Do Dreams Mean Anything?

Can dreams predict the future? Or are they merely the result of our subconscious mind? Join me and Johnny T from Refuge Freedom Stories as we tackle these questions and more, unraveling the fascinating world of dreams and visions within a spiritual framework.

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Listen to last week's episode:
https://www.honestchristianconversations.com/a-rebuttal-to-the-end-of-sign-gifts/

Listen to Refuge Freedom Stories: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/refuge-freedom-stories/id1524349333

Link for Season Four Resources: https://www.honestchristianconversations.com/p/season-four/

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Chapters

• 0:00 Dreams, Visions, and Prophecy Explained
• 11:26 Visions, Revelations, and Grave Soaking

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome my new and returning friends. Today we will conclude my wonderful conversation with Johnny T from Refuge Freedom Stories about spiritual gifts, dreams and visions. Please listen to last week's episode before this one so you are caught up with where the conversation starts today. Lastly, if you are enjoying this season's content, leave a review for the podcast, either on my website with the link in the show notes, or on whatever platform you are listening on. The more the algorithm knows you like the show, the more it will be shared with others who also enjoy the content. Now let's get to it Before the episode starts. Make sure you follow the show so you never miss another episode.

Speaker 1: 0:53

So let's transition a little bit to a different subject that I also don't know a whole bunch on, but it kind of has to do with the whole idea of prophecy, I guess, and that would be visions and dreams. Do you believe that our dreams have the abilities to what am I trying to ask? Do our dreams mean things? I mean, sometimes you'll have this weird dream. You're like what was that? And maybe it means something, maybe it doesn't. Is it something worth pursuing to figure out what that means? Or is it just maybe I had a weird meal the night before, or dreams and visions. Are those things that you believe still happen, and how are we supposed to test those to make sure that they're lining up spiritually and scripturally?

Speaker 2: 1:46

So, yes, I do believe that those happen. As we started off talking about Acts 2, right, it says your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. And because I'm old now, I get the dream dreams. But I think in my personal experience, like I've had a number of dreams over the past couple of years and they have been largely apocalyptic in terms of being chased by like government authority figures, Like what I mean, Things like that right times, like driving with like a trailer in the backwoods trying to escape from some following herd of you know, army type people or whatever it might be.

Speaker 2: 2:31

But they all seem to be and that's just my personal experience. But they all seem to be consistent with the same message. And I also have to. I think it's really important that, if we do have a dream, one thing that I should really learn to do is have like a little journal beside my bed, because I wake up and I go man, I got to write that down. I'll do it in the morning, and then when I wake up in the morning, I've forgotten what it was. It was very sparse, you know what.

Speaker 1: 2:55

I mean, yeah, you always feel like this is so crazy, there's no way I'm going. So you wake up in the morning. You forgot it Exactly Like what.

Speaker 2: 3:03

Yeah, exactly, but you know that you've had some kind of day.

Speaker 2: 3:07

And so I think, first off, it's really important that we should catalog them, because I think if you're cataloging them, then you're going to, you could potentially see a pattern, and if a pattern was developing, then there would be a reason for it. Like you know, they've said in the past, if you read something God says three times, then you know that he's really trying to emphasize a point, right? So if you're having dreams and you've cataloged them and you can go back and look at them again, if there's a theme there, then what I would do is I would go and search the scriptures and say, okay, lord, if this is of you, because it says test the spirits, right, if this is of you, then let's go find it in the word. Let's go find where the word backs it up and as you're looking through those scriptures, god can bring to light specific details in those scriptures that would align with or confirm, or whatever it might be, that that actually was a dream from the Lord.

Speaker 2: 4:05

And then, once that takes place and you have confirmation, well then the onus is on you to say, okay, lord, what am I supposed to do with that? Is that something that I have to write? Is that something I have to podcast about. Is that something that I'm supposed to go and tell somebody? So we really need to seek Him about that. But I do believe we're going to see, you know, people having dreams more and more all the time. We know that over in some of the arab nations and the muslim nations that there are people having, there are muslims having visions and dreams of jesus and they're getting saved yeah, I've heard that on some of the missionary podcasts I listen to.

Speaker 2: 4:45

Yeah, so there's an example of where God's Word saying that these people will see visions, or people will see visions and dreams, it's happening.

Speaker 1: 4:53

It's happening today, and my husband's had not to cut you off. My husband's had a couple dreams where the day before a natural event had happened, he had a dream about it. Where the day before a natural event had happened, he had a dream about it Not specifically that area, it was almost not vague, but vague enough where it was like he had a dream about a really devastating tornado. And then the next morning I was listening to some news and they were talking about a tornado that hit somewhere and that happened twice in a week or whatever. I was like, oh, did you hear that? It was just weird. And he tends to have some interesting dreams and he's always asking me about it.

Speaker 1: 5:31

I'm like I don't know anything about that enough to speak into it and we've gotten into arguments about it. Because I grew up in the you just believe it and you shut up. That's just how I felt. You don't question it. If it's in the Bible, believe it whatever. You don't need to find out why you need to believe it. You just do. And in my opinion, these things weren't things that happened, so don't even question that, they just don't. So we would always get into a fight about it. Because he grew up atheist and he's only been a believer for about 10 plus years and he's asking me all these questions and I'm still trying to figure things out and unravel what I thought was correct and may not be correct. So we'll get into little battles about it and I'm just like I don't know. Perhaps you should ask someone else, because I don't want to argue about this, and that's just one of them. But yeah, I don't want to argue about this and that's just one of them.

Speaker 2: 6:28

But yeah, I didn't mean to cut you off, no, no, that's fine, like I would say for your husband's sake, if he's a person who regularly has dreams, and get him to start cataloging them, he's not about that. Yeah, and then when there's something that really sticks out to him or whatever, god has people in his body with these different gifts and callings for a reason, and if your husband says you know what, like I'm really seeing something here, I need to talk to somebody who is kind of operating in that gift. He could pray about it and God will open those doors. I believe that our God is big enough that he can open the doors and lead him to someone who can help interpret the dream.

Speaker 2: 7:04

Obviously, they would have to be a believer. You'd have to believe all the kind of stuff. Are you not going to go to a medium or a card reader or whatever type of thing as much as they would like to do that for you? So, yeah, and as far as visions go, I know people who have had visions, and still do today, and they were to give them, almost as you said with your husband's dream, like a premonition of what was going to happen in a certain situation, or somebody getting saved or something like that, like they would see this vision of this person and their life changing, or them kneeling and praying or something, when they weren't anywhere close to being saved. So that kind of stuff and yeah, I believe it happens 100%.

Speaker 1: 7:48

Are visions like dreams, like you're sleeping when it happens. Or is that something that happens sitting up? Because I know there's been a couple times in the Bible where it's mentioned visions and they're just kind of sitting there and it almost feels I want to say new age only because, again, I don't know enough about any of this stuff but visions to me feels like you sit in that position, you got your hands on the own kind of thing. Obviously Christians shouldn't be doing that kind of stuff, because yoga is bad, whatever.

Speaker 1: 8:22

But, and how does it mean in the Bible when it talks about visions or trances? I've seen it translated like that too, and those things just scream new age, and I've heard a lot of people warn against visions, trances and all that because of that. Maybe they're interchanging the word, but what is the difference, I guess, between a vision and a trance?

Speaker 2: 8:45

Or is the Bible just using that vision and a trance or is the Bible just using that simultaneously? Well, don't forget that the times you know, like a couple of examples come to mind when Paul had his vision and when Peter, like when Paul was on the road to Damascus, you know, and God said why are you kicking against the bricks? Like, what do you have against me, right? And Peter, up on the roof of the house he was at, and he saw the sheep come down with all the different animals, and God said rise, kill and eat. You know, for specific purposes, right? And it's not that they were expecting them, it's not that they were doing anything to predicate them, they weren't saying okay, I'm going to go sit in my closet today and today's vision day, I'm going to go sit in my closet today and today's vision day, I'm going to sit there and I'm going to sit here until God gives me a vision.

Speaker 2: 9:33

God doesn't do that. God will give you a vision for one for a purpose and two, to enlighten you to something, and it'll be, in my opinion, unexpected. I've never had a vision myself. My wife has, but I never have. And you can't orchestrate a vision with God. There's no five steps to a vision myself. My wife has, but I never have, and you can't orchestrate a vision with.

Speaker 1: 9:55

God, there's no five steps to a vision with God book out there that's going to tell you how to do it, so there's probably a book out there, but there's not.

Speaker 2: 9:58

Well, maybe there is, yeah, maybe there is, yeah, but it certainly wouldn't be a God, because I don't believe God works that way. God gives you a vision at a specific time, for a specific reason, for a specific purpose, and it's for you to do something about it, and it would be totally unexpected. You can't orchestrate it, you can't manipulate it, you can't twist God's arm in any way, shape or form. So they do happen. I know people that have had them and they're still. It's going to happen. God says in his word it's going to happen. God says in his word it's going to happen.

Speaker 1: 10:30

So how do you know it's?

Speaker 2: 10:32

happening. The whole thing about trance and all that other stuff, that's all New Age terminology. Yeah, that's what I've heard and those are orchestrated things, Like you said people sitting down in a certain position with their fingers in a certain way, or humming and hawing in a certain way, or burning certain smells. So those are all new age and occult practices. God does not work through those.

Speaker 1: 10:53

So how does someone know if they're having a vision? Like you said, they're not orchestrated, you can't make them happen. They just happen when God wants them to happen. But how do you know if you've had one? Because I know there's a thing that's called deja vu and I've had that happen many times and I'm pretty sure that's not at all a vision, but it just it feels so real, like I've been there, done that and I know a lot of new age people have mentioned that.

Speaker 2: 11:26

A lot of people will say, oh, that's because you've had a second life.

Speaker 1: 11:37

I don't believe in that stuff. It's like no, that doesn't make sense. Why would I do the same thing twice? That doesn't make any sense to me. But that couldn't really be a vision, because it's literally happening at the same time as you're experiencing it. If that makes sense, that's not a vision, right. That's just a weird awesome thing. I guess that our brains do. I don't know how to explain it. Like a glitch in the vision, right, that's just a weird awesome thing. I guess that our brains do.

Speaker 2: 11:50

I don't know how to explain it Like a glitch in the matrix right.

Speaker 1: 11:53

Yeah, no, yeah no.

Speaker 2: 11:56

A vision would be certainly and I'm no theologian okay, we should get that.

Speaker 2: 12:00

I should have said that right in the start. I'm no theologian, I'm not a Bible scholar in any way, shape or form, but before. But a vision would be something that God, as I said, has a purpose for at a specific time, and it would be outside yourself and it wouldn't be anything that you may have experienced before, like maybe doing something or whatever it would be. If I believe and like I said, I've never had a vision myself, but I believe that if I had a vision from God, it would change me dramatically. It would change my outlook on something. My heart would just be ignited with a passion for God to do something. It would be used to throw me forward into something that God has a purpose for who doesn't love free?

Speaker 1: 12:56

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Speaker 1: 13:29

So I have a question. And then, well before I get to my question, while you were talking, it made me think of well, I find it interesting because you did mention the road to Damascus and I think I knew that that was a vision, but I don't. For some reason it just felt like a revelation. When you said I, I was like oh yeah, that is a vision, because nobody else saw it. They heard thunder. I believe that was it. They didn't actually see it and that did dramatically change his life.

Speaker 1: 14:02

So my question is part of my story of how I became freed from pornography was in a really unlikely way, at a pornography convention. I hadn't seen pornography for like two years before I went on this mission trip. I was nervous. I didn't know how it was going to go. I hadn't seen anything higher than PG in two years. I had been praying. They wanted me to get deeper in the ministry and I was excited for that. Pumped, we went in and as soon as I got in there I just had this overwhelming broken heart. I mean, there's everything. Was there? Video, people doing video stuff, nakedness, everything was in your face. But all I saw was how broken these people were, where they were going. If God forbid, something happened at that moment to take us all out. I just saw the deeper picture, the evil. I saw it all and I was crying. I said I see why we're here. I see the need and I was instantly freed from that addiction. So my question is would that be considered a vision, or is that just God's awesome power working?

Speaker 2: 15:21

Personally, I would think that would be more God just revealing his heart to you, like the brokenness of his heart, for how far people would let themselves go down the rabbit hole. And I'm not saying it like unless you physically like, unless you saw something you know which would quote like vision. You know the definition of vision because we see with our eyes. But then if you're looking around the room and all you can see is brokenness and all you can see is depravity and the need for Christ and things like that, maybe it was a vision, but just overwhelmingly with the theme of God's broken heart for these people and the need to see them get saved. But that's just an opinion.

Speaker 1: 16:07

No, that makes sense. Well, we have one more subject to talk about. It's kind of it's being out in the open now. It's being talked about a lot more and I don't know really how long it's actually been going on, but it sounds very freaky to me and that's grave soaking. And I know you didn't really know enough about it until I had mentioned it to you, and I still even don't know a whole bunch about it. But what I do know it sounds very woo-woo and very new agey and definitely not of God at all. I know the NAR, the New Apostolic Reformation, is really pumping this out there, but why don't you share your thoughts on it after you did some research about it?

Speaker 2: 16:53

Yeah, so, as you said, I'd never heard of it before and so I just went to Google and looked it up and read a few things. And so basically, it's the act of lying across a physical grave of a deceased preacher or evangelist for the purpose of pulling out the power of the Holy Spirit or the anointing that that person had on them while they were alive. Okay, now, I don't believe, from what I've read, that's supported anywhere in the Bible, and they give the example of where Elisha had passed away and someone had died and they threw him onto Elisha and the man came back to life. So that's their premise, that they can get this anointing. But the Bible tells us that we came from dust and we're going to return to dust. There's no remaining spirit in that dust. Our soul goes to be with God. There's dust. There's no spirit there, there's no anointing there. There's nothing there, right? And so to me I agree with you it definitely seems like a new age practice that's crept into.

Speaker 2: 18:02

Then we talked earlier about deceptive spirits in the church. We talked about false teachers, false doctrine and the devil's going to work overtime as his days. He knows his days are numbered. He doesn't know when they're going to end. But he knows their number, he can see it, and so he's going to work overtime to try and pull people away with itching ears to hear what they want to hear.

Speaker 2: 18:20

Right and you would have to go back to what we talked about as well was what's the purpose that someone wants to walk with an anointing? Why would somebody want to do that? Like, do they have a true calling from God or is it just that they're trying to raise themselves up to a place of preeminence for whatever? But in Mark it says that God is not the God of the dead, but he's the God of the living.

Speaker 2: 18:48

So when we die it says that we're going to go and we're going to go stand before God immediately and the operating of the power and the anointing that God puts upon people like apostles, prophets, teachers and so on, that's for them when they're alive. I don't see any way that that is part of, or should be part of, christianity or Christian theology in any way, shape or form. I mean like I was raised in an environment of the occult when I was growing up and to me it just sounds just like that. So I don't see any place for that in the teaching that's going on in the church and if somebody's listening today and you're teaching that you need to repent because God has not created that in any way, shape or form.

Speaker 1: 19:34

Yeah, and it feels a lot like idol worship too, because their power came from the Holy Spirit. They weren't born with it. So for you to think that they're going to die with it and you can get it somehow, it almost feels like the man in the Bible who was trying to pay to get what the apostles had. It's like no, that's not how it works. God will give it to you if you need it, but he's not going to. Just you can't pay for it. You can't lay on and expect it to come out. It reminds me of osmosis. I don't remember when I learned about it, but people started putting their studying books under their pillows and it's like, oh, I'm going to learn through osmosis and I always thought they were joking, but some people actually believed it.

Speaker 1: 20:18

I'm like I don't think that's how it works. And that's not how it works to get anointed or whatever. You get anointed if God wants you to and that's it, full stop. There's nothing else, no other ways. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:34

Yeah, I agree 100% with that.

Speaker 1: 20:59

That is just heresy. They believe this is all possible, whether they don't believe. I just pray that they would have open hearts that want to seek the truth from the Bible. Read the Bible. That is the theme of this season. Read the Bible, know what it says, know what God is telling you and stick to that. And if you don't know everything about everything, that is okay.

Speaker 1: 21:18

There's some things that you should know because they matter for your salvation, but then there's other things that are just I think they're called tertiary things that just don't matter to your salvation, to the point where you have to rack your brain to know if it's true or not. I mean, I think you'll know when God is actually speaking to you in a vision, a dream, a prophecy. You will know these things. So you don't have to know everything and you don't have to stress about finding out If this is not something that really matters to you. Just make sure your heart is open for God to use in this matter, should he ever want to use you for it. But you don't have to sit there learning about it. It's not necessary. Some people want to know, some don't, and that's okay. Just stay close to God, stay in the Word that is most important.

Speaker 2: 22:15

Yeah, absolutely, and just seek Him every day with an open and honest heart and be totally transparent with God. He knows everything anyway, so we can't, we'll never surprise Him. So if you just continually go to God and just say, lord, you know what do you want to show me today, and just be open to Him, and it may come from any number of sources or any number of things that you read or whatever, but God always finds a way to shine his light into our lives and into our understanding of getting closer to him. Yep.

Speaker 1: 22:42

Amen, I agree. Well, thank you again, johnny, for coming on, and I hope you have a good day.

Speaker 2: 22:48

You too. It's been an absolute pleasure, god bless.