Many today are lulled into believing that every new state law, program, mandate, or department is progress. That the increase of government power is the path to justice, order, and peace. But history—and Scripture—warn us otherwise.

[Please read the first post about Leviathan]

The Nature of Growth and the Loss of Liberty

It’s easy to assume that all growth is good. Trees grow, children grow, economies grow. But so do tumors.

Government, when unchecked, does not remain a humble servant. It becomes a sprawling master.

Thomas Jefferson once warned, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” James Madison echoed that fear, believing that power must be “chained” by the Constitution, lest it swallow the rights of the people.

But their warnings were not just political theory. They were reflections of something far deeper—of what Scripture reveals about fallen man.

In 1 Samuel 8, Israel asked for a king. They wanted someone to lead them, fight their battles, and provide a sense of national strength. God granted their request—but not without a warning: that king would take their sons, their daughters, their land, their crops, their freedom. And they would cry out under his rule.

They wanted security. What they received was subjugation.

God warned them: “He will take… He will take… He will take.” And still they insisted.

This demand for security at the cost of liberty is not just Israel’s story—it’s ours too. It is a human pattern.

Today, the modern state says, “We will give… We will give…” But it takes just the same. It takes freedoms, families, futures—and cloaks its control in the name of compassion.

When we exchange personal responsibility for public control, liberty is always the cost.

How the Leviathan Expands

It begins subtly. A tax here. A permit there. A mandate wrapped in safety. A regulation packaged in compassion. Soon, the people no longer know what is theirs and what belongs to the State.

What starts as protection becomes policy. What begins as charity becomes coercion. And what once seemed like a servant becomes the master.

The Founders, though flawed, feared this deeply. They knew that if the government could dictate how men worship, speak, defend their homes, raise their children, and keep their earnings—it would eventually replace God in the hearts of the people.

This is not hyperbole. It is the very foundation of idolatry: putting ultimate trust in something that is not God.

And yet, Christians today increasingly place their trust in the government to do the work of the Church, the family, and the individual conscience. We look to Washington instead of the Word. To legislation instead of transformation. To Caesar instead of Christ.

The Pattern of Overreach

When a government becomes large enough to promise everything, it becomes powerful enough to take everything. Citizens exchange freedom for favors, self-responsibility for state dependency, and truth for propaganda.

History bears witness. These are just a few examples:

• Rome began as a republic, proud of its citizen-led Senate and civic virtue. But as power shifted to emperors and bread-and-circuses pacified the masses, liberty vanished. Rome didn’t just fall to invaders—it imploded under the weight of its own bloated state.
• The Soviet Union promised a worker’s paradise. In reality, it became a total surveillance state that silenced the church, jailed dissenters, and micromanaged life from cradle to grave. It disintegrated under economic failure, moral rot, and spiritual emptiness. When the system finally collapsed in 1991, it left behind ruined economies, broken families, and deep distrust in any notion of public power.
• Venezuela, once among the wealthiest nations in Latin America, followed the same pattern: nationalizing industries, expanding social programs, demonizing private enterprise. In just a few decades, it went from oil-rich prosperity to hyperinflation, food shortages, and mass migration—all driven by a government that grew far beyond its proper role.

These are not ancient stories. They are warnings.

True Liberty Requires Self-Government

The Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 5:1, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” That warning is both spiritual and civic.

Liberty is not license. It is the freedom to do what is right, not merely what we want. It is the power to live morally and responsibly without state coercion.

Here’s my working definition:

Liberty is the God-ordained freedom to live morally, protected by a restrained government and sustained by a virtuous people resisting immoral powers and tyranny.

Without virtue, liberty becomes chaos.

But without liberty, virtue becomes compulsion.

True freedom demands both inner discipline and outer boundaries. And that boundary is the rightful limit of government.

When citizens no longer govern themselves—when they abandon faith, family, and responsibility—the State rushes in to fill the void. That is not just a political change; it is a spiritual collapse.

The liberty that Scripture envisions is not libertinism. It is ordered freedom. It assumes moral people living under God, voluntarily doing what is good—because they are free to do so.

When that kind of freedom fades, government doesn’t just grow. It takes over.

Where We Are Now

We now live in a time where bureaucracies make rules with the force of law, without a single vote. Surveillance is normalized. Compliance is rewarded. Dissent is punished—just ask the pastors who kept churches open when the state said to close, or the parents labeled extremists for challenging school boards.

This is control disguised as care.

Christians should not be surprised. The Leviathan never sleeps. It only grows. But that’s why it must be resisted.

We must resist the temptation to let the state become provider, protector, or parent.

• The state is not the shepherd. Christ is.
• The state is not the moral compass. Scripture is.
• The state is not the builder of society. The family and the Church are.

When the people of God forget this, we become complicit in our own captivity.

To guard liberty, we must distrust unchecked power—no matter how benevolent it claims to be. And we must teach the next generation what it means to live free—not just as a political right, but as a sacred responsibility. Because when government grows, freedom always recedes.