REVELATION 10:4
by Mako Kato
Here we get a glimpse at something, but we don’t get to know what it was. A voice from heaven told John to seal up what the seven thunders had said.
I can kind of relate to how John felt. Writing for my college newspaper I’ve had times were people want to tell me something off the record. They don’t want me to publish what they are going to tell me. Usually it’s something really interesting that people would want to know, but the person being interviewed has a reason for not sharing. It could be something very personal or something that could hurt someone else.
But whatever the reason, I learn something that the readers will never know. I am entrusted with information that as a journalist I want to share, but am told not too. Like John, I’m ready to write and have to stop… Unlike John, I don’t hear a voice from heaven telling me to not write anything down.
When people tell me not to write something, sometimes they have good reasons for it and sometimes they don’t. Here I trust that God has a good reason for letting John know about something, but keeping it hidden from the rest of us. This isn’t the only time that God has entrusted His messenger with information that He gave in strict confidence. We read that God told Daniel to “shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end.” (Daniel 12:4a ESV) And now, God has revealed some of those things to John and to us in Revelation.
There are things God doesn’t want to reveal to us. In Matthew 24:36, Jesus tells us that no one knows the day and hour of his return except the Father. So many people have tried to guess when Christ is coming back and been wrong. God doesn’t want to guess, but He wants us to be ready “for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Matthew 24:44 ESV).
God is revealing to us information in Revelation, but there are things we won’t know while we are on this earth. We can try to understand Revelation knowing that there are things that God has revealed to us and there are things that we will not understand until a later time.
I’m reminded of God answering Job’s questions:
“Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth and the wicked be shaken out of it?.. Have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this.”
Job 38:12-13, 16-18
I don’t know all this, but God does, and I can trust in His plan. As Job learned, God has His own reasons for doing things, and they are beyond our understanding.
