Does God Speak To Us Through Dreams and Visions?

Does God speak to us through dreams and visions today? How can we know its God and not the enemy?

In the Last Days

When Peter was giving arguably the greatest sermon in the first century church he said “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams” (Acts 2:17) and he was quoting Joel 2:28 which says the very same thing. Joel was prophesying of a day where God would pour out His Spirit upon the early church and that occurred on the Day of Pentecost onward. God gave Peter a vision of unclean foods and used it to show him that God has opened the door for Gentiles to be saved. Jacob has a dream about angels coming and going from heaven indicating that He had access to God. Shortly after Saul was anointed king, he was also considered a prophet (1st Sam 19:9-24) but not long after he became king, he started disobeying God and when King Saul and Israel were surrounded by Philistine forces Saul “was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly” (1st Sam 28:5) and “when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets” (1st Sam 28:6), apparently meaning that God had been previously been communicating to him or Urim through dreams. Remember that Saul was once able to prophecy for the Lord but no more, however this does show that God has a history of speaking to His people by dreams and visions and sometimes, both.

How God Speaks to Us

More than once, I’ve been asked “How can I know it’s the voice of God that’s speaking to me or the enemy?” I said that if God is speaking to you, it will never once violate what is written in Scripture. God never contradicts Himself. He will not speak to you through a dream or a vision and ask you to do something contrary to biblical doctrine. That dream might be from the enemy. A few years ago, a man informed me that God has told him that he must divorce his wife and go to South America as a missionary. I asked if his wife had committed adultery. He said, no. I ask him how he can divorce his wife on unbiblical grounds while at the same time seeking to do God’s will in South America. God will not tell him to do something that God forbids in the Bible. God will not condone a sinful practice so that someone can do something God wants. God is not the author of confusion (1st Cor 14:33). Why would God ask this man in a dream to divorce his wife and abandon his children to go and do something God wants him to do? The fact is that God would not send such a conflicting message. If it doesn’t agree with the Word of God, I don’t agree with it, even if it comes in a dream in full Technicolor and 3-D, H D visions.

God Speaking Through Others

I just recently spoke to a lady who was told by a Christian leader that that she should drop out of college and pursue a ministry as an evangelist. She said, and I quote, “One of my leaders told me that I was going to be in ministry and that I was a little evangelist” but she wanted to be a preschool teacher. That’s where her heart’s desire was at. She had absolutely no desire to be an evangelist and now these “Christian leaders” had confused her by telling her “God spoke to me that you’re supposed to be a ‘little evangelist’” whatever that means. I find it interesting that God would go through someone else to tell that lady what He wanted her to know. How do these “leaders” know God’s will for her life? They claim that God spoke to them but how can they prove this? I told her “Just stay in school, give it time, trust God and do what you want to do and finish your degree in early childhood education” because that is her passion. She loves children and would make a great preschool teacher. If God wanted to say something to you, why would He use a third party to do it? Isn’t He capable of communicating to us by His Spirit and by His Word? Why would He need someone else’s help to tell us what He could tell us Himself? The idea is ridiculous. Having said that, God might choose to give you good and godly counsel through someone but that someone must always have their counsel square with the Word of God.

Conclusion

God can speak to us today in dreams or visions because He is God and can do as He pleases. I cannot limit God. There have been too many accounts, like through reports from the Voices of the Martyrs, which show many have had dreams about Jesus or God and had visions of Christ and the cross and then put their trust in Christ. God can do anything He wants. God can speak to us through dreams and visions but sometimes they’re hard to know exactly who they are from. I only know the litmus test for any dream or vision is the Bible itself. If it is not found in Scripture then may I not be found doing it.

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.