John Bunyan is, of course, best known as the author of The Pilgrim’s Progress…which is often declared to be the second bestselling book in the history of the world behind the Bible.

If you asked me who my favorite dead author or preacher is (outside of the Bible), and you excluded Charles Spurgeon, I’d say John Bunyan.
If you told me I could only read 1 author (outside of the Bible) for the rest of my life, I would pick John Bunyan.
His over 60 books are Bible-saturated and refreshingly Christ-exalting.

Bunyan was born in 1628 in Elstow, England, just about 50 miles from London.

He learned the trade of “Tinker” from his father (which was basically a metalworker…fixing plows and other household metal objects for people).

He had no formal higher education of any kind.
And He did not grow up as a believer in Christ. He actually says he was the ringleader of all the vice and ungodliness among his friends.

Bunyan got married at 20 years old and we never learn his first wife’s name. They had 4 children together and his first child, Mary, was born blind…which we will mention again.

Bunyan’s first wife brought 2 books with her into the marriage and both of them were religious books. And God used these books to cause Bunyan to contemplate spiritual things. He lived in Bedford, England and came under the influence of a Baptist pastor named John Gifford. The process of Bunyan’s conversion was a long and agonizing one.

But this seems to be the decisive moment that he recounts in his autobiography called “Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.”

“One day as I was passing into the field . . . this sentence fell upon my soul. Thy righteousness is in heaven. And methought, I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God's right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, he lacks my righteousness. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, "The same yesterday, today, and forever.". Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed. I was loosed from my afflictions and irons; my temptations also fled away; so that from that time those dreadful scriptures of God [about the unforgivable sin] left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing for the grace and love of God."

Profoundly converted and his eyes fixed on Jesus, Bunyan would soon become a preacher. Again, he had no formal education or any kind of seminary training. He just started preaching God’s Word as a lay person.

And his popularity exploded. One biographer said that if a day’s notice was given, they could get a crowd of 1200 people to hear him preach at 7am before the workday started.

The great John Owen loved to hear John Bunyan preach. In fact, on one occasion King Charles asked Owen, why he, such a great scholar, went to hear an uneducated tinker preach.

Owen responded like this: “I would willingly exchange all my learning for the tinker’s power of touching men’s hearts.”

Well, John Bunyan’s first wife died when he was 30 years old. They were married for 10 years. And he was left by himself with his 4 kids…one of whom was blind.

Bunyan married again about a year later to a remarkable woman named Elizabeth.

And the year after they married, Bunyan was arrested and put in prison for preaching the gospel.

Elizabeth was pregnant at the time and miscarried in the stress of it all. She would eventually have 2 additional children with Bunyan.

This first imprisonment lasted 12 years.

And the amazing thing is that it was essentially a voluntary imprisonment…which simply means that all Bunyan had to do to be released was to agree not to preach.

He could have had his freedom at any time, but he would have to give up what God had called him to do. I can come up with dozens of justifications for why I would have asked to be released, but Bunyan would not compromise.

And it was an agonizing 12 years. Bunyan described being away from his wife and children and his blind daughter as like pulling the flesh from his bones.

Bunyan would eventually be released but then put in prison a second time 3 years later.
He, of course, would write many of his books while he was in prison, including The Pilgrim’s Progress.

Charles Spurgeon said that he would read The Pilgrim’s Progress every year. Spurgeon said of Bunyan, “Prick him anywhere; and you will find that his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his soul is full of the Word of God.”

My favorite scene in Pilgrim’s Progress is the scene in Doubting Castle when Christian realizes he has had the key, in his chest pocket, all along. The key was called Promise. Bunyan believed that the key that unlocks our doubt and fear is to believe God’s promises.

He said, “I tell thee, friend, there are some promises that the Lord hath helped me lay hold of Jesus Christ through and by, that I would not have out of the Bible for as much gold and silver as can lie between York and London piled up the stars.”

Bunyan’s book called, “Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ” is my favorite of his.
The whole book is an exposition of John 6:37: All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

He calls this promise, “the sum of all promises.”

John Bunyan crossed the river of death when he was 60 years old in 1688. He died after traveling on horseback to help reconcile a father and son who were part of his church. Then he rode on horseback to London in 40 miles of drenching rain to preach for the last time on Aug 19. He got a terrible fever and died on Aug 31. He died away from his family and his church.

But when Jesus opened his eyes, John Bunyan was finally home in the Celestial City.