Join Rick Hughes as he unravels the military structure of Satan’s forces and the significance of wearing the Armor of God. This episode empowers listeners with insights on the spiritual warfare that exists in the Christian life, emphasizing the need for mental preparedness and spiritual growth. Through practical advice and biblical wisdom, Rick encourages believers to become more than conventional Christians—illuminating their path with knowledge and resilience.
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 FLOT line. F L O T, FLOT line, forward line of troops. That’s a military analogy. We’re talking about how you can establish a main line of resistance in your thinking, in your soul, in the mentality of your soul. The reason for that is so that you can stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever morph into the inside source of stress. Because we know that stress is a bad thing. Adversity is inevitable. We’re all going to have that, but stress is always optional because stress is what you do to yourself. Adversity is what circumstances do to you. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, meaning you trusted him for your salvation, God has designed a unique way to live without stress. It’s called a Christian mental attitude, having the right mindset. We’ve seen in the Bible in our studies of various passages where we are to let this mind be in us that was also in Christ Jesus. We have seen where the Bible says, stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think, but think in terms of humility as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from his word. And so what we have discovered by studying the passages of the Bible we’re about to take a look at called the armor of God. that we must train our mind. We must train our mind. The Christian life is about training the way you think, changing the way you think, thinking divine viewpoint, not human viewpoint. Most people never tell you this. Most people have a tendency to think the Christian life is lived on the outside in the way you express yourself, the way you dress, the way you talk. That may be partially true, but the real you, as the Bible says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is. And the real you is the way you think in your heart. So let’s don’t forget that. I want you to learn how to train your mind, to learn how to spot evil and avoid distractions, and to know when you’re being manipulated by the world, being manipulated by the flesh, or even being manipulated by the devil. Think about what I’m about to tell you. It’s very critical you understand this. You are what you think. Everything in your spiritual life goes on between your ears. As you think, so you do. When God wants to check you out, he looks at your motives. He looks at your intentions. He looks at your desires. That’s where you really are. That’s where you really live. And sometimes we dress up the outside with an image and style that’s not what’s on the inside. So we have to train our minds to spot evil and avoid distractions. All of this is taught in Ephesians 6 about the armor of God and putting on the armor of God. And because of the mindset, you have to transform your way you’re thinking into divine viewpoint. Let’s get that word straight, divine viewpoint. How did the Lord Jesus Christ think when the Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus? That’s divine viewpoint. So if you ever hope to escape traps and snares that lead to confusion, distractions, spirituality, failure, you have to train your mind. You have to look out for the way you think. Take a look at the passage. This is some review from last week and maybe some more next week, but listen carefully. In Ephesians 6, 11 through 16, Paul, or 18, Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, put on the full armor of God. Put on the full armor of God. So that, that’s a purpose clause in the Greek New Testament, so that what? So that you will be able to stand against the strategy of the devil. For our struggle in verse 12, Ephesians 6, is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of darkness, against spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places. It’s because of this that you need to take up the full armor of God so you will be able to resist in the evil day. That’s the day you’re tempted and attacked. And having done everything, done your part, being prepared, you can stand firm. I’m commented on having done everything and done your part. Stand firm. So stand firm, verse 14 says, having girded around your loins the belt of truth, put on the breastplate of righteousness, having shod your feet with the preposition of the gospel of peace, and in addition to all of this, taking up the shield of faith, which you’ll be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. We’re going to study all of this. We’re going to look at all of this, examine it piece by piece. Take the helmet of salvation, verse 17, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the spirit. And with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for the saints. So we started off last week, and I want to go back to the verb in duo. Put on, it’s an imperative mood verb. This is not Paul requesting you to do this. This is a divine command from the apostle. Put on, put it on, clothe yourself. And this is not a literal change of clothes, but it’s an illustrative analogy to the way the Roman soldier put on his uniform when he went to do battle. And except for you, it’s a mind game. It’s you changing the way you think. It’s you changing the way you look at things. It’s you changing the way you have desires and motivations. Change the way you do this. Put on is referring to you doing this mentally, mentally by use of those 10 unique problem-solving devices that I teach called the FLOT line. Problem-solving device number one, rebound. Problem-solving device number two, the filling of the Holy Spirit. Problem-solving device number three, the faith rest drill. Problem-solving device number four, grace orientation. Number five, biblical orientation, and so forth. There are 10 of them. This is what I’m talking about. Putting on, learning, using, applying these into your life, into your spiritual resources, in the daily arena of contention that you live in. So this is a mental recall when it says put on. You can’t put it on if you don’t have it. You had to have learned it somewhere and already possess it. It’s not a call to go to the quartermaster and get issued a uniform that you don’t already possess. Put on your uniform, every piece of the armor, the whole armor, the panoplia, the Greek word is referring to every asset you’ve been provided by God during your time in the devil’s world. That’s what those 10 problem-solving devices are. They are your divinely provided assets, and you must learn how to use them. Some people not even aware they have them. The whole panoplia put on, the whole panoplia supplied by God, the verse says, from the source of God. And this is a direct reference to Bible doctrine available to you through the pages of the Holy Scripture and accessed by you being filled with the Holy Spirit. Hopefully taught to you by a well-qualified pastor. These assets are called wisdom in the scripture since they give you insight and discernment if you understand them and if you learn them and if you use them. That’s why the Bible verse says you can stand against the strategy of the devil if you’ll put on this armor. You’ll have discernment, you’ll have insight, you’ll have understanding. If you learn God’s problem-solving devices and use them in your thoughts, then you will be thinking like Christ thought, and the end result will be you won’t wind up being a Christian casualty in the arena of contention called the angelic conflict. So put on this armor so that you will be able to stand against the strategy employed by the devil in order to defeat you. And this simply refers to you succumbing to Satan’s deceptive strategy, the strategy that would divert you from ever reaching any spiritual maturity in your life or ever glorifying God to the maximum. Because if Satan can distract you, if Satan can discourage you, then he can defeat you and go to God and boast about your weakness and your failure. That’s why he’s called an accuser in the Bible in Revelation 12, 10, and in 1 John 2, 1 and 2. So don’t make any mistake about what I’m telling you. If you fail to learn and fail to execute the spiritual life, it is a very grievous sin. And it’s being committed today by Christians in America on a daily basis because so many people substitute ritual for reality. You have to understand that God requires protocol. You can’t make the rules up as you go along. You have to follow protocol. And people say, well, I’m going to pray for you. Well, wonderful. Is your prayer going to go any higher than the ceiling? Because if you don’t do a right thing in a right way, then it’s going to be wrong. I told you last week, a week before too, we prepared a bookmark for you called 10 Reasons Why Your Prayers Might Not Be Answered. You need to order that. It’s free, no charge. Just give us an email, give us an address, and we’ll ship it out to you. But people have to understand God requires protocol. You can’t make your own rules up. You can’t live the Christian life without the filling of the Holy Spirit. That’s protocol. You don’t glorify God without the filling of the Holy Spirit and the resident of wisdom of Bible doctrine in your soul. That’s protocol. And the ones who settle for anything else, settle for some milquetoast-type teaching, are the ones who blunder their way through life, usually self-centered, defeated, depressed, discouraged Christians who never glorify God because they can’t defend against the tactics of the enemy. They’re not ready. You have to understand. You have to get this down in your head. Hebrews 5, 11 through 16, whoever wrote it, talked about those sort of people, people that were… just milk toast Christians, people that didn’t want any depth study. They’d like to go do a little praise and worship, sing a few songs, go home, head to Luby’s, head to the McDonald’s, get a meal, and go play golf. That’s the extent of their Christian life. Hebrews 5, 11 through 16, I have a lot to say to you, but it’s hard to explain to you because you’re dull of hearing. Because by now you ought to be a teacher, but instead you need someone to teach you again the elementary principles of the oracles of God. That’s the protocol of God. And you have come to need milk, a baba, not solid food. For the word, anyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness. He’s an infant still. Solid food is for the mature believer. who because of the practices have their senses trained to spot Satan’s genius called good and evil, the genius of Satan. So are you one of these people? You’ve been saved a long time now. Can you teach the word of God? Can you describe the word of God? Can you work your way around through the Bible? Do you understand the protocol plan of God? That’s why we’re talking about this satanic forces in Ephesians 6.12. because we wrestle not against flesh and blood. I mean, you’ve seen world wrestling entertainment on television, but this is the real unseen enemy that will attempt to throw you to the ground and stand over you laughing if you’re dumb enough to let him defeat you. And to the extent that you ignore the filling of the Holy Spirit, to the extent that you ignore learning the Word of God, to the extent that you don’t use the 10 problem-solving devices, you will be laughed out by the angelic forces of God. Yep, the angelic conflict is going on real, and they’re trying to attack you, fallen angels called demons, satanic forces, anything to keep you from glorifying God, anything to impugn the name of God. So your failures, your weaknesses, your flaws, Satan immediately goes to heaven and says, look at this great Christian. Look what he just did. Look what she just did. Thank goodness we have an adversary, the Lord Jesus Christ, that stands with us. And he stands with us in 1 John and says, when Satan goes to accuse us, he says, wait a minute now, this is my child. I know he’s done some dumb things, but he’s saved. We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood. These are angelic creatures, fallen angels that we fight against. And the first is identified as principalities, which is a reference to the organized structure of Satan’s military forces. It’s called an RK, A-R-C-H-E, for beginning with the leaders, the ones that are about to be identified. So Satan has a complete military force lined up, just like God does in heaven. God has angels. God has different rank with angels, four wings, six wings, no wings. It’s the same thing. These are fallen angels. And so Paul said we’d wrestle against powers, exousia, powers exousia the ones who have the power or the authority to carry out satan’s orders these are the officers and satan’s demonic forces these these are the colonels and the captains and the majors you got to understand satan is much smarter than any of us and he has a complete demonic army at his command they are one third of the host of heaven that fell out with him Do you remember Revelation 12, 7 through 9? There was war in heaven, and Michael and his angels waged war with the dragon. The dragon, Satan, a.k.a. the devil, and his angels waged war with Michael. And they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown out of heaven, the serpent of old, who’s called the devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world. And he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels thrown down with him. 2 Peter 2, 4, for if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to the pit of darkness reserved for judgment. These fallen angels have rank and order as explained in this passage that we’re looking at now. They’re archaes, they’re rulers. Rulers of darkness, kosmos krator is the Greek word there. Darkness, rulers of darkness is a combination of two words. Kosmos is the world. Kratao is a master of the world, a master of the darkness of the skotas, the darkness of the world. The word skotas means blind, used as a metaphor for those that are ignorant or divine of any divine things and any human duties that result in ungodliness and immorality, along with their own consequences. They’re the rulers of the darkness of this world, the kosmatrator of the skotas, Without the Word of God, you’re walking in darkness. Without understanding and knowing the Word of God, you have no discernment. You have no insight. You are faking it through life, as they say in the military. Fake it till you make it. That’s what you’ve been doing for a while. Are you not tired of that? Are you not ready to get with the program and grow to be the person God wants you to be? Why do you think the Bible says grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Why do you think Jesus said, take my yoke and learn of me? My yoke is easy, my burden is light. He wants you to grow up. He wants you to be a mature believer because it’s here that you glorify God to the maximum. When I’m saying mature believer, I’m talking about a believer that understands those 10 problem-solving devices, that understands the protocol plan of God, that consistently learns and applies God’s Word to his life because the Lord Jesus Christ said, happiness belongs to those people who hear my Father’s Word and who keep it. The message the Lord Jesus Christ gave Paul in his conversion is a very simple message. He commissioned Paul to be an apostle to the Gentiles, Acts 26. 17, rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles to whom I’m sending you now to open their eyes so they may turn from darkness to light, turn from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sin and an inheritance among those who’ve been sanctified by faith in me. Who are the people living in darkness? The people that have no light. Who are the people that have no light? The people that don’t know the Word of God, that don’t know the gospel, the saving message of Jesus Christ. That’s why Christ said in Matthew 5, you are the light of the world. Let your light shine. There’s no darkness in light. In darkness, there’s no light. So if people are living in darkness, they have no light to see the truth. And the word of God brings light to the darkness, our insight to their soul. Listen to 2 Corinthians 4, 6, for God who said light shall shine out of darkness is the one who has shown into our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Wow. The gospel is a bright light and it attracts people. It brings people. and it shines into our heart. And what does it do when it shines? It shows us our sin. It opens our eyes to who we are. It lets us see what we really are because when we’re walking in darkness, we don’t know what we are. The knowledge of Christ’s sacrifice and redemptive work on that cross is a light to man walking in darkness. And if you’ll notice the word knowledge, Again, for God who said light shall shine out of darkness is the one who has shown in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. The knowledge of Christ’s sacrifice. The knowledge of his redemptive work on the cross. That knowledge is light to man who walks in darkness. Knowledge is the source of the light. It enlightens the mind. Satan’s objective for the lost is to keep them from gaining any knowledge of the cross, to keep them in the darkness, all the while exposing them to his evil schemes and the angelic conflict on a daily basis. Without the word of God in your soul, you will never see what’s happening to you. You’ll be walking in darkness. And you’re not going to have much light if you just go to church once a week on Sunday morning and play the little game, you know, Christian character tour game, you know, the conventional Christian. Hello, God. Goodbye, God. See you next week, God. Don’t bug me the rest of the week, God. I put my 10% in the plate, God. Didn’t you see what I did, God? If that’s you, you’re living in a bad state, brother. You’re living in a bad state. Paul tells you, you must be aware of Satan’s objective. He wants to keep you out of the light. He doesn’t want you to know these things. Why? Because you will be victorious in Christ Jesus. You will expose him. You will expose Satan’s flaws. You will expose Satan’s objectives once you get in the light and see it for yourself. It starts with believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the first step into the light. Once you make that decision to believe in Christ and receive him as your savior, then it’s the next step is learning God’s word and more light and more light and more light. I do a lot of night fishing. I love to bass fish at night. And I have flashlights. I’m a flashlight, what do you call it, a flashlight personified person. I know all about flashlights. My wife has a couple of flashlights she walks the dogs with at night so they won’t step on a snake. They don’t have much light. I try to get her a bright or brighter one, one that has 1,000 lumens or 2,000 lumens, bright light. So it shows everything at a show down the street, a half a block away. That’s what the word of God is. It’s not a damn light. It’s a bright light, bright enough to show what’s in the crevices of what’s in the cracks of your mind. They will expose the evil schemes and the angelic conflict. So Paul says, you’ve got to learn the word of God. You got to put on the armor of God so that you will not continue to walk in the darkness. Satan’s objective for lost people is to keep them from gaining any knowledge of the cross, all the while exposing them, as I told you earlier, to the evil schemes and the angelic conflict on a daily basis. The next enemy Paul identifies in that passage in Ephesians 6 is called spiritual wickedness in high places. Spiritual wickedness in high places. Pneumaticos Ponerea in Pateranos. Spiritual wickedness in high places. Your human spirit, you have it. It’s born dead at physical birth. That’s why you have to be born again. Not your body. Your body doesn’t need to be born again. That’s where Nicodemus got confused. It’s your spirit. You have a dead spirit. You’re spiritually dead. And when you believe in Jesus Christ, you’re born again or made spiritually alive. So the human spirit is born dead at physical birth due to identification with Adam’s original sin. Thus we have a need for spiritual birth or to be born again. And when we accept Christ as our Savior, when we receive him, that’s the time that God the Holy Spirit enters our dead human spirit and indwells us and seals us until the day God calls us home. In Ephesians 1.13, the Bible says, In him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. So you have a Holy Spirit living in you. And part of that armor has to be done by putting on the mind of Christ. The filling of the Holy Spirit is essential for you if you’re going to put this armor on, if you’re going to change the way you think. You can’t do it without the filling of the Holy Spirit. And the only way to be filled with the Holy Spirit is the use of 1 John 1, 9, when you sin. When you know you’ve sinned, use the first problem-solving device, rebound. If we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Why? Because we quench the Holy Spirit. We grieve the Holy Spirit when we sin and we start operating in the flesh. The Bible says we get carnal. You can’t live the Christian life in carnality. You have to live the Christian life under the filling of the Spirit. So Satan’s organization includes those that are in places of command. Colonels majors even higher rank than that higher rank than normal demons or fallen angels Don’t forget angels had rank in heaven identified by wings true angels God’s angels the ones that didn’t get cast out They have rank in heaven. Also archangels are identified as Michael and Gabriel then there are seraphims and cherubs and rank and file angels and even guardian angels and All children, the Bible says, have guardian angels watching over them. Maybe you didn’t know that, but Matthew 18, 10. See to it that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their guardian angel in heaven continually see the face of my Father who’s in heaven. So we have these different ranks of angels in heaven, just like Satan has his fallen angels that have rank. And we have archangels, seraphs, cherubs, rank-and-file angels. Seraph angels have six wings. Isaiah 6.2, Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, with two he flew. Cherub angels have four wings as rank or insignia. And Satan was called the anointed cherub, the highest ranking angel in eternity pasts. Ezekiel 28, 14, you were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God, and you walked in the midst of the stones of fire. He was a cherub angel, but he wasn’t a seraph, and he certainly wasn’t what Michael and Gabriel are. He was not one of those angels, archangels. So the angelic messengers, they’re wingless angels who are messengers from God as well. The angelic messenger who spent the night with Lot and then destroyed Solomon was a Percival messenger, Genesis 19, 13. The destroying angel of 2 Samuel 24, 16. The executioner of the city in Ezekiel 9, 11. There’s all kind of rank in heaven and rank in satanic forces as well. That’s why Paul identified this rank for you. He told you what it is. So I’m telling you these things so you’ll understand there’s order in heaven and there’s order in Satan’s army. as identified by the titles that Paul gives. They are fallen angels who followed Satan’s revolt in heaven and were cast out along with him. And it is Satan and his followers that try to lay siege to your thinking, that try to capture your thoughts, that try to discourage you from ever becoming a witness against them in the angelic conflict. Remember, they don’t want to go to the lake of fire, so they will use your failure as evidence that God was unfair in condemning them to the eternal hellfire. These fallen angels are in high places and command and coordinate demonic armies in the arena of contention, which we call the church age. In defense of these attacks by fallen angels, we have invisible armor, armor that is a reflection of what we think it has to be in our soul. And if you’re going to keep standing in the day you’re tested, you have to learn it. The armor is listed in Ephesians 6, 14 through 17. And we will go back through that later on. I want to get started here next week on that passage, on the armor of God. I hope this is making sense. There’s so much to teach you, so much to tell you. And you can tell I’m enthusiastic about it. I’m not just beating around the bush here. I’m coming on you pretty strong because I want you to get this. This broadcast goes to 110 stations across America. I don’t know who’s listening. I have no way of telling who’s listening. But God is speaking to some of you right now. The greatest thing you could ever do is bow your head and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and tell the Father you’re receiving him as your Savior. And if you are a Christian and you’ve been out of it, the greatest thing you can do is confess your sin, admit it to God, get back in fellowship, and begin to study, grow, and learn God’s Word. I’m here. I can help you if you’ll contact me. Let me hear from you. We’ll do all we can to put you on the right path. So I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re paying attention. Let us hear from you if necessary. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you. 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.
