Rabbi Schneider - God is Speaking
Right now in this series I'm looking at the phenomenon of prophecy, dreams and visions. In Joel chapter 2, verse number 28 and 29, Joel prophesied that in the last days the Father would pour forth his spirit on all flesh. He said the result of this outpouring of the Ruach haKodesh, the breath, the life of God, God's spirit would be that sons and daughters would be able to speak by inspiration of the spirit, that they would prophesy. Secondly, that young men would be able to see in the spirit, they'd be able to perceive in the spirit things that are not known in the natural. And thirdly that when we're sleeping at night, the Father would be communicating with us through dreams. And so the experience of walking in the spirit, an experience of walking with fellowship with God should be that we're experiencing the reality in our daily lives of prophecy, dreams and visions.
Now, I know that this sounds kind of far-fetched or out of the box for some of us, that's why I'm going to qualify exactly what I mean by these terms. But before I qualify and describe what prophecy is, what a vision is, and what dreams are, before I qualify, I want you to hear me yedidim, beloved ones, that I'm not the one that has come up with this, this is not something that I've invented, this is not some kind of new deal that's part of my, you know, spiritual tip. This is from the Word of God.
In acts chapter 2, when the Spirit of God came... How many of us believe that acts chapter 2 is part of the Word of God, one of the most important parts of the Word of God? They're gathered together in Jerusalem as Jesus told them to do to wait. A Hebrew holiday had come, Shavuot, which is known in Greek as Pentecost, suddenly as they're sitting there on this Jewish holiday, the Spirit of God comes into the room in acts 2, a violent rushing wind, he manifests himself over the disciples as a tongue of fire, a speaking oracle. A tongue is a speaking oracle, because God gives us his spirit that he would communicate to us and speak to us, and then he fills the disciples. The experience is so powerful, that they begin to exhibit some type of a body language, some type of a bodily movement that appears as if they're off balance.
So Peter has to stand up and say, "They're not drunk. What they're experiencing is what was prophesied by Joel", and then he quotes from the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, Joel chapter 2, verse 28 and 29 and he says, "This is what the Lord prophesied in Joel when he said 'in the last day, saith the Lord, I'll pour forth my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. And even upon your male and female servants, I'll pour forth my spirit and they shall prophesy in my name saith the Lord". And so that's a paraphrase, but that's exactly what Joel said. And so, as the Spirit of God is poured out, Peter says in acts chapter 2 that what has happened is the fulfillment of Joel 2, which is God's spirit upon us now being manifest on our lives and in our lives through prophecy, dreams and visions.
And so with that said, what I want to do now is I want to qualify. The Hebrew word, beloved, for prophesy is the Hebrew word "Naba". Prophecy comes from the Hebrew word "Naba", and it most simply means "To speak by inspiration of the Holy Spirit". So someone is prophesying in the most simple sense of the word when they're speaking by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And so, in acts chapter 2 Peter in describing what happened at Pentecost says this, in verse number 17, "Your sons and daughters shall prophesy". What is he meaning? That because the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in the believer, the believer will be inspired to speak God's words by God's power.
Now, many times when people hear the word prophecy, they think about just simply the future. Well, a word of prophecy, they think about is an end times word. And that is one of the dimensions of prophecy. One of the dimensions of prophecy is when scripture speaks of "In the last days this is going to happen", and that prophecy is something that many people think is something that has yet to be fulfilled, but was spoken about in an earlier time. And that is one dimension of prophecy, something that speaks about what will happen in the future, that has yet to be fulfilled or maybe has come to be fulfilled, and as a result of that the prophecy was fulfilled. That's one element of prophecy.
Other people when they think of prophecy, they think only a personal prophecy. And the personal prophecy for those of you that are familiar are in groups of believers that are coming from a more charismatic or Pentecostal persuasion, and oftentimes someone will give what they say is a word from the Lord, and they'll say "Thus saith the Lord", and they'll begin to speak, and they're saying that they're delivering a word from the Lord either to a congregation, or maybe you've even had somebody speak over your life individually and say "I have a word from the Lord for you", and they'll say "Thus saith the Lord", and they'll begin to speak something over your life that they say is a word of the Lord for you.
Other times people will speak a word of prophecy that they want the whole world to hear. That's another dimension of prophecy. Let me simply comment that my experience with that type of prophecy is that it is legitimate, but much of what people claim is from the Lord is oftentimes maybe a good word, but not God's word. In other words, I've had people come to me and say "I have a word from the Lord for you", and they speak something over my life that they say, "This is God's word for you and God told me to say this to you". They say to me, "Thus saith the Lord", and they begin to speak a word over my life. And I've had instances that it was a true word from the Lord, but the majority of the time, maybe 80 percent of the time, the person might have been sincere, but it wasn't actually a word from God. They thought it was a word from God, but it wasn't a word from God.
Now I share that with you for those of you that are familiar with this, or those of you that will have somebody come and speak a word over your life to be careful not to just go act on it, if the Lord doesn't confirm it to you. And don't just receive it if it's not bearing witness with your spirit. Be open before the Lord, be humble before the Lord, be willing to receive, but just because somebody says "Thus saith the Lord, this is what God's saying to you", don't receive it and believe it just because they say it's from the Lord. You take it and you bring it before the Lord, and let the Lord lead confirmation to you or tell you not to receive it.
So that's another type of prophecy, but I'm not talking about prophecy that has to do with the future event being fulfilled, and neither am I just talking about personal prophecy or a work to the church where someone says "Thus saith the Lord". I'm talking about something more simple, beloved. When Peter says "Your sons and daughters shall prophesy", in Joel 2 and acts 2, the simplest again definition of this is simply meaning that our sons and daughters, and that means everybody, because we've all been a son and a daughter at some point, right? All of us have been a son and a daughter at some point in our life, I'm still a son, right? You're still a son or a daughter. So this is for everybody, it's a point that I'm making. It's not just for somebody when they're young, because we're always sons and daughters, that's the whole point of this. It's for all classes of people. Prophecy, dreams and visions are for all classes of people.
It says, "Your young men shall see visions, and your old men will dream dreams". It doesn't mean that when you're young you see visions, and then when you're old you stop seeing visions and you dream dreams. It doesn't mean when you're old you don't have visions, you just have dreams. The Lord is talking about all classes of people, all whom his spirit has been poured upon will be able to operate in communication with me, through prophecy, dreams and visions. Prophecy then, naba in Hebrew, in its most simple essential form simply means to speak by inspiration of the spirit. What does that mean? In its simplest sense it means, let's say beloved, that you just feel inspired to reach out to somebody to tell them that you love them, and you feel that God is calling you to do that. That's prophecy. That's naba, because you're speaking by inspiration of the spirit. It wasn't you that came up with that love, it wasn't you that led yourself to reach out to that person, the Spirit of God in you was compelling you, was motivating you, was giving you his heart and his feeling and his warmth towards that person.
Those of you that are parents or grandparents, you have children, you're very concerned about your children, you love your children, they all go through things in life, growing up is a hard thing. And as you look to the Lord for your children, there'll be times when you'll be able to counsel your children, and you'll know that as you're counseling your children, the wisdom that you're sharing with them is the heart of God. The Lord will give you wisdom how to counsel your children, how to speak to your children, how to speak into their lives. When you speak to your children, beloved, out of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, you're prophesying in the general sense of the word. And so I want to take this kind of way-out-there-mystical-mystical out there, out of it. Prophecy is simply speaking by inspiration of the spirit.
Sometimes the Lord righteous might bring a scripture to your heart to share with somebody. The Lord just put this in my heart, I wanted to share this with you. Sometimes the Lord will give you a burden for somebody to reach out to them. Sometimes the Lord will inspire you to call somebody, to go see somebody. This beloved, when you do this, when you reach out to communicate to somebody, you're prophesying when it's being led to the Holy Spirit - naba.
The second element here, beloved, is visions. So, the Lord said "Your young men", in acts chapter 2, verse number 17, "We'll see visions". The Hebrew word for visions is the word "Chazon". Chazon, and to have a vision simply means that God shows you something in the spirit, that you wouldn't be able to see in the natural. It's like he's unveiling a mystery to you. And oftentimes when we think about a vision, again we think of something that's so out there, so unfamiliar, so unlike anything that we've ever experienced, that we kind of disconnect from it. But remember, Peter said that those whom the Spirit of God has been poured out upon, they're going to be able to prophesy, they're going to speak by inspiration of the spirit, because there's a life force in you, Jesus is in you, he's imparting himself to you, and how could you not speak by his inspiration, if he's in you? If Jesus is in you, and you're in him, how could you not prophesy? How could you not be speaking with his inspiration? How could you not be speaking with his clarity? How could you not be speaking with his motivation? How could you not be speaking with his heart and his feeling? You're prophesying because he lives in you, and he lives through you.
He also said that you would see in the spirit, that you would be able to have vision, spiritual vision, "Chazon", and what this means is to be able to perceive by the spirit. Now again, sometimes when we think of a vision, we think of something so out there, we think for example of John's experience in the Book of Revelation, where suddenly John in the Book of Revelation hears a voice, and he's caught up into the heavens, and he sees the Lord on the throne, and he sees all these beings around the Lord, and he hears the angels crying out "Holy, holy, holy", and you think, "Well, I've never had an experience like that. I never had a vision". Or maybe we think of Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 6, how he also sees the Lord highly lifted up with Seraphim around him, crying out day and night, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty". And Isaiah is so overwhelmed by this experience, he falls on his face trembling, and he says, "Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among an unclean people". And he's so overwhelmed by it, that he he's almost like a dead man, and you think, "I never had an experience like that, I've never had a vision".
Well, beloved, those are awesome experiences, but most visions I have found that God's children are having are not of that nature, they're not at that level. But rather beloved they're very subtle. Oftentimes a vision is simply a picture that the Lord will put in your mind, you know, remember why does the Lord give prophecy, dreams and visions? For the purpose of what? Of communication. And so, the Lord is giving you a vision to communicate something to you. And I have found that visions often come to us very subtly, through a picture that will simply flash in our mind, just simply a picture that we see in our mind. And God is telling us through the image or the picture that he shows us in our mind of something that he's doing.
For example we had a really special service last Friday night at "Adot Adonai", the Messianic congregation, that I shepherded in Ottawa, lake Michigan, I invite you to come and visit sometime. You can go to our website, it'll say to visit you can go there. But we had an awesome service, there was just the Spirit of God just came in a special way. We were celebrating Pentecost, Shavuot. And we had all kinds of things going on, we had some people that were just naturally not real joyful people, they just began to laugh, and giggle, and couldn't stop. And when we saw that happening, and then half of the other people in the congregation just getting really happy and giggling, we knew that something was going on, and it was the Lord, because the person that this started with was not a person that would ever do this in the natural. And we had somebody else that was physically healed. And we had some other things, if I told you I don't want, but I mean just really special people were experiencing the power of God there in a significant way.
And then a woman that was with us, that I really respect, very stable person, she got up and she said she had a vision, she said the Lord put a picture in her mind and she said in this picture, it was like an image that flashed in her mind, and she said in this image she saw a rainbow. And remember before the Lord's throne, we read in revelation and Ezekiel, there was a rainbow before his throne. She said before his throne I saw a rainbow, and on both sides of the rainbow there were pots of gold coins. And I saw Jesus, she said, just throwing the gold coins out into the congregation. And some people were catching them, but some of the other gold coins that were just falling on the ground, and it was making Jesus sad because he wanted to give these gifts to people, but people weren't taking them.
And when she shared that with me, because I know her, and I know her integrity, and I know her well enough to know she wouldn't make this up, I knew it was really the Lord. That was a vision. She wasn't overwhelmed in the sense that she fell in her face and couldn't move, it was just a picture that God gave her of this rainbow, and the gold coins, and Jesus throwing the gold coins to the congregation, him wanting to bless us. We had people being healed, and we had some really fabulous, remarkable things going on, people feeling the fire of God, it was just awesome, and it was wonderful. And so, this was the Lord's way of showing us, and encouraging the congregation that he was in our midst, and he wanted us to take and receive, beloved, what he was giving us.
I remember years and years ago, beloved, when I was taking a sabbatical from ministry, I was thinking about doing something in a particular line of work. And I was sitting on a chair one day contemplating whether I should go into this line of work. And as I was sitting in the chair contemplating, whether I should go into this line of work, suddenly in my mind a joint appeared, I mean like a ball and a socket, like a ball joint fits in to a knee socket, you know, like the ball in the socket. I mean I never thought about, that I've never been a medical student, I mean that's kind of something that's gross to think about in a way, you know. It's not something that you would naturally think about, certainly nothing that I naturally thought about.
But suddenly, as I'm sitting on the couch, wondering whether I should go into this business, in my mind very subtly, just an image, just a picture comes into my mind of a ball in a socket like a joint, and I knew that the Lord was communicating to me, and he was saying to me "This is right for you, this fits for you right now in my plan for your life like a ball in a socket. It's perfect. Do it". And so God was able to lead me into this particular action, at this point in my life through a vision. I've had many visions, beloved, over the years. We need to be paying really strong attention, because they're so subtle usually, that if we're not paying attention, we'll miss them. I mean most of the visions that I've had are not so overwhelming, that it's like I fall over. No, they're so subtle, but because I've settled myself to a degree in God, and I talk about how to settle yourself in the Lord in the earlier messages in this series, "As Enoch walked with God", because I've settled myself by the grace of God to some degree, I'm more attentive and more able to discern when the Lord is speaking to me.
I remember years ago, when I was shepherding at Adot Adonai, I was came to a prayer meeting one day, and we were in a circle, and there was a man that was sitting sat down across from me in the circle. And right when the man was sitting down I saw a Hammer, just in the spirit, just I would, it was so subtle, I would have missed it if I didn't pay attention, it was so subtle. I saw a Hammer coming down on his head. I said to him, "As you were seated, I just saw a Hammer coming down on your head". He said, "I just found out I was sued today", so the Lord was revealing to me that this man really just felt like a Hammer was come down upon him, and that gave him comfort to know that "Jesus sees, Jesus cares, let's pray for you through this, Jesus is with you". We should pay attention beloved to the images, to the pictures that the Lord puts in our mind.
So we've talked about prophecy, "Naba" in Hebrew, just the ability to speak by inspiration of the spirit. We should be confident beloved, that Jesus is in us, and because he's in us we have the ability, as we practice abiding in him, to speak by inspiration of the spirit. Whether it be to our friends, our grandchildren, our children, our neighbors, whoever it might be. Jesus leads us and guides us. That's why he said, "When witnessing, don't worry about what you're going to say", because he said, "I'll give you the words in the hour thereof". Isn't that prophecy? That Jesus said, "When you witness, I'm going to give you the words in advance. I'm going to prepare you, so when you speak, they're going to be my words". That's prophecy: speaking by inspiration of the spirit.
And then we talk about visions, and there are different levels of visions, and different types of visions, that have different impact. But I have found the most common form of visions for God's people are very subtle, they're simply pictures, images that flash in our mind, almost like on a motion picture screen, just for a second, soft and subtle, that if we're not paying attention we'll miss them. But remember a picture tells a thousand words, and God can give you discernment and insight, and allow you to perceive what you need to perceive in him through paying attention to these visions. Remember acts chapter two, prophecy, dreams and visions are the experience of those whom the Spirit of God has been poured out upon.
But the third area that I want to talk about, and I'm going to talk about in greater length, beloved is this area of dreams. Because the third area that Peter said would be the experience of those whom the Spirit of God was working in and on is dreams. And he says this, verse 17 of acts 2, quoting once again Joel 2:28-29, Peter says this, "And it shall be in the last days, God says, I will pour forth of my spirit on all mankind: and your sons and daughters shall prophesy", we've talked about, "Your young men shall see visions", we've talked about, and get this now, "And your old men", get this now, "Shall dream dreams". Now, once again, he's not talking about achieving some kind of American dream or having a dream of becoming a star athlete or accomplishing some big thing. That's not what he's talking about in this instance. He's talking about that God will speak to you, and communicate to you while you're sleeping in your bed at night.
When you go to sleep, beloved, God is still awake. God neither slumbers nor sleeps. And when you're sleeping, you're oftentimes at the right state for the Father to speak to you. I have found that some of the most significant times in my life of hearing from the Lord has been in my sleep, beloved, but you have to believe that he'll speak to you in your sleep, and when he does speak to you in your sleep, you have to cultivate it. Many of you say, "God doesn't speak to me in my dreams". Well, I want you to know, I realize that some people are heavier sleepers than others, but get this, we all dream. So on next week's broadcast I'm going to talk about how God speaks to us in dreams, how we can become better at retaining our dreams, and the different types of things that God will speak to us about in our dreams.
So Father, you've said to us in acts chapter 2, that because you poured forth your spirit upon us, that our sons and daughters would prophesy, young men would see visions, and old men would dream dreams. Father, we know you were covering all classes of people, that this would be, Father, the blessing upon us, from having your spirit in our life. So, I pray Father for these that are watching that you'll draw them into you, Father God, that you'll draw them in that they'll enter in, Father God, to walking with you, even as Enoch did, Father God, arm in arm by hearing from you with greater clarity in their life through prophecy, dreams and visions.