APPLY GEM EXAMPLES of GOD as the ONLY CAUSE to heal ALL PROBLEMS!
Sunday, November 28th, 2021
APPLY GEM EXAMPLES of GOD as the ONLY CAUSE to heal ALL PROBLEMS!
USE BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS** as SPRINGBOARDS for YOUR OWN MODERN-DAY PROOFS!
Let God Expressed Meekly/Mightily in you sparkle brightly with insights from Cobbey Crisler, Ken Cooper & others as found in The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“God the Only Cause and Creator”
for Sunday, December 5, 2021
(Cobbey’s text is shared with the blessing of Janet Crisler janetcrisler7@gmail.com)
by Warren Huff, CedarS Executive Director Emeritus, warren@cedarscamps.org
CEDARS NEXT ZOOM HYMN SING WILL BE THIS COMING SUNDAY, DECEMBER 5TH AT 7PM CENTRAL TIME. (at 6:45pm enjoy a violin trio Prelude by the Jenkins family who will be leading this Hymn Sing!) We hope you can join CedarS worldwide family of Hymn Singers that has come from 23 countries and all 50 states on the first Sunday of every month to sing together 7-8 Hymns (as joyful, uplifting prayers set to music).
- Join Zoom Hymn Sing here with one click (password embedded).
- Meeting ID: 276 331 031
- Password: 736307
- Dial-in Phone numbers will be sent to you in a Sunday morning reminder
TWO Bonus CedarS Christmas Sings will be held on December 19th at 2pm and 7pm Central:
We’ll be sharing these bonus Christmas-themed sings with our worldwide community,
featuring an array of musicians and staff members reading the Nativity story.
All are welcome!
Please share this invitation (& our Sunday morning reminder emails)
with anybody who could be blessed by these healing events.
LET YOUR HEART & LIFE SING THE TWO BIBLE VERSES in this WEEK’S BIBLE LESSON that DIRECTLY INSPIRED TWO HYMNS in the 2017 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE HYMNAL.
HYMN 499, written and composed by Desiree Goyette (a CedarS mom, staff member & Sunday Hymn Sing Leader) was inspired by verses from Isaiah 45. One verse from it is in our Responsive Reading “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” (Isaiah 45:22)
HYMN 499 (Christian Science Hymnal, verses 1–3)
Lyrics & music by Desiree Goyette:
I am the Lord, there is none else;
There is no God beside Me.
I girded thee, I girded thee,
Though thou hast not even known Me.
But know that from the rising sun
To the west there is none beside Me,
For I am the Lord, there is none else;
There is no God beside Me.
I am the Truth, there is none else;
There is no Truth beside Me.
Infinite light, bountiful, bright,
Is ever present to guide thee.
Beloved and free, eternally,
Perfect peace and joy I provide thee,
For I am the Lord, there is none else;
There is no God beside Me.
Innocent one, sinless and pure,
Nothing can ever divide thee.
Governed by Love, you are secure;
I am forever beside thee.
So rest and know where’re you go,
Home and heaven cannot be denied thee,
For I am the Lord, there is none else;
There is no God beside Me.
The refrain of another favorite, HYMN 457, was inspired by Psalm 143:8, 10/citation B11: “Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee. … Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God:…”
HYMN 457
Lyrics & music by Susan Thierman:
REFRAIN
Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning;
Teach me to do Your will, O God.
Cause me to know the way where I should place my feet
To walk in the pathway of Your love.
Verse 1
Not in the storm, nor the earthquake, nor the wave;
You’re not in the wind, nor the flame.
In the still of the evening, in the hush of the morning,
Call my name.
REFRAIN
Verse 2
Truth is my Rock; there is nothing I shall fear.
You still all my worry and woe.
And my heart’s overflowing now; I rest where
Your quiet waters flow.
REFRAIN
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 457:1–3)
COMMIT DAILY to GLADLY OBEY EACH COMMANDMENT to FEEL God’s WHOLENESS WITHIN & PROVE/express “the whole of man in His image & likeness.” SH 340:9; Ex. 20:1+; Deut. 7:9;
The final verse in the Responsive Reading refers to the enduring power and value of keeping God’s Ten Commandments: “He hath remembered [given loving attention to] his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.” (Psalm 105:8) And, the first Bible citation in this week’s lesson is our first Commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3/citation B1)
All the Bible citations in Section 2 (cit. B6/Ps. 115:4-9; cit. B7/Hab. 2:18, 19; cit. B8/Isa. 42:8;) feature the value of obeying the 2nd Commandment to not make any graven images (or obsessions with material things and bodies that are not up to the job of being God]. Jesus summarized that “the first and great COMMANDMENT” was to “love God with all your heart… soul & … mind” (Matt. 22:37, NKJV).
We can live the first great commandment of loving God with all our hearts by whole-heartedly putting into practice the 1st four Commandments, summarized below:
#1. Celebrate examples of God’s unfailing, freeing love if ever tempted to be worried!** Click on each Commandment # for elements of a Barry Huff podcast series on The 10 Commandments at ChristianScience.com/youth/resources-lists/sunday-school-teachers-teaching-resources/the-first-commandment-animated-tr
#2. **Quit thinking most about material things and bodies that will never be “up to the job” of being God.
#3. Don’t say O.M.G. (“Oh, My God!”) unless you are praying God’s name and expecting a quick answer!
#4. Remember—give loving attention to—God’s Genesis 1 Sabbath & work out from perfection, not up to it!
In the rest of Jesus’ reply to the question about “the great commandment of the law,” he said the second is like unto it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39, NKJV). It’s lived by whole-heartedly putting into practice the other Commandments, summarized as:
#5. Respect and obey all RIGHT authority figures and boundaries in your life.
#6. Refuse (re-fuse) to get angry, make fun of, or put anyone down! (an unchecked air of superiority leads to killing, Matt.5:21+)
#7. Seek deep satisfaction in all God’s given and keep your promises (unchecked lust leads to adultery, Matt.5:27+)
#8. Stop trying to GET happiness & instead try to GIVE it! (fulfill your “reason for existing… to impart truth, health, and happiness.” My. 165)
#9. Stop saying what’s not REALLY true of others or of you (bear true witness— “tell …the whole truth… so help me God!”)
#10. Feel & say of others’ good “Thank You God! That’s Mine Too! (TYG! TMT! Is more powerful than TNT!)
**I’ve found it interesting to know that Jews combine our 1st and 2nd Commandments as their 2nd Commandment. They regard the preceding verse not only as the 1st Commandment, but also as a divine reminder of how God saved them – delivering them out of slavery in Egypt: “I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage” (Exodus 20:2 & Deuteronomy 5:6).
We can daily demonstrate and live out the healing power of the 10 Commandments as we live-up to the truism that “to (us) to whom much is given, much is expected.” With all my heart I praise and thank God daily as I mentally review the many prayer and Commandment-based healings God has given me (as partially listed below). With ALL glory to God, the following demonstrations of divine power have come to me as I have expectantly invoked the ever-presence power of living the Commandments:
- my yielding to divine Mind’s harmony 12 yrs. ago for a rapid dissolving and total healing of a cancerous growth;
- an instantaneous healing of my arm when it was broken in a football game (a later x-ray verified a perfect bone-setting & healing before I played D-1 college football);
- a $100k unsolicited gift offer in May 1993 came minutes after I knew this was the exact amount needed to reroof the Lodge & felt deep grateful in advance for God meeting the need;
- God filling CedarS Mediterranean Ski Lake w/60 million gallons of “holy water” in the 6 days before CedarS 2021 (50th) season in response to an earnestly offered prayer of gratitude in advance;
- another divine drenching as witnessed by 300 campers & staff that came “out of the blue” and only over CedarS to put out a soccer field wildfire. (“Impossibilities never occur.” SH 245:27)
“What cannot God do?” [These testimonies will be shared in Christian Science periodicals as occasion allows.]
STRIVE TO “TOUCH THE FRINGES OF ETERNITY” (Hymn 64:3) TO FIND PERFECT WHOLENESS WITHIN YOU!
Cobbey Crisler on Mark 5:25-42 (cit. B13) & Luke 8:41 for an issue of blood healed, plus a dead 12-yr.-old raised
Click on links to see helpful images & video reenactments of these Christian healings meant for you too!
- Heal longtime “issues” – Reach out to “touch the fringes of eternity” (Hymn 64) as in a Mark 5:28 reenactment
- Put out all mourners to raise the dead like Jesus did with Jairus’ daughter as in a Mark 5:21…42 reenactment
[Cobbey:] “A woman, hemorrhaging 12 years, was healed by touching the “wings” of Jesus’ garment. (Cobbey Crisler (CC) on the version in Luke 8:41) “The woman… is at the absolute desperate end of a rope. Here we find receptivity. Blessed are those are in this state. Happy are those because this state of mind can be changed. “This radical change of thought was in the presence of the Christ-correction that Jesus was exercising in the mental realm. It’s going to be sufficient and the woman feels that it will help her. She’s lost all her money on physicians. [No health insurance…] Mark even tells us that she’s worse because of that choice. [Mark 5:26] All she does is touch the border of his garment. The issue of blood, the continuous hemorrhaging, had occurred for twelve years, had kept her out of the temple, kept her out of worship and made her as unclean as the lepers, …
(CC on version in Mark 5:34) Verse 34. Jesus calls the woman, “Daughter.”… Jesus is using daughter in an entirely new way… The woman’s problem is blood. He even lifts the term “daughter” out of a blood relationship and defines a divine relationship… The dignity of womanhood is demonstrated.”
(CC on version in Luke 8:48) “Daughter, be of good comfort” (Verse 48). Look at how he’s addressing the thought of that woman. Not only the precious relationship to God, but the comfort. She hasn’t experienced that in twelve years. She’d lost all her money. She was about to be thrown on the society. There was nowhere to go when you were thrown on society. That may have happened to the woman who had been a sinner. Prostitution was the only open career for many women when they were simply thrown out and discarded from normal humanity…
“Jesus refuses to allow that woman to walk away from the scene thinking that physical contact with his robe had anything to do with the healing. He says, again, “Your faith hath made you whole.” The word “whole” and the word “heal” in Anglo-Saxon have the identical root. It implies that disease is something less than wholeness, that it is a fragmentation of our being. Healing is the condition of being made whole.”
“What Mark Recorded” and “Luke the Researcher,” both by B. Cobbey Crisler**
Warren’s ADDED BACKGROUND NOTE, THAT RELATES to APPLYING the 10 Commandments GEM ABOVE:
“In Numbers 15:38-40, God tells Moses to have Hebrew men attach fringes to the border or wings of their prayer shawl garments —like the one pictured in a Download in the online version of these GEMs —to remind them to abide by God’s Ten Commandments (See GEM on 1st and all Commandments) and to ‘be holy unto your God’ (Numbers 15:40). The woman healed of her 12-year issue was rewarded for exercising her faith that Christ Jesus was fulfilling this prophesy in Malachi: “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; (Mal. 4:2). Many others in Jesus day were also rewarded for exercising their faith in Jesus being the fulfillment of the scriptural promise of the healing power connected to the keeping of God’s law represented by the 10 Commandment fringes on the borders of his garment… Mark 6:56 records of Christ Jesus’ healing that “whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole.” (or “perfectly whole” in the account in Matthew 14:36) Here’s to perfect wholeness for you in your faithfully following of the science of the Christ and in fulfilling God’s laws.
WHEN SIMULTANEOUS PROBLEMS ARISE, PRIORITIZE RECEPTIVITY & HEALING OVER RANK, LIKE JESUS DID.
Cobbey Crisler on Jesus dealing with time management of 2 urgent appeals (Mark 5:21-42/cit. B13 & Luke 8:41-55)
[Cobbey on the Luke version of this healing “double-header”:] “In this case we have something that might present a problem. Two people that need attention simultaneously. What do you do?… Here’s how Jesus deals with it. He is first summoned by a ruler of the synagogue with a great deal of human priority. Jairus has the rank and he asks first. He’s got a more urgent need. His daughter is on the verge of dying (Luke 8:41). But Jesus can’t even get to the location where this girl is because of the crush of people in the narrow lanes of the Palestinian villages. The Greek word for “thronged” is often used to describe how close these groups got to one another. Jesus was nearly suffocated by the crowd.
“Later the disciples rebuked Jesus, in Verse 45, for asking “Who touched me?” To them it was ridiculous. Everybody was touching him. The Greek verb that’s used is a verb that means what happens to grain kernels between two grinding stones. They were ground really together. The people were that crowded.
“What happens? The woman does not wish to delay Jesus’ mission, but she is at the absolutely desperate end of a rope. Here we find the receptivity. Blessed are those who are in this state. Happy are those because the state of mind can be changed.
“This radical change of thought was in the presence of the Christ-correction that Jesus was exercising in the mental realm. It’s going to be sufficient and the woman feels that it will help her. She’s lost all her money on physicians. [No health insurance…] Mark even tells us that she’s worse because of that choice. [Mark 5:26] All she does is touch the border of his garment. The issue of blood, the continuous hemorrhaging that had occurred for twelve years had kept her out of the temple, kept her out of worship and made her as unclean as the lepers. With all sorts of legislative rules around her, she herself could not be touched because it would make the individual who did it unclean. But we find that Jesus welcomed that dear woman from the standpoint of God’s welcome, because he said, “the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the father do.” (John 5:19).
“In Luke 8, Verse 48 he calls that lady, “Daughter.” Whose daughter? Certainly, not his. In fact, he lifts that word “daughter” entirely out of any sense of blood relationship. That was the woman’s problem. He lifts even her identity out of blood.
“Daughter, be of good comfort” (Verse 48). Look at how he’s addressing the thought of that woman. Not only the precious relationship to God, but the comfort. She hasn’t experienced that in twelve years. She’d lost all her money. She was about to be thrown on the society. There was nowhere to go when you were thrown on society. That may have happened to the woman who had been a sinner. Prostitution was the only open career for many women when they were simply thrown out and discarded from normal humanity. She could not get a living unless her family supported her, and there is no indication of that happening.
“Jesus refuses to allow that woman to walk away from the scene thinking that physical contact with his robe had anything to do with the healing. He says, again, “Your faith hath made you whole.” The word “whole” and the word “heal” in Anglo-Saxon have the identical root. It implies that disease is something less than wholeness, that it is a fragmentation of our being. Healing is the condition of being made whole.
“We understand that equation when Jesus said, “If your eye be single” Matthew 6:22), indivisible, not shared, no divisions in it and no double vision. It is single-mindedness and persistency, as we see Jesus requiring later in our book, which results in man being whole as God views him.
“The other half of the time crunch demand and Christ’s use of humor to clear out funerial thought:
When Jesus goes to the raising of Jairus’ daughter, we don’t find any reason to bemoan the delay in getting there. Even though the news comes back that the daughter has died in the meantime (Verse 49). That is the human news. Jesus goes right in and clears the environment out (Verse 51). Notice, again, this must be telling us something about what is required in order to heal.
“The thought of death is so weighted down with its inevitability and grief that Jesus has to clear it out. Notice how he does so, incisively and brilliantly. He couldn’t clear them out while they were weeping. That was acceptable at a funeral. Jesus would have occupied the villain’s role.
“So, he simply tells them something that was an absolute fact to him, “That maid, right there that you see horizontal, no movement, no breath, no pulse, no anything, that little girl, she’s really not dead. That appearance that you see there is like sleep (Verse 52). And I am going to awaken her life.” All the paid mourners who were earning their salary for conducting a funeral service, and everybody else who had witnessed the tragedy associated with this little girl passing away laughed (Verse 53).
“Can you clear laughers out of funerals? There is certainly more justification from a social standpoint than with weepers. It also showed how deeply their grief had run. Forgetting every reason why they were there, they turned to laughing him to scorn. He put them all out.
“He went to the little girl, “Maid arise” (Verse 54). “Her spirit came again, she arose straightway” (Verse 55). And that beautiful practicality of Jesus, “Give her meat,” give her something to eat (Verse 55). What else would a twelve-year-old girl want anyway? It was also an announcement that everything was quite normal.”
“Luke, the Researcher,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
CONCEDE EARLY & OFTEN IN EVERYTHING, LIKE JESUS DID, THAT ALL ABILITY COMES FROM GOD, NOT YOU!
WHEN WATERSKIING PAUSE TO GET UP, AS IF YOU WERE GETTING UP TO TESTIFY…
Mary Baker Eddy has given CedarS a favorite met for water-skiing. In citation S26 she says: “Beholding the infinite tasks of Truth, we pause, – wait on God. Then we push onward, until boundless thought walks enraptured and conception unconfined is winged to reach the divine glory.” (cit. S26/323:9)
After saying “Hit it!” for the ski boat to start pulling you, it seems natural for most beginners to lean forward right away, as if to get up “on their own.” But, this always causes quick nose-dives. A better method is to PAUSE, waiting to acknowledge the boat, or really God, as the true power of the event, able to pull us through it, God precedes and PRE-SERVES us – and we express such dominion that we almost feel able to Walk On Water! (WOW!) (A successful pausing posture for skiers to mimic is that of a testifier getting halfway up out of their seat and pausing for a few seconds before proceeding, because another testifier got up at the same time.)
In like manner, when we realize that life is about God, about Love, and not about us (as physical beings) or because of us (as sexual beings) we are free to merely reflect, instead of originate, the “incontrovertible” perfection of man AS A SPIRITUAL BEING, as the “image, reflection, of God, . . neither inverted” (‘reversed in position, order, or relationship’) “nor subverted,” (‘overturned from the foundation: RUINED: perverted or corrupted by an undermining of morals, allegiance, or faith’) “but upright and Godlike.” (S&H 200:19, with Merriam Webster’s definitions in parenthesis)
From a Warren Huff Met Originally Posted: 4/27/2003
TAKE THIS PRECIOUS GIFT OF A LITTLE BOOK WITH UNIVERSAL APPLICATIONS & APPLY IT WITHOUT DELAY TODAY!
Cobbey Crisler on Revelation 10:1-11, citation B18
(Here’s a link to a partial YouTube illustration of verses about no delay.)
[Cobbey:] “The Tenth Chapter of Revelation … verse 1, records another mighty angel coming down from heaven. Heaven, the divine and infinite, databank, from which this angel now bares God’s revealed Word. Is this another opportunity for space for repentance, now in the form of a little book, opened?
“…The angel in Revelation, Chapter 10, is clothed with a cloud. In John’s vision, the message is initially obscure. A later textual implication hints that John could not take the full light of this message at first. He needed to adapt to it gradually.
“The message is mighty. The angel standing behind every word of this little book links every concept in it to God. The angel’s face were as if it were the sun. This combination of sun and cloud may explain the rainbow upon his head. A rainbow results when light penetrates a cloud or mist. Are the conditions finally here for the mist of Genesis 2 to be lifted? Will the rays shining through the lens of this angel’s book ultimately penetrate and evaporate the obscuring cloud? Even though the full white light of this vision does not yet appear to John, he does see through the cloud which, like a prism, shows the iridescence of God’s promise.
“This rainbow symbolism serves to remind scriptural students of its earliest recorded use in the Bible – the bow seen in the cloud after Noah emerged from the Ark… The bow we are told represents the promise that no flood would gather such proportions again to destroy all flesh. Reappearance of this timely rainbow in Revelation then, is like an implicit forewarning of a second major flood. This one, two chapters later, at Revelation 12.
“The deluge is from the dragon’s mouth, and it’s directed against the woman, mother of the man child, to sweep her away. … No serious student of prophesy then is surprised when Revelation 12:16 reports “And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.” (Rev. 12:16)
“Thus, the rainbow promise was fulfilled.
“Let us turn now to Revelation, Chapter 10, verses 1 and 2.
(Rev. 10:1,2)
1 And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:
2 And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,
“Note there that the angel sets his feet as pillars of fire, upon the sea and on the earth. These happen to be the primary and the secondary sources for all earthly life. Is the fire meant to consume these fundamentally held opinions about the evolutionary origin of man?
“John the Baptist tells us through Matthew’s text (3:12) that Jesus’ mission would inaugurate on earth a baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire. In the threshing imagery used, the Holy Ghost separates out the wheat; the unquenchable fire burns up the chaff. Since the Holy Ghost is so vividly identified with these effects, is it also to be identified with the focal Apocalyptic picture in Chapter 10:2 – namely the little book? …
“Jesus had told his disciples that the father would give another comforter, and he referred to this comforter as the Holy Ghost. Whatever the thought content of this little book, it has a major and exalted destiny just to measure up to the prominence of its Apocalyptic picture. What does this book have to say that will dissolve with fire the old and make way for the radically new? We know this is God’s purpose in Book of Revelation, for in next-to-last Chapter, Revelation 21, verse 5, “He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.”
“Such a summary achievement allows for no exception, even traditional concepts concerning sea and earth must be consumed. Although long presumed to hold the secrets of the origin of life, they are doomed to diminish as a basis, as the little book takes effect.
“The Holy Ghost and fire represent God’s ultimate yes and no on every topic. The wheat remains; that is God’s “yes.” The chaff must be burned up either through the flames of self-destruction, of through the refining baptism of God’s Word; that is God’s “no.”
“John makes the right decision and sees ultimately a new earth and no more sea. What scriptural lessons in these Apocalyptic pictures? We learn that we don’t have elect the plagues. The trumpets alarm should warn us away from a making that desperate choice.
“There is a scriptural way out – a new Exodus – the one Jesus discussed on the mount of transfiguration with pioneers who had ascended before him. The prerequisite for this new Exodus; however, is a new Genesis, for Jesus assures us, “No man hath ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven.” (John 3:13)
“Is this little book held by the angel to convey to mankind details of our heavenly Genesis. Are these details so radical that Jesus couldn’t even share them with his disciples?
“At the Last Supper he had told them “I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear the now.” (John 16:12)
“Then he added, “this would be the mission of the Comforter.”
“When he, the Spirit of Truth is come, he will guide you into all truth.” (John 16:13) He shall “teach you all things.” (John 14:26)
“Does this little book’s divine data hold the key to this new Genesis and this new Exodus for the human race? Before the earlier Exodus, God had said “I send an Angel before the to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.” (Ex. 23:20)
“This Angel is also associated in Exodus 14:19 with the pillar of cloud and fire which led and defended Israel through the wilderness to the Promised Land.
“The angel of Revelation 10 is clothed in these symbols of cloud and fire. Has God sent his angel of a new Exodus before us to keep us in the way, to emancipate the race from what Shakespeare called “every ill [virus variant] the flesh is heir to”?
“Seven thunders try to drown out the words of the little book, just as seven seals tried to suppress the contents of the first book. This book, you may recall, is in Greek, “Biblia.” In Chapter 10, the Greek word is “Biblaridion.” (15:37) This diminutive form appearing uniquely in the tenth Chapter of Revelation connotes a book smaller than the one proclaimed by the first mighty angel.
“Is the emergence of the little book in prophesy one of the things Jesus told his disciples they could not bear now? But John tarried until Jesus came and then reported the revelation of Jesus Christ, including all he had to say about the coming of this little book.
“This is a watershed chapter in the Book of Revelation, for with the coming of the Biblaridion, there is simultaneously restored a strong sense of God’s control of events on earth as in heaven. …
BONUS VERSES JUST AFTER CITATION B18, REVELATION 10:9-11
[Cobbey:] “Did John take the little book? No. There is always that innate human preference for a handout, and John responds with “Give me the little book.” That requires less motion on our part and more on the angel’s…
“But, to take the word is only the first of the angel’s mandates; the second is to eat it up.
Revelation 10:9 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.
“The initial taste, according to Revelation 10, verse 10, is as “sweet as honey.” The little book’s reasonings are sweet, apparently, and appeal to our native yearnings.
“The book obviously makes sound spiritual sense. The receptive taker finds no difficulty ingesting its message as if it were something he has always believed, but never dared to utter.
“The rub comes in Revelation 10, verse 10, the bitter after affects when we try to live God’s word. A Biblical listener and church member cannot just hear it, he must do it. He must take it from his credenda and put it on his agenda. (Webster’s Def “Credenda: doctrines to be believed: articles of faith.)
“James writes: “…Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.” (James 1:22)
“John is told a second time to take the little book out of the angel’s hand. Does that phrase “out of the angel’s hand” recall its use in Chapter 8? All effectual prayer is launched out of the angel’s hand. The parallel helps us to know the contents of the little book. Its chapters are the equivalent of prayers. Why not?
“Any concept in the grasp of a mighty angel would be linked to God and His infallible results. This little book has a universal application. Not just John must take it. And in Revelation 10, verse 11, John must prophesy again, not just to a peculiar people, but to many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings.”
“Apocalyptic Pictures: Prophecy and Parody,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
