God, Who Tested Israel

1Now these are the nations which Yahweh left, to test Israel by them, even as many as had not known all the wars of Canaan; 2only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at least those who knew nothing of it before: 3the five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath. 4They were left to test Israel by them, to know whether they would listen to Yahweh’s commandments, which he commanded their fathers by Moses. 5The children of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 6They took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons and served their gods. 7The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and forgot Yahweh their God, and served the Baals and the Asheroth.

If students never sat a test, no one could tell what they had learned. Teachers do their very best to pass on what they know so that their students’ grades will improve. The same holds for pastors who preach the gospel and for parents. Parents must teach their children God’s holiness and faithfulness, handing on the word so that their children may fear God and live by it. Only by fearing God can we live according to a good conscience, and because such people strive to live by faith, the children of the righteous are blessed to a thousand generations.

From around BC 1405, Israel fought a war of conquest for about five years under Joshua’s leadership to enter Canaan. The war ended in overwhelming victory, for God himself was at work behind Israel. They would have learned that the battles of this world are won not by human strength but by God’s power.

When Joshua and all the elders of his generation had died, the people lived as they themselves thought right. Because they did not live by faith, they did not drive out the Canaanites as God had commanded, though they could have; they kept them to use as slaves.

Judges 3:1-2

1Now these are the nations which Yahweh left, to test Israel by them, even as many as had not known all the wars of Canaan; 2only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at least those who knew nothing of it before:

It may look as though Israel left the Canaanites in place for its own purposes, but Scripture records that God left them there to train Israel. To train them as children of faith, he used as his instrument the greed and lust they would not give up. Through their own wrong choices, Israel would learn how painful and fearsome God’s training is. When God trains his people, there is no compromise and no way of escape. Because he waits until we bow the knee before him, repentance is our only opening.

The nations God left were the five lords of the Philistines, the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites. Israel had abandoned God’s word and did not fear him. That is why they felt no religious unease at all about living among the Canaanites. With no pangs of conscience, they could sin without fear. Watching his people do what was right in their own eyes, God wanted them to turn back, and so he tested them through the foreign nations.

What grieves me is this: they had met God and heard his word, so if they had lived by faith, no rod of discipline would have been needed. Had they believed and obeyed his word that he would give them Canaan, God would have made Israel victorious and given them peace and rest. They had received Canaan, the land of blessing, yet because they did not choose what was good, they took the long way round in life when a shortcut lay before them.

Deuteronomy 8:2

2You shall remember all the way which Yahweh your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not.

The forty years Israel spent in the wilderness were hard, both the length of the time and the conditions, yet they lived within God’s special grace and saw his miracles: he kept their clothes and sandals from wearing out, fed them with manna, and was a safe hedge around them. Over those forty years they should have come to understand God’s grace and offered him a humble faith of their own accord, but they did not turn back, and so they failed the test. Never having learned about God from their parents, the Israelites did not fear him; when they saw how richly the Canaanites lived, their faith wavered and they stumbled.

You too will have been through God’s training. You will have known him to answer your prayers, and perhaps he has shown you an astonishing miracle that carried you through a dangerous moment. When the answer came, you will have rejoiced and promised that you would never betray God.

But you saw the people of the world prospering, and the wish to succeed as they had will often have come over you. The world will have looked larger than the God who had led you until then, and as you strove, afraid of falling behind unless you mixed with them, you will have drifted from God little by little. And having drifted without even noticing, you may well have told yourself that you had no choice.

But God will use every decision you make as an instrument of training and test you through it; you must prove your faith. Suffering will show whether you truly had no choice or whether you abandoned God for wealth and glory. If I tell you that you must not live like the people of the world, then depending on your faith my words may strike you as right, or they may be hard to hear. That is because whether the message I preach bears fruit or is thrown away depends on your faith and your character. But if the sermon I have preached speaks for God’s word, God will test the faith of you who heard it. Then you will have to prove your faith, and only by passing the test as God wills will you be spared suffering. Friends, everyone has the desire to live as they please, but that road ends in death. We need to live out God’s word.

God wanted Israel to obey his word, but they took the daughters of the Canaanites as wives, served the gods the Canaanites served, and without hesitation drank and indulged in immorality before idols. If you were God, would you go on embracing such people to the end? They want blessing, yet they defy the very word of the God who gives it—how could he bless them? God had clearly told them to drive out the Canaanites. This was because Canaan was the land he had promised to give Israel, and he wanted his people to build a nation in which they would wholly enthrone God as their king. The war for Canaan was not merely a fight to seize land; it was a war for God’s people to found a nation and make God known to the world.

God has put us, his people, in a world ruled by Satan so that we who know what the blood of the cross means might tell it to those who have no idea what it means. Yet instead we envy them, grow ashamed of sharing the gospel, fall silent of our own accord, and copy their ways.

But one thing we must clearly understand: the final destination of those who belong to God is not this world. On the last day we will be called by God, and depending on how we live now, we may run toward the light or gnash our teeth in the darkness. If you live out a life of faith to the end, God will keep your faith even when your circumstances are hard, and he will change those circumstances.

Daniel 6:10

10When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his windows were open in his room toward Jerusalem) and he kneeled on his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did before.

Daniel was recognized for his outstanding wisdom and ability, and he won the favor even of Darius the Mede, who came to power after the Babylonian empire fell. Officials who envied Daniel then devised a rite of worshiping the emperor, plotting to get rid of Daniel, who served God alone. King Darius had appointed three high officials, Daniel among them, and Daniel won the king’s approval because he governed with a good conscience and clean hands. The jealous officials tried to bring charges against him, but they could find no fault in him.

Out of his fear of God, Daniel walked with God honestly and faithfully in every area of life. When they failed to find any flaw in him, they made his faithful devotion the pretext for a wicked scheme. We who believe must likewise live honestly and faithfully in the world. The other high officials and the satraps came to the king and, to make a god of him, proposed that for the next thirty days anyone who prayed to any god or man other than the king should be thrown into the lions’ den. They made such a law because they knew that Daniel would not betray God even to save his life. How exemplary Daniel’s life must have been for them to build a scheme around his faith! His faith seems to have been remarkable indeed.

To deify the king, they insisted that he sign the decree so that the people of Media and Persia would have to obey it without question. And King Darius, having no reason to oppose officials who wanted to make him a god, signed it and issued the ban.

A great crisis had come upon Daniel, who served God. Now he faced a moment when he had to choose life or death for himself. He knew that the high officials and the others envied him, and he knew of their plan to bring him down. Perhaps he also knew that the moment he defied the king’s command and prayed to God, he could lose all the power and authority he had enjoyed until then, and even his life. Yet knowing all this, Daniel went home, opened his windows toward Jerusalem, and gave thanks to God in prayer. Because he knew that God had kept him, a captive, safe until then, he acknowledged that even his life belonged to God.

Those who had been watching Daniel’s every move reported to the king that he had broken the decree.

1 Peter 2:19-20

19For it is commendable if someone endures pain, suffering unjustly, because of conscience toward God. 20For what glory is it if, when you sin, you patiently endure beating? But if, when you do well, you patiently endure suffering, this is commendable with God.

These words read as if Peter were commending Daniel’s choice, because although Daniel is now being persecuted unjustly, his faith, born of his love for God, is beautiful. It is as though God were showing us this good work of Daniel’s faith and telling us to endure for his sake as Daniel did, and to make our faith visible to the world.

Daniel knew that God had raised him, a captive, to high office, and he had no wish to betray God. He chose death as the evidence of an invisible faith.

Daniel 6:14

14Then the king, when he heard these words, was very displeased, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him; and he labored until the going down of the sun to rescue him.

Daniel 6:14 records that the king was very displeased, set his heart on Daniel to deliver him, and labored to rescue him. Being very displeased here means disliking something, taking offense at it: the king was deeply offended that the officials had accused Daniel at all. Setting his heart on delivering Daniel means that he was anxious and troubled on Daniel’s account. Since it was he who had signed the decree, he watched the situation closely and strove to save him.

But because he had already bound himself before the people, he ordered Daniel thrown into the lions’ den, though he knew Daniel had committed no crime worthy of death. Just as Pontius Pilate washed his hands to escape responsibility for the innocent Jesus being sent to the cross, King Darius decided that he could not prevent Daniel’s suffering.

Though he himself had created this situation, he said an absurd thing to Daniel as he was dragged off to the starving lions: that his God, whom he served continually, would deliver him. This is exactly the attitude the people of the world take in the end. They know Daniel is an honest servant and that he has been framed, but because they fear they may come to harm, they abandon him. Nor did Darius truly believe that God would act; he was telling Daniel to pray to the God he served with his whole life and ask to be kept alive. Then he had the mouth of the den into which Daniel had been thrown blocked and sealed with his own signet and the signets of his lords, closing it so completely that even if Daniel did not die, he could never get out. This was the officials’ meticulous calculation, and it showed their determination to see Daniel dead.

Daniel, carried off as a captive and living in a foreign land, had not lost heart but had kept his faith with his whole life, and now he was to die because of his love for God. What would people have said as they watched him? They would have jeered that if this God was so almighty, he ought not to sit still while his own servant was in trouble, and they would have challenged one another to see whether he would rescue Daniel from the hungry lions. They were acting just like those who mocked Jesus on the cross, telling him that if he was the Messiah he should come down from the cross and save himself.

What would Daniel have thought in that moment if his faith had been weak? If his faith were the kind that believes in God only when life is comfortable and plentiful, he would have wept and cried out for his life as he was dragged to the lions’ den. He would have complained that he had believed in God with all his zeal and never doubted, so why had God made his end so wretched? He would have shouted, asking why he of all people had to suffer.

But Daniel’s faith was different. He held a true faith: if it was for the God of eternal life, then to bear whatever suffering came, and bear it fully, was his portion. When he prayed toward Jerusalem he already knew this would happen, and he knew that even if God did not rescue him, his final destination was God’s embrace. That is why he showed God a faith that did not waver to the end.

This is the faith God desires of Israel. Only when a person looks at the lions roaring over Daniel and still shows the faith that says Yahweh gives life and Yahweh takes it away does God shut the lions’ mouths and keep them alive. You too will have met suffering that roars like a hungry lion as you go through life. At such times, if you stand firm as God’s child and endure, the God who shut the lions’ mouths will surely act.

The next day King Darius went to the lions’ den and cried out in anguish. Hardly daring to hope, he called out to Daniel, servant of the living God, asking whether his God, whom he served continually, had delivered him from the lions. Darius did not believe in God, but he would have had a very human longing for the God Daniel served to have saved him. In the same way, people of the world, though they themselves do not believe, want believers to show a faith that serves God without compromise. They mock Christians, asking why they go to church when they could be enjoying the world and scoffing at them for making such a fuss about religion, and yet, in a way that is hard to understand, they want them to go on living by faith to the end. When you refuse a drink or a cigarette at a gathering, they curse and mock you; yet when something truly important comes up, they look for the person of faith who is always diligent and honest. This too is how the world behaves. So we who believe must always live with mature character and faith; only then will God work through the people he has made ready.

King Darius called out to Daniel with longing. Hearing the king’s voice, Daniel answered that because he had done no harm to the king or to the kingdom, God had sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths beforehand, though the officials had plotted against him. The king was overjoyed and had him lifted out of the den, and indeed no wound from the lions was found on him. Seeing that Daniel was alive, the king, in great fury, had the men who had accused him thrown into the lions’ den along with their families. Having seen Daniel live, King Darius issued a decree to his kingdom commanding that from then on all should fear the God of Daniel. He praised him as the living God, steadfast forever, whose kingdom will not be destroyed and whose dominion will have no end. Daniel had simply kept his faith, and yet a miracle followed: King Darius exalted God and commanded all the people to serve him.

Just as God left the Canaanites in the land to see Israel’s faith, the cunning officials were the instrument that brought Daniel’s faith into the light. Daniel passed God’s test and proved his faith. When God used Daniel in Babylon to bring judgment on those who worshiped idols, he was bearing witness that the true blessing God gives is received when we live as a good people for him.

If the people of Israel do not give in to the temptations of those who do not serve God, but keep their faith, God’s glory will be revealed. Had Daniel, in fear of those cunning men, done as they wished—as Israel did when it lived mingled with the Canaanites—he could have kept his comfortable life in the world, but God would have cast him off.

You will have met people who tell you that everyone in the world lives for pleasure like this, and that believing in God is no reason to make such a fuss. You will also have met those who, like King Darius, share warmth with you and treat you well, only to abandon you in an instant when their own interest demands it. Every time you met such people, you will have been hurt, unable to understand hearts that could turn away so coldly. This is the suffering and testing that come to God’s people as they live in the world, and it is a life that has to be won through faith.

You who know how the faithful God works: I hope you will be a Daniel, who went willingly into the lions’ den with the confession, If I perish, I perish. If we die keeping the faith, we are held in God’s arms; if he spares us, we live once more for his glory. May Daniel’s confession become your own.

Israel, which owed thanks to God for leading them all the way to Canaan, ought to resist the world’s temptations and boldly keep the faith. For the sake of God’s will and plan—for he had led them in order to build his Kingdom—Israel must pass the test at every turn.

Perhaps God will test your faith today. But if, like Daniel, you pray every day and live by faith, you will pass that test with ease and receive God’s high commendation. If only you make your decision, God will shut the lions’ mouths beforehand for the sake of that faith.

My prayer is that you will experience, with a faith that is full, the miracle of surviving the lions’ den, and that by that faith you will live as God’s child, rescuing those who wander in the dark.