Does Willful Sins Grieve The Holy Spirit And Will Unsave A Believer?
Question : The New Testament writers often exhort us to live in ways that please the Lord. Does that mean that it is possible for us to displease Him? We agree that He relates to us as His beloved children, but is He always pleased with us? And since Paul urges us not to grieve the Spirit, does that mean that we can, in fact, grieve Him? In other words, will our willful sins grieve the Holy Spirit and will unsave a believer who is saved?
Answer : Greetings in Jesus wonderful name! What you say is true as we see in the following verses see in Col 1:9-12 where Paul says, "9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light." The above context speaks to us of Paul the apostle praying for believers to be strengthened with God's power to walk worthy of the Lord having longsuffering with joy as a sign of their gratefulness to God for making them all partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light eternally. Just think of it, if Paul the apostle who is just a co-worker along with the Lord who is working through him is so much concerned about believers to be empowered to walk in their earthly life in a way pleasing to God, how much more the Lord Jesus who actually paid for them with His very own life will be praying to God in intercession to make them empowered to do His will and walk pleasing to Him in their lives (1 Cor 3:9; Heb 7:25). In other words, we can never walk pleasing to God unless God works Himself inside-out to please Himself through us. So walking pleasing to God is not a requirement for a believers or a command, but a willing response of thankfulness that God expects from them to give themselves up willingly as a living sacrifice to God for Him to work through them on earth as He usually works in heaven (Rom 12:1; Matt 6:10). God blesses the thankful and grateful heart of all believers who give themselves up sacrificially to God to work within them for having received the salvation for eternity through the forgiveness of their past, present and future sins once and for all time (Col 3:13; Heb 10:14-18).
Is it possible for us as believers to displease our Lord Jesus and our Father God? Yes it is, because if we continue to draw back in to unbelief without faith after being saved for eternity ahead, then God the Father who has already given us all opportunity with the promises of helping us walk victoriously with the availability of every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus who is the greatest gift of God, and also a gift who has come from God to be sacrificed for our salvation (Rom 8:32), will become disappointed when he does not find us walking in faith as a sign of our grateful response to his initiation of His love. Our lethargic attitude of wasting His grace that has been already made available freely to us in Christ Jesus will then make Him to chastise us who are His loving children to make us trained to become productive for His Kingdom and bring Him glory (Heb 10:39; Eph 1:3-4; 2 Cor 6:1; Heb 12:5-6, 7-8, 9-10; Matt 5:48, 16). To avoid walking in a way that displeases God, instead of trying to change our behavior, we should be concentrating to live by faith which will make us fly through all the struggles of life that pulls us down in to sin and unbelief which God hates if we continue to dwell in it (Heb 4:2-3, 11). We should exhort and encourage one another daily to live by faith and be pleasing to God which will automatically keep us away from hardening our heart through the deceitfulness of sin (Heb 3:13). If we continue steadfastly in faith, we cannot lose all the blessings of Christ that He has for us to inherit, and be partakers of it in our future life in the new Jerusalem, and then in the new heaven and new earth (Heb 3:14; 2 Peter 3:13).
We are dear children of God in Christ Jesus, therefore God is expecting a grateful response to His love from us, He wants us to be imitators of His character on earth to bring Him glory (Eph 5:1). If we continue to be partakers of the divine nature through all the exceedingly great and precious promises that God has given to us as "Yes and Amen" in Christ Jesus which gets activated in our lives through our faith, then we will always continue to bring glory to our Father God in heaven who will then always be pleased with us (2 Peter 1:3-4; 2 Cor 1:20; Heb 11:6). In other words, our behavior in itself does not please God until the it is driven by the power of faith. Faith changes our behavior automatically and completes our faith (Jam 2:21-22), but altering our behavior permanently is impossible without faith playing a role in our lives. Dead faith that does not have works is no faith at all, and therefore we who believe in the Lord Jesus and are saved from sin must be careful to maintain good works because it is profitable for us now and for eternity (Jam 2:26; Titus 3:8). All the children of God are heirs and therefore gets qualified to receive future inheritance of God and are in line to all the eternal riches of God, but not all of God's children who are heirs to inherit great wealth will actually inherit the great wealth, honor and glory of God except those who fight the fight of faith in their earthly lives to inherit the heavenly riches which will immensely please God to give them His great imperishable heavenly wealth and riches in their future lives (1 Tim 6:12; 1 Cor 9:24-27; Matt 6:19-21; 19:21; 10:40-42). It is like a king having many children who are heirs to the throne of his, but all do not get the throne except the sons who are mature and walk pleasing to the king. We who have become God's children in order to become heirs-inheritors of God's property, we should work hard by continuing to mix our faith with patience to inherit the future blessings of rest and refreshment that God has in store for us (Titus 3:7; Heb 4:2-3; 6:12; James 1:2-4; 10:35-36). So the promises of God which we have believed and walked on earth is not for us to get qualified to enter in to heaven, but to inherit his reward for our future life in heaven. We can never be able to enter heaven not even in a million years by working out our faith, but it is completely by the grace of God by which God has already made us get saved and qualified for heaven in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:7-8). For those of us who walk by our faith on earth after we are saved, it will qualify us to enter in to God's retirement benefits of rest and reward which He has kept only for those of us who are victorious in our earthly life for the glory of God. In other words, if we have not lived by faith in the promises of God to love the Lord God our Father in heaven whole heartedly and live victoriously over the world in the will of God (1 John 5:4-5; 2:15-17), we will miss the future inheritance that God has for us, and someone else will claim it as theirs if they have continued to live victorious pleasing the Father by their life of faith (Rev 3:11; Heb 11:6).
If we do not live by faith which always pleases our Father God, then the Holy Spirit who was sent to teach us to walk in the will of God will become grieved for our stubborn resistance to obeying the voice of God which comes through the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; 16:12-14; Heb 10:16; Ezek 36:26-27). Though the other two persons of the Trinity who are our Father God in heaven and our Lord Jesus Christ who is sitting at God's right hand are both seated in heaven (Matt 26:64; Heb 1:3), yet through the Holy Spirit they have promised to make a permanent residence in the heart of all believers who have received and follow Jesus by lovingly keeping His word (Rev 3:20; John 14:23). So because we through the Holy Spirit maintain our communication with our Father in Heaven and our Lord Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3), the immediate person who resides in our heart is the third person of the Trinity who is God Himself (Matt 28:19; 1 Cor 6:19; Acts 5:3-4; 2 Cor 13:13). Because the Holy Spirit of God is staying within us as we have become God's temple, if we continue to desecrate it with the life of self, world and Satanic things, He will become grieved greatly by our wrong and evil behavior that comes out of using and living in our soulish wisdom which can be earthly, sensual and demonic (James 3:13-16). This is what the great apostle Paul also revealed saying, "30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." (Eph 4:30-32). In the above verse Paul is saying because the Lord has given to us who have believed and got saved His sweet and precious Holy Spirit who is very tender, meek and loving to keep us sanctified till the day we rise up in our new glorious meta-physical eternal body, so in His love for us to keep us in God's perfect will He might grieve in His love and zeal for our lives. In other words, Paul does not say to us to not to anger the Spirit but rather grieve not the Holy Spirit because a friend may respond to our offense in anger but only a father grieves in anger and love when a son commits that same offense because he knows that a son will become useless to the good purpose and intention that he has towards him. The great preacher C. H. Spurgeon says, "Love sweetens the anger, and turns the edge of it, not against the person, but against the offense." So true of the Holy Spirit when we grieve Him because of being non-cooperative in learning things of holiness from him that keeps us away from sin and purposelessness. In other words, if we continue in our bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, malice and evil speaking by walking in our self-will, love sin and continue in it without confirming to the Character of Jesus which is being kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave us all our sins, trespasses and offenses of our past, present and future sins to love us freely in Christ Jesus, we will not become unsealed of the Holy Spirit to get unsaved but will start to grieve the Holy Spirit who is given to us personally as a divine teacher to lead us in to the Father's inheritance in heaven. This above list is not a exhaustive one that shows which one will grieve the Holy Spirit and which will not, but rather it is a set of sins which are basically working against the very foundation of faith and that they are serious in God's sight, but the same things applies to sins of every kind that has the potential to grieve the Holy Spirit.
Some people would like to ask what will happen to us if we grieve the Holy Spirit and keep on sinning? Two things mainly can happen to any believer who grieves the Holy Spirit and act as through they seem not to be concerned about their transgression and sins, first it will take the spirit of repentance to make them live in fearful expectation of God's judgment instead of joyful expectation of hope for reward (Heb 10:35; Prov 23:17-18), and will bring fiery indignation which will devour His adversaries and make their heart troubled and fearful by losing the comfort of their heavenly guides voice that teaches them in the way they should go (Heb 6:6; 10:26-31; Psa 32:8). Secondly they will lose the joy of salvation that keeps them safe in their race of faith as long as they are on earth. They will begin to live purposelessly even though they are called to live a victorious and purposeful life for the glory of God initially when they were saved for service as a king and priest to God (Psa 51:12-13; Eph 2:8-10; 1 Peter 2:9). They will wander in the wilderness of this world just like the Israelites who did not want to live a life of faith pleasing to God, but chose to stay in their unbelief after they were saved by the Lord from Egypt the house of bondage of sin, which made God to deny them the call He previously gave them to fight by faith to thus go to the free land of life and living in the Canaan land of victorious life and experiencing abundant life of heaven on earth (1 Cor 10:1-4, 5, 6-11, 12-13; Rom 15:4). In other words, every believer is called heavenward with an earthly training to prove our worthiness for the hierarchy in heaven, the moment we do not partake and come out of that race of faith, we are in for a purposeless existence as a believer and therefore the loss to a believer who grieves the Holy Spirit and is not concerned about is physical judgment first that comes from the Lord to correct them just like for the Israelites (Heb 12:7; 1 Cor 11:30-32; Deut 28:15-47), if they continue to resist the Holy Spirit and grieve Him still without change or repentance, then the above two rules will get applied by the Lord in which a terror within them will start to be unleashed by the Lord to bring a fear of judgment for their sins and then they will lose the joy of salvation to become purposeless in this present earthly life and to lose their faith which has the potential to bring a great eternal reward for them in their future heavenly life (Heb 10:35-36; 2 Cor 5:10-11). But this judgment for His disobedient children will never make God change their status from legitimate heir of Him to an illegal alien status in his family because God is never surprised by His disobedient and sinful children whose lives He knew from their beginning because of His omniscience to know our end from the beginning of our life itself (Isa 46:10). We were saved by the will of God (John 1:13), if ever we think that we can become unsaved because of sin or any other reason, we are actually telling God that though He knew our life yet He never knew that we will falter so seriously after salvation. There is not even one hint given by Jesus or any apostles that we might get unsealed of the Holy Spirit before the day of redemption because of our bad behavior after salvation, instead there is only one promise of the Holy Spirit being sealed until the day of our resurrection (Eph 1:13-14). If we were saved by our good behavior we could unsave our self from it by our bad behavior. But because we were saved by our belief in Jesus Christ once and for all time (Heb 10:10, 14), we cannot get unsaved spiritually from God's family neither by our bad behavior nor by our unbelief as God responded to our belief initially by His mercy and continues His promise eternally not by our works thereafter but by His same mercy which He has showed freely so that we can never boast about our spiritual salvation (Titus 3:5-7; Eph 2:8-9), but can lose our fellowship, blessing and eternal benefits because of our willful sins of disobedience to the voice of our Father in heaven (1 John 1:3, 7; Heb 6:7-8, 10; Gal 6:7-10; Col 3:23-24; Php 4:16-17; Eph 6:7-8). So live as dear children always pleasing to the Lord out of gratitude for the free salvation that God has provided you now and for eternity (Eph 4:32; 5:1-2; 2 Cor 5:5, 7, 9). Praise the Lord!
Much Blessings....
Answer : Greetings in Jesus wonderful name! What you say is true as we see in the following verses see in Col 1:9-12 where Paul says, "9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light." The above context speaks to us of Paul the apostle praying for believers to be strengthened with God's power to walk worthy of the Lord having longsuffering with joy as a sign of their gratefulness to God for making them all partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light eternally. Just think of it, if Paul the apostle who is just a co-worker along with the Lord who is working through him is so much concerned about believers to be empowered to walk in their earthly life in a way pleasing to God, how much more the Lord Jesus who actually paid for them with His very own life will be praying to God in intercession to make them empowered to do His will and walk pleasing to Him in their lives (1 Cor 3:9; Heb 7:25). In other words, we can never walk pleasing to God unless God works Himself inside-out to please Himself through us. So walking pleasing to God is not a requirement for a believers or a command, but a willing response of thankfulness that God expects from them to give themselves up willingly as a living sacrifice to God for Him to work through them on earth as He usually works in heaven (Rom 12:1; Matt 6:10). God blesses the thankful and grateful heart of all believers who give themselves up sacrificially to God to work within them for having received the salvation for eternity through the forgiveness of their past, present and future sins once and for all time (Col 3:13; Heb 10:14-18).
Is it possible for us as believers to displease our Lord Jesus and our Father God? Yes it is, because if we continue to draw back in to unbelief without faith after being saved for eternity ahead, then God the Father who has already given us all opportunity with the promises of helping us walk victoriously with the availability of every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus who is the greatest gift of God, and also a gift who has come from God to be sacrificed for our salvation (Rom 8:32), will become disappointed when he does not find us walking in faith as a sign of our grateful response to his initiation of His love. Our lethargic attitude of wasting His grace that has been already made available freely to us in Christ Jesus will then make Him to chastise us who are His loving children to make us trained to become productive for His Kingdom and bring Him glory (Heb 10:39; Eph 1:3-4; 2 Cor 6:1; Heb 12:5-6, 7-8, 9-10; Matt 5:48, 16). To avoid walking in a way that displeases God, instead of trying to change our behavior, we should be concentrating to live by faith which will make us fly through all the struggles of life that pulls us down in to sin and unbelief which God hates if we continue to dwell in it (Heb 4:2-3, 11). We should exhort and encourage one another daily to live by faith and be pleasing to God which will automatically keep us away from hardening our heart through the deceitfulness of sin (Heb 3:13). If we continue steadfastly in faith, we cannot lose all the blessings of Christ that He has for us to inherit, and be partakers of it in our future life in the new Jerusalem, and then in the new heaven and new earth (Heb 3:14; 2 Peter 3:13).
We are dear children of God in Christ Jesus, therefore God is expecting a grateful response to His love from us, He wants us to be imitators of His character on earth to bring Him glory (Eph 5:1). If we continue to be partakers of the divine nature through all the exceedingly great and precious promises that God has given to us as "Yes and Amen" in Christ Jesus which gets activated in our lives through our faith, then we will always continue to bring glory to our Father God in heaven who will then always be pleased with us (2 Peter 1:3-4; 2 Cor 1:20; Heb 11:6). In other words, our behavior in itself does not please God until the it is driven by the power of faith. Faith changes our behavior automatically and completes our faith (Jam 2:21-22), but altering our behavior permanently is impossible without faith playing a role in our lives. Dead faith that does not have works is no faith at all, and therefore we who believe in the Lord Jesus and are saved from sin must be careful to maintain good works because it is profitable for us now and for eternity (Jam 2:26; Titus 3:8). All the children of God are heirs and therefore gets qualified to receive future inheritance of God and are in line to all the eternal riches of God, but not all of God's children who are heirs to inherit great wealth will actually inherit the great wealth, honor and glory of God except those who fight the fight of faith in their earthly lives to inherit the heavenly riches which will immensely please God to give them His great imperishable heavenly wealth and riches in their future lives (1 Tim 6:12; 1 Cor 9:24-27; Matt 6:19-21; 19:21; 10:40-42). It is like a king having many children who are heirs to the throne of his, but all do not get the throne except the sons who are mature and walk pleasing to the king. We who have become God's children in order to become heirs-inheritors of God's property, we should work hard by continuing to mix our faith with patience to inherit the future blessings of rest and refreshment that God has in store for us (Titus 3:7; Heb 4:2-3; 6:12; James 1:2-4; 10:35-36). So the promises of God which we have believed and walked on earth is not for us to get qualified to enter in to heaven, but to inherit his reward for our future life in heaven. We can never be able to enter heaven not even in a million years by working out our faith, but it is completely by the grace of God by which God has already made us get saved and qualified for heaven in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:7-8). For those of us who walk by our faith on earth after we are saved, it will qualify us to enter in to God's retirement benefits of rest and reward which He has kept only for those of us who are victorious in our earthly life for the glory of God. In other words, if we have not lived by faith in the promises of God to love the Lord God our Father in heaven whole heartedly and live victoriously over the world in the will of God (1 John 5:4-5; 2:15-17), we will miss the future inheritance that God has for us, and someone else will claim it as theirs if they have continued to live victorious pleasing the Father by their life of faith (Rev 3:11; Heb 11:6).
If we do not live by faith which always pleases our Father God, then the Holy Spirit who was sent to teach us to walk in the will of God will become grieved for our stubborn resistance to obeying the voice of God which comes through the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; 16:12-14; Heb 10:16; Ezek 36:26-27). Though the other two persons of the Trinity who are our Father God in heaven and our Lord Jesus Christ who is sitting at God's right hand are both seated in heaven (Matt 26:64; Heb 1:3), yet through the Holy Spirit they have promised to make a permanent residence in the heart of all believers who have received and follow Jesus by lovingly keeping His word (Rev 3:20; John 14:23). So because we through the Holy Spirit maintain our communication with our Father in Heaven and our Lord Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3), the immediate person who resides in our heart is the third person of the Trinity who is God Himself (Matt 28:19; 1 Cor 6:19; Acts 5:3-4; 2 Cor 13:13). Because the Holy Spirit of God is staying within us as we have become God's temple, if we continue to desecrate it with the life of self, world and Satanic things, He will become grieved greatly by our wrong and evil behavior that comes out of using and living in our soulish wisdom which can be earthly, sensual and demonic (James 3:13-16). This is what the great apostle Paul also revealed saying, "30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." (Eph 4:30-32). In the above verse Paul is saying because the Lord has given to us who have believed and got saved His sweet and precious Holy Spirit who is very tender, meek and loving to keep us sanctified till the day we rise up in our new glorious meta-physical eternal body, so in His love for us to keep us in God's perfect will He might grieve in His love and zeal for our lives. In other words, Paul does not say to us to not to anger the Spirit but rather grieve not the Holy Spirit because a friend may respond to our offense in anger but only a father grieves in anger and love when a son commits that same offense because he knows that a son will become useless to the good purpose and intention that he has towards him. The great preacher C. H. Spurgeon says, "Love sweetens the anger, and turns the edge of it, not against the person, but against the offense." So true of the Holy Spirit when we grieve Him because of being non-cooperative in learning things of holiness from him that keeps us away from sin and purposelessness. In other words, if we continue in our bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, malice and evil speaking by walking in our self-will, love sin and continue in it without confirming to the Character of Jesus which is being kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave us all our sins, trespasses and offenses of our past, present and future sins to love us freely in Christ Jesus, we will not become unsealed of the Holy Spirit to get unsaved but will start to grieve the Holy Spirit who is given to us personally as a divine teacher to lead us in to the Father's inheritance in heaven. This above list is not a exhaustive one that shows which one will grieve the Holy Spirit and which will not, but rather it is a set of sins which are basically working against the very foundation of faith and that they are serious in God's sight, but the same things applies to sins of every kind that has the potential to grieve the Holy Spirit.
Some people would like to ask what will happen to us if we grieve the Holy Spirit and keep on sinning? Two things mainly can happen to any believer who grieves the Holy Spirit and act as through they seem not to be concerned about their transgression and sins, first it will take the spirit of repentance to make them live in fearful expectation of God's judgment instead of joyful expectation of hope for reward (Heb 10:35; Prov 23:17-18), and will bring fiery indignation which will devour His adversaries and make their heart troubled and fearful by losing the comfort of their heavenly guides voice that teaches them in the way they should go (Heb 6:6; 10:26-31; Psa 32:8). Secondly they will lose the joy of salvation that keeps them safe in their race of faith as long as they are on earth. They will begin to live purposelessly even though they are called to live a victorious and purposeful life for the glory of God initially when they were saved for service as a king and priest to God (Psa 51:12-13; Eph 2:8-10; 1 Peter 2:9). They will wander in the wilderness of this world just like the Israelites who did not want to live a life of faith pleasing to God, but chose to stay in their unbelief after they were saved by the Lord from Egypt the house of bondage of sin, which made God to deny them the call He previously gave them to fight by faith to thus go to the free land of life and living in the Canaan land of victorious life and experiencing abundant life of heaven on earth (1 Cor 10:1-4, 5, 6-11, 12-13; Rom 15:4). In other words, every believer is called heavenward with an earthly training to prove our worthiness for the hierarchy in heaven, the moment we do not partake and come out of that race of faith, we are in for a purposeless existence as a believer and therefore the loss to a believer who grieves the Holy Spirit and is not concerned about is physical judgment first that comes from the Lord to correct them just like for the Israelites (Heb 12:7; 1 Cor 11:30-32; Deut 28:15-47), if they continue to resist the Holy Spirit and grieve Him still without change or repentance, then the above two rules will get applied by the Lord in which a terror within them will start to be unleashed by the Lord to bring a fear of judgment for their sins and then they will lose the joy of salvation to become purposeless in this present earthly life and to lose their faith which has the potential to bring a great eternal reward for them in their future heavenly life (Heb 10:35-36; 2 Cor 5:10-11). But this judgment for His disobedient children will never make God change their status from legitimate heir of Him to an illegal alien status in his family because God is never surprised by His disobedient and sinful children whose lives He knew from their beginning because of His omniscience to know our end from the beginning of our life itself (Isa 46:10). We were saved by the will of God (John 1:13), if ever we think that we can become unsaved because of sin or any other reason, we are actually telling God that though He knew our life yet He never knew that we will falter so seriously after salvation. There is not even one hint given by Jesus or any apostles that we might get unsealed of the Holy Spirit before the day of redemption because of our bad behavior after salvation, instead there is only one promise of the Holy Spirit being sealed until the day of our resurrection (Eph 1:13-14). If we were saved by our good behavior we could unsave our self from it by our bad behavior. But because we were saved by our belief in Jesus Christ once and for all time (Heb 10:10, 14), we cannot get unsaved spiritually from God's family neither by our bad behavior nor by our unbelief as God responded to our belief initially by His mercy and continues His promise eternally not by our works thereafter but by His same mercy which He has showed freely so that we can never boast about our spiritual salvation (Titus 3:5-7; Eph 2:8-9), but can lose our fellowship, blessing and eternal benefits because of our willful sins of disobedience to the voice of our Father in heaven (1 John 1:3, 7; Heb 6:7-8, 10; Gal 6:7-10; Col 3:23-24; Php 4:16-17; Eph 6:7-8). So live as dear children always pleasing to the Lord out of gratitude for the free salvation that God has provided you now and for eternity (Eph 4:32; 5:1-2; 2 Cor 5:5, 7, 9). Praise the Lord!
Much Blessings....
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