The Bottom Line
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 634 aired on October 22, 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 ask you to stay with me. The FLOT Line is designed to remind you of
Biblical truths and introduce you to an in-depth way of studying and learning God’s Word. It’s all
done with no manipulation, no solicitation, just 30 minutes of education, some motivation and a
lot of inspiration. My job is to verify and identify God’s plan for you and hopefully you will
orient and adjust to this plan. It all starts with the good news that Jesus Christ, the anointed Son
of God, has redeemed us out of the slave market of sin, thus our debt to God has been paid. We
are now free of the penalty of death and free of the power of sin. So if you receive Christ as your
Savior you in effect accept the offering that He made on your behalf. It’s a free gift complements
of God. Listen to Ephesians 2:8-9,
“For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of
yourselves it is the gift of God and not of works lest any man should boast.”
Titus says the same
thing in Titus 3:5-7,
“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His
mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, which He
shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord, that being justified by His grace we should
be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
When you accept Christ as your Savior you
are free of the second death mentioned in Revelation 20:13-15 and this says,
“Anyone’s name not
found written in the Lamb’s Book of Life is cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the second death.”
When you accept Christ, you are freed from slavery to your sin nature by means of having
a new nature.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says,
“If any man is in Christ he is a new creature; old things
are passed away and all things become new.”
When you believe in Jesus Christ you become a
new racial species. You are a Christian. You’re not black, or white, or red or yellow. You’re a
Christian, a new species, and the challenge is now that I’m saved what should I do? In James
1:21 we are to
“Put aside all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, and receive with
meekness the engrafted word, which is able to deliver your souls.”
Paul uses some similar
wording in Ephesians 5:3-4 where he says,
“Fornication and uncleanness or covetousness, let it
not be named among you, as becoming a saint. Neither filthiness
[the same word that James
uses]
nor foolish talking nor jesting, which are not fitting but rather the giving of thanks.”
The
lifestyle of many unbelievers in Paul’s day, as well as our day I guess, is a lifestyle of a frantic
search for happiness. People spend money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need to
impress people they don’t even like and I guess that sexual deviancy is just one way people seek
to have meaning and purpose apart from God but it’s a dead end street. When Paul uses these
words in Ephesians 5:3-4,
“Fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, let it not be named among
you, as becoming a saint”
we don’t really know what they are, but the Greek word for
fornication is
pornia.
We get an English word from that, pornography, and Paul is saying that any
believer in Jesus Christ is not to be involved in pornography. Then he says,
“Neither filthiness
nor foolish talking.”
Filthiness is a Greek word called
aischrotes
and it’s only used once or twice
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in the Bible. It is the filthiest of filthy sexual deviance practices. Then you go into foolish talking
which is
morologia
in the Greek New Testament and that means to talk like a fool. We’re talking
about sexual practices so this is the 1-800 dial up whatever you want to dial up thing. Then he
uses the word jesting, which is to trap or tease,
eutrapelia
in the Greek New Testament. It means
to trap, tease, trick, have ready wit and this is part of the dating scene where a lot of people tease
each other on dates. It says this is not fitting, this is not the way the believer should live. So this
sexual deviancy is a way that people seek to have meaning and purpose as I said apart from God
and it’s a dead end street. In fact, it’s ironic that the lost man will wind up making all of the things
that are good, evil and all of the things that are evil, good. He’ll switch the roles. He will try to
say, “Well I know that this is not suppose to be allowed, but it’s okay.” So he winds up making
the very things that are evil, good, and all the things that are actually good in the Bible, he makes
them evil. In other words he violates the divine standards of order to try to find something in his
life that does not exist. Some sort of freedom and some sort of happiness, some sort of
fulfillment and he never finds it. The reason is because he ignores the laws of marriage. He
ignores the laws of morality. He ignores the laws of privacy and property and all because he
justifies it in his own mind it’s really okay for him to do this. Proverbs has some strong words for
this gentleman. In Proverbs 1:24-29, this is what God says to the person that does not listen, to
the person who goes down the My Way Highway, to the person who has the frantic search for
happiness,
“I called and you refused. I stretched out My hand and no one paid attention. You
neglected all of My counsel and you did not want My reproof so I will laugh at your calamity and
I will mock when your dread comes, when your dread comes like a storm and your calamity
comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. They will call on Me but I
will not answer. They will seek Me diligently, but they won’t find Me because they hated
knowledge and they did not choose the fear of the Lord.”
Did you hear that? Here’s an individual
that is so steeped in his own arrogance that he will not pay attention to the warning that God
gives through His Word.
God warns through His Word what these evil things will cause in your
life. For example, what sexual deviancy causes in your life. He warns through His Word what it
means to ignore the laws of morality, to ignore the laws of privacy and property, and people don’t
listen because they justify in their own arrogance why it doesn’t really apply to them. Since they
don’t listen, since they reject knowledge, the most important thing in their life is the knowledge
of the Word of God and they reject it. They do not choose to respect God nor choose to respect
His Word. In other words, they make everything that is evil, good, and everything that is good,
evil. Then they wind up eating the fruit of their own ways and they may call on God when the
bottom falls out. They may run to God in prayer when things get tough. They may ask God for
mercy, but He said He’s not going to listen. What does this mean? Will He listen to you if you
ask Him to save you? Yes, anytime, any day, anywhere, He will answer that prayer. But this is
written to the reversionist, the person who consistently ignores the plan of God, the person who
over a period of time goes down the My Way Highway so far that he hits the point of no return
and then when the hammer falls, when divine discipline comes into his life, when he finds
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himself under the sin unto death wishing that he could go back, there’s not going to be any
answer because he ignored God the whole time and now he just wants a genie behind the eight
ball to pull him out of his trouble. God doesn’t work this way. Your life is about choices. It’s
about bad decisions that limit future options.
You must make the right kind of decisions. The
Word of God offers you this.
It offers a different way of living, a way of living that guarantees
you can have a full and a meaningful life. A life with direction and purpose, without guilt or
shame.
You must renovate your thinking if you hope to have this sort of happiness.
Proverbs 2:10-11 says,
“When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge becomes pleasant to
your soul, then discretion will guard you and understanding will watch over you.”
This is a
supernatural way of living. It’s supernatural insight for the believer in Jesus Christ. The wisdom
that he speaks of here is the wisdom of God’s Word. Now the wisdom of God’s Word is called
epignosis,
full knowledge. The wisdom of God’s Word is full knowledge. When you get
knowledge you convert knowledge to wisdom and the word for wisdom is
sophia
. The objective
of the Christian life is to get under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor, let him teach you the
Bible where you learn full knowledge and not just
gnosis
knowledge. That’s knowledge that you
understand but
epignosis
knowledge is knowledge that you metabolize. The reason I bring these
words up is because they are both translated knowledge in the English. If you don’t understand
from the Greek New Testament what they are, you’ll miss the whole thing. There is knowledge
which is
gnosis
, always translated knowledge and there’s knowledge which is
epignosis
always
translated knowledge. The difference between the two words is the word
epi,
the preposition in
front of it, and this means full knowledge. Full knowledge is the Word of God you’ve learned and
applied by faith into your life. That’s full knowledge and that’s the knowledge that gives you
wisdom. When you have this wisdom, then when you have a decision to make. you will have
discretion, you will be able to weigh in your mind the right and the wrong and you will have
understanding. Understanding means you will know if there’s a trap laid there by Satan. You will
know if it’s something you should or should not do. It says,
“Discretion will guard you.
understanding will watch over you
[but this only happens]
when wisdom enters your heart, and
knowledge is pleasant to your soul.”
If you’re not interested in the Word of God, then you’re not
ever going to have any
epignosis
knowledge. If you don’t have any
epignosis
knowledge, you’re
not going to have any wisdom and if you don’t have wisdom, then you have no discretion and no
understanding and you are a sucker for whatever the devil throws at you. You will go willingly
down the My Way Highway and ultimately destroy yourself because of your own arrogance. If
you want to change, the change requires you to change the way you think. I’m talking now to the
believer in Jesus Christ, the person who’s accepted Christ as his Savior. The change of thinking
requires humility. You have to move away from any type of self-justifying arrogance. For
example, Romans 12:2-3.
“Don’t be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind so you can prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and
perfect. For through the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you don’t think of yourself
more highly than you ought, but think so as to have sound judgment as God as allotted to each
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one of us a measure of faith.”
What this verse is saying in Paul’s words is
do not let arrogance
control your thinking because arrogance will always justify its existence.
“Stop thinking in
terms beyond what you should think but think in terms of humility as God has assigned to
each one of us a standard of thinking from His Word.”
That’s a modified expanded translation
of this verse. God wants you to think something. He wants you to have an attitude that He
approves of. It’s the same humility attitude demonstrated in the life of Jesus Christ when He
came to this earth to redeem us out of the slave market of sin. In fact we are told in the book of
Philippians that we need to learn to think like He thought. Philippians 2:5-7,
“Let this mind be in
you that was also in Christ Jesus who humbled Himself and made Himself of no reputation, took
upon Himself the form of a servant.”
The word doulos means being servant. Remember when He
washed the disciples’ feet He told them,
“If I your Lord and Master washed your feet, you ought
also wash one another’s feet”
(John 13:14). This isn’t about foot washing, that was never
practiced, it is about forgiveness. He knew what was going to happen and He taught them
rebound, problem-solving device #1. He taught them rebound by washing their feet, He forgave
them. He showed them, He demonstrated to them an attitude of humility. Can you demonstrate
that same humility, not in foot washing, that’s not what I’m talking about, but in forgiving those
who’ve wronged you? He even told Peter,
“Before the daylight comes, you’re going to deny you
know Me three times”
(Luke 22:34), but He still washed his feet. He knew what Judas was about
to do. Later after the supper He told him, “Go ahead, do it. I know what you’re up to,” and yet He
washed his feet and He washes your feet every time you sin and go to God the Father and
confess your sin. When you do this you are in effect having your feet washed. You see, Peter
thought he needed a whole bath. He said, “Well, just give me a whole bath.” The Lord said,
“If I
don’t wash thee, I have nothing to do with thee.”
But it wasn’t a bath Peter needed. Peter used the
word for bath and the Lord said, “You don’t need a bath. You just need your feet washed. You
need to be cleansed of your sin.” This is the perfect way to teach it and this is what we have to
learn in our life. We have to have this same attitude that the Lord Jesus Christ had, the attitude of
humility. Do you remember the night in the Garden of Gethsemane when they came to take Him
captive? He went alone to pray and He said,
“Father, not My will but Thy will be done”
(Luke
22:42). That’s an attitude of humility. That’s where He was willing to do what the Father sent
Him to do. What did the Father send Him to do? To go to the cross, to die on the cross, and to
pay for my sin, to pay for your sin. This is why 2 Corinthians 5:21 says,
“He that knew no sin
was made sin in order that we may be made the righteousness of God through Him.”
This took
humility to die for the sins of Judas, to die for the sins of Peter, to die for your sins and my sins.
Every sin you ever did, everything I ever did, He paid for it. If He didn’t, there’s no way we can
go to heaven because there’s nothing in us that can justify the perfect righteousness of God. This
is what Romans 3:10 says,
“There are none that are righteous, no, not even one.”
Isaiah 64:6,
“All of our righteousnesses are like a filthy rag in God’s eyes.”
You can’t conjure up God’s
forgiveness. You can’t earn God’s forgiveness. You can’t pay your way out of it.
Only through
the redemptive work of Christ on the cross, when He became your substitute, can you have
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a relationship with God that’s eternal.
Philippians 2:5 says,
“Let this mind be in you that was
also in Christ Jesus”
(1 Corinthians 2:16), learn to think in terms of humility. Where can I find
the thoughts of Jesus? “I want to do that.” Okay you say, “I want to think like Jesus thought.”
What did He think? 1 Corinthians 2:16 tells us,
“For who has known the mind of the Lord, that
he may instruct Him? We have the mind of Christ.”
The Bible is the mind of Christ. Why do you
need this? Why do you need the mind of Christ in your life? I will tell you exactly why you need
it. Because Ephesians 3:18-19 says,
“So you will be able to comprehend with all of the saints
what is the breadth and the length and the depth and the height
[of God’s plan]
and so that you
will know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge so that you might be filled with the
fullness of God.”
Did you hear that?
Why do you need to know the mind of Christ?
“So you
can comprehend with all believers, what is the breadth, the length, the depth, and the height of
God’s plan.”
That’s a builder’s metaphor. Only a builder would understand how wide, how long,
how deep, how high it is.
God’s plan is unimaginable to you and to me. It’s a perfect plan
and it comes through the love of Christ to us.
This love is an impersonal love because He
loved you before you loved Him. You don’t believe this? John 3:16 says,
“God so loved the
world that He gave His uniquely born Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but
have everlasting life.”
The demonstration of the love of God was giving Jesus Christ His Son to
pay for our sin and the demonstration of the love of Christ was going to the cross in obedience to
the will of the Father. This is what you have to do, you have to have this same type of love, the
love that allows you to be obedient to the Father’s will in your life and thus you have to replace
the way you think. You can’t think the way you use to think with human viewpoint thinking,
“Dear Abby, what should I do?” No, that’s not the way the believer thinks. The way the believer
thinks is, “Dear Father, what should I do?”
God will speak to you through His Word, the
Bible.
The most important thing in your life is to replace your human viewpoint thinking, which
is hopelessness, with divine viewpoint thinking, which is security and confidence. The only place
this transfer of thought can take place is under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor. I’m not
talking about the typical nod to God crowd who attends the ritual but have no reality. I’m talking
about a church where the Bible is taught from the pulpit and where the people apply what they
learn. You see, the Word of God acts like a mirror. It reflects your true image when you look into
it. It doesn’t reflect what you think you are, that’s your arrogance. It reflects what you really are.
The arrogant person has an unrealistic self-image and if he has an unrealistic self-image, he has
unrealistic expectations. In other words, he expects to be treated in the way he’s not worthy of
being treated. God doesn’t play that little game. So if you want to see what you really are then
you look into the mirror of the Word of God according to the book of James and you will see
yourself.
The Word of God humbles us. The Word of God exposes us.
Thus many people
don’t like to hear it taught. You have to remember this.
Romans 10:17,
“Faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the Word of God.”
If you intend to live by faith you must live by what the Bible
says and the only way to learn what the Bible says is to get in a local church under a well-
qualified pastor and let him teach you. I’ve heard people say, “I don’t need church. I can just take
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my Bible and go out in the woods and sit under an oak tree and commune with God.” I’ve got a
word for you, you’re full of it. First of all, the Bible is a textbook, it’s not a novel. I don’t care
how many times you’ve read it through. Yeah, you’ll pick up some principles but you will miss a
lot more than you pick up. If it wasn’t true then why did God give men the spiritual gift of pastor-
teacher, the Greek word
poimen kai didaskolos
. They have a spiritual gift and it’s their gift that
enables them to study and see it and reveal it to you. That’s the gift, that’s the way the gift works
and thus it’s not designed for you to take it by yourself and try to figure it out. If I gave you an
algebra book and didn’t give you an instructor and said, “Here, go learn algebra,” you could
never do it.
You will never fulfill the plan of God without a pastor to explain it to you.
This is
the way God intends for it to be. I get a lot of letters from people. I want to share some of them
with you. This particular person said, “I’m not much of an email writer, but I want to let you
know your program has really helped me tremendously in learning what it means to live the
Christian life and for that I’m greatly appreciative. I listen safely in my hometown every Sunday
morning. I pray God will bless you and I pray God would bless your ministry.” Here’s another
one. “Hi, I enjoy listening to you every Sunday morning in Cheyenne, Wyoming. This morning
you mentioned you like to hear from folks so here it goes. I’m 61 years old and I’ve been to
church five or six times in my life, but I’ve listened to you for about a year now and I guess I
bought a Bible and I’ve been reading it and I’m going to try a church that my buddy goes to. I ran
into him lately, a couple of times and he’s doing great, even after his wife passed away, the wife
he loved very much. He says he’s in a good place with God and it really shows in his life. I’ve
known this guy for 45 years and he’s always been a good person. He was a little while in his
younger days like me, but nobody could ever out-fish him. Anyway, you and he are the reason
I’ve asked God to save me and I’m looking for the Lord to help me be a better person. Thank you
for your radio show. I’ll be listening.” Another listener wrote these words, “I’m from Meridian,
Mississippi. I was in Jackson, Mississippi over the weekend with my six-year-old son for a
baseball tournament when I heard your message yesterday on Super Talk Radio. My six-year-old
and I were headed to Bass Pro Shop and he asked if we were going to go to church. And I
explained that being out of town we would not today but we would on Wednesday night when
we got home. I had been struggling with my spirituality, or lack thereof, and it’s become
concerning and heavy on my heart. I put feelers out to some close to me, but I have not found
any peace. On our drive from the hotel I aimlessly changed radio stations and was immediately
excited to hear you discussing the very matter that I’ve been praying about. My son and I actually
sat in the parking lot for 20 minutes after arriving at Bass Pro Shop listening to the remainder of
your message. I sure wish I could have listened to it from start to finish. My son said, ‘Dad.’ He
spoke up and he discussed spirituality. He discussed being carnal and he said, ‘The Holy Spirit
lives in us daddy.’ My son was interested. I know we need to encourage each other as Christians
so I wanted to contact you in hopes of encouraging and in appreciation for encouraging me. It’s
not easy to keep the attention of a six-year-old child, but you did it and I’ll be researching the
times and places where I can hear you more often.” There are other letters that I could read. I just
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don’t have the time but it’s fantastic when I get these, when I hear from folks like this. Why don’t
you take a moment if you’re listening. If God’s using these shows in your life let me know. It’s
always encouraging to me. Don’t send money. I’m not asking you for money but I love to hear
from listeners how you’re learning and how you’re growing. The announcer at the end of the
show will tell you how to get in touch with me and I hope next week you’ll come on back and
join me again, same time, same place for The FLOT Line. Until then, I’m your host Rick Hughes
saying thank you for being with me today.