How to Interpret Dreams and Visions Perry Stone

worshipers of strange gods (such as with the case with the magicians of Pharaoh, in Exodus 7:11, and the wise men of Babylon). It is interesting to note that when God gave Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar prophetic dreams, not one of the seers, dream interpreters, or wise men in their kingdoms could receive the understanding of the symbolism in the prophetic dream. Only two men filled with the Spirit of the Lord, Joseph and Daniel, could understand the meanings! This fact reveals that God never intends for the socalled “sons of this world” (Luke 16:8) to understand spiritual mysteries. He gives revelation about spiritual mysteries only to men (or women) who have the spirit of wisdom and understanding through the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:17–18). The third category of dreamers are those who have received a special gift of revelation and illumination. In Scripture, Jacob, the son of Isaac, was a dreamer of dreams and experienced a dramatic dream of angels ascending and descending from a ladder whose base was upon the earth and whose top was positioned at the gate of heaven (Gen. 28:12–19). Apparently this “dreaming gift” was transferred to Jacob’s favorite son, Joseph, who at age seventeen dreamed two distinct dreams indicating that all of his brothers would one day bow before him (Gen. 37:5–10). Joseph irritated his jealous brothers with his exciting revelation, bringing him mockery and eventually landing him in a pit and then leading to his being sold to a group of slave-purchasing nomads! Notice the reaction of his brothers and his father when Joseph shared his dream: “His brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind” (v. 11).