My commentary on the Political Cesspool radio show. The subject was…”Why is the ‘Conservative’ church and clergy so adamantly opposed to Christian Nationalism.'”
https://www.thepoliticalcesspool.org/radio-show-hour-2-2026-08-29/
God Incomparable Micah 7:18f
Who is a God like You,
Pardoning iniquity
And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?
He does not retain His anger forever,
Because He delights in mercy.[j]
19 He will again have compassion on us,
And will subdue our iniquities.
You will cast all [k]our sins
Into the depths of the sea.
20 You will give truth to Jacob
And [l]mercy to Abraham,
Which You have sworn to our fathers
From days of old.
Micah 7:18f
Before we delve into this passage we must first give some context of the book of Micah to help these verses make sense.
We must understand that Micah is largely a book wherein God brings a covenant lawsuit against His people. They have violated covenant and God in Micah promises judgment. We know this from the outset,
1:3 For behold the Lord is coming out of His place;
He will come down
And tread on the high places of the earth
The Mountains will melt under Him,
And the valleys will split
Like wax before fire,
Like waters pouring down a steep place
All this is for the transgression of Jacob
And for the sins of Israel
Throughout the book the sins of Israel over which God is wroth are mentioned,
Sorcery – 5:12-14
Fraud in commerce – 6:10-11
Rich oppressing the poor – 2:1-5
Wicked Leadership – 3
God makes His case against Judah. This perhaps most expressly seen in Ch. 6. As you listen remember Micah is a book where God is bringing a covenant lawsuit against Judah.
6 Hear ye now what the Lord saith; Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. 2 Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord‘s controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth: for the Lord hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel. 3 O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me. 4 For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
And as a result of their wickedness God says He is going to visit them with covenant curses,
13 “Therefore I will also make you sick by striking you,
By making you desolate because of your sins.
14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied;
[e]Hunger shall be in your midst.
You may carry some away,[f] but shall not save them;
And what you do rescue I will give over to the sword.
15 “You shall sow, but not reap;
You shall tread the olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;
And make sweet wine, but not drink wine.
16 For the statutes of Omri are kept;
All the works of Ahab’s house are done;
And you walk in their counsels,
That I may make you a [g]desolation,
And your inhabitants a hissing.
Therefore you shall bear the reproach of [h]My people.”
A good deal more could be said about the context but this sets us up to appreciate the passage we are considering today.
In Chapter 7 starting w/ vs. 8 we see a new note struck.
In vs. 8-10 Judah confesses and repents
In vs. 11-13 Micah promises a coming day when Israel again will be salvation to a world under judgment
In vs. 14-15 Micah prays that God would have mercy on Judah, God replies
In vs. 16-17 God promises to judge His enemy nations
And then we hit this crescendo touching the character of God in vs. 18-20
Throughout the book we see that judgment begins in the household of God. The book is a covenant lawsuit bring charges against faithless Judah. This demonstrates, as Sam taught last week, that God is a God of justice. God will not be mocked. As a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
In vs. 18-20 though we learn that the God’s last word to His repentant people is mercy. Tears may last through the night but joy cometh in the morning as the Psalmist says.
Micah has spoken of a coming day when God’s righteousness will be seen. He has predicted the birthplace of the coming Messiah (5:2). Sprinkled throughout the book are reminders that God will not completely abandon His people and will retain a remnant. (2:12, 4:7, 5:3,).
Now here God’s covenant hesed (Faithfulness) is brought front and center.
I.) First We Find God’s Character Stated
“Who is a God like You.”
This may be a play on Micah’s name which literally means, “Who is like Jehovah.”
This is a rhetorical question that is requiring an answer that says “no one.”
Micah is making the point that God is incomparable. This is a point that the Scriptures return to over and over again.
Psa 86:8 O Lord, there is none like You among the gods,…
Exo 15:11 Who among the gods is like You, O LORD? Who is like You…
Psalm 71:19 Your righteousness reaches to the heavens, O God, You who have done great things. Who, O God, is like You?
Isaiah 40:18 To whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare to Him?
Constantly we are reminded in Micah and elsewhere that our God is distinct and unique from all of His creation. This truth, that no one is like God would have struck home in the ancient world where polytheism was the norm. Constant were the attempts to define God in terms of the false gods all around them.
We also live in a increasingly polytheistic climate. The gods are increasingly as thick as flies in our culture. This is because multi-culturalism necessitates multi-faithism. We need to be reminded,
“Who is God like you.”
This attribute of God being incomparable reminds us also of the creator creature distinct. In many religions there is this idea that man and god share in the same being with the only difference obtaining that God has more being than man has. This is called “chain of being” thinking. But this passage and passages like it teach that God is one of a kind. His uniqueness applies to all His attributes. We could ask “Who is like God when it comes to Justice?” or “Who is like God when it comes to patience,” or “Who is like God when it comes to His jealousy for His people?”
In this little statement, “Who is God like you,” lies an ocean of depth in terms of the character of God.
We spend so little time thinking about how superior God is to us and that lack of considering God’s superiority leads to our own demise.
One more thing here… because we think God is without comparison we have no respect for the false gods that we come across. It is not that we intend to be rude by having no respect for the false gods. It is just that we know their pretensions to be spoken of as gods. Because God is without comparison we take umbrage at the religions that would suggest their puny god has anything to do with God. God’s character is w/o parallel and we rightly resent any gods trying to draw a parallel with the God of the Bible.
II.) Second this Incomparable Quality of God is Spoken of in a Precise Category.
Micah says “Who is a God like You,” and applies it directly to the fact that God pardon’s iniquity and passes over the transgression of His heritage.”
God has brought covenant lawsuit against His people and yet here we find, though Judah is guilty, God’s promises to pardon iniquity.
Clearly we have in Micah God’s promise to requite for sin with the promise here to pardon iniquity and pass over transgression. How do we reconcile these two seeming opposing ideas in a OT context.
The answer to that begins by looking at the word here for “pardon.” This comes from the Hebrew word “nasa.” It has a broad range of meaning but its primary thrust is “to lift,” “to carry,” or “to bear.” The literal meaning is seen in Gen. 7:17 where the word is used to talk about Noah’s ark being lifted up by the waters.
However when this word is combined with contexts of sin the Hebrew word “nasa” takes on the sense of “lifting up,” “bearing” or “pardoning” the penalty or price for one’s sins. We see this power of the word coming to us in the Day of Atonement ceremonies where we read of the scapegoat nasa (carrying) on itself all Israel’s sins (Lev. 16:22).In Isaiah 53:4 the servant of the Lord nasa (carries or bears) our infirmities. When John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God who nasa (takes away) the sins of the world one can’t help but wonder if this Hebrew word used in Micah for “pardon our iniquities” was on the mind of John the Baptist.
The point we are making here is that even in the OT we understand that this God who is incomparable in pardoning sins does not pardon them apart from an atonement and the word “nasa” here in Micah 7, we are suggesting, when read in the context of the whole of Scripture, is more than a hint that God’s pardoning comes in the context of the penalty being paid. Christ does bear or carry our sins. Christ is lifted up that our sins might be pardoned.
God pardons Israel of her great sins and passes over her transgressions not by forgetting His justice. Behind the idea of pardoning lies the whole infrastructure of the OT idea of atonement which itself is luminary of the final pardoning as anchored in Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who nasa (took on) our infirmities (Is. 53:4) and who nasa (carried) away on Himself all His people’s sins (Lev. 16:22).
God’s pardoning of the OT saints was upon the same basis as God’s pardoning of the NT saints.
Another point we want to bring out here concerning that great mercy and grace of God in pardoning sins by bearing (nasa) the penalty Himself in the 2nd person of the Trinity is the idea how in the ancient world this idea for needing pardon was unique to the Hebrew people.
The Hebrew Scripture is filled with the idea that man is a sinner in need of forgiveness. However, this idea of needing forgiveness was itself unique to the Hebrew faith.
Remember, pagan man believed with modern man that man is basically good. The pagan gods were not righteous gods and were often worse in their behavior then their supplicants. Scholars have noted that there are no clear cases of forgiveness in foundational texts like the Homeric epics. The concept of forgiveness as a moral idea was not fully articulated in ancient Greek or Roman thought.
In the ancient world sacrifices were offered to the gods not for forgiveness or for pardon but for insurance. Only the Hebrew mindset and later the Christian mindset knew this need for pardon. The ancients offered up sacrifices as a bribe to the gods for treating you well in whatever venture you might be concerned about. You were buying insurance with your offerings. If the god that you bribed with a sacrifice didn’t come through you moved on to another temple and another god to bribe him. So, the sacrifice was about controlling the gods. It was man centered. Man didn’t see Himself as sinner and so he didn’t need god to pardon Him.
But God has been gracious to us by convincing us first of our need for pardon and then providing a freely given pardon by means of Jesus bearing (nasa) our sins for us.
We might add here that we live again in a time when men see themselves as basically good and do not see their need for pardon. This explains why it is the Gospel cannot exclude the idea of men as sinners. Only when men are convinced they are sinners are they amazed that God is a God who pardons for the sake of Jesus Christ and His atonement.
We would take a moment to consider some application
If God is without comparison and this incomparable God is our God for the sake of Jesus Christ why are we … why am I … so disturbed by all that presents itself in opposition to this God who is without comparison? If God so exceeds all opposition why do we … why do I fear so easily? If this God which none can be compared is for us who can be against us?
III.) Note here the finality of God’s pardoning
“You will cast all our sins, into the depth of the sea.”
This is echoed in Psalm 103:12 with a slightly different metaphor
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As we get older we reflect on the life lived and we see where we have really sinned and we groan about our sinfulness. We wish that we had never done such and such or said such and such. At such times we have to remind ourselves that God has cast all our sins, into the depths of the sea.
The language used here about casting brings up the memories of the language of how God dealt with the Egyptians (Ex. 15:1-5)
Pharaoh’s chariots and his army He has cast into the sea;
His chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea.
Just as the Egyptians were cast into the sea so our sins have been cast into the depths of the sea. God does not remember them. They have been atoned for by the work of Jesus Christ.
It is possible we do not realize what a blessing it is to no longer carry our sins. But keep in mind that people who do not have that blessing become caricatures of what God intended people to be.
The best example of this that I know of in literature is Dostoevsky’s character Raskolnikov in his novel Crime & Punishment.
Dostoevsky masterfully portrays how guilt manifests itself not as a single, overwhelming emotion, but as a slow, gnawing presence that chips away at Raskolnikov’s sanity. He becomes his own worst enemy, constantly trying to justify his crime while simultaneously being crushed by the weight of it.
This is every sinner to one degree or another. They are carrying a guilt that morphs and twists them into something God never intended man to be. The sinner who has not found a way to relieve himself of his guilt will wear that guilt on him or her self like a ancient medieval hair shirt.
But we have been delivered from all that. Our guilt has been cast into the depths of the sea. We are free to be all whom God created us to be.
Whatever thanksgiving you have save the greatest share of your thanksgiving that you no longer bear your guilt and misery.
The Meaning Behind The Removal Of the Monuments
Once again, the media accounts are reporting that Confederate statues are being removed from where they have sat for over 100 years. Statues honoring Confederate Generals Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson and Gov. William “Extra Billy” Smith, as well as Confederate Dr. Hunter Holmes McGuire, had been displayed in Capitol Square, a public park and civic campus near the state Capitol of Richmond, Virginia, for more than 100 years.
Anybody who has followed this social order phenomena over the last few years knows that it is not only Confederate statues that are being brought low, but it is also statues of those white Americans once considered heroes, regardless of whether they were attached to the Southern Confederacy or not.
There are some obvious things that need to be said about all this.
1.) The removal of heroes from the public square that our Fathers once honored is proof positive that we have become a different people from our grandparents and great-grandparents, and great great grandparents who put those statues up. It is not just the statuary that is being removed. What is also being removed is their respect for those they respected, thus demonstrating our disrespect for our Fathers. By removing the statuary we are saying to our Fathers, “We don’t care what you believed. We don’t care who you honored. We hate your belief system – a belief system that would honor these kinds of people we are now removing.”
All of this statue removal affirms Scripture when it teaches,
“The fool despises his father’s instruction…”– Proverbs 15:5a
These statues are, in most cases, our Father’s instruction.
2.) Because the above is true we would say that all of this removal of monuments is an example of ethnic cleansing. You can be sure that once the statuary is removed from the public square, the next step will be to remove from the public square those who believe what those honored men believed. In the act of removing the statues what is being communicated is that people like those who are portrayed in those honored monuments are not wanted. The removal of such monuments is not only saying “We no longer honor them.” It is also saying, “We dishonor them.” Inasmuch as it is only statues of white people being torn down the message is one of ethnic cleansing.
3.) The reason for this ongoing attack on American WASP history is obvious. There has been a worldview shift in the last 25 or so years. We have worked out the implications of the worldview legislatively foisted upon us with the Civil Rights Act and the Hart-Celler legislation. In those Acts we made the final move from a definitive nation that existed as a particular nation consistent with Western Christian civilization and to a universal, propositional nation. With the Civil Rights and Hart-Celler legislation we legislated that Americans would no longer be a particular people belonging to a particular heritage but rather Americans would become a universal people belonging to no (or all) particular heritage(s). With the Civil Rights Act/Hart-Celler legislation people became cogs so that anyone from anywhere could be American if they just mouthed the sacred propositions. With those Acts we essentially “de-peopled” ourselves and our progeny. We moved from being a Christian ethnic people to being a propositional nation. The statuary being removed is being removed because those once honored belonged to a very different nation than the one we have now. Their nation was particular. Their nation was Christian. Their nation was overwhelmingly white. The nation today is universal. The nation today is polytheistic. The nation today is multi-racial/cultural and so the new gods are done with the old heroes and the old heroes must go.
Listen to Joseph de Maistre and learn what I am getting at with this piece,
“Now, there is no such thing as ‘man’ in this world. In my life I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, and so on. I even know, thanks to Montesquieu, that one can be Persian. But as for man, I declare I’ve never encountered him.”
Joseph de Maistre
Considerations on France
We live in a country now (and in a time) where the insistence is that all men belong to a universal tribe called “men.” De Maistre’s Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, and Persians must go, as must the particularity of what made Americans to be Americans. The monuments that are being torn down, are being torn down, because they represent a testimony against this notion of the universal, propositional man. These monuments are of men who represented a very particular people and it is because we no longer believe in particularity when it comes to people groups the monuments must go.
Keep in mind that these people are tearing down these statues not only because they hate the men that are being torn down, but because they hate anybody who insists that particularity exists among different people groups. This hatred is being seen, not only in the removal of these monuments, but also in “conservative” “Christian” denominations who strongly go on record as opposing any notion of Christian Nationalism or Kinism. Any refusal to salute and pledge fealty to universal man is now met in “conservative” Reformed churches with the sharpest of rebukes possible. Indeed, it is costing men their careers and livelihoods. This kind of behavior from the denominations is why Oswald Spengler could say,
“Christian theology is the grandmother of Bolshevism.”
Now, of course Spengler was in massive error here but, the modern clergy by interpreting Christianity through a Universal man lens is giving credence to Spengler’s quote.
If Only I Were Organizing Webbon’s “Christ is King” Conference
There is a conference coming up in Dallas, Texas this year sponsored by Joel Webbon’s organization. The conference is called “Christ is King: America After Trump.” This conference has drawn all kinds of attention, both positive and negative. Today, a friend in Canada sent me an article by the self professed Chicken Farmer – J. D. Hall – wherein Hall argues in a blistering manner what hypocrites Webbon’s opponents are.
Speaking only for myself my critique of Webbon here is that he hasn’t gone far enough with his ecumenism. If I were organizing this conference I would not have stopped at inviting a Catholic (Calvin Robinson) who has personally told me that he does embrace Trent, and a Charismatic (Alex Jones) who has said that “God literally started talking to me,”
https://www.charismapodcastnetwork.com/show/charismanews/videos/alex-jones-said-this-about-god/
(3:46 mark)
I mean, if I were organizing the conference and if it was clear I could invite these chaps to speak I would go whole hog for the “Christ is King” conference. I mean, why not invite a high profile Mormon to speak at the conference? Someone like Sen. Mike Lee? I know for a fact that Mormons profess that “Christ is King.” I would also seek, in the name of ecumenicity, to rope in the Jehovah Witnesses. They are a little late to the “Christ is King” conviction but they believe that Jesus Christ is King and has been ruling in heaven since 1914. Both Mormons and JW’s tend to be social conservatives, so why bar them from the huge “Christian” political coalition that Joel Webbon is trying to build.
But… let’s not stop there. Years ago I had a Hindu friend (don’t gasp) I worked with. His name was Kartik Bavishi. Once we were having a discussion with a group of co-workers about Christianity and Kartik piped up and said, “I believe that Christ is God.” Certainly if my Hindu friend believed that Christ is God (being Hindu, he also believed that Buddha, Allah, and Sun Myung Moon, etc. were God) he certainly would have been able to say “Christ is King.” So, if I were organizing this “Christ is King” conference I’d rope in the Hindus as well. Kartik, like Usha Bala Vance, was very socially conservative, after all.
I mean, this conference, we are being told, is not serving the sacraments and is not preaching the Word. It is only concentrating on the political landscape after Trump and it is for all those who can confess that, “Christ is King.” If that is the case let’s get serious about our ecumenicism Joel and if we are going to invite the Catholics, and the Charismatics… if we are going to invite the Fishbacks and Robinsons, because even though Catholic, they at least say that “Christ is King,” let us be consistent and invite the Mormons, the JW’s, and the Hindus.
However, one group of Christians I wouldn’t invite to speak at the conference is the R2K boys since they don’t believe that “Christ is King,” except in a “spiritual sense.”
Since, satire any more is almost impossible to do, let me say here that all of the above is satire, except the R2K paragraph. I don’t think that a conference labeled “Christ is King” should be inviting Mormons, Hindus, JW’s merely because they say that “Christ is King.” In the same way I think it borders on blasphemous to have a conference titled “Christ is King” wherein one invites folks to speak who own a Christ as King who is a very different Christ then the one that is in Scripture and is at the right hand of the Father.
If Joel Webbon had merely titled the conference, “America After Trump” conference I would be far more sanguine about the lineup of speakers, but to label this conference, “Christ is King,” and then line up speakers who don’t own Christ as King even though they say they do is just not good form.
It is true that Joel Webbon is broadening is base by inviting who he is inviting but it is also true that Webbon is diluting the content of the message. For example, when Webbon does this he insures that I will never vote for anyone Webbon’s organization supports. (I’m one person, so I’m confident nobody is losing sleep over that.) That is because I believe that Christ is King and I’m not sure Webbon does. Can someone believe Christ is King and hold hands (even if only in politics) with those who say Christ is King but who have a different Christ as King then Protestants do? If we are going to thump for Christian Nationalism then let us as Protestants unfurl “a banner of bold, unmistakable colors with no pale pastels'”
Yeah, I get it. In politics you have to build coalitions. But if we’re going to build political coalitions can we just leave the language of “Christ is King” out of it?