In this compelling episode, Rabbi Schneider recounts a riveting personal experience of being stranded near a dam in an alligator-infested river, connecting this story to the themes of faith and perseverance amid challenging circumstances. Accompanied by vivid realizations from the Book of Matthew, he delves into the prophetic signs that precede the end times and discusses how worldly hostility reflects these predictions. The discourse unfolds around how Christianity’s fundamental values convict the world, often leading to conflict but promising ultimate salvation for the believers.
00:00:01 Alligator-Infested River and Preparing for the End
The motor wouldn’t work, it was jammed. So I jumped in the alligator-infested river here. And now Cynthia’s really starting to not feel well. So it’s like, man, this is a bad situation. We’re in a series from the book of Matthew chapter 24 that I’m calling Prepare for the End. Last time I left off in Matthew 24 where Yeshua was explaining to his disciples the signs that would be taking place on the planet. immediately preceding his return. And the way he described these events, beloved, they’re going to go from bad to worse. They’re going to escalate in intensity. As he began to describe the signs, these horrendous signs about wars and rumors of wars and false Christ, et cetera, he said, but the end is not yet. He said, these are just signs. The birth pangs. And so many of us have heard this illustration before. Birth pangs tend to increase in intensity, right? They start out, oh, I think I might have had a birth pang. Not that I would know, I just heard, right? But you don’t know until they keep on increasing. So Yeshua is describing what’s gonna be happening on the planet Immediately preceding his return that these cataclysmic events on the planet with hatred and chaos and wars and natural disasters and all these things that we’ll go back into the text in just a minute, he says they’re going to increase in intensity. For example, we just not long ago came out of COVID. So the expectation is there’ll be something else worse than COVID that’s going to hit the planet. Like what we experienced with COVID, it’s just the beginning, okay? It’s just the beginning. Now, the last thing that I spoke of in Matthew 24 on the last episode is that Jesus said when his disciples asked him, when will these things be and what are the signs of your coming? One of the things that Jesus said is that people will hate one another and betray one another. So he’s talking about an increase of the darkness of hatred on the planet. And some of you are experiencing that. The woke culture is trying to tell us that things are becoming better, that we’re more inclusive as a culture, that we love everybody more now. But I’ll tell you what, Christians aren’t feeling more love, right? People of the Christian faith are not feeling more love. We’re feeling hated. And that’s one of the things that Jesus said, you will be hated by all nations because of me. We’re feeling the growing animosity towards Christianity. You know why? The world can’t tolerate Christianity because it convicts them. Jesus said the world can’t hate you. but it hates me. When he said you, he was talking to those that weren’t walking with him yet. When he was walking in Israel, he said, the world can’t hate you, but it hates me, he said, because I convict the world of its sin. You see, the world can’t tolerate Christianity because it brings conviction. Because the scriptures speak about a marriage is between one man and one woman. Why, people hate that because it convicts them when they’re living in adultery and they’ve been divorced several times. The scripture says that God condemns homosexuality. Well, the world can’t tolerate that. Why can’t they tolerate it? Because they want an excuse for their own sin. And even those that are not living in an LGBTQ culture, they’re behind the movement, many of them, because it gives them an excuse for their own sin, whatever it is. You see, the world hates Christianity and the Bible because it makes them deal with sin. And so they want to be able to cancel their sin by denying that it even exists. And they have to throw out the word of God and Christianity to do that. You see, a lot of times if you tell a lie long enough, eventually people will believe the lie. It’s an amazing thing. You tell a lie long enough and often enough, and pretty soon it becomes so normal that without even realizing you get programmed by it. What’s the lie we’ve been hearing? Christians are bad people. When a pastor commits a sexual sin or when a pastor or an evangelist misuses finances, what happened? It’s all over the news. It’s all over the news. We’ve got, I don’t know how many hundreds of thousands of pastors. We don’t hear about all the hundreds of thousands of good pastors. We don’t hear about the hundreds of thousands of faithful Christians that are doing their best to love Jesus, that are making the hard decisions to make sacrifices to obey him, to help him. We don’t hear about those guys. We just hear about the few. You know, the few bad eggs. So that’s what the whole Christian church community is being painted as, like we’re all bad eggs. None of the media is showing all the faithful pastors that are living in humble circumstances. No one’s perfect. but there’s so many genuine, real lovers of God out there, but the world doesn’t know about them, because the devil just keeps painting this picture about what a terrible people we are, the lovers of Jesus, the Bible thumpers. See, this is what Jesus is warning us about. You’re gonna be hated by all nations because of me. And once again, Jesus said here that the sign of the end would be a vast increase of hatred in the world. You will be hated by all nations because of my name. Do you know that hatred’s a spirit? And we have to resist the spirit of hatred. We have to resist the spirit of hatred. and fear and accusation. It’s a literal choice we’re making all the time. The devil’s always trying to come in. He’s trying to get us to have a hateful thought towards someone. That’s what he’s doing to everybody. But you and I, we have discernment. We keep it out. We seize God’s word and don’t let the devil in. But as I was saying, the woke culture is trying to make us think that it’s a better world. There’s more love. There’s more consideration. I’m not experiencing that. Are you? Are you experiencing more consideration and love in the world? Cynthia and I went fishing not too long ago. And we went about three, four miles down the river. It was beautiful. There was like no houses. It was in the middle of nature. We get to the place where we’re going to fish. I wanted to get to a dam. So we got down three, four miles. We got to that dam. I got within a couple hundred feet of the dam and I dropped the anchor from the boat. Now, let me tell you what type of an anchor was on this boat that Cynthia and I were fishing from. It’s called a pole anchor. And what it does is, it’s like a vertical piece of equipment that’s attached to the back of the boat, and then a telescoping pole drops down from this piece of equipment, it drops straight down into the bottom. And so when that anchor gets all the way to the bottom through that pole that pushes itself into the mud, then it keeps the boat in place. So I push the button, the anchor goes straight down this pole anchor, bam, and now I start to fish. some fishing for a little while. And all of a sudden, Cynthia says to me, you know, we’re not at the same place we started at. We’re drifting. And then I look and I say, yeah, we’re drifting. And we were drifting towards the dam where that water was coming over the dam. And all of a sudden I got very concerned because I had a really bad memory about something like this. And the memory is that when my youngest daughter was about eight years old, probably, we were going canoeing. We took her to this state park where there was a slow, lazy river. I was going to take my one younger daughter And Cynthia was gonna take my older daughter, but my younger daughter was afraid. And I said, look, honey, look how slow this water is. You’re with daddy. So she trusted me. We got in the canoe together. We’re drifting down this real slow, sleepy little river. And all of a sudden, there’s a big tree that had fallen that was somehow just over the river. The current was taking me. And rather than being able to go around the tree limb, the canoe went under the tree limb. And when we went under the tree limb, the tree limb hit us. So it stopped the canoe from going forward because it hit us. And then when the canoe couldn’t go forward, the water started pouring into the canoe. The canoe went sideways when it couldn’t keep moving because the tree limb had stopped us from going forward. Then all of a sudden the canoe went sideways and the water started pouring into the canoe. And then when the water started pouring into the canoe, the canoe flipped over, and my daughter and I flipped with the canoe, and then we were under the canoe, completely disoriented, and we had to find our way up from that canoe, which, praise God, we did, but it was scary. So why do I say that? So when I saw that dam, I imagined us getting to that dam, my boat hitting that dam, and then that water pouring over the dam into my boat and flipping the boat over. So, okay, I say, oh, yeah, we’re drifting. So I push the button to bring the anchor pole up, but you know what? It won’t move. It’s stuck. It’s completely stuck. When we got stranded and the anchor wouldn’t move, and I was in a dangerous situation, two other boats came by. And I’m saying, I need help, I need help, can you help me? Neither of them did anything to help us. One of them said, oh, here’s a tool. And then he just went by, a little tool. And another guy said, well, we’re fishing right now, but I’ll be back. Never came back. My point is, Gia said, people are going to hate one another and betray one another. Supposedly, the world’s a much more loving place. But I imagine 50 years ago, if there was a fisherman that would have been stranded out there in a dangerous situation, I think neighbors would have helped. The people that just drifted by me that just wanted to keep on fishing, I think they would have helped me 50 years ago, but today they just left us there stranded. And so I’m doing everything, nothing’s working. And all of a sudden, now Cynthia’s starting to feel sick on the boat. I’m getting very concerned. The sun’s beating down. I’ve tried everything. I couldn’t disconnect the anchor from inside the boat. The motor wouldn’t work. It was jammed. So I jumped in the alligator-infested river here to see if I could go down and lift up the anchor from underneath. Wouldn’t budge. Wouldn’t budge. We tried everything. And now Cynthia’s really starting to not feel well. So it’s like, man, this is a bad situation.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’re listening to Discovering the Jewish Jesus and Rabbi Schneider will be right back. But first, I’d love for you to stay connected with us by signing up for Rabbi’s Seeds of Revelation newsletter. Each week, you’ll receive a powerful devotional direct from Rabbi Schneider. along with other ministry updates, including when Rabbi will be live. It’s a simple way to stay uplifted and informed. Go to discoveringthejewishjesus.com and click stay connected today. Deception is rising and many messages today, they’re not the full gospel, but rabbi’s teachings come directly from scripture, declaring truth with boldness, ease uncompromising. And if this ministry has blessed you, would you consider becoming a monthly partner today? To continue reaching the world with God’s word, we need committed supporters just like you. So to become a monthly partner, call us at 800-777-7835. And now back to Rabbi Schneider.
SPEAKER 03 :
So there were no houses all the way down once we got past just a little way, but there was two houses right at the dam off in the distance. So I went to the front of the boat and I started screaming towards the houses, screaming towards the houses. And all of a sudden, an older man walked out of one of the houses. I’m screaming to him. He screamed back to me, but I couldn’t hear what he said. So eventually I had no choice to dive off the boat into this. I mean, when I say this is an alligator-infested river, I mean, I’ve seen a dozen alligators in this river. I dive into the river, swim to the shore where this guy’s house is, and he was able to get one of his neighbors. And the other neighbor happened to be a tradesman. He got his truck that had a toolbox in his truck, and he trailered behind his truck a little paddle pontoon boat. So we got the tools off his truck, put it on the little pontoon boat. We paddled out to my boat. We were able to disconnect the anchor from the boat and put the anchor on my boat. Cynthia and I were able to get home. It was definitely absolute answer to prayer. I mean, it was totally the Lord. To find somebody that had the capability to fix it and then the tools and a paddle boat to get to the boat. I mean, how do you explain that but God? It was God’s perfect provision for his child, for his son and daughter. But the point is, here I am stranded in a very dangerous situation and there’s other boaters that are going by and they’re just leaving me stranded. Beloved, it’s not a safer world. It’s not a more loving world. Jesus is predicting that at the end of the age, there’s going to be a lot more hatred and the people will betray one another. And that’s what’s going on right now. Let’s continue on. Just a story that shows us, no, we’re not becoming more inclusive and more loving as the woke culture is teaching. We’re becoming more and more divided, more and more division and hatred. People caring less and less about each other. Jesus said, and people will betray one another. Jesus says, they will deliver you to tribulation and will kill you and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. At that time, many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. He said, many false prophets will arise and mislead many. Now, I want you to consider with me that when we think of the word prophet, we think of just Christian prophets. But Jesus had already told us at the beginning of Matthew 24 that many false people would arise saying that they have Jesus’ anointing on them. He said many Christ will arise and will mislead many false Christ coming in his name. So here when Jesus says many false prophets will come in his name, these aren’t just necessarily Christian prophets. These are people that are selling all types of self-help to people, whether it be how to live a more successful life and everyone’s going to their motivational seminars and buying their books. We’re talking about the fact that humanity is desperate for an answer. And many people will arise during this time claiming to have answers, whether it’s about eating a certain way, going on this kind of diet, going on that type of diet. People think you’re going to live forever by eating the right foods, right? Or whether it’s about exercising with this routine, or whether it’s applying these seven principles for success or for better living. The point is there’s going to be all kinds of people that will be offering the world false hope And Jesus said many would be misled by this. They’re going to be following people that are just cisterns that hold no water. They don’t have an answer. He continues, because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. Now listen to this. Because lawlessness will increase, most people’s love will grow cold. Now, when we think of lawlessness, closely connected to this concept of lawlessness is a lack of order, right? A lack of order produces lawlessness. Where there’s no sheriff in town, there’s lawlessness. Where there’s a sheriff in town, there’s order. So I want you to think about this together, lawlessness and its connection to the theme of disorder. So since COVID, And since some of the natural disasters that have hit the earth since COVID, the great hurricane that hit the west coast of Florida, it was the biggest hurricane in terms of financial loss to insurance companies to ever hit the state of Florida. It caused more financial devastation to this state than any previous hurricane in terms of insurance loss and insurance claims. So you can think right now of all the people living in Florida that had their roof blown off and their home demolished. They’re needing to get it repaired, and yet where are the workers? There’s simply not enough workers here. So what’s happened in this state is it’s become largely in a state of, I’m going to say, not lawlessness in terms of breaking the law, but lawlessness in terms of a spirit of contractors not showing up. not returning phone calls. And you get the feeling if somebody does do business with you, it’s like they’re doing you a big favor. It’s like they do business with you. It’s like, remember the old days, customer’s king? Well, it’s completely changed. See, what I’m trying to get at is Jesus said that lawlessness is gonna increase. I’m equating lawlessness to disorder and chaos. And notice what Jesus said next here. And he said, because of this, most people’s love will grow cold. And so you know what I’m observing happening is this state of being discourteous to each other, especially in the business world, where people just don’t feel responsible to show up when they say they’re going to show up, to be courteous. People oftentimes may be being taken advantage of because of the desperation of the situation. It’s becoming normalized. And so people are being treated like this so often, they then begin to treat other people this way. It becomes a culture for everybody. And so Jesus said, when the lawlessness increases, all this chaos going on, this hostility, he said, because of this, Most people’s love will grow cold. But you and I, we’ve been called to love even to the end. Yeshua said, all men will know you are my disciples by your love. So as we close today, beloved ones, in this age of hostility and darkness that we’re living in, this time of extreme chaos, you and I have to keep on feeding on the love of God. We have to keep on rising up in the anointing of Jesus and loving even our enemies, even those that misuse us. We need to continue to overcome evil with good and show the love of Jesus and the glory of God all around us, because greater is he that’s in us than he that’s in the world. Jesus gave his commission to his church, go from Jerusalem to Samaria, even to the uttermost parts of the earth, spreading the gospel. The Lord also told us that the gospel goes to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. I want you to know, when you support me and the ministry of Discovering the Jewish Jesus, in a very real way, you’re fulfilling this command. You’re supporting me, that the Lord has raised up as a Jewish believer, to preach the gospel in Jerusalem, even from there, beloved, to the uttermost parts of the earth. I want to thank you for partnering with what the Lord is doing through Discovering the Jewish Jesus. And I want you to be confident that lives are being changed because of you. I want to ask you, beloved, if you sense the Holy Spirit leading you to support me and support this ministry, just be obedient. God will bless you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. You can help us reach Jewish people with the gospel today by giving a gift of any amount. Just give us a call at 800-777-7835. If it’s easier for you, you can also go to our website. You’ll find us online at discoveringthejewishjesus.com. And you know, being a Jewish person himself, Rabbi, he has a heart that deeply wants to see Israel come to Christ. He’s being led by the Lord to focus on doing that in a greater way. And that’s why right now we’re partnering with church congregations in Israel and supporting and initiating on the ground evangelistic efforts. And we have a YouTube channel where we post rabbi’s teachings translated directly into the Hebrew language. And I’m excited to say that 80% of our listens on that channel come directly from Israel. And speaking of Israel, they’re about to celebrate the Feast of Trumpets. And Christians can too. It’s a season of renewal and reflection, and it announces the presence of God. And for Christians, it’s announcing Jesus’ return. And this God-appointed holy day, it begins at sunset on Monday, September the 22nd, and it ends at nightfall on Wednesday, September the 24th. And we believe that God functions in times and seasons. So let’s expect God to do amazing things in this new season through the Feast of Trumpets. If you’d like to learn more about God’s holy days, would you visit our website, discoveringthejewishjesus.com? And now here’s Rabbi to wrap up today’s message on navigating Christian compassion in a divided world by speaking God’s sacred and special blessing over us.
SPEAKER 03 :
In the book of Numbers chapter 6, the Lord gave instructions to Moses and Aaron to speak this blessing over his people. And the Lord said, When you speak these words over my people, I will place my name on them and bless them. Receive the impartations of the Lord’s blessings.
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 join us tomorrow when Rabbi Schneider presents a special message titled Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles. That’s Friday on Discovering the Jewish Jesus.
