In this enlightening episode, Rick Hughes explores the profound significance of communion and God’s protocol. Discover how rituals, when performed without genuine reality, can lead to divine discipline and suffering. Rick emphasizes self-examination and understanding the correct way to approach sacred rituals to avoid unnecessary hardship. From exploring imputation and justification to addressing the concept of sanctification, Rick provides a comprehensive guide to living a disciplined, spiritually fulfilling life.
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 stick around. It’ll be a time of motivation, inspiration, education, all done without any type of manipulation because we’re not trying to con anybody. We’re certainly not asking for money. We’re not trying to sell anything. We’re just simply giving you information, information that may indeed help you verify as well as identify God’s plan for your life. And if that’s possible, you can orient and adjust to the plan if you wish to do so. But my job is to give you accurate information. Your job is to process information and hopefully use it. Remember, God gave you two ends, one of those ends you sit with and one of those ends you think with. And success in your life depends on which one of those you use. Obviously, it’s heads you win because bad decisions limit future options. If you make enough bad decisions, you’re not going to have any options left, that’s for sure. So the information that I’m giving you is biblical-based information, and we talk about how you can have spiritual x-ray vision. Spiritual x-ray vision is just a play on words. It means this, that when you develop wisdom in your soul from the content of the Word of God, then you have tremendous discernment and insight. And when you have discernment and insight, then you’re able to see the traps that the devil will lay for you. You’re able to understand what’s happening to you in the suffering world, suffering side of it. And you have tremendous spiritual insight, spiritual x-ray vision, I call that. And it comes from a spiritual IQ. Everybody has a human IQ, some good, some not so good. But spiritual IQ, the Holy Spirit takes that into consideration. And you may be normal on the IQ scale, but if you learn the Word of God, you can be a genius on the spiritual IQ scale and have that great discernment from wisdom where you have insight and understanding. So today we want to continue our study we started last Sunday, if you were with us. We started a study on divine discipline. That’s a hard thing to study because sometimes we don’t like to know that we’re under divine discipline. But God does discipline us. We saw in the Bible where it says those whom he loves, he disciplines. Revelation 319, those whom I love, I reprove or correct. and I discipline, therefore be zealous and repent. And there’s two ways that God can teach us. He can teach us from instruction without pain, or he can teach us from instruction with pain. Depends on how stubborn you are, how arrogant you are, but God is going to discipline those that he loves. remember hebrews 12 said have you forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as a son do not regard lightly the discipline of the lord nor faint when you’re reproved by him verse 6 hebrews 12 those whom god loves he disciplined it’s not a question of whether he loves you or not i mean if you ever get under divine discipline it’s going to hurt It’s designed to correct you, to reprove you. And why? So you don’t self-destruct because you have the amazing ability to destroy yourself. There are people listening to me right now that have done things they wish they hadn’t have done, and they’ve destroyed their future. They destroyed their lives. Many of them may perhaps even be incarcerated. And they said, you know, if I could go back, I sure wouldn’t do that again. I was stupid. I was dumb. I got suckered into doing something I shouldn’t have done. That’s the devil’s world. That’s what he offers. He’s a liar. He’s always been a liar and he’s a murderer. He’s a thief. And so we have to learn how to look out for that, how to have some wisdom, some insights and discernment, spiritual x-ray vision so that we can avoid being duped by the devil. So let’s talk about divine punishment a little bit. In 1 Corinthians 11.30, we’re going to have something here that is very important. Paul talks about divine discipline as a result of communion. Divine discipline as a result of communion. And this is what I want to carry on with you today. Excuse me just a minute. My light collapsed right there. divine discipline as a result of communion. And we call this ritual without reality. Ritual without reality is absolutely meaningless. You can have all the ritual you want, but if you don’t have any reality to it, it’s not doing you any good. And so sometimes taking of communion is ritual without reality. When that happens, discipline is sure to follow. So listen to 1 Corinthians 11, 23 through 31. Here it is, Paul talking about the Lord’s Supper and ritual without reality. He said, In other words, what he’s teaching them, Jesus Christ himself taught it to him. that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you. And then highlight these words. Let this one sink in. Do this in remembrance of me. This is the reason we take communion. Do this in remembrance of me. We will get around to what that means here in a minute. In the same way, he took the cup also supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. There it is again. For as often as you eat this bread and as often as you drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes, Paul told the church at Corinth. And then he went on to say in verse 27, Verse 28, But a man must examine himself. That means we have to take a look inside before we take communion. And in doing so, he is to eat of his bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.” For this reason, for this reason, because of this, many among you are weak, many among you are sick, and a number of you are dead. But if we would judge ourselves rightly, we won’t be judged. What this is is a mandate to make sure that you do a right thing in a right way. Understand that God observes protocol. If you’re going to follow the ritual plan of God, there’s protocol involved, and that means that you cannot take communion with known sin in your life out of fellowship, quenching and grieving the Holy Spirit. if you’re just going through the ritual and there’s no reality to it you’re going to get under divine discipline for not obeying what the lord said you’re not remembering him remembering him is something different than just taking communion popping a piece of bread in your mouth and drinking a sip of wine it’s much more than that and you know when you take communion out of fellowship here’s what it means It means you have, as a believer, you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit. Your sin nature is in control. Yes, you’re in church. Yes, you’re taking communion, but you’re doing the right thing in the wrong way. And you’re not honoring God because it’s not coming through the filling of the Holy Spirit. It’s coming through the good process from the sin nature. The sin nature can do good. People that are not even Christians can do good deeds, can give money to charity, and can help people out. And a Christian under the sin nature control can do good. But it’s not divine good. It’s not the good that God is looking for. And so taking communion with known sin in your life is you observing a ritual without any reality being to it. And that’s what this verse is dealing with, the ritual of communion. Some churches that I know about do it weekly. Some do it monthly and some quarterly. But most all churches, most all denominations serve communion. And it’s a common thing for believers to take it. although some don’t even know what they’re actually doing. So Paul issues a warning, a warning to the Corinthian church about just this sort of thing. The Lord said, quote again, do it in remembrance of me. Well, what exactly are we supposed to remember? And secondly, is there a proper way to approach the communion table? And the answer to both of those is absolutely yes, there is a right way and a wrong way. So God’s plan for us is very important and we understand it. So here we are. We are never to take communion with known sin in our life, never. We’re never to take communion out of fellowship. We’re never to take communion when we’re quenching and grieving the Holy Spirit. We only take communion when we’re in fellowship because if you take communion with known sin in your life, you’re going to get discipline as a result of it. And if you keep doing it, the discipline could be severe. Now let’s make an illustration. Here you’re getting ready to go to church on Sunday morning. And you and your spouse, your husband or your wife, you have a little fight over the kids. And the kids aren’t getting ready and they’re dragging around. And finally you get everybody in the car and the traffic is all backed up and somebody cuts you off. And by the time you finally get to church, your attitude is terrible. You’ve been mad and fussing at your wife. You’ve been mad and griping at the children. You’ve been mad and would have liked to punched out the guy that cut you off in the interstate. And you get to church and you haven’t even thought about your mental attitude sins. It never even crosses your mind that I’m out of fellowship. I have not allowed the Holy Spirit to control my life. I’ve enjoyed these mental attitude sins of bitterness and anger and frustration and vindictiveness. Wow. And you’re going to take communion and you’re going to remember the Lord Jesus Christ like that? I don’t think so. But that’s what you’re doing. That’s exactly what happens. We could also have the illustration of two deacons in the church. And they hate each other because of a business deal that went sour and one of them owes the other one some money and he can’t pay it. And the one that is owed the money hates him and can’t stand him, won’t even look at him. But he’ll pass out the communion elements and he’ll take the communion. Right thing, wrong way. The Holy Spirit is quenched and grieved in that person because of his anger and his bitterness, his vindictiveness, his hatred. He hasn’t learned how to forgive as God has forgiven anybody else. He can’t do it. And here he is. Yes, he’s taking communion okay. He looks great. He looks spiritual. He’s got his head bowed. Instead of remembering the work of Christ, he’s remembering that idiot on the other side of the church that owes him that money. See what I’m talking about? So two, this is why we’re told to examine ourselves. We must examine ourselves. No pastor should ever, ever offer communion to the congregation without telling them this verse. Examine yourself first. Why? What did Paul say a while ago? He said, it’s because of this that many are weak, many are dead, many are sick, because they don’t take communion properly, because they go through the ritual and there’s no reality to it. That’s all organized religion is, ritual without reality, and it’s meaningless. There’s got to be something behind the church and the communion and whatever’s going on in that church. It must be to replicate the life of Christ. It must be to represent Christ to the community through the local body of believers in that local church. And so we are told to examine ourselves, make sure we do this right. And three, if you take communion, it’s a right thing, but you can do it in a wrong way. Taking communion out of fellowship is a right thing being done in a wrong way. Four, God’s plan demands we follow protocol and not ignore these divine mandates. This is a command from God through the Apostle Paul. If you ignore this mandate, if you don’t judge yourself first, then God will judge you because you didn’t do what the Apostle Paul told you to do. Anytime you have a mandate in Scripture and disobey the mandate, you are committing a sin because God’s speaking through that apostle. And so here you are, you’re in church on Sunday morning, you’re ready to take communion, and there’s unconfessed sin in your life which leads to the quenching of the Holy Spirit, the grieving of the Holy Spirit, You’re in the right place, doing the right thing, but you’re under the control of your sin nature. You’re not filled with the Holy Spirit, as Ephesians 5.18 says, be filled with the Spirit. You’re not. And you know you’re not. You know you’re just going through the ritual. You’re trying to look good, trying to look the part. And you may even be thinking about when you’re going to go for lunch and what time the preacher’s going to shut up so you can get out of there and get there and beat the crowd. If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re certainly in the wrong place in the wrong way. So violation of the protocol plan of God brings two things. First, the approval of the act. Let’s see. That’s what we want to say it this way. If you violate the protocol plan of God, you are not going to be rewarded at the judgment seat of Christ. It’s not going to happen. And it will bring swift and divine correction for the act of disobedience. What you want is you want to be awarded at the judgment seat of Christ. You want to hear the Lord say, well done, my good and my faithful servant. Instead of pulling up this record and saying, oh, huh, yeah, I see. You took communion 495 times in the 10 years you were down there in that church. Every time you took communion, you were out of fellowship. Remember he said, do it in remembrance of me. What are you remembering? Oh, I remember Jesus. Well, first of all, and forgive me for being so stern here, we’re not on a first-name basis with the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is the Lord Jesus Christ, the anointed Son of God. So before we get too familiar with him, let’s remember that he is the almighty. He is the creator of all things. Without him, nothing was even created. And he will judge the living, the quick and the dead. It is Christ that does all of that. And so let’s remember it is the Lord Jesus Christ, our King, our Savior. So if we take this communion and we take it out of fellowship and it’s just a ritual, you’re not remembering anything. It’s an insult to him. You’re insulting him. And I hope that’s not you. So what exactly are you supposed to remember? That’s a great question. What exactly are you supposed to remember when you take communion? Well, the first thing that deacon or that elder is going to pass out to you is a little piece of bread, unleavened bread, a little square maybe. That little square represents several things. And when you put it in your mouth, you have to remember these things. You have to scroll them through your mind. This is where you recall the Word of God. And if the rate of forgetting has exceeded the rate of learning, you’re not going to be able to recall anything. You’re not going to see anything written up on the blackboard of your mind. It’s just going to be blank, and you’re just going to be sitting there twiddling your thumbs until the preacher’s through, and you didn’t recall anything. How can you pray, and how can you have a prayer of adoration and thanksgiving to God if you can’t recall anything? So when that bread’s being passed out and you get your little piece of bread, you’re supposed to be praying. and remembering and thanking God for what that bread represents. First of all, that bread represents virgin birth. Virgin birth. He was not contaminated with the sin nature of Joseph. He was uncontaminated. He was virgin-born. Mary had never had any sort of sexual involvement with Joseph or anyone else. She was, in fact, a virgin. And her conception was the miracle of God the Holy Spirit. So he was born of a virgin. That’s important because there was a curse on Keniah, who is the lineage of Joseph, And God had already said that none of Joseph’s family would ever rule in Israel because of the curse of Keniah. And so here, if the Lord Jesus Christ had been born as a result of Joseph’s impregnating Mary, well, then he could never be the king of kings and the Lord of lords. The father would have to take his word back, and he can’t do that. Christ was born of a virgin. That’s the first thing you need to remember. He was virgin born. And then we remember his celebrity ship. And you talk about Elvis, I mean you talk about some celebrities like a recent basketball star that died unfortunately in a horrible helicopter crash, Kobe Bryant, a celebrity. But Jesus Christ is the celebrity of the universe. He is God’s anointed son. He is God’s chosen redeemer. He is the one we worship and admire, and he’s the one we will see coming back riding upon a white horse, and the whole world will see him. That’s a celebrity. It won’t be on television. It’ll be right in front of their eyes. Celebrity ship. Jesus Christ is a celebrity. He is God’s anointed son. You want to drop names? Hey, I know this guy. Hey, I know that guy. Hey, I had dinner with that celebrity. Hey, I met this celebrity, had my picture taken with him. If you know the Lord Jesus Christ, you know the number one celebrity in the whole universe, Christ the King. He’s impeccable. There’s something else you need to remember when you take communion. He’s impeccable. What does that mean? He cannot be accused of ever sinning because he never sinned. He never committed a sin. Not once in his life did he ever commit a sin. So number one, he did not have a sin nature because he was born of a virgin. He didn’t receive Adam’s original sin. And number two, he was impeccable because he never sinned. He was without sin. That’s the impeccability of the Lord Jesus Christ. You should remember that because had he sinned, he would not have been worthy of going to the cross and paying for the sins of the world. He was the innocent lamb of God without spot and without blemish that took away your sin and my sin. Our sins were nailed to him on the cross and he was judged in our place. That’s why it says, he that knew no sin was made sin for us so that we may be made the righteousness of God through him. He was impeccable. He was the king of kings. There you go, another principle. King of kings, Lord of lords. He is the king of the universe, God’s virgin-born son, the only true celebrity, impeccable king of kings and lord of lords. And you might want to remember he’s hypostatic union. Hypostatic union means that he’s God, and man in one body forever, the God-man. Jesus Christ was God and Jesus Christ was man, the God-man in one body forever. And the body of Jesus Christ, the resurrection body of Jesus Christ, is in heaven now awaiting the exit resurrection of you and the local body of church, what we call the church, the rapture, the exit resurrection. He’s the only person in heaven right now in a resurrected body. And then you will be there to join him at the exit resurrection. And 1 Thessalonians 4 talks about that. when the dead in Christ will rise first, and then we which remain alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds, and so shall we evermore be with the Lord. So, hypostatic union is amazing. The entropic union, God, man, in one body forever, forever. Those disciples didn’t know they were talking to God, but they figured it out soon. Those disciples didn’t have a clue what was about to happen to their life, but they learned. And God used them to spread the word of Jesus Christ, the anointed son, to the whole world through what we know as the Gospels, the Bible. And we have it today. So that’s the bread. That piece of bread is virgin birth, celebrity ship, impeccability, king of kings, and hypostatic union. You should remember those when you put it in your mouth. Maybe you need to write to me and get a copy of that so you can remember it. So you can study it and you can look over it. I mean, I could teach you for a couple of hours on each one of those subjects. I just skimmed through it like a rock skimming across a smooth lake surface. I didn’t get into depth here. What about the cup? What about that little plastic cup they pass around and you’re supposed to hold it? And then the pastor says, we retain the cup till all have been served and this do in remembrance of me, and then down it goes. What does that cup supposed to represent? It represents the death of Christ on the cross, his spiritual death on the cross, not his physical death, A lot of people died on the cross, but a lot of people weren’t the son of God. This is Jesus Christ, the anointed son of God being judged in our place and all of our sins poured out on him. There’s a statement in the Bible where he said, Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachonai, which was my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It was a horrible thing for the sins of the world to be dumped out on the anointed son who was impeccable. And it happened, his spiritual death on the cross. We know it as the blood of Christ being shed for the remission of sin. That’s exactly what happened. So imputation means that our sins were imputed to him. This is what you remember. You take that cup. You thank God for the imputation of our sins being imputed to him and for the imputation of his righteousness being imputed to us. Remember the verse, he who knew no sin was made sin for us so that we could be made the righteousness of God through him. So he took our sins and we take his righteousness. God is absolutely righteous. The Bible says there are none that are righteous, no, not one. But when we receive Christ as our savior, then his righteousness is imputed to us and we are redeemed. We’re part of the, we’re redeemed from the slave market of sin and Jesus Christ buys us out of the slave market of sin. That cup representing his spiritual death on the cross is indicative of what he paid to buy you out of the slave market of sin. He paid for your sin. And now you’re justified. Justified, something else you need to remember when you drink that cup. You’re justified. Just as if you had never even sinned, you’re justified before God. No, not because of what you do, not because of how you act, because of what Christ did for you. That’s where the justification takes place. And then you’re also sanctified, which means you’re set apart. You’re sanctified in time and you’re sanctified in time by the filling of the Holy Spirit. And you’re sanctified in eternity when you’re set apart and you go to heaven and There you are. You’re going to get your resurrection body. You’re going to be face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ. And you certainly want to hear him say, well done, my good and faithful servant. You don’t want to hear him say every time you took communion, you daydreamed your way through it, didn’t you? You took communion out of fellowship. You took communion with sin in your life. No wonder you went through so much suffering. No wonder you had so much discipline. It never even occurred to you what’s happening. That’s why I’m giving you this message on discipline. God will discipline you when you do what I’m talking about, when you don’t understand what you’re taking, when you’re going through the ritual without the reality. For this reason, many are weak. That’s sick. Many are sick. Many are dead. Three stages of discipline, mourning discipline, intense discipline, and dying discipline, all because you didn’t take communion and fellowship, all because you just went through some ritual and there was no reality to it. all because you ignored the mandates of God through the Apostle Paul. I hope you’re listening. You don’t need to suffer anymore. You don’t need to go through any more discipline. You’re probably tired of it by now. So my suggestion is you rebound, you confess your sin to God, and he will be faithful and just to forgive you. All of our messages are now transcribed. We have them available in transcription book form. If you’d like to get the transcription of this message, let me know. Get us on the website. Contact us. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flotline.
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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.
