GOD'S MESSENGERS

                                      By

                                 Phil Scovell



    In the mid 1970's my wife and I were preaching on the Indian reservation. 
We stayed with the pastor and his wife in Fort Defiance, Arizona for a week;
preaching and ministering in his church of perhaps seventy members; mostly
Navajo Indians.  Each night following the meeting the pastor, himself a full
Navajo, and I sat up and talked about Indian heritage, history, and culture. 
He even invited,  because of my interest, an elderly woman to visit one evening
for supper who had been an early white missionary on the reservation.  I was
fascinated with all she had to say about the pioneer mission work she and her
late husband had done on the reservation.  They  invited me to speak one evening
to a small Navaho church in a nearby town where the pastor had to translate my
sermon.  

    One night the pastor told me a very unusual story.  An old Indian man in his
church often told of his father reminiscing of a stranger on the reservation. 
He was white, preached the same Gospel, wore a robe, carried a book, and walked
bear foot.  He said that often when Indians on the reservation were ill, this
strange shoeless man would suddenly come walking up out of no where and request
to see the sick one.  He would lay hands on them and they would recover.  The
pastor said he would take my wife and I up in the mountains, about a ninety
minute drive, to visit this old Indian man in his eighties.  We did so and the
old man confirmed this story to be true in my hearing.  Although this old
Indian man was too young to recall seeing the stranger for himself, his family
spoke of him often and his father even once asked if he could touch the
strangers bear feet.  He reported his father saying the skin was as soft as
baby's skin and there was no evidence those feet had ever tread the rough
terrain of the reservation.

    Perhaps some will question the validity of this story since Indian culture
offers many such experiences in their heritage.  This, however,  I found highly
unusual because the stranger was preaching the Gospel we preach today.  All the
other accounts, which I have read,  of such manifestations were always strangely
void of any such Gospel message.  I believe this was, without a doubt, a
messenger of God.  We know that angels appear in many forms and we are even
instructed to be hospitable because some have entertained angels unawares (Heb.
13:2).  I believe God sent this messenger to preach and minister His Word until
a missionary was sent.  In fact, the elderly Indian in the mountains reported
exactly that.  He said when the first white missionary came to the reservation,
no one ever reported seeing the strange robed man again.  Many today tell of
stories where unusual and strange people have crossed their paths at times of
danger or calamity.  I think this is similar.  I find it strangely comforting to
know that God will always provide a way for His Word to be preached.  I also
find this story interesting because of the absence of the messenger as soon as a
missionary appeared.  God has commanded we, His disciples, to go into all the
world and preach the Gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15).  After all, we - the
redeemed - are the true messengers of God.