Some people find the Book of Revelation hard to swallow. Yeah, now I used to get a magazine called Reader's Digest. You're supposed to digest that one? Kind of a clip from other magazines and newspapers and stories and books and there the thing would arrive in the mail. My mother got it for years and years and years and I liked especially the jokes. All right, that was meant to be kind of swallowed, that is digested. Digested by the mind. But here in this reading from Ezekiel and the second reading from Revelation, there's a vision report of eating the scroll, swallowing the scroll, and it's not sweet and sour like in your local Chinese restaurant, which is kind of nice to have the contrast. It's sweet, delightful in the mouth, but bitter in the stomach. As it turns, the prophet's sick. And what we see here is something like this, that the revelation of God, yes, it's always sweet and true, but the ministry of God that is speaking the word of God to people who hate God, that's Ezekiel's message, right? There he is in exile in Babylonia. talking to Jews who've been exiled because of their sins. Jerusalem is about to be destroyed. Okay, eat the scroll, Ezekiel, and I'll make your forehead as hard as their foreheads. Okay, that's headbutting, you know, worldwide wrestling type stuff, right? The headbutt. I'll make your forehead as hard as their foreheads, your face as hard, as severe as theirs, and you'll win the headbite. The headbutt is that metaphor there in Ezekiel 2 and 3. I once saw a letter to an editor I'd read in an archaeological magazine. Dear sir, when I pulled your latest issue out of my mailbox, I literally devoured it from cover to cover. The editor wrote back, I hope the chemicals in the ink didn't ruin your digestion. All right, well, we don't really mean we literally eat such things, and I'm not going to ask you your favorite recipe for baked scroll. That's not what the stuff is really about. It's metaphor, it's image, it's vision. And what we have in this odd book of the Bible called Revelation and that odd book called Ezekiel, books rarely preached, I'll say. is what might qualify as some of the oddest stories in these two odd books. Revelation 10 might qualify as the book of Revelation's oddest of all odd stories, a giant angel who holds a tiny book, a scroll in his hand. We shouldn't think of a book like this with a binding, but rather a scroll book like in ancient Judaism. You unroll it like a roll of paper towels. He holds this little scroll in his hand. It's going to be unrolled. And he roars like a lion, his face like the sun. And he commands John the revelator to eat the scroll. Now, ancient scrolls are made from split calf skin, especially the young calf whose skin is gentle and soft. We would say veal comes from that. And so the leather is called vellum. Is this a meal of well-cooked veal? No, this is a meal that reveals. That's a terrible joke. All right. But what on earth is the story about? It's about the revelation of the will of God to the world. By the end of the story, okay, you're going to preach again. You're going to prophesy about nations and kings and languages and peoples. And that fourfold list peppers the book of Revelation and other books of the Bible. It's the fourfold list of universal coverage. Okay, we talk about that in US healthcare, universal coverage. The gospel in those phrases is one that will achieve universal coverage. And that fourfold list comes from the ancient Near Eastern designation of the whole world as the four corners of the world. All right, so nations, languages, kings, peoples. Book of Daniel speaks that way about the rule of the one like a son of man, the Messiah, who is the Christ. And here in Revelation 10, you're going to prophesy. Yeah, nations, peoples, languages, kingdoms, universal coverage. And so the effect of this story is to promise, not just to John the Revelator, but to us, that the gospel will in fact go forth to all the world, hallelujah. It cannot fail to go forth. It will go forth. And the revelation of this Bible's oddest story, perhaps, is that. And so John eats a scroll. And happily, the eating takes place inside a vision, a dream, a revelatory dream. But the scroll-swallowing visionary still finds the experience disturbing. Why? because he is to embody the Word of God. The metaphor is that he will eat it, and we all know that old American proverb, you are what you eat. He is to become the living Word of God to the peoples to whom he has sent, which is, of course, everywhere. Nations, kingdoms, languages, peoples, the fourfold list. He is to embody the Word of God. He is to live it and in a certain way be it. And so the eating of the scroll is the metaphor for prophetic and apostolic ministry. We might even say the preaching ministry, the evangelistic ministry of the church, metaphor of being so filled with the Word of God that we are it to the world. Wow. Wow. So I saw this mighty angel coming down from heaven, robed in a cloud, rainbow above his head, face like the sun, legs like fiery pillars, holding the little scroll, right foot planted upon the sea, left foot upon the land, roaring like a lion, seven thunders, and other odd things in our story. So we have four questions. First question, who is the angel? Second question, what is the scroll? Third question, Why is John to eat the scroll? I guess I've already spilled the beans on that. Fourth question, what is the effect of this literary dinner of eating the sweet and sour scroll? And when we discern the answers to these four questions, we discern something immensely powerful about the work of the gospel in the world, and it is beautiful. So first, who is the angel? We've got clues. First of all, He comes down from heaven. Second, He's robed in a cloud. Third, He's got a rainbow crown. Fourth, He's got face like a sun. Fifth, legs like fiery pillars. And when we look elsewhere in the book of Revelation, we see in chapter 1 verse 7 that Jesus is coming with the clouds and every eye will see Him. In Ezekiel 1.28, the vision of God that calls Ezekiel to become a prophet appears with rainbow in the clouds. And in Revelation 1.16, Christ, in the opening vision of that mysterious book, in His right hand, He holds seven stars, and His face shines like the sun, shining in all its brilliance. And in Revelation 1.15, this vision of Christ among the lampstands has His feet shining like polished bronze. Oh, that's what's going on here in chapter 10. And the clincher in the passage is verse 3. Who roars like a lion in a book like this? There's only one lion, and it's chapter 5 that mentions the lion of the tribe of Judah. Who is this angel? This angel actually is Christ written in code. And like one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Colossus of Rhodes, Jesus is presented in a form like the Colossus of Rhodes. Maybe you know those seven wonders of the ancient world, you know, the pyramids upon that list and hanging gardens of Babylon, and the Colossus of Rhodes, which was erected on the island of Rhodes, just around the corner from Patmos, if you're traveling the Mediterranean Sea by boat. I've flown over the island a bunch of times on my way to and from Israel, but I've never landed there. But this large, large island with one huge port on the north end of it and an ancient city that was one of the wealthiest cities in the world, and in 280 BC, they erected the world's tallest statue, 108 feet high. bronze polished. So it was brilliant like the sun and the image was the image of Helios, the god of the sun. And you can imagine if you had a job in Rhodes polishing the bronze on that statue. It'd be like the painters on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. They're never out of work. You finish the bridge in seven years, and you start all over again, right? Permanent job painting the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm sure the polishers of that bronze had a full-time job, and you retired and gave it to your son. All right, so there was a great victory of the Persians in 305 BC, so they celebrated and gave thanks to their god, the god Helios, the god of the sun. It was as tall as the Statue of Liberty. Wow. And it was inscribed with this blasphemous claim upon it, to you, O son, in Greek, Helios, The people of Dorian Road set up this bronze statue reaching to Olympus when they had pacified the waves of war and crowned their city with the spoils taken from the enemy. Not only over the seas but also on land did they kindle the lovely torch of freedom and independence for to the descendants of Hercules belongs dominion over sea and land." Wow. Okay, so the sun god, that's claimed for him. What's the angel do? He shines like the sun. foot upon sea, foot upon land. The right foot upon the sea, the left foot upon the land, which have turned him, if he's on roads, it would turn him toward Patmos in the geography of that space. And if you were traveling the land road around Turkey, you would have seen that statue. That is, until it collapsed in an earthquake about 100 years later. And the ruins of that statue became famous, just all by themselves, the ruins. People came to see the ruins. And the bronze, okay, here's the wreck of the statue. People would go put their arms around the thumb of the hand. You couldn't quite get your arms around it, the ancients reported. And that bronze sat there in ruins, oxidizing for the next 800 years until the Muslims conquered the island and carted the stuff away. 900 camel loads of bronze carted away. from the Colossus of Rhodes. All right, now John is obviously aware of that statue. It was a famous, famous thing, and he would have passed by Rhodes or even in Rhodes on his sea journeys around Ephesus to and from Ephesus to the Holy Land where he had been born, and that would have been well known to him. That is, this angel is based upon the image of the statue. But whereas the statue was blasphemous, idolatrous, Here in Revelation 10, we have the myth, the danger, the error corrected. Who is the real one who rules over land and sea, who places his foot in dominion upon both, and whose face shines brighter than the sun is, of course, Jesus Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, who holds in his hand what is now an opened scroll. Now if you know something of this book, you know that in chapter 5 of Revelation, God from His throne, the Father, holds a sealed scroll of seven seals. And the mystery there is who is worthy to take the book and open the seals and unroll the book. And John begins to weep because there's no one worthy, and an angel says to him in chapter 5, oh, stop weeping. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed, and he is worthy to take the book and open its seals. And John turns around expecting to see a lion, and he sees the Lamb of God. And the Lamb is presented there in the middle of the Father's throne. That's the deity of Jesus. And he takes the scroll from the Father's hand. breaks open the seals one by one, and the scroll is unfurled. Now we see the same Christ but under a different image, the lion-roaring angel who rules land and sea, and now the book is open. So what is the book? What's the scroll? Take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel standing on sea and land. What is in, what is written in this book? It's the destiny of the world. It's identified later in our story as the mystery of God, which has been proclaimed And that verb proclaim in our story is actually the very verb to proclaim the gospel, to proclaim the good news, euangelizumai, to evangelize. The message of the scroll is going to be evangelized in all the world, says our text, and that is the content of the mystery of God, which is the message of the scroll. And we see that when the seventh angel will sound his trumpet, as mentioned here in 10, Well, we turn to the next page. And what is proclaimed in heaven when that last trumpet of angels sounds its message? Chapter 11, verse 15, the seventh angel sounded his trumpet and there were loud voices in heaven which said, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ and He will reign forever and ever. Now, if you've ever sung the Hallelujah Chorus, you know those words. John copied them from George Frederick Handel. No, no, that's not it. George Frederick Handel copied them from John's Revelation. For us, that seventh trumpet is future. It's the last trumpet. Paul refers to it in 1 Corinthians 15. When the last trumpet sounds, the voice of the archangel, the dead in Christ will rise. We shall be changed. That's the event. That's the Second Coming, the conservation of the Kingdom of God upon earth. And it's final judgment for impenitent, yes, but it's everlasting salvation for those who have repented and believed in good news. And what is the proclamation? The kingdom of the world. All that paganism, all that unbelief, all that resistance that we read of in the book of Ezekiel, foreheads hard like flint, all that, God defeats it in a vast number of people. And the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ and He shall reign forever and ever." The content of the scroll is this. The destiny of the world to become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. That, friends, is beautiful. But as evil cannot win, evil does not win. Jesus wins. I kind of have a bit of local notoriety on that sentence. It is my particular summary of the entire book of Revelation, nine letters, three syllables, two words, Jesus wins. That's the message of the book in a nutshell. And so in this presentation of the scroll, which John is to eat, we have the declaration that the gospel will go forth to the nations and there shall be massive repentance by the end. Now in the meantime, we have that angel speaking forth seven thunders. Did you notice that in verses 3 and 4? Seven thunders spoke, and I was about to write them down, write their message down. But I heard a voice from heaven say, seal up the seven thunders and do not write it down. Okay. redirects John. And if you know a bit of your book of Revelation, you know that there's a series of, what, seven letters, seven seals, seven trumpets, which are from chapters, what, 8 through 11. The seven seals are chapters 6 through 8, 1. The seven trumpets, chapters 8 through 11. The seven bowls of wrath are coming up. There's chapters, what, 15 through 18 or something like that. And the seven, seven, seven, seven, each one more intense in visions of wrath upon sin, upon impenitent sin. And here it seems that the angel proposes yet one more series of seven, seven thunders, which would intensify the judgments of God, wouldn't it? What we have then in this symbol is the idea that even amidst the wrath of heaven, heaven is merciful and restrains the fullness of its wrath. The book of Revelation would have been a lot longer had we had stories of seven thunders, each one spelled out like the seven seals and the seven trumpets and the seven bowls of wrath. We don't get it. Heaven says, don't write that down. That is, don't put that in the book. Ain't going to happen. It's a mercy even upon the wicked that the full extent of wrath is withheld for a while. And why is it withheld? The gospel may be proclaimed in all the world. Chapter 10, and so we have the declaration in 10, there shall then be no delay. There shall be no delay. That is, after the sixth trumpet, the world shall be consummated as the kingdom of God. Mercy shall work its triumph, and so there shall be no delay. Now the King James Version says there, the time shall be no more. Older versions sometimes say, there'll be no more time. And so even gospel hymns use that. When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and what? Time shall be no more. And the Saved of Earth, again, the morning breaks eternal, bright and fair. The Saved of Earth are gathered on the other shore and the roll caught up yonder. All right, so the Old Gospel hymn says, when time shall be no more. They're using Revelation 10 in a mistaken translation. If you're in a football game and someone calls time, what's it mean? Delay, right? and the word chronos here in Greek, okay, the word for, you know, we get chronology from that, okay, time, chronos, there'll be no more chronos. Here the use of the word is not as absolute time because everybody finite, anybody who's not God has timefulness, right? Memory of past, expectation of future, consciousness of present, that's timefulness Maybe the times will change when Christ returns, but there's still timefulness and we'll remember the past and we'll expect the future and we'll experience the present. It's impossible for a finite person to have timeless life. We have everlasting life. That is, it endures forever without end. God alone is eternal, timeless. We are timeful in the everlasting life. So are the wicked in their punishment. But when the text says, King James Version, there'll be no more time, really the translation is there'll be no more delay. Delay of what? Delay of fulfillment. What's the next sentence? In the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished just as he announced, just as he proclaimed the gospel to his servants, the prophets. And what is the mystery of God that shall be accomplished? That the gospel will reach the world. and that multitudes will hear and believe and enter the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Time as delay, that's the point. The coach calling time in a football game, and there our use of time in that way matches Revelation 10.6's use of time. A pause in the play, a delay of the game. What's the text mean? No more delay. Let the gospel come to all the world. Let the world turn in faith. Let the mystery of God reach its proper goal. Let the consummation arrive, the seventh trumpet. Final judgment, final salvation, hallelujah. say the saints and angels. And so that's the book. And I've already spilled the beans on the rest, haven't I? Okay, I meant to take my four questions in order. I've gotten out of order. All right, I'm kind of out of order anyway. So why is John to eat the scroll? That's my third question, to embody the message. And isn't that why you send those who wish to be pastors to seminary? to learn the message deeply? Isn't that why the Presbyterian tradition requires such things as Greek and Hebrew? So that the preachers of the gospel are not bound to English versions or whatever translation of the language might be, but get it from the lion's mouth or the horse's mouth as the metaphor might be. Why is it that Paul tells young Timothy to study, to show yourself approved, a workman who needs not be ashamed, who correctly handles the word of truth? Those who preach the gospel are to be filled with the message, the knowledge of the gospel and to know it accurately and to be able to express it with clarity and power and spiritual discernment. Alright, so eat the scroll, embody it. That's the call, especially for the pastor, but is it not also the call for the Christian? That is that the word of God should direct our life from the inside out, that we should love this message even though it causes bitterness and difficulty, that it be sweet to our mouth. even though sometimes bitter as we speak it to friends and family and loved ones and strangers in whatever situations we find. And so we're called upon to eat the scroll, to embody the gospel of the Lord and the effect of our message. All right, verse 11, you must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages, kingdoms. And so in our story. The four questions again. Who is the angel? The angel is Christ who roars like the lion and shines like the sun, far better than Helios. And what is the little scroll that is now unrolled? The book of the world's destiny to become the kingdom of the Lord. And why is John told to eat the sweet and sour scroll? To fill him with the Word so he may proclaim it faithfully. And what is the effect of this literary dinner? True and powerful proclamation of the gospel to the very ends of the earth. And that is beautiful. Because in the gospel we have the power of God for salvation. And so in chapter 7 and many other portions within this book we see what a great multitude, no one can count. from every tribe and tongue and language and people." And what are they doing? They're before the throne of God and before the Lamb praising God for His mercies in Jesus Christ. That makes this book of Revelation then not one of wrath and terror the way it's so often presented to audiences like ours within this North American world. Revelation is often preached as doom and gloom. Disaster. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, there are dire judgments within it upon the impenitent. But in this chapter, we see that the message of the gospel will be effective, and conversion will be massive. And we here in this place are already testimony to that. Would John have ever thought that the gospel would be so effective in a place called, what, Boardman, Ohio, the ends of the earth, absolute Siberia for John? Okay, we're what, 6,000 miles away from Patmos, some such set of miles? Would he ever have thought that here in Ohio, a name that didn't exist, there'd be congregations of the Lord Jesus attending to his book? We ourselves are testimony. And in my file of sermons on revelation, I have a document from a Chinese source that tells me that the population of China is about 1.2 billion, and their estimate, their scholarly estimate for the number of Christians inside China is 105 million. That's 9% of the Chinese population. Basically, one in 11 within China, within communist China, is Christian by that estimate. Some estimate far more. Some say 140 million. Of course, 120 years ago, how many Christians were in China? It was a very short list. And in 1905, I believe, the Boxer Rebellion, the Western missionaries in Northern China were beheaded, man, woman, and child. And those in Southern China fled. Missions abandoned China in 1905 in the Boxer Rebellion. Thank God they were back within a year. Christiana the Almost Absent in China in 1905. Christianity now, 9% of population, 105 million? And you can imagine how faithful that assembly would be. Hard to be a Christian there. That 105 million, yeah, they bear the cross and they know it. And I wonder if on some Sunday mornings worldwide, Whether there are more Chinese gathering in churches, whether legally or illegally inside that persecuting country, more Christians gathering for worship on a Sunday morning there than here. I don't know the numbers. But I wonder, and I think someday that might be true even. And so the gospel goes forth. The mystery of God will be accomplished. So some applications now. Jesus Christ, of course, rules much better than Helios. One day Helios gave his son the chariots of the sun. You know what happened? The son couldn't, that is his S-O-N son, couldn't quite drive those fiery steeds and they came too near the earth and it was burnt and then they flew too high in the sky and people froze and he had to take over the chariot again. Helios didn't rule the world very well. But should Christians have confidence in the reign of King Jesus to bring the world to its destined goal? Yeah. And the destiny is Christ's merciful kingdom. And then we have, of course, the duty of repentance. The judgments of seals and trumpets and bowls of wrath are meant to induce repentance. to enter the gospel, to enter the kingdom of God. What are the conditions? Jesus says it clearly, the time has come, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, repent and believe the good news. Mark chapter 1 verse 15, those are the opening red letters. If you've got a red letter Bible, those are the opening red letters, first page of gospel of Mark, repentance, faith. Matthew does the same, Luke does the same, John does the same. Without repentance, we are not in God's redemptive kingdom. The judgments of seals and trumpets and bowls is meant to induce repentance. In chapter 10 and in chapter 11, the nations do repent and the mystery of God is achieved. So let us then pray that prayer, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Lord, I repent, help my impenitence. Because neither our faith nor our repentance is yet perfected. We who are in Christ, We have more believing and more repenting to do. And those who are outside of Christ have a need to believe and to repent. That is the duty every day of the Christian, repentance and faith. That never goes away. But they are also gifts from God. Third, confidence in our own mission as a church of Jesus. Are you confident of your congregation's mission as a church of Jesus? You should be. That is our preaching, our living the gospel, our bearing witness to friends and neighbors and whoever. These things participate in the mystery that is declared in that heavenly scroll that it shall be achieved. That we too are part of the grand and glorious plan of the Savior who shall indeed rule the world in mercy forever and ever. We are not outside that glorious plan. We are part of it. And believe me, most congregations of King Jesus are less than 100 people. That's the stat. That's not just true in this country but in all places, all times. And to be part of a small congregation, we're not big here, are we? We're not. But as Zechariah asks, who despise the day of small things? That is, God through many, many, many small things has worldwide impact. And believe me, the best pastoring typically goes on in small congregations, not the megachurches, where you slip through the seams and out the cracks and out the back door and no one knows. Who despise the day of small things? Confidence in your own mission as a church of Jesus Christ and as a disciple of Jesus Christ, that you're living the gospel, that you're speaking the gospel, participates in the mystery declared in the scroll. And what does the angel, what does the heavenly voice say about that? The mystery of God will be accomplished. That verb accomplished in our Greek text, the same verb that Jesus shouts from the cross, Telestai, some of you know that from Evangelism Explosion, right? It is finished, it is accomplished, it's achieved. Same verb here, different grammatical form, but same verb. The mystery of God will be brought to Telestai. That is, it shall be achieved. And what Jesus did on the cross will have everlasting worldwide effect in the mercy of God. Do you believe that the gospel is powerful? Do you believe that the gospel is the most powerful force in human history? You ought to because it is true. Let us then rest in this Jesus. Father, we bow before you with love and with gratitude because your mystery will be achieved, namely the gospel to the nations, and we rejoice in the fact that you include even us as disciples, as individuals, as families of faith, as a congregation of the Lord Jesus, and that we participate by your mercies and by your love in bringing about the mystery of God. So bless us then, Lord, with confidence in these things. and help us to live then and bear witness then in these ways for not only our own good, though that be true, and for the good of those to whom we minister, though that be true too, but especially for the glory of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns forever, who is coming again to judge the living and the dead, and of whose kingdom there shall be no end. Amen.