Steps Of an Unknown Writer

The third illustration about the disciple, Thomas, takes place after the resurrection.

You remember the story in John, how in chapter 20, the risen Jesus appears  to the disciples in the Upper Room, but Thomas was not there?

And when they told Thomas they had seen the Lord,

“He said to them, ‘Unless I see in His hand the print of the nails, and put my fingers into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.'”

Such an exclamation could only have come from God for such detail, for this was another way of citing proof of the risen Lord Jesus!

Scoffers beware!

And it was again Thomas who helped solidify the faith of many!

“And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas was with them.  Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, ‘Peace to you.'”

“Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side.  Do not be unbelieving, but believing.'”

“And Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!”

You can imagine the scene, because Thomas loved the Lord!

“Jesus said to him, ‘Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed.  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'”

You see, Jesus needed the unbelief of Thomas to cement the resurrection story in generations to come in his adoring gratitude that the resurrection of Jesus was real and meant life after death in Him.

And here is the faith of Christianity: Blessed are they who have not seen Me, but believe.

After His time on earth, Jesus gathered His eleven disciples to the Mount of Olives, just outside Jerusalem, in Acts 1:9…

“While they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.”

And that’s why we ought to always be looking upward to the clouds and beyond the stars, up to Heaven.  And we ought to look for a sign of the Cross in the clouds that the Lord might give us?  For one day we shall meet the Lord Jesus in the air, above the clouds!

“And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, Behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven?'”

These two men were God’s angels!

“This same Jesus who was taken up from you into Heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into Heaven.”

There is is.

How the thoughts of Thomas must have returned to that day in the Upper Room during the Last Supper, when now he finally understood what Jesus meant when He said, “I will come again and receive you unto Myself”…so that where I am (now in Heaven), there you will be also with Me…forever!

Why, one day He shall come for me, thought Thomas, and for us unto future generations, and we shall be with our Lord forevermore.

Now Thomas knew the Way…Jesus…and he knew where Jesus went!  This was the blessed truth of salvation, our blessed hope of life eternal with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

What else about Thomas, you ask?

Well, he put his faith into action and thus fulfilled the Great Commission Jesus commanded them after the resurrection, as found in Matthew 28:16-20…

“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me, in Heaven and on earth.'”

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe the things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

He shall be with us until the end of this Age, the Church Age, the Age of Grace, now in 2016…1983 since the mighty Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and His glorious Ascension up to Heaven to the Father.  Can you imagine that awesome, unforgettable, glorious sight the disciples saw?  One day we shall see Him as He is, and be with Him in all His glory, power and might!   Can you imagine?

Thomas spent the following years traveling and spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ in what is today, Iran, and then, India, where he remained until his death.

Saint Thomas died a martyr on December 21, 72 A,D., in Mylapore, India, two years after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the city by the Romans!

Thomas taught so people might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they would have life in His name.

One day, when we shall arise from the grave, and the living shall be changed-translated, in an instant, and we shall all have new, glorified bodies just like His, and we shall see Him as He is, and we shall see Him face to face where we shall meet Him is the air, above the clouds…one day.

Why, when we see Him on that day, I can imagine we all shall exclaim with adoration those immortal words Thomas spoke so many years ago when he saw the risen Christ:

“MY LORD AND MY GOD!”

Even so, come Lord Jesus, come.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

The second story about Thomas takes place at the Last Supper of our Lord, in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, on the night He was betrayed.

In chapter 13, Jesus said that one of you will betray Me, and one of you will deny Me.  This caused a great commotion among the disciples gathered around the table!

Despite the uproar, Peter still wanted to know where Jesus was going, and why he couldn’t follow Him?

He would even lay down his life for Him!

But Jesus said to Peter, that before the cock crow, he would deny Him three times!

And so the uproar continued in questioning, doubts, disbelief!  Could this be true, they asked?  Is it I?  Who is it, Lord?

They were upset, for Jesus had just set off a verbal bombshell right in their midst!

Knowing their thoughts, and instead of chastising them, Jesus proclaimed for the first time in all the history of the world, the very first mention of a future resurrection of believers,the 1st Resurrection, also known as the ‘Rapture of the Church’!

He comforted them with these words, for He told them that one day He would come back for them…and us, from Heaven, for He said in chapter 14:

“Let not your hearts be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.”

“In My Father’s house are many mansions;if it were not so, I would have told you.”

“I go to prepare a place for you.”

“And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

And He followed with these words:

“And where I go you know, and the way you know.”

“Thomas said to Him, ‘Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”

A question, no doubt, that was on the lips of the disciples, but Thomas verbalized it to the Lord, and forever set in motion our destiny in Christ in life after death.

For, “Jesus said to him, ‘I AM…the Way…the Truth…and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.'”

It is set forever!  And the Scriptures cannot be changed!

We got the answer about our future as believers because “Doubting Thomas,” Brave Thomas, the Questioning Thomas, wanting to know, asked this famous question to the Lord!

We shall indeed follow Jesus to Heaven, one day, because He is GOD, the Son of God, who will do what He said, and will raise us up from the dead, and change the living…and He shall lead the Way to Heaven to the Father…for His word is Truth…and He is eternal Life!

And Now, May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be alway acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

What a precious day the LORD, out God has given us today in His awesome Creation of His spoken word, “Let there be,” when He created all things out of nothing, than, something!

Did you notice last night the high winds and the lightning and thunder, the glorious display of God’s might?  Wasn’t that God speaking from Heaven?  He is angry with this nation, and the world, and the slaughter of the innocent!  Blessed be the souls of those conceived, but never born!  You abortionists are abortions, demonic, blood thirsty, of the ‘blood culture’ of Satan, never being able to appease your thirst!  You go into a frenzy, just the the terrorists, when confronted  Are you not one yourself?  O curse you and hate to you because you are an enemy of the True and Living God, who hates what you are doing and will judge you for it!

Nevertheless, and back to my subject, what a glorious day as we remember and celebrate the first Sunday after Easter when our Lord Jesus arose from the dead.

As we look back on those titanic events that changed the world forever, we can fully realize that almost 2,000 years have passed since His crucifixion, death and burial, His mighty resurrection, and His glorious ascension from the Mount of Olives up to Heaven to be with His Father.

And just as He called the twelve disciples to Himself, so He is calling people to Him in this Age of Grace.

And so our hearts our hearts swell with the joy and love and thankfulness for what gas done for us; we know our future destiny is eternal life in Him, for He is the Light of Eternity that leads the Way.

Therefore there is no need to doubt, none whatsoever!

We know the story about the twelve disciples of Christ, but today we will take a closer look as one of the twelve, called, “Doubting Thomas.”

What About, Thomas?

Well, we know from the Gospels that he was a Galilean, possibly a fishermen, and he was a twin, hence the Greek name, “Didymus.  He was the seventh disciple chosen by Jesus.

He had a quick temper-and said what was on his mind.  He was impulsive.  Perhaps, too, he was of a ‘twin-mindedness,’ bordering on unbelief and faith?

It seems he was always on the lookout and gathering information and clues in which to make up his mind…to frame his beliefs!

Just as he was a doubting pessimist, he was also a realist in seeing the dangers Jesus was about to face.

All the disciples doubted at one time or another as to who Jesus claimed he was, or even the resurrection itself!

And many who followed Jesus in the beginning, turned back and followed Him no more! Their doubt turned to unbelief!

Jesus asked those who were left, the twelve, if they also wanted to go away?

And, “Peter said, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.'”

And then came Peter’s great confession for the whole group as to who they believed Jesus was:

“We have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

And so, this is the background Thomas was part of.

In the Gospel According to John, we find three notable events involving Thomas, the so-called “Doubter.”

The first event deals with the death of Lazarus.

In chapter 11, news came that Jesus’ friend, Lazarus, had died.

And despite the threats on His life by the Jews of Judea and Jerusalem, and the warnings of His disciples not to return there,  Jesus goes anyway to Lazarus to the village of Bethany, about two miles from Jerusalem!

It is there Jesus will raise Lazarus from the dead, telling them that Lazarus “sleeps,” but he is really dead…the first hint to His disciples that at death, believers “sleep” in Christ.

Notice the order of events not to be missed by the disciples: first, death-Lazarus “sleeps” in Christ; second, the resurrection to life of his dead body in the tomb. third, a new life in Christ Jesus.

And it seems here that Thomas seems to have faith about some kind of assurance of a future life with Christ after death!

For, in verse 16, we read:

“Then Thomas, who is called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us also go that we may die with Him.'”

Thomas was ready to die with Jesus, and in Jesus, without fear!

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March, In the Year of our Lord, 2016…the holy church season of Lent…in remembrance of what our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God in the flesh, did on the Cross for all the world! It has now been 1,983 years ago since the crucifixion of God, Yeshua, Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ on a hillside in Jerusalem of Judea, when, after His death and burial in a rock tomb, He rose from the dead in a new, glorified body on the third day! And that’s not all. His disciples saw Him and held Him; they talked with Him, and ate and drank together. Hundreds of other people saw Him, too. And then, after 40 days, while He was with His disciples on the Mount of Olives, He ascended up beyond the clouds, to Heaven while they looked up in awe.

To Heaven He went to be with His Father, Almighty God, and sat on His right hand, our great High Priest. From there He will come to judge the living an the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.

Can you hear the cry of Heaven? Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come…heaven and earth are full of thy glory…blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.

Have mercy on me, and us who believe, my Rock, my Strength, my Stronghold, my Savior…I will not be afraid…I will not be alone…for in You, O, Lord comes my salvation…in You is life eternal.

Amen.

In offering to take a soul who I deemed either lost or on the fence under my mentorship of the faith, I was rebuffed with the comment, “well, you can’t prove it; one way is as right as the other! Really?

Proof? Either some great, higher power put all things together or they just came about by pure chance! You, my friend, with your very being and intelligence, to see, to speak, to think, to understand, to communicate with others, to breath…why, you are just a random product of the mud that somehow got here at this time, right? Or were you created in the image of God for His glory and purpose, planned and given to you what you possess?

Or look around. For, “the heavens and earth declare the glory of God.” Who made all things? Yet the fool has said in his heart, there is no God! So you then believe all the wonderment of nature and its working together in perfect harmony is just an accident?

The Holy Bible says it is God’s word written to man! In it all things are explained. But if you don’t believe, than you can easily accept the chance and randomness and no purpose of life, just a slug moving along in the mud! But it’s all there! How GOD created everything out of nothing by His spoken word, “Let there be.” And in an instant, it was! In six days He created…and after the seventh day, human history began…the first man and woman on earth, created by God, adult, the ability to speak and write, to feel, touch, see, act, move, love, do…just like you now! Was there a world-wide flood that destroyed all living things and transformed the earth to what we see and know today? Yes! Were eight people and groups of animals saved on a very large boat called the Ark, that God gave instructions to make? Yes! When the water receded and the earth was dry, did mankind start over from the three sons of Noah and their wives? Yes! Why can’t historians and archeologists go back in history to find written records and dwellings of human civilization no more than 4,000 years from the time of Christ? If there were no great flood or something of equal proportion that happened over 6,000 years ago from our time, than you would expect to find all kinds of evidence for older civilizations and culture dating more than what we know as proof of evidence! There was a Babylon! The people of the Bible were real living people of their time! There was and is a man named Jesus of Nazareth who claimed to be God, who was crucified and resurrected from the dead! It’s all in the Bible. But if you have no faith, if you do not believe, if you do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for our sins, and that believing, we might be forgiven and have eternal life with Him, then, sadly, you are lost!

Proof is seeing and believing. The proof is in your faith! Or, if not, like the ancient pagans, eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die, and that’s it! Nothing more! Here today, gone tomorrow! Blackness! No life after death! No salvation for sinners, and we are all sinners, and none of us good, really…Just some slug in the mud of chance who wants “proof” so maybe he can believe, if he can believe! Still…doubt!

May God, the Holy Spirit convict these wandering souls with the power to believe. May it be so.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brother Monk has been at this message a long time! Just not coming to him. Not on his own, by himself, anyway!

He has not focused his energy and thoughts on the Lord…trying to go it alone…don’t know why…but this isn’t like him being a religious and all that…and for the past 20 years, there in this community of believers, on a wind-swept island sitting in the sea. No, something is wrong…and yet, he is just a man, nothing more. And he knows his inspiration come from the Lord our God by His Holy Spirit…only then is he able to write the thoughts of his heart, his very being…only then…and so on an off day when he gave in to the devices and desires of his heart, he failed. There would be no new message to throw into the sea to carry it where he knew not, but confident, he felt, this precious truth would land somewhere in the hands of someone who needed the “good word.” But not today.

And so, on his knees with deep prayer, the thoughts came to him…and so he wrote with a warm joy in his heart.

Now, I speak of joy, not as the world might try to understand it, but the joy God puts in our hearts the moment we come to believe in the Son of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ of Nazareth…and from this awesome, incredible joy come the joy in our lives to gladly do the things God has for us to do. Joy to help our friends; joy to take care of our family; joy of help folks in the community; joy to serve our church in different capacities; the joy of loving and caring and protecting; and most of all, the exceeding joy of praying, and giving thanks, and blessing and praising the Lord our God for all things.

Holy Communion is something we Christians ought to do every day in honor of what Christ did for us: He shed His blood and died for us on the cross for the sin of the world…for us, and that all who believe in Him their sins are forgiven and we shall never die but have eternal life with Him.

There are so many things Jesus, God-Man on earth could have done on the night in which He was betrayed and taken to be killed, but He didn’t! He could have sent a legion of angels down from heaven to destroy the wicked, evil men who held Him, but He did not. He could have ascended up to heaven right away, so that none of it would have happened, but He didn’t! He could heave destroyed the whole mess by His power, but He didn’t. But then how would the Scriptures be fulfilled? How would these events be fulfilled in God’s plan before time began that He, the Father would give His Son, His only begotten Son to die for the sins of the world because of His love and mercy and grace? No, Christ came to save through His death.

And what great thing did He do on the night He was betrayed? Why the most simple, wonderful thing that can hardly be imagined! In the Upper Room in Jerusalem, with His apostles gather around Him at the table to celebrate the Passover meal, He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, Take and eat, for this is My body given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me. After supper, He took the Cup, and when He had given thanks, He said, Take and drink this all of you, for this is My blood of the New Covenant shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as often as you shall drink in remembrance of Me…until I come again…for I tell you that I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until I come into My Father’s Kingdom.

That was it! This precious, simple act of leaving us the act of worship in a sacrament that does show the Lord’s death until He comes again! And we again and again receive Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior into our heart and are thankful, and something comes over us as a warm feeling in inexpressible joy.

So listen.

I Am, the Bread of Life, all who eat this Bread, will never die. I Am, God’s love revealed, I Am broken, that you might believe. All who eat of this heavenly Bread, all who drink the Cup of the Covenant, you will live forever and ever, and I will raise you up…I Am, the BREAD OF LIFE, all who eat this bread will never die.

The blessing Cup, is a communion with the blood of the Lamb. What return can I make to the Lord, for all the good He has done for me? I will take the Cup of Salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord…I offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and I will call upon the name of the Lord, forever and ever. The blessing Cup is a communion of the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, He is the Lamb of God…

This is joy in the Lord, the joy He has put in our hearts…an exceedingly great joy the world can never know, can never have because they do not believe in Jesus Christ who created and sustains all things…
This is the day that the LORD has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Christ is coming one day, perhaps soon for His saints. That’s the next great event in God’s calendar to take place! Blessed are those who joyfully watch and wait for the coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Brother Monk has been researching some things throughout history whereby God’s guiding hand has caused men and women, inspired by the Holy Spirit, caused them to write amazing reflections about our Lord Jesus, especially in these ‘last times.’

Just think, Father, how God planned the preparation for the arrival of the Messiah at the exact time and place and manner He came into the world, as foretold in the prophecy of the Holy Scriptures: He would be born of the “Seed of the Woman,” of the Virgin Mary, a baby, God, Man, low and humble and poor. The King who came to offer His people “the Kingdom of Heaven,” as it is written, “for this was He born.” But, as the prophet Isaiah wrote: He would die for our sins, and by His blood we are healed.

All of this was according to the eternal will and plan of God. God, Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, died for the sins of the world; and after His death and glorious resurrection, He arose from the dead with a new immortal, imperishable body as He shall one day give us, to each and all who believe in Him, for we shall be just like Him for we shall see Him as He is. As He was lifted up to Heaven in full view of His disciples, taken up to the clouds and unto the third Heaven where God dwells, where He is today, so shall we arise from our graves to meet Him in the air at the Rapture-the Resurrection of the Church Saints—us…O glorious and wonderful incredible day of days in the climaxing years of human history…a day, a time which no man knows or can even speculate, no, it is known only to the Father in Heaven.

The world doesn’t know or can ever know of this most blessed event that is on the horizons…even many Christians scoff or ridicule, not believing, not teaching this most blessed doctrine of the New Testament that Paul so mightily taught!

There is a grown of glory reserved in Heaven to all who love the truths of this doctrine, those who look for and truly love Christ’s appearing, our blessed hope!

When in the 17th Century, the Lord, the Holy Spirit directed the musical composer Handel, to compose the incomparable and eternal, “Messiah.” Who does not melt upon listening to the words from Scripture about the First Advent, which has passed into history, and the Second, which is yet future, but is written for us, Christ’s last message to His Church, and to an unbelieving world?

And then, some 200 years later, in America, during the horrible years of the war between the States, when in Julia Ward Howell wrote the words of the Second Coming of the Lord, as the Holy Spirit so took over her mind and pen!

‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, He is trampling in the vine yards where the grapes of wrath are stored, He has loosed the faithful lightning of His terrible swift sword, His truth is marching on….

Glory, glory, hallelujah, His truth is marching on…

It is so, and will be as it is written.

Amen

On vacation somewhere in Maryland…

You know, Lord, as I look out through the trees to your magnificent colors of a grey and blue sky with the sun setting its beams of light upon it now just before the dark of a late November descends…well LORD, I CAN ONLY PRAISE THE WONDERS OF YOUR CREATION AND GIVE YOU MY ETERNAL THANKS…AND NOW AS IWATCH BEFORE MY VERY EYES, THE SKY HAS TURNED A GLORIOUS RED AND PINK, THE TREES NOW DARK AGAINST THIS AWESOME, MAJESTIC SKY MIRROWING HEAVEN ITSELF!

How do I give you the thanks and praise for a million blessings such as these…and all the blessings you have given me and my family…what return can I give unto the Lord, for all the good He has done for me?

I will take the blessed cup of thanksgiving and I will call upon the name of the Lord, my Rock and my Salvation!

There is evil, and wickedness and death and decay in the world, ugly, perverted ungodly acts of the dark heart of mankind, the culture of death seems to hold sway over everything…right?

Wrong! For the mercies and love and guiding hand of God in His grace upon mankind thru the Son of God, the living Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, is raised from the read now in heaven with the Father. His blessings are exceedingly greater than the darkness of the enemy…now and always, for we shall never die but live with Him forever…

How great and marvelous the wonders acts of God from Creation to now…we shall sing His praises and bless His name forever and ever…

I hope and pray that this day of Thanks-giving shall be a day of eternal thanks from the heart that shall reach up to heaven and fill the altar of God’s throne…

Blessed is the one who blesses God in true thanksgiving.

Amen

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OK, let’s set the record straight. Killing is killing, however you think you can sugar-coat it. Study any of the ancient pagan cultures, and you will find them offering human sacrifice to appease their gods! These demon worshipping people didn’t know who or what they were worshipping but gave it the blood they demanded. Even some of the Jewish kings offered their babies to be burned in the fire the fire when they turned away from the true and living God to worship the gods of their enemies! Well, the culture of death is still with us today, sure, a different version, but the act is the same, the source is the same, but in much, much greater numbers.

What? Aborting a human fetus, a human being developing in the womb before it is born is taking a life. It is legalized killing, murder wrapped in user friendly language to sooth the conscience-the very soul of the woman having it done, and the soul of the one doing it!
And somehow it’s easier; somehow it’s O.K. You both, in my book, are abortions! People fight, no demand this right to choose this act, and march in frenzied ranks with lots of posters. People use strong talk and tricky words to sway legalization so it won’t seem so despicable.

As of 2015, what’s the number up to since this kind of murder was legalized? Billions? Those are human beings we are talking about. You give more concern to a tree or a pet than to this little person growing inside you! What are the reasons? Are some justified? Perhaps, perhaps not. How do you arrive at this decision, and how do you feel afterwards? How did the mother feel throwing her baby in the blazing fire? What of the screams of the baby being burned to death? What of the silent screams of the unborn fetus?

Lord Jesus, I pray for the precious souls of those conceived but never born. May they rest in your ever loving arms in heaven in the eternal light of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We shall see them one day.

Amen.

From where have you come?

From the region thou hast assigned to me.

What then? Will they follow your teaching?

Yes.
How? I know you were the constant force in their hear-even indwelt them that never would believe in their God…
Your tactics of getting them to marry the daughters of their enemies…that they might gain them with favors…and at just the right moment, and constantly using what they use so well, would bring them about to worship us through stone and wooded gods made by their hands after we revealed ourselves to scare them out of their wits, and in trembling as to what they saw, would twist up the pressure so that the god they worship, the god of the unbelievers would hold back rain and food unless they did something bloody to appease me!

What did you do?

I demanded a human sacrifice again and again, even their little babies! And they did it with certain kings doing by example.

Excellent!

But that was then, and this is now! What will you do, which we started to the modern, civilized man who does not believe that we exist. Or even know of our power-they dismiss it out of hand!

What then?

Why, I whisper in their ear, and blend right in to their man-man theories of life beginning in the mud, and their idea of evolving from animals, and life doesn’t really matter, but survival of the fittest! And tie that in with the problems in life and the solution of aborting a growing little person in the womb can be discarded out of necessity! And then get the laws to legalize, thru continued pressure and before you know it, they think they are on a crusade of righteousness, and helping in their plight!

You call those who advocate this kind of giving to the god of this age, abortion, right?

Yes, and those who are in steep are an abortion in themselves, and unyielding, as good followers, without even knowing it, because they are to big to believe.

How many?

Almost a billion souls lost…but not sure…many, many have gone on to be with our arch-enemy….but we have most of the leaders right in our pocket!

Good job, my captain!

Keep up the good work!
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