How Do I Respond to Sexual Dreams?

00:00:00.000 | Hello everyone, this is Tony. We have quite an episode for you today, but before we

00:00:04.640 | start I have a favor. We love serving you on this podcast and we want to serve you

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00:00:21.840 | That's DesiringGod.org/survey and that survey will be up until the end of

00:00:27.800 | January. Here now is today's episode.

00:00:32.480 | Well seven years ago this week we launched this podcast. 1,400 episodes

00:00:39.720 | later here we are finally addressing the topic of sexualized dreams. Yes,

00:00:44.560 | sexualized dreams. Easily one of the most asked about topics in the inbox and

00:00:48.920 | certainly the most asked about topic we've brushed off to date. No longer.

00:00:53.840 | Here's an email from an anonymous man. "Hello Pastor John and thank you for this

00:00:57.680 | podcast. I am 31, a believer, married for 12 years to a wonderful Christian woman.

00:01:02.360 | I'm familiar with the commands of God about sexual sin and its eternal

00:01:06.520 | dangers. I have for almost a year now successfully battled sin with

00:01:10.560 | pornography thanks to prayer, God's Word, help from my wife, my pastor, and an

00:01:14.940 | outside organization that tracks internet activity for accountability

00:01:18.040 | purposes. I know and agree that sex outside of marriage is sinful and wrong.

00:01:21.880 | Even that desire itself is sinful as Jesus said. My question though is as

00:01:27.260 | follows. Why do I have lucid sexual dreams with people other than my wife,

00:01:31.280 | even people I've never met before? These dreams bother me intensely even after I

00:01:35.960 | wake up because I can't help but feel that I have sinned. And even worse, I feel

00:01:39.560 | as if I had no control over it as with most of my dreams. I have a pretty

00:01:44.800 | unhealthy sleep pattern partly because I would rather not dream at all. I am

00:01:50.520 | quite troubled by it and any help would be appreciated. Pastor John, what would

00:01:54.520 | you say to him? The first thing I would say is that I don't know why this is

00:01:59.560 | happening, so I don't want to pose as having a psychological or a spiritual or

00:02:07.360 | a physical hormonal surefire answer to what's going on. I think it's good to be

00:02:17.040 | bothered by it like he is and like others are, but not good to be undone by

00:02:25.600 | it. Let me make that distinction. Let me give four passages of Scripture that

00:02:32.280 | might shed light on the way dreams work, what they mean, what they're

00:02:39.520 | about, and then end with five very brief practical suggestions. And what I'm

00:02:45.200 | praying is that these texts just might be used by the Holy Spirit for some

00:02:51.320 | fresh power of deliverance from dreams that we can't control, but God can. So

00:02:59.760 | here's number one. Zechariah 10 verse 2. "The household gods utter nonsense, and

00:03:06.800 | the diviners see lies. They tell false dreams and give empty consolation.

00:03:15.560 | Therefore the people wander like sheep. They are afflicted for lack of a

00:03:20.480 | shepherd." Now this simple point follows. There is such a thing as false dreams.

00:03:29.120 | That doesn't mean claiming to dream when you don't dream. It's not like these

00:03:33.800 | folks were saying they had a dream and they didn't have a dream. That's

00:03:37.240 | not what it means. It means they're claiming that their dreams had a

00:03:41.920 | particular meaning, which they didn't. There are false meanings. Dreams

00:03:47.800 | come and they deliver false messages to us. So my first exhortation is, "Say to the

00:03:55.320 | Lord and to the dream and to the devil, 'That was a false dream.'" It does not

00:04:03.160 | mean I am unfaithful. I mean to be faithful to my wife. I am not unfaithful

00:04:11.840 | to her. Those dreams are a lie. So say that on the basis of the reality of the

00:04:19.000 | Bible that there is such a thing as a false dream. Here's number two. Deuteronomy

00:04:24.240 | 13 1 to 3. "If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a

00:04:31.920 | sign or a wonder, and that sign or wonder comes to pass, and he says, 'Let us go

00:04:38.120 | after other gods which you have not known and let us serve them,' you shall

00:04:44.760 | not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord

00:04:50.880 | your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your

00:04:56.400 | heart with all your soul." Wow! God uses false prophets and lying dreams, even

00:05:07.800 | accompanied by supernatural signs and wonders, to test his people. So it's not

00:05:16.160 | wrong, while these dreams are tormenting you, to say, "Dreams, Satan, brain, hormones,

00:05:26.320 | whatever you are, I won't be sucked in by this. I see how my faith is being tested

00:05:33.520 | here. Do I love my wife? Do I love purity? Do I love holiness? Do I love Christ who

00:05:41.280 | died to make me pure? Yes, I do. I will not be undone by this test. I will pass

00:05:49.160 | it by faith in the blood of Jesus to cover all my sins, to empower me to walk

00:05:54.800 | in the truth." So I think it's not wrong to say, "I don't know why, but I'm being

00:06:00.200 | tested by these dreams and I'm gonna pass this test." Here's number three, Isaiah 29

00:06:07.680 | 7 and 8. This comes as close as anything, as far as I can see in the Bible, to a

00:06:13.480 | Freudian view of dreams, namely that they signal deep needs or desires, even sexual

00:06:21.240 | ones. Here's what it says, "The nations that fight against Israel shall be like a

00:06:26.960 | dream, a vision of the night, as when a hungry man dreams, and behold he's eating,

00:06:34.360 | and awakens with his hunger not satisfied, or as when a thirsty man dreams,

00:06:40.920 | and behold he's drinking, and he awakens faint with his thirst not quenched. So

00:06:48.200 | shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion." So the

00:06:53.120 | point of this text most immediately is the nations who think they're going to

00:06:58.080 | win against Israel will no more win than the dreamer got his thirst quenched in

00:07:05.280 | dreaming. That's the point. Now here's my reason for pointing out this text. It's

00:07:10.040 | not that. It was common knowledge, evidently. Thirst might make a person

00:07:15.400 | dream of drinking only to be frustrated. Hunger might make a person dream about

00:07:22.360 | eating only to wake up hungry. And I would say in the same way sexual

00:07:29.560 | hormones, desires, impulses, born of nature, might make a person dream he's having

00:07:39.520 | sex, and he wakes up and he didn't have sex. Now that does not explain why you

00:07:47.760 | would dream about women who are not your wife. That may be traced to old patterns

00:07:54.920 | of fantasies that go back 30 years, 20 years, 15 years, and need to be broken. But

00:08:03.320 | the point here is there is nothing remarkable when a physical craving like

00:08:10.600 | hunger or thirst or sexuality cause a dream that the craving is being

00:08:17.840 | satisfied when it isn't. And the question is what will you do with it in the

00:08:25.040 | waking life? That's the question. Not just that it's happening. Here's the last one.

00:08:29.640 | Job 33 14 following. God speaks in one way and in two, though man does not

00:08:36.920 | perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men,

00:08:43.520 | while they slumber on their beds, then God opens the ears of men and terrifies

00:08:50.600 | them with warnings that he may turn aside man from his deed and conceal

00:08:55.600 | pride from man. He keeps back his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by

00:09:03.520 | the sword. That's amazing. That text teaches that God really does use dreams

00:09:09.560 | to terrify us with warnings in order to humble our pride and keep us back from

00:09:17.880 | sin. But if that's true, one way to look at sexually illicit dreams, that is

00:09:25.080 | dreams when you're doing illicit things in the dream, one way to look at them is

00:09:30.120 | that God is terrifying us in our dreams of the horror of this prospect in real

00:09:38.600 | life so that we won't do it. So we're back at the idea of being tested, like it

00:09:45.560 | said earlier. Will the dream have its God-appointed effect of humbling us,

00:09:52.960 | frightening us about our own bent to sinning, and will we lay hold on him for

00:10:01.000 | purity in waking life? So here are my five quick bullet suggestions flowing

00:10:07.500 | from those few biblical observations. Number one, pray earnestly for deliverance

00:10:13.240 | from the dreams and gather some brothers around you to join in earnest prayer.

00:10:18.920 | Number two, read the scriptures for five or ten minutes just before you go to

00:10:25.280 | sleep. Some portion about God's work and his value, like Philippians 3 8 or

00:10:30.800 | Colossians 1 15 to 18 or Hebrews 1 1 to 3, soak your mind in the Word just before

00:10:37.880 | you go to sleep. Number three, purge your movie and TV habits of all sexually

00:10:44.580 | stimulating content. Not just porn, but worldly sexuality. Now that's just about

00:10:50.320 | all TV shows and all movies. Sorry about that. You don't need it. Christians for

00:10:55.600 | 2,000 years did not feed their minds on movies every night. It won't help you to

00:11:01.600 | be stirred up by so-called PG-13 movies that have sexually titillating scenes in

00:11:07.280 | them. Number four, perhaps get a sleep study done. I've had these, my wife has

00:11:13.440 | had this, to see whether or not there are any physical irregularities. And number

00:11:18.480 | five, the last one, when all is said and done, trust the promises of Psalm 25 and

00:11:25.480 | say with confidence, "My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my

00:11:32.160 | feet out of the net." That's verse 15. Profound insights here, Pastor John, to

00:11:37.280 | one of the most perplexing questions we get in the inbox. Thank you for

00:11:40.560 | addressing it. Well, what does your marriage most need from you? That's a

00:11:46.800 | great question. It's a searching question. And it's up next time when we return on

00:11:50.440 | Wednesday. Until then, if you're willing to help us out, fill out our online

00:11:53.840 | survey. Go to DesiringGod.org/survey. That's DesiringGod.org/survey.

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