3/17/2014, by Edward V. Beck Face to Face There is much talk in Christendom in our times about God speaking to us in dreams, and it is undeniably scriptural and something I have occasionally experienced myself. But I cannot help but be less enamored with that mode of communication than it seems many are concerning it. And maybe because it seems too ethereal to me, or that I have little experience in it, but I’d rather talk with God while I’m awake at my study, or in my quiet time before Him in prayer, and in the full cognizance of my mind and heart, physically alert. Now I am aware that He seals His instructions to me while I sleep, and that if I am obtuse, He will come to me in a dream. “Why do you complain against Him that He does not give an account of all His doings? Indeed God speaks once, or twice, yet no one notices it. In a dream, a vision of the night, when sound sleep falls on men, while they slumber in their beds, then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction, that He may turn man aside from his conduct, and keep man from pride; He keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from passing over into Sheol” (Job 33:13-18). And it has also occurred to me that the first time the word dream is mentioned in holy writ is in context with death, not life. “God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, ‘Behold, YOU ARE A DEAD MAN” (Genesis 20:3). I have come to accept what theologians call “the rule of first mention.” When a word is first used in scripture, it is often (if not always) the seedbed of every subsequent usage of that word; thus its first usage sets the tone and context in which to understand it from God’s perspective. So, in that vein of thought, dreams are warnings, not warm and friendly conversations per se. Please don’t misunderstand me, a warning is a kindness from God, not an open rebuke (YET). I hope God gives me as many dreams needed to keep me back from the pit of hell, but I more hope that I would live in such a manner as to not need them at all. I want to know God face to face, in open, awake, and straight modes of communication. And I have learned that in deep humility, in utter poverty of person, He comes to me face to face; the pure in heart see God, and I would suggest, face to face. “When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would arise and worship, each at the entrance of his tent. Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses FACE TO FACE, JUST AS A MAN SPEAKS TO HIS FRIEND” (Exodus 33:10-11). Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth...If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, shall make myself known to him in a vision. I SHALL SPEAK WITH HIM IN A DREAM. NOT SO, WITH MY SERVANT MOSES, HE IS FAITHFUL IN ALL MY HOUSEHOLD; with him I speak mouth to mouth (obviously also face to face), even openly, and NOT IN DARK SAYINGS, and HE BEHOLDS THE FORM OF THE LORD” (Exodus 12:3, 6-8). “Therefore...we...are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away (the old covenant)...But we all (Christians, part of the new covenant based on better promises), with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:12-13, 18). In the final analysis, dreams are at the fringes of relationship, necessary as they may be in any one of us, me included. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be at the fringes or the hems of the outer garments of healing virtue, as great as that is when I wander and need it. No, I want to know God, and face to face! If Moses could, and did, and seemingly because he was the humblest man on the face of the earth, and via a lessor glorious covenantal relationship, how come we don’t know Him better, even face to face? I don’t know about you, but if I am to fight for anything amongst flesh and blood, let me scrap to be the humblest man on the face of the earth if that is what it takes to know Him face to face. Dreams are for sleepers and accomplished in the dark; reality is for those that are awake and accomplished in the light. Help us Lord to see your form in clear relief and to know you as our friend, not in dark sayings and dreams of the night, but in open daylight face to face.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 09:54:50 +0000
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