This episode of The Flatline takes a deep dive into the qualities that define a trustworthy individual. Through the story of King David’s failure and Uriah’s unwavering integrity, Rick Hughes brings to light the importance of faith, humility, and reliability. Learn how biblical teachings can fortify your spirit, guide you through life’s unseen challenges, and prevent the pitfalls of arrogance. A must-listen for those seeking to align their life with God’s plan.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, I’d like to give you a cordial invitation to stick around. It’ll be a few minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education, and always done without any type of manipulation. We don’t hustle money. We’re not trying to sell you anything. We’re not trying to ask you to join anything. I’m not trying to ask you to give up anything. We’re just asking you to listen as we discuss the Word of God, hopefully verify and identify God’s plan for your life. And if you want to do something about it, then you can orient and adjust to the plan. But you can count on it here. At the Flotline, you’re always going to get accurate, in-depth, crucial information for your life with application that will help you understand. what the Word of God is teaching you. It all starts with the decision to believe in Jesus Christ and receive Him as your Savior. It is a decision that everyone must make, must choose. The Bible says, what think ye of Christ? We know that He paid for our penalty. We know the adorned Son of God redeemed us out of the slave market of sin. We know that. We know what he did on the cross. We know that our debt to God’s been paid and we are free of the penalty of death and the power of sin in our life if we can receive him as our savior. That’s a big if. There has to come a time in your life when you make that single significant decision. The Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God and not of works, lest any man should boast. I did that when I was 22. I got on my knees and prayed and asked God to save me. I didn’t realize what was going on. I didn’t realize what was going to happen. I didn’t feel weird. I didn’t see any angels, didn’t hear any harps, but my life changed. And as I grew and as I learned God’s word and began to I moved forward in my new life in Christ. A whole new life opened up. And it’s for you, too. Everyone has to make that decision. Don’t put it off. Don’t live like you have a guaranteed contract you’ll be here tomorrow because you do not have a contract. The Bible clearly says it is appointed unto man once to die and then after that the judgment. I want to talk to you today about being a trustworthy believer. Trustworthy believer. I’ve been speaking out in Houston, Texas recently, and in the course of what I was speaking about, I came across this concept of being trustworthy. It’s an important thing today in our country, in our families, in our homes, being trustworthy. In the book of 2 Samuel chapter 11 through verses 2 through 27, we have a recorded record of the history of King David’s failure. It’s really hard to study the failure of such a great man as David because he was a man of courage and a man of leadership from his youth. I mean, we know about his battle with Goliath and We know about the Philistine giant, his struggles with King Saul. Saul was jealous of him and jealous of his deeds and wanted to kill him. And we know how David took care of the big Goliath with a slingshot and a rock. We understand all of that. We understand how he became king. But what we will now see is not indicative of that lifestyle. It really was David at his lowest point in his life. And what I would like for you to understand is is that each one of us, myself included, we’re all one decision away from ruining our lives as well as those around us. One decision away from ruining our lives as well as those around us. my travel partner has a prison ministry and he can tell you a lot of stories about a lot of great men who made one bad decision and wound up incarcerated for one stupid decision the bible tells you do not be unwise but understand what is the will of god that’s another way of saying don’t be stupid Don’t buy into the world’s system of thinking. Don’t go down the my way highway. So when we allow arrogance to take over our decision-making process, then we always open ourselves up to sin and failure. Arrogance is not talked about much in the Bible, but it’s self-justification. Self-deception, self-absorption, and it always leads to self-destruction. It’s easy to justify sin and easy to justify what’s wrong by lying to yourself and becoming absorbed in whatever it is you want to do. And that’s what arrogance does. So the Bible clearly says in Romans 12, 3, stop thinking in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think. That’s an unrealistic self-image. But think in terms of humility as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from his word. In Philippians 2.5, the Bible tells us, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus who humbled himself. Humility, a humility profile. And that’s the key. To be trustworthy, you must have a humility profile. Usually the reason that we open ourselves up to sin and failure is self-justification. Because when you justify what you want to do, even though you may be a Christian, you then you remove all biblical or even establishment boundaries in your life. Establishment is for people that are not even saved, you know, people like marriage, family, freedom, nationalism. These are establishment principles taught in the Bible. And a person that’s not even a Christian can have a wonderful life of establishment if he follows those principles. But when we justify what’s wrong and the emotion of arrogance removes biblical or establishment boundaries, then we actually wind up creating some sort of vacuum in our soul. So no matter who you are, no matter who you have been in the past, when you start thinking under arrogance, it’ll change you. What do I mean by that? I mean you’ll become self-centered. You’ll disregard what you know is actually the truth, and you’ll believe the lie about yourself. You’ll self-deceive, you’ll deceive yourself. You’ll have an unrealistic self-image, and it’ll give you unrealistic expectations. King David, whom we are going to look at here for a minute, had many past victories in his life. But on this particular day, he would wind up destroying his reputation and bringing at least 40 years of discipline upon himself for the actions that he did. Listen to what Nathan the prophet told David as a result of this sin. Now, therefore, 2 Samuel 12, 10 and 11 and 12. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house because you despise me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own. This is what the Lord says. This is coming from Nathan the prophet. Out of your own household, I’m going to bring calamity on you. And before your very eyes, I will take your wives and give them to the ones who are close to you. And he will sleep with your wife in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all of Israel. For 40 years after this sin that David committed, he had a struggle with his family, had a revolution with his family. And exactly what God said would happen here did happen here. So the sin that I’m talking about and I mentioned at David’s low point in his life is the sin of taking Uriah the Hittite’s wife. Took her by force and impregnated her. He did. In order, it’s all you can read about it in 2 Samuel chapter 11. He was on the roof of Fort Zion and looking around and saw this beautiful lady and demanded that she be brought to him. And she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite. What I want you to see is that in order to cover his sin, he eventually had Uriah killed in combat along with the help of Joab, his commander. I want you to understand what caliber of man Uriah was because it’s not the failure of David that we’re talking about here. It’s the quality of Uriah’s life because it’s noted, must be noted. Uriah was a Jewish proselyte, and he must have known something was up because there was no reason for the king to call him back to Fort Zion for a situation report. And this is what happened once David discovered Bathsheba was pregnant. Here’s another man’s wife. He’s impregnated. And now he’s trying to get him to come home, trying to induce him to go to his house, sleep with his wife before he goes back to the combat field. But this is not someone that should be back giving a situation report. This is a warrior. This is a fighter. This is a ground pounder. It should have been someone else back giving a situation report. And so Uriah knew something was up. There was no reason for the king to call him back. In fact, I suspect he realized David was trying to get him to go home And I thank that because he steadfastly refused to go home. He wouldn’t do it. And David even tried to get him drunk, got him intoxicated. So he would go home to lovely Bathsheba and not remember what happened that night. But he would not. He would not go home. He said, I’m not going back and sleep with my wife in my bed. When my comrades are bivouacked in the field on the ground in tents, I’m not going to do that. That was the tremendous trustworthiness of Uriah the Hittite, the tremendous integrity and courage of Uriah the Hittite. This is what I want to talk to you about in this story of the Bible, in this situation, in the narrative here, is what kind of man Uriah was. Not what David was. We know what David was. In the end, Uriah actually had to carry his own death warrant back to Joab. And it was written by David’s command. And here’s the interesting thing. David said, take this back to Joab. Let Joab see it. And it was a command to put Uriah up front in the hottest part of the battle and then to fall back and leave him alone and let him be killed. And then they would obviously give him a hero’s welcome and, you know, talk about what a great man he was, even though he lost his life. It was all a sham. But Uriah, even though he was carrying his own death warrant back to Joab, he never looked at it. He never peaked at the orders. And that’s because I believe he was trustworthy. Trustworthy. A very important word that God expects out of you. To be trustworthy. let’s focus on what that word means what it means to be a trustworthy believer you know if you go some of the synonyms it’s reliable dependable honest full of integrity worthy of trust honorable upright principled true truthful as good as your word ethical virtuous incorruptible unimpeachable above suspicion That was Uriah. He was indeed trustworthy. And there are two essential attributes that you and I need to be considering if we are to be trustworthy. I don’t know about you, but I would like to be a trustworthy believer. I’d like to be able for God to trust me. And I know you would like to be trustworthy as well. Those two essential attitudes are faithfulness and reliability. Faithfulness and reliability. Because the trustworthy believer always walks by faith and not by sight. In 2 Corinthians 5, verse 7, we live by faith, not by sight. And Habakkuk in the Old Testament, chapter 2, verse 4, says the just shall live by faith. What exactly does that mean when the apostles in the New Testament say, said to the Lord Jesus Christ, increase our faith in Luke 17, 5. Well, first thing you have to understand is faith is not a gift. It’s not a gift someone gives you. You can’t say, well, my parents were people of faith, so I’m a person of faith. I inherited their faith. That’s not true. Faith must be learned. Faith must be learned. It’s not a train trying to go over the mountaintop saying, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. You know, the little choo-choo. Faith is an attitude that is learned. It is confidence in God’s word. You have to know the word of God to develop faith. And that’s why we have the mandates in the Bible to grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If you’re going to be trustworthy, you must be faithful. Faithful means you have muscle in your soul. There are over 7,000 promises found in the Bible for the believer. And they’re all yours to claim by faith. In other words, do you have the courage and the dependability and the reliability to stand on those? Do you remember when the Jews had left Egypt and they were fleeing from the Pharaoh who wanted to kill them? And they came to the Red Sea and they about panicked because the Red Sea was in front of them and Pharaoh and his army was behind them. And Moses said, these words, stand still and watch what God is about to do. That’s what faith does. Faith has confidence. Faith does not flee. Faith stands firm in the promises of the Word of God. So what an amazing thing that faith is. Here’s something no one’s ever told you before. I don’t think you’ve heard this before, but faith gives you the ability to see the unseen. Remember we live in the devil’s world. Remember he has a strategy towards you. We’re told to put on the armor of God so we can stand against the strategy of the devil. He has a strategy about you, and he knows how to defeat you. He knows how to distract you. We’ve seen that in David’s life here by being out of God’s will. He should have been on the battlefield with Joab and the troops, but he was still back at the fort. He was out of the will of God, out of the geographical will of God. When we sin, we open ourself up and we become vulnerable to defeat and distraction. And what faith does is when we live by faith, we can see the unseen, call the angelic conflict. The Word of God is all about it. It teaches us all about it. We know what’s going on in the unseen world. But when you develop faith, which is the Word of God, you learn it and apply it, it’s called in the Bible wisdom. Wisdom is understanding and discernment. That’s what those two things are. They are wisdom. Wisdom is understanding and discernment. And when you have understanding and when you have discernment, you have the ability to see what’s good for you and what’s not good for you. In other words, you can see the unseen trap Satan may be laying, the trap to discourage you, the trap to distract you, the trap to defeat you. Faith lets you see through the devil’s smokescreen because you’re standing on the Word of God. But if you don’t develop faith in your life, then what you essentially do is you’re walking blindly through the devil’s world. You’re like a man with blindfold on and you’re trying to make your way through the devil’s world. You’re a child of God. And here you go with no word of God, no divine viewpoint. You don’t have the mind of Christ. You’re not getting in any doctrine on a daily basis. I mean, you’re not studying the Bible daily. You’re not developing your faith, and so you’re just walking blindly into the devil’s world. You are a sucker. You’re setting yourself up for defeat. You’re setting yourself up for failure because God has given you unique problem-solving devices, and you don’t even know what they are. You’ve never even taken the time to learn them and use them. You’re going to wind up being a loser believer. You’re going to lose out in eternity. You’re not going to have the rewards you could have had. You’re not going to glorify God to the maximum. Why? Because you walked through this world blind. You were too distracted. You were too interested in something else to even take time to learn God’s Word. That’s what this show is always about. I’m looking for those of you that are hungry. I’m looking for those of you that would tell me, Rick, I want to learn God’s Word more than anything else. Please tell me how to do it. I can help you. I can show you how to get into a serious study of the Word of God at home, around your kitchen table or your desk, listening to well-qualified pastors teach you the Bible. This is how you grow. It’s imperative. But if you don’t have a developed faith, if you’re not trustworthy, if God can’t trust you like that, Then, I hate to say this, but if you’re a parent and you have children, and you are not preparing your children for the battle in the devil’s world, you are abusing your children. That’s right, spiritually abusing them. You’re going to send them into the devil’s world. You know it’s out there, you know the zeitgeist or the spirit of the times is swirling around like a cosmic vortex, and you’re going to tell your kids good luck give it your best shot dream your dreams that’s all human viewpoint garbage the bible says my my plans for you are bigger than any dreams you could ever dream god said it’s amazing that people want to just tell their kids take your best shot dream your dream go for it kid you can do it that’s not what the bible teaches It’s abusing a child not to prepare him for the devil’s world. They’ll fall into the trap of religion, organized religion, thinking that they’re going to heaven because they don’t smoke or they don’t drink or they don’t cuss or they don’t cheat on their taxes or some sort of other good deeds. And the Bible said, not by works of righteousness, which we are saved. It’s not how we get it. No, it says, but according to his mercy, he saved us. by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, which is shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord, being justified by his grace and made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. We got to prepare. Not only must you prepare not to walk into the devil’s world blindly, that’s not being trustworthy. God can’t trust you. Listen, what did God give you? What did he entrust to you? Well, I hope you got one close by. It’s called a Bible. He entrusted to you the Bible. He also indwelled you with the Holy Spirit and told you don’t grieve the Holy Spirit and don’t quench the Holy Spirit because his job is to explain the Bible. to guide you into all truth. This is what Jesus said. I’m leaving, guys. I’ve been here. I’ve been teaching you, but I’m going back to my Father, but I’m going to send the Holy Spirit, and he now will teach you, and you’re going to have to learn by faith because no more empirical data, no more me, no more walking around watching me do it, listening to me say it. I won’t be here. The Holy Spirit is now going to say it, and that is going to require faith. So faith is critical. It’s nothing other than trustworthiness. It’s interesting to note that the Scriptures say in Romans 1.31 that a morally degenerate person is untrustworthy. You can read those passages in Romans 1.20-31 and see what I’m talking about. Untrustworthy is used. In our passage that we’ve been studying in 2 Samuel 11 and 12, David was untrustworthy with Uriah’s wife. Uriah might could have trusted David with his money and with his household items, but not with his wife. She was too beautiful and David was too weak in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, lusting. Uriah had more honor and more dependability than King David did at that point in his life. you know the Bible talks about perseverance perseverance is a trait of being trustworthy being consistent persevering it’s very important in your life in 2nd Thessalonians 1 4 Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica and he wrote about their perseverance and about how he trusted them He said, we speak proudly of your perseverance and your faith, there it is, that’s their trustworthiness, in the midst of all of your persecutions and afflictions which you endure. Each of us will go through affliction and persecution. The Bible says, think it not strange these things had happened to you in 1 Corinthians 10, 13, as if it hadn’t happened to other people, it has. It’s all for a reason. God must test your faith to see if he can trust you. That’s what he does. He will test your faith to see if he can trust you. Will you panic? Will you let your emotions take over? Will you get arrogant and get mad and justify a wrong deed? How will you handle it? What will you do? What’s going on in your life right now that requires complete faith because you cannot solve that problem at all? You are in a jam and you want to know how to do it. God’s waiting to see if he can trust you. Trust you for what? Can he trust you to trust him? I will never leave you. I will never forsake you, he said. The Bible is clear about never having seen the righteous suffer. It’s clear. Do you trust God? He hasn’t thrown you under the bus. He hasn’t abandoned you. He hasn’t forgotten you. Regardless of where you live. Jesus Christ lives in you. God the Holy Spirit lives in you. God the Father lives in you. And you have his word alive and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword. So you have to learn the word of God to develop your faith and be trustworthy. The faith rest drill is the third problem-solving device in the flotline of your soul. Number one is rebound. If we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to purify us from all of our wrongdoing. There never is a time in your life when you can ignore that one. Because you are going to sin, whether it’s a mental attitude sin or a sin of the tongue or even an overt sin. You will sin. You will fail. You might not fail like David did, but you will fail. And when that happens, you must confess your sin to God. You can’t put it off like David did for over a year. He knew what he had done was wrong, and he put it off. He repressed the memory of it until Nathan showed up and nailed him with it. and told him, okay, you’ve confessed it now. You’re not going to die, but you’re going to have 40 years of discipline. The second problem-solving device is the filling of the Holy Spirit. That’s on the flat line of your soul, and that takes the place of the sin nature. You can live under the control of the sin nature, or you can live under control of the Holy Spirit. It’s up to you. And then the faith rest drill, problem-solving device number three. It allows you to stand in the face of adversity. That’s why the book of Ephesians tells us to pick up the shield of faith. And this shield is nothing but the antidote for doubt, which is failure to trust. When you doubt God, you’re failing to trust, and faith is the antidote to doubt. If you’re untrustworthy, then you’re going to fail. You’re going to fail your father and fail what he’s asked you to do. You can fail by not growing spiritually. As Hebrews 5 said, you’ve been saved a long time now and you ought to be teaching others, but instead you’ve gone back to where someone has to teach you again the very first principles of the Word of God. That’s a failure. Or you can fail by committing sin and not confessing the sin as David did. So does God find you trustworthy? That’s the question I wanna ask you. Or are you like David who threw his best warrior under the bus in order to cover his sin? If you wanna know why David did that, why would David plot to get Uriah killed? Listen to this verse from Leviticus 20 verse 10. And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife Even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. David was under a death contract in the Mosaic law for what he did. And Uriah had every right to come back and prosecute David for adultery. So David had him killed to cover his own sin. The one thing you need to remember today, you cannot cover your sin from God. You might hide it from your neighbor. You may hide it from your wife, but you will never hide it from God. Are you trustworthy? That’s my question for you today. I appreciate you listening, and I pray and hope you’ll come back next week, same time, same place. Until then, this is 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.
