Revelation 10:8-11 – 2025 Jan 16

This little section of text is normally handled with the preceding verses for the context, so I will summarize what we looked at last time. It has been a while, and I know I have slept since our last study. Not a lot, but I have.

The last time we were together, we saw the strong angel coming down and placing one foot on the land and another on the sea, showing the full dominion of God. He is the angel with the little book, the βιβλαρίδιον [biblaridion], a Greek diminutive of the word biblos, meaning a book or scroll. It is little in size, not importance, and we will see that as we go through the text. We will not see the resulting output from what John will do with the scroll this evening, but we will learn the nature of that output.

We learned that we do not always get to know all the details of the divine plan. John was told not to write down the words of the thunders that apparently spoke words for some reason, and we looked at a few possibilities about why he would be told not to record their words last time. And we do not know what they said, either.

At that time, another angel announced that there would be no delay in the pouring out of the remainder of God’s wrath and taking possession of that which the Lamb died for no longer, the mystery of God is about to be completed in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound. When is that in prophetic history? That is right now in the text. Six of seven angels have sounded and the final, perhaps Gabriel himself, is about to sound.

That is a brief precis of the last set of verses we looked at just to call it to mind. The seventh angel is about to sound, and for those who have been following along, that will happen in our text at 11:15. Before that, well, we have the text for this evening.

I outlined the text this evening as follows:

KV10: The Obedience of God’s Servant and Its Effect

10: 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 made bitter.

8: Instruction is given to the servant

9: The servant obeys the instruction

10: The side effects of obedience

11: The greater context of why we obey

John here is the servant (Gk., doulos) who is doing the obeying, and I want to say a word about that. We all look at John with wonder and admiration, and so we should, but we are the ones that the Lord has reading this text at this time. One of my applications from the text here is already clear at this point, and I will tell you what that is: I must obey the Lord in what He instructs me to do as His servant. Sometimes, that may mean doing things I don’t like to do, or things that are difficult, even impossible, for me. I still have to do them and trust God for the results. John suffered some ill effect here from what our Key Verse says, and that is that bitter stomach. I have issues with my stomach, and I think I know what John meant. It is unpleasant, and it affects your mood, your responses to others around you, and YOU still have to be the patient servant of Christ, and represent Him in everything you do. That might mean you have to say something to people (in my case it usually does), or even more commonly, it might mean I have to NOT say something that will cause a needless meltdown in someone that really doesn’t need that to happen. That’s HARD, especially when that other individual or group is abusing you in some way. You must STILL be the servant of God. That’s one of my (many) applications from this text, and you’re going to hear a few more.

With that said, let’s get into the text and see what John is finding out and then telling us and the information and application that can come from this.

KV10: The Obedience of God’s Servant and Its Effect

10: 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 made bitter.

Remember, God calls us to do what He tells us to do. He is not looking for a debate (though there is room for that, in learning and in prayer). He wants obedience from His servant, regardless of what He tells us to do. Ask the Lord Jesus about that. His Father asked Him to be the atoning sacrifice for OUR sins. He obeyed. When it came to the resulting side effects of His obedience to the Father in this, He showed us that He wasn’t really thrilled with the idea of all the suffering that He did accept and went through anyway. We need to follow His example in obedience. Know that your service for Christ will cause you to suffer, even more as time runs down until His return and the enemy of our souls has more and more free reign to do what he wants. Given that the Lord Jesus did it to eternally benefit us, what is a little bitterness of the stomach (or even being torn apart by wild animals or used for archery or javelin practice) in comparison to that? Polycarp was burned at the stake. They wanted to just burn him, but apparently, the fire wouldn’t stay lit, so they had to run him through with a spear to kill him first, and THEN they lit his corpse on fire. The Lord smiles on the servant who remains faithful. It says in Psalm 115:15, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His godly ones.” We must remember Whose we are and Who has given us direction. He will never ask us anything that will not give Him glory.

Again, let’s look at the text more fully.

8: Instruction is given to the servant

John here is given an imperative, that is, a command. Go and Take the book. What is that book? Given the diminutive use of the Greek, I would equate that analogously as the portion of Scripture you are to read that day (or every day). If you don’t have a reading plan for the Scriptures that works for you, contact me. I have one I have used since 1988 or so, and it is a VERY good plan. It can even be used as a sort of lectionary if you like, although I don’t think that is the way that the author intended it. I’m talking about the M’Cheyne Reading Plan that was developed, deployed, and battle-tested by Robert Murray M’Cheyne of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. It takes you through the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice in one year. I will put in a plug for that one now.

Why is this important? Well, Beloved, if you have been born again or born from above, as all biblical Christians were and still are, then you need to learn about Christ, and there is no better place than the Bible, all of which is about Him, Old or New Covenant! Let’s see.

8: 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.”

The very first thing to notice is that the command is very specific. You, servant John, go and take. It is specific on what to take: the open book (βιβλίον, book or scroll) in the hand of the angel standing on both sea and land. The diminutive is NOT used here in Greek, but it is more than reasonable to understand it is that same little book that it was a moment or so ago when the angel landed and started to give commands to the things around him. The loss of the diminutive in my mind supports my thought from a moment ago, that this is a representation of the Scriptures and a specific daily portion of those Scriptures.
I think it is not unreasonable that the voice from Heaven is telling John to take and read a portion of Scripture. My conjecture, and it is my opinion only, is that He was being given the Book of Daniel, or perhaps Isaiah or Ezekiel, but what we know from the text is that John was to take that book out of the Angel’s hand.
This is NOT to say that it is angels that are teaching us Scripture. THAT is the unique Job of the Holy Spirit, the third person of our triune God. Also, there is a question I have here. Is this something that John experienced and we are to take literal meaning from it, or is it rather something that is an analogy? How do we know? There is no clear formula I am aware of for telling the difference, and perhaps there is no need to distinguish. John may have lived out the experience and it may hold deeper meaning for the reader at the same time. In fact, we have seen this before in the seven letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor, and in other places in the New Testament. Our Lord Jesus points a few of those out in the Sermon on the Mount, the most famous sermon of all time, especially in Matthew 5. Let’s look at that. Matthew 5:27-28 says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Clearly there is an act of adultery, the act of being intimate with another person who is not the person you married. There also seems to be a deeper meaning. If you look at a person with lust for them in your heart (one to whom you are not married), then you have committed adultery in your heart. These are words of the Lord Jesus Himself, beloved. Both things can be true, and tragically for us in this case, they can be true at the same time. In our reading of Scripture, all of our knowledge, all of our abilities in other languages, all of our understanding, and all of our own wisdom is insufficient. The Holy Spirit must guide our thoughts into the truth, and He will do so only when we are ready to receive it. This is one of the reasons we MUST approach our study of Scripture with humility. We know nothing as we should.

So, John has been given a clear command. What will he do with that? That is a question WE must answer for ourselves (and only for ourselves). I have over the years been tempted to help answer some of these questions for people, and there are sometimes reasons I should not do so. Likewise, there have been individuals who tell me a spiritual course of action I must take, at least according to them. Sometimes, it is not worth following their advice. Sometimes it is. How can I know? The same way we can ALL know: through the study of the Scriptures and much prayer. This is the reason I try to hold my tongue at times. I’m not supposed to impede your walk with Christ, you’re supposed to figure some of this out on your own. John had. Let’s see what He did.

9: The servant obeys the instruction

What else would John actually do? He truly was a doulos of our Lord Jesus Christ here. He obeyed. Let’s look.

9: 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 will be sweet as honey.”

John approached the angel and requested(?) the little book from him. The reason I am uncertain that John requested rather than told the angel to give him the book is because the Greek word used is a form of legō. This is only occasionally translated as “to request” in Scripture, at least that I could find. I did not search the LXX. It does, however, mean “to “lay” forth, i.e. (figuratively) relate (in words (usually of systematic or set discourse; whereas 2036 and 5346 [other forms of the word in Greek according to Strong’s Concordance] generally refer to an individual expression or speech respectively…by implication, to mean: to ask, bid, boast, call, describe, give out, name, put forth, say(-ing, on), shew, speak, tell, utter,” according to Vine. I find it hard to imagine that John ordered the angel around. Maybe that’s me being nitpicky, but it is in the text.
There is a thought that the Greek word ἄγγελον in the text simply means “messenger.” There is a Hymn, written in 1910 by Henry Burton that says in its fourth verse, “But His angels here are human, Not the shining hosts above; For the drum beats of His army Are the heartbeats of our love.” That is an interesting observation. John is approaching a messenger of God to receive instruction from the Word of God. We call that attendance at Worship and listening to the Pastor’s sermon sometimes. Interesting, isn’t it?
After that, the angel told John to take the scroll and eat it. This is some evidence in my thinking that this is more allegorical, because the only thing you will get by eating papyrus other than fibre (and there are better sources of fibre) is an upset stomach. What I think the Scriptures are saying here is that we are to digest what we read in the Word of God. We are to take time to chew on the text, as it were, so that we are nourished in the sense that we learn what it has to say, in general, to ourselves individually, and to the church at large. We are to take our direction from it, in other words.
This is also further subsequent instruction for John. When we study Scripture, it will give us applications, which we should take as marching orders from heaven, used in various circumstances that we will face. Those applications can lead to further study and further and more refined instruction, which is most likely a refined understanding of the general principles that we learned in our previous studies. And what those instructions will give us is always good, that is sweet in our mouths like honey. Then when we have to put the principles into practice, it gives us that metaphorical stomach ache, like we ate that papyrus.

Imagine that. And it has other side effects, too. Next thought unit.

10: The side effects of obedience

I know that all of the consequences of the actions that God ordains us to take are all for our benefit, but this verse puts the lie to the prosperity gospel, not that I have to do that for most of my audience this evening. In that prosperity theology, trouble can never touch a child of God. However, it doesn’t work that way because prosperity theology is a lie straight from the pit of hell. Let’s see.

10: 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 made bitter.

John clearly followed the more refined and subsequent instructions given by the messenger of God (you could substitute the word “pastor” there if you like). He tells us so in the text. It went down easily. I think this is a nod to the idea that the true child of God our Heavenly Father will tend to obey Him and do what He says, either by self-study or by messages given by God’s modern-day human angels, pastors that give what I call prophetic ministry. Prophetic ministry is defined as the Scriptures rightly exegeted, or “read out of” by God’s chosen and specifically gifted servant, and explained for the modern and present impact that specific passage has on your life or situation, whatever that may be. True children of God are still sinners saved by grace, but when push comes to shove, they recognize when God is giving instruction and stop resisting the Holy Spirit in His instruction of them. Sometimes that can take a few times around the mulberry bush, too, and that isn’t fun or pretty. Sometimes God has to remove you from a place and put you in another to make the point. Sometimes He has to break a bone that you tried to heal yourself and did wrongly. Don’t worry, He is the Great Physician.
Sometimes, you can pick it up immediately. Sometimes you have real trouble following the commands that God gives you. Sometimes it gives you a rough stomach, caused by all that extra papyrus fiber. Maybe that’s a spiritual laxative to get rid of that skubalon inside you because of the things you are consuming. That is the purpose of fibre, after all. Whatever our particular issue is, this is how the Lord will take care of those who are really His. Now does that sound like the prosperity gospel programs so prevalent on places like Daystar and TBN? No, I don’t think so, and it’s why I don’t watch them either. But Gerry! There are some good guys on there! That’s true, but I also don’t go digging through the garbage for my daily bread, to put a point on that.

The side effects of obedience will be some discomfort and suffering. That is the point. We know it was good. It went down easy, but the effects can be discomfiting. Ultimately, we must realize that God has put us all where we are for a reason, and that is for our ultimate perfection and completion. Our telios, if I may hijack a Greek word. That is what God Himself says He is doing for us. Philippians 1:6 says, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” That word for perfect is a form of the word telios. God knows the path He has for you and is taking you on it because He wants this for you (or it would not be happening according to the 1689 London Baptist Confession, Ch. 3, Paragraph 1). And He will see that you reach the end of that road for His glory whether we like it or not. Beloved, we may as well obey and follow. The alternative is far worse, and so is that end, and we all know it. There are reasons for this road and the things that happen to us on it. Last paragraph.

11: The greater context of why we obey

There are times that for me have been unbearable for me because of who I am. I have had people tell me I’m in a Baptist cult for my beliefs and service to Christ. I’m not, but my uncle was. He was a pastor in the Church of Christ, an offshoot of the General Baptists (read Anabaptists). They teach that you must repent and believe, but you aren’t saved until you are immersed in water or “baptized.” That is a heresy known as baptismal regeneration. Only God saves you, and He doesn’t need water to do that.

I have had people call me a liar. That is true. I have told lies in my life, and that makes me a liar. I’ve had people call me lazy. Occasionally that has also been true. Sometimes it is to my face, sometimes it is behind my back and I find out anyway. Sometimes these things are spoken by those who call themselves brothers in Christ. I once overheard a brother tell another brother I was a “dangerous man” who was going to “hurt a lot of people.” That can be hard to take. However, I will say this: I don’t need any help to know I am not yet in a condition that Paul calls “perfect” or ἐπιτελέω (the form of telios I was talking about a minute or so ago). I know I have not arrived. There are a lot of things that I could say in my own defence here, but I think that is mostly pointless. I will say that I am not lazy. I hold down three part-time jobs just to pay the bills, AND I do this. I’m not lazy, I’m exhausted. This is part of my road to get there, according to God, and except for the sick and exhausted part, I love it. The reason I say that is that one of the marks that qualify a man for the pastorate is that he loves hard work. I can tell you this isn’t easy, but I don’t care because it is not supposed to be. All this to say that there is a greater context in which we must obey (or not I suppose). Let’s see what John wrote.

11: And they *said to me, “You must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.”

John here is given a new ministry task, to use today’s vernacular. I should explain that “ministry” is derived from the Latin word for servant. Greek translates “servant” from the word doulos, meaning slave or servant. The servant is given an order, in other words. We can use our language to sound so religious. This has NOTHING to do with religion in that sense. This is a slave assigned a task by order of his superior(s). Who that is may be subject to some discussion, but I think we will all agree that ultimately because of the kind of task and the individuals involved it originated from God Himself.
John here is told that he is to prophecy, and even told what the prophecy will entail, and this is what makes me think that this is the book of Daniel that he is given, but other places are relevant to this, so it is pure conjecture on my part.

This speaks to me on a very personal level, so I will try to explain. I know I am not John, I am certainly no angel (haha), but I am a doulou Iesou Christou, that is, a servant of Jesus Christ, and I have been called to service to my master as well. My calling comes from Scripture, too, although I am also not Timothy, whom Paul was addressing in the text from which my calling comes. For what it may be worth, I will share the text of it: 2 Tim 4:1-5 says, “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” A lot of what I do is toward that end, and when I am following that service to my Lord Christ, I get a sense that I am fulfilling my God-given destiny. Lofty words, I know, but true nonetheless. I don’t know if I can explain the impact that text still has on me, even though it was written to someone else in the mid 60s. The actual 60s, no number before the 6! I was born approximately 1900 years after that, and that text stops me in my tracks. I feel like Paul is writing directly to me. I don’t know why unless it is the Lord igniting that passion in me to do likewise. It is the reason I get up in the morning, it is the reason I fight through the suffering and sickness I have, and it is the thing that makes me not care about frivolous accusations levelled at me in person or behind my back. It is the life’s task that God has given me, and I MUST respond to the best of my ability, regardless of who says what. It has caused arguments, it has made people hate me, I have lost friends, and I will likely lose more, and I. Do. Not. Care. I MUST follow this command, whatever it takes. I recognize that not everyone has had a call that consumes them like this, and that is okay. I wish I were like that at times. But if I DON’T do this, I can’t sleep at night. I’m in more physical pain than usual. I lose patience with myself and everyone else. I cannot rest. I MUST do what my Lord Jesus has called me to do. I can do nothing else.

John was given a command like this. You must prophesy. You must speak my words to the people so that they may know if they care to listen or read. I think John knew what I feel like at times. He was exiled to a Roman penal colony because he wouldn’t stop doing what our Lord told our Brother to do. And then this vision came. And another, and another! It literally blows me away like powder to know that I share this with John.

And I think, and this is supposition on my part, but still, it is in Scripture, I think that our Lord wants YOU to know it like this also!!! Your service might not be in the pulpit (why so many people think that I have no idea), but it might be making the coffee for the congregational time of fellowship after worship. It might be to cook the food for the occasional luncheon meeting. It might be to audit the books of your congregation or several local congregations! Maybe it is to clean the bathroom every week. Maybe it’s to fix things around the church or for members of the congregation. It isn’t really limited to things that are done in a building owned by the congregation. Whatever it is that God has gifted YOU with is not just for you and your family! It is for the building up of the church! Ephesians 4:7-8, 11-13 says, “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, ‘WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES, AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN.’ And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” Or did you think that list of gifts that were given to the church was complete in that passage? I don’t think it is. You can come out on Sunday if you want to hear more about that; it is my sermon topic on Sunday.

John knew that what he would write would be shared among the churches right from the beginning of the book. He wrote seven copies of this by hand! One for each of the churches recorded in chapters 2 and 3 of the book. Beloved, that kind of work is detailed, it is hard, it is heavy, and it has an effect on you I cannot describe. I have also written a book, and I get it, and mine was nowhere near as big or as important as John’s.

My application is to keep going through the pain and hardship, and there is that in spades, so I ask you to pray for me.

This, though, brings me to a question for YOU! What kind of passion like this has God put in YOUR heart? I don’t know what your path is here, but I know how you can find it because this text gives us that pattern in types and analogies. Read the word. Speak with your Pastor. Speak with others who have real spiritual walks with Christ (as opposed to Bob at Walmart, not that there is anything wrong with Bob, my point is it needs to be someone with real spiritual understanding and experience). Pray! Refine that knowledge, and then DO what your godly leadership says. If you will do that, Philippians 1:6 says God will complete that work in you right up until when Christ returns for you, whatever that means. If you will not, well, I’d rather not talk about that, but someone has to make up the reprobate population. Don’t let it be you.