On this episode of The Flatline, Rick Hughes delves into the pervasive myths in Christian circles, particularly the notion that spiritual growth requires human accountability partners. Rick challenges the widespread ‘Iron Sharpens Iron’ belief by emphasizing the importance of the Holy Spirit and scriptural understanding over peer influence. He provides insight into key biblical principles for real growth in spirituality and how to discern the truth amidst today’s complex faith narratives.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, stick around, stay with me. It’ll just be a short time of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education, and a You know the drill, no, no, no manipulation. That’s right, no con games. We’re not asking you for any money. We’re not trying to solicit funds. We’re not trying to get you to join up. We just would like for you to listen as I try to make the Word of God plain and obvious to you so you can verify and identify God’s plan for your life if you want to do that. And this is my prayer, you will do that. The Flatline has been on the air now for over 15 years across America. We currently air on over 110 cities across America and the Philippines and Alaska. It’s a great honor, great privilege to bring you this radio show. A lot of people write and a lot of people call. You’re always welcome to write or call to request our material. It’s all free. You go to the website rickhughesministries.org. rickhughesministries.org. And thank you for doing that. A lot of our listeners don’t use a computer and you may want to call. You simply dial 800-831-0718, and you can place your order that way. So thank you so much for listening. I appreciate all the calls and all the letters and all the encouragement, especially in these days that we face now. It’s coming up in the future. It’s a tough time in America, and we don’t know what’s going to happen, supposedly, but I think I do. I think anybody that can read the trends of history and understands the Word of God can tell what’s happening. We’ll talk a little bit about that this morning. All right, be sure to look at our book resources. It’s all available. You can get our transcripts from the last few years, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 is coming up eventually. But these are the transcripts of each radio show printed into a book that’s a readable form. And so you can go back and read the book and read the transcripts just as if you were listening to it. Also, we have our book on Christian problem solving, which identifies the 10 problem solving devices. We have our book on practicing your Christianity and Crash Course in Christianity. A lot of these are being used by various churches and various groups in various places. And, of course, our book for prisoners called Divine Pardon that’s used in the prison so often. And the book we wrote for high school students called Life’s Toughest Years, and we use that when we speak in schools. All these are available, and they’re all free of charge. So thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for giving me a few minutes of your time. And I appreciate your prayer support, and I appreciate your encouragement and any other support you may want to send our way. Now here’s what I want to talk about this morning. The big lie, the big lie. And there’s a lot of lies floating around in our country today, but this is one of the biggest ones regarding the Christian life. My objective on doing this radio show is number one, to help you understand what it means to be saved, what it means to receive Jesus Christ as your savior, so that you will understand you don’t have to work for it. You don’t have to purchase it. You cannot buy it. It’s a free gift. For salvation is a free gift. The grace of God is revealed to all men, and God’s grace we’re saved. It’s a free gift. The Bible says it, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It’s a gift of God, not of works, as any man should brag about it. And so there it is. It’s clear. John 3.16, God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, so that whoever believed in him should not perish and have everlasting life. The Jews obviously didn’t believe he was the Messiah, and the ones that did believe, the one that came to him and believed that he was indeed the Messiah, this is what it’s talking about. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you believe Jesus Christ is the anointed Son of God, and if you believe that he died on the cross for your sin, paid the penalty for your sin, then I pray that you would tell God that in a prayer. Simply bow your head and tell him, Father, I believe your anointed son, Jesus Christ, is my savior and I’m willing to accept him. Don’t try to repent of all your sins. You can’t do it because you’re going to sin. You have a sin nature. Even after you get saved, you’ll sin. It’s impossible not to sin anymore until you go to heaven and get rid of the plague sin nature and get a new body, a resurrection body. So repenting of your sin, people try to get you to do that, telling God you’re sorry and that’s fine, but that’s not how you get saved. You get saved through faith alone in Christ alone. I hope you’ll remember that. And once you become a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I try to encourage you to grow spiritually under a well-qualified pastor. That’s what I’m looking for, people that are hungry for truth, people that want to grow. I get many, many letters from people that are dissatisfied with going to church and playing games. And it’s my prayer that I can encourage you to grow spiritually, and that you will pray for and indeed find a well-qualified pastor that can help you understand the Bible. And if it’s not in your city, you can at least order tapes, DVDs, MP3s, and study there at the house on your kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a Bible and a notebook and get into it and grow that way. But it’s all available for you, and that’s what I’m looking for. I’m looking for hungry people, people that have positive volition, not negative volition, positive volition. Now today I want to talk about a national movement in Christian circles today. I call it the Big Lie. And I’ve heard it over and over and over again. It comes from a scripture verse. But the verse is Proverbs 27, 17. As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another person. There’s even a national movement in Christian circles today called Iron Sharpens Iron. There are great conferences held that call for men to attend and receive instructions on being a Christian man, Christian manhood, and usually for a fee, by the way. This movement was actually started in the 90s by Colorado football coach Bill McCartney in Boulder, Colorado, called Promise Keepers. And their motto was to call men back to courageous, courage, bold leadership. And their hope was to be the spark that called men back to God’s Word, sharing their faith, caring for the poor and the oppressed throughout the world. Christianity.com has a website called Iron Sharpens Iron. And here’s their concept. Their concept is this. That’s why it’s so important for each of us to build growing relationships. Not true. Important for us to build growing relationships. Not true. With others in our life. So it’s not important for you to build growing relationships with others in your life unless it’s your spouse or your children. And they go on to say we all need people who can help us rub off the hard edges and who honestly have our best interests in mind when they do it. That’s not true. We don’t need anybody to help us rub off the hard edges. We need the word of God. We need a pastor to teach us and your volition to execute what you’re learning. Iron sharpening iron requires a level of accountability, they say. or a personal inclination to allow significant others to look close enough into your life, not true, don’t ever do that, so they can see the specific weaknesses or problems in your life. That’s bull, don’t let people look into your life. You don’t need some individual looking over your shoulder to tell you whether you’re a bad person or a good person or what you should do. This idea that you’re going to be made a better Christian by having a friend or a fellow believer who you can allow to hold you accountable is way, way, way off base. God the Holy Spirit, I said God the Holy Spirit does not need help in holding believers accountable. The scriptures do tell you to choose your friends wisely. I’m not debating that. Proverbs 12, 26. The righteous should choose his friends carefully for the way of the wicked leads them astray. And then Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15, 33, don’t be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. And so, yes, you must be careful not to get around the wrong people with the wrong ideas that will influence you in the wrong way. However, this does not imply that keeping company with Christians are going to make you a better Christian. And this brings a question up. Do I need a fellow believer to mentor me in my spiritual life? Do I need a fellow believer to check in on me and call me and ask me, am I being obedient today? What am I doing for the Lord today? The answer is no. What we need, what men need are the mechanics. What men need are the mechanics to the spiritual life. The iron needed for that to happen is a well-qualified pastor plus the filling of the Holy Spirit. What is not being taught today is mechanics. People don’t understand the Christian life. They don’t understand the mechanics. If you pick up many of the best-selling books, they don’t even tell you how to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and you know unless you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, you’re just cranking out human good, and it’ll all be burned up at the judgment seat of Christ. King David was an amazing teenager. and he was noted in scripture for killing Goliath of Gath in 1 Samuel 17. He didn’t need anybody to sharpen his spiritual life. God the Holy Spirit took his faith and promoted him to eventually be king. We call this the doctrine of God the Holy Spirit as our mentor, or as the Lord Jesus Christ called him, our paraclete in the Greek New Testament, a paraclete, and that’s a helper. So the Holy Spirit, is in fact our true mentor, John 14, 26. Our Lord informed his disciples that once he ascended, that he was going to send the Holy Spirit back to teach them, to guide them, to help them recall, and to empower their lives. So he used a metaphor called a paraclete. And this is defined, if a metaphor, what is a metaphor, by the way? It’s defined as the application of a word, excuse me, or a phrase, to an object or a concept it does not literally denote in order to suggest a comparison. You know, like, you are my sunshine, my only sunshine. That’s a metaphor. That’s a metaphor of someone makes you warm feeling, gives you warmth. So Bible metaphors are the basis for teaching in the Scripture, clarifying, illuminating, communicating many of the absolutes of the Word of God. And the human writers of the New Testament introduce numerous metaphors under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. So this Greek word mentor was a 9th century BC name of a very loyal, trusted counselor of Ulysses. He was the tutor of Ulysses’ son. Ulysses is one form of the Roman name called Odysseus, a hero in ancient Greek literature. In the English, move to the English language, mentor is used for very close, very trusted counselor a guide, an advisor, or a teacher. And in your case and my case, the mentor describes the ministry of God the Holy Spirit as our helper, our paraclete, our guide, our teacher, the counselor of every individual believer. He’s given to us as a mentor the moment we get saved by the filling of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord prophesied the mentorship of the Holy Spirit in John 14, 16. He said, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another, parakletos, another helper, that he may be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world is not able to receive, because they neither see him nor do they know him, but you know him because he lives with you and will be in you. So the Holy Spirit lives in you. He doesn’t leave you when you sin. You may quench him. You may grieve him, but he doesn’t leave you. But nowhere, I repeat, nowhere in the scriptures are we told to have human mentors to guide us through the devil’s world. That’s usually just an opportunity for some nosy legalist to control your life and tell you, don’t do that, brother. Don’t do this, brother. The Bible does teach that you must learn to stand your ground in the devil’s world. You have to learn that. 1 Corinthians 16, 13. Be on the alert. Stand firm in the faith and act like men. Be strong. The word stand firm that Paul wrote there is a present imperative verb, staco, the name of the word staco. And it means this, to be perseverant, to persevere in your spiritual life, to be anchored. You must be an anchor. And the anchor we’re looking for is called the pivot, the group of mature believers that’ll deliver this nation. The pivot of mature believers is what anchors this nation in God’s plan. The Holy Spirit is your mentor to help you anchor as a member of the pivot. The ancient Spartan warriors, if you’ve ever studied Spartan history, developed an unusual fighting stance called a phalanx. It was actually a rectangular mass military formation composed of heavy infantry armed with pikes and spears, and they stood shoulder to shoulder and locked shields fighting like one entity. Well, you and I are told to hold our ground and stand firm in the face of satanic opposition. So to do this, we must all be on the same page following the commander’s orders. Well, what exactly are our orders? Ephesians 6.10. Finally, be strong in the Lord, in the Lord. That’s a prepositional phrase, in the Lord and in his power. That’s the Holy Spirit. Put on the full armor of God so you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. Stand, stand firm. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of darkness, authorities, powers of darkness in this world, spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. So put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you’ll be able to stand your ground and after you’ve done everything, to keep standing. Stand firm with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet filled with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. And in addition to all of this, Pick up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the heaven of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. And with this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. I could make several radio shows out of that lengthy passage. You are in a war. You are in the middle of the angelic conflict. You must stand your ground. You must not take this lightly. God didn’t leave you here for you just to skip along and sing doodah. God left you here to represent Jesus Christ as anointed son. And if there’s anything Satan’s going to try to stop you from doing, it’s from doing that and from advancing spiritually so that God can count on you and depend on you. So if he can distract you, discourage you, defeat you, he will. You must stand strong by putting on the belt of truth, and that’s the word of God in your soul. That’s why you’re told to grow spiritually. Grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You’re told that. That’s why you’re told to study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. You’re told that. Without spiritual growth, you cannot be representing God. You’re going to get slaughtered on the battlefield. And it’ll be very subtle. You will not be in the fight. You will not represent Christ. You will not be counted on by God the Father. You’ll be just a spiritual loser, not unsaved, no loser. getting to heaven with no rewards and not hearing the father say well done my good and faithful servant a mature believer is going to obey this command and not desert his post and you know a lot of believers desert their post a lot of believers are told what to do here and they don’t do it they get distracted something calls them out of the way they get distracted by their hobby or their job or They’re people that they’re friends with and they quit studying and quit growing. They don’t get up every day and get into the word. They don’t pray every day. They don’t look to see how the Lord can use them every day. So when this verse says put on the full armor of God, it’s not requesting you do it. It’s commanding you do it. It’s a military metaphor again to illustrate what God expects from his army. You are in the army of God. The words to the song Christian Soldier that my pastor wrote years ago express this perfectly. And it goes to the tune of the Men of Harlech, is the tune that you sing it to, but it goes like this, I’ll give you the words. Christian soldier with Christ soaring, do not fear the devil’s roaring. Wave on wave of Satan’s demons clank with groaning sound. Tis the thrust of Satan’s dagger, sin and death to make men stagger. With their unbelief and darkness, they shall die in hell. Gospel of salvation in Christ, a new creation. The word of God now going forth shall launch its bolts of thunder onward through our Christ who saved us. He is mighty, the one who raised us. Honor Christ, the Lord of glory, Jesus Christ, our King. Wow, that’s you, that’s me, Christian soldiers. You sang Christian soldier in Sunday school, prep school or something like that. We have a mission and it requires us to be faithful. It requires us to understand the mechanics. It requires us to have biblical wisdom, insight, understanding, discernment, wisdom. because our Lord is searching for mature believers to re-present him in this stage of the angelic conflict. That’s what he’s looking for, I promise you. Can you be that person? Can you be the one? Not get hooked up with somebody who wants to stick their nose in your business and tell you how to live their life. Can you get under a well-qualified pastor and begin to study the word of God every day, every day? Jeremiah 17.10, I, the Lord, search the heart, and I test the conscience even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doing. Isaiah answered God’s call in Isaiah 6.8 when he said, Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And then I said, Here it is, I am him, send me, send me. Do you need another believer to hold you accountable and motivate you to be faithful? Do you need that? No. No. Jeremiah 17, 5. Cursed be the man that trusts in man. Here’s what God’s looking for. He’s looking for men and women with biblical wisdom, which gives them understanding. When you have the wisdom and the understanding, you have insight and discernment. What does that mean? Well, Jeremiah 9.24 gives you a clue to it. Let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. These are the things I delight in, saith the Lord. What does God want you to do? Understand him. Know him. That requires you to understand the mechanics to the spiritual life. That requires you to understand the filling of the Holy Spirit. That requires you to understand building a flat line in your soul with those 10 unique problem-solving devices. Our God is looking for someone that understands Him and knows Him. And secondly, He’s looking for people that are faithful. Faithful people, 2 Chronicles 16, 9, the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to him. What does that mean? Does that mean you say, oh, I’m a Christian. I’m a good Christian. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t dance. What God is saying is, are you loyal to grow spiritually? Are you loyal to represent me? Can you lift up Jesus Christ in the worst circumstances in your life? God is looking for fidelity, loyalty, to grow, to get under the ministry of a good pastor. Listen to the teaching of the word of God. Grow spiritually, orient and adjust to his plan, and be available when God calls you to step out. You’re in that phalanx. You’re in that believer’s unit, just like those Spartans formed that big unit called the phalanx and fought shoulder to shoulder and shield to shield. You and I are in that unit. We uphold each other. We fight together. We stand together. And 1 John 5, 4 says, whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world. Guess what? Guess what? What is it? It’s our faith. it’s our faith who is he that overcomes the world but he who believes that jesus is the son of god in first corinthians 4 2 believer it is required that one be found faithful when the holy spirit sharpens you when the holy spirit sharpens you like iron and he will use scripture to do it how do i know that hebrews 4 12 the word of god is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and joints in the marrow, and is a clinic of thoughts and intents of the heart. He will sharpen you with the scripture through a well-qualified pastor, not you sitting down, reading your Bible, neely-weely, open, put your finger on a verse. What does that mean? Go and ask your friend, what do you think this means? I don’t know. What do you think it means? That’s a goofy way to grow. You’re not going to grow like that. And here’s the principle, don’t ever confess your sins to another person. Your sins are between you and God and nobody else. So if you wanna be sharpened, if you wanna be the sharp person God intends for you to be, then know this, it’s gonna include testing on your behalf, John James 1.3, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. That’s one of the tendencies of a sharp believer, to be very patient, to be very loving, which is all called the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, mercy. That’s a sharp believer. You want to be that sharp believer? You want to be the believer that God can count on? Psalm 139, search me, O Lord, verse 23. Know my heart. Uh-oh, you want God to look into your heart and see what you’re thinking? Try me and know my anxieties. You want God to see your fears? And see if there’s any wicked way in me and then lead me in the way everlasting. You got the courage to pray a prayer like that? Search me, try me, know me, lead me, guide me. Now listen, should we pray for and encourage one another? Absolutely. Sure we should do that. 1 Thessalonians 5, 11, therefore encourage one another and build each other up just as in fact you are doing. But you are never to judge another believer. The Bible’s clear about that. Don’t judge lest you be judged. Matthew 7, 1 through 5. For whatever judgment you judge, it’ll be measured back to you again. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but you can’t consider the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, let me remove that speck out of your eye. Look, there’s a plank in your own eye. You’re a hypocrite. First, remove the plank from your own eye, and then you’ll see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. So the Bible doesn’t authorize you to straighten out anybody. The Bible does not authorize you to go to people and straighten them out. 1 John 5, 16, if anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask and he will give him life for that. You can pray for them. He will give life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death, and I do not say we should pray about that. Once they go into the sun and the death, you can pray all you want to. It’s not going to help anything. They’re history. Once God said, that’s it, I’m calling you home, that’s it. So yes, you can pray for people. Yes, you can encourage people by praying for them. But you’re not supposed to go straighten people out. And that’s what this people, iron sharpens iron is all about. Let me come over and tell you what you need to do to be a good Christian. Let me come over and hang out with you so my spiritual life will rub off on you. That’s not going to happen. In the local church, the pastor is the shepherd watching over the flock of believers. And the scriptures do give instructions about how to handle open, obvious sins that the body is aware of. But that’s his call, not your call nor my call. So the pastor’s job is very tough. He’s not a cheerleader. He’s not a cruise ship director. The Greek calls him the poimankai didaskalos, the pastor, shepherd, and teacher. Shepherd and teacher. He’s to watch over the flock. He’s to teach his flock. And you will never grow spiritually and never be the person God intends for you to be until you get under a well-qualified pastor and begin to grow on a daily basis in your life. This is where it frustrates me more than anything else. These radio shows are not little devotionals to be given every Sunday. There are challenges to call you to grow spiritually. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re paying attention, and I hope you take this serious. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flotline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
