At the beginning of Revelation 10, John saw “a mighty angel coming down from heaven.” In the angel’s hand was an opened little book. When the angel cried out, “seven thunders uttered their voices”. John was about to write down what he had heard, but a voice from heaven stopped him saying, “do not write them”. We don’t know what the angel or the thunders said, we are not intended to know, it has been purposefully kept from us by God. If God has kept it from us it is because we have not had a need for it.
The voice from heaven then told John to take the little book out of the hand of the angel, and then the angel told John to eat it. Ezekiel was told to do the same thing. Jeremiah declared that he had eaten the words of the LORD. Moses told Israel and then Jesus told the devil that man does not live by bread alone but is sustained by every word that comes out of God’s mouth. What does it mean to eat or be sustained by God’s Word? Are the ways we handle the Scriptures the way that God intended we handle them?
Possibly the most difficult part of this passage is the fact that when John ate the book, it tasted sweet in his mouth but then made his stomach bitter. Are we willing to acknowledge that God’s Word doesn’t make everything better but it reveals the truth in everything, it’s not given for our pleasure but for our strength.
Join us tomorrow night on Facebook Live as we discuss the sweetness and bitterness of Scripture, the painful part of truth and our desperate need to be sustained.