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.