The Revelation 19:8-9| Episode # 1165

April 3, 2026

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

The Revelation 19:8-9

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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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.

We are. We are at a. At a stage in the book of the Revelation, which is, which is in many ways it's a lot of fun in the sense of the symbolism is not all that much. We move away from a whole lot of symbolism and really it's just pretty much straightforward. I'm thinking about, I'm trying to decide in my heart I would just as an extension of us going through Daniel and then going through the Revelation, I would think about going through first and second Thessalonians. But I may go first and second Peter and then go back to first and second Thessalonians and you go, why are you talking about that? That'll be 12 years from. But anyway, that's y' all just letting you know where we're going anyway. But what is happening here is the event surrounding what we call the second Advent or the second coming of Jesus Christ. Now a lot of times that is that, you know, because of the separate, different ideas as to the coming of Jesus Christ. Well, whether or not the church is raptured. So, you know, you've got the pre tribulation, you've got those who believe that, you know, we're raptured at pre trib. And that happens at the end of chapter, in the chapter three, into chapter four. Then you have those who believe that it's mid trib or atrib, it's right in the middle. And then you have those who believe that there is no rapture, that when Jesus comes back, we're all here that are alive. And like I've said before, I tend to believe about 90% in a pre tribulation rapture, just the way I teach through scripture. But I'm not opposed to it. I don't think we're left here the whole time I'm almost for sure that that's not true. But you know, I could be wrong. I Could definitely be wrong. And the problem is that those who are for sure, who will tell that there's no doubt about it, they don't know. They don't know for sure. And I say that because. Because there are good arguments. They may not be as great as others. There's good arguments on all sides, okay? And so I've tried. When the, when the Bible is straightforward and God tells you something, I try to. I try to. I try to be as. As plain about that as I can be because God has said it. But when, when, when God. When God leaves this, and especially for this, in the end times, people can begin to worship events and things rather than God. And that's why he's not as clear. There's not as much clarity as you would have, say, in a parable Jesus taught or something that is quite clear in Scripture. There are some things and some aspects of studying God's word that when you're studying it, you know that God is giving you the symbolism so that you'll search for it. Now, we're in verse eight of chapter 19. We're in verse eight, and we're right in the middle of God defeating Babylon. We finish that and then we make a turn. In most of yalls Bibles, actually, you would say it's in the middle of a section, but it's not. Cause remember, all those things that are not the headings, they're not in the Bible. In fact, the numbers and chapters aren't either, just to let y' all know. So those are just given to us so that we can easily find sections of Scripture. That's why the numbers, the chapters and the verses are in there so that we can find them. But there actually is not. There are verses of Scripture. There are songs in the Bible. Those are verses. The book of Psalms has a lot of verses and the book of Proverbs has a lot of verses, but everything else is really not a verse, okay? It is a teaching, all right? And so most of them are letters in all actuality. And so he says here, and to her, and this is the church, this is the bride of Christ, okay? And to her, the bride of Christ was granted to be arrayed in fine linen. Now, this is really literally where we get the bride in a wedding, wearing white, all white, okay? The. The symbolism of weddings that we have, many of the symbolisms of weddings come from, well, the teaching of Scripture about Jesus being the bridegroom and us, us being the bride. So that teaching is, is so some of the things that you're Going to read here. You're gonna, you're gonna be able to draw some direct allusions to what you see when two people get married. She was arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright. For the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Okay? Now remember, and I have to say this over and over again, because people, when they're studying through Scripture, oftentimes they, they attribute the idea of righteousness as something that makes us better than others. Okay? And righteousness from the Old Testament to the New, from Abraham to today, righteousness is imputed to you due to your faith. Okay, and what did I mean by that? Well, remember, faith, Faith at its core is. Is a. Is a. Is a. Is an. Is an act that is. Is initiated by God. Okay? So many times we struggle with this, okay? And I want you to hear me because it's important that you get this. If God doesn't start it, if God doesn't initiate it, then its initiation has to be from corruption, all right? If God doesn't initiate it, then it is begun by corruption and therefore can only end in corruption, okay? If my relationship with God in any way begins with me, then it begins in corruption, okay? It begins in corruption. God does the work of making it possible for me to relate to him. God does the work to make it possible for me to relate to him. Now you go, we got free will, Pastor? Yes, we have free will after God's work. But I don't have free will to choose that which I'm incapable of knowing. And what I'm incapable of knowing is the perfect, perfect, good, good work of God, the goodness of God, because my sin separates me from that. And so if my sin separates me from that, I can only choose to do that which is revealed to me, okay? I can only choose to do that which is revealed to me. And who reveals all good things? Who gives all good things? God does. Do you give all good things? No. We try to. Jesus said even, even the earthly father tries to give good gifts. But are the earthly Father's gifts good? No. No, they're not, unless they're born of faith. Okay? So God initiates it by making it possible, giving me the strength, giving me the revelation, giving me the understanding that I need to act upon what he has said. Okay? And I talk about this all the time, but I, I, the reason I bring it up over and over and over again is because a person, if you want to please God, you've got to know what faith is, and you've got to know how to act upon it, okay? You gotta know how to use it. And faith is the word pistio or pistis in the New Testament. Noun, verb. Okay? So a noun and a verb. All right? Faith. Faith is something. And faith is an action that brings about something. Okay? And so understanding that faith is to faith, hope, trust, believe. Okay? Those are the four. The four words we use to translate pistio or ****. Pistis. Okay. All right. Those are the ideas. The best translation is to trust. And the reason I say it's the best translation is because it's the relational translation, okay? It's the translation that relates to a relationship with God. All right? We are the righteousness of God. Notice we're the righteousness of God. So where does it start? God, he reveals his divine will. He gives me the ability to hear his divine will. Will. He says, if you hear my voice, which leaves open the possibility that I would not hear his voice. He says, if you hear my voice, do not rebel, as in the rebellion. Don't. Do not. Do not turn from it, as in the rebellion. So God plans it by his will. He initiates it by making it possible that I can hear Him. He reveals his will. And where is his will best revealed from His Word. Okay, see, that's what makes it hard. I can try to manipulate you through. Through psychological tactics. I can try to. To scold you into doing right. I can try to cajole you into doing right. I can try to try to try to give you. Give you benefits to doing right. Are you following me? But true, true faith is born of a trust of God. And I do his revealed will. I do his revealed will because I trust what he says. And his revealed will, I want you to hear me. His revealed will is always found in His Son. And His Son we're going to see, is the Word, is the word of his glory. And so if I'm talking to someone, I know that I might be able to, with eloquent words and talk, convince you of an idea. But I also know that through God's Word, if it sinks in your heart, you won't be shaken from that. And so no matter how eloquent I may be, you may move away from that. But the firmness of God's revelation causes people not to move away from it. They will never leave it. They will die on it. And so we are the bride of Christ, and we have made our robes white by our hearing God, believing God and doing what God has said. Now that's the process of faith. Now, the hearing God. God does a Whole lot at the start. But then I get the right to choose by my will. This is the sanctification process. I get the right to choose to receive his revelation and then act out what he has revealed. When I act in faith, that is the silver and gold and precious stones. When we are in the bema seat, judgment and all the work of our lives, the totality of our lives is placed on the altar there in front of God. Everything that's not a faith is burning up. And everything that is of faith lasts for eternity, is and is your treasure which you lay at his feet in heaven. So for those. And it as a pastor is very difficult because I want you to do good things of faith. But the truth is, even if I tr, even if I manipulated you into doing the good stuff, it'll be of no value to you. It'd be no value to you because I'm not into doing I, I, I, I, I, I, I'll be, you know, in my flesh I'm into doing all kinds of worldly stuff. But that has no value in the kingdom. I want some, I want some eternal value. I want my investments to have eternal value. Not even long term value. Eternal value. And if my investment's going to have internal value, it has to be at its core born of faith. So he says here, he says, he says to her, was granted notice. Notice it was granted. Who granted it? God. To be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright. For the fine linen is the righteousness, the faith of the saints. Then he said to me, right, Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the lamb because that's the bride of Christ. Blessed are those who call to the marriage supper of the lamb. It's a good thing, it's a positive thing. Now you go, well, I don't know what this is. It's the feast. It's the celebration of us being perfectly and permanently united with God. Perfectly and permanently united with God. Okay. And there's going to be invitations, as there are, to witness. There's an invite. And if you're not invited, you're in outer darkness. There are going to be people in outer darkness. I love it when I talk about that, when I talk about, you know, the sovereignty of God and things like that. Somebody will bring up, well, you know, People, people go to hell because, because they don't know God. That's right. That's exactly right. I, I, I, I, I, I wonder what I'm talking to. What point are you making? What's your point? You believe in Hell, don't you? I can tell you Tall county had a. Had a. Had a. Had a infestation of people who didn't believe in hell at one point in time, at the turn of this last century. Not this century. There's a whole community that was built on those people. Built by those people and built by that denomination. They're not there anymore. You know why? Because the Bible teaches about. Teaches about hell. Jesus taught about hell. There is. There is eternal separation from God. The most beautiful church building in the county was built by them. And I'm going to say 99% of the people of this county have never been in that building. Does that tell you anything? The most beautiful campus in Tallapoosa county was built by them. And now it's a ghost town. Most of the time. It is. You know why? Because when you reject the divine revelation of God, you reject God and you cannot act in faith. Did you hear me? You cannot act in faith outside of God's word. You cannot. I'm going to do something for God. You are? Really? Where'd you come up with it? How would you even know that God would want it? Blessed are those who call to the marriage supper of the lamb. And he said to me, these are the true sayings of God. This is the angel. He's telling him, listen. These true sayings, God. Now, what I love about this is. What he's saying is we're not. We're not going to use imagery anymore. I'm just going to tell you exactly how it's going to happen. Okay? 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.