Iron sharpens Iron!

(Proverbs 27:17) “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.”

It is once again an early start; I ultimately always end up enjoying these mornings, not that I am happy to lose much of my needed beauty sleep, but I am thankful that God has afforded me the opportunity and placed a concern on my heart for a brother in Christ.

My mind goes out to the times where he was always the first to throw out warnings against the bad choices throughout my life and he never pulled any punches. Yet, most of those timely warning where discarded at an obvious cost; pain and suffering the order of the day! Yet I only have myself to blame, he did his part.

Self-reflection is never a joyous event, but once we come through it, once we have been pruned and spring pushes forth, it is beautiful to witness the first bud on that branch as it springs to life. Why does it take so long for the penny to drop? We seem to always repeatedly make the same mistakes. These lessons have their specific purpose; they are there to teach us to obey our God and Father. But when we see a loved one making the same mistake over and over and falling for the same trap, it is heart-breaking. I now see him making the same mistake.

It is moment like these that I begin to understand the principle of what the Lord teachers us about being “our brother’s keeper”, just a little deeper. When we become pro-active in these areas of our lives then we walk as Christ intended us to walk, in obedience! It is nevertheless painful to watch someone dear to our hearts making the same mistakes. I just want to grab him and shake him like a rag-doll. We have a responsibility in sincerity to rebuke and warn one another where and when the need should arise, whatever that may entail. But in so doing we must first examine our hearts in the matter. Why? Just to make sure our attitude is not one of accusing our brother so that we may excuse ourselves. Once that has been dealt with we then need to speak out in love.

Did you know that many years back metal crafters would often use iron to sharpen iron? I am not sure whether this is still practiced but the writer of Proverbs hones in on this point; “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another”. We were once dead in our trespasses and sins; although we have now found life we still have rough edges in need of filing. The Lord came to do the will of His Father. He died and gave us life, so if we have life, if we have His Spirit, we have been place on God’s workbench and those rough edged in our lives need filing. We are the catalyst needed in each other’s lives to accomplish this task. We sharpen one another. But if we sit on the outside looking in, how will we ever be of use to a brother? We won’t be! We are our brothers keepers so let us act accordingly.

To be a watchman is of crucial importance; in a watchtower there is normally an around the clock guard, especially in times of war. We are at war; let no-one convince you to the contrary, and our enemy goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. His objective is to get us to snooze at our post! But that is not what God requires from us. We must sound the alarm when danger is on the horizon. Now a guard must leave his post at times to rest up, but is replaced by a new fresher sentinel. If we see our brother opening himself to error we are then the one at the post and we must sound the alarm. If not we will then be “guilty of the body and the blood of the lamb, not discerning the Lord’s body” (note the principle).

Let us travel back in time and use an illustration to prove my point but before we do this we must understand that it is the flesh that hinders, it is of no use to the spiritual man: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” (John 6:63) – Note, we must see it as such and we must operate from this foundation without any other frills; “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” (Psalms 127:1)  

It is all about the well-being of God’s family and not about winning any popular poll awards. God is building His church and the gates of hell will not prevail, but it is crucial that the watchmen speak out if they see danger on the horizon.

“For thus the Lord said to me: "Go, set a watchman; let him announce what he sees.” (Isaiah 21:6) – We have been instructed to look out for one another. How serious should we take the tutoring?

It is imperative we heed the following warnings…

"Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. Again, if a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits injustice, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because you have not warned him, he shall die for his sin, and his righteous deeds that he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the righteous person not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning, and you will have delivered your soul." (Ezekiel 3:17-21)

I hope and pray we see this crucial necessity that we are our brother’s keepers and that it is iron that sharpens iron. May God give us tongues to speak out in love, for if we remain silent, then we do the work of the devil!

Signing off

Tyrone