This special 2023 issue of Sword and Shield marks the three-and-a-half-year commemoration of a glorious reformation for the church of Jesus Christ. Two thousand twenty was the year those who sat in darkness were shown a great light. God peeled off the scales from the eyes of the blind and unstopped the ears of the deaf. In the year 2020 God equipped believers with knowledge to judge all spiritual things and fortified them with steadfast courage to repudiate the lie. In the year 2020 believers were unshackled from their dread of ecclesiastical assault and martyrdom. God freed believers to boldly witness to the truth. God instructed his beloved that his word is truth and is above all, regardless of the aftermath, about which Jesus had said, “Ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake” (Luke 21:16–17).

Two thousand twenty was the year that Jehovah God forged, in the fires of fierce opposition and doctrinal controversy, new implements in the battle of salvation. Through divine and sovereign blows on the anvils of his word and the Reformed creeds, God hammered out these weapons of war for his sovereign purpose. Two thousand twenty was the year that God reclaimed the believer’s office from authoritarian and insidious men. Divinely qualified for their office, God placed believers in the heat of the battle and equipped them with weapons of warfare. Forged with his own hands, God armed believers with Sword and Shield. “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him” (Isa. 59:19). The Lord shook his people from their spiritual lethargy and quickened them with his Spirit and truth. In the year 2020 God taught their hands to war and their fingers to fight. God stirred up concern in thirty-two men and made their cause his own. In the year 2020 Jehovah God made Sword and Shield his righteous cause.

As in the hands of a skillful warrior, these weapons advance as one in the proclamation of the truth and in the cutting down of the lie. Striking, clashing, countering, and defeating; in its short existence Sword and Shield has become an infamous, battle-hardened magazine. Its purpose is war. Its sword is dripping in blood, and its shield is dented and battered. This magazine must war for its righteous cause. Sword and Shield must war because it stands on the truth and for the truth. The magazine must war because this truth is the word that proceeds from the mouth of the thrice holy God, in whom there is no darkness. The magazine must war to sound the alarm. Sword and Shield must war because souls are at stake. The magazine must war for the glory and honor of God, its maker. The opposition is fierce; Sword and Shield has many foes because the magazine goes to war with each issue. Its foes detest the magazine because of its righteous cause. Foes revile Sword and Shield for its uncompromising zeal for the truth. Adversaries hate the magazine because it condemns them. It condemns them for every lie that they attempt to advance and for every truth that they deny. They hate it for its divine doctrine. They hate it for its light that exposes their darkness.

Sword and Shield has attacked the lie, and Sword and Shield will and must continue to attack every lie that stands opposed to the truth. The battle rages on today, and the battle will rage on tomorrow and through the coming year. This sword must be unsheathed. It must remain stained and bloody. This shield must endure every assault against the truth. Sword and Shield is not fighting “against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). Sword and Shield must wage war against the devil and all his deceitful devices. The magazine must war against those dark workers of iniquity. The magazine must war against the false church—against mother and her lie that “if a man would be saved, there is that which he must do,” against her heresy of assurance through works, against her justification through faith and repentance, and against her man-first dogma. Sword and Shield must war against any teaching that strips God of his glory and any lie that displaces the perfect work of Christ.

Sword and Shield will be opposed by many enemies. They will surge on all sides as a flood. Sword and Shield will be opposed by false teachers, seducers, and deceivers. Sword and Shield also will be opposed by parents, brothers, kinfolks, and friends. And Sword and Shield will be opposed by your own carnal flesh. We cannot shrink back from our magazine’s cause. We must not be ashamed of our magazine’s warring character. We must not soften our magazine’s blows or dull its razor-sharp edge. Sword and Shield must not propose a truce or seek wretched neutrality. Our magazine must not compromise the truth and deny Christ. We must not be seduced by ecumenical lust. Sword and Shield must never pursue an earthly and unholy peace. Sword and Shield must not backslide or relinquish any ground in the battle for the truth.

Our magazine must thunder the truth of the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation. God is God! Our magazine must roar the glorious gospel of pure grace and the absolutely unconditional covenant to the utter abasement of man. God justifies the ungodly! Our magazine must shout forth the full and free pardon of sin. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life! God’s truth will go forth conquering and to conquer. Stand fast in this truth. Stand fast in this truth, ye blind, weak, and lame. Stand fast in the perfect and complete work of Jesus Christ. “Stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong” (1 Cor. 16:13)! Stand fast, editors, writers, board members, and believers. The Lord Jehovah is our strength and song; he is our salvation. With his righteousness as our vanguard and the glory of the Lord as our rearward, stand fast! Our strength is in his might! Stand fast in Jehovah’s righteous cause! Commit your way to him.

May the Lord preserve our zeal for the truth and grant us the grace to never withdraw God’s sword or throw down his shield.

As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever. (Isa. 59:21)