Matt Guyatt

Follower of Jesus Christ and blessed beyond measure! IT professional & sports enthusiast.

[Matt Guyatt @mattguyatt]

😂

[C. R. Wiley @crwiley1962]

I’m not a Luddite. I use noise canceling headphones.

I’ve been married 41 years. 30 or more of those years my wife has taught piano to beginners.

Noise canceling headphones have contributed to my sanity.

[Matt Smethurst @MattSmethurst]

Grandpa: “Church is essential.”
Dad: “Church is optional.”
Son: “Church is unnecessary.”
Grandson: “Jesus who?”

[Tom Buck (Five Point Buck) @TomBuck]

“Great men are never really complicated. The complicated people are the weak ones, beset by dozens of conflicting causes and motives, never quite knowing how to get it all together. They see one side of an issue, but they also see the other side. They see the advantage of one course of action, but they recognize that it might be better to do something else. Great men are not like this. They are not naive. They know that issues are sometimes complicated and that there are often different paths that can be taken, but they see the important cause and the best path and then follow it consistently.” - James Montgomery Boice

[Eschatology Matters @Eschatology22]

Undefeated meme 💪

[D. Patrick Ramsey @dprmsy]

“There is no blanket guarantee of perseverance...Indeed there is no such thing in the NT as a believer whose perseverance is so guaranteed that he can afford to ignore the warning notes which are sounded so frequently.”

Sinclair Ferguson

[Tom Hicks @TomHicks2LCF]

If you don’t love God’s law, you don’t love God.

[Zachary Garris @ZacharyGarris]

“But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head” (1 Cor. 11:5).

It’s amazing that many today are so sure this passage allows women to lead parts of public worship, but also sure women don’t need to wear a head covering in doing so.

[Tom Hicks @TomHicks2LCF]

The creeds and confessions of the church do not have more authority than the Bible. But they do have more authority than you, a private interpreter, if you are churning out novel or quirky readings.

That’s because the creeds and confessions represent the collective interpretive wisdom of Christ’s church through the ages. Study them carefully.

Let the ancient masters of Scripture and theology show you how they came to their conclusions, and you will likely see their great doctrines in the Bible for yourself. The creeds and confessions are based on their insights, confirmed by Christ’s church.

The creeds and confessions are a normed norm. The Bible alone is the norm that norms all norms.

[Ryan Denton @TexasPreacher]

Is this not the most carnal, immature, and undisciplined generation of professing Christians in the history of the church?

Even a modest acquaintance with the sermons, biographies, and writings of godly men from former ages lends weight to that impression. They were far from perfect, but they possessed a seriousness about holiness, self-denial, mortification of sin, and communion with God that is increasingly rare in our own day.

The causes are many, no doubt, but among the chief is the deep antinomian strain that runs through much of modern evangelicalism. It begins with familiar slogans: "You can't judge me." "Only God can judge." "You're not my Holy Spirit."

Even in Reformed circles it appears, albeit in more sophisticated dress: "The prophets used strong language." "The Bible never explicitly forbids this particular entertainment, vice, or indulgence." More recently, any earnest call to piety, gravitas, self-examination, tongue-control, self-denial, or holy living is quickly dismissed as "legalism," "pietism," or a "Jesus juke." The effect, realize it or not, is a steady lowering of the church's expectations concerning holiness.

This is not the religion of Holy Scripture, nor the religion of our fathers. The gospel not only pardons sinners, but it trains them "to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts" and to "live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age." The Christ who justifies His people also sanctifies them.

May the Lord restore to His church a humble and trembling spirit, eager to pursue greater conformity to Christ. May He raise up mature, grave, and holy men once again. The Reformed world is especially experiencing a famine in this regard.

At the very least, let us acknowledge that antinomianism and worldliness are far greater dangers in much of the modern evangelical church than legalism or excessive strictness. And having acknowledged it, let us seek God's face with renewed earnestness, praying that He would revive His church and make us a holier people, whatever the cost.

Only then should we expect the Lord to be pleased to pour out His blessing in unusual measure upon our churches and our land.

[Matt Guyatt @mattguyatt]

💯

[Ryan Denton @TexasPreacher]

I'm already telling my 4 sons that "trade school" is not a fallback. Too many people are chasing overpriced degrees just to work some job they don't like. Be an electrician. Be a plumber. Be a welder. Work hard. Love your family. Serve your church. That's a good life.

[Ryan Denton @TexasPreacher]

Dispensationalism is more than just an eschatology thing; it reinvents how the entire Bible is to be understood. It introduces a fundamentally different hermeneutic that reshapes the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, Israel and the church, and the covenants themselves. That is why its effects extend far beyond debates about the millennium or the timing of Christ's return. Thankfully, many dispensationalists call themselves "leaky," whatever that means, but even then, the more problematic aspects of dispensationalism are retained.

I think dispys are brothers, just way off. Saying as much has always been a violation of the 11th commandment among evangelicals, but the sooner their aberrant views are dealt with and hopefully jettisoned, the healthier the American Church will be. Hence the need to hash it out in a respectful, even if at times vigorous, way.

[Ryan Denton @TexasPreacher]

I pity the Christian who has a low regard for the Christian Sabbath. Ministers who treat it lightly and neglect to acquaint the flock with its rich delights are chiefly to blame, but so too is our broader American ethos of indulgence and pursuit of self-gratification. We find it difficult to imagine an entire day devoted to God, which says far more about us than it does about God's 4th commandment, which is "holy, and just, and good."

Far from being a burden, the Christian Sabbath, when rightly observed, is a feast day for the soul; a weekly weaning from the noise and vanity of this present life; and a regular preparation for that other world. It helps cultivate within families and individuals a settled rhythm of worship, rest, fellowship, and delight in God. It calls us to that all-important duty of self-denial, which the flesh naturally hates but which the soul craves and needs.

What a wise and gracious God, to give His people one day in seven on which they may conscientiously shut it all down and turn their eyes toward heaven. It's no wonder Christ Himself said, "The sabbath was made for man," and that godly magistrates, seeking the true good of their people, have so often regarded its public preservation as a civic duty.

[Ryan Denton @TexasPreacher]

Christians are proving deficient in our ability to think in categories. This is evident in many current debates, especially the CN one, but most recently in the controversy over imprecatory prayer.

Such prayers were given to the church for wicked times like these. Yet we may also pity those same enemies and pray for their conversion. Recognizing this distinction would do much to help those who recoil emotionally at the very thought of imprecatory prayer. We pray for the enemy’s repentance, but we also pray God’s justice would be exercised against all impenitent wickedness. Such prayers may even be quite specific, naming a particular person, group, or situation, albeit leaving their final state to God.

Both are legitimate, biblical categories of prayer and are in no way contradictory to each other. But to wholesale condemn imprecatory prayer is an unfortunate move to make, especially given its (quite prominent) use in both the OT & NT.

[Matt Guyatt @mattguyatt]

The Word of God is a sword after all.

[Ryan Denton @TexasPreacher]

Experimental preaching aims not merely to explain the truth, which is important, but to press it home upon the conscience with wise discrimination, addressing the varied conditions of the hearers. It seeks to awaken the affections of sinner and saint, young and old, the backslider and the fainting believer, the new convert and the almost Christian. In this, it stands within the Great tradition of Christian preaching.

[Jon Harris 🌲 @jonharris1989]

I’m going to do a segment Friday on all the evangelical leaders who told us to trust Fauci.

No prisoners.

[Michael Foster @thisisfoster]

Disciplining men into “the grind is just part of a faithful life” is an important work of discipleship.

[Michael Foster @thisisfoster]

When the church is treated as a replacement for the natural family, the pastor becomes an adoptive father instead of a shepherd of souls.

The congregation is taught to confuse the limits and purposes of the natural (household) and spiritual family (church).

[Michael Foster @thisisfoster]

One of the huge challenges in ministry right now, and there are many, is helping women regain agency and strength.

Now, before I say what I mean by that, some of you are already thinking, “Yeah, but what about men? Isn’t that one of men’s biggest problems too?” Of course it is. I just said there are many problems.

But another problem is that many of you can’t read what’s right in front of you without immediately thinking about the opposite. You’ve been trained to read antithetically. Instead of taking the point being made, you immediately think about how it isn’t universally true or how it applies to someone else, and you miss the point entirely.

When it comes to men and women, our culture assumes you can never talk about one without immediately talking about the other. If you praise men, you have to praise women. If you criticize women, you have to criticize men. Everything has to be perfectly balanced. It’s one of the ways our age has made honest conversations unnecessarily difficult.

Back to the point.

Modern culture has told women they can do anything a man can do, and probably do it better. It has told them they can have it all. They can be a mother, a lawyer, an astronaut, bake sourdough, keep a spotless house, and become the next Allie Beth Stuckey.

At first glance, that sounds like the culture is giving women unlimited agency. But there’s a twist. While women are supposedly capable of everything, they’re also told they’re rarely responsible for anything. If they fail, it’s because the “patriarchal system” is rigged. If they’re anxious, it’s because their husband doesn’t love them like Christ enough, not because they refuse to take their worries to God. Then there’s trauma culture, which labels nearly everything as trauma and then uses that label to excuse sinful reactions and behavior.

So women are told they’re stronger, smarter, and more capable than ever, yet they’re also taught that their failures and sins are almost always someone else’s fault. That combination produces people who are proud and fragile at the same time. They’ve been raised in a culture that constantly flatters them, so correction feels like an attack.

That’s what I mean by women losing agency.

Women need to be told they are responsible before God for the outcomes of their lives. They are responsible for their sinful attitudes and actions. Outside circumstances affect everyone, but they do not remove personal responsibility. Women must own their sin, repent of it, and accept the consequences that often come with it.

That isn’t misogyny. It’s love. It’s helping women recover adulthood from a culture that constantly encourages them to remain children.

I am very much in favor of strong women. But by strength, I mean strength of character. Nothing keeps a person weaker than refusing to take responsibility for their own sin, and nothing makes a person stronger than humility, the ability to see yourself truthfully before God.

That kind of humility produces remarkable women. Women who are gracious. Women who walk through life with poise. Women who are not easily offended because they are far more concerned with their own souls than protecting their pride.

Any pastor or ministry that undermines a woman’s agency is a people-pleasing, woman-fearing, God-dishonoring ministry. They do not have the courage to love women enough to tell them the truth. More often than not, they are married to women who think this way themselves. Instead of helping them grow in grace, they flatter them, excuse them, and surrender to their weakness and sin.

Another part of this, and this is where the men come in, is that many men are married to women who have bought into these modern lies. They are proud and very difficult to correct. The husbands have either bought into the same lies themselves or have simply surrendered to the fact that their wives won’t receive correction.

These are the “happy wife, happy life” kinds of men. More than anything, they just want to keep the peace. They want their wife to be happy regardless of her spiritual condition so they can go about their lives without conflict.

So when something in the culture or the church upsets their wife, they get upset too, not because you’re wrong, but because you’ve disturbed the little bit of peace they’ve managed to carve out in their marriage.

That’s when the names start. You’re a misogynist. You’re a woman-hater. You’re unloving. They’ll say whatever they need to say because they have to reassure their wife that they don’t agree with the man calling her to repentance. They need her to know she’s basically fine, or at least that you’re overstating the case. The goal is simple: get things back to normal.

Many of these men are pastors.

On the other side are men who have become embittered. They’ve watched this for years, they’re tired of it, and now they’re overcompensating. They speak without patience, but patience is exactly what’s needed. When an entire sex has been catechized by a lie for decades, sanctification takes time.

So you’ve got flattering, enabling husbands on one side and embittered men on the other. Neither helps.

It’s our mess. God has given it to us, and it’s our responsibility to deal with it. So we must.

[That Particular Baptist @ParticularBapt]

One of the things that New Calvinism and the YRR movement did was accelerate the takeover of charismatic worship in Calvinistic churches.

"By sacrificing your preferences for the sake of others"

The irony of this statement is that contemporary worship is rooted in self-preference. That is the fundamental change which took place in the 1900s, instead of new converts sacrificing their preferences of music styles and conforming to the scriptural worship of the churches and their scriptural understanding of reverance, rather being humbled and shaped in the process, they chose to change the worship of God in the according to their own self-expression, to be "authentic" to themselves and their tastes, to adopt the music which was crafted for ends and purposes which did not have the worship and glory of God and biblical principles in mind. Things have so much been flipped on it's head that like clockwork the retort to critiques of contemporary worship music always assume it's a "preference" issue. It's not surprising because in practice, that is how they've been catechised to think about this matter. I for one did not have a "preference" for the traditional worship of Protestant churches, and many others would say the same.

"not taking yourself so seriously that you lack joy"

It is not in taking ourselves so seriously that we have maintained this position. It's by taking God so seriously that we tried carefully in these matters. That does not mean we our void of joy.

The 122nd Psalm brings me so much joy.

https://t.co/jgOA3lRslW

Let's not forget to pray for reformation in worship. Not that we would only have a recovery of the outward forms in our worship, but that our hearts would be engaged in that worship also.