Dream: The Lion Hunt

I had a dream on the night of Thursday Feb 8, 2001. I believe the context of the dream may be viewed in light of the fact that I had been studying, experimenting on, and preparing for Spiritual Warfare. I had been learning much about spiritual warfare, intercession, deliverance ministry for expelling demons, the gifts of the Spirit, and about healing ministry, through many books I had been reading. Most of these books were NOT written by members of the Restoration. There is very little you can find in the way of this material among restoration authors even though I believe these things were quite prominent in the early church. The Lord has been leading me to these books, and I have been learning through experimentation upon His word. As a result, the Lord has placed me in the forefront of spiritual warfare in our church organization. I was instructed to bring some of what I have been taught to one particular branch which had been under siege by satan, so that they may be able to protect themselves, and fight more effectively against the wiles of the devil. When I first woke up from the dream, I thought it was just a weird dream, but something (I believe the Holy Spirit) hinted to me that it was something more. Therefore, I pondered it, and as I did, I immediately started seeing some things, what I believe to be some of the interpretation. Here it is. 

The Dream: 

My cousin and I are with a group of experienced lion hunters. It was night when we arrived. My cousin and I have never been hunting before, and we were a bit nervous. The veterans broke out the camp, and set up a very very old, heavily patched and worn tent. I commented on the poor condition of the tent. The veterans had apparently used this old tent for many years, it had the look of something passed down by many generations. They said that it would do for now, but that soon we would get a new tent. In fact, it was made known by one of them that this would be the last time we would use this tent. Immediately upon hearing that, one of the veteran hunters, tore off some patches that had been placed on the tent as "preventative maintenance." Apparently there was no hole or rip yet, but you could see that in those areas, they would soon tear. The man said, "well, then we'll take these off since they should hold this one last time." As he tore these preventative patches off...  he exposed many rough and poor spots that were near to coming undone. Yet, when we erected the tent, it all held in place. We passed the night in the tent conversing about the hunt.  

Suddenly there was a rush to grab equipment and weapons and run out of the tent. The time had come. I found my gun and realized I had no idea how to operate it. The next thing I notice is that I could not find my bag of ammo. I had evidently left it somewhere. A veteran hunter told me to forget about it. He said, "here use this," and threw me what appeared to be a chunk of diamond, a little bigger than a golf ball. The chunk appeared to be made up of many smaller rough diamonds all stuck together, but which could be broken off from the main. I broke off a small piece, which was odd shaped, and put it in the barrel of my gun, loading it like an old muzzle loader. Because of the odd shape of the gem, it did not fit perfectly into my gun, but by shaking or jerking the gun barrel a couple of times, I could get the rock to slip the rest of the way down into the barrel. 

As I emerged from the tent door, I saw the early morning sun low on the horizon. We had camped at the summit of a large hill. Below us in the valley were a large group of lions. I suddenly realized my gun was very wimpy looking. It was not large and made of wood and metal as I had supposed, but was short and small and made of plastic, like a toy gun. The veterans who seemed to have superior weapons had run out way ahead of us, and went before us down the hill. At first, the lions did not appear to be the hunted. They were not afraid of us, and they headed towards the hunters as soon as they saw them, seeking to slaughter them. We were to be the prey it appeared, but suddenly the situation turned around as the veterans began firing rounds at the lions. 

Many of the lions came charging up in our direction, seeing easier prey. I suddenly realized I could not remember where my weapon was. I stood there hesitating, then suddenly I saw I had tucked the gun in my belt. Pulling it out, I took aim with my pathetic looking weapon, and BOOM, at a great distance one of the lions went down. I reached in my pocket and took out the gem the veteran hunter had given me, broke off another chunk, loaded my gun with some difficulty, and fired again as the pack of lions came upon us. Having fired again, another fell. I was amazed that this weapon was working. But now we were surrounded, and so I began to dance around, running to and fro, loading my weapon as the lions tried to take me down. They seemed unable, however, to penetrate my personal space and grab a hold of me, even when I was seemingly at their mercy. Some invisible force seemed to be protecting me in my weaker moments. 

I fired again, and another went down. And then another. My cousin was unharmed as well, and we both continued to be successful in what was no longer a hunt, but an all out war. The lions seemed to begin to loose heart, and began backing away from us, no longer quite so eager to attack us.

 The dream ended as I woke to the sound of thunder.

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At first I thought that this was just an interesting dream, but almost immediately I began to get an impression that there was something spiritually significant in it. I couldn't begin to figure out what...  but I asked the Lord as I began to dose off, and immediately several things came to my mind.  

• The veteran hunters were those who have gone before us, or those have had much experience in spiritual warfare, unlike my cousin and I. They are the authors of those books I had been reading. Their wisdom and written testimonies have served as an inspiration and helped get  us to where we are now: On the hunt. 
• The lions are satan's demonic hoards. "He goes about roaring like a lion, seeing whom he can devour" 
• My forgetting of the ammo, my wimpy looking gun, my awkwardness in the battle speaks of my inexperience. The weapons of my warfare are not yet refined and perfected, and by my own inexperience, I sometimes forget things, or am lacking. The over-all dream however shows that despite my imperfections, and the fact that I lack a full or complete knowledge of spiritual warfare, I would still be successful, and would grow as I went on the hunt. 
• The chunk of odd assorted rough diamonds the veteran gave me represented the bits of gem-like knowledge they had gained from their experiences.  It is also their understanding of the word of God, and how it applies to spiritual warfare. This knowledge empowers me to fight. Although my religion or theology did not always perfectly match theirs, (shown by the fact that their gems did not perfectly fit as ammo in my gun) YET, with a little work - I was able to get them to go, and without them I would have been without ammo against the lions when they came.   
• Although at first I was a little uncertain, and afraid....  as I stepped out in faith, and as the lions came at me, I began to grow, my face was set like flint, and I did not run away back to the tent. I stood my ground, and did what I could, the best I could...  (as far as I could see at that point we were going to be over-run by the lions, and likely killed - yet we stayed our ground) And it was then, in the heat of battle, that we discovered that we were protected... I believe the protection was God, His armor, His hedge of protection, His protecting warrior angels, and His Spirit. 
• The tent was depicted as old, worn and torn. Is this the church? Our organizations? I don't know for sure. But I know the Book of Mormon says there are only two churches, one is Christ's, and one is satan's. The Bible tells us that we are to be ONE faith, ONE body, ONE hope of our calling, ONE baptism, ONE Lord, and yet we are divided, and often times man seems to be at the head of the church, and not Christ. I believe it is the end of the church age, and the beginning of the KINGDOM AGE.  The veterans seemed unconcerned, saying it would do for now... and indicated that soon we would get a new one, it gets me to thinking....  pondering. 
• Also, they began to tear off some of the patches, revealing poor spots of the tent which would soon rip. This is most interesting to me, as by the very acts that God has doing as of late, and the commands he has given some of his servants to do have caused ripples of discussion and controversy from time to time, as He has caused us to look at many of our vain traditions which are not scriptural. The problems have not "just appeared" but rather they are simply being exposed by challenging them through actions which God has mandated to be done.