In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
I come before the Lord, dear brothers and sisters, and demand of him that he grant my requests. These are good things, noble things, things for which we should pray. I bring in others to pray alongside me, but the Lord does not answer me. And so I complain against God, “Why did you ignore my requests?”
And the Lord speaks directly to me, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?” I am faithless because I consider the Lord to exist purely to satisfy my requests, to be my genie as I journey through this life. And, not finding satisfaction with Christianity, I join myself to a genie—a demon—who will grant my requests: the demon of money, the demon of greed, the demon of pleasures, the demon of sloth. I have invited them in and these have all taken a hold over me so I cannot escape. And being brought into the presence of the Lord I fall to the ground, convulsing, unable to stand before him.
And the Lord rebukes the unclean spirits which I have invited in and I am washed and freed.
Elsewhere, the Lord tells us,
When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none.
Matthew 12:43–45, see also Luke 11:24–26
Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.
Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.
I have been cleansed, I have been washed, I have been purified and put in order, but unless I invite the Spirit of God in to take up his abode in me I remain susceptible for the return of the evil spirit along with seven others. And the Lord gives to us the method by which we may stay faithful to him and freed from the genies and unclean spirits, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.”
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord has cleansed us, washed us, and offered us union with him. And not getting what we want immediately, we join ourselves to an unclean spirit who finds his abode in us. Let us, through prayer and fasting, purify ourselves and purify each other so that we may make our hearts his dwelling place: so that we, too, are taken by the hand of the Lord and raised up to new Life, eternal Life, Life without end.
To our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who by the Cross has brought us to new Life, be all glory, honour and worship, together with his unoriginate Father and the All-holy, Good and Life-creating Spirit. Amen.
Brethren, when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore to himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently endured, obtained the promise. Men indeed swear by a greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he interposed with an oath, so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God should prove false, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.
— Hebrews 6:13–20
At that time, a man came to Jesus kneeling and saying: “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a dumb spirit; and wherever it seizes him it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” And they brought the boy to him; and when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, “How long has he had this?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “If you can! All things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse; so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.” They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he would not have any one know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.
— Mark 9:17–31