Rabbi Schneider - God Fulfills All Our Needs
The Song of Songs helps to understand how Jesus feels about us. We are his bride, beloved. You know the rabbis teach that there are many different levels of understanding Scripture; that there is the surface understanding, which is absolutely correct and accurate; but that as you keep digging, there's other layers of revelation. And this is certainly true when it comes to understanding the prophetic revelation of God's Word. For example, in Luke, 24:27, we see that after Yeshua had risen from the dead he brought his disciples on a journey beginning with Moses all the way through the entire written Hebrew Word of God, the entire Tanakh, or the entire Old Testament.
And Jesus showed his disciples all the things that were written in the Old Testament concerning himself; things about him that were not apparent at first reading. They weren't apparent on the surface, but Jesus took them on a journey through the Scriptures in Luke, 24:27, and he brought them to the deeper, hidden meanings of these passages of Scriptures that were actually revelations of him. And the entire Word of God, beloved, is like this. We wanna look for Jesus in the entire Word of God. The Bible tells us in the Book of Peter, know this first of all that no Scripture was ever given by one, one's own interpretation, but rather men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. And so all Scripture, Peter tells us, is written by men that were moved by the Holy Spirit.
And we read in the Gospel of John, chapter 16, that the primary purpose of the Holy Spirit is to reveal Jesus and glorify him. Jesus said that he would give us the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit would take of himself, in other words that the Holy Spirit would take of the things of Jesus, reveal Jesus unto us, and glorify Jesus. So if the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to reveal Jesus to us, if the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Jesus, and if the Song of Songs was written by Solomon as it was under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, then the Song of Songs must be about Jesus, Amen. So we look for that hidden meaning. We look for the meaning that's underneath the surface. On the surface we see that it was a book written by King Solomon to his bride, that's called the Shulamite bride.
And that's absolutely accurate. But there's a deeper meaning and Solomon didn't even realize it. Solomon was being moved by the Holy Spirit, beloved, to reveal to us the bridal paradigm, to reveal to us the emotional side of God, to give us understanding about the romance, the divine romance that God has for us. You see when we consider the, the needs that we have as human beings, the things that we're born with as human beings, it's important, beloved, to realize that all the needs that we have as human beings, God put those needs in us. And the reason that he put these needs in us is cause it's a reflection of who he is. You see God we know created us in his own image. And so the fact that we have feelings, we have feelings because God has feelings.
The fact that we need love is because God is love; and the fact that deep inside human beings crave romance, they crave intimacy, the intimacy of falling of love, the intimacy of romance. The reason we have this need, beloved, is because God put that need in us, and the reason he put it in us is because he wants to fulfill it with himself. And so the Song of Songs is journeying into divine romance. Why do I call it a romance? Well when you look at a marriage relationship, a marriage relationship is so intimate, there's romance in it. And the Bible says that our relationship with Jesus, beloved, is a, is shadowed by the marriage relationship.
Paul said in the Book of Ephesians, he said that a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. And then he said, behold I tell you a mystery. This is a mystery that speaks of the relationship between Jesus Christ, Messiah, and the church. Paul also said that he was jealous for the people of God. He was jealous for, for the church because he had betrothed the church he said, which is a marriage term, to God as a pure virgin. So the Song of Songs, beloved, illuminates. It gives us understanding. It reveals the beauty to us of this, this romance that we have with the Lord. It is a journey into divine romance.
Now I just want to quickly point out a few things as we continue to move forward. Again you'll need to get the entire teaching; a teaching, beloved, that I really stress, and I urge you to get, because this will give, this will do something for you. The study of the Song of Songs, although when you hear it the first time, you might think that's kind of far- fetched, Rabbi. I'm having a hard time believing that what you're telling me is about Jesus' relationship to his church. I'm having a hard time believing that this is really about divine romance. And I know that for some of you the, the flowery, poetic language is, is difficult to understand. It's difficult to receive. I know that many that are watching have never had a natural love for poetry.
I understand that. I was the same way. But I'm telling you, God began to do, do something. It was like he turned the lock in my heart through the Song of Songs. And I'm confident that he will do the same for you as you give yourself to it, relying on the Holy Spirit; that the Holy Spirit will use the Song of Songs to unlock for you a journey, hallelujah, into divine love and into divine romance. So let's continue on as the Shulamite bride, which is a shadow of the church, she's speaking of Jesus and she speaks about his name is, is like purified oil, praising him for his beauty. And then she says in verse: Draw me after you and let us run together. She is calling Jesus to draw her into a more intimate relationship to himself.
And look how Jesus answers. The very next part of that verse says: The King has brought me into his chambers. So she has a taste of Jesus. She, she, she felt the kisses of his mouth in the second verse: Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. This initial experience that she had with Jesus, this, this, this understanding that Jesus is alive, that he's beautiful, that he's real, that she can experience him, it causes her to long for him. It causes her to, to enter into a deep, it causes her to long to enter into a deeper relationship with him. And so she cries out in verse number 4: Draw me after you. Draw me to yourself. And the very next verse says: The King has brought me into his chambers. So she says draw me to you, and then Jesus responds by drawing her in to his chambers.
This is bridal language. This is a bridal paradigm that she's calling out to Jesus, draw me to yourself. And he does. And he brings her into a chamber experience. This is the way it is. Jesus said, seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened, ask and you shall receive, draw near to me and I will draw near to you. Obey me and love me, John, 14: 21 and 23, I'm gonna manifest myself to you and reveal myself to you, and come and make my home with you.
So I need you to know that Jesus, God needs you to know, Jesus wants you to know, that he is alive right here, right now. He's with you right where you're at. And as your heart begins to increase in anticipation, and expectation; it should begin to rise up in faith to take ahold of and say Jesus will reveal himself to you now. He is gonna release the fragrance of his beauty to you, and you are gonna have more and more of these types of bridal chamber experiences where Jesus is gonna let you feel him. He's gonna let you feel his love. You're gonna begin to feel his Holy Spirit bearing witness with your spirit, of his nearness, of his beauty, and of how much he loves you. So she's brought into the bridal chamber.
And then the verse continues, she says after she's brought into this bridal chamber experience, after she touches the love of God, after she experiences the reality of Jesus, she continues on. At the end of verse 4, she says: We will rejoice in you and be glad. And so when she encounters how good God is, when she encounters how right God is, when she encounters how light God is, her response is that she makes a declaration. She makes a decision. She says, we will rejoice, and get this now, and be glad. So if you and I want to be living in fellowship with God, we need to make a commitment, get this now, many of you, God's gonna speak to you, if you wanna walk in fellowship with Jesus, if you want to experience him more, we have to make a declaration and a commitment, get it now, that we will be glad in his love.
She's made a declaration, I will be glad in your love. You are a good God, and I'm making a commitment now to be glad in my life. You see part of being glad is a decision. In today's world today that is so superficial, people are so moved by every circumstance that people have lost touch with the understanding that we can live, beloved, empowered over circumstances, that things don't always have to go right for us to be glad; that things don't always have to go perfect for us to have joy; that circumstances don't always need to be in control for us to have peace. There's a greater resource within us, beloved, that can give us victory above circumstances and throughout the course of life.
I remember years ago, beloved, back in the 80's, I had a one second vision of the night. I was in West Virginia at a friend's house. It came to me in one second, but it was so powerful that I never forgot it, almost thirty years later. And here's what I saw. I saw in the middle of my sleep a one second vision of the night. I saw this glorious warship and it was on the ocean at night. And I just observed from above the war ship. I was like on the front of the warship, looking over the front of the war ship, seeing, seeing, the top of the warship. And I saw this beautiful, majestic water, war ship, this battleship cutting steadily through the ocean at night. It was so majestic. It was so powerful. I knew it came from the Holy Spirit because of the power of it, because of the beauty of it, and because it was so foreign to my own thoughts.
And I knew that the Holy Spirit was saying to me that's you. You're that warship, cutting through the ocean at night. You live in a dark world. And the dark world, of course, in the, in the vision was symbolized by the ocean. And the fact that it was dark represented the world that we live in. We live in a fallen world, where there's, not only angels, but there's demons as well. And we see darkness continuing to increase as the time of the end of the age is unfolding. But the Lord was showing me, you're a warrior, and you have victory over this world that you're living in, even as that warship had victory on that dark ocean at night.
And so the point is, beloved, that in order for us to be glad, in order for us to have peace, in order for us to have joy, circumstances don't have to be perfect. Circumstance won't be perfect in this world. We're in a war. We live in a fallen world, in a dark age. But we can be glad amidst the age because we're warriors that have the internal power, the reservoirs of Jesus living within us that give us victory, that empower us. So this bride, this bride here, the Shulamite, the Shulamite maiden, who's a shadow of you and I, after she encountered the bridegroom, after the King Jesus had brought her into his chambers, she made a declaration, he's a good God, he's a reigning God, he's a glad God, and I will make my mind up to be glad now because I know him, because to not be glad would create a breaking of our fellowship.
See the Bible says of Jesus, that he was anointed with the oil of gladness above everybody else. So if we're walking with Jesus, we ought to have gladness in our life. So she says once again, we will rejoice, the end of verse 4, and get it now, this is a decision that you and I need to make, be glad. We can make up our mind, beloved to shift our attitude. How do I know this? Think about somebody that's fighting with somebody else, and they're in a real bad mood, and they're real mad, and all of a sudden the boss comes into the room. Or all of a sudden the kids were fighting and the parents come into the room. And all of sudden when, when that person that's fighting and that's had a bad attitude is confronted with an authority figure that will look down on that, all of sudden the person underneath that one's authority, they shift their attitude. They put a smile on. They make a decision to be different.
And you and I, beloved, do have a will and we can choose to be bitter and complain, or we can choose, beloved, to be glad and thankful for what we have. And we have God, beloved, and he's promised us victory, and he's promised us that he's causing all things to work together for good to those that love him and are called according to his purpose. And the good that he's causing all these things to work for, no matter where you're at in life, and no matter what you're going through, is he's using it all, beloved, to conform you to the image of his Son. And once you and I get conformed to the image of Jesus, beloved, I'm telling you what, we're gonna be walking in complete freedom, complete joy, and complete peace.
So we can choose to be glad today. You know I went and visited somebody from our congregation in the hospital a week or so ago. And I want you to know, this person, he's been part of our congregation ten years. He comes from a very, a very difficult financial situation, his background, very little finances, many other issues that he's had to deal with in life over the years. And yet every single time that I've seen him in ten years, his, you know all types of problems going on in his life, cars breaking down, financial problems, all kinds of issues, health issues, on and on, but every single time I've seen him in ten years when I've said to him how are you doing, he always says this to me, praise God, he said, it's another great day to be alive on the planet. Blessed be the name of the King. And he says it, beloved, with a smile on his face, in, in truth. He's a guy, beloved, that everything's not going right, but he's made up his mind to be glad. Hallelujah, bless the name of the Lord.
And so this,the church, we need to make up our minds, beloved, to be glad. We need to make, choose to be happy, beloved. The world needs to see that Jesus is superior, and that his presence in our life makes the difference. Now notice the next thing that she says in verse number 4. She says, draw me after you, bring me to yourself, bring me in closer. And then she says, and I also want to, to share in your assignment, she says, and let us run together. In other words she wants to be doing the work of Jesus on earth, even as I talked about on last week's broadcast, that it's about experiencing him, and it's also about being a co-laborer with him, being used of God on this earth, beloved, to build the kingdom, to serve the church, to be his witnesses, to be partners with Jesus. Jesus said, as the Father sent me so now I also send you.
So she says, draw me to you and let us run the race together. I wanna be involved in your work, Jesus. As you were in this world, so also now am I. And then she says, I am gonna be glad because of you in my life. I'm gonna live in victory. I choose to live in victory. I choose to be glad. And notice the next thing that she says. I'm reading now from the King James. And she says, we will remember your love. Now the New American Standard uses the word extol. I like the King James Version here. The King James says, we will remember your love. Now think about this. She had just been brought into the bridal chamber. She had this experience with Jesus. She had a touch, beloved, of that bridal love that he has for her. Her heart unfolded to him. She felt his arms around her. She experienced her Jesus in reality on this earth. And now she declares, get this now, I will remember your love. In other words, God has just granted her this experience. And she says, I'm gonna remember it.
And when we study the Hebrew Bible, we realize that often times when the Lord did something specifically special for the children of Israel, they would build a memorial for him. They would put up, they would, they would put a rock in a certain place. They would, they would put a pile of rock some place as, as a way of showing God did something for me here. It was a way of them causing themselves to remember what God had done; to not lose track of what God had done. They remembered what he did by building memorials. And beloved, the principle is, is that when God touches us in life, we should be journaling those things. We should be writing those things down so that we remember those things, because we know that often times after the Lord does something special for us, the enemy comes and tries to steal it.
When Jesus talked about the sower going out to sow the seed, and the seed fell on different types of ground, one of the types of ground that he talked about was the type of ground that the seed fell into the ground but listen, and he said immediately the devil came and tried to steal it. You see, as soon as the Spirit of God came on Jesus as he came out of the Jordan River, and the, the dove appeared, the Holy Spirit appeared as a dove and the, and the Father spoke from heaven and said, this is my beloved Son and in him I'm well pleased. And Jesus heard it, you are my beloved Son, and in you I'm well pleased. The very next thing that we see happening is the devil's there trying to steal from, from Jesus the victory. If you're the Son, the devil said in the wilderness in Matthew, 4, if you're the Son, if you're the Son.
You see when the Lord does something for us there is a time of testing afterwards often times; that the devil comes and he tries to steal it. God's purpose is that the testing would just be used to actually fortify the truth that he's given us in us. In other words, what the devil is trying to steal, God is actually using that trial to strengthen in us what he's done as we resist the devil. That's why the Bible says that after Jesus resisted the devil in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, in Matthew, 4, and Luke, 4. It says that Jesus then came out of the wilderness, get this now, in the power of the Spirit. In other words he was strengthened by resisting the devil. And so when the Lord brings us into these encounters with him, when he allow us to feel his love for us, when he lets us feel how special we are, when he gives us understanding of how much he loves us, these are these bridal chamber experiences that we're looking at in the 4th verse.
And the next thing that's gonna happen is the enemy's gonna try to come and steal. But what do we need to do? We need to do, beloved, what the maiden did here, who's a symbol of the church. Listen, we need to remember his love. So she says, I will remember your love. We need to remember the times that the Lord did something for us, so that when, when the devil comes and he puts doubt in our mind, when we, when we, when we're looking at the future and we're seeing mountains in front of us, when the devil comes and tries to put fear on us, what we need to do is need to remember his love. We need to remember when he's touched us. We need to remember if there were prophetic words that were given to us in a dream. We need to remember what the Lord has spoken to us in the past. We need to remember our love. This is something, get this now, that we need to do. God involves us in this process. We need to be involved in the process. We're working with him in the process. We're working out our own salvation, the Scripture says, in fear and trembling.
And so the principle of Journeying into Divine Love, beloved, is understanding that we're a warship on this earth, journeying through the night. And when the Lord is touching us along the way we need to journal those times and remember those times, so that when we face an onslaught of darkness what do we do; we can go back in the past, thank God for everything that he's done in the past, remember the way that he's shown us his love in the past. That fortifies us, beloved, and gives us an engine to move forward in the future. So Father, we want to thank you for this revelation that you're giving us in the Song of Songs. Father in this journey of divine love, Father, we open our hearts before you. Let them unfold like flowers before thee. God bless you, beloved, and Shalom.