N.B. This is the fourth of a series of talks on Revelation. The first three talks are titled:
In God’s Throne Room
The Great Tribulation
Environmental Devastation in End Times
INTRODUCTION
Today we’re continuing in our series on Revelation. I’ve called the series ‘Revelation: The Hard Parts.’ I’m deliberately going to some of the hard chapters of Revelation.
Some of these hard chapters are hard because they’re distressing. Last week we had a chapter like that. In the passage we looked at [in Revelation 8] there was hail and fire, a third of the earth, trees and grass were burned up, and a third of sea creatures died. After last week’s talk, someone said to me, ‘Gloom and doom!’
You’ll be happy to know that our passage for today isn’t like that. There’s no environmental disaster. No one dies. The worst that happens is that John gets a stomach-ache.
So, some chapters in Revelation are hard because they’re distressing. But some chapters are hard simply because they’re difficult to understand. That’s the case for our passage today. Revelation 10 is very difficult to understand! It raises loads of questions which we really can’t answer. But we’re going to give it a go anyway!
What I’d like to do today is give a fairly quick overview of the chapter and then look at the phrase at the end of the chapter, where John is told, ‘You must again prophesy.’ Why does he have to do that?
OVERVIEW
What’s going on in this chapter?
John sees an angel coming down from heaven. This angel is the most impressive angel mentioned in Revelation. He’s wrapped in a cloud, he has a rainbow over his head, his face is like the sun and his legs are like pillars of fire. The very fact that this extremely impressive angel appears tells us that something very important is about to happen.
The angel places his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land. It seems that this angel is big! He has a voice like a lion roaring. That sounds scary! When he calls out, the seven thunders sound. The sound of thunder goes with God acting in power. God is going to act in a mighty way – and the world of nature is roaring its approval.
The thunders say something, but mysteriously, John is told to seal up what the seven thunders said, to not write it down. This is the only place in Revelation in which John is given this instruction.
The angel raises his right hand to heaven, just like in a court, and swears solemnly that there will be no more delay. What do you think of that?! The great angel seems to dismiss all that’s happened in Revelation 1 to 9 as delay! I think it’s because the angel wants to get on to the really important stuff. In the next couple of chapters there will be war in heaven and Satan and his angels will be thrown out. That is the point when God’s kingdom is established in power. Surely that is what this great angel is impatiently waiting for.
So, in this chapter we see God’s mightiest angel. He stands on the land and sea and swears that there will be no more delay. The mystery of God is about to be fulfilled. He has a scroll in his hand. Presumably the scroll contains the plan. What’s the angel going to do with it?
A voice tells John to go and take the scroll from the angel – who I think is very large and scary. But the angel turns out not to be too scary. He tells John to take the scroll and eat it. John does so. It’s sweet, but it makes his stomach bitter.
Then we come to the last verse and John is told, ’You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.’
Somehow, the fulfilment of the mystery, God’s extraordinary plan, is connected to John eating the little scroll and prophesying. Why is it so important that John prophesy?
I can imagine four reasons. First, prophecy foretells. Second, prophecy prosecutes. Third, prophecy engages. Fourth, prophecy makes things happen. I think they’re all important. But I think the last reason is the most important of all.
PROPHECY FORETELLS
Some prophecy tells us what’s going to happen. There’s a time when Jesus’ disciples ask him about his coming again and the close of the age. Jesus tells them what will happen. Then he says, ‘See, I have told you beforehand.’ Jesus’ point is, ‘Now you know what’s coming. You can be prepared.’ In previous talks I’ve compared Revelation to the captain of a ship in hurricane season in the Caribbean. The captain gets a message that a hurricane is heading his way. The captain may not be very happy at this news. But he’d much rather know than not know!
Prophecy isn’t PREDICTIVE like a weather forecast. A weather forecast might tell us that there’s a 50% chance of rain. Prophecy FORETELLS. What it tells us WILL happen. It’s 100% sure. But it’s helpful in just the same way as a weather forecast. We want to know what’s going to happen. It means we CAN be prepared. Whether we WILL be prepared for what Revelation tells us will happen is another matter!
PROPHECY PROSECUTES
A second reason that prophecy is important is that there is sometimes a legal dimension to prophecy. A Bible scholar called John Frame wrote, ‘The prophets are God’s prosecuting attorneys, bringing the ‘covenant lawsuit.’ The people must listen, because God himself, through the prophets, is calling them to repent of their disobedience’ [Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God, p.98].
A good example is the book of Isaiah. In the first chapter, God sets out his charge against the people of Israel. God starts by summoning witnesses. He says, ‘Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth’ [verse 2]. Then God brings the charge. He says, ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me ... They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel’ [verses 3 and 4]. Then God gives the evidence [verse 6 onwards]. Isaiah, speaking for God, has the job of bringing a charge against the people of Israel.
It’s similar in Revelation. In Revelation 5, Jesus, the lamb, takes a scroll from the hand of God his father. Opening the seals of the scroll unleashes acts of judgment. So the prophecy of Revelation communicates God’s future judgment.
In the UK, verdicts in criminal cases are a matter of public record. God’s judgment is also a matter of public record. Guinness World Records tells us that the best-selling book of all time is the Bible. Over the past 1500 years, probably between 5 and 7 billion copies of the Bible have been printed. There are presently about 8 billion people in the world. So I think it’s fair to say that God’s verdict is a matter of a public record.
Through the Book of Revelation, God has made it publicly known that there will be a judgment – and he has stated what it is. For those whose names are written in the Book of Life there will be a place in the New Jerusalem. But for those whose names are not written in the Book of Life there will not be a place.
PROPHECY ENGAGES
God wants his servants to be engaged in his purposes. The angel tells John to take AND EAT the scroll. What does eating the scroll signify?
When we eat food, we put the food into our mouths. We chew on it. We swallow it. We digest it. Our bodies absorb the nutrients. Some of the food becomes part of our bones and muscles and blood.
Much the same happens when we go to God’s word. We chew on it. We digest it. We absorb it. It becomes part of us. And then, we have God’s thoughts in us! And as we start to think like God, we also speak like God and act like God.
When John is told to eat the little scroll, it means that he has to digest it and absorb it. He has to take in what God is saying.
Imagine you’re in a work situation and someone comes along and gives you a note. ‘It’s from the boss’, he says. You read it and think, ‘Huh?’ The person who brought the message shakes his head and says, ‘Don’t ask me! I’m just the messenger!’
That’s NOT how it is here. John isn’t simply a messenger who has no clue about what the message means. He has digested and absorbed the little scroll. He’s internalized it. It’s part of him. He’s engaged in God’s message.
Business leaders sometimes use the phrase ‘vision casting.’ They have a vision for their business and they want their employees to catch the vision. They want everyone in the company to know what the company stands for, what it’s trying to do. Then everyone works for the same goal.
God is like that. He tells his plans to his servants, the prophets. The angel tells John to eat the scroll. He has to take in God’s word, digest it, internalize it. One commentator wrote about John eating the scroll, ‘The ingested Word of God will provide him with the material to prophesy about many peoples, nations, languages, and kings’ [Iain Duguid commentary on Ezekiel, but speaking of John, p. 104].
We can do the same. We can take in the words of Revelation, digest it and absorb it. We can grasp God’s plan. God doesn’t want his servants shaking their heads and wondering, ‘What’s the boss up to?’ He wants us to be informed, to grasp what he’s doing. When we do, we can participate in his purposes.
PROPHECY MAKES THINGS HAPPEN
My final reason why it was so important that John prophesy is that prophesy can be God’s means of accomplishing his purpose.
At the time of creation, God spoke and what he spoke came into being. For example, God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light. God’s word is powerful! But does God do the same thing through a word of prophecy?
There’s a great example of this in the Book of Ezekiel. One of the most powerful images in the Book of Ezekiel is when God takes Ezekiel in a vision to a valley which is full of dry bones [Ezekiel 37:4-10]. God asks Ezekiel ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ Ezekiel replies, ‘O Lord God, you know.’ God does indeed know! They can live! But how will they come back to life? God tells Ezekiel, ‘Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’
Ezekiel gets on with it and prophesies. As he prophesies, there’s a rattling sound. The bones come together. Then sinews and then flesh. But there’s still no breath. So God tells Ezekiel, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.’ Ezekiel does that and breath comes into them.
Ezekiel didn’t simply foretell what would happen. God MADE IT HAPPEN through Ezekiel prophesying! God told Ezekiel what to say, Ezekiel said it, and life came into those dry bones!
Why does God choose to work this way? Surely God didn’t need Ezekiel to prophesy? And yet, it seems that he wants to empower people – in this case, Ezekiel – to get involved in his purposes.
CONCLUSION
Because of the prophecy in Revelation, we know what’s coming. I hope we will take in what God is saying. I hope we will heed his warning. I hope we will take the time to digest what he is saying and so be able to take part in his purposes.
But I hope that we have also seen in this chapter what a huge role prophecy plays in God’s purposes. In the example in Ezekiel, God put his plans into effect by getting a prophet to prophesy. It’s amazing! Prophecy isn’t just a little bit important. It’s REALLY important. Prophets haven’t ceased to exist in the church – or they shouldn’t have.
Jesus wouldn’t have said ‘Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward’ if prophets were about to become history!
Paul wouldn’t have listed prophets as one of five kinds of people who minister to the church if prophets were about to become history!
But in the western church today, the prophet is almost non-existent. That isn’t good. It’s something we – the western church – need to address. If we don’t recover our understanding of the role of the prophet and restore it, we’re going to fail to walk in step with God.
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Bournemouth, UK, 30th September, 2022 a.m. service
