Be the light of the world by living faithfully. Rick Hughes explains how faithfulness fuels the light of the Christian life. Drawing from Matthew 5 and John 12, he shows that every believer is called to shine as a beacon of truth and hope in a dark world. Learn why unfaithfulness dims your light, how rebound restores your fellowship with God, and why only faithful believers can impact our nation as spiritual lights for Christ.
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, please stay with me. It won’t be long, just 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, education, and no manipulation, no con games, not soliciting money. We’re not trying to sell you anything. We just want to give you some information that may help you verify and identify God’s plan for your life. If I can do that, then you have the privacy to orient and adjust to the plan. That’s always up to you because you got one shot at it. God gave you two ends, one to sit with, one to think with, and the heads you win and tails you lose. So think about it. As you go through life, you just got one shot. You’re not going to get two. I hope you’ll stick with us through the Flatline Radio Show. We continue to broadcast 21 years into this program now in over 125, 26 stations across the country and even out of the country in the Philippines. So thank you for listening. Thank you for being a part of the show. If you ever want to visit our website, it’s rickhughesministries.org. There you can see all of our books that we’ve written, and you can order the latest book, which is called The Christian Spiritual Life. It deals with what exactly is your spiritual life. You may also want to order the book Life’s Toughest Years, where we talk about young people and what they face in the future. All these are available. As always, all of our material is free of charge. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t cost us anything. It just means we believe if God’s in it, he’ll pay for it. So we do our job, and he provides the means for us to do it. All right? Now I used to do a lot of fishing, a lot of fishing at night. I’m older now. I can’t get around like I used to be able to. I used to love to night fish. That was my best specialty, night fishing. I won a lot of night fishing tournaments on the lake that I live on here in Alabama. And one thing was always interesting about night fishing was fish like to be around light. A lot of people started putting lights under their piers and it would attract thousands of fish and you could catch fish under those piers with lights. Sometimes on the darkest part of the lake there’d be some ambient light from someone’s porch light or someone’s boat dock light. And I’d like to fish around those lights, and the fish would always be there looking for food, and they could see, and the bait would be readily available to them, and we’d catch a lot of fish around lights. So I want to talk to you this morning a little bit about light, but I want to tie it in with the word faithfulness. Faithfulness. Faithfulness. I bring this up because I believe the future times in our beloved country are going to demand Christians like yourself remain faithful, especially to what our Lord called us to do. Listen to the words of our Lord about being faithful and the light. Put them together. Matthew 5, 14, and 16. You are the light of the world. Uh-oh. You are the light of the world. There you go. That’s you. Did you know that? A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. These words spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ are a mandate for each of us to be a beacon of truth and hope through Jesus Christ our Lord. We are to manifest the light or the phos, the Greek word phos. That’s our job, to be a beacon of truth and hope. We are never to sink into the shadows and we’re never to go undetected. In Luke 11, 35, take heed therefore that the light which is in you be not darkened. In other words, you don’t want to shut off your light. If you don’t have light, you’re not going to be very attractive to people. You know, the interesting thing about light is it requires an energy source. Darkness is obviously the absence of energy. But the energy believers possess, the energy you and I have, comes from the filling of the Holy Spirit, plus the dynamics of the Word of God when it’s alive and powerful and resident in our soul. There can be no darkness where light exists, because light forces darkness out. And so the first question I want to ask you this morning in your faithful Christian life is, is your light shining brightly? Is your light shining brightly? The light I speak of is manifested through the mature spiritual life. Are you, in fact, being faithful to add fuel to your fire so that your light does not flicker and diminish? You know, a campfire, somebody’s got to keep putting wood on it all night long. Or at a fire, a burnout, and just embers will be left and no light. Are you being faithful to add fuel to your fire so that it doesn’t flicker and diminish? Those individuals that walk in darkness will obviously be attracted to your light if your light is burning because it promises safety, it promises security, and it gives deliverance from the enslavement of uncertainty and fear. That’s what your light does. And your light is powered by the love of God that transforms all the things we could even imagine. So note the illustration of a military necessity for silence, and I’ll try to compare it to the Christian life. The American public has come to regard the submarine force of the United States Navy as a silent service. The submariners’ battle arena is the enemy’s doorstep. So in theory and almost practically, our submarines are in contact with the enemy from the time they leave their base until they return. Their service requires stealth and endurance and flexibility. While these submarines require secrecy and stealth, just the opposite is required of the Christian. We are not to operate in secrecy. We don’t need to have stealth. We are to be the light of the world. We are to be the city that’s set on a hill with a bright light shining. Let our light shine before men so that they can see our production and glorify God. So we on the other hand are to display our commitment to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ proudly. We are indeed to be a beacon of hope and we do this by reflecting the glory of God. That verse said, let your light shine before men. Any believer who’s living the Christian spiritual life is like a bright light in a dark forest. I remember driving home from schools that I visited years ago, and sometimes it would be late at night before I got back, and it would be on dark roads. And I would wonder what would I do if my automobile broke down. What would I do? And I would often see porch lights shining on country homes, and I knew that where there was a light, there was help, and I could go to that light. Our lives represent hope and security to the one who is lost. My light is a reflection of the love of God and for his love for all of mankind. So anytime you are filled with the Holy Spirit, your light is turned on and shining brightly. The word light is often used metaphorically for salvation also. In Psalm 56, 13, for you have delivered my soul from death. Have you kept my feet from falling? You not kept my feet from falling so that I may walk before God in the light of the living, in the light of the living. In Isaiah 9-2, the people who walked in darkness have now seen a great light. And those who dwelt in the land of the shadows of death, upon them a light has shined. When anyone accepts Christ as their Savior, they do so because they saw something they needed. They saw something that was appealing to them. And that’s the love of God shining through you by means of the filling of the Holy Spirit and the resonance of God’s word in your soul. So the faithful Christian always has his light on. 1 John 1, 7. If we walk in the light as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. We are mandated to walk in the light and that means not to get in the darkness, not to let sin take over. If you’re out of fellowship with unconfessed sin in your life, you’re walking in darkness. That’s not being faithful. Faithfulness is you keeping your light on. The light that we manufacture is exactly the same beacon of God’s grace that our Lord Jesus Christ brought into the darkness of the devil’s world. The scriptures say quite a bit about light, and we are to follow as well as manufacture light, but of course the word light is a metaphor for a specific way of living, and that requires you and I to be faithful to follow that lifestyle. As a human living in the devil’s world, we have two choices. Either we can walk in the light of God’s word, or we can walk in darkness of Satan’s cosmic system. What’s interesting is that as the light glows brighter, the shadows of darkness are eliminated. In a client nation such as ours, we must have mature believers who shine brightly in order to overcome the creeping darkness that we’re facing. If you’re a Christian and your light is not shining brightly but has rather been reduced to just a dim glow or no glow, then it’s apparent you have not been paying attention to your spiritual life. You obviously are not staying filled with the Holy Spirit and you’re not taking in God’s Word on a daily basis. Instead of being faithful, you are faithless and you are a failure. you actually have now become an enemy of the cross. Paul spoke about that in Philippians 3.18. For many walk, peripateo, the Greek word, lifestyle. Many have a lifestyle of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping, it breaks his heart, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. and their end is destruction, that’s the sin of the dead, whose God is their belly, that’s their emotions, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their mind on earthly things, that’s human viewpoint thinking. You know, if the recent events that you’ve noticed that happened lately of a national crisis disturbed you, you may be wondering, what should I do about it? I mean, it was a horrible thing. We all saw what happened on television to Charlie Kirk. So you have to recognize what goes on, what’s happening. And you must recognize that as goes your spiritual life, so goes your client nation. If your light has been extinguished or is just flickering like a light bulb about to go out, what can you do about it? Well, listen carefully and I’ll tell you. In 1 Samuel 12, 24, only fear the Lord and serve him in truth. Fear him and serve him. With all your heart, You hear that? Fear the Lord, that’s respect God. Serve him, that’s to be obedient to what he tells you to do with all your heart, that’s complete obedience. And consider what great things he’s done for you, that’s your motivation, to serve him. The Bible calls that reciprocal love. We love God because he first loved us. In 2 Timothy 2.13, if we are faithless, God remains faithful. He will not deny himself. What that simply means is that if you are not burning a light in your soul, if you’re not attracting unbelievers, if you’ve gotten out of fellowship, you’ve got unconfessed sin in your life, he has not kicked you to the side. He will not deny himself. What does that mean? It means you are part of the royal family of God even though your light is diminished. Even though you’ve been unfaithful, he still loves you, you’re still his child, and you’re still alive for a reason. God’s faithfulness to you is always demonstrated, for example, in Lamentations 3, 22 and 23. Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness. And in 2 Thessalonians 3.3, the Lord is faithful, the one who will establish you and guard you from the evil one. Failure for you and me to grow spiritually and failure for us to reflect the thinking of Christ brings us shame at the judgment seat of Christ. You can read about it yourself. Write this note down, 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15 in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15, and read about the believers who show up at the judgment seat of Christ and find out that all they have to do is get wood, hay, and stubble. They have no crowns, no gold, no silver, no jewels, just wood, hay, and stubble. And that’s because they were not faithful, not faithful to grow, not faithful to stay filled with the Holy Spirit. They let their light be extinguished and attracted no one. Failure to grow spiritually means you’ve been distracted from the plan of God for your life. Yep, you may be saved, that’s for sure. And yep, you’re going to spend eternity in heaven with God, that’s for sure. But your lack of faith has guaranteed that your children and your grandchildren will not have the blessing of God on their future nation. I want to say that again. I hope it shocked you a little bit. Failure for you to grow spiritually means you have been distracted from the plan of God for your life. And you have some children, don’t you? You have a couple of kids, maybe three or four, maybe some grandkids. And yet you find no time for the Word of God in your life. Your life does not reflect the light of God. Yep, you’re saved. Yep, you’re going to heaven. But you are guaranteeing that your children and your grandchildren will not have the blessing of God on the future of this nation You know, in Leviticus, God pronounced five cycles of discipline on the nation of Israel if they forsook his statues and his commandments. These stages of divine discipline are taught in Leviticus 26. I advise you to read it. Leviticus 26, that’s an Old Testament passage, and yes, it’s context is to the nation Israel. But listen, first God told them how he would be willing to bless them if they would be obedient. Leviticus 26, 3 through 13, he tells them what he’ll do, how he’ll bless them. But then he turned around and told them how he would discipline them for their disobedience in Leviticus 26, 14 through 39. Now, I do understand the context of this passage. But I also understand it reflects a pattern of how God deals with his client nations. The fifth cycle of discipline is especially frightening as it represents total destruction of the nation. Could that happen in America? Are we a client nation? Yes. Why would that happen? Because the lights go out. There’s not enough light to dispel the darkness. And darkness is creeping across our nation as I speak to you today. So listen to what happens to a nation that lets the light go out. After all of this, if you do not obey me and you continue to walk contrary to me, Leviticus 26, 27, Then I will walk contrary to you in a fury, and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. And you will eat, you will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. That’s cannibalism. I will destroy your high places. I will cut down your incense altars and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols. and my soul will abhor you, and I will lay your cities to waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas. That’s their prayer, and I won’t answer them. That’s the serious warning, folks. Pay attention. This could happen to us if we continue to let the light diminish in this nation. Failure individually is reflected by failure nationally. Do you hear that? Failure individually is reflected by failure nationally. Our country, the United States of America, is in serious trouble today. We are divided in many different ways. You know as well as I do that several generations have been deprived of hearing the truth of the Gospels. In the 70s, I spoke in hundreds of schools, hundreds of schools. In two years, I spoke in 430 high schools across the great state of Mississippi and hundreds across the state of Georgia, into Louisiana and Texas. And I could talk about God’s Word. I could talk about salvation. I could talk about Jesus Christ, and there was no problem. I remember one school I was walking into in Greenville, Mississippi, and I was following a couple of kids into the school, and this one kid pulled out a pint of whiskey, chugged it down and threw the bottle in the bushes and walked inside. And I thought, now I gotta go in there and talk to these kids, and this one’s gonna be drunk. You know, we shut down teaching God’s Word in schools. Didn’t wanna offend anybody. Got sued by the American Civil Liberty Union for teaching the Bible. We shut down religious displays in the public arenas. The concept of family has been attacked and in many cases even ignored. The family, by the way, is where genuine humility begins by teaching respect for authority. Our nation has justified many, many immoral and many perverted sins and given a voice to those who recruit for the cosmic system. One man cannot reverse these trends overnight by himself. You and I, we are the game changers. We must bring our light into the darkness of the cosmic system. We must be faithful to grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I’m not talking about a Christian activist. I’m not talking about crusader arrogance. You’ve got to remember that God did not leave us here to clean up the devil’s world. Our job is to shine the light of the glorious gospel and call people to salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. That effort alone is enough to get you hated and to make you a target for elimination by Satan. Remember, our Lord told the disciples what was going to happen to him. He told them the day was coming when they would be killed by those who opposed their message. In John 16, two through three, they will put you out of the synagogue. They will put you out of the synagogue. And yes, the time is coming, he told the disciples. Whoever kills you will think he offers God service. God is not the author of murder. Satan is a murderer from the beginning. And they will kill you thinking they are helping God out. That’s what Jesus told the disciples. These things they will do to you because they have not known the Father and they have not known me. Our Lord warned those who questioned his claim to be the Son of God. He warned them about that. Listen to what he told them in John 12, 34. The people answered and said, we’ve heard from the law that Christ remains forever. How can you say the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is the Son of Man? In verse 35 in John 12, Jesus said to them, a little while longer, the light is with you. The light is with you. In other words, his life held back the darkness. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. He who walks in darkness does not know where he is or where he’s going. While you have the light, believe in the light so that you may become sons of light These things Jesus spoke and departed and was hidden from them. I have a friend of mine who was a special forces soldier doing night maneuvers, parachuted at night into the jungle. And kiddingly, he told me, he said, I learned something about trees at night. I kept tripping and falling down. He said, trees lay down on the ground to rest at night and they stand up during the daytime. Well, that’s not true. But you stumble in the darkness if you don’t have light. Our nation is a stumbling, bumbling mess. Many individuals have no light and want no light and think they’re smarter than God. I’m always interested in the people that say, oh, I’m an atheist. I say, really, you are? Yeah, I’m an atheist. How do you know God doesn’t exist? I’ve never seen him. They say, I’ve never seen God. Well, did you go to Mars and look for God? Well, there’s a satellite that went around Mars and it didn’t see God. I said, well, how about Pluto? Did you go to Pluto and look for God? If you say there’s no God, you’ve got to be God yourself because you’ve got to look everywhere in the universe at one time. And if there’s one place left out and God’s there, you’re in a big heap of trouble. But your own arrogance lets you walk in the darkness. You think there’s no God because you haven’t seen him. What a tragedy. God loves you. Christ died for you. Remember the verse, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believed in him would not have to perish but have everlasting life? That’s the love of God demonstrated through sacrificing his son. So let’s review a little bit of what we studied today. Hopefully, one, Christ is the light of the world. 2. We are to reflect that light by reaching spiritual maturity in our life.
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Faithfulness is required if you wish to serve the Lord.
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The unfaithful is a failure due to wrong priorities in their life. Five, client nation USA can only be delivered by those faithful believers who understand the protocol plan of God. Six, Christian activism will never clean up the devil’s world. Seven, our job is to win souls to Christ, not clean up the devil’s mess. Eight, if you have failed to prioritize your spiritual life, you are a failure. You have no light. Nine, rebound is how we recover from being a failure. This gives us the first energy source for light, but we then must add the word of God to our soul’s mentality in order to keep the fire burning brightly. And 10, remember a campfire will burn out if you don’t keep adding fuel to it. And 11, there’s nothing more discouraging than a Christian who through his unfaithfulness let his light go out. In John 12, 46, I have come as a light into the world so that whoever believes in me will not have to abide in darkness. And lastly, the devil’s world operates under the cloak of darkness. And only the light of God’s word can penetrate that darkness. And you are the light. You are the light. I hope you’ve been listening. I hope you’ll admit it if your light is out. If your spiritual life is non-existence, I hope you realize what a failure you’ve been and you’ll recover by confessing your sin to God and getting back in fellowship. Begin to stay filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to take in God’s Word daily. There’s only so much time we have left in our personal lives and in the history of this nation. We’re standing on a divided course right now. Many, many people hate believers, hate Christians, hate what they stand for. Many people have their own ideas about how this country should be led. You must be the light. You must be the light that lights the way for people so they can see the truth. The truth is God loves them. The truth is Christ died for them. And the truth is there’s peace and happiness and security when you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for coming to my show today. Thank you for listening to things I had to say. I hope you’ll come back next week, same time. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
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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.
