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Luke & Jahan On Being Teenagers, The Existence Of God, Speaking The Truth In School & More
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Feb 19, 2025
To support the Eternal Perspective Conversation, see link below https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=W7946Z6TXXRRC or visit https://tayibs.com/about-me/ Welcome to Episode 4 of the Eternal Perspective Conversation. Today I have the pleasure of introducing to you, Luke Boyd and Jahan Gasemy, two very dynamic young men who will be sharing their journey with us. They will tell us about the meaning of being a teenager in this day and age in America; they will also tell us how they came to believe in Jesus , the constant battle they face in the academic world and their peers. Intro 0:17(Jahan) What is it like to be a teenager in the USA 1:59 Meaning of worldly view of a teenager 3:15 (Luke) what does it mean to be a teenager 4:18 (Jahan)How did he come to faith in Christ? 5:39 How to receive Eternal Life 7:25 (Luke) How did he come to Christ? 8:30 What School teaches them about the origin of the universe? 10:20 How do you face the objections from your school teachers? 13:50 Proofs for the reliability of Scriptures 17:25 How do you keep yourself from falling into temptations 19:48 How do you keep yourselves accountable? 23:57 What will be your advice to your peers? 26:10
View Video Transcript
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hello this is T at the Eternal perspective conversation and I have
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right in front of me two Dynamic young boys I shouldn't say young boys I say young man and I'm going to let them
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introduce themselves so who wants to go first um I'll go first my name is Jan um
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Jan gos me and um a little bit of background about myself uh I go to urana
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high school um I'm a sophomore in Urbana um I play for the football
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team um and I have a really like mixed
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uh background about myself um I'm part Colombian um I'm also Part White
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and and you know like my grandma is from a bunch of other places as well um and
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I'm also Middle Eastern that comes from my grandfather so yeah welcome to the
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show my name is Luke Boyd I go to Aranda high school as well and I'm also a
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sophomore there and I play for on the varsity baseball team
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and my background's pretty plain mostly Irish mostly Irish yeah okay and you
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guys did you give your age out how old are you I'm we're both 16 16 okay 16
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going to 15 going to 16 or 16 going to 17 I'm already 16 I'm turning 16 on the
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30th of December so couple days all right hey welcome to the show and today
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I have some tough questions for you guys and the reason why I want to ask you these questions is because I want to
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know what it is like to be a teenager in the USA you know I know teenagers pretty
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much have the same kind of mindset that people think but I want to know from your perspective what it is to what it
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is like what is it like to be a a teenager in this country like tell me what you go through on a daily
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basis all right um for me the worldly view of a teenager is you know worldly
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things such as drinking smoking having sex and just going by the slogan of you
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only live once or no one makes it out alive people think that um in your Youth
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and and your teens that you know you should live life to the fullest and um
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you know have fun and do the things that you want to do and not worry about what people say and um that's just not what
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I live by and that's not what I see as true um you know the society tries to to
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paint an image that every teenager should you know you know do what they want do what they feel because you know
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you only get the childhood you only get to do these things once so yeah that's that's kind of um summary of what the
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worldly view of a teenager is you say worldly view of a teenager
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could you please explain what worldly view means to the people that are watching this um when I say worldly view
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um saying as someone that is not a Believer and someone that is not filled
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with the whole Holy Spirit um and you know like when you're filled with the
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Holy Spirit you you begin to to realize that worldly desires and such as what I
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said earlier such as drinking smoking having sex and going to parties and doing all these crazy things um that's
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of the world and that's not what God wants for us okay looks like you you
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guys are jumping ahead of me because you mentioned the Holy Spirit you mentioned being a Believer and for someone who has
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never heard of it this is like foreign language to some people they're like what is he talking about he's talking about a Believer he's talking about
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worldly stuff he's talking about the Holy Spirit they quite don't understand what that means but before I get into
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the next question I want to know from Luke what is it like to be a teenager in
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this country beside what Jan mentioned so um obviously most of us go to school
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we have a lot of friends most of us and to me that's those are big
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distractions uh for me and him because our belief is opposite of what school
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teaches most of it and uh there kind of bad influences on us and also most of
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our friends aren't Christian so um those are influences that can't always listen
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to It's hard for us to go through that and I also think there's a lot of stress
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um our hormones Rising a lot of lust
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um yeah that's pretty much it now you guys now I'm gonna ask you the question flat out Jan you mentioned
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being a Believer and Luke also mentioned being a Christian so being a Christian is basically believing in what the Bible
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teaches about Jesus Christ that who he is right in the sense that he is the the Son of God that's what the Bible teaches
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and you guys are believers in Jesus Christ that's what you mean when you say believer okay now the next question is
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now that you mentioned that you're a Believer I don't think you just came out of your mother's womb saying hey I
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believe in Jesus because you guys had your share of like ups and downs and so how did you come to believe that Jesus
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was indeed the Christ and the true Son of God um I came to Christ fully um just
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recently um I'll say around this year uh this Corona virus and everything really
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had me questioning um faith and I used to ask
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my myself this question all the time is if I were to died tonight where would I
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be going um and you know I used to like to admit and I used to like to say that
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I would be going to heaven but truly I felt that I would not be going to heaven
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based off of the things that I did um I didn't really read scripture I didn't really um wasn't devoted to him um but
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yeah I would say I'll say just recently um yeah just recently I've been saved by
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the Holy Spirit and saved by him and for this past I would say this
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past month I've never really felt the same like spiritually like I feel alive
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like I feel spiritually alive um you know I know my purpose and whatnot so
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yeah okay so you pretty much told me that you you um came to Believe In
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Christ in about maybe a little while like six months a year ago so like truly
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experienced uh the presence of God that you see said and then you also mentioned that uh if you were to die you felt like
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if you died you wouldn't be going to heaven because you wasn't you Wen devoted to Christ now are you saying
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that to go to heaven you have to do these things is that what you're saying
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or what do you have to do to go to heaven so if I was to ask you that um
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well me personally I can't do anything myself um and I have no power myself to
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go to heaven I can't do it within my own power My Own Strength the Holy Spirit has to be fully in me in order that I
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get that gift and I obtain that gift of eternal life um and also you can't be
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lukewarm meaning doing the worldly things that I was talking about earlier
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but also saying and claiming that you love God and you're following God's word and whatnot um and yeah the only way
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that we can follow God's word and um truly follow what He commands us to do
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is if the holy spirit is in us and we can't do that without him so the answer if if you were to ask me that question I
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would say that I can't do it within myself but only through him
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okay well good good answers and look how did you come to believe in Jesus I've never heard your story before so I want
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to know so I've really I've grown up in the faith of Christianity but um ever
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since I was a kid I knew there was a God I always told I was always told there was a God I never really knew about it
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so then I I started obviously as I grew up I started to get to know more like
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the internet going to church like that um but yeah just
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recently like Jan and everything makes you question your faith and that's
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that's a big thing for a lot of people um and yeah uh yeah much so pretty
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much you guys are describing that you have a series of event that because you both mentioned questioning whether there
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was a God or questioning your faith and and Johan mentioned that um you said some people are doing
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certain things and they are being lukewarm and and by lukewarm you mean they're claiming to to love God to love
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Jesus and then their LIF style doesn't match with what they're saying so there's no consistency so the scripture
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and you guys are talking about the scripture says by their fruits you will know them so how do you know that the
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fruits uh how do you know that an apple tree is an apple tree because he he Bears apples basically an apple tree can
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cannot bear oranges and vice versa so you're talking about making sure that your faith and your belief in Jesus is
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consistent with the way you live your life and I and I know that you guys really care about these things so now um
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now now that you told me this I have another question for you you guys go to a high school correct right and uh now
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I'm going to ask you a question what did they teach you in school about the origin of the universe what do they say
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about how we came to be how this whole host of things the Earth the universe
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the stars in the sky everything what did they teach you in school about it um well just to give another
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background a little bit um I've always this has always been really heavy on my
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heart because um ever since I can remember me having science class in
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school um I would always have these really deep conversations with my
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teachers um because to to fully answer the question um they would teach us
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about the big bang and they would teach us that um we basically came from
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nothing and then you know particles collided and um you know this rock
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collided with this rock and gravity pulled it together and and basically a chain of events led up to to you know a
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a living being and then that evolved into many things such as humans and
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animals and whatnot and that is you know logically and common sense it's just
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false because we have to have an origin in order to have a start but that's a whole
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different question and that's a whole different conversation in itself but um yeah like they they teach us big bang
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and um they basically teach us that there's no there's no higher being meaning God that there's there's no God
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and um yeah and it it really comes down to the teacher as well if the teacher
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fully believes that there's no God and and all this stuff if there's a
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Christian kid that is putting down answers and stuff biblical and that's
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the truth um they you know they could send them to the principal's office or
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they could say oh that's wrong and everything and then the kid is put in a position where you know he's in school
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or he's supposed to be learning facts and his teacher is telling him or her
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that the Bible is false and um especially at a younger age like
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Middle School they teach this stuff as well um and for someone that's not fully
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educated that can really twist with their mind and what they what they know to be the
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truth so Luke what about you what would you add to what he said about what what they teach you guys in school about the
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origin of the universe oh yeah the Big Bang is definitely where it
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started me and I think everyone else I think it's a big problem that every
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single kid that goes to school learns is false well they don't learn it's false but they're they're being taught
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something that's very false and it's Satan working through in schools right
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there teachers and school system um I also think the Big Bang is wrong
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obviously um um and we also been we've learned it
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we've been taught it like at a very young age you know most people probably haven't been taught Christianity they
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haven't really known much about it they were like older and they had intelligence but we've been taught it
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sat down and talk to about it and yeah I think it's yeah so now now this is tough
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because now how do you face this objections like when you talk to your when your teachers are talking to you
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and they saying all this big bang stuff and now you want to talk about Christianity some of the things that
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they say to you is this look and Jan you guys cannot bring religion into school
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because religion and and this academic world do not collide together do do they
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don't have any kind of commonality so what do you say to a teacher when they tell you what this is religion and your
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religious beliefs are like personal you can't mix that up with this academic uh environment so what do you say to your
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teachers to defend what you believe um I've actually had this told
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me many of times um saying that you you uh I'll be having debates with people
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and they'll say oh don't bring God into this and um you know God you know put
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him aside for a little and just use logic and all this stuff I said to answer your question
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um you can't disregard God because science and God and his purpose and
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everything than how we were created they go hand in hand who do you think created
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science God did that so he he puts we have uh animals and everything like that
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and it's science but it's also proving that a higher being such as God exists
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because you can't get trees animals and all this stuff just from you know a
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couple of chemicals floating in nothing and then poting and you know bringing everything
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to be so how do you how do you tell the teacher because you say to me that uh
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you believe in a higher being that is doing all this but they're going to tell you where how do you prove that do you have any proofs in the sense that I'm
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going to tell you something here for example when you look at Genesis right Genesis 1 one scripture says in the
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beginning God created the heavens and the Earth right so now for the longest time you guys know that science rejected
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that the earth and the universe at the beginning not until like the 1960s when
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uh the telescope harble telescope he discovered that uh the universe was expanding and therefore he showed that
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he had a beginning so answer to your to answer your question you can tell your
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teacher listen if if science had taken the Bible seriously they would have come to that conclusion sooner than later so
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you have to give your teachers something to hold on to because sometimes when we
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say things like well I believe in a high being they they don't quite get it you have to give them tangible information
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doesn't mean that you you can't convince anybody because we know that the holy spirit is the one that changes people's
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heart but at the same time you still have to have your strong argument because Science History archaeology so
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tell me about archaeology what has archaeology proven about uh the scriptures there's a lot of things that have been done in AR theology that I've
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showed that the account of the scripture was authentic I don't know if you have any information you can give me any one
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of you do you have anything you can give me about archaeology and how that supports uh the Bible
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claims um so what we have um we have the
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uh I think it's called the Scrolls I believe correct me if I'm wrong um but
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basically we have many uh transcripts and um things like that I believe it's
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around 2,000 transcripts of uh the original um of the original writing and
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it is the original writing nothing has changed but it's just to make sure it's preserved and whatnot um and the Bible
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has um way more than for an example Caesar and the existence of Caesar
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people don't doubt that Caesar existed um and he only had I'm pretty sure like
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what 40 something like that I think Caesar for Caesar's go Wars it maybe
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three copies I think three yeah and you mentioned the Bible the manuscripts for the Bible is
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5500 exactly so nobody questions the existence of Caesar however people
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question the existence of the Bible and the existence of God even though we have like you said uh the number I think it
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was 5,500 you said uh 5500 versus three so if you have if you have three
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Witnesses in a case in in court or whatever and you
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have uh 5500 Witnesses who who has more of a ground
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base and who has more truth to it because you have 5500 versus three who
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which one are you gon to believe more well you have you have a qu you have a qu but what I was looking for more was
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for your teachers because you guys I know Johan you were involved in a conversation and some kind of you were
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called to the principal's office where you had to defend your faith and I remember that it was tough for you but
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look um yeah have you had any kind of exchange with your teacher about this
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kind of thing or do you stay quiet in the classroom what do you guys do when you when you hear these things and it doesn't resonate with you what do you
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do so I know my head is wrong but I know back then my faith was not strong at all
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so I didn't speak up about anything I didn't really have the courage God didn't give me the courage because I
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wasn't filled with the Holy Spirit then so yeah okay so I'm not going to trouble
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with these questions anymore but um and the next thing I want to ask you guys is this like you guys are full of hormones
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and you are young and you are 16 you're strong and you have you like you have like people say your whole life ahead of
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you so what do you do with all that type of energy that you have in you like how
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do you keep yourself from falling into Temptations because you mentioned going to parties and and and and doing things
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that you know you shouldn't be doing how do you keep yourself from falling into these Temptations as young as you are
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because it is tough because there's no like I don't when I grew up we didn't have social media as it is today now
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everything you do you can put it up there to try to glorify who you are so how do you keep yourself from from falling into these Temptations what do
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you do um I used to struggle a lot with
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temptation and lust things like that um however when the Holy Spirit made itself
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my main priority um and once I really put God
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first um you know those those um thoughts and uh hormones towards girls
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and things of the world went away um and and you know obviously down the road
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I may be tempted again or and I'm most likely going
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to be tempted and sometimes I will fall short um that's when I just repent and
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everything um but I can't take the responsibility for my salvation um it
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was by the power of God alone and he's the only reason I am saved and I do repent um and I don't have those
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Temptations anymore um and
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yeah that would be my answer so what would you say l about how do you resist
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um so I think right when our hormones are like rose up we're we're in a world
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today where a lot of provocative things are in this world know we got women dressed up in like nothing in clothing
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so it's like it's already in the world for us to go through um and uh
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I think it's very hard uh especially at that age you're so young that you don't
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really have discipline at all especially with the holy spirit it's not in you usually at that age it can be but for
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most it's not um yeah just recently uh Holy Spirit has shielded me
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from Temptation I still get them but it's definitely not as much and it's
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it's uh it makes me think about what I'm actually doing before I do it you know instead of demon take over me right away
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that's and also just to add on um like Luke was saying uh you have girls barely
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dressed and barely clothed and U very revealing um we also have the internet
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the internet also um is a tool for the devil to use
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um however you know the internet is great for God's purposes and um God can
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reach a bunch of people through the internet however devil can also use the internet um know you have like social
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media um like especially in the youth like you have to be careful of who you
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follow what you're looking at and and what you're listening to because um
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internet's very easy to get sidetracked and to um you know like in all your time
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um and also if you're surrounding yourself and you're surrounding your eyes and your thoughts with women um and
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all that stuff on the internet and even men as well like for the for for the
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women that are on social media they could be looking at guys and stuff like that and um for for men and for kids or
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whatever they can also be that stuff as well well you know um I hear everything
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you're saying it sounds great to me but I I also ask you guys do you guys have some type of accountability like how do
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you keep yourself accountable because joh you mentioned that uh you know that
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uh some days you may fall to Temptations again so how do you keep yourself so that you don't even have to go through
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that how do you keep yourself accountable do you do you guys talk about the things that you were facing together do you guys have like some kind
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of a safe place to go to where you feel like if you're being tempted you can call somebody and say listen I'm going
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through this and I need you to help me because sometimes the scripture say ation begins in the heart and the mind
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you know and then you you har on it you begin to think about it and then next thing you know it becomes an action so
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When the Thought come when the desire come what do you do with that desire do you go to God through the Holy Spirit
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and ask him take it take this away or or help me or do you also have somebody that you can talk to that can coach you
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through this process um so we' recently Luke and I we recently started um a Bible study with
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our friends um and and we've only we've only been meeting we we've met every
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single night except for um Christmas Eve because everyone was like you know had
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to get to sleep early and whatnot but we've met every single night
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and we've God's given us this Bond like we've known each other for so long um
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we've created a really good friendship and everyone it's a it's a really safe
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place for us because we go to them and they come to us with um struggles or
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prayer requests and and everything like that also like you mentioned earlier
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um you know going to God is very important when when you're struggling
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and and you're dealing with it could be lust it could be addiction it could be
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anything um because he is a Healer and he knows you more than you know yourself
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he knows what you're going through and he knows what you're struggling um but it's still takes that step of going and
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praying to him um and ask to take those things away and uh luk I have a question for
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you um what would you say to any young man or young women um your age or maybe
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a little older than you what would you what would be the good advice that you would give them as far as like how do
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they maintain their integrity as Christians what would you say is the biggest thing you you tell
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them so biggest thing is know who you are to Jesus you know if you're a
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Believer and he's put the holy spirit in you know know how important you are to him and how he's going to use you so um
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that's a big thing uh as well as surround yourself
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with people and things to do not just be lazy because that's that's where Temptations fall in you know you're just
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sitting down on your phone going through social media all day The Temptations will come
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and surrounding yourself with friends family things that give you Joy I think
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it's very important important as well yeah it's very important yeah and now
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now that you guys are taking your walk with Christ very seriously have you met any kind of opposition from your peers
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like how does it feel to to be sometimes casted out or in the sense that you are
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ostracized and and have you felt that now that you've really taken your walk seriously
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um me personally yeah I have um I've lost a lot of people that I think that I
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used to call friends and that I used to think that were you know um always there
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for me and and always going to be there to you know just be there as a friend
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should do um but ever since I've been filled with the Holy Spirit and I've
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made God my first priority um I've lost a lot of close friends
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um because they they say I've changed which you know I'm glad I'm glad that
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they say that because um it just gives me clarification that God is working and
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that God has changed my life for the better because if I've changed from my old self um to you know walking in
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Walking with God then I know that he's working how about you look have you had
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any kind of tough opposition ever since you uh took your walk with Jesus
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seriously so not really with friends wise
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um but I've you know people people like to show pride and things so they when
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they think they're so filled with the spirit right they have pride in it so that's not right um so they think that
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they're above you in FA which is not right at all and I think
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that's you know you gotta battle that in type of way I think that's
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important so you just got to be but yeah I haven't really lost anyone like when
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when I was continuing my face not really word you guys I'm I'm
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proud I'm proud of you what you're doing now and and my hope and prayer is that I you continue to grow that one of the
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things that I've been taught and and and is to spend time knowing god meaning you spend time in his book reading about God
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in the Bible and not just reading because it's a checklist that you I gota check my Bible today that's not what you
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do is you reading in order to see the face of God through the scripture
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because when you have that encounter you know like in in the Old Testament the prophets God came and spoke and they
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said thus says the Lord now we have the counsel of his word with us today and we
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also have the Holy Spirit in us to teach us what the word of God means so what I would encourage you guys to do more now
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is to invest in knowing god through reading the word of God and also be sure
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to share what you've learned with your peers because as God transforms you that
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transformation goes and then spread out to the world around you so again thanks for being on the show today and uh if
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you have any last words you would like to share um hey go ahead anything um I
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would like to say something real quick okay um and this is more for like the youth and people my age um I just have
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it written down on my phone um some advice the advice I would
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give to my peers and the youth would be question your faith um if you were to
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die like the question I used to ask myself all the time was um if I were to die today where would I go heaven or
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hell um and if you say heaven because you're you are a qu unquote good person
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um I encourage you to read the books of first second and third John and study those books because those books are um
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they talk about that a lot um and they're really they talk about a variety of things really um yeah um I have a
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verse as well that I'd like to read verse first John 2:15-17
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states do not love the world or the things in the world if anyone loves the world the love of the father is not in
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him for all that is in the world the desires of the Flesh and the desires of
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the eyes and pride of life is not from the father but is from the world and the
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world is passing away along with its desires but whoever does the will of God
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abides forever um and again that's first John chapter 2 U vers 15-1 17
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and um yeah what about you look any last
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words not really really okay all right well thanks for being here and being in
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this conversation with me and if you're watching this and you like the content and you want to support us please do so
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by checking the link in the description because I do this because the Lord has led me to do this I'm not doing this
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because I want to gain some kind of uh audience or anything this is is really because I believe it's important for us
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as Christians to hear from one another and we want to be able to support one another so if you feel led to support
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this this uh show please do check the link in the description and we we thank you for your your generous uh gift and
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support again thanks for being here and I'll see you guys next time thank you very much I see you thank you
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