Derek Thomas

You think you've seen it all in Pilgrim's Progress, and you've been in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, which was a pretty dark place, and you've been in Vanity Fair, which was a dark place, and now you're coming to perhaps an even darker place, the dungeon of the Castle of Giant Despair.

They're locked in a dungeon without food and without water and without light.

Last time we saw the valiant faithful's martyrdom.

And then that beautiful description that Bunyan gives of a chariot and horses reminiscent, of course, of Elijah.

and that he's taken up to the nearest gate to the celestial city and the sort of vindication of God to this faithful servant called Faithful.

And then that little song that was sung in his memory, "'Well, Faithful, thou hast faithfully professed.'"

unto thy Lord with whom thou shalt be blessed.

When faithless ones with all their vain delight are crying out under their hellish plight, sing, faithful, sing, and let thy name survive.

For though they killed thee, thou art yet alive.

And then the next line, you know, that's a

terrible bond of friendship that's been broken.

Faithful has just emerged in the story.

Now he's been taken out of the story.

The next line in Pilgrim's Progress says, Now I saw in my dream that Christian went not forth alone, for there was one whose name was Hopeful.

being so made by the beholding of Christian and faithful in their words and behavior, in their sufferings at the fair, who joined himself unto him, and entering into a brotherly covenant, told him that he would be his companion."

What a beautiful thing here.

Faithful is gone, but this man, hopeful, has seen the death of faithfulness.

Blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, Tertullian said.

And out of martyrdom, the church has emerged.

We see that story in Eastern Europe.