Job 33:14-18

For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. ¹⁵ In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; ¹⁶ Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, ¹⁷ That he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. ¹⁸ He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.

God is always in the business of communicating with his children. Are you a child of God? If your answer is yes, then God is always communicating to you. An earthly biological does not dwell without communicating with his child. The same way that God is always communicating with his children. The only problem is that most children of God are busy pursuing their own agenda or unable to recognize the voice of God when He gives them directions. Brethren one of the ways that God speaks is through the Bible. You cannot hear God with a closed Bible. The word is a constant way that God always speaks to his children, another way that God speaks to his children is through what I call the 'inner signal'. When you have a prompting in your heart about a decision you want to take or something you want to do or not to do. The third way that God speaks to his people is the authoritative voice of the Holy Spirit. That is when the Holy Spirit speaks to you direct. However, ordinarily what happens is that the Holy Spirit will speak to your spirit-man which transmits to your mind and you now pick the signal. This sometimes is called the conscience.

Well, our focus today is the beginning of a series of teaching about another way through which God speaks to his people called dreams. I will spend some time on this because many people have been deceived or make great mistakes by depending completely on their dreams or misinterpreted their dreams. The reason is because people do not understand that several times dreams appear in what I call 'spiritual codes' that require the assistance of the Holy Spirit to decipher. God speaks to us through dreams giving directions, corrections and even rebukes. Dreams are fascinating adventures of the mind that takes place while you sleep. God permits certain dreams to enable his children know what is happening around them or what is about to happen or an indication of what will happen in the life of a loved one. Sometimes God gives you dream so that you will pray or just to help you make a decision on an issue based on what God has told you.

Our text today from Job 33:14-18 says that many decisions that people want to take that may lead them to trouble, or when there's danger ahead, one of the ways that God prevents that danger from happening is by sending you a dream. However, you need to take note of this important fact: the fact that you had a dream from God today does not mean that the outcome would be tomorrow. Sometimes it could be the following week, the following month, the following year or even many years after. Spiritual things do not work the same way natural things work. But the point is that God always alerts his people several times through dreams about what's going to happen.

In Acts 16:9, the Bible records concerning Apostle Paul and says '...And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us'. We can see that Paul had this vision and it shows him the direction he was to take. It revealed to him where he was needed to go to. If you read some verses before, Paul had tried to go to some other places but the Holy Spirit of God could not allow him. At this point I would like you to pray:

Prayer: 'By your mercy oh God, let your Spirit hinder me from going to the wrong places or taking decisions that are contrary to your will for me.'

Throughout the Bible you'll see God talking to people through dreams.

In Genesis 20, Abraham lied that Sarah was his wife and the king Abimelech took her but in a dream God appeared to Abimelech and warned him that Sarah was Abrahams wife that if he sleeps with her, he would die.

Genesis 20:1-3

And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar. ² And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah. ³ But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man's wife.

Joseph the earthly father of Jesus was told in a dream to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt because Herod was planning to kill Jesus.

Matthew 2:13 And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

There is no way Joseph would have known this in the physical. He never knew what was going on in the heart of Herod but God spoke to him in the dream telling him what was going on in the heart of Herod and the evil plan he had for Jesus. God also told him the way out. I decree upon you today - May the Lord reveal to you every evil plan of your enemies against you and show you the ways of escape in the name of Jesus! Can I hear you shout Amen like a thunder!!!

Whatsoever is going on in your life right now, God may be talking to you through dreams. However, there should be some cautions about dreams. This is because a lot of people have truncated their future, delayed the purposes of God and nearly destroyed themselves due to wrong interpretation and misunderstanding of their dreams. I would want you to pay serious attention to what I'm about to say now - Dreams do not only come about from God, but dreams also come about from Self through the multitude of activities and from Satan. When God speaks to you through dream, the instruction can never contradict the Scripture.

Ecclesiastes 5:3

For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words.

The above scripture says that dreams do come about as a result of multitude of business. This means that the great multitude of activities of the day can result to dreams in the night. In this case it is not God talking to you. When you get involved into too much activities which could even be your new job, several time you dream about it. It could even be a new job you don't really enjoy and you have negative feelings about it. You may find yourself in a dream quitting the job and you wake up saying that God is asking you to quit the job. Many times there is the tendency to have a dream around what you are thinking about or around your daily activities and this does not mean that God is talking to you through that particular dream. Sometimes you may not be conscious that you are thinking about a particular issue but subconsciously that issue has saturated your spirit man that you begin to dream about it. That dream neither came from God or Satan but from you.

Satan can also give you dreams. A lot of times satanic dreams come in form of attacks and seductions that produce fear and guilt upon awakening. Also satan understands the principle of Ecclesiastes 5:3. He knows that if you think about something a lot or even if you don't concentrate on thinking about it, if you indulge in an activity so much during the day, the tendency that you would think about it is high. Satan most of the time manipulates your thoughts by saturating your mind with so much thoughts or even implanting certain thoughts into your subconscious knowing that your spirit man will pick it up and project it as a dream in the night. This is why the Bible warns about your thoughts:

Philippians 4:8

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.