The Unbelief That Could Not Drive Out the Chariots of Iron
[1] God, Who Longs for Victory over Sin
18Also Judah took Gaza with its border, and Ashkelon with its border, and Ekron with its border. 19Yahweh was with Judah; and drove out the inhabitants of the hill country; for he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. 20They gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said, and he drove the three sons of Anak out of there. 21The children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem, but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.
After the exodus, Israel moved as one at the command of Moses and Joshua, and Moses and Joshua led the people toward Canaan according to God’s commands and statutes. When they reached Canaan, the land of promise, they divided the territory among the tribes and so brought to completion the promise God had made to Abraham. I am describing in a few easy words what Moses and Joshua bore, but these were men who gave their lives for God and for Israel. Because of Moses and Joshua, Israel could stand before God and enter the promised land.
Once they had entered Canaan, God commanded them to strike and destroy everyone living in every city they took, leaving no one alive. It is a terrible command, in which one can feel nothing of God’s love, yet Joshua obeyed it without question. He knew that if God had commanded it, there was a clear reason. Experience had taught him that if he obeyed as he was commanded, he would surely come to understand God’s purpose, even if only later. So he always obeyed first.
You will have asked yourselves, though, whether Israel really had to kill people so cruelly in conquering Canaan. The Canaanites, after all, were simply living their lives in their own land and had done the Israelites no harm at all.
Why did God tell them to show the Canaanites no mercy? Only when we clearly understand God’s heart can we judge well, as we walk with him, what we must give up and what we must keep. For if we do not know clearly who God is and what plan he has in governing the world, we cannot understand him or grasp his will, and we will have no choice but to go out into the world.
Psalms 19:7
7Yahweh’s law is perfect, restoring the soul. Yahweh’s testimony is sure, making wise the simple.
There is a reason I stress Bible reading to you, and even insist on it. It is because the law is the standard God set up so that his people could live rightly. Since the law is the measure of all things, human thoughts and judgments are not what matter. So we must never forget that God is the Creator and that we are his creatures.
The words “Yahweh’s law is perfect, restoring the soul” mean that to have full joy, peace, and rest, we must know the law that restores the soul and live by the word. “Perfect” is the word used for an offering without spot or blemish, and “restoring” carries the sense of waking someone who has fainted and bringing the dead back to life. Put simply, the verse holds a remarkable meaning: like an offering without spot or blemish, Yahweh’s word makes alive again sinners who were dead forever through sin. The word of God alone has the holy power to bring dead souls to life. The verse goes on, “Yahweh’s testimony is sure, making wise the simple.” This means that God gives us a heart that sincerely believes his word is truth, and with it the wisdom to see the world through his eyes.
If your heart is now dark, confused, and as troubled as if you were dying, this is a warning that you must draw near to the word. Only by relying on the word can you wake from a heart that is formless and empty, with darkness over the deep; and only when you wake from that spiritual darkness can dark circumstances change too.
It is said that nine out of ten office workers today suffer from, or are in the early stages of, a condition called “runaway mind syndrome,” brought on by chronic fatigue and stress. Physical limits reached through accumulated exhaustion, the dull repetition of daily life, an uncertain future with no time of one’s own: for reasons like these, people fall into depression. They struggle because they cannot easily tell their families how they are, and when they long to rest but cannot, their bodies weaken until at last they fall ill. It was also said that if nothing changes in their situation, or if they try to bear this depression alone, the symptoms worsen, so they should seek help from their families or from counseling.
Not only office workers but homemakers, and even children at their studies, all of us live within a structure that makes stress unavoidable. So rather than giving up on everything in the belief that we can only endure, we must learn to see the larger picture, that Almighty God has helped each of us up to this very moment. Only then can we be healed and live a new life. The soul is restored only by relying on the word of life, so a return to the word, foolish as it may seem, is the only way to full healing. If God’s word restores the soul and makes wise the simple, then a person without the word is, in the end, dead. That is why, in a world where God’s word is despised, people fall ill, lose heart, and sink down in futility, however hard they work.
God commanded them to drive out the people of every city they took because the inhabitants worshiped idols and lived in sexual immorality, and he was concerned that the people of Israel would become like them and be corrupted. Their lives, rejecting God who is light, were darkness itself. If Israel did not drive them out, the Israelites would marry them and have children with them, would serve the idols they served, and would follow the ways of the world. Then Israel would be corrupted and live as the simple. To guard their faith, then, God commanded them to drive out or kill all the people in every city they entered.
Had the people of Israel been trusted to serve God alone in any circumstance, God would not have needed to say such a thing. It was because he could not trust them that he had no choice but to command them to utterly destroy the corrupt Canaanites. If my child is dependable, I need not worry about other children. But if my child is lacking, I have to worry about how the children around them behave. God’s heart is precisely the heart of a parent watching a child who falls short.
Those who love Yahweh are given the grace by which one chases a thousand, and Yahweh would therefore have helped Israel win every war, however numerous the enemy and however powerful their weapons. But the Israelites were foolish people who saw only what their eyes could see and heard only what their ears could hear, and so they betrayed God. God had already told them everything that would happen, but they made light of his words of judgment.
As if he knew the people would betray him, God told them that if they did, he would no longer drive those nations out from before them; yet the people of Israel did not show him faith. He had plainly warned them that if they did not live by the word, those nations would be a snare and a trap to them, a scourge in their sides and thorns in their eyes, until they perished from the good land God had given them. Even so, Israel betrayed God, and in the end they met the sorrow of suffering God’s wrath in that very land of promise.
Like Ham, who was cursed by his father even though he had been in the ark, and like Judas Iscariot, who fell into hell after Jesus had given him chance after chance, Israel came to suffer judgment in the land of promise. God would not have wanted Israel to suffer. All they had to do was obey the word, but they could not let go of the visible pleasures of the world and human righteousness, and in the end they betrayed God.
Judges 1:19
19Yahweh was with Judah; and drove out the inhabitants of the hill country; for he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.
When the people prayed to ask who should go up first, God said he would give the land into their hands and that Judah should go up first. With that answer the tribe of Judah went up with Simeon and won a triumph beyond anything they could have imagined. Now, if only they prayed in faith, they could hear God’s voice directly and know the joy of victory Moses and Joshua had known. With Simeon, Judah struck the Canaanites who lived in Zephath and utterly destroyed them, then drove out the inhabitants of the hill country in a mighty victory. It was their full faith that God was with them that won this victory over the strong inhabitants of the hill country. If Israel believes in Almighty God in this way, they need not fear the people of the hill country, however strong they may be. Since God’s Spirit is already with Israel, they will win at any time, if only they believe the word and put it into action. We should not say that we will obey once God has first defeated our enemies; when we show our faith first, God’s word comes true before our eyes.
Yet even after a victory far beyond their ability, when the tribe of Judah saw that the people who lived in the valley had chariots of iron, they were seized by the fear that they could never defeat them. That fear made them betray God and drove them to pull back of their own accord. God had solved problems they could never have solved and brought them comfortably into the land of Canaan, yet they were still looking at the strength of the people of the world. Once they compared the valley’s inhabitants, with their chariots of iron, to themselves, who had no such weapons, that war became a war they could not win.
If you weigh what you have against the power of the world, then nothing, whether your life, your business, or your children, can be resolved. If you take into your weak and empty-handed heart the problems this vast world throws at you, God’s grace becomes in a moment as useless as rubbish, and in the end you bow before the powers of the world.
We must not forget that since the exodus Israel had solved nothing by its own strength, and that there was nothing in which God had not stepped in. Yet every time they met a problem, instead of relying on God, they despaired, as though the problem were theirs to solve. This is how Israel came to bow to idols, and this is how believers, too, are being dragged about by the cunning schemes of the world.
Have you lived until now by your own ability? If you know that God has helped you moment by moment, and yet try to solve by yourself every problem the world throws at you, you will end up relying on the world more than on God. To leave God is to choose darkness for yourself and to bind yourself with sin so tightly that there is no recovery. I hope you will never depart from the word of God. Only then can your soul be restored, and only then will you avoid the mistakes and sins the people of Israel committed.
Joshua 17:18
18but the hill country shall be yours. Although it is a forest, you shall cut it down, and it’s farthest extent shall be yours; for you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they are strong.”
Once, when the children of Joseph complained to Joshua that the portion they had received was too small, he told them that if they thought it too small, they should go up into the forest in the land of the Perizzites and the Rephaim and clear it for themselves. The children of Joseph then complained that they could not defeat the Canaanites who lived in the valley, because they had chariots of iron. Hearing this, Joshua reminded them that Ephraim and Manasseh were a great people with great power. Strong as the Canaanites might be with their chariots of iron, he encouraged them, they had power from God and were well able to drive them out.
The children of Joseph were terrified of the Canaanites’ chariots of iron, but Joshua told them they could win every battle, since God had promised to give them Canaan. This assumed, of course, a faith that relied wholly on God; yet Joshua was confident that they could destroy the Canaanites, chariots of iron and all, for God had never left them. Joshua had learned firsthand through many battles, and so he urged the children of Joseph, who said they were too afraid to do it, to have faith.
Judah, who had destroyed the Canaanites of the hill country, was afraid of the people of the valley because of their formidable chariots of iron. Here the “valley” does not mean a deep gorge between mountains; it means the lowland, in contrast to the hill country. The region Judah now had to conquer was the plain where the Philistines lived, so chariots of iron would have been a very effective weapon there. The vast sums every nation spends on defense today to acquire powerful weapons may help us understand the situation a little.
Our country today lives under nuclear threat. North Korea lies to the north, and we are a small country surrounded by sea on three sides, almost like an island, so we seem all the more exposed to danger. Our country is certainly in a dangerous and uneasy position, but what matters more for us who believe is not the threatening nuclear weapons North Korea possesses but the faith with which we look at this problem before God. Whenever Israel made even a little effort to rely on God, God always became a hedge around them so that foreign nations could not attack them, and helped them win great victories in war. If Israel, when God gave them material peace, had stood firm in faith, built up the nation’s strength, and labored for its flourishing, their descendants could have lived in peace in Canaan. Our country today, too, must arm itself with powerful weapons and develop its economy; this is very important, and it must be done.
But just as the word restores the soul, the first thing is that we who hold the word stay awake, pray for our nation and people, and live by the word. Then God will protect the nation in answer to our prayers.
In reality, though, churches, pastors, and congregations are not living according to God’s will, and as the economy has grown and material wealth has increased, not only the people of the world but those in the church too are living as they please. They expect God to protect them one-sidedly, simply because they attend church, and they deceive themselves that the nation will be at peace. Through the corruption of those who believe, the nation is sinking further and further into spiritual darkness.
Though God had urged Israel so earnestly not to mix with the people of Canaan and not to call on the gods they served, they were walking the road of corruption as if God did not exist.
Judges tells us that when God’s people fall into corruption and sin, God’s rod comes upon them. If we who believe do not fear God and live without regard for his word, the future of our country will be uncertain. A country is not safe because its economy has grown and it has imported powerful weapons; its future is uncertain because we who believe are not awake.
Though God went with the tribe of Judah and helped them, they were afraid of the people armed with chariots of iron and knelt down of their own accord. They did not lose because the enemy was strong; they failed to drive out the inhabitants of the valley because their hearts had changed. The words “could not drive out” mean not that they lacked the power but that, having it, they still did not drive them out: a dereliction of duty, or a deliberate evasion. They gave up the battle without so much as trying, though their power was full. Not only Judah but the tribe of Manasseh too failed to drive out the inhabitants, and the Canaanites were determined to dwell in that land. The children of Benjamin, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, and Naphtali also abandoned their promise to God and did not drive them out. Just as Joshua had said, the Canaanites they failed to drive out became a snare and a trap to the people of Israel, a scourge in their sides and thorns in their eyes.
Joshua had asked the people to build a holy nation, since, whatever weapons the Canaanites might have, Israel would surely win if it relied on God. But instead of obeying God’s command fully, Israel showed the unbelief of an easy compromise. As a result, Israel lived alongside them for many years, and when Israel had grown strong and had power enough to drive them out, it put the Canaanites to forced labor instead.
When God told the king of Egypt to let Israel go, the king refused because he wanted to keep them as servants and slaves and put them to work. Pharaoh, who did not obey God’s command, came under God’s judgment and lost his firstborn and many soldiers. Yet Israel, which had lived through all that, was now using the Canaanites as slaves for its own ease rather than driving them out, though God had commanded them to drive out every one. Israel had experienced the grace of God, who did mighty works to save them when they suffered as slaves; now they were sinning just as the king of Egypt had.
In the same way, we too resolve that we will give ourselves to God if he helps us, but once our prayers are answered, we forget God in order to hold on to the material abundance we enjoy. God tells us that only by denying ourselves can we live by his will and receive the blessing of eternal life, yet we have not given up a single thing. Had Israel driven out the inhabitants as commanded, they would have lived a blessed life, enjoying the peace and rest of heaven that God gives.
If there had been anyone among the Canaanites who was to be saved, they would have seen the supremacy of God even in hard circumstances, as Rahab did. They would have known that the idols they believed in were empty illusions and would have believed in Almighty God. Had Israel displayed God’s greatness and given him glory for the sake of those who were to be saved, Israel would have received a blessing beyond imagining.
God has commanded us, too, to put away everything the powers of darkness have planted in us: human righteousness and pride, greed and a condemning heart, pleasures and evil habits. Yet we disobey, and we sin by not driving them out. Just as the people of Israel, once strong, made the Canaanites their slaves and took their chariots of iron, we have even cast aside God’s word out of greed, wanting to take all these things as our own and grow stronger. We still want to go to heaven, so we live a life of convenient compromise; but the word allows no compromise, and we cannot receive God’s absolute protection and grace.
Judges teaches us how precious is the faith that relies on God. May you live with an honest faith, remembering Job’s confession that it is God who gave and God who has taken away. As I read Judges, with Israel receiving God’s grace and obeying, Israel casting that grace aside to serve idols, and God’s wrath and judgment falling again and again on a people who betrayed him, I was saddened. Let us understand that God’s love for his people, and his anger and judgment too, are all love, and let us obey his word.
I hope you will show God the precious faith that lives by his word, and enjoy his abundant grace.