In this episode, Rick Hughes examines the complex dynamics between the spiritual and worldly realms, urging listeners to focus on divine truths over the deceptive allurements of the world. Through a careful study of biblical passages, Hughes encourages believers to deepen their trust in God’s plan and to grow in grace by renewing their minds. With profound insights on avoiding guilt manipulation and understanding the role of church leadership, this discussion equips listeners to enhance their spiritual journey.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now your host Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host Rick Hughes and for the next few minutes I’d like to invite you to stay with me. It’ll be a time of motivation, some inspiration, always education, never any manipulation or any type of solicitation. The show is designed simply for one thing, and that’s to give you accurate information. That information hopefully will help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. If you’re able to do that and you’d like to orient and adjust to the plan, you can. That’s up to you. So this FLOT line, F-L-O-T, stands for Forward Line of Troops. That’s a military metaphor. We’re dealing with establishing a main line of resistance inside your soul, a way of thinking that includes 10 unique problem-solving devices so that when you learn them, And when you use them, then you’re able to stop the outside source of adversity before it becomes the inside source of stress. God’s Problem Solving Devices. We have a book about it, and you can always request that book. It’s free of charge, no charge ever, for anything we offer here. And it lists all ten of them in a brief manner. but they deal with the rebound technique, which is the problem of sin in our life and how we recover. It deals with the filling of the Holy Spirit, which is the problem of the old sin nature and how we control it. The 10 problem-solving devices deal with faith, rest, drill, are standing on some of those 7,000 promises that God provides in the Bible. And By the way, we have a book of promises we’ll be glad to send you as well. A neat book about the size of a small telephone book. It has many of God’s promises listed under the need that you can go for promises in regards to suffering, promises in regards to testing, et cetera. And that’s free as well. So we have all this information available. And my job is to give you as much information as I can so you can verify God’s plan and adjust to that plan if you’d like. We were dealing with, in our last Sunday, as we started dealing with a radio show, we dealt with the misguided spiritual life and how the man in Luke thought he was a Christian because he prayed and he tithed and he did all these wonderful things and he wasn’t really saved at all, Jesus said. And so we went on to talk today, we want to talk today about Satan’s strategy in regards to you because we don’t want Satan to dumb you down by distracting you from Bible class. So I want you to get this information. 2 Corinthians 2.11, this is what Paul wrote. We do not want Satan to take advantage of us because we don’t want to be ignorant of his devices. That’s a King James translation. Other translations say we don’t want to be exploited by his devices. outwitted by his devices, circumvented by his devices. So the bottom line is we don’t want Satan to get an advantage over us. If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, there’s a war that’s going on. All these translations suggest there is a spiritual war that takes place in the life of the believer on a daily basis. It’s called the angelic conflict. And Satan would like to conquer you and use you as a witness for his defense if you let him. He doesn’t want to go to the lake of fire. That’s where he’s headed, and he obviously is trying to get out of it. And so if he can get you to compromise what you believe or get you to take a stand with him, then he can use you as a witness for his defense. So as you can see, his objective is basically threefold, to exploit your weaknesses, are the trends of your old sin nature, to outwit your objectives, which always is for you to reach spiritual maturity, and to circumvent God’s desire for you. And that means that he wants to put you on the sidelines so you cannot fulfill God’s plan. If he’s going to do this, if he’s going to exploit you, outwit you, and circumvent God’s desire for you, he does it in three ways. It’s a three-prong attack. First of all, he comes at you by the world. The world is controlled by Satan. The lure of the world is used as a weapon to lure you. And I told you last week how a duck hunter uses a decoy. Puts the duck in the pond. It looks like a real duck. It floats out there and then the ducks fly overhead and he quack quacks on the duck caller. And they come down thinking that things are a little happy duck heaven there. And they get shot. Well, the world is the decoy, it’s the duck decoy, offering happiness, offering security. But in actuality, it cannot provide either one of these things. And so the Bible warns you in 1 John 2.15, do not love the world, do not love the things of the world, because anyone who loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that’s in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the Father. but of the world, and the world is passing away, and the lust in it will pass away, but only he who does the will of God will abide forever. The big what is the will of God? Can you answer that question? If you do the will of God, you will abide forever. Well, in John 6, 40, Jesus said, this is the will of the one that sent me that you believe in me whom he sent. So it’s God’s will that you believe that Jesus is his anointed son. That’s God’s will. And it also was what people debated when he was walking the earth. They didn’t believe it. They didn’t believe he was the son of God, even though he did the miracles to prove it. And so today, you must make that decision. Is this the Christ, the son of the living God, or is it not? Because the Bible clearly says, like in 1 John 5, 1, he that believes Jesus is the Christ is born of God. In John 3.16, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him, there it is again, shall not perish but have everlasting life. The will of God is for you to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the Christ. He’s not a lunatic. He’s not a liar. He is the son of God. So John 6.40 clearly states that. In Romans 12.2, the Bible says don’t be conformed to this world but be transformed. by the renewing of your mind. That means you have to change the way you think. You can no longer think in terms of being conformed to this world, the systems of operation in the devil’s world, like happiness is in people, happiness is in money, happiness is in circumstances. That’s not what God says. Happiness is in hearing and applying God’s word into your life. So in Romans 12, 2, Paul warns, don’t be conformed to this world. Don’t buy into it. Don’t listen to it. But in regards to that, be transformed. In other words, change the way you think by the renewing of your mind so that you can prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Now, some things are not good. Some things are not acceptable. And there is a will of God, and there’s not a will of God. And a lot of Christians do good that’s not acceptable called wood, hay, and stubble in 1 Corinthians 3, and it’s burned up at the judgment seat of Christ because it’s all human good. It’s a good you do in the energy of the flesh. Any good you do in the energy of the flesh when you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit is burned up at the judgment seat of Christ. And it is not the perfect will of God for you to live that way. The perfect will of God is for you to take his word, learn his word, stay filled with the Holy Spirit, grow in grace, and replicate the life of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 4, 4, Satan is called the God of this world. That is, he runs the show here. His objective always is to confuse the lost man, the man that is disadvantaged, the man who has not accepted Christ, the people that don’t believe. He wants to confuse them. lest the light of the gospel of the glory of jesus christ who’s the image of god would shine in on them jesus christ is the light of the world he said that and this says it also the light of the gospel of the glory of christ who is in fact the image of god he was god he’s the god man undiminished deity true humanity and one body forever God can’t die, man can die. And so God became man so that he could pay the wages of sin, which was he had to die spiritually in our place. He took our place. All of our sins were dumped out on him. So the glory of Christ, the light of the glory of Christ would shine on men and they may be saved. Now, Satan has a light too. It’s never the right light. It’s a black light. Sometimes years ago, I remember people having black lights on their porch to zap bugs. It would attract the bugs. It was a purple light and they would fly over into it and they’d be zapped. Satan’s got a bug zapper and it’s the lie. It’s the false doctrine. And he will lure you into that if you allow him. So the principles to consider for you are this. We as believers in Jesus Christ are mandated not to love, not to have overwhelming desires for the world, for what the world offers. We’re mandated for that. And number two, what the world offers is a deceptive delusion. It’s not true. It’s for the warped soul that’s seeking satisfaction, seeking fulfillment, and in something that’s not real, in people or circumstances or whatever. So these disciples that our Lord Jesus Christ taught and they walked with him for three years had to make a determined decision to abandon all of their assets and follow Jesus Christ. You know, when he walked up to them and said, follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men, you may wonder what all was said. I mean, had to be more said than that. And yes, everything that he said was not recorded, just those important words. But I’m sure he told them who he was. He gave them the gospel. They could sense that he was who he said he was. And they abandoned their jobs, their ships, their nets, and they followed him. And they became eventually the apostles of our Lord. So they had to leave their assets to follow him. They had to make a determined decision, and you must do that too. If you’re going to follow Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior, you must make a determined decision to grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That’s exactly what the Bible says. And loving the world is akin to depending on what the world offers you to fulfill what you’re looking for in your life, and it’s all a decoy. It’s not real. It won’t give you what you’re looking for. The lust of the flesh the Bible talks about, don’t give in to the lust of the flesh, refers to using what the world offers you to fulfill the fleshly desires you have. But remember this. We all have trends of our own sin nature. Some people’s trend may be towards asceticism or extreme legalism, and some people’s trend may be towards antinomianism or extreme self-indulgence. In other words, moral degeneracy or immoral degeneracy, they’re both degenerate. A moral degenerate is a self-righteous religious person who’s not saved, who thinks he’s going to heaven because he tithes. He thinks he’s going to heaven because he joined up. He thinks he’s going to heaven because he doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t whatever. And he likes to look at you and say, I’m better than you because I’m good and you’re not good. You’re one of them old drunks. See, and that’s what really threw the Pharisees for a loop because Jesus Christ, our Lord, hung out with the prostitutes. He hung out with the drunks, and he reached them because they wanted help. The Pharisees ignored him, rejected him, maligned him, cursed him. They didn’t believe he was who he said he was. And so you have to make that decision, a moral degenerate. is just as wicked as an immoral degenerate. The immoral degenerate is the adulterer, the fornicator, the drunk, and the moral degenerate is the self-righteous religious person who thinks that he’s doing God a favor just by showing up at church. So watch out for that. Romans 8.5, those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. And that’s not just adultery and fornicating. That’s other things. And those who live according to the Spirit set their mind on the things of the Spirit. In other words, God wants you to think in terms of divine viewpoint, what’s in the word of God. Why do you think he says, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, but rightly dividing the word of truth. So he wants you to put your mind on his things. And that’s what Philippians 2, 5 says, let this mind be in you that’s also in Christ Jesus. So Romans 8, 8 says, those that live in the flesh cannot please God. In Romans 8, 13, if you live according to the flesh, you’re going to die. But if you live by the Spirit, you will put to death the deeds of the body, and put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. And this is true for temporal death as well as spiritual death. If you live according to the needs of the flesh as a Christian, you will die temporarily. You’re not lost. You’re not going to hell. But you will derail your spiritual life. It won’t work. It won’t function. You’ll be temporarily dead. But if you live by the filling of the Holy Spirit and ignore the deeds of the body, then you will live the spiritual life. So the antidote to the flesh, what is it? If the flesh is there and Satan uses it to decoy you, how do you overcome it? And Galatians 6 says, walk in the spirit and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh. Problem solving device number two, the filling of the Holy Spirit. The Bible goes on in Galatians 6, 17 says, for the flesh wars against the spirit, the spirit wars against the flesh and they’re contrary one to another so you can’t do the things you’d like to do. So here, listen, A, the Holy Spirit is the agent of protection from the enemy of self. B, at some point in your life, you might even shock yourself. You may do something you thought you were not capable of doing, and the devil loves that one. because you have a depraved nature. You have a sinful nature. It’s always interesting to be around people that determine if they have a trend towards asceticism or a trend towards antinomianism. The people that have a trend towards that legalism, they act holy, they act self-righteous, and they may in fact be. But when they do something that surprises them, Then they’re all ashamed and they get all bent out of shape and they think God dumped them, God doesn’t love them anymore, and look what I did, I can’t be a Christian, I did this, I did that. Christians can do some pretty dumb, evil, wicked things. Doesn’t mean you’re not saved. Means you let your old sin nature take over and the lure of the world brought you down. You can recover by using problem-solving device number one, rebound, confess your sin, get back in fellowship, And you may even need to relocate. It means get out of there. Get away from that situation. So at some point in your life, you might shock yourself. And C, this is indicative of letting your old sin nature be unbridled in your life. You don’t tame it. You don’t control it. You let it do whatever it wants to do. And D, by means of rebound, that’s 1 John 1, 9, problem-solving device number one, we are guaranteed a protector in our soul. That’s the filling of the Holy Spirit. So when we sin and rebound, the Holy Spirit protects us from our self. We met the enemy, he’s us. If you walk in the Spirit, you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh, Galatians 6, 16 says. Who’s the enemy? Your flesh. The world, the flesh, and the devil. Why would Satan even worry with you? I mean, if you can’t get past the lure of the world, if you cannot get past the desires of the flesh, tell me why Satan would even spend one minute worrying about you because you’re already defeated. So you must understand that. If the dust settles in your life and you’re still alive, then obviously God has a plan for you. He’s not through with you. So quit trying to live in guilt. You have to avoid the manipulation of guilt. You must not look at your failures. Listen, God doesn’t kick you out of the royal family of God when you fail. You look at God’s grace. Look at his grace and his forgiveness and in his restoration. Satan is the one that wants you to go sit in the corner and feel sorry for yourself. Sit in the corner and be ashamed of yourself and let guilt carry you down. Yes, you failed. Yes, you made a mistake. God did not take you out. He’s not through with you. He forgave you. You named your sin to him. You get up and you move on. It’s like playing football. You get knocked down. You get blocked. You don’t make all the plays every time. And when you get blocked, you get up, dust yourself off, and get back in the game. It’s critical for you to understand that. You must get back in the game. So you can’t be manipulated by Satan. So if you’re gonna avoid the decoys that the flesh offers you, you know, the temptations of the world, you have to renovate the way you think. You have to change the way you think. You have to learn what is the will of God for your life. That’s where the gospel of Christ is critical because it’s the illumination needed, it’s the light needed to deliver the world from the decoy deployed by the dark one, Satan, the one who works in the shadows, the one who has the bug zapper. He’ll zap them all if they let him. But we have the real light, the light of the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ. So let’s get this straight. Satan knows you. He knows who you are. He has strategies related to you. He has a dossier on you. He knows all your weaknesses. He knows all your strengths, but he doesn’t play to your strength. If Satan wants to attack you, he will attack you where you’re your weakest. So if you’re weak on Bible doctrine, if you’re weak on the word of God, he will seek to get you to question truth by presenting something close to the truth. Sounds like the truth, looks like the truth, smells like the truth. It’s not the truth, it’s a decoy. And it is to deceive you. Therefore, you are to rightly divide the word of truth, the Bible says. Satan has his own ministers, his own communion table, his own doctrine called Doctrine of Demons. This is all in the Bible. I didn’t make it up. And it will deceive you. It’s a decoy. And I have seen many Christians be deceived by false doctrine, moving into something that’s not true, moving into a Christian life that’s not true. Some of this goofy stuff you see on television is all a big joke about you can, if you put your money here, God will make you rich. You can put a seed here and then you’ll get rich and people buy into that goofy stuff. listen i’ll tell you where the seed is the seed is in learning and studying the word of god as you learn it as you study you grow you develop you mature as a christian and you begin to glorify god to the maximum in your life it’s not about what you want it’s about what god wants for you so satan is always looking to gain an advantage over you which means he wants to use you for a witness in his defense. That’s his ultimate objective. He doesn’t want to go to the lake of fire. He wants to impugn God’s justice by highlighting all of your failures for his defense. In other words, he’ll say, look at Rick. He claims to be a Christian God. Look what he did. Now, why are you going to send me to the lake of fire? Why not send him to the lake of fire? You see how he wants to do it? Now, unfortunately, he’s already been tried, judged, condemned. That’s it. And I have believed in Jesus Christ, and my righteousness is the righteousness of Christ. Yes, I’m saddled with a sin nature like you. Yes, I fail like you. But that’s what Satan wants to do. He wants me to live in my failure so he can vindicate his own self. He wants to use you and use me as a get-out-of-jail-free card by means of our personal failure. by means of the failure of the church. He’s seeking to avoid going to the lake of fire. Now, we know how he attacks us. How does he attack your church? What about your church? Could he destroy your church? I have seen Satan destroy many churches. How does he do it? Well, the first thing necessary is get the congregation to doubt the leadership of the church, or in other words, he attacks the pastor. How does he do that? Well, he deflects his message. If he can deflect the message of the pastor, he will discourage the congregation. If the congregation gets discouraged, they will disengage with the church and then they deviate from sound doctrine and the congregation is divided. Always Satan will have his man and he will be in there ready to plant the seed of the lie and divide the congregation. So this is how he does it. Doubt the leadership of the pastor. Deflect the message of the pastor. In other words, the message doesn’t become important. The man becomes important. That’s just backwards. It’s always the message, not the man. When people start looking at the man and quit looking at the message, then they get discouraged in the congregation because they see the pastor has feet of clay. And then if they disengage from church or quit going to church, they get sucked into false doctrine. Satan’s just waiting on them to peel out so he can suck them into something else. And the congregation is divided. Happens over and over and over in many, many areas. Attacking the pastor is always done by getting people to doubt his leadership. You know, being a pastor doesn’t imply the existence of leadership. That’s not what it is. It’s not about the gift of popularity. People don’t like leadership. Old sin natures don’t like to be led. And denominational churches run preachers off every year because people don’t like the way they lead. But great leadership is demonstrated in a great crisis. So at least once in a pastor’s life, he’s got to face a great threat, at least once in his ministry. And Paul himself was accused of sedition in Acts 24, verse 6. He even tried to profane the temple, they said, and we seized him and wanted to judge him according to our laws. But the commander of the Roman army came and took him by violence away from us. Well, the result of great leadership in a local church by a pastor is great motivation by the congregation. And your motivation should always be found in personal love for God. That’s your motivating virtue in your life. The Bible says in 1 John 5, 3, if you love me, obey me. That’s simple enough, isn’t it? If you love me, obey me. What is your motivation to obey God? Do you love him? How can you love somebody you don’t know? How can you love a God you don’t understand? Listen to Matthew 6. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and don’t do the things that I tell you to do? Personal love for the pastor is a motivation that stems from him being faithful to study and teach God’s word. Not that he’s your friend, not that he calls on you and holds your hand, makes clucking noises, that he studies God’s word and teaches it to you. And you have confidence in his authority as a communicator of the word of God. All pastors have the same mandate. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may promote you at the right time. It’s critical that you understand this because this is how Satan will try to destroy a church and destroy you along the way. to attack the leadership, to get people to doubt his authenticity, to deflect away from his message to his person, and to discourage the congregation because he doesn’t hold everybody’s hand and pat them all on the head. The next thing you know, we have a divided church, a divided congregation that now deviate from sound doctrine. So maybe this has happened to you. Maybe it’s happened in your church. Maybe this is something you’ve been through. I hope it’s making sense to you because it’s the way it works. You have to be on the lookout. You have to be aware of what Satan’s up to. Don’t let it trap you into this pit of the sin nature controlling a congregation or a local church. Well, there’s a lot more to say, but unfortunately, I’m running out of time. I hope you’ve been listening this morning, and I hope you’ll continue to listen every Sunday morning, same time, same place. Until then, I’m your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
