A Dream Leading to Jesus

One of the things that has come up quite frequently these days is the claim that Muslim's and others have had visions or dreams that led them to Jesus. Even John MacArthur was asked about this so-called phenomenon in a recent interview. Many other religions claim visions and dreams often. Are these visions legitimate? Are Muslim's and others really being led to Christ?

I want to tell you about a story of a man I met while doing evangelism last summer on the New Jersey boardwalk (also known as the Jersey shore). While I am notoriously bad at remembering names, and thus I cannot for the life of me remember this man's name, I will always remember the discussion I had with this man. I will seek to be as accurate as I can in recalling many of the details.

An Unintentional Encounter

Last year, I was out on the Jersey Shore boardwalk with some fellow brothers sharing the good news with those who haven't heard it before. We had traveled up and down the boardwalk for a few hours, and apparently some fireworks were getting ready to go off that night. It was close to Labor day weekend, and the boardwalk gets extremely packed as the summer is coming to a close.

As the fireworks were about to begin, a man asked my friend John a question. He asked, "Do you believe you can lose your salvation?" I was standing near John and overheard a bit, and right away John called me over to help answer this mans question. The man appeared to be a Muslim living in America (although I didn't ask specifically and it was kind of too dark outside to be sure). I wanted to explain to this man what I believe the Scriptures clearly teach on this issue, but before giving someone I have never met assurance of salvation, as a rule for evangelism, I always try to make sure the person is actually saved before discussing other issues in the Bible.

After some introductions and such, I asked him some questions in reference to his original quarry like "what do you mean by 'lose salvation'?" and "Why would it matter if you could or could not lose your salvation?". These questions weren't meant to answer his initial question (at least not immediately). However, these questions were meant to open the conversation up a bit so that I could ask him a more specific question, which went something like this:

You want to know about whether or not you can lose your salvation, but since we just met and don't know each other too well yet, do you mind if I ask how you got saved to begin with?

He had no problem answering the question and sharing his testimony, yet his response to the question was a bit disconcerting.

An Unexplainable "Salvation"

As the conversation continued, the man began telling me about how he became saved. He started telling a story about how he had lost a close family member (I believe it was his wife). He began drinking and other sorts, and he became depressed and lonely. One night, he had a dream. In this dream, he saw a billboard that had a message written on it. The message told him to go to a certain place the next day and wait (he never explained what the message actually said or where it told him to go). As the man was giving details of this dream, he began to explain how this dream was directly related to how he got saved. The man explained how he believed this dream was a revelation from God and that God wrote this message on this billboard. 

When he awoke from the dream, he followed what the message said to do and waited at the place it told him to go. Then, somehow, he met Jesus. At this point, the man was extremely vague on the details. He had no problem explaining the dream and everything prior, but after he followed the dreams message, he didn't have much else to say. 

I asked him some more questions to further understand how he came to saving faith in Jesus, but he didn't have anything further to add. He had a dream that gave him a message, and when he followed that message, he claimed he found Jesus. As I continued asking questions, I asked what the good news of Jesus is. He didn't know. I asked him who Jesus is. Again, he didn't know. He had assumed he was saved, yet he had no idea what salvation was or what Jesus had to do with salvation. He didn't really even know who Jesus was at all. In fact, the Jesus he began to tell me about had nothing to do with the Jesus of the Bible.

This man had no understanding of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

• He had never heard of the good news of how God became man (Phil. 2:5-11) and lived the perfect life that we could never live (1 John 3:5) because God demands perfection (1 Pet. 1:16; Matt. 5:48), as a just and holy judge (Ps. 7:11), and we are utterly sinful and imperfect (Jer. 13:23; Rom. 3:11-18, 23).

• He had never heard of how Jesus died the death that we deserve to die, so that God's justice and wrath that our sin deserves would be paid for by Him (Rom. 3:21-26, 5:6-10; 2 Cor. 5:21).

•  He had never heard that, in light of all this, God could now be merciful to us based on what Jesus had done on the cross (Ps. 85:10) because God's justice and wrath have been appeased and He can justify the ungodly since Jesus took our place (Prov. 17:15; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 3:18).

• This man had never heard of the resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor. 15:3-8, 20; Mark 9:31; Acts 2:23-24, 32, 13:30, 17:30-31), which is an affirmation that the penalty for sin had been paid, and that God could now treat us as if we had lived Jesus perfect life because He treated Christ as if He had lived our sinful imperfect lives (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 6:1-20).

• He had never head that if he did not turn from his sin and stop trusting in his own works to save himself, and instead trust the work of Jesus as the only sacrifice for his sin by faith alone, he would have to face the just punishment for his own sin (Ps. 96:13; Acts 17:30-31; Rom. 3:28; Gal. 2:16; 2 Thess. 1:7-9). 

• He had never heard that "if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation" (Rom. 10:9-10).

As we continued to talk, and I continued to ask about his salvation, it occurred to him that he had no idea who Jesus was at all and his supposed salvation was based on some experience he thought he had. At this point, I took the liberty of giving him a different perspective on his experience and then accurately explaining to him the good news of Jesus.

An Unwarrented Conclusion

This man had concluded that he was saved because he knew the name Jesus and because he had some supposed strange encounter with Him. Yet it was apparent to both John and I that this man was not saved. His conclusion was that God had spoken to him, which led to his "salvation", but was his conclusion valid?

I explained briefly to the man what the Bible says about how and when God speaks. I explained to him that:

1) God, who created logic, is a logical God. While we do not understand everything about logic, we can say that God will not contradict Himself. This is an important aspect of studying the Bible. Not only will God not contradict Himself, He will not commit any other blatant logical fallacy. For example, God will not be arbitrary. Yes, God is sovereign and He can and will do whatever He pleases, but when God speaks, He will confirm that He is speaking so as to avoid being arbitrary.

2) This is important when we deal with signs, wonders, and miraculous gifts in the Bible. When God is giving new revelation that is to be obeyed, God will confirm that He is speaking by signs and wonders. We see this when Moses was to give Pharaoh a message. God confirmed this message by miracles that were witnessed and observable by many. These miracles were undeniable and obvious. We also see this in the ministry of Jesus. He was proclaiming the kingdom of God to the Jews, and to confirm the message, God testified by signs and wonders (John 6:36-37). Again, they were undeniable and obvious. The writer of Hebrews also says the same thing about the preaching of Apostles and miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit (Heb. 2:3-4).

3) Thus, because God is a logical God, if God were still speaking, it would be confirmed by signs, wonders, etc. 

After I briefly explained this to the man, I asked him if he had seen any of these signs and wonders? He mentioned some things he had heard or seen. I asked if these were undeniable miracles like in the Bible, and if so, why aren't they all over the news? Even in the Charismatic movement, we see "tongues" that aren't real languages like in the Bible; we see "healings" that aren't easily verifiable and undeniable like in the Bible, and other sorts that do not coincide with Scripture (this is not to deny that God does still do miracles, but they don't happen often, they are clear and undeniable, and God does them by Himself rather than through gifted men).

After we talked about this for a few minutes, he agreed that none of these so-called signs or wonders today were the same as in the Bible and that it made sense to him that God would not be speaking anymore. But what about his dream?

An Undeniable Dream

This man and I both agreed that he had a dream. That part was true. But was this dream from God or not? He recognized that this dream didn't really lead him to God, but rather, he began to see his dream as just the opposite: it took him away from God by making him think he was close to God. We did not even need to talk about the dreams mentioned in Scripture because it seemed obvious to him that if God gave him a dream, it would lead him to God, not away from God and His Word.

We were able to have a calm conversation about what his dream was, now that he was beginning to understand the Bible and salvation more. I asked about his dream and if he had seen any billboards that night before he went to sleep. I asked if he remembers thinking about the place or being at the place the dream told him to go to. Since he had been vague on the details earlier, I just kept asking questions. After asking numerous questions, he looked at me with a blank face and said, "I think my dream just came from my own imagination! The words on the board were the words I wanted there because I wanted to go to that place anyway!"

This kind of drew me back, but it was amazing how he realized that what he initially thought was a dream and revelation from God, he now understood that he had claimed something was from God when it was merely his own imagination. He seemed a bit convicted that he attributed something to God that wasn't from God, almost like he knew this was wrong (Jer. 23:16-40).

Once he came to this conclusion kind of on his own, he admitted that his dream and so-called message from God took him away from what God really wanted him to know. I then gave him a simple way to understand how Scripture is sufficient, and there is no need for God to speak to us further outside of Scripture. I told him that while the inspiration of Scripture is clear (2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Pet. 3:20-21), Scripture is sufficient, and here's what the Word of God says about its own sufficiency:

• Do not add or take away from the Word (Deut. 4:2; Rev. 22:18-19) 
• Do not go beyond what is written (1 Cor. 4:6) 
• Scripture is convicting (Heb. 4:12) 
• Scripture is converting (Ps. 19:7-9) 
• Scripture is sure (Ps. 19:7-9; 119:86; Matt. 24:35; 1 Pet. 1:25) 
• Scripture is unified (Matt. 5:18; John 10:35) 
• Scripture is “more sure” than experience (2 Pet. 1:16-19) 
• Scripture is Truth (John 17:17; 1 John 2:4-5) 
• Scripture reveals God’s will for us (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 7:10; 1 Thess. 4:3, 5:18; 1 Pet. 2:15) 
• Scripture is the means of our sanctification (John 17:17) 
• Scripture does not detract from the work of the Holy Spirit, but rather the Holy Spirit works in and through the Word to accomplish His will (Acts 10:44; Rom. 10:17; 1 Pet. 1:23)
• OT Scripture is the spoken Word of God (Heb. 1:1) 
• NT Scripture is the spoken Word of God, which has been revealed in these last days confirming that God has spoken and is finished speaking (Heb. 1:2) 
• Scripture alone is a “Lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Ps. 119:105)

If you want to think through issues like dreams, impressions in your head, and the sufficiency of Scripture, I highly recommend you take a few moments and listen to this.

An Unforgettable Moment

This encounter was a very interesting one, and one I will never forget. Once he recognized that his salvation was a farce, God is no longer speaking, that his dream was his own imagination, and that the Scriptures are sufficient, the only thing he wanted to know was what the Scriptures say about the Jesus in the Bible. Did I make an airtight case for the cessation of revelation? Not really. But it was enough to point him back to the Scriptures for an answer, especially with the short amount of time I actually had before the fireworks began. I was able to explain the gospel to him more and he confessed the sin he had been struggling with recently in his life. He appeared convicted and desired to know more. Yet, this was not the end of our conversation.

I eventually brought it back to his initial question and we talked about what the Bible says about whether a person can lose their salvation or not. He had so many questions, but he was so excited to learn more about the Bible. John and I ended up praying with him and inviting him out to church. While I never saw or heard from him again, this was an encounter I will never forget.