Sword & Trowel 2019: Issue 1
to be relaxed about a name that was an abomination, it would be a most harmful act against the cause of the Lord.
Society’s gods today are not idols
of silver and gold but dazzling pos- sessions, entertainers, and celebrities who promote godless, alternative morality. Christian people should not follow them, admire them, ap- prove them or promote them in conversation or on social media. Don’t even make mention of their name, says Joshua, and admiration is in mind. It is not for us, as believ- ers, to be promoting the instruments of godlessness, whose words and actions are deeply offensive to God. Our pledge to him is – I will not warm to the gods of this world, or approve or endorse them in any way.
5 DON’T DEPEND ON Joshua’s fifth resolution is never to
‘swear by’ false gods, which means never to be involved in an oath which acknowledges the reality or validity of such a god. It would be a form of dependence on that god to solemnise an oath, perhaps, used to provide security. There is to be no recognition or dependence at all. Yet we know of professing Chris- tians today who depend on the gods of this age to lift their mood and support their daily well-being. They allow their minds to need the rhythm of anti-God, anti-moral music and lyrics to stimulate their feelings. It is their sound-drug, their audio-amphetamine, that keeps them going; their ‘upper’, their happy pill. It is a modern equivalent of
swearing by the name of a god, and it certainly draws the ‘user’ into the spirit of the world. The believer’s resolution is: I will not depend for my well-being on worldly and ungodly sources of uplift and succour.
6 DON’T HELP WRONG The sixth resolution advanced by Joshua says of pagan gods – ‘Neither serve them,’ in other words, ‘Don’t help them.’ We gladly help other peo- ple, saved and unsaved, in any way we can, but we cannot aid and abet the world’s anti-Christian campaign. Some believers do. In the UK, for example, we have Bible-believing churches that belong to and co-operate with denominations that have long been apostate. The heads of these denominations and the majority of people and churches within them do not believe in the authority and inerrancy of the Bible, or in the Gospel, or in the person and work of Christ, or in the need for personal conversion, yet believing churches continue to serve and assist these denominations. True believers cannot co-operate with false teachers, nor can they work professionally with organisa- tions whose purpose is to advance the agenda of spiritual and moral evil. It was the stewardship of Bible believers that for years supported theological seminaries that promoted false doc- trine and brought down the main-line denominations to their present ruined condition. Our resolution will surely be – I will not help wrongdoers, compromis- ers or heretics.
Joshua’s Sixteen Resolutions page 7
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36
