Hearing God Was This Man’s Multimillion Dollar Secret

Lance: Welcome, welcome to the Lance Wall Now Show. Going from Coast to Coast. I am the host with the most words on an opening. Anyway, we got my effervescent Mercedes Sparks here anchoring on the left and a special guest today. Ken Eldred, who’s going to be speaking to us about a very important subject. Now, the subject that I want to focus in on right now is with all of the anxiety and the market confusion and the chaos that is now brewing globally. With what looks to me like God is shaking everything that can’t be shaken. Where have we ever heard that in the Bible before? Economic systems, government systems. Is there a plan that the Lord has and I believe that this book provides a rock of stability so that no matter what vicissitude of time you’re going through? 

We got America right now, but listen, this book has been the bedrock of the faith of Christians for 2000 years and God knows how to see his people through any time of shaking if you’re established in these principles, in these words. We’re working on a special series right now with wealth creators and these are the people that understand mastery on the business mountain.Because I believe that Christians have a unique perspective of how to balance the affairs of this life with the agenda of heaven and come out on top. What we discovered in our research is that God has a plan to take people from pa to sufficiency where you are not dependent on others. It’s part of God‘s biblical plan that you should be able to prosper and have the ability to participate in any good work. And we’ll talk about that in our series but the sufficiency gets you by. Prosperity gives you something over something more that you can begin to invest and sow because your needs are met.

Now, you have something extra and then there’s something even beyond that. You could prosper to the point where you become a pipeline. The ministry of finance and that’s when God gives you such a stewardship of resources that you’re able to fund kingdom enterprises. And to a great extent, that’s the secret sauce for how the kingdom advances, is stewarding the increase in a way that advances the kingdom of God. That’s the reason why Ken Eldred is one of my particularly favorite people to talk to on the subject. Because sometimes can you meet a real sophisticated people and they make it sound so complicated that it’s almost like you have an MBA, but you never you never bewilder me when we talk about what’s going on. You bring it down to left foot,right foot that any Christian could put into implementation. That’s what a true teacher is.

They take the complex and they reduce it down to like a rabbi. This is how you do it and you’ve done it. You’ve gone through all three phases. You’ve gone from, hey, where am I going to get the money from to having the money to be faithful with the little and then watch God give you increase. I wanted our audience and Mercedes also wanted to hear your story because really, it’s a supernatural journey. Most Christians either they’re over supernatural and they don’t do the practical or they become so jaded and cynical about faith and about God that they actually the business actually can destroy them, because they don’t know how to handle the pressure a bit. It pulls them out of God. They could even have increase and wealth can pull them away from God.

So, it’s not just that poverty is a temptation. Money obviously. Wealth can be a temptation. So,let’s talk for a second about your journey and I asked you earlier a question which I’m curious about. We got tons of things I want to learn. One of them is there was a moment when you went from not having to having and I’m wondering what decisions did you make to position yourself with God to move from the place of barely getting by to having more than enough. Because there was an internal decision that you had to make at some point. What was your experience and how did you know business in the Business Mountain was your calling?

Ken: Well, I actually did not know until I got to business school that I was actually interested in business. I didn’t think I was. But when I finished business school at Stanford, I was so excited about what could possibly take place and I saw myself as very successful a manager of a $20-million-dollar division. That would be the career. That would be my goal. And yet I wasn’t walking with the Lord. I mean this was a period of hedonism and living that was not before Godat all. We went through a tough time made of this. We ended up having 7 of the top 10 stressors hit us all at once, got married, ended up with an instant family, bought a house. My job changed;my father died. I mean it just these all of them hit at once. And I just found myself saying, what’s life about? And that’s what started me on the trip.

You mentioned at the top of the bird craft and I don’t want to get in a rabbit hole here. but you mentioned that times are shaky. Things are difficult and people will say, well, Ken, you were in a better time, a different time, and I want to point out a couple things. Number one, more of the major corporations were started in the 30s during the Great Depression than any other time. And then number two, when we started our company, the period was economic downturn. Things were really difficult. Jobs were not available. Things were tough. I didn’t even have a job with the time and I was living off what little income I had that had been able to save and what had been given to me because of my father’s passing. But I was trying to decide, what’s important in life and I was struggling with God.

I had decided, I really needed some relationship with him, but I didn’t know what I would and I wanted on my terms. Because I said Lord, I want to be in business and I mean here I am struggling with the God I don’t think I know or I believe in and he’s saying to me. So, if I put you in a hut somewhere and have you preaching the gospel and in poverty, what’s that to you? So,what, what does that mean about? How you treat me and the decision? He said, ‘I want you to make a decision regardless what I decide to do with you.

Lance: Wow.

Ken: And I thought okay I guess I really can’t continue. I giveup, I need you. Whatever you want me to do, but I thought I’d seen a verse in Psalms that said, “trust in the lord who give you the desires of your heart.” So, I said to him specifically, Lord, you’re going to have to change the desires of my heart. I didn’t want to be a pastor. It’s not what it was and by the way, a couple of years later, somebody asked me to come and preach in this church. I was so excited. I couldn’t believe that. Like what a gift, right? So, God is amazing. So, months kind of went by I was looking for a business opportunity. My partner and I, a friend who’d had tried to buy a company and the effort had had failed. We sort of sat there licking our wounds afterwards and he said,well, I’ve got a bunch of ideas. I mean half a dozen ideas of companies we could start.

I told him, no, I don’t think I want to start something. I think I want to buy something if I can, that would be a better arrangement and see if we can’t build it. So, he said, well, let me just tell you. I mean what do you got, what else you got to do today? I said, nothing. He said, fine I don’t have anything I’m doing today either, so let’s go over this list. He started working through the list and he’s about halfway through when I heard a voice say, that’s it. That’s it? And I kind of looked around the room and thought who was talking. I couldn’t even tell where the voice came from and then I realized that he hadn’t heard it. He’s still talking. It didn’t interrupt him. I didn’t and even he didn’t even notice I wasn’t even watching, listening. I mean, I’m trying to figure out what’s going on. Finally, it struck me. That’s the Lord. The lord’s talking to me. So, I stopped and I said, Jim, stop there. Back up. Back up. Back up. We’re going to do that one.

Lance: So, he’s going down the list and he goes back and back and back until.

Ken: Until he gets to the one that I heard that got it, and we get to that one and we spend and I said, we’re going to do that. 3 months of conversation stretching pulling, working on the idea with a $5,000 or so grocery bag of connector parts, we built a $400 million dollar business.

Lance: A grocery bag of connector parts and $5,000 and that’s it, put you in a $400 million dollar enterprise.

Ken: Yes, I mean it took us I mean for a period of time we were the fastest growing company in this small growth, small company market.

Lance: Wow.

Ken: Inc magazine listed us as number one. And we were very excited about all that but in the process of all this, God was showing me some things. I mean, he was busy talking to me. We went on a retreat and on that particular retreat, we had somebody there who was from the life insurance company, Presbyterian Life Insurance Company. And at the top of his letter head, it said, first Timothy 58, “Those of you who have failed to take care of your families, you’re worse than the heathen”. I thought that’s interesting. It sounds like God has a priority in your life. So, I wonder what his priorities are and so I went home with that weekend saying I’m going to figure out what my priorities are. And as I sat there going through the Bible, I stumbled into Matthew 6:33 and said that seek you first the kingdom of God and all his righteousness and all these things.

The word all these things, will be added unto you. I thought that means he’s first I’ve got to build him first and then the family first Timothy 5:8, the family is two parts. It’s spouse whom you are one with your spouse male or female. If you’re female your spouse a male you’re one and then comes your children. So, that’s now I’ve got three, I’ve got. Number one is God. Number two is my spouse. Number three my children. And then said I really felt like the Lord was saying your job is fourth. And the church is 5th. I thought that’s weird. I mean that’s really strange. But okay,so I sat down like good MBA. Sat down and said what does it take to make God first? How many hours is that a week?

So, I put down hours. I said, it’s going to take about two hours a day for me to spend with God to know that I’m building a relationship with him in study and prayer. So, how much time does my wife need, how much time do my kids need? I added these things up the way I saw them. I need 8 hours of sleep at night. I mean I’m just the way, I mean there are people who can stay up all night and do all kinds of things I can’t. A friend of my wife said one day, do you do you ever wake up grumpy, and she said, no, I let him sleep. So, I set these things up, I put 8 hours of sleep in there and I looked at what was left and it turned out I had 40 hours a week. So, I said Lord,and this is the part that I didn’t understand but I said it. So, Lord you’re going to have to run the business while I’m gone because I can only be here 40 hours a week. And this is a startup and we don’t have any money and I’ve got to do all the work, everything.

So, Lord just going to have to be there, and sure enough we built this company on 40 hours a week and people say, well, we know what you did. You told your employees you guys are working like dogs because I’m not going to be doing the work.

Lance: Right, they work 80 because you work 40.

Ken: They work 80. But no, I told them same thing, I expected them to because if people get to work and they end up at work 60, 70, 80 hours a week and people’s situations are different. But if you’re married, you got kids, you’re trying to build your relation with God, you really need to get these things in order. And the problem is that if after 3 years, when you’re really good at what you do, you get divorced because your wife said, you never, there’s no time. You’ve given me no time at all, I’m leaving, and the kids don’t even know who you are. The next three years, you’re worthless. I mean, at the moment that you’re most valuable to the corporation, you’re no good.

Lance: Wow.

Ken: So, don’t ever do that to yourself. Try to build to life which has some understanding of it.

Lance: So, just to make sure I’m clear on this. So, I want the audience to catch this. You’ve built successful companies you’ve taken them to market, you’ve taken you had on the stock exchange right. And you got stories on that too.

Ken: Oh, yeah.

Lance: Where your principles could get tested but you chose to keep your priorities, right. I’d love to hear that story. But I want the audience to catch this. In the course of your life, you’ve noticed that seeking first the kingdom of God and putting God first, making the priority out of your spouse and your children. Then being responsible to be excellent in your job and also participate in a church community, some sort of fellowship community. That it’s possible to do all of that in America and do it with some degree of with balance and get it done. You don’t have to sacrifice one on the altar of the other. That’s what you’re saying.

Ken: That’s right.

Lance: And you’ve proven that in your own life and it’s in the real front lines test of life.

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Lance: Mercedes, what what’s coming up for you while Ken’s talking?

Mercedes: Yeah, I may have a lot of different thoughts. The first I think is I just admire Ken your ability to maintain your character throughout all of this success and then to hear your intentionality of, I thought I need to make sure God‘s first. If God‘s first, then, all these things will be added. And so sometimes I even see in the kingdom you can have a very clear call from God and be integrity towards that but then lack the character and the same commitment to investing in obedience in that realm. Like obedience to the call but then obedience to character as well. And so, I really like what you just outlined because even for me I’m thinking, like man I shouldn’t I need to do the same thing. Like I mean how many hours a day does it take for me to put the Lord first? I’m like why is it, sometimes I feel it’s like whatever’s left over gets given to God. It’s like well when I’m in the car, I’m going to listen to the Bible. It’s like well why?

And it doesn’t even necessarily mean because I’m a late-night person. But I’m not an early riser but I could take time during the evening and say this hour and from here to here, this is God‘s time. And this is investing in that relationship with him with that level of intentionality. I thought was remarkable. I had some other thoughts too as you were Talking and I wrote them down here on my phone. But one thing I want to also talk about is Lance you’d mention this one time that if the devil can’t trip you up in terms of what your role is in the earth and your calling, then he’ll promote you out of it. So, that’s another thing about staying integrous towards the Lord because as you get promoted sometimes you get distracted even within promotion. So anyways, just throw a little message.

Lance: So that would be the test of not perseverance to get you got to go. But have you ever had to make a principal decision to say no to an opportunity to making money or to a business or something where the opportunities there, but it conflicted with one of your priorities or principles?

Ken: Yes, actually and that did after I sold the company it was in between business activities. I’d helped a company, build a company in China and because of the work that I had done and itslong story I’m related to where I’m going. So, as a result of that, I got known and I was invited to a meeting with a couple of my friends to look at a business opportunity. It was one of the top leaders of China and he said, I tell you what, we’ll do. We want you and your team to build an exchange, a rare metal exchange. He said, I have control over all medals in China. Everything, everything. I want to build an exchange. He said, you guys own 90% of it and I own 10%. But the day that I’m out of office, I want this letter in place that says, I get to buy the company from you for a dollar and you get 10% and I take 90%. It was simply a diddle. Which most of the leaders of communist China are in the middle of. And it was just wrong. I mean it wasn’t, I mean he had no intention. I mean he wanted us to build it for him which we could do. But it’s really a to get around being caught, taking money from the from the communist Chinese government.

Lance: Right.

Ken: And it’s just wrong, and we walked away from it.

Lance: Because you felt it was an unethical deal he was doing.

Ken: It’s completely unethical.

Lance: Even though it would’ve worked for you.

Ken: Oh, it would have been big for us. Huge. I mean this would have gone for probably 10 years. And the middle’s market in China would be billions and billions of dollars and you take off a piece of that every.

Lance: You see why God doesn’t give you those opportunities Mercedes? You understand how come?

Ken: When he came over, he gave us silver ducats, Ingots as a gift.

Lance: Right.

Ken: To open the door.

Lance: I mean. Well, the transition from I get I say I want to point it for the audience here. The transition from starting off like well, Lord, what will you do for me if I give my life to you and then the lord said, hey, this isn’t a barter and exchange item here. You’re going to give your life to me and I’ll determine what I do with you. Okay. Whatever you want to do and he’s fine. Then the Lord gives you the business basically the invitation into business and while you’re there you learn sufficiency. You go from sufficiency to hearing God‘s voice and then there’s increase. Now when did you go from, when did you start stewarding your blessing and realize that the prosperity you had wasn’t for your own consumption for multiple yachts and houses and all that stuff. Which is fine, people could do that. But you’ve chose to steward that increase. What was the pivot point for you where you were prospering and starting to be blessed but God began to deal with you about what to do with your increase?

Ken: Well, to begin with, we didn’t have a lot of income in a period of time but we did have some. The message came to me that part of worship is your tithe, your giving, and you’re really worshiping God part of what you need to be doing is giving to God. That’s what belongs to him,because he’s given us everything to begin with. So, we were, it was September, sorry it was November 30. We started this company, we official start date. It was at the same time that we put $5,000 into this organization and the grocery bag connector parts. We’re going to try to figure out how to make it financially somehow. When I heard that the church had, because they it was a very difficult time financially and the church was not receiving all the funds that they needed.They announced that they there was not going to be a pastor’s bonus that year. I thought that’s just, I mean so no Christmas gifts for the kids, no sort of joy over Christmas of things that wouldbe meaningful to the kids. I thought, that’s just terrible, that’s and I can do something about that.

Roberta and I decided we were going to give them the money that would make up that bonus privately and which we did. Because we thought, well, I mean I don’t have any money anyway so whatever I give away is it’s not like something. But God really honored that. He said, that’s what I’m looking for. He continues to as things build there was a time when the company went public, this company and it was worth millions and millions of dollars. I was out running one morning, because we’re doing exercise because I needed to exercise.

I said, Lord, this money is screaming at me. You’ve got to do something. Help me because I’m going to drown and I just feel like it’s drowning me. It’s mastering me. I’m not mastering it and sure enough he did. The stock dropped dramatically for a period of time. But he helped me through that and as we walked through that and that the company did fine, it was great, it was well paid. But the point was that he helped me overcome this concern of being overwhelmed by it. It happened again years later where went through a difficult financial time and trusting that the lord was going to take care of me. It was a great message Roberta got from me when I was going through a very very difficult time. And the word that the lord gave her was that, I know Ken’s heart, he has inquired of me and I will fill in the voids.

Lance: Wow.

Ken: And I thought, wow, that’s exciting. To me that was meaningful and it was meaningful because I knew now that God loved me wasn’t about money. It’s about his love for me. So,everything turned around. And it was at that point I said, it’s all his anyway. And we began a new company and that was the one that was the most successful of all of them that we built.

Lance: I want to just ask a question. We only have two minutes here but I’ve met with Peter Sadoski and different guys. He’s a billionaire Indonesia business guy. And I met his wife and his wife had a prayer group would intercede for him and she had now she’d admit this no business.She wasn’t an MBA, but her background wasn’t business at all. But her prayer partnership and agreement with him for his business he believed was what kept him from bankruptcy and bad decisions because his wife would pray with him pray for him and she’d hear from God. I’m just curious about that, is that also the case with you and Roberta, she is much a partner and she is the ministry of finance as you are?

Ken: Absolutely my prayer partner. She doesn’t understand. She says, if there’s more than two zeroes, don’t let me write the check because I don’t know what the numbers mean. But doesn’t matter. I mean she prays for me. It used to be that I’d come home after a hard day. She’d polish my sword. Take the dents out of my helmet and send me back to work the next month.

Lance: Send you back out there. Go get them Tiger.

Ken: And she’d be praying about all those things. In fact, I’ve got some great stories about how the prayer time she gave us had a huge impact on me and on the company.

Lance: So, she’d hear from God and relate to you what she’s hearing and that helped it to so the Lord put together as a team Mercedes?

Mercedes: Yeah, I just wanted to comment on, what I love about your story Ken is that, it’s an example of the gifts of the spirit operating outside of the church for the advancement of God‘s kingdom within the mountain of business. And that the reality that those gifts are in operation in all 7-Mountains there to push towards your calling. So, I love stories like that especially in the business realm where it’s a word of knowledge. It was literally a word of knowledge that put you into that most successful company that you had. I mean, it’s astounding to think that God is doing things like that and that provision is not always a check in the mail. Provision is not always, oh, here’s money in your hand. Provision is an idea. It’s a strategy that God will drop those things into your heart and your mind. It’s fascinating to me.

Lance: Well, so have questions for Ken that have to do with this whole field of his journey in business and this principle centered kind of supernatural business life that’s working. And he’s at the level of the ministry of finance, which is that third level where you’re a pipeline and you’re determining how to invest in what to do with what God has given you. Ask me those questions and that’ll set us up for our next interview where people are listening and they’ve got questions. We’ll have a segment there where they can ask. Why are you laughing?

Mercedes: No, because now it sounds like Ken’s going to get a bunch of emails from people that want Ken to invest in their company.

Lance: Oh yeah, obviously we’ll send those to Mercedes. She’ll vet those and then Ken’s not going to see those. But the questions that we can answer during a podcast. Because I think knowledge is the main thing. My people perish for lack of knowledge. And that knowledge is critical. If you were giving advice to and you said to me very encouraging that during the 1930s businesses started during recession periods and challenges in the past when your company actually came along with an innovative solution. so, you actually have a helmet of hope on. You aren’t pessimistic even during these times about how people can make it. You see that there’s a way that God‘s people can come through these trying times financially?

Ken: Oh absolutely. I mean we trust in God. It’s not about, did I get last month’s paycheck but is God going to take care of me. And he said, I mean, if he said it to me, he’s going to say it to you. You know what I mean? He didn’t love me anymore and he loves you. It’s a matter of listening and hearing and receiving and rejoicing in his care for us. Kind of somebody said, can’t wait to see what he’s going to do in these hard times to solve my problem. It’s going to happen and we just need to rejoice in those things.

Lance: Alright. Well, I’m going to I’ll stop this right here and we’re going to be coming back again with another interview and with more material. Because I really believe that from sufficiency to prosperity, from prosperity to the ministry of finance, God is releasing as you heard today, wealth comes in the form of many things. It could come in the form of assets, but it can also come in the form of access where you’re able to access the mind of Christ, the voice of the Lord, the ideas that God gives you and that produces the ability to create wealth. It’s interesting in Deuteronomy, the promises that the people of God would be able to create wealth. It wasn’t how to take wealth like government does. It’s how to create and the essence of what makes America great is its entrepreneurial genius for creating things and only an environment such as the gospel creates over nations, I believe, can create a place where people are free to innovate and create.

Think about how the world has experienced the innovation from one country, a fairly young country with a couple hundred years. From Carnegie with Steel to Ford to Edison to right down to the processor microprocessor in modern computers and technology. The United States isn’t blessed with this level of innovation, because of what’s in our diet. It’s because of what’s in the atmosphere. That when God is honored and God blesses, God gives the ability to create wealth.It’s a very genesis type of thing. I will land it right here and we’ll be back again on our next episode of the Lance Wallnau Show.

Closing: Thanks for listening to this Lance Wallnau broadcast. If you enjoyed today’s show, make sure to subscribe and share the episode. See you tomorrow.

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