0:07 Believe it or not, I always feel weak when I have to speak. Even after more than 50 years of speaking. And I prefer to be that way because Paul said when I'm weak then I'm strong. But I feel particularly weak today because I have to speak to the children. 0:26 And that's not specially my gift. But God will help me as you pray. And children, will you promise to pay attention and not make any noise? So, we're going to talk about Pilgrim's Progress today. 0:45 And it's amazing that this is a book that was written by a very, very poor man. You know, many books are written by famous preachers and uh very well-known people. 1:02 But this man was a repairer of kitchen pots and pans. And his family was so poor, sometimes they'd starve. He had four children, one of them was blind. He was imprisoned for 11 years because he was a preacher and he refused to stop 1:18 preaching. The king said, "I'll let you go if you stop preaching." After 3 months, he said, "No." And so, they kept him locked up for 11 years. See what a brave Christian he was. And God uses such people and the result is the book he wrote more than 300 years 1:36 ago. They say it's the most popular book next to the Bible among Christians, Pilgrim's Progress. That shows that God is no respecter of persons. He doesn't look for clever, rich people. 1:53 He uses simple repairer of pot pots and pans who poor, whose family was struggling to survive financially. And he used them used this man to write one of the most important books that blessed people for centuries. John Bunyan, that's his name. He lived 2:12 350 years ago at a time in England when Christianity was persecuted by the so-called Christian king. And he used to have a meeting in his house with a few families and the king stopped it saying, "You can't have a meeting unless the church bishop 2:30 permits you." And the churches were not always preaching the right doctrine of salvation by faith. So, John Bunyan said, "I'm not going to listen to the bishop. I'm going to have a meeting in his house." They locked him up. 2:41 And after 11 years, the king became more lenient and permitted preaching in houses and then Bunyan was released. And it's about sort of 10-15 years after that that he wrote this book. It's a story of a man you see here who 2:59 has had a great burden of sin on his back. And many people don't feel a burden of sin because their conscience is not sensitive. When they tell a lie, they don't feel bad about it. When you tell a lie, you must feel bad 3:18 about it and ask Jesus to forgive you. But if you don't feel bad about it, then you do something else wrong and you don't feel bad about it. Then you don't feel a burden. You say, "I don't feel any burden of sin." That's because you 3:30 never listen to your conscience. But if you keep listening to your conscience, when you fight with somebody, you feel bad about it. That's good. That means your your conscience is sensitive. And those whose conscience is sensitive, 3:44 they'll feel a burden like this. And they are the ones who are ready to come to Jesus Christ. So, if you don't feel a burden when you do something wrong, then you it's not possible for you to come to Jesus Christ. Then you can never be saved. 3:59 So, this is the first thing you must realize, oh, I did something wrong. I told a lie to Mommy. Or I fought with my brother or sister. That must be like a weight on your back. That's the beginning of salvation. So, he was afraid that God would punish 4:16 him because God hates sin. And he was afraid, so he was running. And he went home first of all and told his wife and children about this. And they laughed at him because they don't have a burden on their back. They didn't feel 4:31 convicted about their sin. So, they don't have a burden. So, when he told them, they just laughed at him just like people in the world laugh today. So, one day while he was reading the Bible in the field, a man called Evangelist, a preacher of the gospel, 4:44 came. And this man's name is Pilgrim, the man with a burden on his back. He said, "What must I do to be saved? To go to be with Jesus forever?" And they laughed at him. Uh sorry, the the sorry, that is the previous thing. The 5:03 Evangelist came to him and said to believe you got to repent first of all, turn from your sin, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who died for your sins. And thus you can escape the judgment of God. So, he he gave him a little scroll. 5:18 And he said, "There's a little gate there, see? His finger pointing, there's a gate that side. You go there and then you'll know what to do next." So, from there he ran because his wife and children tried to drag him back, you know, teaching us that 5:34 there are many people in the world who will try to drag us back from following Jesus, but he shut his ears so that he would not listen to them. And he ran because he wanted to be saved. Sometimes it's your friends who try to 5:45 drag you back away from Jesus. And as he was going towards the narrow gate, he was running in the way the preacher told him to go, two people came up to him behind him and say and their names the name of one was Stubborn. Stubborn means 6:00 I want my way. I'll always fight to have my way. That's the name of one person. And the name of the other person was Compromiser. Compromiser means one who will believe anything. He's not firm in belief in Jesus Christ. He says this is 6:12 right, that is right, everything is right. So there are some people like that. And they tried to stop Pilgrim saying don't go. One is in front, one is at the back. They tried to stop him saying don't go forward. And when 6:26 Stubborn he found he could not succeed. You see him turning back and going away. Okay, I can't stop you. And he cursed Pilgrim. A lot of people will curse us for following Jesus. And then as he went along Compromiser, that is the one who accepts 6:44 anything any teaching is correct, went along with Pilgrim. They walked together. And he said to Pilgrim, "Why don't you hurry up?" And Pilgrim said, "I can't hurry up. There's such a weight on my back. You don't have a weight on your back." You 6:56 see, that man who believes everything he doesn't have a conviction of sin, so he doesn't have a burden. And as they went along, they were careless about the way they were walking and they fell into a what's called a mire. That 7:09 means mud and water. Thick mud and water and they fell into it. It's called the Mire of Discouragement. And then this Compromiser got fed up. He says, "If there are problems in the Christian life, I'm not going to follow." Some people are like that. Some 7:25 problem arises and they say, "I can't follow anymore." And he criticized Pilgrim for leading me in the wrong path. And he scrambled out of the mire and turned back and went home. And then Pilgrim, however, didn't get discouraged, but he was sinking, so he 7:42 cried out for help. And suddenly a person whose name was help came to his rescue and held his hand and lifted him out out of the pit. Whenever you're in trouble like that, if you pray to Jesus, say, "Lord, help me." You'll find the Bible says God will 8:00 immediately come to help you. Whenever you're in any trouble like you're sinking somewhere and you're afraid, the thing to do is say, "Lord Jesus, help me." And he comes to help immediately. And so, um as he went along like that, Pilgrim 8:18 saw a man sitting on a bench. This is called a worldly clever person. There are many people who are clever in worldly things, and this was like that, you know, rich man with a lot of worldly cleverness. And he told him, "You know, the way to 8:35 be saved from sin is by doing a lot of good works. So, you go to this particular town, town of good works, and you'll be saved." But that's not the way to be saved. You can't do good works and like that cover up your mistakes 8:53 and sins you made in your life. The way to be saved is by believing Jesus took the punishment for our sin, but this man didn't understand that. So, he said, "You do a lot of good in the future and you'll be forgiven." But in that town which this man said, 9:09 there was a man called the law, and he was a man who would suggest various rules by which you can become good and come to God. But that's like a maze. You see all these This is a cave with so many holes. Once you go inside, you'll get lost. So, if you try 9:27 to be saved by doing a lot of good works, you'll get lost. It's like like getting into this cave and you'll never be able to come out. It's very difficult for some people to understand that you cannot be saved, you cannot go to heaven by doing a lot of 9:42 good works because all your good works are good, but they cannot forgive the mistakes and sins you made in the past. And as Pilgrim was listening to all this, he suddenly saw flashes of fire. And his burden became heavier 9:59 because whenever you try to even listen a little bit to the message that says do good works and go to heaven, the judgment of God comes like a fire. That is not the way to be saved. And then the preacher who first met him came to 10:18 him and said, "Why did you listen to all that? That's not the way to be saved. You should know I told you at the beginning to go to that gate I told you. That's the way to be saved. It's by faith in Jesus Christ that you're going to be saved, not by 10:31 listening to all these other people telling you different things. There's no other way to come into God's kingdom. You have to go to that gate I told you about. And don't listen to all these other preachers who tell you wrong 10:42 things." So, Pilgrim walked without stopping to listen to anyone and reached the narrow gate which the preacher told him. But as he was reaching the narrow gate, you see there the devil on the left side on top firing an arrow to try and prevent him 10:58 from entering the gate, but the doorkeeper at the gate quickly opened the door and pulled him inside so that he could go inside before the arrows hit him. The devil tries to stop us from coming to Jesus, but we have to be 11:14 quick in trusting and believing in Jesus Christ. And then he went to the house of a man It's a picture of the Holy Spirit who will teach us once we come and seek the Lord, the Holy Spirit will come and teach us many lessons 11:31 to how to get into heaven. And the Holy Spirit is called the interpreter here, the one who teaches the Bible, took him and showed him a number of things. First of all, he showed him a picture of a very serious-looking man 11:47 holding a Bible in his hand. This is a picture of one who can really teach the word of God. The crown on his head is a picture of the Holy Spirit's anointing on this preacher, so that they teach the word of God free, you know, correctly, 12:03 without the spirit of the world. They can show you the truth of God's word. It's very important to listen to people who know the Bible well and who can teach you from the Bible, not from their own ideas, and who have the anointing of the Holy 12:17 Spirit. And then the Holy Spirit showed him another picture of two boys. One was a very angry boy on you see on the left. Very angry, always angry. His name was Passion, Anger. And the other boy's name was Patience. And the one on the left shows all the 12:37 people in the world who quickly get angry about small little things, they get upset and shout and stamp their feet and yell, because the devil makes them like that. And the patience is a picture of those who have given their heart completely to 12:50 Jesus, and when they are tempted, they say, "Lord Jesus, help me." And they remain calm and content when your daddy or mommy tells you, "I'm not going to give you that." Don't get angry. Remember these two pictures. One is a picture of those whom the devil 13:08 tempts them to be angry, and the other is tempted, but he says no to the devil and remains calm. Then the Holy Spirit showed him another picture in the next room of a fire. That fire is a picture of God's love for us that burns in our heart all the time, 13:25 love for God and love for others. And you see the devil there on the right side is the devil trying to pour water on the fire to quench it so that the fire doesn't become hot. You know, the devil's always trying to prevent us from loving God and loving 13:40 other people. He tries to bring hatred into our heart and stop loving Jesus. That's a picture of him pouring water, but on the left side on the top you see somebody pouring oil into the fire and oil is what makes the fire to burn and 13:54 that's the picture of the Holy Spirit, God pouring his power into our life so that even though the devil tries to put out that fire of love God gives us his spirit so that we can keep on loving no matter what happens and we 14:08 never cool off. Then in the next room the Lord the Holy Spirit showed pilgrim a person whose name was discouragement despair. That means one who's fed up with life. And he's sitting in a prison. Whenever you keep on getting discouraged and 14:25 gloomy, you'll finally end up in a prison. Not as soon as you get discouraged, but if you keep on every day discouraged, discouraged or everything's not going my way, I don't get what I want, I don't get what I want and you keep 14:38 complaining, complaining, one day you'll be in a prison like this. Not a physical prison like the police put people in prison, not like that, but a prison where in your mind you can't be free. You won't be happy. And God doesn't want you to be like 14:53 that. This is a picture of a backslider who went away from the Lord and hardened his heart. He wouldn't listen to his his dad or mom and he would not even turn away from his sin. Then after listening to all these instructions from 15:07 the Holy Spirit, he proceeded along this narrow way with a wall on either side that's leading to the wall is called salvation and along that way he was walking. And from that path he went up to a cross. See, that's the cross where Jesus 15:22 died. And see, as soon as he comes to the cross, he kneels down there and he said, "Lord, thank you for dying for my sin. I'm sorry for my sin. I want to turn from my sin. I want to I believe in you. Come into my heart." As soon as 15:36 he said that, see what happened? That burden from his back, that big burden on his back, rolled away. It's come you see come to the bottom of that picture and it's gone into the grave where Jesus was buried. Gone forever. 15:51 So, that's where this man got saved. Simply, he came to the cross and said, "Lord, I'm sorry for all that I did. Uh I want you to forgive me. I believe you died for my sins on the cross. I believe you rose from the dead. Come 16:06 into my heart and live there." See, with a simple prayer like that, he was saved. And then, he went from there weeping and thankful and then three angels came to him and greeted him saying, one said, "Peace be 16:24 to you." God gives us peace in our heart when we have accepted Christ. And then, the one angel said, "Your sins are forgiven." He was sure, "My sins are all all the past wrong things I did. God's forgiven me." Then another angel took off his bad 16:40 clothes and see he's putting on a new dress for him. That's called the purity and the righteousness of Christ, the goodness of Christ. He clothes us with that. And then, another angel put a seal on his forehead saying, "You're You belong to Christ." 16:55 And see, he gave him a roll of paper. You see it behind that angel giving him a a roll of paper, which is a picture of now you can be sure that you're a child of God. It's like a certificate. I am a child of God now. And every one of you children needs to 17:10 be sure that Jesus has come into your heart. You're sure you're a child of God. And he said, "Now you have to keep this certificate until you reach heaven. Don't ever lose it because when you come to the gate of heaven, they'll ask you 17:24 for this certificate. Are you sure you're saved?" And then you must hold fast to this assurance of salvation. And when Pilgrim got all this, he jumped for joy because now he had become a real Christian and his name was changed. 17:40 Till now his name was Pilgrim. Now his name became Christian. And as he was walking along after coming to the cross and being saved, he saw three people who were sleeping with chains on their legs. Their names were The first one was 17:57 Easily Deceived. That means people who don't read the Bible, they're easily deceived by the devil. If you don't read the Bible, if you don't listen to the Bible, the devil will cheat you in deceive you in so many ways. And the name of the other was Laziness. 18:13 Laziness is not a good thing. When you're lazy, the devil will put a chain on your leg. God has told us to work hard. Study the Bible. Everything God wants us to do on this earth, we work hard. And the name of the third one was 18:26 Assuming that everything is okay. We should not live like that thinking everything is okay because the if the Lord convicts us of something in our heart, we must say, "Lord, I'm sorry. It's not okay. I want to confess it." 18:38 And what Christian did was he woke them all up. He said, "Wake up because there are so many dangers. Don't live this careless way." But they would not listen to him. And they went back to sleep again. This is a picture of many people, even 18:52 children, when their dad and mom or preachers tell them, "Wake up. Follow Jesus." They say, "No, I'm all right. I've got a lot of friends." And they keep friendship with their bad friends. And they go to sleep. And they get lost. 19:06 Go to hell forever. So then as Christian moved forward, he saw two people climbing over a wall. See, to come to this way pilgrim had to first come to the cross, right? Remember? He came to the cross where he gave Jesus forgave his sin. 19:22 But these are people who didn't go to the cross and tried to avoid the cross, avoid coming to Jesus, and climbed over the wall and thought by our good works we can go to heaven. And they were deceived. They They will not get into heaven. They don't have 19:35 that certificate. You get that certificate only at the cross that your sins are forgiven. The names of this was religious person with a lot of activity and going to church and all that, but not really come to the cross. And the 19:48 name of the other is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy means one who pretends to be holy, but is not really holy. And they did not humble themselves to go to the cross. And then the three of them they talked together and they walked with Christian. 20:03 And they reached a hill called difficulty. And when they reached the hill called difficulty their real nature was discovered. They said, "Oh, we can't go along the difficult way." So person who's a true Christian is willing to climb the hill 20:21 of difficulty. You come to a difficult situation in your life. You say, "Yes, I'm going to follow Jesus even if it's difficult." But these other two people, hypocrisy and religious person, they said, "We don't want all difficulty in 20:34 the Christian life." They took the easy path going sideways, which doesn't go to heaven. That's how they went astray. And then as Christian climbed, but Christian what he did, you see there? He went to the foot of the hill. There was a spring of water 20:50 from which he could drink water and be strengthened. God gives us power. Then as he went up the hill there was a bench, and he sat down on the bench because he was tired. But he was a bit careless, and that certificate which he got from the cross 21:06 that roll of paper fell down from his hand. You see he's fallen down under the bench and he didn't realize it. That can happen sometimes. That sometimes we are sure Jesus has saved us and then we become careless after some 21:18 time. Then we wonder, oh, has Jesus really saved me or not? That's a picture of what happens sometimes. Uh it can happen to anybody. What means you be very careful to keep that roll of paper, Jesus has saved me. I came to the 21:32 cross, he's forgiven me. And suddenly he woke up because he saw two people running back. The name of the one person was afraid and the name of the other was doubt. That means he doesn't believe anything. They were running in fear 21:48 and they were running away from They said, "There are lions in front. We can't go ahead. They're scared." They're They were scared and they were running away. And then Christian suddenly said, "Oh, I'm going to get assurance from that roll of 22:00 paper. Oh, where's my roll of paper gone? I can't find it." So he had to run back to the bench and he found he had left it under the bench. He ran back. See, if you don't have this assurance, Jesus has saved me, you'll be 22:14 disturbed by other people who are afraid or who have doubt. So then he picked up that assurance of salvation and then he got joy of salvation and again he started Oh, sorry. Again he started walking on the way. And as he was going along, he was 22:33 encouraged when he looked ahead and he saw this beautiful palace called beautiful. It was a picture of the heaven he was going to reach. Sometimes God shows us not a physical picture but gives an assurance. We are children of God, we are happy, 22:48 we're going on the right path. It was slowly becoming dark and as he came near, he saw these two lions on either side roaring at him. Which you know the other two people had told him there are lions and that's why they ran away. 23:06 But further ahead at the gate from a gate, the doorkeeper at the gate shouted out to him, "Don't be afraid of these lions. Because if you look carefully, the lions have got chains. They are pulled back. That lion has got a chain on that side. 23:19 And this lion has got a chain on side. God has put a large chain. God has put a chain on the devil. Do you know that? That the devil cannot come close to you if you walk along the narrow way. The narrow way is the way of obedience 23:32 to Jesus Christ and his commandments. If you walk along that way, the devil cannot touch you because he's chained. But it's only if you go away from that way, go to this side or that side, then only the devil can catch you. Then only 23:45 the lions can touch you. So, it's a wonderful thing that God has put these chains on either side on the lions. So, it's very important to walk that narrow way which Jesus said that leads to life. Very, very important. That's a good 23:59 lesson for us to learn. The way of obedience to God. Then finally, he arrived at the palace. And there Christian was welcomed by a doorkeeper who invited him to stay there for the night. And this house was maintained by three 24:16 very serious-looking uh by first of all a serious-looking sister named Wisdom. See, God gives us wisdom. Uh that is understanding of the right way to walk. And this lady received Christian took him into the palace and introduced him 24:33 to three sis- serious-looking sisters named Godliness, that means holiness, and Carefulness, that's the name of the other one, always being careful to obey God. And the third is love, which we must always have, God's love. 24:49 And they told Christian many, many useful truths and comforted him and encouraged him. You know, these are these are picture of how when we read the word of God, these things comes to us. Wisdom, holiness, being careful, divine love. 25:05 So, this is a picture of how the Lord Jesus instructs us through the Bible. And they told him that see there's a prince in the heavenly city, his name is Jesus, and he built this palace to encourage and strengthen those who are 25:19 walking. It's a picture of the church. This is a picture of the church where we have people who teach us and encourage us where the Bible is taught. And then they showed him to a room called peace. In the church we have 25:31 peace. And told Christian, you can sleep here till the morning and wake up and go. God gives us rest along the way. The next day they took him to the armory. Armory means the weapons we need to fight the devil. And showed him there are so many 25:46 weapons. You know, the Christian life is a battle where we have to fight with Satan, with so many things. Not physical weapons, but spiritual weapons, like truthfulness, and patience, and peace, and things like that. So, they're all pictured like 26:02 sword, and shield, and helmet, and all that. They said you'll need all these things when you go to for- forward in the journey. Then they took him to the top of the house and showed him the beautiful mountains. See, you're headed to a 26:16 beautiful place. Heaven is a beautiful place. And it's pictured with vineyards, and woods, and fruits of all kinds, and these said the name of the land is called Emmanuel's land. Emmanuel is a name for Jesus Christ. God with us. 26:32 Then they took him back to the armory where the weapons were, and they dressed him up with a breastplate of steel so that the arrows of the devil would not hit him. And they gave him a sword, and they gave him a helmet. It's like the 26:45 word of God that protects us in so many ways from Satan's attacks. And he needed this because as he was going along, he had to face many problems as he he was now equipped to fight the battle. Ready to fight the devil because he had 27:02 got the word of God. That sword, by the way, is a picture of the word of God. God's the Bible the Why do we memorize these verses? So that those are swords in our hand. Whenever the devil comes to tempt us, you can remind him of one of 27:15 these verses that you memorized on Sunday in the church. So suddenly the devil came. There's the devil coming at him and attacking him. That means with temptation, telling him to do something wrong or telling him God doesn't love 27:29 you and all these lies the devil comes and tells us. And Christian was now afraid what he would do when the devil fires all these things at him. And he takes out his sword and fights the devil in the name of Jesus. He resists him and the devil has to run 27:48 away. Whenever you're tempted, remember some promise that you read in the Bible or tell him in the name of Jesus, I resist you and he will run away. And then as he went along the pathway, he had to um He said, "I can do all things through 28:06 Christ who strengthens me." But he was a little wounded in that fight and so an angel came with some leaves to heal him and they applied it to the wounds. You know, God comforts us. He'll always stand with us when we fight 28:21 against the devil. And then Christian continued his journey very happy that he had overcome Satan. You'll always be happy if you have resisted the devil, quoted the Bible to the devil. You know, Jesus quoted the Bible to Satan and you must also quote 28:34 some verse in the Bible to Satan. And now Christian is approaching a very dangerous area. And again he sees two men running back. Always you'll find some friends of yours who are going in the other direction. We don't believe in Jesus, we don't believe 28:49 in the Bible. You've got to be very careful when you meet such people. Here were two more people saying, "Go back. Go back. There are many dangers along this way." But Christian did not listen to them. And you must not listen to all these 29:01 people who tell you to go back. With the sword in his hand, he stepped onto this narrow way. You see how narrow it is? Jesus said the way to life is narrow. On one side the devil is trying to attack you with fire and all that. On 29:13 the other side is a muddy mud and slush and water into which you can fall, but you'll never fall there. If you look at Jesus, always look at Jesus, you'll never fall this side or that side. And you don't have to be afraid of any 29:28 of those things, either. And then he used another weapon. He used the weapon called the sword of this the word of God. Then he used another weapon called prayer. There are two weapons God has given us. One is quoting the Bible, which is the 29:43 sword, and the other is kneeling down and praying. And he says, "Lord, give me strength." That's another thing. Whenever you're in trouble, not only quote the Bible, what's the second weapon? Prayer. Pray to Jesus and say, "Lord, 29:57 give me strength." And then he find as he was going along, again, the devil comes now in the form of two invisible demons coming and whispering thoughts into his ear. No, no, no. God doesn't love you. Do you ever hear hear things like that? 30:13 Remember this picture always. The devil comes and says, "God doesn't love you." That's a lie. Satan and Christian said, "That's a lie. I believe God loves me." And then they whisper some bad things against some other boy or girl. 30:26 So many times you'll hear thoughts in your mind, "That boy is bad. That girl is bad." Don't listen to them. No. You may if they are bad, avoid them, but don't speak evil about them and they'll The devil is always trying to 30:39 say things against your younger brothers or sisters or older brother or sister, don't listen to that. This is a picture you must always remember that whenever you hear bad thoughts coming into your mind of fear or doubt in God or evil 30:52 about other people, it is always these agents of Satan trying to whisper things to you. You must resist them. And he resisted them and suddenly the darkness turned into light. And he's standing and looking back over the way that he walked. What a narrow 31:09 way. All that way and he says, "Thank you, Lord, for protecting me." When we look back over our life, we must learn to thank Jesus for protecting us from so many dangers and pitfalls. And then he saw it was by the light of God that 31:27 he came through that darkness. Then he entered a cave. And in that cave was a false preacher. There are many false preachers in the world, even who sit in some churches, who don't preach the truth. They have a cross on top of their head and they 31:41 pretend to be the servants of God, but they're not servants of God. They try to lead people astray back into the old religion of trying to go to heaven by doing good works or by The main thing they'll say is give money to the church. Give money to the church. 31:55 If you give money to the church, God will save you. That's a lie. You can't be saved by giving money to the church. You're saved by turning from your sin and believing in Jesus. But there are all these false preachers, there are many like that in the world 32:08 today, many on television. You must not listen to them. And you must just Don't even talk to them. Just see how Christian is. He just ignores all that preaching and walks on. And as he was walking, he saw another pilgrim. Hey, he was walking all alone 32:23 till now. See how good God is to give us fellowship with others who have the same desire, who want to follow Jesus and want to go to heaven. And he saw this man, he says he was so encouraged that this man was there and he told him, 32:37 "Hey, hang on. Slow down because I want to I want to join you." And that other person in front, his name was Faithful. He said, "I'm not going to slow down. I'm not going to slow down. I'm going to keep running. If you want, catch up with 32:51 me." Then Christian became proud. He said, "Okay, I'm going to teach him a lesson. I'm going to run faster and overtake him." Whenever you try to compete with another Christian and say, "I'm going to be better than him." That's always 33:05 dangerous. And you'll see that See what happened to him? Christian fell down. Whenever you try to show that you are better than your brother or sister, this is what will happen to you. Remember this picture always. Sometimes we are tempted. I'm going to 33:21 show I'm better than that brother of mine. I'm better than that sister of mine. I'm going to show that I'm better. You'll always fall down. And then when you fall down, it's the other one who has to come and help you up. Faithful 33:33 had to come and help Christian up. And then they walked together with good fellowship. And then Faithful, that's Faithful, told his story. This is Faithful telling, "You know what happened to me when I was walking down this way, there was one girl came and 33:48 tempted me, but I did not listen to her. I just walked on." And then he said, "I met an old man called the Old Adam who tempted me to come to his house and do a lot of wrong things." And he says, "I would not listen to him." 34:02 And um I turned away from his temptation to come to visit his home where he'd be tempted with the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. He said, "No." And then as Faithful went up the hill, he was overtaken by the law again. 34:18 The law, you know, the law which I saw earlier uh saying, "Why did you listen to that This is Faithful telling his story. Why did you listen to that Old Adam? Why did you even listen to him? You should have said no and walked off. But you 34:33 spent some time listening to him and the law came to make him convicted of his sin. But Faithful stood against that and said, "God have Lord have mercy on me." And Faithful was saved. After that Faithful said He Faithful is still telling his 34:50 story to Christian. He says, "I met another man as I came along the way and that is a man who's always complaining. There are some people in the world who are always complaining, discontent with whatever they have." And he said, "Listen, go back go back go 35:04 back. No use going this way." And but Faithful said, "I'm not going to go back." And he There were the he met another person there. His name was Shame. And Shame was one who was ashamed to confess Christ. You know, you don't want 35:23 other people to know you're a Christian because they'll make fun of you. That's that chap. He doesn't want anybody to know he's a Christian because they'll make fun of him. You must never be ashamed to confess Christ. And he tried to change Faithful also. 35:36 It's a picture of people who are half-hearted in their life and who try to drag you back. Finally, so this is Faithful telling his story and he said, "I did not listen to him." After Faithful finished his testimony, he and Christian again 35:52 continued their journey. See, now Faithful has finished telling his story. What you saw in the last few slides was Faithful telling his story. Now he's joining Christian and they're walking towards And they found another man. 36:03 There are always people who are trying to stop you. And this man's name, guess what his name is? Talkative. That means one who Once they open their mouth, they can't shut their mouth. They're always talking talking. Have you 36:13 met people like that? They never give you a chance to say anything. They're always talk talk talk talk talk talk talk. They never give you a chance to open your mouth. And this man had no interest in Christianity, but he was 36:23 able to talk about all the things in the world about politics and worldly things and so many worldly things and about the pleasures in the world and Christian recognized this chap is come from a town called foolish dog and so 36:38 many people in the world are like that and he left him and went away and as he went away they again met that preacher you remember we met them at the first call evangelist and they told him about their experiences and evangelist 36:50 told them you must continue to be faithful in your walk and pointed them to the city this is evangelist pointing them see that's the city you're going to go through it's a very dangerous city it's a worldly city but you have to go 37:05 that way to go to heaven so sometimes God warns us through preachers be careful when you're living in the world there are many worldly people around and the town in which they finally came to that town they had to go through this 37:18 town to go into God's kingdom showing us that God allows us to go to the world through the world with many many temptations and this is a picture of the world with all its temptations and the name of this town was called emptiness everything in 37:32 the world is empty it appears to be very attractive but inside it's empty it's like a bottle you think there's a lot of water in it but it's empty so but they had to go through this and when they went through this all the people 37:47 made fun of faithful this is faithful and Christian and all the people made fun of them and you'll find like that that when you follow Jesus you're very lonely very few people are with you and lot of people in the world in your 37:58 school and in your friends they'll make fun of you and say something wrong with the way you behave the way you dress the way you talk is all very funny but they were faithful and faithful and all the other people said these two 38:11 people are mad and so they took them and put them in a cage all the people in the world locked up pilgrim and faithful in a cage and started making fun of them. And then they brought faithful to the court. See, faithful is standing there. 38:30 And all the There were a lot of people standing there to accuse him. The name of the judge was Hate-what-is-good. And then three evil men came and gave false witness against him, telling all types of lies. You know, there are many people in the 38:46 world who will tell lies about you in your school and in the world. The names of jealousy, those who are jealous of you, and those who talk filthy things. And the judge asked the jury. Jury is people who have to decide, is he is he guilty? 39:01 Should he be punished or not punished? And the names of the jury were Mr. No-good, Mr. Hatred, Mr. Full-of-evil-thoughts, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruel, and Mr. One-who-cannot-agree-with-anything. And they all said, "Yes, faithful must 39:19 be punished." So, they beat faith faithful with rods and poked him with knives and finally stoned him, and then they tied him to a pole and burnt him. But when he was being burnt, a chariot came from heaven with angels and took faithful, his soul, and took 39:38 him straight up to heaven. See, there were many Christians in past days who were burnt like that because they stood for Jesus. And the And the Lord sent his angels to take them straight as soon as we die faithful to Jesus, 39:52 our soul goes straight up to heaven. It's a wonderful thing. So, be So, the Bible The Lord Jesus said, "Be faithful unto death." But what happened? There was one man in this crowd who saw how faithful was true and he got 40:08 converted. That's what happens sometimes. When we are faithful to the Lord, somebody sees us. And you may not know about it, and he'll get converted. And his name was Hopeful. And he made a covenant with Christian, so Christian was not left alone. It's 40:25 wonderful when some people leave us or die, God gives us somebody else. God will always give us fellowship if we are looking for it and we are faithful. And so now Hopeful, Faithful had died and gone to heaven. Now it's Christian and 40:37 Hopeful journey, and they made a covenant with each other we'll go to the heavenly city together. And as they went along, they met another man. His name was Using Christianity to make money. There are a lot of people like that. And 40:52 he said, "You know, if you come to my home, I can give you a lot of money, and there are many ways, and uh but pilgrims said, "We're not interested in listening to you." And they left him and pressed on in their journey. There are many people Satan 41:04 will send across your path to prevent you from coming. You saw how many people already they've seen. It's one of the things we learn in this story. When you follow Jesus, there'll be so many friends of yours who'll try to stop you from following, 41:17 but you must say no, no, no to all of them. That's one of the most important messages in Pilgrim's Progress. And as they looked back, they saw this man who tried to draw him away bowing down to three other people called 41:29 Hold-the-World-Tight, Love-of-Money, and Save-Everything-for-Yourself. Don't share anything with everybody. Then they knew that they were right, that this man was an agent of Satan. And soon some of those men, Hold-the-World, came 41:46 running up. Another man came. One of those men called Hold-the-World-Tight, that means love the world, came running up to Christian and Hopeful and said, he asked him, "Is there anything wrong in my m- meet- making going to church and 42:04 meeting people in the church in order to do business with them, to make money for myself?" And Christian said, "We don't go to church make contacts there to make money for ourselves. That's not the reason. We go to church 42:17 to worship God, not to make money for ourselves or to get some contacts to promote ourselves." Then this chap said, "No, no, no." He disagreed with them. And so then Christian and Hopeful left him and went away. Then they came to a plain 42:30 called an easy way. You see, God does not allow us to face trials all through our life. Sometimes he'll make it a little easy for us in our Christian life, too. So this is an easy path, but that is a very short distance. 42:44 And that finished very quickly, teaching us that ease and comfort are only for a very short time. And then as they went along, they saw a hill called Make More Money. That's another temptation. You children may not face it now, but when you grow 42:58 up, you'll face it. Make more money with worldly methods. And there was a man there called Demas. Demas was once a preacher along with the Apostle Paul, but he wanted to make more money, so he left Paul and went along this path. And 43:15 the desire and he got stuck there. And Christian said, "You're the son of Judas Iscariot. I'm not going to listen to you." And then they after that, they came to a a statue. It's a statue made of salt. Do you know who that was? That was Lot's 43:31 wife. You know, in the Old Testament, there's a man called Lot and his wife who were in a city called Sodom, which is God is going to judge. And God told them to get out of here and don't look back. So Lot and wife ran out, but Lot's 43:43 wife looked back. She oh, I've left all my fancy clothes there, and I've left all my friends there, and I've left all my money there. And immediately the salt that fell on Sodom to destroy it, fell on her also, and she became a pillar of salt. Warning us that 44:01 when you follow Jesus, you must not look back. Remember Lot's wife. Then they came to a river, a very pleasant river. It's called the river of the water of life. And they spent a number of days there drinking that water and the fruit, the 44:16 beautiful fruit that grew in the banks. It's a picture of the comfort and encouragement the Holy Spirit gives us with other friends and when you come to church. After some time the highway, you know, God gives us these experiences but not all the time. 44:32 Because then he leads us away to a rough path also. So they came to a rough which was very painful for their feet. And as they were walking along this very rough path, they were struggling, they came to a little gate, a fence and a 44:45 gate. And Christian said, "Hey, this looks like a shortcut to go to heaven. Let's not walk along this rough path. Let's take this easy path to heaven." That's another thing sometimes when we are going along the Lord's way, the devil 45:00 will come and say, "Here's an easy path. Don't do Don't do Don't walk that difficult path of always obeying what God says. Here's an easy path. Doesn't matter if you don't obey now and then." And you got to be very careful. 45:14 There's a way called the way of the cross, the way of saying no to myself and denying myself. And that may be difficult but it leads to heaven. But this is an easy path where you say, "No, no, no. Sometimes you can enjoy 45:24 life and all that." Be very careful. And as they got onto this shortcut they felt and they felt they found another man who was on that path called Self-confidence and I'm That means I trust in myself. I don't trust in the Lord. 45:38 And they said, "Yeah, yeah." He said, "This is the way to the heavenly city." And he was deceiving them. But suddenly it was dark and see the Self-confidence fell down from that pit and you can only see his hat. Those who trust in themselves will 45:51 always fall into a deep pit. And these two Pilgrim and Hopeful also almost fell into it. But they got saved. They turned back. And but it was dark and they couldn't find their way, and so they lay down and slept. And while they were 46:07 sleeping there, the giant giant discouragement, who owns this shortcut area, he he has made the shortcut to deceive Christians. You've got to be very careful. When you try to take shortcuts and avoid the way of the cross, discouragement will easily 46:26 come. And he found them and he caught them and said, "Why have you come into this ground?" And he put them into his prison, a dark stinking prison underground. And there they lay discouraged for a long time without any food or light. 46:43 And then discouragement was discussing with his wife. His wife is as evil looking as him. And said, "What shall we do with these prisoners?" And she said, "Beat them. Take your big stick and beat them hard." So, he went into 46:54 the prison to beat them up. But when he he beat and beat and beat them, but they still would not listen. They said, "We're going to follow Jesus." And then they he went tried another thing. He said, "It's no use living. 47:09 Just kill yourself." You know, the devil actually tells that to some people. Can you imagine that some people are so foolish in their life, they kill themselves? And he says, "You can kill yourself with a knife, or kill yourself by drinking 47:22 poison, or kill yourself with this rope, hang your own head on a tree and hang yourself." And they said, "No. We are not going to listen to you. We got to resist all the temptations of the devil." And then the giant took them and showed 47:38 them, "See how many people have come this way? See where they are now? They listen to me. You will also join them. I'm going to kill you." And then they were really scared. They said, "Really, I uh it's a mistake we made to try try 47:54 avoiding the way of the cross and trying to take a shortcut. This is what happens to any Christian who avoids denying themselves and say, "I think I found a easy way to God's kingdom." There is no easy way. Jesus said, "The way to life is deny 48:07 yourself every day and follow me." And then, so what did they do? They began to pray. "Oh Lord, please help us. Get us out of this prison." Whenever you're in trouble, even if you've made lots of mistakes, the thing to do is to pray 48:22 that Jesus will help you to get out of that situation. And suddenly, the Lord reminded them, "Hey Christian, you got a promise. You got a key." He had a key in his pocket. It's called the key of promises in God's word. You 48:35 know, those are the verses you memorize. All those verses you memorize are little keys by which you can open any door. When the devil puts a door in front of you that's locked, with a key of God's promise, you can open and get out of 48:47 that situation, out of that prison. And so, he used that key to open the first door and the next door and the next door, but when it came to the last gate, it opened it, but as he pulled the gate, it was a rusty and made some noise 49:02 when it was being opened, and that noise woke up the giant who was asleep. And when the giant heard it, he got up and ran after them. But see what God did, he paralyzed his legs. See how God helps us? That See those two prisoners? I mean, 49:19 the prisoners, that is, Christian and hopeful are running away. The gate is open and giant is discouraging and is trying to get them to discouraged again, but the Lord paralyzed his legs and his stick fell out of his hand and he could 49:30 not catch up with them. And so, the pilgrims escaped and got back onto this way of the cross, the narrow way that leads to the life. But before they got onto the way, they said, "Hey, we must put a little board here with a notice saying, 49:43 'Don't take shortcuts.'" So, they wanted to warn other pilgrims who are coming, "Don't take a shortcut. Follow Jesus always. Keep your eyes on Jesus." And so they put this little board there so that they will not Nobody will else will take a shortcut. 50:03 And as they went along this narrow way, they finally came across two pilgrims. They walked along towards the heavenly city, very happy together with fellowship. And then they found some good shepherds there. These shepherds are a picture of 50:19 el good elders of good churches. And they encouraged them and then the name of one elder or shepherd was knowledge. The name of the other was experience, one who's walked with God for a long time. And the name of the third elder was watchful. That means 50:35 people who watch over you and pray for you. These are good shepherds and the name of another elder was sincere. Characteristics that should be found in all leaders, knowledge of God's word, experience of walking with God, watching 50:48 over God's people, and sincere in helping them. And they told them, "See, there's a beautiful land ahead. It's called Immanuel's Land. And from there you'll be able to see the heavenly city." And they encouraged them. And then the next day, 51:02 as they were going along, they saw some sights there, but first it they came to a a hill called deception. Even now there are people who are trying to deceive these Christians. The hill is called deception. And then he looked down this saw so many 51:20 dead bodies there, people who were deceived. They came so close to heaven and still they were deceived. And they fell down and there were these dead bodies. It was a warning. Be careful. Till the end of your life you have to be 51:31 careful that somebody doesn't come and deceive you. And then the the shepherds took the pilgrims to the top of a hill and see what's happening over there. "These are the people," he said, "who were not killed by giant discouragement, 51:48 but they got blinded and now they're walking in the among the tombs. They don't know which way to go because they did not use the key of promise to escape from discouragement or maybe they never remember those verses they memorized in 52:04 church. They forgot all about them and so they became blind when they were tempted and so they became the discouragement blinded them without killing them. And then they saw a door opening to hell even here. Imagine so close to heaven. There are 52:21 people who go away and fall away into hell because they don't obey God's word or they don't listen to the Holy Spirit. And then the shepherds took them to the top of a hill called clear vision. Sometimes we must look into the Bible 52:35 and remember we are going to heaven. And said, "Look, see see what heaven is like. We're going to get there soon." And as they went along, they met another young man called Ignorance, one who doesn't know the Bible. And he came from a country called Pride. 52:51 Just imagine he came so far and now he's turning back and going back teaching us that there are some people who will walk with you for a long time and then after some years they'll turn away from the Lord and go right back. 53:04 But Pilgrim and Hopeful said, "No, we're not going to listen to you." And they continued to follow the Lord. And as they came along the way, they found a man being carried away by demons. Seven demons. See, this man was a man who had cast out 53:21 some bad things from his heart. Listen carefully. He got rid of the bad things in his heart, but he did not replace it with good things. We can get rid of bad thoughts and you don't replace it with good thoughts. You keep your mind empty. 53:35 That means you don't read the Bible. You don't remember the promises. Then Jesus said, "Seven worse things will come into you." So that's a picture of seven demons dragging this man away and showing that even at this stage it's 53:48 possible to fall away if you're not faithful till the end. These are all warnings. Then when Christian heard this, he reminded him of a story he heard of a man called Little-faith. Little-faith was a pilgrim, but he fell 54:03 asleep. That means he didn't take the Christian life seriously and he fell asleep uh in a lane called Dead Man's Lane and three wicked men came and robbed him of his money and knocked him out. And but just as they were doing that, 54:19 they they knocked him out and people who attack us spiritually, but suddenly the Lord came with grace to help him. It's amazing when we are attacked by different thoughts in our mind, this these three people are pictures of different thoughts that come 54:35 to your mind. Jesus always comes and helps you to drive them away in Jesus' name. Get away. And then as they were walking down the road, they came, "Shall I turn to the left or shall I turn to the right? Which is the way to the heavenly city?" You 54:50 got to be very careful whom you listen to. Sometimes there are false teachers so close to heaven, there are still false teachers. And here's a false teacher, his name was Flatterer. Flatterer means, listen carefully, someone who tells you a lot of nice 55:05 things about you, but he wants to lead you astray. Be careful about people who just praise you, praise you, praise you because they're not always your friends. It's called a flatterer. And he dragged them away. This flatterer, the roads looked similar, so 55:24 they didn't know which way to go and they forgotten the warnings they heard. And what happened when they listened to Flatterer, they got trapped in a net. And Flatterer threw away, you know, he you see he had white dress here 55:37 and he they thought he was a servant of God of Jesus. But finally you see he's thrown away that white dress. He's a servant of the devil. He was just deceiving them. You got to be very careful. And the Bible says if you listen to a 55:49 man who flatters you, you'll be caught in a net. But then an angel came and took a whip and first of all punished them. See, you did not listen to the advice of the shepherds. The shepherds told you to be careful. But you didn't listen so you need a 56:06 little punishment. So he gave them a little punishment. And now I said, "I'll show you which way to walk." And then the shining angel opened the net and set them free and said, "Go on your way and be careful now to listen to 56:21 what the preacher told you at the beginning evangelist and what the shepherds told you afterwards." And they thanked him and they started going on their way happily. And that was a good warning for them because now they met another person. His 56:35 name was I don't believe in God. Can you imagine there are people in the world who say, "I don't believe in God." They call them atheists. So far along the way there are people who say, "I don't believe in God." And they turn back. 56:49 They don't believe in God. I'll tell you why because some problem came in their life. And they feel God didn't solve me. So there's so didn't solve it. So there must be no God. Or some prayer they prayed and they didn't get an answer. So 57:01 they say, "Oh, there's no God." But whenever God doesn't answer a prayer, there's a purpose with it. You mustn't say there's no God just because some prayer of yours didn't get answered. That's what happened to this man. Maybe 57:12 some of his prayers were not answered so he said there's no God and he went back. And so these they realized that even so far ahead we had to be very very careful because we are walking on dangerous ground all the time and it's very easy to feel 57:25 sleepy spiritually and not be alert. We must always us alert spiritually. I want to be alert right till the end of my life. They finally Now they're coming close to heaven. They There's a land called Married to Christ. It's a beautiful 57:41 picture. There were angels from heaven that came to encourage them. We can't see the angels, but they're all around us to help us. And as they came close to the heavenly city, they found there's a big river. And that river is called death. 57:55 And most people go to death Most Most people go to heaven, Christians, disciples of Jesus go to heaven by dying and go to heaven. But if Jesus comes before that, then we will not die. Then we won't have to go into this river. We'll go straight up into the 58:10 cloud and go to that heavenly city. But we don't know when Jesus will come. And all these 2,000 years, Jesus has not come yet. And there are many Christians who died, so they had to go through the death river and go to the heavenly city. 58:22 But we are hoping All of us are hoping that Jesus will come when we are alive. So that we may not have to die. But while you're alive, we'll hear a trumpet and Jesus will come and take us straight to heaven. But here these people lived a time 58:38 before that, 300 years ago. People died. And so they had to enter the river of death. The other side, the the angels encouraged them. But Christian was almost drowning in that death. You know, sometimes people when they come to die, 58:52 they get so discouraged. But it's good to have a brother there to encourage you. No, don't give up, brother. We're going into God's kingdom. Sometimes when sickness comes, you can get discouraged as you're sinking into that river. Some Christians die with 59:04 sickness. And you can be discouraged. But it's good to have brothers at that time to encourage us. And soon they both crossed to the other side. And to the They reached the borders of the heavenly city. And as soon as they 59:17 reached the heavenly city, they gave the certificates to They had to give that certificate to the angels there. And they handed over the certificates and as soon as they crossed the gates were open and the light shined from Jesus and the king said, "Come 59:34 right in." And they were given a beautiful new dress and that's how they entered heaven and then the gates were shut again till somebody else was ready to have come to heaven. And you know, that's how we come to the end of our Christian life and they see 59:48 Jesus face to face there. There's a song which says it'll be worth it all one day when we see Jesus face to face and all the difficulties we gone through life will appear so small and weak because we finally entered into God's kingdom. 1:00:04 Jesus said, "If you endure unto the end, you'll be saved and I'll give you a crown of life." And both these pilgrims got a crown of life. Isn't that a beautiful story? What are the lessons we learn? We have to be faithful right until the end. 1:00:22 And there are many people there to encourage us along the way in the church and be careful of false friends and people who try to turn you back right through your Christian life. So, may God help you, little children, to follow 1:00:39 Jesus till the end. Let's bow our heads in prayer now. Let's bow our heads before the Lord. Ask him to help us to follow Jesus till the end. 1:00:57 Children, please bow your heads and let's pray to Jesus that he will help us right up to the end to follow him. Heavenly Father, as we bow before you, help us to help these children especially to remember what they heard, 1:01:15 the encouragement they give to one another, and to stand against all the people who try to turn us back. And help us to follow you, Lord Jesus, right until the very end. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, God bless you all.
