Spiritual renewal occurs when Christians seek to learn God’s Word. A national spiritual renewal must start with you. Revival brings unbelievers to Christ—but renewal brings believers back to the Word of God. In part two of the series, Rick Hughes challenges listeners to pursue genuine fellowship with God through recovery from sin, the filling of the Holy Spirit, and obedience to Scripture.
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. Just about 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education, and of course, no manipulation because we don’t con people. We’re not seeking offerings, contributions, not trying to sell you anything. We just believe that if I can verify and identify the plan of God for your life, at least you have the choice to make whether or not you want to orient and adjust to that plan. It’s up to you. My job is to be accurate. I’m not a politician. I’m an evangelist. That’s exactly what I am. I’m not a pastor. I’m an evangelist. I would like to see you get under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor, and that’s one of the things we encourage you to do on this Flockline Radio show. So we’ve got our 800 number working again. Feel free to call us again. It was out for a while, but the telephone company finally got it fixed, and now we’re beginning to get some 800 calls. I’m not sure they’re getting the answering machines working yet, but we’re on the way. I did talk to a few people today on the 800 line. And don’t forget about our website, rickhughesministries.org. If you’d like to order any of our books, you can go to the Rick Hughes Ministry website and order from there, free of charge, as always. We got a new book coming out. I told you about that new book. It’s a reprint of Understanding Your Soul. We’ve changed it up a little bit. I think you’ll really enjoy this book. My staff and I have been working on it diligently, and I can’t wait for you to get your hands on it. It’s called Understanding Your Soul. Now, let’s talk about something. Many years ago, citizen band radios were introduced to America. You might not remember it, but I bet some of you do. Some of you that are older, you’ll remember when the CBs came out. I bet you might remember terms like breaker, breaker, one, nine. Anybody got their ears on? You know, truckers talk to each other that way and let fellow drivers know Smokey was up ahead. Smokey was the highway patrol. Burt Reynolds made a movie called Smokey and the Bandit, starring old Jackie Gleason as Sheriff Buford T. Justice. And I think that was one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. I had a CB in my own personal automobile. I had a friend in Georgia who was a Georgia State Trooper. So anytime I traveled through his particular town, I would always call on my Citizen’s Band radio for the Georgia cowboy. And Trooper 123 would answer me saying he was just out there on the interstate riding herd. Of course, like anything else, Citizen’s Band radios were misused and became a nightmare trying to determine what was real and what was not real. If you fast forward from 1975 to 2025 today, We still have folks communicating with one another except now it’s on social media like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and many other social media websites. I often look at Facebook as I’m having my morning coffee and the amount of preachers publishing and pushing their platform to anyone curious enough to listen is actually quite staggering. These type of individuals are called influencers, influencers, and their message sometimes is so confusing that many who watch really don’t know what to believe. One influencer who’s a pastor tells you this, another influencer who’s a pastor tells you that, and which one are you supposed to believe? I call this a satanic smoke screen. In recent months, there appears to be a spiritual revival taking place, a lot of things happening. And I hope that indeed it is a revival taking place, but many celebrities are now admitting that they have placed their faith in Jesus Christ. There have been large movements on college campuses. They’re occurring with many asking to be baptized as an admission to their salvation. We don’t have any more evangelists like Billy Graham packing out football stadiums like he did in those days. but rather social media influencers calling daily, 24-7. If this is truly real, and I pray that it is, then I thank God for the many who are accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior. America needs a revival. So much of what we used to call evil is now being accepted as good. And things that we used to call good are now being called evil. For example, sexual perversion is promoted as a normal choice. Drugs and violence have invaded all our major cities across the country. Unchecked arrogance has swept across our land. It’s no wonder what the Bible says in Jeremiah 17, 9. You want to hear it? Here it is. Quote, the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? The wonderful thing about getting saved is that God gives you a new heart through a spiritual birth. Did you know that? You can get a spiritual heart transplant. In Ezekiel 36, 26, a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I’ll take away the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of new flesh, a new heart of flesh. Let me read that again, Ezekiel 36, 26. A new heart also will I give you A new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. That particular verse that I just quoted to you was written to Judah, the southern kingdom, which was actually in bondage to Babylon at the time. The promise that is there refers to what would happen in the nation once God freed them from captivity. In chapter 36, God had just promised Israel would be restored to her land under the leadership of David, her rightful king. So in Ezekiel 36, 24, you read these words, where I will take you from among the heathen and I will gather you out of the countries and I will bring you into your own land. Their captivity was a result of their sinful ways. And notice God stated the very reason why he was going to restore them in verse 32, Ezekiel 36. Not for your sakes will I do this, said the Lord God. Be it known unto you, be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel. So giving them a new heart was a metaphor for bringing in forced humility through divine discipline. Thus, Israel would have new desires and a new attitude. Remorse and turning from sinful habits and desires is always proof of that spiritual event we call salvation. When I accepted Christ as my Savior, I remember the choices that I had to make, and not too much after that. And I found that certain things, I didn’t want to do them anymore because I knew they would not be pleasing to God. So I had remorse, and I had turning from my sinful habits, sinful ways. If you can just imagine the moral shift in America, if thousands of people respond to the gospel message, that would be a national revival in America, and it would produce a similar effect, a remorse and a turning away and a new attitude and new desires. On the other hand, I want to give you another word, not a revival, but a spiritual renewal. What is that? A spiritual renewal, I’m talking about believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, people who have already been saved. If you have a spiritual renewal, you would have a new hunger for the word of God. That’s what we’re looking for. In Jeremiah 15, 16, thy words were found and I did eat them. And thy word was unto me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart. For I’m called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts. Did you hear that? Your words were found and I ate them. Delicious, wonderful. And it was unto me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart. That’s what we must have in America. We must have people that God’s word is joyful. hungry to eat the Word of God. The Flatline radio broadcast is not necessarily reaching thousands of lost people. I know that. In our case, we’re reaching believers like yourself, those of you that are listening this morning, those of you who choose to listen to this message. But what I hope to see is a spiritual renewal in the lives of those of you that are listening. That means a new desire for you to grow spiritually from being a baby Christian to a student without academic portfolio to eventually a mature believer who maximally glorifies God to the maximum. To realize what God’s will for your life is and come to the one who glorifies God to the maximum. And I get a lot of letters from listeners and they say they’re understanding these things. They say they’re learning things they never knew before. And these are the believers who are having a spiritual renewal in their life. Many of them have ordered our free books and free material and are studying it and passing it on to their friends. Many of them are asking me, where can I find a well-qualified pastor to teach me the Word of God? And I’m so grateful for that. Many years ago, I was speaking in a church in Columbus, Mississippi. This is a funny story, but it’s true. I had a man who wanted to rededicate his life to the Lord Jesus Christ. He had been saved years before, but had slipped back into his old lifestyle. So he asked me, how do I rededicate my life? And I said, well, one, two, three, rededicate me. He said, I tried that. It didn’t work. Of course, I didn’t know what to tell him at that time because I myself did not understand the mechanics to living a successful Christian life. It was obvious. I didn’t know what I was talking about. And I was the preacher. By God’s grace, I learned how to recover my spiritual direction once I drifted off course. And now I do understand how to recover from sin and failure. That’s why we push you to constantly rebound, rebound, rebound. When you know you’ve sinned, when you know you’ve committed a sin, you know you’ve failed, rebound. 1 John 1, 9. And that’s the key to being filled with the Holy Spirit. So the key to changing America’s direction is to put people in the pulpit, pastors, who know what they’re talking about. No religious performers who use emotional appeals hoping to reach individuals. If you want to know, and this is a very good question, I don’t know if you want to try it or not, but if you want to know what your pastor believes, you can ask him one simple question. Here’s the question. It’s a simple question. What must I do to be a good Christian? Why would you want to do that? Well, in 1 John 4, 1, the Bible says, Beloved, believe it, and believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God or not, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. So that’s not a very hard question. What must I do to be a good Christian? And the answer is really simple. You only need two things to execute the Christian life. One is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit, and the other is the acknowledgement of the scriptures, because both have amazing power in your life. In Acts 1.8, the Bible says, you shall receive power, dunamis, we get a word dynamite from that. You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and you will be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem And in all of Judea, even in Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. Samaria was a part of town nobody wanted to go into. And when people become filled with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will use them as a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. Because he said, if I be lifted up, I will draw men unto me. And that’s my job and your job to lift up the Lord Jesus Christ, to replicate his life, reproduce Christ in our thinking so that we are thinking divine viewpoint. So the Holy Spirit is the power we need to live the Christian life. But we also need the power of the Scriptures. And so in Hebrews 4.12, the Word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and the spirit and of the joints and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. So what is powerful? The Word of God. Where do we get our power? From the Holy Spirit. Without the filling of the Holy Spirit, you would have no spiritual power. Likewise, without the knowledge of the Scriptures, you would have no wisdom or understanding of what God’s plan is. Now, let’s back up just a minute. Where does this Holy Spirit come from? Well, remember when you got saved, whatever day it was, maybe you remember it, maybe you don’t. It’s not necessary. You remember exactly when it happened. But if it did happen, that’s the point. You have believed in Christ. And when you believed in him, listen to Ephesians 1.13, in whom you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, that’s the gospel, the gospel of your salvation, it says, in whom after that you believed, that’s getting saved, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. So the Holy Spirit was placed into your life the moment you believed in Jesus Christ. He made your human spirit come alive so that you could have fellowship with God, and he’s there to coach you and mentor you and direct you. That’s his job. If you don’t understand what you’re talking about, you’re just having ritual without reality. And that’s what religion is, ritual without reality sometimes. It has to be the reality of what it’s all about. So here’s the first one, the first mandate in regards to the Holy Spirit. Write it down, remember it. Ephesians 5.18. Paul wrote, do not be drunk with wine because of excess, but be filled with the Spirit. That’s not asking, that’s telling you. It is my job and your job for us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We are not to be filled with the flesh. We have two enemies, you know, the flesh and the Spirit. So the Bible clearly says the Spirit wars against the flesh and the flesh wars against the Spirit. and they’re contrary one to the other. And you have to make a decision every day when you get up. Am I going to walk in the filling of the Spirit, or am I going to let my flesh take over, and I’m going to live under the control of my flesh? Right now, as you’re listening to me, maybe driving your car, maybe sitting at home and listening to your radio, maybe on a podcast. By the way, we just passed two million downloads on our podcast programs. Wherever you are, you are either filled with the Spirit or you are under control of your flesh. There’s no in between. Either you’re in fellowship with God or you’re out of fellowship with God. So the first one is about being in fellowship with God. Be filled with the Spirit. And then here’s another mandate, another command from the Apostle Paul. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed until the day of redemption. That’s the day the Lord Jesus Christ takes you to heaven at the exit resurrection, which we call the rapture of the church. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. Grieve not. And then in 1 Thessalonians 5, 19, quench not the Spirit of God. One of them is quench means to shut off the fire, shut off the power. If you don’t understand these three simple verses, there will never, ever, ever be a spiritual renewal in America. Mostly because prayers won’t be answered. People can pray all they want to, but they don’t know how to pray. It’s not going to work. These three mandates must be understood if you want to have a renewal in America. Does your church teach this? I’m asking you now. Think about it. Does your church teach this? Does your pastor explain these things to you? I mean, if you want to go into any Christian bookstore and pick up the latest seller Christian book, and sometimes it’s pitiful what’s there, but if you go in and pick these up and look at them, you’re probably not going to find anywhere that the author tells you you must be filled with the Holy Spirit because most authors never even mention it. Every one of our books is right off the bat, right off the first page. If you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit, you’re not going to be able to get any spiritual phenomena out of this book because it’s the Holy Spirit that teaches you these things. So what about it? Does your church teach this? Does your church teach the filling of the Spirit? Does your church teach you not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God and don’t quench the Holy Spirit of God? After a national revival, the new converts must get into a local church when it teaches the Bible in depth Listen to Ezekiel 22, 30. And I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge, stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I could not find one. That’s a sad state of affairs. No pastors, no communicators who would stand in the gap for God. Why was that so? Or why is it so hard today to find a well-qualified pastor who will teach in depth, line upon line, precept upon precept, I think the reason is because Satan has done a masterful job. He’s really done a job on the church today because many churches are like many Disney worlds. Fun and games for the kiddos, entertainments for the adults, trips here, trips there, go here, go there. Sadly, so many believers don’t even come to church to learn the Bible. They come for the fellowship. They come for the worship experience, which in reality most of the time is no worship at all. If the pastor only has about 20 minutes to teach the Bible after all the other preliminaries, after all the fussing over who’s going to sing the special and all this other stuff, the offertory and whatever else is going on, it’s almost impossible for him to have any time to teach the I mean, look at the logistics here. It’s impossible for him to feed you a gourmet meal of divine truth if he doesn’t have time to prepare the meal. So maybe he’s going to get to teach you 30 minutes on Sunday morning and then maybe 30 minutes on Wednesday night if he does teach you. Between Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, that’s about 90 minutes a week. By illustration, if you send your child to the first grade and they only get 90 minutes of teaching a week, they will never, ever graduate from the first grade. You can understand that. If you want to have an effective, impactful Christian life, you better learn how to do the right thing in the right way. It’s not about you getting a book of motivation, inspiration, buy it at the bookstore so you can read your morning devotional. That’s not how you grow. It’s wonderful that you do that. I hope you will do that, but it’s that pastor’s job to get into the scriptures and teach it to you line upon line, precept upon precept. You’re not supposed to teach yourself. Your Bible is a textbook. I gave you an algebra textbook and said, teach yourself, you’ll never learn it. Same thing with the Bible. I’m glad you read your Bible. I know the Holy Spirit will use it to speak to you, but you’ve got to have a pastor that can teach it to you and break it down so you don’t misunderstand what you’re reading because that’s what happens a lot of times. People take things out of context. Next thing you know, they’re teaching something that’s not even true. So remember, at any time in your life this day, today, this Sunday, you’re either going to be in fellowship with God, under control of the Holy Spirit, or you’re going to be out of fellowship with God, under control of your sin nature. What a sad state of affair to have a church house full of people out of fellowship because they have unconfessed sin in their life. There can never be a spiritual renewal in America until pastors teach truth, until we learn how to pray effective prayers, until we learn how to live the Christian life on a daily basis. And forget the emotions that go with this stuff today, trying to sell books, sell music, whatever you’re trying to push. It has to be teaching from the pulpit. There have to be men that are willing to risk their career to stand up and teach the Bible because I’ll tell you what, when a man decides to stand up and start teaching the Bible, he’s probably going to get fired because they want him to come shake a glad hand and go to the hospital and visit people and pray with people and come over here and come over there. He doesn’t have time to study and teach. When he tries to study and teach, they’re not going to like it. I know churches where they have been let go, pastors have been let go because they talk too much. And it’s never impossible. It’s impossible to teach too much. This is what God uses for you to grow. If you’re a pastor, listen to me. Get in the pulpit and teach the Bible. Line upon line, word upon word, precept upon precept. Okay, Galatians 5, 17 teaches us the flesh wars against the spirit and the spirit wars against the flesh and they’re contrary one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would. This is the battle that goes on in your life every day. You want to know why you do stupid things? Sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don’t. It’s because you have that sin nature inside of you and you will always have it until you leave this body and get that resurrection body and you will not have a sin nature in heaven. That thing will be gone. But right now, it’s the cancer that lives in you. It’s the sin nature. It came from Adam. Adam’s original sin was imputed to us. And that’s the battle we face every day. Sometimes you do what’s right. Sometimes you do what’s wrong. You know why? Because God gave you volition. He gave you the choice. You can choose. You can choose to execute God’s plan or you can choose to do what you want to do. So many believers choose not to learn, not to grow, not to study. They’re busy. They got careers. They got jobs. They got children. They got hobbies. They got whatever they’re doing. They don’t have time. I know many, many, many people that spend time every day listening to the teaching of the Word of God. I know many pastors who teach the Bible on a consistent basis so that you can study every day. Resources are available so that you can take in the Word of God every day. My own pastor has been teaching the book of Philippians now for quite a while, line upon line, word upon word, precept upon precept. hundreds of hours plotting through Philippians, learning it, applying it, and glorifying God as a result of it. I’m very thankful for that because Satan works very hard to confuse believers in regards to the Holy Spirit’s ministry. So unless this doctrine is taught and taught correctly and understood, there will never be a spiritual revival. You hear me? Unless it’s taught and taught accurately, there will never be a spiritual revival. We need a spiritual renewal. We need believers to be renewed spiritually, and we need unbelievers to get saved. That’s a revival, and then we need a spiritual renewal on top of that. So good intentions are well-meaning, but they’re unacceptable to God. And where do you find that in 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15? It’s called wood, hay, and stubble, gold, silver, and precious stones. Just think of the many things you’ve done in regards to God, and then when the judgment seat of Christ comes, you find out you did it for nothing. Just like it’s fire material, because you did it in the energy of your flesh. You did a good deed, but you did it in the wrong way. A national spiritual renewal must start with you. Matthew 11, 28 through 30. Come unto me, all ye that labor and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Did you hear that? Come unto me. He offers you a wonderful way to live. Not only does he provide eternal life through his sacrifice for us on the cross, but he also offers a life of happiness and security, as well as rest in your soul. That rest is peace with God, Romans 5.1. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. As a child of God, you have access to his throne by prayer. Listen to Jeremiah 33, 3. Call unto me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you know us not. You must remember that two things are necessary for effective prayer. First, you’ve got to be saved, a member of the royal family of God. And secondly, you must be filled with the Holy Spirit because unconfessed sin will block your prayer. In Psalm 66, 18, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. Spiritually mature believers know how to pray, and they get answers. Are your prayers being heard, and are they being answered? I trust that’s true, and I trust you’re part of that national spiritual renewal that we desperately need. I have a bookmark you might want to order that identifies several reasons prayers are not answered. You can go to our website and order it, 10 Reasons God Doesn’t Answer Certain Prayers. All right, I hope you’ve enjoyed this. I hope it’s been a challenge to you. I want to see a spiritual renewal in America beginning with a revival that sweeps this country and millions coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatlines.
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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.
