Faith for a New Era

Introduction

As always the first message of a New Year I try to bring a prophetic word from the Lord concerning what He is doing in the New Year. Today I want to talk a little bit about what God has shown me.

A New Era Begins

Noah and the Flood

Genesis 6:9–22 TLV

These are the genealogies of Noah. Noah was a righteous man. He was blameless among his generation. Noah continually walked with God. Noah fathered three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. Now the earth was ruined before God, and the earth was filled with violence. God saw the earth, and behold it was ruined because all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh is coming before Me, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. Behold, I am about to bring ruin upon them along with the land. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood. You shall make the ark with compartments and smear pitch on it, both inside and out. Now this is how you shall make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. You shall make a roof for the ark, and you shall finish it to within a cubit from the top. You shall put the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third stories. Now I am about to bring the flood—water upon the land—to destroy all flesh in which is the spirit of life from under the sky. Everything that is on the land will perish. But I will establish My covenant with you. So you shall come into the ark—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. Also of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of everything—male and female—into the ark to keep alive with you. Of the flying creatures according to their kind, of the livestock according to their kind, of all the crawling creatures of the ground according to their kind—two of everything will come to you to keep them alive. As for you: take for yourself every kind of edible food and gather it to yourself. It will be food for you and for them.” So Noah did according to all that God commanded him; he did so exactly.

Genesis 7:1–24 TLV

Then Adonai said to Noah, “Come—you and all your household—into the ark. For you only do I perceive as righteous before Me in this generation. Of every clean animal you shall take with you seven of each kind, male and female; and of the animals which themselves are not clean two, male and female; also of the flying creatures of the sky seven of every kind, male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of the whole land. For in seven more days, I am going to make it rain upon the land forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe out all existence that I made from the face of the ground. So Noah did all just as Adonai commanded him. Now Noah was 600 years old when the flood came—water upon the land. So Noah, his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, entered the ark because of the floodwaters. Of the clean animals and unclean animals, the flying creatures and everything that crawls on the ground, two by two they came to Noah, into the ark, male and female, just as God commanded Noah. After the seven days, the floodwaters were upon the land. In the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on this day, all the water sources of the great deep burst open, and the windows of the sky were opened. Then there was rain upon the land 40 days and 40 nights. On that same day Noah, along with Noah’s sons Shem, Ham and Japheth, Noah’s wife and the three wives of Noah’s sons with them, entered the ark, they and every animal according to its kind, and all the livestock according to its kind, and every crawling creature that crawls on the land according to its kind, and every flying creature according to its kind, every bird, every winged creature. So to Noah and into the ark they went by twos—all flesh in which was the spirit of life. Those that came, male and female of all flesh, came just as God commanded him. Then Adonai shut him in. The flood was forty days upon the land, and the waters increased and lifted the ark, so that it rose above the land. The waters overpowered and became very mighty over the land, and the ark drifted on the surface of the water. The waters completely overpowered the land so that all the high mountains beneath the entire sky were covered. The waters rose 15 cubits higher, as the mountains were covered. All flesh perished—those that crawl on the land, the flying creatures, livestock, wild animals, all creatures that swarm upon the land, and all humankind. Everything that had the breath of the spirit of life in its nostrils—everything on dry land—died. So He wiped out all existence that was upon the surface of the ground, everything from people to livestock, to crawling creatures, and to flying creatures of the sky. They were wiped out off the land. Only Noah and those with him in the ark survived. The waters overpowered the land for 150 days.

When mankind becomes corrupt and godless, God may take matters into His own hands, while it appears that there is calamity all around, what results is a new era purged of the wickedness of the world. God brought a new era through Noah, preserving humanity and starting afresh.

Exodus and the Promised Land

Exodus 3:7–10 TLV

Then Adonai said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their slave masters, for I know their pains. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, to bring them up out of that land into a good and large land, a land flowing with milk and honey, into the place of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Now behold, the cry of Bnei-Yisrael has come to Me. Moreover I have seen the oppression that the Egyptians have inflicted on them. Come now, I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people Bnei-Yisrael out from Egypt.”

Joshua 1:1–9 TLV

Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of Adonai that Adonai spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide saying: “My servant Moses is dead. So now, arise, you and all these people, cross over this Jordan to the land that I am giving to them—to Bnei-Yisrael. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I am giving to you, as I spoke to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon to the great river, the Euphrates River—all the land of the Hittites—to the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory. No one will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you. Chazak! Be strong! For you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be very strong, and resolute to observe diligently the Torah which Moses, My servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so you may be successful wherever you go. This book of the Torah should not depart from your mouth—you are to meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. For then you will make your ways prosperous and then you will be successful. Have I not commanded you? Chazak! Be strong! Do not be terrified or dismayed, for Adonai your God is with you wherever you go.”

God often brings about a shaking of the status quo to free His people from their bondage. Bondage does not always means physical changes. God led the Israelites out of Egypt into a new era of freedom and promise.

Jesus and the New Covenant

Luke 22:20 TLV

In the same way, He took the cup after the meal, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.

Hebrews 8:6–13 TLV

But now Yeshua has obtained a more excellent ministry, insofar as He is the mediator of a better covenant which has been enacted on better promises. For if that first one had been faultless, there would not have been discourse seeking a second. For finding fault with them, He says, “Behold, days are coming, says Adonai, when I will inaugurate a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not remain in My covenant, and I did not care for them, says Adonai. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Adonai. I will put My Torah into their mind, and upon their hearts I will write it. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And no more will they teach, each one his fellow citizen and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know Adonai,’ because all will know Me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more.” In saying “new,” He has treated the first as old; but what is being made old and aging is close to vanishing.

Jesus’ sacrifice marked the beginning of a new covenant - a new era, transforming our relationship with God.

The Prophetic Word

So probably by now, you can guess why all of these passages of scripture have to do with a new era, that’s because to start out the new year, the word I received from the Lord is “I am starting a new era. Behold I am shaking things as in the days of Noah. There are many who walk about in iniquity, and I am calling an end of their wickedness. There are those who would keep my people captive and I am calling an end to their tyranny.” God says, “the keys to the Kingdom were handed to my children when Yeshua rose from the dead, and just as in the days of Noah, a new covenant was struck with them. Behold today I strike a new covenant with you. I will throughly grind your enemies under my feet and your oppressors shall be snared in their own devices. I will rain judgement upon those who have worked iniquity, only If you will continue in humility and if you will turn your face only unto me I shall cause blessings to flow into your lives in such an abundance as you have never known. Watch and see for I will do this for my wrath is full against those who have oppressed my people and my vengeance is at the door” says the Adonai T’zavaot.

Our Response

Church, the only kind of response we can have to such a word, is faith and trust. How many of you know that Noah needed a lot of faith and a lot of trust when the rain started coming down? How about the children of Israel, do you think it was an easy thing for them to trust when they were trapped between the Red Sea and Pharaoh's chariots? And we can be sure that the disciples were doing cartwheels dancing for joy when they saw Messiah on the cross. So our response must be to trust God in the midst of these changes.

Proverbs 3:5–6 TLV

Trust in Adonai with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

Let us close with a few minutes of prayer for the New Year. Please feel free to speak out and add your voice as we raise our petition to heaven.