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How dear and precious is the Lord!

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Isn't He so wonderful?

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And I tell you, to think...

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right now, I could be in hell.

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And God would not have to apologize to me.

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I could be there.

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I could be cut off from mercy.

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I could be lost forever.

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I could be ready to be resurrected

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and stand before the Great White Throne

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and to be cast into the eternal lake of fire.

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And to think that God had mercy upon me

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and saved me and brought me into a

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relationship with His Son,

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the Lord Jesus Christ,

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and has introduced me to peace

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that I never had in the world,

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never could find,

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a joy that is truly at times

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inexpressible.

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And life through the Scripture,

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understanding,

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God telling me and teaching me

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and showing me the riches and

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the treasures of what my life is about

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and what the life of others is about

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and where things are going.

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To have these things to be given to you

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and to know that you haven't paid for them,

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you haven't earned them,

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you haven't worked for them,

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they've just been given to you.

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All because He paid the price

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for this gift to be given to you.

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And I'll tell you again, how can we not be

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passionate about this?

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How can we not be giving ourselves

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completely to Him?

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How can we not be just

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caught up every day in the glories of this.

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Let's walk with God.

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Let us strive unto death fighting against sin,

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and turning our backs upon the world.

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Because what else is there?

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For us who are called?

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What else could we do?

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Let us follow on the know the Lord.

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And this is the wonderful thing...

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I'm thankful for the promises in the Scripture

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that the Lord is not going to finish

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until we one day rise

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in the complete likeness of Jesus Christ.

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I can't imagine what this will be.

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It's really hard to think about it.

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But one day, all the attributes -

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I'm not talking about the deity attributes,

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but I'm talking about holy attributes

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of our Lord Jesus Christ,

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one day in body, soul and spirit

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it's going to be duplicated in us

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and we're going to rise one day

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and we're not even going to be

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able to think a bad thought.

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There will be no temptation,

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and if there was temptation,

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it'd be like a tick on the back 40,

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it wouldn't matter to us.

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What I'm saying is, thank God for

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the inexpressible and glorious joys

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there are in the present life

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of knowing Jesus,

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and the treasures and the wealth

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and the riches and the glory that is to be yet

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revealed to us who are children of God.

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Beloved, I tell you again,

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how wonderful God is!

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How loving He is!

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And let us spend our days from now on

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praising Him, honoring Him, thanking Him,

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serving Him, living for Him,

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doing all we can for His glory.

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Seeking Him.

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And the wonderful thing is

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the provisions are there on our side.

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We're not going to be short-changed when

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it comes to having the grace, the Spirit,

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the Word, the help that we'll need

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to make it to the end.

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Amen.

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So let us press on, beloved.

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My mom and dad,

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my grandfather was a Baptist pastor,

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my dad was a deacon in a Baptist church.

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I was raised to know the Gospel.

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And from an early age,

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I can remember when I first began

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to realize I was lost.

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I was six years old.

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I came under conviction.

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My mother had given me strict orders.

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I had a new BB gun.

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And she said, "You can shoot the sparrows out there,

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but don't shoot any red bird."

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Well, I was out in the backyard,

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and I can remember so clearly

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a red bird lit in a cedar tree behind our house.

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And I raised my BB gun.

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My mama told me not to shoot this bird.

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But it was too big a target and too tempting.

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And I shot that bird.

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I said, well, I can't hit him anyway.

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But anyway, I shot the bird dead.

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He fell out of the tree.

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And when that bird fell out of the tree,

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I felt like God in heaven was looking down upon me,

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and I felt right then immediately

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a sense of sin and lostness.

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I had done wrong.

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I had sinned.

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Disobeyed my parents.

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I knew that not obeying

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my mother and father was a sin.

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And from that point on, I labored

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under conviction.

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Really strong conviction.

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And again, being taken to church...

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I have a somewhat complicated testimony.

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But my first entrance into the life of faith

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was when I was 11 years old.

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In what Southern Baptists used to call

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Vacation Bible School,

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As I said I had been under conviction,

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and even in that week, the Lord

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had been dealing with me.

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The pastor had been preaching some very simple

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and very strong sermons to young people

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about salvation.

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And I remember, the night before I was saved,

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I remember I got in bed

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and I was thinking somehow this little prayer I'd heard,

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"Now I lay me down to sleep,

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I pray the Lord my soul to keep,

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and if I die before I wake..."

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And I got to thinking about

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"if I die before I wake"

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I'll go to hell.

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I'm lost.

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I remember knowing I was lost,

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just feeling under condemnation.

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But I went back to church the next day

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and to Bible school and this was back in

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an Arminian church where they gave an invitation.

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And the Lord was dealing with me,

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and the pastor said any one of you children

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would like to receive Christ as your Savior?

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Would anyone like to turn to the Lord today?

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And I can remember this,

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I turned to a friend of mine beside me,

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I told him, I said,

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"If you'll go, I'll go."

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And he said, (shook his head no)

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And I said I'm going to go

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whether you go or not.

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But anyway, I can remember this.

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I had to come to the Lord.

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I moved toward Christ.

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It was a simple repentance and a simple faith.

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And I was opening my life to the Lord.

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I can remember this.

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It was somewhere between the

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first and second step,

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the Lord gave me peace

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that my sins were forgiven.

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In a Southern Baptist church,

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I was not discipled very well.

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And I'm not blaming the church,

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but I didn't grow much.

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The concept is you get saved,

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now what else is there?

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But I came to learn that salvation

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is not just a one-time step.

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It's not just a one-time decision.

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It's a daily decision.

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And it's a lifelong commitment,

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a daily commitment to lay down our lives

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and to seek the Lord

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and yield to Him.

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And like I said, during my teenage years

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I drifted... the Lord never would let me go.

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In fact, I can give you testimony

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of how the Lord chastened me.

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I got some good spankings.

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Heavy spankings from the Lord

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when I was away, out of fellowship.

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And let me tell you

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whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth.

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And scourges every son whom He receives.

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If you're not obedient as a Christian,

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not doing what you ought to be doing,

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God's rod will be upon you some way.

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And His spankings hurt.

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And they're effective.

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And the Lord spanked me back into line.

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Praise the Lord!

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Amen.