Christians Have Compromised: What the Torah Really Teaches About Holiness

Hey, everybody, I'm super excited because I have Rabbi Schneider here and we're going to be decoding the Torah.

And before you even think about clicking off, let me just tell you, God has wisdom in the Torah for today.

And there's some scriptures that are seemingly misunderstood.

Maybe people don't understand how, what, what application does it even have for me?

And we're going to be going very deep.

So if you love to learn, if you love the wisdom and revelation of God, and if you understand the importance of, of the Torah and connecting into the Jewish roots of scripture to unlock their true meaning, this is for you.

So I want to encourage you to stick around.

Also, we're going to be dealing with some, some verses.

And so actually if you scrub the bottom of the, of the play right now, you hit the play button and the bottom, there's different chapters where you can skip ahead to the verses throughout this entire video.

And I want you to, to really take this in.

It's going to be exciting.

So, Rabbi Schneider, thank you so much for joining us.

Pastor Mike, I'm thrilled.

Thank you, brother, for having me.

Come on.

Well, you're so full of wisdom and revelation.

And you know, when we talk about the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, you know, we, we are people.

The book, we, we share the Torah.

You know, you, God's given you a lot of insight for your new book, decoding the Torah.

How did you even get the idea for the book before we jump into the Scriptures?

It was supernatural.

The Lord put it in my heart 12 years ago or so to just dig up the truth from the Torah to help believers.

I'm talking about Jewish and gentile disciples of Jesus to know how to walk in God's ways.

And here's Pastor Mike.

What a lot of people don't understand, because we know as believers that we've been redeemed from the curse of the law.

A lot of gentile Christians make the mistake of thinking that that means the law is irrelevant, that, that it's antiquated, that it's the Old Testament, that it no longer has relevance anymore.

But the truth is the Torah is a grace of God.

The Lord said to Israel, what nation is there that has such great statutes and commandments as these that I'm giving you today?

We are not under the letter of the law, but the Torah is God's self revelation.

And Paul said it's helpful for training in righteousness.

And so what I have done is I've dug deep into the laws of the Torah.

I go through over a hundred of them in my book, decoding the Torah, showing what they meant to Israel in the original historical context when they were given 3,500 years ago.

And what is the deeper insight that we as Christians, Jew and Gentile alike can apply to our lives as we're walking in God's ways and following Jesus today?

And so this thing had just been bubbling up and percolating in me.

I actually wrote most of the book in, in Jerusalem, right outside the Western Wall.

Brother.

There is something that we can receive from knowing the Torah.

It is.

It is deep, deep revelation that truly builds people up and anchors them in God.

Oh, come on.

You know, I recently taught through the entire book of Leviticus, and at the time of this interview, I have a seven location church, seven campus church.

And it was just so unusual to teach through the entirety of the book of Leviticus.

But I had so many congregation members come up to me every week and say, I did not know the intentionality of God was on that level.

And I just assumed that Leviticus was for, you know, ancient Israel and didn't have any relevance to our lives today.

But seeing how it reveals his character, how it reveals the mind of God, and how we can even transpose those principles into our lives today, help people so much.

So this is Rabbi Schneider.

Here's the one.

Okay, I got a couple.

This is.

Selfishly, I'm going to ask you about the ones I want to know because I'm.

I'm a learner.

But in Exodus, chapter 20, verse 26, there's basically a commandment dealing with how God's priests should dress.

And again, you know, I understand the priesthood of all believers in, in the, you know, according to the New Testament, we're a nation of priests.

But there you have such a great revelation.

I'm going to read this verse as it comes up on the screen, and you shall not go up by steps to my altar so that your nakedness will not be exposed on it.

So what is the implication for us?

Can you break that down?

Beautiful.

So I'm going to give the negative, and then I'm going to give the positive.

So I don't want anybody to be turned off by the negative because I got a positive coming following it.

So the first thing we need to understand is that the Lord was preventing the nation of Israel from being able to see up the priest undergarments.

So the Lord said that rather than ascending up to the altar in the temple by steps, they need to go up by a ramp.

Why?

Because Steps.

If there's no riser, you can see between each step.

So if you were standing, for example, on the other side of the steps from where the priest was ascending up, you would be able to look underneath him as he was going up into the altar in the temple, and you'd be able to see his nakedness on.

Underneath this clothes.

So it speaks to all of us.

Beloved friends, I'm speaking to all that are listening right now.

As God's priest, we need to be careful that we are not trying to draw people to our flesh.

We're holy priests in the earth.

And God did not want his people being distracted by looking up the undergarments of the priest.

He wanted them to be sanctified, and he wanted his people, Israel, to be focused on him rather than the nakedness or the flesh of a man.

And so I think this is really appropriate, that we need to be looking to the Holy Spirit and asking him, are we walking in a way that delights God, in a way that glorifies God, but also in a way, conversely, that's not drawing people to us?

So to counterbalance this, we have a law taken from the book of Exodus 28.

And in this particular law, the Lord is instructing the priests as to how they should dress in the positive sense of the word.

So the Scripture there.

I'm not sure if we have that to put up, but it says, you shall make holy garments.

The Lord is speaking through the Torah here.

You shall make holy garments for Aaron, your brother, garments for glory and for beauty.

So think about this.

The Lord wanted the priest to dress modestly in the sense that no one was being tempted.

No.

To their flesh, not seeing up their undergarments.

But it didn't mean, like, God is like, some prude.

Yeah.

You know, you can't dress attractively.

Like, you got to put your hair in a bun and, you know, wear all the black.

No, he said, I want you to dress in garments of glory and beauty.

So he told them all the colors of the garments, and it was beautiful, just like the flowers outside and the trees and the butterflies, that we can dress attractively as God's people on the earth and in ways that glorify him in the earth.

But make sure that we don't have our shirt unbuttoned so low that our cleavage is being exposed or that men aren't walking around, you know, trying to draw everybody to their biceps.

So it's a good thing to keep in mind, like, what's the motive in our dress?

And I know that Some people don't like to hear this, but it's important.

The Torah teaches us how to walk with God.

Oftentimes we hear a greasy grace and a sloppy agape that God loves us, but we don't really know how to walk before him in holiness.

And the Torah's laws help us to know, not as those that are under the law, but as those that are receiving God's self revelation in the law, how to walk with him.

So good.

Yeah.

And I think about, you know, this is particularly important because sometimes we can be so persuaded by culture that we miss the heart of God.

And so as you mentioned, it's more of like a modesty issue.

And I think that there's a lot of people, especially when you talk about like clothing.

I mean, I'm here in New York City, it's like a fashion capital of the world.

And if people were really auditing their own heart and asking themselves, why did I make that choice?

It might be revealing something deeper that God wants to touch and God wants to heal.

You know, like man, what, why are you.

I guess I'll put it like this.

What kind of people are you attracting with what you wear?

And I love that.

Yeah.

And then why would you feel the need to attract those kinds of people?

And so I think, and again, it's not telling people what to wear, but it is asking the question, why are you wearing it?

And it's, and, and like as you said, the law is training the heart.

Okay, so, so here's another one because we're just going to hit some of the major ones because this is so good.

You're such a well of wisdom, Rabbi.

So Exodus chapter 23, verse 2 says, you shall not follow the masses in doing evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after a multitude in order to pervert justice.

Now this one stood out to me because, you know, don't, don't follow an evil majority.

You know, here in New York City we see evil majorities.

As a matter of fact, online my heart has been grieved to see evil majorities.

And there's many young people, I'm talking to Generation Z, the Gen Z's that could be watching right now that you get drawn into these evil majorities online.

And you know something, because they, they'll say, oh, it's a trend.

Or I've even seen cancel culture and people trying to pressure people into taking a stance, even if they are not educated on that particular thing.

And so, Rabbi, what would you say to Exodus chapter 23, verse 2.

Excellent.

So, just a brief point.

There are 613 laws, and the law that you just brought up, Pastor Mike, is actually titled in Judaism to not follow.

Just as you said, an evil majority.

And so if we look at the reality of the situation, how many of those that call ourselves Christians or believers are willing to part from culture because it cost us something to not part with culture, what's at the heart of it?

We want to be accepted and we want to be loved.

And so because we want to be accepted and loved, we compromise and we yield to the pressure of what the scripture calls the evil majority.

And so there are few Christians that are willing to be rejected for the Lord because of the pain that comes with rejection.

But if we're not going to follow the evil majority, we will be rejected.

Let's think, for example, modern day culture.

How many Christians fail to speak truth about the distinction between maleness and femaleness?

I'm not picking on anybody.

I love everybody.

I feel for everybody.

This is just simple truth.

It's a basic creation principle.

In the beginning, God created them male and female.

He created he them.

Another law that goes with this is that a man was not to wear a woman's finery, women's clothes, and women are not to wear men's clothes.

This is one of the laws of the Torah.

We're not homophobics.

We're not picking on anybody.

We're just understanding God built his beauty and divine intelligence into creation.

And when we start merging the sexes together and start blessing the transgenderism and homosexual lifestyles, when we start blessing that, what have we done?

We followed the evil majority.

Now, this doesn't mean we're against anybody.

It simply means we're standing on truth that God has intelligent design that he built into creation.

And we're saying in a loving way, no, God built his creation this way for a reason.

And if we do away with all his distinctions, then we're going to end up with chaos and a lot of pain and a lot of hurt.

So we need to be careful the way that we're walking, that our attitudes and our talk are not the result of compromise, because we're refusing to pay the price of rejection for standing on God's word.

And so we yield it instead to compromise following an evil majority.

And there's so many examples of this.

And the dress styles that we just talked about, Pastor Mike, are one of them.

Christians today dress a lot different than they did 50 years ago.

Some of it is fine, but a lot of it is just like, you know what?

We've compromised because we follow the evil majority rather than looking to the Holy Spirit in terms of how we can walk with God in a sanctified way.

Yeah, well, you know, one of the greatest pieces of advice that I've ever received is someone saying, if you ever struggle with understanding a command of God, you just need to take a look at and try to figure out.

Figure out how it produces human flourishing.

Because all of the commands of God produce human flourishing.

And so some people would say, well, who cares?

You know, let me love who I want to love.

Let me marry who I want to marry.

Let me express myself how I want to.

But if everybody did that, you would eliminate human flourishing.

And so our differences, male and female, female is what produces life.

And so I think any agenda that that is, that impedes human flourishing, you're going to find explicit command of God to not do that thing.

And so that advice has really helped me because sometimes culture says one thing and scripture says another, but when you look at scripture and you look at it at the larger picture, you see that it actually is God's wisdom for human flourishing.

And so I'm really thankful for the wisdom that you just gave us in that breakdown.

Okay, so here's one that is near and dear to my heart.

Okay, just soften it up for a second.

So I, you know, this one is basically treating animals with compassion now.

You know, I have a dog.

His name's Star.

He has his own Instagram account.

It's Star Signorelli.

And, you know, it's the typical family dog where I don't like him, but my.

My kids and my wife love him.

And then he.

No matter what he.

I'm his favorite, and I can't figure out why.

And it's annoying, but so that we have our family pet.

But In Exodus, chapter 23, verse 5, it says, if you see the donkey of one who hates you, lying helpless under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him.

You shall surely release it with him.

Which, again, for those of you who want to be biblical scholars and theologians, and you want to really know the word, this is not a bumper sticker type of scripture.

And sometimes you read these things and you're like, what does that have to do with me?

This doesn't even matter.

And yet there are these deeper revelations of God's heart, which is why we're doing this broadcast.

And by the way, if you stayed this far, I believe that you are a real one.

And you.

You're hungry and you want to learn.

I want to encourage you to just go all the way through because we're going to do a couple of more and we're going to end on something, like, really mind blowing.

But for this one, to treat animals with compassion, you know, what is.

What is the donkey with the load?

And what does this all have to do with me?

Well, it's really interesting.

It really opens up our hearts to God's love for his creation.

So just to put it in perspective, because as you said, Pastor Mike, people read these things if they're going through the Bible in a year or three years or whatever their program, and they just skip right over this verse.

It goes right out of their head and it's like, what is this?

But what's going on here is the Lord is saying, if your enemy, someone that you do not get along with, has an animal that's suffering, you shall help that animal, even though that person is your enemy.

What does it teach us?

God loves and cares about animals, and it's precious because it opens up our hearts to the glory of God in creation.

It's just not mankind that he loves.

He loves all his creation, every animal.

And you think about, for example, the covenant that the Lord made with Noah when the flood subsided and Noah stepped out of the ark, and God spoke to Noah, and the Lord said to Noah, I'm never going to destroy the earth again with the flood.

And he said, I make this covenant, Noah, with you and with every living creature.

So this opens up our hearts to recognize God's love is all over the place.

It's on the birds, it's on the dogs.

It's on.

It's on the beautiful.

It's.

It's everywhere.

It's just like the whole earth is full of his glory.

And so recognizing that we need to treat animals with sensitivity because the Creator cares, it brings us into the spirit of life.

Wow, man, that is so good.

Yeah.

I think these are the things that, for everybody watching right now, we.

These are the things that we forsake.

I think oftentimes in the Christian faith because.

Because like I said, a lot of times we don't have a whole Bible approach.

And of course, there's tremendous value in, you know, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, Romans.

But sometimes we skip the Torah or like you mentioned, Rabbi, we read the Bible in a year and we just.

We kind of skim over this stuff.

But it's like having a deep and profound appreciation for all of God's creation is oftentimes not a value in the Christian faith.

You Know, because we have such an individualistic faith.

And so the idea of.

Of thinking about God's creation through this lens changes things.

And I also like the thing, the way there's a redemption element.

And I. I was even thinking while you were breaking this verse down about how, yeah, even the way that you care for someone else's animal could actually bridge the gap for the gospel.

And, you know, like, New York City, for example, just filled with dogs.

And I've often thought, like, man, I wonder if there's some way to minister.

And, you know, I heard of a pastor on Long island, providing.

He opened up the parking lot, which was kind of like a courtyard type of situation for the dogs of his neighborhood, and kind of created this, like, impromptu dog park in the neighborhood, and it unified.

And you had, like, Catholics and people, you know, Jewish people, and just every different race and denomination, all.

All in this dog park.

And the lowest common denominator was the dogs.

And there's something about that.

So, you know, but.

But again, I think if you understand God's heart for creation, that might even infiltrate the ministry aspect of what you're doing, you know?

Yeah.

Beautiful.

I actually saw that.

I remember that.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, so you remember that?

I think.

Yeah, I think it got, like, news coverage.

That's really cool.

Okay, so I want to do a couple of more because this has just been so rich, and we appreciate your time and your investment here in our channel.

Guys, before we take another step, you know, Decoding the Torah is a book that I suggest you check out.

I know that you all are learners.

You love to read.

We're just doing a couple of these today to whet your appetite, to get the book resource, which is actually in the description.

And this is going to help you, especially if you're watching this and you just feel like you've been stagnating or you haven't had a hunger or a desire for the word.

It could be that you're just, like, reiterating the same things, and you just need.

You need to bring in something fresh.

So I really recommend this book.

So, okay, here's one that I have no idea what you're gonna say for this.

I'm as a preacher myself and as a minister, I'm drawing a blank.

So, like this.

Again, this is selfish, but so basically, In Exodus, chapter 30, verses 7 and 8, it says, Aaron shall burn fragrant incense on it.

He shall burn it every morning.

There shall be perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations.

So it's like this sweet Spices unto the Lord.

They're being burned.

What implication does it have for me as a believer?

Beautiful.

So the name of the law is to burn sweet incense unto the Lord every morning.

This is so rich.

This is so powerful, and it's so practical.

So let's talk about what it meant in the original historical context.

The Lord was speaking to the priest in the temple earlier on in the tabernacle that later became the temple.

And every morning they had to burn a fragrant aroma of incense unto the Lord.

Now, Pastor Mike, let's think about this.

What might they have felt like every morning?

Well, some mornings they probably felt good.

Other mornings they probably felt tired or drowsy.

Maybe they had a terrible night's sleep.

Maybe they had a nightmare.

But yet, no matter how they felt, they still did the same thing every single day.

They woke up or they were already up.

But every single day, each morning, they burned that incense unto the Lord.

And for me personally, that is such great wisdom, such great instruction from the Lord.

Because when I wake up in the morning, maybe I didn't get a good night's sleep last night.

Maybe I don't feel emotionally connected to God on any particular morning.

But I know what to do.

I praise him.

I burn fresh incense to him with my praise and my prayers with blessing him and thanking Him.

And so incense represents prayer.

The prayers of the saints are illustrated in scripture in a number of different places as incense.

And our worship is like a fragrant aroma to him.

And so the challenge is.

The challenge is beloved church.

We need to be strong in the Lord and to be strong in the Lord.

We can't be ruled by our emotions.

We can't just praise God when we feel emotionally in love with him, because emotions come and go.

We have to be strong by doing what will help us get even stronger.

The scripture said Jotham ordered his ways after the Lord and grew mighty.

So I want to encourage everybody the application of this.

To burn fresh, sweet incense to the Lord every morning is begin your day just by thanking God for what he's done in your life.

I know that your life is hard at times.

Our life is all hard at times.

But that's the best time to praise Him.

An offering of praise, a sacrifice of praise, blessing the Lord even when we might feel individually miserable.

Why do we bless him even if we're feeling miserable?

Because he's worthy to be blessed and praised.

He's good.

He's beautiful.

He knows everything.

He's got a good plan for your life and my life.

So let's rise above our flesh.

Let's rise above our emotions.

Let's rise above being physically tired.

And let's begin every day just.

Father, thank you.

I bless you, Father.

God, I need you today.

Help me to fall in love with you and order my steps after you today, Father, in a deeper way.

Thank you.

Let me worship you in spirit and in truth.

Begin your day that way, my friends, and you'll grow stronger and stronger every day and through every season in your life.

Oh, that is so good, Rabbi.

Thank you for that.

You know, I just.

As you were talking, I felt like it was empowering, all of you watching right now, because it's like what you're saying is you can't choose whether things in your life are consistent, but you can choose how to respond consistently.

And the thing is that there's many people that are like, their worship is dependent on their situation.

But what you're saying is that this principle from Exodus 30 is that, no, no, my worship is going to be consistent even when my life is inconsistent.

The sweetness of this incense, which I like the fact that physically it was sweet spices, but I think spiritually, emotionally, mentally, like God, I feel bitter, but I'm going to release something sweet.

You know, there.

There's just something about that that is so needed today, especially because so many people are driven by their emotions.

They're driven by their feelings.

But we know that feelings, at best, they're indicators, but they should not be directors.

You know, it's like we.

We have to allow the.

The commands of God where it's like, man, he requires of us that we worship him daily.

I will raise one.

Rise up early in the morning and seek you.

And so I. I love that.

Okay, so we got time for one more.

And if you guys got this far, I said that I've saved the best for last.

And.

And this one, for me, I think, is really, really appropriate, because right now, you know, we are facing perilous times.

There's wars and rumors of wars, and there's governments rising up against governments, and there's talk of, you know, not just the tariffs, but, like, the limited supplies of foods and resources and shelves going dry and there's all kinds of fear in the atmosphere.

And, of course, we just got through a global pandemic, and yet, you know, there's people saying that, okay, it's not just an economic downturn, but now we're going to see maybe a depression and maybe another pandemic, but it'll be something else.

And, you know, there's just this this atmosphere of palpable fear that we experience on a daily basis.

And for those of you like me, who are news junkies, this 24 hour news cycle, I mean, there's just a never ending cycle of fear, fear, fear, fear.

And so I really believe that there's a prophetic aspect to this last one.

And Rabbi would love for you to just give us God's heart and wisdom.

So In Deuteronomy chapter 20, verse 8, it says, Then the officer shall speak further to the people and say, who is the man that is afraid and fainthearted?

Let him depart and return to his house so that he might not make his brother's hearts melt like his heart.

I mean, if this is not a word for right now, but, but help us break it down, help us understand the Torah.

Powerful, powerful, powerful.

So first of all, in the original historical context, God is teaching that morale matters.

And we can either help build the morale or we can bring everybody down.

And so the Lord was saying, if there's one in your midst that's fearful, tell him to go home, because I don't want his fear to contaminate everybody else.

I need you guys to be strong and to take territory and to have victory.

So that's the original historical context.

Anyone that went to battle had to be strong.

And if they weren't strong, if they were cowardly, they needed to be removed so that the rest of the troops would not become fearful, so that the individual's fear wouldn't spread.

But practically speaking, and this is what I do, in my book Decoding the Torah, I asked the question, what does this mean for you and I today as individual disciples of Jesus?

So what this reveals to us, my beloved friends, is that fear is not our friend.

A lot of us, we've been so attuned to fear, it's been with us so long that without realizing it, you know, we carry it around like it's a teddy bear or something.

It's controlling us.

We don't even realize it.

We think it's okay.

Yet the command to not be afraid is the most popular.

I don't like the word popular, but it's the most repeated command in the Bible.

I love it.

What Isaiah said, the Lord said to the prophet Isaiah, he said, do not fear what the world fears and do not call a conspiracy.

This is what we're hearing on the news all the time, right, Pastor Mike?

Do not call conspiracy.

The Lord said to the prophet what the world calls a conspiracy.

But the Lord alone you shall fear, and he alone shall be Your dread.

And then he will become a sanctuary for you.

So the way to be delivered from fear is to learn how to fear God alone.

When we learn how to fear God alone.

And the pure fear of the Lord is clean, and it delivers and converts the soul.

When we learn how to only be afraid of God, not afraid of man, not afraid of what this person thinks, not afraid of what this person's gonna do, not afraid of losing our job, not afraid of running out of money, not afraid of getting sick, not afraid of going old, not afraid of our spouse leaving us, whatever it might be.

When you make up your mind to fear God alone, you're gonna rise up like a lion.

And this is the secret and the mystery of being delivered from fear.

To learn how to fear God alone.

To fear nothing and no one but God.

Oh, that is so good.

The entire time you were talking, I was getting just so many visuals.

And for everybody watching, like, let me help break this down just one step further.

And Rabbi, tell me if I'm right.

It's almost like as human beings, we can't stop from feeling and experiencing fear.

It's just choosing what we fear.

So the entire army that's getting ready to go out to battle, they.

They all are experiencing fear, but not the fear of the battle.

It's the fear of the Lord.

So it's like, hey, we choose to fear the Lord.

We don't fear the battle.

But then the one that fears the battle, they've chosen the wrong direction for their fear.

So we have to send them home so that it doesn't change the direction of everyone else's fear.

And there's.

There's something about that that's so powerful because, you know, we're all going to experience fear, and we.

The news media could manipulate that.

Your friends and family could actually change the direction of it.

But it's saying, no, no, I fear.

We all fear.

The difference is I only fear God.

And.

And because I fear God, I fear no one else.

Because I fear God, I fear nothing else.

And that, to me, is just the message for this hour right now.

And thank you for that.

That impartation of that.

That word.

That's so powerful.

Brother.

That is well said.

I love that.

Oh, Rabbi, I've loved our time together.

This has been so rich.

I know that they're probably like, wait, wait, we've got to do so many more.

But that's why we left it for the book.

Decoding the Torah.

And I'm excited for you guys.

Listen, I'm just gonna brag on my YouTube audience while while they're still here with us before we sign off.

Almost, I think is a true statement.

But I'm, I'm pretty sure almost everyone, if not everyone we've broug their book has had hit bestseller after they were on the channel.

So and let me tell you why I think number one, I only choose guests that I believe are high caliber, that they have a lot of invest but also books that I believe are genuinely going to help you.

And so guys, you know what to do.

Let's, let's grab the book and let's go deeper on this journey.

But Rabbi, is there anything else that you would say to everybody right now?

Anything you'd want to point them to?

I know you have a site that we put in the description of this video as well, but anything else you got going on?

No, brother.

I just really want to say that in all spirit and truth, I truly believe that this book is a tremendous resource for the children of God, for the body of Messiah.

It really is.

I think.

I feel like it's as you said before, a lot of Christians are getting a little they're tired of just hearing the same things and they're hungry for something new.

And I think that people that absorb the resource that we're talking about today will really be inspired and it'll be helpful for you to grow and propel you forward it.

For me, I feel like it's the most important book I've ever written.

Wow.

That's saying a lot too.

That's a huge statement.

Well, thank you for spending time with us.

Thank you for visiting the channel.

Thank you.