Dreams, Visions And What-Knots!

Scripture: 1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14 (cf. verse 5); Acts 2:17 - 21

Title: Dreams, Visions and Whatnot

Theme: Dreams and Visions

This sermon focuses on how God uses Dreams and Visions in our lives.

INTRO:

Grace and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who came to take away the sin of the world.

There are some stories in the Bible that just capture your attention. Especially some of the stories that we find in the Old Testament. Stories like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Noah building the Ark, Abraham and Isaac's adventures on Mt. Moriah and the battle that ensued between the boy David and Goliath. Those are stories that are able to stir up the soul and help us in our faith walk.

There are other stories that fill us with wonder and amazement. Stories that surround such individuals as Joseph, the son of Jacob, King Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel and the Apostle Paul. This morning's passage contains such a story. It is the story of how God used a dream to communicate with King Solomon. It's a story that guides us to that supernatural world of visions, dreams, signs and wonders.

Dreams and visions are amazing things. There are at least 216 references to dreams and visions and the events that surround them in the Bible. The idea of dreams and visions occur mostly in the books of Genesis and Daniel but we see the idea of dreams and visions scattered throughout God's Word.

Dreams and visions are quite similar. Dreams occur when a person is sleeping while visions usually occur while a person is awake. However, there are some times in the scripture where it is difficult to understand if a person just had a dream or a vision. For example, in Daniel 2:19 the prophet is said to have experienced a night vision. We don't know if he had a vision at night or that was simply the way Daniel referred to God speaking to him through a dream.

This morning, let's take a few moments and look at some of the ways that God does use dreams and visions:

I. God Uses Dreams/Visions as Ways to Talk to Us

First off, we must understand that of not all dreams are direct communications from the Lord God Almighty. The Bible tells us that some dreams are just dreams. Some dreams neither promote or contain some deep supernatural meaning. Some dreams are just that - dreams.

+Some dreams are the byproduct of our brains doing their best to process all the things that happened to us that day (Ecclesiastes 5:3). Scientists tell us that dreams are one way our brains deal with an overload of information and stimuli. Dreams help our minds not explode.

It is also not unusual for us to have some vivid dreams after having a difficult, even traumatic, emotional event experienced during the day. People often dream after having an accident, the death of a love one or finding out some difficult medical news. Scientists tell us that our minds use dreams as a way to bring about emotional healing and wholeness.

+Sometimes our dreams are the result of certain types of chemicals that we have digested. We don't exactly know how but there are those people whose diet affects their dream life. There are those people who have experienced what has been called a "pizza dream". That is a dream that happens sometimes after we have eaten a heavy meal near bedtime or have eaten something that is loaded with simple sugars like candy and chocolate right before going to sleep. Certain people's bodies digest all that stuff and they experience some rather unusual dreams/visions as a side effect.

+Certain prescription medications can cause us to have some rather vivid dreams. Drugs like Codeine, Lexpro, Paxil, Medrol and even high doses of Melatonin have caused some people to have some rather odd dreams. And of course people who use Heroin, marijuana and LSD have reported experiencing some rather unusual dream activity as well.

+Some dreams we would rather not experience at all. Those of course are the ones we call nightmares. They too can be the result of too much food before bedtime and/or certain medications. But we need to understand that they can also be caused by demonic activity. Not all nightmares happen because we watch something scary before we go to bed. If our children or grandchildren are suffering from reoccurring nightmares we need to take the time to examine their nightmares and then cover them with prayer and fasting.

The ability to dream or have visions is a part of being human. We all dream. Our Lord God Almighty wired us that way. And it's true that some people dream in color while others dream in black and white. We don't exactly know why. We do know that most people don't remember every dream they experience. It's very common to have a dream at night but wake up with no memory of it at all.