Where are the Men – Part 3
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 568 aired on July 17, 2016
Good morning and and welcome to The FLOT Line. I’m your host Rick Hughes and for the next
few minutes, as always, every Sunday please stay tuned. We’re going to give you 30 minutes of
motivation, inspiration, education, all done without any manipulation. This means we don’t
appeal for money. We’re not soliciting any funds. We’re not going to try to sell you something,
try to get you to join up, fess up, give it up, nothing like this. This show is simply about giving
you accurate information, information that should help you verify as well as identify God’s plan
for your life. If you’re able to do this you can always orient and adjust to the plan. That’s up to
you. It’s a great honor for me to be with you this morning on this radio station. We’ve been here
for a long time now and very thankful for the audience that listens across the country. Today
we’re going to continue a study that we started two Sundays ago. I began a series called
Looking
For a Man
and I recently taught this series at a local church in Houston Texas and it is available
on DVD if you would like to have it. Just contact us through our website, we’ll make sure you
get a copy of it free of charge. This series is dealing with the concept taught in Ezekiel where
God said He was looking for a man that would stand in the gap, to make up the hedge between
God and the people and He could find no one (Ezekiel 22:30). He could not find one man in
Jerusalem that would prevent the destruction by the fifth cycle of discipline. Not one believer
had the integrity or the guts or the virtue love to stand up and be God’s man. I believe that we
face a similar disaster coming to this country. I think anyone with half a brain that knows
anything about history can see the changes that are on the horizon. I think we can see what’s
coming down the pipe. There’s a train wreck coming and I believe you can hear the whistle
blowing if you listen. So I have been saying on this radio show that God needs a man that will
stand in the gap and turn the tide of history. I’m not talking about a politician, no.
God is looking
for men who will stand in the pulpit and teach God’s Word, men who will pay the sacrifice
to prepare and speak words of confrontation and exortation and not be crusaders.
Not
someone that’s going to get a sign and walk downtown and tell everybody they’re going to hell if
they take a drink of beer. This is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about somebody that will
confront the world by exegeting God’s Word, teaching God’s Word, and confronting sin as what
it is. Are you the one to be this person? This was my question last week when we finished out
our radio show. Are you willing to be the unpopular one? Believe me, if you stand up for God’s
Word in this day you will not be popular. Are you willing to face the opposition? Again, I’m not
asking you to be a crusader. I’m not asking you to go out on the streets and challenge people
about what they believe.
I’m asking you to simply be faithful to take in God’s Word, learn it
and use it and live by God’s system of principles and precepts.
You’ll get plenty of
opportunities to speak about Him and you’ll get plenty of opportunities to lift up His name, but
you’re not here to confront the world. You’re here to give the world the gospel. Remember Isaiah
6:8, we wound up with this verse last week. Isaiah had a commission. It was a unit commission.
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It was a volitional decision that he made. John 12:41 said Isaiah saw the Lord Jesus Christ sitting
on His throne. I told you last week Isaiah was a contemporary of Amos, Hosea, and Micah. He
was married. He had two sons, and he wrote during the decline of the Northern Kingdom which
was destroyed by the Assyrians. Then during the fall of the Southern Kingdom he called the
Southern Kingdom to repentance. The Southern Kingdom did not respond. They were destroyed
by the Babylonian captivity and both nations, Israel and Judah, went under the fifth cycle of
discipline. America faces the same thing. We have been a client nation for many years. We have
been representing God throughout this world by protecting His Word, sending missionaries, and
being a haven for the Jew. These are all things that client nations do and now we are on the verge
of losing our client nation status. What will happen to us? I don’t know. The Bible doesn’t really
talk about America in prophecy, I have no idea.
The Bible does talk about you and your
commitment to God and it begins with your volition.
Here is a fact that may astound you.
God does not draft you into His service. You must volunteer to serve.
God gave you a
spiritual gift the moment you believed in Jesus Christ. Two of them are communication gifts,
pastor-teacher and evangelist. There is also the gift of helps, the gift of mercy, the gift of giving,
there are many spiritual gifts. By using your very own volition, your very own chooser, your
very own decider, you must make a decision. He’s not going to draft you. You must volunteer to
serve Him. In Joshua 24:15, Joshua made the decision and he challenged his nation.
“And if it
seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose you this day.”
We make decisions every day, don’t
we? We make a decision about what time to get up. We make a decision about what we’re going
to wear. We make a decision about what we’re going to eat but this is a spiritual decision.
“Choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served on the
other side of the flood or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now dwell.
[This is Joshua
challenging the Israelites that came out of Egypt and had gone into the Promised Land. This is
what he said.]
But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
There is Joshua’s volition
establishing the priority for his family.
A man will always lead by example. He doesn’t preach
to people, he leads by example and his integrity is seen.
Now if you’re the sort of man who has
to preach to people, shut up and quit talking about the Lord because you’re running people off.
But if you have some integrity and if you can live for the Lord Jesus Christ consistently in your
life, then you can make a difference. This is what Joshua challenged the inhabitants of the land to
do, to make a volitional decision about whom they were going to serve. Either they’re going to
serve the gods that their fathers served (idols) or serve the Lord. This is an example of a mature
male believer, a man, challenging the leadership of the nation to “follow me and my house.”
There it is. You have volition and you have to make the decision. When you make the decision,
people will see what you decided. God did not make you into a little bitty automaton, He gave
you freedom to choose. Remember what we’ve said before. God gave us two ends, one to sit with
and one to think with. Success in your life depends on which end you choose. It’s heads you win,
tails you lose. Yes, God gave you the ability to think, to logic, to reason, to comprehend and the
Bible says to
“Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus”
(Philippians 2:5). By
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learning divine viewpoint you can make a series of good decisions that will glorify God and your
family in your life. Just like God gave you free will to accept or reject Christ, you also have the
free will to abide by or reject His plan for your life. Remember, you were bought with a price.
Jesus Christ your Lord bought you out of the slave market of sin. He was judged in your place.
He paid the penalty for you.
If you decide to use your volition to reject the plan of God for your
life and go off down the My Way Highway, you are going to be held accountable for your
decisions. Why would you want to live the life of a disadvantaged person when you are already
related to the King of kings and the Lord of lords? All of His assets are available to you and you
want to go live in the world as a disadvantaged person? That’s crazy. What have you been doing?
Proverbs 3:1-2,
“My son, forget not my law but let thy heart keep my mandates
[and listen now]
for length of days, long life, and peace shall they add to thee.”
There are three assets related to
obeying God’s Word.
If you learn and apply God’s Word in your life,
“length of days, long
life, and peace shall they add to you.”
How’s this for a promise?
You want to have a long life?
Forget the fountain of youth, here it is. Learn God’s Word, apply God’s Word, glorify Christ in
your life with every decision that you make with your integrity and virtue love, and you will live
a long life and you will live a peaceful life.
Your volition, not circumstances, determines your
destiny and the history of this country.
We know negative volition often comes in two stages.
Stage one, this is when a person like you or me refuses to assemble for Bible teaching in the
local church. Stage two is when you refuse to apply what you heard in the local church. You are
the inconsistent believer, the sort of Christian who wants the Word of God only when you’re in
trouble and you want God to show you the way out. You want Him to show you the escape road,
the gate out of that jam you got yourself in, but you cannot buy your way out of a jam with God.
You pray, “I need help Lord, help me please. Lord help me.” If you don’t grow in grace, if you
don’t follow God’s mandate, why are you running to God when you get in time of trouble? Then
as soon as the Lord gives you some reprieve, as soon as He removes some of the discipline, off
you go back down the My Way Highway. Listen to what Jesus Christ told the disciples in Luke
6:46-49,
“Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do the things I say? Whoever comes to Me
and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you what he’s like. He’s like a man building a
house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock and when the floods arose, the stream
beat vehemently against the house yet it couldn’t shake it, for it was founded on the rock. He who
did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation against which the
stream beat vehemently, and immediately it fell and the ruin of that house was great.”
Did you
hear this verse?
“Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ and you don’t do the things that I say?”
Secondary negative volition, stage two. Remember John 14:15 and 1 John 5:3,
“If you love Me
you will obey Me”
and
“My mandates are not hard”
What’s your priority? Here is a great verse
for you,
1 John 2:15-16,
“Do not love the world; do not love the things of the world. Because if
anyone loves the world, the love the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of
the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not from the Father but it’s of the world.”
That’s
called the mirage of happiness, like a man in the desert with nothing to drink for two days and he
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thinks that he sees an oasis. It’s a mirage. Satan will give you a mirage. He will tell you that
happiness is related to people and circumstances when it’s not. This is where your negative
volition starts, when you put your confidence in the world and the things of the world. Now
listen, there’s nothing wrong with having a new car. When I was a young Christian people told
me, “If you want to serve God brother, drive a little bitty car and only own one suit. Sacrifice for
Jesus brother.” That’s crazy. God is not against you having a successful business, a successful
life, a wonderful home. He’s not against you enjoying some of the assets that you have. That’s
not what this is saying. Worldliness is an attitude. It’s not what you have, it’s what you think. If
you love the world, in other words here’s the love of the world, you think winning the lottery will
make you happy and will solve all of your problems if you just had an unlimited bank account.
Who doesn’t think this way? We’ve all done this before. We’ve all imagined what it would be like
to be able to not have to fly commercial but have a private jet and what it would be like to do this
and that, sure, that’s human nature, but that’s not our source of happiness. When everything is
gone, when everything is stripped away, when we have nothing left, our Lord Jesus Christ is
right there beside us. Jesus Christ promises,
“I will never leave you. I will never forsake
you”
(Hebrews 13:5). There is nothing better than to have the person that loves you standing
with you through all the difficulties of life, even if it’s a self-induced difficulty.
The world will
distract you.
There’s an old Latin phrase called
sic transit gloria mundi.
The Roman general that
conquered the enemy would come riding back home to Rome and receive all sorts of parades,
accolades, and honors. A slave would be in his chariot telling him these words,
sic transit gloria
mundi,
meaning the glory of this world passes away. You can be awarded great honors but they
and a buck may buy you a cup of coffee. A recent hotel I was in, it would take four bucks to buy
a cup of coffee.
The glory of the world is nothing. They will write about you in the paper today
and forget about you tomorrow. Listen to what the real honorable long-lasting thing is,
1 John
4:4,
“Greater is He that is in you than he that is in this world.”
2 Corinthians 4:4 says,
“Satan
is the god of this world.”
We have the upper hand over Satan and his schemes by means of the
divine empowerment of God the Holy Spirit and having the living Word of God in our souls. It
gives us supernatural insight into the events of time and it lets us not be blind to what’s going on.
Listen to 1 Corinthians 2:12,
“We have not received the world’s frame of reference, but the Spirit
from God so that we might know the things which have been graciously given to us by God.”
Proverbs 2:10,
“When wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul
[listen
carefully to what I’m about to tell you]
discretion will preserve you and understanding will keep
you.”
What this is telling you is wisdom will keep you from self-destructing. Now let’s back up,
what is wisdom? Listen carefully. Wisdom is a word call
sophia
in the Greek New Testament.
When you go to church and you hear the pastor teach the Bible, this is called
gnosis,
it’s
knowledge. If you believe what he taught and apply it in your life, it becomes
epignosis
or full
knowledge. Once it becomes full knowledge it goes into your stream of consciousness, into your
memory center, and there it’s called wisdom or
sophia
. This is the most valuable thing that you
have.
The wisdom from the Word of God will preserve you and keep you from destroying
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yourself.
Thus Romans 12:2 warns you,
“Don’t be conformed to this world but be transformed
by the renovation of what you think.”
Why should you be transformed by the renovation of what
you think? Why should you do that? Here’s your purpose clause in the Greek New Testament,
“So that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is divine good production and
acceptable to God,”
the mature status quo of a man. This is what God is looking for, some
spiritually mature men. Men that have divine endowment by means of the Holy Spirit and living
in the Word of God. Men who can keep from destroying themselves. Religious arrogance will try
to change the world through pressure, activism instead of understanding that the world is never
going to get better. If you have a religious addiction that means you live for approbation in the
church, you love to be approbated for being a great man of God. “Look, he tithes. Look, he
prays. Look, he’s at all of the men’s meetings.” You’re a phony because you don’t know squat.
You don’t know anything. You’re just going through the ritual. Some people go into extreme
asceticism, extreme self-denial. They have that religious addiction. They think it’s a sin to do
anything other than just a few things. Maybe they just need to move on to the monastery and
they can just sit there all day and contemplate infinity. This is not what God wants you to do. You
are His ambassador. You represent Him to the world.
When you walk out of your house you
are in a mission field.
John 16:8-10 clearly says, the Holy Spirit
“When He comes
[the Church
Age, the dispensation we’re in]
He will convince the world
[unbelievers]
of sin, righteousness,
and judgment. Concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me
[this is the unforgivable sin
and rejection of Jesus Christ]
Concerning righteousness
[Because they don’t have any
righteousness, “
All of our righteousnesses are like a filthy rag in God’s eyes”
(Isaiah 64:6).]
Because I go to My Father, you will no longer see Me.”
Through you, the Holy Spirit will
convince the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, the coming judgment.
You’re either
going to be born twice or die twice. The first birthday is a physical birthday. The second birthday
is a spiritual birthday. The first death,
“It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the
judgment”
(Hebrews 9:27). The second death is being cast into the Lake of Fire and it’s called
this in Revelation 20:14. What do you think are the mechanics for representing God, for doing
these things? You are the voice of God. You’re it. He left you here. He gave you a mission. He
asks you to establish priority in your life fulfilling His plan. Whenever you quote a Scripture or
whenever you give the gospel or whenever you bow your head and say a prayer in a public
restaurant, you are convincing.
You are the convincing agent through which God works.
You
don’t flaunt self-righteousness and religious animosity, that’s not what I’m saying but when you
live a life of integrity based on the concepts of the Word of God, you are representing Him to the
world. But when you get sucked into trying to improve the world by getting involved in social
action or politics or whatever, then you’re going to lose out on being blessed by association. Stay
away from trying to straighten up the devil’s world. You can’t straighten it up. You only deliver a
nation by taking in God’s Word and reaching maturity. If you don’t believe this, listen to this
verse.
“If My people that are called by My name will humble themselves and turn from their
wicked ways and seek My face, I will hear their prayer and heal their land”
(2 Chronicles 7:14).
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You are the answer, not a politician, you. But because you don’t take God’s Word seriously,
because you don’t take God’s plan seriously, you are part of the problem. You’re going to be like
those people Gideon sent home. God said, “Send them home. I can’t use them.” Gideon wound
up with just 300 men to defeat a Midianite army of thousands. Are you the one? Are you the man
God is looking for? I can give you some characteristics, traits of men that God chose.
The
number one trait that God is looking for is a man of faith.
How do I know this?
Hebrews
11:6,
“Without faith it’s impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that
He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.”
Did you hear that? This
means that you must understand problem-solving device #3 on the FLOT line of your soul, the
faith-rest drill. Don’t be one of those people that says, “Well, I prayed about it.” This is not the
faith-rest drill. The faith-rest drill is claiming a promise and there are over 7,000 of them in the
Bible. The faith-rest drill is reversing your upset mind and going back to some Biblical rationale
to where you understand the principle about something and then apply it into your life.
“Stand
still”
Moses said in Exodus 14:13.
“Stand still and watch what God will do.”
After seven years
of oppression under the Midianites, and it was all discipline because of what was going on in
Israel their idolatry and evil practices, God raised up a deliverer named Gideon. Judges 6:12,
“And the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon and said to him, ‘The Lord is with you, you
mighty man of valor.’”
That’s a Hebrew descriptive adjective plus the masculine noun
hayil
meaning valor, virtue, strength. Wow, that is quite a title for Gideon. We all know the story of the
300 men of Gideon who God instructed he choose in Judges 7:3. It’s amazing. You see, Gideon
had a son and Gideon in Judges 7:3 asked his son to kill the two men that murdered his brother at
Tabor (Judges 8:18-19). His son wouldn’t do it. His son didn’t have the courage to do it and these
two condemned men looked Gideon in the face and said,
“You rise up and you kill us for as the
man is so is his strength”
(Judges 8:21). “Don’t ask your boy to do it, you do it” and Gideon did.
Now let me ask you a question. Are you man enough to do what needs to be done? This is what
God is looking for. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re paying attention. I hope you come back
next week, same time, same place. Until then, I’m your host Rick Hughes saying thank you for
listening to The FLOT Line.
