God Speaks to Us Through Dreams,Ep 3-4
Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be doing a 2-part series on God speaking to us through Dreams and the second part will be Basic Dream Interpretation. Dreams are an important and exciting way God communicates with us and by examining dreams we can learn important principles of who God is and what He wants to say to us, for us and our purpose in Him.
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Why are we here? Why are Dreams important to understand? We are going to go through 5 principles of dreams to answer those questions.
Principle #1: Dreams, once understood, will open the door to change our life as God intends.
Ancient civilizations believed dreams were derived from a divine being. Dreams were treasured and the ancients used them as a way to direct their lives. Did you realize that over 1/3 of the Bible is about or relates to a dream or a vision. If we look at the Bible, we can see that beginning with Jacob, God chose to use dreams as his frequent tool for revelation.
In our Western, modern civilization, we are ruled by our rational mind which denies us of a main form of how God communicates with us. God does not always use our rational mind to communicate. God can do, create or reveal anything in any way he chooses. Many times, he does reveal His will in new ways and yet we dismiss it.
We know from Genesis 40 that Joseph was placed in prison and God used that as an opportunity to give dreams to the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, so Joseph could use his gift of dream interpretation with them, opening a door for him down the road. This opportunity ultimately placed him in a position of being second in authority in Egypt, a country where he was wrongly accused, imprisoned in and forgotten about for years. This after being sold by his brothers.
Most of us know that Solomon is known as the man who God gave the highest level of wisdom and discernment, so much that God said it would never be matched again. How did that opportunity come to happen in Solomon’s life? God came to him in a dream and Solomon asked for this wisdom, this ability to govern the people correctly. 1 Kings 3 tells us this story and in verse 5 we read that is was through a dream. “At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”
Even before Solomon was gifted with wisdom or discernment, he knew enough to respond to God’s inquiry, even in the dream.
One of the more frequent prophetic books quoted is Joel. I don’t know that as many people actually read the book as quote the verse, but here it is, Joel 2:27, Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God,and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed.28 “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.29 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. When you read this, it is apparent that the Lord finds giving us dreams useful and necessary. There is a reason we will need them and he will use those willing to receive them as a way to provide messages to His people.
We are going to talk about Daniel a few times in our discussions, how could we not? His entire book establishes dreams as an integral part of God communicating with His people. As the book of Daniel opens, we immediately learn he was gifted, intelligent and one of the more respected young men brought in to captivity. Part of his gifts was in interpretation of dreams. Daniel 1:7 tells us this, To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds. This gift will prove to be extremely significant in Daniel’s life. It will ensure not only his own life but the lives of the remnant of Israel and enable this remnant to return to Jerusalem from captivity in Babylon.
Principle #2: When we do not value God’s resource of receiving dreams, this resource will begin to diminish.
We are going to start with Genesis 37: 5, Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”
Joseph had a dream, he was excited, he valued it, he received it in his heart, and he naively shared it with everyone around him. Remember society at that time was largely your family members. Jacob, Joseph’s father had land, so they weren’t living in the city where Joseph was surrounded by his friends. This excitement is how the Lord wants us to be when He gives us dreams.
Imagine if you wanted to be in a relationship with someone and you kept giving them gifts that would make their life better, their decisions would lead to better opportunities, they would be provided for, they would avoid a lot of problems because of the gifts you were providing out of love. One day you came to give another gift and found out that the person you loved, never opened a single one of your gifts? Would you continue to give the gifts that are unused? If we don’t value what God is providing, He will eventually see that as turning your back on His provision and He will not see this as a fruitful means of communicating with you. Would you rather have more ways to receive from God, or less?
Principle #3, If we ignore God speaking to us in dreams, we will miss what He has planned for our lives.
Of all the books in the bible, Job is one of the ones that we all remember well because of all of the hardship that Job endured. The fact that he endured it just because he was a man who loved God makes it even more memorable. We learn al ot from Job, we learn a lot about the character of God and we learn about how Satan moves and Satan’s purposes with creating chaos in our lives. Job lived during the patriarchal period. He was a contemporary with Isaac and Jacob, so we are talking about 2000 BC. There may not have been a written word at the time, and no technology as we know it, but Job knew some things. Most importantly, Job knew God. Here is what he says in Job 33:14-18, “For God does speak—now one way, now another—though no one perceives it. 15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds, 16 he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warning 17 to turn them from wrongdoing and keep them from pride 18 to preserve them from the pit, their lives from perishing by the sword.” Job knew God communicated through dreams and he knew even in the midst of his turmoil that God’s words were not to be ignored, but revered, understood and acted upon.
Let’s look at someone who was the opposite of Job. Even though he was anointed as Israel’s first King, Saul was not a man worthy of his country’s devotion. He did not have a relationship with God throughout most of his kingship. It catches up to him multiple times, but as we read 1 Samuel 28:15, he is feeling the hardship of it. It says this, Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” “I am in great distress,” Saul said. “The Philistines are fighting against me, and God has departed from me. He no longer answers me, either by prophets or by dreams. So I have called on you to tell me what to do.” Saul ignored God often enough that he missed the opportunity to be a great king and have a long life with his family line intact.
Sometimes, we live like Saul did and one reason God uses dreams is because when we are asleep, we are a type of captive audience. Unlike when we are awake, and we don’t give him the opportunity due to our inability to wait and listen or our unwillingness to give him the time he would like to share with us. We honor God by valuing the dreams He uses to communicate with us which helps us to not miss what He is providing to us and what he has planned for our lives
Principle #4: Identify the author of your dream
Both believers and non-believers alike will readily admit that dreams can come from God or they can come from Satan. Where we get into trouble as believers is when we don’t know the difference or worse yet, we seek out someone involved with palm reading, psychics or the like. There are times in our lives, no matter who you are, when Satan will be bothering you in the night, particularly midnight to 3a.m., and you will have terrorizing dreams or dreams that create fear or worry. Where we often go wrong is immediately dismissing anything that has a negative message. God can use dreams however he wants and at times he will use negative actions to instill a response in us. Likewise, people will misinterpret a dream where they are happy but doing something sinful, and they will interpret that as, God wants me to be happy. I hate hearing Christians justify sin with, God wants me to be happy. It’s sickening and one day they will realize that was not God at all. Zechariah speaks to that in 10:2, “The idols speak deceitfully, diviners see visions that lie; they tell dreams that are false, they give comfort in vain.”
When we get a dream, it’s important to know who gave us the dream, who is trying to instill something in us. If we allow something to be instilled in us through a dream that is not from God, it can lead us down the wrong path. God tells us this in Deuteronomy 13:1, If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, 2 and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” 3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. 5 That prophet or dreamer must be put to death for inciting rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. That prophet or dreamer tried to turn you from the way the Lord your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you.
There are times when God very clearly tells you what is Him and what is not and we still don’t listen, mostly because we don’t want to and we doubt him. If what He is saying doesn’t suit our ears, we may choose to reject it and that is just what happened in Jeremiah 27: 8, “‘“If, however, any nation or kingdom will not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon or bow its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation with the sword, famine and plague, declares the Lord, until I destroy it by his hand. 9 So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums or your sorcerers who tell you, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon.’ 10 They prophesy lies to you that will only serve to remove you far from your lands; I will banish you and you will perish.
If we don’t know the author if our dream, we open doors for the enemy we can’t shut and we close doors to God, we can’t open. We make those choices in our own lack of knowledge. Hosea 4:6, my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
Principle #5: Identify the Purpose or Interpretation of Your Dream
When the Lord communicates with us, there is a reason. The most difficult aspect of dreams I believe is understanding them. Dreams can suspend reality. Dreams can suspend the laws of gravity. Dreams can function without the need for natural laws or the order of the world we live in so they are full of details we sometimes cannot comprehend and find difficulty in describing. That is what also makes them fun. The creativity and imagination the Lord uses never ends.
We discussed Genesis 40 in our first point. Let’s reexamine it here for a minute, when Joseph was in prison and God gave him the opportunity to interpret the dreams of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, we see Joseph clearly understood where his gift of interpretation came from and was able to give God the credit in his response in verse 8, “We both had dreams,” they answered, “but there is no one to interpret them.” Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”
Daniel was also given the gift of interpretation and we see that God was able to use Daniel in huge ways that would have impacted the lives of many if Daniel had chosen not to honor God by being willing to be used for God’s purposes. The King was upset, in turmoil over a dream and was willing to kill many people over his lack of understanding. Daniel knew God would provide him what was necessary and his faith in God was rewarded as we see in Daniel 2:19, “During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision.”
Dreams are important. We don’t want to dismiss them just because we don’t understand them.
If this is an area of your life you want to see an increase in from God, then we need to show Him honor in that area. How do we show Him honor? Here are 7 steps we can take to show Him honor in our dream life.
We show that honor by:
· Make time for Him in our daily life
o Are we praying, are we reading the Bible, are we acting in a way that is honoring to Him
· Welcome Him to speak to us through the dream
o Let him know before you go to bed that if He needs or wants to communicate with you in a dream that you will value that communication and ask that He help you remember it so you can act on it
· Document the dream
o Keep a notepad or journal and pen by your bed so that if He provides you with a dream, you can document it while it is fresh in your mind. Details can fade over a matter of minutes. Document all the details you can remember. Using a voice memo will also work well.
· Seek Him to understand what He has given you: Be a Daniel
o If he chooses to use a dream to communicate, be thankful and then pursue Him for the interpretation. He wants us to pursue Him. If he didn’t, He would just leave you a note. Our relationship grows when we pursue Him and seek out understanding. He wants us to grow.
· Develop understanding of why He gave it to us
o There are reasons why He chose a dream and there are reasons why He gave you the dream. Once you have an understanding of what He gave you, pursue Him for why He gave it to you. Are you involved in something He is guiding you away from? We can gain understanding of what He is telling us, but He will also explain why so that we can begin to change our direction and become more like Him. He can reveal to us what we cannot see on our own.
· Act on what we understand from Him
o Once we have the understanding and the why, we need to do something with that information. We cannot simply receive the information and sit on it. He took the time to lay out the dream for us, now it is our turn to move on what He gave us.
· Follow Up with Him for additional direction
o Stay connected with Him until you have fulfilled all that He has ask of you. Follow up with Him to make sure you did not overlook what He wanted from you and that you did whatever He asked, the way He asked it of you.
Lastly, we are going to discuss the Functions of Dreams. We need to have an idea of the various functions before we begin the discussion next week on the basics of interpretation. Dreams are a way for God to instill His power and purpose in our lives. Each dream may have only one function, or it could have multiple functions. The more we understand about functions, the easier it will be to begin to seek Him and show him honor in our dream life.
Here are 8 functions of dreams:
· Direction
· Correction
· Understanding
· Encouraging
· Confirming
· Repentance
· Prophetic
· Warning
If you have documented your dream, you may be able to identify the function easily. If, however, your dream requires a lot of interpretation, then you want to pursue Him for the understanding. There are many people who can interpret dreams, but understand, like everything in life, not all dream interpreters are created equal. It is best to first seek the Lord on your own. Work with Him in the steps we discussed on how we show Him honor. In the next episode we are going to address the Basics of Interpretation. Listen to that next week and get some of the basics, pursue Him above all else and you will begin to see what He is saying to you and open a new way of beautiful communication with the Lord. Don’t ever let anyone tell you God no longer uses dreams to communicate. Anyone who speaks those words is speaking a lie and those are words from the mouth of the enemy. We are here to conquer our unseen enemies, even in our sleep.
I hope this has been time that inspires you to want to learn to grow in your relationship with the Lord and build your desire to partner with Him. We want to grow in Him and learn how to work with Him to build the Kingdom and Conquer Our Unseen Enemies. The more we grow the more our life will change, and you can help change the lives of anyone around you who is willing.
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As always, let’s discuss our Top Show points:
God speaking to us through Dreams and the second part will be Basic Dream Interpretation.
Dreams are an important and exciting way God communicates with us and by examining dreams we can learn important principles of who God is and what He wants to say to us, for us and our purpose in Him.
5 principles of dreams
Principle #1: Dreams, once understood, will open the door to change our life as God intends.
Genesis 40
1 Kings 3:5
Joel 2:27
Daniel 1:7
Principle #2: When we do not value God’s resource of receiving dreams, this resource will begin to diminish.
Genesis 37: 5
Principle #3, If we ignore God speaking to us in dreams, we will miss what He has planned for our lives.
Job 33:14-18
1 Samuel 28:15,
Principle #4: Identify the author of your dream
Both believers and non-believers alike will readily admit that dreams can come from God or they can come from Satan.
Zechariah 10:2,
When we get a dream, it’s important to know who gave us the dream, who is trying to instill something in us.
Deuteronomy 13:1
Jeremiah 27: 8,
If we don’t know the author if our dream, we open doors for the enemy we can’t shut and we close doors to God, we can’t open. We make those choices in our own lack of knowledge.
Hosea 4:6, my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
Principle #5: Identify the Purpose or Interpretation of Your Dream
When the Lord communicates with us, there is a reason.
Genesis 40 verse 8
Daniel 2:19
Here are 7 steps we can take to show Him honor in our dream life.
· Make time for Him in our daily life
· Welcome Him to speak to us through the dream
· Document the dream
· Seek Him to understand what He has given you: Be a Daniel
· Develop understanding of why He gave it to us
· Act on what we understand from Him
· Follow Up with Him for additional direction
Here are 8 functions of dreams:
· Direction
· Correction
· Understanding
· Encouraging
· Confirming
· Repentance
· Prophetic
· Warning
If you have documented your dream, you may be able to identify the function easily. If, however, your dream requires a lot of interpretation, then you want to pursue Him for the understanding.
We encourage you:
· To have an active Bible reading plan, if you want a personal relationship with the Lord, you need to be active about reading His word.
· If you want to learn more about how to Hear God's Voice, visit our website, lovingconversationssalo.com. My book, Loving Conversations: How to Pray and Hear God's Voice has helped so many people in their relationship with the Lord, check out the testimonials. Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Walmart. Those are also available on our website www.lovingconversationssalo.com.
· Follow us in Instagram, @conqueringourunseenenemies
· Conference 3/23, Camarillo, CA 8:30-noon, it’s called Restore and it is a Holy Spirit Revival, if you are in the area, ticket information can be found in show notes or on our Instagram pages, email, contact@conqueringourunseenenemies.com and I can send you the link.
· I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!