In this episode of The Flatline, host Rick Hughes dives into the insightful world of spiritual growth and how Christians can create a main line of resistance in their lives against worldly distractions. He unravels the concept of FLOT, a metaphor for forward line of troops, addressing how it is essential for believers to have a solid line of defense against adversities that could lead to stress-related sins. From explaining biblical problem-solving devices to sharing personal experiences, Rick empowers listeners to embrace a life based on divine viewpoint thinking even in the face of cosmic recruiters attempting to lure
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, just about 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education. And we don’t have any manipulation because we’re not trying to con you. We’re not trying to sell you anything. We’re not going to ask you for anything. The only thing I would like for you to do is listen as I try to verify and identify the plan of God for your life. If I’m able to do that, then you can orient and adjust to the plan. That’s really up to you. But thank you for listening to The Flatline this morning. I welcome many, many new Flatline Radio listeners. We keep expanding our show now up near 130 stations across America. We do that by faith because we believe that God’s in it, he’ll pay for it, and so we keep expanding and growing. And maybe you’re hearing for the very first time this show called The Flot Line, F-L-O-T. I’ve had people write to me and say, is it The Flat Line or something like that? They just don’t understand. Flot, F-L-O-T. So if you’re a new listener in one of the many new markets where we are broadcasting, please allow me to fill you in on what our name implies and what we’re seeking to communicate. The word flotline is a military term for forward line of troops, F-L-O-T, forward line of troops. We’re not a military organization. No, we’re not. But we use this term as a metaphor for for Christians who need a main line of resistance in their life, in their soul, in the mentality of their soul, in the thinking of their soul. Why would they need a main line of resistance? Well, so they can overcome the trials of adversity before those trials become stress-related sins like worry and fear and bitterness or some other destructive attitude in your life. So as I said, we don’t sell materials, nor do we ask for any money. We simply teach biblical problem-solving devices and explain how they work. My very own pastor developed this concept many years ago, and he passed it on to me as he taught me and many others the scriptures from the pulpit for more than 50 years in his church. And now, here I am attempting to pass on to you these same principles that I learned from him by means of this radio show. and by means of the printed material that we publish and offer to you free of charge from our website. That’s rickhughesministries.org. rickhughesministries.org. The New Testament makes a distinction between the believer, whom is called a Christian, and the unbeliever, who is called a non-Christian. Many of these problem-solving devices will be beneficial. None of them, excuse me, I may have said that wrong. None of these problem-solving devices will be beneficial for the non-Christian. The most important thing for the unbeliever is that he believes in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that means his death on the cross where he was judged in our place his burial, which was proof of his physical death, and his resurrection, which is our guarantee of eternal life with him in the presence of God for all, all of eternity. Listen to the scriptures. Second Corinthians 521, for he, that’s God, has made him, that’s Christ, to be the sin for us, who knew no sin, that’s Christ, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, through him, by means of him, however you want to say it. But that’s how we come to God, through the Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father has perfect righteousness and we don’t have any righteousness because the Bible says there are none that are righteous. No, not even one. And so regardless of how good we are, regardless of how charitable we are, we cannot equal the righteousness of God. The only way that we can approach God is through the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because he made Christ to take our place, to be sin for us. the one who knew no sin became sin. All of my sin, all of your sin was dumped out on him on that cross. And they buried him and they said, it’s over with, go home, go back to your house, it’s over with. But listen to Luke 24, one through six. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulcher. And they entered in and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. It came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, two men stood by them in shining garments. And they were afraid, and they bowed down their faces to the earth. And they said unto them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, he is risen. Yes, he did. He walked out of that grave alive. You know, some people claim that the disciples stole the body, and that’s ridiculous. There’s all kind of theories. The best theory is that he walked out of that body, that grave, alive. It’s not a theory, it’s a fact. He was seen by hundreds of people, and he’s coming back. I promise you that, he’s coming back. And I just hope you’re ready when he does come back. Once you make the decision to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, that’s when you become a member of God’s royal family. And that’s where you carry the designation as the word Christian. In John 1.12, but as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. So the Christian life, if you are a Christian, if you’re listening to the radio show this morning, and you have received Christ as your Savior, you are a Christian. And you’re living the Christian life, and it’s sustained by two different power sources. You can’t live the Christian life if you don’t use these two things. First is the Word of God that must be metabolized and stored in your soul’s mentality. And second is the filling of the Holy Spirit, which is the source of our invisible power in our life. Two verses verify what I just told you. Ephesians 5.18, be filled with the Spirit, Paul wrote. You cannot live the Christian life effectively quenching or grieving the Holy Spirit. Operating in the energy of your flesh, that does not glorify God at all. And then Hebrews 4.12 says, the word of God is alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder the soul and the spirit and the joints and the marrow, and is as critic of the thoughts and intents of the heart. So without the filling of the Holy Spirit and without the word of God in your soul’s mentality, you cannot effectively live the Christian life. You may sound like a Christian, and you may in fact be a Christian, but you’re not glorifying God. You’re just bouncing around as a Christian, yes, but in the energy of the flesh. Once you’ve believed in Christ, the objective that Satan has is to stop you from ever reproducing, to stop you from multiplying. And to do that, Satan would need you to stop from growing spiritually. He doesn’t want you to grow spiritually because he doesn’t want you to multiply. How does he do this? He does this by distracting you from your mission. What is your mission? Well, if you’re a Christian, it’s very simple. It’s to grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, 2 Peter 3.18. So the distractions that Satan’s going to throw your way will come from people and from various circumstances. So let me caution you about a certain type of Christian that will absolutely capture your thinking if you’re not careful. I call them cosmic recruiters, like an Army recruiter, a Navy recruiter, a Marine recruiter. These are cosmic recruiters. I call him the cosmic Christian. Listen to this verse in Romans 12 too. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind in order that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. This verb, don’t be conformed, is a present middle imperative, meaning it’s a command from God. And it’s a passive voice, not a middle voice, a passive voice that says you receive the action of the verb. You don’t produce it, you receive it, so this means you’re recruited. Something happens to capture you. Do you hear what the Apostle Paul is saying to the believers in Rome? Do not, he said, do not. That’s a negative particle named may, M-A. The other negative particle is ook, O-U-K. So this is a negative particle. Do not be conformed to this world. The word conformed, as I told you, is a verb that means to be fashioned or shaped, to give the same appearance as the rest of the world. The Greek word is aion, A-I-O-N, meaning age or era, E-R-A, era, not an era like a piece of paper, but an era, E-R-A, an age. That word can be used for moral characteristics. Let me warn you about something. If you’re a Christian, the local church can be a hot spot for those individuals that are looking for business opportunities. Do not allow a prosperous member of your congregation to talk you into investing in their scheme. They may appeal to your desire to be prosperous and flaunt their apparent success in order to capture your energy and efforts. But most of the time, you’ll wind up totally distracted, totally discouraged, wondering how this so-called pillar of the congregation could do that to you and to others. I’ve seen it happen in many churches where people get into the churches and fleece members of the congregation before they move to another church and try to fleece them. So there’s a warning in 2 Corinthians 6, 17 that applies to mixing with unbelievers. I remember years ago someone asked me should I go into partnership with an unbeliever. This is what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 6.17 Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord. Touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you. And also in that same chapter, Paul writes that he conducted himself in such a manner so that his ministry would not be blamed. In 2 Corinthians 6, 3, he said, giving no offense in anything so that the ministry be not blamed. So he didn’t try to hustle people for money. He didn’t try to sell them books. He didn’t try to put them on any membership role. He just taught them the word of God and that’s what we have in the New Testament. So many books of the New Testament written by the Apostle Paul from Romans to 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, all the way down the line, okay? Timothy, Thessalonians. Paul did not charge for his ministry because he didn’t want the ministry to be blamed. So let me caution you one more time. Do not allow yourself to be attracted to the lifestyle that you cannot handle. Did you hear that? A lifestyle you cannot handle. For example, you might think that by winning millions in the lottery, you’d be happy for life. If I could just win that lottery, I’d be happy for life. That’s not true. Maybe you have prayed to be successful in business like others who are successful, and that’s okay. As long as you don’t let the financial success become your number one goal in your life. There are times when God protects us from ourselves, and that means from our own arrogance. Sometimes in our own arrogance, we have an unrealistic self-image. If we have an unrealistic self-image, we have unrealistic expectations. If we don’t see ourselves as we really are, we see ourselves as we think we are, then we want people to treat us in a way we’re not worthy of being treated. So that word world, W-O-R-L-D, in the Bible, is the Greek word kosmos, K-O-S-M-O-S. We get the word cosmic from that, cosmic, C-O-S-M-I-C. So cosmic thinking from the cosmic Christian is what we call wordliness, wordliness, being a worldly person. When I first became a Christian, I heard about people that were worldly and I thought it meant they went to honky tonks and they drank and smoked and danced and all that sort of stuff. They were worldly Christians. They were over there dancing. That’s not what the word means. It means the cosmic thinking. Listen to 1 John 2, 15. Love not the world, cosmos. Neither the things that are in the cosmos. Don’t love it. Don’t fall for that. Don’t fall in love with the world, what the world offers you. What should I do? Well, Colossians 3.2 says, set your affection on things above, not on things on this earth. And here’s a principle we must remember. We must put it to use in our life. Listen carefully. Our spiritual life must take priority over our temporal life. Our spiritual life must take priority over our temporal life. Friendship is fine. You should have friends, but it should be the right kind of friends, and that’s what’s essential. James 4.4 says, Know ye not that the friendship of the world, the cosmos, is enmity with God? Again, friendship with the world is enmity with God. Whoever therefore will be a friend of the world, the cosmos, is the enemy of God. Now, why would James write that? Well, we know from Scripture that Satan is the God of this world, the cosmos. His objective is to avoid going to the lake of fire where he’s been sentenced already in Revelation 20, verse 10. He knows he’s been sentenced to go to the lake of fire. And we are told in Scripture that he blinds the minds of the lost people so they won’t see that. How does he do that? He does that by keeping them in the dark. And one of the most effective ways to keep people in the dark is to use religion. And that’s one of his most effective tools. As for the Christian, those of you who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, he seeks to stop your ability to reproduce. And he will use distractions to cause you to focus on the things that are temporal, not the things that are spiritual. Thus the cosmic Christian recruiter comes alongside of you, teasing you, tempting you with success and prosperity and friendship and popularity, or anything that he can use to lure you into that cosmic system. In reality, once he’s captured your desires, what will happen to you is you’ll change your focus. You’ll forsake your spiritual life. You’ll break fellowship with God because you quit naming your sins. And now you will focus on feeding the desires of your flesh. That’s the way it happens. That’s what he does. That’s how you get sidetracked in your Christian life. You cannot allow that to happen. And Satan’s very good at that. As I said, he has cosmic recruiters. My friend Pete Daughtry in Albany, Georgia, who’s been a pastor there for many years, came up with a term, the cosmic vortex. The cosmic vortex. This is the invisible zeitgeist, the spirit of the times that swirls around, capturing people and sucking them into that system. As a Christian, we call that worldliness, and you can’t afford to be sucked into that system of worldliness. Why not? Because it’s a system of human viewpoint thinking. Human viewpoint thinking. That’s what worldliness is. It’s not dancing. It’s not drinking. It’s not smoking. It’s thinking human viewpoint. What is human viewpoint? Well, it’s the opposite of divine viewpoint. The Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. That’s divine viewpoint, learning to think like he thought. That’s why we have the scriptures, so that we can learn to think like he thought. Stop thinking of ourselves in terms of arrogance beyond what we should think, the Bible says in Romans 12, 3. But think in terms of humility as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from his word. So you have the living word of God as the mind of Christ. That’s what the Bible says, it’s the mind of Christ. And our objective is to learn that and operate under that, it’s called divine viewpoint thinking. But worldliness is the different thinking. It’s thinking in the human viewpoint system. You know, like, I’ll be happy if I’m married. I’ll be happy if I’m rich. I’ll be happy if I get that new car. I’ll be happy if I win the lottery. I’ll be happy if I get that new home. That’s the way most people think. I’ll be happy if people just do this, if people just do that, if I can just get this, just get that. The most worldly people I know are those involved in self-righteous arrogance and the result of legalism. They think they’re something they’re not. And sometimes these are religious individuals that get self-righteous arrogance thinking God is impressed with their lifestyle because they don’t smoke, because they don’t drink, because they don’t cuss, because they go to church, because they tithe, because they sing in the choir. And then if you don’t, they’re going to judge you. I’m always reminded of the little girl that came to church pregnant. And the little old lady saw her and said, Oh, look at that. Isn’t that just embarrassing? She doesn’t belong here. So she judged her. The little girl pregnant may be 18, 19 years old, and the woman judging her may be 80 years old. Obviously, the 80-year-old’s not going to get pregnant, so she’s going to judge the little girl and say, I’m better than her. Listen, that’s self-induced arrogance. It’s legalism. You cannot get involved in legalism. Don’t ever think God’s impressed with the way you act. Don’t ever think God’s impressed with the way you talk. He’s only impressed with one thing, and that’s his character and his essence and his righteousness. When you learn to live the Christian life, it’s not based on what you do. It’s based on the grace that he provides for you. You’re not gonna get trapped in legalism. You’re gonna live under the grace concept, grace orientation. Grace orientation believes in privacy of the priesthood and you just keep your nose out of other people’s business. And if you’re in a church where people stick their nose into your business, you better find another church quickly. Part three under principles, arrogance of life is love of the world, or what we just called worldliness, human viewpoint thinking. Arrogance of life is human viewpoint thinking. And four, in the advancing believer, that’s you, if you’re growing, if you’re learning the word of God, if you’re growing in the grace and knowledge as we gave you in that verse a while ago, 2 Peter 3.18, then your standard of thinking will come from doctrine that takes the place of worldliness. In other words, your standard of thinking is divine viewpoint, not human viewpoint. I can remember as an unbeliever thinking, boy, to the weekend, just get here. I’m going to let my hair down and have a great time and go do what we want to do and do this, do that. Thinking that I’ll be happy because I’ll be there with all my friends and they’ll all be doing the same thing. That’s what happened to me when I got saved. I remember going down to Panama City, Florida and hanging out at the place called The Hangout. I went down with a bunch of friends looking for a good time and I came home frustrated. Because I realized that after all the drinking, all the fighting, all the chasing, that I was still empty. And my friend that I had a room with, a roommate, he was shocked when I came home. He said, what are you doing home? I thought you went to Florida. And I was unhappy. I wasn’t happy doing what everybody else was doing because I felt like people used me. And eventually that was when I found the girl that took me to church and eventually the guy that led me to Christ. It was all a divine intervention with God stepping in to direct me in the right direction. Point five, the cosmic recruiter, that’s the guy that lives under human viewpoint thinking, he can capture your desires when you become enamored with his behavior. He will capture your desires when you become enamored with his behavior. Webster’s Dictionary defines it this way. What is worldliness in the dictionary? The quality or the state of being worldly. A deposition or tendency to emphasize the things of the world rather than those of the spirit. They recognize it as devotion to or love of the worldly affairs usually accompanied by neglect of religious duties or spiritual needs. Here’s what the evangelist Billy Graham said about it. Billy Graham said, worldliness is not confined to any particular rank, walk, or circumstances of life. But worldliness is a spirit, an atmosphere, an influence permeating the whole life in human society. And it needs to be guarded against constantly and strenuously. That’s because there are cosmic recruiters knocking on your door every day. They come to your door through the television. They come to your door through social media. They come to you through the radio, trying to solicit you, trying to get you to think like they think, trying to get you to buy this product and it’ll make you happy, trying to get you to take this trip and you’ll be happy, trying to get you to think about these things. The Bible tells you what you should think about in Colossians. What sort of things are pure? What sort of things are this? What sort of things are that? Look at Colossians. You’ll see it. The Bible tells you that. So in closing, let me remind you what Paul said about the cosmic recruiter. Very interesting. He was around when Paul was around. That’s what this story shows about. The cosmic recruiter. 1 Corinthians 3, 18 through 19. Let no man deceive himself. That’s self-induced misery. If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool so that he may be actually wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, he takes the wise in their own craftiness. Worldliness is an attitude of a fool. That’s what this is saying. The fool deceives himself. That’s self-righteous justification, self-deception, self-absorption. Deceiving yourself and thinking that you don’t need God, that there’s a better way to live. Deceiving yourself. So if anyone seems to be wise in this world, that’s worldliness, let him become a fool so that he may actually really be wise or get some divine viewpoint. For the wisdom of this world, worldliness, is foolishness with God. God’s not impressed with that. You hear that? He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. So I warn you again, look out for the cosmic recruiter. Look out for the cosmic Christian. He will suck you into his system and he will take your thinking and take you away from the word of God, take you away from the filling of the Holy Spirit, take you away from divine viewpoint thinking take you away from growing in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That’s what the cosmic recruiter is all about. So he can shut down your ability to reproduce, and that’s exactly what Satan’s trying to do. He does not want you to reproduce. That’s exactly why God left you here, so that you could reproduce. So that you could represent Jesus Christ to your family. So you could represent Jesus Christ to your friends. And in doing so, reproduce yourself in their lives as you win them to the Lord Jesus Christ. So the cosmic Christian is one to dodge. In the coming couple of weeks, we’re gonna talk about the carnal Christian. We’re gonna talk about the confused Christian. We’re going to talk about the consistent Christian, and we may even go into a little bit to the conquering Christian. So we’re studying the cosmic Christian today, the cosmic recruiter. And now next show, we’ll try to talk about the carnal Christian and what he is. And then the confused Christian, the consistent Christian, and the conquering Christian. Well, I hope you learned something. I hope it made sense to you. There’s quite a bit of information there, and I don’t know if you’re listening or not, but if you’re one of our new listeners, I hope you understand what the FLOT line stands for. And know that you can always reach us by going to our website, rickhughesministries.org, as long as the Internet’s working correctly. We’ve had a problem the last few days, not working too good. But rickhughesministries.org, or you can call us, 800-831-0718. 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.
