Pastor W.J. Seaton

One of the most enjoyable exponents of the writings of John Bunyan is, surely, Alexander Whyte, who occupied one of the Edinburgh pulpits in the second half of the eighteenth century. Whyte’s “Bunyan Characters” rate among the classics of pen portraits of the men and women, places and personages of the Pilgrim’s Progress and the Holy War. However, one remark from a sermon of Whyte’s on the subject of “Eye-gate” – one of the gates in the walls of the City of Mansoul in Bunyan’s Holy War – seems to set himself and Mr. Bunyan at loggerheads, and calls on our love for the Bedford Tinker to judge between the two. Mr. Whyte’s statement is this: “Now, in the Holy War John Bunyan says a thing about the ear, as distinguished from the eye, and that I cannot subscribe to in my own experience at any rate … He says that the ear is the shortest and surest road to the heart. I confess I cannot think that to be the actual case. My eye is much nearer my heart than my ear is. My eye much sooner affects, and much more powerfully affects, my heart than my ear ever does.” So, says Bunyan, Ear-gate –the things that are heard – is “the shortest and surest road to the heart.” No, no, says Alexander Whyte, in this particular judgement Bunyan has missed the mark, it is Eye-gate that is the real and short way to the heart of man.

Now then, who stands right? Mr. Bunyan, or Mr. Whyte? Or is there equal truth in both of their statements? Well, my friends, attractive and all as Alexander Whyte’s opinion appears – and true and all as each and every one of us probably realises it to be – we feel that it is the dear old Tinker who emerges victor, and proves, indeed, what has been often said of him – “Prick him anywhere and he bleeds the Bible.”

You see we believe that Bunyan went back to that best of all theological colleges before he wrote down his opinion that Ear-gate is the shortest and surest road to the heart. He went back to the garden of Eden, and there he learnt to be a right good sound divine in the doctrines of sin and the human heart and the devil. You remember how the temptation of Eve in the garden finally ended? It was when “the woman saw that the tree was good for food,” that she took of the fruit and did eat, and gave it to her husband and he did eat. Well, you say, does that not substantiate Alexander Whyte’s case? She saw, and she took, and she ate. Eye-gate was opened, and the temptation accomplished. Ah, but, before Eye-gate was ever opened Ear-gate had long-since been breached by the old enemy of our souls. And be sure that when the devil set out to capture and captivate the hearts of our first parents he took the shortest and the surest route for the job. “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman …” And as the Lord had spoken into Adam’s ear with His words of command and prohibition at the first, so the devil chose to speak into the ear of Eve his counter-proposals. So the die was cast: God’s Word against the devil’s propaganda. And dear Mr. Bunyan is right; and Ear-gate is still to be mightily defended, or mightily assaulted, as the case might be. Defended against the lies of the devil; assaulted by the truths of our everlasting God.

You’ll remember how the devil set about that task of leading our first parents into captivity to his evil will? He began with an attack on the integrity of God’s Word. “And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said …?” The thing that ultimately brings down Eve is, undoubtedly, the sin of pride, when she desires to be “as God,” as the devil suggests. But, that pride immediately begins to show its head when she countenances the devil’s suggestion that God has spoken inadvisedly in prohibiting the taking of the fruit from the tree. He gives her an alternative opinion to the words of the Lord, and sets before her the possibility that she herself is then capable of sitting on judgement on what God has spoken. And this is exactly what she does.

So the devil does yet. Through the same Ear-gate that God sends His saving truth in the preaching of His word to our hearts, the devil sends his legions of lies, and sets in motion that continual struggle for the rule of our hearts and of our minds.

You’ll remember, too, how the devil continued with his task? Having prised open Eve’s ear just a little, he began to infiltrate more and more – removing a bar here and a bolt there. And first of all, he began to distort the words of God a little. “Yea, hath God said that ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Now in fact, God had not said that; at least, he had not said it with that inflection or that emphasis. What God did say is found in the previous chapter, chapter 2 verses 16 and 17; “… of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat,” the Lord says, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it …– Now you see the vast difference there? Our God shows Himself a God of all bounty and grace. Adam has the whole garden spread out before him – he may freely eat of every tree, except one. But, the devil takes up the word of the Lord to Adam, and by emphasising the one prohibition makes God appear to be a God who is out to rob them of their rights. He, in fact, distorts the words of the Lord.

And let us never feel that we are beyond such an attack on our own Ear-gate by the old enemy. Let one striking piece of evidence convince us beyond all possible doubt that the devil delights to distort the clear, clear truths of the scriptures. Where is that piece of evidence found? It is found in the fact that the devil didn’t even stop short of trying on a distortion of the truth with Christ Himself! In the wilderness temptation, does he not quote from one of the psalms? But, he only quotes in part and out of context in an effort to get the Lord to cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem. So then, once he has well-sown his tares – his distortion – his mock-wheat of the good grain of God’s word with Eve, then comes his next step – a flat denial of what God has said: “Has God said ye shall die? Ye shall not surely die.”

But then my friends, that distortion of God’s words comes in verse 1; the devils denial doesn’t occur until verse 4. but, the denial confidently follows the distortion, because already Ear-gate has been breached to the extent that Eve herself has come to distort the words of the Lord. Verse 2, “And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, God hath said ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest you die.” Now, when did God say that? Whenever did God say that they were not to “touch” that tree? But, as Satan had begun to erect a distortion of God in Eve’s heart, so she had begun to put her own additions to that distortion, making God out to be a God who would rob them of their very breath and existence.

No wonder, then, the devil feels on safe ground to come blazing through Ear-gate within his flat denial of God’s word: “Ye shall not surely die.” In one fell swoop the devil brushes aside the Holiness, and the Justice, and the Uniqueness of God, and throws to the wall Eve’s Ear-gate for the reception of the word and thought that is going to put the capstone on the temptation – “God doth know that on the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods (literally God) knowing good and evil.” That was the capstone. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back, as we would say. Now Eve is ready – yes, is impelled – to turn, and look, and see, and take, and eat. “To be as God,” is the message that has reached her heart and won it fully to the devil’s cause. And it has reached her heart post-haste, by the devil’s shortest and surest route, via Ear-gate.

Small wonder, my friends, when our Saviour came to stand as Surety and Substitute for His Church, He should come with His “ear opened” only to the will and the commandments of His Father in heaven. “My ear hast thou opened.” The Greater David would fulfil all of Jehovah’s will, and the devil’s attack upon Him with God’s Word distorted would find no house-room and would be repulsed. But remember the capstone of the temptation in Eden? It was “to be as God.” That’s what threw Eve’s Ear-gate open that day – “to be as God” –the great desire of the human heart always – to be as God unto ourselves. And so how perfect that Atoning work of Christ for His people; for He who was “very God of very God” thought it not a thing to be grasped at to be equal with God, says the scriptures, but He made Himself of no reputation became a man, and died obedient to all His Father’s words to repair our utter loss. Perfect to Substitute in all His ways! And the first blow of our redemption struck even before He permitted His holy head to be laid in the cradle of Bethlehem’s manger. For, in heaven, He who was God by absolute right undertook to become man, for man who illegally desired to be “as God” by the devil’s lie.

“Take heed how ye hear.” The Eye-gate, indeed, is a swift way to the heart; in that, Alexander Whyte judged rightly. But, as far as “the shortest and surest way” is concerned, we feel that the good Dreamer of Bedford had the better schooling. Perhaps, for a moment, the Edinburgh pulpit giant forgot to ask why Mr. John should have said such a thing. If he had, then, I’m sure he would have been conducted back to the fall of the human heart in the first place, and to our first introduction to the devil on the pages of the Bible – And “he said …”

How it becomes us to guard the Word of Truth, knowing that it is this that the devil attacks – and can attack with – when he has suitably moulded it to slip in through an unguarded Ear-gate and lay seige upon our hearts.

Yours Sincerely,

W.J. Seaton

From The Wicket Gate Magazine, published in the UK, used with permission.