Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

The idolatry that men have for certain operations of the State—namely the people who strap on boots for the empire—is stronger than others. Even if men may be willing to dispense with some government agencies as unnecessary, their idolatry for police and military will usually mean that men will stubbornly cling to a perceived need for tax-funded, collectivist “national defense” and “public safety” more than anything else. The alleged need for the socialized “protection” rackets services is high on most people’s list of the allegedly necessary things that government—a gang of thieves—must control. Even among those who are seeking to purge the fallacies and errors of the world from their thinking, military and police are usually one of the last vestiges of statism to be abandoned in their mind. These are the big ones that the statists of the world have assumed to be absolutely indispensable to a free, lawful, and orderly society. 

Thus, while calls to abolish some government agencies have grown more common in recent years, such discussion typically spares the so-called indispensable agencies, such as the military. It is no longer uncommon for people to agree that, say, the Department of Education could be eliminated. But ask these same individuals to be consistent and advocate for abolishing the Department of Defense, and they will vehemently object that we have gone too far. They hold the logically inconsistent position that socialist education departments can be eliminated but socialist militaries must remain untouched — that the “freedom” supposedly provided by state “defense” monopolies requires the invasion of a man’s property.

Christians who trust in men?

Unfortunately, this idea that government police and military are “necessary” is highly common among men who claim to have faith in God. But we could easily question what faith is it that a man has who says he needs presidents, police, and military to protect him? Is his faith in God? Arguably, his faith is in the State. Moreover, he is not getting his ideas from the Word of God, which warns about the fate of those who trust in Egypts and go down to Assyria for their protection (Isa 31:1; Hos 8:9). Rather, he is following after the thinking of the Godless people of the world, who, in the absence of God, understandably seek protection from man gods. If these people read their Bibles rather than learned their ideas from the world, they wouldn’t embrace the worldly reasoning of the masses who blindly believe that human government is “necessary” for “national defense,” “public safety,” “public welfare,” or whatever other socialist service we’re told is essential to society itself. 

There is no Biblical reason that one who declares themselves to have faith in God should backtrack on the issue of protection and security and suddenly suggest that a State must be brought aboard to make up for an area of social life where God is supposedly lacking. God is not with us just to secure our souls; He promises to be our everything. God provides for all the things that States have come to make men believe cannot be done without them. This is partly why the State is a god to men: It is a different method—the violent political means—of providing for each other than the ways of the Kingdom of God that we are called to advance. 

Those Christians who believe that government-provided military and police agencies are exceptional socialist “services” that shouldn’t be criticized as sinful abandonments of God’s providential rule are failing to place their faith in God in the areas where it matters most. If anything, the issue of protection should be even more serious than the issue of education. God is much more explicit that people reject Him by placing their trust in human rulers for their protection (1 Sam 8:7-8,10:19,12:19). Everywhere in the scriptures we are told not to trust in men for anything (2 Kings 18:21; Psa 20:7; Isa 2:22, 30:1-3, 31:1; Jer 17:5; Hos 5:13, 7:11).

There is no difference between keeping the Department of Education (DOE) or the Department of Defense (DOD) but one’s emotions and idolatry for the issue. Arguably, the latter is an even more serious violation of God’s commands. After all, when the Israelites asked for a king, they didn’t say they needed someone to “go out and educate our children.” Instead, they wanted a ruler who “shall judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles” (1 Samuel 8:20). It was a desire for a state military, much like how “support the troops” Christians think today, that was at the heart of their rejection of God.

The notion that defense from enemies requires a government and is somehow exempt from God’s area of operation and expertise is unfounded. The pursuit of statist legal and defense systems is no less sinful than the quest for other socialist government services, all of which are funded by robbing our neighbors. Though Godly men are not in need of government schools either, relying on men to provide military aid is a very explicit rejection of God as one’s sovereign that is too often neglected by men who profess faith in God.

The things that statists tell us are most crucial for men to monopolize (military, police, law) are actually the most rebellious aspects of the State. These are all explicit rejections of God, who is our Judge, King, and Lawgiver (Isa 42:22), which means we are not in need for man-kings, state militaries, and legislatures. Godly men must trust in the Lord for their protection, not in men.

God our Protector

There is no reason that the Christian should believe that God fails to provide for us in the area of defense, such that a “Department of Defense” is suddenly necessary. God has always promised that He will fight for us (Ex 14:14; Deut 1:30; ). All the Biblical writers knew it. They knew the Lord was their Shepherd and does not leave His people wanting (Psa 23:1), that God is a fortress and a refuge (Psa 59:16), there was no other God or Rock but the Lord (2 Sam 22:32), that we turn to God in times of trouble (Psalm 46:1), that he is a stronghold in the day of trouble (Nahum 1:7), that He is our deliverer (Psa 32:7), that we call upon God for our protection (Psa 5:11), that God is our savior who keeps us from violence (2 Samuel 22:3-4), that He will keep us from all evil (Psa 121:7-8), that He will keep us safe (Prov 29:25), that He is a shield to those who trust in Him (Prov 30:5), that He is a hiding place (Psa 119:114), that there was no reason to be afraid as men are when they support militaries (Psalm 27:1), that we should trust in God rather than men (Psa 118:8), that there is no reason to despair when God is on our side (2 Cor 4:8-9).

Those who think state militaries are some sort of earthly need in the absence of God’s physical reign do not understand His providential rule over our lives. God has not left us in need to socialist armies to fight for us against our enemies. In fact, far from needing a State to protect us from other enemies around the world, States are the enemies of God and His people, and all we need is God to protect us from them. God sends the Egyptians packing when they come for His people (Ex 14:25). He gets rid of the threat of invasion by a State for those who trust in Him for their salvation (Joshua 24:7). He drowns our Egyptian pursuers in the water and leads us out on dry land (Nehemiah 9:11). He drowns the presidents and armies that statists tell us require a domestic political enslavement of our own (Psalm 136:13-15). He drowns the officers of these statist systems that men worship as their heroes (Ex 15:4-5). He completely destroys them (Deut 11:4). He gets us out of the hands of these statist enemies (Psalm 106:9-11). He breaks bows and arrows and sets chariots on fire (Psa 46:9).   

The worldly statists who tell us that protection requires a state military don’t know the Lord. We are not to fear what men can do to us (Psa 118:6; Heb 13:6). Those who fear men and trust in governments to save them and fight for them are clearly not men who know God or His word, who see the examples of His faithful people in it, and trust in His promises. Advocates of human government cannot say, “The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer. My God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (Psalm 18:2). They say, rather, “The State is my rock, its military is my fortress, its police are my shield, the president is my deliverer.”

The false god State

Those who believe that government agencies are needed for all these things—defense, public safety, education, healthcare, etc—are people who lack faith in God. They do not see that such thoughts are the very sinful ones of those rebels in the Bible who turned to human rulers to protect them, rather than the providential provision of God. God is not just the keeper of our soul who leaves us to seek human rulers when it comes to our earthly protection. He wants us to make Him our King and rely on Him for protection too, and He sees those who seek protection in state armies as rebels who reject Him — just as the Israelites of old who desired a human king to fight their battles, who put their trust in men over their trust in God their King.

The State is not just some neutral institution that men must turn to for the administration of some sort of social needs and “public goods” that can’t be provided in any other way, whether by God directly or people who are acting as doers of His word. The State is, very much so, an attempt by men to do away with God and provide the things He promises through the political means of violence. Men are not merely making use of some sort of benevolent and benign social mechanism for providing goods and services to people when they put human government up to the task of controlling defense, law, education, or anything else, but are rather engaging in a false religion that proposes to substitute men for God. The State is not just some innocent dispenser of so-called “public goods,” but is a substitute god for the promises that God makes for His people: to protect us (Isa 41:10), feed us (Ezek 34:13), teach us (Psa 32:8), give us good health (Jer 33:6), and keep us from all evils (Psa 121:7). States want men to regard them as their kings and saviors, and so trick men into believing that they would have none of these things without them and that society would fall apart and devolve into chaos and disorder. This is why we hear the fears of the Godless statists telling us that without the great god-State, “the warlords would take over, the children would go uneducated, and the poor would be starving!” Sadly, few professing Christians would ever be willing to say they would have none of these things (protection, prosperity, order, health) without God. Like the Godless people of the world, they also attribute their perceived “prosperity” and “freedom” to come from the military or police, and say “thank the troops” or “back the blue” to show their appreciation and praise for their false gods.

Did God fail to provide for us?

But God has not abandoned us in this world. He did not create a people and an earth and then fail to look after His creation. If we walk with Him, leaving Egypt behind and obeying His commands to voluntarily serve our neighbors, we would not be vulnerable to enemies and poverty that the people of the world suppose can only be addressed by human government. On the contrary, God promises to bless those who follow His ways (Deuteronomy 28), which means turning away from human government and placing our faith and allegiance in God.

We cannot believe the lies of statists—this is effectively their claim—that those who walk with God and seek liberty will be left vulnerable to numerous enemies and social ills. Far from it, God provides for every need of those who forsake the alleged benefits of Egypt and walk away from these worldly systems. Men are in need of God, not “Defense Departments.” If “Defense Departments” were needed for men, God would have decreed it at the time of creation, “Let there be a Pentagon and a trillion-dollar budget.” But He didn’t. Not even after the Great Flood did God see a need to create a State for men to be protected. 

States are creations of men who rebel against God. They are raised up in sin and perpetuated in plunder. They are made possible by men who see enemies around them but lack the fear of the Lord needed to keep them from trusting in men to save them. The kings of the world have not come because God fails to provide physical protection and defense from enemies. They are set up by men who don’t believe that God will provide for them. They are set up by men who sinfully desire to have other men rule over them when we are to make the Lord our ruler (Judges 8:23). They are not part of God’s will for men, which is that we make God our God. God only gives human kings to men reluctantly (Hos 13:10-11), after they have begged for them and received ample warning of what it will mean for them (1 Sam 8:11-18). God allows men to throw away their liberty, but He does not desire that men do so. God allows men to sinfully erect Babylonian state systems and punishes them for doing so, but He does not will that men make men their gods.

The root of human government lies in the fear of men, which stems from a lack of fear of the Lord. Facing the various fears in our social world (foreign states, foreigners, and poverty), most of which are created by government itself, people claim they need governments to keep them safe and free. Rather than trusting in God to save them, they abandon hope in divine protection at the very time when their faith should increase. Fearing other state rulers or enemies around the world, they turn their backs on the Lord and seek out men to protect them. “When you saw that Nahash king of the Ammonites was moving against you, you said to me, ‘No, we must have a king to rule over us’—even though the LORD your God was your king” (1 Samuel 12:12).

The notion that we need a state military to protect us from foreign powers like China or Russia is used to justify States and their militaries, but it demonstrates a lack of faith in God. The existence of foreign enemies does not justify establishing a powerful state and abandoning God as our King. In fact, these are the very moments when our faith in God’s provision is put to the test. Will we trust that God will care for us if we live freely without human rulers? Or will we instead put our trust in princes and kings, who may use military force against our enemies to secure their own power, but will then enslave us to fund their massive, trillion-dollar annual “defense” budgets?

Sadly, most men choose the god of the State to protect them and wind up living in Egyptian captivity. When will they wake up to God’s offer of protection? When will those who proclaim Christ as King start acting like they truly have a King?