Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2559
“Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it: unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so He gives His Beloved sleep.” Psalm 127:1,2.
Did you notice, when we were reading this Psalm, that it is entitled, “A Song of Degrees for Solomon”? The title may be either, “for Solomon,” or, “bySolomon.” If it is bySolomon, I can only say that it is worthy to be placed side by side with the Book of Proverbs or Ecclesiastes. It is a Psalm which is very brief and which has the soul of wisdom in it. It is, in fact, a Solomonic Psalm—it is quite after his style of writing. The whole of it might be made into a Proverb and its separate sentences might be cut up into proverbial expressions. It was inspired by the Spirit of God and He may have used for the writing of it no less accomplished an individual than King Solomon, whose wisdom was greater than that of the men of his age. If it is a Psalm, “frSolomon”—which it strikes me it is, then it is none the less admirable in our esteem, for, if Solomon needed to be taught it, certainly we do. If, when David knew that Solomon was to build the house of the Lord, he thought it necessary, before he began the Temple, to remind him that “unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it,” we may depend upon it that as we are less wise than Solomon, we need to have just such a lesson taught us! Let us accept it as from David and let each one of us hear the words of the dying king as he speaks to us as well as to his son and successor.
I intend, as God shall help me, to fetch out three or four lessons from our text which it may be well for us to learn.
I. The first is WHAT WE MAY NOT EXPECT, namely, that God will build the house without our laboring, that God will guard the city without the watchman’s staying awake, or that He will give us bread without our toiling for it. This principle may be applied to a great many matters.
And, first, to what we call our ordinary life, though I never like to draw any distinction between one portion of our life and another. It is a part of the Christian religion to sanctify everythingso that we worship God in the shop as well as in the meeting house—and we are as reverent about our domestic affairs as about our devotional concerns. But, still, as it is our habit to speak of the ordinary affairs of life, it is necessary to say that in all things to which we put our hand, we are expected to use all available means. We are not allowed to be idle, to sit still and do nothing because we say that we are trusting in Providence. One of the things which Christianity cannot bear is laziness! The Apostle Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, was inspired to pass a very sharp sentence upon them—“This we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat”—a sentence which would exterminate a great number of persons who at the present time seem to flourish! If in business I am not diligent, I cannot expect to prosper. If I wish to be a man of learning, I cannot get it simply by praying for it—I must study, even to the weariness of the flesh. If a man is sick, he may trust in God as much as he wills—that should be his first thing—but let him also use such remedies as God has given if he can discover them, or learn of them from others.
My grandfather said to me, many years ago, concerning the preparation of a sermon, and I have always remembered his words, “I study my sermon as much as if the work of preaching depended entirely upon myself. And I go into the pulpit relying upon the Spirit of God, knowing that it does not depend upon myself, but upon Him.” For us to do all that we can do is the appointed way in which the blessing comes. We would all think it ridiculous if men left off sowing because they had so much faith in God that they were sure He would not suffer men to starve and would be certain to send a harvest. Suppose the farmer said, “Plowing is for ordinary people. I live by faith, I never plow. Harrowing, fertilizing, sowing—these are all the pitiful shifts of unbelief. I shall do nothing with the land, I shall just wait. I cannot doubt that God can make wheat to grow quite as well as weeds and, if He pleases, He can give me a harvest without my using any of these ordinary means which are only a coverlet for unbelief.”
Within a year, he would be convinced of his folly! I wish it were as easy to convince all Christians of their folly in thinking that faith means that they are to work no more. “Faith without works is dead.” “Faith works by love.” There is no stronger and more forceful principle for fetching out the energy of a man than his conviction that God is with him. If God works in me to will and to do of His good pleasure, then the natural result is that I must work out what He has worked in. Where God has united means and ends, I would say of them, “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” To trust in the means without God is presumption—but to profess to trust in God without the means is only another form of presumption—it will come to the same thing in the end. I am to believe in God and in God, alone, but if