I didn't read the exchange above this post but I think that everyone who doesn't have other's gifts are skeptical of all but their own when we should all just use discernment into the truth that can be gleaned from others. I used to be intepret dreams and that is not an easy task. So I commend those who do. Dreams seem to be more personal while prophets proclaim future events imo. But my prayer is that all would have the gift of discernment so as not to listen to superficial christians.
I agree except on a personal level that you revealed in the post not quoted by me.
I can so relate to that. I find a great peace in it. What I find pictured for me is that move from the noise of the quarry to the peace surrounding the temple area where all the pieces fit together. What remains is still the grinding to smooth the edges. Nice to hear from you.
Possible a mixture of the two, without a gift to discern things you can be hoodwinked into the wrong thinking and also as desires grow it is the usual influence on the content of dreams, God has to sort of override it for the most part and demons can influence our desires and thus our dreams.
Discernment has to be top of the list at every stage of our walk. There is a plethora of Christian and non Christian dream interpretation books out there, and it's easy to be taken in by them when they catalogue what each symbol in a dream means.
That literally goes against scripture. Plenty of biblical characters have had night visions or dreams from God which were warnings. Like the father of Jesus to preserve his life.
Most dreams are not prophetic, some can even be satanic. It is rare to have a dream from God. But they do occur.
Every example in Scripture concerning dreams is that the dream has contained a definite message and that the person has known that the dream was totally different to the ordinary dreams he has had. Dreams that are made up of confusing, mixed up images that say basically nothing, are not from the Holy Spirit, in the same way that many of the "word salad" prophecies we see on Youtube, especially of the Glory of Zion church, which say basically nothing, are not of the Holy Spirit but are a mixture of Charismatic buzz words. A good dream along with a good prophecy, gives a definite message that increases a person's faith in Christ. Honestly, I don't see that a dream that shows the devil chasing someone on a bike can come from the Holy Spirit. Yesterday at the fruit market, I told a joke to someone (a joke I wouldn't say on this forum), and during the night I had a dream when I said exactly the same joke to two people that I know, and they both laughed. I told the Lord that it was a strange and vivid dream but no way would I interpret it as any message from the Lord. But if I had booked to fly from Christchurch to Auckland in a week's time and I got a dream that told me, "Don't use that flight but change it to another." I would change the flight because I would know that I got that dream for a reason, even if the plane did not crash. It might mean that God wanted me in a particular place at a particular time, or to meet a particular person on the new flight and was open to the Gospel. I do remember once when I was booked to fly from Auckland to Wellington on business, I had a dream the night before where I was on a plane flying very low over a forest. That was interesting, but I never took it as a warning not to go on that flight. However I have heard of people having a strong premonition not to go on a flight and when they rebooked, they found out that the flight they were previously booked crashed with no survivors. Now that is really spooky!
