Let's Study Revelation (Chapter 10) by E. G. Cook

CHAPTER TEN     After the sixth seal was opened we have the parenthetical passage in chapter 7. Now after the sixth trumpet is sound ed we have another parenthetical passage from 10:1 to 11:12. Here we see a mighty angel come down from heaven. There is so much speculation as to who this angel is. Some say he is Christ, while other writers say he could not be Christ. It is true that usually in the Old Testament when Christ is spoken of as an angel He is designated as the Angel of the Lord. There is, however, at least one exception to this rule. In Genesis 18 we see three angels visiting Abraham. One of these three angels was the Lord Himself according to verses 22 and 33.
    This angel's appearance certainly resembles the appearance of our Lord in 1:13-15, but some commentators say this does not necessarily prove this angel to be Christ because the angel in 18:1 lightens up the earth with his glory. It is true that some of the angels have great power and glory. So it seems, on the surface, that it is impossible for us to know just who this angel is. But verse 3 of chapter 11 should remove all doubt as to who he is. Here we read "I will give power unto my two witnesses." A created angel would be as much out of place making this statement as the pope of Rome is in all of his gloating and boasting. Created angels have no witnesses to send any where. It is the angel who is the Lord of glory that has the witnesses to send whithersoever He wishes to send them.
    It seems that there are those who spend more time trying to determine what has not been revealed than they do trying to understand that which is revealed. Verse 4 tells us that John was about to write what the seven thunders had uttered, but he was not permitted to do so. The old devil would like so much to have us waste our time trying to figure out what it was that John was not permitted to write. You see while we are doing that we are not learning anything about what has been written. So, in order that we may not be too pleasing to old Satan, let us be more concerned about that which is written, and in doing so we will be more pleasing to our Lord.
    This one who has one foot on the sea and the other on the earth swares by the creator of all things, that is, by Himself that there shall be no longer delay. Our Authorized version says "time no longer", and the word CHRONOS does mean time, but it also means delay. In verse 4 of chapter 20 we learn that some people who are dead are to live again and reign with Christ a thousand years. This must take place after the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and a thousand years is still time. Verse 6 should end with "delay no longer," and other translations do end it that way. But delay concerning what? Verse 7 tells us that it is concerning the mystery of God which He has declared to his servants the prophets.
    God has declared things to His prophets that have been a mystery through the centuries, but now the time has come for these mysteries to be made known. In Daniel 2:44 God declared to Daniel that He would set up a kingdom in the days of these kings, and that His kingdom would break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms. And verse 45 tells us that it is to be accomplished by the stone cut out of the mountain with out hands. He declared to Isaiah that the time would come when the wolf and the lamb would dwell together, and the ferocious lion would eat straw like the ox, Isaiah 11:6-9. He further declared to him that the thorn tree must give way to the fir tree and the briar to the myrtle tree, Isaiah 55:13, and that the mountains and the hills are to break forth into singing, Isaiah 55:12, and that the great Euphrates River is to be dried up and the river bed become a highway for His chosen people of Israel to travel on as they go home to Palestine, Isaiah 11:15-16. All these along with many others will be understood when this time comes. There will be no further delay.
    In verses 8-10 we see John taking the little book of verse 2 and eating it. This book was sweet as honey in the mouth, but when swallowed it became bitter. Some hold this book to be the same book we saw in chapter 5. But the book in the fifth chapter is our Lord's title deed to His redeemed inheritance. So why would He ask John to eat His title deed? Just what would be accomplished by John's eating our Lord's title deed? I prefer to say it is the same book we see in Ezekiel 2:8-3:11. Here Ezekiel was to eat the book and then speak to the house of Israel. In Revelation 10:11 we see that John was to prophesy after eating the book. Before you and I try to speak to the people, we need to eat the book. There is absolutely nothing else that God wants us to give to the people. To eat the book simply means to meditate on that portion on which we are to speak, and as we do this we will very likely come to see that our message will not be believed by the great majority of the people. This produces the bitter taste, but as Ezekiel was to prophesy when he knew the people would not hear, or believe him, so we are to preach the truth even when we know it will not be believed. When you hear a preacher giving the people every thing but the book, you may know he is the other fellow's preacher and has not eaten the book. Harry Emerson Fosdick the Baptist (?) preacher in New York who once said he did not believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ, and that he did not know a sound preacher who did, has also said that expository preaching is the poorest type of pulpit ministry. His reason for saying this was "because it leaves so little scope for the imagination". Fosdick was not bothered with that bitterness that Ezekiel and John felt, because he preached what the masses of the people wanted to hear. It makes a world of difference. It is to be feared that a great gulf will be fixed between Harry Emerson Fosdick and Ezekiel in the coming day. In the mouth the Word of God is sweet, but when we really meditate and digest what we have read, we come to see just how rotten and filthy even the best of us are. How bitter it is, not only to see that the people will not believe the truth we preach, but to see how rotten and filthy we are ourselves.
    I would like to be a sinless person. I would like to live up to every admonition given in the precious Word, but when I eat the book, I find I am utterly unable to attain to such a wonderful goal. I come to see that any perfection, any good thing connected with me in any way is now, and forever must be in Christ my precious Lord.