10:1,2
John now sees “another mighty angel”. The description of the angel is stressing the greatness of this angel. There are some who seek to identify the angel as Jesus, but there really is no justification for doing this. This angle was holding a “little scroll” in his hand, and had one foot planted on the land and the other on the sea. This is emphasising the enormity of this angel. The key point of all this is that God is in control. Terrible events are going to happen, things occur that we don’t like (to put it mildly), and that we don’t understand. Despite all this, Jesus is Lord, and He is the One who is in control.
10:3,4
The angel gave a loud shout “like the roar of a lion”. Then the “voices of the seven thunders spoke”. Seven is the number of perfection. So we have momentous events emanating from heaven. They do not emanate from hell, they do not emanate from man, but from God. Now this absolutely does not mean that man nor the devil are not involved, nor that they do not have responsibility. It is quite clear that they do. We need to have a wider perspective. John was about to write down what was said, but a voice from heaven ordered him not to. Perhaps this is related to Deut 29:29. The events come from God, we cannot understand them, and we do not need to understand everything, but we do need to trust God in everything.
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