Apostle Dele Johnson is the General Overseer of Jesus Liberation Squad (JLS), Fagba Lagos. The former bank manager has been vigorously clamouring for people to take dreams seriously through his television broadcast. He believes most human miseries are perfected through dreams hence his campaign. In this interview, he speaks on why dreams are more than mere midnight visions.

LATELY, you have been spear­heading the campaign for people, especially Christians, to pay proper attention to their dreams. How important are dreams anyway?
The ministry of dreams is very, very important. Man is a spirit with a soul living in a body. By your spirit, you contract God. Every child of God must be able to operate in prophetic dreams. God must be able to speak to you through dreams. It is a medium God uses but there are others. Every child of God must be able to pick up his dream life; it is just a basic medium of hearing from you. Even unbelievers have dreams of prophetic dimension that have benefited them. Remember the wife of Pilate had a dream of warning that her husband should not touch Christ. So dreams are very important for both Christians and non­Christians.

How many Biblical lives and events were shaped and moulded by dreams?
So many of them. Let us start from Jesus. His conception was communicated in a dream. When his paternity was in doubt, it took a dream to put it in proper prospective. As a baby, he was saved from Herod's sword through a dream. When it was time for return, God told Joseph in a dream to return because Herod who wanted the baby dead was gone. Assuming Joseph didn't take his dreams seriously, Jesus would have been cut off and there would have been no saviour.
Abraham, the patriarch, had a dream about his progenitors serving as slaves in a foreign land for 400 years.
His grandson Jacob also benefited from prophetic dreams. In Laban's employ, his wage was changed ten times and God met him in a dream, teaching him how to take over the wealth of Laban's herd. So if we are serious about wealth transfer, we got to pay closer attention to our dreams. God can use dreams to transfer wealth to us and give us ideas that will rule the world. And don't forget he had a dream on his way from Canaan where he saw angels ascending and descending.
Okay, let us move to Abimelech, the King, who wanted to sleep with Abraham's wife because Abraham lied that Sarah was his sister. It took a dream to warn him to back off. So you see that dreams have moulded lives.
Can we forget Joseph the dreamer who dreamt of stars and moon bowing down to him at 17. I mean God showed him his greatness through dreams. It was the same dream that took him to the palace. He could have despised dreams of the baker and Cupbearer but he didn't. He interpreted their dreams and moved up in life. In the New Testament, Apostles Paul and Peter had different dreams that showed them what to do.
So throughout the bible, you discover dreams have moulded lives and shaped events.

But the fear is this campaign may lead to the relegation of other means of divine communication
No, no. Dreams are supposed to be confirmed by the still small voice, the word of GOd and prophetic declarations. There is nothing God is telling you that has not been written in the scriptures. If God gives you a dream, there must be a scripture to back it up. So these mediums are not at tangent with dreams; they are supposed to complement one another. Visions must complement dreams, thus saith the Lord must complement scriptures, etcetera.
So if you say you have a dream where you marry someone else's wife then I will ask you: Does the Bible allow us to marry someone else's wife? That means it is not from God.

Meaning some dreams are not from God ...
Certainly. There are three sources of dreams. There is a dream that is from the abundance of your heart. The Bible says, 'from the multitude of business, a dream cometh'. In other words, what you are busy doing during the day can be an overflow in the night.
Two, there are dreams from the devil. The enemy can also hijack our dreams, especially when we are careless. Then of course, there are dreams from God.

The feeling one gets is your church is all about dreams. Is this true?
No, no. Every time God discovers a particular subject is lost in the body of Christ, He raises Apostles in that department so that the body can enjoy those blessings. Ours is a total church. We preach and believe everything in the Bible. But when you have a particular assignment, you see yourself gravitating towards it. We are predominantly a deliverance ministry. God told me specifically in 1998, "Go liberate for me Zion using Apostolic prayers and the unadulterated word of God." We preach hard, pray hard and believe in the entire Bible.
But when you are given an assignment, it becomes your major preoccupation. But we focus more on dreams for now because it is something urgent in the mind of God. I believe strongly that when the fire spreads, God may order us to move on.

But what led to the erosion of the ministry of dreams in the first place?
One, ignorance. Two, pollution. Now on ignorance, you will agree that there has not been adequate dissemination of knowledge in this area. The subject of dreams has been mystified and there is nothing mystifying about dreams. And to worsen the matter, charlatans have hijacked the ministry. So we have more polluted minds in this area. Because of pollution, genuine people have avoided the ministry I believe what God has called us to do is to light the area and embolden prophets gifted in that area to come out.

So there is more to dreams than daily night visions?
Oh sure! Not long ago, a young man had a dream where three people asked to cut a tree in his compound. He just allowed, wondering what he was going to do with it anyway. Not long after, he died. That was an unnecessary waste. If I had heard earlier, I'd have pointed out he was giving up his life to the devil. The Bible says 'the life of my people shall be like a tree'. So there is definitely more to dreams.

You also interpret dreams. How would you come about that?
You can't talk about dreams without interpretation. I remember in 1998, God told me to go on a 7­day fast. I did and went to a retreat where God asked me to pray for the spirit to interpret dreams, enigmas, riddles and dark sayings. Innocently, I prayed and before I left, the first book on dreams titled 'Interpretation of dreams and prayer responses' was written. Someone challenged me if we only have satanic dreams. I said no and went back to God. I came up with another book and God started teaching me the basics through the Bible. Whatever you are taught can be shared by teaching, association or impartation and that is what I am doing.

How have people responded to the campaign since you started?
It's been phenomenal. It confirms there is a problem. God told me 70% of human problems are dream related. We have had the high, the low, the mighty and the middle people coming to us. They are confused but God has been using us to help them.

Culled from The Nation on Sunday.