It is very common for God to speak to men through dreams, especially when we do not LISTEN by reading His word – the Bible. In his sovereignty, He can speak to a man through dreams to give the man a clear understanding of his will, without hesitation.
MATTHEW 1:20-21
But while he was thinking about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a DREAM and said to him: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to receive Mary as your wife, for what is begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit. .
21 And she will give birth to a son, and you will call his name JESUS, for he will save his people from their sins.”
The previous biblical verse narrates a very important message that God needed to convey to a man, because the name of the Son of God must be JESUS. But here the Bible says that God (represented by his angel) spoke to the man Joseph through a dream. Why for a dream?
The only way to convey this important message to Joseph is through a dream (night vision) or a day vision, and God chose to speak to him through a dream because Joseph was not a prophet or priest, only Prophets, Priests, and a King (King David) had the Spirit of God upon their lives in the Old Covenant. Therefore, God could not communicate with Joseph by his spirit, because the spirit of God was not upon him, and a natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14).
Therefore, for Joseph to fully understand this important message, God had to communicate it to him in a dream. In the old covenant, it was common to receive messages from God in a dream, because they did not have the Holy Spirit within them, and it still happens in the new covenant, in which we now live. However, when God comes to speak to us (Christians) in a dream, either He has been trying to communicate with us through our spirit, and we have been slow to hear or in His sovereignty, He chooses to communicate through dreams. .
WORK 33:14-15
Because God can speak one way or another,
However, the man does not perceive it.
15 In a dream, in a night vision,
When deep sleep falls on men,
As they sleep in their beds
When a man is sleeping (deep sleep), everything in the man (body, soul and spirit) is completely at rest; then a man is capable of receiving any communication in this state.
Now, something important to keep in mind is that communication through dreams is an open realm: anyone can communicate with you in a dream. God can, the devil can, including yourself; for it is a middle ground in the fourth dimensional realm that anyone has access to control, including Satan and his agents. Therefore, a dream can also come from satanic agents to mislead and manipulate someone’s life. Therefore, this means that dreams must also be judged by the word of God.
Once again, dreams can come from God, and also from yourself: when you have thought a lot about a desire or have a problem in your heart, the Bible says that “Because a dream comes from a lot of activity, … (Ecclesiastes 5:3) and can also come from the devil to a weak Christian or any man (unbeliever) to manipulate them.
Generally the best guideline to follow is prayer. Prayerfully ask God to confirm if your dream is from Him. He may give you a similar dream, or He may speak to you through specific scriptures that can jump right off the pages of the Bible to confirm that the dream is from God.
Dreams, as well as other subconscious channels through which God communicates with man, must be clearly understood. Some dreams are not immediately clear in their interpretations or meanings, they come in what the Bible calls ‘Dark Sayings’, but the full message is always embedded in the dream or vision. God said about Moses: “…I speak with him face to face, clearly, and not in obscure words;…” (Numbers 12:8).
Peter in the book of Acts 10:17 had a vision that was in dark sayings
ACTS 10:17
The next day, while they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up to the roof to pray, about the sixth hour. 10 Then he was very hungry and wanted to eat; but as they prepared, he fell into a trance
11 And he saw heaven open and an object like a large sheet tied at the four corners, descending towards him and coming down to the earth.
12 In it were all kinds of four-legged land animals, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the sky.
13 And a voice came to him: Get up, Peter, kill and eat.
14 But Peter said, “No, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.” – [dark sayings, author’s emphasis]
15 And a voice spoke to him again a second time: What God cleansed, do not call common. 16 This was done three times. And the object was taken back to heaven.
17 While Peter was wondering within himself what this vision he had seen meant…
Peter wanted to know what the vision meant, because the message was in dark sayings; in reality, the message of the vision was to tell him to accept the Gentiles as the people of God.
When God gives messages (speaks) in dark sayings, it will take a man who is versed in His word (the Bible) to understand the message it contains or someone whom God gives understanding when asked.
Sometimes you can receive such a bad dream and yet it is from God. It is a revelation of something that comes from the past that is bad and needs someone to destroy it in the spiritual realm, before it is expressed in the physical world in which we live. Some Christians do not understand that there is a spiritual world and a physical world, and that all Christians live in both worlds (John 17:14-16). Before anything happens in our physical world, it is first remembered and established in the spiritual realm. That is why the Bible says in Matthew 18:18
MATTHEW 18:18
“Truly I tell you, whatever you BIND on earth will be BINDED in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
Whatever you stop in the SPIRITUAL FIELD will not happen in the PHYSICAL WORLD where we live, and likewise what you allow will also happen.
In a dream (bad dreams), you might see yourself, a close relative, or someone you know in a really bad state or even dead. Be very careful and be prudent to act when you receive such dreams, do not fear if you are a Christian (1 John 5:4), but if you are not a Christian, you are already in danger because you do not have any power. that he can destroy such an intentional occurrence (as seen in the dream), unless he surrenders his life to God and immediately becomes a Christian; only a Christian is protected from evil (Psalm 91:10). When you receive such dreams, you intend to inform him, so that you can take preventative measures to destroy it or inform the ministers in your church to help you prevent it from happening by praying against it, because you (as a Christian) have the power to do so. (Matthew 16:19).
Before my earthly father died, I had a dream – In the dream, I saw him going to his car, he started the engine and was about to leave, I quickly went to meet him, to ask him where he was going, suddenly my brothers. he joined me, and we all asked him where he was going, he didn’t say a word about where he was going, but he said to me alone, “go back and take care of your brother and sisters”, he didn’t mention a word about my mother, but his words – “go back and take care of your brother and sisters” kept clouding my thinking. And I thought to myself, it is my responsibility to take care of my brothers, because he is our father and he was still alive.
After a few months, my father fell ill and died. As normal as anyone would, I began to ask God questions-while you will let my father die, why couldn’t you save his life from his death? Well, the good Lord answered me, he said: “I wanted him to come home (heaven) to end his suffering from sickness, and I showed him to you before it happened, so that you prepare yourself for the responsibility that comes ahead.” of you”. It reminded me of the dream, it brought the words “come back and take care of your brother and sisters” and the scene of him driving the car, as the symbol of his departure from us because of death: dreams are always in symbols.
For me, sleep was as normal as any day’s activity would be, except for the thoughts of those words that kept coming back to me: “come back and take care of your brother and sisters.” I only understood the message of the dream after it happened. This sometimes happens to many of us, when an event or situation occurs, it seems familiar, then we suddenly remember and express “I dreamed about this before”, the event reminds us. Every time a dream catches your eye and keeps coming back to you, that dream (which is a message) needs your attention, either to search for its meaning or to take action on the message it reveals.
God uses dreams a lot to speak to His children, but since communication through dreams is a means of the soul, the devil can also take advantage of that medium. Remember, 2 Corinthians 11:14 says, “No wonder! Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”
But he (the devil) can never take advantage of any communication from our spirit; only God has access to our spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10).
Someone may ask, how do I know if a dream is from God?
Read this: “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, kind, generous, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality or hypocrisy” (James 3:17).
Any dream that is from God will bring a message of hope, predicting what to take advantage of (accept) or resist (fight against), without confusion and always wrapped in God’s wisdom. And the wisdom of God is always pure and peaceful.
But, a dream thrown by the devil will always bring fear (no hope); seeks to put his target in confusion and fear. – “This wisdom is not the one that descends from above, but is earthly, sensual, diabolical. For where there is envy and selfishness, there is confusion and all wickedness” (James 3:15-16).