Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

Often when I try to teach others (especially professing Christians) that our statist society is sinful and bound for God’s judgment, they invariably respond, “You can’t claim to know what God thinks!” This is especially common among those who are actively violating, or seeking to violate, His instruction, such as those who are “serving” in Pharaoh’s military, his police force, or wanting to join his gang of bootboys. When I tell them to do so would be walking in the wicked path and disobeying God, they say things like, “That’s for God to decide, not you…No one knows the mind of God.”

In short, they like to act as if a proper reading of the prophets—statism is bound for God’s judgment—or a proper reading of the Proverbs or the Psalms—to not join forces with those who entice you with money and sign-on bonuses to serve evil plunder systems—was my own opinion and that I just came up with it by myself, when in truth they are the ones who are relying on their own wisdom and refusing to approach God’s instruction in right living.

When they do this, they imply that we don’t know anything about God at all, as if we haven’t been instructed in His morality and righteousness. They imply that God is a moral relativist who doesn’t really care about our actions and leaves us confused on His nature and desires. But this is why He gave us His word, so that we know what God thinks is right and wrong and are not left guessing. It is not true that “we don’t know” what God thinks about joining Pharaoh’s army or becoming one of Caesar’s tax collectors; these are blatant forms of rebellion against service to the Lord. We don’t need to wonder if we are supposed to set up Pharaohs and state militaries for our “protection,” as if God had nothing to say on these issues and left us to wonder. Trusting in man’s statist system is decidedly proof that men do not trust in God.

While we should always humbly approach the Lord and not pretend to be know-it-alls, we still have a good idea of what God thinks on many issues, especially when we compare scriptures with other scriptures. Things are not as difficult as some would have you believe. Indeed, God says the wisdom of His words are “plain to the discerning” (Proverbs 8:9). When one reads the scriptures with a genuine desire to understand God, they will see such truths for themselves. The Bible is not a code-book that only “Bible scholars” and academics can take a crack at, but God’s revealed word to His covenant people.

When one reads the scriptures, they will see for themselves that the teachings of God are not very mysterious or ambiguous. The prophets, for instance, make it abundantly clear that these violent political societies are deserving of judgment for having forsaken the ways of God. They make it clear that statism, i.e., supporting the violent political systems of men, really is one of the great sins of man. The psalmists make it clear that we are to serve God and trust in the Lord for our protection, not men and their systems. 

Why men claim we can’t know God

While it’s true we could never claim to know all the Big Guy’s plans or His timing, and that we are all always falling short of serving Him, it is also wrong to say we have no idea whatsoever. This is often something men resort to when they need an excuse to go on sinning, i.e., when they refuse to repent for their worship of Egyptian political systems that they have been caught idolizing. God does, in fact, teach us that these Babylonian plunder systems are against His will. We are not just presuming to know God by saying this; such a conclusion is derived from His word and comparing it across multiple scriptures. 

God’s disdain for statism is not drawn from a few isolated or obscure passages that are twisted to suit some preconceived ideological notions that we as fallible men hold; such a narrative makes up more or less the whole of the prophets’ teaching.

I suspect that the people who don’t like to hear this have a false god in the State that they don’t want torn down, rather than truly thinking that we came up with this idea on our own. They aren’t ready yet to stop worshiping men as their saviors. The reason for this response is often that they’re guilty of the sin of statism and don’t want to be indicted by God for their false worship. The people who make this claim have found themselves wearing the boots and badges of Pharaoh and can think of nothing else but to claim that “we can’t know that God does not approve,” as a way of avoiding facing their need for repentance and a change of heart. (That, or they simply don’t read the scriptures and take some false prophet’s word for it that such occupations are approved by God).

But statism is evil, and God hates it. How do we know? He tells us so!

What God thinks

We would have to write a book to cover the breadth of God’s hatred for those who approve of political plundering. But we can make a few examples here to refute the idea that God doesn’t show us who He is, especially in regards to these political systems.

God does not approve of these statist “legislators” who operate positive law systems and come up with their own “laws” that are wholly divorced from His ethics. 

“Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression” (Isaiah 10:1). 

How different this is from the average American who thinks “Congress” (which substitutes man’s decrees for God’s law-word) is doing “the Lord’s work?” (In fact, the only sense in which the State is serving God is by committing evils against a rebellious people who deserve it). God thinks the ruling elites are a bunch of plunderers who are robbing the people and spreading benefits among themselves. 

“Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts” (Isaiah 1:23).

Again, how different is this from the average American thinks “our politicians” are “public servants” who are just taking care of our “social needs?”

Most Americans also venerate the military as the source of “freedom” and “peace,” and they even believe God has blessed these violent organizations (again, explaining why they want to pretend as if God has not condemned them and that “we can’t know God”).

But contrary to what these men think, God disapproves of those who make alliances with statist plunder systems instead of seeking His kingdom. 

“Woe to the rebellious children,’ declares the LORD, ‘to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin. They set out to go down to Egypt without asking My advice, to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection and take refuge in Egypt’s shade. But Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame, and the refuge of Egypt’s shade your disgrace. For though their princes are at Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes, 5everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them. They cannot be of help; they are good for nothing but shame and reproach'” (Isaiah 30:1-5). 

We see, clearly, that it is not God’s will that we make alliances with Egyptian systems for our protection, and that to have done so (as we have) is sinful.

God clearly thinks that people who trust in statist armies (e.g., the United States Armed Forces) are forsaking His promises for protection. 

“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).

These things are not speculations we have made about God, but what God has said about His own will. Statists are people who, against God’s counsel, seek the “protection” of chariots and horses — or in our day, tanks and fighter jets.

Seeking God

It would be wrong and unscriptural to act as if we aren’t to try and understand God and that all things are left in His hands. The Proverbs and the Psalms are books that are almost dedicated to seeking God’s wisdom, guidance, and protection. Seeking to understand God and His will and applying it to our lives is one of the very things we’re called to do, for the only alternative is to rest our knowledge on men. 

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). 

The scriptures are all about relying on God rather than men (Acts 5:29), even for their very understanding of what is lawful or not.

“Teach me good discernment and knowledge, For I believe in Your commandments” (Psalm 119:66). 

How different again is this from the men who think that whatever the State declares to be “law” is legitimate and moral? Men say, against God, that they believe in the decrees of men for their “law,” and that these “laws” are necessary to social order. Contrary to their skewed morality that such violent intervention is “good” for society, God wants us to learn that statism is an evil plunder system — He wants us to distinguish the voluntary nature of market transactions from the coercive nature of state provided goods and “services.”

“They shall teach My people the difference between the holy and the profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean” (Ezekiel 44:23). 

We aren’t just left to decide for ourselves what is good and what isn’t, as if God has no such opinion on these matters. In fact, we’re told that “whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool” (Proverbs 28:26). We are not instructed to accept everything as godly, just because a man professes to know the Lord while continuing to serve as one of Pharaoh’s badged and booted plunder agents. We are called to “distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him” (Malachi 3:18). This is something that many Christians haven’t done, not seeing the wickedness and evil in statism, but rather thinking it to be God’s perfect will. 

Most of our people have chased after the lies of men rather than the laws and will of God, and they show this when they object to teachings on God’s will by acting as if we are just presuming to know God or that God has not left us His word on such matters. We shouldn’t believe that any old path of our choosing is to be rewarded by the Lord. God brings blessings to those who follow Him and His divine moral instruction — not just whatever “laws” men who call themselves “the government” make up in their own “wisdom.”

“Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the Law of the LORD. Blessed are those who keep His testimonies and seek Him with all their heart. They do no iniquity; they walk in His ways” (Psalm 119:1-3). 

The path of statism, where men set up kings as their protectors, brings the opposite result, as God promises it will (1 Samuel 8). State rule comes as a curse to people who refuse to be under the Lord their God. Those who choose human rulers as their gods suffer the consequences for doing so. Our statist society today, which invites the judgment of God, is a result of choosing kings other than the Lord. We know it because God says so.