[This is part 9 of a series on God and justice. See part one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ten]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

Just as the injustices of statism are a form of divine judgment upon a people who have erected these systems in their sin, so too are they due for judgment for their own evils. Human government both brings judgment upon a people who beg to live under these systems, and is itself under judgment. 

We see this in many places of scripture. God may use an evil regime against those who rebel against Him and adopt these ways among themselves, only to turn around and judge that evil regime itself for their own evils. Though they may be used to bring evil upon a people who deserved what they asked for when seeking human rulers, their own evils aren’t exempt from being punished. The Assyrians, for instance, are used by God as “servants” (Isa 10:5) in order to bring judgment upon a godless people who deserved to be plundered for their own support for plunder systems (Isa 10:6). God is the one who has “raised up Chaldeans” (Hab 1:6) to do evils against a rebellious people who reject His rulership. These regimes are not self-consciously punishing others for their sin, such that they are just and moral themselves and merely punishing bad guys, but they are being used by God toward that end (Isa 10:7). They are evil too and are merely being used to bring evils upon a people who deserve to reap what they have sown. But God doesn’t approve of these rulers and their regimes that He makes use of either. After being used by God, these systems are then themselves judged for their evils (Isa 10:12).

God does not approve of Babylonians or Egyptians or any State system just because He is willing to make use of them as judgment against another similar system. Nor does the fact that God uses evil regimes for His purposes of disciplining those who turn away from Him, just as king Nebuchadnezzar is referred to as His “servant” (Jer 27:6), mean that they are non-evil and that we are to seek these systems ourselves. Indeed, the reason they come upon a people is precisely for seeking these same evils themselves. Those who set up and support statist systems invite political evils upon themselves. That God uses States does not provide a justification for our use of them. They come precisely to teach us a lesson in the sin of state worshiping, to show men just how great of a mistake it is to trust in men rather than God. Evil plunderers (eg., States) are not sent by God because they are good. Rather, He has “established them for correction” (Hab 1:12).

God’s judgment upon the plunderers

Without realizing that God is using them to bring evils upon a people who have turned from His kingship by seeking human kings to rule over them and that they themselves are under judgment, the state rulers of the world arrogantly and pridefully believe in their own invincibility while operating them. They believe their power will last forever, when they are only being used by God for His purposes of judgment. 

Contrary to all the people who believe they can set up evil systems of political rule and escape divine justice for their own injustices, who think “the Lord does not see” and that “God takes no notice” (Psa 94:7), there is a price to pay for erecting and operating these evils systems, too. While those statists among the population who support human government are under judgment for this sin of statism, for this evil belief that violent political systems are necessary to law, order, justice, peace, liberty, prosperity, and all the things worldly statists tell us we wouldn’t have without human rulers, so too are the statists who operate these systems. 

The proud plunderers

The human rulers who God uses to judge others are themselves judged and their political systems used to plunder others are taken away from them. They thought, in their pride and power, that they were like the Most High and wouldn’t face judgment themselves, but God was using their evils for His own purposes the whole time they thought they were in control, up until He has seen enough and turns it around on the plunderers themselves. God was watching the whole time: “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, observing the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3).

The state rulers who God uses are still evil themselves. They aren’t good guys who punish the bad guys, but evil men who are bringing evils upon an evil populace who begged for these ways and are getting it good and hard in the form of tax bondage, roadside beatings, home invasions, or prison camps. Though God uses them to bring evil upon wicked ways, namely a people who support human government as their rulers instead of God as their King, these men try in vain to escape judgment themselves — though they may believe they operate autonomously from the Lord. “Woe to those who dig deep to hide their plans from the LORD. In darkness they do their works and say, ‘Who sees us, and who will know?’” (Isaiah 29:15). 

This is always the nature of evil regimes that God is using for His purposes, eg., as judgment upon statists who foolishly supported them. They get so lost in their conspiring against other men, so deep in their own evils, so filled with their own plunder, and so drunk on their own power, that they believe God’s judgment doesn’t even await them anymore. “He says in his heart, ‘God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it’” (Psalm 10:11). This belief by state rulers that they exist outside of God’s plan and view—that they are autonomous actors who will get away with their plunder forever—is the essence of Biblical pride. “The wicked say, ‘How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?’” (Psalm 73:11). 

They think that neither God, nor the victims of their plunder, will ever catch on to their schemes. They arrogantly believe that no one will ever realize that Pharaoh’s “law enforcement” agents are plantation officers who collect revenue for the crown and bring back slaves for the local jails and prisons for the crown. “They hold fast to their evil purpose; they speak of hiding their snares. ‘Who will see them?,’ they say” (Psalm 64:5). They’re so full of themselves that they believe they can launch global scamdemics without a majority of the people realizing the scheme they have launched against billions of people.

Though the pride of these rulers tells them otherwise, there is no escaping God’s judgment upon their own heads for the evils they have carried out against a people who deserved to be made slaves for their sinful belief in human government. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13). 

Plundering the plunderers

The men who God uses to judge a people who sinfully set up human rulers—the presidents, congressmen, tax agents, police, soldiers—are not only bringing evils upon a people as their just punishment for begging for these systems, but they themselves are engaged in sinful behavior that is ultimately not approved by God. After all, these men (eg., king Nebuchadnezzar) “serve” God by sinning. These are men who have “oppressed and forsaken the poor” and have “seized houses [they] did not build” (Job 20:19). They are the people who create a violent and unjust society, which is what men get for their sin of believing in them. They are the people who the prophets can observe perverting everything about God’s desired social order of liberty.

“Destruction and violence are before me. Strife is ongoing, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted” (Habakkuk 1:3-4).

Though state rulers bring evil upon a people who need to get everything they’ve begged for as a matter of God’s law of cause and effect playing out, at the end of the day God hates the wicked ways of these men too — though, again, as a matter of bringing justice (or rather injustice) against a people who forsook the Lord and His ways, He made use of them for some time. We are ruled by men who “despise justice” and “pervert all that is right” (Micah 3:9), by men “who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground” (Amos 5:9). God allows it to happen to a people who think governments are going to bring them liberty and justice and law and order, but ultimately must tear down these people too. God judges these enemies of liberty and assures that the plunder systems He once used to bring “justice” upon a backward people who worshiped human rulers are themselves doomed.

“For the LORD will take up their case and will plunder those who rob them” (Proverbs 22:23). 

God knows that we’re occupied by men who craft legislative decrees and codes to plunder us and who send out “law enforcement” agents to make them a violent reality. He is watching the misdeeds of our political captors, which He hates as much as the misdeeds of the people who put them there.

“For I know that your transgressions are many and your sins are numerous. You oppress the righteous by taking bribes; you deprive the poor of justice in the gate” (Amos 5:12). 

God’s eyes are on the people who work for town, county, state, and federal governments who prey upon people for taxes, steal their property, tack fees and fines onto these coercive demands for payment, and cage or kill people who resist them or fail to perfectly satisfy them.

“In you they take bribes to shed blood. You engage in usury, take excess interest, and extort your neighbors. But Me you have forgotten, declares the Lord GOD. Now look, I strike My hands together against your unjust gain and against the blood you have shed in your midst” (Ezekiel 22:12-13). 

God is watching the thousands of cases every year of government agents preying upon people who they claim owe them money to take their property, houses, cars, savings, income, or any assets they may get their hands on to assure they are fed on the blood of the people who they rule over. 

“Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands. They covet fields and seize them; they take away houses. They deprive a man of his home, a fellow man of his inheritance” (Micah 2:1-2). 

God intends to destroy all these proud plunderers who call themselves the “government” and who in their godlessness and lack of fear of the Lord believe they can get away from these crimes, protecting those who were plundered by them in the process.

“For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him” (Psalm 12:5). 

These lawmakers and law enforcers of human government commit acts that destroy themselves and their societies. 

“Woe to those who enact unjust statutes and issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of fair treatment and withhold justice from the oppressed of My people, to make widows their prey and orphans their plunder” (Isaiah 10:1-2). 

All statist plunder societies have spelled their own fate by enshrining the violations of God’s commands against theft and murder into their man-made, positive law systems. It is not actually profitable in the end to build up systems where men rob other men and call it “law” and “justice.”

“Woe to him who amasses what is not his and makes himself rich with many loans! How long will this go on?’ Will not your creditors suddenly arise and those who disturb you awaken? Then you will become their prey. Because you have plundered many nations, the remnant of the people will plunder you— because of your bloodshed against man and your violence against the land, the city, and all their dwellers. Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, to place his nest on high and escape the hand of disaster! You have plotted shame for your house by cutting off many peoples and forfeiting your life. For the stones will cry out from the wall, and the rafters will echo it from the woodwork. Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by iniquity!” (Habakkuk 2:6-12)

Though these men may sit in the upper floors of banks and skyscrapers today, robbing the people through their crafty methods of monetary inflation and other schemes of the system of central banking, they are never high enough to avoid the judgment of the Most High God, no matter how invincible they may feel as the rich thieves of the world. 

“‘The pride of your heart has deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks whose habitation is the heights, who say in your heart, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’ Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, even from there I will bring you down,’ declares the LORD” (Obadiah 1:3-4). 

God hates statism and punishes state worshipers and state rulers alike. If a State first acts as an unbeknownst tool of judgment against those who foolishly trusted in them, eventually this tool of judgment is itself judged. The plunderers become the plundered. Amen. Praise God!

Prayer

O Lord our God, as I have prayed before, You know we are ruled by wicked plunderers, and even that You have set them over us to plunder us for our own sins of believing in them (Neh 9:37). But Lord, turn them back, as we turn to You. Show our people the way again and get them to turn away from the systems of men that rightly bring evils on people who trust in them. Teach them to no longer serve them. Teach them to say that Assyria will not save us and nor will we ride on horses. Have mercy on us. Keep the enemy away and lead them to repentance. Turn the Waco Killers away from our doors and change their hearts. If they refuse to turn their hearts back, then crush them for us. For we are weary down below in the face of this enemy. Our people are in great distress at the threat of the taxman and prisonhouse that You have allowed to stand over us for the sin of statism among our people who worship and praise these captors as men who keep us safe and free. Remove the statist plunderers from Your earth, Lord, and lead us to Your liberty. You’re our King. Destroy the wicked men who rule over us and treat us as their property. You’re our only Lord. Amen.