Speaking Life into Death
Charles Faupel

We have been in an unprecedented heat wave in Arkansas and throughout this region of the country for about a month. There is no relief in sight for the next couple of weeks or more. Other parts of the country, especially the southwest, are experiencing this even more acutely. As I was walking early this morning (July 16, 2022), and observing the green turning to brown all around me, I was poignantly struck by the death that this represents. Death is all around us. This is much more than a death to grass, plants and other facets of the natural world. What a picture this is of the spiritual death throughout the world that we have been observing for decades, but especially over the last few years. The systems of this world are crashing. Governments, economies, and practically every institution that has been erected by man are shriveling up. Death is brooding over this planet.

Make no mistake. God is in the middle of all of this. He has allowed it, and He has purposed it. He is preparing the way for the establishment of His righteous Kingdom. Those of us who are privileged to be living in this time have a front row seat, as we are watching a transition of the ages taking place before our very eyes. There is, of course, a very painful element to this for all of us, as we all have invested to one degree or another into the various systems over which death is now brooding. But out of death comes life. This is an important principle that Jesus not only taught, but demonstrated through His very death and resurrection. This death that we are witnessing must take place so that His Kingdom of Life can be resurrected throughout His creation.

Those of us whom He has separated unto Himself have a very important part to play in the establishment of His Kingdom during this time of transition. We are His body and He is our Head. This is a time for us to be listening very intently to our Head, Christ Jesus, as He speaks to us through His Spirit. He is speaking forth His life in various ways to each member of His body. It is His design that this life that He speaks and that we witness in our own spirits is brought into being by our responsiveness to that witness. And so it is that we are partners with Him in this transition that is now taking place.

It is for this reason that I am writing to plead with each of you reading this to speak forth His life over that which is taking place in our world. Do not be distracted by the evil and the tragedy that is taking place throughout the world. Know that He is in control of all of it. Listen intently to the still small voice in the midst of this whirlwind and let this voice be your anchor that guides what you speak forth through your words and actions.

Even as I am writing, the Lord dropped in a picture of how we are to focus on that still small voice. I grew up on a farm, and when we would be preparing the fields for planting, whether it be plowing, harrowing, or even the planting itself, it was important that when we would strike out on that first plow furrow, or first row with the planter, that we plow a straight furrow or plant a straight row. To do this, we would often tie a rag on a fence post at the opposite end of the field. We would then line up our equipment with that rag at the other end of the field, and intently keep our eye on that rag until we reached the end of the field. As long as we kept our eye on that rag, we would successfully plow a straight furrow or plant a straight row. When we took our eye off the rag, however, the tractor began to follow our eyes and the whole neighborhood could later observe that we failed to keep our eyes on the rag when we planted those beans or that corn!

Our orienting “rag” is Christ Jesus who is faithfully hanging on the fence post at the other end of this “field” in which we find ourselves. This is a time when we must be intently focused on him. To the extent that we are distracted by all that is going on around us, we will be inclined to respond in fear, anger or myriad of ways that will take us astray from the purposes to which He has called us. We must then speak His life and purposes into that which we see going on around us. This is ours to do, and we must know and understand that we are given the authority to speak and act as His ambassadors in this way!

I am convinced in the deepest realms of my being, that as we, His very body, are fully yielded to Him, and as we then listen, speak and act in accordance with what we are seeing and hearing, this heavenly chorus will move mountains and overcome this spirit of death that is now appearing to prevail over this planet.