Dad
June 2, 2003
—By Father DavidDFO97516 November 1980
1. EACH CHILD CAN GO UP THERE & PUT SOMETHING DIFFERENT UP‚ OK? Pull Techi's chair up beside you, David, where she can sit down & watch, & each one take your turn, OK? All right, now we're going to start from scratch. Not the legs yet! Oddly enough, you don't begin from the ground up on this story. (Techi: Daddy, Daddy! Tell story! Tell story!) I'm telling the story!
2. THERE WAS A NICE GOOD BOY WHO LOVED THE LORD WHO LIVED IN THE KING'S COURT, & HIS NAME WAS? (DAVIDA: DANIEL!) Have we got a picture of Daniel to put up? Have we got one of him on his knees praying? How do we know he was a good boy? Yes, Techi, you can put that one up, OK? Put up the one with Daniel on his knees. He was praying.
3. THAT'S HOW WE KNOW WE WAS A GOOD BOY, BECAUSE HE DID A LOT OF PRAYING! OK, put it up. There's Daniel praying. Now next it's Davida's turn. Wait a minute, we're not ready for Daniel standing up before the king, we have to have him kneeling down praying first. OK, that's good, you can put him up.
4. BECAUSE THE KING HAD A DREAM, & COULD HE REMEMBER WHAT HE DREAMED? He didn't even remember his dream, only he knew it was a very important dream. (Techi: Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Tell story!) I'm telling you the story! The king had a dream & he couldn't remember it, so he asked Daniel to come & tell him what the dream was & the interpretation. He's talking to the king, don't move him! Let's leave him right there, shall we?
5. AND THE KING SAID, "I HAD VISIONS IN THE NIGHT & I CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS, & I don't even remember the dream!" So he sent for all the wise men. Do we have any wise men? Here's the wise men, David, you take the wise men. And where shall we put them? Yes, that's a pretty good place, they ought to be on the floor in front of Daniel because they couldn't even remember the dream. Here's Daniel right here, & here's the wise men right here, see?
6. AND THEY SAID, "WELL, KING, THAT'S ASKING A LOT! You tell us the dream & we'll give you the interpretation. But to just give you the dream too‚ that's too much!" So the king got so mad he was going to kill them all! But Daniel prayed & asked the king to give them a chance, & the king asked him‚ "Well, you tell me what I dreamed!" So Daniel came before the king & said,
7. "KING, I CAN TELL YOU! NOT I‚ BUT THE LORD! I prayed & the God of Heaven will give us the interpretation of the dream!" And so what did he dream? He said, "First of all thou sawest a great" what? (David: Image!) That's for Davida, let Davida put that one up. "I saw a great" what, Davida? (Davida: Image.)
8. HERE'S THE KING ON HIS THRONE TELLING DANIEL ABOUT IT‚ & HE'S PUZZLED, SEE? He can't remember what he dreamed or what it was about. (Techi puts up the stone.) No, that's the end of the story! That's the tail of the story‚ the tail of the comet! That goes last, Honey, not yet. Techi, sit down a minute & listen, OK? (Techi: Samuel!) No, Samuel isn't here. Daniel's here this time. Maybe Samuel was behind him helping him, could be!
9. SO DANIEL SAID, "YOU SAW THIS GREAT IMAGE & ITS HEAD..." Where's the head? It's Davida's turn, she hasn't had a chance to put up anything yet, has she? "Its head was a head of gold!" (Davida puts up the head of gold.) You all haven't done this before? They act like they know just what to do! (Sara: Yes, we've had this story before‚ but not this flannelgraph.) Oh, the story! But she knew just what to do with the head‚ she knew right where to put it. (Techi puts up arms & breast.) Wait, not yet, the head of gold!
10. AND AFTER THAT IT HAD ARMS & BREAST OF SILVER. David, it's your turn, but Techi's got it, so go ahead & help her put'm up, she can't reach quite so high. Oh my goodness, he's got long arms, hasn't he? All right now, the next one is David's & what did he have next, David?
11. (DAVID: HIS BELLY & THIGHS WERE BRASS!) Yes, belly & thighs of brass! And what is brass? It looks like gold but it's not, is it? It's kind of phoney gold, fake gold. The real gold was where? Where was the real gold? Look at the Image. (David: His head.)
12. HIS HEAD WAS THE REAL GOLD, THAT WAS THE REAL THING, THE REAL GOLD! And then came silver next; was that better or was that worth less than gold? (David: Worth less.) The best part of the Image is what? (David: Gold.) And that's what part? (David: The head.) The head, that's right. (Techi: Daniel! Daniel praying!) Here's Daniel praying over here. He's finished praying now, so you can have him. You want to put him right there? All right.
13. SO THE GOLD WAS THE BEST OF ALL, WASN'T IT? The head was of gold‚ & the head came first. Your head sort of comes before your feet if you start from up here down, doesn't it? Now most people start from the ground up, but God does things different, He starts from Heaven down, from the head down, so He started with the head.
14. AND NEXT IT'S TECHI'S TURN TO PUT UP THE LEGS. There you are! She knew where to put'm! Good girl! How did she know that? (Sara: Just in the right place! Jesus showed her!) How did she know that that's where to put'm? You put the legs in the right place! There are the legs, & the legs were made of what? Techi, what were the legs made of? Do you know, David? (David: Iron.) Iron!
15. AND THEN THE FEET WERE MADE OF TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. Davida, do you know what they were made of? (Davida: Iron.) And? Clay & iron mixed, that's right. So he remembered the dream, didn't he? (Techi: Next Samuel, next Samuel! Image!) Yes, we've got to get Samuel in here somewhere since he's your favourite character! We'll have to get him in on the show, that's for sure! All right, now let's see. David, you're next.
16. THE PROPHET DANIEL TOLD THE KING WHAT HE DREAMED, BUT NOW THE KING WANTED TO KNOW WHAT IT MEANT, didn't he? So he said, "O king, the Lord has given you this dream, & He's the One who knows the interpretation thereof, & He will tell you what it means!" And he said, "Thou, O king, art this..." (David: Head of gold!) Head of gold! You got it right, that's right! The king was the best government of all these governments. Now let's see if the big people know anything.
17. WHY WAS NEBUCHADNEZZAR & THE BABYLONIAN EMPIRE THE BEST OF ALL THESE GOVERNMENTS? (James: Maybe Daniel was just appealing to the king's ego a little bit?) Well, I know some Bible teachers will probably tell you that, but I don't go for it! It could have been a pretty good idea that he did appeal to his ego, since he was a slave there & a prisoner, & I've heard some Bible teachers say that this is why he did it. But the fact was, was he just kidding him & trying to appeal just to his ego, or was he really the best of the governments?
18. (PETER: NEBUCHADNEZZAR EVENTUALLY GOT SAVED & BECAME A BELIEVER.) He got saved‚ & what else? (Rich: Daniel was his adviser.) Yes. And what kind of a king & kingdom then did he become? (Jus: A good king.) A very good king who followed whose orders?
19. DAVID, THIS KING WHO WAS THE HEAD OF GOLD, DID HE LOVE THE LORD? (David: Yes.) He did! And how did he hear about the Lord? (David: From Daniel.) Daniel was a good witness, right? You've had the story about how he even went into the lions' den & the Lord saved him, right? So therefore the king had a lot of respect for his faith, so he believed him when he told him these things.
20. AND SO WHEN HE SAID, "THOU ART THIS HEAD OF GOLD," IT MEANT THAT WAS THE BEST PART OF THE WHOLE IMAGE‚ the most precious metal. And what's the most important part of your body? (David: The head.) Right! So he was the head. That means he was the first part of the Image & the best & most important part.
21. AND WE FIND OUT IN HIS STORY THAT HE DID GET SAVED & HE WAS A BELIEVER & he proclaimed God as the most high God above all other gods, & he commanded all of his people to worship the Lord. Not one of those other kingdoms ever did that, he was the last one to do it. He was really the first & the last of all the Image & of all the beasts & of all the seven empires to command the whole World to worship the Lord!
22. SO HE WAS REALLY A HEAD OF GOLD, WASN'T HE, DAVID? Did you know that? (Techi: Little boy Samuel! Little boy Samuel!) OK, he can be praying down there with Daniel, OK? Here‚ you want to put him down there to pray with Daniel? We'll put him right here!
23. SO NEBUCHADNEZZAR WAS THE BEST & THE MOST IMPORTANT BECAUSE HE LOVED THE LORD & HE LOVED DANIEL, God's Prophet, & he told all the people to love & worship the Lord, didn't he? So he had a great & glorious kingdom, the greatest kingdom on the face of the Earth, & the best one the World ever had even from before or afterward till Jesus Christ, because it was a kingdom where they loved the Lord & they worshipped God & they obeyed the king & Daniel & they loved one another & they believed the Bible. That was a good kingdom, huh? (Family: Yes!)
24. AND WHAT WAS THE NEXT KINGDOM, DAVIDA? What kind of metal was it? What part of the image? Hey, don't decapitate him yet! Techi says, "Well, we're through with his head now!" (Davida: Brass?) No. What does it look like? What colour is it? (Davida: Grey.) Yes‚ well what metal is a grey colour? Not gold, gold is yellow, right? Look what Sue has around her neck‚ what metal is that? (Davida: Brass.) No, brass is gold-coloured too.
25. CAN ANYBODY TELL US WHAT METAL THE SHOULDERS & ARMS WERE MADE OF? David? (David: Brass.) Nope! Look, point to the arms & breast, that part. Look, Sue's wearing some, who else has got some on? Look‚ Margie has some on. What is the next best metal to gold? (David: Silver!) Silver, that's right! And then, David, since you're such a shiner on that one‚ the next one was what metal, after that? (David: Brass.) Brass, right, but we're getting ahead of our story now.
26. THE HEAD REPRESENTED WHAT KINGDOM? (Family: Babylon.) And the arms & breast of silver, what kingdom was that? It was Medo- Persia, & that's why it has two arms, because it was a dual kingdom. It had two arms because it was Medo-Persia. It had two kings & it was a united kingdom. The kings of the Medes & the Persians were united.
27. AND THERE WAS A GREAT KING WHO CAME WITH A BIG ARMY, OF ONE OF THE MEDES & PERSIANS, & CONQUERED BABYLON after Nebuchadnezzar was gone. His grandson wasn't as good as he was, he was kind of a bad boy who just liked wild parties & things like that. So the Lord had a hand write on the wall, & do you remember what it said? (David: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin!) That's right! (Dan.5:25.)
28. A LITTLE BOY IN SUNDAY SCHOOL WAS ASKED THAT QUESTION AT ANGELES TEMPLE ONCE. They said, "What did the hand write on the wall?" He said, "Amiee, Amiee, Semple, McPherson!"—She was the woman preacher who was the pastor at Angeles Temple! Pretty smart boy! (Techi: Daddy, hide! Daddy, hide!) Daddy can't hide, Honey, we have to have a little bit more flannelgraph. Come kiss Daddy, come kiss Daddy! Give me a good kiss! Daddy can't hide now because we have to have a class, Sweet Baby. I love you!
29. LORD BLESS & KEEP HER & MAKE HER A GOOD GIRL & GIVE HER A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP & keep her safely in Jesus' name, amen. (Techi goes to bed.) Daddy doesn't have a pointer! How can I do it without a pointer? I always had a pointer when I was a teacher.
30. SO WHO CAME & CONQUERED THE CITY OF BABYLON when Belshazzar was having his wild party & the hand wrote on the wall? It was one of the kings of the Medes & the Persians. Who was the warrior who conquered the city? (Peter: Darius.) Some people pronounce it Dari-us, & some people pronounce it Dari-us, usually it's called Dari-us. Darius the... (Peter: Darius the Mede.) Mede, very good. It's a good thing they put it that way‚ Medes & Persians, because the Medes came first.
31. DARIUS THE MEDE CAME WITH HIS ARMY, & CAN ANYBODY TELL ME HOW HE GOT IN THE CITY? It was a huge giant city with gigantic walls 344 feet high, so big they were as wide as a street on top so that two chariots could ride along right together on top of the wall, 86 feet wide! And it was so big it was 42 miles around the whole city! And it had 100 great big gates of brass. (Sue brings Dad a pointer:) Oh, pretty good! You could almost go fishing with that! Very handy thing to have!
32. SO THE CITY HAD 100 GREAT BIG GATES OF BRASS, & they were so thick nobody could get through those gates—no army, no machines, no catapult, no ramrods, nothing could break down those gates! So how do you suppose they got in? They sneaked in when Belshazzar was having this wild party & everybody was busy having fun. (David: I guess they broke down the door.)
33. NOPE, THEY COULDN'T BREAK DOWN THE GATES, they were too big & thick & heavy. It even took a whole bunch of men just to push one open when it was unlocked because they were so big. All right, brainchild over here? (James: There was a river going in under the wall.) Yes, what river? (James: Euphrates or Tigris?) Well, if I'm not mistaken, I think it was the Euphrates, & it was a big river.
34. SEE, THE RIVER WENT UNDER THE WALL OF THE CITY SO THAT THE PEOPLE INSIDE COULD HAVE WATER when there were armies around outside & they couldn't get out. So the river went through the city under the wall. I mean, way down under the wall & it was all wet.
35. BUT DARIUS THE MEDE WAS A SMART GUY‚ SO WHAT DID HE DO? (David: He crept under the wall.) Yes, but he couldn't have gotten under the wall because the river was there & they would have all drowned. (James: He diverted some of the water so that the level of the river went down.) Yes‚ they dug another channel. That must have been a long party, or they had been at it already by this time.
36. SO THEY DUG A CHANNEL & DIVERTED ENOUGH OF THE WATER TO LOWER THE LEVEL OF THE RIVER. See the river was right up to the bottom of the wall, & if they'd tried to swim under they'd have drowned because there was no air there, you couldn't swim under. See, you can swim down below like this & can't even find any air at all. But he diverted some of the water so that the water came down like this & the soldiers could stick their heads up above water like that, see?
37. THEY COULD STICK THEIR HEADS UP ABOVE WATER & THEY COULD SWIM RIGHT ON THROUGH UNDERNEATH THE WALL like that, & they'd come up on the other side inside the city! The water came right up against the bottom of the wall so they couldn't get through. They could swim all around underneath the water but they couldn't get any air & they'd have just drowned.
38. SO HE DIVERTED SOME OF THE WATER, HE DUG A DITCH THAT LET SOME OF THE WATER GO OFF ANOTHER WAY & then the water underneath the wall came down lower & the soldiers could stick their heads right up above the water like that‚ see? And they could swim right through underneath the wall like that & come up on the other side, where? (David: In the city.) Inside the city while everybody was busy having a big party getting drunk! The city's soldiers must not have been paying much attention either‚ huh?
39. SO THERE WERE A BUNCH OF MEN WHO SWAM UNDER THE WALL & CAME UP INSIDE THE CITY, & they crept to the gate & they unlocked the gate & they pushed & pushed & pushed the huge big gates open!—And in swept the great big army & conquered the city! That was quite a trick, huh? Pretty smart!
40. I BET GOD TAUGHT'M HOW TO DO THAT BECAUSE HE WAS FED UP WITH THIS GUY BELSHAZZAR! He was a bad boy‚ he wasn't near as good as his grandfather. His old grandfather Nebuchadnezzar was a good old king, but Belshazzar was a bad boy & kind of crazy & wild. So God was fed up with him.
41. BECAUSE WHAT DID GOD SAY TO HIM?—MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN! And what did that mean? (David: The army's going to come in & get you!) That's about what it meant! Does anybody know exactly? Three things. Mene, Mene means what? (James: "God hath numbered thy kingdom & finished it.") And Tekel? (Family: "Thou art weighed in the balances & found wanting.") Upharsin?
42. (JAMES: IT DOESN'T SAY UPHARSIN‚ IT SAYS PERES.) Mene‚ Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. Where's the Upharsin? (Dan.5:25.) It was using the Greek or something to explain to them. So the whole translation was what? Read the whole interpretation. (James: "MENE: God hath numbered thy kingdom & finished it. TEKEL: Thou art weighed in the balances, & art found wanting. PERES: Thy kingdom is divided & given to the Medes & Persians.") So the Lord promised & warned them on the wall. The hand that was writing on the wall said, "Mene, Mene, Tekel"—like tea kettle!—"Upharsin"!
43. HE SAID YOUR KINGDOM'S COME TO AN END, IT'S WEIGHED IN THE BALANCES & FOUND WANTING! What does that mean? He'd fallen short, right? Weighed in the balance & found wanting‚ there wasn't enough of it. If something is found wanting it means it lacks something.
44. GOD IS WEIGHING HIS KINGDOM & SAYS, "YOU DIDN'T DO WHAT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO DO! You didn't keep up the good work of your grandfather & get the people to worship the Lord! I've been weighing your kingdom & it's short weight, it doesn't weigh enough, it's bad, you're cheating Me!"
45. YOU KNOW WHEN MAMA GOES TO THE BUTCHER STORE & BUYS MEAT? You know that scale they put it on? If she says she wants a kilo of meat & the butcher puts it on the scale & it only says 3/4 of a kilo & he charged her for a kilo, he'd be cheating her, wouldn't he? He'd be weighing it in the balance, but when she got home she'd find it wanting because it wasn't a whole kilo, it was just 3/4 of a kilo.
46. SO THE LORD WEIGHED THE KING'S KINGDOM IN THE BALANCES & FOUND IT WAS SHORT WEIGHT, he was cheating God, he wasn't giving God full measure. So He said, "Tonight it's the end of your kingdom!" And just think, right while that hand was writing on the wall, Darius' men were swimming under the wall & opening the gates & the floodgates of soldiers came through the gates! (David: And did the water come through the gates too?) No, not the water‚ because remember, they let the water down from under the wall; the gates were in another place.
47. THE SOLDIERS JUST HAD TO GO THROUGH THE RIVER UNDER THE WALL BECAUSE THAT WAS THE ONLY WAY TO GET IN, because the gates were closed. But after they got in they could unlock the gates from the inside. They couldn't unlock them from the outside because the great big bars & keys & everything were on the inside, right?
48. WHEN SOMEBODY OUTSIDE COMES TO THE DOOR OF THE HOUSE, YOU HAVE TO UNLOCK IT FROM THE INSIDE, DON'T YOU? Because the keys & bolts & all are inside. There wasn't even a keyhole on the outside of the wall, everything was inside. So that was the end of which of those kingdoms, David? (David: Gold.) Right! Which one is that? (David: The head.) The head.
49. AND THEN TOOK OVER THE MEDES & THE PERSIANS. Medes is sort of the left arm, Persians the right arm‚ because the Medes were the warriors that came in & conquered the city. But then along came Cyrus the Persian, & he became the king, the top king, the most important king. It was a dual kingdom, but he was the most important. So therefore, that was the kingdom of the Medes & Persians.
50. WELL‚ IT WENT ON FOR QUITE AWHILE AS THEY KEPT BATTLING FOR THEIR CAPITAL, but after awhile God got fed up with them too & there came another kingdom. Davida‚ do you know what this next Kingdom was? The bowels & thighs of brass? All these parts of brass? Do you remember what country this was, the next kingdom? I knew we needed some lessons on this. Do you know David? Who can tell us? (David: Greece.) Greece! Who told you? Did somebody tell you? (Sara: I said, "What hurts your belly if you eat too much of it?—Grease! )" Oh, good boy!—Ha!
51. THAT'S A GOOD WAY OF REMEMBERING THAT GREECE IS THE BELLY: "What hurts your belly if you eat too much of it is grease!" Daddy has indigestion from that grease sometimes. (David: Butter has grease in it too.) Butter's better for you though, especially if it's Oleo. Well‚ that's a good idea, we can put up there the different kinds of kings.
52. AND WHO WAS THIS KING OF GREECE THAT CAME & CONQUERED MEDO-PERSIA? The King of Greece who came & conquered Medo-Persia was a very great man‚ in fact he was so great they called him "The Great"! Class? (Family: Alexander the Great!) Alexander the Great came along & conquered Medo–Persia.
53. AND EVEN THESE VARIOUS PARTS OF THE BODY ARE RATHER SIGNIFICANT REGARDING THE INTERPRETATION, because like the head, the Babylonians were very clever smart men. They knew astronomy, astrology, they were scientists & very wise men. The Medes & Persians‚ they were more clever on things that they did with their hands, like getting under the wall & things like that! Very very clever with their hands & handcrafts & with buildings & all kinds of things you do with your hands.
54. BABYLON WAS CLEVER & SMART ABOUT THINGS YOU DO WITH YOUR HEAD, the Medes & Persians about things you do with your arms & hands & chest muscles & strong, but the Greeks were famous for what? They were great on the body! They were great gourmets, they liked to eat & feast, like the tummy! (Sue: And sexy!) Aha! You're jumping ahead of me! All right, since she wants to answer that part, she already got the answer, they were very great proponents of ... what do we have here? (Sue: Your groin? Sex?)
55. THAT'S NOT YOUR GROIN, HONEY, THAT'S YOUR SEX PARTS! Don't you know the difference? Groin, Honey, is over here. That happens to be where people get rupture & hernia, etc., that's your groin, right in here. It has nothing to do with your sex parts. And when they say "he got kicked in the groin," that is really not accurate. That's just a nice way of saying it to put in the newspaper! But it's close.
56. BUT ACTUALLY THE GREEKS WERE GREAT ON SEX! They were great advocates of sex, very sexy people! Great on art, beautiful statues of the body, sexy statues that always showed you all the sex parts on the statues & everything. They were great advocates of beauty, health, sex & all those things. That was probably the most outstanding thing about the Greeks was their bodybuilding & health laws & their advocacy of sex‚ great on sex! And who was the leader of this kingdom of brass‚ Greece? (David: Alexander the Great.)
57. THEN ALONG CAME ANOTHER KINGDOM THAT CONQUERED ALEXANDER & HIS KINGDOM OF GREECE, & that was what? What are these? (David: Legs.) Legs of what? (David: Iron.) Iron, that's right. (David: And clay.) Well, we don't get the clay until we get down into the feet. And who were these legs of iron? Do you know‚ Davida?
58. WHAT KINGDOM WAS THIS KINGDOM OF IRON THAT FOLLOWED GREECE? (Sara: What would you do on legs of iron?—Roam around!) Class? (Family: Rome!) And was the Roman Empire divided? (James: Yes.) Into what? (James: Two empires.) And what were they? (Peter: East & West Rome.) Eastern & Western Empires. The Roman Empire was divided into the Roman Empire with the capital at Rome, & the Byzantine Empire with the capital at Constantinople. Savvy?—Two legs, East & West Rome.
59. THE ROMAN EMPIRE WAS DIVIDED INTO TWO PARTS, EASTERN & WESTERN, LIKE EASTERN & WESTERN EUROPE TODAY, & the World's still pretty well divided there. And why was Rome like a pair of legs? (David: Because it was big.) First of all, why was it like iron? (David: Because it had so many armies.) Very strong.
60. WHAT IS THE STRONGEST METAL IN ALL THIS WHOLE IMAGE? (David: The head.) Not the head, gold is not the strongest metal. It's the most valuable & the head is the smartest, but the next one‚ silver, that's very valuable too but not as valuable as gold. And the arms & hands & all are pretty smart parts of the body‚ but not as smart as the head. And we come on down to the Greeks who were very sensual & very sexy in this part of the body. But then we come down here to legs of iron.
61. WHAT'S THE STRONGEST METAL?—GOLD, SILVER‚ BRASS OR IRON? (David: Iron.) Yes. When they want to make machines & swords & automobiles & things like that they make them out of iron mostly, right? Of course some cars nowadays they make out of plastics & fiberglass & aluminum & softer metals‚ but they're cheaper cars & they don't last as long.
62. WHEN I WAS A BOY THEY MADE BIG CARS ALL OUT OF IRON & STEEL & the fenders were that thick & they were built like battleships—they weighed like battleships too! We had big cars that weighed three or four or five tons like a truck because they were so thick & heavy, & they ate up the gas too! So iron is the strongest.
63. SO WHICH WAS THE STRONGEST OF ALL THESE KINGDOMS? (David: Iron.) And which one was that? (David: Rome.) Rome, that's right. Iron. And why was Rome not only the strongest, like iron, but also like a pair of legs? They were great on marching, tremendous on marching.
64. AND WHAT EMPIRE WAS THE MOST FAMOUS FOR BUILDING MARCHING ROADS? (Family: Rome.) Rome built the famous Appian Way, & they were the first World Empire to build a lot of paved roads, think of that! The main purpose of their paved roads was what? (James: So their armies could march.) Yes, so their armies could march rapidly to a new area & conquer it.
65. AND DO YOU KNOW HOW THE SUPERHIGHWAYS OF TODAY GOT STARTED? They got started in the U.S.A., that's where they built some of the first superhighways, but actually the first one was the Autobahn in Germany. The very first great superhighway was Germany's Autobahn built on a what? (James: Roman road?) Not a Roman road, no, a railroad! Built on a railroad bed!
66. THOSE DAMN [ACs] DON'T TELL YOU GERMANS ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR COUNTRY, DO THEY? They don't tell you anything about how great it was & what wonderful things it did before the war. Isn't it something? They don't even teach the Germans about their own country! I'll tell you, they don't want them to know how great the Germans were!
67. BEFORE WORLD WAR 1 & EVEN BEFORE WORLD WAR 2, GERMANY WAS THE PLACE TO STUDY. It didn't matter if you were going to become a musician, a doctor, an artist, a scientist, whatever you were going to be‚ you had to finish your studies in Germany because they were considered the tops, the peak, the ultimate, the summit of all knowledge & science & art & music & medicine & all the rest! If you didn't get your final degree in Germany, well, you were not the very top, because that was the place!
68. BECAUSE THE GERMANS WERE IN THOSE DAYS THE SMARTEST PEOPLE ON EARTH, THE GREATEST SCIENTISTS! They developed so many things, including the metric system & barometers & thermometers & practically everything that was developed was developed by the Germans! They don't tell you those things, isn't that something? Those damn [ACs] don't want to let the Germans know how smart they were. That's amazing really.
69. THEY WERE THE SMARTEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD! The greatest scientists were all Germans. The greatest musicians, all Germans or Austrians. Greatest artists, Germans. Greatest whatever it was—doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, everything, were German.
70. AND THEY HAD THE FIRST BIG SUPERHIGHWAY CALLED THE AUTOBAHN, two lanes in each direction on a railroad where there were no traffic lights & no crossroads & the traffic didn't have to stop, just like on what Alfred's always calling the freeway out here! Well, finally we got to a place where there are freeways! They certainly weren't free where we used to live! Well, thank God they are here, free ways. That means it doesn't cost anything, you don't have to pay any money, they're free!
71. (DAVID: BUT ON THE AUTOBAHN YOU HAVE TO PAY MONEY?) You have to pay money on the Autobahn, don't you? (Dora: No, not at all.) Is that a fact? No kidding! Not any more you mean. (Dora: Never, I don't ever remember.) Really? Is that a fact. Have you been over it? (Dora: Yes.) Really? (Dora: You know actually I just realised Autobahn really means "car railway." I didn't realise that before!) An auto railway. In other words, it has right of way just like a railway, they don't have to stop for cross streets & cross roads.
72. SO THE ROMANS BUILT THESE BIG ROADS ALL OVER THE WORLD! They built highways in Italy, they built highways in France, highways in Spain, highways even in England & Great Britain, they built highways everywhere, big stone highways! And then they marched on'm, so they could move very rapidly their Roman legions to conquer any country that would rebel or cause them any trouble.
73. SO THEY WERE VERY FAMOUS FOR THEIR LEGS, A GREAT MARCHING NATION. Very strong, like iron, & very fast, like legs! What's the fastest part of your body? (David: Legs.) Yes. What carries you to places very fast? (David: Your legs.) Your legs, right. And it was divided into two parts, Eastern & Western Roman Empires. And did it last a long time? It fact, we didn't even get to show you really how long those legs were.
74. WHAT'S THE LONGEST PART OF THAT WHOLE BODY? Actually it was supposed to end right about here. See, your legs begin right where your crotch is, don't they? When I was a boy‚ they always measured your pants from here to here. Stand up, David‚ & I'll show you. They couldn't measure from here because people have different length hips, so they'd always take the measuring tape & measure from the cuff & go up here like this. And I always thought that guy was getting awful personal when he'd fiddle around! But that's where your legs begin. That's why they measure right from crotch to cuff, see?
75. SO THIS IMAGE REALLY ISN'T EXACTLY ACCURATE. They should have divided him right here where the legs are. Maybe we can change the colour of this & glue this together & cut it off here & make it right! Daddy never thought of that when I was looking at this in the book or I'd have corrected that. (Shows that the legs should have begun at crotch of image.)
76. SO IF YOU'D CUT IT OFF RIGHT HERE WHERE HIS LEGS BEGIN, WHAT WOULD BE THE LONGEST PART OF THE BODY? Maybe we can measure it. Would it be the head? Is that the longest part? (David: No.) Would it be the arms? Are they the longest part? Which is longer, your arm or your leg? (David: Your leg!) Yes, and what about this part, the bowels?
77. THE ARMS & BREAST & THIS CLEAR DOWN TO THE DIAPHRAGM HERE REALLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN SILVER‚ & then the bowels & thighs, this should have been divided right here. Bowels & thighs of brass, really hips is what they're saying there. So that wasn't very long, the arms aren't as long as the legs, & even from here to here certainly isn't as long as the legs or the arms or anything, is it?
78. SO WHAT'S THE LONGEST PART OF THE IMAGE? (DAVID: THE LEGS.) The legs! And of all those empires—Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greece & Rome—which of those empires ruled the longest, do you know? (David: Rome.) You're right! Rome! Rome was the long long legs, & it ruled the longest.
79. DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG ROME RULED THE WORLD? Guess! Anybody know? Roughly speaking in round numbers? (James: 350 to 400 years?) A thousand years, my boy! Rome ruled the World a thousand years, believe it or not. Well, I shouldn't have put it that way perhaps, ruled the World for a thousand years—you're right about the time it ruled the whole known World.
80. I SHOULD HAVE SAID HOW LONG WAS THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN EXISTENCE, FROM THE BEGINNING OF ROME? Well‚ you can probably date back to when Romulus & Remus founded the city of Rome, which they did. We should have had some maps along with this, don't they have any maps in the flannelgraph? (Sara: No.) Oh my, what are they doing without maps, goodness gracious! On mine at least I had the parts of the Image & then the Beasts & then the maps so you'd see the whole works all comparatively.
81. YOU OUGHT TO HAVE A BIG MAP UP IN HERE. Well, it's not that important right now to interrupt, but you ought to get a map on your wall so we can teach the kids a little bit about geography. How do you teach geography without a map? (Sara: I've got two maps in the schoolroom now.) OK. Do you know where Italy is then? Well, we don't have a map here for you to find it, but anyhow, the main country of Rome was Italy!
82. WHAT WAS THE CAPITAL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE? It was the same as the capital of Italy today. What? Can anybody tell us? Roma! "Arrivederci Roma!" And that's what happened a few hundred years later‚ Arrivederci Roma! But Rome lasted literally, supposedly from its founding, from about 500 years before Christ to around 500 years after Christ, a thousand years! But the fact of the matter is, that Rome lasted almost 2‚000 years!
83. IN FACT, ROME IS STILL RULING A WORLDWIDE EMPIRE‚ because the Roman Empire became what kind of a Roman Empire? (Family: The Holy Roman Empire.) The Holy Roman Empire run by the Catholic Church & the Pope! And does the Pope still run a good deal of the World to this very day? So the Roman Catholic Church still exists & is still a part of the Roman Empire. It is literally a continuation of the Roman Empire & still rules a great deal of the World today.
84. SO LITERALLY THE ROMAN EMPIRE HAS LASTED NOW FOR ABOUT 2,000 YEARS, think of that! Rome! And for a great deal of that time it ruled the whole World, & it still rules a lot of the World today. There are literally hundreds of millions of Catholics in the World today. I think they claim about 600 million Catholics, don't they?
85. SO THE ROMAN EMPIRE WAS THE STRONGEST ONE OF ALL—LEGS OF IRON—& THE LONGEST ONE—LONG LEGS—it lasted the longest of any of these Empires. And it only finally crumbled away by the time the Catholic Church was getting so strong it could carry on, & that was about 500 years after Christ when the Catholic Church began to be at its strongest & carried right on through to the Middle Ages, Dark Ages, until the Reformation.
86. SO NOW CAN YOU FIND ITALY ON THIS MAP? THE YELLOW LEG, OLD YELLOW LEG! Look, what's it shaped like? Isn't it shaped like a leg? (David: A boot!) It's shaped like a leg, isn't it? What's inside of a boot? (David: A leg.) OK, it's shaped like a leg! So here we are, here Rome was the legs of the Image. And it looks like a leg is kicking a football‚ where's the football? (David: Here.) And what is it? (David: Sicily.) Sicily's the football! Sicily really gets kicked around, especially by the Mafia! Here's the top of the boot way up here, & here's Rome right in here, see?
87. WE USED TO LIVE OVER HERE IN MADRID, SPAIN & IN LISBOA, PORTUGAL, & once upon a time there was a little boy born down here in a bunch of little Islands off the coast of Africa! The Canaries are now considered part of Africa, so do you know what you are? You're an African! If you go by what Continent you were born in, the Canaries are considered to belong to the Continent of Africa. Some of us are Americans because we were born in America, some of us are Europeans born in Europe, but I think you're the only one here that was born in Africa! How about that, we've got an African!—Davidito!
88. AFRICANS ARE ALL DIFFERENT COLOURS, YOU KNOW, some are white, some black, some dark with dark hair, brown eyes. (David: I'm brown!) Some are brown, all a nice variety of colours. Europeans are a bit boring because they're all kind of a washed–out, pale, white-looking colour, you know? Whereas the Africans are all kinds of nice rich colourful black & brown & olive colour & all kinds of pretty colours, as well as white.
89. SO THE ROMAN EMPIRE WAS THE STRONGEST & THE LONGEST! Can you remember that, David? Can you remember the Roman Empire was the strongest & the longest? Will that help you remember? Strongest & longest. Strongest, longest. Can you say that? (David: Strongest, longest!) That's right! Which Empire was the strongest & longest? (David: Rome.) Rome was what? (David: Strongest & longest.) Very good, you've got it!
90. AND IT LASTED FROM ABOUT 500 YEARS BEFORE CHRIST TILL ABOUT 500 YEARS AFTER CHRIST, RIGHT? That is in its heyday. Of course it's still in existence to this very day in the Roman Catholic Church & in Roman Law by which most of the World is governed today. Most of the World's courts & laws & judges are not governed by the Mosaic Law, but they're governed by Roman Law‚ so in a sense the Roman Empire still lives on in the World.
91. WHEN WE WERE IN AMERICA & HIPPIES IN CALIFORNIA‚ do you know what we used to call the policemen that represented the government?—The Romans!—Because the governments of Europe & the governments of the Americas today are really a continuation of the Roman Empire. They are what's left of the Roman Empire.
92. ALL THE COUNTRIES OF EUROPE & NORTH AFRICA & THE BRITISH ISLES—& OF COURSE THE AMERICAS ARE THEIR CHILDREN‚ PARTICULARLY SOUTH AMERICA—they're very Roman, they still speak Roman languages! David‚ did you know that the Romans were so much all over the World that more countries speak Roman languages than any other language in the World?
93. THEY SPEAK A ROMAN LANGUAGE & THEY SAY IT'S ROMAN, OR THEY SAY ROMANCE, meaning it's Romanish or Romantic. It doesn't mean about love, but it means it's like the Romans. They must have been very romantic, by the way, to have gotten that name! As Maria always loves to take note, the Spaniards are absolutely the most romantic men of all!
94. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE FRENCH SPEAK?—THEY SPEAK A ROMAN LANGUAGE. French is a Roman language. Do you know what the Italians speak? (Davida: Italian.) Italian! Do you know what kind of a language that is? Class? (Family: Roman.) Roman! And do you know what the Spanish speak in Spain? (Davida: Spanish.) And do you know what kind of a language that is?—It's Roman! It's a Roman language.
95. AND ALL OVER SOUTH AMERICA, IN FACT EVERY COUNTRY EXCEPT BRAZIL, THEY SPEAK WHAT LANGUAGE? (Family: Spanish.) And that's what kind of language, Davida? It's a Roman language. So more countries in the World speak Roman languages than any other kind of language. These are all languages that came from Latin. So the Roman Empire, parts of it, & parts of its power & its language & its laws & everything continue down to this very day‚ think of that! It's a long time!
96. SO WHEN WE GET DOWN TO THE END OF THE POWERFUL ROMAN EMPIRE where it's the only power on Earth, we see here something, & what are these down here, David? (David: The feet.) Only they're not pure iron, are they? What are they? (David: They're clay.) Just clay? (David: Clay & iron.) Clay & iron. Partly iron, partly clay, right? (David: Iron mixed with clay.) Yes‚ that's right.
97. BUT IS IRON MIXED WITH CLAY AS STRONG AS IRON?—No! When you mix iron with clay, you know what you get? Does anybody know what it's called? Well, they used to have a lot of it when I was a kid, it was the cheapest kind of kitchen vessels you could buy & they were very fragile. You could burn'm on the fire & you could cook with them & everything, they'd stand a lot of heat.
98. YOU PROBABLY DON'T EVEN KNOW TODAY, BECAUSE IT'S OUT OF USE NOW, BUT WHAT METAL IS IRON MIXED WITH CLAY? (Sue: Pewter.) Pewter! Who said it? Good girl! It's called pewter. I couldn't even tell you how to spell it, but I think it's p-e-w-t–e-r. Isn't that iron mixed with clay? But it's very brittle & very fragile & it breaks easily. (David: But iron doesn't break easily.) No, not pure iron. The kettles we have in here that are pure iron, they're very strong, they don't break at all. Can you find something there that's pewter? It's a lot like clay. (Someone hands Dad a pitcher.) Some are lead & tin.
99. THAT LOOKS LIKE PEWTER! Yup, that definitely looks like real genuine pewter! Now see, it looks a little bit like iron, doesn't it? But do you know what would happen if I dropped it? (David: It would break.) It would break, because it's iron mixed with clay. Now this has got more iron in it than lots of pewter vessels, but it's iron mixed with clay.
100. IT'S KIND OF PRETTY, IT LOOKS A LITTLE BIT SILVERY OR A LITTLE BIT LEADISH. That looks like it might be genuine pewter, & they don't make very many things out of pewter anymore. Feel it, is it very heavy? It's not very heavy, is it? But if it was pure iron, would it be heavier or lighter? (David: Heavier.) Much heavier. Pass that around to the class then, OK? Take it around & let each one of them feel it. It's not very heavy. If it was pure iron or steel, wouldn't it be a lot heavier?
101. SOMEONE WAS SMART! WHO THOUGHT ABOUT THAT PITCHER UP THERE? (James: Peter.) (Peter: No, it was Margie.) (Margie: No, I didn't!) Well, it must have been the Lord! We'll have to give the Lord the credit since nobody else seems to know! Pewter! Iron mixed with clay! Very fragile & really it won't purely mix. Watch you don't drop it, or it'll break! (Dora: It's not as heavy as iron.) No, & it's not as strong either.
102. IT'S NOT AS HEAVY & IT'S NOT AS STRONG & IT'S REALLY NOT AS VALUABLE EITHER, because you can dig clay out of the yard & there are lots of places you can get clay. But the clay is not nearly as strong. Who can give me an example of a pure clay dish? How about one of those soup bowls like I ate out of tonight?
103. HERE'S A CLAY DISH, THAT'S CLAY! Feel that. Now that's pretty heavy because it's big, but if you drop that, what would happen? (David: Break!) Break, because it's just made out of clay. (David: And that's not as strong as the pewter.) No, it's not even as strong as pewter. Only because it's quite thick is it so heavy, because that pitcher's not that thick, it's very thin.
104. BUT THAT WILL BREAK EASILY, THAT'S JUST CLAY MOLDED IN THIS FASHION & PUT IN AN OVEN & BAKED, & that's what made it hard. And in fact‚ after they've got it in there they paint it with this stuff that makes it have that shiny surface that's called ceramic. They painted that with this sort of ceramic‚ like an enamel, & it baked on there & made it nice & shiny.
105. SO THAT IS CLAY! And in order to at all keep from breaking easily you have to make it very thick & very heavy. It's heavy‚ isn't it David? And it's very thick too, huh? Be careful you don't drop it, 'cause that'll be the end if you drop it. But the pewter is much thinner. They can make it much thinner because the iron they mix in with it strengthens it a little bit‚ but it's not as strong as iron.
106. SO THEN WE COME DOWN TO THE FEET & WE HAVE THE ROMAN EMPIRE ALL BROKEN UP into a whole bunch of other countries‚ some of them strong like iron‚ & we call those what? (Family: Dictatorships.) Dictatorships or monarchies. Well, usually dictatorships & totalitarian governments that have a strong man as a leader. They even call him an "iron man" sometimes! Like Mussolini‚ Hitler, Tito, Stalin & some of those strong men, they had strong iron governments. Russia is one of those strong iron governments because it's a dictatorship & there's not a lot of freedom. Spain under Franco was like iron.
107. AND THEN THERE ARE A LOT OF WEAK COUNTRIES MADE OF CLAY, & THEY CALL THEM WHAT? (FAMILY: DEMOCRACIES.) Democracies, right, where just the common people vote & they run the country. Of course all the people are not nearly as smart as one man, & the majority are usually wrong. Therefore a nice strong iron dictatorship is usually the best kind of government, the strongest & the most efficient & the most effective, the most powerful, & the quickest to act & make decisions because only one man has to be asked or consulted.
108. WHEREAS THESE DEMOCRACIES ARE VERY WEAK BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO HAVE ELECTIONS & they have a big argument about who's going to become the leader. Then after they vote in a leader they have big arguments about what he's supposed to do‚ & all these democracies have great big arguing societies, did you know that? What they call in common language, "Spit'n Argue Clubs"!
109. EVERY ONE OF THESE DEMOCRACIES HAVE A SPIT 'N ARGUE CLUB! Underneath the President or the Prime Minister, they have this club where these guys sit all day long in chairs in big circles & all they do is argue all day long, did you know that?
110. THEY GIVE THEM FANCY NAMES CALLED PARLIAMENT, CONGRESS, SENATE & THINGS LIKE THAT, but it's nothing but a Spit'n Argue Club where they just sit there & argue all day long about what to do! Now isn't that terrible? Isn't that a big waste of time? When if they had one big strongman like a king—that was God's kind of a government!
111. GOD BELIEVED MOST OF ALL THAT A COUNTRY SHOULD BE RULED BY THE LORD, HIS KINGDOM, RIGHT? And that therefore God's kind of country would have God for its king, Jesus for the King, right? But if they wouldn't have Jesus for the King, like Israel, at least they would have a man for a king, at least that was the next best thing, to have one smart man to be the ruler & the one that ran the country.
112. BUT BY & BY, PEOPLE DIDN'T EVEN LIKE THAT, because they did have a few bad kings & a few bad rulers. They decided that no ruler was better than a bad ruler, so they just dumped all the kings & all the rulers & I've forgotten how many monarchies lost their thrones after World War I—& most of the rest of them in World War 2! They threw over & tossed out all the kings!
113. THEY TOSSED OUT MOST OF THE KINGS IN WORLD WAR I & THEN TOSSED OUT ALL THE DICTATORS IN WORLD WAR 2, until there weren't hardly anything left but these poor weak little democracies run by a bunch of stupid silly people that are always in a mess & never know which way to go or what to do, & always have all kinds of trouble & are not strong enough to hardly do anything!
114. SO USUALLY, EVERY NOW & THEN ALONG COMES A VERY BIG STRONG DICTATOR. He & his country are stronger & more powerful than the clay countries, so these iron countries will just take over the clay countries—like Stalin did & Hitler did & Mussolini did & lots of great dictators have done, Franco, Tito, Caesars‚ Czars, etc.
115. WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THE DICTATORS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, DO YOU KNOW? (JUS: THE CAESARS.) They were called Caesars! And Greece had one great dictator, & what was his name? (Family: Alexander the Great!) And Medo-Persia had two kings, what were their names? (Family: Cyrus & Darius.) Darius the Mede & Cyrus the Persian. And Babylon had just one king at a time, & what was the greatest king's name? (David: Nebuchadnezzar.) Nebuchadnezzar! He was its king‚ got saved & obeyed God!
116. SO GOD'S FAVOURITE KIND OF GOVERNMENT IS BY A KING WHO'S RULED BY GOD & GOD TELLS HIM WHAT TO DO. That's the best kind of a government. But even if not so‚ a king is the best kind of government anyhow‚ a strong man, a dictator‚ because he can make quicker decisions. You can't beat a good king or a good dictator for a good government. Otherwise the people are so slow & so befuddled & so mixed up & so confused they can never make up their minds, & the majority are always wrong. Sheep need a shepherd!
117. SO SINCE DEMOCRACIES ARE RULED BY A MAJORITY RULE, THEREFORE THEY'RE USUALLY WRONG! They most often pick the wrong man, do the wrong things & they're a big mess! And this is the first time in the World's history that's had all these many democracies like down here in the feet, all these clay democracies of today.
118. THE ROMAN EMPIRE WAS ALL BROKEN UP INTO THESE CLAY COUNTRIES & A FEW IRON COUNTRIES, so it's now very weak. This iron mixed with clay is not very strong. How could this whole Image stand on those weak feet? Well, it couldn't & it's about to collapse! Because where are we today? Are we up here in the head of gold? (David: No, we're down here.)
119. WE'RE DOWN HERE IN THE FEET, because the Roman Empire's behind us & we're just down in what's left of the Roman Empire in pieces—clay democracies & a few little iron Roman countries left like Albania & some of the East European countries‚ & Russia and some of them‚ all broken up. Therefore Europe is not nearly as strong as it was when the Romans had it, right?
120. SO NOW WE'RE ALMOST AT THE END OF THE STORY FOR TONIGHT. It's about time too, it's almost ten o'clock, the children's bedtime. What is that? Oh, you've got that to show the feet better, huh? Well, that's very interesting! (David: We still have ten kingdoms & the Antichrist.)
121. AH! WELL‚ WE HAVEN'T GOT TO THE TOES YET, HAVE WE? What comes after the feet? What's on the end of your feet? Stick your foot up here, let me see your foot. Take your slipper off. When you're coming down your leg, where does your foot begin? What's this? (David: My foot.) No, that's not your foot, what is this? Haven't you ever told him what this is?
122. YOU MEAN HE'S GOT A PART OF HIS BODY HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW THE NAME OF IT? (Sara: Maybe he forgot.) What is this? (David: My leg.) No, this is your leg, this is your foot, what's this? Anybody know? (Family: Ankle.) Ankle! Didn't you ever hear of an ankle? (David: Yes!) That's your ankle, right there!
123. HERE'S YOUR LEG, HERE'S YOUR ANKLE, SO RIGHT BELOW YOUR ANKLE BEGINS WHAT? (DAVID: YOUR FOOT!) Your foot! And what's this here? (David: Your heel.) That's right. What's this here? (David giggling: Your foot!) What part of your foot? Are you ticklish? (David giggling: Yes!) What part of your foot is that? (David: I don't know!) Come on, Folks! (James: The arch.) The arch of your foot! See, it's an arch.
124. AND WHAT'S THIS PART UP HERE ABOVE THE ARCH? (PETER: THE INSTEP.) It's called the instep‚ but I don't know why it's called the instep, because it's not in, it's out! If they'd asked me, I'd have called it the outstep, but they didn't ask me! So anyway‚ then we get down here to this part of your foot. This is still your foot down here, isn't it? What's this? (David: The toes!)
125. THAT'S YOUR TOES! HOW MANY TOES HAVE YOU GOT? (David: Ten.) On one foot? (David: Five on one foot!) My Father, your Granddaddy had six on one foot! (David: Did he really?) Six toes! My Daddy had six toes on one foot! The great giants like King Og was, had six toes on each foot, some of the giants had six toes. They had to have more toes because they had bigger feet! (1Chr.20:6.)
126. THEY HAD SUCH BIG FEET THEY HAD TO HAVE MORE TOES TO HOLD UP GIANTS‚ SIX TOES! More toes to run & walk on & tiptoe on, Dad's tiptoe like Techi! So there's your toes. So therefore if you're coming down your leg, here's your what? (David: Ankle.) And here's... (David: Your heel.) Yes, your heel & your foot. And then you're coming on down to this, the end of your foot, right? So your foot ends in five? (David: Toes!) Right. OK! Hope they're clean! Five toes.
127. ALL RIGHT, SO HERE'S ALL THESE MIXED UP CRAZY COUNTRIES OF TODAY, mixed up democracies & dictatorships & kingdoms & all kinds of crazy mixed–up countries—some capitalists & some communist—& there's just great confusion today. We're in a great confusion‚ already in the Great Confusion! We've been in great confusion ever since the Roman Empire‚ that's the fact of the matter, that everything's been in confusion ever since. They thought they had it rough then, but they never had it so good!
128. THAT WAS THE ONLY TIME THE WORLD EVER REALLY HAD MUCH PEACE WAS UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE: No passports, no visas, no trouble about speaking different languages, everybody could speak Roman—Latin. Do you know what the Roman language is called in school? It's called Latin.
129. I DON'T KNOW WHY IT'S CALLED LATIN, but anyway, I studied Latin when I was in school. I could speak & read Roman‚ think of that! And if you can speak & read Spanish—which is where you came from, since the Canaries are a part of Spain even though they're in Africa—you speak a Roman language. Como esta, Hijo? Say, "Muy bien!" (David: Muy bien!) Grandpapa. What do you say? Abuelo, that means grandfather.
130. SO I COULD WRITE & SPEAK A LITTLE BIT OF ROMAN, WHICH IS THE LATIN LANGUAGE. In fact, one little boy wrote on the board one day when the teacher was out a favourite little poem we had. Do you know the poem too? I've forgotten exactly the first part of the poem‚ you've probably heard it, maybe some of you know the whole poem. It says: "I'm here to study Latin, a language long dead, see? It killed the ancient Romans, & now it's killing me!"—Ha! That little boy didn't like Latin!
131. I LOVED LATIN, I THOUGHT IT WAS VERY INTERESTING! It helps you understand your own language. Because even our English language I'd say is just about half Roman or Latin—half of our English language. There are lots & lots & lots of Latin words, Roman words.
132. SO HERE WE ARE IN THE FEET, IN THE TEN WHAT? (DAVID: TEN TOES!) Which are going to be, Daniel told the king, what in the very last days? (David: The ten kings!) "In the last days, O king, there shall arise ten kings!" And then he said, among them will arise...well, he tells that in a later vision about the beasts where he calls them ten horns, & maybe we better get into that one next time. Have we got that one in flannelgraph? OK! I hope this wasn't too boring to you. (Family: NO! This is great!) Just to remind you of these things.
133. BUT WE'RE NOT QUITE TO THE END OF THIS ONE. What have we left out? What hasn't happened yet? "In the days of these kings, O king, shall come"—what? Can you find it over there? (David: The Antichrist.) Well, these kings are all a part of the kingdom of the Antichrist. But you're right, the kings of the Antichrist. But Daniel in this particular dream & Image & interpretation, he doesn't say much about the Antichrist.
134. BUT HE SAYS, "IN THE DAYS OF THESE KINGS"—WHAT SHALL COME? Go over & look & see what we've got left on the chair. Go fishing! I can go fishin', I bet I can find it! There's one, it's a little one—I don't know how come they made these two kinds—ah, there's a big one!
135. "THOU SAWEST & A STONE WAS CUT OUT OF A MOUNTAIN WITHOUT HANDS!" This great white stone cut out of the mountain without hands, right there. And it struck the Image—where? (David: Upon its feet.) The toes of the feet. Right at the very end of the feet, the very end of the kingdoms of these countries like Europe & America & all.
136. AND IT STRUCK THE TOES OF THE FEET, STRUCK THE IMAGE ON ITS VERY END‚ AT THE VERY LAST, & WENT KABOOM! Right? Kaboom! And look what happened when it went Kaboom! When this big white stone cut out of the Mountain without hands hit the Image on the toes of the feet, what happened to the Image? Look, can you see what's happening to it? (David: It cracked!) He's all cracked up! He cracked up!
137. WHEN THIS BIG STONE HIT HIM ON THE FEET, HE CRACKED UP! He really cracked up, all full of cracks, & it just crushed him to powder, dust that the wind just blew away, whhhssst, like that! It just blew away. (David: Like this!) Yup, even worse than that, but that's pretty good!
138. IT REALLY KNOCKED THE IMAGE COCK-EYED, it really knocked it all to pieces! It not only knocked it to pieces but it ground it to powder, just powder like dust on the floor, & the wind—whhhhssssh—blew it all away! And do you know what happened to the stone? Have we got that? It became a great mountain that filled the whole Earth!—A great Mountain Kingdom of God‚ Christ's Kingdom on Earth!
139. IT BECAME A WHOLE BIG MOUNTAIN THAT FILLED THE WHOLE EARTH! Here's another proof that Space City is what shape? What's the shape of a mountain? It's pyramidical in shape‚ right? It became a great mountain that filled the whole Earth! Do you know how wide Space City is? 1500 miles wide, think of that! If you'd set that down on top of the United States it would cover half the United States & half of Canada, think of that! It would cover half of North America‚ so big!—And that's only the Capital City!
140. IT LOOKED TO DANIEL THE PROPHET LIKE IT FILLED ABSOLUTELY THE WHOLE EARTH, & in a sense, spiritually, it does fill the whole Earth, because who was this Stone cut out of the mountain without hands? (David: Jesus.) Jesus! Who was the Mountain that He was cut out of? Where did Jesus come from? (David: God.)
141. GOD WAS THE MOUNTAIN‚ OR HE WAS THE KINGDOM OF GOD THAT JESUS WAS CUT OUT OF, & it crushed all of man's governments, all of these, all of them, just swept'm all away to where there was no government of man left anymore at all, it was all gone! Whhsssshh! We ought to have a little bag of powder here & be able to blow it, or have one of these Images that breaks up into powder—but it's a little hard to do on a flannelgraph & might get the floor dirty.
142. WELL, WE COULD HAVE A LITTLE TALCUM POWDER HERE TO ILLUSTRATE WHAT HAPPENED TO THE IMAGE. I'll show you what happened to the Image. Have you got some talcum powder? "I show you! I show you!" This is something you used to say when you were a little boy‚ "I show you, Daddy‚ I show you!" I'm going to show you what happened.
143. WE'RE GOING TO BUILD A MOUNTAIN OUT OF TALCUM POWDER, OK? See that little mountain there? (David: Yes.) When the stone struck the Image, that's what happened, that's what it looked like. And then along came a big wind & guess what happened? (David: Blew it!) I'd better blow it this way so you don't have to clean the carpet. I'm going to show you what happened to the Image.
144. FIRST THE STONE CRUSHED THE IMAGE UNTIL IT WAS JUST A LITTLE PILE OF DUST! Along came the Stone & it came down from Heaven, from God down out of Heaven like a big comet, like Halley's Comet that's going to be coming in just a few years! In 1984 Halley's Comet is due, just a few years from now. And do you know how a comet looks?—Just like that! And this big stone came down out of Heaven from the mountain of God & it hit the Image! Let's have the little Image here like this, & it struck the Image right on the feet.
145. NOW THE REASON IT STRUCK THE IMAGE ON THE FEET & NOT ON THE HEAD, was because God wanted to show you what time it was going to come. That in the days of these last ten kings, the ten toes‚ He would strike the Image like that, in the days of the toes, & the Image would be just turned to powder. Forget that one, David, here it is. It's just powder now.
146. WE'RE BUSY DOING OUR ACT HERE, HONEY, YOU'VE GOT TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HAPPENS! You know how the magicians make things disappear & appear? We had this Image right here & it was being struck in the feet by this big comet, big stone, & suddenly it disappeared! You're not supposed to see where it went. It just became a pile of dirt, a pile of dust!
147. ALL OF MAN'S GOVERNMENTS JUST TURNED TO DUST, & THEN GOD SENT ALONG A BIG STORM, A BIG WIND, that just...are you ready? (David: Yes!) Are we ready? You & me both now, are you ready? (They blow it away!!) It's gone! That's the World's last big dust storm, when God crushes the Image & blows it all away! That looks like Halley's Comet, huh? Maybe it's going to be Space City! But I don't think so because it's not time for it yet.
148. SO THE IMAGE WAS BLOWN AWAY IN DUST, & THE STONE BECAME A BIG MOUNTAIN THAT FILLED THE WHOLE EARTH. And so that was what? The Stone was Jesus, but it became a big mountain, & what does the mountain represent? (David: God.) The first mountain was God, this mountain is what? (David: Jesus.) The Stone is Jesus, but the Mountain is Jesus' Kingdom‚ the Millennial Kingdom that fills the whole Earth, all over the whole World!
149. JESUS' KINGDOM IS GOING TO FILL THE WHOLE EARTH INSTEAD OF ALL THESE CRAZY KINGDOMS OF MAN, all these stupid idiotic democracies & dictatorships & empires & all these things of man. The Stone is going to become this beautiful mountain like Space City, like a big pyramid, & fill the whole Earth‚ & that's the Kingdom of God.
150. AND THAT WAS THE END OF THE DREAM, & that was the end of the Image, & that was the end of the World for the time being, & that's the end of the story for tonight! Lord bless & keep us all & give us a good night's rest‚ safe keeping, & thank You, Lord‚ for a good story tonight & for this good flannelgraph that they've made.
151. AND THANK YOU FOR THE WONDERFUL STORY THAT YOU MADE‚ LORD‚ that Daniel told us about‚ & that the king dreamed about the future of the World!—The whole history of the World right up to the End when You come & destroy all the kingdoms of man & take over the whole World & run it right, with us, Lord, to be Your rulers & Your kings & princes & princesses & queens. We're all going to be kings & queens of the Earth, in Jesus' name. TYL! Give us a good night's sleep, safe keeping & sweet dreams, in Jesus' name, amen.
152. WELL, WE ALL TOLD A PRETTY GOOD FLANNELGRAPH STORY TONIGHT, YOU'VE GOT IT PRETTY GOOD! I think you've got it pretty straight. (To Davida: ) You're already a princess, a little princess in the house of the king! (David: Are we going to have another one next time?) OK! Next time we'll have the one about guess what? (David: The beasts!) The beasts!—Daniel 7.
153. AND NEXT TIME WE MAY REVIEW YOU ON THE IMAGE TO SEE IF YOU FORGOT IT, because it doesn't do any good to teach you if you forget it. So you'd better have Sara review you ahead of time before we have Fellowship Meeting & Bible Class. You'd better review it & make sure you know the parts of the Image & what happened, OK? (Maria: He had the faith for today's class, he's the one that came & told us!) (Sara: He said, "It was all my idea!")
154. SO THAT'S THE STORY OF DANIEL'S IMAGE! It's called Daniel's Image, but it really didn't belong to Daniel, did it? Whose Image was it? Was it the king's Image because he had the dream? Nope! It didn't belong to the king. (David: God's.) It was God's Image, because He created it.
155. (DAVID: IT WAS HIS PICTURE OF THE WORLD.) That's exactly right! His picture of all the governments of the World from Nebuchadnezzar down to the End. Now that one didn't say too much about the Antichrist, it said about his ten kings, but the next one will tell you all about the Antichrist, OK? We'll have that next time.
156. (MARIA: HE'S BEEN WAITING WEEKS & WEEKS, EVER SINCE YOU FIRST SUGGESTED IT he's been waiting for it.) Yes, it's been a long time! (Sara to David: The whole World is thankful for your patience & faith, because we all got the lesson!) Well, it's a good thing the class is over, because I'm about to go to sleep! PTL!
157. DO YOU THINK WE MADE IT CLEAR ENOUGH? Well, I'm going to find out next time, because I'm going to ask you to tell the story next time! You're going to have to tell us the story, who's the head, who's the arms, who's the bowels of brass, & who's the long long legs—Daddy Long Legs!—& who's the feet & who's the toes. Next time I'm going to ask you, all of you, to see if you know! Because a lesson taught is nothing unless we have a review & find out if you learned it. So Class, you'd better know all the answers next time!
158. WELL, PTL! WE HAD A GOOD FELLOWSHIP DAY TODAY, DIDN'T WE? (Maria: Now David's all cheered up, aren't you?) TYL! Well, what was he sad about? (Maria: I don't know!) What were you sad about, Son? (David: I don't know, I wasn't sad.) Oh, you just were sad because we hadn't told the story yet, huh? Now you're glad because we told the story, right? (David: Yes!) GBY! You thought Daddy never would get around to that story, but we did finally!
159. (DAVID: I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE POWDER WENT!) Well, it says in the Bible "till it was blown away & it was no more"! It's gone! (David: But there' still some in the powder box.) In the powder box. Well, we don't want to use it all! After all, it costs money. God can afford to blow a little powder away because He's very rich & He made it, so He can do whatever He wants! But we don't want to waste all that nice talcum powder, do we?
160. IT WAS JUST AN ILLUSTRATION, IT WAS A PICTURE LIKE THIS. So you got the point, didn't you? It went all away, didn't it? Whhssht! It's gone! Too bad we didn't have that last part on the flannelgraph. It would be pretty hard to show that on a flannelgraph though. I think we showed it even better, didn't we?—With our little powder mountain! (Sings: ) "Oh, the big dust powder mountain!"
161. ALL RIGHT FOLKS, AS WE PRAY TOGETHER THE PRAYER THAT JESUS HIMSELF TAUGHT HIS DISCIPLES, US‚ TO PRAY: (Prays the Lord's Prayer.) God bless you all! I love you! God bless you, Sweet boy! Now you boys & girls go in & cheer up Techi, she's missing you‚ I'm sure. Good night all, GBY! I'm so tired‚ you'll have to come kiss me this time! GBY all!
162. I ESPECIALLY ENJOYED THE MUSIC & DANCING TONIGHT! You should do that every night, we should have more of that! It's good exercise, good for your throats & good for your music & good for your spirits & the children love it! You should really do that every night. Even if we're not here‚ you can still do it. You shouldn't have to wait for us to start singing & playing & dancing & having fun!
163. YOU OUGHT TO DO IT EVERY NIGHT BEFORE SUPPER, OR AFTER SUPPER! (Maria: They do it quite often before dinner.) (James: Before dinner or before lunch.) Very good. Dancing too? (Sara: Yes! Not everybody, but the kids & some people.) Very good, that's very good. PTL! Well, I'm tired, so I think I'm going to go to bed. I think maybe this review did us all a little good before we get into anything more detailed. PTL!—Amen? GBAKY‚ in Jesus' name‚ amen!
164. —REMEMBER 2TIM.2:15: "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth."—Amen? GBY!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family