"what was, what now is, and what is to come"

When I was an early teenager, it would be an understatement to say I was somewhat morose and angry ... this not being something all that foreign to most early teenagers one would think. I didn't think much of most of the human content of our world, nor what we were doing to the place, and I wondered if things were ever going to get any better.

My search led me to "the bible", something I prefer to call the "ancient texts" and will refer to as "AT" (as opposed to "OT" and "NT") from here-on. I set about reading it from cover to cover (something I've now done a number of times) but I must admit that most of it wasn't all that exciting or appealing to me as an early teenager. All those begats, strange sounding names, and tales of war and bloodshed, didn't lend much to my wondering of whether things were ever going to get better.

What I ended up doing in that first "cover to cover" project, was basically tear out every page of the AT that I thought showed some sort of promise or hope or indication about our future, and throwing in the rubbish the rest of that particular version/collection/translation of the AT.

Obviously I was no book-worshipper back then, nor am I now. A book is just another thing after all, and I for one deem book-worshipping to merely be another form of idolatry and fail to see the need for outright perfection in any original or translation of the AT (Ancient Texts.)

The torn out collection I was left with basically consisted of pages from the likes of Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Matthew, Thessalonians and Revelation, all in no particular order and with probably a few other AT book names thrown in. Thus, my first exposure and interest in prophecy as it relates to the people of the covenant (people of direct Jewish decent) and the Gentile nations (the rest of us) was born.

Trying to understand and apply those AT prophecies to what was, what now is, and what is to come, has been a consistent interest with me ever since ... which would be around 30 years now.

At least half that time ago, I discovered an excellent resource that helped put all those collection of words I ripped out of the AT, into a more visual representation. A picture painting a thousand words and all that.

It was the collection of "charts" by the late Clarence Larkin, as found in his book "Dispensational Truths". The descriptions found in Daniel, Ezekiel, Revelation (et al), became so much easier to follow when presented in a pictorial format and so it became even clearer to me as to "what was, what now is, and what is to come", and all that.

The good news is that Clarence Larkin's pictorial representations of prophecy (and a lot more besides) have now come into the public domain and can now be accessed for free by anyone who chooses to do so via the Internet.

So rather than rip and tear apart whatever copy of the AT (Ancient Texts) you happen to have collecting dust on your shelf like I did some 30 years ago, head over to the following links and get the basic gist regarding the prophecies in well drawn pictures instead.

I've included one link which you can use to temper against Larkin's work too, for I wouldn't want it to be thought that one should ever rely upon a single person's views when it comes to determining "The Truth" in these matters.

Nor am I of the view that Clarence Larkin has got it completely right in all these matters either.

http://web.mountain.net/morton/charts.htm
http://www.ebccnet.com/lcharts/Clarence-Larkin-Album
http://www.geocities.com/christian_crusade/faq_antichrist.html

regarDS

Where the hell is Matt ?

SBS television in Oz (Australia) used to regularly screen the "Deep Forest" song/clip called "Sweet Lullaby" as a bit of a filler between foreign news. That was back in around 2000 before SBS went advertisment happy like every other commercial channel. They used to complete the clip with a little graphic of the world and a voice-over that said "The World Is An Amazing Place".

I never managed to catch a complete recording of that clip before they changed the filler to Neil Finn and Yothu Yindi performing in the "Dots on the shell" clip which (although is also very good) never has had the same sort of inpact with me as "Sweet Lullaby".

Thank goodness for Youtube ! At last there are many versions of the Sweet Lullaby clip to be found freely online. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvnVdMpgQOk is but one version.

Then along came Matt Harding. Who the hell is Matt ? Matt Harding is one cool frood who really knows where his towel is (thank you Douglas Adams), that's who !

If you have not already heard of him, he is someone who not only has brought a whole new level of entertainment to the "Sweet Lullaby" clip, but also someone who has used his travels, that song, and internet facilities to bring a wonderfully positive, entertaining, amusing, and family friendly phenomena to the WWW.

His contributions in this regard are worth promoting, so here is the all important link in that regard, or you can always just go to youtube.com and search for "where the hell is matt ?" to view his original works as well as the many amusing spin-offs. Enjoy !

See: http://wherethehellismatt.com for the originals, news, and out-takes. Cheers and good on ya Matt !

regarDS

In memory of Nikola Tesla

derspatz standing next to a statue of Nikola Tesla that the USofA has got hidden away on Goat island in Niagara near the falls.

The photo was taken around mid 2003, but an additional memorial was established in memory of Tesla's enormous contributions to our present understanding and use of electricity, in July 2006 on the Canadian side and is in full view of where most of the public are to be found rather than hidden away on an island.

See: www.teslasociety.com/victoria.htm for more info on Tesla and plenty of pictures regarding the new memorial.

regarDS