When God Delays No More — Danny Bond

Prayer, Worship, and the Revelation of God’s Delay Ending

Father, we open our hearts to you as we open our Bibles. Holy Spirit, giver of all truth, resident truth teacher, we ask you to anoint us with your love, your life, that we might see what we could not otherwise see without you, that we might feel what we would not feel if you did not live within us, and that we might be quickened by you, Lord, as we study your truth so that it quickens us.

God, let us feel every range of emotion as we study this passage. And when we go away from this time together, may those feelings quickened by your spirit only grow. Give us compassion, Lord, for those that don't know you, real compassion.

And give us, Lord, a compassion and a concern for those that have wandered from you. And Lord, we love you so much and we want to tell you that before we study this time. We don't ever want to take for granted our relationship with you.

So pour out your love upon our hearts as we study and worship you now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. This message is entitled When God Delays No Longer. When God Delays No Longer. It's Revelation chapter 10.

Revelation’s Interludes Bring Hope During Judgment

We're going to be looking at verses 1 through 11. Someone has well said, as nothing is so easy as to think, as nothing is so easy as to think, so nothing is more difficult than to think well, to think well.

It's very easy to think. It is another thing entirely to think well. And I want to encourage you, if ever we should think well, it should be when we think about God as it relates to the things in front of us here.

Revelation is an amazing book. The chapters we have been studying are unfolding in a sequential, telescopic way for us. The seal judgments, the trumpet judgments and the bowl judgments. There are seven of each.

And each time when you get to the sixth judgment, there is an interlude. And then comes the seventh and out from that comes the next series of judgments. God does that to give people a break and to give them hope and encouragement.

You must realize that during the time of the Great Tribulation that we are studying and specifically we are into the last couple of years on planet Earth right now, as we know it, that people who do not know Jesus Christ, who were left behind when the rapture came, took the church off the earth, they will have Bibles.

They will have access to Bibles. Believe me, there'll be a lot of them left when the church is raptured out. So Bibles will be available. And to be going through these things that are happening and to be able to read them and to see them going on around you and then come to an interlude like we have in Chapter 10 is going to be the greatest encouragement to God's people, those that come to know him in the midst of all these judgments.

Why? Because these truths are going to remind them that he is sovereign, that he is in absolute control and everything is going to happen just as he said, and that heaven is waiting for them just as sure as all the judgments that have come upon the earth.

We're waiting for those that didn't know Christ. So this section, this interlude is tremendously encouraging and comforting for those people. And it's encouraging and comforting to me to know that my God will ultimately be victorious and I will be victorious in him.

God’s Answer to the Problem of Evil and Delay

Now, this chapter answers a big question, and that is, when is God going to break his silence? When is he going to end his delay and do away once and for all with evil? That is a question that inevitably comes up in all of our lives.

You're going through your life, you get bombarded with evil and and finally you get to the point where you don't think you can take any more. And inevitably you say to the Lord, when are you going to stop all this?

When are you going to do away with sin that plagues me? When are you going to do away with this worldly system of evil around us? And when are you going to once and forever and fought for all get rid of the devil?

Have you ever asked that question to God? It is a heartfelt question and it's answered here, here in this chapter. We have obviously an incredible angel. He comes forth with an incredible act. There is an incredible answer and an incredible announcement and an incredible assignment, all here with this big, huge angel.

The Identity, Origin, and Apparel of the Mighty Angel

To begin with, let's look at this incredible angel. Let's talk about his identity for a minute. First one, I saw still another mighty angel coming down from heaven, another mighty angel. Now we are seeking to be absolutely accurate in our study of Revelation.

So we are studying and comparing Scripture with Scripture. There are many people who are afraid to study Revelation. They feel they cannot be understood. Revelation can be understood. Compare Scripture with Scripture.

Do your homework. Meditate on it and you can understand it. There are those in coming to this portion of Revelation who say in verse one, I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, clothed with a cloud, a rainbow on his head, his face like the sun and feet like pillars of fire.

They immediately jump in their mind and they're thinking to chapter one and the blazing glory of Jesus Christ. You know, those kinds of knee jerk instant jumps in the Bible get us into trouble. Oh, this is like this.

So it's the same thing. Not necessarily. And that is the case here. This is not Jesus Christ, as some would interpret this to be. This is an angel. You say, well, how do you know that another mighty angel?

Well, I know that because in the Old Testament you read of the angel of the Lord. You read of the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament. When the angel of the Lord shows up in the Old Testament, it is effectively a Christophany in the New Testament.

You do not read of the angel of the Lord again because Christ has come thus in the New Testament. He is never referred to as an angel. So you come to this passage. He is not referred to as an angel. This is, by the way, not the book of revelations because it's the revelation of Jesus Christ in this book.

That is the revelation of Jesus Christ. He is not spoken of as an angel. He is revealed as God, sovereign, almighty God. Further in the original language. When you read, I saw still and you read the word another.

In the original language, in the Greek language, there's two words you find translated another in the New Testament. It's one of two words, alas or heteros. When you have another of exactly the same kind, it's alas.

But I say to you, my glasses are ruined. Can you get me another pair? I need another of exactly the same kind so I can see alas. When the word heteros is used, that is another of a different kind. So here for this to be Jesus Christ following on the heels of all the angelic activity, be it holy or fallen, it would have to be heteros.

To be Christ, it is in fact, alas, another of the same kind, another angel who is a created being, not the uncreated God, our Christ. So this is an angel. That's his identity. He is a very high and lofty angel.

His origin is he comes down from heaven instead of up out of hell. Now, if you're there in the tribulation and you're reading these things, that's very refreshing because you've just come through reading about 200 million demons.

Frankly, it's refreshing for me just reading it after reading of the sting of the demons, the infant infestation of demon possession and all of that to read of another angel coming down from heaven. Oh, thank God it's about time.

So this angel comes down from heaven. Very refreshing. Now, what does he have in his hand? He has a little book open in his hand, a scroll. It is the title deed to the earth. It's the scroll Jesus took earlier in the book.

He is coming to take control of the earth. It's the title deed to the earth. He comes out of heaven and is a peril. He's clothed with a cloud. We read in verse one in the book of Revelation, clouds have to do with judgment.

He's coming for judgment. His feet are like pillars of fire. That is effectively to say this angel's feet and legs indicate the firm resolve with which he will execute the day of the Lord. Judgment pillar of fire, his feet, his legs.

There is a rainbow about his head. Because God throughout revelation manifests his mercy in the midst of judgment, the rainbow is the sign of God's mercy. Remember, after the flood, God put the rainbow in the sky as a sign of his mercy.

Here is the rainbow about his head. He is clothed with a cloud, which is indicating judgment and the fire of his feet. So you have the mercy of God in the midst of judgment. That is, in fact, what this chapter is, this interlude.

It is time to stop and contemplate. If anybody is out there who could give their life to Christ, this is the time to do it. So we take a close look at this angel. We understand he's from heaven. We understand his apparel.

The Angel’s Face Like the Sun and the Glory of Christ

Let's look at his countenance. I love this revelation. Ten one. Now, bear in mind, let me just back up in chapter nine. It was all about demons. There was torment by demons. There was death by demons.

It's all about demons. It's all dark. It's all ugly and horrifying. How refreshing to come to this countenance of this angel, it says in verse one, his face was like the sun. Don't just dismiss that. Oh, the bright face.

Move on. No, his face was like the sun. What is the sunlight? The sun is wonderful, isn't it? Especially after a winter. The sun is wonderful. You get on a jet flight to a tropical island. You wake up in the morning.

The sun is coming through your window. It warms you. Oh, my. You go out in the unpolluted skies are blue and there is the sun. The sun is wonderful, isn't it? And it's bright in an unpolluted sky. The sun, one sun lights up this whole earth, doesn't it?

Makes daytime out of nighttime. Pretty bright, isn't it? OK, here is an angel and his face is as bright as the sun. That means when he shows up everywhere on Earth, it's daylight all of a sudden all the way around the earth.

His glory is so bright that it lights up the whole world. Now, think about this. This is still a created being, still an angel. This is not Jesus Christ. Now, think of this. And this is revealed to mankind.

The God dwells in an unapproachable light. No man can see him at any time in this flesh and live. So even this light is filtered with this angel. But to see this kind of brightness and glory. And this is an angel.

Just stop and contemplate how bright and glorious the face of Jesus Christ is going to be when we get to heaven. We are told in Revelation that in the new heaven, the new earth and the new Jerusalem, that Christ is the light that lights that whole world will live in the brightness of his glory.

We will gaze upon it forever. And that glory is going to get into us for this light affliction that we go through here, the trials, this light affliction, Paul said, is working for me an eternal weight of what glory, the glory of Christ.

When you lay in the sun on a nice warm day and it sort of soaks into and you feel all yummy. Just imagine how you're going to be with the glory of Christ soaking into you in heaven. Oh, my. Take yummy and sanctify it by infinity and you might get it.

The Angel’s Cosmic Stance Announces God’s Takeover

OK, so this incredible angel and he comes with this incredible act in a gigantic way. He shows that God is taking absolute control of the earth. I say gigantic because he's gigantic. Look at Revelation 10, too.

He said his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land. And he cried with a loud voice is when a lion roars. He is huge. He's huge. There's something amazing about angels. They seem to have this zoom control that they can use when they are here, when they're interacting.

I mean, he's huge. He has his foot on the sea and on the land. He's gigantic and he has his book. So he's huge and he is bright. He's coming to say God's taking it all back. Incredible act standing as he does over towering over the earth.

Then comes his incredible answer. Verse four. God funders out from heaven. Now, when the seven funders uttered their voices, when the angel cries with a loud voice, it funders first three, then verse four.

When the seven funders are their voices, I was about to write and I heard a voice from heaven saying to me this incredible answer. Don't write it. Seal up the things which the seven funders uttered. Do not write them.

God tells John not to write this part down. Whatever is in here, he doesn't want anybody to know until the time when it actually comes. But John heard it. Isn't it amazing? He can't write it down. He can't share it.

He can't pass it on. But he heard it. You know, as I see John standing there bathed in the glory of this shining angel, as I see him hearing the voice of God and hearing these funders, I can't help but think that, you know, when John got in that boat and they took him over from near Ephesus there over to the island of Patmos, it had to be a bad voyage.

He was old, he was near 100. At the end of a long life, he'd seen a lot of things, a lot of persecution. He had gone a long way from the Last Supper when he laid his head on the chest of Jesus. He'd lived a long life, decades, decades of preaching Christ.

He'd seen persecution, he'd seen many of the churches fall away, many people backslide, so on. And then he's taken to this island. I know he had to be depressed. But you know something, as I look at all of this and John is interacting with it, this is real.

He's actually interacting with it. God is talking to him and we're going to see him interact with the angel in the book in a minute. This is real. God effectively turned Patmos into heaven on earth. For John.

Isn't that something? And what made it heaven on earth was not isolated to John, it was deep interaction with the living, risen Christ and deep interaction with his word. And though we are not going to be given these kinds of visions and everything else, we can still interact with the risen, glorious Christ and his word.

When we worship the Lord and we're just, our hearts are fixed on him, I can sing of your love forever and the spirit is filling you. That's interaction with our Christ. The warmth of God's love flooding your soul, the Holy Spirit filling you when you study the word and it's alive to you and you keep stopping going, wow.

You read on a little bit, wow. You read on a little bit, wow. You know, at that point, it doesn't matter what is going on in your life around you. It is as the days of heaven on earth to quote an Old Testament passage.

And it's real. It's real. Thank God. So here is John in the middle of all of this. This incredible answer. Don't write it down, but he got to experience it. Then comes an incredible announcement. We see the angel, the act, the answer.

The Angel Swears That God Will Delay No Longer

We come to the announcement. This angel swears that God is going to sovereignly end his silence and delay. Look at verse five. The angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised up his hand to heaven.

And he swore by him who lives forever and ever. Somebody might be thinking, wait, the Bible says, swear not. Well, that is given to sinful. That's a command given to sinful human beings who swear and lie all the time.

This is an angel who does the will of God perfectly as it is in heaven. He is not taking the name of the Lord to make us believe him. He is vowing for God that God is about to do without fail what he says he's going to do.

He's going to judge. He's going to take back the earth. He's going to judge Satan, sin and sinful man. He swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven, things in it, the earth and the sea.

What? That there should be delay no longer. This is the final announcement, the ultimate announcement that God is going to delay no longer. There is a fixed end to evil. Look at verse seven. In the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished.

Then this as he declared it to the prophets, as he declared it to the prophets, his servants, the prophets. So all of what we see in revelation was in one form or another revealed to the prophets. And yet you remember that sometimes the prophets would receive the vision and they would write down the word of the Lord and they wouldn't even understand it.

Peter says that concerning the prophets, Daniel and Daniel chapter eight, verse twenty six and twenty seven was given a vision and God told him seal up the vision. Don't write it down. It refers to many days in the future.

Daniel fainted after he got that vision. That's how powerful it was. He fell over and fainted. Then when he came to, he was sick for days. And afterward, he said he arose and went about the king's business.

But he was astonished by the vision. It so deeply moved him. Well, here God has now come to the point where the mysteries that like were given to Daniel and Ezekiel and other prophets in the Old Testament that even they didn't understand.

Now, it was speaking of this time, it will be finished. I need to know. I'll tell you, the more I serve the Lord, the more I want my life to make a difference. The more I understand what it means to pick up my cross, deny myself and follow Jesus Christ, I need to know that there is a fixed end to evil.

The more I look at the Bible and I see a holy God who says, Be holy as I am holy. And I find myself as Paul the Apostle in Romans 7 saying the good that I would do, I don't and the evil that I don't want to do, I find myself doing.

The longer I live through those struggles, the more deeply I understand that the pathway to holiness is paved with a sense of my own wretchedness. The more I draw sweetness from verse six and seven and chapter 10, there is a fixed end to evil and it's announced right here.

It is coming and I draw strength from that to continue on. Second Peter 311 says, Therefore, seeing all these things will be dissolved. What manner of persons are you to be in all holy conduct and godliness?

Knowing there's an end, I have that fixed hope that beyond the end of evil is the beginning of eternity of righteousness with God. What manner of person ought I to be? How about this? I can be strengthened to be that manner of person by that truth.

That's the truth that makes you free. It's when you're thinking, you know, this is never going to end. God's never going to do anything about the devil and the devil comes to you and says, God's never going to do anything about the devil.

Of course, he says that, you know, you fall into sin. He's behind you shoving. Oh, look how God let you fall and he's shoving. He's never going to help you. It's always going to be like this. You smash your thumb with a hammer, pounding a nail and you miss.

You smash your thumb. It gets a pulse. You know, that pulse. It seems as big as the moon as you're walking around. You feel everyone staring at it. Doesn't it feel like, you know, I've always had this thing and it's never going to go away.

Or you get a pimple on your nose underneath in the end and your nose turns red and swells up and no one can really see the pimple because it's inside. You haven't had that happen. Wait till it does. It feels like it's never going to go away.

Well, it's even worse with sin and the devil. And he says, you know, this is never going to go away. Sorry. Slam the door in the devil's face right now. Verse six and seven. There is a fixed end. The mystery of God will be finished.

There will be delay no longer. It is coming. Now, this angel then swears that God is going to sovereignly end all of this evil and sin and put an end to Satan. When we talk about God sovereignly doing something.

God’s Sovereignty Over Nature, Angels, Satan, and History

What does it mean? If I say to you, what is the sovereignty of God? What is it? I venture to say you have questions about the sovereignty of God. You may bandy about the term. But you see, in the book of Revelation, we see so much of the sovereignty of God.

I wanted to stop right here, digress and talk about it for a few minutes. So it's clear in our minds, because the more you understand the sovereignty of God, the bigger your God becomes, the more you understand he's in control.

This is right here. Then, you know, he's in control of your life. And I will never leave you or forsake you, Jesus said. It has a big impact on your life. What is the sovereignty of God? Let's define it.

You could say that it means that God is the most high lord of heaven and earth. That's the short answer. Anything good as a short answer and a long answer. Most high lord of heaven and earth. In other words, he is subject to no one.

He is influenced by no one. He is absolutely independent. God does as he pleases. He does only as he pleases. He does always as he pleases. He's sovereign. So that I would venture to say you basically believe one or two things.

You believe maybe like this. We are the result of a fatalistic philosophy, which says we are part of an impersonal system that is set in motion, that cannot be changed and cannot be altered. Do you think like that?

Do you believe like that? Oh, I believe God created everything, but then he kind of let it go. He wound up the watch and got it ticking and gave it to me. He dealt the cards and gave me his hand and it's up to me to play them right.

That's what the deists believe. You believe that? Or do you believe that you and I are part of a sovereign, personal, redemptive plan for creation and for the whole world? That's what I believe. And God is working that plan and I see it unfolded in the most glorious detail in Revelation.

He's sovereign. Isaiah 46, 10. My counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. We need to hear these things. We need to read them. God is sovereign. It's seen graphically in Revelation. He's sovereign over nature.

Three years. One third. You have all these numbers that are exact and precise because these aren't random acts of nature going wild and you have earthquakes and all these other things. God has a limit on all of it.

He's in control of nature. In the book of Revelation we find he's in control of angels. Here's an angel we just looked at. He's in control of Satan. In chapter 9 we saw the bottomless pit open and the demons that were chained in there from the time of Noah were released.

Why were they chained? Because God is sovereign over Satan. The ones that are loose and at large, he's sovereign over them too. Sometimes you look at the thing with the devil and temptation and all of that and you start to wonder, well, how could he be sovereign if there's still so much wickedness and suffering in the world?

And you get the idea that you look at all that Satan does and you get the idea that God is sort of trying to catch him. He'll put an end to the devil if he can only catch him. He's fast. You kind of get this picture of a frenzied God with frenzied holy angels running all over the cosmos and the universe just trying to catch Satan and his demons, but they're fast.

Just like in the movies. The whole movie, the bad guys are always winning. And then at the very end, the good guys just barely eke it out. And then Darth Vader gets away and there's going to be a sequel.

You know, somehow the evil never goes away. Well, don't have a picture of God in a frenzied state with the holy angels chasing the devil all over the universe. Know this. The Bible says in Revelation that Satan will be bound for a thousand years in the millennium because God is in control of him.

The Bible says that in the end, he's going to throw him into the lake of fire where he will meet his doom for all eternity. God is in control of him. All right, if he's in control of them, why does he let him do what he does?

Because he is used by God to deal with men. Righteous and unrighteous. Job was righteous. Unrighteous, 1 Corinthians 5, 5. There was that individual in the Corinthian church who was immoral. An immoral relationship with his stepmother.

Paul says, I can't believe you let this go on. He says, I'm telling you right now, put him outside the church and turn him over. It says 1 Corinthians 5, 5. Deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Is Paul saying put him outside the church so the devil can kill him? Kill his body and his soul will be saved? No, we find in 2 Corinthians the man repented. They put him outside the umbrella of God's protective love and the church in the realm where the devil's active and he got buffeted by the enemy.

His flesh got banged around and it brought him to repentance. He sorrowed unto godly repentance. So God uses the devil with men. When he is done, he will finish it and he will put the devil in the lake of fire.

He's in control of him all the time. So you say, but why all this suffering? It's going to end. Verses 6 and 7 tell us that. Why all this suffering now? It's bound up in the purposes of God. Romans 8, 28.

All things work together for good in general? No. To them, for them who are the called of God. According to his, what? Purpose. That does away with that whole permissive will thing. Man made that up. God has a perfect will for you.

All things work together for the good for those that love God and are the called according to his purpose. Why? Romans 8, 29 says that you might be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. That is why all things work together for the good.

So just as Adam and Eve in the garden had a choice between light and darkness, so do we. And the Lord uses the devil and the demons of darkness toward that end. And he's going to use them in Revelation because he's not done yet to judge the entire world.

And when he's done, they'll be put away in the lake of fire forever. He's sovereign over nature, angels, Satan, men, everything. Now, if that's true, then somebody thinking is going to ask the question, wait, if he's in control of everything, which he is, then how can I have free will as a human being?

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom

How can I have free will if he's in control and he's absolutely sovereign? I'll tell you why. Because God in his absolute sovereignty willed that you could have freedom of choice. God in his absolute sovereignty willed that you could have freedom of choice.

Follow this. He did not decide the choices you will make. He decided you could make choices. He did not decide the choices you will make. He decided that you have the freedom to make choices. What man does with that freedom is he repeatedly follows evil and Satan because he doesn't want to submit to and serve a holy God, a sovereign God.

Now, if he then sovereignly gave me the freedom to make choice, how far does that freedom go? It is a limited freedom. God has declared the outcome of the choices because everything is going to end up at the end of his plan of redemption exactly where he wants it with every single thing in place.

Right? None of his decrees will be overthrown. He has decreed there will be an end, verses 6 and 7. And he will, and he's spoken of it, create a new heaven and a new earth. That will happen right on time exactly as he says.

All right, then what about man along the way making all of his choices? How can we arrive right on time with God doing it right his way when man is making his choices along the way? Because God allows man a certain amount of freedom.

Let me give you an analogy from A. W. Tozer. An ocean liner leaves New York bound for Liverpool. Its destination has been determined by proper authorities. Nothing can change that. This, he says, is at least a faint picture of sovereignty.

But let's go further. On board the liner there are several scores of passengers. These are not in chains. Neither are their activities determined by decree, but rather they are completely free to move about as they will.

They eat, they sleep, they play, they lounge about on the deck, they read, they talk, all together as they please. But all the while the great liner is moving steadily toward the predetermined port. Both freedom and sovereignty are present here and they do not contradict each other.

They don't contradict each other. So it is with man's freedom and with the sovereignty of God. The mighty liner of God's sovereign design keeps its steady course over the sea of history. Tozer goes on to say God moves, so good, God moves undisturbed, unhindered toward the fulfillment of those eternal purposes which he purposed in Jesus Christ before the world began.

We do not know all that is included in those purposes, but enough has been disclosed to furnish us with a broad outline of things to come and give us good hope and firm assurance of future well-being, end quote.

And that's exactly where we are in Revelation 10, 6 and 7. He will put an end to all things right on time as he sees fit according to his plan. In the meantime, we wake up, we make our choices, you know, I don't know, maybe I'll seek the Lord today, maybe I won't.

I'm late, I can't read my Bible now, but I have time to stop at Starbucks, you know. And so our life goes, we make our choices, but all the while we are moving inexorably toward the end as God has designed it.

In other words, he's woven it all together in his great master plan. I love my God. He is so huge in everything he does. Don't ever forget it. God is love. So everything he does in his sovereignty is driven ultimately by infinite, gracious love.

This is my God. So the angel swears by him who lives forever and ever that the end is coming, that he would delay no longer the great announcement. Finally, we come to this incredible assignment. Verse 8 through 11.

John Eats the Scroll and Receives a Prophetic Commission

We have the interaction of John with this vision. This is so tremendous. I'll tell you one thing. When it came time for John to die. He didn't die with doubts. He had interacted with heaven already. Verse 8, the voice which I heard from heaven spoke to me again and said, go take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and the earth.

Can't you see, John? Well, I don't look like no little book to me. Take the little book and we're going to do this. So I went to the angel and I said to him, hey, the book. Oh, the jolly white angel. So I said to him, give me the little.

I'm sorry. You know, my imagination. I hope you have one, too. He said, give me the little book. The little book. Hello. He's huge. Can you imagine how big the book is? Give me the little book. And he said to me, here, take it and eat it.

Zoom control. All right, John, here's the book. It's tablet size. Go ahead and swallow it. He had to zoom down to John's size and make the book small enough. When was the last time you ate a book? You know, paper is kind of dry.

So he had to make it small enough that he could eat it. God's amazing. Sure, John was excited. Verse nine. So the angel said, take it. It will be make your stomach bitter, but it'll be sweet in your mouth.

God did the same thing with Ezekiel in chapter two and three. Back in the Old Testament, same thing, exactly the same terminology. You know what it is? It's all the good things we've read in Revelation.

Chapter four, heaven, the glory of God's throne, the rainbow colors, all the worship, all the singing, all the glory, everything in the book of Revelation is so sweet. It's in that book. It's so sweet to his mouth and all the judgments that are coming that he's seen already.

And it will come because he says you're going to have to prophesy some more. There's some more coming. That is what's bitter in his stomach. It makes him sick to his stomach. Just as Daniel saw the visions fainted, woke up sick to his stomach.