Many sources report that, in the words of Roman Catholic conservative Dinesh D’Souza, “Millions of Muslims are Converting to Christianity After Having Dreams and Visions of Jesus Christ.” Charismatic sources agree with the Catholics about millions of Muslims becoming Christians through dreams and visions. So do Southern Baptist mission agencies.

These visions and dreams clearly prove that:

1.) Continuationism is true and cessationism is false.  God is continuing to give revelatory dreams and visions today.  We have lots of testimonials, and testimonials can’t be wrong.

2.) Any passages of Scripture that seem to teach the cessation of revelation with the completion of the canon must be reinterpreted in light of the overwhelming proof from the dreams and visions.

3.) If this can happen in Muslim lands, it can happen here. Instead of the hard work of teaching people to skillfully preach the gospel, and working so that they grow spiritually to the point where they love to go house to house, we should encourage people to seek after signs, wonders, and dreams, because that is how there will be millions of new converts here in our country as well.

Right?

Wrong.

Why?

Scripture is the sole authority for the believer’s faith and practice (2 Timothy 3:15-17).  Scripture is more sure than any experience–even hearing the audible voice of God Himself (2 Peter 1:16-21). Scripture, therefore, must never have its teaching ignored, altered, overlooked, or changed because of what someone claims he experienced.  Indeed, even if everyone in the whole world said something was true, but Scripture said otherwise, the Bible would be right and everyone would be wrong: “Let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4).

Scripture teaches cessationism, as the studies linked to here clearly demonstrate.  There are no Apostles today or apostolic gifts (Ephesians 2:20), the canon of Scripture is complete (1 Corinthians 13:8-13), and God Word is His completed revelatory speech.

Furthermore, Scripture teaches that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17); conversion comes through Scripture (John 15:3). Men are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23). So nobody has been born again because of a dream. The Holy Spirit produces the new birth as sinners, enabled by grace, respond to the gospel recorded in the Word of God. This is “thus saith the Lord.” I don’t care what someone says happened in his dream.  God’s Word is infinitely more reliable than someone’s dream, and Scripture teaches that people are born again through hearing the gospel, not having dreams and visions.

So how do I explain the dreams? I don’t need to explain people’s dreams.  The Bible tells me to live by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4), but it never tells me that I need to explain what someone said he saw in a dream. I don’t need to explain dreams of people who say they left Islam and rejected Allah and the Quran for Christianity. Nor do I need to explain the dreams of people who say they left Christianity for Islam after having a dream.  How am I supposed to know what is going on in someone else’s head when he is sleeping?  The vast majority of the time I can’t even remember my own dreams.  Yet I need to explain what someone tells me happened in his dream, or what someone tells someone else who tells someone else who tells someone else who prints an article with no documentation in a charismatic magazine about a dream?

I am suspicious that these “millions” of converts are allegedly taking place in lands far, far away where it is impossible to verify anything.  For example, in the Dinesh D’Souza video above, there are no sources provided and no way to verify anything.  This is typical–indeed, D’Souza is a scholarly man who tends to document his material far better than does the average charismatic magazine.  With these millions of alleged converts to Christianity, true churches–independent Baptist churches–should be overflowing in Muslim countries, as Islam is allegedly collapsing and true Christians are allegedly becoming a huge percentage of the population. But are these people-if they even exist–becoming true Christians, or leaving Islam for other demonic religions, like Roman Catholicism or Oneness Pentecostalism?  What would someone leaving one false religion for a different false religion prove?  Scripture teaches that we see Christ by faith, enabled by the Spirit, in the Word (2 Corinthians 3:18), and all images of Jesus Christ are idolatrous violations of the Second Commandment (see the relevant resources here).  So are they seeing the real Jesus in a dream? Also, where are all these people? Why is this only (allegedly) happening in places far, far away where we can’t actually verify it? I think of how Jack Hyles claimed that through “God’s power,” allegedly in conjunction with carnal promotion and marketing techniques that manipulated people and are found nowhere in Scripture, he had far more “saved” in one day than the Holy Ghost did on the Day of Pentecost, although not even one person was added to First Baptist of Hammond, Indiana on that day through these “saved” people, and people close enough to the situation to investigate claimed that the vast majority of these “saved” people were just as lost as before. I think of how Keswick continuationist John A. MacMillan, who is promoted among Independent Baptists at schools like Baptist College of Ministry. MacMillan claimed to have an amazing technique for casting out demons, which was copied by him and promoted at one of the yearly Victory Conferences at Baptist College of Ministry and Falls Baptist Church–but people who were close to the situation claimed, on the contrary, that the demons were in control of everything. I think of how Evan Roberts and Jessie Penn-Lewis, with their dreams and visions, destroyed the 1904-1905 Welsh revival. Scripture is sufficient, so even if I were confronted with signs and wonders of the quality that the Antichrist will perform in the Tribulation, I would still go by sola Scriptura–Scripture alone.  But the alleged evidence for these dreams and visions seems to be woefully lacking.  They aren’t like the real revelatory miracles in the Bible before the miraculous gifts ceased.

Note that the question is not if God is powerful enough to give people dreams.  The question is not one of God’s power. It is one of what He has said He would do in His inspired revelation, the Bible–and in that revelation He has said that the giving of revelation through dreams has ceased.  Nor is there a category of “non revelatory” dreams that are infallibly from God. If God gives infallible truth, then it is revelation. If it is not infallible truth, then God is not speaking in the dream, for God cannot lie, but only speaks and reveals infallible truth.

What if I come across someone who actually is serving the Lord faithfully in a true church, but who says that having a dream was part of how he became a Christian?  Doesn’t that mean that I need to reinterpret Scripture?  No.  God is sovereign, and He can use all kinds of things to get people thinking about religion or about His Word. I know someone who is a faithful Christian who, before his conversion, liked to watch creationist videos while smoking pot.  That doesn’t mean I commend the pot smoking.  I know someone else who called on a ghost (likely a demon) to come to him, and then says that the ghost came at night and almost killed him.  The demonic intervention led this person away from agnosticism to openness to the supernatural, and years later he became a Christian.  That doesn’t mean I support agnostics calling on ghosts or demons.  So if someone says he had a dream and that led him away from Islam to Christianity, I’m glad if he trusted in Christ, while everything contrary to Scripture that took place in his life–including the alleged revelatory dreams–are chalked up to God’s merciful and providential grace, and need no further explanation. (This is even apart from the fact that we cannot see people’s hearts, and even in true churches people without the new birth can enter and appear to be genuine believers for a time, so I cannot rule out the possibility that the person who claims to have been born again after seeing a dream is not a true child of God.)

So are millions of Muslims being born again because of dreams?  No. Nobody is being born again because of a dream.  Are Muslims having dreams that lead them to all kinds of religious experiences?  Very possibly.  Why?  There could be all kinds of reasons. I do not need to speculate.

What I do need to know is what Scripture teaches.  The Biblical truth of cessationism is being weakened in some independent Baptist churches because people are not thinking Biblically, but are allowing what people say is happening in their dreams to justify changes to Biblical beliefs on charismata.  You are dreaming if you think it is right to change one’s doctrine and practice from what Scripture teaches because of what some other person says he saw when he was sleeping.

Never change or set aside God’s Word because of an experience or what someone says.  That was part of Satan’s original technique that caused the Fall in Genesis 3.  Go with Scripture–not the dreams.  As Christ said, “thy word is truth” (John 17:17).  Give Muslims gospel truth, such as in The Testimony of the Quran to the Bible pamphlet.  Reject the dreams. Do not be deceived.