The Revelation 22:12-19 | Episode # 1191

May 11, 2026

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

The Revelation 22:12-19

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.

He says, I am the alpha and Omega, the. I love this. Okay, and, and, and, and what he's saying is he's not saying I was the start and the end. He's saying I embodied the start and the end. That's why it doesn't say the first. The first phrase of the Bible says in the beginning, right? No, it doesn't say that because these not there. Okay? It's best translated in beginning. Who's beginning? God's beginning. Okay. He's there, and then there is a beginning. It's not. He began and then there was a beginning. He is there, and the. The. And he's the initiator of the beginning. By the way, the best philosophical argument for God. You following me? Nothing begins without an initiator. You know that, right? Nothing begins without initiator. That's a philosophical truth. So if the universe began and do we know that? Yes. If the universe had a beginning, you still didn't believe that. Till Einstein, till the first part of the last century, didn't believe it. Scientists came to the understanding. By the way, Einstein hated the idea of it. Didn't like it. Didn't like that his two great theories pointed to the beginning of a universe, but he understood that they were true. So one aspect of it he didn't like, he thought the universe was eternal. Nope. It has a beginning. Anything that has a beginning, has a starter, has an initiator. We know the universe began some time ago. You can argue about when it began, but we know it did begin. Okay? That means there has to be something there that starts it. No way to get around it. Anything other than that would be philosophically untrue. Okay? It's not consistent. It's not logical. He says I'm the beginning, and because he's the beginning, he's also what? He's the end. You need to know that he exists beyond Space and time. And that's what he's saying. I exist beyond space and time. It's a version of what he told Moses on the mountaintop, right? When Moses said, who shall I tell them sent me. And he says, I am. That I am, and the word. And the word I am means I exist outside of everything else. I exist. So he said, tell them I exist, that I exist since you. He says, I'm the alpha and the mega. The beginning, the end, the first and the last. He's covering it all, okay. He's giving you letters, numbers. You know, it reminds me, my greatest question ever taught to me as an algebra teacher. Y' all know it, right? One of my football players, my first year teaching algebra, about halfway through the year, he said, coach, Coach, why we gotta do Alphabet with math? Seems like a stupid question till you think about it. And then the more you think about it, you go, that might be the best question I ever got asked in math class. Why you gotta do Alphabet math? I looked at him, I go, because I said so. Because I didn't have an answer for it. It's called algebra. It means they're adding math and letters together. Well, when he says, I'm the first and the last, the beginning, the end, I'm the alpha and omega, he's telling you I'm all of those things. You can put it any way you want to. I am the initiator and the fundamental, beginner and ender of all things. Knowing that, then he says, blessed are those who do his commandments. So you are blessed by doing his character, his nature. You're blessed by being as he is. If I'm the initiator of things, then the true way this universe operates is if you do me, and I am love. If you do me, you're blessed, things go well. If you don't do me, things don't go well. Now, I'm sorry. You got to grow up and get that. You listening to me? I listen. I am an outstanding hater. You following me? Anger is one of the demonic gifts that was passed down in my family. You know what I'm talking about? We are outstanding in our field in that. Brett being one of the greatest. I mean, it's true, ain't it? Yeah, but I'm not just talking about you. I'm talking about me, too. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, see, he's an easy target. He's an easy target. Yeah. My dad was, too. Yeah, but now he was. He was a great man. But that was one of his. Yeah. Yeah, it was one of his. Was one of. One of his. One of. One of his. No, it's his generational curses. Okay? Remember the sins of the father passed to the second and third generation. And I had it too real. My early 20s I spent dealing with that because I would burn everything down that I ever did. Good. Okay. And you go, well, how do you deal with that, Pastor? Well, this is how you deal with everything. I want you to hear me. It's called faith. All right? Now I want you to hear me. It's not faith in saying, well, I'm not going to do it anymore. It's the process of faith. What's the process of faith? God reveals himself to you primarily through His Word. I believe it and I act on it. Now, that's the process of faith. Right? All right. God said, man's anger does not bring about my righteousness, which means your anger is never going to be cause me to be imputed to you. It's not going to happen. Bible said. Bible says to be angry and sin. Not. Even when you're right. Even when you're right. And I'm right all the time. Really. Aren't you? Aren't you? I mean, I deserve to be angry, right? Let me hold it as my little precious. Isn't that what we do? Isn't that what we do? Don't talk to me about my anger for that person. I will hold it deep in my heart. I mean, that's how we do, right? Right. I'm gonna hide it from everybody else and get it out and hold it and keep warm by it. We do that, we all do it. Right? And it might not be anger for you, might be something else, but for us, that's what it was. And you burned with it. He says. He says vengeance is mine. So my wrath has no value in his kingdom. His wrath does, but mine doesn't. Why? Because his wrath is perfect. His justice is perfect. Mine's not. Mine's always imperfect. So if I hold to it, and I'm using anger as, you know something, that's what's in me. If I hold to it, then I am holding what is going to keep me from righteousness, the more impute it's going to be imputed to me. All right? Now, knowing that, knowing that I have to act as he is so that I might be blessed as he's blessed, okay? As he blesses, there's no way to get around that. So whatever your issues are, and by the way, they're not just one. If you think it's just one. That's because you hadn't even dealt with that one yet, okay? If you just got one issue in your life, Pastor, if I could just get this fixed, it'd all be great. And I'm sitting there going, you just. Once you get that thing scratched off, there'll be something else. Trust me. It's coming. All right? And that's the way it works. That's the way it works. All right? He says, blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life. Notice it's a right to have. It's a right to have eternal life. I have a right to it. When I've trusted God, If I keep his commandments, I trust him in his character and nature. I have a listen, a right to eternal life. It becomes innate to who I am. When you're born again, you have eternal life, and you have a right to function in that eternal life. It's not that you're going to get it. You have it. It's given to you the moment you're born again. When are you born again? I don't know. The Holy Spirit's like the wind. It comes and goes. You can feel it, but you can't tell. So he told Nicodemus, don't know when it happens, but you know when it happens, because you know that you know when it happens. Yeah, you know. And you can enter into the gates of the city, meaning you're part of the bride. All right? You have access to the great city that we find in the. In the Revelation, right? You have an access to that great city. You get to go in one of the gates, right? You get to go in James and John's gates, right? What were they called? Sons of Thunder. Why? Because they like to be angry and fight. Okay. All right, you can go in. And Thomas's gate, right? What Thomas do? He doubted, right? You can go in Peter's gate. He could say really smart and stupid things all at the same time, right? You to go. You to go in Peter's gate. As you go through them, you realize. Oh, oh, oh. You get to go through Paul's gate. He's a murderer, But you get to go through his gate. He's also the writer of the New Testament. He's also. He's. He. He's the writer of two thirds of the New Testament. He's the greatest religious mind other than Christ to ever live. He had faith. That's right. So he says, if you will walk in my commandments, I will impute to you this righteousness. I will reward you for that righteousness. And you'll be able to live with me forever. I get to enter the city. Hebrews chapter 11 tells us that they were looking for a city. They were sojourners in this world. They were looking for a city, he said, but outside. This hurts people's feelings. Dogs, their pictures of demons, sorcerers. Remember what sorcerers are, right? They're those who are addicted to drugs. There's drugs. All right. I go through things, these things. The sexually immoral. Pretty much every man I know. And most women murderers. Well, I'm not a murderer. Somebody said, I don't want to go in that gate. Anybody ever wanted anybody dead. Thou art the man murderer. Right? You're a murderer. Remember, it's not the action. It's what heart. How many people here? Let's take a poll. I'd hate for you to be a murderer and a liar. Okay. How many of y' all today have hated someone unto death? Raise your hand. Ha. Don't be a liar. Okay, well, you're murderers. Mm. Idolaters. I don't even have to go into that. And whoever loves and practices a lie. And that was the ones that didn't raise their hand. Okay. All right. As you think through that, what is he saying? He's saying if you're outside the city, you. You were that, and you've always been that. If you're in the city, you're in the city because you had imputed to you the righteousness of God. And if I'm gonna have imputed to me the righteousness of God, I'll have all the benefits of it, which is the love of God. Right? If I'm going to live outside the city, I'm going to be all those things, right? If I live in the city, I have the imputed righteousness of Christ, so I ought to have the fullness of his commandments and his law also. So why should I not live it out that way? Think about it. Makes beautiful sense, doesn't it? And it's beautiful, these beautiful words. The way he says it. I, Jesus, have sent my angels to testify to you. These things in the churches. What he's saying is, I've sent my messengers for you to know this. I've revealed this to you. These things are not hidden. He told them, don't hide anything of this book. And I've sent my messengers that you might understand this completely. Now, are you going to totally understand it while you're here? No, but I'VE sent my messengers that you might have revelation. I am the root and the offspring of David. Now, what is he saying here? Okay, what he's saying here. And you, you. You have to hear this. He's saying, I'm not just saying this as God. I'm saying this as a man. He's saying, it's not as if I'm saying this and I'm separated from you. I'm saying this. I'm. I'm of the line of David. I'm a man. So I understand. I'm familiar with your issues. This is not just God sitting on high telling you what to do. Every other religion, the deity is above and separated from the penitent, the person. The only religion where God becomes man, to know man, to redeem man, is Christianity. He says, I'm telling you all these really high things. These are very high ideas and understandings. And then he steps back and says, by the way, I come from Jesse. I'm the root of David. I'm a human being. Pastor, is he going to be a human being forever? Forever. Forever. Forever a man, forever a man. He says, I'm the bright and morning star. Okay? This is the place where he calls himself a star. Okay? Like I said, like I've said before, when he created the universe, the Bible says the morning stars sang. Okay? He calls himself a morning star. And the only other creature that is attributed the the idea of being a star is the angels. Okay? Not the angels. Jesus. Yes, the angels. All right? But only two of those groups are called morning stars. The angels are never called morning stars. Why? Because morning star is the symbol of the resurrection. Okay? Morning. When you, when you hear righteousness, you think faith. When you hear morning, you think resurrection. Okay? Jesus is the bright in morning stars. By the way, if when he created the universe, the morning stars sang, who would that be singing? Well, it'd be you. You go, well, I wasn't there at the beginning. Well, when you got eternal life, you were. Because eternal life is life that has no beginning or end. It's not everlasting. That word that gets translated in the New Testament by so many translations, Aeon is not. It's not everlasting. It doesn't mean from now forward, it means no beginning, no end. Jesus says, those whom the Father give me, I give them Aeon. Life. Eternal life. I love to hear them kids laughing. He said in the spirit and the bride say, come and let him who hears say, come, and let him who thirst come. We say you should come, Jesus. He who hears it says, come. And those who just realized that they needed him, they should come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. Which means it's not. It's not separated from you. It's not kept from you. If you desire to drink from the river of life, you can drink from it. You can drink up eternal life. All you have to do is say, when you enter your kingdom, can I go? That's all you got to say? For I testify to everyone who hears these words, the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in the book. That's pretty bad. Negative. Don't be adding to it. If y' all notice, I've not. That's how I've taught the book. I've not told you definitely that this is definitely what it says. Because if I don't know, if it's not clear, I don't say it. Now you know why I taught it the way I taught it, okay? Because there's a little part of it right at the end. He says, don't add to it. Because the plagues were pretty rough. Y' all remember those chapters, right? He says, if anyone adds to these things, God will add to them. The plagues are written in the book. And if anyone takes away from these words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life. Now, that verse is used to say, you can lose it. I don't believe that's what it means because I don't think anybody does that, okay? If they're born again from the holy city and from the things which are written in this book. Now, I do believe this. Anything that God promises you if you don't believe him, for you can't have. Y' all hear me. Anything that God promises you that you don't trust him for you can't have. Sorry, you just can't have it. Now that probably brings us full circle, okay? What I mean by that, None of the things that the church does are hidden. And if a church does hidden things, you should get away as fast becoming a cult, okay? Everything that's done in darkness will be brought into the light. And all the things that are done in the light, he will cover up. What he's saying is, if you'll. If you'll admit to it, you. A lot of people. A lot of people have a little bit uncomfortable in this with their pastor telling them their faults. Okay? I'm just going to say. And if you do that's probably because you, you've put this, you built this pedestal and you put me on it. Get me off, okay? Don't want to be on it. It's going to cause problems for you. And God kicks all the pedestals down, so I don't want to be on it. But the issue is, is that if you confess, he's faithful and just to forgive, which means to release you from those things. And it is best that I be transparent about who I am so that those things might be handled because I am definitely flawed. And all, all pastors are okay. That's why nobody can be a high priest. Nobody can be the vicar of Christ in this world. You're not. Okay? If you don't know what I mean by vicar of Christ. You just look it up, okay? You are not the vicar of Christ and nobody is. Okay? Nobody vicariously takes his position in this world. All right? Knowing that, knowing that it's important that you do the things that Christ instructs, lifestyle wise. The Bible says consecrate yourself. You should learn what that means, right? The if Jesus says, I've washed your feet now I command you to wash each other's feet. Some point in time in your life, you should do that. God says, walk boldly before his throne. I'm going to tell you when you walk boldly before his throne, you're going to honor the work of Jesus Christ in your walk. But when you get to the throne, you're going to be on your face. So you might as well get on your face now. Why? Because that is a part or an aspect of the spiritual journey, right? That is an aspect of the spiritual journey that we're on. And so we do not do anything in darkness. We let you know what we're doing. Does that make sense? And if you don't understand, we will explain why. Because we're all sojourners in this world and we're searching and looking for the city, the city of God, okay? And so as we walk down that path and we take that journey, I want you to have an opportunity to experience or to fill up all that you can fill up. Now, I know that people, certain people just. You get spooked out about it, okay? And I can promise you this. If you've done some of the things I've done, it would spook you out. Just being real with you. I've talked to a demon. I've had God rebuke me in almost an audible voice. I've heard the growl of the devil. The last One shook me for a year. The growl. No, I'm not telling you that story. I'm not. I'm seriously not ever going to tell you that story. Last time he growled at me, it lasted for a year. It reverberated in my life for a year. Okay? I'm not telling you that this Christian life is easy. And I'm not telling you that it's not going to be very difficult at times. And I'm not telling you that when you really try to seek God, there are spiritual things that are far beyond what you could ever imagine. But if you would like to explore God in his fullness, we're going to give you opportunities to explore those things. Some of you going, well, I don't want to hear the devil growl. Well, I'm going to tell you this. He don't growl at you unless you taking a whole lot of his stuff. The reason he growls at you is you are messing up a lot of his stuff. So even though the last one lasted a year, the first one, you know, probably lasted even longer than that. Me not like permanently all the time. It's just like you remember it. It's like you have little post post traumatic stress from it, you know? But every time he did it, every time it happened, I was in the middle of experiencing God doing great things. And to tell you the truth, Kathleen doesn't even know about them. And she knows pretty much everything. She probably knew it happened, but she knows everything. It is so painful that I don't even know that I can say it. All right? But. I didn't even. I just got growled at. Daniel had to go spend the night with him. Okay? Can you imagine post traumatic stress from that? You know what I'm saying? I mean, I felt the fire. Shadrach, Meshach and bed, you know, in the fire. Okay, so you for. It doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean that. That I've done anything big. It just means that I want you to experience the journey. And when you're imputed the righteousness of Christ, you change the world. And you should change the world. You. You should. And the only way to experience it is to say, you know, lord, I'm willing to do that. If. And we're not coming up with. This is not. We're not coming up with weird stuff. This is Bible stuff, right? This is. This is Bible stuff. But Western culture teaches us to sit in a chair and to soak and never ever act, right? Well, I can promise you this. If you never act, you never will. You never have it. You'll go to heaven. But man, when I get there, I want to have soaked up as much of this as I can soak up. I want to have taken in and breathed out as much of this as I can. It seems like about every 7, 8, 10 years in my life, God changes me a little bit and changes the direction and allows me to do something that I never imagined I'd ever get to do. And it keeps happening. So I have no doubt in about 10 years something else cool will happen. I still sometimes sit up there when I'm being the judge saying, can you believe I'm the judge? This is nuts. Whoever thought this was a good idea? You know what I'm saying? I see my grandchildren, I think, man, if I'd have known about this, I'd have had them before I had my children. You know what I'm talking about? This is better than that any day of the week, right? Yeah. And that's the way life, God made life for us. He made us so that we could experience him in his fullness. And the only way for you to do that is you got to step out and get out of your comfort zone. Because by the way, God's not comfortable. No way. Scripture does it say God's comfortable. You know, he's quite clearly uncomfortable a lot of times cuz your flesh can't stand him. 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.