no source. No, no. They had turned from God's grace in its fullness. And he takes them.
Okay.
He takes them home.
He takes them home.
There's a lot of people who. You will. There are people you will know in your life who walk away from God far enough and refuse to come home.
And it's time for him, and he will take them home.
Yeah, to heaven. But there's no. They. They have no. They have no inheritance.
They. They spend everything they had.
Remember, the Christian life is about.
Is about.
Is about accumulating the treasures that come from the grace of God.
That's why he's left us here. Right? So that we might.
We might enjoy the riches of his grace and mercy. Right?
And his riches are real.
They're human beings. They're. They're. They're lives of, of. Of. Of.
Of faith that you feed into and that you build your riches through them. He says, store for yourselves eternal dwelling places.
He just got through after when he says that, he just got through saying, I go and prepare a dwelling place for you.
What is he saying? Store for yourself relationships in heaven.
Well, a believer that walks away from God and walks away from that treasure and burns all the treasure up, and that's what they do, don't they?
They destroy their relationships.
They.
They enter the kingdom as by fire.
Yeah, well, it's better to be born again than not be born again.
There's going to be. There's going to be a lot of weeping.
He says. He doesn't say, you don't weep in heaven. He just says, I wipe away every tear.
There gonna be some weeping in heaven for the loss.
When you go to that bema seat, Judgment,
it's a. It's a. It's a.
It's a wonderful place.
Unless the whole of your life is placed on that altar and nothing's left,
then you have nothing to glorify God with for eternity.
And let me say this.
That will be a loss.
Scripture teaches that that's a great loss.
You want to be able to take treasure to the throne?
You want to offer something? Have something for worship services to offer to him,
okay? You don't have to be the little drummer boy.
All you got is the drums. You know? You ain't got to be that.
Okay?
Now, the little drummer boy, surely he'll. He'll grow into doing some more things and have a little bit more to bring to Jesus,
okay? Maybe one day he'll be. He'll be one of the wise men who bring gold and frankincense and myrrh, right?
All right.
You. You don't listen. We like the song.
We like the story. It ain't true. We like the song.
We like the story, but the truth is, you. You want to be one of the wise men. You want to be one of the magi, right?
When. When. When. When you go before the king, you want to bring your treasure forward, right?
You want to have crowns?
We can't have those.
You can't have those. First of all, if you live in wrath and judgment for others and unforgiveness. And you can't have those if you walk away from God's best and burn up the grace that he has for you.
You burn it up on your own life.
And there's some loss there.
There's real loss.
The bema seat, judgment is a judgment nonetheless.
Meaning there is loss.
There is your life when it's. When it's. Placed before God.
That which is not by faith will burn up.
Okay?
There won't be anything left of it. Everybody got real quiet about that. Glad I could be a blessing to you tonight.
All right.
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.