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, stick around, stay with me. It’ll be about 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, and a whole lot of education with no manipulation. If this is the first time for you to listen to the Flatline, stick around because you’ll find we don’t solicit money. We’re not trying to sell you anything. We’re just offering you the Word of God, some insight into the Word of God. Hopefully, I can help you to see what God’s plan for your life is, and you can orient and adjust to the plan. But the Flatline is 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, education, as you heard, without any manipulation. Thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning in. All across the United States this morning, over 100 cities are listening to the Flatline, and I’m so grateful to have the privilege and the opportunity to give this information. Today, we want to talk about a clear and present danger that is focusing across our land, this great United States of America, and I’d like to bring that to your attention. A couple of verses I’d like to give you, and then we’ll jump right in and talk about what we want to cover today. In Hosea chapter four, verse six, the Bible says, my people are destroyed, destroyed for lack of knowledge, lack of knowledge. It didn’t say because they’re a bunch of drunkards or a bunch of one thing or the other. It says lack of knowledge. Because you rejected knowledge, I will reject you, that you shall be no priest for me. Seeing you’ve forgotten the laws of your God, I will also forget your children. Now, this was a warning by Hosea to Israel, but this can be applied to our nation as well. We are a client nation for God today. We represent our Father across the entire world. We pray for his blessing. We pray for his leadership. We ask for his anointing on our nation. And this is telling you right now how you can lose it. Lack of knowledge. I want to get into that and help you understand what that means. In Hosea 14, 9, at the end of the book, it says this. Who is wise and he shall understand these things. Prudent and he shall know them. For the ways of the Lord are right and the just, the just shall walk in them. But the transgressor shall fall therein. What are the ways of the Lord, and who is wise to figure this out, and what is this knowledge thing God’s talking about in the Bible? There are two institutions that Satan would need to infiltrate if he hopes to destroy a client nation such as the United States of America. You can see them as well as I can. Schools and churches. Schools and churches. So if Satan would like to shut this country down, he has to start by getting into the schools and into the churches. And it appears that he has already infiltrated our schools and successfully affecting the thinking of students in regards to gender rights, even managing to get God kicked off the campus. Student grades in math and science are well behind many other countries across this world. And in regards to churches, it appears to me that he’s also succeeded in dumbing down Christians. The emphasis on Christian entertainment under the guise of worship is just disgusting. Nobody ever grew to spiritual maturity singing Christian hymns. Unless you learn some basic Bible doctrine, you will never reach spiritual maturity in your life. You have to understand that. You’ll never get past the stage of infantism. You must learn some Bible doctrine. No insight, no discernment, no growth. So this brief study that I’m going to give you in the next few minutes is designed to alert you in regards to false teachers in the pulpit or elsewhere, maybe in a home. There’s a reason why I request for you to get under a well-qualified pastor. It’s the reason why I always bring that up to you. And I have people write to me all the time and say, where can I find a well-qualified pastor in my area? And unfortunately, that’s not always the case. May not be one close by. But there is information available from fantastic pastors if you’re interested in seeking it. And we can tell you how to link up with them and how to get it free of charge. But your spiritual life is very critical. And many churches get the gospel message every Sunday morning. You get it correct. And folks do, in fact, get saved. But after that, it seems they go off the rails on spirituality. And many ministers teach salvation by grace, but turn around and teach spirituality by works. This flaw shows up in the next generation, not the one that hears it, but the next one coming down the pipeline where spirituality by works winds up being salvation by works. You have to understand that Satan is very patient. very deliberate, and to do these things, he must use human communicators. This is what the book of Jude recorded for us. Certain men have crept in unnoticed who were long ago marked out for this condemnation. Ungodly men who turn the grace of our God into lewdness, lewdness, asegia, A-S-E-L-G-E-I-A, asegia, Broadly speaking, the word comes from a Greek word, astrotes, and it signifies that which is disgraceful and lewd and rude and sexually disgraceful. It’s characterized by moral impurity. When this verse says they’ve turned the grace of our God into moral impurity, into lewdness, there’s no doubt that many churches prey on innocent women and children. And there’s no doubt that this is going on across our country. We read about it every day. God does not authorize this. The Bible says that it’d be better for a man to have a millstone tied around his neck and thrown in the deepest part of the ocean than to touch the hair of a child’s head in any way whatsoever. So this verse that I’m referring to is ministers taking advantage of unsuspecting members of their congregation. Maybe it’s happened to you. So I want to alert you to this fact. Jude 8 says, likewise also these dreamers, the ones that defile the flesh, they reject authority and they speak evil of dignitaries. Deuteronomy calls them delusional dreamers. If there’s among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and he gives you a sign or a wonder and the sign or the wonder comes to pass of which he spoke to you saying, let’s go after other gods. which you have not known, and let’s serve them, then you should not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. So make no mistake about it. Let’s go on the record and get it clear. Satan has successfully planted his own ministers in churches, just as he has also successfully planted teachers in schools. In Jude 17, verse 9 through 19, But beloved, remember the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how they told you there would be mockers in the last times, the ones who should walk after their own ungodly lusts, and these be they who separate themselves, sensual, not having the Spirit. These ministers I’m talking about, appointed by Satan, will appear to be wonderful, great individuals. Oh, you’ll love them. They’ll love on you. They’ll pay a lot of attention to you. They’ll take you to ball games. They’ll take you on mission trips to help the other poor nations of the world. They’ll bring in Christian entertainment for you and obviously sell you tickets to go hear it and enjoy the event. And they’ll write and sell books and hold special conferences for women and men inviting you to purchase your ticket so they can pay the big fee required by the event leader. I read just today a big event coming up in our nation, something about being men in some church in Florida, and you can go. If you buy a ticket for $250, you can be there and eat with them and see them. These delusional dreamers may even teach a Sunday school class once a week. that you will never grow to spiritual maturity on a 30-minute class once a week. 2 Corinthians 11, 13 through 15, therefore it is not surprising if his servants, as Satan’s servants, also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their own deeds. So he has his own ministers, and he has his own doctrine. I’m talking about Satan now. He teaches his own doctrine in these churches. 2 Timothy 4.1, some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons. Doctrines of demons. We could get into what that exactly is, but part of it is salvation by works and spirituality by works. The Bible says Satan had his own communion table. In 1 Corinthians 10, 19 through 21, they sacrifice to demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. And these site pastors promote legalism as a system of pseudo-spirituality. They promote legalism as a system of pseudo-spirituality. In 1 Timothy 1, 7, they are teachers of the law, understanding neither what they’re saying nor what they’re affirming. I assure you God’s justice is coming for these satanic religious deceivers. It’s on the way. You must be on the lookout. You must be careful. The Bible makes it clear. Woe to the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord, Jeremiah 23, 1 and 2. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people. You’ve scattered my flock and you’ve driven them away and you have not visited them. Behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doing, saith the Lord. In Jeremiah 23, 21, a warning from God. I did not send these prophets, yet they ran. I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had listened to my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way. and from the evil of their doings. And then in Jeremiah 23, 31 and 32, I am against these prophets, says the Lord, the ones that use their tongues and say, he said, he said, I’m against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them and cause my people to live error by their lies and by their lightness. Yet I did not send them, nor did I command them, Therefore, they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord. These are the type of ministers I’m talking about, and they’re not very hard to find. Obviously, they usually have the biggest churches and all the merchandise to go with it. If you go to one of their churches, worship is like going to Dolly World or the Grand Ole Opry. But what exactly should you look for in a well-qualified pastor? First of all, you should look for a man who has a spiritual gift to pastor-teacher. And this is something God gives at the moment of salvation. It’s a communication gift. And I’m not a pastor, I’m an evangelist. I don’t pastor a church, I’m an evangelist. It’s a different gift. And secondly, you should look for a man who knows the original languages. Remember, the Bible was not written in the King James Version. It was written in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. And if you’re going to translate the Bible, you must know something about the original languages. And then you must look for a man who’s clear about salvation, faith alone in Christ alone, and not faith plus giving up Coca-Cola or faith plus quit eating peanuts. Not that. Faith alone in Christ alone. He must be clear about salvation. And you must find an individual, a pastor, who understands the issue of spirituality. Spirituality is critical for you to understand. You must understand this if you’re ever going to grow spiritually. Spirituality is the filling of the Holy Spirit living under the filling of the Holy Spirit. Whenever you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you’re spiritual. Whenever you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit, you’re carnal. Carnal means you have unconfessed sin in your life, and spiritual means you’re in fellowship with God. Spirituality means that you are becoming a mature believer based on the filling of the Holy Spirit and the components of the Word of God in your soul. So you must find a man who’s not looking to move up in the ranks, not looking to get a bigger church, bigger crowd, more people. It’s not about that. It’s about serving your flock, shepherding your flock. And you must find a man who meets biblical requirements found in 1 Timothy 3, one through seven. Don’t look at his looks. Don’t look at his personality. That’s not the issue. Rather, listen to the message. One of the greatest Bible teachers I’ve ever known or ever heard of in my life was criticized heavily because of his personality. But his pulpit information, the information he gained from the pulpit was unbelievable, phenomenal. It’s the only reason I’m here today because of what he taught me. But as far as personality goes, from the pulpit, he offended people because he wasn’t the sweet, nice, loving preacher that you want. He was tough like the old football coach I had at Alabama. He was an exegetical communicator, not a topical preacher. There’s a difference between an exegetical communicator and a topical preacher, and you need that exegetical communicator, not somebody that just preaches on the topic of one thing one week and one thing next week. That’s what I do. I’m a topical teacher. I teach you different topics each week. The pastor has to get into the word of God and exegete it. Exegeting it, starting with what we call, I’m going to give you a big word here, ice teaching, ice teaching, I-C-E. That stands for isagogical, categorical, exegetical teaching. So you break down a scripture verse line by line, word by word, verse by verse. When my pastor taught the book of Ephesians, it took several years. When my pastor taught the book about the life of Christ, it took several years. You don’t do it in a week. Having a week Bible study in a church is weak, W-E-A-K, at best. Having a week-long series on the book of Romans is crazy. I mean, you might be able to figure out how many chapters in Romans, but you’re not going to learn very much in a week. So, you know, you may not be able to find a pastor like that where you live. What do you do about it? Well, you may have to have non-face-to-face teaching that’s very possible. That’s what I actually do myself. I don’t live in the town where my pastor is, but he makes all of his messages available by live streaming. And I’m able to click on the computer and watch his messages every time he teaches, which is several times every week. So what I want to do for you is direct you to that sort of pastor who the man God has for you so you can get under that man’s authority, and his job will be to teach you and make you rich in God’s word. Paul talked about that, the treasure of the word of God in your soul. And with that spiritual wealth, you will be dangerous to the enemy, and you’ll be equipped now with some insight and discernment to see the scams of Satan, see his temptations and the way that he seeks to ruin your life. It’s critical you have to understand that. So many men today are not actually teaching their flock. They’re into organized religion and it’s moved them away from teaching. It seems to be more about entertainment and motivational, inspirational type messages. But preaching without solid teaching leads to some sort of emotional response. Many people want that. They don’t want to have intellectual response. They want an emotional response. They want to go to church and feel good about going to church. Like, oh, I went to church and I feel good about it. He inspired me. We sang some songs and we got emotional. And he said, God is here. Don’t you feel God being here? Unfortunately, God’s there when you leave, too, because he’s eminent and transcendent. You’re not going to put God in one place at one time. And if you think you can sing songs till you turn blue and invite God to come join your worship service, you’re crazy. God was there before you got there, and he’ll be there when you’re gone. So you may get an emotional high, but it’s not because God all of a sudden showed up. Jesus Christ lives in you. He’s in you. The hope of glory, the Bible teaches. So without getting emotional, you can have fellowship with God the Father through the filling of the Holy Spirit. And you can allow the Lord Jesus Christ to direct you in your life. But preaching without solid teaching leads to emotional response. So that means this, that a right thing has to be done in a right way. Because a right thing done in a wrong way is still wrong. And a wrong thing done in a right way is wrong also. You’re never going to hear a pastor tell you, hardly, unless you’re listening to the right kind of pastor, that you might be here for the right reason, but you may be here in the wrong way. When’s the last time your pastor said, before we begin our worship service, we’re going to have a time of silent prayer, and we’re going to ask you to look inside your life, and if there’s any unconfessed sin in your life, to go ahead and admit it to God right now, right this minute, before we start. Why would he say that? Because if you have unconfessed sin in your life, you’ve quenched the Holy Spirit, you’ve grieved the Holy Spirit. And if the Holy Spirit is quenched in greed, regardless of what the pastor says, you’re not going to be able to comprehend it. You’re not going to be able to transfer it into your soul because you’ve quenched and grieved the Holy Spirit. So a right thing has to be done in the right way. Is it right to go to church? Yes. Is there a right way to go to church and a wrong way to go to church? Yes. If you’re in church without the filling of the Holy Spirit, you’re in the right place in the wrong way. So when do the pastors get this clear? When do they make it clear to you? There’s a right way and a wrong way to live the spiritual life. And if you get a well-qualified pastor, he can certainly teach you exegetically or topically. But the question is, do you even know the difference? Do you? Exegetically is line upon line upon line and word upon word upon word. I mean, as it goes like this, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. So would you start out with your pastor, start out with Hothaios, the God, Agapao, so loved, Cosmos, the world. Can he break it down into the various languages and show you what’s there? Just listen to that. For God so loved the world. If I taught you John 3.16 exegetically, it could take several months. I could teach you the doctrine of God and the essence of God. I could teach you the concept of virtue love as taught in the Bible. I could teach you the cosmos and the angelic conflict that’s going on in the cosmos. A good pastor’s got to be able to break it down line upon line, word upon word. So the sermons that help us grow are the ones that are exegetically taught where we go line upon line and word upon word and verse upon verse. And a well-qualified pastor can do that because he has a working knowledge of the original languages. A well-qualified pastor does not need to know everybody’s name in the congregation. but he must feed that congregation and protect each member of the congregation from the other canine clergy wolves the Bible talks about. And he must not be motivated by anybody in the congregation. Even though he can have great friends, great rapport, it’s his personal love for God that motivates him to teach God’s word. Here’s another concept. Most male believers with a spiritual gift to pastor-teacher are neither brilliant nor even original thinkers. And quite frankly, as a pastor, they’re not required to be. They’re not required to be geniuses, but they are required to be accurate and to be faithful in the principle of studying and teaching and studying and teaching. A well-qualified pastor will not put anything in front of his studying and teaching. That’s priority number one in his life. Study, study, study. So when I bring you a message like what you’re hearing on the radio right now, it may take me three days to put this together. I’m not there 12 hours a day at my desk, but I may be there five hours a day. You don’t just sit down and blurt this stuff out. You have to understand it. You have to dig in. You have to do the details and the and the content and the background. There are a lot of guys that I know, particularly, who have this gift of pastor-teacher and they never use it. They can’t get the difference between their priorities and their passions straightened out. I was given the gift of evangelism when I got saved and I didn’t even know it. It took me over a year to figure that out, what was going on in my life. And you, you also have a spiritual gift. You and I both have spiritual gifts. And it’s a shame if we never use it. Now, here’s a principle I want you to remember. Don’t want you to ever forget it. Don’t ever try to associate the gift of pastor-teacher with certain kinds of personalities. Don’t say, well, he’s a good pastor because he’s so sweet. He’s a good pastor because he’s so friendly. He’s a good pastor because he’s so kind. Always knows my name. Always comes to see me in the hospital if I’m sick. What makes him a good pastor is not that he’s your friend, not that he likes to hang out with you, but that he can separate from you and study hours every day and get up in that pulpit and teach you the word of God correctly line upon line and word upon word and precept upon precept. That’s what’s important. So the demand for Bible teaching pastors in a country such as ours always diminishes as apostasy comes up and it’s happening today. I know churches that have actually fired great pastors who were great men who studied a lot because they weren’t sweet enough. They didn’t visit enough people. They didn’t call on sister so-and-so or brother so-and-so. If that’s you, you’re making a terrible mistake if you think the pastor has to come over and hold your hand, pray with you every day. He does his counseling from the pulpit. He does his counseling as he studies and teaches you the word of God. If you can’t handle some difficulty in your own life without having a pastor stand there and pray for you, then you’re never growing up spiritually. No pastor can lead his congregation to spiritual adulthood without unless he provides the basis for learning, learning, because he can only take you as far as he himself has been. And that’s critical. You understand that it’s critical that you sit under a mature believer, one who has a working knowledge of the languages and one who can teach you clearly what the word says. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t want that. They’d rather run the church themselves and run the pastor off. Sometimes we have what’s called cosmic pastors. Cosmos diabolicus is the devil’s world. And this is the guy who’s distracted by some form of works trying to get you involved in crusades, get you involved in social actions, get you involved in politics. Stay away. And then there’s baby pastors, or what I call the immature pastor, who never really learned much doctrine in their life. And they spend most of their time in the pulpit just giving the same salvation messages over and over and over, trying to evangelize their congregation every Sunday morning. And then there’s the adolescent pastor. This pastor can teach some truth, but he’s distracted by various forms of celebrity-ship, high profile. He wants to be the man of the hour. If that’s one that you’re associated with, you need to be very careful. Therefore, You have to watch out for pastors who have AI. AI. What is AI? Artificial intelligence is any system of thought which hinders you from fulfilling the plan of God or advancing in the plan of God in your life. you must find a well-qualified pastor. And you must understand there’s a clear and present danger in this world to shut that down. Satan is hard at work putting men in pulpits every day that belong to him. He’s hard at work trying to stop you from ever learning and applying the Word of God in your life. Just like he’s infiltrated the schools of this country with some sort of human viewpoint thinking, He’s infiltrating the churches as well. The biggest and the largest and the most well-attended churches are not the kind I’m talking about. They’re the kind where the sensationalism goes on every Sunday. The kind where all the blessings come supposedly you’re going to get showing up and God wants to give you this and God wants to give you that. You know, my friend has a motto, just show up and learn. Show up and learn. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Teach me, feed me. That’s what God’s looking for, men that will teach and feed his flock. I hope you’re listening. I hope this has alerted you to the danger of men in the pulpit that are not qualified to be there, men in the pulpit that God didn’t put there, men in the pulpit that are delusional dreamers, have their dreams. God said, look, if you want to teach something, teach my word, teach my word, teach my word. Go ask your pastor to do that. Ask him to teach you the word of God line upon line and verse upon verse, book upon book. It’s amazing what you can learn when you get into the word of God and study it that way. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re paying attention. I hope this encouraged you. If you have any questions, you can always contact us at rickhughesministries.org. Until next week, this is your host, Rick, saying 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.