A Survey of the Pilgrim's Progress Pt.5

All right, so let's just a little bit of review, last week we hit the interpreter's house and we suggested the interpreter's house is, is largely, a picture of the Holy Spirit, a young Christian being instructed through the Holy Spirit, various means, right? believers, pastors in the church, and Bunyan is suggesting. 7 different stops on the way in this discipleship program, so to speak. So we saw the portrait of the minister, right, who's got the, the best of books in his hands, the law of truth in his mouth, he's looking to Christ, he's pleading with sinners, the world's behind his back, he's got the crown of glory, he's thinking about, the future.

And then we saw the dusty parlor, right? So we were reminded of the law and the gospel, the distinction between promise and command, and how we need to keep both the bitter and sweet together and then we also talked about passion and purity, the image of the two children, and, and we're, we wanna be more like which one passion or pure or passion or patience. We'll be more like patience, but we realized that passion is still kinda clinging on so. and that's what leads us to the firewall.

We're reminded that the devil's trying to put out the fire, but he can't figure out why it's not going out because, hey, Alan, you made it. All right. I was praying you get out of bed. All right.

So, So Jesus is feeding the oil behind the wall, right? So it's, that's what keeps our sal our salvation going. Which brought us to the, the palace, stately palace that we must do many persecutions enter in, right? You have the man fighting through to get there and then we've also got the man in the iron cage, that scary image that reminds us that if we just put the, allow the rain to be on our loss that it can lead us to a place of deception where we can get a person can get to where they don't think they can even get out of the cage and we're left to wonder whether this person's a true believer or not a true believer.

And then we also talked about the dream, the day of the Lord dream, right? So those, those were the items in the house of the interpreter. And then today as we come out of the house of the interpreter, we're gonna, we're gonna be moving on the way of salvation to the cross. We'll spend some time talking about the cross as we move away from the cross, Christians are gonna come into contact with at least 3 groups of pretenders.

And that are doing different things. One group of pretenders is just stationary. Another group of pretenders is going along the way the way looking like they're true believers and the other group of pretenders are actually running back away from the palace beautiful, which is what we'll talk about at the end which represents the church and so that's basically what we're gonna cover today. So let's, let's get into it.

Let's talk about, first of all, the wall called salvation. This is section 30 if you're looking at the Ken Pulse. By the way, there are two more binders back there. Those are free.

So you can, those are, that's the full Ken Pulse text that we've been given permission to print. So if anybody wants, if you're tired of reading your stuff online and you want a full binder, you can take one of those binders back there. And so the the wall called salvation. let's just go ahead and I'm gonna read a little bit from here.

So then interpreter. said the Comforter be always with you, good Christian, to guide you. in the way that leads to the city, so Christian went on his way and then he, he says, here I have seen things rare and profitable, pleasant and dreadful, and then he says, let me continue to think on them is a summary of what he says. And so he gets on this way and he's been reminded of bittersweet, dreadful and pleasant, and he's gonna continue to think about these things he's gonna continue to preach the gospel to himself, so to speak.

Now let's just remember, by the way, as Christian gets on this path of salvation. Let's just remember that this is an allegory, so all the things that we're seeing are meant to be pictures of salvation and that this is Bunyan is telling us about Christian's journey and, and as we're gonna see, his journey is not exactly the same as faithful's journey or hopeful's journey or even Christiana's journey when we get to part two. And so it's good to remember that that it's not like this is some like monopoly game where everything just rolls right in order for everybody, people are gonna experience these different aspects of the doctrine of salvation in different ways.

when you look, read part two, when Christiana, awakens to her soul, she's called Christiana right out the gate even when she's in the city of destruction.

Which indicates that her, she's regenerated right there and then when she gets to the gate, she gets a view of the cross right away. Christian doesn't really get a full view of the cross till later, even after the house of the interpreter. It doesn't mean he doesn't know anything about the cross, but there's some grander revelation of the cross that comes on the other side of the house of the interpreter. So we wanna keep that in mind as, as we're going through.

The allegory So, so he's preaching the gospel to himself and then the text goes on and says, now I saw in my dream that the highway up which Christian was to go was fenced in on either side with a wall and that wall was called salvation and then he's trying to run but it's with great difficulty because he still has the burden. It's very interesting that at the beginning of this journey right out of the house of her interpreter's house, there's this, this pretty, it feels like a pretty high wall.

On each side of the way that's just pinning Christian in and as you keep track with the story, it's not like that wall stays there, right? Because later on he is gonna get off the path into the Doubting Castle, right?

But early on as a young believer in his walk, he's just hedged in and it reminds me of certain passages in, in our Old Testament, one of my favorite chapters in the Old Testament, Hosea 2. Where it says, therefore behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns and wall her in so that she cannot find her paths. The idea is, is, is the Lord is saying to Israel, I'm gonna hedge you in where you can't go back to your idolatrous lovers, and I'm gonna make you go towards me. And, and, and this is, I don't know about you, but I remember just being a brand new young believer and it just felt like everything fell in my lap.

I'd be having my devotions and, and then I'd come to church and the pastor would be preaching exactly what I was reading that week or there'd be something that just jumped out to me and it was just like I was getting spoon fed, at least, that was my experience. later in Isaiah 35:8 speaks of the highway that shall be there. It'll be a highway of holiness. The unclean shall not pass, but whoever walks that road, although a fool, shall not go astray.

Praise the Lord for us fools. So you've got this highway of holiness, no, that's, that's there, it's a path for us. But then in Isaiah 30:21. You have this, this picture of your ears shall hear a word behind you saying this is the way walk in it, whenever you turn to the right hand or to the left, the speaking of these children that didn't wanna hear their teachers, but then later the spirit helps them hear their teachers and the image is almost like the Holy Spirit's walking behind you saying no go this way, no go that way.

And so there seems to be on the page of scripture and you can check this out for yourself, there does seem to be a sense in which the Lord will kinda hem in young believers and then as they mature and get more and more familiar with hearing the voice of the shepherd, the spirit just kinda walking behind you and saying go this way, go that way, obviously through his word and through his people and. And he even will orchestrate and allow us to get off the path and walk off the path as we're gonna see in the allegory later, but that takes us to number 31, section 31.

Christian arrives at the cross and, and we see here as he comes up to this hill, there's the cross that he just keeps looking at and then down below there's a sepulcher and, children, what's a sepulcher? Tomb, that's right, yeah, I heard that, heard that voice.

It's a tomb and so as he comes in to engage the cross just all by itself, the burden that he's been carrying that he can't get off it just falls off, rolls down the hill, goes into the tomb, never to be seen again, doesn't mean that Christian isn't gonna have struggles, but now the burden of a sin that has been brought on by a realization of coming wrath has been removed. From his back and now he's able to go and freedom. It's kinda like what we see in Colossians 2:12 that we are buried with him in baptism in which you also were raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.

And you being dead in your trespasses and uncircumcision in your flesh, he has made alive dead in trespasses if we really understand who we are in Christ, we are dead in our trespasses.

Those are now gone. They are not held against us anymore. God has taken them and thrown them into the sea. He doesn't remember them against us anymore and and that's an important truth for us to grab onto.

It doesn't mean that we don't sin anymore. We're gonna talk about that, but what it does mean is that our sins are not remembered against us anymore. And so that's the experience that he has. He has a merry heart he feels this rest in this life, and he keeps looking in wonder and and it's just bewildered at how it is that a sight of the cross would ease him of such a burden.

The springs that were in his head sent waters down his cheeks. I just love that, the way that's described. And and then you have these three shining ones that appear which are a representation of the Trinity and and and the triune God be involved in our salvation and what happens is the, the shining ones, one of them says your sins are forgiven, right? That's a great pronouncement, the other one which is almost certainly represents Christ gives the, Christian a.

new raiment takes off his rags of his sinfulness, right? And gives him now clothed, he's now clothed in righteousness, and then the third one puts a seal on his forehead and gives him a role. So now you have the Holy Spirit that is sealing him and then giving him a role which represents his assurance of salvation and the insurance, that he'll enter into the next life. That's gonna be very important as we move forward in our narrative.

And, and again, Bunyan, I don't know, the, unfortunately, the versions I had you guys buy doesn't put in the scripture verse in the parentheses that Bunyan has in his original. And so most of these verses that we're talking about are in the original, at least in parentheses where Bunyan's telling you this is what I'm thinking about from scripture when I write this part of the allegory. That's the one thing I don't like about the versions I had you guys buy. but you, you could go online and look at other versions where it'll show you in parentheses the exact scripture passages, and some of those passages that Bunyan's referring to you are, Zechariah 12, that talks about they will look on me whom they have pierced.

You've also got like as far as the, the mark on the forehead that comes from Ezekiel 9, Revelation 7, which we've looked at with Pastor Milton Ephesians 1:13 being sealed by the Spirit. And I love Zechariah 3. that's again, another one of my favorite passages that talks about the filthy garments being taken off of Joshua, the high priest, and him being dressed in these, robes of righteousness, as it were. All right, so this is, this is a high point of our narrative.

We now have come to the cross and you've got Christian who's got this new garb and so he moves forward and so everything is just gonna be dandy from this point on, right? No more sin, no more trials. It's just gonna be like Candy Land. wait a second, Candy Land has some bad characters in it, and that's what we're gonna have here too.

I, as we're moving through right away, as he's not even a few paces, it seems from the cross when we come upon a simple sloth and presumption. So let's talk about those guys. Christian tries to give them some counsel. He says, oh wait, come away.

be willing also, and I will help you off with your irons. He also told them, if he that goes about like a roaring lion comes by, you will certainly become prey to his teeth. So he comes across these 3 individuals, he wants to help them. He's just been released from his burden.

He wants to help these guys out of their irons, their chains, and how do they respond? Well, Simple says. I don't see any danger. So he doesn't heed the warning.

Proverbs says, how long you simple ones, we love simplicity, they hate knowledge. Sloth says, oh, just for a little more sleep. A little sleep, a little folding of the hands, and your prowler will come upon you like an armed man. And then presumption says every vat must stand upon its own bottom.

What does that mean? basically it's, I, I'll stand on my own 2 ft. Thank you. I don't need your help.

A vat would be like, a big tub, you put liquid in or store stuff in, and. So Bunyan has a note in his, in his margin where he says there is no persuasion that will do if God openeth not the eye. So here Christians trying to persuade these guys to wake up and if God doesn't open their eyes. There's nothing that's gonna happen and so.

Really sad thing is, is, is these three stay in their stupor and then we find out in part two that when Christian, Christiana comes by them, they've actually been hung by their irons. So Bunyan's, tale, it's, it's not, a son, it's not necessarily a kindergarten story. This sometimes it reads a little bit like a. What's that old spooky guy from around the same time period?

What is it, Katie, the shiver, the guy who wrote about the shiver? What is it? The Grimm's, oh, Grimm's Brother. Sometimes Bunyan is a little bit like a Grimm's Brother tale.

You, you're looking at sloths, simple and presumption, and it seems almost humorous, and then the next part, you find out they're actually been hung up, they're dead. And and so this is definitely meant to to shock us. Ken Paul says on page 102 that men can die in their sins in such proximity to the gospel with the means of grace and the help of God's people so near should cause us to be sober minded, watchful, and prayerful. It's, it's a sad thing to think about and it's, it's not at all uncommon., the, the church, the gospel draws all kinds of people, and there are people that will come right up to the wicket gate and not come in.

They'll come in and hear the gospel. We have, we have people right here at Cornerstone. I won't name them, but I, there's some people I'm pretty sure they're here hearing the gospel on a regular basis, but they have not repented of their sins. And they have not called on Christ, and yet they hear the warnings and the promises every week.

And we've seen people at Cornerstone go to their doom. die in their sins, and there was no hope that they repented and so they ended their lives as far as we know like simple sloth and presumption and that's meant to be a warning to us just like we see the man in the iron cage and the day of the Lord that's not gonna give you the amperage to go out and do battle with your sins, but it is a warning to get you to turn to the gospel, right? That's something that'll cause the dust to come up.

And you'll choke on it, and then we need to get that water in there.

To give us the power, so that brings us to a second group. So that's our first pretender, so to speak. These first pretenders are fine being in the proximity of the cross. They just don't wanna move.

They're, they're, they're not going to call upon Christ for the righteousness. They're not gonna repent of their sins. One of the lessons we don't wanna walk away with this is say, oh, OK, so that means if I've got any sin of slothfulness or if I'm ever simple minded, then I'm toast. Well, we'll talk about that here in a moment.

If that's true, then Christian's also toast, but. Anybody who's just not making, falling upon Christ's works, that's not confessing their sins and won't call upon the Lord for forgiveness, yeah, that's, that's bad news to show up week after week and not repent. Let's talk about 33 formalist hypocrisy, this another set of pretenders. So how do these guys get in the way?

How do they get on to the, the way that Christian's on? Yeah, they jump over a wall, and that brings to mind John chapter 10 where Jesus says, most assuredly, I say to you, who does not enter by the sheepfold, enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same as a, the same as a thief and a robber. We have to enter through the narrow gate, so this is in part of our allegory. These are people that haven't come in through Christ, they're leaping out over trying to get in without Christ, and these people can't possibly be believers if they've come in without Christ, and yet they have the form of religion, right?

So you got formalists and. Hypocrisy they say that they've been born in the land of vainglory and they're going up for praise to Mount Zion they wanna go up to Mount Zion to get praise for themselves. And it reminds us of various passages in the New Testament, 2 Timothy 3:5. They have a form of godliness but denying its power.

We're told to avoid such people. This is all over the church people that can go through the forms of religion, and yet there's really no focus on Christ they haven't, they're not seeing their sins in the light of the cross and then they're not going to the cross for forgiveness of sins. this is one of the dangers that people that kinda grow up in the church, all these Christians that grow up in the church, they eventually have to kinda do battle with this issue because nobody comes into, into Christ merely on the, the coattails of their parents, right?

And, and as we're teaching our kids we wanna protect our kids when they're young and so we teach them the word of God and we try not to let them watch bad movies and we tell them not to get tattoos and all this stuff and then so they initially grow up before they're converted with man if I just don't have tattoos and if I get up and do my daily devotions every day and if I obey mom and dad, then I'm good.

And then suddenly they realize. Well, hopefully they realize that ain't gonna do it. all of us have to come to grips with our own sin, and so that's why, Matthew 15:7, Jesus talks about the hypocrites. These people honor me with their lips, but their heart's far from me.

Paul says our works, no matter how great the zeal and devotion, can never save us. There's no salvation apart from Christ, faith in Christ, repents from sin. The solution for people that have a form and are just in hypocrisy is not to get better. The solution is to see how sinful they are even in their good works and to call upon Christ.

I love what Tim Keller has to say, he talks about the prodigal, I think, yeah, I think he, it's Tim Keller talks about the prodigal son that, really all of us are either the lost brother or the older brother. All of us are the younger brother. We go off into our sin, or we're the older brother and we're judging everybody and truth be told is we go back and forth between the two all the time, even after we're born again and so. so we have to constantly be looking to Christ for both our licentiousness and our legalism.

we are just. Yeah, it just dwells in us. And, and even though that's forgiven once we come to the cross, we keep dipping back into it. And, and I, I don't want to like bum you guys out or anything, but it doesn't completely go away until you die, right?

what is it? I think it's, Martin Luther or maybe Calvin said that sin is like a man's beard. You shave in the morning and then you got a 5 o'clock shadow, and the beard doesn't stop growing until the earth is over your body. That's when the beard stops growing.

The good news is, is we're dressed in the righteousness of Christ throughout our life and we keep looking at him. So we got formalist and hypocrisy. These guys, they start really making fun of Christian that brings us to the coat of rags, and, and what is it that they're really picking on Christian about? Is they're picking on him about his being dressed in the righteousness of Christ, they look at his coat and they're like we've got.

Religion, we've got our form. we've got our good works. Here's all the things that we do. What do you have?

You're dressed in this coat to cover your shame and nakedness. How silly is that? And But Christian actually glories in his coat. They're dressed in their own works and deeds.

Christian is dressed in the imputed righteousness of Christ. like the prodigal, he has had his rag stripped off and he's been given the best robe, Isaiah 64. And. And, but remember, he also points out that he's got a few other things.

He's got the mark on his forehead. He's also got the role. Ken Paul says on 108, formalists and hypocrisy lack these things. They are self-clothed, self-sealed, and self-confident.

They do not value the gifts of Christ bestowed at the cross because they do not value Christ as their only hope. They missed the gate representing Christ Himself offered in the gospel and have resorted to their own devices to enter the way. So Christian tells them plainly that attempts to keep the law and ordinances cannot save them. We can never be justified by our works.

And so let's, I, I think this is in your notes. Let's look at Galatians 2:16. I just wanna read this real quickly that. Where Paul says, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ, not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified.

And it's just really hard for us to get our minds around. We are by nature, we're just closet Catholics. We just always wanna go back to Rome and think that oh it's all what? I love the fact that Jesus has given me a little bit of righteousness in a paper bag I'll take that and then I'm gonna move on to my own righteousness.

And we're having to repent of that stuff every day, every day you gotta get out of bed and I gotta get out of bed and say it is all about imputed righteousness. It is all about what he has done. Because truth be told, like, I love what MacArthur John MacArthur said a couple of weeks ago. If, if I could lose my salvation, I would.

If God just pulled back just for a second and just let me go my own way, and if he didn't grant me the impeded righteousness of Christ, you would all be toast. I would be toast. Look what happened to Hezekiah, 1 Chronicles 32:31. Check it out sometime.

Hezekiah just came off of this incredible miracle where he's been his life's been extended and even the shadow went backward as a sign to show him that. And then it says in chapter verse 31, God wanted to show him his own heart that there's still, I'm paraphrasing, there's still some pride issues in Hezekiah. So the Lord withdrew just a little bit to show him his heart. And what does Hezekiah do?

It's like he took stupid pills. He has the Babylonian royalty come in and he shows them all of his armory, all of his wealth, just says, look at the whole thing. Isaiah comes a little while later and says, what did you show them? He says, everything, and I don't even think this required a prophecy, but Isaiah says, thus says the Lord, you're gonna be attacked and going down.

It's like why did one of the best kings in the Old Testament, righteous and wise, suddenly take stupid pills? Because God just pulled his hand back just a little bit. And then Hezekiah just does the dumbest things and what we see is God, even this is even part of his kindness, he works all things together for good, right? Sometimes he'll withdraw just a little bit of his influence to help show us what's really in us and then we're like, oh, and we find ourselves wanting to cling and cry out part two of Cristiano's story they see that same thing.

In fact, Mercy's like, Lord, why don't you just keep us away from the trials? Why do you allow the dogs to come bark? And the Lord says, because. If I just kept the dogs away, you guys would never cry out to me, but I let the dogs come and then you cry out and then you're more dependent upon me and that's part of the Lord's wisdom and even allowing us to go through these periods where we sometimes feel the Lord is distant.

And so that's part of this whole thing. Later, Ken Paul says Christian knows that both joys and trials await him. He continues on his pilgrimage, sometimes sighing, sometimes comfortably. that's a great description of the Christian life and it's one of the reasons why I love this book.

It's not like Christians just. Happy clappy all the time. I've got Jesus down in my heart, down in my heart. It's like sometimes he's sighing and sometimes he's comfortable, right?

It's like Paul says, I know how to abase and to abound. And but he's looking at the promises of God and and so on. Let's talk about the hill difficulty. What?

Why is the Lord putting the hill difficulty right in the middle of the path? Cause he loves us And so, anybody remember what's at the bottom of the hill before he starts going up? What's at the very bottom? Say it again.

that's on the other side. That's good. Before he goes up the hill, what does he come up on before the hill? Somebody say spring.

Spring, yeah, so there's a spring water. So before he actually gets to the hill of difficulty, he gets a nice fresh draft of water, living water. The Holy Spirit is blessing them probably with some encouragement from the word of God and, and then all of a sudden he's moving up this, this hill and. And formalist and hypocrisy, they see the hill of difficulty and they're like, we ain't doing that.

No way. We're, one's gonna go to the left to danger, the other one's gonna go to the right to destruction, and, Proverbs 14:12, there's a way that seems right to a man, but the way is the end of death, and that's unfortunately what happens to these guys, Grimm's brother tale, cover your children's eyes. this does not go well with these guys. but Bunyan, Christian decides he's gonna go ahead and keep, going up.

let's read, I'm not sure where it is in your notes, but I've got a pretty lengthy quote here from John Bunyan. Do you guys see that on the Saints Knowledge? So he says there are heights also that build up themselves in us, these high things therefore are said to exalt themselves against the knowledge of God and do ofttimes more plague, afflict, and frighten Christian men and women than anything besides. It is from these that our faith and spiritual understanding of God and His Christ is opposed and contradicted, and from these also that we are so inclined to swerve from righteous doctrine into destructive opinions.

It is from these that we are so easily persuaded to call into question our former experience of the goodness of God towards us and from these that our minds are so often clouded and dark darkened that we cannot see afar off. Have you ever been there where you just forget the goodness of God or maybe you remember it, but you're like, oh, what, that probably wasn't the real deal. That probably wasn't really God's goodness. Maybe God was just, maybe it was just his common grace on me who's not really converted, but he's just kinda, cause God's a nice guy and he'll even be kind to his enemies, and I'm still in the enemy's camp.

These would betray us to the hand of fallen angels and men, nor should we by any means help or deliver ourselves, were it not for one that is higher. These are the dark mountains at which our feet would certainly stumble and upon which we should fall were it not for one who can leap and skip over these mountains of division and come to us. I love that image at the end. That's straight out of Song of Solomon.

That Christ is able to leap over the mountains and come to our deliverance even when we're having these dark doubts and the mountains just cloud things up and we and we're having trouble seeing. Christian goes up the hill of difficulty, and it's very hard, and, and no doubt you guys, we've all, I'm sure here been through some very, very difficult things that get us to question and if it were all left up to us, if Christ wasn't behind the wall feeding the oil, it wouldn't happen, it'd be over, but praise the Lord, your salvation and my salvation doesn't depend ultimately on us.

It depends upon him who holds us fast. We'll talk more about that holding fast a little bit later.

About halfway up, Christian gets a nice reprieve. He comes to a pleasant harbor. Which represents probably like a word of grace or a timely word that's spoken by a brother or a sister or maybe there's a passage of scripture that just especially gives you rest in a time of difficulty, maybe it comes out of a sermon or a song you're just driving down the road feeling the weight of your sin and the trials and the Lord just brings you to this pleasant harbor and, trees and and this garden area to rest.

And I don't know what passages in your life that I've, I've got a lot of passages that I go back to that at different points, it's like the Lord just brought this passage into my life to give me comfort.

I remember Matthew 1814, even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. I'm like, I'm gonna perish, the other shoes are gonna fall, and he's just gonna toast me. And then it's like the Lord just reminded me it's not my will that one of these little ones should perish. You're one of my little ones.

I remember Ephesians 5:1. I couldn't even get past the first three words, where it just basically says, talks about his dearly beloved. Therefore, as the dearly beloved of God and as it's like. That's it.

That's all I needed to hear is like the spirit just like. Impressed out of my heart when I wasn't feeling like the dearly beloved of God. I'm just again waiting for the fist to come down, the consequences of my sin, and he calls me the dearly beloved or like the love of Christ compels us, his love for me, not my love for him. What about the fact that I'm in the, the grip of Christ and the Father simultaneously and the Father and the Son are one and we are unsnatchable.

What about the fact that, John 15:9 says, Jesus says, as the Father has loved me. So I've loved you. That's crazy. Those are some of the passages that's just been a great blessing to me.

I'm sure you have them yourself. Recently, this last, this last week preparing for this lesson, I was looking at Philippians 3:12, and I just have never remember seeing Paul say I have been laid hold of by Christ. It's within that passage where he says I press forward. To lay hold of that for which I have been laid hold of by Christ Jesus and literally when you look at the Greek, not that I'm Mr.

Greek scholar, but you go to Bible Hub, right? and you look at the interlinear because I've forgotten a lot of my Greek. It just, it, it's literally says I have been laid hold of by Christ. That's a crazy thought that he lays hold of us and I was telling my son Samuel, it's like, Sam, it's almost like you were running in these high weeds towards a cliff and then you just run right over the cliff with your sin and Jesus just lassos you with a rope and he starts pulling you up.

And then you're so excited to be captured and being pulled up as, as you're starting to pull yourself up and using your feet, but whose strength is primary? And my, my son got it. He says, Christ. And it's like, yeah, we're pressing forward, but really, who's got us?

Who's the one that's pulling us? It's Jesus. And to me that these types of arbors are just a great encouragement to me personally. And so Christian, he gets there and he gets the rest, but just like a lot of us.

What does he do? It's like he drinks in the rest, but then the rest turns into spiritual lethargy, and he's right there with sloth. Now, let me ask you a question. Him falling asleep in the Pleasant harbor and then losing his role, is this God telling us you guys don't sleep, Sleeping is sinful.

If you sleep more than 4 hours a night, boy., woe is you. Is that what he's saying? No, not at all. Again, this is an allegory.

We're talking about spiritual sleep. We're talking about you're falling asleep spiritually, you're not being watchful, you've gotten comfortable spiritually and you're not on the watch anymore and, and then his role falls out and well, let's see what happens with that. So you look at the, the next, the final group of pretenders come by. So remember Sloth and Simple and Presumption, they're stationary.

Formalist and hypocrisy, they're actually moving, but they moved to their death. timorous and mistrust are going the other way. And so these guys come along, they're running the other way. We'll give you a summary here, but they've seen these two lions and they're scared.

We'll find out later. These two lions represent in Bunyan's day the civil government and the state church. The civil government's like passing laws against Christians preaching the gospel and the state church is right there in cahoots and they're just there to scare true saints and try to keep them out of the true Church of God and, Christian can't see that they've actually got chains on them, but Timus and mistrust, they don't even get close enough to check that out they're like I'm out of here.

I am not gonna go head to head with the state or the state church and, and suffer for Christ.

I'm running in the other direction and this freaks Christian out a little bit. He's, he's, he's also worried, he, he, he, he, he get, he sits there and he starts to deliberate. He's like, wait a second, if I go back to the city of destruction, what does that mean? That's the city of destruction.

I can't go back there. If I go forward, there's fear of death, but there's also hope of the celestial city. So as I weigh out the options, destruction, death, a celestial city, I'm going that way. And so he decides to keep moving forward even though he is afraid of what mistrust and timorous have just pronounced to him.

And to give himself some comfort, he, he gets into his coat to pull that roll back out to comfort himself and suddenly he's like. Oh, man, it's like, Bilbo can't find the ring. It's, only this is positive, right? And, he's like, where is it?

And so suddenly he's lost his role, and I'm gonna have to speed this up because we got 5 minutes. And so he's, he suddenly realizes it's probably back where I slept, the slugger that I was. And, and so then he has to retrace his steps back downhill, knowing that every step downhill is going to be another step back uphill. I don't know if you guys hike, but I've done that where you've missed your trail.

I did that when we're climbing Mount Wilson. And we got about 1 mile off track downhill. And I was doing good to that point, but once we realized we're going the wrong way and we had to come back another 1 mile, and this was a 17 mile hike, it wasn't fun. I did, we, we were pretty upset at ourselves, and then I started getting cramps and I don't like bananas, but I had to eat a banana and.

So, that's what Christian has to do. And so he goes back and he's berating himself, and he gets back to the harbor. This time, it's not so fun. He's not so excited about being there at the Pleasant Harbor, but he looks down and what does he find?

His role. Now remember, the role represents what? Is this his salvation? Has he lost his salvation?

What does he still have on his forehead? Still has a seal of the Holy Spirit. What is he still wearing? His code of righteousness, he's still got the imputed righteousness of Christ.

He's still got a seal on his forehead, but he's lost the role and the role is his assurance of salvation and entrance into heaven, the assurance that he'll get there, and part of what Bunyan is trying to teach us comes right out of the confessions of his time, also 1689, Baptist confession, basically that true believers. Can never lose their salvation. We're not gonna. You don't suddenly lose the seal or lose your code of righteousness.

People that are circumcised of heart all don't, suddenly become uncircumcised again. You don't see anywhere where the justified get unjustified. Jesus doesn't name Simon Peter and then say, I take that back, you're Simon again, right? No, but a true believer can lose assurance or can start to fall into doubts about their salvation.

You guys can read this on your own, but I, I will mention one passage of scripture, First John 3:18, and following my little children. Let us not love in word or in tongue but in deed in truth, and by this we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before Him. So our love and the fruit of the gospel grants us a an assurance, but then verse 20 for if our heart condemns us. Then forget it, it's over, is that what he says?

No, if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our hearts and knows all things, beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence towards God. What's he saying? Well, is it better to have your heart condemning you or better to have your heart not condemning you? It's better to have your heart not condemn you, right?

Cause that gives you confidence, but if your heart does condemn you, God's greater than your heart. And so this is just one of many passages that demonstrates that a believer can lose some sense of their assurance and start to fall into doubts about their standing, but that doesn't mean they've lost their salvation. Well we can talk more about that later, we're we're bumping up against time here. So all I think part of the, the lessons here that we want some of the takeaways we wanna have here is as, as Christian moves from the cross, he's been granted a seal and a righteousness and a role, and yet when he moves out into life it doesn't mean that he doesn't hit trials he's already been told in the house of interpreter he's gonna hit trials and he's gonna see people that are pretenders.

I don't know about you, but sometimes when I. Come across, sometimes I, when I think of people that have actually encouraged me in my faith and have since fallen away and abandoned the faith, that's discouraging. There was a guy that was instrumental in me coming to know Christ. I'd never met him, but it was a guy named Mike Warnkey that turned out to be a complete and total fraud.

This guy was a liar. Everything, he just completely made it up. And yet there were things that he said that were encouraging to me before I came to Christ, and what do I do with that? Well, am I looking to him or am I looking to Christ?

Looking to Christ. Am I looking to John MacArthur? Am I looking to Christ? Am I looking to RC Sproll Junior?

Am I looking to Christ? Am I looking at Joshua Harris or Robbie Zacharias, or am I looking to Christ? You guys look into Pastor Milton or you guys looking to Christ? We're looking to Christ, and the fact is, is the best believers are going to disappoint you.

Just read 1st and 2nd Kings and 1st and 2 Chronicles, see some really awesome kings who all disappoint. We're looking to Christ. He is the one hero. there's really one who wins the race.

we're all in this race, but there's only one winner. And the winner's Christ. And everybody in Christ also gets the glory, but there's one winner. Let's keep our eyes on him.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for the encouragement from our brother John Bunyan, who is in your presence right now with you. And we thank you Lord for the wisdom. We know that these are just the words of a man we need to compare this with scripture, but we thank you that he's given us so much scripture and given us wonderful images to help the scriptures stick to us like birds.

We pray, Father, that you would help us to keep our eyes fixed on Christ. We not get discouraged by pretenders that are stationary or going along and to destruction and, and, or those that are running back. May we be those that keep going forward. And Lord, that we would lay a hold of you as you have laid a hold of us.

We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.