Rabbi Schneider - How to Let Go of Your Fear
Did you know that the first words out of Adam's mouth, after he fell, after he ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was? I was afraid. I'm gonna go now to the Book of Genesis chapter number 3 verse number 9 and 10. Hear the Word of God beloved, this is a very important portion of Scripture. It creates the platform for understanding the nature of fear and what it is that we're battling against. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of the Lord abides forever. I'm going into the Book of Bereshit, which is the Hebrew word for beginnings, the Book of Genesis chapter number 3 verse number 9 and 10. The Lord is calling to Adam now after Adam had fallen: And the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said: I heard the sound of thee in the garden, now get this: and I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.
So once again, Adam, as a result of falling, he feels naked, he feels exposed, he feels vulnerable, he feels unprotected, he feels afraid. I wanna read it again, this is very important. Adam had sinned; he's running now, because all of a sudden after he had sinned, he feels naked. His spiritual clothes were gone. No longer did he feel the assurance of God's presence. No longer did he feel the warmth of the Lord's love on his heart, but now he felt alone, he felt exposed, he felt naked. So he's running and God begins to pursue him. And Adam says he heard the Lord pursuing him, but he kept running, because he was in such fear.
So listen again, Genesis 3 verse 9: Then the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said: I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked so I hid myself. Do you know that ever since Adam's sin beloved, you and I feel exposed, we feel naked, and we have to overcome this feeling through Jesus to break off the power of fear? See the result of sin, the result of Adam's first sin beloved, is that man lost assurance. That's why the Lord said to Adam, the day that you eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you shall surely die. Notice the Lord said to Adam, the day that you eat of the tree, and yet when we look at Adam's life, we see physically he didn't die that day, but beloved, he died spiritually. Because the day that he ate of the tree, the Spirit of God had removed himself from Adam's life.
Adam was no longer wearing the same clothing, and so this is why Adam says I was naked. He felt alone. And the result of feeling alone is that you feel vulnerable. That's why people that are alone in life often times die in an earlier age, because they don't feel the warmth of love surrounding them, but hallelujah, even if you are alone, you've got the Lord and that beloved is sufficient. From the very beginning of sins entrance into the world, one of mans greatest enemies beloved has been fear. And if you're honest with yourself, almost all of you today, you recognize in your life that you struggle with fear and many of us struggle with fear very deeply. The fear doesn't even have to be rational. And a lot of times as we're beginning to make progress with the Lord, as we're journeying deeper into our faith, it seems at those times that fear attacks us even worse, because it's Satan beloved, trying to keep us from God.
I remember years ago; some of you know my testimony, I talk about it in my book, Awakening to Messiah, how the Lord appeared above my head three years after I came to know the Lord. I came to know the Lord in '78 and the Lord appeared above my head visibly in all the colors of a rainbow back in 1981. And so I had this experience of the Lord revealing himself to me through the person of the Holy Spirit in the colors of the rainbow. You know God is light and inside light are all the colors of the rainbow. And so the Lord just chose to reveal himself to me in that way. Of course it was personal and the Lord reveals himself to different ones of us in different ways.
But the reason I'm sharing this with you is three years after I had that initial experience, again I've described that in some of my earlier broadcasts and I talk about it in my book, but three years after I had that initial experience, I had a dream. It was right before I got married. And in this dream beloved, the dream was three phases. And in the dream I found myself in the first phase of the dream, I was in, it appeared to be like the attic of a house. It was rectangular in shape, it was dark, there was no light in the attic. There was a window on this side and a window on this side, and myself and others were standing against the back wall in this attic-like room.
So once again the room is shaped like a rectangle, it's dark in the room, a bunch of us are standing against the back wall in the attic, and there's a window on this side and on this wall, and there's a window on this wall. Well as we're standing against the back wall in the dream beloved, the Spirit of God came into the attic through the window that was on this side. And the form that the Spirit of God came into the room in the dream state was in the form of all the colors of a rainbow, just like I had experienced when I was awake in a real encounter with the Lord; this encounter that I'm describing now is just a dream, but I was familiar with this rainbow symbolism and this way of communicating to me through the rainbow.
And so through this window in the attic, the Lord streamed into the room, he looked, it looked like crepe paper at a birthday party, you know you've seen at a birthday party where people string; you know they string that paper, crepe paper across the room. Well the Spirit of life that was in all the colors of a rainbow that flowed into the attic from the window, it kind to looked like crepe paper, but it wasn't paper looking, but I mean it was that kind of a shape. It was much wider though; it was probably about this wide in all the colors of a rainbow, spiritual life flowed into the attic through this window. And all of a sudden beloved, when this happened in the dream, I was so desirous, it was so beautiful to me, I knew it was God, I wanted more of God, I knew it was the Lord's healing Spirit. So what I did was I started moving away from the back of the room where myself and the others were standing.
Remember I said we were all against that back wall. I started moving out from everybody towards this Spirit of life that had flowed into the room in all the colors of the rainbow. I started approaching the Spirit of life and here is what I remember. No one else that was against that back wall with me, came with me, they all stayed. And I had this sense beloved, that what was keeping them from God's beautiful rainbow colored Spirit, I had this sense in the dream, even though this was back almost 30 years ago, it's like 28 years ago now, I had this sense that what was keeping them from coming was fear. Fear stopped them from coming. I mean they were, they were in this dark room and here comes God manifesting himself in a rainbow so beautiful and yet they didn't approach, they stayed back. Why? Because fear; I felt literally the power, I felt really, I felt the spiritual force of fear holding them back.
And so what I did beloved, was I kept coming to the Spirit of God, and I, and I walked up to the rainbow of life that came into the room, again streaming like this. And I approached it, and then I followed this stream of life out to the window from which it had come in to the room from. And I looked out the window, and when I looked out the window beloved, everywhere was this color. That's all I saw everywhere: up, down, left, right, north, south, east, west; every direction all I saw was this rainbow color everywhere and in my soul, I mean deep down in me I heard the word "eternity". In eternity it's uncreated life that has always been. And then all of a sudden that phase of the dream was over.
The next phase of the dream, I find myself looking out the window on the opposite side of the room; now I'm looking out the window on this side of the room, and there's just chaos going on out there, I mean all kinds of stuff just moving around, nothing made sense, random, chaotic, and then boom, that phase of the dream ended. The next phase of the dream beloved, I find myself walking down a street, just at peace, nothing on my mind, and I come up to an intersection, and at the intersection that I had come to, there had been a car wreck. And without thinking, without any ego involved, I walked up to the, to the car wreck and there was a man, and he was laying half outside of the car and half inside the car that had been in this wreck. In other words, his upper body was laying on the street, and his, and his legs rather were still inside the car, so his upper body is laying outside the car.
The door had been flung open and it's laying, resting and then the rest of his body was in the car and he had been badly burned from this car wreck. Without even thinking, in the dream beloved, I stuck my hand out like this, and out of my fingertips flowed the rainbow colors that had come into that attic that I had asked to come inside my life. When I put, when I put my head out the window, I forgot to tell you that when I put my head out the window and everywhere, all I saw was color and I heard the word "eternity". I opened up my arms like this and I said come and live inside me. And so now when I went up to the car wreck, I stuck my hands out like this and flowing out of my fingertips was all the colors of a rainbow and they went into this man's body and healed him.
The reason I'm telling you the story is because the other people in the room, in the attic when the rainbow Spirit of the Lord came into the room, they did not receive the rainbow Spirit of God's love, they did not receive the Holy Spirit, they did not receive God's healing life, listen now, because they were afraid. And fear can keep you from God's destiny for your life. Do you know that Jesus said that hell was for the fearful and unbelieving? Think about that; Jesus, I'm gonna talk about that on next week's broadcast, Jesus said that fear, that those that fear were, were gonna be in hell. Now, now some of you are getting even more afraid and I don't want anybody to be afraid about this, but I'm making a point here. Is that hell beloved, is filled with people that are there because they were too afraid to believe God.
And I don't want you to be afraid now, that you're afraid and I don't wanna add another fear to your life, but what I'm trying to help you understand is that fear beloved is a serious sin, and the reason it's a serious sin is because when we fear, we don't have faith in God. When we're fearing, we're not really believing that God is with us. When we're fearing, we're not really believing that God is working in our life. It shows a lack of relationship with God and we must declare war on it. Do you know beloved, that no fewer than 100 times in the Scriptures, the Lord commands us not to fear? No fewer than 100 times you and I as believers are commanded not to fear.
We sometimes think of sin and we think of all the gross sins, but we don't recognize sometimes that were, when we're living in fear, habitual fear: fearing this, fearing that, living in a state of anxiety, living in a state of dread, living in a state of fear; beloved that we are sinning against God and actually bowing down to the devil, because what we're doing is we're believing the devil rather than believing the Lord, hallelujah. I'm gonna go to the Book of Joshua now, which is our foundational Scripture for this series that we will be preaching over the next several weeks. I'm reading now Joshua chapter 1 verse number 9, hear the Word of God.
And by the way, Jesus' name, Yeshua, comes from the word Joshua, it's the same name. Joshua and Yeshua, it's the same name. Joshua's Hebrew name is Yeshua's name, and so Jesus is the fulfillment of who Joshua is. And listen what Joshua says in Joshua 1:9, the Lord is speaking to him, and the Lord says to him: Have I not commanded you, the Lord says to Joshua. Have I not commanded you: be strong and courageous, do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go? What did Jesus say to us: I am with you even until the end of the age? And so this series is designed to wake us up beloved, and we're looking to the Lord to empower us in our lives to declare war on fear.
Do you know that the opposite of love is fear? We would think that the opposite of love is hate, and yet the Scripture tells us that perfect love casteth out all fear. You see beneath almost every negative emotion is fear. In other words, an employer gets mad, they get hateful towards their employee at work for messing something up or for not getting something done in time, and why does the employer get so hateful towards their employee? Because they're afraid. The employers afraid that they're not gonna make, make enough money, or that things are gonna go out of control. Beneath almost every negative emotion beloved, is fear. Why do people get jealous of somebody else? Because they're afraid that somebody else, they're afraid that somebody else is gonna have more than they do. Why do people hate people that they don't, they don't understand? Because they're afraid of em.
You see beloved, beneath every negative emotion is fear, that's why the first thing that Adam said after he fell to the Lord was: I was afraid. There is no fear in love, for perfect love casteth out all fear. Now there are two Hebrew words for fear that I wanna bring to your attention. The first Hebrew word is Yaw-ray. Let me say it again, Yaw-ray and this is the Hebrew word for fear that we find in the Book of Bereshit or the Book of Genesis chapter 3 verse 10 where Adam says I was afraid. And this Hebrew word "Yaw-ray" means dread, to dread or to be frightened of. The second Hebrew word for fear that I wanna bring to your attention is the word that is used in Joshua, where the Lord commands Joshua, do not be afraid. And this Hebrew word in Joshua chapter 1 verse 9 is the Hebrew word Aratz and it means to tremble at. The Lord was commanding Joshua, do not tremble at these hostile armies that your, that you're facing. It means to be terrified of. The Lord was commanding him; do not be terrified of them.
And so the Lord says once again to Joshua: Have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous. Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. You see Joshua, Yahshua in Hebrew, had to listen now, he had to resist, get that because you and I have to resist, he had to resist. Listen again, he had to resist, I wanna say it again, he had to resist, he had to be strong and resist; it took effort on his part, the Lord said be strong, be courageous, resist being afraid of them. And you and I need to learn how to wake up and fight fear. We have to fight it, we can't be passive, there's something that we need to engage in. That's why God says I'm commanding you Joshua, be strong, be courageous, do not be dismayed, do not be terrified, do not be afraid. Joshua looked at the hostile armies that he was about to face as he was leading the children of Israel into their inheritance.
And beloved, as you and I are entering into our inheritance in the Lord, as we're entering in to our destiny in the love of God, as we're entering into our destiny in possessing the awareness of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The enemy is going to attack us, just like he did Joshua, and he's gonna try to keep us out of our inheritance by fear. Just like the children of Israel in the Book of Numbers chapter 13 and 14 where the Lord said I've given you Israel as your inheritance, but what kept them from their inheritance, what kept them wandering in the wilderness for forty years? Was it not fear?
When the spies went in to the land of Canaan and they came back, and they said to the children of Israel, those guys are huge in there, we won't be able to drive em out, they're too big for us, and they cowered and the Lord was angry and upset, because they bowed down to fear, rather than trusting, hallelujah in the Lord their God. And even as Joshua beloved, was facing these foreign armies, as he was about to lead the children of Israel into their inheritance, these hostile people groups that wanted to exterminate them and kill them; even as Joshua was facing these enemies that were a true danger in the natural. And yet the Lord said to him: do not tremble or be afraid of them for I am with you.
We too beloved, look around and we see forces against our lives, just like Joshua did in his life. And these armies beloved, are a real threat to us without the Lord, even as those armies that Joshua faced were very dangerous without the Lord. But we have God and so when we look around, and we see our country beloved, in a financial crisis. When we look around and we, and we fear losing our jobs or losing our homes. When we look around and we hear of terrorist attacks on our own soil, when we look around and we see car accidents on the road. When we hear of poison in our food and water, and nuclear reactors leaking. When we get afraid of growing old and winding up in a nursing home.
When we fear for our children when they're on the road in their cars. When we fear beloved, finding ourselves at a place in life where we're alone and no one to take care of us, and running out of money. God is saying to you, do not be dismayed and do not be afraid for I am with you wherever you go, I am commanding you this day, resist fear. You see whatever the problem is, we have a God that's bigger than our problem and we have to exercise faith that we really believe that he's Lord beloved, by resisting fear and choosing, working at believing him, we must overcome fear. The Bible says that sin is crouching at the door, Satan is crouching at the door and it's his desire is for us; he wants to overcome us with fear, he wants to intimidate us, but we the Lord said, must master him.
We could go on and on with all the things that we're looking at in our culture today that would cause us to tremble in the natural, and yet the Lord's Word to us, regardless of what the threat is, beloved child of God, regardless of what the danger is, the Lord is saying to you right now: do not be afraid; I am the Lord your God and I am with you wherever you go and I will see you through, even until the end. I wanna read a few Scriptures. I'm going to the Book of Deuteronomy, now this is the book in the Bible that Jesus quoted when he defeated Satan in the wilderness in Matthew chapter 4. Hear what the Lord says in Deuteronomy chapter number 20 verse 3 and 4: Hear O Israel, you are approaching the battle against your enemies today. Do not be faint-hearted, do not be afraid, or panic, or tremble before them, for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to save you. God wants us to exercise faith beloved that he's going before us, get this now, and he's fighting for us.
Let me read another Scripture: be strong and courageous, do not be afraid for the Lord your God will not fail you or forsake you. And once again, Joshua 1:9: Have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous. Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. The word is the same over, and over, and over, and over again. Beloved, if we're serious about living for God, we need to wake up and break the yoke of fear off our life. When we bow down to fear in us, in fact what we're doing is we're worshipping Satan, we're giving Satan more power than God.
You know Jesus said: I will not leave you as orphans. We are not alone in this world. Satan is continually bombarding us by putting false pictures and false images in our mind, showing us ourselves in life where God is not with us. It's a lie; God is with us and from this day forward, you and I beloved need to enter into the Word that the Lord gives us through Joshua: do I not command you today, be strong and courageous, do not be afraid for I am with you wherever you go. Beloved, I want you to continue to tune into this series. I encourage you to get the entire series; God wants to help you, he wants to help me, he wants to strengthen our faith. We pray today for divine power, we pray for divine electricity, we pray for the energy of the Holy Spirit. Strengthen us Lord, wake us up, let us declare war on fear and overcome Satan, crushing him under our feet, for your glory Yeshua HaMashiach.