Did you know that God has sealed instructions for every one of His children? The only problem is that we have to learn a new language in order to understand those instructions.
We read in the book of Job that God speaks not only once but twice, yet we fail to take enough interest in what He is saying to learn the language He speaks to us in.
What is that language? It is that of dreams and visions.
Read with me the following passage: Job 33:14-16 14 For God speaks once, yes twice, yet man perceiveth it not.
15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; 16 Then he opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction, If that passage wasn't enough to get our attention the Lord speaks to us in the New Testament from the book of Acts saying: Acts 2:17-18 17 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: 18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: KJV The reason I entitled this article "The Flame and the Sword" was the result of being able to interpret the language of my dreams and visions.
In order to know what our dreams are saying to us, we will have to begin to understand the symbols through which God desires to speak.
Thankfully, there are some symbols that are nearly universal.
However, in order to speak to each one of us in a more personal way our great God speaks to us through symbols that are often only meaningful and understandable to the one to whom He is speaking.
In other words, God speaks to us in a code that only we can interpret.
It is our job to grasp the symbolic language in our dreams.
God does this through the experiences of our life, from childhood throughout one's lifetime.
Indeed our teddy bears and bicycles become powerful symbols if we understand the symbolic language.
Pro 25:2 2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
KJV I was teaching once on how to understand the symbols the Lord uses when speaking to us.
As an illustration, I walked up to a young lady in the congregation and began to say, "Well let's just imagine that this young lady had dreamed of buying a red car.
" I was looking her right in the eye when I saw a look of amazement.
I asked her what was wrong and she said, "You won't believe this, but I went out to look for a new car today and it was red!" I assure you that God had the attention of that congregation the rest of the conference.
I was going to make a point by asking this young lady what the color red would mean to her if she saw it in a dream.
It was one of her symbols.
Red had a special meaning to this young lady.
It was understanding this point that would aid in interpreting her dreams and visions.
As the year 2014 was approaching, the Lord began to speak to me of what He was going to do in the upcoming year.
The main emphasis would be a year of "reconnecting.
" This will be a year of reconnecting broken relationships, reconnecting with the spiritual wells of our lineage, and reconnecting with the revivals of past generations.
Let me share with you the first vision He gave me as the year 2014 was approaching.
"I saw Jesus standing with two great cables in each hand.
One in His right handand one in His left.
He was holding them out at arms length and then He beganto slowly raise His arms in a great arc.
As He did so the cables began to comecloser and closer together.
Finally, as His arms fully extended over the top of Hishead the two cables were joined together in an explosion of great sparks and heatthat resulted in a fusion.
I then saw a glory that emanated from the point where the two cables joined, making one giant circle.
This glory then began to slowly movearound the cable that now had become an unbroken circle.
As I watched, hundredswere drawn to this glory as it moved around the circle.
" (There was more to itthat we will discuss later.
) I had been praying for several weeks asking the Lord to reveal what He desired to do in the year 2014.
Within a very short time of this vision, two of my spiritual fathers whom I had not heard from in a very long time, reconnected with me through an amazing string of circumstances.
Both of these men are rather elderly and both carry a great anointing.
I knew from this vision that the Lord wanted to fuse our anointing together in such a way that a far greater power would be released because of the synergy that resulted from the fusion.
Please remember that I was not seeking what the Lord wanted to do in my life individually for the year 2014 but rather what He wanted to do in His Church.
The Lord desires to reconnect you with relationships that seem irreconcilable.
He wants you to learn how to claim your spiritual inheritance of your lineage and He wants us to re-dig the wells of the great reformers of past generations.
He desires to bring the truth, gifting, and anointing that they restored to the earth with our anointing and gifting.
This will result in a glory that will draw men and women to Christ in unimaginable numbers.
Yet let us understand that we will have to contend for every blessing the Lord intends for us.
Satan knows what the Lord is doing, and he will do everything within his power to hinder it from taking place, even as he used Herod to order the killing of all of the children in Bethlehem that were two years old and under.
This brings up an important principle in the interpretation of dreams and visions.
Many people will say, "I had a dream or vision.
" Many times when they say this, they are inferring that it will absolutely come to pass.
Almost all dreams and visions are "conditional.
" Just as most of the promises in the Word of God are conditional, so are most of our dreams and visions.
It is my experience that we must co-operate with the Lord in order to see the good dreams and visions come to pass, and we must stand with the Lord in order to stop tragedy or disaster from happening when we see them in a dream or a vision.
If the Lord shows me in a dream or a vision of what He wants to do, I begin to speak it out.
I declare it! I prophesy it.
I co-operate with the Lord.
In doing so it proves that I have not only received the message the Lord was bringing to me through the dream or vision but that I value it enough to speak it until it comes to pass.
Does not the Word say, "Without faith it is impossible to please the Lord"? Heb 11:6 6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
KJV Heb 11:1 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
KJV In one of my books, I state it like this: "When the Lord desires to do something in the earth, He must find someone who will agree with Him and speak and prophesy that purpose until it comes to pass.
" Yes, and He often reveals that will through a dream or a vision.
Dear one, those things which the Lord speaks to us through dreams and visions are incredibly precious and worth every ounce of dedication and persistence to first interpret them and next to co-operate with the Lord until we see them fulfilled.
I have now been teaching on dreams and visions for over twenty years and if there is one thing I see that is hindering many believers, it is that they do not have the passion, fire, or persistence to hold onto what the Lord desires to do in their lives.
Jer 29:13 13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
KJV Notice that the word says "with all of your heart" not with all of your head.
Dreams and visions speak first to the heart and then to the head.
That is why most people miss what is being said through the dream or vision.
We want it to agree with our thought life first.
That is the wrong order.
God speaks to the heart and says to the head - get in line with what I am speaking to the heart and then understanding will come to you.
John 7:17 17 If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
KJV Dear one, the Lord is going to do some wonderful things in 2014, but He needs to find those who will agree with His will and have the persistence, fire, and passion to speak it into the earth.
Will you ask the Lord to transform you into a "flame" that will rekindle the fires of the past and combine with the "fires" of today? The last thing this world needs are more lukewarm Christians.
In the articles that will follow I will share with you how the Lord will rekindle your fire and will sweep the world with end-time revival.
We read in the book of Job that God speaks not only once but twice, yet we fail to take enough interest in what He is saying to learn the language He speaks to us in.
What is that language? It is that of dreams and visions.
Read with me the following passage: Job 33:14-16 14 For God speaks once, yes twice, yet man perceiveth it not.
15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; 16 Then he opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction, If that passage wasn't enough to get our attention the Lord speaks to us in the New Testament from the book of Acts saying: Acts 2:17-18 17 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: 18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: KJV The reason I entitled this article "The Flame and the Sword" was the result of being able to interpret the language of my dreams and visions.
In order to know what our dreams are saying to us, we will have to begin to understand the symbols through which God desires to speak.
Thankfully, there are some symbols that are nearly universal.
However, in order to speak to each one of us in a more personal way our great God speaks to us through symbols that are often only meaningful and understandable to the one to whom He is speaking.
In other words, God speaks to us in a code that only we can interpret.
It is our job to grasp the symbolic language in our dreams.
God does this through the experiences of our life, from childhood throughout one's lifetime.
Indeed our teddy bears and bicycles become powerful symbols if we understand the symbolic language.
Pro 25:2 2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
KJV I was teaching once on how to understand the symbols the Lord uses when speaking to us.
As an illustration, I walked up to a young lady in the congregation and began to say, "Well let's just imagine that this young lady had dreamed of buying a red car.
" I was looking her right in the eye when I saw a look of amazement.
I asked her what was wrong and she said, "You won't believe this, but I went out to look for a new car today and it was red!" I assure you that God had the attention of that congregation the rest of the conference.
I was going to make a point by asking this young lady what the color red would mean to her if she saw it in a dream.
It was one of her symbols.
Red had a special meaning to this young lady.
It was understanding this point that would aid in interpreting her dreams and visions.
As the year 2014 was approaching, the Lord began to speak to me of what He was going to do in the upcoming year.
The main emphasis would be a year of "reconnecting.
" This will be a year of reconnecting broken relationships, reconnecting with the spiritual wells of our lineage, and reconnecting with the revivals of past generations.
Let me share with you the first vision He gave me as the year 2014 was approaching.
"I saw Jesus standing with two great cables in each hand.
One in His right handand one in His left.
He was holding them out at arms length and then He beganto slowly raise His arms in a great arc.
As He did so the cables began to comecloser and closer together.
Finally, as His arms fully extended over the top of Hishead the two cables were joined together in an explosion of great sparks and heatthat resulted in a fusion.
I then saw a glory that emanated from the point where the two cables joined, making one giant circle.
This glory then began to slowly movearound the cable that now had become an unbroken circle.
As I watched, hundredswere drawn to this glory as it moved around the circle.
" (There was more to itthat we will discuss later.
) I had been praying for several weeks asking the Lord to reveal what He desired to do in the year 2014.
Within a very short time of this vision, two of my spiritual fathers whom I had not heard from in a very long time, reconnected with me through an amazing string of circumstances.
Both of these men are rather elderly and both carry a great anointing.
I knew from this vision that the Lord wanted to fuse our anointing together in such a way that a far greater power would be released because of the synergy that resulted from the fusion.
Please remember that I was not seeking what the Lord wanted to do in my life individually for the year 2014 but rather what He wanted to do in His Church.
The Lord desires to reconnect you with relationships that seem irreconcilable.
He wants you to learn how to claim your spiritual inheritance of your lineage and He wants us to re-dig the wells of the great reformers of past generations.
He desires to bring the truth, gifting, and anointing that they restored to the earth with our anointing and gifting.
This will result in a glory that will draw men and women to Christ in unimaginable numbers.
Yet let us understand that we will have to contend for every blessing the Lord intends for us.
Satan knows what the Lord is doing, and he will do everything within his power to hinder it from taking place, even as he used Herod to order the killing of all of the children in Bethlehem that were two years old and under.
This brings up an important principle in the interpretation of dreams and visions.
Many people will say, "I had a dream or vision.
" Many times when they say this, they are inferring that it will absolutely come to pass.
Almost all dreams and visions are "conditional.
" Just as most of the promises in the Word of God are conditional, so are most of our dreams and visions.
It is my experience that we must co-operate with the Lord in order to see the good dreams and visions come to pass, and we must stand with the Lord in order to stop tragedy or disaster from happening when we see them in a dream or a vision.
If the Lord shows me in a dream or a vision of what He wants to do, I begin to speak it out.
I declare it! I prophesy it.
I co-operate with the Lord.
In doing so it proves that I have not only received the message the Lord was bringing to me through the dream or vision but that I value it enough to speak it until it comes to pass.
Does not the Word say, "Without faith it is impossible to please the Lord"? Heb 11:6 6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
KJV Heb 11:1 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
KJV In one of my books, I state it like this: "When the Lord desires to do something in the earth, He must find someone who will agree with Him and speak and prophesy that purpose until it comes to pass.
" Yes, and He often reveals that will through a dream or a vision.
Dear one, those things which the Lord speaks to us through dreams and visions are incredibly precious and worth every ounce of dedication and persistence to first interpret them and next to co-operate with the Lord until we see them fulfilled.
I have now been teaching on dreams and visions for over twenty years and if there is one thing I see that is hindering many believers, it is that they do not have the passion, fire, or persistence to hold onto what the Lord desires to do in their lives.
Jer 29:13 13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
KJV Notice that the word says "with all of your heart" not with all of your head.
Dreams and visions speak first to the heart and then to the head.
That is why most people miss what is being said through the dream or vision.
We want it to agree with our thought life first.
That is the wrong order.
God speaks to the heart and says to the head - get in line with what I am speaking to the heart and then understanding will come to you.
John 7:17 17 If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
KJV Dear one, the Lord is going to do some wonderful things in 2014, but He needs to find those who will agree with His will and have the persistence, fire, and passion to speak it into the earth.
Will you ask the Lord to transform you into a "flame" that will rekindle the fires of the past and combine with the "fires" of today? The last thing this world needs are more lukewarm Christians.
In the articles that will follow I will share with you how the Lord will rekindle your fire and will sweep the world with end-time revival.