In his book The Cost of Discipleship, Deitrich Bonhoeffer writes, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. . . . It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call . . . only the man who is dead to his own will can follow Christ. In fact every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts.”1
No doubt if you’ve been a Christian for any amount of time, you understand and have walked through that reality. Obedience to Christ can be hard. Many have had to walk away from family and travel to distant lands to obey Christ. Others have taken on the task of bringing needy children or the elderly into their homes to obey Christ. Still others have given away what could have secured for them lives of ease and comfort and walked a road of pain and suffering simply because that’s what obedience looked like in their lives. And we could provide numerous other examples, including many martyrs, couldn’t we? Simply put, Christ has not called his followers to live an easy life, to walk the simplest path, and to make decisions everyone around them in the world would understand and applaud. He calls us, rather, to take up the cross and follow him. As Bonhoeffer rightly notes, Christ bids all who follow him to come and give up their lives.
And one area of difficult calling that falls on some level on all of us in this room who profess faith in Christ is the call of the Great Commission from Matthew 28:19-20. There, Jesus said to his disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
There’s nothing easy about that charge, is there? We’ve got to go into a world that is against Jesus and opposed to what we’re going to tell them, and proclaim to them the Lord’s coming judgment, the good news of salvation, and the urgency to repent and believe or suffer God’s eternal wrath. That’s not an easy task. But that’s why we call it the Great Commission. We’ve been given this task, something that we should be committed to, and this weighty task falls on us collectively as Christ’s church.
Now, I don’t think any of us is unaware of the task of the Great Commission or the difficulty of it. But there are times in our lives when we need to be reminded of this calling, encouraged in it, and exhorted to obey. I think that’s what Revelation 10 does for us.
Revelation 10 reminds us of this task, encourages us in it, and exhorts us to obey because it shows us how the Lord did those things for his servant, John. Revelation 10, in the flow of the book, is best seen as a sort of re-commissioning of John to deliver this prophetic message. I say that because though the chapter can be confusing and has many images within it that aren’t immediately clear to us, the chapter ends with John being told, “You must again prophesy about [or perhaps “against”] many peoples and nations and languages and kings” (Rev. 10:11). John is being instructed again to serve as the Lord’s instrument in delivering his message. Therefore, I think the message that John receives in his re-commissioning is helpful for us to note and receive as well since we too have been commissioned by the Lord to bear witness to him and his truth in this world.
However, before diving into the message of Revelation 10, let’s do a quick review of the book to this point. Such a review will help us in two ways: 1) since many of our college students are just now returning, it gives them a chance to get some idea of the book to this point, and 2) it will remind us of some themes and images that have come earlier in the book that are helpful for understanding the scene in chapter 10.
The book opens with us being told that this Revelation was given to John so that God’s people might know what must soon take place (1:1). More specifically, we’re told that John received this revelation as God the Father gave it to Jesus who gave it to an angel who gave it to John. We’ll see that played out in our text this morning. Then, in chapter 1, John has a vision of the risen Christ, reigning over the universe, before being given letters to give to the churches, which we find in chapters 2-3. In chapters 4-5, there is a vision of heaven where God is seated on his throne, holding in his hand a scroll that signifies God’s purposes, promises, and plans for salvation and judgment. However, there is no one worthy who can take it from him, open it, and enact God’s work of salvation and judgment – expect Jesus, the Lamb. As Jesus steps forward, takes the scroll, and opens it a seal at a time, we see in chapter 6 that this entire age is going to be filled with trials, hardships, and suffering. There will be wars, as nation will rise and conquer nation, civil unrest and bloodshed, famine, pestilence, disease, and death.
Yet, we are told in chapter 7, these are merely trials for believers and not for the destruction of their faith because God has marked out his own, putting his seal on all of his people. Thus, this morning, if you know Christ as your Lord, God has put his seal on you and will not let you be crushed by the hardships of living in this cursed world but will preserve you to the end. Then, in chapters 8-9, we saw the blowing of the trumpets, which are very much like the seals, except that they look at this events with respect to unbelievers, reminding us that the Lord judges unbelievers throughout this age by letting them go through this world that has fallen under his judgment and by being given over to their sins in which they find the “due penalty for their error” (Rom. 1:27). And the Lord reminds us that his enemies will be judged in the end as he comes to vindicate his own.
This is the message that John has received to this point, which brings us to chapter 10. And as I said, what John is shown and told is encouraging, challenging, and helpful to all of us who bear the responsibility of obeying the Great Commission. So what lessons do we then see in this text? Well, first, we see that as God’s messengers:
We see this in the first four verses of the chapter. The chapter opens with the declaration that John saw “another mighty angel” (v. 1). Now, by “another mighty angel” I think he means just as he saw back in 5:2 when he saw a “strong angel,” asking who was worthy to open the scroll. Now, he’s seeing another of these mighty angels, and he’s described in majestic terms. In fact, they’re so majestic that some have thought this may be Jesus. After all, he’s wrapped in a cloud (which is often a picture of the Lord), has a rainbow over his head (just as the throne of God had a rainbow around it), had legs like pillars of fire (kind of like Jesus was pictured with feet of burnished bronze), and had a voice like a roaring lion (even as Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah). So, you can see why some would think this.
But I don’t think it’s Jesus. I think, rather, that it’s just a mighty angel. But it’s an angel who comes from the throne of God, bearing the message of God (which is why I think he’s described in the majestic terms that he is). I think it’s an angel for a number of reasons. First, he’s called an angel, and Jesus is not referred to with the term “angel” elsewhere in Revelation. Second, John says he saw “another mighty angel,” which, as I said, I think refers back to the earlier “strong angel” of 5:2. Third, in verse 6, this angel swears “by him who lives forever and ever,” and I think if it were Jesus, he would likely simply make a declaration, rather than swearing by his Father. And, finally, if the scroll in the angel’s hand is the same scroll of Revelation 5 (which I think it is), then this fits the way the message was going to be delivered to John.
You’ll remember from the opening verses of the book that the revelation was given by God the Father to Jesus and then to John via an angel. Well, the scroll of Revelation 5 was in the hand of the one seated on the throne, then taken by the Lamb, now this mighty angel has it, and by the end of the chapter John will have it (he’ll actually eat it).
But something interesting takes place as John watches this angel. The angel puts a foot on the sea and a foot on the land (reflecting, I think, God’s sovereign reign over all of creation), and he calls out with a loud voice like a lion roaring. And here’s where it gets interesting. Here’s how verses 3b-4 read: “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.’”
Now, that’s odd, isn’t it? It’s not odd that there are seven thunders. After all, to this point in the book, we’ve already seen a series of seven seals and are only waiting for the seventh of the seven trumpets, which we’ll see in the next chapter. And if the seven seals and the seven trumpets both spoke of perspectives on God’s perseverance of his people and judgment against his enemies, we could speculate what the seven thunders might represent. But we don’t know, do we? And we don’t know because John didn’t write it down. And, more than that, we know that John didn’t write it down because John did write down that he was told not to write it down. Now, why would the Spirit inspire John to write that?
Let me give you an illustration of why I find that so odd. On Sunday mornings we make a video of the sermon – for better or for worse – so that it can go up on the internet. Now, imagine (and this won’t be too difficult for you) that I said something really crazy, realized in the moment that I had said something crazy, and then had a conversation with Jeremy, during the sermon, where he said to me, “Do you want me to edit that out of the video?” and I said, “Yes, let’s act like that never happened” before going on with my sermon. Then, you sit down, for some reason, on Sunday morning to watch the video of the sermon and you see that Jeremy edited out my bit where I made some crazy remark in my sermon but left in the part where we have our back and forth about the need to edit it out of the video. I mean, everyone knows you don’t only remove the crazy saying, but the conversation about removing it as well, right?
Only John doesn’t do that. Instead of us reading this section without even knowing that there were seven thunders, John tells us there were, he went to write them down, and then was told not to do so. Now, why is it that the Holy Spirit inspired John to make sure we knew that there was some other piece of information here revealed in seven thunders but he was instructed not to write it down? The only answer that makes sense to me is because it sends a message to us that the Lord isn’t disclosing all things about his purposes and plans in this book. That means that there are simply some things about God’s design in his work during this age that we won’t know.
There are going to be times that people will ask us – especially during tragedies – “What is God doing here? Why did he allow it to happen?” And there are a number of things we could say, especially in light of what we’ve seen thus far in Revelation. We could point out that whatever the tragedy, the Lord will preserve his people through it. We could point out that because of sin, the Lord has cursed the world so that we live in a world where death reigns, and it’s a constant reminder to unbelievers that they need to repent before they face God’s eternal wrath on the day of judgment. But ultimately we don’t know, do we? We don’t have all the answers. We don’t know why the Lord allowed this to happen or didn’t allow that to happen, why he chose to keep us from this tragedy or let us suffer that tragedy. And the Lord wants us to know that he has many purposes and plans that we just don’t know, and he doesn’t want us to know. We simply trust him.
So, as we live our lives as faithful witnesses to Jesus Christ, we need to recognize that he hasn’t disclosed all truth to us so that we don’t have all the answers for everything, and that’s okay. We walk by faith, not by sight. But that’s not all we see in this text. As we move along, we see that as God’s messengers:
I think that’s the point of verses 5-7. The angel that John saw standing on the sea and the land raises his hand to make an oath, much like we mimic in a courtroom, for example. And he swears by the Lord 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.”
You see, at this point, the six angels have blown their trumpets, and we’re waiting for the seventh (which will happen in 11:15). But what the six angels’ trumpets are showing are God’s judgments on the earth during this age, between the two comings of Christ. As I said two weeks ago, I think it’s the judgment of living in a cursed world and of being handed over to their sin. But, if we think that the day of final judgment is never going to come and God is going to keep on letting the world roll on, with unbelievers facing this temporal judgments, this mighty angel makes clear that that’s not the case. There’s going to be a day, signified by the seventh angel blowing his trumpet, that there will be no more delay. Everything concerning God’s work of judgment for his enemies and salvation for his people (the “mystery of God” in v. 7) that he spoke to the prophets will be fulfilled. There is a day when Jesus Christ will return to save his people and judge his enemies fully and finally. There is a day when those who haven’t trusted in him in this life will be thrown into a lake of fire to suffer eternally while those who have trusted in him will dwell with him in a perfect new creation forever. That day is coming, and it is certain. There is a day when there will be no more delay.
This is why we must go and make this announcement of coming judgment and of the good news that you can be saved from it through faith in the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. That day is certain. That’s why we must be faithful to spread the gospel.
But Revelation 10 is also brutally honest about the message we are to spread. Specifically, we see in this text as well that as God’s messengers:
In verses 8-10 we read that John is told to go take this scroll from the angel, and he does. That’s understandable enough. But then he’s told something weird. He’s told to eat it. Now, it’s not like in the ancient world the eating of scrolls was much more common than it is in our day. As so much in this book of Revelation, this isn’t to be taken literally. Rather, the image comes from Ezekiel, where in Ezekiel 2:8-3:3, the prophet is told to eat God’s scroll.
The idea there was that the scroll contained God’s message of judgment and salvation for his people, and Ezekiel was supposed to let this message of God become his message. So, the way this was symbolized was by Ezekiel taking the scroll, putting it in his mouth, and ingesting it.
Well, I think this same thing is going on here. This scroll too is God’s promises, purposes, and plans of judgment and salvation, and John is told to ingest it because he’s to declare this message through the writing of this book to the churches. What’s interesting, though, is John’s description of eating the scroll. We read in 9b-10, “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.”
I think the message here is that there’s a sweetness and a bitterness to spreading the truth of the Scripture to all peoples. First, there’s a sweetness, isn’t there? On the one hand, there’s a sweetness in simply being able to be God’s messengers. To have our eyes opened to the gospel and to the truth of Scripture and being able to speak that to others is a rich privilege. To be able to tell people who are bound in their sin and under God’s wrath the good news that if they’ll repent of their sins and place their faith in Jesus who lived and died on the cross to pay the penalty for every sinner who will trust in him and who was raised to justify everyone who believes is a sweet privilege and sweet news.
Yet there is also bitterness sometimes in speaking the truth, isn’t there? When Tom and I were in Botswana a few weeks back, we spoke to a Hindu Brahmin who was an extremely nice, gentle, and kind man. Yet, ultimately, our message to him is that unless he repents of his idolatry and places his faith in Christ, he will face God’s wrath in hell. Our message involves declaring judgment, and it’s a word of judgment that people don’t enjoy hearing. I don’t know anyone who sits in his house thinking, “I can’t wait to tell my new neighbor that right now in his unrepentant state he is bound to face God’s wrath in eternal hell.” Jeremiah didn’t get thrilled to tell the people that they were about to be judged at the hands of the Babylonians, and Ezekiel sat still and quiet by his people, overwhelmed by his calling to announce judgment.
It’s hard, and the Lord acknowledges that his word is hard and can be bitter. My unbelieving uncle one time told my mom that he was thankful in the few times we’ve seen each other that I haven’t told him that he’s going to hell. And that wasn’t encouraging to me but convicting that I haven’t warned him with what is true. So, I’ve prayed that the Lord would give me courage to be more bold, to love him as I should. But there is a bitterness to it. There’s a chance that I’ll share the gospel with him, including why he needs the gospel, and he’ll not want to be around me anymore. And I hope that doesn’t happen. I like spending time with him, even the little bit I’ve been around him. But I wouldn’t love him if I didn’t share the warning of God’s judgment and the sweetness of the gospel, would I? I wouldn’t find myself excited to spend my life having a few good conversations about the weather or sports or whatever with my uncle and then him die without me ever sharing the gospel with him (although I know that other family members have).
As messengers, we will sometimes have a sweet and bitter task. We’ll have to deliver warnings and words of judgment to those who will not repent. But we get the privilege of bringing the gospel to all peoples.
And this brings me to the last point, which is probably already obvious and has been stated, but I want to make it explicit once more. As messengers of God:
John ends this part of his vision with the concluding note from verse 11, “And I was told, ‘You must again prophesy about [which is probably better translated here, “against”] many peoples and nations and languages and kings.’”
In the book of Revelation, a reference to kings is most always a reference to those who set themselves up against Christ. Therefore, whereas earlier we heard that in chapter 5 that there would be people redeemed from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation, the fact that John is told to prophesy against “peoples, nations, languages, and kings” is probably a sign that John is going to share a warning of judgment to a people who will largely reject him, as has been true throughout the ages.
It’s hard to be rejected, isn’t it? It’s hard to know that this person wants you to tell them that their lifestyle is okay, and you just can’t. And throughout history there have always been voices that say, “Then change your message, church. Adapt. Grow and change with the culture or you’ll die.” And honestly, the churches that have done that have themselves died. Rather, John is told simply, though the word may feel bitter in your stomach, you must continue to be my witness and prophesy.
And so it comes to us. We have been charged with the great commission. We are charged with warning people, sharing the gospel, and teaching believers to obey all that Christ has commanded. And as we go our way, we won’t have all the answers. All truths haven’t been disclosed to us by God, and that’s okay. We do know with certainty that the final day of judgment and salvation is coming, though, and even if that message feels bitter in our stomachs, we must be faithful witnesses. After all, there was another who stood before a calling to be faithful and the task felt quite bitter. In fact, Jesus cried out in the garden, “If there be any other way, let this cup pass from me.” But he obeyed his Father, went to the cross, and was raised on the third day. Therefore, let this be our constant reminder, encouragement, and anchor as we seek to be faithful witnesses to the one who lived, died, and was raised for us. Amen.