Today, we continue our message series called “Keep Your Dream Alive.” In this series, we are studying the life of Joseph, found in the book of Genesis. Our objective is to learn principles from how God worked through Joseph’s amazing life. God’s Word is not just a bunch of entertaining stories from long ago. God’s Word was written to instruct us and teach us how to live for God in the 21st century.
My message today is called “God-Given Dreams.” Joseph is often referred to as the dreamer, as if he came up with his own dreams. However, as we’ll see today, Joseph’s dreams were God-given dreams. God communicated with Joseph concerning his future through dreams. When you look back through the book of Genesis, you see God communicating with people in a number of ways. God communicated with Abraham through a vision. God appeared to Abraham’s son, Isaac and spoke to him. God appeared to Isaac’s son Jacob in a dream that we’re going to look at today. Finally, we’ll always be examining the God-given dreams of Joseph.
What about today? How does God communicate with people now or does He? There is a widespread teaching today that God no longer communicates with people supernaturally. The age of miracles, dreams, spiritual gifts and visions is past. We can read about it in the Bible, it happened back then, but God no longer does supernatural things, they say. This teaching, called cessationism, says that all supernatural miracles ceased at the end of the apostolic time and we no longer need God’s supernatural power because we have the Bible. The devil can still do supernatural things, but God doesn’t. The problem with the doctrine of cessationism is that it isn’t biblical, there is not a shred of biblical evidence for it.
The Bible was written to show us what God is like and how he interacts with people. We see God working supernaturally from Genesis to Revelation. The Bible prophesies that God’s supernatural work will continue until Jesus returns.
Acts 2:17 (NIV) In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
In the New Testament, the last days is the time from the resurrection of Jesus until He returns again. We are living in the last days. During that time period, God will reveal knowledge supernaturally, through prophesy, visions and dreams. So, God still communicates with today with people in a variety of ways, including distinctly supernatural ways. We’ll talk more about the ways He communicates during this message. Everything that you think God has communicated with you must be tested against God’s Word, for God will never contradict His Word. God wants to communicate with you His plans, His dream or dreams for your life.