Embark on a thoughtful journey with Rick Hughes as he revisits foundational spiritual concepts that equip believers to face daily challenges. From understanding sin and its impact on one’s spiritual journey to discovering the influential role of the Holy Spirit and the importance of faith-driven problem-solving approaches, this episode offers a comprehensive guide on nurturing a resilient soul. Whether you’re grappling with fear or seeking spiritual stability, Rick provides the wisdom needed to transform adversity into opportunities for growth.
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. 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, some education, and no manipulation, no con games, not soliciting money, not trying to sell you something. We just want to give you information that will help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. If that’s possible, if I’m able to do that, then you can orient and adjust to the plan if you please. It’s your life. You have to make your decisions. You only get one shot at it, not two, one shot. So I pray you get it right because, hey, remember what I said, God gave you two ends, one to sit with and one to think with, and success in your life is going to depend on which one that you use. Heads, you win. Tails, you lose. The Flotline has been on the air now for over 20 years, and sometimes I wonder if people really understand what I’m saying. Flotline. I get email messages or letters talking about the flight line or some other name they’ll call it instead of the flight line, F-L-O-T. And I want to tell you today a little bit of review about why we call it the flight line. But I remind you of this. The flight line is for believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you’ve never accepted Christ as your personal Savior, you’re on your own, buddy. Good luck, because you’ve got to figure out what the world is offering and throwing at you on your own, and you have to come up with your own devices and your own answers. And I got news for you, it won’t work. But if you can never make the decision to believe in Christ and trust him as your personal Savior, like we all have to do, then you will find that God has an amazing plan for your life. What a wonderful plan it is. And it starts by you developing this FLOT line in your soul. FLOT, F-L-O-T, stands for the Forward Line of Troops. So I want to spend time reviewing what this term means. I’d like to quote to you R.B. Thiem, Jr., my friend and my pastor at Baraka Church in Houston, Texas, who, by the way, is in heaven today. He pastored that church for over 50 years, and it’s his son, Bobby Thiem, my dear friend, who pastors it today. But it was Colonel Thiem, Pastor Thiem, who coined this term and taught it to his congregation. He said it’s a military acronym for the forward line of troops. And he used it metaphorically for the spiritual defense line formed in the soul of a believer from the word of God that he learned and applied in his life. as the Word of God is believed, understood, and applied, then those 10 problem-solving devices are deployed on the flood line of your soul, and they will effectively protect your soul against outside pressure and even false doctrines. So these 10 spiritual tools that we talk about on the flood line strengthen your soul, and equip the Christian with biblical answers to life’s circumstances for the purpose of accomplishing God’s plan and eventually absolutely glorifying him to the maximum. So the first and the most critical problem-solving device we need to understand and apply is what Pastor Thiem called, he came up with a term called rebound. And we’re not talking about basketball either. Rebound. He used this term to explain the recovery process for the Christian who committed sin. Now remember, don’t forget this, sin occurs in several areas of our lives. There are sins of the tongue, and that’s a term we use for sins such as lying, gossip, slander, maligning, criticizing, sins of the tongue, that’s one area where we can sin. Colossians 3, 9 reminds us, do not lie to one another. There is a sin since you put off the old man with his deeds. And Ephesians 4, 29 talks about the sin again of the son of the tongue where it says, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, only that which is good for the necessary edification that it may impart grace to those that hear it. So you can sin by what you say, right? But even more so, you can sin by what you think. And those sort of sins include worry, abnormal fear, anxiety, hatred. That’s just naming a few of them. In Philippians 4, verse 6, the Bible says, be anxious for nothing. That’s telling you don’t get full of anxiety. That’s a sin. but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. There’s a wonderful way to have relaxed mental attitude when you have a flat line in your soul. You don’t have to be anxious. You don’t have to be afraid. In 1 John 4, 18, the Bible says there is no fear, being afraid. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, and because fear involves torment, But he who is afraid has not been made perfect in love. In other words, once you come to understand the unfailing love of God, you learn never to be afraid because he’s in charge. He’s got the situation well in hand. There’s nothing for you to fear ever. And then there’s obviously not only sins of the tongue, not only mental attitude sins, but overt sins. Sins like stealing, murder, drunkenness, adultery, things like this. In Proverbs 6, 16 through 19, the Bible even lists seven things that God supposedly hates. It says these six things the Lord hates, wait a minute, seven are an abomination to him. And here’s a list of them, listen. A proud look, that’s a mental attitude sin. A lying tongue, that’s a sin of the tongue. Hands that shed innocent blood, that’s murder, that’s an overt sin. A heart that devises wicked plans, mental attitude sin. Feet that are swift and run into evil, that’s a sin of the tongue, stirring up trouble. and a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among the brethren. So since we can sin by what we say, we can sin by what we think, and we can sin by what we do, it’s understandable that we inevitably will more than likely sin. If you think you haven’t sinned lately, you’re not really living a reality in your life. Because the Christian is going to sin. We all possess a sin nature. That fact does not excuse it and doesn’t give us a justifiable reason to sin, but it’s a truth that we have to recognize because 1 John 1.8 says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Some people sin frequently. Some people sin seldomly. But regardless, when sin occurs, it quenches the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Thus, it breaks fellowship with God and thus it puts us back under control of our sinful nature or the flesh, with the result that we become carnal. Paul wrote about that in Romans 8, 6 through 8, where he said to be carnally minded is death. That’s not physical death, but spiritual death. But to be spiritually minded is life and peace, Romans 6, 7. Because the carnal mind is at enmity with God, It is not subject to the laws of God, nor indeed could it ever be. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. So the principle is this, that rebound is problem-solving device number one, and it solves the problem of sins committed. The mechanics to rebound are very simple. It’s found in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. It says, if we confess our sin, 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and purify us from all wrongdoing. David talked about it in Psalm 32 and said, as long as I kept my mouth shut, I was in sin. I suffered a lot, but when I finally went to God and admitted my sin, he forgave me. Anytime you are aware that you have sinned, that’s the time to use the first Flatline problem-solving device called Rebound. If you sin with your mouth, if you sin with your mind, if you sin with something you do, go to God and admit the sin. Don’t try to hide it. If, if is a third class condition. If we confess our sin, confess is a compound verb pronounced homo legeo in the Greek New Testament. It means homo the same, legeo to say. So if we say the same, God is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us. from all unrighteousness. You cannot live the Christian life effectively if you don’t learn how to rebound. You cannot be an effective witness for the Jesus Christ in the flesh. You have to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You have to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. As the Bible says, be filled with the Spirit, Ephesians 5, 18. We’re about to look at that next. So rebound is the first problem-solving device on the flat line of your soul. If you’ve listened to this radio show very long, you know that, you understand that. The second problem-solving device I want to remind you about is called the filling of the Holy Spirit, problem-solving device number two. And by the way, we have a bookmark with all of these on it, and we have a book called Christian Problem Solving that will help you understand it. If you’d like to order it, it is free, no charge ever for any of our material. But the filling of the Holy Spirit or the control of your sin nature or your flesh are mutually exclusive. In other words, they can’t both occur at the same time. At any one moment in time, you are either going to be filled with the Holy Spirit or you’re going to be out of fellowship and under control of your sin nature. They’re not mutually the same thing, they’re exclusive. Now why, you may ask, is the filling of the Holy Spirit so critical? You know, what’s sad is most people don’t even realize this. Most people don’t even understand it. They don’t even understand the difference between the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the sealing of the Holy Spirit, and the filling of the Holy Spirit. And just because you’re a Christian, you are sealed with the Holy Spirit. You are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, but you might not be filled with the Holy Spirit because sin quenches and grieves the Holy Spirit. And if the Holy Spirit is quashed and grieved, your fellowship with God is broken. So it’s critical that you understand what the Holy Spirit does. You cannot function as a Christian in the spiritual life unless you are filled and controlled by the Holy Spirit. Anything else is ritual without reality, and that’s totally meaningless. In Galatians 5, 17, the Bible outlines the battle that we’re talking about. The flesh fights against the spirit. The spirit fights against the flesh. And these are contrary one to another so that you do not do the things that you would like to do. In Ephesians 5.18, the mandate, the charge by the Apostle Paul, do not be drunk with wine in which there is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. You cannot live the Christian life effectively unless you’re filled with the Holy Spirit. And that will all show up at the judgment seat of Christ under what’s called wood, hay, and stubble, or gold, silver, and precious stones. So if you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you should know immediately, am I filled with the Spirit? How would you know? Well, is there any unconfessed sin in your life? If there’s any sin in your life you haven’t dealt with, you are not filled with the Holy Spirit. And I hear you say, well, I can’t remember every sin I do. Well, heck no, nobody can, especially those of you that commit about a million every day. But it says, if we’ll confess the known sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us from all unrighteousness. So remember that. What exactly does the Holy Spirit do for you? Why is that so critical that we are filled with the Holy Spirit? What’s the point about that? Well, John 14, 26, Jesus said, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit who my Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. So the principle is this, it’s the Holy Spirit’s ministry to reveal the will of God to you. Likewise, the Holy Spirit will make your prayers effective when you pray. In Romans 8, 26, likewise, the Spirit also helps us in our weaknesses, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now he who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he makes intercession for the saints, according to the will of God. So your prayer life will not ever be effective if you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit. Just because you pray doesn’t mean you’re a great Christian. It’s possible you can do the right thing in the wrong way. Prayer is the right thing, but you can do it in the wrong way. What’s the wrong way? Well, the Bible says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. If you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit, you’re quenching the Holy Spirit, and your prayers are not going to be answered. So keep this in mind. Here is the personality profile of a Christian who is filled with the Holy Spirit, problem-solving device number two. Here’s your personality profile, Galatians 5, 22 and 23. But the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and long-suffering and kindness and goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. I repeat to you, this is why problem-solving device number two is so critical. You cannot function as a believer in the spiritual life unless you’re filled with the Holy Spirit. I’m asking you this morning, are you filled with the Holy Spirit? It’s not an emotional thing. It’s not something you’re going to feel. It’s not going to make you foam at the mouth and beat a tambourine saying, do, Lord. It means have you any unconfessed sin in your life? Because if you have unconfessed sin in your life, you have quenched the spirit and grieved the spirit, and you are not effectively living the Christian life. Problem solving device number three on the flat line of your soul as we review this concept is called faith rest drill. Faith rest drill. Learning and using the faith rest drill will give you the ability to overcome fear in your life and the ability to live and face anxiety and not let it control you. But I remind you of a principle. The faith rest drill will not work if you are not filled with the Holy Spirit. The faith rest drill will not work if you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit. You got it? You heard me? So the faith rest drill is a three-step technique for recovering mental stability in a time of crisis. Mental stability in a time of crisis. By learning this procedure, and using the faith rest drill, then it gives you the ability to apply scripture to troubling situations in your life. It’s a wonderful thing. It’ll calm you right down. Remember in Matthew 8 where the disciples were on the boat with Jesus and they thought they were gonna die? He called them short-time trusters. They didn’t use the faith rest drill. You may not be using it in your life right now. You may be panicking. You may be full of anxiety. You may be full of fear. Last night where I lived, we had a lot of tornadoes come through our area, terrible weather. And I went to bed and slept through it all. I know if the Lord wanted to take me, he’d take me. Now, it didn’t mean I’m reckless, but it means I wasn’t afraid. So using the faithless drill gives you the ability to replace fear with faith. But to do that, first you have to rebound the sin of fear. If you have fear, you have to rebound fear, have to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and then you can use a faith rest drill. In Psalm 56, verse 3, whenever I’m afraid, I will trust in you. That’s a great verse that you can use. And if you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, you can claim it and use it and believe it and stand on it. That means that you can think the word of God instead of letting your emotions take over and put you into a fear, panic situation. The relaxed mental attitude of the Christian life is produced by claiming these promises of God in the Bible. and then mixing those promises with your faith or your trust. As far as I know, there are several thousand promises in the Scripture. And by the way, we have a book called Promises of God and Principles. It’s a great little book. It doesn’t have all of them, but it has a lot of promises and a lot of principles and not any narratives, not trying to teach you anything. It’s just letting you read the promises. If you want that, get in touch with us. We’ll send it to you. Those promises are like money in the bank for you. And you can cash them in and spend them, but you gotta know where to find them first of all. Listen to Isaiah 41 10. This is in the bank for you if you wanna use it. Fear not, I’m with you. Don’t be afraid. I’m your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous hand. That’s a great faith rest drill promise for you to claim when you are afraid, when you’re in some situations where you fear. So the faith thrust drill is enforced by you doing something. First of all, you get into a situation where something happens and you have to claim a promise, just one promise. It’s all you need. And then you have to go get a biblical rationale. That’s an underlying reason why you can trust God. For example, let me give you a biblical rationale. It’s called the essence of God. Is God sovereign? Yes. Is he omnipotent? Yes. Is he omniscient? Yes. Is he omnipresent? Yes. So if omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God knows what’s going on in your life, could he stop it? Yes. Can he watch over you? Yes. So when you claim these promises, you come to this conclusion. He’s aware of what I’m going through. His omnipotence, his power guarantees he can rescue me from any situation. It doesn’t make any difference. Remember I told you about Matthew 8, about the disciples on the boat, and how the Lord Jesus Christ stood up and calmed the sea, and they thought they were going to die. They didn’t use a faithless drill. They had to rely on the Lord Jesus Christ to get them out of that situation, but he rebuked them and called them short-time trustors. Listen, read Matthew 8, 23 and following and learn how the Lord Jesus Christ calmed the stormy sea of Galilee even though the disciples were full of fear. If you claim the promises of God and you rest in those promises, this will allow you to restore your confidence in God’s plan and God’s provision. That’s why it’s essential for you to understand this. That’s why it’s essential for you to understand what it is. So what is problem-solving device number one? Rebound, how to confess your sin. What problem does that solve? It solves the problem of my sin, my failure. What’s problem-solving device number two? The filling of the Holy Spirit. What problem does that solve? It solves the problem of my flesh wanting to control my life, my sin nature trying to take over. And problem solving device number three, the faith rest drill. What problem does that solve? The problem of fear, the problem of anxiety, the problem of panic. These are all there for you. So you have to understand that. You must be filled with the Holy Spirit in order for fellowship with God to be maintained. And the filling of the Holy Spirit is not the same as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I told you that. Those three problem-solving devices I gave you this morning are essential. You cannot live your Christian life without using these divine provisions. And you should know when you’re using them. You should know when you’re rebounding. You should know when you’re filled with the Holy Spirit. You should know when you’re claiming the faithless drill. All right? The filling of the Holy Spirit depends on you not allowing your sin nature to take over. That’s why it’s the first problem-solving device. You can’t live the Christian life with your sin nature running the show. Listen to Ephesians 1, 13 through 14. In him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed, that’s getting saved, then you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, that’s the indwelling, who is now the guarantee of your inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, that’s you. So the sealing of the Holy Spirit and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the promise of God that he will claim you and take you to heaven. That’s not the filling of the Holy Spirit. That’s your position, not your experience. In your experience, you can quench the Spirit, grieve the Spirit, and function outside of the norms of the Christian life. So being filled with the Holy Spirit is where you get the operational power to function in your spiritual life. Listen to Acts 13, 9. Then Saul, who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him. It’s a recognition that he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Acts 4, 8. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the people and the elders of Israel. So the filling of the Holy Spirit was around then, and it’s around today. The faith rest drill is what keeps us from panicking when adversity hits our life. In Romans 5, 3, and not only that, but also we glory in our tribulations, knowing this, that tribulations produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces patience, or hope, or confidence. So the thing that you don’t want is the very thing that helps you grow up. I’m going to read that to you again, Romans 5, 3. We glory in our tribulations. We’re not afraid of it. Because why? It produces patience, perseverance. It produces character, integrity, and it produces confidence or hope or elphys. We’re talking about God. We use the word hope. We’re not talking about like, I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow. That’s not the kind of hope this is. This hope is absolute confidence. in the plan of God for your life. When you have that absolute confidence, it’s called elpis in the Greek New Testament. And that’s a wonderful way to live because then you have the hope and God is worked out in your life by trusting him or your faith in him and your faith in what he asks you to do. So did you get that this morning now? What’s the name of the radio show? The Flot Show. F-L-O-T. And why do we call it that? Because it’s a main line of resistance in your soul that will stop the outside sources of adversity from becoming the inside source of stress. There are 10 problem-solving devices. I went over three of them with you this morning. That’s all I’ve been through. Problem-solving device number one, rebound. Problem-solving device number two, the filling of the Holy Spirit. Problem-solving device number three, the faith rest drill. In our next radio show, we will go over number four, grace orientation, and number five, doctrinal orientation. It’s essential that you know these. And again, we have a bookmark. You can order it and put it in your Bible and look at it any time you want to look at it. Just a bookmark. Or you can order the book on Christian problem-solving. and it will outline all of them for you again so that you can study them and look at them. Because I want you to be able to write them down and remember them in your soul. So if you bumped into me in the street and I said, tell me those 10 problem-solving devices, I’d like for you to be able to name every one of them. I’d like for you to know when you’re using grace orientation. I’d like for you to know when you’re standing on the faith rest drill. I’d like for you to know if you’re filled with the Holy Spirit or under control of your flesh. And I’d like for you to know how to recover from your failure, your sin, by rebounding. and moving on. So I hope you’re learning something. I love giving you these radio shows. It’s always a chore for me to decide what to teach on, and we normally teach a different subject every Sunday, but I decided to go back and review this for those of you that might not remember exactly what the FLOT line stands for. Forward Line of Troops. Invisible in your soul, creating a main line of resistance to stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside source of stress. It’s a wonderful thing God provided for you. It’s wonderful the way my pastor put it together and taught it to me, and I’m sure he doesn’t mind me sharing his notes with you. So please come back next week, same time, same station. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
