Dean Merrill, A Higher Code
Read an excerpt from Dean Merrill’s, Miracle Invasion: Amazing true stories of the Holy Spirit’s gifts at work today.
David Killingsworth may have been the honored guest speaker that Sunday night at a multicultural church in Phoenix, but this didn’t stop a humble Navajo lady from approaching him at the end of the service to prophesy. “The Lord is going to give you understanding and wisdom concerning the old ways of the Native people,” she announced. “You will not get this from a book or a tape, but you will get it by revelation, because the Lord is going to use you to help redeem the culture and bring deliverance.”
Pastor Killingsworth welcomed this message in light of his ongoing interest in reaching Native Americans. His church, Green Forest Christian Center1 back in northwest Arkansas, had already sent several work and outreach teams to the small reservation town of Jeddito, Arizona, a Navajo enclave within the Hopi tribe’s larger territory. The town had a small log cabin church building where various groups had tried over the years to start a congregation without success.
The pastor flew home that Monday. When he showed up at his office the next day, a staff member reported, “There was a missionary on sabbatical who stopped by the Sunday night prayer meeting; after we had all prayed for a while, he said, ‘I have a word from the Lord for the father of this house.’ We told him, ‘Well, he’s not here; he’s in Arizona.’”
The visitor was not dissuaded. He asked if they might tape his message, to be played when the senior pastor returned. They accommodated him by bringing out a cassette recorder.
Now at his desk, Pastor Killingsworth sat down to listen. He punched the Play button and began to hear the following words: “The Lord says, ‘I will give you understanding and wisdom concerning the old ways of the Native people. You will not get this by book or by tape, but you will get it by revelation. And I will use you to redeem the culture and bring deliverance.’” It was virtually the identical message he had been given 1,200 miles west at essentially the same hour back on Sunday night.
In response, “Our church began to pray ever more seriously about this over the next period of time,” says the pastor. “We kept up our connections to Navajo people we’d already met and tried to extend our network. We came to believe God wanted us to try again to plant a church in Jeddito.”
And so it was that in August 2001, a team of some fifteen Green Forest people, including committed intercessors, came to the town once again to pray for a spiritual awakening. Several Navajo believers from Phoenix joined them, asking God to break through the dark superstitions of the culture with the light of the gospel. During one prayer meeting, a woman in her sixties, named Judy Magner, began to bear down in urgent entreaty, interceding in a flow of tongues.
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“I noticed two Navajo ladies softly weeping nearby,” the pastor recalls. “It struck me as unusual, since Navajo people are known to be restrained and unemotional.”
After some minutes, Judy gradually quieted herself. The observing ladies said to the pastor, “Where did she get to know our language?”
David Killingsworth chuckled as he replied, “I can assure you—Judy only knows how to speak ‘Texan!’ She’s hardly mastered proper English.”
“No, no,” the ladies protested. “She’s been praying in Navajo for probably the last ten minutes.”
Navajo is a complex, tonal language and is well-known to be one of the most difficult languages on earth—so hard that during World War II the US Marines enlisted up to five hundred bilingual Navajos to pass classified tactical messages back and forth across the Pacific. The Japanese enemy forces never did crack their code.
What was even more remarkable was the content of Judy’s prayer. “She’s been praying against the power of the ‘skin-walker,’” the women said—a particular kind of Navajo medicine man who is said to be able to turn himself into (or disguise himself as) an animal, usually to bring harm to people. Many Navajos live in great fear of his powers.
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Indeed, there was one of these men in the Jeddito community who had opposed every gospel effort up to this time. Now within sixty days, this “skin-walker” abruptly moved away. The church plant proceeded unhindered, becoming a healthy gathering of Christian believers, as Pastor Killingsworth and his teams kept coming every month for the next year and a half. Navajos—especially young people—were saved and filled with the Spirit in a genuine season of revival.
The work was eventually handed over to a nearby missionary to continue. Meanwhile, the pastor from Arkansas was “adopted” into the Navajo Nation and given a special name. Contact continues to this day. The little town has been a proving ground for the truth that “the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”2
PR
Notes from Chapter 3, “A Higher Code”
1 This church has since been renamed Forerunner House of Prayer. It is affiliated with the Church of God of the Apostolic Faith.
2 1 John 4:4.
“A Higher Code” is a chapter from the book Miracle Invasion by Dean Merrill. © 2018 BroadStreet Publishing. Used by permission.
More from Dean Merrill:
Read “Holy Spirit Invasion: An Interview With Dean Merrill”
PneumaReview.com speaks with Dean Merrill, the author or co-author of almost 50 books, about his latest book, Miracle Invasion, that investigates amazing and true stories of the work of the Holy Spirit today.
Dean Merrill talking about his book Miracle Invasion. https://vimeo.com/261044615/c41a5b31be
Dean Merrill talking about his book Miracle Invasion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etuqfg_avvs&t=15s
