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Bunyan
gave up freedom and family for Christ's sake.
Dangerous Journey is the adventure of Pilgrim's Progress beautifully illustrated and retold for children. Great for home or Bible school.
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 t is hard to fathom that John Bunyan's classic story about a pilgrim's journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial
City is now over 400 years old. That The Pilgrim's Progress still
speaks to the modern reader is high praise in its own right. The characters,
good and bad, that Bunyan describes in the story are the same ones that
today's pilgrim meets on his journey. The character Evangelist is still
with us pointing the way to the light. And there is Obstinate who advises
the pilgrim to turn around and head back home, where he will find family,
friends and comfort. "There is a path that seems right to a man that
leads to destruction." Surely this is the path that many down through
the ages have been tempted to follow.
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To seek the Celestial City among the comforts of family and friends cannot
be wrong, can it? But Bunyan never allows for the easy path to be taken.
In his ears are ringing the Savior's admonition that "everyone who
has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children
or fields for my sake will inherit a hundred times as much and will inherit
eternal life." (Mt. 19:29) Or as Bunyan so eloquently put it:
Bunyan was no hypocrite. He walked what he talked and wrote.
Bunyan was arrested for holding an illegal religious meeting near his
home in Bedford, England, and was sentenced to a three-year jail term
in January 1661. However, before he could be released, Bunyan had to assure
government authorities that he would not continue to preach illegally.
This he could not do, so his prison term continued for another eight years
until 1672, and a second stint for six months in 1677.
Jailed for Resisting the Established Church
During John Bunyan's time, many English Christians lived under the tyranny
of the established church. At best, this meant that the established church
received financial support and favor from the government. At its worst,
as during Bunyan's life, it meant the suppression of all religious dissent.
Anyone who refused to be a part of the established church (called Nonconformists
or Dissenters) was arrested on charges of sedition against the government.
This is the situation in which Bunyan found himself‚ unwilling to join
the established church that he believed corrupt, but unable to preach
because it was illegal. Like the first disciples, Bunyan chose to follow
the higher law and serve God rather than man. For this he ended up in
jail.
Holding fast to his convictions cost Bunyan a great deal. His years in
prison forced him to miss out on a normal family life with his wife and
children. Because of this, the whole family suffered emotionally and financially.
Bunyan reflected on this period of intense trial in his book Grace
Abounding to the Chief of Sinners:
The parting with my Wife and poor Children hath oft been to
me in this place as the pulling the flesh from my bones; and that not
only because I am somewhat too fond of these great mercies, but also because
I should have often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries, and
wants that my poor family was like to meet with, should I be taken from
them, especially my poor blind Child, who lay nearer my heart than all
I had besides.
His reference to his "poor blind Child" is to Mary, the eldest of Bunyan's
six children. She became affectionately known as "Blind Mary" within the
family. The first few years of his imprisonment, Mary brought him soup
for supper every night, though the emotional support that her daily presence
gave was worth so much more. Despite many hardships, Bunyan was able to
deepen his relationship with God during his years in prison. Years later
he was able to reflect positively on these difficult times, "In times
of affliction we commonly meet with the sweetest experiences of the love
of God."
Prison Could Not Stop His Preaching
Ironically,
Bunyan was able to use the ample time in prison to begin a writing ministry
that has echoed down the generations to our own time. In 1666, he finished
his spiritual biography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners,
and toward the end of his imprisonment he replied to an issue in Anglican
theology with A Defense of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith
in Jesus Christ (1672). The world had to wait another six years before
the publication of The Pilgrim's Progress in 1678.
A little more than a decade after its publication, there were over 100,000
copies of The Pilgrim's Progress in English alone. This, of course,
did not include translations that appeared in French, Dutch and Welsh.
Its lasting popularity has been unique, making it the second most popular
book behind the Bible since its release. The story's opening paragraphs
reveal its enduring theme:
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 as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw
a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from
his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back...Now
I saw, upon a time when he was walking in the fields, that he was, as
he was wont, reading in his book, and greatly distressed in his mind;
and as he read, he burst out, as he had done before, crying, What shall
I do to be saved?
After Bunyan's final release from jail, the dissenting Christians of
Bedford asked him to lead them as their pastor. Bunyan spent his remaining
years preaching and writing, always hoping that people everywhere would
ask the same question as Pilgrim, "What shall I do to be saved?"
John Bunyan's Thoughts on Freedom and Temptation.
"So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross,
his burden loosed 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 sepulcher, where it fell in, and I saw it no more."
"Believe that as sure as you are in the way of God you must meet with
temptations."
"Temptations, when we meet them as first, are as the lion that reared
upon Samson; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them we shall
find a nest of honey within them."
They Found a New World
Bunyan describes what he felt when he heard the poor women describing
their faith, pictured left.
"But upon a day the good providence of God did cast me to Bedford to
work on my calling, and in one of the streets of that town I came where
there were three or four poor women sitting at a door in the sun and talking
about the things of God; and being now willing to hear them discourse,
I drew near to hear what they said, for I was now a brisk talker also
myself in the matters of religion. But now I may say I heard, but I understood
not; for they were far above, out of my reach; for their talk was about
a new faith; for their talk was about a new birth‚--the work of God on
their hearts. And methought the spake as if Joy did make them speak; they
spake with such pleasantness of scripture language and with such appearance
of grace in all they said, that they were to me as if they had found a
new world."
Bunyan's Words of Wisdom
"Then I saw that there was a way to Hell, even from the gates of heaven."
"They who will have Heaven must run for it because the devil, the law,
sin, death, and hell are following them. There is never a poor soul that
goes to Heaven where the devil, the law, sin, death, and hell do not chase
after it‚--and I assure you the devil is nimble; he can run very quickly;
he is light on his feet and has overtaken many; he has knocked them down
and has given them an everlasting fall."
"If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for
us than a golden slipper on a gouty foot."
"He who runs from God in the morning will scarcely find him the rest
of the day."
"A saint abroad, and a devil at home."
"Take heed of the flatteries of false brethren."
"It is said that in some countries trees will grow, but will bear no
fruit because there is no winter there."
"I never know a thing well till it is burned into my heart by prayer."
"The best prayers have more often groans than words."
"A man there was,
though some did count him mad,
The more [money] he cast [gave] away
the more he had."
"Pray often, for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God,
and a scourge to Satan. Prayer will cease a man from sin; or sin will
cease a man from prayer."
©2006 by Christian History Institute. Prepared
by Joe Thomas, PhD, with Ken Curtis, PhD, Tracey L. Craig, and Ann Snyder.
Photo credits Chi archives. |
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