Revelation 10:10

Revelation 10:10. The effect of eating the roll is next described. It was, says the Seer, in my mouth sweet as honey, and when I had eaten it my belly was made bitter. The double character of this effect was not produced by different parts of the contents of the book, as if these were partly sweet partly bitter, partly of joyful partly of sorrowful tidings. The contents of the book are one; are all, like those of the larger book-roll, judgment, are all ‘mourning and lamentations and woe.' For the same reason also the double effect cannot be ascribed to the double character of the Seer, the sweetness being felt by him as a prophet, the bitterness as a man. He is a prophet throughout, and his human feelings have been so identified with those of his Lord that whatever is the Lord's pleasure is also his. Equally impossible is it to think that the bitterness was due to the thought of those persecutions which he and other faithful witnesses would have to endure in making known their message to the world. Believers feel that while they suffer they are walking in the steps of their great Master, and that they are suffering with Him. In the midst of suffering they learn to glory in His cross, and to welcome it as a gift of the Divine love (comp. Philippians 1:29; 1 Peter 4:13). The bitterness proceeds from the nature of the tidings. The little book-roll dealt with the fortunes of the Church, not of the world; and the fact that it did so made the first taste of it sweet. To learn that the Lord had chosen out of the nations a people for His name; that He ‘loved the Church, and gave Himself up for it, that He might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present the Church to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish;' such tidings could not fail to be sweet. But then to learn still further that that Church would forget her Lord, yield to the seductions of the world, and become lukewarm in the service of One who had bought her with His own precious blood, was bitter. Yet these were the contents of the book now eaten by the Seer. No wonder, therefore, that though sweet as honey in his mouth the little book made his belly bitter.