Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

I wish I was saying this seriously — that men have changed their ways, repented from their statism, and turned back to the Lord. But this title isn’t quite correct. Millions of men still love human government and still believe it is going to save them. 

But, it turns out that people don’t very much like the effects of politically-controlled societies (though they haven’t yet realized that these effects are inevitable and guaranteed every time men organize their society through the means of violence and theft). We see everywhere people complaining of rising prices in recent years, for instance. They’re complaining of the rising prices for groceries, fuel, and housing. But they don’t know why this has happened and why it has to happen every time men allow governments and central bankers to rule over them. In their minds, these are just effects of a certain government, e.g., the Biden-Harris regime; it is not what would happen if we had a “good” guy in there “who knew how to run the country.”

Men are also complaining of the general political climate too, but still think that politics is necessary to our lives or that it could be any other way than what we’re seeing today. They imagine a non-divisive system of political rule that doesn’t intentionally divide people as a means of ruling over them, or dream-up this fantasy where the government is actually “we the people” instead of a ruling-elite that has set out to plunder us. “We just need to get back to the Constitution!” 

Refusing to obey God rather than men

But all this complaining is rather silly once we realize that God warned us precisely what would happen if we forsook Him for the false-gods of the world, ie., the men who call themselves “the government” and are said to be necessary provide us with a multitude of goods and services, even life and civilization itself. 

The problem is that men have believed they will be protected, housed, clothed, and fed, only when there is a “government” standing over them. They didn’t want to believe the Lord, that “if you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land” (Isaiah 1:19). They were impatient, unfaithful, and allowed man-gods to (attempt to) “provide” for them. And now they are mad that these things aren’t providing for them after all. “Our schools should have never gotten this bad! Our government shouldn’t be shipping our money to Ukraine or helping out immigrants!” They don’t know why Caesar’s schools aren’t doing the trick anymore, and they believed that they could control what thieves did with their money if they ideologically granted that it should be handed over. They were fine with sending billions of dollars to Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, or Boeing to help build up the allegedly indispensable military machinery that is used to obliterate humans, but get mad when it goes to other places that “it shouldn’t be going.”

And now they can’t see why things aren’t going as they planned today (though they are very much going how the people who robbed them planned). They didn’t want to believe that all these man-made governments must always and inevitably fail, as God warned us (1 Samuel 8). They didn’t want to see that statist societies come under judgment, i.e., that they fail to do all the things their idolaters claimed they would do and destroy themselves by their own devices. They failed to see that God assures that judgment comes upon statist systems as ours, that “the Lord shall smite Egypt” (Isaiah 19:22). 

Indeed, they have mocked us when we told them that they’re chasing after false gods that are not gods and cannot save (see here, here, and here). And they have mocked God despite the destruction occurring around them. They didn’t want to hear the word of the Lord, “Be ye not mockers [of God], lest your bands be made strong” (Isaiah 28:22). We have tried to tell men that statism leads to disaster and human slavery, but they didn’t want to listen. They “have made lies their refuge” (Isaiah 28:15). 

Instead they believed that government armies and police forces would “save” them and failed to realize that they would siphon-of trillions of dollars worth of resources, impoverish them in the process, and plunder their societies to death. Furthermore, this government-caused destruction somehow reinforces calls for even more intervention to fight the negative effects of the prior intervention. Men have thought they could turn to governments—their god to be sure—for everything from protection to welfare without getting absolutely robbed and wrecked. They said they needed socialist militaries and socialist police to protect them, but didn’t think these people would become the very robbers that they supposedly protected against. 

How did we get to here, where we’re taxed hundreds of billions of dollars to fund our own oppression? where the political institutions of our world rob us to enlarge themselves? where military and police worship is strong among our people? Simply put, men didn’t want to hear the word of the Lord, “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 ” (Isaiah 31:1). By believing that we needed a military-police state for protection and that God doesn’t provide protection, Americans have trusted in Egypt, and they have unsurprisingly found themselves robbed to fund it and struggling to make ends meet on the plundered-side of the scheme. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted a “powerful military,” but not the taxes and inflation. They thought they could fund a police state and not struggle to get by once everything became all about the priorities of the State. They didn’t believe God when He promised calamity upon those who “seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection and take refuge in Egypt’s shade ” (Isaiah 30:2). 

In short, men have not obeyed God or listened to any of those who genuinely prophesy in His name, by which I mean to warn people of the grave errors of statism. Most men refuse to listen to God, but still get angry when their ungodly statist orders don’t turn out how they believed (mistakenly) they would end up. Rather, “[Men] despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness” (Isaiah 30:12). 

An unrepentant and whining people

Men haven’t yet wanted to make God their national defense, but still can’t understand why they are being robbed so much  to fund expensive militaries that murder people overseas, that build up a class of good citizens who are enriched by this property transfer, and that squander billions of dollars of these resources on wasteful and unaccountable projects. Men are mad, but they haven’t repented of their support for the military-police state. They still “trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen” (Isaiah 36:9). In their minds, “the democrats have gutted our military and we’re going to rebuild the military and get more funding for our police again.” If only these guys weren’t in power, some other guys could better manage the finances of the State, which is necessarily always men playing with stolen money who have no incentive to spend it wisely and could never spend it as good as the people they stole it from even if they wanted to.

What we’re seeing is that men don’t like that they’re paying the price for their own statism today, but they still won’t renounce their statism, and still cannot see it as the cause of their problems. They don’t like the taxation and slavery, but still apologize for it on the other hand. The tax-plunder and the rising prices are still justified somewhere in their minds in terms of being “the price we pay for civilization.” The trillions of dollars of resources being siphoned-off from the private economy to fund the military-industrial-complex and the military-class of beneficiaries who serve this evil system is seen as the “price” we must have to pay to (supposedly) not be left open to attacks from various made-up boogeymen, most who are only enemies because “we” made them so. Statists have not listened to the word of the Lord, “Place no trust in extortion, or false hope in stolen goods” (Psalm 62:10). They thought they could rob their neighbors, call it “democracy” and “taxation,” and come out clean. 

People are complaining about the rising price of homes, the “pain at the pump,” crime rates, and even the threat of government, but still don’t want to listen to the Lord or walk in His ways. God will give us everything that governments claim to give us but can’t provide: peace, prosperity, shelter, protection, food, water, education, jobs, etc. The government’s claims of being capable of providing these things are merely its attempt as a false god to provide the things that God offers, and which only God can give. God speaks of giving security to His people and saving us from statists. “My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places” (Isaiah 32:18) — that is, places where there is not a threat of a SWAT team kicking in your door and shooting your family to death. But most men, ever so foolish, want to trust in the SWAT team instead. 

Men have not wanted to believe God and trust in Him for everything. They told us that “we need a government to protect us.” They didn’t want to believe God that their government would become their very enemy, that “if they trust in the staff of Egypt, whereon if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it” (Isaiah 36:6). 

Our people have “trusted in their wickedness” (Isaiah 47:10), but get mad when it doesn’t go as they imagined it would. They engaged in evil, such as supporting the man-gods of the State, and it turns out they don’t like the result. They did evil and expected blessings. They didn’t want to obey God, saying, “Blessed is the man that…keepeth his hand from doing evil” (Isaiah 56:2; cf. Psa 1:1-3, 106:3, 112:1, 119:1-2). 

Still confused

But as long as men don’t turn away from the causes of their problems, e.g., the Egyptian police state society that they still call “the best country ever,” they really have no right to complain about what they are reaping today. We are simply reaping what we have sown. The Egyptian police state society is merely what you get for forsaking God for man-gods who do not save. And men still don’t want to weep and repent at what we have done.

And this is mostly what we have. Angry men who don’t like what they’re seeing today, but remain unrepentant statists and voters who still refuse to stop participating in politics and the same old paths that got us here. Instead, they tell us that “if you don’t vote you’re part of the problem.” Riiight. Many-a-delusions are able to keep them trapped in this position, too. With a strong false left-right dichotomy to confuse them, men are still able to chalk such things up to the other guy. What we’re seeing today (in their minds) is just “Bidenomics,” not ungodly statist rebellion that always ends up like this. These things are thought to be features of a certain, reigning government regime rather than inherent in the system. “Biden caused our gas prices to go up.”  

But God didn’t say we will be cursed if we “vote democrat,” as cringe-worthy conservatives think is the essence of the problem. “Vote Red! Stop voting democrats!” He said that if you set up man-kings period, then expect to be robbed (1 Samuel 8). He didn’t say “if you must set up man-kings, just make sure they’re ostensibly conservative.” But they foolishly think the next guy is going to solve the problem. That is, they foolishly engage in the same things that are bringing about the consequences that they evidently don’t like. To remain a statist while complaining about the effects of statism is a lot like complaining about being electrocuted every time you stick a fork in an outlet, but continuing to play with the outlet anyway. It’s hard for us to care that one is shocked at the things they get for their repeated actions when they don’t change their ways. 

Meanwhile, the institutions in the background, like the Federal Reserve, which fuel the expansion of the money supply and thus the higher prices, are able to stay off the public’s chopping-block when it comes to placing blame. The political system itself is never seen as the problem, but rather the people in power, the way it’s run, or its alleged deviation from its founding documents.  

Statism destroys

But it’s a little too late for them to be complaining about the effects today, though it’s never too late to turn around and hope to avoid disaster. These people are getting everything they asked for! It just turns out that they actually don’t reaping what they have sown. They want to do evil without the consequences. They want to sow iniquity and reap roses, but that’s not how it works. 

Men may not like what they’re seeing around the world today, but this doesn’t mean that they have figured out yet what kind of evil seeds they have sown, only that they don’t like the product when the harvest season comes. Now that the chickens are coming home to roost, men are not so happy about the statist society they stand behind after all, though they haven’t stopped standing behind it yet or seen it as the source of their problems. Men don’t like (the effects of) statism, it turns out, but they still haven’t realized it. 

But these inevitable effects of statism that we are seeing today is merely the result of a people who, for decades on end, proudly stood in support of a system that is built on plunder and violence. The things we’re seeing today, which men apparently don’t like, are simply what you get from a “patriotic” and statist people. This is the result of people thinking that their American empire was untouchable and couldn’t come under judgment. As one prophet said, 

“This boisterous city, once so secure. ‘I am the greatest!’ it boasted. ‘No other city can compare with me!’ But now, look how it has become an utter ruin, a haven for wild animals. Everyone passing by will laugh in derision and shake a defiant fist” (Zephaniah 2:15).