The Revelation 20:11 | Episode # 1176

April 20, 2026

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

The Revelation 20:11 

 Episode #1176 – The Great White Throne Judgment

In this episode, Chad Harrison explores one of the most sobering passages in Scripture—the Great White Throne Judgment from Revelation. He begins by emphasizing the importance of asking “why” as we seek to understand God more deeply, reminding us that spiritual growth requires intentional pursuit, not superficial belief.

Chad unpacks the distinction between different biblical judgments, clarifying that this particular judgment is for those who have not received spiritual life in Christ. He contrasts it with the believer’s judgment (the Bema Seat), where works—not salvation—are evaluated.

With careful explanation, he walks through the imagery of God’s holiness, sovereignty, and the removal of all earthly context in this final judgment—leaving each person fully exposed before God. This teaching is both challenging and clarifying, calling listeners to a deeper reverence for God and a more serious engagement with His Word.

Key Themes:

•  The importance of asking God “why” in your spiritual journey 
•  The difference between the Great White Throne Judgment and the Bema Seat 
•  God’s sovereignty and holiness in judgment 
•  The necessity of deep, personal study of Scripture 

Closing Encouragement:
Seek God wholeheartedly, grow in understanding, and walk in His truth with faith and reverence.

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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.

I like to use personal illustrations because they just work so well. One of the things that my daughter, my youngest daughter enjoyed so much her life was she loved the three letter word and she would just wear me out with that three letter word. And that three letter word was why? She just asked me why all the time, why this, why that. And you know, The answer that we oftentimes want to give is because I said so. But that is not a super helpful answer. And it's not an answer that the Father would give us most of the time. And I say that because that is something that God not only isn't upset with to things and in order for him to seek you out so that he can know you, so that you can know him, he's got to be willing to answer why. And he is, he is always willing to give you an answer for what you're searching him out for. And so it is a very necessary thing that we do when we're dealing with life and dealing with things that we say lor, why is this going on? Why did that happen? As I read Scripture, why? You know, he wants to show you those things and he wants to reveal those things. And if you're not going to be inquisitive of him, well, I mean, how exactly, how exactly is he going to tell you anything? You have to actually, he says if you seek me, you'll find me, but you got to seek me with your whole heart. Which would mean that you have to, you know, you have to do the full inquiry. There's nothing wrong with that. And now sometimes the reason you're asking why is not a good reason. And he may rebuke you, rebuke you in it is important that we search God out as an individual. I'm readily cognizant of the understanding that most people only hear about 5 to 10% of what you say when you're when you're teaching, okay? And that's just the truth. That pastor, when I first went into the ministry, said many, many times that you had to say something to somebody seven times before they ever got it once. And if you kind of do the math out on that, you know, that makes sense. If you were to be speaking for 30 minutes and you gotta say it seven times, divide 30 minutes into seven, that means that's about four minutes, four and a half minutes. That means that most people are only listening to about four and a half minutes of what you got to say, all right? And then the rest of it, they wander off spiritually. And it may not be wandering off from God, maybe wandering to God, but they're wandering off from what you're talking about, okay? And so understanding that that's a truth. So many times when I, When I try to teach through things, I try to be very systematic about it in the sense of I try to explain stuff over and over again, maybe using a different illustration, maybe using a different situation. But the truth is biblical truth. Biblical truth, if you're going to really understand it in its depth, you've got to really, really wrestle with, or, you know, get so upset about. About something that's happened, something spiritually that happened. And then when I spend time with them, I realize how superficial their understanding of. Of the Bible is, okay? And so you're so upset yet you're not willing to dive deep enough for you to even have an answer. And probably that's why you're upset, is because you hadn't spent time wrestling with God enough to get you to the place where you can actually, actually deal with answers and have a piece about how God sees things. Okay? And, and, you know, it is amazing how, how, how. Very upset about things that they haven't really thought deeply about. And, and, and I want. I want you to know as, as we study through God's word, we do this. Now, I say that because the subject matter of. Well, it's a very troubling subject matter, okay? And the subject matter is, is the Great White Throne Judgment. And I don't do this a lot, but I do need. I think I need to tonight. I'm gonna. Add on it from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away. Okay? All right. So it says that the earth and the heavens fled away from his face. Okay? And remember, the face of God is his revelation. All right? So when I say, may the Lord bless you and keep you, may make his face shine upon you, what I'm saying When I say that, when I'm. What the scripture means by that is, may he reveal himself to you. Okay? It says, and there was found no place for them, meaning in this setting. The heavens and the earth have no place in the matter, okay? And it says, and I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God. And books were opened and another book was open, which is the book of life. That's the Lamb's book. To their works by the things which were written in the books. Plural. Okay? The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades delivered up the dead dead who were in them, it says, and they were judged each according to his works. Then death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. All right? Now, there's a lot of depth to this, okay? There's a whole, whole lot of depth to this. First of all, there needs to be an understanding that oftentimes we think that judgment, the judgment of God is going to take place at one big time, and everybody's going to be there. That's not the case, okay? This is called the Great White Throne Judgment. And it is the judgment of those who have not been born again, who are dead in their trespasses and sin, and have not tasted life, spiritual life. They're. They're. They're separated from God, okay? And you're going to see that. That we are not in this judgment, okay? This is not a judgment for those who are believers. There's not a judgment for those who have faith in Jesus Christ, faith in God, faith in his. His redemption plan, at whatever level of revelation that they have. Now, you need to understand that you were judged by how much you act, Life and reward, okay? And the judgment that we are in is known as the Bema seat judgment, okay? And that's the judgment where God judges our works based off of whether or not they were judged, whether they were works of faith, okay? Or whether they were works of the flesh, all right? Or works of your own soul, all right? And understanding that's really important because those are. Those are two judgments, by the way. There. There. There is at least one more judgment that we find in Scripture and we in. And, and it's not. It's not formally set. Angels. So at some point in time, there's a judgment of the angelic host, okay? And so, so there's going to be. There's going to be that judgment which we will be involved in doing. And it would be proper and right for us to do that because we are. We are made in the image of. In the image of God. And the angels are ministry spirit sent to us to minister unto the saints of Jot. We've got all that going on now. I'm going to go through this and, and I'm going to say some things that are. That are somewhat difficult, maybe somewhat. Some. In some ways, they'd be difficult for you to actually think through in detail as I'm talking about them. So if you, if you, if you're going to go back and study through scripture, you want to know about this, Judg, you probably need to spend some time reading it and thinking about what I say and reading it again. Transparent. And it's drawing on. In order for you to kind of understand it in its fullness. It is drawing on a lot of information out there in the world. And by the way, I'm going to let you know a lot of information in the word not the world. And by the way, I'm going to say this, that if you were to go and just, you know, do a. Do a Google search and try to find. This is not really talked about a whole lot in Scripture, okay? This is. There's not a whole lot of breaking down of this passage. And if you do find it, you'll tend to find people who are very legalistic, okay? And they're trying. And oftentimes if you, if you study this, you'll find that a lot of people are looking for everybody to go to hell, okay? And so you'll find a lot of people that are very desirous of that. I would say this to you that, that this is not something to be enjoyed or reveled in, okay? This is not something that. This is not something that God enjoys, okay? This is not. It's not his journey that this takes place, but it's not attributable to his heartfelt desire for humanity that this be the judgment that he does. It says, then I saw a great white throne notice. It's powerful. It's white, which represents the holiness of God. It's a throne. And we can't get past this because it's throughout Scripture and especially in the New Testament that, that God functions as a monarch. He is. He is. He is a sovereign who has full power and authority over all things that he made, okay? And the sovereignty of God and understanding of the sovereignty of God is. I think. I think. I think if you don't really know the sovereignty of who he is and where he sits on his throne, you're not going to be wise as to. You're not going to be wise as to the proper fear of who he is, okay? And the Bible says the fear of the Lord, which is a properly placing him in the right position and placing yourself in the right position. A fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And if you don't see God rightly as the. His creation, what he made, if you don't see him that way, you're going to rarely come to a right outcome, okay? That's one of those principles that is fundamental to having a clear understanding of Scripture. If you can't place him in that sovereign position of being in control, you're going to have struggles with that. You're going to have trouble with that. Does that make sense to you? All right, so he says here, he sat on it. Notice from whose face the earth and heaven fled away. All right, now what. What he's going to do is he is going to remove everything that has to do with his holiness and glory as far as. As far as the heaven is concerned, and he's going to remove everything that has to do with. With the earth and his creation. They flee away, okay? Which means that when you're dealing with him, you're just going to deal with him as he is. And you're not going to be able to make excuses about creation or excuses about your life or excuses about how things were or weren't, okay? How things were, fair or not fair, whether or not God is right to put himself in a position to judge, okay? The Bible says that heaven and earth flee from his face in this judgment, which means this judgment is taking place in a sense, and in a place where you are separated from the world, the events of the world, all those things, it's just you and God and you are being you. You are being placed in a position where they. Where the stark comparison between you and him is perfect. All right? He says here and there was found no place for them. Meaning. Meaning nobody's going to be able to point in any other direction when this judgment takes place. It is. It is between you and Him. Okay? And when I say you, I'm not talking about you, but I'm talking about the people that are before Him. All right?

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.