Join Rick Hughes as he delves into the vital decisions that shape our lives. Learn why every choice matters and how believing in the core tenets of faith, like the acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ, can open a world of unlimited options. Rick underscores the significance of genuine faith and salvation, explaining that only those who are saved get to heaven, emphasizing the importance of one’s spiritual journey.
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 :
Good morning and welcome to The Flotline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stick around with me. It’s going to be a short time of motivation, some inspiration, some education. Always, as you know, we say it every Sunday morning, you’ve heard it, no manipulation. We don’t con people. We’re not trying to hustle money. We’re not going to sell you anything. No, we’re not going to ask you to join anything. The only thing I’m going to ask you to do is to please listen, because I will try to verify and identify the plan of God for your life. And if I’m able to do that, you can orient and adjust to the plan if you would like to do that. It’s your life, your decision, and you got one shot at it. Remember, bad decisions limit future options. And if you make enough bad decisions, you’re not going to have very many options left. I can point you in the direction of a lot of people that could testify to that. So every decision you make is critical in your life. The most important decision that anyone could ever make in their life is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because without making that decision, you limit yourself to your options. Because the justice of God does not look favorably on anyone who tries to manipulate God or con God or persuade God to let them into heaven because they’ve been good people. Good people don’t get to heaven. Saved people get to heaven. Human good is works. And the Bible says, for by grace are we saved through faith, not by a system of works, but by faith we’re saved through grace. That’s a simple fact about it. The Lord Jesus Christ did all the work on the cross. We can’t do any work. He paid for my sin. He died in my place and your place. And when we come to him and put our faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross, we can be saved by means of that faith. So the Bible clearly says God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. That was the issue. The people that the Lord Jesus Christ were speaking to didn’t believe in him. They did not believe he was the Messiah. They did not believe he was the son of God. Even his own disciples had to learn that he was in fact God, the God-man, undiminished deity, and true humanity in one body forever, the God-man. So think about this. Please remember this. It’s the single most important decision that can ever happen in your life. The Bible says in Titus 3, 5 through 7, not by works of righteousness, which we’ve done, but according to his very own mercy, he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he shed on us abundantly through or by means of Jesus Christ our Lord, so that being justified by his grace, not works, being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope or confidence that we have in eternal life. That’s wonderful. What a great thing to know, especially as you round the corner and head towards the last few years of your life. Recently, I was invited to come to Texas and speak to a Texas Wounded Warrior Foundation retreat. This goes on a couple of times a year, and the Texas Wounded Warrior Foundation is based out of Tyler, Texas. established by three men called Getz, G-O-E-T-Z, the Getz brothers, Dick, Bob, and Jack. And they’ve taken it upon themselves to establish this foundation. And twice a year, they will do a spiritual retreat, letting the warriors know if they’d like to come, they can bring their wife and their children for a couple of days, and we’ll meet, and Rick Hughes is going to come speak to you. I just returned from doing that engagement. I had a wonderful time. And by the way, you must know, no one’s a one-man show. I can’t do these things by myself. I always have help. I have someone that travels with me and takes care of all essential needs, making sure we get there and making sure we get back. We have a complete staff that works with us, so… It’s all the grace of God that makes us available. But the subject that I talked to these men about was having a bad day. And they’re not just men, they’re women as well, but having a bad day. I wonder if you’ve ever really had a bad day, you know, a day when everything seemed to go wrong. You know, you’ve heard people say, I must have got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or something. Well, that’s an old myth, but there are certainly bad days. And in the Bible, we have the history of the man who had the worst day ever. His name was Job, J-O-B. And the reason that he had this bad day, we’re going to discover. And you’re going to discover just how horrific it is. And once you see this, hopefully it’ll help you to realize you’re not having such a bad day. You may have some things go against you. Adversity comes against you. Because adversity is inevitable. It could be weather-related adversity. It could be people-related adversity, family adversity, financial adversity. It happens to all of us. What you do with that is the issue. Because if you are a mature believer and you’ve acquired the mind of Christ, you can maintain a relaxed mental attitude by using the faith rest drill, tremendous problem-solving device, and handle the adversity without freaking out Now, this starts in the book of Job, chapter one, verse one through three, and I’m going to read it to you. It’s recorded there, there was a man in the land of Uz, U-Z. I have no idea where U-Z is. I know it’s not in my state and probably not in your state, but this is in the land of Uz, and his name was Job, not Job, Job. And that man was perfect and upright, perfect and upright. Listen to this descriptive analogy of him. He was perfect, upright, feared God, eschewed evil. Perfect, upright, feared God, and eschewed evil. This guy had a lot on the ball. He wasn’t sinless. It didn’t say he was sinless. It said he was perfect. He had this perfect integrity in his life. And he was upright. He wasn’t a liar. He wasn’t deceptive. He feared God, this means he had respect for God, and he avoided evil. He didn’t want to get involved in any sort of evil situation or evil circumstances. This describes a very virtuous individual. And in this relationship, Job was a virtuous man before God because of his perfect condition, his upright condition, his respect for God and avoiding of evil. And it says, there were born unto him, verse two, seven sons, seven, count them, seven boys, and three daughters, that’s 10 altogether. And verse three, his substance also was 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 she-asses, and a very great household, that’s servants, a very great household, so that this man was the greatest of all men in the east. So this is a man that loved God, he stayed away from evil, he was honest and upright, and he had a tremendous family and a tremendous blessing, and he was very well off. So he was, point one, extremely wealthy, and point two, blessed with a great family. Point two, what happened to Job would cause many to question God, And some would even curse God if it happened to them. So think about this as we go through this, how would you handle this sort of unexpected difficulty in your life? Because listen carefully, adversity is inevitable, but stress is optional. That’s what we tell you on the Flatline all the time. If you build a main line of resistance in your soul called a flat line, then you can stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside source of stress. Because adversity is what those circumstances do to you and the mental attitude sins of worry and fear and anxiety, stress, that’s what you do to yourself. And it doesn’t have to be that way. The Bible says on a certain day in eternity past that Satan came before God, comes up to heaven and says, I need to have a word with you. And he accused Job that the only reason Job worshiped God because he was been blessed abundantly. And that’s the only reason Satan said that he worships you. Listen as the accusation is made in Job chapter one, verse nine through 11. Satan answered the Lord and said, does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not made a hedge about him and about his house and about all that he has on every side? You bless the work of his hands and his substance is increased in the land. Can God bless your fidelity? Yes, sure he can. Absolutely God can bless your fidelity. If you have this sort of integrity in your life, God will bless you. And so Satan recognizes that and he says, but if you’ll put forth your hand now, And if you will touch everything he has, he will curse you to your face. Now, this is an accusation against Job. He’s accusing Job of being a two-time lover. The only reason he loves you is you blessed him. But if you take all that away, he said, he’ll curse you. I wonder in your life, have you ever gotten mad at God because you lost something? Because you lost a loved one? Because you lost some money? Because you lost something? Did you think it was God’s fault and you’re not responsible and it shouldn’t have happened to you? How did you handle a loss? Listen to what happens here. Because Satan basically is accusing Job of taking advantage of God’s blessing. And Satan’s claim was that if you take away all of his wealth, If you take away all of his security, he’s going to turn on you because he doesn’t really love you. He just loves what you gave him. Is that like that in your life? Do you really love God? Because the Bible says in 1 John 5, 3, if you love him, you will obey his mandates and they’re not grievous. Do you love God or you just love how God has blessed you, how God has made you wealthy and rich and well-off? What’s your attitude about respect and love for God? So God makes a strategic decision. He’s going to prove Satan wrong. And this whole thing I’m about to share with you is not about Job. But it’s about Satan trying to vindicate his own self and escape going to the lake of fire where he is destined to spend eternity. If he can manipulate Job and prove God is unfair, then he can get out of his sentence to the lake of fire. So the principle I want you to remember is do not let Satan use you. Do not let Satan use your failures. to go back and malign God and try to vindicate himself. So in Job 1.12, here’s what happens. The Lord said to Satan, behold, everything he has is in your power now. but only upon himself you cannot touch him. So Satan went forth. I’m sure he had a little dance. Oh, goody, I got him now. He went forth from the presence of the Lord, and disaster strikes Job and his family. And one day, I’m going to Job 1, verse 13 through 22. There was a day when his sons, remember those boys, seven sons, And his daughters, three daughters, were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house. Now, wait a minute here. They’re drinking wine. Were these a bunch of boozers? No. Listen, this is what they drank in those days. It wasn’t a lot of water to drink. They drank wine. Is drinking wine a sin? No, it’s not. Drunkenness is a sin. The Bible doesn’t say taking a drink of wine is a sin. There’ll be those people that try to tell you, well, you got to avoid all appearance of evil, brother. You can’t even sit in a restaurant where they serve wine. That’s ridiculous. And so he’s drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house and there came a messenger unto Job. So Job’s at home and this messenger comes running up with sweat on his face and dirty and dusty. And he says, the ox were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside them and the Sabaeans fell upon them and took them away. Yeah, they slain the servants with the edge of the sword. And I’m the only one who escaped to tell you these things.” So the men that were the wranglers out taking care of the donkeys and the oxen and all of the cattle and everything that he had, they were all slaughtered and killed and all his stock was stolen. And so Job processing this in his mind here and going, what, what, what happened? Tell me again, go slow, slow down. And while this man was yet speaking, another man came up and said, the fire of God fell from heaven. and burned up all of the sheep and the servants that watched the sheep. And I’m the only one who escaped to come tell you about it.” Hello, another single survivor comes to tell Job. Now Job has two disasters to consider. So he’s trying to get this guy to slow down and say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, tell me now fire, lightning came down and killed all, what happened? Verse 17, while he was yet speaking, there came another one and said, the Chaldeans made out three bands and fell upon your camels and took them away and killed all their servants with the edge of the sword. I’m the only one who escaped to tell you. And while he was yet speaking, there came another one and said, your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their older brother’s house. And there came a great wind, like a tornado or straight wind, a wind from the wilderness and blew down the four corners of the house and it fell upon the young men. And they are all dead. All of them are dead. I’m the only one that escaped alone to tell you. So he’s lost everything, lost all his children, lost all his wealth, all his cattle, everything he had, gone. And probably in a matter of about an hour. What did he do? How did he handle this? Total bankruptcy, gone. Verse 20, Job rose up, rent his mantle, shaved his head, fell down upon the ground and worshiped God. He didn’t get mad at God. He didn’t complain to God and tell him this is not fair. He fell down and he worshiped God. And listen to what he said. Naked came I out of my mother’s womb and naked shall I return to her to the ground. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away and blessed be the name of the Lord. In all of this, Job did not sin, nor did he charge God foolishly. He never got angry. He never got mad. He never got bitter. And he did not charge God. He didn’t say it’s all God’s fault. Why did you do this to me, God? I can’t believe I’ve been a good Christian, God. I’ve never let you down. I’ve always tithed. I’ve always gone to church. I’ve always done everything. And why did you let this happen to me? I’m making that analogy. I hope you understand what I’m saying. He didn’t sin. He didn’t lash out at God and curse God. It didn’t work. Satan was sure that he would do that, but he didn’t. Here’s a principle I want you to remember. Sometimes people think God’s getting even with them. I’ve known a lot of people who committed sins in the past and they felt like God wrote their name down in some little book somewhere and 10 or 15 years later when something bad happened, it was God getting even with them. I assure you, this is not the way God works. I assure you of this, God loves you without a shadow of a doubt. He loves you. He always has loved you. He always will love you. John 3.16 tells you that. God so loved the world. How much did he love you? So that he gave his uniquely born son. The Bible goes on to say in John 15.13, greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. God loves you. There’s no doubt about that. God has a plan for your life. Whenever you suffer severe adversity, whether it’s related to the weather or whether it’s related to finances, whether it’s a war, it could be social or racial adversity, something that you didn’t cause and something you didn’t ask for, but something that happened to you, I assure you it’s not God getting back at you because God is not in the revenge business. He is a God of justice. I want to tell you one thing though. He is a God of discipline. Hebrews 12, six says those that he loves, he will discipline. Sometimes he has to scourge us with a whip. And when you get out of fellowship with God as a Christian, when you commit sin in your life and you don’t deal with that sin, you don’t confess that sin, God may in fact take you to the woodshed. He may introduce pain into your life so that you can have an attitude adjustment. This is called rebound, that you can confess your sin to God. Because when you fail to rebound, then you go further and further into divine discipline. And eventually you can wind up going under dying discipline. So God sometimes does introduce pain into the believer’s life. We call them backsliders, reversionists, believers who’ve been saved, believers who know better, but they get hooked into sin and won’t pull out of it and won’t confess it and try to hide it. Well, you know what happens. But we don’t know why things like these happen to Job, but we know that God always has a plan. And nothing like this can be handled in any way that you and I could understand it. Yet Job lost everything, everything in one day, and he never cursed God. So much for Satan’s plan didn’t work. Now, how would I do this or how would you do this? How would we handle things like this? Let me explain it. First of all, we cannot do it alone. You and I cannot live in the devil’s world alone. We don’t belong here. We’re sojourners. We’re passing through. God gave us the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 1.13, he seals us until the day of redemption when he takes us home. We are in the devil’s world. We are in the war zone. We are behind enemy lines. And the Bible says that if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you live in the devil’s world and there’s nothing that Satan would rather do than destroy you. He would love to distract you and discourage you and to defeat you in the angelic conflict. And if he can use adverse circumstances to do this, then he will certainly try to do it. If he can get you to take your eyes off of God’s mercy and justice and put your eyes on your own losses and your own difficulties, he will succeed in defeating you and he will discourage you. by causing you to have depression. And that will lead into self-induced flaws in your life like anxiety. So it’s critical for you to understand God’s grace provisions for your life. He provided forgiveness for our sin and our failures by means of sacrificing his own son. And you and I are allowed to spend eternity in heaven with God and the resurrected Jesus Christ by making one single life-changing decision. We don’t deserve it. We don’t earn it. It’s just an act of God’s unfailing love for us. John 10, 28 and 29. And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them to me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. No one can take you out of the hand of God, not even yourself. I know you’re saying, well, what if I don’t want to be saved anymore? What if I tell God, I don’t believe in God anymore? What would happen if you did that? 2 Timothy 2.13, even if we believe not, yet God abides faithful, he cannot deny himself. He won’t dump you. Once you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you’re born again and placed into the royal family of God, you’re not going to be unborn and kicked out. You may get disciplined. You may get punishment for your reversionism, but he still loves you. He does that to get you to recover. Why? Because if you don’t recover from your arrogance, you will destroy yourself. Arrogant people can, through their own self-justification, self-absorption, wind up destroying themselves, and God does not want you to destroy yourself. Now, back to Job. There’s more testing to come. That didn’t work, so Satan shows up again. and before heaven and before the throne of God. And there was a day in Job 2, 1 through 10, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan wandered in and presented himself. And the Lord said, well, what do you want? Where’d you come from? And Satan said, well, I’ve been going back and forth across the earth, walking up and down on it. See, when Satan was cast out of the heaven, he was thrown to the earth. That’s where he wound up. That’s what he’s doing here. And now he’s wandering around looking for some sort of trouble to get into. And the Lord said, well, by the way, what about Job? You told me he was going to curse me. There’s none like him on the earth. He was perfect, upright. He feared me. He feared he stayed out of evil. and held his integrity, although you did everything you could to destroy him. And Satan said, oh, let me tell you this, God. Skin for skin, yeah, that’s what a man has. He’ll give his life for that. But you put forth your hand now and touch his bones and touch his flesh, I promise you he’ll curse you to your face. Now, this is the second time that Satan has accused Job of being a loser. The Lord said to Satan, well, go ahead. He’s in your hands, but you cannot kill him. So Satan went forth. Oh boy, I got him now. Went forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the top of his foot, his head to the bottom of his foot. And he, Job, took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal and he sat down in the ashes. And his wife came up to him and listened to his godly wife’s wonderful information she gives him. This is where a wife has to learn to keep her mouth shut. She said this to him, do you still retain your integrity? Why don’t you just curse God and die? What a stupid thing to say. That’s what emotions will lead you to do, say something stupid. And he said to her, you talk as a stupid person, woman. You speak as one of the foolish women speak. Shall we not receive good at the hand of God and not receive evil? And all of this Job did not sin with his lips, not one time. Never did it. How about that? Even though he’s physically weakened, even though he’s lost everything he had, he maintained his integrity and never accused God and never cursed God, never turned his back on God. He maintained his faith in his God. Can you do that in your situation with what you’re going through right now? with your cancer, with your financial difficulties? Can you trust God and not turn your back on him? Don’t think he threw you to the wolves. Now, Job’s buddies heard about this, and they all showed up to try to comfort him. They lifted up their eyes, and they prayed for him, sat down with him seven days, just sat there looking at him, never said a word. And then Job finally, after seven days sitting around with his friends, said this. He went into Operation Self-Pity. He didn’t turn on God. His buddies think he deserved everything because of what he’s gone through. They think he must have committed some kind of sins or something. One of them named Eliphaz even said this, man’s born into trouble, Job, like sparks fly upward. But as for me, if I was you, I’d just seek God and make my plea before God because he can do great and unsearchable things without number. The bad advice these three men gave Job got him in a lot of trouble with God. Job didn’t do anything wrong. Job didn’t curse God. And God later came back in Job 42.7 and said, the Lord spoke these words to Job that the Lord said to Eliphaz at the Tenemite. He said, this is what the Lord told Eliphaz for his stupid wisdom. My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends because you did not speak of me what’s trustworthy as my servant Job has been. Did God restore everything? Yes, it did. Job 42, 10 through 17. You can read it for yourself. The Lord restored everything double what he had in the past. Gave it all back to him. So here’s the principle. When we face personal adversity, we can react or respond. We can react with emotional sins, or we can respond with faith, faith rest drill. It’s up to you. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re paying attention. I hope you’ll come back next week. 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.
