Scripture-based teaching for spiritual maturity, leadership, and endurance in adversity.
Bible Doctrine for the Days Ahead explains how believers are to think, pray, grow, and respond as global instability, deception, and pressure increase. Rick Hughes walks through timeless biblical principles that strengthen spiritual maturity, develop effective prayer, discipline emotional reactions, and reinforce divine institutions—equipping believers to live with confidence while serving Christ behind enemy lines.
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, please stay with me. It won’t be long, only about 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, education, and of course, no manipulation. Because we don’t try to con people out of money. We’re not soliciting funds. We’re not trying to sell you something. But we are offering you something free. And that’s the Word of God. Hopefully I can verify and identify through the Word of God His plan for your life. If you’d like to orient and adjust to the plan, you have the freedom and the privacy to do that. So we leave it up to you. But this is Rick Hughes, host of the FLOT line. F-L-O-T stands for the Forward Line of Troops. No, it’s not a military show. It’s a military analogy of what the Christian life is really like. Ten unique problem-solving devices designed by God to carry you through any type of adversity that you may be facing in your life. You know, as we round the bend and head into the year of our Lord 2026, you might wonder what surprises are going to lie ahead in 2026. The events we’ve seen in 2025 seem to predict that 2026 will be much the same. There’s social unrest as a progressive ideology pushes this agenda to remake America and all of its traditional values. Political struggles as members of Congress continue to push party politics. and military conflicts across the globe as nations seek to establish domination of their adversaries. Will we face new conflicts with foreign adversities? Who knows? How about your personal situation? Is this going to be the year that you discover some life-changing illness? And will you lose loved ones due to sickness or an accident in this year? What about you? Is this the year God may call you home to the office, front office? Let’s look at some scriptures concerning questions like this and kind of get a handle on what 26 has for us. As far as wars and going on in military analogies, listen to Matthew 24, six and seven. And you will hear of wars, this is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking, and rumors of wars. See that you be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there shall be famines and pestilence and earthquakes in many places. Our Lord spoke these words when answering questions that the disciples brought to him. Here’s what the question was in Matthew 24. As he sat upon the Mount of Olives teaching, the disciples came to him privately saying, Tell us, when will these things come to be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming in the end of the world? And that’s what he told them. There will be wars and rumors of wars. Don’t be troubled. These things must come to pass first. The question is still being asked today. Christians like yourself wonder, will this be the year that the Lord Jesus Christ comes back? It’s called the rapture of the church or the exit resurrection. That’s taught in 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 through 17. This is what it says. But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that’s passed away, that you sorrow not even as others which have no hope, that’s the ones that are unbelievers, For if we believe, and you do, that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. That’s the ones that are in heaven right now. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. And then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we evermore be with the Lord. That’s an event coming right now soon. Who knows? Fortunately, no man can predict when that will occur. Many people tried to do it. Some people have even written books predicting when this was going to happen. And some sold possessions. I even heard about people that sold everything they had and ascended up on a mountain to await the event. but no such thing actually happened. I can assure you of this, that it will occur, and more than likely when you least expect it. The thing that shocked the disciples most was what he said concerning their own personal safety. And I think you need to listen to this. It’s very important. In Matthew 24, 9-11, Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and they will kill you, uh-oh, and you shall be hated of all nations, uh-oh, for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended and shall betray one another and turn hate on one another. And many false prophets shall rise and deceive many. I could just hear the disciples saying, wait a minute, I didn’t sign up to be murdered. And the Lord is telling me here that people are going to kill me. It’s still going on today. There are people that would kill you, gladly kill you, if you profess the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is the power of Satan in this universe today. You just can’t forget that we are behind enemy lines. Christians are always behind enemy lines. The deception is a satanic strategy to confuse and confound believers. He likes to confuse people. False prophets will rise up and deceive many. Did you hear that verse? Matthew 24, 11. Many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. Don’t forget that. Deception is one of his policies, one of his strategies. to confuse and confound people like you and I. If we hope to glorify our Lord Jesus Christ, we must know and we must understand the mechanics to the spiritual life. That’s why you constantly hear me encouraging you to get into the ministry of a well-qualified pastor. A lot of listeners have written and asked, where is this person near me? Where is there a qualified pastor in my vicinity? Well, unfortunately, more than likely, there’s not such a person near you. There is, however, access to solid, sound, systematic Bible teaching as near as your internet or your phone. If you would like to know how to access that information, simply drop us a note, rickhughesministries.org or write me an email, rick at rickhughesministries.org and we’ll tell you how to access the messages, the information, the studies, all absolutely free of charge. Now, Do you make New Year’s resolutions? I want to ask you that question as we get ready to bump into this new year. Do you make a New Year’s resolution every year? Do you keep them? Or do you forget about them in a month or two like I usually do? Please allow me to make some simple suggestions for your New Year resolution to consider in the coming year. I’m gonna offer about five different suggestions and I hope they make sense to you. Here’s the first one. It’s in 2 Peter 3.18. But grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Now why do I suggest you take this verse seriously? That’s something I suggest. Grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And by the way, that verb grow is not a request. That’s an order. Well, I’m suggesting this as your new year. If you would make this one of your new year’s resolutions, that you’re going to grow in grace and acknowledge your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Well, the reason I say that is have you grown spiritually the past year? Or is it possible you’re the same person struggling with the same sins and the same failures? Is it? Listen to what the writer of Hebrews had to say about lack of spiritual growth and what it means. In Hebrews 5, 11 through 14, of whom we have many things to say, and they’re hard to be uttered since you’re dull of hearing. In other words, when the Bible is being taught, you fall asleep. For when for the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again what ought to be the first principles of the oracles of God, and you are become as such that needs milk and not strong meat, that’s a bottle, you’d eat your bottle. For everyone that has owned the bottle, or everyone that uses milk, is unskillful in the word of righteousness, he’s still a baby. But strong meat, that’s teaching of the word of God, systematically, doctrinally teaching of the word of God, it belongs to them that are of full age, and those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. So is that you? Have you grown last year? Are you not the same person you were last year? I’m not talking about age. I’m talking about spiritually. Have you grown spiritually in 2025? Because this passage says you ought to be a teacher, and now you need somebody to come back and teach you again the basics. Unfortunately, that’s true in a lot of churches that I visit. A lot of believers go through a lot of emotion, but no one grows in a worship service. I can tell you that right now. You may enjoy singing and praising God and raising your hands and worshiping God, but you don’t grow that way You grow when you are fed the Word of God, when you are taught the Word of God, when you digest the Word of God. So that’s my second New Year’s suggestion. Number one, that you grow in grace. Number two, I recommend that every day you find time to feed on God’s Word. Every day you find time to feed on God’s Word. What do I mean by that? Well, Jeremiah 15, 16 said it for me. Your words were found and I did eat them. And your word was unto me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart. For I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts. If you are spiritually malnourished, then you’re going to lack the endurance to handle the test that you may be facing in your life. Because a spiritually malnourished individual finds himself asking what others should do In other words, if something happens in your life, it’s a critical situation, you’re going to go to somebody else and say, what should I do? What should I do? But the mature believer, the spiritually mature believer knows what’s to do and he’s autonomous. This type of individual brings maximum glorification to God when they’re in the arena of contention. In other words, when it happens into his life, since he’s been studying the Word of God and learning those problem-solving devices, And growing spiritually, then the training kicks in. And then they’re able to lead the way, which is much like the famous army ranger motto. My pastor was a former army ranger. And I hear that often, rangers lead the way. In Isaiah 6, 8, Isaiah said, also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then I said, here I am, send me. Here I am, send me. That’s the person who’s going first. That’s the person that’s going to lead the way. And if you’re spiritually malnourished, you’re not going to lead the way for anybody because you’re going to be running around asking other people what you should do. The third suggestion that I make to you in the coming new year is that you develop a strong prayer life. Now, listen, remember that any prayer you offer must be presented in the filling of the Holy Spirit. Any prayer you offer while you have unconfessed sin in your life is completely ineffective and not answered. In Psalm 66, 18, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. Could not be any more plain than that. So if you’ve been maligning and running down your neighbor and you’ve been doing something you shouldn’t do and then you’re going to bow your head and pray, listen to this analogy. I’ve given it before, but take a Sunday morning service. And the pastor calls on the deacon to get up and pray, and he prays this godly, holy-sounding prayer. And yet, just yesterday, he was mad and cussing and fussing about somebody that owed him money and wouldn’t pay him. Well, those mental attitude sins were never confessed. He never went to God and used rebound. And so that prayer that he just offered that sounded so eloquent, sounded so spiritual, didn’t go any higher than the ceiling. Unfortunately, very few ministers are ever going to tell you that. Because many, many, many prayers never get past the ceiling. I watched the 126th Army-Navy game this month, and I heard both chaplain, chaplain of the Navy and chaplain of the Army, offer prayers before the game. And I’m sad to say that neither chaplain offered their prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, the anointed Son of God. Should you do that when you pray? Absolutely. Absolutely. In John 14, 13, and whatever you ask in my name, that will I do so that my Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. So why would you pray to God and say amen? In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I request this, Father. I come to you before your throne in his name, in Christ’s name, amen. Now there is one exception The one exception is a lost person asking God to save them. Romans 20, 13 says, Whosoever should call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. When I did that, I knew nothing about prayer and the mechanics of prayer. I didn’t understand any of that. I just understood I was going to hell and I was lost and I wanted to be saved. And I prayed and I asked God to save me. Then I had to learn how to have an effective prayer life. And that’s what I’m telling you. You have to learn how to develop an effective prayer life, a strong prayer life. Because any prayer you offer in the next year, the coming year, 2026, if you offer that prayer and you expect it to be answered, then you better not be doing that with sin in your life, or it’s not gonna be answered. The fourth suggestion that I’d like to bring before you today is a resolution that you learn how to control your emotions. Emotions are a wonderful thing when they’re used the correct way, and they are exactly what gives us genuine appreciation for the beautiful things God created. They are essentially the appreciator of the soul when they’re responding to some kind of beauty. It may be music, it may be art, it may be literature, it may be scenery, it may be your favorite sports team winning, even your spouse, you may get emotional about your spouse. But what you cannot allow is for your emotions to be a reactor factor. By that I mean you can’t let your emotions take over. Genuine humility is a result of authority orientation. And all arrogance rejects authority and reacts to unfair circumstances, while humility responds to unfair circumstances by using those 10 problem-solving devices. Listen to this passage that describes an emotional meltdown. Here Paul describes what it is. Listen carefully. Ephesians 4.31. This is an emotional meltdown. Let all bitterness, all wrath, all anger, all clamor, all evil speaking be put away from you along with the desire to hurt somebody. That’s malice. There is a better way to live according to the next verse. Ephesians 4.32. And be kind to one another tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven you. That is the way you’re supposed to live, and that’s responding to the situation, not reacting to the situation. I’ll give you an illustration that I saw happen years ago. I went to visit a school in South Mississippi called Centerville Academy. Centerville Academy had a great headmaster named Lloyd Lindsey. Mr. Lindsey had a student that came transferred up from the public schools in St. Francisville, and he got in trouble, and the teacher sent him to the front office, and Mr. Lindsey said, what are you doing up here, son? And he said, well, the teacher sent me up here because I wouldn’t read in class. He said, son, where you came from, you might not have had to read in class, but here, if the teacher tells you to read, you’re going to read. Mr. Lindsey, by the way, was a former Marine. He said, no, I’m not going to read, the kid said. Mr. Lindsey was startled. He said, what? He said, I’m not going to read. He said, well, then bend over and hold your britches. And wham, wham, wham, gave him three licks across the backside. Now you get back down there and you read like he tells you to read. He said, no, I’m not going to do it. Mr. Lindsey laid him over the desk again. Wham, wham, wham. Now get back down there and read. No, sir, I’m not going to do it. Mr. Lindsay said, son, what’s wrong with you? Why are you acting like this? And with tears in his eyes, this sweet student named Bobby said, I never learned how to read. Now, he could have got mad. He could have reacted. He could have said, I’m going to go home and get my dad, and he’s going to come up here and beat your brains out for doing that. But he didn’t. He had enough humility to handle it. Unfair treatment. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know how to read. He was embarrassed. but he kept his mouth shut and he took it and he learned how to read and he graduated and he signed a four year football scholarship to play for a major university. That’s responding with your emotions, not reacting with your emotions. My fifth suggestion for you is that you pray for your leaders. Pray for your leaders in 1 Timothy 2, 1 through 4. I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Oh, my goodness. Pray for what? Kings and for all that are in authority. Well, what if I don’t like him? What if he’s the president and I can’t stand him? You want me to pray for him? Yes, I do. You may ask, what exactly are you to pray concerning these leaders? Well, you gotta remember that each individual has their own volition. And it’s not necessarily the government authorities that Christians in order, let me put it this way, it’s not necessarily that government authorities be Christians. I’m not saying that. I’m not saying that every president, every vice president, every congressman has to be a Christian. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying in order for us to live a wonderful, quiet, peaceable life, we have to pray that our leaders function under the laws of establishment, what we call the divine institutions. If we don’t function under those divine institutions, we can never have peace. We can never have a great life that the verses are talking about. So if you want to pray for something, pray that our leaders, your leaders, your government, your mayor, your governor, your president, your vice president, your congressman, that they all understand the divine institutions and they stand on them. Because this is where Satan will seek to subvert and manipulate leaders and their people. Basically, there are four divine institutions, and they include volitional freedom, marriage, family, and nationalism. So pray this. Pray that your leaders will recognize and allow your freedom to choose, give you the freedom to choose which path in life you want to pursue. Everyone has to have that freedom. If they don’t want to become a Christian, that’s fine. People can operate within the system fine and not be believers. They can be wonderful, kind, nice people, but they have no future in eternity. So that’s the first thing. Any person in authority must give people freedom to exercise their volition. We don’t want to be living in a country where you’re told where to go to school, where you’re told what to say, where you’re told what to wear. And volitional freedom is a key for national responsibility. for the divine institutions. And then there’s marriage. Marriage is they recognize a situation that God ordained. And then there’s family, and then there’s nationalism. So there are four divine institutions, volitional freedom, marriage, family, and nationalism. So if you wanna pray for your leaders, pray that they will recognize and allow these freedoms to choose whatever path in life you wanna pursue. And pray that your leaders will recognize the sanctity of marriage, and recognize the importance of the institution of marriage. God did that in Genesis 2.18. And the Lord God said, it’s not good that man should be alone. I will make a helper for him. And he did that. For Adam, God created a perfect mate in Genesis 2.21. The Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, took a little nap and he slept and God took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead. And the rib which the Lord God took from man made he a woman, and he brought her to the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. And she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. That’s the institution of marriage and the family and nationalism I’ll show you next. Okay? Marriage is legitimate, and we need marriage to continue. And it is one man and one woman, not anything else, one man, one woman. So pray that your leaders will recognize the importance of the family institution. Why? Because it’s here that authority orientation is taught, and it’s here that humility is developed. So remember this, that when Satan attacked Adam and Eve, he attacked the family of Adam. You know, after they had been escorted out of the Garden of Eden by enticing Cain for their sin, Satan enticed Cain to kill his brother Abel. And you gotta remember, that was Satan’s work all the way to destroy the family. Great nations, here’s a principle, you gotta remember this. Great nations are founded on great families. So if you want to pray about anything, pray about that. And then pray that your leaders will recognize nationalism. Nationalism. What is that? Well, it’s opposed to internationalism. One world government is internationalism. One world system of money is internationalism. One world government, internationalism. This is what Satan uses in the tribulation. He will be in control of the whole world And eventually you’ve heard about the 666 and the mark of the beast. By his authority over every nation in the world, he would demand that all people receive the mark if they want to buy or sell or get anything. So we need nationalism. Tower of Babel’s all about that in the book of Genesis where all the nations spoke one language and built a tower to heaven and God came down and scattered them and dispersed them and put some over here and some over there and gave them different languages, different colors and whatever. There’s a reason for that. We’re not all supposed to be one nation. We’re not international. We have to have nationalism. So those are my five suggestions for you. I’ll back up and review them for you, okay? I suggested that you pray for your leaders and what you should pray. I suggested that you make a New Year’s resolution that you learn to control your emotions. I suggested that you learn to feed on God’s Word every day. I suggested that you develop a strong prayer life in your life and pray the right way. And I suggested that you take the verse seriously about growing the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If you want to make some New Year’s resolutions, those are my New Year’s resolutions that I’d suggest for you. So I hope you’ll take them seriously and I hope you’ll listen to what I said. We have a new book coming out. It’s called Understanding Your Soul. It is available now. We have it in hand, and we can mail it to you if you will simply write to us and give us your address. You can order it from our website, rickhughesministries.org, rickhughesministries.org, or you can write to PO Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054. I appreciate you being with me and listening to me I don’t know if you’ve ever accepted Christ as your Savior, but that’s my number one prayer, that you will receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, that you will believe in his death, burial, and resurrection, that he who knew no sin was made sin for us so that we could be made the righteousness of God through him. It is that sacrifice that the Lord Jesus Christ made on our behalf that gives us the ability to have the relationship with God. And in his resurrection from the dead, it guarantees us that we will be resurrected also. And we will have a new body forever, a resurrection body, with no more pain, no more tears, no more sorrow, where the old things will be passed away. Okay? Thank you for listening today. I hope this has been encouraging to you. Until next week, 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.
