The Emptiness of Fools

Ecclesiastes 5:8–20: Oppression, Wealth, and Contentment

Our text this morning is in Ecclesiastes chapter 5. Starting in verse 8. If you see oppression of the poor and perversion of justice and righteousness in the province Don't be astonished at the situation.

Because one official protects another official and higher officials protect them. The profit from the land is taken by all the king is served by the field. The one who loves silver is never satisfied with silver and whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.

This too is futile when good things increase the ones who consume them multiply. What then is the profit to the owner except to gaze at them with his eyes? The sleep of the worker is sweet whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the rich permits him no sleep.

There is a sickening tragedy I've seen under the Sun wealth kept by its owner to his harm. That wealth was lost in a bad venture. So when he fathered a son he was empty-handed as he came from his mother's womb.

So he will go again naked as he came he will take nothing for his efforts that he can carry in his hands. This too is a sickening tragedy. Exactly as he comes so he will go. What does the one gain who struggles for the wind?

What is more he eats in darkness all his days with much frustration sickness and anger? Here is what I have seen to be good. It is appropriate to eat drink and experience good and all the labor one does under the Sun during the few days of his life God has given him because that is his reward furthermore.

Everyone to whom God has given riches and wealth He has also allowed him to enjoy them take his reward and rejoice in his labor. This is a gift of God. For he does not often consider the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with the joy of his heart.

Let's pray God we thank you for your word and How it cuts us I'm Lord, but how it gives us hope as we know the end of the book that you have Restored this broken world under your kingship. So God let us be shaped by your words Lord.

Let us take heart, but also be warned that you give good gifts. That the creation of your world is a good gift for us to explore and to use for your glory or not for us to be misers with its riches, but to be Open-handed Givers of life and good things or as we mimic the kingship of your son Jesus who gives life freely to those who accept the gift of his life in his blood or just bless Josh as He teaches this morning Lord hide him behind your word that your words would be sharp that they would Convict and encourage us Lord that we'd be changed by them and Lord that as we are changed we would grow in holiness from one degree to the next as we conform to the image of your son or as we Express it to those out in the world or that they would also be changed.

Well, we pray for that change to come through our land. It's in your powerful name. We pray. Amen.

Repetition, Foolishness, and the House of God

You've heard it often repetition is the key to learning and it seems that Solomon would repeat himself and repeat himself To his sons and his progeny warning them that wealth is A very dangerous Situation to be in but understand that Solomon as he writes to his sons understands that they will have wealth.

There's no avoiding it as the king you're going to have wealth and you're going to have to steward it and it is going to be a danger to you over and over again. And as we see a See of that through the last couple of chapters in Ecclesiastes.

Something troubled me this week and it is actually last week's text and what troubled me about it is it seems that there is a lot of repetition and a lot of talk about the foolishness of Pursuing all of this wealth here and then there's more of it this week the foolishness.

You're gonna die alone. It's not gonna give you what you think it's gonna give you. You're not going to have surety. You're not going to have contentment through your wealth. And then in the middle of that a set of imperatives.

To not be a fool. When you enter into the house of God. Several explanations came to me. I think the one is this I I think that what Solomon did was he was Highlighting the most important thing in the midst of sameness.

It's a literary tool to draw your attention to go. Oh, that's different and different draws your eye and different draws your thought. But I think there's another part of it as we finish out chapter 5 today and we see a renewal of this warning about the emptiness about the loneliness of being rich.

And not only of being rich but of striving after wealth of thinking that you arrived at the end through your wealth. I think there's a theme that continues about foolishness. That to be a fool is to be empty and the height of being a fool is to not know who God is.

And if you don't know who God is there are all kinds of replacements that we try to bring to satisfy what has been Created into us which we saw it right. Creation groans. That's what Romans 8 says. Creation groans for the consummation of what God put in place back in the garden.

There is a desire in man to return to a garden to sit under his own fig tree to have peace. To have Tranquility. To not be cursed by the curse of the fall. To not labor in the fields and grow up weeds.

To not toil with the sweat of his brow. To not have Contention and enmity with his wife. There is a desire for that in all men and yet it's elusive. And I think the answer is that oftentimes we think Very temporally and we do diminish the importance of the house of God.

By worrying about a bunch of other stuff now, don't be afraid. I'm not reverting to pietism here. Okay, that is one of my most hated evils in the church today. Is that Christianity is all bound up in Propositions that you think in your head over and over again in scripture.

It will tell us that look you are not saved by your works. But the litmus test for Christianity is your works. Let's be real, right? There is a difficulty in it and any pastor who starts to talk over much about works or the law in Our society is going to be labeled a lot of things what you expect me to do something.

But I already believe that Jesus is a son of God. What do you think it means in James when he says you believe that God is one you do? Well, the demons believe in tremble. The difference between those two things is James is talking about an empty position a faith of words and not of deeds.

And when you read the context that becomes clear and For us what Solomon is going to tell you is that your actions and your thoughts and your attitudes are going to inevitably shape what you do and We start with something that hits very close to home as we look at verses 8 through 9, which could have been done by themselves.

Oppression, Bureaucracy, and the Limits of Government

But look, I know my danger in talking about government. I could go on an hour and a half barn burner talking about government. I'm going to refrain. I'm going to say this. I wanted so much. I wanted so much to call this sermon the blessing of bureaucracy.

But I couldn't because it is a side tangent to what we're doing this morning. But what you'll see is Solomon has talked about oppression before and this oppression wheel this hamster wheel that Solomon keeps talking about.

Is that getting rich? Does not make you want to stop getting more rich. There is no end to the treadmill and so that's why he will often say it's futility. It's striving after wind. There is no contentment.

And what men want from getting wealthy is they want the end of? The lack of peace the end of Agitation. They think that money is going to buy them the things that get them off of the treadmill of agitation.

It will let me do whatever I want and it will let me buy off my problems. There could have been a thought like that even in the temple, right? I'm gonna buy off God by the largesse of my sacrifice and many churches are run through with that to this day.

You want to find out who's really in charge of the church find the wife of the man who has the most money? That is generally who's in charge of the church today. And it should not be so but Solomon says you're gonna look out son.

You're gonna look out and you're gonna see poor people getting robbed. Sometimes it's gonna be very blatant. They're gonna get their stuff taken and then they're gonna be insulated. The people who robbed them are going to be insulated by a system of bureaucracy.

There's gonna be this clerk who's at the DMV. Who's looking at you when the line is a hundred and fifty deep and people are sitting there for hours? And he's just eating a donut just looking at you. Not calling a number sit there 10 -15 minutes.

I might speak from experience. He's just looking out there and you're like if you go up to him and you're like, hey, man, are you gonna work? You're like sitting in front. Everybody's like yeah, I talked to my boss and The boss is gonna be like, yeah, I don't know what we can really do about that.

You know, he's got a mandatory break time. He's not gonna get to it. Well, can I talk to your boss? Well, it's gonna be difficult and you run up the ladder and what you're gonna find is levels of obfuscation.

Frustration and the people who suffer the most are the people who cannot circumvent the system if you have money. You're pretty much out of that. Although the DMV is often the great equalizer, right? Everybody's got to go through there.

It's the poorest people in the richest people and you get a weird hodgepodge of people sitting weighing in line. There is a trick for this in our area. But I'm not gonna tell it because I don't want that many people to know about the DMV hack.

But there is oppression and what Solomon is telling us look this should comfort us we see this right now do we not America if it's anything, it's just a horrendous swamp monster of bureaucracy, right and.

And the difficulty is who's running this thing. Like are you a hundred percent confident? That the president of the United States is running the executive branch like and people if we're honest we would say no.

Okay, and what Solomon is telling you? It should be comfort is this is nothing new people are going to get into power and they are going to protect Their lieutenants that are underneath them in power because if the one beneath you gets in trouble, it's coming back to you.

So we're gonna all protect the system and Solomon says son. Don't worry about it. This is baked into the way it is. There will never be a government in In this eschaton that does not work this way to some extent and many of us we seek a better way.

And I think that's a good thing. We should shoot at a target. We should demand more of our civil magistrates, especially while there is still some kind of So-called voice that we have in the system. But what we should not do is despair because we see corruption is.

Everybody connected in the executive branch getting fabulously wealthy over offshore's investments. Of course, they are. Are they corrupting and ruining the poor? Of course, they are and Solomon says yeah always happens.

That's the way it is. That's what people are going to do. You are going to have Corruption you are going to have Inefficiency and you are going to have to wait an hour and a half to maybe get a driver's license renewal.

No matter what your last name is and who you are. Unless you can grease some palms and that's always happened, too. But here's what he says look at it in verse 9. The alternative is much worse. So you hate our Bureaucracy you hate the DMV you hate what's going on with you know, what we're we're lobbing bombs all over the place.

Deposing leaders talking about crazy stuff all the time and all of this is definitely going on. There's some classes that can be discriminated against at will and there's others. It's like there's nothing they can do wrong.

We know that right all of this is going on and you know. What Solomon says is hey in all of this oppression where one who's in charge looks after another one. There's still a thing. There's an advantage in the land that the king still needs to eat.

So as long as you have this system There's gonna be food. Because what you're gonna do what you're gonna want to do. This is what Solomon's telling us that you're gonna listen to young men who are full of zeal and what they're gonna want to do.

Is they're gonna want to smash the hierarchies. Have you heard this before? They're gonna tear it down and we're all gonna rise up as the worker and We are going to take what's ours and then what's happened is everybody starves.

It's true. It's all and we've seen it over and over again. We saw it in Bolshevik uprisings all across Eastern Europe and Asia. We see it today in Haiti. We've seen it in Rhodesia. We see it playing out in South Africa, even as we speak.

There is a lie. They go. Oh, yeah, the hierarchy is oppressing and it is they're not wrong about that. But the problem is is if you start to smash the hierarchy you introduce seven demons into the swept-in house.

Because egalitarian ism is so much worse Than a corrupt hierarchical leader and it's written into the laws of nature. Because when we have a raw democracy There's no rules. It's just whoever can sway the mob and the mob the mob in Very recent memory was all swayed into believing that a cloth mask could stop the transmission of a virus and That you would not get it if you only pulled your mask down to eat and You put it back up whenever you were not taking a bite and how many people believed friends, you know.

Many many people that is the promise of smashing hierarchy and democracy. The promise is we will all be incredibly stupid and We will be incredibly violent and you think the poor were oppressed badly under the bureaucracy.

At least they weren't being executed. Because they will be whenever you start to break God's natural law and Solomon warns again I told you went too long. There it is. You start talking about government.

That is a hobby horse of mine, but Solomon says Bless the bureaucracy. Look, you try to root the oppression out as much as you can, but the alternative is worse. So it's a good reminder to us now. Let's get into the repetition.

He's going to talk about money again. But I think he gives it more of an edge this time and remember always that Solomon is writing To the kings of Israel and to the kings of the area. He wants wisdom to be ruling over people because when there is wisdom there is less oppression.

There's still going to be oppression. There will be less oppression. There will be more wisdom in how the kingdoms deal with each other and Solomon is hoping to preserve a kingdom for his progeny. Even though he knows that he has no power to do that.

It's vain. It's striving after the wind. Remember we say this ourself. We would love this church to be a church for our great-grandchildren. And that is a good intention. But if we are outcome based that is striving after the wind we have no ability to do that whatsoever.

And if we think we do. We're just idiots. That's a dumb thing to think this church will be here at a hundred years. Yeah, we don't know that this church will never. Never bow to the pressures of the culture friends.

We've already bowed to the pressures of the culture in many ways that we don't even know about. Because we have a very strong religion in our area and that is the religion of egalitarianism. Liberalism that's what we are right and it affects us in ways that we don't even know and then we have a pile of Vanity the one who loves money.

The Emptiness of Loving Money

This is over and over remember repetition get this. I know you don't some of you especially younger men you think that you need more money and. That it is what is going to make you satisfied and happy and I know that that's easy to believe.

When it's really difficult to make your payments every month I know it is and I know that you think that if you had just an extra like $1 ,500 a month that things would be so much easier and Solomon is writing and he's telling you that's not true.

But we have to be told over and over again because we really do kind of believe it's true. Don't we if you just had a little bit more things would just be that much easier, wouldn't they? And let's be real.

The goal of the American Christian life is just for it to be easier, right? If we're being real honest. Because we don't have to suffer for the cross because we're actually smarter than Jesus was if he had just been more careful with his words.

Maybe he wouldn't have suffered. I Blasphemous it is blasphemous and yet be careful Christian. We act the way we think. We act the way we think when our attitude is that we're afraid. Then we're gonna act like we're afraid.

There is vanity and loving money. He will never be satisfied. Solomon tells us but more importantly the Holy Spirit tells us in wisdom literature if you want to be wise understand and embody and inhabit Ecclesiastes wisdom wisdom wisdom.

Do you want to be wise or do you want to be a fool? Well, if you want to be wise you don't get satisfied with money. You have to understand the pursuit itself is vain. There is no amount that's gonna satisfy.

The abundance itself doesn't satisfy. All it does is increase your problems. We know this right because what's gonna happen is if you start to make a lot more money. You're gonna start to have a lot more friends.

Right. What happens when a kid out of the projects makes it to the NFL? Have you guys read the stories? Do you know what happens? He makes it in and all of a sudden everybody in the neighborhood was his best friend and they were there for him when no one else was and they all need a car and a house and.

Your average lifespan in the NFL is like three and a half years. So you're gonna make a few million dollars and you're gonna give it to your entourage and then it's gonna be gone. The whole thing was vain and that's what Solomon says because it's always been true he got the riches and.

Then good things increase the ones who consume them increase and it becomes a spiral. Right, the more you make the more the outflows there are. I? Remember it when you when you get raises, it's not like you have more money in savings.

You just spend more money. It's always the status quo. You just end up with more stuff from China and you're like, where is this stuff and you end up burning it or throwing it away and Cooper picks it up and we're like, ah if I just had some more money and that is how we work.

Is it not and Solomon is saying don't do that. Don't do it. And here's what he says. This is so this hits me right in the middle of my heart. You know what Solomon says you get for all of the striving after money.

You just get to look at it. That's what you get. I've Look at this money that I made look at the profit and Just watch your bank account. Like a greedy little miser and you're like, you know, because then you know what you feel like.

I'm safe I'm safe. I'm there. Nothing can hit me now, you know if I lost my job I'd be able to make it for a year without working. I'm so safe. Foolish. Foolish, does it make you think of someone else who looked out?

He stood up on his walls and he looked out and he said Look at all of my kingdoms. He was like Mufasa and he said everywhere that the Sun touches. This is my kingdom and the Lord said You're gonna eat the grass like a beast for seven years.

Old King Nebuchadnezzar. He got to look at how proud he was and I'm sure that he had friends of plenty. There were people surrounding him and then if that's not if that's not the worst look at what else happens.

Not only is all you get getting to look at it and a bunch of fake friends. Why do why do people have you seen it. Hollywood just goes through spouses, right? It's the sexual immorality to be sure but it's also when you get rich.

You can't really trust anybody. Can you they're after your money? How do you know they're not after your money if you haven't known them your whole life? It's really difficult but then there's another thing you start to Obsess about it and you lose sleep and it feels like it's a curse and by God's providence is amazing thing.

I finished up a book by John Steinbeck this last week. It's called the pearl. It's a really short story and what it does is it this is often talking about the rich people. They can't make it. The pearl is a story about a very poor Islander who finds he's he dives for pearls.

He never finds good ones, but he finds the pearl of pearls. It's huge and he starts thinking I'm gonna be able to get new clothes. We're gonna be able to take care of our baby. We're going to actually have something we're gonna be able to pay the doctor for the scorpion sting that my baby got.

This is all gonna happen. And you know what happens people find out about the pearl and everybody starts trying to rob him. Somebody tries to kill him on the pathway and his wife eventually says just he catches her.

She's trying to throw it back in the ocean. This pearl is a curse and at the end of it his baby Gets killed by people who are coming for the pearl and he ends up himself. Throwing the pearl in the ocean and the answer is this it's all in Solomon.

Is it not? You find these things and you think I'm set now. I've been struggling in poverty my whole life and I found the lottery ticket and lottery tickets destroy people. Don't they people who win the lottery lose their soul.

They're destroyed. It's like the cursed pearl. And Solomon says it and then the tragedy is this even with all the money you have. Because with the money comes the scale right. Elon Musk is not making thousand-dollar deals.

He's making multi-billion dollar deals and they're always one bad deal. Away from being right back where they started always. It's stress and you're thinking about it and it's running through your mind.

Am I painting a picture here? If you're thinking about money all the time, it's worrying you it's in your head. You're one bad endeavor away. And then what Solomon says is he goes for the kill shot and he says here's what happens.

You're one bad endeavor away and then not even your son is gonna get anything and you will return With what you came with which is absolutely nothing. This is a sickening Evil. You know, what's so sickening about it?

I like Jake's translation a sickening tragedy. Is it a tragedy when it seems like everything is going good and then the whole thing was a lie. And that's what the pursuit of money is it is. Promising all of the things it's promising comfort.

It's promising power. It's promising safety. It's promising control of your life. I can control my means. I can do it all and then at the end of the day The Lord says thou fool. You have nothing what good does it do a man to gain the world if he loses his soul?

Solomon says that right? It's right here. Well before the king says it His foreshadow says it you're not gonna be able to bring it with you your whole life. Look what's gonna happen. You're going to be alone in large groups.

You're gonna gain this money and you're gonna trust no one and everywhere you go. You're alone. You can't sleep at night when you get when you eat dinners. You're not gonna eat Kraft macaroni and cheese.

You're gonna be chasing the high of given seven course meals every single time you eat. You got to have a chef. It's got to be a production. You have to cling to everything you have and what's gonna happen is you end up eating alone.

Stressed sick vexed and. Yet you're not gonna want to die. That's actually a gift of the Christian we see what you're gonna want to do is you're gonna want to cling as hard as you possibly can to this life because you Know in your heart that that's all you have and it was all there last week.

Remember, what does the wise man do the wise man guards his steps into the house of the Lord the wise man comes? He's dependent. Jesus talks about the prayer of the beggar, right that he is pounding his chest saying Lord Forgive me a sinner and the rich man is going.

I'm so glad that you've not made me like him. And this is not a tale of egalitarianism. What it is is a tale of the treasures of the heart. You think you think that you're gonna make it with your money some of you do this morning.

You think that you think that if you just hit a certain plateau. That it's gonna change your family's destiny and it's all gonna be alright, and I'm telling you right now. That is a lie. It's a lie that your heart believes.

It's a lie. That's gonna be constantly pounded at you from the culture and it is death. And when it goes far enough It gets very very twisted. Let me tell you how you see it, right? People get to a certain level of wealth and they start turning the cart before the horse and they start thinking I wouldn't have all This wealth if I wasn't right with God.

Take it another way. How could my church have 10 ,000 people in it if I was a false teacher? Has God not blessed it? Has God not blessed my house with the money. Has God not blessed me with the business sense to have all of this stuff.

Have I not all of this influence and these friends? I have the governor on speed dial. I can talk to her anytime. I want to I have power. Isn't that hasn't God risen me up for such a time as this. That's what you'll hear him say.

But that's not how Solomon sees it. Solomon sees a dividing line and the dividing line is following God's Commandments. Particularly the tenth one. We're gonna talk about that one a lot today. It's the forgotten commandment, but remember the tenth commandment you're thinking I see it running through your mind.

It's coveting. Okay, and Paul says that's the one that nailed him. I thought I was good with the law until I read about coveting and This is the one that Solomon hits so hard in this text, isn't it? The difference between godliness and foolishness is covetousness.

You're a fool if you covet. You know why? Because when you amass wealth to yourself and you think that you've attained it if you even go into the house of the Lord you Think that he owes you something.

He didn't give it to you. You got it yourself with your ingenuity. So that is what verses 10 through 17 are about there's no advantage. It's always striving after the wind. Vexation sickness anger if you think another $2 ,000 a month is gonna make your budget right.

You are chasing after the wind. It's not true. It's not true. Do you believe it. There was a time listen, I'm smart enough. That it's very dangerous. I've been around the church enough to know that I can't ever actually say that.

We do this a lot. Don't we Christian? We know we can't say the things that we actually act like. We know we can't say. That we're afraid for our reputation and we're gonna let them hear the gospel without us even using a word because that's ridiculous.

And yet we do it. What good is what you believe if you don't do it. We have a whole book of the Bible about that and the wisdom of Solomon is not about knowing God's commands. It's about following God's commands.

It's about doing God's commands. He gives a contrast. Taught the blue-collar worker. The guy out picking crops. The blacksmith. You know the cobbler. This guy's sleeping like a baby. He has food. He has gainful employment.

He is probably working for himself, but he is just happy that he gets to go to the temple. He is happy that he gets to bring his sacrifices. He is happy that he has a community of people that are all working together and Solomon looks I think maybe a little enviously and he says that guy is content.

He loves his bread. He's really not all that worried about the number of his days. Why. Because that guy has it very fixed in his mind that the end of this road. It's really just the beginning of everything we ever wanted.

Is it not? It's the complete opposite because I'm gonna give you a newsflash. I'm gonna say the most obvious thing ever there is wisdom in God's law. Did you know that God's law is not popular in our day and age?

It's not. It's not popular in the culture. We hate it. We love us some murder and lying in the culture and we really love us some sexual immorality. But even in the church. Even in the church, we love us some taking God's name in vain.

We really like covetousness. I have noticed because of my time in the dregs of X we really really love bearing false witness. It's like one of our favorites is a cultural thing, but we love bearing false witness.

We love accusing people of sins that are not sins. We love casting dispersions. We love guilt by association. We love not listening to what the other person said. We love power plays to smear other people so that we can separate them from among us like they are lost.

We do this all the time. But there is wisdom in God's law and there is peace and tranquility in following it. Listen to how Solomon describes it. Don't make a mistake. He's talking about the Tenth Commandment here.

Contentment, God’s Law, and Faithful Labor

Okay? Here is what I have seen to be good. What is beautiful? To eat. To drink and. To see good in all one's labor in which he labors under the Sun during the few days of his life. Which God has given him for this is his portion.

Furthermore as for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth He has also empowered him to eat from them and take up his portion and be glad in his labor. This is the gift of God for he will not remember much the days of his life because God allows him to occupy himself with the gladness of his heart.

See God's kingdom is not about money he afflicts some people with wealth and he blesses some people with wealth and Godliness is not found in how much money you have neither poor nor rich nor in the middle.

The power and the blessing is found in answering the simple question. Do you obey your king and If you don't recognize him, you can't obey him. And if you do recognize him, you must obey him because to not obey him is the greatest foolishness that the mind can conceive of.

To see the All-powerful King and to think that his commands are optional is the most foolish thing that I can comprehend. And so what Solomon says is this. God gives to everyone. God gives you your desire to work.

He gives you your talents at work. He gives you your ability to gain or lose money. He gives your ability to be content. Bow foolish Galatians. Are you finishing what was started in the spirit through the flesh?

Are you in charge of your sanctification or is the spirit? You are being sanctified by the Spirit of God and your relationship with money is being sanctified by the Spirit of God and take. In a certain way Solomon could be pleading with his son.

Don't be covetous. Don't think you did it and what did his son do you guys know the story right? I'm afraid of Boehm. What did he do? He thought he did it all it was his. It's my turn. It's my time. I will show all of you That I'm greater than Solomon.

I Will accomplish it. It's everything Solomon feared. Isn't it his own son showed him the striving after the wind of what Solomon took his life to find out and Friends you can learn the easy way or the hard way and as a guy who's around teenagers a lot I tell you that they often want to learn the hard way and I was no exception to the rule when I was a teenager.

It's what gives me compassion for them because I know what I did and I know what I was like. But the reality is this Christians We should not want to learn the hard way. God has told us what's going to work.

He has given us his law he has revealed it to us and When we feel like we have to learn the hard way look Solomon is telling his sons in a very real way. You don't have to do what I did. It's a father telling us that fathers have you messed up in ways that you really really hope your son's never mess up.

I sure have I Sure have. I hope my son doesn't learn the same way that I did. But at the same time I know in futility he very well might have to learn the hard way. But Solomon pursued all of these ends to tell us it's empty.

Are you going to gain as much wealth as Solomon you can't. No one can. It's impossible and it accomplished. Nothing, it was vain. The kingdom destroyed ripped away one generation after the pinnacle. You would have looked at Solomon's kingdom and been like man.

What in the world is this? This is the this is the greatest thing I've ever seen. The riches the wisdom the law the wealth the peace. One generation and it's gone. So it is to ignore the lessons of the law.

So what does Solomon say? Well a man who has been blessed by God with riches or with lack of riches. The laborer who sleeps well or the man who has a Lot of wealth and knows that it came from the hand of God.

He understands where it came from. He is content in his portion. Not only of the amount of wealth but the amount of life. Friends, are you okay? Are you okay knowing? That it might be another year if you don't know how long you're gonna live.