Rabbi Schneider - A Beautiful Paradox - Part 1
The Holy Spirit gave us the Song of Songs to give us revelation to how God feels about us and to bring us in to the bridal paradigm. Jesus has married us. The Holy Spirit was given to us as a pledge of this wedding. The Apostle Paul said that his mission was to present us to a pure, as a pure virgin bride to Jesus. It all culminates in Revelation, 19, 7 and 9, with the marriage supper of the Lamb. Did you know, beloved, that God gets great delight in this relationship that he has for us? That he gets delight, beloved, in our coming into this marriage relationship with him and yielding ourselves to him, giving him ourselves to him in that way?
In the Book of Isaiah, chapter 62, speaking about this, the, the prophet Isaiah writes: The Lord will delight over you and he will marry you. God, beloved, has destined us to be married to him. And this is what the Song of Songs is all about; this marriage relationship. In order for us to journey into this relationship, in order for our hearts to open to it, in order for our hearts to open up to this reality, we have to understand that the Father loves us with a jealous love, with a bridal love, with a marriage love, right where we're at today. To show you this, I want you to look with me in the 5th verse of chapter 1. The Song of Songs, chapter number 1, verse number 5, hear the Word of the Lord, she says: I am black but lovely. I am black but lovely. This phrase, beloved, has within it the tension that you and I experience. The tension is this, that on the one hand there is sin in us. I am black, she says, but on the other hand, we're still lovely to God.
Now in the original, historical context the Shulamite maiden was talking about that she had been in the fields all day, and had been burned by the sun because she didn't have much money, and because she was coming from a lower economic platform, that that was not looked at as comely. But that's not really what, what the Holy Spirit is trying to, to communicate to us now. He's trying to help us to understand that although that there is sin in our heart, I am black. You know the Bible tells us in the Book of Jeremiah, chapter 17: The heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things who can know it.
Let me say that again. Jeremiah, 17: The heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things who can know it. There is blackness within the heart. Paul told us that within him, the one that wished to do good, evil was present. And that's in, in the Book of Romans, chapter 7. Paul said: I find within me, the one that wishes to do good, the principle of evil inside me. Who shall set me free from this? So Paul saw himself as the chief of sinners. He said, I am black, but you know what, we also want to affirm just as strongly, if not more so, but I am lovely. See the Shulamite bride as she is journeying into divine love realized that there was sin in her. She said I am black, but she also, beloved, was fully cognizant of the fact that she was lovely to God.
And you and I need to know, beloved, that although we're still being cleansed of sin, although we're still in the process of being sanctified, we're lovely to God right now. And so I often say God will never love you more than he does right now. Jesus said in John, chapter 17: "Father I thank you that you love them", meaning you and I, "with the same love that you love him with". This same love that the Father loves Jesus with, beloved, he loves you and I with. And the same love that's in Jesus, beloved, is being poured into our hearts. This makes us lovely to God. You see the Lord has removed the sin factor. Romans, chapter 8: There is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. Because Jesus's blood has removed the sin factor from us, the Bible says that we stand before God right now holy and blameless.
And so I want you to understand that although there are still certain sins that you and I are being sanctified from, although we're still being cleansed, we are lovely to God right now. So once again look at that verse with me. We just want to read it again so you can see if for yourself. Song of Songs, 1:5, she declares: I am black but lovely. And the reality of the situation is, is that the more we go into the light of God, the, the closer we get to God, the more the Holy Spirit is gonna reveal to us the blackness in our heart. In other words, it started out for many of us that we thought if we could just get rid of drinking, if we could just get rid of smoking, if we could just stop living an immoral lifestyle, then we'd be living "a Christian life".
And so we did those things, but as we've progressed on in the Lord, God began to show us other things; things that were not maybe very readily apparent on the surface, but things inside us that we weren't even aware of before; like selfishness, right, like selfishness, and hostility, and anger issues, and issues with authority, and, and so on and so forth. And the way that it works is, is that the closer we get to the Lord the more light the Holy Spirit puts on us. I shared with you a very prophetic dream that the Lord gave me years ago. It was, it was, it was so powerful to me. And in the dream I was on a journey across the United States. And I was half way through the journey. And as I was halfway through the journey, rather than staying at a hotel in this specific city, I, I, I had a martial artist instructor that was living in this city.
So my wife and I in the dream, we went over to the martial artist instructor's home, and asked if we could sleep there for the night. He said yes, and he said okay I'm gonna, I'm gonna show you the bedroom where you're gonna be sleeping, but before I show you the bedroom, I want to show you this. And he brought us to the bathroom upstairs. And he opened up the toilet so we could see into the toilet tank, into the toilet bowl, and inside the toilet bowl it was all blue. It was filled with sanitization fluid, like that blue sanitizer that you put in a toilet bowl to clean it out. So he opens the toilet. I see inside the toilet bowl. It's all blue. And then my martial artist instructor, who's about six three, he's standing next to me in the dream. And all of a sudden he jumps, and he dives into the toilet bowl. And he becomes about this big inside the toilet bowl. He's in this clear, translucent egg surrounded by all this blue sanitizing fluid.
And I see inside the egg that he's in inside the toilet bowl, and he's all joyful and he's really happy. And then all of a sudden, bam, he comes back out of the translucent egg, comes out of the toilet bowl, and he's standing right next to me as big as life again. He shows us into the bedroom. My wife and I go to sleep. The next morning my wife and I wake up. We make the bed. We go downstairs. I say to my martial artist instructor, we're on our way, you know, to continue on the journey. He says, not so fast. He said let's go up and check the bedroom first where you slept. We go upstairs to the bedroom, and he pulls this big dresser off the wall. And behind the dresser that he pulled off the wall, beloved, he starts, he takes a toothbrush and he starts scrubbing between the baseboard and the drywall.
And I'm thinking, what's he doing; he, he does he think I got that dirty down there? I mean I only slept here one night. And he's going behind the dresser, scrubbing between the, the wall and the baseboard. And then he goes to the other side of the dresser behind the wall. And when he gets to the other side of the dresser, there's this electrical wire coming up from the ground. It looked like a, like a telephone wire with this little strange looking gizmo gadget on the end. And he tells me to reset the gadget. So I didn't know what it was. I got down on my knee. I went to reset the gadget. I saw a button. I pressed the button, and right when I pressed the button he says, you're not doing it right. He says you're not thinking. And then he gets down on his knee and he opens up the gadget and there was a few buttons in there, and he reprogrammed the buttons. And that was the end of the dream.
Well I knew that God was telling me something. And the Lord began to show me that what he was saying to me was I wanna cleanse you deeper than you realize right now. You thought you were done because you made the bed. You went into the bedroom, you made the bed. You thought that was all you had to do and you were ready to move on in the journey. He says, but I want to sanctify you. I wanna sanitize you. Remember that's where the dream started, in the toilet bowl with the sanitization fluid.
The Lord was saying, I wanna sanitize you deeper than you've been sanctified. And you're not gonna be able to continue on the journey into divine romance with me; you're not gonna be able to continue deeper in me until you let me sanctify you at a deeper level. You thought that going behind the dressers didn't pertain to you, but now I'm showing you I wanna go deeper. And that electrical cord that I showed you with the gizmo on the end, that represented your mind and your thoughts. And you just went and pushed a button without even thinking, when the martial artist instructor interrupted you and said stop you're not thinking, you're not doing it right.
And the Lord was saying to me you're not examining your thoughts. I want you to start examining your thoughts because I want to sanctify you in your mind. That's why the electric wire represented the electricity of our mind. And so the Lord was revealing to me in order for you to go deeper with me in divine romance, in order for you to feel me more, in order for us to go deeper into fellowship, in order for you to continue on the journey, you need to be sanctified more. And it's gonna involve, not just you cleaning up the outer realm which you've done mostly, it's now going to the inner realm that you didn't think about before.
And so the point is, Yedidim, beloved ones, is that this, the Shulamite bride here, the symbol of you and I, she says I am dark but lovely. And what happens with us is many of us have cleaned some of those outer things up in our life. We stopped smoking, we stopped drinking, we're not going to the bars anymore, etc. etc. many of us. Some of you may still be and God's calling you to that first level of repenting of those things, to get, to get to, to the place where he can really pour out his love on you in a way that you'll feel it. It's not that he loves you less now, but he wants you to feel it. And as you cooperate with him, and turn to and follow him, he's gonna release to you the ability to feel it. You're gonna feel his love. You're gonna know that Jesus is alive and that he's with you.
But for those of us that have repented of some of these outer things, what happens is this, as we repent to those things, listen now, the Holy Spirit increases the amount of light to show us sin at a deeper level that we weren't even aware of before. It's like taking a magnifying glass that's like a ten power, and you look at something, you look at a white piece of paper, and under the ten power you can't see anything on the white piece of paper. But then you take a magnifying glass that's ten times more powerful than the first magnifying glass that you were using, and now all of a sudden you see defects, and you see flaws, and you see dirt on that paper, and you see dark spots on that paper that you didn't see when you were using a weaker magnifying glass.
And that's the way it is. It's like putting something under a microscope, and as you turn up the power in the microscope, the more you see on that, on that, on that slide that you didn't see before. You have to keep on turning up the power in order for you to see what you weren't seeing before. And this is what the Holy Spirit does. As we're journeying into divine life with him, as we're journeying into, into, into fellowship with God, as we're going deeper into the love of God, the Holy Spirit begins to turn up the power of his light showing us things in our life that we weren't aware of before, so we can be cleansed of those things. And we know that when we confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us, and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
And so all of us need to, to, to be cognizant of this; that there is a progressive walk of being sanctified as we move forward in this world in the Lord. But despite the fact that there' sin that the Holy Spirit is going to continue to bring to the surface, beloved, we're still lovely to God right now. And this is what I need you to get. I need you to say right now to the Lord, I am beautiful. Say to the Lord right now, say "Father, Lord Jesus, I am beautiful to you". Let's say, "Jesus I thank you that you have made me beautiful to you". Beloved, you have to know you are, you are beautiful. Why are you beautiful? You have to know you're beautiful. Say it again, I am beautiful. Church let's say it again, I am beautiful to God.
Oh thank you Jesus that you've made us lovely. She says I am dark but lovely. It's good to understand that we need to be sanctified of sin, but just as importantly we need to know that we're beautiful and lovely to God. Why? First, beloved, cause he created us in his own image. David said, I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. We're beautiful because we're created in the image and the glory of God. Secondly, beloved, we're beautiful to God because through Jesus we have been made the righteousness of God, right, 1 Corinthians, chapter 5, speaking of Jesus, he that knew no sin became sin on our behalf, get it now, that we could become the righteousness of God. We are now the righteousness of God. We are new creations in Jesus.
The third reason, beloved, that we're beautiful is because of the fact that God's Spirit is in us. And because God's Spirit is in us, the Bible says that the love of God has been shed abroad in our heart; because God's Spirit is in us, beloved, there is a yes in our heart to God. Those of us that are born of God, we have a yes in our heart to God. We want to love God. In Romans, chapter 7, where Paul was struggling, Paul wanted to obey God. Paul said I find I'm struggling. He said I find that I wanna do good. He said in my inner man I wanna do the right thing. He said, but I see a different member in, in, in the members of my flesh. See inside Paul there was a big yes. He wanted to do good. He was declaring war on sin. He was struggling, but he was, he had declared war on sin. He was in agreement with God.
And we are beautiful to God, beloved, because the Holy Spirit's love has been shed abroad in our heart. The Holy Spirit is in us, and we have a big yes in our heart to God. It's like a little baby; a little baby is, is, is falling as they're learning to walk. But they're on the way to walking. There's a big yes in their heart. There's a yes in their spirit to stand up and walk. And God looks at us. He sees that yes in our spirit, beloved, to him. He sees that yes in our spirit to stand up and walk. He doesn't just look at us according to our deeds, beloved, but he sees us even more so about what's in our heart. God doesn't just see the outer. He doesn't just see when we fail. He sees what's in our heart.
Remember when they came to anoint the King of Israel, and they, and, and, and the prophet looked over David, because on the outside David was young and he didn't look impressive on the outside. But what did the Lord say to the prophet? Man looks on the outside, but God looks on the heart. When God looks at your heart, beloved, he sees a yes in your heart. His Spirit lives in you, and because his Spirit's in you, you have a yes in your heart to God. The Holy Spirit's yes is in you. The Holy Spirit's yes has put a yes in your heart to the Lord. And that makes you beautiful to God, Amen and Amen, hallelujah.
Another reason, beloved, that you're beautiful to God, get this now, is because of who God is. You're beautiful to God because God is beautiful, and because he looks at you through mercy. It's just like when a baby comes out of the womb, somebody might, that might not know the baby, would look at that baby and think, wow, you know look at that baby. It's all slimy. It's all red; maybe it has no hair. I mean to, to an outsider that baby might not look attractive at all. But to the mother and to the father that baby is beautiful. Why? Because of what's in the mother and the father; it's what's in their heart that makes the baby beautiful. It is true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
So you and I are beautiful to God because of the way God sees us that's based upon who he is. And so again, reviewing, in our journey into divine love, we need to understand that we are dark. There's sin within our hearts still. And the more we come into deeper fellowship with God, the more the Lord's gonna reveal to us; things like selfishness, things like selfish ambition, and anger, and pettiness, and all those things. We're gonna discover darkness in our heart. And yet paradoxically we're lovely to God, even right now. You don't have to wait to become perfect before you're lovely to God. God loves you, and you're lovely to him even in your immaturity, even as those parents love the baby as the baby is crawling and falling, and learning to walk. We are lovely to God. You need to know that you're lovely to God in order to receive his love. Otherwise, you're just gonna have a defense up, a shame defense on you that's gonna be a hindrance to your receiving the Lord's love.
So Father I pray for these that are watching right now, and I take authority Lord Jesus in your name over the spirit of shame from the enemy that blinds your people and blocks their heart, and renders them incapable of receiving your love for them. I thank you Jesus, that your people are beautiful to you. And we proclaim, Lord Jesus, that we are beautiful to you, that you are our beautiful bridegroom King, that you created us in your image, that you took away our sin, that you made us your righteousness, that we stand before you holy and blameless right now, and we are beautiful to you. Father, thank you that we are beautiful, and help us to understand even more, Jesus, how beautiful we are, and most of all how beautiful you are. Help us to understand Yeshua how beautiful you are and how beautiful we are, your children, and your bride are to you, Amen and Amen.
You know the Apostle Paul said in the Book of Ephesians, he said: I tell you a mystery. A man shall leave his father and mother, cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. He says behold I speak in a mystery about this. I'm speaking about the relationship between Christ and the church. So think about this, if a man leaves his father and mother, cleaves to his wife, and the two become one flesh, and that is a mystery, a prophetic shadow of Christ to the church, you and I, beloved, that means have been brought into oneness with Jesus. We've become flesh of his flesh, bone of his bones, the two shall become one.
And because Jesus is beautiful, we become beautiful, because we've been united, hallelujah, to the Beautiful One, the beautiful and glorious bridegroom King, the Lord Jesus, who's coming back again. And so we continue on in this verse: I am black but lovely, she says, oh daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar. First she's talking about her blackness. The tents of Kedar were made from goat skins that were black, and it was, it was not a, it was not, it was not becoming. So she realized that there is blackness in her life, but then she also says like the curtains of Solomon. And these were white curtains of beauty.
And so what God wants us to understand, beloved, is that his arms are open to us right now. That we don't want to shrink from coming to him because we're, we're, we're feeling guilty, and because we're shame based. But rather we need to affirm we are lovely to God right now. We may be black but we're still lovely to God right now. There may be issues in our heart that God is cleansing, but the beauty of God is still in us. We're created in his image. We've been made new creations. We've become the righteousness of God. We're created in the image of God. Say right now, once again,
Father God you are beautiful and you have made me beautiful to you.
Beloved, if we want to go deep into divine romance, you need to get this. Let's say it again:
Father God you are beautiful and you have made me beautiful to you. We thank you Lord Jesus, our beautiful bridegroom God for marrying us, for purchasing us with your own blood, and for making us lovely. Help us to understand how lovely we are. Help us to understand how beautiful we are. Help us to go deep in to your grace and to experience the mystery of your love.