| In 1975, my wife, Beverlee, and I were holding a couple
of house meetings a week, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. In
the afternoon meetings there was a young girl who always seemed extremely
nervous, confused, and generally agitated about something. Over a period
of several weeks, we learned, among other things, that she wasn't saved.
So Beverlee began to talk to her about accepting Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, but without success. Although the girl always seemed to agree to what Beverlee said, when asked if she would then accept Jesus Christ she would shake her head and say, "No, I can’t." One afternoon after a meeting, we sat her in a chair and Beverlee got on one side of her and I got on the other, and we talked to her for about an hour about the Lord and the necessity of His being her Savior. We had both decided it was this day or never. For the entire hour, the girl nodded her head and agreed to everything we said. But every time we asked if she would now accept Christ as her Lord and Savior, she would give the same reply, "No, I can’t." When we would ask her why she would not, she would simply repeat that she couldn't. Toward the end of the hour, I knelt next to her chair and slowly and carefully as I could explained everything about salvation to her again. And then I said to her, "Do you understand everything that I told you?" She said, "Yes, I do." "And do you understand," I asked her, "that if you don't receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior you'll end up in an eternal hell?" "Yes, I do," she said. "And do you believe that?" I said. She looked down at the floor for moment, and than nodded her head in agreement and said, "Yes, I believe that." I then asked her, "Since you understand it all and believe it, will you now ask Jesus Christ to forgive your sins and be your Lord and Savior?" She shook her head and said, "I can't." In frustration I got up and walked away from her, muttering to myself. Behind me I could hear Beverlee begin to talk to her again, trying to convince her to act upon what she said she understood and believed. As I walked away from the girl, telling myself that I had had it with her, the Lord cut into my thoughts and said, "You're not listening to what she’s saying." I said, "Lord, I am listening to her, and she said that she would not accept you as her Lord and Savior." "That is not what she said." "Lord, that is what she said." "You were not listening to her," the Lord said. "Now think of what she really said." I stood still and quiet for a moment and slowly went back over the girl’s words in my mind. When I did, I realized that she did not say she would not accept Christ, but that she could not. I called Beverlee over to me, and told her what the Lord had said to me, and what I had just realized. It was a revelation to both of us. We went back to the girl, and laid our hands on her, and I commanded the spirit of spiritual blindness that was preventing her from accepting Christ to leave her. How did I know that was the spirit's name? The way I always did. When I started praying, the words "spiritual blindness" came into my mind, cutting through my thoughts. After we had been praying for about two minutes, the girl suddenly looked up at us and gave us the biggest smile we had ever seen upon her face. I then asked her, "Will you now ask Jesus Christ to forgive your sins and be your Lord and Savior?" She smiled and said, "Oh, yes, I will!" And she did. Gloriously! Oh yes, she was also set free from the nervousness, confusion, and agitation that had plagued her for so long.
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