Romans 4:9-12

Coram Deo Reformed Baptist Church iconCoram Deo Reformed Baptist Church

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Well, we'll start, I'll start in verse 1 of chapter 4.
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What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh?
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For Abraham was justified by works, or I'm sorry, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
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For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
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Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.
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And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom
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God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
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Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Is the blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised?
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For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him?
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Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.
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He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.
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The purpose was to make him the father of all who believed without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well.
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And to make him the father of the circumcised, who are not merely circumcised, but also who walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father
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Abraham had before he was circumcised. Abraham received the blessing and by faith was declared righteous before the covenant of circumcision.
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We went through that last week. This is done so that we can understand that it was not circumcision that saved
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Abraham. While he is ethnically the father of the
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Jews, he is the spiritual father of all who believe, both circumcised and uncircumcised, or as Paul says, those who are
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Jews inwardly. We went through last week,
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Abraham was justified in chapter 16 and receives the circumcision in chapter 17.
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We also, last week in Galatians, saw
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Paul's argument that justification can't come by the law, because the law came 430 years after the covenant was made, or after the promise was made.
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And just as in the argument in Galatians, Paul here in Romans is addressing this issue of the timeline of events.
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Only here in Romans, he is using that argument in regards to circumcision.
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Turn with me to Genesis chapter 12, starting in verse 1.
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Now the Lord said to Abraham, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
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And I will make of you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
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I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse.
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And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And we move along in time to chapter 13, verses 14 through 17.
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The Lord said to Abraham, after Lot had separated from him, lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward.
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For all the land that you see, I will give to you and to your offspring.
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I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth. So that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.
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Arise, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.
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Here's the promise. This is not another promise.
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This adds more information to the promise from chapter 12. Now notice, from Galatians 3, you don't have to flip there,
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Paul says something very interesting about this particular passage.
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Paul says that he made this promise with special reference to Christ in verse 15. The word used there in Hebrew is
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Zerah. I assume that's how you pronounce it. Now it would be very easy to go back and say, okay, so is this one of those words that can be used singularly and plurally?
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But notice what happens when you do that. Paul said it means the singular.
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Paul says that the word for offspring in verse 15, where it says, for all the land that you see,
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I will give to you and your offspring, plural, or I'm sorry, singular, meaning
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Christ. So we can either believe what Paul says, because Scripture is inerrant and all
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Scripture is God -breathed, or we can go check and make sure.
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Do you see what I'm saying? It doesn't hurt to go check and make sure, but be sure that you're not saying that you don't believe
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Scripture, because Paul can't be wrong. Scripture is inerrant.
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But in verses 16 and 17, these are in regards to his genetic offspring, or seed, and his spiritual offspring, or seed, depending on which translation you're reading.
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Let's move to chapter 15, verses 1 through 6.
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After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, Abram, I am your shield, your reward shall be very great.
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But Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me?
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For I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus. And Abram said,
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Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.
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And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, This man shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be your heir.
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And he brought him outside and said, Look toward the heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.
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And he said to him, So shall your offspring be. And he believed the
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Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
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There it is. Abraham is justified by faith alone, right there in verse 6. Not on the basis of anything that he did.
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He didn't commit an act. He didn't do something. He believed
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God. Now we're going to turn to chapter 17.
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Chapter 16 is well worth reading, but for the purposes of what we're talking about right now, chapter 16 is a very good example of simul justus et peccator, if you remember what that means.
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Simultaneously justified and yet a sinner. Because he's justified, right there, in verse 6.
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And yet what does he do in chapter 16? That's the chapter with Hagar in it, by the way.
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Chapter 17, verse 1 through 10. When Abram was 99 years old, the
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Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am the Lord, I am God Almighty.
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Walk before me and be blameless that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.
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Then Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.
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No longer shall your name be called Abram, for your name shall be called Abraham. For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.
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I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you.
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And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant.
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To be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.
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And I will be their God. And God said to Abraham, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you and your offspring after you throughout their generations.
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This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you.
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Every male among you shall be circumcised. It is here that the sign of the covenant is given.
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Notice that nothing changed from the original promise in chapter 12. Only more information is given.
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Nor did anything change from chapter 13 to chapter 15. Just more information.
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And in chapter 17, yet again, more information is added, as is the sign of the covenant.
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Back in Romans, verse 11. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.
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The purpose was to make him the father of all who believed without being circumcised so that righteousness would be counted to them as well.
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What Paul is saying here is that Abraham was given the outward sign of circumcision because he believed
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God. To show outwardly what
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Abraham had, what had been done to Abraham inwardly, it was to signify the only circumcision that matters, the circumcision of the heart.
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If you remember from Romans chapter 2, 28 and 29, it says,
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For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.
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But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the
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Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God.
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In Genesis chapter 17, God says, No longer shall your name be called
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Abram, but your name shall be called Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.
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Now there are different arguments as far as the meaning of that particular verse.
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But how is it that Abraham is the father of many nations? Or is it that through him
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God blesses all of the families of the earth? As it says in chapter 12, it is as Paul says in the rest of verse 11,
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The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe, without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well.
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Signs are wonderful blessings. They are an absolutely wonderful gift that is given.
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But all they do is point to something vastly greater than themselves. When you come to a town, you don't stop at the sign that says,
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Welcome to such and such, because the sign is not the town. You continue on, because all the sign does is point you towards the town.
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Similarly, after God destroyed the earth with a flood, He set
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His bow in the sky as a reminder to us and to Him, of His promise never to destroy the earth with water ever again.
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It is not the rainbow that prevents the world from being destroyed. It is the promise that God made.
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Now, as a semi -side note, when you understand that He actually means
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His bow as in a weapon of war, it sort of changes the magnitude of that sign, does it not?
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And also, that He still has His sword, and He will certainly be coming again.
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While we must be careful not to undervalue the ordinances and the sacraments that are given to us, that are prescribed to us as the church, such as baptism and the
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Lord's Supper, we must at the same time not put our faith in them, because they do not have the power to save.
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Too often, too often do professing
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Christians walk around pointing to their own baptism, and that's as far as the pointing goes.
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You talk to them, Yeah, I've been baptized. Or what?
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I've been baptized. I'm good. I'm saved. I got baptized. Can you go any further than that?
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More often than not, no, because they put their faith in a sign.
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Verse 12, And to make him the father of the circumcised, who are not merely circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father
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Abraham had before he was circumcised. To show all those that he is ethnically the father of, that they should not put their faith in the sign that was given, but in God as Abraham did.
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That Abraham is the father of those who are circumcised, as I said before, inwardly.
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Justification by faith alone is not a difficult thing to grasp.
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It's not a difficult thing to explain. Trust in him and his work, and he will save you.
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In fact, to paraphrase
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Sproul, Too many, it seems, too easy. That's too easy of an explanation of salvation.
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It has to be harder than that. Many in the world think that simply trusting in someone else's work can't be enough.
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I have to do something. This has led, unfortunately, many to heresy, many to have truths.
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In reality, the explanation of the means by which this work, or I'm sorry, by which this is worked out, justification by faith alone, can become very theologically complex.
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It's very easy to do, especially when you read a lot. You can go really deep, but really, truthfully, it is that simple.
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Trust in Christ. The fact is that our works can only earn us one thing, eternal damnation in hell.
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There is nothing else that it can earn. The good news is that Christ, our
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Lord, the only one capable of doing the work necessary for salvation, has already done it.
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No longer something that he will do. For Abraham, it was. For Abraham, he believed forward.
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For us, we believe backward in time. 2 ,000 years.
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2 ,000 years. 2 ,000 years ago, he took upon himself what we earned, that which we deserve,
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God's wrath, and he imputed to us what he earned, what we do not deserve, which is justification before God.
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Not merely a clean slate, but one that has been filled with the righteousness of Christ, just as was the case for Abraham, the only difference being that now we have a more revealed word from God.
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We must certainly remember to praise God for his wonderful work and mercy, that he justifies sinners like us.
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Charles Spurgeon says in his study Bible, The blessing was not given to Abraham as a circumcised man, but as a believing man, and hence it comes also to all of us who believe.
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What a mercy it is that there is in this sense. No distinction between Jew and Gentile now.
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I hate the plan of reading the scriptures in which we are told when we lay hold of a gracious promise.
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No, not that one. It's for the Jews. Then I also am a
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Jew, for it is given to me. Every promise of God's word belongeth to all of us who have faith to grasp it.
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We who have faith are all in the covenant, and are thus the children of faithful Abraham, so do not be afraid.
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Ye who are the true seed, to take every blessing that belongs to you, your father
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Abraham, and to all the seed. I'll end with Psalm 47.
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Clap your hands, all peoples. Shout to God with loud songs of joy, for the
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Lord, the Most High, is to be feared. The Lord, a great
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King over all the earth. He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet.
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He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob, whom he loves.
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God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises, for God is the
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King of all the earth. Sing praises with a psalm. God reigns forever.
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My apologies. God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne.
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The princes of the peoples gather, as the people of the
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God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God.