SPEAKER 01 : 0:08

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 : 0:23

Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes. And for the next few minutes, please stick around. Just a short time of motivation, a little bit of inspiration, a whole lot of education, and absolutely no manipulation. No games, no gimmicks, no asking for money, no appeals for anything. Just want you to listen up as I try to give you accurate information. That’ll help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. That’s my prayer. And if I can do that, then hopefully you’ll be able to orient and adjust to that plan. That’s what we’d like for you to do. The plan of God is for you. So help you think how you learn how to think. Remember, God gave you two ends. One of them you sit on. and one of them you think with, and success in your life is gonna depend on which one you use. Heads, you’ll always win, and tails, you’ll always lose. So God wants you to think, and the Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. The Bible says the real you is what you think. Quoting now from Proverbs, as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is. People can’t see what you’re thinking, those are your hidden thoughts, but unfortunately, the Lord can see, Because he’s omnipresent and he’s omnipotent, he’s omniscient, and he knows what you’re thinking. So you don’t hide your thoughts from the Lord. And so the real you is what you think. And it is my privilege to give you this information on the radio show, hopefully, so you’ll build a flat line in your soul, a main line of resistance in your soul, 10 unique problem-solving devices that you will learn and apply that help you glorify God to the maximum in your life. That’s the flat line. Rebound, number one, solving the problem of sin. What do we do when we sin? We rebound, 1 John 1, 9. And then the filling of the Holy Spirit is problem-solving device number two. What do we do about our genetically formed sin nature? Well, we learn to let the Holy Spirit control us so the sin nature doesn’t control us. And then problem-solving number three, the faith rest drill, standing on the promises of God. That’s how we have complete rest in God’s plan and purpose for our life. Problem-solving device number four, grace orientation. Learning to live by grace is a wonderful way to live. You are saved by grace. You live by grace. You’ll die by grace. And you’ll have surpassing grace in heaven. It’s all God’s wonderful grace plan for you. When you orient to grace, it takes the monkey off your back and lets the Lord handle all the details. And then there’s doctrinal orientation or biblical orientation where you begin to have the mind of Christ, acquire the mind of Christ. And that’s human viewpoint versus divine viewpoint. That’s why the Bible says in Romans 12, 3, stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think. But think in terms of humility as God assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from his word. Learning to think divine viewpoints. Scripture, that’s doctrinal orientation. Basing every decision you make on what the word of God says. And the personal sense of destiny as another problem-solving device. This is where you come to understand what you fit into, where you fit into God’s plan, what spiritual gift God gave you, how you can use it, and where your life is headed. That’s for sure. Then there’s personal love for God, the greatest virtue you could ever possess. Personal love for God, the greatest virtue you could ever possess because that’s what motivates you to obey God is personal love. And that’s why 1 John 5, 3 said, if you love me, you will obey me and my mandates are not hard. And then there’s impersonal love for all of mankind that you loving others based on your Your character, not their character. Based on your integrity, not their integrity. Because you’re mandated in the Bible to love everyone. Even love your enemies. And you don’t want to love them. You want to hate them. You want to get bitter and vindictive about it. And you’re not allowed to do that. Impersonal love is the way God loved you. God so loved the world. Weren’t you a jerk? Weren’t you a sinner? Or you got saved? And God loved you with his character, his righteousness. Once you came into the family, once you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, entered the royal family of God, now God has personal love for you because you’re one of his children. But before that, it was impersonal, based on his character, not yours. And then they’re sharing the happiness of God, the things that the Lord Jesus Christ told the disciples in John 15, 11, these things I have taught you so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be full. Sharing the happiness of God is a wonderful asset. It means that there’s never a time in your life when you have to be sad or depressed or angry or upset. You can always have the happiness of God in your life. And then there’s occupation with Christ. This is, I can do all things through Christ who gives me the strength, Paul said in Philippians. And when you begin to orient and adjust to the occupation with Christ and making him Lord of your life, then you begin to represent Christ to your friends. As they look at your life, they see Christ in you. These are the 10 problem-solving devices. I just skipped over them like a rock skipping across a lake. I didn’t get into depth there, but that’s what we want you to learn. That’s what this radio show is about, and we have a book about that called Christian Problem Solving. If you want to learn more about those 10 problem-solving devices, just write to me. The book is absolutely free. We’re not going to send you anything but what you request. and we’ll never contact you again, but we will send you that book, Christian Problem Solving. If you go to the website, rickhughesministries.org, and just request it there. Any other material we have, it’s all free, and we’ll get it right out to you right away. I want to continue a series of messages that I started a couple of weeks ago dealing with ordinary people, how God takes an ordinary person and turns them into an extraordinary individual that can do extraordinary things. The point is that God prepares his people in obscurity. No publicity, no public relation image, no fame, no success by human standards. He prepares extraordinary individuals in obscurity. An ordinary person living in an unremarkable life is transformed and changed by an encounter with Jesus Christ. And that lets you go from being ordinary to an opportunity to be extraordinary, an extraordinary individual, one that is exceptional, one that is remarkable. And we went through the ordinary men, I mean, the ordinary individual, and we went through women, how the extraordinary women in the Bible. And we want to go now into a study on extraordinary men in the Bible. Hopefully this will relate to some of you guys that might be listening today. This verse may shock you when I read it to you, but listen to Job 5, 7. For man is born into trouble as sparks fly upward. That’s thermodynamics right there. Man is born into trouble as sparks fly upward. And so we all have trouble. We have a sin nature. We have three enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. And these are enemies we must overcome or else we’re going to be in trouble. And the Bible goes on to say, and to man, God said, behold, the fear of the Lord, that’s wisdom. And to depart from evil is your understanding, Job 28, 28. So you have the opportunity to be an extraordinary individual. If you’re not already, or you have the opportunity to be a rather ordinary, mundane, go through life, not have much of an impact, just shuffle from job to job, place to place, wondering why you’re even here. The only way that you can keep from self-destructing is for you to acquire some divine viewpoint under grace orientation. Because the Lord can take nobodies like me and like you and make us into somebodies by his grace. The Lord can take nobodies and make them into somebodies by his grace. And there is no telling, as I’m speaking today in 80-something radio stations across America, there is no telling who’s listening. I don’t have a clue. But I know there are some nobodies out there that God is willing to make somebodies out of. There’s a plan for your life, and that plan is built around his word. You know, the Bible is full of men that God used, ordinary men who quite unamazingly did things full of his grace for visions, amazing things. And there’s no doubt that God, because of his omniscience, his all-knowledge, has decreed certain individuals for specific tasks. However, every man has an opportunity to achieve that task or self-destruct by means of bad decisions. 1 Corinthians 1.27, God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. What that simply means is the people that God uses are often people of obscurity. people that are not sensational heroes, and they come up and God shapes them and molds them and uses them to change the course of history, the foolish things of the world, to shame the wise. There’s not one of you guys listening to me right now, wherever you may be, from California to New York, there’s not one of you listening that does not have the potential to become extraordinary by means of God’s grace provisions. God raised up one ordinary man for an extraordinary task, and that task was to rescue the remnant of humanity. One man to rescue the remnant of humanity. His name was Noah. In Genesis 6.8, Noah found favor in the eyes of God. Why? Because he was obedient, the Bible says. Genesis 6.22, thus Noah did according to all that God had commanded him, so he did it. He was obedient. I’m sure, and you probably are too, that Noah was not expecting God to come calling. And I’m also sure Noah was aware of what was going on around him at the time. Because here’s what the Bible says. The wickedness of man was so great on the earth that every intent of his thought of his heart was only on evil continually. Genesis 6, 5. The world had slipped into a sorry state at that time, much like the way the United States is slipping today. Everything that we used to consider to be good is now considered evil, and everything that used to be evil is now looked upon as good. And so in Noah’s day, the world had slipped into the intense. The thoughts of the heart was only on evil continually. Imagine the harassment Noah must have endured during this time, whatever time it took to build that ark, God’s rescue vehicle. When I’m out on the lake fishing, if you break down, you can call the tow, T-O-W, and a U.S. boat has a towboat that’ll come rescue you if you break down. Well, that ark was God’s rescue vehicle for humanity. I’m sure that Facebook would have banned any pictures of that boat. Facebook would have banned any warning by Noah that you need to get on the ark. Twitter would have canceled his account for spreading lies about a flood coming. I wouldn’t have believed it. But that rescue vehicle for you today is simply this. There’s no ark floating around waiting on you to get on board. The rescue vehicle for humanity today is the cross of Christ. He was lifted up for us. He paid our sin. He took our place. And our job is to proclaim it and warn of what’s coming for those who reject it. This will always vindicate the justice of God. Everyone had an opportunity for 100 years or more to get on that boat. Everyone had an opportunity to listen to what Noah was saying. And they kept neglecting it. They kept not listening. They kept making fun of him, I can imagine. Can you imagine what it would be like building a boat in the middle of nowhere? It never rained, never flooded, never did anything. And here is this old weird man saying there’s a flood coming. You need to get on the boat. God’s justice was vindicated. No one died innocently. Every one of them had a chance. That was Noah’s job, to vindicate God’s justice and to rescue humanity. Another man in the Bible, ordinary man that God used to change the course of history, is named Joseph, a man of misfortune, but a man of fame, a man that had tremendous cognitive ability. He is a tremendous hero in the Bible. Because everything that he touched would turn to gold. He had business acumen. He was an amazing man. And this is what God does sometimes. In the conversion box, people mean things for bad. It turns into good. The Bible does say all things work together for good to them who love God and are called according to his purpose. Remember, Joseph was thrown into a well. Joseph was sold into slavery. Joseph was put into jail. Joseph went through all sorts of things. Seemingly unfair, but it was all to shape and mold Joseph and all in the conversion box came out to good on the other side. This is what Joseph said to his brothers who came to see him later on and begged for mercy. In Genesis 50, 18, you meant it for evil against me, but God turned it into good. God turned it into good. And that’s exactly what God can do with your life. Those bad things can be turned into good things. Another man who was a man of courage and an ordinary man was a grape smasher named Gideon. Just an ordinary man doing an extraordinary thing, Judges 6-8. You can read it for yourself. You got a Bible. Judges 6-8. Gideon ironically delivered Israel from the famous Midianite army in a nighttime maneuver that was directed by God. Read about that in Judges 7-19, how he did it. Here’s some facts about this ordinary man. An angel of the Lord, who happened to be Jesus Christ, paid him a personal visit in Judges 6.11. He, in fact, was the youngest in his father’s house, Judges 6.15, and he received a direct commission from the Lord Jesus Christ, Judges 6.14. He was endued by the Holy Spirit in Judges 6.34. He operated by faith in Genesis 7.7. And God used him to usher in 40 years of peace, Judges 8.28. That’s exactly what God did. And God can use you as well if you will operate by faith because you are controlled by the Holy Spirit if you use rebound. When you sin, if you name your sin, you’re filled with the Holy Spirit. And this was an amazing man, an ordinary man. And God rescued the whole nation of Israel by means of this man. Amazing. Then there’s Samson, a man of strength and a man of submission in Judges 13 through 16. God raised up Samson to deliver Israel from the nasty Philistines. Listen to how this happened in Judges 13, 3. The angel of the Lord appeared to the childless wife of Zorah, Danite, and told her, Behold, now you’re barren, and you have had no children, but you will conceive, and you will give birth to a son, and he will be a Nazarite to God from the womb, and he will begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines. You can see here again how an omniscience of God decreed in eternity past a specific man for a specific task, you may be that man. I’m sure you are. I’m sure God wants to take your ordinary life and make you an extraordinary individual. I’m sure of that because I know he has a plan for you and I know what that plan entails. And I know that if you will listen to me and learn God’s word, The sky’s the limit for you. I’m not talking about riches and fame. I’m talking about being able to glorify God to the maximum because there’s no doubt that God can take an ordinary man and do extraordinary things through that individual. Samson was rather reckless and disobedient in regards to his Nazarite vows because we read in those passages he couldn’t handle women, that’s for sure. He got betrayed by his first wife and also by his girlfriend, Delilah. And the famous words of Samson after the Philistine wife betrayed him was this. Here’s what he said. Here’s his words of wisdom. If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle. I found that amazing. Samson was used by God in spite of his many failures. Here’s what we can learn from that. God doesn’t expect you or me to be perfect. None of us are perfect. But he does expect us to be persistent in the spiritual life. I know I’m not perfect. I know my failures. I know my weaknesses. And I know you’re not perfect either. And the same failures and the same weaknesses that I have, you may have as well because you have a sin nature just like me. But God expects persistence. You know, when I was playing football, I didn’t make every block and I didn’t get off every tackle. Sometimes I got blocked, but I got up. I got up and got back in the game. Since when do you consider it okay to get out of the game and lay on the ground and wall around and feel self-pity for yourself? Because something bad happened, you’re going to just lay there and have a little pity party? Get up and get back in the game. Be persistent in your spiritual life. Samson judged Israel for 20 years in the days of the Philistines, Judges 15-20. That means that there was peace in the land because the Philistines were afraid of him. This is a perfect illustration of freedom through military victory. Another ordinary person that God turned into an extraordinary individual was a shepherd boy named David. You remember David and Goliath and the slingshot. And there’s a lot more to that story than that. But what kind of man are you? Are you a man of faith or are you a man of failure? You got to answer that question. Here’s a verse in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 16, 13. Be on the alert. Stand firm in the faith and act like men. Be strong. If we go into the original languages of the New Testament, which is the Koine Greek, we find be on the alert. Alert is a verb, and it’s what we call a present active imperative verb in the morphology. It’s the word Gregoreo, Gregoreo, and it means to pay strict attention to or to be cautious or to take heed, lest through remission and indolence or laziness, destructive calamity suddenly comes upon you. When you have an imperative mood verb in the New Testament, that’s a command from God through the Apostle Paul. The present tense is the durative, which means there’s never a time when you’re not to be alert. And the active voice says you produce the action of that verb. You’re positive volition. You must remain alert. Have you been alert? Or have you been indolent? Have you been lazy? Has your spiritual life been destroyed or distracted or discredited? Has some kind of calamity overtaken you? Is it possible that that’s discipline from God trying to get your attention? Vigilance and expectancy rather than laxity and indifference is what God expects from us. We must be alert, and the verse says we must stand firm. Another present active imperative, again, of stakehold. Stakehold, S-T-A-Y-K-O, pronounced stakehold. And this means we must persevere in our spiritual life or be anchored. You must stand firm, filled with the Holy Spirit, growing in grace, sitting under a well-qualified pastor, learning God’s word, applying it into your life, replicating the life of Christ through your own life. Listen to this. It was for freedom that Christ set you free, therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery. The spiritual life frees you from the slavery to the sin nature. Have you allowed yourself to go back into slavery? Have you allowed your sin nature trends and lust patterns to take you over again so that you find you keep violating God’s standard and you’re ashamed of it? You’re not standing firm. You haven’t been alert. You must be strong, that verse says. Be on the alert. Stand firm. Act like men. Be strong. I’m talking to you, men. Be strong. The present passive imperative. Another command, another present tense, but this time instead of the active, it’s the passive. This means the subject receives the action of the verb. And what does that mean? It means you receive the action of this verb. Krataioo is the verb. Krataioo in the Greek. You receive it from two sources. From the filling of the Holy Spirit and from the dynamics of the word of God that indwells your soul. So this is an appeal for you to be in good spiritual shape. Be strong spiritually. Not some sort of spiritual weakling letting Satan kick sand in your face. The only way to do that is it’s going to require some discipline and some routine in your life. You know, a lot of men that I meet come and go through the doors of their church. Some have negative volition, and some just get distracted and don’t come back. Some die. But there’s not one of those people that attended your church or some local church somewhere, my church included, don’t have an opportunity to be a preservative force of the client nation called USA, to be a member of that pivot. And some did the job and grew to spiritual maturity and some went AWOL. What about you? Have you gone AWOL spiritually? Have you abandoned the plan that God set out for you? Because it takes a lot of humility to admit that you failed. It takes a lot of humility to admit that you abandoned your post, but it’s never too late to get back in the game before you’re thrown away as useless, useless salt with no flavor. Has your spiritual life helped preserve this client nation? Have you been what we call a divinely appointed influencer that’s had an impact on the visible or the invisible realm? I hope you are. I hope you’re that spiritual man. Because I could go on for hours citing examples of nobodies who became somebody due to their conversion and their spiritual growth. Men like Charles Spurgeon and Martin Luther and Billy Sunday and Billy Graham all had an impact in God’s plan, and you can as well. Because what I want to teach you, what I want to show you is a message of our Lord that was taught to the disciples who had just heard him teach the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. And now for the similitudes. the Beatitudes, and then the similitudes. So what are similitudes? Well, that’s a statement in present or future tense of what people typically do or don’t do in a given situation. Here’s what the Lord did. Here’s what he said to the disciples. You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by people. You are the salt of the earth. That’s a metaphor. That’s a new title for a mature believer. This is what God wants you to be, a salt-type individual. He wants you to be the salt of the earth. In the Navy, the title Old Salt was passed to the longest-serving surface warfare officer on active duty. He was called an Old Salt. Once we understand what this word means in scripture, we can use it to describe mature believers as being old salts. People that are described as the salt of the earth are those that are considered to be great worth, very reliable, God can count on. There’s a lot I want to tell you about this salt of the earth and a lot I’d like to say about it, but my pastor taught something on it a long time ago, and I can quote some of his notes to you. He told me that salt is used in the Bible to season food in Job 6.6. Is tasteless food eaten without salt? And that’s a biblical analogy meaning this, that a lack of seasoning is used to indicate a person who has no divine viewpoint. He has no scriptural seasoning, nothing in his thought. He’s a male believer who lacks salt. He has no taste for spiritual things. You know, it’s pitiful, wandering soul that can never find a real reason for existing. Is it just to gather things and more things and be empty still inside? You were designed to be salt, a preserving factor, something that tastes wonderful. It’s an analogous metaphor to the believer who preserves his nation. The Bible teaches us that salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? You can’t. So have salt among yourselves and be at peace with each other. Matthew 5, 13, Mark 9, 50. A lot to say about it. I think I’m going to have to come back next week and get into this salt metaphor a little bit more because I have a lot more to say about it. But I hope you’ve been listening today. I hope you’re paying attention because I tailored this message for some of you men out there. And I know you heard it. I just don’t know what you’ll do with it. Contact me if you need to. Get a hold of me. Let us hear from you. We’re always here. Be glad to do anything we can to assist you in any way possible. Until next week, I’m your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for joining me and thank you for listening today on The Flotline.

SPEAKER 01 : 27:10

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.