Revelation 10:9 So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, “Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but ‘in your mouth it will be as sweat as honey.’”
Now that’s weird! If it had been a cannoli, I can understand wanting to eat it. But to eat a scroll, even if it is a little scroll, that just doesn’t make sense.
We are in a part of the book of Revelation between the description of a scroll with seven seals and the outcome of the opening of those seals, and the sounding of seven trumpets with the consequences of those trumpet blasts. Six of these trumpet blasts have happened and there is this section about an angel and a scroll, and the appearance of two witnesses for God.
And right in the middle of this unveiling of God’s picture of the future we have a picture of an angel holding a little scroll. He is standing on ocean and land, one foot on each. He announces that the delay of judgment is over. The time has come. Something called “the mystery of God” is going to be revealed.
And the announcer again speaks and tells John, the hearer of these words, to take the scroll out of the hand of the messenger standing on sea and land. And he obeys.
OK, I get it so far. I’m not exactly sure what it means, but I get the picture now. And then he is told to eat the scroll. Stop the bus! Hold on! You want me to eat something that will make me sick to my stomach. I don’t think so!
What many readers don’t understand is that this is not the first time a messenger has told someone acting in a prophetic role to eat a scroll. This happens to the prophet Ezekiel in the Old Testament at the beginning of his prophetic ministry. He is told to eat a scroll.
Ezekiel eats the scroll. Then he has words to speak to the people of Israel. His words will not be accepted by them and in the process their hearts will become even more stubborn in the stance against God’s Word and way. The words that could bring hope and restoration, if spoken to non-Israelites, will instead bring hardness and judgment to Israel.
The connection between these words in our text and the words in Ezekiel continues with the specific words about these non-Israelite peoples. In Ezekiel he is told to not speak to those with obscure speech and strange languages. Here in our text the idea is picked up in the following verses when he is told to prophesy specifically to “many peoples, nations, languages and kings.”
You see, as part of the unified story of Scripture, now was the time to reach beyond Israel. Israel had its chance to respond. They were supposed to be the ones to carry the message of hope and reconciliation to the world, but they failed in their mission. Now the picture of the Church reaching out to tell what God wants from and for us, and the testimony of Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection. This is what gets shared by the Church.
The scroll being eaten represents, I think, the message that would then come out of the eater as they fulfilled their prophetic role. The message goes in. It tastes sweet, but because it is a message of judgment, it is rejected by the hearers. Thus the sourness of the stomach.
The message of the Gospel is a sweet message. But when it is rejected by hearers, it is disturbing to those of us who enjoy its sweetness. It hurts us, because we know the consequences of rejection. We don’t wish judgment on anyone, and their rejection will bring the very judgment we don’t want for them.
The Arnold Journey 