In this thought-provoking episode of the Flatline, Rick Hughes explores the concept of God’s plan for individual lives and the nation. With sincerity and passion, he delves into the teachings of biblical truth, urging listeners to understand and accept the divine plan laid out for them. Focusing on the message of salvation through Jesus Christ, the episode provides clarity on the path to eternal life—a priceless gift that defies worldly valuation.
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, please stick around. It’ll be 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education. And absolutely no manipulation, no con games. We’re not trying to hustle you. We’re not trying to get money out of you. We’re just trying to give you some information that will help you verify and identify God’s plan for your life and God’s plan for our nation. If you can understand that, understand the plan, then you can verify it, and then you can orient and adjust to the plan. That’s up to you. My job is to get it accurate and give it to you straight up. So you can make your decisions and you can make your choices. This Flatline Show, F-L-O-T, Flatline, Forward Line of Troops, that’s what it stands for, 10 unique problem-solving devices found in the Bible that we call the Forward Line of Troops. The whole concept is to learn them and use them in your life every day so that you can stop the outside sources of adversity from ever becoming the inside sources of stress. So this Flatline radio show is designed to remind you of biblical truths and hopefully introduce you to an in-depth way of studying and learning God’s Word, a way that maybe you haven’t heard it done before. It’s all done with no manipulation, no solicitation. My job is simply to verify God’s plan for you, and it all starts with the greatest news I could tell you, and that is that Jesus Christ, the anointed Son of God, has redeemed you and me out of the slave market of sin. He has paid our debt to God the Father. It’s been paid, and we are free from the penalty of death and the power of sin. If anyone goes to hell, it’s because they reject Christ as their Savior, not because of their sin. You’re not going to go to hell because you smoke, drink, chew, or do. You’re going to go to hell because you rejected the God’s grace gift of Jesus Christ as anointed Son. If you do that, please don’t do that. If you will receive Christ as your Savior, you can in effect accept the wonderful offerings that he made on your behalf. Free, free gift from God, compliments of the grace of God. Titus 3, 5, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his own mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit which he shed on us abundantly by means of Jesus Christ our Lord. That being justified by means of his grace, We should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The most wonderful thing in the world anyone could give you is eternal life. It’s priceless. There’s no way to put a price on it. I mean, if I told you I had some kind of gimmick or some kind of oil you could drink or some kind of food you could eat that would make you live forever, I’d be a multi, multi, multi-millionaire. I can’t do that. This body is infected with a sin nature. It’s going to die. It has to die. It can’t go to heaven like it is. And in heaven, if you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will get a resurrection body. And your soul and your spirit will inhabit that resurrection body, and you will live forever. No more tears, no more pain, no more death. It’s all going to be gone. And I can’t explain all of it to you, but we will be in the presence of the Father. where all things will all be gone away, all things will become new, and it will be absolutely amazing. You can live forever in eternity. Isn’t that fantastic? Now, this is why we need to understand the God we know, because many times people say, oh, I know God, I know God, I know God, but they don’t understand the God they know. And that’s what I would like to talk to you about today, understanding the God that you, in fact, know, In Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24, Jeremiah wrote these words to his constituents. He said, Thus saith the Lord, Do not let the wise man glory in all of his wisdom, and neither let the mighty man glory in his might. And don’t let the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me. that I am the Lord which exercises loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, saith the Lord. There is a difference between knowing God and understanding God. And what exactly does God want you to understand? That he exercises loving kindness, this verse says. The Bible says he’s not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, which is a change of mind about the person of Christ. He also exercises judgment. What the righteousness of God rejects, the justice of God must judge. And he is a God of righteousness, perfect righteousness, and we are imperfect righteousness. The Bible says there are none that are righteous, no, not even one. He who knew no sin was the only righteous person in the earth. And when we believe in Christ, his righteousness is accredited to our account. The loving kindness of God has already been demonstrated by sending his son. The judgment of God has already been demonstrated by judging his own son on the cross. And the righteousness of God must be honored in your life if you expect to have a relationship with him. So again, he who knew no sin was made sin for us. So that, in order that, we may be made the righteousness of God by means of him. Those key words in the passage of Jeremiah known as the weeping prophet, those are what he was known as. He had a heart for his people, but unfortunately, much like what’s going on today, they ignored his warnings. But his message sounded like what we need to hear today in Client Nation, USA. However, unfortunately, due to the FOG, F-O-G, across this nation, spiritual truths are the last thing that many people want to hear. FOG, F-O-G, there’s a FOG across this land. FOG stands for failure of spiritual leadership, open rebellion in the streets to the rule of law, and God’s word rejected and ignored. That’s the FOG. failure of spiritual leadership, open rebellion to the rule of law in the streets, and God’s word rejected and ignored. In Jeremiah 6, 13 through 15, Jeremiah wrote these words, because from the least of them, even to the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness. And this is the attitude of arrogance of the people that Jeremiah was speaking to. From the prophet even to the priest. This meant the people in the ministry. Everybody deals falsely. They’re lying. Were they ashamed when they committed abominations? No. They were not ashamed at all. Nor did they even know how to blush. And that’s exactly what scar tissue does. It takes away the guilt. Therefore, Jeremiah said, they shall fall among those who fall. At the time I shall punish them, God said, they will be cut down. You’ve heard me say to you that client nation USA is under discipline because we have essentially forgotten the giver and focused on the gifts. Our unprecedented wealth and prosperity is slowly being taken away by political machinations. Our military might is being eroded by woke ideology and international politics. And our national internal peace is being eroded by the rule of law being ignored and and political favoritism being dished out in order to gain votes and maintain power. And spiritual truth, well, that’s being replaced by Hollywood-type religion, where there is much money to be made off of movies and dramas, as well as appearance fees by Christians, Christian celebrities especially, and massive book-selling campaigns. Here’s what Jeremiah thought about those things in his time. Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, God speaking through Jeremiah, they will make you worthless. They speak a vision from their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord. And then in verse 21 and 22 of Jeremiah 23, I did not send these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, and yet they prophesied. If they had stood in my counsel, they would have caused my people to hear my words, and then they would have turned them away from their evil ways and from the ways of their doing. It’s pretty obvious no one’s turned America away. It’s pretty obvious there’s a failure of spiritual leadership to cause a turn in the American clientele. We seem to be going down the wrong way. Jeremiah 6, 25, I’ve heard what the prophets have to say. Now, here we go. Here’s all the lying from the pulpits. I’ve heard what the prophets have to say. They prophesy lies, lies in my name, saying I dreamed. I’ve dreamed. How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy their lies? Instead, indeed, they are prophets of deceit of their own heart who try to make my people forget my name by their dreams. which everyone tells his neighbor as their fathers forgot. Well, the prophet who has a dream, let him tell his dream, and the one that has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is chaff to the wheat, says the Lord? Jeremiah 6.29, is not my word like a fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks rock into pieces? Therefore, I’m against these prophets, says the Lord, who steal my words, every one of them from his neighbor. I’m against those prophets that say the Lord did this and the Lord did that, who use their tongues to say he told me to say this. I’m against those who prophesy falsely dreams and who say the Lord told them and caused my people to err by their lies, by their recklessness. I did not send them. I did not command them. They shall not profit these people at all. That’s pretty indicative of spiritual leadership in America today. The fog, the failure of spiritual leadership. It’s gotten a little ridiculous. The organized religion has gotten a little ridiculous in the way that people are involved in worshiping God, supposedly. They don’t know the God. They don’t understand the God they say they know. They do not understand that God requires protocol. There’s a certain way to live the Christian life, and you can’t live the Christian life if you don’t understand the Christian life. That’s why you hear me say that problem-solving device number one is the rebound technique. If you don’t understand rebound, if you don’t understand how to deal with your sin when you commit it, you can never be filled with the Holy Spirit, and you can never honor God. The only way you can honor God is through the filling of the Holy Spirit and the application of God’s Word to your life. And 1 Corinthians 3 tells you about the judgment seat of Christ and the wood, hay, and stubble and gold, silver, and precious stones. And there are a lot of church folk going to be there. And there’s going to be a lot of big bonfires because they did a lot of the right things, but they did it in the wrong way. They listened to some guy who wanted to sell them a book. They listened to some celebrity personality who wanted to come speak at their church and charge an appearance fee. They listened to all kind of goofy sermons that have nothing to do with the word of God and how you live the Christian life, but instead dealt with social issues and Christian, what we call crusaderism, trying to straighten the world out. God didn’t send you to straighten the world out. He did not send me to straighten the world out. He sent us to lift up his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he’s perfectly capable of straightening out anybody who believes in him. But this is exactly what Satan does. He uses organized religion to subdue the thinking of typical church-going people. I mean, come once or twice a week, put a little money in the offering plate to prove that you’re a valuable person. Take a trip, go to a rally, hold a special once-a-year in-depth Bible study like you’re going to really grow. Going to study the book of Romans in one week? Yeah. You’ve heard me say that in order to grow and glorify God to the maximum, it requires you to get under the ministry of a very well-qualified pastor, one who knows the languages of the scriptures, one who studies diligently and delivers a great in-depth Bible study to you on a consistent basis. Come on now, don’t forget the mandates of 2 Peter 3.18. Grow, grow, grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Grace orientation is a wonderful problem-solving device, problem-solving device number four. And biblical orientation or the knowledge of God is problem-solving device number five. When you grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, then you begin to reflect his presence. Don’t forget the mandates of 2 Timothy 2.15. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God. a workman who does not need to be ashamed, but rightly dividing the word of truth. If you can rightly divide the word of truth, you can wrongly divide the word of truth. And if you wrongly divide the word of truth, you should be ashamed. And there are many, many, many Christian people who don’t know what they’re talking about. They quote scripture they don’t understand. They take it out of context. They push some sort of legalism or ritualism Ritualism without reality is meaningless. You have to be able to rightly divide the word of truth. This is why, again, I encourage you to get under a well-qualified pastor who understands it and can teach it to you. What about the words of our Lord in Matthew 11, 28? Come unto me, all you who labor. Those of you that are heavy laden, I’ll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me because I’m gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Take my yoke and learn from me. We’ve had three verbs there. Grow, study, learn. You can’t live the Christian life if you don’t grow, study, and learn. And you will never come to understand the God you know if you don’t grow, study, and learn. Our Father is simply telling you that you must grow spiritually to understand your mission in life and to be able to reproduce in others who become believers like yourself, maybe your children, maybe your grandchildren, maybe even your neighbor. That’s your mission in life, to grow, study, learn, apply, until you replicate the life of Christ and reflect Christ to those around you. Remember the words of Hosea 4.6 in regards to growing, studying, and learning. Hosea 4.6 says, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Since you reject knowledge, don’t want to grow, don’t want to learn, don’t want to understand. Since you reject knowledge, I will reject you from being a priest for me. Because you have forgotten the laws of your God, that’s when the rate of forgetting exceeds the rate of learning, I will forget your children. This is a solemn warning that even though Hosea wrote it at a particular time to a particular people, it can apply to us as well. We don’t want knowledge. We want entertainment. We want to go to church and see Hollywood, Dolly World. We don’t want to be taught the Word of God. Could you actually sit still for an hour and let a pastor teach you God’s Word line upon line, verse upon verse? Could you do that? Could you sit there with your Bible and your notebook and take notes and listen, not while he entertains you, but while he taught you something? Do you feel like you’re not really getting to know God if you don’t go to a, quote, worship service where they, quote, praise the Lord for 30 minutes before the preacher even gets to speak? You’ve rejected knowledge. You don’t study at home. You might read your Bible every now and then, but it’s not a novel. It’s a textbook. It’s designed to be taught to you. You’re not growing. You know you’re not growing. I mean, I could ask you a few simple questions and it would prove to you that you’re not growing. And you know you’re not growing. You know you don’t have the relationship with God you’d like to have. Maybe you’re just tired of all that ritual without any reality to it. I hope you are. I hope that’s why you’re listening to this radio show. Sometimes people tell me, I listen to you before I go to church. Well, I’m glad you’re going to church. I hope you’re getting something out of it. I hope you’re willing to learn God’s Word consistently. That’s when you grow. That’s when you become a mature believer. That’s when you reflect Jesus Christ, God’s anointed Son. But we forgot it in America. We’ve forgotten the laws of our God, and our children are going to be forgotten by God too. We have thousands and thousands and millions of teenagers They have no interest in God, no interest in the Word of God, no interest in learning anything about God. They’ve been captured by social media. Their minds have been whitewashed by the Kool-Aid that Satan pours out, and our nation’s in serious trouble. It’s a nationality called disease called arrogance, a national disease called arrogance, and it’s self-destructive. Remember that arrogance is always self-justification, self-deception, self-absorption, self-destruction. America is an arrogant nation. We justify why we do some of the things that we do in regards to God. I’m not talking about politics. We justify why it’s okay to go to church once a week and put some money in the orphan plate and go home and and watch the TV or go eat lunch and you think you’ve worshiped God. You went once a week. You remember the nod to God crowd and you think God’s impressed with that? We have a national arrogance in regards to the word of God. Some people don’t want it. Some people don’t believe in it. There are organizations like Freedom From Religion Foundation that challenges anything any Christian tries to do to pass on the Lord Jesus Christ to the next generation. We’re an arrogant nation. We’re in serious trouble and we’re going to be destroyed. I’m telling you, if we continue to go down this path we’re on, we will be destroyed by the justice of God. The word of God in your soul can make you alert to what’s coming up. It doesn’t take a genius to see it. When you have biblical wisdom in your soul, you have insight and discernment, and you can see what other people don’t see. And I hope you see that divine judgment is falling on America now. It always comes in the form of historical disaster. That’s what we’re seeing. Idiotic government policy tells you that the end is near. United States of America is under liability to the Supreme Court of Heaven for the fifth cycle of discipline. Fifth cycle of discipline. I haven’t taught you what that means, but I’m going to share some of it with you today. The fifth cycle of discipline. It all depends on whether or not believers like you fulfill the unique spiritual life of the church age. The only way to get out of this thing that we’re in is for believers. If my people that are called by my name will humble themselves and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways and pray, then I’ll hear. Then I’ll heal their land. That’s what the Bible says. My people, you are the solution, not some politician. The Bible clearly says, cursed is the man that trusts in man. No politician can get us out of the mess we’re in. Only you and your spiritual life. When you turn to the Lord and you grow and you become a mature believer, you become part of the pivot of the client nation. And that’s where he had blessing by association on this nation. And that’s what we must have. And that’s what we don’t have. We don’t have you growing spiritually. We don’t have you being a blessing. The unique spiritual life that God gave us is the major factor in history. We have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We have the filling of the Holy Spirit. We have the unique teaching of the Word of God, a Bible, the canon of Scripture. We have men with qualified gifts called pastor, teacher. We have a unique spiritual life. We are members of the royal family of God. It’s a unique time in history for you and for me. And we are the ones that are the solution to what’s going on in this country. Not the president, not the Congress, you and me. Historical disaster, if it comes, is the cleansing of a nation. The cleansing of a nation is taught under the concept of those five cycles of discipline that I spoke to you about. I’ll read some of it to you. It’s rather long, but I hope you can listen. Leviticus 26. beginning in verse 14. This was written to Israel as a warning to them, but it can apply to us as a client nation today. If you will not listen to me, and if you will not carry out my mandates, and if you reject my decrees and hate my laws and fail to carry out my mandates and so violate my covenant, that I will do this to you. This is God speaking to them now. Listen carefully. I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases, and a fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. And you will plant your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it. I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies. And those that hate you will rule over you and you will flee even when no one’s pursuing you. And after all of this, see that’s a discipline, If after all of this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times greater. I will break down your stubborn pride, arrogance. I will make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. And your strength will be spent in vain because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit. If you remain hostile towards me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your affliction seven times again, and your sins deserve it. I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children. They will destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted. In spite of these things, if you do not accept my correction, but continue to be hostile towards me, I myself will be hostile towards you and I will afflict you for your sins seven times greater. And I will bring the sword on you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. And when you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you and you will be given over to the enemy’s hands. When I cut off the supply of bread, 10 women will be able to bake your bread in one oven and they will dole out the bread by weight and you will eat, you will not be satisfied. In spite of this, If you still do not listen to me, if you still continue to be hostile towards me, then in my anger I will be hostile towards you and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. Be careful now what I’m about to read to you. Listen carefully. You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. They did that. That happened. I will destroy your high places. I will cut down your incenses, altars, and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols. And I will abhor you. And I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste to your sanctuaries. And I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. And I myself will lay waste to the land so that your enemies who live there will be appalled.” and I will scatter you among the nation and will draw you out with my sword and pursue you and your land will be laid to waste and your cities will lie in ruin. That is a severe warning from God called the five cycles of discipline on Israel and it happened and it can happen to us as well. We are a client nation in this generation. We are members of the royal family of God. unto whom much is given, much is expected. And to the extent that you continue to reject your spiritual life, you continue to refuse to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you continue to refuse to grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, you continue to refuse to get under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor, then you are guaranteeing that that’s going to happen here. If I had to say, I’d say it’s coming. I mean, you’ve heard me say there’s a train coming and I can hear the whistle blow it. I can also see the light. It’s coming around the bend right now. You and I are the solution, please. I pray that you will get with it. I pray you will go to God and confess your sin. What kind of sin? Your lack of growth, your lack of concern, your lack of obedience. I wish you would go to God and admit to him that you have not been the person he wanted you to be. And I wish you would contact me and get in touch with me and let me get you under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor or at least get some information in your hands where you can begin to grow and study and learn. Thank you for listening. This is your host, Rick Hughes. I’ll play you back next week, same time, same place.
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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.
