Dev Ramcharan - Class 4: Counsel for Uncertainty

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. Five of the 2022 Palm Springs Bible School. Our first period teachers for the dev Ram shree. In his General subject is the whole duty of man. Today’s topic is counsel for uncertainty brother Dev. Well, that was the end of the weirdest set of announcements I’ve ever heard in all my years in the truth. But they would wake us up every morning, wouldn’t they? We would look forward to the announcements after the first set that shocked us and then we would look forward to it after that, and it was always fun.

2. 0:35

   Vanity of vanities. All is Vanity. That’s what the preacher says, what profit is there? Of all that a man labors in. Through the days of his life. Now, it starts off in that place and the impression that you would get is at this book is very dark and everything that is in. It is altogether depressing, he keeps talking about death, we make money, we do these things, we have fun, and they would die, and all ends in death.

3. 1:12

   But if we interpreted from the point of view of a Believer, it has a different opposite message. And this is the message. Don’t get so taken up with the things of this life. That you forget? Where we’re headed as believers. Your life in this world ends in death so that means you’ve got a timeline that you’re working to be busy in it. Enjoy your life, enjoy the blessings. You receive from God, honor him honor him in this life and see the things that you have as blessings from him, that you ought to be able to enjoy So you don’t walk around furtively carrying a burden of guilt on your shoulders that you well that you you have a life or you have some Prosperity that you can enjoy.

4. 2:09

   The prosperity of this life is not our Focus. It’s not our focus, our focus is the kingdom. And while we have life while we have breath in our lungs, this work for us to do and we saw on Monday night that well, as an old man or old woman and I knew that that would lurk you.

5. 2:31

   I knew it would make. I’m not old. I’m only 100 years old old. He’s old. I’m not old. I used it deliberately because it’s Fashionable. In this world we’re living in today but we are old. You are old relish, it. Celebrated. It is not something that somehow is a curse that has fallen upon you and an unfortunate stage of life. It is the best phase of your life. No matter what.

6. 3:06

   Our society says, about old age, Ton of wisdom. It’s a time of recognition. It’s a time of realizing how active God has been in your life all the way through, right up till now. It’s a time of grandchildren and great-grandchildren and seeing the generations. Oh yes. You see the challenges. You see what’s not working, right?

7. 3:32

   But you also have the joy of those relationships. It’s a time where your relationships with your friends that are still alive becomes even more precious because, you know, each day is a gift, it always was But she didn’t realize it till now. It always was a gift. It’s a time of life where if your wife or your husband is still at your side, even though some days you drive each other crazy, and I’m not using that word in the clinical sense.

8. 4:08

   Even though you may have your days when you get on each other’s nerves, it is a tremendous blessing to have that gift of another human being keeping company with you along the road to God’s Kingdom. So the vanity of vanities B is to is to give us a bracing, bit of knowledge, don’t forget this life ends. Don’t get wrapped up in it.

9. 4:38

   Be always about thankfulness to God. Enjoy? What he’s given you, but get ready for his kingdom. That’s the message. For a man of this world, a woman of this world. This is a dire message because it says all that you have is going to be ripped away from you. The minute you stop breathing. All you wasted your time on all you were obsessed. With all you thought was the most important gone with you and your God.

10. 5:09

    You’re done, Dever, am Tren, 1962 Dash, whatever the entire thing, summed up in a dash. And that’s what their life is. This is the dash world. We’re living in. But we are not Dash people. We go on and on, and on you, fall asleep in the Lord. What happens you wake up just like that because time, Time didn’t happen to you anymore.

11. 5:42

    You died. You woke up at the Judgment seat. Laying before the Lord and hearing everything you’ve said and done all those things that will be revealed that you, you kept covered up because you were ashamed. Like me, all of us have those things. And then you hear the words of Mercy, not great. Hope that we have.

12. 6:07

    Enter into the joy of your father’s Kingdom. Now, that’s beyond the dash. That’s our Focus. So then, does this period of our lives and I say our with you Does it constitute the most miserable difficult awful? You know, depressing stage of Our Lives? Or are we getting ready for a trip?

13. 6:37

    Remember, how you got ready to? Come here? You hauled out the suitcase. Tony put in about 50 dresses, 10 pairs of pants. And wondered if she’d remember that special sweater, she was going to bring. All right? And you haul. That thing out that you were very careful, exactly what you were packing. Well that’s how the stage of your life has to become. What are you packing into it?

14. 7:05

    What are you leaving behind and in people? What kind of Peace are you trying to make celebrate this stage of your life? Oh, it hurts joints fingers, can’t turn the pages properly, write all of those things. Yes, but that’s just stuff on the side. That’s going to happen to everyone. Celebrate, what? You know to be true.

15. 7:31

    Who, you know, to be worth leaning on and relying on. And be the kind of person who quietly. but at the same time intentionally, Preachers God truth God’s truth to people inside the truth in your family. Wherever you may be find yourself. This is what you do in your last stage of life. and when you look at the people that are around, you everyday is a fond farewell It’s like the end of this Bible School. Every time your son daughter, grandkids great-grandchildren, leave your place where you are.

16. 8:11

    It’s a fond farewell. I don’t know if I’ll see you again, this side of the Kingdom, but my hope is, I’ll see you on the other side. So we go then to chapter 8, chapter 8. So, who is the wise man? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? He says something quite interesting.

17. 8:37

    He says this A man’s Wisdom, makes his face to shine. And the sternness. The hardness of his face. Is changed. Now, Abe Lincoln is supposed to have said, every man. Over 40 is responsible for his face. if you have a miserable scowl, And you look at life, that’s what people see. You look like one of those wrinkly dogs, you know the ones I’m talking about, you’re responsible for that. Look it’s not a thing that happened to you. It’s a thing that you made.

18. 9:30

    So what this is saying is this Our knowledge of the truth and our understanding, and our gladness about the love of God, and the gospel, and what our Lord did for us. It changes our face. It puts into our face. A joyfulness. It’s right under the skin. A calm and acceptance a recognition that life may have its troubles its challenges and its tears but ultimately we have so much to be grateful for someone should be happy about it. As oh.

19. 10:14

    So that’s why it says our face is altered. By the things we realize about God, about the truth. And about the blessings. We have received Then he has a number of verses where he talks about making sure you will Bei. The king, do not fool around with those who are in Authority. You never know when the when the that, that heavy fist of rebuke or discipline by the authorities can fall upon us.

20. 10:49

    Now, in that the days of Solomon, it is more than likely that, the king had all kinds of power. That a ruler today would not have accept. Who might be a tyrant in North Korea or Russia or one of those countries that we know of today. And we see tyranny in action right now as we are here assembled together, So he says make sure that you’re careful as it relates to the authorities around us verse 6. He says to every purpose there is a time and judgment. Therefore, the evil, the evil of man is great upon him for he knows not that, which shall be for who can tell him when it shall be.

21. 11:35

    There’s just been talking about rulers about the authorities and then he talks about the the fact that we are inherently evil and really, he’s talking about the fact that people in absolute power or prone to doing wrong and terrible things. We see it happening right now, right now today, Robin terrible things. And he says, they don’t know what’s going to happen to them. In the end.

22. 12:03

    They have no clue verse 8. There is no man that hath power of the spirit to hold, on to it. Jeff Bezos. All of these people they cannot hold on to the life that’s in them. There is no discharge in that war were fighting which involves death at the end. What he’s saying is this soldiers might get a discharge in the days of Israel because they would newly married or whatever the case may be. They had these exemptions and today soldiers have certain exemptions which allow them to have an honorable discharge but there’s no discharge in this war against death. We are all going to be conquered by it at some point in time, some with no hope.

23. 12:53

    But us with hope, the hope that we will see Life Beyond Death At The Return of the Lord. Neither shall the wicked deliver those the winch out wickedness deliver those that are given to it. So right now Vladimir Putin is bombing hospitals in Kiev. Hospitals, but there are children. Now that wickedness is not going to deliver him and we just use him as an example, because he’s a very powerful current example of men trusting in wickedness to get something, they think is going to make them happy, but it won’t and his wickedness, no matter how clever he is, is not going to deliver him in the end. Now, there’s a comfort for us of that. The world around looks at what’s happening and all they see is the Terrible.

24. 13:50

    Dark shadow of tyranny spreading across Europe, the way Nazism had done the 1930s and 1940s. For us, we see something different. We see a man with an end and God will take him out at some point in time. That’s what we see. So there’s an inherent hopefulness. Of the way, we look at the situation, we feel terrible for our brothers and sisters in the Ukraine. And in Russia, who will now have terrible times of deprivation of near famine conditions.

25. 14:22

    Nothing in the grocery stores, no money to buy things with, that’s what our Russian brothers and sisters will have. Deal with. It’ll be like, living in Germany just after the war where people had to eat cats and dogs to stay alive. That’s what our Russian brothers and sisters might go through, if we’re not able to get help to them through agencies, like the CBM of the wonderful work that the mark and Mary and others are doing so selflessly.

26. 14:53

    But all that will come to an end with the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we go on then and we’re going to move past that. By the way, I’m going to try to end a little early in this session so you can have some more socializing time and then maybe the second session will be the the prescribed amount of time verse 11, because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily.

27. 15:25

    Therefore, the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil and boys at being Rated right now today they don’t see God doing what he does and and rebuking and disciplining them on the spot. Now how do we frame these things and find a way to make sense of it all?

28. 15:46

    We read in an earlier. Passage that God takes our lives and he interleaves good days and bad days. You remember that? And he does it so that we can’t predict what’s going to happen and relax and we can’t figure him out because we don’t know what he’s going to do next, the end result is it throws us upon him.

29. 16:09

    For help for our support, for guidance. If everything. Was happy sunshiny days. We wouldn’t need God. We wouldn’t reach out to him. We wouldn’t even pay much attention to him because everything’s going great. So those times that are not good. Pushes towards him. Now, the same thing happens in the world. There are good periods and then there are rough periods.

30. 16:42

    Now, we are largely sheltered from what the rest of the world goes through? Who are used to famine, who are used to pandemics? Who are used to evil leaders who have the freedom of the power to do whatever they want you to their populations and no one can stop them. We’re largely sheltered from that.

31. 17:07

    What has brought it close is what’s happening in Europe today because this is now touching the Western World were used to seeing things like this happen in Africa in the Middle East, but we’re not used to seeing this coming to Europe with the feeling that it might somehow touch people in the United States and Canada and Britain. The English-speaking countries of the world that we feel a kinship, with Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Caribbean, and so on and so forth. There’s a sense that could things move closer. When most of us were young because I remember growing up as a child in the Cold War, many of you were adults. During that period, there was always the threat of nuclear Holocaust.

32. 17:57

    Remember, remember the television, show The Day After That shocking program, that showed, what would it be? Like if somehow the Russians bombed, the United States, What would life be like the day after? All right, well, those days feel like they’re here again, don’t they? And that standoff between Russia and the United States. And we remember 1962, remember what happened then, right and then the Bay of Pigs that happened after. And then the Vietnam War, all of which involved War by proxy, two major Nations fighting it out using proxies that, that, that represented them, the Vietnamese people against the Vietcong, who were funded and trained by the Soviet Union, That was a world, it was very fragile and full of uncertainty. Poutine has brought it back.

33. 18:55

    He’s brought it back. Now, for us, it’s actually to indicate to us and the whole world should be turning to God. Now we should be preaching and we should have campaigns and we should really make sure that the learn to read. The Bible seminar series are on and going online, face-to-face. Whatever the case may be, just to make sure that the message is getting out there because the world as a whole is, experiencing what we have experienced as individuals, good days, and bad days. Good times and now potentially bad times, they won’t see an end.

34. 19:32

    They won’t see hope in this situation but we know there’s hope and we know what’s going to happen. Yes, we may argue and quibble about the details of Prophecy, but ultimately, we all agree on the one thing Christ is going to return to the Earth, by the way. Just in case you’re writing notes, brother death doesn’t believed environment.

35. 19:54

    I’m a traditionalist as far as prophecy is concerned but I am open to and listen to the non traditionalist because Always something we can learn from each other. All right, we always have to be flexible to see what’s going to happen. Remember when we said, Britain will never join the European Union? Well, they did, how man will never land on the Moon?

36. 20:20

    Well, unless the whole thing was a fake which some people believe he did land on the moon now, Britain has come back out of the European Union, right? Which then sort of seems to indicate that traditionalists may not have had it wrong. So be open and see how things are going. But ultimately Christ returns to the Earth in a time of trouble.

37. 20:44

    He said so great trouble, men’s Hearts, failing them for fear for things that they see coming upon the Earth, right? so we go on then and he says, In verse 17 of chapter 8 then I beheld all the work of God that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. We cannot identify with precision and write it out and show exactly what God is doing and why we can’t. It’s not his intention for us to be able to do that because though a man labor to seek it out yet he shall not find it yet.

38. 21:26

    Moreover. The wise man, think to know it yet, shall he not be able to find it? So, if spiritually wise people can’t figure out precisely what God is doing, then that means no one can. Now in the overall frame of what God is doing with history, has given us a sense of what is happening and what is going to happen, but the details. Well, we struggle, we struggle but we know Brethren who have for instance, predicted for the last 25 years that this is the year of Christ’s return.

39. 22:03

    Well, it could be it could very well be but we don’t know exactly. When we just know the conditions that we see the conditions getting to a point where they look more and more like, we’re in that day. What day with our? We don’t know. Verse one of the next chapter for all this, I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God.

40. 22:37

    Look at the hope and the joy in that. I can’t figure out what God is doing, but you know what? God’s looking after me, nevertheless that I could know with everything in my being, I can trust that. That is the case. That’s what this is saying. I haven’t been able to figure out what God is doing cool Health says But boy. Oh boy.

41. 23:04

    Do I know that God has his children in his hand. That’s what’s most important for us to hold onto. Is that a dire – message? It’s an altogether hopeful, uplifting message that we should rejoice in. Don’t think about Deuteronomy 33 verse 3. Yay, he loves the people’s. All his Saints are in thy hand and they sat down on that. I feet.

42. 23:33

    Everyone shall receive of thy words. Is this Moses? The last words he will say to the nation. He tells them God’s separate, holy ones are in his hands and they’re not wholly because of the fact that their sin less, but because he’s chosen to see them as separate and holy through his son and their relationship to his son that’s us, we’re in God’s hands, it doesn’t matter what trouble, what pain, what challenge you go through in your life. You’re God’s child and you’re in his hands, John 10:27 starting in that verse.

43. 24:19

    The Lord says my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. And no one shall snatch them out of my hand. That’s what the Lord Jesus Christ says about his relationship to you. So in this dash world, the dash world we live in you’re way beyond that. You will have life.

44. 25:00

    Forever. Forever. Now yes it is subject to the mercy and the will of our father. We’re not people who say I’m saved, meaning I’m for sure. Going to be in. Well they believe heaven. We don’t say I’m for sure going to be in God’s kingdom but we say, we hope that in God’s mercy. He will look at our little lives, forgive us and give us life in his kingdom because that’s what he wants for us. That is what he wants for us, as took a quick look at Romans 8. Verse has 35 to 39, you know, this, you know, the section really well but just to be comforted by it. Romans 8. and beginning at verse, 35. Let me just find this page.

45. 25:59

    Here we go. All right. I there yet. Yes. Verse 35. Who. This is Dev Ramjet version. Okay, I know you’re a modern version group. So let’s see how this goes. Who is ever going to separate us from? Christ’s love. His trouble and distress, and persecution is being hungry, or having nothing to wear is Peril or violence, going to separate us from the Lord, not a single.

46. 26:40

    One of these things is going to separate us from the Lord Jesus Christ, as it’s written for your sake, we are killed all the day long. And we’re looked at as sheep ready to be slaughtered. In all these things and all these troubles and all this, anguish in all this distress, we’re not people. That people have victory over.

47. 27:05

    We are more than conquerors through him. Who loved us so much that he gave his life for us. I am sure in my mind that death life, Angels principalities political powers Nothing. That is on high. Nothing is down below. No creature will ever be able to separate us from the love of God?

48. 27:37

    Which is the same love that our Lord Jesus Christ has for us. Those are some pretty powerful words, you just read. And they’re intended to comfort you. And so, they go right back to what Ecclesiastes is saying.

49. 27:55

    The righteous and the wise and their works. Are in the hand of God. he goes on and he says in that verse and chapter 9 of Ecclesiastes, Whether it be love or hatred man knows it not all is before them. and let me tell you the commentators struggled mightily around those words, and no one knows exactly what it means, but in the context, it could mean a couple of things, it could mean this, We have no clue. if the world around us living as we do as Believers is going to love us or hate us and if we’re going to have an easy or hard time of it, You don’t have any clue, but that does not change.

50. 28:43

    The fact that we’re in God’s hands. Another interpretation is this we have no clue of our life with all of its experience will make us look some days like God Hates Us and other days, like God loves us because of what we’re going through, we don’t know. But we are certain that were in his hands and that in fact he does love us.

51. 29:09

    So there are multiple ways of looking at what that is saying, but it can’t be in conflict with the fact that we’re in his hands and that he loves us a message of Ecclesiastes is not dire foreboding darkness and The Descent of a black cloud upon you. It is to say your life is short, make it a worthwhile life. Enjoy what God gives you along the way, hold on through the tough times.

52. 29:37

    Thank him for everything that he has and has given to you. And look forward to the hope of his kingdom. That’s the real message. That’s the real message and Colette was crying out to men who were all about, what they could spend the Chariots. They could drive in the horses. They can own the Weaponry, the soldiers of the private armies that can afford, they were all about that stuff.

53. 30:05

    And he said all that is empty foolishness if that’s all you have. Because one day you are going to drop dead as the British Shake say, as surely as eggs is eggs. Because eggs can’t be anything else but eggs, that’s the point. And so we go on and we read going down further.

54. 30:31

    In verse 9 and this is for you husband’s to reflect on live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity which he has given you under the sun, all the days of your vanity for that’s your portion in this life and in your labor. Which you take under the sun?

55. 31:01

    So love your wife. Don’t be crabby and irritable. I don’t have time. I told you then to get the tickets sir. How how we going to get to the Bible school? No tickets. You gotta go. Listen to the breath. Talk about love. I’m so tired of you messing everything up all the time. Not that you would do a thing like that brother. But the point is, he’s not saying live critically and crab Ali with the wife who you love, just not live joyfully with her because tomorrow she may not be there. The joyfully with her all the days of your life. Right.

56. 31:46

    And christadelphians marriages. Gets stronger and stronger and deeper and richer. As the years go by, I had friends of my 40s when they were in their 40s who left their wives one day, ran off with somebody that was 26 years old. I remember sitting down with one saying, Rick.

57. 32:16

    You realize she’s going to be doing your diapers and just a few years. He thought that was hilarious. Then she left in two years. So, this is what he was left with. Almost 50 years of age. No wife, two sets of alimony. He had to be paying out. Kids had wanted nothing to do with him whatsoever.

58. 32:45

    And so I asked the question, Rick. Would you leave your wife again if you knew this was going to happen? He said, no. I wish I’d stayed with her. Because it wasn’t easier, except for a short time. And then whoever I was with realized, I will probably leave her too because I already left my wife for her. And she made a decision.

59. 33:16

    You left, right? So for us, we all go through a struggle. Now they call it midlife crisis laughingly but it’s a serious business because this is what it is in actual fact. It’s not that you finally want to do by that red sports car or red. Fred what was it? A red truck.

60. 33:38

    Yes, it’s not that we wanted to buy that. And, you know, it’s that we suddenly got to a point where we realized, hey, I’m dying. Working and working and working, and working and stuff. I wanted to do that. I wanted to experience that what I wanted to have. I never got the chance to do those things.

61. 34:02

    So I’m going to go out there and buy that read whatever. I’m going to and, of course, people think you’ve lost your mind. It’s death that makes us do that death. The recognition of death on the horizon. That’s what drives us to do. Those silly things and in the world you just fishtail your way through it. Dangerously knocking traffic out of the way and creating all kinds of accidents.

62. 34:31

    Now we do it too but the truth acts as a constraint on us. And it gives our wives many opportunities to forgive us for the mistakes that we make in that period. But with this man who wrote Such dark things seemingly in the book is telling us is make sure there’s joy in your marriage.

63. 34:53

    It’s something you built into it and work at it and work at it and work at. And sometimes it’s a decision, you make not a thing that just naturally falls out of the sky on you. And when you ask some of these people who leave each other, what was it that made you do it?

64. 35:09

    I wasn’t happy and I felt I deserve to be happy. And so I thought if I left and found someone else or went with the someone else had already found, I’d be happy. And of course, the first mistake they made was that you always have to be happy. That’s what this world teaches us today. Got to be happy, you have to be buying things, you have to be being things have to be experiencing things that keep you happy but happy happy happy is not real life. Remember God interleaves unhappy times with happy times. And so we make these disastrous decisions. But scripture itself says, this is the way to happiness. Live joyfully.

65. 35:59

    With the wife. That you have. All the days that you’re with her because that’s the greatest gift, God has given you. That’s the portion. Remember Israel got their portion of land. Remember, Levi and the priests their portion was the service to Yahweh. The god of Israel and all that entailed. Well, your portion brother is that woman at your side That moment I don’t know what I’d do without mine. We’ve been together since I was 19, and I’m 60 now. And there’s that worry which of us will go first that you never have when you’re in your 20s and 30s. But you begin to have these sorts of thoughts which makes you that much more precious to each other. So we go on he says verse 10 whatsoever your hand finds to do.

66. 37:01

    Do it with all your might because you’re not going to live forever in this world, right? So whatever you do whatever you’re working at do it. Well as well as you can. now, if we were to translate that into a message for older Brethren and sisters, but primarily the brethren don’t retire from the truth. Your work in the Ecclesia may change. But keep active, keep helpful, keep being a positive supporter of the younger brothers and sisters and the Ecclesia. Do some Bible study, if you’re worried about, you know, the failure of your mind and it’s deterioration. There’s nothing like some Bible study to keep it going, keeping the brain functioning really well, it doesn’t have to be something heavy duty, but keep studying. Keep doing some Bible study some Bible reading. Because there’s, there’s no knowledge. No wisdom in the grave, where you’re going. Where you’re going.

67. 38:10

    All right. Now, verse 11, I returned and saw Under the Sun that the race is not to the Swift, nor the battle to the strong, your bread, to the wise riches, to Men of understanding favor to Men of skill. So what are you saying? Is I looked out at life and, you know, it was kind of unfair. The things you would expect, they just didn’t work out that way.

68. 38:34

    Good people didn’t have good things happen to them. Bad people didn’t have bad, things happen to them. Unfair things seem to happen in the world that we live in then he says, But time and chance. Happens to them all. now remember the context We are in God’s hands. That means he knows every hour. Every minute, every second of where we’ve been, where we are and where we’re headed more than we will ever know, So we’re in his hands, but in the context here, he’s saying the things you think would happen.

69. 39:13

    Don’t When ought to be, the case, isn’t in the world, in which we live. And so, when he says, time and chance happens to them all, he’s saying as an extension of that thought in its context, Though, God knows what’s going to happen to you and nothing happens by chance, from his view of you in your mind. And in your experience, it does happen that way. By chance you get cancer, did you expect it? Did you see it coming?

70. 39:44

    Not necessarily. It was by chance to you time the experience of it and things that look random to you though. From God’s perspective, they are not So in the context of the passage where expected things don’t happen and unexpected things, do this sense is it flows through seems to be in our experience. Life is like that life is like that the will end will end with verse 17.

71. 40:18

    The words of wise men are heard in quiet brother will come and sit beside you and say, you know, Dev when you said such and such you realize what that was interpreted to be. I remember what Donald Trump was in power. I had a lot of things to say about Donald Trump. Which I regret. Now, I really do and a very wise kind to brother. At Idlewild took me aside and said Dave, We have some brothers and sisters here, who struggle about whether they should Vote or not and it was such a shock to my system. I thought, oh no.

72. 40:58

    Didn’t realize what I was doing now. Even if he hadn’t told me that I should not have been saying that because even if with a Nero our job is to hunker down and be obedient and to pray for the people that lead our country’s no matter what their perceived quality might be But that sure was like a nail in the heart. Right now.

73. 41:23

    That was a wise word, spoken quietly. So there’s an example of how wise brothers and sisters help us will end this session there and I’ll only give you like seven minutes extra.