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INTRODUCTION:
Recent survey:
• 20 percent of the population reports to having what the survey calls
“paranormal” experiences on a regular basis.
• 58 percent report to having had an ESP or extra sensory perception
encounter.
• 75 percent report to having a déjà vu experience.
• 95 percent report to having had a dream that they knew was given to
them by some unknown force.
In Scripture we find one third of the Bible is about, or relates to, a dream or vision.
• If we sleep eight hours a day, we then sleep one third of our life.
• By the time you turn 60 you will have slept for twenty years. God could say
a lot in 20 years.
The book of Acts shows us that almost every major decision of early Christianity
was made because of a dream, a vision, a prophecy, a supernatural visitation,
or some kind of divine intervention.
• As the Early Church grew, nearly every apologist who stood to fight for
the establishment of Christianity believed in the present reality of signs,
wonders, healings, and miracles, as well as dreams, visions, visitations, and
the entire plethora of supernatural experiences seen in the Bible.
o Men such as Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Polycarp all wrote of their
paranormal experiences parallel to those found in the Bible.
o Church Fathers such as Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, and
Augustine, emphasized the importance of dreams and visions.
o The early church mystics such as St. John of the Cross,Teresa of
Avila, Ignatius of Loyola, all had experiences with dreams, visions,
and spiritual manifestations.
»
They took the position of the early kings of Israel—if God did
not speak to them in dreams, something was wrong.
Copyright © 2014 John Paul Jackson. All Rights Reserved.
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• Today, the age of reason has taken its toll.
o Theologians, with rare exceptions, are silent on this topic.
God has already defined how He is going to speak in these times—through His
Word, as well as through signs, wonders, dreams, visions, and prophecy.
• Joel 2:28-31 “And it shall come to pass afterward.That I will pour out My
Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,Your old
men shall dream dreams,Your young men shall see visions. And also on
My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those
days.“And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: Blood and
fire and pillars of smoke.The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the
moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of
the Lord.”
• All of God’s ways are perfect and outside of the Bible, nothing reveals the
ways of God more than the interpreting or understanding of a dream or
vision.
• Though God may speak through a dream or a vision, man does not
always immediately understand the meaning.This was true in Bible times
and it is true today.
o Part of that lack of understanding is cultural, part of it is that God
may choose to hide in order to make man seek.
o Solomon wrote that it is the Glory of God to conceal a matter and it
is the glory of kings to search the matter out. (Proverbs 25:2)
o There is no better example of “searching the matter out” than the
search we embark on to find the meaning of a dream that God
gives.
TALKING POINTS: Teaching Session 1
The Psalmist writes that the ways of God are perfect. (Psalm 18:30)
• They are perfect in design: God’s words and His works are in perfect
alignment and in harmony in how they function.
• They are perfect in power, in holiness and righteousness, perfect in
execution, perfect in objective, and to be such must be perfect in number.
• His works are perfect, perfect in timing, and in season for their occurrence.
• God’s words are also perfect when He spoke to the holy prophets and
perfect when written.
o They were written in the perfect way, released at the perfect time,
and in the perfect number.