Dev Ramcharan - Class 2: Life's Vanity Observed

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 two of the 2022 Palm Springs. Bible School. Our first period, teacher is brother. Dev Ram, Charan. His General. Subject is the whole duty of man. Today’s topic is life’s vanity. Observed, well, good morning everyone. Those announcements sure are something. Aren’t they? When you look at the Book of Ecclesiastes, one of the ways that might help you too, Understand it. Is to look at it this way.

2. 0:44

   A man gets up in front of a Congregation of people might be Solomon, might be someone else. He plays the role of a CO helath that is a preacher someone who is talking to the assembled people. For part of what he’s saying, he says let me talk to you. Like, I’m a man of this world who has no faith, but then let me talk to you about how you see things when you are a man of faith.

3. 1:13

   That’s the real alternates back and forth between these things. It’s not that he is saying, I struggle with all these things terribly, I have all these massive doubts and then well, then God gives us this or does that when he’s presenting is two views. In the hopes that the congregation will recognize which is the view that is valid for a believer. That’s how I find it.

4. 1:44

   It helps me to Grapple with the complexities of the book when I was a young man in my 20s. There were some books that I avoided like, the plague, The Book of Job was one of them. Ecclesiastes was another and the Song of Solomon, which I’m yet to put my foot into, it can be a Minefield for interpreters and speakers. So, the Book of Job is now something that I’ve done some work in and Ecclesiastes even with its brevity of what only 12 chapters is sufficiently complex than one has to really be thinking very carefully about what is happening in the gear. Transitions as one goes from section to section, chapter 2 chapter in the book.

5. 2:33

   So I find that that that framework helps me to understand it better. You may have a different way of looking at it. perfectly valid to have different views on this book, but for me, what helps me to put it together as a man, standing up, and voicing, to opposite points of e, starts off with that dark Earthbound worldly perspective, vanity of vanities, everything is useless in the final analysis It’s the kind of conclusion that is drawn by an extremely wealthy dying old man. That that’s that’s the conclusion that they draw when they look at everything that they’ve done and all that, they’ve sacrificed their lives for and they way it. It’s so light in the palm of their hands. They look at their children, fighting each other over their inheritance.

6. 3:37

   They look at people who have led their corporations organizations thinking, in terms of carving up the empire for themselves, and they ask themselves. Why, why did I do all of this? Why did I waste my life this way? So that’s the one view. Now, we’re going to go to chapter 2 and pick things up. Where we left off yesterday.

7. 4:01

   Verse 18. As a consequence of that way of looking at his life, that way of interpreting, everything he had achieved and accomplished. He says, I hated all my labor that I taken under the sun. Under the sun. Because I’m going to leave all of this to a man who’s going to come after me? Who knows what kind of man.

8. 4:31

   He will be, but he be wise or will be. Will he be foolish? And we know the answer that question if it was in fact, Solomon who was saying these things, First 21, there is a man whose labor is with wisdom and with knowledge and with skillfulness fulness, by the way. In answer to what brother?

9. 4:55

   Jeff said, earlier, I’m reading primarily from the authorized version the King James version, but periodically, I will drop into the revised version from the 1880s, all right? As as modern, as I’ve been getting today this but I love, I love the modern versions, some so many wonderful ones today that we can learn from so bear with me.

10. 5:20

    He says, he says, in verse 21, there’s a man whose labor is with wisdom and with knowledge and with skillfulness fullness yet her, man, that hath, not labored, they’re in jail, he leave it for his portion. We all know about businesses that were worked on and so much. Labor was put into them.

11. 5:45

    Sometimes by people who came up from from from Deep poverty. Only to hand the business off to a child who wasted and squandered, everything destroyed, the business had no clue what he was doing and everything fell apart. All that hard work. Just literally frittered Away by someone raised in the lap of luxury who had no clue how hard it was to build. What was built?

12. 6:13

    This also is Vanity and a great evil for what hath a man of all his labor and of the striving of his heart we’re in, he’ll a breath under the sun for all his days. Our bizarros it is travel is grief. Yay. Even in the night, his heart taketh. No rest. Have you owned a business? Do you own a business?

13. 6:42

    And you know what that feels like up all night worried? Are you going to make payroll? Are you going to be able to pay your key vendors? How are you going to manage the transition of your business from one stage to the next your family, the Troubles of your life? Whatever it is that keeps you up at night.

14. 7:03

    We know what that feels like when our mind is not as rooted in God. As it needs to be sometimes. All his days are but sorrows in his travel grief, even in the night, his heart takes no rest. The revised version says, and then There’s a major transition away from the pessimism of the man, the woman in this world whose whole hope is in things.

15. 7:35

    They can see and touch and feel in this life. And there’s a transition to the optimism of the life of a believer. He says, there is nothing better for a man. Then that he should eat and drink. And make his soul, enjoy good in his labor. This. Also I saw that it is from the hand of God. for, who can eat and who can have enjoyment more than I For God.

16. 8:13

    Giveth to a man. That is good in his sight, wisdom and knowledge. Enjoy. Now what does that mean that we don’t have problems, we don’t have tears. We don’t have disappointments, we don’t have tragedy and Trauma, it’s not what it means. but what it is saying is that in general terms, when we do our work as believers, We have some kind of an opportunity to see a return on that work to enjoy the fruit of our labors.

17. 8:59

    I’ve known people in my life, have been related to people in my life. I am related to people in my life. Whose entire Focus has been the accumulation of money. Possessions. Land Investments. But they have not enjoyed one, iota of those things. One relative of mine. You know it was it was a shocking thing for children to actually sit on the furniture. And our three.

18. 9:33

    Little hellions will run in and start jumping on the woman’s Furniture. It was not a good time for her at all. She would often spend her Saturday’s polishing. The facets of the pieces of Crystal on her chandeliers. The the house was a master. It wasn’t a home. And so it’s possible to be the kind of individual who has wealth, who has money and yet doesn’t enjoy any of it, but this is kind of crab it, you know, fervent effort to protect it and to prolong it. as a what God is telling us through the preacher through Cole health is enjoy would have blessed you with Enjoy these things, not doesn’t mean that we enjoy them to distraction and that we live a life that is fully given over to the flesh.

19. 10:36

    But we do recognize that what we have received materially from God and through efforts that he’s blessed, we can enjoy. And share and share these things. Seeing them as from the hand of God. For who can eat at all of these things, verse 28, he then says. God gives to, to us not just things.

20. 11:07

    But for those who trust it. Who love him. Who care about him who please it does? That mean, does it say those who are sinless that? That’s not what it’s saying. But it’s saying is that when we care about God, Care about how he feels. Do what we can in our faulty failing and consistent lives to at least have a trend that is towards him.

21. 11:40

    And towards godliness and gratitude in our lives that they blesses us with something that’s bigger than any possession. We could actually possess he gives us wisdom. And knowledge. And joy. And those are the most precious things you have and at this stage of your life. These are some of the precious jewels that you actually have. If they give your grandchildren, The joy that they bring you. The love that you have the importance of your relationships, you know.

22. 12:16

    Now at this stage of your life, what’s most important is not what you possess. It’s your relationships. With god with you children with other people and whatever vestiges of Health, you still have at this stage of your life. Goes on your transitions into this. Beautiful, passage that talks about times. He says, look there’s a time for everything.

23. 12:48

    God has set things up. So they happen in a particular way and general terms, he says there’s a time to be born and want to die, a time to plant to pluck up a time to kill and to heal, a time to break down a time to build up to laugh, to mourn to dance. To Cast Away stones and to gather Stones together. There’s a little bit of diversity of views on what that means.

24. 13:18

    Some say, it talks about the building of buildings where Stones were cast upon the foundation of a house that was in disrepair to build a new house. Others say it’s about casting stones into a grave. Into a grave versus the next, where the Gathering of stones together is is the opposite to that, whatever that might imply.

25. 13:44

    A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing a time to get or to seek possessions, and then a time to lose them. Now everyone in this room knows what downsizing means, right? All those things you had at a certain point in time you realized I have to move to a place.

26. 14:03

    That’s a fraction of the size of where you’ve lived. And you ask yourself where did I get all this stuff from? What was I thinking? Nobody will take it. There’s no one who will take it. If you have a collection of books, you try to get people to take those books that are younger than you. You’ll have quite a hard time This disposing of your library, for instance.

27. 14:30

    So there’s a time where we get things and then there’s a time where we let go and for some people that letting go is extremely painful, if you’re a person in this world and that’s all you have. Letting go is hard. but for us, even though we have affection for the things and the memories that are associated with the things that we have, letting it go letting those things go is not as hard.

28. 14:59

    There’s a time to keep and a time to Cast Away a time to Rend and a time to sew a time to keep silence and a time to speak time to love and hate a time for War and Peace. All of these things, all of these things, the life of mankind summarized in all of these couplets together.

29. 15:23

    Starting with the most important being born and dying and everything. Else. But is tied to what goes on in between. Somebody said once a wit somebody like Jeff said, once you know what are you look at somebody who’s gravestone? Dev Ram Tran. 1962, 2X. That little Dash is your entire life. Your whole life.

30. 15:59

    One lousy little Dash. But really, it’s very humbling because it makes her realize. Well, that is the way it is. And so, while we’re alive, We do what we can to encourage each other. To help each other. To lift each other’s spirits. One of our brothers this morning pointed out a kind of work that you can enter to into when you have gone into retirement. You know, I think to myself Years of golfing and just finding beaches to lie in would probably put me in the grave within a couple of months.

31. 16:39

    For sure. There’s no way I could live a life like that. I’m sorry if that’s what you’re living, and you like it, you know, that’s enjoy, enjoy it. It’s just not for me, but what the brother suggested was There’s a kind of Sabbath, you can enter into in retirement. We’re servile work that involves work to make money is no longer done, but there’s all kinds of work that can be done in the truth. everything from writing articles, for the for the Magazine’s, wonderful, Tidings magazine that we have now, To preaching work going out into the mission field to doing other kinds of Labor. Volunteer work for instance in prison, you have a lot of brothers and sisters who volunteer in the in the Care Homes.

32. 17:29

    The long-term care retirement homes which are owned by christadelphians groups, trusts and they go into them and they volunteer They do the readings and having a reading group, for instance, with a number of older, brothers and sisters, and just keeping that going. I know that there’s one that already exists and I heard it has a wonderful impact on everyone, who participates what, but there are things that you can do while you have years of strength.

33. 18:02

    To keep active and to actively support and help your brothers and sisters. So, don’t let his just be a period of relaxation from everything that looks like work. But think about work, that’s not survive work as our dear brother mentioned this morning and see how you get yourself busy, it will actually keep your mind healthy longer when you’re thinking beyond your personal aches and pains to look after and help others. So all of these things happened and their time including the dash and everything that’s in that Dash. what what what the the writer what God is saying, is I have it all under control job I put the universe in place and have all these facets and Times of human experience in place as they are right now. Verse 10 says I have seen the travel which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised their with and that’s when you cry out for a modern version, isn’t it? This is what the new English translation. The net translation says, for this particular verse, it says I have observed.

34. 19:35

    The burden that God has given to people to keep them occupied. Is that lovely? It changes everything doesn’t it? The King James version is, is beautiful for its language. Its impact on the language. It’s in so many phrases, we still use today. It has altered the direction of the language, Mighty river called the English language in directions.

35. 20:05

    That have made it the most beautiful language on the face of the Earth. But today we need modern versions to help us understand these words. So there’s nothing wrong. You’re not sinning, you’re not breaking. Somebody’s Rules by picking up a modern translation. I remember back in the 1980s, our Young Turks Rebels going up there, reading the revised Standard Version in somebody’s face, you know, revised Standard Version Now that’s just an old-fashioned version of the mindful compared to what we do. We read today, but there are so many good translations. So I’ve observed that God does lots of things to keep people occupied.

36. 20:50

    It’s it’s all kinds of stuff that we can do to keep occupied with God has made it so that man has work to do. We were not made for relaxation. You notice I didn’t say, golfing or beaches, or, you know, deep, sea diving, or diving in Maui or any of that stuff. I didn’t mention those things.

37. 21:15

    Did I? What I’m saying is he didn’t make us for leisure. Pleasure. How do you say it in America? Jeff Hardy, you said. Leisure. He didn’t make us believe, sure because Adam was made to tend the garden. He was made for work. What happened was his experience of the work changed after sin. The hardship that difficulty the Thorns, the thistles, the hard ground.

38. 21:50

    That’s now what he had to deal with, but he was made for work. So this notion of people harping with Harps and flying around in the clouds, nonsense is a stupid as can be because that’s not why God made us, what will happen is in the Kingdom, will experience a lack of exhaustion. No limitations to serving God, continual delighted service. And Boundless Energy to do it.

39. 22:21

    But we were made. We were made for work and look what he says. Now, he has made everything beautiful in its time. Now, that could mean that everything that exists has its period of Youth and Beauty like you have and then goes through what happens as time goes by or he could be saying there is an inherent Beauty.

40. 22:48

    And wonder. In the cycles that God has brought into being that it described in all these opposites. Birth death and everything else. It’s a beauty to it. It has a shape. It has a structure even in the midst of chaos, it hasn’t orderliness to it. That all comes from our father. Also. He has set the world in their heart. So that no man can find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the end.

41. 23:33

    Now that world that word that is translated world, Has multiple meanings. It can be interpreted to mean in eternity. It can be interpreted to mean ignorance or forgetfulness. It is associated with Darkness. And so what happens is the translators, look at the general tenor of what’s happening and determine looking at how that word is used elsewhere and especially in passages that may have a kind of similarity to this one.

42. 24:13

    How do we interpret it? Now, the way that I’m going to suggest is, is the way that the majority of modern translations tend to look at it. The way that they interpret it, is this God’s put eternity and things related to Eternity in the heart of men. So they’re continually yearning for something above and beyond This Life as we know it, oh they may, they may ignore it. They may turn away from it.

43. 24:44

    They may go counter to it. Please put right into Mankind’s heart. A feeling for the desire. For Eternal things. And yet. He’s made life such that we do not and cannot ever fully understand what he’s up to. Job, thought he could, he thought he could figure things out. He thought he could build a model within, which God operated according to sing some rules that he thought were appropriate and God has to point out to him. No, I’m God.

44. 25:26

    But I do what I do. And you are who you are. And so though, God has put a feeling and desire for a hankering after Eternal things in our hearts. He’s also put certain things in place to cover his tracks. So we’re continually searching for him. Looking for what he does trying to interpret what he is doing.

45. 25:56

    And finding we can’t always figure him out. And that too is not a curse. It’s a blessing for us because it casts us upon him in faith. The baby that you carry in your arms, your little granddaughter, your little grandson doesn’t understand everything you’re doing. She doesn’t understand what you were thinking of, as you take care of her, she has no clue what you’re going to do next.

46. 26:25

    You may have a general idea that she’s got a diaper that needs to be changed, or she’s hungry or her ears, hurt, or something along those lines, but your mind, and you’ll care for her. Is above and beyond anything. She can work out in her mind that its current level of development. And that’s the way God is with us.

47. 26:49

    We can’t work out everything. He’s doing where he’s going, what he’s up to and it’s not a bad thing. It makes us realize, I need to hold on to you and just believe that things will work out. That everything will be okay in the end. And he says, in verse 13. Oh, verse 12. I know that there is no, there’s nothing better for them than to rejoice and do good as long as they live. So, there’s the balance for us, it’s not just about rejoicing, it’s about doing doing good, doing good in our lives. Now remember the, the story, the parable, Of the man who is given the talent and the way he dealt with it was to go bury it. and, his approach was not to do good, but to have an absence of doing evil, That was his Focus.

48. 27:57

    Just haven’t had an absence of doing evil of doing wrong. I’m not going to lose any of this because I know I work for a Stern strict and difficult man. That was his attitude. Whereas the others took every opportunity, they could to show a return on that investment. The interpretation comes after when Christ in the parable talks about those times.

49. 28:22

    We visit and spend time with the sick, the imprisoned, the hungry, thirsty, the naked, and so on, and so forth. I know I don’t do enough of that. We all have to do more as much as we can, the talent was a vast amount of money. Well, How do we then interpret it? It was a vast amount of opportunities to serve God and help others.

50. 28:46

    That’s what the talent equates to. So in the man buries a talent, he does nothing in God’s family. It doesn’t help. He doesn’t support. He doesn’t spend time with. He doesn’t encourage, he doesn’t phone up on the phone. He doesn’t sit beside and listen to he has no time for any of that. that’s what bearing the talent is all about and so what they, what they would call Hellas is saying here is that we Rejoice before God seeing the blessings, he has given us in our lives and also that we do good. As long as we live.

51. 29:32

    That’s what the revised version says, as long as they live. So you’re above ground is still living, this still good, you can do to encourage and support and help each other.

52. 29:51

    Brother told me a story about trying to encourage someone and you get to that stage of Frailty where there’s not a lot you can do physically. and so he talked about, Encouraging a sister to pray, just encouraging her to pray and and thanking her for the prayers that she must have given for him.

53. 30:16

    That in the morning, he woke up and he didn’t have as much pain as he usually hadn’t felt great and just buy that that little gentle tender bit of encouragement. Prayer has begun to become more important to that sister. Now, how much effort did that take? Was it a massive feat of intellectual prowess?

54. 30:42

    Was it a physical strain? It was just a quiet Act of love. That is helping to save someone’s life. So we can all do something while we live.

55. 30:58

    You’re 16. He looks Under the Sun at the place of judgement. He looks at rulers in this world and even Solomon. It’s Solomon acknowledging in his kingdom. There is corruption, there are corrupt officials not doing the right thing. And when I looked at the place of righteousness and found that there was wickedness there, I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous. And the wicked for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work, I said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men that God may prove them, and that they may see that they themselves are beasts. Then he talks about the fact that men and beasts have the same thing.

56. 31:55

    Oh, a man’s thoughts, maybe upward and in the context, it’s not necessarily in a Godly Direction. It may be in the direction of ambition, desire for power, and all these sorts of things that men have. We see Vladimir Putin doing exactly that right now, Looking up word for power. And then the Beast, whose whose groveling everyday work is to find something to eat so that it can preserve its life. He says, Mighty booty and the rat that is running around down there on the ground looking for something to eat. Both have the same experience at the end of their lives. Neither is superior to the other. but for people of faith, Another story is different, all that you are in right now. Is the phase of life that comes before eternal life. My forever.

57. 33:04

    With all the strength you need and all the focus. You need to be a perfect servant for God. It. So then we move back in to chapter 4. So, I returned and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun. So Under the Sun is Earthly, life divorced from God, and that we have God, and the life of The Godly.

58. 33:38

    I looked at all the oppression, the tears of the oppressed, they didn’t have a comforter and on the side of the oppressor. There was power. But they had no comforter. And so I looked at them and as a man of this world, I praise the dead. And I praise those that have not even been born yet because they have not had the chance to see the terrible things that are done by people on the Earth Under the Sun. Again, I looked at the travel the labor and every skillful work that for this Amman is envied of his neighbor. Let’s go with this.

59. 34:17

    Then this also is Vanity and a striving. To wind. The fool folds, his hand together. And eats his own flesh. Now, let’s back this up and look at some of these verses. Then I saw verse for revised version all labor, and every skillful work that for this Amman is envied of his neighbor.

60. 34:46

    and it gives you an alternate translation of footnote in the revised version that says It cometh of a man’s rivalry with his neighbor. Well, how do we interpret that all the striving after money and power? And possessions is about a rat race? A competition among people. One of my old bosses wonderful man named Corey Rose, not in the truth but he wouldn’t be being a good brother. He worked for the head of a major Canadian Corporation. and he was at a company picnic and he said to the owner, I think his name is Frank strong, Iraq.

61. 35:34

    He said to Frank boy Frankie, you haven’t made, you’ve got everything a person could want you’ve got, you’ve got your own plane, you’ve got all of this wealth, you’ve built an organization from the ground up and, and you’ve done extremely well. And Frank said to Cory, actually, no Cory. It’s funny, you know.

62. 35:56

    What do you get a jet? And somebody else has a bigger jet than you. You need to go get a bigger jet from them. The competition never ends. You never have enough. You never big enough. You never own enough. and that was a very humbling thing for men in that sphere of life to say, But it shows you that this competition that this continually one-upping of life from from, you know, from the people who live in this world and it can infect us to we can be infected by this.

63. 36:34

    We we can’t pretend that this is not us. The competition to own things to live in the best neighborhoods to to have not one SUV, but three to have a five car garage and being ridiculous. But you know what I mean? Holiday, and now strand. Then fly over to fly over to Iceland and then make sure that you, you you go to another country in 11 road trip. My parents, I can’t say I grew up poor, I didn’t agree. In a comfortable family.

64. 37:09

    I remember my parents when they were young and struggling, but my dad had a senior role in government and Trinidad, and my mother worked in the University of the country. And on top of those two good jobs, they had a chicken farm, And there they came a point in time where we’re well, they were doing extremely well. And and one day, my dad said

65. 37:40

    that we’re going to go for a trip to Barbados and my sister’s turned up their noses and were angry. Barbados, like, what, why are we going to Europe? And my dad heard what they said. And he shut down 60% of the farm. Because he realized it was starting to destroy his kids. He took the lifestyle and he’d come out of poverty. As had my mum.

66. 38:11

    And for someone who has come from poverty, poverty to wealth, it is the most brutal thing. To pull the gears and Ratchet your life back. But he delivers kids, you wasn’t in the truth. But he did that for his children. And yes, it was all about competition. It was all about comparing yourself to other families. Where were they going on vacation? What did they own?

67. 38:39

    What do they drive? How much do they have? What kind of boasting could people do? I remember, family, gatherings, where so much of it was about boasting and it wasn’t just boasting about what people owned it was. How is your son doing? Oh, he’s doing so well. You know, he’s doing so well.

68. 38:59

    He’s you know right now he’s articling with one of the biggest law firms in Toronto, right? And and that that nonsense which which I hated as a child. Absolutely hated. At the same time my wife Rose was growing up in a similar family in Toronto, having the same experience so that when we got together we walked away from all that. My children, I didn’t realize it because we never talked about those things with them.

69. 39:31

    Saw a picture of my my family’s estate and we’re speechless. They thought I had grown up in a Hut in the jungle somewhere. They literally said that. I said, watch like really, yeah, we thought you grew up in a hut somewhere so why didn’t you say something to me? This is my twenty something year old child telling me this. We never talked about those things. That’s the kind of thing.

70. 39:59

    We never wanted to talk about with our kids. Because it was all about competition. And so what scripture is telling us is what God sees in human life. And he says, look all of this questing for wealth and and prosperity. And so on can become just a horse race, a rat race, that’s what it is but it can become for some people often Then he says, in verse six or verse 5, and he says, so you’ve got the people who out there striving and striving and pushing, and pushing, and pushing and climbing, and climbing and climbing, climbing, a ladder of prosperity, and power and impact financially. And then you have the opposite who does nothing the checked out 1960s Beach Bum.

71. 40:48

    Do you remember those guys who didn’t wash at all? They had headbands and they had like a piece of leather which was Dirt at the bottom of their bare feet and he didn’t want to get too close to them because it knocked you out just a smell of them as they enjoyed the freedom of the 1960s.

72. 41:06

    Remember them. Look what it says about them. The fool folds, his hands together and eats his own flesh. In other words, he cannibalizes himself through laziness the opposite of what the other people are doing, who are fitfully trying to push themselves. elves up and up and up verse 6 says, You know what? Better is just a handful.

73. 41:34

    With quietness or peace in your life, the two handfuls with labor and striving after wind, because that’s what it is, it’s a striving after wind, you can’t catch the wind. What he’s saying is you can’t catch, happiness, through material things. And the accumulation of them, you can’t You might as well try and catch the wind.

74. 42:03

    Then I returned and saw vanity under the sun. He talks about people being alone and not having companionship. He’ll then transition to talk about the kind of person who works and works and works. He says he’s just a ver workaholic in this. No, be to hand that result off too if you wanted to have an image of, what kind of person that is think of Ebenezer Scrooge before his transformation, you know who that is. I know, you didn’t know who Mick Jagger was, but you know, There’s a scrooge is right.

75. 42:36

    All right, are there? No workhouses member. Remember how happy he wasn’t his labor eating his little nasty bowl of gruel at home because he wouldn’t spend money to eat proper food. While there are people like that. They work themselves to the Bone. They have all kinds of money but no enjoyment of it what so ever, verse 13 better is a, a poor and a wise child. Then and old and foolish King.

76. 43:15

    Who is this wise King writing about? Himself. I realize all the stupid things I did, I wouldn’t listen to anybody. Why would I was the smartest man on the face of the earth? I thought. So everything I did, I thought I could survive it, I thought I could get through, I thought I could just squeeze past touching the edge of idolatry but realizing all those things don’t exist, not realizing the impact I had on my own family and the nation.

77. 43:50

    Measure is a wise child than an old and foolish King. And then he talks about a child, a young man who comes out of prison who Rises out of the dirt to become king of the nation and in the end, nobody can remember what he achieved that comes after him. And so he sees the limits of power He sees how tenuous and fragile it all is, and how it just evaporates. As we ourselves declined.

78. 44:24

    He goes on. He says, when you are in the meeting, be careful how you speak. Be careful. Don’t answer anything before God and not carry through on it. And here this Society, perhaps an Arts to people would talk up a storm about the things they’re doing for God, but there was nothing behind it and they didn’t follow through. He was a boastful materialistic Society. This is not an age of boastfulness. Is this not an age of boastfulness where where leaders are more prone to boast about themselves and their prowess than they are to talk about the needs of the nation and how they intend to look after them?

79. 45:13

    And So It Goes On. and he says, in verse 8, if you see the oppression of the poor and violent perverting, a judgment and Justice and a province, don’t be surprised. Don’t be surprised. For the somebody higher than that person, is keeping an eye on him. And there are people even higher than that, nice talking about, the way that God overseas. What is going on in the earth?

80. 45:47

    He has a vantage point. That’s different to anything that we have. It gives them a perspective that is above what we have. And these people may look like a, they get away. Murder. But in the end, God will do what he does. And he will hold mankind, accountable. Now, as I’m talking to you and just really looking for a particular verse that I seem to recall somewhere in the Psalms, I can’t find it right now. I can’t find it right now but what I’ll do is I’ll look for it in the break and bring it back to you tomorrow. And what it is is it’s a particular Verse or couple of verses that talk about God’s perspective on things. Versus our own, very limited human perspective. So in the grand scheme of things, remember the grandma holding little baby and how she takes care of her. The baby knows I’ve got a problem. Got a diaper, I’ve got rash, it hurts, it burns. And doesn’t realize that her grandmother is looking after that and more for her that she wouldn’t even understand. So God says hair through the writer yes there are things that you see that are unfair but I know what’s going on and I keep and I love these things.

81. 47:20

    Verse 13, there’s a sore evil which I have seen Under the Sun riches kept by the owners to their hurt to their own hurt. But those riches perish by evil Adventure. People who take their wealth and they go, and they gamble them away, or they invest on stupid things that they think will make them even more profoundly wealthy.

82. 47:46

    He says I see all these things. It’s all part and parcel of the nonsense of human life apart from me Verse 18 behold that, which I have seen to be good and calmly for one to eat and to drink and to enjoy good in all his labor where and he labor with Under the Sun and you thinking, that’s a jarring.

83. 48:11

    I thought Under the Sun is always a bad thing. Well, it isn’t in this instance and look how he gives these Hammer blows to underscore that point. All the days of his life, which God has given him for it, is his portion every man, also to whom God hath, given riches and wealth and has given him power to eat thereof and to take his portion and to rejoice in his labor, this is the gift of God for. He shall not much.

84. 48:44

    Remember the days of his life. Because God answereth him in the joy of his heart. So God has given you. Life in a prosperous country where you’ve worked hard and you have things that you have accumulated to enjoy this life to share with others to do good with all the days of your life.

85. 49:15

    So enjoy what God has blessed you with? And also remember that there’s much to be done and there’s much that you can do to help others in this life that you live right now.