In the tabernacle, the bronze laver was the daily washing place for priests and a powerful picture of ongoing cleansing through repentance and self-awareness before God. Rabbi connects the laver’s mirror imagery to practical spiritual growth, learning to hear the Holy Spirit, and walk in greater freedom.
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Some of us don’t take time to really look at ourselves. We need to be aware of what’s going on in our heart. What are the impulses that are arising from our heart? How are we relating to the world around us? One of the surest ways to prevent being deceived is to know, beloved, the Hebrew Bible. Now, I know that we can’t all be Bible scholars, but I thank God for those of you that are listening today, those of you that are interested in understanding the Jewish roots of the Christian faith, because the New Testament, of course, comes out of the Hebrew Bible. That’s why the first chapter in the New Testament, Matthew 1.1, begins by quoting the genealogy of Jesus, going all the way back to the first book of the Old Testament, to the book of Genesis, showing that the New Testament is built on the Old Testament. So one of the things that helps us to make sure that we’re walking down the straight and narrow path is to make sure that the doctrine that we’re believing is firmly rooted not only in the pages of the New Testament, but it’s just as well rooted in the pages of the Hebrew Bible. What do I mean? Sometimes people get teachings that they’re basing entirely on the New Testament without going to the roots of the New Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, and because they don’t know the beginning of the book, They have a misunderstanding of the New Testament. We can’t really understand the New Testament as fully as the Lord wants us to without having an understanding of the foundation of the New Testament, the Hebrew Bible. This is why Yeshua said, do not think I’ve come to abolish the law and the prophets. I’ve not come to abolish, but to fulfill. We’re studying today from the pages of the Hebrew Bible. We’re going back to the Torah, to the book of Exodus, and we’re looking at the Mishkan or the tabernacle that the Lord instructed Moses to build so that the children of Israel could enter into God’s presence. You see, when Adam fell in the Garden of Eden, a separation took place between the Creator and humanity that he had created in his own image. But the Lord raised up a new way for us to enter back into his presence. And the way that the Lord has established is foreshadowed in the tabernacle. That’s why the Lord told Moses in Exodus chapter 25, He said, Moses, I want you to build me a sanctuary, which is another word for tabernacle known in Hebrew as the Mishkan. And he said, Moses, you need to build it exactly according to the pattern that I’m giving you. Every piece of furniture, everything about the tabernacle means something. And what is it all about? It’s about, beloved friend, how you and I can have fellowship with God. Now, on my last teaching on this, I began to cover some of the preliminary pieces of furniture and some of the foundations. On my last teaching, I covered the fact that there was a fence all around the tabernacle. There was only one small way in through the fence. I talked about what that fence represents. It represents a separation between God and man. But in God’s mercy, he’s made a door. Of course, that door has been fulfilled in the person of Messiah of Nazareth, Yeshua of Nazareth. When the person walked in through the door, the first thing that they came to was a brazen altar. And on that altar, they presented their sacrificial substitute. I encourage you to go back and get my first teaching in this series or refer to my book called The Mystery of the Tabernacle, the ancient secret to understand how to experience the divine presence. So I’m not going to go back and review any further. I refer you to my book or go to the previous episode. I want to move forward now and cover the next piece of furniture that we could see in the tabernacle. We’ve come to the door. We’ve presented our sacrifice. What do we see next? We see, beloved, a brass laver. Now the brass laver was a basin that was filled. It was the place where the priests would come and wash themselves every day. Now I want you to get this. Not only do we understand that because the priest had to wash themselves every day, it’s being communicated to us that you and I need to be continually being cleansed every day. We’re being washed more and more and more as we enter in deeper in our fellowship with our Creator, as we more and more repent, as the Holy Spirit is continually showing us ways in our life that we need to grow, how we need to improve, how we need to stretch ourself to be stronger, to love more, to be more patient. Whatever it is that the Holy Spirit is showing you, every day we’re growing. We’re not static. Just like the priest had to wash themselves every day because their washing, their consecration to the Lord was becoming more and more as they were being transformed. Not only do we learn that from the brass laver because they had to wash daily, but there’s something else here that’s so important. We read in the book of Exodus chapter 38, this brass laver, this place where the priest washed themselves, it was made from the mirrors. Get that. It was made from the mirrors of the women that ministered outside the tabernacle. This is really poignant. This is so important. God specified where the brass needed to come from. It needed to come from mirrors. Now remember, God told Moses, every piece of this tabernacle needs to be made exactly how I’m telling you. You make this brass laver, Moses, from mirrors. Now think about this. What is a mirror used for? What do you and I use a mirror for? We don’t use a mirror to try to figure out, you know, what somebody else looks like, right? We use a mirror to see what we look like. A mirror shows us our own face. We look at a mirror to see ourselves. So the brass laver is about cleansing. And when the priest went to the brass laver every day and they looked over the brass laver that was filled with water, What do you think they saw? They saw a reflection of themselves. What can we learn from this? That if you and I are gonna be cleansed, we need to see ourselves through the eyes of the Spirit. And as we see ourselves through the eyes of the Spirit and agree with Him and repent by growing by saying, yes, Lord, I agree with what you’re saying. I want to grow in this area of my life. I want to love more. I want to give more. I want to be a more patient person. I want to control my emotions or my lust or my anger. Yes, Holy Spirit, I agree with what you’re showing me about myself and I turn to you to rise up and follow you as we do that, we’re more and more being cleansed. This is so important. That’s why I began today’s teaching with the concept of self-awareness. Some of us don’t take time to really look at ourselves. We need to be aware of what’s going on in our heart. What are the impulses that are arising from our heart? How are we relating to the world around us? Are we easily frustrated? And then when we get frustrated, we get angry. And then when we get angry, we hate or we judge people or we condemn people. The Holy Spirit will show us these things. And as he shows us, we need to say, yes, Lord, I’m guilty. Help me. Because the Bible says if we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and what? Cleanse us of all unrighteousness. So the brass laver, as the priests came every day 3,500 years ago and they looked into the brass laver, they saw themselves. It’s a teaching, beloved. It’s a prophetic shadow of how you and I can walk with God, how we can enter deeper into the divine presence. We have to be transformed. And in order to be transformed, we need to be aware of our sin and we need to be cleansed of it by confessing it and turning away from it and overcoming.
SPEAKER 02 :
You’re listening to Discovering the Jewish Jesus with Rabbi Schneider, and he’ll be right back. But first, a quick announcement.
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SPEAKER 04 :
You know, I was doing a devotional recently here and I was reading it in my devotional about the sin of laziness and having a mindset of being in this world for pleasure and how when the Lord gives us a command, we need to run to obey Him. It was about running to do God’s will. And why do we not run to do God’s will? And the teaching that I was absorbing was we don’t run to do God’s will sometimes because we’re lazy. And we need to have a mindset like a soldier. Soldiers, they sleep on the ground. They have irregular sleeping hours. They sleep whenever they can get it. They can’t have the best meals all the time. They’ve got to eat when they can, what they can. And they’ve got a mindset that they’re there to do a job, not to be comfortable in the world. And as I was reading this, I was thinking, yes, Lord, I need to be less affected when you’re asking me to do something And when you’re asking me to do something, it is a disruption to my wanting to be comfortable. That was the sin that I was wanting to repent of, that I don’t get frustrated because the Lord is asking me to do something that is not comfortable for me. Like, let’s say, for example, We get home from work and we’re tired. And we’re just tired, we don’t feel like doing anything. But there’s somebody in our house, maybe, maybe it’s a grandchild, maybe it’s a phone call, maybe it’s somebody, they want to talk to us. And they need our ear to listen to them. And they need our love or they need our affirmation. Maybe they need our prayer. They just need to feel our presence with them. But instead, because we’re tired, we don’t really want to deal with it sometimes. We don’t really want to spend the time to talk. But the Lord was showing me, listen, you’ve got to rise out of being comfortable. And when I’m putting you in a situation where I’m asking you to do something, you’ve got to repent of not running to do what I’m asking you to do because it’s making you uncomfortable because you’re tired or because you just want to rest. And so as I saw this, I said, yes, Lord, I see what you’re saying to me here. That a lot of times I’m getting frustrated because someone’s calling me to do something and I just want to lay on my couch and study your word. Because that’s usually what I’m doing. I’m just studying God’s word. I’m reading different literature, spiritual literature, some from rabbinic sources, some from the scriptures itself, some from different New Testament. But I’m absorbing God’s word and I don’t want to be bothered. But sometimes the Lord is saying, no, that’s a sin for you just wanting to lay here because you love my word so much. When I’m putting something in front of you that I’m asking you to do, get off your couch, go spend time with your grandkids, go spend time with your wife. And I said, yes, Lord, you’re right, because I was just enjoying being in your word. But I can see now that you’re showing me that it’s sometimes it’s just selfish of me. And so I’m sharing that story with you just to give you an example for my own life of how this takes self-reflection. The priest came and the Holy Spirit showed them things about themselves and they washed themselves with the water. This is the prophetic teaching here, we’re priests. And so I wanna ask you, how much time do you spend just by yourself in the Lord’s presence in openness to the Holy Spirit to show you what He wants to show you. I remember when I was a kid growing up, maybe some of you can relate to this, and I remember my dad saying to me one time, you only hear me when I say something that you want to hear. He didn’t say it like, it was something about candy. If he said the word candy, I heard him. Whenever my parents would say, candy, we jumped off the couch. We ran to them. We got that quarter. We walked down to the drugstore, came back with our bag of candy. My dad said, you know, whenever I say candy, you hear me. But if my dad would say, hey, go straighten your bed or go clean your room. For some reason, he must have noticed that I didn’t hear him so well. I wonder how many of us are like that with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s speaking, but because He’s speaking to us about something that we’re uncomfortable about, or we’re too lazy to do something about, or it makes us uncomfortable because to obey the Spirit’s voice, it would stretch us out of our comfort zone. I wonder how many of us have shut Him out and we’re not listening. But to grow and be cleansed, we need to hear and we need to let the Spirit speak to us what He wants to show us. We need to look at ourselves. We need to look at ourselves just as the priests looked at themselves when they leaned over the brass lever. And we need to agree with what the Spirit is saying. And we need to repent. We need to strive to grow, to overcome. Last night, I didn’t get a good night’s sleep. I was really wanting to get a good night’s sleep last night because I knew that I was going to be ministering to you today. And I woke up this morning and I wasn’t in the best of moods. And I was thinking about the fact, man, I feel lousy. I feel tired. But you know what? I was thinking about what the Lord was showing me. Listen, you’ve got to be like a soldier. You’ve got to rise up above just being trapped and being tired. You’ve got to rise up and run to do my will and stretch yourself to perform it even when you’re tired. And so I was thinking about that. And so what did I do? Rather than acting like I was frustrated to my wife because I was so tired, instead I made a conscious decision to love my wife, to not let her see that I was tired, to not let her see that I was frustrated. to not let her see anger from me because it took her a little longer to get to bed last night, which is, I think, maybe one of the reasons I didn’t sleep well because I can’t sleep well unless Cynthia’s in bed with me. The Holy Spirit, show me about myself. I’m calling you to a higher level. And you know what happened? When I got strong and I said, Lord, I’m not going to let myself show frustration. I’m not going to let myself show anger because you showed me about myself. that I need to be strong and not allow myself to be trapped in just protecting my own comfort. I need to run to do your will, even if it means doing your will when I’m sacrificing my comfort. So what did I do? I overcame it. but I had to first be aware of myself. And you know, I recognized it as I stepped and showed love and showed compassion and blessed my wife and prayed for her. When I could have very easily, in my old man, shown my frustration or showed my anger. But when I chose to not allow my physical tiredness determine my behavior, you know what I realized? Doing that right thing, it made me stronger. It made me stronger, not just for a second, but there’s a transformation that’s taking place as we hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to us and then agree with Him and do it, we get stronger. And you know what happens, my beautiful and holy brothers and sisters, when we get stronger? we break free. We break off the darkness that surrounds us that’s pressing in. But part of the process is to be like the priest that let the Holy Spirit show them what it was that they needed to be cleansed of. So I want to ask you today, are you making a conscious decision in your life just to spend time with the Lord, just you and He alone, and opening yourself up to Him and letting Him show you where you’re an heir, letting Him correct you? See, the Bible says that the Lord disciplines every son or daughter that He receives. And if we’re without discipline, we’re not His children. So discipline is a good thing. It’s a blessing. It allows us to grow. It allows us to repent. It allows us to change. It’s a process of transformation. It allows us to make a decision so that we can become stronger and as a result, break free. This is the gospel, beloved. It’s revealed to us in the tabernacle. So maybe you’ve not heard this before. Maybe you’ve only heard about how God wants to bless you and make you happy and healthy and wise and do all these things for you. And that’s good. That’s true. God wants to bless us. But let’s start with the inner man. Let’s start by recognizing and becoming conscious of our sin. Let’s be open to the Spirit so He can show us where we need to repent. And let’s agree with Him and take action and do what He’s revealing that we should do. And as we do, beloved, we’re going to become strong and we’re going to more and more shine with the power of the face of Jesus. Many of you love Jesus. I can feel it. We’re in a situation, those of us that are senior citizens or those of us that are above the age of 50, we were raised, we were taught to honor the Lord with our finances. but America and many other nations in the world are not so Christian anymore. What that means is those of us that have learned how to tithe, those of us that have been instructed to honor the Lord with our finances, we need to be thinking about having an ability to continue to reach the younger generation, many of whom are not tithing. When you honor the Lord by sowing financially into Discovering the Jewish Jesus, you’re giving us an opportunity to continue to reach the younger people even after you and I have passed on. Even if they might not give like we do, we’re going to have enough that we have already to continue to reach them. I want to ask you to sow financially into this ministry so that we can reach, beloved, the next generation.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you, Rabbi. And friends, to give a donation of any amount online, visit us at discoveringthejewishjesus.com. You can also support this ministry today by calling us. Our number is 800-777-7835. You could also send your check in the mail to Discovering the Jewish Jesus, P.O. Box 777, Blissfield, Michigan, 49228. You know, your support, it makes it possible for Rabbi’s teaching to reach people all all over the entire world and we don’t take that lightly so thank you thank you and we get testimonies from listeners like jeff from missouri who sent us this testimony i didn’t believe in god and i’m a jewish kid from missouri and it took me 30 years i ended up in prison from drugs and alcohol I heard about the rabbi and I became a believer in his ministry. He uses the word and that’s the key. This guy is now saved because he heard rabbi’s messages and now Jesus is his Lord. I love that. That’s the difference that you, our supporters, are helping. helping make possible because of your giving. I want to give you that address one more time to send your gift in. Discovering the Jewish Jesus, P.O. Box 777, Blissfield, Michigan, 49228. Or you can also give online at discoveringthejewishjesus.com. And before we go today, I want to let you know that Rabbi has a book that goes with this series, and it’s called The Mystery of the Tabernacle. The book reveals how God’s ancient blueprint that God gave to Moses, it’s not just history, it’s a pathway to God’s supernatural presence. Every furnishing, every offering, every color and detail, it all points to Jesus and our Father’s desire to have a relationship with us. It’s available on our website as well, discoveringthejewishjesus.com. And again, it’s called The Mystery of the Tabernacle. Now here’s Rabbi with the Aaronic Blessing.
SPEAKER 04 :
In the Old Testament book of Numbers, we find a blessing God speaks over his children through Moses and Aaron. It carries the idea of favor and expression. Open your heart to the Spirit and the Word today and receive Father’s goodness into your life with confidence.
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 02 :
I’m your host, Dustin Roberts, and this program is produced and sponsored by Discovering the Jewish Jesus. Join us again when Rabbi Schneider moves deeper inside the tabernacle to the holy place. That’s Wednesday on Discovering the Jewish Jesus.
