Delve into a riveting narrative of identity, loss, and reclamation through faith. Our speaker shares a profound personal journey from feeling lost in darkness to finding purpose and clarity in the light of Jesus. Discover how wrestling with inner demons led to a transformative vision that altered their life’s course and initiated prolonged spiritual healing.
So I was at a place of complete identity loss. And I also went from feeling like I was in control to feeling like a victim because instantly the world felt as though it was bigger than I was. Whether you’re struggling with mental illness, with anxiety, with fear. Maybe you’re struggling with loneliness. Maybe you’re feeling oppressed all the time. Maybe you’re dealing with misrepresentations of what you think is reality in your mind. I want you to know all these things Spring from the well of darkness. And Jesus wants to put a hook in you right now to bring you further out of that darkness, to deliver you, to deliver us all into his marvelous light. Wash us, Father God, we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus, our Savior. Listen, everybody feels lonely at times. Everybody deals with anxiety. Whatever it is that you might be dealing with, I want you to understand that thoughts, these thoughts that we’re describing, that are the types of thoughts that plague people with mental illness, come to us from the spirit of darkness. Thoughts are projection of spirit. The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 2, 9, that God has called us out of darkness into into his marvelous light. I wanna share with you today my journey of coming out of the darkness into God’s marvelous light. And I know that’s gonna be a help to many of you. In 1976, I was a senior in high school. I was a very committed athlete. As long as I was in that environment of wrestling, because that’s all I focused on, I felt on top of the world. But when I turned 18 years old, After wrestling, my last match in high school, it felt as though the world had been pulled from out underneath my feet. And suddenly I just fell into an abyss of darkness. Because when I looked into the future, I didn’t have a future. Because to me, wrestling had been my whole life. And I knew that moving into the adult world as an 18 year old, wrestling didn’t mean a hill of beans anymore. So I was at a place of complete identity loss. And I also, in an instant, went from feeling like I was in control, from feeling safe, from feeling powerful, to feeling like a victim, because instantly the world felt as though it was bigger than I was. When I was wrestling, my only world was people that wrestled my weight class, and I felt in control and on top in that environment. I felt safe. I felt powerful. But when I walked off that wrestling mat, I realized that was not my world anymore. Now my world was the big world, the huge world, everybody in the world, all the adults, everything had changed. And in a moment, I lost my identity and lost my purpose. And it just went downhill from there. So I went away to college and I was getting to a place where, where I could not remember one good thing that had ever happened to me in my life. I had a relatively happy childhood. We did many fun things together. I grew up in a really colorful Jewish community. There was so much goodness there. But when I fell into this darkness, this abyss, it was like I was cut off from all positive memories. I could not even look my own parents, my own mother in the eye. I was totally alone. because I realized that going into the big world now as an 18 year old, nobody could help me anymore. And it brought up all these insecurities that had been buried inside me, insecurities about death, insecurities about just being vulnerable in the world. And I started thinking about, you know what? You’re probably not gonna die right now at 18 years old, but how do you know you won’t die? 18 year olds do die. Some 18 year olds do get cancer. And just knowing that it was possible, it just buried me in darkness and fear, the reality that I could die. And I didn’t know the Lord at the time. I had no framework for eternity. To me, dying was the ultimate fear, going into an unknown world. And I had no idea what lay behind that veil. All these fears started coming into my mind and the devil just started tormenting me. And even though I had no theological framework or understanding as to the reality of a devil, in other words, when I went through synagogue, they never talked about the devil. I had no Christian theology. I wasn’t a believer in Jesus yet. But somehow, during this period of torment that lasted between 18 and 20 years old, I literally… felt the devil laughing at me and sadistically making me laugh at myself. And not only was I cut off from any positive memories, I couldn’t remember all the good times that I had had in my life. I couldn’t connect to any of the old relationships that I had because the darkness had sucked me up, almost killed me. And I realized that something was going on that was supernatural from the realm of darkness, even though, again, I had no grit for it, but I just realized something was going on. So what happened, here I was in this state of total darkness, all the things that I just described, and one night in 1978, Jesus appeared to me in a vision. Now keep in mind that I knew nothing about Jesus. I had never thought about Jesus a day in my life. Jesus to me was something that was so foreign. He was like the man on the moon. And I had no attraction whatsoever to know anything about him. I was a Jew. To me, Jesus was for Gentiles and I was a Jew. So it was like, you know, pigs are unkosher to Jewish people. That’s how Jesus was to me. But when this happened to me and I was so desperate and so lost and so hurting and struggling, one night the Lord awoken me from my sleep. And suddenly I found myself in a state of supernatural awareness. In an instant, in color, Jesus appeared on the cross. I could see the terrain that the cross was staked in. There were people in the distance looking at him as he was being crucified. And then… a ray of red light. It came through the blue sky, this ray of red light. Then it came down onto Jesus’s head. And I understood the symbolism. I understood that the red light was coming from the Lord. And I understood as an American that the person on the cross was Jesus. Even though I knew nothing about Jesus, I knew nothing about New Testament doctrine, I knew as an American the person on the cross was Jesus. And in an instant, I realized that God had just revealed himself to me and was showing me that Jesus was the way, To him, I instantly got out of my bed and hope entered my heart. That was the beginning of my deliverance out of darkness. But let me talk about the journey because it didn’t all happen in an instant. It was very slow and it’s happening still even to this day. Hope came into my heart. I was so excited. So now I put my faith in Jesus. I started telling everybody about the experience that I had, the vision. Eventually, somebody tells me, go get a New Testament. I started devouring the New Testament. Just shortly after my initial encounter with the Lord, in my sleep one night, I saw my head. I saw inside my brain, and there was pitch blackness inside my head. But through the blackness, God had carved out like a tunnel through my brain. And I understood that God was telling me that you were completely trapped inside. living under the darkness, but I’m now carving out through that darkness away into the light, away into me. My whole head had not yet been filled with light, but a tunnel was being carved out through that darkness in my head that light was beginning to come into and that I was beginning to enter into.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’re listening to Discovering the Jewish Jesus with Rabbi Schneider. He’ll be right back. But first, did you know that thousands of years ago, God gave his people a powerful blessing that captured his heart for them? And this ancient benediction, it offers love, protection, and peace. You can discover how the Aaronic Blessing can transform your life with our free bundle, including a PDF and MP3 teaching. Claim your free gift now at myfreegift.com forward slash peace. all around the world people are searching for truth and hope that’s why rabbi has traveled to places like haiti nigeria and beyond sharing the gospel and strengthening believers everywhere through powerful outreach events lives are being transformed but We can’t do this without your prayers and without your financial support. So pray and donate today, discoveringthejewishjesus.com. And now here’s Rabbi Schneider.
SPEAKER 02 :
As I continue to press on in my walk with God, it’s been about 45 years now, I’ve entered into more and more light, and I want to tell you what has happened to me, what I’ve entered into, and how I got there. So first of all, let me share with you, I’m not even the same person, so to speak, than I was when this first happened to me. I mean, people that know me now, they see that you’re not even the same person anymore. So I have been transformed. But again, if you wanna enter into the fullness of the Lord’s light, you have to understand that it takes work God is working, but we must work with him. The scripture says we work out our salvation in fear and trembling. And I want to talk about some of the types of things that we need to do in partnership with our maker to enter into his marvelous light. So the first thing that I would say to you is after Jesus appeared to me in 1978, he became my one focus in life. He became my life raft. He became the only way out. I was going under. When God threw me that life raft, when he showed me Jesus, he became my everything. And I began to spend all my time focusing on reading God’s word, focusing on praying. focusing on going to meetings where God’s word was being taught and where believers were being gathered, I gave myself to pursuing the Lord 100%. I would read whole gospels in one sitting. I would constantly talk to myself and talk to my mind, literally programming my mind with scripture. I remember at one point I was laying in my couch in my parents’ apartment one day during this time, and I literally would be speaking over and over again, Jesus is the truth, Jesus is the Messiah. And by the way, if you look at top athletes, Everyone will tell you they got there the same way, by programming in their mind to see themselves winning. The same thing is true for us as believers. We have to take authority over what we’re thinking. Because if you don’t tell your mind what to think, guess what? Someone else is going to tell your mind what to think. And the one that I’m talking about that’s going to tell you what to think, if you don’t tell your mind what to think, is the spirit of darkness. So I started reading the scriptures, reprogramming my mind. As I began to do this over time, I began to more and more get the ability to discern spirit. The Bible talks about the gift of the discerning of spirits. And so if we’re going to bring ourself out of the darkness into his light, if we’re going to break off the mental illness that the devil wants to put on us, if we’re going to break off wrong perceptions of reality, wrong self-identities, anxiety, worry, fear, loneliness, an orphan spirit, all this is going to have to be broken off through the reprogramming of our mind, which comes by the washing of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God through the blood of Messiah Jesus. And we have a role to play in this. God doesn’t do it while we’re just passive. We need to be engaged in the process if we’re to ascend out of the darkness into the light. And so as I began to rise up in the Lord, revelation started coming to me. I’m talking about being taught of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, I’m going to send you my spirit and he will lead you, Jesus said, into all truth. So as I began to forsake everything to follow Jesus, I began to get the discernment of spirit to be able to separate what was coming from the enemy and what was coming from the realm of light, what was coming from the Lord. And I began to separate the two. And I began to choose the light and affirm the light. And at the same time, resist and reject the darkness. Maybe for example, you’re someone that struggles with anger. You need to recognize and have the discernment to realize that the spirit of rage and anger is coming from the spirit of the antichrist and you need to resist it and stop blaming. And it said, seize God light and hold his light and peace in your heart. And the Lord told me, seize my word and don’t let anything else in. And that’s the same thing I want to say to you. Seize God’s word, what you’re reading in the scriptures and what the Holy Spirit is communicating to you through your intuition. seize his word and don’t let anything else in. And by intuition, I mean, if you’re paying attention and if your ears are up and attuned, the Holy Spirit’s going to teach you. You might not hear an audible word, but you’ll begin to understand in your heart what the truth is. You need to seize it and resist the devil. And the scripture says, as we do, the darkness will flee from us. Beloved, we’re talking about gaining the mind of Christ. We’ve been given, the scripture tells us, the mind of Christ. But again, there is one thing as a legal reality The blood of Jesus has purchased for us the mind of Christ, but we have to enter into it just like Israel was given the promised land, but they had to warfare and drive out the Amurites, the Hittites, the Jezebelites to enter in. Similarly, we’ve been given peace in Jesus. My peace I give unto you, Yeshua said. But we need to drive out worry, fear, delusional thinking, and every thought that exalts itself above the knowledge of God to enter into that peace and to find rest. We need to put on our spiritual armor. And again, this happens little by little. And so keep pressing in. The Lord said to Israel, I’m not gonna drive out your enemy before you all at once, but little by little, I will drive the enemy away. Sometime into my journey with the Lord, things were much, much better, but I was still very oppressed and I was really hurting. And one night in my sleep, I became aware of the pain that was in my soul. I was in my bed and suddenly it was like the veil of my soul had been torn open and I felt excruciating pain in my soul. And an angel spoke to me in the depth of my pain. And in a really sweet and kind voice, the angel said to me, you’re on the right path. And I cried out to the angel, well, if I’m on the right path, why does it hurt so much? And the angel sweetly said back to me, maybe if you cooperate more, it wouldn’t hurt so much. And then I cried back out, when will I be happy? And then the Lord spoke to me and somehow I just knew the difference between the voice of the Lord and the voice of the angel. So when I cried, when will I be happy? The Lord spoke to me and he said to me, when you get strong, then you’ll be happy. When you get strong, then you’ll be happy. Beloved, we need to be crying out every day for the power that raised Jesus from the dead to strengthen us. We need to pray because as the Lord imparts resurrection strength to our inner man, we begin to rise up from the inside. We stop tolerating the voice of the enemy. More and more, we need to rise up on the inside and come against the spirit of the tormentor, the one that’s assaulting us with lies that steal and kill from our peace and rob us of our identity. Jesus has called us out of the darkness into his marvelous light, and he wants us to rise up so that the enemy will not rob us of the peace, identity, and destiny that we have in Him. If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. Jesus has set us free. Jesus has promised us freedom, and we’re entering progressively into that experience of freedom. If I look at my life now, beloved, compared to what it was 45 years ago, I’m a different person. I have so much more freedom. I walk in so much more light, so much more identity, so much more power, so much more relationship. The Lord has blessed me round about 360 degrees along, but it hasn’t been easy. It’s been hard. It’s been a battle. And I’m still pressing on because I believe in absolute freedom. And I will not stop by the grace of God until I’m 100% absolutely free. In John 8, 32, Jesus said this, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. Father, bathe each one by the blood of Jesus in the Holy Spirit and by your Word. Father, set us free. We thank you for identity and destiny. We thank you, Abba, for being our Father. Father, give us our identity as your sons and daughters. Father, let us see you for who you are. We’ll know that that’s gonna be enough, Lord, because we know that you’re the best, the one and only God. And when we comprehend, Father, Daddy, that we’re your children, we’re going to have everything that we need. Clothe us, I pray, in Jesus’ name, with the identity of Messiah Jesus. Shalom Aleichem, peace to you. We have an interesting verse in the book of Galatians, chapter number 6, verse 6. It says this, The one who is taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches him. In other words, the Lord ordained that those that are preaching the gospel and teaching his word, those ministries should be supported by the ones that are receiving. i want to thank all of you that have sown financial seed into discovering the jewish jesus what you’re doing is a biblical thing and it’s an alignment with god’s plan if there’s those today that are being blessed by the ministry that are being blessed by my teaching i would simply ask you would you open your heart And if you feel the Lord leading you to make a financial offering to him through discovering the Jewish Jesus, to fulfill his word in Galatians 6.6, I would just encourage you, be obedient to him. You’ll be blessed. This is Rabbi Schneider. I love you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you, Rabbi Schneider. And friends, if the Father is calling you to give to Discovering the Jewish Jesus, a gift of any amount, please give us a call today. You can reach us at 800-777-7835. You can also give by visiting our website at discoveringthejewishjesus.com. As a token of our appreciation, we’ll send you Rabbi Schneider’s latest newsletter and his exclusive monthly teaching booklet. And also, if you want to dive deeper into Rabbi’s authentic and uncompromising teaching on your own, his messages are streaming on Roku TV. You can experience his biblical insights in stunning HD right from your living room or wherever you have a Roku. Make this the year that you transform your spiritual journey through Rabbi’s unique biblical perspectives. Discover more or learn all the ways that you can catch his daily program on our website. You’ll find us online at discoveringthejewishjesus.com or you can search directly for us on Oroku TV. Just look for Discovering the Jewish Jesus or search for Rabbi Schneider. And you know, through this ministry, every time someone in Israel hears the gospel, every time a heart is changed in Nigeria or Uganda, every time someone here in America discovers the Jewish Jesus, you’ve played a role in that by sending us. So if God is stirring your heart to give today, don’t wait. This could be your moment where you make a difference. Send your donation in the mail to Discovering the Jewish Jesus, P.O. Box 777 Blissfield, Michigan 49228. That’s P.O. Box 777 Blissfield, Michigan 49228. And now here’s Rabbi to wrap up today’s message with the Father’s special and sacred blessing.
SPEAKER 02 :
The Aaronic blessing in the book of Numbers chapter 6 is not a blessing that comes from an impersonal being out there somewhere in the heavens. This special blessing comes from a person, Yahweh God Almighty, our Creator and Maker. So receive God’s blessing into your life right now.
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.
SPEAKER 01 :
This program is produced and sponsored by Discovering the Jewish Jesus. And I’m Dustin Roberts. Be sure to come back next week when Rabbi Schneider provides special insights on the Feast of Tabernacles. That’s Monday on Discovering the Jewish Jesus.
