[This is part 3 of a series on the temptation of Egypt. See part one, two, four, five]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

In the last article, we addressed the instances of men looking back to the supposed glory and prosperity of Biblical Egypt as Moses was leading the people through the desert. There are many parallels with this episode and our society today, where men are able to keep looking to the American empire as she appears to be providing peace and prosperity for the people for a little while longer. This makes them reluctant to seek the Kingdom of God and walk away from our Egyptian captors today.

“Our Egyptian captors at least fed us”

Since human governments appear to be providing for people for the time being, many struggle to see the alternative in the Kingdom of God. This is why we commonly hear “who would do X without the government?” as a reply to the proposal that the goods and services currently monopolized by the State can be provided freely and voluntary. These men cannot give up on the idea that Egypts provide for them. They keep believing that the covetous practices of using violence to extract their neighbor’s property is the only means of social welfare or “collective defense.” They are under the strong delusion of the spirit of Egypt which leads them to chase after the ideologies of this world.

Such questions as these truly reveal a lack of faith in men. Those who still ask the faithless question of “who would provide X without government?” are not prepared to leave Egypt. They’re fully, mentally enslaved into the hands of their Egyptian captors, who for some time are able to provide many people with goods and luxuries that trap them into believing such systems are the surest method to having a sustainable and prosperous society, paid for at the price of enslaving them and their neighbors and eventually failing altogether.

There is a reason that believing government is “necessary” to provide law, protection, order, and welfare is such a common reaction among men when we propose an alternative, voluntarily-funded system for providing goods and services than the political one of the present, which is paid for through tax-theft: this is really what the sinful mind is all about. Statists effectively say, “Who would provide for us if we trusted in God alone? Who would feed us if we walked away from Pharaoh? Obviously, we need men to rule over us!” It is the same rejection of the Israelites who sought a king other than God to “go out and fight their battles for them” (1 Samuel 8). Trusting in States to provide for your welfare and protection is an explicit rejection of God. It is sin. 

People aren’t ready to walk out of Egypt and trust in God when they ask “who would take care of us in retirement without Social Security?” or “who would care for the poor without government welfare programs?” Those who say that “without the U.S. military we’d be speaking Arabic” demonstrate a complete lack of faith in divine providence and instead reveal a total love of the world. 

Those who think they need human government to provide for their needs are ensnared and trapped in the systems of the world. They are stuck in the sinful mindset of coveting their neighbors’ property as a means of providing for their people, which has them living as subject citizens under false benefactors who claim to serve their fellow man by monopolizing the provision of these so-called “public goods,” but in reality exercise authority over them and rule by force, just as Jesus said they do (Mark 10). The price to pay for allowing civil fathers to feed you is to become human property under a State — to be made into merchandise at the hands of men. 

Trusting in God rather than men 

It is a lack of faith in God to provide for us, as well as us forsaking our duty to serve one another and love our neighbors as ourselves, that is at the root of the existence of the State. When men don’t trust that God will feed them and don’t congregate in networks based in love of neighbor and charity toward one another, they inevitably set up human rulers above themselves as the men allegedly needed to provide for their welfare and protection. 

“All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, ‘If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness! Why is the LORD bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?’ So they said to one another, ‘Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt’” (Numbers 14:2-4). 

Men lack faith and trust in God when they say they need the “U.S. Military” to keep them safe or some other alphabet agency to “protect” them. Seeking human rulers to fight your battles for you and provide chariots and horsemen to keep the enemies away is no insignificant sin, either, but decidedly the way that men turn from God. 

God has shown us the way out of Egypt through repenting for our sins and following the Lord our God rather than men, but men never want to trust His provision. They say, in their slavishness and sin, that they can’t do without human government — without a “Department of Defense,” “Department of Education,” or “Department of Health.” They remain hardheaded and stubborn fools who trust in men instead. They forget that God will provide us peace and prosperity, that He will be our God, if only we would regard Him as their God (Ex 6:7; Deut 28:1; Jer 7:23). But they always seek men to rule over them and “provide” for them instead. 

“In their hunger You gave them bread from heaven; in their thirst You brought them water from the rock. You told them to go in and possess the land that You had sworn to give them. But they and our fathers became arrogant and stiff-necked and did not obey Your commandments. They refused to listen and failed to remember the wonders You performed among them. They stiffened their necks and appointed a leader to return them to their bondage in Egypt” (Nehemiah 9:15-20).

Those who set up and elect state rulers in the belief that such political provisions are the only way to supply their needs are men who don’t know the first thing about the Lord or faith. They are men who are tempted to accept Caesar’s bread, rather than to obey God even if it means they initially suffer for want in the earlier stages of seeking the Kingdom of God as we are instructed to do. Rather than trust in God and count on Him for deliverance from the hands of men, which is one way God always wants to be remembered, most men start chasing after the false political gods of the world and their provisions. 

“This is what the LORD says: ‘What fault did your fathers find in Me that they strayed so far from Me? They followed worthless idols, and became worthless themselves. They did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?’ I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and bounty, but you came and defiled My land and made My inheritance detestable. The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD?’ The experts in the law no longer knew Me, and the leaders rebelled against Me. The prophets prophesied by Baal and followed useless idols” (Jeremiah 2:5-8). 

We must learn to believe that God will provide for our every need should we place all our faith in Him and turn away from the systems of men that are built on false promises and stolen property. Those who look back to the municipal water of Egypt and Pharaoh’s welfare offices are not likely to trust that God will provide all these things for us without having to sell ourselves into slavery. We must believe that He will do it and that Pharaohs and congressmen and militaries and police officers aren’t needed for it. Men who trust in God while walking out of Egyptian bondage “did not thirst when He led them through the deserts; He made water flow for them from the rock; He split the rock, and water gushed out” (Isaiah 48:21).

People always want to walk back into the hands of the Egyptians rather than seek the Kingdom of God, which requires that they trust in God’s providence in a free society. Since the Egyptian system (for now) has abundant bread and circuses (chicken wings, beer, and football and soldiers that parachute in during the games and fighter jets that zoom over the stadium), the people see little reason to do things as God has commanded us to do, which requires that we stop contributing to the systems of the world and start building an alternative kingdom based on faith, hope, charity, and love of neighbor where we regularly serve one another. 

Falling into the traps of man’s kingdom

Statism is formed and furthered by a lack of faith in God and an ungodly covetousness of one’s neighbor’s property that results when men refuse to live out the divine instructions of the Lord to serve one another in love. Those who don’t trust God inevitably fall into the hands of men, who are more than happy to pretend to provide socialist benefits to the people in exchange for keeping them in bondage (though they ultimately fail to feed and house and protect, using these false promises merely to rope men into the yoke they have waiting for them).

Those men who take the socialist benefits of worldly systems don’t realize they are taking bait with a hook attached to it. The State dangles out the “benefits” of public religion and legal charity for men to be tempted by, and that table becomes a snare and trap to them, bringing them into subject citizenship to pagan kingdoms. Those who eat at the table provided by the false gods of the world are tricked into bondage and deserve it. As David said, “May their table become a snare; may it be a retribution and a trap” (Psalm 69:22).

People go into Egyptian bondage when they haven’t formed a kingdom-network of congregations of people who worship God by serving their neighbor and providing for their welfare, because they aren’t prepared to weather the storm of collapsing empires — to prepare for the famines and wars and economic depressions that result from the existence of human government. It is in these instances of desperation that men feed at the trough of the State, which is always ready to take on this role of pretending to feed men in order to gain dependents and apologists of their regime (hence why so many people claim they could never do without human government and keep voting on these men to serve them). This is why we must prepare the Lord’s table ourselves and begin forming and furthering these networks, so that our people are not left with the only option but eating from Caesar’s hand when their crony economy falls apart, is deliberately pulled by the system-makers, or otherwise judged by God.

Statism is a result of men who fail to seek God and be doers of His word. Statism is all-around evidence that men lack faith in God. It exists because men failed to take responsibility to serve their neighbors themselves and obey the commandments of God to have no other gods before them. It exists because a Godless people turned to the gods of the world to serve them, which they end up serving in hard bondage. The existence of a State is all the proof one needs that the people living under it don’t have faith in God and regard the Lord as their King. When men say that a free society (ie., a society without a State) cannot work, they confess that they believe God cannot be trusted. To think that God won’t providentially and supernaturally provide for those who trust in Him, but that Egyptian systems are needed to provide various goods and services via the violent socialist method of state monopolization, is always the faithless thinking that men have which keeps them in bondage. 

“They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved. They spoke against God, saying, ‘Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness? When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?’” (Psalm 78:18-20).

Those who look to Egypts to feed them—whether they work for the plunder State to feed their families or seek its tax-funded benefits, goods, services, or retirement packages—are men who are feeding at the devil’s table and have brought themselves and their people into bondage by doing so. This is why God told us to beware of the meat dangled in front of our faces by Pharaohs, which hides a hook beneath it.

“When you sit down to dine with a ruler, consider carefully what is set before you, and put a knife to your throat if you possess a great appetite. Do not crave his delicacies, for that food is deceptive” (Proverbs 21:1-3). 

Those who feed from the hands of political masters are as stupid as fish who take the bait from fishermen who have cast a line before them. Godly people don’t fall for these tricks, and don’t look back to the time when Egypts supposedly kept them fed. This is why prophets like Daniel turned down the offers of the king’s meat (Daniel 1:8). State rulers dangle theft-funded benefits in front of people to make dependents, earn voters who apologize for the alleged necessity of their systems, trap men into bondage, and get them to forsake their faith that God will provide for those who trust in Him. Godly men should have nothing to do with these systems. Men who “feast on their delicacies,” ie., who take the welfare, paychecks, or retirement packages from the State which are paid out of their neighbor’s back, are men who “take part in works of wickedness with men who do iniquity” (Psalm 141:4). 

Trusting in God alone

We struggle to get out of bondage today because men always forget the God that gets His people out of Egyptian bondage and provides for them in the absence of human rulers (Psa 106:13). They think that States keep people safe and free and that God leaves men to die. 

“[They] spoke against God and against Moses: ‘Why have you led us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food!’ (Numbers 21:5). 

What we need is faith in God for all things, such as protection, welfare, food and clothing, health, which not coincidentally have been taken over by the State that seeks to substitute itself as a god in the minds of the people. It is not just food alone, which often drives men back to Egypt, that men need to survive in a demand for “give me food or give me death.” Men must have God on their side and trust in Him to provide everything. They cannot fall for the satanic temptation to seek the kingdoms of this world and its benefits, which Jesus turned down as insufficient for men (Luke 4). They must learn that the narrow road, which may not initially have as much phony prosperity as the wide path that leads to destruction, is a lesson in having faith in God and His Liberty. 

“He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 8:3). 

Conclusion 

As the empire begins to unravel today and reveal that it was built on imperialism and credit creation and debt, perhaps men will begin to see that it is better to trust in God than men. Though many people are still stuck in Egyptian (ie., statist) ways of thinking today in an empire where there is still some ability to point to “the best and richest and strongest country in the world,” they will have to eventually realize that it was all a sham — that these comforts are only temporary and have only come because the this imperialist aggressor has been successful so far at punking others around. They are the result of the empire’s ability to plunder other people around the world, which cannot last forever, evidenced by the fate of every empire that has come before it and the truth of God’s word. Egypts don’t actually provide for their people. All statist systems, being socialist in nature, are unsustainable and must fall apart and result in the weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

If there’s anything we can learn from the prophets, it’s that the false prosperity of the wicked systems of the world always comes under divine judgment for their sins. These systems are built on plunder, conquest, violence, theft, credit expansion, and other forms of socialist deceit. “They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity” (Micah 3:10). These systems of men that operate in rebellion to God are built on coercion, violence, oppression, and bloodshed, not real sustainable wealth-generation (Isa 5:7, 59:7; Ezek 22:27). They have nothing coming to them but disaster. “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by iniquity!” (Habakkuk 2:12). Such statist political systems, which are always erected against the will and law of God, end by blindsiding most of the non-theological public who never saw it coming because they were lost in their own sins or fooled by the ideology and false pastors of the world. They were eating chicken wings and drinking beer and praising “their” country as “the best country in the world” with “the most powerful military in the world” one day, and then the next they found themselves with nothing. 

Though most men are still reveling in the temporary wealth of the Egyptian system, we ought to be crying out to the Lord again today, repenting of the sins that led to our captivity, and weeping over our circumstance. It is in these moments that God hears men and rescues them from their enslavement by men. 

“And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage” (Exodus 2:23). 

Are you prepared to make great sacrifices to stop feeding the Egyptian police state society? Are you prepared to stop eating at the table of devils who pretend to feed men in order to keep them in bondage? Will you accept voluntary poverty in the short term if need be to serve God? Are you ready to walk with God if it means thirsting through the desert? Or are you going to do whatever they say you must do—take a vaccine, wear their mask, get a national ID card, get paid in CBDCs—to keep your job and your house and attempt to remain comfortable in Babylon as she crumbles anyway? Are you going to walk back to Egypt, where you might find some sandwiches for a little while longer, so long as you pay your taxes in a failing system? Or are you going to walk out of Egyptian bondage, even if it means the sandwiches exist only in the future? Are you going to keep believe that you must give up your liberty for security, that “taxation is the price we pay for civilization”? Or will you see that that there is no true dichotomy between “dangerous liberty” or “peaceful slavery,” and that the only true way to peace and prosperity is seeking the Kingdom of God?