Dreams & Visions--Genesis 20:2-3

You Are A Dead Man

I tried to remember last night’s dream, but except for a small snippet, I’ve got bupkis.

I seem to remember walking around a carnival with Karen; the kind of carnival that has food booths for fried oreos, funnel cakes, and sausages as big as a baby’s arm.

I felt a vague uneasiness walking around–but who doesn’t at a carnival? The chance of instant, gruesome death on a carnival ride is WAY more than zero and who doesn’t think weird, terrible stuff happens in the carny tents and trucks out back?

That’s all I can remember though. So I’m thinking God didn’t impart anything to me worth noting.

Or maybe I’m too dull to understand the dream?

We were at a friend’s house party last night–we ate pizza, drank delicious cocktails, played the money-burning dice game Left, Center, Right, (which I’ve ordered for our Christmas gathering, btw), and generally soaked up the good vibes of being with good friends.

I prayed with my friends before we started eating and I didn’t feel anything was amiss– but yet…I know later, I said questionable things (that I won’t share here), for comic effect and was hugely successful.

Maybe God doesn’t want me to be so much of a carnival barker that I can be when I get going in social situations.

There IS a darkness to carnivals after all.

Maybe that’s what dream-snippet meant. Don’t get taken in by the flashing lights and cotton candy of the midway. Stay centered and upright–enjoy the lights and the people watching but stay out of the tents and trailers in the back and for God’s sake don’t ride the rollercoaster that was just hammered together in the parking lot earlier that afternoon.

Jane Hamon points out in Dreams and Visions: Understanding and Interpreting God’s Messages To You, that we don’t have to special, godly, or even a believer to experience dreams:

“Just as one does not have to be “special” to hear from God, neither does a propensity for dreaming indicate that one has spiritual superiority or right standing with God. Science tells us that nearly everyone dreams approximately one hour per night. Some dream more; some less. Some have a greater capacity to remember what they have dreamed; some have less. Dreams, like rain, fall on the godly and the sinner, the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Then she references from Genesis 20 a potent, paradoxical Scripture that has always puzzled me:

Genesis 20:2-3 . 2 And Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” So Abimelech king of Gerar sent men and took Sarah. 3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is married.”

Without retelling the whole sordid mess, Abraham lies to King Abimelech and tells the king that Sarah (his wife) is his sister. (Actually, Sarah is Abraham’s half-sister). I’m not sure what Abraham was scared of but his lie to King Abimelech, to me, is worse than just telling the truth because the result of this on-going lie was that King Abimelech took Sarah to be HIS wife.

But before King Abimelech could CONSUMMATE with Sarah (probably in a back tent at the Gerar County Fair), he has a dream–a message from God.

And God is pretty straight forward with King Abimelech–you’re a dead man if you touch Sarah.

So King Abimelech releases Sarah back to Abraham–with, what seems to me, more integrity than Abraham showed.

Warren Wiersbe writes in Be Obedient: Learning the Secret of Living by Faith about this puzzling contradiction:

“If you did not know who Abraham was, and you read this chapter for the first time, which of the two men would you say was the believer? Surely not Abraham, the liar! It was not Abraham who showed integrity, and it was not Abraham whom God kept from sinning. What Abraham did was selfish, but Abimelech responded with generosity. If anybody reveals excellent character, it is Abimelech and not Abraham.”

The king, from what I understand, wasn’t a believer but he still took serious note of what God was telling him.

You are a dead man.

I am a believer. God’s not going to mince words with me either.

Try to remember your dreams. Try to figure out the imagery. Listen to the divine message.

And don’t ever eat a turkey leg that is pink in the middle. 🙂

Lord, forgive us when we let fear lead us to compromise or conceal Your truth. Grant us courage to walk in faith, trusting Your promises to guard and guide us.

Lord, speak to us, like you spoke to King Abimelech in a dream, through Your Spirit or Your Word and open our hearts to Your warnings and corrections.

Amen.