And I went to the angel and said, “Give me the small scroll.” “Take it and eat it,” he said. “It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.”I went to the angel, telling him to give me the little book. He said to me, “Take it and eat it. It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.”And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.And I went unto the angel, saying unto him that he should give me the little book. And he saith unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but in thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey.
3 sermons cite this verse
but it's not just enough to take it. We have to eat it. Now don't get hung up on whether John literally ate this entire book. Remember, Jeremiah was commanded. Ezekiel was commanded to eat the scroll of God. Whether or not he ate it literally is unimportant. The point is, it was a picture of assimilating God's word into his own life. Remember, you are what you eat. make God's word a part of your life. And so John did that. He assimilated, he digested the truth of that little book into his life before he could go out and prophesy to the nations. And when he ate the word of God, either literally or figuratively, it first of all made his stomach bitter. It was bitter in taste, but then it became as sweet as honey. We read that this morning in Psalm 119, longest chapter in the Bible talks about the power of God's word. Remember verse one, your word is as sweet as honey in my mouth. In what sense is God's word both bitter as well as sweet. I was turning that over and over in my mind this week, and it didn't come to me till yesterday afternoon. So it's not in your notes, but I want you to write this down. …
… and God's work on earth. chapter 10, verse nine. So I went to the angel and I told him to give me the little scroll. And he said to me, take and eat it. It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth, it will be as sweet as honey. That's an image, by the way, taken from the prophet Ezekiel, who describes the message from God that he received in the same way. It's sweet to the taste because it comes from God, a God of love who's provided for our salvation, but bitter to the stomach because it also describes judgments on earth that are coming against people, people who refuse to come to Jesus, people we know and we love and that we work alongside. You know, sometimes in this place on a Sunday morning, when we sing about the coming of Christ, I will often find myself there in worship saying, Jesus, I want you to come back. But there's still so many people who don't know. …
… Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, go take the scroll that is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land. So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll. John gets a little scroll. And he said to me, take and eat it. It will make your stomach bitter. But in your mouth, it will be sweet as honey. for Ezekiel for Jeremiah for John this word is to be ingested by the mouth before it is to be spoken from the mouth Ezekiel 3, 4. and he said to me son of man go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them for you are not sent to a people of foreign speech into a hard language no translation is needed there's no foreign language translation but to the house of Israel you're sent not to many peoples of a foreign speech and hard language whose words you cannot understand surely if I sent you to such they would listen to you but not the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you for they are not willing to listen to me. That's what's going on here. That's what's going on. People reject the God of the word. People don't just reject God's word, they reject the God of the word. And that's what's happening here. Because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. …