Do Sins in Our Dreams Require Repentance?

Are we responsible to repent of sins that we commit in our dreams? Well, that question came to me in an email last week. And during the Friday Night Live that Jennifer and I do, I answered that. And I thought I would take that section of the video and share it with you today.

I hope you find it helpful.

Are sins that we commit in our dreams real sins on par with conscious sins committed while we are awake? Or do they need to be confessed and repented of? On the one hand, it feels wrong to say actions in dreams can be sinful since we are not fully conscious or aware.

But on the other, I could see an argument to be made about it being a result of a dormant or latent sin in the heart that needs repentant. Thanks for your ministry. God bless.

This is such a great question. I was actually looking forward to this and everybody who sent in questions. I know they're always thoughtful and I'm so appreciative. But this one particularly is one that I have not heard before.

A lot of questions I get are questions that I've heard from people at church and things over the years. But no one has ever asked me if their dreams are sinful. And that's what this question is basically asking.

Are your dreams somehow sinful? If you sin in your dreams, are you sinning? Is this something that needs to be confessed? And is it something that needs to be repented of? And boy, I'm just glad you're answering the question.

This is a great question. I want to thank the person who sent it in again. I thank everybody for their question, but this one particularly is unique. And so let me answer by simply saying, first thing out of the gate.

We are not culpable in the sense of if there are things that we cannot control. If something happens against which we have no control, like we're coerced to do something, we're not liable for that if we're coerced into it.

We talk about this in ethics. We talk about the difference between someone being willing to do something and someone being coerced to do something under the threat of death or under the threat of torture and someone does something.

It's not the same level of responsibility. Now there may still be some responsibility, but it's not the same level of responsibility. So we do talk about in ethics, different levels of culpability, different levels of responsibility, and when does someone stop being necessarily responsible for something that they do?

Like for instance, if somebody doesn't know something, I'll give you a great example. Let's say someone has a mental incapacity. Someone has had a traumatic brain injury. They are mentally unable to do something and it causes them to behave in a certain way.

Let's say a person has a brain injury and it causes them to shout out and they happen to shout out a curse word. Well, ordinarily we might say that somebody shouting out a curse word might be something that needed to be repented of, but a person who had a traumatic brain injury and shouted out a curse word would not have the same level of culpability as I would if I just stood up and shouted out a curse word.

Am I making sense when I'm talking about the different levels of culpability? Okay, so the reason why I bring this up is when you talk about someone who is dreaming, that isn't something that you're actively controlling.

However, and this is where I see a couple of people and at least one person in the channel mentioned about thought life being something to warrant the wrath of God. I'm getting there and I appreciate this Caged Sage Crusader, and by the way, what's up, man?

I see you. I appreciate you comment on a lot of my videos and I appreciate you. I do think our dream life can be the byproduct of our thought life, and this is where I was getting to. So for instance, if we fill our lives with lustful thoughts and then our dream life is a byproduct of that, where we're having lustful dreams, I think what needs to be repented of is the lustful thoughts that are causing the lustful dreams.

If we're a person who's constantly angry, we're allowing the people around us to anger us and that produces dreams of wrath and violent behavior, then I think the dreams, the dreams are not the issue.

The thought life behind it is, is what is the, is the major issue. And so let me, let me give you an example of something that you may never have heard of, but if you are, if any of you are martial artists, you have heard of what I'm about to say.

Martial artists experience something called warrior dreams. You've heard me talk about this, remember? You and you've experienced it too, not just because you're a martial artist, but you're a mom. If you're a mom, you've probably had a warrior dream.

Here's an example of a warrior dream. In a warrior dream, you are experiencing a fight of some kind against someone who is trying to hurt you and you're, you're going through the motions in your dream of fighting back against, against this person.

So for instance, moms have this dream often about their children being injured. Like you've told me about dreams you've had, right? Somebody trying to take your children, take our kids and you're fighting them off.

That is a natural, a natural by-product of the desire to protect a child. Martial artists have this dream because we train to fight, we train to defend ourselves. And so we often have dreams of going through the motion of that action and it's a by-product of that training.

It's, it's, I think it's our mind's way of preparing us for these things. So if you, if in your dreams, you're acting out sexual, uh, sinful, sexual desires, or in your dream, you're acting out terribly angry or perverse or violent desires, then I think that is, is probably an indication of something in your heart that needs to be addressed.

Let's end there by simply saying your dreams aren't necessarily what need to be repented of, but your dreams are the by-product of your thought life sometimes. And therefore, if your dreams are, if your dreams are expressing things that are sinful, it might be coming out of your thought life.

And therefore you need to consider your thought life. The Bible does say we should take every thought captive to Christ. And it says in Matthew chapter six, uh, Matthew chapter five, rather, that even our thought life, our lives, our thoughts of anger and lust are sinful and do need to be repented of.

So, um, it's not this, it's not the dream itself. It's what the dream is a by-product of. Okay.

I just got to think too. What about television before you go to bed? Boy, boy. Yeah.

What are you watching? That's a great question. Are you watching something that's encouraging this? All right. So thank you, Mirai. She said she heard all of it. So that's great.