This passage speaks of the Reformation. We have been in a series in Revelation, and to be quite honest, I didn't think we would be back in it this morning. I thought we would be going somewhere different in the Word of God to consider the Reformation. But I was drawn to this chapter, the 10th chapter of Revelation, because there is a reference to the Reformation in Revelation chapter 10. So we're, I suppose you could say we're pressing the fast forward button today. We've been in chapter eight. So we're kind of skipping over chapter nine, but don't worry, we'll come back to it. And we're in chapter 10 today just because it's Reformation day. And we want to meditate and consider on the great theme of the Reformation. And the ultimate aim, of course, is that we would leave the church today with thankful hearts, thankful to God for the liberties, for the blessings that we enjoy because of the Reformation. So Revelation chapter 10, the first verse, 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. 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, and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth. And when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices. And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write, and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not. and the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven and swear by him that liveth forever and ever who created heaven and earth, I beg your pardon, who created heaven and the things that therein are and the earth and the things that therein are and the sea and the things which are therein that there should be time no longer But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets. And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again and said, go, and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel, which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth. 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. And I took the little book out of the angel's hand and ate it up, and it was in my mouth sweet as honey, and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter. And he said unto me, thou must prophesy again before many peoples and nations and tongues and kings. Revelation chapter 10 is an amazing chapter. And one of the reasons why it is amazing is because it points us back to the days of the Protestant Reformation. And as we go through the chapter, as we consider certain verses from it, I trust you will come to see that it speaks of the Reformation. First thing that we notice there is in verse one, it speaks of a mighty angel. And I saw another mighty angel. That's a reference to the Lord. It's not a literal angel, but it's the angel of the covenant. It's the angel of the Lord. In other words, it is the Lord Jesus Christ who's been spoken of there, the mighty angel. This is the savior. This is the Lord. And it says in verse one that he came down. I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven. Now here's where it gets interesting. At the time of the Reformation, the Lord came down. Hallelujah. A great awakening took place. What's the motto of the Reformation? Post Tenebras Lux. It's a Latin phrase that means after darkness, light. And the Lord came down at the time of the Reformation and the darkness was dispelled. The light overcame the darkness. The light of the gospel, the glorious gospel, the light of the word of God shone all across Europe because the Lord had come down. A great revival took place. And I don't know how many times I've said it before, but I'll say it again and I'll keep saying it while I have breath in my body. The Protestant Reformation was the greatest revival since Pentecost. The greatest revival since the day that the Spirit was poured out upon the church in Acts chapter 2. In Acts chapter 2, the Lord came down by His Spirit, and at the time of the Reformation, The Lord came down by his spirit. I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven. We long that the Lord would come down from heaven in our day, don't we? I believe he is going to come down in revival power. One of the reasons, by the way, why I believe that is because the enemy is so busy. The enemy has never been busier than he is today. And I tell you, he's busy today, the 31st of October. He'll be very busy. And you see in the city tonight, he'll be, oh, he'll be working overtime. But we don't fear the enemy, hallelujah, because of the mighty angel, the Lord Jesus Christ, Because Jesus is stronger than Satan, and sin and Satan to Jesus must bow. Hallelujah. We have the victory in Christ. The one who came down, Pentecost, the one who came down at the time of the Protestant Reformation. And the one who's coming down again, yes, he's coming down when the trumpet sounds to take his people home, but I believe he's coming down before that by his spirit. He's gonna pour out his spirit, I believe, in these last days, hallelujah. We're looking for the Lord to come down once again. Oh, that thou wouldest reign the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence. We read it on the Thursday night, didn't we? Isaiah 64. We read Psalm 144. The Lord coming down by the heavens, come down. It's wonderful when the Lord comes down. That's what we're praying for in these days. So the mighty angel comes down from heaven. That is what happened. That is precisely what happened at the Reformation. A great move of God took place because the Lord came down. And we today, 500 years later, we're still feeling the reverberations, the ripples from it, hallelujah. Verse two is interesting. It speaks of a little book, a little book, and he had in his right hand a little book open. This mighty angel, the Lord, comes down, and he's not empty-handed. No, he has something in his book, or something in his hand, and it's a book. The Lord has a gift for the world. A little book. Wonder what this little book is. The New Testament. The New Testament. Because the New Testament is a little book, isn't it? The New Testament is a little book when you compare it to the Old Testament. How many books are in the Old Testament? 39. How many books in the New Testament? 27. So it's a little book, isn't it? I believe that the angel here is coming down with a little book which represents the New Testament, the second half of the Bible, Matthew to Revelation. Isn't that what happened during the Reformation? The Lord came down with a book, with his word for the people. He came down with the Holy Scriptures. And it says that the little book was open. The book's open. In other words, it's open for everyone to read. It's open for all of Europe to read. And I want to tell you folks that the Reformation, the Lord came down with a book. And through men like John Huss, and William Tyndale, and Martin Luther, and Miles Coverdale, and many, many others. He gave this little book to the people, and it was open for the people to read. Prior to the Reformation, people couldn't read the Bible because it was in a dead language, Latin. Most people couldn't read Latin. They didn't understand Latin. That was the language that the Bible was in and the Church of Rome were quite happy for it to remain in Latin, but the Lord came down from heaven and he took the reformers who started to preach in the language of the people, not in Latin anymore, but in their own language, in their mother tongue. And the reformers began to translate the New Testament, the little book. And the people of Europe received this blessed gift, God's Word, and they were able to read it and understand it. They were able to read of the wonderful Lord Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem, lived a perfect life, died on a cross, shedding his blood, rose from the dead, ascended back to heaven. The glorious gospel, they were able to read about it, and the darkness of the dark ages was dispersed, and the light of the gospel blazed forth. What a time it was. Prior to the Reformation, there were no printing presses. The only copies of God's Word were handwritten copies. And they were much too expensive for ordinary people to afford. So people just didn't have Bibles. But in the year 1440 or thereabouts, a man called Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. Now, this is just before the Reformation. Isn't that interesting? It's very interesting. I call it providence. It wasn't a coincidence. No, it was providence. Gutenberg invented the printing press, and God's Word was printed in the languages of the people. And so people were able to purchase copies, were able to read the Word of God. We think of Martin Luther, how in the Wartburg Castle, 500 years ago, it was about exactly 500 years ago, after you remember the Diet of Worms in 1521, and Luther was taken to the Wartburg Castle. People thought he had been kidnapped, but of course he was kidnapped by his friends. And they took him to the castle and he spent, wasn't it 10 months? Translating the Bible, translating the New Testament, the little book, translating it into German so that his fellow countrymen and women could read it for themselves. A little book open. In verse nine, it tells us there of the hunger that John had for the word of God in verse nine. And I went on to the angel and said unto him, give me the little book. So here's John and he wants the little book. John on the Isle of Patmos. But you know, friends, I think of another John many, many centuries later and he had a desire, a hunger for the Bible. And I'm speaking about John Wesley. Because on one occasion, John Wesley wrote, give me that book, oh, give me that book, at all costs, give me that book. It's more or less word for word what John the Apostle says here. Give me the little book. John the Apostle was hungry for the word of God. John Wesley was hungry for the Word of God. Oh, I tell you, at the time of the Reformation, people were hungry for the Word of God. Are we hungry for the Word of God? Or do we find it boring? A lot of churches today do find it boring. That's why they introduce gimmicks. Boy, we've got to think up something to get the people in. The Word of God isn't enough anymore. There's not much hunger for it, for the milk of the Word, for the meat of the Word. No, the cry of the church today is, just give us the junk food. We want the junk food. The fast food. Speaks, of course, in 2 Timothy chapter four, the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and they will turn away their ears from the truth and will be turned onto fables. The hunger for the word of God. If we don't have any hunger for his word, I pray God will give us a hunger. If our hunger is not what it should be, then I pray that he will increase our hunger. The word of God is so important, you know. That's why we as a church have ordered 1,000 calendars for outreach at Christmas time. around the community, 1,000 scripture calendars, because we believe in the importance of God's word. We believe in the little book. We love it. Because this book is, yes, it's stained with the blood of our savior, but this blood is stained with the blood of the reformers, men and women who died that we might have it. this blessed little book. Oh, thank God for the New Testament scriptures that were rediscovered at the time of the Reformation. My, we've spoken already to the children today about Martin Luther and the tar. His tar experience, it's called. Luther and the tar, reading Romans chapter one. And he comes across Romans 117, the righteousness of God. And the truth dawned on Luther that he didn't have to go about establishing his own righteousness, but that there was a perfect righteousness that had been provided for him, the righteousness of Christ. And Luther realized, I just receive it as a free gift. You know, the Lord wants to give you his code of righteousness. Have you got it? That's the way it is, every time a person is saved, every time a person is converted, the Lord gives them his coat of righteousness. It's starting to get colder these days, it's the kind of weather that you need, you need your coat. But have you the coat of righteousness, the coat, the robe of Christ's righteousness? When Luther read the little book at the time of the Reformation, he realized that the righteousness of Christ was a free gift for him. It was being offered to him, and Luther describes it in his autobiography. He said it was like entering through the gates of paradise. It is like that whenever you realize that your righteousness is like a filthy rag. That's what Luther realized. And oh, the joy of discovering that he didn't have to establish his own righteousness, it was impossible, but that Christ freely offered it to him. The just shall live by faith. Imputed righteousness, that's what the theologians call it. Verse nine speaks of the sweetness. You see, John goes to the angel and he asks for the little book, and then the angel, or the Lord, says, take it and eat it up, and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. The gospel is sweet, it's like honey. And Luther found it to be like honey. Multitudes who were born again at the time of the Reformation, as far as they were concerned, this glorious gospel that they had found was sweet as honey. And you will find today if you're yet without Christ lost and on your way to hell, you will find when you discover the true gospel and you put your faith in finished work of Christ, it will be like honey to your soul as well. But there's the other side here. This is a bit like sweet and sour. I wonder, Danny, if you like sweet and sour from the Chinese. You see, you have the sour here, not just the sweetness. It says that it's going to be bitter. It shall make thy belly bitter. Yes, it's going to be sweet as honey in your mouth, John, but it's going to make your belly bitter. I believe this refers to the persecution at the time of the Reformation because there was great persecution. Whenever the Lord works in a mighty way, you will always find the devil will attack. Be ready for it, by the way, be ready. It was, I remember Brother Fred Harris from the Enniskillen Church, he's now with the Lord. He's been with the Lord for many years. But Brother Fred, I remember preaching in Five Mile Town as a young man, listening to him. He said, you have to be ready for a side swipe from the devil. A side swipe from the devil. We'll have to be ready for it. Whenever we do something right, whenever we serve the Lord, we need to be ready for the fiery darts of the wicked one. The persecution, bitterness. Persecution at the time of the Reformation. But you know there's persecution today. Even in our Western civilization. Remember the young Christian mother that I referred to in the prayer meeting? She was up in court last month, or well, I say this month. It's now nearly over. A few weeks ago, she was up in court in Tipperary. Case adjourned. She's back in court this week, Thursday. Just in case any of you don't know what awful crime she committed, here's the crime. She had a few Christian friends round during the lockdown in her back garden. Terrible, isn't it? You'll remember to pray for her on Thursday, won't you? Persecution, the bitterness. Oh, the gospel of sweetness, honey. But there is the bitterness too, there's the hardships. And all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. If you're not suffering persecution, you need to find out why, why not? So many countries that we could talk about today. What about, so many examples we could use. What about the three young street preachers? Dundalk Court, start of December, a contested case. The guardee will have a solicitor prosecuting. The three young men will have their solicitor defending the persecution simply because they stood in the open air in Dundalk and preached the word of God. Persecution all around the world today. What about Canada? Christian pastors are being thrown into jail simply for opening their churches. Australia is the same. The tyranny today is horrendous. The persecution. We need to pray for the persecuted church. I'm glad that some of you do. I hear you pray in the prayer meetings for the persecuted church. We're to remember those that are in bonds as bound with them. The glorious Reformation, the mighty angel coming down, the Lord coming down at the time of the Reformation and a great revival takes place. The little book, the New Testament given to the people It's open for all to read. We ought to be so thankful for an open Bible today. A lot of people aren't thankful for it, but we ought to be. Some time ago, I spoke on the Sunday evening about a young man called William Hunter. William Hunter was burned to death at the age of 19, just 19 years of age, burned to death for having a copy of God's Word. He was martyred in Essex, a place called Brentwood in Essex, in England, on the 26th of March, 1555, during the reign of Bloody Mary. Do you know there's a plaque in that village today? And on the plaque is the following inscription, William Hunter, committed to the fleums March the 26th, 1555, and then these words, Christian reader, learn from his example to value the privilege of an open Bible.