In this episode of The Flotline, Rick Hughes takes listeners on a journey through the significance of Proverbs in developing a disciplined and prudent lifestyle. Discover the crucial role of humility in learning and how acquiring divine wisdom equips believers to face the challenges of life. Rick also addresses the pitfalls of human viewpoint systems in today’s sociopolitical landscape and offers practical advice for living with peace and purpose.
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 02 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and again today I’d like to invite you to stay with me just a short 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education, all done without any manipulation, no solicitation, just 30 minutes of teaching God’s Word, hoping to verify and identify the plan of God for your life so that you will hopefully orient and adjust to the plan. The plan starts with the good news that Christ, the anointed Son of God, has redeemed us out of the slave market of sin. So our debt to God has been paid and we are now free, free of the penalty of death and free of the power of sin. And by receiving Christ as Savior, we in effect accept the offering that he made on our behalf, the free gift of God, compliments of grace. Ephesians 2.89 says, For by grace are you saved through faith And that not of yourselves is a gift from God, not of works, lest any man should boast about it. Paul again writes in Titus, not by works of righteousness which we’ve done, but according to his mercy he saved us. It can’t be any more simpler than that. That’s how simple it is. The greatest decision you could ever make is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The Flotline is a show teaching you God’s problem-solving devices. We’ve identified 10 of them that make up a main line of resistance in your soul. We call that the Forward Line of Troops, the F-L-O-T, Forward Line of Troops, a flotline. The concept is that if you will learn these 10 problem-solving devices, then you can stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside source of stress. That’s why we always say adversity, of course, is inevitable, but stress is always optional. And the Christian life is, in fact, the most unique life in the history of the world. We never have to have any stress. We never have to worry, we never have to be afraid. We simply trust in the phenomenal Word of God, understanding that God was in business before we got here, He will be in business when we’re gone, and so He has it under control. The concept is we must learn His Word. Learning His Word requires some knowledge, some wisdom. I told you last week, if you remember, there’s a big difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is something you understand, And wisdom is something you believe and apply into your life. All wisdom for the believer comes from the Word of God. Matthew 4.4 tells us that man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Now you say, I haven’t ever heard God speak to me. However, the Lord Jesus Christ said, I am telling you what God told me to tell you. If you’ve heard me, you’ve heard the Father. He told the disciples that in John chapter 14. And so the words that are recorded in the New Testament are the words of Jesus Christ recorded by the disciples. And it’s called in 1 Corinthians 2, 16, the mind of Christ. In the Old Testament, the writer of the Psalm says, your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. And that’s the Torah, that’s the Old Testament law that they understood, they had, they read, they believed, and they live by faith, just like you and I must learn to live by faith in our spiritual life. So if we understand the process of gaining wisdom, which I like to call divine viewpoint, not human viewpoint, now that’s foolishness, that’s the cosmic system. It saturates our world, socially and politically, words like diversity and atheism humanism socialism communism progressivism they’re all designed to reconstruct politics and change the way america thinks why because satan is in the thinking business he wants to control what you think it’s a war for your thoughts every day a lot of the times you don’t even realize you’re being assaulted But as you listen to human viewpoint, as you listen to the logic and the rhetoric of the political world system, you understand this is not the Bible. This is not God’s Word. As a matter of fact, everything that used to be evil has now been turned into good. And everything that used to be good is now looked upon as evil. So if I can give you this information that I’m trying to teach you, my hope is i can equip you with a bank of values in your life called wisdom and give you if you have that wisdom you will have the discretion to make good decisions based on what the bible says divine viewpoint now without humility to receive instruction nothing’s going to change in your life you’ve got to have some humility That means humility is equivalent to teachability. You cannot teach an arrogant person anything. So humility is required to learn and to receive instruction. Because if you don’t have some instruction, if you don’t have some humility, nothing’s going to change in your life. You will never… have any contentment in life, because you can never be consistent long enough to learn anything, to acquire any divine viewpoint thinking. A lot of divine viewpoint is in the book of Proverbs, where our study carried us last week and where it will carry us this week. The book of Proverbs, according to the Bible knowledge commentary authored by Walvoord and Zuck, there are five different reasons that the writers wrote the book of Proverbs. The first one, and I would always suggest, I’d recommend you read Proverbs. It’s an amazing thing. The first reason for the writing of the book of Proverbs is to attain wisdom. I’ll verify that for you in just a minute, the scripture that goes with it. Wisdom is what we call spiritual ammunition. To attain wisdom and knowledge. Knowledge is divine viewpoint. So spiritual ammunition comes from divine viewpoint. And the only way you can get divine viewpoint is the four C’s that I call it. Four C’s. What are they? Communicate. You sit and listen to a well-qualified pastor communicate the word of God to you. Capture. This is where the Holy Spirit picks up what the pastor teaches and helps you to comprehend it. Comprehend is a third C. Comprehend is gnosis. It’s knowledge. You understand it. But then comply. You comply, and that’s where it becomes wisdom. So the four C’s that I’m referring to that I like to use when I’m teaching is the communication of the Word of God, capturing the Word of God in the frame reference of your soul, comprehending what that pastor taught, and complying with the information he gave you. And I know that no pastor is perfect. Pastors can mislead you. You must be very careful to make sure that you sit under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor, a pastor that’s accurate, not someone that’s going to play with your emotions or try to tease you and trick you into worshiping with emotional worship, but someone that has spent time studying, can stand in the pulpit and teach more than five minutes, more than 10 minutes without having to use humor and poetry and whatever else. I like going line by line, word by word, verse by verse. That’s called the ICE technique. Isagogical, categorical, exegetical. I know those are big words. Isagogical, categorical, exegetical. Isagogical means you study the word in the time in which it was written. What did it mean then as compared to what does it mean today? categories means that you extract from that verse any categorical study like god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son well you got god love world son there’s four doctrines right there you could study and each one of those doctrines the doctrine of god the doctrine of love the doctrine of the world the doctrine of the sun can you imagine Can you imagine? I could teach over a year just on those four things alone. So each verse, you develop categories, and then exegesis means you go line by line, word by word. Take the word, break the word down. What did it mean? Where did it come from? How is it used? What’s the original word in the Greek New Testament? And that’s how you do it. A pastor that teaches like that is going to be required to study. He can’t do that and run around to the hospital visiting people. He can’t do that playing merry-go-round. He has to have time to study. And any pastor that’s going to be worth his salt will spend time every day studying the Word of God. Unfortunately, in organized religion, they’re not allowed to teach very long, you know. I mean, 30 minutes on Sunday morning after we get through of all the nonsense. and then maybe 30 minutes on Wednesday night, maybe 30 minutes on Sunday night, if anybody shows up Sunday night. And so you got an hour and a half a week. Now, if you send a kid to the first grade for an hour and a half a week, they’re never gonna graduate. They’re never gonna get out of there. And that’s why we have a lot of believers that are spiritual infants. You cannot become a mature believer on an hour and a half a week. And you say, well, I’ll do my morning devotion. I’m going to buy that book that guy wrote, and I’m going to read my morning devotion. Well, that’s fine. But that’s not studying the Word of God under a qualified pastor. That’s a little thing to kickstart you in the morning, and that’s okay. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about sitting down, maybe with a tape player, maybe with an MP3 or a CD or a DVD, and listening to a pastor expand and teach the Word of God to you. And yes, that’s available. Yes, it’s free. They don’t charge for it. There are people out there that offer these things. And if you don’t know where they are, let me know. I’ll connect you. I’ll hook you up. So the reason for writing the Proverbs to attain wisdom, spiritual ammunition, and knowledge, divine viewpoint, which comes from the communicate, capture, comprehend, and comply. Second reason for writing Proverbs for understanding words of insight. insight. This means an accurate understanding of a person or of a thing. So the writer of Proverbs wants to give you insight. Thirdly, for acquiring a disciplined and prudent lifestyle, a disciplined and prudent lifestyle. Spiritual self-discipline is critical if we’re ever going to grow up spiritually. And prudent means that we care for the future based on our current decisions. We make decisions that relate to our life, that glorify God, related to the future. We’re very prudent about what we do. so the fourth reason for writing the book of proverbs is for giving prudence causing us to be very cautious prudence to the simple and number five for understanding proverbs and parables the sayings the riddles of the wise so that we can live wise and we can live skillfully all right now listen to proverbs chapter one verse two to learn wisdom and moral instruction, to discern wise counsel, verse three, to receive moral instruction and skillful living in righteousness, justice, and equity, to impart shrewdness to the morally naive, and a discerning plan to the young person. That’s quoted out of the New English translation, the Net Bible. So, successful living, let’s give some points here. One, successful living requires on accurate instruction. Successful living requires accurate instruction. If you don’t get accurate instruction, you can’t live successfully. You’ll do all the right things, but you’ll do them in the wrong way. Remember, God has a plan, and that plan is called the protocol plan of God. And that means that a right thing must be done in a right way. There’s a right way to pray and a wrong way to pray. There’s a right way to worship and a wrong way to worship. You can do the right thing in the wrong way, and it’s wrong. And how will you find out about that? At the judgment seat of Christ when it’s evaluated, it will be burned up according to 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 16 as wood, hay, and stubble. The right thing, yes, you went to church, but you did it in the wrong way without the filling of the Holy Spirit. The right thing, yes, you prayed, but you did it in the wrong way with unconfessed sin in your life. Remember the verse that says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. That’s the right thing in the wrong way. Prayer. And so giving, is it right to give? Yes. Is there a right way to give and a wrong way to give? Yes. And so you have to learn these things. And as you understand the protocol plan of God, you understand it from accurate instruction from a well-qualified pastor, I keep saying that word, who will not manipulate you. He will not, through the use of legalism, try to coerce you into doing something that’s not biblical. happens all the time people are coerced by pastors and they said you know brother if you’re really a christian you wouldn’t smoke that cigarette well the bible doesn’t say anything about smoking cigarettes it says don’t harm your body you can harm your body by eating too much chicken preacher i know i’ve done that myself so when we start specifying sins because they’re our favorite sins like Well, brother, you know, if you were a Christian, you wouldn’t go to that movie because it’s not rated anything but a G. You can only go to G-rated movies. That’s not what the Bible says. And yet you will find this consistently in organized religion, people trying to manipulate the lives of other people and coerce the lives of other people by putting them into chains and bondage. We have the liberty to do a lot of things, but we don’t use our liberty to violate the protocol plan of God. So point number two, number one again, successful living requires accurate instruction. Number two, without instructing your children in God’s word, then you will allow them to venture into the devil’s world, and they will be unprepared, and they may be recruited by a cosmic evangelist even yet. who lies in wait if they’re curious. Curiosity killed the cat, is that the saying? Many believers that have lived under missionary parents or pastor parents or good, well-qualified moral parents have gone off to college and been suckers for their curiosity. And they wound up into drug abuse, they wound up into sexual abuse, they wound up into financial problems. because their friends are cosmic evangelists and they lure them into the cosmic system. Number three, wisdom comes from instruction, which develops the key word awareness in the attitude of the believer with humility. Awareness, aware of circumstances, aware of people, aware of what’s going on. There has to be political awareness, social awareness, spiritual awareness. It all comes from having divine viewpoint in your life. If you don’t have some divine viewpoint, you’ll be a sucker for what some politician tells you. And remember, the Bible says, cursed is the man who trusteth in man and who makes flesh the strength of his arm. You can’t do that. Now, number four, Jeremiah, the great prophet of God, faced a nation of negative volition. Listen to what he wrote, Jeremiah 4.22, and see if it sounds familiar to you. Jeremiah 4.22, for my people are foolish men, They have not known me. They are stupid children, and they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. Again, all good in a reprobate nation becomes evil, and all evil then becomes good. That’s in a morally corrupt nation like America. Let’s see. Can I read that again and put America in there? For Americas are foolish. They have not known me. They are stupid children. They have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good, uh-uh. They have no knowledge. That’s exactly what Jeremiah faced in the southern kingdom as Judah was about to be destroyed by the Babylonians. In Jeremiah 6.10, to whom shall I speak and give warning so that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised and they cannot listen. Behold, the words of the Lord is unto them a reproach, and they have no delight in it. I would say in America today, a lot of Americans have no delight in the Word of God, no interest in hearing the Word of God. Their ears are not open to the Word of God. Part of it is because of what’s been presented in the past, and people have been abused, and they’re now immune to the preaching of the Word of God. And part of it is the conflict that we live in where People constantly, there are organizations that constantly oppose the teaching of the Word of God in any public venue, any public square, any place that is a governmental agency. You can’t talk about God, can’t have a cross, can’t have a Bible on your desk, can’t pray. I mean, come on. Can’t give the gospel in a school anymore because it violates somebody’s rights to tell them that Jesus Christ paid for their sins. pitiful. That’s what we’ve become today. Point five, the Word of God teaches thinking skills also, as well as spiritual skills, thinking skills. You can’t live in the devil’s world if you can’t think. And so, A, you have to have some comprehension. You have to have the ability or the capacity to function under spiritual IQ. And that requires some perception, cognition, metabolization of the word of God inside your stream of consciousness. And those are all big words. Perception means you listen. Cognition means you understand. Metabolization means you apply of the word of God in your thinking, in your stream of consciousness. Your stream of consciousness is like a river. It flows 24 hours a day. And what’s in your conscience is supposed to be great norms and standards that will protect you, guide you, and direct you in your life. It starts off with your parents teaching you these things. So you must have thinking skills like comprehension. You must have B, memory skills. This is retention in your stream of consciousness. And the issue here is the rate of learning must be greater than the rate of forgetting. If you study consistently, you need to review your notes. If you don’t review them, if you just write them in a notebook and put them on a shelf, then, and I’ve done this, I know this for a fact, the rate of forgetting is greater than the rate of learning. You have to learn daily and you have to review what you’ve learned in your memory so that you can process it and pull it up or else the wheels tracks get silted in and you’ll know there’s something there. You say, oh, I remember there’s a verse, but I don’t know where it was. Or I remember the pastor said something about that, but I just can’t remember what he said. Well, there used to be wheel tracks to that memory, and now the wheel tracks are silted in, and you can’t get back to the memory, can you? And then there must be problem solving. The Word of God teaches problem solving as a thinking skill, and that’s why we have 10 problem solving devices, which are a grace gift from God. And the only, the only accurate system of application in both the spiritual life and in the establishment way of thinking as well. You must have the ability to solve your own problems. You can’t depend on your aunt or your uncle or your grandmother, your grandfather to solve your problems. And the last thing you need to do is run to the preacher. You should know the word of God and you should be able to solve your problems. If he’s taught it to you from the pulpit and you listened and comprehended and complied, then he equipped you to solve your own problems. How can you glorify God depending on someone else to solve your problems? That’s like taking a test and having to lean over and ask the kid next to you, what’s the answer? I don’t know it. You’re going to be tested, and you’ve got to be able to solve your problems. Decision-making is another thinking skill. That means you must understand the issues of life and decide on a course of action. Exactly what is God’s will for my life? What is God’s will for my life? What is his geographical will? What does he want me to think? What does he want me to be? What does he want me to do? And this is critical for your life. If you don’t understand that, then you wind up in the wrong place during the wrong time, and you just short circuit yourself from God’s blessing. And many, many people do that. They get a promotion, they get a job, they see a great opportunity, And away they go. They leave their local church. They leave the place that they were growing spiritually. They move off to a new city, to a new job, and they abandon their study of the Word of God. And it doesn’t take long until they crash and they burn. Stick with the source of feeding. Stay in the corral. We’re sheep. We need a shepherd. And if you don’t stick with that shepherd, you wind up in trouble sometime. And now we have memory, skills, comprehension, memory, problem solving, decision making, and awareness. Very critical. Awareness. That’s extensive knowledge of God’s Word and the ability to interpret the situation that you face so that you can make an accurate application to every circumstance in your life. You will know what the Word of God wants you to do. You know the Word of God says to do it. and you have peace about it when you do it. The next principle that I want to give you, number five, was the Word of God teaches thinking skills, and we went through those, comprehension, memory, problem solving, decision making, and awareness, and number six, The fear panic syndrome can rearrange the way you think in your life if you’re not careful. And this is where we have to issue a warning to all believers. You cannot afford to fall back into emotions in an extreme crisis, because if you do, then your soul will be rearranged like the topography of the earth after an earthquake. Listen to 1 Thessalonians 3.3. We sent Timothy, our brother and fellow worker for God in the gospel of Christ to strengthen you, encourage you about your faith so that no one would be shaken by these afflictions that they face. For you yourself know we were destined for this. Shaken. Shaken. That’s a part that’s just like the earthquake shakes and the topography of the land is rearranged. When we go through a crisis in our life, if we’re not careful, if we move into emotions, then our whole way of thinking changes and we get in trouble. We cannot afford to do that. Paul did not want the Christians in Thessalonica to lose their spiritual balance because He didn’t want them to lose their stability as a result of the trials they were facing, what they were experiencing, which was simply opposition from the Jews who opposed the Christian faith, criticism, hatred. So when you face these things in your life, when you face critical tests, if you go into emotions over sickness and health or finances, you can be rearranged when you come out the other side because you don’t think like you used to think. Instead of going to the Word of God, you went to your emotions, and it’s a dangerous situation. See, in the game of life, you’re only going to get one shot at it. That’s all. That’s why you need as much biblical information as possible. Because without the information, you will never understand your options in your life. But with God’s grace provisions and with your positive volition, nothing can distract you from reaching his desired will and purpose for your life. And what is that? John 14, 27. Peace. I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Not the peace the world gives. No, no, no. That’s not the peace I give you, the Lord Jesus Christ said. And then he said, let not your hearts be troubled and don’t be afraid. Phenomenal advice from our Savior. A wonderful way to live. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re learning. And I hope you’ll come back with me next week. Same time, same place, same station. We’re always here faithfully for you. I’m Rick Hughes. This is The Flotline. We bring it to you every Sunday morning at this time. Thank you for being our guest today.
SPEAKER 01 :
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.
