Rabbi Schneider - Where is God?
Notice as I cover these holy days that are listed for us in the 23rd chapter of the book of Leviticus, that we call in Hebrew Vayikra, it doesn't say that they're the Jewish holidays or the Feast of Israel; but listen, that they're God's appointed days. Because you now have a relationship with the God of Israel through Yeshua, the King of the Jews, these holy days beloved friends, have application for your life today. Now I'm in the final of the fall holy days that we're gonna be covering in this series called the Feast of Tabernacles or Sukkot. We already covered the Feast of Trumpets, Rosh Hashanah. We've covered Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and we're continuing today our study in the Feast of Tabernacles.
Now I began on tabernacles last week, if you missed it I encourage you to get that broadcast. I simply laid the historical foundation last week, beloved friends, for the Feast of Tabernacles; showing you it's inception, bringing you back to the 23rd chapter of Leviticus and giving some historical perspective. I'm gonna launch right now into the application that I'm wanting to drive home today for each and everyone of our lives. One of the main concepts that is carried to us through the Feast of Tabernacles, listen now, is that God is with us.
Ancient Israel lived in booths called Sukkot. They were individual booths that we would say singularly, a sukkah, plurally Sukkot. But in the center of all their booths the Lord Himself had a Tabernacle. We read about it in the 25th chapter of the book of Exodus. And in the Tabernacle was the Ark of the Covenant. It was in a chamber of the Tabernacle called the Holy of Holies and above the Ark of the Covenant were two golden angel statues that the angels were Cherubim and between the two Cherubim the visible presence of the Lord resided. And the High Priest would go into that chamber once a year where the Ark of the Covenant was and the Lord would speak to the High Priest from between the two Cherubim.
Above the Tabernacle for 40 years, the visible glory of God was manifest as a fire by night and a cloud by day. The point being that God made His presence, get it now, known amongst His people. For 40 years every day, beloved church, they could see the manifest glory of God. He was tabernacling with them. I am here to tell you church that God is tabernacling with you beloved one, individually in your life today. When Jesus was born the scripture says, "You shall call His name Immanuel, meaning God is with us".
God is closer to you and I than we realize. He is here. He is now. He is working through circumstances. He's working through people. He's working in ways we're not recognizing and what the Lord is desiring is that we wake up to His presence, so that we understand in a fuller way, a much fuller way, that He truly is tabernacling amongst us. I love David's words in Psalm number 19, because what David says in Psalm 19 is that the Lord is always speaking and He uses creation itself to demonstrate that Father God is always speaking to His creatures, to His creation. But often times because we're dull of hearing and dull of heart and dull of eyes, we don't perceive that He's speaking to us.
So in Psalm 19 David uses creation to demonstrate the fact that God is hear and He's speaking. Listen to the word of God. He said, "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And they're expanse is declaring the wok of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech". Remember what Paul said in the book of Romans. In the book of Romans Paul said, "For that which is know about God," listen, "Is clearly seen through what He has made". In other words, we can know about God. We can know about His nature. We can even learn His ways, many of them, by simply looking at His creation, by paying attention to what He's made.
And so what David is declaring in Psalm 19 is, is that God is always speaking. The heavens declare forth speech. Every night we look up and we see the stars. I mean obviously we can't see the stars every night if there's clouds, but the point is that in general we look up at night and we see the stars and we see the stars and it's as if God is speaking to us as they're twinkling. David also uses the example of the sun in Psalm 19. I'm talking about the physical sun. And he says, "No one escapes the sun's heat". In other words the rays of the sun are heating every human being and in the same way, David says, "God's voice is pouring forth speech into the earth".
God is speaking to you, but do you and I hear and do we realize He's speaking? The Feast of Tabernacles is about the fact that God is here, that He lives amongst us, but because we're spiritually dead; in other words, before we came into a born again experience, before we came to faith in Jesus, we were dull of hearing. And the Bible says that we were actually born into this world separated from God, dead in our transgressions and sins. So because of the fact that we were born into sin and we're in the process of being regenerated by the Holy Spirit, we need now to renew our minds so that we can hear God, so that we can wake up to Him; because we were born into the world alienated from Him.
Now that we have come to Jesus we've received God's spirit, so God is in the process of waking us up to His reality to how close He is. Listen, to illustrate this point, why are there so many people in this world that claim to be atheists and agnostics? They claim there is no God or they claim they don't know there is a God, because people are dead in their sins and they can't perceive them. I'll tell you an interesting scripture that illustrates this point. When Jesus was on the cross, listen now, when Jesus was on, let's actually go to the scripture. I want to read for you now John chapter 12:27. This is actually before Yeshua went to the cross. He was praying.
Listen what happened, John 12:27-29. Before Yeshua went to the cross He prayed. Listen what happened. Yeshua says to the Father, "Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, 'Father, save Me from this hour? But for this purpose I came to this hour.' And then Jesus said, 'Father, glorify Your name.' Then a voice came out of heaven: 'I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.' So the crowd of people who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered".
That it had thundered, so here Father God speaks from heaven saying to Jesus, "I have glorified Your name and will glorify it again". And the people hear the voice of God Himself, but rather than recognizing that they're hearing the voice of God, they're response to hearing God's voice is they give it a natural explanation, it thundered. I mean I see this in my own life all the time. We just got back not long ago from Lira, Uganda. I saw beloved ones, the most incredible, amazing miracle that I've ever witnessed in my entire life. There was a woman that had been blind for 15 years. They had to lead her every day to sit and beg, because she couldn't see anything and had no way of earning an income.
Ogwal Bonny: I've known Mila Rose for six years. I would see her begging for money, and sometimes would give her some myself. The trouble was, she couldn't tell how much money you gave her, so I would have to tell her.
Akello Anna: Mila Rose is my mother. She lost her eyesight in 2002 while cooking over the local fire.
Rabbi Schneider: She heard about the crusade. She started telling people that she wanted to go to the crusade. But she had such faith in her heart and such passion, like the woman with the hemorrhage that pressed through the crowd to touch Jesus. She had that kind of faith that we read about in the Gospels. She said, "No I'm going". She said, "Thursday I came to the crusade". She said, "I didn't get my healing". She said, "Friday I came to the crusade. I didn't get my healing". But she said, "On Sunday I got my healing". What happened was I blew the shofar and I said, "In the name of Yeshua, in the name of Jesus, blind eyes be opened". They brought her up to the platform. I said, "Open your eyes". You could see as she was opening her eyes the pain that she was in. You could see tears coming out of her eyes. You could see how painful it was, but I commanded her, "Open your eyes". "Open them as wide as you can. Now open them up. Oh wow. That's it! Keep going. Yeah! Yeah! Oh". Okay I'm gonna test her now. "How many fingers do I have up"?
Mila Rose: Three.
Rabbi Schneider: And then the woman was you know she was seeing and everyone's going crazy. I had then my team go and interview this lady weeks later. You wouldn't believe the difference in the way the lady looked.
Ogwal Bonny: I remember seeing her walking by herself one day, and she didn't have her stick. I was amazed and I asked her what happened. She told me that she received her healing at the crusade.
Akello Anna: My mother came to visit me one day and she was seeing again. She told me that she went to the miracle crusade and that God had healed her there.
Rabbi Schneider: She was completely and totally healed. I mean it was undeniable. We have witnesses. We verified it. We looked into it after the fact. She told us that before the healing, she said, "She couldn't see the crowd". She couldn't even see me standing right in front of her. In fact if you search under YouTube, look under YouTube. Look under my name Rabbi Schneider. Put Lira in there and then put the title of the YouTube, "I was blind, but now I see" and you'll find it. It's only about three minutes long. And yet people have all the evidence right in front of them and they try to pass it off as not a miracle. They try to say you know some other explanation.
This is the way that people who are dead in their sin are and we even though we're born again, even though we know Jesus now, we still need to break off of us spirits that cause us to doubt and make us dull of hearing. So that we're ascribing to the natural in our life, what is actually supernatural and so we have to recognize that God is with us and He's operating in our lives, beloved children of His, even through the common and even through the mundane. We have to wake up in realizing that He is with us. But we have to be looking. We have to be paying attention. We have to be watching. We have to be expecting. And we have to realize once again, that often times Father speaks to us not just in the dramatic and not just in the spectacular, although He does speak at times in those ways.
But often times God is speaking to you and I beloved, listen, through the ordinary, through friends, through nature. We read in scripture God spoke through rainbows. He spoke through prophets that were disguised. He spoke to people through individuals that were speaking to somebody else on behalf of the Lord and the ones that were speaking to somebody else on behalf of the Lord didn't even realize that it was God that was speaking through them. God spoke through a donkey, right? Balaam's ass. God speaks through the common and we have to be looking for Him in everything and understand that even when we're not experiencing something dramatic or spectacular, God is still always here, present with us, working underneath the surface and if we'll take stock every day and continue to affirm each day, "Father God you're with me. You're tabernacling with me. Your presence surrounds me even if I can't feel you right now, even if I can't sense you right now in my senses".
I believe by faith and faith is a thing. We're not making something up. It's real. "I believe by faith that You're here with me Father, that Your presence surrounds me and that You're doing something in my life every day, through everything that I walk through". The scripture says God causes all things to work together for good to those that love Him and are called according to His purpose. And what God is using all things for is to conform us to the image of His Son. And every day not only do we affirm this truth in our head as we're walking throughout the day by faith.
Father thank You that You're with me. Thank You that Your presence surrounds me. Thank You that You're working in my life today. Even through all these things that seem like they're just routine and mundane, You're working through all these things.
Not only do we affirm this fact through out the day, but we should also be asking our self each day, "What did the Lord teach me yesterday"? Because sometimes it's not just God doing something miraculous in a circumstance. Sometimes what's happening is God is working underneath the surface of circumstances to train us, to give us better discernment, to teach us the right way to walk. In other words, sometimes what happens is we're paying attention. We do things in life and if we pay attention God begins to show us, listen, the way you're doing this is not working. You're beating your head against a wall. If we're paying attention and looking for God in everything, then what's gonna happen is God is gonna use everything that we're walking through to teach us wisdom and to teach us, beloved church, how to walk and to remain in Him. God wants to dwell with you. Listen again, "Let them construct a sanctuary for Me that I might dwell among them". I want you to open your heart right now with me. I just want you, let's just pray together.
Father God in Jesus name, I surrender to You and I say yes, that what Rabbi Schneider is proclaiming right now, it's truth. It's You. You are here, but often times Father I am guilty. I don't recognize You're here and my mind wanders. And sometimes I get negative and critical in my thinking. Father I ask You to forgive me and cleanse me of this spirit and wake me up to Your divine reality, that Your presence surrounds my life, that You are tabernacling amongst me even in a greater way than You did with ancient Israel. Because with them you tabernacled visibly above the Tabernacle, but now You tabernacle with me Father Yahweh, by living inside me. In Jesus name.
You know when you and I really get a hold of this, when we really come to trust in the fact that God is with us, you know what's gonna happen? Not only will you have more joy in your life, but listen, you will also break off fear and have confidence. Listen to what happened to Joshua. The Lord said to Joshua in Joshua 1:9 this, He said, "Be strong and courageous. Do not tremble or be dismayed for the Lord your God," get it now, "Is with you where ever you go".
How was it that Joshua was supposed to be strong and courageous? He was supposed to enter into courage and confidence by realizing, listen now, that his God was with Him. I want you to know if you belong to Jesus God is with you. It's just that simple. He'll never leave you. He'll never forsake you. He is always, always, always, with you. You see often times we think that the main message of the Bible is that when we die we're gonna go to heaven, but I want you to know perhaps the most primary message of the Bible is not just that when we die we're gonna go to heaven, but the primary theme of scripture listen, is that God is with us now.
When Jesus came to earth beloved, He opened up the door for you and I to receive Him, so that God could be with us right now. That's again why we read in the scripture that we shall call His name Jesus. Matthew chapter 1, verse 23, "The virgin shall be with child and we shall call His name Immanuel, meaning God," listen now, "Is with us".
The primary theme of scripture is that God now is with you, that because Jesus died for your sins and purchased you with His blood to bring you into a relationship with God to become His bride, to become a child of the Father. God is with you now like He was with Adam in the cool of the day, like He was with Moses at the burning bush, like He was with Abraham whom He called His friends, like He was with Peter, James and John when He brought them on top of the mountain and was transfigured before them; so too, listen, He is with you today, right now.