The Flatline brings an in-depth discussion on divine discipline and the critical importance of maintaining spiritual integrity. Rick Hughes warns against the dangers of neglecting spiritual responsibilities, leading listeners through biblical examples of sin and its consequences. With a focus on confession and spiritual renewal, this episode serves as a wake-up call for believers struggling with habitual sin. Through practical insights and scriptural wisdom, listeners are equipped to re-align their lives with God’s purpose and avoid the ‘door to doom.’
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes. For the next few minutes, I’d like to give you an invitation to stay with us as we’ll give you some motivation, some inspiration, some education, all done without any type of manipulation. It’s a show about the Bible, the Word of God, learning how to have a flat line in your soul, an invisible barrier, a main line of resistance that will stop the outside pressures of adversity and before they ever become the inside source of stress. That’s why we always say adversity is inevitable, but stress is optional. So you can build a flatline in your soul by learning God’s problem-solving devices. And if you learn God’s problem-solving devices and use them, apply them into your life, then you don’t have to worry, you don’t have to be afraid, you don’t have to be bitter, you don’t have to be angry. Living the Christian life is the most phenomenal way to live because it’s a stress-free life. It’s a worry-free life, and it’s a life full of assurances and guarantees. So that’s what this radio show is about, The Flatline, reminding you of these biblical truths and introducing you to a in-depth way of studying and learning the Word of God, as I said, with no manipulation or any type of solicitation, just helping you to learn it so you can make the choice to apply it. The best thing is that it starts with Jesus Christ, the anointed Son of God, the good news that he redeemed us out of the slave market of sin, the good news that our debt to God has been paid and we are free from the penalty of sin and the power of sin. So when we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior, it is the single most significant decision you’ll ever make in your life because you are in effect accepting the gift he gave you, the offering he made on your behalf, compliments of the grace of God. Ephesians 2.89 says, For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should brag about it. And then Titus again in chapter three, verse five, not by works of righteousness, which we’ve done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration. and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. Let me tell you what that means. The washing of regeneration means you are born again. You are born spiritually dead, then you are made spiritually alive by the renewing of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes to live inside of your dead, dormant human spirit. And now you’re able to have fellowship with God because the Bible tells us if you’re gonna worship God, you must worship him. in spirit and in truth and if you have a dead human spirit because you’re born dead spiritually dead as by one man sin came into the world and death by sin that’s you and me then we are made alive through christ and the renewing of the holy spirit And this verse in Titus goes on to say, which he, God, shed on us abundantly through Christ our Lord, so that, being justified by his grace, not by means of our own production, justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the confidence we have, the hope we have of eternal life. That’s a phenomenal passage for you. I don’t know if you’ve ever considered it, but maybe it’s time you did. You are not going to live forever. Everyone has to face death sooner or later, because the Bible says, it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that, the judgment. And I can think of no worse way to die than to die hopeless, without Christ, without hope, without eternal life. And sometimes we walk around as if we have some kind of guarantee that we’re going to live forever, and we don’t. Sometimes we walk around with our miserable life, just compounding our decisions, not realizing there is a way out. The Bible says if any man’s in Christ, he’s a new creature. Old things are passed away. All things become new. At the age of 22, I had a chance to start my life all over again when I believed in Jesus Christ. What a significant moment that was for me to know that all of the garbage I had done in the past was gone. and the garbage I might do in the future could be taken care of when I would confess my sin to God. So I had a chance to start my life again, a new man in Christ. Old things passed away, all things become new. And it can happen to you. You only have to do it one time. You don’t have to get saved 10 times. You make a decision once in your life to believe in Christ, receive him as your savior, And that’s when the real you starts living. Not the dead you, the real you. You see, the dead you is a body and a soul, but no spirit. The real you is a body and a soul and a living spirit indwelled by God, the Holy Spirit. So when you make that decision to trust Christ and to believe in Christ, it is the single most significant decision, as I said, that you could ever make. Now, once a person becomes a Christian, once he commits to the royal family of God, there’s always discipline. God deals with us. And we’ve been talking about the door to doom. I’ve done three to six studies on this now, the door to doom. And I’m going to do another one now on something that’s very significant, very important. You listen and you understand. We are children of God by faith alone in Christ alone. And as God’s children, there are mandates in the Bible of what we should and we shouldn’t do. And I’m not talking about don’t drink, don’t dance, don’t smoke, don’t wear makeup, don’t have fun. Those things, you know, people want to wrap your life in chains and try to get you to give up all the good times. The Bible doesn’t say don’t drink. It says don’t get drunk. The Bible doesn’t say don’t smoke. It says don’t harm your body. I mean, you can harm your body by eating 10 chickens for lunch just as bad as you can by getting drunk or whatever. But when we’re talking about the Bible and the Word of God, it gives us mandates, scripture that we’re to live by. And the first one is study, grow, learn God’s plan, understand it, apply it, use it in your life. Stay out of mental attitude sins, stay out of the sins of the tongue, stay out of overt sins, because you have an old sin nature. There’s a worm in the fruit. It’s called an old sin nature, and it’ll eat its way out if you let it. And so there is something in the Bible. There is a door in the Bible that you can walk through, and once you walk through this door, essentially your life is over. Your life is finished if you’re a Christian, if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ. You can take yourself out too early. Take yourself out too soon. My pastor once said, it’s called the sin unto death. It’s the door to doom. The sin unto death is the sin face-to-face with death, and it’s not any specific sin. It’s not one specific thing you do. It’s you residing and functioning in the cosmic system under control of your sin nature, never rebounding, never confessing your sins, staying out of fellowship with God, living your life in reversionism, or as some people call it, backsliding, and never getting out of it. You see, all of the human goods you do, all your going to church and all your giving money and being sweet and nice to the little ladies trying to cross the street, all the human good and all the sins you may commit along the way all add up to motivational evil towards your own self and functional evil towards other people. So the sin faced with death is not one sin. It’s a lifestyle of sin. It’s you creating for yourself your very own dying misery in death’s shattered valley that you will go through. It’s fair from God, it’s painful from God, and it terminates in physical death. Sins you may commit while dying will even intensify the journey through death’s shattered valley. bitterness, anger, fear, antagonism, hatred. I mean, you can go out full of those mental attitude sins and you will be miserable all the way. You might ought to take a look at yourself just for a minute. I have seen people go out under the sin of the death. I will not name any names. It’s nobody’s business. but they’ve been believers in Jesus Christ that got into sin and would not confess the sin and continued to try to manipulate God, and eventually God said, that’s it, you’re coming home. The Bible teaches there are three stages of divine discipline in Hebrews 12, 5, and 6. It says in Hebrews 12, 5, and 6, and so you yourselves have forgotten sin, the principles of doctrine which teach you as a son. My son, do not make light of the discipline from the Lord, nor be fainting when you’re punished by him. For you see, whom the Lord loves, he punishes, and he scourges with a whip every son that he receives. That is discipline one and discipline two. Discipline one is the Lord punishing. Discipline two is the Lord scourging. And if you are a son or a daughter of God and you get out of fellowship with God, fail to confess your sin, you are going to go under discipline one, which is warning discipline. God will warn you that you’re out of fellowship. It may be through a pastor and a message he gave. It may be through a book you read. It may be through a sign you see. but it is a divine warning. It may be through this radio message. Get back where you belong. Quit living in the cosmic system. You’ve been lured. You’ve been lured into the cosmic vortex. You’re in a frantic search for happiness and you’re not finding it. It’s a dead end street. And so God is warning you, come back. Come back where you belong. This is the whole story of the prodigal son in the book of Luke who was lured into the cosmic system thinking he could find happiness in the details of life and he did not. He just about killed himself until he changed his mind and went home to his father and confessed his sin. So warning, discipline, and then the second he scourges with a whip every son whom he receives. Scourges means he gives us a paddling. He takes us to the woodshed. And this is where there’s pain. No pain, no gain as far as God’s concerned at this stage. And there’s nothing worse than God putting you under pain, under discipline. And this is when God can get your attention. It’s called enforced humility. You should have enough genuine humility to confess your sin and respond to the warning discipline, but you did not. You justified why you were doing what you were doing. You compromised the plan of God, and so now God has to give you some enforced humility. bring you to your knees until you admit I was wrong. I stepped out of line. You shouldn’t be able to admit that father, you know, it’s horrible to have to do this, but father, I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I got out of line. I’m gonna show you how it happens in the Bible all the time. This is called warning discipline from Jesus Christ in Revelation 3.20. A lot of times people will tell you this is a salvation verse, but it’s not. It’s a verse to one of the churches. He said, behold, I stand at the door and I knock. If anyone has heard my voice and opens the door, that means if you rebound or confess your sin, I will enter face to face with him and dine with him. That means you will be restored to fellowship with God and he with me. That’s the warning discipline, Christ standing at the door knocking. Maybe you’ve heard the knock, but you didn’t respond. I urge you, open the door, confess your sin to God, rebound, get back in fellowship before the intense discipline comes. In Psalm 32, verses two through five, I’m gonna read to you David’s words about his sin before he was eventually found out and God disciplined him by means of Nathan. His sin was the murder of Uriah the Hittite, the stealing of his wife Bathsheba, fornicating with her. Here it is, listen. Psalm 32, two through five. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there’s no guile. When I kept silence, that means he did not confess his sin, my bones waxed old through my roaring all day long. In other words, physically I hurt. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into a drought of summer. I acknowledge my sin unto you. My iniquity I did not hide. I said I will confess my transgression unto the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Psalm 32, two through five. Psalm 32, two through five. Go read that and look at it in your own life. Is this you? Have you kept silent? Are you hurting every day in your life? Is God’s disciplined hand heavy on you? So much so that it’s like a drought and no water, no relief. That’s what it means. Then it’s time for you to do what David did. I will confess my transgression unto the Lord and he forgave the iniquity of my sin. The door to doom being dying discipline is the stage that is the most horrible stage to go into. Once you step through that door, that’s it. In 1 John 5, 16, if anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not face to face with death, He shall ask, and God the Father will give to him who does not sin face to face with death. In other words, if you know a believer out of fellowship, struggling along under discipline, you can pray for them, pray for God to speak to them, pray for God to have mercy on them, pray for them to wake up and see what they’re doing. But now the verse goes on to say, there is a sin face to face with death. And I do not say that you should ask concerning this category. Once God puts somebody under the sin of face-to-face with death, you can stop praying because it’s not going to be effective anymore. In 1 Corinthians 5, 1 through 5, we have a case of incest in the church. I’ll read it to you. This is in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 5, 1 through 5. It is actually reported, actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you. and the kind that even pagans do not tolerate. Pagans don’t do this, unbelievers. A man is sleeping with his father’s wife, and you are proud. Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put this man out of your fellowship, the man that’s been doing this? For my part, even though I’m not physically present, I’m with you in my spirit, and as one who is present with you in this way, I’ve already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this.” Now remember, this is the apostolic authority of Paul the apostle. This is the power that God granted him with, this power, this ability to do this. So here’s what he said. When you are assembled and I’m with you in my spirit and in the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. He is going to die the sin unto death. Is he going to go to heaven? Yeah, I just said it would. His spirit will be saved in the day of the Lord. Yes, he’s going to heaven. But his time on earth is up. That’s it. He’s not responding to warning discipline. He’s not responding to intensive discipline. He’s not having any sort of genuine humility. He’s living under arrogance. He’s justifying why it’s okay to do this. He’s lying to himself. He’s absorbed with his self. And God says that’s it. When God says that’s it, it’s over. And I hope you’re not at that point in your life where God says that’s it. There are a lot of ways you can get there. This is one way, through the lust of the flesh. There’s another way in Acts 5, one through 11. A certain man named Ananias with his wife Sapphira sold a possession that they had and kept back part of the price. His wife also being aware of it, they brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. And Peter said to Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the price of the land? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not your own to do whatever you wanted to do with it? And why did you conceive this thing in your heart? You have not lied to me, you’ve lied to God. So he came saying he was gonna give every nickel he got out of the sale of that land, he’s gonna give it to the church. And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down. He didn’t have to say that. He could say, I’m going to give half. I’m going to give a third. I’m going to give three-fourths. But he bragged about it. And this is his own arrogance again. I’m giving it all to God. No, he was not. He was holding some back. And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up his ghost. And a great fear came upon them that heard these things. And the young men rose up, wrapped him up, and carried him out and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours later when his wife, not really knowing what happened, came in. And Peter said, Tell me, did you sell the land? For how much did you get for it? And she said, Yeah, we got that much. And Peter said to her, Well, how is it that you’ve agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also. And then she fell down straightway at his feet and yielded up her ghost. And the young men came in, found her dead, and carried her out and buried her by her husband. And a great fear came upon the church and upon as many as heard these things. Here’s the authority of the apostle again to put someone under the sin unto death. for lying and misrepresenting what they had done before the congregation. And this was an habitual sin. This was not something that happened one time. This is indicative of their attitude, of their lying, of the way they tried to persuade people that they were really great folks and they really were not. And they came in and said, oh, we’re going to give everything to God. And they lied. And that was it. God said, that’s it. I’ve had enough of your trickery, your foolery. You’re out of here. There’s another way in 1 Corinthians 11, 27 and 28, even through verses 30 and 31. And this is taking communion in a perpetual state of carnality. You are warned in the Bible, do not take communion out of fellowship. If you take communion out of fellowship with known sin in your life, you are bringing discipline on yourself. And if you want to go read that passage, it says that many have perished because of this. face to face with death because they did not use rebound. They, assaulted God by taking communion out of fellowship, acting as though everything was okay. Have you ever done that? Have you ever gone to church and acted like everything was really okay and it’s not? Have you not known your own sin and where you are and you haven’t rebounded it, and yet you put on a big show when you go to church, even taking communion as if you’re close to God and you’re not? He doesn’t tolerate it. Here’s the principle you should learn. The door to death is the door to doom. Administration of the sin face-to-face with death does not imply you’re losing your salvation. That’s not what it means. Remember 2 Timothy 2.13. If we’re unfaithful, he remains faithful. since he cannot deny himself. So he’s not going to take your salvation away. He’s just going to escort you to heaven a few years quicker than you should have gone, because you’re useless and you’re unavailable for God. Here’s some principles. Number one, you’re not to pray for believers who are dying, the sin terminating in death. Don’t waste your time. That’s it. It’s over. And they’re gone. That’s between them and God. Two, you can pray for others as long as they have not committed the sin that terminates in death. But the sin terminating in death is the sin of not executing the spiritual life in the church age. So as a believer in Jesus Christ, you fail to learn the spiritual life. You fail to rebound. You fail to grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You’re saved. You’re a Christian. You have a ticket to heaven for sure because of the grace of God. But you live a lie. You live under the energy of the flesh. You live letting your old sin nature control you. You fail to recognize your sin. And it may take a week. It may take a year. It may take 10 years. But God will come to a place in your life where he says, that’s it. Let’s go. You’re out of here. Here’s another principle. The sin face to face with death is a sin which is repeated over and over and over again. Not one sin, not any particular sin, but a repetition of sin. That’s you living out of fellowship every day. You not ever being filled with the Holy Spirit. You not growing in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Oh, you go to church, you play that little game. You’re just a caricature of Christ, not an image of Christ, a caricature. You look good, you sound good, you act holy, but you’re not. On the inside, you’re not. You’ve quenched the Holy Spirit, you’ve grieved the Holy Spirit, and you are under discipline from God, and you know it. It is time to recover while you still have a chance. It’s time for you to go to the Father and admit your sin while there is still a chance. It’s time to get over your arrogance. It’s time to get over your pride. It’s time to fall on your knees and say, Father, have mercy on me. I’ve sinned. He loves you. He’s waiting on that. He’s waiting to hear those words from you today. The sooner you do it, the better the guarantee you’re going to have a wonderful life. Or you can just keep going like you’re going. The sin of face to face with death is maximum divine discipline. And it comes from the integrity of God. It’s the highest form of disgrace that any of us could ever occur. Disgrace. Instead of hearing, well done, my good and my faithful servant. You will be in heaven, no more tears, no more pain. The old things will be passed away, but you will not get a hero’s welcome. You will have eternal life, but you will not be getting a high five as you cross the pearly gates, we say. You will hear something like, have a seat. You’ll be in the doctor’s waiting room like you’ve been going there and wait for an hour and a half. I mean, you’ll just be sitting there waiting. When’s he going to see me? When’s he going to see me? Just be patient. He’ll get around to you sooner or later because you had no time for God in your life. You had no time for the Word of God in your life. You had no time to learn and practice the principles of the protocol plan of God in your life. You just justified doing what you wanted to do, when you wanted to do it, and how you wanted to do it. And now you expect God to jump at your command. It doesn’t work that way. That sin, face-to-face with death, is maximum divine discipline. And it is the most painful experience in life, and there is no alleviation of it. It implies loss of all rewards. Loss of all blessings and being ashamed at the judgment seat of Christ. Yes, being ashamed, yes. It is true that there is shame in heaven at the judgment seat of Christ because you’ll look at your life and you’ll say, what an idiot I have been. I blew it. I could have glorified my Savior, my Lord, I could have replicated his life and I blew it in my own frantic search for happiness. That’s the only time you’ll ever have shame in eternity is when you’re evaluated and all of your production is burned up as wood, hay, and stubble. That’s the door to doom you do not want to walk through. And you may be halfway through it this morning. You may have the door cracked and about to go in. Listen to me carefully. Do not play games with God. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re learning. 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.
