Vanity

Vanity

Job 15:31

Job is considered by many to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest, book in the Bible. It’s certainly older than Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or any of the Psalms. In fact, some scholars says the events in Job date back 4,000+ years... YET, it’s truth is fresh, and relevant in our hearing today.

I’m sure most of you know the story: Job was a wealthy man. He owned land, and livestock... he was blessed with children, and had built a comfortable and prosperous life. But he lost it all... including his health. His wife even encouraged Job to “curse God and die!” (2:9). But Job remained steadfast.

Job’s story of loss and despair lands in our laps. It confronts the reality of human suffering, while exalting God’s divine sovereignty... and reminding us of our own temptation to trust in what’s fleeting rather than in the living God.

Our verse comes from Eliphaz, one of Job’s three friends who tried to convince Job that he had committed some egregious sin against God, for God to have allowed such calamity to upend his life. But Job maintained his innocence and faithfulness.

Of course, Eliphaz may have been overall misguided... but the principle that we read (and hear) in verse 31 is absolutely true and consistent with the testimony of Scripture: Trusting in vanity brings only vanity in return.

The Word of God here warns us against the foolishness of placing our hope in what cannot save. It calls us to examine the foundation of our confidence and urges us to trust in Christ alone, the immovable Rock of our salvation.

“Let him not trust in vanity, deceiving himself;

For vanity shall be his recompense.”

Pretty clear: “Let him not trust in vanity.” Vanity, (or worthless, or meaningless) refers to that which is empty, fleeting, and without substance. It is the same Hebrew word used throughout Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” It describes idols, false hopes, and confidence in this world.

We’re prone to trust in vanity - be it wealth, health, wisdom, or even politics. But God’s Word tells us (Job 8:14) that trusting in such things is “like leaning on a spider’s web: it gives way... it can’t hold the weight.”

Jeremiah 17:5 tells us, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord.” To trust in what is passing (what’s temporal; the things of this world) is to build one’s house upon sand. When the storms come, all is swept away.

John Calvin said that man’s great sin is “seeking stability where there is none, and turning his eyes from God to the world, as though the world could be his security.”

Do you see the folly here? The vanity, or meaninglessness; the emptiness? We exchange the temporal for the eternal and expect to find blessings and peace.

We often look in the wrong place for purpose and meaning in life. And when we do, we find ourselves deceived. As our verse for the day, reminds us, don’t be “deceived by trusting what’s worthless.”

Deception is the inevitable fruit of trusting in vanity. When we make the things of this world our refuge, and the things of this life our hope, we’re falling for deception. We may believe that we have security... we may think that wealth and status and possessions bring stability (and in a certain sense they do).

I mean: having a stable home is a blessing. Having a job to support yourself is a blessing. Having a few extra dollars isn’t a bad thing, for heaven’s sake. But when we come to trust in such things for our sense of self worth, and our purpose, and our ultimate security, we find it’s never enough. The things of this world leave us hollow... empty... because such things are all fleeting! They’re temporary at best! And they can be lost in a moment (and if the events of this past year - especially this past week - haven’t opened our eyes to this Truth, I fear nothing ever will).

The things of this world offer a sense of security and satisfaction without actually affording either! The world offers a faux security; a deceptive security that can be lost much faster than it was ever acquired. For the world’s foundation is sand.

Of course, deceit is not merely external (found in the world), but internal. The heart loves lies. The prophet Jeremiah declares, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). When we live for the things of this world alone, we come to believe that worldly gain will satisfy, that this strength will endure, that our human wisdom and reasoning will guide us through. It’s all deception.

Paul warns in Galatians 6:7, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” To trust in vanity is to sow what’s pointless, and to reap what’s worthless!

All of this should humble us. Even as believers, our hearts are prone to wander. We have to continually test ourselves by the Word of God, lest we be deceived into thinking that our confidence lies in anything other than Christ.

Finally, this simple scripture, declares: “Let him not trust in vanity, deceiving himself; For vanity shall be his recompense (or reward).” What a sobering reality! If you trust in things that are empty (the things of this world that do not endure for eternity), you will receive emptiness as your reward. Those who are deceived will find themselves destroyed by the very lies they embraced.

This is a just judgment of God. As Romans 1 tells us, those who exchange the truth of God for a lie are given over to the very lusts they have chosen. Vanity is both their choice and their punishment.

Edward Reynolds (1599-1676). From “The Vanity of the Creature” – “A man shall never get to look off from the world, til he can look beyond it. For the soul will have holdfast of something; and the reason why men cling so much to the earth, is, because they have no assurance, if they let go that hold, of having any subsistence elsewhere. Labor, therefore, to get an interest in Christ, to find an everlasting footing in the steadfastness of God’s promises in Him, and that will make thee willing to suffer the loss of all things; it will implant a kind of hatred and disestimation of all the most precious endearments, which thy soul did feed upon before. … Labor therefore to get a distinct view of the height and length, and breadth and depth, and the unsearchable love of God in Christ, to find in thine own soul the truth of God in His promises, and that His word abideth forever; and that will make all the glory of other things to seem but as grass.”

Do you want to know the Truth that sets us free? Christ bore our vanity upon Himself. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He took upon Himself the emptiness of our idols, the futility of our false hopes, and on the cross He endured the recompense that we deserved. Therefore, in Him alone is true and abiding hope, assurance... and peace.

May we, as followers of Christ, see the vain, emptiness of this world for the deception that it is... and may we put our hope in Christ, and Christ alone.

Amen.