[This is part 14 in an article series on Sin, Repentance, Salvation, and Revival. See part one. two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, twenty four]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

As much as we may pin the blame for much of the corrupted teachings of modern-day Christianity on the false churches and false pastors of these institutions who for thousands of years have worked to establish the official doctrines and interpretations of the Bible that are not to be contested by the lay reader whose hands they once kept from Scripture, we can never discount the ability of the idolatry and sin of individuals to corrupt the truth in their own reprobate minds and find themselves under strong delusions of their own doing. As much as the institutionalists may be responsible for originally formulating many of these distortions and dilutions of truth in the seminaries, churches, commentaries, and among the teachings of other supposedly learned men, it ultimately comes back to the willingness of individuals to accept the lies and the unwillingness to compare these teachings themselves against Scripture.

Once we see that the vast majority of professing Christian individuals today are actually statist idolaters who place their faith for protection, law, justice, and hence salvation in human government, it is not hard to see why it has become necessary for them to water down the truth. There are only two options for the man who buys into the political philosophy of statism and claims to be a Christian: renounce his wicked ideology, or renounce Christ as his King and stop taking His name in vain. Since these men cannot bring themselves to stop professing to be Christians, the only choice left is to dilute and distort all the essentially political ideas of Scripture into merely a spiritualized religion that has no bearing on the “political realm” of their earthly life — to turn the anarchistic gospel of the Kingdom of God into nothing more than some generic message that “Jesus dies for our sins” that doesn’t compel them to repent of their allegiance to worldly kingdoms and seek the Kingdom of God alone.

At the end of the day, much of the distortions of modern-day Christians, who have stripped the (anarchist) political element from God’s core message, have arisen because these men are worldly idolaters who do not have it in them to outright admit that they hate the Lord and have never known Him. They want to continue to profess the Lord’s name with their lips, claim they are God’s children, put on a front for other men by going to churches, and washing the outside of the cup as others look upon them, all while they remain practicing Romans who raise up rulers, cheer on their armies in war, and “back the blue” as they take their neighbors for a plunder or kidnap them on the orders of their masters.

As much as the institutions are needed to keep men fooled and to provide the official opinions for those who will run to them for answers, propaganda only ever really aids in supporting the sin and idolatry that are already within a man—in the same way that government propaganda about “the troops” and “our law enforcement” officers was never strictly necessary to get people to buy into their lies and lead men into idolatry. The Lord’s sheep hear His voice and do not fall prey to the lies of institutionalists to begin with. Those who know the truth of God’s anarchist word are where they are because they have God’s Law written on their hearts; those who can’t find this truth won’t be led to it even if you tied them to a chair and tortured them with it. Statists are men with reprobate minds whose hearts are too calloused to accept the truths of the word of God that call them to leave behind their Egyptian ways that have led them to whore themselves out to Pharaohs for protection, Assyrians for bread, and Romans for their law and justice.

Much of the distortions of God’s anarchist word came about because it was necessary for statist idolaters to pervert the truth if they wanted to keep calling themselves Christians while they lived and operated like Romans. The only way for men to continue in all their sins and idolatries while claiming to be Christians was thus to dilute all its major concepts into nothing more than some heavenly-minded spiritual idea of one’s soul going to heaven when they die, so that any unrepentant man could claim he had converted while he was still indistinguishable from any other Roman-statist of the world who didn’t even claim to be a Christian. If the deeper meanings and implications were drawn out, these men would have had to abandon the claim of Christ all together and just admit that they were ungodly statists who were far from the Lord who, in turn, was far from them. And so all the major concepts of Christianity, all which point toward men serving and seeking another literal Kingdom, have become virtually meaningless, to the point that this narrow door was illegitimately opened to the masses to claim to have entered. The concepts of sin, repentance, the gospel, and salvation, all have been turned into vague and meaningless “theological” ideas that men just loosely assent to in order to get to heaven. They hardly mean to turn away from the sins of human government and find liberation under God’s rule.

As a result of diluting every crucial Christian concept into some impotent and spiritualized idea that doesn’t compel a man to renounce his statist politics and adopt the anarchist politics of Jesus Christ, most all feel-good “Christians” today are just worldly statist idolaters who never even changed their ways upon professing the Lord Jesus Christ as their King and Savior, which they do in vain. Hence why most so-called Christians today are really just status quo Egyptians who hold the same evil ideas as all the unbelievers of the world, albeit professing the Lord’s name on top of it. Hence why all these false converts fight against the anarchist implications of scripture and Jesus’s message upon being presented with it.

Verbal professions and fruit 

If things were so simple as taking a man’s word for it that they were Christians, which is the thinking that has become possible in a world where the inherently political teachings of scripture have been replaced by vague and faint notions of faith in the Lord that do not require one to actually pledge allegiance to the Kingdom of God alone, then we could believe that anyone was a Christ-follower merely because they said they are. We could consider a man who drops bombs on children Christian just because he professes the Lord’s name with his lips or has a cross tattooed on his chest.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Most of the men who claim Christ’s name are actually false converts who, through their faith in the kingdoms of the world to provide for them, and through their refusal to actually seek God’s literal Kingdom on earth and serve other people, prove themselves to be men who have placed their faith in false gods to save them. This is why Jesus taught that we will know men by their fruit. It is not what a man says he believes, but what he actually does, that shows whether or not he is truly repentant and serving the Lord. Has he turned away from the statist ideology of the world to seek the Kingdom of God exclusively? Then he is one of God’s children. Does he still vote for human rulers and participate in the Babylonian kingdoms of the world? Is he still employed at the police department or the county jail? Then he is a child of the devil who is consumed by the darkness of the world that still blinds his eyes. 

Though one would think that statism and Christianity are compatible if they looked at the idolaters today who profess to the Lord’s name while wearing the clothing of the satanic pedofiles who they have made into their worldly kings, one finds in Scripture that God is actually an anarchist who hates statism, sees it as the primary sin and idolatry in men, and wants those who claim to be His followers to actually seek His literal Kingdom on earth. Though the false churches of the world teach that God gave us the United States government as the biggest blessing to humanity, one finds that all human civil government is actually of the same lineage as the Babylons, Egypts, and Romes of history, all which are enemies of God’s Kingdom order.

The abundance of false converts 

What we see when we observe the professing Christian scene today is that there are actually tens of millions of men who loosely profess to follow the Lord but who, in fact, do the opposite of what He says—namely by pledging their allegiance to the kingdoms of the world and working to further the political systems of man rather than the Kingdom of God. It is the statist ideology of the world, as well as the practices of actually raising up rulers, that men demonstrate themselves to be enemies of God. The foremost way that men show themselves to be sinner and rebels against God is by chasing after the political systems of the world and buying into its philosophy, which is directly antagonistic to the anarchist politics of Jesus Christ. It is by holding on to the statist ideology that proves the professing Christians today to, in fact, be Romans who not only don’t know the Lord, but stand as His enemies who work to further the kingdoms of the devil instead. 

When one looks around the professing Christian scene today, they mostly find statist idolaters who are no different from any other worldly person whose politics and worldview they share. We find that they are men who have a false understanding of most every Christian doctrine and have perverted it into something that is friendly to a worldview that has not come from the Lord but rather from their own idolatry and sin. Despite the majority of so‑called Christians who insist that the wicked systems of human government are divinely ordained by God for law and order, rather than precisely as a judgment against the evil belief in these systems, it is not difficult to see that the statist beliefs of nearly all who falsely profess Christ and their King are entirely out of step with the Lord and His Kingdom that is not of this world. 

Whether these men have been led astray by their own idolatry or deceived by the tens of thousands of false pastors and seminary professors within the world’s institutions, only a handful of Christians today have found the narrow road of God’s anarchist Kingdom that cannot be reached through the political means of man’s kingdoms. Most of those who claim “Christ is King” are, in practice, men who vote for human presidents to be their kings, congressmen to be their lawgivers, and robed-wizards to be their judges, when the Lord was to be all all these things for us (Isa 33:22). They are people who have bought into the lies and deceptions of the false teachers of the institutional church—from celebrity pastors to their local pulpit pimps—who work to keep men from the anti-statist heart of the Gospel of God’s Kingdom, which stands in direct opposition to the kingdoms of this world that these deceitful men labor to uphold through their dilutions, distortions, and false interpretations of Scripture that persuade men to believe God endorses the government of the devil, when in truth He calls us to turn away from these systems and seek His alone.

Living like citizens of God’s Kingdom

In more or less every way, the so‑called Christians of today stand almost entirely at odds with the true word of God, which opposes the kingdoms of the world that they have come to idolize, depend upon for goods and services, and serve through enlisting in their evil militaries or signing up to be one of Pharaoh’s law enforcers. Though the false Christians today tell us that God established human government as His ordained system for law and justice in society, which at worst has only slightly deviated from its allegedly “true purpose” of upholding law and order, the truth is that law, welfare, justice, and defense are weightier matters that were never meant to be handed over to false gods. They were always meant to be sustained by Christians themselves through a living network of charity and assistance — a literal Kingdom order providing bread and regular aid to those in need and keeping them from eating at the tables of the false benefactors of the world, who feed men with deceitful meats and bind every idolater who is willing to take a bite out of his neighbor, or who otherwise refuses to set the Lord’s table, into bondage to the fathers of world, who gladly take up a perverted form of welfare and public service in the slothfulness of the people to do it themselves. We were supposed to be doing all the things that idolaters tell us are the responsibility of human civil government, so that we might be saved by repenting of the sins inherent to the covetous practices of the kingdoms of the world and their systems of welfare that are based in taxation and bondage. But the deceptive and deceived men of modern Christianity have told us that the only role of religion was attending the Sunday rituals of their so-called churches while the weightier matters, which Jesus said was the role of the people themselves, were supposedly the domain of human civil government.

Though the false prophets of the so-called churches, as well as the slothful men sitting in their pews, want men believing that the extent of religion and worship is merely “believing in God” and attending their Sunday spectacles and tossing some money in the offering plate or tithing to their false churches, the truth is that God wants us to be acting like a Kingdom people who live entirely separate from the violent and plunderous political systems of the world — a people who are “in the world but not of it,” i.e., who are physically on earth and even in the geographic territory claimed by human rulers, but who are not actually citizens under their legal jurisdictions, which we have repented from being under by turning from our sins and seeking the liberation of the Lord from these men and their civic flesh pots. Though Christians today invite men to their false churches and kid themselves that they are actually serving God by attending these falsely-called worship services, the truth is that God hates the vain rituals that churchians partake in and wants men to actually seek the Kingdom of God with their neighbors by serving them. 

The cost of repentance 

Though there are many explanations we could give for how all the major concepts of Christianity became so watered-down today and produced so many false converts, whether because it’s the last resort of those who cling to their love of the world but won’t renounce the Lord in name or because our world is filled with many wicked statists who staff the churches and seminaries of the world and work for the devil to deceive men, perhaps a more another simple explanation may suffice for why men continue to walk in the ways of Egypt rather than the ways of the Lord: it pays, in our presently perverted world, to be an Egyptian and avoiding repenting for the sins that led to our bondage. Rather than a man questioning what it would profit him if he gains the whole world but loses his soul, many men reason that they may well try to gain the whole world and live large on the devil’s political plantation, rather than to suffer the poverty, persecution, or even imprisonments that come upon those who agitate others with the anarchistic Gospel of God’s Kingdom and evangelize their neighbors to seek it with them.

In short, it pays to be an Egyptian in the short run, and men reason that “when in Rome” they may as well do as the Romans and keep participating in all the sinful acts that have led to their bondage, such as voting for men to rule over their neighbors, earning an income at their neighbor’s expense, or taking the benefits of these authoritarians. The temptation of Egypt was always that Pharaoh has leeks and onions and that it would be better to be enslaved in Egypt than to seek the Kingdom of God in the desert and trust in the Lord’s provision.

Many men are thus willing to cave into the ways of the world in order to keep getting by or to provide for their families by keeping a boot on the necks of their neighbors, rather than labor to free them by calling them to gather as free souls under God. Thus men become practicing and active Egyptians to get by, rather than repentant anarchists who seek the Kingdom of God alone and turn away from the world. Joining in on the worldly practices of Babylons and Egypts, rather than coming out of them and avoiding their plagues, has always been enticing enough to keep sinners in an active and ongoing rebellion against the Kingdom of God. If you’re willing to kick in people’s teeth for Pharaoh as one of his law enforcement officers, you can earn a nice income, benefits, health insurance, become eligible for home loans, get a pension, and maybe even some boats, ATVs, and a 50-foot long RV. It appears to pay to become an outright, overt, and unashamed sinner in an Egyptian society, which you have played a part in making. But then the bill comes due. Egypt goes bust and you have to answer to God now.

Feel-good Christianity has thus come about because true repentance is costly. To actually turn back to the Lord as your King requires that men forsake all their idols, false gods, and all their worldly ways like voting, taking up employment in Caesar’s government, and accepting the benefits from these systems, which they aren’t ready to forsake. It means admitting to one’s errors, confessing their sins, acknowledging they have been wicked men, and giving up incomes they had before when they were workers of iniquity. To actually repent from one’s sins leads to the abolition of human government. And since this radical conclusion is too much for statist idolaters to accept, they need to water-down the concept of repentance into merely an idea of turning from some vague sins, rather than decidedly renouncing one’s wicked statist ideology and practices and seeking the Kingdom of God instead of raising up the false gods of human civil government. 

When more people finally come around to the inescapably anti-statist conclusions of the Gospel of God’s Kingdom, which they have made into some weak and vague notion of “believing the gospel” that for them isn’t a political message of another Kingdom, then they will finally be exposed as false converts who aren’t Christians at all. It will be seen that anyone who is not an anarchist is not even a Christian, and that to be a Christian means to seek another Kingdom that is not of this Egyptian and Roman world. It will be seen that the only sheep of the Shepherd are those who hear the Lord’s voice, calling His people out of Babylon and to do His words and seek the Kingdom of God. All it will be seen that all those who refuse to seek the Lord’s ways and who continue to dabble in the politics of Rome are wolves and goats who don’t obey the master’s call.  

Turning our hearts back to God

We have arrived where we are today—a people in Egyptian captivity—because the masses have been a bunch of statist idolaters who turned from the Lord and His ways. To ever get out of Egypt, we will have to evangelize these men in the Gospel of God’s Kingdom that liberates man from political bondage. For our social order to ever change from an authoritarian-statist one to a Christian anarchist one, we must reach the hearts and minds of the people with the word of God, expose their sins, and lead them to repentance. A change in the people themselves must always precede any change in the political order, which after all is a direct result of the political ideology of the people themselves, whether the wicked philosophy of statism or the righteous abolitionist ideology of Christian Anarchism. We cannot imagine that anarchism would ever be thrusted upon a people who are accustomed to human rulers and taking a bite out of their neighbors through the socialist welfare schemes of human government. These sinners would be right back at raising up rulers at their first chance again, which is already why they exist. If the people has already turned back to God’s Kingdom and His righteousness, human civil government wouldn’t even exist. That it does is but the proof that they haven’t done this yet and are still not ready.

This is not to say that anarchism is not the proper politics of the Christian, but that it would be working in reverse to think that men, with the wicked hearts and minds they have today for human government, are ready for it and could keep it that way if such systems were theoretically abolished overnight or suddenly destroyed in violent revolution. It has never been an argument against anarchism that it will take righteous and repentant men to seek it; the road has always been a narrow one that few will find. To make such considerations as these—the need for repentance to precede redemption from political slavery—is only grounded in the reality that men must first turn away from their adultery with man-made kingdoms and seek the Kingdom of God in order to find it. They must turn from their idolatry and covetousness and actually begin serving each other on their own again. They must become born again and learn to seek the ways of the Lord again rather than only ever finding the road of Egypt that they were told were told to never go down again.

The kingdoms of the world are only one of the main fruits of a sinful people who have turned away from God’s Law. They will never disappear so long as these evil-hearted people exist to uphold them. They will never abolish themselves, abdicate their power, be destroyed in revolution, or vanish over night. But they will be abolished as soon as men begin building the Kingdom of God which replaces them.