Rabbi Schneider - The Hidden Cost of Comfort

TOPICS: Mysteries of the Song of Songs Season 3

If we say no to the Lord in just one area of our life, it breaks fellowship with Him. And I don't think I ever received so much feedback from our viewers, in terms of lives that were transformed, as I did when I taught on the Song of Songs. So there's real transforming revelation that can change our lives and bring us into deeper intimacy with HaShem though Yeshua As we receive His word, as it's taught in this book.

Now let's continue right where we left off last week. I'm going to verse number 10 of chapter two, "My beloved responded and said to me, 'Arise, my darling, my beautiful one.'" Now what is happening here is that the Shulamite bride, who's a shadow of you and I, she's saying, "My beloved God, Yeshua, responded to me. And he said, 'Arise my darling, my beautiful one. And come along. For behold, the winter is past. The rain is over. The flowers have already appeared in the land, the time has arrived for the pruning of the vines.'" And he goes on in verse 13, "The fig tree has ripened its figs. The vine is in blossom and it's given forth their fragrance. Arise, my darling, my beautiful one and come along".

So what is taking place here? I know that if you're hearing this for the first time, you're kind of wondering, "What is going on here? What is Rabbi Schneider talking about? What's he getting at"? So because this is an extended series and I'm picking up in the middle, I need to put that portion that I just read in context. The Shulamite bride had just seen Yeshua leaping on the mountains in verse number eight of chapter two. He was leaping from mountain top to mountain top. He's looking at her, she's in the valley. And now he says to her, "Arise my darling, and come along. The winter has passed, it's time for you to come along. The vine has blossom, they're giving forth their fragrance. Arise my darling, my beautiful one, and come along".

So let's put this in context. Let's take a couple steps back. The Shulamite bride started out in chapter one with Yeshua coming to her and bringing her into His presence, bringing her in to the banquet hall. It starts with a love encounter. She said, "The king has brought me in to His chambers". This is the most intimate language that one could imagine. She had encountered the fullness of Jesus's love. And then she was just basking in His shade, she went on to say. So this was again, like the early days of many of our salvation experience, where we just felt so embraced by God's love. And she had remained in that state of just experiencing God's goodness for some time, as I said last week.

But now, beloved one, things are about to dramatically shift. She sees Jesus on the mountain and now Jesus says to her, "My darling, come on now, get up and come along. Arise, my darling," in verse 10 of chapter two, "Get up. Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come along. It's time for you to leave where you're at. You've received enough strength in my love. You've received enough healing. It's time for you now to come out of the valley, to come out from under my shade, to come out from just laying in the beautiful presence of my atmosphere, it's time for you to get up and conquer". Because remember she sees Yeshua, he's on the mountain.

So if you think about going up a mountain, you've got to conquer something. That's why people that are mountain climbers, they have to conquer the mountain. He repeats it, "The fig tree is ripe in its figs. The vine is in blossom, it's given forth the fragrance. Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come along". Unfortunately she is not quite ready in her flesh to come out from her comfort zone. She's not ready to conquer the mountain. She wants to stay put. She wants to just bask in His presence. She doesn't want to conquer anything. She doesn't want to conquer her fears. She doesn't want to conquer her insecurity. She doesn't want to try something new. She doesn't want to step out in faith. She just wants to stay in His presence.

And I wonder how many of us are in that same boat. There's things that God wants us to tackle in life. He wants to step out in faith and do something. For some of you, He wants you to go get a job, or a new job, or to get married, or I don't know what it is. I mean, it could be a million different things. To confront a relationship, to build a relationship, to ask forgiveness, to whatever the situation is. There are things in our lives that God is wanting us to do. In fact, that are even required that we do if we're going to ascend the mountain of faith. But too many of us just want to stay where we're at. We don't want to try new things. We don't want to go new places. We just want to stay in our familiar atmosphere. We don't want to be stretched. We're afraid to witness. We're afraid to share our faith. We're afraid to take risks. We're afraid, beloved, to go up the mountain.

So back to the text, remember what's happened is the Shulamite bride has just been in a state of being blessed. Just experiencing God's goodness and His presence, but she's been there long enough. She's strong enough now to step out in faith and conquer her fears. To do things that she was afraid to do before, to go up the mountain. I remember as a young boy, a little boy, maybe seven years old, we went to the swimming pool one day and there was a diving board, this high diving board. And I saw kids my age that were jumping and diving off the high diving board, and I was petrified. I was scared to death to do it. But praise God, one day, finally, I got up the courage, and walked up that ladder, and jumped off that high diving board. But it took a little bit of time for me to come out of my comfort zone on the ground and do this new thing. But in order, beloved, to enter great realms of victory, we have to conquer our fears and take risks. That at the time seemed like a huge thing for me.

Of course, now we look back on it as adults and it wasn't such a big deal, but there are other things in our lives that we need to do to step out. The Lord was calling this woman, the Shulamite bride, to come up the mountain with her. But because she just wanted to be comfortable because she just wanted to experience God's love and presence, but wasn't willing to risk, to face her fears, to do new things. She refused to go. So listen what she says here, in verse number 17, "Until the cool of the day when the shadows flee away," and she's talking to Jesus now. She says, "Turn my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of Bether".

Now again, I know this sounds like Greek to many of you, remember this is Hebrew poetry. So permit me to explain what I believe is going on here, and I've spent a great deal of time researching, and praying, and being involved in the written word of God, particularly in the Song of Songs. What is going on here in verse 17? Is she saying, "Lord, until my doubt passes away, I'm not going to come". Listen again, "Until the cool of the day, when I feel refreshed, when the shadows flee away". So she said, "Lord, I can't come right now until I feel ready, until I feel really good, until I feel like I'm ready, until my doubt goes away. Until the cool of the day, when the shadows flee away". You think of a shadow as something dark. So she's saying, "Lord, until I'm not afraid anymore, until I'm not afraid anymore, I'm not going to come". She continues, "Turn, my beloved," she's literally telling Jesus, "Don't bother me". She's really literally telling Yeshua, "Turn away from me. Turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle. Don't bother me with this anymore". She's saying to the Lord, "Don't talk to me about this anymore. Turn away. Turn away, my beloved, be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of Bether".

Now what does the word Bether mean? It's the Hebrew word, meaning incorporating the concept of separation. So in saying no to Jesus, there was actually a separation, remember this is poetic revelation. When Jesus said, "Come up the mountain, conquer that fear, come out of your comfort zone, do this new thing, stretch yourself. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've already got. If you want something new, if you want something more, if you want to enter into the new thing, you've got to do something new". But she said, "No, not until it's the cool of the day, when I feel ready. All my doubt and fear has gone. When the shadows flee away. So you go now, turn away, be like a gazelle on the mountains of Bether, on the mountains of separation". So she's basically saying, "God, leave me alone with this. I just want to feel you". She did not realize the price she was going to pay for saying no to the Lord when he was requiring something of her.

I wonder if you right now are in a similar place in your life? There has been something again that God has been asking you to do, requiring you to do, but you've closed your heart to Him in that area of your life. It's, "Lord, you can talk to me about this, and you can talk to me about that, but don't talk to me about this. Turn away from me about this. I don't want to hear you talk to me about this". That's what she did. And you know what resulted? Separation on the mountain of Bether, of separation. I remember in my life, there was a time I lost about 40 pounds probably five years ago. And I remember I said to the Lord, "Lord, you could talk to me about anything, but don't talk to me about my eating habits". I literally at a conscious awareness said, "Lord, I'm not ready to listen to you about giving up my pastries, and giving up my cookies, and giving up my sweets". It's like I blocked Him out in that way. And it was even a conscious thing, "I'm not ready for you to talk to me about that, Lord".

I mean, very immature on my part, but that's the truth. I blocked Him out. But you know what happens when we say no to the Lord? When he's telling us it's time to conquer this thing? What happens, beloved, is Bether. Separation. And that's what she experienced. Listen, "On my bed," as we continue in the text, chapter three, the very next verse, "On my bed, night after night, I sought Him who my soul loves. I sought him, but did not find him". She thought she could just stay where she was, continue to feel His goodness, and say no to Him about coming up the mountain. What she didn't realize is that when she said no to Him, she wasn't going to be able to feel His presence anymore. You see, if we say no to the Lord in just one area of our life that we know He's highlighting, we have a conscious awareness that He's speaking to us about something in our life that we need to change.

For some of you, and I know that I'm speaking to an audience now made up some of young people, and the lifestyle, and the culture today is such a different moral standard than the standard of the scripture. You're involved in illegitimate relationships. Some of you are sleeping with people that you're not married to. There's all types of illicit sexual behavior going on, homosexuality, promiscuity, all of it's going on. And it's like you're saying, "I'm saying yes to God, but don't talk to me about this area of my life". But you know what happens, beloved? If we block out the Lord's voice in that area of our life that He's wanting to highlight, it breaks fellowship with Him. It only takes one area of our life to be consciously saying no to God about that will bring us to a place of broken fellowship with Him. And that's what this poor Shulamite bride experienced at this point in her journey.

Again, she thought she could stay in her comfort zone and be blessed. She didn't realize that the pain that would come to her life from saying no to God when He was asking her to come up the mountain and conquer that thing, that the pain that she got from saying no to Him was greater than the pain that you would have experienced from going up the mountain. She thought it'd be too painful to go up the mountain. That's why she said, "No, it's too uncomfortable. It's too risky". But she found out it was more painful to say no. And so again, she continues in chapter three, "On my bed, night after night, I sought Him who my soul loves. I sought Him, but did not find Him". She could not be reunited to Yeshua until she said yes to Him and went up the mountain and conquered that thing that He was requiring her to conquer, because He loved her, and because He wanted her to come into unity with Him. I wonder, will you and I surrender to the Lord in the area of our life that He's speaking to us about that we haven't yet surrender to Him in? I'm always looking at myself, and conscious where there's parts in my life that I haven't fully surrendered. And the way to begin is just to say, "Lord, I want to give you this in my life. Help me to surrender this area in my life".

Don't run from coming under His light. Don't run from coming under His microscope. Don't run from letting Him examine you. David said, "Try me and search me. And if there's any unclean thing in me, Lord, forgive me and cleanse me of it". We can't run from God's call. We can't run from that thing He's asking us to repent of. We have to say, even if it's just the beginning, say, "Lord, you know I'm really struggling surrendering this to you. I can sense that I'm resisting you in this area of my life. But Lord, I don't want to. Help me to say yes to you in this area, because I know that I don't have a choice". Because if we don't pick up our cross, deny ourselves, and be broken under obedience, then we're going to end up, beloved, by being broken by the powers of darkness. So there really isn't a choice. It's life or death, whom will we choose?

So Father, right now, I just want to ask you, beloved one, to get on your knees with me if you can do that. If there's an area or areas in your life where you know that Father has been speaking to you about, some of you have even been resisting for a year or longer. But today, God can change that. Father God, in Jesus' name, we want to thank you for your mercy. And Father, we want to thank you that your grace will help us to be obedient. I think about what Yeshua said about the rich man Being harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle. And how the disciples said, "Well, how can anybody be saved"? And Yeshua said, "What's impossible with man is possible with God".

So Father, we thank you, and we look to you right now from where our salvation comes, and we ask you for the grace to repent of and to turn away from anything in our life that needs to be fully surrendered to you. Father, we learned from the Song of Songs that we need to come up the mountain, that we need to come out of our comfort zone, that we need to come out of clinging to those things that are naturally familiar to us. To obey you. So Father, right now, I repent. I repent for all of us right now, in dust and ashes. Father God, have mercy. Make us and mold us. Break anything in us, Father God, that's in the way. And Father God, help us to self initiate saying yes to you and conquering our fears, conquering our sin, conquering our doubts, so that we can be fully unified to you through Yeshua.

Father, we love you and we bless you today. Father, you said that you'd complete in us what you started, that you're the author and finisher of our faith. So Father, if there's any mountain of separation, any a mountain of Bether between us and you, Father God, we want it destroyed. Help us to destroy it. Help us to come against it. Help us not to hide in the darkness from you. Help us not to run from your call and from being obedient to you. Father God, I'm asking you for a powerful release of divine energy and electricity, and every soul right now that's hearing your word under the sound of my voice, God, that would be broken in pieces to you so we can be made whole and complete and Messiah Yeshua. We surrender ourselves in obedience to you, King Jesus.