like person, how people look imagery, right? So this one here, we see his body, his head, his face, and his legs. It says that his body is clothed in a cloud, is wrapped. He's shrouded in a cloud. Now think about that. Think about the enormity of clouds. Clouds are huge.

And for someone to call that their jacket, this is a big, big angel that we're looking at here. It says that his head is wrapped with a rainbow. And we saw a little bit about the rainbow in chapter four. Behind the throne of God, that there was this rainbow showing.

I remember what the rainbow represents during the time of Noah, that in the midst of judgment that wiped out all of planet Earth, that the rainbow showed mercy. It showed hope, that God will no longer-- no more do what he did there. And so it shows, even in this thing, that his head-- and think about this.

Rainbows are huge, right? They stretch from one end to the other. I don't know if you guys have ever tried to go to the end of a rainbow. One time I did, when I was in elementary school, because somebody had said that at the end, you get a pot of gold.

And I actually believed it. This was a real story where I believed it, because my friend had told me that the guy-- you know the Lucky Charms dude? That guy, he said that at the end of the rainbow. So I followed it. And I ended up about 30 minutes away from home, because I was following a rainbow.

And it's big. I was really, really far from home. And to look at something like this, it's just that his head is wrapped in a rainbow. Just imagine a head underneath that stretch of land that I covered. It's trying to describe something about this angel. It says his face is like the sun.

The sun. You know how many Earths fit in the sun? This is a huge, huge face. Not only that, I know you have been told. Don't look at the sun. You've been told that. So what is this trying to describe? That there's this radiant glory coming out from this angel.

That this huge angel has the face of a sun. And it's not just like a sun that Addie draws. She likes drawing little suns and coloring it now and things like that. It's not like, oh, that's a cute little sun. This is the blazing sun. This is the thing that will melt you.

And his face is like that. And it says also that his legs were like pillars of fire. You gotta imagine what fire is. First of all, fire is judgment. And you can see that in some of these different places. I wrote here Isaiah 66, 16 just for one thing.

I don't even know if I wrote down those texts. But fire is this idea of it burning through things. And so imagine this ginormous angel with legs that are like pillars of fire. And imagine him walking. Imagine what it does. And so here's this angel that's described from verse one all the way through verse two.

And it says that he had a little scroll open in his hand in verse two. And they're trying to show kind of the disparity here between this huge angel and this tiny scroll in his hand. And it says he set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land.

This is a huge angel. And he called out with a loud voice like a lion roaring. So if we wanna go through these bullet points, if the description above isn't enough to show how massive this angel is, his feet being on the sea and land describes his enormity and his power over all the earth.

Next bullet point in verse two, it is literally the scroll. This little scroll that we're talking about is a scroll that says that which was opened. It's in the perfect participle. And this scroll that had already been opened, meaning it is to remain open. Okay, so there is a time and point where it was opened and it was just, that is its characteristic.

This is an open scroll. This is in stark contrast to the scroll that had the seven seals on it, right? That one was sealed and it was desperately wanting to be opened. This was a scroll that was open, meaning whatever message was in it had already been displayed to the world.

Okay, so that gives us a little bit of a clue about what might be written in it. This scroll, it describes the remaining divine judgments. And there's this idea of a completed gospel given to the world that says, judgment is coming for you, so believe in Christ. So it's the full gospel that we have.

And this scroll is opened up saying, it's going to come. Everything has been revealed now. Genesis to Revelation is going to be in your hands after this vision. And as this angel is holding this scroll, it says this in verse three, called out with a loud voice like a lion roaring.

And when he called out, the seventh thunder sounded. And when the seventh thunder had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, seal up what the seventh thunders have said and do not write it down. So the next, or next section here, and number one, lion's roar, this is the Lord's voice.

The Lord's voice. And the lion's roar, this voice of a lion is described a few times in the Old Testament. In Hosea 11, verse 10, it says, they shall go after the Lord, and he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west.

They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord. Now don't think about, I think the only times we've seen lions are in like children's books or at a zoo or something like that, right?

Now lions were a common wild animal during this time. And so like if you go roaming out into the wilderness at night, what's gonna happen? A lion might come and eat you. This was a real thing. It's not a parent saying, don't go out because a boogeyman's gonna come and get you.

No, it's like, don't go out because remember, little Johnny got mauled by a lion. You know, it's that kind of thing. This is a scary thing. This is not just like a lion roar. It's not just like, oh yeah, like a ferocious, you know, Aslan, you know, that kind of thing.

It's even like Aslan, I think, paints such a good picture of who God is. And yet there's a ferocity in this. And it says this also in Amos chapter three, verse eight. For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants, the prophets. The lion has roared, who will not fear?

The Lord God has spoken, who can but prophesy? I love that question, who will not fear? If we took not like a carnival, you know, what do you call those, the circus lions? Not those types of things where we go and like, you know, it's tamed and like, they'll put their head in those lion mouths and things like that.

But like, if we got one from the middle of the jungle and we placed this lion right here and it roared, every single one of us would tremble down to our shoes, right, we would be screaming and running as fast as, we would be jumping over each other to get out of this place it would be so terrible, it's a thing of nightmares.

And so this voice sounds from this angel. And though it is this angel speaking, this is the angel speaking on behalf of the Lord God. And as if thunders weren't loud enough, it says there are seven, it sounds like seven thunders. This is a complete voice of God calling out to, and it's the next blank, judgment.

Like seven thunders, this complete completion of this sound that is coming out. What's interesting about this text is that it says that the angel told him, even though John actually, those seven thunder voices were audible and he understood what it said and he was about to write it down, God says, don't write that one.

Now this is different. He's not, I got a little confused the first time I had read this. That little scroll, he's not called to, okay, here's the little scroll that's open and to write down what, he was about to write it there. That's not what it was. That little scroll already had things written in it.

Okay, remember that's the completed thing, that's the completed gospel that we have and the coming judgment that's gonna be complete. This was a different thing and God says, don't write that. He's instructed not to. Now this is just a simple exercise just to kind of get us more interactive here.

Why do you think we aren't told what was spoken? Go ahead and turn to your neighbor and then try to make your best guesses because I know you could get anywhere with this one. So think about this one. So you could turn to your neighbor and kind of speculate together.

Here. There. There. (tapping) (tapping) There's a little hint down there, it's a simple answer. (laughing) So you don't have to think too hard about it. Okay, anybody wanna volunteer what the other person said? Not what you said, what the other person said. So volunteer. (laughing) Matt, did you raise your hand right now?

Matt Ting? Was that a hand? Oh, that was a fake out. (laughing) Huh? Because we don't need to know it. Okay, good. There's the next bullet point. This is different from the direction given to him in Revelation chapter one, verse 10 through 11 and 19. And those are passages, if you look back there, where God says, "Write all these things down." Well, God says here, "Don't write this down." Why?

Because there's no need, so there is no need to speculate as to what was spoken. Now this is, we're not just doing this. I'm not just yanking your chain or whatever. As I was reading this, I'm like, "God, why would you do that?" You know, I'm kind of known as the person that's gonna be like, "Hey, hey, can I tell you something?" And then like, you know, people will be, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." I'm like, "Oh, nevermind." You know, I'm that kind of guy.

And I won't say it because I'm like, "Oh, I shouldn't have even started that." But, and then people, "You can't do that." You know, I kind of felt that way with this. Like, "God, what, what? "Seven thunders, what's it going to say? "Tell us what it's going to say." And he says, "Don't write it, John." I'm like, "No, why would you do that?

"Why would you even tell us that? "If you didn't want John to write it, don't even say that." Well, there's a reason. Because there's an application to this. Sometimes we want to know everything. Sometimes we want to know everything. And we don't need to know everything. For example, people, I think, can even discount the Bible because it doesn't answer everything.

And so, you know, that's why I don't like, like, free-for-all Q&As that are not done well because people are just going to come and try to, like, ask questions that are going to stump people. And, you know, it's like, well, at the end of the day, no person is going to have all the answers to anything.

Right? Or everything. And so, just because of that, people might have questions that they feel like aren't answered in the Bible. So they say the Bible's not true. God must then not be real. Or the God of the Bible is either not a real God or He's a bad God that I'm not going to follow.

And that's a ridiculous line of thinking. It says in Deuteronomy 29, 29, "The secret things belong to the Lord." That all, it's OK not to know. We have everything that we need. We don't need any more than what's been displayed to us and revealed to us in Scripture. Everything we need that pertains to godliness is found here.

You know, Addie asks way too many questions. Like, a lot. Like, nonstop. Like, sometimes it'll take us about 30 minutes to get home, and from start to end, she'll ask questions. So much so that we have set, like, Alexa, you know, like, the dots, and we set it up at home so that every time she does that, we say, "Alexa, set an alarm for five minutes." And then she knows she's not supposed to talk for five minutes because she just talks so much.

She asks questions about everything. And it's better for me because, like, when I come home, I miss Addie so much that, like, when she asks me questions, I'm all patient, you know? But for Keziah, she hears it 24 hours a day, you know? Or 12 hours or whatever. And then, and so Keziah has been saying this a lot lately.

She says, "Addie, you don't need to know everything." 'Cause Addie is like, "Why is this happening? "So how come that? "Well, why do I have to eat this one and this one?" You know, and then so all of these things are happening. And Keziah says, "You don't need to know everything.

"Just trust that we're doing what's best for you, "and we'll tell you what you need to know." And she's so adamant about it. She goes, "Oh, okay." And then, like, two seconds later, she's at it again. And yet we live like this. We ask questions after questions after questions.

"God, how can you do this? "Why this? "Why not this? "How come I can't date her?" (shouting) And all these different things, and it's just, it's okay. You don't need to know everything. You know, we're gonna come across a lot of times in our lives where we don't trust God because he hasn't answered our questions.

And it's gonna play this pivotal role in our unbelief and a faith that shatters underneath us. But we don't need to know everything. We don't need to know everything. Here's a question for us. You know, when we ask God, and we shake up our fists at God, and we say, "Why this?

"How can you do this?" Who do you think you are? And that's not me asking you that question. I took that straight out of, like, Job. When all these guys are talking about what's going on with Job, and why he's suffering, why all these things are happening, and Job himself is saying all these things, and it's like, oh, all this talking going on for chapters, and chapters, and chapters, and chapters.

You're just flipping, flipping, flipping. It's just man talking, man talking, man talking, man talking, man talking, and God zooms in, and he says, "Who do you think you are?" Have you guys ever seen, like, two people who have no idea what they're talking about? And, like, from a distance, you just hear them talking about something, and you're like, "Oh, my gosh.

"This is making me feel a little nauseous "how they're talking about this thing." You know? And that's what we do. God is the one who knows across galaxies what's happening on the furthest star. He knows exactly right now what's happening at the bottom of the sea. He knows which molecule is out of place in our body.

He knows what's happening in the heart right now of our president. He knows what's going on with, you know, all of these different things in life. He sees everything, not just in breadth, but in depth. He sees every dark corner, not of just of the world and the universe, but of every heart.

And he is sovereign, and he is in control, and he is doing all these things. And so, in that, who are we to ask God? "I know better. "This is not how you should be doing things. "We don't know." So all that to say, it's okay that we don't know what he wrote here.

Let's ask him, yeah? When we go up, we'll ask him, what were those things? And we'll see if he says, like, "You don't need to know or not." And so here, we see this angel, and this angel kind of puts up his right hand and he makes an oath before God, he swears.

And so this next bullet point here, the angel swears that there would be no more delay in God's judgment. That's an important word, delay. The fulfillment of the mystery of God to the prophets is all the judgment promises given to them in the OT, in the Old Testament. So it says this in Daniel 12, verse five through nine.

I have it up here for you guys. "Then I, Daniel, looked, and behold, two others stood, "one on this bank of the stream "and one on that bank of the stream. "And someone said to the man clothed in linen "who was above the waters of the stream, "how long shall it be till the end of these wonders?

"And I heard the man clothed in linen "who was above the waters of the stream. "He raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven "and swore by him who lives forever "that it would be for a time, times, and half a time. "And that when the shattering of the power "of the holy people comes to an end, "all these things would be finished.

"I heard, but I did not understand. "Then I said, oh my Lord, "what shall be the outcome of these things? "He said, go your way, Daniel, "for the words are shut up "and sealed until the time of the end." A lot of this, I hope now this language is starting to get a little bit more familiar to you.

There's an image here of this guy who's holding up his hand, making a swear, an oath up to God. And he says, and it says, this response comes back and says these things are gonna be sealed till the end. And what we're seeing in Revelation is the unsealing of these things.

It's a revelation of these things. And so this is the completion of God's judgment. That this is it. We've come to the point in Revelation where there will be no more delay. The fullness of God's wrath is going to be unleashed here. We're gonna be seeing it. This is the finale that we're gonna be seeing from this point on.

In Revelation chapter six, verse 10, if you could turn back there. It's just a page back. It says, and this is talking about the slain souls. "They cried out with a loud voice, "'Oh, sovereign Lord, holy and true, "'how long before you will judge and avenge our blood "'on those who dwell on the earth?'" And then now what we see in chapter 10 is the answer to that.

No more delay. Vengeance is going to be coming now. The Lord is responding. Next bullet point down here. The human heart demands justice in cases of evil and wickedness. Oh, I built this in, cool. Okay, turn to your neighbor and talk about examples you've seen where you felt like that, that like, you know when like, the justice part of you rises up?

So it could be based on something you've seen like in a courtroom setting or like some kind of criminal activity or even something you've heard someone say to another person, those kinds of things. So I know this one might be a little harder to kind of come up with, but turn to a neighbor and talk about something like that, like where you've seen your heart responding in a demand for justice.

(silence) This could take a moment to think because I know you have to kind of rack it a little. (sniffles) Maybe it could even be something your parents said to you or something. So different ideas like that. (audience chattering) (sniffles) (sniffles) (audience chattering) (sniffles) (audience chattering) (sniffles) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (sniffles) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) (audience chattering) Oh, I'm hearing some good ones, but, (laughs) there are some interesting ones that are here.

Cool, okay. You guys could finish up your story. Well, you know, there is definitely this understanding of justice in our lives, right? We feel like it's just built into us. Justice. You know, I remember how early it was built into me. I remember the first time I felt rage because of justice was in first grade.

We're all standing in line to get big sticks. They're 25 cents each. And the line's always Thursday, minimum. They were so long. I was at the very back, and I saw someone cut to the very second person in line. And then I saw them, I was like, "What?" And then I remember them getting the big stick and walking away.

I'm like, "Ah, that's not fair." And I was standing in line for another 10 minutes. Like, it's built into us. From an early age, I would watch movies where the bad guy would get away with it too easily. I wanna be careful with, (laughs) Yoshi and Emmett are here.

But like, you know, sometimes, their existence would cease. And then at the end, I'd be like, "No! "No, they got away with it. "They did all this bad stuff in the middle of the movie. "How can they get away with it like that? "That's not fair." And it was just built into us, you know?

Like, they just ceased existing. You know, that's not fair. So like, it's definitely built into us. And that's why the human heart, it really does demand justice in cases of evil and wickedness. And there's that point right there. That it demands that some form of evil must be repaid by something else.

And here, as we're seeing the Lord responding in judgment, what I see is such a un-clarity, un-clear. We have such unclear understandings of justice. Even the most righteous of us, right? Like, we look at these things, and we deem what's good and what's evil, and yet God, he sees it so clearly that somehow, beyond even our own understanding, that sin requires such a great judgment as this.

We see his clarity of sight in justice. Any person that has ever said, "This isn't fair. "They can't get away with it," should be pointing a finger right back at themselves and saying the same thing before God. How, how? What am I to do? I can't get away with this.

And so the human heart, it demands justice. And when we see clearly, it's different. Think about in your own life, when someone sins against you, lies to you, backstabs you. And even going through Romans 12, verse 9 through 21 with Pastor Peter, hasn't it been so convicting lately? Man, I come out, and I'm like, dude, (laughs) that was not cool, Pastor Peter.

Now my life has to change, and that's, ah. You know, because we're beginning to see that in these things, it's so hard to do. When someone sins against us and lies against us and backstabs us, we feel the sense of justice, and we'll see that again more at the end of Romans 12.

But the sense of justice that we have, and it shows but a glimpse of God's heart and that he is going to be fair, and there is going to be no crime that goes unpunished. And to know that God sees everything and knows everything, not just all the crimes and all the things that we see in the criminal justice system, and the myriads, the thousands, the millions of crimes that are probably happening today without it being judged in a court, and then to know the depth of our own hearts, to see how deep wickedness and evil goes, and to look up at a judge and to demand justice, justice, God, vengeance, God.

This is not specifically talking about against the people who martyred these slain souls. This is talking about judgment upon an unbelieving world. And so for every person who escapes God's judgment, and so I'm talking about any Christian sitting in this room, that punishment does not go unpunished. Like, do we recognize that in the way we live?

That that punishment was paid for by Christ. And to understand the gravity of Christ taking the sins of the world is a staggering concept, especially when we see how fiercely God judges the earth here. And so this next bullet point down, God will fulfill complete, I wanna emphasize that, complete justice and judgment upon the earth to redeem it.

Everything, every single thing, no matter how big, no matter how small, and we think about it in terms of things done, but to the depths of the essence of our hearts, that we don't just do sinful things, that we are sinners, that these things are going to be brought to complete justice and judgment at the end, whether upon unbelievers themselves, or for anyone who placed their faith in Christ, upon his own son.

Complete justice and judgment upon the earth, and don't lose this part, to redeem it. God is redeeming. In Revelation, that's what we're seeing. God is taking back the title deed to the earth. He's saying, I'm going to save not just individuals, but everything, all of creation is going to be redeemed.

So looking down here now at verse eight, let's finish this up, this is the very last point. 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.

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." And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it. It was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.

And I was told, "You must again prophesy "about many peoples and nations, and languages and kings." So John is told, here's the bullet point, to eat the scroll, which will be sweet in the mouth, bitter in the stomach. This means that the message will be sweet to the faithful believer who will be avenged, but the stomach will be made bitter by the terrible judgment poured out as a result of sin and evil.

Okay, so let's bring everything together in this chapter. There's an angel holding a little scroll. And this scroll is the fullness of truth, of the gospel, of everything that needs to be revealed. It's seen in the fact that it's an open scroll. And then these voices call out, and there's more things that are supposed to happen, more things that we don't need to know about.

And then John is told to eat the scroll. Weird. Says that he eats it, and it's like, "Mm, that tastes like honey. "Oh, my stomach, it doesn't feel good. "Why, what's going on here?" Well, in verse 11, that's where we see the clue. He was told, "You must again prophesy "about many peoples and nations and languages and kings." So whatever he ingested, he is to speak.

And whatever he ingested, it's gonna be sweet to the mouth, but it's gonna leave a bitterness in his stomach. That's the gospel for you, isn't it? It's so sweet. It is just the sweetest thing, this word of God. And yet, as you've been reading through Revelation, hasn't it been leaving you with a bitterness in your stomach?

Oh, man, this judgment, it's okay to, this judgment that's coming is hard to swallow. And yet, what is John called to do? Preach it. He's called to speak it. How many of us, as we've been talking about this week after week, have talked about people we wanna share the gospel to, and yet have not done it out of a fear of making that person feel uncomfortable, of making a relationship shaky, because of the fear of that bitterness in the stomach, so I won't speak it.

And yet, that is what we're called to do. We're called to go and preach knowing there is bitterness in this message. It's a call to go to your roommates, go to your classmates, go to your friends, your parents, your brothers and sisters. You go to them, and you take them the full message of the gospel, sweet and bitter and all.

This is the only loving thing you can do. If you find yourself talking about so many superficial things, talking about, okay, what did the professor say in this class, or did you see that last episode of whatever, and you're talking about all these different things, and yet, you have not spoken to them the gospel, that is messed up of you.

And I point this way, knowing that fingers are pointing right back at me. That for us, we need to understand this, that this is something, as hard as it is, we are called to proclaim it. We must do this. It can't be an option for us to not. And so, we are gonna be breaking up into groups again and talking in a different way because our table groups are all funky right now.

But I wanna ask us to really push each other to this. If we really believe in what we're reading, and week after week, there is a similar message. I was talking to Diane, and she was like, it's always the same message, just be sober, things like that. It is the same message in the midst of God's wrath and judgment that's coming, and yet, I think every time it's spoken, and every time we share it, if there is no change in our lives, that is more judgment on us.

And so, would you really do it? Would you make those active, those volitional decisions today? To say, because of this, I am going to change the way I live. Because of these things that I see, I'm not gonna just talk about, you guys are gonna be going through questions three, four, and five, so skip one and two, but in those questions, one of the questions is gonna talk about what deadens you, what deadens you in your life to this message.

But don't just talk about, honestly, I think I watch a little bit too much TV, and this sucks as a message coming right into spring break, I know, because some of you guys are like, oh, I cannot wait to watch eight hours of this show. Like, I have been saving up for this, and you're gonna unleash your sinfulness this week.

Well, talk to each other and say, like, you know, in this sober message that's being seen here, then how is your life going to change? And then change. Trust what it's saying, and go live in obedience. And we need to do this together. My hope is that as we go, and even, I know, it's kinda, I hope that the board games we play and stuff doesn't, like, deaden us some more, but as we go, I hope that it's a collective effort we're making here, that we're holding hands and going out into this world saying, like, we're all part of the same message.

We're not people who happen to go to UCI, and like, so we found Berean, and so we're doing Berean, but that we are Christians, loving God with all our hearts, so in love with God, our lives are for Him, everything we do is for Him, and so when people think of a Berean, they think of someone who loves God, who loves His word, who lives a life that is strikingly different from the rest of this world, and who's making sacrifices, understanding that they're not really sacrifices, because it's so easy to give up these things in the place of living a lifestyle that is holy and completely sold out for Christ, to love Him in all the different things that we're doing, that putting down, you know, not playing some video games or not playing, like, watching some TV shows, that these things aren't sacrifices to us, that our desire is to go home, and this wind-down time that I think that I need to do all these things before I go to sleep, these things are not important, and it's not a sacrifice, I want to use these times to maybe go and have a conversation with my roommate, with my parents, with whoever I'm gonna go and see, or to spend some time in prayer, because I know I've been sinning, to spend some time studying Scripture some more, because I know this is such a sweet time in college where I can study Scripture with such flexibility, and go and apply it, live it out.

And so let me pray for us, and then I guess we'll sing a song and then we'll go into our groups. Heavenly Father, as we leave, headed into spring break for many of us, I pray, God, that this wouldn't be an interesting book to us, in that it just...