Sunday, April 13, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Revelation 10
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 43
Key Verse
Revelation 10:6 — “And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:”
Devotional Thought
John, exiled on the island of Patmos, watches another mighty angel descend from heaven. This messenger is wrapped in a cloud, a rainbow crowns his head, his face blazes like the sun, and his feet stand like pillars of fire. He plants one foot on the sea and the other on the earth—as if to claim every corner of creation for his Maker—and he roars like a lion. Seven thunders answer him, and John lifts his pen to record what they said, but a voice from heaven stops him: “Seal up those things… and write them not.” Then the angel swears by the One who lives for ever and ever, the Creator of heaven, earth, and sea, that “there should be time no longer.” The mystery of God, declared to the prophets, is about to be finished when the seventh angel sounds. John is told to take the open book from the angel’s hand and eat it. It tastes sweet as honey in his mouth, but his belly turns bitter. Then he is commissioned once more: “Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.”
There is something here that meets us in the spring of the year, as the church walks toward Resurrection Sunday. We know the sweetness of the gospel—the honey of forgiveness, the comfort of promises kept. Yet we also know the bitterness: a diagnosis that does not improve, a prodigal child who has not come home, a world that still shakes its fist at God. John’s little book holds both. The word of God is sweet to the taste and heavy in the stomach, because it tells the truth about sin and judgment as well as mercy. We do not get to keep only the honey.
Notice, too, what John is not permitted to know. The seven thunders speak, and heaven says, “Write them not.” Some things God keeps to Himself. We live in a day of endless information, where every headline and every opinion clamors for our attention, and yet the deepest questions—why this suffering, why now, why me—often go unanswered. Revelation 10 teaches us to be at peace with sealed things. God has not told us everything, but He has told us enough: the mystery will be finished, time will run out, and the One who made the sea and the earth will make all things right.
Like the psalmist in Psalm 43, we cry, “Judge me, O God, and plead my cause,” feeling cast off and mourning under oppression. But the same psalm turns: “O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me.” That is what the angel’s open book is—light and truth, sweet and bitter, leading us to the altar of God, our exceeding joy. So we preach hope to our own souls: “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him.” The book is eaten. The story is not finished. And the God who swears by Himself will not fail.
Reflection
- When the Word of God tastes sweet in your mouth but sits bitter in your belly—costing you something you did not expect—will you still take and eat, trusting the One who gave it?
- What “sealed things” are you demanding God explain, and can you release them to the Creator who has sworn by Himself that His mystery will be finished in His time?
Prayer
Lord God, Creator of heaven and earth and sea, we come before You like John on Patmos, small before Your mighty works. Your Word is sweet as honey to our mouths, yet sometimes bitter in our bellies when it calls us to suffer, to wait, or to speak hard truth. Give us grace to take and eat it anyway, and to prophesy again with courage before the peoples and nations around us. When we cannot understand Your sealed thunders, teach us to trust Your sworn promise that time will end and Your mystery will be finished. Send out Your light and Your truth to lead us to Your holy hill, and lift our cast-down souls to hope in You, our exceeding joy. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 43:1 — “Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation: O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man.”