A Call To The Remnant

I was made to see, that if ever I would suffer rightly, I must first pass a sentence of death upon everything that can be properly called a thing in this life, even to reckon myself, my wife, my children, my health, my enjoyment, and all, as dead to me and myself as dead to them. The second was to live upon God who is invisible as Paul said in another place the way not to faint is to “look not upon the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen, for the things that are seen seen are temporal, but the things which are seen are eternal (John Bunyon)

Our brother John discovered the great depths of what it means to serve God with all of your heart. He knew he was going to suffer, and suffer indeed he did for the cause of Jesus. And yet, to “suffer rightly,’ he must count all things as loss. All the things of this world must be dead to him and he must be alive to God. This in no way meant that he did not love his family, clearly from his writings the opposite was true. Consider his agonies of knowing that his wife and family suffered greatly, especially his young blind daughter, because of his stand for Jesus. It tore him to pieces…….

“The parting with my wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place (prison) as the pulling of the flesh from my bones……I should have often often brought to mind the many hardships, miseries and wants that my poor family was like to meet should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer to my heart than all I had besides; Oh the thoughts of the hardship I thought my blind one might go under, would break my heart to pieces.”

You see brothers and sisters. Bunyon’s faith that led him to prison and his knowing that he must die to everything of this world, including his family, was not the actions of a cold, religious stoic man, quite the opposite. Amazingly, John could have spared himself the 12 years in prison and all the suffering he undertook and that of his family by simply recanting his faith. He could have walked out of prison at any time. How cruel the enemy is. Yet here is what he said in that regard ….

“If nothing will do unless I make my conscience a continual butchery and a slaughtershop, unless putting out my own eyes, I commit me to the blind to lead me, as I doubt not is desired by some, I have determined, the Almighty God being my help and shield , yet to suffer, if frail life might continue so long, even till the moss shall grow on mine eyebrows, rather than to violate my faith and principles.”

John would suffer the loss off al things rather than to violate his conscience in regard to preaching the Word of God. It did not come easy, it was in fact an agony, yet his great desire was to “suffer rightly.’ How then brothers and sisters, should we live in such a dark age as ours? Should we not also desire to “suffer rightly,” for the cause of Christ? Should we not love the Lord out God with all of hearts and all of our minds and bodies? Should we not love Him above all other things, even the most dearest things to our hearts? We should. God bless you and help you as you follow hard after God.