I am going to assume that maybe you've never read Pilgrim's Progress, so I think it would be beneficial just to start out by reading the very first couple of paragraphs and then we'll go back and then we'll explain what some of this imagery means. But first I should begin by telling you a little bit about who John Bunyan in fact was. He was born in Elstow in Bedfordshire, England. in November of 1628, and he died August 31st, 1688, so he was only 59. A celebrated English minister and preacher, author of The Pilgrim's Progress. This book came out in 1678. If you look online, there is a picture of the very first edition from 1678. And if you looked at the bottom of it, there's an inscription that says, Published for Nathaniel Ponder at the Peacock and the Poultry. Well, Nathaniel Ponder was a personal publisher of John Owen. And I did a podcast for this, for the seminary, because John Owen had attempted to get John Bunyan out of prison. And while Bunyan was working on this manuscript, he Let John Owen look at it. And Owen was pretty impressed and he was the one that had the money to originally get it published. So Nathaniel Ponder was a personal publisher of John Owen. And if it wasn't for Owen, this book probably would never have seen the light of day. But as I said, Bunyan was in prison. He was breaching at Lower Samsal, a farm village near the village of West Neneen, 13 miles from Bedford, Bedford jail, when he was warned that a warrant was out for his arrest. He decided not to make an escape. He was arrested and brought before the local magistrate, Senator Francis Wingate at Harlington House. and he was put into jail because he went against the Conventicle Act of 1593, which made it an offense to attend a religious gathering other than at the parish church, which would have been the Church of England, with more than five people outside of their family. It was punishable by three months in prison and followed by banishment or execution if the person then failed to promise not to re-offend. which Bunyan never made any such promise that he would not offend. He says, if you release me today, I'd be in the church preaching again tomorrow. The act had been little used, but John Bunyan's arrest was probably due in part to concerns that non-conformist religious meetings were being held as a cover for people plotting against the king, although this was not the case with Bunyan's meetings. That article came from a website christianheritagenews.com. Now, Pilgrim's Progress, this book that we want to look at, is called a Christian Allegory. It had two levels of significance as an allegory. On the surface, the story follows a man named Christian. as he leaves the city of destruction and journeys to a place called the Celestial City, encountering all sorts of roadblocks and fearsome creatures along the way. But on a deeper level, Pilgrim's Progress charts the journey of an average Christian person as they strive to leave behind their destructive, sinful ways and get to heaven. The story of Christian's journey is actually a dream that the book's unnamed narrator is having. In the narrator's dream, Christian is carrying a heavy burden on his back, the weight of his sins, and doesn't know how to get rid of it. So again, what is an allegory? The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters? figures or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form, American Heritage Dictionary. Two examples in those days would have been Pilgrim's Progress and Herman Melville's book, Moby Dick. So let's Let's read the first part of the book so that we know what it is we're talking about today. And I only got to evangelist addressing Christian and still had seven pages of notes here. And we'll see how far we can get. But the book starts off, as I walk through the wilderness of this world, I came upon a certain place with a din. The din, most people believe, represents a jail where he had to dream. And he said, I lay down to sleep. I fell asleep and dreamed. In my dream, I saw a man clothed with rags standing in a certain place. Everything has significance. Why was he clothed with rags? With his face turned from his own house. In other words, to have his face turned to his house would be like looking back to Sodom, but he has his face turned from his own house to Mount Zion, to the Celestial City. In his hand he held a book, the Bible, and he bore a great burden upon his back. He opened the book and as he read, he wept and trembled, unable to contain his emotions any longer. He broke out with a mournful cry, What shall I do? Now, in the midst of this dilemma, he returned home, but he restrained himself as he pondered his true feelings. He tried to keep it from his family at first. Even his wife and children were unaware of his distress, but he grew more and more troubled. Finally, his wife asked what's the matter. He could no longer stay silent. He told his wife and children that he had learned from the book and how it troubled his mind. Dear, he said to his wife, and you, my children, I love you dearly. He looked from one to another. This is in a more modern English, this version of Pilgrim's Progress. A burden lies heavily upon me. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. You see, I've learned that our city will be burned with fire from heaven. I'm afraid we are all doomed, even you, my sweet children, unless I can find some way of escape, but I haven't found any way. It's so important, and I don't think this is stressed enough when I read commentaries on Pilgrim's Progress, but I know a lot about conviction of sin prior to conversion and a revival. When somebody feels the manifest presence of God pressing it upon his conscience that you cannot understand Christian's experience and why it took so long for him to lose a burden unless you keep it in your mind that this was no ordinary conviction of sin. This was the highest level of conviction and fear and trembling. And if you don't understand that, and I fear a lot of people don't because they have never went under this kind of a conviction, and so they don't understand the directions given to Christian, it is assumed that he probably knows the very basics that the gospel is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. However, when you are under this intense of fear, just Knowing your duty and be able to act upon it in faith is nearly impossible. And God mercifully interposes later on, but He may allow an awakened sinner, and we'll define awakened, allow him to try his own strength and his own efforts to prepare himself for mercy, but he is not able. He knows possibly theoretically he's not able, but he doesn't know it experimentally. To be emptied of his self-righteousness is a purpose why God allows people some time to wallow in a slough of despond, or attempt this way and that way in outward reformation. And then finally, after some time, when they are enlightened as to their utter inability to come to Christ of themselves, then God opens the eyes of his understanding. But this is a story of the conviction of sin prior to getting in through the wicked gate. So the opening of the vision presents in bold relief the future hero of the allegory, a burden man, closed with rags. Now he's closed with rags not because he was poor, but he saw that his righteousnesses were as rags. He knew he had nothing in himself to recommend himself, and he was weeping because of threatened woe pronounced by the book that is in his hand. He dwells in the city of destruction, He reveals his sorrows and anxieties to his wife and family, but finds no sympathy there. And failing to obtain companionship on the heavenward road, he starts alone upon a spiritual journey, the wilderness of this world. The world is a wilderness to the Christian. He is not at home. Now, he's called Christian at the beginning. However, later on he says that at this time his name was Graceless, and later on he became called Christian. He is not at home, he dwells in tents, has only sandy foundations for all of his earthly things, therefore is a Christian man a pilgrim. That's from Robert Maguire's commentary on Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The Den. As I walked through the wilderness of the world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Dinn. John Bunyan was confined at different times, about 12 years, in Bedford jail for exercising his ministry contrary to the statutes then in force. This was, as most commentators say, the dinn in which he slept and dreamed. Thomas Scott's illustrative notes. The awakening. What is an awakening? What does it mean that the sinner is awakened? Well, you say, obviously, I know that, but I was actually sitting at a fellowship dinner after an evening service, and I was sharing some of my testimony to somebody that was sitting across from me, and I talked about being an awakened sinner. And she says, what does that term mean? So we'll take it for granted that we need to define it. In this plight, therefore, he went home and refrained himself as long as he could, that his wife and children should not perceive his distress, but he could not be silent long because that his trouble increased. And then he communicated his mind to his wife and children, and they thought that he had gone mad, and they hurried him off to bed, hoping that a good night's sleep might, as John Bunyan says, settle his brains. I think sometimes he says things that are really witty. borderline funny. He's really got a wit about him, an imagination about him. However, Archibald Alexander says of his wife, of his children, he's not specifically talking about them, but of those who hear of our Christian profession and they reject it, he says, quote, Full of health and spirits and sanguine in their hopes of enjoyment from this world, they put away serious reflection as a very bane of pleasure. The very name of religion is hateful to them, and all they ask of religious people is to let them alone, that they may cease their pleasures of life all within their reach. If we may judge from the appearances, this class of people all around us is very large. We find them the majority in many places a fashionable resort. The theater, the ballroom, and the very streets are full of such. They flutter gaily along and keep each other in countenance while they are strangers to all serious or grave reflection. Even in regard to the sober concerns of this life, if a Christian or pious friend ever gets the opportunity of addressing a word of serious advice to them, their politeness may prevent them from behaving rudely, but no sooner is the Christian's back turned away from them and his ears can no longer hear them than they laugh him to scorn and hate and despise him for his pains. They habituate themselves to think that religion is an awkward, unseemly thing and wonder how any person of sense can bear to attend it. Now, one thing that we'll discover as we go on, that Christian had a burden on his back, and Pilgrim's Progress, Christiana, his wife, did not. And Bunyan means to illustrate by this, that some people have very alarming, pungent convictions of sin, and some have a lot less of them, but they may have more true conviction after they are converted. So my assumption is that the burden that was on the back of Christian represents the most intense, fearful kind of awakening. But what is conviction of sin? This is so helpful. Augustus Strong, in his systematic theology, conviction of sin is an ordinary, it's ordinary, if not invariable, that which is common or the usual antecedent of regeneration. So it's usually what comes before the new birth. It results from the contemplation of truth. Christian had a book in his hand. It is often accompanied by fear, remorse, and cries for mercy. Now this is so important, but But these desires and fears are not signs that you are yet born again. They are not signs of regeneration. They are selfish. They are quite consistent with manifest and dreadful enmity to God so he could be under conviction. He could cry out for mercy. But they're selfish, there's nothing hopeful, I mean, regenerate signs in them and that the respect that they come from the proper motive. They are mercenaries, selfish motives, and they are consistent with still being a manifest and dreadful enmity to God. They do have a hopeful aspect simply because they are evidence that the Holy Spirit is striving with us all. But this work of Spirit is not yet regeneration. At most, it is preparation for regeneration. But it's so important. When we talk about preparation, we're saying that God is the one that's doing the preparation in the awakened sinner. So far as the sinner is concerned, he is more of a sinner than ever before because under more Gospel light than he has ever before been given, he is still rejecting Christ and resisting the Spirit. The Word of God and the Holy Spirit appeal to lower as well as to higher motives. Lower motives. I want to come to Christ because I'm afraid to go to hell. I'm afraid of punishment. Higher motives are those that I want to embrace Christ and pick up my cross and follow Him because I have now a desire in Him and I want to commit myself to Him and all, but that would be the effect of regeneration. Most men's concern about religion is determined at the outset by hope or fear. All these motives, though they are not the highest or yet proper motives to influence the soul, influence the soul, not convert the soul. It is right to seek God for motives of self-interest and because we desire heaven, but to seek in which not only begins but ends upon this lower plane is never successful. Until the soul gives itself to God for motives of love, it is never saved. In other words, God has to first act and change the motives of enmity against him to love for him, and then conversion as a result of that. Regeneration is the cause, conversion is the immediate effect. And so long as these preliminary selfish motives rule, regeneration has not yet taken place. So, Jonathan Edwards, if you were to take Jonathan Edwards' work, Narrative of Many Surprising Conversions, and take part of that and then take part of what Christian is going through in his awakening. Jonathan Edwards describing the awakening of the people during this first great awakening, 1734-1735 in Northampton is an excellent commentary on what Christian was going through, even though that wasn't the purpose of Edwards. He's just describing as a young pastor, 30 or 31 years old, as he's witnessing these people who have become awakened. Awakened means like the Philippian jailer. What must I do to be saved? He was asleep before, spiritually speaking. Now he is awoke. He is alert. Now he is alarmed. He is awakened. Persons are first awakened with a sense of their miserable condition by nature, says Jonathan Edwards. The danger they are in of perishing eternally, and that it is of great importance to them that they speedily escape and get into a better state. Those who before were secure and senseless are now made sensible how much they were in the way to ruin in their former courses. Some are more suddenly seized with convictions. It may be by the news of another person being converted. or something that they hear in public or in private. A conference, their consciences are smitten as if their hearts were pierced through with a dart. Others are awakened more gradually. They begin at first to be something more thoughtful and considerate, so as to come to a conclusion in their minds that it is their best and wisest way to delay no longer, but to improve the present opportunity. Now returning to the book, He saw as he was walking in the fields and reading the book and greatly distressed in his mind, but he didn't know what to do. It says he looked this way, and then he looked that way, and he would run. He would run towards whatever he's supposed to run towards, but he didn't even know what way that was, so he stood still. He's awakened. He's standing still. He doesn't know what way to turn and God and His mercy who's leading him and preparing him. God is doing this. He can't prepare himself. And His mercy brings someone into his life to give him more light. I looked in and I saw a man named Evangelist coming to him and asked, Why are you crying? So this awakening doesn't itself prepare you for regeneration. It is a means to the end of it. But unless God uses those means and improves them and gives spiritual saving understanding and light they cannot convert a person. So in this way they are called means and there are means that can be used when people are under awakening. And I know this is so foreign in our day if we say I'm awakened. And fact of the matter is, if I want to come to Christ right now, it's only because I don't want to go to hell. And somebody says, well, that's your fault. It's a moral problem. I grant all of that. But still, because of my moral inability, because I'm at enmity against Christ, I cannot come to him. What can I do? Is it wrong I am asking to give him any directions that in the use of these means, God commonly, he cannot himself prepare himself for conversion, but God commonly uses the means that he employs to the end of his regeneration. And what would those be? He can pray, he can read his Bible, He could come hear good sermons. He could get spiritual counsel. These aren't regeneration itself. It are the things that he uses under his conviction, which are the normal means that God employs to lead him to his son, because it empties him of his self-righteousness. Our confession in the Westminster Confession, it says in chapter 9, paragraph 3, a natural man is not able to convert himself or prepare himself thereto. He cannot prepare himself, but in the use of these means, God enlightens to him to understand in a new way that he must save and he alone. William Shedd says, a man loses physical life in an instant, but he has some time in coming to this instant. So man gains spiritual life in an instant, though he may have had days and months of before going to experience a conviction and sense of his spiritual death. This is the ordinary divine method. We don't hear a lot in this day about an extended time of conviction, what the Puritans called the law work, the moral law, convicting a person of his utter inability to come to Christ and his utter inability to obey God, who he hates, in any way, shape, or form. This is ordinary. It is not the only way, but it appeared to be a lot more common in a bygone day that you would hear these stories of sometimes somebody could be under conviction for days or weeks. In the case of Asahel Nettleton, it was 10 months. In the case of Charles Spurgeon, if you read his autobiography for him, the awakening was a total of five years. For John Owen, it was five years. That's not ordinary either. That's prolongated, but God has not limited himself to how long a person may be under this conviction because everything he's doing while he is under this conviction is selfish anyway. It doesn't merit God's mercy, but it does empty him of his own self-righteousness. Archibald Alexander, in explaining this, says this is a person who's under conviction. When the entrance of gospel light is gradual, the first effect of an awakened conscience is to attempt to rectify what now appears to have been wrong in the conduct. So he begins an outward reformation. It is very common for the conscience under this awakening he's talking about, under this conviction, under this alarm, to be first affected with the outward acts of his sinful transgression. and especially with some prominent offense. So an external reformation has now begun, for this can be affected by mere legal conviction. Legal conviction means that he is being convicted that he is worthy of condemnation. True spiritual conviction comes after you are born again. and it has an element of hope in it. This initial conviction prior to conversion doesn't yet have hope in it. Hope can only come when the eyes of the understanding are enlightened to perceive the gospel. To this is added an attention to the external duties of religion, such as prayer, reading the Bible, hearing the Word, and so on. Everything, however, is done with a legal, selfish, mercenary spirit. I'm using these synonyms to really drive this point home. And if your conversion wasn't this way or this prolonged, it doesn't matter. I'm just saying that in a bygone day, they said that this was very common. If he hears that certain things are prescribed to him that he should do, he will readily submit to them, if by this means make some atonement for his sins. He's trying to do these things to atone for his own sins. He's not yet looking from his selfish endeavors to Christ. But as the gospel light increases, he begins to see that his heart is wicked, and to be convinced that even his very prayers for mercy are polluted for lack of the proper motives and affections. He, of course, tries to regulate the thoughts and to exercise right affections, but here his efforts prove fruitless. It is much easier to reform the life than to bring the corrupt heart into a right state. Jonathan Edwards says this is a convicted man. He's got a huge burden on his back, a great burden on his back. This is no light. legal conviction, this is a great conviction that Christians felt with a burden on his back. And Edwards says, there is a great variety as to the degree of fear and trouble that persons are exercised with before they attain any comfortable evidences of pardon and acceptance with God. Some are from the beginning carried on with abundantly more encouragement and hope than others. God doesn't take them into the waters quite so deep. Some have had ten times less trouble of mind than others, in whom yet the issue seems to be the same. They both show evidence that they are converted after this. Some have had Such a sense of the displeasure of God upon them and the great danger they were in of damnation that they could not sleep at nights. And many have said that when they have laid down the thoughts of sleeping in such a condition outside of Christ and awakened and alarmed. have been frightful to them. They have scarcely been free from terror while asleep, and they have awakened with fear, heaviness, and distress, still abiding on their spirit." So, to cap what is being said here, what is a sinner's duty in respect to regeneration? It is only in the prior work of conviction of sin. He cannot help in the act of regeneration itself. The Holy Spirit does not ordinarily regenerate a man until he is a convicted man. Until in the use of the means of conviction under common grace, he has become conscious of his need of regenerating grace. He had some idea of it before. He had some theory that he needed to be born again before, not knowing really what it means experimentally. But he doesn't know that the extent of the truth that God must save and God alone. So a person inquires, well, how am I to obtain a new birth? I'm under this awakening. I'm alarmed. I have this burden on my back. It is unbearable. What particular thing can I do respecting it? Well, the first is find out that you need it. Secondly, in that your self-enslaved will cannot originate it. And when you have found this out, cry to God the Holy Spirit, create in me a clean heart and renew within me a right spirit. So now, that's the foundation, that's conviction of sin. So he meets Evangelist. An evangelist is going to give him more light. Now I saw upon a time when he was walking in the fields that he was as he was reading in his book, reading the Bible still, looking for more light, greatly distressed in his mind. And as he read, he burst out as he had done before, crying, what shall I do to be saved? I saw also that he looked this way and that way as if he would run, but he stood still. Because, as he perceived he could not tell which way to go, I looked then and saw a man named Evangelist coming to him and asked him, Why are you crying? So, the conversation between Pilgrim and Evangelist. When sinners begin to seek salvation, Jonathan Edwards says, they are commonly profoundly ignorant of themselves. they're not sensible how blind they are or how they cannot bring themselves to put gracious exercises in their own souls. And so now he is being convinced of that. Now, this is what's interesting. Well, what does Evangelist say? He doesn't say, repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. That assumption is laid down. He knows this is his duty, but if he's honest under this kind of conviction and fear and terror, he will say, but I can't. I do desire Christ because I don't want to be damned, but the fact of the matter is I have no desire to follow him. All of my desire for him is just to escape hell. So Evangelist gives him a parchment. He gives him a role that says, flee from the wrath to come." What was the motive of Evangelist? Instead of giving him comfort, he gives him a parchment that says, flee from the wrath to come. He seems to be turning up the screws a little bit. Giving him more light actually brings him more under conviction. What is going on? The able minister of Christ will deem it necessary to enforce a warning, flee from the wrath to come, even upon those who are alarmed about their souls, because this is a proper way of exciting them to diligence and decision, and of preserving them from procrastination. They therefore who would persuade such persons that their fears are groundless, their guilt far less than they suppose, and their danger imaginary, must use the most effectual means would be the most effectual means of soothing them into a fatal security if they don't see their danger, if they think that their guilt is far less than they suppose, or if they fear that these fears are groundless. Nor can any discoveries of heinous guilt or helpless ruin in themselves produce despondency, provided the salvation of the gospel be fully exhibited and proposed to them. There's only one more paragraph, and I'm sure this has generated some questions, and that's why we have to have a good discussion time. Jonathan Edwards says, thoughts on the present revival, and he's writing to defend the Great Awakening as, in fact, a Great Awakening, but the pastors were being blamed, and he believes injuriously blamed. And this is what they're being blamed for, these pastors counseling these awakened sinners during the Great Awakening. Another thing that some ministers have been greatly blamed for, and I think unjustly, is speaking terror to them who are already under great terrors instead of comforting them. Indeed, he says, If ministers in such a case go about to terrify persons with that which is not true, or to frighten them by representing their case worse than it is, or in any respect otherwise than it is, they are to be condemned. However, If they terrify them only by still holding forth more gospel light to them, and giving them to understand more of the truth of their case, they are altogether to be justified. When consciences are greatly awakened by the Spirit of God, it is but light imparted. enabling men to see their case in some measure as it is. They're no longer deceiving themselves. They're no longer sleeping. They're no longer senseless. They're no longer obdurate, to use the old word. So if more gospel light be let into their minds, it will terrify them still more. But ministers are not therefore to be blamed that they endeavor to hold forth more light to the conscience and do not rather alleviate the pain they are under by intercepting and obstructing the light that shines already. This is so foreign to modern thinking. I mean, I am afraid sometimes that when we are counseling people who are under this kind of fear, we want to tell them something to alleviate the fears as fast as we can, and God is seeking to probe the self-righteous wound to the core and drive them out of their self-dependence so that they can see that their hope is in Christ alone. And Edward saw this, and Thomas Scott saw this, and Scott died. in the 1800s. So they, for three, four hundred years, understood that there is a purpose for this conviction, and that this conviction comes from gospel light, even if at first the person isn't comforted by it, provided it causes him to look away from his self to Christ. And sometimes I fear, even in some of our circles, that our counsel isn't a lot different than an altar call. They're under conviction. They're afraid of going to hell. They're alarmed. They're no longer asleep. And we're just that far from saying, if you will pray this prayer, you can be saved. Not realizing that God in His time must enlighten the eyes of the understanding. They understood this in a bygone day. This is what Christian is trying to communicate in Pilgrim's Progress is sometimes people, and we'll see this in the next one or two lessons, when he goes through the Slough of Despond, when he takes the wrong way and tries to go to Christ through Mount Sinai. These are things that God is using to empty him. and show him his help is not in those things. His help is in the Lord and he will be emptied of his tendency to look to himself to be saved and see in a new way that God must save and God alone. To say anything to those who have never believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, Jonathan Edwards, to represent their case any otherwise in exceeding terrible is not to preach the Word of God to them. For the Word of God reveals nothing but truth, but this would be to delude them. Why should we be afraid to let persons who are in an infinitely miserable condition know the truth? or bring them into the light. For fear it should terrify them. It is light that must convert them, if ever they are converted." The more we bring sinners into the light while they are miserable, and the light is terrible to them, the more likely it is that Afterward, afterward the light will be joyful to them, to ease peace and comfort, which natural men enjoy have their foundation in darkness and blindness, their tendency to be asleep, to be obdurate, to be hardened of heart, to put away this fact that I am on the road to hell, and that if I died in my present condition, I would go to hell, that false Comfort has to be torn away from them, and it can only be done by the conviction of the law, by gospel light. So Edwards is saying that ease, peace, and comfort, which natural men enjoy, have their foundation in darkness and blindness by nature. We are blind to how bad we are in our desperate need of a Savior. therefore is that darkness vanishes and light comes in, their peace vanishes, and they are terrified. But that is no good argument why we should endeavor to withhold the light and keep them in the darkness, that we could uphold their comfort, because it is a false comfort until God shows them your help is in me. You're looking for it in yourself. And we don't want to be the ones that give them comfort. We want God to give them comfort. God must give them the spirit of adoption. God must open the eyes of their understanding that they see in a spiritual way that it is Christ and Christ alone is their help. And if God allows them to go through some struggling and in the use of the means that they do not at first find effectual, and they don't find that they are as converted as fast as they should be, as they suppose. Or another thing that irritates them, well you say Billy and you say Sue, but you don't seem to give me any comfort. God manifests his mercy... His mercy and sovereignty in this, that it is in His time, and all of our striving is selfish anyway. The striving of the wicked is sin. Even His prayers are an abomination to God. This is the irony, though. And the use of these means, even though they're from a mercenary motive, a selfish motive, and the use of these means, God enlightens them to see what in fact they are, so that they will forsake any attempt to appease His wrath, atone for their sins, prepare themselves for mercy, and then they see in a new way. God is the author of salvation, not themselves, and sometimes it pleases those that God will use greatly afterward to see much more of the innate self-righteousness and mercenary motives prior to their conversion. Because people that don't understand these things, I'm telling you, David, I know from 40 years now of studying these things, people who don't know anything about some time of conviction of sin prior to conversion are useless when they try to counsel somebody that's under the type of awakening the Christian with his burden was under. I know this from experience, brother. That thing's running to you. Want to share anything, Michael? One question, so can you tell me again when, rather than comforting these people who are struggling. What did you say it was? Okay, the remedy always has to be given right up front. You cannot tell them anything other than what the gospel is. The counsel is for people that say, I know what the gospel is. I have no heart to believe it. Tell me, what is it again that they would do in order to keep those or to drive those people out of their self-righteousness? Well, typically, all you really have to do is say, I cannot convert you. I cannot tell you how God will convert you. I can tell you this, that God has given means even for awakened, unregenerate people to use, that ordinarily in the use of those means, you will be converted, because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. We never use any of this counsel as a substitute for very first thing, telling them, if you were to be saved, Christ must save you. The gospel is a substitutionary curse bearing. You lay that foundation. The counsel is for him when he says, okay, I know that's the gospel, but the fact is, I am at enmity against the gospel. What can I do? Is it wrong at that point to tell him, well, there are things that God allows in the ordinary way of coming to Christ? One, you can read your Bible. You don't have a physical inability, you have a moral inability. It's not that physically your eyes aren't working, your ears aren't working. You can do these things Even though they are from the wrong motives, they are the ordinary means that God employs to more convince a sinner, and in the hearing of the Word, God can enlighten the understanding. There was no guarantee that if Nineveh and Jonah chapter 3 repented and turned from their ways, that judgment wasn't going to come. That promise was never given to them. All it said was, for in 40 days Nineveh shall be overthrown. But what did they say? Well, who knows? Is it possible that if I forsake my evil ways and turn from them that God might, and if he does, it's only because he delights in show mercy, but he is sovereign. But it is possible if I forsake this and use these means that God may do for me what I cannot do for myself. I am telling you, people do not like that because they say you are pushing him into a path of self-righteous efforts. And we say in the use of those means, he will be broken off of his self-righteous efforts because he will be convinced that everything I have done has not quickened me. And in a new way, he will understand that God must save and God alone. How long that is is totally up to God. But there have been people that have used these means for a while and given up and gone back to the world and said, what's the use? And they have perished. The use of the means guarantees nothing except that ordinarily in the use of the means that God has given us, You come to church, you hear good sermons, you read the Bible, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. You cry out to God for mercy, create in me a clean heart, O God, renew a right spirit within me that ordinarily in the use of means, this is why I talk about means to an end, not cause and effect. It is not because you have used these means, now God is obligated to save you. No, He isn't. because everything that you've done during that whole time under conviction is sin, because it was never done with the right motive. However, these are the means that God has given us, and the use of these means ordinarily, God uses those to empty us of our own self-righteousness and open our eyes to understand what it means to come to Christ. I know that Christ must save me. I do not know how to come to Him. It's interesting. David Brainerd went through this. If you read his biography, he was under this awakening and someone gave him a book called A Guide to Christ by Solomon Stoddard, the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards. And it says in that biography that though he told me the means to employ, it did not tell me how to come to Christ. Well, it can't. Coming to Christ is a merciful act of God the Holy Spirit drawing you John 6.44, no man can come to me except a father which has sent me. Draw him. And John 6.45, when the eyes are opened, it says they shall all be taught of God. That teaching, that effectual calling is of God. But if God does not draw, they will not come. And Brainerd said his heart rose against the author of that book, Will Sullivan's daughter, had already died. He died in 1727, but by reading his book, he was angry at the author because he says, well, these are the things that I can do, but he doesn't tell me how I can come to Christ because he could not tell you how to come to Christ. Only God can enlighten the eyes of the understanding to know how to come to Christ. David? A couple things on that. I'll go to that one then. when you're dealing with the person who is saying, yeah, I understand the means. Yes, I understand the gospel. Not only that, I have an affection to it. In other words, saying, I see these affections towards Christ. I see these things. I want them. But people say things like, take God at his word, take God at his promise, but they can't see themselves benefactors of that promise. even though they want to, not only, but they're not wanting to in a sense of, oh, I want to because of self-preservation. I want to because I desire to serve Jesus Christ as well, but I'm not still struggling to see myself as a sacrifice. Well, when people say, take God at his word, that's important if it's understood in his proper place. They're really giving you a syllogism, and that is major premise If you come to Christ, you shall be saved. Minor premise, I'm taking God at his word, so I'm coming to Christ. Conclusion, you are saved. But, but… It seems they're jumping in the first part of that syllogism. What? It seems that they're jumping over the first part of that, or maybe the second part of that syllogism, and only taking the first part. Well the syllogism it's the syllogism. Jesus Christ promised it and none of the well I believe it none of the subjectively seeing I have come I've done this just Jesus promised it and that should be. Yeah like what you're saying is why you know some you can't just come up to some random guy in the street and say Jesus died for sinners here and therefore you should take. Yeah I believe that well. It seems to me that's the way people present the promises Well, you know from your own experience because I said that is true and you keep that in the back of your mind however a syllogism when you are an introspective person is not going to give him the assurance he is looking for he needs a witness within himself and Sometimes it may take him some time to get that so we're talking about levels of assurance here He says yeah, I do I do honestly I desire Well, that would be a minimum of proof that you are not just an awakened sinner under conviction, but that there has been a work that has been done in you. However, you are not enjoying the assurance of that. You want to know what it is to feel the love of God shed abroad in your heart, the peace of God that passes understanding. Right there, that would tie right into my second question, which is, and I wrote it down. We see, let me see. Christian had a burden before Wicked Gate. and after Wicked Gate, after Wicked Gate until the cross. And we also see that he picks up fears again at the Valley of the Shadow of Death, down in Castle, and even at the River of Death. The question is, how can we distinguish between awakening fears prior to conversion and similar fears and burdens which follows conversion? The just-prior-to-conversion conviction usually is not accompanied with any gospel hope. It consists almost totally in unbelief and despair. Because Christian went through the Kessel of Giant Despair, and then he realized that he had a picklock to open up the prison, but he wasn't making himself a Christian at that point. He had the very foundation that he could look back on and say, I've already entered the Wicca gate, I've been through the house of the interpreter, there were promises given to me, there was gospel armor given to me. I can look back and receive some hope from that, that he that has begun a good work in me will perform it until the day of Christ Jesus. A person under conviction cannot look back to that because he's never had that. He's never had that foundation, so he can't derive any hope from it. He wants the initial act. The Christian who has lost his scroll going uphill difficulty, the scroll is his assurance. It didn't mean that he's not a Christian going up the hill. He's not enjoying the joy of his salvation. David said in Psalm 51, door unto me the joy of my salvation." He's not saying, Lord, I want salvation. I've lost my peace and joy because of what I did to Bathsheba and Uriah. You are appearing to me like I am not a son but a slave, which is interesting because just this morning I was narrating a book called The Child of Light Walking in Darkness, and that whole book is written to people that are in that kind of darkness, but yet they are children. So it's a manner of degree. A person under conviction prior to coming to Christ doesn't have any degree of it because he has never had it. A Christian who is doubting that salvation has a very low degree of it, and he needs that degree to be made stronger. Strengthen me with might by your Spirit in the inner man. Lord, make me to hear joy and gladness, Isaiah 51 verse 8, that the bones that you have broken may rejoice. He felt like his bones had been broken. I just narrated a sermon by Charles Virgin on that called Broken Bones. But he initially did have it. He's lost the enjoyment of it. You can be a Christian and lack the enjoyment of being a Christian. A person under conviction can never look back and say, became a Christian some time ago and God has manifested his kindness and mercy to me, I can at least recall those benefits. A person under conviction coming to Christ for the first time cannot look upon that because all he's ever known as he looks back is that he was under God's wrath. So we're talking about, and these are really important questions because when I was introducing that I was going to be teaching this class, one of the questions that there was a lot of People disagreeing with me is that Christian did not lose a burden on his back until he got a full sight of the gospel by faith and the burden rolled off his back and went into the sepulcher. However, all the time during the House of the Interpreter, he still has a burden on the back, but he is a Christian. He became a Christian when he got through the Wicked Gate. What were the uses of showing him the visions in the House of the Interpreter if he was still in her awakening? He had no spiritual enlightenment to understand them, but he did not know the joy of being saved until... See, and Puritans really believe this. In our own confession, in the 1699 Confession on Assurance, paragraph 3 says, Assurance not being of the essence of faith, Faith and assurance are not the same thing. A Christian may wait some time and struggle some time before he has that full assurance. And very few people in this life, even the Christians, have that assurance so full that they never know a time of doubting. But if they're continually in doubting, and it could be temperamental, we want to do everything that we can so that they don't stay there and that they have the full assurance of it. The words of one of Edward's biographers says, the highest assurance of the reality of their faith. But some people are so given to scrupulosity and an over... excessive self-examination and introspection that they overshoot their mark, and instead of undergirding the fact that they are Christians, they seem to erode it through these scrupulosities that they have, the introspection that they have. Now, the question you have, of course, is getting on into things that we really need to discuss in the thing, and David, I have to record these things because people aren't going to just come here. They think, ah, I'm a Christian, I have all that. It's kind of disappointing because there's so much of the Christian life that we need light on. Pilgrim's Progress, I think, to me, I've always said this, is a skeleton that I can hang all of this doctrine of Christian experience on. It probably would not be the first book that I would do it with. I'm not prone to really read allegories and be helped a lot from them, except that the allegorical emblems and symbols and pictures are such excellent things, so there's something that I've read in the past. I could put meat and bones on the skeleton or the foundation that he has laid down in Pilgrim's Progress. Christian went into the Castle of Giant Despair. Let's look into history about people who went through that. Let's look at their case, which I did the last time I taught this. And by reading actual case samples of people in the Castle of Giant Despair, It really helps us. Michael said this in one of our studies of the mortification of sin. It really helps to hear somebody else's biographical detail that they went through this himself.