GOD CAN WORK FAST


J. Grant Swank, Jr.


Moses walked down to the Red Sea. Hordes of Hebrews stood behind him. They had just fled Egypt’s slave pits.


All Moses had in his hand was a stick. That’s it. A stick.


But God told Moses to obey Him with a mere stick between his fingers. Then God instructed Moses to lift the stick over the waters.


Swiftly those waters separated. Quickly. They swooshed to right and left leaving a wide path in between.


Don’t you imagined those Hebrews were stunned with elation? After all, their spiritual leader was reliable. His God was powerful. Moses proved himself a man of integrity and deity proved Himself a mighty force indeed.


God showed that whatever He decided to do, He could see it through in a flash.


God is the same yesterday, today and forever. Christians have faith in that efficiency that is far above mortals’ thoughts and ways.


It was a Tuesday when God worked quickly. I recall hearing conservative telecasters share their alarm with millions of viewers. They exclaimed, “What can happen within hours to change everything!”


True. God concluded to take an overconfident Democrat-mired Massachusetts to flip it onto the Republican track with Scott Brown celebrated as winner over Martha Coakley.


God quaked the liberal Democrats with a miracle turn-about for the Republicans. In that quake, Barack Hussein Obama was shaken. Nancy Pelosi was shaken. Harry Reid was shaken. And their clones were shaken.


With that, the ObamaNONcare stack was shredded to the floor.


The God-fearing who interceded for America’s rescue from enemies salivating to behead the nation were stunned as Hebrews were stunned as Moses lifted the stick.


With that, God disciples exclaimed their praise toward heaven. They gave God the credit for the miracle flip over.


As the righteous remnant continues to intercede, God will continue to answer their petitions on the side of biblical morality. God will trounce the foes seeking our country’s destruction.


After all, America is the only nation ever begun by biblical believers committing their future democracy to the God of the Bible. Is God today going to forsake that start? No.


Wed that original petition force with today’s remnant petition force and one has a powerful God defending the Christian heritage America.


God works thoroughly and, when He wants, quickly.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


Numbers don’t count with God. God has lost in the numbers game. That is why Jesus said that the larger number is on the road to hell. The smaller number is on the road to heaven.


Unbelievers don’t like that kind of talk. But the Bible uses it and so there it is.


With that said, God does honor the small who are the righteous remnant. That is so even when the small comes down to 8 as in Noah’s time. Remember?


Therefore, with all hell’s agents attacking the US these days, God stays alongside the righteous remnant—the few who hold true to the Bible, His Word.


All the more with God working his plan against America’s enemies, the righteous remnant must remain true, strong and confident that Christian heritage America will not fold to the foe.


I was in a fellowship of born again believers last evening. In our prayer time, one of the fellows prayed that God would continue His “shaking things up” in this nation.


I thought of the recent Scott Brown win and the shakes it has given the anti-God politicians who plot the demise of this country.


Then I thought of all the grassroots believers like unto this fellow who are petitioning God from coast to coast. They are scores of devout Christians holding onto the biblical promises.


If you are one of them, make certain that every morning you wake up, you commit that day to God’s plan for your life and the nation’s good. Then at night, do the same.


One of TV’s top-notch conservative voices said last evening that the night before his wife and he opened the Scriptures, knelt alongside the bed, and prayed to God about this Republic.


His viewers count in the millions. So that vast audience heard from a loyalist—a commentator, not an evangelist.


Let us all do the same as he. Let us get deeper into the Word, live more consistently the Word and stay the holy course with God.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


2 Chronicles 7:14 (New International Version): “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”


Considering the anxiety that the Barack Hussein Obama dictatorship has brought to our Republic, countless Christians have prayed earnestly for God’s intervention.


Will we lose our nation to secularism, Islam or the spirit of antiChrist?


Will the Christian heritage of America be trounced upon until future generations will have no biblical teaching honored?


Will apostate prophets of heresy overcome the nation’s churches?


This anxiety has been well founded; however, the righteous remnant does not give up. These Christians hold that God has smiled upon our nation in previous stressful times. They have faith enough to believe that God continues to work on their behalf.


The Tuesday Massachusetts turn-about has boosted that hope. Democrat Massachusetts chose Republican Scott Brown against all odds.


Brown states what many conservatives consider their baseline for allegiance to America. Therefore, they are exhilarated by his win, the latter a huge loss for the anti-God Democrat status quo in Massachusetts.


Obama is shaking. Dem control in Congress likewise. So many of these power hungry politicians do not care at all regarding biblical morality. They defend that which flies in the face of God’s call to holiness.


However, there now is hope and change for biblical ethics in believers’ hearts because of this Tuesday victory. That does not mean that Scott Brown is a born again Christian. He may be; I don’t know. But the force impregnated in his win is what counts.


It is hoped that Brown will serve the Lord by abiding by the biblical call. However, if he does not, God has used at times those not biblical disciples to see through His divine plan for a righteous remnant.


Consequently, Christians: keep praying, holding to a strong faith that America will be rescued by the divine hand.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


Barack Hussein Obama promised America transparency, no secrecy, open government and more. He has reneged on his promises so America is wising up to a liar.


In his modus operandi, Obama is best in overseeing a dictatorship. His shadow government enforces it. His czars see to it that it stands fast.


However, with dictator Obama in charge—remember that he exclaimed after the election: “I won”—he has finally been forced into admitting that the Republic does not work on a dictatorship. We are a democracy.


When Scott Brown won in Massachusetts, the people did it. The voters in booths brought about the miracle from a Democrat control to a Republican win.


Brown proclaimed that it was the People’s Seat and not Kennedy’s Seat. The people proved Brown correct. The democracy worked quite well for the miracle turn-about in that state.


Dictators Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid likewise blend in quite comfortably to a dictatorial regime with their behind-the-doors shenanigans.


Their hubris drives their ambitions, the latter often against the hopes of the grassroots. However, in any dictatorship, grassroots does not count.


Nevertheless, with democracy holding sway in the Brown victory, the three stooges are plastered against the democracy wall. Henceforth, it will be difficult for them to continue beheading America as our bodies were to be strewn about carelessly.


The Brown win is a grand slam win for the democracy that this country was built upon. Therefore, in the Brown Seat there is much more than that splendid fellow going to DC. It is a U-turn from despotism to democracy all around.


Read PEOPLE VS. POWER SNOBS at http://truthinconviction.us/weblog.php?id=P3420


Read OBAMA’S TOWER OF BABEL at http://truthinconviction.us/weblog.php?id=P3419

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


The Scott Brown win encourages grassroots to believe in the people’s power to rescue America from the Obama dictatorship.


When Brown pronounced that the Senate Seat is not the Kennedy Seat but the People’s Seat, that summed it up.


People, that’s right, human beings with their convictions for common sense politics, voted. They put Brown the truck driver lawyer into the Senate because people governed through the voting booth.


That will happen throughout America in coming months. If Massachusetts folk can do it, it can happen across
the nation.


Barack Hussein Obama has tried for one year to dictate everything from soup to nuts. His hubris was cemented in his psyche solidly enough to conclude it could actually work. Americans would be hoodwinked into clinging to the Muslim magician no matter what.


Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid confessed the same narcissistic conviction. The three stooges could put Americans into a vice to police them there.


Massachusetts states clearly that it won’t work any longer. If that state has had it with DC dictatorship, every other state will broadcast the same.


This is the hope and change that America’s grassroots has been hankering for. Tuesday night’s Brown win provides these intelligent citizens with the empirical evidence. It happened with Brown. It will happen with Brown-like patriots until the Dem dictators
are propelled into the sea.


Many have been wondering with fear in their hearts as to whether or not Americans were actually realizing that we were losing our country to the arch-enemy.


Now that fear can subside. Americans have actually realized that the nation was in extreme danger; it had to be rescued.


Tuesday night the rescue began. And on Wednesday morning it will continue until the foes of this Republic will implode.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


Barack Hussein Obama has sought to construct his own Tower of Babel.


It is to reach into socialist, Marxist heaven. When it is completed, his entourage will be deity as defined by his own opportunistic way.


Obama masked himself as a Christian by taking on Congregational membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago. But in fact he is a Muslim by his own public confession.


Surrounding him are Muslims. Muslims also worked with him in his Illinois Senatorial offices. His region was the headquarters for Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, Farrkhan and Obama being long-time friends.


Whatever his religious motivation at present, his political aims have been to play god.


That recalls to me the Old Testament Tower of Babel. Then Hebrews, according to the Book of Genesis, sought to reach into the skies, come upon heaven, and thereby contain the eternal powers.


God being God let them have their day. God has a patient component to his divine persona. However, when mortals go over the patient line, then they come upon the justice of the Almighty.


The Hebrews moved over the divine patient line and so were dumbfounded with, not one language, but multiple languages. Not able to understand one another one morning, their work halted.


No more Tower. No more heaven expectations. No more hubris projecting divinity lodged in Hebrew bodies.


So it is with Obama. His time will come. He will
have frustrated the divine nature to the point that God will bring judgment upon Obama’s unholy projects.


It has been so all down through history. The anti-God persons reign for a time and then they crush beneath the divine heel.


Obama’s crush is happening as I type. It will be completed in God’s own way and time. It is a lesson to us all. None of us can afford to play God. It just won’t work—for obvious reasons.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


My wife and I were walking down the road here in southern Maine. I looked to my right and then to the left. I stopped. I said, “This is an art gallery.”


It was right there — without ticket admission. Without having to park the car. Without anything but stopping long enough to watch a branch fall from a nearby pine tree. Crash!


We got art plus sound. It reminded me of the Light and Sound desert presentations of Egypt. Those of us on tour sat there on the sands, nighttime all around us, taking in the light sprays and sound reverberations in one of the most awesome art shows I’ve ever had the privilege of attending. Pyramids loomed in front of us. History spoke over time. And we were held captive.


So the branch cascaded, spewing dust into the air — white snow dust — as we both laughed aloud, convinced we had two of the best seats “in the house.” It was God’s house we were in — though no front door and no back door and no windows. Windows surrounded us, as far as our eyes could see.


Earlier in the day I had driven out through Denmark and then into Hiram, going some of the really back roads. All of a sudden I looked over to my left. There was a huge white expanse — misty, cloudy, eerily bright with sunshine. I knew that what was there in the summertime was a lake. I figured the lake was still there but this time artfully decorated in white white white shadows, sunlight breakthroughs and then exceptionally clean fog fog and some more fog.


All along the lake covered with winter splendor were empty cottages. I thought, “My, those owners of cottages don’t know what art they’re missing in the winter season. They bask here in summer months, bragging on their stay in Maine for vacation’s two weeks. But if they could only take in the February fog-in-mist mushroomed in white bursts moving left and right.”


Art. In front of me on our walk here in Windham were branches everywhere. Some of them were downed by heavy winds several nights past. Others were still bravely clinging to the trunks. But whatever and wherever, they were laced with white.


“Look at that one dried up leaf hanging from the tree limb over there,” I pointed out. One fragile leaf. Yet it bravely held a handful of light fluffy pure white snowflakes. I wanted to touch the leaf but felt as if it would be sacrilege for breaking God’s art fix on that particular nature spread. So I just peered at it from all sides, remarking of its simple, frail marvel to the eye.


“No artist could do better than this,” I exclaimed, not really caring that my wife heard me or anyone heard me. I just had to say it. “No artist could come up with a winter art book of watercolor paintings such as what we are privy to today.”


It was absolutely breathtaking.


Others hibernate inside their houses during winter season. They seem to be afraid of season’s cold against the face and ears. I instead covet it. I like the summer; but it’s the winter that takes me to its frigid, lovely heart with pleasure.


I think I take to winter so readily because actually I love art, I enjoy art displays, I like taking up my own watercolor paints with brush, and so I am especially appreciative of the divinely unique art stroke with snow and limb.

J. Grant Swank, Jr. 


Her skin was flawless, her manner graceful, her laugh infectious.  Further, she came from an upper-middle class Christian home.  She had attended a Christian college.  Her boyfriend went to her church.


When she sat with my wife and me, however, her glance was anxious. And her hands twisted one another.  Her shoulders bent under troubling weight.  How else does one look after having had an abortion?


"We sat in the clinic," she said, "and we saw others from my college." She and her boyfriend had huddled together in the outer room of the abortion trade. There had been none of their usual laughter, only embarrassed eyes touching one another, then glancing off onto beige walls.


"My family must never know," she said.  "They'd die.  They would. . ." She began to cry. Speaking in half sentences had become common that night.  Confusion mixed with hurt overwhelmed language. Grammar was molded to fit the wounds inside.
Reliving the nightmare was not easy, for her or for us.  Light from living room lamps glowed too brightly for tired eyes. The usually cozy parsonage turned into an impersonal barracks of the soul.   We yearned for escape.


But escape would not come. What had been done was stamped upon the minds of those involved.  When going to sleep, It all came back, rushing against the nerves to yank and pull.  On awakening,  it was the same.  As long as the body housed the spirit, there would be cries against the injustice done.


These were not my conclusions, nor the political statements of one running for office, nor pronouncements from some aloof pulpit. They were anguished cries. They were pieces of a broken heart that kept pumping out its fear and guilt.


She went on and on.  At times we tried to say something helpful; at times we let silence soothe.  Then, she would start all over--mumbled sentences, the awful stare at the ceiling, more tears, pressing her hands against her face, then dropping them into her lap.


I had preached sermons on abortion. I had Bible passages I could pull out handily, and I had written articles dissecting the theological fine points. But confronting it in the raw was another matter. What to do with a soul set on fire with its own burning coals was a complicated assignment.


Once, at the invitation of the teacher, I had spoken against abortion to a public high school class, along with a representative from Planned Parenthood. The latter told how youth could get an abortion without having to tell their parents. Now, in my living room, I wondered how that rep would have dealt with this torn woman.


At public functions where "choice" advocates appeared in their expensive outfits, speaking with poise and confidence, I'd heard them refute prolifers in the audience, speaking about freedoms--this right and that right. That night, I wondered what they would say now.  It is one thing to speak academically on the subject.  It is quite another to attempt to bring sanity to one crushed by the act.


I recalled the first time this girl and her boyfriend had come to our church. They had appeared so handsome, sparkling, happy. They had opened the hymnal together. They had  sat close during the sermon. They had smiled politely while shaking my hand after the services. When they entered a room, people had taken note. Without trying, they had easily modeled the ideal couple.


However, people are complicated. They reflect the complexities of life itself. It should not have come as a surprise when we received  a call asking if we could chat--only to have this young woman spill out the substance of the appointment:  abortion.


I doubt if anyone in ministry is ever fully equipped for human sufferings. Certainly walking through the dark halls of abortion's aftermath is one duty that goes beyond our resources. There have been other times when we have listened to these cries. The faces were different, but the cries strikingly similar. Each time, it gets harder. 


Instead of finding more precise tools for counseling, we confront our frailty as
helpers with ever deeper ache. We try to be more refined and professional but when it comes to abortion--the killing of the innocent--we discover more inadequacies within our sincere attempts at healing.


What did we do right?  Perhaps our reminders of the grace of God--regardless of what we have done--brought some solace. Perhaps the message of the divine search to continue to forgive, to glue pieces back together again, brought hope.  I pray so.  I also think the silence was worth something.


Our being there, our gentle graces--would to God that they were more.  Perhaps these young women have sensed our willingness to keep listening and crying with them and groping for God's kind face again.  I believe it all adds up to some eternal balm.


Nevertheless, I dread these situations. Each time, a part of me dies, because I hear not only the crying of the one sitting on the sofa. I also hear the cry of one who was small and unprotected, that tiny one who--by one means or another--was scraped out of life on earth.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


It is alarming to realize the nonchalance on the part of many concerning abortion.  But it is not new.  There are those who state:  "Abortion is finding its place as a perfectly acceptable and valid health measure. We no longer think of it as a crime."


There are those who say that every woman has a right to control her own body. That is true. Then, having control over her own body, she should not become pregnant if she does not want children. That is control. When she becomes pregnant, then she has lost her control over that situation.


But more importantly, only God has final rights to any person's body.  He brought that body into life and someday will take that body out of life. In the meantime, He provides the very sustaining power for the body's life to continue.


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, January 24, l974, 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 l0:8-l2).


"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:l, 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 l: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 full 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 for me were written in your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm l39:l3-l6).


"Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him" (Psalm l27:3).


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, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."


All of the latter deals with unintentional hurt which 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, filled with the Holy Spirit, said. . .'As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy'" (l:4l,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 person while still in his mother's womb, but more--a person consecrated by God for a holy mission (compare Jeremiah l: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. . ." (Galatians l:l5-l6).


"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 Company, l976, p. iv).

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


It’s back to what works. Kids in Sunday school and worship works. Kids being shown proper home discipline works. Kids active in school programs works. This is not according to Dr. James Dobson Studies. It’s according to a research just handed media from the University of Washington.


What's going on in a youth’s life as related to church, home and school counts big time in that child’s maturing. These are called "protective factors" by those conducting the study, according to The Washington Times’ Jennifer Harper. So we’re called back to "the good old days" by those scoping out youngsters’ behavior.


In fact, the researchers highlight that, even in some of the worst neighborhoods, value-oriented persons should not give up all hope. There’s a light shining in that section of the city. It’s the church. There are those church youths who are surrounded with all sorts of temptations to do wrong but who mainly do right. It’s because they attend the church activities where another lifestyle is offered than what they find in the streets.


All the more for America to return to church, home discipline and school activities that further basic values of honesty, caring and decency. Norman Rockwell paintings on The Saturday Evening Post preached a sound message when they pictured for the public those cheerful, homey settings. Can we return to a semblance of that sanity?


"Church, school, kin assuage teen violence" headlines this piece in the Times.


"Some old-fashioned guidelines still prevail: Church attendance, family discipline and meaningful school involvement lessen violence among aggressive children in tough neighborhoods, according to a study released yesterday by the University of Washington.


"The study found that just 11 percent of black teenagers became violent by the time they were 18 if their parents practiced such ‘good family-management skills as actively providing supervision, setting clear rules and expectations for behavior and reinforcing good work habits.’


"Among parents who did not rule the roost, 49 percent of the teens later became
violent."


I taught in an at-risk youths alternative learning school. Every day I was with teens from homes that were shattered. Not all, but most of the households represented that profile. There was usually at least a mom at home. Sometimes however there was no parent. One fellow lived in the streets. Another bobbed from house to house — relative, friend, stranger. Some came from homes where their parents were drug users. A teen girl’s mother was serving time in prison for drug trafficking.


I saw every morning the faces of those who hardly ever, if ever, walked through the front door of a church. They had no idea what a worship service was like. The only time they heard deity’s name was when cursing. They knew nothing about religious values. Because I was so "straight" in my value-based lifestyle, they at times asked if I were a priest! They at least associated a person who did not swear and had a sense of caring with a clergyman.


These kids rebelled against any school discipline for that was foreign to their thinking. They had no discipline shown them in any area of their lives. They did whatever they wanted to do — steal, lie, do drugs, sleep around, race cars, get drunk — whatever. Once I asked one of the boys if he didn’t feel guilty when stealing from a local store. His answer: "Grant, when it’s right, it’s not wrong." That was his value base.


I asked him where he got the new sneakers. He related that they came from the mall. He put on a brand new pair that had no metal detector in them so that he could wear them out of the store without any alarm going off. I asked him if he felt that to be wrong. He looked back with the largest smile, saying nothing at all.


These kids often were the "youth center graduates." That is, they had spent time in teen jail. Now I make pastoral calls on young men in the adult jail. Numerous ones I visit in the adult jail are those who have come up the ladder — from teen jail to adult jail. For most, they’ll spend the rest of their lives going in and out of jails.


What was particularly heartbreaking for me when teaching at the alternative learning school was when all attempts failed. Randy was one of those disasters. He was one of the most handsome youths going. He had a smile that stretched from ear to ear — and it frequently graced his countenance. He was tall, slender and athletic. Unfortunately, his biological father had nothing to do with him since he was a little boy. "I hate my father," he would tell me. There was no wondering why.


His biological mother had married several times so that Randy didn’t know what man to relate to as father. Those men were not caring about the mother’s children anyhow. So Randy was left without a dad in his life. When he came to the school, he was bunking out at a young adult man’s apartment. There were three there — the man, his girl friend and Randy. Randy slept on the couch. "I don’t mind it," he told me. "It’s at least a place to stay."


But eventually Randy wore out his welcome. The girl friend got tired of him being there. She wanted the place to herself and her boy friend. The man was torn. He wanted to help Randy out but he didn’t want to lose his girl either. So the bottom line was Randy had to leave. Where did he go in the middle of that winter several years ago? He ended up in an uncle’s trailer — that is, after leaving the school one day in a tantrum, never to return.


One day while talking with Randy on the phone, I asked him how he was doing. "Oh, okay," he answered, characteristically cheerful. It took a lot to get Randy to be totally "down." "Are you getting something to eat? Is it warm there?" I asked. He answered that things were all right, not to worry.


He had birthed a little boy. He and the child’s mom, a teen herself, had a fight one night. The authorities told Randy he couldn’t see the baby any more. They said that they feared that in the tussle between teen father and teen mother the baby might get hurt. So Randy was now left with no father, in reality no mother, no girl friend for he couldn’t see her without seeing the baby — that’s the stipulation she set up — and no little boy of his own.


It was in that frigid January that Randy walked down the main artery in our village. In front of his girl friend’s grandparents’ home, Randy darted in front of an oncoming car, taking his life. Police found a good-bye note in his pocket.


I still have Randy’s photos of his skiing on a nearby mountain. They are tucked into my Bible. Once in awhile I get them out, stare at them, and wonder what life would have been like for Randy if he had had church, home and school activities — all level and loving and nurturing and the rest of the nice things that go with a well-rounded teen life. But he missed out on them all.


When pastoring, I spent every day with church teens who lived at the other end of the spectrum — most of the time. Even from "nice" homes there are of course those teens who go astray into crime. But within the congregational family there was caring, honesty and decency. That definitely rubbed off on the church teens. Those youngsters were active in church youth programs, school activities, and modeled their lives after their Christian parents.


It is interesting for me then to read the university study of influences upon today’s teens for I have worked at both ends of the social stick. I have experienced the difference. The study is right. And with that, I pray that our nation will have some strength left by which to return to the baseline that provides a youngster with a good, decent life.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


Barack Hussein Obama has quickly come to the fore regarding the tragic Haitian situation.


However, in proposing extremely large funds to Haiti could Obama stretch the already stretched American dollar to its ripping point?


Further, in rushing to bring together a shredded society that has no governing base, could Obama become the stepfather to a deeply troubled Haitian public?


If that is so, Obama has over his head one project too much. It cannot work.


Obama already is in over his head concerning his own country. He has not brought hope and change as he promised. He has been discovered as the inept individual many knew him to be before he walked into the White House.


By now, countless Americans can recite the litany of failures catalogued in stacks standing alongside a failure President.


Then to take on a torn country would be something out of reach for a mere mortal. Obama may think that Haitian aliens someday in America would add up to be a Dem vote increase; but that cannot happen until they come upon immediate survival basics.


They have no governing head, no governing buildings, no societal structure with the fundamentals for a culture to build upon. Food, water, medicine, shelter—gone in a few moments of time.


Of course, Haiti is reaching out to America. Many Americans are reaching back to help. But Obama, being President of America, symbolizes that one individual Haitians may appeal to for the impossible.


Day upon day will spell such grief and loss, that who in the world will be able to step in to provide? Not Obama.


That in itself could bring such weights upon the man that he will collapse beneath the load of retrieving his own position in his own country while trying to bring survival surgery to Haiti.


Newsmax posted a photo of Obama with an extremely downcast countenance. The caption read: “A grim President Barack Obama stands with Vice President Joe Biden as he makes a statement about the earthquake in Haiti, Thursday, at the White House.”


That photo will show a countenance more and more fallen as the excruciating pressure increases beyond one man’s ability to fix Haiti.

J. Grant Swank, Jr. At the top of the matter, let’s not think that any US government aid to Haiti will ever reach the poor. We all feel for the agonizing Haitian poor if we have any conscience; but that said, don’t think that any US government aid will reach the poor. Marxist Muslim Barack Hussein Obama, late in responding to the Fort Hood massacre, inefficient in his support for US troops in Afghanistan, and tagging pants bomber as an “isolated extremist,” came through quickly to the Haitian earthquake tragedy. He meets at 7:30 a.m. on Haiti. He meets at 9:30 or 10:00 to discuss national security. True, Haiti needs all the aid anyone anywhere can give. Of course. And particularly Christian heritage American grassroots will rise to the occasion as in the past with other disasters around the globe, even in these economically stressed times. So, recognize that humanitarian compassion in practice is high on the grassroots agenda. With that follows this question: With Obama promising lots of money to Haiti, where is it going to come from? Where oh where? Is Obama simply going to print more money? No doubt. He’s out to behead the country. Sincerely compassionate people have the noblest motives when they respond to hurting Haitians. But even then the US government wallet is only so deep. Obama has just asked for $708 billion for two wars. Count the pennies on that one and wonder. It might turn out that the US will need aid more than Haiti. Really. I support private citizens and corporations and such giving to Haiti, but not the US government shelling out. There are scores of individuals and good-heart agencies willing to help. By the way, don’t send contributions for Haitian relief to the US government as Obama has asked. One cannot trust the cheat in the White House, surely not as a charity outfit. It is Obama out to tax charities. Remember? Further, Obama responds so promptly to a predominantly black people’s tragedy. When it came to whites laid low at Fort Hood, why was the Obama delay so pronounced? Now that opens the door for being labeled racist. I am not. I am simply pointing out the obvious. To not mention it is to be irrational. Moreover, wait not too long for Robin Hood Obama to open US doors to Haitian aliens for their Dem votes will count healthily. This question also comes to mind: when the US government gives to another government such as Haiti, do dollars go into fat cats’ pockets? Naturally. Haiti has an open greedy officialdom history. Previous governments there stashed rotting US dollars under the presidential palace. So what’s with the grassroots poor not coming upon US handouts? Think on this: media reports that the Presidential Palace was leveled by the quake. Why does a mere mortal live in a Palace while God-created peasants live on $2 a day? One can be sure that the first building to be restored will be the Presidential Palace. It is so sad that Haitians for years have had to endure money-grabbing Papa Docs jamming their thumbs in the backs of the poor. And yet with a quake staring us in the face, the US is to trust another round with these thieves? Lastly, what ever happened to the $50 billion Clinton handed over to Haitian officials? Oh, but permit this post script: Surely Yemen hospital ships are on their way to Haiti as well as real-life real-time aid from Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iran. And where is the UN coordination of massive aid to Haiti?

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


Years ago, Haitians told the Devil they would serve him if they could be severed from French rule.


They were severed from French rule and so now live under the curse.


You may believe that or not. Some conclude it is but a legend. Robertson considers it to be history.


There are some events regarded as legend that in fact were historical. When I attended Harvard Divinity School I was taught basically that biblical miracles could be traced back to legends and were not history.
I did not accept that. I believed just the opposite.


Who today was at the events referred to by Robertson? No one. So the debate will go on till the end of time.


Countless will discount Robertson as a hyper Pentecostal spokesman as they have in the past. Others will believe his conclusion as sound.


Whatever choice, the Bible states clearly that when a people turn away from God, divine curses come upon them. Read Deuteronomy 28 at http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+28-29%2CMark+14%3A54-72&version=NIV


When people live in total surrender to the Bible’s God, divine blessings are bestowed upon them.


Those who despise the Bible as mythology then go spastic over others who claim the Bible as eternal truth. The anti-Bible crew turns into screeching hyenas blasting the Scriptures.


However, those who align their faith with the Bible as God’s Word believe with their entire beings such biblical teachings as Deuteronomy’s curses and blessings.


Mortals have free will. They can choose because God has formed them that way. Therefore, God permits mortals to despise Him or delight in Him. Their last breath then yields the consequences with eternal
bliss in heaven or eternal damnation in hell.


Again, those who despise the Bible as so much rubbish go absolutely berserk when such statements are made. They don’t believe in God. They don’t hold to a heaven or hell. They believe all is morally relativistic. This existence is all there is and so forth.


However, those who confess the Bible as their guide for belief and lifestyle hold fast to the curses and blessings segments. They live their lives staving off the curses by obeying God. They witness that in obeying God they experience His blessings.


America is in dire shape. This country has committed sins that are abhorrent to the Bible’s God. Two of them are killing womb babies in huge numbers and baptizing homosexual practice as morally legitimate.


There are other outrageous evils permitted openly by American citizens, some protected by law, others held to simply because sin is enjoyable for a season.


If our nation continues to turn its face against God, it will pay severely with divine curses.


There is an obvious, pressing need for a spiritual revival to engulf America; only then will divine blessings return to this country.


It is the curse. Or it is the blessing. Free wills determine which America will experience.


Read http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+28-29%2CMark+14%3A54-72&version=NIV

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele may be a smart fellow in some sort of fashion, but his mouth has a gear out of whack.


For example, Steele says Republicans can’t win in 2010. That comes from the man chosen to be the Party’s cheerleader.


The last ingredient the Republican Party needs is a speaker who knocks his own. The Party must have a spokesman who knows his facts, speaks realistically with finesse and molds concepts that build a future.


Steele has none of these qualities. Instead, he makes statements that defy facts. He lacks mouth control so as to be, for one, abrasive. Instead of envisioning Republican wins, he preaches weakness and defeat.


Reports have it that Steele is getting Republican spankings behind doors. Sometimes they come in news interviews with those shocked at the Steele drag on the Party. For certain, there are not many in Steele’s amen corner these days. He’s become an embarrassment to Republicans.


No doubt it’s his personality. And that is not going to change dramatically for what fundamentally Steele is, he is. Now the Republican Party realizes that it made a poor choice when coming upon his persona.


Should he be fired?


Steele has baited the Party with that question by saying if the Party wants to fire him, then fire him. Is that the kind of image the Party needs for its Chairman? Hardly. He’s asking for trouble from his own family and he is getting it.


Here is vintage Steele mouth per Newsmax’s Ronald Kessler:


“’Get a life,’ Steele snapped. ‘If you don’t want me in the job, fire me. But until then, shut up. Get with the program.’


“Responding to a comment by TV One’s Roland Martin that ‘white Republicans have been scared of black folks,’ Steele replied, ‘You’re absolutely right.’


“The first African-American RNC chairman, Steele continued, ‘I’ve been in the room, and they’ve been scared of me. I’m like, I’m on your side.’


“In the face of criticism, Steele routinely tries to retract his controversial statements. He now says Republicans will win in 2010, but the damage has been done. He has defended his leadership by saying, ‘I have $8 million [cash on hand in the RNC's coffers] and no debt.’


“Given that the RNC had $23 million when Steele took over in January 2009, $8 million now on the books is not exactly impressive. Meanwhile, some key Republican donors say they are avoiding the RNC.


“On Fox, when Hannity expressed surprise at Steele's comment that Republicans wouldn't be able to take back the House, Steele allowed that ‘I don’t know yet’ whether Republicans could win a majority because candidates still are being lined up.


“’But then,’ Steele said, ‘the question we need to ask ourselves is, if we do that, are we ready?’


Hannity asked Steele what his answer is.


“’I don’t know,’ Steele said.”


Obviously that is not what the Republican Party wants to hear.


Read Ronald Kessler’s “Michael Steele Has Lost the Support of His Party” at http://newsmax.com/Headline/steele-gop-support-republican/2010/01/12/id/346168?s=al&promo_code=9536-1

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


“Hell in Haiti” is the headline this morning.


“The hospitals cannot handle all these victims,” Dr. Louis-Gerard Gilles, a doctor and former Lavalas senator, said as he helped survivors. “Haiti needs to pray. We all need to pray together.”


How many times have Americans begged for that when tragedy strikes?


Yet when quiet, peaceful times slip through, that call to prayer is forgotten—except for the anti-God evangelists. They up their antagonism against God by threatening to secularize the nation.


They despise “In God We Trust” as our motto.


They want to erase “under God” from the pledge of allegiance.


They got prayer out of public schools.


And so forth.


However, as history moves on, another tragedy hits and people reach up to God. They say something like “our prayers are with you.” Sometimes they even interview clergy to ask their spiritual opinions on the situation.


One cannot get rid of God. God created all things. God still oversees the spiritually fallen planet, Earth. God will have the last word concerning this planet’s existence.


This God appeared in Jesus. Jesus offered redemption for the genuinely repentant. Jesus even gave His own life as a sinless substitute for our sins.


However, He came unto His own, but His own received Him not. And so the world continues to hate Jesus, except for the righteous remnant who have discovered in Him their salvation.


Read WHY IS JESUS HATED? at http://jgrantswankjr.blogspot.com/2010/01/why-is-jesus-hated.html


No matter what the anti-God voices scream, they cannot rid the world of its Creator God.


Now Haiti is shocked by a devastating earthquake. And with that the cry goes out to pray.


Read “Injured Haitians plead for help after quake” at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cb_haiti_earthquake