The Little Scroll
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
For Christmas, I got my wife a vinyl record player.
I am sure that will make some of you laugh. With all of our technological advancements and gadgets, your millenial pastor bought his wife a gift that you all probably asked for when you were teenagers!
But there is nothing like a vinyl record.
It isn’t like playing songs on Spotify. You can do that and leave it on as background noise for hours with no thought of what you truly want to listen to.
But with vinyl, you have to make a choice of what music you want and you have to tend to it.
You have to flip the record.
Sometimes, I will listen to old albums on Spotify and they have a lot of weird interludes and I will think, “Well that is a strange place to put a little intro or outro for no reason?”
But now that I am listening to some vinyl, I have realized that a lot of those interludes are there to close out the side of the record or start the side of a record.
That is what interludes do. They give the audience a chance to catch their breath and prepare for what is to come.
They give the listener a chance to pause and re-calibrate. Or maybe even flip the record.
Tonight we are seeing our second interlude in Revelation.
The first one came in the 2nd Cycle, in between the breaking of the sixth and seventh seals and it served the purpose of letting us know that God is still saving His people.
In the seals we saw how until Jesus returns there will be:
Conquest
War
Famine
Death
Martyrdom
Judgment
And then this haunting question was asked after the breaking of the 6th seal:
for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”
The first interlude in Revelation 7 answers that question.
The redeemed of God are able to stand because they stand in Him.
They are the sealed servants of God on earth
They are the great multitude who worship Him in heaven
Things will be bad in the world until Christ returns, but the interlude reminds us that God is still operating on time in His plan of redemption.
The second interlude is found in between the 6th and 7th trumpets.
The 6th trumpet showed us the horror of war on earth until Christ returns—this sounding alarm that warns us of how terrible sin is that causes such war and how we do not want to be on the wrong side of Christ when He brings war against His enemies
It comes on the back of the 5th trumpet, which saw demon locusts flying out of hell to torment the lives of unbelievers
The first four trumpets showed creation being assaulted.
So what this second interlude does is provide a brief break from the imagery of judgment and demons and give the reader a chance to breathe.
It gives the reader a chance to consider the weight of what they have seen before the 7th trumpet sounds and final judgment begins
This interlude is longer than the first one. It will stretch from the beginning of chapter 10 to 11:14. After that, the 7th trumpet blast will come and the wrath of the Lord comes down upon the earth
We will deal with the first portion of the interlude tonight and it will have something to say to us about the nature of mission until Christ returns
Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. He had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land, and called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring. When he called out, the seven thunders sounded. And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.” And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven and swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there would be no more delay, but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.
Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, “Go, take the scroll that is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.” So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll. And he said to me, “Take and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.” And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it. It was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter. And I was told, “You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.”
THE MIGHTY ANGEL (v. 1, 3)
THE MIGHTY ANGEL (v. 1, 3)
This interlude in Revelation 10 begins the same way as the interlude in Revelation 7. In that first interlude, John saw four angels. In this interlude, he sees one. A mighty angel.
When you read the description of this angel, it is tempting to think that it is Jesus.
He comes down from heaven wrapped in a cloud and his legs are like pillars of fire.
It it reminiscent of God leading the people out of Egypt with the cloud and the flame
The rainbow over the head makes us think of the rainbow that we saw around God’s throne in chapter 4
His face that is shining like the sun is like Jesus’ face which was shining like sun at full strength back in chapter 1
When he calls out with his voice in verse 3, it is like a lion roaring
Reminding us of Jesus, who is called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah in chapter 5
And yet, despite all of that imagery, I don’t believe this is the Lord Jesus here.
The biggest reason I don’t think this is Jesus is because Jesus is not called an angel in Revelation in any other place and I tend to think it is pretty clear when He shows up
There are mysteries in Revelation, but it is pretty obvious when Jesus, who is the whole point of the book, walks on to the stage
So for me, I don’t think this is clear enough.
But there are other reasons that I don’t think it is Jesus.
In verse 6, the angels swears by the Lord and the most natural reading of that would be to assume that if the angel is swearing by the Lord, he is not the Lord.
Also, it says “Another mighty angel...”
This is a reference to the beginning of chapter 5:
Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals.
This is an angel like the angel in chapter 5
If that is the case, why does He have so many of the qualities of Jesus?
Because the angel is reflecting the glory of Christ to us. Much like the angel of Daniel 10.
I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude.
THE LITTLE SCROLL (v. 2, 5)
THE LITTLE SCROLL (v. 2, 5)
You see that the angel is holding a “little scroll” in his hand and it is open.
I believe this is the open scroll of chapters 5-6.
The scroll that was in the hand of the Almighty with all of history between Christ’s first and second coming written on it.
No one was worthy to open it but Jesus.
When He began to open the seven seals, we saw in the scroll the way history would unfold until Jesus comes back.
Conquest
War
Famine
Death
Christian martyrdom
And of course, it all culminates in His return where He will set things right
Jesus has opened up the scroll and now the angel holds it.
And as he does, he assumes the posture of an oath.
His right and left feet are firmly planted in verse 2
In verse 5, you see that he raises his right hand to heaven and then in verse 6, he swears. He makes an oath.
One foot is on the sea and one is on the land, which tells us that the information on the scroll is for everyone. It is a global message.
It is for every nation.
That is why John will be charges to prophesy about its contents to everyone:
And I was told, “You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.”
THE LION AND THE SEVEN THUNDERS (v. 3-7)
THE LION AND THE SEVEN THUNDERS (v. 3-7)
In verse 3, the angel roars like a lion.
This is the sound of judgment.
Judgment is about to close down like a lion’s jaws on the earth.
Time is running out.
We know this is the sound of judgment because it draws on language from Joel and Amos.
Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt:
So Amos is pronouncing guilt and over Israel and warning of God’s judgment and what does he say?
Does a lion roar in the forest,
when he has no prey?
Does a young lion cry out from his den,
if he has taken nothing?
The lion has roared;
who will not fear?
The Lord God has spoken;
who can but prophesy?”
We see Joel speak about God’s judgment in a similar way. However, in the case of Joel 3, the roar is directed at all the nations—not just Israel:
The Lord roars from Zion,
and utters his voice from Jerusalem,
and the heavens and the earth quake.
But the Lord is a refuge to his people,
a stronghold to the people of Israel.
Now, when the angel’s voice roars, John says that the seven thunders sounded.
And the angel tells John to seal the thunders up. Don’t write it down. (v. 4)
This is odd because it seems to go against what John is charged to do at the beginning and end of the book of Revelation:
Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.
And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.
So why is John being told to seal up the seven thunders and what are they?
Is it information about the future that God is concealing so that we would trust Him more until Christ returns?
Deuteronomy 29:29 says--
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Are the seven thunders an example of secret things we just need to leave with God?
Or is it a vision that is so glorious that God tells John not to utter it? Much like Paul’s vision in 2 Corinthians 12?
I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.
Well as we try to figure this out, I think it is important for us to keep all of the context in mind. If we remember the structure of Revelation as a whole, it starts to make more sense.
Let’s look at what happens right after John is told not to write about the thunders.
The angel raises his right hand to take his oath (v. 5)
And he swears an oath by God, who lives forever and ever and created all that exists, that there will be no more delay (v. 6).
That instead, when the 7th angel blows the 7th trumpet, Final Judgment will come and the world will end.
John says that when this happens, the mystery of God would be fulfilled.
The mystery of God that the angel is referring to is the Gospel.
We are sinners.
We have broken God’s commandments.
We deserve God’s wrath as a result.
But in His love for straying sinners, God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to show us how we should live
And then He did for all the times we have failed to live up to His standards
And then He resurrected and ascended to the right hand of the Father as the Victorious Conqueror over sin and death.
Whoever turns from their sin and believes in this will be saved eternally.
That is the mystery.
It is called a mystery because the prophets longed to understand how it all worked together.
They preached the words, but they did not have the full counsel of the Gospel at their disposal. It had not yet been revealed.
Now it has. Now the mystery of the Old Covenant is the gospel of the New Covenant.
When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.
And what does Paul say right after that?
This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
So again—the mystery is that God is using the Gospel of Jesus to make one body—one New Covenant community for Himself—and that is the Church.
So going back to verse 7, what the angel is swearing is that when the 7th trumpet blows, there will be no more delay. The mystery of God, which is the Gospel, will be fulfilled.
It will be fulfilled because Jesus will consummate what He established in His first coming.
He has already taken the sting from sin and death with the Cross and Resurrection.
But now He will crush it once and for all, along with the Destroyer who rules over the bottomless pit in chapter 9.
When Jesus vanquishes evil and sets up His eternal reign on the new earth, the fulfillment will have come. The mystery will be fulfilled.
All of the Word will have come gloriously true and we will exalt God for it for unending ages
But how does all that explain the thunders? Well, track with me.
Revelation has 7 cycles.
Churches, seals, trumpets, war, bowls, Babylon and the Millennium.
7 different literary devices used to show us the same thing from different perspectives.
To show us how things will be until Jesus comes back and what it will be like when He returns to judge the world in righteousness
With that in mind, I believe the seven thunders are actually an 8th literary device.
It is an 8th cycle of judgment that is sounding.
And John hears it and of course, he would plan to write it down because that is the job God has given him as the revelator.
But the voice from heaven says not to write it because there are already 7 cycles.
God’s perfect plan is underway. And while He thunders in His wrath, there is no 8th cycle to write about.
When the 7th trumpet sounds or the final seal is opened or the final bowl is poured out, history as we know it will come to an end and the age of glory will begin.
No more needs to be written. No more delay. After this interlude, Christ is coming back and consummating the Kingdom and fulfilling the mystery of God.
Everything written by the prophets will come to pass.
But even though the thunders are not written down, don’t think God’s wrath is lessened.
Thunder, much like the lion’s roar, is associated with judgment.
Then Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth. And the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt.
you will be visited by the Lord of hosts
with thunder and with earthquake and great noise,
with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.
While John was not to write about the thunder, it still sounded here.
And what that tells us is that God did not need anymore words to explain His anger toward humanity’s sin, but His thunderous wrath is still going to be poured out when Jesus returns.
There is no need for an 8th literary device, but the longsuffering wrath of God in that thunder is still there.
EATING THE SCROLL (v. 8-11)
EATING THE SCROLL (v. 8-11)
In verse 8, the same voice that told John not to write about the seven thunders tells John to take the scroll from the angel.
John does this in verse 9 and the angel gives him very odd instructions—he tells him to eat it.
I have a lot of feelings when I get a new book, but a desire to eat it is not one of them.
I smell it. I love the smell of a new book. But I don’t take that next step to start munching on it.
No one does. And that tells us that this language in symbolic.
This is what so much of Revelation is—God giving us pictures so we can understand the eternal reality of things.
We have already established that the scroll is the opened scroll from chapters 5 and 6, but why is John supposed to eat it?
And how come it will be sweet to his mouth but it will make his stomach bitter (v. 9)?
To get to the bottom of it, we need to understand that verses 8-11 are strongly referencing Ezekiel’s commissioning to prophetic ministry in Ezekiel 2-3...
“But you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Be not rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you.” And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me, and behold, a scroll of a book was in it. And he spread it before me. And it had writing on the front and on the back, and there were written on it words of lamentation and mourning and woe.
And he said to me, “Son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat. And he said to me, “Son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.” Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey.
You can see the parallels--
They are both being told to eat a scroll
They are both told the scroll is sweet and bitter
You can see in Ezekiel 2:10 that the scroll has lamentation and mourning and woe on it, as well as the sweet words
They are both told to relay the contents of the scroll to others
So as we try to understand why John is eating the scroll, we can look to Ezekiel 2-3 and see if maybe he is given a reason for ingesting it.
And we do see it in verse 11… “
Feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it...” (Ezekiel 3:3)
Ezekiel must eat scroll because he can’t just preach the Word of God—he must live on it Himself.
And it is the same way for John.
He is being called by God to do the work relaying Revelation to the church.
He is going to tell them of the glory of Christ.
He is going to warn them on the sin of man.
He is going to promise them about Jesus coming back.
He is going to rejoice with them that Christ will conquer every enemy in the end
But that can’t just be going out of his mouth.
As he preaches it, it must also sink into his own heart
And so it goes with every prophet or preacher
The preaching has to be heeded by the Preacher.
This is why Richard Baxter warned preachers and said:
“Oh, sirs, how many men have preached Christ and perished for a lack of saving interest in Him? How many who are now in hell have told their people of the torments of hell and warned them to avoid it? How many have preached the wrath of God against sinners who are now feeling it? Oh, what sadder case can there be than for a man who made it his very trade and calling to proclaim salvation and to help others attain it—after all that to be himself shut out! … A holy calling will not save an unholy man.”
John won’t be holy simply by preaching the contents of the scroll.
He must ingest the words himself and be changed by them.
When John takes the scroll and eats it in verse 10, it is both sweet and bitter, just like the angel said.
It is sweet because first of all, the scroll contains God’s words.
How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
And it is also sweet because it contains these promises of redemption for God’s people:
Like the promise of Revelation 5:9
And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
Or the images of the redeemed sealed on earth and worshipping in heaven in chapter 7
God’s Word is sweet because of who it comes from—Him.
Because of what it is—pure, beautiful truth.
And because of what it promises to us—redemption in Christ.
But the scroll also causes John heartburn. It makes his stomach bitter. Why is that?
Because while God’s Word is our anchor and we love it, there are aspects of it that cause us to lament.
In one sense, we lament because the Bible tells us things that are worth lamenting about it.
In the case of John’s scroll, there is a lot of darkness written on it.
Whether it is the judgment that came with the breaking of the 6th seal
Or the demon locusts rising from Hell
Whether it is what is to come in the blowing of the seventh trumpet
Or if it is the war with the Dragon and the Beast and False Prophet
The truth of the matter is that God’s Word contains heartbreaking images that simultaneously excite us about what is to come, but also cause us to lament because we know the world is not ready.
We know that we have friends and family that we love and they don’t know Christ.
They are not ready.
So while our mouths have an aftertaste of sweetness when we taken in God’s Word, our hearts think about all those who are rejecting it and the danger they are in.
The scroll may also be bitter because as John tries to tell the world about its contents, he will be rejected. Ezekiel faced a similar prospect.
For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard language, but to the house of Israel— not to many peoples of foreign speech and a hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to such, they would listen to you. But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me: because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. Like emery harder than flint have I made your forehead. Fear them not, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.”
When God’s servants take God’s words to the world, they are often met with resistance.
Just listen to how Paul describes his own ministry in 2 Corinthians
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
To take the life of Christ to the world, we will also have to take his death.
And what I mean by that is that we we preach the message of the Kingdom, we will suffer like the King—maybe even to the point of death.
And persecution is not fun. It is not to be sought out.
But if we are faithful prophets like Ezekiel or John, it will come.
There will be some bitter with the sweet.
But that does not stop God from sending John out. He is told that he will prophesy about many peoples, nations, languages and kings.
John is to bear witness to the whole world the prophecy that explains what is happening and will happen to the whole world. The danger of God’s wrath and the gracious offer of eternal life.
The Gospel is for anyone from any place and any status.
But the Gospel also demands a response.
Which means that anyone from any place of any status will be in eternal danger if they reject Christ.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
As we think about how this all applies to our lives, I think we should recognize the Apostle John as a sort of prototype for the work that the church will do until Jesus returns.
He is a prototype for the witness of the church between the 6th and 7th trumpets.
See, we are living in that time now.
We are living in this time where Satan and his forces are in the world and are trying to use the depravity of man to destroy it
And until Christ returns, we have the same job as John
To tell the world about what Christ is doing in the nations, what He will do and how they can be sure to be on His side.
So what we need is to do the same as John in this text:
We must receive the Word
We must digest the Word and internalize it
And we must proclaim it
This is the weekly cycle of Christian living
Receive it.
Digest it and be transformed by it.
Take it to the world.
Go back to the church on the Lord’s Day and start the whole process again.
In the last resort, we engage in evangelism today not because we want to or because we choose to or because we like to, but because we have been told to.
John Stott
Stott is saying this—if you are not spreading the message of the Kingdom because want to or you choose to, you should at least be doing it because you are told to.
John is told to eat and tell in this text tonight.
We must eat and tell, too.
If you don’t want to tell or don’t choose to tell, I get that there may be a host of reasons why.
Too busy
Too forgetful
Too scared
Too nervous
But part of obedience is crucifying our excuses and saying, “He told me to do this, so I do it.”
As believers we should always be asking ourselves, “What am I learning, how is it changing me and who am I telling?”
What did God teach me in His Word today?
How does that impact my living?
Who can I share this with? Who needs this Good News?
We are not to be idle in this time where we are waiting for the final trumpet blast.
We are supposed to be fishing for men.
Winning and gaining souls.
The thunders are not to be written down. The delay is almost up.
Our mission is as important as ever. Let us be the workmanship of Christ by fulfilling the Great Commission, one soul at a time.