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Daniel-Wayne Barber/Part 16

Written by JA Show Staff | Sep 17, 2013 4:00:00 AM
By: Dr. Wayne Barber; ©2006
We want to see the rise, we want to see the reign and we want to see the ruin of the little horn. We’ll begin to look at it today. The little horn: Who is he? What is he or it? What is going on? Is it a person? Is it a kingdom? What is this little horn?

The Rise, Reign and Ruin of the Little Horn (Daniel 7:8-25)

Turn with me to Daniel 7 as we continue studying this marvelous book, and in particular this marvelous chapter about the latter days, about what’s going to take place in the end of the ages. As a matter of fact, next Sunday morning we’re going to be talking about His Kingdom that will come; today we’re just sort of easing in to it and by next Sunday morning, if we haven’t raptured, we’ll be ready to, that’s for sure. But Daniel 7, and I want to talk to you about the rise, the reign, and the ruin of the little horn. Let me say that again. The rise, the reign, and the ruin of the little horn. Now, I’ll not finish all this this morning; as a matter of fact I’ll probably just to a sufficient job to confuse you. I’m praying that I won’t, but we’re going to get just far enough and then stop and take it a little bit at a time. I had the great opportunity to go over to Nashville and to speak at a men’s conference. And there were about 150 men there. About 70 of which on Saturday entered in to a bass fishing tournament on Old Hickory Lake over by Gallatin, TN. Well, I haven’t fished in hurricanes, but I think fishing in a hurricane would be a lot calmer than fishing in what we fished in yesterday. One thing I learned right quickly: if you ever want to throw forward, just turn backwards and throw and the wind will blow it back that way. It’s amazing! You don’t throw this way to get it there because the wind was blowing so strong it would blow the lure behind you. But if one thing any fisherman understands is this: if you have a fishing rod in your hands, especially if you use a casting reel, and you’ve got that thing cocked down and you’re ready to throw it, and there’s a strong wind blowing at you, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re about to experience some great frustration because you’re going to have something happen to that reel. Fishermen call it professional override. What it is is a backlash, and you’re going to have a tangled mess in your hands like you did not want. You do not throw into the wind unless you know what you’re doing. Now you say, “What’s that got to do with Daniel?” Well, friend, the winds blowing, blowing strong in these days. Our thoughts are all turned towards the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and when we cast out there in front of that wind, to find some understanding in the Word of God, we better know what we’re doing or we’re going to end up with a confused mess. What most people do with prophecy is they buy this book and that book and they try to put their theology together by what everybody else is saying without paying a bit of attention to what the Word of God has to say. I’ve not studied Revelation. This is my first time to ever study prophecy. How many of you would fit into that category today? Well, those of us that are honest enough to admit it, and we don’t know everything about it, we’re going to take it slow. The rest of you have it all figure out: bless you. But let us get to it our own way. We’re going to take it a little bit at a time, we’re going to cast out there in that wind, hopefully we know what we’re doing, and we can walk away from here understanding what thrill it is to know and understand God’s Word. Well, it’s very obvious in chapter 7 that Daniel is intrigued with the fourth beast. Now, I’ll not go back and preach last week’s message over again. We know there were four beasts that were revealed to him in a vision. But it’s the fourth beast that really catches his attention. Verse 23 tells us something about that. It says, “The fourth beast will be a fourth kingdom on the earth, which will be different from all the other kingdoms, and it will devour the whole earth and tread it down and crush it.” Now what’s going to be different about it? Well, you see, this fourth beast is Rome, this fourth kingdom, and it’s going to be in sort of like three dimensions, three stages. We see it’s different from the other kingdoms. They rose, they fell and that’s all you ever hear about them again. This one, however, will be strong in a certain period of its history as we study. We see ancient Rome as being one of the great, most dominant kingdoms on the face of this earth, way up until about 491 AD. But we see then it begins to divide; it begins to filtrate into the seed of men all around it and we don’t see the streak for a long period of time. However, there is going to come a time in Rome’s history that it will sort of resurrect again if you please, and it’ll be ten nations that will come together somehow in the geographical location of old Rome and these ten nations will form a United States of Europe. They will be together and yet they will be separate. There will be ten kingdoms and ten kings and yet there will be one empire or one great kingdom. It says in verse 24, “As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings will arise; and another will arise after them.” Well, I’m getting ahead of myself. If these ten kings that he’s concerned with, he’s really intrigued with, verses 19-20 say, “Then I desire to know the exact meaning of the fourth beast.” This was really intriguing Daniel, so he had to have it revealed to him as we’re going to have to have it revealed to us. Now, there’s going to be another stage coming out of those ten nations, those ten horns as it says there in verse 24, it says, “and another [horn] will arise after them.” And it’s this one we want to look at today. Verse 8 says that he’s the “little horn.” The little horn of Daniel 7, and that’s what we want to zero in on this morning.

The rise of the little horn

We want to see the rise, we want to see the reign and we want to see the ruin of the little horn. We won’t see all of that today, but we’ll begin to look at it. Alright, first of all, the rise of the little horn. Who is he? What is he or it? What is going on? Is it a person? Is it a kingdom? What is this little horn? I don’t think there can be any doubt, or there should be little doubt that this is referring to a person here. It’s talking about a person. If you’ll look in 7:8 it says, “While I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it; and behold, this horn,” now watch this, it has the characteristics of a person, “possessed eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth uttering great boasts.” And we begin to see that there is a personality attached to this little horn. Over in verse 24 it even says some things about him. It says, “and another will arise after them, and he [notice the personal pronoun there, “and he”] will be different from the previous ones and will subdue three kings.” And verse 25, “And he will speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One, and he will intend to make alterations in times and in law; and they will be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time.” So it appears to me that what we’re dealing with here is that this little horn is an individual. He has personal traits to him, he’s a very arrogant, a very boastful type of person, and I think he’s speaking here of the Antichrist. Well let’s push on a little further. How is he going to rise to power? What are going to be the distinctions of this? There are three things that we need to look at from Scripture. First of all, it will be a slow, gradual rise to power. “While I was contemplating the horns,” verse 8, “behold, another horn, a little one, came up among them.” Now that phrase, “came up among them,” means it grew up slowly, gradually. As a matter of fact, if you’ve ever been deer hunting and somebody came in and bagged a buck but it was a little button buck. You know what a button buck is? That’s when the horns have just barely pierced through the skin of the head of the deer. And they bring him in and say, “Oh, man, isn’t this wonderful? I killed a buck today.” What that person is really saying is, “Thank the Lord! I thought I had shot a doe, but I found it and sure enough the horns had popped through the skins.” Because no deer hunter, I don’t care who they are, unless they’re standing ten feet above the deer, can see those little buttons that pop up. They’re hardly recognizable. And those little buttons that will pop up on that young buck deer will begin to gradually get bigger and bigger and bigger. Nobody is every watching, nobody is ever looking. You can’t really see it. It’s not that distinctive. And to me that’s the idea: he’ll grow up gradually; nobody is paying attention to him. He’ll begin to come to power. So it’ll be a slow coming up.But secondly, it will be a mark to the way that he comes to power. It will be a distinctive mark to the way he comes to power. It says very clearly “He’ll subdue three kings.” It says in verse 8, “[he] came up among them, and three of the first horns [these were kings] were pulled out by the roots before it.” And it says the same thing in verse 24. It says, “and another will arise after them, and he will be different from the previous ones and will subdue three kings.” Now if I was going to be watching for someone like that to rise up, that would be the distinctive mark: he gradually begins to come up among them. And I think when it says among them, that’s the geographical area that he’s talking about; it will be in that area of our world, and out of that area will come another king, another ruler. But as he comes up he will be marked distinctively as he begins to come to power by subduing three of the other kings. Now some people think that means in a military coup or something like that. Be real careful! Don’t read into this what it doesn’t say. It may be economic; it may be all kinds of ways. It may be in such a subtle way that the world will completely miss it as he rips them up out of their roots. We don’t know what he’s saying, but somehow he’ll subdue those three kings. Well, but then thirdly, it will grow ultimately to be larger than the rest. Verse 8 says he’s a little horn among the others. But then look at verse 20: he grows larger than his associates. Verse 20 says as it goes on down in the verse it says, “that horn which had eyes and a mouth uttering great boasts, and which was larger in appearance than its associates.” So it appears pretty clear to me that we’re dealing with a person and a person that will one day rise to power over in Europe in the area of ancient Rome where ten nations will come together. One will come out and this one will be marked distinctively when he comes to power by subduing somehow, and the Bible doesn’t say, three kings. He’ll take them out by their roots and he will ultimately grow to be larger than all of his associates. Now there’s a rule of studying this that I think will help you. It’s one of those little things you do when you throw into the wind to keep your reel from back-lashing. Do you know what that is? Remember this: you cannot separate the king from his kingdom. Now remember that, because when we go to Revelation in a minute, we’re going to get into some deep water, but if you’ll hang on to the guidelines. How do we know that? Already taught to us in Daniel chapter 2. He told him about four kingdoms and when he interpreted the dream, what did he say? He said, “Nebuchadnezzar, the first kingdom, the kingdom of gold is you.” Now did he mean him or did he mean Babylon? He meant both. You don’t separate the king from the kingdom that he operates with. Remember that and I think it will help unlock some doors as we go in a moment to Revelation. So we see then that the Antichrist is being prophesied here to Daniel. Doesn’t that thrill you this morning? This is a long time, friend; matter of fact, this is back before any of this had taken place hardly. And it’s prophesied to Daniel. Why would it be prophesied to Daniel? Well, in chapter 9 you’ll see: because he’s a man that was burdened for his people. This whole book concerns God’s people and it concerns God’s holy city Jerusalem. You’re not dealing with Christians in the book of Daniel, you’re dealing with Israel; and that’s a burden on Daniel’s heart. Now remember that as we go through it. So one day there’s going to be an Antichrist that will come up; a man who will speak blasphemous things against God as we’ll see in a minute. His rise will be slow, gradual, he’ll subdue three kings and then he’ll grow larger than his associates.

The reign of the little horn

Well, secondly his reign. And I doubt very seriously that we’ll go all the way through this one but let’s go as far as we can. But anyway, his reign, verse 25. I still think that there’s merit in going slow, don’t you? We’re just going to inch. Somebody said a long time ago that “inch by inch, life’s a cinch; yard by yard, life’s way too hard.” So this morning we’re going to go inch by inch. And it’s going to frustrate some of you prophecy students because you’ve gone a lot further than the rest of us, but you leave us alone. You go home and tell everybody else how ignorant we are. We’re going to find it out on our own. So all of you that have not studied, you stick with me. We’re going to learn it, but we’re going to learn it right by going slow, okay? His reign. When he comes to power, what is it that God wants us to know about this king? Why did He single out this king? There have been other kings that have come to power, why does He single out this one? What’s this got to do with God’s ultimate purpose in the latter days? Well, in verse 25 we’re going to see the first characteristic of him in his reign, what it’s going to be like. He will be a very feared person by Israel. He’s going to treat Israel in a horrible, traumatic way; not only that, he will speak blasphemous things against God. So what we begin to see in his reign, when he comes to power, he’s going to be a man who obviously is not afraid of God. We’ve already seen in the scriptures that he’s going to be lawless: he’s going to change the laws. He’s not going to listen to anybody and there’s something else significant about him: he’s going to zero in on Israel and buddy, there are some dark days ahead for those Jews that have rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, look at verse 25 and it begins to help us understand it. It says, “And he will speak out against the Most High,” as a matter of fact, very blasphemous as we’ll see in other chapters in Daniel, “and wear down the saints of the Highest One,” and don’t read “Christian” into the word “saints.” The word “saints” simply means “holy ones.” That was attributed to Israel in the Old and is attributed to Christians in the New. But these saints are God’s people, folks. These are the holy ones. These are the ones that God is dealing with during this particular period of time. “And he will intend to make alterations in times and in law; and they will be given into his hand for a time [which means a year], times [two years], and half a time,” which is half a year, so for three and a half years. That part of his reign God focuses in on to Daniel. He wants him to know that this man is going to be significant in the life of Israel. He’s going to have a blasphemous character towards God, but there’s going to be three and a half years of his life that’s going to be unlike any ruler we’ve ever known on the face of this earth. He’s going to be a terror on this earth and all hell’s going to break loose on this earth. Now for three and one half years all that fury is going to be released toward Israel, which has something very important to say to us in latter day prophecy. Okay, so he’s going to be blasphemous and he’s going to be feared by God’s people. You know, if I was a Jew today and rejected Christ, I’d pay a lot of attention to this because there is going to come a time in the future that is going to be very important to God’s people. Well, let’s just see if we can now get real confused. Look in Revelation 12. We’re throwing out in the wind now. Are you ready? Your reel all fixed up right; do you know what you’re doing? You say, “Brother Wayne, do you?” Well, I’m not sure. Let’s see. Revelation 12. Now you’re going to see in Revelation two different beasts and you’re going to see beasts come up with ten horns. It is established in Daniel what the beast is with ten horns. What is it? It’s the fourth kingdom in the latter day stages of the latter day prophecy. Hang on to that fact because I’m about to confuse you. If you’ll stay with me I’m going to confuse you I think for a real good way. Sometimes, if you confuse people, then come back to where you confused them, you can straighten them out. Unless I’ve already confused you. Revelation 12:1-6. Three characters we need to understand. First of all, the woman: “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” Now that really could give you a lot of speculation as to who the woman is. Let’s move on, verse 2, “and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.” Now we know that this woman is significant because she’s about to bear a child. We know from verse 5 that it’s a son, a male child. Now who would you think this woman is? Well immediately somebody will say, “The virgin Mary.” Now whoa, don’t jump the gun. You’re going to see in a minute that this woman is going to be persecuted for three and a half years. I want to share with you, yes, it would include the Virgin Mary if you’ll look at her lineage there in Matthew, it comes right out of the Jewish heritage, but it is not her, it is Israel! Israel was the nation God chose and promised Abraham that a seed would come from him one day. And Galatians 3 tells us who that seed is. But I’m not going to tell you yet. The woman: the woman is Israel. I don’t think there can be any doubt, not just a little doubt, there can be no doubt it’s the woman, from what we read later on. Verse 3, there’s a second character in this scenario and it’s the dragon. “And another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns,” now this adds something to the picture we’ve already had in Daniel. We’ve seen the ten horns, the ten nations, but what in the world are these seven heads? Hopefully we’ll see that this morning; if not, next time; “and on his heads were seven diadems” or crowns. Now who is the dragon? Look down in verse 9, “And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan.” How about that? So the dragon here that he mentions with ten horns and seven heads and seven crowns is none other than the devil, old Satan himself. Now this ought to be where the confusion starts entering in “Wait a minute. I thought you told me that the beast with ten horns was a kingdom in the latter day stages of Rome.” I did, but right here it says he comes up and he has ten horns. “Now how can this be the devil? You’ve already told us the guidelines.” I told you I was going to confuse you. Just stay confused for a few minutes. It won’t hurt you a bit. Just stay right where you are. Now the third character we’ve got to see in this scenario is the male child. In verse 5 it says that “And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.” If there’s any question who this is, folks, maybe we could lead you to know Jesus before the day’s over and you can just get saved. This is the Lord Jesus Christ. There’s only One who is to rule over all the nations of this earth with a rod of iron. He is our forever King and isn’t that wonderful that we can start seeing him be prophesied right here in the Word of God, and we’re going to see Him lifted up tonight; “and her child was caught up to God and to His throne.” Now what he does here, the author of Revelation, gives us a timeline and I wish I could draw it for you this morning, but let me just see if I can give you a mental image. In verse 5 it starts with the birth of the male child, and we can almost even tell you when that is because of chapter 9. It gives the date up to His crucifixion. We know that He was born and it starts with that. It goes to the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, skips the death, burial, resurrection, skips the whole thing. He’s not concerned with that. He says He was caught up to God. What does that tell you? There must have been 33 years elapse right there in the middle of one verse. As a matter of fact, in one sentence there’s a time gap. See how confusing Scripture can be sometimes? It jumps from His birth, right to His Ascension. And then, between verse 5 and verse 6 he gives you a bigger time gap than you ever thought. He jumps from the time of Christ’s Ascension all the way to the last three and a half years we’ve been looking at in Daniel of this age. Isn’t that incredible? And he tells you something about the woman who is Israel. Look what he says in verse 6, “And the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she might be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.” How many years do you think that is? That’s three and a half years. They had 360 days in a year. Three and a half years. Now where have we seen three and a half years before, but said a different way? “Time, times and half a time.” Remember that in Daniel 7:25? Now we’re seeing a parallel here. Oh, this little horn, he’s going to have real power during a period of time. And remember, it said that it was given to him only for three and a half years. And during that three and a half period of time he’s going to do something to Israel and Revelation is beginning to give us a little bit more understanding of all of that. Well, let’s read because now he answers what he just said. Verse 7, “And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. And the dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon,” who is Satan, “was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” Now we most of the time interpret this as if it has already happened, and certainly to the degree that Satan was cast out of heaven that is true. But he still has an audience in heaven; he can still go back to the Father. He accuses the brethren day and night; there is angelic warfare in the heavens. So this has it, as I understand the Word of God, being a final casting down of Satan. And to me, contextually, it fits more that this is going to happen at a specific period of time in history, actually specifically right before the last three and a half years that God’s been talking about in Daniel and already suggested in Revelation 12. Look at verse 10: “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom or our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night.’” Now look at verse 12: “For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them.” Why would the heavens rejoice? Hey, man, you don’t have to put up with this sucker anymore. He’s been cast out; he can never enter these heavens again. “Woe to the earth…; because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time.” How long does he have on the face of this earth? How long a time does God give him when He ultimately cast him out of the heavens? How long? Three and a half years. What is he going to do during those three and a half years? Verse 13, “And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. And the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, in order that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished [now, listen, that does not mean that she wasn’t persecuted. She was nourished during this time: this is hope for Israel. God is going to watch over His children. One-third of them will be saved and then comes their day of atonement it says in other places] for a time and times and half a time [three and a half years] from the presence of the serpent.” So the scene begins to develop even more. Why is God bringing this out to Daniel? He’s not just giving him a history lesson, He’s trying to tell him that in the latter days that there’s going to be a little horn to come up and that little horn, when he comes up, is going to do damage to the children of God, to the holy ones of God, Israel. And for three and a half years there’s going to be a reign of terror on this earth like the world has never known. But you say, “Now Brother Wayne, that’s fine. I understand the little horn. But what’s this got to do with Satan? It says here that Satan is the one who’s persecuting the woman.” Are you beginning to put it together in your mind? How can you disassociate the people he’s going to use from the evil that he is himself? He is going to be working through what? There’s going to be a ten nation federation; somehow those people are going to give their power to a man and that man is going to be the little horn that we’re talking about. Listen, in all three of them it talked about him having horns, seven heads, and seven crowns. Let’s look at that: Daniel 7. Actually Daniel 7 doesn’t talk about the seven heads. Let me tell you what the seven heads really are. The seven heads, and I have to bring this out from the Scriptures next week because I didn’t write it down but it popped in my mind. It might just solve something right here. The seven heads represent seven kings, and, friend, if you’ll look at the seven kingdoms that have been on this earth, it says five have fallen, one is, and one is to come as we’ll see later on in another passage in Revelation. If you’ll look at all the kingdoms that have been there: there’s Egypt, there’s Assyria, there’s Babylon, there’s Medo-Persia, and there’s Greece that have fallen. One is, and who is writing the book of Revelation: John is writing it. Rome is! But there is one to come, what’s to come? That revived latter day empire of Rome itself. And in those seven heads, they have blasphemous names written across their foreheads, which means that every nation on this earth has always dishonored God. They’ve always gone their own way and built into each kingdom are some things to do with other kingdoms that they’ve taken over. And so all the evil on earth is represented in those seven heads, and all those seven heads are somehow represented in those ten nations, and behind every bit of it is Satan himself. He’s the one causing the evil. But I want you to know something: God has him on a leash. He only has time that God says he has and God’s going to use everything he does for His own purposes. Alright, just to show you this: Daniel 7, we’ve already seen the beast with ten horns. Let’s just leave that alone for a minute. Revelation 12, we’ve just seen that this dragon is going to have ten horns on his head and seven heads and seven diadems. But now look in chapter 13 of Revelation. And we see another beast and we see that this beast becomes a personality. Here we have another picture of the Antichrist. But I want to show you something. Verse 1, “And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names.” And as we continue to compare Scripture with Scripture it appears to me that that’s the kingdom. But he goes on, “And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion.” Isn’t that amazing? When Daniel saw it, he saw the lion first, then he saw the bear and the leopard, but it’s exactly the opposite with John. Why? Because Daniel is looking this way and John is looking that way. It’s the same beast, just seen from a different perspective. Isn’t that incredible? “And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority.” Look at the personality starting to develop automatically out of this. “And I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed. And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast;” Be careful how you interpret that! Be real, real, real, real, real careful how you do that. Maybe later on we’ll get to that. “And they worshiped the dragon, because he gave his authority to the beast [who gave the authority to the beast? The dragon gave his authority to the beast]; and they worshipped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?’ And there was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies; and authority to act for forty-two months.” How long is that? Three and a half years; time, times, and half a time; or twelve hundred and sixty days. It’s all the same thing, so there is a time period here. Wherever you see that just stand up and shout! I know now what Daniel is talking about! Why would he bring up this little horn? Because there’s going to come a time in latter day prophecy that this man is going to grow up and take power. But behind him will be ten nations, and behind all of it is going to be the dragon, Satan himself. Look at Revelation 17:12-13. Don’t try to figure it all out; we’re just putting some things where I think it will help us. “And the beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth [that is so exciting; we’ll have to do that later] and is one of the seven, and he goes to destruction. And the ten horns which you saw are ten kings, who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour.” Look at verse 13: here’s the verse. “These have one purpose and they give their power and authority to the beast.” It’s very obvious to me that those ten nations are going to come under the leadership of this one individual with the little horn that’s going to rise up. But behind the whole scenario is going to be Satan masking himself. That’s the way he always works. You’ll see in Daniel, he’s behind all the pagan governments of this world. He’s behind the Hitler’s and the Mussolini’s and all of them. But above him, with unseen hands that we can’t even see, is a God that is completely controlling his destiny and knows the day and the hour that his end is going to come on this earth. But friends, I can’t go any further, because if I do I’ll just dig a hole I can’t get out of. This is just a start; we’re throwing out in the wind. The wind’s blowing, man, things are happening in this world. What’s going on? Make sure you’ve got your reel fixed just real good. Don’t throw it out there and expect to get answers if you don’t start listening to how the Word of God puts this to
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