REVELATION 10
A parenthesis comes in here (chapter 10 to 11: 14) between the sounding of the sixth and seventh trumpets, just as chapter 7 comes in between the opening of the sixth seal and the opening of the seventh. In each case we are taken aside from the course of judgments which is in progress to see divine actings connected with God’s people and testimony. Before the beast and the false prophet are presented in their terrible activities of evil, and before the outpourings of wrath connected with the bowls, the divine side is seen in the action of the “strong angel”, and in the testimony of the witnesses here.
The “strong angel” is the Lord in angelic form; He comes down clothed with that which speaks of divine glory, and with the token of divine faithfulness [p. 123] upon His head. The undimmed effulgence of God in His face, and His feet as pillars of fire. Wherever those feet go there must be the judgment of evil according to divine holiness. And He has “in his hand a little opened book”.
We may gather what the “little opened book” is from the fact that John — the representative here of those who should be vessels of prophetic testimony — had to eat it up, and that it was in his mouth sweet as honey, but bitter in his belly. It is an “opened” book; its contents are known prophecy, not matters sealed up; it is what is referred to in verse 7, “as he has made known the glad tidings to his own bondmen the prophets”. And I apprehend it is a “little” book because it refers to things as being taken up in exercise and testimony by His witnesses rather than to the public result in the kingdom. “Little” is characteristic of the time of witness, not of the time of manifestation. It refers to what will be taken up in testimony by the witnesses of chapter 11. It is sweet in the witness’s mouth to taste all that God will do in restoring the kingdom to Israel, but what bitter inward exercises it entails as he is made to feel his own condition, and the condition of those who should have been God’s witness on the earth.
The “strong angel” comes down to claim everything for God, and to swear “by him that lives to the ages of ages ... that there should be no longer delay; but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound the trumpet, the mystery of God also shall be completed”. It is a prophetic vision giving assurance of divine triumph for the comfort of saints in view of the darkest days of all.
“The mystery of God” is, I believe, that for thousands of years He has not taken His great power here. He has allowed evil and lawless men to continue their course, and to gratify their lusts and ambitions. People have even questioned whether there is a God when they have seen what they judged to be great evils allowed to go on unchecked! God has been going on in longsuffering — in view of His purposes of grace and blessing for men — but He has ever given testimony by His prophets that He would come in to deal with all evil presently. It has been “the glad tidings” all through the ages from Enoch’s day (Jude 14) that God will eventually have His way; He will publicly set aside evil and establish good. “Mystery” in Scripture does not mean something inexplicable, but something known only to the initiated. There has been, in men’s account, a long delay in bringing to light publicly the principles of God’s government, but when the “strong angel” speaks there is to be “no longer delay”. God does not bring in judgment until man’s iniquity is full. He said to Abram — “The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” (Genesis 15: 16). God will wait until the sin of man comes to a head in open defiance of Him by the beast and the antichrist, and then He will judge it all and take to Him His great power and reign.
The taste of what God is going to bring in is sweet to the one who eats it, but it entails much bitter exercise, for it involves the discovery and judgment in himself of all the principles of evil which work in the flesh. There is not an evil in the world which renders it the subject of divine judgment of which the root and germ does not exist in the flesh of God’s people, and it is a moral necessity that they should [p. 125] discern and judge it there. They judge themselves, and therefore they are not judged; the divine end is reached with them morally. What an inward bitterness it will be for the remnant of Israel when they eat the book. It will be sweet to taste that Christ is about to appear to subdue all their enemies, to set aside all idolatry and lawlessness, to fulfil every promise as to Israel’s glory, and to reign before His ancients in glory. But when they eat this they will have to recall their own breaking of the law and despising of the promises, their idolatry and their rejection of Christ, their long centuries of unbelief of the testimony of the Holy Ghost. If you want to see something of the inward bitterness which they will have, read Zechariah 12: 10 - 14.
Their exercises are prefigured prophetically in the “great bitterness” which Hezekiah passed through when he discovered that death was upon him. How can a people who are themselves under death become the living to praise Jehovah? It can only be by the resurrection power and quickening of God, and they will have to learn in bitterness the absolute necessity for this. Isaiah 36 to 39 is an important section of the prophetic word as shewing three distinct exercises through which the remnant will have to go. They will feel all the power of the external enemy set forth in Sennacherib, and will be cast upon God for deliverance from him. Then they will have to face the deeper lesson of chapter 28 in discovering that death is upon them, and that God alone can undertake for them in their extremity. And then they will have to learn and judge all the Babylonish elements that are in their own hearts (2 Chronicles 32: 31), that they may turn from these things, so that [p. 126] God may truly have all the glory of the wonder that will be “done in the land”. All these experimental discoveries of their own weakness will be essential to their learning God’s deliverance. It will be through these very exercises that they will learn to appreciate Christ.
In principle we have the same kind of exercise. If God enables us to feed on His thoughts and will as expressed in Christ it necessitates self-judgment. If we do not apply the truth in self-judgment we fall into Satan’s hands. Peter had a marvellous revelation from the Father, and another from Christ, but he did not apply those revelations in self-judgment, so he became almost immediately the mouthpiece of Satan. The same man who in human sentiment would have turned the Lord from the cross would afterwards deny Him. But the inward bitterness had to come, for he was a true saint, and when it did come he went out and wept bitterly. We do not get anything really of Christ without a corresponding bitterness of self-judgment. People sometimes say, “What a nice word we had!” But if we really eat the word it comes home to us and searches our hearts. The true value of ministry can be measured very much by the exercise which it produces; the practical displacement of self by Christ is never brought about without this.
John was to prophesy, and he had to learn experimentally the effect of that prophecy. The prophets all had to go through similar experience. Think of what Isaiah went through and Jeremiah and Ezekiel! They had to learn what the state of the people was to whom they prophesied, and to enter into it as feeling it with God. They had their own personal [p. 127] part in it also, for they could not dissociate themselves from the state of the people; faith never could. See how Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel took up the state of the people, and identified themselves with it before God! (chapter 9 in each book). The only one who can prophesy is the one who feels with God, and who has himself the exercise which his prophesying is intended to produce. But this inward bitterness — this true spirit of self-judgment — sets God free to make known what is before Him for His pleasure and testimony. Such can measure the temple, and the altar, and the worshippers. The effect of inward exercise as to God’s mind — though self-judgment ever goes with it — is that we are qualified to measure things by a divine standard. These are great moral principles which have their application as much to us as they will to the remnant in a coming day. When the truth works through self-judgment — and if it works at all it works thus — it leads to the setting aside of our natural thoughts, feelings, and likings, and we begin to take account of God’s things according to divine measurement.