When the pilgrims left the shepherds in the Delectable Mountains a few chapters ago, they first ran into Ignorance from the country of Conceit. They have given him the distance he desired, while hoping that he would consider the truth that they shared with him. As the pilgrims continued through their journey, Ignorance was never far behind them since, in the beginning of this chapter, Hopeful looks back and notices him still following them.
[It makes you wonder; did he see them pause at the fork in the road? Did he watch them wander off with the Flatterer and caught in the net? Surely, he saw the Shining One lead them back and chastise them with his whip. Could he overhear the conversation with Atheist? He could have been close behind them walking through the Enchanted Ground; close enough to hear Hopeful’s agonizing story of turning away from his former life and trying to be good enough, only to discover the saving grace of God, revealed in His Son – that grace that granted Hopeful’s salvation.]
Hopeful still feels that Ignorance would have benefitted from their companionship. Christian is sure that Ignorance still thinks otherwise. They decide to wait for him to catch up to them. Christian calls to him to hurry and quit lagging behind.
Ignorance: I take pleasure in walking alone and enjoy it more than traveling in the company of others unless I really like the particular members of such company.
Christian offers to spend their time together talking as they walk through this solitary place. He asks Ignorance, “How are you doing? How stands it between God and your soul now?”
Ignorance: I hope well, for I am always full of good thoughts and intentions that come into my mind that comfort me as I walk.
Christian: What good thoughts and intentions? Please tell us.
Why I think of God and Heaven.
Christian: So do the devils and damned souls.
But I think of them and also desire them.
Christian: So do many who are never going to make it to Heaven. ‘The soul of the sluggard desires, and hath nothing.’
But I think of them and leave all that I possess and enjoy that I might gain them.
Christian: I doubt that, since leaving all is a hard matter. It is a much harder matter than many are aware of. But what is it that persuades you that you have left all for God and Heaven?
My heart tells me so.
Christian: The wise man says, ‘He that trusts his own heart is a fool’.
This is spoken of an evil heart, but mine is a good one.
Christian: But how can you prove that?
It comforts me with hopes of Heaven.
Christian: That may be your heart deceiving you. A man’s heart may comfort him with hopes of things that, in all truth, he has no reason to hope for.
But my heart and life agree together, and therefore my hope is well-grounded.
Christian: Who told you that your heart and life agree together?
My heart tells me so.
[This dialogue is similar to Satan and Jesus in the wilderness, with both sides quoting scripture, but Ignorance pulls his verses out of context and only to rationalize and justify what he wants to believe… what his hearts tells him to believe. But we know from Jeremiah, the heart is deceitful above all things… but then we also know from Ezekiel, God will give us a new heart, if we let Him. He will turn our hearts of stone to hearts of flesh. Proverbs 4:23-26 tells us to guard our hearts, for everything you do flows from it. Jesus confirms this when he talks about what defiles a man. He also tells us that, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ We should be desiring a pure heart – we should be praying the promise of God in Ezekiel 36:26… but start at v16 first… to understand why God will restore our sinful hearts.
I guess it would be important for the Christian to ask, before they start listening to their heart, ‘Do I still have a heart of stone or have I now a heart of flesh?’]
Ignorance: Please tell me what you consider to be good thoughts and a life lived according to God’s commandments.
Christian: There are good thoughts pertaining to different things, some with respect to ourselves, God, Christ, and other things.
What do you think are good thoughts in relation to ourselves?
Christian: Such as agree with the Word of God.
What kind of thoughts about ourselves agree with the Word of God?
Christian: We think rightly of ourselves when we pass the same judgment upon ourselves that the Word passes. To explain more fully, the Word of God says of persons in the natural condition, ‘There is none righteous, there is none that doeth good.’ It also says that ‘every imagination of the heart of man is only evil.’ And again, ‘The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.’ Now then, when we think these thoughts about ourselves, our thoughts are good ones because they agree with the Word of God.
I will never believe that my heart is that bad!
Christian: Therefore, you have never had one ‘good’ thought concerning yourself in your entire life.
[Dang! (1) He’s a gentle as I am sometimes. 🤨 (2) GOOD thoughts are not always the ones that ‘feel good’. If ‘GOOD’ means agreement-with-God… that takes us all the way to the Garden and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We continue to desire to define this on our own terms, i.e., we keep climbing up on the throne of God. We forget that God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.]
Christian and Ignorance go on to talk about ‘good thoughts’, thoughts concerning our behavior… thoughts of God… and thoughts of Christ.
Ignorance: I think I must believe in Christ for Justification.
Christian: How is it that you think you must believe in Christ when you do not see your need for Him? You neither see your original nor actual infirmities. You have an opinion of yourself and of your deeds that puts you in a category of man who sees no necessity for Christ’s personal righteousness to justify you before God. How can you say that you believe in Christ?
In spite of what you say, I believe.
Christian: But what do you believe?
I believe that Christ died for sinners and that I shall be justified before God from the curse through His gracious acceptance of my obedience to His law. I believe that Christ makes my religious duties acceptable to His Father, by virtue of His merits, and so shall I be justified.
Christian: Let me discuss your confession of faith: First, you believe with a fantasy faith, for this faith is nowhere described in the Word. You also believe with a false faith that takes justification away from the personal righteousness of Christ and credits it to you. The faith you describe makes Christ a justifier of your actions, not of your person. Thus, according to this faith, you are justified by your actions, which is false. Therefore, this faith is deceitful and will leave you under God’s wrath in the Day of Judgment. True justifying faith makes the soul aware of its lost condition under the Law. The soul that comes to the righteousness of Christ for refuge understands that it is Christ’s righteousness alone that is acceptable to God. It is not a mixture of both Christ’s obedience and our attempts at obedience that justify us to God.
[and this this where the vocabulary of Christian living gets so difficult… because we need to understand obedience within the confines of humility and submission to our King. Not the obedience to laws that we, humans, couldn’t keep throughout all of history… (i.e., read The Old Testament!), but the obedience of a new heart, that is humble and prays, ‘Not my will, Lord, but Yours be done.]
Ignorance: What! Would you have us trust in what Christ alone has accomplished without adding our own accomplishments? Believing Christ and His righteousness would give us complete abandon to live as we choose the moment we believed it. This way of thinking would loosen the reins of our lust and permit us to disobey God’s commands to our heart’s content.
Christian: Ignorance is your name, and as your name is, so are you. You are ignorant of the true effects of saving faith in the righteousness of Christ, the effects of which are to bend and win over the heart to God in Christ. The heart won over to Him will love His name, His Word, His ways, and His people. Saving faith will not give license to do evil but will instead give the earnest desire and power to do good.
Hopeful asked if he ever had Christ revealed to him from Heaven.
What! You are a man who believes in revelations? That is your faith, but not mine. I believe that my faith is as good as yours, although it does not fill my head with so many whimsical ideas as your faith does.
Christian: tries one last time. “Give me a moment to put in a word. You ought not to speak so lightly of this matter. For this I will boldly affirm, even as my good companion has done, that no man can know Jesus Christ except by the revelation of the Father…”
You are going too fast. I cannot keep pace with you. You go on ahead. I must stay behind for a while.
Christian: Well, Ignorance, will you remain foolish? Will you ignore the good counsel given to you over and over again? Come, my good Hopeful. I perceive that you and I must walk by ourselves again.
The two pilgrims continue their walk wondering if men such as Ignorance, for there are many in his same condition, have ever felt the weight of conviction of their sin and the consequent fear that they might be in a dangerous state?
Scripture: Proverbs 28:26 Proverbs 13:4 Proverbs 28:26 Romans 3:10 Romans 3:12 Genesis 6:5 Genesis 8:21
Psalm 125 Proverbs 2:15 Romans 3 Matthew 11:27 1 Corinthians 12:3 Ephesians 1:18-19 John 12:40 Proverbs 1:7 Proverbs 9:10 Psalm 111:10 Job 28:28 2 Peter 2:22 Proverbs 29:25
[The conversation between Christian and Ignorance is difficult to read. It is even more difficult to have with your loved ones… your coworkers… even your fellow Christians. People will always find like-minded individuals that agree with them – everyone enjoys being ‘right’ and being considered ‘good’. It is a difficult and lonely place to be, when in that place, surrounded by like-minded individuals, you are convicted of your unrighteousness. Any conversation you have now will sound hypocritical, holier-than-thou, and awkward, while you are still struggling with this new life. I’m guessing God created butterflies to remind us that we can remain caterpillars and think the caterpillar-life is just fine, especially since that is how God created us… And for a while, it is… until he calls us to be butterflies. Creatures that weren’t even imaginable to us while we were still caterpillars.
Of course, this comparison fails when you realize a caterpillar has no free will to refuse the call to become a butterfly – we do]
The rest of the chapter finds Christian and Hopeful finishing their walk through the Enchanted Ground talking about the ways that people desperately seek to stifle their conviction of sin and continue to flatter themselves that their way of thinking in their own hearts is correct. The ignorant do not understand that the conviction of sin that makes them fearful is for their own good, so they try to stifle all such fears. Christian notes, “Without a doubt, the right fear can be a good thing – ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.’”
Hopeful: How would you describe right fear?
Christian: True or right fear can be known by three things. (1) by what causes it: the right kind of fear is caused by saving conviction of sin. (2) a good fear drives the soul to quickly lay hold of Christ for salvation. And (3) this fear begins and sustains in the soul a great reverence for God. His Word, and His ways. It keeps the soul tender, making it afraid to turn right or left from His Word and ways. It makes the soul sensitive to anything that might dishonor God, grieve the Spirit, or cause the enemy to speak against God.
The ways that they try to stifle their fears: (1) they think that those fears are caused by the Devil (even though they are caused by God); so they resist them as they would anything else they consider destructive (2) they think these fears would spoil their faith, when the truth is that they have no real faith to spoil, so they harden their hearts against all such fears (3) they presume they ought not to fear; and therefore despite their fear they behave in willful self-confidence (4) they see those fears tend to take away their own personal merit and therefore resist them with all their might.
Hopeful: I know something of this myself, for before I knew better, it was so with me.
They continue their walk discussing a common acquaintance, a devoutly religious man named Temporary, from the town of Graceless. He lived next to Mr. Turnback. Temporary was once very much awakened to the seriousness of his own sin and the wages that were due them. Hopeful confirmed, “He would often come to visit me when in distress and full of tears. Truly I pitied the man and was not altogether without hope for him. But then again, not everyone who cries, ‘Lord, Lord’…” Christian concluded with, “He told me once that he was resolved to go on pilgrimage as we are now. But all of a sudden, he grew acquainted with Mr. Save-Self, and then he became a stranger to me.”
Since they were talking about what happened with Temporary, they finished their walk discussing the reasons why he and others like him suddenly backslide. First they discuss WHY THEY BACKSLIDE: (1) although their consciences of such men are awakened, their minds are not changed – when the power of guild fades, they return to their ways. (2) The slavish fears that they have of men. So then, though they seem to long earnestly for Heaven while the flames of Hell are being felt, when their terror is over, they have second thoughts. They consider it would be good to be ‘wise’ in the worldly sense and not risk the hazard of losing it all. (3) There is attendant shame associated with true religion, which makes it a stumbling block to them. They are proud and haughty and consider true religion to be low and contemptible. (4) The guilt and terror that comes to mind when they consider their miserable condition is something that grieves them, but instead of coming to Christ they try to avoid all such terrible thoughts.
Lastly, they discuss HOW THEY BACKSLIDE: (1) Private Resistance: Backsliders resist all thoughts of God, death, and the judgment to come. Thus they begin to cast off private duties such as closet prayer, curbing their lusts, watching their souls, grieving over sin… they also begin to shun the company of lively and warm Christians. (2) Public Resistance: They grow cold to their public duties such as hearing God’s Word preached, reading the Bible, and assembling together with other Christians. They start to abandon the assembly of believers, finding fault with other Christians, often naming them hypocrites, in order to provide an excuse for leaving them. (3) Private Sin: Having abandoned the fellowship of the saints, they then begin to draw close to and associate themselves with fleshly, loose, greedy, lewd, and unruly men, who tempt them to give way to fleshly and lewd practices, at first in secret. (4) Public Sin: They begin to play with certain sins openly. Finally then, being hardened, they show themselves for what they are.
Thoughts to Consider: The author makes quite the argument for Christians to reconsider how they define GOOD. Of course, Luke 18:19, Jesus asks us to do the same.
The author makes a good summary statement of the backsliders as well: At the bottom of it all is the simple truth that these men never change their will or their mind. That is, they never truly repent.
And finally, after discussing how backsliding happens, the author drops the dynamite: He says, “Then they are launched again into the gulf of misery, and unless a miracle of grace prevents it, they perish forever in their own deceit.”
I love that statement, having experienced that miracle of grace. 💖