In this episode, Rick Hughes takes us on a journey through the gospel’s impact on personal and spiritual growth. Discover real-life stories illustrating the importance of faith, humility, and the pursuit of wisdom as outlined in the Bible. You’ll be inspired by tales of historical figures who have found new beginnings through the gospel, as well as modern celebrities who’ve embraced the Christian faith. Explore how the gospel serves as the ultimate tool for unlocking spiritual enlightenment and eternal salvation.
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 hang around and listen for a little bit. No manipulation here. We’re not trying to con anybody. We’re not soliciting money. We’re not selling memberships. We just want to give you some information that will help you verify as well as identify God’s plan for your life, and if that’s possible, Well, you can orient and adjust to the plan if you would like to. But this show is different than a lot of radio shows you hear because here we have no hidden agendas. Our agenda is simply to give you the truth, nothing but the truth. Because God gave you two ends. That’s right, two ends. One end to sit with and one end to think with. And success in your life is gonna depend on which one of those ends you use. I might say heads you win, tails you lose. So stick with me, learn what the FLOT line is. It’s 10 unique problem solving devices. That’s all it is, 10 unique problem solving devices. When you learn these, and you apply them into your life, you can stop the outside source of adversity before it ever becomes the inside source of stress because stress is your choice. Adversity is inevitable. Stress is optional. And normally stress is what you do to yourself. Adversity, well, that’s always what circumstances do to you. But it is possible to live a phenomenal life with no fear, no worry, no bitterness, no jealousy. It is possible to live a life like this called the Christian life. And it’s found in Christ Jesus. Yes, it is. It’s a new way of thinking. And that’s why the Bible says we have to renovate our thinking in Romans 12, 1 through 3. Especially verse 3 where it says, Stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think. But think in terms of humility as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from his word. What is that standard of thinking from his word I’m talking about? Philippians 2.5, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, who humbled himself and made himself of no reputation. The key to living the Christian life is, in fact, humility. Because without humility, there is no teachability. And without teachability, then there is no wisdom. There has to be a quest for knowledge and there has to be knowledge must be pleasant to your soul. And this is where we don’t run into many people that are hungry for knowledge. Most people are satisfied to go through the ritual without much reality to it in the Sunday morning worship service. And that’s fine. But for those of you that are hungry, those of you that want to know more, you have a hunger for the word of God. This is where it starts, getting under a well-qualified pastor who can teach you the Bible. And I’m not that man. I’m simply an evangelist that has a radio show. But I can point you in the right direction. And I hope I can expose you to enough teaching where it will ignite a hunger in your life where you’ll want to go forward and grow on. Today I want to talk to you about the power in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The power in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If I told you that you could start your life all over again today, in other words, today could be zero number one day in your new life, that you could sort of have a divine reboot, would that interest you at all? Well, there is actually a way to do that very thing. Yes, it is possible to reboot your life. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the anointed Son of God, proclaimed to Nicodemus, a religious Pharisee, that in order to gain entrance into the kingdom, he would have to be born again. There would have to be a reboot in his life. In John 3, 3, Jesus said these words, “‘Truly, truly, I say unto you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'” Born again. Now, what in the world does born again mean? I mean, you’ve been born once. You came from your mom’s womb, and your dad said to have a cigar. My wife had a baby. Maybe that happened. I don’t know. But you were born, born physically. But physical birth runs out. Physical birth ends. And there’s not hardly a week that goes by that one of my friends hasn’t passed away or a celebrity hasn’t passed away or someone you know hasn’t passed away. This is indicative and proof of the fact that life ends physical life, but not spiritual life. If you want to inherit the kingdom of God, if you want to live forever, you must be born again. A statement like this was foreign to someone with a religious background like Nicodemus because he always assumed that he would be granted entrance based on his racial profile and keeping the law of Moses. But Jesus said to him in John 3, 5, Truly, truly, I say unto you, unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Born of water, that’s the natural birth. A woman’s water must burst before the baby can come forward. And born of the Spirit, that’s the spiritual birth. That’s the second birth. You’re born into this world with a body and a soul, but a dead human spirit, spiritually dead, separated from God because of Adam’s original sin imputed to you. That’s why the Bible says, for by one man, sin came into the world and death by sin. And now death has passed on all for all have sinned. The wages of sin is death. So we’re all born spiritually dead. but we can all be made spiritually alive in Christ when we receive him as our savior. Of course, Nicodemus was taken back with this statement that Jesus Christ made, and his answer was, how can these things be? And the Lord said, I’m surprised that you being a Pharisee don’t know the answer to these things. The answer is in the power of the gospel, which is the good news of God, the good news of God’s plan for you. We have that good news in print. It’s in the Bible, the Holy Scriptures. It’s recorded and revealed how God’s plan works. And Nicodemus heard it from Jesus Christ face to face. Now we have it provided and protected by means of the scripture, the Bible. The verse you know, you’ve heard it since you were a child. John 3, 16, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. This is the most important statement ever made to fallen mankind. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, his work on the cross provided redemption for our sin. That’s great news since we couldn’t pay for it ourselves because nothing, I repeat, nothing that we could do would ever satisfy the justice of God. Only the sacrifice of a perfect lamb, the lamb without spot and without blemish who took away the son of the world. Jesus Christ did that. That’s great news. So Paul wrote in Romans 1.16 these words. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it, it, I repeat, it. What is it? The gospel of Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation. To everyone that believeth. Everyone that does what? Believeth. No, wait a minute, Rick. Doesn’t it say believe and quit driving around in a Chevrolet? Doesn’t it say believe and quit going fishing? Doesn’t it say believe and don’t drink any more RC colas? No, I’m just kidding. It says believe. That’s it, period, over and out. That’s why the Bible says believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Man has to add stipulations to it. He’ll tell you you can’t be saved if you’re not baptized. He’ll tell you you can’t be saved if you smoke and drink. He’ll tell you you can’t be saved if you dance. All kind of weird stuff. But this verse says whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. And then Paul went on to write these words, I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It’s the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, as I said. To the Jew first, also to the Greek. The gospel of Christ, if we go into the New Testament in the day in which it was written, You remember it wasn’t written in English. There are some people that are so naive, they think that the inspired Word of God is the King James Version of the Bible, and they’ll fight you over it. There are a lot of versions of the Bible. The inspired Word of God were the original manuscripts, which had been lost. We don’t have the original manuscripts, but we have copies of the original manuscripts. And those copies are accurate to the T. And so the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel is pronounced , , , the gospel of Christ. What is that? It’s the proclamation of the grace of God through Jesus Christ. As the messianic rank of Jesus was proved by his words and his deeds and even his death and resurrection, the narrative of the sayings, deeds and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ came to be called the gospel or the good tidings, the glad tidings of God. This is good news for all who hear it. Oh, this good news, this gospel comprises the preaching concerning Jesus Christ as having suffered death on the cross to procure eternal salvation for each one of us in the kingdom of God. But as he was restored to life and exalted to the right hand of God the Father in heaven, thence he’s going to return in majesty to consummate the kingdom. so that it may be more briefly defined as the glad tidings of salvation through Christ. The proclamation of the grace of God manifested and pledged in Christ is the gospel. Mark 16, 15, and he said to them, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9, 18, what is my reward then? Verily that when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel. Paul never charged anybody for the gospel message. And let me say, it is completely out of line for any preacher, any evangelist, any pastor to charge for the Word of God. That is wrong, out of line, completely. And in my opinion, we don’t even take offerings. If you’re going to have a, quote, revival, as many churches do, and you want to bring lost people to hear the gospel, the life-changing message of Jesus Christ, don’t take an offering. Why put an offering plate in front of them? Thinking they can assuage their guilt complex by putting 10, 20, or 30 bucks in the offering? No, forget it. It’s not about the offering. It’s about the gospel. Go into the world and preach the gospel. That’s what the Lord Jesus Christ said. And Paul said it. I will not abuse my power of the gospel. Since the gospel, the good news, the word of God is the power of God. Anyone who handles it, any one of us that touches it, any one of us that talk about it. We must be held accountable and careful not to misrepresent the message. If I misrepresent the gospel, God will hold me accountable. I can’t tell you something that’s wrong and get away with it. And it happens every day because Satan has his own emissaries. He has his own preachers. He has his own doctrine. There are men in the pulpit that are not even saved today. And they will preach another gospel, a social gospel. And that’s not the gospel of Christ. That’s not the forgiveness of sin. That’s not the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s not the eternal kingdom. That’s not that at all. Since the gospel is the power of God, it must be carefully handled. And thus Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 2, 4, but as we were allowed of god to be put in trust with the gospel even so we speak not as pleasing men but pleasing god who tries our convictions checks out our motivation we were put in trust with the gospel what an amazing statement god does that for you also He put you in trust of the gospel if you understand it, if you know it. There’s nothing wrong with you asking your best friend a simple question. If you died today, would you go to heaven? Or maybe you could say, do you want to go to heaven? Do you know how to go to heaven? There’s nothing wrong with asking that question. That’s not an invasion of someone’s privacy. because you hold the key you hold the key to changing a life radically by one simple decision they make whenever your friends or your family members make a decision to believe in the lord jesus christ they are like nicodemus born again born into a new life born into a new kingdom born into a new future. And that’s the most critical thing we can do is give the gospel to our friends and our family, those that we know. Paul wrote in Ephesians 1.13, “…in whom you also trusted.” That’s you and I, after we heard the words of truth, and as we responded to it, the gospel of our salvation, in whom also after we believed it, then we were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. So two things have to happen. Someone has to hear it and someone has to believe it. And then God seals them with the Holy Spirit. He locks them in and they’re not ever going to lose that salvation. Jesus said, I’ll never leave you. I’ll never forsake you. I give unto them eternal life and they will never perish. Neither shall any man ever pluck them out of my father’s hand. What an amazing statement. And so someone has to hear it and someone has to believe it. And you are the messenger. You and I are the ones that must give the message. We have been put in trust with the gospel. We understand what it meant when he went to the cross and paid for our sin. We understand how the barrier between God and man was removed. We understand that it’s faith alone in Christ alone. As the Bible says in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace are you saved through faith. It’s a gift from God, not of works, lest any man would brag about it. And so the gospel must be heard and the gospel must be believed. And then it produces a new man in Christ. If there’s anything that Satan, aka the devil, does is to pervert the gospel. It’s number one to get you not to talk about the gospel, even though you have the most powerful thing in the world at your fingertips. The power of God is in the gospel. Those words can change a man’s life and destiny forever. When you explain to him the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross and how he paid the penalty for his sin, if that man you explain it to believes it and receives Christ as his Savior, he has eternal life. His life is changed forever because of the power of the words that you gave him. You have more power than an atomic bomb. I mean, we can kill people. We can develop military weapons that kill the enemy. But we can’t save people. Only God can do that. And you have the weapon that saves people. It’s called the gospel. The good news, the life, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the anointed son of God. When we believe the gospel, we become one with the Lord Jesus Christ. In 2 Thessalonians 2.14, where unto he called you by our gospel, Paul said, to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. There’s glory awaiting you, glory in eternity, and there’s glory now. There’s glory now, to be able to live and experience God’s plan in time is a glorious thing. So when we believe the gospel, we become one with Christ, we share his inheritance, and we share his glory. It’s amazing. I want to give you an illustration of the power of the gospel. I’ll show you how God works across the generations and how it’s an amazing thing. When we believe the gospel, I want to give you the story of Edward Kimball. I know you’ve never heard of Edward Kimball. I had not either until recently as I was researching this message. But he was a Sunday school teacher who prayed for the boys in his class, and he sought to lead each one of those boys to Christ. Maybe you teach Sunday school. Maybe you have done the very same thing, prayed for the young children in your class. Well, there was one young man in his class in particular that he thought about. And that young man did not seem to understand what the gospel was about. So Edward Kimball went to the store where he was working, stocking shelves, and confronted him. back in the stock room with the most importance of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That young man, his name was D.L. Moody. In the stock room on that Saturday, D.L. Moody believed the gospel and received Jesus Christ as his savior. You might not know who D.L. Moody is. You should look him up on the internet because in his lifetime, he touched two continents for God with thousands and thousands of people professing to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ through the gospel message God entrusted to D.L. Moody. But it doesn’t end there. I mean, from Kimball to Moody, actually that’s where it begins because under Moody, another man’s heart was touched for God named Wilbur Chapman. And Chapman became an evangelist who preached to thousands of people in his lifetime. One day, a professional baseball player who had a day off strolled into one of Chapman’s meetings, and thus the famous evangelist Billy Sunday was converted. Billy Sunday quit baseball and became part of Chapman’s team. And then Chapman became to be a pastor of a large church and Sunday began his own evangelistic crusades. That’s really amazing, but that’s not the end of the story. The thread continues because another young man was converted whose name was Mordecai Ham. And he was a scholarly dignified gentleman who wasn’t above renting a large hearse. and parading it through the streets advertising his meetings. One day he came to Charlotte, North Carolina, and a sandy-haired, lanky young man who was in high school vowed to his friends that he would never go hear that man preach. But Billy Frank, as he was called by his family, did eventually go. Ham announced that he knew for a fact There was a house of ill repute located across the street from the local high school, and the male students were skipping lunch to go over and visit the house of ill repute. So the students decided to go interrupt that meeting of Mordecai Hound, and Billy Frank decided to go see what would happen when they did it. That night, Billy Frank went and was intrigued by what he heard. So he came back another night, and that night that he came back, he responded to the invitation to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Here’s the power of the gospel. Billy Frank became known as Billy Graham. the evangelist who preached to more people than any other person who ever lived, including even the Apostle Paul. So, I mean, it’s not hard to find celebrities, people that know who Jesus Christ is. But where it goes from there, sometimes it’s another story because many never learn God’s plan after salvation. What’s next? The gospel is the door that enters you into the plan of God, but there’s more. It’s not just believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. I mean, that is, yes, that is all it takes to be saved. But as a saved person, as a redeemed person, as a believer in Jesus Christ, the Bible says we’re to grow up in Christ. We’re to study to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen that need if not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. We’re told in the Bible to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I mean, there are many, many celebrities who have trusted Christ. People you may know of like Chris Pratt. Chris Pratt, after sharing his faith in a September 2018 interview with the Associated Press, his message on faith was more clear in social media posts later regarding his fiancee, whom he married, Katherine Schwarzenegger. And he said this, I’m thrilled that God put you in my life and I’m proud to live boldly in faith with you. Faith. There’s a singer named Faith Hill. I bet you’ve heard of her. And she’s a devoted Christian. And she says, having a backbone of spirituality makes me a little stronger. I pray a lot. And when I first moved to Nashville, that’s what kept me alive. I believed that I was being taken care of and I applied it to my life every day. That’s how I’ve always looked at things. Celebrities like Chris Pratt, Faith Hill, Tyler Perry, Chuck Norris, Carrie Underwood, Mr. T, Johnny Cash, Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks, Denzel Washington, even the great Tim Tebow, all have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and all have seen the power of the gospel in their lives. It’s amazing. The story goes on and on from John Rockefeller to Adolph Coors IV and his testimony, how he got saved. And it’s just amazing. I mean, man can build fantastic weapons of war designed to kill and destroy, but only the gospel, as I told you, only the gospel message can transform and change a living human being. Why, you may ask, why can it do that? Well, the Bible says clearly, if any man’s in Christ, he’s a new creature. Old things pass away and all things become new. That’s the new birth. That’s the new life. That’s the power of the gospel. When you believe the Lord Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, when you put your faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross and say, Father, I believe and I would like to receive Christ as my Savior, a simple prayer changes your destiny, changes your life. You won’t feel it. You may not even sense it, but it works because God said it. Whosoever should call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That means we become a new racial species. Once we receive Christ, we’re placed into God’s royal family, and we’re made heir to all that Christ is heir to. Paul wrote in Galatians 4, 7, “‘Wherefore thou art no longer a servant in bondage to sin,’ but a son, and if now a son, then an heir of God through Christ Jesus. We’ve been made justified, acceptable to God by grace, when the perfect righteousness of Christ was imputed to us at our faith. Faith alone in Christ alone, for he has made him, 2 Corinthians 5, 21, the one who knew no sin to be sin for us in order that we might be made the righteousness of God through him. a new species, that’s us, a new lifestyle, living by faith, learning God’s protocol plan, and fulfilling our spiritual gifts. You know, a conversion to Christ does not delete your volition. You still face temptation. You still face testing on a daily basis. And you are a product of your decisions, beginning with the first decision, the best decision, the most wonderful decision, the decision to receive Christ as your Savior. But amazingly, your conversion gives you two supernatural elements to combat the devil’s world, which you just came out of. You have the supernatural power of God the Holy Spirit, and you have the supernatural power of the living Word of God. And it’s in the Word of God the plan unfolds. and it’s the Holy Spirit that gives you the understanding and helps in the application, but you still must decide. Do I want to learn it? Do I want to fulfill his plan for me? Is your life so full of distractions you have no time to even grow daily? I mean, even a new infant has to grow up, and we as believers must grow up. We must grow in Christ Jesus. We must use our volition to grow because the Bible says happiness grows belongs to the man who finds wisdom and the man who finds understanding. That’s in the plan of God, understanding the protocol plan of God, the direction that you must be going once you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m so happy to give you this message. It’s my prayer you’ve listened closely. And if you’ve never made a decision to receive Christ as your Savior, you will do it today. Thank you.
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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.
