SPIRITUAL DREAMS

Hi all,
There is a lot of material available about dreams, including many ministries teaching about interpreting dreams. I've seen people stand in line for 2 hours for the chance to tell their dream to the visiting minister and have it interpreted, and many books have been written detailing keys to understand the symbolism often associated with spiritual dreams, both in the Christian and non-Christian world.
 
That said, I thought it might be good to share some things the Bible actually says about spiritual dreams; oddly enough the guidelines the Word lays out are often overlooked in the rush to interpretation.
 
I was in a flowering field full of spiders...
There is a difference between a dream born of too much pizza the night previous, and a dream in which the Lord is trying to communicate. People worry about the meaning of their dream(s) because they don't want to miss any spiritual significance just in case it WAS God, sometimes the result being the turning of undigested pepperoni into a message from God.
 
This brings us to the first point:  When it is a spiritual dream you will know it, as did every person mentioned in the Bible who had a spiritual dream. It stays in your spirit, and even if the subject is fearful, because it was in the Lord no fear will be accompanying it. 
 
I was staying with a pastor and his family for several days. Over breakfast the day after I arrived the pastor and his wife told me a spiritual dream she had 6 days earlier that neither she nor he understood. She had dreams in the ensuing 6 days, but none of them spiritual.
 
The pastor's wife told me the dream, and immediately the Father gave me the interpretation. If you have a dream and wonder if it is spiritual or merely natural, set the dream aside and don't worry about it. If you try to interpret a dream that isn't from the Lord or try to make it into something spiritual to gain insight, you can get off and into trouble.
   
Not a mystery for long
This is the 2nd point. In every case of spiritual dream or "night vision", either the dreamer immediately understood the dream, or someone was available within a very short time to give them the interpretation, such as when I visited this pastor and his wife within a week of her dream. 
 
When Joseph relays his dreams to his father and brothers in Genesis 37, he understands exactly what the symbolism means, as do they. And when Pharaoh has his dreams, Joseph is available to give the interpretation. The same could be said of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar's dreams.
  
Attention getter
This brings the 3rd point that is straight from the oldest book in the Bible, in one of my favorite passages in the Bible: Job 33: 13-18: God uses dreams to warn or instruct a person. "God speaks once, yea twice, yet man perceives it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon man, in slumbering's upon the bed; then he opens the ears of men and seals their instruction, that he may withdraw man from his plans, and hide pride from man. He keeps back his soul from the pit..."
 
In every instance of a spiritual dream in the Bible the person was either foretold an event, as in Joseph being shown he would be a ruler, or warned of something future like the baker and butler's dreams - one restored, the other executed.
 
Other examples of warning or instruction include when the Lord came by night in a dream to Abimelech and told him "You're a dead man" for taking Sarah (Gen 20:3). And in Acts 18:9 when the Lord appeared to Paul "at night in a vision" to tell him to stay in Corinth for he had many people there.
 
I awoke quickly from a dream that featured me in a foreign country sitting in the passenger seat of a van driving down a dark mountain road. In the dream I looked at the driver and realized I didn't know him, and looked to the seat behind me and saw people I realized I knew only lightly, and in the seat behind them were people I didn't know at all. Suddenly we came to a curve in the road, the van skidded on the gravel, and we flipped, landing on the van's right side with my arm lightly pinned under the van and a rock as it was stuck outside the window. I pulled my arm out glad to see it was unhurt, and looked around in the darkness only to be greeted by silence. I was the least hurt of us all, I was in a foreign country, and we were no where close to civilization. Then I woke up. Though tragic in nature, there was no spirit of fear attached.
 
That dream happened July 7, 1986. I awoke, realized immediately it's spiritual importance, quickly took authority over the enemy forbidding him from causing that dream to come to pass, and asked the Father to send his angels to keep it from happening. Then I forgot about it and went back to sleep.
 
On October 1, 1986 I was in Mexico ministering in a village in the mountains about 2 hours from Saltillo, called Laguna de Sanchez, centered around a large dried up lake bed. That evening was my first open vision with the Lord, and the first time he appeared to me to teach me (The subject that night was how to hear the Father's voice and understand visions and the discerning of spirits) At about 9:20 pm we were loading up in the van to go back to Saltillo, and as I put my hand on the passenger side door my dream of July came flooding back - I hadn't thought of it since that July - as Yogi Berra said, "It was Deja vu all over again".
 
I told the interpreter with us, Dora, quickly about the dream, and she said she had a similar dream just 2 days before. We quickly forbade Satan from bringing it to pass, asked the Father for angelic protection, and did what was for me up to that point in time one of the biggest steps of faith I'd taken; got into the van. It was all laid out exactly as seen in the dream. The driver was a Mexican man from the village, behind me were the missionary Carl, and Dora, and behind them was the driver's wife and kids.
 
The good news is that the visitation with the Lord and an angel from earlier that night continued. Immediately upon leaving I saw first one, then two, then three angels out front of the van traveling with us, and asked Dora to look out front as well. Immediately the Lord opened her eyes and she saw them too, as did the missionary. Dora and I were able to tell the exact curve in our dreams where we wrecked, and were relieved when we passed that curve without incident. (The full story is in my E-book, Pursuing the Seasons of God)
 
Wisdom in business, which is point #4
We all know that Joseph peeled the bark on sticks to make them appear spotted, and then set them before the animals as they were brought together so they would conceive spotted calves, lambs, and kids. But did you know he received that seemingly foolish instruction in a dream? The event is told in Genesis 30, but explaining his actions in 31:10 he says this: "At the time the livestock conceived I saw in a dream, and behold I saw the rams and cattle were streaked, speckled, and spotted. And the angel of the Lord said to me..."
 
That dream is why, in the previous chapter (30) Jacob chose the spotted, streaked and speckled animals, and peeled the bark - and the Lord caused the instructions in that dream to be the catalyst that launched his financial independence from Laban, building over the next 6 years. (31:38)
 
It would not be out of place to say that Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams were also business related, for it led to the nation storing grain for a yet-as-seen famine and resulting in Pharaoh owning all the land and people too. And the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream in which he asked for wisdom, which led to the building of a nation. (I Kings 3: 5-15) 
 
Careful what you say
Another element to a dream's use of warning a person is the warning of what to say or not say before a meeting. In Genesis 31:24, after Jacob had been blessed with all the animals being born spotted, streaked or speckled, the Lord warned Laban of his meeting with Jacob: "Take heed that you don't speak to Jacob either good or bad". In other words, watch your attitude and treat him right.
 
A student came to me one fall day disturbed about a dream she had the night before about her boss, for later this day she was to talk to him about a raise. In the dream she saw her boss showing favoritism towards another employee and giving her a raise, while refusing to acknowledge her own hard work or rewarding her with a raise. She saw the boss was moving in lust towards the other woman and the dream ended with her not getting a raise and no real conclusion.  
 
I advised her the dream was similar to Laban's in 31:24 above. Though she had knowledge of the true motives of her boss, she needed to weigh out whether she wanted to stay in that job with that pay and with that knowledge, or move on. She wasn't in a financial position to quit and try to find another job, and the hours fit around her school schedule nicely, so she had a lot to consider.
 
I helped her process the word of knowledge the Lord gave her about her boss, and she ended up talking to him as planned, but measuring her words with him as Laban did with Jacob. She didn't get a raise, but she was able to be an effective intercessor at work, which ended up lasting until February the next year. At that time the Lord rewarded her for her faithfulness with a new job, new boss, and raise within the same company, and she continued there through the rest of the school year.
 
The enemy's dreams
Certainly Satan can cause dreams too, but that is not the subject today. Through fear and unsettled past experiences he can enter into our sleep, for our spirit man never sleeps, and often does spiritual battle as our bodies recharge in slumber. But I've found it's often like when I first started moving in the discerning of spirits: When the Father first started opening my eyes to the spirit realm it seemed all I saw was demons. Then one day I heard Kenneth Hagin say of his experiences; that he had to get his attention off the enemy and purposely set those aside to concentrate on the Lord and his realm. From that point on he saw mainly angels and the Lord, with demons being seen primarily for the purpose of ministry or in intercessory prayer.
 
You can do that in your dreams too by prayer and where your focus is in your waking hours to the things of God instead of the enemy. Become consumed with fellowship with the Father and your dreams will change to the point his realm has the preeminence.
 
And finally
One of the signs of the end times, which Peter said started on the day of Pentecost and continues to this day, is that people will have spiritual visions and dreams; Acts 2:17.
 
Because it is clear that as far back as Job, who lived somewhere between Noah and Abraham, through Genesis and the rest of the Old Testament, people had spiritual dreams, we have to ask why Peter mentions spiritual visions and dreams being a sign of the end times on the day of Pentecost? It's clear God has been giving people spiritual dreams since the beginning, so why mention them in that context?
 
The answer is the fullness of Peter's quote: "...in the last days, says God: I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams, and on my servants and handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy..."
 
In the days of the Old Testament God dealt nearly exclusively with prophets, priests, and kings in terms of giving direction, warning, and instruction; some of those coming through dreams. In the last days he is saying ALL people, ALL ages, both men and women, boys and girls, will be having visions and dreams given by the Holy Spirit no matter their station or call in life.
 
The few dreams listed in the New Testament are also greater and more plain in revelation, often involving the Lord or an angel coming with a message rather than encrypted symbols as in the Old Testament. And that brings me back to my observation of people standing in line for hours to have their dream interpreted.
 
The Biblical points made above are constant throughout the Old and New Testaments: If it's spiritual in nature you will know it and immediately understand it, or very shortly thereafter someone will be available to interpret. It will be a warning, instruction, or foretelling, and it often is for your wisdom in the very near future.
 
That which we take for granted in our day; that any one of us of any gender or age have had or may one day have a spiritual dream, was not known before Pentecost. What a day we live in, to have the Holy Spirit within, able to speak to us in any number of ways, one of those ways being spiritual dreams!
 
Some thoughts today,
Blessings,
John Fenn
www.ifaithhome.org
www.cwowi.org