Lately I’ve had several very disturbing dreams. Many have seemed almost demonic in nature. I believe some of them are from God and are what I refer to as: “dream lessons”. One in particular remains on my mind. Recently I dreamed that I saw a huge poisonous snake that resembled a gigantic rattlesnake, (10 feet long at least). It suddenly lifted its head above my nightstand and it was staring directly at me and flicking its black forked tongue at me. I tried to remain completely still, because I thought the massive snake would bite me at any second. Suddenly with blazing speed it crawled up and over the nightstand and slithered into bed with me.
I fully expected to be bitten and prepared myself for it, but strangely was unafraid. I felt the snake crawl directly underneath me and when it was completely under my side it just laid there.
I didn’t move and neither did the snake.
It seemed like an eternity that I lie there wondering when I would get bitten. I just knew it was going to happen at any moment, but it didn’t. It was almost as if God was allowing the snake to remain by my side, but restraining it from harming me.
As you might imagine this dream was rather disturbing and finally I awoke enough to realize it was a dream. I was very tired and wanted to go back to sleep, but did not want to resume dreaming about my situation with this snake, so even though exhausted I just got up and went into my office and started catching up on e-mail.
Hmmm . . . This dream reminds me of the wheat and tares parable as told by Jesus Christ in Matt. 13:24 – The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”
As you may or may not know, “tares” are troublesome weeds found growing among crops. The agricultural audience to whom Jesus addressed this story understood the implications of an enemy sowing a weed like “darnel” into their crops. (Darnel resembled wheat and was likely the tare to which Jesus referred.)
In this parable Jesus instructed His servants not to try and remove the weeds, but to allow them to grow up together side by side and at the time of the harvest they would be separated.
Some believe Jesus is referring to the church and false prophets in this parable. I disagree and interpret Him to be talking about the world at large or maybe both. Jesus is the sower of the Gospel which is accomplished through His church. Satan and his minions are the enemies to whom Jesus referred and no doubt want to destroy the crop.
Sometimes we plead with God to remove evil from our midst, but God states that it must remain until the harvest which in this parable refers to the end of the world. At that point our enemies, (the tares), will be thrown into the fire and burned and Christ’s born again believers in His church, (the crop) will be put into the barns, (heaven).
Until then we are stuck with satan and his evil crew; however as seen in my dream, God protects those that He loves from being bitten; nonetheless you will note I did not tempt myself by lying beside that old serpent for very long. When I awoke I immediately arose and got the heck away from it.
Dangerous snakes (satanic weeds) exist in this world and they will do their utmost to undermine the Word of God if given a chance. But it is not our job to weed those people out, because we cannot know anyone’s heart. However the Bible states that we will know them by their fruits. So if it looks like a snake and acts like a snake, then it’s probably a good bet that it’s a snake. My advice is do not lie in bed with snakes even if they don’t initially bite you. Snakes are dangerous and if we try to get a little too cozy with them, then we just might get bitten and die a slow, agonizingly painful death . . .
Hey vote today and don’t vote for those snakes who want to murder unborn children, legalize drugs, take away religious liberty, and destroy God ordained marriage between a man and a woman . . .
Proverbs 20:11
Even small children are known by their actions, so is their conduct really pure and upright?
November 4, 2014 – Click here to listen