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A Swarm of Locust (Joel CCD)

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INTRODUCTION

The phrase “senseless tragedy” is often employed when describing some crime or calamity. But as Christians, no tragedy is senseless. How are we to understand national tragedy? Joel gives us the pattern for how to respond to such tragedy, by his response to a swarm of locust.

THE TEXT

The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten. Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth… (Joel 1:1-5).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

After the brief personal introduction (v1), Joel invites the old men to give their assent to the uncommon magnitude of the tragedy that has befallen Judah, and then commands them to tell of this tragedy to future generations (vv2-3). Typically this command to tell future generations is in regard to great deliverances by the Lord’s hand (Cf. Ex. 10:1-2, Deu. 6:7, Josh. 4:6, Ps. 44:1), but here the devastating tragedy is to be retold to children’s children. The plague is then described in vibrant simplicity: the land has been devastated by wave after wave of locust (v4).

The drunkards are implored to weep, for their source of pleasure is cut off, and now must face the world (v5). The locust are likened to a foreign nation, fierce as lions (a theme then developed in 2:1-11 and then employed by St. John’s Apocalyptic vision); and the ruination the locust swarms brought was total (vv6-7).

The nation of Judah (often likened to a virgin, Cf. Amos 5:2) is to lament like a bereaved virgin (v8). The reason for the lamentation is that the locust swarms have utterly consumed the elements of the meat and drink offerings (vv9-10). The farmers and the priests are both exhorted to mourn, for the livelihood of the one and the ministry of the other are cut off (vs11-13).

The response to the tragedy should not be passivity. Rather, in the midst of the mourning, the priests should gather the elders and call a fast (v14). Joel provides a prayer for the nation to pray (vs15-18). The locust plague heralds that the Day of the Lord is soon at hand, and that Day will bring an even more severe judgement (v15), the rites of worship are unable to be performed, and joy and gladness along with it (v16), the Promised Land, which ought to be a land of rest, is laid desolate (v17), the flocks groan in the pangs of starvation and drought, and winnowing must follow (v18). Joel then speaks for himself (v19), demonstrating true prayers of contrition, the devastation was total––even the wild beasts who receive their meat and drink from the Lord (Cf. Ps 42:1, 104:21) were touched by this devastation (v20)––and from the Lord alone can there be restoration (Cf. 2 Chr. 20:12).

MEAT AND DRINK OFFERINGS

Leviticus 2 gives the prescriptions for the meat offerings. For the grain/meat offering, the worshipper would bring fine flour, oil, and frankincense. The priest would take a portion of these elements and burn them, while the rest would be a portion for the priests. The drink offering (Lev. 23:16, Num 15:6-7) varied in amount (between a quarter to half a hin––which is a little more than our modern gallon). It was never offered on its own, but always accompanied other offerings, and was explicitly only to be performed once Israel entered the land (Lev. 23:10). The wine could only be enjoyed once Israel entered her rest.

When examining the Mosaic offerings, the propitiatory nature of the sacrifices is often prominent. However, what ends up in our peripheral vision is that because our sin has been covered we’re enabled to meet with God (Ex. 29:42).

INVITATION TO MOURN

The locust swarm, and subsequent famine, directly impacted this important symbol of faithful worship. In light of this devastation, Joel invites all the people of the land to mourn and lament. While the mourning over the fact that the sign of communion with God was cut off, Joel is eager that they not neglect what the sign pointed to: their covenantal union with God by His free grace.

National lamentation is a bitter pill that only God can prescribe, and which we desperately need in  our own time, in order to heal our cancer of proud self-sufficiency. Edward Topsell put it this way, “Oh how stubborn is the conceit of our hard hearts, which will not be taught till they smart, nor yet be instructed till they be corrected.” Tough cuts of meat often need to endure a salty brine to make them tender. Stubborn nations and sinners often need a salty brine of suffering in order to soften their hearts. But national tragedies should bring about national lamentation and thus, in the end, national repentance and reformation.

But the plague of locust isn’t merely an event that happened and that Joel is simply responding to. He’s not using the locust swarms as a helpful sermon illustration. Rather, Joel wants us to see that the tragedy transpired at Yahweh’s command and according to His purpose, and, as such, are revelation. Swarms of locust are Divine revelations. God was saying something to Judah through clouds of insects.

WHEN GOD SHUTS THE TEMPLE

So what was God saying? We get a main clue by what Joel highlights as worthy of great mourning. The wheat, oil, and new wine were cut off. The rites of worship in the temple would also be unable to be performed. God is the one who sent the swarms, and so it was by His hand that the meat and drink offerings were suspended. God, who commanded Israel to commune with Him and meet with Him by these offerings, put His foot in the side of these offerings. The God of the offerings, cancelled the offerings.

When man is in rebellion to God, the primary symptom is various attempts to invert the Gospel. Man tries to make God palatable to man, instead of making man acceptable to God through Christ. We have churches ordaining women to offices which scripture explicitly state are reserved for men. We have churches repenting for sins conjured up by the woke-craft of Marxist mobs. We have churches providing cover for sodomy and all other varieties of sexual pollution. They do it all in an attempt to make God palatable to man, instead of bringing man to God.

Many a church has an orderly worship service, a liturgy based on biblical principles, they have bread and wine on the table, and water in the baptismal font, and yet they are tombs. God has seen fit, this year, to empty many such churches. God shut the temple. God cancelled the meat and drink offerings. Faithful mourning, as Joel demonstrates, can only come from loving what God loves and hating what He hates. This pandemic we face should bring us up short. God hates false religion so much that He cancelled church. God hates pretentious and presumptuous worshippers, and so he sent them to cover their faces and hide in their houses.

MAY THE SMOKE ASCEND

But this is why Joel invites Judah to mourn. We mourn that God has withdrawn Himself, and we plead with Him to relent. True mourning longs for the glory to be restored. For the smoke to ascend once more.

When Christ ascended, He brought us with Him. Our worship is the offering of ourselves, and it is in our worship that we ascend to God by Christ as a sweet savor. But if our worship is all tidy and in order, but our hearts are full of bitterness, our minds are polluted with lust, our hands are covered with the blood of hatred towards our brother, God will look on it all and say, “Time to shut it down.” Only through Christ, can our worship be made right.

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Jesus Is Coming (Palm Sunday)

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INTRODUCTION

The danger of clichés is that they are usually quite right.  but because they are right, they get consigned to pasteboard behind the goalposts of a televised football game. What should shake the foundations of darkness is met with an eye-roll.

THE TEXT

And I will encamp about mine house because of the army, because of him that passeth by, and because of him that returneth: and no oppressor shall pass through them any more: for now have I seen with mine eyes. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen: and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth (Zechariah 9:8-10).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Judah was once more enduring an occupation by foreign nations (Zech. 9:1-8). Zechariah assures the returning exiles that God was soon to come and would cast out those powers (9:4), and would see to it Himself (9:8). The assurance of this promised deliverance would be that Messiah would enter Jerusalem upon the foal of an ass, with rejoicing shouts filling Zion (9:9); Zechariah also elaborates on Isaiah’s earlier prophecy of the Messiah entering Zion endowed with salvation (Is. 62:11). This joyful entrance would result in the expulsion of the foreign forces while establishing peace with the heathen (9:10). Messianic texts like this one convinced godly Jews to conclude that under Messiah’s reign, the boundaries of the promised land would be universalized. To the ends of the earth, enemy nations would either crumble or convert.

RIDING UPON A DONKEY

Roman generals were accustomed to enter a city either on a donkey or upon a horse, signifying peace with the former and as a conqueror in the latter. So some point to this easy explanation. However, at one point in Biblical history, riding an ass was for the illustrious (i.e. Balaam, the early Judges of Israel, etc.). By the time of Zechariah’s prophecy riding upon an ass was a sign of lowliness.

We don’t necessarily have to choose sides here. Was Jesus coming like an ancient judge (i.e. Samson, Gideon, Barak)? Was Jesus taking a Roman custom and using it for his own purpose? Was Jesus coming in humble lowliness to defeat the dragon alone? The answer can be yes to all three.

But the full sum of the picture should be guided by what the text explicitly states. Matthew tells us that Christ riding into Jerusalem was the prophetic sign which Zechariah foretold come alive and fulfilled (Mt. 21:4-5). Which means that Christ’s entrance wasn’t a publicity stunt, it was a fork in the road. Either Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah as attested by His many signs, this being perhaps the most public, or He wasn’t. The gears of war which occupied Israel were soon to be overthrown. The Messiah is described as being just, having salvation, and lowly. Whatever other symbolism might be involved, Jesus riding upon the ass was a claim to be the Messiah.

His kingdom was not of this world, but by His sufferings, He would conquer all the kingdoms of this world. Yes, Israel was once more occupied by a foreign power. But the foreign power which Jesus had come to defeat was the spiritual principality of Satan’s kingdom.

OUR EVANGELICAL HERITAGE

Perhaps no motto shaped 20th century American Evangelicalism than the statement: “Jesus is coming soon.” In the late 1800s a new end-times position rose to popularity. It hinged on a belief that the world was on the verge of an apocalyptic end. One sign of this would be growing apostasy, followed by Jesus secretly rapturing true Christians. At the same time, many of the mainline denominations––which held to the more prevalent postmillennial view––were being duped by various errors: German theologians’ Higher Criticism, the implications of embracing Darwins theory of the origin of species, and a Gospel that was neutered into merely a “neighborhood clean up”.

The premillennialists saw that the authority of Scripture was under attack, the Gospel was at stake, and Christian morality would be compromised by these threats. Their defense of Scriptural authority was truly heroic. This movement came to be known as Fundamentalism, while many of the sought to retain the more historic term: Evangelical.

The engine driving much of the modern Evangelical fervor was that conviction that “Jesus is coming.” This sentiment motivated the Evangelicals to fight against the looming darkness so as to be found faithful when Christ came. A noble aim, even if situated atop flimsy exegesis. It’s like the Algebra student who, despite faulty steps to solve the problem, comes to the correct answer. The thing which marked 20th century evangelicals was urgency in light of Christ’s imminent return.

JESUS IS COMING

The reality is that Jesus is coming. Our evangelical heritage got that right. Indeed that sentiment outdates 20th century Fundamentalism, and was expressed during the Reformation by the emphasis on living coram Deo.

The Christ we preach is ascended to the right hand of the Father. He isn’t playing video games with Cheeto-dusted fingers, until His dad tells Him to come get us. Christ is ruling the world. He is present and involved in the affairs of history. Jesus is not disengaged from the affairs of history. He is holding the scepter of the universe.

So we rightly join the Palm Sunday crowds in declaring Jesus is coming. He is coming to cleanse the temple. He is coming to make dry bones come alive. He is coming to topple tyrants. He is coming to mend the brokenhearted. He is coming to humble overbearing husbands and rebuke sniping wives. He is coming to rescue prodigal sons. He is coming to defeat His enemies.

He comes in fire and fury. He comes in gentle words of redemption. He comes to usher saints to their eternal rest in His presence. He comes to undo the wicked and their evil designs. Neither you nor I can stop Him. Congress can’t pass bills to halt the advance of His Kingdom. Jesus is coming.

THE KINGDOM IS CHRIST’S

Ezekiel was given the vision of God’s throne, and it rested upon wheels within wheels (Ez. 1:15-28). The implication being that God’s authority was swift, immediate, and universal. Christ’s authority is not like a bureaucracy of committees, where we need to wait until the regularly stated meeting to take up the business of motioning and seconding to take up this or that question at the next stated meeting. No. When Christ comes, it is as King, endowed with salvation, so as to overthrow the wicked and establish peace.

We’re at the point where a generation will be saturated in their sins (both real and imagined). But there’s no way to be saved, forgiven, atoned. You can’t grovel enough, no one is righteous enough. We are laden with guilt and shame. And then, in the black midnight of this generation’s soul, Jesus will come. His Holy Spirit will convict of true sin, reveal the righteous Judge who comes endowed by the Father with the power to save. Jesus is coming, and when He comes we shall be turned. The enemies will be driven from our midst and we shall be free. Jesus is coming indeed (Ps. 50:3).

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Sons & Daughters

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INTRODUCTION

Sons & daughters, hang with me here, are different. If you hand a girl a nerf gun, she’ll wrap it in a blanket and put it to bed. If you hand a doll to a boy, somehow he’ll turn it into a gun. As fathers and mothers, you are called to raise your sons and daughters in the fear and admonition of the Lord. But while the Lord admonishes certain things to all people––male or female––He admonishes certain things for boys who are to become men, and girls who are to become women.

THE TEXT

I will sing a new song unto thee, O God: upon a psaltery and an instrument of ten strings will I sing praises unto thee. It is he that giveth salvation unto kings: who delivereth David his servant from the hurtful sword. Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood: That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace: That our garners may be full, affording all manner of store: that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets: That our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets. Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD” (Psalm 144:9-15).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

=The first half of this Psalm deals with David at war (vs1-8), and the second half deals with David at peace. But underneath it all is God’s favor, and thus His strengthening blessing. God strengthened David’s hands (v1) to war against “strange children (v7).” But it is also God who establishes the peace and prosperity of a kingdom.

After blessing God for granting him might and victory in battle, David sings a new song of praise (v9). Salvation is from God (v10), and so he requests continued deliverance from “the hand of strange children” (v11).

This deliverance is requested so that peace might be enjoyed by the nation. This peace is presented in terms of familial prosperity. God’s favor in conflict brought strength for battle against enemies, but God’s favor in peace looks like happy households.

The olive plants around the table (Ps. 128:3) are intended to grow into masculine strength and feminine glory respectively. By God’s favor in deliverance, Israel’s sons might grow up into sequoias, and their daughters might be the family’s hidden ornaments family together like polished cornerstones (v12). Garners are filled, the table is laden, the flocks are fertile, the oxen are hardy, and there are no “mostly peaceful protests” (vs13-14). This is true happiness, but it is only because God is their Lord (v15).

SONS OF COURAGE

Children are a blessing from the Lord, but not an automatic blessing. After all, “A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him (Pro 17:25).” The greatest folly which a son can disappoint his parents with is a lack of courage. Boys are to be raised to die. They need to learn to be ready to die in battle protecting their treasured wives, daughters, and mothers; or else to die in backbreaking provision for the household.

Sons need straight lines. Go take that hill. Go conquer that enemy. Go obtain that treasure. Go rescue that damsel.Sons are to be raised to be men who can rule kingdoms, take dominion, and build wealth. To do this, they must first learn to take dominion of their appetites.

DAUGHTERS OF CHASTITY

While sons need straight lines, daughters need circles. Circles of safety. Circles of companionship. Circles of security. Circles of industry.

In Titus 2:4-5, we are told how older women are to instruct young women, “That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.” Whereas sons are raised up to die, daughters are raised up to give life. She gives life by following the Apostle’s instructions to be “into husband, and into children.” This chastity is to recognize that her privilege is that of bearing life, bringing life, and sustaining life. The home which she keeps is the incubator of life, and she does all this in order that God’s Word be honored.

Daughters are to be raised to be queens of nations, industrious in their creativity, and give nurture and refreshment. To do this, they must first learn to take dominion of their emotions.

FATHERS, MOTHERS, SONS, AND DAUGHTERS

Your father points, your mother encircles. Children need direction and they need nurture. Sons which never grow up into sturdy oaks are the result of some combination of a pampering mother and an ambivalent father. Daughters which don’t become finely crafter palace ornaments are the result of fathers who aren’t affectionate towards them, and mothers riddled with envy and rivalry.

Mothers, you must not raise your sons to be safe. You are a mother, not a smother. You must raise your daughters to be loving wives, and loving mothers, and thus you must model this in your own marriage and parenting.

Fathers, you must not raise your sons to be self-indulgent. You are teaching them to be warrior-poets, not black-holes. Teach them to make, not take. You must raise your daughters to know and understand that they are rare treasures, which you prize highly.

A HAPPY PEOPLE

We talk of our rights for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We will not be a happy people merely by economic prosperity. Better is a crumb in peace than a feast with contention. However, a happy home is a blessing indeed, a prosperous home is a blessing indeed, a nation at peace is a blessing indeed. But the closing lines of this Psalm are not either or; rather it is intended to draw out how much more happy a people is who enjoy the electing grace of God upon them.

Happy is the people who are in such a case, but that happiness is exponentially heightened when the bedrock underneath, the waves washing overtop, the air all around is God’s favor. This favor is not found anywhere other than in His beloved Son. God will not look with favor on a people who are not in Christ. So turn to Christ, both you, the wife of your youth, your sons, your daughters, reckon yourselves in Christ, and enjoy the favor of God. God who forgives your sins. God who grants everlasting life. God who also gives sons like oak, daughters like beautifully carved palatial adornments, garners full of the fruit of hard work, and city streets empty of complaining.

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Fathers & Mothers

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INTRODUCTION

The US Congress recently introduced the rules for their new legislative session. They struck gendered familial terminology (i.e. father, mother, son, daughter, etc.) from the House’s rules for legislators. The recent events of our nation reveal our void of fathers and mothers. This is just one more effort by the godless to further erode the biblical structure for families.

THE TEXTS

“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named” (Eph. 3:14-15).

“But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all” (Gal. 4:26).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXTS

When we think about Fatherhood and Motherhood we need to sweep out the clutter. These roles are not optional add-ons which you can discuss with the dealership. They aren’t social constructs which support the oppression of victims. They aren’t the evolutionary development of our species ability to babble some sounds and then linking them with our immediate ancestors. They aren’t interchangeable parts of machinery.

Your father and mother are earthly shadows of cosmic realities. God is your Father, the Church is your Mother. That is the evident in these two texts from the pen of Paul.

In Ephesians 3:14-15, Paul bends his knee to God the Father; every family derives its name from God’s Fatherhood. You don’t have family without fatherhood, and you don’t have any of it without God the Father and Creator. In Greek, you can’t say family (patria) without saying father (patera). In other words, God’s Fatherhood fills the world and fills our earthly families as the inescapable reality. In Him we live and move and have our being.

Furthermore, God has taken a bride for His Son, our Lord Jesus, and she is our Mother. Paul, while making the case that we are delivered from the bondage to sin which the mosaic Law revealed, he uses the imagery of Hagar and Sarah. Two mothers: one a slave, one a free-woman. Which one is your mother? Mother Kirk is a fertile mother, because she is marked by grace and thus life springs from her; whereas Hagar (the bond-woman/Sinai), brings bondage and death (Gal. 4:26).

CHILDREN OF PROMISE

Children who grow up without parents or with unmarried parents are faced with a deck of statistics stacked against them. With few exceptions, their lifetime income is significantly lower; their education level will not go as high; their likelihood of being abused and then abusing in turn shoots through the roof; their prospects are bleak by almost every metric. Children were not intended to exist in a covenantal void. Scripture is concerned with bastard children, which is why it placed heavy penalties on rape, pre-marital sex, and adultery (Cf. Lev. 18), as well as provision for the care of fatherless children (Deu. 16:11, Ps. 68:5).

So, if you are a father or mother, you must not think of your duty as being in a separate container from your marriage vows, and the consummation of those vows. You are a husband and a wife first. The potency of this covenantal love produces children. Your children are children of a promise, even as believers the whole family are children of the Promise.

COVENANT DUTY OF FATHERS AND MOTHERS

So Fathers are first husbands which are called to be faithful to their promise of loving and cherishing. Mothers are first wives which are called to faithfully fulfill their vow to submit and obey.

A father which exhibits for his children that he doesn’t beam with delight over their mother (Is. 62:5), isn’t attentive to her (1 Pt. 3:7), doesn’t shower her with love (1 Ti. 5:8) will teach them to railroad her (Pro. 10:1). Husbands love their wives practically by full bank accounts, full cupboards, full closets, and full wombs.

Mothers which run down their husband in front of the kids (2 Sam. 16-23), swerving the opposite direction he is leading (Eph. 5:22), or criticizing his leadership at every turn (Pro 21:19) is teaching her children to be lawless rebels. Wives respect their husbands by bearing his name, and being his glory; she demonstrates this respect practically by not being an indecipherable code to get into, but by being ready for him and responding to him in all spheres of their relations (sexually, directionally, financially).

Lazy, inattentive husbands and bitter, nagging wives are teaching the children more than just how to be unpleasant humans. A sin-riddled marriage is presenting a false Gospel, and marred understanding of God the Father, Christ the Son, and His Bride.

It’s vital that we see that Fathers and Mothers are cosmic categories. Husbands show their children how Christ laid down his life for the church. Wives show their children what joyful obedience to Christ should be. Not only are you teaching them about Fatherhood and Motherhood, but also the glorious Gospel of sacrificial love, responded to in joyful response.

COVERED IN SAWDUST & FLOUR

These covenantal duties are not pie-in-the-sky intangibles. Rather, these spiritual duties are earthy, and are covered in sawdust and flour.

In Scripture, fathers name; a fathers’ word carry great weight. Fathers provide and protect. Fathers represent God to their families and their families to God. Father’s correct and teach. Fathers sacrifice and intercede. Fathers rule and lead. Fathers head their home.

Mothers respond to this headship by being fruitful. Indeed without the Father, she cannot bear fruit. As the one who bears and nurtures new humans she is to be held in high honor. They are to be fountains of the sort of wisdom which might be worn proudly around the neck of their offspring (Pr. 1:8-9). They are to be industrious, and laugh at all the troubles which are around the bend (Pro. 31:25). Mothers give glorified life and nourishment that is provided by the Father.

ADOPTED AS JOINT-HEIRS WITH CHRIST

In Reformed theology we generally emphasize justification and sanctification. We blast through the mega-phone that you are not saved by your works of righteousness, you are justified in God’s sight only because of Christ’s righteousness and death in your place. We exhort each other to holiness and growth in sanctification because God has set us apart to be a holy people. But we must not gloss over the fact that one of the terms which is frequently included in NT descriptions of salvation is adoption (Gal 4:4-7).

>God the Father, by the redeeming work of His Son, has delivered you from bondage to the law of sin and death. This isn’t like one cruel slave-master defeating another cruel slave-master, and your just caught in the crossfire. Rather, Paul tells us that you are no more a servant, but a son. In other words, you now have a share in the inheritance which belongs to Christ Jesus: resurrection life, everlasting joy, unending glory. You have been adopted as sons. Your Father in Heaven has given to Mother Kirk the Bread of Life and the Wine of Relief, and she has spread a table for the nourishment of her children. The children of grace and glory.

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