DREAMS - HOW TO UNDERSTAND THEM

UNDERSTANDING DREAMS





We want to see what is prophesied about the last days in the book of Acts chapter 2 and this is in line of what the Holy Spirit is going to do in your lives. We have taught on holiness preparing your lives for an increase in the manifestation and leading of the Holy Spirit. We want to understand some of His leadings. For without understanding we cannot receive.

Acts 2:16 But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: And in the last days it shall be God declares, that 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: yea, and on my manservants and my maidservants in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and manifest day. And it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

What we want to focus on is the first part. What is prophesied is that God will pour His Spirit upon His people. And He had specially mentioned sons and daughters, young men and old men. That scripture has always puzzled me. Until recently God began to give more light. It cannot be that God is talking about physical age alone. We know that old men also can prophesy. And here young men see vision old men dream dreams. We know that young men can dream dreams too and old men can see vision. So it is not just some thing to do with physical age. It is some thing more than that.

In I John talks about spiritual age and not natural age. I Jn. 2:12 I am writing to you, little children because your sins are forgiven for His sake. Now that’s a spiritual age; little children are those who have just been born again. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. So spiritual fathers are those who have known God from the beginning. Their knowledge of God covers a vast expanse. He has to write from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. So he talks about the middle part of nurturing, of overcoming the devil, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. That is growing into the depths of God. We are learning to utilize the weapons of God. This is not referring to physical age but to the spiritual age of children, young men and fathers and old men.

Now using the same analogy we bring you back to Acts chapter two. And notice here that he specially speaks about the three stages, prophesying, visions and dreams. That they begin manifestations of prophesying, visions and dreams. In fact as the last days come we are going to hear and see more people being in the realm of visions, dreams and prophesying. It is going to be more than before. That’s what God is going to do in these last days. I am not talking about ordinary spiritual things but about spiritual prophecies, spiritual visions and spiritual dreams.

I had a close look at the word dreams. I was surprised to find that were two Greek words for dreams. One is the word onar, which is the ordinary word for dreams. But this word for dreams is only used three times in the bible in the New Testament. And here is Acts chapter 2 where it talks about old men he is talking about those spiritually long in the Lord. Old men shall dream dreams. The Greek word here is not the normal word for dream. The word here is enupnion. It is more or less an ordinary sleep. It has only been used one more time in the New Testament and used in the negative sense. From the usage of the negative sense you could see the fullness and the meaning in the positive. The negative sense is used in Jude verse 8 when Jude talks about those who were like Sodom and Gomorrah who are being given over to sensuous “dreamings” and so defiling the flesh and going about in their own ways. Now he is not referring to people who are sleeping. He is talking about people just moving along not knowing what they are doing but just moving along by their flesh.

So in this particular area here when he talks about this old men dreaming dreams the Greek word that is used is so special that it refers to a message, a vision or a spiritual conscious experience of a direction and leading of God in the sub-conscious stage. You see in Jude verse 8 this group of people who were led by the flesh, were led not only consciously. They have reached a point where they were led sub-consciously and we know that can happen. Many people do things subconsciously. Our conscious and our subconscious mind need renewal. We need the Word not only in the conscious mind. We need to get it into our subconscious and get it further down into our spirit. Our subconscious mind is not the human spirit. It’s a part of our soul. So these people are moving subconsciously and drawing on their own lust. He is talking about being dreamt into something subconsciously.

Apply that meaning positively to the old men dreaming dreams it speaks about the depths of God’s leading and spirit in you being received to the extend that it comes to the level of your sub-conscious. You see you can have a vision right now. God can give you a vision but that vision only touches your conscious mind. It is only the beginning. As that vision grows in you, it becomes a part of your subconscious too. That vision usually is a part of your spirit since it comes from your spirit. But what our spirit has does not come out unless it can flow through the soul that is renewed. So the first time we begin to understand and receive a leading in vision it is our conscious mind that receives. Young men see vision old men dream dreams. It’s the same vision that is now sunk into the subconscious realm that dream dreams. Spiritually young men who have overcome the devil now receive visions. As they continue walking with God for long, they become spiritually old men whose visions have now sunken into their subconscious so that they now dream dreams.

The actual Greek definition of the word shall dream dreams is enupniazo enupnion. Its from the word two words combined “en” and “upniazo” which means simply something being presented during your subconscious state, which is usually your sleep. And this is the definition a supernatural suggestion or impression received during sleep or a subconscious state. Old men dream dreams. Let me put that statement into that and see how it goes. Old men shall receive supernatural suggestions and impressions during sleep or a sub-conscious state. These are supernatural leadings of the Lord.

So what we are going to touch first of all on the leadings of the Spirit on dreams. Why talk about dreams? You spend one third of your life sleeping. Two thirds of your life is spent doing all kind of things. We train Christians twenty-four hours. We train Christians to obey God until man could hear God’s voice and move in the Spirit of God when they are conscious. All the training is in that area. So we have covered two third of your life. Unless we touch the other one third and tell you how to make use of that part of your life you missed out a lot of your life. We spent one third of our life sleeping so we want to know how we can be sensitive to God during those times. In that way you could be twenty-four hours knowing the knowledge of God. God speaks to us when we are awake. God speaks to us when we are asleep. So we learn to understand dreams as well as visions.

We look into that area to bring understanding in our lives. God incidentally have given many of you dreams. So here is where God wants to teach us the things that happen in our subconscious life when we are sleeping.

Dreams can come from three sources. We need to discern between them and have some keys to understand what God is doing in our dream life. To understand what God is doing in our conscious and thought life. But in order to be full-fledged Christians for God and let God live in our lives twenty-four hours we have to understand what God is doing while we are asleep.

Job 33:14-16 For God speaks in one way, and in two, though man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon man, while they slumber on their beds, then He opens the ears of men, and terrifies them with warnings. This is the first time I teach on this area publicly. The only time I teach on dreams was during the overnight meeting. So we realize that when he talks about old men dream dreams it is not just an ordinary dream. That’s what people think. Its not the ordinary word for dream like onar. It’s a special word enupnion. So that word talks about some thing received from the Lord supernaturally in the subconscious state. This is the impartation that comes from God when we are sleeping. Here it says that God speaks to people in dreams.

And if you think that dreams are not important I want you to know that the life of our Lord Jesus Christ was perfected by dreams. When He was in Mary’s womb God spoke to Joseph in Matthew chapter one in a dream. Joseph in Matthew one was praying whether he wants to believe Mary or not. Mary gave an extraordinary story about how she met an angel and the child that she is carrying is the Messiah. And here is Joseph engaged to her wondering whether this is true or not. And being a righteous man he was seeking to put her away, thinking that she was lying. While he was thinking about this thing the bible tells us that while Joseph was asleep an angel of God came and said take Mary as your wife and call her child Jesus. The next chapter in Matthew tells us that the wise men were warned in a dream to go back by a different way. So if people didn’t listen to their dreams they will miss God. You can listen to God in your conscious state and hear the voice of God and miss the other one third. If we miss what God is saying to us in our dreams we may miss God. And in Matthew chapter two Joseph was warned by a dream to go to Egypt. And when he came back he was warned in a dream not to go back to the place where he was but go to Nazareth. Dreams perfected Joseph, perfected Mary, perfected baby Jesus. Dreams are important. The bible people don’t regard dreams lightly. The New Testament people don’t regard dreams lightly. Jesus does not regard dreams lightly. The Word of God speaks so much about dreams.

Its only modern man, intellectual, logical, who don’t believe that dreams can mean anything more. The bible is clear dreams are important to give direction. They are part of the means of the leadings of God in our lives today. So it says God does seals instructions to our lives. My life has been affected by many dreams. I have recorded them down. They changed my life. It is dreams that gave me directions many times over and over again. Some times we cannot hear God clearly in our working hours He tries to emphasize it again in our dream life. So that you don’t miss Him, He seals His instructions in our life. Any man or woman of God any child of God who desires to walk closely with God cannot afford to leave the area of dream life out. They must learn to consecrate their dream life to God.

Dreams can come from three sources. They can come from God. They can come from the devil. Or they can come from your own self. See the devil can interfere in your subconscious if there is sin. Sin will open the door for the enemy to disturb you. It is the only door by the way. He has no other door. If you choose not to sin and choose to be under the blood there is no door for him to enter. The only door he has is sin. So remember to always be in the blood. If you are not sure just thank Jesus. As you kneel down besides your bed say, “Lord Jesus if I failed you in any way today, if I missed you in my works in my attitudes in my actions Jesus forgive me. Cleanse me with your precious blood. Continue to speak to me even in my sleep.” Many Christians think that their lives for the day end when they sleep. They haven’t its only the beginning of the next part of God working in their lives. You pray for the day when you wake up. How about preparing yourself for your sleep? We need to learn that. Many people are not receiving because they are not cleansed under the blood.

One of the reasons Satan tries to block your life at night is also because God is trying to bring something to you there. Incidentally if it is a frightening nightmare then that’s not from God. Sin is the only door that opens. So put yourself under the blood of Jesus. Sin opens the door and it blocks God working in your life when you sleep.

Ecclesiastes 5: 3, for a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words. I remember in the early days of my ministry, we used to drive down in our little Dahatsu Charade from Penang to Kuala Lumpur and back to Penang. We would drive down to preach and minister and drive back again. Many times we would drive into the night after our fellowshipping. We could see the car lights and when I reach home and sleep I still could see those lights. So dreams come through many activities. It can come from your own life. We have to discern dreams that come from God, dreams that come from the enemy or through our own self. If the blood of Jesus covers you then it is only between God and your own dreams.

But there are some principles that are involved in dreams that are very vital that we need to see and understand from the Word of God. This is why we need to see some principles of interpretation of dream. To a certain extent all of us dream dreams. Throughout your life you do have dreams. What do they mean? What are they saying? We have to understand what they say so that we could determine the message of God. Do you know that there are three types of dreams from God? A dream from God can come in three ways. A dream can come as No. 1 symbolic dreams. No. 2 as actual dreams. No. 3 as a message dream. The easiest is the second type. Let me give examples of the first, second and the third types.

The first type is symbolic dream. In Genesis 40 Pharaoh had a dream in fact he had two dreams. Remember when a dream occurs twice it shows the urgency of something. Joseph through the wisdom of God says to Pharaoh the dream occurs twice because it is sure to come and there is urgency involved. So if you have a particular dream that come forth several times, God is trying to tell you that it surely is and there is an urgency involved. Pharaoh had a dream. This was his dream. He says he saw the seven ears of corn and fat ones and seven lean ones ate them up. He woke up and he went back to sleep. Then he saw seven fat cows and suddenly come seven skinny cows. And the amazing thing was the seven skinny cows ate up the seven fat cows. And he said this after the seven skinny cows ate up the seven fat cows, the seven skinny cows were still skinny. That is a symbolic dream.

Later Nebuchadnezzar had a dream and Daniel interpreted. These dreams are called symbolic dreams. The reason I mentioned this is because there are some people teaching out there, they teach only the second part of the dream is from God. That is unscriptural. They say if God gives you a dream it will be real and there is no need to interpret any more. It will be just as it is. What about the bible? What about the symbolic dreams? Are they not from God? See what you believe must be in line with the Word. So No. 1 there are symbolic dreams. Symbols are involved. In Gen. 39 how Joseph interpreted the dream of the baker and the butler. Who would have interpreted that the baker has those loaves of bread on his head it means that his head is coming off. There is no natural way that we could have gone into that kind of interpretation. So the first type of dream is symbolic - it needs interpretation. They are the most difficult dreams to handle. They are easily misinterpreted. If you have a dream that is symbolical you go to 20 people you will get 20 interpretations.

The second type of dream is the real life situation dreams. Dreams are one of the leadings of the Spirit an important leading. Matt. 1:24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. When did the angel spoke look at verse 20 But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. In a dream he saw an angel coming to him giving him a message. In chapter two we see the same thing in verse 13. The angel appeared again in a dream gave a different message. Then in verse 19 the same angel came and told him to leave Egypt. And in verse 22 God warned him in a dream and he turn aside and went to Galilee. It is dreams that have led Joseph and Mary. And that protected Jesus. These second type of dreams are real life situation dreams. They don’t need interpretation. It is a direct dream a real life situation dream. And some times some of your dreams that God sent to you are real life situation. Where you may actually see yourself in a place where you have never been before.

The third type of dream is the message dream. Where there are a lot of things here and there but there is only one message. Example in Matt. 2 verse 12 the wise men were told not to return to Herod. So some times your dreams can be that way. There are a lot of things that happened in a dream and when you get up you forgot everything but you only got one message. The reason we teach on this area is Christians are learning to obey God and be led by the Spirit. But they are still not sensitive to God when it comes to dreams. They take them lightly. They don’t record them down. When some one prophesies, thus says the Lord, our ears prick up like a dog. But when we have a dream from God we say, “That’s only a dream. I wonder what it means,” and afterwards you forgot it. We took it too lightly and we missed the fact the Holy Spirit is working in our lives even when we are asleep. One of the majors leading of the Spirit is through dreams. It is even prophesized in the last days God will lead His people in dreams. Old men shall dream dreams. These are supernatural impartation of wisdom that comes to them when they are asleep.

So there are three types of dreams and these are the rules that you apply when you interpret dreams. I give you four rules to apply for the interpretation of dreams. Rule No. 1 is that the symbolic dreams must be interpreted. The second type of dreams needs no interpretation. The third type needs no interpretation. It’s the first one that is quite difficult. No. 1 the symbols in your dreams must be the same meaning and symbols as in the bible. They must be biblical symbols in your interpretation. For example if in your sleep you dream about a dog, a dog in the bible symbolizes Judaizers. Paul was fighting with those people called the Judaizers and he called them dogs. There is only one statement in the bible where Paul says beware of dogs. Dogs also refer to people outside the covenant of God. When the Canaanite woman came Jesus said the bread is for the children and not for the dogs. She was outside of the covenant of God. So you can see that dogs represent things that are outside the covenant. They don’t represent things that are good. And so even if in your dream you had a white dog or even a golden dog, when you get up, you thought that’s a good dream. I wonder what the dog represents? Blessings? A dog in whatever color of the rainbow in your dream still represents some thing not good.

You can see obviously that the more Word you have in your life and the more understanding you have of the bible the greater your ability to interpret dreams. If you understand the bible and the symbols that are in the bible, it will help you to interpret dreams. Because you know what the symbols represent. If you see a snake whether it is a white snake, black snake, even they sing some nice songs in your dreams they still represent evil and deception. So there are many symbols lands, gold all kind of things in the bible. When you get a dream and you don’t understand the symbol search the Word. Don’t try to interpret some thing outside the Word. Your symbol must be in line with the bible. That’s the first rule when it comes to dream and how to understand and interpret them.

The second for us to realize is in Ecclesiastes 5:3 it tells us that dreams come through much activities. In your dream your personal attitudes and feelings can affect the accuracy of it. Remember this rule otherwise you will misinterpret. If some one tells me a dream and ask for an interpretation, one of the first thing is that I must apply these four rules. Then the second rule is this. As the person share I must discern what kind of spirit this person has. The kind of attitude this person has so that I could interpret the type of dream he has. If for example he is a person filled with hate. And he has a dream that some body is angry with him. It may not necessary that, that person is angry. But he always sees people to be angry with him. See his own attitude colored his dreams. So that his dream didn’t become the color God wants it to be, it added, polluted, and blurred the vision. Just like in our waking hours when we are awake you hear God’s voice. But some times God’s voice feel like an inner thought and you wonder, “Did I think about that or is it really the Holy Spirit?” And some times those dreams reveal your inner most feeling. That means your dreams come from your daily activities.

Some dreams come from your inner subconscious thinking and they need to be dealt with. They are not a message from God but yourself. Your own dreams that come forth. Its funny you cannot lie to yourself in your dream. Your conscience affects it. Your feelings, your personal attitudes color your dreams. So to interpret dreams check the people attitudes that received the dream. Whether the receiving station is in functioning order, the transmitter is in order heaven never breaks down. But it is our receiving station that breaks down. Sometimes the battery water needs to be changed. What is that? The Holy Spirit is not there, the prayer life is not there and the Word is not enough. The voltage has gone so low and the attitudes are wrong it colored our dreams. So the second rule is remember in whatever the three types of dreams to check your personal attitude and feeling whether they are coloring the dreams. In helping another person to understand their dreams check their attitude too. Discern it by the Holy Spirit in order to get the accurate picture of what God is saying. So the bible says in Jude 33 that God speaks to us.

Lets look at the third key in interpreting of dreams. In the book of Genesis chapter 41 and look at how Joseph interpreted the dreams and have the third key coming forward. Here we have Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dream. In verse 28 that’s where the interpretation starts. It is as I told Pharaoh, God has shown to Pharaoh what he is about to do. There will come seven years of great supply throughout all the land of Egypt. Imagine if they missed the dream. They will be finished. The whole nation will be famished if they didn’t pay attention to the dream. But after them there will arise seven years of famine, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt; the famine will consume the land, and the plenty will be unknown in the land by reason of that famine which will follow, for it will be very grievous. And the dream was repeated to Pharaoh twice. Because God establishes the thing, God will shortly bring it to pass. Notice you have a key there. If a dream is repeated it is established that there is a sureness about it. It is urgent and it is coming to pass shortly. Notice a few things here. It is a dream that is not good. If you have a dream about seven lorries coming to your house, bringing all kind of goodies and emptying them in your front yard. Then after the seven lorries came the seven tractors came and flatten your house. By the time the seventh one passed by there is nothing remaining of your house. What would be your feeling? When a dream is like a warning its not supposed to come to pass. It is supposed to be prevented. If you have a dream of your daughter drowning, you are not going to say bless God. You are not going to do that. First of all you are going to check whether this is the enemy coming. Whether you live in fear so much it comes out in your dream.

Then secondly you have to check whether it is from your own life. Recently you have been swimming for seven days. Then after you have checked these areas if you finally feel that is a warning from God, all you have to do is to pray against that fear. And it will never come to pass. Most of the time this type of dreams come from the enemy. Some times from our own life, our own fear brought the dreams. For this reason those of you who just fall in love and you are praying to God, “God is that man (or woman) Your will for me?” And then you dream about you and her or him in a wedding. You cannot trust that dream. You know why? Your feelings are involved. It is very hard to hear God’s dream when your own feelings are involved. Those are the times where you should trust your dreams least, especially dreams in the area of marriage and life partners. Your own feelings, your own desires are coming out. You got to examine them. So you cannot say after you wake up from that dream, “Bless God, I have the confirmation.” So when your feelings come into play it is not necessarily that the Lord has sent you that dream.

God never send a warning like this type in order for it to come to pass. And some of you businessmen you are so rational. You have been hearing from God in dreams but you are not paying attention to it. God warns you in your dreams some times in your business. He warns you. He gives you direction. He tells you of situations not to enter. In your dream you could be dreaming about certain partnership that you are praying about. And here in your dream you saw some thing happening that you never saw in your conscious state. You wake up and ask, “Is it going to come to pass? Is this going to happen?” No, it should not happen. It’s a warning to prevent you from allowing that event to happen. It must always be positive. The interpretation must always be positive. It must not bring fear, grief into people’s life.

So here is Joseph interpreting the dream and did you know his interpretation stops in verse 32. Verse 33 onwards is not an interpretation. The interpretation has finished there is nothing more to interpret. But verse 33 is the application, the wisdom and that is the third key. In order to apply dreams in our lives you will need No. 3 the wisdom of God for two areas, the wisdom of God to interpret and the wisdom of God to apply. The third key is the wisdom of God for interpretation and application. Now Joseph was not applying the dream. It has nothing to do with Pharaoh’s dream. This is from Joseph’s spirit. He says, “Pharaoh this is going to happen. Choose a man who is wise. And gather all the abundant of grain in the first seven years, so that the next seven years we will excess and extra.” That is wisdom. It is not the gift of the word of wisdom. That is a revelation of the future. But it’s a gift a spiritual wisdom an application. It’s the same kind of wisdom that Solomon asked. It’s the same type of wisdom that James tells us to ask. If any lack wisdom let him ask from God. So the third key to interpret dreams is wisdom.

The fourth key is important to understand that there is timing for interpretation at times. Some dreams may be shut up until its time to be opened. So what we have to do is record them down. And the Holy Spirit will bring it to mind even though you may consciously forget it. The Holy Spirit will remind you when its time to open it up. A similar type of situation can be seen in Daniel’s life. Daniel had a lot of vision some of them in the night dreams. And he did not understand them because the time was not ripe to unfold them to him. But through his prayers he was able to understand some. Towards the end of the book of Daniel the angel told him, “Go thy way. These things are shut up for the end of time.” So the full understanding did not come to Daniel. But some times the fourth key is to remember if the Holy Spirit did not give an interpretation don’t try to put your own. Don’t try to get into human rationalizing or human intellectualism. If you sense that there is nothing in the Spirit write it down. If you are a growing Christian you should have kept three books. One book to record dreams and visions and prophecies. One book to record your bible studies, notes that you have from your bible study so that you continue to grow. The third book to record your prayer items. Note down all those things you are believing God for. So that when they are answered you can note when they are answered. So we need to record them down for the time that the Holy Spirit determines for the interpretation to come forth.

We are going to conclude with how to receive the gift of interpretation. In the book of Daniel chapter one. There are two things that are similar between Joseph and Daniel. Daniel was a man of dreams and also visions. Joseph was a man of dreams. You notice Joseph in the book of Genesis and Daniel in the book of Daniel both were similar characters. Both were faithful to the Lord when they were young. Both sought to do the right ways of the Lord. So you will find these three keys to receive the gift of interpretation in both their lives. Some times these keys were developed in the silent years in Joseph’s life but its clear cut in Daniel’s life. I believe it also was in Joseph’s life. So here in Daniel chapter one verse 17 As for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all letters and wisdom and dreams. Look at it there is such a special gift. And notice some thing about Joseph somewhere between the time he was in Potiphar’s house to the time that he was in prison he received the gift of interpretation. He interpreted the butler’s and the baker’s dream. And he interpreted Pharaoh’s dream. Somewhere along the line Joseph received the gift of interpretation of dreams. And it is available for every one of you here.

If you develop the first four keys you have already moved in that direction to understand and interpret dreams. Here we see in Daniel’s life, he was given a special gift. Daniel when he was brought to Babylon together with all his other three friends. They were with many other young men. If you were chosen as the cream of the flock to be brought to the king’s table, a lot of people will start breaking their principles and compromising their principles. But not these four young men. They kept strictly to the Jewish covenant. While the other young men said look at the food, the promotion, the learning and they gave up whatever Jewish covenant they have and they join the Gentiles. But these four men said no. We don’t want to partake all these idols worship. We want to partake of the things of the Lord. Joseph was the same. Potiphar’s wife came told him to sin. He said, “No, the master has given me everything except you. And I cannot sin against God.” Even though he was alone he knew God was with him. If you are conscious of God you find it very hard to sin. If you are not conscious of God its easy to sin. People sin because they are not conscious of God. Develop the consciousness of God and you find it hard to sin.

Joseph made a choice to choose the path or righteousness. Daniel also made that choice. What did you see in common about them? Faithfulness. So the first requirement is faithfulness to the Lord, to His Word, faithfulness to His covenant, faithfulness to keep yourself for Him. Many people don’t realize that the Lord has more to give you than the devil. The devil shows the carrot in your eyes and then say, “Donkey come on.” He says taste the pleasures of sin for a short time and we say no to it. You become a Christian don’t sin, you don’t commit adultery, you don’t smoke, you don’t drink, you don’t do this you don’t do that. It’s a miserable life. I don’t want to become a Christian. I will miss all these things they say. They don’t realize what God has. They have only been experiencing what the devil is tempting them with. Its temporary and he is going to collect them afterwards. What they don’t realize is what God has. If any one of you dedicate yourself to the Lord let me express the help of our Father. I have never known our Father not to give you a gift. I have never known our Father not to reward faithfulness. He has always.

One of the things that Gordon Lindsey mentioned was that he realize that in the ministry he spent so much time with the Lord that some times his family pay a heavy price because their father and husband is a man of God. But then as he looked back, he found that God gave special grace to his family for the sacrifice that was made. God gave different types of gifts to them. See God never robs you. He is a Father. When you dedicate yourself to Him first you will have the opportunity to choose. During the time of choosing you may not see God’s reward. I am not making it up. James chapter one says when you endure temptation you are rewarded. When you choose no I don’t want these things of the devil. No I don’t want the things of the world. I want the will of God. It looks like you are giving up everything. But later you find that you found everything. God begins to start giving you things. God begins to bless you financially. It is God Himself who say I will add this to you. All these things in Matt. 6:33 I will add to you. Plus you will have spiritual graces.

And among them as his case and in Daniel and in Joseph He added that remarkable ability to interpret dreams. Do you know that it was that gift that promoted Joseph to Prime Minster? If Joseph did not interpret dreams he could be a good man. He could be a hard worker. He would never made it to be Prime Minister. He made it to be Prime Minister because he interpreted dreams. The gift of God was on his life. When God gives you a gift that gift promotes you. The gift of God promotes you. Promotion comes not from the East or from the West it comes out from God. It was the gift of God that Joseph developed that promoted him. Do you realize in Daniel’s life it’s the gift of interpretation that promoted him? Doesn’t that weigh more than money? Worth more than anything in the world can buy. We don’t realize it. When we choose the ways of the Lord it looks like as if we are loosing everything. You are not. You are going to gain many things. In fact it does not pay not to obey God. It will cost you more. Sin will bring you to a position where you will go further than you want to go and it will cost you more than you can take. It is important for us to understand faithfulness to the things of the Lord. Faithfulness to say I don’t want any thing else in the world but the Lord. I only want my Lord and keep making this you will be rewarded. So one of the first keys to receive the gift of interpretation is faithfulness.

The second key after that an incident occurred in which Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel chapter 2 gave a command for all the wise people to be slaughtered because they could not interpret a dream. And when they wanted to interpret his dream he said, “I forgot the dream. You all have to tell me the dream and then tell me the interpretation.” And they could not. He said, “Off with their heads.” So the word got to Daniel. Daniel asked why this urgency to kill everybody. And when he heard what it was in Daniel chapter verse 16 And Daniel went in and besought the king to appoint him a time, that he might show the king the interpretation. Do you notice Daniel in chapter one he already had the interpretation but it was not fully operating yet. He was not in the same position like Joseph. In Joseph’s time the king gave the dream and he gave the interpretation. Here Daniel had to give the dream and the interpretation. That is harder still. But Daniel said give us time. In verse 18 And told them to seek mercy of the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. This is important: how did Daniel get it? Prayer. Daniel told his friends in verse 17 he says pray together. It is in time of prayer that the gift comes. So the second key is to live a life of prayer. Some of you don’t realize what has happened to your life when the gift of the Spirit has been dropped into your spirit in seed form when you went to the overnight prayer. But I could pick it up with my spirit. And some of those seeds start growing you can point it out through an overnight prayer. In the time of prayer with the Lord the seeds of God’s gift drop into your life. We know not what is going to happen in praise and worship. So it is important to spend time with God. Because it is in those times that God drops things into our spirits.

The third key to receive wisdom, understanding and interpretation of dreams. Daniel chapter 10 Notice some thing here in verse 3 it says Daniel was fasting and in verse 11 it tells us the reason why he fasted but the answer came O Daniel, man greatly beloved, give heed to the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you.” While he was speaking this word to me, I stood up trembling. Then he said to me, Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your mind to understand. Do you know why one of the reasons for his 21 days fast, is to seek revelation, is to seek understanding. So fasting brings revelations. It puts you in a position to receive revelations. And you could put one of the objectives of the fast to receive revelations to understand some thing. It may not come during your fast. But the answer may come some time after your fast. But the answer is traced to your fasting. One of the things I constantly do in my fasting is I fast for revelations. If I don’t understand the passage in the bible I will bring it before God and fast and pray. During the time that I fast revelation may not come but at least I have the satisfaction to know that I fasted over it and I committed it to the Lord. And God in His timing will bring it back to me. And He does, some times one year later, some times two years later He says, “This is the answer son that you prayed two years ago.” I said, “Thank you Lord.” I will not say, “Why did You take two years to answer me?” because I know the answer. He will say, “You were not ready two years ago.” So the third key is to live a life of fasting and prayer.