Rick Hughes returns to The Flatline with a poignant discussion on the characteristics of virtue love and its impact on believers’ lives. Through biblical passages, he illustrates the critical role of personal spiritual discipline amidst increasing adversity. As he navigates topics like the decline of moral values, false teachings, and societal unrest, Rick provides listeners with the tools necessary to maintain unwavering faith and pass this understanding to future generations.
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. Flat, F-L-O-T, Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, we’ll be giving you some information about Hopefully, they will help you verify as well as identify God’s plan for your life. If you want to orient and adjust to that plan, that’s up to you. My job is to just get it to you, get it accurate so that you can see clearly who you really are and what’s expected out of you in this short time we have on this earth. The FLOT line stands for Forward Line of Troops, F-L-O-T. We’re dealing with 10 unique problem-solving devices. that if you will learn them and use them, they come out of the Bible. It’s not something we made up. These are age-old biblical doctrines, but if you learn them and use them, they will stop the outside sources of adversity before they become the inside source of stress. As we live in this day and age, we’re facing a crossroads in history, in American history especially, With political unrest and the health crisis that’s going on with the national worldwide pandemic, people are at their odds in not knowing what to do. Some are sick. Some are not sick. Some are getting sick. And it’s just a terrible time in history. God’s not unaware of it. He knows what’s going on. But there’s something going on behind the scenes you might not be aware of. I see it constantly in my ministry as I travel and speak across this country. And that’s what I’d like to talk to you about today. Would you let me do that for the next few minutes? The name of this study is Has Your Love Grown Cold? Has Your Love Grown Cold? Remember, there are several Greek words for love in the Bible. Agapao, or we get agape from that. And phileo, we get Philadelphia from that. And arao, we get erotic from that. So when we’re talking about love, you have to identify which love it is. Most of the time, we’re talking about agapao or agape love. In Matthew 24, 12, I’m going to read a verse to you and another verse in Revelation 2, 2 through 4. And I think this will get us kicked off in the direction we want to go this morning. Matthew 24, 12. Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. And then in Revelation 2, verses 2 and 4 says, I know your deeds and your toil and your perseverance and that you cannot tolerate evil men and you put to test those who call themselves apostles and they are not. you found them to be false and you have perseverance and have endured for my name’s sake and have not grown weary but but i have this against you you left your first love now that revelation 2 2-4 passage was written to the pastor of the church at ephesus and in matthew 24 12 it’s a different story in the first verse matthew 24 12 because lawlessness is increased Most people’s love will grow cold. This verse speaks of the end of the Jewish age, which is at the end of the tribulation. And the Lord Jesus Christ identifies characteristics of that time. He said, many will come in my name. Don’t be misled. If you read the passages before it, like in 24, 9, 10, and 11. He said, many will come in my name. Don’t be misled. He said, there will be wars and rumors of wars. Do not be afraid. He said, you’ll be persecuted and put to death and hated because of my name. He said, false prophets will arise and mislead many. He said lawlessness will increase and love will grow cold, but the gospel of the kingdom will be preached to the whole world. Now this is at the end of the tribulation. If you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, thank God you won’t even be here. The exit resurrection or the rapture of the church as we know it occurs before the last seven years of Daniel’s prophecy. And so that last seven years is the end of the time and that’s called the tribulation time. divided into three and a half and three and a half. The last three and a half years are horrible persecution upon the Jews and anyone who claims to be a believer. So don’t be misled. Many will say they come in my name, and they’re not. And there will be wars and rumors of wars. There will be. and you will be persecuted and put to death if you’re a believer and hated, and that will happen. But that’s not written for us today. That’s the tribulation of believers during that time before the thousand-year millennial reign of Christ takes place. But some of these traits can be seen whenever a client nation such as ours, the United States of America, Whenever we enter into national discipline, and there are five stages to God’s discipline, always taught to us in the Bible. We can look at it and see what Israel went through. If you read Leviticus 26, verses 14 through 39, it will identify the five stages of national discipline. And in each stage, the discipline is increased five-fold again and five-fold again and five-fold again. until eventually the nation is destroyed. Hopefully that won’t happen here, but more than likely, the United States of America is under national discipline. And the Lord Jesus Christ talked about false teachers who misrepresent God’s grace provisions, and that’s certainly happening today. And I cannot believe some of the things I see on television, people promoting their books and their dreams and their ideas. I guess Christianity has become the biggest money-making thing out there. Thank goodness I learned from my pastor a long time ago that if God’s in it, he’ll pay for it. Keep your mouth shut. Don’t ask for money. Don’t preach for money. Don’t try to raise money. Just do your job and let the Lord handle it. So also, he said there would be threats from foreign enemies, and that’s going to happen in our lifetime. As administrations come and administrations go, enemies take advantage of weakness and strength. They get away from strength, and they threat weakness. So I think we can see that there’s weakness in the government today, and I think that our foreign enemies are licking at their chops. They’d love to destroy us. And the Bible says that lawlessness will increase, and you can certainly say that’s going on in this country today. Murder, rape, mayhem, you name it, it’s increasing. Nobody’s doing anything about it. And the gospel message would be preached as a defense to the end of the world, the Bible said. Jesus talked about that, and that’s happening today. The gospel message is being preached, and hopefully that’s the only thing that can deter the evil that’s in the world today. However, you may know that I used to speak in a lot of public high schools, but I cannot get in those public high schools anymore. I still speak in a lot of private schools, And 300 kids in a private school or 300 kids in a public school, there’s still 300 students, and that’s a great thing. But unless we can get the message of salvation to our youth of today, then they don’t have a chance because all they get is cosmic viewpoint thinking, human viewpoint thinking. And we’re told in the Bible not to think like humans think. Don’t let this mind be in you like that. The Bible says let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. And in Romans 12, 3, stop thinking in terms of arrogance beyond arrogance. what you should think, think in terms of humility. So the gospel has to be given if this nation is to survive. And the enemy, aka the devil, has done everything he can to stop the gospel from being presented to the general public. Now, notice a national trend and a national discipline trend from the book of Hosea. If a nation goes down under the five cycles of discipline, I pray that doesn’t happen to us, but if it happens, you may wonder, what are the indications that a nation is going under discipline? Well, listen to Hosea 4, 1 through 6. Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, no mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery, they break out and blood touches blood. That sounds a lot like us, doesn’t it? Now, it wasn’t written to us. It was written to a different generation, but there’s a lot of application for us today. Therefore shall the land mourn, and everyone that dwells in it shall languish. With the beast of the field and with the fowls of the air and the heavens, yes, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away. And yet let no man strive nor reprove another for thy people are as they that strive with the priest. Therefore shall thou fall in the day, and the prophets also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy your mother. My people, here it is, listen carefully, are destroyed, this is God’s divine discipline on a nation, for lack of knowledge. Because you rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you shall no longer be a priest for me, Seeing that you have rejected knowledge and forgotten the laws of your God, I will forget your children. That should be a great warning to you if you have grandchildren or children. God’s word cannot be rejected. The fool says in his heart there is no God. The fool is wise in his own eyes. And if you’re ruled by fools, you’re looking for an end of disaster. We’ve been blessed in this country for years. We have God has prospered us. God has blessed us. God has raised us up. And just as surely, our Lord can take us down. And we will go down if we don’t change the way we think. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. That just couldn’t be any more plain than that. And there is no desire for knowledge today. No one wants the knowledge and the insight and the wisdom found in the Word of God because they’re settling for a humanistic viewpoint of life, socialistic viewpoint of life. We can fix our own problems, and you can’t. You can’t fix the problem of man’s sin nature. The only thing that can subdue the sin nature of man is God the Holy Spirit. And the Bible says if you’ll walk in the Spirit, you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh. And the flesh lusts to war. The flesh lusts for alcohol. The flesh lusts for sex. The flesh lusts for money. And that’s where the problem comes in, in the flesh. And this is exactly what Satan is good at. He knows how to start the fires of the flesh. So without the information taught clearly from the Word of God, no nation has a chance. And until our young people in this nation hear God’s Word clearly, and have a chance to decide for their own generation what they want to do with it, then there is trouble on the horizon. As I’ve always said, there’s a train wreck coming. You can hear the whistle blowing right now. Each generation is responsible for their own thinking. And even if we give the truth to this generation, they may not accept it. They’ve been so indoctrinated. And so people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. And when you forget God’s word and you forget God’s laws, God says, I will forget your children. Now, the greatest virtue that you and I could have is to remember God’s laws and remember God’s word because we love him, because we appreciate everything he’s done for us, beginning with giving us his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1 John 5, 3, the Bible says this is the love of God, that we keep his mandates, and his mandates are not hard. And so God is not asking you to do anything impossible. If you have personal love for God, It would be demonstrated by your obedience to divine mandates with an attitude of humility. Well, what does the Bible say about loving God? And why do people lose their love? Why does their love turn cold for God or turn cold for their neighbor, turn cold for their family? In Jude chapter one, which is the only chapter, verse 21, “‘Keep yourselves in the love of God.'” looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. That word keep is the Greek word tereo, T-E-R-E-O. And in the verb form, it is the imperative mood. So this is not God asking you through Jude to keep loving him. This is God mandating you The aorist tense is the aorist that means, in other words, at any point in time, we keep on loving God. It’s a constative aorist. We keep doing that. The active voice says the subject reduces the action of the verb, and that’s you and me. We are mandated as believers all of our life each day to love God. There it is. Keep yourself in the love of God. Now, this is not somebody else doing it for you. This is you doing it for yourself. And how do you keep yourself in the love of God? By being obedient. Again, 1 John 5, 3, this is the love of God. If you say you love God, if I ask you that, do you love God or has your love grown cold? Oh, no, you say my love is not cold. I love God. Well, keep his mandates and they are not hard. What mandates? The Bible is full of them. I just gave you one, Jude 121. Keep yourself in the love of God. This means you are responsible for your decisions. You have to make the decision to do this. It’s not a request. This is you using reciprocal love motivation. Reciprocal love motivation is mandated in the Bible. You love him, 1 John 4, 19. We love God. Why? Because he first loved us. well what does that mean well it means this the personal love for God is responding to his love for us in 1st John 4 9 through 10 listen carefully by this the love of God was revealed in us so that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world so that we may live through him that’s Christ in this is love Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sin. He loved you first. You love him second. You reciprocate that love with humility and obedience and appreciation. You know, it’s easy to forget God’s love when you focus on the temporal and focus on the obvious. And in your life, that may be causing you to short circuit your faith. A lack of focus on God’s character causes a short circuit in the faith rest drill. Faith rest drill is problem solving device number three. The personal love for God is part of the virtue love package we’ll mention here in a minute. Personal love for God, impersonal love for others. So a lack of focus can cause a short circuit in that faithless drill when we do not stand on the promises of God if we focus on the problems and not the promises. Are you doing that? Are you focusing on the problems in this country, political problems, medical problems? Or are you focusing on the promises found in the Scripture, the solution? Where’s your focus? When you fail to focus on the solution, then we fail to remember the unfailing love of God. And you know what that causes? It causes bitter resentment and frustration towards the adversity that you’re facing in your life, even sometimes to the fact of being hostile towards God. And this can lead to you getting involved in some kind of crusader arrogance. You know, you’re going to change the world. You’re going to join some group, and you’re going to get some politician elected, or you’re going to march downtown and get this building shut down and that building shut down. See, what happens is you fail to remember the justice of God is always active. You got to remember this today. Listen carefully. God’s justice is always active. And the Supreme Court of Heaven is still in business. And nobody gets away with anything. Nobody gets away with anything. So if you see things you don’t like going on politically today, just relax. The Lord is in control. He handles it, and nobody will get away with anything. Even if this country goes down, even if we are defeated by a foreign enemy, If you’re a mature believer, you’ll be delivered and taken out the other side as a member of the pivot. God always delivers the pivot. This always happens. So God’s in business. The Supreme Court of Heaven is in business. And if you forget about that and you fail to use the faithless drill, then you don’t glorify God at all because you don’t obey the mandates and you start looking for human solutions and they are no solutions. Divine solutions are the only solutions. So during these times of political strife, it’s very hard to sit back and let God’s justice deal with any situation that you may not like. But remember this, Remember what I’m about to tell you. God did not send you and I to handle his affairs. We were sent to lift up Christ, not campaign for a politician. Jeremiah 17.5, cursed is the one who trusts in man and who draws his strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord. Yes, we want a believer in the administration. Yes, we’d like to have a strong Christian that’s a president. Yes. But no man is the solution. The solution is the Lord Jesus Christ controlling history. And God uses prepared people. And God can do some amazing things with people that are prepared. So don’t trust in a man. Don’t put your trust in a man. Put your trust in the Supreme Court of Heaven. The justice of God will handle the details. You just replicate the life of Christ by learning God’s word and applying it into your life. If you have personal love for God, it’s going to be reflected in your attitude towards other people. Now, let’s stop here for a minute. Are there people that you hate, that you can’t stand? I mean, I will admit to you there are a few people when I see them on television, the hair on the back of my neck goes up. I don’t like them, but I’m mandated to do something else. Listen to 1 John 4, 20 and 21. Whoever claims to love God and yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and their sister whom they have seen, they cannot love God whom they’ve not seen. And he, God, has given us a mandate that anyone who loves God must also love their brother and their sister. This is virtue love. And I’ll explain what it is, but remember this. God doesn’t endorse bitterness. God doesn’t endorse hatred. God does not endorse vindictive behavior. god does not endorse implacability god does not endorse you impugning anyone for anything keep your nose out of it the supreme court of heaven is open 24 hours a day the justice of god is able to handle it When the Bible says we’re supposed to love our brothers and our sisters, this is impersonal love, not personal. We love God, our virtue of love for God is personal. It’s based on his character and his essence. But when you’re using impersonal love, which is a wonderful problem-solving device, that’s based on your character and your essence, not the person that you’re thinking about. It’s impersonal love, and it’s being applied to anyone you may not like. What does that mean? Well, it means this, that you’re not allowed to hate people. You’re not allowed to be bitter towards people. You’re not allowed to be vindictive towards people. You know, if you have a neighbor you can’t stand, someone in your community you hate, they don’t keep their yard looking right, or they put something there that shouldn’t be there, or they said something about you to another neighbor, and you get angry and you get bitter over it, that’s a sin. Maybe you don’t think so, but that’s what it is. The Bible says be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forsaking this bitterness and this anger in Ephesians 4, 30 and 31. You’re not allowed to do that. And this is the attitude of Christ. We forgive and we forget. So this impersonal love means that you can love even the worst person in your neighborhood. Based on your character, not theirs. Based on your fidelity, not theirs. Which means you don’t get angry every time you see them. Which means the hair on the back of your neck doesn’t stand up every time you’re around them. It means you don’t get vindictive and speak about them to other people and malign them. And if they need assistance, you are there to help them in any way possible. Characteristics of impersonal love are taught in the Bible clearly in 1 Corinthians 13, 1 through 13, and you can see it. Here they are. Regardless of how eloquent a speaker may be, if he doesn’t have virtue love, then he or she is just making loud noises. I’ve been around a lot of speakers, I’ve heard a lot of politicians, I’ve heard a lot of pastors and preachers, and some of them are very eloquent speakers. But without virtue love, without personal and impersonal love, they’re just making noise. They have an agenda and they’re trying to use you to accomplish their agenda. Do not get sucked into their agenda. Two, the Bible goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 13, 1 through 13, that faith without virtue love is nothing. It’s nothing whatsoever. So it means that the basis of your faith is your love for God. If you love me, you’ll obey me and your mandates, his mandates aren’t grievous. There are times you might not understand why God says do something. There are times when you might not understand why God says this is wrong or that is wrong. And most of the time it’s because it’ll destroy a nation from within. And yet today we’ve ignored the word of God in many areas of social life. We’ve justified why it’s okay to be certain ways and certain desires. And we say, God doesn’t know what he’s talking about in the Bible. Oh, yes, he does. He’s trying to deliver the nation from internal destruction. As goes the thinking of the inhabitants in the land, so goes the land. So even though you claim to have some kind of love for people, if you don’t have faith, then it’s worthless. It’s nothing. faith is your personal love for god it’s you standing on the virtue of god’s love it’s you believing god’s word it’s you living in god’s word faith rest drill it’s critical for you virtue love you will see in a minute is the most wonderful thing you can have but without faith it won’t work and so then we see virtue love is kind it’s not jealous it’s It does not brag. It is not arrogant. If you’re reading through 1 Corinthians 13, 1 through 13, I’m giving you some of those characteristics. Virtue love is kind, not jealous. It does not brag. It’s not arrogant. It does not dishonor other people. It’s not self-centered. It’s not easily offended. It doesn’t think in terms of human viewpoint. It does not find happiness in injustice, but rather in truth. And virtue love always overlooks faults and is full of truth and full of endurance. Virtue love never fails, never falters, and virtue love is, in fact, the greatest thing that man could possess. Faith, hope, and love, the Bible says, and the greatest of these is love, virtue love. These are the personality traits of a mature believer. And each one of these personality traits reflect the assets of our Lord Jesus Christ and what he possessed while he was among us on this earth. Thus, they reflect the Christian life in its truest form. So let this lesson be a mirror for you to reflect what’s in your soul. Because no one-shot decision, no one-shot decision will ever take you to spiritual maturity. It’s the daily intake of God’s Word taught to you by a very well-qualified pastor, not going forward at a meeting and promising you’re going to be a good boy from now on out. Spiritual maturity comes with some momentum testing. It’s always going to have momentum testing. Always you’ll be tested along the way. And eventually evidence testing as you get towards the end of your life when you’re God allows you to be on the witness stand, and Satan may cross-examine you as he did our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 4. So the bottom line is this. You can fool a lot of people with your religious lifestyle, but your Heavenly Father knows what’s behind the veil. Your fidelity, your obedience, and your humility are true indications of a life with virtue love. And that’s what the Father is looking for, people that have virtue love. That virtue love, as long as you maintain it, it won’t grow cold. It’ll stay hot. It’ll be based on faith, and it will glorify God to the maximum. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re learning. 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.
