Living With No Regrets

Background to passage: This passage is the last straw, so to speak, for the kingship of Saul. His reign has been pretty rocky. Really the only bright spot was the rescue of Jabesh.

1 Samuel 15:1–23 ESV

1 And Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel; now therefore listen to the words of the Lord. 2 Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ ” 4 So Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand men on foot, and ten thousand men of Judah. 5 And Saul came to the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley. 6 Then Saul said to the Kenites, “Go, depart; go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. 7 And Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt. 8 And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword. 9 But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction. 10 The word of the Lord came to Samuel: 11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night. 12 And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.” 13 And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” 14 And Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?” 15 Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.” 16 Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night.” And he said to him, “Speak.” 17 And Samuel said, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. 18 And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ 19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?” 20 And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. 21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” 22 And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.”

Opening illustration: “O Christ our Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. As conies to their rock, so have we run to Thee for safety; as birds from their wanderings, so have we flown to Thee for peace. Chance and change are busy in our little world of nature and men, but in Thee we find no variableness nor shadow of turning. We rest in Thee without fear or doubt and face our tomorrows without anxiety. Amen.” -Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy, prayer at the beginning of ch. 9, The Immutability of God, “God’s unchanging holiness requires him to treat the wicked differently from the righteous. When the righteous become wicked, his treatment of them must change. The sun is not fickle or partial because it melts the wax but hardens the clay,—the change is not in the sun but in the objects it shines upon. The change in God’s treatment of men is described anthropomorphically, as if it were a change in God himself.” -A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology

Main thought: In this text we see a lot of regretting, grieving, and repenting. They bring with them major issues.

1) Samuel Had Regrets (v. 11, 35)

1 Samuel 15:11 ESV

11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night.

1 Samuel 15:35 ESV

35 And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul. And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.

1) Samuel Regretted (v. 11, 35)

Explanation: Anger and grief and both seen here and they are often somewhat intertwined in our lives. Samuel was probably angry at Saul for his increasing, continuing sin that disqualified him. He was probably angry that he had been a part of making Saul king. He might have been mad at God for choosing Saul, telling Samuel to anoint him, and allowing all this idolatry.

He was probably grieved about himself and his ministry as a prophet. He may have been having doubts about his faith. He probably grieved for the nation. He had hope that maybe the God of glory could forgive and restore the security and stability of the nation. I’m sure he grieved for Saul as a man, his loss, and his family.

Argumentation:

Illustration:

Application: When times of great disappointment or suffering or hurt come, we often experience both of these emotions: anger and grief, maybe doubt too. In these circumstances we can turn to Christ, turn away, or just freeze. Follow Samuel’s example.

We have the God who split back the Red Sea and the Jordan River in flood stage. We serve a God who spoke the stars into existence and called them by name. We serve a God that brings the dead back to life and strikes down hundreds of thousands overnight. We serve a God before whom the mountains quake and tremble. He gives sight to the blind and deliverance for the possessed and oppressed. At the same time he welcomes the repentant, comforts the broken, upholds the faint-hearted, and offers comfort for your soul.

2) The Lord Had Regrets (v. 11, 29, 35)

1 Samuel 15:11 ESV

11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night.

1 Samuel 15:29 ESV

29 And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.”

1 Samuel 15:35 ESV

35 And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul. And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.

2) The Lord Had Regrets (v. 11, 29, 35)

Explanation: OK, now the hard stuff. These verses say that God regretted making Saul king. Verse 29 also explicitly says God cannot regret. So which is it? What does it mean if he can or if he can’t? Some of your translations speak of God changing his mind. WOW! How can he do that? Why is it important?

The importance is the immutability of God. The bible teaches, we believe, and we need a God who cannot change; for better or for worse, internal or external. This is incredibly important! I can’t express out crucial this is to the person of God.

The bible as a whole would take many avenues to deal with these texts faithfully, much would be in relation to the writers explaining things in language we easily understand when they are not writing a systematic theology textbook.

“The difference is that God is not ignorant of the behavior that you will do tomorrow. He knows what it will be and he knows how he will respond. And he knows that his response to your future behavior will be different from his response to your present behavior. And so his “change of mind” is not based on ignorance. It is foreknown and planned—unlike man’s.” -Piper

As far as this text goes, we can look at the language of anthropomorphism and the fact that the word for regret, relent, repent, used three times can also be translated sorrow, sorrowful, to comfort in sorrow, or feel a sense of loss. Because God doesn’t change, doesn’t demand that we think of him as a rock that has no emotion or response to his children or his creation. I think that is probably what is in view here, this is the demonstration of and the verbiage of God’s emotional pain. God is spoken to have emotions—joy, anguish, wrath, pleasure. He can have all those at once.

Numbers 23:19 ESV

19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

Hebrews 13:8 ESV

8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Illustration: “The shift wasn’t in God’s essence but in how He engaged with Saul’s disobedience. God grieved Saul’s departure from faithfulness rather than regretting the decision to install a righteous king—a distinction that preserves divine consistency while acknowledging genuine divine emotion.” -Jim Harries

Application: Let this raise your affection of God. His immutability is in a category by itself. Nothing that we know of or experience remains the same yesterday, today and forever. His promises can be relied on. His faithfulness is unfailing. All his other attributes area cannot change. How awesome is that?! When you doubt, know that he is the same. When you suffer, know that he will never forsake, hurts with you, will give rest for your souls. All our hope of everlasting joy hangs on him and his constancy guarantees all that he has revealed and ordained.

3) Saul Had Regrets (v. 22-28)

1 Samuel 15:22–28 ESV

22 And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.” 24 Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. 25 Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may bow before the Lord.” 26 And Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you. For you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.” 27 As Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe, and it tore. 28 And Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you.

3) Saul Had Regrets (v. 22-28)

Explanation: This is the jewel in this chapter that people usually focus on. It brings poetic clarity to the situation. For the sake of time it says, God is not impressed with religious ritual if there is no allegiance to Him. He says that open, willful, presumptuous sin is rebellion and it is spiritually as treacherous as witchcraft and idolatry. Since you have put yourself in the position of arbiter of the commands of God and rejected His instruction, He has rejected you from being King.

Amos 5:18–24 ESV

18 Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, 19 as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. 20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? 21 “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. 23 Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. 24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Illustration: Princes, kings, pastors, members, some things disqualify

Application: Application of this text is easy, but the message needs to be understood. Willful disobedience, presumptuous sin, arrogance and disregard for the Word of the Lord is to place yourself in the position of God, exalting yourself over him. It is the greatest form of rebellion against your maker. It is the greatest treason to participate and continue in known, active, disobedience against God.

What’s worse is that we are religious outwardly with rituals that we expect to please God. Then if we get exposed or caught sometimes we do like Saul and we attempt to be more religious, begging, crawling, ripping at the garments of the master in repentance because we got caught, but because we don’t like the consequences.

The Father disciplines us, and if we can receive no discipline for open rebellion then we are not his children. If there is no repentance, it COULD be that God has turned people over to their sin.

Now, because of the aforementioned immutability of God, there is always forgiveness for the truly repentant. Repentant because they have committed treason against a holy God. Repentance because they know that they deserve whatever God metes out, and they are willing to receive it. They understand that some sins may disqualify them from certain things. Forgiveness, however, is always possible.

Romans 7:19–25 ESV

19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Romans 8:1 ESV

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Closing illustration:

Recap