Preparing for Death: Lessons from Pilgrim's Progress

well these are deathbed scenes uh that bunan is referring to in this final section uh of part two of Pilgrims Progress and one by one they they go one by one they're called and the messenger uh comes and bids them uh go to the celestial uh City uh there comes another post uh for immediately after uh the calling of Christiana there comes a call for Mr ready to Halt uh and he uh bequeaths his crutches uh to his son uh because he had no need of them where he was going [00:00:50]

Mr despondency said to his friends myself and my daughter you know what we have been and how Troublesome we have behaved ourselves in every company my will and my daughters is that our desponds and slavish fears be by no man ever received from the day of our departure forever uh he sees these um these troubling of his these despondency of his these uh bouts of melancholy and depression that he has he and his daughter he sees them as so many ghosts [00:02:53]

for the Puritans death was not the great unmentionable uh death was the climax of Life Death was something that you prepared for they were familiar with it most of their children had died in infancy in the 17th century uh disease disas of one kind or another plague influenza all kinds of things uh would take hundreds perhaps thousands of people uh in a short space of time life expectancy was not terribly long uh in the 17th century [00:04:44]

most people died at home that's not true today there are many many Christians in their 20s 30s 40s who've never actually seen someone die uh people die in hospital they they die elsewhere they die out of sight uh they they die uh without uh without preparation but uh in Ban's time people died at home uh so you were there you heard uh the death pangs you ministered to them in the watches of the night you read to them prayed with them [00:05:27]

Mr ready to Halt as he bequeaths his crutches to his son because he had no need of them uh he says welcome life uh Mr feeble mind's last words were hold out faith and patience uh Mr despondency farewell night welcome day how uh how appropriate for somebody who suffers from depression uh and Mr Valiant for truth death where is thy sting grave uh where is thy uh Victory [00:07:15]

he called for his friends and told them of it then said he I'm going to go to my fathers and though with great difficulty I am got hither yet now I do not repent me of all all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am My Sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage and my courage and skill to him that can get it my marks and scars I carry with me to be a witness for me that I have fought his battles who now will be my rewarder [00:08:48]

the river has been a terror to many yay the thoughts of it also have often frightened me but now me thinks I stand easy my foot is fixed upon that upon which the feet of the priests that bear the Ark of the Covenant stood while Israel went over this Jordan the waters indeed are to the pallet bitter and to the stomach cold yet the thoughts of what I am going to and of the conduct that awaits me on the other side do lie as a glowing coal in my heart [00:12:07]

I see myself at the end of my journey my tsome days are ended I'm going to see that head that was crowned with thorns that face which was spit upon for me I have formerly lived in hearsay and Faith but now I go where I shall live by sight and shall be with him in whose company I Delight myself I've loved to hear my Lord spoken of and wherever I have seen the print of his shoe in the earth there I have coveted to set my foot too [00:12:39]

his name has been to me a civet box yay sweeter than all perfumes his voice to me has been most sweet and his countenance more desired than they that have most desired the light of the sun his word I did use to gather for my food and for antidotes against my faintings he ha held me and ha kept me from mine iniquities yay my steps hath he strengthened in his way now while he was thus in discourse his countenance changed [00:13:08]

the Puritans believe that you should prepare for death that it shouldn't catch you unawares now there is such a thing as sudden death of of course but that we should think about death that we should remind ourselves that here we have no continuing City but we seek one which is to come whose Builder and maker is God the Puritans urged that we live with our bags packed and ready to go shouldn't set Roots down too deeply in this world [00:15:13]

are you ready to die the question that Thomas Goodwin put to a 12year old old prospective student making his way to Oxford University and to mlin college are you ready to die and the 12-year-old ran from the room in Terror thinking he was about to be killed but he was a Puritan and he was asking the question do you know the gospel uh are you in Union and communion with the Lord Jesus Christ have you repented of your sin [00:19:24]

I think Pilgrim's Progress is an Evangelistic book uh it's meant to teach it's meant to instruct it's meant to be a book read in the home I trust these lessons have uh kindled in you a desire to uh do uh what Augustin uh heard over a a hedge one day uh T Le take up and read uh it was the beginning of his own conversion and uh here is a book that for centuries since its first publication in the 17th century has been the most published book other than the Bible in the English language [00:20:52]