Dreams & Visions
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Dr Cho, pastor of the Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea, once said: Dreams and Visions are the language of the Spirit.
Our text for tonight will be taken from Genesis 30 (NIV)
Key Scripture: Genesis 31:10 "In the breeding season I once had a dream in which I looked up and saw that the male goats mating with the flock were streaked, speckled or spotted.
There is quite a lot about dreams in the bible.
Jacob dreamed more than just that once. (Genesis 28)
Laban was kept from harming Jacob by a dream. (Genesis 31)
Joseph was called a dreamer and interpreted dreams. (Genesis 37)
Job said that God would speak in a dream. (Job 33)
The wise men who visited the baby Jesus, were warned in a dream and did not return to Herod as he had requested. (Matthew 2:12)
Joseph, the husband of Mary, was warned in a dream concerning the safety of his family and where to reside. (Matthew 2)
Not only did dreams lead and otherwise affect people we know from bible accounts, but even more recently, people in our known world have been inspired by dreams.
Nineteenth-century chemist Dimitri Mendeleyev fell asleep while chamber music was being played in the next room. He understood in a dream that the basic chemical elements are all related to each other in a manner similar to the themes and phrases in music. When he awakened, he was able to write out for the first time the entire periodic table, which forms the basis of modern chemistry.
Niels Bohr, dreaming of how horses run at the race track, had an insight into how electrons remain in their orbits. Based on this vivid image from a dream, Bohr was able to formulate his quantum theory, a scientific breakthrough for which he was eventually awarded a Nobel Prize.
Jack Nicklaus told a friend that he improved his golf swing after dreaming of a new way of holding his club.
And young Albert Einstein dreamed that he was sledding down a steep mountainside, going faster and faster, approaching the speed of light, which caused the stars in his dream to change their appearance. Meditating upon that dream, Einstein eventually worked out his extraordinary scientific achievement, the principle of relativity.
[President Abraham Lincoln had this dream shortly before he was assassinated.] "About ten days ago, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. It was light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. "Who is dead in the White House?" I demanded of one of the soldiers "The President" was his answer; "he was killed by an assassin! Then came a loud burst of grief form the crowd, which awoke me from my dream. " Ward Hill Lamon, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847-1885, 1911.
It is evident that, although we do not fully understand it and cannot begin to control it, nonetheless, dreams and visions have a part to play in guiding our lives.
As far as the Christian goes and our spiritual interaction with dreams and visions,
Joel prophesied about it and Peter declared it had begun:
Acts 2 (On the day of Pentecost, in Jerusalem …)
16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17 "‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
Tell the story of Jacob and Laban immediately preceding:
Genesis 30
36 Then he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob continued to tend the rest of Laban’s flocks.
37 ¶ Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches.
38 Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink,
39 they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.
40 Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves, but made the rest face the streaked and dark-coloured animals that belonged to Laban. Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban’s animals.
41 Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so that they would mate near the branches,
42 but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob.
43 In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and maidservants and menservants, and camels and donkeys
Three Things We Can Learn From This Passage
1. God speaks to His people in dreams and visions
2. What you set your eyes on can make a difference
3. God is interested in helping you keep your commitments to Him.
Genesis 31:
10 "In the breeding season I once had a dream in which I looked up and saw that the male goats mating with the flock were streaked, speckled or spotted.
11 The angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob.’ I answered, ‘Here I am.’
12 And he said, ‘Look up and see that all the male goats mating with the flock are streaked, speckled or spotted, for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you.
13 I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land.’"
What vow?
Genesis 28
20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear
21 so that I return safely to my father’s house, then the LORD will be my God
22 and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth."
God spoke to Jacob in a dream and gave him a way to become wealthy so that Jacob could keep his commitment to God.
God is willing to help you keep your commitments
He will speak to you in dreams and visions, by His word or through Spiritual inspiration.
God is even willing to give you knowledge of witty inventions (Pro 8:12)
Let me pray with you tonight.
Let me use the faith and anointing I have to activate and stir up the supernatural in your life.
Be conscious of God speaking to you in dreams and visions and by other supernatural means.
Don’t miss your greatest day.
