Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break,
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I was talking at some length
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about John Bunyan
and Pilgrim's Progress.
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But what I want
to share with you
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is something from his biography,
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Grace Abounding to
the Chief of Sinners.
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Not so well known,
but really in many ways,
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just as famous by those who know
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anything about John Bunyan.
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And I'm going to read, pardon,
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that it's the best way
to communicate what he said.
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And this is what,
how he explained it
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fairly early on in that outline
of his life's experience.
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He says, " I fell into
company with one poor man
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that made
profession of religion,
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who, as I then thought,
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did talk
pleasantly of the Scriptures,
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and of the matters
of religion; wherefore,
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falling into some love
and liking to what he said,
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I betook me to my Bible,
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and began to take
great pleasure in reading,
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but especially
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with the
historical part thereof."
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That's a common
failing, in other words,
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it's a piece of literature
not really knowing the parent.
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He says, "For as,
as for Paul's epistles,
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and such like Scriptures,
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I could not away with them
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being as yet ignorant
either of the Scriptures
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or of my nature,
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or of the want and worth
of Jesus Christ to save me."
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He says, "Therefore I fell
to some outward reformation,
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both in my words and life,
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and did set the commandments
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before me for my ways to heaven,
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which commandments I
also did strive to keep,
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and, as I thought,
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did keep them
pretty well sometimes,
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and then I should have comfort,
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yet now and then
should break one,
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and so afflict my conscience,
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but then I should repent,
and say I was sorry for it,
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and promise God to
do better next time,
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and there get help again,
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for then I thought I pleased God
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as well as any man in England.
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Thus I continued about a year,
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all which time our
neighbors did take me
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to be a very godly man,
a new and religious man,
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and did marvel
much to see such a great
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and famous alteration
in my life and manners,
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and, indeed, so it was,
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though yet I knew not
Christ, nor grace, nor faith,
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nor hope, for as I
have well seen since,
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had I then died,
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my state had been most fearful."
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He's really
getting to the nitty gritty
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of what it means
to be a Christian.
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He says, "I loved to be talked
of as one that was truly godly.
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I was proud of my godliness,
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and indeed I did all that I did,
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either to be seen of,
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or to be well spoken of, by men.
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And thus I continued
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for about a
twelve month or more."
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And then he says,
this is the key thing,
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"But upon a day,
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the good providence of
God called me to Bedford,"
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this is his hometown,
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"to work on my calling,
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and in one of the
streets of that town,
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I came where there were
three or four poor women
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sitting at a door in the sun,
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talking about
the things of God."
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And I must tell you,
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that's an
unusual thing in itself.
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I can remember myself
when I was back in college,
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in the times of
the Jesus movement,
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being very
cynical of it at the time,
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and when I look back on it,
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I think there was a
stirring in the mulberry bushes
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to put it figuratively.
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Young people were seeking God
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in a rather
marked way at that time.
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But I was a
little cynical of it,
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but I remember
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after one of the
weekend rally sessions,
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some weeks
after, during the week,
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I went to a nearby bank,
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and I overheard two young
men talking about religion,
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and one of them said
to the other, he said,
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"I've
determined to model my life
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after Jesus Christ."
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That's an unusual
thing in any age to hear.
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So John Bunyan was moved,
when he heard these women,
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talking about the
things of God as he says,
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and continuing, he says,
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"And being now willing
to hear them discourse,
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I drew near to
hear what they said,
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for I was now a
brisk talker also myself
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in the matters of religion.
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But I may say, I
heard, but understood not,
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for they were far
above out of my reach.
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Their talk was
about a new birth,
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the work of God on their hearts,
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also how they were convinced
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of their
miserable state by nature.
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They talked how God
had visited their souls
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with His love in the Lord Jesus,
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and with what words and promises
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they had been refreshed,
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comforted and supported
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against the
temptations of the Devil.
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Moreover, they
reasoned of the suggestions
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and temptations of
Satan in particular.
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And told to each other
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by which they had been afflicted
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and how they were
born up under His assaults.
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They also discoursed
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on their own
wretchedness of heart,
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and of their
unbelief, and did condemn,
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slight, and abhor
their own righteousness,
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as filthy and insufficient
to do them any good.
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And methought," says Bunyan,
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"they spake as if
joy did make them speak,
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they spake
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with such pleasantness
of Scripture language,
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and with such appearance
of grace in all they said,
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that they were to me
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as if they had
found a new world,
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as if they were
people that dwelt alone,
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and were not to be
reckoned among their neighbors."
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And he quotes Numbers
23.9 as a backup to that.
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He says, "At this I felt
my own heart began to shake,
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and mistrust my
condition to be naught,
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for I saw that
in all my thoughts
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about religion and salvation,
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the new birth never
did enter into my mind,
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neither knew I the
comfort of the Word and promise,
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nor the
deceitfulness and treachery
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of my own wicked heart."
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And he says this,
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"By these things my
mind was now so turned,
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that it lay like a
horse leech at the vein,
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still crying out,
give, give, give."
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Maybe I need to go back
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to when I was
walking under the underpass
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paddling in the water of
the leeches for a second.
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They don't give up easy.
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You got to pull them
off, rip their head off.
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And then because the
blood still keeps coming
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because they
determined to suck your life,
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and he was like that on
the things of the Spirit.
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He says, "I was like a
horse leech, a big leech,
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at the vein, still
crying out, give, give, give.
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It was so fixed on
eternity, said Bunyan,
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and on the things
about the kingdom of heaven,
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that is, so far as I
knew, though as yet, God knows,
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I knew but little he
says on the other side,
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but now that pleasures
nor profits, nor persuasions,
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nor threats, could loose it,
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or make it let go its hold,
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and though I may
speak it with shame,
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yet it is in very
deed a certain truth,
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it would then have
been as difficult for me
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to have taken my
mind from heaven to earth,
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as I have found it often since
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to get away from
earth to heaven."
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You know, that's
strikes me as a real narrative
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of a real spiritual battle
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that this man
was engaged in and,
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you know, he didn't listed
as he figuratively wrote about,
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he didn't listed
on the Lord's cause,
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and the, you know,
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the war that they
fought in the Civil War,
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that was one thing,
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but now he saw
that he was engaged
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in the battle for his own soul,
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and the battle against Napoleon.
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And, you know, I could,
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in another
times before audiences
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I've read at least
for my own edification
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I read the story
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that he tells there of
Christian battling Napoleon,
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a real battle and only,
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but by taking the
sword of the Spirit,
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at the moment of his extremity
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was able to strike
the feign the fatal blow,
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or at least a
mortal blow not fatal.
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As Jesus said, you know,
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is the ruler of
this world is cast down,
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but not yet,
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until the lake of
fire finally destroyed.
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To me, this is inspiring stuff,
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particularly given
that it's in the context
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of a great religious civil war,
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a great religious
conflict in England,
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which was the center then
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of the largest
empire in the world.
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You know, today
it's the American Empire
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and that's another story
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and also with a
religious viewpoint,
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entangled with
the administration
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of this new empire.
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But in Bunyan's time,
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this religiously oriented nation
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had gone through a civil war
where religion was fought over.
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And as a soldier in that war,
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he found out
that the real battle
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was for his own soul
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that the real
battle was against,
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as the Bible says
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principalities and
powers in the highest places.
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It was his own inclinations.
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It was the force of
evil projected against him
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through society,
through his own desires.
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And to me, it's
as relevant today
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as when Bunyan the Tinker,
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wasted away his life
in prison and then put it
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to good use in
writing that book,
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as when he freed
by, ironically enough,
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interestingly enough,
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John Owen paid the ransom
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for John Bunyan to
be released from prison,
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in a recognition as he said
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that learning and sophistication
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were nothing
compared to a tinker,
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a simple preacher
who had discovered God
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and faith for
himself and then listed
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in that final
battle for his soul.
00:10:11.67\00:10:15.24
And I want to encourage you
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as we face
these difficult times,
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they're only going
to get more difficult
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and more spiritually charged.
00:10:21.75\00:10:23.55
And the threats against us
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practicing religious
liberty are going to increase.
00:10:25.29\00:10:28.22
I want to encourage
you, read Pilgrim's Progress.
00:10:28.26\00:10:31.19
And as I do,
00:10:31.23\00:10:32.76
let's try to gain some lessons
00:10:32.79\00:10:35.76
from this man who
the hard way fought,
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and I believe prevailed
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against
wickedness in high places,
00:10:41.64\00:10:43.94
wickedness in his own heart.
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God bless you as we continue
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thinking about
these heroes of the past
00:10:48.64\00:10:51.95
in the great
religious liberty challenge.
00:10:51.98\00:10:55.88
We'll be back
after a short break.
00:10:55.92\00:10:57.52