In this episode, host Rick Hughes delves into the profound simplicity of God’s perfect plan for our lives. As we journey through the concepts of divine protocols and the logistics of grace provisions, Rick sheds light on the essential understanding of faith and salvation. Is it really just faith alone? Rick emphatically answers this question by unpacking scriptural truths that have guided believers throughout generations.
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 good morning and welcome to the flatline i’m your host rick hughes and for the next few minutes please stay with me 30 minutes of motivation some inspiration some education
SPEAKER 02 :
and absolutely no manipulation, because we don’t con you here. We’re not trying to raise money. We’re not trying to sell you anything. We’re just offering to give you something, give you some information that’ll help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. If we’re able to do that, you want to orient, adjust to the plan, you can do so. It’s your life, your decision. You got one shot at it, and I hope you get it right. Before we start our show today, let me remind you of something. As school has started back, A lot of you may have grandchildren or even children going back to school. Many years ago, I spoke at a school in Mississippi called Wayne Academy. And at Wayne Academy, I taught a series of messages that we put into a book called Life’s Toughest Years. You can order that book from our website free of charge. And it’s a perfectly great book for young people facing the choices in their future life. Has some great illustrations about people that made bad decisions in the book. and exactly how God equips a Christian to handle the things that they’ll face in this life. So it’s Life’s Toughest Years, free book from us. Just go to the website, rickhughesministries.org, and you can order from there. And you can also order our newest book, Christian Spiritual Life. I hope you’ll give them both a shot. I hope they’ll help you. As I study and prepare these radio shows for you every week, I’m always reminded and always praying about what God would have me to present. Many times I do repeat certain subjects, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing since repetition is essential for learning and for recall. If you don’t believe it, just ask any military person how many times they heard forward march, bowed face, right face until they could do it in their sleep. Rehearsal of any event is literally a repetition so that you don’t forget your lives. So if I repeat a principle that you’ve heard before, just talk it up to enforcing a memory you should not ever forget. With that in mind, I want to remind you regular listeners of God’s protocol plan. And if you’re a new listener, I want you to pay close attention because this information is will definitely affect your future rewards and your recognition once you get to heaven. The point to remember is that God has a plan for your life. Since God is perfect, his plan is perfect. And because a perfect God can only produce a perfect plan, then we have a plan for our life that’s perfect. See, after we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior, we continue to live and exist on this planet as imperfect, mortal human beings. If we do not think we are helpless, then God can quickly show us exactly how helpless we really are. But to sustain us in the devil’s world, our God has provided logistical grace provisions. And these provisions provide everything we need to keep us alive and to keep us functioning in the devil’s world, what I call behind enemy lines. They are what is called in the Bible your invisible assets. See, God has designed a solution to every problem in life for every believer. And this solution that I’m talking about was provided in eternity past and is recorded in the scriptures. Listen carefully to this principle. Divine solutions can only become human solutions through cognition and inculcation of the word of God. Through cognition, that’s learning, and inculcation, that’s application, of the Word of God, and it comes under the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit. The provisions of God are disclosed in the Holy Bible, and they’re called verbal plenary inspiration. That’s the Bible. What do I mean by verbal plenary inspiration? Well, God so supernaturally directed the human writers of Scripture that without wavering their intelligence, without wavering their individuality, without wavering their personal feelings, their literary style or any other factor or some sort of expression, God’s complete and God’s coherent message to mankind was recorded with perfect accuracy in the original languages of Scripture, that is, by the way, the very words bearing the authority of divine authorship. That’s verbal, plenary inspiration. God the Holy Spirit used humans to write God’s Word and to preserve it for you and for I to learn and apply into our life. Next, the protocol plan of God has to have a communicator. So to start with, if we’re going to learn the protocol plan of God, we’ve got to have a source, and that source is the Bible, scriptures. And then the next thing is a communicator. Thus, God gave the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher. And next, the protocol plan of God’s got to have a system of production and service how it works, what we do. And finally, the protocol plan of God has to have a system of rewards for both time and eternity. So, we need a man with supernatural gift to teach us a supernatural lifestyle so that we can effectively represent God’s plan and purpose for each one of us. I watched a pastor this morning on my local television station before I came down here, and he did an excellent job explaining what was going on with the difference between Rehoboam and Jeroboam after the death of Solomon. Great job he did. That’s the job of pastor-teacher, a man who has the gift But the number one failure of today’s religious communicators is they misrepresent God and misrepresent his plan. It all starts by those in pulpits who don’t understand, nor do they present how an individual can have a relationship with God through Christ Jesus. So let’s start there. How do the scriptures teach us to have a relationship with God? What do we have to do? In Acts 16, 25, About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Now picture this. They’re in the dungeon under Roman arrest, and they’re singing in a dark, dreary cell. And suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundation of the prison was shaken. At once, every prison door flew open and every prisoner’s chains came loose. The jailer who was sleeping woke up. He was shocked. He woke up and when he looked around, he was shocked at what he saw, that’s for sure. Because when he looked around, he saw the prison doors open. And then he drew his sword and he was about to kill himself. Now that means that if a Roman soldier lost his prisoners, his sentence was death. And he was gonna take his own life. And he was about to kill himself, the scripture said, because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, don’t do that, don’t harm yourself, we’re right here. And the jailer called for light, someone get some torches, come in here. They rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and he said, sir, what must I do to be saved? And here’s their answer, listen carefully. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. Notice the jailer feared for his life since losing his prisoners meant certain execution. But it’s also obvious that he recognized a miracle had taken place. And I’m sure he understood why these men had been in prison. He knew why they were there, what they were saying. But like so many of us, he asked one simple question. What must I do to be saved? Notice Paul didn’t tell him to repent of all of his sins, nor did he tell him to be baptized. There was no local church to join, so no membership of a local church was the issue. But you may wonder why Paul’s answer could have been so simple. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, and your household. How could it be that simple? Well, let’s listen very carefully to what our Lord Jesus Christ said himself. You’ve heard this verse a million times, I know you have, in John 3.16. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him, there it is again, believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. All Paul did was he simply repeated what Jesus said himself. Jesus said it in John 3.16, whoever believes in him shall not perish. And then Paul said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you won’t perish, you’ll be saved. Paul simply repeated what Jesus said. Listen to John 3.36. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them. Whoever believes, the issue was always believe, believe, believe. The Lord Jesus Christ made it clear, Paul made it clear, Paul made his message very simple when he wrote to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 1.17, where he said, God did not send me a Christ. He said, use the word Christ. Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel. That’s the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord. And not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. So he states his purpose to the Corinthians. I’m not here to baptize you, but to preach the gospel. And then he said this in Romans 1.16. For I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes it, to the Jew first and then to the Greek. There’s that word believe again. So Paul made it clear, both in Corinthians and both to the Romans, that his message was to preach the gospel, the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And if you believe it and apply it by faith, trust it, then you can have eternal life. That’s what the Lord Jesus Christ said. Now, you may be asking yourself, can it really be so simple? I mean, don’t I have to get baptized? Remember this now. Don’t forget this. Paul’s ministry was to the Gentiles. Peter’s ministry was to the Jew. They had a different ministry. So Paul didn’t talk about getting baptized. There wasn’t any need to preach that. What he preached was grace. He preached grace. And listen to Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It’s a gift from God, not of works. lest anyone would boast about it. So there it is again. You’re saved by grace. That means the work’s already been done. Christ provided everything necessary. This may shock you, but if you died today and you went to hell, you wouldn’t go to hell because you’re a sinner. You’d go to hell because you didn’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Your sins have all been paid for. Christ died for your sins on the cross. How do I know that? Because the Bible says he that knew no sin was made sin for us so that we could be made the righteousness of God through him. Every sin you and I have ever done, he paid for. They’ve been paid for. Now you had to believe that to receive the gift of eternal life, to be redeemed if you don’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now since this is the issue, we know Satan’s a master counterfeiter. He’s gonna try to confuse the issue. He doesn’t want anybody to think it’s just that simple. So we know he’s a master counterfeiter and he seems to stop anybody from receiving Christ as their savior. And he often does it by presenting a counterfeit gospel. It sounds like the real thing, smells like the real thing, looks like the real thing, but it’s not. It’s faith plus baptism, faith plus giving, faith plus quit drinking, faith plus quit cursing, faith plus, faith plus, faith plus. It’s not faith plus anything, it’s faith alone in Christ alone. The final end of Satan is destruction of the lake of fire, and he’s identified there as the deceiver, because he deceives people. Listen to Revelation 20 verse 10. And the devil that deceived them, there’s the word, deceived them was cast in the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are and they will be tormented day and night forever and forever. That will be your eternal destiny also if you do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you try to add to it, if you try to say, okay, I believe, but I don’t think I’m going to be saved unless I quit drinking. If you add anything to grace, it cancels the grace. I’m telling you, it’s faith alone in Christ alone. It’s not faith plus giving up something. It’s not faith plus joining something. If you go down and join a church, that’s wonderful. You should be in a good local church. That’s not what got you saved. What got you saved was you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. I’d like to know about you right now. What do you base your salvation on? Is your salvation based on your faith and the finished work of Christ on the cross? Or is it based on your faith plus something? Plus the fact that you don’t drink anymore. Plus the fact that you quit cursing. Plus the fact that you don’t fornicate or commit adultery. And if you think as you do these things that I won’t be saved, then you’re still putting works. It’s faith alone in Christ alone. That’s how you get saved. So I urge you, consider what is your basis for your salvation. Is it faith alone in Christ alone? I mean, it can all be settled in a simple prayer. You could do it right now. You can express your faith to God in a prayer. Where’s to say that in the Bible? Well, in Romans 10, 12. For there’s no difference between the Jew and the Greek. For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whoever, whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Greek or Jew, Gentile or Jew, doesn’t make any difference. Whoever you are, black, white, red, yellow, green, black, doesn’t make any difference. If you call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, you’ll be saved. You do that in a prayer. You express your faith in a prayer. You simply say, Father, I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for me and took my place on that cross, and I’m willing to receive him as my Savior. Have you ever prayed a prayer like that? Have you ever just bowed your head and said, Father, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that he died on the cross for me, that I accept him as my Savior? That’s calling upon the name of the Lord, and you’ll be saved. You won’t feel it. You won’t get vibrations. You won’t hear harps. You won’t see angels. But it’s based on the promise of the word of God, the promise of the scripture. And this is what I’ve just shown you. Just been through it so you would see that it’s all it takes is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ because it’s a grace gift from God. The penalty’s been paid. The work has been done. Now all you have to do is receive it. Okay? So once you’ve made that eternal decision, the one I’m talking about, to get saved, your next step is to discover what God has given you while you’re still here in the devil’s world. And so if we’re talking about the protocol plan of God, what God’s given you, let’s start with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I’m not talking about you babbling in tongues. I’m not talking about you turning flips in the aisle, running up and down the aisle, screaming, hollering, dancing. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. No one in the Old Testament had the indwelling of the Holy Spirit like church-age believers do today. This is different. It’s a mystery doctrine. They didn’t understand this. Old Testament saints had an endowment of the Holy Spirit for a specific task, but they never were indwelled permanently. They could actually lose the Holy Spirit. Listen to David’s prayer in Psalm 51 11. Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Does that sound like someone’s worried about God taking the Holy Spirit away from him? Yes. It’s obvious that David could lose the endowment of the Holy Spirit by his sin and his failure. But listen now to what New Testament Christians have. Totally different. Listen, Ephesians 1.13. In whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after you believed, there it is, after you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Sealed. Sealed. Have you ever had any homemade jelly and they put a paraffin wax over the jar and seal the jelly in there? They’re sealed. That food will stay fresh until that seal is broken. The Holy Spirit will seal you until the day of redemption. That’s exactly what it’s talking about. You have been sealed until the day of redemption, until the day that God comes to call you home. You understand that? This ministry of the Holy Spirit to New Testament believers was even promised by Jesus, our Lord himself. He promised it in John 14, 16. That is where he said, and I will pray the Father. I will pray the Father. And what’s going to happen then? And he will give you a comforter, another comforter. that he will abide with you forever, forever, sealed with the Holy Spirit. Even the Spirit of truth who the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him not, but you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. You want to live the plan of God? You want to fulfill the plan of God? It starts with understanding the ministry of God, the Holy Spirit, to your life. The mission of the Holy Spirit in our lives is revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He tells them why the Holy Spirit’s coming. In John 16, 13, however, when he, that’s the Holy Spirit, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you unto all truth, for he will not speak of himself, Whoever he shall hear, or whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. So he doesn’t talk about himself. He doesn’t promote himself. If anybody’s promoting the ministry of the Holy Spirit, that’s contrary to what that scripture says. He shall not speak of himself. Just because the Holy Spirit indwells us, it does not necessarily mean he controls us. Since this is a difference, there is opposition to his ministry. If you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and by faith have received him as your Savior, the Holy Spirit is inside of you, but he doesn’t necessarily control you. How do I know that? In Galatians 5.17, the flesh wars against the spirit and the spirit wars against the flesh. And these two are contrary one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would like to do. This means you have a battle going on inside. Some days you feel like a nut, some days you don’t. It’s like you’re two different people and you know that. You know some days you do crazy, stupid, weird things and you go, why did I do that? I knew better. That’s your sin nature. Your sin nature also has something people don’t talk about very much. And that definitely has an area of weakness, things that will get you in trouble, but it also has an area of strength. Your sin nature can be very moral. Morality is not spirituality. I repeat, morality is not spirituality. The sad thing is that many believers do not understand the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5.18, be filled with the Spirit, a mandate from God. Every one of us has the ability to manufacture human good as well as divine good. We can manufacture both goods. As an example of this is maybe you giving to your local church or to any missionary organization. If you give while you’re under the filling of the Holy Spirit, then it’s counted as divine good. But if you give while the Holy Spirit is quenched due to your personal sin, it’s counted as human good. And the same thing with your prayers. Even lost people can pray for God to help them or for God to bless them. But all these good things are simply human good. What I’m telling you is that a right thing must be done in a right way. That’s the protocol plan of God. Because a right thing done in a wrong way is still wrong. For the Christian, this is all evaluated at the judgment seat of Christ. This is where it all comes to the front. That’s where you see it all. You see what’s going on. Now, let me try to make this simple for you. If you’re in church and the pastor calls on someone to stand up and pray, and they pray a very eloquent prayer, you know, one of those, oh, God, we thank thee, Father, for the moon and the stars and the clouds. but he has known sin in his life. I’ve used this illustration hundreds of times. He hates his brother. There’s a guy sitting on the back row that shafted him in a business deal and he can’t stand him. He’s never forgiven him, but he’s up there praying like he’s a righteous saint. That prayer goes no higher than the ceiling because he has quenched the Holy Spirit and he’s doing nothing but human good. It is not glorifying God in the least. Anything you do to glorify God must be done under the filling of the Holy Spirit. Whether it’s when you pray, whether you sing, whether you go to church, whether you raise your children, whether you read the Bible, whatever. If you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit, it’s simply human good. A lost person can do what you’re doing. But if you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, What does that mean? It means you have no unconfessed sin in your life because sin quenches the Holy Spirit and grieves the Holy Spirit. So if you’re trying to live the Christian life and you have known sin in your life, you know it’s sin, but you haven’t dealt with it, you haven’t confessed that sin to God, then all you’re doing is manufacturing human good, which is wood, hay, and stubble. It’s all evaluated at the judgment seat of Christ. 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15. For another foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and stubble, there’s two different types of elements there, every man’s work should be made manifest or revealed, for the day will declare it by fire, and it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test every man’s production of what sort it was. If any man’s work abide, that’s divine good, which he has built thereupon, he will receive a reward. But if any man’s work shall be burned up, that’s human good, he will suffer loss. He himself will be saved. He himself will be saved. It doesn’t mean he’s not saved. Yes, he is saved, yet so is by fire. So there you have it. I’m telling you these things because we’re living in a generation of social media broadcasts like YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, where Satan lies and misinforms people daily. Misinformation abounds. There’s hardly a day that goes by that I don’t see religious propaganda on the internet. And so much of it is totally wrong, but it’s packaged as truth, especially sensational preachers who can march up and down the pulpit and raise and yell and scream and act. They’re the best performers you’ve ever seen. They’re better performers than they are communicators of truth, that’s for sure. So if you want your life to glorify God, then you must understand God has a specific way of doing things, which you must learn and you must understand. That’s why I urge you to get under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor. If you don’t have one, contact me and let me help you find that person. In closing, let me give you a small test so you understand what I’m talking about. If I told you God was standing outside your door Would you like to rush out and meet him right now? If I said to you, Billy Bob, John, God’s outside the door. You want to go meet him? And you say, oh yeah, yeah. Exodus 33, 20. And he said, thou canst not see my face, for no man that sees me can live. Uh-oh, well, forget about going out to see God, right? All right, well, I hope you listened. I hope you’re paying attention, giving you information that’s critical and secures your life in the future. I hope you’ll come back next Sunday, same time, same place. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you 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.
