The Doors of Heaven and Hell

BySkip Moen, Ph.D.

Now it happened at the end of two full years that Pharaoh had a dream Genesis 41:1 NASB

Dream – Pharaoh’s dream was a nightmare. He saw his country ravished by famine and he didn’t know what to do to stop it. The Hebrew language has only one word for dream. It is halam. While most dreams are without spiritual significance, there are some dreams that God uses to speak to men. In some cases, these kinds of dreams require another person to explain their meaning. This is how Joseph was introduced to Pharaoh.

Modern psychotherapy has a lot of theories about dreams, most of them without any religious context. But if we believe that God is the sovereign Lord of the universe, then our dreams are also under His authority. That certainly does not mean that every dream is a revelation from God. But our dreams often seem to be places where spiritual struggles take place. They occur when our active minds are relaxed. And with the mind at rest, many things that we would guard against while awake seem to attack us in sleep.

Sometimes dreams open doors that we have closed. There is a computer language saying “garbage in, garbage out.” This little phrase describes some dreams. When we dream about things that we would never allow as part of our waking behavior, we can usually trace that experience back to some inadvertent exposure to the world’s moral garbage or to some deliberate immoral condition that we allowed at some time in the past. Those dreams are particularly disturbing. They often put us in dream-state circumstances that overturn our desires for holiness. And because they are dreams, we seem powerless to resist the actions that occur. We wake up feeling like “garbage.” All of this makes two things very clear:

  1. My mind collects whatever it is exposed to. So, I need to be a lot more selective about what I pass in front of my mind.       There is freedom in turning away from the moral garbage. I can’t dream about things that were never part of my collection.
  2. I need God to wash my thoughts and my heart. He is still the Lord of my life and that means He is the Lord of my dreams.       I may not be able to resist the doors that open in the middle of the night, but God can. If God used dreams in the past to reveal His plans to men, He can wash my dreams today to reveal His glory.

Tonight just might be the time when your dreams move from hell to heaven. Tonight might be the time when what you collect today finds a way to reveal His glory. So gather carefully.

Topical Index: dream, halam, Genesis 41:1

 

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Brian

Great post. Thanks

Dan Kraemer

Thanks Skip for exposing my mind to something powerful and worthy everyday. It’s so easy to waste vast amounts of time on the superficially entertaining and profane that turns one’s mind to mush. Your thoughts, and that of your bloggers, are my best exercise of the day. Keep up the work outs.

Scott Cole

I love this post, Skip. Thanks for your faithfulness. Made me think of Romans 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” I want my mind to be renewed by the washing of the water of the Word.

I am not much of a dreamer when I sleep (or maybe I am and never remember), but the few impactful dreams I’ve had were warnings from the Lord about the spiritual impact of something I was knowingly or unknowingly participating in. I have also found that the enemy uses the soil of my mind to plant thoughts that, if cultivated, bear fruit from another kingdom.

carl roberts

Straight From the Heart

~ May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer~ (Psalm 19.14)

Where do our words (and dreams) originate? Friend, the words of our mouth find their origin in the meditations of our hearts! What’s down in the well is goin’ to come up in the bucket!

Our Savior said: ( we do pay attention to His words- right?) ~ A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart ~ (Luke 6.45)

** For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of !!!** (Our words expose or “reveal” us!)

May I? (insert “Selah” here..) Stop. -And think (meditate) on this.

What is “the heart” full of? The heart of the matter IS a matter of the heart!
Friend, is “the well” polluted? or pure? Should we not be quick to pray?

~ Create in me a clean heart, O LORD, and renew a right (http://biblehub.com/hebrew/3559.htm) spirit within me ~ (Psalm 51.10)

How horrible it would be to have this said of us: “your heart is not right before God!” (Acts 8.21)

But praise God!

There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains!!

A Maskil of David. ~ Blessed (how happy) is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered ~ (Psalm 32.1)

Again, our Savior has said: ~ Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you ~ (Matthew 7.7)
If I were to ask for His forgiveness, – would He forgive?
If I were to seek His forgiveness, – would He forgive?
If I were to earnestly, fervently pursue a right-relationship with Him? Would He be gracious to me?

What has He promised to “whosoever will?” Yes. “Whosoever will” may come! Friend, “whosoever will” includes any man!

And when our LORD said, “Whosoever,” -He included me!!

~ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things ~ (Philippians 4.8)