With her approval, I shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with Jean at her doorstep, I prayed for her, gave her my phone number and then said that when she felt the need for God’s help, to then pray to God the Father in Jesus’ name and ask Him for help. She thanked me and said she would do so.
Seven days later in the afternoon Jean did phone me to say thank you, again. She said that she had done what I’d suggested only very recently and as a result had experienced a peace like never before in her life. I explained to her that what she experienced was the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ, that it was His peace given to her. I then said to Jean that there was another step she needed to take, the first encounter with the Lord being one to give her a personal confirmation as to the reality of His existence, but now, He was offering her something more – a relationship with Himself.
She was crying one moment and laughing the next which suggested to me that perhaps she was not a well lady that day. Using that time on the phone I went through the New Testament showing her why Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world and that He came to die in our place for our sin. I gave her Scriptural evidences of what I was saying, explaining how we’ve all been caught up in this sin and that we are commanded to turn away from it and turn to Christ and become a recipient of His life – a life which is eternal, both in quality and quantity.
After an hour or so of answering Jean’s questions she asked me to help her pray a prayer of repentance to the Lord. But like so many people, as we prayed, she struggled to believe that this is all it took to have the Lord come into her life. I had been ministering for a few months by then and it had not taken me long to learn that wherever the Holy Spirit is working, the unholy spirit is working as well, just like the the New Testament shows him working against Jesus and the apostles. As a result, I knew she was battling with a spirit of unbelief. It took nearly five minutes for her to accept the truth that all her past, present and future sins had been here and now washed away by Jesus Christ’s shed blood on that cross.
The devil hates the blood of Jesus Christ, simply because he knows the truth of it’s efficacy – he knows when he’s up against it he’s powerless, so he will do anything to stop the mouths of people from claiming and proclaiming it. Jean could easily thank God for the “love” of Jesus washing her sins away, but she was unable to thank Him for the “blood” of Jesus washing them away. Eventually she broke through and was able to do so, so I asked her to repeat this thanksgiving a few times, not for God’s sake but for hers. Jean needed to hear herself acknowledge the power of Jesus’ blood cleansing her from sin.
After the prayer she confided that she had problems but was reluctant to say what they were. She then went on to say that she’d spent much of her life praying for others. Sometimes when people in similar situations to Jean tell me that, I’ve been able to discern that they suffer from guilt and praying for others can be their way of overriding that guilt. In reality, they’re trying to appease God, mistakenly thinking that this will “win points” with Him for themselves. This is a very common practice amongst all peoples in all cultures.
The following week I revisited Jean and as I listened, I gained more of her confidence. She opened up about some of her experiences……. “Something funny has been going on with me in this house for years. You’ll think I’m mad, everybody else does!” She then shared some of those experiences. She once phoned a famous British TV interviewer in London and asked him to tell an equally famous British actor not to go to South Africa to make a (now famous) film. The famous actor didn’t go. Then she told of a time when she experienced a choking sensation on her throat when watching TV and she knew someone (invisible) was in the room with her.
Another time, Jean went to off to bed and she saw a “man” standing in her hallway wearing a blue cardigan. Later she said she got a phone call from the hospital to go in and pick up a man who had been in a minor car crash and when she did so, he was wearing the blue cardigan. One time she went outside to feed her cat. When she came back in, her Bible, which she left sitting well away from the edge of her bed was lying face down on the floor.
Yet again, she was once discussing religion with a builder who was doing renovations in her home and a large plate displayed on a shelf flew to the floor and smashed. For the third or fourth time Jean said, “You’ll think I’m mad.” It was a pleasure for me to confide with this lady that I did not think she was mad. I told her that I most certainly believed in the realm of the unseen – the spirit world of both the angelic and the demonic.
What Jean had been experiencing for years, was the realm of the demonic and I informed her, that, as well as coming into the world to deal with sin, Jesus Christ also came to deal with the devil and his angels (demons) and, both He and the apostles have told us in the New Testament that we too can defeat them in the name of Jesus Christ. I further explained however, that the victories are only permanent if one continues with Christ truly making Him Lord in every area of one’s life. It was important for Jean to be told this, as I was quickly learning out there in the streets that many people wanted Jesus as a Saviour, but not as Lord – even church goers.
A couple of weeks later at Jean’s request I visited her again, this time taking with me a lady from the church. She was reeking of alcohol but was pleased for our visit and asked many questions on the Bible. As the weeks and visits went on however, her interest in wanting to do further studies waned. I saw my job at that point as finished with this dear lady. Having said that, I don’t for one moment believe that the Lord is finished with her. The Scriptures show us that the Lord Jesus Christ is far too faithful for that to happen. He promised that He would let none of those whom the Father had given Him slip out of His hands. “Then Jesus spoke to them again saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” John 8:12.