5:02 Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and who is and who is to draw. Welcome to this Lord's Day service at Maranatha Bible Church. We are overjoyed that you are here with us on this day to worship our great God together. Transcendent. He is beyond anything that we could ever comprehend.
5:31 Yet, this God we serve, this God we worship today is also personal. He knows you. He formed you. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. And so as we worship God today, may we keep both of these aspects of him in mind.
5:50 The greatness May it fan the flames of affection for him in our hearts today as we give him our all in this service. Som 147. For it is good to sing praises to our God, for it is pleasant and the song of praise is fitting. The Lord builds up Jerusalem. He gathers the outcast of Israel.
6:29 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars. He gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord and abundant in power. His understanding is beyond measure.
6:44 The Lord lifts up the humble. He cast the wicked to the ground. Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving. Make melody to our God on the lyre. He covers the heavens with clouds.
6:56 He prepares rain for the earth. He makes grass grow on the hills. He gives to the beast their food and to the young ravens that cry. His delight is not in the strength of the horse nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, Praise the Lord, oh Jerusalem. Praise the God.
7:22 Praise your God, oh Zion. For he strengthens the bars of your gates. He blesses your children within you. He makes peace in your borders. He fills you with the finest of the wheat.
7:34 He sends out his command to the earth. His word runs swiftly. He gives snow like wool. He scatters frost like ashes. He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs.
7:47 Who can stand before his cold? He sends out his word and melts them. He makes his wind blow in the waters flow. He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any other nation.
8:03 They do not know his rules. Praise the Lord. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you. Oh, Lord, we thank you that we can come into this place with Thanksgiving.
8:16 We thank you that we can come into this place with praise for you on our lips. May you be magnified in everything that we do today. Lord, may our hearts fear you. May we stand in awe of you. May our hope only be in you today and always.
8:34 Have your way in this service, Lord, we pray. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Move in our hearts today. Change us, transform us, and renew our minds. May our love for you only increase, and may our joy for you abound evermore for your glory.
8:56 In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Church, will you please sing to the Lord? Sing to the Lord with all of your might today.
10:03 Through all God Shall we pray together? Lord, even on this gloomy day, even on this rainy day, we sense the light of your presence. And Lord, for those whose hearts are cold this morning, we pray that you would use a service to warm our souls again, to remind us of our inheritance in Christ, to remember our eternal future, and Lord to also remember what is available to us today, your power, your presence, your promises for every moment of our lives. So, Lord, we ask that this service again would be used to draw us near to you, and you promise, Lord, that as we respond to that, you will draw near to us. This is what we long for more than anything else.
19:18 We need you, Lord. Oh, we come here to confess how we need you. We as your children need you, especially those who may be in this place who do not know you. They need you. Come in your power.
19:30 Come in your might. Come with revelation of your goodness that we may worship you the way you deserve. We ask these things together in Jesus' name, amen and amen. Well, if you need to warm up, find somebody to embrace, welcome into this Lord's Day service. God bless you.
20:16 Maranatha Bible Church, welcome to the Sunday service. It's a joy to be gathered again to get today again. What What a blessing it is to be in one another's presence. And as you know, this is our time where we usually worship in our giving, and so the ushers, as always, will assist us in our contributions to the Lord's work. What a privilege it is to give to God's kingdom.
20:36 What a way for us to be reminded that, our money is not our own, and, we invest in something that will outlast everything else that we can invest in this world. So as you, continue to give, thank you for your partnership, and, it's my duty here to also provide a few announcements for you pertaining to events that are upcoming. As you know, we've been announcing that there's a picnic today, and the weather is not in our favor for that, but what do you think? Do you think we canceled the picnic? No, we didn't.
21:06 We just moved it inside. And so everything will be happening downstairs in the fellowship hall. We even made space out there in the prayer room for us to be able to sit so that we're not too crammed. So please join us. It's raining.
21:18 Where are you gonna go anyway? Stick around with us, fellowship with us. We'll we'll spend time eating wonderful food that many have prepared for us and that some of you have brought with you, and we look forward to that time together immediately after the service. There are other announcements for the month of October. On Saturday, October 10, we have our first ever ladies breakfast in this building.
21:40 And so the men beat the women, we had our first not too long ago, but the women are gathering now for the first time on October 10 at 10AM, and we're doing a little something different here with the ladies meeting. The ladies will be doing a new series in their time together, looking at different women in the bible. So instead of having a focus on time of testimonies, it'll be a time of devotion. There'll be breakfast. There'll be fellowship, but there'll be devotion, there'll be breakout time with different smaller groups, questions being asked within those groups, and a time of prayer as well.
22:14 So we're looking forward to seeing how God would use this time, we're looking forward to seeing how he will bless the sisters. So if you've never been part of this breakfast before this is a wonderful time to join us in a fresh program for the women's breakfast. Again mark it in your calendars October 10, ten a. M. On October 18 we have immediately after our Lord's day service, our fall fest for MBC kids, and we've done this in our previous location the same time, this time of the year where there's gonna be activities and snacks and crafts and parents are invited to join their children as well in that, and it's time for you to be with your kids, and it's also time for you to get to know other families with young children as well.
22:55 So that'll be taking place downstairs as well on October 18. That's on a Sunday immediately after the Lord's Day service. We've been announcing baptisms. We don't have a baptism, service date yet set, but we wanna know who desires to be baptized. And so we've had people come and inquire and ask questions.
23:13 And so if you are one of those people and you're hearing this for the first time or you're hearing this for the third time, but you're hesitating for some reason to be water baptized, whatever your hesitations are, please bring them to the elders. We would love to answer any questions and help you overcome any obstacles to this really call to obedience. If you have not yet made that pledge to the Lord by observing this first ordinance that he's called for his church to walk in, then please reach out to us. We'd love to help you, and we're looking forward to celebrating that again. And so we're gonna be having our first baptism service here very soon, and we desire for you to be a part of that.
23:46 We already have a handful of people who who already said yes to this, and, there's much more room for people to join if you desire to do that. One last thing before I I, turn us to God's word again. We have these little postcard sized tracks that were printed recently and designed so beautifully, and, this serves two purposes. One, it helps people in our area know that, we're here in their neighborhood, and so it has all our church information on there, but more importantly, on the back of it, you have a clear gospel message. And, again, it's so visually appealing, but more importantly, it gets straight to the heart of the gospel.
24:24 It's a great way to hand this to your Uber driver or leave it at a table somewhere, and, we want you to be a part of that. These are just a bunch of seeds that we have left out there at the welcome desk in the lobby, and, many people didn't know about this, so I was just told, please announce it. Let them know, this is for you to take with you. You can take as many as you want. We have so many of them, and we'd love to just, spread the news that we are here as a church preaching God's word, and even if they don't come, at least they'll get the gospel message.
24:51 And so please take a handful of those or even more on your way out today, and, we look forward to seeing how God will use that. There's a sister that I know whose testimony is so remarkable because she came to Christ after receiving several tracts within a short span of time. I don't know the exact time frame, but I think it was within five months. Wherever she went, a tract would be handed to her, and that was what the Lord used to chisel her heart, knock on the door of her heart, and she eventually gave in and gave her life to Jesus Christ. So don't underestimate these means of getting the gospel into people's hands.
25:23 Lastly, I'll say this. If you if you don't know what we do here on a weekly basis, we're here every Wednesday to pray, 07:00 in the basement, in the prayer room. You'll see it if you come. We're here every Friday to study the Old Testament. The book of Nehemiah is the subject of our focus these last few months, and as you know, you're here 10:30 a.
25:40 M. We are wrapping things up in the book of Revelation, and we are praying to see what God would have us look at next in terms of a book to study. Speaking of study, have you ever been frustrated in your study of God's word? Have you ever looked at something in God's word and thought to yourself, what can this possibly mean? I need a degree to get this stuff.
26:02 I need formal training to understand what God is saying here. That is a common experience for many people who really wanna go deeper in the word of God, and what I've seen is that people who have made that kind of collision with a passage or a chapter or a book, they frequently become discouraged as well, and they give into that discouragement and almost give up, and they return to maybe more simpler, straightforward texts, and they stay there, and I wanna encourage you that even the greatest men of God had difficulty understanding the word of the Lord from time to time, and one that came to mind on my way here this morning was what Zechariah expressed in one of these visions of the last days, And it says here in Zechariah four verse eight, listen carefully to this. I hope this really encourages you, especially as we go into the book of Revelation this this morning. In Zechariah four eight, it reads, then the word of the Lord came to me saying, the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house. Despised a day of small things shall rejoice and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.
27:15 These seven are the eyes of the Lord, which range through the whole earth. Now look at how Zechariah responds to this in verse 11. Then I said to him, what are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand? Is that a question? That's a question.
27:33 He doesn't get an answer right away. Look at verse 12 now. And a second time I answered and said to him, what are these two branches of the olive trees which are beside the two golden pipes from which the golden oil is poured out. Zechariah did not understand the vision. He did not understand these emblems, these symbols, and so he asked this heavenly messenger, what does this mean?
27:58 He didn't get an answer. Have you ever experienced that? I have experienced that. Lord, what can this mean? No answer.
28:04 What do you do in those moments? Do you give up? Do you move on? Zechariah shows us another way, he stays. And he says, hold on, I'm not leaving without an answer.
28:16 What does this mean? Hunger is necessary for revelation. Hunger is necessary for revelation. You you can't you can't just be visited by truth and and be interested in it for a moment and then expect for that to expound. There needs to be a tenacity, there needs to be a longing, there needs to be a passion.
28:39 I wanna encourage you, Maranatha Bible Church, do not be content to remain in darkness in any part of your Bible. I'm not saying that you need to understand everything that when you read it right away, that's not ideal, that's not realistic either. However, to be content in remaining in the dark when something is being presented to you whether in your own reading or from the pulpit is not God's call either. There's a second ingredient here and I'm gonna be careful before this turns into a sermon. In verse 13, I want you to see how this heavenly messenger answers, He said to me, do you not know what these are?' Hello?
29:18 He asked you twice. Of course he doesn't know what these are, but why is he asking this question? Because he wants to see if Zechariah has the humility to admit it. So hunger is important to know greater revelation in God's word but so is humility. I don't know this.
29:37 I can't explain this. I don't know how this fits in my Christian theology. I don't know how this in the old reconciles with the new. I don't know. Isn't that what he says?
29:46 I said, no, my Lord. That's humility. Verse 14, then he said, these are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth. The answer came. Hunger and humility.
29:59 As long as those things are residing in our hearts, you will be set on the path of greater and greater insight into God's word. Can we ask the Lord to help us in this? Let's do it. Lord, we've come with different levels of understanding in your word And I want to pray on behalf of those who may feel discouraged about where they are at and how they understand your word. Thank you for this model and this prophet Zechariah who shows us that hunger and humility are required to receive greater light.
30:36 And Lord, together we have gathered for one main purpose, to hear your voice and your word. And we present to you our hunger and our humility. Now, Lord, give us revelation and help us be patient with your teaching. Help us be patient with your development in our own minds, in our own hearts, and help us trust as what Paul told Timothy, think over these things and the Lord will give you understanding in everything. We rest in that, Lord, and even now we sing about it because you are God who desires to communicate your truth in a way that is clear, in a way that makes us confident, in a way that makes us rejoice.
31:12 We thank you for that. In Jesus' name we pray, amen and amen. Let's stand together church, and let's rejoice in the Lord together as well. My dwelling place is God most high,
39:23 Heavenly father, we thank you for gathering us again as your people in this place. And father, we want to hear from you today, father, as we are about to hear your word. We ask that your word would abide deeply in our hearts, in our minds, that your love would only be stirred up in our hearts again. And may we have the love of Christ in us, and may we love one another today in all that we do. And we ask Lord that you would really speak to us and speak to every heart here, that it would stir us to greater obedience, greater love for you, greater hatred for this world and for sin, and that we would be more like Christ.
40:45 For the past two weeks, you and I have been exploring the most detailed passage in the New Testament about the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. And you know this if you've been with us these last two weeks. That is located in the book of Revelation chapter 20, and I invite you now to turn with me there. And I want to also remind you that as much as this is a very insightful passage about the one thousand year reign of our Lord, it is not a thorough or comprehensive account of it. John here is not trying to give us every single component about the millennium in this short text.
41:25 I want you to see what we find here in Revelation 20 as an outline more than anything else. This is an outline of the millennium, and he highlights here the main events, so to speak, or the structure of the millennium because he is, again, trying to deal with a specific audience and serve a specific purpose for them with his explanation of this wonderful vision of the kingdom to come. And in our study so far, what have we discovered? We have considered briefly what will take place at the beginning of the millennium, while also exploring briefly what will happen during the millennium. But now in our designated scripture, we will look at what will unfold at the end of the millennium.
42:20 And the main event that the Holy Spirit reveals to us before human history reaches its final close is the decisive phase of Satan's defeat. What we are about to look at is the last time Satan is mentioned in our Bibles. And that is because this prophecy defines for us his total downfall and ultimately his consignment to eternal damnation. And before we read these verses together, I want to remind you of what the Lord Jesus Christ said when he was accused by his enemies.
