In today’s episode, Rick Hughes emphasizes the necessity of understanding biblical truths and applying them as problem-solving devices. With an engaging narrative, he explains the importance of recognizing your spiritual gifts and leveraging them to achieve spiritual maturity. Packed with wisdom and insights, this episode encourages listeners to prioritize God’s word in everyday life, highlighting the promise of pleasant circumstances and peace when following His path.
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.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes. For the next few minutes… I’d like to ask you to hang around, listen up, pay attention because this show is giving you some wonderful, wonderful information without any type of manipulation. We’re not trying to con anybody. We’re not trying to solicit money. We’re not going to ask you to join anything. We’re not going to ask you to give up anything. We’re just here to remind you of some biblical truths and introduce you to a new way of learning, studying God’s Word. No manipulation, like I said. No solicitations. Just 30 minutes of education, motivation, inspiration. letting me identify God’s plan for you and hopefully you will be able to orient and adjust to the plan. I don’t know where you are this morning, what city that you’re in. We play this show in multiple cities across the United States every Sunday morning, same time on your station. But I’m very grateful that you’re listening and I appreciate it so very much. It’s always a chore, a task, a challenge to get this information out and to get it right and to pray and see what God would have me to present to you. It’s not an easy thing to do. Every Sunday, 14 years, we’ve been doing this now. And there’s a lot of distractions. But my job is to get it to you accurate and get it right. Your job is to hear it, apply it, and learn it. Remember what I tell you every Sunday? God gave you two ends. One of them you sit with, one of them you think with, and heads you win, tails you lose. Remember that? So we want to learn what God has for us, what God’s plan has for us. We’re not talking about ritual without reality. We’re not talking about the nod to God crowd. We’re not talking about… the organized religion that people play sometimes in their local churches. We’re talking about the real deal Lucille, the real Christian life, the real true way to live the Christ-centered life. And that’s what the FLOT line is all about, giving you information. FLOT stands for the Forward Line of Troops. It’s always been that, F-L-O-T. And it means that there are some wonderful problem-solving devices found in the Bible. And when you learn them and when you use them, they protect you just like a main line of resistance in the military would keep the enemy out of the fort. Well, these 10 problem-solving devices are not new. They’re not anything great breakthroughs. We’re not trying to sell you a book about them. but they deal with rebound, number one, the filling of the Holy Spirit, number two, the faith rest drill, number three, grace orientation, four, biblical orientation, five, having a personal sense of destiny, six, personal love for God, seven, impersonal love for all of mankind, eight, sharing the happiness of God, nine, occupation with Christ, number 10. When you learn these, when you use them, when you stand on them, then you have a lifestyle of wisdom, a lifestyle of wisdom. That’s what they are. They are the wisdom of God put into a military metaphor so you can understand how the Christian life functions and operates. That’s what we do. We are trying to present biblical truth that can be used as problem-solving devices every day in your life. And they are called God’s wisdom of the ages. They allow you to function within this devil’s world with impunity if you learn them and you use them. And by the way, you can hear us not just on this radio station, But you can also hear us on our newly created podcast. If you have a phone, you can go to Spotify, the website Spotify, download it free, and type in The Flotline. Or you can go to the Apple podcast and type in The Flotline. And you can hear our show, any of the shows we present, over and over again at any time of the day you wish to hear them. they’re all there they’re all free and i hope you’ll take advantage of that because my job is to get you some information and gear you in the right direction i’m not your pastor i’m just like a window a breath of fresh air trying to direct you to a great pastor where you can grow spiritually and learn to be the person god intended you to be but my challenges are for this for you to acquire the wisdom of the ages There’s only one reason you would want to do that. Hopefully the reason you’re listening to my radio show today is you love God. If you love God and you have reverential respect for God, then you’re going to fulfill God’s plan for your life. Listen to 1 John 5, 3. This is the love of God that we keep his mandates and his mandates are not a burden. This demonstrates you love him. It’s called obedience, obedience. And in Proverbs 1, 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And that word fear doesn’t mean that you’re afraid of him. It means reverential obedience. So if you’re going to grow as a Christian, if we’re going to survive in the devil’s world, if we’re going to glorify jesus christ to the max we must learn god’s plan you can’t operate on a shoestring it’s not your way highway it’s god’s way highway thy way highway not my way highway thy way highway and that means you have to learn something and so in proverbs 1 7 the fear of the lord is where it starts Obedience, reverential obedience is the beginning of knowledge. Nothing comes without knowledge. You must have knowledge to understand what God’s plan for your life is. But the problem is the Bible says in the second half of Proverbs 1.7 that a fool doesn’t want any knowledge. It says fools despise wisdom and despise instruction. That’s the arrogance of a fool. You can’t teach a fool anything. He’s so arrogant, he thinks he knows it already. You may know a few people like that. And you may have some children like that that think they know it already. They don’t need your advice. And that’s a sad state of affairs, I know. But only a fool would claim they did not need instructions on how to live in the devil’s world. Yep, that’s right, the devil’s world. We live in the devil’s world. John 12, 31 through 33, just to remind you, now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. This is Jesus Christ speaking about future time. And he said, when I’m lifted up from the earth, I will draw people to myself. That’s the cross. That’s speaking of him, manner of death, he would die. And he called Satan the ruler of this world. John 16, 11, of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged already. That’s the Holy Spirit’s ministry, judging of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Matthew 4, 8, Satan tried to tempt the Lord to worship him and said, I’ll give you all these kingdoms of the world. and I’ll give you all of their glory if you will worship me. It’s his, we live in the devil’s domain. This is not our home, we’re just passing through. And so reverence for God, reverential obedience for God, And obedience to his plan is the foundation for a life of happiness and fulfillment. No obedience, no happiness, no fulfillment. Matter of fact, Jesus Christ himself said, happiness belongs to those who hear my father’s word and keep it. So if there’s no respect for God’s word, there’s no reverence for God. then there’s a guarantee that you’re going to have a life unfulfilled and full of frustration. There are many Americans that I’m talking to now that care nothing about the Bible, that care nothing about God. They think they’ve got it made. They think they got a better deal. They think they got a better way. And they are going to continue to butt their head against the wall until they bleed to death because they can’t move the wall with their head. Only God’s word can give you the path. Only God’s word can show you the way around that wall. So when you have a lack of respect and a lack of reverence for God’s word, you can book it. You are going to have an unfulfilled life full of frustration. If you have no reverential respect, the Bible says you’re a fool. In Proverbs 10, 27, the respect for the Lord or his plan prolongs your life forever. but the years of the wicked will be shortened. Did you hear that? The respect for the Lord, his plan, prolongs your life. but the years of the wicked shall be shortened. And then it goes on to state fools die for a lack of understanding. Proverbs 10 21. There you go. There’s a death certificate for the Dumbo fool that ignores God’s word. Won’t pay attention to it. Not interested in it. Doesn’t believe that Jesus Christ is the anointed son of God. He’s living in the devil’s world, trapped in the cosmic system, thinking satanic concepts of evil. And he’s a fool. And the Bible makes that very clear, very clear. So the wisdom of God gives you understanding. Understanding. Wisdom doesn’t come overnight. Wisdom must be learned and acquired. And that’s when you have a desire for knowledge. If you have a desire for knowledge, it’s like a desire for cake or a desire for ice cream or a desire for a cookie. You want it, you like it, you want another one. When you have a desire to learn God’s word, you get wisdom. Over a period of time, learning gives you wisdom. And what wisdom does, once it gets into the bank of your soul, it gives you understanding and discernment. Why you’re here, what you’re tasked to do while you’re here, why did God send you here, what does God want you to do? This kind of wisdom is your most valuable asset. Proverbs 3.15 says that according to wisdom, talking in the feminine style here, she, that’s wisdom, is more precious than jewels and nothing you desire compares with her. Why? Because she will extend your life. You can’t buy more time with jewels. You can’t buy more time with pearls, but you can buy more time with God’s wisdom. How? Well, you won’t self-destruct. You won’t destroy yourself by being a fool and ignoring the plan of God. your job and my job is to receive the instructions of wisdom that lead us to justice in our life righteousness in our life and equity proverbs 1 3 the writer solomon said i write this so you can receive instruction in wise behavior righteousness justice and equity now what’s this righteousness stuff well remember god is absolutely righteous There are none righteous, no, not one, the Bible says. All of our righteousnesses are like a filthy rag in God’s eyes. I don’t want to tell you over the radio what the Hebrew word for filthy rag is. You don’t want to hear it. It would be embarrassing to you. God put it in the Bible. Maybe I should. I don’t know. You can look it up for yourself. But here’s the deal. Your righteousness, your good deeds, your church attendance, your money you give, the sweet, nice things you do won’t get you to heaven. That’s just all human good. It’s human righteousness, and it’s a filthy rag in God’s eyes. There are none that are righteous. not even one. Now, how do we get righteousness if we can’t manufacture righteousness? If we can’t live up to the righteous standards of God, how do we get it? Well, the Bible says simply, he who knew no sin was made sin for us so we could be made the righteousness of God through him. You are made righteous through Christ so that when God looks at you in Christ, he sees righteousness, the righteousness of Christ imputed to you. Just like when he looked at Christ on the cross, he saw sin, my sin, your sin imputed to him. So God is absolutely righteous and you can be absolutely righteous to through Jesus Christ. That’s your position, not your experience and your experience in time. You will be unrighteous every day. You will send daily, but in your position in Christ, you are absolutely righteous. So God’s absolute righteousness is one of the things you must understand with wisdom. You can’t buy righteousness. You can’t manufacture righteousness. You only receive it through Jesus Christ. So he wrote these proverbs so we can receive instruction in wise behavior such as righteousness, justice, and equity. God’s absolute justice. Here’s something my pastor used to say years ago. Either you adjust to the justice of God or the justice of God will adjust to you. That’s up to you. I mean, either you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and receive him as your savior, which is what God provided for you, or you will force God at the great white throne of judgment to cast you into the lake of fire, which is not his plan. He’s not willing that any should perish, the Bible says, but that all should come to repentance to change their minds. So he’s absolutely righteous, he’s absolutely just, and he’s equity, it means fair. And this means that we are to avoid judging and avoid slandering, avoid maligning, avoid criticizing, give other believers their privacy. That’s key to it. So Proverbs 1.3, this wisdom gives you instruction in wise behavior, which is righteousness, justice, and equity. And an invaluable tool for you and for me is to understand this. This understanding the Bible offers that comes out of wisdom includes discernment Once we get wisdom, then we have the understanding, and then the discernment or the special ability to see what lies ahead, what’s dangerous. Now let’s go back. How do you get wisdom? How do you get wisdom? By learning, by learning. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Scripture, scripture, learn, learn, study, grow. You don’t get wisdom singing praise and worship songs. You get wisdom by listening to the instruction of the word of God. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word, the Bible says. Now, you think you’re going to get it when you take your Bible and you go sit out under a tree and you read it. And that’s fine. The Holy Spirit can speak to you. But he gave the gift of pastor teacher. This book you call the Bible, I call the Bible, the Holy Scriptures of God is a textbook. And it’s designed to be taught to us. It was written in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, designed for you to understand what’s here. No mistakes, no compromises. That’s why it’s critical that you don’t try to do it on your own, but you get under the ministry of a great pastor who understands the languages and can teach it to you. So then you can apply it into your life. So understanding includes discernment, or the ability to see what lies ahead. Listen to Proverbs 1.5, a wise man will hear, a wise man will increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel. So if you have some wisdom, you have some understanding. If you have some understanding, you have some discernment. If you have some discernment, you go to people that are smarter than you, people that have been around longer than you, and say, what do you think I should do? Give me your opinion about this subject. That doesn’t mean that God calls out people to counsel you. You’ve got to live your own spiritual life. But there’s nothing wrong with seeing a more mature person, a person that is grown further along, especially a wife. If you’re a wife and you’re getting married, newly married wife, the Bible says it’s okay for the older women to teach your younger women what they’re supposed to do and how they’re supposed to do it. You seek counsel, you seek wisdom. That’s what I have to do in my life, in my ministry as I began and still even to this day. I mean, I call friends and pastors and ask them, what about this? What about that? How does that apply to my life? What does that mean? That’s what we do. We seek understanding. Okay, wise counsel. So a person with reverence for God’s word and a person who possesses understanding of God’s word is a very blessed individual. And he has a life of pleasantness and a life of peace, not a life of conflict. Proverbs 3, 17, the ways of wisdom are pleasant ways and the path of wisdom is peace. There it is. Now, God’s offering you a life of pleasant circumstances and a life of peace, not conflict, if you seek wisdom, his word, understanding, discernment, insight. Guidance through the maze of this life is the very promise of God’s wisdom. He will guide you through the maze of this life in the devil’s world. In Proverbs 3, 6, in all of your ways, acknowledge him. and he will make your path straight. You’re talking about your own personal tour guide through life. By means of God the Holy Spirit using the word of God, there is your tour guide in life. That’s why wisdom is important. That’s why understanding and insight are so important because we live in a battlefield. We are on a battlefield. Spiritual warfare daily, whether you realize it or not, it’s going on every day and it’s towards you. It’s an attack towards you to discourage you, to defeat you, to discredit you. Because if the enemy can do that, then he can malign the name of God. Look at that person. That person said they’re a Christian. Look at the way they’re acting. Look at those losers. That’s what Satan does. He goes before the throne and maligns you before God. And then our Lord Jesus Christ steps up and says, wait a minute, Father, he’s mine. I’ll deal with him. Listen to this battle, Ephesians 6, 11 through 17. Maybe this will help you understand why things are so rough sometimes. Put on the full armor of God so you’ll be able to stand firm against the strategy of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against spiritual forces of wickedness, even in heavenly places. Because of this, take up the full armor of God so that you’ll be able to resist in the evil day. And having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm because of this, having girded up your loins with truth. There’s wisdom. Put on the breastplate of righteousness. There’s the plus R, God’s righteousness. Having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. That’s sharing the good news of Christ. And in addition to all of this, taking up the shield of faith, that’s the faith thrust drill problem solving device. Number three, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Those are the attacks that Satan will force on you. And for 17, six, 17, Ephesians take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. The helmet of salvation is your security in Christ. One of the things the devil’s good at doing is telling people they’re not really saved, you’re not really saved, you’re gonna lose your salvation. Listen, the security is in Christ Jesus. He said, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you. He said, I give unto them eternal life and they will never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my Father’s hand. And the word of God, the Bible says, pick up the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. The Bible is your weapon and you can’t use it if you don’t have wisdom and you won’t have wisdom. If you don’t have hunger, if you don’t have knowledge, And you won’t have knowledge until you’re pleasant to receive it, until you’re ready to learn on a daily basis, until you’re ready to grow spiritually, until you see that as priority number one in your life, you’re never going to be able to fulfill God’s total plan for you. Yes, you’re a believer. Yes, you’re going to heaven. Yes, you’ll have some sort of impact, but not what you could have had if you did what you should have done. Make the Word of God priority number one. Stay filled with the Holy Spirit. Get under the ministry of a qualified pastor. Take in God’s Word every day. Represent Jesus Christ in your community and represent Jesus Christ through your life. That’s what it’s all about. So we are in a war, a spiritual war. The Bible goes on to say in Romans 8, 35 through 37, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall disaster or anguish or persecutions or economic depression or privation or danger from warfare? All these things, and in all of these things, we win the supreme victory over through Christ who loves us. There’s your guaranteed protector. There’s your guaranteed way out. Remember your own personal tour guide? There it is. The wisdom of God is called spiritual solutions, and the attainment of this wisdom is called spiritual growth. So if you take the spiritual solutions of the word of God and learn them, spiritual growth, This gives you spiritual skills to live the spiritual life. You hear that? I know there’s a lot of spirituals there. Let me say it again. The wisdom of God is called spiritual solutions. And the attainment of these solutions or wisdom is called spiritual growth. When you have spiritual growth, you develop spiritual skills that give you the ability to live the spiritual life. And what are those skills? Well, self-esteem, spiritual self-esteem one, spiritual autonomy two, and eventually spiritual maturity. Spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and eventually spiritual maturity. These include you identifying your spiritual gift and you utilizing the resources that God gave you, the spiritual resources. What are your resources? Well, listen to 2 Corinthians 10. The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, I’m talking about your spiritual resources now, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, the truth, the wisdom of God, and we’re taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. The mind is where the battlefield is. The war is for your thoughts. The war is for your thinking. That’s why the Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. So in this passage that we just looked at, wisdom is a teacher. In this passage, wisdom is an anthropomorphic metaphor. In other words, it’s describing wisdom as a human teacher, human abilities, or a father. So what is wise behavior? Righteousness, justice, and equity. Well, let’s get some principles down. I want to get all these principles as quick as I can because this is the main core of this message and I’m already running out of time. Wisdom’s a teacher. That’s the first principle. Secondly, what is wise behavior? It’s righteousness, justice, and equity. Thirdly, God’s wisdom will give years to your life if you learn it and use it Proverbs 3, 2, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. There it is. And fifthly, God’s wisdom will allow you to live at peace with him and with others. Peace with God is an amazing thing. And sixth, divine mandate for wisdom is trust. It’s found in Proverbs 3, 5 through 6. Here it is. It’s the mandate. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, look to him, acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight. There you go. So what’s the value of God’s wisdom? How blessed is a man who finds wisdom. Proverbs 3.13. Wow. For her profit is better than the profit of silver and her gain better than fine gold. Wisdom is more precious than all the jewels in the world and nothing you desire compares with her. Why? Because you have insight and discernment and understanding. Wisdom is not inherited. It must be sought after and it must be learned. I hope you’ve been challenged. I hope you’re listening and understand the importance of the Word of God in your life, the importance of learning these problem-solving devices. They are the wisdom of God. Until next week, I’m your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you today for listening to The Flatline.
SPEAKER 01 :
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.
