Perhaps where you are living right now, without an answer, without an explanation, there is some present dilemma in your personal experience that remains an unanswered dilemma. Saying, God knows, is the kind of belief that will prove your faith and deepen your trust in him like nothing else.
You may have to exercise that today or tomorrow. I don't know! But God knows! There's much about our lives that we don't understand. It's not always clear to us what God is doing.
By faith, we have confidence because we know God loves us and wants what's best for us. When the Apostle John received the revelation of what was to come, there were things that God told him not to write down. They weren't to be revealed in advance.
We'll know it when it happens. There are some things we can know and others that we simply can't. Today, we return to Revelation and even though God may not tell us all that we wish he would, let's study together what he did reveal. By the time you arrive at Revelation chapter 10, you need to understand that time is running out for people of the earth. By the end of the first six trumpet judgments, half the population on the planet has fallen to the plagues of God. But before that seventh trumpet sounded, there is a pause in the action, much like there was a pause after the sixth seal, before you got to the seventh seal. Now after the sixth trumpet, before you get to the seventh trumpet, there is again an interlude. And chapter 10 of Revelation is that interlude.
It's a pause in the action. So let's pick it up at John's opening words in Revelation chapter 10 verse 1. And just the opening part where he introduces with these words, I saw another strong angel coming down out of heaven clothed with the cloud and the rainbow was upon his head, his face like the sun and his feet like pillars of fire. Now you recognize if you've been studying with us by now that angels play a prominent role in the apocalypse. The angel is the judgment of God.
They're involved in serving, worshipping, singing, praising God, delivering messages of doom and announcements of revelation and even more. In fact there's even one angel that's going to have the special privilege of throwing Satan into the abyss where he will stay for a thousand years while Christ literally reigns upon the throne of David on earth. You get the sense as you study Revelation thus far that angels have been waiting with anticipation.
They're just sort of anxious to get this thing going. They're longing, I believe, effectively for the final consummation of their glorious God as he delivers final and full judgment upon the planet to those who've scorned their Creator and certainly the judgment upon their brother angels who've fallen, who've now called demons, who've betrayed God, who've battled God's will, who've battled God's people, who've battled God's plan now for thousands of years. And now John introduces us to yet another angel. This one he simply calls a strong angel who comes with a rather special mission. Now there are those that would believe that this particular angel is Jesus Christ.
I don't. Certainly in the Old Testament Christ often appeared as the angel of the Lord, what theologians call a Christophany, that is an appearance of Christ prior to his incarnation. And those are wonderful texts to study in light of the fact that it was the pre-incarnate Christ. But you add to the fact that never in the record of the New Testament after his incarnation does Christ ever appear as an angel again.
He's taken on flesh, the flesh of man. And then of course you add to that truth the fact that the Lord has never referred to an angel in the book of Revelation. In fact he's never referred to an angel in all of the New Testament. And furthermore you'll notice soon that John will not worship this angel.
The primary reason I don't believe this is Christ is the original language itself. John writes clearly translated into English, I saw another angel, another of the same kind is what he's saying. In other words this angel is the same essence as the other archangels who've already appeared to sound their trumpets. In fact this angel's appearance will match closely Daniel's description of Gabriel in Daniel chapter 12. So more than likely this is another archangel who now joins this scene with these other seven archangels who are sounding these seven trumpets.
I want you to notice six rather amazing features of this angel. He writes, look again in verse one, that this angel was clothed with a cloud. Clouds are often the vehicles in the Bible in which heavenly beings ascend or descend.
However here the cloud seems to be his clothing more than likely than covering much of his body. Secondly John writes that a rainbow was upon his head. The word for rainbow is the word iris. We use that today in ophthalmology. It refers to a circle of color. The Greeks used this very word to refer to the brilliant colors surrounding the circles in a peacock's colorful feathered tail. Perhaps you've seen those circles in the bright colors surrounding them. It's of course used to refer to the circle of color in a person's eyes. We have brown eyes or blue eyes. We don't say you have beautiful irises, that's not very romantic.
You say you have beautiful eyes, right? The Greeks had created in their pantheon a goddess named Iris. They believe that she was personified by the rainbow and served as a messenger of the gods. There is a kernel of truth in that but of course it's entirely corrupted by idolatry. We know from scripture don't we that the original rainbow was in fact a message from the true and living God.
A message that has lasted to this day. A message in the rainbow every time we see it to this day given first to Noah as a sign that God would never cover the earth with a universal flood ever again. Genesis 9 16. That first judgment will not occur like that. The second judgment tells us, Peter does, that it's reserved for fire.
No fear of a universal flood but certainly fear of fire. Well this angel's head is surrounded then by this rainbow, these amazing colors. The same word used here for rainbow we saw earlier in chapter 4 to describe the rainbow encircling the throne of God. Which would reveal that this angel represents then the authority and the power, the throne of God and the message he will deliver is from God. Notice thirdly that his face shone like the sun. He was simply brilliant and bright like the angels who appeared at the tomb of Christ to announce his resurrection in Luke chapter 24 verse 4. It says they shone with dazzling brilliance.
Fourth, notice his feet and legs were like pillars of fire. This is suggestive of his announcement having to do with judgment of God on earth. Now fifth and most importantly verse 2 informs us that the angel has in his hand, presumably his left hand, a little book, the text says, which was open. He's holding in his hand a book which was open.
This isn't the scroll that we saw in chapters 5 and 6 that only Christ was worthy to open. It would be correct to believe that this little book contains a small portion of the judgments yet to come. But the word used is bibloridian. Bibloridian which simply means a very small book. A small booklet if you will that speaks of God's revelation to John. By the way the same Greek root word gives us our word biblion from which we get our word Bible.
We're holding in our hands the book. Now we attach the word holy to this book, that is it's separated, it's set apart, it's distinct, it's different from any other book on the planet because as Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3.15, he called it holy. This is the holy scriptures.
Why? Because unlike any other book, its author is God. It attributes its origin to God himself. In fact 2 Timothy 3.16 says that it is God's breath. It is God breathed.
This is the breath of God. And as the author then this is a set apart book, this biblion. Well what this angel is holding is a small bibloridian.
It's a different word. It's not the Bible. It's a small book that probably contains a portion of revelation yet to come. The final descriptive phrase concerning this amazing angel is his size. Verse 2 we're told, he placed his right hand or his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land. So huge was the appearance of this angel to John that his feet spanned this incredible distance.
One foot on the sea and one foot on the land. Now there isn't any reason to take this any other way than literal. Or literally which certainly allows for symbolism and we can easily recognize the symbolism in his posture. That is the authority of this angel spans land and sea. This is a universal message from the God of the universe. Now notice verse 3, and he cried out with a loud voice as when a lion roars. Now evidently John has heard a lion roar and so that's the picture that he chooses. Just like a lion roars, this was the sound of this angel. I have never heard a lion roar. I've heard a lion purr on an African reserve where I was tightly ensconced inside a jeep but I could hear it through the window. So loud was that purring, it made me tremble right in here.
I can't imagine one roaring. But that's he said, this is what the sound was of this. He writes, he cried with a loud voice which comes from the words phoneme, megalae, we reverse those two words and we come up with our own word megaphone. So he had a megaphone. This was so loud and the roaring was so unbelievably loud.
It reverberated as it were around the world. Verse 3, when he had cried out, seven peals of thunder uttered their voices and when the seven peals of thunder had spoken, I was about to write and I heard a voice from heaven saying, seal up the things which the seven peals of thunder have spoken and do not write them. This is where Revelation really gets interesting.
Tough and that's where you think I was going to read the Bible through in one year and I got to stuff like this and I went back to the Gospel of John. Let me pull back and give you an aerial view of what's happening. Here's an angel descending wrapped as it were in a cloud. He places one blazing foot on the land and one blazing foot on the sea. He then shouts loudly this roaring sound and it reverberates around earth, the planet. And then John hears thundering. Seven would be significant simply meaning it's the perfection or the completion of thunder. Often in the Bible we hear of God's voice thundering.
We've already come up with this in the book of Revelation. David speaks of the glory of God thundering, Psalm 29 3. Job writes of God's voice thundering in marvelous ways, Job 37 5. Seven thunders means this is the perfection of God's own voice revealing truth of judgment yet to come.
This would have been an awesome sight and sound. You see this isn't just some loud booming. This is articulation of truth. It's saying something, it's speaking something, it's revealing something. And so John, as he's been doing, is ready to start writing it down.
Okay, I hear that and I can understand what it's saying and I'm going to write it all down. This is what God is going to do yet in the future. And as he's preparing to write it down, verse 4, look again, John says, I was about to write it down but God said keep it sealed up.
No, don't tell anybody this. So we don't have the fullest story, do we? Keep some of this back, seal it up, keep it a secret. Which is one of the clearest texts I have found that reveals the truth of something we've often said and certainly believe that the revelation of God is not exhaustive but it is sufficient. In other words, what we hold in this Holy Biblion isn't everything we'd like to know but it's everything we need to know. He said, John, you just keep this a secret. There are secret things that belong to him alone. He has chosen to withhold information and not reveal it to us.
Can you live with that? Listen, saying, well God knows and I don't isn't necessarily a cop-out. It may be a great statement of faith.
You may have to exercise that today or tomorrow. Next week, I don't know but God knows. I haven't been given the answer. I don't have a verse on that but I know that God knows and I will trust him. That isn't a cop-out and don't use it that way either, would you?
God knows. Don't let it cover for laziness or a lack of desire to study the word and to dig into it. Don't let it underscore your lack of interest and hard work. Kind of like the college student I wrote about some time ago was taking his final exam at the end of the fall semester and he hadn't studied and maybe you've been there in your own life and you're praying for inspiration, not recollection, right? And he knew he was in trouble. He didn't know the answers to any of the questions so he decided to play on the mercy of his professor and he wrote at the top of his exam these words, only God knows the answers to these questions. He turned in his paper, went home for Christmas break and during the break he received in his mail his exam.
His professor had written in large letters at the top. In that case, God gets an A and you get an F. Merry Christmas. We don't avoid the challenges of life by shrugging our shoulders and saying, ah, whatever, God knows. But we can say it as a matter of deep and growing trust as a matter of faith. Perhaps where you are living right now, without an answer, without an explanation, there is some present dilemma in your personal experience that remains an unanswered dilemma, saying God knows.
It is the kind of belief that will prove your faith and deepen your trust in him like nothing else. God knows and I don't. John, keep this a secret. No one is going to know until I explain it later on if I fully do.
They'll just need to know they should continue trusting what I've revealed that they do need to know. Now notice verse five. John goes further in describing what the angel does. And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land lifted up his right hand to heaven and swore by him who lives forever and ever.
Can you imagine this angel? In his hand is the revelation of God. His right hand is raised toward heaven, one foot on the land, one foot on the sea and his voice is heard around the planet swearing to tell the truth and his oath is based upon what?
Notice carefully. Verse six again. He swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things in it and the earth and the things in it and the sea and the things in it. In other words, his oath is based on a literal creation of the world and everything in it. And the oath of the angel is based upon the truthfulness of God creating the origins of everything. Furthermore, the book of Revelation isn't the truth without a creator God. For we see here in chapter 10 a reference to a literal creation and we will see in chapter 21 a literal new creation. And one demands the other, doesn't it?
Doesn't the latter demand the former? In other words, if God wasn't able to create the first universe, how in the world do you think he's gonna create the next universe? And how do you hope to get there? Isn't that somewhat slightly miraculous? If you die before the rapture, aren't you believing in a resurrection? You're planning on a home God created for you? Listen, if he isn't able to create, he isn't gonna be able to recreate and he certainly isn't gonna be able to resurrect anything.
So all of what we believe, if you think about it, hinges on the reality of our God being the creator of all there is and everything that is in it. Revelation 10, six. Now notice the angel's announcement.
This is the content of his message. It's very short, but after making that oath, he says in verse six, there will be, here's the truth, there will be delay no longer. In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished as he preached to his servants, the prophets. We've looked at this earlier in passing, but in other words, he's saying here there's gonna be no further delay as God accelerates his kingdom program. The seventh angel is about to sound and there's nothing in the way of him sounding.
Now something strange happens and I wanna cover this chapter, so let me cover this quickly. Something strange happens here with this angel. We've seen the angel's appearance, we've heard the angel's announcement and now I want you to notice the apostle's personal application.
Look at verse eight. Then the voice which I heard from heaven, I heard again speaking with me and saying, go take the book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the land. So I went to the angel telling him to give me the little book and he said to me, take it and eat it. It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it'll be sweet as honey. So I took the little book out of the angel's hand and ate it and in my mouth it was sweet as honey and when I had eaten it, my stomach was indeed made bitter. It's fascinating that John will now become a literal object lesson for us all. The word of God is sweet, isn't it? It's sweet as honey. Yet it's truth when it is understood, we can speak metaphorically of it being digested, it can bring bitter tears and sorrow and difficulty and conviction and guilt.
The idea here was also performed by Ezekiel who also ate a portion of God's revelation and then delivered the message to the people of God and Ezekiel recorded in Ezekiel 3, 3 that the scroll was as sweet as honey. He literally becomes an object lesson. He literally eats this bibloridian and it's sweet to his mouth, but it becomes bitter, sour.
You could translate it heartburn. It produces discomfort in him. He becomes an object lesson of the truth of God which is always sweet and good and yet the result of the word of God may bring great sorrow. It's sweet because it's God's word. It's bitter because it is God's judgment.
And you have found the same to be true, have you not? That the word of God is indeed sweet, it is indeed good, but yet sometimes the message it carries brings sorrow. By faith we accept both honey and bitter, both sweet and sour, both pleasant and painful aspects of what God's word demands. You know what the problem in the church today is?
Let me give you one of them. The church is often represented now by pastors who don't want to deliver the bitter news of God's truth. So they resist words like sin and judgment and guilt and hell.
They go on Larry King Live and they refuse to say anything about a coming judgment, about an eternal hell, about a holy and wrathful God and this coming day of wrath. Listen, God knew that that temptation would always be there, even for those who truly know him, that we would resist the bitter announcement of his sweet word, the offensive nature of his wonderful gospel, the truth about heaven and, by the way, hell. And so God addresses this temptation even with John in the very last verse of this chapter. And they said to me, listen John, you must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings. They said to me, this is a reference back to the thunderous voices of God, third person plural, which is in this text an indefinite reference. This is going back to the voices, as it were, of God. God is speaking to John.
He says, look, I know you know the bitterness of it. Don't hold back. Deliver it. Preach it.
You must continue delivering the truth. If you hold back, it won't help anybody. It won't help you. It certainly won't help your people. It won't help the church.
And it won't help the world. You must deliver the truth. It is bitter, sweet, yes, but deliver all of it. And for us as believers, we obey all of it. The easy parts, the hard parts.
The stuff that's easy to swallow and the stuff that's hard to swallow. In 1955, Billy Graham was preaching the truth of heaven and hell, the gospel of Christ literally around the world when he was only 35 years old. You can imagine it. His reputation was renowned. He was in London this year in 55. He was holding an evangelistic crusade at Wembley Stadium. He received an invitation to number 10 Downing Street, where the prime minister lived, of course.
And so he accepted the invitation. And upon his arrival, his biographer records that Graham was introduced to a weary-looking but keen-eyed Sir Winston Churchill, who was actually in his last year as prime minister. Chomping on his unlit cigar, Churchill looked Graham over with a penetrating eye and then said, and I quote, Young man, I've heard a great deal about these crusades you're having up at Wembley. Now I want to ask you a question. You know the troubled shape the world is in. Personally, I don't think the world has much longer to go. And he paused and said, Can you give an old man any hope?
Let me read further. It seemed to Graham that Churchill was seeking hope not merely for a troubled world, but for an aging and troubled man. So he took out the pocket New Testament. He had with him, always had with him, and showed the prime minister that the Bible offers not only hope for the world in the ultimate triumph of Jesus Christ, but hope for individual human beings in the plan of salvation. If Churchill ever made a decision, Billy Graham never learned about it. Nine years after that singular conversation, Winston Churchill passed away. Ladies and gentlemen, the only hope for anyone is in the bitter sweet word of God.
Can I ask you a question? What have you done with Jesus Christ? Maybe you're resisting him because you don't like the bitter part. Maybe you're resisting the gospel because you don't like that other stuff. You resent it. You resent the call to humble yourself and admit you're a sinner.
I'm not here to convince you or talk you into anything. Only God's spirit can woo you to the Father, but I would pray that you would be like the woman who emailed me. She was so excited, and she said, after years of testimony before my friend, I was able to pray with her to receive Christ as her Savior. I would pray that you would be like the man who sat in my office a few days ago, and after hearing the gospel and talking it over for some time, he bowed his head and prayed right there to make Christ his Lord and Savior. I would pray you'd be like that because this bitter sweet truth is true. There is no other hope apart from Jesus Christ, so what have you done with him? Have you responded to the message of salvation and the offer of eternal life that he's made to you?
Settling that issue is the most important thing you could ever do, and I hope you'll do that today. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Today's message is called Bitter Sweet. Stephen is the senior pastor of the Shepherd's Church in Cary, North Carolina. If you'd like to understand more about the gospel, we have a pamphlet entitled God's Wisdom for Your Heart. It explains the gospel message and the offer of salvation that Jesus Christ brings. If you'd like this pamphlet for yourself, or if you want a supply to be able to share with the people in your life, we have it available and we can give you information. So call us at 866-48-BIBLE. The number once again is 866-482-4253. We also have a website you can use to learn more about our ministry or access our resources. You'll find us online at wisdomonline.org. Join us again next time to discover more Wisdom for the Heart. .
