The Day the King of Israel Built a Berlin Wall

Fifty years ago, in 1961, the Berlin Wall was constructed by communists to prevent people from fleeing from East Germany to the West.  It represents the Iron Curtain that separated Western Europe from the Eastern bloc during the Cold War.

In a similar fashion, 2,900 years ago in the 9th century BC, King Baasha of Israel built the original Berlin Wall in Ramah, five miles north of Jerusalem, to keep the people from going to Jerusalem in Judah.

In the case of Israel, Baasha had become king by killing King Nadab of Israel and all of his relatives.  The Bible recounts that he did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

In the case of Judah, or Southern Israel, Asa had become King by being descended from King David and inheriting the kingship peacefully after his father King Abijah died.  In general, King Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

The book of Kings recounts King Baasha’s building of the original Berlin Wall:

There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel throughout their reigns. Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah and fortified Ramah to prevent anyone from leaving or entering the territory of Asa king of Judah.  (1 Kgs 15:16-17)

It was wrong for King Baasha to prevent anyone from leaving or entering the territory of Asa King of Judah.  It was imperative for the children of Israel to go to Jerusalem because there was a temple in Jerusalem – Solomon’s Temple.  The children of Israel, whether they lived in Israel or in Judah, had entered into a covenant with God that involved worshipping God at the place where God had placed His name: the Temple in Jerusalem. 

One of the repetitive sins of the children of Israel documented in the books of Kings, Chronicles and the Prophets, was that they offered up sacrifices upon every high hill and under every leafy tree rather than at the Temple in Jerusalem.

The book of Kings documents King Asa of Judah’s reaction to King Baasha of Israel’s building of the Berlin Wall:

Asa then took all the silver and gold that was left in the treasuries of the Lord’s temple and of his own palace. He entrusted it to his officials and sent them to Ben-Hadad son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, the king of Aram, who was ruling in Damascus. “Let there be a treaty between me and you,” he said, “as there was between my father and your father. See, I am sending you a gift of silver and gold. Now break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel so he will withdraw from me.”

Ben-Hadad agreed with King Asa and sent the commanders of his forces against the towns of Israel. He conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel Beth Maakah and all Kinnereth in addition to Naphtali. When Baasha heard this, he stopped building Ramah and withdrew to Tirzah. Then King Asa issued an order to all Judah—no one was exempt—and they carried away from Ramah the stones and timber Baasha had been using there. With them King Asa built up Geba in Benjamin, and also Mizpah. (1 Kgs 15:18-22)

It was good for King Asa of Judah to destroy the Berlin Wall but he did it the wrong way – by paying off a foreign power rather than relying on God.  While evil King Baasha had built the Berlin Wall, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God had not done anything to remove it.

The Book of Chronicles documents:

At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him: “Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand. Were not the Cushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the Lord, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war.” (2 Chr 16:7-9)

Asa then compounds his sin by throwing the messenger in prison, a common response in the Bible when prophets confront people with the reality of their mistakes, their sins, and their evil acts.

The book of Chronicles documents:

Asa was angry with the seer because of this; he was so enraged that he put him in prison. At the same time Asa brutally oppressed some of the people. (2 Chr 16:10)

Before the Berlin Wall episode, King Asa was a good King.  He led Judah in entering into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, with all their heart and soul.

The book of Kings and Chronicles documents many of Asa’s good works before he hired the King of Aram to destroy the Berlin Wall:

Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and to obey his laws and commands. He removed the high places and incense altars in every town in Judah, and the kingdom was at peace under him. He built up the fortified cities of Judah, since the land was at peace. No one was at war with him during those years, for the Lord gave him rest. (2 Chr 14:2-6)

But King Asa’s reign ended badly.  He was diseased in his feet and instead of seeking God he relied solely on physicians, just as he had not sought God during the Berlin Wall episode.

Sometimes God permits Berlin Walls to be built by evil people, and sometimes it’s up to us to wait on God to remove the Berlin Walls in His own time.

God's Humourous Speech

I recently entered a humourous speech competition.  To be honest with you, I didn’t have the time to write a humourous speech because I was too busy praying to win the contest.

So here is the humourous speech I prepared from God!

And we begin in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 38:

At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah.  There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua.  He married her and made love to her; she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, who was named Er.  She conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him Onan.  She gave birth to still another son and named him Shelah.  It was at Kezib that she gave birth to him.

Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death.

Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.”  But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his seed on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother.  What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also.

Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s household until my son Shelah grows up.”  For he thought, “He may die too, just like his brothers.”  So Tamar went to live in her father’s household.

After a long time Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died.  When Judah had recovered from his grief, he went up to Timnah, to the men who were shearing his sheep, and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went with him.

When Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep,” she took off her widow’s clothes, covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah.  For she saw that, though Shelah had now grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife.

When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face.  Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, “Come now, let me sleep with you.”

“And what will you give me to sleep with you?” she asked.

“I’ll send you a young goat from my flock,” he said.

“Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?” she

asked.

He said, “What pledge should I give you?”

“Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand,” she answered.

So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him.  After she left, she took off her veil and put on her widow’s clothes again.

Meanwhile Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get his pledge back from the woman, but he did not find her.  He asked the men who lived there, “Where is the shrine prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?”

“There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here,” they said.

So he went back to Judah and said, “I didn’t find her. Besides, the men who lived there said, ‘There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here.’”

Then Judah said, “Let her keep what she has, or we will become a laughingstock.  After all, I did send her this young goat, but you didn’t find her.”

About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.”

Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!”

As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law.  “I am pregnant by the man who owns these,” she said.  And she added, “See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.”

Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not sleep with her again.

There’s a happy ending to God’s humorous speech.

The Book of Ruth documents the life of Ruth who was a Moabite, a woman whose people were banned from the assembly of God to the tenth generation because they were enemies of Israel (Deut 23:3).  Like Tamar, she married a descendent of Judah who died.

While Judah refuses to redeem the widowed Tamar by having her marry his third and only surviving son, hundreds of years later, Boaz, a descendent of Judah, does redeem Ruth the Moabite after she is widowed.  The redemption takes place in Bethlehem in Judah, where Jesus Christ would be born 1,000 years later.

The elders and the all the people of Bethlehem who witness Boaz redeeming Ruth testify, “Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.” (Ruth 4:12)

Even though Judah had lain with his widowed daughter in law Tamar thinking she was a prostitute, God had blessed this immoral and sinful union with Perez.

And from Perez, hundreds of years later came Boaz who redeemed Ruth,

and from Boaz and Ruth came Obed,
and from Obed came King David,
and from all of these, came Jesus Christ the redeemer,
the son of David, the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Adam, the son of God.

May we all share Ruth the Moabite’s confession to her mother-in-law after she was widowed:

“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.  Your people will be my people and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16)

God’s humorous speech as documented in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 38.

I lost the contest.