Rabbi Schneider - How to Hear God
I left off last week by talking about the fact that sometimes sincere believers, those of us that really are hungry to walk with God, to know God, can be deceived if we're looking to experience Him and can be led by Him predominantly by what's happening in our circumstances and in the outer world, because Satan is also in the world. And Satan can do false signs, give you what you feel to be a confirmation from the Lord, when maybe it wasn't a confirmation from the Lord. Let me give you an example of what can happen if someone isn't paying attention to the inner witness of the Holy Spirit and is only being led by the circumstances. And perhaps some of you can relate to this example, because I've heard of this type of phenomenon happening many times.
I recently read the testimony of a man who had been working in the secular world for many years, but over the past several years he had sensed that the Father was supernaturally calling him, listen now, into full time ministry. He was reluctant to leave his secular job to go into full time ministry, because he was having a hard time trusting the Lord with his finances. He thought, "If I leave my secular job where I can depend on the income, to just walk into full time ministry not for sure knowing how my financial needs will be met, what's gonna happen to me"? So for several years he wasn't obedient. Eventually he surrendered to God's call in his life. He made the decision to leave his secular job and to follow Father God into full time ministry to preach the Gospel.
You know what happened to him? Within a week of making the decision to leave his secular job, they offered him a secular job offered him, listen, a significant promotion. He would have gone up in the company, would have made more money and he really struggled, because it was so attractive and he could have easily thought, "Well the Lord just spoke. God was giving His confirmation that he wants me to stay in this secular job". But instead of paying attention to what happened in the outer world and thinking it was a confirmation from God to stay in the secular job, he instead listened, listened to the inner supernatural witness of the Holy Spirit in his heart. He left the full time job, followed the Father into full time ministry and ended up having great impact in the earth for the Gospel and for the Lord Jesus.
You see you can't be being led only by what's happening in your circumstances, because what will happen if you do is that you're gonna be led astray by false signs and wonders, because the devil is also able to operate in the world. And he's able to do things to deceive even Jesus said, the elect. And so we're picking up now today talking about how important it is to get settled in the fact that Jesus lives inside us and to learn how to become sensitive to the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, I call it intuitive listening. You begin to pay attention to whether you're feeling peace about something, or it's not right and you realize that what you're feeling and what you're sensing and what you're discerning is often time correct. And I'm just saying often times correct, not because the Holy Spirit's ever incorrect, but because we're human and we see through the glass dimly. There's times that we can get it wrong, but when we pay attention to what we sense God doing on the inside, minding the peace. If we feel, "Yes, this feels right". Minding the check and saying, "This doesn't feel right".
Paying attention to what's going on in the inside as opposed to being overwhelmed with the outer circumstances. If we'll pay attention to the inner witness of the Holy Spirit we're gonna be able to successfully be led by the supernatural presence of God. John wrote us. He said, "The anointing that you have received is from the Holy One and it's not a lie". So the key then to coming into a greater revelation and a greater experience of the supernatural presence of God in our life is to get in touch with the mystery that Paul revealed to us in the book of Colossians, that Christ, or Messiah, listen now, is inside us. I've talked in previous broadcasts about some of the things that are happening in the world today that are keeping us from realizing this truth. What I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna show you some things that you can practice in your life that will bring you into a greater realization of the abiding presence of God's spirit in you.
What can you do to get in greater touch with this reality that Messiah, the hope of glory is living in you? What are some steps that you can take? Well number one beloved, I want to talk to you about coming out from the world. I'm reading now from the book of 2 Corinthians chapter number 6, verse 17. Hear the word of God. We read this, the Lord is speaking through Paul. He says, "Therefore, "Come out from their midst and be separate," says the Lord and do not touch what is unclean and I will welcome you". In other words, if we want to come into a greater reality of God's presence we have to come out of the world. We have to stop being so connected to what's on the outside. For some of you it's shopaholism, you're constantly going for the mall, looking to buy something. And you buy something and it gives you a little bit of a boost for a few hours, a few days, a few months, but pretty soon you feel just as empty as you were before you bought it.
For some of you it's Facebook, you know it's a proven fact that when we get a text, or when someone face messages us, there's something inside us that triggers a chemical that makes people feel good. So they get addicted to being stimulated by this connection to the social medias, whether it be Instagram, Facebook, texting, etc. People are so addicted today and this woman in our congregation just recently had a vision about this and she said she saw a person and what happened was that there were little antennas that came from this person's soul and began to connect to these things outside themselves, like Facebook, texting, Instagram. And pretty soon what happened is as they began to spend more and more time on these social media outlets, more and more antennas came out of their soul through their mind and connected them to these outer realities, these pseudo realities, these false realities.
And soon what was happening as she saw in the vision, was there was all these little antennas from this person's soul, that came out of their soul through their mind and they were connected to the Facebook, the Instagram, the texting, etc. etc. etc. And now this person no longer was conscious of what was going on in their own soul, where the movement of the Holy Spirit takes place, because the Holy Spirit dwells inside the soul that God created in His own image. And now what was happening instead of being conscious of that, they were instead connected by these antennas to the Facebook, the Instagram and the texting. It's like they became inhuman and this is what the world that we're living in is like today. They're being dehumanized, depersonalized, everyone is putting on a face and this type of behavior beloved, will keep us from being able to be sensitive to the supernatural presence of God in our life.
So if we're going to come into an experience where we can be led by the Spirit and experience His presence we're gonna have to as Paul told us, come out of the world. How do we come out of the world? We set boundaries in our life, okay? We don't sleep with the phone next to our head at night so that if somebody text us at three o'clock in the morning, we don't miss it God forbid. We don't wake up in the morning and the first thing that we do is run over to our phone to see who might have texted us. No, we come out from the world to become separated unto God. We put boundaries in our life. We can use technology. We use the internet. We can use Facebook to communicate with family and friends. We can use, but you know what? We don't let it master us. We come out of the world rather it said and we put boundaries around our life. I mean the most simple thing you can do is when you wake up in the morning don't look at your phone, spend time with God every single morning.
If you drink coffee, or tea, whatever, get your self a cup of tea, get yourself a cup of coffee and just go to the same place. Have a room in your home, or apartment that's kind of like your prayer room, the inner sanctuary, the inner chamber and spend time with God listening to sanctified worship music, reading His word, reading some devotional, reading some other book that's written by an inspired author of the Lord to bring you into the things of God. That you start the day by putting God first and that you don't constantly make yourself a slave to the world and to the things that are going on outside of you. You come out beloved, of the world. And this scripture by the way is spoken of it in very similar principle in the Hebrew Bible. We need to come out of the world beloved to spend time with Him.
Secondly, stop running. Stop running. Why does so many of us run to all these things in the world? Whether it's work, whether it's shopping, whether it's to all these relationships, whether it's that we always have to be talking to somebody, we can't stand being alone some of us. Why do we do this? Because often times we're running from an inner anxiety. We're running from ourselves. We're trying to cover up the anxiety we feel, the fear we feel, the confusion we feel, the lack of satisfaction we feel. We're trying to cover that up. We're trying to mask that with the things of the world. It's no different than what Adam and Eve did when they sinned. As soon as they sinned their relationship with God was cut off, suddenly they felt insecure, they felt empty, they felt confused, they felt afraid. What did they do? Rather than turning to God, instead what they did, listen, they tried to run from what they were feeling and they covered themselves up with the fig leaves.
I want to read you the story from the book of Bereshit, the book of Genesis chapter number 3. Hear the word of God. Genesis 3, verse 7 through 10. "Then the eyes of both of them were opened". This was right after they sinned. "And they knew that they were naked; and they sowed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings". They began to run from the Lord and then it says in verse 9, "Then the Lord called to the man and said to him, 'Where are you?' He said, 'I heard the sound of you in the garden,'" get it now, "'and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.'"
And so Adam and Eve's response to their feeling of being exposed, not being comfortable any longer in their own skin, because they were naked before, but they were totally comfortable. But now that they had sinned they were uncomfortable in their own sin, their own skin. Not sin, but skin. I guess they were uncomfortable in their own sin too. What did they do? They tried to deal with that by running, running away. They thought they could run away from it by going some place else. They tried to cover that feeling up with the fig leaves, just like you and I are doing today, not with fig leaves, but with television, with socialization, you know spending time running all over the place, always having to talk to somebody, all the things that I've named.
We're trying to cover it, but here's the problem, here's the problem, it won't work, because where ever you go there you are. You can't escape it that way. It's always gonna be with you. You're not gonna be able to get away from it. So we have to stop running and we have to, listen now, we have to beloved, turn back to God. Just like Adam and Eve basically did in some fashion when the Lord pursued them and they didn't fully turn back as you and I are able to today, but God revealed to them, "Your only way out is to face Me again".
Now turning back to God, we talked about coming out from the world, disconnecting. We talked about stop running and then we're gonna talk about the next step here, which is listen beloved one, being still. You see the Psalm tells us in Psalm number 46 verse 10, it says, "Be still and know that I am God". We have to still our soul. David said, "I have stilled my soul like a child at rest on his mamma's knee. I have stilled my soul completely". We have to still our soul. We have to quiet it. We have to stop running. We have stop covering things up. We have to just simply spend time sitting before God. It's uncomfortable. It takes discipline. It doesn't feel good, but it's the only way to be made whole. It's the only way Father is gonna be able to establish His foundation in us, because as long as we're running, as long as we're trying to cover up our nakedness with being busy we're never gonna be made whole.
We have to stop running and we have to be still and just sit before the Lord. In the ancient world they had to be still, because there wasn't so many things going on like there are today. David when he was a shepherd, he learned how to be led by the Holy Spirit, because he was just being still with the Lord.
The Lord spoke to me many years ago through a dream and in this dream I was in this little room, just a simple wooden room. There was nothing in the room at all. No pictures, nothing but a simple picnic table, a wooden chair on one side of the table, a wooden chair on the other side of the table and there was one open window that you could look outside. Very simple room, nothing in it but a table and two chairs. I'm sitting in the one chair and across the table from me is sitting somebody else. All I knew was that this person sitting across the table from me beloved one, was a familiar friend. I didn't know who he was. I couldn't see his face.
I just sensed in my heart whoever is sitting across the table from me is a familiar friend and I knew in the dream that I'd been sitting in this room alone, across from this man for a long time. And I was getting really antsy just sitting there. I was getting really antsy and anxious just being still. And I looked out the window and I saw that it was outside, it was beautiful and something in me was, I just want to get out of this room. I want to go outside and I want to do something. And as soon as I was about to get up out of the room in the dream and go outside to go do something, because I was getting so antsy just sitting there being still, across from this familiar friend. The Holy Spirit spoke to me and He said, "The person sitting across the table from you, this familiar friend it's My Son. It's Jesus. And if you would just continue being still and facing Him and not trying to run from what you're feeling by going outside to do something, if you would just practice being still before my Son and facing Him".
The Lord said to me, "You will be made whole". And beloved one, beloved child of God, I say the same thing to you right now. Everyone that's watching right now, or virtually everyone, wants to experience more of Father's supernatural presence in our life. We want to experience more of Jesus. We want to have a greater experience with the Holy Spirit, but it's not gonna just happen if we're constantly running to the things of the world. We have to come out of the world, choose to resist and flee from what is not of God. We have to sit before the Lord rather than running and be still. And if you and I will practice those disciplines, supernatural transformation will take place.
These truths that I'm sharing with you, I didn't just read about them in a book. I began to practice them over twenty years ago. And I want you to know beloved, the process is slow, it's painful and it takes a long time, but the things that I'm sharing with you are real, they're supernatural and they work. God wants to do something in your life beyond what you're experiencing right now, but in order for Him to complete the process you have to cooperate with the Spirit. Paul said, "Bodily discipline is profitable, but spiritual discipline is even more profitable," because it will bless you not only in the life to come, but now as well. Beloved let's pursue Him and do what we need to do.