Great Christian Biographies with John Piper: John Bunyan 2

Let me try to sum up The sufferings now that I've been recounting an almost simultaneous death of his mother and his sister the remarriage of his father the military draft at age 16 a first child born to a happy marriage blind

Depression and darkness for about four or five years in his marriage as he struggles for the assurance of His salvation or his conversion

The death of his first wife leaving him four children one of them blind when he's 30 years old 12 year imprisonment starting a year after that after he remarried to Elizabeth with much difficulty during those 12 years for them and him and Then after the release constant stress of the uncertainty of the political climate

One more imprisonment I failed to mention for a winter in a spring in 1675 and then a final sickness and death at age 60 far too early for him

Alone probably away from his family not to mention Ministry marriage parenting controversy criticism sickness and the ordinary things that everybody endures

So my question is What did he make of this what did it make of him and what might it make of us and The way

I want to handle this is by giving you five Statements that I'll try to unpack of the effect of Bunyan's suffering on him

Number one These are the effects that I see in Bunyan's life of his suffering that we should appropriate for ourselves

And I'll try to help us do that Number one Bunyan's suffering confirmed him in his calling as a writer especially for the afflicted church now the biggest

Distortion that I have made of Bunyan's life so far is that I have not even mentioned his writings

Now everybody knows that he wrote the pilgrims progress the pilgrims progress is

The most widely distributed book in the history of the world outside the

Bible Written by a man with no formal education.

It's been translated into 200 languages and is especially popular in the third world and reading the history of the

Pilgrims progress was mind -boggling I'd love to tell you some stories about 13th century.

I mean 18th century China and the impact it almost became the first little red book in in China, but Different course of events changed all of that But what people don't know is that he wrote?

57 other books When you read the list in Christopher Hill's index, there are 58 books books on controversy like the

Quakers and justification and baptism collections of poems books for children children's literature

Allegory like the holy war and the life and death of mr. Bad man and Practical doctrinal expositions.

Most of them are simply practical doctrinal expositions that would profit your own soul based on sermons that he had written

So he was a writer from beginning to end. He wrote four books before he went into jail so from age 25 to 27 to 32 roughly and he had five books that he wrote the year he died and Everything else was in between and he was always writing in prison and always writing at home

He was a writer through and through with no theological degrees

No formal education. He known he knew no Greek and Hebrew at all

And yet his sufferings his sufferings Permeated and Gave the aroma to all of his writings

Whitfield George, Whitfield Said this of the pilgrims progress. It smells of the prison it was written when the author was confined in Bedford Jail and Ministers never write or preach so well as when under the cross

The spirit of Christ and of glory then Rests upon them and I just ask you brothers.

Have you not tasted that? Has there not been an intensity? Has there not been a sweetness?

Has there not been a depth? Has there not been an authenticity? walking into the pulpit after the winter seasons

Whether your own or another's I Would generalize here and say that one of the main reasons that the

Puritans are still being read today is that the Fragrance of heaven and the fragrance of hell are on them because they were written in a century from 1560 to 1660 which was

Permeated by persecution and suffering and life was simply hard in the 17th century when it was good

Whereas in America and in the West today we are chipper churches chipper

TV is chipper Books are chipper We're a chipper people

Which means there's not much to be read today worth reading because the smell of hell and Heaven isn't on it

When you're walking along the precipice like the Puritans walked almost every day of their lives the precipice where there's no 9 -1 -1

You got to get your own water There's no vaccinations, there's no

OBGYN and You're always walking along the edge and the precipice of eternity there's a smell about your preaching

Which is almost missing today entirely Thank God for books where we can bathe our brains with something other than chipper theology

Bunyan's writings were an extension of his pastoral ministry to his flock

That's the way he viewed them and he lived under constant harassment and danger and that fit him

To minister well to others which leads me now to my second observation Bunyan sufferings deepened his love for his flock and Gave his pastoral labor the fragrance of eternity

It deepened his love for his flock and gave him The fragrance of eternity

Bunyan and his writings are filled with Affection for his people.

He loved his little Flock, he wrote a book called

Christian behavior in 1663 compute he's in jail three years.

He's been in jail And here's the way he closed the book writing it for his little flock

Thus have I in a few words written to you before I die he fully expected this was not going to turn out well

So you got to get the straight you don't don't overdo it and don't underdo it he wasn't tortured in jail

He could do his little handwork and help support his family and he could have visitors but don't don't underdo it either

People were being beheaded in England in those days Kings had the right to do is they please in those days.

There wasn't a lot of recourse So you never knew when the door might swing open

One of you went to England who's it? I forget who this belongs to but this this says

Bedford jail 1670 it's a peephole on the door in A cell that may have been

John Bunyan's. This is the actual thing 1670 he had two more years to serve.

So if you want to touch this, I'll leave it up here

And I think whoever it was who lent this to us just one of you for doing it but this looks authentic to me and You can look through it.

There's there's no magnification so you can see both ways on this one We get to do the other way.

I'll put this here and you can look at it But if you steal it God will judge you Now what made me think of that?

Lost my place here. He's writing this to his people Oh I said don't overstate the suffering and don't understate it because they could come visit him and it could be that they put their finger right on that and looked in but he wrote to them

I Before I die a word to provoke you to faith and holiness because I desire that you may have

The life that is laid up for all them that believe in the Lord Jesus and love one another when

I am deceased Though then I shall rest from my labors and be in paradise as through grace.

I am comfortably assured Yet it is not There but here

I must do you good And so he writes these books for his people

Halfway through his imprisonment He writes I did often say before the

Lord that if to be hanged up presently Before their eyes would be means to awake them and confirm them in the truth.

I would gladly consent to it Bunyan Gloried in the privilege of being a pastor.

He loved the ministry It flowed from his sufferings

He was jealous he was jealous for his people to prosper now loving your people is very much a product of Suffering I think in America, we don't suffer much we

We are fun -loving folk but you know You can be as fun -loving and as happy go lucky and chipper as you want

But as soon as somebody tells you you've got cancer Or as soon as you find out your child is blind you turn away from the chipper pastors

To somebody who is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief So I know there's a tremendous pressure on you in many seminars to grow churches by helping people feel chipper and good and I Think perhaps your church may grow more slowly if you're a serious person

And I don't want you to be a somber and glum person but Your people have got to know

You know What it feels like if they're gonna come tell you what it feels like There's got to be something they're detecting in you

That you've suffered Otherwise, they're gonna go to somebody else because if the pain is too great to be dealt with lightly

And when as soon as you share with somebody a marital problem or a kid problem or a health problem

You can tell within seconds if They are connecting at any deep level here

And if they're not the quickest thing you want to do is just say Excuse me.

Excuse me. I need somebody who understands and so Your suffering is so important to them.

You won't love your people as you ought Unless you suffer with Jesus He said my heart hath been so wrapped up in the glory of this excellent work that I counted myself more blessed and honored of God by this than if I had made me

Emperor of the Christian world or the Lord of all the glory of the earth

Without it. He loved being a pastor to his people in his suffering endeared him to them

Third observation Bunyan suffering opened his understanding to the truth that the

Christian life is hard and that following Jesus means having the face the wind in your face 1682

Six years before he dies. He writes a book called the greatness of the soul based on mark 836 what does it profit a man to gain the world and Forfeit his soul

For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Now Puritans were good at taking a sentence like that and writing a book about it they wrote books about sentences like that and They're not throwing away words

So he writes a book about that verse And in it

This is what he wants to get across our quote He's quoting Jesus now

Follow me is not like following some other masters the wind sits always on my face and the foaming rage of the sea of this world and the proud and lofty waves thereof do continually beat upon the sides of the bark or Boat that myself my cause and my followers are in He therefore that will not run hazards and that is afraid to venture a drowning

Let him not set foot into this vessel That's his conception of following Jesus Two years later he wrote a book on John 15 to Every branch that bears fruit my father prunes

And this was his point It is the will of God That they that go to heaven should go thither

Hardly or with difficulty the righteous shall scarcely be saved that is

They shall but yet with great Difficulty that it may be the sweeter

So his whole mindset seems out of step with 20th century

American Evangelicalism to me the essence of Christianity is is hard The essence of Christianity is you got a fight like crazy cut off hands gouge out eyes deny yourself

In order to live upon God only

Because we have I mean if it was hard in the 17th century to learn to live upon God only

Think how hard it is to get into the kingdom of heaven today It is hard for a rich man to get into the kingdom and everybody in this room is filthy rich No exceptions,

I don't care if you didn't pay your rent last month, there are no exceptions we are rich It is hard in America to go to heaven how many coats are in your closet shoes

How many running pairs of shoes Gloves for every occasion

Every manner of possible electronic device to heat your food fast slow rough edges soft edges

Plumbing is in your house sewage carried away flawlessly pure drinking water

Refrigeration 9 -1 -1 at your back and call I tell you it is hard to go to heaven in America Because who knows what you are leaning on Until it is taken away

That's why 2nd Corinthians 1 9 says I was crushed to the point of death so that I might trust the one who raises the dead in other words, everything was taken but Resurrection and that's coming brothers

So I just plead with God now get you ready He wrote and carried to the printer in his last year the excellency of a broken heart

Then a beautiful title the Excellency of a broken heart and you know where it comes from.

It's based on Psalm 51 and in it. This is his thesis Conversion is not the smooth easygoing process some men think it is

It is wounding work, of course this breaking of hearts, but without wounding there's no saving

Where there is grafting there is a cutting the sea on must be let in with a wound

To stick it on the outside or to tie it on with string

Would be of no use Heart must be set to heart back to back or there will be no sap from the root to the branch and this

I say Must be done with a wound If you wonder why there aren't more fruitless people.

I Mean why there are so many fruitless Saints seeming

Saints it may be because there was never a wound and The the vine isn't in the branch it's tied on and Pasted on with a quick booklet or Prayer or I'll walking and so there's no set

Flowing and they're trying to do what you're supposed to be doing read the

Bible praying Supposed to feel something in this worship service

There's no life And it's scary the churches are full of that kind of people all over America and some pulpits have preachers like that Bunyan was passionate for these things and he was patient with these things.

Listen this beautiful pastor patient word And listen to his language,

I wish I had time to talk about Bunyan Bunyan's Language he and Spurgeon are almost without peer in their use of language and we need to learn from the misregard

But I had to leave some things out, but you get a flavor of it here in this beautiful word 1678 a book called come and welcome to Jesus Christ It was just a he was a ruler a ruler of men

Coleridge was right the Calvinism of John Bunyan is the sweetest most beautiful most tasty religion in the world

He that comes to Christ cannot it is true always get on as fast as he would poor coming soul

Thou art like the man that would ride full gallop whose horse will hardly trot

Now the desire of his mind is not to be judged of By the slow pace of the dull jade he rides on he's talking about his body here the dull jade

He rides on but by the hitching and the kicking and the spurring as he sits on his back

Thy flesh is like this dull jade It will not gallop after Christ it will be backward though thy soul and heaven lie at stake

We need to talk like that. Let your speech be seasoned with salt that you may know how to answer every man work at your language get provocative language into your great old truth so that people either scratch their heads or scream or Twinge or something, but don't go to sleep on you and call you boring the worst damnation of a preacher

Maybe not the worst but pretty close He was a very balanced person one way to illustrate the balance in this issue is

He wrote a book in How do you put the date down doesn't matter he wrote a book in one year called saved by grace

Ephesians 2 5 was the text and the very same year he followed it with a book called the straight based on Luke 13 24

Strive to enter at the straight gate for many I tell you will seek to enter in and shall not be able

Can you point to anybody in your church that is seeking to enter the kingdom and not able?

Just wonder if our gospel is a biblical gospel When there are a few people like that around we are so scared of having people like that We want to paste assurance on them so fast because you can't have people struggling with assurance

You can't have people struggling for their soul and saying I want to be saved But I don't know grace in my life.

I have no spiritual affections. We say to people You don't need to have any of those affections and we

Get people like that fix so fast that so much of the Puritan experience.

It seems gone There's no wrestling like like these men wrestled with The way is hard Jesus said that leads to life and those who find it are few

Bunyan taught that to his people number four This is my fourth result or function of suffering in his life

Bunyan's suffering strengthened his Assurance that God is sovereign over all afflictions of his people and will bring them safely home

Now there have always been people who try to solve the problem of suffering by denying the sovereignty of God That is the all -ruling providence of God over Satan and over nature and over human hearts and deeds

But you know it is remarkable as I read church history and Biography and look around the world today.

It is remarkable to me How many of the people who cherish the full sovereignty of God?

over will and nature and Demons and bodies the fullest expression of the sovereign control of God are the people who have suffered most and thus from an academic perspective would have the hardest time rendering an account of Theoretically how you can believe in such a thing and they have found the most comfort in it

And Bunyan was among that number he wrote a book called seasonable counsels

Advice to sufferers. It was based on one verse and The verse was first Peter 419 which goes

Let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well -doing as unto a faithful creator and To watch him unpack every word in that is a thrilling thing

Let me give you a taste He said It is not he took the phrase especially according to the will of God suffer according to the will of God He said it is not what enemies will

Nor what they are resolved upon but what God will and what

God appoints that will be done No enemy can bring suffering upon a man when the will of God is otherwise

So no man can save himself out of their hands when God will deliver him up for his glory

We shall or shall not suffer even as it pleaseth him

God has appointed. I'm still reading Spurgeon. I'm just putting the collage of text together here.

God has appointed Who will suffer revelation 611 a full number of the martyrs who are appointed must come in?

God has appointed When they shall suffer X 18 9 to 10

Paul. Nobody's gonna hurt you yet John 730 it was not his hour

Therefore he passes through the midst the time will come God will deliver his son over till then nobody can touch him

God determines where this or that saint and good man shall suffer

Luke 13 33 it cannot be but that a prophet shall perish outside Jerusalem and on the

Mount of Transfiguration They discussed what kind of sufferings he would experience in Jerusalem God has appointed what kind of sufferings this or that saint shall undergo

X916 go tell Paul how great things he must suffer for my name and John 2119 he says to Peter I will show you or I have showed you by what death you would glorify

God God has determined that Peter would be crucified upside down Our sufferings as to the nature of them are all writ down in God's book

He says and though the writing may seem unknown characters to us yet.

God understands them very well It is appointed Who of them should die of hunger?

Who is to die by the sword? Who should go into captivity and who should be eaten up by beasts?

And that's almost a direct quote from Jeremiah 15 2 and 3

Now what was his aim in talking like that to these Saints Who might well suffer in that horrible way?

Let me insert a parenthesis here just to show you how I deal with this. I wrestle with this emotionally almost daily

Because I read the newspaper. I opened the newspaper up last week

Right after the earthquake first, I heard the news hundred two hundred five hundred seven hundred thousand people

God move your people move your people. Let's go show your compassion move.

I know you did it Why you did it? I don't know except at least you want this that your church would move in power and compassion there

Let's go and then I open the newspaper now

I I confess to having a little touch of claustrophobia Because when

I was about 14 I Went into the woods across the street from my house and with my friends dug cave straight down On a bank like this and then when we got down So it's over our heads.

We started in like this Just digging like this and I can remember going down in the hole lying on my stomach crawling into the hole and Scraping like this and then reaching my way back pulling the dirt out and put in a bucket and send it up Is that stupid

I have nightmares about that to this day

I'm usually awake when I have them And I opened the newspaper.

You saw the picture perhaps Here's a collapsed building and and the workers all over it and they're pulling and here's one little face of a man like this

And he's just crushed underneath and his eyes are just Terrific looking at the man

And I just trembled when I saw that picture I just trembled if I were in that position and that were on me and there were these big beams going

And at any minute you just might be severed or back on your face You know what

I think God's doing it God's doing that That's why there's a problem of suffering in the world.

It's not statistics It's not statistics. It's it's a little girl in,

Texas Falling into a 12 -inch Pipe you remember that one the whole nation watched for days and they bored a hole this way

They bore a hole this way. You're her dad and you stop and her leg is trapped up like this and she's what to And and for while she's crying and crying and crying and crying and crying

Mommy and daddy and your heart is being absolutely ripped and shreds. Oh god

If you can't believe in the sovereignty of God At a moment like that.

Just give it up and quit the ministry And I admit

I mean I can say this right now, but I admit if my little Talitha Experiences that this afternoon

I Will scream Oh God Oh God come

Deliver why not? And I will wrestle And I pray

God will help me believe Because this is what the Bible Teaches I just read this morning in my own personal devotions in Genesis 4 a lot of us are reading through the

Bible this way. I mean Exodus 4 411 who is it that makes the man blind?

Or seeing or deaf or dumb. Is it not? I the

Lord I mean you just have to quit the Bible or believe in the sovereignty of God. You can't have it both ways

I don't care what theologians at Bethel or anywhere else are saying you can't have it both ways