Rabbi Schneider - Jesus and Our Dreams
The message that I'm gonna share with you today came to me through a dream that the Lord gave me just a few weeks ago. Before I actually share with you what the dream was and what the message is; I wanna just lay a scriptural foundation beloved, of how it is that the Lord speaks to us in dreams and why this is a scriptural way to hear from the Lord. There's some people today that believe that the Lord no longer speaks to us in dreams and visions, but beloved, that's simply not true. In the Book of Joel chapter number 2, verse number words. He says: It will come about after this that I will pour forth my Spirit on all mankind. Of course the Lord is speaking here. And your sons and daughters will prophesy, and your old men will, get this now: dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female servants, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
Beloved, Peter quoted this same section of Scripture on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. He actually tells us in the Book of Acts chapter 2, verse Joel, and he says to those that are watching in amazement what had happened; how the Holy Spirit had fallen on those believers in the upper room. And Kephas, Peter stands up and said: what you're seeing is what was prophesied by the prophet Joel when he said: In the last days saith the Lord, I will pour forth my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams. I love this section of Scripture in the Book of Job, chapter number particular section of Scripture beloved, is spoken of by one of the men that the Lord didn't rebuke. You know many of Job's counselors the Lord rebuked for giving him false counsel. But this particular servant beloved, the Lord didn't rebuke and listen what this servant said to Job.
Once again, I'm reading from the Book of Job, chapter number 33, the words of Eliyahu beginning there in verse number 14: Indeed, God speaks once or twice, yet no one notices it. So he begins to say that the Lord speaks. He speaks once, he speaks twice, but when he's speaking, Eliyahu says, people don't notice. Let's continue on. In the 15th verse, how was he speaking in? He says in a dream, a vision of the night when sound asleep falls on men. While they slumber in their bed, then he, meaning God opens the ears of men and seals their instruction that he might turn man aside from his conduct and keep man from pride. He keeps back his soul from the pit and his life from passing over into Sheol. So what this servant of God is saying here is that God is speaking to man while man is sleeping, but man is not paying attention to his dreams.
Beloved, I believe we need to take our dreams very seriously. Often times its when the soul is lingering between the material world when he's awake, and he's involved in all the affairs of life, and when he moves into the more mystical element of life, when he's sleeping; it's often in this state beloved that the Lord speaks. For example, think of the life of Yeshua and how that affected Yeshua's father, Joseph. Remember when Yeshua was born, and an angel spoke to Joseph in a dream, and the angel instructed Joseph to take Jesus, to take Yeshua to Egypt. He was wanting to spare remember, Jesus' life, because the king there was killing the Hebrew children. And after that king in Israel had died, again the angel spoke to Joseph, how? In a dream, and he said to Joseph, take him back now to Israel.
And think about Paul; Paul was on his way trying to fulfill God's call in his life as a missionary, and one night Paul had a vision of the night, a dream. And in the vision of the night, the dream, Paul saw people from Macedonia saying come over here and preach the Gospel to us. And Paul said he included through that vision of the night, through that dream that the Lord was calling him to preach the Gospel to the Macedonians. We also read of King David; we say in Israel David Melech, King David. In Psalm number 16 verse 7, David says this: I will bless the Lord; I will bless Yahweh who has counseled me. Indeed David said, my mind instructs me in the night.
And so I want you to understand that hearing from the Lord beloved, through our dreams is very, very important. Now I always like to counsel people to be very careful, because just because you dream something, that doesn't necessarily mean it's from the Lord. I mean dreams come for all types of reasons. When we, when we're sleeping at night, our mind is processing all the different stimuli, and all the different information, and all the experiences that we've had during the day, and during the days before that; even sometimes we dream about things that happen to us in our life when we were children.
So a lot of dreaming beloved, is just a mental processing of experiences that we've had in life. Sometimes dreams beloved are the result of the enemy. Most of us understand we've had dreams that were tormenting dreams, dreams of feeling lost, dreams of feeling tormented, dreams when we were running, dreams where everything was out of control. Dreams often times beloved, come from the enemy, but sometimes beloved, the Lord will speak to us in the night through a dream and we need to be paying attention. And I believe when we wake up in the morning, we should ask our self, did I dream anything last night that was from the Lord. And whenever I feel like I've had a dream that's from the Lord, what I do beloved, is I write it down. And I don't try to interpret it as I write it down, I just beloved, begin to write the dream without making interpretation, exactly as it happened.
And as I do that, often times details of the dream will begin to come back, and I'll, I'll remember more of the dream. And then after I get done writing the dream, often times the Lord will begin to give me interpretation. And there's been times beloved, when I've written down a dream, and I felt surely, this means nothing, but as I begin to write the dream down, immediately the Holy Spirit would begin to give me revelation and show me what the dream meant. It's very important beloved, to pay attention to your dreams at night.
Remember, Joel and Peter both said: when the Lord pours forth his Spirit, what are the experiences of those whom the Spirit has been poured out on, is they're gonna dream dreams. He's not talking about dreaming a dream about accomplishing something; he's talking about dreaming a dream in the night like David said: The Lord instructs me in the night. Like the Book of Job tells us in Job 33 through the counsel of Eliyahu, the Lord speaks to us when we're sleeping in the night.
Now I also want to say that most dreams are symbolic. In other words, we need to look to the Lord to understand what the meaning of the dream is. Remember for example along this same line, Kephas, Peter, when we find in the Book of Acts and he fell into a trance at night, he fell into, to a sleep. And in the state of sleep, this trance-like state, he had this dream, this vision of the night where he saw this sheet being lowered and he saw all these unkosher animals on the sheet, and then he heard a voice saying to him, Peter, take, kill and eat. And remember he responded back and he said Lord, I've never eaten anything unholy or unclean. And then the Lord spoke to him in the vision and he said: what the Lord calls clean, let no man call unclean.
And then Peter woke up, and it says he was on the roof still pondering what it meant. And immediately while he was pondering the meaning of it; Cornelius, who was a Gentile, Cornelius's servant came to Peter's house and said come, you're suppose to preach the Gospel to my master. Cornelius, and then Peter said he understood the meaning of the dream. That he wasn't to consider Cornelius, the Gentile as unclean, but he was to preach the Gospel, because up until that point, Jews had no association with Gentiles. But once again, the message came to Peter symbolically, it was in the form of these unkosher animals that he considered unclean.
Similarly, we find Yeshua, Jesus; often times when he spoke to people, how did he speak to them? Listen, he spoke to them in what? In parables. Right? The sower went out to sow the seed, and some seed fell on rocky ground, and some seed fell on ground that immediately, the, the crop sprouted up, but it had no root, and when the sun came, it withered. And later the disciples came and said Lord, tell us the meaning of the parable. And Jesus began to explain it to them as they sought to understand. And so even there we see the Lord speaking symbolically. So much of the language of the Spirit beloved is symbolic language, and its no different with dreams. Now it's very important if we're to walk intimately with the Holy Spirit beloved, that we're open to him speaking to us in dreams.
A lot of people once again, they've taught you know, God doesn't speak in dreams anymore, God doesn't give visions anymore. Let me tell you beloved, the Holy Spirit's not dead, and God doesn't go to sleep when you're sleeping; he's the same God beloved, yesterday, today and forever. And even as he spoke to so many people in the Hebrew Bible in visions and dreams, Jacob, remember Jacob had the dream, and he saw the vision of, of the ladder ascending from earth to heaven, and, and he, and he woke up and he said: surely God is in this place, and through that dream Joseph, I'm sorry, Jacob learned that God was with them in the affairs on earth. And over and over, we could quote different people; remember Daniel was the interpreter of dreams, Joseph in the New Testament, Paul in the New Testament, Peter in the New Testament.
God has not changed. Don't let anybody rob you of the gift and experience that the Holy Spirit wants to give you. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He's a speaking God and he still speaks to us in dreams. You see beloved, the rock of revelation is the written word of God. But you know the written word of God will not tell us sometimes, specific details about our life. For example, the written word of God, hallelujah, and you'll never hear me preach a message Yedidim, beloved ones, that is not rooted in the written word of God. The written word of God; it gives us the foundation of our faith, and lays the doctrine for faith and for living. But the written word of God doesn't tell you who to marry, it doesn't tell you what college to go to, it doesn't tell you what job to take, it doesn't tell you what house to buy, but you know what? The Lord can instruct you in all these things through dreams at night, and he's often instructed me beloved, in this way.
In fact some of you know, I as a Jewish person knew nothing about Jesus, was born and raised in a Jewish community, Bar Mitzvahed in a conservative temple, all my friends were Jewish growing up, I knew nothing about Jesus, no one had ever witnessed to me, I never read the New Testament and I came to a faith back in 1978 as a revealed himself to me beloved, in a vision of the night, in a vision at night, in a dream, and so I've been very open to the Lord speaking to me in dreams. In fact, I share many of those dreams and many of the encounters I've had with the Holy Spirit with dreams, in my book that's called, Awakening to Messiah, which you can order online or by calling the 800 number at the end of the broadcast, Awakening to Messiah, my personal biography. But I laid all that foundation today about dreams, cause I wanted to share with you beloved, a dream that I'm very excited about, that I believe with all my heart the Lord gave me, and I believe its for you.
Let me share with you what the dream was. I found myself in this kind of a small room. The room was probably no more than 20 feet long by 10 feet wide. It was fairly dark in the room. There was a couch in the room, and as I was sitting on the couch, I found myself leaning. There was a woman next to me; I couldn't really see what she looked like, but my head was kind of leaning on her shoulder. And I felt that the symbol of that was just security. You know David said that he had stilled his soul like a child at rest on his mamma's knee; he had stilled his soul completely. And so you know how children sometimes feel really secure with their mother when they're children. I felt that, that was the meaning of that first part of the dream as I leaned my head on the lady's shoulder there.
Next to the lady beloved, there was a man. And he was sitting on the couch. I was sitting on the couch, the woman was sitting next to me, and I was just kind of at peace leaning my head on the lady. I didn't know what she looked like; there was nothing sexual about it, it was just total security is what it represented. And then there was a man sitting on the couch, and I asked the man this particular question, I said what do you think of Jesus? I want you to listen to that question again, because it's a very strategic question that I believe that God, the Lord wants to use to mobilize his church to his witness. I asked this man this specific question: What do you think of Jesus?
Immediately the dream shifted, and I found myself walking down a corridor. It looked beloved, like a school hallway. And as I was walking down this corridor, somebody that I knew, yeah somebody in our Messianic congregation was in the dream, and he said to me, I really liked the way you handled that man. He said you were so patient with him. You know, it took me five years to believe all your stories. So again the next phase of the dream is I'm walking down this corridor, this hallway and somebody that I knew said to me, I really liked the way you handled that man. You were so patient with him, because it took me he said, five years to believe all your stories. And I believe the meaning beloved, of that part of the dream was that the Lord was saying that we need to be patient in witnessing with people, to people that we know.
In other words, we don't just do it once, we keep on witnessing, we keep on sharing our faith and love and we keep on beloved, lifting up Messiah to them even when they've rejected beloved, for years, and years, and years, and years. I've seen beloved, close people come to the Lord that had, in, in my life, people that I've been in very close relationship with and they have rejected the Lord for 10, 15, 20, even 30 years. And after rejecting the Lord for 30 years, but my continuing to witness, I saw them eventually after 30 years, hallelujah, come to the Lord. Praise his name.
Now the second dream that I had was right after this first dream, and it was because of this second dream beloved, that I knew that the first dream that I just shared with you, was from God. Because the second dream was so profound, and it was so unique, and it was so out of the ordinary, and so unlike anything that I would have ever expected or thought; I knew it was from the Lord. In the second dream, again it was right after that first dream that I just shared with you; I found myself again in a room that was similar to the room that I just got done describing to you. It was a room about 20 feet long and about 10 feet wide. I was once again sitting on a couch. And in the room was a girl, she was about 22 years old standing in the room. And I asked the girl, listen now, the same question in the dream. I asked her, what do you think of Jesus?
Listen again, what do you think of Jesus? And here's what she said, she said I know that he said a lot to the church, but he never said anything to me, like about being boyfriend-girlfriend. And what I felt the Lord was telling me beloved, was this: that a lot of people that we know, they've heard about Jesus, they've heard a little bit about what the Bible says, but they never took it personally. Remember, how does the Lord relate to us? We're called as his church, the what? The bride of Messiah, the bride of Christ. And where are we going? The Book of Revelation tells us, we're going to what? To the marriage supper of the Lamb. And when Paul speaks about marriage on earth, what does he say? He says I tell you a great mystery, that the marriage on earth is a shadow of the marriage of the, of the relationship that the Lord has with his people.
So here was this girl and I said to her, what do you think of Jesus? And she said I know he said a lot to the church. In other words, he, she, she heard about things that the Bible says abstractly, but she never had a personal word spoken to her beloved, about how much Jesus loves her. That, that God wants us to understand him as if he loves us alone. I remember an experience that I recently witnessed of a man that said he had an afterlife experience, he died, and went to heaven, and when he saw Jesus, he said it was like he just loved me. I mean I know he loves you too, but when I met him, it was just like he loved me; all his attention was centered on me.
And so this girl said I know he said a lot to the church, but I never heard him say anything to me like about being boyfriend-girlfriend. And I believe what the Lord is telling us here beloved, Yedeed, is that we need to communicate the message of Yeshua to people, in a way that we're telling them how much Jesus loves them as an individual and as a person. Not just that he died for the sins of the world in an abstract way, but that he died for you, for you individually, that he loves you and he wants to be closer to you, even than you can be with your husband or your wife. It's the most intimate type of relationship that one could ever experience on earth.
And so I believe that, that God is calling his church and mobilizing his church beloved, to be asking people the question: what do you think of Jesus? And by asking people that question, often times we're very, we're very quickly able to quickly discern where that person is. Some people might say well, I believe in him. Well if a person responds, I believe in him, what that says to me is you know what? They really don't have a personal relationship with him; they really don't know him in an intimate way. They believe in them, but you know, the Scriptures say even the demons believe and tremble.
Some people say I had an incidence where I asked somebody not too long ago, what do you think of Jesus a few weeks back. They said to me, well you know I'm kind of an historical, scientific kind of a guy. I say well that's fantastic, because Jesus is an historical person. And the Holy Spirit will give us beloved, the anointing to know what to say, but the strategic question that the Father gave me and he's giving you right now, will enable to quickly discern; often times where a person is at in their walk with the Lord.
Some people will have a comment; well I know that he existed. And then we could say something like, well listen if the Bible is an accurate historical source of who he is, and this is really the main historical source that we have, he could only be one of three things: he was a liar, he was a lunatic or he's the Lord. Because the Scripture says that Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no man comes to God, but by me. So to simply say that you believe that he was a good person, or that you believe he was a prophet, or believe he was existed, that doesn't, he existed, that doesn't make sense, because he either was who he said he was, the Lord, he was out of his mind, a lunatic, or he was lying, he was claming to be someone that he knew he wasn't.
Well we can challenge people then. He was either who he said he was, the Lord; he was a liar, claiming to be someone he wasn't; or he was a lunatic, he was crazy in a mental institution that think they're somebody that they're not. But I wanna challenge you today to read the New Testament, because your life depends on it. You'll never believe this one: just last night I was in a restaurant eating, it was a foreign restaurant. And the waiter came over, and I just had a, you know an affection for the waiter right away, and I asked the waiter, what do you think of Jesus? And you know what? The waiter couldn't quite understand what I was saying, he said Jes..., Jesus? I never encountered somebody in the United States that never heard of Jesus, but he didn't.
And, and then he called over one of the other waiters that was translating for him, and, and then, and then the waiter, you know he looked kind of puzzled, and then he came back to me with a napkin, and on the napkin, he had the word "God" written, and then he had an arrow pointed to Jesus' name, and he was asking me, is Jesus, God? And I said yes. I said have you ever done anything wrong, have you ever lied? He said yes. I said well Jesus died for you, for the things that you've done wrong so you could go to heaven. And then he asked me what my name was and I wrote down my website. But beloved, I believe today that the Lord gave me this dream to challenge you. He wants you to go out beloved, and lift up his name. He wants you to be asking people, what do you think of Jesus?
God hasn't called us beloved, to be accepted by the world. He's called us to be his witnesses. And if we won't be his witnesses beloved, we're gonna stop the flow of the Holy Spirit's power running through our life, because the Holy Spirit is given beloved, for power. Jesus said, go in Jerusalem and wait, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and you will be my witnesses. If the only time that you're talking about Jesus beloved, is in church, something's wrong. Let me ask you a question? When was the last time somebody came up to you and started talking to you about Jesus that was outside of the church? For many of you, it never happened. Don't be like the rest beloved. Be like those that will shine like the stars forever and ever, because they have led many to the Lord. This is Rabbi Schneider saying Shalom to you today, be the Lord's witness.