(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

All right, welcome back everybody to Sure Foundation Baptist Church Hawaii's second service. Before I get into the message, I do want to make a special prayer request just really quickly for Sister Asher. She is having some breathing problems. She has a type of asthma that's really hard on her, and if you just find yourself throughout your week and your day, please just pray for Sister Asher. Her breathing gets better. I think it's pretty important that we breathe, so we want to make sure God can help with that and also be there in prayer for Brother Ben. He's not with us at the moment, but that he has a safe travel back from the mainland. Now, it's interesting to me that I've heard Brother Ryan say this before, that when we read the chapter in the Bible to start off our church service, a lot of us who are studied and learned our Bibles or read a lot, they always question or find themselves wondering where we're going with this message. You look at the chapter, you hear a lot that's mentioned, and then you're like, I wonder what he's going to preach on. Obviously, the book of Job is the very first of the poetic books in the Bible, so a lot can be guessed about what the sermon title would be about or the sermon message would be ultimately about, but the title of this message simply is on sleeping and dreaming. Sleeping and dreaming are a part of our everyday life. Obviously, we live, we wake up, we live our life, and then we go to bed and we sleep. And then when we sleep, we have dreams. And this subject to some can be very vague. It can be seen very not definitive or dogmatic because dreaming is something that we all do individually. We all have different dreams and we have different sleep patterns. And sleep, I will venture to say this, is very important to our everyday life. We should not neglect sleep. Before I moved back here from Faithful Word Baptist Church, Brother Chris Segura shined light on the subject on sleep to me because I am known as a workaholic. I'm known to some as Slavin. That's a nickname that I've always had because I work a lot. I burn the candle on both ends of the stick. And Chris Segura is a man with seven children, eight children. He has a lot of children and he works for the church and he has a lot on his plate as well. And he's told me that you need to plan your day around your sleep, not your sleep around your day. And as the Bible and Pastor Anderson mentioned a concept that we see in Genesis 1, notice God calls the evening and the morning the first day. He doesn't say the morning and the evening. He says the evening and the morning. So our day should start off with our sleep, our sleep patterns and so on and so forth. So if you work a lot, whether mentally or physically, sleep will help repair the parts of your body to function the next day and mentally and physically. So I now, coming back from the mainland since I moved back, said no longer will I schedule sleep around my day, but I'll schedule my day around my sleep. And I believe that's actually a principle found in the Bible and we should apply that in our everyday life. Now on the subject of sleeping and dreaming, this sermon is not going to be a lot on sleeping, though I will touch on it. They are synonymous. They are symbiotic, sleeping and dreaming, obviously. You can't dream unless you're asleep and sleeping has to do with... There are symbolisms that the Bible emphasizes in sleep and dream. And when it comes to sleeping, I believe the symbolism that sleep gives us is death. Last week I was preaching on the subject of the second coming of Jesus Christ. Now turn to your Bible, if you would, to John 11. And 1 Thessalonians is the passage I had us read last week. And it says in 1 Thessalonians 4-13, But I would not have you to be ignorant brethren concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with them. The Bible is very clearly teaching us that sleep is parallel with death. The Bible in the Old Testament uses the word sleep, sleeping, slumbering, or some form of that word 1442 times. So obviously sleep in the Bible is a subject of discussion and study that we should be looking into. It's part of living, it's part of life, but it symbolizes death. Also in the New Testament it uses the word 208 times. I'm sorry, it was 1142 times in the Old Testament, 208 times, a total of 1350 times word sleep, slumbering, or sleeping in some way shape or form is mentioned in the Bible. That tells me that we need to learn from this subject. We need to know what God thinks about sleep and symbolically it pictures death. Now in John 11 where we are, look down at your Bible at verse 5. It reads, Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus when he had heard therefore that he was sick he abode two days still in the same place where he was. Then after that saying to his disciples, let us go into Judea again. His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone me and goest thou thither again. So let's pause there really quick. Let's just get some context. Jesus Christ has in a sense been booted from the Pharisees and Sadducees from Jerusalem for preaching because they are ready to kill Jesus. On John 8 we see Jesus Christ professing himself to be God and they were ready to stone him for this matter. He left, found out that a very good friend of his, Lazarus, was sick. And not only was he sick, he was dying. The Bible tells us that and the disciples are like, Why are you going to go back there? They're trying to kill you. And he tells us why. His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone me and goest thou thither again. Jesus answered, There are not twelve hours in the day, if any man walk in the day, he stumbles not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk at night, he stumbles because there is no light in him. These things said he, and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death, but they thought that he had spoken of taking a rest in sleep. And then in verse 14 it clearly tells us, Jesus said unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. So when Jesus said that he is sleeping and I must awaken, they thought this was physical, like he's physically sleeping, that's fine. Just let him sleep. He's sick, it'll help him. And then he had to stop speaking in a parable and tell them clearly, Lazarus is dead. So we see that the Bible similarly shows a sleep with death. It's a symbolism of death. And you've got to think about it, when you sleep our day, we live and we do all sorts of things, work and family and fun and fellowship, and then when you sleep, it's like everything is shut off. Now obviously to a Christian, we believe that when you sleep, it's not the end. We do not believe in soul sleep. There's a doctrine out there of people who believe that when someone dies, their spirit and soul cease to exist. It lights off, computer off, nothing. There's no information going in, no information coming out, you just cease to exist. That is not what the Bible teaches, that when someone is asleep, isn't your mind still going on? Don't we have dreams and nightmares and things for that matter? So sleeping in the Bible symbolizes death, but dreams in the Bible symbolize heaven, and also nightmares would symbolize hell. I'm going to go into that more as the sermon progresses, but let me start off by saying this. We need to find ourselves getting better sleep. Have you ever heard the term REM sleep? Raise your hand if you've heard the term REM sleep. Ultimately, REM sleep is known as rapid eye movement sleep. In a unique phase of sleep in mammals and birds, distinguished by random or rapid eye movement, accompanied with muscle tone throughout the body and the prosperity of sleep to dream vividly. So ultimately, rapid eye sleep, and maybe you've seen this in friends or family and that matter, when they're sleeping, you'll notice their eyeballs moving around really quick while their eyes are closed. That's because they're dreaming. They're in a deep state of sleep. And people who study sleep patterns and things like that will see that that is the deepest type of sleep someone could be in because they're in the most vivid aspects of their dream. Now, with that being said, the Bible, it's interesting to me that whenever we study any one subject, the Bible shines so much light on any subject that we look into, and the modern scientists and modern theories of sleep and all this other stuff, there obviously are wrong philosophies and wrong views of sleep, and we're going to go into those. But there are things that shine light on matters that the Bible has actually talked about that they only caught on later on in the future. A good example is in the medical industry, doctors used to wash their hands in a still set of water. They used to have a bowl of water, and they would wash their hands, and next thing you know, disease was spreading rampant in the world at that time, and they didn't read their Bible enough because the Bible said we need to wash ourselves in running water. See, God has always had the answers to any problems that are in our life. And, for instance, people who study like psychopaths or psychopathy, people who are what we would call reprobate or sons of the devil, they've noticed that in studying the brain, I forget what part of the brain, but there's a muscle or there's a part of the brain that when a person who is a psychopath or a psychopathy or like self-problems, this part of their brain is weakened and has to do with the self-preservation of a person. Naturally, if I were to fall like this, my body wants to preserve itself, and people who are reprobate, that part of their brain is weakened. Now, God told us they were given over to a reprobate mind, but that's outside of the scope of this sermon. What I'm trying to get us to understand is that only now do modern scientists understand the concept of deep sleep, but God has always taught us about deep sleep and how to acquire deep sleep, and ultimately the best way to explain this is found in Ecclesiastes 5.12. The Bible reads, The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much, but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. So much symbolism is found in that passage. Obviously, the literal interpretation is very clear. You work hard, you sleep hard. Makes sense, right? But let's take a symbolic aspect to this. The sleep of a laboring man is sweet. Ask Christians, as New Testament Christians, don't we understand that we go out into the harvest and labor for the Lord? So when we sleep, or when we die, it is sweet unto us. What did Paul say? To be absent in the body is to be present with the Lord. Paul told them to me, I'd rather depart, but for you it is needful. So Paul was rathering wanting to be in heaven, but nevertheless he said, for you this is needful. And not only that, it says the sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much. Now, we understood just when Oliver Gonzales was here, he preached a sermon on watchmen, people who look out for the souls of congregants and Christians and their nations and things like that. And he shined light on a message that had to talk about being a doer of a word and not a hearer only. You could read your Bible thousands of times, hundreds of times, and never apply it. Whether you eat little or much, whether you consume God's word a lot or a little, if you do the work, you will sleep well. The Bible says that when those who have done great works for God, Jesus will come and his reward is with him. So obviously there's so much symbolism in that, and like I said in researching the subject, it blew my mind. And the last part said the rich will not suffer him to sleep. Now obviously we do not believe that rich people are the enemies. Obviously there are wealthy people in the Bible that God used greatly, but the Bible did say, and Jesus Christ specifically says, how hard it is then for that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of heaven because they are trusting in their own merits to get into heaven. Obviously wealthier people have a disposition that they think they need to acquire while they are acquiring things like that, but it's not all wealthy people. It's just this passage is shining light on someone who is, the rich will not allow him to sleep well because they're trusting in their own selves and they're also worried about their money. We don't lay up for ourselves treasures on this earth, but rather we lay up for ourselves treasures which aren't in heaven. So let me give you some practical application to sleep. How do we sleep well? How do we get REM sleep? Well, if you do not work a physically demanding job, try this, working out from time to time. After you're done with work, go on a hike, go to the beach, go surfing, go running, work out something. The sleep of the laboring man is sweet. Now Illa, so you are physically demanding, then sleep shouldn't be a problem for you. You can ask my wife that to me, I sleep like a baby every night because I work physically hard, so I hit that pillow and I'm down, I'm just dead to the world. And let's say you do physically work out and you do mentally work hard, there are people who have insomnia which is a sleep problem that they can't actually sleep well. And I believe there are, in our modern day, ways in which you can help your insomnia outside of taking sleeping medication. We're not big on the fartisumical industry here, but obviously there are ways that we can prevent getting to that point. Here's one that I would mention or you should try before you go to a doctor for a sleeping pill. Number one, no TV or computer or phone interaction an hour before you sleep. The blue light that's found in TV and monitors and screens like that is actually stimulating your brain more than we even know. I heard a message in the preaching class in Faithful Word Baptist Church of this guy who was a doctor and he studied sleep and that was a big reason a lot of people had insomnia. He's like, are you watching TV or a computer screen or your phone before you go to sleep? They all said yes. He says, just one hour before you sleep, turn everything off. No TV, no monitor, no iPhone. And you'll find yourself potentially sleeping better. But not only that, don't eat anything an hour before you go to sleep. Now we have a saying in my house, we eat two desserts. I'm not even lying. There are days that we eat two desserts. I preached a message on diet and things like that, but simply said, when your body eats food, your stomach takes time to digest food and it actually is working physically to digest. They always tell you before you go swimming, wait a half hour until you go swimming because you'll get cramps and things like that. Your body naturally needs to digest its food and then it is ready to be in a dormant state and relax and sleep. No computers, don't eat an hour before you sleep. This is the biggest, not the biggest, but one that I am big on personally and in our house is that no phones, alarm clocks, or any electronic things six to ten foot radius in your bed. When you sleep and you have your phone right next to your head, there's ambient noise you may not be picking up on that your mind can hear. Ambient noise or electronic sounds to the brain is not natural. Obviously, with the technological revolution occurring, there's ambient noise everywhere. The electrical posts, the light switch on in your house, the phone next to your head, the alarm clock. It's funny, I told my wife this one time that my phone, I use my phone as the alarm clock for when I get up and I find myself waking up five to ten minutes before my alarm clock and I believe it's because the alarm clock on my phone is triggering itself to get ready to go up and I probably hear that and I wake up to that so then I turn my alarm clock off and it's better to wake up that way. You don't want to wake up abruptly. That's another message for another time. How do we get better sleep? How do we get REM sleep? No electronics before you go to bed, at least an hour. Don't eat an hour before you go to bed. No electronics, six to ten feet around your sleeping quarters. And then also just work hard, whether mentally, physically, or both. That will help you to get good sleep. Now, like I said, I also want to get into the concept of dreaming. Because what does sleep symbolize? Death, right? Dreaming symbolizes heaven or nightmares would symbolize hell. Now why do I say that? Well, the Bible teaches in the Old Testament, the word dream or dreaming or any type of that word is found 72 times in the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, it's found seven times. A total of 79 times dream, dreaming, or anything like that is mentioned in the Bible. Let's first see what the world says about the concepts of dreaming and the modern day philosophers and let's compare it to what God teaches on the subject. What is dreaming? A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during the certain stage of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, although they have been a topic of scientific, philosophical, and religion interest throughout recorded history. I think we all know what dreams are. You go to bed, you see things, you feel things, you hear things, you feel like you're there, and that's ultimately what a dream is. Now, no one knows why we dream, what dreams mean, what they're about. They have their opinions, they have their theories of the world. God actually tells us what dreams are, what they picture, and so on and so forth. But have any of you heard of a man named Sigmund Freud? Raise your hand if you've heard of Sigmund Freud. This is the star child and the subject of dreaming in the world. People who want to know about dreams and the mind, they all look to a man named Sigmund Freud. Now, ultimately, Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 and he died in 1939. Freud was born to Galatian Jewish parents in the Morotevin town of Fritburg in the Austrian Empire. He was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of Psychoanalysts, a movement that popularized the theory that unconscious motives control much behavior. He became interested in hypnotism and how it could be used to help mentally ill. So the world looks to this man as their prophet on dreams, to their person that he understands, that he knows a lot about the mind and how it works and what's going on in sleep and what do dreams mean and so on and so forth. Notice I started by just saying who he is and where he's from. And he's ultimately a Jewish person from the mid-1800s talking about hypnosis. He believes hypnotism will help with mentally ill people. So that's not a good start as a Christian to get your main source of information from. But nevertheless, it goes on to say this. Freud proposed that while all of our dreams, including our nightmares, are a collection of images from our daily conscious lives, they also have symbolic meaning which relate to the fulfillment of our subconscious wishes. Freud theorizes that everything we remember when we wake up from a dream is a symbolic representation of our unconscious primitive mind, thoughts, urges, and desires. Let me pause there really quick. Notice it uses the word primitive thoughts, urges, and desires. This man obviously was not a Bible-believing Christian. He was believing in evolution as most secular scientists believe and he believed in what's known as a primitive mind or the mind that is of an animal ultimately. And he's saying ultimately that our dreams are a collection of what our minds pick up throughout a day consciously. And when we dream, the things that we believe are most important subconsciously will reveal themselves to us. It's a way of filtering information. Our brain will throw away useless information. And what it believes to be most important, it keeps and shows us that in a dream. He does say that he thinks there's symbolism behind all this. But ultimately, a broken clock is right twice a day, right? So we don't want to completely disregard this information. I do believe that a lot of our dreams have no meaning. There is no symbolism. There's nothing that is special about them. They are simply our minds trying to discard information, keep on to what it thinks is relevant. And obviously, we all have different dreams and different types of dreams, but we all think are important in our day-to-day lives. And there's so much information coming into our brains in a constant moment. I mean, even right now, looking around, we've got to understand that colors, sounds, people, when you're driving down the road, you look out a window and see someone. You've never seen them before. You don't know that person. They may end up in your dream because your mind kept on to that information and wanted you to see it. A lot of times in our dreams, we have images of people that we know and love and they're important figures in our lives that are doing things. And obviously, the Bible will shed more light on the reasons and the purposes of this stuff. But this is just what the world thinks dreams are. Random information that our brain is holding onto and disregarding the rest. Let's keep seeing what more that he believes. Freud theorizes that, or is symbolic, Freud believes that the repression by the superego is weakened during sleep due to the absence of voluntary motor activity. So in conclusion, Freud believes by analyzing those remembered elements, the conscious content would be revealed to our conscious mind. And psychologic issues stemming from the representation could be addressed and resolved. So he's just saying that your dream is trying to tell you something. Your nightmare is trying to tell you something. Now, outside of Sigmund Freud, there's other people who study, other scientists who study the subject of dreams. And this is a big round of debate for even secularists. They don't know why dreams happen, what they are. And they'll theorize what they think it is. But here's what other scientists believe. Some researchers believe that dreams, not completely random in nature, rather serve as a purpose for the bettering of the future generation, aka survival of the fittest. They think this because the most prevailing emotions during sleeping or dreaming are negative, such as abandonment, anger, and most frequently, anxiety. Now, let me pause there really quick. Anxiety seems to be in the study of dreaming. And when they look at the brain and what it's doing in sleep, anxiety is one of the major components of dreaming, whether good or bad. Anger, abandonment, and other types of negative emotions tend to drive our dreams and tend to lead us into what we see in our dream. Turn back, if you were, to Job 7, where I had a start. And the reason why I had us read Job 7 is because God tells us why this happens. But nevertheless, this is why they think this happens. The theory goes that thousands of years ago, ancient cavemen, not knowing what kinds of threats were out there in the world, developed a kind of defense mechanism where when they dreamed, their brains would help better prepare them by reenacting a terrifying scenario to help them with a better fight-or-flight instinct when they awaken into the real world. So they're saying that primitive cavemen, when they walked around in the world not knowing what kind of dangers were ahead when they went to sleep, their mind would tell them of dangerous scenarios to be afraid of. That way, when they awake and a crazy event happened, they were able to know when to fight or flight. This is obviously very atheistic in thought. This is very evolutionary thinking, primitive mind, cavemen, all this stuff. But what does God say? And it is true that anxiety is a major factor in why we dream or have nightmares. But why? Well, look down at your Bible at Job 7, verse 9, it reads, As the cloud is consumed and vanished away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more. Therefore I will not refrain my mouth, I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. I am a sea or a whale that thou setest a watch over me. When I say my bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint. Then thou scarest me with dreams and terrifies me through visions, so that my soul chooses strangling and death rather than my life. We understand as Christians that there is a spirit in man. There is a soul in man. Obviously, atheists don't necessarily believe in a soul or spirit. They believe in the consciousness of self-awareness. They say that everything was random, there is no God, that accidentally the universe came into existence. Therefore, cannot trust our thoughts or our dreams and things like that because it's all completely random. And of course, they're going to make absolute claims like that, but can you absolutely be sure about that? They can't. Obviously, that's another discussion for another time. But as Christians, and as not even Christian, the world knows that there is a spirit and that there is dreams. It's just built in man to know these things. God teaches us that, right? And I believe that dreams, nightmares, and all these things, God is trying to reveal to man that they need a savior. Obviously, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And you find yourself in your dreams seeing how much power you really have as a person. There are people out there who want to act very tough and very strong and very confident of themselves, but then they're in a nightmare. They find themselves realizing how weak they really are, who they really are as people. As it's said, the superego is not in application when you're sleeping, so your subconscious mind will surface itself and the things that scare you will make itself known, whether a good dream or a bad dream. And that's why I say nightmares will symbolize hell, but even a good dream that is anxiety-driven are ways to help bring us to Christ, to bring us to God, to bring us on our knees, and to realize that we need a savior. Job understood this, and Job wanted us to know. Now, with that being said, there's so much that could be explained in this subject. It's very deep. Dreaming is like a subject of discussion that no one can definitively point at and say, this is why we dream, this is what a dream is, and how we dream, and so on and so forth. But God does shine light on this subject. We saw He brings up sleep often. We see that people dream a lot in the Bible. But outside of that, have you ever heard of a term, lucid dreaming? Raise your hand if you've heard of a term called lucid dreaming. What lucid dreaming ultimately is, is a dream in which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming. During a lucid dream, the dreamer may gain some amount of control over the dream, characters, narratives, and environment. However, this is not actually necessary for a dream to be described as lucid, meaning that, let's say, and we all have had that dream where we know we're dreaming. You're sitting down playing poker with a rabbit and a bear shooting lasers out of its head. You understand that this isn't real. This isn't going on. You're conscious of what's happening. Now, they're saying that lucid dreaming means you can go in and make things happen. You can decide to go have tea with Abraham Lincoln. You can do all sorts of crazy things. You can control the environment in your dream. But just acknowledging you are in a dream is considered lucid dreaming. I've had dreams where I'm looking around at what's going on, and it kind of reminds me of, like, a movie. You're watching chains of events, people in your life, things that would never happen, and you're looking at it. You're like, oh, I'm sleeping. I'm in my bed, and this is a dream. We've all had that. I mean, maybe you have it, but it's fairly natural for us to, at times in our dreams, realize that we are dreaming. That's what's lucid dreaming. But there's a horrible, wicked, devilish, horrible way to understand this. Have you ever heard of the term astral projection? Raise your hand if you've heard of the term astral projection. What is astral projection? Astral projection is a term used by eccentric people to describe an intentional out-of-body experience that assumes that the experience, the existence of a soul or conscience called an astral body that is separated from the physical body and capable of traveling outside it through the universe. There are people who teach and try to explain to people that in your sleep, you, on top of lucid dreaming, can get out of your body spiritually and travel the universe and do all sorts of crazy things. Now, like I said, we don't throw the baby out of the bath water, but I do believe this has to do with sorcery, witchcraft, children of the devil, practices that witches, necromancers, but the Bible paints out to be horrible bad people are trying to achieve. It is not legitimate in the sense of I do not believe, as the Bible clearly teaches, your spirit can ever separate from its body outside of death. The Bible teaches an appointed gentleman wants to die, and after this, a judgment. As we said earlier, Paul says to be absent in the body is to be present with the Lord. We understand in Luke 16 that when the rich man died, he opened up his eyes and he was in hell. There is Lazarus who opened up his eyes and he was in heaven. But with that being said, they are trying to teach people to live or to do lucid dreaming, and they are trying to teach them to hurt people, in a sense, through all this. And I did not want to get too deep into that, but if you ever hear people talking about this, like, oh, I was in a dream and I left my body and I went and did all this crazy thing, definitely let them know that they need to be cautious. Do not think that you have that real power. Your spirit can never, as the Bible teaches in James 2, has the spirit without the body is dead, so faith without works is dead also. We do not believe that the spirit can ever separate from the body, but this is what devil worshippers ultimately believe. So, we understand what the Bible teaches about sleeping. It teaches that. We understand what the Bible teaches about dreaming. It pictures heaven. We understand why people dream, what the Bible says on it. But with that being said, God, I will turn to your Bible if you went to Genesis 20. Do you not understand that God speaks to people through their dreams? Because the Bible says in Genesis 20, we're going to read the whole chapter, and I know it seems long, but all of it is important. We believe all the scripture to be important. Notice what it says. And Abraham journeyed from the dead toward the southern country and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah, his wife, She is my sister, and the Bebelik king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said unto him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken, for she is a man's wife. But when Abimelech cannot come near her, he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? Said he not unto me, She is my sister, and even she herself said, He is my brother. In the integrity of my heart and in the intimacy of my hands have I done this. And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart, for I also withheld thee from sinning against me. Therefore suffer I thee not to touch her. Now therefore restore the man his wife, for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live. And if thou restore her not, know that thou shalt surely die, thou and all thine house. Therefore Abimelech arose early in the morning and called all his servants and told these things in the ears of the men who were so afraid. I'm going to pause there for sake of time. But we see God speaking to Abimelech through his dream. Like I said, if dreaming pictures heaven, we can see how God can speak to people through dreams. We do not believe as Bible believing Christians extra biblical revelation of man. The whole entire Genesis to Revelation is what God says and anything outside of that we need to not believe because the Bible told us that he gave us his word to be preserved. But we see in the Bible God speaking to people through dreams. Another example is found in Genesis 28. Turn with you to Genesis 28. And this is an example of Joseph. Notice what it says in Genesis 28 verse 10. And Jacob went out from Beersheba and went towards Haran. And he lay in the pond a certain place and tarried there all night because the sun was set. And he took the stones of that place and put them for his pillows and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed and behold, a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God ascended and descended on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, my father and the God of Isaac, the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed. So I'm not going to read the rest of it, but we can see God spoke to Jacob in a dream. He spoke to Abimelech into a dream. But not only that, in the New Testament we see the same thing. This isn't an Old Testament phenomenon. Go to Matthew chapter 1. The very first chapter in the New Testament, Matthew. Matthew chapter 1, we see once again Joseph, not Joseph that we just spoke about, Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus Christ, Mary's husband. It says in Matthew 1, 18, it reads, Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise, when as his mother Mary was a spouse to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man, not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And then she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin. Now all this was done, and it might be fulfilled, which is spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted as God with us. Then Joseph, being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had been in him, and took unto his wife, and knew her not, till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. Look also at chapter 2, verse 12, it reads, And being warned of God in a dream, that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared 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. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed in to Egypt. Look also at verse 19, But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel. And I'm not going to go into the rest of the story, but we get it, okay. God spoke to Joseph in a dream. God spoke to the Old Testament Joseph in a dream. God spoke to Abimelech in a dream. God speaks to us through our dreams. And I truly, strongly believe that. But like I said to begin with, I do believe 99% of our dreams are random, not God speaking to us, not important, not significant, it's not relevant. Well, why do you say that? Why do you think God speaks to us in our dreams? Well look, turn if you to Acts, Acts chapter 2. Now understand this, Acts chapter 2 is quoting the book of Joel. And notice what it says in Acts chapter 2, let me get there really quick. In verse 16 it says, But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, and it shall come to pass in the last days. Sayeth God, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. And on the servant and on the handmaid, I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show them wonders in heaven above, and in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord is come. So, like I said, last week I preached on the second coming of Jesus Christ, right? And we know the dual fulfillment of prophecy. Joel was speaking about the first coming of Jesus Christ. Because it says, When the day of the Lord is at hand, your old men will dream dreams, and people will see these visions. Jesus comes into the dream. Peter then quotes Joel and says, There will be another, the last days, referring to the second coming, and it talks about the sun being turned into darkness, and the moon not giving your light. So, I do believe God speaks to us in our dreams. All the time? No. Probably very rarely. Because we have His Word. We can trust in His Word to speak to us. But, if you're in God's Word constantly, and you find yourself, if your brain in your sleep starts quoting to you a lot of passages, and showing you a lot of what the Bible is saying, that is why and how I think God would speak to you in a dream. Now, like I said, do not assume that people who tell you God told them in a dream that it is true. There is such thing as false prophets. Turn to your Bibles if you went to Deuteronomy. And the Bible shows us who the false prophets are. How we can know who they are. What would they say? What are things that they would do? And a New Testament understanding of this would be found in 1 John 4, 1. It says, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Deuteronomy 13, chapter 13, look down in your Bible at verse 1, it says of false prophets, And there arise you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder, come to pass, wherefore he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them. Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God proveth you to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death, because he hath spoken to you, he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way, which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shall thou put the evil away from the midst of these. So like I said, the Bible is teaching us that ways in which we can know a false prophet is when someone comes to you and tells you, God told me in a dream X, Y, and Z, and it doesn't come to pass, or is trying to pull you away from the Jesus of the Bible, note that man, and call him out for who and what he is. He is a false prophet. To call someone a false prophet is basically calling them a child of the devil. And we know, I go out so often, and you know there's always that person who says, God told me, Jesus came to me in a dream, and said something contrary to these words. You know that's true. I know that's true. I can only speak anecdotally, but I've heard testimonies of others who said, yeah, one time I was talking to this guy, and he told me, God came to me in a dream. Jesus came to me in a dream, and said, opposite of what the words of God teach. So therefore you can know that the person is a false prophet. Is God trying to scare them into coming to the gospel? Maybe, but if they're teaching that dream to others, note that man, and have nothing to do with them. Jeremiah 23, turn if you into Jeremiah 23. In the nation of Israel, during the time of the captivity, God tells Jeremiah to call out the false prophets for who and what they are. And he gives us a harsh rebuking of these people, and it says in Jeremiah 23, verse 24, it reads, Can any hide himself in secret places, that I shall not see him, saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord? I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How shall this be in the heart of the prophets, that prophesy lies? Yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams, which they tell every man to his neighbor, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal. The prophet that has a dream, let him tell a dream, and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the weak, saith the Lord? Is not my word like as a fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words, everyone from his neighbor. Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues and say, He saith. So the Bible is teaching us that when a person says that God has spoken to them in a dream, and it is not found in his words, note that it has nothing to do with them. But if you said, David, that God speaks to us in our dreams, how can we know if it's God speaking to me, or it's just random, just a random dream? Well, two things. Number one, we use the word of God to tell us what dreams are and mean. We'll turn you, if you would, to 2 Peter. That's what the Bible teaches us. 2 Peter says, I'll give you some time to turn there. 2 Peter is after 1 Peter, obviously, which is after Hebrews, which is towards the end of your Bible. In 2 Peter, it says in chapter 1, verse 18. I'm sorry. It's 1 Peter 1 of the Bible. 1 Peter 1. Chapter 1, verse 18. I may have messed up on my notes, but ultimately it's saying how even though Peter and them saw the transfiguration of Christ, even though they've seen all these miracles, we have a more sure word of prophecy. We use the words of God to tell us whether our things in our dreams are real or not. And like I was saying, a lot of people say, this is of God, God told me in a dream, let me tell you what happened or whatnot, but we need to be very cautious when people try to say God sent in a dream. If it doesn't line up with these words, it's probably not true. And not only that, there's a way to interpret a dream. I know I've had crazy weird dreams, and maybe some of you have some crazy weird dreams, and you wake up and you think to yourself, what the hell did I just see? What was that all about? Why did I dream this? What was this all about? And the Bible teaches us a way to interpret dreams. Turn to your Bible, if you would, to... I'm sorry, my notes are all over the place. Genesis 37. This is referring to Joseph. Notice what it says in Genesis 37, verse 5. It reads, And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren, and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, Here I pray you this dream, which I have dreamed. For behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheep arose and also stood upright. And behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheep. And his brethren said to him, Shall thou indeed reign over us, or shall thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more. And behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father and to his brethren, and his father rebuked him and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee, to the earth? And his brethren envied him, but his father observed the same. Notice Jacob didn't completely just discontinue his dream. He was mad at the dream. He was upset with what the message was. He's like, Should I and your mother and your brothers serve you? And he says, The brothers envied him, but Jacob at least understood that this is unique, this is interesting. And look down at your Bible at chapter 40, turn to chapter 40, and this is the answer in how in which we are to interpret dreams. It says in verse 8, And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me then, I pray you. We see the same thing found in 41 verse 25. Just turn a page over. It says, And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one. God showed Pharaoh what he is about to do. God is the one that interprets dreams. God is the one that tells us he speaks to us in dreams. If ever you have a dream that is unique, as Jacob did not just completely discontinue it, although most and ninety-some percent of your dreams are probably random, have nothing to do with God, or just completely your brain categorizing things, do not discontinue every dream you get. If you find yourself having a dream that is quoting a Bible passage, that you see a man of God in the dream, a woman of God in the dream, saying or prophesying something, take the word of God, and it says, use the sure word of prophecy to see if those things were legitimized. We see the same thing found in Daniel with Nebuchadnezzar. When Nebuchadnezzar dreamed a dream, Daniel came to the Lord and prayed and said, God, because Nebuchadnezzar told all the astrologers and soothsayers and all the Babylonians to not only interpret the dream but to tell him his dream because he didn't remember it. And they're like, we can't do this. And he's about to kill all the wise men of Babylon. And Daniel says, why is this so hasty? And it's because it was an anxiety-based dream. God's trying to speak to Nebuchadnezzar. So Nebuchadnezzar allows Daniel a day or so to meditate and pray to God. God then reveals to Daniel not only the dream but the interpretation thereof. So in our lives, understand this, the conclusion of the matter is, sleeping in our lives are important. We need to find ourselves getting good rest. Plan your day around your sleep, not vice versa. Get good sleep. When you get good sleep, you're going to have good dreams, hopefully. I know that before I was saved, I didn't have like insomnia or anything like that, but I will say this, my sleep was not sweet unto me. The unsaved probably are unsettled in their beds every night. I know the moment I got saved, sleep became very sweet to me. Some people are afraid to go to bed because they don't realize that they're going to wake up, and not only that, it's picturing the ending of their life, that when they close their eyes, this is it. One day, we all know we will die, unless we're there at the second coming, there will be change. But nevertheless, 99% of people are going to die, and they know this. So when they slept, it's hard for them to sleep. We have rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. We rest in Jesus Christ. Once we understand salvation, sleep becomes so sweet and so easy, and you can sleep like a baby, knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ has saved us from our sins. So let's get good sleep, and in getting good sleep, let's have good dreams. If you have dreams that are weirding you out, and you don't know what it means, compare it to what the word of God says. Maybe this is God speaking to you in a way you never knew. As we heard Brother Ryan preaching a little earlier, the Holy Spirit is not going to bring new information to you. He's going to quote what Christ has already said, what the words of God have already said. So if you find yourself having a unique dream, don't just discontinue it, as Jacob did not discontinue Joseph's dream. He observed the same. Search the scriptures. Understand that God can speak to us in our dreams, because if dreams picture heaven, we understand that we will be with God in heaven, and we will be able to speak with God. So therefore, God will be able to speak to us, and He speaks to men in the Bible through dreams, whether in the New Testament or Old Testament. So spiritually, dreams and sleeping are significant, and I hope you guys get some good sleep tonight after that. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word. Thank you so much for having us enter into your rest. Thank you so much for allowing us to get good, sweet sleep. Help us to have good dreams, not dreams out of anxiety, but dreams that are pleasing to you. If you can, speak to us through our dreams if there's something you want us to know. Help us to know when we see or hear of false prophets by using your word to try the spirits. And also that you be with us throughout the rest of our week and have good sleep and dreams. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.