Question: If you and all our ministers follow Jesus why are there no signs and wonders following? Why are antidepressants offered to people and not casting out of demons? Are we on the right track? Are you all following Jesus or a concept of Him? This is not sarcastic, but analytic. Imagine that we are still all waiting for Him to reveal Himself as the Word!! Scriptures leading up to the Person! Could that be?
The ‘signs and wonders’ aren’t just to be limited to miracles of healing and raising the dead. Indeed, they were great signs but they were not to continue. Already in Paul’s own time he lost the gift of healing as he wrote to Timothy how he left his friend sick in Miletus. The ‘signs and wonders’ were a temporary gift of the Holy Spirit which gave great authenticity to the apostles. Mind you, they were bringing a ‘new message and new revelation.’ Some aspects were so hard to believe that it was necessary that God gave them the gift of signs and miracles. In Scripture you see three times when miracles of healing etc. took place. In the time of Moses, Elijah & Elisha and then the third period during Jesus and the apostles. Besides, during church history we can read of the occasional miracle power that was granted to the missionaries as they ventured into the heathen region.
But on a spiritual level, signs and wonders are also regeneration, conviction of sin, repentance and faith. When God blesses His Word through His Spirit, then a greater wonder takes place than any physical healing. To see a mind made willing to forsake sin and follow Christ and cleave to Him in spite of fierce rejection or hatred, such is the greatest miracle in the world. I agree that we are experiencing a time of great leanness in our churches where the Holy Spirit is holding back instead of breaking through the barriers of human hostility and darkness. Those are matters that we need to continually examine and search why God is showing His anger in this way.
The same answer is really given to ‘casting out demons.’ The only time that demons were cast out with extraordinary power was again in the Lord Jesus’ days and His apostles. Of course, God could give that power again when it is needed.
I am not going to say much about anti-depressants except that way too many people are put on these. Sin causes depression and in many cases people are trying to get ‘happy’ with happy-pills rather than taught to repent of sin and seek the healing of God’s forgiveness as well as from other people. You can’t cure sin with pills.
However, there are genuine cases of depression with biological causes and perhaps even spiritual, where a pill can be a blessing as medicine. We are not just flesh and bones, we are also hormones and chemicals. Even the slightest imbalance can cause all kind of mental dysfunction. Such people don’t need exorcism to have demons cast out but medicine to correct certain chemical imbalances. But you seem to link ‘depression with demons.’ I would be careful to link those to. We hear counselors and preachers speak about the ‘demon of alcoholism, drugs, anger, selfishness etc.’ Really, those are sin issues and they need to be confronted.
The rest of your questions are a bit misty to me. Whether we are on the right track regarding ‘miracles and demon’ possession? I hope that we are and at this moment I feel convinced that we are. My study of the Word of God is the basis of my convictions.. Of course, we can err in how we understand the Word and therefore my prayer continually remains that the Lord will teach us His way and lead us all in the paths of his truth.