Don't follow what deceives you...

You may be forgiven for having forgotten about Ignorance, but as Christian and Hopeful begin their final approach to the Gate they catch sight of him ‘loitering’, and taking pleasure in his own company. They wait for him, hoping that even at this late stage in the Pilgrimage they can impart some wisdom, and lead him to a knowledgeable faith in Christ.

But their counsel is drowned out by ‘good motions that come into my mind and comfort me as I walk’. This is a telling turn of phrase, and one that we hear often today. In modern parlance it sounds like this: ‘I know that’s what the Bible says, but I think…’. Ignorance has never reconciled himself to the ‘narrowness’ of the Path. He dismisses their concerns as ‘just their opinion’, or their ‘interpretation’. The God he believes in would never be so mean-spirited and begrudging as to reject one such as himself, who has been so full of spiritual sensitivity and so sincere in seeking to live his life well. Christian shows that such hopes and dreams don’t come anywhere near the reality of saving faith. But Ignorance is just glad that the God he worships is so much more open-minded than the Christian who thinks he knows Him so well. He is of course a paragon of tolerance, compared to the narrow-mindedness of Christian: ‘That is your faith, but not mine; yet mine I doubt not is as good as yours, though I have not in my head so many whimsies as you’.

Ignorance personifies the ‘follow your heart’ idea that has plagued Christianity for centuries. Never mind that the heart is decietful above all things (Jer.17:9-10). He feels he will be accepted by God and he resents any suggestion to the contrary. His motto, and his answer to every questions is: My heart tells me so. How can it be wrong when it feels so right?

Bunyan’s point is not that Christian pilgrimage doesn’t affect the heart, but rather that the heart must be measured by Scripture, must be ‘such as agrees with the Word of God’. In other words: The Bible tells me so. We must pass the same judgement on ourselves as the Word passes. How do I know my life is good? …that my thoughts are good? Ask what the Scripture says about your life… your thoughts. Are you passing the same judgement as Scripture does? Ignorance flatly doesn’t. Even when confronted with the Bible’s teaching about the state of the human heart, he states: ‘I will never believe that my heart is thus bad’.

He vastly underestimates the reality of his sin, and in that moment, Ignorance’s fate is sealed. He cannot see the truth about Christ because he cannot see the truth about himself. Thus his thoughts about God (about which he is so confident) will prove to have been only his own imagination, his own desire. He has made ‘god’ in his own image, and such an idol cannot save him. Indeed, such an idol doesn’t need to - for Ignorance can save himself.

Ignorance’s problem is not that he isn’t willing to walk the Path. He does, after a fashion. It is that he believes what he wants to believe, irrespective of whether that tallies with Scripture or not. Where Scripture can be made to re-iterate what he wants to believe he heartily accepts it, but where it doesn’t he is even quicker to reject it…

And herein lies the seed of his own rejection.

Questions to ponder:

How can you know whether what you believe is what the Bible teaches… or what you want the Bible to teach?

How consistent are you in the way you interpret the Bible?

When you need a spiritual Red Bull...

Since forging fellowship in Vanity Fair, Christian and Hopeful have faced many challenges and trials together. But as they near the end of their journey, they face one of the most sinister and insidious perils of all. ‘They came into a certain country, whose air naturally tended to make one drowsy’. With deft narrative, Bunyan is alerting us to the peculiar temptations and dangers that come about as one grows older, and with it, weary of the race and tired in the fight. After years of Pilgrimage, there is a lethargy that comes with sheer spiritual fatigue.

Ironically, it may be brought on by a constructive turn of events. In Bunyan’s day there were periodic seasons when persecution was relaxed. It is a much-observed phenomenon in such times that those who were diligent in the storm become careless during the calm. But it also be triggered by less dramatic circumstances. In our own context, it’s onset can be triggered by a key change or life event, such as retirement. Old habits are broken and new ones can leave little room for the things of God. We take a ‘well-earned rest’, even from the ministry and mission of the Church; ‘sleep is sweet to the labouring man’. We might have come to the end of a particularly intense period of life, or maybe we just quietly begin to feel that being part of the 20% who do 80% of the work has begun to feel too costly. Or maybe it’s simply that we are tired, feel like we’ve ‘done our bit’, or find ourselves unconsciously slipping into a less challenging way of being a Christian. In one sense the context and contributing factors aren’t the issue. The issue is the effect, which is - in Bunyan’s terms - ‘sinful sleep’. We’d need to distinguish this from legitimate and godly rest, but once that is done, spiritual slumber remains both dangerous and disobedient (Prov.6:9-11; Rom.13:11).

Rising to fight the same battles day after day; facing sin, the world and the devil in their relentless assault; habitually attending to the means of grace; continuing faithful in the Path when so many others seem to find an easier way. It all takes its toll, and one of the last weapons in the arsenal of the enemy of our souls is the temptation to simply ‘take it easy a while’. But we must not ‘grow weary in doing good’ (Gal.6:9). ‘We must not ‘grow weary and lose heart’ (Heb.12:3). Jesus commends those who ‘have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary’ (Rev.2:3). The Bible’s vision is for us to finish our race strong.

Christian and Hopeful are alert to the dangers, having been warned by the Shepherds, and through having learnt from their own previous mistakes, and the mistakes of others. Remember Simple, Sloth and Presumption who slept near the cross, and Christian’s own sleep on the Hill Difficulty during which he lost his scroll? In order to resist the temptation to ‘take one nap’, the two fall into ‘good discourse’. This time they keep the warnings of Scripture in mind, and in so doing, avoid spiritual catastrophe.

We see Bunyan again underlining the importance of fellowship: ‘I acknowledge myself to be at fault’ confesses Hopeful, ‘if I had been here alone I had by sleeping run into the danger of death’. They share testimony, stories of spiritual struggle, failure and victories they have known along the Path. It is worth noting that this is fellowship. We can easily mistake friendship, or even socialising as fellowship, but Scripture has something far more profound, and frankly Christ-focussed, in mind when it talks of fellowship. I think of it a ‘friendship with an agenda’. That agenda is the spiritual strengthening and championing of each other. We encourage and challenge, inspire and motivate each other in our pursuit of Christ and Christlikeness.

In the company of such fellowship we can make it across the Enchanted Ground, and run the race to the end.

Questions to ponder:

As we approach the end of our Pilgrimage, where do we feel we can justify ‘taking the foot off the accelerator’?

What is the difference between legitimately slowing down as we get older because we have less energy, and the spiritual slumber Bunyan is warning us against?

For those who aren’t quite there yet: What can you put in place now that will equip to finish strongly as you draw nearer the end?

Losing faith in atheism

Atheist is introduced as a ‘man with his back toward Zion’. For twenty years he has allegedly searched for Zion, and now ‘I am going back again and will seek to refresh myself with the things that I then cast away, for hopes of that which, I now see, is not’.

As a wise man once said, ‘There is nothing new under the sun…’ (Eccl.1:9). Not even Atheism has managed to re-invent itself in the last 400 years. It still carries its blend of contemptuous mockery (‘Atheist fell into a very great laughter’) and smug intellectual superiority (‘I have gone to seek it further than you’). It’s strange how something that looks so sophisticated from one side can look so tiresome from the other.

Nevertheless, Atheist can present a compelling picture of intellectual integrity, open mindedness and spiritual searching. These may all seem laudable characteristics, but it turns out that they aren’t ones that necessarily lead us into truth. God will not deign to become a plaything for our philosophical curiosity. He will not be patronised by those too arrogant to confess their need of Him, or too self-righteous to feel their sinfulness (Ps.36:2). It is little wonder that he has not discovered God even while on the path to Zion (Dt.32:20). God hides Himself from such as these, and their confidence in what they haven’t found is part of His judgement. Atheist cuts a sorry figure, no longer willing to recognise the realities of heaven and hell, the truth of Scripture, or even of the Living God Himself. What presents as wisdom is in fact tragic folly (Ps.53:1). As Paul puts it so powerfully: ‘For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise person? … Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe’ (I Cor.1:18-21).

There will always be atheists. But the idea that atheism is a force to be reckoned with is hardly one we can take seriously any more (if we ever could after what we saw atheism achieve throughout the 20th Century). The vaunted claims of the most recent batch of atheists (Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins et al) seem almost absurd in the light of the last few years. If we ever needed proof that atheism (or by its new trendy name: secular humanism) lacked the resources to sustain a coherent world view, or a stable, tolerant society, we now have it in abundance. But that won’t stop us feeling challenged by atheists at a personal level; by those who paint religion as a product of a by-gone, pre-scientific era, when people didn’t know any better. Or as a tried-and-found-wanting experience on a personal pilgrimage (as Atheist whom Christian and Hopeful meet: I tried religion, but it didn’t work!) How should we respond? In part, it is simply knowing our history well enough to debunk Atheism’s errant claims. But Hopeful helps us think our response through more carefully. He is alert after his experience with Flatterer, and feels strident in facing Christian’s questioning. But there is wisdom in his sermon, both in what is not said and in what is:

First, ‘take heed’. No discussion is ever a purely intellectual thing. Behind every intellectual position held is a spiritual dynamic that is rarely acknowledged (e.g. Job 4). We are far too holistic to ever be ‘purely spiritual’, or ‘purely intellectual’. It puzzles me how reluctant Christians can be to engage in evangelism when they are constantly being evangelised by others.

Hopeful remembers what happened last time he failed to ‘take heed’ and doesn’t wish to endure the Lord’s discipline again.

Second, remember not only the truth we have believed, but also the truth we have experienced. The life of a Christian is supposed to be one of rich experience of the things of which we speak and sing. The paucity of our devotional life, and our general lack of spiritual vision for life means that we exist as Christians rather than live. But Hopeful is able to draw on his having 'seen‘ from the Delectable Mountains, the gate of the city’. Fortified with such vision, we would be much less susceptible to intimidation by those who scoff at our faith.

Third, remember that spirituality is also intellectual. There is a dangerous idea abroad in the Church that we somehow have to by-pass the mind if we are to really encounter God. Let’s be clear that this method, and any experience that comes by way of it, is not and never has been genuine Christianity. The mind is a crucial part of being an authentic Pilgrim. Hopeful counsels Christian to guard his mind and to remember what he was taught by the Shepherds. If we stop listening to instruction, we will stray from the words of knowledge (Prov.19:27). There is a kind of spiritual entropy at work in us.

There is a time to be silent (Eccl.3:7). There are those who will not listen, who will not see. Tragic though it is, the wisdom of God is to not get caught up with such. We can spend a lot of time debating, discussing, engaging in polemic and apologetics, and we will make no progress.

‘So they turned away from the man, and he, laughing at them, went on his way’.

Questions to ponder:

Who do you know who claims to be an atheist? What are their main arguments and complaints about religion? What have you done to develop ways of responding to their concerns?

Flattery is dangerous, but self-flattery is more dangerous yet...

It might be a result of our fallenness, but we have a strange propensity to think that because we have talked about something, we have somehow done it. After much discussion of spiritual combat, and of the King’s protection, and after resolving to go out armed for battle, and to go out in the company of saints, Christian and Hopeful are caught remarkably off-guard by a man wearing a ‘very light robe’.

They are at a path within the Path, and unsure of the direction to take. They had been given directions by the Shepherds, but had forgotten to read them. And it turns out that such forgetfulness of the Word is dangerous for Pilgrims. It’s hard to know, initially, why this character is given the name Flatterer. He doesn’t say much of anything, let alone say much that could be considered flattery. This might be the danger. Perhaps there are times when it comes to temptation, that less is more. The cunning of this one who ‘masquerades as an angel of light’ (II Cor.11:14) is that he simply lets the Pilgrims assume they know ore than they do, that they are more spiritually switched-on than they are. That is flattery enough, quietly letting them believe they are better than they are. Although he is a ‘fine-spoken man’ his words bring confusion, corruption, and catastrophe

It may be that they feel they have come so far, won so many battles, overcome so many obstacles, that they begin to trust themselves to recognize a true guide, to find the way. And even as, by degrees, the road turns away, their failure to read the instructions given by the Shepherds means they blinded by their error. Their over-confidence and self-reliance leaves them susceptible to being deceived. Which in due course they are… Until ‘he led them both within the compass of a net, in which they were both so entangled they knew not what to do’ (Prov.29:5). Their subtle arrogance leads to their disregard for Scripture, and to do disaster.

No amount of tears, or self-reproach can free them. But God’s grace comes even to those Pilgrims who forget to cry out for it. A ‘shining one’ (a genuine angel of light, this time) brings freedom (Heb.1:14), but also brings rebuke. This is a sign of the Pilgrim’s maturity. My own sense is that the LORD is gentle with the immature, but as we grow, His Fatherliness more frequently finds expression in discipline as well as tenderness. There is no conflict here: ‘Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children…God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness’ (Heb.12:7&10).

The ‘Shining One’ confronts them with their sin (for forgetting His Word is sin). He reminds them that they enjoyed the benefits of the Delectable Mountains, that they had received instruction from the Shepherds, that they had been given directions, and that the Shepherds have even ‘bid them beware of the Flatterer’. Confessing their sin, they are chastised. This may seem quaint to us, perhaps even politically incorrect, but Bunyan is drawing attention to an important dynamic in our relationship with God. He will afflict, chasten, discipline us in the Way. Rev.3:19, Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.

Of course, such discipline doesn’t automatically produce the fruit of repentance and holiness. If we are foolish, it can make us resentful and bitter… Hence the warning of Heb.12:9, that we ‘…submit to the Father of [our] spirits and live’. Too often however, our response to suffering and trial is to rage against God, to accuse Him. We wonder why, if He loves us, such things happen; not realising that it is precisely because He loves us that such things occur. His discipline is accompanied by a promise. Heb.12:11 ‘Later on, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace by those who have been trained by it’. Neither Christian nor Hopeful will resent this episode when they cross the threshold of the Celestial City.

‘They thanked him for his kindness’.

Such may seem strange to us. but it resonates with Biblical spirituality.

Ps.119:67-68 & 71, Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word. You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees … It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.

Questions to ponder:

How do we endure suffering in a way shaped by faith?

Is all suffering and trial to be understood as the discipline of God?

...in which Little-faith gets mugged.

From first to last our discipleship rests on faith, and our experience of following Christ will ebb and flow depending on the extent to which we have, by the Spirit, cultivated our capacity to trust Him. Jesus often chastised those of little-faith in the Gospels (Matt.6:30; 8:25-26; 14:31-32 etc.). Bunyan seeks to help us understand why!

If we are weak in faith we are ill-prepared for the trials and difficulties of discipleship, and for the battles and temptations that lie between us and holiness. For such, their faith is genuine (unlike Turn-away, so I Jn.2:19) but they are not ‘trained’ in exercising their faith, and it remains weak. Bunyan is treading a fine line here. We are saved not by the strength or quality of our faith, but by the One who is the object of our faith. But the other side of the coin is that as our faith grows and develops we are more able to hear and put into practise what He teaches. Many of His commands require our commitment to certain corollary beliefs. Our not worrying depends on our faith in God’s goodness and provision… our ability to turn the other cheek depends on our faith in His justice and judgement… our ability to love our enemies depends in part on our faith in His love for us. His weakness of faith has meant his inability to walk faithfully after Christ’s teaching and example. He has veered to close to the world, and lingering near Broad-Way Gate, Little-faith fell asleep in Dead-Man’s Lane. And it is at this dangerous intersection with the world that Little-faith - who is travelling alone - lies vulnerable to attack.

The ‘three sturdy rogues’, Faint-heart, Mistrust, and Guilt, are all internal. Little-faith has a faint heart, which is unable to trust the Lord fully. He is thus unable to obey His teaching and is assaulted by an overwhelming sense of Guilt. Although they are not able to rob Little-faith of his certificate or jewels (his salvation, I think, and the riches of Christ, or perhaps the ‘deposit’ of the Spirit, so Eph.1:13-14), they do make off with his ‘spending-money’. There are aspects of his experience of discipleship that are beyond Little-faith because he will not ‘train himself to distinguish between good and evil’. Neither will he submit to the Fatherly discipline that ‘produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it’ Heb.5:14 & 12:11). He has lost his spiritual comfort, his assurance and peace of mind. But with what he is left he will complete his journey.

This is the paradox Bunyan is trying to capture. Whilst the robbery did not threaten the final outcome of the journey, it did impact the experience of the journey itself. Little-faith pressed on, but he cuts a sorry figure, travelling hungry, and harassed and hindered by his own pain and grief. One passing comment that reveals Bunyan’s experience as a pastor: ‘I was told that he scattered almost all the rest of the way with nothing but doleful and bitter complaints; telling also to all…where he was robbed and how; how he was wounded, and that he hardly escaped with his life’. This has become the defining moment of Little-faith’s whole pilgrimage, and it is all he can talk about with anyone who will listen. He can’t be taken past it, and he will not allow ‘that relief which could from thence be administered to him’. He has become defined by his failure, rather than by his faith in Christ, who can forgive and restore. He refuses even wait to be helped by Great-grace. In a strange way he becomes comfortable with his victim-hood, and resents anyone who would deny him of it.

Is it any wonder Christian’s patience runs thin..?

Questions to ponder:

How do you train your faith, cultivating it so that it is strong enough to bear the weight of holiness?