A new era?

There has been much talk over the last little while of a new era, not just a new day or season, but a new era. Some may say I do not see anything that different. Where is this new era?

However, if we look at new eras in the Bible, none of them started that auspiciously but they all became planet changing; Noah, Abraham, Moses / Joshua, King David and Jesus himself.

Noah’s obedience ushered in a whole new era based on righteousness when God washed the planet of sin and iniquity through the flood, but it started with Noah obediently spending 120 years building an ark in the desert. For over a century, he would have had to endure the mocking of his contemporaries but even they must have wondered when all those animals turned up and entered the ark and it began to rain. Once the planet had been cleansed, God started again with Noah and his family – a new era that had started very inauspiciously.

Next, God called Abraham to found his dynasty, his people, the Jewish nation through a son not yet born to an old couple, because ‘Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness’ Genesis 15: 6. He trusted God, despite his and Sarah’s old age to give them a son. He was even prepared to sacrifice this son of the promise.  Now, despite every attempt of man and the enemy, the Jewish people flourish and have returned to their Promised Land. 

Moses too could never have realised the call on his life after his aborted attempt to fulfil his calling in his own strength. For 40 years Moses lived in the desert with the sheep, probably wondering if the call on his life had been lost forever with his reckless act of murder. For 40 years the entitlement and privilege of the royal Egyptian lifestyle was removed till all that was left was a man who had no illusions about who he was. ‘Moses spent 40 years thinking he was somebody; 40 years learning he was nobody; and 40 years discovering what God can do with a nobody.’ 

Yet when God called him, he didn’t even jump up and say, ‘Here I am God. Send me.’ Five times he told God, ‘No!’. But God knew what was in him and by the time of the announcement of the tenth plague, Moses left the great Pharaoh’s presence ‘hot with anger.’ He was now so confident of who God was and what He could do that he led the Israelites out of the slavery of Egypt, took them across the Red Sea and despite all their moaning and complaining, led them for 40 years in the wilderness. God used Moses to build a new nation based on worship to their God at the tabernacle. It was a new era and foreshadowed the later great act of deliverance of the Son of God. Moses’ assistant Joshua completed the assignment and took the next generation into their Promised Land. 

Then Jesus himself, the ultimate promise of redemption for all mankind, started with a baby born to poor parents, placed in a manger because there was nowhere else to put the infant Son of God. Hardly the expected start. Even after his 3 years of ministry doing good and preaching the Kingdom of God, the crowds that had been so blessed, turned on him and demanded he be crucified. Yet that was all in God’s plans and crucifixion led to resurrection and the coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost ushering in THE new era – salvation for all. 

The hallmark of all these new eras were obedient men and women, doing what God asked of them. It’s the same in our day We are called to walk in obedience to what God is saying to us and the Church. Has the new era already started with the revivals spreading across the universities and campuses in USA? Time will tell but we do know: 

28 “And afterward,

    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy,

    your old men will dream dreams,

    your young men will see visions.

29 Even on my servants, both men and women,

    I will pour out my Spirit in those days. Joel 2: 28 – 29 

May we too be men and women of obedience and faith to trust that God is bringing about incredible events in our day that will see millions swept into the Kingdom ready for the return of the King of the Kings.