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Isaiah chapter 9. This is a chapter that some of you may be familiar with, especially at

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this time of year. We're just looking at the first two verses, the verses that you may

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be familiar with or a little further down in the chapter. That might be good homework

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for you this week, but we're just looking at the first couple of verses here. Isaiah

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chapter 9 verse 1. Isaiah chapter 9 verse 1 and 2. Let's pray and we'll get started.

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Father God, we come to you and we thank you for being good to us. We thank you for the

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freedom and the privilege that we have to come into this place. I thank you for the

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love that you give us. I thank you for the love that's in this building, dear Lord, that

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you call us to be brothers and sisters in Christ, that you call us to come here and

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meet as a group called Enterprise Baptist Church, dear Lord. We thank you that you bring

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us together and let us be part of this family. I thank you for the beautiful people that

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are here and the love that they have for you and for one another. I pray that you just

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bless us tonight and I pray that you'd hide behind the cross so that I would preach and

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teach in a way tonight that brings glory to you, that helps us to keep our focus on Jesus,

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that Jesus would light our life, dear Lord, and that we would take the light that Jesus

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puts in us and that we would be a light for a world that needs to see it. I ask these

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things in Jesus' name. Amen. A little context to the passage we're fisting

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to look at. God is fisting to bring judgment on His people. You read the Old Testament,

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God's people are just like we are. They have days where they are going to be obedient to

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God and follow God and serve God, and no sooner than they get started good, something in the

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world comes up and they turn to some idol and they give in to their sin, and next thing

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you know, they're not walking according to God's ways. God delivers them time and again,

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and they fail time and again, and He delivers them time and again, and here in Isaiah He's

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talking about, look, hard times are about to come for His people. But God's Word always

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gives us hope. God's Word doesn't always say life's going to be easy. Sometimes there are

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consequences for the decisions we make. Sometimes we find ourselves in trouble, just like God's

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people did when we began to seek our own desires and our own way, and we begin to stray from

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the Lord, but this verse is a good reminder to us that there is hope tonight, and maybe

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some of us need hope tonight. We live in a world that is full of darkness, and that's

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such a simple and beautiful illustration that we see all throughout scripture that sin is

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called darkness, and light is God and God's deliverance from that darkness, and we look

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around our world today and we see darkness everywhere. We see sin everywhere. We see

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evil everywhere, and if we are honest, we probably see some of that even in our own

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lives on occasion, maybe more than we would like to admit. Maybe there's some darkness

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in our life, and anytime we begin to stray from God, who is the source of all good and

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all light, we go to a dark place, and God's people in these verses are in a dark place,

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and he told them in the chapter before that, look, I'm going to bring judgment on you,

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but listen to what he says in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 1.

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Nevertheless the gloom of the distressed land will not be like that of the former times

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when he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Nephtali. Now, what he's saying there

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when he talks about Zebulun and Nephtali, those are two of the twelve tribes of Israel.

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He's speaking of them in particular, but really this promise is for all of those tribes, for

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all of God's people, and ultimately the promise that God is making here for the light that

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is to come, it is to you and I too. So when he says Zebulun and Nephtali there, he's talking

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about his people Israel. But in the future, he will bring honor to the way of the sea,

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the land east of the Jordan and the Galilee of the nations. Now, those are three different

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ways of kind of saying, hey, these are different areas where there's distress and there's trouble

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and there's problems now, but things are going to get better. There's going to be a time

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that there's going to be a restoration to God's people and these surrounding lands.

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And listen to what he says in verse 2. The people walking in darkness have seen a great

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light. A light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness. Now Isaiah is pointing

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forward to something that was going to come far in the future that this audience was not

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going to see. But as we continue to read through Isaiah chapter 9, what we see are words that

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are leading us and pointing these people to Jesus Christ. That in the midst of the darkness,

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in the midst of their sin, that even though there are about to be hard times, that if

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God's people would just pay attention, that there is hope, that there is hope that we

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can call out to God, that there was a hope that was going to come. And even though these

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people never saw Jesus Christ come in this lifetime, there was hope. There was hope that

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in the midst of their darkness, in the midst of their sin, in the midst of their trial,

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that there was hope, that God would not abandon them, but there was going to be deliverance

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for them. And there was a light that was going to come. In the midst of the darkness, there

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was going to be light. Now that's what our world needs today more than anything. Our

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world needs to see the light. There were certainly times throughout the history of our world

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where the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ shined bright. There are other times where

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it was dim. It seems as though the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ is getting dimmer

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in this day and age. It seems as though people want to hear less about Jesus Christ. Where

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years ago, maybe in this country, God would have been at the top of people's list. And

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Christianity and Jesus Christ would have been at the top of the list for people in this

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country. It's began to work its way down people's list, and it's probably not even in the top

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ten. So nowadays, you don't see much preaching and teaching about Jesus Christ, at least

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not in the way that you once did. But that's what our world needs. Our world is living

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in darkness, and the longer our world continues to live and see in the darker it's going to

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be. But here's the beautiful thing about darkness, is it only takes a sliver of light to break

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that darkness. A sliver of light. Now, what you're going to see here in a few minutes

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is you're going to see thousands of Christmas lights that are all on the front of this church

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that are going to be bright and they're going to be beautiful. And when they're all lit

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up, it's going to really light up the whole front of the church. But you take one of those

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little bulbs by itself, it's not much to it. One little Christmas light bulb doesn't put

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out much light, but even a little bit of light can shine in the darkness. And so we need

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to acknowledge and we need to realize today that the only source of light in our world

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is Jesus Christ. The only source of light that's going to get us through our dark times

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and going to pull us out of our sin and going to help us with our struggles is Jesus Christ.

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And some of us may be living in darkness today, but I want to tell you, if you would just

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look to the word of God, if you would look to the son of God, you would see that there

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is light in the darkness. You would see that there is hope and help for you in the midst

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of your darkness. And once we experience the light of Jesus Christ, we need to continue

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to be in God's word because there are times in our life that our light is not shining

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as bright for the Lord as it should be. There are times in our life where we walk in obedience

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to God and are excited about God and are in God's word and are living for God and we are

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shining bright for the kingdom of God. But even for God's people, there are times in

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our life that we don't live in the way that we should. We find ourselves slipping back

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into the darkness of sin. And maybe tonight we need to repent. We need to refocus our

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attention on Jesus Christ, that our light may begin to radiate within us. We want to

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experience the light of Jesus Christ today, but we are called as Christians to let that

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light shine into the world. We aren't the source of the light Jesus is, but we're like

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a mirror. We reflect that light. We reflect that light, but that light can only be reflected

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based on whether or not we're going to allow it to be reflected. And that depends on whether

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or not we're going to be obedient to God. And so maybe we're like that one little Christmas

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light bulb. Maybe we look around in our world today and we say, man, our world's pretty

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bad. We may say, golly, my workplace is pretty bad. My school is pretty bad. My family is

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pretty bad. What good can I do? My little bit of light that I make and shed on those

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that I encounter, is that really going to make a difference? Well, I can assure you

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it is. If you don't believe me, you go home and you get in the pitch black room and you

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get you one little Christmas light bulb, unplug all the other thousand off the line, and you

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plug it in with that one and guess what? You're going to find out that that one little light

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bulb, it's going to make a little light in that room. Not much, but it's enough to break

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the darkness. And so maybe the little bit of light that

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we can bring into our world will be enough to break the darkness. Maybe the little bit

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of light that you can take into your workplace this week will be enough to break the darkness.

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Maybe the little bit of light that you can take when you go visit your family this holidays

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will be enough to break the darkness. Let us be those who shine bright for the Lord.

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Let us be those who look with hope to know that a lot of times we're not in any better

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are shaped in God's people that were receiving this prophecy.

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Sometimes we're pretty rotten, but there's hope in Jesus Christ.

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For unto us a child has been born.

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These people that receive this prophecy, for them it was something that was in the future,

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but even still some look forward to it.

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Some of God's people heard these words and they look forward to it.

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For us it's in the past.

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We've seen it come to fruition.

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We have seen Jesus Christ come.

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We have seen God send the light into the world, into the midst of the darkness that we live

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in and so we take that light and let it be a source of hope for us so that we can reflect

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that light into the world to be a source of hope for this world that is living in darkness.

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Let's pray.

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Father God, we come to you.

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We thank you for your good word.

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I pray dear Lord that you would help us to look at our own lives.

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Father God, if we're yours, we should want to shine brightly for you and maybe we do.

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Maybe there are times that we do.

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Maybe there are some in here tonight that are doing really good and they're shining

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bright.

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I pray that you would protect them and encourage them and help them just to keep shining bright

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with everybody they encounter.

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Dear Lord, maybe there are some tonight and well, they're in the midst of distress and

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sin and some darkness of their own.

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Maybe it's some dark times ahead and maybe they've made some boneheaded decisions or

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maybe not dear Lord.

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Maybe it's just life, just the darkness of life and our journey.

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Sometimes it takes us through the darkest valleys, but yea though we walk through the

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valleys of the shadow of death dear Lord, we will fear no evil.

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So God, I pray that tonight even if we are in a dark valley that we would know that Jesus

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Christ is the source of light and he can reach into the deepest and darkest crevices of our

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hearts into the worst places and the worst things about us.

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And dear Lord, we pray that you would shine light on those things.

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That God, that our sin and our failures would be just like a bunch of roaches dear Lord

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when the light comes on.

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They all scatter.

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So I pray that Jesus Christ would shine into our heart dear Lord that whatever's in there

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would scatter, that we would be restored.

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And I pray God that we would put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

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Maybe there are some in here tonight that's never done that.

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I pray tonight that they would get out of the darkness, that they would turn to the

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one that this scripture was talking about, that they would turn to Jesus Christ.

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That we would rejoice that the day has come, that the light has come.

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And that we would live in the light and that we would let that light reflect from us into

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the world and all those we encounter.

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In Jesus name I pray it.

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Amen.