The Hill Difficulty

Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. HEBREWS 12:12–13

The burden has gone. Christian is clothed, sealed and singing. A reader might expect the rest of the book to be easy. Instead, within a page, Bunyan brings his pilgrim to the foot of a hill so steep that he falls from running to walking, and from walking to clambering on his hands and knees. The hill is called Difficulty.

Those who came over the wall

Before he reaches the hill, Christian meets two travellers who come tumbling over the wall on the left hand of the way. Their names are Formalist and Hypocrisy, born in the land of Vain-glory and going, for praise, to Mount Zion. Christian asks why they did not come in at the gate. They say that all their countrymen count the gate too far about, and that it is their custom to take a short cut over the wall — a custom, they add, of more than a thousand years’ standing. If we are in, we are in, they say; what matter how we got here?

Christian’s reply is sharp. He walks by the rule of his Master; they walk by the rude working of their fancies. They came in by themselves without His direction, and will go out by themselves without His mercy. When they sneer at his coat, he tells them it was given him by the Lord of the place, in the day He stripped him of his rags, and that he hopes to be known by it at the gate.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. JOHN 10:1

Formalist and Hypocrisy stand for a religion of outward form without inward change — church-going, ceremonies, custom and respectability, with no burden, no gate and no cross. Bunyan, who had been hauled before magistrates for refusing the forms of the national church, had strong feelings about religion by custom. But the warning is not only for others. Any of us can come to rely on having been brought up in the way, rather than on having come in by the door.

The choice at the foot of the hill

At the bottom of the hill is a spring, and there two other paths branch off, one to the left and one to the right. The narrow way goes straight up. Christian drinks from the spring and begins to climb, singing a song that ends: “Better, though difficult, the right way to go” than the wrong way that is easy and ends in woe. Formalist and Hypocrisy, seeing how steep the hill is, suppose the easier paths will join the narrow way on the other side. One takes the way called Danger and is lost in a great wood; the other takes the way called Destruction and falls among dark mountains and rises no more.

Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. LUKE 13:24

That is the whole lesson of the hill. The Christian life is not meant to be arranged for comfort. There will be places where obedience is simply hard: a sin to be given up, a wrong to be confessed, a costly duty to be done, a loss to be borne. At those places there will always be a path round, which promises to rejoin the way later. It never does.

The arbour and the lost roll

Halfway up is a pleasant arbour, made by the Lord of the hill for the refreshment of weary travellers. Christian sits down, pulls out his roll and reads it, and looks again at the coat given him at the cross. Pleasing himself a while, he falls into a slumber, then into a fast sleep, and sleeps until it is almost night. As he sleeps, the roll falls out of his hand. Someone wakes him with the words of Proverbs, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise,” and he starts up and hurries on to the top.

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. PROVERBS 6:6

Bunyan is careful here. The arbour is good; the Lord made it. Rest is not sin, and reading one’s assurance is not sin. The trouble begins with pleasing himself — resting not in Christ but in the enjoyment of his own privileges — and then in the rest becoming sleep. It is possible to be so taken up with the comfort of being forgiven that we stop climbing. And it is in that drowsy self-congratulation that assurance slips out of our hands.

Going back for it

At the top Christian meets two men running down, Timorous and Mistrust, who tell him there are lions ahead and they are going home. Christian is afraid, but reasons it through: to go back is nothing but death; to go forward is fear of death, and life everlasting beyond it. He will go forward. Then he feels in his bosom for his roll, to comfort himself, and finds it gone.

What follows is one of the most tender passages in the book. Christian falls on his knees and asks God’s forgiveness for his foolish sleep, then goes back down the hill, sighing, weeping, chiding himself, looking on this side and that for his roll. At the arbour he sits down and weeps, and at last, looking sorrowfully under the settle, he sees it. He catches it up with trembling and haste. For this roll, Bunyan says, was the assurance of his life and acceptance at the desired haven.

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. PSALM 51:12

The chained lions

By the time he reaches the top again the sun has set, and in the darkness, near a stately house, Christian sees the two lions. He is terrified and thinks of turning back. But the porter, whose name is Watchful, calls to him: Is thy strength so small? Fear not the lions, for they are chained, and are placed there for trial of faith where it is, and for discovery of those that have none. Keep in the midst of the path. Christian goes on trembling. He hears them roar, but they do him no harm.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist stedfast in the faith. 1 PETER 5:8–9

Bunyan adds in brackets that the lions were chained, but Christian did not see the chains. Many of the things that frighten Christians away from obedience are real enough — opposition, loss, ridicule, suffering. They roar. But they are on a chain, and God holds it. Timorous and Mistrust never learned that, because they turned back before they came close enough to find out.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Where is your Hill Difficulty just now — the place where obedience is plainly hard? Name it, and name the easier path that tempts you.

2. Ask whether any part of your faith rests on custom and upbringing rather than on having come personally to Christ.

3. Thank God for the springs and arbours He has given you. Then ask whether you have fallen asleep in one.

4. If you have lost your sense of assurance through carelessness, go back to the place where you dropped it: confess the sin, and take up God’s promise again.

5. What lion is roaring at you? Keep to the middle of the path this week, and trust the chain.

A PRAYER

Lord of the hill, You have not promised me an easy road, but You have promised to lead me by springs of water.

When the way is steep, keep me from the paths called Danger and Destruction. Make me willing to clamber on my knees rather than turn aside.

Forgive me when I have slept in Your arbour and let my assurance slip. Bring me back to find it, and teach me to guard it.

And when the lions roar, show me the chain in Your hand. Amen.