In this enlightening episode, Rick Hughes leads listeners through the challenges believers face, such as stumbling blocks and the battle for self-control. Explore the intricate dance between liberty and love within the Christian doctrine, where personal rights are balanced with the responsibility to protect and uplift others. Rick’s candid discussion on these themes encourages listeners to embrace their volition, take accountability for their actions, and walk the path that God has prepared for them. Tune in to embrace spiritual wisdom tailored for everyday triumphs.
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 Flotline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes. For the next few minutes, would you please stay with me? It’ll be a short time, just 30 minutes of motivation, a lot of inspiration, some education. And you know we do this without any type of manipulation. We’re not going to dun you for money. We’re not going to con you to join anything. We’re not going to ask you for anything. We just want to give you something, and that’s accurate information. Information from the canon of Scripture, the Bible. It is a show about the Bible, I admit that, but no ranting and no raving, no jumping up and down. We’re just going to give you the information, and you can decide whether you want to orient and adjust to the plan of God after you hear it. That’s up to you. But my job is to be accurate, not to mislead you, but to give you insight to what the Bible has to say. in regards to your life. It’s a wonderful life. There was a movie about that. But this life that God has given us, what short life that it really is, It can be a fantastic life or it can be a miserable life. It all depends on your decisions, the decisions that you make, the things that you do. And if you are a believer in Jesus Christ and have accepted him as your savior, you’ve made the first step in taking the road to a great, wonderful, fantastic life. Because the Christian life is a life where we never have to worry, we never have to be afraid, we never have to be jealous, we never have to carry guilt. It’s a life where we can have a relaxed mental attitude, we can assimilate the mind of Christ from the Bible, and we can enjoy a wonderful privilege of being in the royal family of God, knowing our destiny, knowing our blessings, knowing that our Father protects us, watches over us, and provides for us at all times. That’s why the Bible says all things work together for good. to them who love the Lord and are called according to a predetermined plan. So when you receive Jesus Christ, the anointed Son of God, as your Savior, you are in effect accepting the offering he made for you, the offering he made on your behalf, the free gift from the compliments of God. That’s why the Bible says in Ephesians 2, 8, 9, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God and not of works, lest any man should brag about it or boast about it. On our radio show, we follow themes or patterns, and it’s always about building a flat line in your soul. The flat line is an invisible protective barrier inside your soul designed by God to operate off of 10 unique problem-solving devices. These problem-solving devices we teach repeatedly on this radio show, and we have written them in a book for you. If you’d like to have a copy of the book, just go to our website, RickHughesMinistries.org, and request that book, and we’ll send it to you free of charge. We never charge for anything that we produce, manufacture, give away. We never charge for where we speak. We never solicit offerings. We don’t take offerings. I’ve always believed if God’s in it, God will pay for it or else I can go do something else. And so God pays for it in his wonderful grace. What a privilege it is to live like that. Puts the monkey on his back, not my back. I don’t have to worry about raising money. I don’t have to worry about trying to hustle up the finances. The Lord provides or the Lord doesn’t provide. That’s simply up to him. So when we live this Christian life, we build this invisible wall of protection, this main line of resistance, this FLOT line, F-L-O-T, Forward Line of Troops, using a military metaphor for this concept. of 10 unique problem-solving devices. Problem-solving devices like confession of known sin. How do I solve the problem of sin? 1 John 1, 9. Problem-solving devices like the filling of the Holy Spirit. How do I control the sinful, lustful flesh of my old sin nature? Walk in the Spirit and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh. Galatians talks about that. The problem-solving device of dealing with testing and unknown circumstances in my life using the faith rest drill. Problem-solving device number three. On it goes. Problem-solving devices like biblical orientation, grace orientation, having a personal sense of destiny, having personal love for God with the result of impersonal love for others, sharing the happiness of God, and obviously being occupied with the Lord Jesus Christ. These are unique problem-solving devices that I just skimmed over, like throwing a rock on a flat pond and making it skip across the pond. I didn’t go into them. I didn’t describe them. I’ve done that in the past, and I can do that in the future. Or we can send you a series of MP3 that deals with this if you’ve just begun to hear it for the first time. If you’d like to know what all it’s about, let me know. We’ll get the information to you. But it’s the wonderful way that we live as Christians so that the outside source of adversity does not become the inside source of stress. Now, as believers, we all have the ability to destroy our life. We all have a volition. We all have a sin nature. And the Bible says we have three enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. So make no mistake about it. Satan wants to sidetrack you. Satan wants to discourage you. Satan wants to defeat you. And the Bible says he goes around like a roaring lion seeking who he can devour. We can carry that analogy on out to the end of what happens once the lion eats. He takes a big old poop. And so people who get into Satan’s plan, believers especially, who buy into the doctrine of demons become a pile of lion poop. Sorry to put it that way, but that’s about what it amounts to, a smelly pile of poop, because they did not learn God’s Word. They did not live God’s Word. They did not advance in God’s Word. And sometimes they even become a stumbling block to other believers. The stumbling block is something we talked about last week when we were warned not to become a stumbling block to other people. The Lord Jesus Christ rebuked Peter in one passage in Matthew 16 where he said, You are a stumbling block to me. Because Peter said, You must not die, Lord. That couldn’t happen to you. You don’t need to go to the cross and die. Jesus said in Matthew 16, 22 and 23, get behind me, Satan, you are stumbling block to me because you’re not setting your mind on God’s interest, but on man’s interest. That stumbling block I’m talking about is a trap or a snare or a movable stick or trigger. And metaphorically, it’s any person or anything by which one is drawn away into error or into sin. Jesus said in Luke 17, 1, it’s inevitable that stumbling blocks will come, but woe to him through who they come. And our Lord was specific about those who cause young believers or other believers to stumble. He even warned the disciples that the religious crowd would kill them. And the religious crowd in John 16, 1, 2, and 3 would persecute them once he left and not to stumble when that happens. And then Paul wrote about being a stumbling block, and Paul was very concerned about young believers and the things that they had to go through. And in 1 Corinthians, the town of Corinth, he wrote the letter, and he talked about not being a stumbling block to those people. We went into that study in 1 Corinthians 8, 9, 10, 11, right through there, and we saw where Paul said, for example, in 1 Corinthians 8, 9, take care that this liberty of yours does not become a stumbling block to the world. And this is directed towards self. And biblically, what this means is you and I, we have the right to do certain things that are not sin. Now, keep in mind that preachers make stuff sin that are not sin. They may tell you that it’s a sin to play cards. Well, the Bible doesn’t say it’s a sin to play cards. They may tell you it’s a sin to dance. But the Bible doesn’t say it’s a sin to dance. And you know, you can follow that out to a lot of different things. What the Bible says is sin and what people want to make sin is two different things. And so it’s possible that you may be doing something that’s not sinful. but it may tempt the weaker believer to go in to do the same thing. And in his case, not having enough doctrine in his soul to understand it, he could sin. And so you want to avoid doing that under the law of liberty. You got the right to do certain things, but you don’t do them because you don’t want to distract a younger believer. You don’t want to scar up his behavior. And so you disregard these things and put them aside until, at a later time when you have privacy and you’re alone or you’re with someone who’s mature enough to understand it so the law of liberty is there we have the right to do certain things but we don’t and that’s motivated by the law of love and therefore first corinthians 8 13 if food makes my brother to stumble i won’t eat food again so that i don’t cause him to stumble And the law of love is actually a function of one of the problem-solving devices we have called impersonal love. That’s when I have the ability to love the unlovable person. And Jesus tells me I have to love the unlovable person. But the only way I can do that is to love him based on the content of my soul, not based on the content of his soul. So the law of love is generally directed towards a new believer who the ones that are ignorant of these things and don’t know any better, are even directed towards believers who could be distracted by the legitimate functions in life. And you have to be careful here. I don’t want to double talk, but I want to make this plain. Don’t let some legalist establish a tyranny over you and use your graciousness to manipulate you. You got to remember that. Every one of us is a minister of reconciliation, and we must refrain from doing anything that would cause someone to stumble, not because it’s wrong, but because it would prevent an unbeliever from seeing the true issue of salvation. And that’s that we want them to see Christ in us, not question what we do, even though we may have the right to do it. It created a false issue. And so, for example, Jesus in Matthew 12, one through seven was condemned because he let his disciples pick corn on the Sabbath and people got all bent out of shape. They thought that was a sin to pick corn on the Sabbath. And obviously it was not a sin. But then there is the third law, the law of supreme sacrifice. And we didn’t get into this one, but I want to go into it today. This is the highest law of Christian behavior that you and I must observe. And it would generally apply to a mature believer, a believer who has a maximum amount of doctrine in his soul, a believer who has established a flat line on his soul. He has that main line of resistance. It applies to that believer to forsake normal living and legitimate functions in order to serve the Lord in some special way. Listen to Paul in 1 Corinthians 9, 4 through 6. Do we not have a right to eat and drink? Do we not have a right to take along a Christian wife, even as the rest of the apostles do and the brothers of the Lord and Peter? Or do only Barnabas and I not have the right to refrain from working? You see, under the law of supreme sacrifice, a few normal things in life, even sometimes marriage, even sometimes what we eat, these things are set aside because they interfere with the concentration on a special ministry or they interfere with a leadership function in our life. We do not want to be a stumbling block. Nothing in our life is worth causing someone else to stumble. But nothing in our life is worth letting someone manipulate you. So here’s the real bottom line. If you are concerned about another believer and his growth and you want him to grow spiritually, you have to be careful how you act around him, what you say around him, because it may offend him and he doesn’t have enough doctrine to know that it’s not wrong. But if it’s a legalistic believer and that person wants to judge you and manipulate you and try to coerce you into living under his legalistic concepts, then you can just ignore him and disregard anything he tries to do to you. He’s not going to change and you’re not going to change him and you’re wasting your time trying to convince him that he needs to get under the serious study of the Word of God under a well-meaning pastor teacher, well-qualified pastor. I see this all the time. I talk to people all the time who don’t have any questions. I know I tell them things they’ve never heard before. I show them verses they’ve never seen before. And they are either dull, not interested, don’t care. It never even makes a dent in their soul. And so, even though I may try to treat them graciously and I may try not to offend them, There comes a point in my life when I move on and forget about them because they’re not going to listen and they’re not going to learn. Now I want to move into another area that starts with S. The stumbling block is one of the areas of spiritual failure in your life. You can become a spiritual failure by being a stumbling block. But I want to show you another area where you can become a spiritual failure. You can become a spiritual failure when you have lack of self-control. Lack of self-control. I know. I know. I can hear you now. You’ve quit preaching and you’ve gone to meddling, buddy. Well. What I’m about to read to you is in the Bible, and it’s going to be a little strange, but listen carefully. In 1 Corinthians 7, 5, Stop depriving one another except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourself to prayer and come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This was written to married couples in Corinth. if you take the notes from the nasb here’s what it says the christian deprived of normal sexual activity with his or her marriage partner may be tempted by satan to become sexually immoral the normal god-given sexual drive in human being is very strong and what they mention here and what this passage is saying what paul is saying is it’s okay to deprive each other for a period of time as you devote your life to something. But don’t do it for a long period of time because you may lack self-control. And this has to do with being apart, being separated, or us just saying we’re not going to have the normal acts of marriage for a while. remember the enemy knows your weaknesses he knows what your flesh is about and it’s a strange passage i admit it where paul gives instruction concerning christians abstaining from intercourse among married couples in first corinthians 7 3 a husband should give to his wife her sexual rights and likewise a wife to her husband i didn’t say that paul said it he’s talking about sexual intercourse A husband should give to his wife her sexual rights and likewise a wife to her husband. I could go on to develop this into things that are illegitimate that you can get into from the lust of the flesh and lack of self-control, even things like pornography that take away the right of the other person for self-pleasure. But Paul listed three reasons that it might be okay to abstain from sexual intercourse in a marriage. The first one was that it’s by mutual agreement. Secondly, for a specific time. And thirdly, so you can devote yourself to prayer. And he said in 1 Corinthians 7.3, “…then resume your relationship, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” The word self-control, akrasia, A-K-R-A-S-I-A, akrasia is a Greek negative here. The Greek negative A means no, and plus the word for strength, kratos, and thus the word no strength or lack of self-control. That’s the background of the word self-control, no self-control, akrasia. So this word recognizes that each of us have areas of weakness that could be used by Satan to distract us from the plan of God and to destroy our lives spiritually so that we never advance. And Paul identifies lack of self-control as one of the characteristics or one of the trends that the church and believers will face in the end times. Listen to what he told Timothy as he wrote to him in 2 Timothy 3. but realize this that in the last days difficult times will come men will be lovers of self lovers of money boastful arrogant revilers disobedient to parents ungrateful unholy unloving irreconcilable malicious gossips without self-control there it is right there brutal haters of good treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they deny the power. And then he goes on to say, avoid such men as these, for among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women who are weighted down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. This is a picture of a society without any morals and without any values. But notice, holding a form of godliness. If there’s anything we have in this nation, it is a form of godliness. Religion is not Christianity. Christianity is a relationship. It’s not religion. It’s Christ in you, not you trying to approbate God by being religious and observing a certain set of taboos. So holding the form of godliness is false teachers who use religion to gain control over the weak and the gullible and manipulate them. It’s always been a plague of the church, gullible, vulnerable believers who buy into the lie being told by the cosmic system evangelists that it’s okay, you know, you can do this. We read it in the paper every day where men in the ministry are responsible for manipulating certain people and leading them into areas of sin. It’s always like this. It’s always been a plague of the church. So this picture of society without morals or values is a picture of the United States of America today. You can paint it right here, black and white, from the Word of God. I need to read it to you again. See if you can identify with any of this. Let’s go through it again. Men will be lovers of self. That’s arrogant self-justification. Lovers of money. Oh, my gosh. You will be surprised what people will do for money. I had a big surprise recently of a friend of mine who got in trouble because of a love of money. boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents. When the word of God tells you in Ephesians 6, obey your parents, honor your father and mother. And today there are a lot of young people that don’t believe that. They’re disobedient to their parents and ungrateful, unholy, not living a Christian life, unloving. They have no concern, no care. Irreconcilable, gossips without self-control, brutal, haters of good. And it goes on to say in verse 4 of this passage that we’re reading this to you from, 2 Timothy 3, treacherous, reckless, conceited, listen to all these words, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness although they deny the power. I mean, they act religious, they sound religious, but they’re not. It’s not from God. Avoid these, the Bible says. Paul lays it out. Avoid them. Because why should you avoid them? Because among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women. This is for sexual exploitation. Weighted down with sins, led on with various impulses. People always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. This means that we have to take responsibility. Responsibility for our lives and our decisions. Responsibility is an issue that you must learn to clear up in your own head. Let’s go through some principles. One, responsibility denotes something within your power to control. You must control yourself. You must control your volition. You must control your decisions, and you do it by means of the problem-solving devices. Only through the filling of the Holy Spirit can you control the lust of your flesh. Two, under the law of volitional responsibility, we cause our own misery and our own suffering because we have no self-control. Three, by means of divine punitive action, God will discipline and eventually remove the guilt through the discipline, you just can’t afford to carry the emotions of hungover guilt. When you sin because of lack of self-control, if you go to problem-solving device number one, the rebound technique, and if you confess your sin to God, He’s faithful and just to forgive you. This means that you move on in your life, you get up from your failure, and don’t let Satan cause you to have remorse and guilt because you failed. Everybody fails. Some of the greatest people in the world failed, like Peter. When the Lord told him before the rooster crows in the morning, you will deny me three times. And he said, no, absolutely not. I will not. I will die with you. And that wasn’t true. So God disciplines us. The discipline removes the guilt. Because you can’t carry the emotions of hungover guilt and operate in the Christian life. Point four, each one of us must take the responsibility for our own decisions, our own actions in our life. Sins, impetuousness, indiscretion, impulsiveness, cowardness, these are all sins that we must take responsibility for and confess and deal with. Point five, we can never blame other people for our misery, our unhappiness. We must take full responsibility for every decision that we make. Point six, the grace of God has given each of us human volition. You can choose. You’re not a robot. You’re not an automaton. God gave you free will. But point seven, you must not allow your volition to lead you into sin or into human good or into evil. Galatians 6, 7 states the law of volitional responsibility. Here’s what it says. Be not deceived. God cannot be mocked. Whatever a man sows, he will also reap. So under the law of volitional responsibility, it is possible that you and I can inflict unbearable suffering from personal sins because we had no common sense. We didn’t take responsibility. So I want you to remember the conscience is designed by God to house norms and standards so you always have your options. You’ve got to have options if you’re going to control your life because if you have no options, then you have no chance of ever succeeding in your life. You must teach your children the Word of God so they have options because if you don’t, they will be enslaved by the world of sin, good, and evil. Emotional control of the soul removes the protection of the conscience. If you allow emotions to take over in love, in money, anywhere, this is what motivates lust. If you allow your emotions to get absorbed with the lust, you will give away to the temptation and you will not take responsibility for what you do. until it’s too late, until you crash and burn, and Satan stands on the sideline laughing at you. Maybe it’s already happened. Maybe you’ve already crashed and burned. Maybe you’ve already made a series of tragic mistakes. I just have one question. Are you still alive? Are you still listening to me? Because if you are alive, God has a plan for your life. He is not finished with you. Now, whatever you’re facing, you must take responsibility for that, own up to it, admit it, confess your sin to God, and he will be faithful and just to forgive you. There’s a life he has for you. There’s a plan he has for you. There’s a road he has for you. If he’s left you here, it’s for a reason. It’s time you took responsibility for your failure, for your sin, and that you took responsibility to learn and apply his word into your life. Lack of self-control is a terrible, destructive force in your life. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re learning. And I hope, above all things, you’re applying this to your life. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flotline.
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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.
