Here’s your guide to listen to the Readers’ Club’s deliberations on John Bunyan’s Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners from yesterday’s meeting (Sunday, September 28, 2025).
This particular session required us to pause and reflect on the biblical, God-glorifying, yet often misunderstood Doctrine of Election. Bunyan’s personal struggles with this truth, and his eventual comfort in God’s sovereign grace, invite us to wrestle with the same question: Am I elected?
You can listen to the full discussion below. Move the waveform in the embedded audio to jump to any point of interest.
Highlights from the meeting:
- 00:00 – Opening Remarks
- 02:20 – Study Hymn: I Love to Tell the Story
- 06:30 – Opening Prayer
- 07:20 – The study so far …
- 12:35 – Today’s passage (see text below)
- 26:19 – Reading the Bible has its own dangers (brief comments by OlufemiOG)
- 29:23 – Discussion on the Doctrine of Election
We hope this conversation encourages you to reflect deeply, as Bunyan did, on God’s saving work and the assurance found in His promises. Please leave us comments below.
📢 Stay connected with GospelBells Radio!
Follow us on XExcerpts
Still, I couldn’t find any comforting assurance that I had faith in Christ. Instead of gaining peace, my soul was attacked by new doubts about my eternal destiny, especially questions like: Am I chosen by God? What if the time of grace has passed me by?
- These two questions troubled and unsettled me greatly, sometimes one, sometimes the other. First, about doubting my election, I found that even though I was passionately determined to find the path to heaven and glory, and nothing could turn me away, this question so discouraged and overwhelmed me that, at times, it felt as if it drained the very strength from my body. This Scripture especially seemed to crush all my hopes: “It is not by human desire or effort, but by God’s mercy,” Romans 9:16.
- I didn’t know what to make of this verse. It was clear to me that unless the great God, in His infinite grace and generosity, had freely chosen me to receive His mercy, all my longing, striving, and even breaking my heart with effort would do no good. So this question kept haunting me: How can you know if you’re chosen? What if you’re not? What then?
- O Lord, I thought, what if I’m truly not chosen? The Tempter whispered, “Maybe you’re not one of the elect.” “It might really be so,” I thought. “Then,” said Satan, “you should give up and stop striving. If you’re not chosen by God, there’s no point talking about salvation. For it is not by human desire or effort, but by God’s mercy.”
- These thoughts drove me to the edge of despair, and I didn’t know how to respond or counter these temptations. I barely realized it was Satan attacking me; instead, I thought it was my own reasoning raising these doubts. I firmly believed, without question, that only the elect would receive eternal life. But whether I was one of them—that was the heart of my struggle.
- For several days, I was deeply troubled and confused. As I walked, I often felt my mind so weak that I could barely keep going. But one day, after weeks of being weighed down and crushed, just as I was on the verge of giving up all hope of ever finding life, this verse struck my heart with great force: “Look at the generations past—has anyone who trusted in the Lord ever been put to shame?”
- This verse lifted my spirits and filled my soul with encouragement. At that very moment, it was as if the meaning opened up to me: Start at the beginning of Genesis and read through to the end of Revelation, and see if you can find anyone who trusted in the Lord and was put to shame. When I got home, I eagerly opened my Bible to find this verse, confident I would locate it quickly, for it was so vivid in my mind and brought such strength and comfort, as if it had spoken directly to me.
- But I searched and couldn’t find it. Still, the verse stayed with me. I asked one godly person, then another, if they knew where it was, but they didn’t know of any such passage. I was amazed that a verse could come to me so suddenly, with such comfort and power, and stay so firmly in my heart, yet no one could find it. I was certain it was in the Holy Scriptures.
- For over a year, I kept searching but couldn’t find the verse. Finally, I came across it in the Apocrypha, in Ecclesiasticus 2:10. At first, this discovery unsettled me. But by then, I had grown in my experience of God’s love and kindness, so it troubled me less. I realized that, even though this verse wasn’t in the books we call holy and canonical, it captured the essence of many of God’s promises. So I felt it was my duty to take comfort in it. I thank God for that word, for it came from Him to me. Even now, that verse often shines brightly in my heart.
- After this, another doubt gripped me with force: What if the time of grace has passed? What if you’ve missed the opportunity for mercy? I remember one day, as I walked in the countryside, I was consumed with this thought: What if the day of grace is over? To make my distress worse, the Tempter brought to mind those godly people in Bedford, suggesting that they were already converted and were the only ones God would save in that area—that I had arrived too late, and they had received the blessing before I came.
- This threw me into great anguish, as I feared it might truly be so. I wandered about, grieving over my miserable state, feeling far worse than a thousand fools for delaying so long and wasting years in sin. I kept crying out, “Oh, why didn’t I turn sooner? Oh, if only I had turned seven years ago!” I was angry with myself for being so foolish as to squander my time until my soul and heaven seemed lost.
- After being tormented by this fear for a long time, barely able to take another step, right around the same place where I had received my earlier encouragement, these words broke into my mind: “Compel them to come in, so my house may be filled; and yet there is still room,” Luke 14:22–23. These words, especially “and yet there is still room,” were sweet to me. I truly believed they showed there was still space in heaven for me. What’s more, I felt that when the Lord Jesus spoke these words, He had me in mind, knowing that a time would come when I would fear there was no place left for me in His heart. So He spoke this word and left it in Scripture to help me overcome this terrible temptation. This I firmly believed at that moment.
- With the light and encouragement of this verse, I carried on for quite a while. My comfort grew even stronger when I thought that the Lord Jesus had me in mind so long ago and spoke those words specifically for my sake. I truly believed He said them to give me hope and strength.
But I wasn’t free from temptations to turn back—temptations from Satan, my own heart, and worldly friends. Yet, thank God, these were overcome by a deep awareness of death and the coming day of judgment, which stayed constantly in my mind. I often thought of Nebuchadnezzar, to whom God had given all the kingdoms of the earth, Daniel 5:18–19. Yet I realized that if this great man had all his reward in this world, one hour in hellfire would make him forget it all. This thought was a great help to me.
📖 Read all posts in the Grace Abounding series
Join Our WhatsApp Blog
Stay connected with GospelBells Radio! Subscribe to our WhatsApp Blog for daily inspiration, updates, and faith-filled content. Turn on notifications to never miss a post.
Subscribe Now
