The Revelation 12:15-17 | Episode # 1086

December 8, 2025

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

The Revelation 12:15-17

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. 

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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.

All right, here we go.

All right,

now this is the part when I say I don't know what it means. I,

I'm telling you,

Google this verse.

My dad's study guide has absolutely nothing on it.

My, my. If you Google this verse, all you'll get is websites that give you the verse.

It's verse 15.

There's.

There's a couple of kooky sites that really have really kooky stuff in it. Okay?

But I, I, trust me, I, I've tried the last two weeks to try to figure out what this means. I, I have no clue. And it's quite apparent. No theological scholars either have it.

This is what. It's almost like Satan's pitching a fit.

Okay, it says, so the serpent. Why? Because God delivered the Jews. He took them out, he got them away from him.

It says, so the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman.

I mean, there's things that come to my mind.

Water spewing out is a picture of the Holy Spirit at work.

But the serpent wouldn't be spewing it out of his mouth because it doesn't come from him.

And it's like a flood.

Well, there is a flood in the Bible,

but that ain't got nothing to do with it.

And it chases after the woman as she goes out in the wilderness. And then I'm trying to think, okay, the wilderness has got to be the Sinai Peninsula.

And unless they go through Jordan into Saudi Arabia, I don't think that's it.

And then what?

And the earth opens its mouth.

So the earth opens up and takes the flood waters that come from the dragon's mouth and swallows them.

And if I had to give you a spiritual meaning for this, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to say to you.

I ain't got a clue.

I don't know what this means,

I don't know what it is,

because he's been called the dragon. Now he's being called the serpent.

But it says the serpent. That was. That's the dragon.

Sure you understand that. This is not somebody new.

So the serpent has a flood come out of his mouth to catch the Jews being protected in the wilderness, and the earth opens up and swallows it.

It'd be fun to watch on cnn, I promise you. Okay. It'd be really cool to watch on cnn. I don't know what it means.

Got no clue.

Are you on page five of Google?

I got to five. I got to page five before I found anything.

It could be a literal or a wave of persecution by the military. That's what I. It cannot. The word water can stand figuratively for many peoples.

Yeah, but that's the sea, all right. Water stands for the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit.

Actual work. The Greek word that is used for water here is also used figuratively for many peoples.

So it's probably a way of persecution by many, many peoples. That's what I thought, because we just.

Said, I don't know.

Persecuted.

I don't like that at all. Yeah,

I mean,

it's a good try at it. You know, when you read something and you want to know what God's saying about it and somebody gives a good try, I want you to hear me, both of you ladies.

Great try. I don't like it.

Don't fit. You know, I don't fit. What?

What?

What, does the earth swallow them alive?

No, they hit caves, and then there was an earthquake that. Then all the water went down in the earthquake. I mean, all. The peak of the mountain.

Lord of the Rings. I like that part. Okay. I mean, you know, it's cool. Like.

A little excerpt at the bottom, it says, the danger of the floods, the woman is averted when the earth opened up, perhaps as it did to claim the rebellious queen Torah and his followers.

Oh, yeah, now you got that picture, too.

You got that picture, too. But that was when the earth opened up to take a bunch of people that had rejected God and were rebelling against God's plan.

It goes on to say how they were saying they don't know if it's a literal flood or if it's just an onslaught of persecution.

The things that have already happened. The Jews have been.

And the reason. The reason.

And. And I want you to hear me this. That's good. That is good. That's real good. The problem is, in the context of this passage,

it is. They are Escaping into the wilderness during the last three and a half years of the Tribulation. Because it's for a.

Look, I thought all this, I, I read the persecution thing, that's always good. They were persecuted. You know,

everybody's persecuted. I, I, I, I, I. This is worse than persecuted. Okay? This is, this is like the devil has given you a flood of something to kill them and the water and the earth swallows it up.

Like I said, it'll be great on CNN if they're alive anymore. Fox, then I shouldn't say that, but that slows us down on, on the Internet. Yes.

Technologies that are being put into place now that are used for evil that end up destroying the very source of the evil.

Technology.

Heidi, that's really good, too.

I don't think I said either, but that's real good.

I like it. I love that y' all are coming up with stuff y' all are going to spend the next week trying to come up with. Yes, Ms. Stormy.

We, we can't, but we can use the pictures. Always with scripture. I want you to hear me. Always with scripture.

I and, and, and maybe this is a good time to help you when you're studying the Bible because I have admonished you to study scripture, right?

So that you can know. I want you to hear me.

The Bible is a fun, fine silk garment.

Okay.

All right. What I mean by that? Well, if you pull on one strand of the garment, it pulls on everything.

Meaning that Scripture, all of scripture is connected to all of the rest of scripture.

And so how do we interpret scripture? Well, if you're interpreting a word,

you need to interpret that in the light of the verses around,

chapter around it. If I'm interpreting a chapter, I need to interpret in the light of a book. And if I'm interpreting a book, I need to interpret in the light of the rest of the rest of the Word of God.

I and so it's, it's an inverted pyramid. So all of God's Word is literally standing on each word.

It's a revelation of every part of it.

So you cannot interpret scripture by itself. You must use all of the rest of God's Word to interpret it.

Are you following me?

And so there's clear patterns and there's clear pictures in Scripture,

Okay?

And that's why I'll give you those words when I, when I come across a word in Scripture that is used over and over and over again to describe some,

something or some act. I tell you that.

So when I always use this because it's easy A boat.

Anytime you have a boat,

salvation's going on.

People are being taught God's character, His word.

You following me?

All right.

Even when weird things are happening.

Say, take for instance, the disciples are in the boat.

How many times are the disciples in the boat?

They could just keep being in the boat.

Have y' all noticed? They're in the boat all the time.

In fact, when he finds them, they've been what?

In the boat. Which means they were already born. They were already born again.

And he's calling them to follow him.

So God's already been working on them before they even get called.

Yeah. And they catch a lot of fish. And fish are always a picture of people,

okay?

Always.

The weirdest boat story is they're in the boat and Jesus is not in the boat.

Cause he don't need a boat.

He's walking on the water.

And he invites Peter to get out of the boat and to do God's stuff.

And Peter becomes famous.

And when I say that, you think for sinking. But that's not what makes him famous. He's the only other person who ever lived who walked on water.

He did.

Not as good as Jesus,

but he did.

Coolest boat story in the Bible.

Now,

giant boat with all the animals is a cool one, too.

Okay?

But that's a great story about a boat.

By the way,

the Book of Acts, which is the book about the church,

involves a journey in a boat.

Y' all know that.

So when I read boat, when I read the word boat, I always think salvation.

When I read water,

I think of the cleansing and refreshing work of the Holy Spirit.

Every time it's mentioned, it's about that. Now, if it's the C and not water,

it's the Gentiles.

Always.

It's always the Gentiles.

If it's the land,

is the Jews, and the promises of God.

Every time,

all the time,

just what it is.

Now you say, how many of those words are there?

Few thousand.

One's the unity of God. Two is either division or a faithful witness. Three is the Trinity or the triune God.

Four is how God's created the universe, the foundations of how God has made things.

Five's grace, sins. Six is man. Seven's completion. Eight's new beginning.

Nine is a division, but it's a division that is haphazard. You can't figure it out.

10 is government.

11 is. Is. Is. Is in some ways the fullness of government.

12 is Israel and the Jews you just kill. If you're just reading it, it's Just there.

Okay,

and what do you mean? Are you trying to. Are you trying to spiritualize it? No, I'm not spiritualizing it.

What I'm doing is I'm taking all of how God has used the Word and allowing it to reveal to me what this means.

Okay, There is some weird stuff in this verse,

these two verses that don't match up. And when Stormy says, could it be that we. We don't. We. It hadn't happened yet. Yes,

quite. Prof. Quite well, obviously, yes, I think it hadn't happened yet.

But the serpent.

So I don't have anything to tie it to.

Does that make sense to you?

And so you go, well, what do you do when you do that? Well, unless God gives me a direct revelation, which means he makes it obvious to me what that means.

I tell you, I don't know because my job is to tell you spiritual things,

to prophesy to you.

Okay,

Remember prophecy. If you listen to the Bible study this morning,

prophecy is to relate spiritual truths to someone that is only understood spiritually.

Okay? Now, prophecy can mean to foretell the future, but that's just one minor aspect of what prophecy is. Prophecy is the whole idea of a human being revealing eternal spiritual things to other human beings that are understood by them in.

And the reason. It's. It's. It's a. It's a. It's a powerful, unbelievable thing is how can that which is physical ever really describe the spiritual, especially in the limited scope of the human language.

How could we ever describe God in any way that's even relatable?

Well, we can, because God's made it possible.

That's why he calls preaching foolishness.

He says he's ordained the foolishness of preaching unto salvation,

meaning people telling others about the unbelievable aspects of who God is.

And they get it and they take it.

So when I study God's Word, I'm not just telling. I'm not trying to come up with. You come up with some really cool insight into God. Y' all do know that, right?

Like, I'm not trying to come up with some new poem that'll really work good with that verse or some.

That's not how. That's not how I teach the Bible. What I do is I have,

since I was 8 years old, studied God's word.

And so I'm 52 today.

So there's 44 years of me studying God's Word and listening to people teach God's Word and being in position where I can see God's Word develop. And I just take all that God has taught me from His Word, and I focus it on a passage,

and then that opens up all the things that happens in Scripture.

All the things that I've seen and been taught and know and heard the Holy Spirit teach me. It opens them all up to me.

And I, then I tell you what I understand this to mean.

And then the Holy Spirit takes, you know, all the messed up of Chad and all the, you know,

the redneck and, and all that aspect of me, you know what I'm talking about, cleanses out the Princeton stuff and you know what I'm saying? And he takes all that mess and he speaks to your heart like a clear crystal ball.

Ball, you know, it's just clear.

And how does that happen? Well, it ain't because I'm all that great. It's because God,

God, you know, translates it to you.

But I don't try to come up with new stuff for you.

I, I, I promise you,

on Sunday morning, I have about 12 sermons I can preach.

I've narrowed it down to at least two or three.

And when I see who's here, the Holy Spirit tells me which one to preach.

And then right in the middle of it, he has a, he has the. I don't fight with him during the sermon. Okay? I don't say I don't. Should I tell him that?

I just tell it. Okay. All right. But, but that's how it works.

And, and I want you to hear me. The more you listen and study and read and allow and listen, listen and confess and agree with God,

the more he will put those understandings in your head. And you just read it and it just comes alive.

And so when I get to a passage like this that doesn't make any sense to me, I just go, I don't know what this means.

And you know what?

You know what's fun for me is I don't have to know.

If he didn't tell me, he just didn't tell me.

He's got a right.

Something y' all want to, y' all want to hear something?

Act by the serpent.

And God's going to take them on wings as eagles. I'm saving them. He said, what happens? They get in trouble. Prophet, he raises up. Prophet saves them. They decide they're just going to act like they used to act.

They act like they used to act. They get in trouble. He saves them, saves them, saves them, saves them. So sounds like you all right? It says, and the dragon was enraged.

This is Paul Harvey, the rest of the story and the Dragon was enraged with the woman,

and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring,

which is the Christians who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

So he can't get them, so he comes after us.

How does that work? I don't know.

I don't know.

Yeah,

yeah, but there. There are Christians who are believers who believe on the name of Jesus after the tribulation.

They're not just the one. They're. They're not just. Not the ones who've heard and did not believe.

They're the ones who haven't heard and hear the gospel from the 144,000 Jewish preacher boys.

Okay,

all right.

That was a lot of fun on a passage we didn't learn anything from.

Okay.

It was a lot of fun.

I enjoyed teaching it, whether you enjoyed listening or not. Okay, all right.

But I do think. I do think that even in the midst of us studying something that I just. I don't have an idea about,

I think that it's important that even if you don't get the revelation, you go through the process.

Are you following me?

Always be going through the process.

Always be going through the process.

Always be immersed in God's word in some way.

Always just do it. Always just.

I mean, you know what I'm saying? And we provide a lot of. A lot of outlets for it, right? We have a lot of Bible studies. We do a lot of.

A lot of preaching and teaching. There's lots of outlets for that. But look, there's. There's. There's a look after. Look at, look at the things other people have, have talked about, okay?

And if something unsettles you about them, put it away. Don't read that person any.

Okay? There's a reason why the spirit would unsettle you about something. Somebody says,

just don't listen to it. But you know what else I would do? And I tell people this all the time. They say, how would you read the Bible?

You know, how would you. If you were me and you didn't know anything, how would you read the Bible? You know what I do?

I just start reading it like a novel.

And by the way, I mean, really, the first bunch of books,

15 are like novels.

This is a little bit dry.

Okay?

No, I mean, yeah, numbers was rough, but we made it through in Deuteronomy's. You know, we're handling it.

When Jesus brings something up, you go, oh, yeah, I know what that's talking about.

And if you do that enough, if you just keep doing it over and over and over again with your, with your life.

All of a sudden things will just start,

it'll just start making sense to you.

It just start becoming alive to you.

Start talking to somebody and it'll just come out of you,

you know,

you'll start telling them something that you remember studying three months ago.

You'll get a revelation and you'll just start saying 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.