{"id":3951,"date":"2023-03-12T22:16:43","date_gmt":"2023-03-12T22:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biblestudies4you.com\/?p=3951"},"modified":"2023-03-12T22:16:43","modified_gmt":"2023-03-12T22:16:43","slug":"pilgrims-progress-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblestudies4you.com\/?p=3951","title":{"rendered":"Pilgrim’s Progress 13."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Moral of the Story.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Uncle Jeff was at the family\u2019s home again one day, and Betty snuggled up to him. \u201cHas our story about Pilgrim all finished now?\u201d she asked. \u201cOf course it has, silly,\u201d said Bobby , \u201cHe got to the Celestial City where he was going to, don\u2019t you remember?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah came in then and she said, \u201cWhere did this story come from Uncle Jeff? Who wrote it and exactly what did it mean? I mean I can see some of the points of it, but what was it all about?\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s a very good question, Sarah,\u201d Uncle Jeff said , \u201c And this is how it came about\u2026..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a man called John Bunyan who lived in England \u00a0back in the 1600s\u2026\u201d \u201cOooh, that\u2019s a long time ago!\u201d said Betty, interrupting the story. \u201cYes, it sure was\u201d, said Uncle Jeff,\u00a0 \u201cAnd he made his living by being a tinker.\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d Bobby asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA tinker was someone who travelled from place to place mending pots and pans and other things that needed mending,\u201d Uncle Jeff said \u201cBut anyway. when John\u2019s father died, he was still only a boy, but he had gone to school long enough to learn to read and write. He went to church, but didn\u2019t really take much notice of what was said, and back then, there were strict rules for people to live by. They weren\u2019t supposed to go to wild parties or anything like that, but young John did all of these things. For a while the Puritans were the ruling people of England, and tried to make people follow their rules. \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat made John change his ideas about life then, Uncle Jeff?\u201d Sarah wanted to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, \u201c said Uncle Jeff slowly, \u201che was sent off to the civil war in England and one day as he was standing next to another soldier, that man was shot in the head, and John realised that if he had been in that man\u2019s place, it would have been him that was shot. So it made him stop and think, that maybe God had some work that He wanted him to do. So John made a point of really listening to the sermons after that, and as he listened to the preacher, he wanted to be like that too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So then John too, began to preach around the place. As time went by, new rules came in as the government changed, and people weren\u2019t allowed to preach out in the open air any more. But that didn\u2019t make any difference to John, he still went ahead and did it. One day the police came and arrested him and had him put in prison for preaching outside in the streets. The prison was a horrible place, it was smelly and dirty, and he was often on his own. But John stayed cheerful through it all, and said well, he could preach to the walls and still read his Bible so what did it matter!! \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After a while, he was told that if he promised to stop preaching, he could be let out, but he felt he couldn\u2019t do that, it would be letting the Lord down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow long was he in prison altogether for then?\u201d Bobby wanted to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was there for twelve years, Bobby,\u201c\u00a0 Uncle Jeff said, \u201c and it was while he was there thinking about his life and what had happened, that he had these dreams about Christian being a pilgrim travelling to the Celestial city, and all the things that happened to him on the way. Let\u2019s see how many of these things you can remember now\u2026.why do you think his name was Pilgrim?\u201d \u201cIt was because he was travelling through his life\u201d, said Bobby. \u201cThat\u2019s right,\u201d said Uncle Jeff, \u201cWhat was he carrying on his back?\u201d \u201cIt was a heavy load,\u201d said Sarah, \u201cand he couldn\u2019t get rid of it either, until he got to the cross where Jesus died. I suppose that\u2019s like us knowing we are sinners and it feels like a load on our backs until we ask Jesus to take it away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat other people did he meet on the way that you can remember about?\u201d Uncle Jeff asked. \u201cThere was Mr. Helpful and Mr. Faithful , ” \u00a0Bobby said. \u201cYes, but there were the other sort that tried to stop him going to the city, Mr. Smarty-Pants, and Mr. Atheist too, \u201c said Sarah, \u201cAnd they are the sort of\u00a0 people we have to be careful not to have too much to do with in case they put us off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOoh, I remember there was that nasty mean Giant Despair that threw them into his dungeon!\u201d Betty said. \u201cI know what that means,\u201d said Bobby, \u201cIt means that when things go wrong we can get down in the dumps and think that God has forgotten about us!\u201d \u201cWhat about the different places that Christian saw as he went along?\u201d \u201cWell, there was Vanity Fair where they were tempted to do wrong things,\u201c Sarah said, \u201cAnd then there was By-Path Meadow where they left the narrow path to the city and thought there was an easier way to go and they nearly fell over the cliff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo what do you think all these things mean for us?\u201d Uncle Jeff asked. They were all quiet for a bit, thinking about the question. \u201cI know, I know,\u201d Betty piped up, \u201cIt means that when we follow Jesus we are not to get put off by bad things that happen to us, like if we get sick or have an accident.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt means that we mustn\u2019t take the easy ways out,\u201c  Sarah said, \u201cthat if we do, we might come to grief and miss out on what God really wants us to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt means that we have to think ahead, \u201c Bobby said slowly,  \u201cInstead of doing things in a hurry, and making mistakes that we might be sorry about later\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, I can see that you have got the points that the story was trying to bring out,\u201d Uncle Jeff said, \u201cAnd what was the final outcome?\u201d \u201cWhen Christian came to the end of the road, even though it wasn\u2019t going to be easy for him, he knew that the King was waiting for him on the other side,\u201d Sarah said, \u201cAnd we can be like that too\u2026.even though we don\u2019t like the thought of dying, we know that the best for us is on the other side. Doesn\u2019t the Bible say that to be with Christ is far better? I guess that is what we have to keep remembering. Even young people die sometimes, so it pays to be ready because we never know when that is going to be ! \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVery good!\u201d  Uncle Jeff said, \u201cNow I think that warrants something to eat, look in my coat pocket and see what I brought for each of you!!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Moral of the Story. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Uncle Jeff was at the family\u2019s home again one day, and Betty snuggled up to him. \u201cHas our story about Pilgrim all finished now?\u201d she asked. \u201cOf course it has, silly,\u201d said Bobby , \u201cHe got to the Celestial City where he was going to, don\u2019t you remember?\u201d Sarah … Continue reading Pilgrim’s Progress 13.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,247],"tags":[861,697,862],"class_list":["post-3951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grandmas-stories","category-stories-for-teens","tag-easy-ways","tag-travelling","tag-we-never-know"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.biblestudies4you.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Web-pic-1.jpg?fit=358%2C318&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p69z0J-11J","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblestudies4you.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblestudies4you.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblestudies4you.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblestudies4you.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblestudies4you.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3951"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblestudies4you.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3953,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblestudies4you.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3951\/revisions\/3953"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblestudies4you.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblestudies4you.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblestudies4you.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblestudies4you.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}