The Bible Study Hour

Dr. James Boice: Meaningless, meaningless, all is meaningless, said the preacher, King Solomon. The work we do and the things we accomplish on this earth will all pass away. It will be of no eternal use and our efforts will have been in vain.

Dr. James Boice: Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically.

Dr. James Boice: It's sad to think our work without God accounts for little or nothing in this life. But what about our efforts when God is in them and we're working with an eternal perspective? What ramifications does that kind of work have on our families, our church, and our city?

Dr. James Boice: Join Dr. Boice as he explores the futility of our efforts and accomplishments apart from God and the difference our labor makes when his kingdom is our focus.

Dr. James Boice: Useless, utterly useless. Have you ever heard a sermon begin that way? I heard a sermon begin that way once some years ago and it made a lasting impression because I still remember it. It was by R.C. Sproul and he said in the introduction to that sermon that that was one word, useless, that he never wanted anybody to speak about him. He hated it more than any word in the whole English language.

Dr. James Boice: He said he was willing to work hard, he was willing to start early and labor late, he was willing to forego all kinds of pleasures in this life and early gratification, but not if it was all useless. Because he said if you say that what I do is useless, then you're saying that I am useless, and the bottom line of that is that I just don't count.

Dr. James Boice: Now most of us would agree with that, I think. But what I notice as I look around at life and the activities of many people, is that much of what people are doing, and may I say as well, much of what Christian people are doing amounts to just that, because it's done for ourselves without any thought whatsoever of God.

Dr. James Boice: I was thinking about that this summer and I was noticing some of the advertisements on television and I wonder if you remember seeing this one for the Japanese luxury import car known as Infiniti. I think maybe people didn't like that ad so well because it dropped out after a short time.

Dr. James Boice: But the one I remember went like this, a rather sophisticated gentleman, obviously one who had enough money to afford the car, was looking into the camera and he was asking questions. And the questions went like this, why do you work so hard? Why do you start early and go late? Why do you care?

Dr. James Boice: Very good questions, of course, but the bottom line of the ad seemed to be, the reason you do it is so you can buy an Infiniti. The advertisement ended with a woman's voice quite different and in a very different tone saying, "Infiniti, thinking of you."

Dr. James Boice: Now, I don't know exactly what that meant. Maybe it meant that the sophisticated wealthy gentleman was thinking about his family, which is why he bought the car. It might mean all he was thinking about was the car. It probably meant the company was thinking about you in order to sell you the car.

Dr. James Boice: But at any rate, the bottom line is that it didn't amount to much at all. What is life for if when you get to the end of it, all you have is a car? Do you know that well-known slogan? You know that well-known slogan, "The one who dies with the most toys wins." I'm sure you've heard that. Maybe you've seen the t-shirt that has that on the front, "The one who dies with the most toys wins." And then the person walks by and on the back it says, "But he dies nevertheless."

Dr. James Boice: Now that's the message of this psalm, at least it's half of the message of this psalm. What you're doing in life, if all of the work you expend, all the labor you put forth is just for this life, without any thought of God, then meaningless, useless, and in vain are what has to be said about it.

Dr. James Boice: Now this psalm has an interesting distinction. It's Psalm 127 and what's distinct about it is that it says it's by Solomon. It's only one of two psalms in the entire Psalter that has that name at the start of it, being identified by him. The other one is Psalm 72. And I should say that most scholars don't like the idea of it having been written by Solomon. It's because they think of all of these psalms that are identified as songs or psalms of ascent, having been written after the exile. And if that was the case, well then Solomon didn't write it.

Dr. James Boice: But that's not much of an argument. There's nothing wrong with the later collection, including within it psalms that had been written earlier. A couple of these are said to have been by David, that's perfectly understandable. What is significant, of course, is that the message of the psalm sounds very much like what we do have from Solomon's writings, the best known of all the writings of Solomon, the great king of Israel. Are probably the words that begin Ecclesiastes and they go like this. He began by saying, "Meaningless, meaningless, utterly meaningless, everything is meaningless."

Dr. James Boice: Now if you know the older King James version of that, you know that the King James translators used the word vanity because it was more common in that day. And it began like this, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," says the preacher. And of course, it's that word that we have in our psalm. Vanity is in vain, useless. And if you look at the opening verses of this psalm, you see that that's repeated three times. It's there twice in verse one and it's there a third time in verse two.

Dr. James Boice: So, it would make sense to think that Solomon, who gave us those words in one form, has also given us the words in another form in this psalm. Let me just say there's another reason for thinking that it might be by Solomon, and that is because there may be a cryptic reference to his own name in the psalm. It's not so evident in the English, but there's that phrase in verse two, "those he loves," which in Hebrew are actually the words, "his beloved." That happens to be Solomon's name. That is the name God gave to him in 2 Samuel, the 12th chapter, verse 25. The name is Jedidiah and it means beloved of Jehovah.

Dr. James Boice: So it may be that Solomon is referring to himself here. In any case, that's the message. And let's just think what it is. Useless, meaningless, in vain, is that really what wise Solomon has to say? And the answer is yes, that's what Solomon said, and that's what this psalm says, if you leave God out of the picture.

Dr. James Boice: Because it's only half of the story, everything is meaningless if the Lord is not in it. But by contrast, if God is in it, everything, everything has meaning. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Dr. James Boice: You know this Latin motto, it goes like this: *Nisi Dominus frustra*. It comes from the first words of this psalm. It means "without the Lord, frustration." And the opposite of that is "with the Lord, satisfaction." A lot of people are spending most of their lives trying to write the first version of the motto over their life's work. I know there are people who love to dig around to find out about their ancestors and some people who do that find that they came from the old country, and in the old country with the old families, there were crests and mottoes, and sometimes they find fascinating things about themselves in the past.

Dr. James Boice: Wouldn't it be something to dig around in the past and find a motto like that, "without the Lord, frustration," and say, "yes, that has really been the pattern of our family?" You know it is the motto of the City of Edinburgh, Scotland, which is a great Calvinistic city, or at least it was, and it was a testimony to what they really believe, "Without the Lord, yes, empty, meaningless." But with the Lord, satisfaction, and of course that's what the second half of this is all about.

Dr. James Boice: Now a lot of people realize that. You don't have to be a biblical writer, you don't have to be a Christian to realize that without the Lord things are frustrating. People don't always come to that immediately, but they often do along the way. If someone commits suicide, that's the ultimate testimony to the frustration of life. Not everybody goes that far, of course, some simply drop out. They say, "Look, this isn't getting anywhere, and I achieve things the way the world would have me achieve them, it doesn't seem to satisfy me, so I'll just drop out." That's what Timothy Leary proposed during the 60s to those who were involved in the drug culture. You know his motto, "Tune in, turn on, and drop out." And so some people have been doing that, they've been dropping out.

Dr. James Boice: Now, is that what this psalm is recommending? If apart from the Lord, everything is meaningless, maybe we should just drop out. That, of course, is not what it's saying, and it's not the message of the Bible as a whole. Now, why not?

Dr. James Boice: Well, there are several answers and several answers are right here. First of all, God works. And as long as God works, then work in itself just can never be meaningless because nothing that God does is meaningless. Isn't it interesting to realize that that's where the Bible begins? You go back to the first chapter of Genesis and what do you find? You find God working. The very first verse, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." And then it unfolds verse by verse throughout that first chapter, all of the things that God did in his work on the first six days of creation. He brought light out of darkness, he separated the dry land from the water, he caused the land to produce an amazing variety of trees, shrubs, and plants, he created animals, birds, and fish, and finally he made man and he gave man meaningful work to do.

Dr. James Boice: It says in the 28th verse of that chapter, "Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." So, God was given a management responsibility, man was given a management responsibility by God, and then he was to name the animals or classify them and that was what we would call research. So God works and he gives us meaningful work to do. Now that's in the psalm, isn't it?

Dr. James Boice: You see, you read those opening verses and what do they say? They say, "Unless the Lord builds the house, it's in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman watch in vain." But what's involved in the language is the fact that the Lord, if we will have it so, builds the house. And the Lord watches over the city.

Dr. James Boice: So God works and as long as God works, our work can be meaningful too. Now the second thing is that if God is working and if he is working in us, then he makes our work meaningful. You go back to the early chapters of Genesis and you find God working there, and it's not essentially what we would call spiritual work. He's not building a church, he's not converting people. Nobody needed to be converted in those days. First of all, they hadn't even been created yet and when they were created, they were created perfect. It wasn't until after the fall that redemption came in.

Dr. James Boice: But here is God creating a magnificent universe and rejoicing in it and he says, "My, that's good." Now you see if he's working in us, then we can say that about our work too, and it does not have to be solely spiritual work. You go back to the psalm and think in terms of a builder building a house and you can say if the architect and the carpenters and the brick layers and the plumbers and the electricians do their work as under the Lord, when they finish it, they can look at what they did and they can say, "That's good."

Dr. James Boice: And God is looking on and has been working in them, will look at that and say, "I agree. That's good. That's good too." And the watchman who's watching over the city, when morning comes and the city has not been attacked and God has preserved it through the night, can say, "I did a good job last night. I'm satisfied with that. That's good," and God who is looking on says, "That's good."

Dr. James Boice: And when you go to the office on Monday morning and tackle your job, whatever it may be, when you come to the end of the day and you say, "Well, I did that the best I could, I think that's good," God will say, "Yes, you did. That's good."

Dr. James Boice: And the woman who stays home with the children and prepares for them when they come home from school and is doing her best to raise them and perhaps preparing the supper for when the husband gets home and she sets that dinner out on the table, she can look at that while everybody else is gobbling it up without even thinking about it, and she can say to herself, "Well, that was good." And God will say, "Yeah, that's good. As a matter of fact, that's so good, you can do it again tomorrow night."

Dr. James Boice: You see what satisfaction we can have when we think about our work? If God works and God's work is good, then when we work in God and in the power of God, our work is blessed by him too.

Dr. James Boice: And that leads to the third thing, and that is that God rewards us for our work. Not always or in every situation here, at least. But always in some sense, Paul wrote about it when he was writing to working people of his day in Colossians, "Whatever you do," he said, "work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for men," "Since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as your reward."

Dr. James Boice: A reward from God, isn't that something? Even if you don't see it here. That is not something to be treated lightly. That is not something to be thrown under the bonfire of our vanities. Do you want your work to last? Do it for God. And God who has never overlooked anything that has been done for him will take notice of it and reward you accordingly, if not here, certainly one day in heaven.

Dr. James Boice: I want to give you an example of somebody who knew that. He was not a Christian. His name was Benjamin Franklin, great Philadelphian. Franklin was a deist, he had a great respect for Christians, he respected George Whitfield, for example, the Calvinistic evangelist, but he was only a deist. And yet he knew something about the presence of God and human effort, and he acknowledged it once in a famous speech that was given here in Philadelphia in 1787.

Dr. James Boice: There was a convention for the forming of a new constitution for the United States after the winning of the War of Independence. They had sort of bogged down in the proceedings and at that point Franklin, the elder statesman spoke, and this is what he said. I want to read it to you. It's quite extensive.

Dr. James Boice: "In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the divine protection." "Our prayers, sir, were heard and they were graciously answered." "All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence." "To that kind of Providence, we owe this opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity." "And have we now forgotten this powerful friend or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance?" "I have lived for a long time, 81 years, and the longer I live, the more convincing proof I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men." "And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it possible that an empire can rise without his aid?" "We've been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." Quoting from our psalm. "I firmly believe this and I also believe that without his concurring aid, we shall proceed in this political building no better than the builders of the Tower of Babel." Wise words from a very wise man.

Dr. James Boice: Now I've made two points so far, mostly based on the first stanza of this psalm. Namely that work without God is useless, but all work for God and the power of God is meaningful. Now the negative attitude is what dominates in stanza one. And the transition comes in the last line of stanza one, which reads this way, "He grants sleep to those he loves." Now that's cryptic, but what it's suggesting is this, the one who works for God and in the power of God, not in vain, not engaged in meaningless labor. When he comes to the end of the day can lie down and sleep and the God who has worked in him to bless his work now also continues to work in order that he might sleep well.

Dr. James Boice: God was building the city, as the workman labored. God is watching over the city, as the workmen sleep, and now God gives rest to those who have been working for him. But now notice something significant, the rest comes after the work, doesn't it? This is not suggesting that those who trust God don't work. But having worked and having done what they've done for God, they can lie down and sleep.

Dr. James Boice: I mentioned Eugene Peterson along the way because he's done such a good study of these psalms of ascent. He points out that the difference between Christians and others at this point is not that they work and we do not, or that we work and they do not, but that we take God seriously and they do not. And then he says this, "One of the reasons Christians read their Bible repeatedly and carefully is to find out how God works in us and in the world so that we can work in the name of Jesus Christ effectively."

Dr. James Boice: Now, when you pass from the first stanza of this short psalm to the second one, you come to something quite different. You pass from this frantic, self-absorbed, self-sufficient work ethic described in verses one and two to the quiet blessing of God on a family through the gift of children. This is such an abrupt change in subject matter and even in tone that many of the scholars suggest that it must have been an entirely different psalm originally. Anybody who has done much serious study academically of biblical material, not surprised at that, that's the kind of things that scholars are saying all the time. All it shows is that they don't know how to enter into the mind of an ancient Hebrew writer.

Dr. James Boice: You see, they read about work, they read about family, and because their work and their family are in two separate categories, they say, "It must be two separate psalms." But that's not the way the ancient Jew thought. The ancient Jew would have thought this way. He would have said, "What's the point of building the house if you're not building it for the family that lives in it?" Of course it's for the family. And he would say, "What's the point of watching over the city if you're not seeking protection for the families that dwell there?" Everything revolved around the family for the ancient Jew, and to some extent still today because Jewish people are very family-minded. It's a biblical pattern.

Dr. James Boice: So it's perfectly natural to move as the psalm does to talking about the family. There are number of things that are taught here about the family in this last stanza that link up to what is said in stanza one. Let me just take you through them one at a time. First of all, the growth of a family is God's work. The stanza begins by confessing that children are a gift of God, a heritage and a reward. This is verse three, "Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him." So it fits the psalm, doesn't it?

Dr. James Boice: If God builds the house, he also builds the family that lives in it. If God protects the city, he does it for the benefit of the families. It's just this connection that the psalmist sees and expresses so well. It's a way of saying that families are God's idea. After all, it was God who gave the first woman to the first man back in the Garden of Eden and said, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." It was God's idea, that wasn't our idea.

Dr. James Boice: And it follows from this, if it's true, that we must thank God for our families and must look to him for wisdom to raise them rightly. So that's the first thing, God builds the family. Secondly, God's blessing on the city begins with his blessing on the family. Family is the basic unit of society, so if the family prospers, the city prospers. If the city prospers, the nation prospers. If families are neglected and decline, then the entire society begins to decline with them.

Dr. James Boice: That is exactly what's happening in the United States of America in our time. Families are disintegrating, children are neglected, and the result of that is the frequency and magnitude of violent crimes which we read about in the paper every single day. So, this is important to the psalmist. So much so that the theme of linking the health of the family to the health of the city that we find in this psalm carries over into the next. They work together. This one begins with the city and moves to the family, the next psalm begins with the family and moves to the city.

Dr. James Boice: So after it talks about God's blessing on the family, the very last verses of the next psalm says, "May the Lord bless you from Zion and may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem."

Dr. James Boice: Now Psalm 127 speaks about the number of children. "Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man who has his quiver full of them." We might look at that today in a slightly different way than they did in ancient times. This was an agricultural economy and the more sons you had to do the heavy labor in the field, the better. Not quite so evident that sons are a financial blessing today, or daughters either.

Dr. James Boice: I sometimes say, no, I shouldn't say that. So I won't, but I will point out that they are expensive. We're told today that it costs about $100,000 to send a child through one of our better universities and that by the end of this millennium, it's going to cost $200,000. That's probably more than most of us earn in a year.

Dr. James Boice: You see, it's a slightly different situation. It's also focusing on sons because after all, you needed defenders, that's what it says, "They contend with their enemies in the gate." Sons are very helpful there. It doesn't have the same focus on the daughters. But you see, we see all of that somewhat differently today. The details vary, but the point is the same, isn't it? That the blessing on the city begins with God's blessing on the family. Children are a blessing from God, and so God begins to build a society at the family level.

Dr. James Boice: Let me point out a third thing that emerges from this and it's this, that the growth of families is slow and unpretentious. Friends and relatives take note of the birth of a child. And then as children grow and birthdays come along, we have birthday parties and we remember it there. But we don't pay a whole lot of attention to the growth of children and the expansion of a family as it goes on quietly and unpretentiously, year by year, and yet that's the way families grow, that's the way God works too. God works with blessings that build slowly over time. There's a great German motto that if you don't know, you ought to learn it. It goes like this, *langsam aber sicher*. That means slow but sure. And that's the way God operates, slowly but surely.

Dr. James Boice: Think of a biblical example, how about Abraham? God promised Abraham that he was going to be the father of a mighty nation, whose members would be more numerous than the stars in heaven or the sand of the seashore. And yet he lived virtually all his life and didn't have any children at all. He was 100 years old when he finally had Isaac, the son of the promise, and that was just the first generation. How many children did Isaac have? Two, Esau and Jacob. How many children did Jacob have? He had 12 sons who became the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel, more or less. Three generations, you see, but it wasn't until the Jews spent the four centuries in Egypt that they began to multiply into a great nation. That's slow, but it's sure.

Dr. James Boice: And that's the way God operates in our families. If you find it difficult and that it takes a lot of time to raise children, don't be surprised. That's just the way it is. It's the way God created it. But God doesn't give up, we shouldn't give up as well. You talk about the Old Covenant, Abraham, his children, how about the New Covenant? Jesus called disciples, there were only 12 of them, one of them betrayed him. He sent them out to evangelize. They began and very slowly the numbers of the church began to increase. Is it because God couldn't do it quicker? No, it's just the way God operates. And so we shouldn't be surprised if it takes time too.

Dr. James Boice: Here's a final point. We can't raise our families without God. If it's a vain act to build a house without God. And it's a vain act to keep watch over the city without God. It's certainly a vain act to try to raise children without God. At any time, perhaps, but especially in our own. Because after all, a house at least is an inanimate object. If you build it well, it'll last a certain amount of time. Barring an earthquake. And watching over the city involved for the most part, protecting it from enemies from without.

Dr. James Boice: When we talk about families and children, you're talking about human beings. Human beings are sinful. And our children carry within them that spirit of Adam, which is in rebellion, not only against God, but against all authority. And so our children, like ourselves, are rebellious, obstinate, self-centered, and wayward. How are you going to make progress when your enemies are not only what's happening out there in the culture, and we have plenty of enemies there, but what's going on within? You got an enemy right here in our hearts.

Dr. James Boice: Obviously it takes God to make any profit and growth in a time like that. So what should we do? We need God's help. We need to seek God in God's way. Or to make it explicit, we need to pray for our children, we need to teach them the Bible, we need to bring them to church and above all, we need to set an example for them by our own godly living. And if you say, "Well, what is that example? What is our own godly living?" It's those things, to pray and to study and teach the Bible and to come to church and the fellowship of God's people that we might grow together. If we do this, our work will be blessed, our families will grow. God has promised blessing on the family for those that seek his face. And if we don't do it, well then our work will be in vain.

Dr. James Boice: Now one last point. We've been thinking about houses and cities and families literally as we should because that's what the psalmist talking about. But we have to remember that this psalm is a pilgrim psalm. That means it has to do on the spiritual level with our Christian walk, our progress as we go along with God day by day throughout our life. And if that's the case, we need to think of all of these images spiritually. What is this house that's being built? Not a physical house, this is a spiritual house. It's what Peter talks about in his first letter when he says, "It's a spiritual temple in which God is bringing all the pieces together, living stones, you and me to make a temple which is pleasing to his name."

Dr. James Boice: When we talk about the city, we're not talking about mere earthly Jerusalem. Our city is that heavenly city without with foundations whose architect and builder is God, the city upon which Abraham set his eyes. And if we talk about the family, well, the family is not the mere physical family as important as that may be and most of what I have said has been about it, but that spiritual family composed of all those who believe on Jesus Christ. Now that's the work we're engaged in as Christian people. The other things, yes, but this too. And what we want is to see that work, that spiritual work go forward.

Dr. James Boice: As I read this, I think that there is a suggestion here of two great mistakes we can make. For example, when it talks about building a house in vain, it seems to me in spiritual work we can do exactly that. We can try to construct a spiritual house in vain if what we're really trying to do, I put it this way, is build our own kingdom. Lots of Christian work is done that way for the glory of the person who happens to be at the head of the work. Or if you talk about defending the city from enemies from without and the watchman watching, that has an immediate parallel and analogy to defending the church of Jesus Christ against the kind of errors and doctrinal deviations that destroy it eventually if not early on.

Dr. James Boice: But you can do that, you can become a great defender of the faith and do it not for the sake of the church and God's glory, but you can do it for your own self-promotion and your own glory and many people have. Well, how about our families? The engendering of spiritual children is not something you and I are capable of doing, it's God's work. This is spiritual life we're talking about. We look to God to do it, we ask him to do it, and I suppose it's possible in our society with the financial burdens that families have to have too many children. But not in spiritual terms, it's never possible to have too many children.

Dr. James Boice: So we ask God to multiply the numbers of those who actually come to faith in Jesus Christ and pass from death to life. And we can say as we look at the psalm, "Blessed is the man or woman, the church or the nation that has a quiver full of such regenerated people." Let's pray.

Dr. James Boice: Our Father, we're thankful for this psalm, for its teaching. We thank you for the practical bearing it has upon our families and our culture, our work, and perhaps above all, what we do for you spiritually. Our Father, bless those efforts that are done in your power and for your glory for the sake of Christ, our Lord. Amen.

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