What you think reveals the real you. Man looks at the outward appearance, God looks in your mind. Your spiritual life is lived in your thoughts. This study focuses on stinkin’ thinkin’—thinkin’ based on human viewpoint, not divine viewpoint. The Bible is very clear about how to think. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Rom 12:2). How do you renew your thoughts? By studying the mind of Christ. “Whatever things are true, whatever things
Stinkin’ Thinkin’ – Part 1
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 561 aired on May 29, 2016
Good morning and welcome to The FLOT Line. I’m your host Rick Hughes and for the next few
minutes I’d like to ask you to stay with me. As always it will be a time of motivation, inspiration,
education, and you remember this now, we do it with no manipulation. We don’t con you or
coerce you. We’re simply here to give you some accurate information not human speculation,
information from the canon of Scripture, the Bible. That’s right, it’s a show about the Bible but
hold on, maybe not what you’re use to, no jumping up and down, no shouting, no yelling. It’s just
simply me giving you some information. This information is designed to help you verify as well
as identify God’s plan for your life and you always have the freedom and the privacy to orient
and adjust to the plan, that’s up to you. My job as always is to be accurate every Sunday, and
your job is to make the application. I give the information, you make the application. This is how
it works. If you are able to do this, then you are orienting and adjusting to God’s plan for your
life and it’s amazing. Once you do this, once you begin to get some divine viewpoint, once you
begin to understand how the plan works and how the plan functions, then you see what a
supernatural life God has given to us, a life where there is no worry, a life where there is no fear,
we don’t have to be angry, we don’t have to malign or criticize or gossip. A life where we can
actually forgive people and forget the things that they have done to us. What a wonderful way to
live where we don’t have to have turmoil and conflict in our minds every day. Your spiritual life
is lived in your mind, in your soul. Your soul has mentality, volition, conscience and self-
consciousness.
Inside the mentality of your soul is where you live your spiritual life.
We’ll
show you this as we go through this study. It’s not the outside, how you dress, that you wear
crosses or you wear a high collar or whatever you wear. God is not concerned with what you
look like physically or how you dress. He doesn’t want you to be a slob, that’s not what I’m
saying, but when God wants to check you out, He doesn’t look at your image or your style. He
doesn’t look at what kind of haircut you have or whether or not you have a beard. God looks at
your heart.
God looks at what you are thinking. This is why Proverbs 23:7 clearly says,
“As
a man thinks in his heart, so he is.”
Today I want to talk to you about stinkin’ thinkin’. This is a
term I hear and a couple of friends of mine have used it to refer to a way of thinking that is not
Biblically based.
The Bible is very clear about what you should think.
In case you’ve never
read it, this relates to how you think, Philippians 4:8 written by the Apostle Paul to the church at
Philippi,
“Finally brethren
[the believers that are in Philippi],
whatever is true, whatever is
honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if
there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”
Here we have a
mandate by the Apostle Paul. If we start with what Paul said in the last sentence of this verse, we
find the present middle imperative of the word
logizomai
in the Greek New Testament. You may
wonder, “Why do you use this word
logizomai
? Why say this?” Because this is the language in
which it was written. Any pastor, any evangelist, any missionary worth his salt is going to go
561-Stinkin-Thinkin-p1-transcript.pdf
back to the original languages and find out what these words meant when they were written. The
exegesis of the passage is critical to have an understanding of the passage. You have to take into
consideration the context of what’s being said here, who it’s being said to, what this word meant
in those days, and what it means today.
Logizomai
is the Greek word that means to concentrate
or to take account of or to consider an alternative way in what you think.
There are two ways to
think according to the Bible, human viewpoint or divine viewpoint.
These are diametrically
different ways of thinking.
When we think divine viewpoint we are thinking in terms of
Biblical principles in the mentality of our soul.
Divine viewpoint flows in the memory center
and stream of consciousness of our soul and is available for recall from the vocabulary storage of
our soul. All of this Bible doctrine that you learn and store up inside of you the Bible calls
wisdom. This is how you know how to live, what you should do, how you should handle things.
Paul writes this verb
logizomai
in what we call the imperative mood which means this is not
something he’s asking them to please do. This is something that he’s mandating them to do as an
apostle. This carries apostolic weight. He is essentially telling them, “Think like this. This is the
way that I want you to think.” Why is your thinking so critical? Why is it necessary that you
think in a certain way? Because as we discussed earlier,
“As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.”
1 Corinthians 2:16 tells us that the New Testament is the mind of Christ. By learning the
Word of God we have the opportunity to see what Christ was thinking.
And we know from
other Scripture we are told to think like He thought.
“Let this mind be in you that was also in
Christ Jesus”
(Philippians 2:5). This is to focus on two things: humility
“He humbled
Himself”
(Philippians 2:8) and obedience. He obeyed His Father’s mandate to go to the cross.
When we can think in terms of humility this is the opposite of arrogance. If we’re thinking in
terms of arrogance, we’re trying to justify why we do what we do. If we think in terms of
humility then we’re submitting to authority and we are being obedient to the authority of the
Word of God.
Learning how to think in terms of obedience by means of humility is critical
for all of us.
In other words, the real you, the invisible you, it’s not what you think you do, it’s
what you’re thinking.
The real you is what you are thinking not what you’re doing.
People
may see you putting money in the offering plate and people may see you doing religious good
deeds, but God sees what you’re thinking. He knows what’s in your heart. Things that you’ve
hidden, things that you think no one knows about, God knows about it. Do not think He doesn’t
know about it. He is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. He is all-knowing. He knows
exactly what is in your heart. He knows exactly what you’re thinking and He knows when you
are in fact playing games. Your pastor might not know it. Your wife or your husband might not
know it. God knows it. Paul mandates these believers in Philippians to think about certain things
and he’s encouraging them to renovate their thinking with the mind of Christ. In Romans 12:2 he
writes these words,
“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and
perfect.”
In this radio show and the next few I’m going to describe to you the believer’s mindset.
There’s no magic button to push that will give you this sort of mindset. It only comes through the
561-Stinkin-Thinkin-p1-transcript.pdf
consistent renovation of your thinking – you acquiring the mind of Christ. This can only come
one way, I stress this to you.
The only way you can acquire the mind of Christ is to listen and
apply the Word of God.
Remember what Romans 10:17 says,
“Faith comes by hearing and
hearing by the Word of God.”
If you don’t hear it you can’t apply it. If you don’t hear it you
cannot learn it. Here are the steps. First you must assemble to hear. Second you must concentrate
to listen. Third you must recall to remember. Fourth you must use your very own volition to
apply it. Notice assemble to hear. Here’s the first problem we run into. Are you willing to
assemble under the authority of a qualified pastor and listen to him teach God’s Word? Can you
set this priority in your life? Once you assemble can you sit there and concentrate or will your
mind wander? So many people look out the window, look across the aisle, think about what
they’re going to do for lunch. Momma’s sitting there thinking, “Did I turn the oven off? Did I do
this or that? Did I shut the washer off before I left?” There are so many things to get you
distracted. If you can concentrate that’s half the battle. The other half is once you concentrate
maybe you might want to write some things down. Why would you want to write them down? So
you can go back and look at them later and remember what you wrote down. It helps you to
recall. Taking notes is a lot of help in recalling the information that you heard. If you’re
concentrating and listening, if you’ve assembled, if you’re taking some good notes, then when
you leave you can review the notes and recall what he taught you and remember. Then use your
volition to apply it. This is part of what renovated thinking is, applying what you’ve learned,
applying what you’ve heard because quite frankly, you cannot apply what you do not know, can
you? No, I don’t think you can. If you don’t know the speed limit is 75 and you’re only going 50,
how can you apply it? Cars keep going by you and you wonder why they’re speeding. Finally, a
mile or two down the road you see the speed limit is 75 miles per hour. That’s usually in the state
of Texas by the way, and so you say “Oh, I better get going and speed up.” You didn’t know it so
you couldn’t apply it. See what I’m saying? Paul starts off by saying this in Philippians
4:8,
“Finally, to you believers in Philippi, whatever things are true.”
The Greek word for true
alethes
is very important. It means truth and we have a mandate here by Paul. He’s commanding
you to do this, to seek truth not false information. Now we have a question.
Since Satan is in the
false information business, how do we know what’s true and what’s not true?
How do you
know what I’m teaching you is true or whether it’s false? Satan’s number one ace in the hole has
always been and will always be organized religion. This is how he works and it’s usually based
on salvation by works. This is Satan’s number one tool. Notice in 2 Corinthians 2:11 Paul wrote,
“So that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.”
Then again in
Ephesians 4:27,
“Do not give the devil an opportunity.”
Apparently we have to
know Satan’s strategy to avoid it. Do you have any idea what it is? Do you know what he will do
to distract you, to discourage you, to defeat you? Do you have any idea how he goes about this?
The objective of Satan has always been to establish a system of religion in which works of
mankind replace the function and the mechanics of the grace of God.
This has always been
his objective. Galatians 2:16 clearly says,
“No person is justified by works of the law but through
561-Stinkin-Thinkin-p1-transcript.pdf
faith in Jesus Christ.”
If you want to go to heaven and have eternal life you must remember you
cannot buy it and you cannot earn it. Ephesians 2:8-9 says,
“For by grace are you saved through
faith. It is a gift from God not of works lest anyone would brag about it.”
In order for God to
look at you and say “He’s justified” you must have equal righteousness with God. That’s the only
way you could be justified, to have equal righteousness. We know that God is absolute righteous
and we know that Romans 3:10 says,
“There are none that are righteous, not even one.”
How
would I ever get equal righteousness with God? 2 Corinthians 5:21 says,
“He that knew no sin
was made sin for us so that we may be made the righteousness of God through Him.”
When you
come to the cross and you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior, you receive the gift of eternal
life.
His righteousness is imputed to you so that when God looks at you He sees Christ.
You’re in the royal family. Without Christ, if God looks at you He sees a person that is not
justified, a person that is not righteous, a person that is lost. Satan has a system of religious
instruction and this religious instruction appeals to the arrogance of mankind. Listen to 2
Timothy 4:1,
“In the last days some will fall away from the faith paying attention to deceitful
spirits and doctrines of demons.”
Do you know the Bible says that Satan has a communion table
and his own ministers? They’re out there and it’s always going to be about being good, being
nice, earning your way to heaven, earning God’s forgiveness, and it’s never about faith alone in
Christ alone. They’re going to get involved in social issues and trying to do things that earn
people’s respect. It’s out there and you’ve probably seen it. You know exactly what I’m talking
about. How would you know truth from the lie? If he has his people out there and they are
ministers of deceit, they are teaching doctrines of demons, how exactly would you know if you
come upon someone teaching doctrines of demons?
It is the job of the Holy Spirit to reveal
truth to you, John 16:13,
“When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the
truth.”
Keep this in mind, when you believed in Jesus Christ Ephesians 1:13 says,
“You were
sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption.”
Then Ephesians 5:18 tells you to
“Be
filled with the Holy Spirit.”
There is a difference between the sealing of the Holy Spirit and the
filling of the Holy Spirit. When you sin you quench and grieve the Holy Spirit, thus the filling of
the Holy Spirit is shut off. You become carnal or fleshly. If you’ll use problem-solving device #1,
if you’ll rebound that sin, use 1 John 1:9, then you regain the filling of the Holy Spirit and
resume your spiritual life. You never lose the sealing of the Holy Spirit.
“You were sealed with
the Spirit until the day of redemption.”
But you will quench the Holy Spirit and grieve the Holy
Spirit when you sin and thus no longer be filled with the Holy Spirit.
If you are not filled with
the Holy Spirit, meaning there is unconfessed sin in your life, when the lie comes along
you’re going to buy into the lie.
You’re going to think it’s truth because the Holy Spirit can’t do
His job. He can’t set off the alarm bells. He can’t alert you. He can’t say “Wrong, wrong, wrong.”
Sometimes even though you are filled with the Holy Spirit you may ignore the warning. If you
understand the filling of the Holy Spirit then you know how to gauge where you stand in regard
to hearing and discerning truth from lies. It’s not hard to figure this out. You can listen to the
news and hear lies every day. “Elect me and I’ll put a chicken in every man’s pot and we’ll all be
561-Stinkin-Thinkin-p1-transcript.pdf
happy together forever and ever.” The Bible says, “No you won’t.” Most politicians do not
understand the sin nature. They don’t understand first of all they have a sin nature and they don’t
understand that everyone in the world has a sin nature and nobody knows how to tame the sin
nature except God the Holy Spirit.
When you are filled with the Holy Spirit your sin nature is
subdued.
You are not in the flesh anymore, you’re walking in the Spirit. This is why Galatians
5:16 says,
“Walk by the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”
The objective for you
is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is problem-solving device #2 on the FLOT line of your
soul. Problem-solving device #1 is the rebound technique. If you’ve rebounded, if you’re filled
with the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit will alert you when the lie comes down the pipe. Some
folks, even though they may be filled with the Holy Spirit, may override the convincing ministry
of the Holy Spirit influenced by two things, attraction and emotion. I have seen this. I have seen
people that are attracted to an individual, particularly a pastor, a person of authority, and they
override the warning from the Holy Spirit based on this attraction. They are so attracted to this
person, they trust this person, and they do not believe this person would ever lie to them. Their
emotions take over. They are emotionally attached to the person and so when the person begins
to slowly disseminate a lie, and it won’t come quickly, it comes slowly, then they buy into it even
though the Holy Spirit may be telling them all along, stop. Even though their friends may be
telling them, this is wrong. But they won’t listen and it’s a shame. More than one believer has
fallen prey to false teachers based on personality and mutual interest. 2 Timothy 3:1-9 details
much of the activities of these sorts of people.
Your challenge in regard to this mandate in
Philippians 4:8 is to always know truth.
Our Lord said in John 8:32,
“You shall know the truth
and the truth will make you free.”
John 8:36,
“If the Son makes you free, you shall be free
indeed.”
The first truth you know and you learn is the gospel, the truth of faith alone in Christ
alone, the truth that Jesus Christ, God’s anointed Son, came into this world, lived a perfect life,
never sinned, went to the cross, was crucified, died, was buried, resurrected and is alive today.
He is coming back. He will come and live inside of you if you accept Him as your Savior.
Colossians 1:27 is clear about this,
“Christ in me the hope of glory.”
If you’ve never received
Him as your Savior, you need to. It is a simple act of faith. Romans 10:13 says,
“Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
In a simple moment of time, just like I did,
you can pray and tell God, “I’m a sinner. I know Christ died for me and I want to believe in Him
and receive Him as my Savior.” Bingo, that’s it. In that one second, that one moment in time that
you express faith in Jesus Christ you are born again. You won’t feel it. You’re not going to have a
dizzy spell but it will happen because God is not a liar. He said,
“Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved.”
You can be free from the penalty of sin and the penalty of
death. You can be free from the chains of legalism and entrapment of dependence on your
emotions. You can be free to see clearly through the fog of misunderstanding that is used as a
smokescreen by Satan to cloud the issues and distract you. You can be free of worry, free of fear,
free of hatred, free of bitterness, free of jealousy.
This is the Christian life. This is the new way
to live, being free.
Paul says in Philippians 4:8,
“Whatever is true, think on these things.”
561-Stinkin-Thinkin-p1-transcript.pdf
This is not a request, this is a mandate,
“Think on these things.”
Then in the next part of that
verse he says,
“Whatever is honorable.” Semnos
is the Greek word for honorable and it simply
means whatever things are dignified and worthy of respect. It is translated in other passages as
the reverent, whatever is reverent meaning respect and appreciation. We must respect the Word
of God. Hebrews 4:12 says,
“It is alive and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword.”
Within the Word of God we must respect the laws of establishment. These laws guarantee
our freedom and our prosperity as a client nation to God.
This is the main area of contention.
This is where Satan fights us today because his objective, since we are a client nation sending out
missionaries all over the world, is to weaken and dissolve the United States of America. Right
now, today as never before, he is having a field day in this nation. There is a lot more I want to
say aboutStinkin’ Thinkin’ – Part 1
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 561 aired on May 29, 2016
Good morning and welcome to The FLOT Line. I’m your host Rick Hughes and for the next few
minutes I’d like to ask you to stay with me. As always it will be a time of motivation, inspiration,
education, and you remember this now, we do it with no manipulation. We don’t con you or
coerce you. We’re simply here to give you some accurate information not human speculation,
information from the canon of Scripture, the Bible. That’s right, it’s a show about the Bible but
hold on, maybe not what you’re use to, no jumping up and down, no shouting, no yelling. It’s just
simply me giving you some information. This information is designed to help you verify as well
as identify God’s plan for your life and you always have the freedom and the privacy to orient
and adjust to the plan, that’s up to you. My job as always is to be accurate every Sunday, and
your job is to make the application. I give the information, you make the application. This is how
it works. If you are able to do this, then you are orienting and adjusting to God’s plan for your
life and it’s amazing. Once you do this, once you begin to get some divine viewpoint, once you
begin to understand how the plan works and how the plan functions, then you see what a
supernatural life God has given to us, a life where there is no worry, a life where there is no fear,
we don’t have to be angry, we don’t have to malign or criticize or gossip. A life where we can
actually forgive people and forget the things that they have done to us. What a wonderful way to
live where we don’t have to have turmoil and conflict in our minds every day. Your spiritual life
is lived in your mind, in your soul. Your soul has mentality, volition, conscience and self-
consciousness.
Inside the mentality of your soul is where you live your spiritual life.
We’ll
show you this as we go through this study. It’s not the outside, how you dress, that you wear
crosses or you wear a high collar or whatever you wear. God is not concerned with what you
look like physically or how you dress. He doesn’t want you to be a slob, that’s not what I’m
saying, but when God wants to check you out, He doesn’t look at your image or your style. He
doesn’t look at what kind of haircut you have or whether or not you have a beard. God looks at
your heart.
God looks at what you are thinking. This is why Proverbs 23:7 clearly says,
“As
a man thinks in his heart, so he is.”
Today I want to talk to you about stinkin’ thinkin’. This is a
term I hear and a couple of friends of mine have used it to refer to a way of thinking that is not
Biblically based.
The Bible is very clear about what you should think.
In case you’ve never
read it, this relates to how you think, Philippians 4:8 written by the Apostle Paul to the church at
Philippi,
“Finally brethren
[the believers that are in Philippi],
whatever is true, whatever is
honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if
there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”
Here we have a
mandate by the Apostle Paul. If we start with what Paul said in the last sentence of this verse, we
find the present middle imperative of the word
logizomai
in the Greek New Testament. You may
wonder, “Why do you use this word
logizomai
? Why say this?” Because this is the language in
which it was written. Any pastor, any evangelist, any missionary worth his salt is going to go
561-Stinkin-Thinkin-p1-transcript.pdf
back to the original languages and find out what these words meant when they were written. The
exegesis of the passage is critical to have an understanding of the passage. You have to take into
consideration the context of what’s being said here, who it’s being said to, what this word meant
in those days, and what it means today.
Logizomai
is the Greek word that means to concentrate
or to take account of or to consider an alternative way in what you think.
There are two ways to
think according to the Bible, human viewpoint or divine viewpoint.
These are diametrically
different ways of thinking.
When we think divine viewpoint we are thinking in terms of
Biblical principles in the mentality of our soul.
Divine viewpoint flows in the memory center
and stream of consciousness of our soul and is available for recall from the vocabulary storage of
our soul. All of this Bible doctrine that you learn and store up inside of you the Bible calls
wisdom. This is how you know how to live, what you should do, how you should handle things.
Paul writes this verb
logizomai
in what we call the imperative mood which means this is not
something he’s asking them to please do. This is something that he’s mandating them to do as an
apostle. This carries apostolic weight. He is essentially telling them, “Think like this. This is the
way that I want you to think.” Why is your thinking so critical? Why is it necessary that you
think in a certain way? Because as we discussed earlier,
“As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.”
1 Corinthians 2:16 tells us that the New Testament is the mind of Christ. By learning the
Word of God we have the opportunity to see what Christ was thinking.
And we know from
other Scripture we are told to think like He thought.
“Let this mind be in you that was also in
Christ Jesus”
(Philippians 2:5). This is to focus on two things: humility
“He humbled
Himself”
(Philippians 2:8) and obedience. He obeyed His Father’s mandate to go to the cross.
When we can think in terms of humility this is the opposite of arrogance. If we’re thinking in
terms of arrogance, we’re trying to justify why we do what we do. If we think in terms of
humility then we’re submitting to authority and we are being obedient to the authority of the
Word of God.
Learning how to think in terms of obedience by means of humility is critical
for all of us.
In other words, the real you, the invisible you, it’s not what you think you do, it’s
what you’re thinking.
The real you is what you are thinking not what you’re doing.
People
may see you putting money in the offering plate and people may see you doing religious good
deeds, but God sees what you’re thinking. He knows what’s in your heart. Things that you’ve
hidden, things that you think no one knows about, God knows about it. Do not think He doesn’t
know about it. He is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. He is all-knowing. He knows
exactly what is in your heart. He knows exactly what you’re thinking and He knows when you
are in fact playing games. Your pastor might not know it. Your wife or your husband might not
know it. God knows it. Paul mandates these believers in Philippians to think about certain things
and he’s encouraging them to renovate their thinking with the mind of Christ. In Romans 12:2 he
writes these words,
“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and
perfect.”
In this radio show and the next few I’m going to describe to you the believer’s mindset.
There’s no magic button to push that will give you this sort of mindset. It only comes through the
561-Stinkin-Thinkin-p1-transcript.pdf
consistent renovation of your thinking – you acquiring the mind of Christ. This can only come
one way, I stress this to you.
The only way you can acquire the mind of Christ is to listen and
apply the Word of God.
Remember what Romans 10:17 says,
“Faith comes by hearing and
hearing by the Word of God.”
If you don’t hear it you can’t apply it. If you don’t hear it you
cannot learn it. Here are the steps. First you must assemble to hear. Second you must concentrate
to listen. Third you must recall to remember. Fourth you must use your very own volition to
apply it. Notice assemble to hear. Here’s the first problem we run into. Are you willing to
assemble under the authority of a qualified pastor and listen to him teach God’s Word? Can you
set this priority in your life? Once you assemble can you sit there and concentrate or will your
mind wander? So many people look out the window, look across the aisle, think about what
they’re going to do for lunch. Momma’s sitting there thinking, “Did I turn the oven off? Did I do
this or that? Did I shut the washer off before I left?” There are so many things to get you
distracted. If you can concentrate that’s half the battle. The other half is once you concentrate
maybe you might want to write some things down. Why would you want to write them down? So
you can go back and look at them later and remember what you wrote down. It helps you to
recall. Taking notes is a lot of help in recalling the information that you heard. If you’re
concentrating and listening, if you’ve assembled, if you’re taking some good notes, then when
you leave you can review the notes and recall what he taught you and remember. Then use your
volition to apply it. This is part of what renovated thinking is, applying what you’ve learned,
applying what you’ve heard because quite frankly, you cannot apply what you do not know, can
you? No, I don’t think you can. If you don’t know the speed limit is 75 and you’re only going 50,
how can you apply it? Cars keep going by you and you wonder why they’re speeding. Finally, a
mile or two down the road you see the speed limit is 75 miles per hour. That’s usually in the state
of Texas by the way, and so you say “Oh, I better get going and speed up.” You didn’t know it so
you couldn’t apply it. See what I’m saying? Paul starts off by saying this in Philippians
4:8,
“Finally, to you believers in Philippi, whatever things are true.”
The Greek word for true
alethes
is very important. It means truth and we have a mandate here by Paul. He’s commanding
you to do this, to seek truth not false information. Now we have a question.
Since Satan is in the
false information business, how do we know what’s true and what’s not true?
How do you
know what I’m teaching you is true or whether it’s false? Satan’s number one ace in the hole has
always been and will always be organized religion. This is how he works and it’s usually based
on salvation by works. This is Satan’s number one tool. Notice in 2 Corinthians 2:11 Paul wrote,
“So that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.”
Then again in
Ephesians 4:27,
“Do not give the devil an opportunity.”
Apparently we have to
know Satan’s strategy to avoid it. Do you have any idea what it is? Do you know what he will do
to distract you, to discourage you, to defeat you? Do you have any idea how he goes about this?
The objective of Satan has always been to establish a system of religion in which works of
mankind replace the function and the mechanics of the grace of God.
This has always been
his objective. Galatians 2:16 clearly says,
“No person is justified by works of the law but through
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faith in Jesus Christ.”
If you want to go to heaven and have eternal life you must remember you
cannot buy it and you cannot earn it. Ephesians 2:8-9 says,
“For by grace are you saved through
faith. It is a gift from God not of works lest anyone would brag about it.”
In order for God to
look at you and say “He’s justified” you must have equal righteousness with God. That’s the only
way you could be justified, to have equal righteousness. We know that God is absolute righteous
and we know that Romans 3:10 says,
“There are none that are righteous, not even one.”
How
would I ever get equal righteousness with God? 2 Corinthians 5:21 says,
“He that knew no sin
was made sin for us so that we may be made the righteousness of God through Him.”
When you
come to the cross and you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior, you receive the gift of eternal
life.
His righteousness is imputed to you so that when God looks at you He sees Christ.
You’re in the royal family. Without Christ, if God looks at you He sees a person that is not
justified, a person that is not righteous, a person that is lost. Satan has a system of religious
instruction and this religious instruction appeals to the arrogance of mankind. Listen to 2
Timothy 4:1,
“In the last days some will fall away from the faith paying attention to deceitful
spirits and doctrines of demons.”
Do you know the Bible says that Satan has a communion table
and his own ministers? They’re out there and it’s always going to be about being good, being
nice, earning your way to heaven, earning God’s forgiveness, and it’s never about faith alone in
Christ alone. They’re going to get involved in social issues and trying to do things that earn
people’s respect. It’s out there and you’ve probably seen it. You know exactly what I’m talking
about. How would you know truth from the lie? If he has his people out there and they are
ministers of deceit, they are teaching doctrines of demons, how exactly would you know if you
come upon someone teaching doctrines of demons?
It is the job of the Holy Spirit to reveal
truth to you, John 16:13,
“When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the
truth.”
Keep this in mind, when you believed in Jesus Christ Ephesians 1:13 says,
“You were
sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption.”
Then Ephesians 5:18 tells you to
“Be
filled with the Holy Spirit.”
There is a difference between the sealing of the Holy Spirit and the
filling of the Holy Spirit. When you sin you quench and grieve the Holy Spirit, thus the filling of
the Holy Spirit is shut off. You become carnal or fleshly. If you’ll use problem-solving device #1,
if you’ll rebound that sin, use 1 John 1:9, then you regain the filling of the Holy Spirit and
resume your spiritual life. You never lose the sealing of the Holy Spirit.
“You were sealed with
the Spirit until the day of redemption.”
But you will quench the Holy Spirit and grieve the Holy
Spirit when you sin and thus no longer be filled with the Holy Spirit.
If you are not filled with
the Holy Spirit, meaning there is unconfessed sin in your life, when the lie comes along
you’re going to buy into the lie.
You’re going to think it’s truth because the Holy Spirit can’t do
His job. He can’t set off the alarm bells. He can’t alert you. He can’t say “Wrong, wrong, wrong.”
Sometimes even though you are filled with the Holy Spirit you may ignore the warning. If you
understand the filling of the Holy Spirit then you know how to gauge where you stand in regard
to hearing and discerning truth from lies. It’s not hard to figure this out. You can listen to the
news and hear lies every day. “Elect me and I’ll put a chicken in every man’s pot and we’ll all be
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happy together forever and ever.” The Bible says, “No you won’t.” Most politicians do not
understand the sin nature. They don’t understand first of all they have a sin nature and they don’t
understand that everyone in the world has a sin nature and nobody knows how to tame the sin
nature except God the Holy Spirit.
When you are filled with the Holy Spirit your sin nature is
subdued.
You are not in the flesh anymore, you’re walking in the Spirit. This is why Galatians
5:16 says,
“Walk by the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”
The objective for you
is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is problem-solving device #2 on the FLOT line of your
soul. Problem-solving device #1 is the rebound technique. If you’ve rebounded, if you’re filled
with the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit will alert you when the lie comes down the pipe. Some
folks, even though they may be filled with the Holy Spirit, may override the convincing ministry
of the Holy Spirit influenced by two things, attraction and emotion. I have seen this. I have seen
people that are attracted to an individual, particularly a pastor, a person of authority, and they
override the warning from the Holy Spirit based on this attraction. They are so attracted to this
person, they trust this person, and they do not believe this person would ever lie to them. Their
emotions take over. They are emotionally attached to the person and so when the person begins
to slowly disseminate a lie, and it won’t come quickly, it comes slowly, then they buy into it even
though the Holy Spirit may be telling them all along, stop. Even though their friends may be
telling them, this is wrong. But they won’t listen and it’s a shame. More than one believer has
fallen prey to false teachers based on personality and mutual interest. 2 Timothy 3:1-9 details
much of the activities of these sorts of people.
Your challenge in regard to this mandate in
Philippians 4:8 is to always know truth.
Our Lord said in John 8:32,
“You shall know the truth
and the truth will make you free.”
John 8:36,
“If the Son makes you free, you shall be free
indeed.”
The first truth you know and you learn is the gospel, the truth of faith alone in Christ
alone, the truth that Jesus Christ, God’s anointed Son, came into this world, lived a perfect life,
never sinned, went to the cross, was crucified, died, was buried, resurrected and is alive today.
He is coming back. He will come and live inside of you if you accept Him as your Savior.
Colossians 1:27 is clear about this,
“Christ in me the hope of glory.”
If you’ve never received
Him as your Savior, you need to. It is a simple act of faith. Romans 10:13 says,
“Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
In a simple moment of time, just like I did,
you can pray and tell God, “I’m a sinner. I know Christ died for me and I want to believe in Him
and receive Him as my Savior.” Bingo, that’s it. In that one second, that one moment in time that
you express faith in Jesus Christ you are born again. You won’t feel it. You’re not going to have a
dizzy spell but it will happen because God is not a liar. He said,
“Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved.”
You can be free from the penalty of sin and the penalty of
death. You can be free from the chains of legalism and entrapment of dependence on your
emotions. You can be free to see clearly through the fog of misunderstanding that is used as a
smokescreen by Satan to cloud the issues and distract you. You can be free of worry, free of fear,
free of hatred, free of bitterness, free of jealousy.
This is the Christian life. This is the new way
to live, being free.
Paul says in Philippians 4:8,
“Whatever is true, think on these things.”
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This is not a request, this is a mandate,
“Think on these things.”
Then in the next part of that
verse he says,
“Whatever is honorable.” Semnos
is the Greek word for honorable and it simply
means whatever things are dignified and worthy of respect. It is translated in other passages as
the reverent, whatever is reverent meaning respect and appreciation. We must respect the Word
of God. Hebrews 4:12 says,
“It is alive and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword.”
Within the Word of God we must respect the laws of establishment. These laws guarantee
our freedom and our prosperity as a client nation to God.
This is the main area of contention.
This is where Satan fights us today because his objective, since we are a client nation sending out
missionaries all over the world, is to weaken and dissolve the United States of America. Right
now, today as never before, he is having a field day in this nation. There is a lot more I want to
say about
“Whatever is honorable.”
I hope you will come back next week and listen to me, same
time, same station, right here. If you’d ever like to contact us, feel free to do so through our
website or write. Until next week this is your host Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to
The FLOT Line
“Whatever is honorable.”
I hope you will come back next week and listen to me, same
time, same station, right here. If you’d ever like to contact us, feel free to do so through our
website or write. Until next week this is your host Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to
The FLOT Line%MCEPASTEBIN%