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

Good morning and welcome to The Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes. And for the next few minutes, you have a cordial invitation to hang around, listen up, stick with me. Just a few minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education. And as always, we do not use manipulation. We don’t solicit money. We don’t sell anything. We’re not asking you to join anything. All we’re asking you to do is listen. Listen as I try to verify and identify the plan of God for your life. And if you can understand that, you have the freedom, you have the privacy to orient and adjust to the plan. But remember that God gave you two ends, one of those ends you sit with and one of those ends you think with. And success in your life will depend on which one you use. As they say, heads you win, tails you lose. And so as we study the Bible, as we study the Word of God, our objective is to give divine viewpoint. Our objective is to help you renovate your thinking, soul renovation. Soul renovation comes before physical renovation. You see, you’re really a living soul, which means you have mentality. You have the ability to think, logic, comprehend, make decisions. You have volition, which means you have the ability to choose. You have choice. You choose what you want to do. You choose what you want to wear. You choose what you want to eat. And you choose whether or not you wish to listen to God. And you have a conscience. You have a conscience. You have the ability to think about things and remember things and put things in your conscience that can bother you sometimes. And there’s a self-consciousness, an awareness. Sometimes it surfaces when you least expect it in your dreams. But your soul is made up basically of mentality, volition, consciousness, self-consciousness. You do have emotion. But that seems to be more part of your mentality than your format of your soul. And where the big problem gets in is when we try to live by letting our emotions dictate policy. So we have to change our soul before we change our actions. And until we learn, until we apply the Word of God, we continue to follow the same trends, sometimes destructive trends. But the Word of God, if you learn it, if you metabolize it, which means you use it, put it into application, then it can remove old patterns in your life that are destructive and thus fulfill your purpose for life. which is to have the reason God created you, to have a wonderful, full, meaningful life that glorifies him. That’s why he created you. But so many people today are in chaos. I call them, as a friend of mine who’s a pastor talks about it, a soul in chaos. That’s what we have today. Many, many young people across this great nation are souls in chaos. Loneliness and hopelessness are a disease that is rampant, causing many young people to even commit suicide to end their lives, seeing no way out. having burned up all their energy and all their time, they just see there’s no way out left. And so they kill themselves. It’s a tragic end to a tragic life. That’s never the design that God has for you. God has a wonderful plan for you. He said he knows the plans that he has for you in Jeremiah to bless you and to promote you and to give you a great life. But when you stupidly choose to ignore the word of God, and I use the word stupidly, I said it, yes, the fool is stupid, the Bible says, because he thinks he’s smarter than God. He thinks, I know God said that in the Bible, but I don’t really believe the Bible. And so they reject any divine viewpoint. They reject the word of God. And they trot down this main highway, my way highway, thinking they’re smarter than God and they don’t need God. And everything in the Word of God, everything in the Bible is designed to give them a wonderful, full, meaningful life, and they reject every bit of it. They reject the knowledge of the Word of God, and consequently, they get no wisdom. And without wisdom, there’s no discernment or insight in your life. And so the Bible does talk about the soul in chaos. I’m going to go to Ephesians chapter 4. I’m going to read to you verses 17 through 21 out of the King James Version of the Bible. And here’s what it says. This I say therefore and testify in the Lord. This is written by the Apostle Paul. That you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feelings have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you did not learn this from Christ. If so be it that you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus Christ. Here we find a soul with scar tissue, a heart that is hard. And we’re going to break this passage down for you and show it to you because you may have a grandchild, you may have a child, you may have a friend that is in this condition. Their heart is hard. They don’t see themselves as they really are. They see themselves as they think they are. This is a trend of arrogance. Self-justification always sees itself as it thinks it is. And an arrogant person always demands an unrealistic expectation. He demands or she demands to be treated in a way they’re not worthy of being treated because they think they’re something they’re not. So here’s what the Bible says. This is Paul writing about the soul in chaos. This I testify in the Lord. Now, if you will allow me. I would like to go into the Greek New Testament where these words have a different meaning. We go to the morphology of these words. And that’s why I use these Greek words sometimes, not because I’m trying to show off, because I’m not a Greek scholar. I just have enough knowledge to use Greek helps to get these words and to understand what I’m studying. But he says, I testify in the Lord, and the word testifies, the Greek word martyromai, And that word means to solemnly exhort or solemnly testify. This is a very emphatic statement by the Apostle Paul. He emphatically, like sitting at a desk and pounding his fist on the desk, I am telling you, I am testifying to you. And then he says, in the Lord. And that’s a prepositional phrase that shows the source of this, where it’s coming from. The source of the information he’s about to give comes from God the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit revealed it to him, and he reveals it to us in the pages of the Scripture. When Paul wrote this letter to Timothy, I don’t know if he ever envisioned that it would eventually be in what we call the canon of Scripture or a Bible that we would be reading it thousands of years later. But God the Holy Spirit preserved the writings of the Apostle Paul, the writings of John, the writings of Peter, the writings of Titus, others. well, Titus didn’t write, Paul wrote to Titus, but he preserved the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, all of these things for us so that we can learn how Jesus Christ thought. Why do we need to learn how Jesus Christ thought? Because the Bible says in Philippians, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. That’s called thinking divine viewpoint. Unless we learn to think divine viewpoint, We will all self-destruct through human viewpoint by being sucked into the devil’s cosmic system and buying into the lies that Satan gives, just like Eve bought in. She bought into the lie in the garden because she, in her arrogance, thought, well, maybe God’s hiding something from me. That’s what Satan made it sound like. He’s hiding something from you. And so when we see testify in the Lord, this is the source of the information, God, the Holy Spirit. And then he comes on to say, I want you not to walk like Gentiles walk. The word walk is not talking about taking a stroll down the street, you know, on a lazy Sunday afternoon with your wife or with your dog or with your children walking down a dirt road or walking down a street. This is the word peripatao. Peripatao, and it means to regulate your life, conduct your affairs. It’s just a way of putting it. I want you to conduct your affairs, regulate your lives, not like Gentiles do it. Don’t live your life like Gentiles live their life. The word for Gentiles is ethnos, and we get ethnic from that, but ethnos. That’s the unbeliever, reference to the unbelievers. And so a Christian is never to mimic an unbeliever. Whatever the unbeliever finds to be entertaining, whatever the unbeliever finds to be motivational, whatever the unbeliever finds to be stimulating is not part for the Christian. We are to walk differently. We are to live differently. And how do they live? How does the unbeliever live? Well, the Bible says he lives in the vanity of his mind, in the vanity of his mind. Listen again, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you walk not as the unbelievers walk in the vanity of their mind. What does that mean? The word vanity is an interesting Greek word. It’s the word metaiotes, metaiotes. And it means a vacuum or an empty head, a vacuum or an empty head. Now think about this for a minute. What exactly is a vacuum? I’m not talking about a vacuum cleaner that sucks up dirt. No, we all have one of those at home or two or three like I do. But a vacuum here, I always like to use the illustration of if you take a… like a flower vase and you put some Kleenex in it, and if you’ll put a soft-boiled egg over the cover of the vase or over the mouth of the vase and drop a match in there and light the Kleenex, if the soft-boiled egg covers the mouth of the vase entirely, once the Kleenex burn up all the oxygen in the flower vase, then the egg will magically pop down as if some finger pushed it in there. And what that is, that’s pounds per square inch. That’s air pressure. We live under PSI, pounds per square inch. And the pressure on the outside was greater than the pressure on the inside. Now, if you just set it there without lighting it and burning up the oxygen inside the vase, well, the pressure would be the same. But once you burned up all the oxygen, then the outside pressure forced the egg into the vase. Does that make sense? This is what happens when you have an empty head. When you reject the knowledge of the Word of God, when you have no divine insight, when you’re trapped in the cosmic system, you have arrogance plus ignorance, and as a friend of mine often says, that equals artificial intelligence, AI, arrogance and ignorance. Many people choose to ignore the Word of God, and the Bible says they’re a fool. The Bible says they’re stupid because they think they’re smarter than God. God preserved his word for you. God laid out a plan for your life where you can have not only the best life now, but even eternal life through the sacrifice of his anointed son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was our substitute on the cross, who paid for our sin. But if we reject that and we say, I don’t believe that, and then we reject all the provisions and the principles and the promises taught in the Bible, you’re setting yourself up for one miserable life. You’re going to self-destruct eventually. There’s no way around it. You have to. Because of the parameters of what God laid out in eternity past, you will self-destruct. And so if you have an empty head, this means you have rejected the knowledge of the word of God. You do not have any divine insight, and thus you are trapped as a prisoner chained to the cosmic system. An empty mind, the word mind is the Greek word nous, N-O-U-S. So if your mind is empty, what’s on the outside is greater than what’s on the inside. If there’s no divine viewpoint inside, then the cosmic system forces into your head, just like the outside pressure forced the egg into the vase, the cosmic system will force into your head all of the satanic strategy, the satanic viewpoint, the satanic plans that Satan has, which are all called evil as opposed to God’s plan, which is grace. and you will live one miserable rotten life as a slave to Satan and his agenda. You won’t know it. You’ll think you’re having a wonderful time for a while until it catches up with you. So the empty mind, the mentality of the soul is empty. If there’s no divine viewpoint, that means there’s no knowledge of God in your mind, which means you have no wisdom, you have no insight, you have no discernment to what’s going on, and thus you are stupid, stupid. Because you choose to go through life on your own. Proverbs 3, 6, do not be wise in your own eyes. Do not be wise in your own eyes, thinking you know better than God. But fear the Lord and depart from evil, or Satan’s plan. Satan’s plan is evil. So don’t be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. That’s the writer of Proverbs. And then listen to what Paul said. Ephesians 5, 17, don’t be foolish or stupid, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Don’t go through life stupid. Don’t reject the word of God. Don’t reject the claims of Christ. Don’t reject everything God provided for you because in your own eyes, you think you’re smarter than God. Don’t be wise in your own eyes, the passage says. And so a person that has an empty head who has no divine viewpoint stored upstairs in the brain, has a vacuum in his head. He’s rejected knowledge, she’s rejected knowledge, she or he’s trapped in the cosmic system, living on artificial intelligence, arrogance plus ignorance. And look at verse 18. having their understanding darkened. This goes right along with the passage. I’ll read it to you again. This I say, therefore, testifying the Lord, don’t live like the Gentiles live in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened. Understanding is the Greek word dianoia, D-I-A-N-O-I-A, dianoia, and it means the ability to think and reason. Thus, the people who have a vacuum in their mind have no ability to think and no ability to reason, meaning they have no insight and no discernment since they operate on emotions. So if it feels good, they do it. If it feels bad, they stay away from it. They are an emotional overload in their soul, and eventually they will self-destruct going down the my way highway. This is where the hopelessness comes from, and this is where the loneliness comes from, and this is why people commit suicide because they think there’s no way out. They didn’t listen to God to start with, and then they think it’s at the end of the road. Listen carefully. It is never the end of the road for you. God loves you. God has a wonderful plan for your life. You can recover. You can get back with the program. But first, you must accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. You must come to the Father and say, Father, I’m a sinner and I know it and I’m willing to receive Christ today. If you’ll make that decision, then you’ll start on the road to learning how to glorify God. If you’re a Christian and you’ve been out of fellowship because of sin in your life, Then you recover by going to God and using problem-solving device number one, the rebound technique, which says if we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You can do this at any time. And I encourage you, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and you’ve broken fellowship with God, you have not been growing, you have not been advancing in your spiritual life, You have not been keeping your sin nature in check and you’ve let it run amok in your life to where it’s gotten you in trouble. Stop and confess the sin to God. He is not through with you. He still has a plan for your life. If you’re here, when the smoke clears, there’s still something he wants you to do. There’s never the time in your life when you should consider ending it all with suicide. That’s crazy. And so people that have a vacuum in their mind have their understanding darkened. Verse 18, Ephesians chapter 4. They don’t have the ability to think. And the understanding is darkened. Darkened is the word scotizo, S-K-O-T-I-Z-O, and it means blackout, blacked out. A person goes through life with blackout understanding. Listen, in 2 Corinthians 4, 4, the Bible says, in whom the God of this world has blinded, the minds of the unbelieving so that he can prevent them from seeing the illuminating light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. Satan is good at blinding people, putting people in darkness, blacking people out. and people willingly, voluntarily follow his plan. They reject the word of God, they reject the plan of God, and they follow that satanic plan of evil right to their death. It’s unbelievable. Having their understanding darkened, separated from God’s plan in their life, separated from God’s plan, they’re on their own highway. Proverbs 1.7 says, the fear of the Lord is where knowledge begins. But fools, stupid people, despise wisdom and instruction. They don’t want it. Number one, they don’t have enough humility to admit they’ve been wrong. And number two, they’re so arrogant that they still think they’re smarter than God, and Satan gets a big chuckle out of that. But the respect of the Lord, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But fools despise wisdom and despise instruction. They don’t want it. They don’t like it. It doesn’t taste good. It’s like trying to get a kid to eat his broccoli. He won’t do it. And the believer out of fellowship with God, the believer who’s on the my way highway in his arrogance will despise instruction and wisdom from God. Why do they do it? Well, the verse tells you, because of the ignorance that is in them. Ignorance in them is the word agnoia, agnoia, A-G-N-O-I-A, agnoia. And that’s the result of the negative volition. Negative volition to God. They are not interested in the claims of Christ. And you cannot convince them to be interested in the claims of Christ. Now, the best you can do is pray for them. You can ask God the Holy Spirit to open their eyes and to reveal to them their natural state and what state they’re in. And pray that he does that through divine discipline in their life if they’re Christians. And if they’re not Christians, if they’re unbelievers, you can pray for them specifically for them to hear the gospel and for them to make a positive decision to believe in Jesus Christ. Ignorance that is in them. Now listen to Proverbs 1.10. When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, then discretion will preserve you and understanding will keep you. When wisdom enters your heart, the first thing is to have the wisdom of God, which is the plan of Christ. That’s the first thing. That’s the wisdom of a God in eternity past. He provided a way for us to go to heaven. He who knew no sin was made sin for us so that we could be made the righteousness of God through him. God in his infinite wisdom and motivated by his eternal love for you and me provided a way out of our sin and his own son paid our price. So when wisdom enters our heart, when we come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and we see the plan of God, And then knowledge is desirable. It’s pleasant. It’s like chocolate cake. You can’t get enough of it. It’s pleasant to your soul, to the mentality, the thinking of your soul. If you come to the place in your life where you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and begin to have a hunger for the word of God, the Bible says then discretion will preserve you and understanding will keep you. That means you won’t self-destruct. That means you will get off of the my way highway and get on the thy way highway. So why do these people do this? Having their understanding darkened, alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, the Bible says. Because of the blindness of their heart. The word blindness is not blindness at all. It’s a mistranslation. It’s the word P-O-R-O-S-I-S and pronounced porosis. And it means to be covered with a callus, to be hard, to be dulled. Dulled in spiritual perception. Have you ever seen a farmer sit around and take a knife and whittle away the calluses on his hand or the calluses on his feet when a person’s heart gets hard then the callousness covers his heart no guilt no shame they simply are have dulled spiritual perception and this is what happens by completely ignoring the Word of God over and over and over again How do they do it? Romans 1.21, because when they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, neither were they thankful, but they became vain in their imagination and their foolish hearts were darkened. Scotizo. Their foolish heart was darkened. Blacked out, the word we use, blacked out. And then in Proverbs 1.32, the waywardness of the simple will kill him. That’s the stupid person. And the complacency of a fool, that’s the stupid person, will destroy him. But whoever will listen to me will live in safety and be at ease without fear of harm. There is a divine promise of divine protection. So these people have rejected that and they are past feelings. They are soul in chaos. They feel no guilt. They feel no shame. They feel nothing. Their heart is hard. This is why a young kid could take a gun and kill somebody and laugh about it. And this goes on all across America every day with gang initiation. Go out and kill somebody and laugh about it. Prove to me that you belong in the gang. See, they’ll do that sort of stuff. But that’s what the Bible says in Proverbs 435. The wise will inherit glory, but shame shall be the promotion of a fool. And so the Bible goes on to say they give themselves over to lasciviousness to work it with greed, to work uncleanliness with greed. They can’t get enough of it. Romans 1.28, even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do the things which are not seemingly right. Romans 1.32, who knowing the judgment of God that they who commit such things are worthy of death, not only do they do the same, but they have pleasure in what they do. What’s a reprobate mind? It’s a mind called an adokimasu. It’s a mind that cannot stand the test. Documus is a word for approved, but we have a negative A in front of it, meaning not approved. It’s a way of thinking that God does not approve of since they rejected his knowledge. As in Proverbs 1.29, they hated knowledge. They did not choose the fear of the Lord. And so what happened to them? They worked uncleanliness with greed. What does that mean? Well, lustful living, fulfilling the desires of the flesh, could not get enough of it, rejected the plan of God, a soul in chaos, with greed, pleonoxia. Pleonoxia means to covet it more and more and more. Romans 1.29, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornicators, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, insolent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, wow, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. Does that sound like America today? Oh my gosh, it does. We have souls in chaos. I’m here to tell you that you can break out of that because the Bible says if any man’s in Christ, he’s a new creature, a new creation. All the old things are passed away and they become new. In an instant, by making one simple decision to believe in Jesus Christ, You can start again. You can have the slate wiped clean. You can have eternal life and a spiritual life in which to grow and mature and understand and learn God’s plan. I hope you’ve listened. I hope you are not a soul in chaos. If you need help, write to me anytime, anywhere, any day. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.

SPEAKER 02 : 27:22

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.