In this episode of The Flatline, Rick Hughes guides us through the concept of the Flotline, a forward line of troops that helps us learn the unique problem-solving devices taught in the Bible. By building this line of resistance in our souls, we can protect ourselves from the internalized stress of external adversities. Rick emphasizes the importance of making wise decisions and the consequences of rejecting true wisdom, as outlined in the scriptures.
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 Flotline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes. Flotline, F-L-O-T, Forward Line of Troops. It’s all about learning the unique 10 problem-solving devices taught in the Bible so you can establish a main line of resistance in your soul. By doing that, by using those unique problem-solving devices, it’s possible you can stop the outside source of adversity before it ever becomes the inside source of stress. So building a flat line is a wonderful way to live. It relieves all the pressure in your life. No worry, no fear, no bitterness, no animosity. Actually, it’s accumulating the mind of Christ, thinking like our Lord Jesus Christ thought. He had a flat line in his soul, although he never needed to confess any sin like we do. That’s our first problem-solving device. Rebound, problem-solving device number one. If we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and purify us from all of our wrongdoing. So building a flat line is what this show is about. you know god gave you two ends i tell you that every week two ends one end to sit with one end to think with and success in your life is going to depend on which one you use remember bad decisions limit future options and if you make enough bad decisions you’re not going to have any options left and obviously the worst decision anyone could make in their entire life is to reject Jesus Christ as Savior. You leave God no choice when you do that because you rejected the love of God. Remember where it says God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son? When you reject the gift that God gives you of his son, you leave the justice of God no choice but to judge you. And that will occur at the great white throne of judgment, which you don’t want to be there. You don’t even want to have any part with that. So the Bible says, he that believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. And he that believeth not, the wrath of God abides on him already. You know, living in the devil’s world, living in the presence of this great country of ours, there’s a lot of stuff going on. There is, as a pastor friend of mine says, a spiritual climate change, a shift. And it’s happening. And we’re going to talk about that for the next few shows. And by the way, you will be able to access these through Spotify, the website where we post a podcast of these shows. And hopefully soon we’ll be on the Apple podcast as well. So you can get to these by using your internet or your cell phone. And you can always go to our website, rickhughesministries.org, and you can access the radio shows there and listen to them online. or you can contact us through the website and we’ll send you MP3s of the shows. So let’s talk about the spiritual climate change in the great old United States of America. The frantic search for happiness that we see today in this country kind of leaves a cluttered trail of destruction and despair. It’s no wonder that suicide is the last option. I think I read the other day that on the average there are 123 suicides committed every day. Why do people do that? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because everything appears empty. What’s the use of going on, they may say. Many young people, teenagers, are used up at an early age and they wind up ending it all because they see no future, no hope. I mean, they spend money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t even like. And they do all of that to deaden the pain of an empty life. I think hopelessness is a national disease. And there’s so many people that are hopeless today. In the National Post, we read headlines suggest we become consumed by loneliness. There’s a word I want you to key in on, loneliness and hopelessness. Loneliness, a new generation, the National Post says, of Eleanor Rigby’s, half a century after the Beatles sang it. Why are 30-year-olds lonely? That’s a question I want to ask you. Why are they facing a loneliness epidemic in their life? I’ve read where loneliness is a human catastrophe, and a recent Angus Reid Institute survey found that half of Canadians often feel alone. And in the U.S., the number of Americans who feel they have no one with whom they can speak to has tripled. Seventy-five percent of Americans, I read, claim they’re lonely. There is an American poet named Sylvia Plath, a novelist, and she wrote in her journal four decades ago, God, but life is lonely. Despite all the opiates, despite the shrill, tinsel gaiety of the parties with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear, people across the West are reporting higher levels of loneliness, persistent loneliness. More than ever before. But don’t worry about it. You know, really, come on. I mean, they’re going to soon get a chill pill for loneliness. Did you know that? University of Chicago scientists think that the hormone they’ve come up with called pregnenolone might reduce lonely people’s fear of connecting and their risk of serious health problems. So for the past year and a half, the study is scheduled to end this June, by the way, that was 96, lonely but otherwise healthy people were receiving 400 milligrams or oral doses of pregnenolone, a hormone primarily produced by the adrenal gland, and it’s been associated with memory enhancement but also stress reduction. That’s the world’s system of solving the lonely problem. If the research ultimately leads to a pharmacological treatment for loneliness, it would be a timely breakthrough, many doctors say. So one particular person that I read, and this is very interesting, said her name was Robbie Ludwig. She’s a psychotherapist. And she said, as a society… We have not been adapted helping young men manage their feelings of hopelessness and emasculation. We need to educate our youth, that’s what she says, uh-huh, and help them identify and deal with their uncomfortable emotions, uh-huh. We must teach them that feeling vulnerable or weak doesn’t make them failures. So listen to this brilliant idea she comes up with. There needs to be a way to provide emotional management to all young boys, especially the troubled ones. It’s extremely important to help them identify and recognize their anger as it arises. We must help these young men, she says, handle feelings of weakness and desperate in more effective and non-destructive ways. We must ensure they are not fueled by hateful rhetoric or xenophobia. That’s the dislike or prejudice of people from other countries. We also need to expand what it means to be a man, so the disenfranchised don’t choose killers as their idols. This is all human viewpoint thinking. What we’ve done is we’ve kicked the word of God out of our homes, we’ve kicked the word of God out of our schools, we’ve kicked the word of God out of our public agenda, And young people today are victims to cosmic thinking. They have no choice. They don’t even see the difference. Their parents don’t give them any scripture to give them any background to give them a choice in life. And they grow up falling sucker and victims to the cosmic system. What is a man? She wants to know what is a man? I’ll tell you what a man is. A man has momentum in his life. Jesus Christ, our Lord said, happiness, happiness, happiness, that’s opposed to loneliness. Happiness belongs to those who hear my father’s word and keep it. Hearing and keeping the word of God on a consistent basis relieves loneliness for the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. A man has momentum in his life, and he has authority orientation. He has authority orientation. Where does he get it? He gets it at home from his parents. Children, obey your parents. Honor your father and your mother. And when they don’t obey, they get disciplined. It has to be that way. If you don’t discipline your children, then you bring them into the world undisciplined maniacs. doing what they want to do. So we have to have authority orientation. That’s gone today. They sneer at the police officer. They laugh at the police officer. They don’t obey the police officer. They cheat on their tests. They cheat on one another. They lie to their parents. They lie to their friends. No authority orientation. And finally, a man, M-A-N, has nobility or virtue or honor. Great character is what God’s looking for, and that’s what makes a real true man, nobility and virtue. But a male on the other side of the coin, a male, M-A-L-E, well, the M says he’s minus any momentum in his life. He may have the body of a male, but he doesn’t have the mind of a man. He doesn’t have any momentum. He doesn’t hear God’s word. He doesn’t keep God’s word. So his frame of reference is totally cosmic thinking. He’s anti-authority. He doesn’t obey authority. He does what he wants to do when he wants to do it and gets away with it. And technically, M-A-L, L means he’s a loser, a loser in life and a loser in eternity if he rejects Christ as his savior. A loser in life can’t handle responsibility. A loser in life can’t handle routine. A loser in life can’t handle unfair testing. And so their emotions take over and they go goofy on you. And they get into E-M-A-L-E. The male gets into emotional override. He lets his emotions control him rather than his thinking. The Bible says let this mind control. being you that was also in Christ Jesus, not these emotions. Emotions are bonafide and wonderful and a great appreciator of the soul, but they’re never designed to dictate policy. And yet so many people today live by emotional revolt of the soul. They let their emotions dictate policy. You can see it on the interstate. You can see it on the highways. You can see the rage and the frustration and the loss of temper. It’s all there, emotional override. So what does the Bible say about this sort of thinking, this cosmic system thinking, this human viewpoint thinking that we need a pill for loneliness or we need to counsel our young boys and teach them to be real men? Oh, my gosh. Well, here’s what the Bible says, Ecclesiastes 10, 2 and 3. The heart of the wise, the wise, the person who wants wisdom, inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. That’s kind of interesting, what’s on the right and what’s on the left, but there it is. The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. Even as fools walk along the road, they lack sense, and they show everyone how stupid they are. Ecclesiastes 10, 2 and 3 in the NIV edition of the Bible. There you have it. They show everybody how stupid they are because they live by human viewpoint thinking. They have rejected the word of God, the plan of God, the assets that God gave them. They stuck their nose up at it and rejected all of that and bought into some sort of cosmic system thinking. So I’d like to entitle this message, America 2019, the land of the foolish. Why do I say that? Well, because the change in values in this country, the change of the insight, the change of the future, we’ve changed. Everything that used to be evil is now sort of good, and everything that used to be good is now almost evil. If we continue on the course that we’re headed in this country, we will have no future. So what is the solution to this problem? I mean, I can highlight the problem, but is there a solution? And the answer is yes. Ecclesiastes 9, 11 through 12, one of the wisdom books of the Bible, and this is what Solomon wrote. He said, I’ve seen some things, something else under the sun. He said, I’ve learned that the race is not won by the swift, and the battle doesn’t always belong to the strong. Nor does food always come to the wise, or wealth to the brilliant, or favor to the learned. But time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come. As fish are caught in a cruel net or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them. That’s the thing you can count on. There are times of evil that are going to fall on you unexpectedly, and if you don’t know how to handle it, you will be trapped, trapped in loneliness, hopelessness, and despair. One of the things that happens to everybody is death. There’s no way around it. It’s appointed unto man once to die. After that, the judgment. Some of you listening to me today are half dead. Some of you are three quarters dead. Some of you may be eight tenths dead. We’re all getting there eventually, sooner or later. So no one gets out of it. And that was part of the wisdom of Solomon. So he notes here that all people share the same distribution of adversity and prosperity and the same eventually ultimate fate. They will all eventually join the dead. So the question is, how do we handle what appears to be coming our way since we have no idea of what we might be facing? My own pastor has been teaching something in conferences this year that I’ve attended. that is really great. We have the example of the importance of wisdom and how even the wisdom of, how, let me back that up, how even when the wisdom is life-saving, the giver of such wisdom will be forgotten. Wisdom is what we need, W-I-S-D-O-M, and the New Testament calls it Sophia. I’m gonna show you why the wisdom is important. But here’s the issue, even the person full of wisdom the person that knows the answers and the solutions to the troubles of life will soon be forgotten because somebody else wants to take credit for it, someone else thinks they’re smarter, or someone else appreciates the gift but goes on down the highway as soon as the trouble’s gone. This is not very good news for pastors who hope to be remembered for their teaching of biblical wisdom, because the wisdom that I’m speaking of is found in the Bible, something the majority of Americans have forsaken. So I’m going to read to you out of another book of wisdom, Job 28, verses 12 through verses 28. And here’s what it says. Where can wisdom be found? Where does understanding dwell? No mortal comprehends its worth. It cannot be found in the land of the living. The deep says it’s not in me. The sea says it’s not in me. It cannot be bought with the finest gold, nor can its price be weighed out in silver. We’re talking about wisdom now, wisdom. Neither gold nor crystal can compare with it, nor can it be had for a vase of gold. coral and jasper are not worthy of mention the price of wisdom is beyond rubies the topaz of cush cannot compare with it it cannot be bought with pure gold so where then does wisdom come from and where does understanding dwell it’s hidden from the eyes of every living thing concealed from the birds of the sky Destruction and death say only a rumor of it has reached our ears. But God understands the way to it, and he alone knows where wisdom dwells. For he views the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens. When he established the force of the wind and measured out the waters, When he made a decree for the rain and a path for the thunderstorm, when he looked at wisdom and appraised it, he confirmed it and tested it. And he said to the human race, the fear of the Lord, that’s wisdom. And to Sean, evil is understanding. The fear of the Lord, that’s wisdom. Verse 28. Proverbs 3.8 says, do not be wise in your own eyes. That’s human viewpoint thinking. Fear the Lord, respect him, and depart from evil, Satan’s cosmic system. In the New Testament, Paul wrote in Ephesians 5.17, don’t be foolish. But understand what the will of the Lord is. Don’t be stupid. Ephron, lack of knowledge. The inability to use knowledge wisely. It’s the difference between knowledge and wisdom. You know, the Bible says a little bit of knowledge puffeth up. The Greek word for knowledge is gnosis, but the Greek word for wisdom is sophia. There’s a difference in the two. Knowledge is something you’ve heard and you’ve understood, but you haven’t applied it. Wisdom is something you’ve heard, understood, believed, and applied. So do not be foolish. Don’t have a lack of understanding, Ephesians 5, 17, but understand what the will of the Lord is. The word foolish or moros denotes simple stupidity, but it’s also ignorance and willful rebellion against God and his will. As an example, you can read Romans 1, 18 through 32, where it talks about those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Professing themselves to have wisdom, they became fools. because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge. Pick it up. Open the Bible. Read it. Romans 1, 18 through 32. You’ll see where a lot of our problems come from today. But God has given you and I the opportunity to understand his wisdom. It comes through the mind of Christ, Philippians 2, 5. In Proverbs 1, 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Here we go again. The fool is not interested. America is the land of the foolish. By and large, most Americans are not interested in what the Bible says about marriage, what the Bible says about family, what the Bible says about freedom, what the Bible says about internationalism. They’re not interested. They’re only interested in what they want, a good many. Now, there are some Americans that are interested in that, some really great Americans. But most just could care less about the Bible. They got one. It’s a good luck charm. Some of them put it in the back window of their car, hoping they don’t get hit. Some of them have it under the coffee table at home, but they don’t ever read it. They don’t go to church. They don’t get instruction from God, not at all. Will the America you and I know today, will it survive? If in fact it continues on the current path? Well, what kind of path? The path made by the decision of fools. One, most of our leaders reject the notion that God’s wisdom is found in Christ. Most do that. Most leaders in Congress, House of Representatives, the Senate, government, don’t want to know about that. They reject the idea that God’s wisdom is found in Jesus Christ. In my own state, they threw the Ten Commandments out of the courthouse, threw the Ten Commandments out of the Capitol. We can’t have God’s wisdom, they said. It’s offensive to people. That shows how stupid and foolish we really are. We are so stupid that we actually think we’re smarter than God. As a nation, we are so foolish that we actually think we don’t need God’s instructions, that we can handle it all on our own. And you can see we’re doing a pretty good job of messing it up. We are a divided nation today. And this is what Satan is really good at, dividing and conquering. If we continue on the path we’re on, there will not be a free America in the future. Most of our leaders reject the idea of God’s wisdom concerning divine institutions like marriage. As an institution, God has given away to humanism and diversity. They’re not interested in what the Bible says about marriage, a man and a woman being married. No, no, we’ve gone for humanism and diversity. The family as an authority structure is now denied. There’s no discipline allowed. If you whip your child, you’re going to call some sort of government agency to come in and take your children away from you. And our freedom is surrendered for some sort of temporary security. You want somebody to take care of them. They want somebody to take care of them. Many politicians today promise free college, free health care, free this and free that. And it’s all a farce. nationalism is rejected for internationalism, thinking that we need to be friends with the world and we needed to group together and we all need to have the same currency. We need one guy to lead us all across the world. The Bible says eventually that’s going to happen with the Antichrist, but not now. The words of Solomon ring out true today. I mean, it’s just as true today as it was when he wrote it. Proverbs 1.22. How long will you who are simple love your simple ways? And how long will you mockers delight in mocking? And how long will fools hate knowledge? Repent at my rebuke, God said. And then I will pour out my thoughts to you, and I will make known to you my teachings. But since you refuse to listen when I call and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand, since you disregard all my advice and do not accept my rebuke, the Lord said here in this passage, then in turn I will laugh when disaster strikes you and I will mock when calamity overtakes you. When calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelms you, then they’ll come calling to me, but I won’t answer. Then they will look for me, but they won’t find me because they hated knowledge and they did not choose to fear the Lord. That’s wisdom. Since they would not accept my advice, they spurned my rebuke. Now they will eat the fruit of their own ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. But whoever will listen to me will live safely and be at ease without fear or harm. Man, you talk about a critic of America today. This is us. We refuse to listen. We’re not interested in listening. We’re interested in doing it our way. We don’t want to offend anybody. We want to stay in the middle of the road, so to say, and we are filled with the fruit of our own schemes. Our nation is being divided. Our nation has fallen apart. Our young people are killing themselves. They’re unhappy. They’re lonely. They’re miserable. They’re empty. Is there anything you can do about it for the future of this nation? Yes, there is one thing you can do, yes. You can be a man with wisdom. Because sooner or later, people are gonna need it. You can be the one who has wisdom. Wisdom in the knowledge of Christ and the claims of Jesus Christ. Wisdom in the simplicity of faith alone in Christ alone, not trying to work for your salvation, not trying to earn it or buy it, but faith alone in Christ alone. That’s wisdom, but you can’t buy that wisdom and you cannot inherit that wisdom. You have to acquire it for yourself before you can have any sort of impact in the world. So in Ecclesiastes 9, 14, and 15, I encourage you to read it. There was one man with wisdom that delivered an entire city from a king. One man with wisdom. That’s all God needs. One person with wisdom. One person with the word of God in their soul. One person who thinks divine viewpoint. One person who’s committed to the cause of Christ with objectivity. That’s what God’s looking for. Wisdom comes from knowledge. And when you have the knowledge of the word of God, it produces insight and it produces discernment. Wisdom is acquired as a byproduct of personal love for God. If you love me, the Bible says you’ll obey me and my mandates are not grievous. Obey me. If you love me, you will obey me and my mandates are not grievous. Well, what exactly am I supposed to obey? Well, I may need to come back, but Psalm 34, 12 through 16, you can read it for yourself. Do you want to really live? Would you like to live a long, happy life? Then make sure you don’t speak evil words or use deceptive speech. That’s some wisdom. There’s so much more to say about this, and dang, my time is gone. I hope you’re interested. I hope you’re listening. And I hope you’ll come back next week because I will continue this and we’ll press on in this study of America, the land of the foolish. Until then, it’s your host Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
