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(THE PLAGUE OF MY HEART and … MY SPIRITUAL REVIVAL)
“If
my people who are called by my name…”
“When
I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the
land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name
will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked
ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their
land.”
(2Ch.7:13-14 NKJV).
(Also, parallel
passages: 2Chr.6:26-28; 36-38; 1Ki.8:37-39; Hab.3:2; 1Cor.11:31-32; 1Pet:5-11;
Jas.4:10; Ps.81:8-15).
The
Biblical basis of the believer’s real revival
The well-known verse 2Chr.7:14 and the parallel passages
of the Bible constitute
the Biblical basis of the
BELIEVER’S real revival,
of his preservation in a state of spiritual
prosperity and in a steady
ascending march. In our
days, if you speak to a church on the need for a spiritual revival, you will be,
probably, called by the Board of the persons responsible for the church to be
interrogated of your impertinence!
It is not a topic preferred by those that “govern” the church and that see
themselves insulted or humiliated,
because they cannot or do not want to admit their part of responsibility for the
spiritual lethargy of their church. The existence and the manifestation of
spiritual gifts – true or false – the accumulation of money, the material goods
and buildings, the miraculous healings – true or false – as well as the numerous
activities of the church or rather her activism, constitute the only criteria of
spiritual prosperity of the church……
Spiritual revival imposes itself
today as a necessity, more and more indispensable as the times of the end of
this dispensation of grace approach; its characteristics are:
the religious
apostasy, the restoration of the nation of Israel since 1948, the terrific
capacity of the superpowers to destroy the globe completely, the accelerated
ecological deterioration of our planet, the increase of knowledge, the rapid
progress of technology, the journeys around the earth like tourists or as
astronauts, the wars and the rumors of wars, the numerous national
insurrections, the famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, the false
doctrines that spill more and more, the flourishing of iniquity, the love that
waxes cold more and more, as well as the progression of the announcement of the
gospel everywhere in the world constitute signs or better undeniable proofs that
the return of the Lord Jesus Christ is near.
All of this demonstrates that the night is far advanced;
it is, therefore, great time for us to wake up.
The sense
of God’s words concerning revival
The
principles: The afore-mentioned text,
as well as some other parallel texts, makes clear the following principles:
·
The first
principle:
When there is a problematic situation it is,
very often,
because of the sins of the people that the
Sovereign God chastises so that they should not be condemned with the world.
I did say “very often”
because we must not confuse the tests that the Lord permits for the development
of our faith with the crises that are the consequence of sins and of a
disobedient spirit;
·
The second
principle:
There is no deliverance without repentance,
confession of sin by name, renunciation, humility and confidence in Jesus Christ
(Jer.29:13; De.4:29; 1Jn.1:8-10
etc.);
and
·
The third
principle:
When the afore-mentioned conditions are fulfilled, then God, on the one hand,
forgives sin and
removes its
power from the believer and, following the
cases, even the consequences of sin, and, on the other hand He
adds
spiritual and material blessings.
The
exceptions:
There are some exceptions, of course: God’s specific
plans, inexplicable mysteries that seem sometimes to be in contradiction with
some declarations and promises of God as well as with the general spirit of the
Bible.
Two examples can be mentioned:
the one of Job
and the other of Paul with the thorn in
the flesh. It is not, however, the moment to speak about them. It is God who had
brought them to the “desert” to be tempted and tried so that their testing be
transformed into “a
door of hope”
(Hos.2:15).
What
revival is and what it is not
When someone speaks of spiritual revival, most people
think that he refers to evangelism of people and massive conversions. This
notion is
erroneous!
Spiritual revival
is for Christians; it is a new beginning of obedience to God.
God wakes up those that belong to Him, who are still in
life but they are sleeping or lukewarm and risk to be vomited or die.
“Regeneration” or “new
birth” or “spiritual resurrection” is for unbelievers.
Paul, addressing
the Christians of Ephesus, says:
“And
you …, who were dead in trespasses and sins,……
(God)
raised us up
together, and made
us sit together in the
heavenly places in
Christ Jesus,” (Eph.2:1-6 and Lu.15:24).
Therefore, the
believer who is sleepy or asleep or is lukewarm and risk to be vomited is in
need of revival while the unbeliever who is
spiritually dead
needs to be spiritually “regenerated”
or rather “resuscitated.”
One
cannot “revive or wake up a corpse”!!!
Revival is a turning back to the
application of the basics, of the
fundamentals of the
Many a Christian believes
that in order to be revived one must
pay a price
and do a
sacrifice.
Wrong!!!
Is it a
price when you give
up sin, mediocrity, complacency and lukewarmness which might endanger your
eternal future in order to
“buy”
eternal life? Is it really a “sacrifice”
to give up sin, carnality and lukewarmness in order to get eternal blessings?
Let us remind ourselves what Paul wrote in his letter to the
HE,
the HOLY ONE JESUS delivered up Himself for us;
is it a price
or a sacrifice if we “deliver up”… our selfishness, our pride, our self
sufficiency, and our carnal ambitions and surrender ourselves to His care?
(Ro.12:1-2; 1Pet.5:6-7). Once done, the only way to keep up ourselves revived is
to keep
repenting and live faithfully:
“Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.”
(1Cor.4:2)
With
regard to the unbeliever
The
spiritual
“resurrection” of the unbeliever cannot take
place unless he admits his sin
in his heart, confesses Christ
as LORD
of his life before God
and calls upon his Name:
“that if you confess with your mouth
the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead,
you will be saved ……… For "whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be
saved."” (Rom.10:9-13).
In other words, the unbeliever must believe that God loves him and that He
offers him a new life.
It is necessary to
understand that he cannot have a relation with God because of his sin, that the
consequence of sin is eternal death, that the only solution is Christ. He paid
completely the debt of our sins while dying in our stead on the cross, He is
resurrected, and He is alive today, interceding for him.
Attention! This verse
does not use the expression “Savior Jesus” although Jesus is a Savior, but the
expression
THE LORD JESUS! It
means that it is necessary to accept Christ as
Lord of his
life. His Lord will give him orders and
man must obey Him… It is necessary, therefore, to thank Him for his forgiveness,
to obey Him by turning away from his sins, to have a personal relationship with
Him and to confide in Him his life.
This commitment will
render him God’s child! His “I” will be submitted to Christ, to his LORD! Jesus
must be Lord over one’s work, family, time, possessions and even recreation!
It suffices, therefore, to begin
his new life with a
simple but sincere confession:
“Oh God, I know that I am a sinner! I believe that Jesus
took my place when He died on the cross. I believe that His shed blood, His
burial and His resurrection were for me. I now receive Him as my Savior and as
Lord of my life. I thank Him for the forgiveness of my sins, the gift of
salvation and the eternal life as well as for the assistance of the Holy Spirit,
thanks to His merciful grace. Amen.
With regard
to Christians
“…if My people
who are called by My name…”
This expression means that revival must begin from the house of God.
When Christians are indeed revived, that is, repent and return humbly to the
obedience of God’s commandments, they become conscious of the judgments that are
going to fall on unbelievers, on apostates or backsliders etc., and then they
begin to work for God, exhorting unbelievers to give their heart to Christ. They
are deeply afflicted by the misfortune of unbelievers and they make all they can
to share the happiness that they enjoy in the Lord. They sow God’s Word, they
water it by their prayers, by their tears and sometimes by their sufferings and
God adds His blessing and makes that seed push and grow. Then, their ministry
will result in conversions that will be the result of the believer’s effort, of
God’s providence and of the activation of God’s Word by the Holy Spirit.
God’s Spirit in the believer can
manifest His power and His spiritual gifts
when the
believer stops blocking Him by his sin and by his resistance to God’s reproofs (Pr.1:15;
Ac.5:32; Eph.4:20).
There can be
no spiritual revival without repentance and humility of the believer before the
Lord. Just as
in the case of a sinner who is converted to Christ, the first step is repentance
and faith, it is also so for the believer – but from another starting point.
He is
revived through an experience of deep repentance, of a contrite heart, of deep
humility and of dismissal of all known sin.
The conversion of a sinner and the
believer’s revival pass for both of them, according to the case, from their
obedience to the truth (1Pet.1:22). This
is the only way man can purify his soul. Obedience
in sincerity and in good will!
Obey in
what? Obey by repenting and by confiding himself to God and by applying faith in
all his words and promises! Obey not solely
in words but also in acts and in truth. Our
society does not award medals for our integrity but God does give.
It is
necessary to admit sincerely and humbly the truth in our heart
(as it is written in Ps.15, verse 2)
in everything we are and do.
That
each one,
as it is written in the Bible 1Kings
All people
do not have the same plague; the plague of each one differs!
A certain
simple believer
says:
·
“Yes, Lord, I have
sinned; what I did was not just, what I said was a lie, an exaggeration, a
subterfuge…” Another says:
·
«Yes, Lord, I make
promises and I do not keep them … and I lose my credibility…». Another says:
·
“Yes, Lord, I
reacted in a quick-tempered and brutal manner…;
I allowed the impulses of my soul to drag me.
Lord, what I feel is a feeling of bitterness and vengeance…” Another:
·
“Yes, Lord, my attitude
was not honest; my attitude was selfish…; because of my selfishness, I don’t
take care of my family as I ought…” Another:
·
“Lord, I am very
often convicted by the words that Jesus pronounced:
“Therefore, whatever you want men to
do to you, do also to them…” And each, according to his
case, will say:
·
“Yes, Lord, I am
proud and vain glorious; my pride or my so-called dignity doesn’t allow me to
ask for pardon and I am not ready to forgive other peoples’ offences;
I don’t confess my sins
expeditiously before You, before my very fellow men and to my family’s members
and I avoid making the necessary restoration.
Lord, my greatest difficulty is to ask for forgiveness from those that I
offended.”; or
·
“I am not
always ready to acknowledge successes and values of other people”; or
·
“I tend to slander and
to have conflicts… a tendency to gossiping; I return injury for injury instead
of blessing”; or
·
“My eye is not pure and
simple… Yes, Lord, there is a decline of piety in me…;”; or
·
“I neglect to put my
life in order and make what is just and pleasing to you”; or
·
“My heart doesn’t
overflow with gratitude for the forgiveness of my sins”; or
·
“I do not
apply myself to the study and meditation of Your Word; I allow my work and my
worries to absorb all my time; I often wonder where my treasure is! I disregard
to have a daily altar at home”; or
·
“When I am
in a difficult situation, fear seizes me, I cast worried looks around and I
forget that You, you are my God”; or
·
“I am a double-minded man, unstable in my ways”; or
·
“I have
never presented myself as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to You, which
would be my reasonable service. I do not try with all my heart to discern what
Your will is”; or
·
“My
behavior concerning the management of my money reveals that You, Lord, You do
not have the first place in my life; I humbly confess that I avoid to give back
money or other things that others have lent me”; or
·
“Yes,
Lord, I waste too much time before the TV. I confess that the world and the
things of the world attract me. I like jokes and pleasant silly talks and I
avoid discussions, which concern You in order to avoid being considered as a
fanatic. My conscience accuses me often of sins of omission”.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if
there is any
wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
(Ps.139:23-24).
Another,
who takes care of the work of the
Lord, perhaps, will say:
·
“I often preach on
the necessity of spiritual revival but I myself am not really revived. I have
abandoned my first love for You; yet, I don’t want that others note it”; or
·
“I have the tendency to appear to others more spiritual
than I really am… I succumb to the temptation to make a good impression to my
listeners by literary expressions, beautiful constructions of my sermons and
clever jokes in order to invite their attention and praises but, actually, I
confess that I am hardly interested in the spiritual well-being of my listeners:
I preach on love, mercy and God’s grace without having in advance upset their
conscience by their guilt! Have mercy on me, Lord! How is it possible that I
exert the authority of Your Word to touch the conscience of my listeners when my
own conscience condemns me?”; or
·
“My preaching is
without power because I lack Your unction! I heal my listeners in a superficial
manner while they die of the cancer of sin. I often speak of the things
concerning the Bible and You but I do not preach Your Word and Your will that
can touch their conscience…”; or
·
“I speak of
revival as if revival were a miracle and were going to fall from the sky without
the believer having fulfilled some conditions, as if all depended on Your
intervention without the Christian’s active involvement”; or
·
“I
often invent excuses not to respond to the requirements of your work and
“disturb” my listeners, my comfort, my family habits and my leisure. I admit
that I do not have the heart of a faithful servant, the heart of a prayer
warrior”; or
·
“I don’t
have a burden for those that perish… and I neglect to testify for You and use
the spiritual gift that You have given me. I don’t pray as I ought for the
problems and the needs of others and for my church”; or
·
“I avoid
systematically to solve conflicts between believers and too slow to forgive
other people; on the contrary I have the tendency to ‘cover up’ conflicts so
that they may be forgotten”; or
·
“What
interests me is not what You think of me but what others think of me.
Oh Lord, I confess that I who preach and teach Your Word,
I tend to tell people what they want to hear and sometimes to manipulate the
supernatural…because in the depth of my heart what interest me is my popularity
and have a lot of people in my church”; or
·
“I do not have the courage or the boldness to condemn
their sins, make them anxious about their souls and condemn the modern worldly
tendencies of the church; on the contrary, I have the habit to say always “yes”
to please them, to ensure my popularity, not to alarm them by the eternal
consequences which will result of their disobedience”; or
·
“I make compromises that blemish my position before You”;
or
·
“I do not look for collaborators who have a strong and
profound spiritual personality and who love truth and transparency above
anything else but I prefer rich or high positioned people on whom I could easily
exert my influence…”; or
·
“I
strongly fear that often my proud and undisciplined soul uses “strange fire” in
my preaching by resorting to ethics, psychology, sociology, human reflections,
etc.”
Change
me, I implore you, Lord, according to your Word!
Revival, therefore, can
be compared to a return to faithful obedience to Jesus.
When this return
takes place, then, the believer expresses himself like Job:
“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now
my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
(Job 42:5-6);
“Teach me what
I do not see; if I have done iniquity, I will do no more”
(Job 34:32). When a
believer is truly revived his
repentance keeps
deepening…
Revival
constitutes the re-establishment of the New Testament Standards To wait for a collective
spiritual revival does not constitute an excuse not to enjoy your personal
revival before. Actually, there is no collective revival without a personal
revival. Collective revival begins usually with a revived believer. The
spiritual revival is God’s work that restores a person or a church by the
standards established in the NT. Which are these standards or norms? Let’s
mention them very briefly:
·
“… And to love Him with
all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the
strength, and
to love one’s neighbor as oneself,
is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
(Mrk.12:33). To love God, therefore, and his neighbor in this manner is
not a sacrifice; it
is an obligation!
·
“… And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me
cannot be My disciple.”
(Lu.14:27).
·
“And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me
is not worthy of Me.”
(Mt.10:38)
“You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against
sin.”
(Heb 12:4)
It is true that we are saved by
God’s grace. It is also true that we are forgiven and saved by the precious
blood of our Lord Jesus. Does that, however, relieve us from the
obligation
to love our Lord Jesus Christ with all our heart? Do you not know that
he who transgresses the greatest commandment commits
the greatest sin? The book of Revelation tells
us that the
God is
readier to give us revival than we are to receive it
If we come back to the text under study, we realize that
there is a simple connection of thoughts: God declares that He is ready to give
us spiritual revival if we fulfill certain conditions, that is, if we
humble ourselves, pray, seek His
face and turn from our wicked ways. It is,
therefore, useless for the believer to spend long hours, imploring God to send
him a revival,
if he does not have the
intention to change.
We cannot revive ourselves, we cannot humble ourselves because flesh cannot
produce humility and we cannot fulfill all the other conditions but if we make
the right choice within our heart and give God our sincere consent. If yes, then
God will do it!
“Keep
your heart with all diligence; for out of it
spring the issues of life.”
(Pr.4:23) and
Faithful is He who calls us
(to revival)
who also will do it!
(1Th.5:24). If, therefore, the intention to change does not exist, it would be
even preferable not to pray. Prayer without decision to change your life is
useless. God does not hear wishful thinking or simple desires but decisions! You
can pray for a revival until the end of your life, but,
if you don’t have the intention to change, that is, to
repent, to humble yourself, to confess your sin, to put your life in order and
to put your trust in God, your prayer is
useless... What hinders God’s blessings? Sin!
“Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot
save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated
you from your God; and your sins have hidden His
face from you, so that He will not hear.”
(Isa.59:1-2). What triggers
revival?
Obedience: obedience demonstrated by repentance and confidence in God…
King David wrote:
“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear.”
(Ps.66:18)
It is necessary, therefore, to complete this
truth by the following truth: It is true that we need to read the Bible and pray
to maintain our Christian life in a good condition but it is even more true that
if we do not
keep a conscience which does not
condemn us (1John 3:21), we will never be able
to maintain a life filled with the understanding of the Word of God, with prayer
and with the presence of the Holy Spirit. !!!
Revival
exalts God’s Word and results in evangelism
The history of the church proves that in all cases where
God woke up his people, the gospel has been put in evidence. It can be said that
revivals prosper on God’s Word and that the Word is exalted during revivals. Of
course, it is possible to have evangelism without revival, but
you cannot have a true revival that
does not lead to evangelism.
Search and
find
Let us look for and let us find, dear friends, each of us
what is the
plague of our heart;
what is the thing or situation
that we must undergo or accept
that would be the most painful for us. Otherwise said: Let us find
the biggest
obstacle,
according to God’s Word,
that
prevents our revival (1Ki.8:37-39); let us
insist on it, let us not try to escape from it, let us not try to find or to
invent excuses or cheat ourselves or others or make an escape by using our
intelligence.
“Let us search out and examine our ways, and turn back to
the LORD; let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven. We have
transgressed and have rebelled…”
(Lam.3:40-42). And elsewhere it is written:
·
“He who covers his sins
will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes [them] will have mercy.”
(Pr.28:13)
·
“Only acknowledge your
iniquity, that you have transgressed against the LORD your God, and have
scattered your charms to alien deities under every green tree, and you have not
obeyed My voice,’ says the LORD.”
(Jer.3:13)
Personal revival I am not an expert in
collective spiritual revivals but I have had a personal spiritual revival many
years ago: It has marked my life in an indelible manner.
Forgiven, happy and in peace; weakness and thirst spiritual
And now, a personal note, a
part
of my testimony in broad outline: After my
conversion, my life had been changed
radically. God removed the heavy burden of my sins and of my guilt and put on me
the light burden to remember that my sins and
my guilt had been forgiven and forgotten. I
felt that I did not walk but that I had wings and that I flew! Salvation was my
new song. God’s salutary grace was my permanent
testimony. It was nearly impossible that
someone stayed with me for a few minutes without being evangelized. I was very
happy. My only desire was to make other people happy by means of God’s salutary
grace!
In
spite of my interior spiritual progress that also appeared in my external life,
there was, yet, a kind of sadness in my heart.
I felt – as I was studying and compared myself with the Bible – that I was weak,
not being able always to resist my temptations and my weaknesses and I didn’t
have the spiritual capacity to understand easily His Word, discern His will and
serve Him efficiently. I was not living in sin, in known sin, but I was not
always able to do what I ought to do and wanted. I was, therefore,
thirsty for spiritual power, maturity and fruitfulness.
One day, as I walked in the street, the conviction of the Spirit and God’s fear
were so intense that I said to the Lord:
“If You send me to
hell, Lord, You will be right, but please, Lord: Mercy…” Neither
the efforts of other Christians to comfort me by telling me that “it is normal”
nor “we are weak and fragile human beings” nor “we have Jesus who forgives our
sins” etc., nor the people that were converted through my testimony could
comfort my heart. I was convinced, according to the Bible, that there was
something more for me. Now, as I look back, I see that God was preparing me, by
means of my “spiritual sadness and thirst”, for a higher spiritual level.
Consecration: a
victorious defeat never to be forgotten
One day,
I lay down in the evening but I
could not sleep. At
I was
guided to a meticulous exam of my own heart and life according to God’s Word as
well as to a test of my life concerning my duties and responsibilities.
My attention was centered on one
point: I knew well that, if I accepted to lose
what I feared or if the Lord imposed
on me what was the most painful thing in my life that would mean, in my case,
a life destroyed from a certain point of view.
It was then, for the first time, that I became conscious that I was keeping a
‘key’ in my hands – without the knowledge of my conscience – a key that hindered
the Lord to bless me further. What dilemma! What agonizing choice!
What crisis of conscience!
My only reward, if I accepted my “destruction”, would be a conscience in state
of peace with God, a conscience enjoying God’s approval, a conscience that had
put its confidence in its Savior…
Having identified my problem I abandoned everything in
order to maintain a pure heart and a good conscience accompanied by a sincere
faith towards God. It was then, for the very first time, that I understood that
verses Rom.12:1-2 are intended for
believers, who have already been forgiven, saved and been born again.
I perceived that they are addressed to brothers in Christ!
“I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the
mercies of God, that you present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,
which is
your reasonable service.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind,
that you may prove
what is that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Other
verses that the Holy Spirit used to encourage and convince me to take that step
of faith and obedience were the following:
·
“who, when
he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought
it.”
(Mt 13:46);
·
“His
lord said to him, ‘Well done,
good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you
ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’”
(Mt.25:21).
·
“You
have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin.”
(Heb.12:4)
I, as a sincere Christian, presented myself –
everything that I was and I had – to Him like
a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God.
I did my part: I refused anything that could become an
obstacle
in my spiritual life and I offered Him my reasonable service, that is,
what I owed
Him. When the obstacle that blocked the
action of the Holy Spirit was rejected, I understood, in the first place, that
it was the Lord that required of me to do what I had already done; otherwise, I
would have been a
thief of things
that belonged to Him; in second place, I would not have
loved Him as I
had to; and, in third place, I was
convinced that it was there the
condition “sine qua non”
if I wanted to be continually renewed in my interior being and make progress in
my spiritual life.
That day of my abandonment to Him
was for me
the day of my most glorious defeat never to forget.
The
spiritual result:
“lights and perfections”
Tired as I was that morning, I
fell asleep. When I woke up late in the morning, I felt very tired but there was
in the bottom of my heart a feeling of peace of a man that
had done his
duty! Nothing more than his
pure and simple duty.
It was nearly
That experience has been
transformed, with the passage of the years, into
a deep, permanent and holy optimism.
The light that had been shed in my spirit,
joined to a
daily study of the Bible, has been
transformed into a source of light and into a serious spirit as well as into a
capacity to use His Word efficiently following the needs and the circumstances.
Then, I understood what it means
“to brag in the Lord.”
I bragged
humbly that
the Lord
had saved me, that
the Lord had blessed
me, that
the Lord had sanctified me, that
the Lord
had given me light etc., etc. That spiritual
experience corresponded, actually, to the starting point of a continual
sanctification. I also understood
that
God will never do for us what
He requires from us to do! Blissful are
those that understand these glorious truths and put them into practice!
In conclusion, I can guarantee you, on the basis of God’s
infallible Word, that if we keep repenting and keep being converted from our
sins, there will be abundant spiritual rains in our life and healing of our
“land”; yes, days of refreshing from the part of the Lord; yes, blessings upon
blessings; yes,
“grace for grace”!
(Joh.1:16). The Lord Jesus Christ came to destroy the works of the Devil and
give victory against sin and evil passions; to give spiritual gifts, joy, peace
and above all eternal life! Are we going to give Him our consent to realize them
in our life?
God bless you abundantly! Amen!
John BALTATZIS
www.sporeas.com
www.sporeas.gr
www.sporeas.eu
¸äñá:Melbourne-Australia
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