Rabbi Schneider - Walk in the Supernatural

We're talking about being able to discern the movement of God's Holy Spirit in our lives. You remember if you joined me last week, I was talking about Acts chapter 2, when the Holy Spirit was first given to the church, He was revealed as a tongue of fire. You remember how a tongue of fire came and rested on each one of those first 120 believers. And I made the point that the reason the Holy Spirit came as a tongue of fire was to illustrate that the Spirit of God is communicating to us. God's Word is fire. God is a consuming fire, and a tongue is an oracle that communicates. The point is, beloved one, God is communicating to His children, but many are not hearing.

This is why Jesus said, "He that has an ear to hear, let him hear". In the book of Job, Elihu that gave Job Godly counsel, he was the one of Job's counselors that wasn't rebuked, the rest of them were rebuked. But Elihu said this, he said, "The Lord speaks once, yea twice, but no one's listening when man is fast asleep in his bed". In other words, Elihu is saying the Lord communicated to His children through dreams at night, but they're not listening. They're not paying attention. In fact you may recall, when the Holy Spirit was first given, Peter said, "What you're seeing right now is what was prophesied by the prophet Joel, that in the last day, saith the Lord, I'll pour forth my Spirit on all flesh", and remember, he said, "your young men well see visions, and your old men will dream dreams".

And so the point is that the Holy Spirit is communicating to us through dreams. We're gonna get into that specific subject in an episode that will be coming, but I'm simply making the point that God is communicating to us by His Spirit, but if we're not listening, if we haven't trained our senses to perceive Him, we're gonna miss so much of what He's saying to us. Now, at the end of last week's broadcast I talked about the fact that we can train our senses to discern the voice of God's Spirit through practice. In fact, let me go back and read that scripture again. I'm reading from the book of Hebrews, chapter number 5, verse 14. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of God abides forever. Beloved one, hear the Word of God. "But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice", listen now, "have their senses trained to discern good or evil".

In other words, through practice, the mature have trained themselves to discern the difference between God's Spirit, the Holy Spirit, or the Ruach Hakodesh, and the spirit of darkness, obviously that comes from the enemy. But we only get trained, the scripture says, through practice. Which means number one, we need to be paying attention, and I'm gonna be getting into specifically how to pay more attention in a second as I show you an example of this from the book of Numbers, I'm gonna make an illustration that I believe will be helpful for many of you.

So number one, we need to practice being aware of God's Spirit speaking, and then secondly we need to advance or obey. In other words, when we say in Hebrew that famous declaration, Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ehad, which is translated in English, Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God, the Lord is one, but that word Sh'ma that's translated "hear" is not just translated with the concept of simply hearing with our ears, but it actually means in the Hebrew we hear and then obey. And so we get our senses trained, not just by hearing God's Spirit, and doing nothing in response, but we get our sense trained through practice when we first hear and then, listen now, step out and obey. In other words, if you're about to say something to somebody, but you feel a check in your spirit not to say it.

How many have ever had that happen before? You knew in your inner man that you weren't supposed to say something, but you didn't stop, you didn't discipline yourself, you let your impulses and passions control you instead of obeying that gentle witness of the Holy Spirit, you went ahead and said it anyway, did you get practice? Not really. But if you would have minded that check of the Holy Spirit, held your impulse, kept yourself from speaking what the Holy Spirit was leading you not to say, you could just feel that it wasn't right, you need to pay attention to that, cause remember the anointing that you've received, we read in the first letter of John, is from the Holy One, and He's not a lie, and as you receivedd Him, abide in Him. Okay? So we need to just sense what we're feeling, this intuitive sense.

You see, the Holy Spirit speaks to us through intuition; we need to understand that the intuition that we have has been given to us by the Holy One, that it's the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and then we need to abide in that intuition. And I mentioned last week that one of the ways that we get trained in this is by disconnecting from all that's driving us in the world to pay attention instead to what's going on inside and then abiding to that witness that comes oftentimes through intuition, abiding in Him and obeying. And so, this is important because as we learn how to abide in the Holy Spirit that's inside us and then obey Him, we get trained in walking in the Supernatural.

You see, the Lord says "As many as are being led by the Spirit, these are the children of God". God expects us to be led by the Spirit. And this is Supernatural. How are you led by the Spirit? You're led by the Spirit by learning how to pay attention to the witness of the Holy Spirit in your heart. Let me read that scripture again. I'm reading now from the book of 1 John, chapter 2 verse 27. "The Anointing which you received from Him abides in you", this anointing it's real and it's in you, "and you have no need for anyone to teach you", in other words you don't need to look on the outside right now.

I mean there's a place for teachers, obviously, but that's not what we're talking about right now. We're talking about paying attention to this witness that's inside you that you've received and to trust it. And it goes on to say, "and His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him". In other words we need to believe in this anointing, we need to believe that His Spirit, God's Spirit, lives in us, and through that we begin to pay attention to this God-given intution we have which is the anointing, and then we abide in this intuition. And so once again I was saying, the scripture tells us in the book of Romans, "As many as are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God".

So how are we led by the Spirit of God? Well one of the ways that we're led by the Spirit of God is abiding in this inner witness that we've been given that I'm calling intuition that comes to us from the Holy Spirit. You see, the Spirit is invisible, so you're led by the Spirit, remember the scripture says "As many as are being led by the Spirit", Romans 8, "these are the sons of God". So we're being led by the Spirit, not by being able to cling to something in the visible world, but by following this inner witness. You see, Jesus said "the Spirit blows where it wishes, and you see not where He comes from or where He's going, and so it is with everyone that's born of the Spirit".

In other words, Jesus is comparing the Spirit to the wind. And Jesus is saying, you can't see the wind, right? You don't see where the wind's coming from, you don't see where the wind's going. And then Jesus also said, "and so it is with everyone that's born of the Spirit". We can't see the Spirit, but we can feel the effects of the Spirit. We feel, in the inner man, His witness, we sense it. It's a God-given sense. And so I'm trying to lift us up, beloved, to become more God-conscious, to become more Spirit-conscious. As I said last week, Adam and Eve fell from God-consciousness when the ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But because we've been born again, we now have been given God's Spirit to lift us back up into being conscious of God Himself, of the Holy One, and of Jesus, Hallelujah, His Son.

I remember years ago as the Holy Spirit was training me about trusting in His inner witness. I was teaching a study one day, and I was teaching on, I think it was actually from the book of Numbers. And I was in a room and all of a sudden, a door opened in the room and a man walked in. I never had seen the man before in my life. And as soon as the man walked in, I sensed inside me that I was supposed to stand up and blow a shofar over him. And I actually had a shofar on the table where I was teaching from. But I didn't pay attention, because it seemed too far out of the box, it seemed kinda nutso to me. So I didn't obey.

Once again this man walked in, I'd never seen him before in my life, but I just felt this impulse that I was supposed to stand up and blow a shofar over him. But the impulse seemd so strange and so bizarre to me that I didn't do anything with it. I suppressed it. And so I instead just said to him, "What can I do for you"? And he said, "I came here today to buy a shofar. I believe the Lord wants me to buy a shofar". What would have happened if I would've obeyed the Holy Spirit? If I would've just stood up, blown the shofar over him, and then the guy would've been blown away and he would've said "I can't believe this! I felt the Spirit of the Lord directing me here to buy a shofar, I walk in the door and you stand up and blow the shofar over me"!

And when he told me that he was there to buy the shofar, I was so grieved because I knew that I had missed it. And that really was a wakening alarm to me that I need to pay attention to this inner witness of the Holy Spirit in my life. And what happens as we begin to step out in faith, as we obey, the scripture teaches us, once again, that our senses get trained. On the other hand, on the other hand, we shouldn't be naive. Because not every impulse we feel, we know, is from the Lord. In fact the Bible tells us that we need to be on guard, not be fearful, but have wisdom, because not every spirit's from the Lord. And that's one of the biggest dangers that we can fall into when we begin to realize that God is speaking to us supernaturally.

In fact, I remember when the Lord first began to speak to me supernaturally thirty years ago, I really began to become aware of it, I made the mistake, because I was naive, into making the mistake that every impression that I was having was from the Lord. You see, I knew God was speaking, so I wrongly made the mistake that every spirit that I was sensing was from the Lord. And the Lord then taught me and trained me, "No, let me teach you the difference between My Spirit and that which is not of me".

So listen to what the scripture says in 1 John chapter 4 verse 1. "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world". Even as there's many false prophets in the world, there are many false spirits in the world. And so I want you to be conscious and open and expectant to be led by God's Spirit, but I also want to guard you and warn you that you need to understand that not every spirit is from the Lord.

So we need to be looking to the Lord, we need to ask Him to train us, and if our hearts are right, if we're truly trying to hear His voice, if we really want to get it right I can promise you, when your heart is right, God will teach you and train you how to tell the difference between what's of Him and what's not of Him. And this takes place progressively, and it takes place over time. Don't be afraid of making a mistake. Don't be reckless. Don't be egotistical. Be humble. Step out in faith when you feel the Lord is leading you to do something or say something or not say something. Step out in faith humbly, and if you miss it, don't worry about it, you're either learning or you're winning. In other words even if you get it wrong, if your heart's right I can assure you, God will train you in the process.

Like my old martial arts instructor used to say, you're either winning or you're learning. In other words, even if you miss it, even if you lose, you're still learning something, and because you're learning something, the progress is going forward. I love an illustration from the Hebrew Bible in the book of Numbers. it's in Numbers chapter 9. The Spirit of the Lord is with the children of Israel in the wilderness when they were living in tents around the Mishkan, the tabernacle. And many of you know the story. By night the Holy Spirit abode over the tabernacle as a pillar of fire. During the day the Spirit of God took the form over the tabernacle as a Glory Cloud.

And the Bible tells us in Numbers chapter 9 that when the Spirit of the Lord stopped, either in the form of the fire or the Cloud, the children of Israel would stop. And they would camp there. But whenever the Spirit of the Lord lifted, whenever the fire lifted and began to move, whenever the Cloud began to move, they would take up camp and they would follow the Spirit. And the scripture said they never knew when the Cloud and the fire was gonna move. Sometimes it was two days, sometimes two months, sometimes two years. But they had to obey, they had to keep their eye on God's Spirit in the form of the fire and the Cloud.

Now think about it. If the fire and the Cloud was stopped over the tabernacle, but they got antsy, and they said they wanted to move, and they moved without the fire and the Cloud going before them, what would've happened? They would have died in the wilderness because there wouldn't have been any provision for them there. On the other hand, conversely, if the Spirit of the Lord moved and they decided you know what? We're comfortable here, we like this spot, we like this place, we're not gonna move, we choose to stay here. If the Spirit of the Lord moved and they didn't move, what would have happened? They would have also died in the wilderness cause there would have been no provision there.

We have to become so dependent on the Spirit of the Lord that we move when He moves and we stop when He stops. And one of the primary ways that we do this is by paying attention to our intuition. It's simply, beloved, developing a sensitivity to what you're feeling on the inside. Does something feel right? If it feels right, then be bold and take action. Don't be timid, don't doubt, don't hesitate. Remember 1 John 2:27 says "the anointing that you've received is not a lie... abide in Him".

So if you feel the Holy Spirit, you just sense something's right, you're supposed to take action, take action, or else you're gonna miss a lot. And there's a lot of fruit that you would've born that you didn't bear because you didn't obey. On the other hand, if you're one of those people and you're just always running, you're always going somewhere, you can't seem to stop yourself, you can't sit still, unless you learn how to stop when the Holy Spirit is wanting you to stop, you're never gonna get grounded, you'll never develop peace, and you'll never become as fruitful as you could be if you abide in Him. Jesus said, "he that abides in me bears much fruit".

I want to encourage you, beloved. God loves us so much. He's got a lot for you and me. But we need to develop our ears to hear. We need to learn how to trust the Holy Spirit. We need to learn how to obey.

In Jesus' name I just speak this word over your life right now and I say be strong, be courageous, trust the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, step out in faith, put God first in your life, and you're gonna bear more fruit than you ever would've dreamed possible. This is Rabbi Schneider saying I love you, and shalom.