Defending God

SAMUEL OUR EXAMPLE

Good morning. If you don’t know me, my name is Jordan Dudgeon, I’m a member here at Emmanuel, and it’s a pleasure to be in the pulpit again this week. If you have your Bible with you, open up to 1 Samuel 15. We’ll look at some places outside of this passage this morning, but we’ll be sort of tethered to this passage. 

Last week, you’ll remember, we looked at 1 Samuel 15. How God told Saul, through Samuel, to go and destroy all of the Amalekites, both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey, because of their sin, and because they fought against Israel when Israel came up out of Egypt.

But Saul didn’t listen to God - instead he took Agag alive, and kept animals as spoil.

And because of this disobedience, God told Samuel that He regretted making Saul king over Israel. And so Samuel went and told Saul that God was taking the kingdom away from him, and giving it to someone better than him.

Now there were two things in this passage that I didn’t work through, because of time, but we said we’d look at them this week.

The first issue is whether or not God regrets. You’ll remember that the passage said twice, in verse 11, and verse 35, that God regretted that He had made Saul king. But in between those two statements, in verse 29, Samuel says that God is not a man that He should regret, or that God doesn’t regret. So which is it? How can an infinite God regret anything, and why does the passage say both yes and no?

The second issue is the command to destroy all of the Amalekites, including women, children, and even infants. How can a perfect God order the destruction of women and children?

So we left these two issues in the air to deal with this week. And both of these issues have something in common - and that’s submission to God’s Word.

What do I mean by that? Both of these questions could be answered in some pretty helpful ways, that would probably leave most people today mostly satisfied, with very few questions.

Problem is, a lot of those types of answers just aren’t in our passage, or anywhere in the Bible. They’re answers by people trying to defend the Bible, with good motives, but ultimately saying way more or way less than what God has plainly said.

And so, we’ll want to follow Samuel's example today as we approach these things. Samuel, the man, who, as we said last time, never flinched when delivering God’s Word. He never modified, or watered down. 

Samuel, whose ministry began with the words “speak Lord, your servant hears”.

In chapter 15, verse 11, when Samuel receives the hard news that Saul was done as king, he cries out to the Lord all night, he wrestles with God’s Word, he gets angry, but he ultimately takes all of that to God. 

And when delivering the news to Saul, he doesn’t change a syllable of what God revealed to him.

So, following Samuel, we can wrestle. We can bring questions to God. But let’s resolve not to add or subtract from what’s here.

So, let’s begin with the first question: 

DOES GOD REGRET?

Let’s start by looking at the passage: If you look to 15:10-11, we read:

The word of the Lord came to Samuel: “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.”

This is repeated again at the end of our passage in verse 35:

“And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.”

And as if it wasn’t hard enough to deal with God regretting, in between these 2 statements, in verse 29, we read:

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

Just as a note, it’s the same Hebrew word for regret in all 3 places, so it really seems like we have a contradiction.

So what’s going on here?

Obviously there's a sense in which God does, and a sense in which God doesn’t regret.

No, Not Like Man:

Here we want to affirm what Samuel says in verse 29: That God doesn’t regret like men do. “God will not lie or have regret, for He is not a man that He should have regret.”

So think - how do we humans regret? We can’t see the whole picture, and now something unexpected has happened, and now we would have done something different if we could go back! Maybe we sinned, and regret the consequences. Maybe we planned poorly, and could have done it better.

But Samuel is saying God doesn’t regret that way! The prophet who just heard God say He regrets making Saul king the night before, can say with no hesitation that God will not take back His Word on making someone else king, because He does not lie, and He does not regret.

And so whatever God meant when He said He regrets making Saul king, we can’t understand it to mean that God wishes He would have done anything differently. 

Or that God didn’t see what was going to happen, or realized that He didn’t like Saul, as if He learned something.

And we know this from the rest of the Scriptures. 

Specifically God knows everything that’s going to happen with the kingdom in Israel, because He tells Israel some of this ahead of time when they’re in the wilderness, all the way back in Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 17:14 

14 “When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’

So God knew that they were going to demand a king.

Psalm 139:4 says 

“Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.”

Before Saul ever told his men to spare Agag. Before Saul ever began to run his mouth and defend his actions to Samuel, before Saul was even born - God knew this would happen.

And way beyond just what happens in Israel, God declares all of history.  Isaiah 46:10 says that God

“declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’”

So it’s not even just that God knows the future, but that the future comes from God’s will 

He doesn’t just look in the future, and learn it - He declares it. All of history unfolds exactly how God declares.

Proverbs 21:1 says 

“The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.”

Before Saul was even born, God not only knew, but in a way that only God could do, planned what would happen with Saul. 

He planned that David, a better king, would replace Saul.

He directed David’s heart to be a heart after God’s own heart, like a man directs a stream of water with his hands.

It would be foolish to say that God regretted making Saul king, in the way that we regret things. That just can't be the case. So does God regret things? In this sense, maybe the most ultimate sense, no - absolutely not.

Which begs the question - why does the passage say twice that God regrets? The first time, God Himself tells Samuel he regrets making Saul king.

There's at least some sense in which we have to say, yes God felt regret. Because God said He did. But we need to flesh this out.

What we can’t do is just say that one cancels the other out. What we can’t do is combine these two statements - that God felt regret, and that God does not regret - into a new third statement that's a frankenstein of both, and doesn’t do either statement justice. 

It seems true that God in His wisdom put both truths into one passage, so that we’d be forced to wrestle with this in the context of the Bible. And that’s what we’re doing.

So, first answer to the question - No God does not regret like man does. The second answer from this passage is yes - God Himself said that He regretted as God. So what’s that mean?

Yes, As God

The Hebrew word here for regret in 1 Samuel 15, nāḥam, has a few meanings - It can mean to have compassion, to comfort someone else, or to comfort yourself in sorrow.

And there’s a few ways this meaning plays out in the Bible.

When speaking of comforting someone else, or one's self, it’s comforting someone in deep sorrow - for example in Genesis 24:67 when Isaac was comforted (nāḥam), by Rebekkah after his mothers death. Or when the Psalmist says in Psalm 77 that his spirit is moaning and fainting, and he refuses to be comforted (nāḥam).

So when used this way, this word pretty much always carries emotional weight around with it, related to sorrow or sadness. It’s not just a cold verb.

The other meaning it can have, as we’ve seen, is to regret, or repent (not always in a sin sense of repent, but just referring to changing your course of action).

And even in these instances, there’s usually a decent amount of sorrow or emotion connected to the change. For example, in Genesis 6 verse 6, when God decides to flood the earth, the same word for regret is used as in 1 Samuel 15, but it’s closely connected to grief or sadness. 

When God saw man's sin, it says in verse 6:

6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 

Another example of this is in Hosea 11:8, when God is explaining that He loves His people with such a deep love, that He cannot bring Himself to be angry with them forever

“How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? My heart recoils (or changes - nāḥam), within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.” 

So again, this isn’t just a cold verb that means to change your mind - there’s emotional weight tied to this word that leads someone to change their course.

But there’s something we can’t miss here, people. When God changes His course of action, even when it’s due to sadness, or love - it’s not that God changes - but that people change.

What do I mean by that? Let me read to you Jeremiah 18:8-10. I know this is a lot, but we’ve gotta get this right.

Jeremiah 18:8-10 “And if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent (nāḥam) of the disaster that I intended to do to it. 9 And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10 and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent (nāḥam), of the good that I had intended to do to it.”

So whose actions call the changes in that instance? The people in the kingdom? Or God? The people in the kingdom.

Or in Jonah 4:2, Jonah says that he knew God would relent (nāḥam) from destroying Nineveh if they repented of their sin. Who changed in that instance? Nineveh, not God!

See, God’s response to sin is consistent. God’s response to obedience and repentance is consistent. And what response we get depends on us. 

We’re not waking up and wondering what flavour of the day God has chosen today. No, but God responds in His consistent character to how we act. And how we act changes. 

And He’s told us ahead of time what to expect when we reject Him, and when we repent and follow Him! 

So when we get to 1 Samuel 15, and God regrets that He has made Samuel king - we have to say that there's some emotional weight there. It seems clear that God felt sad over how Saul continued to disobey, because Saul was one of His people who He loves. 

But who changed? God or Saul?

Last week, we started with Saul doing valiantly before God, and ended with Saul disobeying. Saul changed. And God’s attitude towards Saul followed, in a way consistent with how God always acts.

What we can say is that God has, by His own will, by His permission, allowed Himself to be emotionally moved by His creatures. But He’s also planned when that’s going to happen! 

We can’t say that God is helplessly reacting to us, or feeling involuntary responses to us. But rather, He has chosen to let our actions, and decisions cause His heart to feel things.

We see this language all over the Scriptures.

• Psalm 7:11: God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.

• Ephesians 4:30: And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

• Zephaniah 3:17: "The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing."

God has chosen to respond to us people. And He is at the same time totally sovereign and in control of every event, and every response He has to those events. Nothing catches Him off guard and “makes” God feel a certain way.

And in 1 Samuel 15, God had a handful of things going on at once, that are all true at the same time. He’s grieved in Saul’s actions, and so has changed course to take the kingdom away from Saul. And at the same time, He had a plan since before time that this would happen, and He’ll rejoice in David as the new king.

With people we just “get” that two things can be true at once with our emotions. Are you happy it’s raining? Well in the big sense, yes, because of the crops, but in a narrow, small sense, no, because I wish I could go outside. 

Are we glad that Jesus died on the cross? In a narrow small sense, no, because God’s Son was murdered, but in a big sense, yes, because it means our salvation.

Now this isn’t totally the same as God, again, because nothing catches Him off guard from outside like us, but it’s a small picture that might help.

There's a great article by John Piper on this from 1995 called “Are There Two Wills in God?”. If you’re still wrestling with this, that article would be a huge help to you.

And if all of this makes your head spin, just be comforted by God’s Words about Himself from Isaiah 55:8-9.

“8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

At the end of the day, we need to let God be God. We don;t need to try and make Him any greater than He is, because if we tried, we’d end up with a small God who fits in our boxes of greatness.

So, does God regret making Saul king, only to replace him with David? In one sense no. In one sense yes. And He’s totally big enough for that.

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE AMALEKITES

Second issue: The destruction of the Amalekites. How can we trust a God who would command the destruction of men and women, children and infants, a whole people group? That was Saul's commission in 15:3.

Now I’ll note here that we dealt with a very similar issue a few years ago, when preaching through Joshua. A sermon on Joshua 6 called “The Lord Fought the Battle of Jericho” is on our website, and I’ll link it in the manuscript of this sermon on our website.

That sermon goes quite deep into the background of why God ever commanded war in the land in the first place. It doesn’t all apply here, because the Amalekites didn’t actually live in the land of Israel, they live just south-west of the land.

But that sermon puts some really big pieces together, that would really help you if you still have questions after this sermon. We can’t cover all of the background covered there today, because we have two big topics that we’re tackling, but it would be worth a listen.

Defending God

Again, this issue has a lot in common with the last issue: Namely, the need for letting the Bible speak for itself, instead of explaining it away. Or the temptation to defend God. 

And in my experience, it’s with this issue more than any that people, even solid Christians, explain the text away instead of letting God tell us who He is and what He has the right to do.

One example of this is Christian apologists arguing that what we find in places like 1 Samuel 15, or Joshua 6, or other places where similar commands are given - they argue that what’s here is just ancient rhetoric - or smack talk.

It’s not that Saul was actually supposed to destroy everyone down to the women, children, and cattle - This is just an ancient hyperbolic way of saying “totally defeat their military”.

So on this view Saul isn’t commanded to take the lives of anyone except fighting military men from the Amalekites.

Sort of like if we say we were so hungry that we ate the plate - we wouldn’t actually eat the plate, but it’s just a catch phrase to explain that we finished our meal.

But does 1 Samuel 15 actually say that? 

On the face of it, it doesn’t sound like that’s what it’s saying at all. Verse 3 just plainly tells us what God tells Saul to do:

“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.’”

And if this was just rhetoric to mean all the military men - if the women, children, infants, camels, and donkeys are all just hyperbole - then how do you explain verse 14?

Like we saw last week in verse 14, when Samuel calls Saul on his sin, what’s the evidence that he didn’t finish his job? Was it military men left alive? No, it was sheep and oxen that he left alive. 

If all the living things, down to the animals, was just hyperbole for “getting all the soldiers”, then why is Saul catching heat for keeping animals alive?

So guys, we have to wrestle with what the text actually says. And this is massively important, because if we try to defend God here - if we don’t accept how God reveals Himself here - it won’t stop here. We’ll keep finding things we don’t like about God and explaining them away.

If you find a problem here, you’ll find a problem with Jesus. Here are a couple of quotes that show us Jesus’ view of God’s punishments are just as severe in the New Testament as in 1 Samuel 15.

Luke 23:28-30 (When Jesus was carrying His cross, and some women of Jerusalem were crying for Him without really repenting):

“28 But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’”

Revelation 2:22-23:

“22 Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, 23 and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.”

He’s the same God. If you want to explain Him away in 1 Samuel, you’ll end up explaining Him away all the way to the book of Revelation.

So we don’t want to defend God until we turn Him into something that He’s not. But we do want to accurately present Him, so that we don’t get any false ideas.

We can’t defend God with ideas from outside of the Bible, but it is important to look at what’s in the Bible to be totally clear about what God commanded. 

So yes, God really did command that in 1 Samuel 15. But to be clear about this, we’re going to look at what the destruction of the Amalekites actually was not, and what it actually was.

What this was not:

First, we need to be clear that this was not genocide, as we typically mean it. This was not senseless, ethnicity based, murder, as if the Israelites were better than the Amalekites. 

How do we know this?

Well the first, most obvious point, is that never once in the passage is the ethnicity of the Amalekites given as the reason for their destruction. God never commands that they be killed because of their genetics, or ethnicity.

The reason given for their destruction is explicitly given in 1 Samuel 15. As we saw last week, verse 2 says that this is because God noted how the Amalekites opposed Israel when they came out of Egypt.

And we can gather from other places in Scripture that the Amalekites have been a constant and brutal thorn to Israel since before they inhabited the land, and even after.

• In Exodus 17, they attacked Israel in the wilderness
• In Numbers 14, they attacked Israel in the wilderness again
• In Judges 3, they worked with the Moabites against Israel
• In Judges 6, we learn that every time Israel planted crops the Amalekites would raid and attack.

So that’s the overarching reason for this - not ethnic hatred, but instead, constant ruthlessness they’ve shown to God’s people.

But maybe even over that is not just who they constantly messed with when attacking Israel - but the fact that the Amalekites were a deeply sinful people. 15:18 says:

“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.”

It was in the capacity of their sin, that they were judged. So, again, this has nothing to do with racial supremacy. It has everything to do with sin. And these people have been stiff necked, rebellious against the Lord for hundreds of years at this point.

Another way we know that God isn’t playing ethnic favorites, is remembering the fact that about 500 years after Samuel, the Lord is going to use Babylonian pagans to judge Israel’s sin in the exile.

Or remember Rahab in Joshua chapter 2, who was a pagan gentile, but risked her life to serve God, and now she’s considered a great hero of the faith.

Remember what we learned already, God is consistent in His response to rebellion - and no ethnicity gets a pass. God is consistent in His merciful heart to people who repent, and no ethnicity is excluded.

So this was not ethnic genocide.

We also know that this wasn’t overkill. This was not an over-reaction. The Canaanites were caught up in all sorts of horrific, awful sins. Temple prostitution, child sacrifice, idol worship, and more. I don’t have time to outline that all here, but again, I’ll defer you to the sermon on Joshua 6 that fleshes this out more.

And while we don’t know this for certain from the Bible, it’s highly historically likely that the Amalekites participated in all of these types of sin, the sin of the Canaanites. 

And with the way people groups, and families, and culture worked back then, the only realistic way for a people group to stop their sin cycle, is for them to totally go away. 

Today we live in a globalist world, where it’s much easier to break the mold of your past, and disassociate from the cultural baggage of your people. In the ancient world, any surviving Amalekites would almost certainly continue in the ways of their fathers, and keep awful sin going day after day.

And actually this does happen with the Amalekites. 

In 1 Samuel 15, We’re only told about Agag and some cattle being spared, and even Agag died eventually - but obviously even more than Agag were spared, or escaped, because the Amalekites show up again in 1 Samuel 30 verse 1, and they raid in the promised land again, and burn a city down called Ziklag.

In the book of Esther, Haman, who plotted to kill all Israelites, because one wouldn’t bow to him, was an Amalekite - in fact, he was a direct descendant of Agag, (Esther 3:1).

Do you see the wisdom of God in ordering Saul to take them all out, as awful of a task it was? He has the right to command that as their creator, and when we see these people continue to cause evil, we see that it would have been wise for Saul to listen.

And so this command from God for destruction was not overkill.

But here’s a question: What if they didn’t perform child sacrifice, or many of the horrors that the Canaanites performed? Would it have been overkill then? We have an easier time swallowing this pill if we can say that the Amalekites are much worse than us.

As long as they sin in ways that I wouldn’t dream of, then it’s easy to imagine how God could command their death. But this could never happen if they were like us. Right?

So?

What does Romans 6:23 say to this?

“For the wages of sin is death”

Death is not the wage of especially heinous sin. Death is the wages of sin - period. Do we believe that?

Don’t have such a low view of sin that the bar of sin needs to be way up here before we’re okay with God acting on it, and giving people the sentence of death.

Even if the sin of the Amalekites is much more graphic than ours, each one of us, when we were sinners outside of Christ, rebelled against God daily. Tempting and taunting Him to put us to the edge of the sword like the Amalekites. 

He has been patient with us, but if we try to say that He was too harsh on the Amalekites, our mouths are stopped by our own sin. For the wages of sin is death. 

It wasn’t overkill - and that’s the point. As awful as Saul's task was, whatever would have happened if this people group continued is worse. Sin against God continuing in the world is worse than its judgment.

So - this wasn’t ethnic genocide, and this wasn’t an over reaction.

This sets us up for what it actually was. And don’t worry when looking at your outline - the sections are quite a bit shorter from here on out.

What this was:

We’ve pretty much already said this, but it’s important to note this specifically - this command from God was God’s act of judgment - not man's - but God’s act of judgment while using man.

This is just plain as day from verses 2-3 in 1 Samuel 15, when God is the one to command their destruction. It’s not like Saul or Samuel thought it up, and God approved it. It was God’s sentence on the Amalekites.

And since this was an act of divine judgment, this should have been carried out like a solemn capital punishment. There should have been no sin, or ego, or un-needed acts of violence and domination involved. This should have been swift, and solemn.

And that’s a major point where Saul failed by bringing back king Agag and the livestock, and making a monument of himself, as we see in verse 12. 

Because if this is a petty human skirmish, rooted in human pride, that’s just what you do! You capture the king as a war trophy, and you take the animals as loot, you build a statue and you do a victory lap! 

And that's how Saul and his men treated this task. 15:19 says that they pounced on the spoil, and did evil in God’s sight.

The fact that they treated this like a party, and not like a sacred, solemn task, is a huge part of what made Saul’s disobedience evil in God’s eyes.

So this command from God to destroy all of the Amalekites wasn’t genocide, or an over-reaction from God, or petty human war. But it was a death sentence from God that was supposed to be carried out with solemn sober seriousness. And Saul failed.

And that’s one of the things that makes this so hard to swallow. When God chooses to use humans to accomplish His will, and we disobey His will, it can be hard for our hearts to sort out what God’s will and command was, and what’s ugly human sin.

And that’s why we must distinguish between what God actually commanded, and how Saul carried out that command. God’s command was perfect and just. Saul's performance of that command was partial, ugly, and awful.

What makes this hard:

But if we’re totally honest about what really makes this hard. If we’re really honest - it’s the fact that children and infants were involved. Maybe the more righteous among us would be able to say “well that’s just what God said to do”, and pretend to be unbothered - but I think all of us, if we really meditated on this, would struggle at least some.

To be totally frank, and this will surprise nobody - I don’t have all the answers here. But here are just two short thoughts to consider.

A) Every death, of every man, woman, child, and baby, is already in the hands of God. Jesus says in Matthew 10:29 that not even a sparrow dies apart from God’s plan. 

So as hard as it is to realize that the death of these children and infants was part God’s plan, we need to realize that there isn’t one death anywhere ever outside of God’s plan. 

And that should bring us more peace than uncertainty. He’s weaving together a beautiful story, with both lovely and awful threads. We have to trust Him

B) We need to realise that God can do more than one thing at a time. Many - most - of the Amalekites died as an act of judgment that day. 

But consider how it could have been an act of mercy for the infants. 

The alternative is that they grew up, sinned against God their whole lives, lived miserably, never finding joy in Him, and died, facing a far worse judgment than they ever would have otherwise. 

And many men who have the Bible as their authority, believe that babies who die are immediately with God in heaven. So as hard as it is to see with human eyes, God could have been performing both judgment and mercy on that day. In the end, we know that the judge of all the earth will do right (Genesis 18:25). So we trust Him.

These are hard questions, church. And we could say so much more, but eventually, we run out of ground to stand on from the Word of God.

Now, at that point, we could either philosophise until we’re comfortable with God, as many have - or we could take Paul's advice in Romans 9, where we are put in our place, and silenced. Open to Romans 9. Start in verse 18.

Silenced

Romans 9:18-26: 18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. 19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 

That’s a rhetorical question - but it really does have an answer. Who are we to answer back to God? Nobody. And not just nobodies, but nobodies that have sinned, and earned death.

And what can we say if God decides to create some vessels for destruction? Nothing - we can’t say anything because we all deserve that destruction. 

So we’re silenced by God’s choice, and by our sin. But it doesn’t end there saints. Sin isn’t the only thing that shuts us up - it’s also God’s love.

God prepared the Amalekites for destruction yes - but continue on in verse 23. Some are prepared for destruction but why?

23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? 25 As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call (us Amaleklites who were far away from God!) ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’” 26 “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”

Paul’s not just saying “your a small sinner, so don’t talk back to God”

He’s also saying “even though you were sinners, God has made you His people. Even though you were not beloved, God loves you more than you can imagine. Even though you were rebellious Amalekites, now you are sons, children, of the living God.” 

Saints, we will never totally understand God. We will never understand His mysterious plan and providence. But one of the biggest reasons that we can never question God on His plan, is because within that mysterious plan, we have received not what we deserve - but mercy - and deep, rich love from God - and adoption as His children. 

And if He’s our Father now, and if He loves us, we can trust Him. We need to come to Him as children right?