Rabbi Schneider - The Veil: Overcoming Spiritual Warfare
Inside the Holy of Holies, you could actually hear God speak. This thick heavy curtain with no slice down the middle beloved, represents the thick, heavy presence of the enemy that we must press through and get beyond We're looking today beloved, at the veil in the tabernacle that separates the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies. Over the last several weeks, we've been in the Holy Place. We've looked at the furniture in the Holy Place, we've looked at the Golden Menorah, we've looked at the Table of Showbread, and we've looked at the Altar of Incense. Behind the Holy Place is the Holy of Holies, but between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies is a thick curtain. Some accounts beloved, tell us that this piece of, of material, this, this fabric that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies was so thick and so heavy that it took several men to be able to hang it.
I'm reading now from the Book of Exodus, chapter number 26; hear the Word of the Lord as I speak now in verse number 31 of this veil. The Lord says: And you shall make a veil of blue, and purple and scarlet material. And this veil in verse 32 was to be hung, and it was hung once again, between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. Now the Holy of Holies was so sacred that only the high priest could go into that sanctified place once a year. It was the most sanctified and holy place beloved, on earth. Because inside the Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant, and inside the Ark of the Covenant were the Ten Commandments or the ten words inscribed on the tablets of stone, listen now, written by the finger of God. You see the rest of the commandments that we read about in the Pentateuch or the Torah, the first five books of our Bible.
The rest of the commandments there, the Lord told Moses, and Moses wrote down, but the Ten Commandments, listen: God himself spoke them at Mount Sinai, and he himself wrote them by his own finger on the tablets of stone. These Ten Commandments beloved, are so holy that they have formed the bedrock of morality for western civilization, and every major religion in the world beloved, derives its moral code from these Ten Commandments written by the finger of God. So inside the Ark of the Covenant were these Ten Commandments. Over the Ark of the Covenant were the two golden cherubim, the statues of the angels, and between the two angels beloved, was the manifest presence of Yahweh. Yahweh himself dwelt in the Holy of Holies. And when the high priest would go in once a year to make atonement for the sins of Israel, the Bible says that the Lord would speak to him from the presence between the two cherubim.
So with that said beloved, between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies was this thick, heavy curtain. It's a mystery beloved, how the priests were able to get through the curtain, into the Holy of Holies, because there was slit down the center. And I believe that the reason that there was no slit down the center, and the reason that it's a mystery is because there's a prophetic shadow there of spiritual warfare. Remember, inside the Holy of Holies, you could actually hear God speak. And I believe that this thick, heavy curtain, the tradition tells us, took several people to hang, because it was so weighty. This curtain that there was no slit, that you could just walk in through it, this curtain that's a mystery how did the priest from the Holy Place into the Holy of Holies. How did he get around, did he go around the curtain.
I believe beloved, he didn't go around the curtain, but I believe according to some mystical traditions, that it was mystically transported through it. Now whether that in fact happened, I don't know, but I believe the shadow was there, that this thick heavy curtain with no slice down the middle beloved, represents spiritual warfare. It's the veil, the spiritual warfare, the thick, heavy presence of the enemy that we must press through and get beyond if we're to enter into the Holy of Holies where we experience the voice of God speaking to us in such incredible communion. You see there's a lot of believers today, they don't like to speak about spiritual warfare. Many believers, they love to talk about the Lord, but if you start bringing up anything about the devil; they just wanna turn the conversation off, they don't wanna hear anything about it. They think that demons are no problems for Christians.
I want you to know beloved, that really is like an ostrich sticking his head in the ground. The devil is real, and if we're gonna lay a hold of the Lord; we need to recognize that the devils real, learn how to do spiritual warfare and get through him, even as that priest needed to be translated through that thick heavy veil to get into the Holy of Holies. The Scripture is very clear about this; seven times in Revelation 2 and 3, Yeshua says he that overcomes, he that overcomes, he that overcomes will inherit these things and be granted to sit down with me on my throne Yeshua said, even as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.
Let me ask you a question. At the beginning of Yeshua's ministry as he was coming out of the Jordan River, what happened? Immediately the Bible says the heavens were opened, and the Father spoke, and said this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. And immediately after that in Matthew 4 and Luke 4, the Bible says that the Spirit of God led Yeshua into the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil beloved. And Yeshua was led into the wilderness to fast for forty days and forty nights, and do battle against the devil. And after finding defeating the devil, the Bible says the devil left, and Yeshua came out of the wilderness the Scripture says, in the power of the Spirit. Before Yeshua began his public ministry, he first had to defeat powers of darkness. I believe the Lord was strengthening him in the Spirit as he was learning how to do spiritual warfare against the devil.
See the Bible says that Yeshua grew in stature before both God and man; he kept increasing, because he wasn't born into this world with a microchip in his head, instantly knowing all there was to know, but God taught him and raised him up. And one of the things that God did before launching him in to the fullness of his ministry and the fullness of his calling, beloved was to equip him and cause him to defeat the devil in spiritual warfare. And so I believe once again that this thick veil separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, where the visible manifest presence of God dwells and the high priest literally saw the presence, and heard the Lord speaking to him; I believe this thick veil represents spiritual warfare.
You see, we can go into the Holy Place where there's the, the Spirit of God represented by the Golden Menorah, the Altar of Incense representing prayer, the Table of Showbread representing God's supernatural presence with us and the fact that he's always looking at us, that it was the bread of face, his love is always upon us. And we experience these things, but to get into the Holy of Holies in the spirit realm where we literally are experiencing the Lord in such incredible manifestation, we need to first beloved, overcome the devil and overcome the evil one, just like Yeshua did, there is no other way. That's where the Bible says that our fight is not against flesh and blood in the Book of Ephesians, but against principalities and powers of spiritual wickedness. And so the point is that the tabernacle is a pattern for intimacy with God, it teaches us how we can know God, and if we wanna go God in the fullest sense beloved, we can't stick our head in the ground and pretend the devil is not real.
The devil is real, and we need to begin to understand how he's attacking us beloved, that the thoughts that we have that we think are coming from people; they're not people, it's the enemy putting thoughts in our mind. We need to recognize the enemy, casting down every vain thought that exhausts itself above the knowledge of God overcoming fleshly addictions, which a lot of times beloved, are being empowered by Satan, and we need to learn beloved, how to keep from being distracted from the Lord, which again often times is the, is the enemy trying to distract us. We need to learn how to defeat the devil, and when we do beloved, God's gonna strengthen us and we're gonna begin to know him beloved, even as that high priest began to experience him as he was in hallelujah, the Holy of Holies.
Now the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant was, only once a year for the purpose of bringing in the blood on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, where he would pour that blood on the altar there for the forgiveness of the sins of the children of Israel. But get this: in Matthew chapter number 27, verse number 50 and 51, the Scripture says that when Yeshua died on the cross, and said it is finished; it says that veil that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, which the high priest could enter into only once a year, it says in Matthew 27:50 and 51 that when Yeshua breathed his last and said it's finished, that, that veil supernaturally, God supernaturally ripped it in two, thereby showing us and teaching us that now access is made into his presence, into the Holy of Holies, not just by the high priest who could only come once a year, but by everybody beloved, that has entered into a relationship with him through the blood of Yeshua HaMashiach. So the veil is now ripped asunder, we can enter in through our relationship in Messiah Yeshua.
Now this is also very, very interesting; the Talmud is a religious work, very, very important to the Jewish people today, and the Talmud records for us much of Jewish history. It records to us much about how to follow the Torah, and different sages, perspective on how to follow the Torah. And the Talmud records for us records for us that a generation or a, or a forty years before the destruction of the temple, which was in 70 AD, the Talmud actually records for us that this veil that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies was ripped in two. The point is it's not only just a New Testament, which is called in Hebrew, the Brit Chadashah tell us that the veil separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, ripped in two at Yeshua's death, but the Talmud itself, written by Jewish people that didn't believe that Jesus was the Messiah; they also recorded that the veil was ripped in two, hallelujah. They didn't know that they were pinning it at Yeshua's death, but that's exactly what happened.
And so the New Testament beloved, it's not just about spiritual principles, although it is, but it's real history. In fact as a side note, I remember of going to Israel a few times back, and we went to one particular site where they had found this stone by Pontius Pilate, that had Pontius Pilate's named inscribed. Then of course, most of you know Pontius Pilate was a ruler in Israel during the time of, of the New Testament writing, and archeologists, for years had like this mindset that you know, they were saying a lot of what's in the Bible isn't, its not real history, they were saying. It's just, it's just a fabrication. But what happened was over time they started finding more and more of what the Bible said was history, they've began to uncover different objects, and different stones with writing on it that reveal that the incidents recording in the Bible are real history.
And one of the things that the archeologists were, were disclaiming was the existence of this person called Pontius Pilate. They said you know what? We have no record of Pontius Pilate other than in the New Testament, therefore we're concluding that he's a fictitious character, but guess what? It wasn't too many years back, and they, I saw the stone in Israel the last time I was there, that the archeologists actually uncovered a stone with Pontius Pilate's inscription on it. The point is beloved, that when the Matthew tells us, when the gospel of Matthew tells us in Matthew 27:50 and 51, that the veil separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, supernaturally ripped apart at Yeshua's death; it's real history, hallelujah, and it really happened, because Yeshua is real. He's a real man, he's the God man that came, he lived, he died, and he rose again for you.
And through a relationship with him, you could be brought into intimacy with God so that God's Spirit is poured out into your life in the Book of Acts. That you'll be able to experience God in a real way, just like those disciples did in the books of Acts chapter 2. Now, now that we're through the veil beloved, or inside the Holy of Holies, we find the Ark of the Covenant. Now inside the Ark of the Covenant under the altar, there were three things: there was Aaron's rod that budded, we're gonna talk about that. There was a day's worth of manna, and there were, hallelujah, the Ten Commandments. So we're gonna talk about the Ark of the Covenant now and the contents, hallelujah that were inside the Ark of the Covenant.
Now we read about the Ark of the Covenant in the Book of Shemot or Exodus chapter number 25 verse number 10 through 22. I wanna begin by talking about Aaron's rod. Aaron's rod is described from us, for us in the Book of B Midbar it's called in Hebrew. We call it in English, Numbers. Aaron's rod is described in the Book of Numbers chapter 17 verse 10. Aaron's rod beloved, historically came about where there was this rebellion in Israel. And there was a group of people that began to rebel against Moses and his leadership. And they began to say who is this Moses that's making all the decisions? They said it's not right that Moses has so much power; we should have a part in this, we should be able to make some of these decisions. It's not right that Moses is allowed to lead us in everything.
And Moses fell on his face when this rebellion, this mutiny began to arise, this call for democracy in the kingdom of God. And Moses fell on his face before the Lord and said what should I do? And the Spirit of God instructed Moses that he was to cause, that he was to have the head of every family, every tribe get a rod. And they were to lay out the rods, each family, each tribe was to lay out their rod. And the Lord said the rod that I cause to bud and blossom, the rod that I cause to supernaturally bud; that's the one that is, are called to lead. So every Israelite tribe got a rod, Moses got his rod, and the next day beloved, Aaron's rod, Moses and Aaron together, Aaron's rod had supernaturally budded, and blossomed, and bore fruit, where as the rods of everybody else did not. God was teaching there beloved, the way that he leads.
The way that he leads beloved, is not through democracy. You see these rebels, they were, they were crying about Moses' leadership, because they wanted a part in it, they wanted to lead, they wanted to vote, they didn't think it was right that Moses was leading. And it was gonna result in chaos, because whenever you have two visions, you have division. And whenever you have multiple visions, you have chaos. That's why in the armed forces today, there's a strict line of authority; you don't talk back to the person with the higher rank. You don't begin to argue with him in front of the troops, because the army and the armed forces all over the world know that if you allow that to happen, you're gonna have chaos, and the forces will not be able to be mobilized and you'll have a very ineffective army if everybody's fighting over each other for leadership. So they have strict rank and strict order so that God, so that the purposes could be carried out.
And it's the same thing in the kingdom of God. When you have situations beloved, where people are all arguing as to whose leading, and one person wants it this way, and one person wants it this way, another person wants it this way; basically what happens is you end up accomplishing very little and there's much stress, much frustration and much chaos. And so God was teaching us here the way that he leads. He leads beloved, through divine order. You see divine order and divine authority is God's architecture. Even the tabernacle beloved, the way that God told all the tribes to camp around the tabernacle; God told every tribe to, to camp in a certain position. He told which tribe where to camp and he said now when you leave, I want this tribe to go out first, and behind this tribe I want this tribe, and then behind that tribe I want this tribe, and God had strict order. Because order in the universe beloved, is what holds things together.
And it's the same in the kingdom of God. When, when you have a ministry beloved, I think that the general principle of leadership is that God sets somebody in place, if it is indeed a God-origin ministry. I'm not talking about self-appointed leaders, I'm talking about those that God has really called, and basically he's entrusted the leadership to that person. I don't believe the church is supposed to be led through democracy; I don't think everybody should be voting on what color the carpets should be, and what programs. I think God sets a leader in place and that leader become accountable to him, and our responsibility is to pray for that leader; that God will give that person wisdom and revelation, and also know that if that leader gets out of line, that God will discipline him or judge him.
And so divine order; if we're gonna be led by the Lord, we're gonna need to learn beloved, how to function in authority. It's interesting that Yeshua said, when he was talking about faith, and somebody came to him and said you know, you know, I'm, I say heal this person, you know come, I need you to heal this person. And, and Yeshua began to come to heal the person, and the man said no, you don't need to come the man said, just speak the Word and they'll be healed. Because I, myself am a man of authority and I have, there's people in authority that are under me. And what was happening is he recognized the authority that Yeshua had. He said you don't need to come, just speak the Word, I recognize your authority, because I'm under authority, and I, and I have people that are, that are under my authority. And it's interesting that because this man understood authority, Yeshua's response to this person was: never have I found such great faith in Israel.
You see, to the degree that you can trust God to work through those that are in authority; to that degree beloved, you have faith. It's only when we lack faith in God that we think we always have to be in control of every situation. But to the degree that we can trust God to work through his established authorities on earth; it's to that degree beloved, that we're operating in faith. Remember when Yeshua was before Pontius Pilate; Pilate says don't you know that I have the power to crucify you? Remember what Yeshua said: you would have no authority over me, unless it had been granted from above. And the Book of Romans tells us that we should learn how to submit to authority, because there's no authority in place on earth; I'm talking about human delegated authorities. The Scripture says there's no authority on earth that hasn't been established by God.
So we need to learn beloved, how to walk under authority. I'm not talking about if someone tells you to do something immoral or sin, but I'm talking about the general principle of recognizing authority, respecting authority, not because we're respecting a human being, but because we recognize that God is authority, that his kingdom is a kingdom of authority, and it shows great faith to believe that he's working in the world through authority. And the Scripture tells us not only to submit to those that are kind and believing, but even to the unreasonable, for this pleases God. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, and he will exalt you in due time.
So I believe that one of the keys to entering into the depth of depths of God's holiness is to trust him enough beloved, that we're willing to submit to authority, not as unto men, hallelujah, but as unto God. And this is very serious; many of us are very sensitive about sin, but we don't have any sensitivity beloved, towards authority; for example you think about Noah. Remember Noah got drunk? That was wrong, he was so drunk, he was inebriated. But remember two of his sons respected his authority as their father, as they carefully went back and covered up their father's nakedness, so as not to expose him. But another one of his sons exposed his father's nakedness.
And you know what's interesting? Is that the Lord never rebuked Noah in Scripture for being drunk, but he did rebuke the son, and judge the son that had no respect for his father's authority. The same was true when Moses married the Midianite. Remember, Aaron and, and Miriam began to complain, and God struck em with leprosy. It probably wasn't right that Moses married the Midianite, but the Lord was more upset with Aaron and Miriam for not respecting God's authority on Moses, than he was with Moses. So we need to learn beloved, how to respect God's authority on the earth if we're gonna truly come under his lordship, come under obedience and experience the glory and the covering of Yeshua HaMashiach in our life.