The Lord, the Builder
H. M. Dexter. Psalm 127:1-5 Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman wakes but in vain.… The old Latin maxim "Ex nihilo nihil fit," "From nothing, nothing comes," is the starting-point in all our reasonings concerning God's work on earth. It cannot have sprung from nothing, it must therefore be due to some positive force acting first upon, and then through it. That force must have intelligence in order to impart intelligence to the work of its hand; and all the wise, and curious, and intricate phenomena of the universe testify that nothing short of an infinite intelligence could have poured such streams of power and wisdom along the channels of creation. That infinite intelligence we call God. The methods by which God brings about the accomplishment of His purposes on earth — since those purposes include and shape matter and mind — are simply the methods by which He shapes matter and mind, so as to elaborate from them separately, and from their interworking, whatever result it is His pleasure to secure. 1. When God wishes to accomplish any purpose, lie shapes toward the result which He desires, all those blind forces of nature which have in them any co-operation with it. When He wishes to give the peace of plenty to any land, He sendeth forth His commandment into the air, and up to the sun, and forth to the winds, and out upon the seas, and along the furrows of the soil; and His word runneth very swiftly to nil genial and fertilizing influences, and they obey His behest with their marrow and fatness, and so He fills its borders with the finest of the wheat. And when the rigours of winter are a needful preliminary to any work of His, He giveth snow like wool, and scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes, and casteth forth His ice like morsels, until no man can stand before His cold. And when that work is done, and milder airs are more salubrious for His designs, then He sendeth out His word and melteth them; He causeth His wind to blow, and the waters flow. And so fire, and hail, and snow, and vapour, and stormy wind fulfil His word; and mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying fowl praise the Lord by performing His decree which they cannot pass. 2. When God wishes to accomplish any purpose on earth, He sways that intelligence which needs to be brought into co-operation with His design by motives. This influence is exerted in innumerable forms. Sometimes it is by direct pressure, and by the presence of the immediate and most obvious motive of which the subject will admit; as when He secures, the choice, by the sinner, of "that good part which cannot be taken away," by urging upon his soul the guilt of disobedience, the beauty of holiness, the joy of forgiveness, the danger of delay, or the awfulness of death in sin. Sometimes it is by a circuitous and indirect approach that the work is accomplished. Some meteor, in the eventide, flashes its sudden and vanishing brilliance across the arch of heaven; or some white-winged cloud trails its evanescent shade along some sunlit slope, and the mind — so often dull to all teachings — is opened to snatch the moral of the scene, and goes away, sadly reflecting on the dangers that accompany a life that is fitly emblemed by the falling star, and the fleeing shadow. Or the sight of a coffin, or a hearse, or a cemetery — it may be, in some moods, of a church, or even a Bible — will start the mind upon a train of meditation which the gentle and gracious Spirit may cherish into a motive strong enough to overturn and overturn within the soul until He is enthroned there whose right it is to reign. 3. This being so — the empire of matter and the empire of mind being alike in subjection to His pleasure — it follows, since lie who can absolutely and entirely control all matter and all mind must be invincible — that God can do anything which He pleases to do, whatever it may be. He can make a Word, or make an unwilling man willing, just as easily as a carpenter can drive a nail — because He knows how to do it, and has the means with which to do it, and the power by which to do it. So it follows, also — since God's control covers all things, and His volitions are the cause of all things — that nothing can be done in this world which God is not pleased to aid, or, at least, to permit. (H. M. Dexter.) Parallel Verses KJV: {A Song of degrees for Solomon.} Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. WEB: Unless Yahweh builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless Yahweh watches over the city, the watchman guards it in vain.