Except the Lord Builds (Psalm 127)

"Songs of Ascent" = ("Degrees") steps, stages, gradations, or ascending up a mountain, climbing"

The spiritual life is one of progress.

Another step in the progress of the spiritual life is to realize that unless the Lord builds the house, you labor in vain.

Psalm 127

A song of ascents. Of Solomon.

¹ Unless the LORD builds the house,
   its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
   the watchmen stand guard in vain.
² In vain you rise early
   and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
   for he grants sleep to those he loves.

³ Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
   children a reward from him.
⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
   are sons born in one’s youth.
⁵ Blessed is the man
   whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
   when they contend with their enemies in the gate.

Theme:  Build

Key thought:  Children are God’s Gift

Key verse:  “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.”

  

How is God revealed?  The Lord builds and watches; the children He gives to families are a heritage from him.

What an amazing Psalm! It deals with a number of key areas in our life:  understanding that "unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it."  One area of interpretation is the building of the family.  The home must be built up on the Lord and He must be the architect and builder of your family.  He also gives rest to His people and he blesses families with children.  For, children are a heritage from the Lord!

Enjoy reading the Psalm.....meditating on what the Lord does.  Allow Him to build in your life.

Below are a couple of fine quotes which will be helpful to each of us.  Then scroll to the end and enjoy some music.

Verse 2 tell us that God gives sleep to those He loves:  “In vain you rise early and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat— for he grants sleep to those he loves.”  The King James Version translated it:  “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1809-1861) used this verse is her poem:

Of all the thoughts of God that are
Borne inward unto souls afar,
Along the Psalmist's music deep,
Now tell me if that any is,
For gift or grace surpassing this—
"He giveth his beloved sleep."
—

“God's blessing on his people as their one great necessity and privilege is here spoken of. We are here taught that builders of houses and cities, systems and fortunes, empires and churches all labour in vain without the Lord; but under the divine favour they enjoy perfect rest. Sons, who are in the Hebrew called "builders", are set forth as building up families under the same divine blessing, to the great honour and happiness of their parents. It is THE BUILDER'S PSALM. "Every house is builded by some man, but he that built all things is God", and unto God be praise.”  (Charles Spurgeon; http://www.spurgeon.org/treasury/ps127.htm

"This Psalm puts together two proverbs (v. 1-2; 3-5) on God establishing “houses” or families. The prosperity of human groups is not the work of human beings but the gift of God."

⁵ Blessed is the man
   whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
   when they contend with their enemies in the gate.

“At the gate: the reference is not to enemies besieging the walls of a city but to adversaries in litigation. Law courts functioned in the open area near the main city gate. The more adult sons a man had, the more forceful he would appear in disputes, cf. Proverbs 31:23 (Her husband is known in the gates, When he sits among the elders of the land.)  http://www.usccb.org/bible/psalms/127/

Charles Spurgeon ways of verse 3. Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD.

 

“This points to another mode of building up a house, namely, by leaving descendants to keep our name and family alive upon the earth. Without this what is a man's purpose in accumulating wealth! To what purpose does he build a house if he has none in his household to hold the house after him? What boots it that he is the possessor of broad acres if he has no heir? Yet in this matter a main is powerless without the Lord. The great Napoleon, with all his sinful care on this point, could not create a dynasty. Hundreds of wealthy persons would give half their estates if they could hear the cry of a babe born of their own bodies. Children are a heritage which Jehovah himself must give, or a man will die childless, and thus his house will be unbuilt. And the fruit of the womb is his reward, or a reward from God. He gives children, not as a penalty nor as a burden, but as a favour. They are a token for good if men know how to receive them, and educate them. They are "doubtful blessings" only because we are doubtful persons. Where society is rightly ordered children are regarded, not as an incumbrance, but as an inheritance; and they are received, not with regret, but as a reward. If we are over crowded in England, and so seem to be embarrassed with too large an increase, we must remember that the Lord does not order us to remain in this narrow island, but would have us fill those boundless regions which wait for the axe and the plough. Yet even here, with all the straits of limited incomes, our best possessions are our own dear offspring, for whom we bless God every day.

 
http://www.spurgeon.org/treasury/ps127.htm


Here is a "happy" arrangement of a song entitled Unless The Lord builds the House.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4Mv1AyfncY 

The late Keith Green:  Unless The Lord Builds The House
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qULtV42ft7s