Derek Thomas
Appearances
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
But you must be kept in the iron cage of despair. No, none at all, the man says. Why, the son of the blessed is very pitiful. And the man says, I have crucified him to myself afresh. He's quoting Hebrews 6. I have crucified him to myself afresh. I have despised his person. I have despised his righteousness. I have counted his blood an unholy thing. I have done despite to the spirit of grace.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
And you might, had you not known the story, you might have expected at this point for the burden to roll away and from this point onwards there would be little by way of difficulty. But actually that's not the case. And what happens now is alarming. For some it is distressing. For others it is confusing. Because Mr. Goodwill tells him now to go to the house of Mr. Interpreter.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
Therefore, I have shut myself out of all the promises. And there now remains to me nothing but threatenings, dreadful threatenings, fearful threatenings of certain judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour me as an adversary." For what did you bring yourself into this condition, Christian asks.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
And the man says, for the lusts, pleasures, and profits of this world, in the enjoyment of which I did then promise myself much delight. But now every one of those things also bite me and gnaw me like a burning worm. But canst thou not now repent and turn? God hath denied me repentance. His word gives me no encouragement to believe. Yea, himself hath shut me up in this iron cage.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
Nor can all the men in the world let me out. Oh, eternity, eternity. How shall I grapple with the misery that I must meet with in eternity? Sobering, isn't it? It's quite alarming. It's... It's unexpected because it's not part of evangelical preaching and teaching in our time.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
In the 17th century, that verse in Hebrews 6, Hebrews 6, 4 through 6, and a similar set of verses in Hebrews 10 were taken very seriously indeed. We have to ask, I think, the question, when did we last hear a sermon on the unforgivable sin?
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
the sin against the holy spirit that cannot be forgiven now these days we tend to interpret that as the sin of unbelief the only sin that can't be forgiven is unbelief you don't have faith you can't be forgiven so that becomes then the the unforgivable sin but in the 17th century The sin against the Holy Spirit, the unforgivable sin, was a sin that you could actually commit.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
It was an act of apostasy. It was a deliberate turning away from the truth of the gospel and into a life of licentiousness from which you would not be able to repent. And that was part of preaching in the 17th century, and Bunyan has it here.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
In John Calvin's time, in the previous century, there was a famous Italian reformer who had turned from Catholicism, embraced the Protestant Reformation, and then towards the end of his life had recanted and had gone back into Romanism and into a way of works.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
And this man was often cited in sermons as an example of somebody who had committed the act of apostasy from which there would be no repentance. At the very least, Bunyan is describing here the need to persevere. He that perseveres to the end shall be saved. He's stressing something that is vital, I think, to 17th century understanding of the way of the gospel.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
That you come to Jesus, and you come to Jesus by faith alone in Christ alone. Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. But then you must persevere. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that works in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
And there is a holy activity about the Christian life and a fearfulness of sin and a fearfulness of the possibility of apostasy. Of course, the The archetype here is Judas himself, who was a professing disciple of Jesus.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
In the upper room, you know, when Jesus says, one of you will betray me, they didn't all turn to Judas and say, well, you know, it's got to be him because we didn't trust him from the start. What the disciples are saying is, is it me? Lord, are you talking about me?
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
So here was one who had been a disciple, who had professed the faith, but committed an act of apostasy from which there was no repentance. This is a very sobering truth. And one, I think, that makes Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress perhaps shocking and somewhat alarming to modern readers, particularly modern readers who have been influenced by an easy believism.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
And here in this house, he will see many things, one of which will be deeply, deeply disturbing. Alexander White says in his commentary on Pilgrim's Progress and on the characters of Pilgrim's Progress, he says, "'Every minister of the gospel is an interpreter, and every evangelical church is an interpreter's house.'"
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
You know, come to Jesus and you need worry about nothing from there on until the end. Even if you live like the devil, you can be saved. The whole lordship controversy of the 1980s and 1990s comes to mind.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
Lloyd-Jones, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones says, I can say definitely after some 35 years of pastoral experience that there are no passages in the whole Scripture which have more frequently troubled people and caused them soul agony than the passages in Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10. That's an interesting statement, isn't it? I'm not so sure that... We would be saying that in the time that we live.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
I think the emphasis has gone somewhere else in our own time. And I think Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is a reminder, at the very least, of the need to persevere right to the very end, that the Christian life is one of warfare. And this man in the iron cage was held up as a kind of warning. Remember Lot's wife. Remember Judas, remember the man in the iron cage.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
Well, we'll leave this lecture at that somewhat sobering point and pick up the lecture again in our next session together.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
So bear that in mind as commentators try to understand what Bunyan is actually doing at this point. He's saying that the church has a responsibility to teach those who are recently converted, those who have been brought in through the wicked gate, they've got a responsibility to teach them certain things about the way of salvation, about what the Christian life actually looks like.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
And I suppose Pilgrim's Progress is at the opposite end of the spectrum from views of Christianity that might suggest, come to Jesus and all your troubles will disappear. Now, I was told something of that kind when I became a Christian, and actually what I discovered was that I came to Jesus and I discovered problems I didn't have before. And I think that Bunyan is wanting to prepare Christians
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
Christians and his readers for the difficulty of the Christian life, that the Christian life is going to be a battle from beginning right up to the point of entry to the celestial city. Well, he comes to the house of Interpreter, and Interpreter lights a candle and gives Christian a tour of the house. And what kind of issues now emerge?
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
Seven in particular, and I'm going to stress a couple of them more than the others, but he's basically taken to seven different rooms. He comes, first of all, he sees a picture of
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
portrait and it's a very grave person with his eyes lifted up to heaven and he has the best of books in his hands and the law of truth upon his lips and the world behind his back and he is pleading with men and a crown of gold hangs over his head. Well, it might be special pleading on my part to say Bunyan is, of course, thinking here about a minister. He's thinking about a gospel preacher.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
He's thinking about an evangelist. He's thinking about the Puritan preacher of the 17th century. And I think in Bunyan's mind, this is his own minister, John Gifford in the Baptist church, a man who influenced Bunyan a great deal in his early pilgrimage and in his early discipleship. And he's characterized by several things. He's characterized by the fact that he has the Bible in his hands.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
And he's an honorable man. He's a man of truth and integrity. He's also an evangelist. He's pleading with men and women to come to the Savior. And a crown of gold hangs over his head.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
This is a typical depiction of a 17th century evangelical, reformed, Puritan preacher of the gospel, concerned with proclaiming the truth of the Bible, but also concerned about bringing men and women to faith and to a knowledge of the gospel. So this man is like evangelist that we've seen. He's also like the character help that we've seen.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
He's also a bit like the man goodwill that we've seen who pulled him through the wicked gate. And there'll be more such characters, all of them depicting the office of one who proclaims and preaches the gospel. Then secondly, he sees a man sweeping a room. And all he's achieving is producing a lot of dust. Until a girl brings water and sprinkles the room.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
And then the dust gathers and can be swept away properly. What is this picture about? And it's about the law. Bunyan reflects on Romans 7, 9. When the commandment came, sin revived and I died.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
Of course, Bunyan is understanding that section of Romans 7 as biographical of the Apostle Paul's own experience of salvation, and that when the law came, it stirred up things like dust in the air, but actually didn't bring assurance of salvation. Only the water of the gospel could bring assurance of salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
And again, it's a way of depicting pictorially the fact that the law has this character, this function of raising within us an even greater awareness of our sinfulness, that the law convicts, that the law brings further evidence of our transgressions. Then thirdly, he sees two little children. One is called reason and the other is called patience.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
And they represent people of this world who want everything now and people of the world to come who are content to wait. The difference between those of the world and those who are of the kingdom of God. And one is anxious to have everything right now and the other is content to wait for the world to come. Then, fourthly, he's taken to a fireplace.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
This is a very sobering truth and one, I think, that makes Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress perhaps shocking and somewhat alarming to modern readers, particularly modern readers who have been influenced by an easy believism.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
The fire is burning, and it's burning higher and hotter, despite the fact that somebody is throwing water on this fire, until he's taken around to the other side of the fire, behind the wall. And on the other side, someone is throwing oil on the fire and causing it to blaze. What is Bunyan trying to say?
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
He's saying this is what a young Christian needs to understand, that there's going to be opposition. There's going to be water thrown on your zeal. You come to Jesus. You come to the gospel. You come to salvation. And you have this enthusiasm. You have this zeal. But the world will always be trying to put out this zeal. But the Holy Spirit...
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
will be pouring His oil of grace upon that heart and causing that flame to burn for the Lord and for the gospel. Then, fifthly, he sees a castle. And there's a scene of a man and he's dressed in armor and he comes out and he's got a sword and he's engaging in battle against his opponents and he slays all of his opponents and he's victorious.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
But it's a picture of battle and it's one of these, it's a typical 17th century understanding of what the Christian life looks like. That the Christian life from beginning to end is one of battle. It's one of warfare.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
Ephesians 6, one thinks of William Gurnall, the Puritan of the 17th century, writing a 900-page volume of exposition of that section in Ephesians chapter 6, put on the whole armor of God so that in the day of battle you might be able to stand. One thinks of a very famous, often cited remark of John Geary in 1646.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
Just prior to Bunyan's own conversion, he's describing the character of an old English Puritan. His whole life is accounted a warfare wherein Christ was his captain, his arms, prayers, and tears. The cross, his banner, and his word, his motto, vincit qui patitur, which means he who suffers conquers. Vincit qui patitur, he who suffers conquers.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
That was the motto of the typical English Puritan in the middle of the 17th century. And Bunyan is in many ways a typical English Puritan. He is describing that the Christian life, you come to Jesus and then you must be prepared to fight. You must be prepared to engage in a battle that will take you all the way to glory.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
It was a lesson I think Paul learned from his first missionary journey when he's recounting the lessons of that first missionary journey in the home church in Antioch. He says in Acts 14, 22, it is through much tribulation that we enter the kingdom of God. Come to Jesus and you can expect warfare. Come to Jesus, you can expect tribulation.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
Come to Jesus, you can expect opposition from the world and the flesh and the devil. The seventh, I'll come back to the sixth because I want to dwell on it, but the seventh thing that he sees is a man rising out of bed, shaking and trembling because he's had this dream of the day of judgment and he was left behind.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
Now, this isn't anything to do with left behind as we think of it in our own time as an interpretation of a kind of secret rapture. That isn't what Bunyan is talking about. But he is talking about two very important things here. One is the day of judgment. that there is a day of reckoning. And that would have been a typical content of the gospel. How do you do evangelism?
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
How do you tell men and women that their lives are in danger? You tell them about a day of reckoning. You tell them about a day of accountability. that there is a day that they will be brought before the judge, the judge of all the earth, and he who sees everything and knows everything.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
And you will have to give an account for everything that you've done and everything that you've said, the day of judgment, the day of reckoning. And the fact that in this picture, this dream that this man has had, that in this judgment, he was left behind. He wasn't vindicated. He wasn't exonerated. He wasn't brought into the everlasting kingdom, into the city of God.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
And Bernier is saying, I think, that evangelism means being brought to that point where you realize that there are two roads here. There is a road that leads to the eternal city, but there's also another road, a very fearful road, a road that can only lead to doom and destruction, to the judgment and the eternal judgment of God. But we've missed one.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
Well, welcome back to Lecture 3 in our study together of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. We're at a very, very interesting stage in Pilgrim's Progress. Christian has just made it through the Wicket Gate. He's been pulled through by a man by the name of Goodwill.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
And that's the sixth thing that the interpreter shows him in this house. And it's quite alarming. It's quite... unexpected. I imagine if you were to write a similar kind of tale today describing the nature of the Christian life, I wonder if we would even dream of including what Bunyan includes here. He sees a man in an iron cage, and the man is saying that he was once a pilgrim,
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
He was once a Christian. He was once a confessor, a professor of the Christian faith. A fair and flourishing professor is how Bunyan puts these words into this man's lips. One who professes faith. One who claims to be a Christian. And that he has so hardened his heart that he cannot repent. You have to ask yourself, why does Bunyan depict this? Why does he show this? What is the purpose of this?
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
Where does he get this from? And the answer to that, of course, is Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10. Hebrews 6, the description that's given of a man who has once been enlightened, who has tasted of the heavenly gift, who has tasted of the Holy Spirit, but that if he doesn't persevere,
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
if he commits what in the language of the King James version of the Bible in the 17th century was the unforgivable sin, the sin that cannot be forgiven, then there is no repentance. And this is the picture that's shown. to Christian in Interpreter's House, a man who was once a flourishing Christian, but has left off his perseverance and now finds himself in a state where he cannot repent.
Renewing Your Mind
The Interpreter’s House
Let's read a little bit of the conversation between, because Christian interrogates this man in the iron cage. Christian says, what are you now? And the man says, I am now a man of despair, and I'm shut up in it. As in this iron cage, I cannot get out. I cannot get out. But how camest thou in this condition? I left off to watch and be sober. And then Christian says, Is there no hope?
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
For master worldly wise men can but show a saint the way to bondage and to woe. That's an example of Bunyan's poetry, not great poetry. And now Christian began to be sorry that he had listened to the advice of Mr. Worldly Wiseman. It's, of course, Bunyan preaching the gospel. He's preaching Paul. He's preaching Romans 3.20. By the deeds of the law shall no man be justified.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
This was the discovery of Luther in the previous century to Bunyan. That by obedience, by acts of obedience to the law, by the works of the law, that no one, no man, no woman can be justified. Not the labor of my hands can fulfill thy law's demands. Could my zeal no respite know? Could my tears forever flow? All for sin could not atone. Thou must save, and thou alone.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
That's how Augustus Toplady put it. Now, it's at this point that Evangelist enters again and asks what you might expect him to ask. You know, what are you doing here? Why have you gone out of the way? He's supposed to be heading towards this light and to the Wicked Gate, and he has veered off the path to the town called Morality.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
Christian tells him his sorry tale and evangelist quotes from Scripture, from the book of Hebrews. See that you refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escape not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. Hebrews 12, 25. And Christian falls down saying, woe is me for I am undone. More conviction, more burden of sin.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
And he reassures him that God will forgive. This is evangelist now reassuring Christian that God will forgive all kinds of sin no matter how dark and terrible they are. And Christian once again begins to wind his way toward the wicked gate. And in the process of time, he gets up to it and notices that over the gate there is a text.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
Well, welcome back to Lecture 2 on Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and we're going to look at the events surrounding the Wicket Gate and how Christian gets through the Wicket Gate. We left him in Lecture 1 running towards a light. He couldn't see the Wicket Gate, and he's running with his fingers in his ears. He's running away from the city of destruction.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
It's from Matthew 7 and verse 8, "'Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.'" And again, you are familiar, I'm sure, with the little tableaus, little etchings or drawings in Pilgrim's Progress of Christian knocking at the gate. And above the narrow gate, there is this text from the Sermon on the Mount, "'Knock.'" and it shall be opened unto you.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
It is the free offer of the gospel that whoever knocks on this gate, the gate will open, no matter how great the burden, no matter how great the sins. A man comes to the gate. His name is Goodwill. Don't you love these names that Bunyan conjures up? Mr. Goodwill, who asks who's there and from where he had come and what did he want. And Christian says, here is a poor burdened sinner.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
I come from the city of destruction, but I'm going to Mount Zion that I may be delivered from the wrath to come. I would therefore, sir, since I am informed that by this gate is the way thither, know if you are willing to let me in. And Mr. Goodwill says, I am willing with all my heart, said he, and with that he opened the gate.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
And goodwill helps him through, actually pulls him through the gate because for one reason to the side there is a castle occupied by one called Beelzebub. That's interesting that Bunyan would have satanic opposition right at the point at which he enters the gate. And that's, of course, a mark of Puritan theology in the 17th century, that the Christian life is one of battle. It's one of hostility.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
We fight the world and the flesh and the devil. And so right at the entry gate, there is the opposition of Beelzebub, who's trying to wound him. He's sending arrows in the direction of the gate. And so Mr. Goodwill sort of yanks him, pulls him in. I think you also see something that we will comment on in further lectures, something of Bunyan's Calvinism. Bunyan is a Calvinist.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
He's an unapologetic Calvinist. He is more than familiar with the rigors of Calvinism, especially with regard to soteriology, with regard to the doctrine of salvation. and that ultimately that we are saved not because of human decision, not because of a desire on our part, but that we are saved entirely by the grace and the mercy and the power of God. Bunyan recognizes that in the debates
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
earlier on in his own century in the Synod of Dort, for example, and in the discussions of the Westminster Assembly, that these are important matters and that the way we are saved, the way we are actually brought into union and communion with Jesus Christ is because God ultimately wills it, that it's not our doing and it's not even our willing. Yes,
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
We do will, but because God makes us willing in the day of his power. And so into the very narrative itself, he introduces illustratively this idea that at the end of the day, Christian is sort of pulled in through the gate. And from this point onwards, Christian is a saved man. He is a redeemed man. Or is he?
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
because he still has his burden and actually he will have his burden for many more pages and we will have to go through a variety of places, surprising places before Christian actually loses his burden and that's raised the issue at what point exactly did Christian become a Christian, and I want you to bear that in mind as you further read into Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
He's not listening to the pleas of his wife or his children, and he's saying, life, life, eternal life. Now he meets two friends. He hasn't got to the Wicked Gate yet, and he meets two friends. Actually, they're neighbors of his in the city of destruction, and they're called Pliable and Obstinate.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
And the first thing that we see in this portion is Bunyan's attempt to portray worldly opposition to the gospel, that everyone who becomes a Christian will experience some kind of opposition, maybe from members of the family or maybe from friends at work and so on. Obstinate represents stubbornness and an immovable point of view. And pliable is the opposite.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
He represents fickleness, a readiness to believe anything except this, of course. So let's eavesdrop the conversation just a little. This is obstinate. What are these things you seek since you leave all the world to find them? And Christian says, I seek an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
And it is laid up in heaven and safe there to be bestowed at the time appointed on them that diligently seek it. Read it so, if you will, in my book. And obstinate says, Tersh, away with your book. Will you go back with us or no? And Christian says, no, not I, because I have laid my hand to the plow. And at that point, obstinate leaves.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
But Pliable continues walking with him, and Pliable says, "'The hearing of this is enough to ravish one's heart, but are these things to be enjoyed? How shall we get to be sharers thereof?' And Christian says, "'The Lord, the governor of the country, hath recorded that in the book, the substance of which is, if we be truly willing to have it, He will bestow it upon us freely.'"
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
And Pliable says, well, my good companion, glad I am to hear these things. Come on, let us mend our pace. Now, Alexander White, famous illustrator and commentator on the characters of Pilgrim's Progress, gave some lectures in the late 19th century at St. George's Free Church in Edinburgh. And these are well-known books. There were a couple of volumes, characters from Pilgrim's Progress.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
And he makes a comment both about obstinate and about pliable. And his comment about pliable is especially interesting. Pliable was willing to go with Christian for the benefits that Christian describes. He wants eternal life. He wants the promise that God makes to bless you. This man is open to these things.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
If you were to ask him, do you want to have your sins forgiven or do you want eternal life or do you want to be a Christian? He'd answer yes to every single one of them. He believes Christian because he believes everything. He's typical of many folk in our own time, don't you think? That they're open to anything, whatever happens to work. And that's pliable. Now, pliable never reads the book.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
He was never burdened by the sense of his own sin, so he's like the seed in the Lord's parable of the sower in Matthew 13. He that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receives it. Yet has he not rooted himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation and persecution arises because of the word, by and by he is offended by them."
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
He doesn't have any root, and this is pliable. Bonin is commentating on various responses to the gospel. There's the response of obstinate, and he just says no, and he goes away. But there's the response of pliable, who for a season at least seems to be interested in the gospel, seems to respond at least for a season. But then when trouble comes, he disappears.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
Now the second thing we see in this part of the story is Bunyan's attempt to describe how conviction of sin can actually lead you to a worse state of affairs before it actually gets better. Now, that's not true of everyone who is a Christian. Not everyone has this biography. This is an autobiography, I think, of the way Bunyan himself experienced salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
And before he came to assurance of faith, he actually went down and down and down into further and further conviction and further depression with regard to the hopelessness of his condition. Pliable is still there. He continues with Christian until they come to a bog, quicksand. It's a well-known place, of course, the Slough of Despond. Now, you may say slew, or I've even heard the word slough.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
But, in England, it is Slough, and in Bunyan's time, it was most definitely Slough, the Slough of Despond. Now, because Christian is weighed down with this burden, when he comes to this quicksand, of course, he begins to sink. But Pliable, because Pliable doesn't have a Burton, Pliable is sort of light-footed, and he manages to free himself from this quicksand without too much difficulty.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
And next on the scene comes a man by the name of Help. Again, these are evangelists, just like evangelists himself. Help is there to aid Christian on in the pathway to salvation. And Help puts out his hand, and he takes hold of Christian, and he pulls him out of the quicksand.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
Alexander White says of this section, in his description of the Slough, Bunyan touches his highest watermark for humor and pathos and power and beauty of language. Now, upon getting stuck in the mire, Christian asks help why this place isn't better signposted and why it isn't fixed. And the answer is very interesting. This miry slough is such a place as cannot be mended.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
He had pulled himself up by his bootstraps. He had tried to live an obedient life. And to the outward world, to the outward observance, he looked as if he was a new man. And indeed, so I was, though yet I knew not Christ, nor grace, nor faith, nor hope.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
It is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run. And therefore it's called the slough of despond. For still as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there arise in his soul many fears and doubts.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
It's a discouraging place, and Helper continues to describe how millions of instructions sent to try and mend the place have been swallowed up, and that the lawgiver has placed steps to enable the traveler to find a way through. Bunyan is describing, I think, how he himself descended into a period of melancholy and despair. He was under conviction of sin in his own personal life for 18 months.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
He'd heard this sermon. He'd been rebuked about his blasphemy and his bad language, and he'd been told by a woman of ill repute outside a store one day, that he was heading to hell unless he meant his ways. But he still hasn't found the gospel. He still hasn't found the way of salvation and the way of assurance of the forgiveness of sins. So there's another incident now that takes place.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
Obstinate is gone, pliable, managed to get out of the slough of despond easily because he had no burden. And help has pulled Christian out of the slough of despond. And now there enters another character, a man by the name of Worldly Wiseman.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
And Worldly Wiseman is going to send Christian to a place called Morality, a little village called Morality, and there he is to meet with a man called Mr. Legality, who is skilled, so Worldly Wiseman says, he's skilled at removing burdens like the one Christian has. Of course, this is the way of works.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
This is the way of obedience, that the way to remove your burden of sin is to do more, is to obey the Ten Commandments, is to throw yourself into a life of obedience. Now a little later in the story, Evangelist will tell Christian three things about worldly wise men. He'll say, first of all, that he turns Christian onto the wrong path. Secondly, that he makes the cross odious to him.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
And thirdly, he suggests a way that can only lead to death, the way of works. Now Bunyan says in his own autobiography, and I'm quoting here from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. This is what Bunyan says, "'Thus I continued about a year. Our neighbors did take me to be a very godly man, a new religious man.'" He turned over a new leaf. He had pulled himself up by his bootstraps.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
He had tried to live an obedient life. And to the outward world, to the outward observance, he looked as if he was a new man. And indeed, so I was. Though yet I knew not Christ, nor grace, nor faith, nor hope." So, Bonilla is saying something very important here, that the way out of a conviction of sin is not going to be along the road of obedience.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
It's not going to be along the road of obeying the Ten Commandments, of doing good works. Now, Bunyan, in his own personal life, was fond of the sound of tintinabulation. I wonder if you know that word, tintinabulation. It's church bells, listening to church bells. And as a married man now to his wife, he would love to go into the church in Bedford and listen to the bell ringers in Elstow Church.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
And he would go up right to the wood and put his ear next to the wood so that he could hear the reverberation of these bells. But as the conviction of his sins grew more and more intense, he began to fear that one of these bells would become unstuck and fall and kill him. This was part of his conviction that God was out to get him, that the wrath of God would catch him and destroy him.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
Now, that's his own personal experience, and some of that, I think, is playing out here in Pilgrim's Progress. So, Worldly Wiseman's advice then was to go to a town called Morality and to meet this man, Mr. Legality. It sounded like good advice to Christian.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
So, he sets off in the direction of the town called Morality and discovers that this town is on the top of a very steep hill, and his burden is such that he thinks he cannot climb this hill.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
And in illustrative volumes of Pilgrim's Progress now, you'll have a little tableau, and you'll see Christian with this huge burden on his back, and he's climbing this very steep hill, and he doesn't feel as though he's going to make it to the top. Listen to Bunyan's description of it. So Christian turned out of his way to go to Mr. Legality's house for help.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
But behold, when he was got now hard by the hill, it seemed so high, and also that side of it that was next to the wayside did hang so much over that Christian was afraid to venture further, lest the hill should fall on his head. Wherefore, there he stood still, and he wot not what to do. Also his burden now seemed heavier to him than while he was in the way.
Renewing Your Mind
The Wicket Gate
There came also flashes of fire out of the hill that made Christian afraid that he should be burned. Here, therefore, he sweat and did quake for fear." And then Bunyan introduces some of his poetry. Bunyan's poetry isn't always great poetry. It's always good theology, but he wasn't a great poet. When Christians unto carnal men give ear, out of their way they go and pay for it dear.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
And he will be under this conviction of sin for 18 months. He's on his way to salvation. He's on his way to the cross, but he will be under this burden, this conviction of sin for 18 months. That's very important to understand Pilgrim's Progress because one of the questions that has often been asked of Pilgrim's Progress is why does Bunyan take so long for Christian to get saved?
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
Why is he sent by evangelists to the wicked gate, the straight gate? evangelist, this stereotypical evangelist, who's probably depicted after the manner of the Baptist minister in Bedford, who was Bunyan's mentor and discipler, and John Gifford. And that's probably the template for evangelist. And evangelist says to him, do you see the sepulcher? Do you see the cross?
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
And Christian says, no, he doesn't see it. But then instead, Evangelist says, well, do you see yon wicked gate, the straight gate? Straight is the gate that enters into everlasting life, and broad is the gate that leads to hell. Do you see that straight gate? And that's been a question that's been asked.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
Why did Bunyan have Christian go to the straight gate rather than go to the cross, rather than go to Calvary, rather than go straight to Jesus? And I think the answer to that is Bunyan's own experience, his autobiographical experience of salvation, that he was under conviction of sin where he couldn't see the solution. He couldn't see the answer to his need.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
And Christian then, he's not yet a Christian, of course. He's actually called Graceless. We learn this later. His name is changed to Christian. And he says, sir, I perceive by my book in my hand, he's talking to evangelists, that I am condemned to die and after that to come to judgment. And I find I'm unwilling to do the first nor able to do the latter.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
He doesn't want to die, and he cannot think of coming before God in judgment. And evangelist tells him where he needs to go. He needs to go to the wicked gate. Well, this is the gate of entry that Jesus speaks of in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 7. And then let me pick up part of what evangelist then says to Christian.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
amazed, staggered even, these days to find that maybe less than 20%, sometimes as few as 10% of the class have ever read Pilgrim's Progress. And I tell them with considerable gravitas that they will not get into heaven having not read Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
He gives him a parchment roll, and it was written on this parchment roll, "'Fly from the wrath to come.'" And we read, "'The man therefore read it, and looking upon Evangelist, very carefully said, "'Whither must I fly?' Then said the evangelist, pointing with his finger over a very wide field, do you see yonder wicket gate? The man said, no. Then said the other, do you see yonder shining light?
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
He said, I think I do. Then said the evangelist, Keep that light in your eye, and go up directly thereto. So shalt thou see the gate at which, when thou knockest, it shall be told thee what to do. So I saw in my dream that the man began to run. Now he had not run far from his own door, but his wife and children, perceiving it, began to cry after him to return."
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
But the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on crying, life, life, eternal life. So he looked not behind him, but fled towards the middle of the plain. Well, that's how Bunyan sets the scene in the opening two or three pages of Pilgrim's Progress. It's a scene of this man, Christian, actually called Graceless.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
And he is running with his fingers in his ears away from his wife and children and the city of destruction. And he's running, he doesn't quite know where, towards a light that is shining. But he's carrying this enormous burden upon his back. Well, this is a road trip. This is a great journey.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
It's a tale told in a style that is very familiar to us and especially I think in 2012 when we are living in an age in which fantasy literature is again very popular and Lord of the Rings, Tolkien is another road trip beginning in one place and ending in another.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
And so for the next number of sessions, we're going to look at Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and see the journey that this man, Christian, makes to find salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
I was in the company of someone just recently, a man who'd spent his lifetime as a preacher and asked him what his favorite book was, other than the Bible. And immediately he said Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. And I think if you're of a certain generation, as a couple of you are,
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
then I imagine Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress was something that you read, perhaps if you were raised in a Christian home, read in your home and read by maybe your parents or maybe studied it in Sunday school. But I have this fear that this may be the generation where Pilgrim's Progress sort of disappears and that would be a tragedy. The first part of Pilgrim's Progress, there are two parts.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
The first part was published in 1678. And then six years later, the second part in 1684. And we're going to study together both parts. Now, if I were to ask the question, how many have read part two of Pilgrim's Progress, the story of Christiana and the four boys, then we're considerably down into single figures in terms of percentage-wise.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
And probably for every hundred that have read Pilgrim's Progress part one, maybe two or three have read part two. But in many ways, part two of the story is an even better story in some ways than part one. And theologically, there are some fascinating things that take place in part two that don't take place in part one. Not least, of course, you have a woman's angle in part two.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
It's the story of Mrs. Christian, Christiana, and you have a family story, and it's a much more of a corporate story than the more individualistic story of part one. I'll be telling the story of Bunyan himself a little bit as we go along. I won't belabor you with all of the details of Bunyan's life in the first lecture. That would be one way of doing it.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
But I thought I would weave in to the narrative of Pilgrim's Progress certain factors from Bunyan's own life. Pilgrim's Progress Part One, for sure, is autobiographical.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
And many of the problems that arise, and there are a couple of theological problems that arise in the course of Pilgrim's Progress that can only be understood as Bunyan relating something that is deeply biographical in his own experience of salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
Now everyone is familiar with certain characters from Pilgrim's Progress, Worldly Wiseman, Lord Hategood, Mr. Legality, Mr. Liveloose, Giant Despair, or place names like the House of Interpreter.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
Doubting Castle, the Valley of Humiliation, the Delectable Mountains, Bypath Meadow, some of these have weaved their way into English literature generally, and some of them are still used as phrases in common speech to this day, and perhaps even in the secular world, they will use the term Bypath Meadow without realizing that this is from Pilgrim's Progress. Well, let's begin, as they say.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
I used to listen to a BBC children's program when I was very little on the radio before pictures of that sort of generation. And I can remember this very pronounced Oxford accent saying, are you sitting comfortably? Then let's begin. And it begins with these very familiar words.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep, and I slept. And I dreamed a dream. And those are very familiar words, aren't they? I'm actually reading from a fairly recent publication of Pilgrim's Progress, published in 2008 by Penguin Classics.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
And this is one in which the notes are given by a Bunyan scholar by the name of Roger Pooley. and he is perhaps today the Bunyan scholar in the world. The name of Roger Sharrock is a well-known name in academic circles, and again, an Oxford scholar, scholar in all things Bunyan, wrote a massive treatment of Bunyan and his theology. And there are various editions.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
There are probably a hundred editions of Pilgrim's Progress, but this will be the one that I'll be alluding to as we go along the 2008 Penguin edition edited by Roger Pooley. Well, let's begin at the very beginning, and it's the very first thing that Bunyan notes for us, and that is that here is a man who has in his hands a book.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
You discover this man, he's under a great deal of stress, he's carrying this burden upon his back, and he's outside the city of destruction and he's carrying a book and something that you don't actually learn until later on in the narrative that the city is called the city of destruction. It's where his wife is and his children are.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
Bunyan is telling us the way of salvation and for Bunyan in the 17th century the way of salvation begins with conviction of sin. Unless you understand sin, unless you understand the weightiness of sin, the gravitas of sin, unless you have a conviction of sin and sinfulness, then the doctrine of salvation makes no sense.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
So the first, actually the first 20 pages or so, is an extended consideration of this issue of sin. Perhaps in Bunyan's mind is not only his own experience of salvation, but perhaps the template for salvation for Bunyan is the Philippian jailer in Acts chapter 16 who cries out, having come under a conviction of sin with Paul and Silas in prison in Philippi, what must I do to be saved?
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
And Bunyan gives us a little description of what has happened to bring this man into this melancholy state of mind. I'm quoting now from Pilgrim's Progress. I looked and saw him open the book and read therein. And as he read, he wept and trembled. And not being able longer to contain, he break out with a lamentable cry saying, what shall I do?
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
And the background, you can hear the background of Acts 16 and the Philippian jailer, what must I do to be saved? Well, this is Bunyan telling you the way of salvation.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
This is Bunyan giving you evangelism in the 17th century, and it begins with the book, begins with the Bible, begins with the Word of God, and it comes to this man as he reads the Bible, perhaps for the first time in his life, and it brings him under this conviction of sin. The Bible then has convicted him of the danger of his position.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
Now Bunyan was born in 1628 to Thomas and Margaret Bunyan in a little village called Elstow in Bedfordshire and about a mile or so outside of Bedford itself in Bedfordshire. And John Bunyan was raised in Bedfordshire. very humble circumstances.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
His father was a tinker or a brassier, that is a man who would go from house to house, perhaps from farm to farm, to mend pots and pans, anything really made of metal. These days, if your saucepan doesn't have that Teflon non-stick surface on it and it's not working as it did, you toss it and you go to Walmart or somewhere and you buy a new one.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
He's on his way to salvation. He's on his way to the cross, but he will be under this burden, this conviction of sin for 18 months. It's very important to understand Pilgrim's Progress because one of the questions that has often been asked of Pilgrim's Progress is why does Bunyan take so long for Christian to get saved?
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
Well, in Bunyan's day, you called Bunyan's father and he would come and he would fix it. And he would go from home to home. He lives in this location for 16 years, until he's 16. We need to remember that this is the 1640s. And England is in civil war. Parliament against the king.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
It's the only period of civil war in English history that would result in England becoming a republic for a decade during the 1650s and under the rule or tyranny, depending on how you look at it, of Oliver Cromwell. And then in 1660, the restoration of Charles II.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
But in 1649, Charles I, the king, would be taken out into the streets of London and his head would be severed from his body to a great crowd and a roar. And one of the Puritans, Thomas Goodwin, I think it was, who was there, maybe it was Richard Sibbes, and he fainted when he saw Charles I's head being severed from his body. Well, some events occur in Bunyan's home.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
His mother dies, and then within months, his sister dies. And within three months of the death of his mother, his father remarries. Very quickly, on whatever consideration you look at that, that was very quick. And Bunyan left home. and didn't have a great relationship, I think, with the new stepmother.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
And he lies, I think, about his age, and he joins the parliamentary forces and becomes a soldier. He's just 16. I don't think Bunyan ever saw battle. He might have witnessed the results of battle. He certainly didn't fight in any of the great battles of the Civil War. And he's disbanded in 1646. He's been maybe as much as two years, probably more like 18 months involved then in this Civil War.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
He would have been 17 or 18 when he was disbanded. Now he tells us that until he got married, which would be in about three years from now, he describes his life as stained with crimson sins. Now he insists with great passion later that he wasn't a drunkard and he wasn't sexually promiscuous in any way.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
Well, welcome to a series of studies together on Bunyan's pilgrim's progress. Next to the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress has been the most published book in the English language. I teach at a seminary, have done for 17 years, and I frequently ask students, how many of you have read Pilgrim's Progress? And I'm
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
But like Newton, Bonin would say, I had few equals for cursing, swearing, lying, and blaspheming the holy name of God. Heaven and hell were both out of sight and out of mind. And as far as saving and damning, they were least in my thoughts. In 1649, he's 21 years of age. He marries. This lady would bear four children. We do not know her name. It's one of the astonishing things.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
It was a wonderful marriage. Bunyan loved her dearly. She bore him four children, but we do not know her name. She brought into the marriage two religious books, Arthur Dent's Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven and then Bishop Bailey's The Practice of Piety.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
Well, a few years into this marriage, Bunyan, whose life was far from Christian, and he is caught one day playing a game of tip cat on the Sabbath day. This is the 17th century. Part of the Civil War in the 1640s was over something called the Book of Sports, and That was to the forefront of religious debate in the 1640s.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
And he is chastised, chastised fairly severely for being caught playing tip-cut on the Sabbath day. Somebody says to him, Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or wilt thou have thy sins and go to hell? And Bunyan says, My state is surely miserable. Miserable if I leave my sins, but miserable if I follow them.
Renewing Your Mind
The City of Destruction
I cannot but be damned, and if I must be so, I had as good be damned for many sins as to be damned for few. But he couldn't get rid of conscience that easily. And a month later, he's standing outside a shop window swearing and cursing. And a woman of ill repute, who happens to be there, chastises him for his language. And he falls silent and he hangs his head in shame.