In Revelation 10:8-11 it is written: And the voice which I heard from heaven, I heard again speaking with me, and saying, ‘Go, take the book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the land.’ And I went to the angel, telling him to give me the little book. And he said to me, ‘Take it, and eat it; and it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.’ And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and it was in my mouth sweet as honey; and when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter. And they said to me, ‘You must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.’ Here we see that when John ate the book, it was sweet as honey in his mouth. That is a picture of the grace of God that comes to us through His Word. But by the time that Word got inside him, it was bitter. This indicates that there is truth in the Word too - the truth that judges our sin. It is not just grace but truth too. In the Book of Revelation, we see alternate pictures of grace and of judgment. It is alternately sweet and bitter - right through the book. We also see here the right way to prophesy (preach) God’s Word. We have to receive the Word of God from the Lord and eat it and digest it ourselves first. Only then will God give us a prophetic word for others. This is so different from the way most preachers prepare their messages, who merely study books, listen to tapes and exercise their brains to produce an impressive sermon. When we receive the Word of God, it is easy for us to be taken up with just the sweet part of it - “grace”. We can keep that forever in our mouth without allowing the whole counsel of God to penetrate into our system. We don’t relish this latter part, because then we have to judge the sin that we discover within us. “Judgment has to begin with us first” (1 Pet.4:17).
Posted on: Sun, 22 Sep 2013 21:04:35 +0000
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