Just Eat It! Rev, 10:1-11
Revelation 10 · Vern Peterman · May 12, 2002
Revelation (2001-03), No. 29
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262242572180

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. And thank you, McKinsey. One of the things I was thinking this morning is, you know, here it is Mother's Day. And, you know, we've been going through one judgment after perilous judgment after another perilous judgment. And I can imagine people thinking, oh, no, Fern's going to get up there and we're going to hear it for the better part of an hour. some message about some other awful, horrific judgment on Mother's Day. No, we won't do that. But we will go through Revelation. What Scott read for us here is kind of a different character, right in the midst of Revelation. Now, my reason for wondering, boy, are people going to think about this, I've actually been informed that at least one member of the congregation has had a nightmare over my messages. Hopefully my messages aren't a nightmare. Anyway, let's get on with it. One of the things that we've been doing is occasionally referring to this chart, and I don't expect you to read all the fine print in here because you'd need binoculars, and that's a little much to expect for church.

But one of the things to point out is we have these three sevens. There's seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls. And one of the things you noted in the, when you're going through the seventh seal, there's this interlude between the sixth and the seventh seal. And as we go through these trumpets, we're right now beginning to enter this period of interlude between the sixth and the seventh trumpet. And we're going to find as we move ahead, and that'll be some chapters from now, that there's going to be another interlude again between the sixth and the seventh bowl. So this is a consistent pattern. that John keeps through the entire book of Revelation, and we'll be entering into this second interlude, if you will.

In the first verse of chapter 10, John starts off like this, I saw another strong angel coming down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud, and the rainbow was upon his head, and his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire. It's kind of amazing to think about this. Here's John going through this extended experience with all these phenomenal things that he's seeing in front of him. And now he's describing another one here. And he's just described this strong angel coming before him. And the strong angel doesn't just come as a sort of a polished up looking man. It has all these phenomenal descriptions that are surrounding him.

Interesting, this little phrase, strong angel, may have powerful or mighty angel in some of your translations, and in truth it does mean mighty and powerful, so those are fine. One of the things you'll see in your handout, and this gives a little bit more detail, is there are actually three places in the book of Revelation where this word pair, strong angel, shows up.

The first one was there in Revelation 5.2.

That strong angel, and we don't know whether it's the same one as we're reading about this morning, but it could be, the strong angel in chapter 5 called for the one qualified to open the scroll. And as we saw, Christ was the only one qualified to open the scroll. Now we see here the second strong angel, this reference here in chapter 10, he's described in such powerful terms that some people have actually looked at this and said, well, this must be Christ. And there are reasons why some have come to that conclusion, but we'll see in a bit why that doesn't seem to quite fit.

First of all, the strong angel in chapter 10 is described as another angel. He's another angel. The Greek means another angel of the same kind. That's that word alos, or contextually, alon. And then another is that the same word pair strong angel and the other two contexts is clearly not Christ.

And then Christ is also not known to come down to earth until the time when he's supposed to when the scripture says every eye will see him. Here it's pretty clear only John is seeing him. Also, This strong angel, as we'll see in just a little bit, he gives an oath and he swears in his oath giving to the creator of the universe. So that doesn't sound like the Lord Jesus, does it?

It sounds like the creator of the universe is someone separate from the angel and not the Lord himself. Now, another fascinating word pattern that comes out of this passage here is down out of heaven. Take a look at that one. This coming down out of heaven or come down from heaven?

All of John's use of the phrase in the Gospel of John are from a passage in John chapter 6 where Christ calls himself the bread of life. And here you see it listed time after time after time and each one of those references, come down out of heaven, refers to Christ being the bread of life.

Then, We see here in Revelation, it's used numerous times. That same pattern is the first time it's speaking ahead about the New Jerusalem. The last two times, it is speaking about the New Jerusalem in the last two times in chapter 21. The rest of those times is basically tribulation or just after the tribulation period.

So we see that picture where the coming down out of heaven in the middle of the tribulation period involves, in this first case, the strong angel. In two cases, it involves fire coming from heaven. Now, all of these references, all of them, are from John. Every case where you find that phrase in the New Testament, it's from John.

And you're looking at Luke 9.54 and you're saying, Vern, that's not John.

Right? I hope you are. Dr. Luke wrote those. And the reason I say it's from John, though, is you look up the passage and what it is, James and John are coming to the Lord and they're saying, shall we call fire down from heaven? Okay? So it's John again. Okay? So actually, every instance in the New Testament is either quoted from John or written by John, where this phrase is used. And he keeps using it again and again. It's a John-specific phrase. Now, there's something else to take a look at here. This strong angel is clothed with a cloud, has a face like the sun, a rainbow is around his head, and he has feet like pillars of fire. Now that's kind of amazing, isn't it? Kind of a phenomenal description.

It turns out that this description is similar to what we see described of Christ in some places, but also of angels in other places, such as the angel, for example, in Daniel chapter 10. It's clear from numerous passages, and we'll read more of it in this book, that the unfallen angels are at times given to have the glory of the Lord, to share the glory of the Lord. Isn't that amazing? The angels are given to share the glory of the Lord, and here it's displayed.

What is amazing, too, is that He chooses to share His glory with us. Isn't that something? He chooses to share His glory with us. It is amazing because here we were begun as despicable fallen creatures, not as this unfallen angel, but despicable fallen creatures, and yet the Lord chooses to share His glory with us. as we behold Him, we're being transformed from glory to glory.

Now, we've read about the pillar of fire, because remember He has legs like pillar of fire? We've read about the pillar of fire in the Old Testament, and I'd venture to say that Ben and Jack have probably talked about the pillar of fire in their quick survey of the Old Testament for about 1.36 seconds, right? Because they've been going through it pretty fast. But the pillar of fire, this is something that is described as, this is judgment, and this is standing firm in judgment.

That's how it's used, and you see it pictured in Revelation. We saw a similar description of Christ himself in the first chapter. Now, there is something a bit different here from the other descriptions of angels and of Christ that we've seen, and that is, there's a cloud and a rainbow. Now, what you see here about the rainbow, you think about that, a cloud and a rainbow, what Old Testament passage does that remind you of?

Can you think of it? That's right. You're thinking of the flood of Noah and after that, right? So you've got it right. Let's take a look at that one. In Genesis chapter 9, the flood is over, but God is talking to Noah and his sons, And he makes a covenant. And what's interesting, he doesn't make it based on any condition, he doesn't make it from what we can tell that they asked for it, but he just makes this covenant. And as he does so, we notice that in this passage, he uses the word covenant seven times. And then cloud is in there four times, and bow, or rainbow, is included three times. Now the rainbow, being the promise from God that it would never happen again. This flood would never take place again. God would never again cause a flood to destroy the earth. The rainbow is a picture of God's mercy.

The covenant that we see in there is telling us that God is faithful. God keeps his promises. God is a faithful God. And what is interesting here The word covenant shows up seven times. Seven is the number of totality and completeness. He is completely and totally faithful.

So here we see this angel. He's got this cloud about him. And he's got this rainbow. So even as John looks at this strong angel, he's being reminded of God's faithfulness and God's mercy. Let's take a look at verse 2. And he had in his hand a little book which was open. He placed his right foot on the sea and his left on the land.

So this strong angel had in his hand what most of our translations call a little book. Before we think of a little tiny bound book though on one side, we need to recall, remember a few chapters back, we looked at the fact that books as we know them now being bound were not actually developed until just about the time John was writing this. They were just starting to invent this. So probably most people in those days, if you said a book, they wouldn't think of this bound book like we think of.

Let me give you a for instance. Here's Codex Sinaiticus. It's the oldest known complete New Testament. Here's in the open form and in the closed form. the book with the binding on the one side, that would be kind of in the nature of what we think of when we think of a book. But that really hadn't been developed to any extent at all, if at all, by the time John was writing. What they were more likely thinking of, or what John saw, was more likely this. This is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is the oldest known copy of Isaiah.

John was thinking more of that, probably a rolled up scroll when he talks here. Now, John notes that the little book in the strong angel's hand, this little scroll, was open. Now, some have speculated that this scroll was the scroll that had the seven seals, but it doesn't say that and we don't know that, so I won't say that. We're told further that the strong angel places his right foot on the sea and left foot on the land.

Placing one's foot on something in the Jewish mindset meant to take possession of it, to lay claim to it. And we see that in Deuteronomy 11, 23 and 24. Here's Moses talking to the Israelites before they're to enter the land of Canaan. He says, Then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours."

You get the sense there? That's kind of their thought. You put your foot on it, it's yours. You're claiming it. So the strong angel is claiming God's authority over and possession of what he's standing upon. What's he standing upon? The land and the sea.

And if you think of it, the Jewish pattern here, and we see it in scripture, is to list the two halves and use that to explain the whole. What do I mean by that? Evening and morning, the first day. Evening and morning, the two halves, would be one day. Or another one, day and night in Nehemiah, means that they were guarding what they were rebuilding all the time. Day and night.

So he lists both halves. He puts those together. That's the whole. It's the way of explaining the whole. Heaven and earth is another phrase you'll see or hear. Heaven and earth. It's both halves to explain the whole. So what is he doing here? The strong angel is standing on the land and the sea. He's making claim to it all. For the Lord. He's making claim to it all. The whole thing. Both halves. it must be important because he says it three times.

We see it here in verse 2. We're going to see it again in verse 5. And then we're going to see it again in verse 8. Even in verse 6, it speaks of the Creator as the Creator of the land and the sea. So we're going to see it actually there as well. God's claim to what He has made, even in the midst of all this mayhem on planet Earth, is not forgotten. God's claim is still there, and John's being reminded of it. And so are we, aren't we? We're being reminded of it. God has claim to these things. He is the creator of it all. He has rightful ownership of it.

Verse 3, And he cried out with a loud voice, as when a lion roars, when he had cried out, the seven peals of thunder uttered their voices. The strong angel cried out with a loud voice, John compares this to a lion's roar, and I won't try to imitate that. Both Isaiah and Joel, the Old Testament prophets, make use of the lion roaring as a figure of the Lord's powerful claim to the earth. I think that's a lot of what's being stated in this passage, is all this crazy stuff that's going on, and as we'll be seeing even more in the next few chapters, it will appear that Satan is running rampant.

Prior to that, God is taking this time to remind John, John, this is mine. I'm telling you again and again and again. That's why you're going to see three times in the passage, the land and the sea, the land and the sea, the land and the sea. God is in charge. God retains ownership. He is allowing Satan to have his way with things, but that does not mean that God is letting loose control of or letting loose of his claim to the earth. He is still its owner, outright, completely. Okay.

Then John writes about the seven peals of thunder. And I'd like for us to know more about these seven peals of thunder, so I'll read into the next verse here, verse 4. When the seven peels of thunder had spoken, I was about to write, and I heard a voice from heaven saying, Seal up the things which the seven peels of thunder have spoken, and do not write them." Now this verse is really puzzling, isn't it?

So let's take it one phrase at a time. For one thing, let's take a look at this idea of thunder and voice. Seems like he's making a connection here. One of the things we find as we look at some Old Testament passages is that the Old Testament, at several places, connects up this idea of God's voice and thunder. That those are a frequent pattern. And we see it in Job 40 verse 9, Job 37, 1 through 6, Psalm 18, 13. And then, who is it that writes about it in the New Testament? John. Even before this, in the Gospel of John, the connection is made in John 12, 27-29.

So it's clear that biblically the connection is made between this idea of thundering and God's voice. But it goes even farther than that. Here we see in Psalm 29, verses 3-9, it says, The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, the God of glory thunders. And then look through that passage. How many times do you see the voice of the Lord in that passage? Count them. Seven times. Seven thunders. We keep coming back to it.

John is writing in the book of Revelation and a lot of people read the book of Revelation and they'll just get baffled. Man, what is all this stuff about? I can't understand it. And as we've said before, 70% of the book of Revelation is straight out of the Old Testament. This is case in point. Now, as we look through here, here's a bit of a head-scratcher. How about another one?

But for now, the real head-scratcher, John tells us next, he has heard a voice from heaven saying, Seal up the things which the seven peels of thunder have spoken, and do not write them. At that point, you're saying, wait a minute, Vern. I thought we read back in Revelation 1.19, the Lord said to write the things that are going to happen. What's this, don't write them? That's kind of weird, isn't it? Even in chapters 7 and 9, John wrote, I heard the number of them. And he'd write that down.

But here, why does it sound like God's telling John, Don't write what you just heard. What's God doing? Well, if we back off for a minute from this passage and start just kind of thinking and looking at some various passages, we come up with an important truth. God doesn't always tell us human beings everything we might want to know. He doesn't. He doesn't tell us everything we might want to know.

Here's some for instances. In Deuteronomy 29, he writes to the Jews, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever that we may observe all the words of this law. So here's something where the Lord just lays it out. The Lord has some things that he's keeping to himself. These are not revealed.

Or the next one here in Acts 1.7 to the 11 disciples. It's not for you to know the times or epochs which the Father has fixed by his own authority. Isn't that interesting? There are certain things that are laid out and there are certain things that are reserved, kept to the Lord himself.

Or Romans 11.33. Oh, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways. There are some things that we just don't quite understand. there are things we don't quite understand. It even mentions here, unsearchable his judgments, which of course, Revelation has a lot to do with.

Then in 2 Corinthians 12.4 there, Paul is writing to the church at Galatia. And this is real interesting because what Paul writes to us in a great many of his epistles is revelation from the Lord that he had personally and directly, and yet he writes here that he was caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words which a man is not permitted to speak.

Isn't that interesting? So what John is going through here is not some rare, bizarre, unusual occurrence, but something that from time to time the Lord does. And what's interesting is apparently it was okay for John to hear, but it's not for us. Isn't that something? But I think that's a valuable thing for us to kind of get fixed in our minds, too. Because the truth is, isn't that the way it happens in life? There's lots of things we don't get answers for. Lord, why did you allow this to happen? Why did this take place? Lord, why is this going on? Why didn't you do this? We could ask a lot of those kinds of questions, couldn't we? And there's a lot of things like that where the Lord is just saying, liken this.

Trust me. Trust me. Well, we've looked at that side of it, but it's also important for us to take note of this, that while there are a great many things that we don't know and haven't been given, we also have to recognize the things that we have been given, don't we? We have been given a great deal of truth. We have God's Word which is divinely inspired. Scripture is sufficient for God's purposes for our lives. Maybe not for all the questions we might ask, but it's sufficient for God's purposes for our lives.

Now, something real interesting that I noticed recently, there was a poll that was placed on the internet, and this is a poll that frequently will get up to 20,000 people responding, so you get quite a sampling. And this question caught my eye. If you had a chance to ask God one of the following questions, which one would it be? And you look down those questions. Why do people suffer? Why is there war? Do souls go to heaven? Will the world come to an end? When will I die? Why did you create people? What is the meaning of life?

And then some can respond, not with a question, but with a statement. But then you look at it, as I examined it, Scripture answers either completely or partially every one of the questions. The people said, if I could ask God a question, these are what I'd ask. Either completely or partially is answered directly from Scripture. Even the last one, which isn't a question, where people said, I don't believe in God, and 8% of the people who responded said, I don't believe in God, Scripture has a response for that.

Psalm 14.1 and 53.1 says, A fool says in his heart there is no God. It has an answer for that, doesn't it? Scripture does indeed have lots of answers, but we cannot expect to answer every question.

And the Lord, for reasons which He has chosen not to reveal yet, the Lord does not answer every question we might think of. He even may reveal something to one, as in this case John, which he doesn't reveal to the rest of us. As he did with Paul. Paul apparently heard some things which he was not permitted to repeat. So what John is going through here is along the same line.

Now, let's take a look at verse 5. Then the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land lifted up his right hand to heaven, and swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things in it, and the earth and the things in it, and the sea and the things in it, that there will be delay no longer. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished, as he preached to his servants the prophets." So we see that the strong angel again affirms his stance on the sea and on the land. and affirms the Lord's claim to both of them.

And we know from 1 Corinthians 10.26 that the earth is the Lord and all it contains. He is symbolically expressing the exact same thing. Now, something else to take a note of here. As a lefty, I have to tell you this.

Scripture more than ten times mentions right hand versus left hand. There's a whole lot more reference to the right hand than the left, and this is one of those instances. But in the culture of the time, the right hand was the hand of blessing. The right hand was the hand of honor.

And so that's why we see that here. Up to this point, we've seen in chapter 1 of Revelation where Christ holds the seven churches in his right hand. That is a position of blessing and honor. He holds the seven churches in his right hand. Christ places his right hand on John in chapter 1. Just a couple examples, even in the book of Revelation.

At this point, the strong angel makes an oath to the Lord, proclaiming in the process God's eternality. God is the one who by his very nature lives forever. Now, the strong angel's oath to the Lord stands on one thing. God is the creator of everything. Everything. and he lays it out. That's why he doesn't just say, God created the world and then just left it at that. Instead he goes and elaborates the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in it in order to spell it all out.

The thing that the angel swears an oath to is that there will be no more delay. Time will still continue. We're going to see reference to days and weeks and hours and years in the future time. So it isn't like suddenly time doesn't exist. You're just saying, no more delay. No more delay. Things are going to move on.

The word that he uses there reflects back on, remember in Revelation 1.1. Remember that? That was back in September. You remember that, of course, right?

In Revelation 1.1, it says, these things are going to happen quickly.

And some translations will say soon. The word there in the Greek is takos. And what it is saying, we get our English word in the medical field, tachycardia, rapid heartbeat. It means once things get rolling, it's going to get snapping right along. Things are going to get popping. What's happening here is a brief interlude, but things are going to keep moving along.

This seven year period of time is fixed and everything that is going to happen in it is going to take place. Finally, we must realize that John is hearing and seeing all this for the first time. See, we get to go back and look at it and study it, and we already have this idea, okay, there's going to be this and this and this and this other thing happen. John hasn't seen it yet. So far as John's concerned, what's happening here, is this the end? Am I done? Because after all, God's told him to stop.

Well, let's look at verse 8 here, and we'll get the rest of the story. Then the voice which I heard from heaven, I heard again speaking with me, and saying, Go take the book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the land. So I went to the angel, telling him to give me the little book.

And he said to me, Take it and eat it. It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey. I took the little book out of the angel's hand and ate it, and in my mouth it was sweet as honey, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter. And they said to me, you must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings."

So here's John, who is being instructed by the Lord, we can safely assume, to take the book that is this little scroll. Take this from the hand of the strong angel. And as he does so, the angel says, take this scroll and eat it. Take the scroll and eat it. So that's precisely what John experienced. It's exactly what the angel has told him. When you eat it, it's going to taste sweet like honey. But once you swallow it, it's going to turn sour in your stomach. You're going to get indigestion. That's kind of a strange thing.

But here's John. He takes it and he finds exactly, as the angel told him, that's what happened. Now, what has happened to John is not something unique to the book of Revelation. It turns out that it has happened, and you have it on the back side of your handout. Ezekiel had a similar experience at the end of chapter 2 and the beginning of chapter 3. And by the way, there's a typo correction. It should be 3-3, not 3-15, as I think most of your handouts will say.

But the exact same thing, he takes a scroll and he eats the scroll. And we find a similar kind of thing happening in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 16. He eats the scroll. Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart. And then after that you see some words that sound kind of sour. And so you see the picture. Here's something that starts off sweet and ends up with a sourness.

Now if you think about it, This is a repeated picture in Scripture. What's this all about? What this is telling us, this is God's truth. This is what God has written. And the reality is, there is both sweet and bitter in what God has written. There is both sweet and bitter. Even as we go back into this book, on one part, we'll see the saints worshiping in the heavens. just endlessly worshiping the Lord. We'll see glorious things. We'll see good things. We'll see blessings. We'll see promises fulfilled.

At the same time, this book has some awful things. This book has some terrible things. There are things that, as we read them, give people nightmares. There are things that, as we read them, are difficult, are hard for us to read when we think of how many people are killed. We think of how horrible an experience, for example, the locusts would be. The truth is that scripture tells us some things that are sweet and it tells us some things that are bitter. Both. And it describes both.

But the one thing that makes this book different is that it's based on and contains the promises of an eternally faithful God. So that when we get at the end, it promises to wipe away every tear, and it's not just a fairy tale. The Lord makes promises that we're no longer going to have death and sickness and sorrow. And it's not just a story. And that makes it different.

But for now, John's kind of absorbing, if you will, the truth of what he's been hearing. Yes, there are some marvelous, awesome things. He's gotten to see scenes from heaven at length, as well as awful things to come upon the earth. And he's seeing both the sweet and the bitter. Both of them are coming forth.

Now hasn't this been an unusual passage? Isn't this kind of different? If you think about this for a minute, John and the strong angel are here on earth, but no judgments are carried out, not in this passage. Something was said in the seven thunders, but John is forbidden to write what they are. The strong angel makes an oath that the judgments will continue rapidly. John is given a scroll, not to read, but to eat. It's both sweet and bitter. then he is told he must continue prophesying. And even though the strong angel makes this loud proclamation, even though the seven thunders make their noise, we have no indication from this passage that anybody else hears it but John. Isn't that amazing? It seems to be more of a parenthesis in time. And the truth is that the Lord will bring those kind of parentheses and time in our lives.

There are times when the Lord says, I want you to just slow down and absorb what I've given you. I want you to slow down and think about these things. Now, I know that mothers of little children don't get many chances to slow down. But there are times when the Lord will set aside these times and will have us say, okay, let's back off and take a look at what I've been learning. What have I been seeing? What have I been learning?

The Lord will set those times aside. And the Lord will give us a time to absorb and kind of catch up to what's going on. And to gain our perspective. And those times are good, aren't they? But they're also times of exception. Because life keeps going on. Life keeps happening.

And the Lord has a purpose in it all. In the same way we look at this and we say, OK, here's these judgments and judgments and judgments. And now I've got this whole chapter and there's not a judgment in the whole thing. And what is communicated seems almost to be exclusive to John and not to everybody else.

There are times when the Lord is going to do exceptional things in our lives. And yet very soon we're going to see it returns back to another pattern of more judgments and more things happening. The Lord brings those patterns in our lives as well as breaks from patterns.

I think it's valuable for us to just back off from it all and say, okay, Lord, what are you telling me in this? Because I'm sure that's exactly what John is saying. Okay, Lord, you don't want me to write this here, but you allowed me to hear it. What am I supposed to learn from this?

And the Lord's going to bring those kinds of things in our lives as well. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the times where you have dictated and allowed that we get a kind of a time apart, a time to pause, a time to absorb, a time to reflect, a time to clearly get the message that you lay claim on things. And Lord, even mysteries you lay out, Lord, will become clear. And we just thank you. that you are sovereign, that you are loving, and we can depend upon your very grace. We can depend upon your character. And we just pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.