I ran across an old newspaper clipping from the Eugene Register-Guard in Eugene, Oregon. The article was written by a reporter who was assigned to me during a murder investigation when I worked as a homicide detective in Springfield. The article was a full two-page piece with photos of the crime scence and was titled “The Anatomy of a Murder.”

A murder scene can be grisly. This one was no exception. I remember one of the instructions I gave the reporter that was beyond the normal “Don’t touch anything” or “Watch your step, there’s a lot of blood.” I told the reporter to “Smell the room.” He looked confused at first then my instruction made sense when he connected sight with smell in the context of what he was seeing. The odor of blood, tobacco, alcohol, urine, and a lack of personal hygiene permeated the room. When the reporter wrote his article he quoted my question to him indicating how it opened up a whole new angle for the article.

Our natural senses, when enlivened by the Spirit, can become prophetic interpreters. I’ve had situations where a demon was present and the stench of rotting flesh filled the room. I remember once having to take a bus to get to my destinaion because of a canceled flight. A young man boarded the bus at a stop in Salem, Oregon, and sat next to me. The odor coming from him was familiar to me. It was the smell of prison – a smell that comes when men live in close proximity to each other without fresh air. I leaned over to him and asked, “When did you get out of the joint?” He looked shocked. I told him to relax and explained why I knew and that I was no longer a cop. I encouraged him on his newfound freedom. The bus stop where he boarded the bus was near the Oregon State Penitentiary.

I want to encourage you if you are a follower of Jesus to allow the Spirit to fully awaken your senses. There are many things in our world that no longer are alive and serving a good purpose. They might look and sound alive, but they have died and are now in the advancing stages of rot. The smell of the decay of morals, ethics, and truth is happening all around us in an accelerated fashion. To the spiritually sensitive they will be able to “smell” the rot. That interpretation will be possible because they have inhaled the sweetness of Heaven’s fragrance on Earth as a stark comparison.

The Lord wants us fully alive, both in body and Spirit, able to interpret what is taking place in our personal relationships and the surrounding culture. The Holy Spirit is issuing a word of instruction like the one I gave the reporter, “Smell the room.” The awakening of all our senses will be part of the spiritual awakening that is breaking out in our nation where people are choosing a life with Jesus over the death and the stench of hell that was present in their lives before they had a personal encounter with the Lord.

When activated, our awakened senses will allow us to discern the anatomy of the spiritual murders taking place in our personal relationships, the insitutions of our nation, and within all spheres of society that are robbing people of the goodness of God by killing their hope. That discernment will point out the suspects who are perpetuating those emotional and spiritual murders. Their exposure and the supporting evidence will bring them before the courts of Heaven for examination and the issuance of a righteous verdict.