Bunyan’s vivid picture of the miseries of apostasy ought to be enough to awaken us all from spiritual carelessness and rouse us to the most serious warfare against our sin. Thread: 1/12

So he took him by the hand again and led him into a very dark room where there sat a man in an iron cage. Now the man, to look on, seemed very sad: he sat with his eyes looking down to the ground, his hands folded together, and he sighed as if he would break his heart. 2/

Then said Christian, “What does this mean?” At which the Interpreter bid him talk with the man.

Then said Christian to the man, “What are you?”

The man answered, “I am what I was not once.”

“What were you once?” 3/

“I was once a fair and flourishing professor [i.e., one who professed to be a Christian], both in mine own eyes and also in the eyes of others. I once was, so I thought, bound for the Celestial City, and had then even joy at the thoughts that I should go there.” 4/

“Well, but what are you now?”

“I am now a man of despair, and am shut up in it, as in this iron cage. I cannot get out. O, now I cannot.”

“But how did you come to be in this condition?”

“I ceased to watch and to be sober. I laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts. ... 5/

“...I sinned against the Light of the Word, and the Goodness of God [Heb 10:26]. I have grieved the Spirit, and he is gone. I tempted the devil, and he is come to me. I have provoked God to anger, and he has left me. I have so hardened my heart that I cannot repent.” 6/

“Is there no hope, but must you be kept in the iron cage of despair?”

“No, none at all.”

“Why? The Son of the Blessed is very merciful.”

“I have crucified him to myself afresh [Heb 6:6]. I have despised his person, I have despised his righteousness, ... 7/

“...I have counted his blood an unholy thing, & done despite to the Spirit of Grace. Therefore I have shut myself out of all the promises, & there now remains to me nothing but dreadful & fearful threatenings of certain judgment & fiery indignation, which shall devour me ... 8/

“...as an adversary [Hb 10:27].”

“For what did you bring yourself into this condition?”

“For the lusts, pleasures, & profits of this world; in the enjoyment of which I promised myself much delight. But now every one of those things bite me, & gnaw me, like a burning worm.” 9/

“But can you not now repent & turn?”

“God has denied me repentance [Hb 12:17]. His Word gives me no encouragement to believe. He himself has shut me up in this iron cage. Nor can all the men in the world let me out. O eternity! Eternity! ... 10/

“...How shall I grapple with the misery that I must meet with in eternity!”

Then said the Interpreter to Christian, “Let this man’s misery be remembered by you, and be an everlasting caution to you.” 11/

“Yes,” said Christian. “This is fearful. God help me to watch and be sober, and to pray that I may shun the cause of this man’s misery.” 12/12
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God help us all.