In this episode of The Flatline, Rick Hughes provides a profound insight into the cosmic system’s deceptive nature, offering listeners a chance to understand the invisible forces at work. With an engaging narration that includes the story of a corn-filled vortex, Rick illustrates how unsuspecting individuals can be swept away by seductive temptations. He shares cautionary tales from the Bible and draws parallels to modern-day challenges, encouraging listeners to regain their spiritual footing by adjusting to God’s perfect plan. Learn about the cosmic system’s traps and how you can overcome them through faith, awareness, and the power of God’s
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stay with me. It won’t be long. Only about 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, education, and as we always say, no manipulation because we don’t try to sell you anything. We’re not trying to con you. We’re not trying to get you to join up, fess up, give up. Nothing like that. We just would like for you to listen. Listen as I try to verify and identify God’s plan for your life. And if I’m able to do that, then you have the privilege, you have the opportunity to orient and adjust to the plan if you want to do so. It’s your life. You got one shot at it, not two, not three, one shot. So remember, God gave you two ends, one end you can think with, one end you can sit on. And success in your life will depend on which one of those ends you use. As they say, heads you win, tails you lose. So listen up today. If you ever want to get in touch with us, you always go to our website, simply rickhughesministries.org, rickhughesministries.org. Our website is easy to find. Sometimes you get confused with another person who’s named Richard Hughes, but that’s not me. It’s rickhughesministries.org. Today I’d like to talk to you about something that’s very special, something that happens every day and you might not even realize it’s going on. It’s unseen, but it’s happening. It’s called the Cosmic System. The Cosmic System, C-O-S-M-I-C, Cosmic. What is the cosmic system? Well, I’d like to quote you from a friend of mine who’s a pastor. This is what he said. He said, it’s Satan’s orderly system of power and way of thinking. It includes a purpose as well as a strategy and a structure of authority designed to subvert the human race and and control the world that he now rules. The cosmic system is Satan’s device to control the world. And the sad thing about it is is you can get trapped in the cosmic system as a Christian when you buy into what he throws at you. It’s Satan’s alternative or counterfeit to God’s perfect plan. And the intent of that system is to exploit mankind’s bad decisions And eventually, as he always does, trap us in a web of deception. It’s called the alternative gospel. Even in the Bible, it talks about an alternative communion table. Did you know that? In 1 Corinthians 10, 21, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of the devil. You cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table and of the table of the devil. So Satan has his own communion table, his own way of worshiping him. through the cosmic system. I call it something different. I call it the cosmic vortex. And this is a phrase coined by my good friend, Pastor Pete Daughtry at Albany Bible Church. But once you’re trapped inside this cosmic vortex, you’re trapped in a powerful system of deception. You will be carried along in that system until you finally are belched out somewhere, destroyed by your own bad decisions. One of the great illustrations I think about when I talk about the cosmic vortex is a day many years ago that I was fishing up on Lake Guntersville, Alabama. My friend and I were fishing and we were in the middle of the lake, maybe 400 or 500 yards away from the bank, fishing a channel, and all of a sudden a corn stalk landed beside the boat. I thought to myself, now who could throw a piece of corn that far out here? And another corn stalk hit on the other side of the boat. And then I looked up and the lake was full of corn stalks raining down on top of us. My friend had a great sense of humor. He said, I hope there’s not a tractor up there. But apparently what had happened is some cosmic vortex, like a tornado, a corn tornado had gone through somebody’s cornfield. and sucked up all that corn and put it in the atmosphere, blew it along until the pressure equaled and it fell out and fell on all around us where we were. That’s what the cosmic vortex will do to you. It’ll suck you up and take you down a road where you don’t belong. I wrote about it in my book called Life’s Toughest Years, which you should order if you don’t have it. I teach in detail how arrogant choices can send you spiraling into self-destruction. In Luke 15, our Lord gave the parable of the prodigal son to illustrate the cosmic vortex. It’s about the Pharisee and his scribes who were criticizing what the Lord Jesus Christ was doing for eating with sinners. The parable that the Lord Jesus Christ gave is a complete illustration of how a child of God, the two children there, the particle sun, how one of them can get trapped in the cosmic vortex by making bad decisions. And remember that bad decisions always limit future options. We call it going down the my way highway. In other words, that prodigal son bought the lie that happiness was related to circumstances and so the younger son took his money, went to a foreign land and wasted it all, the Bible says, on riotous living and woke up in a pig pen feeding pigs and realizing the pigs had more to eat than he did. Thank goodness he had an adjustment to reality, had enough humility to go home, the Lord Jesus Christ taught. and admit his sin to his father, and his father forgave him and restored him. But there’s a perfect illustration of someone getting into the cosmic vortex. The scriptures warn us not to get captured by this deceptive way of thinking that Satan has out there in the cosmic system. In 1 John 2, 15 and 16, I’ll read it to you. John wrote, do not love the world, that’s called the cosmos, C-O-S-M-O-S, that’s where we get the word cosmic. Do not love the world, that’s the Greek word cosmos, or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. You know, the objective of any fisherman is to catch a fish, and he may use live bait or artificial bait, but the intent is always the same, catch fish. The cosmic system has three different baits that will catch you if you’re naive enough to bite them. Now, I read it to you in 1 John 2, 15. Look out for the lust of the flesh. That’s one of them. The Greek word for the lust of the flesh is epithumia, which means the craving of the flesh, to crave, to desire, to want. But then we have epithumos. It’s a compound word pronounced epithumos as the two words put together. And thumos is anger. So this word epithumia is a strong urge and desire in you If you’re weak in something, it can be a lust. Look out for it. It’ll destroy you. Lust for money, lust for sex, lust for power, lust for attention, lust for approbation. I always give the illustration about the little girl who came to church pregnant and people judged her and looked at her and said things about her behind her back. But little Miss Susie always liked to put flowers down front on Sunday morning and loved to hear the preacher say, Miss Susie, thank you for those wonderful flowers. And she just grinned, yeah, thank you, well, yes, yes. She wanted her name mentioned from that pulpit every Sunday morning for those flowers. She wanted that approbation. So there are many other categories of lust, but a lot of them in the Bible, too numerous to mention. If you add Satan knows which one of your buttons to push in order to trap you in your lust, then you can see the danger from the lust of the flesh. And then the writer John went on to say, look out for the lust of the eyes. That’s another bait. Your eyes are the door to the mentality of your soul. It’s interesting to watch how magicians can fool the eyes with sleight of hand tricks. I used to do some tricks every now and then, card tricks, the different things. You can buy them at the magic store. But mankind has an inquisitive nature and it’s through the eyes that many people are tricked into believing a lie. Matthew 6.22 says the lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, then how great will that darkness be? The third bait that Satan uses to trick you is called the pride of life. The pride of life. Again, look out for all that’s in the world, 1 John 2, 16. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes. Here’s the third bait, the pride of life. And it goes on to say, this is not of the Father, but of the world, the cosmos. The pride of life is an interesting word. It’s a hypoxlegomena, we call that. It’s interesting, a hypoxlegomena means it’s only used one time in all the New Testament. And this word refers to a proud and ostentatious way of living, a way that’s designed to impress people. I’ve seen some homes. I was in Houston one time, and somebody took me to this neighborhood and said, this guy spends $25,000 every month just on his lawn. I guess to impress people that how much money he had. Nothing wrong if you got money. There’s nothing wrong with that. But when you’re trying to impress people with your money, trying to make it look like you’re really something, that’s what this is, the pride of life. Any one of these three attitudes is a guarantee you’re going to be sucked into the cosmic vortex. And you’re going to lose control of your possessions and even your destiny. Because the lure of the cosmic system is like a mirage in the desert. It’s nothing, it’s nothing there. It looks like it’s there, it looks like it’s good. Looks like it’s refreshing, but it’s not. It’s not even there. There’s another warning about the cosmic system in James 4.4 where James wrote, don’t try to be friends with the cosmic system. Listen as I read it. Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the cosmos is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the cosmos makes himself an enemy of God. Simply put, you can’t walk on both sides of the fence. You’re either gonna be in it or you’re gonna be out of it. You can’t play games with God. And so many people flirt with the cosmos. Following one of these three lures, they get into it. But then they try it on Sunday to act like they’re a Christian and act like they’re all wonderful, holy people. But in the meantime, they’ve been walking both sides of the fence. The Lord Jesus Christ warns the disciples about the attitude they would face from those who reside in the cosmos. He said, look, this is John 15, verse 18, if the world hates you, don’t worry, it hated me first. And if you were of the cosmos, the cosmos would like you. But since you’re not of the cosmos, I chose you out of the cosmos. Therefore, the cosmos will hate you. So the world does not want to be your friend if you’re a committed Christian. If you’re growing in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, The world’s not going to like you because of the standard you project, because of the way you live. It could be as simple as saying a blessing in public and somebody would be offended. Well, would you look at that? They’re over there praying at that table. That’s right. They’re Christians, and they like to bow their head and ask God to sanctify the food before they eat it so it won’t kill them. By the way, that’s why you pray over your food, by the way. Did you know that? You pray for God to sanctify it, set it apart so it won’t make you sick, and thank him for giving it to you. So I just read you three different verses that warn about the cosmic involvement. You don’t need to be involved in the cosmic system. Trying to fit in with the demands of the cosmic system will cause you to be what we call double-minded, or to have two different allegiances. And James, from chapter 1, verse 8, says a double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. The word double-minded is disukos, it’s two-souled, two allegiances. You can’t live like that. You can’t pledge allegiance to the cosmos and pledge allegiance to Christ. Because as I stated, once you enter the cosmic system, by your own free will, I might add, And it’s arrogance that gets you into it. It’s your own arrogance. It’s your own self-justification where you desire something and you justify why it’s okay to do it. And it leads to you being preoccupied with yourself and eventually you will destroy your life and you’ll get in a frantic search for happiness. That’s how it starts. That’s how you get in the cosmic system with arrogance, justifying why you don’t have to obey the Bible, why you need to follow this over here. Why would it be good to make a lot of money and have a big home and be important in the community? Cosmos makes that a lure to you. So it’s at this point that the believer loses objective reality and they begin to be a slave to their sin nature’s appeal. In other words, they follow their lust patterns. And this is a choice that you make as a believer when you flirt with the call of the cosmic system. Because once you get sucked into that cosmic vortex that I talked about, then Satan will be able to manipulate you and control your thoughts and even your actions. You’ll lose your objective reality and you’ll be thinking things subjectively and you won’t be seeing the truth. One of Satan’s tactics is to discredit scripture and disapprove of the demands of scripture. That’s a sure-tell, tall-tale way to recognize a believer who’s entered into the cosmic system if they disagree with what the Bible says. You know, you’ve heard it before. I know the Bible says that, but, but what? But I want to justify why I don’t have to obey the Bible, they say. That’s right. That’s the door to the cosmic system. That’s thinking that the cosmos offers you something that God doesn’t offer you, and that’s the bottom line. What God offers you, the spiritual life, is so much better than what the cosmic system has to offer you, and you have yet to learn that, haven’t you? Even though it’s impossible for the Christian to be a demon-possessed, if you’re a believer, you cannot be demon-possessed, but you can be, and I repeat, you can be under the influence of demons, which is spawned in the cosmic system. Listen to 1 Timothy 4. Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, things that Satan teaches. So he has his doctrines. And it goes on to say, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron. So again, 1 Timothy 4, 1 and 2, the Spirit says expressly that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, those are people that got saved, giving heed to the seducing spirits, that’s demons, and doctrines of devils bind into the cosmic vortex. Speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron. What does that mean? If your conscience gets seared, it’s the word in the Greek for cauterize, it’s the word cauteriazo. It means to brand your mind with a hot iron. And this produces scar tissue in your soul, where your soul’s heart becomes hardened, the thinking in your life becomes hardened. And by that, you lose your guilt, you lose your sense of wrongdoing, and you’re completely swallowed up by the cosmic vortex and blown along like that corn in the sky until you’re dumped out somewhere you don’t belong. Paul warns in Ephesians 4.27, don’t give place to the devil. Don’t do that. So let me show you three different ways that are indications that you have fallen into the cosmic system. Pay attention closely now. If you can commit sin with no regret, you’re probably in the cosmic system. You shut down the Holy Spirit’s ministry in your life, which is to convict you of sin. If you can sin with no regret, no feeling of guilt, then you’re probably in the cosmic system. Another way that you could tell if you’re in the cosmic system is if you have produced a maximum amount of human good. What is human good? It’s a right thing done in a wrong way. Is it right to go to church? Yes. Is it right to pray? Yes. But remember, we’ve told you before, the Bible says if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. And you can pray 10 times a day and it’s not going anywhere if you have unconfessed sin in your life. And the reason is because you’ve quenched and grieved the Holy Spirit’s ministry. And it’s nothing but human good. All the singing, all the tithing, all the visiting, all the good things you did, if you don’t do them, manufacture them from the filling of the Holy Spirit, they’re manufactured from the strength of the old sin nature. And the old sin nature can be good. The old sin nature can be moral. The old sin nature can be generous. But it’s just human good because it’s not manufactured from the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And so that’s human good, and we find that all burned up at the judgment seat of Christ in 1 Corinthians 3 when all human good will be destroyed. It’s called wood, hay, and stubble as opposed to gold, silver, and precious stones. So we’re all gonna be evaluated every moment we were in fellowship or not in fellowship. Everything we did will be evaluated. Just like me giving you this radio show. I could be doing this radio show with unconfessed sin in my life and you wouldn’t know it, but the Holy Spirit knows it and it would just be human good. Not that it wouldn’t be effective because the Bible is effective whenever you say it, but human good does me no good at all because it doesn’t glorify God through my life. So one, committing sin with no regret. Two, producing a maximum amount of human good. Another way you’re an indication that you’ve entered into the cosmic system. And three, promoting evil. Evil, what is that? It’s the exact opposite of God. It’s a counterfeit of God. Evil is a Satan system by which he administers his rulership over this world. Satan cannot sin and he parlays evil. human good into sin and evil. That’s what he does. I don’t mean to say he can’t sin. I’m trying to say he cannot restrain sin. He can’t keep you from sinning. He can’t do that. But he can parlay your sin into some sort of human good, and that winds up being evil. Like you ignore the divine institutions, You get into DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion, for example, and you think that’s good and that’s what we should be doing, and you ignore what the Bible says about certain things, like marriage and family and things like this, the divine institutions, freedom, marriage, family, and nationalism, all very important. And if you deny that and move away from that, you gotta go somewhere, and that’s getting into evil and Satan’s system. All sin is evil, but all evil, I like to say, is not necessarily sin. It can be some form of good, but it doesn’t glorify God. Like some politician says he’s going to put a chicken in everybody’s pot. If you vote for me, I’ll make sure everybody’s got a chicken to eat. Well, that’s evil. That’s trying to buy off people, trying to do something good, but it’s not manufactured by the Holy Spirit. There are a lot of biblical warnings about Satan’s cosmic system in the Bible. In 2 Corinthians 2, 11, here’s a warning. Don’t let any advantage be taken of you by Satan, for we’re not ignorant of his strategies. What that’s telling you is he has a foul on you, a plan to neutralize you, neutralize your impact in the devil’s world. In Ephesians 6, 11, we see put on the full armor of God, that you might always be able to hold your ground against the strategy of the devil. So he has a strategy, and if we don’t learn it, then he’ll take advantage of us. We’re told in that passage in Ephesians 6, 11, put on the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, the belt of truth, the gospel shoes, These are all military metaphors for having a flat line in your soul. Everything has to be girded up with truth. So Ephesians 6.11 tells you that. That is very important that you understand that. You cannot let Satan neutralize you with a strategy that you’re not able to handle. In James 4, 7, stand your ground on scripture. Hold your ground against the devil and he will flee from you. Using your armor, scripture defeats Satan. If you want to use your armor, quote scripture, that defeats Satan. Because in Matthew 4, that’s exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did. He defeated Satan by quoting scripture. In 1 Peter 5, 8 and 9, be alert Satan’s going around trying to, like a roaring lion, seeking to devour you, seeking to recruit you, seeking to confuse you by using your own lust to get you into the cosmic system. Any Christian who lives in the cosmic system is called carnal in the Bible because his life cannot be distinguished from the life of the unbeliever. The inevitable consequences of living in the cosmic system is chaos, really. It’s chaos, psychologically and socially, chaos. You live in the cosmic system long enough, you’ll self-destruct. In Hebrews 12, five through nine, have you forgotten the exhortation, what speaks unto you as unto children? My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you’re rebuked of him. So if you stay in the cosmic system, you’re gonna come under discipline. You might not know why you’re hurting, You might not know why everything’s going so bad with you. You’re under the chasing of the Lord, and it says he scourges every son whom he receives. And it goes on to say in Hebrews 12, seven, if you endure the discipline, God deals with you as with a son. For what son, it says, whom the Father does not discipline? But if you be without discipline, where all are partakers, all children, then you’re not really the Son of God. Furthermore, we’ve had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them respect. Shall we not much rather respect the Father of spirits and live? What does that mean? Well, Proverbs 15.10 says, Correction is grievous unto the one that forsakes the way, and he that hates the reproof of God shall die. That’s your bitterness and your negative volition towards God’s loving hand trying to correct you. So how do you get out of the cosmic vortex? That’s a good question. In 2 Timothy 2, 25 and 26, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God would allow them to be repentants, change their mind, and the acknowledgement of the truth so that they may recover, there’s the key word, so they could recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who had taken them captive by his will. So he’s tricked them, they bought the bait, they took the bait, they’re trapped in the cosmic system and they have to repent, change their mind, that’s the only way you’re gonna get out of there. Change your mind with regret to the acknowledgement of the truth, 1 Timothy 2.26, so that they can recover out of the snare of the devil. The recovery process to regain the filling of the Holy Spirit is pretty simple, you know it as rebound. where the Bible says if we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and to purify us from all of our wrongdoing. When we sin, we confess our sin. That’s the only way we can reclaim the filling of the Holy Spirit. But once you are in the cosmic system for a long period of time, it’s a little tougher. to get your thinking squared away because you have to replace all the misinformation you’ve been learning with divine viewpoint thinking, and that doesn’t happen overnight. That doesn’t happen in a short little prayer of rebound. Peter refers to this changing of thinking in 1 Peter 2, one and two, where he says, lay aside all malice, all guile, all hypocrisy, all envy, and all evil speaking, and as newborn babies, here’s the key to this now, desire the milk, sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. That’s the only way you can recover from living in the cosmic system. Learn God’s word, starting with the milk before you get to the steak. Spiritual maturity requires effort on our part. We obviously need the filling of the Holy Spirit to do the things I told you, but we also have to have the hunger to grow and the hunger to understand God’s will for our lives. So I urge you to learn those 10 problem-solving devices called the Flatline. God made it possible for us to fortify our souls mentally so that the outward circumstances of adversity don’t become the inside source of stress. Remember, Satan will never rest. He’s going to attack you daily. You have to be prepared. You have to be ready. If you want to get that book on the 10 problem-solving devices, contact us at our website. We’ll send you free of charge Christian problem-solving. And our new book on the Christian spiritual life will be coming out this month. I hope you’ll take advantage of that and order that book. If you don’t know what those 10 problem-solving devices are, be sure to contact us and let us send you that book free of charge. Okay, it’s been an honor to be with you today. I thank God for this opportunity. And I pray the Holy Spirit will use the things I gave you today to challenge you And I ask that in Christ’s name, amen.
SPEAKER 01 :
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.
