Pilgrims in Progress (Series)

Chapter 1: Pilgrim’s Great Distress (City of Destruction)

I. A Common Start

As we start our journey through this masterpiece of literature, we will notice where Christian, our main character, starts.

He starts where we all start, lost in sin.

Bunyan illustrates this being lost in sin by saying that Christian was in the City of Destruction.

This is so very true, because whoever is in their sin most certainly is in destruction.

Christian feels that in his sin he is being perpetually destroyed.

This “City of Destruction” where we all were before Christ is a place of separation from God, continual labour, slavery to sin, and is the road to ultimate destruction, Hell.

Just what does the Bible say about us in our sin?

John 8:34 AV

Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.

Romans 6:23 AV

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 3:23 AV

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Romans 5:12 AV

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Isaiah 59:2 AV

But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

Ezekiel 18:20 AV

The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

Jude 7 AV

Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

2 Peter 2:4 AV

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

This is our state before Christ, and such was the case for Christian, lost in sin, in destruction, and heading for eternal judgment.

The Bible also makes it clear that in our sin we are dead, and have no spiritual impulse or life.

Also that, apart from Christ, we can do nothing good, nor do we want to, because we are enslaved to sin.

Ephesians 2:1 AV

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

Isaiah 64:6 AV

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

Jeremiah 17:9 AV

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

1 Corinthians 2:14 AV

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Romans 3:12 AV

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Ecclesiastes 7:20 AV

For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.

Romans 8:7–8 AV

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

Romans 3:11 AV

There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

So we want to lay this foundation at the outset, for this is where we all start, and this is where Christian starts in our story, dead, and lost in his sin.

Bunyan says of Christian, that “He had a book in his hand and a heavy burden of his back.”

This burden on his back as you will see throughout this book is a representative of his sin.

And the book in his hand was of course the Bible.

As Christian read through the pages of the Bible, this weight of sin got heavier, and heavier upon his back.

Galatians 3:24 AV

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

As Christian read through the pages of Scripture the weight, and reality of his sin became more and more evident to him.

And with the reality of his sin,the consequences of it, and the coming judgement of which he read of in his book (the Bible), Christian felt truly hopeless.