The Revelation 20:5-8 | Episode # 1174

April 16, 2026

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

The Revelation 20:5-8

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.

All right, he says here, but the rest of the dead did not live again, verse five, chapter 20, Revelation, until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. All right? Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Now, what he's saying is this is the first resurrection, meaning the resurrection of the believers at the start who are going to be the ones who reign, especially those who are killed for their faith. He says, blessed are those who are a part of the first resurrection, meaning they're blessed. There's a special blessing for having endured through the tribulation, having. Having martyred yourself for the faith. There's a special blessing for it. And he's saying, I'm blessing them for this. What is the blessing? I don't know. All right? It's not the Pledge of Allegiance like in Christmas vacation. Okay? That's not the blessing. All right. It's a special blessing. Have you ever just gone through the Bible and looked for the special blessings God gives? You know, one of the special blessings is studying the book of the Revelation. He says there's special blessing for that. Did y' all know that? All right, well, you get it. He says here, over such, the second death has no power. What is the second death? The second death is separation from God permanently, or separation from God except for his wrath. All right? He says here, he says, blessed and holy is he who is part in the first resurrection. Over such, the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ. Now, when it says that they're going to be priests of God and of Christ, are they in the kingdom now? You got to get this. The 4 and 20 elders. He says again and again, three times. He says he's made him kings and priests. All right, all right. He's made him a kingdom of priests, meaning an eternal kingdom. All right? Are these kings? The answer is no. They're not kings. Why? Because they're not the bride. Old Testament saints aren't the bride. When we go back to the Old Testament way, the Holy Spirit operates in the tribulation, they're not the bride either. Now, do they get special things? Yes, they're blessed. They rule for the thousand years, but they're not the bride. Okay, Old Testament saints are the children of God. We are the bride of Christ. Now, we are a child, but we're a child grafted in because we're married to Christ. Okay, so are we a child of God? Are we sons of light? Are we children of light? Sure we are. But we're children of light as it relates to Jesus. You go, and what does that matter? I don't know. I don't know for you what that matters. Are you following me? I don't know what that matters for you, and it may not matter anything for you right now, but there may be a day when that matters to you. But if you didn't know, won't matter if you're not. If you don't know it exactly, how is God going to illuminate it to you at the point when you really need to know it? I don't know that, but I study it so I can put this information in my brain, so that when I'm thinking about things, I know how it works. Brett will call me sometimes and say, now tell me this. And he'll always say, I'm not telling you what the answer is. Because he used to call me and say, ain't this right? I'd go, no, it's not all right. And then I explained to him. He go, oh, all right. Now, he just starts out with. He don't start with ain't this right? He says, now, I'm just trying to get this straight. And then he asked a question, but what he's saying is, I'm trying to figure out how to put these things together. What caused him to think about that? I don't know. What causes you to think about? I don't know. But you ought to always be mulling it in your mind. You ought to be considering it in your brain. It says, now follow this. This is stuff that's going to happen. Do you. Does. Is it really going to affect you a whole lot? No, but it's good to understand because it allows me to understand God's plan, how he's going to work this out. He says it now, when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from the prison or the bottomless pit. Hold on now. You mean they're going to throw him in the pit and then they're going to let him out again? Yeah. Are you sure about that, Pastor? Yeah, I mean, I just read it. Well, how you know that's true? Because it's in here. I've read it in the Greek, too, by the way. It's there also, right? It says here and notice. And he'll go out to deceive the nations which are the four corners of the earth. Gog and Magog. All right, now who's he going to deceive? Well, there's still people on the earth for the thousand years, and they're going to have children, and their children are going to have children for a thousand years. All right, now, he's given us something here with this Gog and Magog thing. Okay? Now, I'm just going to tell you what I know about it because I'm not sure exactly how it works. Just going to give you the information. Gog and Magog refer to ancient gods in what is modern day European Russia, okay? It's thought that they're likely somehow tied to the. To the Kevan Rus, okay? And you go, well, who are the Kevin Rus? Well, they are. Say, Pastor, how you know this? Well, because, I mean, Kathleen has to watch it all the time. All right? The. The Russians of today that rule were Vikings. They were Rus Vikings from Scandinavia, okay? That's what they're called, the Rus Vikings, all right? And they ruled what is modern day Europe all the way down to Kiev, which is in where Ukraine. And if you look on the map, that's way down at the bottom, okay? And they had these ancient gods called Gog and Magog. So we're not sure if they're Viking gods or they were gods in the area that the Rus. The Kievan Rus. The Kievan Rus Vikings kind of accepted in as their. Is one of their. Viking is one of their gods. All right? Now, this is what's cool about it. And this how you know it's. This is how you know, it works. British Parliament, okay? Y' all know where they got them green benches and they sit there and they yell at each other and a person stands up and it's just really fun because, number one, they talk in British. You know, they talking with that accent. So that's all. That's always fun. And they're being ugly to each other in a very. In a very highly sophisticated way. You know, they're saying all kinds of stuff and people are beating on things. And I mean, It's. It's really better than Congress. Okay? Congress is just an idiot getting up and talking and then another one getting up and talking. Okay. Did I say that out loud? Okay. All right. Anyway, well, the guy that's in charge of the British Parliament, okay, he sits right at the top, kind of like in America's Congress. And there are two gargoyles that are above him on the right and the left, okay. And they were sent by the royal family of Russia back when they were all one family, which, by the way, they still are. Okay. All right. And they're. They know they are called Gog and Magog. So in some ways, it has to do with the earthly royal lines, the European royal lines, which, by the way, draw their lot of ties between them and other royal lines around the world. Yeah. Now, I don't get too deep into it. She says, the 13 bloodline family. I don't get too deep into that. But. But I'm just telling you, in the revelation by John on Patmos in the Mediterranean Sea during the first century, he says right here that they'll go out and deceive the nations which are in the four current corners of the earth, Gog and Magog. And he just says it. He doesn't say anything other than gog and Magog. How do you know? We know what it means now. I mean, we know what they are. Why do you bring it up? I. I don't. I don't have an answer for that. Okay? And by the way, I don't teach anything that I don't. If, If I teach you something that, that I don't know for sure is scripture, I'll tell you, this is what I think. Okay? Paul does that. Okay? He'll say I. When Paul says I, what he's saying is I think this is from God. And I'm telling you it. But I'm telling you it makes sense. Now, we believe it's from God because we've. We vetted it. When he was writing it, he was trying to make sure that he told them what he knew was God was telling him. And if he had to say something else, he tried to make sure that he did. Now, I don't discount when Paul says I say something and say that it's not from God. Are you following me? Because I believe all scriptures God breathed. But I do realize that even Paul, while he's writing it, does not know for sure. And, and he's struggling with trying to make sure he writes down what God says, which is. Which is very human. Of him. Right. It's almost like he is a Christian. Right. He struggles with what God's saying, which makes it even more neat that I'm reading it. He gathers them together to battle whose number is of the sand, of the sea. So there's a lot of them. And they. What do they do? They get deceived, just like before, and they follow Satan. I have no idea why they do that. I. I haven't. I don't know, Dane. I have no idea. Dean's in the back. I. I don't know why they do it. Don't make sense, but they do. I don't know why anybody don't, don't, don't take Jesus. It doesn't make sense to me. But they don't. They do. They reject him. Okay, so there are going to be a lot of people living on the earth who, having Jesus reign for a thousand years are going to reject him. Now, I want you to hear me if that's true, that explains why you're having so much trouble with Uncle Versy. You know what I'm talking about. You know, Uncle Versy, he just don't. He ain't gonna believe. He. Well, I. I wish he would. I know you wish he would, but he don't. They're going to be people who don't believe. Is that an excuse to just say, well, I give up. I'm not going to be a Son of Light anymore? No, that's not an excuse for that. All right. But do I know that they're going to be some who don't? Sure. Sure there are. As a pastor, I know when I'm telling you something that there are people in here who are born again, who are growing, who are going to hear what God says and not do it. Because I do sometimes. And if I do it, I'm just expecting you to do. Makes it a lot easier to be a pastor. I expect y' all to be absolute heathens. And if anything good happens, it was God. And that's just wonderful. Praise Jesus, you know I'm talking about. Because ain't no way that could ever happen for you except for Jesus, you know? And listen, it's a great way of looking at things when I get up on the bench, you know, as, as, as a judge, I don't get mad at people. You talking about people do some bad stuff. I don't get mad at them. I just expect that they would, you know, and if God, if there's some. If there's some change or something that happens wonderful in their life or something like that. That's just comes from God. Makes me praise God because I know it didn't come from them and it didn't come from you. I do that for me. Yeah, I do that on the bench. I see everybody. You know, I expect all of you to be absolute heathens except for the grace of God. You'd be going to hell all right. Am I wrong? But for him hanging on a tree and walking out of the tomb, I'd be going to hell too. So anything that happens, good to you, praise God. It glorifies God. Now, I would love for you to put together a whole string of it and it be just something going on all the time. And you, I mean, praising God with the whole life. You be a son of light and whoa and all that. I'd love for that to be the case, but most time I expect not. I think it's a biblical perspective, isn't it? Yeah.

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.