Revelation 10.1-11
As some of you may know I like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit books. However, it is always a good to remember that you should never judge a book by its film. In the films of those books there are no pauses or interludes as the books do. We are not given any opportunity in the films to allow the stories to develop and to learn about the back story which aids in understanding what is happening on the screen at that moment. The film makers reckon we would get bored and that we have short attention spans and do not want to know the backstory. It is a bit like getting your news from the internet sites - you no longer read the newspaper from cover to cover to find out what is going on in the world. Revelation is full of action but there are certain pauses, intervals, interludes in the book. Here is one such interlude or pause - chapters 10 and 11. In these chapters we learn what is behind the action of the Revelation. Chapters 6 and 7 was one such pause and now we meet another one. These interludes are not so much pauses in the actual sequence of events as they are literary devices by which the church is instructed concerning its role and destiny during the final period of world history.
Quite literally this is a moment to catch your breath because from chapter 12 on the language of Revelation becomes even more dramatic and mysterious. The events of the coming end come sharply into focus from here on.
The key to understanding this chapter is to remember that the glory of the Word of God arches over all the universe and human history. We have just celebrated Christmas - a tiny little baby born in a stable because there was nowhere else for him to be born - stands supreme over all the earth - that is what we will see by the end of this interlude. Keep that in mind as we go through these verses this morning.
Verse 1 From 4.1 to this point John has seen the Revelation from the viewpoint of heaven but at this point he is back on earth and it is from that perspective these spiritual disclosures are made. A mighty angel descends from heaven, from the very presence of God. Three times in the Revelation we read of a mighty angel - the OT parallel to this is Daniel 12 and from this some argue that this mighty angel is in fact Gabriel, others say it is Michael. This mighty angel descends from the very presence of God to earth with a crucial message for the persecuted church. We are given a quite detailed description of this mighty angel and all the attributes are often applied to God in Scripture. This has led some people to speculate that this mighty angel is in fact Christ. I disagree for three reasons. In Revelation Christ is never spoken of as an angel, not even as the angel of the Lord. This angel is no where worshipped as divine, as Christ is in Revelation. Thirdly, in verse 6 this angel takes an oath - something that Christ would neither do nor need to do. So this is one of God’s mighty angels who descends from the intimate presence of God with an important revelation for John and the persecuted church.
However, before we move on let us look briefly at the description we are given of this angel.
Wrapped in a cloud - Psalm 104.3 tells us that God makes the clouds His chariots and often in the OT His presence is hidden from people by cloud. The Tabernacle was covered with the glory of God in a cloud as was the Temple. This angel comes clothed with the majesty of God’s court.
Rainbow on his head - in Ezekiel 1.28 we read that a rainbow is part of the glory of the throne of God. It also reminds us of the covenant God made with Noah never again to destroy the earth with a flood - but judgment is coming and it reminds us that God is faithful to His promises.
Angel’s face shone like the sun - an echo of the Transfiguration and of Moses’ face, which he had to veil, after being in the holy presence of God.
Legs like pillars of fire - Exodus 13.12-21 we are told the Lord God Himself walked in the fiery cloudy pillar in the wilderness with His people as they journeyed to the Promised Land.
Verse 2 - the angel has a little scroll in his hand - it is unrolled and open, unlike the scroll we have met before in 5/3-4, which no man could open. The word used for open is in the perfect participle which means that it is permanently open. It is not concealed nor is it likely to be.
The angel is then described as placing one foot on the sea and one foot on the land. He stands astride the whole earth. The size of the angel and his ability to span the earth depicts his authority which covers all. His colossal greatness is displayed. We have just celebrated Christmas - a tiny little baby born in a stable - seems irrelevant, weak, insignificant to the world but his angel stands astride this earth with a message of eternal significance. The Christian believer may be despised by this world, rejected and ignored, appear irrelevant, weak and puny but this angel of the Lord stands astride the whole world. He holds in his hand a little scroll whose message is not insignificant but contains the mysteries of God and the history of the universe. The Word of God towers above all the affairs of men throughout all history - remember that this morning.
Verses 3-4 - the voice of this mighty angel is commensurate with his gigantic size. He cries with a great voice as the roar of a lion - a deep resonating voice which would demand the attention of those who heard. The voice calls forth a response from ‘the seven thunders.’ The use of the definite article (‘the’) means that a definite group is in mind here. No doubt first century believers fully understood what John meant by ‘the seven thunders.’ We can have some understanding if we turn to Psalm 29 where the seven thunders roar speaking of the voice of God. John is about to write down what he has heard. However on this occasion, unlike at the beginning of the Revelation, he is instructed to seal up what has been revealed. He is told, commanded, not to disclose and not to make known, never to be revealed, what he has just heard. Albert Einstein is reputed to have said that he was taking scientific secrets to the grave with him because they were too terrifying and dangerous for the hands of men. Whatever John has heard here God does not want us to know and it is pointless, in fact I would go as far as to say sinful, of us to speculate as to the contents of the speech of the seven thunders.
Verses 5-7 the Divine announcement of the End. The mighty angel swears an oath which is sanctioned by two important theological references to the nature of God - the One who lives eternally and the One who is the creator of everything - of heaven, earth, the sea and everything in them. The angel makes an announcement that there will be no more delay and affirms this with the oath. Not time left. The period of delay is over and with the sounding of the 7th trumpet God’s great purpose in creation and redemption is to be brought to completion.
In Revelation 6.11 we heard the martyrs ask How long? The answer of the mighty angel - there shall be delay no longer! From this point on God will not intervene to give men further opportunity to repent. Restraint is to be removed and the Antichrist is to be revealed 92 Thess. 2.3). As Daniel says in 12.1 - a time of trouble such as has never been. The scene is now set for the final contest.
They mystery of God - that which is the secret purpose of God is now brought to fulfilment. From the beginning God’s plan for His elect people will be now fulfilled. Mystery in Scripture denotes a secret which was preserved in heaven and has been revealed - here it is revealed to John on the island of Patmos. The NT speaks of the Gospel itself being a mystery - something hidden in heaven but revealed in Christ Jesus. The gospel has to be revealed because we would never have worked out that the cross of Christ is the means of our salvation. In Colossians 2.2 Christ Himself is described by Paul as the mystery of God. So a mystery is something which was hidden but is now revealed.
From this point on the Revelation becomes a multi-dimensional presentation of the final triumph of God over evil. Any attempt to arrange the material in a strictly sequential pattern is doomed to failure. As I have said to you many times before - further up and further in - just as C S Lewis described the Narnia tales. The same can be applied to Revelation from this point onwards.
Verse 8 - the voice from heaven speaks again. John now enters this visionary drama. He is no longer to be an onlooker. John is given a command to go and take the little scroll which lies open in the hand of the angel who stands astride the earth. Without such a command John would be reluctant to approach the angel, but the command is given by One who is even greater than this mighty angel.
Verses 9-11 - so John obeys the command. He asks for the little scroll and for a second time is told to take it. He must take it - it is not handed to him. He must actively take it and not passively receive it. God’s revelation is never forced on any man. The angel instructs John to take it and eat it. Literally it says ‘devour it down’ but he is warned that although it will be like honey in his mouth it will be bitter in his stomach (verse 9) and it is exactly so in verse 10. What can this possibly mean? How could something be sweet in the mouth, to taste, but bitter when swallowed?
In Psalm 19.10 and 119.103 we read that the Word of God is sweeter than honey to the One who receives it - however, if you think back over the previous 9 chapters you will recall that what has been revealed to John is a coming judgment on the earth. This is the interlude, the interval, the pause before the revelation of the final judgment of God on the earth and all mankind. There is sweetness in the salvation promised to all who are sealed by the blood of the Lamb but there is bitterness in telling of the coming judgment, of hell and damnation for all who are not sealed by the blood of the Lamb. John is told that although the bringing of the gospel will be sweet there will also be a bitter side to it. You see John has already been told that although he will speak, proclaim, and he is commanded again in verse 11 to proclaim the gospel, the revelation, not everyone will listen. There is a bitter sweet experience for everyone who proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is the sweetness of proclaiming salvation but the bitterness of warning of a coming judgment. There is the sweetness of seeing people coming to faith in Christ Jesus and the bitterness of seeing people harden their hearts, stop up their ears and walk further away from God. There is the sweetness of fellowship with believers in Christ and the bitterness of opposition, even within the Church, to the proclamation of the gospel.
Jonathan Edwards was a great evangelist preacher in New England. In the 1730’s he witnessed the First Great Awakening to the gospel in the USA. Many thousands came to saving faith in Christ and yet within a matter of years the elders of his church had sacked him - sweetness followed by bitterness.
Well John will know this for himself as he fulfils the commission given to him in verse 11. He is commanded by the voice form heaven to preach ‘about/against’ the peoples, nations, languages and kings. Five times this phrase, or a similar phrase, is used in Revelation to depict all humanity without distinction. The only distinction known in Revelation is between those sealed by the blood of the Lamb and those sealed by the beast. He is instructed that once more he must prophesy or proclaim the mysteries of God. Here is a divine command, a divine compulsion, you must, to proclaim the Word of God. He is compelled to proclaim the Gospel. John is about to see and hear the final act of God’s redemptive plan and he must, he is compelled and commanded, to proclaim it to all. The meaning of history is about to come into sharp focus. John lays bear the supernatural forces/world at work behind history. The seventh trumpet is about to sounded, there will be no more delay, the eternal state of all mankind is coming.
Application
