Transcript
Segment 21 - 10.01 - The angel with the scroll
Well, you have there, the first six trumpets blown, all right? Then after the sixth trumpet, there’s a breathing spell once again. You see how it just unfolds the whole story here? There’s a breathing spell before the seventh trumpet is blown. This breathing spell is not like the one after the opening of the six seals, this one goes on a little bit longer, apparently, and he has a different vision here.
Look at chapter 10 for a moment. In this one, he has a different vision. Here he sees another mighty angel who appears with a scroll in his hand and the angel speaks and seven thunders boom, which means another series of judgements is about to come. And here the writer is told to seal, not reveal, the message in the seven thunders. The writer is told to seal, not reveal, because it’s gotta be revealed at the right time, whatever this great cryptic message is.
In the book of Daniel, when Daniel has a number of his visions, he is told to seal those visions up until the end time. And the end time in the book of Daniel was supposed to be around 165 B.C., which was the writer’s time. Now, if you can follow me with this for a moment, but the book of Daniel is set during the time of Babylon, the Babylonian exile. The book of Daniel is placed in the setting of the period of time from approximately 586 to 538 B.C., approximately 586 to 538 B.C., and the whole book of Daniel is an attempt to show that this fellow Daniel was living way back here in the time of the Babylonian exile and that he was able to foretell everything that was going to happen right down to the writer’s present day, which happened to be 165 B.C.
In other words, the writer of Daniel had already known all of this that had happened and he goes back and retells the history as if Daniel was someone living in Babylon in captivity and was able to foresee everything that was gonna happen right on down the line, right to the writer’s day, because the writer of the book of Daniel in 165 believed, just like the writer of Revelation, believes that God was about to reveal himself and overthrow the Jewish persecutors, which in those days, again, happened to be the Greeks.
So back in the book of Daniel, when Daniel was given the visions, which is supposed to be around 586 B.C., something like that, he’s told to seal it up, because it’s not time to reveal it yet. Of course it isn’t, because the writer was writing in 165 B.C., then it’s going to be opened up and the mystery will be revealed, and the mystery simply is that all of these upheavals have to take place and then God will come and set up his kingdom.
Well here, the same thing is happening here now. The writer tells the angel here to seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down. At the end of the book of Revelation, you will see the instruction is given not to seal it up. Why? Because the writer expects it to happen right now. I am coming soon. Not 100 years, 2,000 years or whatever. He expects it to happen right now, so you’ll see in the last chapter, he says, “Don’t seal it up anymore, ‘cause it’s gonna happen right now.” But here he tells them, “It’s not time yet. Hang in there a little bit longer.”
Okay, so this writer is told not to ... is told to seal and not reveal the message in the seven thunders, and the angel says there won’t be any more delay, that now the reign of the anti-Christ, which is Satan’s messiah, the anti-Christ is all but struck. We’re just about ready now for the reign of the anti-Christ. In other words, before God comes, things have to get worse. Remember that thought? Before things got better, things gotta get worse. As I said in the first hour, we can all identify with that in some way. It seems to be our pattern in life. It doesn’t have to be, but we get involved in that.
Then the writer is told to eat the scroll, to eat the scroll, that he’s writing all these things down on. Check that out with the second and third chapters of Ezekiel, because in Ezekiel’s’ visions, he’s told to eat the scroll and so the writer here makes a tie into the old testament once again. Compare this with Ezekiel two and three and you’ll see this business of eating the scroll. He says it’s sweet and bitter, ‘cause the scroll represents divine guidance and sometimes divine guidance can be sweet and bitter, depending upon how we interpret it. It can be bitter in that sometimes divine guidance will lead us to do something we really don’t want to do.
“Oh Lord, do I have to go in that direction?” Because of some anxieties and fears that we have, it could be bitter then, so the taste of eating the scroll, of assimilating divine guidance, can be bitter at times, and at times it can be very sweet. You hear the word of God from within you and it’s about as sweet as you can imagine it to be and you just follow through on divine guidance.
