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Maranatha Cry Revived
00:02:46
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| Joe, what is the Maranatha cry and why is it important for Christians to know about it? | |
| Oh, this is a great question, Jim. | |
| So for the past few years, we've been developing a network of ministries and we've been trumpeting the need to revive the Maranatha cry. | |
| So Maranatha, of course, was an Aramaic expression that was commonly used in the early church. | |
| And scholars debate exactly what it means. | |
| They think it may have been sort of a creedal statement that said both Christ has come, he has come, but he is coming back. | |
| But it was also a cry. | |
| It was also a prayer, which simply meant, come, Lord Jesus. | |
| Come, Lord Jesus. | |
| And of course, we see this in the book of Revelation, right? | |
| The Spirit and the bride, they're praying, they're crying out, come, Lord, Jesus. | |
| And I would say that in the modern church, we have the hallelujah down. | |
| We're really good at the hallelujah. | |
| Praise the Lord, hallelujah. | |
| But we, by and large, have lost the Maranatha cry. | |
| We've lost that urgency, that groaning. | |
| There are so many scriptures. | |
| You know, in Romans 8, Paul says that the Spirit within us, God himself within us, is groaning. | |
| All of creation is groaning, is crying. | |
| It's not just crying out for the end of this age, and that's something that's worthy of crying out for. | |
| To say, Lord, bring about the end of this current wicked, tired system. | |
| Bring about the end of corrupt politicians. | |
| Bring about the end of human trafficking. | |
| Bring about the end of the abortion industry. | |
| Bring about the end of disease, of sickness, of premature death, of drug addiction, of drug overdoses, like all of these things. | |
| It's the end of those things. | |
| But it's the beginning. | |
| It's come, Lord. | |
| Establish your kingdom. | |
| Let the kingdom that you promised dawn on this earth. | |
| As it says in Isaiah 60, darkness covers the earth right now, deep darkness the peoples, but the Lord will rise upon you. | |
| And so my heart's cry has been to see the Maranatha cry of the early church revived in the church. | |
| And as we groan and yearn for these things, there are so many verses throughout the New Testament that says that he's coming back for who? | |
| For those who eagerly await him. | |
| Much of the church today, we've lost touch with the focus, the New Testament, the entire biblical focus on the return of Jesus. | |
| And I want to see that revived so that when he returns, he'll return to a church that is indeed eagerly awaiting, yearning and crying out for his return, that we would recover that Maranatha cry. | |
| And it's something that people are resonating with. | |
| They're feeling all over the world. | |