I. The temptation to believe that man is made in vain. Everything rebukes vanity in man, since he himself, as well as the world, is vain. The idea that man is made in vain is made common property, not at all by sameness of experience, but by the universal feeling that, whatever the experience may be, it leaves man infinitely remote from his desires. This thought is painfully impressed upon us when we survey that large range of characters to which we may give the denomination of wasted lives.
II. Notice the structure of the question, "Wherefore hast Thou made all men in vain?" Is it possible to reconcile the vanity of man with the greatness of God? (1) I believe that Thou hast not a chief regard to Thine own power. Power is but one of Thine attributes. Canst Thou sport with Thy power? Canst Thou create beauty merely to mar it? (2) I believe Thou art not inattentive to Thy creatures' desires, though they seem to be mocked. It is an everlasting chase; we never realise. "Why hast Thoumade all men in vain?" (3) I believe Thou art Thyself a pure Being. Thus Thou canst not be pleased only to contemplate evanescence and decay. "Wherefore hast Thoumade all men in vain?" These are the soliloquies and cries of our nature; and the appropriate answer to all is, Man is not made in vain. There is something in him which God does not regard as vanity. The whole of our education here is to raise us to the assurance that "He who made us with such large discourse, looking before and after," could not have made us in vain.
III. "My times are in Thy hand." God's real way is made up of all the ways of our life. The hand of Jesus is the hand which rules our times. He regulates our life-clock. Christ is for and Christ in us. My life can be no more in vain than was my Saviour's life in vain.
IV. This truth rightly grasped and held, we shall never think it possible that any life can be unfulfilled which does not, by its own voluntary perversity, fling itself away.
E. Paxton Hood, Dark Sayings on a Harp,p. 21.
References: Psalms 89:47 . Homiletic Magazine,vol. ix, p. 321; J. Martineau, Hours of Thought,vol. i., p. 203; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 21.