Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

The institution that we call a “State” is that political organization that claims an exclusive “right” (that no one else in society possesses) to fund itself through the robbery of other men. The State is characterized and defined by its robbery, violence, and arbitrary self-exemption from the moral law of God against theft, while the people that live under it are the robbed and enslaved and are themselves not allowed to steal by “law.”

Thus the anarchist philosopher and free market economist, Murray Rothbard, defined the State as a “monopoly of predation” (Rothbard, Anatomy of the State, p. 16). That is, the State claims the sole “right” to rob people in society, while everyone else is expected to give in to the robbery and be part of “the robbed.” 

Economically, the State is not (1) a producer, but (2) a thief of production. Whereas everyone else in society must (1) supply a good or service to attain their revenues or income (or otherwise convince someone to gift them something), the State is (2) a taker of others’ property. Whereas every other (market-based) organization in society is (1) based on voluntary exchange and consent, the State is (2) based on coercive demands for property and forced association. The State is an institution of plunder against the populations it manages to gain control over, who are themselves responsible for bringing it into being. This is why God brings judgment on these societies.

“The LORD will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses” (Isaiah 3:14).

The ‘economic’ means and the ‘political’ means of gaining wealth

And this is the dichotomy we live under. When we approach the issue from an economic perspective, we see that there are only two ways of acquiring property: either (1) through production and exchange, which is the way of the normal man who doesn’t think it’s right to rob his neighbor; or (2) through theft of other producers, which is exploited by the psychopaths who enjoy having power over other people and don’t want to provide valuable goods and services to attain their money, property, or goods otherwise. 

We see that there is only (1) peace, freedom, and voluntary association; or (2) violence, slavery, and threats of violence against people and property. And that there can be no greater difference between the two. If one hopes to gain (1) one path, one must avoid (2) the other. 

As Rothbard further explained, 

“There are two mutually exclusive ways of acquiring wealth; one, the way of production and exchange or the ‘economic means.’ The other way is simpler in that it does not require productivity; it is the way of seizure of another’s goods or services by the use of force and violence. This is the method of one-sided confiscation, of theft of the property of others. This is the method of ‘the political means’ to wealth” (p. 14). 

The ‘economic’ means and God’s kingdom

Once we see that these—the choice to (1) love your neighbors or (2) impose a state upon them—are the only two options, it also becomes easy to understand where the Kingdom of God rests in this picture.

Though Rothbard is stating this in “secular” terms, it is perfectly relatable to the choice between (1) God’s natural (ie, anarchist) order as He intended us to live, and (2) the false kingdoms of men. 

As he went on, 

“It should be clear that the peaceful use of reason and energy in production is the ‘natural’ path for man: the means for his survival and prosperity on this earth. It should be equally clear that the coercive, exploitative means is contrary to natural law; it is parasitic, for instead of adding to production, it subtracts from it. The ‘political means’ siphons production off to a parasitic and destructive individual or group” (pp. 14-15). 

Since the (2) statist system means robbery and violence, the Kingdom of God and its private production, free exchange, voluntary service to neighbors, security in property, and liberty, always has an enemy in the State. (And God has likewise always been an enemy to those who want to rob other people). Though he did not fully mean it for not having embraced anarchism himself, the popular Christian writer, R.C. Sproul, was correct enough to say that “statism is the natural and ultimate enemy to Christianity because it involves a usurpation of the reign of God.”

It is the economic means of coming about property or goods that are the means of (1) God’s kingdom, which leads to peace and prosperity; the ‘political’ means of gaining property is the method of (2) men raising themselves up as powerful “gods” and oppressing their neighbors. 

The ‘political’ means and the kingdoms of men

Given that there are only two ways of acquiring property and interacting with other men, either (1) by granting them liberty or (2) by telling them they must hand over property (or else be injured or forced into a cage), it is easy to see where “the State” exists in relation to God’s kingdom-people who want to live freely. As Rothbard says,

“The State…is the ‘organization of the political means’; it is the systematization of the predatory process over a given territory” (p. 15). 

This (2) political organization called “the State” is a predator upon (1) those who produce. It is a group of men robbing the rest of the producers who want to live freely.

And this is more or less the history of men and the relentless narrative of the scriptures. Those who want (1) liberty under God have always had to contend with men who are more intent on (2) plundering them than they are on getting free. Those who want (1) to live in a peaceful, voluntaryist society have always been confronted by men who are psychopathically set on (2) maintaining Egypt and not letting any of their tax cattle go when we confront them with the same message given by Moses of “let my people go.” Making matters even more difficult, we have always had to deal with the fact that our brothers have been sold on these systems and deceived by Pharaoh’s wisemen who say otherwise. After all, it has been the statist ideology among the people themselves—the sin of the common man—that has made man’s authoritarian kingdoms possible, without which any would-be rulers would have no support. In this sense, it isn’t even accurate to call a people in political bondage slaves or victims; they are but a people reaping what they have sown.

The men who (2) want to rob people to make their gains (since it’s easier to rob men to gain money than produce something that people value through voluntary payments) form themselves into so-called “governments” to legalize and coordinate their robbery. They make their robbery a regularized affair, as opposed to the sporadic robbery that would still be around in a society without legal plunderers. As Rothbard said, “The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for the predation of private property” (p. 16). 

The State and its plunder is in essence an enemy of the kingdom of God. Whereas God’s anarchist Kingdom order operates on freewill offerings and voluntary charity in a decentralized, adhocratic society of free men organized into a charitable network through freely ministers who link the congregations of families together into a global Kingdom, man’s statist kingdoms operate on compulsory offerings (taxes) in a centralized, authoritarian system of a population forcibly brought together under “congressional representatives” that make men into merchandise and slaves. These are fundamentally different, mutually exclusive means of organizing society that can never be reconciled with one another. The Kingdom of God is not furthered whatsoever by working through the politics of the kingdoms of the world. It is advanced wholly outside of it and apart from it, by furthering the “politics” of this Kingdom rather than man’s.

The nature of the State

We see that the nature of the State is violence (the very wicked violence that the scriptures are talking about that ruins social orders and brings judgment upon a people). 

The State is evil and brings judgment upon societies that fall for it, because it is that institution that (2) takes the property, bodies, and lives of men by force, without there even being a genuine crime (i.e., a violation of someone’s rights) present. The State is not violence against “the bad guys,” as men want us to believe, but is itself (2) a criminal organization that uses violence against innocent men who did nothing wrong, other than not obeying some edict of men or not paying fines to his local extortion racket court. 

This is why there is little justice in a statist society, and more so the violent imposition of the will of some men (those who call themselves “the government”) upon others. The State is about forcing men to obey what these power-hungry psychopaths desire, not about ordering the Kingdom of God. It is about using violence to get what you want, even when this violence has nothing to do with real crime, order, or maintenance of society (although you must tell everyone it is that), but everything to do with introducing great evils into it. 

The State is an organization of men who believe they have (2) a right to rule over others and control their bodies and property. As the Christian anarchist Kevin Craig has defined this institution,

“The State claims the right to seize the property of others by force, have those who resist beaten and raped, and kill all those who get in the way.” 

The people who call themselves “the government” are simply a gang of robbers who get away with their plunder only because the foolish and sinful masses, who are always ready to idolize men and apologize for their theft and murder, arbitrarily exempt placing the criminal label on those who carry out their crimes with badges or uniforms on (even though they’re highly ready to call anyone a “criminal” who resists a tyrant that is trying to pull one of God’s children out of their vehicles on the roadside for not using his turn signal). 

The State, then, may also be characterized as a criminal gang that, unlike all other criminal gangs, hasn’t been stopped and is even respected by its victims. As Kevin Craig said,

“The State is a group of individuals who can steal from and kill a selected target of people without expecting any other group to be willing or able to stop them.”

Any other band of robbers would be stopped, because, lacking the idolatry-based “legitimacy” that the State has attained for itself in the hearts of sinful men, these bandits would actually be seen as criminals. But rather, our people have sadly been trained to think that anyone who is beaten up by the tyrants is the “criminal,” because the tyrants must have been in the right while enforcing Pharaoh’s so-called “laws.” Even more depressing, millions of professing Christians think this, despite all the prophets being killed, despite Paul and Silas bound in jail, Christ on the cross, the martyrdom of so many Christians, etc.

God and liberty, statism and robbery 

Removing the “secular” terminology, what we see is that there is really only (1) the natural, anarchistic order of being obedient to God and His law, or (2) trusting in the kingdoms of men. God’s natural order is (1) the way of liberty and voluntaryism, and the kingdoms of men are (2) the way of statism and plunder. 

There are men who want (1) liberty under God, and men who (2) want to destroy God and form plunder systems. 

These are the only two choices, and they’re entirely at odds with one another — the kingdom of God from the kingdom of men, as much as the natural order from the way of statism. God’s people have to escape the hands of plunderers just as much as the plunderers have to subdue God’s people. 

Economists like Rothbard have stated as much without acknowledging God as the Maker and Creator of this natural order. In his language, he says,

“The two basic and mutually exclusive interrelations between men are peaceful cooperation or coercive exploitation, production or predation…On the one hand, there is creative productivity, peaceful exchange, and cooperation; on the other, coercive dictation and predation over those social relations” (p. 53). 

But we may also say that there is really only (1) the Kingdom of God, i.e., liberty with God as the Sovereign; or (2) man’s statist orders, where psychopaths are crowned as the false god-rulers.  

Statism, which is the organization of political means, is an attack on God’s kingdom. It is an attempt by men to be “as gods,” and entirely contrary to the way God wants us to live. The rulers are pretend gods, and this is just what God sends the prophets to tell them, in his indignation against their statist pride.

“Tell the ruler of Tyre that this is what the Lord GOD says: Your heart is proud, and you have said, ‘I am a god; I sit in the seat of gods in the heart of the sea.’ Yet you are a man and not a god, though you have regarded your heart as that of a god” (Ezekiel 28:2).

And this is the basic reason why it doesn’t work, too. The (2) plunder system is contrary to (1) God’s social ethic of production and exchange. 

The Kingdom of God

Though the “Kingdom of God” is a term heavily used in the New Testament by Jesus (which is often ignored), we can infer from the earlier word of God (e.g., through His will expressed by the prophets) what this kingdom is in terms of how social organization is to be carried out. 

We see that God’s will points toward (1) voluntary living, peaceful association, private charity, free communities, and love of neighbor. Here we can readily rule out (2) state violence as compatible with God and His kingdom. As one prophet says of these rebels of God, “Their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands” (Isaiah 59:6).

We see all throughout the Old Testament that the kings, Pharaohs, and Caesars of the world are all enemies of God who are trying to replace His kingdom with their own — that the Caesars of the world demand to be considered lords at the exclusion of all others (namely, God). 

But the kingdom of God is when the Lord reigns as the Sovereign and men no longer look to human kings as their gods and protectors and providers. And the kingdom of men is, of course, when men are made into “gods” and “saviors,” which brings consequent bondage to the people.

You can’t have both (1 & 2) at the same time. The kingdoms of men, i.e., the present statist society that we suffer under, tramples on the kingdom of God and puts His people in prisons, whether directly confined in cages or in the open-air prison society where they are farmed for their property and product.

The security of God’s kingdom

The Kingdom of God speaks to a world where there is (1) security from predators under God’s liberty and where there are no longer (2) “democracies” or “government police” to prey on people and property. Whereas man’s kingdoms always present the looming threat of being robbed, kidnapped, or killed by agents of Pharaohs, God’s anarchist society is one where we will “lie down with nothing to fear” (Leviticus 26:6). Those who serve God and seek His Kingdom, which necessitates their abandonment of the sinful pursuit of worldly politics, will be blessed by God with freedom from the fear of plunder that man’s kingdoms bring upon a people as judgment for their sin of seeking human rulers. The type of society that God provides those who seek His ways is one where “people will dwell in a peaceful place, in safe and secure places of rest” (Isaiah 32:18). Whereas the human rulers of man-made kingdoms curse a people with theft and violence, “the LORD blesses His people with peace” (Psalm 29:11). Whereas human rulers maketh men to march into courtrooms, tax offices, labor camps, and prisons, God maketh men to lie down in green pastures.

But you get robbery societies when you (2) trust in man. Statism is inherently covetous of others’ property, whereas the Kingdom of God is about the security of liberty safely away from these plunderers. The salvation that the Lord provides for those who seek His Kingdom instead of man’s is to be liberated from the worldly-political systems that dominate them. It is one of being saved from statism, not just “saved” in some vague, otherworldly, or spiritual sense as it is understood today.

The methods of (2) the human system-makers are not for those who seek the path of (1) God’s kingdom — hence the commandment,

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:17). 

When we obey God, we avoid the curse of statism and are instead blessed with the things he gives those who are willing to leave Egypt and serve Him for once. 

In the Kingdom of God, we no longer have to worry about producing and getting robbed by some men who call themselves “the government.” Rather, God promises that “you will eat what you worked so hard to grow. You will be blessed and secure” (Psalm 128:2). Taxation is but a judgment upon the wicked works of idolatry and support for the kingdoms of man.

Far from (2) the society of robbery, violence, and prisons that statism amounts to, the Kingdom of God is when we are no longer in shackles—no longer under a curse—to a ruling elite, and thus no longer suffering under famines and chains. 

God’s society, as expressed by the prophets, is different than the kingdoms of men:

“The trees of the field will give their fruit, and the land will yield its produce; My flock will be secure in their land. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I have broken the bars of their yoke and delivered them from the hands that enslaved them” (Ezekiel 34:27). 

God talks about giving us a place that is free from plunderers, tax agents, police, and threats from tyrants, and therefore free from their destruction of wealth, peace, community, family, private organization, etc. 

“And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places” (Isaiah 32:18).

Men in the scriptures gained (1) the protection, security of property, liberty, and material blessings of the Lord from their statist enemies not through (2) man’s crony political systems (e.g., the military we’re told we can’t do without), but (1) “because we have sought the LORD our God; we have sought Him, and He has given us rest on every side” (2 Chronicles 14:7). 

Contrary to what most men tell us today, the path to liberty and prosperity is avoiding (2) man’s protection from fake enemies and rather choosing (1) God’s protection from men. 

When our social order is based around God, we do not have to worry about the tens of thousands of SWAT raids and police tyranny that now goes on in this country annually. These things—kidnapping men, putting them in cages for disobeying an order of the state, stealing their homes and cars—are the effects of choosing (2) men over (1) God. It is what is to be expected when we choose (2) man’s “law” systems.

A godly society does not have to worry about plantation officers executing them on the side of the road, breaking down their door in the middle of the night, or being under occupation and punishment for their sins of statism.

We are stricken by “the rod”—the judgment of God that is statism taking over and bringing the consequent effects of this sin—only when we (2) disobey God and start plunder systems, not when we (1) choose liberty and trust in His protection. Those who tell us that human government is necessary to security and that God’s anarchist society is one of lawlessness and disorder are people who call good evil and evil good in their reprobate minds, which God has given them over to on their original refusal to understand His ways.

The Kingdom of God is secure and prosperous; the kingdoms of men leave everyone a potential victim at any time of beatings, cages, fines, or greater society-wide problems like war, famines, economic depressions, and labor camps. As much as it should be evident today that justice and law are perverted under human government and have become this way even as a judgment upon a people who would not obey God and maintain the weightier matters of their society out of personal responsibility, nevertheless men continue to claim that human government is indispensable for “law and order,” reasoning that the only problem is that it has deviated from what it is “supposed” to look like, rather than seeing it as inherent to man’s system of government.

Where men went wrong

In short, men went wrong and found themselves living in an Egyptian society because they (2) trusted in men and their armies and police and have thereby forsaken (1) God’s liberty. 

“Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the LORD” (Isaiah 31:1).

Our people aren’t (1) crying to the Lord to “make me safe and secure” (Psalm 4:8); they are still (2) asking for the “protection” from politicians and police — they are still saying “we need a good president who won’t gut the military” (even though it squanders hundreds of billions of dollars a year regardless of the political party in power). 

And so naturally we have societies where there are millions of snares laid daily for men in which to trap them into paying billions in taxes, court fees, fines, tickets, or even paying with their lives if they resist or if one of the tyrants “fears for his life.”

We have made ourselves unsafe by trusting in men instead of God. The threat of home invasion by badged thugs is not a threat in God’s free society. Again, as God promises, “My people will live in peaceful dwellings, in secure homes and in undisturbed resting places” (Isaiah 32:18). 

But we are not safe or secure when we’re in a statist society of kings and men who robotically and without morals serve the crown and its “law” order (i.e., plunder as law), despite the widespread belief that “States” exist for “public safety.” Rather, this puts us in a situation where evil men are bringing society down around them, both people, property, and economic prosperity with it. As one prophet observed, “This land is not secure! Sin will thoroughly destroy it!” (Micah 2:10). 

In a statist world, where men worshiped false gods into power and believed in their false protection, we have brought the sword upon ourselves and live under the threat of having our houses invaded over bogus charges, having our houses or land stolen from tax agents and sold to earn money for the crown, or being kidnapped and put in a cage because we went against the king’s decree. 

And this is the State and the works of their agents.

“They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance” (Micah 2:2).

A prayer

Lord, be with us, your Kingdom is under attack by men who believe they are gods and that we are their property. Know that your remnant is down here below before you destroy Babylon completely. Don’t forget that we are still in bondage to the Egyptians and know that you’re the only way out. “Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us. Look and see our disgrace! Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners” (Lamentations 5:1-2). 

Our people have instituted (2) man-made “law” systems and even foolishly believe they are in accordance with (1) God. They even operate under your name. We know they’re liars, thieves, and murderers, and that they are with the evil one to steal, kill, and destroy. Remember us, Lord God. Have mercy on us, as we have been unable to avoid being apart from it. Forgive us for our sins. Save us from your day of destruction. Protect us from them. Keep waking up our people and showing them the light. Show them the Babylonian order and the way to freedom. Spread your spirit around the world. Heal our world. Lead us toward your kingdom. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Conclusion

The difference in (1) the kingdom of God and (2) the “kingdoms” of men is the difference in liberty, or slavery; true security, or militaristic police states; divine providence, or social engineering.

It may exist by a degree, where there is a semblance of (1) liberty existing alongside (2) statism. But the two cannot be more different in principle, even if there is an ongoing struggle between these forces and evidence of both forces existing simultaneously (e.g., pieces of liberty and natural order still existing in spite of the plunderers, whose evil work is, on the other hand, evidenced most everywhere in twenty-first-century society). They are opposed to one another as enemies. 

To the extent that (2) statist societies expand, i.e., to the extent that a group of criminal men invades people, property, private production, free exchange, etc., the (1) kingdom of God is diminished and supplanted by false gods. 

To the extent that (2) the political power of men is beaten back from controlling God’s people and their property, and those people (1) take dominion of their lives and regain their product from the filthy hands of the plunderers, then the godly society is advancing. 

It is our calling to lead our people out of (2) Egypt and back to (1) liberty under God. When we walk down the statist path of sure destruction, we walk away from God and back into the arms of Pharaoh, where he is more than happy to get us to submit to his “protection,” i.e., slave away on his tax farm so he can afford to dress up his chariots with gold plating before battle and decorate his horsemen and furnish them with rewards (and awards) for serving their (false) king.

But God brought us out of Egypt to stay out of Egypt and advance His kingdom, not to march right back into it.

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians. I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk in uprightness” (Leviticus 26:13). 

We ought to have God’s Kingdom on our minds, not the false kingdoms of men, who endlessly stage “the most important election of our lifetime” to sucker men into the politics of the world under the belief that “the stakes are too high” to walk away from Pharaoh’s sham. We ought to be seeking to live under (1) God’s natural order, not (2) the artificial political orders of men that were raised up in man’s sin and assisted by satan. Between these two things, there can be no greater difference. Men of God cannot regard Pharaohs and Caesars as “lords.” Lordship belongs exclusively to Christ.