Join Rick Hughes as he uncovers the root of spiritual hard-heartedness in the latest episode of The Flatline. Rick intricately explores the spiritual anatomy, focusing on the mentality of the soul and how a hardened heart can lead to devastating consequences such as self-absorption and self-deception. Through insightful biblical references, listeners are guided through the damaging effects of neglecting spiritual truths and the importance of doctrinal integrity. Rick contrasts the teachings that promote comfort with those that challenge spiritual growth, urging listeners to forsake spiritual complacency. With real-life analogies and historical perspectives, Rick calls on every listener to turn
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. I’m here to do one thing, educate you. Your job is very simply to evaluate what I say. I educate, you evaluate. It’s just that simple. The Flatline is 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education, and always done without any sort of manipulation, which means we don’t con people. We’re not trying to raise money. We’re not… If you go to our website, you won’t find something that says give. We just trust the Lord to supply our needs. Just like any other faith-based ministry, we trust God to do that. And he always has. We broadcast on 112 stations. Thanks to the fidelity of our God and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Without mentioning money, without soliciting money, without selling anything, he has always paid for it. We always offer our material free of charge, all of our books. And by the way, we want to make sure you understand that we have a lot of transcripts in our warehouse, transcripts from the 2019 shows and transcripts from the 2020 shows. And these are all free. And it’s every word of every show that we did, those 12 shows that year, Actually, 52 shows would be one a week, 52 weeks. So if you’d like to read it, you can read the transcripts from 2019 and 2020 if you contact us through the website. And we do have our new book out, Bible Promises and Principles, brand new. Just redid it. It’s out. We have a new book out called Practicing Your Christianity. It’s out. And we have redone our Crash Course book. So all of this is available to you. Certainly free of charge. And we’d love to hear from you. It’s time to renew our contracts with various radio stations. We don’t know who’s listening, who’s not listening. I did have a wonderful lady call me this morning from Cumberland, Maine. And so we are broadcasting from Maine to California. Thank you wherever you are. Thank you for listening. Drop us a note and tell us you’re listening so we can get a handle on where we need to keep broadcasting. This morning I have a lot to say and very little time to say it. And so if you’ll stick with me, I believe you’ll learn some things today because we’re at a time in our country, and it gets across the world, where there’s a lot of hard-hearted people, people whose hearts are very, very hard. As a matter of fact, in this country, it seems to be we’re witnessing a whole generation of young people who have a hard heart, growing up with hard hearts. And I’ve mentioned that before. I’ve even done radio shows in the past and before. But I want to explore this a little bit more today. I want to go a little deeper. What do I mean by that statement, having a hard heart? Remember this, that your soul has mentality, volition, conscience, and self-consciousness. That’s in your soul. Your soul never dies. Your soul goes to heaven. When you die, body dies, and you get a new resurrection body. So your heart is in your soul. The mentality of your soul is known in the Bible as two things, the cardia and the noose. The cardia is the heart and the noose is the mind. Both the heart and the mind are part of your soul’s mentality. And here’s a principle I want you to remember. What comes into your mind will affect what goes out of your heart. Not the physical heart, I’m not talking about that, but the mentality of your soul, your heart. The question I want to ask you is, how does a person wind up getting a hard heart? And the answer is, a hard-hearted individual is minus guilt or shame. Because of several things I’m about to show you, they don’t have any guilt, they don’t have any shame. The Apostle Paul says, noted that in his book to the Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 4, verses 17 through 20, he talked about the Gentiles who had a hard heart. He said they scarred their heart from the vanity of their mind. The word mind is metaiotes in the Greek, metaiotes in the Greek. What does that mean? It means a vacuum, a vacuum in their mind. And this is a reference to the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ and when you do a total buy-in to satan’s propaganda and he says the end result is since they have the vacuum in their mind is this verse 19 of ephesians 4 they are past feelings and have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greed past feelings implies there are no boundaries are no limits on that individual’s actions. So a hard-hearted individual operates on arrogant skills. They are self-justification, self-deception, self-absorption. Self-justification, self-deception, self-absorption. So a person without any sort of frame of reference to truth, a person that has no boundaries in their life to truth. In other words, if you raise a person and never expose them to the truth of God’s word, so they have no boundary to tell them what’s right and what’s wrong, that person is a potential killer. A hard-hearted person has no appreciation for what God has done. I want to read to you a passage in Mark where the Lord Jesus Christ makes a statement and called the disciples hard-hearted. He had just finished feeding the multitude with seven loaves of bread and some fish, and the disciples had now gotten in the boat and going across the sea, and they forgot to bring bread with them. They only had one loaf left. And the question that Jesus was about, he asked them about the leaven of the Pharisees. Don’t eat the leaven of the Pharisees. So they were discussing with one another. Listen to this, Mark 8, 16. They discussed this with one another. Why did he say, don’t eat the leaven of the Pharisees? And they said, well, it’s because we didn’t bring any bread with us. Aware of their discussion. Remember, he had just fed all these people and they didn’t bring their own bread with them. And he said, do you still not understand? Are your heart so hard having eyes you don’t see, having ears you don’t hear, and you don’t remember? It’s very easy to let the rate of forgetting exceed the rate of learning. And even though they had just witnessed the miracle that the Lord Jesus Christ had done, now they were worried about not having anything to eat. One of the ways that you capture the minds of youth in this country is failing to teach the history of God’s deliverance in this country in time of war. Instead of teaching what happened, we focus now in history on the bad parts of history in America to build distrust on the establishment, focus on the bad things that America did in the early days. The latest example of this is the recent 4th of July celebrations that were maligned and assaulted by such events as the elf word, elf to America, and that went across on the 4th of July. The people hate this country. It’s full of ingratitude, and there’s a lot of young people. Ingratitude, and it’s deadly. but it’s fed through the actions of those who want to do away with a free republic and move into socialism and communism for their own benefit. So when we’re talking about the heart, when Paul talked about the heart, the heart is the command center of your soul. So if you put garbage in your mind, it equals garbage coming out of your heart. Satan himself is feeding the youth of America garbage on a platter that It’s called social media and it’s easily accessed by even the youngest child who can get access to dad or mom’s cell phone. In Matthew 13, 15, the Bible says the heart, that’s the thinking skills that you have in your soul, the heart of these people has grown dull. It means no concentration, no appreciation for anything of God. Their ears are hard of hearing and their eyes have been closed. Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them. It’s negative volition to the max. That’s what’s happening in this country today. Negative volition to the max. As I speak in so many places and especially across the radio show all the way across America, sometimes I hear from no one and we may give a great message. I think we may give a great information, And sometimes it may just fall on deaf ears. I don’t know. But the words our Lord spoke to his disciples that day were questioned why he was using parables. Lord, why are you using these parables to teach people instead of just saying outright what you want to say? Just tell them what you want to say. You don’t have to use a parable. And this is what Jesus said. I’m speaking to them in parables because even though they see, they don’t see. And even though they hear, they don’t hear, and they do not understand. Simply put, even though he did miracles, even though he told them who he was, they didn’t believe it. They see it, but they still didn’t believe it, and they didn’t understand what they were rejecting. So negative volition, negative volition. Volition is part of your soul. It’s the chooser. Negative volition is not interested in any truth, just entertainment. As I speak in schools for the last 50 years across America, I have found that if you go into a school to entertain the kids, they pay attention. But if you go into the school and try to teach something, it’s a battle to keep their attention. So people that are negative are not interested in truth, just being entertained. And again, in Matthew 13, 15, listen to it again. This is negative volition. The heart of these people has grown dull. That’s going on in this country today. People are dull to hearing the word of God. Their ears are hard of hearing. They don’t want to hear it. Their eyes have been closed. They don’t want to see it. Lest they should see it and hear it and understand it, and then they would turn. We are past the point of turn, I’m afraid. I’m afraid this country is going down the my way highway at a breakneck rate of speed. And if things continue to go like they’re going with this young generation, You will not recognize the United States of America in a few years. There are already people who want to change the course of this country. You know as well as I know what used to be good is now called evil, and what used to be evil is now called good. My pastor taught me that a long time ago. So everything’s shifting in this country, and it’s shifting in the minds of young people who’s having their thoughts hijacked by a.k.a. the devil himself, the god of this world. So the heart of the listeners that he was speaking to that day were like stones and thorns. And he gave an illustration about that, where the seed falls on the hard ground of the good ground. The reason for that is the impact of organized religion in the minds of the naive. The naive think everything’s fine. The naive believe that God likes them because they don’t smoke, they don’t drink, they don’t cuss. We help people. We’re good people. And they think they’re going to go to heaven because they’re good people. They rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. They live by the rule of the law. They tried to say we follow the law of Moses and we’re good and we’re Jews and we’re God’s chosen people and we’re going to go to heaven. We don’t need Jesus Christ, and that’s a lie. Someone told me recently we all worship the same God. That may be true. but we don’t all get to in the same way. The only way to get to God is through Jesus Christ. The only way you will ever, ever get to God is through Jesus Christ. Why do I say that? Because he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by means of me. So very true. Today in our client nation, This is true. We have a lot of hard-hearted people, negative volition, not interested in truth. And that doesn’t mean they’re not interested in organized religion where they get entertainment, but it means they’re not interested in truth, not learning, not taking God’s word and learning as I implore you to do all the time. Get a Bible, get a notebook, sit down under a well-qualified pastor and study the Bible and build a flotline in your soul. Build the forward line of troops in your soul, the main line of resistance in your soul, which is made up of those 10 problem-solving devices we call the flotline. don’t know what they are contact me i’ll send you a bookmark it’s got them all there rebound filling of the holy spirit faith rest drill grace orientation biblical orientation personal sense of destiny personal love for god impersonal love for others sharing the happiness of god and occupation with Christ. I have a book explaining each one of those steps. If you’d like to get that book, write to us. Christian Problem Solving is the name of the book. We’ll send it to you. So here we have, again, 2 Timothy 4, 3 and 4. I think you could apply this to what’s going on in this country today. The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. Remember that word, sound doctrine. But according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, remember that word, itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their hearts away from the truth and be turned aside to fables, turned aside to fables. What does sound doctrine mean? What’s Paul saying? They will not endure sound doctrine. The word sound is hygieno. Hygieno is the Greek word, hygieno. And it means healthy doctrine, healthy teaching. Stuff that keeps you alive. Did you know when you learn the word of God and apply the word of God into your life, you extend your life? Proverbs 3, 1 and 2. My son, do not forget my teaching. But keep my mandates in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you peace and prosperity. Sound doctrine. What is doctrine? It’s the Greek word didaskalia, didaskalia, and it means instruction. 2 Timothy 3.16, all scripture is given by the inspiration of God and is profitable for what? For doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That’s exactly what it’s for. The word of God is to instruct you, guide you, counsel you, and keep you out of arrogance where you will destroy yourself. So this negative volition in America seen in 2 Timothy 4 is caused by the cosmic recruitment of AKA the devil or just plain lazy people distracted by the details of life. Hebrews 5.11 said, I got a lot to say to you, but it’s hard to explain because you are dull of hearing. In other words, your heart is hard. You don’t want to take time to study. You don’t want to take time to learn. You’re busy, busy, busy, busy. You got to get it, got to get it, got to go, got to go. Can you not sit down and open the Bible and listen to a well-qualified pastor teach you something? The writer of Hebrews said, by this time, you ought to be a teacher yourself, but now you got to go back to the basics. You need milk and not solid food. So when the Bible says in 2 Timothy 4, they have itching ears, kathio, kathio, what does that mean? Metaphorically, it’s used for those who love to have their ears tickled by false teachers that appeal to them. teachers that make them feel good about themselves, teachers that employ human good emphasis. They don’t emphasize sin, they emphasize human good. It’s called the feel-good gospel. You recognize it as God wants the best for you, brother. God wants you to have your greatest life, brother. Where do you think the crowds go? They go to the feel-good gospel. So they want to hear, itching ears wants to hear the fables. Fables, what is a fable? Well, it’s the word muthos. We get the word myth from it. It’s fiction. It’s contrasted with aletheia, truth. Who can handle the truth? Can you handle truth? Or is your own heart so hard that your conscience is now seared? Titus 1.15, to the pure, all things are pure. but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Even their mind and their conscience are seared or defiled. Defiled is the word me. I know it means stained or polluted. And this is a reference to a polluted soul that stinks. Both mind and conscience are part of that soul. So if we’re talking about hard hearted people, people that are seldom converted due to their own self-righteousness. You’re talking to a hard-hearted person that’s going to be very, very hard to see any response because of his own self-righteousness. Here’s what the Bible says about that hard-hearted person. It calls him a fool. In Proverbs 18.2, a fool has no delight in understanding. but in expressing his own heart. So I’ve found, and you probably have too, that if you talk to a fool, they want to tell you what they believe, not what they don’t want to listen to what you believe. They don’t want to hear what you have to say. They want to tell you where you’re wrong, and they want to tell you where they’re right. So they have no delight in understanding, even though your viewpoint is biblically based. Here’s what the scriptures say. They don’t care. In Proverbs 14, 7, what does it say about that foo? It says, stay away from him, stay away from a foo, for you will not find knowledge on their lips. So there are a lot of fools running around America today, full of human viewpoint, ignoring the word of God, not interested in the word of God, and you’re told to stay away from them. What we must understand is that every person in this planet, every person that has ever existed at least had a chance to realize that God does exist and God did reveal himself to them. Romans tells us this in verse 19, because that which may be known of God is manifested to them God has showed it to them from the creation of the world and is clearly seeing, understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. This is what you and I could call God consciousness. Every individual comes to God consciousness. When did you first think about God? For me, it was 11 years old when I first became aware that there was a God. It’s at this point of God consciousness that you have to decide, do you want to know God? Because if at this point you substitute a creature or you substitute an inanimate object for God, then your negative volition has results or bad circumstances. It’s going to be bad for you. Romans 1.21, because then they knew God, they would not glorify him as God, neither were they thankful, but became vain in their imagination, and their foolish heart was darkened. They professed themselves to be wise, and they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible man, to a bird, to a four-footed creature, creeping things. If a person realizes there’s a God, and then says, I know, where’s God? Oh, he’s gotta be the rock. Oh, he’s a dog. Oh, he’s a cat. Oh, he’s a bird. And they begin to worship that. That’s negative volition. If you have negative volition at God consciousness, And I don’t care if you do hear the gospel, you’re not going to respond to it. Because if any member of the human race, regardless of where they live, and you need to remember this, geographically, it doesn’t make any difference. Linguistic barriers, it doesn’t make any difference. Anybody, anywhere, anytime who wants to know God has positive volition at God consciousness. They will be given the gospel message through which that person can be saved and receive eternal life through Jesus Christ. Any person at the point of God consciousness that does not want to know God, if he doesn’t want to know God, if he substitutes something else for God, then 2 Corinthians 4 says, and even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the God of this world has blinded them, caused them not to believe. Psalm 14.1, the fool says there is no God. So you got a negative volition at God consciousness and then you got the fool that says there’s no God period. A hard hearted individual has seared his conscience. He’s seared it. He’s not capable of reasoning due to his own arrogance and his own self justification. In essence, he’s thinking that he is his own God and refusing to believe that a day of judgment is even coming. I am telling you now there is a day of judgment coming for you and every individual that’s ever walked on the face of this planet. In John 12, 48, he that rejects me and receives not my words hath one that will judge him. The words that I have spoken, the same shall judge him on that last day. In Acts 17, 31, because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness and by that man whom he hath ordained, Jesus Christ, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men and that he raised him from the dead, Jesus Christ. Romans 2, 16, in that day when God shall judge the secrets of men. through Jesus Christ according to my gospel. So there is a day of judgment coming. It is going to happen. And every individual that lives upon this planet will be judged, either at the judgment seat of Christ or the great white throne of judgment. The judgment seat of Christ is for believers only, found in 1 Corinthians 3. There you will be evaluated based on your production, wood, hay, and stubble, or gold, silver, and precious stone. That’s up to you. Did you do it under the filling of the Holy Spirit or did you do it under the energy of the flesh, the human good part? So in regards to these hard-hearted people, they’re hard-hearted individuals, there is a day coming. It’s coming. So don’t get mad. Don’t just blow a gasket. Sit back, relax, watch them. Let God deal with them. Remember, The hard-hearted thief on the cross, you remember him? Alongside our Lord, his dying words were to ask God to forgive him. In Luke 23, 39, and one of the malefactors which were being hanged railed on him saying, if you’re the Christ, save yourself and us. But the other one told him to shut up. He rebuked him. Do you not fear God? See thou are in the same condemnation. And we indeed justly, we deserve this, what we did. We received due reward for our deeds. But this man, he’s talking about Jesus, has done nothing wrong. And then he turned as he was on the cross, looked to Jesus and called him that word, Lord, Lord, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus said, verily I say unto thee, today you will be with me in paradise. Lord, he recognized who Jesus was, that he was the King of kings and the Lord of lords, that he was a son of God as he said he was. And he knew that he did not deserve what was being dished out on him that day. He deserved it. The thief knew it. Those two men on the cross were guilty alongside the Lord Jesus Christ. They knew it. But one had negative volition and was hard-hearted. The other one had positive volition, and his heart was softened. What can soften a hard heart? Listen carefully. There’s only one thing that can soften a hard heart, in my opinion. And it comes through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He does it. He convicts. He convinces. But it is tragedy or disaster or death. When the hard-hearted person is facing a tragedy, a disaster so incomprehensible they can’t imagine it, or a death staring them in the face, then they turn to God. I knew an individual who was a wonderful, wonderful warrior, a Medal of Honor winner, and he told me these words. There are no atheists in foxholes. When bullets are flying and death is imminent, men turn to God. Don’t wait until that happens to you. Don’t wait until the last minute and put everything aside in your own hard heartedness and your own cold heart and reject everything God has for you. The Christian life is a phenomenal life and it begins with your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you will put your faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross, I can guarantee you, I can assure you, there is a wonderful, wonderful life for you. By learning and applying God’s word, you will extend your life, you will have great happiness, great blessing, you will glorify God to the maximum, and you will be a social influencer for the Lord Jesus Christ. You will tell people about what’s happened to you. I couldn’t wait to tell people after I got saved what happened to me. A few of them thought I was crazy. My roommate thought I was drunk. I said, I got saved. I accepted Christ. What? You’ve been drinking again? No. I accepted Christ as my Savior. What a wonderful thing. I hope you’ll do it now while the time is right. Don’t let your heart be so hard that you put it off. Until next week, 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.
