Walk
513 Dreams & Visions
Dreams
and visions are a long-neglected part of spiritual communication from heaven.
We admire Daniel, applaud his courage and his convictions but often forget that
at one scary moment in history, his ability to hear what God was saying in a
dream was all that stood between he and his friends' certain death. What can
you learn from your dreams?
God
often spoke to people in Scripture and history by dream to get across an idea
difficult to describe in any other way. Of course, not all dreams come from
God.
Many
are just normal brain-play at rest. Some dreams can also come from the demonic
world and some come from too much pizza! Yet everyone dreams and God can and
has used the dream.
A
vision differs only one basic way from a dream; the vision can occur when the
person is wide awake and not sleeping. A dream or vision from God is implanted
or inspired by the Holy Spirit and can only be interpreted by Him. Like
Daniel's dream it requires a revelation of the Lord.
How can you tell if a dream or vision is from God?
Use the following tests from Youth Aflame as a rough guide.
If
the dream is an authentic speaking of God it will be:
(a)
Very realistic, like an actual scene of life. A sense of import ands value
fills it.
(b)
Usually short, not ramble or confused. Clearly defined in purpose or sequence.
(c)
Definite impression made for certain action left in the mind on awakening.
(d)
Person awakens feeling closer to God, refreshed, awed or challenged.
(e)
Leaves person awakened to God's claims (Acts 26:19; 10:19 16:10)
(f)
Visions: Easily distinguished from physical world on which it is superimposed.
(g)
Visions: Are NEVER given by God in mentally NON-ACTIVE conditions (e.g.) under
hypnosis, the disorientating effects of hallucinogenic drugs, other
self-induced trances, high energy music, yoga, or other Eastern disciplines,
transcendental meditation, occult or spiritist conditions).
(h)
Never recurring suggestions for occult secrets or promises of power; not
sensually arousing to attitudes of hatred or fear; not depressing, deadening,
confusing.
If
you want to develop your spiritual sensitivity to the dream to open it as
another avenue through which the Lord can teach you, follow these suggestions:
(a) Be serious with Him. Expect Him to
speak to you His own time and own way.
(b)
Learn the discipline of silence during your day to cultivate your spirit.
(c)
Learn how to fall asleep with your mind filled with thoughts of God.
Prayer
and praise, Bible-reading just before bed will help.
(d)
If you have a dream you believe comes from God WRITE IT OUT the instant you
wake up. Do not delay. Write it in as much detail as you can.
(e)
Think deeply about the dream. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide your imagination
around
it. Often your dream is symbolic and can give you deep insights.
(f)
If you like discuss your dream with a spiritual, considerate friend. Some
comment may give you the very key that unlocks the whole thing for you.
(g) The importance of the dream in
guidance is three-fold, Firstly, our whole beings are relaxed in sleep and not
occupied by secular concerns. Secondly, God by His Spirit can have direct
access to our spiritual nature with our entire inner being focused on what He
is showing us. Thirdly, He can show us in symbols what we would never normally
see. Our minds during sleep can lucidly see simple things, placing them in
proper context, analyzing, evaluating and marveling at them. God can preview a
decision for us by a dream so we know what to do when we wake up. (I Kings
3:5-15)
Notice in Genesis chapter 1 when God created everything.
First God saw in Himself what was to be. Then the Holy Spirit hovered over the thing that needed to
be made whole (the formless and void earth). Then God spoke, and it happened. What happened?
What He was thinking in His vision. God always calls those things that be not as if they already
were. That is how He creates. He sees a vision, puts the Holy Spirit
to work along with the Word. Hebrews 11:1 says that faith is the SUBSTANCE of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen. Hope is the blueprint or the vision of
what is going to be in the future, and faith is the seed that has the power to
manifest that vision.
We are in the image of God! What does it mean? We have a common operating system that
God has. Computers have difference
operating systems, and usually one program designed for DOS will not work for
Macintosh, and another will not work for Windows. But we have the same operating system as God.
Sometimes we do not understand the nature of the natural and
spiritual worlds and therefore we do not understand the human being's
importance and even our own value to God and to mankind.
How does God do things?
Genesis 1:1-3 Creation: God the Father had the inner image, the
Holy Spirit went geographically to where the problem was, and The Son spoke the
Word. The Holy Spirit obeyed the
Word and did the creative work. It
took confusion and darkness and brought light and order. God said it was good.
Mark 11:20-24: The power of words: words are seeds that carry an
image called hope or imagination.
First the inner image called hope, then the words, then the Spirit obeys.
Genesis 1:21- 25 He brought forth animals after their own
kind. They multiplied to be like
their fathers. Verse 26 God said
to make man after our own image, likeness, like God. They were capable of having imagination, and speaking words
which had dominion. It was their
instruction to go to The Word of God (Tree of Life) and hear God speak, then
repeat what they had heard in the earth, and that would be the way that they
would have control, dominion over the earth. This plan also allowed God to be in control of things.
However this was a voluntary submission. Being created like God
gave man the ability to choose like no other animal. Satan knew this; he also knew that he had not been given
authority like this. So he devised
a plan to obtain this authority over God's creation, the earth and everything
in it.
God went about getting a new family He
used the same principal
Abraham: He told
Abram to go look at and count the stars.
Then he renamed Abram to Abraham which literally means the father of
many nations. He renamed Sarai to
Sarah which means the princess of a family of people. These were two people who in the natural were beyond child
bearing age who could not have a family; they were about 75 years old when God
first put the vision in them.
About 25 years later, after looking at stars and hearing the words
"Father and Princess" their inner image changed, and Isaac was
born. God's purpose here was to
create a new family called Hebrews or Israelites in order to eventually bring
His own Son Jesus into the earth through them as a Savior.
Jacob’s vision
Jacob was Abraham's grandson and it was up to him to keep the new
race going. Jacob fell
in love with his uncle's daughter Rachel.
But uncle Laban was a bigger con artist than Jacob and had Jacob work
for him for seven years in order to earn Rachel in marriage. Jacob kept Laban's cattle and sheep and
did a good job. Laban made Jacob
marry his other daughter Leah. He
said if he would work another seven years he could have Rachel. Jacob did and he got Rachel. The problem was that Laban and his
daughters were idolaters and God wanted to change Jacob and free him.
God
had a plan however, and He gave Jacob a dream and a vision. He showed Jacob in a dream that all the
rams and cattle had stripes and spots. Gen 31:11-12. Well when Laban in 30:27 asked Jacob to stay and keep his
cattle, Jacob remembered the dream and made a deal with Laban. He said that he would keep the cattle
for no wages, for free, but that his pay would be all the striped and spotted
ram and cattle that were born.
He further agreed that he would start with only solid colored animals,
and that the spotted and striped ones would be removed from his flock. It sounded impossible; that the solid
cattle would bear stripped cattle.
So Laban agreed.
So
Jacob took rods of green poplar (Gen 30:37) and made spots and stripes on them. Then he set these rods before the
flocks at the watering roughs so that when they would come to drink they would
see these stripes and spots. Gen
30:39 says that the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle
stripped, and spotted. Jacob did
not put the feeble cattle before the rods, and they bore weak solid colored
cattle, which belonged to Laban.
The strong stripped cattle belonged to Jacob.
Jacob
became rich. The Lord sent him
away back to his land to fulfill his destiny. (Genesis
30:43). And the man increased exceedingly, and had many flocks, and maidservants, and male servants,
and camels, and asses. Jacob's name changed to Israel: From trickster to contender for God.
Joseph's dreams: His dreams and words
kept the family going.
Genesis 37:5-11. And Joseph dreamed a dream and told it to his
brothers. And they hated him still more. And he said to them, I pray you, Hear
this dream which I have dreamed. For behold! We were binding sheaves in the
middle of the field, and lo, my sheaf arose and also stood upright. And behold,
your sheaves stood around and bowed down to my sheaf. And his brothers said to
him, Shall you indeed reign over us? Or shall you indeed have the rule over us?
And they hated him still more for his dreams and for his words. And he dreamed
still another dream, and told it to his brothers. And he said, Behold, I have
dreamed another dream. And behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars
bowed down to me. And he told it to his father and to his brothers. And his
father rebuked him and said to him, What is this dream that you have dreamed?
Shall I, and your mother, and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the
earth before you? And his brothers were jealous of him. But his father observed
the saying. This dream of Joseph’s
actually got God’s people delivered in later years, and fulfilled God’s
purposes.
So often however, as with Joseph and
Jacob, a dream and a vision brings pain and pressure.
God usually gives us visions and dreams, and then orders our life
in unusual circumstances so that our character is shaped to fit the dream. Sometimes this takes years.
Moses
with the serpent on the bronze pole.
A vision of the future Cross.
Nu.21:8 And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent,
and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is
bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a
pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld
the serpent of brass, he lived.
(John 3:14-16).But even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son
of man be lifted up, so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life. For God so loved the world that He gave His
only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have
everlasting life.
When the Israelites in the wilderness were dying from the fierce
bites of the serpents (a picture of Satan biting us), God’s remedy was to have
them stare at a serpent on the brass pole. Jesus tells us that this was a picture of Him on the
Cross. But Jesus was not a serpent
you might say. True, but He was
made sin for us. (2 Corinthians 5:21). For He has made Him who knew no sin, to
be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Staring at the snake on the cross has worked for me in my deepest
time of great pressure and pain.
All I could think about was, “no matter what things look like, Jesus
took all my penalty for everything; nothing was left out!”. God has always worked things out
for me!!!