A Survey of the Pilgrim's Progress Part 10

, but this morning we're going to be introduced to Hope, and we're at 9:30, so let's, let's jump into it. We're gonna be introduced to Hope. The title of this morning's lesson is Hope Arises. Let's go ahead and pray, and then we're gonna jump into things.

this is just some fantastic material, but let's go ahead and pray. Lord, we thank you that our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And we dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ, the solid rock we stand, all other ground is sinking sand.

We ask Lord that you would impart love and wisdom to us this morning. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. that him, the solid rock.

I've thought, what does that mean? I dare not trust the sweetest frame. It's a a phrase that we don't, we don't really think about, but. It seems like the idea is the sweetest frame of mind.

And when you read what the whole hymn is doing, there are times where we may be spiritually in a really good frame of mind it's like we feel like we're growing, we're progressing, we're seeing sanctification in our lives, maybe there's just good things happening spiritually with us and we're having a a sense of God's love for us through the Holy Spirit and we're in a good frame of mind. But the hymn writer says we dare not trust the sweetest frame of mind. but holy lean on Jesus' name, and then later in the hymn it talks about when darkness veils his lovely face.

And it's not if darkness veils his lovely face, but it's when darkness veils his lovely face, because there are times when we are gonna be in a sweet frame of mind.

There are times where darkness is gonna veil the face of God, but what do we ultimately trust in? Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, and that's part of, I think, the theme or the main theme of this section in Bunyan's Pilgram's Progress. This morning is, is we have hope. And hopeful comes into Christian's life, but that hope is built on something and it's not built on the progress that Christian and hopeful are making it's not built on their works and their righteousness, it's built upon the bread of life it is built upon the one who says come to me all you are thirsty and I will give you drink.

And that's, that's what we're gonna talk about this morning. last week Jonathan did a great job just showing us how these, these two Christians were in Vanity Fair being accosted by the world, how that they were able to resist the temptations of the world on their path that by the way runs right through the world by God's design, and then they're persecuted and we see faithful ultimately gives us life up for the cause of Christ. By God's providence, Christian escapes. And he's not on the the path very long before he finds another companion who is called Hopeful and as we as we begin to talk about Hopeful, I just wanna remind us that we always have to remember when we're reading stories or watching movies that we don't stop right in the middle and, and, and over analyze one scene without any connection to the other scenes.

imagine if you're watching, Star Wars A New Hope, and you just stop right with the death of Skywalker's uncle and aunt on Tattooine, and you just pause it right there and just meditate on that. You're not gonna get the full scope of the story, right? With these bodies that are charred in the desert, you have to keep watching and you have to connect all the scenes and in that first movie you get to the final celebration scene where they've ultimately been able to repel the empire, and the same is true with what we're going to see here.

Faithful dies, but another rises, in his ashes, a companion to be with Christian.

And and we find in this first section that one of the lessons is that hope loves company. A hopeful comes in to Christian's life and they are going to need each other, in the end. hopeful comes at, at a good time to be an encouragement to Christian, and, and Christian is going to be an encouragement, to hopeful, but it's not too far after they meet and begin to fellowship that they come upon another traveler that's traveling out ahead of them, called buy-ins. Now buy-ins, basically means it's, it's someone who has an ulterior end in mind.

as we're, as you see in the text, the way the narrator describes it is buy-ins is one of those that uses Christianity as his stalking horse. And I don't, I don't hunt, and so I didn't really know what a stalking horse was, but I guess if you're out hunting, you can either hide behind a cardboard animal or horse or a real horse to get after your game. And so the oxen or whatever it is, the, the buffalo or whatever it is you're hunting, they don't know how many legs a horse has, and so you can stand right behind a horse and, and hide pretty well and then come out and get your game.

I guess it's also a business term that's used in the business field, but we find that right away buy-ins and later his companions are those that are merely using Christianity.

To get at some other end or some ulterior motive. The narrator tells us a little bit about Bayan's family, which we'll only talk really about his parson or his pastor, which is called Mr. Two Tongues, was my mother's own brother by my father's side. That's meant to be purposely confusing as the rest of the paragraph goes on and says, and to tell you the truth, I have become a gentleman of good quality.

Yet my grandfather was but a waterman looking one way and rowing another, and I got most of my estate by some occupation that is just full of delicious contradictions all throughout the paragraph. Because he's basically saying, OK, I'm, I'm related to the, the parson, and to tell the truth, I'm a gentleman which by definition at this time is someone who has no occupation but then he goes on to tell you that he got his occupation from his great grandfather who's a waterman so this would be someone who's rowing, right?

And as they're rowing they can't see where they're going so they're looking one way and going the other. And, it reminds me a little bit of, I don't know if those of you guys are baseball fans, but Casey Single, one of the old, famous coaches of the Yankees had all these contradictory statements.

One, he said, good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice versa. You're like. What? And that's, that's what buy-ins is doing.

That's the type of stuff that he's, he's talking about here. Bayans is like a fair weather fan. He's for Christianity in season, but not out of season. He loves religion as we see in the text when it goes in its silver slippers, when the sun is shining, then he's all for Christianity, but if Christianity falls out of favor, then he's going to compromise or make a move.

Christian. And this is on page 3 in your notes, basically says that, you, if you're gonna walk with us, you need to be willing to go against wind and tide, be a Christian, not just in its silver slippers, but also when it's in its rags and Bayans basically they part ways. Bayanz heads backwards and, he finds some other fellows to fellowship with and some lessons that we see here is that. There's a reason why Christian and Hopeful run into these characters right out of Vanity Fair.

And that is, is there are people who are walking on the way who would call themselves Christians and church attenders that walk right through Vanity Fair completely unscathed. Vanity Fair doesn't even recognize them as any different, and buy-ins is one of those who comes through with no problems. Faithful is martyred. Buy-ins comes, comes through feeling fine.

Buy-ins represents people with ulterior motives in respect to the gospel. These are church attenders, people right here at Cornerstone. And so we need to, I won't go into all the verses here in Acts 20 when Paul is warning the elders, the Ephesians elders, but basically we do wanna guard ourselves as it says in Acts 20:28 because there are people that are gonna come from within. They'll arise from within, they'll come from without.

And pastors need to watch and warn and ultimately we need to point people to the word of His grace, the gospel, and we need to watch out for ourselves because that type of characteristic can run right through the middle of us. In fact, by way of reminder just to help make sure that we keep this in mind as we're reading this allegory, whenever we run into a character that that is not just a character that is coming from the outside that Christian needs to be careful of the implication is the these are also attributes that Christian and his his Christian fellows are need to be careful of that come from the inside.

So remember this is an allegory and each person they run into is not just a temptation from the outside, it's also an attribute that can rise from within our own hearts because as Jesus says out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, and even believers can get caught up in buy-ins, coming to church with ulterior motives, not really coming for Christ and so we need to be aware of that and. And, asking the Lord to help us and and forgive us and, and really ultimately repentance is what we're looking for.

So buy-ins heads backwards as we said, he found some other people that he could really have better fellowship with. He gives a low kanji, which I guess means like a nice low bow, to these other men. One is called Mr. Hold the World.

The other one is Mr. Money Love, and then you have Mr. Save All. And these all were school fellows when they were younger.

And their their teacher Mr. Gripeba or gripe man, which means doesn't mean to gripe in the sense that we think of it, it means to grip someone who wants to seize and covet things and, and he taught them the art of getting by whatever means, violence, cousinage, which I guess it it that means like to become cozy with someone. And then to how you have an ulterior motive in that relationship you're earning their trust in order to get something from them and so that's the type of training these guys all had save all when they're having this conversation save all who basically that means he doesn't wanna lose his life he wants to save it, he's actually quoting scripture to rebut.

Some of the conversation that had just been had by by Christian and Bans hold the world uses reason, and he quotes all these reasonable type statements like it's best to make hay when the sun shines and then Money love says that because scripture and reason are clearly on our side, there's no reason to debate this anymore.

And so that's the conversation they have as they're walking they elect hold the world to go up and, and, and pose a question they're gonna pose a question in a moment, to Christian. Some lessons is just to remember that these characters are regular church attenders who apparently come through Vanity Fair unscathed and so it shouldn't be shocking to us that at Cornerstone the the gospel is going to attract all sorts you're gonna find people at different parts of the journey you're gonna find people that are.

Believers, but they're young in their faith you're gonna find believers that are more mature in your faith in their faith, and then you're gonna find people that are just hanging out, because, bugs are attracted to light and, and we don't know where they're at. It's really not our job to determine where they're at in the process, whether the Christ is gonna call them later or whether they're wolves here to actually pick off sheep.

We do wanna be aware, but it's not our job necessarily to diagnose and dissect every single person. We do just wanna be watchful and especially for our own hearts ourselves. So, a couple, thoughts here. Again, some of these lessons.

These are people that make useful connections and they explore prospects and gain people's trust. and so in light of that we should watch out for people who come to church merely to promote their business or their pet projects or even their personal ministries, and we've seen that at Cornerstone here over the years you'll find people that will come in, they'll hang out for a while, and then before it you start to realize they're just here selling. I, I don't wanna offend anybody if you're selling this stuff, so don't, they're selling Amway or something.

They're just here to, now we did have an Amway salesman years ago that they were great.

They showed up and they never said anything about their business when they were here at Cornerstone. But I don't know if you ever run into this where sometimes you're hanging out with a Christian, you think it's just about fellowship. I remember one time I, I got a call from an old friend I hadn't seen for years and he was like, hey, you wanna come and, and have some tea? And I was like, Katie, what should I do?

I was super busy. I didn't have time for it. I wanted to spend time with my life. She's like, go, when are you gonna see him again?

And I drove like, I don't know, 30 minutes to go out and see this friend and I'm sitting down, he's there with some other guy I didn't know and 10 minutes into this thing, I realized I'm in the part of a business presentation and I'm looking at my buddy I'm like, are you kidding me? You got me out here for this, and that will happen in the church and it won't just happen with business. What's, one of the things that's actually we have to be on the lookout for sometimes is sometimes people show up with their own little personal ministry agenda and they're looking for people to pull in and pull away from the local church and so we have to be on the watch for that.

We've had people come here that are actually on the prowl sexually.

Or on the prowl financially they've we've had people at Cornerstone who have already robbed other churches and then they show up at our church and by the time we find out they're here they've already borrowed money from a few people and we just always have to be watching out for the flock. And it's one of the reasons why it's good to stay in close fellowship so that we're, we're, we're together on this and, and, and looking out for one another because the devil, he, he's just a tricky guy.

He's, we're not as smart as we think we are, and the devil never takes a nap and so we've always gotta watch out for this. By the way, and, and as Bans goes back to hang out with his guys, misery loves company.

He gets back and he starts sharing his worldview and they just confirm his worldview and there they are unified opposed to Christian and hopeful, feeling very secure, in their own viewpoints. at the same time we need to always remember in this allegory that these characters are not just people, they're, they represent attributes that can rise up in us. All of us can be money lovers, all of us can behold the worlders, right? And so it's not just we're pointing out and, and looking at all the potential problems in our church, we're looking inside and say God help me.

To be daily repenting and to receive the hope that I need from my brothers and sisters in Christ to help me overcome my own tendencies towards sin. Well then buy-ins asks a question that might seem a little bit odd to us. It basically goes something like this is it lawful for a pastor or a tradesman, a business person. To gain more money, by their trade.

So for instance, is it lawful for Mike Pastor Mike if he's looking at his job, he's like, Cornerstone's really not paying me all that well, but there's this other church over there that boy, if I could work harder and write a few books and get my name out there, maybe this big church over here will call me invite me to go be their pastor. And is there anything wrong with that if I just wanna advance myself or is there anything wrong with starting to attend church as a businessman in hopes that you'll get more customers maybe people will think OK this guy's a moral guy, this guy's honest, he's obviously a churchgoer and then as you're attending church you get more contacts and then those people will come into your business.

Is there anything wrong with that? Yeah I would think so, but these guys are, are, are talking about it and they actually as the question is posed, Money love gives an answer that basically says there's nothing wrong with that if you're going to advance yourself in your ministry or business and you wanna get more diligent and it makes you more moral, then what could be wrong with that?

which Ken Paul says, this is page 7, Ken Paul says, that one of the greatest dangers of sin and folly is their ability to appear reasonable and right. Sin is a form of insanity that twists our thinking, deceiving and distorting truth until actions and attitudes obviously contrary to God's word seem perfectly sound and sensible. When you read this dialogue from an outside perspective, we're reading it and we're meant to look at it and say this doesn't sound right, but the four that are having the conversation applaud it.

They say, oh.

Right on. This is, this is exactly right. How does Christian respond? Well, section 85, he comes out and he doesn't mince any words.

If you read this section, he's pretty straightforward. he basically says that how can you use Christianity as your stalking horse. and he gives a few different responses. He's like, if, if Christ was critical of those that would, are coming to him just for the loaves of bread.

Then what is he gonna say about those that say that they wanna come to Christ to get rich or to gain more business if that's the ulterior motive again, Bunyan nor the narrator are critiquing, people who have or have not wealth at this point. What's being critiqued is using Christianity or using the guise of faith to gain more for yourself either in. Money or prestige or what have you. So, so he, he goes on, he says, well, on that, that passage that our, that Christian talks about from John 6, do not labor for food that perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you because God the Father has set his seal on Him.

there's, there is food that is given to us in Jesus Christ who is the bread of life, and it's given to us freely by grace. Go for Christ, not the bread, not the physical bread, go for the physi for the spiritual bread is, is what, Christian is arguing, and then he gives like, basically what amounts to like three other arguments as to when we just look at scripture. There's all kinds of examples why we would not want to use Christianity as a stalking horse, so to speak. One example he gives is very interesting from Genesis 34, where you have this scene of, of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi set up, the people of Shechem and Hamor by saying, hey, you guys, yeah, we'll give you our sister if you just get circumcised.

Now that's not the way to go about things, but that's not Christian's point here. What he's saying is these guys actually said, yeah, we'll get circumcised, we'll take upon ourselves the show of religion with the view of really trying to get your stuff because they have a private conversation on the side, remember in Genesis 34 where they say, hey, if we get circumcised and go about their sign of religion, everything they have is gonna be ours. And so Christian uses that Genesis 34 situation to say clearly just getting circumcised or putting on the show of religion, going to get baptized in today's or, or attending church is not what Christianity is about.

Then he points to the, the Pharisees that were actually going through the hypocritical show of their religion in order to rob widows' houses that's going on in in Christ's Day.

Judas, the devil who is the son of perdition wanted somehow he wanted to work out the idea of holding the money back, and that's really what he was about was robbing the money bag we find out later, then you have Simon the witch who wanted to pay for baptizing people in the power of the Holy Spirit so that he could make money on this. By the way, that's going on today. In the word faith movement, people making money. One person I, I, I would, recommend to you is a guy named Costy Hinn.

Raise your hand. Have you ever heard of Costy Hinn? OK, a lot of you, great, so this guy is the, I think he's the nephew of Benny Hinn who's done an excellent job in presenting the gospel, exposing the, the falseness of, of the word faith movement from an insider perspective. And at the same time encouraging people to pray for these folks because he himself came out of the, the traps of that movement.

Anyway, so some of the lessons that we just see here on page 8. That You need in this life not the worldly wealth or success. Jesus did not come to improve our status or increase our possessions in this life we need forgiveness, righteousness, new life, gifts that are afforded to us only in Christ. We have to keep that in mind, especially, it's always been the truth, but.

These days there's so many things that are calling out to us saying the church needs to do this, the church needs to do that, we need to make sure that we fix poverty, we need to make sure that we bring true justice, we need to make sure that we give people all of the things that they need and give them healing and wealth through the word faith movement or Jesus, if you come to Jesus, he's just gonna make your life better. he's gonna make you more moral. He's gonna, he's gonna give you a stable psychology.

He's, unbelievers are unstable, but if you become a Christian, you're gonna be stable.

Really? I'm just looking at myself here. I don't know how stable I am on any given day, but I've got Christ as my solid foundation and so we come to Christ not as a stalking horse by God's grace we come and recognize the main need that he, he knows that we need is forgiveness. And we need a righteousness outside of ourselves and and we're going to heaven those are the main needs that we have, and so.

number 3, as far as this lesson goes, we overcome these stalking horses inside of us and outside of us by keeping a tight grip on Christ's works. Notice what Revelation 2:26 says, which we covered not too long ago, and he overcomes and keeps my works until the end. To him I will give power over the nations. We've been told many times in our sermon series and revelation that we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.

It's by his death and the testimony that we're trusting in his blood and his death, and it's really we are holding tight to my, to his works, right? He says, hold tight to my works. We're not holding tight to our works. We're not holding tight tight to the fact that I'm in a sweet frame of mind today.

Because I feel like I'm making progress today. No, we're holding firm and tight to his works, and that's, that's what we're ultimately after, after they, part ways with these four characters, all of them go through this short plane of ease which we're not, we're gonna spend much time on. It's a. It's like life is difficult, and then there's a short little respite, and before you, you blink, it's over and you're back into another trial seems to be the point.

In fact, this paragraph is so short, Bunyan's probably trying to make a point by writing such a short paragraph of ease that, yeah, again, all you got to do is blink and you're off into the next trial, which is Demas. So when they come upon Demas at this hill called Lucre, Demas is off to the side calling travelers, hey, come over here and check out this silver mine. You just come here, it's very little work, easy money. Just come on over and boy, you're gonna be able to support your family.

aren't you tired? This is, these are the type of, business proposals I get whenever I meet with some of these folks. Aren't you tired of just having to slave for so little money? Wouldn't you wanna have your wife come home and have time to be able to go out and actually have a vacation and rest once in a while?

I only work like 2025 hours a week and look at all the money that I'm bringing in. On the backs of other people and and you could do that too if you come and sell this product and sell that product, boy, you're just gonna make so much money. That's Demas. That's demons trying to lure us away from the things that the Lord would have us give attention to.

Now what's interesting here is hopeful, who tends to be a little more, I don't know if you wanna use the word naive, but he's, he's hopeful, right? He, he sees the best in people and so when he hears DMS he's like, oh yeah, let's go take a look and Christian's like. I've been there, done that. We ain't going over there.

That is not solid ground. You go over there and we're falling in. And and so he rescues Hopeful they're together and so he rescues them. And then right after that here comes buy-ins and money love and hold the world and save all and they right away based on their principles head right over and we we never hear from them again on the path.

And, and so this is just a a reminder that loving and longing for riches can snare and destroy as we see in First Timothy that godliness is a means of great gain with contentment, but, those who wanna get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. Again, this is not arguing that anybody who's wealthy is in sin. What this is arguing is that when we love money, I, I've known very impoverished people that would fit the category of money lovers.

It's just what that's all they're about.

And then I've known really, really wealthy people that are some of the most giving people who detach themselves for their money so easily. It's really the love and the longing that can snare and destroy. And and this is another attribute that's from without but it also can be within this section reminds us that Christian companionship is just absolutely essential if one falls there's another one to help them get up and that's what happens here with hopeful and Christian. Let's talk, next about Lot's wife.

This fits the theme, after they escape Demas, they come upon this monument and at first it's, it's horrifying and, and they're not sure what it is, but finally they identify the script that says remember Lot's wife. And so then they begin to have this dialogue about Lot's wife and Hopeful begins to actually feel a sense of conviction. He's like, here I am standing at a woman who was walking in the way she had escaped one destruction and all she did was turn around and take a look and judgment came upon her and Hopeful says, I didn't just take a look, I was longing to go over to Demas.

Why am I in God's mercies, and Lot's wife is now a pillar of salt, and that is good gospel thinking.

notice what he says, in his little paragraph there towards the bottom of page nine. He says, I am sorry that I was so foolish and I'm made to wonder that I am not now as Lot's wife, for wherein was the difference between her sin and mine. She only looked back, and I had a desire to go, let grace be adored and let me be ashamed that ever such a thing should be in my heart, you see this juxtapose of both grace and shame. He's thanking the Lord for the grace, but also, ashamed of, of what was in his heart as they are, are warned.

Then he says at the bottom there of that page, doubtless you have said the truth of speaking to Christian, but what a mercy is it that neither you but especially I am not made myself this example this minister's occasion to us to thank God to fear before him and always to remember Lot's wife. And I think they, they really, they take this, warning, I think properly hopeful really drinks it in for himself, and he applies it more to himself than to Christian and, and really sees the mercies of the Lord.

and when you look at, on page 10, just some of the lessons here, Hopeful realizes that his sins were actually worse than Lot's wife, and yet he received mercy. we are saved by grace alone, not by our own ingenuity, wits, or cunning.

and then just a couple of verses that remind us that I'll just quote First Corinthians, who made you to differ from another and what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? if, if, if we've the things that we're given from the Lord are just God's grace, I remember talking to a dear old saint years ago about their parenting and just asking them for advice on how they, they parented and they've got these grown adult children and they're walking with Christ and they just said, what, we have no idea we made so many mistakes it is just God's grace.

That our kids are walking after the Lord.

And that just that was a great instruction to me I think Katie and I we we joke around that we our best parenting you wanna talk about good parenting really good parenting was before our first child was born we were incredible parents just incredible. but even with our first two, the Lord was merciful to us, and then he gave us Anna was just, she's just like goes to bed at 8:30 without being asked and said, I'm tired. Can I go to bed? And then the Lord gave us Sam.

And we love that little guy but I think one of the reasons the Lord gave us Sam is just to remind us it's all of grace it is all of grace and you're gonna need a lot of grace and the Lord has shown us a lot of grace with that little guy but it's been good to get humbled and to realize that we all have different gifts it's all from the Lord we dare not look at our own progress and say, man, why are you still back there? And I'm. Up here. No, these guys are taking this warning of Lot's wife and applying it.

rightly, let's look at the Pleasant River. so after they've gone through these, these challenges, which really amount to, challenges with covetousness and looking back and wishing for more, they get to a place of rest which really is, them being able to just have some time to just drink in God's faithfulness to them, and be reminded of his gracious provision. this river represents the peace and joy that God abundantly supplies to us in Christ. And so they're able just, a lot of the imagery in this section comes right out of Psalm 23 that he makes us lie down in green pastures, leads us besides the waters, that it's Jesus Christ that says if anyone thirst, come to me and I will give you a drink.

And and just those times that we're able just to to spend in the word on a a regular basis and to really be refreshed by Christ through the Holy Spirit is what the pleasant river represents and and really this points us to that it's ultimately Christ's feeding and his righteousness that gives us true rest. I love this quote. I'm gonna quote at length here a little bit from Martin Luther's preface in the book of Galatians. I don't know how many of you have read this book.

I just started reading the preface a few days ago and was so encouraged and so this is part of that river in the preface Luther's basically given you in just a few pages what he believes is the whole argument. Of the book of Galatians, and so let me just read a couple paragraphs, he says. Yet there is another righteousness far above the others which Paul calls the righteousness of faith, Christian righteousness. God imputes it to us apart from our works.

In other words, it is passive righteousness as the others are active. When he talks about the other righteousnesses he's talking about, political righteousness, legal righteousness, and ceremonial righteousness, and he kinda, he defines them, but then he's talking about Christian righteousness which he argues is completely passive. we do, we do nothing for it. We give nothing for it.

We only receive it. This passive righteousness is a mystery that the world cannot understand. Indeed, Christians never completely understand it themselves and thus do not take advantage of it when they are troubled and tempted. So we have to constantly teach it, repeat it, and work it out in practice.

Anyone who does not understand this righteousness or cherishes it in the, in the heart and conscience will continually be buffeted by fears and depression. There is no comfort of conscience so solid and certain as is this passive righteousness, and again this is what he believes is the argument of Galatians. He goes on, for human beings by nature, when they get near either danger or death itself will of necessity examine their own worthiness. Isn't that right?

Am I worthy? Am I gonna make it? We defend ourselves before all threats by recounting our good deeds and moral efforts. But then the remembrance of sins and flaws inevitably come to mind, and this tears us apart and we think, how many errors and sins and wrongs I have done.

Please God, let me live so I can fix and amend them. We become obsessed with our active righteousness and are terrified by its imperfections, but the real evil is that we trust our own power to be righteous and will not lift up our eyes to see what Christ has done for us. So the troubled conscience has no cure for its desperation and feeling of unworthiness unless it takes hold of the forgiveness of sins by grace offered free of charge in Christ Jesus or Jesus Christ. Which is this passive or Christian righteousness.

If I tried to fulfill the law myself, I could not trust in what I had accomplished. Neither could it stand up to the judgment of God. So I rest only upon the righteousness of Christ, which I do not produce but receive. God the Father freely giving it to us through Jesus Christ.

That's a that whole section I'd encourage you to read the whole, the whole introduction of the commentary in Galatians is like sitting in green pastures drinking from water because he's just giving you the full argument of Galatians which basically is it's all on Christ, it's not on you one iota. At one point Luther argues, he says when we if we if we were to actually fulfill the law. You would still not fulfill the law, because all you had really done is your duty, and God owes you nothing for doing your duty.

Christ fulfills the law and then grant you his righteousness, merely by faith and that righteousness, by the way, is sitting at the right hand of the Father right there for us always it's there, no matter what we're doing on the earth, that righteousness is at the right hand of the Father.

It's just, it's a wonderful section and that's the. part of what these guys are drinking and they're at the river. and you would think that after such a wonderful respite at the Pleasant River that Christian and hopeful would be secure from any immediate danger going forward, but what happens right after they've been drinking in Christ's righteousness in the gospel, they start heading down the path and then they head over on to BPath Meadow, which really represents. our own efforts at attaining righteousness, it's like they've been drinking in the righteousness of Christ.

They've escaped so many trips and battles, and they've, they've seen success and progress as they've been able to overcome demons and overcome buy-ins and get through Vanity Fair that it's almost like Christian particularly is starting to feel like I got this. what? I think I'm actually progressing in my sanctification and I'm feeling pretty good about myself and so they get off on BPath Meadow then they see this fellow called Vain confidence out in front of them, which vain confidence really is an internal attribute, right?

This guy represents the way Christian is feeling he's feeling very confident.

And so they just start going off on this bypath. It's a little bit easier. They're feeling good. All of a sudden they lose track of the fellow in front of them.

It gets dark, it starts to storm, and then hopeful turn looks to Christian and says, Where are we now, Christian? And he looks at him and he can't say a word. He's just like, I don't know what happened. It's like we were just drinking in the gospel and now we're out here in this storm.

And it's just such an amazing reminder that it doesn't take long for we as Christians to get off on the wrong path and start trusting in our own righteousness again. And that's really where this part of the the story ends other than the fact that at the in the last section that you guys read this week you have Christian repenting of of his sins saying I am sorry that I led us here. And hopeful says, well, really it's my fault too because I should have spoken up. I just, you're the more mature Christian and there was something in my heart that said we shouldn't do this, but I followed and so I own it.

And so then they're trying to figure out what to do and so like, well, let's start heading back and let's see if we can get back to the style and the path and Christian says, let me go first because I wanna take the brunt of anything that's happened. And then Hopeful stops him and says, I appreciate that, but your mind is not quite right yet. You're still troubled about getting us out here on the wrong path, so let me go first and I'll take the brunt of it, because your thinking is a little wacky right now.

I'm paraphrasing.

But that's, that's what he says, and it's just a wonderful example of fellowship between two believers who have gotten off the path and how they're helping each other get back to the path. Hebrews 3:13 says, let's exhort one another daily, lest our hearts grow hard to the deceitfulness of sin. And that's what these guys are doing. We'll leave the other applications they're in your notes, read over these applications for yourself.

I, I think there are some wonderful things that you can apply. We also have next week's reading at the end of the notes plus some study questions. I hope this is encouraging to you. let's go ahead and pray.

Lord, we thank you that our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, and we dare not trust, any sweet frame of mind or thinking that our own progress is what we are putting our hope in, but it's really in your blood and your righteousness and even when. we see your smiling face veiled from us. We can ultimately trust in your unchanging grace. Thank you for this.

we ask Lord that you would continue to help us find hope in, in you and also let us be willing to receive help from one another. And when you send that help, help us to humbly receive it for ourselves. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.