Join Rick Hughes as he unpacks the concept of the FLOT line—a spiritual barrier designed to safeguard your soul from life’s adversities. Discover the ten essential problem-solving devices, rooted in biblical teaching, that empower you to navigate challenges without succumbing to stress or emotional pitfalls. Through real-life examples and poignant reflections, Rick illustrates how faith and a well-oriented mindset can transform your spiritual journey.
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, please stay with me. It’ll be a short time of motivation, some inspiration, some education, and we do this without any type of manipulation, no solicitation, just simply information, giving you God’s word. Hopefully verify and identify the plan of God for your life, and if I can do so, then you can orient and adjust to the plan. That’s always up to you, but my job is to be accurate, not to lead you down the wrong road, but to introduce you to a new way of thinking. Having a FLOT line in your soul. FLOT, F-L-O-T, stands for the Forward Line of Troops. And what we want to try to get you to do is to build an invisible defensive barrier in your soul made up of 10 unique problem-solving devices. And once you learn these and deploy them, use them, then you can stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside source of stress. Stress in the soul is not good because it overruns the command post of the soul. You quit thinking and you start operating on your emotions. And when you start operating on your emotions, then you’re pretty well going to be washed up. The Bible doesn’t say, let these emotions be in you that were also in Christ Jesus. It says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. So we are challenged to think like Christ thought. And the Bible says in Proverbs 23, as a man thinks in his heart, so he is. So if God wants to check you out, he’s not looking at what you’re wearing. He’s not impressed with your lifestyle. He’s impressed with what you think. And that’s critical that you understand that. Having these 10 problem-solving devices on the flat line of your soul, having the filling of the Holy Spirit in your life, knowing how to rebound and recover from sin when you fail, using the faith rest drill, using grace orientation, using doctrinal orientation, having a personal sense of destiny, understanding the concepts of virtue, love, and personal love for God, impersonal love for others, having the happiness of sharing the happiness of Christ and being occupied with Christ, These are tremendous problem-solving devices. And by the way, we put them all in a short, simple book, not very detailed, but at least it highlights them for you. And that’s available anytime you contact us free of charge. We don’t ever charge for anything. So if you’d like to have that book, Christian Problem Solving, just go to the Internet on our website, rickhughesministries.org, and request the book. And we’ll be glad to get it out to you right away, along with anything else you may need from the website. There’s a lot of stuff there, including any of the radio shows you may wish to have. So thank you for listening. If you’ve been here for the past couple of weeks, you know we started a series. called Life’s Toughest Years. My intention is to make this series into a book eventually designed for young people. And so we’re dealing with young people and in their toughest years. We’ve been through the first part of this study with you, which was testing your boundaries. And now we’re into the second part of the study, and this study is called Sowing Your Oats. Somewhere along the line between 12, 13, 14, 15, up to 18, some people have a desire to sow a few wild oats, they call it. And so the Bible gives some information about this. In Ephesians 5, 15 through 18, I read last week, and I want to read to it again before I go on to the next part of this passage. Therefore, be careful how you walk, and that means live your life. Peripeteo is the Greek word, walk. It’s a lifestyle, so be careful of your lifestyle. Don’t live it as unwise men live their lifestyle, but live it as a wise man lives his lifestyle. So where does this wisdom come from? Well, Proverbs 1 and 2, you can see where it comes from. It comes from God’s word, having the insight, the foresight, the discernment to understand what life has to offer and the decisions that you need to make. So verse 16 of Ephesians 5, making the most of the time you have available. That’s the time you’re on this earth. And I’m kind of modifying this translation, but it’s accurate, I promise you. because the days that you are in are evil. That means Satan controls the times, and the evil refers to the cosmic system that we live in. If you don’t believe that, just think about what I’m about to tell you. Everything that used to be good in the 50s in America is now evil in the year 2018. And everything that used to be evil in the 50s is now good in 2018. So you can see a shift in American culture. But the Bible goes on to say, don’t be foolish, but understand what is the will of the Lord. And do not be drunk with wine, for that’s dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. So the challenge is to not be drunk, and that means to be controlled by wine, but be controlled by God’s Word. Don’t be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Emotions don’t do anything for you. They just get you high. But the content of God’s Word in your soul is like a light and it will guide you and it will lead you. It’s tremendous problem-solving devices. The real danger of you or any teenager experimenting with things the world offers is this, that they can build up scar tissue in their soul to the point of losing all norms and all standards as well as eventually a complete shutdown of the senses where they feel no conviction and they build up acquired flaws in their life that will eventually destroy them. So in Ephesians 4, 17 through 20, Paul addresses this to the believers in Ephesus, and I want to address it with you and show you what he said. In Ephesians 4, 17, reading from the King James Bible, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord. There’s your prepositional phrase. This didn’t come from Paul. This came from God. That you do not walk, and there’s the word peripateo again. That means live your life, Don’t live your life as other Gentiles live their life in the vanity of their minds. The word vanity is the Greek word metiotes, and it means an emptiness or a vacuum. What Paul is saying here is they have nothing upon which to base truth in their minds. Everything you do starts with a decision. Every decision you make, every decision you make starts in your brain. God knows the intent of your heart. He knows what you’re thinking. And you always intend something when you make a decision. So these Gentiles that Paul is talking about have an emptiness in their mind. They are void of God’s word. They don’t understand the plan of God. These are lost people that he’s talking about. But the metiotase, the vacuum of the mind, is a terrible thing. You know, I don’t know if you ever created a vacuum or not, but in physical science in high school, maybe you did when you took all the oxygen out of a tin can and it looked like some invisible hand crushed it because the outside pressure was greater than the inside pressure. There’s always pounds per square inch of pressure in our lives. And if the pressure is great, it can destroy you. It’s like a submarine going too deep and the outside pressure is greater than the inside pressure. that US Navy submarine would be crushed to the depth. They have a crushed depth. They know not to go any deeper than that, too much pressure. Well, a young person can have pressure in their life that will destroy them when they put things in their mind that doesn’t belong there. They can develop acquired flaws in their life. This comes from experimenting with things they do not need to experiment with. And Paul goes on to talk about these Gentiles, saying they have their understanding darkened. That’s the word skotizo, or blacked out. They cannot comprehend. They cannot even see what they’re doing to their self. And as a result, Paul says, they are alienated from the life of God, or God’s plan for them, through ignorance, that’s lack of knowledge, the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. And the word blindness is an inaccurate translation. That’s the Greek word parosis, and it’s the hardness of their heart. It’s a callousness of their heart. When a young person puts things into their life that do not belong there, their heart becomes hard, and the end result is they no longer feel conviction. Listen to verse 19. Who, being past feelings, no more conviction, no more feeling anything’s wrong, have betrayed themselves into lasciviousness, that’s sin, to work it with greed, but you did not learn this from Jesus Christ. Wow. Powerful verses. And I could spend a lot more time on this, but I want to read you some illustrations of this. Putting things in your life that don’t belong there as a young person. In my travels of speaking in schools for the many years that I’ve done it, I’ve gotten a lot of letters from a lot of students and I read one of them to you here. This letter from this student said, I’d like to take the time to tell you thank you. Before you came and spoke to my school, I’d almost hit rock bottom. I was so depressed and so confused. That’s a typical example of scar tissue. It definitely was a gift from God that you came. The first day you were there, you spoke to me and told me I was a charming young lady. And right then I knew God was speaking to my heart. I wanted so badly to burst out in tears and tell you my problems, and there was something that held me back. So the next day when you spoke, I began to listen and apply some of the things you had been speaking about. You know, this is what Jesus said, happiness comes to those who hear and apply God’s word. She was doing that. It was becoming clear to me what was happening in my life. I was beginning to follow the crowd, this young lady said. I mean, I was never raised to do this. I had Christian parents, Christian home, and I had high morals and high values. And I knew that I should never be the person to give in, but I did. I began to go out with my girlfriends on the weekend and drink to the point where I did not even know what was going on. It had gone too far, and I knew it, and I couldn’t stop. The week before you came to my school, I had really gone and did it. One of the guys was having a party, so we decided to go, and well, before I even got there, I was already drunk. To make a long story short, that was the night I lost my virginity, and I didn’t even know who he was. I wanted to tell you this in person, but I didn’t have the guts. I’ve been stressed out since that weekend if I don’t even know if I’m pregnant or not. And I realize now where I went wrong. And in March the 7th, I rededicated my life to my Lord Jesus Christ, and I wanted you to know that you were the person that made me realize I needed to do some changing, not me. That was God, the Holy Spirit, using God’s Word. He just used it through me. No credit to me, I promise you. I’m just a jerk. But she said, you spoke to my heart like no one has ever done. And I know that God used you as a witness to me. So thank you so very much. And God bless you. That’s an illustration of scar tissue in the soul. Thankfully, this person rebounded. That means this person confessed their sin and got back in fellowship with God. Can God forgive someone that fornicates? Yes, he can. And he did. And this young person got their life straight. Now here is an article from someone who did not get their life straight. This is in a newspaper and I took it out many years ago. It says this, Edgewood, Maryland. Melissa Putney, 14 years old, nine months pregnant. Her room tidied and her locker emptied, opened up her spiral notebook and wrote to my dear mother and she filled three pages. Twelve minutes before noon, a tiny white fleck of light appeared far down the railroad tracks, and then seconds later, the crescendo of engines going over 100 miles an hour. It was the Amtrak, the 141, the bankers, and it was right on time. Melissa ran to the tracks and knelt between the rails and clasped her hands in prayer. Her cousin Pearl tried to stop her, but Melissa was bigger, stronger, pushed her away. And Melissa made the sign of the cross on that warm Tuesday midday last week in rural Maryland. A troubled eighth grader and her unborn baby died. you always ask me if there’s anything wrong she wrote to her mother and i said no i’m okay but mom i didn’t tell you the truth i never was okay i ran away from my problems she wrote and i’m taking the easy way out i’m admitting to myself and i’m a weak person not able to handle the weak the weight of life i’m very sorry to put you through all these troubles that i have done this newspaper article goes on to quote it I drank wine. I took pills. But before I did all of that, I asked my Father in God to heaven to forgive me, but he won’t. And I don’t blame him for that. Please pray that I don’t be sent to hell because there, then I won’t be able to come back and watch over you and help you. And I want to do that. So mom, please don’t have a nervous breakdown. Please don’t cry all the time. I don’t want you to do that. I want you to live forever and ever the way you want to. And I will always love you very much. Please try to forgive me. your daughter, Melissa. The train engineer had a daughter of his own. He saw young Melissa cross herself as he applied the brakes and he cannot even discuss it. That’s what happens when scar tissue overrides the command post of the soul. Guilt sets in and guilt will manipulate you. Guilt will destroy you and you cannot allow that to happen. So let’s go back to this passage. I warn you, I’m testifying in the Lord. Ephesians chapter four, verse 17. This is coming from God, not from Paul. Do not live like Gentiles live in the emptiness of their mind. What every young person must have are clear values, norms, and standards in their soul. This is the job of every parent. It’s our job to teach our children right from wrong. We teach them norms like make your bed, comb your hair, brush your teeth, keep yourself clean, make… do whatever you need to do, and then we teach them standards. Standards are from the Word of God. These are biblical standards that guide them, protect them all of their life. Without biblical standards, there is no protection. And let’s talk about flaws for a minute. Some people have inherent flaws that they inherit from their family and like diabetes may be a flaw or alcoholism could be a flaw. But some people have an acquired flaw and this is a sin they get a taste for and it captures them and they can’t pull away from it. And Paul says you should not live like this. You shouldn’t have these kind of flaws. It’s like an emptiness in your mind. They don’t provide any protection. The vacuum just sucks in all the filth. And the Gentiles that Paul is talking about here have empty minds. And he goes on to say they have their understanding darkened. They don’t even know what they’re doing. They don’t even realize what’s going on. When you’re in a place of blackout, when you are scotizo, when you’re darkened, when you’re blacked out, You don’t even know you’re destroying yourself. You don’t even realize what you’re doing to yourself. And that’s exactly what Paul is warning the people in Ephesus about. There was so much going on in Ephesus. I don’t have time to give you all the background of the pagan worship and the cult of Baal and everything that… went on at the temple of Aphrodite, but there was a lot of debauchery and sickness and sex and whatever else. And this is what the Gentiles were into. And their hearts, listen, let me give you this. You have two words here, vanity of the mind, okay, and the blackout of the heart. You have a mind and And your mind in the Bible is called your nous, N-O-U-S, in the Greek word mind, nous. And that’s your receptor. That’s where information comes in. And then you have a heart, and the Bible calls that word cardia. We get cardiology or cardiac from that Greek word cardia, heart. Every person has a mind and a heart, and they’re two different things. I’m not talking about the heart that beats blood. That’s a physical heart. I’m talking about the heart that’s in your soul, the blindness of their heart. Inside your soul, you have a thinking platform. And when you shut that thinking platform down and you begin to operate strictly on emotions, you will go into what we call a frantic search for happiness. Looking for happiness in all the wrong places. You will go down the my way highway. And if you’re typically like most people, you’ll be caught in the cosmic vortex. the cosmic vortex is that invisible system that’s always spinning around like a tornado and people stick their nose in just to experiment let me just go experiment they say i know i never did this in high school when as long as i was living at home with my parents i never did this but now i’m at college and I don’t have any authority over me, so I’m going to try it. And then, boom, they’re sucked into the cosmic vortex. And the cosmic vortex will spin them out of control and take them down the road, down the my way highway until their life is completely messed up. There’s only one way out, and that’s to come to your senses, to confess your sin to God, to admit that you’ve been wrong, and to seek God’s forgiveness. Because the Bible says if we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and purify us from all of our wrongdoing. But the scar tissue will still be there unless you replace it. You know, we have to wash our souls with the water of the word. It cleanses us. And so when a person has a lot of scar tissue, they can go and confess their sin to God and get back in fellowship with God. But it’s only through the purging of the soul, only through the intake of the Word of God, that they can begin to replace their thought pattern, begin to replace what they think with, so that their heart begins to be beating again in their soul. See, the heart is where you apply the information. The mind is where you receive the information. So you get that information in your mind from your pastor, from your parents, wherever the information comes from. And then you are supposed to apply it into your heart and live by it. And once it’s in your heart, it’s called wisdom. If it’s in your mind, it’s not wisdom. It’s just knowledge. You know it. You understand it. You comprehend it. But you didn’t apply it. So let’s assume that you have been given some norms and standards. And let’s assume that you violate those norms and standards. You know you shouldn’t do that. Your volition, which you have, says let’s go, let’s go, let’s do it, let’s do it. And the Holy Spirit, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, he would scream at you and your soul, no, don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it. If you override that, if you say, I don’t care what the Bible says, I don’t care what God says, I don’t care what my parents said, What’s important to you is that your friends like you. And so in order to be accepted, you’ll do what they want you to do. You’re herd bound. You’re manipulated. And you’re too dumb to even know it’s happening. You don’t have the guts to be a leader. You’re a follower. And you get sucked into the cosmic vortex. You know, when you’re young, you’re worried about what people think about you. But when you get old, you’re going to find out nobody ever thought about you anyhow. They were too busy thinking about their own self. So listen very carefully. You must understand this. Depression, teenage suicide, as I just read to you this letter, it’s a real thing. When these acquired flaws get saturated into the life of an individual… and their soul gets covered with scar tissue and they live in darkness. They can’t even see what’s going on. They don’t realize what’s happening. And they think the only way out is to get more and more of what got them there to start with. It’s like drug addiction. I did the funeral for a young lady who died of drug addiction. And her partner said she got high one time and thought she saw God. And so she took more drugs, bigger doses of drugs to get back to God. See, that was a lie. That was Satan luring her down into the cosmic vortex. You have the ability to destroy yourself with your own arrogance. And that’s why Paul said they are past feelings. They don’t feel guilt. They don’t feel shame. And they betray their own soul into lasciviousness. Ephesians chapter four, verse 19, to produce sin with greed. Can’t get enough of it. They love it. experimenting with the things the world offers builds up scar tissue to the point of losing all your norms and standards. The shutdown of all your senses, the convictions that you’ve had are gone, and you build acquired flaws that will manipulate you and control every decision that you make. And it won’t be long. On that my way highway, you will destroy yourself. Arrogance always does this. Arrogance justifies why it’s okay to do what’s wrong. Arrogance lies to self. Not only does arrogance lie to other people, arrogance lies to self. So in arrogance you will self-justify, self-deceive, and self-absorb. You’ll be totally absorbed with whatever it is that you think will make you happy, and the end result is self-destruction. It happens like that every time. That’s why sowing a few wild oats is not necessarily a good thing. Satan is waiting for that Christian that wants to sow a few wild oats, because once they step into the devil’s world, they’ll never step out. Will they die and go to heaven? Yes, they will. They believed in Jesus Christ. They accepted him as their savior. But will they have the life God intended for them? No, they will not. They will be miserable and they will defeat their own soul. They will defeat their own reason for living. They will depress themselves and everyone that loves them and cares for them because they will not be able to get out of it. That’s what happens when you build up scar tissue. You may know someone like this today, maybe a grandchild, maybe a child. You can only pray. Pray that God will convince them that they’re in sin. Pray that they will see themselves as they are. It may take a tragedy. It may take a disaster. Who knows what it’ll take? But maybe somehow or another, the plan of God can be revealed to them and they can realize what it is and recover from their sin while there’s still time. Sowing a few wild oats is the second stage in the life of the young person who’s trying to figure what it’s all about. You did it. I did it. They’re doing it now. And all we can do is pray and encourage and be there and try to reveal to them what the plan of God is. Nobody showed it to me. Nobody told me these things. I don’t even know if it would have helped. Maybe it would have. I trust it would have because the word of God never comes back void, but it sure would have saved me a lot of misery and a lot of misery of those people that I loved and abused in my life. So I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re learning. I hope you’re paying attention. Going down the My Way Highway is the wrong way. It’s a dead end. And sowing a few wild oats has a lot more percussions than what you think it does. Are you learning? Are you listening? Every Sunday, we’re here, same time, same place, same station, believing God will provide for this show so you can hear it. I trust you will listen to the God, the Holy Spirit, and I trust you’ll make the adjustment in your life. If you need any copies of any of this information, let us know. We’ll get you an MP3 just as soon as possible. So until next week when we come back, this is Rick Hughes, host of The Flock Line, saying thank you so much.
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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.
