The Revelation 11:16-17 | Episode # 1075

November 21, 2025

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

The Revelation 11:16-17

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. 

If this podcast ministered to you, please subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Reviews help us reach more people and spread the wisdom of God. 

Please follow us:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopealivewithgod/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hopealiveministry/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LakeComChurch/ -Lake Community Church

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? He says,

he says, now watch what happens.

I'm gonna point this out over and over to you,

okay? So you can think about it.

And the 24 elders. Who are the 24 elders? They're the complete church.

Okay? They're the whole priesthood. You go, well, how do you get that? Well, they had 24 Levites that served for two week terms in the temple doing the sacrifice. And it was a rotation basis, and you only got to do it maybe,

maybe twice,

but probably as an adult Levite man, you would get to go serve in the temple. As One of the 24 elders, an older man,

you would get to go serve in the temple maybe once, sometimes twice in your whole life. That's why when the guy was beaten up on the road, y' all know the Good Samaritan, that's why the Levite, he just passed him by.

Why?

Cause it was his one chance to go serve in the temple for two weeks.

He wasn't gonna go touch that unclean guy and then have to sit outside the gate for seven days. He wasn't missing out on it. Now, Jesus chastised him for that, right?

But that's the reason.

Because the 24 who were serving in the temple were a picture or a representation of the whole priesthood.

Make sense?

All right.

In Revelation, he's already said it twice. He's going to say it a third time.

It says here, and he has made them. He's talking about the Church,

a kingdom of priests or kings and priests before him.

What does that mean? Well, the church,

we are all a holy priesthood,

meaning we have access to the throne room of heaven. We have access to the holy of holies in heaven. By the way, that's going to come up later on in our study tonight.

We have access to God individually by ourself, because we are a royal priesthood ourself.

You have a right to speak To God on your own.

Okay? I can't remember who said that.

It was brother Herb at our marriage conference. He said, this is a wonderful country. They taught him something that was very wonderful. He. He did not have to go through a man to get to God.

Okay? And he said that's why he originally.

That's the thing that made this so wonderful to him, is he no longer had to go through a human being to get to God. People told him he could go talk to God himself.

All right? That is what a royal priesthood's about. You have a right to the access to the access of throne room of heaven on your own. Walk boldly before the throne of grace.

God commands that we walk boldly to the throne of grace.

So understanding that is. Well, I mean, it's where life's at.

Understanding that you got access and that there's a royal priesthood. Okay?

When the 24 elders start worshiping, I want you to notice the angels aren't gonna worship now.

The animals aren't gonna worship now. Remember all the creatures of the earth worship.

The last time we had a worship service started out with the creatures of the earth. Then it started. Then we moved on to the angels, and now we're moving. And then we moved on to the 24 elders, right?

Which is the picture of the full church.

All right?

He announces the kingdom of heaven.

Notice I mean the kingdom of our Lord, the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

All right? When he announces that,

do the animals worship?

You mean Spot doesn't worship?

Okay,

no,

the animals don't worship. Do the angels worship?

No,

the angels don't worship. Who worships?

The redeemed?

The redeemed to worship him,

it Sundays.

And the 24 elders who sat before God on their thrones, remember, notice their elders,

they're right before God, which means they're priests. They've got an access to the throne, to God himself,

and they are sitting on a throne. They are a royal priesthood.

Isn't that what the apostle Paul calls us? You are a royal priesthood.

He says they fell on their faces and worshiped God. This is important.

One of the ways we worship God is.

The primary word for worship in the New Testament is proskanu.

Means to prostrate yourself.

I'm going to tell you. I know. You saying I can't prostrate myself on the radio club. I don't care how many times Tina mops it up. I'm not getting on the floor.

Okay. All right.

I understand that. In the new sanctuary,

it's going to be long on the front there's going to be places, a place where 100 people can get on their knees.

Okay. And then there's going to be an area that's extra padded for all you older folks and me who find it harder and harder to get down and up.

I actually try to go get on the ground and get up at least once a day. Did y' all know that?

Because I learned, if you'll do that, it'll help you when you get older,

get on the ground, get back up once a day. Huh?

You got 10 more years to live as long as you can do that. Okay? All right. Some of y' all are going, I'm out. I'm less than 10. All right.

I'm less than 10. All right.

It means we're going to have. We're going to have an area where you can lay on your face.

Okay. Where you prostrate yourself on your face. It's going to be really cool when you have the opportunity to do that. That's a lot of fun. It's very exciting. Some of y' all are going, that makes me very uncomfortable.

Too bad.

All right. That's what the Bible says. It's just too bad. Sorry.

Sorry. You gonna do it forever and ever. You might as well get started now.

Okay.

You're one of the four and 20 elders. You're gonna be getting on the ground all the time. Just might as well start today.

As your pastor,

I'm just telling you, you ought to start right now. If you hadn't ever done it, you ought to get to it. Okay?

Notice. Do they sing?

No. They're saying,

we give thanks to you, O Lord God Almighty. Now,

I got to say this over and over again.

They speak to God because they're a royal priesthood. They speak to God in what person?

First person.

That means if you speak about someone that is not relational,

it may be praising them.

You might speak some really good stuff about them,

but it's not praising to them.

Notice what he says. We give thanks,

O Lord. We give you thanks, O Lord God Almighty.

We give thanks you to you,

O Lord God Almighty.

The one who is.

Now, is he going to talk about aspects of him while he's talking to him?

Sure.

If you'll notice, he starts in the first person,

then they start in the first person, and then they go, you are the one.

Or they are saying in third person, the one who is and was and is to come.

All right. That is the great. I am.

Okay? That's that phrase when he said,

on the mountaintop from the burning Bush.

He said,

who shall I say sent you? And he said,

tell them I am sent you. Which seems so strange in our language, right?

You know, it just seems weird,

you know, that says, well, who told you that? Well, you bees told me that. No, and I am told me that. And you are.

Was. Over here,

we don't speak that way. Right,

but the word I am in the Hebrew means I am without time or tense.

Okay?

It doesn't mean I am. It means I exist. I was, I am, I ever shall be.

Does that make sense?

All right. It means I exist,

and it means I exist all those times at that time.

This is hard for people to get,

but I need you. I need you to try to.

Okay?

God doesn't know what you're going to do in a week.

He is where you're.

What you're going to do in a week.

Are you following me?

Y.

There's a difference between me knowing what's going to happen and me being where something's going to happen before it happens.

He doesn't know what's going on.

He exists in everything that's going on,

all the time,

concurrently.

Now, that blows your mind a little bit.

But God in his eternality,

which, by the way,

Jesus took off.

This is one aspect of what he took off.

He is not omnipresent,

okay?

In fact, he said, it's going to be necessary that I go, why? Well, why didn't you just begin to be omnipresent again?

Because he's got to continue to be a man. And a man is not omnipresent.

He can't ever be omnipresent.

So when Jesus disrobed himself of his glory, as described in Philippians chapter two, he disrobed himself of certain aspects of.

Of what it means to be God, to be human,

okay?

And the primary aspect that he disrobed himself of was his omnipresence.

Another aspect that he limited himself in until after the resurrection was his omnipotence.

He didn't know everything as a baby,

okay?

He said, I learned from my Father.

All right?

Why? Because as a human being, he had to fulfill all righteousness. He had to show us how we could become as we're supposed to be.

All right? Now, that doesn't make him any less God.

It just means that he limited himself to become a man and permanently become a man.

He is permanently a man.

He will reign over the universe as a human being forever.

And he will create a new heaven and new earth as a human being.

Now, you think about that he's going to wrap up the universe and destroy it by fire.

And then he is going to himself recreate a new heaven and a new earth as a human being,

as a man.

All right, you're going to do it by the power of the Holy Spirit. He's going to do it by the will of the Father, but he's going to do it himself.

He's going to create a new heaven, a new earth.

Does that make sense to you?

All right.

Getting that gives you a taste of the power of God. When you're dealing with God, when he says, you're a kingdom of priests and you got access to my throne, you have access to.

To a omnipresent God who is there always presently.

That's why he says I am.

If you'll notice, he didn't say I was.

He says I am, which means I am present at all times.

I am present.

I want that sink in you. He says, we give thanks,

O Lord God Almighty, to you. You, we give thanks.

You. We give you thanks,

O Lord God Almighty,

the one who is, who was and ever shall be, or who is to come,

the one who is present in all time and space.

You are the mighty God,

meaning you have all the power, and you are ultimately present because you have taken your. Your great power and reigned.

All right,

you've taken your great power and reigned. What is his great power?

Well, his great power is to create life,

to take death and make life.

Do y' all know that one. One of the things that is in the ark of the covenant that is in the ark, The.

The.

The ark of the covenant in heaven is a.

Is a staff that budded,

okay?

Meaning it was a dead stick that budded life.

Do you know that's his scepter.

It's a picture of the great power of resurrection,

the great power to take that which is dead and make it alive.

It is his great power.

Now, you.

That's a rabbit hole I'd go down.

If you want to go down a rabbit hole, pick the resurrection. Go down that rabbit hole.

Okay?

Pick that. Pick what that means. What does the resurrection mean?

When you get to the end of it, you realize it means everything.

When you get to the end of it, you realize that is the great power of God. That's what God makes. God. God.

He has the power to take nothing and make everything in life.

It is one of the great mysteries of our universe.

You know, we can take all the parts of a human, put them together, but we can't animate the human.

Do you know that we can't animate it.

It's something conscious. A consciousness is something that we can't explain.

We can't explain it scientifically, we can't explain it philosophically, we can't explain it. How does God take something and give it a consciousness?

Because he is.

Because he has the great power.

He has the great power because you have taken your great power and have chosen to use it to reign 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.