A Devotional Reading for January 10, 2025
From the Pen of John Bunyan--The Tinker
An Early Baptist Pastor-Preacher
"Tempted and Tried"
This is part of his personal testimony from my newest book release,
Daily Readings: John Bunyan
“For this reason, when I could bear it no longer . . . for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain” I Thessalonians 3:5.
For about the space of a month after, a very great storm came down upon me, which handled me twenty times worse than all I had met with before. It came stealing [in] upon me, now by one piece, then by another. First, all my comfort was taken from me. Then darkness seized upon me, after which, whole floods of blasphemies, both against God, Christ, and the Scriptures, were poured upon my spirit, to my great confusion and astonishment. These blasphemous thoughts also stirred up questions in me. [These] against the very being of God, and of his only beloved Son; as, whether there were, in truth, a God, or Christ, or not? And [even] whether the holy Scriptures were not rather a fable, and cunning story, than the holy and pure Word of God?
The tempter would also much assault me with this: How can you tell but that the Turks had as good Scriptures to prove their Mahomet [Mohammed] the Savior, as we must prove our Jesus is? And, could I think, that so many ten thousand, in so many countries and kingdoms, should be without the knowledge of the right way to heaven. If there were indeed a heaven, and that we only, who live in a corner of the earth, should alone be blessed therewith? Everyone doth think his own religion right, both Jews and Moors, and Pagans! And how if all our faith, and Christ, and Scriptures, should be but a think-so too?
While I was in this temptation, I should often find my mind suddenly put upon it, to curse and swear, or to speak some grievous thing against God, or Christ his Son, and of the Scriptures.
Would John Bunyan have sung the song "Farther Along"?
In my humble opinion as author and editor of the devotional above
I would surmise that he would have.
Check out the lyrics below:
Tempted and tried we're oft made to wonder why it should be thus all the day long
While there are others living about us, never molested, though in the wrong
When death has come and taken our loved ones, it leaves our home so lonely and dreary
Then do we wonder why others prosper living so wicked year after year
Farther along we'll know all about it; farther along we'll understand why
Cheer up, my brother; live in the sunshine, we'll understand it all by and by
Faithful till death said our loving master; a few more days to labor and wait
Toils of the road will then seem as nothing as we sweep through the beautiful gates
Farther along we'll know all about it...
Yes, we'll understand it all by and by
Written by:
W. B. Stephens, Church of God preacher