Sid Roth

Sid: My guest Rabbi Kirt Schneider, what a background he come from a Jewish background, bar mitzvah in a conservative synagogue but like most Jewish people he didn’t know his scriptures and his god was wrestling.  He wanted to be a champion and he almost made it but he didn’t make it what a letdown. So then his god became money and he really didn’t make that and then he got a little into New Age he’s reading books on Yogis and Swamis and he goes to bed one night and no Christian witnessed to him. He’s 20 years in 1978 and he goes to bed and guess who appears, Jesus. Jesus appears and no one could talk him out of that; his parents very upset so they  hired one of the most famous programmers this is an individual that gets paid money to talk people out of their faith because they believe that perhaps these people are in cults or occult groups. Well he made no headway with Kirt. So he took him to what was called a rehab house and he didn’t make any headway there.  Two weeks later Kirt goes home and his parents hire a nice Jewish physicist and he ends up in a psych ward and what happened next Kirt?

Kirt:  Well that was a very very difficult time, I felt pretty good before going to the psych ward but I mean I felt like God was rebuilding my life; I was starting to build a new foundation for who I was in Yeshua and I was regaining my strength as I indicated earlier after wrestling I really was thrown for a loop but my life was being rebuilt in the Lord but I tell you what when I went in that psych ward it was very difficult because I would wake up every day with all this energy as a young man, but I couldn’t leave this little hallway. And by the time I got out of there in two months it was like my energy had been turned inward and it took me several months to be able to recuperate from that experience but praise God things have been an upward journey and you know I get along very well with my parents today it’s such a blessing. I get along as good today as I ever have and they’ve come a long way in fact they recently came to the Messianic Synagogue that I lead in Toledo and really enjoy the services. They are not believers, yet but it’s a long way from those days when they paid thousands of dollars to have me reprogramed and to have me probated to a mental hospital because of my faith in Yeshua.

Sid: Now the reason that I’m interviewing you is because you have taught such an easy to understand seminar on prophecy dreams and visions in your own life that’s how you came to know the Messiah. So obviously it’s important to you; tell me examples of some of how God has communicated with His people, not necessarily the scripture though the scripture is loaded, but through people you know or yourself.

Kirt:  Well, I’ll tell you one of the most significant encounters I’ve had with the Lord was this summer in August. I had a dream; I had been praying to the Lord consistently that He would give me a greater sense of His peace Sid.  And one night in August I went to sleep it was the very end of August and in my sleep I encountered the Lord, it was the most emotionally gratifying encounter I’ve ever had with Him in my life.  God has shown me many things in my dreams in terms of revelation; there have been times I’ve known what was going to happen before it came to happen etcetera.  But in this particular night in August I found myself in my dream I forest it was a beautiful lush forest there was green, lush green everywhere and this forest was surrounded on the perimeter with these huge rock boulders and one the rock boulders was this gorgeous green ivy this lush ivy growing on the boulders. Now the boulders serve to make this beautiful lush forest an enclosed spot so that it was a secret enclosed lush place.  And in the center of this forest there was a simple wooden picnic table; now while I’m seeing this in my dream the Spirit of God Sid is just bathing me with a supernatural peace; I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life.  It was the most beautiful awesome peace I’ve ever experienced in my life. As I’m seeing the lush scenery I feel God Spirit drawing me deeper into the forest closer to the picnic table that was in the center of the forest which I believe represented His presence and I’m feeling His peace just bath me drawing me deeper in. And then suddenly as this happens in the dream I smell pizza, and it was the most crisp smell of pizza I mean it was like the pizza was being baked three feet from me.  And instantly when I smelled the pizza in the pit of my stomach in my dream I got hungry and all of a sudden now I’m distracted now. On the one hand I’m wanting to be drawn deeper into God’s presence and deeper into His peace and then on the other hand I smell this pizza and I got hungry, and I remember thinking “What should I do?”  And I vaguely remember that maybe I could have a piece of this pizza and then I’ll be drawn deeper into the forest and as soon as I thought that Sid the dream ended and immediately I got out of bed and I was so upset with myself because I thought here was the most emotionally satisfying encounter I’ve had with the Lord in my life and I traded it in for a lousy piece of pizza. I mean I was just beating myself up mentally what in the world I was begging God to give me another chance apologizing to him that I did this.  I went back to sleep and the next morning I got up, I sat on my couch I started recording the dream and I said “Oh Lord please forgive me, please give me another chance” and I began to think about the dream, and I said “Oh Lord, what was the pizza?” I said now it could have been the devil but I said even if it was the devil I still believe that your intelligent design was in the dream and that there is a meaning and a reason that that happened with the pizza.  And what I believe God spoke to me about Sid was fasting, and I believe He revealed to me “You want a greater sense of my peace, I want you to deny yourself the natural for the sake of receiving more of the supernatural. And as a result of that dream I was able to fast for six weeks and previous to that I had never been able to fast successfully in my entire life.

Sid: Out of curiosity what type of fast were you on for six weeks?

Kirt:  I started out the fat with just one meal a day and then the last ten days well the last seven of the ten days I went to no food at all, and then the last three days I went to no food or water and that ended on Yom Kippur.

Sid: What are the results of that fast?

Kirt:   Well, I would say that there have been many results of the fast, I would say that my whole lifestyle now is more disciplined.  I believe that through that God gave me the ability to subdue my flesh and rule over myself in a greater way than I had previous to that.  Am I walking in undisturbed peace? No, but I’m walking in a greater sense of peace. That’s only one example of how God spoke to me supernaturally in a dream directing me in my life.  And I was amazed Sid as I began to teach on this; as we looked up the dream or dreams in concordance how often in scripture God has spoken to his people through dreams and yet most believers today Sid are paying no attention to their dreams at all.  To disregard our dreams to to disregard the voice of God.  In mystical Judaism there’s a teaching that says that you know that when we’re awake we’re sometimes so attached to the material environment in other word somebody’s at work they’re working on the computer you know they’re trying to get a job done for the boss. It’s difficult to be able to be conscious of things of God when you’re functioning in that environment. But when we sleep our soul is loose to some degree from its attachment of the material world and in that state of being loose the Lord will often times speak to us because we’re more receptive.  The Bible says that “Is there a prophet among you the Lord will speak to him in a vision or a dream.”  And of course in Joel chapter 2 verses 28 and 29 and the fulfillment of that in Acts 2 Peter says “Now that God’s Spirit has been poured out the result is that we’re going to be able to receive dreams from the Lord.”  Dreams should not be decreasing, they should be increasing, this is an experience for all of God’s people. One of my favorite scriptures in the Hebrew Bible was from the book of Job chapter 33.  Elihu speaks this; Elihu was one of Job’s counselors that God does not chastise at the end of the book of Job because we remember the other counselors gave Job bad advice but not Elihu.  And in chapter 33 of Job Elihu says this in verse 14 “Indeed God speaks once or twice yet no one notices it in a dream, a vision of the night when sound sleep falls on men while they slumber in their beds then He opens the ears of men and seals their instruction.”  Notice what He said there “That God speaks once twice and people who aren’t listening,” when is He doing it?  When they are sleeping in their bed; and I have found that through having a dream journal which I have been keeping since 1994 that I have made it a practice when I wake up in the morning one of the first things I do is ask myself now “What did I dream last night?”  And I found Sid as I begin to think and recall what will happen is as I’m writing it down God will begin then to bring back to me the things that I dreamed.  I mean I had dreams that of people that were in my congregation that were going to rise up and cause trouble; I’ve had dreams of them doing this months before it ever happened.

Sid: Now was it symbolic or was it literal as far as the person, could you recognize the person in the dream?

Kirt:  Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Many dreams are symbolic for example we think of Joseph and how he has the dreams of his father, and mother, and sisters, brothers bowing down to him.  But he doesn’t see his brothers bowing down to them he sees the sheaves bowing down to them.  Right and the sun and moon and stars bowing down to him and we ask ourselves the question “Why didn’t God just show Joseph you know his brother bowing down rather showing Joseph sheaves and sun and moon and stars?  But you know we look at other places in scripture we see a similar phenomenon so for example Kefa, Peter, in Acts chapter 10 going on top of the house while they’re making lunch and he falls into a trance and sees these un-kosher animals. And the voice says “Take and eat” and he says “I’ve never eaten those things.”  When we found out that as he was pondering the meaning of the vision then suddenly you know Cornelius comes to the door, his servant and he realizes that the meaning of the vision is to bring the gospels to the Gentles and not to consider them unclean.  So the question is why did God not just show Peter you know that he was supposed to bring the gospel to Cornelius and to the Gentles and why show him un-kosher animals. It’s very similar to Yeshua speaking in parables, the Bible says Yeshua says the Yeshua spoke to them in parables and without speaking to them in a parable he did not speak to them about anything.  Then his disciples came and asked Him “What’s the meaning of the parable?”  And Yeshua said “To you it’s been granted to know the mysteries of Kingdom of God.”  Now the same thing happened with Kefa, with Peter, it says “As Peter was pondering the meaning of the trans.”  You see I believe God speaks in symbols because he wants to involve us in discovery he doesn’t want us to make it so easy that we’re just living like robots.