“I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh!” That was the message in the dream. But unlike most dream-plays, I was not the protagonist. Nor was God’s voice speaking to me through another character in the dream. Neither I nor His words remained in subconscious dreamscape, but rather, we were both translated into a loud reverberation, travelling into the real conscious world. Let me explain.

I had been longing to have contact from the Almighty in some way. Or have Him contact me. And as I lay in bed praying, waiting to fall asleep—a year and a half ago now—I asked God, “Please, Father, will You give me a word from You? Would You let me know You are there? Maybe in a dream?”

So, I went on to sleep, and then this voice had found its way into me, and I began to be its vocal cords.  And it resounded in a thunderous blast: “I will pour My Spirit upon all flesh. UPON ALL FLESH!” It seemed that the windows rattled. I was the reed; the Spirit was the breath that vibrated the reed, and the message in His words was the music played through the collective saxophone made from the words of His prophets and apostles down through the ages.

That is when my wife Linda shouted, “Wake up! You’re dreaming!”

And as I began to stir, I knew that the voice had come through my mouth. I did not originate the voice or the words spoken by the voice. The message was not the fruit of my will. I was not aware that I was even there. I then got up; it was three o’clock, and I stumbled over to my desk  and took some notes about the experience. It is only until now that I have been able to begin to wrap my mind around this immediate, profound and specific answer to prayer.

I have tried to make some sense of it but have been hindered by a preconception of just what the “pouring out” entails. The most famous “pouring” is the Upper Room experience, the pouring forth of His Spirit at Pentecost. Peter quotes Joel 2: 28-29 in his famous attribution in Acts 2:16-20. This has impressed many that Joel’s prophecy starts and ends with the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit.

Two Outpourings

But herein lies a problem. He said, “all flesh,” but “all flesh” did not have the Upper Room experience. Thousands were in Jerusalem that day, but only a few received the Spirit. Who then received the Spirit? “On My servants and on my handmaidens, I will pour out of my Spirit…” (2:18). That is who received the Spirit in the upper room. Not everybody in Jerusalem, not everyone in the world…

  As we read on in the very next verse, we see another kind of outpouring. Yahweh says, “And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD [Yahweh] come” (Joel 2:30-31).

In both prophetic passages, there are two vastly different outpourings. The first section reveals the baptism of the Holy Spirit that will take place during the “time of the end.” The second part of that prophetical flow reveals a pouring out of natural disasters and “acts of God,” a day of gloom and terror (Joel 2: 30- 31). This day of terror is when Yahweh has His angel pour out the vials of wrath. This shows us that both the pouring forth of the Spirit and the pouring out of the vials of wrath happen at basically the same time in history…

[Don’t miss the deep dive into the scriptures next time as the Spirit teaches us what the Voice in the dream meant. If you believe that this article or any of my writings would help someone, share it with someone dear to you. Share it on the internet. Let His light shine. Somebody asked me one time, “What can I do with this truth?” Share it. Use the computer to stir up the people. Have compassion on them. Most won’t listen, but the one that God wants to reach just may read one of these articles. Sow the seed, His words of truth.] Kenneth Wayne Hancock