One verse in Luke chapter 12 that I want to leave with you today. It's just one verse in Luke's Gospel and chapter 12. And the title of today's message is, From Spark to Flame. From Spark to Flame. We're thinking about the fire of the Reformation, the flame, that great flame that broke out after the darkness of the Middle Ages. across Europe. So, Luke chapter 12, it's verse 49 I want you to think about today. Luke 12, go down to the end of the chapter to verse 49, and here's the words of our Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I am come to send fire on the earth. I am come to send fire on the earth. Well, we hope that you're beginning to thaw out and to warm up, and the heat is on, and hopefully it'll stay on to the end of the service. But remember today that the Reformers didn't have any heat. The Reformers didn't have the opportunity to come into a building like this, where there is heat, We need to remember today that many of the Reformers were thrown into prison, and many of them lay in prison cells that were wet and filthy and cold, and then they were taken out and burned at the stake. Those are the sacrifices that were made hundreds of years ago so that you and I could meet in a church like this today. Let me ask you the question, are you thankful? Does it mean anything to you that you can come to a church today? Does it mean anything to us that we can come freely to a place like this or to go to another church where the Bible is read and where the gospel is preached? My, what a privilege it is to be able to do so. Last week, we enjoyed the ministry of the Reverend Hayes. And of course, during that week, we looked forward. We looked to the future. We were thinking about the end times. We were thinking about those events that will happen in the future before the Lord Jesus Christ comes back again. And it's good to look ahead. It's good to look forward. But let me say this today. It's also good to look back. And it's very important to look back. It's very important to remember. You see, there are a lot of churches today that say, oh, just forget about the past because history is divisive and history only causes problems and divisions between people. So don't look back, don't remember, just forget about the past. I'm afraid I don't agree. I believe we should remember the past. We should remember history. Do you know why? Because this book says to remember. If you want to go home this afternoon and read the book of Deuteronomy, time and time again you will read the phrase, lest thou forget. Lest thou forget. Have you ever heard the phrase today, lest we forget? Whenever remembrance Sunday comes round, That's the phrase that everyone thinks about, lest we forget. That phrase is taken from the Bible. And God was saying to Israel, beware lest you forget. Guard against forgetting. Guard against people who will come to you and say, forget about the past, focus on the present. Now, I know that we should not live in the past. And it's important that we don't dwell in the past and constantly harp back and look back to the glory days, as it were. We need to learn from the past. I know that. But it is important that we remember the past so that we can learn from it. Do you know there's a man who writes for the Guardian newspaper? He thinks that we shouldn't have any more Remembrance Sundays. We should scrap Remembrance Sundays. One of the Guardian columnists, a man by the name of Martin Kettle, there's an article here, just printed it off this morning. As Remembrance Sunday draws near and the nation gets ready to honor our war dead, the Guardian has called for Remembrance services and poppy wearing to be phased out. arguing that they are oppressive rituals. Did you hear it? Oppressive rituals, which ought to be consigned to the past. Writing in the opinion columns, the Guardian's associate editor, Martin Kettle, has said he looks forward to a time when Remembrance Day is no longer celebrated. Isn't that terrible? Isn't that just like dancing on the graves of the brave soldiers who died in the wars. I think that's terrible. I think that's awful. No, we need to continue to have Remembrance Sunday, but we need to continue to have other memorials, and we need to continue to remember the past, and we need to have Reformation Sunday. Yes, we thank God for Remembrance Sunday and other Sundays in the church calendar when we remember the past, but let's think today about Reformation Sunday. Let's go back. This morning in the Sunday school, we were teaching the children about the Passover, and that's 3,000 years ago. By the way, I hope you do pray for the Sunday school teachers. Please pray for them. The effort that they put in, the time, preparation, they have demands, and they have the pressures of life from Monday to Saturday as well. I trust that we pray for them, pray that God helps them as they come in on a Sunday morning to teach the children. But that's what the lesson was today, the Passover lamb and the blood that was put on the doorpost 3,000 years ago. It's important for us to think back and to remember back to those days. And my, it's important this morning for us on Reformation Sunday that we think about the glorious blessings of the Reformation. We have read the words of the Savior today in Luke 12, 49. Jesus said, I am come to send fire on the earth. I am come to send fire on the earth. Do you know I believe that that can be applied to the Reformation? Because during the dark ages, people were in blindness and darkness and paganism and heathenism, and people believed the lie of the Roman Catholic Church that you had to earn your salvation. You had to do this and do that. And the church had a great reservoir of grace. And if you abided by the laws of the church and the rites and ceremonies of the church, then the church would dispense grace to you so that you could earn heaven. That's what people believed. But then the fires of the Reformation broke out and people discovered Romans chapter 5 verse 1, therefore being justified by faith, not by works, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Martin Luther, whenever he went to Rome and he began to climb the stairs You remember, he discovered, the Holy Spirit brought that verse to his mind, the just shall live by faith. And as Luther saw all these pilgrims going up and down those stairs that supposedly had been magically carried from Jerusalem to Rome, the stairs that Christ had walked up, when he was judged by Pilate, of course we know that it's nonsense, it's just a myth. There's so many myths in the Roman Catholic Church. But there as Luther looked at those pilgrims going up and down the stairs, some of them on their knees, their knees bleeding, Luther discovered, I've got it all wrong. The only way that I can be right with my Creator God, the only way I can be right with this holy God of heaven is through Christ and His finished work. It's not through climbing the stairs of St. Peter's in Rome. It's all because the Lord Jesus Christ climbed Mount Calvary's hill. That's why I'm justified. That's why I'm declared righteous in God's sight. Aren't you glad that the Reformers discovered this great truth? You see, Martin Luther used to get angry. He used to get angry with God. Oh God, you demand perfect righteousness, and I cannot achieve it. I cannot be perfect. And oh God, you demand this perfection that's impossible." And he got angry with God, but then he discovered that what God demands from sinful man, He provides in Christ. Do you know the Savior today? Do you know the Savior that Martin Luther came to know? Do you know the Reformer's Savior? Oh, the great fire of the Reformation started. So, the title today as we finish, From Spark to Flame, From Spark to Flame. Who was the spark of the Reformation? A man called John Wycliffe, John Wycliffe, I believe he was the spark that began the Reformation. John Wycliffe, he was born in the 1300s. He was the man who first translated the Bible into English. Now, I know that William Tyndale, he was He was responsible for bringing the Bible to our nation, but he was more involved in printing and distributing the Scriptures. John Wycliffe was the first believer, the first servant of God, to translate the Word of God into our mother tongue. And I believe there was the spark, as it were, when John Wycliffe began his work, and it Where did the spark come from? Well, we've been singing it already today, the first hymn, it speaks of a spark of grace. See how great a flame aspires, kindled by a spark of grace. This spark came from heaven. Whenever the Lord opened the eyes of John Wycliffe and he saw his lost condition and he was converted, yes, it was just as if the spark had come. And John Wycliffe, he began his translation work, and then there were others who joined him. You may have heard of people called Lawlords. That was the term given to the men that John Wycliffe worked with, and then he sent these men out, the Lawlords, and they went out with the Scriptures all over the land, and they preached everywhere they went. Many of them were persecuted and martyred. There was great persecution, great opposition, but yet the spark had appeared, the spark of the Reformation. And John Wycliffe is known also as the Morning Star of the Reformation. That's the title that often is given to him, the Morning Star of the Reformation. You say, what is the Morning Star? What do you mean by the Morning Star? Well, do you know the morning star appears just before the sunrise? The morning star comes before the sunrise. At that darkest point, we all know the phrase, it's always darkest before the dawn. That's true. And it was dark in Europe and in England and in our country before the morning star began to shine, and then the sunrise came, and the Reformation came. But John Wycliffe was the spark. He was the morning star that led to the Reformation. So here we have the beginning of Reformation fire. A man called John Wycliffe was raised up by God all those years ago, and eventually it would lead to the rediscovery to the Reformation, that's what Reformation means, the Reformation of New Testament truth, the gospel of Christ. The spark was John Wycliffe. Oh, but what about the fan? Because whenever you have a little spark, that's not a fire. You need the fan, you need the air, you need the oxygen to turn it into a flame. Whenever you try to light the fire at home, you've got to have air getting under the fuel, under the wood, and there's got to be the fan, as it were, to light the fire. Yeah, you can have the spark, but unless there's the air, the fan, you'll not have a fire. John Huss was the fan. John Wycliffe was the little spark. John Huss was the fan that would fan that little spark into a flame. I don't know whether you've ever been to the Czech Republic. I remember, Pauline and myself, just after we were married, short time, we went for one of these short breaks. You know how you can get good deals on short breaks to European cities? Well, we went on one occasion to the city of Prague. Prague. And right in the center of the city of Prague, you've got Old Town Square. And right in the center of Old Town Square, you've got the John Huss Memorial, the statue to John Huss. And the Czech people today, they revere the name of John Huss. And I remember taking photographs. Now, don't ask me to find them, because I don't know where they are today, but you're talking 10 or 12 years ago. But there it was. I still remember it. That was one place that I had marked down on the itinerary to go to, the Old Town Square, to see the memorial to John Huss. You know, John Huss was martyred 600 years ago, in the year 1415, 600th anniversary of the murder, the martyrdom of John Huss. John Huss spoke out against the corruption of the Roman Catholic system. There was terrible corruption, lavish parties that were being put on by the Pope for his children, and the terrible debauchery that took place at these parties. John Hus spoke out against these corruptions. He spoke out against indulgences. You know John Hus, his name, that name Hus? It actually means goose. Hus is the Czech word. Goose is the word we have in English. Have you ever heard the phrase, your goose is cooked? For somebody's goose to be cooked? Of course, that means that you're in trouble, you're in bother. Well, that's where the phrase comes from that we use today when people talk about your goose is cooked, somebody's goose is cooked. It actually comes from John Huss, the reformer, the martyr. You know, John Huss' goose was cooked one day. The 6th of July, 1415, he was taken from prison. Yeah, you remember the dirty, filthy, wet prison that we mentioned earlier? that he had been thrown into for his faith because he took a stand against the corruption and the falsehoods of the church. He was thrown into prison. He was left there for months on end, and then he was taken out on this day to be murdered, to be martyred, tied to the stake and burned until he was dead. That's the sacrifice that has been made for us. Oh, I know that there's little interest in new buildings in the Bible today. There's little interest in this community, in this city for the Bible. We all know that. I don't need to tell you that today. But isn't it so sad? Because the great sacrifice has been made. And isn't it true that we complain whenever we burn our finger? Well, we get so worked up, we just maybe burn our finger or burn our hand or something in the cooker. What about the martyrs who were burned at the stake? How can we forget about them today? John Hus burned for his faith. Yes, John Hus was the fan of the Reformation fire. What about the flame? When did the flame come? Well, I believe the flame came on the 31st of October, 1517. Can you not hear it? Can you not hear the thud of the hammer on the church door in Wittenberg in Germany? When a monk called Martin Luther, this one wee boy in Sunday school, he talked about, he came home from the Sunday school and he said to his dad he'd been learning about Martin Luther, the punk. Martin Luther's not a punk, he's a monk, he was a monk. But there was Martin Luther, the monk. And the Lord Jesus had shined the light of the gospel upon him, and the scriptures had come to him, and he discovered that he was saved by grace. And he took his hammer and his nail, and he went to the door of the church in the town of Wittenberg in Germany. You can still go to it today. The Reformation tours still take place today. The door's not the same, by the way. They've changed the door. But there it was that the flame started to burn. Martin Luther nailed what are known as the Ninety-Five Theses to the church door in Wittenberg. The Ninety-Five Theses were 95 arguments against the wrongs of the Roman Catholic Church. And so Luther, he wrote these 95 arguments down and he went to the door and he hammered them and nailed them to the door. You're saying, why did he nail them to the door? Well, back in those days, people didn't have Facebook or they didn't have Twitter. You know how Facebook or Twitter, it's kind of like a notice board today. Well, they didn't have those things back then. And that was like the town notice board. If you wanted to publicize anything, you put it on the church door. And Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door. The theses were Luther's statement on indulgences or Luther's convictions about indulgences. You say, what on earth is indulgences? Indulgences were given out during the Middle Ages, during the Dark Ages by the Roman Catholic Church. And there was one man in particular, John Tetzel. And Tetzel went round and he had a tin, he carried a tin. And he said to the people, whenever you put your money into the tin, as soon as the money hits the bottom of the tin, your loved one will spring out of purgatory. as the Reformers called it, pickpocket purgatory. And as soon as the money would clink on the bottom of the tin, this is what Tetzel said to the people, your loved one who's paying for their sins in purgatory, they'll be set free. And who wouldn't take pity on their mother or their father? What son or daughter wouldn't give money so that their parent could be set free from purgatory? And whenever the person would give the money to Tetzel or some other Roman Catholic representative, Tetzel would give them a piece of paper, here you go, all the sins have been forgiven. All the sins of that person in purgatory have been forgiven because you have paid for it and had a piece of paper. And you know, people could even come People who were alive would come to Tetzel and to the other representatives, the other ambassadors of the church, and they would pay for sins, even sins that they hadn't committed. They could pay for them. Have you ever heard such nonsense? Have you ever heard such blasphemy? And this is what Luther spoke out against, indulgences. All these pieces of paper floating around, people were being duped and tricked into believing that their sins were forgiven, that the sins of their loved ones were forgiven. But you see, Martin Luther had discovered that we're not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. This is why he made such a protest. This is why he made such a fuss. And that's why we remember him today, and that's why we give thanks to God for him today, because whenever he nailed those 95 theses to the church door, it was just as if the Reformation fire really burst into flame. John Wycliffe, the little spark that started it all off. John Huss burned at the stake. He was the fan, as it were. But when Martin Luther came along, then the fire really started to burn. Reformation fires. And thank God those fires are still burning today. I know that they're burning low. Isn't it sad? Oh, thank God today for the men who were used by the Lord to light the fire, to start this great fire. That's why the Lord Jesus said, I am come to send fire on the earth. Oh, there were great lies that were being taught to the people before the Reformation, and Wycliffe and Huss and Luther, they spoke out, they hit out against these lies. They hit out against the indulgences. I wonder if you ever thought about your sins, how are your sins going to be forgiven? Let me ask you today, how do you hope for your sins to be forgiven? How do you expect your sins to be forgiven? I hope that you don't believe the bunkum that was spoken by Pope Francis a few years ago. Do you know what he said? If you follow my Twitter account, you'll get time off purgatory. You'll get an indulgence. You'll be forgiven. Ever hear such nonsense? I know that maybe most of you, you hardly know what Twitter is and tweets. This is for the young folk, you'll know what we mean. This is what Pope Francis said, if you follow my Twitter account then, you'll have time off purgatory. You'll get into heaven quicker. You know what's even sadder? Not just that he said that, but that there are people who believe it. and young people who believe it. And there were young people, whenever Pope Francis went to Brazil and celebrated great open-air masses, there were many young people who believed that lie. How sad. Well, we know that we can't get indulgences, we can't get forgiveness any other way but only through Christ. And on Reformation Sunday, we thank God for the hammer and the nail that nailed the theses to the church door in Germany. But you know, let me say something else as we close today. We should be thankful for the hammer and for the nails that nailed our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to the cross. Because really, through that hammer and those nails, we are forgiven. He died that we might be forgiven. He died to make us good, that we might go at last to heaven, saved by his precious blood.