Deuteronomy 28


BLESSINGS FOR OBEDIENCE


 1 If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2 All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:


 3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.


 4 The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.


 5 Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.


 6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.


 7 The LORD will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.


 8 The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.


 9 The LORD will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways. 10 Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will fear you. 11 The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to your forefathers to give you.


 12 The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. 13 The LORD will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. 14 Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.


CURSES FOR DISOBEDIENCE


 15 However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:


 16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.


 17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.


 18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.


 19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.


 20 The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. [a] 21 The LORD will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. 22 The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. 23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. 24 The LORD will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.


 25 The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away. 27 The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. 29 At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.


 30 You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and ravish her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. 33 A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. 34 The sights you see will drive you mad. 35 The LORD will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.


 36 The LORD will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your fathers. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. 37 You will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the LORD will drive you.


 38 You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. 39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. 40 You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off. 41 You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity. 42 Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.


 43 The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. 44 He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail.


 45 All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed,
because you did not obey the LORD your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you. 46 They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever. 47 Because you did not serve the LORD your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, 48 therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.


 49 The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young. 51 They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined. 52 They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the LORD your God is giving you.


 53 Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you. 54 Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, 55 and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. 56 The most gentle and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter 57 the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For she intends to eat them secretly during the siege and in the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities.


 58 If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name—the LORD your God- 59 the LORD will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. 60 He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61 The LORD will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. 62 You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the LORD your God. 63 Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.


 64 Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. 66 You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. 67 In the morning you will say, "If only it were evening!" and in the evening, "If only it were morning!"-because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see. 68 The LORD will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


Mohammed was “a psychopath (with) Allah (as) nothing but his own alter ego,” according to Ali Sina, ex-Muslim, webmaster of FaithFreedom.org. Visit http://www.faithfreedom.org/index.htm .


Islam’s prophet Mohammed (various spellings are given to his name, some being “Muhammad”) was the David Koresh and Jim Jones of his time.


Mohammed’s Allah’s religious activism prescribed for his disciples? “Fighting is prescribed for you. . .it is good for you.” Koran 2:216.


That is the baseline of Islam: killing, fighting, slaying, murdering, slaughtering, leveling, conquering, overcoming for the bloodletting. The baseline includes Muslim slaying Muslim such as in “honor killing”—slitting the Muslim female’s throat if Muslim males conclude she has dishonored the clan.


Read the daily news to see the killing cult enveloping the globe. Millions upon millions are in this marching “Islam world rule” army. They threaten every democracy.


And who is Allah? Allah is Satan for he is the antipathy to the Bible’s loving God. When analyzing the Koran’s god, one discovers the devil as described in the Bible: “father of lies,” murderer, hater, insane, King of the Pit, Beelzebub, “that old snake,” the Book of Revelation’s “dragon,” overseer of the lake of fire and brimstone.


Mohammed was “a psychopath (with) Allah (as) nothing but his own alter ego,” according to Ali Sina.


“Muhammad invented this bugaboo deity to fool people and ride them. Allah is no god. Muhammad was a deranged man. He concocted this whole lie to fool people. He was no different from Charles Manson.


“Muhammad was a ruthless man and a false prophet. He made people hate each other. He divided them so he could conquer them. He separated sons from their fathers and daughters from their mothers and even encouraged them to kill their own fathers and brothers if they do not submit to his sick claim.


“Allah was only a convenient tool in the hand of a psychopath. It was this pathological narcissist who craved to be loved and respected.”


Mohammed robbed, massacred, raped, raided. He “assassinated poets for composing poetry that he did not find flattering. He tortured people whom he captured in his ambushes to make them reveal the whereabouts of their hidden treasures.”


All this in the name of a demonically imaginative deity named “Allah.”


And what did Allah promise his devotees for their surrender to his dictates? He promised forever orgies with fresh virgins for Muslim males. Also, young boys for those desiring such recreational sex, though Muslims on Earth execute homosexuals. Females are consigned to hell. All this was the workings of a debauched Mohammed mind proclaiming a “religion.”


“Unless you go forth, Allah will punish you with a grievous penalty.” Koran 9:39


Ali Sina explains: “These are the teachings of a demon who wants to create hate among us humans and destroy us. He is helpless and powerless but he can lie and he can deceive and he can use the fools to do his demonic work.”


Mohammed’s disciples brought him women for his own lustful appetites.


Mohammed beheaded men so he could have sex with their wives in the same night. “He fooled his followers to such extent that one of them allowed him to sleep with his 9-year-old child.


“Muhammad had sexual feelings for Aisha when she was only 6-years-old. Abu Bakr, the history's grand fool, begged Muhammad to wait for a few more years until she matured. But Muhammad, this sick monster, could not wait more than three years and when Aisha was nine he took her to bed and entered her in the same forenoon. Muhammad was not a human. He was the most evil creature who ever walked on this planet.”


And so this prophet is lauded as the head of a “noble faith?” These were the words of US President George W. Bush as he placed the Koran for the first time in the White House. The celebration was a dinner for Muslims.


Prince Charles says he is “fond” of Islam.


There are over a billion mortals on the planet who regard Mohammed as the righteous prophet of a “peace religion.” Has the world population lost its mind totally?


Much of the Muslim population is ignorant of the truth regarding their cult. That is why I get scores of emails from Islamics informing me that I am incorrect. And so they attempt to defend what they have been brainwashed as the real facts.


These are extremely sheltered individuals who are caught up in a cult leadership such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). There are 4000 Muslim web sites propagandizing to Muslims and non-Muslims. Visit http://www.mpac.org/


What the sane, civilized world faces today is a threat far greater than Nazism. This Islamic cultic spread has 1400 years backing it.


The facts in summation are: Islam’s deity is Satan, the Koran written by a demon-possessed “prophet,” and is taught by demon ordered mosque clerics.


Some argue that I am too severe when I describe Allah as Satan. I am not. When one reads the Bible, there is no other conclusion that one can reasonably conclude.


Those who disagree are not theologically biblical. They are theological liberals who twist the Bible to read whatever they want it to read. They slice out passages and add words that are not there. Such persons cannot be trusted with their biblical "research" for it is not sound research. One must take what the Bible says and not as theological liberals give it, not as theological opportunists do rewrite it.


Then someone emails me to say that in the Old Testament God prescribed death penalties for certain disobedient acts. True. That was because God was building a sane society from a barbaric people.


Therefore, stiff penalties meant that Hebrews were to line up with the holy law. Weak penalties would have tempted Hebrews to be lenient with themselves, disobeying God easily.


When Jesus came, the Old Testament rule of king was long gone because foreign powers overtook the Hebrews. Therefore, Hebrews, in the first century known as "Jews," were under Roman control.


Consequently, Jesus told His followers that it was no longer "eye for eye, tooth for tooth." He said, "I give you a new law. Love your enemy. Pray for your enemy. Do good to those who persecute you for righteousness."


Read BIBLE HARSH PENALTIES & CHRIST’S ETHIC at http://grantswank.blogtownhall.com/2009/02/21/bible_harsh_penalties__christ%E2%80%99s_ethic.thtml


Therefore, Christians for the last 2000 years-plus have followed the love teaching of Jesus, no longer adhering to the Old Testament prescriptions for penalties for broken statutes.


Yet I get emails telling that down through the past centuries Christians murdered this public or that public. So how are killing Muslims any different than killing Christians?


No. People must not confuse "Gentiles" with "Christians." Because a person is not a Jew he is automatically a Gentile. Each mortal is one or the other.


But being Gentile does not make one Christian. One is only a Christian if one follows Jesus as Savior and Lord, living His love ethic as provided in the New Testament.


There are many church persons who are not Christians. There are many Gentiles who not Christians.


Therefore, don’t call "killing Gentiles" "killing Christians." They are killing Gentiles—period. Christians who are genuinely Christians don’t kill, maim, steal, plunder and so forth. By their deeds they shall be known. Jesus said by our fruits we are known as good or bad. It is in the life. It is in the deed.


Presently, realizing the cult known as "Islam, " it is the old confrontation of good versus bad, righteousness versus evil, God versus Satan. It is not a new conflict. It is the same warring that has gone on for centuries but now garbed in Muslim fanaticism.


The worst a free person can do is to tolerate that which is the enemy attempting to overthrow our republic.


The Islam creed has Islam world rule as its chief aim. Islam knows nothing of peace, love, community, civility and understanding, no matter what the propagandists write on their web sites or in literature passed around a community.


An example of Islam world rule is evidenced with Hamas beginning with Israel by demanding Israel redesign its flag. How brazen to start global dictate by starting with Israel!


"Hamas leader said that Israel must change its flag. 'Israel must remove the two blue stripes from its national flag. The stripes on the flag are symbols of occupation. They signify Israel's borders stretching from the River Euphrates to the River Nile,'" according to Arutz Sheva


"Israel’s national flag, a blue Star of David set between two blue stripes was designed to resemble a Jewish prayer shawl which traditionally has stripes."


Yet there are pro-Islamic apologists in our American universities and colleges, in our pulpits and inter-faith associations. They are in our journalism departments and trying to be elected into our officialdom.


Once they get that kind of overall foothold, they will bring in their sharia, the latter being their devilish "judicial" system grounded in the killing and maiming passages of the Koran. They will bring in their mosques and sleeper cells to blow up our schools, churches, town halls and community centers. They will turn on our neighborhoods and undo all civilization until Allah is crowned planetary demon-deity.


Then realize what the liberty world is up against.


Don’t try to compromise that. Don’t try to rationalize its legitimacy. Don’t try to accept Islam as a religion among world religions.


It is a killing cult with a deranged Mohammed.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


There are times when your thoughts jam together so much that there’s nothing but mush.


You’re overstressed so that thoughts circulate over and over again.


Or they pile on top of one another all at once. Thoughts start but don’t finish. Then another intrudes so as to threaten to take over. Then a third takes a swing at your head.


Sometimes these jams take place in the middle of the night—dark dark dark and nowhere to go but couch and no one to talk to, obviously.


The devil can use these jams to get you confused to the nth degree. Also, that’s the time doubt sets in. Is Jesus really there? Are the promises really true? Am I believing in a mist?


Finances. Marital problems. Children disappointing. Lost job. Ill health. Friends let you down. And so forth.


Sometimes these all jam at once in the cranium. Where is Jesus?


Jesus is right there. He never leaves us. He has dealt with jams before. Then let Him deal with your jam.


Surrender every thought to Jesus when it’s in the good time. Learn how to “take no thought for the morrow” (Matthew 6:34).


Stick to that thought process. Let Jesus talk to you. When He is not forming your thoughts, then it’s time for you to rest. Jesus orchestrates rest stops in the rhythm of thought pattern construction and silence.


We need the silence. We need the quiet. We need to shut down until Jesus plants another thought.


I mean being very practical here. Jesus will tell you to make the bed, wash the dishes, vacuum the carpet and empty the garbage. Do whatever He tells you when He tells you.


That’s learning how to surrender your thought patterns to Jesus, not just the pious ones but the practical ones.


Jesus will tell you to spend that money for this or that. Jesus will tell you not to spend that money for this or that.


Jesus will tell you it’s time to turn off the television and go to bed. Jesus will direct you to a book to read, a movie to watch, an outdoor scene to take in, a phone call to make.


Jesus will tell you it’s time to praise Him, thank Him, tell Him that you love Him.


So when you learn how to surrender your thoughts to Jesus, taking no thought for the future but letting Jesus hold your future’s security, you will be ready for the jam.


It’s the same with jammed thoughts. Surrender the confusion. Jesus can handle confusion. He is up to it. Then don’t wrestle with the jam. Don’t try to fight it on your own. Don’t try to straighten it out.


Instead, surrender the jam to Jesus. Say, “Jesus, my head is going round and round. I’m scared. I cannot control my thoughts. I now surrender my head jam to You.”


I would suggest then that you go to the Psalms. I have found that by going at random to the Psalms, Jesus directs me to the verses needed. My experience has been that in time the jam unloosens by way of the Psalms’ comfort and direction.


Again: don’t try to unwind the jam intertwining. Don’t work at making thoughts orderly. Let Jesus take the jam just as it is. He knows what to do with it.


Now here is another recommendation that I hope you will understand so as not to think I am diminishing the Jesus power.


I recommend that you see your family doctor if the jam is too often and too messed up. If it goes on and on, see your doctor.


If your doctor is like mine, he’s wise. He will give you medicine to aid you in calming down the thought stress.


But why should you do this when Jesus is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-sufficient? Why not? Jesus creates medicines. They are heaven’s gifts when we need them.


Therefore, Jesus may work through medicines to correct the jam clog.


Again, I don’t consider this thinking less of Jesus’ input. I think it as Jesus guiding me to a doctor for the medicine gift.


That’s what I have experienced. My own life has directed me at times to rely on prescriptions to assist in leveling out the thought jams that pile up. They cut through depression. They help clarify my head. They work to build up my strength to carry on.


So where was Jesus in all that? Jesus was in the medicine, in the doctor’s skill to provide me with what I needed and in my logic to do what was necessary.


Read SURRENDER YOUR THOUGHTS TO GOD at http://truthinconviction.us/weblog.php?id=P2940


Read  WHAT DO I DO WHEN JESUS DOESN’T SPEAK? at http://grantswank.blogtownhall.com/2009/02/19/what_do_i_do_when_jesus_doesn%E2%80%99t_speak.thtml

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


Various plagues come upon Earth during the about-seven year Tribulation period prior to the Second Coming of Christ.


These plagues are symbolically pictured by Jesus in the Book of Revelation, the latter given in vision to John on the Isle of Patmos off of Greece circa AD 95.


Could some of these plagues be caused by projected robot warriors?


Per The Times: “Autonomous military robots that will fight future wars must be programmed to live by a strict warrior code, or the world risks untold atrocities at their steely hands.


“The stark warning — which includes discussion of a ‘Terminator’-style scenario in which robots turn on their human masters — is part of a hefty report funded by and prepared for the U.S. Navy's high-tech and secretive Office of Naval Research.”


Naturally God does not need mortal assistance in leveling divinely propelled plagues on the planet. However, sometimes God does work via mortal operations.


For instance, the bowls of wrath detailed in Revelation 16 could be set loose by way of robot warriors as described by media.


Interestingly, the Bible underlines that the bowls of wrath do not come upon God’s grace children. They come upon only the unsaved.


This will prove to be another Christian witness to the world that the God of the Bible is more powerful than the AntiChrist and False Prophet rule from the City of Seven Hills (Rome).


God’s grace children are on the Earth but do not come under His anger. They live under His mercy. Therefore, they are exempt of the wrathful bowls’ pour-out. This stark contrast between the saved and unsaved will bring some unsaved to repent of their sins to Jesus the Savior.


Concerning the robot warriors: “The report, the first serious work of its kind on military robot ethics, envisages a fast-approaching era where robots are smart enough to make battlefield decisions that are at present the preserve of humans.


“Eventually, it notes, robots could come to display significant cognitive advantages over Homo sapiens soldiers.


“’There is a common misconception that robots will do only what we have programmed them to do,’ Patrick Lin, the chief compiler of the report, said. ‘Unfortunately, such a belief is sorely outdated, harking back to a time when ... programs could be written and understood by a single person.’”


Bowls of wrath permitted by God will be under divine timing and methodology. They will not be subject to mortal failure. However, the robot warriors are not that fail-safe. They could go berserk.


“The reality, Dr. Lin said, was that modern programs included millions of lines of code and were written by teams of programmers, none of whom knew the entire program.


“Accordingly, no individual could accurately predict how the various portions of large programs would interact without extensive testing in the field — an option that may either be unavailable or deliberately sidestepped by the designers of fighting robots.”


Read “Experts Warn of 'Terminator'-Style Military-Robot Rebellion” at http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,496309,00.html


Read Book of Revelation, chapter 16:

1 Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, "Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God." 2 So the first angel went and poured his bowl on the earth, and a foul and painful sore came on those who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped its image. 3 The second angel poured his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing in the sea died. 4 The third angel poured his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood. 5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, "You are just, O Holy One, who are and were, for you have judged these things; 6 because they shed the blood of saints and prophets, you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!" 7 And I heard the altar respond, "Yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, your judgments are true and just!"

8 The fourth angel poured his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire; 9 they were scorched by the fierce heat, but they cursed the name of God, who had authority over these plagues, and they did not repent and give him glory. 10 The fifth angel poured his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness; people gnawed their tongues in agony, 11 and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and sores, and they did not repent of their deeds.

12 The sixth angel poured his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up in order to prepare the way for the kings from the east. 13 And I saw three foul spirits like frogs coming from the mouth of the dragon, from the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet. 14 These are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. 15 ("See, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and is clothed, F56 not going about naked and exposed to shame.") 16 And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

17 The seventh angel poured his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, "It is done!" 18 And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a violent earthquake, such as had not occurred since people were upon the earth, so violent was that earthquake. 19 The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. God remembered great Babylon and gave her the wine-cup of the fury of his wrath. 20 And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found; 21 and huge hailstones, each weighing about a hundred pounds, dropped from heaven on people, until they cursed God for the plague of the hail, so fearful was that plague.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


Sen. John Kerry visits Gaza, sans Hamas murder machine maniacs.


Kerry says per AP’S Ibrahim Barzak: “’Your (Gaza) political leadership needs to understand that any nation that has rockets hitting it for many years threatening its residents is going to respond.’


“Israel launched the offensive in response to years of Palestinian rocket attacks on its south.”


Note: “. . .years of Palestinian rocket attacks. . .”


Translate that to residents in New Jersey having to exist alongside rocket attacks shooting in from Manhattan—for “years.”


Kerry, close to B. Hussein Obama, no doubt represented the present administration in trying to bridge communicate with Gaza heads while making certain to have no words with Hamas.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


If you are Orthodox, you are still in the traditional.


However, if you are other than Orthodox, welcome to
female leaders and even lesbian same.


Lesbian Rabbi Toba Spitzer is president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association.


Rabbi Julie Schonfeld is vice president of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly.


Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus is president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the latter representing 2000 liberal Reform rabbis. Prior she was spiritual leader of a small congregation in a Chicago suburb, per AP.


Obviously these Old Testament passages regarding active homosexuality don’t find divine inspiration definition in the above, at least for the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association:


Leviticus 18:22: "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination."


Leviticus 20:13: "If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them."

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


Nancy Pelosi, active womb baby slayer advocate, has been informed in no uncertain terms by Pope Benedict that all Roman Catholic politicians are to oppose slaughtering womb boys and girls.


The Pope stood his ground on biblical ethics. If he had not, he would put his own soul in danger of hell.


Pelosi, along with a host of apostate politicians, have prided themselves in declaring that a woman’s right includes abortuaries legitimate.


When the Pope visited America, there were those, including Pelosi, who took the sacrament in violation of Catholic law.


“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sens. John Kerry, Christopher Dodd and Edward M. Kennedy received Communion at Nationals Park in Washington, as did Rudolph Giuliani at Yankee Stadium in New York.


“They were present because they were invited to the masses by Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington and Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop of New York. Given choice seats, they took Communion hosts as a matter of course” per Robert Novak at Human Events.com.


“This reflected disobedience to Benedict by the archbishops of New York and Washington” as well as disobedience on the part of theologically and politically liberal politicians who care more about their own writing-of-religion than the Holy Scriptures.


Their souls stand in eternal danger of hell fire. Evidently, they don’t care.


This is Canon Law Regarding Catholics and Abortion:


"Canon Law 1398 Catholics who have obtained an abortion, or performed an abortion, have excommunicated themselves latae sententiae (automatically by their very action) from the Catholic Church. They remain outside the church until the reception of the sacrament of Penance through a good confession.


"Canon Law 1329 Catholics who are accomplices in enabling and permitting the crime of abortion to occur, who without their assistance the crime would not have been committed, incur the same penalty.


"Canon Law 915 (an exception to receiving Holy Communion) "Others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion."


This is God’s Word regarding abortion:


The Bible speaks of a fetus as a person, not simply tissue that can be discarded if found to be a bother or nuisance. Since the fetus is a person from the moment of conception, then the destroying of the fetus is killing a person.


“In the past, some people have mistakenly speculated that perhaps the body might be in the process of formation for some time, and then 'God breathes a soul into it.' They had it backward. The life that is present forms matter into a body for itself'” (Joseph Breig, "Life Forms Matter," The Catholic News, Jan. 24, 1974, p. 8).


"Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? Did you not pour me out like milk ... and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit" (Job 10:8-12 NIV).


"Before I was born the LORD called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name...and now the LORD says--he who formed me in the womb to be his servant..." (Isaiah 49:1, 5).


"The word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations’" (Jeremiah 1:4-5).


In the following passages we note that personality is ascribed to the unborn.


"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that fully well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm 139:13-16).


"Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him" (Psalm 127:3).


Exodus 21:22-25 relates how Israel was to judge a circumstance relating to the death of the unborn:


"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."


All of the latter deals with unintentional hurt that comes to a pregnant woman; how much more will divine penalty come upon those who intentionally discard the fetus? The Gospel of Luke ascribes personality to the fetus within Elizabeth:


"When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit... As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy" (1:41, 44).


Mere tissue does not leap for joy; only personhood leaps for joy. The Bible regards the fetus as having personality. In Galatians, Paul speaks of himself as a person while still in his mother's womb, but more a person consecrated by God for a holy mission (compare Jeremiah 1:5 for the same accent):


"But when God, who set me apart from birth, and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles..." (Gal. 1: 15-16).


Since the Bible regards the fetus as personality, then the aborting of the fetus is murdering personality.


Some verses from Scripture dealing with murder are then appropriate for study, such as Genesis 9:6: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man." Also, read Exodus 23:7: "Have nothing to do with a false charge, and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty." Note I Peter 4:15: "If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer..."


If the Republic returned to the biblical definition of personhood, we would defend every womb child.


John Adams said the following:


"Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."


Andrew Jackson said the following:


"The BIBLE is the rock on which our Republic rests."


Daniel Webster:


"If we abide by the principles taught in the BIBLE, our country will go on prospering."


"For all the talk of freedom and self-determination, the abortion movement is at its heart a movement denying rights to a silent segment of humanity and soliciting public sanction, support and subsidy to its own cause" (Donald P. Shoemaker, ABORTION, THE BIBLE AND THE CHRISTIAN, Hayes Publishing Co., 1976, p. iv).

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


“It appears that Iran has walked right up to the threshold of having enough low enriched uranium to provide enough raw material for a single bomb,” said Peter Zimmerman, a former chief scientist of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency per Daniel Dombey at FT.com.


Iran readies for Islam’s messiah.


Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes in the Second Coming of the Iranian Messiah. The Messiah will appear when the globe is in utter chaos. Spell “chaos” as meaning “nuclear blow up.”


Add to that the egocentric eccentric personality of Ahmadinejad. Add to that his delight in demanding center stage daily worldwide.


That is why it is imperative for the free nations’ politic to translate their politic parlance into theological language. I don’t think they know how to do that. They are consumed with political vernacular and not versed in theology of a killing cult. In that is their weakness.


In September 2006 when Ahmadinejad spoke at the UN, he informed those close to him that he felt the presence of deity close to him. That is, Allah was there in a special manner.


A plane crashed in Iran. Ahmadinejad interpreted that as Allah disciples going before him into Allah land. It was also a message that they were paving the path for martyrs to follow them shortly.


The President’s Messiah is the Hidden Imam of Shia Islam. Ahmadinejad believes that his time has come to establish a government honoring the Messiah by preparing the planet for the Second Coming of that Messiah.


Ahmadinejad gave much money to the Jamkaran mosque, a holy site where Muslims drop notes to the Hidden Imam. The messages are thrown into a holy well there.


The Messiah who has temporarily disappeared left the globe in the ninth century at age five. He will come back to the planet when the globe is in total disarray—international conflict and bloodshed. Following that, the Islamic Messiah will rule the world in peace.


Islamics even state that Jesus will return with the Islamic Messiah.


Ahmadinejad seems to have faith that all of these occurrences are near. Therefore, he must give allegiance to one voice alone—Allah—who informs him of what to do to prepare for the Messiah’s comeback.


In other words, a war with the West could mean Ahmadinejad envisions such to be the welcome mat for the Coming One.


If Muslims die in the chaos, fine. Their males will go to Allah’s playboy eternity where they have virgins and young boys aplenty. Though homosexuality is frowned upon in earthly Islam, it is not, interestingly enough, in their eternity for males cavorting with young males. Females don’t go to paradise since females are considered worth less
than dung.


Islamic theology then propels the Iranian president’s every thought, every act, every motive. Therefore, for other political leaders globally to communicate with him and his colleagues only on political terms is to have two communication tracks never meeting.


When he spoke at the UN, he did not apologize for addressing his audience in apocalyptic terms. He spoke to them “religion in Islamic context.” His speech was about his beliefs, not his political agenda.


He spoke of “light and dark countries,” “the logic of the dark ages.” He closed his speech with a prayer to deity to “hasten the emergency of your last repository, the Promised One, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace.”


In that scene, Ahmadinejad stated he felt the divine glow about him. “I felt it myself. I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there. And for 27 – 28 minutes all the leaders did not blink. . It’s not an exaggeration, because I was looking. They were astonished, as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic.”


Therefore, if the West and Europe do not listen to Ahmadinejad they are in fact rejecting the Divine One. They then will pay in damnation. However, Ahmadinejad will be eternally lauded.


Western delegates who heard the President’s UN address said that “they couldn’t believe what they were hearing from Ahmadinejad.” No wonder. He was not speaking politic. He was speaking cultic theology.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


Whoopi Goldberg on “The View” said that Jesus was not “intolerant.” He liked everyone and by being so He accepted everyone, that in itself causing everyone to like Him because He was so “cool.”


“JESUS WAS LIKE, ‘WE DON’T AGREE BUT THAT’S COOL!’” That’s Christian Theology 101 per Ms W as spoken on Barbara Walter’s popular TV showpiece.


Ms W elaborated her remarks by stating, with arms reaching out to right and left in order to accent her convictions, that if one questioned her conclusion, just check out the Bible. “It’s in the Bible!” she emphasized.


Ms W made out as if she were a Billy Graham clone with Bible in hand proclaiming “Thus saith the Lord.” And with eyes bug-eyed while speaking her knowledge, Ms W sounded ready for Paul Crouch’s couch.


It is obvious that Ms W does not know her Bible. Read http://grantswank.blogtownhall.com/2009/02/19/%E2%80%9Cjesus_was_like,_%E2%80%98we_don%E2%80%99t_agree_but_that%E2%80%99s_cool!%E2%80%99%E2%80%9D.thtml


Now, move to another celebrity: B. Hussein who was swept as celebrity into the White House without being vetted properly.


B. Hussein drew on his biblical ignorance to assure active homosexuals that their lifestyle is okay with Jesus. He said that his “Christian ethos” told him so, whatever “Christian ethos” is. Jesus doesn’t know, am sure of that.


Further, B. Hussein told campaign days’ inquirers to check the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) to read what Jesus had to say about His approval of active homosexuality.


There is nothing in that biblical passage about that topic. Further, Jesus would not approve of active homosexuality for Jesus, as part of the trinity, was active in the Old Testament divine revelation concerning such subjects.


There are those who say that because Jesus never stated per the Gospels anything regarding homosexuality, that He must have been okay with it.


Not so when realizing that Jesus as the Second Person of the Triune Godhead spoke divine revelation in the Old Testament data; therefore, Jesus did in fact have such to state about the divine abhorrence of active homosexual relations


For starters, read this:


Leviticus 18:22: "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination."


Leviticus 20:13: "If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them."


Romans 1:18-32: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. . .For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. . .


"Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and
worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. . .


"For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire towards one another, men with men committed indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.


"God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, malice; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. . .without understanding. . . and, although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them."


I Corinthians 6:9: "Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

.
In addition, B. Hussein told media that he thought Americans should read their Bibles more.


Is not that pretty counsel? Nice going, mask Muslim Marxist B. Hussein.


I would think that such counsel would begin in B. Hussein’s own daily biblical devotions for he is far from knowledgeable concerning the Book. He, after all, belongs to a denomination that downplays the Bible in favor of mortals writing their own religion.


So it goes with the biblically illiterate—Ms W and B. Hussein as examples—who try to inform the public on the Word of God while going far astray.


Interesting times we are living in, for certain.


Read OBAMA’S ‘CHRISTIAN ETHOS’ SUPPORTS HOMOSEXUAL ‘MARRIAGE’ at http://www.americanconservativedaily.com/2008/03/obama%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98christian-ethos%E2%80%99-supports-homosexual-%E2%80%98marriage%E2%80%99/


Read OBAMA: READ SERMON ON MOUNT RE HOMOSEXUAL OK at http://www.americanconservativedaily.com/2008/03/obama-read-sermon-on-mount-re-homosexual-ok/

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


That’s correct.


B. Hussein Obama has chosen David Ogden, porn pusher, for Deputy Attorney General, per Fidelis.


Typical liberal B. Hussein chooses persons who have no moral base but relativism. In other words, for pragmatic B. Hussein, if it works for left-of-left, go for it.


David Ogden is one of those. And what has he done to sully his garments so?


He has aggressively pushed forward cases endorsing Penthouse and Playboy. Evidently, this man is not for the biblical definition of marriage, sex and family. He rah-rahs for just the opposite. B. Hussein considers Ogden prime material for the job.


In addition, Ogden has done everything he can to further active homosexual lifestyles.


Is there any wonder then that Ogden is bedfellow with the American Civil Liberties Union?


Ogden has labored long and hard to see that computer
protectives are not installed in Internet low-life sites. Further, he has seen to it that porn publishers get their smut into underage children’s hands as much as possible.


He has even gone so far as to push Braille Playboy magazines wherever—at taxpayers’ underwrite.


Then it is not surprising to know that Ogden is pro-
killing womb babies—most assertively.


He advocates for homosexual practice baptism throughout the military wherever whenever whomever.


Ogden has even gone so far as to persuade judicials that biblical definition of one-man one-woman equals marriage is a biased position.


Ogden is for everything that will destroy the Republic, much in keeping with left-of-left B. Hussein’s overall agenda for ripping America.


And this is the same B. Hussein who quoted in his inaugural address Scripture, sited “God.”


This is the same B. Hussein who staged Southern gospel concerts.


This is the same B. Hussein who told media that he is “Christian” and that his “Christian ethos” persuaded him to endorse sodomy.



This is the same B. Hussein who told inquirers to check the Sermon on the Mount for God’s opinion regarding homosexuality; there is nothing in Matthew 5-7 about that topic.


This is the same B. Hussein who asked Pastor Rick Warren to offer the inaugural invocation.


Now B. Hussein cheers on Ogden for top banana.


Get a trail here? A smelly one, isn’t it?

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


To begin with, learn how to surrender your thoughts to Jesus each day—during the day. And at nighttime when you wake up.


Surrender thoughts and let go.


That will fall in line with His counsel: “Take no thought for tomorrow. . .” He means that. He’s not speaking poetry. He’s speaking practically. Matthew 6:34


We spend too much time planning for future security when we should be living for Jesus’ plan in the moment. Forget your plan. Live for Jesus’ plan.


After all, that’s what Christian commitment is all about. “Submit yourselves a living sacrifice, holy. . .” Romans 12:1


As you surrender your mind to Jesus, He will speak to your head. Your thoughts will recess. His thoughts will take mortal thought patterns’ place.


That is what you want.


Isaiah promises that whoever keeps his mind stayed on God will experience “perfect peace.” Isaiah 26:3


Then live that peace by surrendering your thoughts to Jesus. This takes some discipline but after awhile it becomes a lifestyle. The more you faith those thoughts to Jesus, the more excited you become in realizing that Jesus is actually alive to work in your minutia.


But what do you do when Jesus says nothing?


You let the quiet remain. You rest in the nothingness. You permit Jesus to keep the rhythm of speaking and then not speaking.


You know that in music there are the black rectangular boxes on the lines of the music scale. Those boxes are called “rests.”


Rests are when the music is to stop for silence to take over. Our ears need the rest. Musicians need the rest. Our heads need the rest. The rests help make the melody balance.


It’s the same with surrendering your thoughts to Jesus. He plants the rests in the life music. Then let them stay right where He puts them. You need them. He knows that.


Do not think that Jesus has left you. He promised that He would never leave you or forsake you. He keeps His promises. Being quiet does not mean that He has taken off. He’s there, alongside you, but quietly so.


Jesus knows that one cannot take His divine input every second. That would be overload. In those silent segments, thank Him for the silence.


During those rest moments, praise Him. Lift up your soul in thanksgiving. “Bless His holy name,” as the Psalms advise us.


Sometimes conscientious believers conclude they have to be super spiritualizing their souls every second. Not so. We mortals cannot take such strenuous activity. And it’s not necessary.


Therefore, in the middle of the day when Jesus seems to have taken a short reprieve, let Him do just that. He is there, working beneath the surface, far more than you realize.


I say to friends that Jesus is always working in the disciples’ lives in the subterranean levels. We cannot imagine how intricately Jesus is moving, preparing, arranging. Only when we look back do we begin to understand how Jesus was programming certain variables that we had never thought possible.


Our minds are so limited that even then we do not pick up on all the dimensions Jesus has worked and is working. We miss much of what His love is performing. Eternity will provide us the span to take in that analysis.


However, in the silences Jesus is doing what needs to be done for you because He loves you.


Then He breaks the silences to give you another Jesus-thought. Take it. Live it out. And go on from there.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


That’s what Whoopi Goldberg said on “The View.”


They were talking about the greatest sin. Ms. W said it was “intolerance.”


Then she went on to state that outrageous quote for above title.


Jesus was tolerant of all, for all?


Then why did they murder Him?  Because He was intolerant; for example Jesus was for holiness and the Jerusalem fake religionists were for themselves.


If anything, Jesus was not tolerant of all people and all matters. He pointed to the Ten Commandments and summed them into two: Love God with all you are and love your neighbor as yourself.


Not everyone was willing to make that commitment.


Then He spoke on prayer and fasting. He healed on the Sabbath. He said that He came to fulfill the law, not to destroy it.


He labeled some of his foes as children of the devil, the father of lies. He said that some circulating around Him were going to hell for being hypocrites.


Jesus cast out merchants from the Temple because they were greedily desecrating the holy environs.


For that and more, Jesus got into hot water with the Temple clique. That is why they laced Him up on Calvary. 


A man thirty-three years old from the other side of the tracks does not get murdered for being sweet. He gets murdered for making certain segments mad as knife blades.


Ms W thought herself cute on “The View” by sounding religious Christian-like. She is often on the other side of the wall. But with looking at Jesus the accommodating way she did, she wanted to make huggy pals with biblical believers.


Of course, that is impossible for Ms. W for she has too much anti-Bible baggage.


But hearing her say what she said just forced my fingers to the keyboard to type this piece. The bottom line is that Jesus was exceptionally intolerant of all that was religiously bogus.


He set the record straight per eternity’s moral base. Anything else was of the devil. Much of His audience did not cotton to the eternal moral base, hence His creating archenemies out for His holy neck.


Ms. W and other biblical illiterates need to know that.


So there.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


Jeff had so many Operating Under the Influence breakings of the law that he spent too many years of his young life behind bars.


“I’m the black sheep of the family,” he said one Friday evening when I visited him in jail. Many of my Friday evenings were spent in that ugly visitors’ room. But it was worth it. At least that’s what Jeff told me. He had no other ones to call on him except one young woman, Yonna.


“The rest of my family made something of themselves, but the bottle got to me over and over again.”


However, I learned that his biological father had not paid much attention to anyone in the family. Soon his mother married again. And again.


“She goes from one loser to another, like looking after stray dogs,” Jeff explained.


One jail visit I offered to be his father. He immediately took me up on it. We shook hands on the deal. He was in his late 20s when discovering me as his dad.  I felt it to be God’s will and a privilege.


Jeff was winsome, witty and intelligent.


“My grandma took me to her church when I was a boy.” It then spilled out that he learned about Jesus, salvation, hope and love. But grandma’s influence faded from his youth when she died. From then on out, it was pretty much whatever religion Jeff grabbed hold of — which was practically nothing.


Jeff went from job to job. But the bottle forever got in the way.


I drove him to the motor vehicle department one spring morning. He expected that he would not get his license back for 8 years. Then all of a sudden I saw his slender frame leaping out of that front door toward my car. He was ecstatic. Instead of 8 years, he’d get his license in 4. That was something to cheer about, at least Jeff reasoned it that way. In the meantime, he was at the mercy of others’ wheels. However, seemingly that was a known art to Jeff.


When he got released from jail after his last stint, I collected several hundred dollars from friends to help him get into a rehab center in the city. He bunked out with several other men on the second floor. His chores were listed on the kitchen wall. He got his meals, counseling and a warm building.


On Sundays, I picked up Jeff for  worship. He joined us in our house church. A group of us moved into the house church mode several years back, that is, after having spent our lives in a real-life church building. However, the simplicity of a house church — like unto the Early Church — appealed to us more.


We worshiped from house to house on the Lord’s Day.


By a miracle, God provided Jeff with a house in the city. An elderly woman died, her daughter wanted to sell her property quickly, and Jeff got it at a very good price.


Our house church had a house warming for Jeff one Sunday morning when meeting in his living room for a service. Then from time to time I’d slip him a ten or twenty, sometimes a fifty-dollar bill when I had it. He needed it. After all, he was starting all over once again — out of jail and making it. Further, he said I was his dad and I said he was my son.


One day he protested about my gifts. “But that’s what a dad does,” I answered. “He helps his son out.”


I had looked forward to a son. I have two daughters. But I longed for a son. Now God brought Jeff along.


Then came Yonna. She was hankering for a man big time. Like crazy. Like moving in to Jeff’s house. Furthermore, she had wheels.


Early on Jeff testified to receiving Christ as His Savior. Our fellowship provided him with a new Bible. He was also reading daily from devotional booklets distributed during our worship times.


Jeff had two children — one from one mother and the other from another mother. The children worshiped with us. As youngsters they too reached out to Jesus’ love. The day they did, I noted tears in Jeff’s eyes. He was so happy to know that his own children had a new start of soul, far more than he had when their ages.


Sometimes Jeff needed a ride to a school meeting with his son. Before Yonna moved in, I drove into the city, picked Jeff up and drove him to the meeting. At another time Jeff had a doctor’s appointment at the other end of the city. I drove him to the doctor. At still another time Jeff had a social worker’s appointment with one of his children. I drove him there, too.


I was putting a lot of miles on my van. But I was his dad. He was my son. It was a joy. And I told him so.


Jeff was growing spiritually in the Lord. He was a quick learner. He picked up biblical teaching readily. I was very proud of my new son.


But then it was that one day Yonna moved her furniture from her trailer out in the country to his city house. All of a sudden it was stashed in every corner of every room. Far too much for the space; but it was all there.


When we worshiped on Sunday mornings in Jeff’s home, Yonna went off somewhere. She never joined in with us. That was sad. But his children worshiped with us. They were more than anxious to learn another story about Jesus. At Christmas, our house church presented the children with gifts, particularly the nativity scene for under their tree.


On a Sunday morning when we drove to Freeport for worship followed by a fellowship meal, Jeff announced something in the van upon our return. I had said, “Well, Jeff, how about next Sunday we meet in your home for worship?”


“We won’t be able to meet in my home any more,” he replied simply. No other explanation.


I looked in the rear view mirror to see Jeff seated in the middle of his two children, his arms around their shoulders. I wondered what my ears had just picked up. But I said nothing in reply. I just let his sentence sink way down deep.


“We won’t be able to meet in my home any more.”


It was Yonna. She had moved in, taken over. So we never met in Jeff’s home for worship again.


The next Sunday I told Jeff where we were meeting. He did not show. Nor the next Sunday. It was that quickly that I had a son, then he slipped away.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


America must never sideline its first amendment rights:


“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”


“. . .no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . .”


America cannot establish one denomination as its national religion. At the same time, America cannot prohibit religious expression.


Secularists are working hard to wipe out religion in this country, particularly Christianity. Christianity is despised by those who are ardent secularists, the latter seeking to make the USA a clone of Europe.


Christianity’s core is Christ. Secularists detest Christ. Why? Because of His ethic. Secularists are relativists, that is, they support situation ethics. Situation ethics is defined as the situation determines the morality.


Secularists do not believe there are moral absolutes. Christians believe that the Ten Commandments are eternal absolutes. They are God-given. They cannot be compromised unless one expects divine wrath.


Secularists want the lifestyle of sin. The Ten Commandments do not permit that lifestyle; therefore, secularists work ardently to eliminate God’s ethical foundation.


Christ as a moral Savior has always been despised by the larger segment of every generation’s population. The minority has defended Christ and His moral expectations.


Christ warned in the Sermon on the Mount that the majority would choose the way to destruction. The minority would choose the way to eternal life. So it is once again in this era.


America is the battle ground for Christ or no-Christ, Christianity or no-Christianity. It is secularism versus Christianity as a living faith.


However, America’s heritage is Christian. It is the Bible. America is not a Christian nation in that all persons are Christians; however, America is a country with a Christian backdrop from the very start.


Secularists want to rewrite history so as to obliterate that. In one generation of false teaching, the Christian heritage could be erased. Therefore, Christians must continue to defend the first amendment, especially as it permits Christian expression.


B. Hussein Obama would obliterate the Christian heritage in favor of all religions being the same, melded as one. That is the teaching his mother gave him. He, being a Muslim, is not partial toward a Christian heritage though he hides behind his membership in a Protestant denomination.


However, even that denomination—the United Church of Christ (Congregational)—holds that the Bible is not the divinely inspired Word of God, Christ is not necessarily God and therefore all religions are equal.


Consequently, B. Hussein holds in line with his denomination that America would be better off if it dissolved the Christian backdrop in favor of a secularized society.


Of course, God plays a role in all this tussle. God honors the intercessions of the biblical Christians. Therefore, the future will write God’s input in this war.


How will God defend His grace children as they defend Christian expression as guaranteed by the first amendment? How will God punish those who undercut His Word, particularly His moral base as set forth in the Scriptures?


Biblical Christians have faith in God standing alongside their upholding the first amendment rights throughout America. Though they know their number is not the majority, Christians believe that God plus minority equals an ultimate victory.


Day after day, Christians must stand up for their first amendment privileges—in classrooms, at the worksite, in the public forums of town halls and the like. They must continue to display their Christian symbols and give forth their biblical ethic.


Biblical disciples must continually remind the nation of our Christian origins:


President George Washington wrote a prayer addressed to “O most glorious God, in Jesus Christ” and ended it with this: “Let me live according to those holy rules which thou hast this day prescribed in Thy Holy Word. Direct me to the true object, Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life. Bless O Lord all the people of this land.”


President Thomas Jefferson: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis — a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”


President James Madison: “Religion is the basis and foundation of government. We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”


President Andrew Jackson: “I nightly offer up my prayers to the throne of grace for the health and safety of you all, and that we ought all to rely with confidence on the promise of our dear Redeemer, and give Him our hearts. This is all He requires and all that we can do, and if we sincerely do this, we are sure of salvation through His atonement.”


Patrick Henry: “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, property, and freedom of worship here.”


President Abraham Lincoln: “The ways of God are mysterious and profound beyond all comprehension. ‘Who by searching can find Him out?’ God only knows the issue of this business. He has destroyed nations from the map of history for their sins. Nevertheless, my hopes prevail generally above my fears for our Republic. The times are dark, the spirits of ruin are abroad in all their power, and the mercy of God alone can save us.”


President Grover Cleveland: “All must admit that the reception of the teachings of Christ results in the purist patriotism, in the most scrupulous fidelity to public trust, and in the best type of citizenship.”


President Woodrow Wilson: “America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of the Holy Scriptures.”


President Dwight Eisenhower: “Without God, there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Begin is the first — the most basic — expression of Americanism. Thus, the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus With God’s help, it will continue to be.”


Further, America’s start was God-grounded. Children went to school to learn their three R’s: reading, writing and arithmetic. Embossing that learning was the Christian faith.


For instance, read from “The NEW ENGLAND PRIMER IMPROVED, For the More Easy Attaining of English, Adorned with Cuts, To Which Is Added ‘The Assembly of the Divines’ CATHECISM (Albany, Whiting, Backus and Whiting) And Sold Retail At Their Store.”


That is what reads on the front cover of The NEW ENGLAND PRIMER IMPROVED.


On Page One of that Primer was the following:


A Divine Song of Praise to God, for a Child
By the Rev. Dr. Watts.


How glorious is our heav’nly King
Who reigns above the sky!
How shall a child presume to sing
His dreaded Majesty?


How great His power is, none can tell,
Nor think how large His grace,
Nor men below, nor saints that dwell
On high before His face,


Nor angels that stand round the Lord,
Can search His secret will;
But they perform His heav’nly Word
And sing His praises still.


Then let me join his holy train,
And my first off’rings bring,
Th’ Eternal God will not disdain
To hear an infant sing.


My heart resolves, my tongue obeys,
And angels shall rejoice,
To hear their Mighty Maker’s praise
Sound from a feeble voice.


The content of instruction in colonial schools was primarily Christian.


Here is an alphabetic listing of statements containing religious and moral maxims that the student was required to memorize:


A: “A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his Mother”

B: “Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure and trouble therewith”

C: “Come into Christ all ye that labor and are heavy handed and He will give you rest”


The alphabet guide to spelling was followed by this statement: “Now the child being entered in his letters and spelling, let him learn, these and such sentences by heart, whereby he will be both instructed in his duty and encouraged in his learning:


Q: What is the end of man?

A: Man’s chief end is to Glorify God and to enjoy him forever


Q: What rule hath God given to direct us

A: The word of God, which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testament, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.


Genuine allegiance to this nation has to be based on a biblical conviction. That is the loyalty that has enlivened Americans since the start.


Belief in the biblical God has brought to the country’s fore the most committed citizenry known to the planet. It is that faith base that provides the oil for the nation’s machinery. Generation after generation has willingly prayed for this nation, sacrificed for its existence, and treasured its freedoms.


Those prayers continue from the souls of both old and young. This is not a “graying nation,” that is, a Republic supported chiefly by the older persons. There are countless numbers of young Americans who believe in God, pray for the United States and believe that its destiny is governed by a divine wisdom and mercy.


True patriotism is not atheism based. It is not buttressed with a secular agnosticism. True patriotism that lasts and goes deeply to the heart has its endurable foundation when resting on trust in the God of all history.


Atheism believes there is nothing but the material. Therefore, how can such “faith” sustain a penetrating patriotism toward America? A matter-based philosophy is fundamentally a self-centered existence; therefore, though it may mouth patriotism, it is only patriotic when serving the self’s existence.


Agnosticism has no base certainty therefore it is just as bankrupt regarding genuine patriotism as atheism.


The biblical believer as citizen of this remarkable country yearns daily for a God-fearing populace. That believer intercedes for this nation, its leaders, its future. That believer researches Scripture for divine wisdom in how to better serve America.


Numberless organizations and committees are now operating for the good of America’s citizens solely on the drive of a biblical faith. How many do-gooder conclaves reach out daily to the needy, homeless, hungry and forsaken because of serving the God of Scripture? They compose a commendable list.


What is so encouraging is that all of this dates back to our founding patriots. They read the Bible. They prayed to the Lord of the Word. They worshiped that God. They taught their children the precepts of that Word. They molded the laws and institutions of America on the biblical ethic. They dreamed of this country’s future years being blessed by the God of holy writ.


What a heritage the present-day patriot has. What a treasure we have alongside us to counsel our decisions in this complicated time.


Yes, America’s true patriotism is God-based for it is totally reliant on His provisions for our liberties to continue.


For more, read from the NEW ENGLAND PRIMER at http://public.gettysburg.edu/~tshannon/his341/nep1805contents.html