“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me … It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father” (John 6:44-45, 63-65; underlining mine).
“Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any [man] pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave [them] me, is greater than all; and no [man] is able to pluck [them] out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:24-29; underlining mine).
“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if [it were] not [so], I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, [there] ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:1-6; underlining mine).
Universal atonement heretic, John Calvin aptly writes:
“Now wherever, and how far soever, He who is ‘the Way,’ thus leads us with His outstretched hand, whose Spirit spoke by the apostles and the prophets, we may most safely follow. And the remaining ignorant of all those things which are not learnt in the school of God far excels all the penetration of human intellect. Wherefore Christ requires of His sheep that they should not only hold their ears open to His voice, but keep them shut against the voice of strangers. Nor can it ever be but that the vain winds of error from every side must blow through a soul devoid of sound doctrine” (John Calvin, Calvin’s Calvinism; underlining mine).
Those regenerate persons indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God cannot follow a false christ, even for a moment; they can never be plucked out of the Triune God’s hand and thus they will persevere to the end. In contrast to the settled and substantive sheep of God, the hollow and superficial souls are blown about by the vain and fickle winds of damnable error.
“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, [so] walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving” (Colossians 2:6-7).
“Blessed [is] the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight [is] in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly [are] not so: but [are] like the chaff which the wind driveth away” (Psalm 1:1-4).
“Thus saith the LORD; Cursed [be] the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. For he shall be like the heath [other translations: shrub, juniper, barren thing –CD] in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, [in] a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed [is] the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and [that] spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit” (Jeremiah 17:5-8).
The ungodly cannot discern where error ends and essential gospel truth begins. Some seeds of the dandelion confuse godly and constructive benevolence with destructive malevolence (cf. Jeremiah 1:10); confound an (alleged) inhuman lack of empathy for tough love directed by and grounded firmly in God’s written Word. Others take flight at various “misogynistic” gusts from the Breath of God (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16).
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so [let] the wives [be] to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife [see] that she reverence [her] husband” (Ephesians 5:22-33).
It is no novel gust of wind that whistles the lie that the apostle Paul is “devaluing” women. As even a prophet of the doctrinal dandelion seeds’ own hath said:
“The truth they profess hath no anchor-hold in their understanding, and so they are at the mercy of the wind, soon set adrift, and carried down the stream of those opinions which are the favourites of the present time, and are most cried up — even as the dead fish with the current of the tide” (William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour).
It doesn’t take a powerful and gusty zeitgeist to carry away those with no Anchor-Hold (i.e., faith in the true Christ of Scripture); a little pusillanimous breeze will do the trick well enough.
To adapt a paragraph from the Chestertonian Calvinist heretic, Douglas Wilson:
“We live in a time when the infrastructure of the institutional church is swollen with conceit, hopelessly corrupt, bought off, and desperately in love with the world and with the wrong kind of respectability. To borrow a phrase from Randolph, the kind of respectability we hanker after is like a dead mackerel on the beach by moonlight — it both shines and stinks. Our love for this kind of thing is what keeps us from a true and living faith. ‘How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?’ (John 5:44).”
Whether professing Christian or secularist or atheist or agnostic or whatever — these unregenerate dandelion seeds insatiably hanker after respect, but the wrong kind do they reflect. There are former recalcitrant toddler Christians who in the high chair of impudence they take their seat. The unbelieving world with fork and knife does cut their meat. I read somewhere that an ignis fatuus is a false or foolish fire. Stuck in meretricious mire. Toward facinorous feminism do aspire. Insidious care of what the world thinks. Transient approval doth shine and stink.
“By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw [he was] a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward” (Hebrews 11:23-26; underlining mine).
Agrammatos 