[This is part 4 of a series on “On Statism and Adultery.” See part one, two, three, five, six, seven]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

Since we live in a statist society today where the sinful and idolatrous political ideas of men have worked to set up and support systems of human civil government that have in turn helped to further hammer the ideology of statism into the people who live under their rule, it is hard for most people to see today that they have bought into worldly political ideas from which they need to repent. The idea of sin and bondage to most Christians is something more like one’s personal addictions, habits, fears, or some other psychological problems that they need to address. You will rarely hear a Christian talk about being in bondage to political rulers for their sin of trusting in them (rather than God) in the first place, despite this being more or less the theme of the whole Bible. For most Christians, the idea that Jesus came to “die for our sins” is just some vague and loosely conceived idea about Jesus redeeming us into heaven when we die. It isn’t thought that Jesus came to free us from the bondage of human government that we have found ourselves in through our own sin and iniquity that has set these systems up. Rare is a Christian who even sees that statism is sin, much less one who realizes that we need to repent from this ideological sin that supports the existence of human government and seek God’s Kingdom as the only valid “government.” Yet this worldly ideology of statism is really characteristic of sin, ie., the main way that men violate God’s commands against having other gods, supporting theft and murder, and following after the ways of other people who do not abide in the Lord. Statism is no innocent, secondary problem in God’s eyes. It is seeking human kings that God says a people reject Him to chase after other gods.

Hardheaded people

Often when we press men to repent for their statism and point out that it is this very way of thinking—the sinful idea that we need men ruling over us—that men need to repent from, their first reaction is to fight against it — for the most part because they are partakers in this sin and would rather stubbornly remain in their sin than have to admit that they have been in error the whole time they thought they were serving God while waving Caesar’s flag alongside their professed faith in the Lord. For some psychological reason, men find it more embarrassing to repent from their idolatry for human government than to do to remain fools, and so we’re often up against men who cling to their idols rather than man-up and admit they were duped. It becomes all the more difficult to lead men toward repentance considering that the thing men need to repent from—their love of human systems of power and the characters that operate these systems—is necessarily always something that they are already holding to. Statism is perhaps the worst of all, because statism is a religion that worships false gods — hence why these people go to such lengths to hang up flags on their houses, promote their favorite politicians, and refuse to come out of this ideological coma. Statism is never just something that men hold as they would, say, a preference for ice cream. You don’t see “vanilla ice cream guy here” signs in people’s front yards. Rather, statism is sin and thus animates the whole spirit of the man who believes in human rulers. It is a competing religion to the Christian faith in the Lord alone, hence why men grow angry when their false gods are attacked. “You stomp my flag and I’ll stomp your ass….If you don’t like President Trump then you can just leave the country.” If statism wasn’t a false religion of false gods, men would just allow someone else to have their opinion. “You like chocolate ice cream? Cool, I like vanilla.” But it’s much deeper than this when it comes to political ideas, because one is attacking a false god that a man holds dear. It is not a simple matter of argumentation and logic, but something that men have bought into in their sin and fiercely defend. When we’re attempting to get men to repent from statism, we have to see that statism is adultery and prostitution and that these men are cheating on God with the State and will not easily end their affair with these lovers.

One of the major challenges of leading men away from the false religion of statism and back to the Lord is precisely that statism is a false religion held by the man who is being called to repent. They don’t want to see that statism, patriotism, nationalism, pledges of allegiance, flag-waving, and love of police and military, that come along with these systems are the very things that men need to renounce and repent from, because they are still involved with them and have bought into this religion of statism that they don’t want to see contradicts their willingness on the other hand to toss around slogans like “Christ is King.” For most Christians, the only thing they need to repent from is some generic understanding of “our sins” that is entirely detached from the great political sin of whoring yourselves out to the man-made systems of the world, which is really what God is always pointing to in His word: that His people have turned from Him by turning towards other men and their power structures. Furthermore, they claim that Jesus died for them, as if there is nothing else they need to repent from. “Only God can judge me…mind your business…this is between me and God.”

Often the reason that people fight against anything is because it is something they already believe in and therefore need to defend if they are to remain in their old and unrepentant ways. Few people care to staunchly defend something that they do not support. You can bet that if someone is attempting to make a Biblical justification for statism then, that they are already statist whores, as opposed to being someone who has dispassionately drawn their politics from the Bible as faithful followers of Scripture who sincerely believe that political theology would lead us to support human rulers rather than the Lord as our sole archist. It is always that those who fight against Christian anarchism are pre-existing idolaters who believe in the existence of human civil government and desperately need to make a Biblical case for it, rather than people who launched an unbiased read of the Bible and landed at the idea that we should set up presidents, legislators, Supreme Court justices, and police to violently enforce the system. These are ideas that come from the world, not from the mouth of the Lord. The statist philosophy is a satanic temptation, not the Holy Spirit speaking to a man. Most of the statism among so-called “Christians” today comes from the statist idolatry and myths that abound in worldly American culture, eg., that “the constitution” gave us the best system of government the world has ever known or that “the troops” are here to fight for “our freedom,” not from ideas they drew from the Bible.

When we tear down the idol of statism then, there is always a man behind the ideas who is going to take these things as a personal attack. Ideas are never just floating around in the world; they are held by men who buy into them and spread them among others. That there is a man behind these ideas makes them all the more difficult to tear down. We are never faced with the situation of merely presenting the logical argument or rationality behind an idea to others. If this were the case, we would already have achieved a free society, since the “logic” of statism and socialism doesn’t stand a chance against God’s natural order or the economic challenge to this system of violent intervention. Instead, we are faced with the problem of changing hearts and minds and getting men to repent for these bad ideas that they cling to in their sin. We are dealing not just with a statism that men bought into on emotion, rather than logic, but a sinful ideology that men hold in their state of unrepentance. This makes things all the more challenging.

Rebuking for correction

However, we are not addressing this sin of statism merely to attack other men, but because we genuinely want men to repent from this sin — we want to stop giving into evil and walk in the straight path again. That men feel personally attacked and charge us with ad hominem for calling them idolaters is their own personal problem and even their conviction speaking to them, knowing that they are wrong. As one saying goes, when you throw a rock at a pack of dogs, the one that barks is the one that got hit. Those who come out of the woodwork to challenge the idea of that statism is ungodly and evil are people who are statists themselves and who don’t want to repent. That’s why they have come to bark. You are tearing down their whole ideological worldview that justifies the existence of human rulers and they come out to defend themselves, rather than receive the correction you are giving them. They think you are personally attacking them when you are only calling them to join God’s Kingdom-seeking people who are turning away from the sin that has led to our Egyptian bondage today, when what we really want of them is to abandon statism and seek God’s Kingdom with us — to join the sheep who hear the Lord’s voice and “go and sin no more” (John 8:11). They interpret this as “judging” and “condemning” only because they are people who don’t want to be pointed in the right direction. Another favorite of theirs is to say, “Well aren’t you just right about everything.”

But we are not here merely to attack the man, even though he is the one holding the ideas. Nor are we doing some grandstanding as some sort of people who have had special revelation from the Lord that statism is sin. Anyone who reads a Bible can see it themselves. This is not about us, but others who haven’t yet seen the light. We are not rebuking people to make ourselves look good, but to change minds and show men that the way out of political bondage is through repentance. It would be all for nothing if we simply raised a list of complaints against idolatrous people just to criticize them. We preach God’s word and ways hoping that men will turn back from their evils. The same is true from God’s point of view and the word He has left us. It is never just to raise a complaint that God has given us His word on the various sins and idolatries of men. If all God had done by giving us His word was to tell us that we are irredeemably lost and foolish and that an unavoidable punishment is coming our way, then He may well have not even spoken. His word would have been nothing more than picking on people for something that they cannot help to change, like bullying someone for a blemish on their face. But statism is not something that a people cannot turn away from, as much as their refusal to repent from their sin keeps them stuck in it. It is not some facial feature, disease, or something else involuntary that one cannot change about themselves. It is an idea that men hold that they can repent from holding. God is not just raising complaints upon people who are hopelessly in the dark forever. God does not just tell a people that sin leads to bondage and that they’re lost sinners forever who can’t avoid the bondage that He excitedly brings upon them and that they cannot avoid. The Bible always speaks of men who had a choice to follow God into liberty or men into political captivity, not state rule as some inevitable and unavoidable fate. We read constantly how a people would not have had to go into bondage if they listened to and obeyed God instead (Deut 8:20, 28:15; Judges 2:2-3; 2 Kings 17:13-14; Neh 9:26-27; Isa 5:13; Jer 11:3-4, 12:17; Ezek 39:23). God does not give a word of inevitable political bondage that men cannot avoid, but a warning of the sin that will inevitably lead to bondage should men embark upon that wicked path of statism. God did not give us His word just to tell us that we are going to be destroyed and can do nothing about it. The word of the Lord never comes to us only to tell us what God hates and what He is going to do to us no matter what. We are to learn from it and amend our ways upon receiving it, so as to avoid the judgment that comes upon everyone who seeks the kingdoms of this world rather than the Kingdom of our Lord.

Repenting to avoid judgment

The story of the Two Sisters in Ezekiel 23, like many others in the scriptures, is thus not just one of God bringing judgment upon an idolatrous people who turned from Him. We are meant to see that this judgment comes from sin, and that to turn from sin—in this case the idolatry that men have for the powerful political systems of Assyrians, Romans, Americans, and other kingdoms of this world—is the means of turning back the judgment that comes upon all statist societies, all which are erected and furthered in rebellion to God’s natural order. We are to learn from these stories, to heed the words of the prophets who God sent to write about the connection between sin and judgment, between adultery of ideological statism and subsequent political captivity. These stories of statist whoredoms and the judgment that follows this political prostitution, which continues today among the hardheaded people of our times who have yet to learn their lessons amongst the beatings and tax slavery that inevitably accompany such idolatry, are calls for people to repent and turn back to the Lord and His liberty. They are not just stories from the past of a people who God randomly judged without reason. They are not just bits of Biblical history that are irrelevant for us now as moral/political lessons. They are lessons for our people today who continue in the same idolatries and whoredoms that led those people to judgment. They teach of the dangers of compromise today, where men believe they can hold to the Lord and Caesar without contradicting themselves. They show us that our allegiance must be to God alone, not “God and country.” They show us precisely that we must choose between God or country rather than have both, and that everyone who chooses “country,” as in the case of Oholoh and her adultery with Assyrians (statists), will be destroyed for their sin of abandoning God for men. The Kingdom of God and the false kingdoms of men are mutually exclusive to each other and cannot be sought together. Men must decide who they serve, whether the Lord or the systems of men. “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot partake in the table of the Lord and the table of demons too” (1 Corinthians 10:21). There is no such thing as “Jesus is my Savior, Trump is my President.” If the Lord isn’t also your King, then He isn’t your Savior either; salvation is a political concept of being saved from our earthly enemies through faith in the Lord alone. If men are your “presidents” then, if they are the people who you expect to provide security from foreign enemies and “law and order” domestically, then you believe they are also your “saviors” and that the Lord Jesus is not. 

The whole of scripture is meant to be profitable for reproof and correction for men. We are never just reading about the instances of people in the past that do not apply to us anymore, such that the sinful quest for human kings by the Israelites who were turning away from God to seek other gods (rulers) is no longer relevant to us in the modern age of “democracy” or “presidents” rather than monarchies or kings. All these things were meant to teach us how to act today, to show us that we are not to have human rulers either and that God should be our only God. The aim of such Biblical lessons is not empty words from God or just some old history recorded for us to merely awe at the past destruction of societies that is apparently irrelevant for us now in “non-Biblical times.” It was for us to learn the laws of God that are applicable for all times and apply them to our lives today. It was to show us our complicity in the evils that have come upon us and to show us that the way out of political bondage is through repentance and seeking God’s Kingdom. It was to show us that God’s anger is not arbitrary but is a just recompense for the injustice that we have done by whoring ourselves out to the Egyptians for “protection” and “welfare” and “education” and everything else that the false god-State attempts to provide in its attempted substitution of itself for God and His provision. It was to show us that, contrary to what all the statists of the world tell us, that trusting in men for protection and welfare leads to insecurity, unfreedom, and impoverishment — things we would know if we read our Bible rather than listened to all the crony intellectuals and philosophers of the world. The lessons of Scripture are meant to teach us that we get oppressed by men because we turn away from God as our King, not simply because we somehow get conquered by men who are assumed to have got in their positions through their might alone. The reason a people go into captivity is precisely because they pass off their responsibilities to serve their neighbors over to human rulers who they whore themselves out to as the men who they now task with distributing the bread and charity in a society — a slothful move that sets up a system of coveting their neighbors property, rather than carrying out the ministration of welfare directly and personally. 

The judgment of statist adultery as a wake-up call

If we had known our Bibles and listened to the Holy Spirit, we would know that setting up and supporting systems of human civil government is sinful and that sin is punishable, namely in the form of a people going into bondage to the false gods of the world who call themselves “governors.” If we obeyed God rather than men, we would know that seeking the political systems of men leads to subject citizenship under pagan kingdoms, and we would seek God’s Kingship and kingship at the exclusion of all other rival kingdoms. The judgment that comes in the form of political tyranny that exists as a curse sent by God for the sin of believing in these men is always meant as a harsh rebuke that might lead men to realize the urgent necessity to return to the Lord as their King and reject the false gods of the world. The evils of these statist systems, which came upon us for prostituting ourselves out to these men and their systems, is always meant to show us our role in our own bondage, so that we might repent and stop blaming others. In a world created by God and led by Him, we are never enslaved to States or freed from them apart from our own doings and His say. It is only sin that leads to bondage. It is the idolatry and lust for human rulers and the accompanying failure to seek God’s Kingdom and love our neighbors as ourselves that puts a people under divine judgment. When a people outsource their godly responsibilities that they have for their families and neighbors over to plunderous human governments, start thinking only about themselves and their own incomes and belongings, grow comfortable with the false prosperity in their artificially inflated societies, and feel they do not need to do the works of the Lord and form congregations for the welfare and aid of their people, they will then come under judgment for being a backward people that God no longer knows. 

“This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and complacent; they did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them, as you have seen” (Ezekiel 16:49-50). 

The essence of man’s prostitution to worldly kingdoms is that he sells himself, his family, and his neighbors into bondage rather than to serve them on his own and ensure that they live freely from the boot of worldly tyrants. Through birth certification, social security numbers used to obtain employment, sending your children off to government schools, marriage licenses that kids are born under, etc., a people whore themselves out to human rulers who use them as their property and tax-slaves. For lusting after the temporary benefits of Egyptian societies, a people agree to become slaves to pay for a covetous system that they take from themselves. A people who do not take care of their own people as God has commanded us, but pass off this responsibility to love and serve their neighbors over to Pharaohs and their Egyptian plunder systems that operate through tax-theft and violence, will find themselves living in bondage to men. And it will never just be the bondage of a quarter of their income. When men whore themselves out to statists, they should expect to face all the tyrannies known to come from human government throughout history. They face not just tax slavery, but the utter destruction of their whole society.

The evils that inevitably manifest in a statist society are God’s way of showing men that they have deviated from His law and chased after false gods, and the absolute imperative that they return to the Lord as their King and seek His Kingdom rather than the worldly kingdoms of men that make war upon them. Though men could have loved and served their neighbors freely and looked after each other’s welfare without outsourcing it to socialist institutions that rob their neighbors instead, now they must become utter tax slaves as the price to pay for walking away from God’s Kingdom. It is this evil statism, which we are witnessing today having gone down the same road as the men in the Bible who found themselves living in exile due to their idolatry, that serves as an eye opener to get men repent and realize that statism is sin, that it only works for the ruling elite who plunder them, and that it must be abandoned. It is the hard bondage of statism, where men suffer for their sin of whoring themselves out to man-made institutions by becoming tax-slaves who must now work (at least) twice as hard to make ends meet, that God uses to try and wake people up to the need to serve Him rather than men. The divine judgment for the sin of statism, which is effectively the evil “natural consequences” of setting these systems upon and lusting after them, is meant by God to open people’s ears and eyes to this sin and to cause them to turn back before their societies completely fall apart. Once statism leads to enough unbearable evils, such as police states, labor camps, and famines, God hopes that people will turn back to Him and see the need to seek liberty under God instead of “safety” under men. As God expects, “in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me” (Hosea 5:15). Indeed, the destruction of statist societies, which best represent the deviation from God’s natural order of liberty, are necessary events to steer people back to the righteous path again from the evil socialist road they have gone down by erecting a State for their welfare and protection. As the Bible commentator, Matthew Henry, once wrote, 

“The ruin of all who support idolatry, infidelity, and superstition, is needful for the revival of true godliness; and the threatening prophecies of Scripture yield comfort in this view. The great seat of antichristian tyranny, idolatry, and superstition, the persecutor of true Christians, is as certainly doomed to destruction as ancient Babylon. Then will vast multitudes mourn for sin, and seek the Lord” (Matthew Henry Commentary, Jer 51:1-58). 

The evils, as well as the collapse, of statism serve as a means of waking men up to the impossibility of life and liberty under human civil government. They teach men that only sin leads to bondage and that only repentance can get you out of it — because state rule is a curse upon men sent by God for the evil ideology that supports political rule, and we are relying on God’s blessing of our repentance to restore our society away from being dominated by men. The failure of statist societies to do all the things they claim to be capable of doing—to “protect and serve” communities, uphold “law and order,” and keep away the bad guys—teach men that they ought to stop breaking God’s law and start seeking His Kingdom if they want to avoid the bondage of Egypt, which comes upon any and every society that will not follow the Lord’s command to have no other gods than the Lord their God. 

Though God hates that men cheat on Him with the false kingdoms of this world and their actors, that men say “support the troops” and “back the blue” and “Trump 2024,” He is always waiting to see people abandon these false gods and return to Him as their Lord and King. 

“‘Return, O faithless Israel,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will no longer look on you with anger, for I am merciful,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God. You have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every green tree and have not obeyed My voice,’ declares the LORD. ‘Return, O faithless children,’ declares the LORD, ‘for I am your master, and I will take you—one from a city and two from a family—and bring you to Zion. Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding” (Jeremiah 3:12-15). 

God doesn’t take pleasure in allowing a people to destroy themselves by seeking human government to rule over them. It is just what must happen given the sin of idolizing men. It is meant as a corrective mechanism to set a deviant, adulterous people straight again. God allows disasters to come upon statist whores so that they might repent and realize that God is our only hope for salvation from men, as opposed to the mistaken statist belief that salvation from men rests in another State. God is not with a people who pray to false gods for protection, as men do when they vote and support presidencies, militaries, legislatures, supreme courts, police, and States in general. He is waiting for us to turn away from these evils, which unfortunately often requires great bondage to get men to realize their errors. 

“Then I will return to My place until they admit their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me” (Hosea 5:15).

God brings the harsh rebuke of being in tax bondage to satanic pedophiles upon anyone who believes they need a State to rule over them if they are to be “safe” and “free” from the “bad guys,” so that they might repent from this awful sin and realize that it is better to trust in the Lord than men.

“If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).  

Prayer

Lord, our Father in Heaven, as you already know, our people today have whored themselves out to the political rulers of this world who they have made into their gods and lovers. They have played the harlot with men and have prostituted themselves with a thousand different government agencies that they have praised as their lords, saviors, and protectors, denying You as our Savior. They have committed the grave adultery of statism and turned their backs on You to find protection and salvation in men. I pray that You will turn their hearts away from the systems of men and teach them how to follow You again, and You alone. Turn men away from the sins of statolatry, patriotism, adultery with presidents and congressmen, and bring them to repent of these awful errors they have committed in their neglect for Your word and wisdom. Turn back the judgment that we are due for our sin, break the chains of our captivity that we have brought upon ourselves, and restore us as free souls under Your rulership. Teach all men Your ways and convict them of their sin, that they might repent and seek the Kingdom of God.