 Does God still cause people to have dreams and visions? Hey smart Christians welcome back an issue that keeps getting brought up from time to time and especially because of there's these these spiritual gifts that are being abused that are not actual spiritual gifts or Manifestations, but someone is maybe faking and so forth. The question is though Do people still have these dreams and visions like we see in the Bible now without going through all the different examples Of worth we know that clearly God gave people in the Bible dreams and Visions now we're gonna talk about what a dream is and what a vision is according to the scriptures And then we're gonna also notice something interesting about who was supposed to have them So with that being said let's go ahead and turn to Acts chapter 2 verse 17 But they have Pentecost these men are speaking in these known languages After the Holy Spirit has been poured out on these people on these apostles first and then people show up and then Peter is giving an explanation as to what happens and he refers back to Joel We'll look at Joel in second, but let's just read what he's saying in Acts 2 17 He says and in the last days It shall be that God declares that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh Of course the word here for all flesh is is the word pasan sarcas Which doesn't mean that every single person is going to receive the spirit It's just each or every type of flesh And so different people groups will receive the Holy Spirit and we see that happening in Acts and he says and your sons and your Daughters shall prophesy the word for prophesy It simply means just to give an utterance or revelation to inform and give some sort of revelation about God that necessarily mean a foretelling meaning that these men and women are going to tell what's gonna happen in the future But they are going to give a revelation of God and we can do the same thing today with just opening the Bible And that is the purest form of revelation. We can point to but here he says that your sons and daughters shall prophesy Let's continue and he says and your young men shall see visions and Your old men shall dream dreams Even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy More importantly more more in view here is this issue of prophesying or given this utterance or informing or give it a revelation of God because That's what's happening on the day of Pentecost Jesus being magnified through these different languages and there's this commotion like what could this possibly be But I want to zero in on this issue of visions and dreams and I want to see if you all notice something here First of all, we need to define what a vision or what a dream is the visions are what they would consider to be what's called a Waking vision or waking dream meaning that they're not really asleep while they're having these visions. They are they're awake They are alert, but they're being shown something It's it's it has to do with the word sight as a matter of fact Let's pull it up this word right here is the word hara says which comes from the word from the from the Greek word Hara, oh, which means to see or for vision. So this word is not where someone is actually sleeping This is not where someone is sleeping. This is where someone is awake and they're being shown something by the Lord So this were hara, oh or in this case Hara says That's the word that she was here for vision this other word here though for dreams This is the word that's used for when they are sleeping and this is the word anupnois, which is For dreams. This is when a person is actually asleep So God is showing them something while they are asleep But I want to before we go further into it. I want you to notice something Maybe we could make something of it. Maybe not, but I just want you to notice something We're gonna look at this for a for a second and see if there's something that should be made out of this But notice who he says shall see visions and who will dream dreams He used the term that will of those that wish that will see these visions Are young men this word here for young men Nyaniskoi is the word for young man now, which is for men. This is for males Should we make something out of that? Well, let's go and look at the one for Dreaming dreams as well and see if we can find something even more So this word here is for old men where we get the word presbytero, which is the or presbyter So these are older men elders The question is is he referring specifically to Males males only in other words in other words young males shall see visions and old males shall dream dreams Let's go back and look at how joe puts it Where peter is quoting from let's see how he puts it and see if we can even get a little bit more in sight Before we get to this whole issue of does god still have these dreams and visions So in joe 228 it says and it's come to pass afterwards that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh And this word is called bashar your sons and your daughter shall prophesize So it still is just like in the greek is still referencing male and females who will give these utterances this revelation of god But then it goes to your young your old man shall dream dreams And your young men shall see vision now they reverse the order But still let's look and see is he speaking in the hebrew of Older men well this word here Is a canine which is where we get this word It actually it actually means kind of bearded person an older person in the hebrew and so It's speaking of a male here also and then back to the to the young men this word is used here It's actually kind of interesting. It's using the word here for young man the word for my core And this word also refers to young men young males young valiant males young kind of warrior males and so That's the interesting part here. Is he only saying that it will be young males who will see visions Is the only saying that it should be old men who shall dream dreams whether it be the hebrew Or the greek that part is a little bit interesting You don't really hear people kind of delving into that as to whether it's just only men and females However, now there are some women who did have visions in the scriptures who did have these dreams and so forth But this was prior to the spirit being poured out And so that may not have had anything to do with what what joll is talking about what pewter is bringing up in acts too so That's something that we'll just kind of put to the side for now But it's interesting to note that he may only be speaking of only males young males and older males Having these visions and these dreams, but let's go into again what these visions and dreams are the visions As we said they're what we call waking dreams In other words a person's awake and alert and they're receiving something from the lord the same thing for Uh a dream like we would say in in just our regular understanding of a dream someone who's asleep and receiving something from the lord Now does god still use those dreams? Well There's no way to know People will say so and the bible does not say or give any indication that that will ever stop Or if that will stop when it will stop the bible does not say Now could it be that It stopped once we received his written word It could be because the purpose of these dreams and these visions were to obviously to inform and to let us know about what god is doing Well, certainly we have that now some people are going to abuse this Let's say for the sake of argument that these dreams and visions are still around and even let's say that women can have them as well The fact of the matter is people are going to want to abuse these gifts People are going to want to say the lord showed me this the lord showed me that and how do we know? If we are uh going along with the with the idea that people still have dreams and visions Uh and does god lead people in their dreams and in these visions and so forth does god I do believe that god still leads people but specifically with this particular spiritual movement in these dreams and visions If he does How are we to know that these that this is actually from God because there's a warning if in fact These visions and dreams are still at play Let's start with 13 as a matter of fact for such men speaking about false apostles of folks that may come to them with the deceptive These receiving doctrines and so forth these false teachings says for such men are false apostles deceitful workmen disguising themselves as apostles of christ and look what he says here And no wonder for even satan disguises himself as an angel of light So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness Their end will correspond with their deeds. His point is that There are some people who will come And will have some sort of satanic or demonic influence upon them And will speak to them and so just like us we can also if if this gift is still working if this movement is still in play Then you got to be careful that what you might be receiving or hearing or being led By or from or to is not some work of the enemy But we're told by john in first john 4 One says beloved do not believe every spirit But test the spirits to see whether they are from god for many false prophets have gone out into the world And so you want to be careful that if you feel like you are receiving some sort of Dream or vision from god that you that you tested. Well, how do we test it? Well, we need to test it by the scriptures If what you feel like you're being led by and again, I'm not sure that these that this movement is still even in play But if a person believes so well, then all we have to do is take the word of god And use it now. What about when someone says that they are being moved by the lord? They feel like they've been moved by the lord But this movement cannot be verified by scripture. For example Someone says they're being led by the lord to go and take this particular job. Well, how do we find that out in the scripture? Well, this is where your maturity in the lord comes from What you want to do We I believe that god can still lead people Now the closer you get to him the more that you understand how he leads And that he's done always speaking to you telling you hey turn right turn left Buy this kind of coffee eat this hamburger today. That's not what god is after and so You'll you kind of recognize remember god doesn't change god is the same yesterday today and forever and so Everything that he's going to do and how he's going to lead if god is truly giving a forgiving a person a vision If he's leading In all likelihood it has to do with him being glorified not with you getting the best deal The best package on something that you want to buy No, that's not that's not how god moves. Are you with me? God is not giving dreams and visions in order for you to glorify yourself in order for you to enrich yourself God would do so as he's always done in order that he might be glorified And so you have to ask yourself this question if you still believe that dreams and visions are still happening And that you have received dreams and visions. Well, if they did not glorify god Well, that's one surefire way to understand that that was not a dream of vision and therein lies a problem Oftentimes we see people saying they had these dreams and visions And they're only to glorify or to edify themselves to build themselves up or to say the lord told me this is about you Well, how is that glorifying god and nine times out of ten oftentimes? It's not it's to glorify some person And so I would be careful I I'm not sure that that god still moves this way. I could be wrong though. I could be wrong, but if he does We've got ways to verify this if it doesn't we've got a ways to verify it Bottom line is the surefire way that we do know how he's moved How he's spoken to us Is by his word And so if things don't line up with his word and aren't keeping in his character and they don't glorify him And we know for a fact that's not a dream or a vision that came from god We know exactly who it came from Amen