40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Ecclesiastes 9:1-18 (Episode 428)

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

Does anything you do matter if the end of all of it still results in death? Is enjoying the small things the only path to joy? And wisdom would go a lot farther if sinners didn't destroy it. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: When You Meet Jesus | Gospel Encounters Conference The Inklings: Apostles and Apologists of the Imagination with Sam Schuldheisz Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament by Chad Bird 30 Minutes in the NT on Youtube Remembering Rod Rosenbladt Encouragement for Motherhood Edited by Katie Koplin More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. While you're over there, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing. By the time this releases, we'll be creeping right up on the Flower Mound event. That's in the Dallas area. Chad and I are going to both be there. That is the first weekend in September, and we're going to be talking about what happens when people encounter Jesus.

Eric Sorensen will also be there. Kelsey Clambaro will be there. it's going to be a good time so uh you know come hang out uh hear some talks we're gonna do a live podcast it's gonna be fun there's a link in the show notes and you can get yourself registered and uh and come on out chad we are in ecclesiastes chapter nine uh we kind of ended last episode by you know solomon was saying hey there might be some reasons to obey a king you know maybe god made a promise to him. Maybe you don't like him, but maybe you like that promise, so maybe you're going to expect God to be faithful, even if your king is kind of someone you don't like, and so

maybe you could obey his commands for that reason. He also says that, look, think that there's only one thing that you can really do, since you can't really control the days of your life, or you can't control the justice system. The best thing you could do is, you know, kind of enjoy the small things, you know, kind of eat, drink, be merry, find some joy in that sort of stuff. And it kind of seemed kind of, you know, kind of positive, like sort of like this simple little key to finding some joy in your life. Solomon's going to make the turn, though, again, per usual, where instead of just saying, you know what, guys, and that is the end of it, like enjoy the small stuff, because, you know, you're not going to be here long. And then that, you're not going to be

there long, he starts dwelling on that, and we're going to see where that leads him today, because he's going to come to the conclusion of, well, you do know what's coming for all of us. Yeah, in fact, I think it was the commentary by Long when I was reading this morning that said that these, especially these first 10 verses in chapter 9, perhaps in fact the whole chapter is the most depressing part of Ecclesiastes. So, you know, if our listeners are having a really bad day and they thought, you know what, to cheer me up, I'm going to turn on 40 Minutes of the Old Testament. Maybe not the best day to listen to 40 Minutes of the Old Testament. But hey, maybe we can weave in some good news in the midst of all this pessimism and bad news that he's got

to tell us in these first few verses so uh i don't i don't know i want to read all 10 verses but i'll start out here reading at least the first first couple so ecclesiastes 9 but all this i laid to heart examining it all how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of god whether it is love or hate man does not know both are before him it is the same for all since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner. And he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all.

This is the gospel of the Lord. Yeah, yeah. If you're wondering, what event is this? Yeah, what's he talking about? It's the last event. It's that death event. It's not birth. Also happens to all. That's not the one he's talking about. I mean, it seems that he's saying that, like, what?

This is the... It's interesting, some of the parallels between the things that Solomon finds frustrating or that tend to make life sort of meaningless in his eyes are kind of the things that Job's friends say aren't the way it is and that Job then has to come back and say, no, that is the way it is. So Ecclesiastes would be a good book for Job's friends to read before they go and counsel someone.

Because, I mean, what's Solomon saying here? He's saying that, okay, listen, whether you're righteous or wicked, whether you're wise or foolish, whether you're clean or unclean, whether you spend your whole life sacrificing things to God or whether you never sacrificed anything, it doesn't matter. None of this changes the final outcome. And to him, this seems like this is a great evil. Because this is how powerless you really are, ultimately, right? Is that, swear an oath, don't swear an oath, guess what, you're going to die. Yeah, I do like the fact that in verse 3 he says, this is an evil in all that is done under the sun,

that the same event happens to all. I mean, maybe that's not exactly what he intends, but he certainly does speak truth in the sense that, And, you know, I don't think that we at least always speak truthfully when it comes to death because we've, culturally anyway, we've tended to adopt the idea that the death is, you know, this kind of natural, it's part of the circle of life or whatever you want to call it. And unless it's like an intentional taking of someone's life, so, you know, either murder or manslaughter or whatever, usually people aren't referring to death as evil right but yeah but i mean that that is uh i don't think that's something we can emphasize quite enough because it has kind of become a common place certainly culturally and this anything happening culturally just creeps into the church

either quickly or slowly where people begin to talk about you know natural death well it's just you know that's just the way things go this is the circle of life whatnot now death is enemy and death is the enemy, always has been the enemy, never is natural, always is evil. Now maybe that's not exactly what Koheleth intends here when he says this is an evil, but it is true. It is true nonetheless. I think he is emphasizing here the fact that in this frustration he has with life under the sun, that part of this frustration, if in fact not the main frustration that he has with life under the sun, is that it doesn't really matter, you know, which of these categories you fall into righteous wise uh wicked good evil clean unclean you're all going to end up the same place

death democratizes us all so because of that i mean this is kind of a very very pessimistic part of of kohalath but i mean it does it fits the tenor of everything that he started from the very beginning right vanity of vanities all this vanity because life without the resurrection As you pointed out, Dan, many times, life without the resurrection renders everything in this life futile, vain, meaningless. Yeah, well, I mean, if you decide, and rightly so, that death is not natural, there's not such a thing, that death is the result of something wrong, and death itself is evil, then you might say well what could you do to avoid this evil surely it would be a bunch of good and then maybe you could avoid this evil and you find out that actually no it doesn't matter like

how much good you do or how much how righteous you are how clean you are there is no good that you can do uh to avoid this evil and so he thinks that also is evil right like so like it's it's the it's the idea that death is evil and the fact that you can't be good enough to avoid it that's also evil like what kind of evil is that like there's a there's an evil that you can't avoid well this is just evil on top of evil yeah that's that's double evil you know because there's a lot of bad things in life we at least think we can avoid by you know being wise or planning properly or doing the right thing and yeah sometimes that works out you know maybe you can avoid the bad of bankruptcy by being financially responsible or whatever it is okay fine uh

do that good and avoid that bad but in the end there is a bad that's coming that you can be you know you can out out mother teresa mother teresa it really just not going to matter y'all you're gonna end up dead anyway yeah you just end up and you just you just end up uh dead a dead person who never declared bankruptcy yes right right i guess you win then huh yeah and i think this is interesting it's worth pointing out too so this is toward the end of verse one so he starts out saying i laid this to heart i you know i studied all this i examined it how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. And then he says, whether it is love or hate, man does not know.

Both are before him. Now, there are a few who would argue that this love or hate is in reference to human love or hate. I don't think that's right. And the majority of the people I checked on this to agree that this is talking about divine love or hate, which is pretty fascinating from a theological perspective, because he is saying, listen, whether you're righteous, or whether you're wise, or whatever you are, you know, what you're doing, your deeds, they're under God's control. They're in the hand of God. Now, what does he think about you? Well, we don't know. Is it love? Man does not know.

Is it hate? Man does not know. Both these possibilities are before him. Now, I think that that, Kohala doesn't say this, but I think that more than anything, that perspective more than anything else is an evil that is under the sun. If you don't know what God thinks about you, whether it's love or hate that he has towards you, I mean, I can't think of anything worse than that. I mean, that's worse than death itself, because that renders your whole life just this cataclysm of anxiety. How do I know how I stand with God? What do I, you know, have i been so bad he doesn't want anything to do with me have i been so good that he's impressed with me i i don't know so for me anyway that is that's the ultimate bad not knowing where we stand

with god and that's why when you you take statements like that and you put them beside the gospel that it doesn't become just good news becomes the best news imaginable well it turns out he doesn't hate you he loves you and here's how much he loves you so that that truth of the gospel is going to put all of his kind of this pessimism these opening verses in a completely different light well too like for solomon understands this this is a binary thing too um god certainly isn't like, indifferent, right? So, like, these are the options. Like, the options are He loves you or He hates you. And this is a biblically sound idea here. Like, God is not just sort of neutral towards anything, right? So, He either loves us or He hates us. This is what it's going to be.

and yeah and it seems like if you're just reading this and you find out that no matter how you are or what you act or sacrifice to him or not uh that you're all gonna die might make you think that he that it's hate i mean like oh yeah yeah depending on how well your life is going depending on how i mean you're kind of your personality where you're more optimistic or more pessimistic and putting a whole lot of circumstances in life if you try and just kind of interpret God's attitude toward you based upon what you experience or what you see in the world there's a there's actually a pretty good pretty good likelihood you're going to come out thinking God hates you or at least hates humanity in general because there's every bad event in the

world could be interpreted to mean either that God is against us or or I don't know if it's better or worse that god is apathetic he doesn't really care he's kind of just this you know deistic kind of god who's removed himself from creation and and has really no goodwill or ill will toward us so yeah interpreting just human events is not going to get you into what is happening in the heart of god yeah it's like it's gonna give you a very dark view of god's attitude toward humanity Yeah, I mean, again, if you don't have the resurrection, then you don't have the truth that because God loves you that he has defeated death and transformed death into a doorway where you walk through it into eternal life where death has no power. If you don't have that, then death is just the final thing. That's just the end.

I mean, just think of it this way. Okay, we have the gospel. we know we know that uh we are reconciled to god and jesus christ we know there's no condemnation for those who are in christ we know that death is that for the christian death is that doorway into the presence of god we know all these things to be true and still knowing all these things to be true and still uh life is hard and there's plenty of times where we cry out in the psalms you know why and where are you and how long so even knowing the gospel it's difficult at times to fight off the urge to question whether god is truly for us yeah so just imagine if you didn't

know the gospel how easy it is to slip into this pessimistic perspective that says either we don't no, or God is certainly against us and not for us. Okay, so off to that glowing start. Let's see what he has to say after that. So we're going to pick it up here with verse, what kind of halfway through verse three, I suppose. So I'll start out with the beginning of verse three. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, but the same event happens to all. Of course, he's talking about death. Also, he goes on, also the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live. And after that, they go to the dead. But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. One of my favorite

proverbs, by the way. For the living know they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward for the memory of them is forgotten their love and their hate and their and their envy have already perished and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun i don't think it gets less pessimistic i think he's more pessimistic as he goes along here yeah i don't know don't don't get not looking up don't get confused this for i don't know you can maybe read this with like i don't know some kind of like new testament eyes or something and take away something i don't think it's saying you know so it's like hey uh you want to be one of these people uh who is joined with the living and has hope and you're

like no man that's not what he's saying he's not saying that you've been like united with like the resurrected christ or something like that like he's saying listen it like a dog in the street that's still alive is better than like the mightiest lion who ever lived that's dead because the dog has like days in front of it right uh and the lion has nothing so you know it's uh yeah that's that's what it is and so he's it's not like he's not talking about some kind of eternal hope here anything this hope is very temporal like uh once you're dead you don't you have no hope that to see tomorrow but you know if you're still alive you're like i might see tomorrow so that's nice yeah this is a good case good example where if you i mean certainly

this can be read through New Testament eyes. And you could take this as a springboard for talking about true life and true hope in Christ and all of that. Maybe you could use it in a homiletical sense in that way. But contextually, yeah, this is not optimistic. This is not talking about a living hope that we have in christ this is this is him doubling down on the fact that life under the sun life without the resurrection is utterly hopeless so not only kind of going back to the beginning here uh the second half of verse three you know not only is the same event going to happen to everybody which is of course bad but before we get there you know while we're on the way to our own place in the cemetery what's happening inside us the hearts of the children

of man are full of evil and madness is in their hearts while they live and after that they go to the dead so this is him saying yeah we're all going to die and uh while i'm talking about that subject. And they also point out the fact that while we're living, we got these hearts that are going astray and madness is inside us. That word for the Hebrew word for madness is used elsewhere for, you know, corruption in society. It's used for folly. It's used for frivolity. It's used for a lot of other negative, a lot of other negative ways. So yeah, we're all going to die. And while we're on the way to dying we're going to have many ways in which we'll let us stray and we're going to probably also built in this is the idea that we're also going to engage in all sorts of

trivial pursuits which try and anesthetize us to what is what is coming you know whether that's sex or drugs or alcohol or entertainment or whatever it is that people use to temporarily blind themselves to the fact that death is going to be their their end yeah yeah um i did want to point out something about this uh living dog dead lion it might it probably doesn't strike us with quite the same force that it would well we like Yeah. In this, in this culture, because most of us would, you know, if you say, would you prefer a living dog or, or a deadline and be like, well, of course, I mean,

a living dog is the best, right? I want my dog to be with me. I, he's man's best friend, you know, all this kind of stuff. Well, that doesn't work in, in this culture because dogs were, dogs are used almost, there might be one exception. and that one exception is Lazarus and the rich man with the dogs lick the sores that are on the poor man

whether that's positive or negative that might be the only positive image if they're his companions but leaving that one aside every image in the scriptures of dogs is negative well even the Lazarus one I always I don't think it's saying anything bad about dogs per se but like

Lazarus is like in the street outside this guy's house which is where dogs are so if that if you were telling that parable today you'd be like okay there's this guy and he's sitting on he's sitting on a trash heap or something and um the raccoons i don't know the armadillos are looking this way they're just like yeah there's outs yeah they're just out there in the street because that's where they are uh rats are probably a pretty good parallel because dogs were scavengers you know just and just uh problems to to society uh avoided best avoided so they didn't yeah they didn't have the same kind of positive image of course that we

have and so when he says a living dog is better than a dead lion lions uh we still refer to them as king of the beast right that's where they were viewed in in ancient times as well so this this lowliest of scavengers this living dog well he's better off than the dead lion because at least he's still he's still alive and i want to say something too because i know that uh on social media when i talk about uh life after death or what happens to believers when they die or anything related to that subject quite frequently this this verse which is verse five is quoted by people who argue that when you die, whether you're a believer or an unbeliever,

then there's no consciousness afterward. They'll quote this line, the dead know nothing. And I think it's worth pointing out the fact that, okay, you can quote that, but when you quote it, realize the context in which this is said. This is life without the resurrection. This is life under the sun. This is Kohelet pointing out in the most negative way imaginable just what life is like and death is like if we have no hope apart from God in Christ. So this isn't a theologically factual statement that applies in every single circumstance. This is someone who is working from a non-resurrection theological perspective, talking about what life and death are like if we don't have that hope.

Yeah, this is just, this is a statement that would be true if it was in fact the case that death has the final word. I mean, if death is the final thing, then yes, the dead know nothing. Yes. So, I mean, it's one more example of how looking at stuff, looking at verses in their context is crucial. So, all that being said, these first six verses, let's see what he does recommend. And what he recommends begins here in verse 7. I'll read 7 through 10. Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart. For God has approved what you do. Let your garments always be white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.

Enjoy life with the wife whom you love. Some have argued that just should be translated with a woman whom you love. And it is just the typical word for a woman, but probably what's happening here is he's talking about marriage. So most translations will render it as wife. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.

whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, where there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol to which you are going. Okay, so I've heard people do try to like do like a positive thing here with this. I don't know, they try to gospel up like verse 7, so they'll be like, go eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do in christ you're like it's not what this is not at all the tone that he has here what like what this approved even i don't think it's not like that kind of approval like god is like super pleased with what you do or whatever it's it's oh it's more like at least this is how i read it you can tell me if i'm if you see this differently but look just go

eat your bread and just you know find enjoyment in that uh drink your wine enjoy that uh get have your heart be as merry as you could possibly make it because god has already like appointed a thing for everyone he's already he's already approved the scope of your life and there's nothing you could do about it it's like if somebody i think this i take this approval thing as a more like if you were going to get a loan or you were gonna and you're gonna sign the contract and that loan got approved and you're like okay now this is approved now this is what it's going to be uh because then he does this this whole thing like hey don't you know let's let's keep your clothes nice because that's all you got i mean you might as well like keep that nice

get that oil on your head because you can see it right here in verse nine though like he's like enjoy he can't hide it because he's like enjoy life with the woman who you love all the days of your vain stupid life like come on man like this isn't like some kind of gospel thing he's like you got this worthless meaningless stupid thing called life you might as well squeeze every drop out of it because guess what like it's all you've got yeah you you can't it's pretty hard to read these verses without hearing the the tone of sarcasm that's in that's in his voice and i don't even know if he's like being insincere about it it's just that you know he's like hey whatever your hand finds to do man do it hard like go find something and go all the way with it but just know

that you're not taking it with you in the end you're you're all going to die anyway yeah and this is you know this is the uh this isn't the first time he's used this language this is this passage is different, though. So there are, this is the sixth, there's six passages, usually referred to as the Carpideum passages in Ecclesiastes, seize the day passages. We saw the first one back in chapter 2, where he says, there's nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink in fine enjoyment in his toil, okay? So here's the thing about that, Chad, like that's exactly right like it is like a seize the day but like not in the way that so you might you and i might get up out of bed one day and have like uh an exciting task ahead of us and be like all right

man today's the day that we do the thing that we've been planning to do and it's going to be you know this is a great thing and we're gonna it's no like think about this like there's nothing better than to do like this to just eat food and drink wine there's like well that's depressing like there's nothing better like yeah that's that's all there is like like so you might as well seize whatever you can because this is all you get right um and so it's it is sort of this call to yeah like live today to its fullest because why because tomorrow's not promised and and if tomorrow's not promised and tomorrow is happy you know just so happens to be the day that you uh go to sheol it's all over like so yeah which is why this one fits so well with

with that whole tone because in the previous passages chapter 2 chapter 3 chapter 5 uh he's talking about you know he'll use language like this there's nothing better or i perceive that there's nothing better or i saw that there's nothing better or what i've seen to be good and fitting is such and such okay those are just like they kind of come across as advice right? Listen, this is what I've seen to be the good thing that we have. Now, this one's different because when we get to verse seven, he switches from advice to imperative. And he says, in view of this, I'm not going to tell you what I've seen to be better. I'm simply going to tell you what to do. So he says, go. Based upon what I've said, here's what I'm telling you to do. Just go and

eat your bread and drink your wine and uh enjoy life with your wife because guess what you're no there's not gonna be any work or thought or knowledge or wisdom and we could add to that or marriage or eating bread or drinking wine or anything else when you end up in shoal to which you are going and you know we could we could say that this first 10 whatever your hand finds to do do it with your might, that's often, also often used in a, it's kind of a positive spin that's given to that, right? This is probably one of the

most well-known verses from Ecclesiastes. How many fathers have said this to their sons? And it's one of these where on a certain level, yeah, I mean, it is true, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. That's good. Unless it's finding

something bad. Yeah, right. Yes, unless it's bad, then don't do that. But if you find something good to do, yeah, okay that i mean as it stands if you just kind of cut that out of the verse and place it you know put it in a coffee cup or whatever all right it was it's true but look at what else he says that's only the first half of the verse what every hand finds to do do it with all your might for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in show to which you are going now that second half is hardly ever quoted

when that first half is quoted. This just sounds like you got something you want to do, you better get after it because time is of the essence, right? Like, you don't know if you get tomorrow. So, if there's stuff you want to accomplish,

great. Do it with vigor because there's no accomplishing things in the grave. Yeah, yeah. To which we all are headed, he says. Yep. Okay, so that's the first 10 verses. I don't think these next ones are going to take us quite as long. We should be able to wrap up the chapter by the end of our time together.

So I'm going to go ahead and read 11 through 17. Again, I saw that under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge. but time and chance happen to them all for man does not know his time like fish that are taken in an evil net and like birds that are caught in a snare so the children of man are snared at an evil time when it suddenly falls upon them i have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun and it seemed great to me so this made a a great impression on solomon he says there was a little city with few men in it and a great king came against it and besieged it and building great

siege works against it but there was found in it a poor wise man and he by his wisdom delivered the city yet i laugh because this is so typical of kohalath right when he seemed like he's giving you something he takes it away yet no one remembered that poor man but i say that wisdom is better than might though the poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard the words of the wise heard and quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools wisdom is better than weapons of war but one sinner destroys much good now if i had to summarize the kind of the overall tenor of of these verses there's like you know one message it kind of comes through with all of all of these proverbs and this little parabolic story and whatnot is

that it's something like you know wisdom is good just like he said these all the other things were good like enjoying your marriage and eating your bread and drinking your wine all that's good wisdom is good too but it is by no means kind of the the key that unlocks every door in life I mean, it's better to be wise than to be a fool, for sure. But as it turns out, it's by no means kind of the cure-all for the things that happen to us. It's not going to save you from death. It's not going to tell you when you're going to die. And even if you do exhibit great wisdom, in fact, if you use wisdom and you do this great thing

that is kind of unexpected, well, people aren't going to remember it. and so it's not going to really make any difference in in the long run uh so this is i mean rather than kind of switching to something really more optimistic this continues that same negative tenor that he started out the the chapter with yeah i mean the idea is that like of course wisdom is better to be wise than a fool but that wisdom doesn't guarantee you much right so doesn't guarantee you riches it doesn't guarantee you bread it doesn't guarantee you any of those things perhaps it could increase your chances but it doesn't guarantee it uh and and he's like you know i got i've seen this play out before uh you know that's all i mean and you see it from the

very beginning of this illustration where it's like there's a poor wise man it's like okay so like one thing that could be true is that you could be poor and wise because you know he's and he says like chance is a has more to say about how things shake out with you than whether or not you're wise or a fool and and then basically it seems that he does this thing where he says the reason wisdom doesn't guarantee anything uh is because one sinner could destroy like every wise thing that you could possibly come up with can you think of any examples where that's happened i'm struggling here i'm trying to think of where maybe one sinner has messed up everything yeah yeah it seems like that was at the very beginning of the book yeah it seemed like maybe the bible

at the beginning has something to say to that you know i was verse 11 uh made me think you know this this flies in the face of uh just basically every self-help book that's out there because every self-help book out there basically works on the premise that if you plan properly and act according to your planning and just behave in whatever wise way the author is encouraging you then you will have success i think god comes along and says yeah you know what i've seen the race isn't to the swift nor the battle to the strong nor bread to the wise nor riches to the intelligent but time and chance happen in the mall so uh he uh he ends with uh with utter with utter frustration there was i i did like this so this is uh one commentary uh quoted romans 9 16 he says

romans 9 16 says so then it depends not on human will or exertion but on god who has mercy and this this uh expositor says in other words human human inability drives paul to divine grace while koheleth ends up in frustration yeah which i thought was a pretty pretty insightful there so you know on the one hand you can say well if it's not you know if the battle's not to the swift nor bread to the wise one and so forth then that drives us to to god's grace we throw ourselves upon his mercy. Kohala just throws his hands up in the air in frustration because to him, it's like, well, then, goodness,

what's the point of it all, right? We're all going to be caught like birds in a snare eventually. It seems like he has experienced this thing where maybe you had this guy, and he was diligently planning and exercising every ounce of wisdom that he could muster. He had a great plan to build a life, and then some sort of pestilence rolled through,

took out his whole family, wiped everything out. Then there was this really foolish guy that squandered all his life and one day found a quarter on the street and bought a lottery ticket and won. And he says, yeah, see, this is the thing about this. You could do all things, but you know what really affects things more than anything else? Chance. Is this guy that did this, is it now wise to buy lottery tickets? Is that what it is, because this guy bought one-in-one?

Or is it wise to do what I did, which is do all this planning and have it all taken away by something that's completely out of my control? This is, like, the great frustration. Yeah, yeah. And thankfully, this isn't the final word. I mean, if it were, then, yeah, I'd be filling my hands up, too, and saying, well, forget it. i'm gonna go uh you know lead the life of a hedonistic viking and just yeah and you know

enjoy enjoy the few years that i have here so thankfully this is not the end i mean there is a resurrection turns everything he has said on his head and uh actually infuses life with purpose and meaning which is beyond our our wildest imagination so hang on cohella there is resurrection to come yeah he's good we're gonna get there uh so he's he's he's just not there yet he's gonna you gotta go all the way down before you before you come out the other side so all right well we are out of time so uh we'll be back next week he's gonna continue uh this train of thought he's not done talking about uh how death is just this looming thing that you can't shake and kind of taints everything uh so we're gonna get into more of that next episode chad i'll see

you then see you then