A Significant Dream
A Significant Dream
This is a dream George, my husband, had on April 21, 2020. I [George] guess I am getting old because I never used to remember my dreams. I still don’t dream much and only remember one once every several months and almost all have no significance, but last night was something different.
As the dream started, suddenly I was swept into a familiar setting, a Local Church I used to attend. At once, I felt nostalgia, but then I also noticed some differences. The decorations of the Church were very intentional and had nothing to do with Christian trappings. In fact, they seemed to be geared to what is probably a large segment of that community which was a rustic western theme. Anyone who knows me knows I do not typically care about decorations, but these were so different than when I was there before and so striking that it was jarring enough for me to remember this detail when I woke up.
Next, I was minding my own business and a Woman approached me. I knew her but she was “generic.” This was perplexing to me. I later prayed about this and I believe Holy Spirit showed me that this was a representation of THE WOMAN, THE BRIDE. When I got this revelation, I decided I needed to write this down immediately. She told me that she could not preach today and said that I should fill in. I was shocked. Why me? I mean I had not been here for a long time. Maybe I was a leader there 25-30 years ago, but why me now? She gave me some notes. They were discombobulated and the message that she said to convey was just confusing and incomprehensible. So after she walked away I looked at some of the scriptures she had listed and they were about “love,” but were taken out of context and applied to society in general, where the context of the scriptures were about love for God directly.
So, the pressure was on, the people were assembled, and I had to say something. Fortunately, or unfortunately, a man got up and went on for what seemed like an hour listing all the programs the Church had going on that week or month or whatever. As he was going thru his materials, I saw a scripture she had listed in Ephesians 3, which in part states that we are to be rooted and grounded in love. I then remembered Revelation 2 where Ephesus is rebuked for having forgot their first love.
When it was time to stand, I preached to this Church and proclaimed that they had lost their first love. I commended them on how they discerned and rooted out false teachers (which this Church did in real life). I commended them on how they try to serve the community, but I had to say with tears in my eyes (something else I do not do very often) that they had lost their first love. I reminded them what it was like when they were first saved. I reminded many of how they could not wait to read the Bible or talk to their friends about Jesus and how they worshiped and prayed. The prescription is to remember and do the deeds that you did at first. They at first had a communal relationship with God. He was with them and led them by the hand, but now they had become cold and ritualistic responding with works to the community with minimal impact. They were trying to make their gatherings geared to the community, but marginalized God in the process. In their lives, there was little to no prayer or true worship and Bible reading was a drudgery. Even though they were not weary, compromise had seeped in and was undermining all the good that was once done.
Oh, the mighty Ephesus Church, founded by Paul, the Apostle, and once pastored by no less than Timothy and the Apostle John doing works and out in the community. Trying to be a light to mankind, a leading Church, raising a standard, and yet utterly ineffective and in danger of losing the very light they try to be. The only answer is to repent, remember, and redo what you once did! If you go to Ephesus today, what is there but ruin?
So, after all this, when I woke up, I asked what was all this about? Why so vivid where I could remember actual faces of actual people (people I chose not to mention here)? And that generic woman that is familiar, not anyone and yet everyone.
The answer is there are multitudes of people in the Church of Ephesus. What nature and the devil mean for harm, God can use for good. Use this down time to pray, reflect and take inventory of where you really are with God. Read Revelation 2-3 and ask the Holy Spirit to help you see. Why Ephesus? It’s because it is where I live and where millions of other American Christians live, but there are six other Churches. To him/her that overcomes God will grant you to eat of the Tree of Life in the Paradise of God! Eternal rewards are real and coupled with a true love for God, will cause you to do things and go further than self-will or religious discipline ever can.
Which Church do you go to? I believe it is no accident there are seven listed, as seven is the number of completeness. Is it Philadelphia or Smyrna who received no such rebuke? Even if that’s your “Church,” there are still things you need to do. Or it could be Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, or Laodicea; churches that are really messed up, but even now, there is a reward for those that repent and overcome.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
