What the Bible Says About Dreams

The Bible not a religious textbook or a book of rules and regulations. The Bible is God’s Word, there­fore it contains everything we need to know about life and godliness. All the issues of life are dealt with in this Book. There is no other book like it.
Therefore, if we want to know about dreams, we must look into the Bible to get God’s mind on the sub­ject. There is only one infallible source concerning dreams—The Bible.
Everyone dreams (about 5 dreams a night). Most of the time we cannot remember our dreams unless we wake up suddenly while dreaming. Usually, the mem­ory of the dream is gone within ten minutes after waking.
Dreams can be mysterious, humorous, foreboding, and scary! We’ve all experienced nightmares.
Sometimes dreams puzzle us regarding what they could possibly mean. This is leads many into the occult. You see books at grocery store check-outs claiming to interpret dreams. Satan would love to have people seek him for the answers to their dreams.
DEFINITION: A dream is a succession of images or ideas present in the mind during sleep.
ÆDIFFERENCE BETWEEN A DREAM AND A VISION. Basically, a dream occurs while one is asleep. A vision would be while a man is awake.
We are not talking about a “daydream.” A day­dream is a visionary fancy, voluntarily indulged in while one is awake. We are not going to study day­dreams since they are voluntary and can be controlled (see Jer. 29:8-9).
You need to be careful about people who say, “I have a dream,” when it is just a product of their own imagination (see Jer. 23:25-32).

We are going to study those uninvited images that enter our subconscious mind during sleep.
THREE CATEGORIES OF DREAMS:
I. Dreams as COMMUNICATIONS from God (Job 33:14-17).

A. God would speak to men through dreams be­cause when man is sleeping his pride and pur­poses are laid aside. When man is sleeping he cannot fight against God’s message. When a man is awake, he can resist God’s message, so God sends His message when man’s resistance is down.
1. Abimelech purposed to have Abram’s wife so God spoke to warn him in a dream (Gen. 20:3-6).
2. Laban was plotting a course against Jacob, so God warned him in a dream (Gen. 31:24).
3. God’s communication to Solomon (1 Kings 3:5-15).
4. Joseph was thinking about putting Mary away when God spoke to him in a dream (Mt. 1:18-24).
B. There are 20 dreams recorded in the Bible (14 in the O.T. and 6 in the N.T.). There in not one dream recorded after the resurrection of Christ. The last one was the dream of Pilate’s wife in Matthew 27:19.
1. Today, it is not necessary for God to commu­nicate through dreams because we have His Word. We are commanded to bring every thought into captivity and make it comply with the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).
2. In the tribulation period God will again speak through dreams (Joel 2:28-30).

II. Dreams from CONCERN for the affairs of life (Eccl. 5:3).

Pre-occupied with the routines of everyday living. We dream about the very things that occupy our thoughts while we are awake.

A. During your waking hours you are all wrapped up with business situations, family troubles, fi­nancial crisis, health related problems, national security, etc. that when you finally get to sleep, the mind cannot be freed or released from everyday stresses.
ÆSometimes what we watch on television will effect what we dream about.
B. Therefore, it is important to occupy our minds with the faithfulness of God in our daily routines (Isa. 26:3).

III. Dreams from cravingS of the flesh (Isaiah 29:8).

The subconscious mind will often try to satisfy unfulfilled longings and desires while you are asleep.

Your mind is like a computer. It processes what you put into it. Sometimes the processing occurs while we are sleeping and results in dreams.

A. Nightmares are often the out-workings of frus­trations in the flesh (Job 7:13-16).
B. Battling the lusts of the flesh during daylight hours will often be continued and lost in our dreams at night.

1. Unresolved anger is played out in dreams.
2. Conflicts are carried on in dreams.
3. Sexual tensions are released in dreams.

C. Dreams are often an indicator of our inner depravity.

We must judge everything by what is written in God’s Word. If a dream does not match what God’s says, ignore it. If the dream does match what the Bible says, you don’t need it anyway, since the Bible has already said it.