A Survey of the Pilgrim's Progress Pt.6

All right, well, good morning, you guys. It is a beautiful cool morning. Glad you guys could. Be out here.

We're actually. Maybe about a minute from 9:30. How's it going, Rod? But I'm gonna, we do have handouts over here on the table.

And I hope you guys had a great week in the Lord whether you're here in our parking lot or online. One of the things I'm looking forward to this morning is singing. That's gonna be exciting. We haven't done that for a few weeks.

I think it was in the 40s when our crew showed up this morning. I'm, I'm not sure what the temperature is right now. Are we like high 50s right now? 58.

That's what, that was my guess. I was gonna say 50, 58 or 59. But let's. Let's go ahead and get started here.

I think we're at 9:30, are we? OK. This morning, we're gonna be. Talking about encouragement and equipping or another way we could say this is relief and security in the local church.

we see in Ephesians chapter 4. Really starting at verse 15. Speaking the truth and love, we may grow up in all things in Him who is the head that is Christ. And it's from the head Christ that the whole body begins to do its work to build itself up in love and so we're really gonna be talking about the local church, the body of Christ, and how.

The head of Christ and His grace flows to us and then to one another. Let's go ahead and pray, and then we'll get into this wonderful section of Pilgrim's Progress. Lord, we thank you so much for this opportunity for us to be together and to meet as the body of Christ. We thank you Lord that we can come together with the gifts that you have given us that flow to us from from your son we can speak the truth and love and that we can participate as every part does its share causing the growth of the body so that we may build ourselves up in love.

We pray that we be able to do that this morning in Christ's name. All God's people said. Amen. CH Spurgeon had this to say about the local church.

He said, if, if I had never joined a church till I had found one that was perfect, I should never have joined one at all. And the moment I did join it, if I had found one, I should have spoiled it, for it would not have been perfect after I had become a member of it. Still, imperfect as it is, it is the dearest place on earth to us. Spurgeon describes the local church as imperfect as it is, is the dearest place on earth.

And that's what we're gonna talk about this morning, this dearest place on earth that Bunyan calls in his allegory, the palace Beautiful. And he partially gets this idea from Psalm 81, where it says, how lovely are your dwelling places, O Lord of hosts. My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord. How blessed are those who dwell in your house.

They're ever praising you. A day in your courts is better than 1000 outside. I'd rather be on the threshold, on the outside of the house of God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. To Christ, the church is a beautiful place, and we're told by the porter in our narrative this morning.

That this house was built by the Lord of the hill for the relief and security of pilgrims. So according to John Bunyan, one of the purposes of the church, one of the reasons why it was built by Christ is for relief and security of his people. And so we're gonna look at the church this morning through the eyes of Christ as we journey, with Christians. So let's go ahead and look at his.

Entrance we're gonna go all the way from the his entrance to the palace and to his descent down into the valley of humiliation. Let's start with number 40. Christian arrives at the palace beautiful, which we've already said represents the church, but it represents the church from the vantage point of a new believer. We're gonna see the church in many different places in this allegory.

one place will be the delectable, delectable, delectable mountains. later on, and that'll be more from the vantage point of a, a mature Christian. but here we see, Christian coming into the local church as a new believer. But before he gets to the palace, he runs into two lions, right?

And these are the two lions that scared Timorous and, and mistrust away, and these lions, Ken Pulse tells us represent in Bunyan's day the civil government and the state church. Later on we find as faithful had come across the lions and later on Christiana, sometimes the lions are sleeping, sometimes they don't bother anybody, sometimes they're tearing people to pieces and part of Bunyan's point is you can't trust the lions. We don't put our stock in the civil government, we don't put our stock in the state church that is a church that is controlled by the civil government.

We put our stock in Christ.

At the same time, these lions are chained, even though Christian can't see it, the porter tells him, hey, is your strength so small? These lions have chains on them, so don't worry, just come down the path and you'll be OK. And then the porter asks Christian what his name was and he says well my name is Christian but at first it was graceless, so it was a I I've come from gracelessness to now Christian and there's some lessons that we learned from this just entrance to the palace.

One is God has the lions chained and so while there are things that we can easily fear.

we don't need to fear in the ultimate sense because the lions are chained by God's sovereignty. He moves the heart of kings any which way he chooses, and even in our day as, as we see things that are going on that we may agree or disagree with. we need to remember that all of our leaders are in the hands of Almighty God. Remember that Christ himself, when he was born, he was born in Bethlehem because of one of, of craziest decisions of a, of an ancient leader to demand that everybody go back to their hometown for a census.

You wanna talk about people complaining. I'm sure people were not happy to pick up all of their belongings and have to head back and you think about Mary being pregnant. And yet that was what the Lord was using to get Christ back to Bethlehem to fulfill that prophecy. And so we need to remember that God's in control of all these things.

Also, Christ, he builds his church and views it as beautiful and necessary. The view that we have of the palace here is a beautiful view of the church through the eyes of Christ, that reminds us that the body of Christ is absolutely necessary for the relief and security of pilgrims, and so we wanna keep that in mind. Christ has also provided porters for his church. What is the porter that is out front?

Well, let's first of all ask what is a porter. A porter is an assistant. at the entrance of a building. It's the baggage carrier that meets you in front of your hotel, and that's exactly what Bunyan pictures pastors as.

Pastors are to assist you with your burdens. We carry your baggage. in fact, Paul refers to pastors himself as a third level galley slave. We should just be slaving and serving you for your relief and security.

In the New Testament, the role of a pastor is also described as a watchman, and Porter, his name is Watchman. We see this in Hebrews 13:17, for instance, obey those who rule over you and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account. That's part of our job is to serve, to relieve burdens, and to watch out for the sheep. That's exactly what Porter does for Christian.

Then, Christian is not immediately brought in to the palace. Just because he arrives doesn't mean that he's welcomed in the membership of the family. Porter calls for discretion and so discretion is one of 4 virgins or one of 4 damsels that's going to interact with Christian, which reminds us of the 3 or 4 individuals, ladies that also impacted Bunyan in his own testimony. Discretion, there's a couple of ways that we could think about discretion.

this woman that comes out, discretion is to delay a decision until more information is ascertained. It's not to immediately make a decision as soon as you find out there's a problem, it's to ascertain the information and then make a decision. It's a discernment or purpose. Discretion can be used negatively, but here Bunyan clearly uses it positively, and she asked Christian several different questions about his journey, his salvation, his testimony and identity, and when she gets this, the answers that she's looking for, Bunyan says water stood in her eyes, and I just love that that picture that she starts to tear up when she realizes this is a true brother in the faith.

I'm having a little trouble with my micro am I going in and out on you guys? OK, maybe it's just my imagination up here, and then she tells, Christian that the house was built to entertain such pilgrims that they're hosting and entertaining people just like Christian that come to the church, but let's ask a couple questions here. Why doesn't discretion, why doesn't the porter just welcome. Christian right into the palace.

Well, this, is Bunyan's way of talking about the importance of church membership, that as people come to Christ they were not welcomed into the Baptist church that Bunyan was a part of immediately. They went through a period of questioning and a process of church membership. we do the same type of thing here. It's important to discern and to delay a decision until more information's ascertained.

just the fact that we Such discipline argues for the importance that we don't always know the state of someone's soul when they're brought into the church nor where they're gonna end up. And so, Yeah, we do, we, we, we try to be precise and use discretion because souls are really at stake. Here at Cornerstone we bring people through a membership process and we've had a few times over the years where we have had to practice church discipline with the idea of trying to restore a brother or sister to Christ and in several of those cases where we have brought church discipline we've seen people restored to Christ and so that's been a great blessing.

the Bible says in Proverbs 6:7, this talks about seven things that the Lord hates, and one of those is one who stirs up discord among brethren.

Romans 16:17, Paul says, mark those who cause division. That's one of the reasons why we need to use discernment, because sometimes the devil sends people into a body to cause division, and sometimes divisions caused just by believers who have indwelling sin, and we're gonna talk about that. That problem of indwelling sin here in a few minutes and so the church needs discernment especially at the front door as it interviews candidates for membership but also needs discernment as it considers the back door as people are invited to leave the church as well sometimes you get addition by subtraction and we try to use discernment and how that has gone about discernment, love and humility.

Then after discretion is, is, is encouraged by Christian's testimony and that he's truly a believer, he's brought, to, to have some more discussion with the other three ladies.

He's eventually brought into the household representing him joining the church. The next, damsel that he interacts with is named Petty. P Petty or another way to say this would be humble devotion. and so piety begins to ask Christian several questions that really get Christian to rehearse his testimony when with the intent of helping him grow in his own humble, devotion or his own piety, she.

ascertains how Christian heard the gospel and how he became a pilgrim and what he learned at the house of the interpreter, and, and he rehearses the, what he had heard at the house of the interpreter, what he learned. He also talks about seeing Christ on the cross, and the dangers and distractions that he had himself come across. But then he also talks about how that if it wasn't for the porter. he probably would have gone back himself, and so he acknowledges his own in in humility that the lions would have very easily scared him away if Christ did not put that porter out in front of the palace.

And so by reviewing his story, piety helps Christian think of his own devotion to the Lord, and it seems to have a humbling effect on Christian himself. so some lessons here from this interaction, not just with piety, but to preview the other interactions with the other ladies. Each of the four damsels represents believers in the church who have these gifts of the spirit or attributes. That will attach themselves to Christian through gospel conversation that is discipleship.

So I want you to think about the, the women that Bunyan or that Christian interacts with. These are, are representations of people in the body of Christ. But they're also representations of attributes of fruit of the spirit that accrue to us as we interact with other believers. Does that make sense?

So Christian is, as he interacts with piety, he's gonna become more pious as he interacts with devotion or discretion, he's gonna become, have more discretion. and so we learned that none of us have all of the gifts. We need pieties to make us more pious and more humbly devoted church. We have pieties right here in this body, and we need them to help us grow.

And by the way, it's a reminder that neither should we feel guilt if we don't have all of the gifts ourselves because you weren't meant to have all of the gifts. I have certain gifts. Sometimes I feel guilty when I see the people in our body that just have such tremendous gifts of help and service, and they just love serving, and I'm just like, why do I not enjoy service the same way some of these other people do? And, part of it is our, we're one body, right?

We all represent Christ's body as a whole. And at the same time, what we learned from these four ladies is Christ is the one true pious person or one true pious man. He has been pious on our behalf. And again, pious meaning humble devotion.

the Bible says in. Matthew 11, Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. That's the idea of piety, being lowly in heart, humble devotion. Christ is that for us, and through the Spirit, his pious blood, so to speak, flows through his body, and we see attributes of Himself.

Self among us and in us he's the head of the body he's been pious on our behalf he imputes that righteousness to us and then that begins to flow throughout the body among us and then in us that's part of the design of this church that brings relief and security. Lastly, I would say that one of the things that we learned from just this whole scene in Palace Beautiful is we can think of Sundays as as like a retreat, I don't know about you, but I, as, as a young person I got saved at 14 and one of the things I enjoyed, one of the times of the year I really enjoyed was when our youth group would go up to a winter or summer retreat and I just felt like I was in heaven.

and every Sunday is really meant to be a spiritual retreat where we come together to serve each other, we come together to be a blessing to one another and really to provide that relief, comfort, and security that Christ wants to give us. Well, the next, damsel that Christian speaks with is prudence.

prudence represents our carefulness, or godly wisdom in action, and notice the direction of her questions, and this is, by the way, my favorite section in the whole book and so but notice the types of questions that prudence asks. She says, do you not think sometimes of the country where you came from? Christian says yes, but with much shame and detestation. Truly, if I had been mindful of that country from whence I came, I might have had opportunity to return.

She's like, yeah, sometimes I do think about my old life and if I'd have dwelt on it too much, I might have run back just like Timorous and mistrust. Then Prudence says, are you ever enticed by some of the things that then you were accustomed to do, which I'm not too excited about that modern English rendition. I think it takes away a little bit of Bunyan's intent and so I have the original right below that. Here's the way Bunyan says it.

Do you not yet bear away with you some of the things that then you were conversant with all? Do you not then bear away with you? The idea is, do you not carry with you. Things that you used to do and be totally fluent in when you were in the city of destruction, so it's not just are you enticed from the outside, do you bear with you from the inside things that you used to converse with?

does that make sense? Yeah, and, and yes, and I love the way she says that and then Christian's response is just amazing. He says, yes, I do bear away with me some of the things from the old country but greatly against my will. Now listen to the way he says this, especially my inward incarnal con conjugations thoughts with which all my countrymen as well as myself were delighted.

But now all those things are my grief and might I but choose my own things I would choose never to think of those things anymore, but when I would be doing of that which is best, that which is worst is in me, that is such an amazing statement that Christian acknowledges. That he still has this Romans 7 struggle, not just from the outside but from the inside, things that he bears away with him and, and then she goes on and she says, do you not find sometimes as if those things were vanquished which at other times are your perplexity?

What a great way to say that question. Does it sometimes seem like your indwelling sin is gone that at other times perplex you?

His response is, yes, but seldom. I can totally resonate with that seldom, but they are to me. In which such things happen to me. Next question from Prudence.

Can you remember by what means you find your annoyances at time as if they were vanquished? What a great way to talk about in dwelling sin, annoyances. Yes, here's how he, he feels sometimes that they're vanquished. When I think what I saw at the cross, that will do it.

And when I look upon my embroidered coat, that will do it. And when I look into the role that I carry in my bosom, that will do it. And when my thoughts about wax warm about where I am going, that will do it. What a great example of just preaching the gospel to ourselves and looking on Christ, the cross, our imputed righteousness, the assurance of salvation, and then looking to heaven.

Those are the types of thoughts that when they wax warm in Christian, it makes it seem as if his old man is completely vanquished. Then she says this, and what is it that makes you so desirous to go to Mount Zion, that is heaven? Christian says, why there I hope to see him alive that did hang on the cross, and there I hope to be rid of those things that to me are in me an annoyance to me, in me an annoyance to me. There they say there is no death, and there I shall dwell with such company as I like best, for to tell you the truth, I love him.

Why does he love him? Because I was by him eased of my burden. And I am weary of my inward sickness. Think about that.

I was eased of my burden and I'm weary, not I was weary. I am weary of my inward sickness and I so love him for easing my burden and I look forward to seeing him when I will be like him. What a beautiful, beautiful statement, and to me this is. This is the height of the whole book, this conversation with prudence.

Let's look at some lessons here. Prudence induces Christian to dwell upon his indwelling sin. How would these thoughts help Christian apply wisdom? that we live in a day when some people tell us we should stop talking about sin, especially sin and believers, and, and that we, we, we, we talk too much about sin.

We just need to talk about our, our identity in Christ. I agree we need to talk about our identity in Christ, but not to set aside our indwelling sin. I'll just be honest with you, the doctrine of dwelling sin has saved my life. Understanding that I am still a sinner and yet loved by God because of the righteousness of Christ has has rescued me.

And if I didn't understand the doctrine of a dwelling sin, I, I don't know where I'd be today. Probably locked up somewhere. Notice what Luther has to say in Genesis chapter 9. This is Luther commenting on the section about Noah, who has come off the ark who God has used to rescue his family, who then gets drunk and is found naked in his tent.

Notice what Luther has to say. We'll start at the italicized portion. In such instances we should find sure proof of our own weakness and therefore bow down in humble confession not only to ask for forgiveness but also to hope for it. Hence when we see saints fall, let us not be offended.

But less let us gloat over the weakness of other people, much less let us gloat over the weakness of other people or rejoice as though we were stronger, wiser and holier rather let us bear with and cover and even extenuate and excuse such mistakes as much as we can bearing in mind. That what the other person has experienced today may perhaps we may perhaps experience tomorrow we are all one mass and we are all born of one flesh. What an amazing wisdom from Martin Luther that when we see sins in brothers and sisters in Christ we should not gloat over them or think that somehow we are more holy, but we should actually by God's grace forgive and even extenuate an excuse.

Like, maybe try to just like we do in our own hearts, we tend to, we're very good at excusing our own sins.

Luther is saying, look at your brother and sister and realize they're still struggling with indwelling sin, and what excuses can you make for them? Or how can you come and, and, and cover up the shame of their nakedness the way Japheth and Shem did. Wonderful wonderful lessons I've had that experience here at Cornerstone many different times where my sin was exonerated, was covered up, was confronted but then forgiven that's been part of my testimony here at Cornerstone. So prudence represents believers within the church who have this gift of the spirit, and attribute that will attach to Christian through gospel conversation.

Remember, none of us have all the gifts. We need people like Prudence to make us more prudent and to help us wisely apply God's word. Remember, however, that Christ is the only truly prudent man, and he's been wise on our behalf, and through the spirit, prudence flows to the whole body. Let's talk about charity.

So charity comes along and. And interacts and provides relief for Christian. She represents our compassion and love for others, and she's highly commended in scripture as we see in 1 Corinthians 13, for instance. but charity brings up, it's interesting, charity, love brings up some painful memories of Christian's family, by asking, did you really plead for them and pray for them?

She says, but what could they say for themselves? Why did they not come? And, and he says, well, my wife was caught up with the things of the world, my children were given over to the foolish delights of youth, then Charity has this to say. But did you not with your vain life damp all that by you by words used by way of persuasion to bring them away with you?

I'll let I spent about a half hour trying to figure out what that meant yesterday. Because I was thinking it was meant to be taken positively, but Bunyan is using the word damp negatively like damper to throw a, a damp towel on something or to throw a wet towel on something or confused. So basically what she's saying is, did you not with your life actually put a damper on the things that you were saying with your words, you see that? So yeah, you were preaching the gospel, but did you contradict it with your life?

And notice Christian's response. It's very humble. He says, indeed I cannot commend myself, for I'm conscious to myself of my many failings therein. I know also that a man by his con conversation may soon overthrow what by argument or persuasion he does labor to fasten upon others for their good.

so he's like, I, I know in my heart I have the ability to completely contradict the my gospel preaching, but to the best of my ability, I gave them no occasion by any unseemly action to make them averse to going on pilgrimage or to follow Christ, and, so we're seeing., charity is, is wanting to elicit love in the heart of Christian both for his family and to get him to persevere in that love and for people that don't know Christ and so we'll, I'll run through these lessons quickly, but basically we want to be encouraged to, to love our unbelieving friends and family and to continue to pray and plead with them.

And and to recognize that it's it's really God that is the one that's gonna change their hearts and to ask God to help us not put a damper on our words and let me tell you the main way to put a damper on your gospel preaching, it's not the mistakes that you make, it's not the ways in which your unbelieving friends and family will see you sin. It's if you do not ask for forgiveness of your sins, and if you carry around bitterness in your heart against friends and family, that will damper the gospel.

one of the greatest ways that God will use Christians to share the gospel is when they fall and fail and unbelievers get to see them ask for forgiveness and that they're willing to bear with mistreatment and not grow bitter against unbelievers, as Christians we need to keep that in mind that it should not surprise us that our unbelieving friends and family will sin against us.

and because of indwelling sin, it shouldn't surprise us that we will at times sin against them, but we have the Holy Spirit and we have the ability to forgive as we've been forgiven. And so we can choose to bear with the abuses of friends and family and to extend forgiveness to them which they have no that's part of what charity is trying to work. In this, so remember charity is she's both someone that's gifted in the church and her gifts rub off on us and none of us have all of the gifts and really Christ is the only one that is ultimately loving, totally loving and his love is imputed to us.

Now after his interaction with these four individuals, they move and they begin to have supper.

This is section 45. They have supper in the palace, and this supper, represents fellowship, but particularly the Lord's supper. notice that, Bunyan's narrator says, now I saw my dream that thus as they sat together talking until supper was ready, so when they had made ready, they sat down for meat. Now the table was furnished with fat things with wine and was well refined, and this comes right out of Isaiah 25:6.

I do like eating fat things. I don't know about you. I love, I love fat on meat. That's just me.

I, I won't judge you if you don't, but, but there is something here about the sumptuous feast of fellowship and feasting upon the bread and the wine as it were, as we come together, to partake in communion, and that's what's represented here because in their conversation they're just talking about the Lord of the hill and what he has done for them and then look down towards the bottom of page eight and by what they said I perceived that. he had been a great warrior and fought in with and had slain him that had the power of death, but not without great danger to himself, which made me love him the more.

This is the narrator inserting himself into the story now. He's listening to this conversation in his dream, and the more he hears about Christ's sacrifice, the more his love for Christ is welling up.

It's the love of Christ for us that compels us, right? To love him and to do things that we could never do before. And and we see John 13 how they having his loved his own who are in the world he loved them to the end, for instance, and then notice the top of page 9 for as they said, as I believe, said Christian, he did it with much loss of blood. but that he which put glory of grace into all that he did, and then bottom of that paragraph, he is such a lover of poor pilgrims that the like is not to be found from east to west.

There's just such a sweetness in this whole dialogue as they're communing about the love of Christ and his willingness to lay his life down for pilgrims. John Gill has this to say from Hosea chapter 2. He says, It's as if a prince, heir apparent to the throne, should take a convict or condemned malefactor out of her cell, a common strumpet out of the strews, or bankrupt and beggar from the dunghill and marry her. What a great statement.

It's the Lord looks down upon us, and we're just beggars. We really have nothing to offer Him. He gives all for us. And he marries us and so that's the supper scene and it it reminds us the importance of communion, that it's it's, it's the body and blood of Christ that we're remembering and commemorating we're preaching the gospel to ourselves visually as we eat of the fat things together.

46, Christian is then ushered to an upper chamber, that is called peace. This is a a chamber for him to rest in. It represents Christ himself and. And he, he talks about the love of Christ and now remember Jesus is called the Prince of Peace himself, and he says, come to me all you are labor and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

And Isaiah 26:12, wonderful verse, this is on page 10 of your notes, but Isaiah 26:12 says this, Lord, you will establish peace for us, for you have also done all our works for us. He's done all of our works for us and that's the idea of this chamber of rest is they've just partaken of communion, talked about how Christ has accomplished it all and now in the allegory, Christian goes to rest in peace recognizing that all of the works have been accomplished. By Christ, and so he's able to rest in Christ's works.

peace is spoken of as a gift of Christ in John 14, and a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22.

I love this what Ken Paul says in your notes in the commentary. He says it's a miracle of grace that God can take diverse and sinful people and make us one in Christ. It is Jesus Himself who is our peace, who receives us from sin and selfishness and unites us together as His people for His glory. That is a miracle that the Lord will bring sinful, diverse people with who still have a dwelling sin.

That we're all over the map on on various issues, and yet he brings us together, reminds us that we're beggars, and reminds us he's done all of the works for us. And then he is our piece. Amen. he is brought to a place of instruction.

And so he's brought down to a study where he begins to see the rarities of that place, so to speak, and I'll just summarize the things that he has shown he's basically shown things that teach him about the person of Christ, particularly Christ's deity and fellowship with the Father from eternity past, and then he's taught about the works of Christ, the things that Christ has done. And then he's also reminded of the of the saints of Christ, all of the the individuals who have come into his service throughout the centuries.

And then we see again down at the bottom of page 10 in your notes, just how Christian says how willing their Lord was to receive into his favor any, even any, though they in time past had offered great affronts to his person and his proceedings. So right after he's talked about Christ's person and works.

the narrator reminds us through the dialogue that Christ is willing to receive any pilgrim into his ranks who have offended his person and works. Think about that. What type of warrior takes the traitors and brings them into his fold and gives them all the prerogatives of the other soldiers? Think about it.

Jesus says in John 6, all that the Father gives to me will come to me, and the one who comes to me, I will by no means pass cast out. And then in Matthew 12, this is that passage that we talk about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. I'm not gonna get into the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit right now, but I wanna point out something that we neglect when we talk about those passages, and that is all of the sins that are forgiven in this context, other than the one sin, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

Listen to this text.

Matthew 12, wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men. They're gonna be all categories of sinners in heaven. Every category you can imagine are gonna be there. Then Jesus says, and whatsoever, whosoever speaketh the word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him, even those that speak against Christ.

If they come, he will not be cast out, and those are some of the instructions that are given to Christian as well as many other histories. Then he's brought over to the armory, so he's, he's, he's been schooled in some doctrine, particularly the doctrine of Christ and the body of Christ, then he's brought over to the armory and he's shown all of the type of armor that he saw in use at the stately palace in the house of the interpreter. So he's shown the sword and the shield, and the helmet, breastplate, and prayer and the and the shoes that do not wear out.

And then he's also shown that that there's plenty there for Christ to harness everybody even as much as even if there were as many soldiers as stars in in heaven, and then he's also shown all of the different saints in the Old Testament that use literal physical weapons in their battle that are types of the spiritual warfare like Moses' rod, Gideon, and we got Shamgar and Samson and so on, David.

And even the sword also with which our Lord will kill the man of sin in the day that he shall rise to the prey. I love the way Bunyan says that the sword that Jesus will take up when he rises to the prey, a day that is coming when he will destroy the man of sin. Some lessons that we get from this section. Christians, we live, this is a life of battle, Bunyan or Christian is in the palace beautiful, and every Sunday we're here with the body of Christ, but the Christian life is one of warfare.

And yet Christ has provided all that we need in Christ. In fact, the armor, if we understand the armor properly, the armor really represents Christ, because Paul is pulling the image of the spiritual armor right from Isaiah, which assigns the armor to the coming Messiah. So when we think of the helmet of salvation and the belt of truth, and the breastplate of righteousness, those are all representations of Jesus himself, and you can look at it. In the context here that we get from Isaiah 59, so the armory underscores our need to be watchful and courageous as pilgrims, and it reminds us that we cannot and must not engage this battle in our own strength.

Spiritual warfare calls for spiritual weapons. So after he is shown the armory, now he is ushered up, I think this is the next day, I can't remember. I think he gets to sleep again and then he goes to the top of the palace. So now from the vantage point of the top of the palace, he's bid to look south over to the delectable mountains, the beautiful mountains, and he gets a view of Emmanuel's land, and that's heaven, and, and he's shown this.

they want him to be encouraged that you're heading to this place, you're heading to heaven, you're heading to Emmanuel's land, God is with us, and it seems like the ladies want him to see that because what is he about ready to descend into? He's about ready to go into the valley of humiliation and then the valley of the shadow of death. So here he is on this spiritual retreat in the palace. And he needs to keep his eyes on Emmanuel's land and the delectable mountains we'll talk about later is the church with the from the viewpoint of a mature Christian, and they wanted him to keep that view in mind.

Finally, he does descend into the valley of humiliation and, and this relief and security that he's been bolstered with through the body of Christ, he now is it actually goes down in fellowship. after he is, thus accoutered, as I listen to this, I love that word accoutered, had no idea what it meant, but it just basically means armed, right? with, all of his armory. So the armory that he had looked at, he is now dressed in, and, and then he hears about faithful.

So it's a reminder, he's learned the lesson that he needs fellowship, and so now he's gonna be fellowshipping with faithful in just a, just a little while. He also gives thanks to Porter, so he gives thanks to his pastor, and we need to remember our pastors and honor them and and and really be thankful that we have these luggage carriers about us that are there to help us carry our baggage and to provide relief and security. And, and then he also, it's discretion, piety, charity and prudence that that go down with him together and they remind him of these gospel realities in Christ and and then as Christian is heading down the hill, he's reminded that going downhill is just as dangerous as going up the hill of difficulty.

I don't know about you, but I actually like going uphill better than going downhill when I hike.

the, sugar loaf over here going uphill, it's hard, but going downhill is tough on my knees, and I'm old enough now where when I have slipped and I have slipped, it hurts and, and so Christian, he does slip a few times. But he's there with the fellowship and Psalm 49:94 says, if I say my foot slips, your mercy, O Lord will hold me. They give him bread and wine and raisins, which comes right out of 2 Samuel. It's a reminder of again communion and, and the gospel and.

And though Christian is feasted on the the rich truths of the gospel, Palace Beautiful, he must now take these lessons and take Christ with him on the way down. And let's just remember as, as we finish up this scene at the Palace Beautiful, this is an allegory, so it's not like Christian spends a little bit of time at the church and now he leaves the church. He's always in fellowship and the palace beautiful is always needed. We always need the body of Christ, we need porters, we need pastors, we need people who have discretion, we need people who have humble devotion to Christ we need people who have love and charity to rub off on us and prudence, all of these things are remind.

and, and we need to also remember to view the church the way Christ views the church. I love the way that this is, this is spoken of as a beautiful palace and in the Bible we're spoken of as a bride, the bride of Christ. When you look at Hosea too, this type of the bride, Hosea looks at the bride as a chaste virgin that is, is dressed in righteousness and faithfulness, and this is being viewed that way because of the imputed righteousness of Christ. It can be very easy for us to look at all of the indwelling sin of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and then to get cynical with one another, but if we view each other through Christ's eyes.

Each other as beautiful and we see not just the valley of humiliation, not just the valley of the shadow of death that many of us will go through, but we help each other keep our eyes on Emmanuel's land. One of our roles, one of the roles of all of us here at Cornerstone is to provide relief, comfort and security for one another and when any one of us is dealing with our indwelling sin, when we're dealing with our own demons as it were. when we're struggling in humiliation and, and, and going through the valley of the shadow of death, that we come alongside one another and we're able to be for one another the things that it's hard for us to be for ourselves when we're weak, we wanna come alongside and, and be give discretion and give charity and give prudence and so on.

Well, I'll be up here if you have questions.

I do have some coins for kids, if you guys wanna come up and answer a few questions, but let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this wonderful scene. We thank you, Jesus, that you are the head of the church, and all of the attributes that we've spoken of, that you hold them perfectly, and then you impute them to us, and then through your spirit, you gift them to us, and then we're able to rub off on one another. We thank you, Lord, that in spite of our indwelling sin.

that, gives us annoyance and perplexity, Lord, that we can look to Christ, we can look to our righteousness and be reminded of the role in our hands and look to heaven. We pray that you help us do that today as we retreat together in Christ's name. All God's people said amen.