SPEAKER 02 : 0:08

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 : 0:23

Well, good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I am your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stick around. It’ll be a short time, 30 minutes maybe of motivation. Some inspiration, a whole lot of education with no manipulation. We don’t try to con people. We’re not looking for money. We’re not trying to sell you something. We just want to give you God’s word, hopefully to help you verify and identify his plan for your life. And if that’s possible, if I can do that, and maybe the Holy Spirit would use what I tell you, then you can orient and adjust to the plan if you’d like to do so. But thank you for a few minutes of your time, and those of you that write, thank you so very much. You can always contact us through our website, rickhughesministries.org, or you can call 800-831-0718. We have two new books coming out there at the press right now. The latest one is God’s Grace and Aging, I think this is a phenomenal book for anybody over 50, and a lot of our radio listeners are definitely that way. So if you’re older, like me, you might want to read this book. We put a lot of work into this. What does God provide for you as you grow older, and what does God expect out of you as you grow older? God’s grace in aging. And then we’ve also read down a book on Bible promises and principles that we provided so many of these books. This deals with the promises of the Word of God that you can claim and put to work in your life and various principles, short principles in the back of the book that are not too complicated to understand, just one or two liners. Like bad decisions limit future options. That’s a principle. So if you want to order those books, all you got to do is go to the website, rickhughesministries.org. You can order from the website or you can call us at 800-831-0718. Now today, what we want to talk about is interesting. You know, the demand for power exceeds the need for power. I’ll say that again. The demand for power exceeds the need for power. Everybody wants to be in power today. We have the Democrats wanting to be in power and in control of Congress and running the nation. We have the Republicans thinking they got a better plan. They want to be in power and control and run the show. And the abortion that’s really in power is unseen. And that’s the devil because we live in the devil’s world. And we’re trying to find our way through the devil’s world because the Bible says, if you are a Christian, you don’t belong here. You’re just a sojourner. You’re a visitor. You’re passing through. But the thing about power is always there. And the world is looking for power. Maybe in your family, somebody’s manipulating, trying to be the power. Maybe at where you work, there’s always someone trying to build their happiness on someone else’s unhappiness so they can have power. Well, today I want to talk to you about the power resources you have, the power God gives you. I think you will be blown away with this understanding if you stick with me and learn it, because we want to consider all the powerful resources God provides for each of us while we live in this church age. That’s what we’re living in, not the Old Testament. We’re in the church age, and we are engaged in what’s called the angelic conflict, and there is power for us. So the key information for us to remember is that we have been provided everything we need to combat and defeat whatever comes our way while we live in this devil’s world. Everything. It’s all provided. God has made some powerful weapons for us to use. So remember again, this is not our home. We’re just passing through. And this is what the Holy Spirit does. He escorts us and empowers us from time to eternity. And the scriptures now, let’s go into three enemies we have to take a look at before we begin our study on power. The scripture warns us that we have three enemies we will face during our mission as ambassadors for Jesus Christ in the devil’s world. And if you’re a Christian, that’s exactly what you are. You’re an ambassador for Christ. You’re representing him in the devil’s world. And so there are three enemies we face, and you should know these. They’re fairly understandable, common. We talk about them all the time. The first one is your carnal nature. And that’s called the flesh and Paul’s writings. He wrote in Galatians five 17, the flesh wars against the spirit and the spirit wars against the flesh. And these are contrary one to the other so that you do not do the things that you should do or the things that you wish. So there is a battle in your flesh to control your life. And if you let it, the flesh can take power over you and control you. And the second thing we have not, we know we’re aware of this is the devil. And he has tremendous power and he would like to control you as well. And so the Bible tells us in Ephesians 6, 11 through 12, put on the whole armor of God so you can withstand the strategy of the devil. In verse 12, Ephesians 6, where we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, and against spiritual host of wickedness in the heavenly places. There’s a whole series of demons right there. I don’t have time to get into all of it, but this is exactly what that is. Principalities, that’s the powerful demons. Powers against the rulers of darkness of this world, more demons. Spiritual hosts and wickedness in heavenly places, more demons. Satan has a demonic army just like God has an army. And some of those demons have rank and power. So our battle is not just against Satan, but also against demons. who are assigned our case to G2 on us because he’s not omnipresent. Satan can’t be in Jerusalem and in America at the same time. But demons are assigned various believers, and so if you are a mature believer, you can bank it that he has a G2 on you. He knows who you are. He knows what you’re up to, and he knows what your weaknesses are. The third enemy that you face is the lure of the world or the cosmic system. So we have the carnal nature, the flesh. We have Satan, the devil, and the angelic conflict that goes on around us with those demons. And then in 1 John 2, 15, John wrote about how the world can attract you. He says, don’t love the world and don’t love the things in the world because if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. That means if anyone’s preoccupied with the world, he gets distracted from being in love for the Father. Because the Bible says, if you love me, you will obey me, and my mandates are not grievous in 1 John 5, 3. But the world will tell you just the opposite. The world will tell you happiness is in people and circumstances, and that is not true. Happiness, as Luke 22 says, Luke 24 says, happiness is in hearing God’s word and in keeping God’s word. That’s where true happiness comes from. So all that’s in the world, the lust of the flesh, that appeals to your flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, this is not of the Father, but it’s from the world, and the world is going to pass away, and the lust of it will pass away, but whoever does the will of God will abide forever. That’s a powerful statement. Whoever does the will of God will abide forever. Now, you may wonder what that means. I will quote to you what Jesus Christ our Lord said. This is the will of the one who sent me that you believe in me whom he has sent. The will of God is for you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and to receive him as your savior. Now, we just identified three enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. In order for you to overcome these enemies, God’s bestowed upon you unlimited power. And this power, if you will utilize it, will give you victory over each one of those opponents that confronts you. But if you fail to use these divine resources I’m gonna tell you about this morning, then I guarantee you that you will constantly and consistently fail, and you will find yourself feeling frustration because you don’t have the ability to pass the test in life. So let’s start with the promise from our Lord to his disciples, okay? In John 14, our Lord was about to leave. He knew he was gonna be arrested. He knew he was gonna be crucified. He had told him he was gonna be killed. They didn’t quite get the picture yet, but here’s what he told them. In John 14, 16, I will pray the Father, let’s request the Father, and he will give you another helper. Not me, I’m going to be gone, you’re going to have another helper, so that he may abide with you forever. The whole time you’re here, the Holy Spirit lives in you. Don’t forget that. In you right now, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, You have the unlimited power of the Holy Spirit living in you. In verse 17 of John 14, he’s called the spirit of truth who the world cannot receive because it does not see him nor know him, but you know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. So you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. You have a phenomenal power asset in the Holy Spirit. This promise is a divine provision made by God the Father through Jesus Christ that’s available to each one of us today. We have living in us God the Holy Spirit. Now, how did that get there? Well, Ephesians 1.13 tells us, In him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom you also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Did you hear that? You heard it, and you believed it, and you were sealed. That’s how you get saved. You heard it, you believed it, and you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. That means that nobody can take you out of God’s plan. The Holy Spirit locks the door, and he’s in you and will be in you until you go to be to heaven. So this is the most critical doctrine for every Christian to understand. Listen very carefully as I make that emphasis here. The Christian life, and this frustrates me when I talk to people that don’t understand this, the Christian life cannot function properly without the filling of the Holy Spirit. Cannot do that. You can’t live the Christian life without the filling of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because he is your source of power. He is your source of power to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. In Acts 1.8, the Bible, here’s what was told them. You will receive power, Jesus said, when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be witnesses in Jerusalem and all of Judea, even to Samaria and to the ends of the earth. The power is there. God the Holy Spirit lives in you. That’s an unlimited power resource. What a phenomenal thing. The word power is the word dunamis. We get our word dynamite from that Greek word dunamis. It’s an invisible assistance given to every believer by the Holy Spirit to help us overcome temptation as well as a divine ability both morally and spiritually. And it can be considered a force that enables, I know it was, it was considered a force that enabled even the early apostles to endure and overcome the persecutions that they faced, as well as perform many of the miracles that they did. And why did they do those miracles? To prove their identity as being divinely appointed individuals called apostles. So, Again, the Holy Spirit is the power available to you, and he lives in you, and if you’re not tapping into that power, you are not living the Christian life as God designed it. So the spiritual life has to be empowered by the Holy Spirit, or else all of your spiritual efforts will simply be called human good. The sin nature has a good side to it, and it can do good things. Even lost people can be kind and generous and thoughtful and friendly. And that doesn’t mean that you’re a good Christian because you’re kind and generous and thoughtful and friendly. You’re a good Christian if you’re growing in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If you’re being controlled by the Holy Spirit, that’s a good Christian, representing Christ through your life. So simply human good is not acceptable to God. Spiritual efforts in the flesh, you know, you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit. You have unconfessed sin in your life. You trot off down to church. You put on your Sunday go-to-meeting suit. You’re part of the nod-to-God crowd. And you show up, and you smile, and you say, Praise the Lord. Thank you, Jesus. And you leave and go. and you were in the flesh the whole time, you had unconfessed sin in your life the whole time, you wasted your time, you did not glorify God, you produced human good, and that will be burned up at the judgment seat of Christ, 1 Corinthians chapter three. It’s called wood, hay, and stubble. Because you didn’t do it in the power, in the power of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is the key here. Gives you the ability to overcome that sin nature, and all this stuff about human good and all the religiousosity type stuff. It was completely unacceptable and be rejected at the judgment seat of Christ. So if you want to win the battle, if you want to win the battle against fleshly lust, for example, you absolutely must stay filled with the Holy Spirit using rebound problem solving device. Number one, if we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to purify us from all wrongdoing. Because if we don’t rebound, we can’t live the Christian life. So we rebound when we fail. Fail, that’s right, you will fail. If you think you’re not gonna fail, you’re wrong. Nobody’s perfect, the only perfect person to ever walk this earth is again our Lord Jesus Christ. You’re going to fail and here’s something you need to consider. You might even do something that shocks yourself. And you might do that and you may think, well I must not be a Christian or I wouldn’t have done that or now that I’ve done that I’m not a Christian anymore. Not true. That’s exactly what Satan would love for you to do. Go sit in the corner and feel sorry for yourself because you blew it. Nobody’s perfect, and God loves you regardless of your mistakes. And if you will go to the Lord and rebound your sin, confess your sin to God, you will allow the Holy Spirit to continue controlling your life. But if you don’t, if you sin and you don’t admit it to God, then you wind up quenching the Holy Spirit. and grieving the Holy Spirit, and you lose the power, the ability that he gives you to overcome the world of flesh and the devil. In Romans 7, 15 through 20, Paul talked about his flesh and how powerful the flesh is. He said these words, he said, I don’t understand why I do some things. For what I want to do, I actually don’t do. The things I hate, that’s what I wind up doing. And if I do what I don’t want to do, then I agree with the law that’s good. But as it is, it’s not me that does it. It’s my sin that lives in me. For I know that the good itself does not dwell in me. That’s in my sin nature. For I have the desire to do what’s right, what’s good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but I do the evil that I don’t want to do. And that’s Paul the Apostle talking. It may sound like you. Maybe it’s a little confusing to you. But he’s saying now if you do what you don’t want to do, it’s no longer I that does it, but it’s sin living in me that does it. You have a sin nature. You have a carnal man. You have a flesh nature. That’s why sometimes you seem like two different people. Sometimes you’re great. Sometimes you and the Lord are on the same page. And sometimes you’re in left field because your sin nature took control because you shut down the power. You grieve the Holy Spirit. You quench the Holy Spirit. You don’t have the power to overcome the flesh. When it comes to defeating Satan, there’s only one way for you to do that one. the world of flesh and the devil, here’s another enemy we talked about. You must use, listen carefully, you must use the power of the word of God. The power of the word of God. Hebrews 4.12 says the word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of the soul and the spirit and the joints and the marrow and is critic, discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The Word of God is a powerful asset when combined with the Holy Spirit. And this is what the Holy Spirit uses to give you that power. He uses the Word of God, the living Word of God, alive and powerful. Let me show you how our Lord used it in Matthew 4 when he was tempted. It’s a rather long passage. I’m going to read it to you. Please bear with me. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. It could be you. Here it is. Maybe you. And when he had fasted 40 days, now I know you’re not going to do that, but our Lord went through that. Fasted 40 days and 40 nights. Afterwards, he was hungry. And this was before he began his public ministry. This is Satan cross-examining him right here. When the tempter came to him, that’s a.k.a. the devil, and he said this, if you are the son of God, command these stones become bread. Now listen to what Jesus told him. Our Lord said, it is written, that’s the word of God, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And I can see the devil shaking his head. Uh-oh, foiled again. So then the devil took him up to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and he said, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it’s written, and now the devil’s quoting the Bible, but misquoting the Bible, but he’s quoting it. He’ll give his angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. So here’s Satan. He thinks you don’t know it. He can quote scripture. But Jesus said to him, it is written, again, the word of God, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. And then finally the devil took him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said, all these things I will give to you if you will just fall down and worship me. That should be proof to you that he is the king of this world. This is the devil’s world. So Jesus said to him, away with you, Satan. It is written, there it is, the word of God. It is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. The devil left him and behold, angels came and ministered to him. You are less than powerful if you don’t know the scripture. That’s why I keep telling you, get under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor. Begin to grow daily. Take in the word of God daily. Learn the word of God and develop those skills 7,000 promises that are there for you so you can live the faith rest life. I mean, we try to provide all we can do. I’m not a pastor. I’m just a simple evangelist. But we’ve got a lot of material that will help you. A lot of our books are available for you, like practicing your Christianity or a Christian problem-solving book. All this is available for you to help you understand the power in the living Word of God that is for you. My life would be absolutely powerless if I didn’t understand these things. Our strength comes from the power of the living scriptures, and it’s called faith. That’s your power. Faith is your power. And that’s exactly what studying and learning God’s word does for you. It increases your faith. So as you grow spiritually and learn the word of God, retain the word of God, use the word of God, your faith increases. Where does that come from? In the Bible, the scripture. Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. There it is. So if you’re not listening to the teaching of the word of God, you are going to be faithless. You’re not going to have any fidelity and you’ll be operating on human good. And you’ll think, oh, I’m really doing God an honor and favor because I don’t cuss and I don’t drink and I don’t smoke and I don’t chew and I don’t hang around those that do. And you’re kidding yourself. Because you have convinced yourself that you’re a good Christian because you observe a few local taboos. I got news for you. You don’t understand the Christian life. Your strength comes from the living scripture. That’s called faith. That’s exactly what happens to you. Your faith can exceed and grow and increase as you learn the word of God. Now, here’s one thing you must understand. The most powerful thing you possess is The most powerful thing you have, the most powerful thing you can hold on to is what? The gospel message of the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Because when people hear it and believe it, it will change their life forever and change their eternal destiny. That’s right. Listen to what Paul wrote. He said, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God. There it is. The gospel of Christ is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes it, for the Jew first, and then also, obviously, for the Greek, for the Gentile. So you have at your disposal the most powerful thing the world has ever seen. You have these words, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. You have these words, for by grace are you saved through faith. It’s a gift of God, not of works. as any man should brag about it. When you quote those scriptures to a person that’s lost, you are letting them tap into the power of God to have eternal life. Therefore, the Bible says, if any man is in Christ, he’s a new creation. Old things are passed away, and all things become new. That’s how powerful the scriptures are, and that’s the power you have. The gospel has the power to change a person’s destiny, to change a person’s life. And it’s at your hands. It’s at your resource if you use it. And if you don’t use it, then you’re just missing out in why God left you here to start with. Because he could have sent some angels to do your job, but he didn’t. He left you here to do the job. And your job is to lift up the Lord Jesus Christ so he can draw men to himself and give the gospel. The most powerful thing you possess is the gospel. So now… Our life can now consist of an amazing power that the world does not even possess. Your friends that are not believers don’t have it. They don’t even understand where it comes from or what it does for you. Listen to 2 Timothy 1, 7. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a power. There it is. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a power and of love and of a sound mind. Wow. Three phenomenal assets now available to each one of us provided by the grace of God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and by means of the living Word of God residing in our soul. We have a new power. It’s called dunamis, a new divine resource. What did he say about that? Let’s go back to it. Don’t forget it now. Here it comes. God does not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. The word love is the word agapao. That’s virtue love. It’s a wonderful love asset that God’s given to us. And it’s called impersonal love for others or personal love for God. Virtue is two ways. Your virtue motivation, what causes you to live the Christian life to start with and do these things we’re talking about is your love for God. And that’s why the Bible says if you love me, you will obey me and my mandates are not hard. But you’re also told you gotta love some jerks, you gotta love weird people. So how do you do that? Well, there’s where you have to learn how to love them based on who you are, not based on who they are. There are a lot of Greek words for love in the Bible, but agapao, a verb or the noun agape, you might have heard agape before. And this is the love that we’re talking about. This is the Bible says God is love. He is love as part of his character, as part of his ability. He is sovereignty, righteousness, justice, love, eternal life, immutability. He’s omnipotent. He’s omniscient. He’s omnipresent. He’s love. So listen to the scriptures again. In 1 John 4 and 9, in this, the love of God was manifested to us. This is how we found it. God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might through him be saved. That’s the love of God that provided that for you. This virtue love is unbelievable power resource for you and it allows you to overcome any mental attitude sin such as bitterness and hatred. 1 John 4 20, if someone says I love God and hates his brother, he’s lying. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen has not loved God whom he hasn’t seen. The scriptures also translate the word love as phileo. We get another word from that, Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. We have a radio show. You may be listening around Philadelphia now. Another Greek word for love is orao, E-R-A-O. We get our word erotic from this word. You also have the assets of a sound mind. God did not give us the spirit of fear, but of love, of power, and of a sound mind. The word sophromesos is a sound mind. And I refer you to the Fantastic Four in Proverbs 2, 10 through 11. Listen carefully. When wisdom enters your heart, that’s your mind, and knowledge enters into your soul, that’s your mentality, discretion will preserve you and understanding will keep you. This is a powerful asset for you to have what we call the divine insight, to have spiritual x-ray vision, to have discretion and understanding, and it only comes through when you learn the word of God, when wisdom enters your heart. So what power we possess by discerning the schemes of the devil, we learn that, we learn the lure of the world, we learn the constant yearning of the flesh and we now know what we are like and that’s half the battle. If you know what you’re like, that’s half the battle. So that’s you, that’s available for you. God didn’t give you the spirit of fear but a power and of love, and of a sound mind. Gee, I hope you’re listening. I hope this is encouraging to you. If I can help you, don’t hesitate to contact us. That’s Rick Hughes, rickhughesministries.org. Until next week, thank you for listening.

SPEAKER 02 : 27:18

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.