In this compelling episode of The Flatline, host Rick Hughes delves deep into the principles that define spiritual influence. He takes listeners on a journey of understanding the FLOT Line, a concept akin to a spiritual defense system, designed to guard against life’s adversities. Rick passionately explains the significance of God’s problem-solving devices and imparts timeless wisdom on using faith to maintain tranquility amidst life’s inevitable challenges. Throughout the episode, Rick emphasizes the role of biblical wisdom and how it equips believers to stand firm in their faith despite societal upheavals.
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, and for the next few minutes, you have a cordial invitation to stick around. The Flotline is designed to remind you of biblical truths and introduce you to a new way of studying and a new way of learning God’s Word. I do this all with no manipulation, no solicitation, no sort of asking for money, nothing like that. It’s just 30 minutes of education, motivation, and inspiration. That’s my job. verify and identify God’s plan for you, and hopefully, hopefully, you will orient and adjust to the plan. So the FLOT line is about changing the way you think. FLOT, F-L-O-T, stands for the Forward Line of Troops. That’s a military term, and we’re talking about you having a forward line of troops, invisibly speaking, it’s a metaphor, but in your soul, a forward line of troops in your soul made up of God’s problem-solving devices, specifically 10 unique problem-solving devices. When you learn these problem-solving devices and use them, then you will be able to stop the outside source of adversity from ever becoming the inside source of stress. You know and I know that adversity is inevitable, but you may not know that stress is optional. Because adversity is what those circumstances do to you, and stress, well, that’s what you do to yourself. So by learning God’s Word, using God’s Word, using one of the 10 problem-solving devices, the one called a faith rest drill, then we’re able to have a tremendously relaxed mental attitude in spite of whatever we may face. If we use Rebound, the problem-solving device number one, then we learn how to confess our sin when we commit sin because we know that sin quenches and grieves the Holy Spirit of God. And a Christian cannot live the Christian life with the Holy Spirit grieved or quenched in his life. I’ve often told people, if you want to find out what kind of friend you have or pastor you have, ask him a question. How do I live the Christian life? If he does not tell you, you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit to do it. You have to have the filling of the Holy Spirit and the combination of the Word of God. Those two things together give you balance of residency in your soul. If he doesn’t tell you that, if he tells you be good, be nice, be sweet, don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t cuss, well, that’s not how you live the Christian life. Those may be things Christians do, but that’s not how you live the Christian life. We teach all of that on The Flock Line, and if you’ve listened long enough, you’ve heard me go over it and over it and over it, and we’ll keep going over it. So the rebound technique guarantees the filling of the Holy Spirit. Problem-solving device number two, and that deals with the sin nature, how we keep the old sin nature from controlling our lives. Using the faithless drill, that’s dealing with the Word of God and how we stand firm in the promises of God. And then grace orientation, where we live by grace, die by grace, and expect surpassing grace in heaven. And biblical orientation, where we do what the Bible says, study to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen that need not to be ashamed, but rightly dividing the Word of truth. All of this gives us a personal sense of destiny. That destiny that we know what God designed us to be, what God designed us to do. And that’s motivated by our personal love for God, the greatest virtue you could ever have in your life. Virtue love, your personal love for God is the greatest virtue you could ever have. Impersonal love for all mankind is another problem-solving device because that lets you love jerks, weirdos, obnoxious people. people you’re not supposed to be able to love, but you love them based on your character, not theirs. And then sharing the happiness of God, the joy that the Lord Jesus Christ passed on to those disciples. And then eventually being occupied with Christ, being occupied with Christ, tremendous problem-solving device. Those are 10 problem-solving devices. We have them on a bookmark. If you’d like one, contact us. We’ll send it to you. and we have them in a book, Christian Problem Solving. We can send that to you as well, free of charge. Everything on this show, free of charge. We do not raise money. We don’t solicit funds. We don’t sell anything. It’s free, free, free. God gave it to you free, and you give it away free. So today, if you will let me, I want to move into a different area. I want to talk about being an influencer. An influencer. Some of you are seated today in your home in various cities across this country. You’ve written to me. You’ve contacted me through the internet, emails, personal letters. And I want you to understand what it means to be an influencer. you know these times in our country are very historical medical emergencies civil unrest as well as meltdown of divine institutions and do you remember what the divine institutions are freedom marriage family and nationalism those four things freedom marriage family and nationalism so when we begin to break down those divine institutions we begin to break down the rule of law when when protesters can assault people and not be arrested. Well, these are times that are historical. The attitude in America is shifting. The whole concept of what America is and freedom is is being challenged today. Can you actually do anything about it? You’re one person. You may be one person sitting alone in a home in Colorado. You may be one person alone in Maryland. You may be one person alone in California or Texas or Mississippi. Can you do anything about it? Yes. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 9, 14, and 15, there was a little city and a few men within it, and there came a great king against it, and he besieged it and built great bulwarks against it. And there was found in that city a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the entire city. And yet no man remembered that same poor man. One man delivered a city with wisdom. Wisdom is the most amazing thing that you could have because it gives you insight and discernment. The only way you can acquire any wisdom is to get some understanding. And when you get understanding from the Word of God and convert gnosis into epinosis, let me use those big words, gnosis is the Greek word knowledge and epinosis is the Greek word full knowledge. What we have to learn in the Bible is not just hear it, but apply it. Hear it is gnosis. Apply it is epinosis. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, happiness belongs to the people who hear my Father’s word and keep it. Hear it and apply it. So if you want wisdom, it’s found in the Bible. I suggest you read Proverbs. My own pastor has been teaching a phenomenal study in Proverbs. Absolutely unbelievable practical knowledge. divine wisdom in your life every day. So this man had practical divine wisdom, and he delivered the city. This verse can apply to you in this day, the day of doubt about the future, the day of confusion about what’s going on in the election year. Ecclesiastes 9.17, again, the word of the wise men are heard in the in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools. The words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools. Now you and I both know that negative volition, put a minus V, negative volition, rejects wisdom. Negative volition wants nothing to do with biblical wisdom. Proverbs 1.7 says, fools despise wisdom and instruction. What is a fool? It’s an arrogant, self-righteous individual. Artificially intelligent, AI, artificial intelligence is the fool. He thinks he’s smart as God or smarter than God, and he rejects God’s word. He’s not interested in the wisdom of the word of God, and as a result, he destroys his life. So negative volition is not interested in learning any wisdom, You’re not gonna be able to reach everybody. You’re not gonna be able to influence everybody in your field of influence, but you will influence. Just because no one listens, it does not mean you should never speak. I mean, go back and ask Noah. According to Genesis 6-3, God gave a warning about the length of days that man would live. He said, My spirit will not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh, and his days shall be 120 years. Now, we know it took many years to build the ark, and we know that no one entered it but he and his family. That’s Noah and his family, but he warned them every day. There’s a flood coming. There’s a flood coming. I’m building a boat. You can get on the boat. You can get in the ark. No one got on. They all laughed at him. They all made fun of him until the flood started. And then when everybody tried to rush the boat to get in, God slammed the door shut. your assignment wherever you may be this morning is a modern day noah and you are to warn of god’s coming judgment how do you do that by lifting up the lord jesus christ since the cross is a magnet for sinners the cross is a magnet for sinners he said in john 12 32 if i be lifted up from the earth i will draw all men unto me Yes, and you lift up the work of Christ and the redemptive work that he did on the cross, it’s attractive. Magnets attract and we know magnets can repel. You remember having two magnets and trying to put them together and they would repel each other and push each other away sometimes. But positive volition, a positive V, a plus plus a V, positive volition is attracted to the magnet and negative volition is repelled from the magnet. Either way, positive or negative, when you influence your periphery, your field of influence, someone you know, at least the justice of God will be vindicated since the love of God provided redemption for that individual. You know, influencer today is a big word, and you may not be aware of what we call social media influencers. I call them cosmic influencers. Social media influencers is a user on a social media platform who’s established credibility in a specific industry. The social media influence has access to large audiences, and can actually persuade others by virtue of their authenticity and their outreach. The average social media influencer can take home anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000 per year, that’s the average person, by promoting products like clothing or food or hotels, even vitamin supplements, if they do it on their social media webpages. Users that have more than 1 million followers can make up to 100,000, or even $250,000 per sponsored post, according to a recent survey of Vox VOX. And you might not know what Vox is. It’s an American news and opinion website owned by Vox Media. Let me give you some examples of a social media influencer. Kylie Jenner, 22 years old, Kylie Jenner can make more than $1 million per sponsored Instagram post when she does that. Cristiano Ronaldo, 35-year-old Portuguese soccer star, makes $975,000 for each sponsored Instagram post. Kim Kardashian, who married Kanye West, makes $910,000 for every sponsored Instagram post. Kanye West, her husband, is a media star himself, winning 21 Grammy Awards, and he’s a professed Christian who hosts a YouTube channel and has over a million subscribers himself. There’s a young man who’s eight years old, Ryan Kaji, K-A-J-I, K-A-J-I, eight years old. And he remains YouTube’s highest earner. And in 2019, as a social media influencer, an eight-year-old boy made $26 million. His influence is in the toy industry. and he has his own Ryan’s World channel on YouTube, and there are over 25 million people subscribed to those videos, and they have been viewed over 30 billion times. These insane numbers show you the reach of these influencers, and most of it’s on the cell phone. I mean, look at the mass crowds on television during a protest. And you’ll see almost all of them have cell phones, and they’re trying to record events as they unfold, sending texts back and forth, where to meet, what to do, and so forth, coordinating the next rally point. all by cell phone. And by the way, all hoping to capture something spectacular so they can sell it to some TMZ or some other media giant and make a fortune. These social media influence are nothing but cosmic recruiters, cosmic recruiters. They try to influence the youth of their countries in matters of fashion, style, health, and of course, politics. Listen, when there’s no wisdom inculcated, the youth of a nation will fall for anything. And this describes the youth of the United States of America during the last four generations. There was a time when I started speaking in schools that I could speak in any school, anywhere, anytime if they invited me. No longer today because my message represents the Lord Jesus Christ. I still speak in many, many schools, but they are private academies. They’re not necessarily Christian schools, but they’re sure not public schools because soon as a public school finds out you’re going to mention Jesus, nope, out the door you go. So we have four generations of young people that have no wisdom. There’s no counter to the cosmic system lies and the cosmic system deceptions. What’s the cosmic system? That’s human viewpoint thinking that Satan spawns. So today we see a generation of radicals, a generation of anarchists spawn from previous generations. And you know what else you get? You get what we call cosmic robocalls. I bet you get a cell phone robocall. You probably, like me, get four or five a day. They come daily trying to influence and divert attention from the real issue of the decaying nation. And a lot of people are manipulated by these venues. Next time you get a robocall, just answer it and say, Sheriff’s Department, Fraud Division, and most of the time they’ll hang up. These cosmic robocalls, every day you’ll get them trying to sell you a warranty or trying to do this, trying to do that. And on the Internet, you have something called clickbait. You say, what is that? It’s a social media influencer. The content of the post is designed to attract attention and encourage you to click on that particular website. It’s a form of false advertisement. The best bait that you can give, the best bait I have, and I’m a good fisherman. I have a lot of baits. But the best bait that I have is the good news. My sins have been paid for. Jesus Christ forgave me. I’m going to heaven. Forgiveness is available through faith in Christ. He is the anointed Son of God. That is the best bait anyone could ever hear. Your job as a spiritual influencer, not a social media influencer, a spiritual influencer, your job, number one, is not to be a role model. You’re not designed to be a role model. I mean, there are a lot of people who establish dependency as a role model, and they often get worshiped by impressionable and misguided children. But the role model has to be, without a doubt, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1 Peter 2, 21 and 22, for to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. There’s your role model. He committed no sin, neither was there deceit found in his mouth. That’s the role model we need. Hopefully we’ve all learned what it means to be a member of the pivot. I’ve talked about it a lot on this show. That’s the group of mature believers that deliver a nation in time of trouble. The pivot, the core group of mature believers that deliver a nation in time of trouble. Remember Gideon had only 300 soldiers that God could use, but they delivered him from 65,000 frenzied Midianites. God doesn’t need a lot. He just needs one man with wisdom. I read you that verse. And hopefully you’re the man, you’re the lady. Those who use civil unrest and social media as a means to promote their agenda all have one thing in common, social justice and reform. That’s the hidden objective of Satan. And it’s always been to eliminate the claims of Jesus Christ And I can assure you the devil, aka Satan, will stop at nothing to complete his desired will. And he will use diversion and deception to advance his plan. The hidden objective of Satan through all of this social media influence is to shut down the message of Jesus Christ. The only thing that’s true, the only thing that’s lasting, The only thing that is real reform is redemption and reconciliation. We are redeemed out of the slave market of sin, and we are reconciled to our relationship with God through faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. But you know, an anarchist is not interested in the claims of the Bible, rather just the claims of humanism or progressivism, even communism. That’s what they want to achieve their desired state since they have this cosmic influence in their life. Since you’re here now, growing in grace, you and I, we must understand our calling, which is to have an impact in our very own field of influence. our very own field of influence, and we have an impact for Christ. Let me say it again. You and I are here, we’re growing in grace, and we must understand our calling, which is to have an impact in our field of influence for the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, I don’t have a field of influence. I don’t buy that. Take a look around you and decide for yourself, what is your field of influence? Maybe you’re influencing a lot of people. Maybe you’re influencing a few people, maybe one or two. But when the young man led me to Christ, he had no idea what he was doing. When a young man from South Africa took me into the bedroom of a friend’s house and got on his knees and prayed with me, and I asked the Lord Jesus Christ to save me, he had no idea what my life would turn out to be. And you have no idea, the people you talk to, what could happen in their lives. So the only true and lasting reform is redemption and reconciliation. So you have to understand this. What is your field of influence? You know, the greatest influencers of all time went from being commoners to criminals. As a matter of fact, in the end, most of them were murdered and suffered a martyr’s death. And it could be your future as well, I hate to tell you, but it could be. Who am I talking about these great influencers? Well, I’m talking about the disciples who went from being blue-collar fishermen to royalty as New Testament apostles. They had no idea that they were going to write a Bible. They had no idea what God was going to do with their life. They just answered the call when Jesus said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. There was something so dynamic, something so intriguing, something so alluring about the Lord Jesus Christ. When they looked upon him, they could not help but follow him. And their mission was found in Matthew 28, 19 and 20. It was called the Great Commission. Go into all the world. So here’s the principle for you. The spiritual influencer, that’s you, you, wherever you may be, in your city, in your family, in your home, the spiritual influencer must be prepared for conflict. Conflict is going to come. Conflict. Could be family conflict, could be religious conflict, it could be social conflict. But listen to what the Bible says about this in Matthew 10, 21 and 22. And brother shall deliver up brother to death. And the father, the child, and the children shall rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death. And you shall be hated by all men because of my namesake. But he that endureth to the end shall be delivered. People of conviction, like you, like me, are not tolerated. And you are pressured to give in and capitulate. You’re pressured not to say anything. You’re pressured just to let it slide. You’re pressured just to go your own way. You’re being manipulated. You don’t even know it. In Matthew 10, 34, Jesus said, don’t think I came to bring peace on earth. I didn’t come to bring peace. I came to bring a sword. For I came to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemy shall be the members of his own household. Here’s a sad principle. Your children may reject your wisdom as they get sucked into the lie of the cosmic system. If they have no biblical wisdom, then they will have no insight, no discernment to deter them from the truth. They won’t be able to determine the truth is what I’m trying to say. You know, it’s sad, but the older you get, the dumber they think you are. You know, they used to love you. They used to listen to you. Now they’re 40 and you’re 70 and they think you’re stupid and you don’t know what you’re talking about. Well, our Lord gave instructions to these 12 apostles that they were to evangelize the lost sheep of the house of Israel, saying the kingdom was at hand. And in Matthew, the Bible goes on to say in Matthew 10, these 12 Jesus sent out after instructing them, where he said, don’t go in the way of the Gentiles and don’t enter into any city of the Samaritans, but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And he told them who to go speak to and what to say. They were instructed not to raise money for their mission trip, but to depend on God’s people to supply their needs. That’s what we do here. We never ask for money. No missionary should ever ask anybody for money. And two, he warned them about opposition and instructed them to be as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove. Wise in avoiding danger and harmless in not openly opposing the enemy. In Matthew 10, 16, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as shrewd as a snake and as innocent as a dove. That means the missionary must stay out of politics. That’s not your field of influence. Stay out of politics. Your field of influence is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he warned them about the canine clergy. Look out, they’re wolves in sheep’s clothing. And the missionary, you and I, we must understand the biggest threat to the gospel message is organized religions. The Lord Jesus Christ alerted them to the vicious name calling and slander they were going to face in their lives. That’s the cosmic system tactics of taunting them. This is what he said in Matthew 10, 25. If they call the master of the house Beelzebub, How much more will they malign the members of the household? So he instructed them to eliminate all fear. Get rid of your fear, he said. Matthew 10, 26, don’t be afraid of them. Don’t fear them who can kill your body but are unable to kill the soul. All this is necessary for you to understand. if you to apply if you have any hope of being a spiritual influencer in a dying nation such as the united states of america today and first peter three who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good but even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness you will be blessed so do not fear their intimidation and do not be troubled in matthew 5 happy are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil things against you because of me, rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven will be great. I want you to be a media influencer, not a social media influencer, but an influencer in your own field of influence, in your family, in your nation. You can be an invisible hero. You can have a historical impact. You can have an invisible impact. So many things you can do by being an influencer for the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re going to talk about this a lot more in the future. I hope you’ll come back next week, same time, same place, and we can provide this for you in transcript or on CD. Okay, 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.
