I had another entry posted today – see below.  The Holy Spirit interupted this morning and told me to share this with you.  I started posting it in Rendezvous but He said ” No – C’ Notes”.  That’s how specific He was.  I’m obeying. 

Sean Feucht: Cutting Off the Serpent’s Head – a Word of Hope
by Sean Feucht
Aug 25, 2010

This has been one of the wildest, most intense and dramatic summers of my entire life. Is anyone else out there in the same boat? Has this season of transition, collision and acceleration taken your breath away? The ups the downs, the highs the lows are completely unpredictable with no premeditated pattern. Each day seems to boast a multitude of challenges, opportunities, excitements, thrills, pains and joys.

I guess my personal “overwhelming” feeling could be loosely associated with the culmination of my first few weeks of fatherhood and the beginning of my 27th year living in this beautiful mess called humanity! I’ve caught wind this summer from many friends and leaders all over the world that are experiencing the same trends, and it has caused me to dig into the deep places of the Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 2:10) for clear language and accurate articulation for what the Spirit is saying and doing in this hour.

One Venomous Snake

Two prime examples of this bizarre pattern of circumstances took place a couple weeks ago as I was on the way out to run errands in Virginia Beach, Virginia. This was exactly seven days after my little Keturah Liv was born and two days after my Grandpa (my dad’s father) had passed away. My wife Kate was inside watching over our baby as she slept. As I walked through the front yard while texting on my phone (multi-tasking at its best), this massive black snake boasting large fangs lunged with all its might to strike my bare ankle. By the urging of some supernatural cosmic force (God), I looked up as this was taking place and vigorously jumped back and to the side just in time to miss the teeth and venom by less than two inches! Whew!

Without hesitation, I quickly ran into the garage in frantic search of a shovel and found a piece of bed frame in which to decapitate this almost five-foot long monster. I delivered the final blow only feet from the front door of our house (as it had the audacity to run “toward” the house from me). The whole ordeal was a brief 15 minutes long but kept me jittering for the better part of the day. After performing some due diligence, research on Wikipedia and insight from local neighbors, we identified the imposter as a Black Cottonmouth (scientific name here), known as a poisonous snake found on the East Coast. Upon striking a victim, the snake’s venom quickly surges through the body en route to stop a beating heart. Yikes! So, pretty intense and quite gnarly right? Not your average Tuesday morning walk to the car? Even more peculiar about the whole thing: the neighbors have not seen a snake like it in the area in over a decade.

And Another…

If that was not enough, it all happened again during the final night of our Global Burn Summit on a ranch outside Dallas, Texas. Every year we gather a large percentage of our Burn 24-7 tribe scattered across the world for a weekend full of family, fun and the never-failing presence of God! For our largely decentralized and grassroots movement, this is our time every year to spend face time together with each other and get blasted with heavenly strategy from above. We had fiery leaders stream in from all across North America, Europe, the Middle East and even Australia, and it was a time we will never forget!

During the last night’s session, I briefly stepped out to call my wife (who was in Virginia) to check on her and my new baby. As I was walking down the steps outside the meeting room, I was once again led to look up by a simple “nudge” of the Spirit inside me. At the bottom of the steps was a large, coiled-up snake with its head up and ready to strike! I could hardly believe it and had to scratch my eyes to make sure this was happening in the flesh!

I quickly jumped off to the side and grabbed a sharp ranch tool and chased the snake around (with some help) and cut its head off minutes later. Unfortunately, I smashed it pretty good and our best guess was identifying it as a rattle or bull snake. Both can be poisonous and painful to their victims. I immediately busted in to interrupt the impartation meeting with our leaders and proclaimed in a loud roar: “We are cutting off the serpent’s head in this season and his strategies will NOT prevail!” The whole place erupted and we had a great time celebrating and welcoming in a new season of breakthrough across the world!

What Does This All Mean?

I have DEFINITELY been asking God for some serious interpretation to these odd situations (as I don’t believe they are merely coincidence). Now I see “in part” but I believe a fuller picture is coming soon. Here is the revelation right now that I do posses as truth concerning this:

· The enemy is currently out on a rampage to “steal, kill and destroy” (John 10:10) as he knows his time is quickly coming to an end.

· We have been given the Spirit to “guide us into all truth,” and God has graced us with “eyes to see and ears to hear” in this season (John 16:13).

· We will resist the confusion, anxiety and many tasks of this world and our lives to respond to His voice (example: putting cell phone down to look up).

· As we are attentive, God will prompt us to “look up” to watch the enemy’s strategies unveiled before our eyes. The demonic plans will not prevail over us.

· There will be an ease of “mere minutes” to destroy satan’s plans.

· Our greatest tool to see the demonic powers defeated in this season will be the “bed frame” of intimacy (John 15) and time spent in His Presence.

· Authority will be released from this place of intimacy like never before. “I have given you (power and) authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you” (Luke 10:19).

We Will Not Shrink Back!

Too many of these random but meaningful situations have taken place lately for me to side with fatalism or random coincidence. There is something brooding in the atmosphere over our cities and nations! Is it a ploy of the enemy to impose a barrage of distractions, setbacks and frustrating circumstances to cloud our focus and turn our attention more on the size of the waves than on the words of the Lord? If so, we could easily leverage these attacks and cry “woe is me” to further validate our timely excuses to give up or take a break. But according to Hebrews 10:39, that is no longer an option as the writer boldly declares over us:

“We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.”

Just as Jesus summoned Peter to walk on the water with the simple word “Come” (Matthew 14:29), the voice of God has declared prophetic words over our lives, families, cities and nations in this hour that will manifest provision, resources, stamina and divine breakthrough to finish the work. In agreement with Hebrews 12:2, He is not just the author of our faith, but the finisher. We also know that not a single word from the mouth of God will return void, but will accomplish and fulfill the purpose for which it was sent (Isaiah 55:11).

He Cannot Avoid the Inevitable

Even one of the enemy’s most grandiose schemes to murder over 50 million innocent babies in America since 1973 on the altar of convenience reveals he is scrambling with his limited potential to delay the inevitable. The golden bowls of incense above our cities and nations are filling faster than any time in mankind’s existence with the fervent prayers and passionate worship of the saints. The generation emerging from this holocaust carries a divine redemption and compounded destiny to “Pursue, Overtake and Recover All” (1 Samuel 30).

So many furnaces, houses of prayer and “Presence-focused” communities are being planted in the hardest and darkest nations that we can no longer even count them. The radiating light of our presence (“(We) are the light of the world…” Matthew 5) in “His Presence” is causing the darkness to flee with the simplicity and ease of switching on a light in a dark room. The global missions movement is ravaging the earth like a wildfire, and “knowing Jesus” is still the fastest-growing trend worldwide! It is now viral and unstoppable. This glorious and victorious end-time surge of momentum will not diminish and there is no going backwards from here.

Hey, that is GOOD NEWS!

This Living Hope

So what do we take solace and stand on in a season with so much transition? How do we process and thrive through the dichotomy, chaos, unpredictability, confusion, and unusual bliss yet deep despair? What is our position as it is all simultaneously crashing in? How do we refuse to get flustered from the “normal” jabs of the serpent to pester and discourage us with economic turmoil, relational strife, marital disunity and unusual silence from God?

HOPE. It is the four-letter word carrying the sound the world desperately longs to hear. The search for it has caused them to do crazy things (socially, economically, politically, etc). As Believers in Jesus Christ, we are bona fide “new creations” (Romans with a “renewed mind” (Romans 12) and heavenly perspective. We do not think with the “carnal” minds of the world and are not on a wild goose hunt for meaning and value (despite any postmodern theology). Hope is our true reality. Hope is a Man we know very well.

These words below out of 1 Peter, chapter 1 have struck me and become a reality now more than ever before in this season with the passing of my father, grandfather and even the birth of my new baby girl:

“…He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in Heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” (verses 3-5)

I love that the Bible clearly describes this hope as “living”, meaning it is NOW active and FULLY alive.

“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold…may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (verses 6-7)

Burn 24/7 Tribe, lovers of God, and friends across the planet, I want to encourage you in this hour, regardless of your current circumstances, to press in for our true reality of this “living hope” we possess. Meditate on it, pray through it and allow it to become the fresh manna that nourishes your hungry soul. I would never sink into the mire of blind presumption and underestimate the trials, suffering and perils you may be facing. For this is a time of great shaking, shifting and transition. It could be hitting you financially, relationally, with disease in your body, lack of peace in your family, loss of a job, extravagant loss of a loved one (as in my case losing my father) and so on.

I have become even more sensitive and graced to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15) than ever before in this season with so much loss occurring across the globe. But just as I looked into the innocent and glorious eyes of my new born daughter this morning, this “living hope” reminds and assures us that redemption is well on its way and the serpent seeking to distract us will be destroyed!

Sean Feucht
Founder, Burn 24/7
Email: info@theburn247.com

Sean and Kate Feucht are the founders of Burn 24-7—powerful, prolonged experiences of worshiping the Father and intercession for the nations. Their undying vision is to ignite and establish places of continual worship and prayer that will affect the spiritual atmospheres, climates and cultures of cities and regions for the Kingdom of God. Sean has released five prophetic worship albums and travels around the nation leading worship and speaking at conferences, camps, services and BURN 24-7 furnaces.