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, stick around. It won’t be long, just about 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education, and absolutely no manipulation, no con games, no gimmicks, not asking for money, not trying to sell you anything. We just want to give you information to help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. If you’re able to do so and you would like to orient and adjust to the plan, then you will at least know how to do that. But thank you for giving me a few minutes of your time, and thank you, Jack, for the introduction. Jack does that every Sunday for us. He’s a fantastic member of our team, and we appreciate him so very much. If you ever want to come to our website, it’s rickhughesministries.org. rickhughesministries.org. There you can see all the many books we’ve written that are free of charge if you’d like to order one. You can also listen to some of the books being read to you by Jack himself, and you can also order some DVDs where we’ve taught different Bible studies in different churches. It’s all on the website. Pictures, books, DVDs, anything you’d like to order. So please give us a visit or call us at 800-831-0718. Okay? All right. What I want to talk to you about today is kind of interesting. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this or not, but I want to talk about having a hard heart, a hard heart. This is one of the things that’s gone on with teenagers today and young people today across America. I feel like I’m capable of speaking about this subject because I’ve spoken thousands of high school assemblies across America, particularly from Texas to Florida and on the East Coast and not the West Coast. But I’ve spoken to thousands of teenagers and I’ve seen this very easily identifiable. Kids having a hard heart. This is why gang members could kill you and not think twice about it. That’s why they could rob you or steal everything you got and laugh about it when they get back together. Their heart is very hard. I mean, you probably wondered how some individuals can consistently lie, consistently steal, and they have absolutely no guilt about those actions. And that’s the identification of a hard heart. No guilt. So how do they do that? I mean, how can they break into your home, break into your property, steal everything you have, and not even consider that it’s wrong? America is full of people like this that would not even think twice about injuring you if you tried to interfere with their life. Road rage is another good example of it. People get shot and killed in road rage every day. We find people that have a hard heart, think nothing about shooting you and think nothing about getting out of the car and breaking your windows because they’re mad at you. So I want to ask you a question. And this goes to you, not to somebody else, but to you. But if you, you went to the grocery store and you gave the cashier a $20 bill to pay for your groceries and they gave you money back for a $50 bill after you paid for your items, you would notice that, wouldn’t you? I mean, you would see they gave you too much change. Maybe the cashier just wasn’t paying attention. Would you tell her or tell him, whoever that, that they overpaid you? Would you stop and say, wait a minute, I didn’t give you that much money. Or would you put it in your pocket, walk out thinking, boy, that was my lucky day. If you can willingly and consistently cheat on your taxes, for example, if you have a business, have you told people, just pay me cash, that way I don’t have to pay it on my taxes. Or can you steal from another individual without having any guilt? It’s possible, very possible, that you may have a hard heart, or what my pastor, Colonel Thiem, used to call scar tissue, scar tissue. So let’s go back to a child in the home under parental authority, and let’s look at where it starts, because one of the jobs as a parent has, I believe, is to teach norms and standards to their children. Listen to Ephesians chapter six, verse four. And you fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. And listen to Proverbs 4.1. That was Ephesians 6.4. Here’s Proverbs 4.1. Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to no understandings. And then all the way back in Exodus 20, verse 12, honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God had given you. One of the secrets to living a long and fulfilling life and a happy life is to orient to the authority of your parents. And one of the jobs of the parents is to bring up a child in the nurture and the admission of the Lord, to teach instruction, to give instruction. So let’s get some points down about this, okay? Number one, every individual born, unless you came from the twilight zone, But every individual born receives a sin nature. And that comes down from Adam. Every one of us have that. Romans 5, 12 identifies that. It says, wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death has now passed upon all men, for all have sinned. Every child born, little girl, little boy, beautiful babies, have a sin nature. I don’t know if you’ve ever raised two young children together, but you see them fight with each other and want the toys or lie to each other. That’s a little sin nature coming out. Already got it. So two, it’s the job of the parent. Number one, to evangelize your children, to give them the gospel, to make sure they understand what it means to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and receive him as their savior. But it’s also your job to teach them how to overcome the desires of their flesh. That’s the arrogance that they have inside of them, identifiable with the old sin nature. So point three, the sin nature is obvious. You can see it by the demonstration of arrogance in your children, like disrespectful of authority, justifying why they don’t have to go to bed, justifying why they don’t have to turn the TV off. These both are indications of sin nature activity. I mean, I’ve got grandchildren and I’ve watched them. Mother’s telling them to put that up and they don’t want to do it. Put that up, put that up. After about the fifth time, mother’s ready to bop them one time because you have to get their attention sometimes. So disrespectful of authority. That’s one thing you have to teach your children to understand authority because if you don’t accept authority, you will build scar tissue really quick in your life. And so point five, and this is important that you understand that, point four, actually, if the laws of establishment are not taught to children, and the laws of establishment mean freedom, marriage, family, and nationalism, those four things, if the laws of establishment are not taught to children, then they will not be manageable as an adult. They’ve got to be taught respect for privacy, not to go into your brother or sister’s room and take stuff without asking. They’ve got to be taught that property and privacy are essential rules they must learn. also the biblical concept of the family and the individual freedom must be taught in order to avoid rebellion in later life as far as they go so they have to understand these things and this is what it means to bring them up in the nurture and the administration of the lord teach them these things so they don’t develop scar tissue in their life point five children that don’t have parents are at a risk to be maladjusted to society unless somebody who adopts them or somebody who watches over them steps up and feels that need. I know people that were raised in orphanages, and I only had one parent myself. I had a mother, no father, and the closest thing I had to a father was a football coach when I played high school football. So I didn’t really have a parent that was teaching me other than my mom, and she was hardworking, trying to make a living, take care of us. But I didn’t have anybody teach me these things. It was later in my life, after I became a Christian, that my pastor taught me what I’m giving to you today, teaching you today. So children without parents are at a risk to be maladjusted unless somebody fills that need. Point six, even with clear and loving instruction from the parents, both parents, remember a child still has their own volition. And they may, in fact, ignore what you taught them or rebel against the authority that you established. And that can happen. Even though you did the job, you did the job right. The influence of their friends or the influence of the world could be so strong, they would override what you taught them. And sometimes it doesn’t. It’s interesting, in my travels, I’ve met families that have wonderful, amazing children that are very establishment-oriented, even wind up in the ministry. Great families that have lousy children. So I don’t know what to tell you about that, but it’s up to the individual volition of the individual child of whether they’re gonna follow the mandates that you teach them or not, okay? So listen to Proverbs 30 verse 17 about that, rebelling against the authority of your parents and ignoring what they taught you. Proverbs 30 verse 17, the eye that mocks his father and despises to obey his mother The ravens of the valley shall pick it out and the young eagles shall eat it. That’s describing a horrible death. That’s what happens to a person that’s anti-authority, anti-family, anti-parent. Eventually they will self-destruct because they can’t handle life. They get to build a lot of scar tissue in their life. Their heart gets hard. They have no guilt and they will destroy their own self. That’s what happens. A child may reject the gospel and may reject the authority of a parent. And if they do, the end result is a defiled conscience, a conscience that is defiled. This is why they do things that they’re doing against what you taught them. In Titus 1.15, unto the pure, all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled, there’s our word, and unbelieving is nothing pure but even their mind and their conscience is defiled pay attention to that their mind and their conscience is defiled the conscience is where you have your norms and your standards that’s what your parents are doing they’re developing norms and standards in your conscience and your conscience functions wonderfully your mind is where your volition is It’s where you decide, yes, I will obey that or no, I will not do that. And everybody’s going to test it. You know that people are going to be tempted and test and they’re going to find out they failed. And some will feel guilty and confess their sin as a believer and some won’t. Some will go back to more and do more and more. But when the mind and the conscience of an individual is defiled, then what happens is scar tissue is formed on the mentality of the soul. The hard heart, that’s the mentality of the soul, not the heart that pumps blood, not the cardia, but the noose, the mind is what we’re talking about here. So scar tissue causes a blackout of the soul or the mind to blackout, shut down, quit thinking. And this is eventually spreads like a disease across the rest of the body. It’s sad to watch it happen. It’s sad to see it happen. You and I probably both have seen it happen. I know I’ve seen it happen. And that’s what happens when they reject the authority of their parents, the authority of the Word of God. Eventually, their mind will be blacked out and their soul will be sucked into the cosmic vortex. That’s the lure of the world, like an invisible tornado swirling around. The zeitgeist, they call it. The zeitgeist is the spirit of the times, is what it is. And so eventually, with a blacked out soul, you’re sucked into the spirit of the times, the zeitgeist, the cosmic vortex, resulting in the loss of reality. Now you don’t even know what reality is with all your norms and all your standards gone. that should have been taught to you or could have been taught to you and they’re now wiped out. Scar tissue forms over the hardness of their heart and they don’t even remember these things. How do I come to that opinion? How could I tell you that? I’m gonna show you a verse in Ephesians 4, 17. And the Greek word for a situation that I’m calling scar tissue is the word porosis, P-O-R-O-S-I-S, which means to harden. so let’s listen to what paul wrote in ephesians 4 17-18 this i say therefore and testify in the lord that you henceforth walk not as other gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind having the understanding darkened being alienated from the life of god through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart Okay, now let’s go back. This I say therefore and testify in the Lord. This is the source of what he’s telling him. This is coming from God. That you do not walk, peripatao is the Greek word, that you do not live Like the Gentiles live, and how do they live? In the vanity of their mind. The word vanity is metaotes, is a vacuum. It’s a vacuum of their mind. There’s nothing inside to prevent what’s on the outside from crushing it. I told a story in high schools when I would speak about my daughter one time creating a vacuum. And it was very interesting to watch it because when you create a vacuum, what’s on the outside is greater than what’s on the inside. You can create a vacuum in a can and put a candle in a can and watch it crush once all the oxygen on the inside is burned up. There’s the PSI pounds per square inch on the outside is greater than the pounds per square inch on the inside. And the vacuum will crush the can. And so it’s possible that the believer can have an emptiness in his mind or nothing inside to stop what’s on the outside. And the outside will crush him. And then what’s the mechanics to this? Here it is. Listen to verse 18. Having the understanding darkened. That’s the words kotizo. S-K-O-T-I-Z-O. It’s kotizo. It means to be blacked out. Not able to see. Not able to understand. Have you ever walked around the house at night with no lights and stubbed your toe? Rambling down the hall, fussing because you didn’t pay attention to where you were, you couldn’t see. But when your heart is blacked out, when you can’t think because of scar tissue, then this verse says they are alienated from the life of God. And what causes that? Through the ignorance that is in them, that’s ignorance, they don’t know God’s will. And where did they get this ignorance? Because of the hardness of their heart, cirrhosis, scar tissue. So their heart has gotten hard. They’re not interested in the things of God. They’re walking in a darkened room, in a darkened life, and their mind is like a vacuum. It’s sucking in all the stuff they didn’t need to be sucking in. All the system, the cosmic system is overtaking them. They’re trapped in the cosmic system. They’re following the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times. this individual with a hard heart is doomed doomed to a life of unhappiness due to his own arrogance of self-justification and self-deception justifying why it’s right to do what he or she wants to do and deceiving their self into believing that it’s okay because their heart is hard they’re walking in darkness and they don’t see what they’re doing So if the individual is a believer, if they’re a Christian, you can bet that discipline will be served for sure. And it’s going to be severe because scar tissue of the soul means the believer will have discipline. They will have loss of blessing. And for some believers, if they don’t respond to the discipline, they can go under the sin unto death. In Psalm 95, verse eight, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah. The hard heart was even in the Old Testament. So can, point one, can scar tissue be removed? Yes it can. At salvation, the individual who gets saved, his scar tissue is removed because he becomes a new person. 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if any man is in Christ, he’s a new creation. old things pass away and everything becomes new so when you’re born again it’s like having a dirty chalkboard in the classroom and the teacher goes up and takes a wet sponge and cleans the chalkboard and all the old writing is gone it’s a clean chalkboard that’s what happens to you and your soul when you get saved everything is wiped away and it all becomes clean So too, the memories of sinful activities that you did, certainly that will remain. You can’t forget that. But due to the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the calloused heart or the hard heart can actually now see and understand what it was previously blind to. In other words, you’re not inscotizo anymore. You’re not having a darkened heart anymore. You can actually see through the scripture what you had not seen before. I mean, that’s what happened to me. When I got saved, I saw things I didn’t see before. I never understood those things before until I got into the Bible and began to see what I was doing to myself. Now, if it’s a believer and the believer gets out of fellowship, gets into the zeitgeist, the cosmic system, and does not recover by using the rebound technique, which is problem solving device number one in the flood line of your soul, then that believer will undoubtedly act like or mimic the lost man as he goes around in a frantic search for happiness. And that believer will eventually harden his heart to the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit. If your heart gets hard, the Holy Spirit’s not able to convict you, then you will accumulate scar tissue and the lack of conviction, the loss of guilt, because you now justify what you’re doing and you’re totally self-absorbed. Listen to what 2 Peter says in 2.20. For if after they have escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are again entangled and overcome, then the latter end will be worse than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they’ve known it to turn from the holy commandments delivered unto them. but it happened unto them according to the true proverb, the dog has turned to his own vomit to eat it again, and the sow that was washed in her wallowing going back into the mire again. This is the believer out of fellowship that doesn’t respond to the call of God, the discipline of God, and they eventually wind up worse than it was before they got saved. So here’s the principle. Scar tissue of the soul doesn’t respond to the grace of God. It only responds to the discipline of God. Scar tissue of the soul, the hard heart, doesn’t respond to God’s grace, only to God’s discipline. Why do I say that? Because it’s very hard for the arrogant believer to recover from his failure due to his pride. And that pride stems from arrogance of self-justification. There is a divine mandate regarding scar tissue, and it’s found in 1 John 2, 15. Stop loving the cosmic system. That’s the cosmic vortex, the zeitgeist, or anything in the cosmic system. If anyone keeps loving the cosmic system, it’s called the world in the Bible, then the love of the Father is not in him. In other words, we’re told to love God with all of our heart and body, soul, and mind. You can’t love two people at the same time. Do you love God? Yeah, you say you do. You can’t love God and love the world. You’re going to follow one and follow the other. Which one are you going to follow? The scriptures teach us how you can pull out of self-destruction if you want to. In Luke 15, 7, the parable of the prodigal son, the key word was he came to himself. Luke 15, 17, he came to himself. What does that mean? It means he had some self-induced humility. Through discipline, through almost dying the son into death, the prodigal son came to himself and went home. And this is what he said. I’ve sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and I’m no longer worthy to be called a son. Well, that’s not true. God will never forsake you. You may turn your back on God, but I promise you he never turned his back on you. He’s just loving you from behind. So this particular illustration the Lord Jesus Christ gave, the prodigal son responded to the enforced humility that God placed in his life. That is, he had to feed hogs, had to get some food, he had to eat slop. Humility is the key to the believer’s survival in the devil’s world. If you don’t have some humility, and that’s demonstrated by obedience and loving God and obeying God, then you won’t survive in the devil’s world. If you just try to hack it, part of the time, you’re gonna destroy yourself. So 1 Peter 5, 6 says you need to humble yourself before the mighty hand of God. Why should you do that? So he can exalt you in due time. That’s exactly what God wants to do. and then in verse seven of second peter five cast all your cares on him for he cares for you if you have scar tissue in your life today if you have a hard heart today i advise you to rebound and confess your sin to god and go straight to the lord and humble yourself Tell him what an idiot, tell him what a fool you’ve been. Ask him to forgive you and cleanse you. And then cast your cares upon him because he cares for you. That means learn his plan, learn his way. Get under the qualified ministry of a good pastor. Start learning God’s word if you are willing to do that. Most people are not willing to do that. Most people are willing to play the game of religion and go to church once a week. That’s about as far as they want to go with it. They don’t want to take time to study and grow and learn on a daily basis. Luke 14, 11 said, whoever exalts himself shall be abased, and he that humbles himself shall be exalted. There’s the key to having a wonderful life, humility. In Proverbs 11, 2, when pride comes, then comes shame, but with humility is wisdom. There it is. The Greek verb for humility is tapano’o, tapano’o. And that means to make low or to be obedient. Loss of prestige, loss of status. In Philippians 2.8, Paul tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ actually humbled himself and became obedient even to the cross. In Philippians 2.8, being found in a fashion as a man, he humbled himself and he became obedient even even unto death, the death of the cross. That’s the key that you have obedience is you, that you have humility is you’re obedient. Being humble doesn’t mean that you’re being humiliated. That’s not what it means. Being humble does not imply that. What it does mean is you’re obedient. So it’s entirely possible that some of the misery you’re experiencing in your life today is due to your lack of obedience. Maybe you’ve got scar tissue in your heart. You broke fellowship with God some time ago. You started accumulating scar tissue demonstrated by your lack of conviction and your lack of obedience. It’s not too late to recover if you’d like to. All you have to do is go to the Father and confess your sin, and the Bible says he will be faithful and just to forgive you. Ask him to give you direction. Ask him to give you instruction. Ask him to show you where you can learn his plan for your life. You can start by studying some of the books we’ve written. They’re free. They’ll help you. I promise you. So until next week now, I’m your host, Rick Hughes. I hope you got something out of this. We’ll be back same time, same place. Until then, thank you for listening to The Floodline.

SPEAKER 01 : 27:17

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.