God Regrets?

I Samuel 15:7-11

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

All right. We uh return again this morning to 1 Samuel 15. We had resumed our studies there last week. And those of you here recall we we were confronted out of the gate with a hard command from the Lord where he told Saul to kill every Amalekite, including not only the men and women, but also the infants, nursing babies and animals. And we took some time to unpack the reasons that God did that. Some directly acknowledged in the text, also some other considerations as far as the implications of God taking such drastic action. I'm not going to go back over that today. I realize that is a flashpoint of contention in our society about not only God's character, but actually God's existence. So if any of you know want to discuss that at any point, feel free to talk to me about that. I think it's probably more of a challenge for our youth and what they have to deal with. But if you run into that kind of situation and you want to discuss it more, of course, feel free to talk to talk to me or Richard about that. Today's message is more of what I would call, what I would call a fun sermon. You may not think so, and you may be scratching your head after we read the text. But as I warned you last week, what I'm going to do is take opportunity, based on the last verse in our passage this morning, to give consideration to how God relates to time. This has been debated in Christendom, I suppose, since the beginning of Christendom. And there have been four main views that have emerged, at least as far as the main views about how God interacts with us personally and the events that we deal with, encounter with, the choices we make in time. Being that it's debated fairly stringently, I'll uh I'll let you know where I currently lean, but you should be aware there are good arguments for at least three of the four positions. Some would say all four of the positions have good arguments. As I've continued to reiterate, I'm not a believer at all in the deterministic view of God. To me, that's clearly more of an atheistic or Islamic view, which is ultimately what is referred to as fatalistic, meaning in the sense that if if God has preordained everything that happens, we really don't do anything voluntarily, not ultimately. So uh that seems really depressing and for us to not be in God's image in some sense. But but we'll give it consideration nonetheless because there is, again, a branch of Christianity that holds to it. I don't know if I should say a branch, but there are some. Um as usual, when we do a topical study, we'll begin by reading our text, and then we'll do a little exegesis on the text itself before we venture down this rabbit trail I'm going down. Um, first a prayer. Father in heaven, thank you so much again that we can be here and we get to study your word. Thank you, Father. You're so vast, and it is a wondrous thing for us to just consider you. And we pray as we think about these things, Father, that you would just ultimately um we'll continue to marvel at how amazing and awesome you are, but that we would also just take comfort in in what you tell us because you make clear that you love us and that you do walk with us, and um, we thank you so much for that, Father, and for the comfort that you bring to us. And so we ask now for your blessings and just just guidance as we study your word together, and we do so in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, 1 Samuel 15 and verses 7 through 11. Then struck Saul struck down the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is next to Egypt. He captured King Agag of Amalek alive, but he completely destroyed all the rest of the people with the sword. Saul and the troops spared Agag and the best of the sheep, goats, cattle, and choice animals, as well as the young rams and the best of everything else. They were not willing to destroy them, but they did destroy all the worthless and unwanted things. Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned away from following me and has not carried out my instructions. So Samuel became angry and cried out to the Lord all night. So, first we see that Saul attacked the Amalekites. Of course, that's what he was told to do, and that was a good thing as far as it went. The problem is, and we'll certainly get more into this in the weeks ahead, the next week or two, the problem is his obedience. It's incomplete. God's directive in verse 3 is very clear. It's what takes people aback as far as how expansive it is. In effect, God says, kill them all. And for whatever reasons we might include as plausible, God Himself lets us know this was to be a judgment against the Amalekites. Now, if you think about this, at least as I was thinking about this week, what seems so bizarre to me is that Saul did the difficult thing. He killed all the people it indicates in the text with the edge of the sword. That would have seemed to have been the most difficult part to me, anyway, of the command to follow. He failed in the easier parts of the command. He spared the best of the sheep and the oxen and the lambs and all that was good. Apparently, based on the text, that means all the animals that were good. He also spares the king. And if judgment was to go against any individual in this scenario, you would think it would be the king. As far as I can tell, no one is really sure why he spared Agag. There is, of course, speculations. Commentator named Poole, which made me think of Howard Poole, which so you'll remember. And I would be interested to know his take on this because he wouldn't he like to think those things through. It was just, it got me to thinking about him and how he would um ponder on these things. But anyway, uh the commentator pool says Saul spared Agag either out of a foolish pity for the godliness of his person, and that comes about from a comment that the Jewish historian Josephus apparently makes, to some effect that King Agag was actually a good guy. Or, Paul goes on to say, Saul spared him out of respect for just his royal majesty, just the office of the king, or for the glory of his own triumph, meaning that he spared him so that basically he could brag, and Agag would have to hear it. Um Trapp, another commentator, suggests this. Saul spared him because the people will take liberty then to spare the best of the spoiled. In other words, the sins he calls of the great command imitation. If I spare the king, that'll let the people know, who apparently understood what the command was as well. That'll let them know that they can spare the best of the flocks. That seems probably very plausible as well. In any event, I'm not sure the Bible doesn't tell us. It was a clear violation of God's specific command. Whether it was premeditated or not, Saul's partial, partial obedience is unmistakable. God had chosen Israel as his people. Saul, he had chosen as their king, and it was Saul's duty to carry out God's command because God, this is the only theocracy we could say in the history of mankind, because God was directly leading Israel, and so he was leading them in very specific ways to do what he commanded. And judgment was to be administered, and Saul does not do that. Again, we'll address this more in the coming weeks. Suffice it to say for now, what we learn is that partial obedience is still disobedience. God's word is not a series of options for us to decide, okay, yeah, I'll obey that, but I don't like that as much, or that's more difficult. I'm not going to do that part of it. Such of a response as that is still disobedience. And just for a little application concerning partial obedience, I'll quote a commentator named Meyer. He says, quote, to spare the best of amalek is surely equivalent to us sparing some root of evil, some plausible indulgment, indulgence, some favorite sin. For us, agag must stand for that evil propensity which exists in all of us for self-gratification. And to spare agag is to be merciful to ourselves, to exonerate and excuse our failures, and to condone our besetting sin. More on that later. For now, we can think about how bad this is. The Israelites were careful to keep the very best for themselves. But as we said last time, there was to be a solemnity about this event. It was very serious, obviously. It was, in essence, an execution. It was not for Israel to gain in riches at all. That totally missed the mark as far as God's reasons for the judgment. If the people came home happy and excited about what they gained from the battle, which appears to be the case, they were implying they could be joyful or happy about God's judgment. And we know from scripture that really dishonors God. We see time and again in Scripture that God brings his judgment reluctantly, without pleasure, longing again that men and women would repent instead. Now, before we explore God's response, let's note Samuel's. Some commentators that I read say that he's grieved. That's not what the text says, and it makes me think they don't want to deal with the implications of what the text says, maybe, but we need to. The text says he became angry. Now, why we're not told. But if you think about it, there could be any number of reasons. One on the most admirable side, which the commentators try to grant to him, and I understand. But the idea is that Samuel becomes angry when confronted with God's grief because God grieves because, of course, Saul's sin, and Samuel is grieving because God is hurt. So it upsets him in that way to the point that he's angry. Saul did this to God, we might say, and that makes Samuel angry. He could also be angry just that Saul wasted his opportunity. And given what he says in other places, that could be part of the issue. It brought shame on the nation as a whole. Or he might be thinking this, you know, Lord, I didn't like this idea to start with, and I told you I didn't when we when you brought this up. I said as much, but you told me to go get a king, and so here we are. Now I don't know which it is. Given the wide range of emotions we experience in this kind of distress, it's more than likely a combination of any of them, maybe all of them, and some maybe I didn't even think of. I would just say this. The Bible gives no clear reason for Samuel's angst here, but it also makes no condemnation of Samuel in any way. It seems that Samuel's ultimate response is commendable. He cries out to the Lord all night, and when you are in despair and when you're in distress, even when you realize the Lord has brought it on you in some way, where else are you gonna go but to the Lord? Now, I mean, if you're thinking about this, and and I get it, some of you will get this as well. I know when Seth died, I remember thinking the one place that I would normally go to has already responded and already said no. He was no help, at least not the help that I wanted. But where else are you going to go? The best we can do is cry out to the Lord, cry out to him, and ask that he helps us through whatever he's allowed to come up on us, and then just keep crying out to him, and he will bring comfort and relief. But now, what are we to make of God's response? Again, the CSB reads as follows God says, I regret I made Saul a king. Now we got to admit that's a striking response. As I said, Samuel, and you may recall this, if you can go back and look it up, he protested early on about God doing this. And it seems that God might have just said, Hey, Samuel, look, this was in the plan all along. I planned to do this, but he doesn't do that. He says, I regret that I done it. So that brings us to our topical study this morning. And the first thing we might want to ask is, is this translated correctly? Is God really saying here, I regret? Yes. That's what it means. The term here is best translated regret. Most translations will translate it in that way in some way. God says, I regret I made Saul king. Now, on the surface, I think you see the difficulty here. To say I regret something strongly implies I wish I hadn't done that. But this is God. How could God say he wishes he hadn't done something? We know God doesn't make mistakes, so how do we deal with this? Well, first off, let's acknowledge this is not a one-off in Scripture. We saw this, you may recall when we were studying Genesis back in Genesis 6, that God says basically the same thing. Genesis 6 and verse 6, the Lord regretted he had made man on the earth and was deeply grieved. We can look at a few other verses. There's actually several more. I'm going to only mention two more. Exodus 32 and 14. The Lord relented concerning the disaster he said he would bring on his people. Psalm 106, verses 44 through 45. When God heard their cry, he took note of their distress, remembered his covenant with them, and relented according to the abundance of his faithful love. In the last two verses there, I quoted the term relented, and it is similar to the idea of regretting in the sense that the Lord, that it appears that the Lord has changed his mind about something. So the question is, are those statements really literally true or not? If they're not literally true, what are they trying to get us to understand about God? If they are literally true, how do we deal with them? The standard evangelical line in dealing with this is as follows. This language is to convey that yes, God's heart was broken over Saul's disobedience. In other situations where this happens, it's conveying the same kind of thing that God is distressed. He actually is hurt about it. However, this is ultimately referred to as what is called an anthropomorphism. In other words, it describes God explaining a situation to man in human terms so that man can have some understanding of God's heart. Based on the Bible as a whole, God knew from the beginning that Saul would do what he did, and that man would do what they did in Genesis 6 and the other places that we read. So the expressions then are merely giving us a glimpse into God's psyche, if you will. Even though God knows all this is going to happen, it unfolds in earth's time, and God is not emotionless about it. A commentator of Guzzick says this God didn't sit in heaven with a clipboard, checking off boxes coldly, saying, Oh, yes, according to plan. So, whatever God's relationship with time, this much we can say. The Bible is clear enough that Saul's disobedience hurt God. It's just we can't fully grasp God's emotions. So the scriptures are presented in this way so we can get some apprehension of God's feelings, if you will, for lack of a better way to express it. And it shouldn't surprise us that God has feelings. We are made in his image. So what gives us pause is to recognize that our own feelings, you know, can lead us astray and take us into directions we don't need to go. So when we read passages like this, where it indicates that God wishes he hadn't done something, we can start wondering, well, what is that saying? How does God interact with us in time? Now, but before I mention the views, and I'm going to go over them briefly, so don't worry, we're not going to get in the real detailed, heavy sermon. Um let me just say there is a more fundamental concept that's debated. I'm not going to dwell on it today, but it did cross my mind that some of you may be thinking of it in these terms, and I can understand that, so I'm going to mention it. This is called the theory of time. And there's different ones, but there are two main ones, and the other ones branch kind of from these. Uh one is called theory A and the other is called theory B. That's uh pretty creative, right? The guy that developed these, that's what he named them, so it's kind of stuck. Um and so anyway, I can't remember what his name is, but the the theory A is that time is flowing like a river. Where the present that we're now in is special and it's moving. It's obviously how we experience it. We're in the present, the past is past, the future is coming up. And if we're if we think about scripture, it seems to normally present it in that way. That's how time is flowing. The other theory, the B theory, is that time is static. And by that it means the flow of time is an illusion. And part of the reason this game traction was more traction, was the theory of special relativity, which you've all heard of with Einstein, you know, and about how time is relative. And so it's the idea that time is a dimension like space is, and present and future moments are equally real. And we see this attempted in movies all the time, you know, like Back to the Future, where they can go back in time and they're at and they're doing things in time, or they can go to the future and they're doing things, and all these actual moments in time exist simultaneously. And that's one way that people think that God understands the futures because he is one in the eternal present. That's actually more the Catholic view of time and how they view it. Um but when you start thinking about it, and this has come out more and more recently over the years, that's really difficult to grasp. And it even goes against general relativity at some point. We'll get into all that, of course. But um, but it the idea that you could jump back in time and do something, does it affect the present? Does it not affect the present? Or that you can jump ahead. It's just really hard for us to get hold of. And and the The Bible again seems to present time as linear, which of course it could be under either theory, but um that time does have a past, a present, and a future. Of course, it's hard for us to think about the present in one sense. How does that even work? I mean, we're in it, and then a second later it's gone. Right. So it is weird when we start thinking about it. The only thing I would suggest about all this is we might want to think of time simply in a way that it exudes from God Himself. But the idea is that God Himself did things in what we now think of as a sequential order. In other words, he didn't do them all at the same moment. And so it does seem that our experience and even the flow again of scripture generally indicates there are real events that happen. They pass, and then we're moving in the present, which again, I really don't know how you measure because we keep moving. We move towards the future, but we never really reach the future because the time we get there, it's the present. So, anyway, I know that's kind of heady. I'm not gonna dwell on it, but I did just want to mention it. From a biblical perspective and how God relates to us, how does God interact with time? First, let me say this. Everyone, every Christian, will say that God knows everything there is to know. Based on the passages I read early, read earlier, there is a group that says God may not know the future because it's not happened yet. And or this group may also, there's an element of this group that says, not because he couldn't know it, but because he's chosen not to know it. Now that may seem strange, but we'll come back to it. As I said, there are really four views that have made their way to the forefront. Three of them would say that God knows everything about the future there is to know. He knows it exhaustively. He knows everything that will ever happen. The first view, I've mentioned already, is determinism. That is the Calvinistic view, the one that I have harped stridently against over the last couple of years or so. This view says at its core that God knows all the future because he ordains it all. Okay? It's most often discussed in the doctrine of election, which we've tried to deal with. The reality is that the Calvinist doctrine of election is grounded in the Calvinist view of God's sovereignty, which again relates to their view of God in time, that God ordains everything. So the idea is that God knows the future because he determined that's what it would be. Okay, he determines it will happen. And understand, and to be charitable, I'm going to give a few passages given for support of this. And just understand when I give passages in support of these different views, that there are explanations, other alternative interpretations and alternative passages that the other groups would say, no, this refutes that and that specific interpretation. That's true for all of the views, as you would probably gather, you know, that when people are trying to make a coherent view of scripture as a whole, and they come across passages that seem to at least kind of counter each other, then they have to try to figure out how to put those together in a logical way as best they can. Um part of the reasons that there's been an uptick in arguing against Calvinism, I think I've tried to bring this out, is that it's incoherent. There's no way to put the passages together, which Calvinists will freely admit. What they just say is it's a mystery. We can't know. Well, it's saying one thing that there is free will, and then that God's ordained everything, but there's no way to coherently bring those together. So anyway, uh, just so you're aware of that. So, but to be charitable again, a few of the passages given for support of determinism. Isaiah 46, verse 10. God is speaking and he says, I declare the end from the beginning and from long ago, what is not yet done, saying, My plan will take place. I will do all my will. Proverbs 16, 33. The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. Ephesians 1.11, which we've studied, it says, In him we have also received an inheritance, because we were predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will. Now, as I've said before, there are a multitude of problems with the deterministic view. The greatest being, I think, is that it presupposes that God ordains evil. Further, it dulls any perception of love because there is ultimately no free will. Now, again, to be sure, considering all the Christian denominations, this is a substantially minority view. But as I've said, these folks are allowed, and they've come in through the back door, often through discussions on predestination or even salvation. Problems always emerge when you start exploring what is really being said. Thankfully, the church is starting to really confront this again. And as I've mentioned before, this stems from Presbyterian thought, Presbyterian churches. It's made its infiltrated Baptist churches, and that's where it's being confronted, I think, uh most uh aggressively currently. Um anyway, there are that's the deterministic view. There are a couple of views that says God knows the future exclusively, He knows everything about all future events, but he doesn't ordain them per se. He may ordain some of them, but not all of them. They differ in their approach. One view is referred to as Mulanism. I don't know if you've heard of it. The other view is referred to as simple foreknowledge. It's often associated with Arminianism. That's the one you're probably more familiar with, even though you may have not realized what they called it. Mullenism gets its name from its originator, a fellow named Louis D. Molina. It posits this that God possesses what they refer to as middle knowledge, which means that God knows what every free creature would do in every circumstance. And knowing that, God then set a world in motion based on what choices he knew every person will make about everything. And in effect, Mulanism involves God knowing all possible futures, and as a result, God creating the most desired world. He's not interfering with free choice, but it's the idea that God just knows what every person will decide in every circumstance, and he then created a world as he decided was best ultimately, given what he knew about everybody's free choice. Now, as you might deduce, it indicates there was no possible world that God could have created where all of his creatures would freely choose in. That view is sort of considered a middle ground between determinism and simple foreknowledge because God is determining who will be saved in one sense, because he determined the world that he would create. A verse used to support this is just over a few pages in 1 Samuel. So I'm going, I'm going to turn up there just to read it. 1 Samuel 23, because we're here, uh, in verse 8. Then Saul summoned all the troops to go to war at Kalah and beseech David and his men. So Saul's trying to get hold of David here. When David learned that Saul was plotting evil against him, he said to the priest Abathar, Bring the Ephod. Then David said, Lord God of Israel, your servant has reliable information that Saul intends to come to Killi and destroy the town because of me. Will the citizens of Killi hand me over to him? Will Saul come down as your servants have heard? Lord God of Israel, please tell your servant. The Lord answered, He will come down. Then David asked, Will the citizens of Kalai hand me and my men over to Saul? They will, the Lord responded. So David and his men, numbering about 600, left Kalah at once and moved from place to place. Here, God tells David, if he stays where he's at, Saul will come down, and the men of Kalah would surrender. The scenario then is indicating a knowledge of contingent actions that actually never come to pass. And while this would clearly indicate that God is not acting in a determination, deterministic or preordaining the events, but um this would indicate, arguably, that David would have ended up captured if he had not changed directions. Other passages indicate that history could have ended up differently if other choices were made. Matthew 12, verse 7, 1 Corinthians 2, verse 8. So I'm not going to read those, but just so you can look those up. The idea is again that God knows all contingent choices and what anybody would do under any circumstance. And so he's looking at it to that nth degree of detail. Now, simple foreknowledge, as you might suspect, given the name, simple, is more that God just knows the future. He considerably, he exercises considerably less control over specific actions. It can still happen, but he also allows people to just do whatever they do wherever God created them or allowed them to be born. God does not restrict his creative ability in any way. And as far as the future, God knows what will happen because it will happen, not because he causes it. Generally, again, he can cause it, but he's often allowing decisions to play out without considering every other possible decision since the world. It's just he knows what it's going to be. 1 Peter 1.20 is an example that's cited. Jesus was foreknown before the foundation of the world. Jeremiah 1.5 says, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Now, I said there were four views. What's the other? The other takes passages like 1 Samuel 15, 11 more literally. And by that I mean more literally in the sense of what regret normally means. Not only does this action hurt me, I wish I had done something differently. It doesn't mean that God made a mistake, no more than it would be a mistake if you trusted in a friend and they betrayed you. The friend is the one that betrayed you. You didn't do anything wrong. So that's their idea of it. It's referred to as a dynamic omniscience view. It falls under the um idea more broadly is what is referred to as open theism. Now, the reason it's got the reason it's having as much difficulty in one sense as it is, I think, is because there are definitely some open theist views that I would consider heretical and have been labeled heretical. But the dynamic omniscience view, as I understand it, is more restrictive and does not fall in the realm of heresy. But again, it's the idea that God doesn't know the future because it's not actually happened yet, or that he's chosen not to know it. And I think one reason I had some interest in it was because I first heard the teaching from some worldwide Church of God theologians. That's the first time I was exposed to that teaching. They didn't call it that, because they didn't probably think of those terms, but that's what they were referring to based on literal interpretation of scripture. Now, as tempted as we might be to dismiss it, I will say, let me put it to you this way, and then you can see why it's getting some more traction. Each of the three previous ways of looking at God's interaction with humans and time could be referred to as blueprint versions.

unknown 34:43

By that I mean the future is already set.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Whether it is determined by God or whether it is known by God, it is set. God knows what it will be. So from that perspective, there is no possibility in reality of it actually being different, even if there is seemingly real possibility in our minds that it could be different. You grasp what I'm saying? Does that kind of make sense? So obviously, if God determines what's in the future, it's set, right? That's plain enough. But if God knows it, if you think about it, he knows what it's going to be from that perspective. It's set. Right? So, so in other words, if we were going to do something different, let's say we instead of option A, we decided we would do option B as a choice. Well, God already knows that. God knows what it is. He knows it's option B, so it's actually set. So hopefully you're following that. Now, when we think about it in that light, that does sound a little stagnant based on scripture. And it's clear enough from passages like 1 Samuel 15. We're not invited to look at God that way, at least in every circumstance, and certainly not in our moment of distress, unless, again, it brings comfort just knowing that God is in control. That's true. There are numerous verses, again, where God indicates he changes course based on the prompting of others, or he changes minds, his mind based on new information. Are all those merely accommodations to help us know God loves us and is walking with us, but in reality is just playing along. Because, again, he knows fully what is going to happen. The point is, supporters of dynamic omniscience will grant that God may preordain any number of events. He may foreknow any number of events, but if there is any one event that is truly contingent in the sense that it can go either way, that in the sense that God doesn't know because he's either chosen not to, or because it's future and it's just not happened, then we would have to say that dynamic omniscience really is the correct view of God's interaction in time. Because again, they're not saying that God can't know the future, just that scripture is indicating there are certain events that God decided to leave open until the event was finished so that he may truly walk with us as fully as possible. So that's the views. What's your view? I'll be honest. I like the dynamic omniscience view best personally because it seems more like God is moving with us. But I I don't think I believe it. Um I grant it's definitely not the majority view, it never has been. Um simple foreknowledge is probably remains the majority view. Uh Numbers 23, 19 says, God is not a man that he might lie, or a son of man that he might change his mind. God uh that he might change his mind. God declares the beginning from the end. There's a verse that says that, of course. So I just presenting it to you just so that uh you kind of understand where the current um Christian views are at on this and the current Christian debates. I would say dynamic omniscience at this point is kind of like a lesser accepted view, but not considered heretical. It's a lesser accepted theological view, kind of like soul sleep. You know, when people die. Um there's the view generally that people go to heaven or they're in some intermediate state, Abraham's bosom or separated from God in some way, or there's the idea that you're asleep because the Bible says you're asleep, and that's always been the minority view, but it is a view, and it's granted that it's not considered heretical because the Bible refers to death asleep so much. Same thing is true with the idea of hell. Is it eternal uh conscious torment or is it annihilation? Uh, a generally lesser accepted view is annihilation, but it's not considered heretical. So I think dynamic ignition spaws in that realm. It still has some merit. What I would say in all of it is this it seems clear the Bible is inviting us at some level to view God in this way. So as again to let us know that God is really with us. He is for us, he is walking with us. We are to reach out to him, we are to plead with him, we are to interact with him in a way to trust that he is going to walk with us. I would just say that also the view that he knows everything gives us comfort from the standpoint that God is in control. We ultimately know that he is in control. Jeremiah 33, 3, God says, Call to me and I will answer you. Psalm 50, 15, call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you. Psalm 45, 145, 18. The Lord is near to all who call on him. So it's clear from Scripture we're to call on God. We're to look that wherever, whatever he knows about the future, he's inviting us to be in an intimate personal relationship with him as we go forward. And of course, a really important one, Romans 10.13. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. It's truly amazing that our great God is so vast. Look at the stars, you look out at the how vast the universe is, and yet we read these things that God is so personal, so intimate, and wants to know us in that way and wants us to know him that way. It's truly amazing. So just think on that. We know we can ultimately trust him in our darkest moments, and we know one day we will see him as he is. And as the song goes, What a day that will be.