Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

Whenever someone is robbed by Pharaoh’s police officers, beaten up one the side of the road or executed for trying to flee one of his tyrannical agents, hauled off to one of his cages, or sentenced by one of his demonic judges, the evil statists in our society inevitably reply, “If they wouldn’t have broken the law or just obeyed the officer, they wouldn’t have had to go to jail.” In the statist’s wicked heart, anyone who is persecuted by the State (their holy god) must have been a “bad guy.” Because their false god, the State, is always the “good guys.”

You can find this comment thousands of times over, on thousands of videos online of people being unjustly punished by servants of the Egyptian plunder system. Millions of people seriously think that there are no men in jail but those who have done something wrong, i.e., invaded another man’s rights. In the mind of those who hold the State up as their god, everyone who it punishes deserves the punishment and must have violated someone’s rights, and every so-called “crime” means someone hurt another man or stole his property. Everyone in jail is a “bad guy” who has done something wrong, and if they didn’t want to be there, “they just shouldn’t have broken the law.”

These captors could not operate their system of mass slavery unless the masses thought that it was a system of “justice” on “the criminals” and that everyone in a cage must have violated another person’s rights. And furthermore, that Pharaoh’s agents are not criminals at all but the good-guy “law enforcers.” Such thinking makes our world very dangerous. If any of us end up in cages for no reason, as Jesus warns we may (Matt. 24:9), we’re highly unlikely to have much sympathy among our population of Caesar-supporters. They will simply assume, as they always have, that everyone punished by the State—the tyrants who have won the “good guy” narrative in the hearts of the Pharaoh-worshiping masses—is a “bad guy” and “broke the law.”

Biblical characters

It’s understandable that the sons of Satan can think this way. But it’s appalling how many “Christians” can even think this, because this position does not line up with the scriptures whatsoever. They should know this merely with the crucifixion of the sinless Christ on a Roman cross, who was stalked by the ruling elites since the time of His birth, when King Herod slaughtered hundreds of children in hopes of getting Jesus (Matt 2:16), and was preyed upon ever since that time (Luke 11:54, 20:20).

Plenty of other popular stories testify against this idea that everyone who is punished by the State is a “bad guy.” The conspiracy to throw Daniel in a lion’s den for praying to God instead of the king (Dan 6:1-16); Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace for refusing to bow to a statue of King Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 3:12); etc.

All the other prophets of God and apostles and disciples of Christ met the same or similar fate. After being threatened to stop preaching the gospel message (Acts 4:17-18), which was waking people up (Acts 4:16), and after “find nothing on how they might punish him” (Acts 4:21), Peter was arrested and imprisoned (Acts 12:4) and eventually crucified. But “he shouldn’t have broken the law,” right? Matthew suffered martyrdom while preaching the gospel. But “he shouldn’t have broken the law,” right? James was put on trial and beheaded. But “he shouldn’t have broken the law,” right? Paul was imprisoned in Rome and beheaded. But “he shouldn’t have broken the law,” right? John the Baptist was imprisoned by King Herod and beheaded (Matt 14:9). But “he shouldn’t have broken the law,” right? The apostles were arrested and jailed (Acts 5:18). But “they shouldn’t have broken the law,” right?

It’s nearly impossible for anyone to love God and His people and maintain the idea that men who are punished at the hands of political rulers “just shouldn’t have broken the law and they wouldn’t have had to go to jail or be killed.” 

The scriptures tell us what men of God are to expect for preaching His word, which sharply rebukes the ways of the political systems of the world. 

“[They] were tortured and refused their release…Still others endured mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they were put to death by the sword. They went around in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, oppressed, and mistreated. The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and hid in caves and holes in the ground” (Hebrews 11:35-38).

Why did they have to be killed? Namely, for threatening to wake people up to the schemes of the ruling elites of the day. When someone is going around calling your system a “den of robbers” (Mark 11:17), they start to look for ways to kill you (Mark 11:18). You just can’t have people walking around saying things like this when you’re trying to maintain the opposite narrative:

“Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love bribes and chasing after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, and the plea of the widow never comes before them” (Isaiah 1:23). 

The prophet Jeremiah was persecuted for going around saying the same things. For prophesying things they didn’t want to hear, we read,

“The officials were angry with Jeremiah, and they beat him and placed him in jail…So Jeremiah went into a cell in the dungeon and remained there a long time” (Jeremiah 37:15-16).

Recounting the situation, Jeremiah emphasized his innocence.

“Without cause my enemies hunted me like a bird. They dropped me alive into a pit and cast stones upon me. The waters flowed over my head and I thought I was going to die” (Lamentations 3:52-54).

Contrary to the popular belief of statists, state rulers indeed like to put people in cages who did no wrong — who did nothing more than threaten to expose their schemes. In one particularly relevant point, “Jeremiah asked King Zedekiah, ‘How have I sinned against you or your servants or these people, that you have put me in prison?'” (Jeremiah 37:18). 

The prophet Elijah was also afraid for his life for this same reason, seeing that the rulers had “killed [God’s] prophets with the sword” (1 Kings 19:10) — for the “crime” of preaching God’s radical word to the people whose minds they wanted to control.

On preparing for persecution

We are told in the scriptures how “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). We have to be very aware of the active conspiracy to put down people who seek to live godly lives. As the psalmist reminds us, “The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him” (Psalm 37:32). Those who perpetuate evil systems want to destroy the righteous who expose their schemes. “The wicked have drawn the sword and bent the bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright” (Psalm 37:14). 

As long as people think that the wicked draw the sword for “public safety” and that the only people they punish are “bad guys” who “broke the law,” then we see just how unprepared men are for persecution and just how bad of a predicament the saints are in regarding the popular opinion of our neighbors. The State is a conspiracy against the righteous remnant of God. As the Psalms outlined in the beginning,

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed” (Psalm 2:2).

But if you ask the statists, you get the opposite story: The kings of the earth are gathered for our protection, for “our national defense,” and they work together to punish “the criminals” and keep us from “the bad guys.”

We see in the scriptures that it doesn’t even require breaking one of their fake “laws” to find yourself in trouble; they will do whatever they can to manufacture charges and claims against you. As such, we need to be prepared for any and all false accusations, like the false cries of attempted rape against Joseph (Gen 39:14), which landed him in a prison (Gen 39:20). The charge will not be that we were sharing the word of God, though that would be glorious; it will be manufactured charges, legal innovations, and corrupt court procedures used to take down anyone thought to be a threat to the regime, as the apostles were accused of before the city officials: “These men have turned the world upside down…They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, named Jesus!” (Acts 17:6-7). It is not unreasonable for us to expect the same fate; we are of the same lineage as the prophets who came before us (Matt 5:12). 

And we need to be wary of all men who even claim to be our brothers in Christ and our loving neighbors. Most men today, even so-called Christians, would sooner sell their neighbor out to Pharaoh’s officers than they would do something to risk the charge of “harboring a fugitive” — lest they “break the law.” They aren’t willing to act as men of God did in the scriptures.

“When Jezebel destroyed the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave, and provided them with bread and water” (1 Kings 18:4). 

The Scriptures

Everywhere in the scriptures, we read that the State, in fact, deals out punishments to innocent men who violated no one’s rights whatsoever (which is what should be the standard for what is considered a crime, not simply whatever some man decrees). This is often why the psalmists were crying out to the Lord for help. 

“See how they lie in wait for me. Fierce men conspire against me for no transgression or sin of my own, O LORD” (Psalm 59:3). 

There doesn’t need to be a legitimate reason—a genuine crime—for these political conspirators to come down on us. 

“Those who hate me without cause outnumber the hairs of my head; many are those who would destroy me—my enemies for no reason. Though I did not steal, I must repay” (Psalm 69:4). 

You don’t have to be a “bad guy” for them to scheme against you. 

“They band together against the righteous and condemn the innocent to death” (Psalm 94:21). 

You don’t have to be “guilty” of a real crime to meet the police club and the county jail. 

“They shoot from ambush at the innocent, attacking suddenly and fearlessly” (Psalm 64:4). 

There doesn’t need to be a reason to get stalked by these evil men in power. 

“For without cause they laid their net for me; without reason they dug a pit for my soul” (Psalm 35:7).

There doesn’t need to be any good reason for these men to chase us, put us in cages, or beat us up. 

“Without cause my enemies hunted me like a bird; they dropped me alive into a pit and cast stones upon me” (Lamentations 3:52-53).

Any discerning person today should see that the so-called “justice system” in this country and around the world is a failed one. Not only are innocent men punished, but we have the reverse problem where those who are actually guilty of criminal actions—say, police officers who get off the hook abusing people due to “qualified immunity” laws—go unpunished. As one psalmist could say, tempted to envy this lack of justice, “They are not in trouble as other men” (Psalm 73:5). 

The plunderers of the world spoken of in the scriptures are precisely those men (e.g., police officers and other agents of the State) whose “jobs” are preying upon the innocent to take them for a spoil and bring back property and bodies for their masters and their systems of incarceration. It isn’t just “the bad guys” they look for, though they may do that too in their attempt to monopolize and control the means of law and order in society and gain some level of respect from the people who inevitably come to idolize them; they plunder the general “public” in order to generate revenues for the political beast system. As the Proverbs says of these sinners, who try and recruit others into the police academy to rob the people with them, they say,

“Come along, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause, let us swallow them alive like Sheol, and whole like those descending into the Pit. We will find all manner of precious goods; we will fill our houses with plunder” (Proverbs 1:11-13).

Conclusion

It is very hard—especially for anyone who claims to be a Christian—to square the statist’s notion that everyone who is prosecuted by the rulers is a “bad guy” with the themes of the scriptures: Devils casting people into prisons, the expectation of being handed over to authorities, the false accusations that one should expect as a Christian, the expectations of being persecuted just like Jesus was, the stories of Christians being thrown in prisons, the attempted destruction of God’s people, teaching us how to act when we are persecuted, being taken before state officials and thrown in prisons, being hated for the name of Christ, having men on our necks, etc. 

The Bible, again, teaches that “all those who live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). So whatever this idea is that all you need to do to avoid arrest and incarceration is to just be a good person (and they assume that “crime” as defined by the State is exclusive to rights violations rather than rights violations themselves), it isn’t a Christian idea. The scriptures (as does our world) abound with persecution of the righteous.

Those who say such absurdities as “don’t break the law if you don’t want to go to jail” have no grip on the reality of false charges, bogus laws, hundreds of thousands held in pretrial detentions (so much for “innocent until proven guilty”), coerced guilty pleas through the plea bargain system that lead to false admissions of guilt, and the many other things which land non-violent men in jails and prisons. And they aren’t Christians, for this idea is not only animated by the spirit of evil, but goes against everything we should expect of the State in the word of God.