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Sermon preached on Revelation 10 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 03/02/2025 in Petaluma, CA..
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
We come now to another interlude. Remember that between the sixth and seventh seals we had a one-chapter interlude that contained two scenes. Here, we again have an interlude that can also be considered as two scenes, with today’s chapter being the first scene, and the second scene starting next chapter where we see two witnesses prophesying on earth. Taken together, they present a picture of the church’s witness on earth even under persecution, but a witness that is done in union with Christ and sharing in his sufferings. And let me again remind us that we shouldn’t be thinking simple chronology here, as if this interlude is describing something that is to occur chronologically between the sixth and seventh trumpets. While that overarching timeline is still in mind as we see mentioned in verse 7, today’s passage describes something of the prophetic witness that John, and by extension the church today, is called to be doing during this entire age before Christ’s return. So, like the earlier interlude, this one effectively rewinds us back in time again to the entire period between Christ’s first and second comings. That will also be the case in the second scene of the interlude that we’ll study next time with the two witnesses.
We begin in our first point to consider the mighty angel that appears in verses 1-2. Let us appreciate the extremely glorious nature of this angel. This angel is described wearing a cloud. Jesus will later come in the clouds. This angel has a rainbow over his head. Around the heavenly throne of God was a rainbow. This angel has a face like the sun. Jesus in chapter 1 was pictured as a heavenly son of man with a face shining like the sun in full strength. This angel has pillars of fire. I remember God led Israel in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. As he comes to earth, he puts one foot on the sea and one food on the land – understand that in grand apocalyptic imagery. His voice is like a roaring lion. All of this describes one mighty angel, indeed.
Some have wondered if it describes more than an angel. Some see the exalted language that sounds like both Jesus and God and have thought this mighty angel may actually be Christ himself. While that is a possible interpretation, an arguably better interpretation is that this is indeed an angel as described, but painted so exaltedly to emphasize how he especially represents the victorious Jesus, that worthy and exalted Lamb. That’s what I am inclined to think. Messengers who stand in the glory of God usually reflect God’s glory in some way. Remember, even the human Moses had that fading glory after being in God’s presence. This angel’s exalted description may reflect one who comes on behalf of the LORD God Almighty and especially the Lamb.
Professor Dennis Johnson agrees and ties this back in with the start of the book, where in Revelation 1:1 it told us how we have this book of Revelation. There we were told God gave the revelation to Jesus who gave it to his angel who gave it to John who then gave it to all of us. Dennis Johnson suggests this chapter images that chain of delivery when you connect this chapter back with chapter 5 when God gave that scroll to Jesus to open as the only one worthy to open it. Now, this chapter arguably shows an angel sent from Jesus with a scroll to give to John. Thus, chapters 5 and 10, taken together, present the full chain of delivery described in Revelation 1:1, God, to Jesus, to his angel, to John, to us.
We first see a connection with chapter 5 in verse 1. Did you notice the word “another”? John saw “another” mighty angel. He’s seen lots of angels so far, but only one other has been identified as a “mighty angel”. Yes, that’s right, it’s back in chapter 5. Chapter 5’s heavenly throne room scene began with an unopened scroll seen in God’s right hand followed by a mighty angel asking, also with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the scroll? Ultimately, Jesus was determined worthy to open the scroll and we saw him remove seal by seal until all the seals were removed. Interestingly, there was no further reference to a scroll until now.
Here then, this “another mighty angel” who looks so much like God and the Lamb now holds a scroll. But this scroll is already opened. And now the scene is here on earth not in heaven. And now the scroll is called a little scroll. In the Greek, this word for little scroll is the diminutive for scroll. That means you add a few letters to convert a word into a smaller, more endearing, version of the word. This is like pig versus piglet or taco versus taquito, or maybe better in this case, book versus booklet. So instead of scroll like chapter 5, we now see a little scroll. Or do we? Some scholars have pointed out that there are some ancient manuscripts with an alternate reading of simply “scroll” and not the diminutive. Some argue that is the better reading and that our chapter sees John receiving that same, now opened, scroll. Yet, while that is plausible, I don’t believe that is the best explanation of the manuscript evidence. I do believe the best reading is the diminutive reading as we have expressed in all the major English translations. But I don’t think that loses the connection with chapter 5’s scroll. Christ was worthy to receive and open the scroll. Christians then receive in turn a little scroll from him (through his angel). The church receives something of the message and ministry of Christ to the world along with a share in his victory. This emphasizes our union and connection with Christ without equating us with Christ. It’s like how we can share in the sufferings of Christ, but that doesn’t mean we identically suffer as he did. That’s my long way of saying that this can be a “little scroll” while stilling seeing a clear connection with the scroll Jesus received and opened back in chapter 5.
So then, in our first point we see that this exalted angel is probably not Jesus himself, but an angel representing him to give a message to John. This chapter then parallels chapter 5. As God gave a scroll to Jesus, now Jesus gives to us a little scroll, through his angel. What Christ did with that scroll from chapter 5 will now find an echo in what John and by extension the church will do with this little scroll.
Let’s continue thinking though this all as we turn now to verses 3-7 and look at these seven thunders and this oath. In the context of this mighty angel beginning to speak there are seven thunders that sound. But no sooner are they sounded that John hears they are not to be written down but instead to be sealed up. Elsewhere in Scripture, God’s voice is likened as thunder, sometimes with a judgment connotation. Psalm 29 is one example where there is a seven-fold reference to God’s “voice” as thunder. So, what it appears is that these seven thunders were going to be another cycle of seven things like we’ve had with the seals, and then the trumpets, and will have with the seven bowls. It sounds like here there was a potential spawning of seven thunders to work through in a similar way.
Why do the thunders get sealed up and not written down? One possibility is that this is a reminder of how God doesn’t tell us every detail of the coming future. Like how Deuteronomy 29:29 tells us that the secret things belong to God, but the revealed things belong to us so we can live by them. It’s possible that God seals us these thunders as a way to not fully disclose every mystery to us. Verse 7 does mention how God has revealed certain mysteries.
A different, option, is that this sealing up of these seven thunders reflects God cutting short the judgments on earth that come before the final judgment. Presumably, these seven thunders would have revealed a further escalating of judgment before the end comes. After the seventh trumpets, the last cycle of seven bowls will emphasize their finality of judgment. They will present a picture of completing the plagues of judgment. One could imagine that if there were an intervening set of seven more thunders that they would have been further escalating judgments of God that effectively served to delay the final judgment while making things all the worse on earth before the end. Right after this, we see the oath by the angel that there will be no more delay. This may be explaining why the thunders are sealed up. Back in chapter 5, the scroll had to be unsealed, and the unsealing led to many judgments. But now, here that is reversed, that these thunders are sealed up and not let out. That may represent a hastening to the end, i.e. no more delay.
This, in fact, may correlate with the prophesy Jesus gave in the Olivet Discourse when he spoke about the final tribulation coming upon this world. He prophesied that those days would be cut short, especially for the sake of the elect, otherwise no one would be saved. It may be that these seven thunders are not unleashed as to describe how God’s judgments on this world are cut short before the final judgment arrives, ultimately for the wellbeing of God’s elect who are still here on earth.
So, while I am not certain, I tend to lean toward this interpretation, that in God’s eternal decree he envisioned the possibility of these additional escalating judgments that could have been also poured out on the world, but in his mercy he held them back, so that the final day of judgment would come all the more quickly. Indeed, this oath by the angel is taken in God’s name, to emphasize the impending fulfillment of God’s revealed plans when that seventh trumpet sounds.
Verse 7 describes that final trumpet sounding as the mystery of God being fulfilled and connects that with the information that had been given to the prophets. I think we especially can think of those many Old Testament prophets who were told so many wonderful things. God announced to the prophets many judgments that would come on the wicked, unbelieving nations. God also announced to the prophets that he would save and exalt a people of his own possession, governed under a new covenant, led by a Messiah King from the line of David, and brought to dwell in a land of peace and blessedness in the full, in a state far better than they had ever known. This would become an everlasting state from which they could never fall, and it would be a place where righteousness would reign. Such a glorious future was inaugurated in principle at Christ’s first coming. But it won’t come in the full until that final trumpet sounds.
That future seems like it has been so delayed in coming. We’ve long waited for it now as the church of Jesus Christ. The troubles of this world seem so great. But in God’s good plan, there is soon coming a time when there will be no further delay. And this has not just been stated here. It has been sworn to here. What an oath taken by this representative of Christ in verse 6! He, “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.” (We are reminded that oaths themselves are an act of worship.) This is similar to an oath taken in Daniel 12, but there it spoke of how the end was not for a while. But here, this oath declares the timeliness of the end. Let us believe God will not have us wait a second longer than his perfect plan requires.
Let us turn now in our third point, to considers how John is directed to take and eat this bittersweet little scroll in verses 8-11. The direction to take the scroll comes from heaven in verse 8. In verse 10, John obeys and takes it. It is again reminiscent of how the Lamb took the scroll from God’s right hand in chapter 5. But there is something different too. This time, the angel tells John he should not only take it, but eat it. And he is warned that it will be bitter in his stomach, though sweet to the taste.
This command to eat the scroll is different, but it is not the first time something like this happened. We had just referenced the Old Testament prophets, and indeed this is similar to the experience of the prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel chapter 3. People sometimes incorrectly act like Ezekiel’s scroll is just sweet unlike John’s which is sweet but then turns bitter. Yet if you read Ezekiel 3 closely, you see the same bittersweet experience. Ezekiel first eats a scroll that is sweet. When you read on in Ezekiel, it says he was given the scroll to eat as an explanation of how God is sending him with a message of judgment upon wayward Israel and that Israel won’t not listen to him. God tells Ezekiel not to fear Israel even when they won’t listen to him. So the section ends in Ezekiel 3:14 with Ezekiel heading out on his mission with “bitterness” in his spirit. So, the sweet scroll Ezekiel eats also brings him inner bitterness. John here is apocalyptically experiencing the same sort of thing in this vision.
This bittersweet scroll is explained in verse 11. “And they said to me, ‘You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.’” John is being told, like Ezekiel, there is yet more prophesying to be done. John, and by extension the church in this age, has been yet commissioned by Jesus to prophesy. Whereas Ezekiel was sent to rebellious Israel, John and we the church are being sent to all the world. Let me add that while prophesying can include prediction of the future, more fundamentally it is about heralding the revelation God has given, whether that has a predictive element or not. To say it another way, if we don’t ever receive another new revelation from God, the church has everything it needs to prophesy to the world between now and the end. In fact, I don’t believe we are going to get any more new revelation, that’s the idea of the canon being closed, of cessationism. This is why I believe the Bible reveals that every Christian is a prophet, not in the sense of someone who is regularly receiving new revelation, but that each of us are called to speak forth God’s Word and the gospel to this world. True, most of us are not preachers or evangelists or missionaries who are especially called to an authoritative speaking ministry. But the church as a group and every Christian individually contributes to this prophetic calling in some way.
While yes, some in the world will hear our words and believe, the bitterness described here is foretelling us that many will not believe. And just like how God warned Ezekiel not to fear those who don’t receive his message, we can read between the lines and recognize that some people who reject our message will hate and persecute us because of it. There is a bitterness that comes with our prophetic ministry as Christians.
Trinity Presbyterian Church, in conclusion, there is a way that John, and thus all the church, is likened here to the Old Testament prophets in their revealing of divine mysteries to the world. But even more excitingly, there is a way that John, and thus all the church, is likened here to the Lamb who was worthy to open the scroll. The Lamb, who in himself was the revelation of the mystery of God, first tasted bitterness before entering the sweetness of his subsequent glory. Our Lamb and Lord has given us a sweet ministry that will indeed bring us some bitterness during this age.
Yet, this is what our Savior has called us to do. If we should share in the sufferings of Christ, does it not just remind us of our union with him? Indeed, this passage relates us to Jesus. However bittersweet this ministry is, let us remember that the bitterness is fleeting. But the sweetness will endure even after the bitterness has long faded away. Let us then be busy as a church prophesying of the coming of Jesus Christ even while we patiently wait for that final trumpet to sound. It will not be delayed but will sound on schedule. Indeed, our God has sworn to it.
Amen.
Copyright © 2025 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
