We're studying the book Pilgrim's Progress and we're going to go into, well we're going to finish chapter three and then go into chapter four this morning. So I've been really enjoying this book. I first read it When I became a believer in 1972, it was within that year, that first year I read it, but I don't remember hardly anything about it from then. And going over it again, it has just been wonderful because what I have found, reading this book again, it's like it presses home, the whole, the big picture is it presses home to me this sense of the shortness and the gravity of our journey as pilgrims. By the way, you know what pilgrim means? The definition of pilgrim is a traveler in a foreign land. And when I first thought of Pilgrim's Progress, I thought, oh, that's about the guys, Bradford and that bunch that came over on Mayflower, those, you know, Pilgrim's Progress, before I dug into the book. But a pilgrim is one who is an alien in a foreign land, and that's really what we are as believers in Christ. It just presses home that this is not our destination, and we're like a fish out of water on this life. And so it's been great to revisit it because you just get this sense of how short life is. And reflecting back, reading it this time, You know, I think back in my life of when I was 17 and I read it, I hadn't had many slews of despond. I hadn't had, well, I certainly had some, but tasting the, you know, the, all these metaphoric images, you know, I didn't have those experiences. So now I both look back in current and forward with it. So what we're gonna do this morning, I'm gonna go through the, the end of Chapter 3, finish that book, and then go into Chapter 4. But I want to reserve some time, unlike previous Sundays, where I give you the chance to share maybe how this book has impacted you so far or any questions or comments you have on this or previous chapters. So I'm going to make sure to reserve a little time and do that this morning. And lest I forget to tell you then, when we do that, we'll want to take the mic around and speak up so everybody can hear you. You know, just knowing that this is recorded, we want to, you know, I wonder how many people listen to this. I can just imagine somebody Googling Pilgrim's Progress and our, you know, website coming up with somebody traveling from Chicago to Minneapolis or something, and they wanted to hear some commentary on Pilgrim's Progress on the trip. And if they're like me, when I do that, I don't want to hear mumbo-jumbo for the first three minutes, kind of like I'm going on now, you know, not the subject. I want to get right to it. So, being conscious this is being recorded, we want to, for the sake of any that might be listening, make that good for them as well. Well, let's go to the Lord in prayer before we dig into the book here. Our Father in heaven, We are here because you have brought us together. We are your people. And you are the common denominator, as it were, of why we are here. You bring people of different socioeconomic backgrounds, young, old, rich or poor. black white all the all the things that don't matter in the kingdom of God in that we are brothers and sisters and called by you Lord as we gather together this this hour and the next I pray that you would come in your spirit and your power to transform our hearts and minds, to orient us away from the things of the world and the affections of our heart that so entangle us. Help us now to focus on your word, your kingdom, and all this to your glory, we pray in Christ's name, amen. So, You know, just to give a little context, Pilgrim, or Christian, had fallen asleep, in a bad sleep. In his journey, he had a time of refreshing, and he took that a little too far, and we're coming off the the heels of where he is bemoaning, oh, that I had not slept. And he had left the role, which is the scriptures, behind and had to go back and recover it and was trying to recover lost time and feeling bad about that. So that's where we bring ourselves on page 58 of chapter three today. And So Pilgrim is heading out again, and you'll see at the top of 58, he says, difficulty is behind, fear is before. Though he's got on the hill, the lions roar. A Christian man is never long at ease. When one fright's gone, another does him seize. So, indicative of our life in Christ has often one trial after another. He's experiencing that. Down at, he's talking to the porter. The porter is the one at the gate who is all about letting people in at missions. And he, in this conversation, he says, my name is, he asked him, what's your name? And Christian says, my name is now Christian, but my name at first was graceless. I came of the race of Japheth, whom God will persuade to dwell in the tents of Shem. An obvious reference there to Genesis 9, where he said, may God enlarge the Japheth and let him dwell in the land of Shem. As you recall, that's where after Noah, after they all got off the ark, Shem and Japheth were the ones that covered their father's nakedness, whereas Ham didn't. So how is it that you come so late? The sun is set. And he looked down sadly, and he says, I would have been here earlier, but I fell into sleep. And wretched man that I am, I slept in the arbor. Except for that, I would have been here much sooner. So on page 59, you'll see where the porter rang a bell and grave and beautiful damsel named discretion came out and asked why she was called he's He's there and he says I'm journeying from the city of destruction to Mount Zion and it's weary so this damsel is going to help Christian and He he also calls out for top of page 60, prudence, piety, and charity, and have a conversation with him and led them into the family. So this is obviously a time of great strengthening for Pilgrim where he's getting his battery charged. I mean, who wouldn't want to have talks with prudence, piety, and charity with friends like that to regale his journey And so he has this conversation with them. Come, good Christian, on page 60, come, good Christian, since we have been so loving to you to bring you into our house this night, let us talk with you the things that have happened to you in your pilgrimage. With a very good will, I am glad that you are so well disposed, he replied. And they asked, what moved you at first to take yourself a pilgrim's life? These three are encouraging Pilgrim to, and it's good for us, to reflect back from whence we have come. And that is what they're encouraging him to do in conversation. And he goes on to say, I was driven out of my native country, the land of city of destruction, by a dreadful sound in my ears, and that unavoidable destruction was coming for me if I stayed there. In other words, the reality of heaven and hell. heaven to gain and a hell to lose and he saw that God had opened his eyes. When I read that I am reminded of my own awakening and I'm so thankful for my mother who even though I never really heard the gospel in the church I was attended as a boy but What awakened me to the city of destruction is that in my early years, probably in age four or five, I can remember her catechizing me with the catechism. And what struck me, even then I can remember that it was the fact that Satan was capitalized and that there was the word Satan, just the mention of the catechism of Satan, just to where, oh, there is a spiritual realm that is beyond what we cannot see. And that simple act of her, I probably thought it was boring at the time. I'm sure it was just perfunctory that we went through it. But it just gave me the sense that there is a spiritual realm and it never left me. And I think that was, God used that instrumentally to later bring me. So thinking back of, Here Christian is telling why he came from the city of destruction and how he saw it to be a city of destruction. the God of this world, Satan, is alive and well and we need heed the danger. So, so often God uses the influence of others, friends, and so here Christian is being influenced by these others. So how, at the top of page 61, how did you come out of your country this way? And of course we know it was because of evangelists. I would almost, I'm tempted to get a show of hands, how many people in here came to become a believer because of the influence of another person? A good many of you. I certainly did. And for me, it was a buddy of mine who, one hot August night, I had just learned that Jimi Hendrix had died, and I was a big Hendrix fan, and I was thinking, wow, where's Hendrix now? You know, again, thinking what happens after death. I'm really sensitive to the things of eternity at the time. And he had whipped me in basketball that night, as I recall. And he basically, usually I beat him, but that night he whipped me. It was just, so I was in a humble state. Anyway, after that, we go inside, we have a Coke and sit till three in the morning. He shared the scriptures with me one after the other. And I kind of played coy and cool. I listened, but I didn't really care. Something happened. When he left at three in the morning, I fell on my knees and said, God, if this is real, come into my heart. Make me a new creature, as he said. I want to be yours. And that night, God quickened my spirit, and I became a believer. I went to bed, woke up the next day, and I just had to tell my best friend. My best friend, Eddie, and I shared everything together. He was my chess buddy. He was my basketball buddy. He taught me how to play guitar. He was just everything that if something new came along that I liked, I shared with him, vice versa. We were just like that. So in those days, I didn't have wheels, so I walked three miles to Eddie's house, and I gave him the same scriptures that Bernard, my friend that beat me in basketball, shared the scriptures with me. I told him the same scriptures, all that I recall, and I just knew he was gonna also accept Christ. He didn't, and I walked home despondent, thinking, oh my gosh, I was surprised that he didn't, and grieved, of course, But Evangelist was the one that led Christian and thank God for those people who share the word of God and arouse us to understand the gravity of real reality. And that's what Evangelist did for him. So he's recounting that and then he says, did you come to the house of the interpreter? And yes, specifically three things, how Christ, despite of Satan, maintains his work of grace in the heart. And he shares that dream, it made my heart ache. And I love this line where Christian says, he showed me a stately palace, basically, you know, as the longing we all have for Eden, to get back to Eden, to where things are right. And Evangelist shared that with Christian. He's explaining to him, and then I love this line, those things ravished my heart. You can probably remember when, if you have had an encounter with a living God, when at that moment that the story of redemption ravished your heart. It reminds me of the the road to Emmaus when those guys were despondent after the resurrection. They're walking and what did they say after Jesus said, you know, he takes his Bible and says, look, it's all right here. It's all about me. How slow of heart to believe all the things that the law and the prophets said that had to come to pass. And basically he explains Incognito, they don't know who he is, he didn't reveal himself. I love that story because it's Christ, the living God, and they didn't recognize, God closed their eyes for whatever reason. And he said, didn't our hearts, afterwards, they were talking to each other before they knew it was Jesus, didn't our hearts burn within us? That's what I think Christians, those things ravish my heart. The good news of what Christ has done to save sinners like me. So it's good for us to reflect on how God has delivered us in the past, and Christian is rehearsing that. Then on page 62, Christian saw, Christian exclaims, why I went a bit further and I saw one hang bleeding upon the tree and the very sight of him made my burden fall off my back. For I groaned under a heavy burden. It was a strange thing to me for I'd never seen such a thing before. So, That burden back, I think, there are several ways we can look at this. I'm hesitant, I'm telling a lot about my own experience, but I know many of you can probably relate. The time that you first saw that it was Christ who did it all, for me that burden lifted when I realized I did not have to perform anymore. And for the early years of my Christian life, it was I've got to prove myself to God by being holy, which of course was a losing proposition, and try harder. And it was you know, a couple of years into my walk, it was more than a couple, it was probably 10 years later that that burden came off my back, and how liberating it is for us when we realize that our salvation is totally a work of God and it's not any of our doing. And that was, it's the, what I like remind myself of when I think of the gospel, you know, we all should have a way of explaining the gospel. We should have a five-minute version, a three-hour version, but even an elevator speech kind of version, 30-second version, because it's so important we get that right. What is the gospel? Well, I like to frame it like here when the burden fell off its back. I think Christians saw for the first time that the imputation of Christ's righteousness to himself, that great exchange where he gave God his sinfulness, or we give God our sinfulness and he gives us his righteousness. So, you know, impute is an accounting term where, you know, you have credit. So that moment in time when we see that Our righteousness, which is not righteousness, is given to us strictly by Christ. We give him our sin, he gives us his righteousness. And of course, I said there are three imputations. The first one, of course, is we have been imputed the sin of Adam, we are all infected, corrupted to the core radically in our soul and spirit by the original sin that we inherit from our father Adam. So Adam's sin is imputed to us. And then when we become believers, Christ imputes to us his righteousness. So when we say, you know, we're justified, we, you know, the old, it's corny and it's cheesy, but the old, just as if I'd never sinned, we suddenly have a clean slate. All of our sins are forgiven. And that's, of course, what the heart of the gospel is that when Christ as our substitutionary penal substitutions on the cross, he died for our sins. But that's just half the gospel. The other half. is it's just as if I'd always lived a perfect life. And that's certainly not true of us, but it's in the eyes of God it's true, and that's where I think Christian, when he saw the burden come off his back, he realized in the sight of God, I am perfect because I am wearing, as it were, the righteousness of Christ. It's just as if I'd never sinned. That's the second half of the gospel that I think takes the burden off the back. I had a pastor once who often would say, Marshall, the Christian life is more like laying in an inner tube down the river than it is taking buckets of water to the river. And he would say that often, and what he was trying to convey was, stop trying to earn your salvation. acknowledge that Christ has done it all and rest in that. Take that Sabbath rest. So burden here, I mean, pilgrim here, Christian here, has that burden removed. He's telling of how that happened, where he gave me this embroidered coat, which you see, that Christ's righteousness It is an alien righteousness. He had nothing to do with it. It's not his righteousness. It's the righteousness of another. So Piety asked, did you see more than this? Did you not? And then he says, the things I told you were the best of what I saw. And so I saw three men, simple sloth and presumption, lying asleep a little way along the way after I left. We all have friends probably that we see and it grieves us that aren't walking with the Lord. Also saw formalists and hypocrisy come tumbling over the wall, pretending to go to Zion. And of course, he was grieved by this, that as we talked about last week, there's only one way. The exclusivity of the gospel is real. So Prudence comes along and asks him some more questions. Did you ever think of the country you came from? His native country, the city of destruction? Well, yes, but with shame and detestation. He detested where he came from in that life. But now I desire a better country, one, a heavenly one. Obviously, it's referenced Hebrews 11, 15 through 16 there. And I love this, he asked Christian, did you keep anything that you had with you there? She asked, yes, but against my will, especially my inward and carnal desires. By now, all those things are grief to me. If I could choose, I would never think of those things again. So, you know, at Romans 5, 1, it says, but now we have peace with God. The war is over. You know, before we were believers, we're an entity. God's our enemy, and we live our lives in opposition to God. We're his enemy. until we are regenerated by Christ, there's a war going on with us and God. And then Romans 5 says, but now we have peace with God. And yet, that is the very peace that starts a new war. Another war has only begun. Of course, that war is going to be the war with sin. Whereas before, we don't care about it, right? Before we're believers, sin shouldn't, well, I say shouldn't, it should bother us, but it doesn't. But now there's this new war. Christian here on page 63 is telling how, against my will, my inward and carnal desires. As a believer, have you ever been grieved in your heart, when you see that there's still a lot of wickedness in your own heart, that's what I think, you know, he's, Prudence is asking him, what do you see? And he's saying, yes, I still struggle with greed, lust, pride, it's all junk in there. And so Christian says, it's great shame. I would never choose to think of those things again. Do they perplex you? And yes, it is seldom, but they sometimes, sometimes I have, oh, he asked, is it ever, is it ever gone? Absolutely. He says, yes, sometimes, but those are golden hours in which they are gone. For me, that's three or four times a year. It's not often that I realize, gosh, you get these special moments from the Spirit where you realize the truths that we really are in God's sight, free of sin, and that liberation flows. And one day, that will be behind. He goes on to talk about these carnal, I love that phrase, carnal annoyances that you overcame. Do you remember the times you came them and how do you do it? And look at the bottom of 63. Don't you love the way Christian answers it? Yes, when I think of what I saw at the cross, that'll do it. How do we get rid of these carnal annoyances? A, look to the cross. That's one strategy. And when I look upon my embroidered coat, that will do it. That coat of Christ's righteousness, that alien righteousness that he gives us. And also, when I look into the roll I carry in my bosom, that will do it. And of course the role refers to the word of God, how sweet and comforted it is. I think warmly about where I'm going, that will also do it, the idea of heaven. So when we sense the, when we see our own sin and we're grieved by it, those are four ways to, a strategy for, that will do it, that will, That's when we overcome these carnal annoyances. It's good to remember that. Christian is rehearsing that with prudence. And what is it that makes you so desirous to go to Mount Zion? And there, of course, he says, I hope to see him alive who hung dead on the cross, once dead, now alive. So where death is swallowed up, there'll be no tears. And to tell you the truth, I love him because I was by him, ease of my burden, and then weary of my inward sickness. All that sin that I see desire to be where I shall die no more with the company that shall continually cry holy, holy, holy. And then he asked about his family. Yes, but they were all utterly averse to my pilgrimage. And he, Pilgrim, grieves about that. So we see here a, he's encouraging Christian to think of his past. It reminds me of the line in the hymn, Amazing Grace, through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come. That's what Christian is doing here, thinking about the past and how grace will take me home. Sometimes it's good to reflect back on our journey and just marvel at how God has brought us through. And then he asked, why didn't your wife and children come? He said, well, they're afraid of losing this world. And for the children, foolish, youthful delights. And then, do you think, despite your efforts, the vanity with which you lived your life dampened the words you were using to persuade them to come away with you? In other words, do you think, it's kind of like, Could you have done a better job persuading them?" And it says, and he confesses, indeed, I cannot commend my life. I am conscious of so many failings. I know also that the life of a man and the word he speaks belie the argument or persuasion he makes to others for good. And so, You know, then on the next page, 66, you know, this reference to Cain hating his brother. If your wife and children have been offended with you for this, then they show themselves to be impenetrable to good. Christian did even in his sinfulness, did share the gospel with his family, and ultimately it was their, they were culpable of that. So, I'm going to move forward because I'm seeing my time is running out, and I do want to get to chapter 3 for sure, if not 4. So, Then we see God, he spells out God's plan of redemption through Christ from the beginning on page 67, which brings us to where In this house, Christian is shown the records of the house on page 68, where he's shown the ornament of the armory where he has the sword, shield, helmet, breastplate for the journey ahead, all the weapons of war that he needs to use in his trek forward. And he's taken to the delectable, he's taken to see the delectable mountains, so there's some encouragement along the way. And he's told that his friend Faithful is ahead of him, and so he wants to rush ahead to catch up with him. So I wanna get into chapter four a little bit. Tom is going fast, but in chapter 4, we see Christian has an encounter with Apollyon. Now, the word Apollyon means devil. or a malicious or evil person is what the word actually means. So he has this encounter in the Valley of Humiliation with Apollyon. He's given, in his dream, he was given at the bottom of the hill, his good companions, we just discussed, gave him a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, and a cluster of raisins. And so he comes upon his fiend. I find myself in this book, a lot of times that was a word I wasn't familiar with. Fiend means a wicked or malicious person. Apollyon actually, I misspoke, is a reference in Revelation to the angel who of the bottomless pit in Revelation. So he meets this foul friend whose name is Apollyon. And Apollyon going to try to convince him to turn around and so on 75 you see this conversation and Right the first First thing we learned from this is it's not a good idea to converse with our enemy because he's very crafty He knows he's been using the same tricks for a long time so he asked This is my country, he tells him, I am the prince of it. And he's trying to convince him to turn around, and Christian says, I indeed was born in your dominions, but your service was hard and man could not live on your wages, because the wages of sin is death. I found a better way. And then Napoleon flatters him and says, there is no prince who would lose his subject so easily, neither will I. But since you complain of your service and wages, you can go back and be happy. I promise to give you whatever our country will afford. And then Christian says, but I've given myself to another, another king, a princess. How could it be fair to go back with you? And then he responds, you have, according to the proverb, exchanged a bad for a worse, but it is ordinary for those who have professed themselves his servants, after a little while, give him the slip and return again to me. If you do that as well, all will be well. This promise. Christian says, I have given him my faith and sworn allegiance to him. How could I go back on my word and not be hanged as a traitor? And then I love this line. Well, you did the same to me, and yet I am willing to forgive you. Here's the devil saying, I'll forgive you. It strikes me as funny. Never mind that I'm a liar, but I will forgive you. And so Christian then contemplates. But then he thinks, wait a minute, I have no armor on my back, so if I do turn around and go back, I'm going to die anyway, because this armor I'm equipped with doesn't cover his back. It's only going to cover him going forward. And then Apollyon says, think about who you're likely to meet. He tells him, many have gone before you, have had shameful deaths. Christian says, his delay to deliver them is on purpose, speaking of God's deliverance, intended to try their love to see whether they stay with him. This is something we need to remind ourselves. And then we see the great accuser of the brethren, Satan saying stuff like at the bottom of 676, you have already been unfaithful in your service to him. How do you think he'll still give you wages? The the devil's reminding him of his sin. Reminds me of the great line that Luther said, so when the devil throws your sins in your face, you say to him, I admit that I deserve death and hell. What of it? I have a savior, Jesus Christ, who made satisfaction on my behalf. and thus I shall live forever. So we have to remember when we are accused by, it's a great reminder here, when Satan comes to accuse us of our sins, which are many and will happen often, guilty as charged, Christ though has handled that. And then Napoleon goes on, you fainted at first when you set out. He continues this battery of how you are inwardly desirous of personal glory in all you say and do. Sometime I catch myself of, of this still today, thinking of my own glory, which we all do. For me, it's sometimes it's a dream where I'm, I'm playing basketball, and I'm scoring 50 points, and I'm hitting the last second shot, and the crowd is going crazy over me. And I wake up and I then I'm conscious and I want to go right back to it. I like that glory. So then I even try to get that dream back when I'm conscious. Of course, I usually don't. But our hearts are, we want, you know, we're bent to our own glory by default. And I still live for my own glory far too often and not God's glory. Apollyon is saying, again, wagging his finger, accusing you, you think, and all this is true. That's the thing. His finger wagging is stating facts. Yes, we're sinners. But Apollyon presses on and says, I am, beware what you do, for I'm on the king's highway that resolved the way of holiness. Watch yourself here. And so, The lesson from this is he was able to withstand the darts from the enemy by his armor, which he had been given, the weapons of our war we must use, and remember that we have them. And of course, he relies on the word of God in 78, Page 78, Christian began to despair of life, but he stretched out his sword and ultimately that encounter with Apollyon, he won because of his sword, which of course we know is the word of God. And he says, on page 78, he says, Rejoice not against me, O enemy, when I fall, yet shall I rise. Now in all these things, we are more than conquerors to him that loved us. So, as this chapter goes on, Christian goes from the frying pan to the fire. Apollyon is an enemy he can see, but yet now he comes to the valley of the shadow of death on page 80. He was in a good place until now, and he comes to this solitary place, a wilderness, desert, pits, drought, shadow of death, that no man but a Christian passed through where no man has dwelled. And he says he was worse put to it than his fight with Apollyon. And he met two men. Where are you going? And these are men that had been ahead are now coming back and saying, warning Christian not to go forward because surely death is ahead of you. And it's almost like they're giving him good news, but it's a false good news. They're courageless and coming back, but a Christian is being persuaded by these so-called friends he met on the way. This story, I think Bunyan is pulling from the passage of the spies that went out to score out the land, these two men that went, and come back and give a report while they're in the wilderness. The Valley of Child Death is a picture of wilderness where it's dry desert. And we can't take them, they're giants in the land. All these reasons not to go forward, And so these two friends coming on Pilgrim's Way are telling him all the dangers that lie ahead. And over that valley hangs discouraging clouds, I'm on page 81, discouraging clouds of confusion. It's almost like, there's a picture here, the valley of the shadow of death is, is intangible. It's not an enemy that you can put your hands on. It's something that lurks around the corner, which you can't see. Without order, being utterly without order, it says. So, in a lot of ways, this is a much harder trial for Christian than Apollyon was. And then on page 82 we see there's a reference to this very dangerous quag, a deep ditch that he's in, and into that quag King David once did fall and without doubt would have been smothered had he not been plucked out by him who is able. So Christian has some sense of hanging on, even though it's obvious he's in a very, very dark place. And in his confusion, he, on page 83, says, what shall I do? Flame and smoke were coming out in such abundance with sparks and hideous noises, things that did not fear Christian sword, as Apollyon had, that he was forced to put away a sword and take another weapon to use, called all prayer. Sometimes it just comes to, we just cry out, Lord, help. You know, our cry of desperation is where, when we're really down in the lowest pit, sometimes it's just, all we can do is just say, God, help me. And we know that when we do, all those who pray, those who call upon the Lord, name of the Lord shall be saved. So Christian does this. And as we see, he continues on. It's a long battering. And at the bottom of 83, it says, one thing I don't want to forget to tell you, I took notice how poor Christian was so confounded he didn't know his own voice. And on the next page, there was this whisper, stepping softly to him and whispering, suggested many grievous blasphemies to him, which he truly thought had proceeded from his own mind. This put Christian more to it than anything it had met with before, to even think he would blaspheme him that he loved so much. This was particularly poignant to me because of one of my experiences was when I Was in my early 20s. I thought I had blasphemed the Holy Spirit and this Satan came to me with this idea that I'd done that and It was I Swallowed it. I believed it and I became So obsessed with that fearing that I'd done that that my parents at the time I put me in a mental facility, and I was a sick puppy. I was mentally ill, but against my will, I had like seven shock treatments. That's the way they treated mental illness in those days. I had those shock treatments and I was very, very depressed because I thought that I was going to hell and that I had blasphemed the Holy Spirit. So this is very reminiscent of that. It's kind of like a fog bag. I sometimes think by sharing this, I've probably relinquished all possibilities of being president of the United States because I would never, you know, this would come to light that, oh yeah, well, he can't be president. He's got a history of mental illness. Which is true, like I would ever be present. I mean, it's kind of funny. But just how, thanks to a dear, godly woman who had somehow heard about me, she came and befriended me. And over time, slowly, I realized that I hadn't done that. It was a lie. Two or three years later, it was behind me, and I realized I hadn't done that, but Satan sifted my sand, so to speak, in that. So Christian here, that's what I think he's referring to, things like that, and I'm sure y'all have had them too, this valley of the shadow of death, and as he spirals down, But, and why would he be with me even though I cannot see him? Sometimes we just can't see where we have to hold on. And if we're in Christ, God will see us through. For me, recovering, it wasn't overnight. But then he says on page 85, now that morning had come, he looked back, not out of desire to return, but to see by the light of day what hazards he had gone through in the dark. So the whole theme of this chapter to me it seems is the value of looking back and realizing where God has taken you through and knowing that how going forward he will clearly bring us home. Okay, so I'm going to stop there where I'm almost at the end of the chapter, but I promise a little time to we've got five or 10 minutes, maybe two. I just want to give opportunity for any that would like to just share what how this book has had impact on you so far any, any ways that stirred up your heart. So with that, anybody want to share briefly? All right. Going, going, gone. Yes, Nancy. Absolutely. Thank you, Nancy. All right, well, it's 10 after, so I'm gonna go ahead and close in prayer. We'll have a little extra time for fellowship before we go to worship. Thank you for your being here and your patience. Our Father in heaven, as I have rambled on, Lord, with this great book, Lord, I'm impressed with the fact that it's I think about Bunyan being in jail when you wrote this and how he was experiencing probably the depths of the valley of the shadow of death, even yet unable to support his family. How you provided a way for him to do that by making shoelaces, just your providence and goodness amidst what was obviously for him a dark dungeon in horrible conditions, living conditions. Thank you for this book. Thank you that you inspired him to write it for us and that we can learn from it. Lord, I pray that as we continue to study this book, that you will give us the impressions that are meant from it to have eternity in mind of this journey that you would go with us. Help us to see the all-sufficient grace that you give us in the times of despondency, the times of trial and testing, and the confidence that you will bring us home. Now, Lord, as we prepare our hearts to worship in the next hour, we ask that your spirit fall upon this place. I pray that all of us who hear your word would receive it gladly and that it would be transformative to our lives, to deepen our roots in the faith in Christ, and that if there's those who do not know you, that you would rescue them from their sin. Even people now who may be thinking about coming here, I pray that you would prompt them to come into our presence, that we might worship you and in truth and spirit and that you would receive glory and honor in all that we do say, pray in our singing, all would bring you great glory. This morning we pray in Christ's name, amen.