Automatic Transcript Generated:
Speaker 1
So Ian is asking what is the meaning of dreams?
Speaker 2
Thank you. I’m not sure if I’m quite going to answer it right. It’s what you’re asking because almost the question should be do dreams even have meaning? And then each dream, if it does have meaning, would have a different meaning. So I’m just going to talk about first like do dreams actually have meaning, meanings? How would we know if we look at numbers twelve, verses six to eight. This is one of my favorite verses on this subject. Jesus, or God is talking about Moses. And then he said here 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. Not so with my servant Moses. He is my faithful servant in all my house. I speak to him face to face, even plainly and not in dark saints. He sees the form of the Lord. So here God is actually laying out all the different ways which he can communicate with us and used especially in the Old Testament times, and even we see in the New Testament times. So one of those was dreams, dreams, visions. It might start to be different things in the context.
Speaker 2
When we come to Joel two verses, verse 28, it reads, and afterward I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, and your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. So again, you have visions and then dreams. And Daniel, in Daniel one, verse 17, we’re told that he was given understanding in all visions and dreams. So this was a thing. And Daniel had the ability to interpret these just like another person in the Old Testament, Joseph. And if we look at the parallels between the two of them, we actually learned something about these visions and dreams that the leaders of their time were having. So if we go back to Joseph’s time, we look at Pharaoh, genesis 41, verse eight. It says, now, it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled, so he had his dream and he and then it says, his spirit was troubled. And if we look at Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had two different dreams. We’re told about Daniel Two. One, it says, now in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, nebuchadnezzar had dreams and his spirit was so troubled that his sleep left him.
Speaker 2
This was the first dream, Daniel two, that Daniel interprets. Daniel interprets the second dream for Nebuchadnezzar. And how did this one begin? Daniel 45, it says, Nebuchadnezzar is writing this one in first person. Interesting about this chapter, it says, I had a dream that made me afraid. As I was lying in bed, the images and visions that passed through my mind terrified me. So many times when someone had a vision, they’re impressed, if not terrified and fearful. It’s just something about it totally sticks out. Genesis 28, verse 17. Jacob had his dream and after the dream he says in verse 17 and he was afraid and said, how awesome is this place? So I could just keep going and going and going. And so often when someone has had a dream, they’re afraid, they’re terrified, they’re shocked or otherwise they know deep down that there was something different about this dream. Something just convicted them, convinced them that this is a special dream, it meant something, and then they pursue trying to get an answer to it. The bulk of dreams that we have, I would say, probably have no meaning. I have wacky crazy dreams all the time, maybe every night.
Speaker 2
Sometimes I share them. Like this one is so weird, you got to hear it. But I don’t seek meaning out of them. It could be just my mind making sense of things and some of the last thoughts I had just getting reprocessed. But I believe God can still speak to us in dreams. And again, if you’re so impressed, it totally stands out, it’s just vivid in your mind and maybe even left you afraid. That could be a good sign there’s some meaning to that dream. Tina, any thoughts?
Speaker 3
Yeah, I totally agree with what you’re saying and I’m trying to remember the verse and I don’t know if you touched upon it, but there’s the first basically said in the midst of much busyness dreams occur. And so yeah, it’s like sometimes dreams they’re just because you’re saying they don’t really have a meaning, but other times there’s definite dream that’s from the Lord. And I think it’s just our duty to have spiritual discernment. I think God definitely wants us to have that discernment to go like, oh, was this a dream from God? Or just like, I shouldn’t have eaten so much food before bed and I’m just having these weird nightmares or weird dreams that you can have. And sometimes I think there’s dreams from the devil. I think that the devil can also harass you when you sleep if you’re allowing him into your space. And so I think we have to be very careful when it comes to things like dreams to make sure we’re not reading into them in the wrong way and to make sure if God is trying to speak to you through a dream that you’re listening, just like you’re saying.
Speaker 3
With Nebuchadnezzar, God was so merciful to him that the thing is, like in Daniel chapter two, it says that basically he had this dream because he was wondering about the future and he was wondering what’s going to happen to my kingdom? And so God speaks to him through a dream and shows him an image, shows him an idol, basically. Now, does God condone idols? No, but it was something that Nebuchadnezzar understood and so God spoke to him in a way that Nebuchadnezzar could understand what was kind of going to happen. And it was basically that your kingdom is like a vain idol that will eventually be done away with it’s a false system of worship and eventually be done away with by the rock, which is Jesus, which will have the everlasting kingdom, which obviously God was trying to bring nebuchadnezzar into. God wanted a connection with him. And so if you have a dream that maybe touches you emotionally, I would just seek the Lord about it and talk to God and be like, lord, were you trying to speak to me in this dream? Is there a message for me in this? Either way, Lord, just speak to me.
Speaker 3
And as you draw near to God, will draw near to you. And I know I’ve had dreams where I’m like, I’m very sure this was from the Lord just about things, either things in my life I needed to change or for decisions that needed to be made to follow in a path that was biblical. And obviously the number one match of is this from God? Is this not is, does it go according to God’s word? And again, that’s, you know, Isaiah 820, you know, to the law and to the testimony. If it doesn’t speak according to this word, God’s word, there’s no truth in it. So again, if somebody tries to tell you an interpretation or something, make sure it aligns with the word of God. And if it doesn’t, you can just toss that out.
Speaker 1
And a lot of dreams are sort of visual manifestations of our emotions and of the visual things we’ve processed over the day. So a lot of times they are coming from what we’re feeling, whether we are really conscious of what that feeling is coming from or not, and just what we’ve seen, what we’ve seen on television, what we’ve read on our computers or our phones or whatever. It’s our brain processing all of that stuff from the day. Those are not necessarily the dreams from God that Tina is talking about here, definitely.
Speaker 3
And I think it goes back to something that I think you guys touched on last week as far as what kind of thoughts we want to have, because that affects what we dream too. I think Jay brought up last week, philippines 48 whatsoever things are true, what sort of things are honest, what some things are just so everything’s are pure. You know, if they’re beaming virtue, if there be any price, think on these things, because if that’s the stuff you put in your mind, it’s probably what’s going to be in your dreams. And I just remember one time I had a friend and she was telling me about a scary movie that she watched. I never even heard of it. I hate scary movies. And just her telling me about it, I was like, oh, it creeped me out. And that night I had a bad dream about it, about what she described. Like I didn’t even have to watch this horrible movie to have a bad dream about it, just because I had heard about it. And I was just like, Lord, help me to even be careful. The things I even listen to in conversation or in passing or we think it’s just innocent.
Speaker 3
I’m just watching something on TV. It goes into your mind, it goes into your subconscious and it can affect you. So be sure. Like the Bible saying, just think on these things. Put these good things in your mind so that you can live a life that’s peaceful and in line with God’s will and his Holy Spirit. So, anyway, that’s just my two cent on that.
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In His Service
BibleAsk Team
