A Demonstration of Power

"She kept this up for many days. Finally, Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her. When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities." Acts 16:18-19

In a video titled, "Why didn't God demonstrate his power and stop the Holocaust?" the caption reads, "One student couldn't see why God [didn't] demonstrate his power and stop the Holocaust to demonstrate he was God. While no one knows for sure why certain evils befall people or why God chooses to act or not act in certain circumstances ... God doesn't want us to merely believe THAT He exists, but to trust IN Him." One of the Christian presenters responded by telling what some Jews he encountered had to say on the subject. He said, "What they would say to you is that this is an expression of what man is capable of. We want to see what God is capable of, but what about us? How deep does this evil potential run? And we just got a glimpse of that [with the Holocaust]." He went on to make the point that God, in essence, did intervene with the Holocaust because the plans of the Nazis went much deeper than just the Jews, as they had plans of world domination. There could have been a Holocaust that engulfed the entire world had they not been stopped. However, when I hear these types of questions asked, I want to ask my own question. Where does it stop? God intervened at least three times already. He gave the people of Noah's generation 120 years to change their mind before He flooded the earth. Nobody repented of their unbelief. God negotiated with Abraham over the lives of the people of Sodom saying that He would spare its destruction if ten righteous people were found to live in the town. There were not even ten righteous people. God personally stepped out of heaven for over 30 years as Jesus Christ and they killed Him. The thing to realize is that people don't truly want God's intervention, they want Him to intervene on their own terms when they choose He should act as well as what the outcome should be. Ultimately, they want God to remove their free will or, at the very least, the free will of others to choose good or evil. In time, nobody will have any freedom to make their own decisions and nobody will have any accountability for the consequences of those decisions.

The Apostle Paul and Silas were harassed for many days by a slave woman who had a "spirit by which she predicted the future." She annoyed Paul so much that he cast the demon out of her. Rather than be astonished by the powers of a man capable of casting out demons, her owners had Paul and Silas stripped, beaten, and thrown into prison. This was all because the slave woman would no longer be profitable to her owners because she had lost the ability to predict the future. When Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead we read where Caiaphas, the high priest, said, "You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish (John 11:50).” Caiaphas knew that Jesus was going to die since he had prophesied it earlier in the year. Do you see what is going on here? The hearts of men are only focused on this world, the here and now, and their flesh. They do not care about God's plans, getting to know Him, or why He does what He does. They are only interested in their own selfish motives. Things like making money, remaining in power, or keeping the treasures they have accumulated on earth have always been the driving force behind the denial of the things of God. God flooded the world, killing all but eight people, and we are right back to where we were as a people before the rains fell. God came to this world as Jesus Christ, fulfilled hundreds of prophecies, but He wasn't the type of Messiah the Jewish leaders wanted so they betrayed Him and had Him killed. The slave owners didn't even think twice about who it is that can cast a demon out of a woman with a few words. They only cared about a source of income for them drying up. What if God never flooded the earth? What if there were ten righteous people living in Sodom? What if Paul allowed the demon to continue possessing the woman? What if Jesus Christ was the reigning Messiah rather than the suffering Messiah the Jews wanted? What if God had stopped the Holocaust before it began? Is there any indication that the people of Noah's time, the residents of Sodom, the slave owners, the Jewish leaders, or this student would have believed in God or accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior? Would the hearts of men have turned to Jesus Christ simply because things didn't happen? How would they even know God stopped them unless they could see the future? What it boils down to is that people are not looking for reasons to believe in God. They are looking for confirmation as to why they do not believe in Him. God can never do enough for these people and they will have to carry that burden for a Christless eternity.