Acts 5:17-26. Filled with jealousy, the high priest and his party, the Sadducees, have the apostles arrested and put in prison. That night an angel comes in and frees the apostles, telling them to go to the temple "and speak to the people all the words of this Life." When the high priest calls together the council and sends for the apostles to be brought before them, the officers return saying they found the prison securely locked and the guards in place but no sign of the prisoners. The chief priest and the leaders are all much perplexed at this and they wonder what it means. Then someone reports to them that the apostles are standing in the temple teaching the people. The captain and the officers are sent and get them, "but without violence, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people."

I am trying to imagine what the chief priest and leaders were thinking when they heard the apostles were not in the guarded, locked prison. The passage says "they were much perplexed about them, wondering what this would come to." I know (from reading ahead) that they never ask about it, so they are perplexed and wondering, but they do not truly want to know what the answer is. They have been confronted with miraculous, but if they investigate it and find it truly is miraculous, they will not just be proven wrong, but immensely wrong. They will have to admit to themselves that they put the Messiah to death! It is better, then, not to ask any questions, and just remain perplexed.

I see this same behavior all around us these days. Massive mistakes, many due to pride, greed, and ideological capture, and even, I think, some true intentional evil, have been made in our COVID response: in the suppression of cheap, possibly effective, early treatment; in the insistence on masks, even on children and babies; in the lockdowns; in keeping people from their loved ones, even at the moment of death; in keeping kids out of school, and in many, many other things. The people behind these decisions, rather than investigating even now the harm done, and asking things like whether the vaccines are dangerous, or whether drugs like Ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine may be helpful in fighting COVID, instead continue to hide behind the "we have no evidence" mantra. They have no evidence because they are not even asking the questions. They do not want to know, because if they were wrong, and they silenced anyone raising concerns, then they have contributed to thousands if not millions of deaths. They will have to admit they have blood on their hands, and they don't want to see it.

The same is true for abortion, they do know studies on fetal pain or post abortive trauma, because they do not want to know about those things.

I think this is a way our fallen human brain tries to protect us when we've done truly bad things, but it is also the devil convincing us not to see the evil we've done. If we allow ourselves to act this way, and not ask obvious questions, we become participants in the evil and will be judged for it.