Revelation Chapter 10

The Revelation of Yahshua Christ

Chapter 10

X 1 And I saw another mighty messenger descending from heaven cloaked in a cloud, and a rainbow upon his head and his face like the sun and his feet like pillars of fire, 2 and holding in his hand a small book having been opened. And he set his right foot upon the sea, then the left upon the land, 3 and he cried out in a great voice just as a lion roars. And when he cried out, the seven thunders uttered their voices. 4 And when the seven thunders uttered, I was about to write, and I heard a voice from out of heaven saying “I have sealed the things which the seven thunders have uttered, and you should not write these things!”

In an 8th century letter by an English bishop named Cuthbert, we have the following where he is speaking of Bede, the famous English cleric and historian, and we must hear it bearing in mind that these men are English Roman Catholic bishops: “In those days, moreover, beside the lessons which we received from him and the chanting of the Psalms, there were two works very worthy of mention which he endeavoured to accomplish, to wit the Gospel of St. John, which he translated into our [Saxon] tongue for the profit of the Church, and certain extracts from the books of bishop Isidore....” So we see that translating the Bible, or portions of it, was a wholly acceptable endeavour undertaken by Romish Catholic priests in the 8th century AD. In fact, in his Ecclesiastical History, Bede often described men who were well versed and who read the Scriptures not only in Latin, but also in Greek. Yet shortly after these times, the Romish Church turned in a direction which was absolutely contrary to the Spirit of Scripture, and it made an effort to repress the Word of God, and keep it from the ears of the people.

Pope Innocent III stated in 1199: “... to be reproved are those who translate into French the Gospels, the letters of Paul, the psalter, etc. They are moved by a certain love of Scripture in order to explain them clandestinely and to preach them to one another. The mysteries of the faith are not to be explained rashly to anyone. Usually in fact, they cannot be understood by everyone but only by those who are qualified to understand them with informed intelligence. The depth of the divine Scriptures is such that not only the illiterate and uninitiated have difficulty understanding them, but also the educated and the gifted.” (Denzinger-Schönmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum pp 770-771, from Bridging the Gap - Lectio Divina, Religious Education, and the Have-not's by Father John Belmonte, S.J.

The Council of Toulouse, which met in November of 1229, about the time of the crusade against the Albigensians, set up a special ecclesiastical tribunal, or court, known as the Inquisition (Lat. inquisitio, an inquiry), to search out and try heretics. Twenty of the forty-five articles decreed by the Council dealt with heretics and heresy. It ruled in part: Canon 1. We appoint, therefore, that the archbishops and bishops shall swear in one priest, and two or three laymen of good report, or more if they think fit, in every parish, both in and out of cities, who shall diligently, faithfully, and frequently seek out the heretics in those parishes, by searching all houses and subterranean chambers which lie under suspicion. And looking out for appendages or outbuildings, in the roofs themselves, or any other kind of hiding places, all which we direct to be destroyed. Canon 6. Directs that the house in which any heretic shall be found shall be destroyed. Canon 14. We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; unless anyone from motive of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books. [Source: Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe, Edited with an introduction by Edward Peters, Scolar Press, London, copyright 1980 by Edward Peters, ISBN 0-85967-621-8, pp. 194-195, citing S. R. Maitland, Facts and Documents [illustrative of the history, doctrine and rites, of the ancient Albigenses & Waldenses], London, Rivington, 1832, pp. 192-194.]

These edicts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were among the first responses of a tyrannical church against people who read the Scripture and disagreed with Rome in the interpretation of its meaning. There were bishops who actively sought to destroy Bibles, and even demanded that people turn them in. It was also in the twelfth century that the independent Culdee Church of Ireland and Scotland, which was never related to the Romish Catholics, had been subjugated to Rome. While Rome sought “one true church”, to the contrary Paul told the Corinthians that “there must also be sects among you, in order that those approved will become evident among you”, at 1 Corinthians 11:19. And from his work we also learn of the people of Beroia that “These were of more noble a race than those in Thessalonika, who accepted the Word with all eagerness, each day examining the writings, if these things would hold thusly. So the many from among them believed, and of the noble Greek women and men not a few”, at Acts 17:11-12. The Body of Christ is a collection of stones which builds itself into assemblies of Yahweh (KJV 1 Peter 2:5, 9: “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”) Also, Paul says in Ephesians Chapter 4 “But speaking the truth with love, we may increase all things for He who is the head, the Christ, from whom all the body is being joined together and is being reconciled through every stroke of assistance according to the operation of each single part in proportion; the growth of the body creates itself into a building in love.” Christians were expected to study the Scriptures for themselves, and to arrive at their own conclusions, and act according to those conclusions. In that manner, we understand that God is in control, and not man. The Romish Catholic Church clearly did not like that idea, since it was little but a professional pagan priesthood which feared losing control over the people.

Therefore the angel with the small book which was open, which descends out of heaven, symbolizes the Word of God in the hands of the people, in the form of the Bible, which the people at least in some degree had, as is evident in Bede, and which the Romish Church tried to take away. The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg circa 1440, upon which one of the first mass-produced books was a copy of the Latin Vulgate Bible, and which a short time later launched a revolution in the distribution of printed matter, especially the works of Christian writers such as Luther and Erasmus, assured that the Bible would forever remain a fixture in Christian homes.

5 And the messenger, whom I saw standing upon the sea and upon the earth, raised his right hand to heaven 6 and swore by He who lives for the eternal ages, who created the heaven and the things in it and the earth and the things in it and the sea and the things in it, that there shall no longer be delay, 7 but in the days of the sound of the seventh messenger, when he is about to sound the trumpet, then the Mystery of Yahweh is completed as He had announced by His servants the prophets.

The King James Version reads the end of verse 6 as “there should be time no longer”, yet the Greek word is often used to signify delay, and that is how it is read here. Bertrand Comparet asserted that this verse should read “there shall be one more time”, and made a ridiculous argument in spite of all the translations that he himself cited to the contrary. In truth, there is no way that ὅτι χρόνος οὐκέτι ἔσται could ever mean “there shall be one more time”, a rendering which adds “one” to the text and ignores the negative οὐκ, and Comparet was wrong. Yet χρόνος, literally “time”, is also “delay”, and just as properly here. The Greeks had a couple of verbs derived from χρόνος which meant “to delay” or “to waste time” (χρονίζω, χρονοτρίβεω), and at χρόνος, IV., Liddell and Scott have: “delay, loss, of time.” Since in context, “time” makes no sense here, “delay” would be a proper translation, and Rotherham, Smith & Goodspeed, and Moffatt, among those whom Comparet cited, have all translated the clause quite well.

The interpretation vindicates the translation. The seventh messenger does not sound until the end of Chapter 11, in verse 15. This is a complex issue. In Daniel Chapter 7, verses 13 through 21, we see that after the beast empires lose their dominion, the kingdom is handed over to the saints of the Most High, Daniel 7:22. This will be spoken of at length in the commentary for Revelation Chapter 13. It was the Reformation which began this process. The Reformation freed the main body of the people of God – the Saxon people – from the power of the second beast of Revelation 13 which is also the little horn of Daniel Chapter 7 – which is the Romish Church papacy. Once this happened, the Saxon peoples of northern Europe did indeed gain world hegemony, and they are still the greatest cultural influence in the world today even though they are not more than a twentieth of its population. However today there are other prophecies which are unfolding and are affecting us, and those will be discussed in the later chapters of the Revelation, especially at Chapter 17.

The Mystery of Yahweh is the concealment and the later revelation of His people. The concealment happened after the Assyrian deportations of Israel, and the revelation would happen in the Gospel. Therefore Luke 2:30-32 reads thus, where Sumeon exclaims in part: “my eyes have seen Your Salvation, which You have prepared in front of all the people: a light for the revelation of the Nations and honor of Your people Israel!” As a second witness, here is the Christogenea New Testament translation of Ephesians 3:1-7: “For this cause I, Paul, captive of Christ Yahshua on behalf of you of the Nations, if indeed you have heard of the management of the family of the favor of Yahweh which has been given to me in regard to you, seeing that by a revelation the mystery was made known to me (just as I had briefly written before, besides which reading you are able to perceive my understanding in the mystery of the Anointed,) which in other generations had not been made known to the sons of men, as it is now revealed in His holy ambassadors and prophets by the Spirit, those Nations which are joint heirs and a joint body and partners of the promise in Christ Yahshua, through the good message of which I have become a servant in accordance with the gift of the favor of Yahweh which has been given to me, in accordance with the operation of His power.” It is fully evident, that by the prophecies of the Old Testament the Children of Israel would be revealed in their fulfillment of the Word of Yahweh upon receiving the Gospel, and that is what was elucidated in the Reformation, even if they themselves did not realize that revelation. The people that we see building the Kingdom of God after the eclipse of the papacy, these are the people of God, evident in Daniel Chapters 2 and 7 and here in Revelation Chapter 10.

8 And the voice which I heard from out of heaven speaks with me again and says: “Go take the book which is opened in the hand of the messenger who is standing upon the sea and upon the land!” 9 And I went to the messenger, saying to him: “Give to me the small book!” And he says to me: “Take and eat it, and your belly shall be bitter, but in your mouth it shall be sweet as honey.” 10 And I took the small book from the hand of the messenger and I devoured it, and it was in my mouth as sweet honey, and when I ate it, my belly had become bitter. 11 Then they say to me: “It is necessary for you to prophecy again concerning many people and nations and tongues and kings!”

Men loved to read and to speak the Word of God. But as the apostle Peter warned us, at 1 Peter 1:3-9:: “Blessed is Yahweh, even the Father of our Prince Yahshua Christ, who according to His great mercy has engendered us from above into a living hope through the resurrection of Yahshua Christ from among the dead, for an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and unfading, being kept in the heavens for us who are being preserved by the power of Yahweh through faith for a salvation prepared to be revealed in the last time. In which you must rejoice, if for a short time now it is necessary being pained by various trials, in order that the test of your faith, much more valuable than gold which is destroyed even being tested by fire, would be found in praise and honor and dignity at the revelation of Yahshua Christ, whom not having seen you love, in whom now not seeing but believing you rejoice with an indescribable and illustrious joy, acquiring the result of your faith: preservation of your souls.” Likewise James said “Blessed is a man who endures trial, because being approved he shall receive the crown of life which He promised to those who love Him.” (James 1:12) We do not realize these trials when we embrace the things of the world and join ourselves to the world, so long as we have the things of the world. But when we pursue the things of God, then we realize them, and pray that He keeps us from them, covering ourselves with the Blood of the Lamb.

Therefore the Word of God is sweet in our mouths, but bitter in our bellies. If we have joined ourselves to the things of the world, it pains us to hear it, but if we enjoy hearing it, it pains us to live by it because of the strife which we get from the world. Ezekiel put it this way, at Ezekiel 2:8-3:3: “2:8 But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee. 9 And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein; 10 And he spread it before me; and it was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe. 3:1 Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel. 2 So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll. 3 And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness.”

The desire of the Germanic peoples to read and their will to follow the Word of God once they were able to read their Bibles, caused them to revolt from the tyrannical Romish Church, which in turn caused great wars throughout Europe, notably the Thirty Years' War in Germany, the destruction of the Huguenots under Catherine di Medici in France, and all the blood-letting of the English Reformation and its temporary reversals in the 16th century. There are estimated to be as many as 12 million deaths in the Thirty Years' War alone, all because the popes thought they had a right to rule over men. None of this is Christian. The powers of evil which wanted to oppress the people – combined with the Nicolaitans among our own people who forever seek to rule over us – these would have stamped out the Word of God, totally removing it from our lives and replacing it with church law and papal decrees.