The other week my son Jacob was going through my books to see what he could steal from me and take with him to the Seminary. He grabbed a couple of books but when he got to my Hebrew shelf, I had to stop him from taking my Page Kelley Biblical Hebrew- An Introductory Grammar. Still after all these years I find that I have to occasionally consult my old grammar book when preparing a sermon for y’all. Sometimes I need to be reminded that the seven stems of the Hebrew verbs are Qal, Nif’al, Pi’el, Pu’al, Hithpa’el, Hif’il, and Hof’al. Or that the Imperfect verbs may be used in a variety of senses and the context must be consulted in order to determine the sense that is intended, but the most common use of the imperfect is to describe a simple action in future time. Or that the Hif’il, the sixth verb stem (we have one of these in our lesson for today) normally functions as the causative counterpart to the Qal verb forms. And for some reason I can never seem to remember that the Patah Furtive is inserted before the ה and עwhen they stand as the final consonants in words and are immediately preceded by long vowels not of the “a” class. …

I have been frustrated with this stuff for years. Latin at least has letters that I recognize. Greek letters I had seen outside fraternities, but this Hebrew is frustrating. I have never been very good at languages. Odd then that I now find myself in a profession where I am translating a language every week. I gotta admit I wish the Holy Spirit would set my head on fire. I wish yall saw what seemed like a tongue of fire come and rest on my head. I wish the Holy spirit would enable me to speak in other tongues… But alas, apparently God has decided that it would be better for me to struggle with Hebrew and Greek as I prepare sermons for you each week. I know God does not give us more than we can bear, but, boy, this stuff is frustrating.

I cannot help but think life would be less frustrating if there was but one language that we all spoke. I know my life would be less frustrating and I suspect I am not the only one. Can you imagine how easy it would be to call into customer service if we all spoke the same language? You would be able to read a menu in a foreign county if we all spoke the same language. I imagine business executives and government personnel would be more successful negotiating international deals and brokering peace between countries if we all spoke the same language. It sure seems like life would be less frustrating for all of us if we spoke the same language. But we don’t. In our lesson from Genesis 11:1-9 we learn that God is the cause of this frustration.

As Noah and his family left the ark, one of the things that God told them was, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.”[1] However, one hundred years or so after the Lord God had destroyed the earth because the hearts of men were “only evil all the time”[2] we see the old inclinations of evil stirring in the hearts of men once more. “3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” In response to God’s command to fill the earth, the people of Babel decided they were going to do the exact opposite. They decided that they knew better than God and so they came up with a plan that would allow them to live their lives the way they wanted to live them.

Sound familiar? How often have similar thoughts crossed our minds? We may not be so bold as to say we know better than God, but we sure act like it. Pick a commandment, any commandment and I bet you have tried to come up with a better plan for your life. Instead of remembering the Sabbath you have gone to the ballpark. Instead of submitting yourself to the governing authorities you have mocked and ridiculed them. Instead of taking words and actions in the kindest possibly way you have gossiped. Instead of being content with what you have you have wanted for more. I know you have done these things because… well… I have done them too. I, like you and the people of Babel, have acted like I know better than God. I, like you and the people of Babel, have tried to come up with a plan that would allow me to live my life the way I want to live it. I, like you and the people of Babel, have sinned against God.

The people of Babel exchanged humble obedience for arrogant ambition, so the LORD frustrated them. “6 The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” 8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.” The LORD frustrated the people of Babel by confusing their language so that they would not understand each other. It is a simple but effective way to disrupt the building process. When you can’t understand what a person is saying not only are you unable to give directions to them or follow directions from them, but you quickly become suspicious of each other. One of my roommates in high school is from Indonesia. He and I are still very good friends to this day. (His daughter is even coming down to help us run our science camp in a few weeks.) I would trust my Indonesian friend with my life, but I will confess that when his momma would come for a visit and the two of them started speaking Indonesian to each other, and I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, I was always a little suspicious that he was telling his momma our room was a mess because of the ugly American. If the inability to understand what someone is saying to you or about you can raise suspicions even among good friends, imagine what it did when the guy standing next to you holding a pickaxe started speaking an aggressive language like German, “Geben mich der stein bitte!”[3] As I said, confusing their language so they could not understand each other is a simple but effective way to disrupt the building process.

But why would the LORD do that to the people of Babel? Why would He be so frustrating? Is urban development really that bad? The LORD frustrated the people of Babel because He had seen how this arrogant ambition played out in the days before the flood. The LORD knew if He allowed the people of Babel to continue to build their tower in direct defiance of His command to fill the earth then eventually their arrogant ambition would consume them, and their hearts, like the hearts of those who were destroyed in the flood, would become “only evil all the time”. The LORD frustrated the people of Babel because He loved them, and He did not want to see them destroyed by their own sin.

The LORD frustrates us for the same reason. We were no different than the people who lived in the days of Noah before the flood. By nature, our hearts were only evil all the time. The LORD frustrated us the same way He frustrated them. But instead of using flood waters He used the waters of baptism to drown our sinful nature. And the LORD continues to frustrate us. He has put inside of all of us a natural knowledge of His law. We typically refer to this natural knowledge as our conscience. Your conscience is what forces you to try to justify your sinful behavior. It is the reason you have to work so hard to convince yourself that God doesn’t know what He is talking about when it comes to things like abortion or homosexuality or living together outside of marriage or whatever other thing you are trying to convince yourself is O.K. to do. And just in case you have ignored your conscience so often that a callous has formed over it the LORD uses His Word to further frustrate you. He sends pastors and teachers to preach and teach about things you may not like to hear but things you need to hear. He provides you with Christian mothers and fathers who use that word to frustrate the disobedience and disrespect out of you. He surrounds you with Christian friends who frustrate your fun because they know, from God’s Word, that some fun is harmful to your faith.

Now, you can try to ignore your conscience, you can avoid the preacher, you can tune out your parents, and you can find friends who will go along with your destructive behavior, but before you do, you should probably think about why the LORD is being so frustrating to you. The LORD frustrates you for the same reason He frustrated the people of Babel. The LORD frustrates you because He loves you. The LORD does not want to see you destroyed by your own sin. The LORD frustrates you so that you turn from your sin, stop doing your sin, repent of your sin. The LORD frustrates you so that you turn to your Savior, see His perfect obedience, and trust in His forgiveness. In short, the LORD frustrates you so that He can save you. Do you really want to avoid that kind of frustration?

I suppose instead of getting frustrated with the Hifils of Hebrew and the Genitives of Greek, I should be thankful for the creation of languages that frustrated the people of Babel and prevented the world from filling with pagans who are only evil all the time. And every time we get frustrated with our conscience, our pastors and teachers, our Christian parents and friends, we can remember that the LORD uses them to frustrate us because He loves us. The LORD does not want to see us destroyed by our own sin, The LORD wants us to turn to our Savior, so the LORD frustrates us. The LORD can be very frustrating. Thank The LORD that He is. Amen

[1] Genesis 9:1

[2] Genesis 6:5

[3] “give me the stone please”