[This is part 2 in a series on allegiance to God alone. See part one, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris 

In part one of this series, we discussed how the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world are mutually exclusive — individuals must choose allegiance to one or the other. It is impossible to devote oneself to both. Those who commit themselves to the earthly kingdoms have betrayed the Kingdom of God.

A directly related concept is the scriptural exhortations to avoid the kingdoms of this world and their customs and practices in the first place. We were to never be like the Egyptians, Babylonians, Romans, Americans, and other statists of the world. These are people who operate on the violence of political rule, who plunder their fellow man, and ensnare their people into systems of welfare bondage through taxes and forced benefits.

By giving into these systems and finding it acceptable to feed and care for your neighbor through socialist systems of welfare, which are based on coveting your neighbors’ property and robbing them, our people have returned to Egypt again today, a way we were never told to go.

Many Christians today unfortunately see no problem with such systems. Church to them is merely singing songs in a building approved by Caesar’s tax authorities, all while handing the care for one another over to the political gods of this world, who provide food stamps, social security, and other forms of political benefits, in exchange for keeping their people in bondage. They practice the public religion of legal charity and don’t see to it that their congregations refuse the benefits of the world, which are a trap for those who fall for them. Rather than practice the pure religion of actually serving one another, they have substituted vain rituals, singalongs, and the sophistry of false pastors. They have confined the understanding of religion to liturgical practices and the sort of private-spiritual practices like prayer, all while neglecting to address the physical political bondage we are in for having forsaken the ways of Christ and gone after the systems of the world that we were told to avoid.

In this article, we will try to provide specific examples from the Bible that demonstrate how followers of the Lord God are to steer clear of worldly political systems and their practices.

A separate people

As Christians, we are called to separate ourselves from the pagan-statists of the world and their political worldviews of human domination through man-made governments. We are to avoid all such polytheistic systems of State-gods, such as those of ancient Egypt and Rome, who elevated their Pharaohs and Caesars as representatives of the gods themselves. We are not to elevate presidents, kings, or any other human leaders to a position of quasi-divine status, as is still commonly done today in the political systems of the world. We are called to another way — the way of Christ’s Kingdom. We are called to a kingdom that is much unlike these kingdoms of men.

The satanic temptation of statism

Such a call to avoid the violent ways of the Egyptian and Babylonian systems of the world is difficult for most people, however, who are already learned in the ways of the world rather than the ways of God.

Many men, for instance, argue that the existence of foreign states requires us to establish our own state systems. They look at the Pharaohs and Caesars of the world and desire to copy these authoritarian rulers (1 Sam 8:5-6, 20). They claim that since other nations have centralized, top-down systems of power that the only way to be safe from them is to create similar systems domestically. This is the rationale that drove the expansion of the American Empire after World War II, when the fabricated “Cold War” with the Soviet Union helped to justify a growth of state and military power in the United States. This fear of foreign statists also works to justify participation in multi-state unions like NATO, under the premise of needing to be like the other powerful states of the world (in this case joining in an alliance with them) in order to find security.

As we see, the statism that surrounds us is often rather successful at tricking men who are not hardened for God’s kingdom into empowering “their” own rulers under the guise of protecting against external threats.

Men of God must however resist the satanic temptation to engage with or be influenced by worldly systems of power, as such would involve a betrayal of God and His word and warnings. 

Though the people of the world may look to man-made governments as their saviors, this cannot be the case for true Christians, who are to pledge their allegiance to the Lord alone. That other people chase after their State-gods is no cause for us to abandon our devotion to the Lord. 

“Though each of the peoples may walk in the name of his god, yet we will walk in the name of the LORD our God forever and ever” (Micah 4:5). 

The people of the world praise government gods as their saviors. They are sinful idolaters who, contrary to God’s will, erect political plunder systems that subjugate their populations into civil bondage. It is political slavery that we avoid by avoiding the systems of the world. God never commands men to set up political power structures as their means of having social order. Rather, He calls us to regard Him as our only ruler and trust in His providence. The political systems of presidents, lawmakers, and military and police forces are false protectors, making people believe they cannot thrive without such human authorities. Essentially, they attempt to make men believe that God will abandon those who choose liberty! The common saying by statists who fear liberty—their question of “who would protect us without government?”—is nothing less than a demonstration of their lack of faith in God.

Avoiding the worldly statists

Despite God’s call to avoid the ways of men, many have succumbed to the systems of man-made law, such as the American “Constitutional Republic” and the Roman system of old. They came to believe that human government was necessary to their freedom and order. They didn’t obey God’s call to not be like the Egyptians.

“You shall not follow the practices of the land of Egypt, where you used to live, or the practices of the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. You must not walk in their customs” (Leviticus 18:3). 

Instead, they adopt the customs and beliefs of the Romans, Egyptians, and Canaanites. They forsook their devotion to the Lord in favor of worldly systems. They believed their systems, including the supposedly benevolent and exceptional American Empire, were exempt from being considered a Babylonian system, even though they were no different from the systems of the past. They eagerly embraced the ways of earthly kingdoms, proudly abandoning God’s command to remain distinct from these peoples. 

“You must keep My charge not to practice any of the abominable customs that were practiced before you, so that you do not defile yourselves by them. I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 18:30). 

God hates the pagan-statist systems that the rebellious people of the world establish and follow. Christians are called to pursue a separate, distinct kingdom apart from those worldly systems.

“You must not follow the statutes of the nations I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and I abhorred them” (Leviticus 20:23). 

Leaving Egypt

Following the political ways of the Egyptians, such as setting up centralized governments, powerful militaries financed through taxation, and welfare systems that trap people into bondage, is always condemned by God.

“‘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'” (Isaiah 30:1-2). 

After God frees His people from Egyptian bondage (ie., state slavery and state oppression), they are called to completely reject such systems to prevent becoming enslaved once more by Pharaohs who make false promises to save them. We must not return to the ways of Egypt by embracing the statist practices of the world. We are told to “never to go back that way again” (Deuteronomy 17:6). 

May God cause the people to turn their hearts and minds away from the kingdoms of this world that they have thus far been so enamored by, and back to the ways of the Lord. Amen.