Join Rick Hughes on The Flatline for an eye-opening discussion about the current spiritual and cultural challenges facing our nation. Discover profound insights and scriptural wisdom as Rick explores the concept of objective optimism and the importance of spiritual maturity in navigating these turbulent times. This episode highlights the role of mature believers in sustaining the spiritual pivot crucial for national recovery, and reflects on the decline in cultural standards and moral absolutes.
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.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, I’d like to invite you to stick around. A short time of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education. And no manipulation, no con games, no begging for money, not trying to sell you something. We’re not going to ask you to join up, fess it up, give it up. We’re just going to ask you to listen up. What I’m going to try to do is verify and identify the plan of God for your life, for our nation. And if you can orient and adjust to that plan, you’ll be much better off. But this show is about giving you truth from the Scripture, from the Word of God. I don’t claim to be a know-it-all. I don’t claim to be a genius. But anybody with half a brain can look at the trends of history and see what’s going on. You’ve got to have some objective optimism in these days. You say, what is that? Well, it’s wisdom, knowledge, discretion, and understanding. Taught in Proverbs. Listen to what the Bible says. How blessed is the man who finds wisdom… and the man who gains understanding, for her profit is better than the profit of silver, and her gain better than fine gold, and she’s more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire compares with her. And that’s the wisdom of God’s Word. When you are educated or taught the Bible, when you have an instructor who teaches you the Bible, You get wisdom, wisdom, and from wisdom, you get discretion and understanding. I’ve often called it spiritual x-ray vision. With this knowledge from the word of God, you can see things other people don’t see. You can understand things that other people cannot understand. So the question we’d like to answer for you today is what’s going on in the country? Recent trends of history can tell us there are dark days coming, can’t they? You see it just like I do. The question to be answered is, how is it going to affect us? What can we do about it? Obviously, voting is not the answer. I mean, surely we’re going to vote in great politicians, but that doesn’t solve the problem. The problem is the people, the old sin nature of the people. And these coming years will provide us with the opportunity to glorify God to the maximum. I promise you. You’re going to have an opportunity to glorify God like you’ve never had before. And either it will be through undeserved suffering or you will glorify God by having spiritual victory in your life and helping deliver this current nation from the crisis we find ourselves in. So it’ll be up to the mature believer to sustain the pivot. Mature believers. I’m not talking about military action. I’m not talking about picking up arms. I’m talking about growing spiritually, being a mature believer, being part of the pivot that God uses to sustain the client nation. And if you can do that, then you can present Christ to the lost individuals that live within this nation. So which way do you think things are going to go? What do you think? I believe it’s not hard to predict if you just look back in history to similar times, which we can do. But if I give you an overall view of current American trends, I’d like to quote something that my very own pastor taught recently in a Bible conference. He said these words. He said, there has never been a change in how people think. Or excuse me, never been. I don’t take that back. There has been a change in how people think. The loss of standards, the loss of morality has brought about relative decisions in their lives. What’s a relative decision? It’s a decision based on circumstances, not absolutes. So is America losing its standards? And the answer has to be obviously yes. The rise of radical organizations such as BLM and Antifa, whose agenda is to destroy America as we know it. Social justice beginning to take precedence over rule of the law. The rise of internationalism and dependency on other nations are one world orders on the horizon. The unique American culture that we’ve known for years is being destroyed by diversity and multiculturalism. And that’s referring to divine institutions. They’re on the way out the window. Volition, freedom, marriage, and nationalism. That’s the four articles of divine institution. Again, freedom. God gave you volition, the freedom to choose. Marriage, God ordained marriage. One man, one woman. Family, God ordained a family to raise up and train children in respect for authority. And nationalism, not internationalism. So that’s all being destroyed today. The new savior today is not the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s environmentalism. They want to save the planet, and you can’t do it. I can’t do it. And nobody’s going to destroy this planet. God’s already got it written in the scripture what’s going to happen. If you want to know, you can read it for yourself. And so the world’s not going to be blown up in nuclear bombs. The world’s not going to be destroyed by us. It will be destroyed eventually at the end of the millennial reign of Christ, but by God. So politicians who claim to know what’s best for us, medically they know what’s best for us, financially they know what’s best for us, socially they know what’s best for us, and so you lose your rights. Churches, this is a shame, abandoned by lazy believers who’ve lost interest in spiritual matters. They’d rather stay home and watch on television. They’d rather put their free time first. Go, go, go. Do, do, do. Do something. Do something. Let’s go have some fun this weekend. Forget about church. So there you go. That’s kind of what’s going on in our country today. We’re in big trouble, and you can see it for yourself. The times are changing. The sands in this country are shifting, and it’s going to require you and me to orient and adjust spiritually. So listen to my challenge. Buckle up, Lulu. The battle’s just in the first quarter of a four-quarter game, and it’s coming. Our Lord’s very own disciples found themselves in changing times as well because they had no idea how rough things were about to get. Even though the Lord spelled it out for them in this particular passage I’m going to read to you. What was coming would require a great deal of sacrifice, I mean much more than they signed up for. And I personally believe it will be the same for you and I. In John 16, 1 through 4, as well as John 15, 18 through 21, the Lord Jesus Christ said these words, “‘These things I have spoken to you “‘that you should not be made to stumble.'” They will put you out of the synagogue. Yes, the time is coming when whoever kills you will think he’s doing a favor for God. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor me. But these things I have told you that when the time comes, you can remember. Now, my question is, how can you recall what you haven’t heard? So the Lord Jesus Christ said, you can remember that I told him to you. And these things I didn’t say to you at the beginning because I was with you. Now I’m not gonna be with you. So it’s time for them to learn to stand on their own cognitive independence. We call this spiritual autonomy. He sent the Holy Spirit to sustain them, to provide all their needs. So what is he saying these things? What’s he referring to? Well, it’s the hatred for the followers of Jesus Christ. And he told them that persecution is coming. That’s what refers to what the Lord said these things. Listen to John 15, 18. If the world hates you, the cosmos diabolicus, the world hates you. You know it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, they would love you. But because you are not of the world, I chose you out of the world. I chose you. I called you out of the world. therefore the world hates you. So remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. And if they keep my word, they will keep your word. But all these things they will do to you for my name’s sake because they don’t know the one that sent me.” Well, I think these words were designed to wake up the disciples to the severity of what was coming. because soon he would be crucified, buried, and resurrected. And soon Satan’s strategy would then be target them, turn to them, turn to the disciples, go after them. Jesus said, they’re still missing the big picture. They still didn’t get it. In John 16, 6, he said, because I said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. In other words, emotions kicked in. They’re feeling all sad now. Jesus, you’ve been with us, and you’re going to leave us. What are we going to do? Don’t miss the big picture of why God chose you, why God equipped you, and why God left you on planet Earth. Don’t miss the picture. John 15, 16, you did not choose me. I chose you, and I appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask in the Father in my name, he will give it to you. So I remember when I got saved, I didn’t go looking for God. I wasn’t on a mission to find God. God found me. That doesn’t mean I was predetermined to be saved. That’s not what I’m saying. God knew an eternity future. He has that ability. He’s omniscient. He knew I would respond, and he made sure I got the gospel. and he gave me a spiritual gift called evangelism. And then hopefully he’s used me for this past 50 plus years. While these words were spoken to the disciples, you didn’t choose me, I chose you, appointed you, it’s clear that these same words can be a motivation for you and for I to determine something, for us to determine what shall we do with our remaining time on earth. And for some of us, it may not be much longer, right? Your charge might not be to write the Bible or to count into Scripture or to be a martyr as these disciples were, but you and I have been given a great responsibility to represent Jesus Christ to our generation by means of word and deed. So there’s no doubt this is asking a whole lot of some individuals. There’s no doubt some people consider their time more important Their desire is more essential. They want to be happy. They want to have fun. So their desires come first. And that being said, they will indeed reap what they sow. What do I mean by that statement? I mean, they’re not interested in the spiritual life. They may play church. There might be what we call a conventional Christian, a caricature of Christ, not the real thing. They’ll show up, nod to God, crowd, hello, God, and see you next Sunday, God. Goodbye, God. Don’t bug me during the week, God. Is it asking too much for some people to grow spiritually? Hebrews 5 says you’ve been saved a long time now and you ought to be spiritually teaching other people, but you’re not. You’re just like babies. Think about it. People have been saved for years. They’ve known the Lord Jesus Christ for years and they never got out of the first grade. If you send your child to the first grade and they go for an hour a week, they’re never gonna get out of the first grade. And if that’s all you get, if you get an hour a week of spiritual instruction from the pulpit of your local church, you’re never gonna get out of the first grade spiritually. You’ve got to grow. You’ve got to get with it. So people that have excuses, they make excuses, they’re gonna reap what they sow because the Bible says in Hosea 8, 7, they have sown to the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind, and that’s about volitional responsibility. God holds you responsible for your spiritual life. He gave it to you. He endowed you with the Holy Spirit. He gave you the canon of Scripture. He gave you communicators to teach it to you, and he’s holding you responsible to know what you did with it. You must choose whose agenda you’re going to follow in the future. Is it going to be your agenda, or is it going to be God’s? Are you gonna live on your plan or God’s plan? Because if you choose to pursue your own agenda and you have every right to do so, whether you chose it out of fear or just plain neglect, but whatever the reason, you’re wasting your time and God’s time. You should be redeeming the time, the Bible says. I’m sure some of these disciples thought second, you know, wait a minute, wait a minute. We didn’t sign up to be criminals. We didn’t sign up to be martyrs. We didn’t sign up to be persecuted, and neither did you, but you live in the devil’s world. You are in the middle of the angelic conflict, and if you think things are gonna be always rosy and peachy and nice because you’re a Christian, you got the wrong idea. Satan has your name on the books, and he’s gonna come after you as quickly and hard as he can if you grow spiritually, if you decide to get serious about your spiritual life, He will be on you like a bug. He’ll be after you. So you have to choose. Are you willing to pay the price? Are you willing to grow spiritually? Are you willing to get involved under a local church, under a great pastor, studying and growing and learning God’s word and getting that wisdom, knowledge, discernment, understanding we’re talking about? Because the enemy is in the business of neutralizing you, neutralizing your impact. whether by distracting you by some of your hobbies or your vacation or your work or defeating you. It makes no difference to him. He’s aware of you and he’s aware of your priorities. So what Satan wants to do, let’s keep this in mind now. This is a little shocking. Satan wants to neuter you, neuter you so you cannot reproduce. That’s what he’s after. He’s not in a hurry. He’s aware of your priorities. He knows what he can do to defeat you. He’s not in a hurry. And the attempt to neutralize you or neuter you is to impact your life and in your church. And it’s not a one shot attempt. I promise you. In some cases, it takes years to neuter individuals, years to neutralize a person and even an institution like a local church. But the tack is there. It’s always there. And it can be very, very, very subtle. Some of the greatest tests in the local church are people tests. Very subtle, but still very effective. People get discouraged, people get mad, people get angry, people bail out, people leave, people quit, because they don’t like somebody. That’s a problem. You don’t learn how to use impersonal love if you don’t understand the flat line in your soul. Using impersonal love for all based on your personal love for God, you’re gonna bail when that happens. So Satan will use the lure of the world as well as tempting the lust patterns of the flesh. What he’s actually doing is probing you, always probing you, looking for weakness so that he can form his plan of attack. And the number one tactic is obviously to cut you out of the herd, obviously to isolate you from the local body of believers. Now listen, it’s not abnormal to sin, it’s not abnormal to fail, and on occasion, not consistently, but it’s not abnormal, but it is wrong, it is not right, it is very abnormal if you refuse to recover from your sin and you remain out of commission. What does that mean? It means you don’t use the 1 John 1, 9 rebound situation. If we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That’s the key to being filled with the Holy Spirit. When you sin in your own volition, you quench the Holy Spirit and you grieve the Holy Spirit. And you’re out of commission. You’re not empowered. You’re operating in the energy of the flesh. And that’s exactly what Satan would like for you to do because then you’ll never be able to complete the plan of God for your life. So I want to give you some verses that’ll challenge your volition as they challenged mine when I read them. 1 Corinthians 15, 58. 1 Corinthians 15, 58. And by the way, if you ever need to contact me, just pick up the phone and call. 800-831-0718 800-831-0718 And I’m not a counselor. I’m a Bible teacher. And if you want to talk about the word of God, if you have a question, give me a call. Go to our website. Look at rickhughesministries.org. rickhughesministries.org. And you can see all the material that we offer you free, free, free. We don’t sell anything. It’s all free. And you can get it and you can grow spiritually if you’re interested in learning more about the word of God. So here are four verses that will challenge your volition. 1 Corinthians 15, 58. Therefore, my beloved brethren, Paul wrote, be steadfast. Be immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Here’s the first question you’re going to have to answer in that verse. What exactly is he talking about when he said abounding in the work of the Lord? What does that mean? And I’ll show you in a minute what it means. Some people read over it. I’ve asked probably 10 people, what does that mean to you? They all 10 have a different answer. In 1 Corinthians 16, 13, Paul wrote again, watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. And James wrote, you too be patient, James 5, 8, and stand firm because the Lord is near to returning. And again, in 2 Corinthians 1, 24, Paul wrote again, stand firm in your faith. Why, why do we have all these commandments to stand firm? Be steadfast, 1 Corinthians 15, 58. My beloved brethren, be steadfast, be immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. We start out with a verb. The word be is the verb. It’s pronounced genomi in the Greek, and it is a present middle imperative. The present tense says there never is a time you are not supposed to be steadfast. The middle voice is a deponent verb because of the MAI ending on that word. And it’s passive in form, but active in meaning, which means they have been being steadfast, and they need to keep on being steadfast. And it is an imperative mood, which means it is a command from God, not a request. Two descriptive adjectives to relate to your spiritual life. What are they? Immovable, immovable, and steadfast. Immovable and steadfast. And then abounding in the work of the Lord. So, Steadfast and immovable. Steadfast is an adjective. Hyderos is the Greek word, and literally it means to be fixed, to be firm. When we’re fishing, we have on our bass boats, we have something called a spot lock. It’s new in the trolling motor industry, but it’s worked off a GPS. So if you’re out in the middle of the lake fishing an underwater hump or an underwater roadbed or an underwater culvert, and you catch a fish, you step on the spot lock. And that will hold the boat in place and not allow it to drift off the location. And this is what this word means, to be spotlocked. It means to denote strength and be anchored down, steadfast, firm, stay there, fixed. And then immovable, another adjective. And that word is a little longer word, amatekinitas, amatekinitas. And that means do not be deferred from your objective or do not be deferred from your directions. Keep your post is what it means. It’s a military, you could use that. Don’t abandon your post. Well, okay, what is your post in God’s plan? Has God given you a post? Yes. Your assignment is your spiritual gift, whatever it is. And you are to stand firm today and tomorrow. And then we have the verb abounding, always abounding, steadfast, immovable, and abounding. Parisuo is the Greek word. And that means to be exceeding in the number, to be over and well beyond and above, beyond the expected. So he expects you to be steadfast, immovable, abounding in the work of the Lord, the prepositional phrase. What exactly is the work of the Lord? In John 14, 12, Jesus said, most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also. And even greater works than these he will do because I go to my Father. So here the Lord Jesus Christ is talking about your works, what you will do. This church in Corinth that Paul wrote to faced many problems. One of them was the Temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love in the middle of town. And Greek culture placed high value on wisdom. It was a commercial city on the Corinthian Isthmus, about maybe 250,000 people. It was known as the chief city of Greece, and it was full of unbridled immorality and idolatry. And Paul received information concerning that church from a woman household of Chloe that the church had developed fractions, factions. And so he wrote to address these problems and to instruct them as well as inspire them. Number one, he asked them to remain faithful in the Lord to what he taught them concerning the Lord’s will for their life because he did not want them to be compromised in their behavior. Listen to what he told them about temptations from these various things in the city. He said in 1 Corinthians 10, 13, no temptation has overtaken you except those that are common to man. And God is always faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also give you a way out so that you can endure it. Therefore, my friends, flee from idolatry. Don’t get involved in it. and always be abounding in the work of the Lord. What does that mean, the work of the Lord? We’re gonna take a couple of shows to deal with this, but there are a lot of different things here. In 1 Corinthians 12, verses four through 11, he identifies something. He says there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministry, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of effect, but the same God who works all things and all people. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by one Spirit, and to another the effect of miracles, to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and then to another the interpretation of those tongues. but to one and the same spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually, just as he will. You have a spiritual gift. God gave you a spiritual gift. Some of these that I mentioned have passed away. They no longer work today because that which is perfect has been provided, which is the canon of scripture, and the temporary spiritual gifts don’t function anymore. Those were miraculous gifts that got people’s attention, but now we have the living word of God and we don’t need those. but we still have certain spiritual gifts that are in effect today. And your job, the work of the Lord, is for you to fulfill your spiritual gift. Whatever that may be, it has nothing to do with your abilities. I’m not talking about that you can sing good. I’m talking about spiritual gifts, those gifts which function through your local church that present a picture of Jesus Christ to the community. Where do you think these spiritual gifts come from? Listen to this, Ephesians 4, 7. To each one of us, the grace has been given according to the measure of the spiritual gift from Christ. So you were given your spiritual gift from Christ. Hopefully you know what it is. I know mine’s evangelism. I know that. I didn’t study to be an evangelist. I didn’t choose to be an evangelist. That’s a gift God gave me. Listen to 1 Corinthians 12, but to one and the same spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as he wills. So God gives you a spiritual gift. You must determine what that spiritual gift is because that is the work of the Lord or that’s the job God gave you for you to complete for your assignment. This is it. What is your spiritual gift? How does it work in the local church? How does it form a picture of the body of Christ to the community? And if you bail out of your local church, if you run from it, and you’re not doing the work of the Lord, you may say, oh, I read my Bible, and I pray, and that’s the work of the Lord. And it’s true. That’s exactly what God wants you to do. But this is talking about much more than that. This is talking about your spiritual gift and how it affects your local church. There’s a lot more to say about this, and I’ll try to get back with you next week and continue this study. I hope you’re listening. I hope I haven’t gone too fast. I hope you’re learning something. Again, go to our website, check out our books. Our new material is being offered, especially the new transcripts of all the shows we’ve done since 2018. We have it now all for you. Thank you for being here today. I appreciate that. I hope you’ll stay in touch. Keep sending those notes and letting us know you’re listening. It means a lot. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flotline.
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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.
