The angel is said to be standing on the sea and on the land no less than three times. He is standing on the whole world with his legs like pillars of fire. His message concerns the whole world, when he says: ‘No more time/no more delay!’ And John has to eat the message, the little book that is in his hand. He literally has to swallow it completely, to eat it up and devour it. He has to become one with it. As full as we may become of the Holy Spirit. Full with the Word of God. Full with Christ and His word. What does that produce in our life? Do you experience that hunger for God’s Word? The deep desire to be filled with Him and His Word? “Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”1
It is the true sign of new life, of being ‘born again’, when you start to long for the Word of God. When you seek fellowship with your fellow believers and long for the regular church services and meetings.2 Milk comes first; solid food later.3 New life needs to be fed; it needs to grow. The prophetic Word of God is part of that solid food. It does not belong to the elementary truths.4 You need to stand on strong spiritual legs, to be mature in Christ.5 You will then begin to speak and have something of the teacher, the prophet, in you.6 To do this, however, you must first take the Word completely into yourself—learning, studying, praying for wisdom, and power by the Holy Spirit. That is also what the prophets in the Old Testament had to do. They had to take the Word of God into themselves in order to be able to proclaim it with courage.
Just read Ezekiel 2:1–3:4, where the prophet also has to eat a scroll that tastes sweet in his mouth but becomes bitter in his stomach. You enjoy it at first—the new, prophetic insights of the Word of God, but it becomes bitter in your stomach afterwards, because it becomes a burden that you have to carry within you—as in John’s case, as in Jeremiah’s case. Jeremiah says at first: When your words came, “I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight…”7 However the same prophet says: “He hath filled me with bitterness, He hath made me drunken with wormwood.”8 You can ‘devour’ a good book, but the message of this book becomes a burden within you, which you must impart. I continue to be given the task, says Paul, even when I no longer want to carry it out. It is my duty. “For when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, since I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!”9
• When the prophet Jeremiah receives his prophetic mission the Lord says: “I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land. They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.10
• Humanly speaking you are standing alone, but the Lord is with you. I will make your forehead like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Do not be afraid!11
Bible References:
1.Matthew 4:4 2.Hebrews 10:25 3.1Corinthians 3:2; Hebrews 5:12–14; 1 Peter 2:2–3 4.Hebrews 5:12 5.Colossians 1:10 6.Hebrews 5:12; 1 Corinthians 14; 12:28–29; Ephesians 4:11–15 7.Jeremiah 15:16 8.Lamentations 3:15 (AV); Jeremiah 4;19 (AV) 9.1 Corinthians 9:17 10.Jeremiah 1:18–19 11.Ezekiel 3:4–11
