741-The-Stages-of-Life-p2-transcriptpdf
741-The-Stages-of-Life-p2-transcriptpdf
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  1. The Stages of Life - Part 2 Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 741 aired on November 3, 2019 Good morning and welcome to the FLOT Line. I’m your host Rick Hughes. For the next few minutes, stay with us. It will be thirty minutes of motivation, inspiration, a lot of education, but absolutely no manipulation. We don't try to con anybody to do anything. We ask you to listen to us communicate the information you need to hear. If we can verify and identify the plan of God for your life, then you can orient and adjust to the plan if you'd like to do that, it's up to you. My job is not to convince you, to persuade you, my job is just to give you the facts. You have a volition, you choose, it’s part of the format of your soul. The volitional responsibility of the soul is critical. “Whatsoever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7). We have to make decisions every day of our life. The most critical decision we will ever make is, “What think you of Christ?” (Matthew 22:42). Is He the anointed Son of God or is He not? That’s a question all of us have to answer. That’s why the Bible says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved” (Acts 16:31). “He that believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1 John 5:1). It is critical. It's the only way you'll ever get to heaven. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by grace. That's the only way we'll get there. “According to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He sheds on us abundantly through [by means of] Jesus Christ our Lord, that being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope [or confidence] of eternal life” (Titus 3:5-7). Remember, God gave you two ends; one you sit with and one you think with. Success in life depends on which one you use; heads you win and tails you lose. A FLOT line - Forward Line of Troops - is a main line of resistance in the soul of a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ that stops the outside sources of adversity before they convert to the inside source of stress. Adversity is inevitable, but stress is optional if you will learn the ten problem-solving devices we talk about on this radio show: rebound (how to confess your sin), filling of the Holy Spirit (how to walk in the Spirit), the faith-rest drill (how to live by faith), grace orientation (accepting grace, using grace), doctrinal orientation or Biblical orientation (how to think like the Lord Jesus Christ), all of these give you a personal sense of destiny (the door you walk through and begin to live for the Lord, not for yourself), that's motivated by your personal love for God (the greatest virtue you could have), and it's expressed with impersonal love for others (just as God loved you, you can love others; not based on who they are, but based on who you are), all of this leads to sharing the happiness of God (problem-solving devices #9) and #10 being occupied with the person of Jesus Christ (replicating His life to those around you, re-presenting Christ to a dying world). We have those ten problem-solving devices on a bookmark; if you’d like one, write to us through our website - rickhughesministries.org - and we’ll send you a bookmark. Don’t send money. We’re not asking you for money. The Lord always supplies; we wait on the Lord. This is not a trick to get money. If you'd like to have that bookmark, just ask, it would be great to put in your Bible. We started talking last week about the different stages of life. We talked about stage one and this is where you have to be saved. The beginning of the Christian life starts with stage one and that
  2. is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You might not feel it when it happens. The justification that takes place when you put your faith alone in Christ alone is not an emotional thing. It's a fact. “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21). So your journey with Christ begins with stage one - believing in Him, accepting Him as your Savior. Then it moves to stage two. After you believe in Christ, what comes next? We saw 2 Peter 3:18 about growing in grace. We saw where the Lord Jesus Christ said the Holy Spirit would come and be your Helper. We saw the mandates about don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. We saw don't quench the Spirit, don’t grieve the Spirit. And we saw the importance of the canon of Scripture. We deduced that without spiritual growth you would stay an infant in your Christian life and never be able to produce spiritual fruit, which is why God left you here, so you can do that. Advancing spiritually from being an infant believer to being a mature believer is not possible unless you are filled with the Holy Spirit, unless you have a clear understanding of what God requires. That's where the gift of pastor-teacher comes in. Sometimes people tell me, ‘I don't need a pastor. All I need is a Bible. I can figure it out.’ I doubt that. The Bible is a textbook not a novel. There's no doubt any of us could read the Bible and learn basic operating principles, but if we want to understand the mechanics of growth in Christian service then you need a well-qualified pastor, not a spiritual cheerleader. Spiritual growth requires discipline and requires sacrifice. God uses people that are prepared. Particularly people who know the languages because it was not written in English, it was written in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. People that can do the isagogics, people that can do the exegesis, people that can explain verses to you and what they mean. Our mission is to learn it and then use it in our life; a concept called LAG: learn, apply and glorify God. Today we want to talk about stage three of the Christian life. Stage three is when you move from time to eternity. It is critical that you understand this stage. Stage three starts with death or the exit resurrection, whichever one comes first. As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you may have heard the term Rapture. The Rapture, or “exit resurrection” (the Greek word exsanastasis), is when members of the royal family of God leave this earth. Anytime a believer dies it’s a victory in the Church Age because of what God has done. That’s the victory we look forward to. Listen to what happens when you die without the exit resurrection, if you just die, which we’re all going to die. 1 Corinthians 15:54, “When this perishable [that’s our human bodies] will put on the imperishable [that’s our resurrection body] and this mortal [human] will put on immortality [eternal] then will come about the saying that is written, ‘Death has been swallowed up as a result of victory.’” Victory in Jesus Christ over death. If the Rapture takes place, that's a different thing. The same verse applies, we will have victory over death, but if the Rapture takes place then the Church will exit from earth, and not return until the Second Advent of Christ and then not again until after the Lord creates the new universe. So the exit resurrection is the final goal of the Church and God provides it in toto. Man cannot cause it, man cannot make it come to pass, man cannot cause the exit resurrection or the Second Advent, and we cannot convert the world because Christ has to come back. God’s timing does not have anything to do with man's volition. Men across the world have to decide. The
  3. sovereignty of God, the wisdom of God, the power of God will bring about the Rapture of the Church, the body of Christ, you and I. When that day occurs, no one knows. A lot of the weirdoes have tried to predict it, but the Bible clearly says no one knows when it will occur. Keep this in mind. Every believer gets a fair shake at the exit resurrection of the Church, at the Rapture, when we get a resurrection body. Both the dead in Christ and even those that are alive at the Rapture of the Church all get resurrection bodies almost simultaneously. But the eternal rewards and decorations that come are different for spiritually mature believers than for carnal believers. Paul says in regard to the exit resurrection in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 (this is stage three), “We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. For this we say to you by the Word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we evermore be with the Lord.” That's the exit resurrection, the Rapture of the Church, and it occurs at the end of the Church Age. All Church Age believers, both alive and dead, will join the Lord Jesus Christ in the air and no man knows the day or the hour of that. Meeting the Lord in a resurrection body will occur in the second heaven, the stellar universe, not on this earth. Jesus said in Revelation 22:12, “I'm coming soon, and My reward is with Me, to decorate each one according to his accomplishments.”Soon refers to the imminency of the Rapture that I'm speaking about, for there is no prophecy left to be fulfilled before it happens. This verse says that mature believers, which we call winner believers, will receive blessings for eternity at the Judgment Seat of Christ. This event can be called the big genuflect in the sky because after this comes the Judgment Seat of Christ, which results in tremendous differences among believers who have resurrection bodies. Yes, there is equality at this point, but in the future, mature believers will get rewards, immature believers will be minus rewards. So, the Judgment Seat of Christ follows in heaven while back on earth it is the Tribulation. Thank the Lord we will not be here through that. We will come back with our Lord at the end of the Tribulation and rule and reign with Him in His Second Advent, called the millennial reign of Christ. Many people look at the USA today and say, ‘The time is short, the Lord is about to come back. Look what's happening.’ It is true that there are a lot of crazy, weird, gross things happening in America. It is true that the Lord Jesus Christ could come back today, tomorrow or the next day. But you can’t gauge the trends of history and determine that Christ is coming back. It doesn't work that way. The trends of history can tell you that America might be about the fall, that America may go under as a free nation, that we may turn into a socialist nation, or even be defeated by the communists, but that doesn't mean Christ is about to return. We have the exit resurrection, we have the Tribulation going on on earth, and we have the Judgment Seat of Christ in heaven where you and I will be. 2 Corinthians 5:10, “For we must all appear before the
  4. judgment seat of Christ, that each one of us [that’s members of the royal family of God] may receive what is due him [that’s rewards] for the things accomplished while in this body, whether good or worthless.” That's the evaluation that is going to take place for all of us; evaluation of our performance in the plan of God during our time on earth. Every one of us has the same privilege and the same opportunity to execute the plan of God. If we live our life in the cosmic system, ignoring the plan of God, then we are going to lose out. If we live our life in God's plan then we have some reward. Let me say it again, if you live your life in the cosmic system, it's worthless, it’s evil (the Greek word phaulos). Any believer that lives in the cosmic system fails to fulfill the protocol plan of God. What is a cosmic system? It's not being filled with the Holy Spirit, it’s letting your sin nature control you, it’s abandoning the divine institutions and it's abandoning the plan of God. If you fulfill the protocol plan of God, which is staying filled with the Holy Spirit, growing in grace, replicating Christ then that's called good (the Greek word agathos), and the believer would receive rewards beyond his resurrection body. The loser, the one that did not grow in grace, the one that did not follow God's plan, will lose the decorations, lose the rewards. The mature believer, the winner, the one who fulfills the protocol plan of God will receive them. The issue is your life for all eternity is now in the making - right now, today, as you listen to this show. Your day-to-day attitude toward Bible doctrine and toward your priorities will determine completely what will happen to you at the Judgment Seat of Christ. It does take only one decision to get saved - believe in the Lord Jesus Christ - but it takes many decisions to receive these decorations, honors and rewards at the Judgment Seat of Christ. That's why we have it. The purpose of the Judgment Seat of Christ is to evaluate each one of us for our time on earth between the time we got saved and the time we left. The question is, what did we do with the tremendous invisible assets given to us by the grace of God? Each one of us is going to stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ. We’ll stand there alone, not with our children, not with our our mates, alone. We have to learn how to live our own life. We have to learn how to live alone and we have to learn how to die alone so we can stand alone in the resurrection body before the Lord Jesus Christ and give an account of ourselves. Here is the bottom line. We are responsible for our own decisions. We are responsible. Volitional responsibility. Ignorance is no excuse before the Judgment Seat of Christ. That won't fly. You had equal privilege and equal opportunity to know God’s Word and apply it. There is no prophecy left unfulfilled before the exit resurrection can take place. It could take place today. All prophecy has been fulfilled. The Bible talks about it in Colossians 3:4, in 1 Corinthians 1:7, in 2 Thessalonians 2:1, and in Titus 2:13. The Rapture, or exit resurrection, could take place at any time, but all the events that I'm talking about have to occur in proper sequence. The Rapture and the Second Advent are not the same thing. They're not coterminous. Neither one can occur at any time during the Tribulation. The Rapture takes place before the Tribulation and the Second Advent of Christ takes place at the end of the Tribulation. The Tribulation begins when the Church is removed from the earth. The Tribulation is divided into two parts: the Tribulation and the great Tribulation. The main character in the Tribulation is called the antichrist - you
  5. know, the 666 guy, the one who demands to be worshiped as God. You will not be here. You are not part of that. The Rapture takes place before the Tribulation. The Tribulation will end after seven years with a tremendous battle called the battle of Armageddon. (I have a book I can recommend for that. If you'd like to get the book Armageddon, just write to me and we’ll send it to you free of charge.) It is not just a series of battles, but a world wide war. It's a military campaign involving an invasion into unfriendly territory in order to locate the enemy forces and kill them and bring them under slavery. This happens in the Middle East. It's a campaign composed of a series of battles in a specific geographical location - the Valley of Megiddo. It is fought in a chronological succession, simultaneous location. It is described in Zechariah 12:2-11 as the final battle of the Tribulation. Matthew 24:21, “For there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall there be again. And unless these days had been cut short, no life would have been delivered; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.” In the Old Testament it is called Daniel’s seventieth week (Daniel 9:20-27). That's where God told Daniel that the Jews would have seventy more weeks. Each day of the week represented one year, so there were 490 years left in their history. Daniel 9:24 says it will be a time for “making atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to anoint the most holy” which is the presentation of Jesus Christ as the God of Israel. That ended in the sixty-ninth week when they crucified Him. The seventieth week is the seven year period of the Tribulation. The book of Revelation fills in the details of the Tribulation that were not given to Daniel. But any attempt to correlate Biblical passages with contemporary events always leads to confusion when the dispensation aspect of God's plan gets ignored. The Tribulation cannot occur until the resurrection of the Church occurs. Our Lord Jesus Christ will come back. He will defeat His enemies at the battle of Armageddon and establish His millennial kingdom where He will rule and reign for 1000 years. Revelation 19:11-21, “And I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True; and in righteousness He judges and wages war. And His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. And He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood; and His name is called the Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine white linen, were following Him on white horses. [hello, that's us] And from His mouth comes a sharp sword, that with it He may strike down the nations; and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, ‘KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.’ And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in midheaven, ‘Come, assemble for the great supper of God; so that you may eat the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on the earth and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, small and great.’ And I saw the beast and the king of the earth and their armies, assembled to make war against Christ who sat on the horse, and against His army. And the beast and the false prophet were defeated and seized [this is where they are put into the bottomless pit] and with him the false prophet who performed
  6. the signs in his presence, which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast [666] and they were thrown alive into the lake of fire and brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh.” That's the Lord Jesus Christ at the battle of Armageddon. So we’ve locked up the beast and the false prophet, and then we have to take Satan. Revelation 20:1-3, “I saw an angel come down from heaven, holding the key to the abyss and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the abyss, and shut it up and sealed it over him, so that he could not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were complete; after these things he must be released for short time.” Once he is released there will be one more final battle. Revelation 20:7-10, “When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, and he will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore. They came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the city, and the devil who deceived them was then thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet were already there; and they will be tormented day and night forever.” So when he gets out, all of these people who have not known satanic temptation, that were born during this thousand year period, many of them will buy into this war and again turn on the Lord Jesus Christ - even though He sits on his throne. This is the power of the devil to convince people that he alone is god. Satan is a great liar, he’s a great convincer. This will happen. After this occurs, we have the Great White Throne of judgment. This is where the unbelievers are judged. Revelation 20:11-15, “I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence the earth and heaven fled away. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from things which were written in the books, according to their production. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. And then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown in the lake of fire.” Once that is over, this planet is done. Revelation 21:1-3, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men.” Jesus Christ’s final words, Revelation 22:20, “‘I’m coming quickly.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” That's the third stage and it's coming soon. I hope you listened. You may have a lot of questions. I gave you a lot of information. Don’t hesitate to write if you need me to answer them. Until next week, this is your host Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to the FLOT Line.
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