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He will guide you with His eye

Knowing the will of God for a specific situation or the future is possible for those who know God personally

Prophecy

HEARING THE VOICE OF GOD

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Lesson 7

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The Interpretation of Dreams and Visions

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God’s Language

Joh 3:6 What is born of [from] the flesh is flesh [of the physical is physical]; and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

 

  • We must be born again – Meta Noia – Change our mind

  • When Born again in the Spirit we will be babies again

  • We will learn to understand a whole new world of the Spiritual realm (Time vs. Eternity)

  • We will learn a ‘New spiritual language’

The Word of the LORD

1Sa 3:1 NOW THE boy Samuel ministered to the Lord before Eli. The word of the Lord was rare and precious in those days; there was no frequent or widely spread vision.

 

  • Samuel was sleeping in the Holy Place

  • The Word of the Lord = Vision

  • We must treat God’s word to us as precious

  • God speaks through visions – Not always words included

Difficult Sayings

Num 12:6  And He said, Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make Myself known to him in a vision and speak to him in a dream. 7  But not so with My servant Moses; he is entrusted and faithful in all My house. [Heb. 3:2, 5, 6.] 8  With him I speak mouth to mouth [directly], clearly and not in dark speeches; and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant Moses?

 

  • God has a language to communicate with us

  • God used dreams and visions

  • God used difficult and dark sayings

Why Parables?

Psa 78:2  I will open my mouth in a parable (in instruction by numerous examples); I will utter dark sayings of old [that hide important truth]--[Matt. 13:34, 35.]

 

  • God will speak in examples

  • God uses idioms and riddles – we get it a bit skew not direct

  • We must keep inquiring from God

 

Pro 1:1  THE PROVERBS (truths obscurely expressed, maxims, and parables) of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:

 

  • Truths obscurely expressed / Parables / Stories explaining a point / principle

 

Eze 20:49  Then said I, Ah, Lord God! They are saying of me, Does he not speak in parables and make allegories?

 

  • God uses something like

  • Prophets & Jesus said: The Kingdom is like / something like

 

Hos 12:10  I have also spoken to [you by] the prophets, and I have multiplied visions [for you] and [have appealed to you] through parables acted out by the prophets.

 

  • Prophet’s lives was parables

 

Mat 13:9  He who has ears [to hear], let him be listening and let him consider and perceive and comprehend by hearing. 10  Then the disciples came to Him and said, Why do You speak to them in parables? 11  And He replied to them, To you it has been given to know the secrets and mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12  For whoever has [spiritual knowledge], to him will more be given and he will be furnished richly so that he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

 

  • Parables is a spiritual language

  • Parables reveal spiritual principles and truths

 

Mat 13:13  This is the reason that I speak to them in parables: because having the power of seeing, they do not see; and having the power of hearing, they do not hear, nor do they grasp and understand. 14  In them indeed is the process of fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah, which says: You shall indeed hear and hear but never grasp and understand; and you shall indeed look and look but never see and perceive. 15  For this nation's heart has grown gross (fat and dull), and their ears heavy and difficult of hearing, and their eyes they have tightly closed, lest they see and perceive with their eyes, and hear and comprehend the sense with their ears, and grasp and understand with their heart, and turn and I should heal them. [Isa. 6:9, 10.]

 

  • All have the ability to hear and see in the spirit, but our hearts has become dull and insensitive to the Holy Spirit

  • We must change the way we think – Not with the mind, but the heart

Dreams and Visions

Act 2:17  And it shall come to pass in the last days, God declares, that I will pour out of My Spirit upon all mankind, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy [telling forth the divine counsels] and your young men shall see visions (divinely granted appearances), and your old men shall dream [divinely suggested] dreams. 18  Yes, and on My menservants also and on My maidservants in those days I will pour out of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy [telling forth the divine counsels and predicting future events pertaining especially to God's kingdom].

 

  • God does not show favoritism – For all mankind who believe

  • The Holy Spirit will give us dreams and visions to lead and to guide us

The Spirit of Revelation

Eph 1:17  [For I always pray to] the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that He may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation [of insight into mysteries and secrets] in the [deep and intimate] knowledge of Him, 18  By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints (His set-apart ones),

 

  • Only God can give us Revelation

  • We must ask God for:

  • The Spirit of Revelation

  • The Spirit of Wisdom

  • Ask God to flood the eyes of our heart

Spirit senses trained

Heb 5:13  For everyone who continues to feed on milk is obviously inexperienced and unskilled in the doctrine of righteousness (of conformity to the divine will in purpose, thought, and action), for he is a mere infant [not able to talk yet]! 14  But solid food is for full-grown men, for those whose senses and mental faculties are trained by practice to discriminate and distinguish between what is morally good and noble and what is evil and contrary either to divine or human law.

 

  • We must learn to live in the state of God’s righteousness

  • Our spiritual senses must be trained and practiced

  • There are always three voices: God’s /Your’s / Satan’s (Truth vs. Lie / Right vs. Wrong / God’s will vs. Your will / Satan’s Will)

Visions

Pro 29:18  Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish; but he who keeps the law [of God, which includes that of man]--blessed (happy, fortunate, and enviable) is he. [I Sam. 3:1; Amos 8:11, 12.]

 

  • The Hebrew language is a picture language

  • God gives vision to probe us into a direction

  • Revelation from God makes us free

  • Revelation opens up the scripture

  • Revelation gives understanding of Spiritual principles

  • Revelation leads us closer to Jesus

New Testament Visions

Act 9:10 Now there was in Damascus a disciple named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias. And he answered, Here am I, Lord. 11 And the Lord said to him, Get up and go to the street called Straight and ask at the house of Judas for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying [there]. 12  And he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias enter and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight. 13  But Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard many people tell about this man, especially how much evil and what great suffering he has brought on Your saints at Jerusalem;

 

  • The Lord speaks to us in visions

  • The same Holy Spirit can only confirm his word (Ananias’ vision & Paul’s vision)

Dreams

Job 33:14  For God [does reveal His will; He] speaks not only once, but more than once, even though men do not regard it [including you, Job]. 15 [One may hear God's voice] in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men while slumbering upon the bed, 16  Then He opens the ears of men and seals their instruction [terrifying them with warnings], 17  That He may withdraw man from his purpose and cut off pride from him [disgusting him with his own disappointing self-sufficiency].

 

  • God reveals His will to us through dreams / Visions

  • We do not always regard God’s warning

  • God cut our own interference off from us by using a trance / sleep

  • God speaks in dream when we do not hear Him

Dreams in the Old Testament

Gen 28:12 And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! 13 And behold, the Lord stood over and beside him and said: “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father [forefather] and the God of Isaac; I will give to you and to your descendants the land on which you are lying.

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Gen 28:18  And Jacob rose early in the morning and took the stone he had put under his head, and he set it up for a pillar (a monument to the vision in his dream), and he poured oil on its top [in dedication]. 19  And he named that place Bethel [the house of God]; but the name of that city was Luz at first.

 

  • Jacob light upon this place

  • The Ladder out of Heaven = God’s Presence shown to Jacob

Dreams in the New Testament

Mat 2:11  And on going into the house, they saw the Child with Mary His mother, and they fell down and worshiped Him. Then opening their treasure bags, they presented to Him gifts--gold and frankincense and myrrh. 12  And receiving an answer to their asking, they were divinely instructed and warned in a dream not to go back to Herod; so they departed to their own country by a different way. 13  Now after they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Get up! [Tenderly] take unto you the young Child and His mother and flee to Egypt; and remain there till I tell you [otherwise], for Herod intends to search for the Child in order to destroy Him. 14  And having risen, he took the Child and His mother by night and withdrew to Egypt

 

  • God can appear to you in a dream by angels

 

Mat 2:19  But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20  And said, Rise, [tenderly] take unto you the Child and His mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the Child's life are dead. 21  Then he awoke and arose and [tenderly] took the Child and His mother and came into the land of Israel. 22  But because he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in the place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being divinely warned in a dream, he withdrew to the region of Galilee

 

  • Angels can appear to us in dreams (The Whirlwinds)

  • God warn us in dreams

Trances

Act 10:10 But he became very hungry, and wanted something to eat; and while the meal was being prepared a trance came over him, 11  And he saw the sky opened and something like a great sheet lowered by the four corners, descending to the earth. 12  It contained all kinds of quadrupeds and wild beasts and creeping things of the earth and birds of the air. 13  And there came a voice to him, saying, Rise up, Peter, kill and eat.

 

  • Peter fell into a trance – Like sleep but you are awake

  • Deep sleep came upon

  • The Same Holy Spirit (Peter’s vision & Cornelius’ Vision of an angel)

Being in the Spirit

Eze 3:14  So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away [in the vision], and I went in bitterness [of discouragement] in the heat of my spirit; and the hand of the Lord was strong upon me.

 

  • We do not control the vision the vision control us.

  • Do not interfere with the vision

  • The Occult vs. The Spirit of God

  • The Occult = The Hidden things – Man’s control

  • The Spirit of God = The Spirit will show / take you

  • The Presence of God is the hand of God

 

Eze 11:23  Then the glory of the Lord rose up from over the midst of the city and stood over the mountain which is on the east side of the city. 24  And the Spirit lifted me up and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to the exiles. Then the vision that I had seen went up from me.

 

  • God showed the prophet Ezekiël a vision

  • You are in side the vision – Open vision

  • The Spirit of God = Glory of God

  • The Spirit of God took control of the prophet

 

Rev 1:10  I was in the Spirit [rapt in His power] on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a great voice like the calling of a war trumpet, 11  Saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last. Write promptly what you see (your vision) in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia--to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.

 

  • John was in the Spirit / Enfolded with the Glory of God

  • He had to write down what God showed him

  • He had to send it to the seven churches

Being a Watchman

Hab 2:1  [OH, I know, I have been rash to talk out plainly this way to God!] I will [in my thinking] stand upon my post of observation and station myself on the tower or fortress, and will watch to see what He will say within me and what answer I will make [as His mouthpiece] to the perplexities of my complaint against Him.

 

  • We must learn to look into the Spirit like a watchmen

  • “What you see is what you hear and what you hear is what you see!”

  • God speaks on the inside of us most of the time

 

Hab 2:2  And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision and engrave it so plainly upon tablets that everyone who passes may [be able to] read [it easily and quickly] as he hastens by. 3  For the vision is yet for an appointed time and it hastens to the end [fulfillment]; it will not deceive or disappoint. Though it tarry, wait [earnestly] for it, because it will surely come; it will not be behindhand on its appointed day. [Heb. 10:37, 38.]

 

  • We must write down what God shows us

  • The Vision is for an appointed time

  • Some visions/dreams – Immediately

  • Some Visions/Dreams – In one week / One month / One Year / 5 Years / More

  • Prophets saw things 1000’s of years ago into the future

Peaks in Prophecy

  • We do not see all the circumstances – only peaks

  • All the valleys are hidden

Interpretation of Dreams

Gen 37:5 Now Joseph had a dream and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him still more. 6  And he said to them, Listen now and hear, I pray you, this dream that I have dreamed: 7 We [brothers] were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright, and behold, your sheaves stood round about my sheaf and bowed down! 8 His brothers said to him, Shall you indeed reign over us? Or are you going to have us as your subjects and dominate us? And they hated him all the more for his dreams and for what he said. 9 But Joseph dreamed yet another dream and told it to his brothers [also]. He said, See here, I have dreamed again, and behold, [this time not only] eleven stars [but also] the sun and the moon bowed down and did reverence to me!

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Gen 40:5  And they both dreamed a dream in the same night, each man according to [the personal significance of] the interpretation of his dream--the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison. 6  When Joseph came to them in the morning and looked at them, he saw that they were sad and depressed. 7  So he asked Pharaoh's officers who were in custody with him in his master's house, Why do you look so dejected and sad today? 8  And they said to him, We have dreamed dreams, and there is no one to interpret them. And Joseph said to them, Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me [your dreams], I pray you. 9  And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph and said to him, In my dream I saw a vine before me, 10  And on the vine were three branches. Then it was as though it budded; its blossoms burst forth and the clusters of them brought forth ripe grapes [almost all at once]. 11  And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup; then I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. 12 And Joseph said to him, This is the interpretation of it: The three branches are three days. 13 Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, and you will again put Pharaoh's cup into his hand, as when you were his butler.

 

  • Joseph learnt that God is the only interpreter of dreams

  • God can give tow people the similar dreams in the same night

  • God used logical things to explain difficult concepts

  • Interpreting the Butler’s dream – 3 branches = 3 days

  • God spoke in language that the butler could understand

 

Gen 40:16  When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said to Joseph, I also dreamed, and behold, I had three cake baskets on my head. 17  And in the uppermost basket were some of all kinds of baked food for Pharaoh, but the birds [of prey] were eating out of the basket on my head. 18  And Joseph answered, This is the interpretation of it: The three baskets are three days. 19  Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head but will have you beheaded and hung on a tree, and [you will not so much as be given burial, but] the birds will eat your flesh.

 

  • God gave Joseph the interpretation of the dreams

  • 3 Baskets = 3 Days

  • God both encourages and warns in dreams

Conclusion to trained by the Interpretation of Dreams and Visions

  • God interprets

  • God sends confirmation – two witnesses

  • The Word interprets – God will not override His word or expound on it

  • God used symbols

  • God meets you where you are at – Speaks to fisher men of fishing / To shepherds of sheep

  • God is consequent and constant

  • Eg. Left to destruction / Right to everlasting Life

  • God uses nature

  • The detail matters – How did you feel

  • God uses what you give him

  • God answers according to your faith

  • Dreams and visions comes at three levels:

  • Revelation – To see the vision / dream – A Word from God

  • Interpretation – What does it mean?

  • Application – Who does this apply to? What must I do with it?

  • Prophetic levels of interpretation (Peaks & Valleys) – Literal / Spiritual / Prophetic

  • For myself first

  • For the church of Jesus

  • For prayer / intercession

  • To obey (Immediate / Wait / Prepare me)

  • Timing? (1 Year = 1000 Years)

Interpretation of Symbols

  • God interprets

  • How did you feel?

  • Animals / Fruits / Colours / Food

  • Logic in dreams: What do I do hear? (Kitchen / Bathroom / School)

  • Detail counts

  • Sea – Not always only one meaning depending on the context

  • Sea of people / Nations

  • God will teach you a language

  • Book on interpretation – Do not blindly follow them – Ask God

Interpretation of Numbers

  • 1 – One God

  • 2 – Two by two; the power to two

  • 3 – Trinity (Father / Son / Holy Spirit); (Body / Soul / Spirit; Dragon / Beast / False prophet)

  • 5 – Grace?

  • 6 – The number of a man - 666

  • 7 – Also 3.5 / 7x7=49 / 70 years / Week of days / Week of Years

  • 8 - Resurrection

  • 10 - Government

  • 12 – 12 Apostles = 12 Foundations

  • 40 – Cycle of testing

  • 49 + 1 – 50 = 7 X 7 + 1 – Jubilee cycle

  • 490 – Years Jubilee years

Personal experience:

  • Gerdine my wife

  • God’s calling

  • Many directions of confirmations (Personal, dreams, other people, rhema words, The Holy Spirit)

  • An Example – The Wire

  • God gave me an analytical mind

  • Dream – Fly into a wire

 

Rhema  Word - Gen 32:24  And Jacob was left alone, and a Man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25  And when [the Man] saw that He did not prevail against [Jacob], He touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob's thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with Him. 26  Then He said, Let Me go, for day is breaking. But [Jacob] said, I will not let You go unless You declare a blessing upon me.

 

  • Hebrew Word – To twist / Wrestle

  • Interpretation: Must wrestle with God to find His will for my life

  • It took 8 years and three churches and still searching to find God’s will for my life

Application of Dreams and Visions

  • To Encourage (Always first)

  • To inform (What is going on) - Insight

  • To fore warn – Warn of coming evil

  • To Call to prayer / intercession

  • To Direct (The Prophets) – Change of direction

  • To answer prayer of understanding – Daniël’s prayer

  • To enlighten scriptures – Under Jesus and His kingdom’s mysteries

  • To foretell / Prophecy – To Glorify God

  • To prepare – To mobilize God’s people

Stumbling Blocks in our hearts

Eze 14:3 Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts and put the stumbling block of their iniquity and guilt before their faces; should I permit Myself to be inquired of at all by them? 4 Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Every man of the house of Israel who takes his idols [of self-will and unsubmissiveness] into his heart and puts the stumbling block of his iniquity [idols of silver and gold] before his face, and yet comes to the prophet [to inquire of him], I the Lord will answer him, answer him according to the multitude of his idols, 5 That I may lay hold of the house of Israel in the thoughts of their own mind and heart, because they are all estranged from Me through their idols.

 

  • We must come to God with a preconceived idea in our hearts before God

  • God will answer according to your idol in you heart / mind

  • We must get rid of all our idols / our opinions / our ways (It is God’s way or it is God’s way!!)

Practical

  • Share with one another a dream which you had that was very significant to you

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