Jeremiah 2:5 Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?
Micah 6:3 O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me.
False religion and idolatry produces emptiness. The word translated vanity also means “emptiness.” This word can be likened to the breath seen on a frosty morning. It is present for an instant and then it is gone. It is amazing the pain a person is willing to accept for a few moments of pleasure. The verse in Jeremiah shows a progression downward when people turn away from walking in loving obedience to Jesus Christ. The first step is following after vain things, which are things that are forbidden by God because they steal, kill and destroy lives. The next step is the inevitable consequence of their lives being controlled by those things. Their lives become vain, empty. The only thing that living for the world and the temporal, fleshly pleasures of sin for a season can guarantee you is emptiness, no matter how good it feels or how much of it you get.
The fallen world’s value system is based on terms like, “Find yourself” and “Please yourself.” The narrow path that leads to life is found in submission to the Word and will of The Lordship of Jesus Christ. Don’t believe the propaganda of the god of this world. Jesus Christ saved us to walk in victory, not vanity. “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind.” (Ephesians 4:17) “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.” (1 Peter 4:1-2)
