Join Rick Hughes on The Flatline as he delves into the essence of constructing a main line of spiritual resistance with God’s unique problem-solving devices. Learn how adversity is inevitable, but stress is optional, through the mind of Christ and the power of doctrinal orientation. Discover how these principles not only prepare you for spiritual battles but also equip your soul to live in the grace of God, free from fear, worry, or anxiety.
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 01 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, stick around with me. Just a short time, maybe 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education, but no manipulation because we don’t con people for money. We’re not trying to sell you any products. We simply want to give you information that will help you verify and identify God’s plan for your life. The name of our radio show is The Flot Line, F-L-O-T. That stands for the Forward Line of Troops, and this is a concept my pastor taught me many, many years ago. What he’s talking about and what we’re talking about is you building a main line of resistance in your soul based on 10 unique problem-solving devices found in the Word of God. If you learn these devices and use them, then you can stop the outside sources of adversity and before they ever become the inside source of stress in your life. For the believer, adversity is inevitable, but stress is always optional because the Christian life is an amazing way to live with no worry, no fear, no bitterness, no anxiety. It’s a great way to live when you execute it and learn to live the Christian life, having the mind of Christ as Philippians 2.5 tells us to do. Let me remind you of our new book out on God’s grace in aging. It just came out, and I think a lot of people are really enjoying that book. We’ve had thousands go out already, God’s Grace in Aging, and it’s free. It talks about how God deals with us as we get older and what he gives us and what he expects out of us. I hope you’ll take advantage to order that book by going to our website and ordering the book, as well as any other material that we have there, all free of charge. I especially encourage you to order the transcripts from 2019, 2020, or 2021. That’s every radio show we did in those years put into print so you can read it like a devotional. I hope you take advantage of that also as well. What we want to talk about today is something very important to me. I think you will find it to be that way with you also. It’s called The Importance of the Word of God in Your Life or Doctrinal Orientation. Doctrinal Orientation. It is problem-solving device number five. In the Flatline of Your Soul. Problem-solving advice number one is rebound, how to deal with your sin. What do you do when you sin? What do you do about that? And number two is the filling of the Holy Spirit, how to overcome the desires of the flesh and let the Holy Spirit control your life. Number three is a faith, rest, and drill, standing on the promises of God. Number four is grace orientation, living grace, surpassing grace, dying grace, saving grace. And then number five, doctrinal orientation. So during the coming year, we Americans can expect more of the same, I believe that, don’t you? Political controversy, no doubt about that. Financial inflation, no doubt about that. National tension between nations that despise us and hate us. And individual confusion and chaos as well. Even the collapse of individual virtues, more and more of our young people are recruited by satanic propaganda through the social media. So the objective of any enemy is to defeat the adversary. Intimidation and fear are great weapons the enemy uses in order to break the will of the opponent. And make no mistake about it, we have an adversary called AKA the devil, the serpent, Satan himself. So how does the enemy manipulate you and I? Or how does the enemy manipulate our government? Manipulation is done by the thinking of the individual. Satan himself is well-schooled in psychological warfare, I assure you of that. And you know as well as I do, so are the enemies of America. So I don’t want us to forget that we are engaged in two different battles for this client nation. I’ve talked to you about we are a client nation for God. in this generation and there are two enemies we’re engaged in two wars both have the same objective there’s a spiritual war that’s directed towards you and there’s a physical war not a shooting war yet but directed towards this client nation the objective of both wars is to shut down the impact of jesus christ in the world to shut down the client nation impact by stopping the gospel from being presented and weakening the influence of missionaries across the world So we need to remember something. We don’t need to ever forget this. We live in the devil’s world. In 2 Corinthians 4.4, the Bible clearly says, Paul wrote, whose minds the God of this age. The God of this age is the devil. He’s blinded. He has blinded their minds. That’s psychological warfare. blinded the minds of those who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ, whose the image of God should shine in unto them. So Satan’s been involved in psychological warfare for a long time. And our enemies, whoever they may be, in the coming year will do the same thing against our nation. In Ephesians 2.2, the Bible says, “…in which you once walked according to the course of this world.” according to the prince of the power of the air, that’s Satan, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. So you can book on it. He’s going to use psychological warfare against you to try to intimidate you with fear, to try to get you to be concerned. And he does this every day in your life by different means if you don’t use the faith rest drill. So in my humble opinion, I believe most Americans don’t even realize how they’re being manipulated, especially by the misinformation. And I think most Christians also are uninformed to satanic tactics when it comes through organized religion. Not only are you and I currently in a physical war, not a shooting war, as I said, with those nations that despise us, but we are also in a spiritual war with the forces of Satan. That’s why Paul encouraged us in Ephesians 6, 11, put on the old armor of God so that you would be able to stand against the strategy of the devil. There it is right there again, the psychological manipulation of Satan. He has strategy concerning you. Now this is about the battle you face, not the battle Americans face, but the battle you face. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual host of wickedness in heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God so you may be able to withstand in the evil day. and having done all to keep standing. So here comes the armor of God. Listen carefully. Ephesians 6, 14. Stand therefore, having girded your waist about with truth. That’s doctrinal orientation. Having put on the breastplate of righteousness. That’s the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, not your own. Having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. That’s sharing the good news. And above all, picking up the shield of faith, problem solving device number three, the faith rest drill, by which you will be able to quench all the attacks that Satan throws at you. So your response to spiritual warfare and mine is the key to victory in the psychological war and the physical war that rages around us every day. I say that again, listen carefully. The believer’s response to spiritual warfare is the key to victory. in the physical war that rages around us every day. Let me remind you, as goes your spiritual life, so will go the history of your nation. Listen to these chilling words about the destruction of a client nation such as ours. These are scary words. This is Hosea chapter four, verse six. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you rejected knowledge, That’s divine viewpoint, not lack of information. That’s not the problem. It’s rejecting divine viewpoint. Since you rejected knowledge, I will reject you from being priests for me because you forgot the laws of your God, no obedience. I will forget your children. There’s a direct warning for God for any nation such as us that turns our back on our Savior. Rejecting knowledge, not wanting knowledge, and that’s what’s going on in America today. There’s not a push for knowledge, but a push for worship, a push for praise, a push for crazy, stupid stuff that I see all the time through social media, stuff you cannot even believe. But as far as someone teaching the Bible line by line, word by word, most people are not interested. Most churches have a January Bible study and it may go through the book of Ephesians or the book of Galatians or the book of Philippians in a week. That’s impossible. You can’t teach through one of those books in a week. So people are not interested in getting knowledge. They’re not interested in having divine viewpoint. They’re not interested in accumulating information. And some of you that are studying and are growing, you know, you take great notes. You take your notebook and your Bible and and you sit down and you listen to the Word of God taught, and it may take you two hours to get through a one-hour Bible study. So problem-solving device number five in the flood line of your soul is called doctrinal orientation. And this is very critical for your own spiritual life because the Word of God is your ticket to freedom. I say that again, the Word of God is your ticket to freedom. Where did I get that from? John 8, 32. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. The Lord Jesus Christ is the truth, and when you believe in him, you’re free from the slave market of sin and death. But the word of God, as you learn it and apply it into your life, lets you be free from the strategy of Satan as well. So Bible doctrine heard. That’s the teaching of the Word of God. Bible doctrine heard and applied into your life not only frees you up from the slave market of sin and damnation, but it also can keep you free physically by giving you what we call divine wisdom. Divine wisdom. What is that? It’s your ability to see and defeat the strategies of the devil or whatever may be coming your way. Divine wisdom. Your ability to defeat the strategies of Satan in regards to your spiritual advance to eventually being a mature believer. That’s what God’s looking for. I talked to you about that before, about being a member of the pivot within this client nation so you can deliver us from what’s coming. That’s your historical impact in good old USA as a mature believer. So our Father speaks to us through the scriptures. Thus, you and I are mandated to study them and learn them and understand what he’s telling us. It’s the only way you and I could ever reach spiritual maturity and acquire the thinking of Christ. We have to study the scriptures. 2 Timothy 2.15, be diligent. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. So if you can rightly divide it, obviously you can wrongly divide it as well. And you must be under a well-qualified pastor that can teach it to you so you will understand what it’s really telling you. For example, if the Bible uses the word love, there are four different words for love. Which one’s in the passage? Could be agapao, could be phileo, could be arao, could be stokeo. One of those four Greek words. And if you don’t know which word it is, you don’t really know what it’s referring to. The need to get back to the original languages, line upon line, word upon word, and develop the biblical doctrines that go with it are critical. So we have to be diligent to present ourselves approved to God because there’s going to come a time God’s going to check you out and see what you’re doing and see if you’re doing it right because the right thing has to be done in a right way. You’ve heard me call that the protocol plan of God. Any right thing done in a wrong way is obviously wrong. So in Jeremiah 15, 16, Jeremiah talks about the importance of the word, the scripture. He says, your words were found and I ate them. And your word was to me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart. Feasting on the word of God is the greatest meal you could ever have. And if you have positive volition, if you’re hungry to grow, you can never get enough, I assure you. But once you eat it, it has to be metabolized, just like food. Once you eat food, it has to be metabolized and converted into energy to sustain your body. And the same is true with the scriptures. I mean, first of all, if your pastor’s not feeding you, you’re gonna go hungry, and there will be no spiritual growth in your life. But when you are fed Bible doctrine, when you’re fed the word of God by a well-qualified pastor, And once you eat it, it has to be metabolized and converted into spiritual wisdom, which in turn causes your faith to grow. But I warn you, the metabolism process will not work unless you are filled with the Holy Spirit. Problem-solving device number one and number two. The Christian life will not work without the filling of the Holy Spirit. You can’t do it in human energy. You can’t do it in the power of the flesh. And the flesh can do good stuff, but that is not the Christian life. So you have a sin nature and you will sin just like I sin. When we sin, we must rebound that sin. We must confess it to God. 1 John 1, 9 tells us that. If we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and to purify us from all wrongdoing. And by doing that, we are filled with the Holy Spirit. We’re already controlled and dwelled by the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 1, 13 as believers. But Ephesians 5, 18 tells us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And we cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit if we quenched him by sin and grieved him by our deeds and our actions. So the Christian life functions around the filling of the Holy Spirit and it’s impossible for you to grow spiritually. It’s impossible for you to develop doctrinal orientation without the filling of the Holy Spirit. But once you metabolize the information, once you metabolize the word of God, then your thoughts can be directed and your decisions can be clear. I promise you, listen to the Psalms 73, 24. You will guide me with your word and afterwards receive me to glory. You will guide me with your word. This is how God will direct your life and guide you. Doctrinal orientation gives you the ability to have biblical wisdom. which in turn allows you to see the strategy and the tactics of the enemy and what he’s up to. Listen to Proverbs 4, 11 through 13. I taught you in the way of wisdom. I led you in the right paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hindered. And when you run, you won’t stumble. Take firm hold of instruction and do not let go. Keep her, for she is your life. If you ever want to know what it means to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, right there it is. This is the words of your pastor. Hopefully I taught you the way of wisdom. I led you in the right path. This is what the Holy Spirit does for you. When you walk, your steps will not be hindered. And when you run, you will not stumble. Take firm hold of instruction, learning and keeping the word of God in your life. And don’t let go. Keep her, for she is your life. That’s biblical wisdom that God offers through his word. So what we call doctrinal orientation, problem-solving advice number five, is critical for you to maintain momentum in your spiritual life. But unfortunately, it doesn’t come through emotional stimulation, but rather through the conversion of academic knowledge to full knowledge. which is simply the difference between understanding a passage and applying the passage to your circumstances. In the Bible, we use a couple of different words. One is called gnosis, G-N-O-S-I-S, and the other is called epinosis, E-P-I-G-N-O-S-I-S. These are two Greek words. Both of them are translated in the Bible knowledge, but they mean two different things. It’s one thing to hear it and understand it, and it’s another thing to live by it and apply it. When you hear it, you have gnosis. When you understand it, you have gnosis, but it hasn’t done you any good yet until you metabolize it, until you put it to work in your life, and then it becomes epinosis. So when you have doctrinal orientation, Epinosis gives you the ability to see through the satanic smoke screen of psychological warfare that he will throw at you, especially in the field of organized religion, which seldom gives you any insight at all to spiritual conflict. So you understand the spiritual life has to be learned. You can’t make up your own rules. I mean, God requires absolutely correct procedure, and it must be learned if you intend to execute the Christian life. Jesus laid it out in Matthew 11, 28, and 29 when he said, Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Now, here it comes. Listen, 29, Matthew 11, 29. Take my yoke and learn from me. for I’m gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. They learn by observation, and they learn by him teaching them. But you heard that word learn. The word learn is a translation of the original Greek word manthano, manthano, M-A-N-T-H-A-N-O. The word learn is manthano, and it means to learn by inquiry or observation. This is what the disciples did. As a matter of fact, the word disciple is akin to that word manthano, and it’s called mathetes. which means a learner or a disciple, mathetes, M-A-T-H-E-T-E-S, a learner or a disciple who learns by inquiry or observation. So this is what the disciples did. They learned by observing the lifestyle of Christ, which they eventually recorded in the Bible, the canon of scripture, so you and I could understand and apply it to our lives. That’s doctrinal orientation, and that’s what we have to learn, and that’s what we have to apply. When you have doctrinal orientation, you are learning God’s Word, applying God’s Word, referencing God’s Word, using God’s Word every day of your life. Because doctrinal orientation is your guarantee. I repeat, your guarantee that Satan will not be able to neutralize you in this spiritual warfare that you and I are engaged in today. He can’t do it if you have some doctrinal orientation. If you know what’s going on, you’re able to look through and see. Why can you not do that? Because Hebrews 4.12 says the word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to separate the soul and the spirit, both the joints and the marrow, and able to evaluate the thoughts and the motivation of the heart. So the word of God can help you think clearly, plainly, see plain, think clean, not be deceived. Your own arrogance is the biggest basis of deceit you can have because you could try to justify something that’s right when really it’s not. So the basis for understanding all information with regards to our spiritual life is in the Bible and Bible doctrine. The scriptures will be here long after you and I are dead because Bible doctrine is always powerful even when we ourself are weak. There’s actually no substitute for Bible doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness. When you have that doctrinal orientation, you have Bible doctrine circulating in your stream of consciousness. And that’s a wonderful thing because the word of God will be able to evaluate your thoughts. It will be able to motivate your motives and your stream of consciousness. And when you have Bible doctrine in your soul, you’re able to evaluate yourself. And your motivation will come from the word of God circulating inside your memory center as you evaluate your own life and you develop your own motivation. So you and I, we can only learn and function with reference to God’s will through knowledge of Bible doctrine. I’m gonna say that again. We can only learn and function with reference to God’s will through the knowledge of Bible doctrine. That’s why the Word of God is designed to make us effective in executing God’s plan, God’s will, and God’s purpose for our life. Biblical orientation or doctrinal orientation is based on correct understanding of the inspiration of scriptures, correctly understanding them. In 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, all scripture is God-breathed, all scripture is God-breathed, and is profitable and enriches your soul for teaching. For reproof, it corrects you. For correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God will be capable and equipped for every good work. That’s what doctrinal orientation does to you. It is profitable for your teaching. It is profitable to reprove you, to correct you, to train you, so you will be capable and equipped for every divine good production that God has designed for you. So doctrinal orientation, problem solving device number five, is applied to every problem in your life. And if you don’t have any doctrinal orientation, then you are what my pastor used to call a flawed believer. You have a flaw in your soul. You’re not equipped. You’re not prepared. You’re not ready. You have a flaw. No doctrinal orientation means you’re a flawed believer. Don’t forget that. Think about that. Lack of problem-solving devices on the flat line of your soul means you’re flawed. It means you’re totally incapable of accurate and objective application of God’s Word to your experience. That’s why I keep pressing you to learn those 10 problem-solving devices. If you don’t know them, write to me. I can give you a bookmark to stick in your Bible that lists all 10 of them. We have a book called Christian Problem Solving that tells you how each one of these 10 unique problem solving devices work. And if you don’t have these in your soul, if you don’t have a flat line in your soul, you are a flawed believer and I repeat, you will be totally incapable of accurately, objectively applying the Word of God to any experience in your life because Here’s what it is, a flawed believer is what we call a hearer, not a doer. He’s blinded by his own failures because just plain old gnosis, I mean, knowledge cannot erase strong delusion. It can’t make it go away. It’s gotta be epinosis. It’s gotta be the wisdom and the insight from the Word of God. So the flawed believer, if that’s you, you will have mood disorders, neurotic disorders. You’ll even see the flaws in other people, but you’ll never see your own flaws. Because the flawed believer is always hypersensitive about self, but insensitive to the needs of others. And a flawed believer manipulates other people through guilt or usually some form of legalism. I do not want you to be a flawed believer. I want you to have doctrinal orientation in your soul. I want you to know all 10 of those problem-solving devices. Because the flawed believer replaces the mandates of forgiving as Christ forgave, with a different attitude, he has perpetual anger. And it’s usually justified by self-righteous arrogance. In other words, you know, I have a right to feel this way. Look what they did to me. Those flawed believers don’t use problem-solving devices in the flat line of their soul. They’ve chosen self-justification as their way of life, and they’re never wrong. You can’t tell them they’re wrong. They can always find, from defense mechanisms, and psychologically justify their wrongdoing. That’s why they’re arrogant, that’s why they’re implacable, and that’s why they’re inflexible in their life. Doctrinal orientation represents how you think, what you think, and when you think it. The divine viewpoint of life is how we win the battle before the battle is ever fought. Listen to James 1, 23 and 24. Because if anyone is just a hearer of the word and not a doer, and he is, then that person is like one who observes the face of his birth in a mirror, and once he glances at himself, he goes off and immediately forgets what he saw. That’s why the word of God is so important to you. It will let you see what you really are. It’ll help you see and understand who you are. You cannot afford to be a flawed believer. You’ve got to develop doctrinal orientation in your soul. And it starts with you making the decision to believe in Christ, to receive him as your savior, the most significant decision you could ever make in your life. What thank ye of Christ, the Bible says. Is he or is he not the anointed Son of God? And if he is, have you committed your life to him? Have you told the Father, I am willing to receive Christ as my Savior? Because the Bible does say, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That’s for you. I hope you’ll trust him. I hope you’ll receive him as your Savior. And I hope you will develop this doctrinal orientation in your soul under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor teaching you, feeding you, helping you to learn and understand God’s plan for your life, the protocol plan of God, so that you wind up doing the right thing in the right way. All right, I thank you for being with me today. I hope you’ll come back next week, same time, same place. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
SPEAKER 02 :
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.
