Rabbi Schneider - Gathering an Army
Beloved, today I want to talk to you about something that I think is critically important in this season. I want to talk to you about the theme of gathering an army. I remember some years back I was invited to a close meeting of somebody that was running for president that eventually got elected as president in the United States. And this individual said, "The problem with you Christians is that you don't stick together, you're not in unity. If you guys would be in unity, you would be so powerful. But the problem with the Christian movement, and the problem with your expression as a religion is that you're not unified. You've got this person going this way, this person going that way, this person going this way, and you're not coming together to join forces".
And I thought that was a really interesting observation. And it's true. How much more would the church accomplish in the earth if we were united as a movement together instead of having this little packet over here, this little local church over here, this little local church over here, all of them doing their own thing, none of them connected? And I understand that individual leaders, excuse me, have their own agenda and their own calling. I get that. But we also have to understand, beloved, there are certain things that we need to come together in as a body. I want you to hear this. Unity brings life whereas division brings destruction and death.
Let me say it again. Unity brings life while division brings destruction and death. Isn't it interesting that Yeshua said, Where two or three are gathered together, I am in the midst. I don't know if you experienced it, but I experience it all the time. When I go and have fellowship with other believers, especially during worship together, I feel the anointing and the beauty of God's presence in a very special way that generally speaking, I don't feel when I'm just alone, because God called us to be a people, a family, and a body. This is why Paul went to such great lengths to say, you know, what can the foot do unless the foot also has a hand? And what can the tongue do unless also it has a, you know, other parts of the body?
In other words, for you and I to function as human beings, it's not enough to have a hand or an arm or a head or an eye, or a tongue, or a stomach. We need all the different parts of our physical body to be able to function as human beings correctly. And Paul uses that analogy to tell us, as a body, that how can one part of the body say that it's not in need of the other part of the body because the body is only whole when we all come together? You know, I love the psalm, many of you have heard it before, it's pretty well known, Psalm 133, a Psalm of David. And the first line of Psalm 133 says this, "Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity". Then he goes on to say, "It is like the precious oil upon the head, coming down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, coming down upon the edge of his robes. It's like the dew of Hermon..."
In other words, when we come together, precious ones, as God's people in oneness and in unity, the anointing falls. Aaron the priest, Aaron the high priest, the oil coming down upon him, starting from his head going all the way down his robe, all the way down his body. That's what the anointing is like when God's people come together. We need to come together. In just a moment, I'm going to offer you a very practical step that you can take to come together with what God is doing here at Discovering the Jewish Jesus that will allow us and equip us and empower us to be a powerful army that can fight together for God's purposes in the earth. But before I do that, I want to just sing this for you in Hebrew, Psalm 133:1, "Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It's like the precious oil upon the head, coming down," he continues to say, "even down upon Aaron, even down his robes".
The precious anointing of the Holy Spirit that falls when we're bound together in unity. That Psalm in Hebrew goes like this. Hinei mah tov u-ma nayim Shevet achim gam yachad! Hinei mah tov u-ma nayim Shevet achim gam yachad! Hinei mah tov Shevet achim gam yachad! Hinei mah tov Shevet achim gam yachad! Well, I feel it. I'm going now to the book of Nehemiah 4:8-18 here. I want to just talk about what happened when the Jewish people went into Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and how when they went in, beloved one, to rebuild the walls, the enemy started attacking, and how they had to come together as one man, as one body, united, each one doing their part in order to successfully build the wall.
Because I want you and I to come together through this texting technology that I'm going to be talking with you about today in the show so that when something happens I can release a mass text to everybody. I'm looking for 120,000 of God's people to sign up for this texting service that comes directly from me alone in real-time only every so often when God lays something on my heart so that when something is going on in the earth and I feel that God is calling us to respond, I can shoot you a text through this app and bam, we can 120,000 of us do something to get on that cause and see the tide change and see a shift because of the power there is in unity.
Beloved, there's power in unity. I'm going to read actually beginning in verse 7 of Nehemiah 4. "Now when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that the repair of the walls of Jerusalem went on and that the breaches began to be closed, they were very angry. All of them conspire together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause a disturbance in it". So God's purpose is moving forward and immediately the enemy sees it and he begins to gather his forces together. It wasn't just one, it was all them. It was Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites. All of them, all these different forces came together to fight together against God's people. We're facing so many enemies on the front right now, facing so many movements that are anti-God and they're coming together to fight us as believers.
We as believers need to come together to fight back and we will prevail when we do because Yeshua said, "I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against us". What does Nehemiah do? "But we pray to our God, and because of them we set up a guard against them day and night". So Nehemiah is calling out God, "We're unable to resist this on our own, we need Your help. then I stationed men", notice how Nehemiah is calling everybody together, "then I stationed men in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, and expose places, and I stationed the people in families with their swords, spears, and bows". he's assembling the troops. Nehemiah speaks courage to them. He says, "When I saw their fear, I rose and spoke to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people: 'Do not be afraid of them.'"
And that's what I want to say to you today, do not be afraid of the forces of darkness that are coming against you and I and the church. Do not be afraid. "Do not be afraid of them; remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses". We need to fight, beloved, for what we have. "Those who were rebuilding the wall and those who carry burdens took their load with one hand doing the work and the other hand with a weapon, holding a weapon. As for the builders, each wore his sword girded at his side as he built while the trumpeter stood near me". And so when an enemy was spotted, the trumpeters would blow, and then the warriors would be ready to go on the offense. And that's what I want to talk to you today about, beloved. I want to talk to you about sounding the alarm through the texting technology that we have built-in here at Discovering the Jewish Jesus being able to sound the alarm to you by sending out a text. And then once you receive that text, you can take action.
Let me give you an example. I recently wrote an op-ed for a large online magazine called The Christian Post. And the name of my article was Jews and Gentiles: Distinction vs. discrimination in Christ. Well, when the article was posted, we started getting one comment after another comment that was anti-Semitic, that Jews no longer have any special role in the plan of God. You could just feel the anti-Semitism. I was floored by it. And so I put out a text to the 19,000 people that are presently signed up for our texting service and immediately they got right on it, they put their comments up and then the anti-Semitic comments were overwhelmed by the God-ordained comments. And there are so many things happening in the world right now that we need to respond to, listen, in unity as an army. Because unless we're united and do it in force as a group, we have little impact alone.
So here's what I want to ask you to do today. I want you to type the keyword RABBI, R-A-B-B-I, to the phone number 88777. That's all you got to do. It's completely confidential. Your number will not be given to anybody. It's just gonna come to me. And the only one that you're going to hear from is me, not my assistant, not somebody else. This is not some part of you know, just format. You're going to hear from me. When you get a text, it's going to be from me and it's going to be in real-time and it's going to be something that I feel is important. And it's not going to be something that's going to be abused. I'm not going to be texting you every day. Sometimes is once every three weeks or so, sometimes if something's going on, maybe it's a few times a week. But generally, it's not more than once every 10 days or so, generally speaking.
So what you do is you type the keyword RABBI, R-A-B-B-I to the phone number 88777. Beloved, let's raise up an army. There are other things that are in my mind right now, that if we attack together, if we attack together, if we all write an email together, in other words, if we have 120,000 people writing an email to some place, think about the impact that we can have. A hundred and twenty thousand people coming against a comment that was made on a radio program, on a television program. I'm telling you we can do so much if we'll only come together to do it together.
You know, the enemy is using technology for destructive purposes. But God can use technology, amen, for His purposes. Let's give technology a God-filled purpose by getting on the same stream so we can flow together as an army and in unity in response. And the only way that I can do that is if you give me an opportunity to blow the trumpet to you by signing up for this service. Listen, we're not going to be advertising things. We're not going to be promoting things. This is for one purpose is to bring God's people together to be able to fight and to respond.
And also the other thing that I love to do on the texting service is that when God puts something in my heart, something that's really transformative, something that's deeply touched me that I think will be a blessing to the rest of God's people, I'll send that out to my special friends that are connected to me through texting. The way that I look at this, the people that are connected to me through texting, they are people that are closer to me than most people. It's like Jesus.
Jesus had all those people that followed Him, right? And then He had 12 disciples that He made apostles, He brought them much closer. And out of those 12 apostles, He chose three, Peter, James, and John to be with him all the time. When I offer this texting service, I'm trying to bring those of you that love me, that really feel connected with me, I'm trying to bring us closer so that you could hear from me in real-time, that we can be nourished together by the things of the Spirit and so we can stand together as an army in unity being used by Yeshua to build the church. Because beloved ones, where two or three are gathered together, He is in our midst. Would you stand with me? Text The keyword RABBI to 88777. This is Rabbi Schneider saying I love you.