Welcome

A hearty welcome to all who came out tonight for the third annual meeting. We appreciate your attendance and support of Reformed Believers Publishing, the board, and the editors. Your presence is an encouragement to us.

That is our purpose tonight too. It is to encourage ourselves in the task of representing the true Reformed line through the printed page.

And we need that encouragement, especially in the face of the fierce opposition that we have received and continue to receive. It is easy to become discouraged because of that opposition and also because of the defection in our ranks.

Sword and Shield is now in its third volume year, and the magazine marches on in its battle for God’s sovereign, particular grace and unconditional covenant.

If you read the issues from the past year, you will notice a reality there. The reality is a certain devastation that has happened in the wake of our recovery of the truth. This recovery has left a path of devastation of liars and of the lie, which comes through in the whole catalog of past issues of Sword and Shield. There is a certain awesomeness to that devastation that is evident to all.

The scripture text on the magazine’s cover is actually being realized issue after issue. I will read that text for you:

Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places. (Deut. 33:29)

I think this text is being fulfilled and realized in the work of Reformed Believers Publishing and its magazine.

It is also true that in issue after issue, God’s saints receive a feast—a spiritual feast. The magazine continues to stir excitement and hope among God’s people.

Men may oppose, slander, and even reject Sword and Shield, but they cannot stop its witness. Neither can they silence the call of Sword and Shield to faithfulness and reformation.

We love our magazine for the truth’s sake, and we are profoundly thankful for our editors and for their steady, deep, and warm spiritual zeal for God’s truth.

And we thank the editors for stamping the magazine with a distinctive character that is theologically positive and sharply polemical, with even a savage ferocity against false doctrine.

So as we go forward, our confidence is in the knowledge that the battle is the Lord’s; and the victory is sure in our Lord Jesus Christ, who reigns now and forever.

Praise the Lord!

Prayer

Our heavenly Father, we come to thee in prayer, and we thank thee for thy covenant of fellowship and friendship which thou hast established with us according to Jesus Christ and thy eternal counsel.

We thank thee that that covenant was realized in the day of Christ in the perfection of God and man together. And we thank thee that in that state of perfection the covenant will continue forever.

We thank thee for redeeming us and for forgiving us all our sins. We thank thee for delivering us from the wrath of God that was due us for all our sins.

We thank thee that we have a perfect righteousness before thee that we can claim as our own. We rejoice in a full and complete and free salvation, which thou hast freely given us. And we magnify thy name and praise thee for the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We thank thee for Reformed Believers Publishing and the privilege of thy grace which thou hast given to us, that we may give a distinctive witness to thy truth and to thy absolutely sovereign grace and the unconditional covenant. And we pray that thou would establish our witness to our hearts and that that witness may go far and find thy people wherever they are. 

We thank thee for our editors—for their gifts, their courage, and their zeal for the truth. We pray that thou would continue to give them renewed courage and strength so that we may continue as a publishing association to defend thy truth and to set it forth. And grant also to our editors the skill and bravery to unleash the sword against the lie.

We pray too that thou would preserve thy church in these last days of deep and far-advanced apostasy that now manifests itself as Satan’s last desperate attempt to destroy the gospel of Christ and the name of Christ from the earth. 

We pray that thou would cause that we may persevere in these days and that thou would bind thy saints wherever they are with us in the true faith of the pure gospel of grace in Christ Jesus.

We pray for thy blessing upon our speaker this evening and all our other activities tonight.

Hear us in mercy with the forgiveness of all our sins for Jesus’ sake.

Amen.

Introduction of the Speaker

We now come to the main part of our program this evening.

Regrettably, Rev. Martin VanderWal, who was scheduled to speak, has declined to speak for us this evening on the topic that was previously announced.

The board of Reformed Believers Publishing wishes to make clear that this was entirely Reverend VanderWal’s decision. He was entirely free to speak, and he had an all-expenses-paid invitation from the board. In no way did the board discourage him from speaking for us. We are disappointed and regret his decline.

Reverend Lanning, our editor-in-chief, has graciously offered to address us this evening. We thank him for his willingness to speak to us, especially on the very short notice of Reverend VanderWal’s decline.

Reverend Lanning will address us on the topic “Reformed Believers Publishing: A Distinctively Reformed Association.”

We look forward to his important and timely speech.

Please join me in welcoming Rev. Andy Lanning.