Rabbi Schneider - From Enoch to Jesus
Hear Word of God as I read now from the book of Bereshit, Genesis chapter 5 verse 23 and 24. So all the days of Enoch were 365 years, and Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Isn't that awesome? What a beautiful type, what a beautiful shadow, that Enoch walked so closely in friendship with the Lord, he walked so closely with his Master that he just disappeared off the earth into his presence. A lot like Elijah, right? Well, beloved, the reason that we're using Enoch as a foundation and as a launching pad is because Enoch really, he's a type and shadow for you and I. God is calling us to walk with him. And not only has he called us to walk with him, but we are also ascending off the earth in the Spirit, beloved, from glory to glory, from strength to strength, one day, beloved, to be taken up in the rapture to sit with him in the heavenly places.
In fact, even now the Scripture tells us spiritually speaking we're seated with the Lord in the heavenly places even as Enoch, beloved, was no more and was in the Father's presence. So we're talking about Walking With God As Enoch Walked With God. More perfectly as Yeshua, as Jesus himself walked with God, and he said I do nothing by my own initiative. I only do what I see the Father doing. I only do what the Father's already done. Jesus, beloved, walked perfectly with the Father. And so we're talking about how it is that we can strengthen our walk with God. It's all about a relationship. It's a divine romance. It's for love that the Lord created us, and it's for love, beloved, that Yeshua came. Jesus said the Father so loved the world, the Father so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
Why did the Father send Yeshua? That we could be with him. This is why he's created us in his own image, for this divine romance. In other words, God created us in his own image because he desires to have such intimacy with us that the intimacy that he desires with us could only be had if we're in his image. In other words, I can have a beautiful relationship with my wife that's unlike the relationship I could ever have with my dog because my wife is in my own image. In fact, the Lord calls himself the bridegroom. He calls himself our husband. And the church is called the bride. In fact, Paul talks about marriage, and he says I tell you a mystery, that marriage on earth between a man and his wife is a shadow of the Lord's relationship with us. And so we desire this intimacy with God, to walk him and to enjoy this divine romance.
I started out by saying this. If we're going to walk closer with God, if we're going to more, beloved, engage in this divine romance, then we're going to need to be convinced, beloved, first of all of the fact that the Father really loves you. The Father really loves you. In fact, the Father shared with me recently that when sharing the Gospel with people, I want you just not to tell them that Jesus died for the sins of the world. He said I want you to tell them how much I love them as an individual, personally, specifically, and directly. And that's the way the Lord feels about you and I. He loves you, beloved, perfectly. He'll never love you or I any more than he loves us right now.
Individually, we need to be convinced, beloved, number one, that the Father loves us. Secondly, there needs to be a big yes in our heart for him. We need to say Jesus, I want you above all else. We need to be like the apostle Paul that said he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, born of the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised the eighth day, as to the law, blameless, educated under the leading Jewish scholar of his day, Gamaliel, but he said all these things I count as dung, nothing, that I might be found in Jesus. The apostle Paul wanted Jesus above all else. He had a one hundred percent yes in his heart for Jesus. Isn't this what Yeshua taught? The kingdom of God is like a person that went and sold everything that he had to buy one thing, the pearl of great price.
And so if we're going to enter into this divine romance of walking with God and experiencing him in reality, number one, we need to be convinced that he really loves us, that he's really a person, that he's alive and that his love really is towards us, that his love is burning towards us, that he's a jealous God, that he intimately desires romance with us, that he intimately desires a relationship with us. But secondly, beloved, we're going to have to respond to that love by having a big yes, a hundred percent yes in our heart for Jesus, saying you know what, Lord? My life is not about achieving the American dream. My life is not just about being successful. My life is not just about making more money. My life is not just about buying a bigger house. My life, Jesus, is about you. You're the reason I live.
Remember what the apostle Paul said? He said for me, to live is Messiah, and to die is gain. Paul's whole life is about Jesus. And so if you and I are going to enter into the reality of walking with God in such a way that it's not just a doctrine, it's not just something that we can have a Bible study about, it's not just something that we can think about intellectually and quote Scriptures about, but it's something that we're really experiencing, then we're going to have to be like Paul, that there's a big yes in our heart for Jesus. Whatever it takes, Lord. I'm willing to go through whatever I need to go through. I'm willing to give up whatever I need to give up as long as I can gain Jesus.
So that's the second requirement. Then the third requirement, beloved, is we need to put our faith into action, and we need to step out in faith and do what the Lord is telling us to do. Because the Lord says if you look in a mirror and the Lord shows you something and then you don't do what he shows you, you'll be like a man that looked in the mirror and then forgot what he looked like when he walked away. When these three things are in place, beloved, when we're convinced that God really loves us, when we're convinced, beloved, that Jesus is what we want more than anything else in life, when we are putting to practice what he's showing us to do in life and not only from the Bible, but what the Holy Spirit is communicating to us individually. Maybe it's your eating habits. Maybe it's about breaking off a relationship. I don't know what it is. But when we're doing what the Spirit is leading us to do individually, then we enter into this divine romance.
And I want you to be assured of this as well, beloved. Even though neither you or I are perfect, Paul said not that I'm perfect or that I have attained it, he said, but one thing I do is press on to lay hold of the upward call of God in Messiah Jesus. I want you to be assured of this. Even though you're not perfect, if you want Jesus more than anything else and are truly seeking to live for him, I want you to be convinced, beloved, that although your love is not perfect and although your obedience isn't perfect, it's genuine, it's real, and the Lord delights in it. We're already in a divine love relationship with God, walking with him in love. This is why the book of Ephesians says we stand before him holy and blameless before him in love in Jesus. It's in Jesus that we stand before the Father, beloved, holy and blameless before him in love, because our sin's no more. Jesus has paid the price, and now we're just entering into that divine romance.
Now, this divine romance, this ability to walk with God was made possible during two Jewish holidays. The first Jewish holiday, beloved, that opened up the way for us was approximately 2,000 years ago at Passover when Jesus was crucified. Remember, Jesus was crucified, John 19, at Passover. That's why he's identified by John the Baptist as the Lamb of God. That's why the Scripture tells us Messiah Jesus has become our Passover. That's why 29 times in the book of Revelation Jesus is referred to as the Lamb of God. So we're able to have this walk with God because of what Jesus did on two Jewish holidays, or actually two appointed days of the Lord. The first one was Passover 2,000 years ago where Yeshua Ha-Mashiach, where he that knew no sin became sin in our behalf that we could become the righteousness of God.
When Jesus, beloved, took our sin in his own body and died in our place on the tree, thereby, beloved, giving us forgiveness. Our sin is no longer going to be punished, we're no longer under the wrath of God because of our sin because Jesus, the innocent, Blameless One, beloved, died in our place. God already took out the wrath and the punishment for our sin on Jesus. So the first avenue that has made it possible for us to walk with God is Passover 2,000 years ago, Jesus died in our place. The second avenue that the Father opened up that we could walk with him, beloved, happened on Shavu'ot, which is known in Greek as Pentecost, approximately 2,000 years ago, Acts 2 where the Lord sent his Spirit.
Why did the Lord send his Spirit? That we could know him. Jesus said in John number 14 and 16, he said I'm going to send you the promise of the Father. I'm going to send you the Ruach HaKodesh, the Spirit of Elohim, and he said, Jesus said and he's going to take of me, and he's going to disclose it unto you. You see, beloved, the Spirit of God imparts to us the Godhead. We are entering into a relationship with God through the Spirit of God, which beloved, was poured out upon believers 2,000 years ago at Shavu'ot, which is known in Greek as Pentecost. So the reason we can walk with God is because of what Jesus did at Passover 2,000 years ago and what he did at Pentecost 2,000 years ago. He died for our sin and he gave us his Spirit. Now as a result of these two things, we can truly, really, literally walk with God. That means experience him as a real reality, beloved, not just as something that we study, but as a reality, something that we are, hallelujah, experiencing.
Now, I said several weeks ago that the Holy Spirit, beloved, is the way that we're able to perceive God. This is nothing new. Everybody knows this doctrinally. But the reality is in the Western world, many of us are not relying on the Holy Spirit the way we need to to be able to really receive the revelation that's necessary to experience God. Many of us are relying on studying more than we are the Holy Spirit. It is good to study. The Scripture says study to show yourself approved. But it's not enough to study. We can only know by revelation. Remember when Yeshua said to Peter, who do you say that I am? And Peter said you're the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And Jesus flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, and on this rock I'm going to build my church. The church is built, beloved, on revelation.
You see, you and I have been called to partake of the divine nature. We've been called, beloved, to plunge into the Godhead, God's life himself being imparted to us that we know him, hallelujah, through the Holy Spirit. So in this series that we're calling Walking With God, we've placed special emphasis on depending on the Holy Spirit. This might seem mystical to some, but you need to understand, beloved, that walking with God, there's a level of mystery to it. When I say mystery, I'm not speaking about truth concealed. I'm talking about truth being revealed through the Holy Spirit. We can only know the Father through the Holy Spirit. Yeshua said no one knows the Father but the Son, and no one knows the Son and the Father, Yeshua said, unless we reveal ourselves to him. We need to depend on the Holy Spirit for revelation.
There's a lot of people that think they know God because they know the Bible. Beloved, there's a difference between just knowing the Bible and knowing God. There are people that have the Bible memorized that think they know God because they know where every verse in the Bible is. Beloved, that can simply be a form of religion that's devoid of power. To really walk with God, there must be the fruit of the Spirit. And there's not going to be the fruit of the Spirit unless we're depending on the Holy Spirit and depending on him for revelation. And the Western church, I believe, needs to become more dependent on the Lord through waiting on the Holy Spirit through revelation if we're going to walk with God. This is why Paul tells us in the book of Romans all that are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. Paul tells us in Colossians 2 that the mystery of the Gospel is that God's Spirit is in us.
And so as we proceeded through the series as I'm reviewing today Walking With God As Enoch Walked With God, we talked about cultivating the awareness of God's Spirit in us. And many of us, if we're honest with ourself, when we speak about the fact that God's Spirit is in us, as the Word of God teaches, because the Word of God teaches that God's Spirit is in us. Colossians chapter 2, the mystery of the ages, the mystery of the Gospel, Paul said, is that Messiah is in us. Paul also told us that we're the temple of the Holy Spirit and that if God's Spirit isn't in us, then we don't belong to him. Jesus said unless you're born of the Spirit, you can't see the kingdom of God.
Many of us, we know the Scriptures, and we would confess this as truth, but when it comes to experiential reality, having any grip on the reality that God's Spirit is really in us, that scientifically it's a spiritual reality, many of us are completely disconnected from that. We believe it as a doctrine, we profess it by faith, but we have no real sense of the reality that God's Spirit's in us. But Jesus certainly had an awareness that God's Spirit was in him, because Jesus said it was the Father that was in him doing the works. Paul certainly had a reality of the Holy Spirit in him, because he said we don't know how to pray as we ought, but the Holy Spirit in us is making groanings too deep for words.
So we've been talking about if we're going to walk with God, we need to get a grip with the fact that his Spirit's in us, and we need to disconnect from the world, beloved, if we're going to get a grip on the fact that his Spirit's in us. Because too many of us are so connected to what's outside of ourselves, all the materialism, all the technology, all that's going on in this age with people seeking after success, we're so connected to and motivated by what's outside ourselves that we have no grip of reality of what's inside ourselves. We live in such a superficial world today. Remember when they came to anoint one of Jesse's sons as king, and the prophet Samuel came, and he kept on thinking that this big, tall, handsome one was the one, and this one was the one.
And finally the Lord said to him, no, the Lord said man looketh on the outside, but God looketh on the heart. But how many of us, you and I, are deceived and connected to looking at the outside, and we're not looking at the heart, we're not looking at what's inside us? But if we're going to know God, beloved, we're going to know him in us. Yes, he's outside us, too. He's greater than we are. But if you're going to really be at peace with Jesus, you're going to have to know him not only as someone that's outside of yourself, but you're going also have to know him, beloved, as someone that's inside you. You're going to have to know him as his nature being released out of your life and from your life.
And so I talked about some disciplines of how we can gain a greater awareness of the reality of God's Spirit in us, and I talked about disconnecting from some of the technologies to just sit before the Lord. You don't have to have your smart phone next to you 24 hours a day. You don't have to sleep with it next to your bed. You don't have to grab it the first thing every morning. You don't have to constantly be texting other people when you're sitting around in a conversation with your friends. Some of you are not even in communication with your friends because you're texting other people on your smart phone. And beloved, this is all designed to take us outside of ourself. It's a plan of the enemy to keep us, beloved, from experiencing the reality of God in us. We're losing touch with reality, beloved, and we're entering into a false reality, a delusion that Satan has set up to make us lose our mind, to turn over our mind to something outside ourselves.
If you're going to become conscious of God's Spirit in you, then you're going to have to have a discipline just like I have to have a discipline of waiting upon God. Be still, the Lord said, and know that I'm God. We're going to have to spend time every day away from the smart phones, away from the television, away from the internet, away from the telephone to just sit before the Lord, saying, "Father God, I need to become aware that your Spirit's in me. I need to be able to understand, Father, your Spirit's leading in me. I need to understand when you're leading me to move forward and when you're leading me to stop". You need to spend time every day. I recommend taking an hour a day to start just sitting before the Lord. And beloved, sometimes you're never going to experience the reality of God if you don't stop.
How are you going to know whether God's doing something or whether you're doing something if you're always doing everything? Sometimes you just have to stop and wait on the Lord and say Lord, I don't want to push this door down and then wonder if it was you that opened the door or whether it was me that opened the door. So I'm just going to spend time waiting on you, Lord, for you to go before me to see you do it so that I can know it's you. I want to see you arise, Lord. I want to see you do it. Beloved, I've experienced this in my own life where I took a year to just wait on the Lord. I was tired of pushing doors down. I was tired of wondering whether I was opening the door or God was opening the door. I made up my mind I'll never know if it's God that's opening the door unless I stop. And so I stopped for a year. And God just did things beyond what I ever could have done, beloved, in so many areas of life, in ministry, with my family, in many ways.
Beloved, if we're going to get a grip of God's reality in us, we're going to need to stop, hallelujah, and wait upon the Lord. Now, some of us are also going to have to get a grip of the fact, beloved, that we have an enemy if we're going to walk with God. Some of us, because we've heard from the Lord, we're deceived now into thinking that every time we hear a spirit, it's from the Lord. But the Scripture says test the spirits, and don't believe every spirit. Just because God spoke to you once doesn't mean that everything that you're hearing is coming from him. There is an enemy, beloved. There's an enemy. And God wants to give you and I discernment. And when the enemy is speaking to us, beloved, we need to learn how not only to resist him, but to do warfare with him.
That's why the Bible says to put on the whole armor of God in the book of Ephesians chapter 6. We need to take authority over fear. We need to take authority over the lies that are tormenting us. We need to take authority over thoughts that are continually producing turmoil. And we need to speak to these thoughts and say "You're lying, and I resist you. This is a lie from the devil, and I resist you, Satan, in Jesus' name". And we need to learn how to stand in Jesus, beloved, resisting the enemy if we're going to walk with God. And beloved, if we're going to learn to walk with God, we're also going to have to strive for peace because our God is a God of peace. Jesus, when he gave his disciples the Holy Spirit in John 14 and 16, he said to them, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives. My peace I give to you.
One of the fundamental anointings of the Ruach HaKodesh, of the Holy Spirit that he gives us is his peace. Because when we're at peace, beloved, we can walk in authority. And when we're at peace, beloved, we can walk in discernment. My peace I give to you. After Yeshua had rose from the dead when his disciples were gathered together in fear in the room, he walked through the wall, he breathed on them, and he said receive the Holy Spirit. Then he said Shalom, my peace I give to you. We're going to have to strive for peace, to stay in peace. And one of the ways that we can enter into greater peace, beloved, is to stop allowing the enemy to use us to accuse people. A lot of times, we have thoughts that are going through our head that are accusations against other people, accusations that are destructive, accusations that are demonic, accusations that are full of hate, accusations that are full of judgment.
We're not going to have peace if we're allowing the enemy to control our thinking towards others that's resulting in accusation towards them. Know this, that when you're having thoughts of accusation towards other people, it's not from God. Recognize that it's Satan, recognize that it's the devil, and refuse to get in agreement with it. And when you do that, you'll break accusation off your own life, and you'll be able to live in peace, because Yeshua said whenever you judge somebody else, judgment comes upon you. In other words, when you agree with the devil to accuse other people, then the devil has access to your mind to accuse you. So we need to walk in peace. And one of the ways that we do this, beloved, is to not be in agreement with the spirit of accusation.
Finally, I concluded, beloved, by talking about prophecy, dreams and visions. And we gave particular emphasis on listening to the Lord through our dreams at night because God is speaking to us, beloved, about the details of our life through our dreams at night. Now, I pray, beloved, that you'll get this series and study it, that you'll write down the Scriptures and take it to heart, because there's truth in this. There's truth revealed. Jesus said the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are life. Jesus sanctifies us by his Word.
And so Father, I pray that you'll sanctify me. I pray that you'll sanctify your people, Father, that are in agreement with your truth, that are receiving it right now. Jesus, we want to be separated unto you one hundred percent, and Jesus, we want to tell you more than anything else today that we love you and we worship you. Amen.