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Now in Deuteronomy chapter 28, this is one of the most classic chapters in the Bible obviously giving the blessings and the cursings. If you would look at verse number 15, this is where he switches from the blessings to the cursings. He says in verse 15, But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes, which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. And of course, we know if we've studied the Bible for any length of time whatsoever, that the path to God's blessing is through the door of obedience. You know, when we live a sinful and ungodly life, when we do not hearken unto his commandments and hearken unto his word, God's not going to bless us, God's going to curse us and bad things are going to happen as a result of our actions. The Bible says, God deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. And that's what this chapter clearly illustrates, but what I want to preach about this morning is actually a plant. Now that plant is not marijuana, okay? But I want to preach about a specific plant, and it's a plant that I've encountered, and I think that there's a lot that we can learn from this plant. Now God created every plant, God created all the animals, God created the natural world that we live in, and Jesus and his disciples, they often used illustrations of things that we find in the natural world in order to illustrate biblical truths, such as when Jesus talked about the mustard seed becoming a great tree and he talked about the parable of the sower and so forth. But the plant that I want to talk about is poison oak. Now who's ever come down with poison oak before? You've actually gotten the rash. Did you get, are you putting your hand up or are you just scratching your head? Did you get it? Not this time, okay. You're scratching your head, I was like, did you get it on your head? But anyway, poison oak is a plant that obviously God created, and I think there's a lot that we can learn from this plant, and I've tied this in with a lot of scripture this morning. I'm preaching a lot of Bible, but let me explain to you what the plan is, but before I do that, let me just read for you a couple of scriptures from Deuteronomy 28. Jump down, if you would, to some of these curses. Look at verse 21. The Bible reads, the Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee. That means basically disease or illness. Until you've consumed thee from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption and with a fever, and watch this, and with an inflammation and with an extreme burning and with the sword and with blasting and with mildew and they shall pursue thee until thou perish. Jump down to verse 27. The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt and with emerods and with the scab and with the itch whereof thou canst not be healed, and then jump down if you would to verse 35. The Bible reads, the Lord shall smite thee in the knees and in the legs with a sore botch that cannot be healed from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head. So God's talking about in this chapter the curses that are associated with sin, and some of that curse can be in the form of illness or a rash or itching or burning or disease or botch and so forth, but what I want to preach about is poison oak. Now poison oak is a plant that if you come into contact with this plant you develop a horrible rash, and very few people here have had it, but it can be so bad. I've had relatives that actually had to go to the hospital because they had poison oak so bad. They could even die from their exposure to poison oak, literally. It can be so bad, and some of the images that I've seen of the rash that comes from poison oak are so horrific that the blisters and the scabbing and the swelling can be horrible. Now let me start out, go to Psalm 73, I want to tell you five things about poison oak today that basically are like sin and that mirror the consequences of sin in our lives. First of all, number one, when you come into contact with poison oak, the effects are not immediate. Oh no. It takes about a week for you to even know that you've been affected by the poison oak. It could even take two weeks. Now the first time I ever got poison oak in my life, are you in Psalm 73, was a year ago in 2011, I'd never gotten it my whole life, and last year on a hiking trip I came into contact with a lot of it, and it was a full two weeks after the hiking trip that I just started to break out in this horrible rash on my arms. And I'm going to tell you something, it was an extreme burning. It was very itchy, very painful, excruciating to where you couldn't hardly think and function it was so bad. It was pretty bad. So it doesn't come right away, it comes a week or two later. The oil in the poison oak leaf that causes the rash is active for a year or two. So if it's on your clothes, you could touch those clothes three or four months later and then get the rash a week or two after that. So there's a delayed reaction, and that's the first thing I want to point out. That's how sin is. The effects of sin and the punishment and curse of our sins, there's always a delay involved. Look at Psalm 73, it says in verse 11, they say, how doth God know? And is there knowledge in the Most High? Behold these are the ungodly who prosper in the world, they increase in riches. Now does that seem to fit with what we read in Deuteronomy 28 that said God's going to destroy you, God's going to punish you, God's going to curse you if you do wrong. Here it says, man, the ungodly, they're rich, they're prospering, everything's going well for them. This is what Asaph is thinking because Asaph is upset that he's lived a righteous and godly life. He feels like other people who've lived in sin are doing better than he is. But look what he comes to the conclusion of down in verse 17 there, just a few verses down. It says, until I went into the sanctuary of God, then understood I their end. He understood their end and it says, surely thou didst set them in slippery places. Thou casteth them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation as in a moment? They are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest, shalt despise their image. And what he's saying there is sometimes it seems like God's ignoring sin or God's not punishing sin or God's not judging sin. Like he's asleep, quote unquote, and he's not paying attention and people, they continue to live in sin and they think away with it, how does God know? What's God going to do about it? But then all of a sudden as when one awakes from sleep, the Bible says God's going to wake up and despise their image and he's going to cast them down to destruction. You see, sin always has its repercussions, but they're not immediate. You could go hiking with me in Northern California today and you could roll around with no shirt on in the poison oak and say, it doesn't affect me, this isn't hurting me, this stuff's not so bad. And then we could get home and you could go back to your job on Monday and you could live your life and you could think, I got away with it, but you know what, you didn't get away with it because a week or two later you're going to start getting these red spots and scabs and itching and burning and you're going to be suffering and you're going to wish that you would have listened when somebody said, hey, you know, what do they say, hang on, this is what I read online, leaves of three, leave them be. You know when there's three, because when you find the poison oak, it's three leaves together, that's kind of how you identify it. Sometimes it's reddish in color, but sometimes it's not. And so you identify it when you see the three leaves together, leaves of three, leave them be. I don't need to listen to that. And a week or two later, that's when the punishment comes. It's the same thing with sin. You know, you don't listen to the warnings of God's Word. God tells you in Deuteronomy 28, He waxes eloquent, He goes on and on and on about the bad consequences of not following His commandments, but you blow it off and you say, well, you know, I'm doing it and none of this stuff's happening to me. That's a bunch of baloney. But it's coming. The Bible talked about Moses in Hebrews 11, that he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Because sin's pleasure, it only lasts a season and then judgment's coming. Be not deceived. God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Hosea 8.7, for they have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind. We will reap the consequences for our actions in our life, but it's a delayed reaction. When you sow a seed into the earth, it doesn't grow immediately. You don't immediately reap the benefits or the destruction from that seed that you've sown, but eventually you will reap. And if you sow the wind, you'll reap the whirlwind. You'll always reap more than you've sown. So the first thing I want to point out about poison oak is that the consequences, they come later. There's a delayed reaction. It's a week or two. With sin, sometimes it can be longer than that, but in the scheme of things, it's coming. You can't escape it. But number two, not only that, go to James chapter 1. Not only do the consequences come later with poison oak, but secondly, the more you're exposed to poison oak, the worse the punishment, the worse the reaction is. You do not become more immune to it. Now some people think, oh, if I get around something enough, I'll get immune to it. Now viruses are like that. You get exposed to a virus, now you're immune to it. But you see, poison oak is not a virus. Poison oak is an allergic reaction. And with an allergic reaction, the more you're exposed to it, the worse it gets. Now as I mentioned earlier, the first time I got poison oak was last year. Well here's the thing, I grew up in Northern California and I grew up playing in the woods and hiking and I guarantee you that I came into contact with poison oak, but I never got the rash. I never got the inflammation. I never got the burning. Because what happens is, sometimes when you're first exposed to it, it's not that bad. But then what happens is the more you're exposed to it, the worse it gets. So if you've had poison oak once, then you get exposed to it the same amount, you're going to get it twice as bad the next time. That's how people end up in the hospital, you know, it just gets worse and it gets worse and worse and worse every single time you're exposed to it. Look at James chapter 1 verse 14, the Bible says, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Let me ask you this, is lust a sin? Yes it is, because the Bible says, thou shalt not covet. And in Romans chapter 8 I believe, 7, somewhere around there, the apostle Paul said, he said, I had not known lust, but he said, the scripture said, thou shalt not covet. Lust is a sin. But he said, when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death. Go to Proverbs chapter 6, Proverbs chapter 6. You see, the sin of lust leads you into even greater sin, and then that greater sin leads you to death. The more we sin, we don't become immune to it, and the more we sin, we don't have less punishment coming, we have more punishment coming. Now a lot of people have the mistaken idea that they can somehow be immune to sin. And they say things like this, you know, I've just got to get it out of my system. Or this, I've got to sow my wild oats while I'm young, I just want to get it out of my system, I'm going to go through this phase, I want to see what it's like to indulge in drunkenness and fornication, just kind of get it out of my system, just kind of immunize myself to it, and then I'll get sick of it, and then I'll be ready to settle down and live a godly life. No, that's not the way it works, that's the devil's lie. The more you're exposed to sin, the worse it gets, the more it affects you, the more it enslaves you, the more it dominates you. You know, a great example is drugs, you know, if you've never tried drugs, it's probably not that hard for you to resist the temptation of doing drugs. I've never taken drugs, so I don't constantly have to just say, man, you know, some heroin would be nice right now. Man, I wish I could snort some coke right now. But you know, there are some people who do have that, that craving in them. Because the more you indulge in sin, the craving increases. The bondage increases, the punishment increases. For example, drinking. You know, I've never been drunk before, so I don't just constantly feel the need to go out and get drunk, but people who've struggled with that, they do have that tendency. Smoking is another one. You know, people who've once, I talked to a good friend of mine, and he had kicked the habit of smoking many years before, I think almost a decade before, and he told me this, he said, you know, the first three days are the hardest. He said after that, it's not so bad. But he said this, the craving never goes away. He said, in fact, a cigarette sounds pretty good right now. And he hadn't smoked in 10 years. You know, that temptation's there. Someone who's never smoked doesn't really understand that. You know, you look at it and say, what, you know, I don't want to smoke. I have no desire to smoke. But once you've indulged in the sin, you've just opened up temptations that are going to be there for the rest of your life. Once that, once you've been exposed to poison oak in high quantities, you'll never be able to go back to the days when you could kind of get near it and be okay. When I was a kid, I'd brush against it a little bit, never came down with it. But now that I got it in 2011, I have to be extra careful, extra vigilant, because now my allergic reaction is in high gear, and next time I get exposed to it, it's going to be worse than it was the last time. And that leads me to my next point. My first point was that the consequences are delayed. My second point was that the more you're exposed to it, the worse it gets. Not better, not easier to deal with, it gets worse. The more you get poison oak, the worse the rash is going to get. The second time is much worse than the third time. Have you ever known people who were allergic to bee stings and they were told, hey, if you get stung by another bee, you're going to die? Have you ever heard people say things like that? Now you say, well wait a minute, if they didn't die last time, why are they telling them they're going to die the next time? But the reason is that the allergic reaction gets worse every time, and that's how poison oak is too, and it gets worse and worse. Look down if you would, see the effect of lust. It says in Proverbs 6 verse 24, it says, to keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman, lust not after her beauty in thine heart. Now a lot of people will try to think that in Matthew chapter 5 when Jesus said, whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after hath committed adultery with her already in his heart, that that was some kind of a new commandment. But you know, in the Old Testament, God's already commanding, lust not after her beauty in thy heart. He's already commanding us that. Neither let her take thee with her eyelids. You say, why not? It's just in my head, it's just in my mind, I'm not physically committing any sin, you know, I can think about whatever I want. It's not going to affect me to look at that billboard, it's not going to affect me to watch this on TV and watch these movies and these scantily clad women. I can handle it because look what it leads to, for by means of a whorish woman, and by the way, all these women that you're looking at that are scantily clad, that's the word to describe them. On the billboards and on the magazine covers and down at the mall or wherever else. By a whorish woman, by means of a whorish woman, a man is brought to a piece of bread and the adulterous will hunt for the precious life. Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Ask yourself that question. Oh, I can handle it, I can handle the sin. Well can you take fiery coals in your bosom and your clothes not be burned? Verse 28, can one go upon hot coals and his feet not be burned? You can't play with sin and not get burned. You will be burned. He says, so he that goeth into his neighbor's wife, whoso toucheth her, shall not be innocent. And that leads me to my third point. People who've never suffered the consequences of poison oak, they don't have a proper respect for it. So first of all, it's a delayed reaction. Second of all, it's something that gets worse the more you're exposed to it. People who've been immune to it in the past and never come down with it, they don't have a proper respect for it. Now I'll put myself in this category. In 2011 on that hike, honestly, I wasn't really trying that hard to stay away from the poison oak. I kind of had it in my head, oh that's poison oak, stay away from it, haha. But for 30 years of my life I'd never had it so I just didn't have that proper respect for it. So although I tried to avoid it, at one point I kind of, you know, I did part of the hike in shorts. You know, I'd say, oh this will be okay. No, bad idea. Because if you're hiking in shorts, you're probably going to get exposed to it. But I didn't have a proper respect for it because I'd never suffered the consequences of it. Now in 2012, by contrast, we hiked down some of the same trails. And let me tell you something, this time I was super careful. I mean I was watching, I'm using a stick to push it aside, you know, I'm being very careful. Then as soon as I was done with each phase of the hike, I took this stuff called Tecnu and it's this special poison oak soap and if you put it on right after you've been exposed to it, this will neutralize the effect if you can get it on fast enough. And so not only did I avoid it like the plague, but then I got home and I just scrubbed myself in all this Tecnu, head to toe, showered it off, I was not interested in getting poison oak. And thank God I didn't get it. Okay? Yet. No, I'm just kidding. It's been a couple weeks so I'm good to go. Because this was actually a hike three weeks ago. But I didn't get it because I was so careful. You know, but people who've never suffered the consequences, they don't have a healthy respect for it. But you know what, the wise person wouldn't have to go through it like I went through it. They would just listen to other people. I should have listened to my brother. My brother in 2011, he's putting on the Tecnu, he's being real careful. You know why? Because he's had it many times. And so he doesn't play with it. Whereas I didn't have that healthy respect for it. And this is how people are. You'll hear people that think that they can indulge in sin and that it's not going to affect them. People will say this, well I can watch these Hollywood movies and honestly it's just not a stumbling block to me. I mean if the Holy Spirit's spoken to you about that, well then you better watch out for it. But for me, I can handle it. It's not a stumbling block to me. You know what, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. And when we get to the point where we're comfortable with sin and we can play with sin and it's not going to affect us because we're so strong. Well it affected David. Lust affected David when he looked at something he shouldn't have been looking at. You know, it affected all the characters in the Bible adversely when they indulged in the lust of the flesh. And are we greater than them? Are we better than them? Are we above falling into sin? No we're not. There's a false doctrine out there that says well if somebody's really saved, you know, they're never going to fall. You know, they're going to continue, they're not going to fall. That's garbage. Saved people, yes you're saved, yes the Holy Spirit lives inside you, and by the way you can never lose your salvation because Jesus said I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. But let me tell you something, a saved person can go into sin. And people in the Bible were warned over and over again and God warned us, the saved, speaking to the saved in 1 Corinthians 10, he said, neither let us lust as many of them lusted and committed fornication and there fell in one day 23,000. And God said that was written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come, that God killed 23,000 people because of fornication. We need to take heed unto ourselves and not make provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof and not to just think I can handle it. No you can't take fire into your bosom and not be burned. No you can't walk on hot coals and not be burned. No you can't roll around in the poison oak and not get the reaction. Let me explain it to you and I'll read this. This is from an encyclopedia on poison oak. Listen to this. Western poison oak leaves and twigs have a surface oil, urishual, which causes an allergic reaction. Listen to this now carefully. This is about poison oak. Around 15 to 30 percent of people have no allergic response. Did you hear that? 15 to 30 percent of the people are just immune to it. They can handle it. Nope. Keep reading. Most, if not all, will become sensitized over time with repeated or more concentrated exposure to urishual. So yeah, 15 to 30 percent of the people in the world, quote, are not allergic to poison oak, but if they are exposed to enough of it, all of them will eventually become allergic to it. My uncle was like that. My uncle, he grew up around it, never had poison oak, tromping through the woods, never had a problem. One time he was trimming some trees and he was cutting through trees and he cut through with a chainsaw or some kind of a tool, he cut through an actual thick stalk and the juice from the poison oak plant actually just squirted on him. And he came down with a horrible case of poison oak because he got it in such concentration. And he had been exposed to it a ton of times and it never affected him. Let me tell you something, nobody is immune from ever getting poison oak. You will, if you go roll around in it, you will get it. Now you might be less immune than someone else or more immune than someone else, but you will get it. It's the same way with sin. There are people that think, oh I can handle this. I can handle this constant exposure to Hollywood and the rock music and I can listen to Led Zeppelin and it's not going to affect me. I don't even listen to the words. Yeah that's even worse. Because you're just being subliminally brainwashed if you're not listening to the words. You know a lot of people aren't listening to the words, but they're just being programmed and it's just being driven into their mind, worldly concepts, sinful concepts. Not going to affect me, it affects everybody. Lust will lead to sin and sin will lead to death and if you indulge in the lust of the eyes, that will eventually lead you into sin. You are not immune from it. Are you in Proverbs 6? Go to chapter 7. Chapter number 7. People who haven't gotten the rash, they don't have a healthy respect for it and you try to explain it to them and they still want to wear shorts on the hike. They still want to go near the poison oak and you're trying to tell them, hey watch out, pay attention. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, do you just have to learn it the hard way? Well with sin you'd be wise to just read Deuteronomy 28 and just realize it, but let's keep reading in Proverbs 7 here about how people, they don't respect sin, they think they can play with it. Look at verse 5. That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger with flat earth with their words. For at the window of my house I looked through my casement and beheld among the simple ones. Is this a smart guy, an experienced guy, a wise man? No, he's a simple one. I discerned among the youths, and by the way most youths are simple because they haven't had a lot of experience in life. A young man, void of understanding, passing through the street near her corner and he went the way to her house. So basically this young guy, he's just kind of playing around with it, kind of going that part of town, kind of going near there, going in that direction, and it says, in the twilight in the evening, in the black and dark night, and behold there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot and subtle of heart. You say, what is the attire of a harlot? Go down to the mall and look at all the popular clothing styles amongst teenagers, that's the attire of a harlot, in case you were wondering. And it says, and subtle of heart, she is loud and stubborn, her feet abide not in her house. Now is she without, now in the streets and lithe and wait at every corner. Why is she at every corner? Because she's a dime a dozen, there are plenty of women out there that are like this. Every corner has one, he said. So she caught him and kissed him and with an impudent face said unto him, I have peace offerings with me. This day I paid my vows, therefore came I to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face and have found thee. Notice how she brings in church, you know what I mean, like oh I go to church, I'm Christian, as she's just instantly, she met the guy five seconds ago, she's throwing her arms around him and kissing him saying, oh I've been waiting for you. She doesn't even know you, okay? And it says, therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face and have found thee. Come again? And it says in verse 16, I decked my bed with coverings of tapestry and with carved works with fine linen of Egypt. I perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come let us take our fill of love until the morning. Let us solace ourselves with love, for the good man is not at home. He's gone a long journey. He had taken a bag of money with him and will come home at the day appointed. With her much fair speech, she caused him to yield. With the flattering of her lips, she forced him. He goeth after her straightway as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stalks, till a dart strike through his liver as a bird hasteth to the snare. Did you hear that? A bird hurrying up to go to the trap there. He says a bird hastening to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life. You see, many people, they go headlong into sin, not understanding the consequences, not understanding the horrible curses that it's going to bring upon their life. They didn't read Deuteronomy 28, they didn't listen to that, and so they just go straight into it, like a bird, like a foolish animal, running right into the trap, not knowing that it's for their life, not knowing that it's poison oak that it's going to hurt them. It says in verse 24, Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths, for she hath cast down many wounded, yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. Go to chapter 9 of Proverbs. Chapter 9, verse 13, just a couple pages to the right in your Bible, Proverbs 9, 13. A foolish woman is clamorous, she is simple and knoweth nothing. For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, to call passengers who go right on their ways. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither, and as for him that wanteth understanding, she sayeth to him, stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not, he knoweth not, he knoweth not that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell. This is the simple fool who basically plays around with sin, fools around with sin, and doesn't understand that there will be consequences to his actions. Now obviously we're not going to go to hell, but obviously this is dealing with both the unsaved and the saved. Unsaved people, they do go down this path, and they do go into fornication, and they do not like to retain God in their knowledge, and they do wind up in hell. And this is the path that leads to hell. Now if you're saved, you're not going to go to hell. The Bible's very clear that our sins are forgiven and forgotten of the Father as far as the east is from the west, but whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. What is a scourge? What is a whip? And so God will give you a whipping. God will punish. God will curse. And those cursed in Deuteronomy 28, many of them were directed at his people. And he said, you, my people, will be judged. The Lord will judge his people, it says in Hebrews chapter number 10. And God will chasten and chastise and he will bring punishments and pain and suffering upon his people and his children that rebel against him and indulge in these kind of wicked sins. And this leads me to my fourth point about poison oak. One thing that I noticed about poison oak is that sometimes you'd be hiking down the trail and these trails that we were hiking on, they weren't really super well maintained. So every once in a while there'd be a great log that had fallen into the trail. Now keep in mind, you know, we're backpacking, so we're carrying these big heavy packs. So when you're carrying a big heavy pack and there's a big log that goes up to here, you know, it's not easy to climb over. It takes a little bit of work, right, to climb over it. Sometimes there'd be a tree across the way where you either had to limbo under it, which is almost impossible, or climb really high over it and it was a lot of work to get over some of these logs in the way. But what we noticed was that sometimes you'd come up to a log like that and you'd see a little path that kind of took you off the trail and would go around the log and it looked really easy. Because who wants to climb over this giant log or, you know, climb under this giant log with a big pack, it would be so much easier, right, to just go around it, just walk around the edge. But, guess what happens when you get off the trail? Total poison oak. Because on the trail, you know, the trail is just dirt. And the trail has no plants on it because it's been trodden down from people who've gone over the trail and over the trail, and they've trodden it down. There's no plant life growing on the trail. The only poison oak you had to avoid was kind of just creeping over from the edges. And, you know, you'd kind of just be careful to stay right in the middle of that path, watch out for the poison oak. But you'd come to this big log and it was like, here's the easy way. But it was just a total poison oak. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.