I don’t recommend books often, but . . .

I can’t recommend these two highly enough.  I happened to be reading them at the same time and it was perfect to alternate between them.  They offer thoroughly sound, practical and timeless guidance on how to live the Christian life.

The Enemy Within: Straight Talk about the Power and Defeat of Sin: Kris Lundgaard – great reminders about the reality of indwelling sin and how we need to fight it until we die.

Drawing from Indwelling Sin and The Mortification of Sin by Puritan John Owen, Lundgaard aims for the heart with a battle plan for radical spiritual transformation! His biblically sound principles on breaking the cycle of sin will help you live a victorious and fulfilling Christian life. Includes study questions.

Desiring God, Revised Edition: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist: John Piper – a classic that really gets you focused on the joy that is our birthright in Christ.

 Satisfaction…Happiness…Joy. According to John Piper, the pursuit of pleasure in God is not only permissible, it’s essential.

Desiring God is a paradigm-shattering work that dramatically alters common perspectives on relating to God.  Piper reveals that there really is no need to choose between duty and delight in the Christian life. In fact, for the follower of Jesus, delight is the duty as Christ is most magnified in His people when they are most satisfied in Him.

Constantly drawing on Scripture to build his case, Piper shows why pursuing maximum joy is essential to glorifying God. He discusses the implications of this for conversion, worship, love, Scripture, prayer, money, marriage, missions, and suffering.

Piper beckons us to approach God with the hedonist’s abandon. Finally, we are freed to enjoy Jesus—not only as our Lord and Savior, but also as our all-surpassing, soul-satisfying Treasure.

Desiring God may turn your Christian world upside down. And that will be a good thing, for the glory of God, and for your deepest joy.

Follow up from the “Christian” Left

This. Is. Classic. My new buddies at the “Christian” Left  are sad that I’ve stated that they deny the divinity of Christ, and they are aggressively denying that they are deniers.

Some of our fundie critics like to accuse us of denying the divinity of Christ. We can’t figure out if they’re purposely lying or just misled. We do no such thing. No one understands the Trinity. No one. We do not deny the divinity of Christ. In the past we’ve posted articles that attempt to analyze which aspects of Jesus were true man and which aspects were true God. Apparently the fundies freaked out about that. That’s generally what happens when they are forced to think outside their template.

Hmmmm . . . maybe they should pay attention to what Mark Sandlin, one of their leaders, says in his posts:

No Trinity for me, please

Jesus is not my God

Subtle, eh?  You’ll get the same message from false teacher Chuck “Jesus is not the only way but He sure is a bigot” Currie.

Now how could we possibly get the idea that the “Christian” Left denies the divinity of Christ and the Trinity just because they post articles saying, “Jesus is not my God” and “No trinity for me, please” and more?

The Book of Numbers and abortion

When teaching pro-life reasoning, I often say in the Q&A that if someone can come up with a pro-abortion argument I haven’t heard, then I’ll give them a quarter.  Well, recently, I have seen an argument I hadn’t heard before (fortunately, it was from a pro-abort on a blog and not a pro-lifer in the training class!).  I’ve seen this a couple places recently and it is transparently false if you just read the text.

Here is their argument.  Note that they don’t even believe the Bible is the word of God; they are just pretending that we are inconsistent if we aren’t pro-abortion.  And note that most of these have come from the “Christian” Left, not from atheists.

Jesus never mentioned abortion, although there are biblical references to the abortifacient herbs (Numbers) used by “wise” women. Additionally, if a woman’s fidelity was questioned, she would be forced to take the abortifacient herbs, and if she miscarried, it was assumed the fetus was conceived in sin. Gotta love the magical thinking behind that one, and another way to punish women for the acts of men.
So, you are correct, cherry-picking only those parts of the bible you agree with really is hypocrisy.

Here is my response to the Numbers claim:

I encourage you to re-read your pro-abortion Bible texts.  That passage doesn’t even say the woman was pregnant, yet pro-aborts use it to rationalize abortion!  It shows how desperate they are — as if they actually cared about what the Book of Numbers said.  See http://www.gotquestions.org/Numbers-abortion.html for more.

You are welcome to show me in the Book of Numbers where it says the woman is pregnant (not there). Then you could show where she has an abortion (not there). Then you could show where God taking a life means that we can also take lives in the another fashion for any reason, including those of our own children (not there).

—–

Bonus: While talking about Numbers, let me share this from an earlier post plugging that book.  Read it!  (The Bible, not this. OK, read both.)

Apparently, the Book of Numbers should really be called “In the Wilderness” (the meaning of Ba’midmar (במדבר), the Hebrew title). At least, that’s what various sites on the Interwebs tell me.

So why the change? I’m unsure, but it is too bad they didn’t go with the more interesting-sounding Hebrew version. For people who don’t read the Bible the current title sounds like it is all genealogies. Yes, it starts with a census, But consider these great passages that you miss out on if you don’t read it:

  • A test for adultery
  • The Nazirite vow
  • Elders appointed to aid Moses
  • The quail. Lots of quail.
  • Miriam and Aaron oppose Moses
  • Spies going into Canaan
  • The people’s rebellion
  • Korah’s rebellion (referred to in Jude)
  • Moses strikes the rock
  • The bronze serpent
  • Balaam and his donkey
  • Driving out the inhabitants
  • Cities of refuge
  • Much, much more!

Seriously, don’t miss the Book of Numbers — or anything else in the Bible. Like I’ve said, if/when you get to Heaven, it will be awkward if you haven’t read every author’s books (“Oh, uh, hi Amos . . . look over there!” [Runs away]).

Better yet, think about how you’ll tell Jesus all the excuses you had for not reading it regularly and eventually read it all. (Yeah, I’m fine using the carrot or the stick to get you to read more!)

Just read it. Every day.

The “Christian” Left and their Ayn Rand obsession

One of the recurring themes of the visitors from the “Christian” Left Facebook page was their obsession with Ayn Rand.  Their basic guilt-by-association fallacy goes like this:

  • You agree with Ayn Rand
  • Ayn Rand was a super-evil atheist
  • Therefore, you worship money and are anti-Jesus

A sample:

Your theology is based on “The law of the jungle,” “every man for himself,” “survival of the strongest,” “survival of the fittest,” “kill or be killed,” “dog eat dog,” and “eat or be eaten.” It’s as old as the hills and it comes from the pit of Hell. Actually it’s Satanism pure and simple. Maybe you and your buddy Paul Ryan, who is a big fan of Ayn Rand, can start a Satanic Sunday School class together. Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, had this to say about Rand: “I give people Ayn Rand with trappings.” Ryan says he’s not a fan of Objectivism, but he loves Rand’s books and he formed his views of economics from reading them. Never mind that her blasphemous books drip with Objectivism on every page. You and your flock have been deluded by Satan himself! 1 Timothy 4:1-2 describes you well, but you are so delusional and blind you can’t see it. Let that one through for your readers.

The counter to that is pretty simple.  Just note how Rand was pro-abortion, like them, so using their logic they are equivalent to her.  You can also point out that they are the ones pushing the Darwinist philosophy, not us.

In their zeal to demonize their ideological foes (i.e., real Christians), they use any fallacious memes they can.  They repeat them a lot in their echo chambers, then go into full freak-out mode when their sound bites are so easily refuted.

To state the obvious, agreeing with someone about one thing doesn’t mean you agree with them on everything.  Did I really have to spell that out?  Apparently so, because that is the premise of their argument.

Rand was eerily accurate about the motives, behavior and results of Leftists.  As the joke goes, Atlas Shrugged was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.

But  just because she diagnosed the problem doesn’t mean she had the right solution.  As an atheist, she misunderstood key parts of human nature.  And of course, her pro-abortion views were anti-Christian.

Unfortunately, the Leftists I explained this to just ran away.  Hopefully it planted a seed with them, but in my experience they’ll use the same bad arguments again if they think no one is looking.

Prove me wrong, “Christian” Left!

Update: Captain Obvious forgot to point out another example: Ask the Leftists what they think of Karl Marx’ philosophies.  Because he was a devout Christian, right?

Roundup

ROUNDUP TIME

The No. 1 Reason Teens Keeps the Faith as Young Adults — Makes sense.  If your parents went to church but obviously didn’t care about God the rest of the week, that would send a very clear message to kids that Christianity is just some social club and not an all-encompassing way of life.

The holy grail for helping youth remain religiously active as young adults has been at home all along: parents.

Mothers and fathers who practice what they preach and preach what they practice are far and away the major influence related to adolescents keeping the faith into their 20s, according to new findings from a landmark study of youth and religion.

I am not making this up: Lena Dunham Threatens To Sue Truth Revolt For Quoting Her — Uh, if you write a book claiming to have molested your sister then don’t be surprised when people quote you on it.  We are in some sort of bizarre state when even the Leftists can’t realize how messed up that girl is.  And of course, she is a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman.

British MPs Vote 181-1 to Declare Sex-Selection Abortions Illegal — That’s great news!  Now if only the U.S. and others would follow suit.  And more importantly, if every one would realize that all abortions (except the very limited number that save the life of the mother) should be illegal.  After all, if killing a human being for not being the preferred gender is wrong, why is it acceptable to kill her for having Down Syndrome, or because she is getting in the way of a love life/career/education, or if she is just plain unwanted?

Wine, Blind Taste Tests, and Your Money — I don’t drink wine, but this is still fascinating.   Good lessons here on expert opinions and pricing.

You’re standing at the grocery store looking at a large selection of wines. You know you want a red wine to go well with your pasta meal this evening. One is $5.99 per bottle. Another is $19.99 per bottle and has a little tag bragging about the score it received in some wine magazine. Which one is likely to bring you more enjoyment?

Believe it or not, the difference between the wines amounts to a complete coin flip. Professional wine judges, when faced with duplicate blind taste tests, fail to accurately repeat their grading of wines. From this study, with my own emphasis added:

“Wine judge performance at a major wine competition has been analyzed from 2005 to 2008 using replicate samples. Each panel of four expert judges received a flight of 30 wines imbedded with triplicate samples poured from the same bottle. Between 65 and 70 judges were tested each year. About 10 percent of the judges were able to replicate their score within a single medal group. Another 10 percent, on occasion, scored the same wine Bronze to Gold. Judges tend to be more consistent in what they don’t like than what they do. An analysis of variance covering every panel over the study period indicates only about half of the panels presented awards based solely on wine quality.“

These results – 10% of the tasters repeating their grading – are within the realm of ordinary luck.

In fact, there has really only been one thing that clearly “moves the needle” when it comes to wine tasting results: the price on the wine bottle.

UK feminists urge parliament to pass bill banning gendercide abortions

gender-equality

border-ebola

gop slaves

Pulpit freedom — preach on everything!

God is sovereign over every last molecule in the universe.  The notion that our ideological enemies can label a topic as “political” and then demand that we not talk about it in church is ridiculous.  

Voddie Baucham (via his Facebook page) and this link made some great points — Are Churches Subject to Section 501(c)(3) of the Tax Code?

 For those who insist our current problems are the result of the Church “refusing to give up it’s 501(c)(3) status, please BE INFORMED! A church CANNOT GIVE UP 501(c)(3) status! Consequently, for those who live in fear of the IRS, a church also cannot lose it’s 501(c)(3) status. All they can do is take your certificate (and even when they do that, you can get it back). All your certificate does is guarantee people that their gifts are tax deductible. However, their gifts remain tax deductible by virtue of you being a church whether you have that certificate or not.

People who shout, “Just give up the tax break” are uninformed. First, it’s not a “tax break.” Churches are not taxable. A tax break is a reduction, or elimination of taxes one would otherwise owe. Second, giving up the tax benefit (assuming we could) would not change the fact that we are classified as 501(c)(3) organizations.

But there’s another issue… The Johnson Amendment. This is the unconstitutional amendment, passed without discussion, analysis, or scrutiny, that was designed to protect LBJ from a political opponent. THIS is the pretext for the attempted ‘gagging’ of the Church. ADF has been trying to challenge the Johnson amendment for years through it’s Pulpit Freedom initiative. However, the IRS won’t take the bait! Pastors are preaching “political” sermons, but they’re not being challenged. They’re not having their 501(c)(3) status taken away. The result, 1) we haven’t been able to challenge the Johnson amendment, and 2) we have learned that it is a paper tiger!

Folks, if churches cannot be involved in politics, then, the minute marriage became political, we lost our right to preach on it. Moreover, the minute the deity of Christ enters the political sphere, we’ll have to leave that alone too. DON’T BUY THE LIE! Preach on EVERYTHING!

 

The self-parody of the “Christian” Left

Welcome visitors!  Please start with this post, as it has foundational explanations of where the “Christian” Left goes wrong.  You see, the Left adheres to Leopard Theology (aka Dalmatian Theology), where people claim that the Bible is only inspired in spots and that they are inspired to spot the spots.  Then there is Advanced Leopard Theology, where God is also changing spots and adding and removing spots, and, oddly enough, He is only telling theological Leftists and “Progressives.”  If you just stop and think about it for a minute it is obvious that they are just making a god in their own image, but they are so steeped in their false theology and so obedient to the “god” of this world (Satan) that they can’t see it.  Pray that God will take the scales from their eyes as they are busy abusing scripture to their ends!

And don’t miss the comment thread.  It is epic, especially when Charles wraps himself in knots lying. Though I do thank him for the traffic and for exposing the Left and educating sincere seekers!

The “Christian” Left Facebook page is so open minded that they can’t handle alternate views being posted there, even though I gladly let false teacher Chuck “Jesus is not the only way but He sure is a bigot” Currie and others post here.  Not surprising!  Just another cowardly “Christian” Left echo chamber.

Update:  Good news!  The Facebook site published a link to this page.  I hope you all read the comments section here (and there!).  I’ve let many comments through from the Leftists who posted them.  Too bad they are too cowardly to let me post on their page.  Maybe they’ll relent!  I’d love to debate them on their faulty theology.

They covet 24×7, begging Caesar to take from the “greedy” people by force to “give” to counterproductive Leftist causes. They blather about the “least of these” but are radical pro-abortion extremists, fully supporting the Left’s dream of increasing abortions via taxpayer-funding.  They deny the Holy Spirit’s work in the Bible and claim that the human authors and the early church were blasphemous liars.  They proudly deny the deity of Christ.  They encourage people to commit suicide (just file the right paperwork, OK!). They promote LGBTQX behaviors, and have nearly identical views to the world. It shows who their real father is. They deny that Jesus is the only way to salvation, even though the Bible teaches that over 100 times.  They claim to be tolerant and loving but offer a series of mean-spirited personal attacks at anyone who dares disagree with them.  And so much more.

1 John 2:15-16 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.

Side question for the race- and gender-baiters: Have you posted celebratory comments about Mia Love, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Joni Ernst, etc.?  If not, why not?  Do you hate minorities and women?

Update 2: One of Chuck’s buddies said that I was guilty of attacking his wife and kids online.  The truth that Chuck didn’t share (surprise!) and hoped I wouldn’t disclose was that I was merely referring to things that Chuck wrote about his wife and kids.  From at least the age of 6 he has taken them to gay pride parades and put photos online.  So I wasn’t attacking his kids (I feel sorry for them), I was critiquing him for being such a terrible father.  And he joked online that his wife was an atheist, which I found odd.  Seems like he’d want her to repent and believe and avoid Hell.  Oh, wait, he’s a fake Christian and doesn’t believe we need to trust in Jesus to be saved.  But that does say a lot about his evangelistic skills.  He can’t even convert his wife to the “Christian” Left.

Update 3: They linked to me again!  And called me a false teacher and called themselves “Christian Left scripture warriors!”  Meditate on the irony, folks, and read the comment section to see how scriptural their arguments are.

They are still too gutless to let me comment there, but I can see how embarrassing it is when real believers annihilate their anti-Christian sound bites.  If people follow the commenting guidelines they are welcome to comment here.  Just read some of their petty and hypocritical comment threads here or there.  These comments from a believer about the “Christian” Left site were not surprising:

On the Christian left site all you guys do is make fun of anything Christian. You delete bible verses that are related to that topic but keep the stuff where people are cursing you and calling you a troll. You guys don’t want anybody to know the truth of the bible that is why you delete it. You are so envious and ate up with jealousy over people with money. You are leading your followers down a dangerous path the narrow path. I pray that you open your eyes to the truth before it’s too late.

I just read on the Christian left site and this poor women likes them even though she has never read the bible. That is why they don’t let a Christian comment on there or use verses out of bible because they know it might touch their heart. This woman needs to hear the gospel and unfortunately they are the only “bible” she sees.

Yes, they hate it when you quote the Bible in context.  It is Satanic.  2 Corinthians 11:13–15 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

And they are still whining about the election and using their pathetic race-baiting and gender-baiting baiting. They are already attacking the women who won as “extremists.”  Seems kinda misogynistic.  One commenter posted a video making fun of Joni Ernst’s laugh that had 6 “likes” in half an hour.  Stay classy, Leftists!

And they are hypocritical as well (i.e., pro-abortionists calling other people extreme?!)  I hope they keep it up through 2016 and beyond!

gop

Chuck and the “Christian” Left deliberately withhold the Gospel from people.

Chuck Currie: “I would argue that it inappropriate and deeply offensive for Christians to attempt to convert Jews or to misuse the Hebrew Scriptures and claim them as Christian writings.”

Yeah, because Jesus and the early church never took the Good News to the Jewish people, right?  Chuck is just channeling Satan there.

Their site quotes Jesus telling the people to be like the Good Samaritan, as if what the guy really did was to leave the injured man and go beg Caesar to force someone else to help him!

The comment thread here has been illuminating.  Page after page of people briefly leaving their echo chamber of empty sound bites.  Several used the shrimp / shellfish argument but had obviously never studied the passages or heard the counter-arguments.  When I shared them, they immediately changed the subject.  Sad, but not surprising.

—–

Radical pro-abortionist and false teacher Chuck “Jesus is not the only way but He sure is a bigot” Currie of the UCC (Unitarians Counterfeiting Christ) posts to a Facebook site called The Christian Left along with some other false teachers like Mark Sandlin.  I left some comments there this morning, and of course they went into full pants-wetting mode when they saw them and deleted them all.  I knew that would happen but had some fun in the mean time.

I am not making this up: One of the “Christian” Left commenters told me to take my Bible verses and shove them up my ass.  Yep, that’s the “Christian” Left for you!  That is exactly how they feel about the word of God.

You almost feel sorry for them.  Even when Obama won I wouldn’t give up hope.  But when politicians are your gods then of course that would send Leftists into depression.

—–

I’m pasting this from the comments section.   Too good not to share.  In response to Charles I wrote:

Never heard of you or Smith, but I’ve written about Sandlin some and Currie many times. Chuck and I have a special relationship, because I know he’s a liar and he knows I know he’s a liar. He deleted a comment of mine once on his blog then claimed I said things that I hadn’t. I challenged him to provide the evidence but he never did. Because he’s a liar.

We don’t worship politicians. We expect them not to make laws that crush the least of these.

Wow, you broke the hypocrisy meter. Seriously, you are like Chuck, reflexively quoting Matthew 25 but being completely blinded to it. These are the “least of these,” and you approve of their literal destruction!

I think I’ll do a separate blog post on that line alone.

YOU and your kind are the false teachers buddy! Be sure and say your prayers to Mammon tonight because that’s who you worship. Then read about yourself in Rev 17 and 18!

Thanks for the laughs! I didn’t realize you knew how much money I gave away and where I spend my time. Did Obama’s IRS tell you that?

—–

Some additional thoughts: Jesus said to help the poor with YOUR money.  He didn’t say to petition Caesar to take from neighbor A by force to give — oops, I mean redistribute — to neighbor B and to call it generosity on your part.  That’s one of the foundational errors the Left makes.

Roundup

ROUNDUP TIME

14 Ways I Teach Apologetics to My 5-Year-Old — Outstanding tips and attitude.  Highly recommended to any current or future parents!  Hat tip: Wintry Knight (who else?)

Russia against the Sex Pervert Nation — It is sad how our country is exporting oxymoronic “same-sex marriage” and the normalization of perversions.

La Raza Makes Use of WaPo’s Guide to ID-Free Voting — A racist organization (the name literally means “the race” encourages people to vote even though they don’t have identification.  Hmmmm . . . wouldn’t include any illegal aliens, would it?  Save the link for the next foolish and/or malicious Leftist claims voter ID laws are oppressive.

Jonathan Coulton did, indeed, get threatened by the Democratic party of New York state — Very subtle, Leftists.  The good news about their veiled threats against voters: Human nature is such that it may drive people to vote, but for the other party.

Is Your Church Safe? — “Safe” churches are the most dangerous places on the planet. Your guard is down because you think you’ll be told the truth about God, but Satan is there filling you with lies.

I had to follow up with her again to find out what they meant by “safe.”

From what she told me, the idea behind a safe church is one that anyone can come to and be comfortable with the messages being preached. In other words, the messages are affirming everyone in who they are without regard to their… well, eternal state.

US ambassador to Iraq: WH was warned early on about ISIS, “did almost nothing” — They were more concerned about politics and went with their “hate America first” default position.

Coca-Cola’s Anti-Religious Positions — I’m sure Pepsi is Leftist as well, but this is one more reason not to consume anything by Coke.

Clinton, Crapitalism, and the Fear Machine — Read it all.  Great take down of Hillary, plus this take on “Crapitalism.”

My friend Jason Mattera dubs this system “Crapitalism” in his latest book.  The forms of capitalism are observed, and indeed the Ruling Class is very eager to appropriate its language – for example, by referring to Big Government tax-and-spend programs as “investment.”  But beneath this free-market veneer is a squalid normalization of corruption, in which politicians confer billions from the Treasury upon those who donate millions to their campaigns.  It’s not always a straight cash payoff (although if you haven’t read Jason’s book yet, you might be surprised to learn how often it is.)  Often what crapitalists purchase from Big Government vendors is the incredibly valuable service of anti-competition – laws, and more often mere rules promulgated by the endless bureaucracy, that burden competitors and keep established, well-connected interests on top.  A great deal of behavior that would have been dismissed as the most vile corruption a few generations ago is now standard operating procedure.

Did Pervert @LenaDunham Make Her Younger Sister Grace a Lesbian? — Remember that the Left worships people like Dunham.  Look what her parents did and what it produced!

—–

What is racist is telling people they are too stupid to get an ID.  Hat tip: Glenn

—–

Good news! More people leaving the plantation!  I’m encouraged to see more of these coming out.

—–

My only objection is that they use the word liberal instead of leftist.  I try to correct myself when ever I use the former, as it is too generous.

So if Houston’s mayor wasn’t overweight we’d have cured Ebola?

The Left has been despicable on politicizing the Ebola situation and pretending that the mean old Republicans didn’t give them enough money.  But their budget increased over the years and their list of wasteful projects is long.  In the business world you get laughed at and then fired if you waste money on silly things and don’t spend it on your most important projects.  Via Lesbians Got All the Ebola Dollars, But Blame the GOP:

Democrats have rushed out of the gate with an attack ad against Republicans claiming if only we had spent more money, we would be able to solve the Ebola situation.

It’s a defensive ad that reeks of desperation. At a time when more and more Americans, including millennials, are concluding government just doesn’t work, it probably won’t be effective. And Republicans can respond in kind.

For example, instead of studying Ebola, the National Institutes of Health were studying the propensity of lesbians to be fat.

Then there was the money for a study on wives who calm down quickly.

And the Centers for Disease Control spent its budget on gun violence studies on order of the President as part of his agenda to curtail the second amendment.

The CDC also spent its money to survey what bus riders thought of HIV videos.

The fat lesbian thing is particularly galling, especially in light of Houston’s own fat lesbian mayor trampling religious freedoms and trying to intimidate pastors.  Those of you who are long time readers know that I never make fun of the appearance of others (really, read all 3,000+ posts).

But I could have saved the NIH a lot of money. Lesbians aren’t fat because they are lesbians, they are sometimes lesbians because they are fat.  Remember, people go LGBTQX for many reasons: Plain old rebellion, sexual abuse and bad relationships.  But it is sometimes from an inability to connect with the opposite sex — at least at the level they think they deserve.  I’ve known guys who were hetero but kept aiming too high (sorry, it is a fact that 8’s generally don’t date 5’s . . . ask Ron Swanson). Then they decided that they were totally gay and that was the reason.  Uh, sure.

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