How to Interpret Dreams and Visions Perry Stone

We also may experience a unique or encouraging dream, and we may anticipate that it should come to pass immediately. However, the Lord revealed to Abraham at age seventy-five that he would be a father of a nation (Gen. 12:1–4), but the promised son was not born until Abraham was one hundred (Gen. 17:1; 17:21). It took twenty-five years for the promise to occur. When Abraham was about eightyfive, his wife, Sarah, offered her handmaid, Hagar, to Abraham as a second wife to give a child to Abraham (Gen. 16:1–4). After ten years of waiting, Sarah knew she was barren and was attempting to help God fulfill her husband’s promise of a son. The reason God waited until Sarah was ninety to allow her to become pregnant with Isaac is because by age ninety, Sarah had “passed the age of childbearing” (Gen. 18:11), meaning she went through menopause, making it impossible for her to conceive. The birth of Isaac, when Abraham was one hundred and Sarah was ninety, made Isaac’s conception and birth a miracle. Joseph was seventeen when he was sold as a slave (Gen. 37:2) and thirty years old when he left a prison and became second in command over Egyptian affairs (Gen. 41:46). He had seven years to prepare for the famine (v. 53) and was two years into the famine (Gen. 45:6) when he revealed himself to his eleven brothers. Thus, twentytwo years had passed before both of Joseph’s dreams were fulfilled! The entire episode was a test of God’s Word in Joseph’s life (Ps. 105:16–21). In a dream of a ladder stretching upward with angels ascending and descending, Jacob was promised that he too would be blessed and would inherit the land of Abraham. After Jacob deceived his brother, Esau, his mother ordered him to get