From the Editor — November 2025

Fall is upon us. With the weather getting colder, the opportunities to read an issue of Sword and Shield outside in the warmth and sunshine on the patio or at the beach are dwindling, if not gone altogether. But if you are not using Sword and Shield as kindling for your woodstove in hatred for its content and its witness, then perhaps with the woodstove kindled with other paper you can pour a refreshing beverage of your choice and curl up in your favorite chair to read the comforting words of the truth beside the warmth of your crackling fire. Is not fall wonderful: the melancholy, gray skies; the cold November rain; that particular look and feel of the fall sun sinking to its winter nadir; the falling leaves; the crisp air; fresh apples and cider. All nature praises God even in its dying, preparing itself for the resurrection of spring!

In this issue the reader will notice that the meditation is by Herman Hoeksema. In the Reformed Protestant Churches, at Reformed Believers Publishing, and on the pages of Sword and Shield, we love Herman Hoeksema. He is our spiritual father. We receive his instruction and keep it in our hearts as the wise proverbist instructed his son. We do not do so uncritically, for as great a theologian as Herman Hoeksema was, he was not the one who is Wisdom himself. This would not have offended Hoeksema, for in his time and place he was a faithful theologian of the one who is Wisdom and was subject to him. So we subject Herman Hoeksema, where necessary, not to our own criticism but to the criticism of the Word. But we honor Hoeksema as our father, and we bear with his weaknesses and infirmities.

Most of our readers know Herman Hoeksema well. He was instrumental in the formation of the Protestant Reformed Churches and of The Standard Bearer magazine. He was gifted: a musician, a poet, an athlete, a scholar, a linguist, a theologian, a professor, a pastor, a writer, and an exegete, but above all else he was a minister of the word and sacraments of Jesus Christ. He labored without strife or vainglory in his hoekje that God had given to him. He had the ability in the various areas of his ministry—because he preached and wrote in the Spirit and because of his own sufferings—to speak deeply to the hearts of the people of God in their situations, in their joys as well as in their deep and sometimes inexpressible sorrows. He brought our only comfort of belonging to Jesus Christ to bear on the experiences of God’s people. This becomes especially evident in his meditations with which he filled the pages of The Standard Bearer. He wrote these in both English and Dutch to the edification of his readers then and on into today. Some of Hoeksema’s Dutch meditations have been translated, most have not. In this issue of Sword and Shield, the meditation is the first of a series of Hoeksema’s meditations on the book of Zechariah that the editor translated out of the Dutch.

The book of Zechariah is the Old Testament equivalent of the book of Revelation. The editor intends to begin a series of articles on the last things, or eschatology, and as an accompaniment to that series to publish these translations of Hoeksema’s Zechariah meditations. Hoeksema has many meditations on that book. We will not be able to publish all of them but some at least, and we hope to the edification of the reader.

In the rest of the issue, there is our usual cast of characters. Reverend Bomers writes for us the next installment of his edifying series on the Old Testament sacrifices. In this issue he explains the peace offering, that offering in which over against the sins of his people and through a bloody sacrifice, God said “it is enough!” and took his people into that blessed fellowship that he had appointed to them from before the foundation of the world. Reverend Ophoff continues his treatment of the subject of the forgiveness of the neighbor. The Running Footman rubric is capably filled by Mr. Dan Birkett, who analyzes the parting shot of a pair of the many disillusioned turncoats who left us and attempted in their treachery to deceive many and to take them away from the truth by smooth words and fair speeches. “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his” (2 Tim. 2:19).