Jentezen Franklin - Don't Forget His Dream - Part 1
Lift your hands and sing. Hallelujah. Give the Lord a mighty praise if you believe it. I believe that. Open your Bibles with me this morning, to the book of Genesis 42... "Now Joseph was governor over the land. And it was he who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brothers came and bowed down before him with their faces to the earth. Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he acted as a stranger to them, and spoke roughly to them. Then he said to them, 'Where did you come from?' And they said, 'From the land of Canaan to buy food.' So, Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him, and noticed then".
Everybody say, "Then". When he saw 'em, when he saw the brothers that had done him so wrong and saw the brothers that he had not seen in 20 plus years, "He remembered the dreams that he had dreamed about them". What was the dream? If you read the book of Genesis in 37, 38, he dreamed of a harvest, and he saw those brothers bowing down in that dream. But he saw a harvest bowing down, the harvest bent over representing, Jesus said, "The harvest is ripe, souls, the lost". He remembered the dream when he saw his brothers. I want to talk to you for a few moments. And I'm really gon' preach to dreamers, and you'll say, "I don't have one". Well, you're in the right place today.
Daniel 2, there's a strange dream that God gave Nebuchadnezzar, Babylonian king. And in the dream, it was so dynamic that it would shape the entire story of him in history. He saw a statue in a dream that had a gold head, noticed the deterioration of human existence, kingdoms. It starts with gold, it has silver, brass, iron, and then ending with clay feet. I believe, I believe prophetically and all of those different materials represented different kingdoms that have come and gone in human existence. I believe we're now at the clay feet. Everything could collapse.
And in the dream, Nebuchadnezzar saw a stone, a simple stone start rolling down the hill and hit that statue that was so powerful of human ingenuity, and power, and glories, and kingdoms of kings and men. And that rock, that stone hit the feet, the clay feet and it collapsed and suddenly the King of kings and the Lord of lords said, "I brought a new kingdom to take over the world". But here's the amazing thing about this dream, he forgot it when he woke up. You would think something that important, something that is historic and world-shaking, but he could not recall it. He forgot it and he said, "The thing," that's what he called it in Daniel 2, he said, "The thing has left me".
So, he calls his magicians, and he calls his soothsayers, and his fortune tellers, and his witches, and he calls them in, and he says, "Tell me the dream and tell me the interpretation. I cannot bring it up. I can't remember it. I've forgotten the dream". And he said, "If you don't do it, I'm gonna kill you". I believe that a lot of people have forgotten the dream. And God needs to give a restoration of the dream to every person in this room. You see, we don't just sing to sing, we don't just come to church, to come to church, we don't just do what we do to do it.
The only reason that we're not in Heaven today, the only reason the rapture has not taken place yet, is because God is still trying to get somebody else saved. He doesn't want them to be left. He doesn't want them to go to hell. In the story of Joseph, the Bible said that, "Jacob, Joseph's father, loved him more than his other sons and made him a coat of favor, a coat of many colors that represented his favor on his son. And it upset the other brothers because his favor was on that boy in the form of that coat of many colors". It's the favor of God upon His children, that I believe upsets hell as much as anything. And it's obvious to me, we don't take any credit, we're careful to give God the glory. But I just want to proclaim that God's favor is upon this church.
That God's favor is upon this place. That God's favor is upon His people, and upon His families that are represented under the sound of my voice at all of our campuses. We have a special place in the sight of God just like Joseph did. I don't know why, but we must acknowledge, I believe in giving God the glory and being humble. But also, the older I get the bolder I get. I don't have time to waste anymore, and I feel like saying, when the favor of God is on you, you need to recognize the favor of God is on you. Not for your glory, not for your fame, not for your name, but for his name and His Kingdom that will never end.
Turn to somebody and say, "The favor of the Father is here". He was separated from his brothers by a coat of many colors and, by the way, the more that God puts His favor on you, the more you stand out. That's why it was a coat, it was a loud coat, a coat of many colors, and you try to conceal it, and you try to be cool about it. But when God really wraps favor on you, it becomes loud in your life and it's hard and at some point, you get tired of trying to apologize for all the goodness and blessings of God. You don't know what somebody went through. You don't know what they did. You don't know how long they tithed, and their momma and daddy tithed, and their great granddaddy tithed.
Sometimes blessings are just catching up with us. That's why even if I don't get the harvest off everything that I've sown, I know my children will, my grandchildren will 'cause God doesn't forget one thing you do for His name's sake. Oh, I need somebody to go on and shout, Hallelujah. All things are possible. The Bible said his brothers hated him because the gift of his father was upon him. But there's something that Satan hates more than talented people, and gifted people, and blessed people, and people who are so favored of God that people notice how blessed.
There's something greater than that and something hell hates more than the people of God being favored. I know I can't get away from it, blessings are chasing you. You can't run fast enough. You can't run hard enough to get away from the prayers of your granny that's been dead, and people who prayed. Your godly heritage is gonna overtake you. Deuteronomy said, "All these blessings will overtake you". And you gon' wonder, "Why is this happening? And how did this happen? And what happened"? It's just all these blessings shall form a tidal wave and they're gonna fall on one generation and we are that generation. And you ought to get happy and you ought to get up with a new outlook, that says, "This is the day the Lord has made. And I have not forgotten the dream, the dream is God will bless and use me to win souls for the Kingdom of God".
But notice, they hated him yet the more, when they saw him, they said, "Behold the dreamer comes". It bothered them that he had the favor, but it bothered them more and the scripture said in one place, that they hated him the more because he had the dream. They didn't like that he had the gift of favor. But they really didn't like... And this is a sign of what Satan fears and what irritates and breaks his back, is when people not only have the favor of God, say, "I've got it". But when people have a dream from God and the favor of God, they are a threat to Satan's Kingdom.
God's about to put His Pentecostal power on parade. God's about to put His church on parade. God's about to put His pride on parade, and say, "What do you mean stay out of entertainment? What do you mean stay out of politics? What do you mean stay out of this and stay out of that? Keep your little thing in the church building". When God's favor and God's dream comes on us, it's to save a nation. That's what Joseph had. He had a dream to save a dying nation. Famine was there, famine was coming and the only thing that could save it was a man who had the favor of God, and had a dream from God.
When David arrived to fight the giant Goliath, the Bible says they were setting the battle in array for 40 days in a row. The Bible says they were putting their fighting clothes on. Every morning they got up, put their fighting clothes on, got their sword, got their shield, got all the armor on, got their helmets on, everybody suited up, blessed, fed, taken care of. Goliath is screaming for a fight, the Philistines are mocking them, and they get dressed up all ready for battle and look at each other. Oh, y'all don't want me to preach today. It reminds me of a lot of Christians who say, "We aim to do this. We aim one day to do that, we aim when we... One of these days I'mma really do something".
Quit aiming, and fire. I mean, look at the condition of our nation. If we gon' ever do anything, we need to quit aiming and we need to fire. We need to stand up. We need to pray. We need revival. We need a dream for revival in America again. We need a dream that our schools could explode with the Holy Ghost revival. We need to dream. We need to believe that where sin abounds great does much more abound. Nothing upsets the devil and assaults his kingdom more than when his people who know his name and are covered in his blood begin to dream. Folks who dare to dream of the harvest are a threat to Satan. I'm telling you, there's so much more that God has for us, but we quit dreaming. We get beat up by life, we go through stuff.
But what I've learned is, it's not my dream to sustain, God is the sustainer of the dream. And when it looks like the dream is dead and Satan's waving a bloody coat saying, "It's dead. It's over". God says, "I have sustained the dream. Even when you don't see it, I'm working. Even when you can't see it, I'm moving, and don't you ever think I'll let my dream die". Many people have compromised their dreams. The dream that God had for your life. Don't compromise your dream. I'll tell you what happens when somebody really gets filled with the Holy Spirit. What happens there will be a witness. The Bible said, "The Holy Ghost will come up on you and you'll be a witness". Or you'll witness and you'll worship.
The Bible said, "They spake with tongues". You'll get a prayer language and a worship language. It's powerful. But when you really get full of the Holy Ghost, Joel 2 said, "And I'll pour out my spirit in the last days and the son and the daughters, the old men will dream dreams, and the young men will see visions". And if you don't have a dream, it's because you don't have much of the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit wants to give you the dream for His Kingdom and these days that we're living in. And the more you get of the Holy Spirit the more of a dream that He will give you.
But what I've learned is the enemy always offers me a compromise on my dream. If God said you gonna go to 1,000, don't compromise at 500. If God said 10,000, don't stop at 5,000. If God said a million businessman, don't stop at 500,000. If God said five hundred million, don't stop at a hundred million. Don't compromise your dream. Notice that Joseph's brothers hated him for the dream, and they delayed the dream. They denied the dream for a season. They held up the dream, but they could not kill the dream. There are forces that have tried to conspire and detain, and delay and captivate your dream, but the Lord sent me to tell you the dream is still alive, they cannot kill.
And if you Got a dream to see your family saved, it may be hindered, it may look like nothing, but I'm telling you, the dream is sustained by God. Don't stop praying it. At first when you first get saved, filled with the Holy Spirit. "Oh, I'mma get my whole family in here". And because it hasn't happened just like you thought it would you stop praying. Well, I guess if I just get to Heaven, I'm just tryna hold on myself. Don't compromise your dream.
Do you remember what happened? They fabricated the false evidence. They took the coat of many colors, threw Joseph in the pit, beat him up, took the coat, dipped it in the blood of a goat. And took it back to their old father Jacob and they didn't say a lie, they just let him look at the false evidence and come up with a conclusion that was not at all true. They said, "Look at this. Look at the blood on this coat. Look how it's ripped to pieces. Look, do you think he's dead". "Yeah, I think he's dead". "Do you think..." They just suggested it. That's what the enemy does to us. He waves the bloody coat over the dream. He waves it over and over and over.
I cannot tell you the times that he did that to me. And he did that to us in this church, he waved it and said, "This is it. This is it. It's over. Just quit. Just give up". But that's when the real test for the dream is going on. I guess what I'm preaching is when you understand that Jacob, for 20 years, the Bible said he mourned every day for his son. He would take that bloody coat and mourn every day. He said these words, "I will go to my grave mourning for my son".
Not knowing that while he was crying, Joseph was reigning as governor in second in charge of the most powerful nation in the world. Stop having funerals for dreams that are not dead. God was sustaining Joseph, while Jacob was crying. God will sustain the dream. Your dream is not dead. Your mission is not dead. Your blessing is not dead. Your ministry is not dead. It's not dead. Don't listen to the waving and look at the waving of the bloody coat and start compromising your dream.