The 1660s were a period of great turmoil and unrest in England. Cromwell, the protector of England and parliament, had died three years earlier. Charles II, son of the beheaded king, returned from exile in 1649 and ascended to the throne. England re-acquired state church status and ended the freedom of worship observed between 1640 and 1660. The following year, 1662, under the so-called Compliance Act, more than 2000 Puritan ministers the rebels were expelled from their pulpits, their churches. They were closed and banned from preaching and even residing less than 8 km from any city or village. The new Parliament, colloquially known as the ‘DrunkEn Parliament’, for the kind of men who composed it, abolished all the principles of reform of England’s Religious Environment One of the martyrs of that time, the Earl of Arilo, from the top of his scaffolding, in front of his executioner, said:
“These times in which we live are very sinful or very suffering. So let Christians make their choice? SIS OR SOUFFRIR, and certainly whoever chooses the right part, will choose SOUFFRIR. ?
John Bunyan chose to suffer!
Bunyan was one of those heroes of faith who experienced in his body and soul the sharpness of suffering in his broadest manifestations: intense struggles with one’s conscience and conviction of sins, which led to a long and painful process of appropriation of faith, for the suffering of misery, deprivation, disease and persecution because of his faith.
The pilgrim, considered the most published and read book in history after the Bible, is a fascinating allegory that tells the story of a Christian on his way to the heavenly city, whose path is made in stages, and in each of them, the Christian lives various kinds of suffering and intense struggles, passing through the “swamp of discouragement” , the “mount of difficulties”, the “valley of humiliation”, the “valley of the shadow” of death ?, by the martyrdom of Fiel, by the “Castle of Doubt” until reaching the river that has no bridge.
Its author, John Bunyan, was born in Puritan England in 1628, in a rural village called Bedford, had a poor childhood, received a precarious education and became a handyman by profession, following his father’s profession. She was 14 and perdido. su younger sister and younger mother in the space of a month. At the age of 16 he joined the parliamentary army where he remained for a few years.
The beginning of his process of understanding the Christian faith was by reading the only two books he had at home; inheritance received by the first wife. The books were man’s way to heaven? Arthur Dent and?The practice of piety? Lewis Bayly. La reading these books made a strong impression on John Bunyan and led him to think more seriously about his situation before God. Bunyan became under the ministry of Baptist Pastor John Gifford and tells us about his conversion in the mid-1650s.
Receiving the blessings of salvation was not an easy task for Bunyan. In his autobiography, “An Abundant Grace for the Chief of Sinners,” he devotes more than two-thirds of the book to describing the ups and downs of his infighting. At one point, he recognizes that his trials and suffering came from the “Lord, Satan, and my own corruption. “And his struggles against his accusatory conscience and Satan’s temptations and trials often made him want to be like a “dog, or a horse, not to have a soul prone to hell. “He felt great sadness at being created by God, believing that he would be condemned for his sinful thoughts, because he does not believe that it is possible to attain holiness. On one occasion, luke’s passage 22:31, which said, “Simon, Simon, behold, has Satan claimed you?” seemed so vivid to Bunyan that he heard him as if someone was yelling at him behind his shoulders.
Bunyan fought with the safety of his call and salvation. Did he often feel like Saul, Urian, or Sau, a homeless man, having known something of God’s Word, abandoned him by a bowl of lentils; his fears of hell caused him despair and great turmoil in his soul.
On another occasion, he recounts that “these things have plunged me into despair. When these temptations came to me so strongly, I was compared to a child that a nomad had taken his friends and his land. and cry in despair?
Bunyan’s suffering lasted for years. On some occasions he experienced some relief from his temptations and conscience, on others, despair was such that he could not “pray to Christ against whom he had sinned.
In Pilgrim, Bunyan seems to portray this kind of anguish in Christian’s passage through the valley of shadow of death, where he recounts that Christian found men fleeing this valley, because there were satyrs and demons from hell. Continuous howls and cries of a people in an indescribable affliction, lying in suffering and chains. Above the valley hang the dark clouds of confusion, and death is always with wings outstretched. Is everything completely terrible, grim and unde orderful?
But Christian, though trembling and fearing for life, drew his sword and crossed the valley until dawn. The same thing happened to Bunyan, who finally saw the end of his anguish for his soul when he “felt the conviction of Christ’s righteousness in his life. “. He called his conviction a “triumph of grace. “
Within a few years of his conversion, he became a widower and his wife left him with four children, one of whom was blind. He remarried to a very pious woman, Elizabeth, who was his companion and assistant for the rest of his life; He became pastor of a Baptist congregation and, from the 1660s, with the return of the monarchy and the prohibition of the ministry of secular and nonconformist preaching, Bunyan was imprisoned on numerous occasions. The sum of Bunyan’s time in prison is 12 years.
During his trial, Bunyan defended his right to preach by reading the passage from 1 Peter 4:10-11, which reads, “Serve one another according to the gift you have received as good administrators of God’s multiple grace; if someone speaks, he speaks according to God’s oracles; if someone serves, do so with the strength that God provides, so that in all things God may be glorified by Christ Jesus, to whom glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen!?
Bunyan was imprisoned. And every time I got out of jail, I promised to preach again. And he went back to jail. His days in prison were one of many uncertainties and difficulties.
Every day, Bunyan literally felt the rope around his neck. I knew I could die at any moment. Moreover, the idea of the trials and sufferings his family would suffer broke his heart. During his incarceration period, Bunyan recorded the following
“The separation of my wife and children has always been like ripping flesh out of my bones while I’m in this place. It’s not just because I love them so much, but because I always remember their deprivations, their miseries and the great lack. “that my family will have, if they take it off, especially my poor blind daughter. Ah, thinking about the trials my sweet blind daughter can endure breaks my heart. What a great suffering your part in this world will be!She can be slapped, begged, starved to death, cold, have nothing to wear and thousands of other calamities.
Bunyan wrote his masterpiece, The Pilgrim and his autobiography, “Abundant Grace for the Principal of Sinners,” in prison. But Bunyan has produced many books and writings. According to historian Christopher Hill, Bunyan has written about 58 works!
Bunyan was someone who produced theology under the heat of the test!
Most of his writings were intended to help pilgrims walk the path of heaven: he wrote works of evangelization; wrote about conversion; about holiness; about the construction of the saints; Christian battles. He has written theological works on the person of Christ, on the trinity, on the church and has he also written two important works on suffering, one of them titled?Advice to those who suffer, and the other, the trials of Christians?affliction and its benefits ?. In these works, Bunyan encouraged the suffering man to remain whole and faithful in the face of persecution and suffering, saying that there is nothing but God and the grace of Christ that keeps man suffering, such as goodwill and conscience. His conscience, like Luther’s, was captive of the Lord and so he said that if he had 4,500 liters of blood, he would shed every drop in favor of his Savior.
It was said that he had written that his blood was composed of Bible verses. Everything Bunyan wrote was full of the Bible. In fact, the Bible was the book he carried with him most of the time and the only one he had access to during his days in prison.
Bunyan died at the age of 60 in 1688, when, already in poor health after being involved in a great effort that resulted in the publication of 6 books, he left the city of Reading for London in a violent storm. After ten days of illness, did you exhale? You crossed the river leading to spiritual Jerusalem like a true pilgrim.
Some of these episodes in your life help us understand the different forms of suffering and what our response should be. Bunyan said his suffering had given him much “conviction, education and understanding. “Let’s see how he took advantage of the difficulties he had in his life and how we can also take advantage of them.
Self-awareness: The trials allowed Bunyan to know his heart better and he said he had found seven abominations to fight against:
Spiritual growth: Afflictions also served Bunyan’s growth, and according to him, according to Romans 8. 28, these things happened for his sake, God commanded them:
1) We are invited to trust in God in all the circumstances and struggles of life because of Jesus’ suffering on the Cross. The cross, an instrument of suffering, is our destiny. Christ invites us to carry our cross every day, to die for us and to live for him, because he died for us so that we may have life in him. We must be crucified for this world.
2) Suffering is the crucible of God. Test our faith and refine us. We are mature and grow when we set our eyes on Christ and his sufferings, when we experience suffering ourselves: (He 12:2) :?Constantly observing the Author and the Consumer of Faith, Jesus, who, in exchange for the joy offered to him, endured the cross, ignoring ignominy, and sat to the right of God’s throne.
3) The suffering of this life helps us to remember the hope of the future: the resurrection and the new heavens and the new earth, eternity, is put before our eyes when we look forward to the difficulties of life. the heavenly city 😕 Now, when the doors were opened, I looked inward, behold, the city shone like the sun, and the streets were paved with gold, in which many people walked with crowns on their heads, palms in their hand, and golden harps, to sing with them praises. There were also beings who had wings and constantly shouted, saying, Holy, Holy is the Lord. Having seen these things, did he really want to be a part of them?
That in the face of suffering, we finally have an answer like Job’s
“I know you can do anything and none of your plans can get frustrated. “Employment 42. 2
Vincit que patitur (who suffers the conquest).
By Tiago Santos. © 2013 Faithful Ministério. Original: The Christian Pilgrimage: Suffering and Life of John Bunyan?Tiago Santos
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