Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

That many social-political problems abound in our world today has caused many of Christians to think that this presents the case that we “must” be involved in politics. “Christians must vote!,” they tell us. “There is too much evil in the world not to vote.”

These idolaters are especially offended by polls showing that tens of millions of Christians—praise God for those seeing the truth!—plan to abstain from the 2024 election. To us, this is progress, but for them it is appalling. They think the self-evident “Christian” position is that we must go down to Egypt and mark a box for a Pharaoh.

How did we get here?

But they never pause to reflect on how these evils came to be or to see that their involvement in politics and their ideological support for the State in principle is the reason that our social order was able to progress in this direction. And for the most part, they still aren’t even aware of how long ago it was that these things have been manifesting. In their eyes, “our freedoms are on the line” in the future. They still haven’t even seen that the country they still idolize has been an Egyptian system from the start, as all States are.

When they do sense that things are heading in a bad direction, for them it is just an anomaly that it turned out this way, an accidental deviation from the course that it was “supposed to” be on as set by “our founding fathers.” The sin of supporting human-kings and “constitutions” in the first place had nothing to do with it; we just had the “wrong men” (ie., “the democrats”) in power who “messed it up.”

Furthermore, they never once stop to see if these things we’re experiencing today, which they are increasingly aware of and angered by, are judgment by God for our wicked ways — that is, our people’s moral and spiritual approval of the violent establishment of political rule over our society. 

And so they tell us we must throw ourselves into politics—the original cause of the problems and not at all the solution—to, say, “stop the border invasion” or something like that. We hear how “one candidate is going to allow the border crisis and price inflation to get worse, the other is going to stop it. It is clear we must vote for one.”

But why have things come this far anyway? They don’t care to ask. All that matters is they are this way (for some reason), and “now we must keep voting.” But to say that more politics is the solution to the problems caused by politics is akin to the alcoholic continuing to drink while complaining about his failing liver.

Voters trust in men rather than God

If they knew the Lord, instead of knowing only the state violence that they learned from the world, they would never think that more politics was the solution to these problems. They would see that it is God who “makes peace at your borders, [who] fills you with the finest wheat” (Psalm 147:14). And they would trust their security and sustenance to God. That they don’t really shows where their allegiance lies.

But they do not take their counsel from the Lord when they set out to do such idolatrous and blasphemous things as voting (Isa 30:1). They are people who “follow their own imaginations” (Isaiah 65:2). They do not care that we are not supposed to be walking in the ways of everyone else, who tell us that we should be engaged in political systems (Isa 8:11, Ezek 2:8). They are people who are going back to Egypt against the Lord’s caution (Jer 42:19). 

Not only is God sufficient for all these things that professing Christians tell us a State is needed for (“Candidate X is going to secure Y”), but moreover we should see that when these things are not the case—when men are pouring over the border or there is a lack of peace in the land—that just maybe it means that God is not with such a people and is giving them over to their own sins, or in other words is allow such people to reap the evils they have sown.

America under judgment

How could politics, voting, or otherwise giving your support to the State help with these problems that are precisely divine judgment upon a people whose sins are those very things these men are telling us we must double-down on? “You need to vote!”

It is like they recognize the curses, but refuse to repent for the causes. Men are angry with the way statism has turned out (their money is being used to fund foreigners), but they have not renounced this evil and repented from it. 

God tells the obedient, ie., the men who walk in His ways and refuse to turn to the human idols of the world, that He will make our land secure. “I will give peace to the land, and you will lie down with nothing to fear” (Leviticus 26:6). If we don’t have these things, as many of these people recognize, it stands to reason that we have not done right by God. We have set up human rulers against His will, who have (rightly) brought judgment upon us. Indeed, God even promises to send foreigners to a people who will not obey His paths.

“Foreigners who live in your land will gain more and more power, while you gradually lose yours. They will have money to lend you, but you will have none to lend them. In the end they will be your rulers” (Deuteronomy 28:43-44).

The only reason these people are shocked and appalled by “their” government sending money to Ukraine, subsidizing immigration, etc., is that they have never known God in the first place, who promises the downfall of all societies who trust in men rather than God. And so all they know is to keep doubling-down on their faith in godvernment to save them, when that faith is the very reason they are being failed already. 

Rather than look at these rulers and see a need to confess their sins and repent, millions of professing Christians continue in the same old evil paths as always. Rather than turn from their ways, these idolaters tell us that we need to get a strong man into power who can “secure our border” or “fix our country.” Not only do statists not realize that this is what God does, nor that they are forsaking God in the process, but they continue to engage in the very same things—support for human government—that has brought the judgment in the first place.

Adding sin to sin

The “Christian statists” (contradiction) are in the contradictory position of complaining about the effects of sin—bondage, invasion, the destruction of social order—while calling upon men to dive in even harder for the very sinful acts that have brought us to here: voting, praising men, saying we can’t do without governments, etc. They are hypocrites, for they pretend to have the Lord as their King, but also vote on man-kings to rule over them, advancing the bondage they complain of on the other hand. They say they believe God will solve their problems, but tell us that we also need men to rule over us. 

What they are doing, as the prophets might say, is “heaping sin upon sin” (Isaiah 30:1). For all the enslaving effects of sin (eg., idolatry for rulers) playing out today, they tell us we need more of it! They never thought once to weep over our situation or reflect upon the sin in it all, but just to (sinfully) tell everyone they need to go down to Egypt’s polling stations and cast a vote for a Pharaoh who they wrongly believe serves them and the Christian cause.

 Trusting in God

When will they truly rely on God for all things? When will they realize that if they’re tired of taxes, inflation, subsidization of foreign war allies or immigration, that the last thing they should do is keep their faith in government and the first thing they should do is repent and trust in God?

Though evil prevails, this is no reason to compel us into political involvement — which again is the very reason we have made it here. It is, however, time for us to have faith in God and trust that evil can be turned backed solely by placing our faith in Him to heal us and restore as the days of old. 

For now, men still have things confused and backward. They tell us, essentially, “Now is not the time to repent and walk away from Babylonian political systems and trust in God alone; we all need to get behind this man who is running for president.” They didn’t want to believe the prophets who expose these men as nothing more than scheming plunderers.

“Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love bribes and chasing after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, and the plea of the widow never comes before them” (Isaiah 1:23).

Voters, and all statists who support the political systems of the world, are the same people from the scriptures who the prophets called upon to turn from their ways, but would not listen in their stubbornness. They don’t listen when we call them to walk away from Babylonian systems, because they are in love with the world. 

“These are a rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to obey the LORD’s instruction” (Isaiah 30:9).

They will pay for their idolatry. Their idols will continue to fail them. Maybe then they will wake up. Who knows?