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Are You Asleep?

Are You Asleep?

A few years ago, I dreamed that I was preaching at a church. As I was speaking God’s Word in the dream, all the congregation members stood up and placed their hands upon their hearts. I was puzzled by their actions, but I continued preaching, not knowing what they were doing. Suddenly, they began to recite the Pledge of Allegiance aloud, and their voices became a single roar: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands…” Though I continued to speak, their voices quickly drowned out my preaching.

I was so humiliated that I left the room and found a restroom in which to hide. While in the restroom I asked the Lord, “Do I have to go back in there?”

“Yes,” He replied. “Go in there and finish.”

I walked back into the room, still ashamed but committed to obeying the Lord. As I approached the pulpit, however, someone stood up and said, “They don’t want to listen to you anymore.”

I finished the message, but I could tell the congregation was not open to hearing me, nor was it receptive to God’s Word. As the dream ended, a voice spoke to me and said, “You did a good job while you were here.” I remember wondering in the dream where this voice was coming from, but it continued. “Unless people are waking up in the morning and asking Me to cleanse them, the best preacher in the world won’t be able to help them.”

Then, the dream ended. It disturbed me to the point that I was grieved for days. “What am I doing wrong?” I asked the Lord. “Why did this happen? Where am I failing as a leader that people would rise up in the middle of my message and begin to drown out Your Word with the Pledge of Allegiance? Lord, show me what I’m doing wrong. Show me what my insecurity is. Please show me where I’m failing that something like this would happen!”

I prayed like this for several days, grieving over the dream and pleading with the Lord to give me understanding. About a week later, while I was in a hotel room preparing to preach in a church, the Holy Spirit spoke to me in a crystal-clear manner: “What I showed you had nothing to do with you,” He said. “What I showed you was that people’s allegiance is not to Me even though they are in churches; it’s to the American dream.”

Beloved, I love my country. I am proud to be an American. So, please don’t misunderstand me; this is not meant to be unpatriotic in any way. But the truth is that being a proud patriot is different from being a follower of Jesus. Yeshua said His kingdom was not of this world. When He asked us to follow Him, He did not set up a separate category for partial followers; it is all or nothing. To go with Him means we deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him completely. Sadly, countless people sit in churches today thinking they are believers and assuming that they’re following the Lord, yet in reality, they are simply following the American dream.

The American dream says you can achieve anything you set your mind to. It says to believe in yourself. It says if you can dream it, you can achieve it. I love my country, but the American dream today that many Christians live for is all about serving themselves—about worshiping at the altar of “me.” This is exactly the opposite of what Jesus called us to do if we want to follow Him.

Satan loves the gospel of me. It is exactly what the Antichrist will be pushing in the end times. But until then, he loves the fact that much of America—including many in the church—has already succumbed to this self-worshipping gospel. When we follow the American dream more than God’s Word, it makes us prime candidates to be deceived by the great deceiver. And the more of us he can fool, the easier his job will be in the last days when he implements a global system that will literally and permanently mark who is deceived.

To learn more about Rabbi Schneider's latest book, The Book of Revelation Decoded Revised Edition, visit MyCharismaShop.com

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