Walls (Part 4)

In the year 445 B.C., Nehemiah was cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, king of Persia. He had previously lived as a Jew, likely from the tribe of Judah, in the city of Jerusalem, which had been largely destroyed in previous Persian campaigns.

Upon hearing of the decline of his hometown, Nehemiah was convicted that he needed to return to Jerusalem to direct the construction of the walls surrounding the city. A city without walls was defenseless and it was considered an embarrassment to the people who lived there. Earlier attempts had been made to rebuild the wall during the time of the priest Ezra, but they had failed.

Having gained permission from the king of Persia to return to oversee the effort, Nehemiah begins by praying for the work. This was not about his own glory or power – he genuinely sought God’s blessing and direction over the effort. That might explain his dramatic success, because prayer was the very first thing he undertook (Nehemiah 1:4 and 2:4).

The book of Nehemiah makes it clear that he rallied families and workers to devote themselves wholeheartedly to the construction of the wall (chapter 3). Opposition arose against him and he was repeatedly asked to stop construction. The enemy even resorted to tricks to lure him outside of the city. At one point, they sent a seemingly friendly messenger to try to get Nehemiah to hide in the temple (where he was not allowed under Jewish law) because of a fabricated threat of being murdered in the night. Nehemiah stood firm. Even in the face of an impossible task, with daily opposition, Nehemiah was able to keep everyone on task, and the wall was completed in an amazing fifty-two days.

Once the wall is complete, he drew God’s people together in order to evaluate their dedication and purpose. Things began to really change for the Jews now. The word of the Lord was read publicly in the main square, and people would listen for hours. They would respond to the words by confessing their sin and rededicating their lives to the service of the Lord. Each day became a time of reading, confessing and worshipping of God. Now fully protected from outside invaders, the people of Jerusalem began to change and grow in their service to the Lord.

We have read in this series how walls have been built to keep people out (the Maginot Line) and to keep people in (the Berlin Wall). One might conclude that walls are simply bad and they should always be broken down. That sounds very much like a modern self-help theme.

But the story of Nehemiah makes it clear that there is a proper place and time to erect a wall – primarily for protection and to keep out evil influences. In fact, it is often absolutely necessary in order to have a place where we can reflect, be still, and know God. Nehemiah even made it a point to physically separate the people of Jerusalem from outside cultures (Nehemiah 13:1-3). To some degree, nearly all of us put up walls against things we find offensive or which might negatively shape our thoughts and actions, or those of our children. I get some strange looks when I tell people that our family doesn’t watch many movies or much television – and what we do watch is on the ultra-conservative end of the spectrum. Likewise, I still experience some derision from some who think our choice of homeschooling is over-protective and short-sighted. Yes, these things are both walls of a sort – intentionally built – and which I think are necessary in the sea of a declining culture. But like those people in Jerusalem in the fifth century B.C., it is done “for the sake of the Law of God”. From Nehemiah 10:28-29:

“The rest of the people – priests, Levites, gatekeepers, singers, temple servants and all who separated themselves from the neighboring peoples for the sake of the Law of God, together with their wives and all their sons and daughters who are able to understand – all these now join their brothers the nobles, and bind themselves with a curse and an oath to follow the Law of God given through Moses the servant of God and to obey carefully all the commands, regulations and decrees of the Lord our God.”

Each of us, like the people of old, need to search for those times when we go into the world to be a light, and also understand that certain times call for us to clothe ourselves in protection, and block out evil influences. There is no simple recipe that can be written out to detail when each one of these occurs. But a good place to start is to do what Nehemiah did - begin with prayer for wisdom. Walls are sometimes a necessity.

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Walls (Part 1)

When Germany attacked France in World War I, the French losses were devastating. The loss of so many young men during this war had an effect on the next generation – there were far fewer French men to take up arms during World War II, precisely because there were fewer men to marry and raise families. France was determined never to allow this to happen again.

When Hitler began rattling his saber toward France in the runup to World War II, France believed they were ready. In the ten years from 1930 to 1939, the government had built an elaborate set of deterrents to dissuade Germany from attacking. The Maginot Line consisted of blockhouses, anti-tank outposts and retractable turrets (called “cloches”), which would be used to detect the enemy, damage their equipment, or prevent equipment from passing. The French buried large metal girders in the forest, pointing up out of the ground, in order to discourage tanks from passing. They even established low-lying zones which could be flooded quickly with water to prevent the passage of the German army.

The purpose of this Line was manifold – prevent a surprise attack, allow time for the French army to be mobilized (predicted to take two to three weeks), and to encourage the German army to choose a different route to attack, preferably toward Switzerland or Belgium. A quick look at a map of Europe shows how this would play out.

The Maginot Line was a wall, of sorts, designed to deter an enemy and deal defensively with the threat of invasion. For the French, they invested heavily in a defensive installation, while many in their government were instead proclaiming that they should be investing in better offensive weapons.

When one views the complexity of the Maginot Line, one cannot help but be impressed by the effort. The technology (for the time) was excellent, communication between bunkers was in place to transmit the occurrence of an invasion, and there were formidable placements of guns and mortars designed to cripple the German army as they approached.

So…the German army took the hint and attacked northward, through Belgium, beginning on May 10, 1940. They sent airplanes and gliders to fly over the Line and drop bombs on the French behind their defenses. Within five days, the German ground forces had skirted the entire Maginot Line and were into France via the Belgian border. By May 24, the Germans had bottled up the British Expeditionary Force (in-country to aid the French) at Dunkirk. The English had their backs to the sea (the outcome of this battle is a great story and victory of sorts for the British – but we won’t go into detail here). Finally, Paris fell to the Germans on June 14, 1940. The capture of an entire proud nation had taken just over a month. The Maginot Line was a failure.

What was wrong with the French strategy? It seems they failed to consider the ease with which the enemy could circumvent their defenses. In reality, the Germans did not have to go far out of their way to go around the Line and achieve their objective. The French had invested heavily in a purely defensive strategy, without regard to the very real possibility that they needed to be ready for an offensive battle.

This has very real application to our spiritual readiness, which will be covered in Part 4 (think of Nehemiah). But first, we’ll look at another wall, which fell only some twenty years ago.