SPEAKER 01 : 0:08

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 : 0:23

Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stick around. Just a short time of motivation, some inspiration, some education. all of it designed for soul renovation. That’s right, to change the way you think, not change the way you do things. I’m not here to manipulate you in any way whatsoever, not here to ask you for any money. I’m not here to con you into doing something. I’m here to help you renovate your thinking. Why would I do that? Because the Bible says, stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think, but think in terms of humility as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from his word, Romans 12, 3. And the Bible says in Philippians 2, 5, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. The type of thinking I’m talking about is called divine viewpoint, not human viewpoint, not the thinking of the cosmic system that’s always out there, always twirling around, always luring, but the thinking of divine viewpoint coming from the living Word of God, the Word of God that’s alive and powerful. Hebrews 4, 12 talks about that. So we’re here to talk about how you think today. think in terms of truth that’s the main thing because if you think in terms of truth and you have wisdom and wisdom gives you insight and understanding insight and understanding is what i call spiritual x-ray vision you’ll be able to see things that other people don’t see you’ll be able to understand things that other people don’t understand those who are locked into the cosmic system they will never see it because they’ll never take time to see what the word of god has to say Most people are happily go along to their own destruction without ever realizing what they could have in Christ Jesus. You could have freedom in Christ Jesus. The Bible’s clear about that. In John 8, 31 and 32, Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed in him, if you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. You have an opportunity to be truly free today and for the rest of your life. We’re going to talk about that here for a moment. The Bible mentions freedom in many places. For example, in Galatians 5.1, for freedom, Christ has set us free. What did he set you free from? He set you free from the law of sin and death. You don’t have to go to hell. You don’t have to go to the lake of fire. he took your place he died for you he was your substitute in galatians 5 13 for you were called to freedom by god not only to have spiritual freedom but to have physical freedom as an american in the u.s of a god designs you to have freedom in this client nation of his In 1 Peter 2.16, live as people who are free. We are free. Free from the law of sin and death. Free from the lure of the flesh. Free from the call of the world. And free from the lies of Satan. We don’t have to fall victim to his lies. In Romans 6.22, the Bible says we’re set free from sin and we become free slaves, slaves to God. A lot of people don’t like that term slavery, but the Greek word doulos, D-O-U-L-O-S, talks about a free slave. Once we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we come back to God. and we voluntarily serve him as free slaves. So physical freedom coupled with spiritual freedom is how God designed things to be. But in the good old U.S. of A. today, it appears we’re facing the loss of freedom in this 2020 season. There appears to be some sort of national crisis. And I remember my own pastor teaching about this when he was still here on this earth. He said these words. He said, a conspiracy needs three things. And let’s give you his notes, what he said. Let’s see if we have it here today. He said, a conspiracy needs a plot. And this is the conspiracy to take away your freedom, by the way. It needs a plot, a carefully devised plan for the overthrow of authority or establishment. He went on to say, those plotters are usually few in number, but a brilliant intellect. They are the manipulators. They are the, I’m trying to think of the word that we call them, but I’ll figure it out in a minute. Sometimes my mind goes blank like yours. But these are the people who pull the strings behind the scenes. The plotters, few in number, but a brilliant intellect. They usually have a warped mental attitude, which is motivated usually, most of the time, by power lust, seeking to control. So we have the plot. It’s called the oligarchy. That’s who they are, the oligarchy, the plotters, the oligarchy. and then we have next the intrigue and these are usually the agent provocateurs or the dupes who are involved in this system of petty underhanded schemes in this country they are usually the humanists or the socialists who promote their agenda loudly and they seem to get on the news quite a bit They usually oppose individual freedom and possession of property, possession of anything like that. And they lack common sense and demand more welfare, more relief systems. These types of agent provocateurs are the puppets of the oligarchy, are the schemers. Who schemed the plot? And then you need the machination. Machination, not imagination, but machination. M-A-C-H-I-N-A-T-I-O-N. The machination is the torturous process of overthrowing the establishment or doing harm to authority. Usually a very petty, superficial crowd which causes a great deal of trouble. Usually they have a personal axe to grind and their vested interest is more important than national security. and any freedom that God may provide through divine institutions. So there it is, there are the three things necessary. What is it again? The plot, the intrigue, and the machination. Let me give you some principles on freedom that we need to remember carefully before we get into spiritual freedom. If we’re talking about the physical freedom of this country, We are free Americans, all freedom that we’re talking about on this show, the freedom that we have comes through military victory. Military victory, we won some wars that guaranteed we would not be slaves to Germany, we would not be slaves to Japan. So military victory is where all physical freedom comes from. And the factors that protect freedom is this, the spiritual factor of a pivot. If we have a strong pivot, that’s a core group of believers who are mature believers in a nation, they form a pivot. When you have a pivot, then that nation is guaranteed by God to maintain their freedom. When you don’t have a pivot, then that nation is guaranteed by God to be disciplined if it’s a client nation. And the United States of America is indeed a client nation. We are. So you have the spiritual factor of the pivot that maintains the freedom of the nation, and then you have the military preparedness that maintains the freedom from outside. So spiritual factor maintains the freedom inside, and military preparedness maintains the freedom outside. Nehemiah 4, 8 through 9, and Nehemiah 4, 13 and 15. Let me read 13 and 15. Let me tell you what Nehemiah did as he went back to rebuild the walls. Then I stationed the men in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, the exposed places, and I stationed the people and families with their swords, spears, and bows. And when I saw their fear, I rose and spoke to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people. Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is your great and awesome and fight for your brothers, fight for your sons, fight for your daughters, fight for your wives and your houses. And when our enemy heard that it was known to us and that God had frustrated their plans, then all of us returned to the wall, each one to his own work. We must be willing to fight to maintain our freedom. Freedom is never free. Somebody has to pay for it. And that’s the sad thing to realize today that a lot of people are free to do a lot of damage that people died to give them the right to do that. But that doesn’t mean what they’re doing is right. It means they are free to do that because they live in a country that allows them to express that freedom. But freedom, prosperity, and life are all sacred under the laws of what we call the divine establishment. God set this up. It’s called the freedom to choose. That’s your volitional responsibility. You can choose for or against Jesus Christ. God gave you volition. And then there’s marriage. That’s a wonderful divine institution. And then there’s the family. That’s the wonderful divine institution. And then there is nationalism where God ordained individual nations beginning at the Tower of Babel, separated them with language, with water, with barriers. We are not to be internationalists. That’s what Satan wants. If he could get us all to be one nation, one big world government, then we’d be in big trouble. So God established those different nations, not us, not me, not you. And freedom, prosperity and life are sacred under these divine establishment principles. You know, even if a person is not a Christian, if they operate under the divine establishment principles of freedom, marriage, family and nationalism, they can have a wonderful, wonderful life. But military failure, whenever the military fails, it indicates failure of society and lack of training, no respect for authority, lack of courage, and the training of security for freedom. There’s the danger. Are you willing to swap your freedom for some security? I hope not. because no nation has ever survived military defeat. And failure to fight for freedom always inevitably means slavery. The one thing people don’t want to hear today, slavery. Social degeneration is always characterized by disdain of the military and hatred of the police. So you can see we have social degeneration today. God uses the military to demonstrate the degeneracy and the decline within a nation. You can look at the military, tell what’s going on there, and tell what’s going on within the nation. However, all freedom, the freedom that we enjoy, we must have authority. Because if we don’t have authority, then all we have is anarchy. Freedom without authority is anarchy. But authority without freedom is nothing but tyranny. Hence the laws of divine establishment provide that freedom for us, free from anarchy and free from tyranny. There are two different enemies of freedom in this country today. Inside our client nation, criminals and traitors are the enemies of freedom. Law enforcement and jurisprudence are designed to protect us. against these domestic enemies. And outside the client nation, well, we have the communists, the socialists, the different nations that are enemies of freedom. The military establishes and protects against these foreign enemies as well. So we had protection within with the laws of the jurisprudence and the government and protection without with the military. Now, Spiritual freedom, what about spiritual freedom? Each one of us possesses freedom and privacy and property. It’s part of the honor code to advance to the objective of being a spiritually mature believer who learns God’s word, develops some wisdom, insight and understanding, and begins to glorify him. But you can’t have one without the other. Freedom, privacy, and property. And authority exists to protect them whenever they’re present. So freedom guarantees that there’s no equality. Listen to this carefully. Freedom will guarantee you that there is no equality among Christians in either time or in eternity. We are not equal. We are given the chance to grow. All believers are given both freedom and time to advance. However, such freedom cannot guarantee equality in the Christian’s life, in this life. It doesn’t. Because we are only equal at the new birth. Once we have accepted Christ as our Savior, once we begin our spiritual life, we have the freedom to advance and we have the freedom to fail. And some Christians use their freedom and time to reject the Word of God. Other Christians use their freedom and time to learn the Word of God. So God starts all of us out on the same page, equal basis at salvation. We have a book that identifies 40 things you get the moment you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you’d like that, contact us. We’ll send it on out to you. 40 things you get. We’re all equal at the point of salvation, but from salvation on, Inequalities exist through the use of freedom, and that is that you can either accept or you can reject the Word of God. The result is our subject. Our subject is this, the weak believer or the strong believer. Which one are you? That’s the question I’m asking you. The weak believer or the strong believer? Because that inequality that I’m talking about is based on your freedom. Your freedom to learn and use and believe the Word of God and your freedom to get distracted and go somewhere else and just walk away from it. Some people that I know are positive to the Word of God. Others are negative. They’re saved. They’re going to heaven. They find no time to study, no time to worship, no time to grow. Some people would say, well, these are not really Christians. I don’t agree with that. Many Christians walk away from their spiritual life, get sucked into the devil’s world and get distracted. This inequality results, this is inequality is what I’m trying to say. And this is what happens. Some believers advance to maturity and other believers go backwards into what some people call backsliding or what I call reversionism. But inequalities, that is, some are winners, some are losers, some are weak, some are strong, what about that? That demonstrates that freedom abused, and listen carefully as I say this now, freedom abused does not deserve what freedom used deserves. Freedom abused does not deserve what freedom used deserves. And we know God can never be unfair. We understand that. And there will always be inequality because man will always have a free will. You have free will. You turn on this radio program and you’re listening now. That’s your free will, your choice. And you have a choice to grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. to make God’s word primary number one in your life, but equality is the only where we start. It’s just where we start. We’re all equal in Christ. We all have those 40 things, but we don’t all advance to spiritual maturity. That’s the problem. Some believers are rewarded at the judgment seat of Christ with great rewards, and some have literally nothing, 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 16. It’s all burned up. That’s inequality. inequality. We are not all equal in eternity. We do not all have the same rewards. Equality is a myth. Freedom is a reality. But freedom does not guarantee any equality for anybody. Equality is the device of the arrogant person. But freedom is the motivation of the grace-oriented people. Forced equality, forcing equality on people, that’s the policy of Satan. But God’s policy is grace freedom. That’s the policy of God. I’ll provide what you need. I’ll give you what you need. Here it is, 40 things. You have the grace policy of God to advance in your freedom all the way to the high ground of spiritual maturity and to receive all the rewards in eternity and to glorify God and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ to the maximum. And you have the freedom to, after you get saved, to walk away from it, to go down to my way, highway, as we talk about it so often. to put it aside. Yeah, you’re going to heaven. Yes, you have eternal life, but no, there will be no recognition of you in heaven and there will not be this well done, my good and faithful servant. So it’s impossible for man to make man equal as a, for example, the humanist or the socialist might allege. Man can only provide freedom but in freedom there is inequality. Let me explain this. We can only provide freedom, but freedom gives people the ability to say no, and that leads to inequality. So everyone that’s free, has an opportunity in Christ to be equal, to grow and advance, to glorify God, but some choose not to. And in this country, people are free, free to advance, free to not advance. Spiritual freedom means that immediately after you get saved, there is a stratification among believers who begin to develop. It starts there. Some believers will become winners in time. Some believers will become losers in time. They don’t lose their salvation. But their human viewpoint thinking locked into the cosmic system is opposed to divine viewpoint thinking locked in with the word of God. So they think different. Their minds are different. They’re saved. They’re going to heaven. But they don’t think like you think because they don’t think with divine viewpoint. They’ve been lured into the cosmic system. They’ve drank the Kool-Aid that Satan offers. We as citizens of this great country have inalienable rights That does not mean the government provides these rights. The government’s job under the laws of divine establishment is to provide our freedom, freedom for us. We do the rest. We either succeed or we fail in obtaining the rights that we have available to us. As a free American, you have the right to go to college. You have the right to go to school. You have the right. And people say, well, I’m in bad shape because of my background. That’s called victimhood. Listen, I grew up in a federal housing project, never met my father in my life. My mother raised me, and she was a single parent, and she farmed me out to guardians, people that I hated, people that I didn’t know. She paid them $50 a week to look out after me. And I would go out on Sunday night and live with them and come home on Friday night and stay home Friday and Saturday and go back on Sunday. I had a rough time. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was having a rough time. But I can’t say that the reason I’m a jerk is because I had a rough life. If somebody’s a jerk and a loser, it’s because they choose to be. You have everything available, especially in Jesus Christ, to have the most fantastic, wonderful life. And you have everything available in this great nation to have a great life if you go after it. You have those rights, but you cannot expect the government to do it for you. The government must not provide food, shelter, clothing to everybody because to have these things is their right. It’s their right. The government doesn’t need to provide them. We acquire these things under an atmosphere of freedom. We work. We save. We earn. I mean, God designed us to work. He put Adam in the garden to work. He told him to tend to the garden, take care of it, name the animals. He had to work. And God works every day. But if government takes the responsibility of providing food, shelter, and clothing, then you no longer have any freedom. you have the greatest form of tyranny, the government taking care of you. In other words, we have the right to seek and acquire food, shelter, and clothing on our own, but we do not have the right to compel the government or anyone else to give us our food, to give us our shelter, and to give us our clothing without working for it. Actually, freedom forbids the government, rather than enjoining the government, to interfere in our lives. If we decide to be losers, if we decide to trash our life and lose our life, We have the right to do that without the government interfering. Therefore, rights are freedoms from interference, especially from the federal government. They state how government shall not interfere, shall not tamper with opportunities to live and prosper, to own property or possess things. There are three categories of people that live in a nation threatened by revolution as we are today. There’s the hardcore revolutionists, and these people conspire and intrigue to overthrow the establishment, to overthrow the government of a nation, and this includes the crusaders and the criminals. And then there’s the general public, and they must be propagandized by the hardcore revolutionists as well as the leadership of the conspiracy groups. It’s the general public who are formed into a weapon to be manipulated by the revolution for the destruction of their own freedoms. And then there’s the incorruptibles, what I hope you are. These are believers and unbelievers who are influenced by the laws of establishment and those who are consistent in the perception and the application of God’s word in their life as believers. Those believers who function with the 10 problem-solving devices are insulated from the strong delusion and the lying propaganda that comes their way. They are called the remnant according to the election of grace. This is what you and I know as the pivot of mature believers, the invisible heroes of the church age. The hardcore revolutionists and the general public may follow a person, but the incorruptibles follow a principle and the absolute principles of the infallible word of God. Finally, freedom guarantees several things for you. It guarantees that Christ will never leave you. He promised you that. In Numbers 23, 19, in Hebrews 13, 5, look them up for yourself. I don’t have time to read them on the short show. Hebrews 13, 5, write it down. Numbers 23, 19, a divine promise from God that he would never leave you nor forsake you. And God will never overlook you. There’s a promise for that. You have the freedom to believe. Proverbs 5, 21, he will never overlook you. Christ will never leave you. God will never overlook you. Another thing you can count on is the Bible will never mislead you. Hebrews 4.12. And you will find that most people will fight you over the Bible. It’s not true, they’ll tell you. You don’t have to believe it. You don’t have to put so much faith in it. To the extent that you reject the word of God, you will destroy yourself in the long run. And you can take confidence in this. The lake of fire was not designed for you if you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Revelation 20 verse 15, it was designed for Satan and the fallen angels, not for you because your name’s in the Lamb’s book of life. You have a new home in eternity with amazing things that cannot be described. Jesus said it in John 14, 2 and 3. I can guarantee you Satan will never leave you alone. He will always pester you. He will always be after you. That’s why Ephesians 6 says put on the armor of God so you can stand against the strategy of the devil. Your flesh will always tempt you. The world will always lure you. But you have the opportunity to advance as a Christian in the devil’s domain where you live. You also have the freedom to fail, the freedom to fail to utilize God’s problem-solving devices. You can fail just very easy. Just go negative. Just say, not today, no, Lord. Not today will I confess my sin. Not today will I listen to your word. Not today will I grow strong. You go down the my way highway and you will destroy yourself. God guarantees that he will answer your request for salvation, Romans 10, 13. That’s a guarantee. Whoever should call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That’s the first question we have to ask you. Have you been saved? Have you accepted Christ as your savior? Do you have freedom from sin and death? Have you been guaranteed eternal life through the finished work of Christ on the cross? If not, the most important thing you could ever do is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the most important thing you could ever do because he said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life, and no man can ever get to the Father but by me. It’s a wonderful promise. It’s a wonderful truth. and Christ makes it all available. Your freedom, freedom is available to you through the one who set us free, Jesus Christ, our Lord. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re paying attention. I hope I haven’t been too weighty with this subject. So until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flotline.

SPEAKER 01 : 27:13

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.