Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #4 of Revelation, chapter 10, and we are going to be reading Revelation 10:2-4:

And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices. And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.

As we had been discussing in our last study, the Lord Jesus is the “mighty messenger” coming down from heaven and He had in His hand “a little book having been open.”  A prior action of opening has already occurred and this follows, of course, Revelation 5 and Revelation 6, up to Revelation 8, verse 1, where the “seventh seal” was taken off of the Bible by Christ.  That would leave the Bible as an “open Book” in His hand. 

Now the “hand,” as well as the “foot,” represents the “will,” in the Bible.  So the Bible is in the hand of God – it is in Christ’s hand – and it is open and it has remained open since the beginning of the Great Tribulation, the time of the end, and it will continue to be open.  It remained open throughout the twenty three year Great Tribulation period, and it continues to be open in this period of judgment, which very likely will continue for a total of 1,600 days (from May 21, 2011). 

Here is Christ and God is giving us this glorious picture of the triumphant Lord who has the Bible open in His hand and “and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,” and, again, the “hand” or “foot” represent the will of God, in this case.  In our last study we saw that the unsaved are represented by the sea and the people of the earth are typified by the earth because mankind comes from the earth – from the dust we came, and to dust we will go. 

It is Judgment Day and it is within the discussion of the “second woe,” and Revelation 10 falls into that area of the discussion of the “second woe.”  All “three woes” occur simultaneously in the Day of Judgment and, therefore, it is a picture of the victorious Lord Jesus Christ who has subdued the peoples of the earth; He has won the battle of Judgment Day and they are under His feet.

Then we read in Revelation 10:3 that He “cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.”  We saw in Amos 3, verses 4 through 8, that God likens the roaring of a lion to Him speaking.  Just as men fear when they hear the lion’s roar, so, too, men should fear when they hear the sound of the Word of God.  God also says in Amos 3, “Who can but prophesy?” when they hear God speak or when they hear the “lion roar?”  We mentioned, as we saw in Revelation 10, that God speaks as a lion roaring and then in Revelation 10:11, the Lord says, “Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.”  So when God is speaking, who can but prophesy? 

Yet, the context is all-important in Revelation 10 because it is the context of the Day of Judgment, our present time.  It is from May 21, 2011, when Judgment Day began, until it concludes and the entire duration of this prolonged period of judgment is in view.

God is indicating that He will “speak” and that is what the last part of Revelation 10:3 is saying: “and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.  Now let us go to Job, chapter 37, and we will read about “thunder.”  It says in Job 37:2-5:

Hear attentively the noise of his voice, and the sound that goeth out of his mouth. He directeth it under the whole heaven, and his lightning unto the ends of the earth. After it a voice roareth: he thundereth with the voice of his excellency; and he will not stay them when his voice is heard. God thundereth marvellously with his voice; great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend.

We find, again, the Word of God or the voice of God is likened to “thunder.”  “He thundereth with the voice of his excellency,” and then we find the word “roareth.”  It says, “After it a voice roareth.”  So we have God identifying His voice with “thunder” and, once again, with “roaring.”  So there is no question that as the Lord Jesus Christ is making this appearance in the time of judgment and as He is crying “with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices,” that the Lord is communicating “divine revelation.”  And, since it is “seven thunders,” it is the perfection of God speaking and the perfection of divine revelation.  Then we read in Revelation 10:4:

And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write…

The Apostle John was on the island of Patmos receiving this divine revelation – enormous, tremendous revelations – that will brilliantly light the minds of the readers and the minds of those that will receive this information.  It is an incredible revelation.  The whole Bible is an incredible revelation from God and the Book of Revelation is super-glorious.  It is a fitting climax to the greatest of books – the Book of books, the Bible.  God has reserved this last Book of Revelation to complete the communication that He intended to give to mankind and it is a fitting end to the Word of God, as He moved prophets of old to record these things. 

That is exactly what prophets of old have done: as God has spoken throughout Biblical history, holy men of God were moved by the Holy Spirit to write down the things God said.  So John is just following what would be very natural if you were a prophet receiving this wonderful revelation of truth from God.  So John heard the “seven thunders,” which means He heard God speak: “When the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write…

John was doing what would come naturally to a prophet.  You hear God speak and you are here to “receive the revelation of God,” and, so, you would write it down.  However, look what it says next, here in Revelation 10:4:

 … I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.

This is unusual.  This is not typical.  We do not find God giving revelation to Ezekiel and then telling him not to record it.  We do not find God giving revelation to Isaiah or Jeremiah or other prophets of old and telling them not to record it: “Write them not.”  The closest we can come to this is what God said to Daniel, in Daniel 8:26:

And the vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true: wherefore shut thou up the vision; for it shall be for many days.

It is said a little more clearly toward the end of the revelation God gave to Daniel, in Daniel 12:4:

But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

It is reiterated in Daniel 12:9:

And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.

This is similar because it uses the word “sealed.”  God said to “shut up the words, and seal the book.”  However, there is a big difference between what God said here to Daniel and what He told the Apostle John.  What is that difference?  The difference is that Daniel wrote it down and then God said, “Shut up the words, and seal the book.”  That is a completely different matter than what God said to John, when He said, “Write them not.”  So John received divine revelation and then was commanded not to write it down.  As God said to Daniel, the word would be “shut up and “sealed till the time of the end,” and then knowledge would be increased.  That is exactly what God did at the time of the end. 

The end, according to the Bible, began with judgment on the churches: judgment begins at the house of God.  The end, which we have learned there is an excellent possibility will be a 10,000-day period, with the end beginning at the Great Tribulation, with judgment on the house of God and that judgment on the churches continued for 8,400 days and then the day of transition where the “cup” first given to the churches and congregations of the world is turned over to the unsaved inhabitants of the world on May 21, 2011, (after that 8,400 day period) and then for the next 1,600 days the unsaved people of the world drink from the “cup of the wrath of God” in an identical manner as the churches (a spiritual judgment). 

The 1,600 days added to the 8,400 days would total 10,000 days of overall judgment and 10,000 is a number that would point to the completeness of the wrath of God being poured out into the “cup” that the wicked (both called by His name and not called by His name) must drink.  Then, finally, it is finished and they are destroyed and that 10,000^th day happens to be the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles on October 7, 2015.  So the “end,” we can say, began at the very beginning of the Great Tribulation, on the first day that judgment began on the house of God on May 21, 1988, and the end is a period of 10,000 days (in all likelihood). 

So the Word is “shut up” and the Bible is a “sealed” Book until the time of the end and then God unseals the written Word and He brings forth much truth and information that no one previously knew, or could know, due to the “sealed” nature of the Word of God. 

Yet, what is going on in Revelation 10?  Let us go back to Revelation 10:4:

… I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.

So, this is not the same situation.  It is not the same case as with Daniel and that is because the Words, or revelation, of the “seven thunders” (or the “roar” of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Lord Jesus Chris) are being declared in the Day of Judgment in our present time, so they could not possibly have been written.  In other words, God commanded John not to write them down because He is looking ahead to these days after the Tribulation.  The Bible has long been a completed Book and Revelation 22:17-19 warn not to add unto the words of the prophecy of this Book and, therefore, God says, “Write them not,” or “Seal up those things,” and, here, the reference to “seal them up” would mean John was not to put pen to paper.  That is the “key” that helps us because how is it we are to understand this language of “Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not”?  We understand it like we understand anything else in the Bible.  We look at the words and we see if God has used this kind of language anywhere else.  Yes – the language of “write them not” or “write not” (do not write down these things) was also used in the Book of 2 John.  Let us go to 2 John, verse 12:

Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink…

“Having many things to write unto you” means that there are many things to be communicated and that reminds us of what the Lord Jesus said in John 16:12:

I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

Christ is really saying an incredible thing.  He has many things to say, but He is not going to say them now, which means He is not going to say them.  That really agrees with 2 John, verse 12: “Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink.”  When we think about this and examine this and check it out, we realize: “Oh, this is God’s way of telling us that He has a plan at the time of the end to open up the Bible to reveal hidden truth – the things that Jesus had to say, but we could not bear during the church age.” 

Can you imagine if God had revealed some of the truths that were reserved and kept sealed until the time of the end?  What if God had revealed the end of the church age and the fact that God would abandon the churches and congregations?  There was no need for them to bear that kind of burden for many centuries.  What if God had revealed long ago the time of the end itself as May 21, 2011, Judgment Day?  What a burden for believers in the second century, the 10^th century or the 15^th century to have to live with the knowledge and understanding that the end would never come in their lifetime or even in their children’s lifetime.  What a burden!  Of course, God would keep this information “under wraps,” and keep it sealed until the time of the end, and then He had a plan to reveal it.  That is where the Holy Spirit comes in, which Christ was referring to:  “The Holy Spirit shall guide you into all truth;” that is, all the truth that God wants His people to know, or the full measure of the knowledge that God wants to reveal about Himself and His times and seasons, and so on.  The Holy Spirit will complete the revelation that was started with the written Word; the Old Testament was followed by the New Testament, but that did not complete the revelation of God; not until the time of the end when God opened the Scriptures and more information came to light and now the Holy Spirit is guiding His people into all truth. 

That is how the Lord is using the Apostle John also, as he wrote in 2 John, verse 12.  He is using John as a figure of Himself when it says: “Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink.”  It means He is not going to write; he has communication from God but he will not write it down; and that is very similar to our statement in Revelation 10.  Why will he not write it down?  It goes on to say in 2 John 12:

… but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.

This is a very cryptic statement.  It is revealing God’s plan to make the Bible “plain.”  The phrase “speaking face to face” or “mouth to mouth,” you can find back in Numbers 12 when God revealed Himself to Moses; God said that with others He spoke in parables, but with Moses, “mouth to mouth,” or “face to face.”  He will speak plainly with Moses.  When God makes a parable known or when Jesus would speak a parable and then explain the parable to the disciples, He was speaking plainly, and that what it means by speaking “face to face,” as it says: “Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink: but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.”  That would occur once God unsealed His Word and opened up the Scriptures, and then He will make it plain to His people, that our joy may be full.  Remember there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.  It was God’s plan during that season of the Great Tribulation to send forth the “latter rain,” and He timed it so that it was simultaneous with the opening of the Scriptures, which would send forth much truth to the people of the world in order that His elect hear and the lost sheep of the house of Israel be found and brought into the fold, before He shut the door to heaven.  Our joy is full; our joy is complete because all the elect became saved.

We can see now where this is leading in Revelation 10:4:

Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.

The statement “write them not” does not mean to withhold the revelation.  It means do not add it to the Words of the Bible.  He is saying, “The things I have said are not to be part of the written Word, but they are to be part of that revelation that will be revealed to my people in the Day of Judgment.”

Now we can know for sure that God is holding nothing back because this word “seal” that is used where it says, “Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not,” is the same word we find in Revelation 22:10:

And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.

Here, God is discussing our present time, the time in which everyone’s eternal condition has been fixed and established.  The saved remain saved.  The unsaved remain unsaved, or, to say it the way God says it: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still.”  There will be no translating out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of His dear Son.  There never could be any leaving the kingdom of God – a true believer never loses his salvation.

At this time, notice how God is setting up verse 11 with verse 10: “Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book.”  Now that was never the case during the entire history of the Old Testament and the New Testament and up until the end of the church age; the Bible was a sealed Book.  It was only at the time of the end that the sayings of the prophecy of this Book are unsealed, which would include the things that the seven thunders uttered, and this is just a figure of speech to indicate that God is continuing to bring His revelation – He is continuing to show His people truth through the leading of the Holy Spirit as they compare Scripture with Scripture.