Rabbi Schneider - The Relationship Between the Spirit and the Word
I want to begin today by laying a Scriptural foundation for this by going to the Book of Joel, first of all, chapter number 2, verse number 28 and 29. In the Book of Joel, chapter 2, the Lord is telling us about what he's going to be doing on earth during the last days. These last days, beloved, began in terms of what Joel is talking about here, with the coming of Messiah Jesus. It will come about that after this that I will pour out my Spirit on all mankind. Now if you hear any thundering going on, that's a good sign because it's we're gonna take it as a sign from God because, you know, sometimes in the Gospels, when the Lord spoke, some people heard his voice. Others said it thundered.
So we've got some thundering going on. You can hear it in the building right now. So if you hear that thunder, let's just take it as a kiss from God, okay; thank you Abba. It will come about after this that I will pour out my Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy. And your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. I will pour forth my Spirit in those days. Now that Scripture that I just read is gonna be repeated identically, beloved, by Peter in the Book of Acts, Acts, chapter 2, when the Spirit of the Lord comes. So remember in Joel, chapter 2, the Lord says it's gonna happen at this time. And the time he speaks of is the coming of the Spirit. And he says when the Spirit comes, three things are gonna happen. I'm gonna speak to my people in prophecy, dreams and visions.
Now I know, depending on where you're coming from and what your church culture has been, this may or not be familiar to you. So what I want to do now is I want to go to the Book of Acts and show you, beloved ones of the Lord, how Scripturally rooted what I'm sharing with you is. So I'm going once again to Acts, chapter 2, and I'm gonna be picking up in verse number 17. The Holy Spirit had fallen, and here's what Peter says is happening. Acts, chapter 2, verse number 17: And it shall be in the last days, God says, and now he quotes Joel, chapter number 2, that I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all mankind; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, that's number 2. And your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my bondslaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of my Spirit.
And so what we're finding here if we take, think about this logically and take it apart is, now that the Holy Spirit has fallen according to Joel's prophesy, and according to Peter's proclamation that it had been fulfilled because the Holy Spirit has fallen, now those whom the Holy Spirit has fallen on, should be walking in their experience, listen now, in experiencing from the Lord by the Spirit, prophecy, dreams, and visions. That's what, that's what both Joel and Peter said. In the last days God says I'm gonna pour forth my Spirit and the result of that's gonna be prophecy, dreams and visions.
And so, for some of you this is really exciting. Some of you maybe have never been in a realm where you've experienced, to your knowledge, prophecy, dreams or visions, and so you're really curious and kind of excited about exploring more. Some of you already are walking in this and I hope maybe that God can even further train us by his Spirit through this series. And some of you might even be kind of taking a step back, and you know, maybe a wall of resistance is coming up because it's just unfamiliar to you. And sometimes when we're unfamiliar with something, we, we, we put up walls. But I just want you to open your heart, beloved, to the Word of God, to the Spirit of the Lord because I'm gonna be bringing forth today truth concerning prophecy, dreams and visions for you from the Word of God.
Now it's very important to understand that to be, to be, to be walking with God in a vibrant way there needs to be a mix in our life. There needs to be a marriage, listen now, between the ministry of the written Word of God into our lives. Number one, everything needs to be based on the written Word of God. But in addition, beloved, to a ministry coming forth from us from the written Word of God as we're reading and God is putting his power on his written word as we're reading it and hearing it, we also, beloved, have to be walking with God, listen now, being led supernaturally by his Spirit. And so there is a marriage between the Word of God and the Spirit of God. The two bear witness with each other and the Lord teaches us to follow him, and he disciples us both through his written Word and through his Spirit.
If you think about this, the first disciples of Jesus, the first early believers of Jesus in the church, they didn't have the written Word of God as we have it today. I mean they certainly didn't have the, the writings of Paul. People didn't have New Testaments that they carried around like we do today, containing all the books that we have today in our, our New Testament. It's called the Canon of Scripture. There was, even the synagogues, beloved, didn't have all the writings of all the, all the, all the writings that we have in our Bible today. There were fragments of some of the portions of the Torah, etc. But those early believers didn't have access to the full written Word of God like we do today. That didn't come till years afterwards.
So how were these early disciples then, led in their walk with Jesus? Jesus said I'm going to send you my Spirit, and Jesus said he will remind you of everything that I said to you, and bring it forth to your remembrance. And Jesus said, and I'm gonna send you my Spirit, listen now, and he's gonna take of me and disclose it unto you. And so the, the role of the Holy Spirit right now is he reveals to us Jesus, and he teaches us, beloved, and trains us how to follow Jesus. Paul said as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. In the Book of Revelation, chapter 2, we read: He that has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
You see the written Word of God is the foundation of our faith. It defines all doctrine. We never have any deviation from the written Word of God. If we can't back it up with the written Word of God, beloved, we discredit it and throw it out because the written Word of God is the only rule for faith and practice that we have. But you see, the written Word of God gives us the general parameters of faith and it lays the doctrinal foundation of our walk with God, and instructs us how to walk with God, but the written Word of God often times doesn't carry the specific details for each one of our life, because every one of our life's journey is different. But because of the Spirit, beloved, and because of the role of the Spirit, and because the Spirit is speaking to us individually according to the heart of Jesus for our lives, the Spirit of God can speak to us about the details of our lives, about the particular areas that the Lord is putting his finger on, the particular areas that he's training us in.
He can give us information, beloved, the Spirit of the Lord can reveal information to us through prophesy, dreams and visions concerning, for example, who to marry, what job to take, where to live geographically, and many, many, many, many, many other practical issues. See the Word of the Lord doesn't' tell you specifically the exact person to marry, or the exact job to take, or the exact city to live in, or sometimes how to handle a very specific situation in relationship with someone, your boss, a friend, a family member. But the Spirit of the Lord, he literally, beloved, can disclose those things to us. He can disclose to us how to follow him through specific and particular situations that we encounter in life.
So it's very important to have a relationship with the Lord, both through his written Word, but also, beloved, in the marriage to him through his Spirit. I want to read for you now from Jesus's words, from Yeshua's words, in the Gospel of John, chapter number 16. Hear the Word of the Lord. I want you to really take this in. I know that for some of you this is elementary, but there's others here that this is new, and God wants to bring us into something more today. So hear the Word of the Lord. Yeshua's talking about the Spirit and he says in verse number 13 of John, 16: But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, speaking of the Holy Spirit, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not, so who's gonna guide us. The Spirit of God himself is gonna guide us. He's real. He's here. He's now.
Beloved, that's why Jesus said I'm not gonna leave you as an orphan. I'm gonna send you my Spirit. So Jesus says when I send you the Spirit, he is gonna lead you. It's, it's, it's a very real thing. The Spirit of God is present. He's speaking to us, beloved. We need to be sensitive to him. We need to be sensitive to how he's speaking to our heart. And we need to be sensitive to the ways that he speaks to us, and those ways include prophecy, dreams and visions. So listen again. He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. Now listen to this: He shall glorify me, in verse 14, for He shall take of Mine and shall disclose it to you. So the Spirit of the Lord is upon the earth communicating Jesus to us. And Jesus is involved, beloved, in every detail, hallelujah, of our lives.
And so with that introduction, I pray, Father God, that you will open the hearts of your people today that are listening and watching, and teach us how to be more sensitive to the Spirit's voice to us in all the dimensions, Father, that he's speaking to us in, in Yeshua's name. And all God's people spoke Hebrew and said Amen.
Now the first thing that I want to do is we're going back to Joel, chapter 2, beloved, and also Acts, chapter 2. It's the same verse. In the last days the Lord, it says I'm gonna pour forth my Spirit on all flesh, and the result is gonna be prophecy, dreams and visions. I want to first of all talk about prophecy. We're gonna mostly be focusing in on dreams, how the Lord speaks to us in the night in dreams. But before I get to dreams, I want to briefly cover prophecy and visions.
Now the Hebrew word for, for prophecy when Joel said in the last days your sons and daughters will prophesy. Again Peter repeated that same verse. The Hebrew word for prophecy is the Hebrew word naba. I'm gonna say it again; it's the Hebrew word naba. And it means to bubble up; that there's a bubbling up of the life of God from within us. That there's a fresh bubbling up from the Spirit of the Lord that resides in the believer, and this bubbling up results, beloved, in a revelation that is communicative, and that we can speak to somebody else.
Now it's very important to understand that when we're addressing the issue of prophecy, dreams and visions, that most or many of the experiences that we will have with the Holy Spirit involving prophecy, dreams and visions will not be so overwhelming, that we can't miss them, but rather they'll be subtle promptings. Remember the prophet of old and, and the Lord was coming to him but he didn't, he didn't know what was going on. And finally the senior prophet told him to go lay back down. The Spirit of God is speaking to you. In the Book of Job, for example, the, the prophet spoke and he said the Lord speaks once, yea twice when man is fast asleep on his bed, but man's not paying attention to it.
So he doesn't even recognize that the Lord had just spoken to him in a dream. And so it's also true in the realm of prophecy and visions. Most of the types of experiences that we'll have with the Holy Spirit that are prophetic in nature, that are even pictures that come to us in the realm of visions, or that come to us in the form of dreams at night. They are not overwhelming. In other words, they're not gonna, we not just gonna be laid out, but rather they're gonna be so subtle that if we're not listening, if we're not paying attention we'll miss them altogether. That's how subtle they are. That's why the Scripture says in John, chapter, in the Revelation, John said in Revelation, chapter 2: He that has an ear to hear, let him hear. In other words, you could, you, God could be doing these types of, he could be speaking to us, but if we're not listening we'll miss them.
Let me give you an example of that. Years ago, some of you have heard me share this story, I was getting ready to sit down with a group of people to pray, we were forming a circle, a prayer circle, and across from me a man was just sitting down. And right when he was sitting down, I saw in the most subtle way, I could have missed it, in the most subtle way I saw a hammer. It was just a picture in my brain. It wasn't a great overwhelming experience that laid me out. It was a subtle picture, an image that came into my mind of a hammer coming down on his head. If I wasn't sensitive, it I didn't catch it, in other words, if I didn't, if I wasn't aware of it and catch it, because I pay attention, I would have missed it. But as he sat down I said to him, you know I just saw a hammer coming down on your head. He said I just found out I was getting sued today.
So obviously the Lord was giving me a prophetic word from him to show him that I'm with you in this. I understand where you're at. I know what's going on in your life. The number of hairs on your head are numbered. I'm with you. I'm gonna see you through this thing. But I'm trying to make the point that these are very subtle experiences. So it's not a question of you, if you're a believer, and, and it's not a question if you're a born-again believer that you've never experienced these things, but rather it's a question of you not paying attention. Because I believe that the Lord is speaking to all of us. You see, prophecy, dreams and visions are not the gift that God gives to a select few of his people, but rather prophecy, dreams and visions, beloved, are channels of communication. And God is communicating to all his people.
That's why in Acts, chapter 2, beloved, when the Spirit of God came, how did he manifest himself. He manifested himself above the disciples' heads as what; as a tongue of fire. Think about that. When the Holy Spirit was first manifest, how was he manifest? He was manifest, get it now, as a tongue of fire. Why a tongue? Because a tongue is a speaking oracle, and so the Holy Spirit's primary purpose to us is to speak to us. Jesus said he's gonna take of me and disclose it or speak it unto you. So if you're a born-again believer and this just seems foreign to you, you feel like you've never had a dream, or I've never had a prophetic experience, or I've never had a vision, the reality is you have, but you haven't noticed. You haven't been paying attention, because as I indicated, the Lord is often times not in the earthquake. He's not in the great fire, but rather, beloved, he's in the still small voice and we need to be paying attention.
So the first area then is prophecy; prophecy, dreams and visions. Let me read for you again just so you can get this, just to get back on track with where we're at, and then we're gonna take them apart individually. Acts, chapter 2, Acts, chapter 2, so you know this is for you. This happened on the day of Pentecost, so the Spirit of God has come. Acts, chapter 2, verse 17, Peter says, he's quoting from the prophet Joel in verse number 16. He says in verse 16, but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel, and then in verse 17 he quotes Joel: And it shall be in the last days, God says, that I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all mankind, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.
Now this doesn't mean that if you're an old man, old man, you only dream dreams but don't see visions. He's just speaking about all classifications of people; that everyone that knows me is gonna be walking in an experience of me communicating to them and they're gonna be experiencing from my Spirit, prophecy, dreams and visions. So we're gonna start then with prophecy. Prophecy, the Hebrew word, naba, it means a bubbling up from the inside. It's the Spirit of the Lord within bubbling up to communicate something to us, and then giving us, beloved, the ability to speak it. Now often times God's people are prophesying even when they don't know that they're prophesying.
So for example, we read in Scripture that during the days of Jesus, the high priest prophesied and he said, he said to the community there, he said don't you know, speaking of Jesus's death, that it's expedient that one man die for the nation. But he was not saying this according to the Word of God because he knew what he was saying. He didn't understand that Jesus was dying for the sins of the world, or the sins of the nation of Israel, but rather the Bible says, he spoke it because he was the high priest and the Holy Spirit was working through him, but he didn't even know it. I mean think about Balaam's donkey, when Balaam's donkey spoke and rebuked Balaam. Balaam's donkey didn't know he was prophesying. And so some of you have prophesied and not even known it.
Let me give you an example. If you have children or grandchildren, or maybe even a friend of yours that was looking for counsel; so we have a child, a grandchild or a friend that was wanting counsel or that you thought you had counsel for. Do you know that sometimes as a believer and as a child of God, when you gave then counsel, you were actually prophesying because the counsel that you were giving them was actually coming to your or being communicated to you by the Holy Spirit and you were just speaking it forth. You were prophesying without even realizing it, because what you're doing when you're prophesying, beloved, is you're just speaking forth the Word of God by the Spirit. You're speaking forth, beloved, the heart of the Lord by the Spirit.
And so it doesn't always have to be so mysterious, but it's real, beloved, it's scientific in the sense that it's real and it's tangible. God will give you insight and discernment into people's lives around you and you will speak to them based upon that insight and discernment that the Holy Spirit is giving you. And when the Holy Spirit gives you that insight and discernment, and you speak it into people's lives, you're actually prophesying. Listen now, prophesying, get it now, is to speak by inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Let's move on to the next one. The next one, beloved, are visions. The Hebrew word for visions is chazon. Once again the Hebrew word for vision is chazon, or chazon. Now visions also can be very subtle, and what I mean by this is that most visions are, are not visions that you get so overwhelmed that you get laid out on, on the floor because they're so overwhelming. I mean for, for example, in Isaiah, chapter 6, remember Isaiah has a vision and he falls on the ground like and dead man. And he says woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among an unclean people. John, in, in his, in the Book of Revelation has a vision and he falls down to the ground. I mean these are overwhelming types of visions. But the vast majority of visions that God's people experience, are not of this nature. They're not of this category, but rather, beloved, they come to us, get this now, in the form of pictures.
Remember when Jesus was ministering on earth he often spoke in parables. He created pictures. He created stories to illustrate truth. And most visions that we get from the Lord come to us, beloved, in the simple form, listen now, of a picture that God will give us that will flash in to our mind. Let me give you a recent example that, that my wife, we actually just had recently. There was somebody that was kind of a, just a speaking a lot of just criticism towards somebody, and, and negativity, and it seemed almost that the criticism and the spirit of accusation that this person was speaking, it actually seemed like there was a lot of truth in it. But my wife had a, a vision that came to her as this person was speaking these words of accusation, and these words of, of condemnation, and the, and the picture that came in to my wife's mind as this person was speaking these negative things to another person, was of a person, forgive me, I don't want to be offensive, but of a person vomiting.
In other words it looked like what this person was saying was true, but in reality the spirit behind the words that this person was saying was the work of the enemy. It was, it was for destructive purposes and for evil purposes, but my wife was able to have the discernment about what was going on as she observed the situation, because of a vision that God gave her. It wasn't a vision that knocked her out and laid her on the floor, but was rather a simple picture that the Lord flashed in her mind of a person vomiting. And she knew that the Lord was telling her disregard any accusation that this person has because it's coming from a place of wretchedness. It's not me, saith the Lord.
And so that really helped us to have discernment in terms of how to deal with this person, and how to shepherd this person when we have revelation through a vision as to where this person's spirit was coming from. Now on next weeks' broadcast, we're gonna pick back up this them of visions, but we're also, beloved, in next week's broadcast, gonna pick up on the theme of dreams. And you're gonna find that one of the most predominant ways throughout the entire Bible, from the beginning to the end, from the beginning of the Old Testament through the end of the New Testament, one of the most predominant ways that God speaks to us, beloved, is through our dreams at night. In the last days saith the Lord I will pour forth my Spirit on all flesh. And the result is gonna be that my people are gonna walk in an experience of Prophecy, Dreams and Visions. Shalom until next week.