"The Dreamer"

Behold the dreamer. Joseph the dreamer was referred to as 'the man', not 'a man' which meant he was a representative man. Joseph dreamed a dream. and in that dream he saw the plan and purpose of God unfold. He made the mistake of sharing his dream with his older brothers, the carnal religious. Later his father sent him into the field with some things for his brothers, when the brothers saw Joseph they said "Behold this dreamer cometh." These words were meant to be a reproach on the man God had laid his hand on. This dreamer talks of saving the whole world. They had enough problems with themselves. These brothers were men of action, they were practical men. They must see the end from the beginning. Their everything was in the world. The one thing they did not need was for this dreamer to put his burden on their shoulders. They were like most religious people, they wanted to go to heaven, not because they loved God, but because they don't want to go to hell. There was no interest in spiritual things, they were religious but their prime interest was in this world. The objective of their lives could be defined without any imagination whatsoever. The first consideration in any matter must be, how it will benefit us. They depended upon their shrewd dealing and a little luck to keep them in bread and butter. God did not enter into that part of life. They were religious, they had been raised Baptist. Methodist or Assembly of God. Nobody can accuse them of being an atheist, their people had always been Pentecostal. All reference to matters concerning God's conscience and eternity could be settled by the simple statement, "We are Jacob's Sons" These words have a ring of familiarity about them. Three things I noticed about these boys that brought them in line with much of the religious thinking of our day; one, their utter contempt for dreaming Joseph. These sons of Jacob have clearly defined ideas about religion. To them religion was a private matter, and must at all times be kept separate from business and pleasure. Under no circumstance should a man's religion be allowed to affect his politics. He must be perfectly free to believe one thing and vote the opposite. The second thing is their supreme confidence in their natural ability to cope with life. These sons of Jacob were the first purpose driven Church. To them the Holy Spirit was a luxury not an expedient. Their only concern was, how to make the system grow. That means the message must accentuate the positive. There must be no mention of sin, the cross, or hell. The purpose of the message, with these sons of Jacob, is not to convict of sin, not to reveal the holiness of God, not to make saints out of sinners. It is to make the tares of religion feel good about themselves. The third thing these sons of Jacob had in common with the religious thinking of our time was this unshakable assurance that in as much as they were Jacob's sons, their spiritual future was safe and settled. If they went to Church once a week and supported the system, in their mind, nothing else was required. To speak to them about obeying the commands, denying self and taking up the cross was legalism, and had no place in the message. No need to talk about it any more, everything is well. Religiously, the older sons of Jacob were spiritual parasites. Like the hermit crab they crawled into the shell of a religious system, and trusted their spiritual future, and their hope of eternity to the care of the system. Their testimony is; I pay my tithe, go to church on Sunday morning, I don't have lime during the week to bother myself with spiritual matters. I have more important things to do so, I let the church and the preacher take care of the spiritual. Such an individual is a parasite, his interest in religion is purely parasitic. Their only spiritual exercise is the automatic one of imbibing. The pastor, being the faithful hermit crab, is to he depended on every Sunday for at least a weeks supply. Our churches overflow with people who are mere consumers. Instead of having learned to pray, the ecclesiastical parasite becomes satisfied with being prayed for. His transaction's with the eternal are effected by commission. His work for Christ is done by a paid deputy. His whole life is a prolonged indulgence in the bounties of the church. Wise men search the scriptures to see if these things be so.

When a person looses his quest for truth, he has lost truth itself. Preaching that does not make you search is not gospel preaching. These sons of Jacob hated everything spiritual. Should you ask Ruben, "How is it with your soul", he would reply. "I am the oldest son of Jacob. I have been a charter member of the church longer than you have been alive," I read this article, a preacher had spoke in a certain church and at the close of the meeting, he was standing at the entrance with the pastor shaking hands with the people as they left. A woman shook his hand, and asked, "Sir have you been born again?" He became very angry. He said, "I could have told her I have a degree from two of the finest universities in this nation, but I didn't bother to answer her." I am Jacob's son, why would she ask me such a silly question. These older sons of Jacob, and their spiritual counterpart, have a bitter contempt for the spiritual. Their thought was, this boy Joseph is moving beyond the Sunday school lesson. Joseph had gone beyond the bumper stickers of religion, he has heard from heaven. God has spoken to him, and they do not want to hear it. Strange indeed, that in the field of science men are witnessing their wildest dreams come true. But the religious dreamer is still held in contempt. The man who can see beyond the carnal church growth programs is referred to as a mystic. The sons of Jacob surely have their counter part in the religious world today. They have all the answers they can point to the book, chapter and verse. They can go there with the mind and the head, but they are woefully ignorant of this most important truth; religion in the book is of no value unless it is translated into life. God's desire is not merely to be expressed verbally, truth must become a living form. God's Christ walked the earth as the living Word of God. The Word of God is an act. Men argue the difference between the Rema and the Logos, when actually there is no difference. The one intrudes on the other and the other intrudes on the first, they become one. The Logos means the Word is a person, the Rema means the person is the Word. God never intended me to merely know truth, he intended that I become truth. Until the interpretations of the religious word become a living form, they are of no value in eternal matters. The Word of God is redemptive, and restorative only as it is translated into life. There is no value in merely knowing that healing is in the Bible unless we can heal people. The sons of Jacob could not see the unfolding purposes of God in the times in which they lived. They believed that God was confined to His heaven, and could be manipulated by man. The modern sons of Jacob totally ignore the fact that when a man is born again he becomes a spirit being in the likeness of God. He is a new creature, created in righteousness and true holiness, and cannot be psycho analyzed, or categorized by the temperaments of astrology. This has been lost to the sons of Jacob. We have had enough of the elder sons of Jacob, with their creeds and sterile doctrines. It is well that the future of the church does not rest in the hands of that crowd. There is a remnant upon which the future rests. It may not look like it at this moment, but I can assure you that when the cup of iniquity is full, all will turn around. The younger son, Joseph, was a dreamer. He saw the harsh realities of life just as his brothers. He was a real person, he lived on this earth, he knew if you stump your toe, it is going to hurt. Joseph saw all this, but the dreamer saw something else. he saw the hand of God in preparation for the coming crisis. Joseph saw beyond the trouble, he saw God. Joseph was real, he saw the storm. He never denied there was trouble. The modern sons of Jacob stick their heads in the sand and tell you, if you are sick, don't admit it. Mark Twain broke his leg in the Himalayas, splinted his own leg. The only doctor there was a horse doctor and a Christian Science practitioner. Mark Twain said, every day the practitioner told him, your leg is not broke, you don't have any pain. After four months Mark Twain was able to walk. The practitioner told him he owed him four hundred dollars. Mr. Twain gave him an imaginary check. Joseph saw the coming crisis, but he also saw God's provision. Joseph dreamed a dream, there are still plenty dreams to dream, there just isn't enough dreamers. We have saddled ourselves with a spiritual welfare system that makes men believe God owes them heaven. The painful experience of dying to self, and knowing God, is too harsh for the tare ridden Church of our time. Joseph saw that the fulfillment of his dream would cost him everything. Likewise, if you dream. and dare believe that there is more to

God than is set forth by the sons of Jacob you will have trouble. If you dream, the religious will crucify you. I speak to the preacher, if your ambition is to live comfortably, to play by the rules, and be the poster boy for the organization; if you can play the games of religion and sleep at night while two billion perish who have never heard His name, it would he better that you were never born. I speak to the flock, if your vision is a church that caters to human comfort, and a pastor who has no other interest but you, if the pleasure and comfort of the few who sit on the pews of your church, is more important to you than the untold millions who are lost, it would he better had you not been born. Joseph will be cast out by his brothers, sold into slavery, lied on by those he helped, all because of his dream. The presence of this dreamer in the prison would cause other prisoners to dream. By persuading men to follow God's direction he saved the known world from starvation. Joseph was the Old Testament Paul, he was a crucified man, crucified with Christ. Joseph was crucified for Christ, he went through hell for Christ. If you choose to walk this path of crucifixion there are certain things that will be. You will be innocent, the accusations against you will be lies. It will not be your enemies who do the crucifying it will be your brothers. It will be made public, everybody will know who drove the nails. Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery. Joseph passed through it all, rejection, slavery, lies, dungeon, loneliness, but they could not rob him of his dream. Joseph dreamed a dream, he had a vision, he had a hope. The Dreamer, the brothers hated, was the man they went to for deliverance. The Dreamer and the dream were vindicated. When men get in trouble they don't look for a hippie, they look for a policeman. He may have been a pig before, but he is a savior now. When men are desperate they look for the man who knows how to pray. They don't look for a confessor, they look for the one they had heard groan. They could not take the dream from Joseph. Thank God for the dreamers of all ages, the Gideons, the Joseph's, Columbus, the Wright Brothers. Dreamers have revolutionized our world. Dreamers are men who are able to see beyond the boundaries drawn by the practical minds. Practical minds believed the world to he flat, a dreamer proved them wrong. When I speak of dreamers, I am not talking about those flight of fancies, that come while we sleep and disappear in the morning. I am speaking of a dream that creates in a man an incentive to pray, to believe to work. A dream that drives him beyond the reasonable. Many have dreamed and served in obscurity to bring the dream into reality. Some have kept the faith against opposition beyond our thinking, these have given and prayed in secret while others have been called to fulfill the dream. I too have a dream. I have seen the church of Jesus Christ, I am not a mystic. My dream was born out of the Word of God. I saw a church, a body, one new man, in which every member was filled with the Holy Ghost. A body in which every one could honestly prefer one another. They were driven by the same passion. That dream has driven me relentlessly, it has kept me on the front line of this warfare. I have laid awake at night, haunted by what I have seen. My prayer has been, if the dream isn't real, don't take it away, I don't want to live if the church is any less than what I see.