UNDERSTANDING DREAMS

Dreams play an important role in the lives of believers and must never be ignored or taken lightly. God speaks to his people in different ways and one of the ways is through dreams. He unveils his secrets to his people in dreams, He guides us and exposes wickedness brewing in the spiritual realm through dreams. He reveals what is to come, warns us and gives us instructions using the medium of dreams. At times He reassures us through dreams especially when we are worried. Dreams are spiritual windows that give us peak views of the things to come and even those that are happening in the present.

As a dreamer myself, God has spoken to me about many things via the medium of dreams. My relationship with God grew as I experienced spiritual encounters and revelations through dreams. At times I found myself at His feet in heaven and sometimes He would reveal things to come, things that affect me, things that affect my friends, family, and people around me. He has assured me in dreams when I am worried about life, about finances. At times when I worried about my finances, especially when I had a bill to pay urgently and money was unavailable, I would dream of myself receiving money or counting money and when that happens, I know my prayer has been answered. I have had divine encounters, angelic visits through dreams. I have been shown things to come, at times scary things of people being killed, I even saw the second wave of the virus and many lives being lost. What I have learnt is never to take my dreams lightly especially the ones I have after midnight prayer. I know that those are messages from the lord. I keep a journal of my dreams as this helps me to keep track of them. Most of them come to pass. I also want to encourage you to keep a daily journal of your dreams. We will go through the word of God and look at a few dreams.

Acts 2:17

In the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughter will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

In this verse the Lord promises to pour out His Spirit upon His people in the last days and one of the things that will happen to the recipients of the Holy Spirit is that they will receive the gift of dreams.

There are people who have the gift of dreams, in other words, they constantly dream of different things. They see things in the spirit. The gift of dreams like any other gift of the Holy Spirit is for the edifying of the body of Christ.

Jeremiah 23:28 says

Let the prophet who has a dream retell it.

We want to establish the purpose of dreams through scripture by looking at different dreams in the word.

1. Abimelek’s dream

Genesis 20:3-6

But God came to Abimelek in a dream one night and said to him. You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.’

In this dream we see 3 things

Firstly, God gives a warning to Abimelek. He warns him that if he touches Sarah, he will die together with his loved ones.

Secondly, we see God revealing information to Abimelek that Abraham had lied about. God reveals that Sarah is not Abraham’s sister but his wife. In the dream God also reveals that Abraham is a Prophet something Abimelek did not know. Thirdly, God gives Abimelek an instruction to return Sarah back to her husband Abraham and to ask Abraham the Prophet to pray for him so he will not die.

From the same passage we also learn that God does not only communicate via dreams to believers but to non-Believers too. Abimelek was an Egyptian and believed in his own gods but that did not stop God from appearing to him. Abimelek received clear revelation, clear instruction, this was a straightforward dream which did not require any form of interpretation. We also learn from this passage that some dreams are straightforward.

You can hear a voice telling you to pray for someone, that is a straightforward dream which does not require any interpretation.

2. Genesis 28:10-15

10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. 11 when he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 he had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.13 there above it stood the lord, and he said: “I am the lord, the god of your father Abraham and the god of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Jacob’s life was in danger, his brother, Esau was after him because he had robbed him of his father’s blessings. Esau was angry with him. As he was escaping from the fury of his brother, Jacob got to a place called Bethel and the lord appeared to him in a dream.

We must understand that Jacob was probably not emotionally stable. I want to believe that he was worried, perhaps scared because his life was in danger. He was worried about his life, what if his brother found out that he was escaping and decided to come after him? What is it that lay ahead of him? He was going to a new place and all these thoughts probably made him a little anxious. God introduced Himself to Jacob in this dream. He assures him that he is not alone but that He is with him. He assures Jacob that he will not die yet but will live to have descendants.

God reveals to Jacob the plans for his future, how he would bless him with the very land he was lying on, how his descendants would fill the earth and how the earth would be blessed through him and his offspring.

There is nothing as consoling as receiving a personal message directly from God especially when one is in a difficult situation. It is consoling to know that God is with you and that you are not alone.

Lesson

In this dream we see that god reveals Himself to His people through dreams, He reveals the things lying ahead, His plans for our lives and above all God appears to His people when they are going through trying times to reassure them, so they do not worry or fear but are confident of His presence. This dream was also clear and did not require interpretation.

Genesis 37:5-11 Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers; and they hated him even more. So he said to them, “Please hear this dream which I have dreamed: There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Then behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf.” And his brothers said to him, “Shall you indeed reign over us? Or shall you indeed have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, “Look, I have dreamed another dream. And this time, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me.”

So he told it to his father and his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?” And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Joseph had two similar dreams with the same meaning. God did not appear to him, He neither spoke a word to him but He revealed what was to come via dreams. Both dreams spoke of the same message. Joseph had a great destiny ahead of him and the fact that his sheaves, his family all bowed down to him showed that he would have a position of authority, a position of power, promotion. His family would look up to him. There is much to learn from Joseph’s dreams.

Firstly, these were prophetic dreams, revealing to Joseph his destiny, what lay ahead of him. These dreams were not as clear as the dreams of Abimelek and Jacob which we looked at before but, in these dreams, there are symbols and numbers. All these have meanings. Joseph’s family seemed to understand the dreams because of how they reacted. The reaction of his brothers was anger while his father. Genesis 37:10

From this dream we see that God uses symbols that we are familiar with to convey a message. In this instance, God used sheaves of grain which Joseph was familiar with. These were things that they handled on the farm. So at times God will use things we are familiar with to relay a message to us.

This is also true when we look at genesis 40, the dream of the cupbearer and the baker.

In Genesis 40:9

The chief cupbearer saw a vine in front of him and on the vine were 3 branches. His dream had to do with vines because he was familiar with vines as someone who served Pharoah with wine.

The baker had a dream of 3 baskets of bread because his job involved working with bread, a symbol that was familiar to him.

Joseph’s dreams

In Joseph’s second dream, he saw eleven stars, which obviously symbolized his eleven brothers, the sun and the moon represented his mother and father. His father interpreted the dream in verse 10: “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers come and bow down to the ground before you?”

We all know that indeed Joseph ruled in the land of Egypt and his brothers ended up relying on him for their sustenance. They did bow down to him.

From Joseph’s dream we learn that we must not always say out our dreams as they may anger those around us and cause envy especially in our African society. At times as people, just like Joseph we are over excited to speak about our dreams, but this can cost us. We must know when and to whom we can share our dreams. Sometimes it is better to keep the dreams between you and God.

From Joseph’s dream, we see a repetition of the same dream. The same message is conveyed to Joseph twice, this is emphasis. It usually means that it will happen, and nothing can stop it from manifesting as seen with Joseph, although his brothers did all that was in their power to bring misery upon Joseph’s life, his dreams came to pass despite the obstacles in his path.

The same repetition is seen in Genesis 41 when Pharoah had two similar dreams warning him of the times ahead.

Genesis 41:17-24

Verse 25, Joseph told Pharoah what God revealed to him in the dream, what God was about to do.

Verse 32,

The reason the dream was given to Pharoah in two forms is that the matter has been firmly decided by God and God will do it soon.

So, when we receive a dream more than once it is emphasis, it shows that it will happen and it also speaks of speed, this is according to the word of God.

Joseph was gifted as an interpreter of dreams, and we can learn from his interpretation. Notice the use of the Nile River here for the Egyptian Pharoah, a symbol he is most familiar with, the use of cows and grain as well.