Dr. Joel Beeke's sermon discusses the reformed experiential preaching of John Bunyan, highlighting his focus on engaging the heart and soul of his audience. Bunyan, known for his authenticity and passion, preached from his own experiences of doubt and salvation, emphasizing the importance of union with Christ and the urgency of repentance. His sermons were characterized by participatory elements, often involving impersonations to draw listeners into the message. Despite imprisonment, Bunyan continued to preach and write, driven by his conviction and the support of his congregation. His works, particularly 'Pilgrim's Progress,' reflect his deep understanding of the human soul's struggles and the redemptive power of Christ. Bunyan's preaching was marked by a fervent plea for sinners to embrace salvation, often using vivid imagery and personal appeals to convey the gravity of sin and the necessity of Christ's grace.

Okay, my last address to you is about the preaching, Reformed experiential preaching of John Bunyan and I want to read verses 6 through 9. Bunyan has a whole book on this. I'll be referencing it a bit. This is the parable Jesus spake to his disciples. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came and sought fruit thereon and found none.

Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, These three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down. Why cumberth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also till I shall dig about it and dung it, and if it bear fruit, well, and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down." Dear Lord, as we talk in this hour about Thy servant, John Bunyan's preaching and how Thou hast gifted him to make him effective, so that the common man heard him gladly, and thou didst use him for thousands of conversions. I pray, help us to glean from his life, from his preaching, valuable lessons for our own lives in our own preaching.

In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. To see a prince entreat a beggar to receive an alms would be a strange sight. To see a king entreat a traitor to accept of mercy would be a stranger's sight. But to see God entreat a sinner, to hear Christ say, I stand at the door and knock with a heart full and a heaven full of grace to bestow upon him that opens, this is such a sight that dazzles the eyes even of the angels of heaven." This is John Bunyan. He preached the offer of grace to the greatest of sinners with a power almost unparalleled in church history.

And he was one of those biblical preachers who was willing to be made a fool for Christ's sake, to bear reproach and falsehood, to labor and suffer, and whose supreme desire was not to gain the accolades of human opinion, but to win his master's approbation when he would appear before the judgment seat of Christ one day. Jambunyan was an amazing preacher. He stands among the highest of preachers of all ages, especially as a preacher to the heart, to the heart. Charles II once asked John Owen, the Prince of the Puritans, why he went to hear the preaching of the unlearned tinker of Bedford, John Bunyan. Here's Owen's literal response.

May it please your majesty, could I possess the tinker's abilities for preaching, I would willingly relinquish all my learning." In 1655, at the request of several brethren in his local church, 27-year-old John Bunyan began preaching to various congregations in Bedford, England. Even when he was still sorely afflicted with doubts about his own eternal state, of his early preaching, he himself writes, the terrors of the law and the guilt from my transgressions lay heavily on my conscience. I preached what I felt, what I smartingly did feel, even that under which my poor soul did groan and tremble, I went myself in chains to preach to them in chains and carry that fire in my own conscience that I persuaded them to beware of. But even then in that early stage, Evelyn Bunyan was not nearly as full of Christ as he was later. God used his preaching.

Hundreds came to hear him. There was an authenticity about even his early preaching that made him just astonished at the fruits. He couldn't understand why people would come to hear him. His biographer, Ola Winslow, writes, incredulous at first that God would speak through him to the heart of any man. He presently concluded that the success upon his preaching was to be a reassurance for his own soul.

He preached to other sinners from his own dark experience, but then when he was set free, he preached to them the riches of Christ like never before. He said, I have been sent as one from the dead. I had not preached long before many began to be touched by the word and to be afflicted, greatly afflicted in their minds at the apprehension of the greatness of their sin and of their great need for Christ. Two years later, Bunyan was still preaching about sin, but much less and much more about Christ. Another biographer puts it this way, when he came to liberty in Christ himself, his preaching changed.

Christ became the center of it as the saving savior. As a consequence of what Bunyan said, God led me into something of the mystery of union with Christ. Therefore, I came to preach union with Christ as the heart of Calvinistic spirituality. His preaching became even more popular. He started preaching out of doors.

Five years after he began proclaiming the Word of God, 1660, he was arrested preaching in a field. Today there's still a tree. He was standing beside that tree in the midst of a field where he was arrested. I've been there and don't tell anybody but I have a little relic from that tree. A little piece of bark that fell to the ground.

But it was a special moment standing by that tree and thinking that Bunyan just gave up everything. Gave up his life, was in prison for 12 years, longer than any other Puritan, and just couldn't stop preaching. Came in front of a judge who said, I'll let you go, I'll let you go tomorrow from prison if you just agree to stop preaching. He said, sir, you let me go today, I'll be preaching tomorrow. Back to prison with you Bunyan.

It was impossible for him not to preach. So for 12 and a half years he made shoelaces in prison to support his family. And he wrote books to support the people of God. Astonishingly. He wrote his books only with a Bible and a copy of Fox's Book of Martyrs.

No other library. Bunyan, more than any figure in church history I know, was taught of God without the use of books. It's amazing. His theology and what he wrote in prison is absolutely astonishing. He came to liberty under deep conviction of sin one day, walking through a field.

And he suddenly realized, just meditating, that all his righteousness was in Christ and he was released and the burden rolled from his back just like in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. In fact, the whole Christian section of Pilgrim's Progress is an autobiography of John Bunyan's spiritual experience. And the whole Christian section is a biography of the typical conversion that he met up with among his people and among the children of the congregation, hence, Christiana and the children. And he wrote the second part because his wife told him, I'll paraphrase it, John, honey, your conversion was quite dramatic, and you wrote it in the first part, but why don't you write a part of the typical conversion? It's not so extreme in conviction of sin and so extreme in experiencing Christ.

That's why Christianity part is much more mild, much more typical kind of conversion. But it's interesting, he wrote his famous book from the prison cell looking at out the window, seeing the house of the interpreter, seeing the delectable mountains, seeing hill difficulty. Most of the book is just written allegorically from what he sees outside the window of the prison cell and then puts that into the context of his own conversion and spiritualizes it. He almost threw the manuscript away by the way when it was done because he just thought no one would read it. Some of his friends said, this is strange stuff, throw it away.

Other friends said, no, you might want to try publishing. He said, well, I finally decided, Okay, I guess I won't throw it on the fire. But he never dreamed it would become outside of the Bible, probably the most common book read in the history of mankind. His wife also came before the judge when he was in prison. His oldest daughter was blind.

He had five children. His first wife died. He married a second woman. We don't even know the name of the second wife. His first wife's name was Elizabeth.

She was godly. Second wife was godly. But Elizabeth had four small children from Jambunyan and had gone through a recent miscarriage when she came before the presiding judge to beg of him to let her husband free, go free. And He said, I'll let him go. All he's got to do is agree to stop preaching.

And she said, my Lord, he dares not leave off preaching as long as he can speak. Well, the judge then said to her, but he's ranting all this nonsense about Jesus and he's saying things that are not edifying for the church. And she said, my Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ will judge his preaching on the day of judgment and affirm that he's preaching nothing but the whole counsel of God. Bunyan offered to hand over to the judges all his sermon notes to assure them he was not preaching seditiously in any way, But nothing worked. He remained in prison for violating the statue that required adult participation in Church of England worship services at least monthly and for bad religious meetings, conventicles, not authorized by the church.

But throughout his entire ministry experience, which was so agonizing that times he said, I was so at such agony in prison I could scrape the skin off my bones, especially when he thought about his blind daughter Mary, who needed his help so much. And yet he maintained his zeal for preaching. When by the good hand of God, he writes, I had for five or six years together, without interruption freely, preached the blessed gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The devil, that old enemy of man's salvation, took his opportunity to inflame the hearts of his vassals, that at last I was laid out for a warrant from the justice taken and committed to prison. On one occasion he said, neither guilt nor hell could take me off my work to preach.

I could not be content to live unless I found my life in the exercise of my gift of preaching. Preaching was burning in his heart even when he was in prison. And the encouraging thing is that God protected him in prison In 1661 and from 1668 to 1672, so for five or six years, there were certain jailers that permitted Bunyan to leave prison late at night to preach somewhere. Because they said God protects him. They knew they'd be in deep trouble.

They'd lose their job if someone spied on Bunyan and came and found that Bunyan wasn't there. But one jailer in that five-year period was so impressed that whenever Bunyan went out to preach, someone from the government came and checked on him just before he left and often came and checked just after he came back but never got him while he was gone. Finally that jailer said, God is protecting you. You can go whenever you want. But Bunyan was careful.

George Offer, one of his best biographers, said this, it was said that many of the Baptist congregations in Bedfordshire owe their origins to the midnight preaching of Jambunyan. He'd go out and preach at 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock p.m. And people would be there to hear him in barns. But those years were difficult. All you've got to do is read Christian and faithful's experience that they suffered at the hands of giant despair in his castle, who thrust pilgrims into a very dark dungeon, nasty and stinking.

And you know that was John Bunyan's experience. He was that pilgrim. But there in prison, you remember the story, Christian and hopeful are in despair. What future do we have? Giant despair is going to kill us tomorrow.

And suddenly Christian says, Hopeful, I have a key, I have a key in my pocket. It's the key of promise. And I think that key will open any prison door. Ah, says Hopeful. I'm paraphrasing, I don't have this in front of me, but maybe it's similar to this.

Pluck it out of thy bosom, brother Christian, and try. And Christian goes and opens the first door. It opened. Second door. It opened.

And all the doors opened and he stood outside of the prison and they were amazed. They said, the promises of God. Open every prison door. That's what happened to Bunyan in prison. That's how he could survive.

He lived by the promises of God. So Bunyan was a man who felt things very deeply, Not just Blind Mary, not just his wife, but he felt the truths of God deeply. He was a man of tremendous affection, tremendous heart experience. And he was known for preaching not just to men's minds, but also to their hearts. In fact, as I said yesterday, I believe, He said, I never did preach a sermon.

I did not smartly or painfully feel. He was acquainted with so many temptations, so many sins, so many fears, so many experiences of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. He said in his book, Gospel Trues Opened, I have experienced union with Christ, the anointing of the Spirit, the experience of the temptations of Satan, which do more fit a man for the mighty work of preaching the gospel than all university learning and degrees that can be had." Bunyan had a high esteem for the office of a preacher. When Christian in Pilgrim's Progress journeys to the interpreter's house, he's shown a picture of a preacher, a very dignified, grave person whose eyes are lifted up to heaven, the best of books in his hands." Bunyan continues, the law of truth is written on his lips, the world is behind his back, a golden crown is on his head, and he stood as if he was pleading with men. And then the interpreter tells Christian what this picture represents.

It is to show thee that his work is to know and unfold dark things to sinners, to show thee that slighting and despising the things that are present for the love that he hath to his master's service. He is sure in the world that comes next to have glory for his reward." So, Jambunyan was called to preach. He loved to preach. He loved his congregation. And he loved people's souls.

He said, in my preaching I have been actually in pain and have travailed to bring forth children unto God. Neither could I ever be satisfied unless fruits did appear in my work." Elsewhere he wrote, if any of those who were awakened by my ministry did after that fall back as sometimes too many did, I can truly say their loss has been to me more than if one of my own children, begotten of my own body, had been going to its grave." Wow. This man loved his people. He loved their souls. Bunyan was so overwhelmed with the greatness of the human soul that he wrote a whole book called The Greatness of the Soul.

And in that book he says this, the soul and the salvation of it are such great, such wonderful things. Nothing is a matter of that concern as is and should be the soul of each one of you. This is as he's preaching to his people house and land trades and honors Places and preferments. What are they all compared to your salvation? Well if there was ever a man called to gospel ministry hey, it was John Bunyan Even when he was imprisoned he was repackaging all his old sermons, putting them into books.

It would appear, say Christopher Hill, that all his writings published before grace abounding were derived from sermons he preached and probably most of those that he preached later that he published later as well. So Bunyan was a physician of the soul. He had an understanding of the human heart. He knew the full scope of religious troubles and trials and affections. He knew the terror of sin.

He was converted in the midst of great conviction of sin. He knew the battles with doubt, fresh doubts that assailed his soul. He cried with pangs after God for his mercy, but he was also a man who knew the mountain peaks of grace. Luther's commentary on Galatians was used by God as well as Louis Bailey the practice of piety mightily in his life to lead him to Christ. But when he found Christ walking in the fields that Christ was his righteousness, His life became gospel centered.

He said, I saw my righteousness was in heaven. And from that experiential knowledge of Christ revealed to his soul, He went out and preached to the heart, preached awakening words, preached Christ-centered words, preached what he felt, what he longed for in his hearers, preached, as I want to show you now, three particular, what I'm calling, experiential themes in preaching. The first is participatory preaching. Participatory preaching. What in the world do I mean by that?

Well, Bunyan had a way in his preaching, a gift of imagination, a gift of sanctification. He had a gift of preaching to his people in such a way that they were drawn right into his sermon, right into the text. And sometimes he would do that in ways of impersonation. For example, when he preached on John 6.37, that those whom the Father gave to Christ shall come to him, shall come to him. That shall come is so certain, Bunyan said, that He gives it one of his bunionesque names, Mr.

Shall Come. And in the sermon, he says, you need not worry if you flee to Christ, for Mr. Shall Come shall answer all of this. Shall Come can raise you from death." You see, and you just feel the personalness of that to the heart. It's certain.

It's sure. It shall come. There's hope for you. And there are innumerable examples in his three fat volumes of complete works of his directness in preaching. Direct in order to bring people into the sermon.

I'm going to just read to you one paragraph in his sermon on Acts 2.38 where Peter says, repent every one of you. Repent, every one of you, every one of you. So here's what Bunyan says. He's depicting Peter preaching and one of his prisoners raising objections. So the dialogue in the sermon runs this way.

Peter says, and then the objector says, and the objector is the person in the pew, Okay? And they understand that as he's preaching. So here we go. Peter says, repent every one of you, be baptized every one of you in his name for the remission of sins and you shall, every one of you, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. The objector says, but I was one of them that plotted to take away his life.

May I be saved by him? Peter says, every one of you. The objector says, but I was one of them that bear false witness against him. Is there grace for a sinner like me? For every one of you, says Peter.

But you object. But I was one of them that cried out, crucify him, crucify him. I desire that Barabbas the murderer might live. Surely there's no mercy for me, do you think?" Peter says, I am to preach repentance and remission of sins to every one of you. The objector says, but I was one of them that is spit in his face when he stood before his accusers.

I was one that mocked him when in anguish he hanged bleeding on the tree Is there room still even for me? Peter says every one of you. Oh But you say I was one of them that in My extremity said give him gall and vinegar to drink. Why may not I expect the same when anguish and guilt is upon me? Peter says, repent, repent of these wickednesses of yours, and there's remission of sin for every one of you.

But I reeled on him, I reviled him, I hated him, I rejoiced to see him mocked by others. Surely there can be hope for me. There is hope for you, says Peter. Every one of you, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. So in Bunyan's preaching, there is this passionate reasoning with sinners to respond to the truth of sin and judgment, as well as to receive forgiveness and grace.

Just listen to this. Two or three sentences. This comes from a sermon. Poor sinner, will you not awake? Eternity is coming.

God and his son, they are both coming to judge the world. Awake, awake, are thou yet asleep? Poor sinner, let me set the trumpet, the gospel trumpet to your ear once again. The heavens will be shortly on a burning flame. The earth and the works thereof shall be burned up.

Wicked men will go into perdition. Do you hear me, sinner?" But Bunya wasn't satisfied to simply put the trumpet to the ear. He went on, sinner be advised, ask thy heart again, ask thy own heart, examine thyself, am I truly come to Jesus Christ? For upon this one question, am I come or am I not, hangs heaven and hell, as to thy case. If thou can say, I am come by the grace of God, and God shall approve of thy saying, happy, happy, happy man art thou, but if thou art not come, what can make thee happy in this life?

Why can a man be happy who for his not coming to Jesus Christ for life must be damned in hell forever. So you see he's encouraging the heart searching here but he's dialoguing with people in just such a personal way that they feel like they're in conversation with him. They're participating in the sermon. Someone asked a question yesterday, what's the difference between teaching and preaching? Read John Bunyan.

This is not just mere teaching. This is preaching. This is wrestling with men's souls. There's an urgency you see in preaching. As the blacksmith Bunyan says, knows he must strike those steel wallets hot.

So Bunyan demands an immediate response in the very act of preaching. Again and again he's saying things, quoting scripture, behold now is the day of salvation. Today if you hear his voice harden not your hearts. He wants to see action now. Now God is sovereign as to timing of course, but for Bunyan you see, There's this pleading, this urgency to be saved now.

Let me give you an example. I feel very, very strongly about getting good books in the hands of people. It's just a burning passion in my heart. I've seen thousands of people save through the reading of sound literature. And I know how much it's done for my own life.

I want people to experience what I experienced as a teenager. And so when I'm behind a book table, I can't help but see all the other book vendors around me, right? I'm pulling people into the table. I mean, I'll stop them as they're walking by. I'm crazy, I know.

But other guys just stand behind the table and they don't stop the people. I'll stop them and I'll say, do you know anything about the Puritans? Not really. Would you like to know a little bit about them? Just give me 30 seconds, will you?

Here's a book. I just want to talk to you about this book. I draw them in. Maybe 40% of the time, they'll walk away with a book. If I hadn't done that, they're just walking by.

And then, oh, there'll be a book that someone will say, yeah, yeah, I think I'll get it sometime. I'll come back tomorrow. I say, you know what? Tomorrow, they might all be gone. And you need that book today.

You need it today. And we take charge card, we take cash, you know, we take anything. And it's non-profit, it's the best price it will ever be, and I'm speaking the truth because conference is the cheapest ever. And most of the time they'll say, okay, I'll go get my wife right now. We'll close the deal right now.

I say, great. And I've learned when you don't close the deal right away in book selling, half the people won't do it. And yet I get people working for me at the table and they'll say, oh yes, that's fine, you'll come back tomorrow. That's fine. I say, no, no, no, don't say that.

Don't say that. You could close the deal right now. See, there's an urgency. Okay, that's how I feel about books. That's how Bunyan felt about men's souls.

Not gonna let you go. Not gonna let you go. You need Christ right now. Tomorrow is just simply today's unbelief. You need Him now.

Repent now. So He pleads. That's my second point. He pleads with people. He doesn't only get them to participate in the sermon, get involved and find it interesting, find it...Bibley was a preacher you couldn't help but listen to.

You could not listen to him. But then he pleads with you. Once he's got hold of you, he pleads with you. He's aware of Satan's power. He's aware that Satan wants to torment the soul.

He's aware that Satan wants to induce men's hearts to forsake Christ, not to receive him. He's aware that Satan wants to entice men to embrace sin and temptation. And you know what he says? He says the best way to respond to Satan's pleading for sinners is for preachers to out shoot the devil with his own bow. He's saying we ought to plead with sinners even more to come to Christ than the devil pleads with sinners to fall into sin.

Out shoot the devil. So he doesn't just set life and death before the eyes of the people but he implores them to forsake sin, to embrace Christ. And in his pleading, he can paint some pretty powerful pictures, maybe beyond what you and I would even dare to do. But he's entirely earnest. He can impersonate God in his pleading, Christ, the hellbound sinner in ways that are shocking today.

But God used these sermons for the salvation of many people. I'll just give you a paragraph here of Bunyan commenting on his own preaching. In my preaching of the word I took special notice of this one thing namely that the Lord did lead me to begin where his word begins with sinners that is to condemn all flesh and to open and allege that the curse of God by the law doth belong to and lay hold on all men as they come into the world because of sin. The soul that is lost will never be found again, never be recovered again, never be redeemed again. Its banishment from God is everlasting.

The fire in which it burns and by which it must be tormented is a fire that is everlasting fire, everlasting burning. This is fearful. So Bunyan pleads with sinners. And perhaps nowhere did he do that more powerfully than in his sermon on the fig tree. Just listen to him plead.

And then examine your own preaching. Do you ever plead with sinners to come to Christ? Even 25% as much as this or maybe 50% He's impersonating here God as the one speaking the vinedresser as being his son and the unsafe sinner who's not bearing any fruit. So God is saying, death, come smite me this fig tree. And with all the Lord shakes the sinner and whirls him about upon a sick bed saying, take him death, he's abused my patience and forbearance, not remembering that it should have led him to repentance and to the fruits thereof.

Oh, death, come death, fetch away this fig tree to the fire. Fetch this barren professor now to hell. And at this death comes with grim looks into the chamber. Yea, and hell follows him, with him, to the bedside, and both stare this professor in the face. They begin to lay hands upon him, one smiting him with pains in his body, with headache, with heartache, with backache, with shortness of breath, stopping at the chest, and almost all the symptoms of a man past all recovery.

Now, while death is thus tormenting the body, hell is doing with the mind and conscience, striking them with its pains, casting sparks of hellish fire in thither into the soul, wounding with sorrows and fears of everlasting damnation. Oh Lord, spare me, spare me, cries out to victory. Nay, says God, you have been a provocation to me all these three years. You've brought no fruit. How many times have you disappointed me?

How many seasons have you spent in vain? How many sermons and other mercies did I of my patience afford you? But to no purpose at all, you bore no fruit. Take him, death. Wow.

Can you imagine sitting under that? Errol Hulse, very good friend of mine, passed away now, is with the Lord, wrote this, Bunyan carries forward the illustration of the tree being felled so well that you are left at the end with both the echoes of the chopper and the ghastly death rattles in chokings of the unrepentant one. But at the same time, the same time, as desperate as the case may be, Bunyan preaches with the same pleading fervor about the mercies of God in Christ, that Christ is available for the greatest of sinners. So he has the son pleading, Father, just give it one more year, just one more year, and let me dig about it, let me dung, let me give food to this tree to see if it will bear fruit. And he pleads.

Christ pleads for the sinner then to turn, to respond to all the digging and dunging about, all the sermons the sinner is hearing. And then what's the conclusion? There is no conclusion, Bunyan says. If it bear fruit well, if not, after that, I'll sure cut it down. But you don't know, did that fig tree produce fruit?

Well, why don't you know? Because you, you, you, you, you are the fig tree. If you bear fruit well, if you fly to Christ now well, well with your soul, well forever, but if you don't, you'll perish forever but you are the end of the story you don't know how this fig tree fair because it's you so it brings it brings a sinner into the text cast up by ten eyes a little bit higher and behold, the mercy seat and the throne of grace is inviting thee to come. Come now, come to this throne of grace by which thou must and may be saved. O coming sinner, what promise thou findest in the word of Christ?

Strain it whichever way thou wilt, thou shalt not corrupt it. His blood and his merits will answer everything for you. Everything for you. You will not have to take anything for granted. Whoever you are, if you are coming, you may come.

You are welcome with Jesus. He writes a book, a whole book called Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ. If you ever want to read a book with a full and free offer of grace to every sinner, that's the book to read. Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ. Pleading with men's souls.

Just one more example, last one here on this last point. Then I just wanna look at a third point briefly. Here he's impersonating a great sinner. He has a book called The Jerusalem Sinner Saved. Jerusalem meaning the Jerusalem sinners crucified Christ even those who've fought against Christ all their life can be saved.

So he impersonates a great sinner this way. Say when thou art upon thy knees sinner, Lord here am I, a Jerusalem sinner, a sinner of the biggest size, one whose burden is of the greatest bulk and the heaviest weight, one who cannot stand long without sinking into hell without thy supporting hand. Oh, I say to thee, sinner, put in thy name, put in thy name with this Jerusalem sinner, Put in thy name with Mary Magdalene. Put in thy name with Manasseh that thou mayst fare as the Magdalene and the Manasseh sinners of this world fare when they flee to Christ. And then finally, I want to say a word about his Christ-exalting preaching, which is also so experiential.

Christ-exalting preaching. Bunyan's love, his first love, was to extol God's persevering grace in Christ, preaching Christ doctrinally with passion, theologically with grandeur, and personally with alluring conviction. He writes, I have known my preaching, especially when I have been engaged in the doctrine of life by Christ without works, as if an angel has stood behind me to encourage me. Oh, has it been with such power and heavenly evidence upon my soul when I have been laboring to unfold Christ, to demonstrate Him, to hasten Him before the consciences of sinners, that I could not be contented with saying, I believe and I am sure He's willing to be your Savior. Me thought I was more than sure if it could be lawful for me to express myself that those things which I then asserted about Jesus to sinners were true.

More than sure. It's like, I just, I know I have eternal life to offer to you sinner. And I'm sure, yes, 110% sure that if you may come to him, he will be your Savior forever. And this Christ exalting preaching of Bunyan was a there was a note of doxology through it all. He would use the word oh so many times and oh praise him oh exalt him oh amazing grace to see a prince and treat a beggar.

It was a doxological emphasis. You see in Bunyan, what you see in the conclusion of William Perkins, the father of Puritanism, his famous little book on homiletics called The Art of Prophecyne. On the last page, he puts this beautiful thing, he puts it right in the center of the page with no exterior margins. Here's a summary of my whole book Perkins says Puts it on three lines Line one preach one Christ line two by Christ Line three to the praise of Christ This is bunion it's preaching one Christ by Christ to the praise of Christ that Christ will be exalted forever. And he loved to preach therefore about heaven and about being with Christ forever in glory.

He says, then shall we have perfect and everlasting visions of God in His blessed Son, Jesus Christ. Then shall our will and affections, this is part of a sermon, be ever in a burning flame of love to God and to His Son, Jesus Christ. Then will our conscience have that peace and joy that neither tongue nor pen of angels or men can express. Then will our memory be so enlarged to retain all things that happened to us in this world and how God made everything work together for his glory and our good to the everlasting ravishing of our hearts. And then Bunyan goes on to say, and he often stresses this in his writings as well, that this is all possible, all sure by the Spirit's gracious ministry in believers' souls.

He doesn't say man can accomplish anything, But he says the Spirit is just as willing to save sinners as Christ is willing to give himself to sinners. So the fact that the Spirit has to do it in the hearer doesn't take away from the offer of grace at all because the Spirit is willing to do it. By this Spirit, he says, we come to see the beauty of Christ without a sight of which we should never desire Him, but should certainly live in the neglect of Him and perish. By this Spirit, we are helped to praise God acceptably, but without it, it is impossible to be heard unto salvation. By this Spirit, this blessed Spirit, the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, and our hearts are directed into the love of God.

And so Bunyan concludes in this sermon. After he's presented Christ, after he's presented a willing Christ, a willing spirit, and the sinner in a dangerous condition calls him to flee, he concludes this way. So sinner, O sinner, what sayest thou now? How wilt thou like being saved? Doth not thy mouth water at the thought of being saved?

Doth not thy heart twitter at being saved? Old-fashioned word. Is the heart moved at it? Why, come then. Come then.

And here the last invitation of the Bible before it is forever too late, the Spirit and the Bride say, Come, and let him that hear us say, Come, and let him that is of thirst come, and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. This is Bunyan preaching experientially, pleadingly, in a participating way, exalting the riches of Christ in his plain style, his direct style, and by the grace of God his fruitful style. May God make us and keep us as biblical, doctrinal, experiential, practical, earnest preachers of the gospel. Let's pray. Great God of heaven, please bless all of the talks given at this Reformed Experiential Preaching Conference.

Bless the three messages of Brian yesterday and messages I've tried to bring these two days and bless the Q&A we'll have now, brief Q&A, but above all May we leave this little conference with impressions, convictions, resolutions that may help us as we go forward to preach the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ for hell-worthy sinners. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.