Love Reveals All Things

One of the moving moments in John Bunyan's classic, The Pilgrim's Progress, is when Pilgrim, named Christian, gets to the hill of difficulty.

As Christian looks at this ominous hill that is before him, he takes courage and speaks to his own soul.

"'The hill, though high, I choose to ascend, the difficulty will not me offend.

For I perceive the way of life lies here.

Come, take heart, let's neither faint nor fear.'" Better, though difficult, the right way to go than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.

But because of the difficulty of the incline, Christian goes from running to walking and then from walking to crawling on his hands and knees.

Along the way, he finds a pleasant garden designed specifically for weary travelers.

He finds a place to sit and Out of his pocket, he takes a certain scroll, a scroll that had been given to him when his burden was lifted at the cross.

He opened the scroll, read it, took comfort, and fell asleep.

While he was sleeping, the scroll which he was still holding in his hand fell to the When he awoke, he realized that he had slept far too long, and so he quickly resumed his arduous journey to the top of the hill.

When he reached the top, he met two travelers who were heading toward him, moving quickly in the opposite direction.

"'Sirs,' he asked, "'what is the matter? You are running the wrong way.' They answered, "'We too are going to the celestial city, but the further we go,' The more dangers we meet, we have turned around and are going back.

But Christian, undeterred, continued on his way.

But when he met another particularly treacherous part of the path, he reached into his pocket to retrieve the scroll so that he might read it again and take comfort.

But to his great dismay, in his pocket there was no scroll.

And he knew that he needed this scroll to enter the celestial city.

In great agony and with fears and sorrows flooding his soul, he remembered that the last place where he had taken out the scroll was at the arbor in the garden on the way up the hill, and that perhaps it was still there.

With deep contrition, he fell on his knees and asked God for forgiveness for losing the scroll and then quickly traced his steps backward to find the scroll.

When he arrived at the garden, he did not see the scroll.

And it was only when he kneeled at the bench to weep that he spotted his scroll under the bench.

Bunyan writes, with trembling and haste, he snatched it up and held it to his bosom.

None can tell how joyful he then was, for this scroll was the assurance of his salvation and his pass to the celestial city.

Therefore, he secured the scroll in his bosom, gave thanks to God for directing his eye to the place where it had fallen, and with joy and tears resumed his journey.

Now, John Bunyan never tells us what is written on the scroll.

We do know it was something pertaining to the past, to the celestial city, something that was intended to give the assurance of salvation.