Rabbi Schneider - Tune in to God

Now let's consider the book of Acts 2, where we find the episode of the Spirit of the Lord first given to the church. Many of us know the story. A hundred and twenty first believers in Yeshua were gathered together, celebrating the day of Shavuot or Pentecost. They were recalling how about 1,500 years earlier the Lord had revealed Himself to them on top of Mount Sinai by appearing in fire on top of the mountain and then writing His law on the tablets of stone. And as they were thinking about this...and the reason that we're thinking about it is because they were celebrating Shavuot, which is the Hebrew way of saying Pentecost. According to the tradition of the ancient sages, it was on this day of Shavuot or Pentecost that the Lord appeared on top of Mount Sinai in fire during the Mosaic Covenant, and He wrote His law for the children of Israel on the tablets of stone.

And Moses was on top of the mountain for 40 days receiving all the laws and commandments that Yahweh the God of Israel was bringing His covenant people into a relationship with Him through. So as they were sitting in the upper room in Acts 2, celebrating Shavuot or Pentecost, they were recalling, once again, how Yahweh the God of Israel had appeared to them on top of Mount Sinai in fire, how it thundered on top of the mountain representing His voice and His power. And how He communicated to them by writing His law on the tablets of stone. As they were recalling that sitting there in the upper room, because again, it was Shavuot and that's what they would have thought of on Shavuot, suddenly, as they're sitting there recalling what God had done in their history in the ancient past, now, the same Father that they had been contemplating about in terms of His working through Israel's history in the ancient times, suddenly, the living Yahweh, the living God now appears to them afresh, anew, and again, right there in the upper room.

Except this time, He appears as a tongue of fire. And not just one tongue of fire. But the scripture says that over each one, over every one of the 120 individuals that were sitting there, an individual tongue of fire appeared above their heads. Then this living tongue filled with esh, filled with fire came through them and filled each one of the individuals. They had received the Ruach HaKodesh. And when they received the Spirit, they begin to speak, they begin to prophesy the good news of Jesus in languages that they had never heard. Because there were people that were gathered there for Pentecost, witnessing what was going on, they spoke many, many different languages and in order that the gospel could be proclaimed in such a way that everybody could understand, in their native tongue, a supernatural unction, a supernatural utterance was given to each one of those 120 that had received the tongue of fire to be able to supernaturally proclaim the good news of Messiah Yeshua in the languages of all the people that were gathered there so everybody could hear it.

In other words, to give you an example, if I did not speak Chinese, God would give me a supernatural ability to speak Chinese just for a moment when I was witnessing to a Chinese person so the Chinese person would be able to hear the gospel. That conceptually is what happened. But that's not the main point that I'm wanting to make with you. I'm just describing historically what happened. What I'm really driving for is for us to consider in a more profound and in a deeper way the fact that the Holy Spirit appeared to the church in Acts 2 when He was given to us as, listen, a living tongue. Now, many of us know this, we've heard this, but I don't know if we've given it enough consideration in the sense that have we ever really pondered why the Spirit chose to manifest Himself to the church as a tongue? I mean, He had appeared over Yeshua. When Jesus came out of the Jordan River, He appeared as what? As a dove. He appeared in other times as a rainbow.

For example, Ezekiel saw the Son of man in his vision surrounded by a rainbow of light. The Spirit of the Lord had appeared in different forms throughout history. But now when He was given to the church, He chose to manifest Himself, listen, as a tongue. Now, what does that mean? It means a great deal, right? What is a tongue? A tongue is a speaking oracle. If someone does not have a tongue, they cannot speak. The ability that we have to speak in terms of that which is able to create the noise comes through our tongue. So what was being communicated, beloved ones, to us, when God gave us His spirit in Acts 2, what He was communicating to us, listen, is that He will speak to us, that He will speak to us. He is a speaking God. By nature, God is a communicator and He speaks. So knowing that God is a speaking God, and in fact, when He gave us His spirit, the first thing that we realize is that He has come as a tongue that we are going to hear Him speak, knowing this should cause our senses to be very attuned and very aware that God is speaking so that we're always in our life looking around and wondering, "What may He be saying to me"? Because God is always communicating.

In fact, in the same episode in Acts 2, when these first believers were filled with this living tongue of fire, and it was so powerful, it appeared they couldn't keep their balance because it was so overwhelming for them, even physically the power of it. Others were looking at on and say, "What is going on? These guys look drunk". And Peter stood up-many of us know the story-and he said, "These men are not drunk". He said, "What you are witnessing is what was prophesied by the ancient Hebrew prophet Joel," in Joel 2, when Joe declared, "Behold in the last day, sayeth the Lord, I will pour forth my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy".

In order to prophesy you have to speak, right? There's that tongue, that living tongue of fire in Acts 2. Peter said, "What you're seeing is what was prophesied in Joel, that when the Spirit is poured out, you'll be able to speak". Why will they be able to speak? Because they're speaking by the living Spirit of God that is speaking through them, "Your sons and daughters will prophesy," so that you and I today can speak by inspiration of the Holy Spirit because the living God within us is speaking inside us.

Number two, Peter said, "Your old men will dream dreams". This speaks of God once again speaking to us. While we're asleep at night, we have a dream. God speaks to us in that sleeping state. When we're between two worlds, between the physical and the spiritual world as we sleep, God often chooses to speak to us in a dream, in that state because we're more receptive to the Spirit.

And then thirdly, Peter said what was happening in Acts 2 is that as a result of these first 120 believers receiving the Spirit, which had now been poured out upon the whole church, he said, "We would see visions". To see a vision also involves God speaking to us and us intuiting what He, listen now, is saying, because He has spoken to us through a vision-we see something in the spirit. I have a whole series on prophecy, dreams, and visions if you're interested in this topic. I don't want to get too far off tangent right now. But I go into great detail about what it means to dream dreams, how to interpret dreams. In fact, we have a book on prophecy, dreams, and visions focusing on dreams. "The Mystery of Dreams" it's called. As I like to refer you to it if you have interest.

I recently was really encouraged with the Lord through an experience in which He spoke to me that I wanted to share with you in hopes it might lift you up to be paying more attention as to how God may be speaking to you in your life. So God speaks to us. We've already examined that. That's why the Spirit was given to us as a tongue in Acts 2 to communicate God is a speaking God. He is speaking to us now through His Spirit, those of us that has received Him. He speaks through prophecy, dreams, and visions. We've talked about that. He predominantly speaks through the written Word of God. He also speaks, beloved ones, through circumstances. We need to be paying attention to our circumstances, because Father will oftentimes reveal Himself to us through circumstances somebody we run into, etc.

So what happened was I have a friend who was in the congregation that I used to shepherd in Toledo, Ohio, and he was sitting in a prayer room there. There's a 24/7 prayer room that we have in the facility there. It's been going now for over 12 years. Night and day, 24/7 someone's been in the prayer room. As this friend of mine was in the prayer room, he was reading from the book of Isaiah. And as he was reading, suddenly, a scripture popped out at him from the book of Isaiah. The Scripture is "Those that wait upon the Lord shall rise up like an eagle with wings, and they will run like youth and not grow weary". He said that when he read that scripture, suddenly it popped out to him and he felt like the Lord was saying to him, "I want you to call and share that Scripture with Rabbi". And he wasn't quite sure whether that was the Lord or not. Then he's thinking about should he call me about this or not? And suddenly, while he's sitting there thinking, "Was this really the Lord telling me to call Rabbi about the scripture 'they that wait upon the Lord shall rise up like an eagle with wings?'"

Suddenly, as he thinking about whether he should step out in faith and call me, because he's never done that before, giving me a prophetic word, a woman walks in the prayer room. Her name is Diane Schneider, same last name as mine and she's wearing a T-shirt with an eagle on it. So when he saw this woman walking in with an eagle on her T-shirt with my last name he knew. So he reached out to me and told me about the Scripture. So I was encouraged by it and I was thankful for it. But it was kind of general. Many of us have heard that scripture before. Some of you may have gotten a card with that scripture on it. Some of you may have even gotten a plaque with that scripture on it or a picture that you're hanging on the wall. I mean, it's a pretty well-known scripture.

So I was encouraged by it, but it was kind of like general. So it didn't like put me over the moon, so to speak. But get what happened next. A few days after he calls me and gives me this scripture and I write it down in my journal, you know, so and so called me up and they said the Lord had encouraged them to share this Scripture with me, and Diane Schneider walked in the prayer room right at that time with an eagle on her shirt. So I wrote it down. A few days later. I look out my back window at home, and lo and behold, the first time I've ever seen this in my life, a literal bald eagle was sitting on a tree stump right in my back yard as clear as day. I mean, I saw the eagle's head. I saw the eagle's tail, the white head, the white tail. I saw the eagle fly away. I was blown away. So I just wanted to share that with you today because our God, beloved ones, is a living God. He's at work in your life as you're seeking Him and He will continue to work on our lives even into eternity. Let's be paying attention.

So, Father God, we ask you to wake us up today. You said he that has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Father, open our ears to hear, we pray. We don't want to miss a word that you're saying to us. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Today, beloved ones, as we get back into the Word of God, we are continuing our study on messianic prophecy. We are now in Season 5 of Messianic prophecy. This is Episode 1 of Season 5. Last time, at the end of last season I was talking about, from the book of Malachi, that the Lord told us that before Messiah came, He would send a messenger to prepare the way. When Yeshua came to earth, some came up to Him and said, "You can't be the Messiah because the book of Malachi said that before Messiah comes, Elijah the messenger would come first". And Yeshua said, "You missed it. Elijah did come. Elijah did come in the person of John the Baptist". So Yeshua said, "John is Elijah, if you can receive him". So you can go back and get Season 4. I talked about that in the last episode of Season 4.

I'm continuing on today with another huge prophecy that was given to the Hebrew people for the whole world in the Tanakh or in the Old Testament. I'm reading now from the book of Isaiah 61:1 speaking of the Messiah and what he would do. Hear the Word of God. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of God abides forever. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners". So here we find the actual nuts and bolts of the type of heart and ministry that Messiah would have.

Now, what is important about this? What am I asking you to consider? I'm asking you to, first of all, consider the fact that many people when they think about God, they think of Him as so omnipotent, all-powerful, omniscient, all-knowing, the beginning and the end, the eternal one, the limitless one. They think of Him as so big and so cosmic, and so holy and so other than that they lose fact of the point that God is also the most tender, humble, caring, loving person in all of His creation. God cares. Yes, He is all-powerful, He is all-knowing, He does judge sin, He is going to exterminate evil. But beyond that, beloved, He's loving. And the reason He came into the world in the person of Yeshua was to heal us. So listen what Isaiah said again. He's speaking on behalf of the Lord. He's speaking in the first person of Messiah. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted and to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners".

Where do we see this fulfilled in the Brit Chadasha, in the New Testament, word for word almost? We see it, beloved, in the book of Luke 4. I'll begin reading here in verse 14. "And Yeshua, Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread throughout the surrounding district. And He began teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all. And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written". And now I'm going to quote, beloved, from where I just read Isaiah 61:1. Jesus gets in the synagogue as was His custom, He opens up the portion of the Haftarah, the Torah reading, and what does He do? He opens it up to Isaiah 61:1 and He ascribes it to Himself. "He opened the book and found the place where it was written, the Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. And then He closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon Him. And He began to say to them, 'Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'"

I want you to know, beloved ones, the study of Scripture and the readings of Scriptures about the Messiah or Yeshua it's not just an academic thing. He's a living person that wants to set you and I free. He came to deliver those that were oppressed. He came to bring recovery to us. Supernatural recovery. I speak over you right now, beloved one, supernatural recovering over your soul. Whatever in your heart has been broken, maybe it's a relationship that broke your soul, maybe it was being raised by parents that weren't whole, maybe something else happened to you along life's journey that just stole your confidence, and you're walking around now broken and depressed. I declare over you right now, in the name of Yeshua the Messiah, supernatural recovery and deliverance from oppression. Jesus is here. He's here for you today. He's alive now. And Beloved, as we open our hearts, we will recover in Him.