Join host Rick Hughes as he delves into an enlightening discussion on the concept of carnal Christianity. Discover how Christians are often distracted and misled, losing focus on their spiritual growth. Hughes provides insights into how the carnal Christian can mirror the behaviors of non-believers, offering a cautionary tale on the importance of staying spiritually aligned and engaged with the Word of God.
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 thank you for tuning in for a few minutes. It’s just 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education. and absolutely no manipulation, because we’re not here to con you, we’re not here to solicit money, we’re not here to sell you anything, but we are here to give you something, and that’s to give you the word of God, and hopefully, hopefully I’ll be able to verify and identify God’s plan for your life. If that’s so, then you can orient and adjust to the plan if you would like to do so. That’s your life, your choice, you only got one shot at it. And remember, bad decisions limit future options, always. This is Flatline Show 1066, and today we’re going to talk about the interesting thing called the carnal Christian, the carnal Christian. Last week I spoke with you about the cosmic Christian, you know, the individual who actually is a recruiter for the cosmic system. And my intention at that time was to warn you about being distracted and being discouraged by those Christians who seek to use you for their own purposes and their own desires. We looked at that word worldliness, worldliness, and we discovered what it actually meant. If you missed it and you want to hear it again, you can go to our website and search under The Flatline on the Rick Hughes Evangelistic Ministries website, rickhughesministries.org. That’s our website, rickhughesministries.org. When you get there, just click on The Flatline and you can see the radio shows and you can play the show that we’re talking about. And also, we podcast our show. I don’t know if you’re aware of that. If you have a phone, you can listen anywhere, anytime, any day, anywhere in the world. I’ve been informed by our podcast representative that we just crossed 2 million downloads or 2 million plays. So I’m very grateful for the wonderful reception that you’ve given me and you’ve listened. I’m so very thankful. Let me remind you, I’m not a counselor. I can’t solve problems. I’m not here to solve your marital relationships. I’m here to give you the word of God. I’m an evangelist. My job is to give you the gospel information, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and to give you some basic Bible doctrine to help you orient and adjust to God’s plan. But if you need to talk to a professional counselor, I’m not the guy. I’m not your problem solver. I’m just an evangelist. But my intention with this short study we’re going to do today is to warn you about Christian friends, friends you need to avoid as well as challenge so that you don’t become one of these types. And we’re going to call them carnal Christians. Listen to how the Apostle Paul addressed the Christians in the church in Corinth. I’m reading to you from 1 Corinthians 3, 1 through 3, where Paul said, And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spirituals, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it. Neither yet now are you even able, for you are still carnal. For whereas there is among you envy, strife, and divisions, are you not carnal and walk like mere men? That’s a pretty good challenge. The Greek New Testament word for carnal is sarkikos. Sarkikos. S-A-R-K-I-K-O-S. Sarkikos. And it comes from the root word sarks. S-A-R-X. And that word means having the nature of the flesh or controlled by the flesh. Controlled by animal appetites. Governed by human nature instead of by the spirit of God. The Apostle Peter warns his readers about the carnal existence as well in 1 Peter 2.11, where he said, Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lust. That’s the carnal words there, sarx, the fleshly lust, which war against the soul. That’s sarcikos again. And so the carnality of a Christian is a very dangerous thing to get into. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10, 4, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They’re not from the flesh, but they are mighty through God to the effect that we can pull down strongholds. So we have some phenomenal weapons that God has made available to us, and you should know them. as those 10 unique problem-solving devices that need to be stored in the thinking of your soul so that you understand how the Christian life functions and operates and what your weapons are. But there are two important principles here we have to remember. The first one is that you and I are in a spiritual war with Satan and his demons. Thus there is no power to defeat them in the flesh. In the flesh you’re not going to ever defeat Satan and his demons. And the second thing we need to remember is our defensive weaponry is mighty. It’s mighty. It’s called dunitas, like the word dynamite. Dunatos, D-U-N-A-T-O-S. It means powerful, capable. And it means strength or ability. It’s the direct etymological root English word dynamite or dynamo and dynamic. So it conveys the inherent capability or the miraculous power that we have. So the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty. Dunatos, dynamite. While it’s often linked to explosive power, it’s frequently referred to continuously productive energy such as what we find in the New Testament under the filling of the Holy Spirit and the dynamics of the faith rest drill. That’s our mighty power. So this leads you to ask the question, what is the power of the Christian life? So pull out a piece of paper, blank sheet of paper, and write down your answer. What is the power of the Christian life? Can you do that? Do you know the answer to that? Well, number one, let me give you the answer. Number one, it’s the filling of the Holy Spirit. And number two, it’s having the flatline and the mentality of your soul. So if you ask one of your friends that’s a Christian or if you ask even your pastor, what is the power of the Christian life if he doesn’t say or they don’t say the filling of the Holy Spirit and they don’t understand the dynamics of the Christian life, they don’t understand where the dunatas comes from. And if they don’t understand the flat line, which they probably don’t, it’s just 10 unique problem-solving devices. There’s nothing new, nothing spiritually different. It’s age-old doctrine taught throughout the Word of God forever. How to confess your sin, rebound number one. Number two, the filling of the Holy Spirit. Number three, faith rest drill. And on down the line, you should see those 10 problem-solving devices. You should know them by now. If you don’t, contact me and we’ll send you a book called Christian Problem Solving, free of charge, as always. So, what is the power to the Christian life? Number one, the feeling of the Holy Spirit. And number two, a flat line in the mentality of your soul. When you hear people talking about letting Jesus take over, you know, he’ll tell you that. Oh, just let Jesus have it. Give it to Jesus. I’m telling you they don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s obvious they don’t understand the mechanics to the Christian life. Notice the contrast to the carnal Christian who actually lives the lifestyle of a lost man and the spirit-filled believer who reflects and reproduces Jesus Christ in his life. The Bible tells us in Galatians 5 that the carnal Christian lives under control of his flesh and it identifies it. I’ll read it to you. Galatians 5, 19, now the works of the flesh are manifest, and it’s these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, sedition, heresy, envy, murder, drunkenness, revelings and such of the like. But I’ve told you this before and I’m telling you in times past, I’m telling you again, those that live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. It is possible for a Christian to practice these things and to emulate a lost man. And I’ll show you how this morning. So when a Christian gets out of fellowship, stays out of fellowship, he begins to act like a lost man. But on the other hand, Galatians 5, 22 through 23 says the believer who is filled with the Holy Spirit produces love and joy and peace and long-suffering and gentleness and goodness and faith and meekness and temperance. Against these things there is no law. Thus we have two principles. Here’s one of them. Number one, do not hang out with carnal Christians even if they are your close friends. Do not hang out with carnal Christians even if they are your close friends. So if you got a close friend who says they’re a believer and they’re committing adultery, they’re fornicating, They’re involved in these things, hatred, wrath, strife, envy, jealousy. Stay away from them. They will drag you into their lifestyle. And secondly, don’t allow yourself to become a carnal Christian by failure to control your own sin nature and failure to grow spiritually. Now I want to share something with you here. Amazingly, one way to get distracted from your spiritual advance is is to be caught up in a lifestyle that majors on praise and worship and minors on biblical in-depth Bible teaching. So I suggest you find a good church where there is teaching and studying in-depth of the Bible. And I suggest it needs to take longer than the song service. I caution you. I’m warning you. Musicians love to sing. They love to perform. And if these people in your church like to perform, hopefully the pastor loves to teach and preach the Word of God. So here’s a little insight. And in the worship service, if your toe is tapping, your brain might not be learning. So be careful. The worship service does not need to be longer than the teaching service. I mean, a couple of good songs, sit down, shut up, and let the pastor take the pulpit where he can teach you the word of God. That’s how you grow. In Matthew 11, 29, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Learn, didn’t say praise and sing. It says learn of me. For I am meek and lowly in heart, and there you will find rest for your souls. That’s a mandate. Take my yoke, the zugos, the zugos, Z-U-G-O-S, and learn of me. Here’s something you must understand in regards to carnality. When you commit a personal sin, You are a carnal Christian. At any one time in your life, you’re either spiritual or you’re carnal. There is no in-between. Either you’re in fellowship, you’re spiritual, you’re out of fellowship, you’re carnal. Advancing believers sin sometimes daily, but they recover their sin by using rebound, problem-solving device number one. So the believer who sins, whatever it could be, a mental attitude sin, a sin of the tongue, an overt sin, but if he sins and he fails to rebound, he will eventually become reversionistic, which means he will reverse his lifestyle into the lifestyle of the believer. When you sin, you grieve the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 4.30. Once in carnality, you quench the Holy Spirit, 1 Thessalonians 5.19. Again, when you sin, you grieve the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 4.30. And once in carnality, you quench the Holy Spirit, 1 Thessalonians 5.19. If you stay out of fellowship in carnality and don’t rebound or confess your sin, you will eventually enter into what we call reversionism. Reverse reversionism. Let’s take a simple illustration of an automobile. When you learn to drive, you understand that there are three gears, forward, neutral, and reverse. The R doesn’t stand for race. The R stands for reverse. So the growing believer is in forward, moving toward his destination, which is to be a mature believer. The carnal Christian is in neutral. He’s not going anywhere. And the reversionistic believer is in reverse going backwards. So let me give you some principles for us to learn here today. One, reversionism, that term I’m using, reversionism, that’s the word my pastor coined years ago, is an act of reversing or turning in the opposite direction or a state of being so turned. As Christians, we are designed to execute the protocol plan of God, but in reversionism, We turn and go the other way, and we cannot be distinguished from our pre-salvation days before we got saved, because we go right back to that old stuff we used to live. Two, reversionism is a maximum control of your sin nature over your life so that you function under the dictates of your sin nature exactly the same way you did before you became a believer. You got into reversionism and instead of going forward, you’re going backwards. So I’m going to ask you a simple question this morning. Are you moving forward? Are you moving forward? Are you growing in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Or are you in neutral? I mean, are you staying filled with the Holy Spirit, taking in God’s Word daily, or have you failed to rebound your sin of neglecting your spiritual life? Because that’s a sin. When you shut your spiritual life down, it means you quit studying the Word of God. You quit staying filled with the Holy Spirit. You may still be nice. You may still look good, smell good, act good. But if you’re not filled with the Spirit, you’re not taking in God’s Word, you’re not living the Christian life, you’re in neutral. And that’s a sin. James 4, 17, therefore to him that knows to do good and will not do it, to him it is a sin. And there you go. Even worse, have you returned to your previous lifestyle like you lived when you were an unbeliever? Yeah, I know you accepted Christ and when you got saved, but after that moment you failed to grow spiritually. You didn’t put the pedal to the metal. And now actually you appear as a person who’s not even a Christian. If that’s so, I know you must be miserable because being under divine discipline is not fun. It’s a very miserable way to live and an even worse way to die. So the reversionistic believer, the one that’s going in reverse, is going to go out under the sin of the death. If he does not rebound, if he doesn’t recover his momentum spiritually, he will die the sin of the death. There are three stages of discipline, warning discipline, intense discipline, and dying discipline. In 1 John 5, 16, if any man sees his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall intercede for him, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. But there is a sin unto death, and I do not say that you should pray for that. Once you see a believer go unto the sin unto death, you can just quit praying for them. You’re wasting your time. They’re not going to recover. It’s as simple as that. It’s a sad thing to see and I have seen it in my life. Wonderful people that shut down their spiritual life. They were believers. They shut it down, went in reverse, went back to the old ways and they died a miserable death. But the question arises, does God take uncorrectable believers home too early? Does he do that? Does he take people home too early if you can’t get them corrected? And the answer is yes, he does. In Proverbs 15, 10, the Bible very clearly says discipline is tough, but those that hate the reproof of God shall die. In Acts 5, you can read the story of Ananias and Sapphira. And it’s all there, how they died way too soon. So I’m telling you to consider your ways while there’s still time. Another Christian you should avoid, it’s as well as the carnal Christian, and you don’t need to become one of those, is a confused Christian. A confused Christian. What is a confused Christian? In 1 Corinthians 14, 33, for God is not the author of confusion, but of peace and in all churches of the saints. In Proverbs 3, 5, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not unto your own understanding. That’s where the confusion comes from. When you think you got it all figured out and you move away from the scriptures, And you buy into some human viewpoint system of thinking. So God is not the author of confusion. If there’s confusion in your church or arguments about what’s being taught or what this verse means or what that verse means, it means you’re in the wrong church. God doesn’t, he’s not the author of that confusion. And there are two specific areas that must be taught correctly. And this is where the breakdown comes in our society today. Two areas that have to be taught correctly. Number one, salvation. What does it take to be saved? This is where the biggest lie comes out so often. You know, you got to give up this, give up that, be baptized, go jump in the river, do this, do that. The Bible very simply says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. The Bible says, he that believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. He that believeth not, the wrath of God abides on him already. The issue is believe. What think ye of Christ, the Bible says. What do I have to do to be saved? Put my faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross. That’s the only way you’re going to heaven. He paid for my sin. He paid for your sin. He who knew no sin, the Bible says, was made sin for us so that we could be made the righteousness of God by means of him. The only way you and I will ever get to heaven is to have equal righteousness with God. Because what the righteousness of God rejects, the justice of God judges. And if you try to come to God in your own righteous standings, the Bible tells you there are none that are righteous. No, not even one. All of our righteousnesses are like a filthy rag. There are none that are righteous. So you’ve got to understand salvation. Unfortunately, many pastors, many evangelists don’t teach it correctly. And they tell people that they have to do something to be saved. And you have to live a certain way to be saved. And they totally miss the whole concept of salvation. And they also mis-teach spirituality. Those are the two things that have to be taught correctly. Salvation and spirituality. I know here on the flight line we stress the correct mechanics to living the Christian life, as well as teaching correctly what it means to be saved and how we can receive the forgiveness of our sins. The Bible clearly says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I don’t care where you are, what you’re doing, you can bow your head and you can say, Father, I’m a sinner. and I know that I’m going to hell. I would like for you to forgive me and I’d like to receive Christ as my savior. Actually, he’s already forgiven you, you just haven’t accepted it yet. So the minute you say I want to receive Christ as my savior, I’m willing to receive him, that’s when it happens. And it’s not some big thing where the balloon burst over your head and all kind of sparkles come out, that’s not what it is. What it is is an act of faith. You’re not going to hear harps. You’re not going to see angels. But when you say, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and I want to receive him as my savior, when you go to God in prayer and you ask for that, it’ll happen and you might not feel it. In today’s world of misinformation, social media stresses content. Content, C-O-N-T-E-N-T, content. So any Christian who’s in a social media guru creates content. Why does he do that? What’s the whole idea of making content, making videos? Well, it’s designed to market. Market an individual, market a ministry, market a church. So platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok, they’re all social media influencers and they are platforms for Christian ministries seeking to market either their message or their ministry or whatever. So can God use these type of medias to further his kingdom? Well, the answer is yes he can. But remember, Satan can also use them to confuse and distract believers from growing spiritually. So be very, very, very careful who you allow to be an influencer in your life. I suggest it’s best for you to get under a well-qualified pastor and to learn God’s word from someone who’s prepared and qualified to give you biblical advice and biblical direction. It might not be a church near you where you live. A lot of people write to me weekly and say, where can I find that type of church? Where can I find a well-qualified pastor teacher? And maybe there’s not one in your area, but if you can use the internet, if you can use a cell phone, I can point you to where you can listen to one from the confines of your own home. You can get your Bible and a notebook and a cup of coffee or whatever and sit down at a desk and listen to the Bible be taught to you right there in your home. eventually obviously you’d like to get in a local church where you can use your spiritual gift but until god shows you where that church is this is the way you can grow by getting under the ministry of someone who knows what they’re teaching that’s exactly what i’ve done for years i don’t live near a local church where i can go and now due to the parkinson’s that i deal with I’m not able to get out a whole lot, but I’m studying and I listen as my pastor teaches and I can go to the website and watch his messages. So I suggest you learn God’s word from somebody who’s prepared, somebody who’s qualified to give you biblical advice and direction, not a cheerleader, not a cruise ship director, but a Bible teacher. I warn you, one of the most egregious sins is to misrepresent God. That’s what you have to be so careful about. I think about that so many times in my own ministry, misrepresenting God. Whenever someone presumes that they’re going to speak for God, he better know what the, I won’t use that word, he better know what he’s talking about. There are many voices coming from the pulpits of churches in America today, as well as from home Bible studies and social media content creators. So you may ask yourself, which one is correct? And you might ask yourself, who’s misleading? The Lord Jesus Christ made a statement about this. He said this to the church in Pergamum. He said these words, I have a few things against you. This is in Revelation 2, 13 through 17. I have a few things against thee because you hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things, sacrifice unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrines of the Nicolaitans, which doctrines I hate. So that’s the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to that church. It’s easy for a New Testament church to be overrun with false doctrine. That’s why 2 Timothy 2.15 says, Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. I could give you a few examples of pulpits that put Christians under bondage of legalism. The confused Christian is selling false doctrine, and you are the marketplace. So get under a well-qualified pastor who knows about the languages, who can rightly divide the word, or else you’re going to be guilty of misrepresenting God just like he is. This is true especially of young Christians who think God may be calling them to preach. God may be calling you into the ministry. You need to know what you’re talking about before you open your mouth and get people confused. These types always sound sincere, but they’re mixed up. They’re abusers of grace. And my advice is stay way, way, way away from these people. You understand that? I hope you do. I sure hope you’re listening to me this morning. You want to avoid the confused Christian. You don’t want to be a carnal Christian. You want to be the type of Christian that’s going to be a conquering Christian, and we’ll talk about that in our next radio show, The Consistent Christian and the Conquering Christian. Okay? All right, thank you for listening this morning. It’s been my pleasure to be here. If the Lord allows me to come back one more time, I’m always honored to be able to do this. I ask you to pray for me as I press on into 2026, looking for the opportunities to present the Word of God. Okay? And we pray for you that you’ll take this information, take it to heart, learn it, and apply it into your life. Okay, so until next week, same time, same place, same radio station, this is your host, Rick Hughes, thanking 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.
