Revelation 9:13-10:11

I appreciate that this is quite a long passage, but I wanted to include chapter ten in order to be able to strike a more positive note!

Chapter nine is pretty discouraging, in talking about the lack of positive spiritual impact that suffering can bring. Nowadays, we tend to talk of pandemics rather than plagues, but when we read of plagues in the Bible, we can't help but compare them with the present day. So to read in John's revelation from God that the survivors of an apocalyptic pandemic won't repent is pretty depressing. 

John must have felt like packing up and going home. He must have wanted to throw in the towel, humanly speaking. No doubt John applied chapter nine to his own days, as we do to ours, and we trust our children will do to theirs', should Christ's return be later than our departures.

If reading chapter nine in isolation seems to tempt us to despair, reading it in the context of chapter ten encourages us to look upwards and see Him there, who made an end of all our sin. And what does "the great unchangeable 'I am'" have to say (I've been referencing the hymn 'Before the Throne of God Above')?

'Not long to go now!'

The mystery of God I take to refer to the gospel: that mysterious truth that sinners like us can be reconciled to the Holy God. In the context however, I also take it as mysterious not so much that God visits plagues upon this sinful world, but that the final trumpet hasn't yet sounded to proclaim the return of Christ the King to call us to account. I think John felt the same, and I believe God's message to him in chapter ten is similar to what God would have to say to us.

So what did God tell John that He might also say to us today? Basically that He still has work to do through us. John might have expected that his exile by the Romans to the Greek island of Patmos might have been a quiet retirement for him. 

But God had other plans. 

Maybe by chapter nine of John's vision, he felt like his was a thankless task- to prophesy fruitless suffering. But in chapter ten, God told him he was to press on with setting out His vision.

I find it interesting what God says about John's revelation. God doesn't do false advertising, He's honest with John that his apocalypse will be a hard pill to swallow. But He does console John that it will be a sugar coated pill as it were, sweet to the taste.

I don't mean this analogy disrespectfully, but Revelation sometimes reads like a hallucinogenic trip which John experienced in glorious technicolour, but that left him feeling embittered in the cold light of day.

A correct reading of Revelation, indeed of all Scripture, can have a similar effect. At first glance, to the spiritually discerning palette, Revelation is Good News, because it reveals that Jesus is King of all, and that He died so that we can ultimately be reconciled to Himself. 

As we meditate more on Revelation however, we should find it hard to stomach the fact that many people reject Jesus as King, and ultimately suffer immensely and intensely as a consequence.

So what are we to do? Lay aside the Bible to avoid the bitterness it can bring? By no means!

We know that God's Word is food for our souls. We are to be faithful stewards of the Word of God. 

Why hasn't Christ returned yet to call His people home? Because He wants to revive His people to be ready for His return, and to call those who are dead to wake up to spiritual realities. And He wants to use the likes of us to help Him to achieve these purposes.