To be a Pilgrim – Part 2

[0:00] Well, as those of you who were with us last week, and I think that was a good majority of you, will remember, John Bunyan, in prison, wrote the story of The Pilgrim's Progress, Part 1, and it was the story of Christian leaving the city of destruction, and your maps begin over here in this corner.

[0:23] He finds, through reading the scripture, that God's righteous judgment hangs over the unregenerate, those who have not yet responded to the call of Christ, and although he tries to convince his wife and family to come on the journey with him, they think he's just mentally ill, they just think he's a little bit distressed and disturbed, and they take lightly the things that he is concerned about, which are the matters of conviction, and so he heads out on his own.

[0:50] And the first part of the Pilgrim's Progress is the story of a man who, at first of the story, is a man clothed in rags, with a book in his hand, and a great burden on his back.

[1:05] And that's the picture of the beginning of this story, and he carries that great burden until he comes to the cross. We're going to spend some time there this morning, so we see what happened, what happened to that burden.

[1:19] He continues on his journey until he comes to the final great test, which is the river of death, and the end of the book is a very glorious and noble completion, as the trumpets sound, and the pilgrims are received.

[1:35] He and his hopeful friends, who has accompanied him all the way, are received in the presence of the king. And the book ends with a wonderful closing.

[1:47] Just let me find my copy here. As the dream vision, the whole story is told in the form of a dream, and as the end of the book comes, the dream vision needs to be completed, and this is how Bani describes it.

[2:06] Now, just as the gates were opened to let in the men, these are the pilgrims who've made it all the way home. I looked in after them. So the narrator can't go in there yet. He can just look in after them.

[2:19] And behold, the city shone like the sun. The streets also were paved with gold, and in them walked many men with crowns on their heads, palms in their hands, and golden hearts to sing praises withal.

[2:31] By the way, men would include men and women, many people. This is inclusive language, which in that time. There were also of them that had wings, and they answered one another without intermission, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord.

[2:47] And after that, they shut up the gate, which, when I had seen, I wished myself among them. That lovely, lovely picture that just, like a dream, the dream vision closes.

[3:04] And then there's just one more little opening of somebody who's attempted the journey without the knowledge of Christ's forgiveness, is rejected at the gate. And there's a very solemn coda after this glorious conclusion to the story.

[3:20] And at the very end, he says, So I awoke, and behold, it was a dream. Then he gives a little conclusion, and he says, there's a chance, in his little poetic conclusion, he says, If thou shalt cast all away as vain, if you treat this story lightly, or if you don't get it this time, I know not, but will make me dream again.

[3:44] Now, those of you who watch, when you take your kids to the movies, and you know that there's always sort of a hook at the end, so that he's ready for a sequel, so he kind of left the hook there, so that the reader could know, watch for it, it might be that there will be a second part.

[3:59] The sequel will, might come, and he's not promising it, but indeed, there comes a time when Bunyan does write the second, the second part of the Pilgrim's Progress. Now, historically, and in terms of reception, the Pilgrim's Progress Part 1 had traditionally being the book that people remember.

[4:16] It's kind of a swashbuckling hero who takes the sword of the spirit, which is the word, and fights with Apollyon, which is sort of a St. George and the Dragon theme, and he's the one who goes through Vanity Fair and manages to resist all of the blandishments of all of the salespersons and land up in prison, and his good friend Faithful is martyred at that point, so he's the one who, with his friend, makes a mistake and lands up, takes a byway, and lands up in castle, under giant despair in Dauvin Castle.

[4:51] Those are all stories that come from the first part, so if you grew up with an illustrated Pilgrim's Progress, or you remember when this was still told in Sunday schools, those are some of the stories you associate, and you go, yeah, that's Pilgrim's Progress.

[5:03] Boy, it's one heroic journey, and it is indeed that, but when Bunyan comes to write the second part, as I mentioned to you last week, he wanted to show something he hadn't been able to show, is he focused his camera lens in on the individual pilgrims.

[5:19] He wasn't able, really, in that first part, and maybe in his own life as a non-conformist pastor had not yet had the experience, to show another picture of the pilgrimage, which is the pilgrimage taken in company.

[5:34] The pilgrimage is the journey of the church together, and that we join up one with another, and we make this as a company. And so while there are heroic moments, nonetheless, basically, we're doing this as a company of pilgrims.

[5:50] And so the second part, I think, is Ganyu's way, in lots of ways, rounding out his picture of the pilgrim life. Yes, there's our own interior journey.

[6:01] Yes, there's our walk with Christ. That's a very important part. That's part one. But yes, this is a journey made better in company, made better by company.

[6:14] And so that's one of the things he does in the second part. Another thing that he does in the second part of Pilgrim's Progress is to actually demonstrate that there might be, and I'm going to tread a really dangerous ground here, but that there might be some difference between a women's journey and men's journey in the faith.

[6:33] That there is, at the beginning of part two, something that contemporary feminists would have seen as distinctly feminine, and that is that the women operate quickly relationally.

[6:46] As soon as Christiana receives her invitation to come to the presence of the king, she quickly turns and invites her neighbors. And there's a wonderful coffee party.

[6:57] There's a wonderful coffee party at the beginning of part two where Christiana has received this letter. And she's thrilled, and you get the sense of a newly literate woman who hears the word but also can read it in the scripture.

[7:10] And it says that it was as though the letters were written in gold and as though it was perfumed with the finest of perfume. So it's sensitive and stationary that she's received this invitation to go on pilgrimage.

[7:21] So this is a very different picture from being under this terrible weight of guilt and conviction that we had in the earlier part. What she is drawn by is this invitation.

[7:32] That, I think, God's adjusting that effectual call to the individual heart and individual person. Some people hear it through the fear of the Lord. Some people hear it through the call of grace.

[7:45] But at any rate, there's this wonderful coffee party with Mrs. Timmerus and Mrs. I forget who all the neighbors are. But they're gathering around because Christiana has received a letter and she wants to read the contents.

[7:58] And they chatted over it. They talk about it. And some say, well, that would be ridiculous. Don't you know, and in fact, one of the women says to her, don't so unwomanly cast yourself away.

[8:11] Which is very interesting because it is a call to a pilgrimage that was seen as rigorous and demanding and demanding and that normally perhaps women at that time would have seen themselves as individually called on.

[8:26] But Christiana responds. And with her, she brings four children. So she's a mother in a home and she can bring the children along. These are the children, now the fatherless children of Christian who has already died and who has left his witness to his family.

[8:43] What is left of Christian in the second part is his witness and his influence in the community. And they follow in that vein. And so she brings first of all her children and then her dear little neighbor whose name is Mercy.

[8:58] And this is one of the charmingest of the character studies is this relationship between Christiana and Mercy. The older woman with the children and not a very old woman at that, but the young woman maybe 16 or 17 years old because they would enter into a house service early in their lives.

[9:19] They would be full grown, seen as full grown members of the community at 16, I suppose, or so. And so this is the young woman, maybe the young serving woman, certainly a young woman of the neighborhood who says to Christiana, I'll go with you.

[9:36] Let me go with you. And then, of course, the whole story is around this little company of pilgrims. So right from the beginning it's a company and then that company keeps swelling. As they go along, they just keep, other people keep attaching themselves to them.

[9:50] So we have a whole company of the lovely motley crew of the church. It doesn't really take much life in the church to know Mr. Fearing, Mr. Ready to Halt, Mr. Spondency, the pilgrims who take a lot of encouragement, you know, sort of get an arm under their arm and keep them coming along, and the ones who are running on ahead and getting into trouble and just sort of pulling them back, the children who are coming along and being taught in the word, the young woman who is making marriage choices under the mentorship of this older woman.

[10:26] And the whole picture of the village church is given to us in this little company as it moves along. By the time that Bunyan writes it, he is now out of jail and he is the pastor of the little Bedford non-conformist congregation.

[10:41] So you're seeing his sense of the company. And so this company, this accompanied journey, or journey which is first accompanied, early on acquires a very important thing, and that is an accompaniment, that is a guide, who is Mr. Greatheart.

[11:00] And Mr. Greatheart is, Bunyan's picture, of what Baxter will write about as the Reformed pastor. He is the pastor who loves and cares for this little company and protects them and guides them through these various themes on the journey.

[11:14] And so when we come to looking at the various sites on the journey through the two stories, we'll see that where in the first part of the Appalachian's Progress, Christian is encountering one set of difficulties and one set of challenges.

[11:34] In the second part, sometimes it's a somewhat different set of challenges. And so we get this sense of, in the company of believers and in the pastoral care of a good shepherd, who I think Bunyan sees as, I think if you look for, where is John Bunyan in these stories?

[11:53] In part one, he is the pilgrim himself. We tell his story of conversion. In part two, he's Greatheart, I think. I think that's where you would find the authorial alter ego offered in those two books.

[12:07] But at any rate, several ways in which the second journey, this is, this hand is for the second journey. The second journey is a somewhat ameliorated journey by reason of this being a company, by reason of it being guided.

[12:23] And if you ever, if you travel internationally, you know the difference between going on your own with a blue book in the back pocket and a guide. This is the kind of difference that's there. And this, I think, is also ameliorated.

[12:36] The story aligns part two. The difficulties are ameliorated by Bunyan's own further maturity. He now is saying there are some difficulties you don't have to incur.

[12:47] There are, not that you can take any shortcuts on this journey, but it doesn't have to be quite so hard all the time, which comes with somewhat of a relief, I think. And then also, there's another form of amelioration that's happened, and that is that the great persecution of the non-conformists and the Puritans has ceased, or at least let up that huge, that very intense persecution after the act of uniformity that really was extremely severe, has been ameliorated.

[13:15] So there's a historical amelioration, there's an authorial amelioration, and there's a situational amelioration of the condition of the pilgrim. And if we're teaching Pilgrim's Progress, I think it's good to teach both parts, because one, we invite people to go on the heroic journey, follow Christ at all costs, and here's some of the things it'll cost, and the other, we say, let me show you, if you do it in company, if you have a pastor, if you have a church family, if you have companions, this journey is not so perilous, at least.

[13:47] So, let me, with that double vision, then, take you through some of the sites, where we see some slight differences and similarities as we proceed to look.

[14:00] Is that a problem for sound? It's okay to say. As we proceed through the site. When we have looked at these two books, we realize the extremely important moment that happens at the cross, and I think that's about where we got to on the journey out of part one last time.

[14:25] And I'll give you a picture from a contemporary set of illustrations of the pilgrim at the cross. And if you, when you read this, in Pilgrim's Progress Part One, this is an extraordinary, but very understated moment.

[14:45] In Pilgrim's Progress Part One, you would almost expect, given our kind of paradigms of salvation, that a huge amount would lead up to the cross, and then that would be a climactic moment, and then in some ways, that's pretty much where it all happens.

[14:59] In Bunyan, he's had, as you look at your map, you can see that he's already come through a considerable number of difficulties by the time he gets to the moment at the cross.

[15:13] And when Bunyan writes about it, he writes about it as a little hill ascending. It's not written structurally in the narrative. It is not written as a huge climactic moment, but it is of incredible importance.

[15:29] I want to just read you just a little piece of this from Part One. Now, we're looking at this scene, and if you're looking in your books, I don't know where it is, but I'm on page 31.

[15:40] All right. Then what... Now, I saw it in my dream. And this is after the pilgrim had entered into the straight gate. He had a time at the interpreter's house, which is basically where he's being taught to understand things from a spiritual perspective.

[15:57] The interpreter's house is a series of little tableaus, almost like Madame Tussauds' wax museum, except that they are moving objects. And he moves from one scene to another, and in each scene, he's taught something about how it is to read and understand life with spiritual eyes.

[16:14] And that would be a preliminary instruction in understanding the scriptures, and understanding that reality is twofold, that there's the reality, that the everyday reality that you bump up against, and there's the spiritual reality that undergirds it and interfuses it, and it's continuously being pointed to, if you have spiritual eyes.

[16:34] So when he comes out of the house of the interpreter, the narrator says, Now I saw in my dream that the highway up which Christian was to go was fenced on either side with a wall, and that wall is called salvation.

[16:49] Up this way, therefore, did burden Christian run, but not without great difficulty because of the load on his back. He ran, he's still running, he's still impelled by the desire to be rid of this huge burden, and he ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending.

[17:06] So this is not the Mount of Illumination of the earlier mystics, where you have toiled up through several stages of illumination. This is just on the Pilgrim Way. There is a place where there is a little ascent, and up that little ascent he goes, a place somewhat ascending, and upon that place stood a cross.

[17:28] And a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. I don't know if you can just see the mouth of the sepulchre in this drawing, which is modeled on one that was in an early edition, with just a little square mouth, a little bricked-in mouth of the sepulchre in the corner there.

[17:45] So I saw in my dream that just as Christian came up with the cross, came even with the cross, his burden loosened from off his shoulders and fell from off his back, and began to tumble and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre where it fell in, and I saw it.

[18:06] He is suddenly free of this burden by something that he sees at the cross, something that he understands in a new way, and I used this picture in my graduate seminar on Pelicans' Progress a couple weeks ago, and I gave the class a week to think about what was wrong with the picture, because it's a very nice picture, it's a lovely picture.

[18:35] But the fact of the matter is that there's nothing in that picture per se that would tell you what really freed him, and it probably can't be illustrated just as such, but let me read you the results.

[18:52] Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, now here's this man who's been stricken in conscience, he's been carrying this terrible load, he suddenly has a merry heart, and one of the things you need to know, because you get the stereotype given to you all the time, is that the Puritans were not doers.

[19:11] They were not down in the mouth. They were not down with up and hating the sun. They had, when they came into this assurance of salvation and this liberation from the burden of sin, there was a merriment that is deep.

[19:24] And that current of merriment actually is carried even more strongly in part two than it is in part one. Because in part two they have pardon. They have dance, they have a dance, a circle dance with a lovely picture of poor little old Mr. Ready to Halt has a crutch, and he's kind of hopping on one foot, and Mr. Swansea is doing the best she can do.

[19:43] The whole group are in a little circle dance. That stream of joy because of what Christ has done to them is the predominant strand of their thinking.

[19:54] Once the sin issue has been dealt with, what people assign the doerness to is that they take sin very seriously. And what the pilgrim sees at the cross is that sin, although as serious as all the Word of God points out, has been dealt with in Christ at the cross.

[20:15] He said to the merry heart, He hath given me rest by his sorrow and life by his God. Then he stood still a while to look and wonder, for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus feed him of its burden.

[20:30] He looked therefore and looked again, even though springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheek. Now as he stood looking and weeping, behold, three shining ones came to him and pleaded him with peace be to thee.

[20:42] So the first said to him, Thy sins be forgiven. So the first thing he has is a word of pardon. The second stripped him of his rags and clothed him with a change of raiment. He has the righteousness of Christ given to him as a garment.

[20:55] The third also set a mark in his forehead and gave him a roll with a seal upon it. The sealing with the Holy Spirit as in Ephesians chapter 1 when we believed we were sealed with the Spirit of promise.

[21:08] And the word, the words of pardon. There's a lot of critical discussion about what is this role? What's on this role? And just this last week I read a quite rude discussion of it in which the woman said it was an addendum to the covenant of grace that signed Bunyan into the contract.

[21:25] And I went, I didn't write margin because it was a library book, but I went wrong! That's not what's in this role. What's in this role is not a legal transaction but God's assurance of pardon.

[21:37] What would be in that role, you know, you're talking about rolling and you get to see, but I'm going to tell you what's in that role. What's in that role is Isaiah. Your sins and your iniquities will I remember no more.

[21:49] It will be 1 John 1.9 that if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

[22:01] It will be Christ's word of pardon and it will be what in Colossians says that God has torn up the script that assigns charges to us and has given us instead the pardon in Christ.

[22:18] It is the role, it is his writ of pardon, and if anybody knows anything different from that, you can talk to me afterwards. But that's what is the role that he's carrying as he now proceeds on his journey.

[22:32] But what's extraordinarily important here is that while the pictorial depiction gives a plain Protestant cross, the marginal note, and I spend a lot of attention on the marginal notes to Bunyan, is to Zechariah 3, and the reference is to the passage, they shall look on him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as for an only son.

[22:58] And that what happens at the cross is that the intellectual understanding of the transaction of the cross is affected, but then something else happens.

[23:10] Like all Bunyan's still tableaux, suddenly as he looks at the cross, he sees the very dying Christ. And that cross is not simply a picture of a forensic transaction or a covenant, it is the one who loves him and gave himself for him.

[23:29] And it takes the spirit to reveal Christ in his death as having fully met and satisfied all that was required for his salvation.

[23:39] And so there is a very moving action between the main text and the margins there, without which you don't understand really what he sees there. Because what happens to him is intellectually he understands something, but that goes down to his heart.

[23:56] And it's a motion that moves from his intellect of understanding to his heartfelt affection for Jesus Christ. And by affection I'm not using fond. I mean, that deep word that Jonathan, the way Jonathan Edwards uses it, the religious affection, where it's that deepest spring of his life from that point on will be love for Jesus Christ.

[24:19] Then Christian gave three leaps for joy and went on singing. And then he went in his first little song with, Thus far did I come loathe with my sin, nor could ought ease the grief that I was in till I came hither.

[24:34] What a place is this. Must here be the beginning of my bliss. So heaven begins at the moment, the bliss of salvation begins at the moment that one really apprehends and understands what Jesus Christ has done.

[24:52] Must hear the burden fall from off my back. Must hear the strings that bound between me cracks. Blessed cross. Blessed sepulchre. Blessed rather be the man that there was put to shame for me.

[25:05] In that last line of the poem, you hear the love that has sprung up in his heart for Jesus Christ that will be the impelling motive of all the rest of his journey. It is this love, this love for this one that replaces the fear, replaces the anxiety, and draws him now to that golden moment I read to you about at the end of the book, when he will stand face to face with the prince of that place, as he's called.

[25:31] Now when our second company make this same part of the first part of the journey, they come on the strength of this invitation.

[25:45] That invitation has come from the king to Christiana. Mercy and the children join up in the little company, and they move along, don't have the same trouble at the slough of the spawn that the first one did, because remember, he seems to have a depressive kind of nature anyhow.

[26:01] But furthermore, Bunyan at several points says, you know, the area is much mended now from when Christian went, because the pastors are being carried, because the king has sent people to drain the swamp.

[26:13] There's been a little land reclamation process going on, and so the good teaching of the word has drained away the power of some of these places. Bunyan in Grace Abounding and then his first part is relatively untaught.

[26:28] Now, he's just early, at least in Grace Abounding, in the story he's been telling, he is just learning those scriptures as he goes along. The women and children don't seem to be tested and tempted by the town of morality in the same way, but when they come to the wicket gate, there's something really very important, because Mercy is not sure if she should be along.

[26:50] Remember the question was, are you one of the elect? Are you called? If you've had a sexual call, then you've come on the journey. And so Mercy, because she's coming on a second-hand invitation. Christiana has the letter in her whosem.

[27:03] But Mercy's come along on her sasal, so it's like a second removed invitation. And so when we come to the gate, at the straight gate, there's much more anxiety in the second part than there was in the first.

[27:17] So let me just find you what happens when Mercy gets to the gate. I've got many marks here, of course. There we go.

[27:32] So little Mercy, who all the way through is shown as this very, she's a little sweetheart. She's even called somewhere in there, sweetheart.

[27:43] And she is. She's just one of those lovely young women who just takes your heart, because she's genuinely a lovely person. When she comes to the door, Christiana made a low obeisance and said, Let not our Lord be offended with his handmaidings that we have not to his princely gate.

[28:02] Then said the keeper, Whence come you, and what is it you would have? And Christiana answers, We are come from whence Christians have come, and upon the same errand as he. With that, the keeper of the gate did marvel and say, What?

[28:14] Does she now become a pilgrim that about a while ago abhorred that life? And she bowed her head and said, Yes, and so are these my sweet babes also. Then he took her by the hand and led her in and said also, Suffer the little children to come to me.

[28:28] But the invitation extended and welcoming in the children, and with that, he shut up the gate. Now, all this while, did poor Mercy stand outside, trembling and crying for fear that she was rejected.

[28:41] But when Christiana had gotten admittance for herself and her boys, then she began to make intercession for Mary. So the company in prayer for each other and praying that Mercy would come into an assured relationship with Christ.

[28:55] And she said, Oh my Lord, I have a companion of mine that has come hither upon the same account as myself. One that is much dejected in her mind, for that she comes, as she thinks, without sending for, whereas I was sent for by my husband's king to come.

[29:10] Now, Mercy began to be very impatient, for each minute was as long to her as an hour, wherefore she prevented Christiana from a fuller interceding for her by knocking at the gate herself. And she knocked in so loud that she made Christiana to start.

[29:23] Then said the keeper of the gate, Who is there? And said Christiana, It is my friend. So he opened the gate and looked out, but Mercy was fallen down without in a swoon, for she fainted and was afraid that no gate should be opened to her.

[29:36] Then he took her by the hand and said, Damsel, I did thee arise. Oh, sir, said she, I am faint. There is scarce life left in me. But he answered, The Jonah one said, When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto me as my holy temple.

[29:51] Fear not, but stand upon thy feet and tell me wherefore thou art come. And Mercy said, I am come for that into which I was never invited as my friend Christiana was. Hers was from the king and mine was from her.

[30:03] Wherefore I fear, I presume. And the gatekeeper said, Did she desire to be coming with her to this place? Yes. And Mercy said, And as my Lord sees, I am come. If there is any grace and forgiveness of sins to spare, I beseech you that I thy poor handmaid may be partaker thereof.

[30:18] Then he took her, I've seen thee by the hand, and led her gently in, and said, I pray for all them that believe on me, that by me, what means so ever they come unto me.

[30:31] Then he said, To those that stood by, fetch something and give it to Mercy the smell on, and thereby the state of Satan. So they fetched her a bundle of myrrh, and after a while she was divine.

[30:41] Isn't that a lovely, that it's so tender, so tenderly dealing with the person who isn't dead sure that they are, that this effectual call has come directly from God, that they are of the, an anxiety in that whole frame of record.

[30:56] And instead it's lovely tenderness, that whosoever will may come, and the very desire to come, and to knock, it means that the door will be opened to them.

[31:07] And so by me, it's ministry to the tenderhearted, and to those who lack the assurance of a direct call, and says, Come to the gate, present yourself. Knock, and watch and see how God's good will, how Christ in grace will draw you in.

[31:22] So I think that that is quite a lovely, lovely enlarging of the picture of how effectual call operates. But he will write a whole pamphlet called, Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ.

[31:35] And he's encouraging people, don't spend a lot of time asking questions about election. If you have a heart desire to know Christ, and you are drawn to come to that gate, present yourself, and you will not be cast up.

[31:47] You will be taken in. That is itself a form of the call. At any rate, when these folks get on their way up to the cross, something happens that's very interesting.

[32:01] And I want to, because I'm trying to show you a couple or three incidents where we have both stories. They come out of the interpreter's house, which is where they're taught how we have a preliminary understanding of the spiritual world, and how it interfaces with the natural world.

[32:19] And then they come to the cross. And I've just been trying to find it. Now I saw in my dream that... I'm just moving to find the line that I want to find it.

[32:34] I saw in my dream that they went on, and Great Heart went before them.

[32:45] So they went and came to the place where Christian's burden fell off his back and tumbled into a sepulcher. They have now the memory of his journey to help him. And one of the things that I think we need to do more for each other is tell each other our stories.

[33:01] I've said that once before. That we help each other by telling each other how God works in our lives. And one of the, I think, great blessings of intergenerational friendship, friendship, you need friendship in all the generations you can reach to, okay?

[33:18] If you're in the senior generation, you need generations for three or four generations or below. And if you're in the middle generations, you need some ahead and some coming along behind. Because otherwise, we're all stuck in our own generation.

[33:30] And we're all dealing with just the issues of our generation. This is one of the big problems in our kind of segmented world now. And what I love about a room like this, it's filled with intergenerational friends and neighbors.

[33:43] But we need those who have gone ahead to tell us where the tough spots are and how the Lord helped them through that. We need people coming behind for whom we can do the same. And if we're stuck in our own generation, we're all just comparing notes and we don't get much further ahead.

[33:59] So these folks have got by means field notes. Or Christians field notes. They know that he had a time at the cross. And they know that that transformed him.

[34:10] That he had been an afflicted soul for them. And after that, he wasn't. They haven't yet their own apprehension. They're spiritual. Can you understand the word here? Apprehension, not in the sense of anxiety, but in the sense of knowing something holy.

[34:24] Beyond comprehension, something that you have taken on in some deep way. They have not yet their own personal apprehension of the full work of Christ on the cross.

[34:35] But they know that Christian was there. And they know that it transformed his life. So when they come to it, they know about this. Here then they made a pause.

[34:47] And here also they blessed God. Now it seems as though for Christiana and mercy, their entry in at the gate gave them sufficient assurance that they were now in the pilgrimage way.

[35:01] Maybe even Christiana's own invitation at the beginning gave them sufficient assurance that they don't seem to have the same crisis at the cross that Christian did. He had a crisis there because he's still seeing the Lord of things and still understands this righteousness of Christ.

[35:19] These women who are more instructed and differently constructed in their journey have a little different experience. Now, said Christiana, it comes to my mind what was said to us at the gate.

[35:32] To wit, that we should have pardon by word and deed. By word, that is by the promise. By deed to wit in the way it was obtained.

[35:43] What the promise is, of that I know something. So they'd be living in the promise of God, of salvation in Christ. But now she says, what is it to have pardoned by deed?

[35:54] Or I want to know more about the way that it was obtained. Mr. Greatheart, I suppose you know, she says. So this is a nice little rhetorical situation. She sets it up.

[36:04] And there's nothing by me like better, especially in part two, than to fall into a Puritan sermon. He was in every way the Puritan pastor. And so at a moment's provocation, he's ready to preach a three-point sermon.

[36:16] And so what happens at Mount Calvary, interestingly, at the cross, it's not inter-call Mount Calvary, but at this little rise, at the cross, for Christiana and her company, is that they sit down and listen to a three-point Puritan sermon on the righteousness of Christ.

[36:32] And if you want to know what was the apprehension that let Christian really lose his burden, in doctrinal formulation, you read it in Greatheart's sermon in part two.

[36:43] And it's quite fascinating, because it's laid out very very mystically, which that was a rhetorical method by which everything can be broken down into points. And many of us will understand this form very well indeed, because our minds just kind of fall into that sermonic model, if you've heard enough of them.

[37:02] But at any rate, he then very carefully explains that Jesus had three kinds of righteousness. He had the righteousness that was his by right of being in the Godhead. He had the righteousness that was his by being a perfect man.

[37:14] And then in his resurrection and ascendant exaltation, he had that righteousness of God and man fused in one perfect person. And he said that it's a lovely, I just reread it this morning, because I just enjoy reading it again.

[37:29] But he said that that's the bonus righteousness. That firm righteousness, he has extra. And that surplus that he can actually give away.

[37:41] And he actually uses the picture that Jesus said, if you have two coats, you should give one away. Jesus has many coats of righteousness. He has three coats of righteousness, and one of them is for us. And so he's happy to give away his surplus righteousness, as it were.

[37:55] This is all very 17th century, and it's complete. But he gives that away as a cloak of righteousness. And it's not that he's any less righteous for having given it to us.

[38:07] He has this abundance of righteousness. And he clothes up in it. He takes away our own raggedness, and he gives us his righteousness as a garment.

[38:18] Let me show you a 17th century imagination of this garment. This is an illustration, a copper cut illustration from the fifth edition of Elkhausen's Progress.

[38:32] And this is the same man that we saw at the beginning, clothed in rags. Now he's looking like a very fine gentleman. He has a long, brocaded coat. He looks like the son of a prince.

[38:45] He's dressed aristocratically, actually. But this is the robe that's given him at the cross. It's this beautiful garment. It is the embroidered garment of the faith.

[38:58] It's the wedding feast garment from the parables. There's all kinds of plays and all kinds of discussion of it in the marginal notes throughout the rest of the text. When he goes into vanity fair, it's the garment that remarks him as a very unusual person.

[39:11] They see it as outlandish garment because it doesn't suit their society. But this is the Christian dressed in the righteousness of Christ once that righteousness has been granted to him by grace at the cross.

[39:28] And that's how it was imagined in the reader of the 17th century text. Well, so at the cross, then they have this very careful teaching.

[39:42] And what I want to show you is that for the people of this time, it was very important that this truth touch your intellect. There is an intellectual comprehension.

[39:55] It's laid out. There is an intellectual content to the faith. And then there is an affective or emotional transformation. It gets to your heart through your head.

[40:08] And that is basically their approach. Now that sounds quite foreign to us nowadays. I remember doing a series of television programs, Vision TV, in which I was interviewing people who've made a difference in Canadian life as Christians.

[40:25] So Kathy Nichols, who many of you would remember, is the interview I'm thinking of. I did a feature interview with Kathy Nichols. And then that was in turn introduced, I was hosting the show, but the show was part of a group that was introduced by somebody from Vision TV, setting in a more thorough kind of context, because they always try to make sure that it's interesting.

[40:45] And this one, in the interview you're now going to see, you're going to see a very unusual approach to the spiritual life. That is, it approaches it, this is the person who approaches the faith through her mind, and then has the spiritual experience follow.

[41:03] And what was interesting to me was that was seen as very unusual ways to come, that that would not be in sync with late 20th century ways of thinking about spirituality, which begin somewhere in here, and don't necessarily have a doctrinal or intellectual element.

[41:21] But that would be very foreign to the people of the 17th century. You understood with your mind, you were enlightened in your mind, so that your mind could apprehend and understand, and then that, out of that, your heart was quickened and your emotions were engaged.

[41:39] So at the end, at the end of the sermon, which is quite a dry, straightforward little sermon, Christiana says, this is brave.

[41:51] A little discussion of the sermon. Now I see that there was something to be learned by our being pardoned by word and deed. Good mercy, let us labor to keep this in mind, and my children, do you remember it also?

[42:04] But sir, she says to the preacher, Great Heart, was not this that made my good Christian's burden fall off from his shoulder and that made him give three leaps for joy? And Great Heart says, yes, "'Twas the belief of this that cut those strings that could not be cut by other means, and to give him a proof of that virtue of that, that he was suffered to carry his burden to the cross." And Christiana then speaks about her own emotional response.

[42:32] And she says, True, she said, "'And you think it makes my heart bleed to think that Christ should bleed for me. O thou loving one, O thou blessed one, thou deservest to have me, for thou hast bought me.

[42:46] Thou deservest to have me all. Thou hast paid for me ten thousand times more than I am worth. No marvel that this made the water stand in my husband's eyes, and that made him trudge so limbly on.'" So this trudgeing so limbly on is the encouragement that we have in this passage.

[43:07] But I wanted you to hear is actually understand that her heart, that the love for Christ and the devotion for Christ comes up from her heart, wells up.

[43:18] So there's an intellectual understanding, but it doesn't stop there. And if it stops there, it has not been fully apprehended. Well, so at the cross, then, slightly different takes, but if you take them together, you have the extremely significant role of a good understanding of justification by faith as it would be taught in the non-conform Puritan congregation.

[43:45] They go on their journey. Hill difficulty is a difficult place and is a predictable difficult place. Those of you who have spent time in helping people come to faith or in discipleship know that one of the things you need to teach them is that when they have a wonderful experience of Christ and a wonderful sense of sins forgiven, start to be on their alert because the next thing that happens is hill difficulty.

[44:08] In fact, I sometimes said to the Lord, you don't have to be so rough with the ones that come to you. You know, they seem to come to faith and then it seems like they go through a series of pretty acute difficulties. We used to feel that, especially for our people who were coming to faith that right after baptism seemed to be a time when once they had made public confession of faith, then they went through personal difficulties and trials that tested that and made them tougher.

[44:38] Helped them to trudge so mimbly on. At any rate, just knowing that there's a difficulty, I think it's a help because some people get the idea that you come to Christ and then he's somehow magic wand all your problems are out of existence.

[44:50] And one of the reasons I continue to love the film program, I come back and I read it and I keep teaching it, is because we've had too much easy teaching about come to Christ and then ta-da, ta-da and then you're home to glory.

[45:02] And it's not like that. A lot of us know. It's just not that way. But we don't teach that very well because we're so busy on the invitation side that sometimes I think we're not even on it.

[45:13] On the other side, finally lays it all out. Come to Christ, have your heart touched, understand what Christ is up and then be ready because you're going to go uphill difficulty. And in Hilda's difficulty, in the first part of the story, he is so tired and he gets up there that he stops in a little resting place and forgets to review his deed of pardon, which means the roll falls out of his garden and he actually goes on for a while and he realizes he's kind of lost it again.

[45:42] He goes, you have to trace his steps back to pick that roll back up. On Hill Difficulty, Bunyan has a lovely picture of Christiana and you see there's a slightly stoked nationary woman and she's puffing a little by the time she gets to the top of his body.

[45:58] He has those little, loving little human touches that make these way more than allegorical characters. In part two, in part one, the allegorical figures have enough vitality that they're much more interesting than normal allegorical figures.

[46:14] They're not sick people. They're kind of bar relief. They're carved to keep the ground of doctrine. By part two, Bunyan's vitality as a writer is out of control and these characters are people.

[46:26] They are, you know them. You read about them. They have these allegorical kind of names but you identify and think, oh boy, that's like somebody I know awfully well and little Christiana has a little heart already and I think by the minute she gets up at the top of her.

[46:44] One of the things that you will notice in both parts but they become much more clearly defined in the second part and you can tell that I'm wanting to read both parts because lots of people don't ever get to the second part and I think we missed a lot of good parts but in the second part of the program there's more attention even than in the first paid to a sequence of resting places so that the women will actually say in a little, one of Bunyan's little poems somewhere along the way how fit, I think it's, let me find the line if I can.

[47:23] Okay, I have too many places marked. How fitly are the stages set? Meaning, our journey is staged so that we have a very hard time followed by a period of refreshment and this theme, these little themes of refreshment, places where they can rest for a little while, have a good night's rest, have a bath, stop and have a good meal, those places of refreshment are clearly designed by who they call the lord of that place so that they're not, so there's always a time of refreshment after this time of spiritual exertion.

[47:57] If you look back over a long life with Christ as I now look back over many years, you will also see that there are times when it seems like you are really being put to the pins at every point in your life and then times when you're brought into a place of refreshment and you almost can't remember how hard it was in that earlier time and then as you're refreshed, it seems like you're led into another time of exertion, pressure, discouragement even and then brought into another place of refreshment.

[48:29] So these women say, how sickly are the saints of God, how wonderfully the lord of this place provides places of refreshment. While those that occur at most of the same places in part one, they are much more celebrated in part two.

[48:45] Partly because we have a company of women and children and the little ones get tired. So you'll have lovely little moments where the little ones are dragging along behind and they're having to encourage them and bring them along and partly because by you would see, without doubt, women as physically weaker in the journey, not spiritually.

[49:02] So he sees these women as strong spiritually, although certainly he wants you to be under pastoral care. Nonetheless, they are, they have fewer struggles, partly because they have stronger faith.

[49:17] And that is one of the pictures that he shows. One of the big thoughts that they make in part two that we don't have and let me see where's my map, I keep laying in this map, that won't be marked on your map because the first story doesn't even take us there.

[49:36] But one of these places where they stop for rest and repression is Gaius Inn and it occurs somewhere around here on the journey and Gaius Inn is a stopping place where they just settle in for a feast of the good things of the scriptures.

[49:52] They have a scriptural meal, it's an allegorical meal in which they feast on the word and they celebrate the scriptures together. But before I take you there to Gaius and what could happen about here, let's just catch up a few of these events on the journey as we experience in part one.

[50:10] In part one, after the cross and in both parts, they enter House Beautiful, which is by the picture of the church, the gathered church and House Beautiful is one of the places of repression and they also are teaching and catechizing and in part two, the children are the women at House Beautiful, the catechists are prudent, inquiring in charity I believe and they ask the children to review their catechism and see if they're well-instructed.

[50:41] They then say to Christiana, you've done a good job. You'll understand these things quite well. And Dennis Danielson, who's the chair of the English department of the UBC, has done a very nice article showing that actually the catechists adjust the questions to the age of the children.

[50:56] So the little James is asked a very simple, basic question and then the next child is asked a little harder, one blue person and then Matthew is asked the really big, hard, tough Calvinist question.

[51:07] And each of them they're showing almost a graded curriculum. Don't push this too far. But there is a sense that teaching was adjusted to the needs of the children and this is the earliest record we have of teaching children in a kind of a curricular way in the homes and women would have a great deal to do with that.

[51:30] When they come of the house beautiful they are now this whole road from the Wicked Gate through the Interpreter's House through the Apprehensioner of the Cross through the induction of the house beautiful they're now full members of the church and they are now ready for the journey in a fuller way and they have been given their guide great heart that they're away.

[51:58] When Christian comes out of house beautiful he is accoutred as a soldier. Before he's let go he's given the full order of God in Ephesians chapter 6 and that's all put on him and he goes out to do warfare he's now the Christian soldier and he goes out to do warfare in part 2 great heart wears the armor and the company is supported and encouraged behind him he is their champion as it were who does the battle but they don't encounter Apolligan in any way near the same way as the first one again this is one of those battles that these folks don't have to fight in the same way and interestingly immediately after the battle with Apolligan which happens right here which is Bunyan's great fake off with the evil one himself now in the first story he goes through a very deep gorge that is called the valley of humiliation and the valley of humiliation is a time when he is he steps on all sides in a dark place by voices that whisper doubt despair fear enmity against God demonic voices in that valley and it's very interesting to me that immediately after this great contest in which he's the victor because he almost loses the sword which is the scripture for just a moment the sword's over his hand and then he gets to the game and now he wins this battle with the scripture firmly in his hand at that moment you would think there should be a moment of great exaltation but instead he goes down into this parable it's funny there are two places in this book that I find maybe the darkest places of testing maybe three but this is one of them and I think Bunyan is uncannily knowledgeable in recognizing that after we have a victory in our Christian lives after we have a decisive encounter and we see God work on our behalf and we have a moment of sheer sense of the power of the spirit that that is the very time when we will next most likely face an enormous harassment and he does that not by a hill difficulty but now by a deep gorge and if you have been if you've been in ministry at any in any range of ways you may well know this experience

[54:26] Elijah has this experience on Mount Carmel on Mount Carmel he can take on the priest of Baal he can call down fire from heaven he can he is empowered he can then run in front of Ahab's chariot all the way back to the gate to the city he's got empowered by the spirit and had a great adrenaline rush and the two happen together because we're physical and spiritual beings together and the very next thing you see of Elijah he's despairing of his life and he wants it all to be over and dear Lord just hide me someplace because I'm the only one left he is in a deep valley of humiliation he is in a deep place of exhaustion spiritual exhaustion and therefore vulnerability and Bunyan does a very good job of pointing out the spiritual vulnerability that we experience after spiritual empowerment and I think well taken and the way he brought out of that valley is by acquiring his friend faithful he starts to hear some songs in the night ahead of him he starts to hear voices not just the demonic voices but now he begins to hear people praising God and saying the songs and he begins to come out of that deep dark place to the company of believers well we're not going to be able to visit all these places and you're going to need to visit some of them on your own for sure but let's let's take a couple minutes at Doubling Castle in part one and at Gaius in part two okay and then we've got to get to the cross what time do I need to stop 12 or 12

[55:58] I think I did the big trouble when in part one after the after the people have come this long way in the journey they've come through Vanity Fair which is Bunyan's picture of the seductions of the world the flesh and the devil they desire even at the well end of the pilgrimage to somehow be at home in the world somehow just buy into the values of your own culture and not live so against the grain and so Vanity Fair is that terrific testing a gate of the Christians values against the values of the culture and they come through through persecution through faithful actually being martyred so it's also a picture of that great persecution and then again you would all think they would be home free and it's just right then again right after a great spiritual victory now with a new companion named hopeful that the lord supplies him a new companion hopeful that they actually take this little byway and land up in

[57:11] Dalton Castle and if you learned from the progress through illustrated versions you've got very good mental images of Dalton Castle these are the kinds of pictures that Bunyan picked up from the broad sheet stories the fairy tales that he read as a young person and he has the well stocked mind of pictures and images and Dalton Castle is a profound experience of something that brings him right to the edge of spiritual despair here they are quite mature on the journey they've been a long way down the road they've met lots of problems and yet now they are actually facing the possibility of really despairing of God's intervention in their lives doubting the word of God doubting the truth that is the statement and that's a very severe picture of something that can happen doesn't have to happen doesn't happen to Christiana and her train need to know that we don't have to spend time in Dalton Castle but if one lands up there you can know that A you got there by a bypass and B there is a way out it's one of the most dramatic episodes in the story it's extraordinarily well written it is told so you get you are there and you feel giant despair cuddling they don't just get in the castle but they are beaten up the experience of the nonconformists in the prisons of their day is being lived to some degree and this giant despair is vicious but what it does is bring them bring Christian in particular to a suicidal moment it's a very very dark place that he all he is being tempted by giant despair just give it up in fact why don't you just finish off your life give up a trip if you give up a trip you're damned anyhow just be done with it this is too hard and that's the voice that comes to them for two days and three nights or three days and two nights can't be that this period of time it's intense it's terrible but then on the third morning when they wake up suddenly

[59:22] Christian realize that to be in this dungeon and he doesn't need to be he has right within his own bosom right within his own clothing the key that will open that and every other dark castle which is the key of God's promises of life in Christ and he takes that key out of his bosom and he turns it and it's a wonderful description of the lock that's so stiff and so hard to turn it says the lock went damnable hard and some people think Bunyan just sort of lost his manners for a minute there but it went so hard because it was that close to them it was that close but he uses the word of God again as he used it against Napoleon as a sword he now uses against the giant despair as a key and that key opens the door and suddenly the giant has no more power over him this is a very important picture they repent of course of having taken this byway and get back onto their journey and have this wonderful moment period on the delectable mountains where the word of God becomes so clear to them that they catch their first glimpse through a telescope that they hold and they can look through and actually see the celestial city for the first time and they catch their glimpse of the gates of home and they are empowered to continue on their journey christiana and her train by her train

[60:53] I mean her company do not have to they don't spend time going to the castle they have other vicissitudes along the way but they are ameliorated that's why some people find it not as exciting a story it's not as pictorial it doesn't have as many kind of tornatic peaks leading up to the final crossing but at Gaius Inn they have a wonderful place of refreshment which the other pilgrim didn't even experience and it suggests the further establishment of the teaching of the scripture as a way of refreshing the heart I haven't time now to take you to Gaius Inn but they have a good time there and they continue on their journey when we come to the river crossing which is the closing four or five pages of both books you have probably the best imaginative material to help us understand the nature of death and the difficulty of the crossing not for one minute blink that there isn't anything in Bunyan that would make this crucified or make it sissified this is the last great challenge of the Christian journey but what is extraordinarily important is that they meet that challenge together that the company of the saints is a company of the gods and they are accompanying each other to the river's edge for the purpose of helping each other find faith passages and that the end of part two which I like even though the end of part one although both are noble endings as one of the major editors describes me some of the finest endings of any working language but Christiana received a second invitation she had received the invitation to go on pilgrimage and now she received the invitation from the king that within ten days she must stand within his place and that is her home call and her homecoming invitation and she's given the messenger who comes gives her a message an emblem which is a little symbol of what will happen and he says

[62:55] I brought you a token so that you know it's a true message an arrow with a point sharpens with love led easily into her heart which by degrees wrought so effectually with her that at the time appointed she must be gone so that final illness being a gift from God and a sign of his love not a sign of his unmercy is given here and then what happens is Christiana finds that she now in her last days she does a series of things that the Puritans did a very good job of teaching people to do she calls in her children and blesses them she gives away what little she has to the poor they didn't believe in needing inheritance to the children because they didn't whatever you have to the poor she does that and then she blesses the other pilgrims who will follow her she calls in Mr. Honest and she calls for her great heart she calls great heart first and when she tells great heart that she must be gone her old pastor by now great heart says he doesn't say oh dear now don't talk about those kinds of things and we're going to pray and ask him he will he just says

[63:58] I wish it were me for you there's something about that honesty in faith that I think we need so much to learn again but I want to read you just the little conversation between Mr. Honest and and Christianity two old these are two old children they walked this way together and now they're both realizing that it won't be long before they die and what we have is a series of these old believers preparing to go home she called for old Mr. Honest one of her dear friends that she confided with to and said of him bless him behold an Israelite indeed and he is no guile and said he I wish you a fair day when you set out for Mount Zion and shall be glad to see that you go over the river dry shod but she asked come wet come dry

[65:00] I long to be gone for however the weather is in my journey I shall have time enough when I come there to sit down and watch me and say amen a God friend such cross come with it God bless I pretty much used up the time time for a few questions okay some of you have been sitting in heat and sun there if you need to move a little please I should have said that a long time ago are there some questions you'd like to yes I'll give you a question before I give the framework okay or did the answer was it fun here's what Bunyan taught us in particularly the first part of Good

[66:02] Theology Today the framework is he started out asking what should I do he say shortly after that he's named Christian he doesn't ask for repentance he walks close to the cross and he says by seeing the cross the burden tumbles off after that he's full of joy after that the three shining people come down and say your sins are forgiven not yet as he asked for forgiveness and the reference to that is in Mark 2 5 where they bring the man down and you say your sins are forgiven and that man didn't ask for forgiveness that's still good theology today yeah I think it's great theology in the sense that and one of the places to go to get the tight form is hopeful testimony when they tell each other their stories near the end of part one and hopeful retraces a similar set of steps and he's instructed by his pastor that coming and believing are all one in other words it's not a frame of words you say and it's not even that sequence of events so we have two different sequences we have one who starts out under this great load of sin and who has that relieved by the understanding of what happened at the cross we have

[67:25] Christian and mercy who come just on the invitation whoever comes I will not cast out the invitation so I think that I don't think they would have thought that you have to feel this and then say these words and ask forgiveness it seems to me that the heart set on pilgrimage that moves out in the call of God is going to find this truth and the burden will be released it doesn't depend on our willing response to the call of God however that comes to us I don't know anybody want to comment on that I don't think we are I don't think the guilt and the sense the weight of our sin is removed because we ask I'm not saying we shouldn't ask but I don't think that's why it's removed because we see and understand what Christ has done for us now one could ask in in hopeful he he he he he he told ask God to set you down in the truth of it so the asking would be by your spirit reveal this truth within you so there would be an asking quality as there is this mercy at the door she's asking but she's not asking forgive me forgive me forgive me she's asking let me in let me in let me in let me in let me in and when I'm in I will come to a point of assurance of forgiveness so I you know I don't know you obviously have a difference in that or think that it seems to me that the order or the rhetoric that the lay there's nothing in this that suggests that there's a particular form of prayer or pattern exactly the same we'll all come through the straight gate we will all be engaged in the life of the church we will all at some point see Christ crucified for us as full sufficient satisfaction for our sins that his righteousness is our standing before God but it seems to me that that as as they're drawn they come and I so I don't see

[69:28] I don't see that the asking is in the coming when he says what must I do be saved at that moment he's asking with his whole life with his whole body with his whole intent of purpose reveal your truth to me and I'm coming and so it's a heart set on pilgrimage as far as I can see anybody want to counter or discuss we can talk we can talk more about that but I don't there is there are several places in so this progress between part one and two where there is actually a prayer laid out when somebody asks what shall I pray what shall I say then he actually gives a prayer that the reader could then follow as a form of prayer interestingly because the non-conformists don't believe in the book of common prayer they believed in spontaneous prayer and that would be part of what your question would address they would believe that the prayer had to come from the heart and yet even at that I'm sure total progress became in the book of common prayer in the sense that it gave them some prayers that they could pray along the way including some poetic some of the little poems that they could actually use as a form of prayer

[70:34] I'm not doubting that I'm just recovering from another theory that's good recovery is good any other questions?

[70:46] yes are there any other modern I mean this is a long time ago hasn't someone written more allegory sense or no reason about this book? yes thank you the idea of a spiritual journey continues to be extraordinarily important in literature and we're in a period of a great deal of writing spiritual memoirs of various times I have not yet found one that maps the whole journey anywhere near as well as this does now that would mean it's time for another one to be written somebody who's 12 years in jail do not do not pass go go to jail write a great story I mean it is it would be a high time for there would be lots of retelling so the woman who wrote Secret Garden also wrote A Little Pilgrim's Progress there would be lots of attempts to retell and modernize I like it in the old version because it's richest and full of in my life 17th century English but there are lots of other versions but most of in the second half of the course

[71:49] I'm teaching at Regent right now we do look at contemporary journeys motif memoirs like Gregor the Buechner's The Sacred Journey we look at Anne Vermont's Traveling Mercies we look at C.S. Lewis's The Pilgrim's Regress the nearest to it would be C.S. Lewis's The Pilgrim's Regress which is styled on The Pilgrim's Progress and is an allegory but it is much more about the conversion process much less about the journey on process because it's the first thing Lewis writes after his conversion and his actual memoirs Surprised by Joy so you can read Surprised by Joy and The Pilgrim's Regress as you read Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim's Progress they're back to back with each other one autobiographical the other allegorical but C.S. Lewis is much more interested in sort of the intellectual terrain he goes through on the way to conversion than he is on he's writing it before he's lived a long Christian life so I I still to this day don't know a map that shows us so difficulty right after the time that we've had the induction into the life of Christ that shows us that valley of humiliation after a spiritual victory that shows us that late in life there are still things to be alert to that deep into the Christian life some people might still experience a time of doubt or distress or the enchanted ground that they have after the delectable mountains before they get to the lovely place of meeting with Christ and mature life in the Beulah Land and there's a lovely thing that the last stage before the river is a stage of maturity and fundamentally being at rest in Christ and in union with him it's beautifully written it's lyrical after all the hardships but just before that they come to a place called the enchanted ground and it's a bog full of brambles and briars and when the children go through the little children are losing their shoes in it and they're having to be picked up and helped and it's just it's frighteningly awful but I think it is by each picture of the sin of Apathea or the just losing heart and interest in things of God and as I have lived now into my 60s

[74:00] I see that some of this is looking at the Christian life of a young person doing battle for God and having great victories and things like that and some of it is midlife sort of dealing with some of the deceptiveness and this enchanted ground looks to me like something I've lost good friends in he says here some children simply do not they fall to and simply do not complete the journey I don't know anybody else who raises that warning and when I would have read this journey as a young person I wouldn't have even noticed the enchanted ground you know I would be much more inches than a pallion now I go dear Lord help us keep awake all the way don't let us give up on this journey or fall into this Apathea so and I don't know anybody who looks death in the eye and looks at that company of pilgrims facing and helping each other as a company to the river death and then understanding that at that point we walk across into the presence of the king as well and especially these days where I think we're all looking for better pictures of what the last third of life should look like and wanting to refuse the sort of planned off the lessons of our culture and find pictures that give us a sense of the calling in this period

[75:19] I still can't find anything in the matter so I think there are we're hearing that we've got to find it we need to but we need to be part of that company telling people that this is a stage of the journey that is all the best of God and has its own it still has and has its own beauty and its own dignity I think the dignity and the nobility of man it's hugely part of it so there we are I think we should call it it applause applause applause applause applause applause