Prophetic Dream Interpretation: 4 Critical Messages You’re Missing

Excerpted from The Divinity Code to Understanding Your Dreams and Visions.

In Romans 10:17, it says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

In this passage, the Greek word rhema has simply been translated “word.” Rhema actually means the “spoken word” and denotes “that which is spoken, what is uttered in speech or writing.”1 In classical Greek, it may be considered the term for a message. It is not the Greek word used to describe the entire Bible, for that, another Greek word, logos, is used. It is this spoken word or message that proceeds from the mouth of God (see Matt. 4:4). And it is this spoken word or message that is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word [rhema] of God” (Eph. 6:17).

As dreams and visions are two of the ways we receive this spoken word or message from God, their main purpose is to create, build, and strengthen faith. As the sword of the Spirit, they also divide between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and are used by the Holy Spirit to disclose the thoughts and intents of the heart. Further to this, in providing illumination on a personal level, they are consistently employed to confirm direction.

Building Faith

The story of Gideon in the Bible (see Judg. 6–8) provides a good example of how a dream can strengthen faith. In this passage of Scripture, the story is told of how God visited and encouraged a man who was a self-confessed “weakest of the weak” (see Judg. 6:15) to take on and defeat an innumerable Midianite army. If you are aware of the story, you will know that God progressively built faith in Gideon through a series of confirming events. The final tool used to make the fearful Gideon resolute in faith was a dream! It was not a dream Gideon had, but a dream that one of the enemy soldiers had and retold in Gideon’s hearing. The Scriptures describe the final scene before Gideon leads his carefully selected army against Israel’s opponents,

And when Gideon had come, there was a man telling a dream to his companion. He said, “I have had a dream: To my surprise, a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian; it came to a tent and struck it so that it fell and overturned, and the tent collapsed.” Then his companion answered and said, “This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel! Into his hand God has delivered Midian and the whole camp” (Judges 7:13-14).

The sudden barley loaf tumbling into the camp of Midian is a classic ex- ample of how metaphors are used in dreams today. Compared to wheat, barley is an inferior grain; its head contains fewer grains, it is more susceptible to loss through windstorms, and it is not as hard. The dream begins with the words, “To my surprise a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp . . .” (Judg. 7:13).

This describes for us not only the element of surprise employed by Gideon— He gets his men to conceal lamps in earthen vessels, which when broken and accompanied with the blast of trumpets supply the shock tactics needed to rout the enemy—but also provides a cleverly chosen image of Gideon and his unified and comparatively inferior entourage of followers (see Judg. 6:16). Gideon was encouraged, or rather had his faith strengthened, through hearing a message from God given through a dream shared between two enemy soldiers.

Warning and Guidance

One of my friends came to me recently with the following dream for interpretation. He said,

I saw two cars heading straight toward each other like they were going to have a head-on crash. The two drivers were young and seemed to be playing chicken with each other. I saw the two cars crash, and I also saw and recognized the driver that got hurt.

This dream was a warning from God. In the circumstance in which it was given, it means that two departments (vehicles) of the ministry in which the dreamer is involved will come to a place where there will be one department set against the other. Due to spiritual immaturity, neither will be willing to yield to the other, and the dream showed which department will be hurt. The Scripture that instantly came to mind was Genesis 13:7-9. Therefore, meekness and trust in God was called for at that time. (An explanation of the metaphors used to interpret this dream is found in the dream and vision sample section of my book, The Divinity Code to Understanding Your Dreams & Visions.)

God gave this dream so that an impending tragedy could be averted. It is a good thing that the leadership of this ministry was open to this word from God. And I am relieved to say that, just as the “cars” were sizing each other up, God, through this dream, disarmed the situation.

Similarly, there are many accounts within Scripture where dreams were God’s method of warning their recipients. After the wise men had found Jesus as a young child, God warned them about Herod’s evil intensions. The Bible says, “Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way” (Matt. 2:12).

And again in the next verse, Joseph, Mary’s husband, was warned and given a similar message to move location because Herod saw Christ as a threat and wanted to destroy Him. The Scripture states,

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him” (Matthew 2:13).

So urgent was this warning that Joseph responded straight away. As is recorded, “When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt” (Matt. 2:14).

After a brief stay in Egypt, God brought Joseph and his little family back into Israel through additional guidance given in a dream (see Matt. 2:19-20). The story doesn’t end there, as he is further warned in another dream (see Matt. 2:22). That is four dreams, all recorded in Matthew 2, to protect the coming Promise of God.

I have deliberately referred to the young Child as the Promise of God, firstly because that’s how our promises may appear in a dream (as babies) and also to alert us to the fact that the devil is still playing the same game today. Whenever God births His promises, the devil will try and abort them. The Book of Revelation recounts the spiritual perspective of that threat on the young child Jesus with the following words,

Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born (Revelation 12:1-4).

This heavenly insight provides us with a principle as true today as it was 2000 years ago. If we are about to do something new in God, we need to be open to receive guidance from the Holy Spirit through dreams, because for every promise birthed, there is a scheme of the enemy to abort it! This threat is very real, as the following dream portrays:

I was with a young couple in a fern-house/tent type structure outside their home. The roof of the fern house caught on fire as the woman brought a flame into it. We tried to put it out, not knowing till later that the fire had spread to the house and killed their young child in the upstairs bedroom.

In this dream, I believe God is warning that gossip could destroy the new min- istry venture being embarked on. The woman possibly represents the church or its leadership (or the dreamer’s wife) as the instigators who try to stop what God is birthing. Note also that the baby is upstairs; this says that what is being birthed is from God. (An explanation of the metaphors used to interpret this dream is found in the dream and vision sample section of my book, The Divinity Code to Understanding Your Dreams & Visions.)

The Prophetic

Nothing strengthens faith like a prophetic word. For this reason, the word of God, through dreams, is often loaded with promises for the future. Operating in this way, a dream brings Heaven to earth in an instant and opens new frontiers and opportunities not thought of by the dreamer. Through prophetic dreams, God is able to encourage, prepare, marshal, and direct His troops for the expansion of the Kingdom. It is the same today as it was in the dream revealed to Gideon (see Judg. 7:13-14), in the promise to Jacob (see Gen. 28:12-15), and in the dreams of Pharaoh (see Gen. 41:1-7).

Through a prophetic dream, God may open His ministers to be led more by the Spirit, as the following dream shows,

I saw a river running diagonally through what was currently the church congregation’s sitting area. It ran between the pulpit and the congregation. At the back of the church were huge stands—like in a football stadium. When I awoke, I was concerned because I thought that the river separated the speaker from the audience.

I believe the river in this dream represents the flow of the Holy Spirit. The fact that the river flowed in front of the speaker is a good thing as it means that the preacher is putting the Spirit before himself. When this is done, God will draw crowds of people—the stands. The concern about the river in front of the speaker indicates that moving in the Spirit is not something the speaker is comfortable with at this stage and says that God is challenging the dreamer in this area. (An explanation of the metaphors used to interpret this dream is found in the dream and vision sample section of my book, The Divinity Code to Understanding Your Dreams & Visions.)

Through a prophetic promise given in a dream, God may also remind those with the call of God on their lives that the gifts and callings of God are without repentance (see Rom. 11:29). This is what He does in this example, forwarded by a male friend,

I was with a friend who I went to Bible College with some years earlier. He and I were in the ministry together. We were at post-boxes collecting our mail. I opened my box, and it was literally jammed-packed with letters. There were so many letters that it took me some time to “jimmy” a couple of envelopes free before the rest could be emptied out of the box.

The person who had this dream was no longer in a recognized ministry position. This dream indicates that he will once again take up a ministry position, as seen by the fact that he is with someone with ministry status. The many envelopes indicate invitations to speak and also seems to indicate that his ministry will be itinerant. God is encouraging and directing him into an itinerant ministry with this prophetic-futuristic dream. (An explanation of the metaphors used to interpret this dream is found in the dream and vision sample section of my book, The Divinity Code to Understanding Your Dreams & Visions.)

Disclosure

Dreams may foretell things that are going to happen tomorrow, or they may foretell something that is going to happen 20 years from now. It is not always possible to clearly define the timeline in which God is operating. For this reason, unlike Joseph (see Gen. 37:5-7), it is wise not to share everything revealed with everyone. It is better to be like Mary, who “. . . kept all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

When Israel was about to go out to battle, God told them that they were to separate from their ranks those who were fearful (see Deut. 20:8). These were those without faith for the situation. God had them remove the spirit of fear because it has an incredible ability to be transferred. In the same way, Jesus removed the doubters when He was about to resurrect Jairus’ daughter from the dead (see Matt. 9:18-26). Similarly, it is wise to be very selective about to whom you reveal what God is promising you. Not everyone knows or appreciates the call of God upon your life, and if you share or surround yourself with people who are not able to see you in the Spirit (see 2 Cor. 5:16), their doubt may undermine your faith and begin a decay of the promise within you.