Chrysostom
Beloved of All
Your longing to hear God speak and to be kept from evil is good, and we join you in thanking Him that He has not left us without His voice. As it is written, God spoke in many portions and many ways in former times, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, and the Holy Spirit has made that word known through the apostles, so that we have the Scriptures as our sure foundation.
For this reason we want to gently set your hope in the right direction. The dreams and visions you mention in Job, in Joel, in Numbers and Acts, belonged to particular moments in God's unfolding plan. Joel's prophecy was poured out at Pentecost when the gospel was first proclaimed, and the dreams given to Joseph or to others were God's extraordinary means to guard His redemptive purposes before the Scriptures were complete. Now that we have the full counsel of God in the Bible, the ordinary and faithful way the Holy Spirit speaks is by opening our minds to understand the Scriptures, as He did for the disciples, and by forming Christ in us.
This is why the Scriptures warn us not to chase dreams as if they were a higher word from God. The things of this present life, even when they seem vivid, are like dreams that vanish when the day dawns. What we need is to awake from slumber, to lay aside imaginings and the deep sleep of this world, and to look to the Sun of Righteousness, Christ Himself, revealed in His word. When the soul is orderly and watchful, sober and not weighed down, its sleep itself is composed and its dreams are not full of wild fancies and monstrous visions, but the heart is ready to rise quickly to do the works of the day. Our calling is not to seek terrors in the night, but to be clothed in virtue and to walk while it is day.
So we will not ask God to give new dreams and visions apart from His word, for that would be to ask for something He has not promised to give in this way. Instead we ask Him to do what He has promised.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Son, the true foundation, and for Your Spirit speaking through the apostles in the holy Scriptures. We ask for this husband and wife and their whole household, that You would give them what You promised to all who seek You, a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, that the eyes of their hearts would be enlightened to understand Your word. Keep them from temptation and from the evil one, from deception and fear and every wrongdoing, and deliver them from pride and from the pit. Make their home sober, watchful and orderly, their love steadfast, their life together faithful to Your design for marriage as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman. Teach them to rebuke and admonish one another in love, to help one another in the care of their household, to show mercy to the poor, to clothe the naked and to seek the good of their neighbor, engaging in that spiritual traffic which You love. Preserve them by Your power, and cause them to hear and obey Your voice in Scripture, through which You are able to save to the uttermost. We ask this in the name of Jesus, through whom alone is salvation, Amen.
For this reason we want to gently set your hope in the right direction. The dreams and visions you mention in Job, in Joel, in Numbers and Acts, belonged to particular moments in God's unfolding plan. Joel's prophecy was poured out at Pentecost when the gospel was first proclaimed, and the dreams given to Joseph or to others were God's extraordinary means to guard His redemptive purposes before the Scriptures were complete. Now that we have the full counsel of God in the Bible, the ordinary and faithful way the Holy Spirit speaks is by opening our minds to understand the Scriptures, as He did for the disciples, and by forming Christ in us.
This is why the Scriptures warn us not to chase dreams as if they were a higher word from God. The things of this present life, even when they seem vivid, are like dreams that vanish when the day dawns. What we need is to awake from slumber, to lay aside imaginings and the deep sleep of this world, and to look to the Sun of Righteousness, Christ Himself, revealed in His word. When the soul is orderly and watchful, sober and not weighed down, its sleep itself is composed and its dreams are not full of wild fancies and monstrous visions, but the heart is ready to rise quickly to do the works of the day. Our calling is not to seek terrors in the night, but to be clothed in virtue and to walk while it is day.
So we will not ask God to give new dreams and visions apart from His word, for that would be to ask for something He has not promised to give in this way. Instead we ask Him to do what He has promised.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Son, the true foundation, and for Your Spirit speaking through the apostles in the holy Scriptures. We ask for this husband and wife and their whole household, that You would give them what You promised to all who seek You, a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, that the eyes of their hearts would be enlightened to understand Your word. Keep them from temptation and from the evil one, from deception and fear and every wrongdoing, and deliver them from pride and from the pit. Make their home sober, watchful and orderly, their love steadfast, their life together faithful to Your design for marriage as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman. Teach them to rebuke and admonish one another in love, to help one another in the care of their household, to show mercy to the poor, to clothe the naked and to seek the good of their neighbor, engaging in that spiritual traffic which You love. Preserve them by Your power, and cause them to hear and obey Your voice in Scripture, through which You are able to save to the uttermost. We ask this in the name of Jesus, through whom alone is salvation, Amen.
