In this episode of The Flotline, Rick Hughes challenges listeners to rethink the path they walk as believers. Delve into the crucial role of humility and obedience as pivotal elements of the Christian life. Furthermore, Rick addresses the decline in spiritual awareness both personally and nationally, urging a return to the righteous tracks laid by disciplined study and application of God’s word. Participate in a dialogue about being service-minded within the royal family of God, and discover the gravity of staying aligned with divine timing and wisdom.
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, please stick around. Just a short time, maybe barely 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education. all without any manipulation. No con games here, no charging money, no asking for money, no soliciting money, not trying to get you to join up, fess up, give it up, just listen up. Listen to the words that I say that come out of the scriptures, out of the Bible, as I show you how you can maintain a flat line in your soul, a forward line of troops, a main line of resistance. That’s the spiritual life. Learning and using those 10 unique problem-solving devices God made available to us, beginning with the rebound, which is you confessing your known sin to God. Can’t operate in the spiritual life if you have unconfessed sin in your life because you quench and grieve the Holy Spirit. But once you confess your known sins to God, then you’re able to operate under the filling of the Holy Spirit and you can use the faith thrust drill, standing on the promises of God. When you learn the Word of God, you orient to grace and you orient to doctrine, the Bible, doctrinal orientation, or what we call biblical orientation. That gives you a personal sense of destiny and it’s all devoted to your personal love for God. That’s your motivation. If you love God, you obey him, the Bible says, and his mandates are not grievous in 1 John 5, 3. So once you develop personal love for God, you develop him personal love for others. That’s the Bible says, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, Ephesians 4, 30. Then you can begin sharing the happiness of God, the joy that the Lord Jesus Christ gives you, and you can move into occupation with Christ. 10 unique, wonderful problem-solving devices. taught by my very own pastor many, many years ago, and re-taught by me to you to remind you the unique opportunity you have as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the things that’s discouraging is many believers don’t understand the God they know. They’re saved, they have eternal life, but they don’t understand the mechanics of the Christian life. And so sometimes it’s more of an emotional thing where they move along from emotion to emotion, from high to high, and that’s not the Christian life. The Christian life is set up to do two things. The Bible says study to show yourself approved unto God. workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of god the word of truth the bible also says grow in the grace and the knowledge of your lord and savior jesus christ study grow these are important imperatives in the bible for us as christians for us to grow in our christian life not to remain christian babies that’s what the writer of hebrews said in hebrews 5 11-16 you’ve been saved a long time and you ought to be mature but you’re still a baby and you need a bottle. I’m not saying you’re a baby, but I’m saying until you learn the difference between knowing God and understanding God, until you understand the God you know, you’re never going to be able to completely glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you think you can figure this out by just getting a Bible and going into the woods and sitting under an oak tree and reading the Bible, you’re not going to do it. You will get some divine information. You will make some human application. But to be able to have a well-qualified pastor teach you God’s word, this is what it was set up to be. And yet so many people write to me and say, where can I find that sort of person? Where is that man? Well, they’re not everywhere, that’s for sure. Fortunately, there are a few men that I know that are really tremendously qualified, my very own pastor himself, and they teach accurate Bible doctrine. They teach the Word of God accurately. And if you ever want to know how I do it, just get in touch with me, write to me, rickhughesministries.org. You can write rick at rickhughesministries.org, and I’ll share with you where you can listen to these people online and where you can take a Bible and a notebook and sit down at home and start studying, growing, learning, and begin to see your Christian life multiply and be fruitful. The Bible says in Proverbs 16, 20, he that handles a matter wisely shall find good, and whoever trusts in the Lord will be happy. We started last week talking about the tracks of history, and we saw how America has gone off the tracks. We saw the changes that have come in this country in the last few years, and we can see what’s coming ahead of us, a train wreck. And so the question is, are we going to go back to being like we were, occupied with the gifts and forgetting the giver when all of this coronavirus thing is over? Or will we begin to make a change in our thinking, a change in our country? I’m not sure, but this Bible verse, Proverbs 16, 20, he that handles a matter wisely, wisdom is critical in your life. You only get wisdom when you learn Bible doctrine. When you learn the word of God, it becomes knowledge. Knowledge is critical because without knowledge, there’s no wisdom. And without wisdom, there’s no discernment and no insight. So he that handles a matter with wisdom will find good, be profitable, rewardable. Whoever trusts in the Lord, that’s the faithless drill, will have happiness. And that’s your choice. You can trust in the Lord and you can turn over the logistics of your life to your Heavenly Father Or you can leave the nest as per the prodigal son did and try to find yourself through the devil’s world. And you’ll, like the prodigal son, you’ll wind up knee deep in pig poop. That’s right, knee deep in pig poop. Psalm 2, 12, blessed are those who put their trust in him. Again, what makes you think you could do a better job than God did? Are you wise in your own eyes? Proverbs 3, 7 warns you about this. Don’t be wise in your own eyes. This is where the believer, like you or me, can easily get defeated if we get impatient and fail to wait on God’s timing in our life. So this requires some humility, and the Bible says we are to humble ourself under the mighty hand of God. Why? So he could exalt you in due time. This means we have to be in synchronization with God’s plan. We can’t run ahead of God. We can’t get behind God. If we’re going to make some different tracks in this country in the future, it’s going to take some different thinking by people like yourself who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s going to require you mastering and understanding and perceiving the Word of God and metabolizing what you learn into wisdom. And if your timing is off, you’re going to have a problem because without the word of God, it’s inevitable. You will have a life of bad timing. You may call it bad luck. You may be filled with self-pity. You may resent other people, but you stepped out of the will of God. So if you’ve got any complaints about your parents, about your birth, about your home, your timing is way off, buddy. Listen, don’t say you’re born too late, you’re born too early. God started everyone in the world off at exactly the right time, and he gave you a perfect start. So when you complain about anything related to your birth or your environment or your parents or your home, then you’re just blaspheming God thinking he didn’t do a very good job. You’re saying God’s timing was off and God’s timing was never off. So when 1 Peter 5, 6 says we’re to humble ourselves, that’s an imperative mood in the Greek New Testament. That is a mandate. But however… There’s no instant switch like a light switch that you can throw and all of a sudden you’re humble. I mean, this is a volitional decision day by day. You must submit to the authority of the word of God and to the authority that God puts in place over you if you’re going to obey these mandates. So this is not a request, 1 Peter 5, 6, humble yourself. It’s a mandate. And the passive voice of that verb, the aorist passive imperative of the morphology in that verb, it says the subject which is me and you, we are the recipients of the action. We receive that humility that we need by means of the filling of the Holy Spirit and by means of the application of the knowledge of the word of God we’ve learned and applied into our life. And the imperative mood of that verse, Aaron’s passive imperative, is a command, a direct command from God through the Apostle Peter. Now, there must be humility in a coming crisis. It’s critical. Because without it, you will never be objective. You’ll think in terms of subjectivity, and you will lack grace orientation. I don’t know if you’ve ever been around somebody that’s completely subjective, but it’s a mess. So remember, your humility will not be inherited, it has to be acquired. Your spiritual life has to be acquired. And our Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated this humility in Philippians 2, five through nine, where we’re told to let this mind be in us, it was also in Christ Jesus, who took the form of a servant. That doesn’t mean he looked like a slave, but that he was in obedience to his Father. Humility and obedience are two sides of the same coin. Being found in fashion as a man, that’s Philippians 2, 8. He humbled himself, became obedient, humility and obedience, even unto death, the death of the cross. And then, verse 9, God exalted him, Philippians 2, 9, above all others, so that his name, Above every name, everyone should bow, both in heaven and on earth. That’s amazing. Don’t ever worry about God promoting you. Just do your job. Be on track. Don’t get off track. A disoriented believer is off track, and there’s no way that he can change the destiny of a country or change the destiny of his own family or the destiny of his own life if he’s not oriented to the plan of God, if he’s trying to rush things and get ahead of the plan of God. You know, in Matthew 20, 25 through 28, there’s the information about James and John who were the sons of Zebedee, and they sought to have elevated positions in the kingdom by means of their mother’s request of Jesus. She came to Jesus and requested that when he came into the kingdom, would he permit James and John to be elevated? And they didn’t understand there was not going to be a kingdom in their lifetime because he kept telling them, they’re going to kill me, they’re going to kill me, and they didn’t believe it. They finally learned it the hard way. But following a revolt among the disciples when they heard about this and these two men jockeying for position, the Lord had to have a little conference and set their record straight. What he taught them is greatness is not inherited, it’s earned. Listen to what he said. Jesus called them to himself and he said in verse 25 of Matthew 20, He said, don’t you know the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them? That’s arrogance. And those who are great exercise authority over them. Verse 26, it shall not be that way among you because whoever desire to become great must be your servant. And that’s the word diakonos, diakonos, not a doulos, not a slave. That’s a Greek word slave. But diakonos, a minister, must be your minister. This word could be used for a deacon, but in this case it’s a nonspecific term, and it’s used for one among social equals who takes a lower position or steps back or doesn’t try to get to the front every time. You can read about a woman like this in Romans 16.1. Her name was Phoebe, and the Bible says she was a servant of the church. So our Lord goes on to say in Matthew 23.12, for example, whoever exalts himself will be humbled and And whoever humbles himself will be exalted. And I’m sure James and John got humbled when they got corrected about this and what happened with their mother. So remember this, that greatness is measured in terms of service to others among the royal family of God. That’s a question you have to ask yourself. Do you require attention? Or do you give attention? Do you? Because the greatest service you could render is to become a mature believer. to have an invisible impact in your home, in your nation, in your church, and to change the tracks of history in this country as we go forward. This has been a time for you to reorient and adjust. This has been a time for you to get your feet back on the ground. This has been a time for you to calm down from the hustle and bustle of life and focus on your spiritual life for once. Don’t go back to the way you were living. Don’t go back to that. Continue to put the Lord first like you did through the crisis. Continue to seek his will. Continue to ask him to deliver you and show you and guide you like you did in the crisis. You know, prayer is a wonderful way to worship our Lord, but it’s also a wonderful way to serve other people. It’s like you holding your shield over a wounded warrior if you pray for another believer. And giving is a wonderful way to serve the Lord and serve others. On being volunteer at your church and helping teach Sunday school or prep school or volunteer on the staff. David said in Psalm 23, 5, my cup runs over. That’s a blessing by association. Here’s the point. Whenever you’re around mature believers, you get blessing by association. And you don’t want to be around any reversionistic believers, backsliders. That’s cursing by association. Some of the greatest churches I know have local and international impact after many years. And because those believers in those churches are blessing to others and glorifying God to the max. So Matthew 20, 27, whoever wants to be first, protos, first in honor, first in rank, first in attention, let him be your servant. And it’s not diakonos that time, it’s slave. It’s the word doulos. You see, a doulos is an own slave. A debt slave is one working off a debt, but an own slave has been purchased. And the word saint denotes the purpose of God. Slave denotes the will of God. Whoever desires to be first, let him be your servant. And that’s the will of God. As slaves, we are accountable to our master. We’re dedicated custodians to his interest. So Colossians 3.17 tells us whatever we do in word or in deed… We’re to do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Again, in Colossians 3.24, whatever you do, do it from your soul as to the Lord and not unto men. You’re not to be a man pleaser. You are to please God. You are to be dedicated to his interests. You’re to be accountable to your master. Because Colossians 3.25 says, He that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he’s done. God’s not partial. You know, as slaves, we’ve been marked in Ephesians 1.13. We’ve been marked with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And we were sealed until the day of redemption, the Bible says in Ephesians 1.13, which means the master… will return to claim his purchased possession eventually. You know, as Americans, we’re pretty casual. We don’t like to assume a position of defeat or service. However, we have no need, and this is going to be a touchy subject for some of you, we have no need Again, no need to be on a first name basis with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. His name is Jesus the Christ, our master, our God. The New Testament writer did not assume a first name relationship with him either. But through Christian marketing, we’ve made the name of Jesus common. Even demons are smart enough to tremble in his name. But we seek to humanize him by ascribing familiarity and emotion. That’s very dangerous thinking. Very dangerous thinking. Very dangerous. Don’t do that. You know, we must not be indifferent in our service, but we must be diligent even in the absence of our Lord. We must keep his house well lit and well maintained. That’s the interesting part about it. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He’s our master. We are his servants. He is the anointed son of God. Now, if we’re going to talk about a decline in the future, that decline, when this is all over, this coronavirus scare is all over, if it is indeed all over, well, the decline always begins spiritually before it manifests itself nationally. I think we were in a national decline spiritually when all of this hit. And this has been an opportunity to get back on the tracks of righteousness, to get back in the right direction. But here’s what you need to remember. Spirituality must manifest itself in a nation. It has to be manifested nationally. And you’re going to run into problems with this because There’s a real strong foothold of demonism in this country. There’s a real market for everything that is evil turned into good, and everything that is good has now been turned into evil. And this is one of the ways that Satan loves to divide and conquer, to get you to break ranks and to step aside or move ahead, fall behind, not stand shoulder to shoulder with other believers. And the Apostle Paul even warned Timothy of this in 2 Timothy because there were two men in his congregation who were teaching a lie. In 2 Timothy 2, 17 and 18, they divided the flock. And this is one of the things that’s going to happen. You’re going to hear all sorts of stupid stuff after this is over. Paul warned Timothy. He said their message will spread like cancer. He named them. Hymenaeus and Philetus. These are the two guys he said I’m talking about. They have strayed or they broke ranks concerning the truth. And what did they say? They said their resurrection has already passed. And it had not passed. It has not passed yet. There has not been a resurrection of the dead yet as 1 Thessalonians 4 talks about the exit resurrection. So they overthrew the faith of some, Paul said. This means subverted or they flipped them or they captured them, they discouraged them, they caused them to abandon ship. And so Paul is encouraging Timothy to show his self approved unto God. 2 Timothy 2.15, study to show yourself approved unto God. A workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. The bottom line is this, if you can be approved by God, then obviously you can be disapproved. And if you presume to speak for God, that’s very dangerous. But it’s required of men who have the spiritual gift of evangelism or the gift of pastor, teacher. But if you’re not, if you don’t have that spiritual gift, let men with the gift do the teaching. You love folks, you help folks, you pray for folks. Don’t condemn people, don’t disrespect people. Give them the gospel, but let the teaching be done by the people that have the gift. Teaching false doctrine is grounds for disapproval. It’s always been that way. In 2 Timothy 2, 16, avoid profane and idle babblings. for they lead to further ungodliness. Avoid is a present middle imperative of stay away, stay away. Don’t get involved with profane, bebelos, the Greek word bebelos, and this is conversation that lacks any affinity to God. Stay away from that. Avoid profane and idle babblings, for that will lead to further ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene, Among them, and he goes to name, Hamanias and Philetus, men who went astray from the truth, saying that the resurrection had already taken place. This is what’s going on in America today, people teaching things that are not true, profane, lies, lacking any affinity to God, idle babbling, empty sounds, useless subjects. It’s a mandate to stay out of useless conversations that have no divine perspective. And this includes politics. If that’s the center of your conversation, politics, you’re wasting your time. Your conversation needs to be about the Lord Jesus Christ and about the Word of God. Because weak-minded people are easily influenced by something spectacular. And we’re warned about this idle babbling, this empty sounds, useless conversations. And when you get into spirituality and start talking about the Bible, people that don’t know what they’re talking about, and you start talking about the miracles, I saw God in a cloud, I saw God in a tree, I saw God in a mushroom, I saw God, and people are fascinated by all this stuff. They’re weak-minded people. They have no autonomy. They’re like suckers looking for attention from the false teacher. Paul said there’s no room to be weak-minded if you’re going to be a pastor. You must be able to study and teach your congregation and show yourself approved unto God. That’s what’s got to happen if this country is going to turn around. God must raise up well-qualified men who can teach his word, well-qualified men who know the scriptures. Let me issue a challenge. If you’re listening and you’re that sort of person, What’s keeping you back? Why are you not willing to commit your life to the study and the teaching of the Word of God? If you think you may have a communication gift, why have you not looked into getting into some training like seminary or college? Why do you think you can just get up in the pulpit and preach without understanding what you’re talking about? There’s no room for weak-minded believers, and Paul warned Timothy about this. Because a weak-minded believer can be captured just as easily as a weak-minded pastor. So we have to study to show ourselves approved unto God. When I’m teaching you these radio shows, you don’t know this, but sometimes it’s three or four or five days for one message. When I’m speaking in a church, sometimes it’s two or three months preparing one message. Don’t think for one minute that me or you were smarter than the enemy. He knows our weaknesses and he knows our vein of arrogance. And therefore, if you or I find ourselves lonely, You can bet he’ll provide a cosmic friend or a weak-minded spiritual mentor who will be more than happy to guide you into the maze of spiritual fantasy with exciting narrative and false mechanics. They’re out there. They’re printing books. They’re selling books. They’re spectacular preachers. They have huge crowds, but they don’t teach any doctrine. In Jude 16b, they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain an advantage. In Jude 19, these are sensual people who cause division, not having the spirit. In 2 Timothy 2, 19, let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity and recover from destruction. Depart is an aorist active imperative of apistomy. Move away from, remove from, get away from it. When you hear false teaching, you do not need to bend or blend, just run away. Get away from it. We have declined nationally. Our tracks are going in the wrong direction. We are bending the rules and blending in with the false teachers. That’s why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 6, 17, come out. from among them and be separate, says the Lord. The principle is if you’re swimming with sharks when you party with the lost, you will have no common grounds of thought. Don’t swim with the sharks. Don’t party with the lost. Don’t hang out with the inaccurate people. Stay away from them. Depart from iniquity. Adikia, same word used in 1 John 1, 9. And if we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and purify us from all of our wrongdoing. all of our iniquity. We can turn the grace of God into lewdness. And Jude verse four talks about it. So we have to use our very own volition to reject temptation, to follow the wrong people, to be lazy, to not take in God’s word consistently. In second John verse eight, look to yourself so we don’t lose those things we work for that we may receive a full reward. And that’s what God wants for you. God wants you to live your life in such a way that you set the tracks of righteousness down in the future, that your life is a testimony to God’s grace and to your submission to your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, the anointed Son of God. That’s my prayer for you. How do you handle the bait? When Satan comes and baits you, do you bite or do you say, nope, not gonna take that? That’s important because the Bible says in 2 Timothy 2.19, the Lord knows those who are his. There’s an accounting system in heaven and it includes recognition and approval and promotion in due time. In 1 Peter 5, 6, in due time he will promote you. So this isn’t critical for you. You must understand this. The tracks of righteousness must go on and you must lay down the tracks. You must hammer down the railroad ties. You must lay the steel beams on top of the cross ties. You must lead the way in the future by being accurate and submitted to your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, learning God’s Word, demonstrating to others the importance of that in your life. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re paying attention. I hope you have a hunger that will never go away to grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And I hope if I can help, you’ll contact me for one of our books, one of our material, some of our messages on DVD or MP3. They all point you to a well-qualified pastor where you can grow spiritually and become the person God designed for you to be. So until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you now for listening to The Flotline.
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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.
