From the Editor — April 2026

You have in your hands another gospel-packed issue of Sword and Shield. Maybe, just maybe, you will get some days in April that will be warm enough for you to do some reading outside or at least in the sunroom or the three-season porch.

Easter is early this year: April 5. Ordinarily the magazine would run a meditation reflecting on the glorious resurrection of our Lord, when he was declared to be the Son of God with power and when he brought to light life and immortality. Christ’s resurrection is our justification, for he was delivered for our offenses and raised for our justification. In his resurrection he gave to the church the glorious hope that in the last day we shall be raised by the same power and working whereby Christ was raised, and our mortal and vile bodies will be made like unto his most glorious body. The resurrection stands along with the cross as the heart of the church’s proclamation of the gospel. That gospel-event is worth remembering every year.

This year the meditation in the magazine is a little different. The editor is continuing to translate the Dutch meditations written by Herman Hoeksema on the book of Zechariah. The meditation this month is on the prophet’s vision concerning the Spirit and the work of the Spirit. Christ arose and ascended to God and received from him the promise of the Spirit. In that Spirit the vision that Zechariah saw was fulfilled. And in that we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. By his Spirit God’s church will be built!

We also remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ by declaring, writing, and contending for the gospel of his cross and resurrection as the fullness of our salvation. In this issue you will find that aplenty.

In the Running Footmen rubric—ably filled this month by Mr. Eddie Ophoff—we have his analysis of a wretched preparatory sermon preached by Prof. Russell Dykstra, professor emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches. He was professor of New Testament exegesis in the denomination’s theological school, where he was responsible for teaching men to find the gospel in the New Testament. He cannot find the gospel in the New Testament. And it is apparent from the preparatory sermon that he cannot find the gospel in the Old Testament either. The gospel is the promise. Dykstra has nothing for his congregation but unreal and unfulfilled promises apart from man’s activities. By that measure Dykstra also has no gospel; worse, he has a gospel that is no gospel, and the apostle Paul damns him along with other preachers of a gospel that is no gospel.

Reverend Ophoff publishes the second installment of his speech on God’s work of reformation in beginning the Reformed Protestant Churches. Reading back over some of the past issues of Sword and Shield and reading the quotations that Reverend Ophoff includes in his speech, it is clear to anyone with ears to hear and eyes to see that God worked a wonderwork in delivering us in the Reformed Protestant Churches from the incredibly deceitful men and their theology in the Protestant Reformed Churches. Truly the Lord cut a hole in her net, and so escaped are we. And while our hope for others to come out may flicker at times, yet the witness of Sword and Shield must still come, if for no other reason than as a testimony against the Protestant Reformed Churches and her rampant departures from the truth. That testimony has already served to drive that denomination in her departure. Christ at his resurrection made his disciples, then and now, to be his witnesses, and their witness has both a saving and a hardening effect.

Mr. Michael Vermeer sent in a contribution for Insights that consists of a letter to a brother. The message of the letter is sad: “Brother, you are dying!” That is the word to anyone still laboring under the illusion that he or she can without harm remain in the grip of the ministers of the Protestant Reformed Churches and their soul-destroying preaching of works.

May the Lord bless you in your reading!