Where are the Men – Part 4
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 569 aired on July 24, 2016
Good morning. I see you’ve come back to join us again at The FLOT Line. Thank you. I’m Rick
Hughes the host. I invite you to stay tuned for the next few minutes of some motivation, some
inspiration, some education, and it’ll be done without any manipulation. We don’t play games. We
don’t solicit money. We’re not trying to sell you anything. All we’re trying to do is give you
accurate information. Hopefully the information will help you verify as well as identify the plan
of God for your life and if this is possible then you can orient and adjust to the plan, it’s up to
you. I started a study on our show three weeks ago, this will be number four, on
Where are the
Men,
the men God is looking for in this generation. I told you that I had taught this series in
Texas at a local church and it is available on DVD or MP3. If you’d like to have it just contact me
and we’ll send it to you free of charge. Last week we finished up talking about Gideon, the
mighty man of valor and how God called Gideon to deliver the Jews from the Midianite nation
that kept plaguing them. We saw something about Gideon’s character, this invisible trait that God
is looking for called faith. Gideon had it. His faith was known to God, God knew his potential.
God also knew that Gideon was a man of humility. He even told God,
“I am the weakest one in
my father’s house”
(Judges 6:15). By the way, Moses said something similar when he said in
Exodus 3:11,
“Who am I that I should be the one?”
We must have humility if we want to be
used by God and we must have faith.
There are a lot of invisible heroes that are known to God.
You might even be one of them, maybe even you. Maybe you’re listening now, you are an
invisible hero. You’re a man of humility, a man of faith, and a man that God can use. Let’s take a
look at something in the Bible concerning the kind of man God uses. 1 Corinthians 1:26-29,
“For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not
many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the
wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and
the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He
may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.”
It is evident that only
God could use someone like Gideon, someone like me or you, in spite of all of our flaws. Think
about those disciples that the Lord called, a group of fishermen, gill netters tending to their nets.
Peter and Andrew, James and John, fishermen and the Lord said,
“Follow Me and I’ll make you
fishers of men”
(Matthew 4:19). Those four men followed the Man of all men, Jesus Christ our
Savior. This passage says that you don’t have to be the smartest man in the world to be used by
God. The reason I’m bringing this up is at this time in our history we need men, not politicians.
I’m not talking about political rhetoric here. I’m talking about spiritual leaders, men in the
pulpits, men that have the gift of pastor-teacher, men that will stand and teach God’s Word
regardless of the cost, regardless of the difficulty involved with it. We need men in the pulpits of
America today.
“Not many wise men according to the flesh,”
this is a very strong negative in the
Greek. There are two in the Bible that I’m aware of,
me
is the first and
ouk
is the second one.
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“Not many
sophos,
wise men.” We get the word sophomore from this. A lot of sophomores think
they’re smart and not many are wise, not now, not ever. God is not in the business of needing the
smartest people in the world to work and use His plan. You don’t have to be a politician. You
don’t have to be a scientist. You don’t have to be a doctor to be used by God. This nation is facing
divine discipline from God. We call it the fifth cycle of discipline. We are going into divine
discipline from God because we worship the creation more than the Creator. We’ve focused on
the gifts and forgot about the Giver and now here we are and we are in big trouble as a nation.
We need men of faith, not men of human brilliance.
Again, not many wise men after the flesh,
not many mighty men,
dunatos
from the word dynamite, strong in wealth, strong in influence.
Not many
eugenes,
not many noble men, wise men, mighty man, noble man. Here are some
principles I want you to get. You don’t have to be the smartest guy in your class nor the most
influential guy in your circle, nor have the finest family pedigree to be used by God and I’m a
perfect example of this. I’m from a broken home. I don’t even know my father. I’ve never met
him in my life. I’m not the smartest cookie in the jar. I have made many mistakes in my life and
yet for the last 45+ years, by learning God’s Word and using God’s Word, I’ve had a wonderful
ministry and wonderful life in spite of my sin and my flaws and my failures. I’ve learned how to
rebound, problem-solving device #1, to recover from my sin, to stay filled with the Holy Spirit,
to advance in the Word of God, and to stand on the faith-rest drill. You should be the same way.
We must have a willingness to adhere to the protocol plan of God and develop our spiritual
life.
We must have this. If you are not willing, and that’s called positive volition, if you’re not
willing to learn God’s plan, then in spite of your energy and your effort and your desire, you are
not usable. I’ll give you a perfect illustration. I’ll use a football analogy since I played football.
You can take some guy that comes to the campus, he’s fast, he’s big, he’s strong, he’s
unbelievable looking, he’s a great talent, but he won’t learn the plays. If he doesn’t learn the plays
he doesn’t get in the game. It’s a team sport, not an individual sport.
The Christian life requires
you to learn the plays, to learn the protocol plan of God.
If you don’t learn the plays God
can’t use you. There is a protocol plan. You have to adhere to the plan. You have to learn the
plan. You have to learn how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You have to learn how to grow
spiritually. You have to change the way that you think and change your viewpoint, your mindset
and this requires you to renovate your thinking and acquire the mind of Christ. You have to learn
to live under grace orientation. You have to learn to use the faith-rest drill. You have to learn to
use impersonal love. All of these are protocol things that God has set up in His Word. If you don’t
learn them, He can’t use you. In Exodus 14:13, in regard to the faith-rest drill, Moses told the
Jews,
“Don’t be afraid, stand still and watch the deliverance of the Lord which He will
accomplish for you today.”
This required the faith-rest drill. Faith-rest means no panic, no fear,
stand still, trust the Lord, watch what happens.
The man God uses must be able to concentrate
on the solutions, not the problems.
If you’re looking at the problems you’re looking at the
wrong things, look at the solutions. If I look at the problems in America today I would say we
won’t survive another 50 years the way we’re going. Just today, another three police officers
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were killed in a southern city. There’s a war on police going on right now. There is war on a lot
of stuff going on right now. It’s unbelievable, our enemies overseas and the advantage they’re
taking of us, we are at a terrible place in history. But I’m not focusing on this, I’m focusing on
the solution and in my mind the solution is you.
You are the solution. As goes your spiritual
life, so goes the history of our nation.
If you continue to ignore your God and focus on the gifts
and forget the Giver, you’re going to lose everything He’s blessed you with. Until you get back to
making His will and His plan priority number one in your life, you are guaranteeing there will be
no future in this country. God spoke to Joshua in Joshua 1:5-8 and He said these words,
“No man
shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with
you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage that you may observe to
do according to the law and it shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day
and night, so that you may do according to all that is written.”
Now I know this was given to
Joshua but the application is to us as well. When 2 Timothy 2:15 says,
“Study to show thyself
approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of
truth.”
When 2 Peter 3:18 says,
“Grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ,”
in the New Testament, it doesn’t mean go to church once on Sunday and go
through some ritual that has no reality to it. Hey, I am glad you went, whoopie doo. If you’re not
learning God’s plan and living God’s plan, learning the protocol plan of God and executing the
plan of God, you are not going to be able to be used by God to deliver this nation from what
we’re facing. Joshua was given command of Israel after the promotion of Moses. Commanding
this group of people was going to take a lot of courage. They had been known to complain and
turn on their leaders and the strength that Joshua had came from using the faith-rest drill and it
demanded courage, the courage to look at the solutions not the problems. The mandate is to
meditate in God’s Word. Why? So that divine viewpoint will override the human viewpoint and
that was the one requirement for prosperity. Joshua said in Joshua 1:8,
“For then you’ll make
your way prosperous and then you will have good success”
Did you hear that? Wow, when you
ignore God’s Word, when you fail to concentrate on God’s Word on a daily basis, you’re going to
seal your own doom because you will wind up seeking human solutions rather than God’s
solutions. You will think that the person you think should be president is the answer. You will
think that the person you think ought to be on the Supreme Court is the answer to our problems.
It’s not. Listen, it’s the people in the land, not the leaders, who are the answer. No leader can
change the hearts and the souls of the people in the land. People have sin natures, leaders have
sin natures. If you fail to concentrate on the Word of God you will seal your own doom because
you will believe that some politician can save us. You will believe that a mighty military can
save us.
There’s only one thing that can save the future of this nation and it’s you and your
spiritual life. If you grow in grace and knowledge, you can have a historical impact.
You can
have a national impact. You can have an invisible impact because you will be a part of the pivot.
You’ll be part of the mainstay that God uses to deliver a nation.
Isaiah 30:1,
“Woe to the
rebellious children, says the Lord, who take counsel but not from Me and who devise plans but
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not of My Spirit.”
Is this you? It takes more courage to be faithful to study God’s Word on a
daily basis than it does to do anything else. The more you learn, the more you see yourself as you
are. The more you apply, the more strength you have to comply with His will. Let me tell you the
man God cannot use just in case these are some of your traits.
God cannot use a coward. In
Luke 12:4,
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body,”
Jesus said,
“After that they have no
more that they can do.”
He had told them He was going to be murdered. He had told them they
were going to have to pick up their cross and follow Him. He had told them there was not going
to be a kingdom, it was not going to be ushered in right now. He let them know that. Paul wrote
in 2 Timothy 1:7,
“God didn’t give us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound
mind.”
Listen, God can’t use a coward. You’re going to have to have enough faith to trust Him,
to stand tall and wait on God. While you’re waiting, what do you do? Well, number one you stay
filled with the Holy Spirit. Number two, you sit under the authority of a well-qualified pastor and
learn God’s Word every day, and let God make you an invisible hero. He will use you in a
phenomenal way. You will have a historical impact, a national impact. You will have an impact
in your family as you grow spiritually. God cannot use a coward.
God cannot use a self-
centered man either, a man that’s preoccupied with his own affairs.
It’s not going to work for
the Lord. In Luke 12:16-21 Jesus told them a parable,
“He said, ‘The land of a rich man was
very productive and he began reasoning to himself saying, ’What shall I do since I have no place
to store my crops?’ And then he said, “Well this is what I’ll do, I’ll tear down my barns and build
bigger barns and I’ll store all my grain and my goods and I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have
many goods laid up for many years to come. Take your ease now, eat drink and be merry.’ God
said to him, ‘You are a fool. This very night your soul will be required of you and now who will
have what you prepared?’ And so is the man who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich
toward God.”
A self-centered man preoccupied with his own affairs won’t work for God. What
did He tell Peter and Andrew?
“Follow Me”
(Matthew 4:19). What did they do? They walked
away from the family fishing business. James and John walked away from the family fishing
business. There was something about this Man that was so powerful that they would leave their
lives and their fortunes to follow Him. Do you have this kind of courage to follow Jesus Christ
your Lord and your Savior in spite of what the public criticism may say to you? Do you know
why people would follow a Man like this? Because He loved them. That was the most amazing
thing about my college coach, Paul Bear Bryant. Tough as nails, mean through and through, but
he loved his players and his players did anything for him to win those national championships.
They responded to that tough love.
God loves you and it’s a tough love.
Just like Bear Bryant
couldn’t use a quitter on the Alabama teams that I played on, well God can’t use quitters either.
Did you know that? Paul wrote in Philippians 3:12-14,
“Not that I have already obtained it or
have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was
laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but
one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on
toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Paul was not a quitter.
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If you focus on your flaws, if you focus on your failures, you will never override the guilt and
you will fail to rebound and you will fail to keep moving. You will feel like a failure. Listen, you
have failed and I have failed. We’ve made horrible mistakes, haven’t we, but we are both still
alive. What does this mean? This means God is not through with us yet.
If the dust clears and
you’re still alive, God has a plan for you.
Shouldn’t you learn it? Shouldn’t you enjoy it?
Shouldn’t you take advantage of it? He can’t use a quitter. When did you quit living for Him?
When did you walk away from your church? When did you say, “God’s got it out for me and I’m
angry at God.” That’s the wrong thing to say my friend.
“If we confess our sin He is faithful and
just to forgive us”
(1 John 1:9). You need to go to God and admit your bitterness and your
disillusionment. You’ve allowed Satan to hoodwink you. Get back in fellowship and
“Grow in
the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
I’ll tell you someone else
God can’t use. He can’t use a liar.
God can’t use a deceitful person.
In Psalm 5:6,
“You destroy
those who speak lies. The Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.”
He can’t use a liar. It is
so easy to lie. It is so easy to let your sin nature take control. It is so easy to misrepresent
yourself and maybe sometimes not even directly, just indirectly, by dropping a name or acting
like you’re something you’re not which is a lie. God also cannot use a double minded man. That’s
a man that is two souled the Bible says,
dipsuchos
in the Greek New Testament. James 1:8,
“Being a double minded man, he is unstable in all of his ways.”
This word is used of a man who
is praying, but who has no confidence that God will answer his prayer. In other words, he’s
asking God to help him but he is looking for human solutions.
God can’t use a double minded
man who has one mind on the Lord and one mind on the circumstance and how he could
work it out himself.
God can’t use that, you have to be single minded.
God cannot use a
foolish man.
Proverbs 14:16,
“A wise man is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is
arrogant and careless.”
Wise here is an adjective meaning an intelligent person, a learned
person, a shrewd person, which is what God wants you to be. It says, “He’s cautious. He is
reverent. He has a clear set of norms and standards formed in his soul and that’s how he avoids
trouble. He sees it coming. He turns away from it before it gets there. The qal active of the
Hebrew verb
“turns away”
means he avoids it. He sees it coming and he moves. He doesn’t risk
everything over something that’s not essential. But the fool the Bible says, the masculine noun
pronounced
ksil
meaning stupid, simpleton, acts on his emotions and is not thinking clearly.
Many a man has died from this type of irrational thinking.
“The fool is arrogant and careless.”
This is typical of a person who doesn’t think. He crosses over any barrier, overly confident that
his plans are going to succeed. Right. I remember the night that I went around a curve with a
friend of mine in his little sports car and he said, “I think I can go around this curve at 100 miles
an hour. Do you want to try it?” I said, “Sure, let’s try it” and around the curve we went for a
little bit, not for long, arrogant and careless.
God cannot use a self-righteous man. Any
arrogance parlayed into self-righteousness always produces legalism.
You know the worst
type of person in the world is a religious, self-righteous jerk because he wants to judge you. He
wants to ‘play God.’ He wants to tell you what you can and cannot do. It might not even be in the
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Bible, it’s just his little pet peeve of sins that he doesn’t like. A self-righteous man, that’s the
Pharisees of the New Testament that our Lord faced. There was nobody more self-righteous than
them. You cannot have that self-righteousness and be used by God. You must know what you are.
You must have some humility. Without humility in your life, you’re in big trouble. The self-
righteous man of Romans 2:1 is the man who judges those in Romans 1:18-39. You might want
to read those passages sometime. See what happens when you judge people that are involved in
those sorts of things. God cannot use a self-righteous legalistic man. Luke 18:10-14 is the self-
righteous Pharisee who said,
“Thank God I’m not like that tax collector. I tithe, I pray, I fast,”
and Jesus said, “And he’s going straight to hell.” The other man just simply said,
“God, be
merciful to me a sinner.”
Jesus said, “That’s the one that has eternal life, right there.” That’s the
man God is looking for, the man with humility, not the self-righteous, legalistic, religious,
arrogant man, but the man with enough humility to know what he is and to know what he needs.
You know what you are. You know you sin, you know you fail and you know you must rebound
and confess that sin to God. You know without the filling of the Holy Spirit in your life, you are
going to be useless to God because you cannot learn the faith-rest drill, you cannot learn the
protocol plan of God, you cannot use impersonal love and personal love for God. You can’t have
a personal sense of destiny without the filling of the Holy Spirit. At best you’re wandering around
like a bottle adrift in the sea. You must learn God’s Word. You must live by God’s Word. You
must recognize who you are, what you are, and admit it first of all to yourself and then to the
Lord. He’s perfect righteousness. He’s perfect justice. None of us get away with anything. He’s
well aware of who we are. This is why Proverbs 23:7 says,
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so he
is.”
If you get back with me next Sunday I’m going to show you the man God can use, the type
of man God is looking for to deliver a nation like America and I want you to be the man. I want
you to step up and take responsibility for your spiritual life. I want you to be the one that God
says, “I can count on you,” because without you doing that, the history of this nation is over. I
don’t how much longer we have left but unless you get serious about your spiritual life and quit
looking to some politician to save you, we won’t have a future. I hope you’re listening. I hope
you’ll consider it. Until next week, this your host Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to
The FLOT Line.