The Revelation 20:12 | Episode # 1177

April 21, 2026

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

The Revelation 20:12

 Episode #1177 – The Book of Life & Final Judgment

In this episode, Chad Harrison continues his teaching on the Great White Throne Judgment, focusing on what it means to be “dead” apart from Christ and how all humanity is measured against the life of Jesus.

He explains that spiritual death is not physical, but separation from God inherited through Adam—and that true life can only come through regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Chad also offers a deeper look at the Lamb’s Book of Life, challenging common misconceptions and describing it as the complete record and revelation of the life of Christ expressed throughout all creation.

This episode highlights the sobering reality that every person will be judged according to their works, measured against the perfect standard of Jesus. It also emphasizes that God has revealed truth to all people, leaving no one without accountability.

Key Themes:

•  What it means to be spiritually “dead” 
•  Life and regeneration through Jesus Christ alone 
•  A deeper understanding of the Lamb’s Book of Life 
•  God’s universal revelation and human accountability 
•  Judgment based on the standard of Christ 

Closing Encouragement:
Recognize the life found in Jesus, respond to His revelation, and walk in the truth He has made known.

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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.

He says here, and I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God. Notice the dead. Okay? He's going to use that word a lot in this passage. All right? He says the dead. What does he mean? Does he mean the physical dead? No, he does not mean the physical dead. He means those who are. Those who are dead in their trespasses, those who are separated from him by. By the death that was passed to them by their father, Adam. Okay? Death entered the world through one man, Adam. We see that. And then life through Jesus Christ. Okay? So if. If you. So many times, you'll hear people say, well, everybody's born in the image of God. That's not true. That's not true. No, you're not born in the image of God. In fact, your. Your line is through the line of Seth, Okay? And Seth was the. Was. Was the third line, the third son of Adam and Eve. And the Bible says that. Okay, and why does it say that? Well, because the image of God is a clear thing. All right? So many times we teach people that, you know, this is a mystery, and the Trinity's a mystery. God's not making it a mystery. He's making it easily understandable. Okay? In fact, nowhere in scripture is the Trinity, although the Trinity's not mentioned, is God in his Godhead considered a mystery as he exists. In fact, it's quite clear that he's revealed himself. The Father has revealed his will. The Son has fully in the flesh, worked that will out. And the Holy Spirit has been poured out on all flesh so that you know the Holy Spirit also. Are you listening to me? God's. All right, so you are in. The Bible says so. They are without excuse. But anybody who is not born again, meaning they're not regenerated, okay? They've not had a new spirit birthed into them. They not regenerated. Anybody who is not regenerated is dead in their sin, which was passed to them by their father Adam. And they are separated from God because they do not have a human spirit, period. It's the way it works. And if you. If you don't have a human spirit, then you are. You are. You are in the same death that your father Adam passed on to you. Okay? All right? There's no way to get around it. And that's the clear teaching of all the apostles, all right? It's clear understanding from Scripture. And, and, and oftentimes people say, well, you know, you said this, you said that. Well, right now, it didn't used to be this way, but right now there's, you know, 1200 Bible studies that you can study about. What I've said and what I've taught you through going through several books of the Bible, and we're putting out books all the time, studying through scripture. We're going to study through first and second Thessalonians. We're going to study through first and first Peter for sure on Sunday morning. And all those. All those studies. All those studies teach the whole counsel of God, all right? And as you study through Scripture, it is quite clear that people are separated from God until his. So by his sovereign will, he makes them alive again, okay? Life is found in Jesus and it must be imparted to you by the Holy Spirit, okay? It must be. And there's no way for that to happen. You can't make yourself. You couldn't. You did not conceive yourself physically. You cannot conceive yourself spiritually, all right? And if you can, then there's no need for Jesus, Okay? You didn't partner with Jesus in his redemptive work. Don't you hear me? You did not partner with Jesus in providing the redemption of sin. There's no way to get around that, all right? And if you. If you. If you think that. If you think that you do not understand the teachings of the New Testament. That's not what the New Testament teaches, all right? These people are not redeemed. They're not. And they don't have. And there's nothing they can say to fix that. There's nothing they can say to fix that, and there's nothing they can point to as an excuse for that, all right? I don't know why I'm being so. But, you know, it's pretty tough. It says, I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God by God. And the books were open. All right? What books? Okay, you need to hear that. What books? Well, we know that we have the books of Scripture, right? We know those are plural. There's 66 of them, okay? We know that revelation from God. If you're Catholic, there's 68 or 69 of them. Okay? You go, well, why do they have extra books? They like the history books. Between Malachi, you know, Malachi and. And Jesus. I mean, you know, Maccabees is not bad. I mean, it's. I've read Maccabees. Kind of a fun history. To Scripture. Okay? What I'm saying is they add no new revelation. Does that make sense to you? That's why they were rejected by. By. By the early church, Father. It just rejected because they. They're good history books, but they didn't add any. They didn't add any revelation, any understanding. All right? He said. He says the books were opened and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life, okay? Now, I've told you what the Book of Life is, all right? Now, we all love to. We all love the jokes. There's some really great ones. I've got some good ones I'm not telling tonight because we're on a. We're on. I'm not going to tell you any. I got. One of my best preacher jokes is with St. Peter at the Pearly Gate, okay? We love to talk about St. Peter being at the Pearly Gates. And for my family, we think that he has some ledger book with everybody's name in it. You know what I'm talking about, measuring it up with addresses, times you live, you know, and if you're in that book, that's the Lamb's Book of Life, and it's a ledger book, you know, Chad Harrison, named Donald Richard. Donald Richard Harrison, Jr. Born April 18, 1972, St. Vincent's Hospital, Birmingham, Alabama. Die, you know, whenever that happens, right? We think that's our book, right? And you know, St. Peter, when you come up there, you. You flip through the book, you find them, and. And if they're in, they're in. If they don't find you, you're out. Then you ask him to look again, you know, because, you know, if you don't get in, obviously you want to appeal. You want to appeal that decision up to a higher power, all right? Those are the jokes, all right? I want you to hear me, that there's no indication in Scripture that the Lamb's Book of Life, even by its name, is a ledger book, okay? There's no indication of that. The Lamb's Book of Life, if you just take it by its Name which we should. Okay, The Lamb's Book of Life is the book that tells about the life of the Lamb throughout time and history. Okay? It's the Book of Life. All right, well, what does that mean? Well, that would mean that everything that his life was like to. In the world is in the book. Everything. All right? That's a lot of books. Now, I've done the math with y'. All. Y' all remember that, okay? I've done the math with you, all right? If he really wrote all the volumes about you and started out with you and just described your DNA, one with lots of zeros after it, volumes, okay? That's just a description of you. And you go, well, why does he have to do that? Well, we're all unique, right? We all have unique DNA, all right? Why would we. We all have it, all right? Just to describe actually the functioning of one cell in your body is going to take thousands and thousands of books. You do know that, right? Okay, thousands of thousands of books, all right? Then all that life that he's the originator of. And you go, what do you mean he's originator of it? He says, I knew you before I knit you in your mother's womb, which means he puts you together in your mother's wombs. Womb, which means he knows you. He says, I know the numbers of hairs on your head. And by the way, that's an easy thing to figure out compared to all that he actually did, right? He's just telling. He didn't tell him that I know all the cells in your body because they didn't know what a cell was. So he had to start with just the hairs on your head. Now, with Pastor Jimmy, there's not a lot of them, okay? But with me, there'd be more. All right? But he said what he's saying is I know you. I know you, okay? And, and, and. And understanding that God knows you that way, that he knows you that intimately is. Is a powerful thing. So the Lamb's Book of Life. Now, the reason I bring that up is because there's one statement in the Bible that bothered me for a while. For a long, long while, okay? And I thought it was a. It was hyperbole. Okay? All right. Do y' all know what statement I'm talking about? Well, we're going to get to it in John. At the end of John, John says, basically, these are the stories I'm telling you that Jesus did. But then he says, I suppose if you wrote down all that Jesus did, the whole earth could not contain the volumes, okay? Now that seems like hyperbole until you realize that it's going to take a couple of billion books just to describe your cells and your DNA. Okay? Then when you put somewhere around 20 billion people that have lived on the earth times that, I mean, you're adding zeros after zeros of volumes, okay? And so understanding that that is the Lamb's Book of Life. Because God keeps a record, hear me, God keeps a record of all the life that shown from Jesus Christ. All of it? All of it. Can I say it again? All of it. God keeps a record of that. Now, I want you to hear me. Why does he bring up the Lamb's Book of Life? All right, because he's given you a dichotomy. All right, what does the Lamb's Book of Life come from? It comes from the revelation of this book. So this book, which is the word that was made flesh and lived among us, this book is the source of that light, okay? These books that those who are lost are judged by, they are put up as God's divine plan of redemption in Jesus. And those who are to be damned, okay? Those who are to be eternally separated from God because their death, the reason they're dead is. Is. Is spelled out in its fullness in this book, okay? So it is right that he would. That he is the man. Any of the time and space that took place in the universe, any. It's. You measured up against this, All right, that's really important. The lost are measured up against the grace provided by Jesus and the lack thereof in them. And people. People say, well, what about people who've never heard this? Okay, well, This book right here, the truth of who God is, is written on the hearts of men so that men know that there is objective, not subjective truth. All right, you go. Well, what do you mean by that? All right. In every society we have, we know about, that has existed for any time period of any significance, I'm sure there's one society out there that you can point to that did not. Does not do this. But by the way, if you don't do it for about a generation, it's over with. There are certain things that they know is right and wrong. Okay, well, what's right and wrong? Well, killing people. Wrong. Is wrong. Stealing from people is wrong. Meaning the taking the product of their efforts and their will is wrong. Every society in that exists for any period of time has certain rules that they. They live by. Okay? I want you to hear me. They're not social constructs they're innately written on the heart of men, okay? If you were. If you were dropped on a desert island at the age of four with ten other people, okay? And y' all were all the same age, and you grew up on that island because it never got too cold, never got too hot, there's plenty of. Plenty of food. There would eventually be on everybody's heart an understanding of what's right and wrong. Okay? Now, somebody ought to write a book about that. That's a joke. Is there a book about that? What's it called? Lord of the Flies. It's called Lord of the Flies. The children turn evil and they start killing each other. There's absolute chaos. You know why? Because the heart of man knows right and wrong. And they. And. And the Lord of the flies is. Is an understanding that without God, there is only chaos, okay? There is only disorder, there's only entropy, okay? All those things, that's all there is without God. But even if you. Even if you don't have God, the entropy that comes from it comes from what you know to be wrong. Are you following me? All right, so they're measured up against this book. They're measured up against what. What God has revealed in his Son. It says the dead were judged according to their works by the things that were written in this, in the books. So what they did. What they did is measured against who Jesus is, period. They sit there. Jesus is the full revelation of God beside the Father, and each person is judged according to their works. All right? By the way, God's revelation is different for every human being. Not all human beings have all the same revelation. You're not judged. You're not. Remember, this is the full revelation of God. That's why all the books are used. Whatever God has revealed to you about you, about. About him, and the Bible says he has revealed himself to all man. Whatever he's revealed himself to you about, if you don't fully measure up to it, then you're right to be judged and right to be separated from Him. You need to hear that. That's why I talk about. If you violate the law, the revelation of Jesus, if you violate it in any way, you have broken the whole revelation of Jesus. Okay? That's a. That. That. That's a clear teaching of Scripture also. So anyone who at any point in time has violated the revealed will of God in any way, they are under condemnation and they're under the penalty of death. For the wages of sin is death. There's no way to get around it. There is going to be a judgment where heaven ain't got anything to do with it. Where earth ain't got anything to do with it. Human beings and their works are going to be measured against Jesus. And if you don't fit completely in line with him, you're separated from him, which means none of them will be. None of them will be. And you go, well, why is the Book of Life there? Because the Book of Life says that there was light and there was redemption, and you did not engage it. 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.