The Revelation 18:17-19 | Episode # 1158

March 25, 2026

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

The Revelation 18:17-19

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.

Himself. He's personally delivering himself. Sunday morning I said, I think I said something like this. I said that, I said that, that God's grace. There's nobody that is, there's nobody that's unredeemable in the age that we live in. There's a lot of people that try to prove that they're unredeemable. Okay? They work at it real hard, but they're not unredeemable. And you say, well, how you know that? Well, I know that because God's grace in this age is powerful. And you go, well, how is it different from back then? Well, there's two ways it's different. His grace is being poured out on those who have him literally living on the inside of him. And his grace is emanating from those who walk with him inside of him. So at no point in time in human history until the church age did you have God's common grace being poured out on all creation, sustaining creation because his judgment would have been utterly destroying creation. Okay, his or don't even know or don't even realize the weight of the judgment of God against sin. And on the other side, those who are just now experiencing the grace of God, it's so wildly. And I'm going to show you that it apparently has economic aspects to it, political aspects to it. This world dominated religion. And I want you hearing. Oftentimes we try to look around and point to human beings as the, as the source of it. And it's not okay. There is an occupying army which has occupied the earth since Adam turned over of creation to Satan and the fallen angels who exist in an army. Remember, angelic host does not mean a ban, it doesn't mean choir, it means an army. There's an occupying army that is led by the prince of the power of the air, which is Satan who controls the earth. And you go, well then how do we do anything? Because you've been given authority over that and you've been given the ability to take your inheritance when what God has made for you. Now, how do I take that? I walk in. So I can't take your inheritance. I can only take my inheritance. I have to walk in the grace that God has given me, okay? I have to walk it out. I have to take possession of it. And all this is an act of faith. And to learn that I can actually do that is very powerful. It's very powerful to realize that I have a right to the things God has promised and that I should take possession of them by faith in my life. All right? And that's why I talk to y' all about studying the Bible and reading the Bible, because there's promises of God all in there. And then we take those promises and they become very specific to you, okay? It can be a promise in scripture. And then when you read that promise, you realize, oh, that promise is about this for me. When you do that and then begin to walk in it, what am I doing? I'm being very specific about the grace that God has given me. It's a grace that's been given to Enoch. It's a grace to use that God gives, okay? And so knowing that is real important as we're going to study a very, you know, judgmental time about this one world religion. Because God brings it down, okay? He brings it. He brings it down. Verse 17. For in one hour, such great riches come to nothing. All right? Verse 17. So. And listen to. I. I study this. This is something that I do a whole lot. I understand it. But one of the things I've understood about riches is they melt away like an iceberg. They're here today, gone tomorrow. Okay? If you're depending on that, well, you're depending on something that's very fleeting, okay? It's not something. It's a gift given to you by God's grace to use for his glorification. But those things are fleeting. They're not something that you can always hold on to. And there's nothing that you can do to keep them safe, okay? There's no investment out there that's perfectly safe. In fact, the more you actually study things, the more you realize that even the things you think are the most safe in the world are actually eroding away what. What. What you have. Okay? Why? Because the earth is perishing. All right? So it says, for in one hour, since great riches come to nothing. By the way, have we seen stuff like that happen in our country? Yeah, the Great Depression. If you actually study, you actually study the markets. I mean, the 2008 crisis destroyed 60 to 70% of the wealth of the great world empires. Ends in one night. The Ottoman Empire, one of the longest standing empires in the world, in the period of just a few years, totally and utterly annihilated. Religious blowing up over, split up and handed over. So I can name those all I want to tonight. I love history. Y' all know I love history. I could come up with those things over and over and over again. The unsinkable ships, right? The unbeatable armies, the greatest air forces that have ever existed, gone immediately. For amongst all such great riches came to nothing. Now notice, he says, for every shipmaster, all who travel by ships, sailors, as many as trade on the sea stood at a distance. Now, these things are. They're speaking to a couple things. First of all, y' all know I love boats, right? Not that I love boats for. For boat's sake. I love boats because they represent salvation, right? And sailboats are really cool because sailboats, boats with salvation, with a sail that catches the Holy Spirit because we're going to wind is a picture of the Holy Spirit, right? So sailboat boats are really, really cool to me in scripture, but here it was their salvation. And what was their salvation? Well, the gentiles is on the sea. These boats are on the sea. And what are they for? They're for the purpose of merkin. Merkin. Merchandise. Mercanta. They're for the purpose of trade. And notice that this one world system, the system that Satan's been in charge of, that he's propagating for four or five thousand years, has an aspect of it that's economics. If you wanted me to spend some time teaching you about how our economic system is designed for control and designed to fleece you of everything you have. Well, what you need to do is go to Hope Alive and look up my financial teaching and just listen to that. I explained to you, if you listen to what our founding fathers, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson wrote about the banking system, you would go, really? I can't believe that. I can't believe that what he said about paper currency would scare you to death. And when you read it, you realize they were they. They knew they were prophets. It's happening right now. So this one world religion is a. Also a one world economy. And they look and the whole economy, the whole system that has existed for millennia, what does it say? They stood at a distance. Why? Because everything is collapsing around them. What do they say? They cry out when they saw the smoke of her burning. Saying what is like this great city? Meaning we don't have anything to turn to. There's not another answer. Once this system collapses, they don't have any control over anything anymore. They're not in control now. I want you to hear me. That's one of the positive things about God's grace. That's one of the cool things about God's grace. Meaning I received what I don't deserve. Because God's grace is not predicated on me. It's predicated on who? On God. God is the one who provides his grace. So I can't redeem myself. God redeems me. I can't fix my situation. God fixes my situation. I can't set the course of my life in a way that's going to be glorifying to God, fulfilling for me. Give me purpose in me. I don't do that myself. Who does that? God does that. God does those things. Notice the grace of God is predicated on God doing it first. God acting. Now, does it require me to join Him? Sure it does. Why? Because he's made me in his image and likeness. He wants me to act as he acts. He wants me to live out the way he lives out. But it's not predicated on me at the start. So many times now I'm going to tell you in our Christian doctrines we've, we've kind of shaded over and made made the finished work of Jesus in some way requiring others to do something to make it work. Have we not? You gotta. Don't you hear me? It's not said this way. But if you logically think through to what is said, it just totally opens your eyes. We gotta help God. We gotta help him do his stuff. He needs you. Aren't you hear me? He Listen, if you'll listen to it real closely. If you'll listen to it real closely. God needs me to be a part of his plan. That's not scripture. That's why I am in many ways I, I, I ascribe to a teaching that starts with God. Sovereign God's even in trouble. I'm not even in trouble. I don't do it right. And there's a lot of cool that goes with that because then I don't have to make my own way. There's a lot of peace. There's a lot of joy. Oh no, I don't have to come up with an answer. No, I don't have to come up with an answer, all I have to do is be open to God revealing the answer, too. Now, is that hard to learn? Sure it is. I mean, it ain't easy, okay? I'm not saying it's easy. Okay? Like the Cheetos guy. It ain't easy to be cheesy. Okay? I know it ain't, but he's a Cheetos Cheetah, isn't he? Yeah, it's not the Cheetos line, all right? Or Tiger. All right? He says they threw dust on their heads and cried out, weeping and wailing. We don't do that anymore. Y' all ever notice that? We don't do the sackcloths and ashes. In fact, we do quite opposite, right? When everything goes wrong, you don't put on sackcloth and ashes and shave your head and throw dust on your head and sit there and whine and make wail. What do you do? Go shy. And that's exactly right. Put on your comfortable pajamas and go to bed. Am I right? Trying to hide from the world. All right. I want you to hear me. That's not the answer. That's. That's not the answer. That's not how you deal with it. You can't close out the world. You know why? Because you were made for the world. You were made to be a purveyor of God's grace in the world. You were made for that and those. I'm gonna tell you something. A lot of men. A lot of men. A lot of. You know what? You ever notice I've been hard on. I'm hard on the men. You ever notice that? You know why? Because they need it. They need a real band. They need whoopings all the time. I need a knife. New to men. Want to say, well, I'm gonna let him do it. I can't do it. I'm not good enough. I don't. It's all excuses. It's all excuses. There's no excuse. There's no excuse. You are a. You are a vessel of the grace of God. Exactly. What else do you need? You need to function in that grace. You need to walk in that grace. Quit hiding from your call. Quit hiding from your call. You know, I thought only preachers were called. No general speaking. They're the only ones listening. Okay. Answering the phone. All right. You know, I feel sorry for a lot of pastors. You know, I hear pastor all the time. They sit there working hard at it and everybody else. That's men. Nothing. Nothing. I'm going to tell You. You got one man in the church doing it. Doing evil churches. Well, it's just barely alive. It's just barely alive. And so dusted on their heads and cried out, weeping and wailing, saying, alas. Alas, the great city from which all who had ships on the sea became rich by her wealth. For in one hour she's made desolate. You notice? It's talking about economics, isn't it? It's talking about economics. Isn't that. Isn't that. Isn't that something that always, just always is? It's the dismal science, though. Y' all know that, right? Did y' all know that? My degree's in economics. It's called the dismal science. You know why? It's the dismal science. Does anybody know? Huh?

Boring.

Boring. Well, it's kind of boring, but here's the thing. Here's the thing. The economy of the world, every day is different than the day before. So how you going to study something that's never the same the next day or the next hour or the next 10 minutes? How you going to know that? And the truth is, being a physician, almost the same. It's hard. You got a patient. One day he's showing the symptoms, next day showing no symptoms, the next day he's showing those symptoms. Everything's changing. And no person is the same as anybody else. There's a reason for that. Y' all know why there's a reason for that? It's because there's only one who knows all that. There's only one who has the answer in all situations at all times. And if you think that you in some way are going to master something when it's always changing, how many churches never, ever want to change? Never. They want to stay in the same thing, doing the same stuff. Anyway, I'm not gonna say how. Listen, everything changes. The reason you don't like changes is because it's made you fat. Your hair's either falling out or gotten gray and your joints hurt. That's why you don't like change. Am I right? That's exactly right. Change ain't never. Ain't been good since I was 42. Right? I mean, that got any better, that's why you don't like change. But by the way, the cornice of God gets more powerful the older you get. That's funny. Now notice this. 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.