Valley After Valley: Readers’ Club Enters the Shadow of Death and Learns Why the Right Road Is Not Always the Easy One
Christian had just won the fight of his life. He had been wounded in the head, the hand, and the foot, knocked to the ground with his sword flung from his grasp, and brought back from the edge of defeat to drive Apollyon away on dragon wings. A hand had come bearing leaves from the Tree of Life; he had eaten, been refreshed, and walked on with his sword drawn. Surely, a reader might think, the road now turns gentle. Instead, Bunyan’s very next sentence delivers a blow of its own: at the end of this valley lay another. On Sunday, October 11, 2026, the GospelBells Radio Readers’ Club followed Christian into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and found in it a lesson that runs against much of what is preached today: a believer can be exactly where God wants him to be, on exactly the right road, and still find himself walking from one valley straight into the next.
Opening in Prayer and the Cornerstone Verses
As always, the evening began with thanksgiving — for John Bunyan himself and the experiences that led him to write the book, for the blessing it has been to generations of Christians and to the Readers’ Club community, and for the ways its pages have admonished, warned, and encouraged those reading it this year, again, or for the first time. The moderator prayed that the Holy Spirit would fellowship with the class and open eyes, ears, and hearts, and that by the end of the session there would be reason to say that the Lord had been gracious.
The class then read the three cornerstone verses together: Matthew 7:13–14, on the narrow gate and difficult way that leads to life; 1 Peter 2:11, on abstaining from fleshly lusts as strangers and pilgrims; and Hebrews 11:13, on those who died in faith, having seen the promises from a distance and confessed themselves strangers and pilgrims on the earth. The moderator prayed that the class would see itself as they did, merely passing through.
Last Week in a Nutshell
Invited to recap the previous week, one participant offered a summary the moderator praised as comprehensive. The devil’s first strategy, he said, is to keep a person comfortable; his intentions are not good, but comfort is the easiest way to hold someone in place. When that fails, he resorts to violence. Christian had stood his ground, confronted the enemy with the word of God, and won, even though he was wounded in the process, and his wounds did not stop him from resisting.
The moderator expanded on the point. What Apollyon had offered Christian, in essence, was a bargain: stay on my side and I will leave you alone. That, the class recalled, is the situation the psalmist describes in Psalm 73, when he looks at the wicked and sees them untroubled in life and peaceful in death, until he enters the sanctuary and understands their end. When Christian refused the bargain, Apollyon tried guilt, listing a handful of Christian’s sins; Christian answered that there were many more, but that his master had forgiven him. That, said the moderator, is the truth Satan hates to hear most, because once a person has grasped that the blood has been shed for him and has washed him clean, the enemy has nothing left to work with. The class also recalled the lesson that Satan is wily but not all-powerful, and that the Bible’s instruction to resist the devil and he will flee is exactly what happened on the road.
The Geography Lesson: Valley, Mountain, Valley
Turning to Chapter 15, the moderator traced the physical sequence of Christian’s journey so far. The Palace Beautiful stood on a mountaintop. Christian descended into the Valley of Humiliation, triumphed in it, was healed, and, the moderator observed, one might reasonably expect him to find himself on another mountaintop or at least on smooth ground. Instead he stood at the edge of another valley, the Valley of the Shadow of Death. The moderator put the question to the class directly: had Bunyan simply ordered his story badly? Is it realistic for one valley to follow another, or does real life run mountaintop, valley, mountaintop, valley?
The first answer came from John 16:33, offered by one participant: in this world you will have tribulation, but take heart, for Christ has overcome the world. We live in a fallen world, he said, and ups and downs are normal. A second participant cited Psalm 34:19, that many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers him out of them all, adding that the word many is the one people forget, and that the more cheerful half of the verse is the word all. She added, with a rueful laugh, that she had heard this preached recently and had not enjoyed hearing it, and that life often feels as though one is coming out of trouble, going into trouble, or in the middle of it. The moderator added Acts 14:22, where Paul and Barnabas return to the new churches strengthening the disciples and telling them that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. That is not the message that fills a church on a Sunday morning, he observed, but anyone who reads the Bible, and the words of Christ in particular, has been prepared for it.
The moderator then offered a series of reasons a loving God might lead a pilgrim from valley to valley, drawn from the class’s earlier discussions: to keep us from falling into pride, to keep us on our toes, to increase our faith, and to equip us to comfort others. He asked the class to imagine how much stronger Christian’s faith, and how much more credible his witness, would be after defeating Apollyon, so that if he now met someone threatened by the same enemy he could say with authority that the enemy can be beaten, because he had done it. Paul’s statement that we comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received applied directly. And sometimes, the moderator added, we simply do not know what God is doing, but we know that He is wise and good.
The Right Road Is Not Always the Easy Road
The class then returned to a sentence in the opening paragraph: Christian had no choice but to go through the valley, because the path to the Celestial City ran directly through its heart. The moderator drew out the implication carefully: Christian was on the right path, and the right path went through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Nobody, he said, should conclude that because they are walking through something dark they must have taken a wrong turn, and those who preach otherwise do the body of Christ a disservice by telling people what is not true about the Christian life.
He asked the class to recall another moment when Christian had no choice but to take a hard road because it was the right one. One participant recalled the lions, and the porter’s assurance that they were chained. The moderator pointed to an earlier moment: just after leaving the cross, Christian had faced three paths, named Danger, Destruction, and Difficulty. Difficulty was the one that led from the narrow gate to the Celestial City, and so he climbed it. The moderator drew the conclusion: a path is not wrong merely because it is difficult, and it is not wrong merely because it contains the Valley of Humiliation or the Valley of the Shadow of Death. If it is the path Jesus trod, and the apostles, and the prophets and patriarchs, it is the right path, and we should stay on it.
A Valley Without an Enemy
Reading aloud, a participant described the valley as an extremely lonely place, which the prophet Jeremiah called a wilderness, a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and the shadow of death, a land through which no one travels and where no man dwells. The moderator drew attention to one remarkable feature of Bunyan’s description: Christian found this valley more difficult than his battle with Apollyon. That is a surprising claim, the moderator said, since one would assume that the hardest thing a pilgrim could face is a direct confrontation with the agent of Satan himself. There was no Apollyon here at all. Christian was alone.
Two More Who Turn Back
At the edge of the valley, Christian met two men hurrying in the opposite direction. They told him they were turning back and advised him to do the same if he valued his life and peace. They had seen hobgoblins, satyrs, and dragons of the pit, heard howling and screaming from souls bound in chains, and witnessed confusion and dread hanging over the valley like a cloud, with death hovering above it with wings spread wide. Christian’s answer was characteristic: from what you tell me, this is my way to the desired haven.
The moderator asked the class to recall the first time Christian had met people turning back, and one participant answered that it was at the lions, and the class supplied the names: Timorous and Mistrust, the first suggesting a person who gives in easily to fear, the second one who does not trust what God has said. The moderator noted a striking feature of Bunyan’s description of the new pair: these were the descendants of those who brought back a bad report of the Promised Land, a reference to Numbers 13:32, where the spies who had explored Canaan told the Israelites that the land devoured those who lived in it and that its people were giants. These men, the moderator observed, had themselves passed through the Valley of Humiliation. They had not died there. And yet at the edge of the next valley they turned back, saying this one would be the end of them.
Can anyone relate, he asked, to forgetting a victory the moment a new challenge appears? One participant did, with honesty: it happens a lot, he said. He described giving up and retreating, then thinking again of what God had done in the past and asking himself why he was giving up now, and then trying again. The moderator laughed and said that the participant’s modest qualification, that he was perhaps better now, was exactly the kind of thing we all say right before the next challenge arrives. It was, he said, a reminder that we are jars of clay.
Four Lessons from the Retreating Pair
The class drew several lessons from the passage, and they accumulated through the discussion.
First, remember what God has done. One participant observed that this is exactly why it is good to share testimonies: even if you have forgotten, somebody may remind you of what God did, and by the time you have recounted it your faith has been strengthened, because the God who did it yesterday is still alive today. He tied this to the command not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, where we pray, share testimonies, and encourage one another until what seemed heavy becomes lighter because it is shared. Another participant told of a friend who had joined a company with him and, a year in, complained about a very difficult assignment; he reminded him of how they had come to join the firm and how they had believed God had led them there, and if God could have brought them that far He could bring them through this. Fifteen years later, he said, the friend had grown enormously, and still reminded him of the exchange. The moderator pointed to the whole scene as an example of iron sharpening iron. He added the hymn line, each new Ebenezer in review confirms his good pleasure to see me quite through.
A visiting participant added a further observation about testimonies: in many gatherings today, there is little room for them, and when there is, speakers are told to be brief, so that the details are lost and nobody can understand what the person was actually saved from. A detailed testimony, she said, is one others can tap into. The moderator agreed, noting that the class had recently discussed the matter elsewhere, and acknowledged that some are reluctant to share testimonies out of skepticism, fear of the enemy, or concerns about privacy, but argued that these concerns should be set aside, since testimonies build the faith of others and the sharpening of iron does not happen if the pieces of iron never touch.
Second, do not forsake the assembly of the saints, where iron sharpens iron.
Third, in the words of one participant, question your fears. Observing that Christian had pressed the two men with questions — where are you going, why, what did you see, what exactly did you see — the participant noted that the spies’ report in Numbers 13 contained an obvious contradiction, a land that devoured its inhabitants and yet was home to giants who had grown to enormous size. Sometimes, he said, you have to probe a fear and ask whether it is actually worth being afraid of. The moderator called this a mark of emotional stability and wisdom. Another participant offered the acronym that fear is false evidence appearing real, while granting that some fears are real; the moderator replied that even then the right response is to probe, and to ask whether this is too hard for the Lord God Almighty, to which, in the words of Jeremiah 32:27, the Lord Himself replies: I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too hard for me?
Fourth, do not become one of those who discourage others. The moderator urged the class to be sons of encouragement, like Barnabas, rather than descendants of those who gave the bad report, not by mouthing empty platitudes but by genuinely trusting that God can do all things. And when fellow believers say that this is not the time for prayer or trust or going forward, the class was reminded of what the text says next: they parted ways. We may implore those who are turning back not to, the moderator said, but if they are determined to go, we have to part ways, because bad company corrupts good character and the faithless will draw down our own faith.
One participant added an observation about faith itself, with a personal example. She had read a devotional about faith, claimed it, and prayed over her car that morning; then, as she got in, she caught herself saying that she hoped it would start, and the Holy Spirit reminded her that she had just prayed about it. She corrected herself, said that it would start, and it did. We pray, she said, and then we doubt, and doubt will not take us far.
Mapping the Terrain
The next stretch of the discussion turned to the physical layout of the valley, which a participant read aloud from the text: the valley stretched on, with a deep ditch on the right, where the blind have led the blind through the ages and both have perished miserably, and on the left a dangerous swamp where even a good man, if he falls in, finds no solid ground to stand on; King David once fell in and would have drowned had God not rescued him, as Psalm 69:14 records. The path itself was extremely narrow, so that avoiding the ditch brought Christian near the swamp, and avoiding the swamp brought him near the ditch, and on top of everything it was too dark to see where to place his foot.
The moderator highlighted that the valley stretched on, without a visible end. If a person knew how long a valley lasted, he suggested, even a long one would be manageable; one could count down. The particular cruelty of the valley experience is that one does not know how long it will last.
Then the class considered the ditch on the right, the ditch where the blind have led the blind. The moderator recalled Jesus’ use of the same image of the Pharisees. One participant identified it as the world itself, in which many people believe lies that they absorbed from upbringing or from whatever they listen to, and people prefer to go where they will hear what they want to hear. Another participant developed the point: it is people who do not know better but claim to, and those who follow them because they do not themselves know the way. She noted the Yoruba proverb that a person who is sinking will always look for someone to pull down with him, and urged the class to know the truth, which alone can make free, and to be careful what they listen to. A fourth participant connected it to limitation: we have limits, she said, and do not always admit them, trusting too confidently what we know. She noted how many churches have sprung up and urged believers to be like the Bereans, who examined the Scriptures daily to see whether what they were told was so. Too many of our young people, she said, say my pastor said, but the question is what the Bible says. The pastor is limited, she added, and followers who depend entirely on him will be limited in the same way. A fifth participant agreed that Christian himself was not blind, and so he did not follow the blind men, but another blind person certainly would have been led by them into the ditch.
The class heard another story that made the point concrete. A woman whose son had gone missing was approached, at church, by someone who suggested she consult a particular spiritual practitioner, on the grounds that Jesus is slow but this man is fast, and the son would thank her afterward. She refused. Whether she found her son or not, the participant said, she would hold on to Christ. The moderator thanked God for her choice and observed how troubling it is to find such influences within the church itself.
The moderator summed up what the two sides of the path represent. The ditch on the right is error, doctrinal error, wrong belief leading to wrong action. The swamp on the left is what happens when a person is overtaken by sin and overwhelmed by doubt, guilt, and fear. And the two are linked, because a person who falls into error and then into sin will find himself in the mire of guilt and doubt, doubting whether he can be forgiven, which is the situation of the psalmist crying out to be delivered from the mire and the deep waters. Walking a path this narrow, in the dark, with error on one side and guilt on the other, requires constant care.
A Different Weapon
Next the class noted the mouth of hell beside the path, from which flames and smoke burst out, with sparks and terrifying noises, and the detail that these were not frightened by Christian’s sword, in contrast to Apollyon. Christian had to put the sword away and use another weapon, which Bunyan calls All-prayer. The moderator asked the class to recall what the sword represents: the word of God. With Apollyon, Christian had answered temptation with Scripture, just as Jesus did in the wilderness: when the devil says come to my side, we say we belong to the Lord; when the devil says you are guilty, we say there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus; when he says you will not reach heaven, we answer that the One who is able to keep us from falling will present us blameless. The enemy runs when he finds he cannot twist the word.
But in this valley, the moderator said, there is no identifiable enemy. There is no Apollyon to name and answer. There is only darkness, the temptation to error, and the danger of being overwhelmed by guilt. And in that kind of valley, the right weapon is all-prayer, from Ephesians 6:18, praying at all times with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. One participant suggested that all-prayer might mean all kinds of prayer: confession, adoration, intercession, and petition. The moderator noted that there are seasons in which all a Christian can do is cry out, Lord, deliver my soul, because he is helpless and there is no tempter to confront.
Christian’s Mental Model
The moderator asked a participant to read the passage where Christian considers turning back, and then analyzed the reasoning that kept him going. First, he thought he might be halfway through the valley by now, and the moderator commended this as a habit worth cultivating: I do not know how soon light will come or how soon deliverance will come, so it is never time to turn back. Second, he remembered how many dangers he had already overcome. Third, he realized that turning back might be riskier than going forward, since going back would mean passing again through the dangers he had already faced, perhaps meeting Apollyon again; and as Jesus said, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. He pressed on and, when the demons drew near, shouted at the top of his voice, I will walk in the strength of the Lord God, and they fell back.
Then came the detail one participant specifically flagged: Christian was so confused that he did not recognize his own voice, and when a wicked spirit crept up behind him and whispered blasphemies into his ear, he took them for his own thoughts, and this troubled him more than anything he had yet faced, because he feared he was cursing the very One he loved. The moderator said this describes seasons in which terrible thoughts cross a believer’s mind, thoughts of grumbling at God, of blaspheming, even, in some cases, of ending one’s life, and which appear to come from within when in fact they are put there by the enemy. The class will return next week to explore exactly what this valley represents in the pilgrim’s life, but the moderator summarized what could already be said: it is a season of darkness in which the path is unclear; of error on one side and the swamp of fear and doubt on the other; of no single enemy to confront; and in which the only option is to pray, Lord, deliver me.
Closing Reflections
The moderator closed by offering the class an assurance and a charge. The assurance: those who walked this valley before were delivered, and the One who delivered them is still God, who neither slumbers nor sleeps and continues to deliver His people. The troubles of the righteous may be many, but the Lord delivers him from them all. The charge: count your blessings, remember what God has done, and know that the One who helped in the past can help again. He prayed that God would make the mountains low and the crooked places straight in the coming week. A participant, offering the closing prayer, reflected that fear can destroy and disrupt God’s plan for a person’s life, and asked that the class not miss their reward as they carried what they had learned into the week.
Looking Ahead
The Readers’ Club will continue next Sunday, God willing, as the class returns to the Valley of the Shadow of Death to uncover what the valley truly represents in a Christian’s pilgrimage, and to finish the chapter that ends with Christian’s song of praise.
🎧 The full recording of the October 11, 2026 session is available for anyone who wishes to hear this study of valley after valley and the weapon of all-prayer in full.
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The road through the valley of the shadow of death is the same road that leads to the Celestial City, and the Lord who walks it with us has promised to deliver us out of them all.
