Join Rick Hughes on The Flatline as he delves into the spiritual hallmarks of faith, focusing on the assurance of eternal life through Jesus Christ. This episode articulates how belief—not rituals or works—cements one’s salvation and relationship with God. With references from the Bible, Hughes emphasizes the simplicity of faith as the cornerstone of Christian doctrine, encouraging believers to trust the gospel truth of salvation. Listeners will be uplifted by the confidence that comes from truly understanding God’s promises and will find motivation to nurture their spiritual growth in light of these truths.
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.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stick around. If you’re new and you’ve never heard the show before, it’s simply 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education, and absolutely no manipulation. We don’t try to con people. We’re not hustling money. We’re not asking for anything. We’re not trying to sell you anything. We’re not trying to be political. We just want to give you some accurate biblical information that’ll help you orient and adjust to the plan of God if you’d like to do that. My job is to get it right, get it correct, get it accurate, and give it to you. Your job is to orient and adjust if you’d like to do that. Before we get started on what I want to talk about today, which I think is very significant, I want to remind you that we have a new book at the press called Practicing Your Christianity, or Learning How to Be a Spiritual Superstar, which is one of God’s champions, by understanding God’s game plan and practicing by the rules that God lays out. So that is at the press. And Bible Promises and Principles, a revised edition with more promises, organized alphabetically by category, easier to carry around, smaller version. These should be available by the end of July if you’d like to have them. They’re free. We don’t sell anything. And let me remind you of our daily podcast venue on Apple iPod or Spotify or Breaker or Anchor, any of those podcast platforms. We have over 500 lessons on podcasts. You can listen anywhere, anytime, any day. And so I appreciate your giving me a few minutes of your time. I’d like to go into our lesson today, if you don’t mind, and I wish you’d hang with me. Thank you for listening in Maine. Thank you for listening in California. Thank you for listening in Texas. Thank you for listening in Alabama. All 50 states, we have radio stations playing the flatline. And you know we don’t sell anything. We just depend on the Lord to supply the means, to supply the finances. And so we thank you for your prayers, your consideration, and your encouragement. Here’s what I’d like to ask you this morning if you listen carefully. I talk to a lot of people about their salvation, and I’ll ask a simple question. If you died today, would you go to heaven? If you died today, would you go to heaven? I’m asking you that question as you listen on the radio. If you died today, would you go to heaven? It’s always wonderful when people say, yes, I know for sure I’m going to heaven. But far too often people say, well, I hope so. I’m trying. I want to. But they don’t have that confidence assurance. Have you ever doubted that? Have you ever really doubted that you’re actually saved? I know you prayed a prayer and you asked God to save you and you went forward at the church or you went forward at a crusade. But you seem to be the same person and you seem to have the same desires and the same battles and Have you ever wondered if you really did get saved? Perhaps you committed some grievous sin and now in your mind you feel like God has not forgiven you and maybe you think you lost your salvation. I mean, there are some people that say, well, if you pray but you don’t see results, you’re not really saved. We’ll answer that question here today because many ministers play on your doubts, trying to get you to come forward, trying to get you to recommit your life to Christ. and satan the bible says will no doubt seek to get you thinking that you have not truly been saved some folks wind up asking god to save them on more than one occasion i’ve known people that have asked him consistently please save me please save me what exactly does the bible say about eternal security that’s the question can you in fact really know for sure that if you die, you are going to go to heaven. So if you’ll let me, I’d like to go through some verses with you so we can settle the issue once and for all in your mind and in my mind. 1 John 5, 11 through 13, I will read it to you. Listen carefully. This is the testimony that God has given us eternal life. And this life is in his son. That’s a prepositional phrase, in his son. He who has the Son has life, and he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I’ve written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know, K-N-O-W, know that you have eternal life and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. So according to that verse, is it possible for you to know that you have eternal life? I just read it to you, so that you may know that you have eternal life. And where is eternal life according to this verse? This life is in his Son, quote, he who has the Son has life, and he who does not have the Son of God does not have life or eternal life. The two key words in this passage for us to consider today, one of them is believe. If you believe, the verb, the Greek word is pistou, it’s a verb. If you believe, the noun part is pistous, One is believe, the other is faith. Same thing. Do you believe? So our Lord made it clear that the way to have eternal life was to believe in him. Believe what? Well, I mean, what am I supposed to believe? Believe that he is the anointed son of God and that he indeed was the Messiah. In John 6, 40, John wrote this, quoting Jesus. And this is the will of the one that sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. So what is it here he wants you to do? Believe in him, and you will have everlasting life. In John 6, 47 says, Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life. There’s the words of the Lord Jesus Christ again. It couldn’t be any more plain. If you believe in me, you have everlasting life. John 6, 47. I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the anointed son of God? Do you believe that? Do you believe that his work on the cross took care of your sins? Or do you think you still have to pay for them, that you still have to earn God’s forgiveness? Do you believe in grace? God’s grace provided for you eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That’s why the Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith. There’s our word, faith, pistis. For by grace are you saved through faith, and not of yourselves. It’s the gift of God. In John 8, 12, Jesus spoke to them again, saying these words, I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. So he proclaimed himself straight out to be the son of God and that if you would believe in him, you could have everlasting life. Don’t you remember that verse you learned when you were just a youngster, John 3.16? God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Believes in him. Believe what? Is he the Messiah? Is he the anointed son of God? Did he pay for your sins on the cross? That’s the question. Do you believe that? In John 3, 18, he who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. It could not be any more clear. You don’t have to go forward. You don’t have to go backwards. You don’t have to go up. You don’t have to go down. You must believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Here are his words as recorded in the scripture. Listen carefully. John 6, 32. Jesus said to them, most assuredly I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. And then they ask him, Lord, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. And he who comes to me shall never hunger. And he who believes in me shall never thirst. So if you believe that Jesus Christ is the anointed son of God, you have eternal life. I mean, I’ve read all these verses to you. It couldn’t be any clearer. No one said anything about going forward. No one said anything about joining up. No one said anything about getting baptized. Do you believe that he is the son of God? If you believe that, if you put your faith in the finished work of Christ alone, faith alone in Christ alone, you have eternal life. There’s never any mandate to walk down an aisle. The mandate is simply to believe. Believe that he alone is the one who redeems you out of the slave market of sin and death. Now, assuming you’ve done that, and maybe even expressed that belief to God in prayer, Romans 10, 13, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So let’s assume that you prayed and you asked God to save you and you told God you believe that Jesus Christ is his son and you accepted what he did for you on the cross. Does God lie? No. What did that verse say when we started off? Eternal life is in his son. He who has a son has life. He who does not have the son of God does not have life. I’ve written this so that you may know, know, know that you have eternal life. There it is. You are sealed with God’s Holy Spirit when you believe. So let’s assume today you made the decision, I want to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and let’s assume that you prayed with me, and you said a sinner’s prayer. You said, Father, I know I’m a sinner. I’m willing to accept Christ as my Savior. I believe he died for me. I want to be saved. If you did that, what would happen? Well, the first thing that would happen is the God, the Holy Spirit would seal you. Seal, S-E-A-L-U, Ephesians 1.13. In him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, which is the gospel of your salvation, which is what I’ve been telling you. And in whom also having believed, You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. This means that nobody can take you out of God’s hand. Once you hear the gospel, once you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, here it is, having heard the gospel of your salvation and having believed, you were then sealed. Once you’re sealed, no one can take you out of the Father’s hand. That act of faith alone in Christ alone is what the Bible refers to as being born again. The real theological word we use is regeneration. In Titus 3, 5, not by works of righteousness, which we’ve done, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. not by our own works, not by works of righteousness, Titus, not by our own works we’ve done, but according to his mercy. That’s his grace. After you accept him as your savior, a marvelous, wonderful, unexplainable thing happens. After regeneration, or after being born again, Jesus Christ comes to live inside you. 2 Corinthians 13, 5. Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? The indwelling of the Lord Jesus Christ the minute you are sealed with the Holy Spirit. After regeneration, Christ lives in you. The Bible’s clear about that, Romans 8, 10. And if Christ is in you, and he is, then the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit, that’s your human spirit, is made alive because of righteousness. So when you’re born again, the dead human spirit is reactivated by the Holy Spirit, which seals you and the Lord Jesus Christ lives in you. This is the same Lord Jesus Christ that was the Shekinah glory in the Old Testament. this is the one that they marveled at when the when tabernacle was set up and by a pillar of fire at night in the cloud during the day the kind of glory the lord jesus christ lives in you first corinthians says don’t you know your body is the temple of the holy spirit listen to what is written in first john 5 11-13 again I read it to you one more time. This is the testimony. God gives us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son, does Christ live in you? I just read you those verses. Does Christ live in you? Answer the question. Did you accept him as your Savior? Did you express your faith in prayer? Christ in you, in Romans 8.10, 2 Corinthians 3.5. So this verse says, He who has the Son, that’s Christ in you, has eternal life. And he who does not have the Son of God, the person that’s not regenerated, does not have eternal life. These things I wrote so whoever believes, believes, believes, believes, there it is, in the name of the Son of God that you may know, know, oida, you can know it, Greek word, know it, absolutely know it, that you have eternal life and you can continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. You can know it for sure. How do you know it? It’s Christ in you. Have you made a decision to receive Christ as your Savior? Have you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ? Not did you go forward and get baptized. Not did you go forward and join up. Not did you promise God you would never do anything bad again. Did you simply believe and receive him as your Savior? Did you do that? Because if you did, he is in you forever. He will not leave you nor forsake you. Listen to this, Hebrews 13, 5. Let your conduct be without covetousness so that you will be content with the things that you have. For he himself has said, quoting now the Lord Jesus Christ, I will never leave you, nor will I forsake you. There’s more proof of the faithfulness of our Lord in regards to what he promised you. Listen to this one, this is almost incredible. 2 Timothy 2.13, because some people say, well, what if I quit believing? What if I don’t believe anymore? What if I believed when I was a kid and now I got some education and now I’ve gotten around some professors that taught me I was wrong to do that and that there really is not a God, I’m really an atheist or I’m an agnostic. What if you don’t believe anymore? 2 Timothy 2.13. If we are faithless, he remains faithful. He cannot deny himself. What does that mean? If Jesus Christ is in you, you have eternal life. He didn’t leave you when you changed your mind, when you got your liberal education. He didn’t leave you. He’s still in you. He said he would never leave you. He would never forsake you. You may be faithless, but he is faithful to do what he promised he would do because he cannot deny himself. You are Christ’s purchased possession. You have been sealed with the Holy Spirit, and he will redeem you, not on the basis of what you’ve done, not on the basis of how good you are, not on the basis of anything like that, but simply on the basis of faith alone in Christ alone. You believed that Jesus is the anointed son of God. You believed that when he went to the cross, he was taking your place and paying for your sin. And by his stripes, you were healed. You believe that. That means you have eternal life. Some denominations will tell you you gotta be baptized to be saved. That’s not exactly what the Bible says. Certainly baptism was taught in the Bible, yes. Listen to 1 Corinthians 1.17 to what the Apostle Paul said. Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. He went on to say, thank God I didn’t baptize any of you except two people he mentioned. That’s all, because that was not his mission. In Romans 1.16, he tells you where the power is. It’s not in baptism. He says it here. I am not ashamed of the gospel, Romans 1.16, the gospel of Christ, the death, the burial, and the resurrection, for it, it, it, the gospel, is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes it, for the Jew first, then also for the Greek. So what’s the power of the salvation? The gospel, the good news, the finished work of Christ on the cross. And what do you have to do? Believe it. Everyone who believes it for the Jew first and also for the Greek. Now, some people are going to say, wait a minute, brother, that’s not enough. You got to repent, brother. You got to repent. Luke 13, 3, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. This means we’re going to look at that word repent. Repent is the Greek word metanoeo, metanoeo. And it simply means to change your mind. It doesn’t mean to feel sorry for what you did. It doesn’t mean that you promise God you’re going to be a good little boy of known and never do anything bad again. It simply means you are changing your mind. You’re repenting. You’re changing your mind about who and what Christ is. This is the Jewish religious leaders written to them. They did not believe. They did not believe he was a son of God. They persecuted him. They had him crucified because they did not believe. Listen to Mark 14, 61. But he kept silent and answered nothing. And the high priest asked him again, are you Christ, the son of the blessed God? Are you the Christ? Listen to what Jesus said. I am, and you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming with the clouds of the heavens. Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, what further need do we have of any witnesses? You heard the blasphemy out of his own mouth. What do you think? And they all condemned him to be deserving of death. Then some began to spit on him, to blindfold him and beat him and said to him, prophesy. And the officer struck him with the palms of their hands. They did not believe what he said. What did he say? I am the Son of God. They asked him, are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? He said, I am. Do you believe that? Then you’re saved. Do you believe he’s the Son of God? If not, what exactly do you believe? I mean, are you an agnostic, which means A meaning no, agnostic meaning knowledge, you just simply don’t have any knowledge, or are you an atheist? You don’t believe God even exists. Well, I have a question for you. How do you know he doesn’t exist? Did you search for him? And you say, well, I’ve looked all around the neighborhood and I didn’t see God. I looked all around the planet and I didn’t see God. Well, did you look on the moon? Maybe God’s on the backside of the moon. You say, well, they went up there to the moon and they didn’t see God either. Well, did you look on Mars? Maybe the rover will find God on Mars. Maybe how about Neptune or Pluto? Where is God? You see, in order for you to logically say there is no God, you must be God yourself. because you must search everywhere in the entire universe at one time. Cause if you leave one place out and God’s there, you’re in trouble. So what you say is I don’t believe there’s a God. You can’t prove it. You just don’t believe it. Well, isn’t that faith? It’s the same faith that saves people. Do you believe that Jesus is the son of God? Yes. Do you believe God exists? And some people say, no, it’s the same thing. It’s faith. And you use your faith in a negative way to say, I don’t believe God exists. That’s just stupid. How could you be so ignorant? He exists. He is real. His son is real. He died for you. Do you believe that? Do you believe he is the son of God? And if not, what exactly do you believe? in what somebody else said, or by what some kind of rationalism you cranked up in your mind, I say to you, he is indeed the anointed son of God. And unless you believe that, you will leave God no choice because you rejected the free gift of eternal life. The Bible says the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. That’s for you today. You can end this show knowing, absolutely knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life. How would you know that? If you haven’t done it before, you could do it now with me. You could pray with me right now, silently. I mean, not out loud. And if you’re driving a car, don’t bow your head. But you could pray with me. You could repeat a simple prayer. And the words are not even what’s important. It’s what’s in your heart that’s important. But if I were going to pray, I would pray like this. Heavenly Father, pray along with me if you’d like to. Heavenly Father, I believe Jesus Christ is your anointed son. Heavenly Father, I believe Jesus Christ is your anointed son. I believe he died for me on that cross. and I’m willing to accept him as my savior. That’s a simple prayer, but that’s all it takes. For by grace are you saved through faith. It’s a gift of God, not of works, lest anybody would brag about it. It’s an act of faith. Simple prayer of faith. But it is the number one most significant decision you’ve ever made in your life. You just asked God to save you. And from this day forward, you can say these words. I know I have eternal life. I know I have eternal life because Christ lives in me. So once you accept Christ, what’s the next step? Well, the next step is to do what the Bible says, grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grow up. Learn what God has for you. Learn what happened to you. I mean, we all go through that process. I accepted Christ. I knew nothing about the Bible, but I had to learn and study and grow. And that’s what I encourage you to do. The best place is in a local church under a well-qualified pastor. If you don’t have one of those, contact me and I’ll try to help you find a pastor. But we can provide you some material till God shows you where to go. All of our books and all the material that we have is all free. We have transcripts of all the radio shows from 2019, 2020, and you can read through those and learn and study and grow. But you must grow spiritually. You cannot remain a spiritual baby. You must grow to spiritual maturity so you can have an international impact for the Lord Jesus Christ. So did you learn something today? You learned how to become a Christian today. You learn that you’re not going to lose it once you accept it. And you’ve learned that God expects you to grow up and become a mature believer. I’ll help you all that I can. I’ll give you all the information I can give you. The bottom line is you must decide for yourself to press forward. No one can live the life but you. It’s your choice, your decision. Either you’re going to move forward and grow in grace, or you’re going to step back and just kind of fade into the shadows. But you’ll be in heaven because God will not abandon you. He promised that. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’ve been paying attention. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flotline.
SPEAKER 02 :
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.
