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How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed ? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard ? and how shall they hear without a preacher ? – Romans 10:14

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For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. – Romans 1:16

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I Reconsider Warren Buffett - Comments (1)

Category: Articles
Author: John Malone
Date: 11th January, 2010 @ 09:21:49 AM

One thing my generations often overlooks, it seems, is what an incredibly optimistic time it was when we were being raised and coming to emancipation from our parents, “the greatest generation.”

We had Mickey Mantle. John Kennedy, the one who was the war hero. We had Cassius Clay who beat the Big Bear. Or did he? Yes, we had our Sonny Listons, the bad and sad men toward whom no one was really fair. As we grew, our sunny black and white world – composed of “Howdy Doody”, “Leave It to Beaver”, “Mickey Mouse,” and his club, Superman. Matt Dillon, Broderick Crawford (Highway Patrol) the best shot there ever was, Ben Casey, Fred MacMurray (My Three Sons) the bumbling-not-always-right-always-upright man – began taking on shades of gray, even before bursting upon us in full, living color.

And in all of that scene, we were very optimistic. Our dads were heroes who won the war. Now they were home and establishing their lives. Every man Jack of them, at least that is how I viewed it. People weren’t divorcing, just sometimes fighting. As children, we were on solid and definite tracks. The President said our country wanted us physically fit, and good at mathematics and science. I remember buying into that, as a child. I will become physically fit. I will work at mathematics and science. I will learn.

And I did. And so did a whole lot of us, but even when we struggled with one or both of those disciplines, we still all bought in.

In that formative period of mine, before the clouds rolled in, I formed the model and hope of a self-reliant man. I was quite certain they were out there, and could be modeled, and to become one was the best aspiration. They were portrayed on television, and written about in the literature, and talked about among people. It didn’t matter if he smoked a cigarette; it did matter if he was faithful to his wife. He found his own way in life, being himself. He was kind to men, but he answered to – was it himself? Yes, I think it was. He did believe in God. This self-reliant man, the model man, looked to God, but only sometimes. At least he was reverent.

I can say now, late in my life, that such an ambition stuck to me. Indeed, I bought in. I’m not sure it was a bad thing that I did. There is something deficient, I now think, in that buy-in, and most certainly in the optimism that it bought. But there is still something humanly noble in it. Perhaps just the degree of innocence of the buyer. Yes, that’s it.

So, if I may now just skip ahead from that background, and take you to my intellectually formative years – my middle and later post-secondary years – and to where I managed to get a first-rate university education despite the way I went about it. I continued on with a couple of my high school friends almost all the way through my university years. In retrospect, I think that was remarkable. My high school debate partner and I became bridge players together, and we honed our skills among university players. We became formidable in that arena, and we took our play to the local bridge club on occasion.

This is one place that I learned about Warren Buffett a bit, and I did actually play a couple of rounds against him, about which I have a very distinct memory. He also returned my phone call once after he took a financial interest in Newsweek magazine. That is all my personal contact, and I do not claim any special relationship with this great man, except that as he emerged in the financial world, right here in my home town, my economics training pretty much determined that I would more or less idolize the guy, as now everyone does, for his ability to use the capital placed in his trust.

Recall my optimism, and now throw in a pretty salty economics exposure, both philisophical and technical, with a leaning toward the growth and development of nations, and then put Warren Buffett on the screen, and I think you have perhaps your very best candidate for the self-reliant man. At least in my view. He doesn’t look anything like the Marlboro man, but his “body of work,” as the sports commentators now say, secures him a spot in the Hall of Fame.

So today, I hear the news that Warren Buffett is resorting to the public capital market for ten billion dollars some time soon. A placement of Berkshire shares.

This got me thinking, and reflecting on the fault of the viewpoint from my youth. The self-reliant man ideal is a complete myth. Indeed, if pursued with vigor, patience, endurance, and persistent hope, it certainly could be the greatest of all follies life has to offer.

Because the more one achieves, the more one really becomes MORE dependent on others, and not self-reliant whatsoever. Now remember, it’s just me who thought Buffett to be a model of self-reliance. I am very sure he makes no claim of it. In fact, he frequently speaks of his managers, and commends them often in public. He must rely on these men. They keep him from the morass of things that he likely could not handle.

And then there are his studied and often striking forays into the upper levels of the marketplace, where he buys only very big things. Lately, for instance, he bought lock, stock and barrel, America’s largest railroad, the Burlington Northern. THAT is a completely stunning purchase. Perhaps only Buffett had the cash-on-hand to take such a dramatic stroke.

So today he is in the capital market to gain liquidity by selling some shares. I don’t pretend to understand it all. I have no more facts. But I do wonder some about what it could be like to be in his shoes. He moves, no doubt, in a circle of extremely important contacts. We hear about Bill Gates. He talks about the Sultan of Brunei. I have seen a picture of him with the Terminator and Baron von Rothschild at the latter’s home, or one of them, anyway. I’m pretty sure he can get President Obama on the phone if he wants or needs to. He is able to chose anyone he wants to meet, I would suppose. People pay millions to have lunch with him.

There are some who have written into this forum that I am somehow bitter and or jealous of Warren Buffett. I must honestly say, I am neither. I have my own extremely interesting life, and I don’t want his. His life, as I see it, would seriously scare me. Not so much because of the large tasks he is called to do, but because he faces them either alone, or with staff, or with a necessary treaty among acquaintances that some might call conspiracy, all of which relationships are extremely fragile.

I cannot speak specifically to that social sphere, I have never seen it up close, even though I have had dinner with the President of the United States. Yes, with perhaps 30 others, but that is how you have dinner with the POTUS. In fact, I have been further from that circle than Chase Daniel, the Missouri quarterback who could finally beat Nebraska, but who unfortunately had a hard time beating some of the others.

But you can bet your last ten billion that the sphere in which Buffett moves to do what he does is frought with the same kind of dramatic anxieties that arise in our own lives. Now here’s why I would never consider trading places with him, and also why I think the best that I can about Warren Buffett, as the Lord has told me to do. I know what it’s like to trust the most trustworthy staff. I have very trustworthy staff myself. They do the best they can. So do I. That does not leave me with warm, and fuzzy feelings, but with a certain anxiety and suspicion that things might somewhere somehow be terribly wrong.

And then there is the relying on oneself. One’s judgement of others, of subject matter, even of one’s own self. It happens to the best of us much more than to the worst of us. Have I done the right thing? Am I doing the right thing? And what if I am not?

Here’s where I cannot imagine something being more miserable or tortuous in such times, as not having God to turn to, through the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. As simple as that may sound to an unbelieving and skeptical reader, I will tell you if that thought doesn’t grip you somehow as you read, I pray that it will in a time of serious self-reflection on your own part.

I would hate to have to need or want $10 billion just now, without the complete assurance that God was directing me, so that He was also on the hook to provide for me.

Actually that assurance and trust goes for a great, great many things in my life. I would it went for everything. I cannot fathom being in the place of any man, but this morning specifically Warren Buffett, without my very clear relationship to God, wherein I can’t completely rely on His dispensing of grace to me at every turn, thereby deriving the kind of peace that is impossible without my Saviour.

Because everywhere today there is treachery, and lawlessness, and even there is treason. In such a cold world, I wish Buffett all the best. Because some times, especially from a distance, one cannot distinguish the best of men, from the worst of men. And because, without God in this world, all these men are around you, and you dare neither ignore the best of them, nor trust the worst, because sudden calamity is always there to leap upon you.

There are no self-reliant men. For my money, I’ll take the life of relying on God Who is gracious. And I hope that somehow Buffett – even so late in life – does the same.

God’s Guarantee In Question? - Comments (2)

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|Gen 8:21-22} to man that God would not {curse the ground|Gen 3:17-19} 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)|Gen 9:3-4}; (2) execute murderers {(capital punishment)|Gen 9:6-7}; and, (3) {be fruitful and multiply|Gen 9:7} (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|Gen 3:4-5}, 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.”|Gen 9:4}

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|Gen 1:28} 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.|Gen 9:6} 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,”|Rom 1:22} 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.”|Psa 2:1-3}

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.|Psa 2:10-12}

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.

Biblical Meditation - Comments (0)

Category: Bible Briefs
Author: Jerod Santo
Date: 18th January, 2009 @ 07:25:53 AM

Psalm 1 describes {the blessed man|Psa 1:1-1:3} who meditates in God’s word day and night. Psalm 119 {gives that blessed man’s perspective |Psa 119:23;Psa 119:48;Psa 119:78;Psa 119:97;Psa 119:99;Psa 119:148} as he declares “I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.” Paul closed his first letter to Timothy by {exhorting him|1Ti 4:15-16} to meditate on the things Paul told him.

Today’s understanding of meditation is not at all what God would have for us. Hear more about Biblical meditation in this brief audio message:

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New Bible Help: Christian Giving - Comments (4)

Category: Administrivia
Author: Jerod Santo
Date: 7th October, 2008 @ 09:06:09 AM

In case you didn’t notice the addition to the ‘Bible Study Helps‘ section of the sidebar, there is a new document available which provides you principles for giving as laid out in the Bible and verse references to aide in your study of the topic.

You can click here to download the PDF or get it from the sidebar. Enjoy!

Kibaki Adds Insult to Injury. - Comments (1)

Category: Articles,Behind the Lines,Venture in Africa
Author: John Malone
Date: 23rd April, 2008 @ 03:47:02 PM

Today, President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya added an insult to our injury.

I found this is the April 24th, Nation Newspaper article entitled “Firms Urged to Start Varsities.”

The (Kenyan) government Wednesday said it is encouraging private firms and religious organisations to establish universities and other institutions of higher learning to curb capital flight.

This is being done in line with the government’s policy as provided for in Sessional Paper No. 1 of 2005 on Education, Training and Research, President Kibaki said Wednesday.

“This will go a long way to reduce capital flight and indeed fewer Kenyans are now seeking further education abroad,’’ said President Kibaki as he awarded a university charter to Strathmore.

Interestingly, Strathmore – now Strathmore University – was an approved center (along with 13 other institutions) by our joint venture with the JKUAT (the JKUAT-MMS Information Technology Training Centre), and under this aegis provided its ICT education utilizing our curriculum and program.

Our ten-year venture was founded in 1996 in order to train Kenyans at home, in part reversing the brain-drain in Kenya, at an affordable cost. Over 6,000 graduates went through the program, and now are responsible for virtually running all of IT in Kenya – especially IT education. Over 95% of our graduates were successfully placed in employment.

Shortly after Mwai Kibaki came to power, in June 2003, his chief campaign advisor and Mount Kenya chum Nick Wanjohi, freshly appointed JKUAT Vice-Chancellor, seized the venture – expropriating it – squandered the funds, and destroyed the program. Wanjohi seized the venture by use of campus police power.

One of the excuses I hear today is that Kibaki wasn’t ruling at the time, coming off years of drunkenness as well as a crippling automobile accident. Well, he’s ruling today – or is he? – and our venture is still expropriated, and we have not been compensated, despite assurances to the contrary by the Kenyan constitution.

US Ambassador (and Raila Odinga’s boy) Mike Ranneberger has helped to cover up this expropriation by terming it “a business dispute,” and castigating me personally for not turning to the same Kenyan courts he said were too corrupt for Raila Odinga to use. In the past, we have turned to the Kenyan legal system to rectify fraud and illegal conversion, but 14 years have passed, and Amos Wako and his fellows have not yet prosecuted the known culprits! Perhaps the file is lost …

So, to those organizations and institutions that are considering investing according to the recommendations of President Kibaki, just remember that if you succeed, some friend of the President may come along and simply take your investment with impunity, and you will be left with nothing.

If you are an American investor, the US State Department and Embassy will not only fail to stand behind you, but will do everything in its power to see to it that the fact of the expropriation will never see the light of day.

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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GES, Wilken Turn to Isogesis. - Comments (2)

Category: Articles
Author: John Malone
Date: 3rd April, 2008 @ 01:53:05 PM

Sometimes you can be correct in your conclusion, but completely wrong in how you get there. When it happens to a preacher or one writing about the Scriptures, this is symtomatic of isogesis as compared to exegesis.

Exogesis, the practice of precisely disclosing something, is a man of God with the Word of God is supposed to do. It is the art and craft of {being a workman, cutting straight the Word of God.|2Ti 2:15.} The Lord Jesus Christ {“exegeted God”|Jo 1:18} to us.

In short, isogesis is the practice of bringing a conclusion about a matter to the table, and then finding Scriptures to prove it. It’s dangerous. It’s a faulty approach. It disqualifies the practitioner from claiming God’s unction.
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