Rabbi Schneider - Unity with God
We're continuing our journey today into the mystery of the Song of Songs. This is one of the most beautiful books in the entire Word of God. It was considered by the ancient rabbis to be the Holy of Holies of the Bible. Why would it be called the Holy of Holies of the Bible by the ancient sages? Because when you think about the Holy of Holies, which was first in the tabernacle and then in the temple, it was in the Holy of Holies that intimacy with God was most felt. And this book, the Song of Songs, reveals to us like no other book in the scriptures, the depth of the love that God feels for us in an emotional way. We're gonna take a dive into God's feelings for His people and the type of feelings He wants to elicit from us for Him.
I really want to encourage you to go back and watch the first two episodes in this series, because I laid a foundation I don't want you to miss. This teaching will change your life. I preached fifty episodes, five, zero, on this book years ago and I still have people writing me letters how it changed their life. So with that introduction, beloved, I'm gonna jump back in. I'm gonna pick up where I left off last week. We're going today to verse number 4. After the Shulamite bride, who's a shadow of you and I, cries out to God telling Him, "How much I want to feel You. How much I want to feel Your embrace. How I want to feel Your love". She says this. She prays next and she says this, "Draw me after You and let us run together"!
Listen once again. There are two prayers here. She said, "Draw me after You and let us run together"! First she says, "Kiss me with the kisses of Your mouth". And then she says, "Draw me after You and let us run together"! You're so beautiful to me, I want Your partnership so bad in my life. I want to walk with You. I want to know You as my best friend. I want to know You as my most intimate lover. I want to know You as the lover of my soul. I want to feel Your presence around my life. I don't want to do anything in life without You. I want to feel how near You are. I want to walk with You hand in hand. I want You to be more real to me then my brother, or my sister, or my mom, or my dad. God I want You more than anything else. And so she says, first of all, "Draw me". Listen. "Draw me after You".
Now I want you to compare this to what Jesus said in John chapter 6. In John chapter 6, Yeshua's speaking. He was talking about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. He was talking about being the bread of life that came down out of heaven. And most of the people that He was declaring these things to, said, "Who can listen to this? This is a difficult statement". It really turned them off and they left. There was just a few that remained. And Jesus speaking to the ones that remain said, "No man can come to Me unless it's been granted by the Father". And He just said previous to that, "And no man can come to Me," listen, "No man can come to Me unless the Father draws him". So the Shulamite bride just got done crying out. "Draw me after you"! And Jesus said, "No man can come to Me unless the Father draws him".
So our ability to come to God, our ability to come into His bosom, our ability to experience His love; although there's a choice that we must make, it also is dependent, listen, on Him drawing us to Himself. You'll notice as I'm taking a break here for a second, beloved children of God, sometimes I'll say, "Listen". And there's been a few people over the years that have been offended. You don't need to say listen. But the reason I say listen, is because I'm about to say something that I really want you to get and I know sometimes after listening to somebody speak for twenty minutes and they're speaking and speaking, your mind can begin to drift. So to keep your mind from drifting, every now and then I'll say, "Listen". Because I really want you to catch this. I want you to consider with me this concept of us being dependent on the Lord to draw us to Himself.
Again, the Shulamite bride says, "I want You Father. I want to know You. I want to feel You. Draw me after You". She realized that it depended on God's supernatural intervention. It depended on the power of the Spirit. It depended on a life of supernatural influence in her life to bring her into God. She knew that there was that dependency, that unless God acted it wouldn't happen. And this is what Yeshua was accessing, "No man comes to me unless the Father draws him". So two points I want to make that are applicable and have practical application for your life. Number one, we should put our heart in a posture where we realize that we just can't come to God on our own. It takes His drawing for us to fully come. And so we need to be in that posture of humility, like her, "Draw me to Your self".
I would suggest and encourage you, pray this prayer. You know make it part of your prayer dialogue with God. Father draw me to You. Draw me to Yourself. Strengthen me that I would know You; because we're dependent on Him in order to know Him. Remember Yeshua said to Peter, "Who do they say that I am"? Peter said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah". But Jesus said, "Who do you say that I am"? And Peter said, "You are the Messiah. You're the anointed one. You're the Son of God". What was Jesus' response to that? "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven". In other words, Yeshua was telling Simon Peter, "Listen, the revelation that you have to know who I am, you didn't figure that out on your own". He said, "You're blessed, because My Father revealed that to you".
You see the only people that get revelation are the people that Father God gives it to. Jesus said, "All that have heard and learned from the Father come to Me". So I want to just help you to be in a place of posturing your life, where you realize how dependent we are on God for His grace to give us revelation and to draw us to Himself; because there's no other way in except He draws us and gives us revelation. But then there's another point I want to make here and that is this, although she says here, "Draw me after You". The other point I want us to understand, that's a paradox to this and counter balances this, is that we also must make the choice to come. On the one hand we're dependent on God's sovereignty to draw us, but on the other hand we must make a choice. You see that's what's unique about you and I.
Listen, the plants don't have free will. The mammals don't have free will. Birds don't have free will. Fish don't have free will. They don't have the ability in their mind to know the difference between right and wrong. They don't have the ability to think like you and I do, that we're created in God's image, to weigh the thoughts and to make a choice. You and I are uniquely created in God's image and one of the things, beloved one, that makes you unique is the fact that God has given you a free will unlike any other part of His creation. And this is also interesting to note. When you look at the first two chapters of Genesis, after everything that God did, as the story unfolds. It says, "It was good".
God saw you know the plants, it was good. God saw the animals. He said, "It was good". Everything God made in His account of creation, after He had made it, at the end of that part of His creation the Word of God says, "And it was good". The only time God doesn't say it was good was after He created man. Why? Because the other things that God created, they were complete. In other words, when God created the plants they were complete. It was done. When God created the animals it was complete. It was done. But when God created you and I, it wasn't complete. It only becomes complete as you and I use our free will to choose Him in order for us to become all that we can be.
And so there's this paradox that God created us and He has to draw us to Himself. But the other part of it is you and I have to choose what His desire is. And His desire is to have an intimate relationship with us that's beyond words to even explain it. But in order for that to happen we have to choose Him consistently, consciously, every day for the rest of our lives; using all of our kavanah, all of our focus for Him alone. And then we come to a place where we get to where God has called us to be and it is good. It's complete. It's finished. And so beloved ones, I want you to understand you and I in order to enter in to this relationship, that we're being called to, we have to choose.
The Bible says that the entire world exists in Him. The Bible tells us in the book of Acts, "That in Him we live and move and have our being". God upholds His entire creation by His power, the Word of God tells us. If He would stop upholding creation, everything would just instantly go into total chaos and be destroyed. He is upholding everything by His power. His entire creation is in Him. And yet even though you and I are in Him, there's a sense that there's a separateness between He and us, until we choose to become unified with Him. So we're in Him, because His entire creation is held in His power. His entire creation is in Him. You and I are in Him, but He's calling us into unity and union with Him and this only happens as you and I choose Him over the course of our life, because of our love for Him.
And this takes effort and it takes work and it takes sacrifice, it takes denying self. It takes making a decision based on what's right, rather than what we want to do. As we keep on choosing Him, we go from just being in Him, because everything is in Him and we come to a place where we're in Him in a whole new way. We become unified with Him. And so this is a deep mystery. It's important for us to understand that we're in God, but there's a separateness between God and us. He's calling us into complete unity. Even when we come into complete unity with Him, get this deep mystery, there's still a separateness in the sense, listen; I know this is a deep thing, in the sense that you and I are individuals. In other words, God is a person. He created you and I in His own image, with free will. And even though our destiny is to become one with Him at the marriage supper of the lamb, there's still gonna be a separateness between us. Not in the sense of separation and relationship, but in sense of that God is one person and He is unique and you and I are another person and we are also unique.
In other words, God can't have a love relationship with a robot. We're unique individuals with a will that are unique and there's that beauty of knowing that we have a unique personality. And because we're different, because God wanted us to be different so that there could be a real relationship. In other words, let's take a pause for a second. Would you want your spouse or your friend to be exactly like you? Would you want them to have the same emotional characteristic of you, so that every sentence that they said was exactly the way that you said it, with the same words and the same emotional tone, that they had no desires that were unique to them? No, you enjoy the fact that different people are different from you and you're able to you know because of those differences, appreciate it, enjoy each other. It's the same thing between God and us. He created us uniquely and He gets pleasure out of our uniqueness.
So, we'll always be separate in the sense that we're unique individuals and yet we become unified in our heart with Him, so that He's in us and we're in Him; as we choose Him and more and more forge and build that bond between us. Well, let's continue on. She's saying, "Draw me after you". She wants to come into His bosom. We just got done saying that in order for this unification to take place God has to draw us and we should recognize that. And then she continues on and she says at the last part of verse 4, chapter 1. She said, "And let us run together". "Draw me after You, bring me to Yourself". And she said, "And let us run together"! What does this mean when she says let us run together? She wanted, listen, to partner with her lover. She wanted to partner with the King. You and I want to partner with God. We want to partner with Hashem. We want to partner with Him in life and we want to partner with Him according to His mission.
She said, "Draw me to you". She wanted to come over to His team, right, to His side. She wanted to stand next to Him. Bring me to yourself. And she said, And let me partner with you in life. "Let us run together"! And so the second part of her prayer is, "I want to partner with You in Your mission in life". Let me ask you a question, Do you want to partner with Jesus' purpose in this world? You know Father sent Yeshua into this world and gave Him a mission, gave Him a purpose. And what God is desiring from His children is that we will come to Jesus, listen now, and we will partner with Him in His purpose. Jesus said, "As the Father sent me, so also now I send you". He wants us to partner with Him in His purpose.
The Shulamite bride said, "Let us run the race together". She wanted a partner with the King, with her bride, in His purpose in life. She wanted to be with Him and what He was doing. She wanted to be His partner, His team mate. And so Father God is calling you and I, which is expressed, by the heart of the Shulamite lover here. He wants you and I to have a heart that we want to share in His purpose in the world. You see, you can't separate, listen please, the love of God from doing the work of God. Once again, we can't separate loving God from doing His work in the world.
I think unfortunately some believers think that they love God just because they go to church and they raise their hands when the worship music is playing and they feel good inside and they really do feel love for God. And I think that somehow they've convinced themselves that you know, they're strong believers in this world, but they're not ever doing the work of God in the world. They're not being witnesses. Jesus said what? "You shall be My witnesses". They're not lights on a hill. Jesus said, "I want you to be like lights on a hill that people can see. They'll see what you stand for. They'll see your love for Me".
You see, you can't be a great witness for the Lord in the world without verbally naming the name of Jesus; because if you're just a good person, but don't ever mention Jesus name in public, people might just think you're a good, because you're a good person. You'll be drawing people to yourself possibly, rather than to Him. So you can't separate loving God from doing the work of God. She said, "Let us partner together. Let us run the race together". And we have an assignment in this world. The Lord said, "You are My witnesses, declares the Lord". Jesus said, "You shall receive power and be My witnesses". Jesus said, "I want you to do good deeds in My name, so that people will look up and give their life to the Father". At the end of Jesus' life in John chapter 17, Yeshua expressing His love to the Father. He talked about how much He loved the Father, how His heart was totally given to the Father. And then He said this, He said, "I have completed the work that You have given me to do".
So Jesus' love for the Father was connected to doing the work the Father gave Him to do. And it needs to be the same, church, with you and I. We can't just love the Father. We also have to do the work He gave us to do. We have to complete the mission. We've got a purpose in this world and our purpose in the world is the same purpose that we read about in the Song of Songs chapter 1 verse 4. Our purpose is two fold. Number one, she said, "Draw me after You". Our first purpose is to know Him, to know God, to experience God. Our second purpose is to make Him known. She said, "Draw me after You. I want to know You". And then she said, "Let me run the race with You". Now what's the race of God in the earth? Jesus said, "When the Gospel has been preached to the whole world, then the end shall come. You shall be My witnesses".
And so Father God today, we love You. We want to know You and we want to make You known. Father we ask You for mercy. We ask You to come upon us by the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. We ask You to circumcise our heart and separate us unto Yourself. Father give us the grace to give ourselves to You wholeheartedly and perfectly. Father let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart be pleasing to You. And Father God we want to bear fruit. We pray for power from the Holy Spirit to bear fruit for You on earth, that people would see Yeshua in us, that people would see the good works, Father God, of Jesus in us, coming forth from the world; that Your love would radiate from our lives. Father that we would have a compassion for people, that we would show the love of God to the world. Father we need You. We love You. Father, circumcise our hearts. Burn, Father God, within us by the fire of Your Spirit, that our hearts would be ablaze for You and for Your glory. In Yeshua's name, amen and amen.