Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

Nowhere in the scriptures are we commanded to set up a State as a means of having social order, or for any other reason. God’s provision for order is His Law, and the basic social unit in society is the family (patriarchy), not princes, kings, and other mighty men (statism), who are shown to be violent workers of evil from the start (Gen 6:4-5). As seen in the story of Cain, who, after killing his brother Abel, went to start a city-state (Gen 4:16-17), one of man’s great rebellions was the move from this family-centered, patriarchal order to the statist order where they erected human rulers to govern their societies. (No wonder the State, in turn, attacks the family once it’s raised up and forces children into their school systems. No wonder why Marxists attack the family).

But many men tell us that the State is God’s social provision for law, order, justice, and protection — that this is what God gave us to organize our society for peace and prosperity. They believe that without Pharaohs, chariots, horsemen, and the king’s footmen to enforce the laws, that there would be no society whatsoever, much less order, justice, peace, and prosperity. We are led to believe that civilization comes from the kingdoms of men. 

The State as plunderer

There’s a much better case, however, that the State is God’s tool for judgment against those (like them) who are foolish and wicked enough to set up and support a State!

Isaiah provides one of the clearest examples of this, though this narrative is repeated in probably hundreds of places throughout the scriptures and the other prophets: If you trust in Egypt (i.e., statism) to protect you instead of God, which means forsaking true liberty under God by setting up socialist armies for your “national defense,” the Lord sends the statists to take over your society. As the prophet says, 

“Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath. I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets” (Isaiah 10:5-6). 

God calls Assyria, an exceptionally evil regime to be sure, the “rod of My anger.” God’s “anger” here is precisely with seeing people set up evil regimes of their own and forsaking the Lord. For the sins of the Jewish people, i.e., “building up Zion with bloodshed (Micah 3:10), God sends the Assyrians. When you don’t trust in God for your liberty but put your faith in men, you get the statist slave society that you deserve.

In another instance of punishing those who forsook God as their protector and chose violence and political rule instead, God says,

“Behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the LORD, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation” (Jeremiah 25:9).

As we see, God is willing to call kings (e.g., Nebuchadnezzar) His “servants” and use them against other people who have likewise gone away backward and trusted in these evil statist systems. Does that mean God morally approves of such evils? That God desires for us to have human kings lord over us? God forbid! He knows they’re evil, and brings them upon people who deserve such evil for having worshiped it themselves, albeit in another variety (e.g., American patriotism instead of Chinese communism).

Far from order, there is nothing but judgment for those who think these inherently violent political systems represent a godly society. Such violent means of social organization are neither social nor godly. They are all condemned from the start. As one prophet says, “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by iniquity!” (Habakkuk 2:12). For the sinful ideology and idolatries of statism, God sends statists to “spoil,” “plunder,” and “trample” these godless people (or rather, these people who have other “gods” than God, e.g., kings). We’re being plundered today because of our own sin of state-worshiping.  

Where men go wrong

The confusion seems to rest on a conflation of statism as a tool for God’s judgment (against statists) and thus His ideal social order, missing entirely that such judgment comes because men forsook God for the political orders of men. Men are able to twist the State as divine judgment upon statists into a case for statism as godly and orderly. 

But while this “staff,” “rod,” or “sword” of the State may embody God’s wrath, God doesn’t believe in the staff or call us to support it. Rather, the sword comes down on men precisely as divine judgment for supporting it. As Jesus Christ said, “all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52). To make this verse about sparing Peter, as some Christian writers tell us, doesn’t go far enough; this is a socio-political law that those who set up violent statist systems, support them, trust in them for “national defense,” or even think that violent revolution will bring them liberty, will bring those very things upon themselves. The means of Christian society are not force, violence, coercion, or sword-bearing of any kind; these are the methods of rebellious men who have set out against God’s order. We are not to follow in these ways. We are instructed to “not walk the road with [sinner-plunderers] or set foot upon their path. For their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed blood” (Proverbs 1:15-16).

God’s use of the State as a tool for vengeance—keep in mind, against statist societies that set up these wicked systems—is true enough that men are able to jump from there to the conclusion that the State is God’s perfect will, i.e., how He intended men to organize society and wished to see us act and live. Because States are used by God to punish His enemies, i.e., the disobedient statists of the world who turned from the Lord, men were able to jump to the notion that they needed a State themselves for “law & order” or “criminal justice,” even when the prophets make it clear that this was the very cause of such judgment against them. Far from thinking it is needed for protection and order, what men should see (if they read their Bibles) is that statism is the very thing to be avoided if you don’t want to undergo the all-around statization and occupation of your society!

The State is not God’s instrument for social order; indeed the prophets describe it as the enemy of social order and God’s kingdom, and the very thing that stirs God’s anger. It is God’s way of bringing terror and destruction upon those people who, for the very sin of supporting such political orders, deserve wars, famines, and the destruction of society. The terrible effects of statism come when men refuse to follow God and trust in men.

“If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. I will also break down your pride of power; I will also make your sky like iron and your earth like bronze. Your strength will be spent uselessly, for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit” (Leviticus 26:18-20).

Men deserve Assyrians when they set up Egyptian systems, and God sends them. And slapping “In God We Trust” on your extortion courts or plunderous police vehicles doesn’t make them any better. If anything, such uses of God’s name in vain make Him even more angry. It would have been better if the state plunderers just admitted that they were robbers under the influence of evil. 

Why judgment?

We should be clear that judgment doesn’t come upon people for nothing, but precisely because they chose man-made political systems as their means of social organization and salvation. He does it because “thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation” (Isaiah 17:10). God turns his back on statists societies, who by seeking human rulers have turned their backs on Him (1 Sam. 8:7-8). As the prophet says, “your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). It is not arbitrarily that God renders judgment. The people were “destined for [God’s] rage” because, as Isaiah put it, “the faithful city has become a harlot” (Isaiah 1:21). In other words, they turned God’s kingdom into a land of political robbery. As he went on to make clear, 

“Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love bribes and chasing after rewards” (Isaiah 1:23). 

Far from there being refuge and safety in the State, the prophets explain that we’re in captivity today because we sinfully chose the systems of political robbery as a means of social organization over the Kingdom of God, when God taught us how to avoid these plunderers by obeying His commandments instead. As one prophet makes very clear, 

“The nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they were unfaithful to Me. So I hid My face from them and delivered them into the hands of their enemies, so that they all fell by the sword” (Ezekiel 39:23).

Statism is God’s judgment for the evils of…statism.

This same theme of judgment upon statist societies, in the form of allowing other statists to destroy them as a means of carrying out God’s judgment, runs throughout the scriptures. As the prophet Ezekiel preached to Pharaoh king of Egypt, 

“This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘The sword of the king of Babylon will come against you! I will make your hordes fall by the swords of the mighty, the most ruthless of all nations. They will ravage the pride of Egypt and all her multitudes will be destroyed'” (Ezekiel 32:11-12). 

It is easy to see how wrong it would be for us to take from this that God morally approves of Babylon and that we should set up Babylonian social orders ourselves, as we have done today in an endless repetition of the sins of the scriptures. It is simply a means of punishing the evils of Egypt, with their very own brand of (political) evils. 

When men choose statism over God, they should expect their societies to be turned into socialist slave societies — they should expect Assyria, the very enemy they cited as supposedly necessitating an Assyria of their own. 

“You have multiplied those you killed in this city and filled its streets with the dead. Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: The slain you have laid within this city are the meat, and the city is the pot; but I will remove you from it. You fear the sword, so I will bring the sword against you, declares the Lord GOD. I will bring you out of the city and deliver you into the hands of foreigners, and I will execute judgments against you. You will fall by the sword, and I will judge you even to the borders of Israel. Then you will know that I am the LORD” (Ezekiel 11:6-10). 

Now, were these men to be conquered because they didn’t trust in an Egyptian military, as most Americans would tell you would be the case without it? Was it the case that, “Without our military the Chinese would have already taken over our country?” To the contrary, God says, it was not obeying the Lord that gets a people conquered. 

“For you have neither followed My statutes nor practiced My ordinances, but you have conformed to the ordinances of the nations around you” (Ezekiel 11:12). 

The State as God’s order?

We see clearly here in this scripture from Isaiah that it would make no sense to say Assyrian political orders are God’s social system, given that He sends those tyrannical systems precisely as punishments to those men who trusted in those systems. This is a way of bringing the very evils they trusted in domestically, with their own sinful political systems, down on their heads. The State being used as a tool of God is precisely to render judgment upon statists! Far from statism being God’s will, it brings judgment. 

It is easy to see that God doesn’t believe in “Assyria,” so to speak, even though He is willing to use it against the disobedient nations who trusted in political violence themselves. Far from the tool of God’s judgment being His will, this tool or “rod” is also facing judgment itself (Isaiah 10:12). If the State as a tool for God’s judgment were also His perfect will and prescribed social system for us to follow, then why does He then destroy those systems, too? Evidently, the way to avoid “Assyrias” is to not be an Assyrian yourself, i.e., to not choose the wicked path of statism.

The use of one State against another does not make the case for the State, but only shows that intra-state fighting is exactly what to expect in a statist world. “I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians” (Isaiah 19:12). We may well conceive of the Soviet Union being used by God to stop the Nazi regime in Germany, but that by no means implies that God approves of the Soviet Union; it is yet another enemy of God that (as history shows) was also, for that same reason, facing a judgment of its own. 

Choosing between God or “Assyria”

Our choices basically come down to this: Obey God and His commandments, which brings liberty and prosperity, or forsake God, namely by trusting in men and their systems, and bring famines and slavery upon yourselves. The prophet Isaiah gave one of the more memorable (to me) statements of this law, though it can be found in everywhere in the scriptures:

“If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best of the land. But if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword” (Isaiah 1:19-20).

This is it in a nutshell. It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than this. Libertarian philosophers and free market economists will understand this even in their secular-humanist thinking as the “economic law” that liberty brings peace and prosperity, while socialism and state intervention in general impoverishes societies and substitutes labor camps for private, market-based production. 

How we got here

Most men wouldn’t be able to tell you how we got enslaved because they can’t even see the slavery. They think our Egyptian society is “freedom.” But when they’re ready to learn, let it be known that the statist system we live under today is (as Isaiah 10 teaches) a result of trusting in Assyrian systems of “our” own. For the sin of statism, we have found ourselves in captivity to human rulers who pretend to be gods. This is God’s law: Trust in Egypt, who you thought was your friend, and get Assyrians, who are most surely your enemy. But it doesn’t even need to be a “foreign” enemy, and the domestic occupiers—legislators, law enforcers, hundreds of government agencies—may well be considered foreign to the social order anyway, given that they are exogenous to the normal realm of voluntary exchange and peaceful social interaction and have formed outside of such consensual or contractual agreements. 

However, if we ever do find ourselves occupied by a foreign enemy (setting aside that we already are), such as the “United Nations,” the “Chinese,” or “terrorist cells,” then we shouldn’t be surprised (contrary to the statist thinking that statism is the only way to find protection from enemies). We can know it was for our sins of trusting in Egyptian systems rather than God to keep us safe and free. For anyone versed in the scriptures, Blue Helmets should come as no surprise. For all those lost in Egypt, however, they are going to wonder how their “glorious” military ever failed them. But, as God mocks the statists, “Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah” (Isaiah 13:19). Contrary to those who tell us we cannot do without human rulers and their armies if we want to be free, the pride of statism brings severe consequences.

It is supporting Assyrian-like systems that brings the Assyrians, not (as most men tell us) choosing God, liberty, and a society without a standing army. As one commentator explained the “rod of My anger” passage, “Whatever strength or power they have, which they have used in afflicting my people, would have been none at all, if my people had not provoked my wrath and severity” (Benson Commentary, Isa. 10:5).

It is not the existence of Assyrians (foreign statists) somewhere else that brings subjugation by a State, but the distrust in God to protect us. When men say they need Egyptian systems because the Assyrians (e.g., Chinese) exist somewhere else, they get the very things they fear would happen without them. Statism, slavery, occupation, war, famines, labor camps, etc., are what a people get when they say they need men to rule them. And God assures it. Contrary to what most men tell us, that “without our military we’d be speaking Chinese,” which God tells us is precisely what brings such systems upon men, the way to avoid Assyrias is to trust in God.

The “rod of anger,” not “my social order”

While we may view the State as a tool of God’s judgment, it must still be seen that this judgment is against statists and that these statists are themselves no examples of God’s kingdom. As one English clergyman, William Lowth (1660-1732), explained in his Bible commentary, 

“God often prospers wicked and tyrannical governments to be his scourge and the instruments of his vengeance upon others; and when they have done the work which God allots them, he then punishes them for those very oppressions which they have exercised toward their neighbors, and to which they were carried on purely by their own ambition and covetousness, although Providence made them serviceable to better ends and purposes” (Lowth, Commentary on the Prophets).

The “Assyrias,” (i.e., States) of the world may be tools of divine judgment, but they are not what men are to seek themselves. Indeed, seeking them brings Assyrian evils upon your society. God may appoint some tyrants to deal with a rebellious people, but it should be rather evident, for the fact that toying with Assyrian systems of their own is what got God’s people in trouble, that we are not instructed to do the same and that Assyrian systems are not God’s perfect will and prescriptive plan for social order. 

Anyone who reads the prophets should be able to see that God has both a permissive will, where He allows evils to come up on those who deserve it (e.g., the state worshipers who asked for it), and a directive or perfect will, which is what we are actually commanded to do. States are examples of the former, not the latter. (Recall how even “the beast” in Revelation, chapter 13, is given power by God to be unleashed on the world. But by no means is this an example of God approving of the beast and telling us that this type of dictatorship is what we were to have sought. But God permits it, given the sins of men who worship such false god systems).

Being occupied by statists is meant to be corrective for the sin of statism. As another commentator said,

“The Assyrian monarch is called the ‘rod of God’s anger’ because he was made use of by him as an instrument to chastise and correct Israel for their sins” (Gill’s Exposition).

Those many men who have drawn the conclusion that “God’s system of government is monarchy” have not yet absorbed these great lessons of the prophets that the kingdoms of men are entirely antagonistic to God’s intended socio-political order. 

Keeping our eyes on God

The way that average men think about these problems is much different than what the scriptures teach us. Most men, confronted with the reality of foreign statism, tell us that we need a State of our own to protect us. They ask for a king, too, so that they may be “like all the other nations” (1 Samuel 8:4). This idea is very prevalent at least among Americans, who attribute most all they have not to God, but to men: the military, police, veterans, legislators, state judges, etc. They trust in other “gods” than God (1 Samuel 8:8). 

But the scriptures, on the other hand, exhort us to trust in God for our protection, telling us that fearing men and trusting in other men to protect us is a snare (Prov. 29:25). The fact that other people have set up evil statist systems should not cause us to turn to them too. Indeed, this is every reason we should remain faithful to God knowing what happens to us when we trust in men. As one scripture expressed this problem, “We are powerless before this vast army that comes against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You” (2 Chronicles 20:12). 

The thinking of most Americans is just the opposite, and the statist system that was greatly expanded in the post-WWII era, which they think is great, was a product of this thinking that, e.g., “the communists,” were a good cause for building up a great socialistic military system of our own. (Not to mention the tens of millions of people who tell us Hitler was going to invade the United States if it weren’t for American intervention in Europe). But all this brought was a tyranny of our own that we’re now facing today. It vastly expanded the domestic statism in America, just as anyone who lives in God’s word should have known it would.

Most Americans would not agree with the Psalmists, that “my help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:2). They (sinfully) say the opposite, that their help comes from the military, the legislature, the police, etc. Their eyes are not set on God, but, as another prophet put it, 

“Your eyes and heart are set on nothing except your own dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood, on practicing extortion and oppression” (Jeremiah 22:17). 

This is why judgment always comes upon a people: they make things—most typically men and their violent political systems—other than God their “gods.”

Far from being His means of social order, state tyranny—the Assyrian invaders and occupiers—is meant to scare people out of statism, not to bring them to it.

When are we ever going to trust in the Lord as a means of keeping our enemies away? When are we ever going to learn that the way to keep our enemies away is to trust in the Lord? When are we going to listen to His word? “Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22)?