Nothing is Impossible for You

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Nick Whitehead

0:00Well, it's a joy to gather and worship together with you this morning. Please do keep your Bibles open to Matthew seventeen. My name is Nick Whitehead. I serve here as the pastor for Global Outreach, if you don't know me. Uh, love for us to first go and ask the Lord for his help. So would you join me? Father, we lift our eyes to the hills. Where does our help come from? Our help comes from you, the maker of heaven and earth. So would you help us now? Would you help me as I seek to minister your Word to this people? Would you help those gathered here this morning to receive the nourishment you have for them in your Word?

0:55So great maker of heaven and earth, great mover of mountains, would you do the spiritually impossible this morning by the power of your Word? I ask in the name of your Son. Amen. Last week, Pastor Steven unpacked for us the account of the Transfiguration. This scene of the Transfiguration was painted by Renaissance artist Raphael as his final masterpiece before his death in fifteen twenty. Just by show of hands, has anyone seen that picture by Raphael? Okay, there's a few. You can go home, you can look it up if you'd like to see it. In that painting, I wanna describe it a little bit for you. In that painting, Jesus is floating above the mountain. He's clothed in white garments.

1:43He's lit up by bright white clouds behind him, and on either side of him, floating just a little lower, are Moses and Elijah looking at him worshipfully. And then even lower, collapsed on the top of the mountain, are Peter, James, and John. They're shielding their eyes, but trying to get a glimpse of the glory of Christ. What's interesting, though, is that this is only the top half of Raphael's painting. So unlike most depictions of the Transfiguration in Christian art, the bottom half of the painting portrays elements of the next story that we find in the Gospels, which is our sermon text today.

2:23At the base of the mountain, in the darkness and in the shadows, there is a crowd clearly divided in two. On the one side are the nine remaining disciples, and they're being approached on the other side by another group. And front and center of that crowd is a boy, half-dressed, contorted with pain, muscles bulging, eyes rolling back in his head, and he's being held up by a concerned man, presumably his father. And I think Raphael's painting conveys quite masterfully how Matthew has been depicting the disciples' journey with Jesus up to this point. The disciples are constantly moving from triumph to failure, triumph to failure. Think of Peter walking on the water in great faith, only to succumb just a few moments later to fear. Here we have some more of the same.

3:18We move from the high mountaintop moment of seeing Jesus transfigured in heavenly glory to the valley of unbelief, where the remaining disciples fail to heal a demon-possessed boy because of a momentary lapse in their faith. And as we work our way through the text, we're gonna see that Matthew has included this miracle account not primarily to display Jesus' power, but to teach a lesson about discipleship. And my prayer is that this sermon would strengthen your faith so that as you serve the mission of your master, Jesus Christ, you would not forfeit his power by relying on your own. Again, my aim is that your faith would be strengthened so that you might not forfeit Christ's power by relying on your own. We're gonna walk through our text in three sections.

4:13First, the failure of the disciples. Second, the frustration of Jesus. And third, the faith that moves mountains. So let's begin with the failure of the disciples. Look with me as I read verses fourteen and fifteen. And when they came to the crowd, this is Peter, James, John, and Jesus, they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and kneeling before him, said, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire and often into the water." So the three disciples and Jesus come down from the crowd, and they're met by a man who emerges from the crowd, and he approaches Jesus with a very desperate request. We see his humility and his faith in the way that he kneels before Jesus. He calls him Lord, and he asks for mercy.

5:07Luke in his gospel will emphasize all the more the man's desperation by pointing out that the man begged. He begged Jesus because this was his only child. So what makes this man so desperate about his son? Verse fifteen, the man says of his son, "He has seizures and he suffers terribly. He often falls into fire and into water." So this seems to be a very severe epilepsy, and we know from the later verses that this is demonically induced. The situation is so severe that the boy is sometimes cast into open flame and into open water. In Mark's gospel, he'll provide more t- details about this boy's condition. He was mute. He was deaf.

5:54He would foam at the mouth. He would grind his teeth. He would become stiff. In the Gospel of Luke, we're told that this spirit, this demon that possessed him hardly ever left him.In other words, the issues seem persistent and relentless. And we don't know the exact age of the boy, but the Greek word used here probably refers to an age below puberty. So this is a young boy. But regardless of his age, this would be a parent's worst nightmare, a very difficult, a very scary situation. So it is no surprise this father comes with desperation to Jesus. Now, you may be thinking after reading of the boy's situation that this is the presenting problem of our text that needs to be resolved. However, I actually think the main problem Matthew presents to us in this particular account comes in the very next verse, verse sixteen. So look there with me.

6:52After explaining his son's situation, the father makes this comment to Jesus, "And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him." So this desperate dad has come looking for this miracle man that he's heard about, who's performed all these exorcisms throughout the region. But when he arrives, he only finds the disciples. Jesus is up on the mountain, and so he asks them to cast it out. He assumed that perhaps these apprentices would share the same skill as their master. And it seems that the disciples, too, assumed they had the ability to do this because they made an attempt. You may remember that the disciples had been given authority by Jesus to cast out unclean spirits.

7:38We saw this back in chapter ten. And in Mark's gospel, we actually read the disciples succeed in casting out many demons, Mark chapter six. So their failure here is very surprising to them. In fact, in just a few verses, they will ask, "Why could we not cast it out?" So this is the presenting problem in the text. The disciples are unable to perform a healing that Jesus has already given them authority to do. And we understand this to be the main issue in Matthew's mind because he spends the bulk of the rest of this story addressing the disciples' failure and only giving just one sentence to Jesus' work of healing.

8:21So the disciples fail to heal, and now we get Jesus' response to this situation. Look at verses seventeen and eighteen. Before Jesus even addresses the father or the boy or the demon, Jesus addresses the disciples. And Jesus answered, "O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me." We've seen Jesus condemn this generation a number of other times in Matthew. He typically uses it in context where he's talking to the Pharisees and the scribes, but he's likely referring to all of his contemporaries living during the time of his ministry, especially the Jews. But this is the first time he explicitly includes his very own disciples in this category. This language of faithless and twisted generation, it alludes back to Deuteronomy thirty-two.

9:19In that chapter, Moses uses the same language to describe the people of Israel. He calls them crooked and twisted, perverse and faithless because they have forsaken the God who redeemed them. So because of their failure in ministry, Jesus identifies his own set apart workmen, his own disciples, as part of this faithless generation. And he expresses his disappointment and frustration with two rhetorical questions. You see them there. They both begin with this phrase, how long. These words mimic the language of lament that we find in the Psalms and in the prophets. And Jesus' first lament focuses on his presence with them.

10:01How long am I to be with you? In other words, how long do you need me to stay present with you before you begin to act in faith? His second lament focuses on his endurance of them. How long am I to bear with you? In other words, how long will I have to put up with you before you get your act together, before you stop lacking faith? Jesus is lamenting their lapse of faith in this moment. This is an expression from Jesus of righteous exasperation. This is, this is holy indignation. This is not Jesus losing his patience like we sometimes do with our children. This is the Lord of lords being appropriately frustrated by the failure and faithlessness of his followers.

10:50And he longs for them to get their act together before he departs from them. But see this, Jesus' frustration is mingled with love. So look at the end of verse seventeen. We see Jesus issue a command to help his disciples along in faith. He says, "Bring the boy here to me." So some commentators believe this command is addressed to the father of the boy. So Jesus turns his attention mid-quotation from the disciples to the father. But what you don't see in your English Bibles is that the command there in the original language is in the plural form. In other words, it's addressing multiple people.

11:33This is, y'all bring him to me. So I think with this command, Jesus continues to address his disciples. After all, they've been trying to cast out the demon, so the boy's likely in the midst of them. And now Jesus is beckoning the disciples to bring to himself the patient that they have failed to heal. And at this point in the story, we might wonder if this moment tells us something about what was missing from the disciples' attempt to heal this boy. Had they, like Israel, forsaken the Lord their God and left him out of this exorcism?Had their success with former exorcisms led them to an over-reliance on themselves that they failed to rely on Jesus in this healing?

12:25We're gonna come back to that question in a few minutes, but I wonder if Jesus is having these disciples in this moment physically demonstrate what was missing from their attempt to cast out this demon, so that as they carry this boy over to Jesus, they're actually acting out their own deficiency and their desperate need for His power to heal. As we move to verse eighteen, we see that Jesus is not done rebuking. So look there. He shifts his attention from the disciples to the demon. And it says, "Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly." So here we get the healing in just one verse, and I think the simplicity of how this healing is described is meant to display Jesus' absolute power and authority.

13:18Jesus speaks a word, the demon flees, and the boy's healed instantly. This is not like those lengthening of the leg miracles that you see on YouTube, okay? The, this boy's malady is so relentless, it's so unmistakable, it's so pervasive, that the healing is immediately obvious. There was no doubt that Jesus had rid this boy of demon and disease. And I think the obvious nature of Jesus' healing is meant to stand in contrast with the obvious failure of the disciples to heal. So just as clearly as Jesus accomplished it, they had failed to do so. Now before I move on to the final section of our text, I do wanna try to briefly tackle a question that is perhaps looming on some of your minds, and that is this: Can we, as Christians, cast out demons today?

14:13And my answer is that I do believe it is possible for believers to cast out demons today by the power of Christ. However, I find it important to emphasize that on this side of Jesus' death and resurrection, we are actually given a more powerful and effective weapon to combat the devil and his schemes. In other words, we are actually better equipped for spiritual warfare than the disciples were. So let me explain this. The purpose of the disciples' ministry during Jesus' life on Earth was to perform signs and wonders to authenticate that He indeed was the promised Messiah. This is why the Gospels are just packed full of miraculous healings and the dead being raised and demons being cast out.

15:01But all of these activities culminate in the miracle of most supreme significance, which we're about to celebrate in a few weeks. Jesus, after being slain for sinners, is raised from the dead. And Paul tells us in Colossians 2 what was accomplished by this work. Jesus canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross, and by doing this, He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, triumphing over them. So through His death and His resurrection, Jesus exercises complete victory over demonic powers and evil forces that are a, at work against God and against His people.

15:49So Jesus' cross work and His resurrection don't merely bring physical relief to a few individual demon-possessed people. They, they utterly disarm the demonic rulers and authorities and put them to open shame so that for those whose record of debt is canceled, whose sins are forgiven by the work of Christ through faith, Satan has no ultimate power in them. And this gospel work is far better, far more powerful than what the disciples did in casting out demons. You may remember back in Matthew chapter twelve, Jesus talks about an unclean spirit that goes out of a person, and it wanders around, and then it decides to return to the same person. And when it returns, it finds that there's no new resident living there, and so it goes out, and it grabs seven other spirits, even more evil than itself, and it brings them back to live there with him. And Jesus says the last state of the person is worse than the first. What this demonstrates to us is that physical exorcism of a demon is not the ultimate answer. The ultimate hope of any demon-possessed person or any lost person who is following Satan's ways is the gospel.

17:09They need to hear that they are in rebellion to the God of the universe, destined for eternal judgment along with the devil, but that God sent His Son to live a perfect life that they could never live, to die sacrificially as a payment for their sin, and that He rose again from the dead to make them alive together in perfect relationship with God. And when they believe that message, Jesus breaks the power of Satan over their lives, and He sends His Spirit to take up residence in them. That's who's living in them. So on this side of Christ's decisive blow to Satan, we wield a better weapon than mere physical exorcism. We cast out demons and break Satan's power over unbelievers by shining the light of the gospel into the minds of unbelievers so that they come to their senses and they repent and they put their faith in Christ.

18:08This is actually how the New Testament epistles talk about Christian spiritual warfare. So as you move out of the Gospels and into the letters to the church-You will see no single command instructing us to cast out demons or perform exorcisms. Rather, the emphasis is on preaching the gospel and teaching the word. Now, that doesn't mean there will never be a time where you or I may need to call upon the Lord to rebuke a demon, but it signals a noticeable shift in emphasis regarding the normal day in, day out response of the Christian to the schemes of the devil. Consider Ephesians chapter six. Here, Paul reminds us, many of you know this text where you put on the spiritual armor, Paul reminds us to wage warfare against the spiritual forces of evil. And how does he tell us to do it?

19:06He says that we stand against the devil's schemes by believing God's word, pursuing holiness in our lives, preaching the gospel to others and to ourselves, and praying at all times. We see something similar in Second Timothy chapter two, verses twenty-four through twenty-six. Paul talks about what the Lord's servant should do when he encounters an opponent who is caught in the snare of the devil, captured by him to do his will. What does the Lord's servant do? Rebuke the demon? No, it says he kindly, gently, patiently teaches God's word to him. And what will happen when the Lord's servant ministers in this way? Some of these opponents, whose minds have been blinded by the devil, will come to their senses by the power of the word of God.

19:58This is what's happened to each and every one of us who was enslaved following after the prince of the power of the air. So brothers and sisters, our present day weapon is much more effective against exorcism. We push back the forces of evil by the gospel, by the message of how Jesus has disarmed Satan and his minions through his death and resurrection. And this gospel preaching, this wielding of the sword of God is what we now prioritize in our battle against Satan. He does continue to roam around like a lion seeking to devour. But for those who have been taken captive by the gospel, he is ultimately powerless.

20:42So let me close that parentheses and move us into the last section, verses nineteen and twenty. We've seen the failure of the disciples. We've seen the frustration of Jesus, and now we come to the faith that moves mountains. Verse nineteen says, "Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, 'Why could we not cast it out?'" Again, what this question tells us about the disciples is that they are surprised at their failure. Their question suggests that they genuinely don't know what went wrong, why they failed to succeed in the healing. And we could wonder, how, how are they expecting Jesus to answer?

21:25Did they expect him to say, "You didn't cast it out because you didn't say the right words," or, "Because I wasn't there with you," or, or, "Because it was too strong for you," or, "I haven't given you that much authority"? That's not what Jesus says. Look how he answers in verse twenty. Why couldn't they cast out the demon? Jesus said to them, "Because of your little faith." And then he goes on, "For truly I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you." So this statement here about faith is where all the actions of this story are leading us to.

22:10And if we're honest, what Jesus says about faith here is a little baffling, okay? Just think about this with me. First, he has already called his disciples faithless. What does that mean? Means they have no faith. Then he says they can't cast out this demon because they have little faith. And so we ask, do they have no faith or a little bit of faith? Then to make it even more confusing, Jesus says, "All you need is mustard seed-sized faith." And we know from chapter thirteen, the mustard seed is the smallest of all the seeds. So what's the difference between little faith and mustard seed-sized faith? And why is little faith so powerless while mustard seed faith can move a mountain?

22:57This is confusing. Here's my best attempt to make sense of what Jesus is teaching us here. The first thing to note is that Jesus always uses the word for little faith to refer to his disciples, not unbelievers. He uses that phrase to describe a temporary struggle of faith, not a permanent state of unbelief. The disciples were faithless in this particular moment for this particular action. So let that be a lesson for us. Even true disciples can fall into residual unbelief. But the second thing I wanna say is that I think Jesus is not differentiating between different amounts of faith, but different kinds of faith. The issue of the disciples' faith was not one of quantity, how much, but of quality, what kind. This is not a matter of size, it's a matter of substance. The difference between the little faith of the disciples and mustard seed faith to which Jesus calls them is their focus. The question we need to be asking about faith is not how big is it, but what is its object.

24:09What Jesus means when he says the disciples have little faith in this moment is that they are putting their confidence in the wrong things. Specifically, they're not putting it in him. Mustard seed faith is faith that has as its object the Lord Jesus Christ, and little faith isis that faith that has as its object anything besides Him. So the question then is, in this moment, what has kept the disciples from setting their faith fully on the power and authority of Jesus? Some could argue that their lack of faith stemmed from Jesus not being present with them. Jesus was up on the mountain. He was out of reach.

24:52They were overwhelmed by this visibly intense ailment, this demon before them, and so they doubt their own ability to perform the healing. In other words, the difficulty of the situation caused them to doubt Christ's power in them. So their own insufficiency causes them to stumble. That-that's a possible interpretation. I would lean towards a different understanding. I think that the object clouding their faith in Christ is not actually their lack of confidence, but an overconfidence. In other words, I think the disciples approached this situation with too much self-dependence. I think they actually are confident they can do this. They expected to be able to exorcise this demon, and there's two main reasons I think this.

25:41The first, as I mentioned earlier, is that they already had success in doing exorcisms, so they likely entered this situation confident it would work again. That is, that's why when they fail, they genuinely ask in surprise, "Why couldn't we do it?" That is not a question you ask when you doubted it would work in the first place. The second reason I believe they were being self-reliant, failing to depend on Christ's help, is that they didn't even pray. Now where do I get this from? Take a look with me at the very end of verse twenty. You should see, I think in most of your Bibles, there's a little number at the end of that verse pointing to a footnote at the bottom of the page.

26:25And that footnote says, "Some manuscripts insert verse twenty-one," which says, "But this kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting." So what this note is telling us is that though the oldest and best manuscripts of Matthew in the Greek do not include verse twenty-one, some later manuscript copies did include that verse. Now, it probably found its way into some of those manuscripts to harmonize with Mark's gospel. So if you look at Mark's account of these same events in chapter nine, when the disciples ask Jesus, "Why could we not cast it out?" Jesus simply responds, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer."

27:12And what is Jesus implying to His disciples when He says that? He's saying, "You couldn't cast it out because you didn't even pray. You didn't call out to me for help." In their attempt to heal, the disciples failed to include Jesus as part of the equation. Whether you think the disciples lacked confidence or were overconfident, either way, they were depending on themselves, not on the power of Christ, to resolve this boy's plight. They had begun to trust the ritual, the magic words, to trust their past experience, to trust their own abilities. And in that moment, they were no longer looking to the authority of Jesus to empower them for ministry.

27:59Instead, they put their faith in themselves, and so they failed. And so Jesus rebukes them. But the warning Jesus gives here is not just for the disciples. We too need this warning. Here at the North Church, we love to talk about the sovereignty of God over all things. And sometimes when we fail in some way, whether in sin or even in ministry, we can throw the sovereignty of God trump card on it and shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, it wasn't the will of the Lord. I spoke the gospel to them. They didn't believe. I tried to exhort them. They didn't care. I prayed for them. They didn't get healed. I preached.

28:44It didn't seem to impact anyone, but that was just the Lord's will." But I think this warning from Jesus is meant to make us squirm a little bit because Jesus puts the responsibility for the disciples' failure in ministry squarely on their shoulders. So when we fail in ministry, when we do not see the kingdom breakthroughs that we hoped for, I think this text challenges us to search our own souls and consider, why could we not? Sometimes we will search our own hearts, and we'll come to the conclusion, "I genuinely pled with the Lord. I was depending on Him, but it was not His will, and I'll trust that."

29:30But other times, we will ask ourselves, "Why could we not?" And if we are honest, we must admit that we were depending on ourselves, that we failed to pray, that we did not look to Christ and trust Him as able, and that is why God did not grant us success. I can be like the disciples. Even as I prepare to preach, here is this act of ministry that I believe the Lord has called me to perform as an elder of this church, and the temptation could be to do this purely out of my own strength. I could begin to think, "I've done this before. It's gone okay. I've studied the passage. I've read the commentaries.

30:11I've figured out what the words mean, how they relate to each other. I've formulated the main point. I've put it together in a compelling way. It's clear." And I could do all that and fail to pray. I could do all that and fail to depend on the Lord Jesus Christ to supply me with power so that my words and this moment would actually accomplish supernatural things.And not merely man-made things. May we heed this warning, North Church, that Christ might not put the blame for ministry failure squarely on our shoulders. North Church, as you minister the gospel, do not forfeit Christ's power by relying on your own.

30:56Do not attempt to fight spiritual battles with your own flesh. As you speak the gospel to your neighbor, you could plan the apologetic arguments. You could memorize all the Bible verses you want to take them to. But have you asked the Lord to move a mountain? They're ensnared to the devil, captured by him to do his will. A mountain must be moved. Parents, grandparents, as you disciple these children, are you depending on your own tactics or the avoidance of certain movies or the Sunday school programs at church? Or are you depending on the one who can turn stony hearts into hearts of flesh by the power of his word on your lips?

31:44As you seek to serve Christ, to obey his commands and minister to others, do not remove him from the equation. Do not neglect prayer. Do not neglect genuine communion with the Lord. Rote religiosity and rituals do not move mountains. Only genuine, refreshed, daily faith in Christ does. So the warning for us is, do not rely on yourselves and so forfeit Christ's power in you. But do notice with me that Jesus does not end on a note of condemnation. Instead, he closes with a catalyzing word of promise, which is quite remarkable. Look with me again at the end of verse 20. His final words to us in this narrative.

32:34Truly I say to you, that means this is really important. Truly I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you. Again, just as a reminder, the disciples' problem is not the size of their faith, but its object. Jesus is making clear here, all they need is faith like a grain of mustard seed. It doesn't need to be huge. It doesn't need to be full grown. But it cannot be misplaced. Even if it is small, it is potent if it rests on the source and authority of all power, namely Jesus Christ.

33:15And what does Jesus promise this type of faith can accomplish in our lives, through us? Here the disciples are standing in the shadow of the Mount of Transfiguration. And Jesus says, if you have faith, you could command this mountain to move by your words. Moving mountains is a proverbial Jewish phrase seen throughout the Old and New Testaments that referred to overcoming great obstacles. And the phrase that follows explains it further. Nothing will be impossible for you. So though Jesus isn't talking about literally upending mountains, he's saying something all the more extraordinary to them.

33:57If you have faith rightly placed in me, nothing will be impossible for you. And this, of course, raises the question, would they really have been able to accomplish anything by faith in Christ's power? Can we accomplish anything? Can we fly? Can we time travel? Or as the word of faith and prosperity teachers preach today, can we speak healing and wealth and comfort into our lives at will with enough faith?

34:28We don't want to put limits on what Christ can accomplish in his people, but we do want to let the context of the passage shape our understanding of this phrase and keep us from distorting it. We need to interpret this text much like we would interpret Philippians 4.13. There, Paul says, I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Now, we don't take Paul to mean he has the ability to literally do anything he wants by Christ's strength. I can make a lot of money in my business through him who strengthens me. I can shoot three-pointers like Steph Curry through him who strengthens me. No.

35:07Paul, in the context of Philippians 4, is explaining to us what he means by all things. In that chapter, Paul is talking about being content in plenty and in lack. And he's saying, I can be content. I can rejoice in the Lord in every kind of circumstance through the Lord who gives me strength. And so in this same way, Jesus is making this promise in verse 20 to the disciples specifically in the context of them attempting to perform the ministry he has given them authority to carry out. Christ is not promising that our faith in him will get us the superpower of flight or teleportation or fast money.

35:49What Christ is promising is that if we have faith in him, he will strengthen us to succeed in the impossible supernatural ministry of the gospel. Do you believe that the impossible is possible? That by faith in the power of Christ, you can overcome obstacles of fear and past failure and resistance and lack of interest and see the Lord Jesus Christ remove the blinders of Satan from your children and grandchildren and neighbors and co-workers and the nations. Do you believe that those in bondage to the devil could, by the power of the gospel, bow their knee to Christ and count him as their greatest treasure?

36:41Are you trusting in Christ to grant you power when you are called upon to comfort a grieving friend, to respond to a confession of sin, or even perhaps to confront a demon? This sort of faithfulness to pray and preach and proclaim and teach and disciple and exhort and serve is not too hard for you. Nothing that Christ has expressly called you to do is impossible for you because the one who calls you to work out your own salvation is the one who will work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. If you have faith, he who is able can strengthen your hands to move a mountain for the advance of his name.

37:34Let's pray. Father in heaven, God of the impossible, as we go out these doors into a spiritually embattled world, would you give us mustard seed faith that we might be prepared in every and any moment to do the impossible works to which you've called us? We ask this in the name of your mighty Son with the enablement of your promised Spirit. Amen.

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Sermon Text

Matthew 17:14-20

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