Morning, neighbor, how are you today? Here we are again with Moments of Melody. A man began to attend some mission classes. He was anything but clean in his dress and ways. The teacher gave him a verse to learn. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The word cleanse bothered him. The teacher explained how Christ washes away our sins and makes us clean. The following week when the class hour arrived, a fine-looking man came in and took his seat. His face shone like a new coin. His hair was combed, his fingernails cut, his clothes washed and pressed. how surprised the teacher was to discover that this was the dirty man of the week before. Smiling the man said, "'Jesus Christ makes me clean inside and outside.'" . Time to open again these sacred scriptures. The Gospel According to St. Mark chapter nine. This translation carries the imprimatur of Francis Cardinal Spellman. And so they brought the boy to Jesus, and the evil spirit as soon as it saw him threw the boy into a convulsion, so that he fell on the ground writhing and foaming at the mouth. And now Jesus asked the Father, how long has this been happening to him? From childhood, he said, and often it is thrown him into the fire and into the water to make an end of him. Come have pity on us and help us if thou canst. But Jesus said to him, If thou canst believe, to him who believes, everything is possible. Whereupon the father of the boy cried aloud in tears, Lord, I do believe, succor mine unbelief. And Jesus, seeing how the multitude was gathered round them, rebuked the unclean spirit. Thou dumb and deaf spirit, he said. It is I that command thee, come out of him, and never enter into him again. With that crying aloud and throwing him into a violent convulsion, it came out of him, and he lay there like a corpse, so that many declared he is dead. But Jesus took hold of his hand and raised him, and he stood up. When he had gone into the house and they were alone, the disciples asked him, Why was it that we could not cast it out? And he told them, There is no way of casting out such spirits as this except by prayer and fasting. Did you notice what the evil spirit tried to do to the boy? It says in verse twenty one that it cast him into the fire and water to make an end of him. And that's just what Satan and his forces are out to do. They want to bring a person to his end. But Christ wants to not bring us to an end, but to a beginning. Those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ have a new beginning.