Dreams Still Guide, but Not Sought
Acts 2:17 “'And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.”
And so we come to God’s leading of His new covenant saints, through dreams. This is one method that the Lord uses to lead His saints, which has not changed between the old and the new covenants. We can confidently make that statement based on the authority of the scripture quoted above. We know that this prophecy given by the prophet Joel refers to the church age, because the Holy Spirit through the apostle Peter said it did. And so we see plainly that just as prophesy and visions are part of the church age, so are dreams. Nevertheless I do need to give a word of warning on this subject, which is that just as with seeking guidance through prophets, there is no account in the New Testament where the saints sought after dreams from the Lord, and there is also no place in the new testament where we are taught to seek guidance through dreams. It is interesting to note that the above quoted passage of scripture is the only time that dreams are mentioned in the New Testament. So why is that? The reason is because dreams in the New Testament are referred to as visions in the night, and there is a reason for that, which we will not discuss at this time as it falls outside the scope of this teaching. Nevertheless you will recall that when we examined the area of dreams under the old covenant, that we said that what the bible referred to as “visions of the night”, were in fact dreams (Job 4:13).
Ecclesiastes 5:3 “For a dream comes through much activity.”
Obviously not all dreams that we have are from the Lord. The vast majority of dreams that everyone has (believers and unbelievers alike), are a just a natural part of how our minds work while we sleep. In the above quoted passage of scripture the bible teaches us that one of the causes of dreams is a very active lifestyle. For our brains have to then work through all of that activity during the day, as those memories are processed and stored.
Isaiah 29:8 “It shall even be as when a hungry man dreams, and look--he eats; But he wakes, and his soul is still empty; Or as when a thirsty man dreams, and look--he drinks; But he awakes, and indeed he is faint, and his soul still craves.”
Another cause of dreams occurring is when we become pre-occupied with something in our lives. In the above quoted passage of scripture the Holy Spirit teaches us this principle through the example of one who is craving food and water, for He tells us that someone who is hungry dreams of eating, while a thirsty person dreams of drinking. And so that same principle applies to any aspect of our lives that we allow ourselves to become pre-occupied with, or anything that we may be anxious or concerned about. We will then find ourselves dreaming about those things.
Acts 16:9-10 “And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." (10) Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.”
Nevertheless there are also dreams that believers receive from the Lord today, through which He guides His saints. We have already looked at examples of believers under the old covenant receiving guidance from the Lord through dreams, and there are also new covenant examples of believers receiving guidance through dreams. And so bearing in mind that because a vision in the night is in fact a dream, we can look at the above quoted account of the Lord’s guidance given to the apostle Paul through a dream. As a background to this account, Paul and his team had already attempted to preach the gospel in a couple of locations, and the Holy Spirit had forbidden them from doing so. And so it was during this time of actively seeking the Lord’s guidance as to where He wanted them to preach the gospel, that Paul received the above quoted dream. I want you to notice the simplicity of the dream that Paul received, for they were immediately able to conclude what the meaning of the dream was, i.e. the Lord wanted them to preach the gospel in Macedonia.
Acts 18:9-10 “Now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision, "Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; (10) for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city.”
In the next example quoted above our Lord Jesus appeared to the apostle Paul in a dream, and encouraged him to continue preaching the gospel in the city of Corinth. Our Lord gave Paul both a word of wisdom and a word of knowledge in this dream. The word of wisdom was the Lord’s instruction for Paul to preach the gospel in Corinth. And the word of knowledge that the Lord gave Paul was that the Lord had many people in that city and that no one would hurt Paul there. Again we see that this dream was very simple, in which Paul received clear guidance and instruction from the Lord.
John 16:25 “These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about the Father.”
In both the accounts that we have looked at in this section the apostle Paul was not looking to the Lord to give him a dream so that he could know the Lord’s will for his life. Dreams from the Lord always occur sporadically, and never as a result of believers seeking guidance through this method. A dream from the Lord falls into the same category as a vision. In fact it is the lowest of the three levels of visions i.e. dreams, trances and open visions, listed from lowest to the highest level. And so, just as saints cannot request visions from the Lord, neither can they request dreams. I have had a number of dreams from the Lord (which scripturally ties in with my age, “your old men shall dream dreams”) and never have I sought a dream from the Lord. In my ministry, I have also found that there are times when dreams are relatively frequent, and then no dreams occur for over a year or even longer. Notice that I mention dreams in connection with ministry. Because one who is called to the office of prophet and has the gift of discerning of spirits operating through their ministry, will experience visions and dreams more frequently than saints not called to the ministry. So what about dreams requiring interpretation? We see many of these types of dreams recorded in the Old Testament, such as the dreams that Joseph and Daniel had. But there are no incidents of this type of dream recorded in the New Testament. There are numerous visions recorded in the New Testament, and of those, there are only two recorded that required some form of interpretation. The vision that stands out most prominently in this category is obviously the book of Revelation. The other incident recorded is the vision that the Lord gave to Peter, regarding the sheet let down from heaven showing him all sorts of creatures, and the Lord’s instruction to him to “kill and eat” and what God had cleansed he must not call common (Acts 10:10-17). In this incident, although Peter did not understand the meaning of the vision straight away, the meaning became very clear to him as events unfolded directly after this vision. And so we can see that outside of the book of Revelation, there is only one vision recorded out of many, which required some form of interpretation. This will be the case with dreams as well. Saints who receive dreams from the Lord, will mainly have simple dreams that are clearly understood (as in Paul’s case), and very few dreams that require some form of interpretation. And if they do have the occasional dream requiring interpretation, then the interpretation will be clearly given to them by the Lord soon after they have had the dream. There is no gift of the Spirit called, “the interpretation of dreams”. And under the new covenant the Lord has not placed Josephs in His church to interpret dreams that people have had. The reason for that is because in the above quoted passage of scripture, our Lord taught us that in the church age He would speak plainly to His disciples and not figuratively.
Michael E.B. Maher
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