[This is part 24 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 two, twenty three, twenty four, twenty five]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

We have already established that the main rebellion against God by man has been his whoredom with the systems of human government of the world. These are the men who revolt against the Lord’s ways and choose to go their own way instead, which necessarily means to wander down the crooked road of statism. Whereas the Lord calls men to repent and seek the Kingdom of God and counsels them to stay on this narrow road, the statists of the world are the type of men spoken of in scripture who deviate from this straight path and pursue their own political ways. They are a “rebellious people who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices” (Isaiah 65:2). 

Rebellion and bondage 

Though we have analyzed the commonly used Hebrew words for rebellion in other articles and shown their connection to the political revolt of mankind, there are still a few more verses worthy of mention. Since the ideas of men necessarily precede their actions and provide them with the information needed to make decisions, it is only reasonable to say and see that the statist rebellion of men, whereby they sought human rulers to “protect and serve” them, can be traced back to the lack of faith in God that men had going on in their minds which originally made them believe Egyptians were necessary for their law, justice, protection, and bread. All States are raised up and defended on this basis: that God would not provide for those who sought His path instead. Thus, the statist revolt of men is not only the wicked deeds of voting men into office, but the very evil ideology itself which tells men that human rulers are “necessary” for social order. It was always this lack of faith in God’s provision for an obedient people that led them into the bondage of Egypts, Romes, and Americas, to be begin with and kept them there once they were already in captivity and too afraid to follow the Lord’s ways again.

When we look at the word marah, which is the root-word of the other words that get translated into “rebellion,” we see the sense in which the very statist thoughts of men—the mere belief that human governments are necessary for protection and bread—are also definitive of man’s rebellion against God. What God has always wanted to do for people was free them and feed them, yet they have always revolted against the divine anarchist order and sought these benefits and provisions from human kings and governors instead, only to find themselves in bondage to these socialist systems that eventually fail to keep any of their false promises to the people and turn out to be entirely bankrupt systems of debt and slavery. These types of men have always argued that “religion” was merely their “spiritual side,” and that the provision of law and justice was the earthly- or “political-domain” of human civil governments. Thus the psalmist says, recalling the episode of grumbling in the desert after God literally and physically saved the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt, 

“They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law. They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them. He worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan. He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall. He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night. He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas. He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers. But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High. They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved. They spoke against God, saying, ‘Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness? When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?’” (Psalm 78:10-20). 

Man’s great sin and rebellion against God has always been the longing to go down to Egypt and up to Assyria for bread and horses (i.e., for the alleged welfare, protection, law, justice, and order provided by human rulers and their officers), and the great judgment against a people has always been to discover that these statist disorders only pervert all these things once they are placed into the hands of human rulers. Statists are a people who “do not believe in God or rely on His salvation” (Psalm 78:22). They are a people who seek salvation from men, i.e., who elect presidents, root for soldiers, and cheer on police officers for their alleged peace, freedom, prosperity, safety, and bread. Statists are men who do not believe that “[God] satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things” (Psalm 107:9). They are men who claim instead that human governments are necessary for welfare, defense, and other so-called “public goods.”

For this lack of faith in God and trust in His anarchist order, men have always found themselves living as captives to Babylonians, Egyptians, Romans, and Americas, who they sinfully believed were indispensable to social order. For revolting against God’s wisdom, men found themselves living as the slaves of man-made political systems.

“Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and chains, because they rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High” (Psalm 107:10-11).

Those who will not listen to the call of God to seek His Kingdom alone and live as a people who are set apart from the kingdoms of the world will find themselves living on one giant tax plantation, under the constant threat that Pharaoh’s footmen will kick in their doors, kidnap their family members, or kill them. Such is the fate of all those who rebel against God’s anarchist natural order and institute or support governments of men. This was always the message of God: Men can either keep His commandments, which forbid men from raising up false gods or coveting their neighbor’s property through socialist and authoritarian systems of government, and thereby live freely under God from all the threats that are sure to come against a statist people; or they can turn away from God’s word, seek protection in the systems of human government, and subsequently find themselves as the subjects of these men who rule over them and destroy them. These are the choices confronting mankind, and men have hitherto chosen the latter: 

“‘If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best of the land. But if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.’ For the mouth of the LORD has spoken” (Isaiah 1:20). 

Judgment for the rebellion of statism 

To further make the case that men need to repent from the rebellion of statism, whereby men set up and support systems of human civil government in their sin, we should show that it was always necessarily wicked deeds such as seeking human kings, centralized armies, and systems of man-made law to order society that brought a people under judgment. It was never just for some generic, inherent sin in mankind that has made them the slaves of human governments, but rather the specific political rebellion of statists that has wound them up in captivity to men, as a curse from God upon a disobedient people as this. It was never just some non-specific sins that caused men to find themselves living as slaves to Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans, Americas, or all the other inherently wicked governments God has used to judge a people in history, but more specifically the political revolt of men who sought protection, aid, and salvation in human governments and their kings and armies. When God sent state rulers and their violent armies and officers upon a people, it was always as a form of divine justice against a statist people who placed their faith in these men, which is the very thing they need to turn back from. The invaders, enslavers, and occupiers always came upon a statist people who would not make the Lord alone their King, Rock, and Refuge. 

“Now I also pronounce judgments against them. Behold, he advances like the clouds, his chariots like the whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are ruined! Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts within you? For a voice resounds from Dan, proclaiming disaster from the hills of Ephraim. Warn the nations now! Proclaim to Jerusalem: ‘A besieging army comes from a distant land; they raise their voices against the cities of Judah. They surround her like men guarding a field, because she has rebelled against Me,’ declares the LORD. ‘Your ways and deeds have brought this upon you. This is your punishment; how bitter it is, because it pierces to the heart!’” (Jeremiah 4:12-18). 

It is statists of the world, whether those men who merely believe in human governments or those who strap on badges and boots to serve these systems, who God sees as rebels against His kingship, counsel, and wisdom. It is people who seek human kings, congressmen, tax-funded armies and police forces, etc., who God sees as living out of line with His Kingdom order. It is the men who whore themselves out to Pharaohs, their chariot operators, and their police officers for their supposed defense and safety that God can say:  

“For My people are fools; they have not known Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but they know not how to do good” (Jeremiah 4:22). 

The context in which God calls the people of Judah “hardened rebels” (Jeremiah 6:28) who are thus bound for judgment is clearly a statist one too, showing that it is never just some vague and undefined “sin” that leads to bondage, but always the concrete evils involved with ruling over other men or supporting these systems of human government and their systems of inevitably perverted justice and corruption of law. It was never for some undefined reasons that God made divine charges against a people, but always the explicit criticism that such people had fallen into very specific wicked deeds and acts which were intrinsic to the statist political systems they had raised up and supported. 

“This city must be punished; there is nothing but oppression in her midst. As a well gushes its water, so she pours out her evil. Violence and destruction resound in her; sickness and wounds are ever before Me. Be forewarned, O Jerusalem, or I will turn away from you; I will make you a desolation, a land without inhabitant” (Jeremiah 6:6-8). 

Repenting of the statist rebellion 

If mankind’s great rebellion against the kingship of the Lord has been his pursuit of the political systems of man, then one of the main things that men need to repent from is this wicked statist path they have gone down. Yet the problem is that the majority of professing Christians do not believe this is the case, largely because they are knee-deep in all the idolatry of the world and thus have a conflict of interest—they would have to admit their wrongdoing and give up their jobs—in confessing to this great evil and sin. As it stands today, the statists of the world are unrepentant men who not only deny that their ideological and political practices are sinful and evil, but also do not believe they need to repent from this wicked philosophy which upholds the idea that human rulers are “necessary” for law, justice, and social order itself. What remains to be carried out today is not only for men to realize that their own sins of idolatry and political plunder have led to their captivity to the Babylonians, who they are still praising as the men who “fight for our freedom” or “uphold law and order,” but for these statists to admit that they have partook in all this wicked idolatry for human government and that they now intend to turn from these evil ideas and deeds of theirs. They must begin to do as the prophet Daniel did in Babylonian captivity, and start owning up to their rebellion rather than continue in their prideful support of these evil systems of government. 

“O, Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of loving devotion to those who love Him and keep His commandments, we have sinned and done wrong. We have acted wickedly and rebelled. We have turned away from Your commandments and ordinances. We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, leaders, fathers, and all the people of the land. To You, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but this day we are covered with shame—the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, and all Israel near and far, in all the countries to which You have driven us because of our unfaithfulness to You. O LORD, we are covered with shame—our kings, our leaders, and our fathers—because we have sinned against You. To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, even though we have rebelled against Him and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God to walk in His laws, which He set before us through His servants the prophets” (Daniel 9:4-10). 

The repentance that men still need today will have to include a sincere and heartfelt acknowledgment that man’s great rebellion against God has always been the failure to trust in Him to provide for us in an anarchist society if we kept His ways and abided His commands, which inevitably led a faithless people to trust in human rulers to provide for them instead. It will have to include even a confession of the sins of statism on behalf of others who still refuse to repent or who have already come and gone in this life without ever owning up to their errors.

“We have sinned like our fathers; we have done wrong and acted wickedly. Our fathers in Egypt did not grasp Your wonders or remember Your abundant kindness; but they rebelled by the sea, there at the Red Sea” (Psalm 106:6-7). 

Men will have to stop seeking salvation in human government before God will save them, because the very thing that God saves men from is human rulers! 

“He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up; He led them through the depths as through a desert. He saved them from the hand that hated them; He redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. The waters covered their foes; not one of them remained. Then they believed His promises and sang His praise” (Psalm 106:9-12). 

Proud statists need to get humbled 

What we still await today is for men to look at themselves and their ideas and realize that their statist philosophy, which says that human governments are at the very least a “necessary evil” if not a positive good for mankind, has been a rebellious one that has led to their judgment at the hand of God. Yet we have not arrived at this point of humility among a proud bunch of statists who still patriotically support the presidents, soldiers, and police who enslave them for their sins, but whom they rebelliously believe bring them peace, freedom, and order. What we need today is the humility of the Biblical prophets, who saw that their own evildoings were the cause of their bondage and judgment. 

“Let us examine and test our ways, and turn back to the LORD. Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven: ‘We have sinned and rebelled; You have not forgiven’” (Lamentations 3:40-42). 

What we need today is for all the statist sinners of the world, i.e., the men who believe that human governments exist to protect “our freedom” and “protect and serve” them, to finally see that these systems are a judgment against them for their evil beliefs and practices — that statism is mankind’s great rebellion against God that has led to man’s bondage under the kingdoms of the world and separated them from God’s love and care.  

“You have covered Yourself in anger and pursued us; You have killed without pity. You have covered Yourself with a cloud that no prayer can pass through. You have made us scum and refuse among the nations. All our enemies open their mouths against us. Panic and pitfall have come upon us—devastation and destruction” (Lamentations 3:43-47). 

Any true repentance will have to entail men turning away from their dual allegiances between the Lord and Caesar, the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of man, “God and country,” and all other delusions that lead them to believe the governments of the devil are in any way compatible or reconcilable with God’s anarchistic Kingdom. Any true repentance will have to mean that all those who currently fly the flags of human governments will “remove your detestable idols from My sight” and that all those who hold to the contradictory idea of “God and country” will “no longer waver” (Jeremiah 4:1). 

Though the statist idolaters, in their reprobate minds, do not like to be rebuked for the sins of statolatry that stand as the primary manifestation of man’s rebellion against God and His Kingdom, there is truly no greater work for men to be on about than this great commission of calling men to repent of their statism and seek the Kingdom of God. This is the job of the prophets of God today: to rebuke the idolatry of statism and to walk in the footsteps of the Biblical prophets who called men to do the same: “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus declares the Lord GOD: Repent and turn away from your idols’” (Ezekiel 14:6). The statists of the world who have embraced its political ideology need to change their heart and turn back to the Lord’s ways. For not only are their deeds wicked, but their very ideology that upholds the existence of human rulers even in theory is a wicked one. Thus, the Biblical prophets had said, “Let the wicked man forsake his own way and the unrighteous man his own thoughts” (Isaiah 55:7). 

Will you abandon your statist ideology and wicked works of furthering the kingdoms of the world today, all which are of the devil? Or will you remain a rebel of God and His anarchistic Kingdom order?