Rick Hughes presents a compelling call for America to reexamine its spiritual state and the urgency of returning to divine principles. This week’s episode emphasizes the importance of understanding and living by God’s word, rather than simply practicing organized religion’s rituals. Hughes makes a passionate argument for national revival, pointing out that true transformation begins at the personal level through genuine faith in Christ. With references to scripture, Hughes seeks to ignite a hunger for knowledge and a deeper relationship with God among his audience.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and I would like to invite you to stick around for a few minutes, just a few moments of motivation, some inspiration, some education, but no manipulation. No appealing for money, not trying to sell you anything. We just want to give you some accurate information. That information will help you verify and identify God’s plan for your life. If you can do that, then, as we always say, you have the freedom and the privacy to orient and adjust to the plan, if you want to do so. It’s your life. It’s your decision. You have to make the choices. My job is to give you the accurate information, and we do it in many different ways. Through the radio show, if perhaps you’re listening terrestrially over the air right now in some cities, And sometimes streaming audio on various internet platforms. But I thank you for giving me just a few moments of your time. And I promise I’m not going to bore you. We basically have 82 radio shows playing across America this morning. And we also have various podcasts on Spotify and Apple, things like that, Anchor. all these different podcast venues. And if you search for The Flotline on those Anchor, Spotify, Apple iPod, then you’ll find us and you’ll be able to listen to numerous shows at your convenience. We have many books that we’ve written that we provide free of charge, like Life’s Toughest Years for Teenagers or A Divine Pardon for Those That May Be Incarcerated. Another two, Understanding Your Soul or Practicing Your Christianity and Christian Problem-Solving Devices. And we have a great book on promises and Bible principles, and all of these are free. Just write in and ask for them, and we’ll send them to you right away. This show comes to you every Sunday morning from my offices here in Cropwell, Alabama. You say, where in the world is that? Well, it’s not too far from Birmingham, and actually between Birmingham and Atlanta, near the shores of beautiful Logan Martin Lake, where I love to bass fish if I get a chance. No fishing today, but I want to go into the subject that’s a bit depressing. I struggled for a title. I didn’t know really what to tell you. I think the best title I could come up with is Goodbye, America, Goodbye. Maybe in the past you’ve heard me say there’s a train wreck coming and I can hear the whistle blowing. Well, this has always been in reference to the direction this great country is going and ultimately the results that will come from that direction. when a nation such as ours loses its integrity and you say what does that mean it means we lose our standard of what’s right and what’s wrong if we lose that integrity or the standard of right and wrong we replace it with sin and evil and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the end is very near my own pastor has been teaching a series in proverbs 11 which deals with this very thing One of the verses he brought to my attention is Proverbs 11, 3, which says, Can I repeat that? The integrity of the upright will guide them. but the crookedness of the treacherous will destroy them. Proverbs 11, 3. So the question we have to ask today is this, and I have to ask it. I don’t want to ask it, but answer the question yourself. Help me. Have we become a crooked generation led by crooked leaders? Have we become a crooked generation led by crooked leaders? And you may have to answer that question yourself because crookedness refers to a lack of integrity or a lack of standards. And when the population of this nation loses its standards of decency, its standards of morality, when we lose that, then the authority of that nation becomes relative with no absolute standards, and obviously subjectivity allows the rulers to justify any act they want to retain power. And when people like you and I and the politicians become crooked with no absolute standards to live by, then the future at best is very bleak, very bleak indeed. And I think it’s obvious there’s a lot of crookedness going on in this country today. The indication that a nation is about to go down in flames of disaster is found in the Old Testament. 2 Chronicles 36, 16, where God said these words. They continually mocked the messengers of God. They despised his word and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord came against his people, and there was no remedy, no remedy. We are a client nation to God, and we have been protected by God, prospered by God, for many years, and God expects several things from us. The number one thing he expects from us is for us to follow the laws of divine establishment. That refers to freedom, marriage, family, and nationalism. God intends for each person to be free. God ordained marriage for all members of the human race. God set the family up for the orderly transition of young people and nationalism, individual nationalism, not internationalism. Those four divine establishment principles are critical for the free function of any nation and for us to live by the rule of law and to live by integrity, especially from our politicians and from our population. So when integrity goes and people become crooked, then you can see there will be no remedy. It’s called divine discipline on a nation, and we haven’t really gone into too much of that, but there are at least five cycles of discipline determined the course of history for any client nation, such as the United States of America. This is taught in the word of God. And we have forsaken his word, we have turned on him, and we may be about to be disciplined by God’s justice and vengeance because of this. The very God that blessed us, the very God that promoted us, the very God that sustained us through World War I, World War II, and other horrible wars that we faced in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq. And now we’ve turned our back, and we don’t want anything to do with God. It appears to me, at least like that’s the case, so again, 2 Chronicles 36, 16. They continually mock the messengers of God. Well, that goes on today to minimize the impact of the preacher, mock the messenger of God. And make fun of the preachers, trying to do anything you can to denounce the preacher of the word of God. Show their weaknesses, show their sins, show their failures, and we all certainly have it, I admit that. But continually mocking the messages of God and despising his word. Despising his word. Hating the word of God. This is when people think they’re smarter than God. And scoffing at the prophets, they continually mocked the messengers of God. They despised his words, scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord rose up against his people and there was no remedy. This is what’s happening. That happened to Israel. Eventually the wrath of the Lord did rise up against the people and there was no remedy. And it is possible that we’re at that point or getting very close to that point. So Now, the verse that I just quoted out of 2 Chronicles 36, 16, please remember, it wasn’t written to us, but the application could be made to us because we’re much like Israel. Israel, who was under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, who had conquered that nation, had set up King Zedekiah to look over things in his absence. But Zedekiah violated the mandates of the ruling king and he forgot his own God under his leadership. Zedekiah stiffened his neck and was arrogant and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord God of Israel, even though God showed extreme mercy to him. And he shows extreme mercy to us as well. Listen to 2 Chronicles 36, 15, the verse before the one I quoted. The Lord sent word to them again and again by his messengers because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. Again and again and again. The word of God has gone forth and we can’t live like this. We can’t live a crooked life in a crooked nation. We can’t live without integrity. We can’t live in this atheistic, socialistic, humanistic society and expect God to bless us. We just can’t. God’s been more than patient with us, America, his own client nation to the lost world. That’s us. He’s blessed us with military victories. over foreign enemies. He’s blessed us with financial wealth and stability. He’s blessed us with peace and internal security, but something has changed. Something has changed radically in the last 50 years. And now we fight in these endless wars that we cannot or will not win. Our nation’s morality has been compromised, and we no longer recognize sin and evil. Instead, we actually sanction immorality. and we have internal hatred and mistrust for our neighbors, racially. Our cities are filled with murder and crime, and our politicians compromise and lie to maintain their power. The rule of law in this nation doesn’t appear to be there anymore. It appears to be gone for the big shots, obviously, but for the little man like you, oh, you’ll get it if you break the law, but they’re not going to get it because they’re above the law. So it does not apply equally to all people, does it? Or it doesn’t appear to me to apply it equally to all people. These are some of the obvious trends of our country, and it’s not going to get any better unless there’s a national revival and a turning back to God. There’s an eminence of judgment, and it’s bad, and it’s coming quickly. The eminence of divine judgment is coming quickly, and it’s not going to be nice when it hits us. Listen to Proverbs 11.3. The crookedness of the treacherous will destroy them. Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke some interesting words to the disciples in Matthew 13.16. Here’s what he said to them. Blessed are your eyes because they see it and your ears because they understand. He said this to his disciples that had questions about why he used so many parables. And Jesus quoted Isaiah who said this about his own crooked generation. He quoted Isaiah, listen, the heart of this people has become dull, that scar tissue. Their ears, they scarcely hear and they’ve closed their eyes. Otherwise they would see with their eyes, they would hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and return and then I would heal them. Now this is why the Lord Jesus Christ went to parables. The Pharisees and the Sadducees did not want to hear it anyhow. They were looking for any way they could to impugn the Lord Jesus Christ and get rid of him. So in spite of what it told him, they were not listening in spite of what he told them. but the disciples heard it because they can see and they can understand they didn’t have all that religious scar tissue that two-faced religious scar tissue and their hearts weren’t hardened over the heart of the people it says in this verse will be dull the heart of the people has become dull jesus said in matthew 13 that’s what happens When you put a square peg in a round hole, you scar the hole up. Paul talked about this in Ephesians 4, where he said, don’t live like those Gentiles live in the vacuum of their soul. That’s the emptiness of their mind, the hollow thinking that they have. It depends on, you’ve heard me say this to you before, what do you think? That’s where you live your life. The Bible says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is. So that’s what’s in your mind. What are you thinking? Do you think human viewpoint? Or do you think divine viewpoint? Divine viewpoint will not compromise sin and evil. Human viewpoint will for power, for success. Because the cosmic system, the devil’s world, is going to try to recruit you, to recruit you to their way of thinking, unless you understand what the Bible says, unless you trust what God wrote in his word, you will become a victim to cosmic thinking, and you’ll be drawn into that way of thinking. And I just call it, you know, like drinking the Kool-Aid. That’s what’s going to happen. So obviously I’m afraid we have a nation that’s deaf that has drunk the Kool-Aid already. We have a nation that’s blind to its own sin, its own failure, and we’re deaf to the warnings of Scripture, blinded by our unrealistic self-image of arrogance. I’ve been doing this radio show a long time. uh… maybe sixteen years now the one you’re listening to this morning is my eight hundred and six radio sunday show and you’d be surprised how few people actually hear from how few people really respond to what we have to say occasionally i get a letter from someone that’s listening and occasionally i get a call from someone that responds but by large i don’t hear much out of people We continue to give this information. We continue to look for what I call positive volition. We’re looking for that people that are hungry to grow, hungry to learn, because we have a nation full of scar tissue. And the justice of God will be vindicated, I assure you. No one listened to Noah either, remember? But the justice of God was vindicated when that flood came. And I am warning you, if a young man can pull a gun out and shoot a police officer and not even think twice about it, but go run over to his buddies and laugh about it, that young man has a seriously scarred soul. If we can have immorality and degeneracy and make it seem like it’s okay, we have a nation with a seriously scarred soul. We are scarred as a nation. That means our hearts are hard. That’s what Paul talked about in Ephesians 4, 18, where he said, whose heart has become hard. That’s the Gentiles. They’re not able to see themselves as they really are. And that’s what arrogance does to you. You have an unrealistic self-image. That’s what Jesus said. You can’t see and you can’t hear because your soul is scarred up. And I’m afraid we are at that point. We are deaf, we are blind to our own sin and our own failure. And as I said earlier, deaf to the warnings of Scripture, blinded by the unrealistic self-image of arrogance. The very thing which dulled the eyes of the Pharisees is exactly the same thing that blinds people today. It was and still is, get ready, organized religion. Organized religion. Listen to Jeremiah 23, 25. I’ve heard what the prophets have said who prophesy falsely in my name. And they say, I’ve had a dream, I’ve had a dream. How long? Is there anything in the heart of the prophets who prophesy falsely or lies? These prophets of deceit from their own heart, because they intend to make my people forget my name by their dreams, which they report to one another, just as their fathers forgot my name because of Baal. The prophet who has a dream can report his dream, but let him that has my word speak it in truth. Because what does straw have in common with grain, declares the Lord. Is not my word like a fire, declares the Lord, like a fire and like a hammer that shatters a rock? The word of God is alive and powerful, the Bible says, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and the spirit and the joints and the marrows, a critic of thought and intents of the heart. Do you understand why people hate the Ten Commandments? Do you understand why they hate it so much they don’t want it on public property? Do you understand why people don’t want the Bible taught in schools and don’t want kids to have an opportunity to hear the story of God’s creation? Because they hate it. They consider themselves to be wiser than God. And we’ve shut off the minds of our young people. Politicians have pulled into their own little sanctuaries. They don’t believe the word of God anymore. They think they’re getting away with something. And when someone comes into office who tries to teach the word of God, to promote the word of God, to proclaim the name of Jesus Christ, well, that person is marginalized and demonized as a weirdo or a crook. That’s exactly what’s going on in this nation in the last few years. You and I need men, men in the puppets of America, not dreamers. We don’t need people who peddle their merchandise to religious folks who think they’re worshiping God by obeying a human ritual and religious observances. You and I need men that are called by God to teach, teach, teach his word and proclaim it. proclaim His forgiveness through Jesus Christ, His anointed Son. Men who know the original languages, men who understand the divine institutions and the rule of law, and understand what it means to have integrity and wisdom and insight, understanding. If we ever turn back from our social agenda to a spiritual agenda, if we ever do that and get back to repentance, then He promised in Jeremiah 3.15, Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart who will feed you on knowledge and understanding. That’s the problem. We are focusing on a social agenda in America today. It’s not a social agenda we need, it’s a spiritual agenda. We need a spiritual revival. The only thing that can change the heart of a man is the word of God, alive and powerful. When Jesus Christ comes into a person’s life there is a change. You can’t change somebody by dictating social laws and rules and making people follow eventual edicts, you change people by leading them to the Lord Jesus Christ. America has the wrong agenda. We need a spiritual revival, not a social change. Listen again, Jeremiah 3.15, then I will give you shepherds after my own heart who will feed you on knowledge and understanding. If we ever turn back. If. That’s a third-class condition. Maybe we will. Maybe we won’t. I don’t know. I mean, we’ve gone so far in our social agenda that we’ve let the crooks get into power to the place where we may never turn back. So if you don’t understand the God we know, then how could you ever worship or serve him? That’s a great question. If you don’t understand the God you know, how can you worship and serve him? Listen again to Jeremiah 9, 24. Let him who boasts about this, boast that he knows me, that he understands me, that I am the Lord who exercises unfailing love and justice and righteousness on the earth. These are the things I delight in, says the Lord. You see anything about social agenda? True worship is adoration and appreciation and genuine love and reverence for God. I don’t mean to put this down, but you’ve got to understand, singing some songs on Sunday morning, being led by a worship leader is not you getting any closer to God. I don’t care how many times you repeat the phrase he is worthy he is worthy he is worthy if you really want to worship and serve God listen to what I’m telling you first you must understand that salvation is indeed a free gift from God free it can’t be earned it can’t be purchased it’s free and you must understand that Jesus Christ paid for my sin and your sin on that cross God judged him in our place. He identified with our sin. He took our sin in his own body on the cross. He was judged in our place. John 3, 18 makes it very clear that sin doesn’t send anybody to hell, but it’s our unbelief that sends us to hell. Listen to John 3, 18. The ones who believe in him are not judged, but the ones who do not believe have been judged already because he has not believed in the name of the Son of God. That verse makes it clear. That’s the clear issue in salvation. What do you think of Christ? Not what have you done or not done. All of your sins were judged on the cross. All of your sins were paid for on the cross. Paid for by Jesus Christ in a done deal. The deal is now, will you believe in him? Will you think of him? Do you accept him? Titus 3.5, he saved us. Not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy. He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of his Holy Spirit. Do you know what that means? It means that when you believe in Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you. He is your permanent mentor, your permanent coach, your permanent tutor. And Ephesians 1.12 says he will seal you until the day of redemption. He does this. He makes your dead human spirit alive so you can have fellowship with God because you’re now born physically and spiritually through the rebirth. You were born spiritually dead, but when you believe in Christ, you’re made spiritually alive. That’s why you have two birthdays. Birthday one, coming into the world. Birthday two, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ or being born again. So you have to remember this. This is not what organized religion will tell you. If you don’t believe me, then go ask a pastor. Go ask a priest or ask some clergy. Ask him this simple question. What must I do to be saved? And if it’s not faith alone and Christ alone, then it’s a lie. Listen to what Paul told the Roman jailer who was scared to death by an earthquake that shook the prison while Paul and Silas were in it. Now about midnight, Acts 16, 25, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God and prisoners were listening and suddenly there was a great earthquake so the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer awoke up and saw the prison door open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, thinking his prisoners had escaped. See, if he lost his prisoners, he lost his life. But Paul called out, don’t harm yourself, we’re still here. the jailer asked for the lights and he rushed in trembling with fear and fell down in front of paul and silas and brought him out and said sir what must i do to be saved there’s the question what must i do to be saved and they said believe in the lord jesus christ and you will be saved and your entire household they didn’t tell him to quit sinning they didn’t tell him to straighten up and fly right they said believe in the lord jesus christ if you don’t understand this you will never worship god because christ said i am the way i am the truth i am the life and no man comes to the father but by me christ said this is the will of the one that sent me that you believe in me whom he sent that’s where it starts your personal relationship with jesus christ if you don’t have that you can never worship god by going through some ritual that has no reality to it And the second issue for you to consider is the very reason why we study the ten problem-solving devices, which I call the flat line. The bottom line is the flat line, or these ten problem-solving devices, are the basic modus operandi of the Christian life. I don’t believe you can live the mature Christian life until you understand these and use these in whatever form you want to call them, but they must be understood and they must be applied if you wish to glorify God during your time in this sin-infested world. You have to understand rebound. You have to understand you cannot serve God with unconfessed sin in your life because rebound is how you deal with sin. You have to understand the faith rest drill because without faith, it’s impossible to please God. you have to understand biblical orientation you have to understand the need to have the mind of christ you have to understand personal love for god and impersonal love for your neighbor and you must indeed understand impersonal love for all mankind you have to understand these things and the bottom line is all of this is important this is the only way you can do it that’s why i teach them that’s why i write about them and hopefully someone like you will catch on and say whoa wait a minute i never heard this before You know, hungry people seek food. When I get hungry, I want something to eat. Believers seek to be fed, and many are not being fed. Are you hungry and hungry for truth? Does your soul crave to understand God’s word and have the wisdom of God and the insight and the understanding that comes with it? If the answer is yes, then you’re the reason that I produce this radio show. I want you to take advantage of all of our assets, all of the free books, DVDs, MP3s, or more importantly, the connection I can give you to some very accurate pastors who teach God’s word faithfully week after week, day after day. Because remember, I’m not your pastor. I’m an evangelist. I’m simply a voice crying out, trying to reach out to you. And the information that I learned from my pastor years ago is the bridge from me to you because he taught me this information that I’m teaching you. What a wonderful life, a life of learning, a life of living, a life of sharing God’s word. What a wonderful life it’s been. I hope you’re listening today. I hope you’re paying attention today because this message was especially for you. There’s a time coming when God needs men and women like yourself to live the life that will bring about blessing on this nation, not cursing. As goes your spiritual life, so goes the history of America. I’m counting on you to respond. I’m counting on you to get this. I’m counting on you to understand this. I’m counting on you to have a hunger for God’s word and to seek after it with all of your heart. Until next week now, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline this morning.
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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.
