The Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) of which I was a part from my baptism until May of 2021 were bewitched. They were gradually but inextricably turned from the truth of salvation by faith alone in Jesus Christ to the doctrine of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ and man’s activities performed by grace. From that bewitching God delivered me and many others. Through the formation of the Reformed Protestant denomination, we were given a church home, and the gospel of sovereign grace sounded forth again with great clarity.

What we did not realize is that many who joined the Reformed Protestant Churches did not do so out of the love of the gospel. As the apostle said of those who preached Christ in his own day, so we can say about the membership in the Reformed Protestant Churches: “Some…of envy and strife; and some also of good will…one…of contention, not sincerely…but the other of love” (Phil. 1:15–17). As when Israel came out of Egypt, there was a mixed multitude, so with us when we came out of the captivity in the Protestant Reformed Churches, there was a mixed multitude. For many the formation of the Reformed Protestant Churches was an opportunity to create a church in their own image, whether that be the image of a broad tent, a generically Reformed church, or a church fashioned according to their pet ideas, ideas that they had held for years while members of the PRC but that had been rejected by those churches.

Many never gave up their legalism that they had learned so well in the PRC. That threat of legalism has reared its head again. The Reformed Protestant Churches are divided by this legalism. This legalism made its appearance in the demand that in the public worship of God, on the basis of the regulative principle, only the 150 psalms of David might be sung and that to sing any other versifications of scripture, including the Lord’s prayer, is sinful, specifically a violation of the second commandment and thus is image worship.

How many quickly followed that error! We were bewitched! How soon we had fallen from grace! Many will never recover as God sends a strong delusion, so that they believe a lie.

By the time this magazine comes into your hands, the Reformed Protestant classis will have made a decision on the doctrine of exclusive psalmody. Perhaps the classis will adopt the false doctrine. Perhaps the classis will reject it. I pray that the classis rejects it and the churches be made secure against that error.

Regardless of how the classis rules, there will undoubtedly be those who do not give up their false doctrine. The fact that many so soon followed after the error is proof not that they had been bewitched but that they had harbored these convictions regarding exclusive psalmody for some time prior and were looking for an opportunity to implement them. Whether bewitched or bewitcher, they will have their psalms and be disobedient to the truth for all that.

The meditation in this issue is on Galatians 3:1. All the changes that have taken place at Sword and Shield and in the denomination are to be explained by this verse.

As a part of these changes at Sword and Shield, the magazine has a new editor. The editorial in the issue is an edited version of the first section of a speech that was given on the issue of exclusive psalmody based on the second commandment and the regulative principle. In all likelihood I will publish the rest of the speech.

Sword and Shield also has new writers. Rev. Luke Bomers will write in a new rubric entitled Our Doctrine. Mr. Tyler Ophoff has agreed to take my place in carrying on the rubric Understanding the Times. Mr. Garrett Varner wrote the first installment of a series on the subject of conversion. The magazine also hopes to begin a new rubric with regular contributions from a rotation of willing writers. These are all exciting developments and signs of good things to come.

May the Lord, the king of his church, be pleased to continue to use Sword and Shield to give a distinctive sound for the pure Reformed truth in the time to come.