How Sweet and awful Is The Place

This day, as I study in preparation for this week's message from The Pilgrims Progress, I am reminded by Bunyan of the wondrous love of God in His electing grace. The doctrine of God's sovereign election runs throughout Bunyan's allegory, even as it played such an indispensable role in Bunyan's life. It was said of Bunyan, that his Calvinism was a healthy, robust, manly variety. Foundation to this theological vigor was Bunyan's understanding of God's Sovereign Election. Without a doubt it is that doctrine that is sweetest to the ear of the saint and most glorious to the work of God. It is that which humbles the human heart and exalts the mind of Christ. It is that which gives most comfort to the weary traveler while being most fitting for the God of creation. Even as Christian was pulled in through the Wicket-Gate by Goodwill, so too are all Christians snatched, as it was, plucked as brands from the fire (Zech. 3:2). Isaac Watts summed it up unforgettably in the words of How Sweet and Awful is the Place:

How sweet and awful is the place

With Christ within the doors,

While everlasting love displays

The choicest of her stores.
While all our hearts and all our songs

Join to admire the feast,

Each of us cry, with thankful tongues,

"Lord, why was I a guest?"
"Why was I made to hear Thy voice,

And enter while there's room,

When thousands make a wretched choice,

And rather starve than come?"
'Twas the same love that spread the feast

That sweetly drew us in;

Else we had still refused to taste,

And perished in our sin.
Pity the nations, O our God,

Constrain the earth to come;

Send Thy victorious Word abroad,

And bring the strangers home.
We long to see Thy churches full,

That all the chosen race

May, with one voice and heart and soul,

Sing Thy redeeming grace.

Those who would rail against this glorious doctrine and find it contrary to their sensibilities, need only be reminded that their answers back against God's sovereign purposes are as insensible as is a lump of clay arguing from a potter's wheel (Rom. 9:20). No true Christian need find discouragement in the most encouraging doctrine ever revealed. Indeed, no true Christian really will. Like me, I pray you will take heart from this most wonderful, awe-inspiring, soul-mending, eye-opening, heart-warming and mind-altering doctrine. What a sweet and awesome place it is.