- Chapter 12: "Eat and Digest God’s Word!"

WE ARE LIVING IN A TIME OF SOFT, easy Christianity. It is an era marked by a polite, weekly “nibbling” around the edges of the Word of God. Our pews are filled with nice, affable Christians who are willing to listen to outlines from the Bible purporting to be sermons. But they fail to absorb and digest the Word so that it becomes their controlling interest.

Any study of the Revelation will fall short of God’s purpose if it does not make us more keenly aware of the eternal, unchanging nature of God’s Word to mankind. In God’s realm, the saddest words of tongue or pen may well be, “I failed to take God at His word.”
The tenth chapter of the Revelation concludes with the apostle John’s testimony concerning a divine scroll. The divine scroll had to do with impending judgment upon our earth. The open scroll was in the hand of the strong angel who stood on land and sea. Instructed by a heavenly voice to ask for the open scroll, John did so. The angel was not only quite willing for John to have it, but he told John to eat the document, adding, “It will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.” John followed the unusual instructions and found the angel’s prediction accurate.

Now, a little scroll in John’s day would be a little book in ours. So I am going to refer to the scroll as a book—a book of divine origin.

We have no way of knowing the full significance of the little book that John took from the hand of the angel. But there is considerable agreement among Bible students that it symbolizes the Word of God—or perhaps some particular part of the Word of God. Such an interpretation agrees with other prophetic Scripture.