Join Rick Hughes as he delves into the divine concept of ‘The Wall of Fire,’ a spiritual shield provided by God to protect believers from satanic adversaries. Throughout this episode, discover how a network of ten problem-solving devices can enhance your spiritual maturity and prepare you to resist satanic influences effectively. Rick provides insight into the significance of renewing your mind and maintaining a personal sense of destiny against the backdrop of spiritual warfare.
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 01 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I am your host, Rick Hughes, and I’ll be with you for the next few minutes, 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education, but absolutely no manipulation. I say it every Sunday, so to be clear, we’re not seeking money. We’re not trying to get you to join anything. We’re not trying to get you to fess up anything. We just want you to listen. Listen as I attempt to verify as well as identify God’s plan for your life. If I’m able to do that and you would like to orient and adjust to the plan, that’s up to you. You’re responsible for your life. You have a volition, the chooser, decider. God gave it to you. and you can decide what you want to do. My job is not to bully you, not to coerce you, but to give you the truth, and you make the decision. The Flotline comes to you every Sunday morning, compliments of the grace of God. We don’t try to raise money. We just trust the Lord to pay for it, and he always has, and he always will as long as he’s in it. We do broadcast on podcasts as well, podcast media. Apple iPod, Spotify, Breaker, Anchor, some of these podcast platforms. The Flotline can be found on those podcast venues as well. We have well over hundreds, maybe 500, 600, 700 shows there, along with the notes of our radio shows. And by using your tablet or your iPhone or your cell phone, you can listen anytime, anywhere, any day by podcast. not just on Sunday mornings. And of course, I welcome you to always come visit our website, simply rickhughesministries.org, rickhughesministries.org. There you can see the material that we offer free of charge, the various books we’ve written and published, and they’re all for you if you need it. Remember, the Flotline deals with 10 unique problem-solving devices. taught by my pastor to me many years ago. This is not something I originally came up with. He taught it to me. I’m teaching it to you just like he gave it to me. We start out with rebound, which is the problem-solving device for sin. When we sin, we recover from our sin by confessing our sin, 1 John 1.9. And then we have the filling of the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 5.18, be filled with the Spirit. That’s a problem-solving device that solves the problem of your sin nature controlling your life. Then we have the faith rest drill, standing on the promises of God, using the over 7,000 promises in the Bible to calm your fears and relax you so that even though you have adversity, you don’t have to have stress. Then we move into grace orientation, biblical orientation, taking you to a personal sense of destiny, understanding God’s will and plan for your life and why you’re here. Motivated by your virtue love, which is personal love for God and impersonal love for others. This takes us to sharing the happiness of God. Jesus Christ our Lord said in John 15, 11, I’ve told you these things so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be full. And eventually, occupation with Christ. We could teach hours on each one of these sessions, but we have a book called Christian Problem Solving. You can order and you can listen. They’re all things I’ve taught on the show, and you can read the book. And have the notes in your hand if you’d like to have it. Just write to us and we’ll send it to you. We also have transcripts of all of our shows from 2019 and 2020, printed transcripts of each show. So thank you. Thank you for letting me tell you that. And thank you for writing to me. Thank you for staying in touch and for the calls that I get. It’s amazing to hear some of the people that say their life has been changed by listening to this show. I’m so grateful for that. I’m grateful for the motivation that you found by God the Holy Spirit and through the word to continue your spiritual advance to become a spiritually mature believer. That’s my objective, to look for those people that want to grow in grace and represent Jesus Christ through your life and your testimony. Today I’d like to talk about the wall of fire. The wall of fire. God has established a wall of fire to protect you and I’d like to show it to you in the Bible. Let’s start off with 1 Peter 1, 5. It says, “‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, “‘who, according to his abundant mercy, “‘has begotten us again to a living hope “‘by means of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, “‘to an inheritance that’s incorruptible, undefiled, “‘and will not fade away, “‘and is reserved in heaven for you, “‘who are kept by the power of God.'” There it is, kept by the power of God. through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. You are kept by the power of God. The Lord Jesus Christ said, no man can pluck you out of his father’s hand. His father that gave them to you is greater than all, and no man can pluck you out of my father’s hand. These verses that I’m going to go through this morning and what I’ll cover with you this morning indicate that Satan plans offensive action against the entire human race and especially against believers. His offensive action demands on your part and my part that we depend on the Lord and the wall of fire with which God surrounds us to protect us. And if we have a substantial pivot in this nation, that’s a core group of mature believers, then that same wall of fire will protect the nation, the client nation, USA. But if the pivot diminishes, that core group of mature believers, if it diminishes, then national discipline can follow even from outside sources of evil like evil nations. That wall of fire will stay up as long as we have a pivot, and the pivot is not religion. The pivot is a personal relationship with Christ believers who grow to maturity, believers who replicate the lifestyle of Christ and replicate the thinking of Christ. That’s what forms the pivot and holds the nations together. As goes the mature believer, so goes the history of the nations. And our pivot is shrinking every day. There are a lot of great pastors teaching a lot of great truth, but they really don’t have large congregations because they’re not performers. They’re not musicians. They’re not trying to sell books. They’re just trying to teach their people. Most of the great pastors that I know don’t have large churches. Most of the large churches I know have a big program and a lot going on. So anyhow, with a substantial pivot, we can survive as a nation. And you and I, we should be aware that Satan has an opposition and a strategy towards us. We should be aware of satanic opposition and strategy, and again, so should the leadership in this nation. Our leadership, our politicians, our president should be aware that Satan has a plan to shut down this nation. And we apparently forgot the lesson, I think, because Satan would love to stop any missionary outreach of this client nation, USA, to the world. Any missionary outreach he would love to shut down. He’s already succeeded in shutting down much of it inside this nation when There are generations and generations of young people that have never heard the gospel in their schools. You can’t talk about God anymore. You can’t have any sort of public prayer, even at a football game. And I do speak in a lot of schools, but they are private schools. They’re private academies. And still the freedom to talk about God’s word and to lift up Christ is still there. And I’m grateful for that. So we are in trouble as a nation. The pivot may be shrinking in America. We may be facing some terrible times ahead. You know, as well as I know, if you look at history, you can see it coming. So any Christian, you or me, if we’re distracted from advancing in our spiritual life, If we fall victim to our own neglect and we don’t pose a threat to the enemy, he’s fine with that. He’s okay with that as long as you don’t threaten with any sort of spiritual maturity in your life. But your personal wall of fire, if God gives it to you, it does not mean you sit around and do nothing to protect yourself from satanic opposition. Your wall of fire doesn’t mean you do nothing. You have a responsibility. Note the passages I’m about to give you. In Ephesians 4.22, put off concerning your former conduct, the old man, that’s your sin nature, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lust and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. This is Paul talking to the Ephesians in church at Ephesus. Put off. is the Greek word, and it means to lay aside, lay aside your former conduct, your former lifestyle. Again, listen to it. Put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lust, and then be renewed in the spirit of your mind. This is your responsibility. Four things. Put off your former conduct. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Former conduct. What’s he talking about there? Well, in Ephesians 4, 17 through 18, he wrote about the conduct of the unbeliever. And listen carefully as I read it to you. Ephesians 4, 17 through 18. This I say therefore and warn you. In the Lord, that’s the preposition of source here, in the Lord, that you should not walk as the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind. Their minds had been hijacked. Their minds were empty. There was a vacuum there. It’s the Greek word metaiotes. It’s a vacuum. They had no divine viewpoint. Their thoughts had been hijacked. What happens if Satan’s able to hijack your thinking? Listen to verse 18. Having their understanding darkened, now alienated from the plan of God because of ignorance that is in them from the blindness of their own heart, the hardness of their own heart. This is the lifestyle these believers came out of in Ephesus. And when Paul says, put off your former conduct, this is what he’s talking about. Don’t live like this. You cannot live with an empty mind, a vacuum mind, a mind that has nothing in it that’s been hijacked. But what are you supposed to put in it? Again, you’ve heard me say it many times, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. You’ve heard me say, stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think, Romans 12, three. So you have to understand this. If Satan can succeed in darkening your mind, hijacking your thoughts, You will be alienated from the plan of God because you have no knowledge of it. You’ll have ignorance. And that’s when your heart gets hard. You get scar tissue. It gets hardened where you can’t even feel guilt. You don’t even feel shame anymore. And that happens with the Gentiles he’s talking about. So put it off. Don’t live like that. Put off your former conduct and be renewed, he said. The verb renewed. Ananiou, ananiou means to make young again, refresh your thinking. Ephesians 4.22, be renewed in the spirit of your mind. This is where you live your Christian life, in your thoughts, in your mind. You go from human viewpoint thinking to divine viewpoint thinking. That’s what Roman 12.3 says, stop thinking in terms of arrogance. This means you allow the Holy Spirit to control your life, to fill you and direct your thoughts till eventually you come to the place of occupation with the Lord Jesus Christ. And that’s a new mindset with biblical wisdom, insight, discernment, understanding from the word of God. So if we boil it down to this, when Paul says, put off your former conduct and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, what exactly are the mechanics to do this? How do you do that? Well, in James 4, 7, the Bible says, number one, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Submit is not a request. It’s a mandate in the Greek New Testament, Aaron’s passive imperative of a military word called hupotasso. For march, about face, that’s what it is. It’s an order, it’s a command. Submit, the aorist tense is at a point in time, once repeated in time, the passive voice. You do this by means of the filling of the Holy Spirit. You don’t produce it yourself. And the imperative mood is the mood of command. Submit and then resist, the aorist active imperative of anhystomy. We get a histamine from this, you know, an anhystamine that you take. And so the word resist is an aorist active imperative. So you are to submit and you are to resist. So what are the mechanics to doing this? The mechanic is submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you, okay? How do I resist the devil? Well, 1 Peter 5, 8, and 9 tells you. Be sober. That’s not talking about booze. Be sober. Be vigilant. Those are two things. Because your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion seeking who he can devour. Resist him in the faith, in the faith. That’s Bible doctrine. That’s the word of God. Knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. So Peter’s talking to believers to be sober, to concentrate, not to be goofy minded and be vigilant, be serious because you have an enemy that’s walking around trying to devour you. Now, listen, I’m going to be a little gross here, but If you get devoured by Satan, your life winds up being a pile of lion poop and you don’t want that. So he’s going around seeking who he can devour. So resist him and be steadfast in the faith. That’s the word of God. It’s the only way you can stand against the enemy is to know the word of God and understand that other believers just like you are going through the same sufferings and experiencing the same things you’re experiencing, Peter says. You have an enemy. AKA the devil. But thank goodness there’s a wall of fire around us. We’ll see it. Be sober is nepho, means be free from the influence of intoxicating doctrines. And be vigilant, gregoreo, means to keep watch, to have insight, to have discernment. Don’t get recruited into false narratives and false doctrine. And then in the faith, be sober and be vigilant in the faith. Pistis, the Greek word pistis. And that’s wisdom. That’s God’s word. That’s the faith rest drill, problem solving device number three. This is exactly, exactly how the Lord Jesus Christ defeated Satan in Matthew 4. He used the same doctrine you can use to talk to him and to get him to go away. He would not subjugate himself to any suggestion that Satan came up with. He was sober, vigilant, and stood firm in the faith. So Satan’s number one objective is to establish a system. And unfortunately, it’s religion in which the works of mankind replace the function and the mechanics of the grace of God. That’s exactly what he’s up to. He wants to establish a system of religion in which the works of mankind replace the function and the mechanics of the grace of God. 2 Corinthians 4, if our gospel has been veiled, it’s veiled to those that are perishing in whose case the God of this world, that’s AKA the devil, has blinded the thinking of those who are unbelievers so that they might not understand or see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ through the image of God. It’s a mind game. That’s how you live the spiritual life, and that’s what Satan seeks to do to distract you. He seeks to hijack your thinking, and this veil that goes over the unbeliever can only be lifted by putting faith in Jesus Christ. You see, God keeps us alive and God protects us with a wall of fire so that we can have the opportunity to obtain a personal sense of destiny if, in fact, we are mature believers. And part of that wall of fire is made out of truth in the form of that Word of God metabolized doctrine you’ve learned. What you put in your soul is called wisdom. And the wisdom of God acts as a wall of fire, protecting you from satanic propaganda and involvement in the cosmic system. So truth, Bible doctrine in the form of divine establishment truth, now this is something else. Unbelievers can have divine establishment, freedom, marriage, family, internationalism, opposed to nationalism. God sets up free will. God sets up marriage. God sets up family. God sets up nationalism. These are great principles that protect even the unbeliever from demonic influence and demonic possession. So even if a person’s not a believer, if he understands this, he can have a wonderful life of what life he’s got left. So a well-qualified pastor has to know these things and teach these things to the congregation. Two big areas of satanic lies that come out today are the lie of socialism, and that’s base for socialism in modern history, goes all the way back to Sir Thomas More in his book on Utopia, and that’s a big lie. People don’t understand that capitalism and capital investment creates jobs, not government. And then Christian activism is a big lie. The devil sponsors Christian activism on one hand, while arrogant skills sponsor Christian activism on the other hand. So Satan loves for the Christian to try to go out and straighten up, clean up the devil’s world, and you’re not here to clean up the devil’s world. 2 Corinthians 11.3, I’m afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness that your mind, there’s the mind game again, should be led astray, that’s hijacking your thoughts, from the purity and the virtue belonging to Christ. So the word of God, the truth of the word of God is purity and virtue, and we must stand on that. We must stand with that. Satan’s objective is always to distract you from ever growing spiritually and move you to some sort of concept that you think a political solution is what we need. The Bible says in James 4, 7, if you’ll submit yourself to God and resist the devil, he’ll flee from you. Don’t buy into that lie. And if a communicator of the word of God will teach the truth about this thing, he will have special protection, even though he operates in the devil’s world. Isaiah 54, 17 tells him that. No weapon formed against you will ever prosper. There it is. Every tongue that rises against you in judgment, you will be able to condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. And their vindication is from me, declares the Lord. They have a wall of fire. A well-qualified pastor teaching the Word of God has a wall of fire around him. You have a wall of fire around you if you are a maturing believer. That wall of fire starts in Zechariah 2.5 in the Old Testament where we found these words, For I, says the Lord, will be a wall of fire around her, and I will be the glory in her midst. Now these words were preached by Zachariah to the pilgrims that went back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and rebuild the walls. They were God’s chosen people. And the concept is that he protects his chosen people. And guess what? As a believer in Jesus Christ, you are a chosen one. So God includes you in that protection since we’re all in Christ. There’s no difference. Listen to Galatians 3.28. If he protected them, he will protect you. How do I know that? Galatians 3.28. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female, for we’re all one in Christ Jesus. So what God did for them, God will do for you. In ancient times, a city without walls was vulnerable to be attacked, but we have an invisible wall of fire, which is God’s protected presence, his hedge of protection, his level of security that shields us from damage and destruction, and that should give you a relaxed mental attitude. That’s grace orientation, having a great relaxed mental attitude. Satan complained to God about the hedge of protection that God gave around Job. Do you remember that in Job 1.10? Have you not made a hedge? a protection around him and his household. You’ve blessed everything he does and the possessions you’ve blessed. Yeah, God did put a hedge of protection around him and Satan asked God to remove it so he could tempt him. Is it not reasonable to assume that God protects us the same way because we are combatants in the same angelic conflict? How do I know that? 1 Thessalonians 3, 3, the Lord is faithful. He will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one. He’s faithful. He will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one. How does he do that? Well, Isaiah 41 10, don’t be afraid. I’m with you. Don’t be dismayed. I am your God. I will give you strength. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. What a wonderful promise. I don’t care what Satan tries to do to you in any way he tries to silence you or shut you down. He’s not going to be able to do that. You have divine protection in a wall of fire around your life. As a believer and a mature believer, you have this wall of fire. Now I’m going to warn you. If we forsake our responsibility, then God can allow discipline to come into our life. And that discipline is designed to correct us. And that discipline can be national discipline as well as personal discipline. It can be the same thing. That wall of fire is there around our nation and is there around us as individuals today. But when we move away from the word of God and we let our sin natures control us or we buy into the lies of Satan, into social activism and Christian activism, then you lose that divine protection. You get instead divine discipline. Those who God loves, he disciplines, scourges with a whip. That’s Hebrews 12, six, seven, and eight. You can read it for yourself. If you go under divine discipline, the wall of fire may even be lifted for a while, and maybe you’re gonna get some real trouble from Satan as a result of you neglecting, you turning away from your spiritual life. This is the sad part about it. I may be talking to some people today that are wonderful people, wonderful, wonderful people, but you turned away from your spiritual life. You got distracted by family, by friends, by business, by opportunity. You know it as well as I know it that your relationship with God is diminished. You know every day in your heart you feel the tug of the Holy Spirit trying to get you back into fellowship, and yet you keep walking away from it. And I’m telling you, you’re making a terrible mistake. Sooner or later, your life is going to come crashing down around you if it hasn’t already done that. And I can give you illustration after illustration of people just like you that have had this happen to them. Wonderful, nice Christian people that turned away from the Word of God. They got distracted. They got under the details of life. They got led astray by social activism or Christian activism, and their life came crashing down around them, beginning with their relationships with their spouse, with their relationships with their children, even to their relationships with business and government. You can destroy yourself. You actually have the ability to do that. And you may be on the way to doing that right now. You may be on the road to self-destruction. We call the my way highway. And when will you wake up? When will you realize what you’re doing to yourself and to your family? When will you repent or change your mind or come to a recognition that I am doing something awfully wrong? When will you have enough humility to admit your sin and go before your Father and admit it to God? This is a day you can do it, I promise you that. Now, God promises in John 10, 28 and 29, nobody’s gonna take your salvation away from you. He said, and I give unto them eternal life and they will never perish, neither shall any man snatch them out of my hand. That’s the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, my Father who’s given them to me is greater than all. and no one is able to snatch him out of my father’s hand. So I’m not talking about you losing your salvation. I’m not talking that you’re going to go to hell. I’m talking about you’re living a miserable life as if you were in hell right now because you have neglected your spiritual life and you backed yourself into a corner and you know it. That wall of fire can include even your health coverage from heaven. You know, we talk about health coverage and insurance. Well, listen, God even will protect your health. In 1 Timothy 4, 8, the bodily exercise profits little. We all try to exercise. But godliness is profitable for everything, having the promise of the life that now is and even of the life that is to come. The best thing in your life is to be spiritually mature. It will keep you healthier than any amount of exercise that you do. Because the Bible says in Psalms 90, verse 10, the days of our lives are 70 years, And if by reason of strength there are 80 years, well, then their boast is only labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away. Maybe you’ve hit the 70-year mark already. I don’t know. But sooner or later, it’s time for you to get with the program. Thank you for listening. I hope you’ll be back next week, same time, same place. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
SPEAKER 02 :
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.
