Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris 

As I have mentioned before, there is a vast difference between what men think and what God says, namely when it comes to the difference between political theology and secular political economy, where God’s word shows us that statism is an evil system of plunder that leaves societies desolate and destroyed, while men proclaim it to be the great savior of civilization itself. Whereas men tell us that we are in need of Pharaohs and their soldiers and police to protect us, the Biblical authors who know God tell us we can trust in God alone for our protection.

Men have never wanted to listen to the word of God. In the days of the scriptures, as in ours, men were fighting against the truths that were being pronounced to them by the prophets, even though God’s instruction was simple: Follow Him and avoid the tyrannies of men. One case, among many, shows God’s basic appeal to the people through His prophets and their rejection of it. 

“Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you. Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but they followed the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. From the day your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets again and again. Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers” (Jeremiah 7:23-26). 

This fact that most men disagree with the word of God—that statism is evil and idolatrous and men ought to repent from their ways if they want to avoid disaster—says a lot about the word of God and its truth. It couldn’t possibly be simply the work of men, as many like to argue, because the work of men is the vain philosophy of statism and its many offshoots. If the scriptures were the work of men instead of being divinely inspired, they would have said something entirely different. They would say, “It is not important to listen to me, just go find a Marx or a Keynes and listen to what they have to say if you want to learn the laws of economics and social order.” They would say, “You need to go and form a State for your protection and trust in the police and military to save you.” But they say no such thing. In fact, they say the opposite: “Give us aid against the enemy, [God], for the help of man is worthless” (Psalm 108:12).

What will strike the humble reader of the Bible, perhaps who is already opposed to the philosophies of the world (Col. 2:8), is that though they may have been written by a (God-willed) human pen, they are far from the ideas of men, which are almost always wholly statist. The Apostle Paul even speaks of spirit-filled mens’ realization of the sharp distinction between the writings of men and that of God, saying, “And we continually thank God because, when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as the true word of God—the word which is now at work in you who believe” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

The words of men and the words of God thus provide us a point at which to discern their difference. That most men say something entirely different from God, like “our police officers are heroes who keep us safe” or “thank the troops,” is no insignificant case for the inspiration of the scriptures and God’s hand on them. They are a refutation of the ideas of men, which are most always wholly statist and socialist. The mainstream political ideas of men don’t come from the scriptures but are “truths” of their own heads or those that were fed to them by other men who were inventing doctrines on their own too. These statist ideas—republicanism, democracy, socialism, communism, fascism, interventionism, etc—are the fruit of men who are fighting against God. This is the old sin and neglect for the wisdom of God of “being right in your own eyes.” (See Proverbs 3:7, 12:15, 14:12, 16:2, 21:2, 30:12). This is how all the various socialist philosophies are invented, in the minds of men who are hatching their own schemes and coming up with their own systems. And they set the word of God that much further apart from the ideas of men, giving us great reason to see that they could only be the work of God. 

These are man-made ideologies and systems, not the work of God. Statism is the work of system-makers who are in rebellion against God. As the scripture says, “God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions” (Ecclesiastes 7:29). When men rely on their own ideas, unsupported by divine wisdom handed down in the holy scriptures, it is no wonder they fall for evil, destructive, idolatrous political ideologies as statism, whether democratic, socialist, democratic-socialist, or any other brand of the same idea. As the scriptures say, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12). Socialism is an ungodly philosophy that was formed by men relying on their own “wisdom.” It is an ideology of men that has nothing to do with God, which stands as a further testament to the truth of the word of God. When men try to craft a theory of “Christian socialism” and act as if God is a Marxist or a Republican like them, they are merely trying to impose their own views on God and are adopting His name in vain. There is no such thing as “Christian socialism” or “Christian nationalism.” This is simply men perverting the Lord and His word and displaying their great sin of worshiping statist systems.

These ideas make our argument only slightly more difficult because these statists appropriate God as on their side. We can only conclude that it’s a misuse of God and that there is still no such thing as a “Christian statist.” But it is no surprise why men who make no such profession are rarely led to the ideas of freedom and most often adopt some form of statism. It is to be expected that if men turn away from God, they are going to fall for false gods like the State and its alleged lords and saviors. Men have thought they could have peace and security while walking after their own hearts instead of the instruction from God, and so naturally arrived at the false idea of political salvation. They have thought they could ignore God’s instruction and escape His judgment, that everything will go well for them and their societies even though they are walking without God. They kid themselves, “I will have peace, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my own heart” (Deuteronomy 29:19). 

God shows us everything we need to do to avoid these false god systems of men and thus avoid disaster, but, as Jeremiah said once more, “Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but they followed the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. They went backward and not forward” (Jeremiah 7:24). 

The Word of God vs. the people

It is a common idea for most people that truth is in the majority. Democracy is partially built on this assumption. Most people don’t believe in the Mark Twain quote, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).” They think, rather, that whenever they find themselves on the side of the majority, that it’s proof that they must be right. People think, “How could 1 billion people be wrong?”

For men who follow the word of God, however, they should see it’s very easy for hundreds of millions of people to be wrong; it is the case in our societies today. But we should also see no problem with asserting that the truth rests in the minority when observing the prophets in the scriptures, who were always outnumbered and ignored by everyone they preached to. Poor Elijah was ready to die seeing that he was up against gangs of false prophets who spun lies for the regime. As Elijah declared in his hopelessness, “I am the only remaining prophet of the LORD, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets” (1 Kings 18:22). We’ve always been outnumbered. So what? Do we back down because atheist-statists and “Christian statists” (contradiction) who share a false god in the State laugh us to scorn? No way!

Though most people are used to the fallacies of appealing to authority or the majority, where they think the truth rests in whatever the popular opinions are, for me the one way I know the word of God is both divinely inspired and true is that it goes against what most everyone believes! This makes the word all the more evidently the work of God. It is a standing rebuke of the world and its ideas. That most men are state worshipers, and that the scriptures are relentless at pointing out this idolatry and evil, is fairly significant proof that we’re dealing with the word of God and not just another man-made philosophy. Most people fight against it, and this is but a confirmation of its truth. 

If the scriptures said “men are gods who are here to keep you safe,” we’d know it was written by men who were trying to create a religion to rule over people (a common claim by atheists that the scriptures were written by men to rule them). But it says the opposite. It says that men are false gods who invent political systems to rule over people. It’s impossible that mere men could have written what has been written in the scriptures. Men are, most often, statist thinkers, and the scriptures, especially in the prophetic books that really express God’s will, are scathing condemnations of these systems.

God knew we were living under tyrannical systems of men millennia before any modern anarchist philosophers came along to tell us, and, of course, long before it has even been realized by the masses.

The scriptures are the work of God — they testify against men and their fraudulent systems.