Dev Ramcharan - Class 1: All is Vanity

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   This is day one of the 2022 Palm Springs Bible School. Our first period teachers by the dev Rams, run his General subject is the whole duty of man. Today’s topic is all is Vanity for the deaf. So in 32 years of travel around the world Bible schools, everywhere I have never heard announcements like that in my life. Unbelievable.

2. 0:30

   I still don’t know who Gupta Ram. Charan is either. But I know Jean-Jacques jelly. No has told me you, we might be my grandfather or something like that. And Montreal, that’s what he would have sounded like brothers and sisters this week we’re going to be looking at the Book of Ecclesiastes. It has its dark bits. It has its moments of joy and upliftment but largely what it is.

3. 1:04

   It is the deep thoughts and sharing. Of a man somewhere between birth and death on the horizon. Who has a full life behind him and his had the chance to experience everything a person can experience. And he’s come to realize many things about life, the way it is, and the way we experience it.

4. 1:35

   Now, for all of us, we want to figure out what God is doing. We want Pat answers. We want everything to line up. Well, like a spreadsheet. We wanted to be easily understood. We want to see common sense in the things that are going on around us. But we know that that’s not the way life is.

5. 1:58

   Life is full of things that happened that don’t make any sense at all. It’s full of experiences, we never thought could possibly happen, but they do happen. and when we think God is doing something according to our particular thoughts about where things are headed we find he’s actually doing something completely different And we are continually continually surprised by what he does and the world in which we live. Now, we can start looking at the Book of Ecclesiastes in Genesis chapter 3, believe it or not.

6. 2:39

   All the way back in verse 17. verse 17 sin has taken place death is now going to be in the world and in verse 17, And unto Adam, he said, because thou Hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife and Hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee saying, Thou shalt not eat of it.

7. 3:11

   Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In toil. Shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life, thorns and thistles, shall it? Bring forth to thee and thou shalt eat the herb of the field in the sweat of thy face. Shalt. Thou eat bread. Till thou return unto the ground. For out of it was so taken for dust Thou Art and unto dust shalt thou return.

8. 3:48

   So God says to Adam and Eve this world you are in is now going to be filled with challenge with difficulty. But thorns and thistles. But things that are not easy to bear and by the sweat of your brow.

9. 4:10

   You’ll be able to live in this world for your sake. Well, we can interpret that to mean because of you or because this is what is it is necessary for you to go through?

10. 4:25

    To live the life, you’re not going to live. Before me in the Earth. Now we could then go from Genesis chapter 3 and we could look at Romans chapter 8, Romans chapter 8. And we could see an illusion. It doesn’t come right out, clearly like a reference, would it? It is a, it is an echo back to what is going on in Genesis. In Romans eight.

11. 5:04

    Beginning at verse 20, we read For the creation. Was made subject to vanity not of its own. Will you authorized version says not willingly? but by reason of him, who subjected it in Hope, In Hope. That the creation itself. Also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God for, we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, And not only, they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit. The Redemption of our body but we are saved by hope but hope that is seen is not hope. and so, what Paul is saying, what God is saying through Paul is

12. 6:24

    The difficulty of this life is intentional. The trouble in this world has a purpose that the trouble in in your individual life. Has meaning.

13. 6:43

    And in all in the end, casts Us in Hope. Upon God because there’s nothing else to hold onto. We can’t hold onto our money, the house, we live in the car, we drive, whatever our investments look like our children, our possessions, we can hang on to any of that. those crises of life as Sailors when we experience the full extent of what the aging process brings for us, all the pain, all the chronic illness is nothing else for us to hold on to But faith. Hope the hope that one day, we will not be as we are now. And by the way, I know you might be thinking. So awfully young to be at this school, isn’t he? I’m older than Jeff.

14. 7:39

    I turned 60 in January, January 9th. All right, so I’m not a kid anymore. And my body is telling me that every day, these aches, and pains these disappointments. These regrets these troubles these times of loneliness, These feelings of isolation, all of these things are part, and parcel of the life that we live, that casts as upon God, in faith and in love, will you have answers to all the questions that you have?

15. 8:17

    Will anything ever make sense fully? Will you ever be able to understand why God allows or brings the tragedies into your life? They come when they come and the answer, maybe, maybe not job cries out to God. He struggles with his friends. He has all kinds of questions for God because according to his model of the way things are the way things ought to be the way things should be his life. Doesn’t make any sense at all.

16. 8:55

    How can I be going through all of this pain? All of this loss. And be God’s child. Be a believer. He wants to hold God to account. He wants to align God to his model about the way things should be in the way, God should be, and God comes to him in the end. It says, all right, you want to talk to me? You want to fight with me?

17. 9:27

    when argue with me, Have a quarrel. You want to settle with me? You want me to explain myself to you? Look at all these things that I do. Look at the Precision of creation, and how its it runs, its course season after season. Look at everything that I have created. Look at the massive power of the sea and I treated like a little baby and say, look I put a diaper on, you don’t go past this border. You stay right there and behave yourself and the seed listens to me. now job, You want to argue with me? You want me to make sense to you. You want me to explain myself to you? Were you with me?

18. 10:22

    When I did all these things and put them together. When I took the universe and wound it up. Like a watch. So that it could behave the way I expected to behave. And questions job has he doesn’t answer. He does not answer jobs questions. He had job at the end says I’m so sorry. Didn’t know what I was saying.

19. 10:53

    And you look at them, if there’s something else that comes after that is there another Passage. and it’s as if the book just stops, And all the answers we wanted with job. Are not answered. That is the point. The point is this. I am in control of everything that exists. I’m in control of the way the world operates. I run this Fallen World Fallen because of sin, but a world that has a future that I I am creating I know what I’m doing. Including what I’m doing in your life. With all of its pain.

20. 11:46

    With all of its trouble. With all of its loneliness. With all of it, unbearable losses. With all its disappointments. I am here with you. And I will carry you through. Just hold on to me.

21. 12:09

    The book of Ecclesiastes is written by a man like Lee Solomon. Who is King and Jerusalem and her son of David. And over all Israel. If we interpret the opening to be talking about Israel as an integrated Nation, not a poetic term for the split Nation, but an integrated Nation. And this was a man who had everything a man could have. He had all the money a person could have hit, all the all the gold, all the silver, all the land, all the women, all the power, all the drink, all the food, everything he had everything a man could have.

22. 12:56

    He wasn’t happy. You wonder sometimes how these super wealthy or super successful individuals in places like Hollywood. Commit suicide. They got everything. They thought they wanted, they had everything they thought would make them happy and they realized there’s still a cavern inside my heart that cannot be filled and I don’t know what to put in it.

23. 13:22

    Because there’s nothing I found. It feels it. that whole and every one of our hearts, Can only be filled with faith. With God. Solomon did all this work. He built all of these things, he put everything in place, he structured so much for the nation and knew that he was going to hand it off to a fool. He says in one of the passages were after everything. I’ve built.

24. 13:55

    Who knows if the person I’m going to give it to his going to squander it and be a fool. He know what his son was like and we see historically. That rehoboam was a fool. The nation’s split because he took bad and stupid advice. And why did they give him that? Bad advice the young men in their 40s, by the way, not 29:18 in their 40s and 50s because they couldn’t wait to get access to the money.

25. 14:25

    That would come through increased taxes. So they could be as rich as possible. That’s why they wouldn’t relent on taxes. That’s why they wouldn’t reduce. The taxes. They wanted to get us rich and as fast as they could, because in their foolishness, they thought that would make them happy. And so the book begins with the words, the words of Koh helath. The son of David King in Jerusalem, that we’re going to let the preacher in, in, in the Septuagint translation. It is the word Ecclesiastes.

26. 15:09

    It’s a word that’s related to the assembling of a group of people. So this is about a man, expressing the wisdom of old age, your wisdom with all of your life behind you to look upon Your understanding and he’s sharing with everyone who will listen, these are the things. That I have learned. The hard way.

27. 15:42

    He says. Vanity of vanities. All is Vanity. The word vanity, the Hebrew word had Bell means futility emptiness. It refers to something that there is diaphanous is passing. That is exceedingly fragile like a breath gone. Kong after a moment. He says, every thing, it doesn’t matter how durable it looks, it doesn’t matter how sustainable it seems. It’s all empty in the end.

28. 16:22

    Now we look at that as Believers and we think well, how can a Believer say something like that? He’s speaking. He’s speaking from the point of view. Of a man who’s standing aside for a moment from faith and will see almost this confusing interplay and alternation of Godly thinking. And then thinking of a man of this world, not no one in this audience is a man or woman of this world.

29. 16:51

    That’s why you here. Men and women of Faith but we can still benefit and we can still in ourselves, see through the period of time that we’ve been standing upon the face of the Earth. This kind of mentality, a sailing us at certain points in our lives. Does look everything. Everything I’ve seen everything I’ve seen in the end is full of disappointments.

30. 17:22

    It’s empty. It’s futile. What profit what gained what benefit has a man of all his hard work that he does Under the Sun? That’s a key phrase. Because Under the Sun means in this world, as we know it today, if that’s all we focus on. If our life is about what’s in this world, then we are no different to the billionaire, Jeff Bezos.

31. 17:57

    Responsible for Amazon. Who right now is investing vast amounts of money into research related to life extension. I wonder why that is Because his billions and trillions will not keep him out of the grave and he suddenly realizes. Oh no, I have everything. But I have nothing at the same time. I need to live as long as I can.

32. 18:27

    Because a man of this world realizes, I may have built Amazon but it does me no good. Because I’m dying. I’m dying. So it goes on and it says one generation passes. And another generation comes and the Earth abides Forever. The Sun Also Rises in the sun, goes down and hasteth to his place where he arose.

33. 18:54

    And that word hasteth has the the essential meaning and Hebrew of it gets there. Almost out of breath. Poetic language showing that the sun is doing its work and it’s it gets tired out and everything that it does there’s an endless cycle that goes on and on in natural things and an endless cycle of generations coming and going coming and going coming and going and we’re just members of one generation.

34. 19:24

    That is now starting to pass off the sea. He goes on and he says, the wind goes to with the south turns, about Hunter the north it world’s around all over the place. And then it goes back to where it came from all the rivers run into the sea yet to see is Never full. The rivers, come hither and return again. All things are full of such hard work. They says you could barely describe it a man, cannot utter it.

35. 20:00

    This is the eye is never satisfied with seeing nor the year filled with hearing. And so he says, we are like we are like black holes of the need to see things and hear things, and experience things. And in the end with everything, we see with everything that we do, we’re not satisfied.

36. 20:25

    You’re not satisfied. He says, is there anything that can be called new? Well, we might think. Yes, technology, we went to the moon. We’ve got iPhones that people don’t know how to turn off. We, we have all kinds of things that’s new. Well, no, it’s not new. What’s new is the ability to do old things. We’ve always needed to find ways to do. To communicate.

37. 20:56

    They get access to information. To be able to do certain tasks, to deal with that oil that we’re engaged in all the days of our lives. But essentially there’s nothing brand-new. That brand new thing will come with the kingdom. And with the changing of those who have believed also the generations, there’s no new thing under the sun on this Earth in this world.

38. 21:27

    It’s just something that we can say this is new. He says no it’s already been there and some in some form of the other before us and he says and you know, another thing, what’s even worse than that? Nobody will remember you when you’re gone. Jeff Bezos. Not Jeff. Gelineau, I know we’ll remember him. Those cookie ways and big heart.

39. 21:50

    There is no remembrance of former things. Neither shall there be any remembrance of Latter things? The goes on. He says, he says it’s suddenly shifts from third person to first person. It’s very personal now. he says, I the preacher. I was King. Over Israel in Jerusalem. I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning.

40. 22:24

    All things that are done under Heaven. This sore travel has God, given to the sons of man to be exercised their with I looked at all my work, I looked at the way life is in this world. And I had to find a way to figure it all out to work out how things.

41. 22:47

    Work the way they do an eye structure. I was desperate to understand. Is this all there is no. Remember Solomon. Had taken a bypass away from God for a period of time. And many of us believe that this this is an indicator that he came back to God’s truth. But he came back to God truth and please whatever you do.

42. 23:15

    Don’t be among those people who say the scary thing while Shaman will never be in the Kingdom, you know? Who did all the bad stuff he did? He was a stupid wise, man. And your wife thinking to herself? Yes, I know one like that too.

43. 23:34

    This, these are the words of a man who came back who came back. Verse 14, have seen all the works that are done under the sun and behold all is Vanity and vexation of spirit. He said that which is crooked cannot be made straight and this is not talking about something. Being perverse is talking about something that’s he didn’t, that’s not clear.

44. 24:01

    And what he’s saying? Effectively is, God has made it so that life is hard to figure out. We can’t take a model in our head and slap it on life and say, aha, this explains everything. Where would there be opportunity for faith if we could do that? We’re always going to want to aim in the direction of figuring out all aspects of everything. You raised a family of kids, you raised them in the truth. Maybe one comes in of the three or four that you have. Maybe many come in and then they leave. Maybe they come in.

45. 24:44

    And then you look at the most desperate, marriage situations are just break. Your heart in pieces. As an aging father a mother you want to advise but you know, you’ve got to be careful what you say to your adult children. And you look at all that heartache and your heart, breaks for your grandkids, I’m just describing typical situations.

46. 25:07

    This is not somebody’s individual life. I’m pointing out. This is our experience as aging parents. and we look at all that and we want it all to make sense and we asked ourselves was I such a terrible father, was I such a horrible mother that this has happened in my childhood life, how can they not know not to do these things or be involved and those things, whatever the case may be when we read this book, when we look at the things Solomon says, our hearts are deeply moved if we put ourselves into the pages.

47. 25:51

    We can feel a sense of disappointment of of, almost bitterness towards God. How could you do this or that in my life? If your God, if you’re loving

48. 26:05

    God allows things to happen. Sometimes God causes things to happen. To exercise our faith. The drive us towards him. so that we can say with our arms of lifted, Tears streaming down our faces. Not our needs. I don’t know why this is happening. But I believe in you. Let make the choice again to trust you and to know that you are in this situation somewhere. You get me through.

49. 26:48

    You’ll get me through. and so it goes on and he says, He says I communed with mine own. Heart saying hello I am. Come to Great Estate. And have gotten more wisdom than all. They that had been before me in Jerusalem. Who all well, David Saul Oak is a deck multiple Kings who were there before him and wiser than the mall and I still have struggled.

50. 27:23

    I understand God. And I gave my heart to know, wisdom and to know Madness and folly. Madness and Folly. I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit for in much wisdom is much grief. And he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow. If you were to ask Mick, Jagger today and don’t some of you pretend you don’t know, because the people beside you or to Godly to know who that is. If you were to ask Mick Jagger today, are you a happy, man? He would say to you.

51. 28:00

    I Can’t Get No Satisfaction. No matter what I do, I try and I try, I Can’t Get No Satisfaction. He has all the money a person could have All the possessions houses, everywhere, palatial mansions, and he’s a dying, man, I don’t know how they even move around on stage. Rumor Has It Keith, Richard died. 20 years ago.

52. 28:31

    He’s really a remote control unit on stage. So it goes on and it says in much wisdom is much grief. Wisdom of what Godly wisdom? No. The more, you know, this life. On the earth and have access to exploring it, the more you grieved by it. Apart from God. He goes on. He says, in Chapter 2, I said in my heart.

53. 29:03

    Go, you go, like he’s talking to a friend. You’re going to experience everything there is to experience. Do whatever people can do. Go drink eat be merry live your life of pleasure but watch yourself and try to see what you’re experiencing. It went through as they ran the course of sin that he was involved in Solomon. It was at the same time, objectively watching and observing himself. and learning whatever he could learn says I said of laughter, it’s Madness.

54. 29:44

    And if mirth, what does it accomplish what do with it? I saw it in my heart to give myself to Wine later on. He says, I had great works. Houses, Vineyards Gardens and Orchards all kinds of fruit. I made pools, I had menservants and maidservants I bought people and I had them as slaves and I had slaves, born to them in my house, I had great possessions of herds and flocks, silver, and gold The Peculiar A treasure of Kings. In other words, the things only Kings could afford, I had everything.

55. 30:21

    I had singers. And I had the Delights of the sons of men. Concubines very many. I reckon there was no lonelier man in Israel with a thousand wives and all his concubines and Solomon.

56. 30:41

    God made us so that we we could love and build a life. With one woman. With one woman. While we’re both alive together. We go through all the couples go through. We get closer and closer in the truth. Now you all know Jeff and yet you know that Jeff will say things like as long as I’ve known him, Jeff will say this you want to be happy?

57. 31:15

    Mary Kelly. And what that means is he so deeply honors and trusts and cares for Kelly. But the answer to so many of the problems and struggles of his life. Has been his beloved Kelly.

58. 31:40

    Brother Max met me yesterday. And we were talking in the first thing. He said, Was about his wife being a fantastic person. He just talked and talked about how fortunate he is to have her. And to love her.

59. 32:06

    Now, that’s, that’s marriage in the truth. I am not saying that that is yours, and that means you’re not in the truth or that you are not a person of faith. Because the experience of trouble in this life might be in your marriage right in your marriage. And that does not mean that you’re not a God-fearing man or woman. But but when it is to Believers together, laboring together. Even as our bodies fall apart.

60. 32:40

    We have all the struggles of the flesh. No matter how old we are. Those struggles transform and mutate into different struggles, compared to when we were 20. There is a love that grows and grows that Solomon, didn’t have. He had everything but he didn’t have that. He did not have that. He goes on and he says his Rook at all of this. He says also my wisdom remained with me. I kept watching myself.

61. 33:19

    As an observer, an objective pair of eyes on me. Even as I subjective, Lee, went through all of these things. Whatsoever. Mine eyes desired. Verse 10. Chapter 2, I kept not from them. I withheld, not my heart from any joy for my heart rejoiced, in all my labor. And this was my portion from all my labor and I looked in all the works of my hands and bras and the labor that I’d labored to do and behold.

62. 33:54

    All is Vanity. And a striving after wind. There was no profit under the sun. But I looked at my life, in this earth, all my business, all the work, all the success, all the money, all the possessions, everything I looked at it, all I thought apart from God, it isn’t worth anything apart from God on this Earth.

63. 34:23

    Under the sun isn’t worth a thing. Oh, there’s the excitement into we’re moving up through the Grand, dark of the accomplishments of our lives. But in the end, when we achieve Those things. It’s almost as if there’s a feeling of. Well, Been There. Done That. What’s Next? Hey, something to do just keep me engaged to keep me interested.

64. 34:46

    And there’s a sense of diminishing. Returns, the more that we have, the more that we experienced Vladimir poutine right now. Is after something that is impossible for him to achieve. A feeling of enough power. Enough wealth. Enough influence enough. Respect enough adulation enough worship. None of which he’s ever going to achieve. Never. But that’s what he’s after.

65. 35:26

    And the invasion of the Ukraine is just one major push in the direction of achieving those things. Who Dean is just typical of many many men in this world. There are the heads of Corporations.

66. 35:44

    They are in finance, they are in government. Municipal state federal doesn’t matter where? People aiming at Power and feeling a sense that that when they get it, is going to make them happy. But Solomon said, there’s no profit when I life is just rooted in the things that we see with our eyes Under the Sun, turned myself, to behold, wisdom, and Madness, and Folly for what can the man do? The comes.

67. 36:22

    After The King. My son’s never going to do anything better than I did. He’s just going to do what’s already been done. Then I saw that wisdom is better than Folly as far as light excels Darkness. Better to be in this world Under the Sun, with some understanding, and some practical ability to use what we have learned. And to have no wisdom, the wise man’s eyes are in his head. But the fool walks in darkness.

68. 36:56

    I know that and yet I have seen the same thing happens to both of them. The wise man in this world and the food. They both dropped dead one day. There’s no difference between the two of them. And said my, in my heart. As it happened to the fool. So it happened at even to me, why was I then more wise than the fool? And I said in my heart that this also is Vanity. But there’s no remembrance of the wise man, more than the fool for ever seeing that all will have been already forgotten. And how dieth the wise, man as the fool. Therefore, I hated life because the work that is wrought. Under the Sun is Grievous unto me. For all is Vanity.

69. 37:55

    The striving after wind. Now remember this is a man. writing as if he is someone in this world having been a person that was in the world who stepped aside from his faith and he’s saying to a group of brothers and sisters I want to share with you what I’ve realized about this life.

70. 38:19

    Now, you might think we’ll how does that apply to brothers and sisters? Because we fall into the same Cycles. Now at this stage of their lives, you’re at the end of all that. But if you were 20 years younger than you are today or 30 or 40 years younger, you would see yourselves in these Pursuits.

71. 38:38

    After means of being happy, the do not make us happy You’d have to be reminded like I have to be at my stage of life. All of these Pursuits in the end that are so desperate. And so desperately trying to give us a feeling of significance of importance of well-being of accomplishment of achievement, and the end there like a handful of Ash or dust.

72. 39:08

    Because they’re not durable. They amount in the end to vanity. When when I am bishan, things are focused on achieving things on the earth in this world. So brothers and sisters. We are going to maintain the time for the morning that we may have lost a few minutes. I can’t taste say why the beginning of the class.

73. 39:39

    So that way you can get to the break that you use quickly as you can. Thank you.