A Prophet For The Church In This Broken World Series

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Message

Revelation 10:1-11:21

A Prophet for the Church in This Broken World.

Last week in Revelation we were shown that God was dealing with evil in this world.

Not because He is a vindictive God; but because God has a message for this world.

I am God. Have I got your attention?

The trumpets keep blasting through history and the question keeps on being asked.

I am God. Have I got your attention?

I am God. Have I got your attention?

Now we get to chapters 10-11. And what we have here is a break in the narrative between the sixth trumpet and the seventh trumpet.

Not a break in the sense that this part of the story chronologically follows the other parts of the story.

But a break in the sense that we are being given another perspective on history.

That keeps happening in Revelation. We keep getting different perspectives, or more of the story, or a new aspect, or more of an explanation. So that we end up with a growing understanding of the unfolding of history and our place in that history. With that understanding in the background let’s read the passage.

Revelation 10:1-11:21

The first truth which comes out of this passage is that God has appointed His prophets to tell us about the unfolding of history. That is what chapter 10 is all about – and it starts with this mighty angel – he is very mighty indeed.

Robed in cloud.

A rainbow above his head.

Face like the sun.

Legs like fiery pillars.

A lion like shout.

A thundery voice.

All of these phrases are used throughout the Scripture to describe God, or someone with very God-like qualities.

The mighty angel isn’t God or Jesus Christ, because they are in the middle of the throne-room as described in chapters 4-5.

Beside the Greek word used here for “angel” is never used to describe God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit.

But this mighty angel is definitely a representative of Christ who possesses many characteristics of Christ. So he is an angel with great power and great authority in the heavenly hierarchy.

But he doesn’t just have great power in the heavenly hierarchy. Look where he is standing.

One foot is placed on the sea.

One foot is placed on the land.

Don’t picture some puny angel standing on the sand running up and down the beach with the waves; trying to get one foot wet and keep one foot dry. Picture a colossal giant who is able to walk where he likes.

This is an angel with great power and authority in the earthly realm.

So we are told about this mighty angel in a context where God is saying:-

Have I got your attention?

And this is an attention getter.

It is showing us that …

God’s heavenly servants have great power and authority.

Let me give you a quick peek into just how powerful.

And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him.

Revelation 20:1-2.

Sometimes people think Satan is so powerful. But look – an angel is able to bind him.

Notice it isn’t a mighty angel.

Or one of the archangels.

Or one of the other creatures from the upper levels of the hierarchy.

It is an angel.

Satan is going to have trouble holding his own against angels that are down the power order. If Satan lacks such ability then how little power and authority do the followers of Satan have?

But more to the point:- How much power and authority do the followers of God have?

That should get people’s attention.

As amazing as all this is – the arrival of the mighty angel is actually not the main focus of this section. The main focus is this scroll. The scroll that is in the hand of the angel in verse 2 and eaten by the prophet in verse 10.

Be sure to note that this scroll is different from the scroll in chapter 5 – the one which was sealed.

In chapter 5 the Greek word for the scroll is biblion.

In chapter 10 the Greek word for the scroll in biblaridion.

You can see from this that the words are related. However the second word is a diminutive. Biblaridion is related to biblion, but it is a smaller, more compact, shorter version of biblion.

This is what is given to John – when he eats it John is told that he is to prophesy again.

Let’s break what is happening here up into a series of steps.