A MIGHTY ANGEL

Today’s Reading: Revelation 10 

Click scripture link to read online or HERE to listen online (then click the symbol of the audio speaker above the scripture portion).

Looking from Israel across the Dead Sea to the Kingdom of Jordan, you can see the salt-laden shoreline and the spotted sink holes. Imagine John’s vision of a gigantic angel. One of the angel’s feet is on the land and the other on the sea.

GOOGLE MAPS – To see where the photo was taken, click HERE.

Key Verse: Revelation 10:6b-7

…there should be delay no longer, but in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished, as He declared to His servants the prophets.

Jim and Kathy Cantelon write today’s 100 Words segment (originally published in Crossroads’ Day Unto Day devotional series)…

The key verse is a quote from a “mighty angel” who comes “down from heaven” (verse 1). He is of immense size, his body “robed in a cloud,” with “a rainbow above his head,” his face shining “like the sun,” and his legs “like fiery pillars.” He places one foot on the sea and the other on the land, raises his hands to heaven, and shouts with a lion’s roar (verses 2-3).

To this point in Revelation, John has written as though he were in Heaven. Now, however, he is on earth (visions have a way of changing from one scene to another), and he is able to converse with this remarkable angel. Another aspect of the scene, which in the natural world would be incongruous, is perfectly in order in an apocalyptic vision – John, the human being (with human physical dimensions) not only converses with this immense angel, but is also able to take a scroll from the angel’s hand and “eat” it.

The scroll tastes “sweet,” but turns John’s stomach “sour” (verse 10). Its content has something to do with prophecy – for John is told, after eating it, that he “must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings” (verse 11).

Perhaps the key ingredient in the scroll has to do with “the mystery of God [being] accomplished” after the seventh trumpet is blown (verse 7). That mystery is very much related to “our Lord and…His Christ” who “will reign for ever and ever” (11:15).

PRAYER FOR TODAY:

Lord Jesus, You are the King of kings, and the Lord of lords. You reign supreme. I look around me and see confusion, violence, and evil men destroying people’s lives. I pray for insight to see that while human free will seems to be in charge temporarily, in reality You are working in spite of me and all other men and women, as well as through me and all who are people of good will, to ultimately bring about Your will here on earth. In Your loving and all-powerful Name I ask You for grace. Amen!!!

100 PERSONAL WORDS:

Some Bible prophesies I think I can understand, particularly the 500 or so that have already been fulfilled. The remaining 500+ still in the future are a far greater challenge. There is so much symbolism, understandable because people such as Daniel, Ezekiel, and John were human just like me. Not that I’m comparing myself to them, but it’s comforting to know that they were also imperfect pilgrims on their way, as John Bunyan wrote, to the “Celestial City.” The Apostle Paul, originally known as Rabbi Saul of Tarsus, a brilliant intellectual, wrote, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then [in the future] face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known!” That’s from the Bible’s love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13:12. The infinite value of reading God’s Word daily, even when we “know in part,” is absolutely essential to me as a believer in Jesus. God does reveal Himself through reading the Bible. For example, I was browsing Youtube and rediscovered a testimony from the 100 Huntley Street telecast. Stan Telchin, a Jew, was shattered by a phone call from his daughter in university, telling him that she had come to believe that Jesus Christ was the Jewish Messiah. He set out to prove her wrong by studying the Bible. You can guess at the outcome. Click here for the interview from a few years back, hosted by Reynold and Kathy Mainse. I’ve learned to keep on keeping on reading God’s Word, even if I do not have total insight into the mysteries which will only be fully understood when the actual events have occurred.

Yours for never, never, never giving up on reading our Bibles!!!,

David

P.S. COMING UP JUNE 3rd! We start our next two-year journey through the Bible, beginning in Matthew’s Gospel, and then to Genesis. Every day will have fresh insights. Some content will be put back into the oven and brought out at 6 a.m., just as fresh and hot as it was the first time around. Let’s do it again! Let all your Facebook and/or Twitter friends know. Tell your neighbours and friends across the country and around the world. Let’s take up the challenge for another two-years!!! Amen!!!