This Bible Study is is provided by http://www.theseason.org/ and shared with permission from it's author R. Christopherson

This Psalm is the middle of the fifteen Psalms of degrees. This Psalm is a Psalm of trust written by Solomon. It is about our Heavenly Father's children and how He feels towards each of them.

Psalms 127:1 "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."

Friend, If God isn't protecting what you have, it is not protected. "Vain" means vanity, and it means it is empty, there is nothing to it. We just studied how when we are on God's mount, God is the mountains around it that protects us. If God is not in the building of your temple, but it is full of the empty trot of traditions of men and false doctrines that go against God's Word, what ever happens within that temple is in vain. If your life is not based upon Christ, and His teachings is not the foundation of your daily life, what you do is also in vain.

Psalms 127:2 "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."

It just doesn't matter how early you rise, or how late you stay up at night, or even how much you worry over those things in life that you simply can't change: don't worry about it. God gives the blessings, and he takes away those blessings also from those not worthy. He sets up kings and kingdoms, and He takes down kings and kingdoms. Our Heavenly Father is in control of what is going on, and it is all written in His Word. God sets the lead, and we are to follow the lead that He sets, and not get in the way of it all, and you will be blessed.

Psalms 127:3 "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: And the fruit of the womb is His reward."

Every time one of His children come to Him, they are His reward. That is why those seeds sown with tears are not wasted.

Psalms 127:4 "As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; So are children of the youth."

There is strength in the protection of our Lord, and those arrows give us our protection. There is strength for those children that learn to depend on His mighty hand.

Psalms 127:5 "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 gates."

The word "speak" would be better translated "subdue or overpower" the enemy. The gate is a place of judgment in this earth age. It means that you will overpower those enemies that come against you with their judgments against you. If you raise up your child in the ways of the Lord, that child will not depart from that way in his or her later life. He may for a while, but in time his mind will remind that person of the way that is right.

Learn to think on terms of the eternity, and even past the time of Judgment and the Millennium age. Know that in time those words that you give out as seeds of truth are not wasted in the eternity. When you spend time with your child you conceived, and claim your child for the Father, really that child is not yours, but he or she belongs to Almighty God. God has bless you with the responsibility of raising it and placing the Word of God in his mind, and putting that child's feet on the right path in life. Sure, that child may stray from the truth for a while, or even in this life time, but for the eternity sake, that child will see his error in the Millennium, and may correct his of her way. That is why we must plant the seeds of truth as a daily routine as the child grows into maturity.