A Devotional Thought for January 17, 2025
From the Pen of John Bunyan
Author of Pilgrim's Progress
"Am I a Rebel?"
“But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken”
Isaiah 1:20.
Then I was struck into a very great trembling. So much that at times I could, for whole days together, feel my very body, as well as my mind, to shake and totter under the sense of the dreadful judgment of God. This should fall on those that have sinned that most fearful and unpardonable sin. I also felt such a clogging and heat in my stomach, by reason of this terror; that I was especially at some times, as if my breastbone would have split in sunder. Then I thought of that concerning Judas, who, by his falling headlong, burst asunder and all his bowels gushed out (Acts 1:18).
I feared also that this was the mark that the Lord set on Cain. I even continued to fear and tremble, under the heavy load of guilt that he had charged on him for the blood of his brother Abel. Thus, did I . . . shrink under the burden that was upon me. The burden which also did so oppress me, that I could neither stand, nor go, nor lie, either at rest or quiet.
Yet that saying would sometimes come to my mind, He hath received gifts for the rebellious (Psa 68:18). “The rebellious,” I thought; surely, they are such as once were under subjection to their prince. Even those who, after they have sworn subjection to his government . . . have taken up arms against him, I thought [it] is my very condition! Once I loved . . . [Christ], feared him, served him; but now I am a rebel. I have sold him, I said, “Let him go if he will; but yet he has gifts for rebels, and then why not for me?”
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