Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

The scriptures make it very clear that God’s faithful servants must either follow the Lord God, or the false gods of the world who call themselves “kings,” “presidents,” or “authorities.” They cannot do both. We have a mutually-exclusive choice between serving God or human governments, which result in either freedom or slavery. We must decide whether our God is the Lord in heaven, or whether our “god” is the false god of the State. There can be no “fencewalking” on this issue. All godly men are confronted with this either-or choice they must make between their allegiance to the Lord our God or the false gods of the systems of the world. We are called to decide:

“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living, [or] the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

God calls His people to “cast aside the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt, and serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:14). It is not acceptable for the man of God to hold to both Pharaoh and the Lord. “God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods” (Joshua 24:16).

It is very clear to a man of the Word that we are not to trust in kings and princes as our saviors. However, this Biblical wisdom is not common knowledge among the people of this world, who are largely fooled by the gods of the State into thinking they are the saviors of civilization. This is typical for people who have not repented of the statist ideology of the world and have not come out of them of them in their mind and into a new Kingdom.

In this article, I would like to illustrate the vast difference between the way the Biblical writers think compared to the ways that most men think, here in regards to trusting in God or men for protection. I have already shown that trusting in human rulers, who call themselves “governments,” is to forsake God as the protector. But I would like to emphasize that point some more in light of the Psalms. 

When we compare the average American who praises police, politicians, and soldiers as their “lord” and “savior,” to the godly men of the scriptures who rely on God for their protection and salvation rather than men, we see quickly how different the average fool is (even though they may claim to know God) from the men of the Bible who knew God and placed their full-faith in Him for everything, including all the things that the false god of “government” attempts to provide in its evil attempt as a substitute “god”: protection and defense against enemies, wisdom and education, health, etc — all the things that state-worshipers, in their contempt for God, tell us we wouldn’t have if it weren’t for “government.”

One should certainly draw from the Psalms the relentless praise of God and the trust in the Lord’s protection from our enemies, such as the State. Yet, men get this backward and this enemy of liberty and God’s natural order becomes the very thing that most men trust for their protection!

This shows us just how dichotomous the choice is: We aren’t simply selecting between different means in which to combat evil, with both of them being workable ways of dealing with enemies; our choice is between either the true God that sets us free, or the enslavers themselves, who men mistakenly think are the liberators. 

This is just how wrong most everyone is: Whereas most men tell us that we can’t do without Egyptian military-police state societies for our protection (“the police keep us safe”), the word of God tells us exactly the opposite: That Egypt is precisely the enemy that we need protection from, and this this protection is found in God and not in forming another Egyptian system of your own to meet statism with statism. (This thinking is dominant in the American mind, where the justification for the expansion of the domestic state was easily made because “the Chinese/Russians were doing it and we had to too”).

Yet a vast majority of our people will tell you that “our freedoms,” which they can’t even see we don’t have, come from Pharaohs and their Egyptian systems (“our military fought for our freedom and deserve respect”). This is no coincidence, accident, or minor observation. It is what, according to the word of God, is the very proof of men falling out of their devotion to the Lord. When men leave behind God as their King who fights their battles for them, they inevitably seek human kings to protect them (1 Samuel 8:7-8, 19-20). Statism is one of the greatest examples of man’s sin. Seeing political rulers as necessary to social order and security is one of the greatest demonstrations of one’s lack of faith in God.

The sin of state-worshiping

Statism is sin, and that’s why God destroys these systems or at the very least has set them up to fail. The systems that God destroys in the scriptures and in our world today (e.g., the Soviet Union) were not just places where people had become nasty, rude, stinky, lazy, degenerate, etc; they were statist kingdoms whose violations of God’s commandments were precisely that they trespassed on his law of liberty through the invasions of people and their property; they were man-made kingdoms who set themselves up as gods. 

But somehow this political element, relentless all throughout the scriptures, is forgotten or ignored. “Sins” are downplayed to things like smoking cigarettes, and many then go on to worship the State themselves and think that it’s okay to say “I back the blue” or “Go America” so long as they halfway pretend they are godly otherwise. God is relegated to some merely “spiritual” or “religious” matter who has no interest in our earthly lives and needs down here below, such that it is perfectly fine for us to rely on “governments” to keep us safe.

But it is precisely statism—idolatry for human rulers and faith in their law systems and the ideology that goes with it—that makes God angry. In but one example (among hundreds) of God being fed up with state-worshipers, He says, 

“This city has aroused My wrath and fury from the day it was built until now. Therefore I will remove it from My presence, because of all the evil the children of Israel and of Judah have done to provoke Me to anger—they, their kings, their officials, their priests and prophets, the men of Judah, and the residents of Jerusalem. They have turned their backs to Me and not their faces. Though I taught them again and again, they would not listen or respond to discipline” (Jeremiah 32:31-33).

The prophet Isaiah opens his book condemning the statist sinners (Isa 1:4) and pointing out that their rulers (who they have been tricked into supporting) are thieving rebels (Isa 1:23). 

It is state worshiping, as hundreds of millions of people do today, that is high up on God’s list of the things He hates; this is what, in His eyes, is worthy of judgment. In the scriptures, when a people turn away from God to trust in man-gods as their protectors (i.e., state systems), God sends evil statists upon their societies as punishment for this sin of statism and support of political plunder (Isaiah 10:5-6), in hopes that it may correct men form their deviant course. The only way to get rid of statist tyrannies is to trust in God, for such political slavery is the result of trusting in men over God.

Becoming a man of God

The claim I aim to make here is that, based off the Psalmists’ cries to the Lord alone, men cannot possibly trust in both God for their protection and man (i.e., governments). Anyone who claims to be a Christian must put their trust in the Lord God to be with us against these evil men who our neighbors foolishly think are our “allies” against “the bad guys.” Men of God do not trust in Egypt to protect and feed them; they trust in God. They do not have a “spiritual” or “heavenly” realm where “the lord is savior” but leave open an earthly or “political realm” where He is not Lord, King, Sovereign, and men (politicians) are suddenly needed for social problems; God comes to protect just as He does to give us anything else (soul-salvation). Jesus Christ’s Lordship is total. “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18; cf. Matt. 11:27; John 3:35, 17:2; Eph. 1:21; Phil. 2:9; Col. 2:10; 1 Pet. 3:22).

In this article I want to show just how foolish people are for trusting in men, especially if they claim to be in their Bibles often. Any Christian man who reads the scriptures should be able to easily see how foolish and wrong he is for trusting in men (congresses, police, soldiers, etc) for his protection, law, and order. They should be able to see how contrary their cries are—”the next president is going to save us” or “we just need to wait four more years to get this guy out”—from those in the Bible who look only to God as their savior. 

The Psalms are one of the finest examples of the conspiracies that governments have laid against us and the need to trust in God for protection always. 

Not only is it fair to say that God is the way to be saved from our enemies; it is the very thing that should come to mind when we think of our Lord. David gave this acknowledgment to God-the-savior in some of his last words:

“Who also brings me out from my enemies; You even lift me above those who rise up against me; You rescue me from the violent man” (2 Samuel 22:49).

Trusting in God rather than men

The psalms are not songs to governments, asking them to protect them from their enemies, as statist-minded men think when they want security; they are, like the Song of Moses, filled with calls to God to be here with us on this road of total state control that our people have led us down. 

“Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; Set me securely on high away from those who rise up against me” (Psalm 59:1).

Why can’t men do this today? Why do they trust socialized armies for their “national defense” (all while not thinking of themselves as socialists, of course)? Why are they still claiming they need a state military? Why don’t they see the State is the robbers who ensnare them in various schemes? Why don’t they see that the statists are actually who we need divine protection from?

“Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; Preserve me from violent men, who have purposed to trip up my feet” (Psalm 140:4).

Far from trusting in a State to protect us from other men, we should be trusting in God to protect us from States. Men got their enemies mixed up. The State is the enemy of mankind and their liberty and prosperity, not made up “bad guys” that are assumed to be lurking in the bushes without…well, police hiding in the bushes looking for people to rob. The State is an enemy of God’s kingdom. The psalmists didn’t say a “government” was needed to protect them from enemies, political or not; they trusted in God to save us from the schemes of the statists and any other private criminals who have been used to justify a State. 

“You will pull me out of the net which they have secretly laid for me, For You are my strength” (Psalm 31:4). 

Even as the statist plunderers set up against us, we are to still call on God for protection and never theirs. 

“Keep me from the jaws of the trap which they have set for me, And from the snares of those who do iniquity” (“Psalm 141:9).

No matter what lies they make up about some “bad guys” somewhere in their “good guys/bad guys” propaganda, or what they conspire against us, we will never be tricked into thinking Pharaoh protects us. We will still call on God.

“Hide me from the secret counsel of evildoers, From the tumult of those who do iniquity” (Psalm 64:2).

It’s God that frees us from statists, not men — who only bring it upon us in the false name of “public safety” or “law enforcement.”

“He delivered me from my strong enemy, And from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me” (Psalm 18:17).

The psalmists knew we were surrounded by scheming statists who seek our lives and property and human slaves for their tax-farms and prisons. And they called upon God to keep them safe “from the wicked who despoil me, My deadly enemies who surround me” (Psalm 17:9).

They didn’t trust in the schemers to save them from schemes; it is patently contradictory to set up a system of political plunder to protect a society from the alleged robbery that would exist without them, for this is a guarantee of robbery by making plunder “legal.”

Men of God are to trust in God! Why does this even need to be said? Did the psalmists trust in state militaries and police departments to protect them? No! They said, 

“Deliver me, O Lord, from my enemies; I take refuge in You” (“Psalm 143:9).

But men say, instead, “Deliver me, O president, from my enemies. I take refuge in the United States Army.” They trust in Pharaoh’s arm, not God’s arm outstretched upon Pharaoh. They, as the scriptures repeat often, don’t remember the works that God did upon the Egyptians, when he crushed their armies!

No amount of statists should ever cause us to think we need to become statists ourselves in order to deal with them. Armies cannot scare us out of forsaking God and putting our faith in man’s “protection,” which means the statization of society.

God’s word gives us the strength we need to be strong against this conspiracy against us and to remain with the Lord. 

“I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, Who have set themselves against me round about” (Psalm 3:6).

No matter how dark our world gets, we will keep riding with God through these evil times. 

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4).

The psalmists were never scared out of fearing God and into fearing men. 

“Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me; You will stretch forth Your hand against the wrath of my enemies, And Your right hand will save me” (“Psalm 138:7).

They continued to trust in God’s arm, not Pharaoh’s. They didn’t think it was men and their tax-funded militaries that caused other tyrants to leave us alone, but God. 

“You have also made my enemies turn their backs to me, And I destroyed those who hated me” (“Psalm 18:40).

It doesn’t matter that the enemy surrounds us, which is where men usually start fearing men and asking other men (governments) who are not their friends to “save” them. 

“I will not fear the myriads set against me on every side” (Psalm 3:6).

We are to be turning to God in our times of trouble (now), which men who call upon the false salvation of military and police rescuing them still aren’t doing. 

“Arise, O Lord; save me, O my God! For You have smitten all my enemies on the cheek; You have shattered the teeth of the wicked” (Psalm 3:7).

The Lord is the deliverer from this very evil enemy we have before us. Amen. 

“Deliver me from those who do iniquity, And save me from men of bloodshed” (Psalm 59:2).

We will remember God as the one who smashes kings and their Egyptians systems for us. Praise God. “When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, My adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell” (Psalm 27:2). We will never believe that men who rob us and call themselves “protectors” or “public servants” (really, public serpents) are here to keep us safe. We are with God. “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (Psalm 18:2). We will call upon God to get rid of the evil sword-bearers. “Arise, O Lord, confront him, bring him low; Deliver my soul from the wicked with Your sword” (Psalm 17:13). 

We don’t need men, calling themselves “the government,” to “save” us. We only think we need men—their armies, police states, etc—when they have propagandized us into fearing men and trusting in their politically-provided security, so that they can set up their ruling systems against a scared population of fools who are obedient to men. 

As the statists continue to bring schemes against us, we need to be stronger than ever to stand with the Lord and trust in his protection, because such fear as generated by political schemes (e.g., Operation Covid-19) is always what sends men running into the false security of Pharaoh’s arms. 

We need to keep our trust in the Lord even as others trust in “the army” to save them. 

“I have set the LORD always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken” (Psalm 16:8).

I will never believe that Babylonian systems are here for our protection, safety, and prosperity. Amen. Praise God. Our Lord is so good. 

“The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1). 

It’s too easy to shed tears for God our protector. I’m overwhelmed. Our neighbors don’t even care that Pharaoh wants to hurt us and even largely support the boot on our necks, and yet here God has been this whole time as the one who cares about our plight. 

“The Lord will protect you from all evil; He will keep your soul” (Psalm 121:7). 

He’s with us against these immensely evil men who want to kill us. It’s the most powerful thing in the world. We’ve got God on our side. 

It’s one of the most disheartening things in the world that most men ask, “What would we do without governments?” If not for the grace of God and His mercy, we would wonder how we’re still getting along in a world where so many men have denied God, since God punishes these socialist (dis)orders as we have set up in our sin. The secular libertarians who rebut the statist’s claims that “we wouldn’t have X, Y, and Y without government” by explaining how those things can be offered privately and voluntarily (here and here) without the need for government monopolies and taxes, have never really pointed out how deeply sinful and faithless it is to think this way. But it’s a complete denial of God, for a trust in men, to say that we wouldn’t have X, Y, and Z (e.g., security, law and order, schools) unless there were so-called “governments” doing it for us. 

We see none of this belief that governments are needed to protect us in the Psalms. The psalmists trusted in God as their everything. And we should too. The implication of this is that true Christians are political anarchists who don’t accept the alleged “necessity” of a State for social order and see it as a sinful rebellion against the Providence and provision of the Lord — an idea which is fought against tooth and nail by those who have been trained in the philosophies and ideologies of the world.