Dev Ramcharan - Hosea - When Israel was a Child, I Loved Him - Class 4 - When Ephraim Spake Trembling

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

1. 0:00

   Well, brothers and sisters, it’s been a long and busy weekend for all of you and I know that there were people that put an intense amount of effort into organizing. Everything has taken place this weekend. The music for me was a was a wonderful highlight. I was telling the young people, you know, I remember 25 years ago listening to some of these young people’s performances and.

2. 0:25

   Because of your great love for them, you would get through them, but this group was quite sophisticated the playing. Was wonderful. The choral pieces were just exquisite. They were gorgeous. So thank you for all of that. And thank you, those organizers, behind the scenes, most of whom no one knows by name, who day and night work, to get all of this organized, to have enough food to get the food in and everything else.

3. 1:00

   And then you’ve got the difficulty of dealing with difficult speakers of overseas likewise on top of that, all of which is a lot of hard work. So don’t underestimate how much has gone into a gathering like this. And if you find anybody who did any work in it, say thank you to them. I I know we said that we don’t do work to be thanked, but for those people who quietly worked behind the scenes appreciate the gift of love they’ve they’ve actually given to you. Now, one of the things that we’ve seen through this book. Even though we’ve just looked in a patchy way. At passages from the beginning to the end. Is that the Lord is very constant in what he does. When he makes a commitment, he sticks to it. When he makes a promise, he doesn’t change his mind and change direction.

4. 2:05

   His honouring of his part of every commitment he makes is not dependent on how we behave. And how we respond, Yes, he may need. To draw in correction. Sometimes that correction can be. Blisteringly difficult and awful to have to endure through. But God, pardon the expression, is a man of his word. He’s a. Person who sticks to what he said he’s going to do, and God expects that of you and me.

5. 2:48

   But we are not constant and how we do what we do in our interaction with each other for? Us. It becomes transactional. You treat me this way, I’ll treat you that way. You mistreat me, I’ll mistreat you. It becomes that kind of an interaction. And so we become critically dependent in how we behave on the way in which the other person the corresponding individual.

6. 3:21

   Behaves with us. And that’s not the way Christ did what he did. It’s not the way that God did what he did with Israel. And so, in our relationships with God, we try to. Be as constant with Him as he is with us. Are you going through a terrible trial and loss in your life? Are you angry with God?

7. 3:59

   Have you stopped talking to him when you talk? To him is it with an underlying tone of bitterness, a disappointed feeling. A feeling that he let you down when you needed him. We need to be able, in the middle of our trials, to go counter intuitive, to be the opposite of that. Are you angry with God?

8. 4:34

   Tell him you’re angry with him. Pour it out in prayer to him. I have no clue why you’re allowing this to happen to me in my life. I feel disappointed. I’m frustrated. Lord, help me to understand. Just help me to hold on. Today and then tomorrow, if you could just give me an insight to be able to make it through this one day, Lord, that would be a wonderful answer to my prayer.

9. 5:09

   That’s better than not talking to him. It’s. Better than turning your back and walking away from him. So there are those moments when the way that we interact with God is all about a transaction. And it’s not transactional. Because if it was, would you be alive in light of the fact that a man gave his life for you?

10. 5:35

    If that was transactional, would you be alive? No, He gave his life for you, that you might then live for him. Or what does that mean? It means how I am with my wife, how you are with your husband, how we are with our children, how we are with our brothers and sisters. How you are with your colleagues at the office or on the construction site?

11. 6:15

    How you are with your employees, how you are with your managers, the executives, the the leaders you report to, is all going to reflect the fact that a man gave his life for undeserving you so that you could live differently. And you might say, well, I’m not going to live like a like that in the workplace, am I?

12. 6:45

    Yes, you are. You need to feel a sense of affection for the people that you work with to be a brother or a sister. With them now they may not. All understand all of the the the spiritual, biblical undergirding of how you. Relate to them, but if they know you as a gentle, kind, straightforward, supportive individual. Who gives them cover and is supportive of them? Who is not always complaining and. Back biting and falling prey to The Dirty political backstabbing that Mars many workplaces.

13. 7:35

    And they know that you’re different. You’re different and and and and sometimes tell you why you so different, which then gives you an opportunity to talk a little bit about your faith. Then if you’re doing those things, you’re a person who is showing the atonement has made an impact on you. Are you a manager?

14. 8:05

    Director. An executive. And you hold your people in your grasp with tightness and rigour. So it’s all about the metrics, the bottom line, the results, the outcomes without a deep care and concern for them as people and what they go through even. Those you would have nothing to do with normally, but because they are your colleagues, you treat them like you would treat a brother or a sister.

15. 8:43

    If you do that as a vice president, as a director, as a manager, as a supervisor, then you’re doing the atonement in your job and showing the love of Christ and what you do. That’s if those things are valued as the most important gift you have ever. Received in your life, God gave His love to Israel. There was.

16. 9:20

    Nothing more precious she could have received, and she didn’t realise what she had. He taught her to walk. He taught her to understand his word and his ways he gave her. All of the symbolism, all of the richness. All of the celebration and ritual around the Tabernacle and then the temple and the priesthood and even even the royal hierarchy of the king and the Kingdom.

17. 9:53

    He gave them all of that, all of which were the greatest gifts that they could have, and they didn’t even know the value of that. Sister, do you know the value of the love of the husband at your side when you look with this satisfaction at the home you live in? The holiday you thought you were going to get and did not get.

18. 10:23

    The things that you thought your marriage would be like the luxuries you would one day have, and you find he could provide none of those things for you. But the man has to work day and night to hold things together for you. Do do you realize the gift you have?

19. 10:44

    Are you like those Israelites in Psalm 78 who said. Can he provide something better for me? Can he even give me what I want? Can he give me the meat I’d like to have? I’m sick of this basic manner of a life that I have. That’s not what I signed up for. And when he’s sick, a chronically broken man.

20. 11:12

    Are you there with your arms around him, those sleepless nights of pain at his side? Remembering that you married him no matter what he would go through, you’d be there with him or do. You feel you’ve been cheated and got a raw deal. You see, we measure the things we thought we should have and get and the way we should have been. Treated and what we felt we deserved and were owed and we don’t recognize.

21. 11:49

    That in Christ we’re owed nothing because we got everything and now our responsibility is to give back. Many professions today talk about giving back. You take an apprentice under your arm. You take somebody who’s in the same profession and you. You guide them along and you encourage them. You you look after an intern. You might be an older sister in the Ecclesia. You take a young sister or two under your arm and you you you support them and and help them as they. Work through the problems and the struggles. Of married life and child raising and and just being a sister.

22. 12:33

    And for us a whole life has to be about giving back and helping and giving love. Have you had? Difficulty in being offended in your. Ecclesia. Has somebody treated you roughly? Is there a person in that Ecclesia that calls you and irks you, brings the bile up out of your system? Every time you see them, keep going and keep praying. Walking away from the Ecclesia because someone’s said something hurtful to us is not what we need to do if we love God. If we want to be constant, like God is constant with us, then it’s not transactional, it’s not the Ecclesia treating me nicely. Therefore, I’ll stay in the Ecclesia. You, You.

23. 13:32

    Weren’t baptized into Christ to have an easy time? First, Peter chapter two and three talk about the Atonement and the sufferings that the. Believers would go through and. Peter keeps saying things like in the same way, let husbands be husbands be with their wives in the same way, let wives be with their husbands in the same way. Let employees be with their employers in the same way. Let employers be with their employees in the same way as what as the atonement that is described. In chapter two of First Peter, where Peter describes the unfairness of the sufferings of Christ, the fact that he bore up under them because it was his service to God and for us. So your ecclesial life is going to have times. Where you’re not treated well and where you may not treat. Someone else?

24. 14:38

    Well, but you don’t stop coming out. And if you’ve stopped, come back. There’s work you need to be doing. That’s not getting done because you’re not there and lend a hand, Keep in. And in your marriage when all the. Imperfections start coming out when you see your husband. With all the glaze off of your eyes or your wife and the two of you aging together and that you know change to body shape that occurs, you know you.

25. 15:15

    Go from a cucumber shaped thing to an avocado shaped thing and you look at that. You know what? That that’s a big change. You just accept. Well, this is who you are with and who you love. And who loves you? Every marriage has its times of trouble. There isn’t a single one.

26. 15:40

    Every family that looks like. They have no problems, have the worst of all problems, they just have the best way of acting like they don’t. Every person in this room has got broken bits in their lives. Shrapnel trouble difficulty. Of some type. Every one of us. That’s us. So do you think shrapnel is going to rub against shrapnel every?

27. 16:03

    Once in a while and cause difficulties. Yes, it happens in ecclesial. Life. It’s going to happen in your marriage, they say. Complimentary people, opposites attract, so you might got a fairly shy retiring man. Who’s married to a very outgoing, extroverted woman and you might think, well, that’s a that’s a recipe for. Wonderful things until it’s not.

28. 16:32

    And then the the. You know, the outgoing sister is frustrated by the fact that he never talks, He never says anything. She asks him if anything is wrong. Nothing’s ever wrong, but something’s clearly wrong and that’s wrong and he feels like he’s pursued. Like a rabbit down every hole in the house in which they live and never.

29. 16:51

    Has a moment’s peace, and no, he doesn’t. Want to talk at all? And he never learned to talk because he. Had so many talking of relatives around him in his life. He never learned to talk. He never had the chance to so those people so complimentary. He fell in love with her outgoing nature.

30. 17:09

    She fell in love with that shy, retiring gentleness Dr. Each other. Crazy after a while. And that’s when you make that love a choice. It’s not something that falls on you or that you wake up with in the morning and it wells up out of you. It’s a choice you make. You know, I’m married to this person. I love him and I’m going to stick with it because that’s what God did with.

31. 17:38

    Israel. That’s what Christ did with you, and that’s what we need to do with each other, those tough stages of anything. Some of you are artists, some of you are musicians when you’re. Practicing that piece and you get to that hard. Passage. And you just want to throw your cello through the window right through the window. And listen to that smash down in the parking lot below. Say yes, you deserve that, don’t you? Right.

32. 18:08

    What do you do? Keep practicing. If you’re a painter and you’re painting, every painting gets to a stage where you want to tear it up and set fire to it. And it’s that time where you see one Fleck of colour and they work with it and extend it and broaden it and you get through to the end of the painting and it’s beautiful.

33. 18:35

    Now, I’m not telling you that everything is going to work magically that way for you. But what I am saying is we’re worth the effort. Our marriages are worth the effort. Our ecclesias are worth the effort. Our kids, our parents, our brothers and sisters are worth the effort of getting through those tough stages when you want to just pack it all in and give up, what’s? The world’s approach to that?

34. 19:06

    Well, the. World is told by advertising you have to be happy all the time you deserve. Ongoing all the time happiness. And if you don’t have that happiness, something’s wrong. So leave and go find it somewhere else and the world is filled with 60. Five year old executives pushing prams with a baby in it for a 35 year old wife that they in their crack brained glory believe will be doing his diapers in 10 years.

35. 19:47

    That’s the stupidity. Of the elevated expectations. We set for ourselves. Israel looked with envy at the nations around They wanted to be like Syria, like Egypt, like a Syria, like Babylon. They wanted to be like the nations. They wanted a king so that we can be like the nations. Because they wanted the prosperity, the sense of. Accomplishment.

36. 20:15

    The power, the influence of the. Nations. But that’s not what God wanted them to have. God gave them everything that they needed. They just had to work through the tough bits and hold on in constancy. That’s what Jose is all about. God is telling them through this terrible heart rending book. Just hold on to me. I’m going to have to put you through discipline. You’re going to go through trouble. You are going to be corrected by me for all of your sin, All of you evil, all the injustice, the oppression of the poor, the advantage that you’re taking of widows and orphans and gentiles, the slavery, the release, the re enslavement of people. All the ugly things you do, you priests who are now murdering gangs, gangsters that were once.

37. 21:17

    Priests, I have to discipline you, but hold. On through it and. Reach out for me. Look, for me, that’s what we need to do. In the heart of it all, all of our trouble, all that we have to endure is a desperate need to hold on to God in the middle of that fight, No. Matter how much your hip hurts, believing he’s there and he’s with you, and he’ll give you the the knowledge, the understanding and the wisdom that you need to get through. So we turn brothers and sisters to Chapter 13. When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel. Now the alternate translation.

38. 22:20

    Most modern translations have something along these lines is when Ephraim Spake there was trembling, but you know this other first King James Version translation is good enough and. What this could be saying is this. When Ephraim approached God with fear and trembling and love, he exalted himself in Israel. But when? He went in the other direction when he embraced the gods and goddesses. Of the nations when he took on.

39. 23:04

    Bow. That disgusting weather God and his horrible consort and worshipped those things. He died now for us then if we take that and. Translate it into modern terms if you make your. Career. Your entire life, you’ll be investing in rubbish. It will not save you.

40. 23:41

    It will not give you the happiness you think you’re going to get from it. It will steal many things from you. It’ll steal your kids from you. It’ll steal your faith from you. In the end, after you’ve clawed your way up, kicking people down to the top, they fling you out the door like you are nothing at all.

41. 24:10

    Two months ago, an executive vice president. Called us all in together at the bank that I work for in Toronto. He got on screen and his pupils were fully dilated and he said you’re all doing a wonderful job. And that is executive code for bad news is about to be delivered. You’re all doing such a wonderful job. I just want you to know everything has been moving nicely so much.

42. 24:41

    Innovation, people working together, collaboration, blah blah. All the foolish, silly nonsense, people say. And then he said. And the senior executive team at the top of the bank have decided to liquidate our division. IA pin dropping is doesn’t describe the moment that came after that.

43. 25:09

    And then directly after that our Senior Vice President who reports to him. Called a meeting with all her staff and then directly after that the vice president who works with that senior vice president called all the staff and then directly after that. The assistant vice president called her staff together and then everybody else was in absolute and complete shock. Some of these people in these roles work 15 hours a day. It’s their life.

44. 25:49

    It’s in their blood. And so we have. These absolutely idiotic moments where. People get all kinds of corporate prizes because they work day and night and almost died on the job. Isn’t it wonderful? That’s commitment. It’s not commitment. It’s stupidity. Is what it is. Because you think that job, that bow, that weather, God thing you worship is going to look after you. You know the man that got on that first call, the. Executive Vice President.

45. 26:23

    Guess what? New job he was going to. Termination now you would think after 30 years of. Climbing on broken glass and rubble on your knees. You would be on easy street, wouldn’t you? Well, you’re not. The more you give to that, the less you get in return. We work with honor in the workplace. We give everything we have while we’re there, but we do not let that region of bow invade.

46. 27:05

    All aspects of our lives and consume them. Because when we do, we reap a harvest of disappointment. And that’s just one area. Are your kids your gods? Is everything about the kids and the kids and the kids and their sports. And you can’t make it on Sunday because you’re taking them to a sports event and you know, she might get a scholarship to a university, or she might even join the Australian Olympic swimming team and all that idiotic nonsense. That’s your bow now.

47. 27:41

    Is that is that the thing that you worship that’s going to save you or in the end give you happiness in your life? No, it isn’t so. We look at these expressions and we consider them a little bit quaint, but not really something that is relevant in the 21st century. They are God’s. Word is always relevant.

48. 28:08

    We just need to think about it, reflect on it, meditate on it. When we humble ourselves to recognize the only place I can find fulfilment is in labouring in service with my family and the ecclesia. Then it. Changes it. Changes the orientation of our life. In all of us, there is a push.

49. 28:44

    Because generationally that’s been bred into us upwards, upwards, upwards with a with a progressively rising standard of living. Is it good for us when we really look at it close? Has it been good for your kids? Wasn’t good for mine. All the mistakes over the years, I wish I could go back and change those things, be with my kids, go to every CYC night, every event that involved.

50. 29:19

    Kids, conferences, weekends, everything associated with Bible school. And so on to be there with them. I was busy. Exceptionally busy in the truth, but not with them. And that was wrong, because you can busy yourself out. Even in the work of the Ecclesia, without giving adequate support to the people that are dependent on you to be there for them.

51. 29:51

    I love my children, they love me. But now when I talk. To them, and I listen to what they they recall. To me, I would think, well, I was away for a couple of weeks in the summertime at Bible schools. You know what they? Remember, Papa was always away at Bible school. Mama raised us through the summer.

52. 30:12

    And you want to correct them, and you want to balance the story, but then you shut your mouth because you realize what she remembers. That’s what happened. And now I look back and I ask myself, did I abandoned my family to do work that gave me a sense of well-being, worth and value? And was it worth it for them?

53. 30:41

    I don’t have an answer to that question. I don’t. And if a young man were to come up to me and say Uncle Dev, what is balance look like? I could not tell you because I’ve never achieved it in my life. Go to someone that you think. Look is balanced to you and ask their counsel.

54. 31:02

    All I can say is this the labor that we put into the truth with our families in there. Together at the same time is the best work that we can put our hands to, and it’s hard work. It’s not work that is. Full of joy and gratitude and highs. And so it’s just work that you do in thankfulness to God. So do some kind of work for God and it will give you a. Fulfilment in the Ecclesia you.

55. 31:36

    Might be a sister, you might be a brother. It doesn’t matter now that involves humility, It involves risk and involves listening to the advice of your brothers and sisters when you are over balancing in a different direction. So just keep those things in mind. We go on then, and we look. Further in the chapter verse 9. And once again, this is a God taking the time to challenge his children because he loves.

56. 32:13

    Them, by the way, just thinking back on Chapter 11, brother Stephen Hindman just gave me a beautiful thought. I think it’s just so lovely if you were to. Ask the question, Why did God love Israel? And Stephen said. Well, there’s a multitude of answers, but one answer would be because I love your grandpa, I loved Abraham so much, and because of my love for him, I also love you. Isn’t that beautiful?

57. 32:54

    And if the Gentiles, he said, were to say the same thing, why do you love us? God could say to them, because you’re so much like Abraham, you believe what he believed. You trust like he trusted. So I love you too. It takes those passages. That can be so much technical detail, the grammar. The syntax, The lexicography, what is happening as far as the? Individual word structures are concerned. What were the root origins of these words? Not just in language, but in culture. All of that stuff.

58. 33:36

    History, geography, geology, biography, all of these things, and you’d miss the point. And Stephen says something like that, and the passage opens up in a way you’ve never heard it said before. So that’s just a lovely thought I want to share. Pass on to you from Brother Stephen, he says, O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thine help, Brother. You may have broken so many things in your life. There may be.

59. 34:15

    So much you’ve done wrong that you wish you could go back and change. You may have destroyed yourself. Your life has burnt to the ground. Does God say to you? Well, it’s all over. Sorry about about that. I’m sorry it worked out that way for you, but God says is this in me is your help.

60. 34:43

    Israel did not need to run to. Egypt, and then run to Assyria and then try to play them off against each other. This little nation playing the great powers off against each other didn’t need to do that. She just needed to reach out to God, her help. And that’s that’s what is so hard for us. A.

61. 35:06

    Self reliant Western thinking men and women to get on our knees to humble ourselves before our God and to beg for his help. I don’t know how to get through this. Help me to know how to get through it then. Our prayers are not poetry. It’s not something Shakespeare would write. Or Byron.

62. 35:34

    Or Wordsworth. Then they are messy. They are hard. They’re difficult. They have spikes in them. They’re imperfect, but they’re us pouring out to God and they hears those prayers for us, for our suffering child, for our parents, our brothers and our sisters. In me is your help, not in me could be your help. Might be your help.

63. 36:08

    Possibly under certain circumstances would be help. That’s not God. That’s government we’re thinking about in In me is your help. So we need to turn to our God, and we need our kids to see and to know that we are a praying people, a praying people. And God after he says all the things that are. Going to happen to them, he says. Look verse. 14 I will ransom them from the power of the grave.

64. 36:46

    I will redeem them from death. O death, where is thy plagues? O grave, where is thy destruction? Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes. I’m going to save those of these people who turned to me.

65. 37:07

    I’m going to bring them back from death, no matter what they have to go through now in correction. And you just hold on, sister, in that trial no one else understands. Even the people closest to you that. I love you to distraction. Don’t fully know what it is to be you in this trouble that you are in now, but God knows the Lord Jesus Christ knows.

66. 37:47

    Hold on to them, pour out to God, and believe that He will be with you all the way through, and He’ll get you through. There may not be a. Magical waving away of the problem with everything resolved and tied with a bow. That’s American Disneyland. Stupid television. That’s not real life. For real life, things are messy, but God is used to putting his hand into dirt.

67. 38:19

    Isn’t he to make? People out of it, isn’t he? That’s how he made Adam and it’s how he’s making. You. He didn’t make Adam out of diamonds, he made him out of mud. So God is worth reaching out to, believing in, and holding onto as he works in the mess of your life to build the treasure that you need to be for his Kingdom. So, brothers and sisters, then

68. 38:56

    we go to chapter 14, or Israel return unto the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by then. Iniquity take with you words and return to the Lord. Now think of some of the things brethren have said in their prayers. It’s not about sacrifice, it’s not about your first born child. It’s not about any of the things you can bring.

69. 39:20

    But words? Words, Prayer, loving conversation. A conversation with your Father who loves you. You can’t see him, but in that darkness you can imagine your hand in his hand, burying you up as a little one and saving you through the trouble. Reach out to him. Bring words and your heart and an open conversation with him. Bring these words.

70. 40:00

    Whereas for I will. Heal their backsliding. I will love them freely. That means openly, to the full extent, he said. He would not express his full anger to them, but his love or his love in abundance. Can you see it? Can you see his hand? No, but you you, you know where you can see and hear it.

71. 40:23

    And the brothers and sisters that love you put their hand on your shoulders. They walk by. They don’t have eloquent words, but they give it a squeeze. And you know they love you. The old sister that comes up to you and says, you know, dear, I don’t. I don’t know what you’re going through, but I’m here if you want to have a cup of tea and know that I won’t repeat a word.

72. 40:52

    I’m just a good listener. God shows you his. Love through the love of your brothers and sisters. And that’s why we need to be there in the Ecclesia to express the love of God and Christ to each other in all of these worker day back breaking troubles and trials that we’re faced with. And so we end verse 9 who is wise and he’ll understand these things.

73. 41:30

    Prudent, and he’ll know them. For the ways of the Lord are right. And the just shall walk in them, but the transgressors shall fall therein, and so does does understanding mark our. Development and our maturing. As brothers and sisters do, we demonstrate that we know who God is. God is very stingy in his investing. Let me tell you what I mean by that when he allows you to go through the tunnel of fire.

74. 42:12

    That you are going through. He’s going to want to reinvest that. Over and over and over and over as you help other people quietly, unobtrusively, without fanfare. Sometimes, Sister, you’re helping us to sit beside the sister who’s crying and pouring out her heartbreak to you and just holding her hand. And what gives you the strength and courage and the the ability to push past shyness to do that? What you’ve been through, what you’ve been through, whatever the trouble that you’ve worked through, hanging in there through that difficult part of the painting or the musical piece that you’re trying to learn. You learn so much about the human heart and all of its frailties.

75. 43:17

    All of its fragility in the trouble that you go through in your life. So use it for good and when you get through it or get able to cope with it. Thank God that he’s getting you through. Now hold on to him, brothers and sisters, with everything you’ve got in the midst of the ecclesia with your family, because he.

76. 43:48

    He is your help. He is your help.