Journey of Faith: Insights from Pilgrim's Progress

"Someone gave me a copy of Pilgrim's Progress just after I was converted, and I fell in love with it. And in an age where fantasy literature is all the vogue, Lord of the Rings, the Narnia Chronicles, Harry Porter perhaps, why would we not enjoy Pilgrim's Progress? It's a cracking good story. And there are two books. There is part one and then there is part two. Part two is the story of Christiana and the four boys. Bunyan's dates, 1628 to 1688, so it falls right smack dab in the middle of the seventeenth century." [00:01:53]

"Bunyan has been converted, he went through a fairly lengthy process, maybe a three-year process in which he was under conviction of sin. He was playing a game, a tip-cat, which I think is a bit like what we what we used to call 'hoops.' You have a metal ring and you have to tip to either side to keep it upright as it also goes along, but he was playing this on a Sunday and was chastised for breaking Puritan rules about the Sabbath on the Lord's Day and that brought him under conviction of sin." [00:05:03]

"And then he had a foul mouth, he swore a lot. And the story is told of a certain group of women, not pious women at that, who referred to him as foul-mouthed and chastised him, and these are events that lead him further down the path of conviction. And eventually, he comes to an assurance of faith as he puts his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Interestingly, as in so many after him and some before him, it was reading Luther's commentary on Galatians that brought about that understanding of the gospel." [00:05:41]

"Why should we read and remember Pilgrim's Progress? A variety of reasons. Let me just give you a couple of them. That the Christian life is a battle; it's a battle. It's a war against the world and the flesh and the devil, that is a sore fight all the way. That Christians are called upon to take up a sword and to enter into a battle against sin, indwelling sin, against the hostility of the world, against the rulers of the powers of the darkness of this world." [00:23:00]

"Part one of Pilgrim's Progress raises some enormously interesting issues. You've got a man, his back is toward the city of destruction, he's got a book in his hand, he's got a burden on his back and is crying, 'What shall I do to be saved?' And he meets Evangelist, you remember, and Evangelist says, 'Do you see yon cross?' which he doesn't, so he says to him, 'Do you see yon wicket gate?' And after a brush with Legalist and Formalist in the city of Morality and so on, eventually he gets to, you remember, to the wicket gate and knocks on the wicket gate, gets through the wicket gate, 'wicket' with a 'T,' not 'wicked' with a 'D.'" [00:14:10]

"Part one of Pilgrim's Progress is to all intents and purposes an autobiography. He is saying this is how he experienced coming to faith. It's a bit like me and my wife. Rosemary is an Irish girl. She's a Presbyterian, her parents were Presbyterians, her grandparents were Presbyterians, her great-grandparents ... forever. She went to church three times on Sunday. She sat around the piano singing hymns on Sunday afternoon. She was a Sabbatarian. I was a pagan. I would go to the local dump looking for wheels to make a bicycle, a tubeless bicycle, on a Sunday. We grew up in different worlds." [00:18:58]

"Now, the question arises as a result of reading that, why did it take so long for Bunyan to have Christian lose his burden? There is a famous sermon by Spurgeon, and Spurgeon is telling a story of having met a fish-wife. I don't believe any of this, but Spurgeon says that he had been walking to church that evening and he passed this fish-wife, and she'd said to him, 'Where you going? And he said, 'My name is Charles Haddon Spurgeon. I'm going to preach and this is my text and I'm going to mention about Bunyan.' And she said to him, according to Spurgeon, she said to him, 'Ah, that Mr. Bunyan! If I had written Pilgrim's Progress, I would have ensured that Christian would have lost his burden a lot sooner than Bunyan managed to get it done,' or words to that effect." [00:16:32]

"Part two of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is more important theologically than part one. Part one of Pilgrim's Progress raises some enormously interesting issues. You've got a man, his back is toward the city of destruction, he's got a book in his hand, he's got a burden on his back and is crying, 'What shall I do to be saved?' And he meets Evangelist, you remember, and Evangelist says, 'Do you see yon cross?' which he doesn't, so he says to him, 'Do you see yon wicket gate?' And after a brush with Legalist and Formalist in the city of Morality and so on, eventually he gets to, you remember, to the wicket gate and knocks on the wicket gate, gets through the wicket gate, 'wicket' with a 'T,' not 'wicked' with a 'D.'" [00:14:10]

"Part one of Pilgrim's Progress is to all intents and purposes an autobiography. He is saying this is how he experienced coming to faith. It's a bit like me and my wife. Rosemary is an Irish girl. She's a Presbyterian, her parents were Presbyterians, her grandparents were Presbyterians, her great-grandparents ... forever. She went to church three times on Sunday. She sat around the piano singing hymns on Sunday afternoon. She was a Sabbatarian. I was a pagan. I would go to the local dump looking for wheels to make a bicycle, a tubeless bicycle, on a Sunday. We grew up in different worlds." [00:18:58]

"Why should we read and remember Pilgrim's Progress? A variety of reasons. Let me just give you a couple of them. That the Christian life is a battle; it's a battle. It's a war against the world and the flesh and the devil, that is a sore fight all the way. That Christians are called upon to take up a sword and to enter into a battle against sin, indwelling sin, against the hostility of the world, against the rulers of the powers of the darkness of this world." [00:23:00]

"Part one of Pilgrim's Progress raises some enormously interesting issues. You've got a man, his back is toward the city of destruction, he's got a book in his hand, he's got a burden on his back and is crying, 'What shall I do to be saved?' And he meets Evangelist, you remember, and Evangelist says, 'Do you see yon cross?' which he doesn't, so he says to him, 'Do you see yon wicket gate?' And after a brush with Legalist and Formalist in the city of Morality and so on, eventually he gets to, you remember, to the wicket gate and knocks on the wicket gate, gets through the wicket gate, 'wicket' with a 'T,' not 'wicked' with a 'D.'" [00:14:10]

"Part one of Pilgrim's Progress is to all intents and purposes an autobiography. He is saying this is how he experienced coming to faith. It's a bit like me and my wife. Rosemary is an Irish girl. She's a Presbyterian, her parents were Presbyterians, her grandparents were Presbyterians, her great-grandparents ... forever. She went to church three times on Sunday. She sat around the piano singing hymns on Sunday afternoon. She was a Sabbatarian. I was a pagan. I would go to the local dump looking for wheels to make a bicycle, a tubeless bicycle, on a Sunday. We grew up in different worlds." [00:18:58]