“Thou shalt not steal…thou shalt not covet.” Exodus 20:15,17
America has recently voted itself, for all intent and purposes, into a deeper degree of socialism despite the Lord’s clear commandments prohibiting the very core of socialist philosophy. You may not take something from someone. Period. To force someone to give to charity is theft unless they do it of their own free will – no matter how noble your intent. Theft is theft. It’s even worse when it’s based on covetousness. The current crop of politicians in charge of the House, Senate and Presidency are all of one mind: government’s job is to take care of the poor and create “equality”. The question Christians should ask: from where did they get this mandate? It certainly didn’t come from the Lord. In fact, God expressly forbids the state from acting in any manner beyond the mandate He gave it, which is that of avenger of the victim.
To this end, the modern American state is a false god and the people who vote for it, support it, and clamor for evermore power to it, are guilty of the heinous sin of idolatry. The main authorities that God has established on earth are family, church and state. Each has clear, specific and defined roles. Neither is to cross the boundaries God has set, nor abnegate the responsibilities thereof, lest there be terrible consequences. The history of mankind is the history of sinful man, rejecting God’s moral order, reaping the dreadful consequences of this, and then trying to manipulate the levers of power in order to coverup his rebellion. In this way, all sin is both a rejection of God’s rightful authority and usurpation of some derivative aspect of it.
God defines the civil magistrate as “His avenger”, carrying out His wrath on the wrongdoer. He says this in the context of Romans 12 where the individual is told never to avenge himself but to leave it to the wrath of God. If we would abide by this principle, there would never have been the terrors (still ongoing) of 2020 and so many others. The state, to be clear, can only act as the avenger of the one who could have defended themselves in the first place. It’s this simple. Government and ethics are not nearly as complicated as Satan and our half-baked, vacuous education system would have us believe.
But this is all confused in our time because the Word of God has been jettisoned by the people and even, in many cases tragically, by the church itself. We’ve conflated the state with the church and family. We expect the state to pay for our education, our food, our retirement, medical care, and everything else under the sun. Every part of modern American life is regulated and touched by the idolatrous state and even professing Christians don’t realize the danger. They don’t realize their effrontery before the holy God because they don’t know the Scripture and, for the most part, the church has not bothered to tell them for fear of losing members. Such a church is no church at all; it’s a house of horrors, a well-dressed and politely organized synagogue of Satan.
For this reason, we need to say it: the vote for socialist Democrats is a grave sin because it’s a vote for slavery to the state. In all slave states there are great variances in the living standards. Some have it easier than others in regard to material comforts and the hours worked, yes. But slaves they are. Scripture says that “the Lord will provide” but socialism convinces you the state will.
In Exodus 16:2 we read: “And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, ‘Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” This is the spirit that animates sinful hearts. It prefers the stagnant air of slavery to the exhilarating winds of freedom in the Lord. To have this preference is to put your flag down…it’s to say that you believe the Lord isn’t capable of taking care of you. We marvel at the Israelites, having so recently crossed the Red Sea, the amazing powers of God’s miracles and judgments on Egypt still fresh in mind, grumbling against Him so soon. And we’re amazed that they would look to their enslaved past nostalgically. What an offense to God!
Ah, but how will you answer, America, not after God split a sea, but sacrificed His own Son for you, to a worse charge of ingratitude? Do you not see that socialism is but a slavery you vote yourself into for want of material security at the expense of your soul? After all, no man truly trusts the Lord for his salvation who doesn’t trust Him for his food and medical care. No man serves the Lord who will cut His commandments asunder. No man truly believes that “thou shall not steal” applies to him but not to the government he votes for. Do you really believe that the God who commanded us not to steal will turn a blind eye to our state doing it on our behalf? Are you so blind as to think that He who told us not to covet is happy when we vote for those who will tax the rich on our behalf? You would have less sin if you stormed the house of your rich neighbor yourself rather than hide behind the false morality and virtue of socialism. God is a holy God and His commandment is consistent with His holy character. If we know this, and meditate upon it, we’ll renounce this appalling moral arrogance.
The so-called Christian democrat/socialist is worse than the Israelite in the wilderness because he’s convinced himself that God saves souls but His rules and authority are devoid of power at the ballot box and in the halls of congress. The democrats, schools and media have convinced him that stealing and coveting are, in fact, virtues! He’s merely engaged in the most dangerous deceit of all – he truly thinks he can deceive the Lord!
But God grants no man or government the right to rewrite His moral law. Stealing is stealing, and it doesn’t matter if a majority of people vote for it. Coveting is idolatry. We are commanded: “…to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may live properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one (1 Thessalonians 4:11).” Ah, but what of the rich? God says, “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor (Leviticus 19:15).”
What an egregious sin it is to demand the property and labor of another man simply because he has more than you. What an abomination! Such is the grotesque madness of our time that professing Christians think it’s a moral thing for the state, on their behalf, to take up to half the income of another man simply because that man has more than he does. One doesn’t need an advanced degree to discern that “thou shalt not steal” means exactly that!
The lie has been advanced around the language of rights. Citizens are told by the unholy trinity (education, media and state) that somehow, someway, their rights are being violated if someone has more money than they do or if they can’t afford something. In this way, socialism appeals to our fleshly nature (through coveting) and advances to the act of theft through tax schemes.
If a grocer refused to sell me groceries because I had no money to pay with, he’s committed no crime. I don’t need to be avenged. If the state were to intrude at that point and force the grocer to give away his food for free, he (the state) would be acting as the criminal rather than as avenger. To “pass along” the fee, so to speak, by taxing my neighbors by force in order to pay the grocer, the state has merely made multiple victims rather than the one (the grocer). Such welfare tax schemes are the result of trying to conceal the open abuse of power and give it an appearance of moral rectitude. It would actually be less immoral to simply steal from the grocer rather than make all neighbors the indentured servants of the one who can’t pay for the groceries. Charity can’t be charity if it’s forced. It must be done by free individuals, to the glory of God, not the state, and through family and churches.
It’s the same with healthcare. A doctor or hospital isn’t committing a crime for not giving their services away, so no citizen can claim they need to be avenged if they can’t afford a medical service. Using the state to pay for medical care is, therefore, a sin as it brazenly redefines God’s moral order. Make no mistake about this. One’s so-called good intentions only make the matter worse because that also implies that God isn’t good. As we’ve already stated, it’s actually better for the sinner to be an open criminal – at least they do their works in darkness, trying to conceal the deed. The one who demands that the state enslave and steal for them in the name of morality, claims that evil is good, calls God a liar, challenges His authority, and claims He isn’t good enough to provide. The Lord says (2 Corinthians 9:7) that no one should be compelled to give, but give freely and joyfully.
With healthcare in particular, the issue of high cost is dealt with simply by getting all government entirely out of the matter. No product or service can possibly cost more than customers can pay without bankruptcy (for the provider) as a result. Only the modern American education system could produce so many people, purportedly educated, that can’t deduce the irrationality of the assertion that government must run healthcare or else no one can afford it. They rest this preposterous fallacy on the false premise that because healthcare is needed, it must be too expensive. But people will die faster from lack of food and water than for want of health services, so that argument is balderdash (a favorite word of mine courtesy of Neil Postman). Food and water are affordable even though they’re in greater demand. Free markets set the price. A doctor that no one can afford will soon be a bankrupt doctor.
Without the immoral and unbiblical involvement of the state, medical services will only cost what the free market can bear, just like with any other product or service. Not liking some of the ramifications of that is not, be sure, a moral argument. For example, some argue that in a truly free market, the rich will be able to afford better health services from doctors than the poor. But that’s not something we need vengeance for and it happens anyway – even under socialized medicine.
The initiation of force, through taxation and regulation, of our medical professionals, is a sinful practice. No citizen has a right to the time, labor, products or services of a neighbor. The biblical model is freedom for all, coercion of none. If we repent of this foolish notion of the godlike state, and turn to God in repentance for such idolatry, we will find, in obedience, the blessing of freedom. This blessing will result in more charities, stronger families, lower prices, and greater access to innovation. If we don’t, we’ll incur the just desserts of our sin, which are, in this case, crushing debt and ever escalating strife between citizens.
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