Join Rabbi Schneider as he explores the profound nature of dreams and how they have historically served as a divine tool to convey God’s will to His people. This episode delves into the rich tapestry of biblical narratives where dreams played pivotal roles in shaping destinies. Rabbi invites listeners to pay attention to their own dreams as a source of divine guidance, encouraging a deeper discovery of spiritual truths through the symbolic language that dreams often employ. The importance of obedience and sacrificial giving complements the understanding of dreams as God’s personal communication with us.
We are on part number 10 of a series called, As Enoch Walked with God. It’s taken from the book of Bereshit, the book of Genesis, chapter five, verse 23 and 24. The text says, Enoch walked with God and was no more. And what we’ve been saying is that Enoch was a prophetic shadow of what our walk with the Lord is like, that we walk with God, beloved, and as we walk with God, that we ascend with him in the spirit. The scripture says in Ephesians chapter two, that we’ve been raised with Messiah and seated with him in the heavenly places. Just as Enoch walked with God and ascended right up into the heavens, beloved, so you and I that are following Yeshua, that are following Jesus today, As we walk with God, we’re ascending in the spirit. Our intimacy with the Lord is becoming closer and closer. And one day, beloved, it’s going to be so unbelievable that words can’t even explain it as we are seated fully in the heavens with Messiah Jesus, experiencing the fullness of his glory. We’re talking about walking with God. We’re talking about ascending in God. I’m talking today, beloved, about increasing our intimacy with God, strengthening our walk with God, walking in greater harmony with Him and His will for our life by paying attention to and acting on the dreams that come to us at night while we’re sleeping that are coming to us from the Lord. David said in Psalm 16, 7, his mind instructs him in the night. We could do a survey in Scripture and see, beloved, how many times perhaps the most common way that the Lord has spoken throughout the ages to his people is through their dreams at night. And so what I’m going to do now is I’m going to take you on a survey through the Bible. and show you several instances in which the Lord revealed Himself to His people in a dream while they were sleeping at night. We’re going to look at what the Lord revealed to these different biblical figures at night, and then we’re going to make application for our lives today. The point is, I want you to pay greater attention to your dreams. The Lord wants you to pay greater attention to your dreams. Now, be careful. Not all dreams are from God, but some dreams are. And it’s these dreams that are from God that we’re paying particular attention to, beloved, today. I’m going to start today’s broadcast, beloved, by looking at the dream that the Lord gave Abraham in the book of Bereshit, Genesis chapter number 15, verse number 12 through 15. Now, when the sun was going down, a deep sleep, get that, a deep sleep. So Abraham was sleeping. A deep sleep fell upon Abram. And behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him.” When did this happen? While he was sleeping. It was a dream state. And God said to Abram, know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they’ll be enslaved and oppressed 400 years. And the Lord goes on to reveal other things concerning the future of Israel. But the first thing I want to take note of is, How did God speak to Abraham? In a dream. Is God the same God today as He was all the way back in Abraham’s time? He’s the same God. If He’s the same God and we’re still human beings, then obviously dreams are still for today. In fact, dreams should not be decreasing, they should be increasing because the Holy Spirit has been poured out in Acts chapter 2. In this particular account, What God revealed to Abraham, to Abram at the time, was Israel’s future. The application that I want to make for you, beloved, right now is that sometimes the Lord will reveal future events to his sons and daughters in dreams, and he has a specific reason for doing it. Sometimes it’s simply to prepare them. Sometimes the Lord will reveal something to you that’s going to happen in the future. And then you’ll see it come to pass and you’ll just be astounded to know God’s alive. He’s real. God showed me this in my sleep that this was going to happen. And sure enough, just like the Lord showed me in my sleep, it happened. And what that does is it heightens your spiritual awareness. It heightens your sense of expectation. You begin to look to experience God now, right here, right now, while on the earth, because you know that God is a living God and he’s revealing himself to you and speaking to you right now. Sometimes the Lord will reveal to you a future event that you’ll see come to pass just to make you know how real he is and how close he is to you. I want to go now to the book of Bereshit, the book of Genesis, chapter number 28. I’m going to be reading there starting at the 10th verse. This is the story of Jacob. So we’ve looked at how the Lord revealed himself to Abraham in a dream. Now we’re going to see how the Lord revealed himself to Jacob. We say in Hebrew, Yaakov in a dream. Then Jacob, then Yaakov departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he came to a certain place and spent the night there because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones in that place and put it under his head and laid down in that place. And he had, listen now, a dream. Let me say it again. And he had a dream. And he had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to the heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. So he has this dream. He puts his head on the rock. He goes to sleep. He has a dream in the same way God’s going to give many of you dreams. And in the dream, beloved, he sees these angels ascending and descending upon a ladder. And behold, in verse number 13, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord. I am Yahweh, the God of your father, the Elohim of Abraham and the God of Isaac. The land which you lie, I will give to you and to your descendants. And then he goes on and behold, in verse number 15, I am with you. and I will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done for you what I have promised. Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. Beloved, Jacob gained the assurance that God was with him. through a dream at night. Up to that point, Jacob probably felt like an orphan. He probably felt alone. But when he went to sleep that night and laid his head on the rock and he saw the angels of God ascending and descending on the ladder from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven, God was revealing to him, you know what? I am connected to you right where you’re at. I am connected to your life. Heaven, Jacob, is connected to. There’s an open door between you and me. That’s what the latter meant. It was a connection between God in heaven and Jacob on earth. And Jacob learned that God was with him. And the Lord said, and I will accomplish in your life all that I promised. And Jacob gained the assurance, beloved, of God’s presence and of God’s fulfilling that which he had promised him in the future to do. Jacob, beloved, received encouragement. and assurance from God. And he built an altar at that place, amen, unto the Lord. Isn’t that an awesome thing, beloved, that the Father can encourage us in our lives if we pay attention to our dreams? I remember years ago, beloved, in my life, I had a dream and in this dream, all of a sudden, I felt tremendous pain in my soul. The Lord allowed me to feel some of the inner turmoil that I was experiencing inside. I wasn’t even fully aware of it until this night that suddenly in my sleep, it was like the Lord opened up my heart and allowed me to experience some of the pain and the turmoil and the difficulty that I was feeling inside. And then in the dream, beloved, I heard an angel speak to me. You’re on the right path. And the Lord was telling me, even though life is not easy, even though life is hard, the Lord said, I want you to know you’re on the right path. Just like Jacob that was going through a difficult time in life. Remember, Jacob had fled his home because he was afraid for his life because of Esau. And here he was. He had left his mom. He had left his dad. He had left his family. He had left everything that he had. And here he is sleeping alone, using a rock as a pillow. And yet God appears to him and says, I am with you and I’ll accomplish for you all that I purpose to do. And so it is for some of you, beloved. You may be going through a hard time right now, but that doesn’t mean that the Lord isn’t with you. It doesn’t mean that God has forsaken you. It doesn’t mean that the future and the destiny that he has for you won’t come to pass, just like it was with Jacob. Beloved, I want to encourage you, pay attention to your dreams at night. I read from the book of Job chapter 33, where one of Job’s counselors, Elihu, that was not rebuked of the Lord for giving wrong counsel, said to Job, the Lord speaks once, yea, twice to man. When man is sleeping in his bed, fast and sound asleep, he said, but God is speaking and people aren’t paying attention. And I know that there’s some of you right now God has spoken to in your sleep and you’re not even aware that He has because you weren’t expecting Him to. You weren’t paying attention. Some of you remember a dream that you had and you thought, oh, that was just a funny dream I had. oh, that was just a strange dream. It didn’t mean anything. For some of you, beloved, some of those dreams did mean something. Some of those dreams were from the Lord. We need to start paying attention and we need, beloved, to start making a habit of writing down when we wake up in the morning what our dreams were and asking for understanding.
SPEAKER 04 :
You’re listening to Discovering the Jewish Jesus, and Rabbi Schneider will be right back. But first, here’s a testimony from a listener who’s been touched by Rabbi’s teachings.
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Rabbi, you don’t tickle people’s ears. You boldly proclaim the uncompromised Word of God. It’s my joy to sow monthly into your ministry.
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Amen. Thank you, Lord. And to submit your testimony, go to discoveringthejewishjesus.com. Just click on ministry and submit your testimony today. Matthew 25, it reminds us to care for people in need. So we’re making Rabbi’s teaching available to men and women in prison each and every day through a special app. And last year, thousands of inmates clicked the button on this app, telling us they were surrendering their lives to Christ. And if you want to help us in this mission, would you please support us? Give or become a monthly partner at discoveringthejewishjesus.com. Now, Back to Rabbi.
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You see, beloved, the language of dreams is symbolic. Oftentimes in a dream, the Lord will reveal something to us that is symbolic in nature. For example, if we consider the life of Joseph, Genesis 37, verse number 9. Now he, speaking of Joseph, had still another dream and related it to his brothers and said, lo, I have had still another dream. And behold, the sun and moon and 11 stars were bowing down to me. And he related it to his father and to his brothers. Well, we know the story that the sun and the moon and the stars were symbolic of Joseph’s brothers and his mom and dad, that they were going to bow down to him. The question we ask is, if the Lord was showing Joseph in the dream that his brothers and father and mother would bow down to him, remember, which eventually happened when Joseph was sold as a slave into Egypt, And there was a famine in the land of Canaan, and Joseph’s brothers went to Egypt to buy grain. And Joseph then revealed himself to his brothers and provided for them in the land of Egypt during the famine that was in Canaan by giving them in Egypt the land of Goshen and supplying their needs. So they literally did eventually come to Joseph and bow down to him. The question is, if the Lord was revealing to Joseph in Bereshit, Genesis 37, Why did the Lord communicate to Joseph in the picture of the sun, the moon and stars bowing down to Joseph? Why did the Lord just not show Joseph directly his father and brothers bowing down to him? Why did the Lord just not speak directly and clearly and literally to Joseph? Why did he use this figurative symbolic language, sun and moon and stars? Why symbols? If you think about it, it’s no different than when Yeshua was on earth and he spoke to people in parables. Why did Yeshua not just speak to people directly? Why speak to them in parables? Remember Yeshua said, the sower went out to sow the seed. Remember he said, and some seed fell on hard ground and some seed fell on ground where thorns and thistles choked it out. Let me read this parable to you and an explanation that Yeshua gave for the reason that he was speaking in parables that relates now, beloved, to our study of dreams and our understanding as to why the Father speaks to us prophetically in symbols rather than just speaking to us directly. Hear the word of God now as I read from the book of Mark, Mark 4, verse 30. He said, how should we picture the kingdom of God? Or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which when… sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon it, yet when it is grown, grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and from large branches so that the birds of the air can nest under the shade.” And it says, “…and with many such parables he was speaking the word of God to them as they were able to hear it. And he did not speak to them without,” listen to this, “…he did not speak to them,” Mark 4, 34, “…he did not speak to them without a parable.” but he’s explaining everything privately to his own disciples. Now, listen to this. Yeshua is speaking to them about the kingdom of God. And after he explains this, the disciples come I want to read Mark number 4 now, beginning in verse number 3. Listen to this, Yeshua said, Behold, the sower went out to sow. And it came about that as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road and the birds came and ate it up. Another seed fell on rocky ground where it did not have much soil and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. And after the sun had risen, it was scorched and because it had no root, it withered away. Another seed fell among the thorns and the thorns came up and choked it and it yielded no crop.” Now, listen, we know what this parable means because we’ve heard it taught on, we’ve heard it preached on. But imagine the disciples that had no explanation for it yet. And Yeshua says, now listen to this. The sower went out to sow the seed and some seed fell on dry ground and hard ground and they’re scratching the ground. What is He saying? What exactly is He trying to say to us? And then he continues on in verse number nine. And he was saying, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And as soon as he was alone, in verse number 10, his followers along with the 12 began asking him. Get that now. His followers along with the 12 began asking him. Why did they ask? Because they didn’t fully understand. They needed revelation. They heard the parable. It was all symbolic. The parables were symbolic. And so they began asking him about the parables. And in verse 11, it says, and he was saying to them, to you, it has been granted to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. But those who are on the outside get everything in parables. And later again, they were asking him the meaning of the parables. And as they asked about the meaning of the parables, Jesus explained it to them. Why do you think Jesus, the scripture said, without a parable, he did not speak? Why do you think he spoke so much in parables? Well, there were several reasons. Some was to conceal truth from those whom he didn’t want to have revelation. So he says here in verse number 11 and 12, to you it has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are on the outside get everything in parables. Verse number 12, in order that while seeing God, they may see and not perceive, they won’t understand. And while hearing, they may hear and not understand, lest they return and be forgiven. So Yeshua was actually concealing truth from some people. But the other reason, beloved, that Yeshua was speaking in parables was because he wanted, listen now, to engage his disciples in discovery. He wanted them to seek to understand what does this mean? You see, he wanted to draw his disciples into the process of understanding what was being said to them. Isn’t this what happened to Peter in the book of Acts? And the Bible said he was hungry and he fell into a sleep. A sheet was lowered and there were all types of unkosher animals. And then Peter heard the voice say to him in the vision, in the dream of the night, Peter, take, kill and eat. And remember, Peter woke up and he didn’t know what does it mean that he’s seeing these unkosher animals and the voice says, Peter, take, kill and eat. It says that Peter was pondering. He was looking to the Lord. What does this mean? And while Peter was wondering what this vision of the night, what the dream meant, suddenly Cornelius’ servant said, knocks on Peter’s door and says, I want you to come and share the gospel with my master, Cornelius. And remember, Cornelius was a Gentile. And then Peter understood the meaning of the vision of the dream of the night, that Gentiles weren’t considered by him to be unclean, but he was to share the gospel with them. And so it is, beloved ones, with our dreams at night. Even as Joseph dreamed about the sun, moon and stars bowing down to him, and it was symbolic and he had to seek to understand. So, beloved, you and I need to be seeking to understand the symbolic nature of our dreams. When we wake up in the morning, we need to be writing our dreams down and asking the Father Lord, what do these symbols mean? What did this dream mean? And as you do that, beloved, you’re going to be brought into a deeper, intimate walk with God, just like Enoch did, beloved, and you’re going to discover God’s will. in your life, his love for you, beloved, in a greater way. To disregard your dreams is to disregard God. Beloved, it’s important that we put God first in every area of our lives. It concerns me that it seems that so many people today are trying to use God for an experience, but they’re not being obedient. I think of many, many people that are going to churches, they love the worship music, but they’re not being obedient to God’s Word. Jesus said, unless a man picks up his cross, denies himself and follows me, he cannot be my disciple. Sacrificial obedience is the only way to truly walk hand in hand with God. This is why it’s important how we handle our finances. Going back to the first book of the Bible with Abraham, all the way through the New Testament, we see that those that truly walk with God honor him in every area of their lives, including their finances. I want to just ask you today, if discovering the Jewish Jesus is being used by Father God in your life to be a blessing, would you honor Him with your finances through this ministry? Thank you for your love and for your financial support.
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Amen. Thank you, Rabbi. And friends, if God is calling you to support Discovering the Jewish Jesus with the gift of any amount, would you please give us a call right now? You can reach us at 800-777-7835. And you can also give online. Our website is discoveringthejewishjesus.com. And, you know, we love learning about all the people around the world who are exploring the depths of Scripture with us each and every day. And we know we could never reach them without you. I was just reading testimonies myself today, and I saw a woman sharing that she and her two daughters watch and listen to Rabbi every single day. And then they discuss the message together. I love that. So thank you so much for your generous financial support and for your faithful prayers. It’s enabling us to reach people with Rabbi’s straightforward and authentic presentation of the gospel. And I want you to know if you’re looking for other ways to connect with this ministry today, I want to encourage you to download the Rabbi Schneider mobile app. It’s an absolute free resource that puts Rabbi’s teachings, radio station airings, and lots of additional content right at your fingertips. Whether you’re commuting, taking a walk, or maybe spending time with the Lord, the app can be a great tool to help you grow in your faith and stay grounded in the truth. It’s available on Android and Apple. Just search for Rabbi Schneider in your app store. And now here’s Rabbi again to speak God’s blessing over us today.
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The words from the Aaronic Blessing in the book of Numbers, chapter six, verses 22 through 27, helps us to realize how good God is to you and I personally. So receive his blessing into your life, and then beloved one, go bless somebody else in Jesus’ name today.
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up with his countenance. And the Lord give you, beloved one, his peace. God bless you and shalom.
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This program is produced and sponsored by Discovering the Jewish Jesus. And I’m your host, Dustin Roberts. Be sure to come back next week when Rabbi Schneider reveals more about how your destiny, direction, and dreams are part of God’s plan for your life. That’s Monday on Discovering the Jewish Jesus.
Join Rabbi Schneider as he explores the profound nature of dreams and how they have historically served as a divine tool to convey God’s will to His people. This episode delves into the rich tapestry of biblical narratives where dreams played pivotal roles in shaping destinies. Rabbi invites listeners to pay attention to their own dreams as a source of divine guidance, encouraging a deeper discovery of spiritual truths through the symbolic language that dreams often employ. The importance of obedience and sacrificial giving complements the understanding of dreams as God’s personal communication with us.
