Rabbi Schneider - Led, Guided, and Directed
We have been looking at the fact that we have literally received God's divine nature. We've received what the Scripture calls his zoe life, the uncreated supernatural life of God. And on the last episode, I was in chapter 8 and I left off in verses 10 and 11. Hear the Word of God. The grass weathers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord, beloved child of His, abides forever. Hear God's Word to you. "If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness". What does this mean? That this body is corruptible. When Adam and Eve sinned, their body eventually died and we're their offspring. And so our bodies will eventually die because of sin. And yet we have an inner nature, what the Bible calls our inner man. And in our inner man, we received God's Spirit. And our inner man, because of God's Spirit, is going to live forever.
I remember years ago how this truth so vitally struck me. This is going back now approximately 40 years ago, 39 years ago. I was going through a season of my life. I'd already been a believer for three years. I became a believer, as some of you know, in 1978. And I was going through a phase of just even deeper commitment, deeper repentance. And I was sitting in a chair one morning having a cup of tea. And I remember it clearly because the tea was replacing the cigarettes that I'd given up. Because the Lord was convicting me, "I want you to give up those cigarettes now". He was showing me that you feel empty and you reach for a cigarette to try to fill that emptiness, but what you're really doing is you're trying to fill the emptiness with death. And every time you take in that big whiff from the cigarette and inhale that smoke, you're not receiving the life that you're craving for through that cigarette. You're actually filling yourself with death.
So I decided by the grace of God, it's time to get rid of those things, and start looking to the Lord for life rather than the cigarette. Think about the different nature. The cigarette was trying to fulfill the nature of the flesh, right? It wasn't spirit life. It was trying to fulfill the flesh nature. The Bible says, "He that puts their mind on the flesh will reap death". But I repented. I'm sitting in the chair, I'm having tea to calm myself a little bit since I was little, you know, antsy as a result of giving up the cigarettes, and I'm not expecting anything to happen. I'm just sipping my tea, I'm listening to some music, thinking about the Lord but not expecting anything to happen. And beloved, all I can tell you is this happened to me. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the Spirit of Elohim, the Spirit of the Living God visibly manifested above my head.
Now, the question might be asked, "Well, if he was above your head, how did you see Him? Because your eyes can see in front of you, but they can't see above your head". All I can tell your beloved is I saw. I don't know how I saw. Obviously, I saw, but it wasn't with these eyes; it was with my spirit eyes. But it was as visible and as clear as if it was being seen through my physical eyes. And the spirit of life that appeared above my head, He was moving in just a swishing motion, and he was composed of all the colors of a rainbow. And then the spirit of life came through my head. I couldn't have stopped it from happening, and neither did I make it happen. It was a sudden sovereign act of the Lord. Then His spirit of zoe life, uncreated life came through my head, and he came inside something inside me. And I literally felt the place inside me that he came into.
And the reason I tell you that right now is because at that instant, when the spirit of life came through my head, he bypassed my brain and he went into my inner man. And at that moment, church, beloved saints, I knew that I had an inner man. And my inner man wasn't my brain, it wasn't my body, it was someplace deep inside me. So this is what Paul is saying here. The body is dead, the body is going to pass away, but in our inner man, if the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he's saying here... "...He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit..." And so we have God's Spirit in our inner man. And if we have God's Spirit, His Spirit within us will also give life and health to our physical bodies. And so I believe personally that God's Spirit flows through my blood. He imparts, I believe, His health and life to me through my blood.
There's a lot of mysteries regarding divine healing of our physical bodies. And this isn't a series on divine healing. But we know that Yeshua's death on the cross made provision for the physical healing of our bodies. And the reason that we know this is right after Jesus preached His longest sermon in Matthew 5 through 7, which is oftentimes referred to as the Sermon on the Mount, after Jesus preached that sermon, He began coming down from the mountain. And as soon as He began coming down from the mountain, people began to come up to Him for a physical healing need. This person came up, Jesus healed them. Then somebody else came up, Jesus healed them. Then somebody else came up, Jesus healed them. And then we get to the beginning of Matthew 8 and it says that they brought to Him people with every type of infirmity and every type of disease. And it says, "And Yeshua healed them all".
And then Matthew says this was in fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy. And then Matthew quoted Isaiah 53. And Isaiah 53, beloved, is about the atonement of Jesus. It's about Jesus dying on the cross and taking our sin in His own body on the tree to atone for our sin by His blood. And in that same chapter, it speaks of how Yeshua took our sickness in His own body and made us whole by His stripes. So the same death of our Savior that atone for our sin also made provision for the healing of our body. And so we find a reference to this in verse 11 of Romans 8. "If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life..." Life, life in you and over you I speak. "...to your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwells in you".
And so Father, we thank You for Your Spirit, Father, that lives in us and is manifest upon us imparting life and your divine nature of health to our mortal bodies. And Father, I ask you, we ask you to sustain these bodies of flesh with supernatural life and health, by Your Spirit through the blood of Jesus and through His stripes all the days of our lives. Can you say Amen with me? Amen. Amen.
"By His stripes," the Scripture says, "we are healed". Paul is switching gears for a moment. He says, "So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to flesh", and we've talked about this, "for if you're living according to the flesh, you must die", but get this now, "but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live". Notice I've been talking about the warfare that we're in. Listen to what Paul says. We have God's Spirit that's in us. Paul just got done saying it. The Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. And because of that, you're alive to righteousness in Him. But it's not an automatic thing that our life just changes without any effort on our part. Because Paul tells us in verse 13 that we have to, by the Spirit, put to death the deeds of the flesh.
Listen, if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. We're not under obligation to fulfill the lust of the body. But we're called to subdue the lust of the body and the passions of the body by the Spirit. Let me give you an example that we can all relate to. One of the principles of our body life is impatience. The Spirit is patient. Love is gentle. Love is patient. Love is kind. But the flesh is agitated and the flesh sets its mind on what it wants. And if it doesn't get what it wants right now, it gets upset. That's the flesh nature. And I don't know about you, but I'm naturally an A-type personality. I see something, I'm going towards that thing. And if something gets in the way, all of a sudden I'm irritated. I have to put to death that fleshly irritation by the Spirit.
So I have to subdue that passion of the flesh of irritability because I'm not getting what I want right now by the Spirit. We have to put to death anger, malice, gossip, slander, coarse jesting. That's all from the flesh nature. The flesh has its own life; we put it to death by the Spirit. And we're called to put it to death. If you don't have discernment that you can't separate what's of the flesh and what's of the Spirit, beloved, you're walking like a blind person. The Bible says, "The Word of God is living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, that it judges the thoughts and intentions of men and it separates the soul from the Spirit".
So we have to have discernment as to what's of the Spirit and what's of our lower nature. And then we have to agree with the Spirit, hang on to the Spirit, warfare by the Spirit, and subdue the deeds of the flesh. And if we're on that trajectory, if that's the path that we're on in our lifestyle, Paul says, we're going to reap love and joy and everlasting life. But if we're yielding to the flesh and making excuses for ourselves, we're going to reap corruption and death. So let's listen. "...for if you're living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you're putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God".
What did Paul just say? All that are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. The question is, are we being led by the Spirit of God? This is a mystical approach to life, beloved. Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Nicodemus, are you a teacher of Israel and don't understand what I'm talking about? The Spirit blows where it wishes. And you don't know where it's coming in," John 3, Jesus said, "or where it's going. So it is with everyone that's born of the Spirit". You see, we need to learn how to be able to discern the motion and the leading of the Ruach HaKodesh in our life. We need to learn how to follow the Spirit.
Think about this. Just pause for a moment and think with me. The early believers, the first Christians, did they have the written word of God like you and I do today? No. They didn't have Paul's letters that they had in a leather-bound book like this. Most of them didn't have a copy of the Torah or the Old Testament Prophets. It was passed on to them the message orally. So how did they in their life, obey the principle of God's Word? How did they obey the Lord? They did it, beloved, by learning how to be led by the Spirit. They learned how to be sensitive to the Spirit. The Bible tells us that those of us that are mature in the Lord have gained the discernment to be able to separate good and evil, to know the difference-how to be led by the Spirit.
See, the Bible says that God's Spirit bears witness with your spirit and my spirit, that He's alive, that Jesus is the Son, and also His Spirit bears witness to our spirit as to what's truth. And we either have like a prompting to do something or say something that's from the Lord. That we can learn how to discern the Lord is prompting us to move forward in a certain course of action. Or when we're sensitive, we can have a check in our heart or our spirit. And the Holy Spirit is telling us, "No, don't do that. Don't say that. Don't go there. Don't purchase that thing". It's learning how to be led by the Spirit. And this involves getting in touch with our inner man because the Spirit is inside us. He bears witness with our spirit.
And so the Bible says, Those that are being led in the supernatural life of being led by God's Spirit, these are really the sons of God. It's not just about quoting Bible verses. Even the devil can quote Bible verses. It's walking in resurrection life. It's walking in newness of life. And so I just want to dig this up because Jesus said, "If my spirits in you," again, "rivers of living water are going to come out of your innermost being". And I want to really just help you to understand how important it is to spend time every day just sitting before the Lord silently and listening to songs, gentle worship music.
Why do I say soft, gentle worship music? Preferably with lyrics that are just singing scripture, singing the Psalms, or singing scripture? Why am I saying soft, gentle worship music? Because the Holy Spirit is by nature gentle. And if we're going to get in touch with the leading of the Spirit, we're going to have to learn how to get in touch with His gentleness. There are some Christians that they just want to always, you know, listen to warfare music, they want to always listen to high volume praise music. And there's a place for both. But first and foremost, the Holy Spirit speaks to us in a still, small voice. He's not in the earthquake most of the time. He's not in a violent storm most of the time. He's in a still small voice. The Holy Spirit is gentle by nature.
And so if we're going to get in touch with the Holy Spirit, we need to calm ourself, bring ourselves into a place of stillness, and silence, and peace. And this can be practiced and learned. And it's something that we can discipline ourselves to grow in by taking time, preferably in the morning every day, just to read some scripture, read some devotional material, and then just sit before the Lord with gentle, scriptural, beautiful, again, gentle music soft. And this will help you throughout the day be in touch with that still, small, gentle voice of the Holy Spirit's leading so that you can be trained how to be led by the Spirit of God.
Again, Paul says here, "Those that are being led by the Spirit of God," in verse 14, "these are the sons of God". The Spirit also leads us beloved, we find in Acts chapter 2, through prophecy and dreams. Because when those first disciples received the Holy Spirit, Peter said, "What you're seeing..." because the people that had received the Spirit had been so overwhelmed they almost looked like they were drunk. Peter said, "These guys aren't drunk. What you're seeing" Peter said, "is what was prophesied in Joel 2". And then Peter quoted Joel 2. And he said this in quoting Joel: "In the last day, saith the Lord, I will pour forth my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and your old men will dream dreams".
So we can be led by the Spirit by paying attention to maybe a prophetic word that a friend will give us, by paying attention to our dreams at night, because sometimes, the Spirit will speak to us through our dreams at night, and by paying attention to simple pictures that the Lord might put in your mind that if you're not paying attention, you might not even recognize that you're seeing a vision of the Spirit. And you can go get my book "Experiencing the Supernatural". I talked a lot more about this. But we're called to be led by the Spirit. And it begins with paying attention to the internal witness, and then, beloved, evolves into prophecy, dreams and visions. This is Rabbi Schneider saying I love you. And until next time, God bless you and shalom.