Jesus' followers?
You mean like Stephen, who was killed for taking care of widows and kids because that is what Christ would have him do?
Or like Paul, (the guy who helped kill Stephen), who was blinded as the first act of the divine Christ, was put in prison more than once, was shipwrecked, lived with a thorn in his side, almost died from some illness only to regain his health to be imprisoned and killed by Rome, because he followed Christ to the end?
Peter? Who had a lot of grief as the main dude in Jerusalem, (by Paul again lol), and was ultimately killed for teaching what Christ taught him?
Every single Christian in Alexandria who were slaughtered?
These are the people you claim God himself sat back and did nothing for. It was not God who did that to them. He couldn't help it. Satan won for a while, so he hired us as deputies, and we still can't do it.
THIS is the history you'd deny to give Satan way too much glory and ability to do. That is the God you discount with excuses.
Clay is made out of dead animals, dead plants, and yes -- CRAP! And these are the words of the guy who helped kill Stephen, who drove Peter to the brink, and who had a horribly tough life with a wonderful treasure inside him. I am not ashamed of the elephant dung God has heaped me with. It has become a part of the tulip I am becoming.
2. Cor. 4:7-16
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.
13 Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, 14 knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. 15 For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.