Acts 2:17; And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and you daughters shall prophesy, your young me shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

    Here, Peter is preaching to the Jews immediately after the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost. It is still Pentecost, and the disciples are preaching in the boldness of the Holy Spirit. Because they are preaching to Jews, Peter quotes a passage out of the Old Testament book of Joel. To the disciples, they were in the last days. What we know as the 'church age' was beginning right then, so it really was the beginning of the last days. The fact that the last days have gone on for nearly two thousand years is not important. They were looking for it then, but it pleased the Lord to wait till the end. That may seem odd, but remember that from the first prophecy of Jesus until His birth was four thousand years. God does not see time as we do.

    BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!

    I want to look at three words: prophesy, visions and dreams. 

    "Prophesy" is the Greek word "propheteusousin" which means to 'divinely speak.' Basically, to preach and to share the Gospel. "Vision" is the Greek word "horaseis" and means to 'gaze forward.' To look to the future. Then, the Greek word for "dream" is "enyphiasthesontai" (aren't you glad we speak English?) which means 'to see visions in your sleep.' I find all this fascinating and most people do not, I know. However, I just want to dwell on one little piece here, and that is DREAMS.

    I love to dream. I had a bad dream about a year ago, but I also had a bad infection, so that was probably the cause. Other than that, except for a morphine generated hallucination, I cannot tell you the last bad dream I have had. Some of them are mundane, like mowing the yard, but most are just fun. Revisiting old faces and old locations, walking into new places, doing things I used to do. I very, very seldom have a person in my dreams I haven't known in real life. For me, mostly, dreams are a way for the sub-conscious to unwind. In school we had to study dreams in psychology. We found that there were elements in dreams that are universal across the globe. Being able to fly, being in water, being in a fire, etc. A person in Bejing who has the element of flying like a bird in the dream is having the same thought with the same meaning as someone in Dallas who is flying. Fears, desires and uncertainties are common to every human. There are those who believe every dream has a deep, deep meaning. Many do, but I also think many dreams are just the sleeping brain having a good time.

    But then there are the dreams that seem to tell us something. Back in 2005 a young lady in our church was going to get married. Her mother, Denise, was my secretary. The daughter was Jennifer. One day a couple of months before the wedding, Denise came in to the office with a troubled look on her face. I asked her what was wrong and she said she didn't really know. She had a weird dream in which her family was sitting on the front pew of the church. Everyone was dressed up, so she assumed it was the wedding. Frank, her husband, wasn't there, but he would have been with their daughter. But then she noticed that Jennifer was sitting on the pew, as well, and everyone was wearing dark clothes. She was really bothered by it, but I told her that she was so worked up about the wedding that it was really starting to affect her. Then, a month later, Frank had a heart attack. Frank died and the funeral was in the church. I was sitting up in the pulpit area waiting to start and I looked down at Denise and her family. It struck me then that it looked like the description of the dream. Denise was looking at her family and her head swung around and looked at me. She was shocked. We both realized at the same moment that this was what she had seen in her dream.

    I have had a few dreams such as this myself, but very rarely. They have, however, been there. Does God use dreams to communicate with us? If He chooses. That is up to Him. Some people take this too far. A year or so ago I had a dream with someone I had not seen in a long time, and it was just really nice to see her. She was on my mind so I called her to tell her that she had been in a dream and it made me think of some old days. All I got out was that she had been in a dream and she said, "Oh my gosh, what's going to happen?" Later in the day she was talking to her daughter and told her I had called and the daughter said, "Geez, mom! What's going to happen?!?" A few months back I dreamed my father, mother, sisters and myself were sitting down to eat at the old farmhouse. The parents were young, the sisters were no more than junior high, but I was in my sixties. Since my parents have passed away and my sisters are well past junior high and the farm house has been gone a very long while, I accept it as a blessing from the Lord at seeing the family before everything fell apart.

    All this about dreams is because I had......a dream! Tuesday night I dreamed we were in a large barn, maybe a pole barn structure. All the folks from the church were there and they were all of their present age. A variety of chairs were set up and we were getting ready to have a regular service. But it was a barn and so people had coffee and donuts and such and there was a lot of talking and laughing. My feeling was something had happened to our building and we were meeting in this barn. Everyone was relaxed, so whatever had happened was well behind us. I felt we would soon have a new building. I looked around and saw the different faces and felt contentment.....Then my alarm went off. I rarely sleep until they alarm, but I did that morning. 

    So, what does the dream mean? I don't think it meant anything. It was just so good to see everyone happy and expectant and the coffee was really, really good. 

    But if something does happen and we start meeting in a barn, you folks need to give me a raise!                                                        

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