In this episode of The Flatline, host Rick Hughes invites listeners to explore profound spiritual teachings that underscore the importance of family, marriage, and personal responsibility as cornerstones of God’s plan. Delve into a thoughtful discourse on how divine mandates guide us in establishing strong and nurturing family units that glorify God through our lives and decisions. Rick elaborates on the first family in the Bible and how its trials provide valuable lessons on obedience and faith. Listeners are also encouraged to reflect on the spiritual implications of sacrifice, as traced through biblical events to the ultimate atonement of
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 Flotline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stick around. It won’t be long, 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, education, and no manipulation. That means we don’t con people. We’re not trying to raise money. We’re not trying to sell you anything. We’re just trying to give you accurate information that’ll help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. If you can do that, you can orient and adjust to the plan. It’s all your choice. But thank you for giving me some 30 minutes of your time this morning. If you’ll stick around, it’s always great to hear from you. I encourage you to go to our website, rickhughesministries.org. That’s rickhughesministries.org. There you can see all of our books that we make available free of charge. And you can listen to some of those books read by our announcer, Jack Steele. And you can order various materials and take a look at what we are all about. So don’t hesitate to go there. And let me one other thing before we get started today. I’d love to hear from you. We are in the process of renewing radio contracts for the upcoming year. We do not know who’s listening and who’s not listening. We have no way to gauge that. But if you are listening, would you just drop us a note through the website or write us a personal note to P.O. Box 100 in Cropwell, Alabama. P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama. 3-5-0-5-4. All we have to do is say, I’m listening in this city or I’m listening in that city, and that gives us an idea of where to extend our radio shows. You can always reach us at our 800 number, 800-831-0718. That number was down for a while as we changed servers, but we got things working again now, so we’re able to get your calls. 800-831-0718. My team and I have been working hard to get out our latest book to you. It will be entitled Family, Your Greatest Legacy. I hope that we would be able to get it out by Christmas, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be available. So maybe sometime after the first of the year, not too far into next year, we’ll have this book available. I think this will be probably one of the most important books we’ve ever published. The Family, Your Greatest Legacy. I pray that you’ll ask God to give us guidance and insight as we put this together, and I pray it will help you. But the Bible has a lot to say about families. As a matter of fact, the first family mentioned in the Bible is that of Adam and Eve, his wife, along with their three sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth. In the beginning, God placed Adam and Eve in a perfect environment and tasked them with taking care of things. In Genesis 2.15, you can read where the Lord God took the man, put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. He had a job. He was a caretaker of the garden. In Genesis 1.28-30, God blessed them, told them to be fruitful, increase in number, in other words, have babies and grow your family. And God told them what resources they could use in Genesis 1, 28 through 30. The Bible says God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea. I like that. I like to catch fish. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. And then God said, I’ll give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth. and every tree that has fruit with seeds in it, and they will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground, everything that has to do with the breath of life in it, I give every green plant for food, and it was so. But he did warn them about one specific fruit they were not to eat, and you know what that was. That’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because he said, you must not eat, in Genesis 2, 17, you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For when you eat from it, you will certainly die. Now, they didn’t die physically, but they died spiritually because of the identification of a sin nature. It was this tree that Satan used to attack this family and steer them into spiritual and physical death. It’s amazing how quickly humans can be convinced that God did not really mean what he said. Unfortunately, he does, and he did, and they found out the hard way that they had been lied to by a deceitful serpent. The wonderful thing about our Heavenly Father is that forgiveness is always available. In Genesis 3.21, the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife Eve and clothed them. This verse describes what we call the first proto-vangelium. It describes God sacrificing an innocent animal to atone for their sins and to cover their nakedness. And this is a picture of exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ does for us. In Hebrews 9.22, in fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. You may wonder about what that means with the blood. The whole of the Old Testament, every book, points towards great sacrifices that were to come. The great sacrifice, of course, was the Lord Jesus Christ sacrificing his own life on our behalf. Leviticus 17.11 is the Old Testament statement concerning the significance of blood in the sacrificial system, where God spoke to Moses and said, “…for the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar.” It is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. All of the many blood sacrifices seen throughout the Old Testament were always foreshadowing the true once and for all time sacrifice to come. So the Israelis would never forget that without the blood, that’s death, there’s no forgiveness. The shedding of blood is a substitutionary act. People get all mixed up about this. The shedding of blood is a substitutionary act. It’s the innocent one dying for the guilty. Perfect picture of the substitutionary death of our Lord Jesus Christ on that cross where he took our place. Scriptures state clearly the Old Testament blood sacrifices were temporary and only atoned for sin partially and for a short time. Hence the need to repeat the sacrifice every year. But when our Lord Jesus Christ entered the most holy place, he did so to offer his own blood once for all time, making future sacrifices unnecessary. And this is what the Lord Jesus Christ meant by his dying words on the cross. It’s finished, it’s over with, it’s done for, John 19, 30. Never again would the blood of a bull or a goat cleanse men from their sins. The spiritual death of Jesus Christ on that cross It’s when he assumed our sin debt, and by this we are forgiven. Our sins have been paid for completely. His spiritual death on that cross was the blood sacrifice God required for the atonement of the sins of mankind. Colossians 1.20, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Ephesians 1, 7, in him, Christ, we have redemption through his blood, substitutionary spiritual death, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God’s grace. People get all mixed up about this, but that blood represented his substitutionary spiritual death on that cross, dying in our place. Just as an innocent animal died to provide a covering for Adam and Eve, who were ashamed of their nakedness, our Lord Jesus Christ died to give us a covering for our sin. Ultimately, this act of disobedience, eating that forbidden fruit, caused them to be cast out of the Garden of Eden. In reality, Adam lost his job, lost his benefits, and had to relocate. And Cain, their oldest son, wound up killing his younger brother, Abel. And this act caused Cain to be under a curse for the rest of his entire life, Genesis 4, 11 through 16, which meant he would never be able to grow his own food, he would never be able to have a home, he would be a homeless beggar searching for food and shelter, wandering the earth for the rest of his life. God even placed a mark on him that warned people not to kill him. The first family who lived in perfect environment found themselves in a horrible mess, all because they bought the lies of Satan rather than obeying their Lord. The question I have to ask you this morning is, has Satan deceived you into believing that he’s got a better deal for you than what God has made available through his son, our Lord Jesus Christ? By reading this book we are publishing, and when it gets out early next year, you’re going to discover what a wonderful life can be yours by ignoring the lies of Satan and obeying the word of God. So are you a parent? If so, let me present four things that you must instill in the thoughts of your young children. Beginning at a very young age, you absolutely must make them aware that God exists. That’s called God consciousness. You might do this by taking them outside on a cool dark night and point up to the heavens and read this verse. Psalm 8.3, when I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, and the moon and the stars which you have set in place. Point up to heaven and read that verse to them. When I consider your heaven, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you’ve set in place. Or you might read to them this verse if you go to the beach, where it says, this is what the Lord says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decreases the moon and the stars to shine by night, who decrees the moon and the stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar. The Lord Almighty is his name. This is how you make your children God-conscious. You take them and you let them look up. You take them to the beach and let them look at the waves. They have to learn that there is a God and that he does exist. And you and I pray that the curiosity they have will lead them to seek to know God. That’s called positive volition and God consciousness. And it’s the first step to accepting Jesus Christ as your savior. So evangelizing your own children is critical. Don’t depend on the church to do it for you. Give them the gospel early and give them the gospel often. But if you can make them aware that God exists, then you have to give an opportunity to make that decision for themselves. You also have to teach them about the divine institutions. You know, even if your children reject Christ as Savior, the divine institutions will be their ticket to temporal happiness while they’re still on this earth. So you have to teach them about their volitional responsibility. Volitional responsibility. Write it down. Teach them how God gives each of us free will. Seldom does a young person think about how a decision made today will affect them. I didn’t. My grandparents would say, I’ll give you $100 if you’ll make an A and I make a D or C. You didn’t really think about the future. Seldom do they do that. But in Galatians 6, 7, you must show your children, the Bible says, don’t be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man will reap what he sows. We are a victim of our decisions. You are not a victim of your environment. You are a victim of your decisions. You’re not a victim of your parents’ decisions. You’re a victim of your decisions. God holds you accountable for your very own decisions. So as a parent, our job is to create a code of conduct and we teach our children to follow this code of conduct all their lives. A great place to start is to teach your children this verse, Micah 6.8. He has showed this to you, O man, what is good and what doth the Lord require of you, but to do just, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Individual accountability is critical for a child to learn. It’s fairly easy to fool parents, you know, and even trick your friends, but you can never fool the Supreme Court of Heaven. Romans 14, 12 tells us, so then every one of us should give an account of himself to God. The first act of individual accountability is seen in Matthew 22, 41. While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, what think ye of Christ? That’s individual accountability. Whose son is he? And they said, well, he’s the son of David. No, he’s not. He’s the son of God. So our eternal future rests on the correct answer to that verse. Is he or is he not the son of God? A parent must also teach the sanctity of marriage. Teach your children how God created the perfect helpmate for Adam and brought her to him. In Genesis 2, 21 through 24, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. That’s divine surgery right there. Cut a rib out of Adam and closed it up, sealed it up, And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he into a woman, Genesis 2.22, and brought her to the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of the man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. You know, most American culture does not recognize this verse as a valid institution. Many men and women live together without the vows of marriage. There are many same-sex marriages, and they’re recognized by legitimate government authority. However, God has not changed his mind concerning this sacred commitment. Hebrews 13, four, let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled for God will judge the sexually immoral and the adulterous. So God ordains a marriage. God ordains a man and a woman to be married together. And God said the marriage bed is undefiled. It’s not a sin when you and your wife have intimate relationships. Outside of marriage, it is. It’s adultery or fornication. But inside the boundaries of marriage, it’s a normal thing. So it’s critical to teach the importance of that. It’s critical to teach the importance of their what? The sanctity of marriage. Teach the importance of their volitional decisions. In other words, back up, they have to understand why every decision they make is important because they’ll be held accountable for that. They have to understand why marriage is important because it’s what God created, how we stabilize the human race in marriage. They have to understand the importance of a family. Teach your children that. Paul recognizes them. You know, a lot of people say we sit down and we have dinner together and make kids come in here, turn off the TV, leave the cell phones in the other room, come sit down and have dinner with your family. That’s a great thing because the family is very important in the scriptures. Paul recognizes the family when considering a man to be a pastor in a local church. In 1 Timothy 3, 4 and 5, he wrote these words. He must manage his own family well. There’s the word family for you. His children should respectfully obey him. That’s where he has authority over his children. If a man doesn’t know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church, the verse goes on to say. So a father must establish authority orientation, and he must bring his family protection, and they must learn to respect him. Because if his own family doesn’t respect him, how could a church respect him? So the backbone of American culture is the family, the father, the mother, the children. And the scriptures go on to say in 1 Timothy 5.8, If anyone doesn’t take care of his own relatives, especially his immediate family, that’s your sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, then he’s denied the Christian faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Yes, you should take care of your aging parents. Don’t lock them away in a nursing home where you don’t want to see them because you’re too busy to take care of them. I understand sometimes that’s necessary, but if it’s not necessary, if you can keep them at home and take care of them, keep them there with you where they can enjoy their life with their family. Luke at Acts wrote about Cornelius, a Roman centurion, who was a devout, God-fearing family man. In Acts 10-2, he and all his family, there it is, all his family were devout and God-fearing, and he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. See, it’s within the family structure that authority orientation is taught, as well as appreciation for blessing and the examples of sacrifice and commitment. You know, if you don’t get authority orientation as a child, then you’ll grow up arrogant. Arrogance develops in a young child’s life when they demand something. They have to understand that the arrogant person is the inadequate person. Arrogance is self-justification, self-deception, self-absorption, and eventually, of course, self-destruction. And a child has to learn that they don’t get their way by being arrogant. The arrogant child disobeys the authority of the parents. The arrogant child won’t mind their parents. And an arrogant child grows up to be an arrogant person An arrogant person grows up usually to be a criminal of some sort. So arrogance must be stifled in the house where you start with authority orientation to make that child realize there’s somebody greater than you over you so that you can’t do some of these things you want to do. Authority orientation must be taught. Also, you have to teach them appreciation for the blessings that God poured out into your family and let them learn how mom and dad sacrificed to raise them and the commitment mom and dad made to take care of them. Kids sometimes don’t realize the sacrifice that parents make. Sometimes both parents work hard to provide income for the household. And parents make a commitment to protect and watch over their children, make sure they have everything they need, sometimes too much so. But think about that. Now finally, I want you to learn to teach them about nationalism. You may wonder what I’m talking about here as opposed to internationalism. But in nationalism, there’s a reason why God separated the nations in Genesis 11. In verses 1 through 9, God separated the nations that mankind had decided to build a temple. They wanted to build this temple up into the skies, representing their own power. This was leading to one world government, or what we know as internationalism. In Genesis 11, 7 through 9, God put a stop to that satanic concept. He said this, let us go down and there confound their language so that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of the earth, and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of that place called Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth, and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of the earth. And so what you find today in our world is a push towards one world government. This is exactly a satanic concept that he fosters himself so that he can take control of the world, which in fact he will do. and what we will know as the tribulation. So again, what must you teach your children? You must teach your children volitional responsibility. Volitional responsibility. You must teach your children what? Not only volitional responsibility, but the importance of marriage. You must teach them about the importance of the family. You must teach them about the importance of nationalism. And see, if they don’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and it’s highly possible that your children might not accept Christ. So if they don’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the only happiness they’re ever going to have in their life is to live by those divine institutions because God has promised that he’ll provide through those four things. As long as the United States of America honors those four things, freedom, marriage, one man, one woman, family, and nationalism, then we have a chance as a client nation to God to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what it’s all about. We want to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ through our personal lives, through our family lives, through our national life. So may I ask you a question? Have you ever trusted Jesus Christ to be your savior? Have you made the single most important decision that any person could ever make? Have you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ? As I told you earlier, that’s your volitional decision. That’s why the Bible says, what think ye of Christ? And that’s the first thing you’re going to be judged on in eternity. Did you, in fact, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? That judgment is in the book of Revelation, chapter 20. It’s called the great white throne of judgment. And every unbeliever that’s ever been born will stand before the great white throne of judgment. Christians are not there to be judged. We were judged in 1 Corinthians 3. That’s what’s called the judgment seat of Christ, and we are rewarded accordingly here. whether it’s wood, hay, and stubble, or gold, silver, and precious stones. But the unbeliever is at the great white throne of judgment. And there are two things that God’s going to look for there. The first one is, is your name in the Lamb’s Book of Life? Everybody who’s born’s name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. But those who die outside of Christ have died the first death, and their name is erased from the Lamb’s Book of Life. So it’s not there. The second book, it’s actually books, plural, are the books of works. And so God, like if God called up Joe Bob there and said, okay, Joe Bob, your name is not in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Can you prove to me why I should let you come to heaven? And he said, well, look at this. I didn’t drink. I didn’t smoke. I didn’t cuss. I didn’t run around. I wasn’t unfaithful. I paid my taxes. I went to church. The Bible says there are none that are righteous, not even one. All of our good works are like a filthy rag in God’s eyes. You must understand and your children must understand the nicest, most good thing you can do is like a filthy rag to God because God is absolutely righteous 100%. And we are absolutely unrighteous. So if you put plus R for God’s righteousness and you put minus R for our righteousness, we have no righteousness. We have no ability to have a relationship with God unless we come through the substitutionary spiritual death of Christ on that cross. That’s why 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, by him, in him. That’s how you get it. You have equal righteousness with God through Jesus Christ. Your sins were put on him. My sins were put on him. And his righteousness was imputed to us when we accepted him as our Savior. And we won’t be at the great throne of judgment. We’ve already been saved. We’ve already been judged. We may be watching this, but we won’t be there. So keep that in mind. Is your name in the Lamb’s book of life? That’s the first question. It was until you died the first death. And secondly, what about your works? Have you earned the right to come to heaven? Do you equal God’s righteousness? And the answer is no. So remember, you’re going to be born twice or you’re going to die twice, one of the two. The first birth, your mother and father and the family produce a child and you’re here. The second birth is your spiritual birthday. You’re born again. And the first death is without Christ. Your name is erased from the Lamb’s Book of Life. And then in the second death, that’s when you’re cast into the lake of fire. In Revelation 20, this is called the second death. Whoever’s name was not found written in the Lamb’s Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. All right, I want you to pray for us. Pray as we get ready to produce this book. We’ve got other books coming out too. Remember we just reproduced a book called Understanding Your Soul. We’ve got that book printed and it’s in our hands. We’ll have it to use very soon. Plus we’ve had to come back and make some other books that are running low on books. So don’t forget about that. And don’t forget to let us know if you’re listening. Let us know if you’re listening to this radio show. We need to know that so we can sign our contracts and make our payments for the upcoming year. I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you giving me some of your time this morning. I hope this information about the family has been encouraging to you. We’ll be back next week if God allows that. Same time, same place. So we would like to ask you to keep us in your prayers as we move forward into the coming year. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Floodline.
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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.
