What Does God Say About Dreams?

Sunday, July 25, 2004 at 9:30 A.M.

Pastor Tim Phillips

Typed from audio transcript

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, we thank that you have given us such a clear understanding of who you are in your Holy Word. This is the rock. This is the foundation on which we build our faith. These are the words of hope we trust in, the promises we hang onto. Bless us now as we meditate on your Word to answer a question of our heart about dreams. Bless us with your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name, Amen.

What does the bible say about dreams? Hmmm, good question. A lot of people have written songs about dreams and shared some of the dreams they've had. An author once said, “All men are great in their dreams.” Which means we get to program it to be how we want it to be. Sometimes, we have dreams when we eat certain foods. Sometimes, we have dreams when we're anticipating something wonderful about to happen. Sometimes, we have dreams when we've gone through something difficult. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream. But that was more of a vision of what the world would be like when there was perfect harmony between all people.

The bible talks about dreams in a different way, though. These aren't just your run-of-the-mill dreams that we have every night but a very special dream, a very special communication from God to people. The bible is full of examples beginning with, in the Old Testament, Genesis 8:12 where Jacob is on a journey and he lays down for the night. He uses a rock for a pillow and it says that, as he fell asleep, he had this dream and it was of this glorious staircase from earth to heaven and the angels were going up and down that staircase in constant motion. A very mysterious dream but a message from God.

Again, we read in Genesis 37 about a young man named Joseph who had 11 brothers. One day, he had a dream or one night, he had a dream, could have been in the daytime, I don't know, but it said he had a dream about all his brothers and he were out in the harvest fields and they were harvesting and they were stacking up their sheaves of grain, and their sheaves became alive and they all stood up. And his brothers' 11 sheaves bowed down to his. Imagine his brothers' reaction to that. A few days later, he had another dream which was even more upsetting to his family and it was that the sun and the moon and 11 stars, who could that be, bowed down to him. Again, you can imagine the response. His father even rebuked him for that one, and he was the favorite child.

Why does God send dreams? If they are a message from God, what is he trying to communicate? Later on, in the Old Testament, this same Joseph is in prison. And fellow prisoners have had dreams and, by God's strength and by God's Holy Spirit, Joseph is able to explain those dreams that the other men had. Much later, the Pharaoh had a dream and none of his wise men could answer what the interpretation would be. So somebody remembered Joseph in prison, and they called him out and he came and he interpreted the dream of the Pharaoh, not by his own strength but by the Holy Spirit, by God's wisdom, revealing it to him.

Later on, we read about dreams in the New Testament, the dreams that Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus, had. Joseph was engaged to Mary. It was a beautiful thing, a wonderful thing. Mary was a wonderful young lady. Yet, before they came together, before they were married, Mary was found to be pregnant. It must have been an awful experience for Joseph when he first heard the news. But being a holy man, a godly man, a compassionate and kind man, he did not want to expose her publicly to disgrace. So he was thinking about this and thinking, “I will release her from our marriage commitment privately.” But God gave him a dream, and in that dream He said, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She shall give birth to a son. You shall give Him the name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

There is a consistent pattern of dreams from God to His people. What is their purpose? Most often, it seems they are telling what's going to happen, predicting a famine, telling that Joseph's brothers would come begging for food to Joseph, telling that God would send the Savior, telling there would be a severe famine in the land, telling that the cupbearer would be exalted and the baker would be put to death. Messages. Predictions. Warnings. Teaching. Comfort. Encouragement. These are the kind of dreams God gives people. This is what He did in the bible. Here's a question. Does God still do that? Does God give people dreams today to predict the future, to comfort them, to warn them, to guide them?

Let's look at Acts 2. That was our first reading today. It's in your bulletin. Acts 2, “This is the day of Pentecost, the wonderful day when God poured out His spirit on the whole church that they might be strengthened and equipped to proclaim the gospel that saves men's souls to the world around them.” Acts 2. And then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, stands up and speaks in a very authoritative way, “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem . Let me explain this to you. Listen carefully to what I say. These men are not drunk as you suppose. It's only 9:00 in the morning. No, this is what was spoken by the prophet, Joel.” Prophet Joel? When did he speak of that? Oh, 400, 500, 600 years before Christ. Prophecy, the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is what Joel was talking about: “In the last days, God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'” Peter, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is saying, “This prophecy of Joel is being fulfilled now.” When was Peter speaking? Oh, about 2,000 years ago at Pentecost. God's prophecy, made through the prophet Joel, was being fulfilled now, the first words in Greek, escatice hamerice. In the last days. Have you heard people say, “Well, I think we're living in the last days.” “Well, I think things are getting bad. These are the last days.” And maybe you've wondered that yourself. Well, you're right. Because, according to the Holy Spirit, speaking through Peter, the last days began with Pentecost 2,000 years ago. And we, as Lutherans, believe that the last days are the entire New Testament period of the church from the time of Jesus to now. So the prophecy of Joel applies today, not just 2,000 years ago. It applies today because these are the last days. These are the last days. The Holy Spirit has poured out and all these things happened, prophecy, visions, dreams. In a general sense, they're all the same thing. Prophecy is talking about the future, right? Visions tell about the future. Dreams tell about the future. They're all messages from God, God's Holy Spirit given to His people. It happened in the bible times, and I believe it still happens today.

But here is something very important for us to remember. If anyone claims to have a message from God, a vision, a prophecy, a dream, it absolutely must agree with God's revealed Word. The reason we have that principle of teaching and understanding is that God's Word is here. We have it. It's clear. We can study it. We can turn the pages and look through it and examine it. But our dreams could be our imagination. They could be the result of what we ate last night or the stress we're under or something like that. We cannot hang our hat on a dream, but we can hang our hat on the promises in God's Word. So God's Word must rule everything else.

But I do believe people have dreams today to teach them, to warn them, to comfort them, to encourage them. I believe God does that today. One of the reasons I believe it is because of this prophecy. Another one is a personal experience that happened to our family. This is when we were up in Minnesota living in Silver Bay . I was a baseball coach, not because I'm an expert on baseball but because I had a daughter that was playing in the Little League and I wanted to help out, just like all the dads help out. So we were having our first day of practice, and all the kids paired up and they were throwing the ball back and forth. There was one little boy who was the last one there, so there was no one paired up with him. So I was playing with him and tossing the ball. He would catch it and throw it back and toss the ball. And I tossed it to him, and he tried to catch it. He had his glove right in front of his face, and the ball skipped off it and hit him in the mouth. Not a happy moment for him. So I took him up to our house, which was right next to the baseball field, put some ice on it, and called his dad. His dad came over and took it from there. About a week later, that young boy, it was on a Tuesday, was riding his bike without a helmet on. Silver Bay is right by Lake Superior , and there is a huge hill that goes down to the lake. And he's riding his bike, but he's going too fast. And he lost control and he hit a telephone pole. His head hit the telephone pole. And it was a fractured skull. He had to be revived three times before they could life-flight him to the hospitals in Duluth an hour away. And when the doctors began to examine him, the brain was swelling rapidly so they cut his skull open to relieve the pressure. And when they did that, some pieces of his brain came out. That was Tuesday. Wednesday was our game. I called all the little guys and girls in, because it was boys and girls, and I said, “Everybody put in your hand. We're going to pray for Kenny because he's in bad shape.” So we prayed for him and played our game. Our family decided, on Thursday morning, we'd go down and see Kenny and his family at the hospital. And he's in a coma, so we're just kind of expecting the worse but going to bring comfort for the family. Thursday morning comes, and my daughter tells me, “Daddy, I had a happy dream.” She was about 7 years old, and I said, “You mean a funny dream?” She says, “No, a happy dream.” I said, “Well, what was it?” She said, “Kenny got out of the hospital.” And I said, “Honey, the doctors don't expect him to live.” But her confidence wasn't bothered by my words, so we got in the car and we went down to Duluth . We got to the hospital, and that morning, he had come out of the coma. He had stood up. He was talking. And, you know, that little boy was healed completely. He had no brain damage, no impairment. You could tell where the scar was, and all the other children were looking at him when he came to our game a couple weeks later. But, other than that, perfectly normal.

Now I won't stake my faith on my daughter's dream, but I believe God was comforting a little girl who was praying for a little boy. So He gave her that word of encouragement, that message of comfort that was even beyond our imagination, that a boy who was dying could be okay.

I'm sure you have stories, too. Good dreams based on your hope of eternal life and seeing your loved ones again. Wonderful thoughts and messages that you felt came from God that encourage you and strengthen you for what you were dealing with. Maybe just a bible verse that came right to your mind when you were in the midst of a struggle.

Our God is a loving, caring, and compassionate God and He doesn't abandon us when things get tough or when we're pouring out our soul in prayer. God does speak to us. First and foremost, through His Word. That's our solid foundation. But sometimes, according to His pleasure and desire, He can communicate to us in a dream. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you do give us the clear message of the gospel in your Word that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And we thank you that you continue to give us encouragement and strength and sometimes even in a dream. We pray that you bless us to stand on the solid foundation of your Word and let that rule even our hearts and our minds. Bless us as we walk day by day trusting in you, Jesus. Give us courage for the day and strength for the challenge. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Copyright 2004 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church