The Revelation 9:20 | Episode # 1066

November 10, 2025

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

The Revelation 9:20

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.

Be guaranteed to get two verses in tonight and we're going to move through them and study them a little bit. I will say this. As we've gone from.

As we have gone through scripture and dealt with scripture,

one of the things that me as a young man in my background, my faith background, my faith walk,

especially denominationally where I was at, and my parents backgrounds, both my mom and my dad, my mom was a Methodist and my dad was a Baptist. Growing up,

uh,

I was taught some things,

or it was just explained to me some things especially just kind of culturally about theologically, about certain ideas and certain understandings.

And one of the things that was really something that people didn't want to.

They didn't want to deal with a lot or even have anybody talk about it was the idea of election,

okay?

Or the idea of the sovereignty of God and God's choice or God's work.

All right? Now, the problem with that is that's not an issue that you can really argue a whole lot over. You can't say, well, that's not in the Bible, or I don't believe that.

Okay? You can't say that because all the major writers of the New Testament and when I say that John,

Paul,

Peter,

okay, they deal with that issue.

And when I say that, I'm talking about the major writer of the New Testament and Paul and Peter being really the two leaders of the New Testament church.

And then you have John,

who was the disciple who lived the longest and.

And probably had the greatest influence over the church over his life because of his youth when Christ died and his life when he was older,

living to probably 70, 80 years old.

And so understanding that God.

And this is a principle that's not hard to find in scripture, it's found everywhere in Scripture that God is sovereign and that God decides.

God is sovereign and God makes decisions. Now I'm telling you that Cause I'm leading into the passage. Because if you don't understand this, it doesn't seem like this is understandable.

Meaning what's going to happen in the book of the Revelation does not seem to be understandable in the context. And especially,

I know Brother Dean's bringing in some more fajitas at this time. I see him back there.

But enchiladas, fajitas,

you know,

they're totally different to me. They're just all good Mexican food. It just don't matter. Is there. Is there not? Is always good 45 chicken enchiladas available.

Come and get them. All right?

And I always, whenever we come across this,

Brother Dean has a struggle with this. This is a major struggle with him. He just can't understand it.

And the truth is that you can't understand it unless you understand that God is sovereign and that everything that's done good,

everything that's done good is done by Him.

And so when you feel the call of God, when you hear the voice of God,

the Bible says you ought to react to that voice,

because why not everybody hears that.

Not everybody is willing to react to it, okay?

And it is important that we teach people who hear God's voice to walk in the salvation and the free gift of eternal life that God has given them,

okay? And not.

And not focus on.

And not focus on the decision that they're making in the repentance, but focus on the continual walk with God. Okay? Now we do need to focus on repentance,

meaning turning toward Christ.

Okay?

There is a conversion experience that happens. There's a time where you hear the voice of God and. And you understand it to be God, and you turn and begin to seek after God.

But God does all the work leading up to that point,

okay? And there's not really any way to get around it theologically in the New Testament. And my background did not teach that,

okay?

My background talked about God making a choice and then us making a choice. Okay? Well,

those who are justified are going to be sanctified and glorified.

And we understand that from the Apostle Paul. He says those he foreknew, he predestined. Those he predestined, he called, those he calls, he justifies, those he justify, he does sanctify.

And those he sanctify, he does glorify.

So he is going to do the complete work. Who is doing all this work, by the way, if you'll notice,

who is the. He is God doing the work.

All right? And so understanding that helps you understand a Passage like this.

Because without that understanding, it makes this passage real, real difficult to get.

Because we know from our study in the. In through,

through chapters nine and chapter and chapter eight that there's a whole lot of judgment coming down.

And not only is there a whole lot of judgment happening, but it's terrible judgment.

Judgment by creatures that are,

I guess, the best way you can describe them. They seem like sci fi. They seem fantastical, right? They seem like they're creatures that you wouldn't imagine.

And we understand that they are spiritual beings and, and there are spiritual beings that are attacking.

That are attacking humanity.

And we understand from doing the math that during this time period, half of the Earth's population is killed.

Half of the Earth's population is killed.

So knowing that,

knowing if that were to happen tomorrow,

that that would be 4 billion people.

4 billion people that would be killed.

That's a major cataclysmic event.

And how many of y' all have ever heard somebody say, well, I wish something would happen to him so he would turn to God?

How many of y' all have. Have. Have ever heard that?

Well, what about trying to bury 4 billion bodies?

Are you wanting something like that to happen so that they turn to the Lord?

No, you just want them to like, you know, have a.

Have a, you know, a bad. Maybe,

you know, ingrown toenail or, you know, they get bad indigestion that the doctor can't fix and they turn toward God. You're not asking for,

you know, half of the earth to be killed, are you?

For them to turn to God. You're. That's it. You're not asking for that. You're asking. You just asking that, you know,

maybe they slam into the wall a couple of times and figure it out or somebody slap them around and they get it right.

Wake up, Wake up. Right?

But I want you to hear me. There is no waking unless God wakes you up.

There is no resurrection without God doing the work of the resurrection.

So as we get to verse 20,

Brother Dean, this is going to discourage. This is going just baffle you,

okay?

But the rest of mankind.

That's the other half.

But the notice. But the rest of mankind were not killed. Who were not killed by the plagues.

Notice what happens.

They did not repent of the works of their hands,

which means they didn't repent of the evil that they did.

Beings with wings and stingers on their tails tormented them for five months and they couldn't die.

And then new beings came out and they killed a third of the world's population, after a fourth had already been killed.

All that happened and notice it says, but the rest of mankind. Who is it?

Everybody.

The rest.

The rest of mankind who were not killed by the plagues, they did not repent of the works of their hands,

that they should not worship demons or idols or gold or silver or brass, of stone or wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk.

He says that they would not repent.

So exactly what if you're not going to repent having had this happen?

You ain't never going to repent.

You're not ever going to turn.

There was a book series that came out that.

That was very popular in the Christian circles,

and it was so good that they made multiple volumes of it. They just kept telling more and more stories and biblically speaking,

not possible.

It's called Left Behind.

Y' all remember it.

And that somebody who had heard the good news and who had. Who had heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and. And the rapture happens and. And they get left behind and they figure it out and they go chasing after God.

Great stories.

Not going to happen.

How do you know, Pastor?

Well, Second Thessalonians tells us that those who had rejected him were sent a delusion so that they would believe the lie, meaning that they would worship the Antichrist.

Second Thessalonians tells us that if you don't receive Christ, if you don't repent and turn to him,

then when the Rapture happens, he'll send a delusion to you and you'll believe the lie of the Antichrist and you'll worship him.

And you go, what are you talking about? Well, I'm telling you, we're getting ready for it.

We're preparing congregations for it today.

You go, well, what are you talking about?

Cut that down a little bit for me. Tina, back there again.

Are you cold?

Yes. I know you are.

What am I talking about?

Well,

the Bible says that the whole earth worships him.

We're going to see that.

How do they worship him? Well, they're going to have worship services.

He's going to sit on the throne in the temple, the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. We're going to see him worship him. You go, well, how's everybody going to do it?

Well, we've got this new thing in church, in Christianity today.

It's a newfangled thing that started early in my.

Early in my pastoring career.

It's where we'll take somebody from another location and put them on the screen.

Some of them, we even do them in 3D where it actually even looks like they're standing there.

And, and we have worship services with one pastor in another location.

Not only do we do that,

but some of those churches, the pastor preaches a sermon in a pre selected crowd on Thursday night. He ain't even preaching that time.

Now I'm not saying that those churches are the churches that are going to be left behind,

but I'm telling you, we're getting good at it.

We're getting great at it. So there'll be a day when Jesus comes back and his church is taken away.

And the next Sunday morning they'll be worshiping the Antichrist on TV in front of everybody.

They'll meet at the same buildings and they will be deluded,

the Bible says, deluded by the Holy Spirit.

So that they will believe the lie.

So that they'll believe the lie.

A 4 billion people die and no one repents.

That kind of cold throws cold water on the idea of getting somebody getting a real bad hangnail and turning to Jesus, doesn't it?

It's a whole lot worse than that. What about something stinging you for five years so that you want to die and can't die?

How's that sound?

That sounds like something you'd repent from, wouldn't you?

The problem is, unless you're born again,

you can't repent.

Now that's a hard teaching.

But unless the Father does the work of justification,

meaning that he makes you a new creature so that you can begin to operate in the gift that he gives you, which is the gift required to be righteous,

to be justified.

What gift is that? It's called the gift of faith.

Until you have the gift given by God to you in the new birth, which is the ability to trust Jesus,

until that happens,

you won't trust him.

How many times have you been in a room talking to people about spiritual things after something happened? In the situation where you would think that they turned to God and two or three of them act like you're just talking about, you know, the weather and whether or not it's going to snow next Tuesday and they just leave like it ain't no big deal.

You know why?

Because they're not spiritually born. So there. Therefore they do not have spiritual ears to hear.

I want you to hear me today.

You can't make them born again.

Now you can go looking for the ones who are.

You can blow the horn and those who hear it will turn to it.

Those who don't,

they won't.

And the Holy Spirit is not in the work of making these born again.

We've gone back to the Old Testament way of doing things where the Holy Spirit deals with nations.

Things have changed and God's pronouncing judgment on the earth,

and they don't turn to Him. But. But what do they keep on doing?

What do they do?

They did not repent of the works of their hands,

that they not worship demons.

Idols of gold,

idols of silver, idols of brass, idols of stone, idols of wood which can neither see nor hear nor walk.

And you go, why does he bring that up?

Because he's saying you either.

When you worship and every human being does, I say this over and over again,

it is a understanding that needs to be had. You got to get it.

You worship one of three things.

There are three broad categories.

One of them kind of covers everything.

But the other two.

The first one is you worship the one true God.

Secondly,

you worship something made by that God.

It can be something spiritual.

It can be the demonic.

It can be a fallen angel giving you a false prophecy,

which we have some major cults and world religions that are based off of those.

Or the most enticing one to worship is the one that God created. That you know the best is you.

You can worship God. You can worship something he made, or you can worship the something he made that you love the most,

which is you.

And that's the way it works.

And you go around and people worship themselves or they worship something else God made,

something else God made.

Somewhere, somehow, they find something to worship that he made.

It's enticing.

It's called carnality. It's called worldliness.

Okay,

I worship the world.

And it's easy for your heart to turn to those things.

And he says it doesn't have to be something magical.

Why? Because he goes through it. He says,

of gold or silver, that would be something. Of precious metals. Right?

It might even be something that God made that was good.

Some people worship the church.

Am I right?

Some people worship other people in the church.

Some people worship other people that are Christians in the church.

That's why I tell you, don't tell people I said it.

If God didn't tell you, don't bring me into it.

Why?

Because that's pastor worship.

Ugly,

Ugly.

And we learned a couple weeks ago. Immature,

right?

It shows an immaturity in the faith.

We don't worship anybody but the one God man, Jesus Christ.

We don't wash anybody but the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit points us to Jesus. And Jesus points us to the Father.

So ultimately we're worshiping the Father.

In fact, when we pray, we've been told, who do we pray to?

Our Father who art in heaven.

We worship him,

we speak to Him. You have access to Him.

That's who we're worshiping as you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you you that.

He'Ll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.