Dreams

A phenomenon of the human psyche is the matter of dreams. I am talking about dreams when sleeping. This is a biblical phenomenon (Joseph the stepfather of Jesus; Joseph, youngest son of Jesse, sold into slavery by his brothers) and more recently the dreams of some of the stalwarts in American industry. I have often said that ideas will come to you when sleeping that will never appear in your brain activity again. I have always suggested that everyone keep a writing pad by the bed so ideas, even word phrases, can be written down immediately because, believe me, they may never appear in your mind again.

I started my world travels in the 1960s. One of the first trips was a trip to the Holy Land in December 1965. I spent Christmas Eve, of 1965 in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is just five miles from Jerusalem, where I had centered my travel itinerary. But, I wanted to be in Bethlehem on Christmas Day, so my driver made arrangements at a hotel in Bethlehem for Christmas Eve. When we arrived at the facility in a van with three older couples we found there was no room for all of us “in the Inn.” As you know, in a case of incapacity, tenants cannot be forced to leave a room even though it might be reserved for someone else. Since the three couples were much older, the innkeeper said he could accommodate them in the main building, but he had two rooms in an outside facility, where he would put my driver and myself. These rooms, evidently, were only used in the summer by the tour escorts and drivers of large groups. They were not well heated and, believe me, it is cold in Israel during the Christmas season. This is another reason we know that Christ's actual birthday was not during the Christmas season. (Shepherds would not be tending sheep when it is so cold). I told the driver, who was very concerned about me, that I was reared in a house built before the Civil War, built with hand tools, a house with almost as many cracks as a rail fence, and that I was accustomed to a cold room. I just needed lots of blankets. The bathroom had hot water and so, all in all, much better than the cave in which our blessed Lord was born. I was overjoyed, being at this blessed place, at this blessed event, the greatest event in the history of the world.

At that time, I had a shadow of vision with one eye and on that cold, crisp night, looking out at the stars, I thought of what it must have been like 2000 years ago when men (Wise Men), looked at the skies and studied the stars. As I went to sleep, I was overwhelmed with the joy at what my great-grandfather would have felt in seeing this place, a man who had traveled by horse & buggy to carry the Gospel through the rugged paths of eastern North Carolina. He once said, “I cannot stop hearing the screams of those in hell because they never heard the salvation message of Jesus Christ.”

From the time of the Civil War, the time of the ministry of my great grandfather, until the beginning of the 20^th Century, eastern North Carolina, as well as most of the south, experienced the economic and spiritual depravity of a people depressed and oppressed by the ravages of a conquering army. Only a few of us who are living today have heard of the poverty involved during this time in history. My saintly grandmothers' devotion to God was legendary in their families and communities. One said that she, like everyone else, had to work night and day just to survive. She picked cotton the day after she was married.

It was on this night, in Bethlehem, that I experienced two of the greatest dreams of my life. One dream, I witnessed the splendors of heaven, several of my relatives including my grandmother, several aunts, laughing and enjoying themselves around a great banquet table. Each time I have ever recounted this dream about these departed saints, the skeptical, lost relatives who should have rejoiced in the knowledge seemed unbelieving and had rather believe that I was having a psychological barrier.

The other dream, which has recurred many times over the years, showed me involved in houses which I was having refurbished. There was always another house being added, needing my attention. I surmised from these dreams and from others I have experienced involving the same, that God has given me a “peek” into the splendors of heaven, and the knowledge that I have relatives waiting for me there. I gathered from the very clear, unquestioned insight into the house rebuilding and my efforts to satisfy tenants that God was directing me to make my living buying, selling, refurbishing, and renting real estate. I am a firm believer that a God who knows the number of hairs on my head (Matthew 10:30) great enough that He holds the oceans of the world in the palms of His hands, that He can measure the height of Mt. Everest with His fingers, that He can stick His foot into the Marianas Trench of the Pacific Ocean, that He designed every snowflake that has ever fallen, will direct my paths.

It absolutely crushed my heart to think I have relatives so remote from the love of Christ, so just playing church, so being deceived and deceiving that they cannot know the joy of spiritual revealing. When my son who is now 54, was just a youngster, we had spent the weekend, my showing him the sights of our nation's capital. On the way back, I stopped at three of my mother's sister's homes, wanting him to meet his great aunts. All three, as was the case when I revealed to one about her blessed mother being in heaven, acted annoyed at my visit. I think I was keeping them from watching a soap opera. In my mother's family, their chief interest is food. As far as I know, none of them have ever been hungry. Of the 6 billion people on earth, 1.2 billion go to bed every night hungry. Most people are not concerned about that either.

We are told that without vision the people perish. feel that without dreams anyone will perish. There is little imagination anymore. When I was young, the world in your mind, opened because you read books. In your mind, you could go anywhere, experience anything, simply through the imagination with reading. I have traveled every continent of the world and have never been to a place yet where I was surprised. When I saw the Taj Mahal, or the glaciers of the poles, it was as if I had been there last week. Books had so affixed the images in my mind.

There are two things God despises, unbelief and idols. The greatest idol in today's world, is the one to which people bow down, turn the knobs (now the remote) and spend more time with the garbage there, than they do with family, friends, civic duties, God's work, etc. There has been a very affective brainwashing by television. I am convinced the spell – pitch of television sound, the impulses of television light has had a subliminal brainwashing dumbing-down effect on the mental ability of viewers. Cheap chatter on “Oprah” and such, results in laughter and clapping. In many countries of the communist world, where I have watched May Day Parades, (Moscow, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, China), always, without exception, I noticed not just military hardware, but massed marchers of workers, thousands, all dressed in their work uniforms, all smiling, all carrying the banners of happiness, as communist workers. Do you see what is happening in this country, when, within the past 8 months, one man is controlling the largest military in the world, the largest corporate conglomerate in the world, the largest social service and education agencies in the world?

Just yesterday, I heard a black preacher call the President of the US, the black messiah. Was this the dream of our fore-fathers, and the millions of young men who have worn the uniform of our country and thousands who lie buried on foreign soil? (American has dumped 30 billion pounds of explosives on the earth in the past 50 years) Was this the dream of hardworking, God-fearing, tax-paying citizens who made this the financial, industrial and military superpower of the world? Was it the dream that we would dish out money for laziness or bailout money for incompetence? Look up and live. Woe unto you at east in Zion... (Amos 6:1)