In this episode of The Flatline, host Rick Hughes delves into the timeless struggle that faces every believer: managing the sin nature. Through poignant insights into Paul’s dilemma in Romans, explore how the apostle wrestled with doing what was right yet found himself repeatedly falling into sin. The discussion transitions into understanding the intricate nature of sin, described vividly as a battle that occurs within the mind and spirit, emphasizing the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit to conquer the flesh’s deceitful desires.
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, F-L-O-T, Flatline. Some people get it mistaken and say Flatline, F-L-A-T, but it’s FLAT. It stands for the Forward Line of Troops. It’s a military analogy talking about a main line of resistance in your soul made up of 10 unique problem-solving devices that my pastor taught me years and years ago. Those 10 problem-solving devices, if you learn them and deploy them into your soul and use them, they will stop the source of adversity from ever becoming stress. That’s why we always tell you adversity is of course inevitable, but stress is optional. The Christian life is lived without stress, without fear, without intimidation. It’s a wonderful way to live. When you have a main line of resistance in your soul, and that’s your flat line, 10 problem-solving devices. Do you know them? We’ve taught them many times. If you don’t know them, we have a bookmark that has all of them listed. beginning with rebound and the filling of the Holy Spirit, the second one, the faith rest drill, and then number four, grace orientation, number five, doctrinal orientation, number six, a personal sense of destiny, number seven, personal love for God, virtue love, of course, number eight, impersonal love for all mankind, that’s functional love, and then number nine, sharing the happiness of God, and number 10, occupation with Christ. Each one of these is a doctrine within itself and I could teach a radio show, four or five radio shows on each one of these. Many times I will spend a lot of time on the show dealing with number one, the filling of the Holy Spirit and how we acquire that. But you should know these 10 problem-solving devices. We also have a book called Christian Problem Solving that outlines these in our book, and it’s free of charge from the website rickhughesministries.org. If you’d like to get one, go there and order it, and we’ll send it to you right away. Now, today I’d like to talk to you about the believer’s dilemma. The dilemma that you and I face is quite interesting, isn’t it? You might not know what I’m talking about, but you’re fixing to learn it here today if you’ll stay with me. 30 minutes worth of motivation, inspiration, education with no manipulation. You ready? Romans chapter seven, verses 15 through 20. Here is the Apostle Paul talking about his dilemma. He said, for that which I do, I allow not. For what I wish I could do, that I do not. But what I hate, that’s what I do. If then I do which I would not, then I consent unto the law that it’s good. Now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me, that’s in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I don’t find. For the good that I wish I could do, I don’t do, but the evil which I wish I didn’t do, that I do. Now if I do that which I would not, it’s no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. Did you get that? That’s kind of complicated. But Paul has a dilemma. He wants to do the right thing, but like you and I, he inevitably does the wrong thing, and we’re talking about sin. That’s what he said. It’s sin that dwells in me. And then we have a verse in Romans 6, 12 that says this. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof. Please allow me to spend a moment talking about the dilemma that all believers face. Why do we do things we wish we wouldn’t do? Why do we do that? What is it that causes us to violate our conscience and do things we know that is wrong. The Apostle Paul allows us to see that he has the same struggle you and I have. We, and you and I, we frequently sin even though we wish we didn’t do it. And it’s apparent that sometimes there appears to be two of us living inside the same body. Remember that old commercial, sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don’t? Well, maybe you feel that way sometimes. There’s two of you in there. The one of you that does right and the one of you that does wrong. It’s apparent that sometimes there appears to be two of us living in the same body. And that’s what Paul is talking about. Listen again, what I want to do, I don’t do. But what I hate, that’s sin, is exactly the thing that I do. Now listen, Paul makes no claim to be a sinless saint. I’ve met one or two of those self-righteous saints and they can be quite annoying, I promise you. They’re usually under the delusion that since they got saved, they quit sinning. It’s kind of fun to make these individuals mad by pointing out how absurd that is and then watching them sin by getting angry and immediately full of animosity. In 1 John 1.8, the Bible says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. I remember in Georgia speaking in schools one time many, many, many years ago, I ran into an individual just like that that insisted that he did not sin. By the time the conversation was over, I promise you he was sinning because I frustrated him and made him angry. Well, here’s the question. Why do we still sin once we get saved? Why do you do that? I mean, you’re saved, why do you have to keep on sinning? In my case, it only took me a day or two after I got saved before my old desires and my old traits reappeared. And here’s a question, can we ever overcome these flaws in our soul? In the mentality of our soul, can we ever overcome them? And if so, exactly how do we do it? What’s the means to overcoming these flaws? So let’s start by identifying the culprit that we have to start with. Mr. Bad Guy, I call him. Romans 5, 12. Wherefore, as by one man sin, that’s the word sin nature, entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all, for all have sinned. So when you are born, you are born physically alive, but spiritually dead. and you have Adam’s original sin imputed to you. Thus you have a sin nature. According to this passage in Romans 5.12, we inherit the sinful nature from Adam. because Adam took a perfect soul and by his negative volition he revolted against divine authority and thus doing so created the sin nature. This is from my own pastor, Robert B. Thiem Jr. I just quoted him there. I’ll quote him again for you. Adam took a perfect soul and by his negative volition he revolted against divine authority and created the sin nature. The mentality of the soul becomes the battlefield which the old sin nature attacks. And that’s where it’s often tactically very successful. It’s always in your thoughts, in your brain, in your head. The influence of the sin nature on the soul is seen in mental attitude sins and in motivation. So you have a soul, your soul has mentality, your soul has volition, your soul has a conscience and even a self-consciousness. And it’s here that the sin nature attacks. The sin nature attacks the mentality of your soul. It infects the way you think. So you have to remember that. The mentality of your soul is the battlefield where you have to be successful tactically to glorify God. The influence of the old sin nature on the soul is seen in mental attitude sins, as I said, and on the different motivations. But the Greek word used here to explain the sin nature, we’ll use a couple of them. One of them is called the flesh. In the Greek language, it’s called sarx, S-A-R-X. In Galatians 6, 8, for he that soweth to his sarx, the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he that soweth to the spirit, the pneuma, shall of the spirit reap life everlasting. So you have a choice. As a believer, you can sow to the flesh or you can sow to the spirit. That means you can make a decision based on what your flesh wants to do. or you can make a decision based on what the Holy Spirit wants you to do. In Romans 8, 5, again, we see this word, for they that are after the sarks, the flesh, do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit mind the things of the Spirit. So we have a choice. Who are we gonna obey? Are we going to obey the Holy Spirit that indwells us as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, Or will we obey the sin nature who’s insisting on controlling our life once again like it used to do before we ever got saved? You see, before you got saved, you didn’t have a living human spirit. You were spiritually dead. And the sin nature dictated policy to your soul, to the mentality of your soul. But now that you’re saved, there’s a battle going on. The battle is who’s gonna control your thinking. Are you going to let God the Holy Spirit control your thinking by using Scripture? Are you going to let the sin nature control your thinking based on your emotions? The Scriptures also refer to our sin nature as the old man. In Ephesians 4.22, that you put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. The sin nature is classified as the old man because it originated in the Garden of Eden and it’s older than anything else. Colossians 3.9, lie not to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds. So you’re not supposed to let the old man control what you think because if the old man controls what you think, then your volition will do what you don’t need to do. In Romans 6, 6, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. This is our position in the royal family of God. In our position, we are sinless. In our experience, we sin more. So we couldn’t go to heaven if we weren’t sinless, and we are sinless because Christ paid for our sins. He who knew no sin was made sin for us, and we were given his righteousness. That’s in our position. That’s called positional truth, but experientially, We’re still on this earth, we still have a human body. We have a sin nature indwelling the human body. And the question is, who’s gonna control your thoughts? The sin nature or the Holy Spirit? That’s your dilemma. You have to remember that. The old sin nature always gets to us by attacking our thoughts so that both sin and evil are motivated in our thinking. And you might not know what evil is. You might think evil is just doing something bad. But evil is actually the genius of Satan. It’s where he takes the word of God and twists it, counterfeits it to where it sounds right, smells right, looks right, tastes right, but it’s a lie. That’s evil. Evil is nothing but the policy of Satan. And God’s policy is known as grace. Satan’s policy is known as evil, salvation by works. God’s policy is known as grace, salvation by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So the old sin nature always gets to us by attacking what we think. We think from our heart, the Bible said. Did you know that? We have a mind and we have a heart. The Bible identifies the two. And we comprehend things in our mind. Thus, what we comprehend, we store in our hearts mentality. And that’s where the sin nature attacks our thoughts. Did you know that? Listen to Jeremiah 17 nine. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who could know it? So this is where the sin nature comes to attack. Once you learn something, comprehend it and understand it in your mind and cycle it into your heart, it becomes part of your stream of consciousness. It becomes part of your living. And this is what the sin nature attacks. Thus your sin nature, weakness, sends up a temptation. So here it comes up. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And since you can think logically, you realize that this thinking is not normal. And this is where you have to make a decision. Because temptation is not a sin. It’s not a sin to be tempted. But it’s a volitional decision to give in and follow the temptation when you actually go ahead and commit the sin. And sin can come in different ways. You know what you think, what you say, what you do. Mental attitude sins are some of the biggest. Sins of the tongue are certainly big. and overt sins, things that we do. So just as our body, remember this, just as our bodies are different, Not all of us have the same physical abilities, in other words, some are strong, some are weak, some are tall, some are short, but so also the trends of the sin nature are not always the same. The sin nature has a lust pattern. The sin nature has trends and an area of weakness and an area of strength. The area of strength produces what we call human good and dead works, and the area of weakness produces sinfulness. An unbeliever has an area of strength in his soul. He can do good works. He can give money to the poor. He can serve humanity. But that’s not salvation. That’s dead works. The area of weakness that you and I have is that area that produces sin in our life. It’s our flaw. And most of the time, it’s an acquired flaw. The trend of the sin natures are derived from the individual lust pattern of the soul. And there are certain areas in which we lust. Other areas that we don’t lust. Some people lust for money. Some people lust for power. We got an election going on this year and there’s a lot of power lusts floating around, I promise you. Some people lust for attention. Some people lust for approbation. You might have heard me use the illustration of the little old lady that walks down to the front of the church every Sunday morning before church starts and puts the flowers down there. And then she sits down, and then the preacher gets up and says, God bless you, Mrs. Smith. These are such wonderful flowers you put here every Sunday. And of course, she’s nodding her head going, yes, yes, yes, that’s right, preacher. She wants attention. She wants approbation. but she may be at the same time critical of the young girl that comes in pregnant outside of marriage and want her kicked out of the church because look what she’s done, that’s not right. See, these are different areas of lust. One lusts for attention, one has sex lust. So we have to understand this. The trends of the oaths in nature are classified in two categories. One of them we’ll call legalism, and the other one we’ll call, the other side of the coin, lasciviousness. Legalism is unrestrained, and if you don’t restrain it, if you don’t stop it, it can result in moral degeneracy. It was the legalists who crucified our Lord Jesus Christ. It was the religious crowd that insisted that he be put to death. The morally degenerate individuals that lied at his trial before daylight. Actually, there were several trials that he went through, and all of them were phony, false lies. And so the legalist has this moral degeneracy. However, the lascivious person, the person that has a different lust pattern, is unrestrained if he doesn’t restrain it, and it can result in immoral degeneracy. So you have moral degeneracy, the legalist, and you have immoral degeneracy, the lascivious person. So what is it that restrains the sin nature in your life and my life? Well, Galatians 5.16 tells us, this I say to you, walk in the spirit and you will not, and listen to that, you will not fulfill the lust of your flesh. Excuse me. The word walk in this Greek word is the Greek word peripatao. And that means the state in which you conduct yourself or how you live your life. It means your lifestyle. It means to regulate your life, peripatao. So this I say then, live your life in the spirit and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh. meaning that if you live under the filling of the Holy Spirit, then the sun nature has a hard time seizing control of your thoughts. The word walk is of course a verb, and in its present tense meaning continuous action. That voice of the verb is an active voice, means that you alone can produce the action of this verb. You do it, not somebody else. And it’s an imperative verb, meaning this is a command from God. We are to walk in the spirit. If we do so, then we can control the flesh and the lust of the flesh. So, what do you mean? What are we talking about? If you’re not walking, you’re not moving. A believer under control of his sin nature is not advancing spiritually, Why? Because he has quenched and grieved the Holy Spirit, meaning he exercised his volition to give in to his lust pattern, be it legalism or licentiousness. Legalism sins are including such things as judging, maligning, as well as slander and gossip, and these sort of sins are most often motivated by jealousy, envy, But on the other hand, lascivious sins, including immoral activities, such even as adultery, fornication, theft, things like that. Often a believer might even surprise himself by committing one of these sins, not thinking they were capable of doing such things. And this is when the enemy likes to put doubt in your mind where you begin to think, if I was really saved, I wouldn’t do that. This type of thinking leads to self-pity and eventually discouragement. So, you know, when I played football in college, I got knocked down. And I didn’t stay down, I got up, got back to the huddle and did better next time. When you fail, when you fall, when you wind up on your back because you sin, you can stay there and feel sorry for yourself and have a little pity party. And Satan loves it. He’s going to clap and applaud. Yeah, go sit in the corner and feel sorry for yourself. But God’s not through with you. He’s made a way for you to be cleansed from that failure. And that’s through the rebound technique, problem-solving device number one. Do you remember that the disciple Peter never thought he would deny the Lord? The night Jesus was arrested, he did it. He did it three times just like the Lord predicted he would do it in Luke 22, 31. So why do we allow the sin nature to take control of our thoughts? Why do we do that? Well, usually it’s because we’re in a frantic search for happiness. Unfortunately, the believer who follows the trends of their sin nature always wind up in Operation Boomerang. You know, the Aborigines have a boomerang in Australia and they throw it at a rabbit and if they miss it, that boomerang comes back and they pick it up and throw it again. It’s kind of like a bullet you shot at something and it returns with a gun. Operation Boomerang is you trying to find happiness in the flesh and you wind up being more miserable than you were to start with, which means that your unhappiness just intensifies. So you’re unhappy and your flesh says if you do this, you’ll be happy. So you do it and you’re still not happy, you’re even more unhappy than you were to start with. Your unhappiness intensifies and eventually completely, you go completely negative to God’s word, you go completely negative to God’s direction and God’s plan. And if you stay in that negative condition long enough, you’ll eventually black out your soul by the accumulation of scar tissue. And that means you won’t have any guilt. You won’t have any shame. You’re just totally soul sellout. And Christians do that sort of thing every day, I promise you. But there is an instant recovery process when we commit sin, and it’s to use rebound. And that technique is found in 1 John 1, 9, as we talk to you about it all the time. If we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to purify us from all unrighteousness. By using this divine provision, you can allow the Holy Spirit to remain in control of your mentality and encourage you as well as comfort you. This does not mean you won’t sin again, but it does put you back into fellowship with God where you can begin to recover your momentum spiritually. So here’s the principle you need to understand. The lascivious believer absolutely knows when he’s committed some immoral sin, and he usually can recover kind of quickly. if he has a desire to admit his sin. But unfortunately the legalistic believer often fails to recognize his sins since he compares himself with the immoral believer. Thus his self-righteousness is perpetuated as he seeks attention and he seeks notoriety in his sphere of influence. His good deeds are actually an accumulation of wood, hay, and straw that will be burned up at the judgment seat of Christ, and I must say, much to his surprise. So we wrap this up with Paul’s mandate in Ephesians 5.18. Do not get drunk with wine, which is debauchery, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. That is a divine mandate from God through the Apostle Paul that you must be filled with the Holy Spirit. You cannot operate in the Christian life without the filling of the Holy Spirit. And you cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit with unconfessed sin in your life because you’ve quenched and grieved the Holy Spirit. And that’s why rebound is so important. That’s why it’s the number one problem-solving device we have. How do I solve the problem of my sin? So you’ve committed a sin more than one time, the same sin more than one time. You think God’s through with you? Well, are you dead? No. You’re not a pile of dust yet, so God’s not through with you. God’s still using you, and you can rebound. You can get up off the floor. You can get up off your bed. You can get up off your back and move forward once you’ve rebounded and don’t look back. Paul wrote, forgetting those things that are behind, I press forward toward the things that are in front of me. So you understand now why he said I don’t understand myself at all. I want to do what’s right, but I wind up keep doing what’s wrong. That’s you and me. We try not to do those things, but we do them anyhow. So we cannot worship God in the flesh. We cannot glorify God in the flesh. We cannot produce divine good in the flesh. In Romans 7, 18, for I know that in me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. You have heard today the clear and revealed message about how to worship God and how to stay in fellowship with God. It is my prayer that you will heed what you’ve heard and put it to use in your life. If you’d like a transcript of this message, you can always contact us, 800-831-0718. Or you can go to our website, rickhughesministries.org. All of these messages are played again through our website. You can go there and listen to them again. Or you can get onto the podcast venue through Apple iPod or Spotify or Podbean and look for The Flot Line, F-L-O-T. If you put that in the search engine, it’ll bring up our shows. And 24 hours a day, seven days a week, anywhere in the world, you can listen to The Flatline. I hope you’ll take advantage of that. I hope you’ll help us get up to that two million downloads that we’ve been looking for. We’re closing in on 1,000 Sundays that we’ve been on the air. This show today is 996. So pray for us as we move on. We’re gonna have a great celebration when we get to 1,000 Sundays. It’s been my great honor to give you these messages. I pray that God the Holy Spirit would encourage you and use these things in your life that you’ll take advantage of the things we offer to you through our website. So until next week, this is 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.
