A Pilgrim's Progress with Dr. Steve Lawson

We're at Bun Hill Fields, and there's been a burial ground here for over a thousand years. It's believed Bun Hill Fields really comes from Bone Hill Field, for so many bones. And in this entire graveyard, there's over 100,000 people, about 125,000. And some of the graves are just stacked up one on top of the other. And the reason that this is so significant is because so many of the Puritans or non-conformists are buried here. This was originally outside the city limits, and the Puritans were buried here because they were not allowed to be buried inside the city limits. In 1662, the Great Ejection, of which I've already spoken, the Puritans were put out of their pulpits, and then there was follow-up legislation that they were not allowed to go into the city where they had formerly pastored. Then there was legislation, they couldn't even go into a city, period. So they had to live out in the country and out in forests and wooded areas and fields. It's like Christ, it says in Hebrews, was crucified outside the city. It's the ultimate sign of rejection. And so that's why these Puritans are buried here. They were utterly rejected. Even in their death, you can't even be buried inside the city limits. We consider you as non-existent. You never lived. And so I'm standing in front of one of the greatest non-conformists that God ever used, John Bunyan. He spent 12 years of his life in prison, and they never locked the door. He could have walked out at any time he wanted to. All he had to do was agree to stop preaching the one true gospel of Jesus Christ. And he said, there's no need for me to even walk out because you're going to arrest me and put me right back in here in no time. And so while he was in the prison is when he wrote Pilgrim's Progress. And as Spurgeon says, every page just has the smell of the prison. You have to be persecuted in a place like that to write like that. And as he looked out the window of his prison, what he describes in Pilgrim's Progress is playing off of what he sees, a hill, a gate, etc. And so on this tomb, well, no, it says he dies August 31st, 1688. That's the year of the Glorious Revolution. So he marks the very end of the Puritan era, which really began with Elizabeth coming to the throne, and it ends in this very year. On each side of this tomb, you'll see on this side, he's carrying the heavy burden of sin. On the other side, the burden is gone, and he's kneeling before the cross. And the power of the cross has removed the heavy burden of sin from John Bunyan. He was a powerful preacher. He was uneducated. He was untrained. And God does have those men that were never trained, and yet they rise above their generation because the hand of God was so powerfully upon them. John Owen said of John Bunyan, I would give up all of my learning. And John Owen was England's Calvin, and he ran Oxford for some seven or eight years for Oliver Cromwell. He was over all of Oxford, the most brilliant theologian of this Puritan era. And John Owen said, I would give up all of my education and all of my learning if I could but preach like the tinkerer from Bedford. He came and preached in this town towards the end of his life here in London, and it was said by the 19th century that every home in England had two books. They had the King James Bible, and they had Pilgrim's Progress. And it became the second most widely read book in the English-speaking world. God used it in an extraordinary way, and he wrote many other books as well, The Holy War, et cetera, et cetera. So John Bunyan is buried here. Now we need to know that during World War II, because of all the bombing, they had to reconfigure and redesign this graveyard. And I don't know what all they did, but it wasn't originally laid out like this, though this was Bunyan's tomb. John Owen is just right over there, the rectangular tomb, and John Owen burst onto the scene while in his 20s, he preached before Parliament. He was the man, in 1645, just remember this, Charles I was beheaded as the King of England. The next day Parliament met, it was one of the most dramatic moments in English history, and John Owen preached to Parliament, and he never mentioned what happened the day before. And he said, it is an evidence of the judgment of God upon this nation, and we must humble ourselves and repent of our sin and seek the Lord. We should not be smug about this, we should be greatly humbled. In my study, or in my warehouse, or my books, there's like a 23-volume set of John Owen's works that I have, tiny little print. John Owen never saw a sentence that he, I mean, a period that he liked. His sentences just keep going forever. He was a phenomenal theologian. And it was John Owen who, behind the scenes, helped clear Bunyan out of prison and helped him continue his ministry. There are some other spiritual giants in this cemetery. Probably the greatest hymn writer who ever lived, Isaac Watts, who not only wrote hymns, which was revolutionary at the time, he also set all 150 psalms to a metered rhyming layout where the church could sing all 150 psalms. And he's buried right over there. Sarah Wesley, John Wesley's mother, was later buried here, and across the street is Wesley's chapel. John Gill, one of the most scholarly Baptist preachers who ever lived, is buried back over here. Daniel Defoe, who wrote Robinson Crusoe, who was a true believer and wrote a history of the Scottish Covenanters, is buried here. Thomas Goodwin, I believe, is buried here. And he was one of the leading voices in the Westminster Assembly. So in some ways, this is a different burial than some of the churches we've been in, where there were unbelievers esteemed and hailed for everyone to see. Others were buried outside the city limits, rejected by man, but known in heaven. And that's all that really matters, is that we get our applause out of heaven and that we have the Lord's amen upon our life. And so for that reason, this has always been a very special place to me. You remember when Lloyd-Jones came out of that theater and he saw that little Salvation Army group that everyone else turned their nose up at and he goes, these are my people. When I come to Bunhill, after I've been to some of the other places, in my heart I go, these are my people. I want to stand with Bunyan. I want to stand with Owen. I want to stand with Watts and these other luminaries.