Returning to the 127th Psalm. Psalm 127. We read the five verses of this Psalm. Accept the Lord build the house. They labor in vain that build it, except the Lord keep the city. The watchman waketh, but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up earlier, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he giveth his beloved sleep. Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord. and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. Amen. And God will bless the reading of this portion of his inspired inerrant and infallible word. I want to preach to you this morning in verse 1 of this psalm. Accept the Lord, build a house. They labor in vain that build it. Half the verse. And what is the context of those words? Well, the context makes it plain, even as our little children were able to tell us. The context makes it plain that this verse is not talking about a three up, three down house in which we live. It's talking about God's house. It's talking about God's temple. Accept the Lord, build a house. They labor in vain who build it. The psalm was more than likely written for King Solomon. It could even have been written by King Solomon, but we do know it was inspired by God, and he is the author. And Solomon was the king who built God's temple in Jerusalem, the physical, literal, geographical temple that's made of bricks and mortar. And the Psalm 127 is one of what is called a Psalm of Ascent. And the pilgrims that were going up to Jerusalem every year for the Passover feast would sing the Psalms of Ascent, Psalm 120 to Psalm 134, as they walked along the road. The word ascent means degrees. They're going up. They're ascending. They're going up in degrees as they walked. And they're singing the Psalms of ascent because the road to Jerusalem is uphill. It's ascending all the time. Thousands of feet from where they're traveling from. I was glad when they said unto me, let us go up to the house of the Lord. They were going up to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, so therefore they sang the Psalms of ascent. Surely there is no better subject for a Christian than the subject of verse 1 of Psalm 127. Building God's house. Now the people of our nation are not thinking of this subject at all. They'd rather think of getting drunk, or drugging themselves, or shouting, or celebrating, or going to their sport. They're not interested in the subject we're going to study today. They're more interested in sin. Building God's house is not in their mind. Even in Northern Ireland we see sin is so. rank, don't we? Who's considering building God's house? You know, a few years ago, around about Christmas time, two tourists from Canada were beaten in an armed robbery by 16-year-olds. This is all in the one night, by the way. And another man was beaten with a golf club for his car keys. Another man was hit in the face with a shovel. Two men were beaten up by a gang with hammers on the Ormo Road. And a woman was raped in a car park. That all happened in one night two years ago in Northern Ireland. At the peak of a festive season. What's all this got to do with the text? Let me tell you, the only hope for our devout nation is the subject of this text. The only hope. The only hope for the British Isles. And the only hope for America, the only hope for the Western world. Is the building of God's house. And let me say more than that. The only hope for the church in Northern Ireland is the building of God's house. Without the building, without the growth of the church of Jesus Christ, there is no hope at all for our fallen nation. Only people getting saved can change the situation. Now the text says, except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain who build it. I want you to notice three things. Number one, there is a house to be built. Number two, the Lord builds that house. And number three, There is a vain way that men try and build that house. Number one, there is a house to be built. What is the house? It is the temple of God. Now in the Old Testament, it was a temple made of stones, made of bricks. In the New Testament, The temple of God is made up of saved people. Those that are born again are the temple of God. 1 Corinthians 3.16, Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? 2 Corinthians 6.16 What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God, believers of Corinth. Saved people. Ephesians 2.18-22 For through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father, now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed groweth into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are builded up together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. Those that are spiritually alive, God dwells in them and they are built into the temple of God under the New Testament. 1 Peter 2.5 Ye also as living or lively stones. The word lively means living. Ye also as living stones. Now what's this? If you want to build a house, what's the stone? The stone is the building materials, the bricks or the stone or whatever it is. It's the building materials. You also are living stones. You're living building materials are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood. to offer up spiritual sacrifices unto God by Jesus Christ. Point proved. The house or the temple of God in the New Testament is a spiritual house, made up with living people, spiritually alive building materials, saved people. make up the temple of God. So we don't need to go back to the Old Testament and start rebuilding that old bricks and mortar and all of those old ceremonies, sure we don't. We are the temple of God who are saved by God's Spirit. And all that old symbolism doesn't need to be built up again because it's now fulfilled. It's a spiritual house. Oh yes, there is a house to be built And it is built convert by convert. And the growth of this building of God is seen in the growth of local churches. Isn't it? It can't be seen in any other way. In other words, the growth of the church of building of God, the temple of God is seen in making more obedient Christians. I needn't spend much time in telling you that the house of God has been falling down for a long time in this land. For decades it has been crumbling and eroding and shrinking. And it's been crumbling and eroding and shrinking and falling down through tradition and disobedience to the Word of God and unbelief. And it's been being destroyed through human ingenuity and methods as to how we're going to change to, quote, get people in. The Church of God in our land needs built up. That brings me to the second point. Not only is there a house to be built, but secondly, the Lord builds that house. Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain who build? The Lord builds His house. No one else He uses means, of course he does. He uses methods, yes he does. And these means and methods are laid out word by word in the Bible. Preaching the gospel through men, Through living testimonies of God's saving grace and power shining out through Christian lives. Personal witness. God builds his house in the ways he has laid out in the Bible. And he wants it done. He wants his house to be built exactly in that way. Do you believe the answer to the fourth question of the Shorter Catechism? What is God? God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable. In His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth, He's unchangeable. You worship the same God today as what has always been worshipped in all of history? Or have the Puritans got their systematic theology wrong? Oh no, it's the plain teaching of the Bible, isn't it? I am the Lord, I change not. God is unchangeable. Therefore, He wants his house built in exactly the way he says in his word. If God says to Moses, five and six times in the Old Testament, when Moses was going to build the tabernacle, which was the physical representation of what we now are as a spiritual dwelling place of God. When Moses was just going to build the physical tabernacle, God said to him five times, Moses, make sure you build the tabernacle, now I'm quoting, exactly to the pattern shown you on the holy mount. Exactly to the pattern shown you on the mount, Moses. Exactly to the pattern shown you on the mount. Exactly to the pattern shown you on the mount. Exactly to the pattern shown you on the mount. Five or six times. Now, do you think he's specific about how he wants it built? Does he change? And is the New Testament church less than a tent? Oh no, far more. Far more. Moses, don't you deviate one millimeter. Exactly. Don't you deviate one millimeter in building my house from what I have told you. I gave you specific instruction. Don't you deviate into your own ideas or the things you like or don't like. Build it exactly to the instructions I gave you on the mountain. The Lord builds his house in his way, in his time, by his men. through his methods. Now, men and women, I submit to you, that is the teaching of the Bible. It's not just the teaching of Psalm 127. It's the teaching of the New Testament and the Old Testament throughout. God builds his house and nothing else is needed. No other way, no other time, no other men, no other methods. God builds his house. In fact, anything else added to what God says is nothing but a hindrance to the building of God's house. Because it is disobedience to God. We must let God build his house in his way. I will build my house. My church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Trust and obey and let God do it His way. The church is being built. We have buddleias in our gardens. Butterfly bush, some people call them. They grow six, eight foot in a year. Come the springtime, you get the secateurs, and you prune it right down. If you don't, it won't grow. It will go old and stunted and die. Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches. And God comes and sometimes he purges away certain branches. God builds his house. Sometimes he prunes his house. But as it is pruned, the same as the buddley or butterfly bush, more blossoms will come, come the spring. It will grow more because of God's pruning. God is building his house, isn't he? And look at how he's building his house. Look at how he's building this house. No gimmicks. Where's the gimmicks? Oh, there used to be. No modern techniques. Not added, no. No entertainment at all. None. Simply because there's no warrant for it in the New Testament at all. No drama, no puppets, no rock bands. No non-existent offices that the Bible doesn't speak of. No youth pastor. No youth leader. No worship leader. All things do not exist in the New Testament church. But are all the man-made ideas added on by men? There's none of that here. And there never will be, as long as I'm here and alive. And no nonsense pretending to be worship. God will build His church in His way and in His time by His man and His methods. He doesn't need any help. He doesn't need anyone else. He doesn't even need me. He doesn't leave us. Just this house is growing and it will grow just with emphasis upon the Bible. That's all faith and obedience and the implementation of church discipline. That is what I've tried to do. And it's in the eighth year now. Now, modern books and church growth would say, oh, friend, you're committing Church building suicide. Because you don't have all those things. You'll never get the young people in. I'm not interested in getting the young people in. I'm interested in getting any people in. Any age at all. Any age can come in. The average age of our church attenders and members has went down in the last eight years, hasn't it? That's the complete opposite. of what modern market-driven church experts would predict for what we do here. The complete opposite. It's God that builds his church. It's not man-made ideas that build his church, because through man-made ideas you may get more people in, but it's not a church, it's an entertainment house, as Sam said, it's a playground. Faithfulness and obedience to God brings God's blessing, which is seen in real church growth. And nothing else is true church growth at all. Nothing. Nothing else. merely a compromise. Any other things, any other technique, anything you would bring in to try and attract people is merely a compromise that brings people in for a while. I know a church that went through various stages in its history. It was a traditional church, and then it started to die. And then they thought, well, let's let's get in the little charismatic chorus book. And they got that in and they started to sing choruses. And then that wasn't enough. We need to be more trendy and more relevant. And eventually they ended up. With drums and guitars. And charismatic nonsense, they went the whole way. Right to the point of speaking in tongues. And you know what? It attracted people for a while, didn't it? It attracted people for a while. And then another church became more trendy. And those that were attracted because of the trendiness of these things moved on to the newer thing somewhere else. And then the church was left with strong charismatic tendencies, still left with the singing and the chorus but dead. Dead. Hardly any left. Why? Because you see, you can add all these things in to attract people for a while. But it's not real church growth. It's not church growth at all. It brings people along to be entertained until they have a different taste to go somewhere else to be entertained in a different way. Unless I have gravely misread the situation, I believe God is going to build further this house. The Lord will build this house. The destroyer cannot destroy it. The devil cannot destroy what God is building, whether it's here or anywhere else that is faithful. Nor can human foolishness stop it. Nor can boycotts or cliques stop it. Because God will build His house. And all humans will fall down before God. God will do it. And a line will be drawn. And those that are in the Lord's side will be on one side and those that aren't will be on the other. God is here and God is going to build His house. There is a house to be built. It is the Lord who builds His house. And thirdly, there is a vain way that men try and build it. Verse 1, except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. They labor in vain that build it. If God's not building, If a man tries to replace or help God's work with his ideas, his labour, except that they labour, the word labour means toil. And the word vain means worthlessness of conduct. A vain way. If man tries to build God's house in a vain way, his work, his labour, his conduct is worthless. It doesn't work. It's vain labour to try and build a house not in God's way, to try and build a house in man's way, to try and build a house in the world's way. I told a few folk this week of a minister who was talking once at our fraternal about another church And they had went all the way, you know, with the various worldly methods that they bring in. They had all the musical instruments and bands and everything. They went the whole way. Amplifiers, everything. And the old man said to his son, who was playing in the band, says, you know, in my day, we didn't need all these things. And the son said to his father, Abbott's father, in your day, you had the Holy Spirit. I think that sums it up exactly. These things all get brought in to fill a vacuum that is made by the absence of the presence of God to cause an emotional atmosphere. I've already mentioned some of the vain ways that men try and build God's house. Drama. Puppets. Bands. Entertainment. Things that entertain the world. The world's techniques have come in so many times to God's house. It's vain when building the church use man's ways. God explicitly forbids the things of the world. You've heard of Willow Creek Church in America, haven't you? Rick Warren, the Purpose Driven Church, Purpose Driven This, That and the other of these best-selling Christian books that have been published. Purpose Driven Church is all about The marketing principle. How do you get your church to grow? When you use marketing principles. Willow Creek Church has tens of thousands of members. Willow Creek Church has permeated hundreds of thousands of churches all over this world through these church growth books. This technique. Basically, the technique is this. Here's how you grow a church. You find out what people want in your local community. You make the church like that. And that gets people in. And one of the strongest principles of the purpose-driven church is, and when you get them in, you don't confront them at all with the Bible. You really don't confront them with hard facts. A recent survey took place a few years ago in that big church, that big Willow Creek church with tens of thousands of members and influencing hundreds of thousands of churches across the world concerning their technique. And I'm quoting now what they say about their own technique for church growth. Willow Creek has released the results of a multi-year study on the effectiveness of their programs and philosophy of ministry. Greg Hawkins and Bill Hybels himself called the findings earth-shaking, ground-breaking and mind-blowing. And no wonder, it seems that the experts were wrong. The report reveals that most of what they have been doing for these many years, and what they have taught millions of others to do, is not producing solid disciples of Christ. Oh, numbers, yes, but not disciples. It gets worse. Bill Hybels laments some of the stuff we put millions of dollars into, thinking it would greatly help our people to grow and develop spiritually. When the data actually came back, it wasn't helping people. We made a mistake, he says. End of quote. All our techniques, all our technology, We made a mistake. We were wrong. It hasn't produced Christians, but entertainment junkies. I know now what they're going to do. They said a few years ago, what we really need to do is get our people to read the Bible. That was their conclusion. They put millions of dollars into this survey and study. Now we need to get Christians to read the Bible. After all those years, they have come to the conclusion that Christians need to read the Bible and be taught it. I thought that's where we were before this all started, wasn't it? Is that a good thing? Yeah, it might appear to be good, but actually in the Willow Creek Church, it turned out it's not that good because they got in Brian McLaren and Don Kimble, who are emerging church leaders to teach the Bible. And these men don't believe in penal substitution. They don't believe that Jesus died being punished for our sins. And they don't confront people with the Bible or the gospel. Two heretics they brought in to teach the Bible. You see, friends, as the text says, there is a vain way of men for building churches. And it is vain. It's no use. It's worthless, the Hebrew means. And it's not church building. It's an entertainment house building. It's a playground. Because the Bible says except the Lord build the house. They labour in vain who build it. I draw to a conclusion. There's a house to be built. It's made up of converts. God builds that house. The Lord builds it in his way and by his means. And there's a vain way of men to build it. Man's ideas. are no use when building a church. Now, the church is being built. God is building it all around the world by His ways and His methods. He's building it by grace. And the devil can't stop that, because he will build his church. The gates of hell cannot prevail against him. And no person can ever stop the growth of the Church of Christ. I want to just urge you this morning, as the people of White Abbey, forward in scripture and prayer. That's the way. Uphold the truth, obey God, and don't be afraid of any storms. Sure we've been through enough, haven't we? Don't be afraid of storms. When God works, Satan also attacks. Stand for the truth. Stand for God. And God will bless. Stand up. Stand up for Jesus. The trumpet call obey. Forth to the mighty conflict in this his glorious day. Ye that are men now serve him against unnumbered foes. Let courage rise with danger and strength to strength oppose. We'll sing that as we close. It's our closing hymn. Will you turn in on our hymn books?