Not everything is as it first appears.

Getting married is both sweet and sour. Having children, starting a business, and going to school are all filled with moments of both joy and hardship.

Becoming born again is similar. Salvation brings us great joy in forgiveness and the promise of God’s abiding presence. But salvation also brings us a divine responsibility to live holy in an unholy world, and to shine God’s loving light in a very dark world.

The last book of the Bible, Revelation, shares a similar experience John had:

“So I went to the angel and told him to give me the small scroll. “Yes, take it and eat it,” he said. “It will be sweet as honey in your mouth, but it will turn sour in your stomach!” So I took the small scroll from the hand of the angel, and I ate it! It was sweet in my mouth, but when I swallowed it, it turned sour in my stomach. Then I was told, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages, and kings.”” Revelation 10:9-11 NLT

What does this mean? Matthew Poole’s commentary gives us his thoughts:

“And it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey; it should be sweet in his month, as it was the revelation of the mind and will of God, (which is sweet to all pious souls; see Jeremiah 15:16), but in his belly it should be bitter, being the revelation of the Divine will, as to the bringing such terrible judgments upon an impenitent people.”

In other words, knowing and experiencing God’s great love is the sweetest thing ever!

But now that I know His love, the blinders have been removed from my eyes, and I see how wicked our world is without God’s love. I see their final destination of hell. And I must speak!

This is the tension all Christians live with. Will I only enjoy the sweet, and ignore the sour? Will I embrace a gospel that only talks about God’s blessings for me, and avoids talking about the judgments of God on a disobedient and rebellious world? Is my gospel self-serving, or does it honor the sacrifice Christ made for both me… and others?

Yes, life is both sweet and sour. It’s sweet for believers, but very sour for those who don’t repent. So let’s focus on both…enjoying God’s amazing grace, and trying to rescue others from the results of their own sin.

“My dear brothers and sisters, if someone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back, you can be sure that whoever brings the sinner back from wandering will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins.” James 5:19-20 NLT

So, like John, the revelatory, this is also our mission…. populating heaven and plundering hell.