Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #11 of Genesis, chapter 28, and we are going to read Genesis 28:10-15:

And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of 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 ascending and descending on it. And, behold, JEHOVAH stood above it, and said, I am JEHOVAH God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

I will stop reading there.  Last time we were discussing the word “dreamed” in verse 12.  Jacob had set up his camp.  He took some stones for a pillow, and he lay down to sleep.  He went to sleep, and he began to dream.

We looked at the word “dream,” which is the same word found in Genesis 37 concerning Joseph.  The Hebrew word #2492 that is translated as “dream” is found 29 times in the Old Testament, and 13 of these times it was found regarding the life of Joseph. 

We saw a dream was also used to encourage Gideon when one of the men in the camp of the Midianites dreamed, and his fellow interpreted it, and the interpretation of the dream was that Gideon would defeat them and overcome them, despite the fact that they had an enormous army and Gideon had only 300 men.

Then we saw that this word does identify with God’s communication with man, which is divine revelation.  God’s revealing of truth to men was also used in a negative way regarding false prophets.  And we went to Jeremiah 23:25-28, and we saw how the Lord links those who speak a dream with those who prophesy falsely.  He does this another time in Jeremiah 29:8-9:

For thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts, the God of Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely unto you in my name: I have not sent them, saith JEHOVAH.

The significant thing for us to notice in these two verses is that God is speaking of prophets and diviners that deceive (and are false prophets) and He is saying, “Do not listen or obey them or hearken to the dreams that they cause to be dreamed.”  It is just like today in the churches during the end time that we see the “tongues movement,” and hundreds of millions of people involved in the charismatic movement and the speaking of tongues.  It is all over the professed Christian world and, yet, God is not bringing (this type of) divine revelation anymore.  He assures us of that in Revelation 22, the last book of the Bible, in Revelation 22:18:

…If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

Thus He ended divine revelation.  There would be no more revealing to prophets any additional revelation from God.  The Bible was complete when the book of Revelation was completed, and this was God’s complete revelation to mankind. 

And, yet, there is the matter of understanding that revelation.  And at the time of the end, the seals are taken off His revelation and knowledge will increase.  We are not saying there is any added “jot or tittle” or any further writing with pen and ink.  No – all God has done (at the time of the end) is to open up the understanding of His people to that which had already been written.  And because it is such a great amount of information that He is opening up at the time of the end, it is like a new covenant, but, again, there is no additional supernatural revelation.  But it is simply the giving of spiritual eyes to see the supernatural revelation that has already been in the Bible. 

But, here, it said, “neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed.”  They are causing it themselves; it is coming from their own minds.  I think this is something that any of us can understand.  We go to bed at night and we dream.  And who has not had a dream that seemed so real and powerful that really struck us?  And, remember, at that time God was still bringing divine revelation and, certainly, people within Israel were familiar with the idea of God moving a prophet through a dream.  They knew about Daniel and Joseph, and so forth, so it would be very tempting, would it not?  If you had a dream and it had something to do with the situation in Judah regarding the Babylonians, and it was just a powerful dream that you vividly remembered, and you could think, “This is from God.”  And, of course, it would be things leaning toward the idea: “God will beat back the Babylonians.  He will deliver the vessels again that the Babylonians took to Babylon.”  It would be something positive that would comfort and strengthen the people.  These were the types of dreams that were being dreamed, but they were not from God, so there was always a danger that someone could think they had a message from God, but it just was not from God.  But it was something that the Lord would give to His true prophets and they would know, without question, that it was from God.

It is just like today when we hear “the voice of Christ” in His Word.  We know the doctrine of Christ when we open up our ears and eyes and we see Scripture coming together to form doctrines that we know are true: election is true, and Christ having died at the foundation of the world in paying for sin is true.  We know these doctrines to be from God, just as prophets of old knew a dream from God, as the Lord would impress that upon them.

But those that are not true men…and that is a great problem area because they think they are God’s people, but they are not God’s people because they were not born again.  And this would have been an even greater problem back then as compared to the New Testament era, if that is possible, because God had saved so few during the Old Testament period.  But these men are having dreams, but they are coming from them, and not from God, just like people today with their “tongues.”  It is coming from within themselves, but if there is any supernatural activity involved, it is from Satan.  It is Satan messing around as a spirit being or fallen angel.  God warns in Deuteronomy 13 regarding those that receive dreams, in Deuteronomy 13:1-5:

If there arise among 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, whereof 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 JEHOVAH your God proveth you, to know whether ye love JEHOVAH your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after JEHOVAH 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 turn you away from JEHOVAH 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 JEHOVAH thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.

This is a severe test because God is giving an example where there is a prophet “or a dreamer of dreams,” and, once again, we see the close connection with a prophet and a dreamer of dreams.  A prophet would speak and say, “This is the prophecy.”  A dreamer of dreams would speak and tell the dream, and when he told the dream, he was prophesying.  It was the same as prophecy.  He was declaring the Word of God. 

In this case, God is giving an example, and He is saying that if there is a dreamer of dreams and he gives a sign or wonder and the sign or wonder comes to pass and, yet, he says, “Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them.”  It would be very difficult to pass this kind of test because we are talking about the Old Testament, a time when God was still bringing divine revelation.  He did at times cause men to dream dreams that were from Him.  But, here, someone dreamed a dream and the thing they dreamed came to pass.  Have you ever heard anyone say that they dreamed something about a particular person, and it happened?  I do not know why that is.  But, again, God does allow these kinds of things from time to time, but 99% of the time, dreams do not come to pass.  They do not happen.  But, occasionally, we will find that someone had a dream and the thing they dreamed about did happen, but whenever that takes place it is just a test.  We could think of it as the same test in our time: “Will you now begin to think that God is bringing supernatural and divine revelation apart from the Bible?” 

You know, a person will tell you a dream and say, “I had a dream that the neighbor’s house burned down.”  And then the next day or the next week the neighbor’s house burned down.  Then people come back to that person and they say, “Wow!  Wow!  I cannot believe that you called it right!  You knew it was going to happen.  What else have you dreamed?  Tell me more dreams!”  And you can see how easily people can fall into that trap, so the best thing to do is ignore it.  You know, people like to tell their dreams.  They may not mean anything by it.  It may be just interesting to them, or it may even be interesting to us.  But I would have no interest.  I really do not want to hear anyone’s dreams because it may lead to this kind of temptation.  And I especially do not want to hear it if the thing that was dreamed did happen.  Well, maybe it did, but it was a coincidence or God allowed that kind of dream to happen, and He allowed the situation where the house burned down as a test, but it is better to just not participate in this type of thing.  It can just be an unusual coincidence that happens from time to time, but do not put any stock in that dream whatsoever – it means nothing. 

I guess we could say the same thing we say about “tongues.”  If there is any supernatural activity in that area, it is not from God.  God is bound by His Word, and His Word has obligated Him to no longer bring supernatural revelation to this earth.  All the supernatural revelation of God is in the Bible.

But during that time, they could not say that, could they?    The Lord moved Moses to write Deuteronomy 13, and God was still bringing divine revelation, as He would do for the next almost 1,500 years.  He would bring tremendous amounts of revelation through many prophets.  Who was to say that this prophet who received a dream and that sign and wonder came to pass was not a true, faithful prophet of JEHOVAH?  You see, it was the same way of  “finding him out” then as it is now.  It is the same thing.  When we study the Bible, we compare spiritual with spiritual, and sometimes we can get on “a trail” of maybe a half a dozen verses that seem to come to a conclusion, and we say, “Wow!  This is an interesting and exciting conclusion!”  But there is an additional test.  When we arrive at a particular conclusion after comparing spiritual with spiritual and Scripture with Scripture, if that conclusion does not harmonize with everything else the Bible teaches, then we have come to a wrong conclusion.   And we need to keep studying until everything harmonizes and fits together.  In other words, our conclusion that was based on comparison of Scripture cannot contradict another Biblical teaching.

And, of course, here in Deuteronomy 13, this is what God is saying.  This person had a dream of a sign and a wonder, and the sign or wonder came to pass, but then God says in Deuteronomy 13:2-3:

And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof 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…

Why not?  It is because of the thing that he is saying in addition to the dream (the idea of going after other gods and worshipping them) is contrary to other Scripture.  It does not harmonize.  It does not “fall into place” like pieces of a puzzle, but they are “jamming against” one another. 

And that is the way that even back then a believer in JEHOVAH that trusted in the Lord could tell the difference.  He could listen closely to the things the prophet was saying, and when a prophet would bring up an idea like “a golden calf” or “Baal worship, on the one hand, he speaks of JEHOVAH and his dream came to pass, but, on the other hand, he is saying something that is clearly against the Law of God.  Then he could know that this man is a false prophet.  He is dreaming, but the dreams are his own.  They are not coming from God.  That is how the people of God could know, even back then.

Let us go to another verse that mentions dreams, in the book of Joel.  It says in Joel 2:28-29:

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.

Again, notice that every time we read of dreams, prophecy is joined together with it.  And that is going back to the fact that the Bible was originally given through visions, dreams, and revelation of various sorts.  God has ended all these methods of delivering divine revelation once the Bible was completed.  And, of course, this is part of the testing program of God at the time of the end, especially for the churches.  And they failed the test.   This passage in Joel 2 is picked up in Acts 2 at the time when the Holy Spirit was poured out.  The interesting thing is that Joel uses the word “afterward,” but in Acts 2, it was changed to “in the last days,” and that is because it is pointing to two separate outpourings of the Holy Spirit.  One took place during the church age when God would begin to evangelize the world, and He would cause His young men to prophecy, and the Holy Spirit would send forth the people of God to bring the message of the Word of God over the course of the entire church age.  That was the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  Then would come the end of the church age and the 2,300 days of spiritual famine, followed by the Latter Rain during the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  So, in Acts 2 where it says “afterward,” it is identifying with the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit during the second part of the Great Tribulation when the great multitude outside of the churches would become saved.  In Acts 2, where it speaks of the last days, that is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit during the church age, the entire New Testament period.  God calls it the last days.

Anyway, it says in Acts 2:4-8:

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?

So these “tongues” were foreign languages.  They were known human languages.  It was not the supernatural gift of tongues mentioned in the book of Corinthians. Then it says in Acts 2:13-18:

Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of 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 my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:

That is the key word.  Prophesy.  The office of a prophet was done away with when the Bible was completed, but the role of prophets is carried out by all the people of God, male and female.  Of course, it is regulated by the Law of God wherein women are not to teach men, but women can teach women and children.  And that is prophesying.  Or, a woman can hand out tracts to men or women, and that is prophesying. 

We know this is not referring to God continuing to speak to people during the New Testament period to break the barrier of the supernatural.  It simply means, for instance, when we declare what Isaiah saw in a vision, then we are declaring a vision.  Or, if we declare what Joseph said, we are “dreaming dreams.”  It is simply declaring the Word of God.  That is prophesying in the Bible.