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’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, you have an invitation to stick around with me. Just about 30 minutes, that’s all. some motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education, and with no manipulation. That means we’re not trying to con you. We’re not going to ask you for money. We’re not going to solicit anything. We’re not going to try to sell you anything. We’re not going to ask you to join anything. We just want you to listen. Listen as I try to verify and identify the plan of God for your life, and if I’m able to do that, and you would like to orient and adjust to that plan, that’s up to you. You have freedom. You have privacy. You have volition, V-O-L-I-T-I-O-N, volition. That means you have a chooser, you have a decider. God did not make you into a little bitty automaton. You’re not a robot, you are a free individual. And that’s why the Bible says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. It’s your choice, it’s up to you. You can believe or not believe. All I can do is tell you what the Bible says. I cannot convince you about anything. That’s the job of God, the Holy Spirit, to do the convicting and the convincing of those who hear the message. But I’m so grateful to give you these messages. We’re rounding over 900 different Sundays. We’ve been on the radio with the Flatline in over 110 different cities across America. And I love hearing from people. You’re always free to contact us. You can write to us at postofficebox100.com. In the city of Cropwell, Alabama, post office box 100, in the city of Cropwell, Alabama, our zip code is 35054.

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35054.

SPEAKER 02 : 2:04

Or you could call us at 800-831-0718. 800-831-0718. Now let me tell you, we’re not counselors. We’re not a counselor. I am a Bible teacher. My objective is to give you the gospel, to give you basic Bible information, and hopefully for you to get under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor where you can begin to grow in grace. So I’m not here to counsel you if you have a problem. You may need to see a professional. That’s not me. And we’re not here giving out money or passing out stuff. We’re just, if you need to know something about the Bible, then feel free to call if you want to express some appreciation. feel free to call because I’ve had many, many, many people contact me in 2022. And many of those people expressed thanks for the way the Bible studies have been going and said they have absolutely been changed by the things they’ve started hearing and learning and applying by God’s Word on a daily basis. Some of those people have gone back to church. Some have contacted a qualified pastor that we recommend. and started studying daily, some of them by streaming video or either DVD lessons provided by those same pastor teachers. Whatever the reason, if you’re starting to grow, if you’re starting to progress, if you’re getting closer to God than you were in the past by listening to the Flatline radio show, I’m extremely grateful for that. I’m extremely grateful for your positive volition. But I want to assure you of one thing. I want to make you aware that spiritual growth in your life is a threat to Satan’s domain, and he is not going to sit idly by while you grow to spiritual maturity. He will not do that. And one of the biggest problems you’re going to have in your life as you advance spiritually is people. The testing that you’ll face will come from people, not necessarily from people some outside source. It’ll come from people, people that you know, people that are friends of yours, people that you’re close to. They will be the ones that test you the most. And so you’re gonna have to learn how to deal with that. And the Bible says in 1 John 4 20, if someone says I love God and hates his brother, he’s a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And so we know that we have a mandate to love our brothers and our sisters. So when I accepted Christ as my Savior, I kind of fiddled around for a year trying to figure out what it was all about, reading the Bible. going to a church, listening and learning, and finally I found someone that would teach me, teach me the Bible in a manner that I could respond to. And some of my friends didn’t like that. Some of my friends began to criticize me. Some of my friends began to doubt me. Some of my friends put me down. I remember one guy told me one time, he said, I was told you had gone crazy, but after listening to you teach today, that’s the clearest message I’ve ever heard. And that’s what people will do. They will turn on you. Sometimes your most trusted friends, as you begin to grow spiritually, as you begin to learn the grace apparatus for perception, God’s plan through the filling of the Holy Spirit, people will turn on you and you will have a problem. And that’s why I wanted to warn you in advance to assure you that your spiritual growth is a threat. As a matter of fact, a lot of well-meaning believers even peel off after a few weeks or a few days because they can’t keep their focus on the objective, which is to become a mature believer. And they just quit growing spiritually. They never reach spiritual maturity. They get discouraged or disgruntled and they peel off. I hope that wasn’t you. Because the distractions come in many forms. But one of the main problems we face is what I call people testing. When you begin to advance spiritually, he or she will undermine, excuse me, he or she will undergo momentum testing. This is normal. This is what happens to us. As we begin to advance, God allows us to go through momentum testing. It’s a normal thing in our life. And this is where your own personal volition will carry you or bury you, one of the two. But under momentum testing, you’re going to be tested, and you’re going to learn from this momentum testing. It’s important that you go through that in your life. And you’re going to have to make some choices, either obey God, trust God, or seek to take matters into your own hand. But sometimes this testing can be for suffering, and sometimes it can be for discipline. If it’s suffering for blessing, it’s designed by God to bless you. And that when it does that, it strengthens you, your faith. When you go through that, it strengthens your faith. One of these categories that momentum testing is people testing. It’s in the momentum testing category. And this test can come from people you love or people you even despise. But often a person you love can make some kind of demand on your time, on your space, and keep you from studying God’s Word consistently. And in such cases as that, you’ll find you simply don’t have enough time for them and enough time for God. This is true a lot of times in a marriage with families and children. Maybe one of the spouses, the husband or the wife, starts wanting to study the Word of God every day, and they just don’t have the time. I got to take care of my kids. I got to take care of my husband. I got to take care of my job. I got to take care of the yard. I got to take care of this, take care of that. I just don’t have time to sit down and study the Bible every day. Maybe a little five-minute devotion, I’m willing to get away with that, you may say to yourself, but to sit down and listen to someone teach me the Bible for 30, 40, 50 minutes a day, I don’t have time for that, you may say, and that’s a terrible, terrible tragedy because you won’t make priority number one, learning God’s Word in your life. You’ve got to understand that. People are easily led away from the protocol plan of God and easily led away from doctrine by their friendships. by their love life and even by the people that they hate. So you may be tested by people you trusted or you may be tested by people you despise. But the question is this, how do you control your emotions when you’re a victim of this sort of test? How do you control your emotions if you’re a victim of deceit? What about a victim of slander? What about if you are being manipulated or intimidated? How do you control your emotions? And the solution to people testing is found in a combination of two things. It’s what we call the 10 problem-solving devices. It’s personal love for God, which is motivational virtue, and impersonal love for all mankind, which is functional virtue. That’s how you handle it. Personal love for God and impersonal love for all mankind. It’s called virtue love. And in the 10 problem-solving devices, that’s problem-solving device number seven, personal love for God, problem-solving device number eight, and personal love for all. If you don’t know what these are, let me suggest you contact us and ask for the book Christian Problem Solving. We’ll be glad to send it to you free of charge, and it will list all 10 problem-solving devices that we’ve taught on this radio show. But I’ll run down through them one more time. Rebound, problem-solving device number one. What kind of problem does that solve? Problems of your old sin nature and your sin. And you have to confess your sin when you know you’ve done it. Don’t put it off. Number two, the filling of the Holy Spirit. That solves the problem of letting the sin nature control your life. You can let the Holy Spirit control your life. Walk in the Spirit and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh, the Bible says. Problem-solving device number three, the faith rest drill, standing on the promises of God. We have a new book out called God’s Promises and Principles. If you don’t have that book, order it. It’s free of charge. We got a lot of promises in there and a lot of times that you can claim them when you’re going through certain suffering, certain things you face. What does the Bible say? You can claim a promise and get some relief from worrying and from fear and from doubt. Promises and principles found in the Word of God. It’s a great little book we printed. And then there’s a grace orientation. Saving grace, living grace, dying grace, surpassing grace. There’s doctrinal orientation, learning the Word of God, applying the Word of God, living by the Word of God in your life. There’s a personal sense of destiny. This is when you understand what God left you here for, what your mission in life is for. And then all of that is wrapped in virtue love, personal love for God and personal love for others. This leads you to sharing the happiness of God, plus H. and then to Occupation with Christ, the greatest Christian problem-solving device. Those are the 10 problem-solving devices, and I ran through them, but I could teach you those things for the next six months, maybe even a year. If you want to get some information, order the Christian Problem-Solving book. We’ll get it right out to you. Okay, so the question that you have to answer, how do you control your emotions? And it’s through virtue love. Without virtue love, you’re constantly surrendering the control of your life to someone else. If you become jealous, if you get angry, if you get bitter, if you get vindictive or implacable, then you’re dissatisfied. You’re antagonistic towards somebody else. Maybe it’s a friend, maybe it’s a stranger, maybe it’s an enemy or a lover and you surrender the control of your life to that person and you become a slave to the object of your antagonism or even the object of your love. But at the same time, you have no control over your life. You’re canceling all the characteristics of the spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy that God wants you to possess. So if you surrender your happiness to someone else, then you will obviously blame that person for everything that goes wrong in your life, in personal love or hatred. The object will control your life. So when you become upset with someone, you surrender custody of your happiness to that person. When you blame them for your unhappiness, which is produced by your own volition, then you have intensified the suffering in your life under the law of volitional responsibility. So the Bible clearly says in 1 Corinthians 15, 33, be not deceived. Evil company or evil companions corrupt good morals. We create evil companions by being intimate with those who distract us from the word of God and by allowing them to control our life and to control our happiness. In Proverbs 13, 20, he who walks with wise men will be wise, but the friends of a fool will suffer evil. The more believers advance in their spiritual life, the more they’re going to be misunderstood. They’re more going to be ridiculed by the stupid, petty people who really don’t have a clue to what life is all about. When you start to learn things from the Bible that are true and not fall into the ritual without reality crowd, if you bring it up at church, they’re going to doubt you. They’re going to dispute you. When you tell them that tithing is not necessarily 10% of your income, that that was an Old Testament system of taxation, that everybody did it, everybody, believers and unbelievers, and yet today the church operates in coercing you into giving 10% of your income as a great way to be a spiritual Christian. Listen, God says it may need to be more than that. It may need to be less than that. Give as God has prospered you, the Bible says. But when you begin to learn things like that, when you begin to learn things that break you free from the bondage of legalism, of organized religion, you will be criticized. You will have people turn on you. You’ll be ridiculed. You’ll be ostracized is what I’m trying to say. So at some point in your spiritual life, you’re going to have to understand this. It’s just going to be you and God. Because what other people think about you, what other people say about you is not going to matter. Here’s what you must understand. That you nor I do we need to be a test for other people to deal with. You don’t need to be a test for them and I don’t need to be a test for them. And I love what my pastor told me years ago. He gave me some suggestions and I think those suggestions are still valid today. You want to hear what he told me? He said, look, don’t counsel other people. Two, don’t tell other people how to run their lives. Three, don’t tell others how to conduct their marriage. Four, don’t tell parents how to raise their children. Five, don’t malign or criticize parents to their own children. And six, keep your nose out of other people’s business. And seven, do not try to establish yourself as an expert in interpersonal relationships. And eight, you must recognize your own limitations. Nine, you must always regard God’s opinion more valuable than your opinion. And 10, and a wonderful principle here, you must learn the virtue of keeping your mouth shut. It’s called being a laconic believer. So I’m going to run over those again for you. You should listen. You should write them down. If you’re going to deal with people, don’t counsel other people. God didn’t send you to straighten anybody out. Don’t counsel them. People are going to come to you and say, what should I do, brother? And when you think, well, you know, if I was you, this is what I would do, wrong. Send them to the Word of God. Send them to the Bible. Send them to a pastor that can teach them what to do. They don’t have to have the answer right now. They don’t have to have the answer immediately. That’s the problem. People want it right now. I want to know right now, what should I do? Tell me, what should I do? Don’t counsel people. Don’t tell other people how to run their lives, point two. Stay out of their business, in other words. Don’t tell them how to conduct their marriage. Don’t tell parents how to raise their children. Don’t malign or criticize any parent to any child. And keep your nose out of other people’s business, the doctrine of the long proboscis, Romans chapter seven. And keep your nose out of other people’s business. Don’t try to establish yourself as an expert in any field of interpersonal relationships. And nine, eight, you must always recognize your own limits. And nine, always regard God’s opinion more valuable than yours. I’m reminded of something I heard years ago in a pastor’s meeting when several pastors were there. And I actually heard a pastor say what I’m about to tell you. This is what he said. We were discussing a topic and he said these words. If I was God, I would not have written it that way. What? If I was God, I would not have written it that way. The whole group of us in there about dropped our teeth. What? Obviously, he wasn’t thinking. And obviously, he thought more about his opinion than God’s opinion. And number 10, learn the virtue of silence. Learn to be laconic. You know, dealing with people testing, let’s get some biblical illustrations. Moses had a very difficult time with those that opposed him. In Exodus 16, verses two and three, the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them, oh, we wish we had died by the hand of the Lord while we were still in land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full, for you brought us out in this wilderness to kill us with hunger. So here are these Jews that he led out from Egypt under the bondage of slavery, headed for the promised land, going through some adverse times and adverse difficulties, looking for someone to blame, so they’re going to blame it on Moses. Here’s what Moses said, Exodus 16, verse 8. Your complaints are not against me, but against the Lord. Your complaints are not against me, but against the Lord. Notice Joseph’s brothers in Genesis 37, 3 and 4. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all of his children because he was a son of his older age. And also he made him a tunic of many colors. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all of his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him. Do you have brothers and sisters that hate you? They think your parents treated them unfair and gave you the advantages? In Genesis 37, so it came to pass when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped Joseph of his coat of many colors and they took him and cast him into a pit and the pit was empty and there was no water in it and they sat down and ate a meal. And then they lifted their eyes and looked and there was a company of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with their camels bearing spices, balm and myrrh on their way to carry them down to Egypt. So Judah said to the brothers, what profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Let’s just sell him to the Ishmaelites and let not our hands be upon him for he is our brother and our flesh. And the brothers listened and of course sold him, sold their brother into slavery. Later on, Joseph said, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. And of course, God took, if you read all of that, you’ll see how God turned all that around. But here are siblings that hated him. Moses had people that he led that hated him. It’s obvious that people testing was clear in both of those situations. And Joseph did not turn on his brothers. When they came later in the book of Genesis for help, he did not turn on them. He blessed them. David, the killer of Goliath, his own brothers, 1 Samuel 17, 28. Now Eliab, his older brother, heard when he spoke to the men saying, what’s this all about? That’s when Goliath walked out on the battlefield and no one would go fight him. And Eliab’s anger was aroused against David, his brother, and he said, why did you come down here? Well, because his dad told him to go down there and take some food to him. And then he said, and who did you leave those sheep with in the wilderness, you stupid shepherd boy? And I added those words. He didn’t think much of his little brother. And then he said, I know your pride and the insolence of your heart. You came down here to see a battle. Oh, this is horrible. David was there because his father told him, take these clothes and these food down to your brothers where they’re camped out and make sure they’re fed and clothed. And now they turn on him, especially Eliab, the older brother, who actually thought he should have been the anointed king, not David. Of course, you know the story how David went out and killed Goliath. Eliab wouldn’t take his first step. You may have brothers that hate you. You may have sisters that hate you. That’s what the 10 problem-solving devices are about. That’s how you can overcome people problems, the problem with people. Alexander the coppersmith was a problem that Paul faced in 2 Timothy 4.14. Alexander the coppersmith did much harm to me. May the Lord repay him according to his works. Paul let the justice of God handle the matter. The Supreme Court of Heaven is open 24 hours a day. You never have to try to solve your own problems. You never try to vindicate yourself. You never seek revenge. That’s a terrible thing. And in Romans chapter 7, the Bible clearly says, judge not that you be not judged. Because of what measure you measure out, it’ll be measured back to you again. Why do you seek to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye when there’s a log in your own eye? You don’t want to ever stick your nose in someone else’s business. If someone’s maligning you, criticizing you, slandering you, let God handle that. Don’t try to vindicate yourself. Don’t try to seek revenge on them. That’s a terrible, terrible problem-solving device. Go to the supreme court of heaven. In the power of prayer, lay it before the Lord’s feet and walk away. And don’t look back. You see, the problem arises when you get angry, when you get mad, when you don’t use the problem-solving devices, when you don’t forgive them, when you don’t stay filled with the Holy Spirit. See, what happens is you get mistreated and immediately you react. You don’t respond with forgiveness. You react with anger. You react with hostility. You get mad at that person and that’s what’s wrong with you right now. That’s why you’re not growing spiritually. That may be why you won’t even go back to church because somebody did something you didn’t like and you quit and left. You’re not mature enough to handle pressure. This is going to happen if you tend to grow spiritually. You’re going to have pressure. You’re going to have circumstances in your life that will trouble you. Even our Lord had a test with a betrayer. In John 13, 21, when Jesus had said these things, he was troubled in spirit and testified and said, most assuredly, I say to you, one of you is going to betray me. And of course, we know that was Judas. Impersonal love is how we solve these sort of tests. Impersonal love. That means you love someone based on who you are, not based on who they are. You love them based on your spiritual characteristics, not theirs. It’s the same thing God did for you. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Were you this righteous, wonderful, beautiful, created creature, or were you a lousy sinner lost in sin? He still loved you. And this is exactly the way you have to work. You have to learn to love those that don’t love you, but you love them based on your integrity, not theirs. which means you don’t get angry, you don’t get bitter, you don’t react, you don’t do any of that, you respond with forgiveness. That’s the way impersonal love works. God forgave you, can you not forgive them? The Bible clearly says in Proverbs 18, 2, a fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion. And in Proverbs 10, 18, the one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever utters slander is a fool. The fool, you don’t want to waste your time hanging around fools. Use your volition to be around those who are advancing in the plan of God. Seek out those who want to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Listen to the clear, lucid teaching of the Bible from a well-qualified pastor, and you will have a wonderful, marvelous life through occupation with Christ if you advance and grow spiritually. There’s a lot more to say about people testing, but this is a good way to start it. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re paying attention. I hope you’ll come back next time, next week, next Sunday, same time, same place. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Floodline.

SPEAKER 01 : 27:18

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.