In this episode of ‘The Flatline,’ Rick Hughes examines the importance of putting on the spiritual armor of God to stand firm against the challenges of the cosmic system. With a focus on God’s righteousness and the blessings that come from faith, Rick highlights the role of divine protection and the responsibilities that accompany spiritual maturity. Listen in to understand how to follow the correct spiritual procedure to ensure growth in grace and live a life worthy of honor in the spiritual battle. Don’t miss the insights into maintaining focus amid distractions and keeping the eyes on spiritual goals.
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, F-L-O-T, Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stick around. It’ll be a few minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education. all without any manipulation, no con games, no asking for money, no solicitation for membership or support, just giving you some information, hopefully that will help you verify as well as identify God’s plan for your life. And if you’d like to orient and adjust to the plan, you have the freedom, you have the privacy to do that in your own life. That’s the show, FLOT, F-L-O-T. That stands for Forward Line of Troops. I get some mail every now and then, people write to the Flatline, F-L-A-T. It’s Flatline, F-L-O-T, and that’s a military acronym for the Forward Line of Troops. And what we’re teaching on the show is how the Word of God can act like a forward line of troops or a main line of resistance in your soul so that you can keep the outside sources of adversity out and before they ever become the inside source of stress. I’m not telling you you can’t have adversity. You’re going to have adversity, but I’m telling you that stress is optional because adversity is obviously what circumstances do to you, but stress is what you do to yourself. So the Christian life is a stress-free life. It’s a way to live without worry, without fear, without bitterness, without jealousy, without implacability, and all these other things. It’s a wonderful way to live. Thank you for listening. We now broadcast in 82 cities across America. We are now 82 cities across America. What a great honor and a great privilege it’s been for me to do this the last 15 years, and Hopefully we’ll grow to 100 cities soon as the Lord provides. And you’ll notice we do it without ever asking for money because if God’s in it, he’ll pay for it. We believe that with all of our heart. So we just keep our mouth shut and do our job. The last time I was with you, we talked about the divine, and I pronounced the word for you, desideratum, desideratum. The divine desideratum, and that’s a Latin term. It means what’s essential or what’s necessary. And I want to review just a little bit before I go forward with you. Hosea 14.9, we took that passage, and it says, whoever’s wise… let him understand these things. And whoever’s discerning, let him know these things. And that is the difference between knowing and understanding, I promise you. For the ways of the Lord are right and the righteous will walk in them, but the wrongdoer will stumble in them. So there are three things that the wise and the discerning will learn here in this passage. He will learn the ways of the Lord are right and he will learn the righteous, whatever that refers to, and I’ll talk about that, the righteous will walk in them, and he will learn that the rebellious, or those who have negative volition, will stumble over them. So when it says whoever’s wise, this is the believer’s wisdom that avoids judgment and precedes a national restoration. What we must have in this country are Christians who know God and understand the God they know because that’s the critical issue. Do you understand the God you know? Proverbs 13.10 says, He that walks with wise men shall be wise, but the companion of the fool shall be destroyed. So in your wisdom as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you must be very careful about who you identify with, who you associate with, And then there’s the arrogant one who thinks he’s smarter than God. Listen to Proverbs 3, 7. Don’t be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from your evil. And then in Proverbs 3, 35, the wise will inherit glory, but shame will be the promotion of a fool. So when the Bible says, whoever’s wise, let him understand these things, what exactly is he telling us to understand? and what does it mean to be discerning we went over all of this in the last radio show i’m reviewing for you a little bit kind of like a bomber flying over the bombing run and turn around and fly over it again what does it mean to be discerning we are discerned these things we’re to understand these things whoever is discerning let him know them hosea 14 9 says And what exactly are we commanded to learn? Let him learn them. Let him know them. And then what does it mean when it says let him walk in these ways? And what does it mean when it says wrongdoers will stumble? So we went over all of this. The divine desideratum refers to God’s policy, God’s procedure, God’s protocol plan. And if we understand that we live in a time continuum, not the eternal continuum, not yet. We live in the time continuum. There’s a difference between the two. Second Corinthians 4.18 says, while we look not at things which are seen, but at things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal. So as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you and I operate in what we call the time continuum. Those things that we see and understand. It’s critical that while we’re in this continuum, that we understand the God we worship, or else we wind up doing all the right things in the wrong way. And that’s why Hosea 14.9 says, whoever’s wise, let him understand. Those key words, wise and understand, are both Hebrew words, and they mean something important. Why, it says the Hebrew word kakam, and it’s a descriptive adjective meaning whoever’s prudent or intelligent or capable of determining, let him understand. The Hebrew word bean means to comprehend or discern or to have discernment. So if I gave you a modified, expanded translation of that passage, it would simply say whoever’s intelligent, let him comprehend the ways of the Lord. And the phrase is repeated again, whoever’s discerning, let him know them. This is the individual solution to the corporate problem of this nation. Individuals who must understand the ways of the Lord. See, Hosea wrote that he identified Assyria as the nation that was going to bring judgment on the rebellious Jews of the northern kingdom of Israel. who had become involved with worshiping Canaanite deities. And you know, much like America today, heck in America, everything that used to be evil is now good and everything that used to be good is now evil. Israel did the same thing. They turned their back on their God and they had turned to Baal worship, sacrificing to pagan gods as well and associating with sacred prostitutes at the sanctuaries and worshiping the calf image at Samaria. But in spite of these things, The whole book of Hosea is a testimony of the fact that God still loved him and still had compassion on him, and the same with you and me. In spite of our direction towards the evil of humanism, The evil of socialism and the sacrifice of freedom for security, God still loves this nation. In spite of our immorality, in spite of our criminality, God still loves this nation and he loves you and me. We’re in this nation. So if it’s you, listen closely to what God expects from you. Hosea 14, nine again, the ways of the Lord are right and the righteous will walk in them. Benson’s commentary says the ways of the Lord are both the ways which he himself makes or takes in his moral government of the world and in the ways of the godliness in which he prescribes for man to walk. If you take these things and put them together, the ways of the Lord, they are straight and right. and the truly righteous person will obey God. He will conform to the will of God, both in his precepts and his providences, Benson says, and shall have the comfort of doing so. Precepts means a general rule intended to regulate behavior and thought, and providences means the protective care of God. So God has something he wants you to think. He has something that he wants you to understand. And if you do that and obey that, he will protect you and take care of you. And basically it means stay out of the cosmic system. Stay out of human viewpoint thinking. As the Bible clearly says, you’ve got to let the mind of Christ be in you. That’s the divine viewpoint thinking. Let the mind of Christ be in you, not the cosmic system. See, the devil has a lot of thoughts floating around out there, offering a lot of information in the cosmic system. But it’s not the divine policy. It’s not what God expects you to follow. God expects you to follow precisely correct procedure. And so the divine policy starts in your soul, and it’s where all rational thought is. And that’s where the battlefield is, isn’t it? Rational thought and irrational emotions. We really live by what we think. I mean, our body is a temporary home of our mortal soul. The body’s not saved. The soul is saved. The body’s corrupted. It’s contaminated. We have a sin nature. It has to be destroyed because it won’t work in heaven. And we will be issued a new body for the soul throughout all eternity. But the Bible says in Mark 8, 36, what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and still loses his soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? That’s a reference to the lake of fire. I mean, no one wants to be in the lake of fire. And Paul expressed God’s divine policy like this. This is what he said. This is how God expects us to live. In Philippians 127, conduct yourselves or your lifestyle in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or whether I remain absent, I will hear about you that you’re standing firm. You’re not retreating. that you’re in one spirit, that means empowered with the same goal, with one mind, that’s the mind of Christ, striving together, that’s unit integrity, for the faith of the gospel, and in no way alarmed by your opponent, not full of fear. So Billy Graham said it this way, the Bible teaches that the Christian life is one of constant growth. When we’re born again, we’re born into the family, and it’s God’s purpose that we grow up, we become fully mature individuals. And it would be against the laws of God and against nature if we remained baby Christians all of our life. That’s why 2 Peter 3.18 says we are to grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And this requires some effort. Not just ritual without reality. I mean, I know you go to church. That’s wonderful. But is there reality to what you do? A lot of people just go through the motion. They go Sunday morning. They pray. Do the communion, they do the Eucharist, they put some money in the offering plate to sing a few songs, listen to a little sermon, and head off to the restaurant and think about other stuff. Ritual without reality is meaningless. That church is the classroom for spiritual growth. And I mean, how can you worship God if you don’t understand the gods you worship? I keep harping on this. For example, I told you last week, and I’ll remind you of this again, if I told you God was outside your front door, would you want to go outside and meet him? And many of you said, absolutely, sure, I want to go outside and meet God. However, the Bible says in Exodus 33, 20, and God said to Moses, you cannot see my face for there should be no man see me and live. So if you walked out the door to see God, you’d die. So, well, I’m not in a hurry to see God now, right? The true glory and the true brilliance of God would be too much for the human body to survive. God’s policy for me and you in the time continuum is for us to grow spiritually. By means of the filling of the Holy Spirit and for us to learn the mind of Christ and thus represent him to those that we encounter. And that’s how we become divinely appointed influencers in the angelic conflict. That mission is not easy because there’s satanic opposition, and you found that out already, because we have this divine mandate to arm ourselves with a uniform of grace assets. God gave us a uniform. God gave us assets. It’s all found in 2 Corinthians 10, 4. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. That uniform is described in detail in Ephesians chapter six, verse 11 through 17, where we have a mandate from God, the imperative mood of put on, this is an order, Put on the full armor of God so you’ll be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, powers, against the world forces of darkness, against spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God so you’ll be able to resist on the evil day. That’s the day you’re attacked. And having done everything, you will continue to stand. So stand firm, having belted your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace. And in addition to all of this, pick up the shield of faith with which you shall be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Now I could spend a long time on this. I’m not, I’m just read through it. But we are mandated to put on this armor, this metaphorical armor that God has given to us is in the spiritual life. And Paul in jail could see these Roman soldiers and see how they’re dressed and he used that as an analogy like we’re using the flotline as an analogy. We are to arm ourselves and be prepared for battle because we are in a battle, not political battle, but spiritual battle called the angelic conflict. So, we cannot have our own righteousness, that’s the first thing. In Philippians 1.9, not having my own righteousness, but the righteousness of God. We need instruction in righteousness, the Bible says. We must have instructions in righteousness. Listen to 1 Peter 2.24, he himself, that’s the Lord Jesus Christ, bore our sins in his body on the cross, so we might die to sin and live to righteousness. There’s the word again, righteousness. For by his wounds, we are healed. There is a way God wants you to live. There’s a lifestyle God wants you to adhere to. And that is a lifestyle of righteousness, 2 Timothy 3.16. All scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, and for instruction in righteousness. So obviously, I mean, it would help if we knew what righteousness is and how we obtain it. Every one of us, each one of us believers, we are given God’s very own righteousness the minute we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior. The minute we get that righteousness at the point of salvation, that gives us capacity for blessing while we’re still on this earth, and so we can grow spiritually. That relative righteousness, that imputed righteousness that he gives to us gives us the capacity for the lesser blessings in life that we’ll experience, such as our daily needs, logistical grace every day. The lesser blessings of logistical grace, the things that we need every day, food, water, clothing, shelter, Matthew 6, are motivation for us to keep on growing in the spiritual life. That’s what God has planned for us. You see, at salvation, the day you got saved, remember back then, do you remember when that was? I remember mine was August the 17th, 1967. Do you remember the day you believed in Christ as your Savior? At salvation, God the Holy Spirit entered us in the union with Christ, and we now share his righteousness. This is our wall of fire, our protection. That’s what it is. His righteousness is given to us. He who knew no sin was made sin for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God through him. It was a trade-out deal. On the cross, Jesus Christ, the anointed son of God, took our sin, and when we come to the cross and believe in him, he gives us his righteousness. That’s our wall of fire. That’s our protection. The lesser blessings and the divine protection carry us during the time between we get saved and when we go to heaven. And we have to learn the Word of God. We have to learn how to execute the Word of God. We have to learn how to live in righteousness. If we go back to the passage that we started with, all the way back again to Hosea 1, 14, verse 9, whoever is wise, let him understand these things. Whoever is discerning, let him know them. I realize I’m a bit technical. I know I’m talking in terms that are kind of technical. But it’s essential that you understand it and you come to learn this. All of us are given God’s righteousness at salvation as a capacity for us to be blessed while we’re still here on this earth. And we are to grow spiritually while we’re here so that we can have blessings in life. It’s called logistical grace blessings. And the lesser blessings of logistical grace, food, shelter, and clothing, motivate us to keep going in the spiritual life till we reach spiritual maturity. So, if we’re going to be blessed with greater blessings in our post-salvation experience, We must have this righteousness which comes from the spiritual life. This sort of righteousness that I’m talking about is not the imputed righteousness of Christ, it’s our spiritual capacity righteousness. It’s the righteousness you manufacture under the filling of the Holy Spirit and obedience to the word of God. Spiritual capacity righteousness is what gets you rewarded in heaven. Spiritual capacity righteousness is what makes the Lord Jesus Christ say, well done, my good and faithful servant. It’s attained at the filling of the Holy Spirit plus the word of God you’ve learned, metabolized, and applied into your life, like those problem-solving devices of the flatline of your soul. Have you learned them yet? Do you know what they are? The 10 unique problem-solving devices, rebound, the filling of the Holy Spirit, the faith rest drill, grace orientation, biblical orientation, personal sense of destiny, personal love for God, impersonal love for all mankind, sharing the happiness of God, and occupation with Christ. do you know what those mean have you learned that we do have a book on that it’s called christian problem solving we’d be glad to send you free of charge if you’ll write to us let us know just go to the website rickhughesministries.org rickhughesministries.org and we’ll probably go back through these one at a time but it takes a while to understand each one of these But rebound is critical, and that’s how you deal with sin, how you get rid of sin and you stay filled with the Holy Spirit. The filling of the Holy Spirit is critical because the Bible mandates you do it or else you’re going to be under control of the flesh and carnal. And the Bible mandates that we operate by faith using the faith rest drill. So these things are critical. We have to learn them in our spiritual life. You see, when we got saved, God, the Holy Spirit entered us in the union with Christ. We share his righteousness. Yes. And that’s our wall of fire. That’s our protection. And then the lesser blessings. and the divine protection carry us during the time between we get saved and when we go to heaven, when we start learning doctrine, growing in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, putting on the armor of God, staying against the strategy of the devil. I mean, we’re in a war. You’ve entered into a war. And the war is for your thoughts. The war is to control what you think because the inside of you is your soul. And the Bible says, as a man thinketh in his soul, so he is. And so keep this in mind. It’s to make you fearful. It’s to contaminate you with fear. It’s to manipulate you with fear. This is what Satan’s all about. To get you distracted with politics. How’s that? Keep your eyes on the prize. Keep your eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t get distracted. If we’re gonna be blessed with the greater blessings in our post-salvation experience, we’ve got to have this righteousness which comes from our spiritual life. And this righteousness can be called spiritual capacity righteousness. Again, it comes through the filling of the Holy Spirit plus the word of God that you’ve learned and applied and glorified God. When you receive the greater blessings of spiritual maturity, It demands that we have the capacity to appreciate and enjoy these blessings. So coming to our senses righteously is a function of the three spiritual skills in our life. Relative righteousness, all of our righteousness is like a filthy rag, the Bible says. A lot of people have relative righteousness. They think God is impressed because they don’t smoke. They think God is impressed because they don’t drink. They think God is impressed because they don’t use bad words. They think God is impressed because they don’t fool around and cheat. All of our righteousnesses are like a filthy rag in his sight. The Hebrew word for filthy rag is not one that I would say over the radio, but it’s not nice. And I can make a comparison to several things, but think about going to a mechanic shop and finding an old greasy rag on the floor that he wipes his hand on and change his oils with, and then rag his oily and dirty with sawdust and grease. That’s the best you can manufacture. That’s the best you can do. And it’s a filthy rag in God’s sight. That’s how much further his righteousness is above our righteousness. And then we get imputed divine righteousness. Romans 3.22, but now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed being witnessed by the law and the prophets, but it’s the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all of those who believe. There’s no distinction of persons. So the minute you believe in Christ, you’re given his righteousness. And that’s not a filthy rag. He’s the lamb of God without spot, without blemish that took away the son of the world. So what does it mean? Follow precisely correct procedure. It means that first of all, the right thing has got to be done in the right way. And simply put, there’s a right way to worship and there’s a wrong way to worship. Sincerity is not virtue. I mean, you can be sincere and still be sincerely wrong. You understand that, don’t you? Yes. Sincerity is not virtue. Salvation, getting saved, is the first act that must be done in a precisely correct procedure, and it’s faith alone in Christ alone. being saved is not you being good it’s not you being moral it’s not you being a good citizen treating your fellow man fairly it is you believing in the lord jesus christ therefore your salvation cannot be earned it’s not deserved it’s a free grace gift from compliments of god god’s love provided through the sacrifice of his own son titus 3 5 he saved us not because of righteous things we had done but because of his mercy he saved us through the washing of rebirth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit secondly the spiritual life requires precisely correct procedure that means that we are mandated to be filled with the Holy Spirit and and we are mandated to grow in grace, 2 Peter 3.18 and Ephesians 5.18. These are not requests. These are orders. These are commands. Be filled with the Spirit. The only way you can be filled with the Spirit is to rebound your sin. When you know you’ve sinned, go to God and admit it and confess it, and he’s faithful and just to forgive you. And you will be filled with the Holy Spirit when you do that. You sin again, you’ll quench the Spirit. You’ll grieve the Spirit. Go back and confess the next sin. And you’re saying, well, I’m going to be confessing sin all day long, probably, till you get right, probably till you learn what’s going on. So you have to follow precisely correct procedure and then grow spiritually under a well-qualified pastor, I hope. Grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, 2 Peter 3.18. You can’t grow if you’re not hearing, and you can’t hear if you’re not attending. I mean, you’ve got to find a source. Where can I grow? Who can I listen to? It’s available everywhere if you want it. If you don’t know, contact me. I’ll tell you how to get it, how to get information right there in your home that you can listen to at your coffee table, with your Bible and notebook and grow spiritually if there’s not a local church in your area. So thank you for listening. Thank you for hanging in here with me today as I went through this detailed material. Please come back next Sunday, same time, same place. We’ll talk about how to tap into the power of God. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
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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.
