Personal Experience

I had an experience with a man that came to my garage sale. He must have talked with me for over an hour. He was showing me every verse in the Bible that proved that what I believed in was wrong. And every time I went to say something the Spirit left me. I had my buddy John with me and he could not say anything either. We both just stared at the man blankly. He then told us to pray about it and see if what he was telling us was true. We did just that and the spirit came back to us and once again confirmed that the things he was saying was not true. He told us that when he confessed his sins to the preacher that there was 8 of them all in a row and that it felt as though he was being whipped for the sins he did. I could not even think what to say to him about his experience at the time. After he had gone and I prayed, I had all the thoughts about what I should have said come to me. Would God really punish us for confessing our sins? No, I think not. At church one of the speakers related to a similar experience and he bore his testimony. The man he spoke to could not imagine how a 19 year old boy could have such a conviction of how true the church was and how sure that Joseph Smith truly is and was a Prophet. The only thing I could come up with is that the Lord wanted John and I to learn the lesson that when your Faith is tested, to bare your testimony as you will be filled with the Holy Spirit and he will speak for you.