The Revelation 8:1 | Episode # 1051

October 20, 2025

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

The Revelation 8:1

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.

Let me. Let me say this as we get started, because we're in Revelation chapter eight, okay? Revelation, chapter eight. Y' all turn to that chapter with me now. I want you to hear me today.

I'm. I'm about to.

To. To tell you the joke that goes with Revelation chapter eight. Okay? It's them. It's an important joke. It's a Bible joke. It's a. It's a little bit of a, you know, a dad joke, okay?

But it's. It's a really, really good joke,

and so I need to tell it. You know, my dad.

My dad believes.

My dad believed that his fear of heights was given to him by God and that he wasn't supposed to fly in planes. And he told me that we were not supposed to fly in airplanes because the Bible says.

And lo, I'm with you always.

All right,

See, that's a dad joke. All right? And then you've got.

Did y' all know there were cars in the Bible?

Yeah, the Bible says that the disciples were all in one Accord,

Okay? Kind of like a clown car. You know what I'm saying? They all got in and got out. All right, That's. I mean,

some good dad jokes as we start out, all right? We're dealing with the seventh seal, and before we get into it too deep, I need to tell the joke, okay?

There is evidence and quite clear evidence in chapter eight that no women are in heaven.

Did y' all know that?

Well, let me read it to you. When he opened the seventh seal,

there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour.

Now, you gotta admit, that's funny. That is. That is really. That's really funny. That's a good joke. All right. That's one of my favorite ones that's right there. All right.

Yeah, y' all got there late. Okay. Y' all were doing your hair. All right,

so,

so,

so when, when we get. When we get to this passage, I want to make that joke because this passage is the beginning of something that's really, really important, and it's really, really terrible, okay?

It is the beginning of what is known as the Great Tribulation, okay? And that is the beginning of God's wrath. Now you go, well, I thought we already had that with the four Horsemen and all that kind of stuff.

And it is true that that was a judgment on the earth,

but here we. We're getting to where God's actually pouring his wrath out on the earth.

Now,

I want you to hear me that this is not pleasurable to God. This is not a desire of God. Oftentimes people want to see God in this light and believe that this is how God is.

But Ezekiel 32:11 and Zephaniah 1, 14, 18 tells us that it doesn't please,

no pleasure for God to be wrathful toward us. There's no desire in God's heart to be wrathful toward his creation.

The only reason he's wrathful toward his creation is because he's holy. And that's important to understand this passage. He is a holy God, and only that which is holy can be in his presence.

Now,

we know as human beings that. That we can't be holy in any possible way. And I want to emphasize that. I'll emphasize it every time because I do believe in our study of Scripture.

I do believe that it's important that this be taught regularly because it is a fundamental foundational understanding of God. God is sovereign.

God is holy.

Man is replete with wickedness, meaning he is completely wicked,

all right? And so when you have something that's completely wicked, which would be the opposite of holiness, there's no way for you to be holy before God in any way that is attributable to you,

okay?

Your holiness or your redemption is.

Has to be by him and him alone.

And oftentimes we want to be able to do something to be okay with God.

And oftentimes you think that if you'll. And people think if I'll be this way or do this thing,

then I can be okay with God. I want you to hear me.

You are okay with God without that.

And the reason is, is because he's made you okay with him,

not you.

Okay?

The, the three processes that we talk about are the three works of God in the human life. These are theological understandings. Is justification,

sanctification,

glorification,

okay?

Justification is where God makes you all right with Him. You're justified in his sight. It's just that you could be in his presence,

okay? One of the things people use is just as if I'd never sinned. But it's not that okay.

Your sin is important,

all right? Your sin is important. Not that you do it, but your sin glorifies Jesus, who overcame that sin in regard to you. It is terrible and awful, and it's not good.

But in regard to Jesus Christ, it's glorifying him because he is able to overcome sin and death,

all right? So when you are justified before God,

that justification being okay with God has to be from him and him alone.

Now, I want you to hear me.

There is no other way than that way.

There is no other way. You are not okay with God by any means, that is, of yourself.

God chooses to. To love you.

God chose to redeem you.

God chooses to give you salvation or sanctification. He chooses to walk you through your struggles. And a person who believes that they're not sinful in their own heart is lying to themselves primarily.

You are continuing in your death because you are not, okay?

You're not.

You were. You were conceived in your mother's womb. Dead,

spiritually dead.

You received that death from your father Adam and your mother Eve,

okay? And that sin and death was passed down. Brook of Hebrews clearly talks about that. That sin and death was passed down from generation to generation.

Okay? There's another joke that comes from that story that's real good, right?

Huh?

Y' all know that one?

Why can't women pick a place to go out to eat to? Well, the first time they chose, they chose real bad. And they just won't do it ever again. They smart enough to not do it ever again, right?

That's another joke, right? You got a sexist would say, right?

So as you. As you're. As you're. As you're going through this,

you got to realize that death entered the world. Now, Hebrews says death entered the world through one man, Adam,

because he was responsible,

completely responsible for it,

all right?

And so life entered through one man,

and that's Jesus,

all right? You cannot do it yourself.

You don't make yourself okay with God. God makes you okay with God.

Now,

the way you glorify him is that you hear his voice,

you hear his instruction, you hear his word, you hear his character in the nature, and you turn toward that because you've been justified.

And if any place in your heart desires to receive Jesus, desires anything of Jesus, desires anything of God, if that's the case, I want you to hear me, it did not derive from you.

It didn't come from you.

It came from God. It's a gift given to you by God. So if you desire God in any way,

well,

you can be thankful that God has already begun that with you. He's already worked that process,

all right? And that process begins by hearing him, turning to him, walking with Him.

And it's a long road,

it's a path,

and it's a difficult path.

It involves dealing with your inadequacies and your struggles. It involves not doing it well and not doing it right,

okay?

And so God's wrath is for that which is not him and will never be his,

okay?

He doesn't desire it. He takes no pleasure in it, but there must be it,

okay?

There must be wrath in order to show that God is holy and that He. He is just in his conviction of sin.

And remember, sin is anything that is not God.

Sin is anything that's not Him.

You go, well, why was sin in the world? And I go through this all the time because I want you to think it through. Because these.

A lot of things you'll hear from the world,

these. These things that I teach you over and over and over again are answers to those,

okay? How. Why did God make sin?

Well, he didn't make sin,

but he did make sin.

When he created the world, he created a physical universe that was His,

Okay?

And in order for you to be able to identify his character and nature in the world he created,

there has to be something that's not that.

Are you following me?

There is his holiness, his righteousness, his love, his grace, his mercy, all those things. And then anything that's not that is sin.

Anything that's not that is raw, it's evil,

okay?

And so it is. If he is going to make that which is good by definition,

you have to have not good.

You have to have it, or you wouldn't be able to identify God.

Would be no way to know Him.

You have to be able to look and say, that is not God. That is God.

Okay? If. If there. If all the colors were. If everything you saw was green, then there would be no green.

You go, sure, there would. There'd be green. No,

there'd be nothing else to compare it to.

It'd be nothing.

There'd be no color.

Okay? Now I want you to think about that. That's a philosophical understanding, but it's important.

God has to judge,

not God.

He has to be wrathful toward it.

He has to identify it,

and he has to punish it.

Okay.

Doesn't pleasure him to do it.

And it's so rough that even the women are quiet for 30 minutes when it starts.

Okay.

It says here.

It says here the men are too. By the way,

he says here, when he opened the seventh seal,

there were silence in heaven for about a half hour. That is a picture of anticipation of God's wrath.

By the way, it would be very natural for humanity to do that,

to be quiet in the midst of God's wrath, especially those who are redeemed.

Us.

It'd be natural for us to be quiet because we're not the object of his wrath. We're not the object of that. We're the object of his grace and mercy and his love.

Yeah,

we're in awe of who he is.

Does that make sense?

All right. So it's natural that that would happen.

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.