Summer is in full swing, and the writing staff and copy editors of Sword and Shield have been hard at work to put into your hands another edifying issue. Perhaps you will read it on the beach, by the pool, or in the comfort of your favorite chair in the refreshing cool of the air conditioning. Wherever you choose to read the magazine, we trust that you will find that this issue is full of useful, informative, and edifying Reformed material to soothe the soul, to sharpen the mind, and to refresh the spirit. This editor is back from a brief break; and in preparation for the upcoming school year, I wrote a meditation on the profit of good discipline in the raising of our covenant seed.

The editorial is a kind of meditation as well concerning the state of the leadership in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) in light of her recent synodical decision that makes official dogma in the PRC that good works
of obedience to the law of God contribute to the believer’s assurance of his justification. The decision is a naked denial of justification by faith alone and another step on the road of the PRC, now deeply set and well developed in apostasy from the truth of the Reformed faith. I have it on good authority that one of the ministers involved in the decision went home and had the temerity to preach to his congregation that the people should not trust in their works. I wonder if anyone laughed! Which is it? No doubt, the decision was a whore’s or a dog’s offering, which are an abomination to the Lord (Deut. 23:18). Having prostituted himself on the altar of the PRC, that minister had a guilty conscience. His words were also just so many more good words and fair speeches to deceive the simple (Rom. 16:18). Maybe some people of God yet in the PRC will finally at this late and terrible hour in the destruction of that Jerusalem come out for the salvation of their souls and those of their children.

Reverend Bomers concludes his analysis of what happened at Zion, the now-disbanded congregation in Yucaipa, California. Reverend Bomers also has a contribution titled “But What Does God Require?” Mr. Garrett Varner is finishing his treatment of Christ’s beatitudes with an explanation of the blessed peacemakers. Mr. Earl Kamps, a seminarian in the Reformed Protestant Churches who has recently started an internship for the
summer and fall, gives us an edifying piece on the Holy Spirit. Reverend Pascual, minister in First Orthodox Reformed Protestant Church in the Philippines, explains in his rubric what happened in the Protestant Reformed Churches in the Philippines (PRCP) during the doctrinal controversy in the PRC and in the withdrawal of the Bulacan congregation from the PRCP. We welcome his articles as a help to our readers in getting to know the goings-on in the Philippines a little better and thus to acquaint us with our brothers and sisters in First Orthodox Reformed Protestant Church.

Enjoy!