[This is part 23 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, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty one, twenty two, twenty four, twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine, thirty, thirty one, thirty two, thirty three, thirty four, thirty five]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

Despite the pursuit of human government being among the central sins in the Bible and in our world today, it seldom occurs to the average professing Christian that statism—the belief in and pursuit of human rulers and their political systems—represents the foremost rebellion of mankind against God and His Kingdom, and stands among the primary sins of men that invite judgment upon a people and turn God away from them. Despite this message permeating the pages of Scripture, which itself is nothing less than an anarchist manifesto detailing the history of man’s statist revolt against God and His anarchistic Kingdom order, very few people who count themselves Christians today have grasped that mankind’s greatest sin against God has been a political one, that the chief rebellion of mankind has always been one where statist idolaters who believe in the existence of human civil government (much less the wicked apologia they make for all its manifest evils) have eagerly pursued human rulers to stand above them and order their societies through the violence of these men, who rule as substitute gods for the Lord our God, whom these systems, their rulers, and their supporters attempt to replace.

Not only does it not occur to the vast majority of professing Christians that the statist ideology and practices of men, such as believing in human government or electing men to political office, stand among the main wicked works by which a people rebel against God and His anarchistic Kingdom order, but they actively fight against this conclusion and defend the governments of the devil as institutions that have been supposedly “ordained” by God for the provision of law, justice, and order in society, rather than as a curse and judgment that comes in the form of a great corruption and perversion of law and justice that serve as a punishment for their own sins of believing in these systems and their wicked works of establishing and advancing them.

This defense of the devil’s governments among false Christians today comes in no small part because they actively and unashamedly partake in this revolt. They somehow imagine that there is a place for “presidents,” congressmen,” and Pharaoh’s jackboots in the Kingdom of God and even argue that it is everyone’s “civic duty” to vote them into office and stand behind them with slogans like “support our troops” and “back the blue.” They defend these wicked political systems as “God-ordained,” when in fact they are raised up by sinners as one of the clearest examples of man’s revolt against God. They say that God gave us human government as our means of having law and justice in society, rather than seeing that all human governments are raised up by men in their rebellion against God, who only allows them to exist as a concession to a sinful people as this (1 Sam 8:9), knowing they invariably turn evil and serve as a judgment against them (1 Sam 8:9-18).

Though they call themselves followers of Jesus Christ and even say, “Christ is King,” the majority of professing Christians in America are in fact statist idolaters, making them the very people who have long lived in rebellion against God. They are statists who are friends of the world and its political systems, which Scripture says makes men enemies of God. Despite their claims to Christianity, they remain among the chief rebels against God’s Kingdom.

Though the false converts of our time will naturally object to these conclusions as idolaters themselves who profess the Lord’s name with their lips while their feet run to evil and their hearts long to be ruled by men, the foremost rebellion of men against God has always been a political one, where the people of the world have whored themselves out to the human rulers to save them instead of trusting in God alone to provide for all their needs. The great revolt against God by man has always been a statist one, where men sinfully sought peace, security, prosperity, and freedom through presidents, soldiers, police officers, and congressmen, rather than to seek freedom from these men through the Lord our God. It has always been men begging for false gods (i.e., human rulers) to protect, serve, and save them that stands as the foremost example of man’s rejection of the Lord as their only King (1 Sam 8:6-7), who in turn abandons these statist rebels and leaves them to cry out to Him at a point where He no longer hears their prayers (1 Sam 8:18). 

Furthermore, it has always been the statist revolt of mankind—from their ideological belief in human government to the evil deeds of raising them up, supporting them, or joining forces with them—that men have separated themselves from God and chosen to go their own way, which they end up eating the fruit thereof and being filled with their own devices (Proverbs 1:31). It has always been man’s quest to be ruled by men that they reject the Lord as their King and place their faith in men to provide for their needs instead. It has always been man’s faith in presidents, congressmen, and their soldiers and police, to “save the country” and “fight for our freedom,” that men tell the Lord that they reject His gospel to buy into the false gospels of false gods instead. It has always been man’s prostitution with the kingdoms of the world that they show the Lord they reject His salvation and seek to find it in human rulers instead. It always man’s political whoredom with the governments of the devil that make them a people who have separated themselves from God and gone down the road to Egypt instead.

The statist departure from God 

The Hebrew word used for “rebelling” in Isaiah 1:5 is סָרָה (Strong’s H5627), which gets transliterated as sarah (pronounced sah-rah’), is yet another word that gets translated into rebellion or rebelling. It is defined as “turning aside, defection, apostasy, withdrawal.” It comes from the more prevalent root-word sur (Strong’s H5493), which also expresses the idea of turning aside or departing. Another word (transliterated) expressing the idea of “to turn away” is sarar (Strong’s H5637). The prophet Hosea uses it in the same way Isaiah declared the rulers in Judah to be rebels, to say that all the princes of Gigal were rebellious (Hos 9:15).

The main people who we might say have defected from the path given to men by God—who have departed from the true faith and have turned aside to their own ways rather than the Lord’s ways—are the statists of the world, who set up and support systems of human civil government to order their societies for them, only to find themselves living as captives in a wholly backward, corrupt, and oppressive society. When the prophets use this word for “turning away,” it is clear that such a departure from God’s ways is one that is occurring in a statist political setting, i.e., among people who have outsourced their law, justice, and responsibility in general to human rulers and who are now experiencing first-hand the consequences of their own sins. We see this in the direct, surrounding context of the passage alone. 

“For our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions are indeed with us, and we know our iniquities: rebelling and denying the LORD, turning away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering lies from the heart. So justice is turned away, and righteousness stands at a distance. For truth has stumbled in the public square, and honesty cannot enter. Truth is missing, and whoever turns from evil becomes prey” (Isaiah 59:12-15). 

Reviewing the verses that precede these passages on rebellion and “turning away” from God, it is undeniably clear that the evils of men that God saw as a departure from His ways were all the violence and plunder that are intrinsic to the ideology of statism and the practice of instituting such systems of human rule that only legalize these wicked deeds and legitimize them in the eyes of the people. 

“Their deeds are sinful deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands. Their feet run to evil; they are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are sinful thoughts; ruin and destruction lie in their wake. The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their tracks. They have turned them into crooked paths; no one who treads on them will know peace” (Isaiah 59:6-8)

It is always the sins and evils that are inseparable from the statist political practices of the world that define a people as rebels against God and His Kingdom and which, therefore, mark them for judgment from the Most High. It always a people who walk on the crooked, statist road of the world of setting up human rulers and trusting in them for “law and order” who God sees as a people as living in an active and ongoing revolt against Him and who responds in kind by abandoning these statist rebels and leaving them to be filled with their own schemes and destroyed by their own inventions. 

Statist’s separation from God 

Though many who call themselves Christians today would probably not like the idea of men committing acts that separate themselves from God and turn God away from man, in many places of Scripture we find this idea of God closing His ears to the prayers of men or otherwise hiding away from them upon witnessing specific abhorrent acts of theirs that in His eyes prove them to be deserving of destruction, as in the very early days of creation when God saw that the earth was filled with violence and “repented” that He has made man. Though most so-called Christians today believe that God is always with them even as they live like Romans in open defiance of His ways, in many places of Scripture we find that God actually abandons a people (if only temporarily) who abandon Him — that God allows wicked statists to reap what they have sown and feel the pain of having chosen to go their own way, which men do namely by turning toward the false gods of human governments to protect, serve, and save them. Furthermore, if any of them would even go this far, they would then refuse to believe that it is their own political acts that are sinful and rebellious and behind God’s abandonment of a people, who have only done the same to Him in their quest for human rulers. 

Contrary to the thinking of most professing Christians today, who don’t think that their love of Egypt is characteristic of man’s rebellion to God or that there are any evil deeds that could cause God to forget about them, the ideas and acts of statism are sinful and cause a rift between God and man. The main rebellion of man that turns God away from men and their societies was never merely a generic and vague turning from God by some undefined “sinners,” but has always been one where men have turned from God by turning toward human rulers to provide for them instead. It was always through going after the statist ways of the world that God could say a people “have turned their backs to Me and not their faces” (Jeremiah 33:22). It was through the wicked works and evil deeds inherent to the pursuit of worldly political systems that men have deliberately separated themselves from God, who has responded likewise by leaving behind men to fall under a slavery of their own doing. It has always been the acts of violence and plunder that are tied to these man-made political systems that define man’s great rebellion against God. It has always been the statist ideas and practices of men that have invited God’s judgment upon a people. It has always been in the pursuit of human rulers that men tell God they prefer to seek salvation in men instead. 

“Your iniquities have diverted these from you; your sins have deprived you of My bounty. For among My people are wicked men; they watch like fowlers lying in wait; they set a trap to catch men. Like cages full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit. Therefore they have become powerful and rich. They have grown fat and sleek, and have excelled in the deeds of the wicked. They have not taken up the cause of the fatherless, that they might prosper; nor have they defended the rights of the needy. Should I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD. ‘Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?’” (Jeremiah 5:25-29). 

All the Biblical prophets preached the same message: it has always been the wicked acts that are inextricably bound-up with the statist ideology and practices of the world that men have separated themselves from God, declined His offers of salvation, and shown Him that they don’t believe He would answer their prayers to deliver them and free them—if only they would go with the Lord as their King rather than to go with men.

“Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear. For your hands are stained with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters injustice. No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case honestly. They rely on empty pleas; they tell lies; they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity” (Isaiah 59:1-4). 

Though modern Christians like to act as if their deeds are insignificant or irrelevant to how God sees a people, Scripture has it that the wicked works of a statist people have always been the acts which invite God’s judgment upon them, that it has always been such deeds as these that God can say a people “provoke Me to anger by the works of their hands” (Jeremiah 32:30) and “arouse my wrath” (Jeremiah 32:31). More pertinently, the wicked deeds of statism—supporting human governments rather than seeking God’s Kingdom—are what always lead God to forget about a people too, who have only shown through their own political ways that they have forgotten about Him and trusted in false gods for their salvation. The judgments that God has always brought against the statist rebels of our world, throughout scripture and history, have always been carried out not only so that men might make a connection between their own sin and judgement, but also so that they will realize that God turns away from people who turn away from Him. 

“And the nations will know that the house of Israel went into exile for their iniquity, because they were unfaithful to Me. So I hid My face from them and delivered them into the hands of their enemies, so that they all fell by the sword. I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and transgressions, and I hid My face from them” (Ezekiel 39:23-24). 

It is sin that leads to bondage and which leads God to abandon a people to eat the wicked fruit (government evils) of their own wicked sowing (idolatry for human government). If men want to rebel against God by walking down the statist road, then God reluctantly concedes and gives these people over to their own desires, which necessarily means the boots and bayonets of the State coming against them. 

The prayers of the wicked 

It is the wicked thoughts and acts of a statist people, whether the mere belief in human rulers to supporting their existence or joining forces with them, that turns God’s eyes and ears away from a people, except to bring judgment upon them. As much as the wicked statists of the world like to imagine that they have always God on their side, the fact of the matter is that God does not even hear their prayers. “The LORD is far from the wicked, but He hears the prayer of the righteous” (Proverbs 15:29). 

God will never hear the prayers of statist idolaters who seek peace, protection, or justice and law, from presidents, soldiers, or police officers, because all of these men are wicked and separate themselves from God over these very beliefs and practices of theirs. For the evils inherent to the ideology and practices of statists, God closes His ears to men and leaves them to walk headlong into their own destruction that they have brought upon themselves.

“Then they will cry out to the LORD, but He will not answer them. At that time He will hide His face from them because of the evil they have done” (Micah 3:4).

Though all these statist idolaters who call themselves Christians today believe that the Lord always has an ear out for them and that there is nothing they can do to turn God away from them, so long as they profess His name with their lips as they walk in the political ways of the world, the fact is that their violent political philosophy—the ideology that human rulers should exist—-and their evil acts of supporting these men for office or joining them with boots and badges on proves them to be rebels who God doesn’t even listen to anymore. 

“When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood” (Isaiah 1:15). 

It is the statists of the world, through their adultery with human governments and rulers, who have built a wall between themselves and God and have had God on them only in the sense that they have found themselves under divine judgment for their sin. His salvation, however, has been far off for a people who seek salvation through the very men whom God would save us from if only they would repent of this great evil. Statists have always been the rebels against the Kingdom of God throughout the history of the earth and who have likewise incited God to turn against them. The very people who God always saw as men who were living in active rebellion against His ways were a statist people who erected systems of violence and plunder in their revolt against God’s natural, anarchist society. It was always upon a political scene that the prophets could declare that “the godly man has perished from the earth; there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; they hunt one another with a net” (Micah 7:2).

As much as Christians today act as if their deeds and works do not matter, to the point that they believe their active and ongoing evils are forgiven on a mere profession of faith or belief in God, scripture shows that it is the very wicked works of men, like setting up and supporting systems of human government, that men turn away from God and which conversely cause God to turn away from men. Though the statist idolaters who call themselves Christians today think that God hears their prayers, the divinely inspired Biblical authors always knew that any wickedness on their part would mean that God would shut His ears to them.

“If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But God has surely heard; He has attended to the sound of my prayer” (Psalm 66:18-19).

Of course, we read that “the LORD is near to all who call on Him, to all who call out to Him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him; He hears their cry and saves them” (Psalm 145:18-19). Yet statists are people who do not fear the Lord but fear men instead. They are people who call upon men to save them. They are people who are seeking defense, protection, peace, prosperity, law, and order from human governments and their heads of state, soldiers, and officers. God has no need to listen to any people who turn toward human kings and their systems of government to protect them; they are men who pray to false gods to save them. Hence why He told the Israelites, after warning of the judgment it would mean for them to do so, that “when that day comes, you will beg for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you on that day” (1 Samuel 8:18). 

God has no need to attend to the prayers of men who pray to human rulers to save them. For all He cares, statists can go crying back to their kings for help once finding themselves in trouble under their rule. 

“Where is your king now to save you in all your cities, and the rulers to whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princes’?” (Hosea 13:10). 

God has no reason to tend to the prayers of a statist people anymore, because statists are rebels who reject the Lord’s salvation and seek to find it in men and their systems of government.

“But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your troubles and afflictions, and you have said to Him, ‘No, set a king over us’” (1 Samuel 10:19). 

Statists are sinners who have violated God’s Law by raising up false gods to rule over them in His place. Therefore, God has no need to even hear their prayers. “Whoever turns his ear away from hearing the law, even his prayer is detestable” (Proverbs 28:9).

As much as modern Christians today essentially think that God owes them His ear merely because they say they believe in Him, all while they think and act like Romans, Scripture is much more harsh on this hope than most men would think.  

The need to repent 

As we see, God has no need to listen to those who continue down the rebellious statist path of the world; they have chosen to go outside of His care and have thus turned God away from themselves. These men need to repent and confess their sins if they want God to turn back to them. As it stands, statists are unrepentant, ungodly men who can be left to reap what they have sown as judgment for their own evildoing. They are people who have shown that they do not know the Lord and have never sought His ways. They are evil and unrepentant men who have not yet confessed nor seen that a horse is a vain hope for salvation (Psalm 33:17), that they need God’s aid against the enemy because the help of man is worthless (Psalm 60:11), or that they must not put their trust in princes who cannot save (Psalm 146:3). Rather, statists are people who live in active rebellion against the words, wisdom, and counsel of the Lord, and can continue to live under all the evils that have resulted from their rejection of God’s anarchy and their refusal to pray to God rather than men in times of trouble. 

As much as professing Christians today think that they should be saved merely from professing the Lord’s name, all while refusing to turn from their wicked ways like whoring themselves out to human governments and making presidents into their kings and congressmen into their gods, God has never had any trouble abandoning men who have fallen into idolatry and who have placed their faith in false gods to save them. 

“On that day My anger will burn against them, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them, so that they will be consumed, and many troubles and afflictions will befall them.  On that day they will say, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is no longer with us?’ And on that day I will surely hide My face because of all the evil they have done by turning to other gods” (Deuteronomy 31:17-18). 

Though modern Christians think they do not actually need to turn away from the wicked path of the world, because they imagine that mere belief or professions of faith are sufficient to count themselves as a follower of Christ, scripture has it that wicked works invite judgment upon men and that God commands men to turn away from the path of violence and evil that is inherently associated with human government. Far from God looking favorably upon evil statists just because they profess His name or attend the false churches of the world, we read instead that “the face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to wipe out all memory of them from the earth” (Psalm 34:16). This same concept is continued in the New Testament, too, where we read that “the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are inclined to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil” (1 Peter 3:12). 

Turning back to the Lord 

For all the warnings of judgment and consequences that are to follow for men who turn their backs on God by turning toward the kingdoms of the world, we can never fail to tell men of the great hope that awaits those who will do the opposite and begin to repent for the sins that have led to their bondage. Alongside every story of judgment in the Bible there is a redemption story. All the books of the prophets contain a back-and-forth theme of men falling into sin, being judged, crying out to the Lord in repentance, and being redeemed again. Lest we sound like we are only concerned with the judgment part, the real point of warning of the judgments that follow sin is to lead men to repent for their ways and turn back to God. For our Lord is not just a God of judgment, but a God of mercy and compassion. Just as quickly as God will turn His back on statist rebels who turn their backs on Him, so He will save and deliver those who repent from their wicked ways. Though professing Christians today do not like the idea of either God abandoning a people who abandon Him or the idea that God requires us to repent for His willingness to turn back to us, both of these ideas have a firm foundation in Scripture. “Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you” (Zechariah 1:3).

God is waiting for men to turn back to Him today. Will you return to the Lord today, repent of your statist rebellion, and begin seeking God’s Kingdom at the exclusion and abandonment of your worldly political course? Or will you continue begging for men to save you and living as a slave in the bondage of Egypt for your sin?