Rabbi Schneider - Learn How to Identify Signs from God
Boy there's nothing that satisfies like the presence of God. David said in the Psalm, he said, "One thing have I desired of Thee to be in Your house and to behold Your beauty all the days of my life". David craved more than anything else, a sense of God's supernatural presence in his life. You know he wrote, "As the deer pants for the water, so my soul pants for Thee O God". And so he's talking about really experiencing God and that's what I'm about, that's what many of you are about. And so in this series we're talking about some of the dynamics of how we can enter in to a greater sense of God's reality in our life. We need the written word of God. The written word of God is living and active. It's the foundation of our faith, but God also has given us His spirit. And by His spirit He makes Himself known to us, so that we can experience God's presence in our life just like those people that we read about in the written word, in the scriptures.
Now I really encourage you if you were not able to watch the previous broadcast on this series to get this series. The information to get it will be available at the end of the broadcast today. In the first several episodes I shared with you a little bit about my own journey, how I came to faith supernaturally, my quest for the supernatural. Some of the challenges that I ran into as I longed to experience more of God's presence in my life. And I left off last week by talking about the fact that often times we're searching for the Lord in the things that we do, in our works, but God has revealed in His word and He's spoken to me. He said, "I am all ready in you". And so the first foundation of walking in a greater sense of God's supernatural reality in your life is to know beloved one, if you're a child of His, that He's in you. You've received the Holy Spirit and when you received God's Spirit you became a partaker of divine nature.
You remember I shared with you last time that spirit is by definition supernatural, because spirit operates above the laws of the natural. You became a partaker of God's spirit, that makes you supernatural. You've got a calling and a destiny that's so far beyond this material world, that there's not even words to describe it. So once again, last week I left off by talking about the fact that as I got to the end of my searching, looking for God here, looking for God there, looking for God everywhere, running to this place, running to this place, the Holy Spirit when I came to the end of that, He said to me, "You're looking for Me in the wrong place. I'm already in you". And I quoted Jesus' words from the book of Luke, chapter 17 verse 21, when he said, "The kingdom of God is within you".
So I'm picking up now into a new territory and I want to say to you that this concept of being brought into a supernatural walk with God through His indwelling spirit was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, that which we often times call the Old Testament. In Jeremiah and Ezekiel the Lord spoke about a new covenant. I want to read for you now from the book of Ezekiel, chapter number 36 verse 27. Hear the word of God. The Lord is speaking here to the prophet and He says, "I will put My spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and you will be careful to observe My ordinances". So the Lord was saying to Ezekiel that the time was gonna come when He was gonna move from the outside, when He wrote His law on the tablets of stone, to the inside where He would put His spirit inside His people. And they would by the indwelling power and presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives, learn how to be led by Him, learn how to follow Him.
Paul tells us in Romans, "Those that are led by the spirit of God, these are the sons of God". It's now a supernatural walk that does not begin any longer with the outside, not by going to the temple like the ancient Israelites did, but by being led by the supernatural indwelling Holy Spirit. I want you to get a supernatural mindset. Listen to what Paul said in the book of Colossians chapter 1 verse 25 through 27. He said, "Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit. That I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God. That is the mystery," get this now, "the mystery which has been hidden from past ages and generation, but has now been manifested to His saints". Then he continues on and he says, "This is the mystery," listen now, "Christ in you, the hope of glory". This mystery had been hidden, but in Messiah Jesus it had been fulfilled. That's why at Passover Jesus took the blood and He said, "This is the blood of the new covenant".
What was the new covenant? It symbolized two things. Number one, the final atonement was being made that Jesus once and for all was gonna die for the sin of the world. That would be the end of all animal sacrifices. Secondly, that God has moved from the outside, no longer dwelling in the temple, but now dwelling inside human beings whom He created to be the habitation of His own heart and spirit. Final atonement has been made and God has moved now from the outside to the inside. He dwells within you and I. So if God dwells in you, where are you gonna find Him? You're gonna find Him beloved, when you get in touch with His spirit inside you. It's a mystery. It needs to be revealed. We need to pray about it. Paul prayed that we would come into a revelation of it, that we would understand this mystery. And if you'll continue to ask God as I have, to help you become more aware of His indwelling Holy Spirit, you will beloved, gain revelation and find yourself being more and more led by His spirit in your life.
When Jesus died on the cross, we read in the book of Matthew chapter 27 that the veil in the temple that separated the place where God dwelt in the Holy of Holies, from the Holy place. That veil was torn in half, meaning that mankind now had access into God's very presence. I want to encourage you to believe God for more. Some of you today may have only been focused on Bible study without realizing that the same things that God has done for the people that we read about in the scriptures, He's now doing today for His people. You too can experience the supernatural reality of God's presence beloved one, in your life. We need to become more dependent on the Holy Spirit. If we think about the tabernacle for example, the tabernacle was a shadow of how to worship God. And what we find that as the priest entered into the holy place in the tabernacle the first thing that the priest became aware of was the light from the golden menorah. The golden menorah had seven different candles coming from it and we read that the seven candles were reflective of God's spirit.
In Revelation chapter 1 verse 4 John is greeted and the greeting in Revelation 1:4 to John that's recorded says this, "From Him who is, from Him who was and from Him who is to come". Now get it now, "and from the seven spirits". How many? "Seven spirits that are before the throne". Seven represents completion, perfection. The spirits beloved that are before the throne were reflected in the tabernacle by the seven flames that came from the menorah. And what is the menorah reflective of? God's Holy Spirit. Not seven separate spirits, but seven means one. Seven days in a week complete. The seven flames of the menorah were symbolic of God's Holy Spirit. The first thing that the priest became aware of as he entered the holy place in the tabernacle, was the menorah. The first thing he became aware of was, listen, God's Spirit. You and I need to become more dependent and more conscious of God's presence in our life, of His Spirit, but we're so focused on the outside.
As I said last week, we're so focused on what's outside us, how we look to other people, how our Facebook looks. You know we go on vacation, we're more focused on taking pictures to show people then we are of actually experiencing the vacation for our self. I asked somebody, "Was it fun"? The guy said, "I think it was. At least the pictures look like it was fun". We're so looking at life from the outside, so focused on how we appear to the world that we've lost conscious of what's going on inside us, everybody knows this. All we need to do is go to a restaurant and look around the restaurant and notice that a third of the people in the restaurant are sitting across from somebody, but instead of dialoguing with the person across from them they're on their phone, their smartphone texting, on their Facebook. They're connected to something outside themselves instead of what's right here, what's right now and what's inside us and it is deadly. This is deadly. To be connected to the world rather than the indwelling Holy Spirit is deadly.
The Bible says that the number of the beast is 666, do you know that the first mainstream personal computer and this is a fact, sold for $666. I believe that the devil is using technology to draw people out of their soul where God's presence dwells, into the darkness, because the Bible says, "All that's in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but from the world". Satan is using this technology to draw people out of themselves into the darkness and in so doing they're losing consciousness of who they are. They're now out of touch with their soul. They're out of touch with God's spirit in them and now they're subjected to what's ever going on in the outer world and let me tell you beloved, there's a lot of danger to dwell in the outer world.
Many people are hungry for supernatural, but they're looking for the supernatural in the outer world. Whether they're going to fortune tellers, whether they're looking for it in other types of false religions, or whether they're people that consider themselves Christians that are being misled by false signs in the outer world and because they're not grounded in God's written word and in the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, because they lost touch with themselves, because they're so connected to everything outside themselves. They're totally at the mercy of the signs outside them. Let me tell you, you can be deceived if you're being led only by signs from the outer world.
I can't tell you pastoring a church, I pastor a congregation, how many people, sincere believers, come to me believing all types of things about what's gonna happen to them, because they feel like they got a confirmation. They got a sign. Somebody wrote them a note, somebody said something, they crossed somebody on the road, they ran into somebody in a restaurant and they're looking at all these things as supernatural signs. I find so often times that generally they fall on their face. They were being led by something that wasn't in fact from God. Jesus prophesied that there'd be a lot of demonic activity concerning false signs in the outer world. For example, in the book of Matthew chapter 24 verse 24 we read, "False christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead if possible even the elect". Where will these false signs and false wonders happen? In the outer world. In the visible world. In the natural world. And why will they happen? To mislead, even Jesus said, "The elect".
We read something similar in Paul's writings in the book of II Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 9. Paul writes there, "That one who is coming is in accord with the activity of Satan," get it now, "with all power and signs". Hear me, he said, "And false wonders". So my point to you beloved ones, children of God, is we need to be careful about just being led by what we think are confirmations, or signs that happen in the outer world, because Satan is also working in the outer world. But one place Satan can not work beloved, is in the inner recesses of the heart of the child of God. That's why we need to learn to be sensitive to the indwelling Holy Spirit, because we're led predominantly not from what's happening on the outside, but from what is happening on the inside. Many of us are hungry for the supernatural, but some of you have been running all over the place looking for the supernatural and you're connected to God's supernatural power only by what's happening in the visible world.
But Jesus said again in Luke 17:21, "Someone's gonna say, 'lo go there, lo go there.' Jesus said, 'No don't go running all over the place. The kingdom of heaven is within you'". Again I've seen so many people say, "You know what? This confirmation happened to me. You know I was listening to the radio and I heard this thing about what I've been thinking about. I know God was confirming what I was thinking about, because I heard about it on the radio right at the time that I was thinking about it," or they're driving down the road and they're thinking of somebody.
For example, my last name is Schneider. Let's say there's a girl out there and she's in love with some boy who's last name's Schneider and she's driving down the freeway thinking about this boy and all of a sudden she passes a truck that says Schneider. Did you ever see the Schneider Trucking Company? And she said, "Oh that's a sign I'm supposed to marry him. I'm supposed to leave my husband and I'm supposed to marry". No, Satan also works beloved, in the outer world. Listen, I want to tell you how in bondage I was to needing something to happen in the outer world to discern God's voice, because basically when it comes to my walk in the world I want assurance that everything that I'm doing, everything that I'm saying, all my actions are right. But unfortunately God is not telling me what pair of socks to wear in the morning.
You know God's not telling me necessarily you know to go here, or to make this phone call. A lot of these things we just have to look to the Lord, do the best we can, try to be led by the indwelling Holy Spirit, checking in our heart whether it feels right and going forward. But some of us are so insecure that we want God to directly speak to us about every little decision that we make, so we're constantly looking for the confirmations. Let me tell you how bad I was. I'm going back now about twenty years ago. I took a quarter and I've got right here the quarter and this quarter on one side of it I wrote God. I don't know if you can see that. And on the other side was just blank. I took the quarter and put white paper around it, wrote on one side, on the white paper, God. On the other side I left it blank. I put this quarter in my pocket. I'm carrying it around with me and every time there's a decision to make, I'm taking the quarter. I'm flipping it and if it lands with God side on top that means, "Yes God you want me to do that. Yes God you want me to go there. Yes God you want me to buy that. Yes God you want me to say that".
But if it landed with the side that didn't have God's name on it then I thought, "No, God's telling me no". So that's how I was making my decisions. I so much wanted to hear from God. I so much wanted to do what was right. I so much wanted to have the confidence that I was doing what was right before God, that I took this coin, flipped it and you know God whatever it lands on, if it lands with Your head on it that means I'm supposed to. If not, I'm not supposed to. I began flipping this coin so often, there'd be times I flipped the coin beloved, I'd forget what I even flipped it about. I was in bondage to it. And the Lord you know convicted me. "This is not Me. I'm not a magic genie. I'm not obligated to answer you by the flipping of a coin".
God shows up and speaks when He wants to, how He wants to and where He wants to. So I had to abandon this bondage. I had to settle with the fact, "You know what Lord? You're not gonna necessarily answer me with the type of divine assurance that I want about every minor decision in my life". "Should I take a shower now God"? Is God gonna say to me, "Yes, take a shower now". Is He gonna say, "No, in ten minutes". I mean you know that's not how it is, but I was so insecure that I wanted to know every single thing to do, twenty four hours a day and I wanted that confirmation that I was walking in His perfect will. But eventually the Lord said, "No, that's not how you're gonna find out how to walk with me. You gotta get rid, stop flipping the coin and just trust Me, look to Me". And God is going to speak to us when He needs to speak to us, or when it's important for Him to speak to us and He's gonna do it beloved, in His own way in His own time. Beloved, the point is you can trust God. He's gonna be faithful to lead you. Rest in Him. Trust in Him and continue to look for Him.