Genesis 20:3 “But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, "Indeed you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife.”
As with the other gifts that we have looked at, in this section we will examine examples of this gift in scripture so that we can have a better understanding of the working of this particular gift. We will look at dreams first, as this is the lowest level of the different types of visions. Firstly, let me say that even though a dream is a manifestation of the gift of discerning of spirits, it does not mean that if an individual receives a dream from the Lord that they then have this gift, for it is not uncommon for God to use dreams from time to time to communicate His will to people, even to unbelievers. For example in the above quoted passage of scripture we can see that God spoke in a dream to Abimelech, who was a gentile king. The context of this passage is that Abimelech was about to take Sarah, Abraham’s wife as his own. And so God stopped him from doing so through the dream that was given to him. Another example of God using dreams to speak to unbelievers, is the dream that Pontius Pilot’s wife had, in which the Lord impressed upon her to warn her husband not to get involved in judging the Lord Jesus (Matthew 27:19). As an aside, we need to understand that the vast majority of dreams that everyone has are a just a natural part of how our minds work while we sleep. For example the bible teaches us that one of the causes of dreams is a very active lifestyle (Ecclesiastes 5:3), which means that our brains have to work through all of our activity during the day, as those memories are processed and stored. Nevertheless, one who has the gift of discerning of spirits however, will experience dreams from the Lord more frequently than others.
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.”
Even though we have already seen in scripture that dreams form part of the experiences of the new covenant, other than in the gospels, dreams “as such” are not mentioned in the New Testament. So why is that? We can answer that question by looking at the Apostle Paul’s ministry, for we have accounts recorded in scripture of the apostle Paul receiving “visions” in the night. So why does the Holy Spirit refer to these particular visions that Paul had, as visions in the night? The reason is because; in fact these were dreams that Paul had, which is why the Holy Spirit specifically calls them visions in the night. Had they simply been visions, the Holy Spirit would have referred to them as such, without specifying what time of day they occurred. And so the reason that the Holy Spirit specifically recorded these, as visions in the night, is to let us know that dreams from the Lord fall into the same category as spiritual visions. The above quoted passage of scripture is one of the accounts where the Holy Spirit speaks about Paul’s vision in the night, i.e. his dream. In this dream the Holy Spirit gave Paul clear guidance (a word of wisdom) as to where he and his ministry team should go to preach the gospel. And so we see that because this was a very simple dream, Paul and his team easily concluded what God’s leading was. We will see this truth clearly communicated in all the examples we will discuss, i.e. New Testament dreams from the Lord are simple and easy to understand.
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 passage of scripture quoted above we have another example of the apostle Paul receiving a vision in the night. In other words Paul had a dream. In this dream we see that the Lord Jesus Himself appeared to Paul, and gave him both a word of wisdom and a word of knowledge. The word of knowledge given was that the Lord had many people in the city, and that therefore no one would attack Paul to hurt him. The word of wisdom given was the instruction to continue to preach the gospel in that city. Again we see in this example that this was a very simple dream, not requiring any interpretation, in which the Lord gave Paul clear guidance.
Michael E.B. Maher
Comments