This issue marks the beginning of the seventh volume year of Sword and Shield magazine. We know not how long the Lord will see fit to continue this work. We are thankful for the time and opportunity that he has given to us this far to stand for his truth.
Oh, how things have changed since the publication of the first issue in June 2020! Many who at one time were enthusiastic for Sword and Shield have forsaken the truth and gone their own ways. Sword and Shield exposed not only the rottenness that is the spiritual condition of the Protestant Reformed Churches but also exposed that many who came out of that which spiritually has become Sodom and Egypt were essentially no different than the churches they had left. Many who had appeared so luxuriant in the Protestant Reformed Churches withered under the true preaching of the word in the Reformed Protestant Churches and forsook the truth. They now sit in their homes, or they have joined churches that are one with the Protestant Reformed Churches in their promotion of man and man’s works. The Lord has his perfect work. He has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he wills he hardens.
It is the proclamation of this absolute sovereignty of God that is the task of the true church and also of any magazine that claims to promote the Reformed truth. As we look back over the past issues of Sword and Shield, we see and confess that the Lord has been gracious to us in preserving the magazine and its witness during these years of great apostasy. We pray for the coming year that the Lord will grant us the strength to give a witness yet at this late date in history to the truth of his sovereignty and the graciousness of his salvation as well as a testimony against the lie, especially as that lie is maintained and is developing in the Protestant Reformed Churches and in the broader church world. As the editor sees it, the Protestant Reformed denomination was once the tip of the spear in maintaining the truth, and now she is the tip of the spear in promoting the lie. The lie has its most refined form in that denomination, and such is that form that if it were possible the very elect would be deceived.
In this issue the meditation is another translation of Rev. Herman Hoeksema’s gripping series of meditations on the prophecy of Zechariah that was originally published in The Standard Bearer in Dutch in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The book of Zechariah is in many respects the Old Testament equivalent of the book of Revelation in the New Testament. Just as Zechariah the prophet had seen a series of visions about those things that belong to the coming of the end of time, so too John saw such visions on the island of Patmos. The editor has profited much in translating Hoeksema’s meditations, and he hopes that the readers profit from them as well.
The editorial this month continues the series on eschatology, or the study of the last things. This series is not intended to be comprehensive in the explanation of the doctrine of the last things but only to treat some of the main topics. The subject this month is apostasy, which is a fitting topic for our time, when it is so evident that being fulfilled are the warnings of Christ and the apostle Paul that before the end there will come a great falling away.
That falling away is demonstrated in the other articles included in the magazine this month. Mr. Michael Vermeer shows how the phenomenon of Charlie Kirk has exposed the Protestant Reformed Churches as being one with the apostate church world. Rev. Tyler Ophoff in his rubric critiques two more sermons by Rev. Martyn McGeown. McGeown has positioned himself as the spokesman for the new doctrine of the Protestant Reformed Churches, and he is pushing hard for its development. Rev. Jeremiah Pascual continues his treatment of Rev. Herman Hoeksema’s covenant doctrine. That is the old paths that the Protestant Reformed Churches have abandoned in favor of the doctrine that there is that which man must do to be saved.
We pray that the content of this issue may be edifying and convicting. And we pray that the Lord will give strength of mind, body, and spirit to all the writers to continue to defend the truth and to expose the lie in the seventh volume of Sword and Shield.
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