Rabbi Schneider - Practical Steps To Understand Your Dreams
You'll be amazed Beloved, this entire series is available on our website or through the 800-number at the end of the broadcast. There's much rich deep teaching here. I'm currently in this series, talking about how we can walk closer with God through paying attention to the dreams that the Father gives us as we're sleeping at night. I've already laid a total scriptural foundation for this in my earlier broadcast, I'm not gonna review all the examples that I've reviewed beloved, in the last several weeks. I simply want to say this now, because I've laid the foundation already: when you have a dream from the Lord at night, expect the same one that gave you the dream, the Lord himself, to give you the interpretation of the dream. Don't rely on other people to tell you what the dream means, because I can tell you, if you do, you'll be confused.
I can't tell you how many times I've shared a dream that I've had and how many times others have come to me and told me, that's not what your dream means. Now there have been times when there's been someone that's come and said you know what? I think the dream also might mean this, and it's been helpful, and it's been a blessing. But I just wanna warn you that there'll be a plethora, a plethora, whatever the word is, of people that will come trying to tell you what your dreams mean. Beloved, don't rely on other people. Rely on the Lord. He will give you the interpretation.
I wanna give an example of this concept now from the Book of Daniel chapter number 2. I'm reading verse number 25 through 30. Hear the word beloved, of God Daniel chapter 2, verses number 25 through 30. Here's what we read: Then Arioch hurriedly brought Daniel into the king's presence and spoke to him as follows. I have found a man from among the exiles from Judah, who can make the interpretation known to the king. The king had a dream, so he's looking for someone that can interpret the king's dream. The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Are you able to make known to me the dream, which I have seen, and its interpretation? Daniel answered before the king and said, as for the mystery about which the king is inquired; neither wise men, conjurers, magicians, nor diviners are able to declare unto the king. However, get that now; however, Daniel is giving all the credit to the Lord. However, there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days.
So Daniel now is sharing with Nebuchadnezzar that this dream that he's had is because the God of heaven is showing him what's gonna happen in the future. Now I know that it sounds a little bit contradictory, because I'm saying don't rely on others for your interpretations, and in this particular incidence, Nebuchadnezzar is relying on someone else, he's relying on Daniel. But what I'm gonna have you concentrate on is the last thing that Daniel says. So we're gonna continue on. Once again, Daniel says, verse number 28: However, there's a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days. This was your dream and the visions in your mind while in your bed. As for you O king, while in your bed, your thoughts turned to what would take place in the future. And he reveals mysteries as made known to you what will take place.
Now let me ask you this: if God was revealing mysteries, if he was revealing to this King Nebuchadnezzar what was gonna happen in the future, if he was giving direction to this king about preparing for the future, why wouldn't he do that for you? Why wouldn't he do that for you oh son and daughter of God, highly favored one? He certainly will. This is what Acts chapter 2 tells you, that his Spirit's been poured out upon you now, so expect dreams at night. Continuing on: now look what Daniel says in verse 30, this is where I really wanted to get to, this is the point that I'm making, verse 30: But as for me, Daniel says, this mystery was not been revealed to me for any wisdom residing in me. Daniel says this; this mystery hasn't been revealed to me, because I have the ability to interpret dreams. No, look what he says: But as for me, this mystery has not been revealed to me for any wisdom residing in me, more than in any other living man. But for the purpose of making the interpretation known to the king, and that you may understand the thoughts of your mind.
So what was Daniel saying? Daniel was saying I don't have the ability to interpret dreams, only God has the ability to interpret dreams. He was giving it to you; the king didn't know God. Nebuchadnezzar wasn't someone that was walking intimately with God like Daniel was. Where did Daniel get interpretation from beloved? The one that was walking close to God; where did he get the interpretation from? He got it from God. And when Daniel sought to interpret a dream, how did he do it, did he go around and get a lot of counselors together? No, he looked to God. And I wanna encourage you, if God gave you the dream, he can also beloved, give you the interpretation. And if you begin to look to everybody else to interpret your dream, you'll certainly beloved, go astray and be deceived. I know that in my own life, because how many times people have come and told me what my dreams have meant, and sometimes they've been exactly opposite of what the dream actually meant.
And so we're gonna talk now about instances of dreams coming to us and how we should then react when a dream does come. When you have a dream beloved, I wanna encourage you first of all, every morning to wake up and ask yourself, did I dream anything last night? That's the first step in learning how to better receive from your dreams. The first step is expect God to speak to you in your sleep, and don't give up if he doesn't speak in a day, or a week or a month. He may only speak like once every three, two years or so, I don't know what the number is, but this is not something that's gonna happen every night. Remember I said most dreams are from our own psyche, some are from the enemy, but some are from God. We need to be waiting and, and not lose heart, and give up, but expectant.
The first thing you do, you wake up every morning, you ask yourself: did I have any dreams last night. And I encourage you, those of you that are starting in this, those of you that feel that you've never had a dream from the Lord, I encourage you strongly, if you're serious about this, if you really wanna hear from the Lord; get a spiral notebook just like this, just a simple spiral notebook, and make it your dream journal. And every morning, the first thing beloved, when you get out of bed, sit down in a chair or on your couch, someplace close to your bedroom before doing anything else, and ask yourself did I dream anything last night. Don't just wake up and be in a hurry to run and start the day. If you wanna receive the most from your dreams, don't spark the memory of them from your mind by immediately getting up and running to the affairs of the day. But stay in the state of just waking up, sit down with your dream journal and a pen, and ask yourself did I dream anything last night.
No matter how kooky it was, no matter how spooky it was, no matter how far fetched it was, no matter how much it seems like it was chaos and it didn't mean anything, begin to write it all down. You'll be amazed to find that sometimes when you think a dream means nothing, why should I even bother writing it down; how it's actually beloved, a dream from the Lord. I remember years ago when I first started shepherding Adat Adonai Messianic Congregation, and we were needing to purchase a facility. And we were very small, and we were meeting in this building and the sanctuary was only about like 30 x 30 feet, it was so small. And, but it was on a piece of property, this building that we were meeting in was on a piece of property that was a couple acres, and I thought well maybe you know, we should by this facility, cause we could build here.
Now this facility was located not in a commercial area, it was not located in an area that was visible to traffic. It was located on a residential street, and the houses were not well maintained, but it was really the only thing that we could afford. And so I said you know, we're just gonna go ahead and buy this building. We had been meeting in it at no cost, and then the people that were letting us use it said, listen you either buy it or we're gonna put it on the market and sell it to somebody else. So we figured you know, we didn't see anything else that was available, we looked around, and we prayed about it, and there wasn't much we could afford, so we said we'll just go ahead and buy this building, and hopefully in the future we'll be able to build.
So I wrote a contract on the building. Not long after I wrote a contract on the building, I had this dream, and in the dream I saw this person, and they were opening up a health food store. And I saw this individual beloved, in my dream opening up the health food store. They were on the second story, the second floor of this building, and this building that they were opening up the health food store in was the only commercial building on a residential street, and the, the street that the building in was kind of dilapidated, there was no traffic. And as I observed in the dream, this person opening up this health food store on the second floor of this commercial building in this dilapidated street, and by the way, there were not even any other businesses on the second floor, only this health food store that was about to open.
As I was observing this in my dream, I knew in my spirit that this person was gonna fail in business, because they were opening up this health food store in the wrong location. You've heard it said in real estate, when it comes to business: location, location, location. I knew the person was gonna fail, it was a bad move; it was the wrong place to open a health food store. So the next morning when I woke up, I got out my dream journal, I said ah it doesn't, dream doesn't mean anything you know. I didn't even wanna write it down, I felt lazy, I said what do I know about health food stores. That dream means nothing, but because I was in the discipline of writing down my dream; I forced myself to write it down.
And as I was writing it down, all of a sudden, Eureka, I thought you know what? You're in the health business, and then I realized that this building that I had just written a contract on was in exactly the same type of symbolic predicament that this building was in where the guy was opening up the health food store in the dream. Because the building that I had just written a contract on was on a residential street, the street was rundown, there was no other business on the street, and the Lord was revealing to me, don't buy this building, this is the wrong place for you to be, you know launching this ministry from. If you do, you're gonna fail just like I should you this man was gonna fail by opening up the health food store, which was symbolic of your ministry.
And beloved, it was through that dream that I was able to be released eventually of the contract, and got into a much, much better situation. But if I would not have forced myself to have the discipline to be writing down my dreams, even when I felt it didn't mean anything beloved, I would have missed it, I would have bought the building, I already had a contract on it, and I would have been locked into a place that would have resulted in failure. So I wanna encourage you, if you're serious about hearing from the Lord in your dreams, get a discipline going of waking up every morning with your spiral notebook, writing down your dreams, no matter how far fetched, or how much they seem to be of no consequence, and you'll be surprised to find that some of those dreams that you think are of no consequence are actually very important. Now actually very important.
Now as your writing down your dream beloved, listen carefully. First of all, don't be afraid of remembering them; sometimes people of remembering their dreams. Some of your dreams have been so horrific, or they're parts of your life that have been exposed that you really don't wanna deal with. There are things in your dream that are revealed about yourself that because of that, it scared you and you don't wanna face em, and so you're actually blocking them out of your mind. Listen: don't be afraid of anything; God is greater than all these things. You're more than a conqueror in Messiah Jesus, you are who God says you are, you're God's son, you're God's daughter, you're gonna be glorified in; there's nothing to be afraid of, don't be afraid of facing any part of yourself or any part of your life. Do not be afraid of facing your dreams, because if you do, you won't be able to remember em.
As your remembering your dream, listen: as you're remembering your dream, point 2: write out the dream exactly as you're remembering it. Don't, don't begin to give interpretation to it right away. Just begin to write out the details. Don't give interpretation as you're first writing it out. Just write out the dream exactly as you're remembering it. And as you begin to write it, what you're gonna find is you'll often begin to recall other details that you hadn't been able to recall until you started writing. And by the way, when you write out your dreams, the dream is transferred as you write it from your short term memory to your long term memory. This is one of the great value of writing out your dreams.
When you have a dream from the Lord and you write it down, it becomes in your long term memory. If you don't write it down, often times you'll forget about it, and in forgetting about it beloved, you'll lose much of the value that it could have given you. So as you write your dream out, write it out exactly as you're recalling it, and as you do, the Holy Spirit will often times give you more details. Write down every detail. Take the time to pain, painstakingly write out every detail, because every detail has a meaning. It's all there for a reason. Even though sometimes you'll never know what the reason is; write it out.
Now after you write it out, then what you do is you begin to look to the Lord, and write out under it now, interpretation: what you think it means. If you feel it was a dream from the Lord, or if you think it has relevancy and value, then write out under it what you believe to be the interpretation, and then lift it up to the Lord in prayer. What you'll find is often times you will have the correct interpretation right away. But what you'll also find beloved, is that sometimes your interpretation may not be accurate, and beyond that, often times the Lord will give you more revelation and give you deeper understanding of what the dream means.
And so for example, I had a dream that was very powerful. Some of you have heard me share it before; I talk about it in my book, Awaking to Messiah. In this dream beloved, I saw myself preaching to a congregation. As I was preaching, suddenly someone stood up in the midst of the congregation as I was preaching, and they stood up and they said; oh no let me back up. As I was preaching beloved, suddenly the congregation stood up, and as they stood up, and they put their hand over their heart as I was preaching, and they started saying the Pledge of Allegiance: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. They drowned out my preaching, I couldn't even hear myself preach, cause the entire congregation had stood and was talking over my preaching, saying the Pledge of Allegiance.
I was so humiliated in the dream that my preaching had been drowned out, that no one could even hear it anymore; I in shame, I walked away from the pulpit in humiliation, I walked out of the sanctuary in the dream, I walked across the hall to the rest room, and I'm in the rest room, and I say to the Lord: gosh, I've never felt so humiliated in my life. The Lord said I want you to go back in and finish. So I walked back into the congregation. As I walked back into the congregation in the dream beloved, somebody stands up and he says: they don't wanna listen to you anymore, but I continued to be faithful to the assignment as the Lord told me, go back in and finish. When I finished the sermon, the Spirit of God spoke to me and he said to me, you did a good job while you were here. And then he said this to me: if people don't wake up every morning and ask me to cleanse them, the best preacher in the world won't be able to help them.
And then it was over, I wrote it all down, it was deeply impactful. And I would pray about it, I kept on saying "Lord, where am I failing as a leader? Where am I weak? Show me my weakness and insecurities Father, that would bring me to a place of relationship with the congregation that they would stand up in my middle of my preaching, so disrespectful, and drowned out my preaching, drowned out the Word of God, and then to have someone stand up and say: they don't wanna listen to you anymore. Father, show me where I'm failing, where am I losing respect, what am I doing wrong that this would happen. Show me Father why I'm praying, why I'm failing as a leader that this would happen".
And I prayed about it for several days. About three days later, I'm in a hotel room one night, I'm spending the night in this hotel room, getting ready to preach in a church on the next Sunday, the following day. And the Holy Spirit beloved, he clearly spoke to me and this is what he said to me, he said to me: it wasn't about your weakness as a leader. He said I was showing you that people that are gathered together in my name in churches, often times their allegiance, it's not really to me, it's to achieving the American dream. They say they're worshipping me, but what they're really worshipping is the pursuit of the American dream. They want more to receive success in America than they are really with obeying my Son, the Lord Jesus.
And Yedeed, beloved ones; the reason I share the story with you is because originally, I had the wrong interpretation of the dream. I thought the interpretation of the dream had something to do with my own weakness as a leader, and it wasn't until days later, the Holy Spirit said to me, no it wasn't about you. What I was showing you was that they weren't really in, in alignment with me, they were more in alignment with the achievement of the American dream than they were with my Son and the Gospel. So when you have a dream, write down the interpretation, but keep praying, because often times the Lord will give you more interpretation.
I remember another dream I recently had, and I'm just sharing this with you beloved, to help you to understand how real this is. This dream also was powerful. And in the dream beloved, I was in a circle, and I stepped into the circle with a bunch of people; they were playing some type of a ball game, I stepped into the circle, and as soon as I stepped into the circle, the ball came to me. But I didn't know what to do with the ball. I was just there, I knew they were playing some kind of a game; the ball came to me, I didn't know what to do with the ball. I'm looking around the circle, asking them what should I do. No one would tell me. I got so frustrated in the dream, I put the ball down, walked away and the next phase of the dream, I find myself walking down a big mall corridor with people in it. As I'm walking down the mall, still stewing about what had just happened in this game, that they would not tell me what to do.
As I'm walking down the mall, I come finally to some people that I knew, and in frustration I'm sharing with them what just happened as I was in this circle in this game, and how the people wouldn't tell me what to do with the ball, and I didn't know what to do, and so I just put it down and walked away. And somebody said to me in the mall that I was sharing this with. What was going on was this: you were supposed to feel what was going on with the rest of the people in the circle. And when you felt what was going on with the rest of the people in the circle, when you felt the group, then you would have known what to do with the ball.
And it greatly impacted me. It really impacted me, because when the Lord was telling me when you lead services, I want you to really focus on when you're leading your congregation, I want you to really focus on what I'm doing with the people. And when you're sensitive to what I'm doing amongst the people; you'll better be able to know what to do with the ball. You know having the ball meant being in control. You'll better know how to lead the service. And beloved, that was cutting. Since that time, there's even been other revelations that have come to me about that specific dream. And sometimes people can add to the interpretation of the dream, but just be careful that you don't accept someone's interpretation just because they tell you something. Always get confirmation in your heart from the Lord. Beloved, dreams are real, dreams are for sure, and dreams are for you, because they're for all God's people. So let's open our hearts right now:
Father God, we love you and we wanna hear from you. And so Father, we ask you to prepare us Father God, to sanctify us, to hear from you in our dreams at night. Father, your Word says: He that has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. And so Father, I ask, we ask, Father, will you continue to speak to us more and more, fuller and us more and more, fuller and fuller, in greater and greater frequency Father God, that we can walk with you even as Enoch did, even as Yeshua.