The strange and outrageous times of tribulation shall come. God gives His Truth and His faith for us to stand. The Apostle John was told to eat the little book. It was going to be sweet to taste, but bitter to digest. (Revelation 10:9-11)

 

Speaker: Thomas Schaller
Date: 2026-10-04
Time: Sun 11 am
Sermon #13216

P. Schaller –

We’ll do the offering. P. Bob’s gonna do it. So, today’s a very special day because we celebrate P. Scibelli’s departure to heaven. And he was so much loved around the world by thousands of people in many countries. 

 

And we have some brothers here. Maybe we could have them stand up. If you’re from out of town and you came in for the service at 1:00 today, would you just stand up, please? So, there’s Marlboro, Pennsylvania. Pastor, great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

 

So, we will teach from Revelation chapter 10 this morning and refer to P. Scibelli as a man of God and a dear friend to many of us. And then we’ll also do communion today after the sermon. And then at 1:00, we have our special service for pastor. So, we love him and his family. We’re very thankful for his life, what he did, how he lived. Amen.

 

All right. You may be seated and turn with me to Revelation chapter, Revelation chapter 10. As many of you know, we are going through the book of Revelation. At the same time, today I want to make reference to P. Scibelli. He was a great friend to many of us. 

 

I remember when he came down here from Springfield and many people from Springfield, Mass moved down here. Actually, they trusted him and loved him and followed him to come and be in the church where Dr. Stevens was pastoring. 

 

And P. Scibelli had a great interesting history in his life. And one of the things that he loved was the ministry of the Word. He loved the Word. And Dr. Stevens was very good at that, ministering the Word and the finished work to us. And he was drawn to that and his family. 

 

I want to – I might forget saying this. I have a great opportunity to say a few things, but many of you know at Convention time in June, he would bring African pastors over here. And where would they, where would they stay? At his house with Linda. What a woman Linda Scibelli is, huh? What a woman she is. Wow. And he said, you know, can you believe that my wife puts up with me? And we would talk about that sometimes and we’re going to miss him. Yeah, he was a great friend. Very hardworking. I have a short list here. 

 

I want to read Revelation 10:9-11. This will be the backbone of the message because as we’re going through Revelation, it’s not all chronological. I want to make a point to all of you that are following this study here. It’s a 7-year period called the Tribulation period. And there’s a halfway mark when things go really ugly. They are bad from the beginning, but it increases in intensity. 

 

And just for you to get an idea of how bad it is at the end, all the water on the earth turns to blood. That means salt water and fresh water. How long can people live drinking blood? You can’t. One day. Two days. If Christ did not return, nobody would survive. 

 

And there are estimates as to what the population of the world will be at the very end. We have 8.6 billion today. And how many will make it to the end of the Tribulation? We don’t know. Maybe a 100,000. One number I read was 100,000 people. Could be a million. Very small number surviving. That’s how bad it is. 

 

So, there is a little book that the angel brings down from heaven and John is on the earth at the time in the vision. And the angel hands him this little book that has not been seen. And this is somewhere in the middle of the Tribulation. John is given the opportunity to read the book or in our understanding here, eat the book. He eats the book.

 

So, this is chapter 10:9. And I went unto the angel. And by the way, maybe I need to make something clear. When you are saved and your name is written in the book of life and you are sealed with the Holy Spirit and you are declared righteous by God, he says in my mind you are 100% perfect because Christ became your righteousness. 

 

Everything about Christ, all his obedience, every thought he thought, every bit of his motivation, every action that he took, every footstep that he took, everything being perfect without sin is then imputed to you. Imputed means legally assigned to you as if you as if you were as perfect as he was. 

 

This isn’t fair because we are sinners and we are not like that. But at the cross, God did this transition. He made his righteousness ours and our sin became his. And when our sin became his, he was judged, crucified, tortured, murdered, forsaken by God, cursed, hanging on a tree. Galatians 3. Cursed is the man that hangs on a tree. 

 

Hey, how was Absalom? How was he killed? Absalom? His hair got caught in a tree and he was dangling from a tree. He was a cursed man and Joab murdered him. Hanging in the tree in a way, in a sense, the son of God perfect and holy and without sin became cursed for us so we would have the gift of eternal life. 

 

We would be with P. Scibelli, and I’m sure he’s talked to Dr. Stevens and many other sisters and brothers. Jim Markowski and Pat Markowski and many that have gone from this church into heaven in the last few years. Beverly Martolucci and we have so many names. Your name will be there too one day perhaps. Maybe we will be raptured before. But in any case, there is no answer to this world except Christ, the only answer for life. 

 

Now, when I called Ted Scibelli yesterday on the phone, P. Scibelli’s brother, and I have met him at the graveside in Massachusetts last Monday, and we talked in the restaurant and so on and had a beautiful time. And I talked about his brother and how I knew him. 

 

And then he talked about his brother and he said this. I said, Well, what in the very beginning, what drew him to Christ? And he said, He was that kind of a guy that looked at life and saw that it was phony, that it was empty, that he couldn’t really trust it, that you could live your life here and not and not really get it, not know what it’s really about. 

 

And so when he was 29 years old, he and Linda and Ted and his wife, they started listening to Christian radio. They heard Dr. Stevens on the radio. They came to Christ and they and P. Scibelli was persuaded, trusting, believing, and all in because nothing else made sense. 

 

I hope that in somehow is a reflection of what’s happened in your life. I think it is the case in mine that I am so happy that we have found Christ as the reality and that word I want you to understand what I mean by that. God’s reality. Truth. Absolute truth. Not invented by our culture or society or a personality or situational ethics or some kind of composition of human beings figuring things out. No, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. Reality. 

 

Now, in this text, Revelation 10:9, it says, I went unto the angel and said unto him, give me the little book. Now, verse 2. He had in his hand a little book. Chapter 10. Chapter 10:2. The question is, what is in this little book? It’s not the scroll of Revelation 5. 

 

It’s a little book that has been closed, but now it’s open and it’s given to a prophet, John, an apostle. And John as been given the privilege to read it. And Daniel in chapter 12 had said that seal these things that are written down that they will be read at the end. They will be known at the end. These are things that Daniel understood. 

 

And when Daniel understood them, he was a, he was moved emotionally, greatly burdened by what he understood. But they’ve been closed until the end. And now John is going to prophesy them. And what they are is this period of time of judgment that comes on the world. 

 

We have Revelation 15 is a terrible chapter in the sense of these judgments on the earth. Why would God judge the world? Because the world crucified Christ. Well, well, that happened 2,000 years ago. It happens today. The world is still against Christ.

 

The world will not stop being against Christ. The spirit of the world is a spirit of the devil. He is against Christ. He, Satan, is against Christ. He’s the adversary. He’s the accuser. He is the resistor of all the things that are of God. And this world is embodying it in a spirit today. 

 

And you may, I hope, discern and recognize that opposition in life that we murder our unborn children, that cities and communities are, have evil and there are many things that happen in our society and in our culture that are against Christ, that are against Christ’s people, against the Word of God. This is the nature of the world and it will accelerate. 

 

There’s an increase because at the beginning of the Tribulation, we have the church leaving and I think that some of you may not believe that. That’s what we call pre-Tribulation rapture, HARPAZO, the remove, the snatching away of believers from the earth.

 

And then the earth accelerates into evil and deception in a huge magnitude of it, a lot of it. It goes very quickly to the Antichrist. By the time of the middle three and a half years, there’s an intensification of the evil, the attempted annihilation of the Jewish people. 

 

Revelation 12, at the end, there are two witnesses in Jerusalem that are murdered and their bodies are left in the street for three and a half days. In Revelation 11, they are resurrected and ascended to heaven in the sight of all the people that are on the earth that have the communication means to see by CNN or Fox News or whatever the vehicle or on the podcast or whatever, but they’re able to recognize that these men were murdered. 

 

Their bodies were in the street, but now they’ve been resurrected and ascended into heaven. Extremely extraordinary. The Antichrist, which is a system and a man, will be morally wounded, die, be brought back to life. Revelation chapter 13. His sidekick, the false apostle, the propagandist, will be promoting the Antichrist worldwide and the whole world deceived except for the remnant, the 144,000 that are sealed and protected during that period of time. 

 

And whoever will hear them and believe in Christ, they will be born again. And then they’re called Tribulation saints and then they will be probably murdered for their faith. So, it goes very quickly. So, this little book contains this material.

 

And so, John reads it, vs. 9-10. And that little book had all this bad stuff in it regarding what’s going to happen at the end. But it also has something very good, very good news, the coming of Christ. 

 

Because Christ, when people are forced to drink blood and the end is come, Christ returns and he saves the human race from annihilation. He takes the Antichrist and the false prophet. They go into the lake of fire. Satan is bound into the bottomless pit for a thousand years. 

 

And at the end of the thousand years, he will be going into the lake of fire. And this is all in this little book. And in our Bible, the book of Revelation, we read it 15 to chapter 22, we read about the, what God is doing in wrapping things up. 

 

So, it’s not that encouraging. Or is it? Or is it? That’s a good question. Uh, I would say if you were given the opportunity to eat this little book, you would say, No, thanks. It was gong to make me sick to my stomach. No thanks. But then the angel said, But it’ll be sweet in your mouth. 

 

And by the way, it’s reality. It’s God’s reality. I don’t want to hear about hell. I don’t want to hear about it. It makes me bitter in my stomach or sick to my stomach. I don’t want to hear about it. But it’s reality. 

 

I don’t want to hear about judgment or the white throne judgment and but this is our calling. It’s to walk with God. And maybe the best example of the sweet bitter parts here, sweet and bitter, is the cross because the cross is bitter. 

 

When Jesus died on it, it was judgment on us, but it went on him. And he could say, I don’t want it. It’s bitter. But three days later, it’s sweet. He’s raised. He’s alive forever, seated at the right hand of God. That’s reality. 

 

And you know, we are good at hiding. I don’t want to know. I want to be ignorant.  I want to not hear anything, know anything. I don’t want to be responsible for anything. And that’s one way that people live. That’s why they don’t go to church because they don’t want to be accountable or responsible for what they hear or they don’t read the Bible or they don’t have a prayer because they are hiding. And we all can do that and get in the bad habit of staying away and hiding from the little book. 

 

And I mean that metaphorically now. That reality of God where god wants me to grow up and he wants me to be a messenger and have something to say that’s real and true and help people find God in a personal way cuz God is like that. He’s not the hiding person. He’s not the lying or hypocritical person. 

 

You know, one thing about P. Scibelli was that he wanted to be direct and he could say it directly and he was very good at it. He was very bold and confident and he shared the Gospel. And then on the other side of that was the care and the love and the, and he cared for weak people and people that had problems or drug addicts. 

 

He loved children and he had the ministry of grace children in Africa with more than 3000 and he would give the right number, 318, 361. He loved the numbers. He knew how many churches in our affiliation and how many Bible schools in Africa and how many churches in Africa. 

 

To think that this one man’s life, but you know what the key of it? It’s the same that you have. I can eat the book. I can eat the book. I’ll take it. I can eat the book. I want you to be able to say that. I want you to be able to say, I will hear from God. 

 

And when he says, No adultery, then he means no adultery. And I will hear from God and that I will take it and I will eat it. It’ll be sweet in my mouth. And then when I have to practice it and I deny myself, then it’ll be bitter in my stomach. But I’d rather live in God’s reality than to live in man’s lie. 

 

I’d rather live in God and know God. And God will help me know God. He will help me know him and embrace him. And that’s the thing about P. Scibelli too, because it wasn’t always like he wasn’t, you know, like well-known but now known by thousands of people in many places. 

 

But if there was anything that you want to know about him, it is this. And it’s the same thing that you have. You can eat the book. You’re going – He would call sometimes and I go, What are you doing today? He said, I’m just in the Word. I just love it. I’m just reading. This is what I’m – he was always doing that. 

 

And we have like emails. I mean I have a pile of them from different parts of the world where people said that he didn’t stop and ministering to us, caring for us, and sharing the Word of God with us. And of course he learned that in the ministry and the ministry he loved. 

 

He loved this. He loved the message. He loved how we live. He loved that we can be friends. He loved that we don’t talk behind each other’s back.  And by the way, I never heard him, not one time ever, speak behind somebody’s back. He would talk to you directly what he was thinking about you. 

 

He would tell you straight to your face what – if he had a problem, he went right away to work to resolve it. He had an indignation about things that were wrong. Like he had a reaction when something was wrong. It bothered him. 

 

And I loved him. We loved him. We loved him because of eating the book and it being the Bible. And it’s sweet and edifying and true and valuable and it’s the Gospel. And then sometimes we didn’t like it. We didn’t like it maybe when I had to live by faith. I didn’t like it maybe when Moses had to go down to Egypt to face Pharaoh. 

 

I don’t like it when I got to go face the music. I don’t like it when I have to go talk to somebody in a personal way. I don’t like it when I have to go on an outreach and I don’t feel like it. 

 

But Jesus said, Go into all the world and preach the Gospel and do this in my name. I will, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. And the other thing about him was he had vision like we’re not going to stop.

 

When he resigned and this is an interesting part of the history that he somehow might have sensed it was his time. And he resigned here from the mission’s office, passed it on to P. Renaldo and then he called me up sometime later. He said, I want to start a street mission for drug addicts in Baltimore. 

 

I like he’s not going to stop. He’s not going to stop. He’s going to keep at it cuz he believed in it. He lived in it. he walked in it and he did it and he helped us tremendously. 

 

And some of our difficulties, I don’t know that I could have made it personally without a friend like him. He was a supporter, encourager, friend, prayer warrior, servant, Bible believer, sharing the Bible, loving, not, keeping his mouth clean and edifying and encouraging and looking to God and believing God for the next chapter. What a man of God. I loved it. 

 

Okay, let’s finish up here. He said – think we’re just going to reread it. vs. 10. Maybe in Bible college, I remember in the beginning, I was so immature as a Christian. I got this Bible and when I was carrying it around, I was wondering how people looked at me. See. I have a Bible. Like, I was kind of like proud about it somehow. I mean some weird idea cuz I was so immature as a Christian. 

 

And I would think, well, you know, wow, did you notice my Bible? I am carrying my Bible. Did you notice that? You know, this is like us when you first begin. You don’t know what you’re stepping into. And it may be very sweet and you have, you have new friends and you have a fellowship and you have coffee together and maybe even go on a trip and you go, Wow, this is awesome. Wow. I love this. 

 

And then it bites in. It bites in. And you might say, I’m out of here. I’m not a Christian anymore. I’m out of here. It’s bitter. It bites in. You mean I can’t do that anymore? No, you can’t do that anymore. If you do, you are convicted of the sin. 

 

I am convicted of the sin. I can’t do that anymore. Now I have to live by faith and repent of my sin and forsake it and go on with God. But you mean I have to go to the church more often? I already go once a month. What more do you expect of me? I go once a month. Huh? You mean I got to go more? Yeah. 

 

My mother couldn’t believe I went three times on Sunday. But she didn’t know I went very day. Whatever you can do. But you know what I’m saying? You might lose some friends. It’s bitter. You might lose a career. It’s bitter. You might lose, actually you might lose your life. It could be bitter. You might lose some other thing that’s precious to you. That might be bitter. That might be. 

 

I’m not emphasize – I’m just trying to say there are things about – but guess what? It’s bitter. And then it’s like, Oh, God is here. I know God. I feel like I know God. Or God is visiting me. God is helping me. God is all over the place. God is in our church. God is in our faith. 

 

We’re leaving Egypt. Moses, can you believe it? We’re walking out of – can you believe it? Through the Red Sea. And he, and Moses says, I know it was bitter, but then I see God is here with us. That’s real. That’s what I want you to see. I want you to know that and I want to know it with all my heart. 

 

And I believe at the end of P. Scibelli’s life on this part of his life, I don’t think I have any more assurance of anybody else that has ever gone into heaven, that that man has some reward. He has something there waiting for him that he has received from God. 

 

Not because he was a great guy, but because he ate the book and he lived by the book by the grace of God. And it was sometimes very sweet and sometimes bitter, but he got to know God. And that’s what we’re all – that’s what we believers are all about.

 

God is your Father. Call him Father. God is your Savior. He cares about you. God will carry you in your life. Though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Oh, God, you prepared a table in the presence of our enemies. You have anointed our head with oil. Our cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our life, and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Would you pray with me, please. (Prayer)

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