Trump and King Josiah: Laying an Axe to the Root of Idols

Statism is a religion, and those who worship the government are issuing a loud lament. Their false gods are burning, turning into ash and dust.

The tired comparison of Donald Trump to King David has its limits. After all, David was the only man who the Scripture says was “after God’s own heart.” And David was a foreshadow of Christ, a shepherd-king who slayed giants promising death'; Christ is the Shepherd-King who slayed death itself. But given that David also had committed seedy sins betraying his sinful heart, there’s certainly a comparison to Trump to be made. But, as I’ve opined in the past, Trump is more akin to Nebuchadnezzar, a king of a wicked country who learned to honor God and ultimately defend God’s people, whose own salvation was, at best, speculative.

But, there’s another comparison to be made, and we’ve seen the comparison in front of our eyes this week. I’ve not heard anyone else make this comparison, and I aspire at Insight to Incite to write things you might not have otherwise heard.

KING JOSIAH

Around 640 years before Christ, Judah had fallen into disrepair, thanks to God abandoning them to suffer the consequences of their idolatry. Their nation had been devastated by the reign of Assyria, which itself was now collapsing. Its cities lay in ruin, its temple had fallen apart, and its borders were weak. At eight years old, the grandson of Manasseh had assumed the throne, after his father, Amon, was assassinated.

But yet in his twenties, the young king started Judah on a path of national renewal and spiritual revival. In his renovations of the temple, workers discovered the one and only copy of the Book of the Law, long forgotten and abandoned. Upon reading it, Josiah rent his clothes and wept.

Josiah, one of the very few good king of Judah, immediately purged the temple of all its idols. He took the Asherah poles (trees) and artifacts dedicated to Ba’al, and the idol representing male prostitution, burned them, ground them into dust, and threw the ashes onto the graves of those who installed them to begin with.

And then, Josiah took all the priests of Israel - who had stood by and watched this sacrilege of the temple take place over the years - and forced them to watch him tear down idols. He tore down altars in the high places in the sacred groves, in Gerba and Beersheba, and left idols rent apart at the gate of the city of Joshua. He desecrated Topheth so that parents would no longer sacrifice their babies to Molech there. He burned down the idols outside the temple gates. The Bible says he took down altars placed by his grandfathers and “pulverized them into dust” and threw the dust into the Kidron Valley. He pulled down the altar at Bethel, and again burned it, and ground the remains into powder. And then, he exhumed the bones from the dead worshippers of these false gods, and he cremated them to desecrate the altars, that they could never be used again.

Josiah’s reforms were a bright spot in the very depressing history of Judah, a nation that only occasionally honored her God. But for this brief period of time, God was smiling upon it. And Josiah was a blessing to all those who lived during his tenure as king.

STATISM

Some have claimed that ‘Woke is a religion.’ I understand the sentiment, but ‘Woke’ is only a doctrine. This is like saying ‘Justification is a religion.’ It’s not, but it’s a part of one. The religion is called Statism.

Statism is a religious sect belonging to (not-so) Secular Humanism. It is the belief that, because no eternal God exists, man can assume his place as ruler of all things. Denying God’s throne in the heavens, men have set up for themselves thrones on Earth. And if each human is part divine, the thought goes, then collective humanity must be god indeed. The high-priest of this religion is government.

When unauthorized tourists took a stroll through the open doors of the U.S. capitol on January 6, 2021, the leftists all decried their “sacrilege on the sacred halls of the U.S. Capitol,” as though the crime that was committed, was the Abomination of Desolation. They acted as though Nero had come through the doors himself, and butchered a pig on their altar.

Of course, only a religion has sacred halls, or anything sacred at all. And only a religion can have sacrilege committed against it. They betrayed their religion, that which worships the State, or government. In this system of worship, Representatives are Bishops, and Senators, Arch-Bishops. Cabinet secretaries are Cardinals, and the President, Pope. Justices are priests, mediating the law of god, calling synods to settle matters of state religion; bureaucrats, ordained deacons.

And J6 protestors? Election-deniers? They are heretics, who must be set before the inquisition, tried, and imprisoned.

Their government is their god, and they assign to it divine attributes. Leftists believe the government can control the weather, as though through government policy they can adjust the Earth’s thermostat. They can prevent hurricanes, or even make it rain. They believe the government can cure disease, and give sacred honor to the CDC, reserved only for witch doctors and medicine men in tribal religions. They believe the government has the power to declare ‘male and female’ at their whim, and that it has the power to give or take life. Leftists believe the government is the arbiter of truth, and they insist on the capacity to control thoughts, and through censorship, make us mute like God made Zechariah. Leftist believe they can eradicate poverty, transfer wealth, and ease the consequence for sin through government regulation.

In the leftist mind, they do not pass laws, so much as pass them down like Moses on Sinai. Judicial rulings are not clarifications on law, but the issuing of divine decrees. And government accomplishes all of this through an army of scribes and clerics who are supported with tax dollars the same way the Levites were supported by tithe. Their priestly class of more than 3 million federal employees are all god’s hand and feet, to administer his/her will. Every department and agency is a temple or shrine memorializing their cult.

And Trump has come in, and within five shorts days, has primed his chainsaw with 91 octane, and is laying a blade to their sacred groves. Very quickly, he is grinding up their idols into dust, and scattering their ashes upon the graves of dead Democrats. He is, like Josiah, laying an axe to the root of Statism, and cutting their idols down, one…by…one.

AN AXE TO THE ROOT

The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire (Matthew 3:10)

In the last five days, Donald Trump has accomplished the following (and if you pay close attention, you’ll see a consistent theme in all of this):

• A regulatory freeze on bureaucrats enacting any new polices

• A freeze on hiring new federal bureaucrats (except the military); that includes *not* replacing those who quit

• Requiring federal bureaucrats to show up to work

• Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords

• Banning government participation in censorship

• Ending the weaponization of the D.O.J.

• Reinstating the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy

• Sending troops to secure the border

• Freeing ICE to follow U.S. immigration law, and detain and deport illegal aliens

• Placing a freeze on foreign aid (except to Israel and Egypt, but including Ukraine)

• Ending DEI in federal programs or those who contract with the government

• Designating cartels as terrorist organizations

• Withdrawing from the World Health Organization

• Pardoning political prisoners, including the J6 tourists and pro-life protestors

All of these - every last one - is an axe laid to the root of the government false gods. All of them will make the government smaller, scuttle programs, decrease the size of government, and weaken the power of the false gods.

CRYING IDOLATERS, WHOSE IDOLS ARE TURNED TO DUST

You can see the lamenting and wailing, the pearl-clutching and teeth-gnashing of the Statist idolaters everywhere you look. Social media is replete with cries and quandaries, wondering how life can go when their gods have been laid waste.

If we don’t have the Department of Education, who will educate our kids? If we don’t fund the CDC, who will cure our diseases? If we don’t have departments prioritize DEI, how will we have rights? If the EPA can’t hire, who will control the weather? If we don’t empower FEMA, who will fix our disasters? If we don’t give unlimited power to the FDA, who will feed us? If we don’t fund Planned Parenthood, who will accept our sacrifice, and give us blessings from handing over the fruit of our wombs?

Surely you can see what’s happening here.

Leftists stand, with a flame lit to their idols; a flame that won’t turn back, and except for when their idols turn to ash and there is nothing more to burn. They stand watching, as their idols are smoldering on the altars built with the bones of dead infants, quickly turning to dust, and they lament. They shriek, watching their deaf, dumb idols be pulverized into powder and sprinkled on the graves of Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter. Like Josiah, Trump is making the priestly caste stand there and watch, helplessly, as he burns down the mess of their making.

We must pray for the Statists, that not only they repent, but that they not despair; we must pray they understand that their false gods cannot help them now, any less, than they were already failing to help. Whether whole or dust, they do not work. They have no power. The idols are fake. Their gods are false. Their gods, as the scripture says, “are no gods at all.”

And let us pray for Donald Trump, that he not meet the same end as Josiah, who did not rule as long as he should have. Josiah, ultimately, ignored a warning from God and went into battle, and came out with arrows affixed to them that would not heal. So then, let us pray for those around the president, that they give godly counsel, and that he heed their call.

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