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It Is Written

John Bradshaw

Men of Faith: John Bunyan

Coming up next, please stay tuned for It Is Written, presented by Pastor John Bradshaw.

Well, it Doesn't look like much, does it?

That road you see back there is the A421.

It crosses South Central England, East West.

If you were driving from Cambridge to Oxford, you'd drive on the A421.

But while history keeps many secrets, she cannot keep them all.

It was here in Elstow, apparently on this very spot, that 1 of history's most read authors was born.

The book he wrote 350 years ago has never been out of print.

That's more than any other novel in the English language by far.

During his almost 60 years on this earth, he preached, spent a fifth of his life in prison, and wrote the literary and spiritual masterpiece, The Pilgrim's Progress.

Bunyan's day was a challenging time to be a believer in Jesus, that is, if you had deep spiritual convictions and you dared to live them.

The English state was closely bound together with the English church.

Although Catholicism had at times been the ruling church in England when Bunyan was born, the monarch, Charles I, was a Protestant.

The act of uniformity made the Church of England the established church 70 years before Bunyan was born.

Yet England was not a bastion of religious liberty.

Remember the Mayflower sailed from England only 8 years before Bunyan was born.

You were free to be a Protestant, as long as you were the right kind of Protestant.

John Bunyan wasn't the right kind of Protestant.

He started life as a bad kid, didn't do well in school, and wasn't only a troublemaker but a ringleader.

And he wasn't interested in Christianity.

He joined the army at 16 and fought in England's Civil War.

He was very nearly killed while in the military.

He was selected to take part in a siege near Leicester when another soldier asked to take his place.

When he married, Bunyan and his wife moved here to St Cuthbert's Street in nearby Bedford, which is about 50 miles from London.

Today Bedford is a market town with a population of about 175, 000 people.

Then the population was closer to 2, 000.

But something they did have was 2 spiritual books Mrs Bunyan brought into the marriage.

Those books, along with sermons he heard and an occasion on which A woman chastised him for his bad language, convinced Bunyan that he needed to change.

Outwardly, there was a head change, but no heart change.

But Martin Luther's commentary on the book of Galatians got through to the young man, and he was born again.

It wasn't long and John Bunyan was preaching, often.

But the problem was that Bunyan was a nonconformist.

That is, he didn't attend a Church of England church.

Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Quakers were considered nonconformists.

But Bunyan didn't identify with any of these groups.

Puritans were Protestants who believed the Church of England wasn't Protestant enough.

They felt the Anglican Church was still too Catholic and should take the Protestant Reformation further.

The idea that a tinker, a mender of pots and pans like his father would preach, That was too much for the Church of England.

For a while, he preached in disguise, but then he gave that up and was arrested and cast into the Bedford jail, which stood right there on that spot.

2 cells, dreadfully overcrowded, no running water, and open sewers.

He was charged with having devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church to hear divine service, as well as holding several unlawful meetings and conventigals to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom.

All he needed to do was assure the judge that he would go to church where and when he was told.

He could then have stayed with his wife and children, earned a living and supported his family.

But as much as he wanted to avoid that awful Bedford jail and remain with his loved ones, Bunyan gave the judge no such assurance.

In fact, He told the judge that should he be released, he would go out and start preaching immediately.

So on November 13, 1660, John Bunyan was imprisoned.

If after being released from prison he didn't attend a regular Anglican church, he'd be banished from the kingdom.

When Charles II was crowned king, many prisoners were pardoned.

He refused to even apply for a pardon because that would be to admit he had done something wrong.

While he was in prison, he earned a little money making shoelaces, but his family was supported mainly by church members.

He was so well liked by the jailers that there were times he was allowed out of prison, and he even managed to attend nonconformist meetings.

He used his time in the jail as productively as he could.

He wrote Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners while imprisoned.

And he began work on The Pilgrim's Progress.

Bunyan was released after serving 12 years in prison, but it seems he did not go back to his old life as a tinker.

Instead he became a prolific author, penning in total around 60 works.

He wrote a commentary on the book of Revelation.

His book, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, is still regarded as a classic today.

It was published in 1666, the same year as the Great Fire of London.

The Pilgrim's Progress was published in 1678, almost 100 years before the start of the American Revolutionary War.

Bunyan also became a local church pastor.

We'll visit the site of his church and the museum dedicated to the life and ministry of the Puritan preacher in just a moment.

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After being released from prison, John Bunyan went on to have a very successful ministry as an author and a preacher of the gospel.

Today Bedford remembers its illustrious son.

There's been a 9 feet tall statue of Bunyan standing on St.

Peter's Green for 150 years, since it was donated by the Duke of Bedford.

It depicts Bunyan preaching from an open Bible, a broken chain connected to his left foot, a reminder of his days in the Bedford jail.

There are 3 scenes from Bunyan's famous book depicted on the base of the statue.

Christian talking with evangelist at the wicket gate.

And his battle with Apollyon, the embodiment of evil.

The unveiling of the statue was a big deal, with people coming from all across Britain to witness the event.

But the most significant memorial in Bedford to John Bunyan today is the John Bunyan Museum and the Bunyan Meeting Free Church, which stands on the site of a church that John Bunyan himself passed at many years ago.

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Men of Faith: John Bunyan

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