To be the sons of God, we do the works of the Father in heaven. If we instead do the works of the devilāwhich are sināthen he is our father instead. And if we do the works of the Father, then we become equal to the angels, the original āsons of Godā who do His works.
Having been given this outpost of Paradise, this place where Godās holiness may be encountered with preparation, where the cherubim with the flaming sword welcome us in instead of turning us away, we are commanded to expand this Paradise into the world.
If we dismiss this scholarly work as unnecessaryāperhaps on the erroneous assumption that the Bible can just āspeak for itselfā or that we can approach āthe plain meaning of Scriptureāāthen by default we will unconsciously read Scripture in light of our own tradition.
Sometimes, God makes decisions that really are for the good of everyone involved that, if we made them, would almost certainly not be. But weāre not God, and we donāt know jack.
The targeted demonic attacks we experience especially in this holy season are real, and we can spot them because of how they are so specifically designed to pull us away from participating in it. But these things do indeed come out by prayer and fasting.