April 21st 2021 – Revelation 10:1-7

"Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. He had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land, and called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring. When he called out, the seven thunders sounded. And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.” And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven and swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there would be no more delay, but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets."

Revelation 10:1-7

There are two interpretations of the phrase in 6, 'there should be time no longer'. Professor Torrance puts it thus: 'In the presence of the mighty Word of God, time stands still. Time, as it were, is no more in that hour - it is the moment of eternal decision.' And he goes on: 'How dearly we human beings love to cling to the passage of time, and how we love to take refuge in days and months and years, to escape that decisive moment when we are dragged out of past and present and future to stand face to face with the eternal God. Man loves to clothe himself with time; he hides himself behind it and so hides from eternal God in the multitude of minutes and passing events. That hiding place is discovered when the word of God falls upon men out of the blue of God's heaven, for man is interrupted in his life, dragged out from his hiding place behind procrastination. The Word of God refuses to let him drift aimlessly down the current of time any longer; he is confronted with eternity, and at last he must decide. He cannot bluff himself any longer. This is the divine stroke that suspends the flow of time, the moment of eternal destiny and predestination - mankind face to face, in time, with the eternal word of God'. This is very devastating. There is a striking example of the truth of this in the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12:16ff. There was a man who was hiding from time, hiding in time from this eternal moment of decision, and God called his bluff and said, 'Enough. There shall be no more time for you. Face this now.' And the man entered the eternal habitations unprepared, a lost soul, because he had never faced up to the challenge of the gospel.