Revelation 22:8-10

Verse 8 “And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.”

John now tells his readers that this was not a dream, nor his imagination. He has seen and heard these things for real. And when all was revealed, John made the mistake (again) of falling down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed him these last things. And this after just having done it, and been corrected, when Yeshua came out of heaven on His horse to slay the armies at Armageddon.

Verse 9 “Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.”

John is again chastised for bowing down to anyone but God, and is in fact told that the angel (This does not have to mean angel in the sense of those spiritual entities. The Greek word means messenger.) is a fellow servant, and not just any fellow servant, but one of the prophets who has kept the sayings of this (Revelation) book. This would seem to narrow it down to a person who has not just been a prophet, but who has kept the prophecies of this particular book. It might be that this is one of the two witnesses, or it might just be an end times saint who has had the gift of prophecy. Scripture does teach that at the end, this gift will again be being given and used. Acts 2:17-18 “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.” John is (again) told to worship only God. He is obviously overcome by all of this, as he certainly knows better than to worship anyone other than God.

Verse 10 “And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.”

Daniel was told to seal up the visions he had seen, as they were for the time of the end - our day. But John was told to not seal up the prophecies of this book, for the time was at hand for them to start being fulfilled. We do not know exactly when the first seal was opened after Yeshua’s resurrection, possibly fairly soon, but we do know that the letters were addressed to churches that existed at the time. The sayings of the book indeed were to start being applied immediately. The warnings to the churches were very real to the churches of that day, as well as our own. The time for all of the prophecies to start being fulfilled was at hand, and even though it has taken 2,000 years for them to be fulfilled (and they are not yet all fulfilled), the book did need to be understood immediately. So the time really was “at hand” and the book had to remain unsealed.