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Amen. Well, it's a joy of the
Lord to be back today. This morning service, this morning
hour, when we can meet around his word. It's such a joy to know the Lord.
Amen. And I'm glad you have come for this hour. And I believe
God has something for everyone that's here. You just obey him. Do that, God will have us too.
these times. Now I'll be speaking tonight
will be the last night service and I'll be speaking during the
meeting. During the morning services I'm going to be speaking the
book of 1st John. I've been prayer and waiting
before God about what he wanted for this meeting. I thought about
a lot of things. Numerous things, I could have
brought different books, different series of different things, but
when everything was settled, God wants this particular book
given. I'll not be able to give the
entire book of John during these days, there's five chapters in
the book of 1 John, but I do want to give four messages that
I feel God would have to be brought during this conference. Now I'm
not going to give a lot of preliminaries in order to get right down to
the business. If you was going to a Bible school you might be
interested in when it was written and all of the historical backgrounds
and all of this and they are important. But the most important
thing of any book is to see God and see the way that I feel that God
wants us to approach the book of 1 John. I want you to open
your Bibles there, and I'm going to read the first five verses.
That's all I'm going to use today, just the first five verses of
the book of 1 John. That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which
we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word
of life. For the life was manifest and
we have seen it bear witness and show unto you that eternal
life which was with the Father and was manifest unto us. That which we have seen and heard,
declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with
us. And truly, our fellowship is
with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. This then is the message which
we have heard of Him, and declaring to you that God is light and
in him is no darkness at all. I'm going to stop there and tomorrow
I'm going to talk about the rebuke of the fellowship. Today I want
to speak on the reality of the fellowship. the reality of the
fellowship. Tomorrow, the Lord willing, I'll
speak on the rebuke of the fellowship. Now, the book of 1 John was written
by the beloved John. John wrote the book of John. And he said, I wrote this book,
and I wrote this unto you, that ye may have life. And that's
what he has to do with. It's the book of life. And it's
not just some dead kind of life, but I mean it's reality in God. Then when you come to the epistle
of John, the first epistle of John, he said, I wrote this book
unto you, that you might know that you have life. Then he wrote
the two other epistles and finally after being boiled in oil, the
book of the revelation. So that's what we'll say about
him as far as his authorship of the book. The thing that's
important about any book of the Bible is actually God is the
final authority and the final author. God's the author of the
book of Genesis through the book of the Revelation. And so, the
book of 1 John is actually divided into two sections. The first
two chapters of the book of 1 John has to do with our fellowship. The last three chapters of the
book of 1 John has to do with our sonship. And we can test
our lives through this book to find out whether or not we are
in the fellowship or whether we are out of the fellowship.
We can test our lives in this book to find out whether or not
that we are in the sonship of Christ or whether we are outside
of the sonship of Jesus Christ. Beloved, there is nothing as knowing that you are in this
fellowship. There is nothing as glorious
and joyous as knowing that you are members of the sonship of
Jesus Christ. I mean, it's beyond words. It's
wonderful. Now, when you come to the fellowship,
it's a matter of light and darkness, actually. And when you come to
the sonship, it's a matter of life and death. See? It's a matter of whether you're
walking in the light, that determines whether you're in the fellowship
or not. And then, when you check your life to see whether you
have life or whether you're dead in trespasses and sin, that has
to do with whether you're in the sonship of the Lord Jesus
Christ or not. My friend, There's not any doubt
that a person that is in the fellowship of Christ has the
reality of God. A person that is in the sonship
of Christ has the reality of God. I will ask the question
and then I want to answer this question. And then I'm going
to come to the three things that I want to share. Why do you suppose
that we have so little reality in most of our fundamental churches? That's the question. The answer
to that question, I believe, is this. That we have people
that are retained in our fundamental churches, that are sincere in
all respects, that are devoted in many respects, They're faithful
in a lot of respects, but they know not Jesus Christ. Salvation is unreal to them. The only thing they have is a
form of godliness. The only thing they have is a
line of religion. They don't know Jesus. That's
sad. They'll never know Him unless
He reveals Himself to them. You just well to face it. God
is in control. God is in authority. And He's
the one that must reveal Himself to any of us, to our children,
our families. And we ought to be very careful
how we deal with matters in this life. even us that are Christians,
and how we walk with God. Now I want to share today three
things in the book of 1 John that I believe will let you know
whether you are in the reality if you face it. If God sends
the light like he can, or the fellowship or not. Number one,
I want you to know that the reality of the fellowship, it is a reality
of life. The reality of life. And this
is found in the scriptures. Here in the first two verses
he talks about the reality of life. Now, you have the word
manifest five times in the book of 1 John. This was a word that
John The Beloved Loved. He used it many times. The word manifest. Now as God manifests this reality
of life, He manifests this through these five ways. First of all,
in 1 John, in 4 and verse 9, turn your Bible down please. It is a reality of life because
it is manifest by love. 4 in verse 9, the Bible said, in
this, laws manifest or made known the love of God. toward us because that God sent
his only begotten son into the world that we might live through
him. Now God, first of all, one way
that we can know that we have the reality of life is the fact
that God manifested his love, first of all, to us. But this love don't stop with
us, for loving. Only that I can be assured, from
this book, that I have the reality of true life, that is divine
life, that comes from God, is for that divine life not only
to be shown to me of God, but also to work in my own personal
way toward others. Now you say, well, Preacher,
I've got that symptom, I've got that character in my life. Well, now, really have you? It's no problem for me to love
anyone that's kind and gracious to me. It's no problem for me
to love someone that stands true in the church that I pastor.
I have no problems with that. I mean, I could love them if
I didn't even know God. Because if I just had religion
at heart and made it then, I could love what they're doing with
a humanistic type of love. But it would not be genuine.
There would be no reality of it as far as life is concerned. But see where our test comes
in, in this situation here, can I love the man that is raising
up himself against the gospel? I don't love his way. My friend,
there's a genuine love that flows from my soul. If I really walk
with God that'll make me hide in the prayer closet before the
God of heaven that's on the throne and thrust myself at his feet
and say, God, if you'd change him, he'd be a different person.
Amen. My friend, you can pray and have
a genuine love for your enemy if you love God. I mean if you've
met God. And this is a test of the reality
of life. I mean it may be a maiden pastor
down the road that's not preaching anything but a perverted gospel. And you know what the human nature
is? Is to take that person and pull them apart. But I'm going
to tell you what God's nature is. God's nature is that we would
call before His throne of grace, and we'd wait in prayer before
His throne of grace, that God would change that individual's
life if they're unsaved, that God would save them. If they're
saved, that God would bring life, that they are preached in a perverted
gospel. And that would be from the pastor's
standpoint. My friend, I'm going to tell
you something. There's people that call themselves Christians
in our fellowships today, that they can't even love one another
in their own homes. There's something wrong with
us. And it may be that we don't have the reality of life. Did you know that? It just could
be that we're not saved. What do you say? Preacher! If they just do this, it'd be
alright. I think it shouldn't change our love. We should go
before the throne of grace and ask God to work in their hearts.
God's the only one that can change people. And if God don't change
them, He can change us. We can tolerate. And then we
got this problem in our churches. I think there are people who
come, and they'll talk about how they love God, and they don't
even love one another. They can get crossed at one another
and stay crossed for five and ten years. I'm going to tell
you, you might stay crossed at me ten years, but if I'm right
with God, I won't stay crossed at you no ten years, or ten months. The man for the Holy Ghost of
God smites me and shows me that I have sinned against my brother.
Then I'll say, now brother, I was wrong. But you say, what if he
don't get right? That's between him and God. My
part is to get my part right. Well, yeah, but I'm not going
to get that right. No, you're not going to be right
with God either. And it bogs our fellowships down.
And the reason a lot of us won't ever apologize, we don't have
the reality of life, it hasn't killed anything in us because
we're just dead and trespassed in sin to begin with. And there's
no death, and so we just go on living like we're always dead.
Cursing God, raving about that. Going on giving our tithes and
coming to Sunday morning, Sunday evening service, and Wednesday
evening service, and acts like they're more or less when we're
on our way to hell. My friend, this is a test of
our real reality of God, the real fetishism. It manifests,
I mean the reality of Christ manifests itself to love. My friend, then it manifests
itself by the taking away of sin. John's Gospel, chapter 3, verse
5, the Bible said, and ye know that he was manifest to take
away our sins. Somebody said, I got saved and
I'm going to heaven, but I still got my old sins. No, you just
got counterfeited. That's what happened to you.
You didn't get saved because the reality of life My friend,
the evidence of the reality of life is that Jesus took away
my sins, thank God. I think when I met God, He took
away my sins. I didn't just reform, I didn't
just turn away when you leave, I didn't just decide quit doing
this and stopped doing that, glory to God, he took away my
sin. He put, he sold him up in a bag,
the psalm said, he put him in the sea of forgiveness, he put
him behind his back, and God said, you and I can remember
him, but he is going to never remember him anymore. But I mean God done that for
me and I got the reality of life. You can talk all you want to
but you'll never convince me that I'm not born to give. Amen. I mean I met him. The reason I know I met him,
I had sin, I devoided it down with it and God took it all. That's how he manifested himself.
Devoid my sins. But another thing about the reality
of life. He manifested himself by destroying
the works of Satan. Chapter 3 and verse 8 said, He that committeth sins of the
devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. Now what
this has to do with he that habitly just keeps on holding grudges
and holding grudges and holding grudges. and practicing sins,
and practicing sins, and practicing sins, and practicing sins, and
God never chastises him, and he never repents, and he never
gets right with God either, and he never turns from it, he's
of the devil. Right? He's of the devil. She's of the devil. He's of the
devil, let Michael know who he is. But look at him. For this
purpose, the son of My friend, if we know God, I
want you to know that our God that we serve is able to destroy
the works of the devil. He's a devil. He's manifest. You know why the devil gets so
mad when Jesus is being manifest in the church? Because when Christ
is manifest in the church and not some personality or what
they believe is being manifest or how good they can sing or
how good they can preach or how good they can do this or how
bad they don't do that. When that's not being manifest,
but when Christ is being manifest, and Jesus is being glorified,
the light of Satan is put to flight. And they destroy it,
and God has cleared it out, and he's given her the truth, and
believe it, Satan don't like it, because there's nothing he
knew about it. And God this week is going to
tear down some of the strongholds of the temple right here in this
place. He's working, and he's going
to tear down the strongholds of Satan, but he'll not do it Wickedness in high places. Our battle is not with flesh
and blood, it's with the principalities and powers. Spiritual wickedness
in high places. But you say, I just don't know
where God and Jacob are. Well, let me inform you a little
bit something about God. He's on the throne. Let me tell
you something else about God. He's Lord. And I want to tell
you something else about God, he's not just running a little
place down here called Fairbairn, and he's not just running a little
island over here called the USA, but God's over this whole outfit. He's sovereign. That's why I've
got to go before him on my face and say, Oh God, if you don't
move, and you don't take on the strong hands of Satan, and you
don't chew away lies and reality in me, I'm worth nothing, I'm
useless. All that God would help us to
see. And then, he manifests himself
in whom we belong to. If you look at it in verse 10
of chapter 3, the Bible said, in this the children of God are
manifest. And the children of the devil.
You got the contract. The children of God and the children
of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness
is not of God. You know, we've pampered, we've
petted the flesh so much that we got the point that we are
just about claimin' anything saved. Did you know that? We, we, oh boy, I tell ya, I
got a great church, I'm runnin' 200, I'm runnin' 250 and boy,
we are just turnin' things upside down. And you see them on Sunday
mornin', they live like the devil through the week. And they don't
have any righteous marks. They just don't have any righteousness
of God. There's no marks of holiness.
There's no marks of God's divine glory. There's no marks of spirit
spirituality. and they're just working like
beans to try to be righteous and working like beans to try
to be holy when if they just fall at the feet of Jesus and
say God I'm unholy and if you don't make me holy I'm going
to perish! Now you hear me folks I don't
care how good morally a woman is or how good morally a man
is I don't care how active you are in a thing called a church
or religious work. If God's righteousness is not
being manifest in your life or my life, we don't know God. That's what the Bible said. The
Bible said, and the children of the temple, the children of
God are manifest. Whosoever doeth not righteousness
is not of God, Neither he that loveth not his brother My friend I've been mad at my brother You ever get mad at your brother?
I've been mad at my sister and the Lord But I'm gonna tell you something
folks that we cannot, on an indefinite basis, stay angry with our brother,
racist, and be right with God. Well,
I'm not mad at them any longer. I got mad at them. And I'm not
mad at them any longer. You know, I got that settled.
Well, did you? Oh yes, I got that settled. I
got that settled between me and God. Now, did you? Did you really
get it settled? Oh yeah, I prayed about it. No.
If that's all you've done, you didn't get it settled. Did you? If that's all I've done, I didn't
get it settled. You know when you get it settled?
When you go and say now brother, I had a wrong spirit. Brother,
I was wrong. And I want you to forgive me.
Well, but he hasn't got right. That don't have anything to do
with whether you get right. That don't have a thing in the
world to do with whether you get right. But if you do your part, then
that will clear the line for your fellowship with God, and
it will clear the line for you walking with God, and it will
clear the line again for God to hear your prayers. But every
how long you stay mad at your brother and you don't, or I don't,
apologize to them, it closes a pattern. This is why it's so important
that Christian men and women live together in unity. Like our brother talked about,
didn't he? In our homes, if my wife and
I have a difference and a fuss, and a disagreement and there's
an evil spirit in me toward her until I say honey I'm sorry that's
wrong and she has an evil spirit well what if she don't get right
that wouldn't keep me from getting right I mean that wouldn't keep me from
getting right and probably if I didn't get right she would
get right Well, I'm not going to do that.
You know why? You're dead. You've never been
saved. You don't have any reality of life and you can live with
that. Just eat in it, sleep in it, go on in it. No reality of
life and you can tolerate it. But if God ever moves in your
house, Your life, if you're like God, you won't live like that. You can't live like that. God
won't let you live like that. He said you just love your brother.
Well I know if I'm going to love a man, I could love my wife,
don't you? What could make you love some
people but God? I mean, how is it nothing but
God could be there? Well, there needs to be the reality
of life. And then, the last thing on that reality of life is he
manifests his eternal life to the believer, and that's in verse
2. The Bible said, for the life was manifest, and we've seen
it. Now John literally saw Jesus.
And he literally saw him. But I'm going to tell you, Christ
has been manifest in believers and we saw him. Now I saw the life of God. You say, but you mean you really
saw the life of God? Yes, just like I see a tornado. A tornado can come through this
area here and blow through this place. Blow this house away,
the parsonage down here, and still wait up and down for you,
and you'll never see the wind itself, but you'll see where
it's been. You'll see where it's been. And friend, when God works reality
in the life of a sinner, you'll see where it's been. And if there
is no showing of where the reality of life has been and come, you're
still dead, I'm still dead, and trespassing sin will need to
get saved. Right. John said, for this life will
manifest, and you see it, and they'll witness and show it to
you, their eternal life. I will never die. I'll never be more alive. If
Jesus don't come in the rapture and carry me home, then the day
they roll me out the cemetery and put the cloth in. You just tell everybody, I did
not die, I went home. To the long home. And tell them
I'm going to come back. When Jesus does. Amen. Glory to God. I mean what we
got's eternal. It's eternal. It's life! No other people in the world
have this but God's people. I'm talking about it's the reality
of life! Glory to God, that's just like
kicking a barrel of honey over in here. Well you see preacher I've had
this but certain things come my way and I've let the devil
get in and steal that joy. I know when I used to have joy.
What did it? What stole your joy? And what stole it you know. Now
go get it straight. And God will restore your joy. There's at least three people
in this building this morning already. You don't have joy.
You may be saved, but you don't have any reality. You've lost
your reality if you ever had any. There may be more we discover
before we get through. Well, you say, who are you talking
about? Well, they know. Well, so how do you know? Well,
I just happen to see eternal life. When it springs up, I just
can't help but recognize it. When I don't recognize it, I
know there's something wrong. Now I'm not saying you're lost
or faded, I don't really know, but I know there's one or two
things wrong with you. You're either stifling and smothered
out at this line, or else you never have had it. Alright, I
got two more points. I'm going to get done on time,
the Lord willing. Alright? It's a reality, the
reality of the fellowship, it's a reality of the land. Number
two, it's a reality of love. And this is found in verse three. The Bible teaches us in verse
three, look at it, that which we have seen and heard declare
we unto you. John uses this word declare,
he uses it in verse five again. He said, we declare this unto
you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. And you know what most
Baptists think fellowship is? They think that having fellowship
is going out to the steakhouse, the western sizzler, and getting
you a big salad and putting all that goulash on it. and order the best steak and
sitting down with some Christian brothers and sisters and you cannot fellowship that
way if you fellowship around God but if you fellowship around
your glutton and stomachs and fellowship around the ball games
Fellowship around all of these things, well that's not fellowship,
the world can do that. Brother David said, and I know
what he means, I'm not going to pick too hard on the pastor,
but he said we're going to have a fellowship on Friday, the ladies
is going to bring, we're going to spread dinner. Now we could
go over there and fill up all of us and the town could come
in and we could call that fellowship. My friend, when we really fellowship,
we have the same thing in common. You know what? You can come in and out of this
church and be lost and sing in this choir or take a part, teach,
do a lot of things. And you can have the humanistic
fellowship, that just humanistic fellowship among the people.
and be deceived and think everything's going well and never enter into
the fellowship of God and His people. And our fundamental church
is just full of people like that. They're coming right in, and
they're feeding right in, and they look at the pattern, and
they join right in, but they have never entered into the reality
of love. I'm going to tell you, if you
enter into a reality of love, when there is something wrong
in that fellowship down at the church, you'll have a broken
heart. When there's something wrong
with your fellowship between you and your brother, you'll
have a broken heart. When there's something wrong
with your fellowship between you and your sister, you are
a broken heart. And you will not stop until you
have exhausted every source that you possibly can to bring yourself
back to the fellowship with that brother or sister in Christ. And if you don't do that, if
you're saved, your reality is dead from that day. If you ever had any. My friend, if you never have
had any, you're dead and trespassing sin and you may raise the devil
all the time with somebody and not even know that you're unsaved.
I've seen people look like the devil just planted them in churches.
And they just, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to tell you, it don't
make any difference if it's a preacher, it don't make any difference
if it's deacons, it don't make any difference who it is, when
we are constantly ripping our brothers and sisters up and down
the back with malice and backbiting and hatred, and we don't really
come into a fellowship of unity in Christ. There is something sad and wrong
in our lives. And this world reads us so well
that we don't have them food. It's amazing. You know things
will come and they'll pop up in a church and a lot of folks
will say, well I'm just surprised about that. Well, if you'd been
watching their lives, you wouldn't have been so surprised. Walk with God and pray every
day for somebody, you know, back and forth in your fellowship. God has really shown me something.
I've had to really, I've had to confess. Friend, there's nothing as important
in the life of a pastor is laying hold of God really in love for
his people. I mean, I don't have time every
day unless I pray two to two and a half hours to just take
a few seconds every day to pray for everybody in my church and
really lay hold of God. And sometime when I'm praying
in that quiet place, in love, God will say, this person has
a spiritual problem. And then God will say, this person's
lost. That's what's the matter with
their life. They got their name on the church book. And I suppose
in the last few weeks, that God has showed me that I got 50 lost
people in my church. Oh, you say, Preacher, you exaggerate
it. I'm not exaggerating at all. Us fundamental badness are beating
the bushes on Thursday evening, and I'm for it, 100%. A church that don't have an artery
shall die. The greatest work that needs
to be done in our day is a reality of God worked in the hearts of
the people that are sitting on our pews. We've got a lot of
lost people. Some of them is in place of leadership.
Some of them is singing in our choirs. Some of them is teaching
in our Sunday schools. Some of them are deacons in churches.
Some of them are pastors even. And our pews are sitting full
of lost people and we got so little of the power of God that
they just fit right in with us and we don't hardly ever notice
it. We just call them carnal Christians. And there is a carnal
Christian, but a person that will not grow under that will not go under Bible
teaching is dead in trespasses and in sin and need to be saved. You're
right Richard. Call them Carl if you want to,
they're dead. Alright. They're dead and gone.
My friends, there's fellowship with the believers. Well, I have
fellowship with believers. I come Sunday morning, come Sunday
evening, pay my tithes. That don't mean you have fellowship
with the believers. You may even talk about the same thing. You
may talk about God, visitation. You may talk about God and the
church. You may talk about this, that, and the other. But if you
don't enter into that reality of Christ, there's no fellowship.
I mean, it's a real joy to see a real brother in the Lord and
a real sister in the Lord. All right, then there's a fellowship
with the Father. The same verse. You have here
the fellowship of the Father. If you know Jesus, you've got
fellowship with God. He said, first of all, that we
may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with
the Father. We have fellowship with the Father.
I was going to point out some verses to go with these, but
I'm not going to have time. The first point, if you want
to put down, if you read 1 John 4, 7-8 and then with the father
4, 16 and fellowship with his son. The Bible said that truly
a fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. I want to ask you, do you meet
him? I mean, do you really meet the
Lord? How has it been since you met God? Did you meet him this
morning? before you come to church. Now
I'll tell you I had so much to do I just didn't have time to
meet God. Yeah that's our problem. See we say that God's on the
throne he's running this universe but we'll put little things you
know like vacuuming the floor, washing the dishes, powdering
our face, combing our hair, polishing our shoes, all these things are
alright, from the right perspective. But you know what, if we don't
meet God, we'd be better off without our shoes polished and
our face powdered. We'd be better off to meet God
first and then take care of the other things. My wife told me last week, she
said, your wife found out. And when I get up in the morning
and just kind of do the necessities and then sit down with a Bible,
for about an hour or an hour and a half, I just found out
that I get my work done a lot faster, so everything is a lot
faster. And my friend, I found out. If I don't close myself up at
least 3 hours a week, I just will and get out of the business.
We're fighting against principalities and powers. Spirits of wickedness
in high places, where nothing is as important as beating God. And if we don't finish it with
people, with our fellowship. We don't
know nothing about worship. We don't worship God before we
get here. There's no reality of life where
there's no fellowship with God. So there's a reality of life,
it's a reality of love, and last, it's a reality of light. You say, well what does God mean
when he talks about light? Arthur Pinck said that light
is God revealed to man. That's why he said lack. But
I want to give you three things about lack, and I'll be done. In a physical way, lack represents
glory. In other words, beloved, when
you are woken in God's light, when Christ is living inside
of you, then there is manifest His glory in people's life. You know why I know some people
have eternal life? When I preach, I can see God's
glory being manifest in their life. You know, just the reason
why I have a right to question some people's salvation, or I
have a right to question some people's fellowship with God, in that person. There's people
that have been members of churches for years and are pastored people
and they are good people. They try to carry on, they try
to work, they try to do And one characteristic of light
is God's glory. The second thing about this in
a spiritual way, my friend, light represents truth. Represents
truth. And a person that don't love
the truth and a person that won't respond to the truth, excuse
me, a person that won't respond to the truth, a person that will
not stand to the truth is not walking in the light. My friend, if you don't desire
to have truth, you're not walking in the light. This is one of
the characteristics of light and God is light. The third thing
is this. I'm going to take up here tomorrow.
Light morally represents holiness. Now you can be morally straight
and still not be holy. You know, you can wear your dress
right, ladies. You can be modest. And God grant that we have some
modest ladies and I'm grateful for them. But that's not holiness. You still must go before God
and receive the reality of fellowship with Him in order to be holy. That's the only way you can be
holy. That's the only way a man can
be holy. You know the greatest gentleman
you'll ever meet? Is a man that really walks with
God. You know one way I can tell whether or not I'm walking close
with God or not? The way I treat people. You know
I'm more, the closer I get to God the more of a gentleman I
am. Because God's holding me. will make you a lady. And God's
holiness will make you a gentleman. And you know why we got people
that don't want to be a gentleman? They want to look like a lady. And we got ladies that don't
want to be a lady? They're not holy. Our Father, we thank you for
this day, and thy word, and thy truth. We ask your blessing now
for Jesus' sake.
Reality Of Fellowship
Series Out of the Archives
| Sermon ID | 415241041113398 |
| Duration | 49:35 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 1 John 1:1-5 |
| Language | English |
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