Silas
Beloved of All
It is good to join you in looking to the Lord and to His Word rather than to the noise of the world, and to agree together for your wife, your children, your family, friends and prayer partners, and for yourself, that God would make His will clear and keep you all in His peace.
Scripture shows that God has spoken to people through dreams and through visions. A dream comes while a person sleeps, a vision comes while a person is awake, sometimes as if in a trance, but both have been ways God has communicated. In the Old Testament He spoke to Joseph, to Pharaoh, to Nebuchadnezzar and others in dreams, and in the New Testament Joseph was warned in a dream to take the child to Egypt. The prophet Joel promised that in the last days God would pour out His Spirit and sons and daughters would prophesy, young men would see visions and old men would dream dreams, a promise repeated on the day of Pentecost. For that reason we remain open. Even if we have not personally had a dream that carried clear spiritual meaning, we do not say God cannot speak this way. He can, and where He does, we welcome it.
At the same time Scripture teaches us to be careful and humble about such things. Dreams and visions are often disjointed and symbolic, and they need interpretation. Where God Himself gives the interpretation, as He did for Joseph before Pharaoh and for Daniel before the king of Babylon, then we can understand with confidence. Those men were careful to say the interpretation was not in them but in God, and to give Him the glory. Where God has not given an interpretation we can only guess, and we should not build certainty on a guess.
God also helps us by using symbols with consistency through the Bible. In parables, allegories, dreams and visions, certain pictures keep the same meaning. The field often pictures the world, the seed that is sown pictures the Word of God, oil pictures the Holy Spirit and His power to sustain and enable, and birds when they appear in that symbolic way are shown in a negative sense. That consistency helps us test what we think we have seen or dreamed, but it does not replace the need for God to make the meaning clear and for the meaning to agree with Scripture.
The test is always the Word. Isaiah calls us to the law and to the testimony, and if a word does not speak according to that, there is no light in it. The Lord also warned that if a prophet or a dreamer gives a sign that comes to pass but then says let us go after other gods, we are not to follow. There have always been those who claim visions and dreams for the sake of money or influence, and we are told to watch for that motive and to turn from it. The leading of the Holy Spirit, the voice of the Shepherd which His sheep know, godly counsel, and even signs in the heavens and the signs of the times are all to be weighed against what Scripture plainly says.
We agree with you in thanking God that Jesus lives to intercede for those who come to God through Him and is able to save completely, as Hebrews 7:25 and Romans 8:34 teach. We agree that light is stronger than darkness and darkness cannot overcome it, and that nothing is impossible with God, and no purpose of His can be thwarted.
So we pray with you that the Lord would keep your wife, your children, your families, your churches, pastors and leaders, and all those you love, from temptation, from evil and deception, from lies and fear and from the work of the evil one. We ask Him to guard your hearts and minds with the peace that passes understanding as you make your requests known to Him with thanksgiving, according to Philippians 4:6 and 7. We ask Him to speak to you clearly, most of all through His written Word, and if it pleases Him also through other ordinary and extraordinary means that agree with that Word, and to give you wisdom to discern what is from Him. We trust Him to lead you step by step by His Spirit, as Romans 8:14 promises for the children of God, and to make His way plain as you seek Him with a humble and yielded heart. In the name of Jesus, in whom all the promises of God are Yes and Amen, we ask this with thanksgiving.
Scripture shows that God has spoken to people through dreams and through visions. A dream comes while a person sleeps, a vision comes while a person is awake, sometimes as if in a trance, but both have been ways God has communicated. In the Old Testament He spoke to Joseph, to Pharaoh, to Nebuchadnezzar and others in dreams, and in the New Testament Joseph was warned in a dream to take the child to Egypt. The prophet Joel promised that in the last days God would pour out His Spirit and sons and daughters would prophesy, young men would see visions and old men would dream dreams, a promise repeated on the day of Pentecost. For that reason we remain open. Even if we have not personally had a dream that carried clear spiritual meaning, we do not say God cannot speak this way. He can, and where He does, we welcome it.
At the same time Scripture teaches us to be careful and humble about such things. Dreams and visions are often disjointed and symbolic, and they need interpretation. Where God Himself gives the interpretation, as He did for Joseph before Pharaoh and for Daniel before the king of Babylon, then we can understand with confidence. Those men were careful to say the interpretation was not in them but in God, and to give Him the glory. Where God has not given an interpretation we can only guess, and we should not build certainty on a guess.
God also helps us by using symbols with consistency through the Bible. In parables, allegories, dreams and visions, certain pictures keep the same meaning. The field often pictures the world, the seed that is sown pictures the Word of God, oil pictures the Holy Spirit and His power to sustain and enable, and birds when they appear in that symbolic way are shown in a negative sense. That consistency helps us test what we think we have seen or dreamed, but it does not replace the need for God to make the meaning clear and for the meaning to agree with Scripture.
The test is always the Word. Isaiah calls us to the law and to the testimony, and if a word does not speak according to that, there is no light in it. The Lord also warned that if a prophet or a dreamer gives a sign that comes to pass but then says let us go after other gods, we are not to follow. There have always been those who claim visions and dreams for the sake of money or influence, and we are told to watch for that motive and to turn from it. The leading of the Holy Spirit, the voice of the Shepherd which His sheep know, godly counsel, and even signs in the heavens and the signs of the times are all to be weighed against what Scripture plainly says.
We agree with you in thanking God that Jesus lives to intercede for those who come to God through Him and is able to save completely, as Hebrews 7:25 and Romans 8:34 teach. We agree that light is stronger than darkness and darkness cannot overcome it, and that nothing is impossible with God, and no purpose of His can be thwarted.
So we pray with you that the Lord would keep your wife, your children, your families, your churches, pastors and leaders, and all those you love, from temptation, from evil and deception, from lies and fear and from the work of the evil one. We ask Him to guard your hearts and minds with the peace that passes understanding as you make your requests known to Him with thanksgiving, according to Philippians 4:6 and 7. We ask Him to speak to you clearly, most of all through His written Word, and if it pleases Him also through other ordinary and extraordinary means that agree with that Word, and to give you wisdom to discern what is from Him. We trust Him to lead you step by step by His Spirit, as Romans 8:14 promises for the children of God, and to make His way plain as you seek Him with a humble and yielded heart. In the name of Jesus, in whom all the promises of God are Yes and Amen, we ask this with thanksgiving.
