Vanity and Believers purpose on this earth

 Vanity

D.P. Weary -- 4/14/2023

We are living in a world that is literally going to hell in a handbasket. We should not be surprised. The prophets of old foretold of this day.

[Zec 5:5 ESV] Then the angel who talked with me came forward and said to me, "Lift your eyes and see what this is that is going out."

[Zec 5:6 ESV] And I said, "What is it?" He said, "This is the basket that is going out." And he said, "This is their iniquity in all the land."

[Zec 5:7 ESV] And behold, the leaden cover was lifted, and there was a woman sitting in the basket!

[Zec 5:8 ESV] And he said, "This is Wickedness." And he thrust her back into the basket and thrust down the leaden weight on its opening.

[Zec 5:9 ESV] Then I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, two women coming forward! The wind was in their wings. They had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between Earth and Heaven.

[Zec 5:10 ESV] Then I said to the angel who talked with me, "Where are they taking the basket?"

[Zec 5:11 ESV] He said to me, "To the land of Shinar (Babylon), to build a house for it. And when this is prepared, they will set the basket down there on its base."

And in the end Babylon, wickedness, and inequity will be destroyed by the returning Lord Jesus.

[Rev 14:8 NKJV] And another angel followed, saying, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication."

[Rev 18:2 NKJV] And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird!

But what has this age of man really been all about? As King David said, the works of man are all just vanity.

[Ecc 1:1-2 NKJV] (1) The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. (2) "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher; "Vanity of vanities, all [is] vanity."

[Ecc 1:14 NKJV] I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all [is] vanity and grasping for the wind.

[Ecc 2:11 NKJV] Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done And on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed all [was] vanity and grasping for the wind. [There was] no profit under the sun.

[Ecc 12:8 NKJV] "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher, "All [is] vanity."

This same wisdom is reflected in the New Testament.

[1Co 3:10 NLT] Because of God's grace to me, I have laid the foundation like an expert builder. Now others are building on it. But whoever is building on this foundation must be very careful.

[1Co 3:11 NLT] For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have--Jesus Christ.

[1Co 3:12 NLT] Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials--gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw.

[1Co 3:13 NLT] But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person's work has any value.

[1Co 3:14 NLT] If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward.

[1Co 3:15 NLT] But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.

Yet it was God that made man, and in His image, he made them. And He made man for a very special purpose.

[Gen 1:26 ESV] Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

[Gen 1:27 ESV] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

[Gen 2:8 NKJV] The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.

[Gen 2:18 NKJV] And the LORD God said, "[It is] not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him."

[Gen 2:22 NKJV] Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

[Gen 2:23 NKJV] And Adam said: "This [is] now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman Because she was taken out of Man."

[Gen 2:24 NKJV] Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

[Mar 10:8 ESV] (8) and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh.

Adam and Eve were God's companions in the Garden of Eden

[Gen 2:8 NKJV] The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.

[Gen 3:8 KJV] (8) And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day:

But God was looking for something more than just companions. He was looking for a wife. Someone of His likeness, of His order and kind. Someone who would freely choose Him over all other things. Someone who would love Him, obey, and serve Him as His wife. Someone to share His Kingdom with. Someone who would choose to be entwined with Him in spirit, soul, and body.

[Jhn 17:20-21 NKJV] (20) "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; (21) "that they all may be one, as You, Father, [are] in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.

It was God's people Israel who He first called His betrothed.

[Hos 2:1 NKJV] Say to your brethren, 'My people,' And to your sisters, 'Mercy [is shown].'

[Hos 2:16 NKJV] "And it shall be, in that day," Says the LORD, "[That] you will call Me 'My Husband,' And no longer call Me 'My Master,'

[Hos 2:17 NKJV] For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals, And they shall be remembered by their name no more.

[Hos 2:18 NKJV] In that day I will make a covenant for them With the beasts of the field, With the birds of the air, And [with] the creeping things of the ground. Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth, To make them lie down safely.

[Hos 2:19 NKJV] "I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me In righteousness and justice, In lovingkindness and mercy;

[Hos 2:20 NKJV] I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, And you shall know the LORD.

But Israel stumbled and fell away from God in unbelief. Why? Because blindness in part happened to Israel to open the door for Gentiles to be adopted into the household of God; wild olive branches grafted into God's family.

[Rom 9:25 NLT] Concerning the Gentiles, God says in the prophecy of Hosea, "Those who were not my people, I will now call my people. And I will love those whom I did not love before."

Concerning the fate of Israel, the Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul says:

[Rom 11:11 NKJV] I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation [has come] to the Gentiles.

[Rom 11:23 NKJV] And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.

[Rom 11:24 NKJV] For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who [are] natural [branches], be grafted into their own olive tree?

[Rom 11:25 NKJV] For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

[Rom 11:26 NKJV] And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;

[Rom 11:27 NKJV] For this [is] My covenant with them, When I take away their sins."

To accomplish this redemption of Israel and the grafting in of Gentiles, God had to deal with the unbelief in and rejection of God; He had to deal with sin. So, God sent His only son to pay the penalty for this sin; the penalty of death.

[Jhn 3:16 ESV] (16) "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

[Jhn 1:29 NKJV] The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

[Jhn 20:31 NKJV] but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

When someone accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savior, they become betrothed to Jesus; they become His bride. The apostle Paul understood this clearly.

[2Co 11:2 ESV] For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ: It is important that the Corinthian Christians understand and trust Paul's apostolic credentials because Paul is like the friend of the groom, who watches out for the bride in the period between the betrothal and the wedding.

Paul considers himself the friend of Jesus the bridegroom, and he will do his best to present the bride as a chaste virgin to Christ on the "wedding day"

At this present time all who have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior are betrothed to Him. We are His virgin bride awaiting His coming to catch us up in the air and take us to His wedding; our wedding. At this wedding the bride becomes His wife.

[1Th 4:16 NKJV] For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

[1Th 4:17 NKJV] Then we who are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

[1Th 4:18 NKJV] Therefore comfort one another with these words.

Believers are caught up as His bride, we return with Him at His second coming as His wife.

[Rev 19:7 ESV] Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready;

[Rev 19:8 ESV] It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure"-- for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

[Rev 19:9 ESV] And the angel said to me, "Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb." And he said to me, "These are the true words of God."

[Rev 21:2 NKJV] Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

[Rev 21:9 NKJV] Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, "Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife."

[Rev 21:10 ESV] (10) And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,

[Rev 21:27 ESV] But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

What we can now see is that the whole point of God creating man was to find a bride who would one day become His wife. Someone to reign with Him for all eternity.

[Rev 5:10 NKJV] And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth."

[Rev 20:6 NKJV] Blessed and holy [is] he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

[Rev 22:5 NKJV] There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.

So, we discover that the works of man's hands are just vanity. But, the business of being God's ambassadors on this earth to represent Him and lead others into a saving relationship with the Lord Jesus to be a part of His bride is our purpose for being here on the earth.

[Mat 28:19 ESV] Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

[Mat 28:20 ESV] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

[Rev 22:17 NKJV] And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.ater of life freely.