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 Flotline. I am your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next 30 minutes, please stick around. It’ll be a short time of motivation, some inspiration, some education, and absolutely no manipulation because we don’t con people. We’re not trying to hustle money. We’re not going to ask you to join up, give up, fess it up, nothing like that. But we will ask you to listen up to a few minutes of motivation and inspiration and education. My job is to verify and identify the plan of God for you, and your job, if you would like to do it, is to orient and adjust to the plan. That’s always up to you. But every Sunday we’re on this radio station with this radio show, currently playing 82 shows across America, and what a great opportunity this is for me. I thank you for listening. Thank you for giving me a few moments of your time. I promise you today will be an interesting show. These are times when believers like you and I, we wonder if God really sits on his throne, don’t you? I mean, we see what’s going on across this country and we have that thought, is he aware of this? We yearn for God’s justice to vindicate us and right the wrongs we’ve suffered as Americans. And when we’ve been taken advantage of personally or even nationally, we want to seek revenge. As humans, we do that. We want to be vindictive and get even and seek revenge. I used to have a friend that would put names in the book, and he said, I’m going to put your name in the book, and I’m going to get even with you. That’s not ever God’s plan. When whole groups of people like Christians, you and I, when persecuted for their beliefs or even maligned because of insults and condemnations based on what they believe or don’t believe, then it’s time to put it in the Lord’s hands. It’s time to take a step back. If you’re persecuted for what you believe in, if you’re being maligned or mischaracterized as evil, it’s always hard to take, especially if you’re part of that group. So you ask yourself, does God really care? Does he really care? Is God really aware of these things that I’m facing in my life and the things that I’m going through? You can ask yourself that question. Does God care about you, the things I’m speaking to you about on this radio show right now? And you must understand you’re not to take justice in your own hands. You’re not to seek relief through any sort of violence or any sort of political disturbance. Proverbs 11, 21 has our answer for us. Assuredly, the evil man will not go unpunished, but the descendants of the righteous will be delivered. Proverbs 11, 21. Assuredly, the evil man will not go unpunished, but the descendants of the righteous will be delivered. This verse means there’s comfort in God’s plan. There’s always God’s just retribution for evil people, and that’s a certainty. By way of application for you and me, all evil presents conspiracy. All evil present and past are conspiracies known to God. So he’s the one that knows the real facts. He’s the one that really knows what’s going on, so relax. And apply the word of God. Apply this verse very seriously in the days to come. Assuredly, Proverbs 11, 21, the evil man will not go unpunished, but the descendants of the righteous will be delivered. Recognize when God’s at work in this world, and he is at work. Recognize that he’s the punisher of the unjust and the deliverer of the just. Evil will not go forgotten and evil will not go unpunished by God. I’m quoting that from my own pastor, R.B. Thame III, who said those words last Sunday morning after communion. I thought that was really great because it goes right in line with what I’m telling you today. I’m trying to give you comfort and boost your faith in God’s plan for you at this time. So I want to tell you that there is a court. It’s an amazing court. It’s called the Supreme Court of Heaven, and it operates 24 hours a day. So let’s get some principles down for that so you can remember it. One, there is a Supreme Court of Heaven called And that court is the last court of appeals in all of human history. You can see it in Revelation chapter 20. And it’s also the court for personal justice for the individual believer like you and I. It’s a court where God administers both personal and collective justice. So the Supreme Court of Heaven is open 24 hours a day. When you have a complaint, you can go to the Supreme Court of Heaven and present that complaint. Who resides over that court? Who’s in charge of the court of heaven? Well, it’s Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom all judgment has been committed. You say, where did that come from? John 5, 22 and 27. For not even the Father judges anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son. And he gave him, verse 27, authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of Man. So this Supreme Court of Heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ sitting on the throne fulfills the principle that you’ve heard me say, Jesus Christ controls history. He’s well aware of what’s going on in this country. He’s well aware of what’s going on in your life, and he controls history. So the Supreme Court of Heaven that we’re talking about has the highest jurisdiction, and it can overrule Satan’s authority as the ruler of this world, who we know he is, we know this is his world, But we know he’s the ruler of this world. He even offered to give it to the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 4 if he would just worship him, and that didn’t happen. So Satan is subject to this court as well as you and I. That’s the reason that history continues. In spite of the fact that Satan is the ruler of this world, Jesus Christ is the court ruler, supreme court of heaven, and he controls human history. As goes his desire, so goes history. Therefore, in the rise and fall of nations like Rome or Egypt or the Syrians or the Babylonians or the Persians, there are no accidents. There’s no prejudice on God, no favoritism, only the function of perfect divine justice. And please remember this, what the righteousness of God rejects, the justice of God judges every time. Nothing slips by God. You may think it slipped by God, but it didn’t. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro over the whole earth, the Bible tells us, and nobody gets away with anything. So point seven, Satan constantly brings accusations in heaven against believers. He may be accusing you before the Supreme Court of heaven. You can read about that in Zechariah 3.1, where the Bible says, he showed me Joshua, the high priest in the times of Haggai. Then he showed me Joshua, this is a vision Zechariah had, standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand. The angel of the Lord is Jesus Christ. And there’s Satan standing there trying to accuse Joshua. In Revelation 12, 10, then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come. For the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down. He who accuses them before our God day and night. This is Satan’s job. He’s an accuser. He is always your opponent. He’s always your adversary. And I got to remind you that he’s not omnipotent and omnipresent. He’s a created being. He can only be one place at one time. And when you tell people that Satan’s trying to get you or Satan’s after you, do not forget that you have three enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. And if you’re not able to get victory over your own flesh, and if you’re not able to get victory over the lure of the world, why in the world would Satan even worry with you? Because he doesn’t have time to come over to your part of town and bug you. He’s going back and forth to heaven accusing, and that’s what he does. So remember that. Now we have a defense attorney in these accusations. Whenever Satan goes to accuse someone, and I’m sure he has a whole list in heaven, he goes to accuse someone before the Supreme Court of heaven, the Lord functions as our defense attorney. Listen to 1 John 2, 1 and 2. “‘My dear children,’ I keep writing these things to you in order that you may not sin. However, if anyone sins, we keep on having a defense attorney before the Lord. That’s Jesus Christ, the righteous one, and he is the propitiation for our sin, and not for ours only, but also for the entire world. There it is. When we sin, we fail. Remember, sin comes in three areas. Something we say, something we think, something we do. And you may feel guilty about sinning, but remember that the Lord Jesus Christ paid for all of your sins on the cross. That doesn’t give you the right to sin because your sin will break your fellowship with God, but you won’t lose your relationship. But Satan in the Supreme Court of Heaven would like to use you as a witness for the defense. And our Father uses you as a witness for the prosecution. And so we have our Lord interceding for you when you fail, when I fail, and I fail a lot more than you, I promise you. When I fail, the Lord Jesus Christ, if my name is brought up as an accusation, I look at that Rick, look what he’s doing, look at him now. And you call that a man of God? Look what a loser he is. And the Lord Jesus Christ simply says, nope, he’s one of mine. He’s believed in me. I died for him. He’s accepted my death, burial, and resurrection. You have no right to charge him. So here’s what you need to remember. If the Lord Jesus Christ is handling your complaints, you cannot come as a plaintiff yourself before the Supreme Court of Heaven if you have any bitterness in your soul. Bitterness is a sin. It’s a terrible sin. It’s a mental attitude sin. And it’s related to the order of all three of those arrogant skills that we call self-justification, self-deception, and self-absorption. Bitterness is always related to the order of those arrogant skills, and it requires you to use the arrogant skills. So if you’re bitter today, you might as well not go before the Supreme Court of Heaven and lay your complaint before the Lord because the problem is your own personal sin. You will wind up being judged rather than asking the Lord to clear the tablet off for you, someone judging you. So the hardest thing for me and you to take, the hardest thing for us to accept is injustice. Those are always the greatest challenges to our spiritual life. Have you ever been accused of something that you didn’t do? Injustice. And people in authority make mistakes. If you’re a parent, you may have judged one child for something they did not do. When the other child did it, maybe Mary did it, and Sally got the whipping. Or if you’re in school, maybe someone else did the problem and you got in trouble for it because you wouldn’t tell on them. Injustice, and we get mad about our injustice. We get mad about how we’re treated with injustice. It’s our greatest challenge to our spiritual growth. If you’re a Christian, you might not like what’s going on in the political arena, and you may say that’s unjust. Well, these injustices are going to occur And what you and I must do is we must put them in the hands of the Lord and turn them over to the Supreme Court of Heaven. And do not, do not try to solve the problem ourself by trying to get even or trying to hurt someone. And that means physical violence. It could be social character assassination. It could be political revenge or even using the public lie. That is not our job. When we are treated unjust, we go to the Supreme Court of Heaven, we leave it in the Lord’s hand, and we keep our mouth shut and don’t complain, don’t criticize, don’t try to get even. All decisions of the Court of Heaven are compatible with God’s perfect righteousness. He’s not unwise. He knows exactly what’s going on. He’s incorruptible, he’s perfect, and he’s fair. And he is the one who judges. And he’s never, ever, ever rendered a wrong decision. In all the trillions and trillions of decisions that the Lord Jesus Christ has rendered, not one has ever been unfair or incorrect. Because it is impossible for a perfect God to render a bad decision on our behalf. It’s impossible for a perfect God to render a bad decision as a judge. You know, sometimes men are thrown into prison and women for something they didn’t do, and 20 or 30 years later it comes up through some sort of test, proves them innocent, and they let them out. Well, no one’s going to go to the lake of fire and get out because God was unfair and made a mistake. God doesn’t make mistakes. He’s a perfect judge based on his omniscience. He knows everything. There’s nothing you can hide from God. So if you will let him handle all decisions… Because you don’t have all the facts. If you don’t have all the facts, you’re liable to get mad, you’re liable to get vindictive, you’re liable to get bitter, and you’re liable to run your mouth when you should have just kept your mouth shut. And I’m going to show you in a minute where you bring discipline on yourself for criticizing and maligning people that treat you unfairly. God can administer all the penalties, all the decisions, everything demanded by His own perfect righteousness, and that’s taught in a lot of different passages in the Bible. So remember, when the Bible says, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord, this means retribution is His. So if you want to have an unhappy life, all you have to do is to get in the middle of that. If you want to have an unhappy life, all you have to do is seek revenge or be vindictive or be implacable and try to hurt somebody else that hurts you. And you’ll wind up being the one that gets hurt. Because God’s justice, the Supreme Court of Heaven, doesn’t need any help in dealing with unfairness or in dealing with injustice that comes to us. And under no circumstances are you ever to assume judgment yourself. Matthew 7 talks about this. Listen carefully. Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way that you judge others, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you again. So why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, when all the time there’s a plank in your own eye? You are a hypocrite. First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. This is called triple compound discipline. Don’t judge, or you will be judged. Here’s what we’re saying. First of all, when you stick your nose in the middle of God’s business, like the old proboscis monkey, you don’t know what that is? It’s a monkey that has a nose about two feet long. If you stick your nose in God’s business, you’re going to get it chopped off, I promise you. Don’t judge. Don’t pass sentence. Don’t assume. Don’t say, I know why he did that because he’s like this. No, you don’t know anything. Don’t judge or you will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, quoting now, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be given back to you. So first of all, if you judge another person, even though they did a sin towards you or treated you unjustly, if you get in the way of the Supreme Court of Heaven, first of all, You’re going to be judged for your personal sin of bitterness or anger or implacability. That’s your judgment. Secondly, listen again to this verse. The same way in which you measured, it will be measured back to you again. This is simply telling you this, that whatever that person is guilty of, that sin and that punishment will be taken off of him, given to you, and you will get it. And then the third thing is you will have self-induced misery. So you’re going to get discipline for your sin. You’re going to get discipline for his sin that he should have got because you stuck your nose in the middle of God’s business, and you’re going to be miserable. That’s why this verse says you are a hypocrite. Take the plank out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. If you can’t see clearly, it’s because you don’t have any wisdom. You don’t have any discernment and insight. Wisdom comes from knowledge of the Word of God in your soul, a wonderful problem-solving device called doctrinal orientation. If you don’t have the mind of Christ, you don’t have the wisdom to determine anything. So the plank in your own eye, in your very own eye, the board, the two-by-four sticking out of your eye, is your own prejudice and your own bitterness and your own failure. To use impersonal love, problem-solving device number eight, as a personal problem-solving device. Impersonal love. What that means is that you can turn it over to the Supreme Court of Heaven. And you can love an individual based on who you are, not based on who they are. I mean, how are you supposed to love a guy that steals from you? How are you supposed to love a guy that fornicates with your wife? How are you supposed to love a guy that maligns you and criticizes you and puts you down and steps on your back to get to the top? You use impersonal love. You love him based on who you are, not based on who he is. This is exactly what God did for you. When the Bible says God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, he loved you with impersonal love. He loved you based on his character, not your character. You were not lovable. Once you believed in Christ, once his righteousness was accredited to you, then God can now love you with personal love because you’re now part of the royal family. You’re now his son, his child. So keep that in mind. You have to use impersonal love as a problem-solving device so that you don’t get yourself in a jam. from judging someone else and getting mad and getting bitter. If you react to that, see, this is what you can do in any situation. You can react or you can respond. It’s really up to you. If you react with hatred and seek vindication and seek revenge, Thus, your hatred for that individual or that political party even can lead you into middle attitude sins as well as malice. Malice, that’s the desire to hurt someone or harm someone. The Bible tells you in Ephesians 4, 30 and 31, don’t do that. So hatred, that can happen if you take everything personal. Write it off. Turn it over to the Supreme Court of Heaven. Move on. Don’t dwell on it. I mean, do you actually think that you could do a better job judging than God did? You think you know more than God in judging the evil person or the evil organization and what they did or what they did to you? Just remember this. The Lord Jesus Christ died for everybody. Excuse me. He died for all races and for all denominations and for all political parties. He gave his life to atone all, not just the people that we like. So we stand down. We confess our sin of bitterness, our sin of implacability. And as the Bible tells us, we pray for our enemies. You know, self-righteous arrogance is blind. You won’t see yourself as you really are. You’ll see yourself as you think you are. Self-righteous arrogance is blind and fragmented. Therefore, when you go to the Supreme Court of Heaven to get justice, and that justice results in what you wind up getting as the guilty party because you didn’t keep your mouth shut. You ran that person down. You ran that organization down. You ran that party down. You got on the Internet and sent out little nasty letters or sent out little nasty notes or said nasty things. And now you’re the one getting judged because you didn’t keep your mouth shut. As a victim of injustice, you must not become vindictive. You must not become implacable. You must not get bitter or seek revenge by trying to vilify someone because then you’re in trouble. If you’ll just go right to the Supreme Court of Heaven immediately, the Supreme Court of Heaven will handle it and take the monkey off your back and you don’t have to worry about it and you can relax. These people that do this, we, me, you, need to rebound instead of going to the Supreme Court of Heaven. If we get mad, we get angry, we get bitter, we should confess our sin first instead of going right to the Supreme Court of Heaven. So if you’re a victim of injustice, as I have been or you have been, we have one of two options. The option of the faith rest drill as a plaintiff to the Supreme Court of Heaven, standing on the promises of God, keeping our mouth shut, Isaiah 54, 17, no weapon that is formed against you can ever harm you, never hurt you. This is the inheritance of the Lord. That’s a great verse. So you can use a faith rest drill. There are over 7,000 promises in the Bible for you. Or you can react with mental attitude sins. You can react with verbal sins. And you can give in to the temptation to seek revenge and to get even. And when you do that, you’re going to be judged. So before you react to any injustice, before you react to unfairness that you faced, before you begin to slander somebody for their misrepresentation of you, for their maltreatment of you, before you begin to vilify their character and assassinate them in some form because of what they said about you, remember this. There is a supreme court in heaven, and the truth is that you may not think you’re the plaintiff, The truth is you may not think you are the plaintiff, but in reality you wind up being the defendant because you came before the Supreme Court of Heaven full of mental attitude sins, judging and bitterness, and you wind up getting judged. Matthew 7, 1 through 7. Take your Bible, read it carefully, pray over it, and see what we’re talking about. If you have to complain… Do not complain to others. Do not complain, period. The Bible is clear about that. James 5, 9. James 5, 9. Do not complain against one another so that you may not be judged because the judge is standing at the door. Did you hear that? Do not complain against one another so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door. Philippians 2, 4. Do not complain. You know, if you have bitterness in your soul, which is an arrogant skill, it will motivate you to complain and it will destroy you. All people who habitually complain are bitter people because they have no self-esteem. Most people think you have a right to complain, but you don’t. Complaining becomes a habit to those who habitually think only of themselves first. Philippians 2, 13 and 14, for God the Holy Spirit works in you both to will and to do his good pleasure. So do all things without complaining, without whining, without fault finding, without grumbling, without dissatisfaction, without murmuring, without griping, without irritation. Do all things without complaining or without strife. Why? so that you will prove yourself to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you should appear as light in the world. That’s what our Lord said in Matthew 5. You are the light to the world. Matthew 5, 11, happy are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. I don’t think I can get any clearer than that. One of the reasons you’re unhappy today is you haven’t turned it over to the Supreme Court of Heaven. You try to handle it yourself. You’re mad. You’re angry. You’re upset because of something that’s happened politically or personally or physically. Unless you can get rid of that bitterness and that mental attitude sin, unless you turn it over to the Supreme Court of Heaven, you’re never going to be happy, and you’re going to be continuously judged by God for doing what it’s his job to do. Do not stick your nose into God’s business. Stay out of it. Let the Supreme Court of Heaven handle it. He’s perfectly capable of handling the unfair treatment that you’ve gone through in your life. He’s perfectly capable of handling everything that’s going on in America today, things that you may or may not like. He will handle it. He knows what’s right. He knows what’s wrong. He knows who’s evil. He knows who’s not evil. He knows who’s lying. He knows who’s scheming. He knows who’s told the public lie. He knows all that. And nobody will get away with anything. So relax. Sit back. Watch what God does. You could actually have a sense of humor and say, these poor suckers don’t have a clue what’s coming their way. Because God will not tolerate evil. Evil will not win. God knows what’s going on. He’s always aware of what’s going on. And he will make those final decisions in that judgment. Are you listening? Are you learning? I hope you are. You can always contact me at rickhughesministries.org or get on the website rickhughesministries.org and order any material that we offer. This radio show will be available again if you need to hear that. Just let us know. But I hope you’re paying attention and I hope you’re learning and I hope you’re growing. And I hope above all you’re reflecting Jesus Christ’s love through your life. So until next week, I’m your host Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.

SPEAKER 01 : 27:16

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.