Our Guest Jonathan Maracle
Sid: My guest by way of telephone I’m speaking to him in Ontario, Canada. He is what is known as a First Nation’s Man his name is Jonathan Maracle. And for those that are not familiar with that terminology what does that mean Jonathan?
Jonathan: Well First Nations is the title given to the host people of the land. In Canada that’s what the official name is of our people because we were the first people of the land. And so it’s kind of a term that brings respect back to the First Nations or to aboriginal people to this land because for a long time we weren’t even considered human beings we were subspecies and so when they referred to us as First Nations there was an element of respect there of restoration and integrity.
Sid: Well let’s go back on yesterday’s broadcast you were making in the secular realm as a recording artist. Had a song actually that was on the TV series Highway to Heaven, your father was a minster and he never stopped praying for you as you went down, down, down into drugs and in the secular activities you were involved in. And one day you cried out to God and it just seemed like immediately after not having heard from your father for several years you got a phone call. And so you went out to visit him what happened next?
Jonathan: Well I got out there to visit him and I stayed with my mom and dad for almost a week and during that time there was a lot of church activity that they were involved in. They took me several times to church meetings with a leading evangelist and I really didn’t want to be there at that time. I was still getting over you know my issues and I didn’t want anything to do with it. So I kind of had a little bit of a upheaval with them and said “Look I came to be with you guys not to go to church.” And so they understood and they backed right off and they didn’t try to force me go anymore. But on Sunday Sunday had come up and it had been like several days and we had just had good relationship, son to parents together. On Sunday they were leaving for church on Sunday morning and and they asked me “Would you like to come with us you’re welcome to you can stay home whatever you want to do.” They didn’t put any pressure on me and without the pressure I had a choice and I opted to honor them and go with them. So we went and you know I was a very loner kind of a person and I don’t know where mom and dad were whether they had already gone in or whether they were behind me probably had already gone in. But I stepped inside of the door of the church and this little lady she was probably 75 years old I don’t even know who she was she could have been an angel by the way I feel. But I stepped inside the door and she walked over to me and she actually put her arms around me and said “Son I love you.” And I looked at her and I said “You love me?” Because I mean I looked like a Rock and Roller, I had long hair and I was kind of rough around the edges and I said “You love me?” And she said “Yes, I love you with the love of Jesus.” And at that moment the only way that I can really truly describe how I felt I felt as though as someone had a warm bucket of oil and they just poured over the top of my head and it went down and it covered my entire body and the warmth came all over me. I didn’t know what it was I just knew that something was happening. So I went inside the church and sat down and preacher preached it was like nobody else was there I was alone listening and from there things just began to happen. God kept wooing me and I had got interested in the word and got interested in what God was saying and doing in my life and its just been from glory to glory since then.
Sid: Now your dad actually commissioned you in there was a song when you were commissioned, tell me about this song.
Jonathan: Well my dad died February 8, 1999 and just before that sometime in mid-January my dad called me up to his house just because he wanted to share with me and I didn’t really know he just called me up and every once in a while we would get together in the morning and pray together and he would share the word with me because he was a wealth in the word, just loved the word and loved what it meant to him and loved Jesus. And he I would come in and he would always sat in his chair in the corner and he had on his bathrobe and he was always up like before 4:00 and 6:00 every morning and in prayer. And so I came up and I sat down with him it was probably 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning and when I came in he was crying and he was sitting on the edge of his chair and had his finger on his Bible and he had his glasses on and he was reading. And he just began to tell me he said “Son you’ve got to tell the world about Khenoronkhwa. I said “What do you mean dad?” He said “You know Son that Khenoronkhwa means love but it means medicine.” And he said “And you’ve got to tell them this that Jesus is the medicine that’s going to heal the world.” And he said “You’ve got to carry this message.” And the thing was that my dad as a Native Man grew up in very very hard situation. His language was taken away from him as a boy but he still he spoke fluently but they tried to take it away in the 3rd grade. They would spank him put him in the corner with a dunce cap on if he spoke his language because they said that it was an evil language and that it was a pagan evil language. And so you know my dad had great reason to be angry because of the way he was treated but instead he said “Jonathan,” he said “The white people just don’t understand he says I’ve tried to tell them all of my life that they’ve got to change that they’ve got to understand that they’ve got to care about us as a people.” And he said “And the Bible says that ‘They shall know the truth and the truth that will set them free.’” He said “You have to continue to carry this truth this message whether they like to hear it or not you’ve got to tell them that the generational curses that are upon them have to be broken.”
Sid: We’re going to find out more about the breaking of the curses, but I’m going to tell you I don’t understand a word that’s being sung in the Mohawk language but there is something that gets me praying. In fact we used your music for our International Intercessory Prayer Conference and everyone just really got into the Spirit. This is the song that came out with the Commission that God gave you of tell the world they need to love, they need to know love Himself which is Jesus.
Jonathan Maracle worship excerpt: Khenoronkhwa
Sid: That was a selection from Rise Up Mighty Warrior. Jonathan you were telling me about amazing thing that happened in communist China when you were there.
Jonathan: Yeah Sid you were telling me about how you would listen to our music and it touched the spirit of the your intercessory times with your people. And it made me think of when I was in communist China and we were sitting there with Elders all in the back of this one auditorium that we were in as we were singing and they sent their interpreter up to ask me “Why when you sing do we feel it hear?” And he put his hand over his heart and I said “Go tell them it’s because I sing from the One that I…that I sing because God is the reason that I sing.” And so they went back and he told them and they sent him back up and said “Well why do you want to serve a God?” And I said “Well, because He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for me and that’s the reason.” From that point on I had Chinese people coming to me and asking me in parking lots and different places…
Sid: Listen there is an anointing on this music to set people free of everything.
