God’s Guarantee In Question? - Comments (0)

Category: Applied, Articles, Doctrine
Author: John Malone
Date: 9th April, 2009 @ 10:21:18 PM

Man has been so unfaithful to the covenant God made with him after the Deluge of Noah’s day that he no longer believes God will keep His end of the deal.

I’ve written here before about the Noahic Covenant God made with man after the great Deluge 1656 years after Adam.

That covenant provided assurance to man that God would not curse the ground as he had done under Adam, and neither would He ever again destroy every living as He did in the deluge.

Since that time, but especially in the last many years, all of mankind has failed to live up to its end of this covenant, which is, briefly comprehended : (1) eat meat, but not blood (don’t be or become a vegetarian) ; (2) execute murderers (capital punishment) ; and, (3) be fruitful and multiply (have plenty of children).

These provisions are not burdensome, and they are not optional.

The first is a change of diet. This no doubt altered the culture of man to a great extent. Because the Deluge was God’s judgment for man deeply involving himself with demon spirits, resulting in the corruption of the genetic code of the race, we suspect that the alteration of diet from herbs and grains to also include meat is significant on a number of levels.

For instance, it certainly reminds man that blood must be shed to give him life, and that is a reminder of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus, Who is our life. Again, it likely has a relationship to the forbidden communion with demons that marked the era prior to the deluge. It is not mere coincident that vegetarianism – the forbidding of meat – travels as a companion with the demon religions of the east. Both Hinduism, which explicitly teaches the divinity of man , and Buddhism are obvious examples. These religions mark a departure from the covenant with Noah, and the rest of us, by God.

An addition to this alteration of diet was the forbidding of “bloods.”

The second is capital punishment. This provision forms the basis for human government, because “by man” was the murderers sentence to be carried out. Men needed to organize themselves civilly in order to carry out this sentence. This provision was an alteration from the time prior to the flood. In that era (dispensation), God marked Cain and forbade his execution. Nonetheless, violence filled the earth. Therefore, the change was needed in order for God to carry out his pledge.

The third final provision of this covenant was a carry-over from the previous dispensation, and that is a command to be fruitful, and multiply: to fill the earth.

Now man is obliged to hold and advance these three principles. It’s not a huge agenda. Nevertheless, we are seeing a constant and driven tendency to dismiss them all.

First, vegetarianism and dietary restrictions on meat-eating is a growing phenomenon. I have little doubt that this tendency is producing more and more illegal communion with demon spirits, even those who so commune may not realize it. When I was a college student, listening far, far too intently to my professors, I discovered late in my college years that I was accumulating, unthinkingly, a stash of demon-inspired literature, including the works of Gurdjieff, P.D. Ouspensky, and more contemporary successors, who likewise repackaged teachings of the demon-inspired, such as Madame Blavatsky and others.

For more than 25 years now, when I meet a vegetarian convert, I elucidate from them their views on capital punishment, abortion, and marriage. It’s nearly unanimous to them that abortion is up to the woman, that capital punishment should be outlawed, and that there is an over-population problem on earth. Even they become surprised when I can predict their views.

Why is this? Demon-inspired teaching. They don’t even realize it themselves, because to a one, they are ignorant of the Scriptures.

Second, capital punishment for first-degree murder has been under siege for a very long time. In the early 70’s the US Supreme Court banned it. Today, there are perhaps only 25% of nations that practice capital punishment for murder. Even then, many of these have laws on the books, but the practice is so infrequent as to be non-existent. There is no country in Europe that will execute a murderer.

In so doing, these states relinquish the God-given basis for their existence, and will reap accordingly. In our day we are seeing states come into existence and terminate at such a rapid pace that we cannot even track them. This entire scenario is due in a large part to ignoring the simple basis God has laid down for man’s self-rule.

People argue the value of execution to reduce murder, it’s effect on violent crime and so forth. But the base reason for the commandment to all nations from God is that man is in the image of God. So far gone are the western nations that once held the Bible as the standard of truth that to even discuss this premise is seen by them as folly.

Third, we have the hostility of modern man to everything related to being fruitful and multiplying, thus filling the earth. This hostility is shown in many ways: populations control, support and advancement of abortion, and the destruction of marriage.

The evidence is overwhelming that man has been hostile to the arrangements God made after the Deluge. God signified His side of the bargain by putting a rainbow in the sky, which rainbow can be seen from time to time throughout the world. In addition to the symbol of His promise to not destroy all life as He once did, God also promised the permanence of the seasons.

So unfaithful has man been to his side of these arrangements that now, he suspects God to be unfaithful to his own. ”Professing to be wise,” man has become a complete fool, turning to serve the creation instead of the Creator, and running headlong into male and female homosexuality. It is as if man attributes his own unfaithfulness to God, and no longer trusts Him to superintend His own creation. It is so outrageous now, that the chief science adviser to the President of the United States announces that man must discharge metals into the atmosphere to ward off the destruction of the cycle of regular seasons!

Running headlong into national apostasy, the formerly Christianized Western world says to the Lord Jesus Christ, in effect, ”We will not have this man to rule over us.”

Indeed, the fear of God is no longer upon the hearts of these nations, including our own. They rush to destruction. They fail to heed the long-standing counsel of God.

One might well ask if there is any hope. Well, that depends upon where you have placed your hope. If you have placed your hope in this world, you have trusted a shaking reed that will only pierce through your hand. Fear and trembling will come upon you like the labor pains of a delivering mother. On the other hand, if you have placed you hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God Who loved you while you were yet his enemy, and Who died for you, then look up, and be of good cheer, for you redemption draws near: the resurrection of your mortal body.

For the Lord Jesus will one day have his enemies in derision. He will break them into many pieces like a clay pot with a rod of iron that issues from his hand. Those broken clay vessels will be pieced together like Bizarro characters while those who have received Him and trusted Him will reign with him, gloriously fashioned like He is, in His glorious, resurrected body.

If Jesus Christ is not risen, we are of all men most foolish, having discarded the hopes of this present evil age, which exalts God’s enemies. But Jesus Christ IS risen out from the dead, declared by God in power to be the Son of God. This gives an otherwise disquieted heart the kind of peace which passes all understanding.

The Art of Intransigence. - Comments (0)

Category: Applied, Articles, Behind the Lines, Venture in Africa
Author: John Malone
Date: 9th April, 2008 @ 06:34:25 AM

Watching events in Kenya develop and transpire by way of reading news reports may be convenient and interesting, but it’s not fun, nor does it present an accurate picture. One must read far more between the lines of print than in them.

For instance, today I read of an account where US Ambassador Michael Rannerger met with George Saitoti at the Serena Hotel, and that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice made phjone calls to President Kibail and Raila Odinga, I had to laugh just a little to myself. US officials are once again on the end of the artful dodge of Kenyan politicians, who have known for years that time is always on their side, and that outwardly formal and polite intransigence will always pay handsome rewards.
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Christians and Temporal Government. - Comments (3)

Category: Applied, Articles, Doctrine
Author: John Malone
Date: 12th January, 2008 @ 04:30:20 AM

I received Christ, and therefore eternal life, in 1975. When 1976 rolled around, Jimmy Carter was running for President, it was the Bi-Centennial, and the Cincinnati Reds were the “Big Red Machine.”

Carter more or less shocked the country with his declaration that he was a “Born Again Christian.”

My little world got rocked at that time because I was President of the student body of the university I attended. The campus newspaper decided I was news because I was being baptized as an adult.

At that very time, the Lord called me away from the life of a politician, despite having a warm invitation to pursue that career by the Governor of Nebraska. Ever since that time, I have been somewhat of a student of the correct relationship a Christian – including a Christian preacher – should maintain with respect to temporal government.

The Leaven of Herod.

The first problem with temporal government for the believer is the “leaven of Herod,” about which the Lord warned. While it is not the only leaven – there are two others: of the Pharisees, and of the Sadducees – it is a peculiar one, for it is a teaching that improperly weds the believer to the world system.

These three leavens have “leavened the whole lump,” just as foretold in the the parable.

The directive that we are to be in the world, but not of the world, is difficult to navigate, but by grace through faith , the Spirit of God will lead us through.

The leaven of Herod is the teaching that we need to be part of the world’s political system in order to be faithful before God. It teaches that God wants his people to occupy important positions of leadership in the world system. It teaches that it is the agenda of God’s people to ” make the world a better place.” It teaches that the greatest good for the greatest number is the guiding principle of Scripture.

The Lord warned us to beware of this leaven, but we also know that it has successfully leavened the whole lump. It is now a matter of personal governance to be faithful in the matter of avoiding this leaven.

God Provides Human Government.

Because we are in an age, designed by God, wherein he tolerates much evil-doing in order to, in his mercy, allow the proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ to reach his enemies, many overlook God’s superintendence not only of His creation, but of the affairs of men.

Rest assured that God will do all that is necessary in this present age to hold up the dispensational framework necessary to afford that proclamation. Part of that framework involves the “ powers that be” – human governments – which are ordained of God in order to secure God’s purpose. Nothing escapes His planning and arrangement.

On occasion, this is a very difficult concept to accept and hold. We know from Scripture “the whole world system” lies in the hands of the evil one. But holding the thought of God’s superintendence of the age, His planning of the ages, and the consideration that these ages are framed by the Word of God , with the expressed purpose of revealing the Lord Jesus Christ to an unbelieving world – finally visibly – and at the same time understanding the heavenly conflict against that disclosure, is required for Christians to be effective witnesses and soldiers in that conflict.

Seung Hui Cho, Video Games, Sorcery, & Babylon. - Comments (0)

Category: Applied, Articles
Author: John Malone
Date: 21st April, 2007 @ 05:00:30 PM

Suddenly, our mind-share is diverted to the grizzly and gory meditation of a non-virtual, first-person shooter named Cho Sueng Hui, in a life-is-just-like-animation scenario.

Cho demonstrated a many features of demented – let’s call it depraved – human nature. Extreme violence, “religious preoccupations,” a Messiah complex, obsession, schizophrenia, mania, withdrawal, flat affect.
This guy exhibited, apparently, all sorts of behavior that we have come to categorize as pathology with various labels.

There was a certain knowable – even predictable – psychology about this fellow, and that knowledge on the part of others will no doubt be the stuff of lawsuits in and around Blacksburg Virginia for some years to come.

I actually don’t have much to say to add to this discussion, and I won’t boor you with regurgitations of the obvious, or for matters not directly observable by me.

However, there are three matters about this fellow that disturb me that I haven’t read or heard much about.
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Apostasy: Capital Punishment in Nebraska. - Comments (2)

Category: Applied, Articles
Author: John Malone
Date: 5th April, 2007 @ 06:07:32 AM

Here’s a chronicle of a local instance of apostasy, and an observation of the mystery of inquity working.

Here in Nebraska, we have another death penalty controversy going on, fronted by newly appointed chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Brad Ashford, who has taken over for Ernie Chambers in that capacity.

Chambers has attempted to end the death penalty in Nebraska every year he has served in the legislature. That is now well above 30 years.
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Lent. No Thanks. - Comments (17)

Category: Applied, Articles, Roman Catholicism
Author: John Malone
Date: 24th March, 2007 @ 05:56:29 AM

One of the practices I left behind when I received Christ as Savior 32 years ago was the keeping of the “Lenten season.”

The wholesale adoption of this Roman Catholic version of ancient pagan practice by what was once Protestantism is indicative of the departure that marks our day.

Now let me be clear here: I have no qualm with anyone’s religious practice, within civil bounds. If someone wants to re-enact the weeping for Tammuz, or some other pagan practice, I consider them free to do so.

My issue with “Lent” is the Christianizing of it: the attempt by ignorant or dishonest men to sell the practice to the unsuspecting as if it had to do with faith in Jesus Christ.
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James Cameron And A Tale of Two Ships. - Comments (0)

Category: Applied, Articles
Author: John Malone
Date: 27th February, 2007 @ 07:28:20 PM

It is ascribed that circus magnate PT Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Barnum was an entertainer, and counted on suckers to pay for his shows.

Some else might have said, “Hucksters are a dime a dozen,” but usually they cost more than that.

If Barnum was right, popular huckster James Cameron – whose claim to fame is the titanic blockbuster film “The Titanic” (although it is now 10 years old) – only needs four years of sucker births to claim his new “documentary” to be a success. Cameron “claims” that he has found someone who has found the tomb of Jesus Christ, and that he did not rise from the dead after all.
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