SPEAKER 01 : 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 02 : 0:23

Good morning, and welcome to The Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, inviting you to stick around for just a few minutes. We’d like to give you some information. No manipulation, no conning you, not trying to hustle money, not trying to get you to join anything, just offering solid, sound information that would help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life, if you’re interested. And if you’re interested, you can orient and adjust to the plan. You have your own free will, your own volition. You can choose for or against the plan of God at any time in your life. But my job is to give you that information so it’ll help you decide what you want to do because God gave you two ends. That’s right, two ends, one to sit with, one to think with. And success in your life is going to depend on which one of those that you use. Heads, you’ll win. Tails, you’ll lose. So the purpose of the FLOT line, F-L-O-T, is to teach you God’s wonderful problem-solving devices, 10 unique problem-solving devices that act as a main line of resistance, and that keeps the outside sources of adversity from ever becoming the inside source of stress. So we remind you of biblical truths. We introduce you to an in-depth way of studying and learning the Word of God. And as I said, no manipulation, no solicitation, just education, okay? Wherever you may be listening today across this great country of ours, thank you for listening. Thank you for giving me a few minutes of your time. It’s always interesting every Sunday morning as we broadcast this show to see the opposition that we run into And so far as stations that sometimes fail to play the show, execute the agreement that we have. So we have people listening, people that let us know if the show doesn’t play in their area. And if it doesn’t play in your area, then let us know. Please always let us know. We want to continue our study today that we started last week. It was called A Soul in Chaos. And what happened is we went through a verse in Ephesians, and we talked about building the scar tissue in the soul and what happens when you build scar tissue in the soul. And I’m going to go both through that verse again and then continue on. This is Ephesians 4, 17 through 21. Scar tissue in the soul. You may be asking yourself, what is scar tissue in the soul? Well, listen as I read and I’ll explain it. Paul said, this I say therefore, or I solemnly testify in the Lord. That’s the source of the information, in the Lord. that you do not live your lives like Gentiles live in the vanity of their mind. That’s the vacuum of their thinking, that there’s nothing there. The vanity is a vacuum. The Greek word metaiotes, it’s the word vanity, and it means an emptiness or a vacuum. They have their understanding darkened, blacked out, skotizo, the Greek word skotizo, blacked out, which means they can’t see or understand what they’re doing. And it goes on to say they’re alienated from the life of God because of ignorance, that’s a lack of knowledge, ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. Blindness of their heart is the scar tissue. The word blindness is not the word blind. It’s the Greek word porosis, P-O-R-O-S-I-S, and it’s a hardness, a hardness of the heart. It’s a callousness of the heart. It’s the scar tissue over the heart. And when you put things into your life that don’t belong there, they scar you up. And what happens? Who being past feelings, verse 19. When you get to the point where there’s no guilt, no shame, no embarrassment, Once the scar tissue has become so embedded in your life, you will self-destruct. And then the Bible goes on to say, they give themselves into lasciviousness, that’s a lifestyle of lasciviousness, to work all sorts of uncleanliness with greed. Can’t get enough of it, in other words. But he goes on to say, you did not learn this from Christ. This is not the lifestyle that the Lord Jesus Christ talked about. So last week we studied how scar tissue is accumulated on the soul of the believer. and the passage that i just gave you it’s living like the unbelievers live which is simply rejecting the knowledge found in the word of god without knowledge there is no wisdom and without wisdom there is no discernment and no insight if there’s one thing that satan would seek to do more than anything else is to keep you from having any knowledge of the word of God. Therefore, you don’t know your choices. If you don’t know your choices, then there’s only one road to go down. But if you know your choices, then you can choose right or left. So if knowledge is accepted, it can become wisdom in the soul of a believer, a Christian, And then that knowledge translates into insight and discernment. Wisdom does that. But there’s a handicapped life. I know you don’t have a handicapped life. Maybe you do. Maybe you aren’t handicapped in a way that you have a handicapped sticker on your car. But what I’m talking about is the lifestyle that’s lived from within the cosmic system. The cosmic system or the evil perpetuated by Satan. The cosmic system is an illusion. It’s a mirage. since Satan cannot provide the peace and the happiness which a believer acquires from the mind of Christ. So at best, a handicapped believer, or even a non-believer, can only hope to secure some sort of temporal happiness from the details of life. The cosmic system is Satan’s strategy as the ruler of this world to control people. It’s his policy for the rulership of the world. And it deals in two areas. He exploits believers through their own arrogance and then the propaganda and the indoctrination to promote antagonism towards anything related to God. So the cosmic system emphasizes arrogance and abnormal preoccupation with self, as well as antagonism and intolerance towards the plan, the purpose, and the will of God, and towards all Christians who want to execute it. I noticed recently that an NFL football player encouraged people to take a Bible to school, and I think it was some sort of Read Your Bible Day, and he got into it. All sorts of criticism because he said, take a Bible, read your Bible. The world can’t stand it. The world can’t stand the Word of God. The cosmic system is completely opposed to the Word of God. The cosmic system is evil, fueled by the demonology of Satan, and it’s always necessary for Satan to rule. He’s got to produce this cosmic system. He’s got to get people to act in regards to arrogance in their own life and divorce them from the reality of God’s plan. And that starts through antagonism towards the Word of God. If he can get you to do that, then he’s got you. And there is more antagonism towards the Word of God today in America than you care to appreciate. I mean, it’s horrible. if you stand up in the public arena for the lord jesus christ or if you are a public figure and you quote the bible or you believe the bible you are instantly maligned and criticized as a weirdo so it’s terrible temporal happiness in the cosmic system is all that it offers it can’t offer the peace and the happiness that god offers The Bible says in Luke 11, 27 and 28, happiness belongs to those people who hear my father’s word and keep it. So God has designed a lifestyle of happiness for you, not a lifestyle of misery from a series of bad decisions that eventually leave you feeling hopeless and empty and lonely until eventually so many people actually take their own lives because they see no way out. So at best, a handicapped believer or even a non-believer, at best, they can only hope to secure some sort of temporal happiness from the details of life. Now, God set up a system called the divine institutions. And within the divine institutions, one of the things that God ordains is marriage. It’s a divine institution, and it’s designed for the bearing and raising of children. And marriage is God-inspired, yes. But without problem-solving devices, marriage at best becomes a battleground for control of finances or a struggle between two individuals who have a fondness and affection for one another, but they don’t have the capacity to love each other when things get crossways. They don’t have virtue love. They don’t understand impersonal love. And so the Bible clearly says in Ephesians 5, 25, husbands love your wives just like or just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. It’s kind of hard for a non-believer to love his wife as Christ loved the church. But if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, this is a mandate from the Word of God. This is virtue love. This is you loving your wife with impersonal love when the time comes, or her loving you with an impersonal love. So without the knowledge of impersonal love, which is a problem-solving device, it’s one of our problem-solving devices, number seven, Without the knowledge of that, then many marriages find themselves locked in daily conflict. Personal love for God, problem-solving device number six, is your motivational virtue to obey him. That’s why the Bible says in 1 John 5, if you love me, you will obey me. That’s personal love for God. But impersonal love is a different type of love. It’s a love based on your character, not theirs. So you can love the unlovable person just like God loved you when you were unlovable. Remember where it says God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son? Remember that? You were unlovable at that time. You were not a believer. And he still loved you and still sent his son to die for you and provide your substitute so that you can have salvation. Therefore, the Bible says, if any man’s in Christ, he’s a new creation. Old things are passed away. And the Bible says, he that knew no sin was made sin for us so that we could be made the righteousness of God through him. So God’s personal love is, God’s impersonal love, excuse me, It’s demonstrated on the cross, and your personal love for God is demonstrated by being obedient. But if you don’t understand impersonal love as a problem-solving device, then a marriage finds itself locked in a daily conflict, the conflict of wills. Let’s face it. Come on. Men are self-centered, and by most standards, they do what they want to do when they want to do it. But women, on the other hand, normally are responders. When there’s nothing to respond to, then trouble and conflict is always brewing for sure. Now, since God instituted marriage in the Garden of Eden by creating Eve and bringing her to Adam, then that is something that Satan will naturally attack. He will attack the institution of marriage in order to thwart God’s divine design. Satan does not endorse marriage. He endorses no marriage. He endorses, I don’t know how to put this, but he endorses marriages that are not recognized in the Bible, such as men to men and women to women. And the Bible recognizes one man, one woman in a marriage. That’s the way God created it. So this is one area that Satan seeks to destroy, marriage. And he seeks to destroy it by infidelity and mistrust till eventually the couple gets a divorce and can’t live together. And some people, by the time they’re 30, have already been married and divorced a couple of times. Well, scar tissue, building scar tissue in your soul, that destroys your ability to feel any remorse or to feel any shame or any guilt since the violator of that is past feelings. So if you have scar tissue, as the Bible said, you’re past feelings. I’ll read it to you one more time. Because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feelings have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work it with greed. So I tell you what, it’s a tough situation. So since God instituted marriage, That’s his divine design. Satan seeks to destroy marriage. And scar tissue destroys the one area that destroys your ability to feel remorse or shame. Past feelings, having a hard heart, are having no guilt or no shame. Once a person gets here, and this is the soul in chaos, once shame is gone, once guilt is gone, once the ability to recognize the failure of arrogance is gone, then the person that has that will destroy their lives eventually and maybe even destroy the lives of others who love them and care about them. So I’m going to ask you a question this morning. Is it possible that you could lie on your tax form and not feel guilty about it? Do you claim that you have a right to not disclose what you earn since the government is stealing from you? Have you ever had that thought? Have you ever done that? See Romans 13 one says, let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinances of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. Now, this is where people say, preacher, you’ve quit teaching and you’ve gone to meddling. I’m not meddling. I’m telling you what the Bible says. Can you cheat on your taxes and not feel guilty about it? If so, you are arrogantly, subjectively rationalizing why it’s okay to do that. And that’s the first stage of arrogance, self-justification. A person in arrogance will always justify why it’s okay to do whatever they want to. And then from self-justification, you move into self-deception, and from self-deception, self-absorption, and eventually self-destruction. So you cheat on your taxes and get caught, you’re gonna be in trouble. And you say, well, I hadn’t got caught yet. Well, listen, God knows. He knows exactly what you’re doing. You might not have been called by the government, but God knows every time you make a negative decision. And do you know that’s a sin? Christians sin when they cheat on their taxes. So in Matthew 22, 21, I’m just using this as an example now. I’m not getting on taxes, but in Matthew 22, 21, our Lord echoed these thoughts when he said, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and render to God the things that are God’s. So if a believer or a non-believer can lie, steal, deceive, cheat, or feel no guilt or no shame when they do that, then they have scar tissue. Have you ever been in line at the store, maybe at the Walmart or the Target or the Sam’s or wherever you might shop, and the cashier gives you back the wrong change, not enough, you would say, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. I gave you a 20 and you didn’t give me enough change back. But what if you gave them a 20 and they gave you change for a 50? Would you then say, hey, wait a minute, you made a mistake. You gave me too much money. Or would you say, oh, it’s my lucky day. And would you trot out the store feeling lucky because you got away with something? that’s an indication that you have scar tissue. Scar tissue or hardness of the heart means you don’t feel guilt, you don’t feel shame, you don’t feel remorse. And so you go down the road thinking you got away with something. The heavier the scar tissue in your life, the deeper you will go into eventually criminal arrogance. That is until you get caught. And then when you get caught and when you get sentenced to prison, then you feel remorse and you feel grief and you feel whatever you feel unless you’re so arrogantly self-induced misery that you want to blame the whole world and blame society that caused you to do what you did. And it’s not that way at all. You are not a victim of your society that you grew up in. You’re not. You’re not a victim of the circumstances that you faced as a child. You are a victim of your decisions, and bad decisions limit future options. That’s why when we believe in Lord Jesus Christ and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, We have a whole new room of decisions, a whole new boundary in our life, a whole new plan for our life, a whole new way of living. And so we don’t have to live like we used to live. We live a new life in Christ and we learn to control the flesh. So no one’s perfect. We all have a sin nature. We all have the opportunity, excuse me, to take control of our sin nature. if we receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior and we become the new man the Bible talks about. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if anyone is in Christ, I quoted it already, he’s a new creation. Old things pass away and all things become new. This means that you now have a soul and a spirit and a body. Prior to believing in Christ, you had a body and a soul, but no spirit. You were spiritually dead. But once you believed in Christ, God the Holy Spirit came to indwell your human spirit, and you’re made spiritually alive. So now you have a body, a soul, and a spirit, and that’s what makes you a new creation. Spiritually alive, you were spiritually dead. Now you’re spiritually alive. So the old things pass away, all things become new. That does not mean that you’re never going to sin again. But what it does mean is that you have a new weapon now to use against the slavery to the sin nature. What is the weapon? It’s God’s Holy Spirit and the living Word of God in your soul. Prior to being a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you did not have these two assets. They are invisible assets, and you have them. Prior to that, you were a slave to the sins of the flesh, the desires of the flesh. You had no way to break free from that. Now you do have a way to break free. Galatians 5, 16, this I say, walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh wars against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. So sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you feel like two different people. It depends on which one is controlling your life. If you allow your sin nature to gain control, then you’ll be out of fellowship with God and you need to use problem-solving device number one, which is the rebound technique where it says if we confess our sin, God’s faithful and just to forgive us. But if you fail to rebound as a Christian, as a believer, then you go back to allowing your sin nature to regain control and to be fed by the thoughts of Satan and the cosmic system. And there are many believers, many believers who have trusted Jesus Christ and accepted him as their savior who are now living miserable lives because they do not understand the spiritual life. They got back under control of the flesh. They still live under control of the flesh. They have not broken the control of the flesh. And they’re subject to the desires of the flesh. So you don’t have to live that way. There’s a better way to live. In Galatians 5, 16, walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. This means when you sin, you stop and confess your sin. When you know you’ve committed a sin, you rebound. Not when you go to bed at night, you rebound instantly. The minute you know you’ve committed a sin, go to God then and tell him, and I can hear you right now. Well, what about the ones I don’t remember? The Bible says he’s faithful and just to forgive us of all unrighteousness, even the ones you don’t remember. And you say, well, that sounds too easy. Well, it is easy because Christ provided everything necessary to satisfy the justice of God on the cross. Yes, it’s easy. But what’s not easy is growing in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. There are two different words I want to introduce you to. One of them is spirituality and the other one is maturity. It is easy to be a spiritual believer. You just are filled with the Spirit. But it is not easy to become a mature believer because that’s where the Bible says you must grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You must study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. rightly dividing the word of truth. It is not easy to have a mature spiritual life because it requires sacrifice on your part to study God’s word, learn God’s word, and apply God’s word into your life on a daily basis. It is easy to rebound. It is easy to name your sin to God and get back in fellowship. The whole reason for being in fellowship is so that you can advance spiritually in the plan of God. You see, once we accept Christ as our Savior, God’s Holy Spirit indwells us. Ephesians 1.13, having believed, you are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. And the weapon that the Holy Spirit uses is the Scripture. The scripture is the knowledge of God’s mind. It is the knowledge of the word of God converted into wisdom that gives you the advantage to have discernment and insight in regards to the traps of Satan and the lure of the flesh. Listen again. It’s the knowledge of the word of God. When you learn it, the knowledge of the word of God that you convert into wisdom, that means you apply it, And that gives you the advantage to have discernment and insight in regards to the traps of Satan and the traps of the flesh. Satan has a strategy towards you. He knows your weaknesses. And the Bible says you’re to put on the armor of God and stand against the strategy of Satan in Ephesians chapter 6. We must know his strategy. Paul talks about that as well. We must know the strategy of Satan. I can tell you what it is. It’s to work on your area of weakness. Whatever your area of weakness is in the flesh, it may be lust for money, lust for power, lust for attention, lust for drugs, lust for alcohol, lust for sex, lust for a lot of different things. And this is where he’ll hit you the hardest. And so you have to understand how to overcome that, how to recognize that. If you don’t have discernment and insight, you will not even know when you’re being tricked. You won’t even be aware of how Satan will trick you. James talks about this. So every decision that you make in your life must be based on information. Your volition acts on that information. And here’s the trick to this thing. The cosmic system offers false information. The cosmic system offers information that’s not true. And the scriptures, the Bible, offers God’s information. One is designed to provide a wonderful life, and one is designed to enslave you and ultimately destroy you. What is God designed for you? Jeremiah 29, 11, For I know the thoughts that I have towards you, says the Lord. thoughts of peace and not of evil, and to give you a future and a hope. Well, what does Satan have in mind for you? Well, listen to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. He’s a liar and the father of it. If you fall for his cosmic system influence, you fall for the lie. He’s a liar. He can’t provide you what he says he can. He can’t provide you the happiness and the peace and the longevity of life that God can. But until you get in fellowship and until you grow spiritually and become the man or the woman that God intended for you to be, you’re never going to know that and you’re never going to understand that. You have to make a choice. Do I want to grow up and be the person God wanted me to be? Or am I happy just tooling along in life, getting by? Are you a conventional Christian that just shows up on church on Sunday and goes home and thinks, okay, I did my chore. I went to church Sunday, and you got nothing. You weren’t fed. You weren’t encouraged. You heard a little music. You gave the offering. You heard about the Sunday school attendance, and that was it, a 15-minute sermon, and you’re out of there until next Sunday. that says we call that the nod to God crowd. That’s not the spiritual life. That is not it at all. If you’ve listened to me long enough, you know what it is. You know what I’m encouraging you to do, to begin a daily routine of studying God’s Word on a consistent basis, even if it has to be in your own home. Please, listen to me. Be the man, the woman God designed you to be, and stop being sucked into the lies of the cosmic system. I hope next week you’ll come back. I hope you’ll continue to listen. Contact me if you have any questions. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.

SPEAKER 01 : 27:20

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.