“The dream comes through much effort and the voice of a
fool through many words” (Ecclesiastes 5:3 NASB).
Lately a Christian friend of mine—who is struggling to hear
from the Lord—has taken a keen interest in dream interpretation. He’s having numerous dreams, and then he
relates them to me and a handful of friends.
Occasionally I see something, and I relate it to him, and he is no
further enlightened. Additionally, he
gets numerous and varied interpretations from those handful of friends. Putting all of our interpretations together,
however—and with the few interpretations he conjures up himself—is contradictory,
confusing, and ultimately very frustrating to him.
Some years back, I went to a home meeting where two ladies taught
dream interpretation. As the meeting
progressed, I was spiritually agitated and sensed error. These ladies taught a rigid symbolism that
placed objects, colors, emotions, etc. in very specific meanings; they
basically forced their interpretation onto others under the auspice of expertise. Throughout the meeting people shared their
dreams, and as these two ladies interpreted them, the Holy Spirit was speaking
to me and showing me a different interpretation. Many things they were saying I was seeing
differently, and as I could, I spoke out about what I was seeing. But alas,
THEY were the “experts,” so I was hardly heard.
There are many books on dream interpretation, both from a Christian
and New Age/secular perspective. Too
often, however—and I’m speaking to the Christian—there is mixture and
formulation rather than purity and spontaneity.
The young dreamer Joseph said “DO NOT INTERPRETATIONS BELONG TO GOD?” in
response to two downcast souls who said to him, “We have had a dream and
there is no one to interpret it” (Genesis 40:8 NASB). Now the fact that Joseph was the channel
through which God interpreted their dreams does not change the fact that “Interpretations
belong to God.” It only means that God
can use anyone, anything, or even Himself directly, to communicate with man.
Please allow me some latitude as I seemingly go sideways or
even backwards in order to fill in some gaps in our understanding. Let us look at various excerpts of Scripture
which touch on different aspects of dreaming.
When Joseph was brought before Pharaoh two years after his
encounter with those two “downcast souls,” his fellow inmates (the cupbearer
and the baker), he said to Pharaoh, “Now as for the repeating of the dream to Pharaoh TWICE [emphasis
mine], it means that the matter is determined by God, and God will
quickly bring it about” (Genesis 41:32 NASB). “Now the Lord was
angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the Lord,
the God of Israel, who had appeared to him TWICE [emphasis mine], and had
commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods;
but he did not observe what the Lord had commanded” (1 Kings 11:9-10
NASB). “Once God has spoken; TWICE [emphasis mine] I have heard this:
that power belongs to God” (Psalm 62:11).
A severe reprimand came to Peter in this two-fold form, “Before a
rooster crows TWICE [emphasis mine],
you will deny Me three times” (Mark 14:72).
In another example, “Peter went up on the housetop
about the sixth hour to pray. But
he became hungry and was desiring to eat; but while they were making
preparations, he fell into a trance; and he saw the sky opened
up, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners
to the ground, and there were in it all kinds of four-footed
animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of
the air. A voice came to him, ‘Get
up, Peter, kill and eat!’ But Peter
said, ‘By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and
unclean.’ Again a voice came to
him A SECOND TIME [emphasis mine], ‘What God has cleansed no longer consider unholy.’ This happened three
times, and immediately the object was taken up into the sky” (Acts
10:9-16 NASB).
EXACTLY TWO YEARS AGO today (on 3/17/2014)...this just
happened without any scheme or orchestration on my part, I wrote the following
article:
Face to Face
“There is much talk in Christendom in our times about God
speaking to us in dreams, and it is undeniably scriptural and something I have
occasionally experienced myself. But I
cannot help but be less enamored with that mode of communication than it seems
many are concerning it. And maybe
because it seems too ethereal to me, or that I have little experience in it,
but I’d rather talk with God while I’m awake at my study, or in my quiet time
before Him in prayer, and in the full cognizance of my mind and heart,
physically alert.
“Now I am aware that He seals His instructions to me while I
sleep, and that if I am obtuse, He will come to me in a dream. “Why do you complain against Him that He
does not give an account of all His doings?
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,
that He may turn man aside from his conduct, and keep man from pride; He keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from passing over into Sheol” (Job 33:13-18 NASB).
that He may turn man aside from his conduct, and keep man from pride; He keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from passing over into Sheol” (Job 33:13-18 NASB).
“And it has also occurred to me that the first time the word
dream is mentioned in holy writ is in context with death, not life. “God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to
him, ‘Behold, YOU ARE A DEAD MAN” (Genesis 20:3 NASB). I have come to accept what theologians call
“the rule of first mention.” When a word
is first used in scripture, it is often (if not always) the seedbed of every
subsequent usage of that word; thus its first usage sets the tone and context
in which to understand it from God’s perspective. So, in that vein of thought, dreams are
warnings, not warm and friendly conversations per se.
“Please don’t misunderstand me, a warning is a kindness from
God, not an open rebuke (YET). I hope
God gives me as many dreams needed to keep me back from the pit of hell, but I
more hope that I would live in such a manner as to not need them at all. I want to know God face to face, in open,
awake, and straight modes of communication.
And I have learned that in deep humility, in utter poverty of person, He
comes to me face to face; the pure in heart see God, and I would suggest, face
to face.
“When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the
entrance of the tent, all the people would arise and worship, each at the
entrance of his tent. Thus the Lord used
to speak to Moses FACE TO FACE, JUST AS A MAN SPEAKS TO HIS FRIEND [emphasis
mine]” (Exodus 33:10-11). Now the man
Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth...If
there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, shall make myself known to him in a
vision. I SHALL SPEAK WITH HIM IN A
DREAM. NOT SO, WITH MY SERVANT MOSES, HE
IS FAITHFUL IN ALL MY HOUSEHOLD [emphasis mine]; with him I speak mouth to
mouth (obviously also face to face), even openly, and NOT IN DARK SAYINGS, and
HE BEHOLDS THE FORM OF THE LORD” (Exodus 12:3, 6-8 NASB).
“Therefore...we...are not like Moses, who used
to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently
at the end of what was fading away (the old covenant) ... But we all (Christians,
part of the new covenant based on better promises), with unveiled face,
beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the
same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2
Corinthians 3:12-13, 18 NASB).
“In the final analysis, dreams are at the fringes of
relationship, necessary as they may be in any one of us, me included. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to
be at the fringes or the hems of the outer garments of healing virtue, as great
as that is when I wander and need it.
No, I want to know God, and face to face! If Moses could, and did, and seemingly
because he was the humblest man on the face of the earth, and via a less
glorious covenantal relationship, how come we don’t know Him better, even face
to face? I don’t know about you, but if
I am to fight for anything amongst flesh and blood, let me scrap to be the
humblest man on the face of the earth if that is what it takes to know Him face
to face. Dreams are for sleepers and
accomplished in the dark; reality is for those that are awake and accomplished
in the light. Help us Lord to see your
form in clear relief and to know you as our friend, not in dark sayings and
dreams of the night, but in open daylight face to face.”
---End of “Face to Face” Article---
It is clear that a hierarchy developed amongst those who
followed Jesus. In concentric circles
from inner and smaller and more intimate relationships with Jesus to outer and
larger and less intimate relationships with Jesus occurred. There was the three, the twelve, the seventy,
the one-hundred and twenty, and the masses, and to each group He related
differently. On either extreme, His
expression was group specific: before the three He transfigured; before the
masses He spoke parabolically.
At one end, the Lord is face to face; at the other end, He
merely speaks in dark sayings. Dreams,
as a means of communication, are nearer the end of the spectrum of dark sayings,
whereas face to face communication is nearer friendship and communion. Jude, after writing about those “ungodly
people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality” and
equated the depths of their depravity to those “who suffer the punishment of
eternal fire” said, “In the very same way, ON THE STRENGTH OF THEIR DREAMS
[emphasis mine] these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority
and heap abuse on celestial beings. But
even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil
about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander
but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’ Yet
these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they
do understand by instinct—as irrational animals do—will destroy them” (Jude
8-10 NIV).
“Then He said, ‘Hear now My words: If there is a prophet
among you, I, the Lord, make Myself known to him in a vision; I
speak to him in a dream’” (Numbers 12:6
NKJV). “Now, as for us, we all, with
uncovered face, reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are having our
outward expressions changed into the same image from one degree of glory to
another according as this change of expression proceeds from the Lord, the
Spirit, this outward expression coming from and being truly representative of
our Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18, Wuest).
Now I would suggest that this mirror mentioned in the preceding verse is
the Logos, the Scriptures, as revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. Prophets moved by the Holy Spirit can
certainly edify, exhort and comfort (1 Corinthians 14:3), but they also, AND
PRIMARILY (in the OFFICE of the prophet, not those merely exercising the GIFT
of prophesy), teach, rebuke and correct (2 Timothy 3:16) within the boundaries
of the very broad Logos interpreted by the Holy Spirit.
I see too many today
enamored by THE STRENGTH OF THEIR DREAMS rather than by the beauty of the
Lord. I am not suggesting that we jettison
dreaming altogether, but I am suggesting that we press into the Lord more fully
until we are close enough to communicate with Him face to face. In the whole of Scripture, dreams are
warnings, corrections and rebukes. In
the first usage of the word “dream” in Genesis 20:3—“You are a dead man!” is
its tone and theme; in its last usage, in Jude 1:8—“defiling the flesh” is its
stamp. Look at the tone in a large
sampling of its usage:
“I have heard what
the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name. They say, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’ How long will this continue in the hearts of
these lying prophets, who prophesy the delusions of their own minds? ... Let
the prophet who has a dream recount the dream, but let the one who has my
word speak it faithfully. For what
has straw to do with grain? ... ‘Is not my word like fire,’ declares
the Lord, ‘and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?’”
(Jeremiah 23:25-29 NIV). “His watchmen are blind,
all of them know nothing. All of them
are mute dogs unable to bark, DREAMERS lying down, who love to slumber” (Isaiah
56:10 NASB). “For thus says
the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Do not let your prophets
who are in your midst and your diviners deceive you, and do not listen to the
dreams which they dream. For
they prophesy falsely to you in my name; I have not sent them,’
declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 27:8-9 NASB).
“The household gods talk nonsense, the diviners have seen a lie; their
dreams convey delusions, and the comfort they offer is in vain. Therefore they go their way like sheep in
distress from lack of a shepherd” (Zechariah 10:2 CJB).
“For in many dreams
and in many words there is emptiness.
Rather, fear God” (Ecclesiastes 5:7 NASB).
