July 14, 2026 Show with Michael Huskey on “Tear Down the Church: The Ideas of Man vs the Word of God”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 14th day of July 2026.

Before I introduce you to my first-time guest and our topic for the day, I want you to mark your calendars for our program tomorrow. I'm delighted to have returning to the program my friend Pastor Tom Buck.

Tom is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas, and he's going to be giving us updates on all the recent very important and controversial votes that took place at the most recent Southern Baptist Convention.

And we'll be having him give his commentary on where he believes the denomination is headed and so on. So make sure you mark that down on your calendar to listen tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. But I am thrilled to have a first-time guest today.

I was contacted by the publisher of this brother's latest book, Ambassador International, and when they explained to me the theme of his book, which has an extremely controversial title, and when I read of his background, I said to myself, yeah, I'm going to definitely give this brother an interview.

His name is Michael Husky. He is a former SWAT team leader. He's a Christian author, speaker, and apologist. And today we're going to be addressing the theme of his book, Tear Down the Church, the Ideas of Man vs. the Word of God.

We're also going to be answering the question, did the downgrade that Charles Spurgeon waged war against ever go away? But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Michael Husky.

Hello. It's a pleasure to be on here. It's great to make your acquaintance, brother. We have a tradition here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Whenever we have a first-time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which they were raised, if any, and the kinds of providential circumstances our sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you.

So let's hear your story.

Michael Husky’s Salvation Testimony and Doctrinal Awakening

Yeah. So I was born into a pastor's home. My dad was an Assembly of God pastor. So it was a charismatic home. It was very Armenian. It was very, I would say, legalistic in a lot of ways. You know, and plus it was in the South, too.

So back then, you know, it was a sin to play cards or go to the movies or dance or any of those things.

And I'll bet you those prohibitions are few and far between in this day and age in the Assembly of God.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's as bad as it once was. It seems like, especially in that part of the country, it was pretty legalistic during my childhood. But things, I think, have improved. But I was raised in a Christian home, but I don't ever really remember being discipled.

My dad, he didn't take the time to disciple me or even teach me the Bible. It was more, yeah, it was more just assumed, you know. And so it was, like I said, it was more about the rules. It was more about being obedient and those type of things in my childhood and even in the church.

And so I don't ever remember hearing the gospel, you know, whenever I was younger. And even though I believed myself to be saved during that, you know, when I was younger, probably about seven years old, I prayed the sinner's prayer.

And in that type of church, you know, there's no surety of salvation. You lose your salvation every time you sin. And so again and again, I would walk the aisle and rededicate myself to the Lord, you know, and that was pretty much all the way up until I was in my 20s.

That's kind of the environment that I was raised in. That was just the way that I thought Christianity was. I really didn't know any different because that's all I had ever been taught. And so I really do not believe that I was a Christian during that time.

I thought I was, but the evidence just there was no fruit. There was no fruit and there was no real desire to really get to know God. And even to read my Bible, you know, I read my Bible, but it was more about reading it because I knew that that was the right thing to do instead of reading it because I loved Jesus Christ.

And so that's the way that I was all the way up until I got married and I actually met my wife at a Word of Faith church. So it got a little bit worse. Yeah, yeah, it got a little bit worse. And I found her, started dating her in that church.

We wound up getting married. And, you know, whenever I was in that church with her, I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I didn't know exactly what it was because, again, I hadn't been taught.

I had no really Christian education, but I just knew something wasn't right. And so I told my wife, I said, you know, I think we should find another church. And so we started looking around and we found it was a little non-denominational church in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

And the pastor had come from...

I have a friend who pastors there right now. Oh, really? Yeah. Jeremiah Nortier is a pastor of 12 -5 Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas, which is a Reformed Baptist church. Yeah, yeah, I know. I know Jeremiah.

Okay. You didn't know he was from Jonesboro? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know him personally, but we've communicated back and forth on email and that type of thing. So anyway, that's where I'm from. And so we...

That's not where I live now, I live in Colorado, but that's where we lived at that time. And so I started going to that. We started going to this little non-denominational church that had a Southern Baptist pastor that was preaching there.

But it still wasn't expositional teaching, it was still very topical teaching. But it was a place where I began to learn, and he decided that he wanted to start investing in some of the men of the church and create a leadership board there.

And his idea was kind of like the model that Jesus had, where you have 12 people and then you have the inner circle of the three. And so he wanted to start discipling three young men in the church that he wanted to kind of raise up as leaders.

And so I was one of the three that he invited to participate. And again, I honestly don't believe I was a Christian at the time, which is very interesting. So as I began to meet and go over all of the curriculum, all of the discipleship stuff that he wanted to teach us, there was a point where he kind of got through all of it.

And there was still a little bit of time before he started bringing the other men in to start discipling them for leadership. And so he decided that he wanted to just start going verse by verse through the book of Matthew.

And that's the first time in my life. So by this time, I'm in my 30s. OK, I'm in my I'm in my early 30s. And this was the first time in my life that I have been exposed to any kind of expositional teaching.

And whenever he started doing that, just walking through Scripture verse by verse, God really got a hold of my heart in a way that I can't explain. For the first time, I became desperately hungry to want to read the Bible, to want to study, to want to learn and to grow.

And honestly, I believe that it was during that time that I was actually saved. You know, because of the way that I was raised, and I said the sinner's prayer so many times in that type of environment, I can't put my finger on it.

But in my mind, it was in that moment that God got a hold. He really got a hold of my heart for the first time and gave me a burning desire to want to serve him, to want to learn about him. And man, I was hungry.

I was hungry. I wanted to learn everything that I thought about the Bible. And even that's where I started getting off into learning about theology and doctrine and, you know, even questioning things, you know, because I realized that a lot of the things that I was taught as a child being being brought up in a Christian home were really wrong.

I was taught a lot of things incorrectly, and it caused me at that time to start questioning everything. So I started going back and looking at, well, you know, what's justification? You know, what's sanctification?

Just the basic stuff, because that's all I really knew and just trying to really understand biblically what each one of those things meant. But yeah, that's my salvation story.

Embracing Reformed Theology Through Expository Preaching

And how did you come to discover and embrace specifically the doctrines of Reformed Theology?

Okay, so as I was a member of that church, that little Baptist church, and I started listening to—this was the time that smartphones just came out. I mean, they had just came out. And some friends of mine introduced me to podcasts.

And so I started listening to sermons, you know, but the sermons that I was listening to, it was still in my camp, right? And my camp was very Armenian, and it was very charismatic. And so, but what's really interesting, you know, I ran a business during that time.

And so I was able to listen to preaching all day long, you know, pretty much eight to ten hours a day. And so if I was listening to a preacher, I would hear eight to ten weeks of his sermons that day, right?

Where, like, if you're just sitting under that top of teaching, you don't pick up on things. But when you're listening to it back to back for hours every day, I started picking up on things, and I started seeing contradictions in a lot of the things that they said from week to week.

And so slowly, I started rooting out those programs that I listened to, to the point to where I was actually frustrated. I couldn't find anybody to listen to that I felt like was consistent, right? And so through my frustrations, I was at the Christian bookstore, Lifeway.

They had a Lifeway bookstore there in Jasperon. I kept seeing this author, and his name was John MacArthur, right? But I've been taught that this guy's a Calvinist, and in my circle, Calvinism was looked at like, you know, like it was wicked and evil.

It was something that was just not like at all. But I was curious, and so I decided I would download some of John MacArthur's sermons and start listening to them, and I did. And as I started listening to them, of course, I didn't agree with everything at first, but what I found was that from week to week, month to month, year to year, everything he said was consistent, it was accurate, and I never heard any contradictions.

I never heard him contradict himself like I was the other pastors. And so God began to draw me to a better understanding of his word during that time. I wasn't there yet, but that's where it started. And just there was at one point as I was listening to him, God started honing my discernment.

I started, because of the way that I was raised, I started really seeing a lot of a lot of things that was done in the church that just wasn't right and was even contradictory to what Scripture teaches.

And so that little church that I was at, I started seeing some things that had a lot of mysticism that was kind of incorporated into the teaching, and that caused me to want to find a better church. I still, you know, wasn't Reformed yet, but I wanted something that exposited Scripture verse by verse.

That's what I was looking for. And so I kind of found a halfway in between, right? And I found a Calvary Chapel. Certainly not Dallas. Yeah, yeah. So I started going to Calvary Chapel, which exposited the Scripture verse by verse.

And this particular pastor at this church, he was actually a Calvinist, which is very strange. Yeah, very strange for a Calvary Chapel church, but he was. And so he even had membership, which is something that they typically don't do.

He called it covenant membership, but they had elders, they had membership, and he was a Calvinist, which was so strange to me.

Do you know if he's still a pastor in the Calvary Chapel? Because they historically have not tolerated that very long.

Well, I don't think he's real open about that, but he's the one that—I started going to lunch with him twice a day because I was so hungry, and I was always asking him questions about doctrine and theology, and he was discipling me.

And I remember coming to him one day and saying, you know, his name was Pastor John. Pastor John, you know, I know you teach assurance of salvation, but I just don't believe that. You know, I just don't believe in assurance of salvation, you know, because I've been taught my whole life that that was wrong.

And man, he sat me down and really straightened me out, and he did it in a kind way, but it was very firm. It was very firm, and he showed me where I was wrong. And again, that was just another step toward seeing the truth of Scripture.

And there was a youth pastor that was in that church, and he was a big R .C. Sproul fan, and he introduced me to the holiness of God. And whenever I started reading that book for the first time, man, that just got a hold of me.

It really opened my eyes to the sovereignty of God and who God is as a person. And I discovered that the sovereignty of God wasn't scary, you know? It was always scary before, you know, as an Arminian.

It was something that, you know, I felt like, just like most Arminians do, that God was some kind of, you know, monster or something if he controlled all things. But through reading that book, The Holiness of God by Sproul, it just really opened my eyes to the beauty and the comfort of the sovereignty of God.

And man, I wanted to learn so much from Sproul. And that's really the two guys that I really kind of leaned very heavily on in trying to understand doctrine, in trying to understand theology. And so—yeah, go ahead.

I was just going to say, praise God. Yeah, yeah. And so eventually we moved to Colorado, and when we moved here, I just really—I don't know how long you want me to talk about this. I could tell you a lot.

Take your time. Yeah, whenever we first moved to Colorado, I tried to find another Calvary chapel, because I thought all Calvary chapels was like this one, you know? And so I found one and started going to it, and I started doing the same thing with this pastor that I was with the one back in Jonesboro.

And I wanted to disciple, I wanted to talk, I wanted to, you know, bounce ideas off of him and all those things. And I just learned that he got frustrated with me, because he didn't believe anything that I—he didn't agree with me, right?

And he just—he couldn't stand John MacArthur. And I remember one of the conversations he asked me, he said, you don't believe in lordship salvation, do you? I said, well, I do. I do. And he said, well, why?

That's just a wicked teaching. And I said, well, what do you disagree about? What do you think is wrong about it? And I remember he said, well, I don't know, but I heard it was bad. That's the pastor you're saying?

Yeah. And then later on during that conversation, he got frustrated with me. And he kind of raised his voice and he said, you're just a Calvinist. And then he literally got up and left. And that was the first time in my life that anybody had ever called me a Calvinist.

And it was, you know, I actually went home and thought about that. And after thinking about what he said and thinking about what I believe, all of a sudden I realized, you know, he's right. He's right, I am.

So that's kind of my story, right? That's my journey to kind of get to reform theology to where I'm at today.

Membership at Celebration Church in Montrose

Why don't you tell us a little something about the church that you have now found as your home, where you are a member, Celebration Church, which is in Montrose, Colorado. Tell us about this.

Yeah. So Celebration Church, it's a Southern Baptist church, but the pastor is Reformed. He's a Reformed Baptist. So we kind of discovered this church when we first moved here. I have a friend that had a little Reformed Baptist church in Gunnison, Colorado.

His name was Pastor Ralph Pohl, and I was talking to him about my frustrations in trying to find a church. I couldn't find a place that I really agreed with everything that was being taught, or at least the majority.

It's hard to find a church where you'd agree with everything, but at least the majority of what was being taught and what I believe, right? And so he called me and told me about Celebration Church. And I told him, I said, you know, I researched this church, and I said, I was on their website, and I disagree with them.

And so he said, well, he said, yeah, but they got a new pastor. And he said, and this new pastor is a Reformed pastor. He said, I really think you should call him and just get to know him. And so I did.

I called him on the phone and kind of quizzed him, you know, in a lot of ways, interviewed him, because it's very important to me. It's a priority as to what church that I belong to. And so he answered, you know, everything to where we were mostly in agreement on theology and on doctrine.

And so I started going there. And so, yeah, it's a Southern Baptist church that teaches Reformed theology. It's exposition of teaching, you know, verse by verse teaching, which is what I'm always looking for.

And they've got a really good elder board and discipleship program. And so it's something that I'm also involved in. I teach there and currently teaching Christology. I actually just started teaching Christology this past Sunday for one of the Sunday school classes.

Praise God. Well, if anybody lives in the Montrose, Colorado area, or if you're planning on visiting that area on vacation or for business, or if you have family, friends, and loved ones who live there, go to CelebrationMontrose .org, CelebrationMontrose .org, and God willing, we will repeat that later on in the program.

Lessons From SWAT Leadership for the Christian Life

Tell us about your livelihood as a SWAT team leader. I'd love to hear about that.

Yeah, so that was something that I just thought would be cool. When you're young, you know, I thought it would be really, really cool. You know, it'd be a cool story. And so I tried out when I was younger, and I wound up surprisingly getting on the team.

It was a very intimidating interview. There was a panel of about 20 guys in bleachers, and they had a little kindergarten chair that they had set in front of them. They try to intimidate you. So you have to go sit in this little kindergarten chair that you can't even fit in, and then they just pretty much interrogate you.

But somehow I got through it, and they put me on the team. So I was on the team for about seven years.

And were you already on the police force when you were? Yes. Okay. Yeah, I was.

Yeah. Yeah. You have to be on the police force for two years. And so I just, yeah, I just crossed my two years. I think it was just previous to my two years when I had my interview. So I was right around the two-year mark whenever they put me on the team.

And so, yeah, it was very interesting. It was very interesting. It was another one of those milestone moments of life where you start to read a lot about David. You start reading a lot about David, and I know I did.

Now, is there anything that you could say, not that this is going to be our main focus today, is there anything you could say that you learned from your experiences as a SWAT team leader that have been proven in your life to be very helpful and beneficial and fruitful in the Christian walk?

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. So much of it was as simple as just learning how to depend on God, especially when you're going into situations that you don't know if you're going to come out of. Life or death things, you never know what's behind the door that you're that you're kicking in.

You're going into all kinds of situations. And so just, you know, that pressure, that feeling is intense, especially leading up to it. You know, once you're in the moment, it's not. You just become like a machine.

You just run. But man, the drive there is the time that you have to think and the time to learn. You know, this life could end at any moment. And just relying on God to be there and to protect you and being OK, even if he doesn't.

Being OK, knowing that whether it is good or bad, that God's in control of the situation and he's good and all that he does is right for his people. So that, you know, that was one of the things that I really learned.

Another thing I would say is just structure and also being a part of a team. You know, those, I would say, would be the three highlights of things that really helped me in my Christian journey and even in being a leader within a local church.

And can you, before we go to our first commercial break, share with us any specific anecdote or story about something that happened while on the job?

Oh, well, there's some. Yeah, I don't a lot of that stuff I probably don't feel real comfortable talking about. But yeah, I'm trying to think of something quickly that that I could talk about. And right now, nothing's coming to mind other than then things that you probably you probably don't want to hear.

Okay, well, I'm on all ears, whatever you want to tell me. And I'll tell you what, I'm going to go to the first commercial break. And if there's anything you want to share by the time we come back, feel free to do so.

And I'm not going to force you to, but we're going to be right back after these messages. And if anybody has a question of your own that you'd like to ask of my guest, Michael Husky, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

Chrisarnson at gmail dot com. As always, give us your first name, at least city and state of residence and country of residence if you live outside the USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Michael Husky right after these messages.

I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

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If you just tuned us in, we have what I am sure is going to be a fascinating guest today, Michael Husky, who is the author of Tear Down the Church, quite a provocative and controversial title. And if you have any questions for Michael, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, city and state of residence, and country of residence if you live outside the USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a very personal and private matter.

And we are also going to be seeking to address the downgrade controversy that is something that Charles Spurgeon waged war against in his day in the 19th century. Some believe that actually led to his untimely death at a relatively young age.

And we're going to be hearing about how that manifests itself today, that controversy. And before the break, I was asking you if you wanted to share with us any story or anecdote from your time as a SWAT team leader with the police.

And did you come to a conclusion yet, whether you want to share anything?

I can tell a funny story. Okay. So we got called out. It was a drug warrant. And we kicked in this person's door and tossed a flashbang in. And of course, yelled police, you know, and all those things.

And we all came in the house. When we came in, the couch was on fire because the flashbang actually rolled under the couch.

Is that like a smoke bomb, a flashbang?

No, it's not a smoke bomb. It's just a, it's like a grenade, but it just makes a real loud sound. It makes a flash, right? Okay. Knock somebody off, you know, stun somebody, some water, throw them off, whatever it is that they were doing.

It's a distraction device. It had rolled under the couch and it went off and it actually caught the couch on fire. So two officers actually had to grab the couch and carry it out in the yard and let it burn.

While we were finishing our work. So I can share that.

The Downgrade Controversy and the Need to Tear Down Man-Made Ideas

Well, as I have been repeating during my introduction and the first commentary I gave in the beginning of the program, the book that you have written has an extremely controversial and provocative title, Tear Down the Church.

Subtitle being a lot more easily understood, the ideas of man versus the word of God. People may immediately race to an erroneous conclusion that you're promoting some kind of Christian anarchism or that you are one of these folks and there are an unfortunate considerable number of folks who don't believe that Christians must be members of local congregations with elders.

Some of them might even believe that it's a sin to be a member of a church in the modern age. And I know that you do not believe that. We've already addressed that you are a member and teaching Sunday school at Celebration Church in Montrose, Colorado.

In fact, you told me before the program started that you have prayerful aspirations to possibly become a pastor yourself. So explain the language of that title. It is definitely eye-catching, that's for sure.

Yeah, and you know, that was the point. As I was trying to come up with an idea for the title of the book, I wanted something that would cause somebody that was walking by and saw it laying there to want to pick it up and to kind of see what does this mean.

And I did kind of anticipate that it may be initially picked up as being something that they may be repulsed by, right? But as I read the back cover and the introduction, that it would draw the person into understanding what it is that it's really about.

And so a lot of it was just—the title was just to call attention to it, right? To want somebody to want to read it. And yeah, that's what I came up with.

I don't know if it was a great idea. Well, is there a sense—and perhaps we'll get to this after you answer another question—is there a sense in which the philosophy and worldview and blueprint of many modern evangelical churches that would really, if we're going to be biblically faithful, these churches need to be torn down.