Eat this Book
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Revelation 10, Eat This Scroll
Revelation 10, Eat This Scroll
So welcome back to our series in the book of Revelation
It has been months that we have slowly been inching through this book and I just want to say that it has been so cool to hear your stories of what God has been doing in your life though this series….
It just reminds me that what the Bible says is true, the word of God does not return void, meaning that it produces fruit in people!
I am not going to do a recap today so if your here for the first time, we are in the deep-end of the pool with the bible…welcome, we are glad you are here
The word Theophany means a visible appearance of God to humans…and what we are going to do in revelation today draws on Theophany but its a bit different
What happens in revelation 10 is slightly different and its called Angelomorphic Christology
And I don’t know, maybe you woke up this morning thinking, I hope pastor dave finally addresses Angelomorphic Christology…If that’s you man today is your day!
So the reality is that you dont need to know any of these fancy terms, there will not be a test in heaven… It is a category of study in the bible that helps us to see the risen christ in an old testament character called, “The angel of the Lord”
Really in even more basic terms: it asks the question, where do we see Jesus in the old testament? and the answer is that we can draw a straight line to the angel of the Lord in the Old testament to Jesus in the new testament.
Some of the earliest theologians of the church when they were putting together the doctrine of the trinity, looked to the verses that I am about to share with you
it sounds complex but this is actually pretty simple…and today in the book of revelation it matters!
So stick with me here
there is a famous story about God coming to visit Abraham and telling him that Sarah would get pregnant to which Sarah would laugh
Three Visitors:
And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth
The Lord, Singular appeared to Abraham and as he looked up…Behold it was three men….what is going on here?
All three of them make up the lord..>And then two even split up to go to Sodom and Gamoriah and God in heaven moves and the two cary out the will of the Lord on earth
The church has a really long tradition of understanding the three visitors as father, son and holy spirit in human form
This is a story of Theophany…God appearing in Human form
Example 2: Jacob’s Ladder
Ok this example you might know
You might now the story of Jacob’s Ladder…
He is in a place that he calls Bethel because he recognizes it really as the house of God….Its the place where he saw this vision of angels ascending and descending on a ladder from heaven to earth…
He has a vision while he is sleeping of a ladder and angels going up and down the latter…Sort of going between heaven and earth…
For a moment Jacob is able to see the unseen realm
Genesis 31:11–13 (ESV)
Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Here I am!’ And he said, ‘Lift up your eyes and see, all the goats that mate with the flock are striped, spotted, and mottled, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me. Now arise, go out from this land and return to the land of your kindred.’ ”
So here is what you need to notice: The Angel of the lord said…I am the God of bethel!
I mean again…You see the angel of the lord and the Lord being distinct beings and yet separate…But guess what…The angel is a physical representation of the Lord on earth…
Back in the earliest parts of the old testament, God is taking on flesh and appearing to people! HMMM…I wonder if this matters down the road in the Bible!
Moses & the burning bush
Ok this is the most crazy and obvious one that I want you to see
Exodus 3:1–6 (ESV)
Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Do you see that the angel of the lord, is not only standing in the fire but then says, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!
So the the point that scholars have been pointing out for literally 2,000 years is that the angel of the Lord in the Old testament is a human appearance of God
This is just three examples of MANY MANY examples of the Angel of the Lord and the Lord showing up in the same scene, they are interchangeable but they are also distinct…
This might seem like too small of a point to matter. But what it shows is remarkably impotrant
It reveals the preexistent of Jesus…that he was alive before he was ever born
It actually is a point that John himself summarizes at the very beginning of his gospel:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
John thinks that this is such an impotrant point that he opens his gospel with it
and not only that John calls Jesus the “word of God”
Well the word Angel just means messenger….It is the person who speaks on behalf of another person
So now we can identify that Old testament angel of the lord who gives the word of God with Jesus…John calls him the WORD of God…
And that he is the messenger of God
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.
The point is that Jesus and the father are one
And we can trust the words of Jesus
The words that come from Jesus are the same as the words that come from the father
Jesus was one time being deserted because he had a tough teaching and Jesus looks at Peter and says, hey don’t you want to leave too and how does peter respond?
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,
So with all of this let’t go to revelation 10…
So this is a ton of work to prove one thing to you: now lets go to revelation 10
Lets look at Revelation 10:1-3
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.
Maybe you didn’t notice, but John says an angel but then describes this angel in all the same language as he has described Jesus before
The imagery here is all of Jesus
Wrapped in a cloud is an allusion to Daniel 7, where the son of man is “coming in the clouds”
Rainbow over his head goes back to Ezekiel’s vision of God’s throne room where the reference here is to God himself
The face like the sun Revelation 1:16
Legs like pillars of fire Revelation 1:14
So why does this matter at all?
I would argue that John knows what he is doing here. He is borrowing this Old Testament form of the Angel of the Lord to talk about Jesus…
What John wants us to understand is that
Its not just some angel who is coming to give John a revelation, but this again is the cosmic Jesus
The messenger…The word of God…That this angel is actually Jesus
John wants us to know that:
Jesus’ words are trustworthy and true
Jesus’s words come from the father
Jesus’ words are a counter revolution to the words of this world!
And lets be honest, words shape us and form us dont they.
Cultural anthropologist say one of the fastest and most effective ways to build a culture is with a common language…A culture is a shared ethic of how we all behave
And Jesus words are our ethic!
So this will keep mattering all the way through but lets keep reading
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.
And then it says that there were 7 thunders…
And this makes sense right because there were just 7 seals and 7 trumpets and just when John is about to write that down the angel stops him…
And we can only theorize why…and what they are…so I won’t take a lot of time but if you are wondering here is the theory: first what, then why
Seven thunders, most commentators point to Psalm 29…and I agree with them
Sort of the idea that when God speaks his glory is revealed
The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord, over many waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf,
and Sirion like a young wild ox.
The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.
The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;
the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth
and strips the forests bare,
and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”
Psalm 29 is reminding us that God’s voice revels its glory and it thunders over creation…
So that could be what it is, why we can only guess.
My best theological guess as to why John shouldn’t write this message down is that …
If the seven seals didn’t work to bring about repentance…and the seven trumpets didn’t work…then they won’t listen to God’s voice either….
So Just to recap because I have already packed this message with stuff…
The angel of the Lord is Jesus and John hears these 7 thunders in heaven…Or God speaking 7 times…and The angel says dont write them down…Because here is the deal…
The 7 seals didn’t cause humanity to repent, the 6 trumpets didn't cause humanity to repent but what comes next:
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.”
So if you remember back in the throne room of God Jesus took a scroll and he is opening it
And that scroll is the new creation! That scroll is God’s purposes, it is the judgment of evil it is God’s will
And now there is a new scroll…The greek is making it clear that it is not the main scroll of Revelation 5 but that this is a distinctly different scroll.
And the angel…AKA Jesus is now giving it to John and telling him to eat it!
So what is happening here?
The best way to answer that is with the book of Ezekiel:
And he said to me, “Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them. And you, son of man, be not afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you and you sit on scorpions. Be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. And you shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house.
“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 in Ezekiel 3, Ezekiel eats the scroll and it is sweet to the taste but it is bitter to the stomach
revelation 10 and Ezekiel 3 are mirror
Ezekiel had to eat the scroll…You’ve hear the expression…You are what you eat right?
But Ezekiel speaks to Israel, but more than that, he is the message to Israel…
So, you will see all sorts of wild things all through the book…
Ezekiel is told to basically make a clay model of the city and destroy it…
Make bread using human waste and when he refused God provided cow dung…
Then God told him to lay on his side for 390 days and eat it
He had to burn his hair
Why? It’s all strange and weird, but the point was that he didn’t just tell the message that God had for him, he was the message, he embodied it…
So, whenever you would walk to the center of town, there Ezekiel would be sometimes not saying anything, but simply being the living representation of what was on God’s mind.
So, you walk past him…and no words are spoken…you just get the message!
Back to revelation….
chapter 9 ends with this Lament…and still no one repented…
But then Jesus comes and he hands a scroll to John and he says eat this!
And there are 7 thunders but no one is going to repent out of that either
So, the question becomes…who will repent now?
and the answer is that eventually people do repent when they see people like you and me embodying the message, becoming the message
when they see that we trust and rely on the word of God
We are not to be people who merely share the message of God, but a people who become the message of God.
Its your story of redemption.
Its you living out forgiveness.
it is you embodying the grace that Jesus has for you, toward others!
Now in the past we had all of these great crusades…Billy Graham loved that people came to know Christ during his crusades….But when you hear him reflect on that
He has this one quote that is this
"Salvation is free, but discipleship costs everything we have."
-Billy Graham
Graham knew that many were coming to know Christ…but few were actually taking the extra step to become disciple…
Few were going into churches and learning that slow, hard, demanding costly walk with Jesus…
And folks…This is what it is all about is discipleship….If you look back through the quotes and teachings of Jesus,
What did he command us to do…
Other than love and forgive …
The only thing he told us to do is to make disciples…
To make the kind of people who will eat this book and take on what it says…
Make the kind of people whose desires are lined up with mine…
Form the type of people who will follow me anywhere…
The last 40- 50 years of church history there has been such an emphasis on saying the sinner’s prayer and getting people into heaven…
And I want you to hear me on something….There is nothing wrong with that at all, we should do that…
But unless we disciple people into the character of Jesus then what’s the point?
So really the question of Revelation right now is how will God bring the world to salvation?
And the answer is through a people who eat this book…
The answer is through a people who embody the life of the lamb and center their families on it!
See it is by eating the book that we embody the message…
Then we will be a daily witness…
You know, I wish I was the kind of pastor who could give you 4 life changing points that all begin with the same letter, but I am not
But, what I can tell you is the message of Revelation 10 is…Eat this book (the Bible)
It’s funny, nutritionist and scientist have just come around to saying that that old adage, “you are what you eat” is actually true
Eat this book
God’s plan for the whole world are not just a people who carry the message of God, it is the plan for people to become the message of God.
And when you eat it will be so sweet:
Come to me all you who are burdened and heavy laden and I will give you rest!
And its bitter in your stomach!
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
It is so sweet in your mouth:
For God so loved the world…that he gave his only begotten son
And its bitter:
Whoever wants to follow me has to daily take up their cross and follow me!
It’s sweet because we get Jesus, the savior of our souls…the one who is victorious over death…
It’s bitter because in the same breath, we are told that we belong to each other! That the church is linked together like family! And we get the perfect one Jesus, but we also get each other with all of our sin and imperfections
There is this great theologian who wrote this about the text:
Joseph Mangina writes, “John’s taking of the little scroll is ‘Eucharistic,’ not in the direct sense that the scene depicts the celebration of the sacrament, but in the sense that he is being commanded to ingest the word of God, to let it enter him so as to become part of his own being… ‘There will be no more time,’ says the angel. Yet far from causing the church to hunker down into a sectarian enclave waiting for the end, the gift of the gospel sends the church outward into the world of peoples, nations, languages, and kings. The mighty angel crying with a loud voice is a type of Christ’s prophetic office, and John’s eating of the scroll a sign of the church’s mission of bearing witness to the gospel, both in its life and its speech. And as the angel stands astride land and sea, so the gospel is truly a message with no borders.”
So today I have one response
1: Eat this book…after church today all of our bible study leaders will have info about their classes and what is coming up…Join one…start ion the long work of centering your life on the lamb
It wont be plagues or violence that causes humanity to repent but a people who embody the words of the Lord.
You do not just carry the message…you are the message!
If you remember back to our earliest days of reading revelation, Jesus is looking for faithful witnesses and how do we become that??
Eat this book!
Lets pray
