The Challenge to America
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 609 aired on April 29, 2017
Good morning and welcome to The FLOT Line. I’m your host Rick Hughes and for the next few
minutes I’d like to invite you to stay tuned. As usual, 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration,
some education, and we’ll do it all without any type of manipulation because we don’t try to con
people. We just simply try to give you accurate information, not some sort of human speculation,
but accurate information that comes from the Word of God, information designed to help you
clarify and identify God’s plan for your life. If you can do this, then it’s certainly my prayer you
can orient and adjust to this plan. Thank you for listening to The FLOT Line. I love to hear from
you and you tell me the amazing things that God the Holy Spirit is doing with God’s Word in
your life as I deliver this to you. It’s always a great inspiration to me. We continue to pray for
new cities, new venues where we can take our broadcast and see what will happen in other parts
of the country. It’s always amazing to see what God does and how He does it. Thank you for
listening to this radio show. We have been covering a lot of different things lately. We covered
the Resurrection quite extensively. Then we have been dealing with how time does not shout, but
it just runs out and we did a couple of shows on that, something that I taught in Houston recently.
Today we want to talk about something that’s dear to my heart. We’re living in some pretty
troubled times today. No one really knows what’s about to happen in this country. We have all
sorts of threats, both vocal threats and veiled threats from foreign enemies. We have enemies
abroad, we have enemies at home. It seems like the news does everything they can to scare us, to
tell us that we’re going to be in a war, to tell us that we’re going to get nuked, to tell us all of
these things, 24 hours a day news. I think we were better off when we just had news twice a day,
30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes in the evening. Being assaulted with every sort of bad
news you can get, 24 hours a day, sometimes it’s just a little bit too much. Do you ever get this
strange feeling that something terrible is about to happen? I don’t have that feeling but I do think
that this nation is in serious trouble. America is hated, you know this. We’re hated across the
globe. We’re hated in North Korea as their dictator threatens to nuke us today. We’re hated in
China. We’re hated in Russia. We’re hated in Cuba. We’re hated in Venezuela. We’re hated in
Iraq. We’re hated in Iran. All of these people seem to want us dead. They all seem to hate
America. We have Muslim terrorists that want to kill us. We have political forces that seek to
control us at every venue. We have religious voices that want to condemn you if you don’t live up
to their expectations. Of course your own conscience can assault you from time to time when
you violate the norms and standards in your own soul. The circumstances attack us, people hate
us, and sometimes people that we don’t even know hate us because of the color of our skin or
because we’re a Democrat or a Republican. The world is full of hatred and bitterness, in this
country especially. It appears that we have local officials, state officials, as well as federal
officials that are totally divorced from reality and it concerns me. The prisons are so full that
many convicted offenders just get a year or two, slapped on the hand, and let go, sent on down
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the road. I’ll tell you something, we better learn to appreciate the police officer. The police
officer is our last line of defense. You can get on the phone and call a police officer and hopefully
he’ll come and help you, he’ll come and assist you but when he’s gone, we’ve had it. There’s been
an assault on police officers for a long time. You need to pray for these men and women, for the
jobs they do because it’s a treacherous, lonely job. Everybody hates the police officer it appears,
and so here we are. Many of us wonder what to do. What’s the solution? Do we just sit here and
pray that terrorists don’t sneak a nuclear weapon into New York or Los Angeles? Do we just sit
here and pray that our enemies don’t decide to take advantage of our confused political scene at
home? The two sides seem to hate each other. Is this president any good, people ask. Will the
next one be any better? Is he going to be better than the last president? What about it? People
really don’t know what to think.
The answers are found in the Word of God but you must
know how to find these answers. The solution with our national dilemma begins with God.
He’s not a genie in the eight ball. He’s not going to pop out of the bottle and help you make
things go away if you push the button. He does have a master plan for each one of us. It is our
responsibility to find this plan, how to understand the plan, where we fit into it. It’s called getting
your personal sense of destiny. This is our problem-solving device #6 on the FLOT line of your
soul. God has a viewpoint. This is, what does He want you to think? See, He says in Isaiah 55:8,
“‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways’ sayeth the Lord.”
He doesn’t
think like we think and He doesn’t act like we act. In 2 Corinthians 10:5 we are told to,
“Bring
every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”
We can see how thinking can be
arrogant. When we begin to think arrogantly we begin to be disobedient.
God does have a
viewpoint will. He has something that He wants you to think. He says,
“Let this mind be in
you that was also in Christ Jesus”
(Philippians 2:5).
You have to learn how Christ thought.
What He thought is equal to what He did. We have the viewpoint will of God and then the
operational will of God, what He wants me to do. What should I do, what should I not do? How
can I glorify Him? We have the geographical will of God and this means where does He want me
to be? Where does He want me to live? If you do what God wants you to do will you eventually
be where God wants you to be? I hope so because there is a directive will of God. He does have a
direct plan for your life. There is the permissive will of God where He may allow you to go
down the My Way Highway. He will allow you to make your own decisions even though it might
not be His desire but sometimes you’re so arrogant you have to learn the hard way. I’ve been
there. I know exactly what I’m talking about. There is finally the overruling will of God and this
is how we know Jesus Christ our Lord controls history. He exercises His sovereign power to stop
Satan or ourselves from altering history and the divine frustration of Satan’s desires. You can
read about this in the book of Esther, how Haman sought to kill all the Jews but God overruled.
This is the overruling will of God. So yes, God does have something for you.
God does have a
master plan and this plan is revealed in His Word.
It’s our responsibility to find out how to get
in His plan, how to understand the plan, and where we fit into the plan because it is revealed in
His Word. The solution for every problem that we face is there.
National problems, personal
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problems, they’re all solved by learning God’s Word and applying God’s Word into our
lives.
The only way this is ever going to happen is for us to have a hunger to know it. This is
where I get frustrated because I talk to a lot of people and I don’t find a whole lot of hunger for
God’s Word. I find people that are satisfied. They’re satisfied going to church. They’re satisfied
doing their Sunday morning nod to God sort of deal, ritual. I don’t find many people that are
really very hungry to learn new things, not like you. Those of you that are listening to me, you’re
hungry. You’ve been listening for a long time now and many of you are growing and you have
begun to see the need for a well-qualified pastor. Maybe you’ve contacted me and even gotten
under the ministry of a good pastor. That’s my objective by the way, to help you locate that man
so that you can start studying at your home, there at your table, and you can start growing until
God reveals to you exactly where you are to be. You’ve got to start somewhere, it’s like a diet.
My prayer is that you will find that one man that God has equipped that can teach you and feed
you and you can learn and study and grow on a daily basis. Positive volition, hunger for God’s
Word, this is what I’m looking for. I’m looking for those of you that are listening to me today that
are saying, “You know Rick, I cannot get enough of it. I want more.” It’s kind of like anything
else you do that you really love, you like doing it. Do you really like studying the Bible? Do you
really like sitting down with your Bible and with a notebook and being taught God’s Word every
day, do you like this? If you do, you’re the person I’m looking for because you’re the person that
has this hunger, this desire, this positive volition. I know people that like to fish and they go
fishing every day. I know people that like to hunt, they go hunting every day. I know people that
like to do certain things and they do it repeatedly, exercise, workout, ride their bike, whatever.
Do you have a hunger to study God’s Word every day? Because if you don’t, you’re never going
to grow up. You’re never going to get there by just going to church once a week, twice a week.
Until you see the need to start taking in God’s Word on a daily basis, you’re not going to
grow up.
Job 5:8 says,
“I would seek unto God and unto God will I commit my cause.”
“
I would
seek”
is an expression here in the Hebrew of continuous positive volition toward God’s Word. It
is Job continually seeking God’s Word. There are several different types of people that I meet
that have some volition. I meet people that have instant inspiration. By this I mean their volition
is weak, it’s unstable, but they get temporarily inspired to learn the Bible because of one reason
or another. Something happens in their life. Some disaster, some calamity, some affliction enters
their life and all of a sudden they’re all interested in knowing what the Bible has to say because
that’s where the answers are. That’s the solution to what they face and then something else
happens and these people get easily distracted, they get easily bored, maybe even offended, and
they walk away. They can’t stay with it. They have instant inspiration. I’m not looking for people
like this. I’ve met those kind of people all my life, instant inspiration. They have a kid that’s in
trouble, they’re in trouble, they’ve got this going on, that going on. “Tell me what I’ve got to do,”
and I can’t tell anybody what to do. I can tell you what the Bible says. Then, once the problem is
solved is there still a hunger there to want to know more? Usually the answer is no. Usually they
move on down the road. There’s always that troubled inspiration in times of trouble, when
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marriage problems pop up or financial problems pop up or what we may be facing, national
catastrophe. I was speaking in a church in Greenwood, Mississippi the day that the Muslims
attacked the World Trade Center, the day they flew those airplanes into those buildings and I
watched on television like maybe you did. I even had a daughter in New York City that I was
talking with at the time and it was a tragic thing to see. That night at church, it was packed out
with people. I talked to some other pastors that I know across the country and their congregations
were packed out too. But it didn’t take long, maybe a month, maybe less, that the crowds began
to go away and they began to diminish because they had troubled inspiration. A national
catastrophe and they wanted a quick Biblical solution, an easy way out so they didn’t have to
worry or be afraid or get God to make it go away, or God to help us to get even with these
people. The hunger to study, the hunger to grow, the hunger to want to learn has never been
there. They move from one project to another, from one mission trip to another, from one
something to another, and then another catastrophe hits and then it’s back to the Bible and then
it’s back to whatever they want to do again. There’s no real positive volition there. There’s no
humility where that person can sit down and be teachable.
You can’t learn anything if you’re
not humble. Humility is the key to teachability.
A person that has enough humility can open
his Bible and get a notebook and sit down each day and listen to God’s Word being taught to him
and not get distracted, not get turned off, not get discouraged, this is the winner believer. This is
the man or woman that has the true positive volition, the true inspiration, the ones who know that
they must get it every day regardless of whatever situation is in their lives. Some of them would
get up an hour early before work just to take in the Word of God, just to put in a DVD, or to turn
on an MP3 and listen. Maybe they’ll get up 30 minutes early and maybe they’ll stay up an hour
late at night just so they’ll be sure that they get it. I know people that work out every night. They
won’t go to bed until they’re sure that they’ve worked out, until they’ve done their exercise
routine, until they’ve done their walking. They’re not going to go to bed until they make sure that
they’ve done that. When it comes to making sure that you feed on God’s Word, is there the same
motivation? You see, soul food is Bible doctrine. That’s the food for your soul. It’s the Word of
God.
Soul food is more important than physical food.
The Bible tells us in Matthew 4:4,
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.”
This
is soul food. And by the way, Satan, 1 Peter 5:8 says something about what he likes to eat. Did
you know this? Satan wants to devour you.
“He goes around seeking whom he can devour.”
This
means to swallow up and here’s a little gross thought, but it’s a true thought. People that buy into
Satan’s plan, who reject the gospel of Jesus Christ, are swallowed up by Satan or eaten by Satan,
they wind up being a big pile of satanic poop at the Great White Throne of Judgment. Did you
hear me? That’s right, I said a big pile of satanic poop at the Great White Throne of Judgment.
This is a pretty literal interpretation but that’s what it is.
You will be eaten alive by Satan when
you don’t receive the truth of the Word of God.
If you reject Jesus Christ as your Savior
because of some arrogant notion that God doesn’t exist or some arrogant idea that God gave you
a raw deal in life and you turn down Jesus Christ, you get discouraged, you walk away from the
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gospel, you will not walk in the light and receive the Light, this is what you’re going to wind up
being, a big pile of satantic poop at the Great White Throne of Judgment. Think about this. This
is kind of gross and I certainly don’t mean to be gross, but I mean to be vivid.
Job said,
“I will
commit my cause to God”
(Job 5:8).
This means I’m going to put it in His hands. It means that
he’s going to live by the faith-rest drill, problem-solving device #3. This is yours too. You must
learn how to live the problem-solving devices. In Exodus 14:13 Moses said,
“Stand still. Watch
what God is about to do.”
If you’re going to break the sound barrier, you’re going to go about a
million miles an hour through space but if you want to break the faith barrier, you stand still and
watch what God does. Standing on the promises of God, over 7,000 of them in the Bible,
claiming the promises of God, having a relaxed mental attitude, turning it over to the Supreme
Court of Heaven and letting the Lord handle the details. I’m going to put my life in His hands.
I’m going to put my cause in His hands. He said He has great, unsearchable, and marvelous
things He can do. What can God do for you? Why can you have this sort of confidence to put
your life in the Lord’s hands? Well, Job 5:9,
“Who does great things, unsearchable and
marvelous things without number.”
This simply means that God can manufacture something out
of nothing in your life. Out of His essence He provides a wonderful plan of grace, a free plan for
you and I to have fellowship with Him so that we can be brought into His Kingdom by faith
alone in Christ alone, He provides every need that we have, every solution to any dilemma that
we have. He might not make it go away but He will equip you to endure the test. This is what
Paul discovered in 2 Corinthians 12:7 when he had a thorn in the flesh, and he kept asking God
to make it go away and the Lord finally said no.
“My grace is sufficient for thee”
(2 Corinthians
12:9). This thorn was a type of teaching aid. It was the thing that kept him humble.
God may
introduce some humility into your life so He can teach you something also.
In Job 5:19 there
is a promise,
“He will deliver you in six troubles, yea, even in seven no evil will touch you.”
This
means to rescue you, deliver you from imminent danger. The danger we face in this country, a lot
of people freak out. A lot of people are going to bed scared tonight and afraid something might
happen or maybe life as we know it is not going to be the same way tomorrow. God will deliver
you.
As a mature believer, as a member of His pivot, a winner believer who is growing
spiritually, taking in His Word on a consistent basis, He will deliver you from imminent
danger.
This means He will cause you to be rescued.
“He will deliver you in six troubles, yea,
even in seven no evil will touch you.”
You are born into trouble, Job 5:7,
“Yet man is born into
trouble even as sparks fly upward.”
Your life and my life is a life of trouble. There is economic
disaster. There is warfare or military catastrophe, social disaster, death, weather-related disaster.
Everywhere we turn, there’s trouble. By using your FLOT line, by using the Word of God
you can stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside sources of
stress.
I mean adversity, that’s inevitable. According to Job 5:7, we’re born into trouble and yet
stress is optional. Economic catastrophe, yes.
“In famine He will deliver you from death”
(Job
5:20). I mean when Moses wrote it, we’re talking about an agricultural economy, famine meant
starvation because of no food. Today we live in a little bit of a different economy. Famine could
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be depression or recession or economic disaster. We don’t base our wealth on agriculture. We
need the food to eat. Why would God cause a hardship to fall on America? Why would God
allow something like this to happen? Well, there are several reasons.
Job 5:17 says,
“Happy is
the man whom God correcteth.”
Divine discipline is a wonderful thing.
We don’t like it. We
don’t want to hurt. We don’t want it, but it brings us to a point of humility where we can orient
and adjust to reality. Without divine discipline you will go down the My Way Highway and never
adjust to reality. You will never see yourself as you are. Proverbs 15:10,
“Correction is grievous
to the one that forsaketh the way.”
It’s not fun. There is national discipline coming on this
country. We have focused on the gifts and we have thrown the Giver under the bus. We can’t talk
about Him in the public venue. We can’t tell kids about Him in a school. We can’t even put a
nativity scene on the city hall square. We can’t put a copy of the 10 Commandments anywhere,
it’s a violation of the code of some goofy sort. We have really thrown God under the bus, haven’t
we? In Proverbs 15:33,
“Respect for the Lord is the instruction of wisdom and before honor there
must be humility.”
America has lost its humility. We are so proud and so arrogant and so self-
righteous. We think we have all the answers and we don’t.
We are products of the grace of
God.
If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you have been graced out. You have been given a free
gift by God. Someone you didn’t even know died for you, put His life on the cross in your place,
suffered and bled for you, and you didn’t earn it, you didn’t deserve it, but He did it. Then if
you’re a free American it’s the same thing again. People you don’t know died on foreign
battlefields and foreign arenas. Men and women died for you so you could be free, so you could
live a life of freedom and choice as a free American but some people are doing everything they
can to give it all away in the name of security.
If security is more important to you than your
freedom, you are misled. Don’t sell your freedom for security. The only security we have is
the confidence we have in the grace of God to protect us and to provide for our every need.
Think about this. Pray for your nation. Pray for your leaders. Pray for your men and women in
foreign countries that are standing for you today. Ask God to open our eyes and deliver us before
it’s too late. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’ll continue to stick with me. Until next week, this
is Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to The FLOT Line