SPEAKER 01 : 0:08

Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:23

Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I am your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stay with me. It’ll just be a short time of motivation, some inspiration, some education, and as usual, no manipulation because we don’t con people. We’re not trying to solicit money. We’re not trying to sell you anything or ask you to join up. We would like for you to listen up. Listen as I try to verify and identify the plan of God for your life. If I’m able to do that, then you have the freedom and the privacy to orient and adjust to that plan. That’s simply up to you. But my job is to be on this radio show now 17 years and to give you some information that will assist you. I love getting letters from you. So many of you are writing to me now and I’m enjoying reading what God’s doing in your life. I’m enjoying talking to a few of you and thank you so much for staying in touch. We do broadcast in 112 cities across America every Sunday morning. It’s quite a challenge and so we appreciate your prayer support. Thank you so much for that. One of the things that’s on my mind today are older Americans. There are over 50 million older Americans in this country. Total population of America is somewhere around 332 million people and about 50 million of them are over 65 years of age. The documents tell us that there’s a birthday every nine seconds and there’s a death every 11 seconds. But people are getting older, and many of the people that listen to our radio show are older people. I don’t find a lot of young teenagers listening to the Flatline. Most of them are not up this time of the morning like you are. But there are a few, and I’m very grateful for those that listen on our podcast, because we do have some very serious young people that are interested in growing. But anyhow, I want to tell you how Americans search for happiness in the later years. This is a new book out, and I read some of the concepts of it by Professor Arthur Brooks, and he spoke on finding success and happiness in the second half of your life. And his thoughts were this, it referred to older folks, to transitioning from being learners to being instructors. And that’s not entirely true. I promise you the believer never stops learning, never stops growing. There never is a time in your life when you are to quit growing spiritually. When the Bible says, study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman at need if not to be ashamed. rightly dividing the word of truth, that doesn’t mean that when you get to be 65, you no longer have to keep growing. We grow until we die. We study until we die. We keep learning, we keep listening, because this is what reinforces our soul, and this is what builds up a strong flood line. So there is some truth to being instructors. It’s not entirely off base with biblical instructions because there’s an awful lot of wisdom from older people. And a lot of this wisdom needs to be imparted to younger people, not manipulate the younger people, not manipulate the vulnerable, but give them some information. Paul even wrote about this to Titus, one of his young troubleshooters. And he wrote what to teach the aged females in the congregation. Now, I don’t know what qualifies as an aged female, but this is what Paul wrote. The aged women likewise, presbytos, the Greek word, presbytos. That’s an aged woman. And he wrote that they must be in behavior as becoming holiness. which means they must be spiritually mature. Not false accusers, which means he doesn’t want them to be slandering and gossiping about other people. Not giving to too much wine, not staying at home sipping from the bottle. But teachers of good things, there’s a compound word there, kalos didaskalos is a Greek word, teachers of good things, kalos didaskalos. That means to instruct in honorable living, instruct in divine viewpoint, to teach in personal love and grace orientation. Why should they be like this? In verse four of Titus 2.4, in order that, and this is a purpose clause, they can teach the younger women, , the younger women, , we get sophomore from that word, train the younger women to have sound judgment and prudence, discernment, insight, understanding. He went on to write that the younger women, he may teach your young women to be sober, and that’s not to avoid wine. It means to have moderate and to be moderate and to have self-control. To love their husbands. Yes, they have to learn how to love their husbands. To love their children. Verse 5 of Titus 2, to be discreet and chaste and keepers at home, good and obedient to their own husbands. That doesn’t mean a husband is allowed to manipulate his wife or be a lord over his wife. That the word of God be not blasphemed. What does that mean? Well, we don’t want to give Satan an opportunity to impugn God’s name. So I’ll give you a little different translation. This is the NIV translation. Likewise, Paul writes, teach the older women to be reverent in the way that they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to too much wine, but to teach what is good. Then, verse four, they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and their children, to be self-controlled and pure and to be busy at home and to be kind and and to be subject to the authority of their husbands so that no one will malign the word of God. That brings us to the very first principle that we must take a look at. That simply means that the older ladies in a local church must be brought under control first. The older ladies in a local church must be brought under control first. One of the keys to a successful local church is a foundation of mature spiritual females. Mature spiritual females. And that’s one of the keys to having a successful local church. And even my own pastor has been teaching some information from Proverbs 5, 6, and 7. And they are lessons that older women could have learned the hard way. Thus, they could impart the wisdom they learned to the younger women. that would deliver them from a life of regret. Because when it comes to men, listen carefully, when it comes to men, some women are brain dead. What are you attracted to? What appeals to you as a younger woman about a man? I’ve seen it happen many times, brain dead. They don’t think, they don’t understand. They look at the triceps, the biceps, whatever they’re looking at, the teeth, the mouth, the smile. You better look at what’s in his heart. That’s why Samuel went down to Jesse’s house to an orphan new king of Israel He took one look at one of Jesse’s older sons called Eliab, and he thought this must be the one. He’s an attractive military guy, great looking, great stance, great muscles, great beard, great mustache, great everything. But God said, I looked in his heart, and he’s a yellow dog coward. So you have to look into the heart of a man, ladies. And it takes humility for younger women to learn these sort of things since actually most young women think they’re smarter than the older people. A lot of young men think they’re smarter than older men because the older crew, you know, we’re not up to speed on the electronic gadgets, you know, like the cell phone and the computer and the iPad and TikTok and this, that, and the other. So the older man, presbutase, and the aged women, presbutase. This is Paul’s words to Titus about that in the local congregation. Now I wanna go over to what he wrote to Timothy. I wanna go to 2 Timothy 4, six through seven. Here he knows the end is near. Here Paul knows he’s going to die soon. And he writes these words to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, six through seven. He says, I’m now ready to be offered That means that he’s a trophy for God. He’s ready to be a trophy for God. I hope when that time comes for you and me to be called to the front office that we will be trophies for God, that we will be spiritually mature believers, that we’ve grown to spiritual maturity, we’ve gone through evidence testing, and we’re glorifying God to the maximum. That’s a trophy for God. So he said, I’m now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. Then he says, I fought a good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith. I gave this to you before in another message. It’s the three Fs you want to have when you get to heaven. Most people don’t want Fs on their report cards because it reflects bad behavior, but this is the good F. I fought, I finished, I kept the faith. Three things that are critical for any believer to be a trophy for God. You must fight the good fight, finish the race, keep the faith. Now, most of us don’t even know we’re in a fight. But we’re in angelic conflict, and we have three enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. And you should know that Satan has an objective, which is to destroy your testimony, to destroy your effectiveness for God. And that’s why Paul wrote in Ephesians 6 that you’re to put on the armor of God. Put on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the shoes shod with the gospel of peace. This is what it’s about. We are in a war, spiritual war, spiritual combat. And those of you that are mature believers want to stand shoulder to shoulder and shield to shield with one another. locking arms, advancing forward for the glory of God. You are in a fight. Do you know that? It’s a fight for your thoughts. It’s a fight to hijack your thinking. It’s a fight to get you to go down the my way highway and leave the plan of God behind. Have you done that? Have you fought a good fight? Have you been victorious? Did you put on the armor of God like Paul told you? And this is kind of what I teach you on the flot line to develop that flot line that main line of resistance that forward line of troops so that you can keep standing and not be defeated the only way you can finish the race is to be standing when the fight is over and then you have to keep the faith and that’s our word pistis or piss too old to believe pistis is faith and this is what the doctrine that you believe it’s the doctrine in your soul it’s not Some kind of nebulous concept of I got a lot of faith. It’s referring to what you believe in your soul, what’s circulating in your stream of consciousness, what you have to establish your wisdom is based on doctrine. So this is Paul, the apostle, in his final letter to Timothy, his, quote, young son in the faith. He was imprisoned during the reign of Nero, 66, 67 AD, something around that time. And actually, this was his second arrest. But actually, now he’s under much harsher conditions than he was to start with. If you don’t mind, I’d like to give you some background on what Paul’s saying here. I’m now ready to be offered as a trophy for God. The background is this. The governor of Judea was a man named Festus. And Festus was serving under King Agrippa II, the son of Herod Agrippa. And it was actually Festus who sent Paul to Caesar. In Acts 25, 12, I’ll read it to you. Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, has you appealed to Caesar? Then unto Caesar you shall go. Did you appeal to Caesar? Paul said, I did. He said, then unto Caesar you shall go. But before he could be transported to Rome, Agrippa II wanted to check him out. And so in Acts 25, 22, Agrippa said to Festus, I would like to hear this man myself. And Festus said, okay, you can hear him tomorrow. I’ll bring him up tomorrow and you can talk to him. Because Festus was actually hoping that Agrippa would give him some charges against Paul. So he at least would have something legitimate to charge him with. Listen to what Festus told Agrippa. These are his words in Acts 25. I found he had committed nothing deserving of death, but since he himself appealed to the emperor, I decided to send him to the emperor.” And I think this was probably a mistake on Paul’s part, I don’t know, but if he had not appealed to go to Caesar, he might not have got sent there. And this is what Festus said, I have nothing definite about him to write to my lord, therefore, I brought him before you all and especially before you, Agrippa, so that you can investigate and see what’s taking place so I could have something to write, for it seems absurd to me to send in a prisoner and not to indicate the charges against him. And Agrippa, the king of Judah, testified back to Festus, and this is what he said to Festus. They talked between themselves, Acts 26, 31 and 32, saying, And they both said, This man has done nothing worthy of death or to be in prison for. But then Agrippa said this man might have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar. Mistake, he did. So Paul’s journey to Rome is an amazing trip when he was eventually under house arrest, but he had his own rental quarters. He was awaiting a hearing with Caesar in Acts 28, 30. Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, his hired house, and he received all that came in unto him. This was a fantastic extended ministry that God gave him. He wasn’t able to travel like before, but he was still able to be effective. So for two years, he received all that came into his house, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching those things which concerned the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, and no man forbid him to do so. So he was free to proclaim the truth. Now, the final days of Paul are very interesting. August 14, 2017, Derek Jeter wrote an article about how Paul wound up in the Maritime Dungeon. This is what he said. On July 19, 1864, a fire broke out in Rome and destroyed 10 of the city’s 14 districts. The inferno raged for six days and seven nights, flaring up sporadically for an additional three more days. Though the fire probably started accidentally in an oil warehouse, rumors swirled that Nero had ordered the inferno so he could rebuild Rome according to his own liking. Not much unlike America today where powerful politicians want to remake this nation and even eliminate our eternal values. So Nero tried to stamp out the rumors, but to no avail, so he looked for a scapegoat. And since two of those districts were untouched by the fire, they were disproportionately populated by Christians, he shifted the blame to the Christians to accuse them of starting fires. The accusation that the Roman Christians hated humanity likely took root because they refused to participate in Rome’s social and civic life, which was intertwined with pagan worship. Whether for that reason or for the fire, once Nero’s madness inflamed, he continued his persecution of Rome’s Christians. And as a ringleader, Paul the Apostle. In Acts 24.5, Ananias testified, we have found this man a disease. He’s a mover of sedition among all Jews throughout the world. He’s a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. That’s Paul. That’s what Ananias said. So Paul was released at some point and placed, according to the church tradition, re-arrested, excuse me, not released. He was re-arrested at some point and placed in the Mamertine prison. This place was horrible. Could have been called the house of darkness because few prisons were as dim, dank, and dirty as the lower chamber that Paul was in. Known in earlier times as the Tellinium Tower, the Tellinium lower dungeon, its neglect and darkness and stench gave it the hideous, terrifying appearance. According to a Roman historian, prisoners in the ancient world were rarely sent to prison as punishment. Excuse me. Prisoners in the ancient world were rarely sent to prison as punishment. Rather, prisons typically served as a holding cell to await those that they were going to trial or to be executed. And actually, you see this throughout the scripture because the Mosaic law made no provision for incarceration as a form of punishment. Most of the time, it doesn’t work anyhow. During Paul’s first imprisonment, he awaited trial before the Roman governor Felix and Festus. And then when he was under house arrest in Rome for two years, waiting appearance before Nero, Most biblical scholars believe he was released sometime around AD 62 because the Jews who accused him of being a real pest and a fellow that stirred up dissension didn’t press their case before the emperor. However, during his second imprisonment in the Maritime dungeon, he had apparently received a preliminary hearing and he was awaiting his final trial. Here’s his preliminary hearing, 2 Timothy 4, 16. At my first defense, no man stood with me, All men forsook me, and I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Paul didn’t expect acquittal. He expected to be found guilty in all likelihood for hating humankind. And from there, Paul believed only his execution would be left, 2 Timothy 4, 6, which was more than likely carried out around A.D. 68. So what can you and I learn from these historical events recorded by Dr. Luke that can be applied to our lives today? Here’s what we can learn. Listen very carefully. Romans 14, 8, Paul wrote these words himself. Whether we live, we live unto the Lord. And whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. Principle one, you are a purchased possession. You have been bought and paid for as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. You belong to God. You are a doulos if you are a mature believer, a voluntary slave. Paul called himself a slave. So we’re a purchased possession. Where does the Bible say we were purchased in Ephesians 1.14? which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, until the praise of his glory. This is talking about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit given to us until we are taken to heaven. the purchased possession, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession. That’s you and I. We have been bought and paid for with a price. The Lord Jesus Christ bought us out of the slave market of sin. He paid for that with his own spiritual death on the cross, substituting himself in our place. Thus, we have his righteousness accredited to us when we make a decision to believe in him. That’s why the Bible says, he that knew no sin was made sin for us so that we could be made the righteousness of God through him. Now, only the Father knows and only the Father plans the time and the manner of your promotion. And this is true. Even Eliphaz, a friend of Job, understood this principle. He talked about it in Job 5, 19 through 27, and how God controlled this, how God controlled the time and the manner of his departure. You should read it sometime. I’m not going to take it and read it to you now, but he told Job, you will come to your grave in full age like as a shock of corn comes into a season. We’ve searched it. This is it. Listen. We know it’s for your good. So God doesn’t make mistakes. The right time, the right place, he chooses who comes and who stays. So point three, obedience to God’s mandates can definitely extend your life. Obedience to God’s mandates can definitely extend your life. You know, they say exercise can extend your life. You stay healthy and exercise and keep moving and don’t sit down in the chair and just and just melt away? Well, listen to this. Proverbs 3, one and two, my son, forget not, forget not, this is a mandate, forget not my law. Let your heart keep my mandate for length of days and a long life and peace will be added to you. Wisdom and insight plus discernment equal understanding. Here’s an opportunity for you to understand something. When you obey the word of God, you can extend your life. When you go negative as a believer, you can go under the sun unto death. As an unbeliever, you’ll probably wind up destroying yourself by means of your own arrogance. But if you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, the fourth principle, You must not let the rate of forgetting exceed the rate of learning in your life. Can’t afford to do that. In Proverbs 3.3, the Bible said, “‘Let not mercy and truth forsake thee. “‘Store scripture in your memory center “‘since it is a sedative to worry and anxiety.'” Again, Proverbs 3.3, let not mercy and truth forsake thee. What’s he saying? That you should store scripture in your memory center. Since that scripture, that word is the sedative to worry and anxiety in your life. So as long as you’re still living, God has a plan for your life. You might not even be cognizant. God may use a mentally declining parent to teach a child patience and humility. Remember, what you see now, you may be someday yourself. But the next principle is physical difficulties associated with age are normal. Normal. God never intended for us to live forever in these sin-infected bodies. In 2 Corinthians 4, 16, therefore we don’t lose heart. Though our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day. What is the inner man? Point seven. The inner man is a direct reference to your soul, the invisible, the mortal part of you which never ages. That’s your mentality, your stream of consciousness, your volition. The outer man is the sin-infected body. We have to get rid of the sin-infected body if we’re going to go to heaven. We can’t live in heaven in this body. That’s why we have to die, be resurrected, get a resurrection body, a body like our Lord Jesus Christ. So another principle, by means of the filling of the Holy Spirit, that’s Rebound, 1 John 1, 9, and the resources of practical divine wisdom in our soul, in our mentality. we are then guaranteed the strength to face evidence testing in the old age. This is when it happens, when you’re called to the witness stand in your old age, Satan can cross-examine you like he did Jesus in Matthew 4 to see if you really are serious. And the Lord Jesus Christ even told Peter, this is gonna happen to you too. But the thought and the fear of getting old, and losing the ability to manage your personal affairs can be a threat to the believer who wants to have a successful spiritual life. If he worries, if he’s full of anxiety, if he’s full of fear, listen, getting old is a wonderful thing. It’s God’s plan for you. If you let the difficulties of old age discourage you and propel you into self-pity, then you will finish your life like a discarded automobile sitting in a junkyard rusting out. You can’t do that. Joshua said it best when he, in the latter years of his own life, the last council of Joshua, he called for all the assembly to come before him, and this is what he said. Joshua 24, 15, if it’s disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, then you choose for yourself. who you’re going to serve, whether the gods your father served, which were beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. He laid down the challenge in his older life. Joshua didn’t live forever, neither did Moses. And neither with you. Only God knows the time and the place and the manner of our departure. I can tell you, you want to be prepared. I can tell you, you want to be a trophy for God. I can tell you, you want to hear him say, well done, my good and faithful servant. And much of these principles I’ve given you are critical for you to understand. Are you listening? Are you paying attention? Are you getting up in years? Like myself, are you getting up in years? Thank God for the opportunity to glorify him in a way you would have never been able to do before. Standing behind the shield of faith, standing on the promises of God with great confidence and great encouragement as others watch you glorify God to the maximum in your life. Next week, I’ll continue this. Thank you for listening. I hope you’ll hang in there with me. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Floodline.

SPEAKER 01 : 27:14

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.