Hope Alive: Applying God's Word to Your Daily Life
Hope Alive: Applying God's Word to Your Daily Life
The Revelation 8:4-5 | Episode # 1053
October 22, 2025
Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life
The Revelation 8:4-5
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.
And it says, and the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints ascended before God and the angel's hand,
meaning the prayers went up before him.
Then the angel took the censor and it filled it with the fire from the altar.
That is the aspect of God that makes you holy.
Anybody got a story we can tell from that?
Huh?
Well, you got Shadrach, Meshach, and Bednego.
That's good. But there's a story about the altar and the.
And the coal of fire on the altar.
Isaiah 6. That's exactly right. When Isaiah was called.
Right.
He says, I'm an unclean man with unclean lips.
I'm not worthy.
The Bible says that.
Who went and got a. Got a coal from the altar?
The angel of the Lord, meaning Jesus, got the coal from the altar and. And he touched his lips and made them holy.
Okay,
so the altar is the fire of the Holy Spirit that brings about the holiness of God.
Okay.
What's burned on that altar is your prayers.
So when this angel takes this fire from the altar and he mixes it with your prayers,
well, it's a.
It's a combustible concoction.
Easy for me to say.
Right?
It's a powerful mix.
God's holiness, God's righteousness placed in and on the human heart. The human desires.
That coal touching the lips of Isaiah,
powerful before him,
powerful before him,
able to speak God's word.
All right, so when he mixes it, it says here.
And the smoke and the incense with the prayers of the saints ascended before God. The angel took the censor, filled it with fire from the altar, and he threw it on the earth.
And there were voices. The word here is translated noises. I think it's better translated. Voices.
Thunderings, lightnings, and earthquakes.
It's the beginning of God's judgment.
He takes our prayer, our desires, and he throws it on the earth to bring about to start his judgment.
His judgment is right because he is. Mercy and grace have reached its fullness.
He has fully been merciful and graceful towards humanity, fully been merciful and graceful toward creation, fully and fully been merciful and graceful, graceful toward all the creatures of the earth.
But man has rejected it.
And all of creation with him.
And so when,
when God,
God's time to judge the earth comes,
it's right because he's holy.
And it's right because he proved through your life that he could take that.
Which is broken and make it right.
He could take that which is dead and make it alive.
And that which is not him and.
Refuses to be him deserves his judgment, has earned his judgment.
This is one of the strange things.
God's judgment is not solely based off of his holiness.
It's also based off of the realization.
That there are those who have trusted him. There are those who have been redeemed and those who are not and will.
Not, cannot and should not and won't.
They deserve his wrath.
Oftentimes people say, when I get to.
Heaven, if my so and so ain't there, aren't I going to be really upset? And the answer is no.
You can say, well, why not, Pastor?
Well, because you're going to see things as God sees.
You're going to see the universe through God's eyes.
You're going to walk purely and completely in the life that is in Jesus Christ. You're going to know, meaning Yoda knowledge.
You're going to know even as you're fully known, complete understanding, God's understanding. And when you see it, you're going.
To say, well, that's just and right. That's the way it ought to be.
You're not going to look at it.
And try to question whether God's holy.
Because you're going to understand.
You're going to fully understand.
You're going to be known as you're fully known. You're going to understand as you fully. As he fully understands.
You're going to go, well, I don't.
Want everybody to know all that I did wrong.
Well,
that glorifies God.
Remember, you're going to. You're going to see it through God's eyes and he sees your what you've done wrong in grace and mercy.
That's right. He says, I remember your iniquities no more. But he's going to place them on Jesus and they'll be remembered against him.
You're going to understand,
fully understand,
which means your eyes will look on each other with grace Your eyes will look.
On each other with mercy.
There'll be forgiveness.
There will no longer be division, no longer be any of those things. But because you exist,
he has to judge that it would be wrong for you to walk the path of faith,
to endure the struggle of walking with God and allow those who would not.
To have the same peace.
It is necessary that God's judgment and wrath be poured out on the earth. It has to be. And it's because of you.
It's because of you he stands up for his people. You glorify him those who won't.
Need to have him.
Remember, you can't ever get away from God.
I used to think that hell was.
Man'S total separation from God, but it's not. You're not separated from God.
You can't go anywhere and get away from God. Hell is the location where only his.
Wrath and judgment exist. Hell's the place where his wrath is complete.
Heaven's a place where his grace and.
Mercy are glorified and known. Hell wasn't made for humans.
Bible says that hell was made for the devil and his angels.
But humans will be there.
By the way,
it's not going to be a party.
It's going to be darkness,
aloneness and fire.
Darkness, aloneness and fire. Heaven's going to be complete communion,
complete relationship.
It's going to be,
well, the biggest block party ever.
You know what I'm talking about?
I mean, all the people that you have a good relationship with.
No, no. He's going to destroy heaven and make a new heaven and a new Earth. By the way, that explains something.
You do know that, right?
Because there's a little bit of a problem there. What was the problem?
Do y' all know? Because there was about a half hour in heaven.
Heaven has time. Why? Because God made heaven when he made the Earth in the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth.
Yeah. When he makes it, he makes heaven and earth.
Part of his creation is time.
Now you have life that's beyond time,
but you still exist in time.
When he makes a new heaven and a new Earth,
it will have time also,
but you will live beyond it.
Your life is beyond heaven and earth.
Your beyond life is beyond time.
It has no beginning or no end. Eternal life is no beginning, no end.
Okay, but we do function in time, by the way. If we don't have time, the whole universe unravels. Who taught us that? Yeah, Einstein.
One of my favorites.
Did I tell y' all to learn physics in his.
Well, I didn't really learn. Can you really call it learning what I did there? I'm not sure. I was in physics in the class he taught physics in.
I attended and learned something. And of all the classes I was.
In, that was a class I was the dumbest in. Okay. That was where all the smart folks showed up. So I. There were.
There were probably at least one of the two semesters.
I was easily the dumbest person in the room. Okay. Had to be. Likely both semesters. Okay. Likely both semesters.
But Einstein proved that there was.
There's no time. I mean, that. That time is a part of God's creation.
And without time,
the universe unravels.
Without space, the universe unraveled.
God made the universe and he made it to glorify himself.
And wrath towards sin glorifies God's righteousness and judgment.
Yeah, I know that.
Is that something y' all ought to.
Ponder for a long time?
No, not really. Because it's not for you.
Should you know it?
Yeah.
Should you recognize it?
Yeah.
Should I be sober about it?
Yeah.
It helps me be full of grace.
For those who I know are lost.
It allows me to be sad for them,
have compassion for them when I deal with them.
You know, when you deal with people who are lost and who are totally given over to their own soul and their own sin,
it can. It can jade you.
The legal profession can definitely jade you.
You can be jaded by it.
The way I keep from getting jaded by it is I deal with grace and mercy.
And so when I'm dealing, you know, I had. I've got a.
For some reason, judges has over the years given me a lot of young people and interesting. A lot of drug addicts,
ladies and that have drug problems.
And I've got a couple of them.
That are either my age or a little older that I've represented for 12 years, 13 years.
You go, well, why have you represented them so long? Because,
man, they can pick up a drug charge overnight. You know what I'm talking about?
And, you know, I was talking with the district attorney,
and he says, what do you do with that?
Because one of the ladies, she's a. She is the sweetest lady in the world. I love her to death.
Not even sure that she's not born again.
Okay.
First time I ever met her,
she's about 60.
First time I ever met her in jail.
I said.
I said, listen,
it's clear that you've got a drug problem. You've already told me you like crack, okay?
You use crack. I said, I will pay the entry fee for you to go to.
To.
Rehab.
If you'll go, I'll get you. Get the judge to issue an order and we'll get you to rehab.
She says, oh, Mr. Chad,
that's so sweet of you,
but it won't help because I just love crack.
And that is.
It was so funny and sweet and so terrible and sad all at the same time.
Every time I've ever talked to her about it, she goes, I know, Mr. Chad,
but I love crack.
There's another lady that she just gets about once a year she gets picked up on some kind of drug charge.
I probably represent her eight or nine times.
How do you deal with those folks?
Well,
you know, you just got to keep trying to help.
Don't get jaded and don't get mad.
Just keep offering,
keep being a little compassionate. But you have to be truthful.
This is killing you. You're going to die from it. Look at you.
You know, keep on asking, keep going,
because the unrighteous judge will give you if you'll go, keep going. You'll get it.
Well, that's the same thing we do with people.
I don't get mad at them.
I don't get upset with them.
I keep telling them I thought we were not going to meet again.
We keep meeting here, you know, this is not a good spot. Quit going to jail.
But I can't be mad at him. I really can't be. And some of them, until God does.
Something, they ain't never going to get help.
And you can be compassionate toward that. You really can be.
There's nothing beyond his power. And if they are going to face.
His wrath and judgment,
well, at least they'll get the common grace that I'm a part of on the earth.
Give them every chance.
Now when I'm on the other side of the bench,
I'll have to judge things rightly.
But that doesn't mean I can't be compassionate. Still doesn't mean I can't care.
Just means that there has to be judgment for sin.
There does has to be.
And so when you deal with folks.
You should never.
As a believer, and I really believe this, even though I struggled with this with,
with a very important family member of mine his whole life,
he always was into the business of identifying who was going to hell.
That's not your job.
And you don't even know if they are or not.
We got to be in the business of identifying those who would be receptive to God's grace.
We got to always be doing that.
Those who don't Nothing I can do about them.
And they may not today and they may tomorrow.
But we, in our.
Desire for things to be right and not to deal with the pain that comes with sin.
You're not getting away with it. You're not getting away from it.
You must walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
We fear no evil because we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
Okay?
But we're in the valley where death.
Is all around us.
We got to walk through it,
okay?
We got to keep walking through it.
So there's going to be death and there's going to be judgment and there's going to be lostness.
You're the light in the. In the valley.
Be the light.
Because the judgment's going to be complete.
It's going to be full.
The whole angelic host is going to handle it.
Okay?
Make sense 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.