The Divine Gymnasium: God's School of War Text: Judges 3:1-6
Introduction: The Discomfort of Divine Training
We live in an age that worships at the altar of comfort and safety. Our entire culture is geared toward the elimination of risk, the padding of sharp corners, and the creation of "safe spaces" where no one is ever challenged, offended, or tested. We want our Christianity to be like this as well. We want a faith that is a soft pillow, not a sharp sword. We want a God who is a celestial butler, not a commanding general. But the God of the Bible is not safe, and He is not interested in our perpetual comfort. He is interested in our holiness, our strength, and our faithfulness, and these are virtues that are never forged in the soft places. They are forged in the fire, on the anvil of adversity.
The book of Judges opens with the sad reality that the generation after Joshua had failed to complete the conquest. They had grown weary of the fight. They had settled for a compromised peace. And so, as we come to our text, we find that God did not simply throw up His hands in frustration. He did not scrap His plan. Rather, in His inscrutable sovereignty, He repurposed Israel's failure. He took the enemies they refused to drive out and turned them into a divine training regimen. He established a school of spiritual warfare, right in their backyard.
This is a profound principle that we must grasp. The thorns in your side, the persistent struggles, the ungodly culture pressing in on you on every side, these are not cosmic accidents. They are not evidence of God's failure. They are, very often, the instruments of His pedagogy. God leaves the Canaanites in the land not to watch us fail, but to teach us how to fight. The test is not for His information, He already knows what is in our hearts. The test is for our information. It is designed to reveal our weakness, drive us to Him for strength, and train our hands for war.
The Text
Now these are the nations which Yahweh allowed to remain, to test Israel by them (that is, all who had not known any of the wars of Canaan; however, God tested them in order that the generations of the sons of Israel would know war, by learning war, especially those who had not known it formerly). These nations are: the five lords of the Philistines and all the Canaanites and the Sidonians and the Hivites who lived in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath. And they were for testing Israel, to know if they would obey the commandments of Yahweh, which He had commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. Now the sons of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and they took their daughters for themselves as wives and gave their own daughters to their sons and served their gods.
(Judges 3:1-6 LSB)
The Sovereign Schoolmaster (v. 1-2)
The first thing we must see is God's absolute sovereignty over the situation.
"Now these are the nations which Yahweh allowed to remain, to test Israel by them (that is, all who had not known any of the wars of Canaan; however, God tested them in order that the generations of the sons of Israel would know war, by learning war, especially those who had not known it formerly)." (Judges 3:1-2)
The text says Yahweh "allowed to remain" or "left" these nations. This was not a mistake. This was a deliberate, calculated, pedagogical decision. Israel's partial obedience resulted in a permanent curriculum. God is the great weaver, and He can take the tangled threads of our disobedience and weave them into a pattern for His glory and our training.
And what was the purpose of this curriculum? "To test Israel." The word for test here is nasah, which means to prove or to try. It is the same word used when God tested Abraham by asking for Isaac. It is a test designed to reveal the quality of one's faith and obedience. God wanted to see if the faith of this new generation was genuine, or if it was merely the second-hand cultural inheritance from their fathers. Faith that has not been tested cannot be trusted.
But the purpose was not just a pass/fail exam. It was for training. God left the Canaanites "in order that the generations... would know war, by learning war." This is a bedrock principle of Christian discipleship. You do not learn to fight by attending seminars on fighting. You learn to fight by fighting. God wanted soldiers, not scholars of military history. He wanted a generation that knew how to pray because they had been in situations that drove them to their knees. He wanted a generation that knew how to trust His promises because they had faced enemies that only a promise from God could defeat. Peace and prosperity produce soft men. God, in His mercy, provides us with enemies to keep us sharp. He loves us too much to let us grow fat and lazy in Zion.
Notice the emphasis on the new generation, "especially those who had not known it formerly." The children of the victors are often the first to surrender. They enjoy the peace that their fathers fought for, but they do not understand the cost. They take for granted the blessings of a godly heritage. And so, God ensures that every generation has its own Philistines. The specific enemies may change, but the war is perennial. God will not allow us to coast on the victories of a previous generation.
The Specifics of the Test (v. 3-4)
The text then gets very specific about the nature of the test.
"These nations are: the five lords of the Philistines and all the Canaanites and the Sidonians and the Hivites... And they were for testing Israel, to know if they would obey the commandments of Yahweh, which He had commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses." (Judges 3:3-4)
These were not abstract temptations. They were real neighbors with real idols and real daughters. The Philistines were masters of technology and military organization. The Canaanites practiced a debased and seductive fertility religion. The Sidonians were masters of commerce and luxury. These represent the same temptations we face today: the worship of power and technology, the allure of sexual license, and the siren song of materialism. These enemies were left in the land to pose a very specific question to Israel: "Will you obey?"
The test was not about their feelings, their sincerity, or their worship attendance. The test was about obedience to the specific commandments of God given through Moses. The central command in view here was the prohibition against intermarriage and idolatry found in Deuteronomy 7. God had forbidden them from making covenants with the Canaanites or marrying them, because He knew that such unions would inevitably "turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods."
This is the heart of the matter. The test is always a test of loyalty. Will you obey God's Word, even when it is hard, counter-cultural, and requires you to be distinct? Or will you compromise for the sake of getting along, for the sake of a quiet life, for the sake of a business deal, or for the sake of a pretty face? The Canaanites in the land force this question. They remove the possibility of a comfortable neutrality. You will either fight them or you will join them.
The Slippery Slope of Compromise (v. 5-6)
The final two verses give us the tragic, but entirely predictable, results of this test. Israel failed, and they failed spectacularly.
"Now the sons of Israel lived among the Canaanites... and they took their daughters for themselves as wives and gave their own daughters to their sons and served their gods." (Judges 3:5-6)
Here we see the anatomy of apostasy, a three-step descent into idolatry. First, they "lived among" them. The Hebrew word is yashab, which means to dwell, to settle, to remain. They got comfortable. They stopped seeing the Canaanites as a spiritual threat that needed to be driven out, and started seeing them as neighbors to be tolerated. This is the sin of accommodation. It is the decision to coexist peacefully with what God has commanded us to conquer.
Second, once they were comfortable living next to sin, they began to intermarry with it. "They took their daughters for themselves as wives." The line of covenant distinction was blurred. The family, which is the basic building block of the covenant, was compromised. They foolishly believed they could bring a pagan worldview into the heart of their homes without being infected by it. This is the perennial folly of thinking you can be "unequally yoked" and somehow win the tug-of-war. The Bible is clear: bad company corrupts good morals. You do not evangelize paganism by marrying it; paganism paganizes you.
The final step was inevitable. After dwelling and marrying, they began serving. "And served their gods." You cannot bring the idols into your house without eventually bowing down to them. The heart follows the hearth. What began as simple coexistence ended in full-blown apostasy. They failed the test because at the first step, they refused to fight. They chose comfort over conflict, and the end of that road is always slavery to a false god.
Conclusion: Our Canaanites, Our Test
This passage is a stark and sober warning to the church in every age. God has left Canaanites in our land. The idols of secularism, materialism, sexual revolution, and self-worship are not off in some distant land. They are our neighbors. They are on our screens, in our schools, and in our workplaces. And they are here to test us.
The question God is asking us is the same one He asked Israel. Will you obey My commandments? Will you maintain your covenant distinction? Will you teach your children to know war, by learning war? Or will you settle in, get comfortable, and begin to look more and more like the world around you until you are indistinguishable from it?
The progression is always the same. First, we tolerate the sin of our age. Then, we assimilate it, adopting its assumptions and values. And finally, we serve it, bowing our knee to the spirit of the age rather than to the Lord Jesus Christ.
But praise be to God, the story does not end with our failure. The book of Judges is a record of Israel's failure, but it is also a record of God's relentless grace in raising up deliverers. And all of these flawed, human judges point us to the one true Judge and Deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who faced the ultimate test in the wilderness and on the cross and achieved a perfect victory. He did not compromise with the enemy; He crushed the serpent's head.
Because of His victory, the test we face is not a test for our salvation, but a test for our sanctification and reward. We do not fight for victory; we fight from a victory that has already been secured. Christ has won the war. Our task is to mop up the remaining pockets of resistance, both in the world and in our own hearts. So let us not be like the generation that settled for peace with the Canaanites. Let us, by the grace of God and in the strength of Christ, pick up our swords and learn the art of war, proving ourselves faithful to the King who has already conquered.