Lamentations chapter 4. We'll
be looking at the first few verses here in Lamentations and then
skipping down to the end for time's sake. I could go through
the whole chapter, but I do believe it would take more time than
we've got. So I'm going to try to get through
in a timely fashion, so pray about that. I'm sure you are.
So I ask the Lord to help me and open our hearts to this. The title of my message this
morning is, From Ruin to Glory. From Ruin to Glory. Now, the book of Lamentations
is a wonderful book of high poetry. It is a poetic book, and if you
were to study this book in the original language, you would
see that every chapter is an acrostic, which means that every
verse begins with a letter of the alphabet in the Hebrew language,
and it goes all the way through the alphabet, 22 letters. If you'll notice, every chapter
has 22 verses in it, except for chapter 3. And in chapter 3,
it's every third verse begins a new letter. And there are 66
verses in that. It is a poetic book. And it was
written by the prophet Jeremiah after the nation of Israel had
been taken into captivity by the Babylonian Empire. So here
it is, Jeremiah, who had preached to this nation for so long. Repent! Repent, or God will destroy you. And here it is, the time had
come, they had not repented, and the destruction came. And
Jeremiah is sitting, as it were, on top of a hill, looking down
at Jerusalem and saying, Oh, Jerusalem! How oft did I not
preach to you? Repent! And you didn't listen. And He's weeping and lamenting
Jerusalem, His own beloved land and kin. He faithfully preached and they
did not hear. This sounds much like the words
of Jesus Christ when He wept over Jerusalem. Remember that?
He said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets,
He said, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth
her chicks, but you would not. This is much like the word of
the Lord Jesus Christ to Jerusalem. And this book, no doubt, is a
reflection of sorrow of the prophet, for he fell for his beloved nation. You know, you can think about
it. I think about it as a pastor and I preach to people. I preach
to you and I preach time and time again and time again. And
yet there will be some of you who I will weep over, who will
go off into eternity never having repented. Yet praise God that as He has
here demonstrated, even though He did destroy Jerusalem, He
had a remnant of people. He had a remnant according to
the election of grace that He would save from Adam's fallen
race. And this book points out time
and time again that God will show mercy But every time, every
instance of mercy that God shows to men, he must first be brought
down to hell before he'll ever be raised. He must see his ruin
before he'll ever see his glory. That's the way the book reads.
You read this book in every chapter. It always starts from this ruin
and then it ends in glory. Always starts in ruin. My friend,
if you've never seen your ruin, you'll never see the glory of
Christ. You'll never see the glory of Christ. And that's what
this is being done in our text in Lamentations chapter 4. I
want us to see that there are three different ways to look
at this passage. So when you take this passage, and I challenge
you, take this passage home. Read it. Read it and study it. You can see that there are many
different angles that you can look at this from. One, you can
see that, hey, this is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. You
can see it's speaking of Him. Look at that. How is the gold
become dim? It's speaking of the condescension
of Jesus Christ to become a man. He in gold is perfect deity,
and yet how is the gold brought down so low? You can see that. You can see that this is speaking
of the church of God. We as a church are not a group
of sinless people, are we? If you belong to the church of
God, then my friend, you are, by confession, a sinner. I am. I am. And so therefore,
the church always is warned against falling into evil, isn't it? So you can look at it from that
standpoint. How is the church that God has made of gold falling
so dim? Can we not say that about the
church of our age? How is it so dim? And number three, and
this is the one we'll be looking at, we'll be looking at this
as spoken of the condition of men, the condition of the human
race before God. I believe that all three are
true, and if you explore them, you'll see them to be true. But we're going to take that
first, the last one, speaking of the great fall of man. of
which is included the elect of God. And the second part of this
text, the end of this text, gives us a light of hope and of the
glory that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. First of all, let's
look at the fall of man in this. Verse 1 of chapter 4. How is
the gold become dim? How is the most fine gold changed? The stones of the sanctuary are
poured out on top of every street, the precious sons of Zion comparable
to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work
of the hands of the potter." You see, man was created in the
beginning as gold. The gold that is spoken of here
has reference to the sons of Zion, and Jeremiah here is reflecting
on the greatness of the fall of Jerusalem. How great that
the Lord blessed that nation! How greatly did He give them
prophets and His Law, His Word! He blessed them greatly among
the kings of the earth. But now His judgment has come
against them, and they are brought very low. So is it with man who
was God's greatest creation. Man was God's greatest creation. Of all things God created in
the universe, do you realize that the height of His creation,
the crescendo of God's creation was man? It was the center of
His creation. It was the best that God created
was man. Go to Genesis 1. I want us to
see the greatness of this. I want to see how man is compared
here as to fine gold. Fine gold. Go to Genesis 1, verse
26. And God said, let us make man
in our image after our likeness. and let him have dominion over
all the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth." So God created man in
His own image. In the image of God, created
He Him. Male and female, created He them. And God blessed them. Can you not see in that how great
and wonderful God had made man to be? God said of Adam, of no
other creature in all the creation did God ever counsel with Himself
and say, let us make man in our image. He didn't say that about
the cattle, did He? He didn't say that about the creeping things,
or the fish of the sea, or the fowls of the air. No, He said
that about man. He said, let us make him in our
image. Wow! God made man in His own image
and gave him to rule over all creation. There's Adam. Look at him. The perfect specimen
of a man. Given dominion over everything. Wow. How beautiful is that? Man was
created in the image of God, and God blessed the earth to
yield to him his strength. He was an intelligent creature.
And God blessed him. He was as fine gold in the eyes
of God. And notice at the end of this,
you go down to the end of that chapter in verse 1, and God said,
Behold, it is very good. He said everything He created
was good, but after He had created man, He said, Behold, it is very
good. Very good. God created man in
His own image. Adam was born without sin, truly
innocent and righteous. A wonderful and marvelous creature
was man. He was as fine gold. But what
happened? Can you look in the mirror this
morning and say, look, there's some fine gold this morning.
Look at what God has made me! Oh, how perfect am I! Anybody? What happened? Something happened. When Adam fell, when God's highest
creature was guilty of rebellion against God, you see, man fell
to the lowest estate possible. All the cattle and beasts that
he was created to rule, he now was lower than the beasts. You
see, even the beasts give praise to God. Even the birds sing to
their Father that created them, and man is born spitting at God. You and I were born spitting
at God. Oh, how the gold has become dim.
Can you not see that? Oh, how the gold has become dim.
How has the most fine gold changed? You know, this is not a question.
He's making a statement there. Look at that in our text. He's
not making a question. He's saying a statement. The
gold has changed. It's different. It's not the
same. It's changed to what? Look at that in verse 2, to an
earthen pitcher. I got a hand of gold right here.
Say I had a hand of gold here and a clay pot here. Which one
would you rather have? Which one is of more value? The
gold. But the gold has changed. It's
become a clay pot. Clay pot. It's changed. You see,
some believe that man fell and he still maintained his gold.
He still maintained his image of God. All man needs is a little
education. You know, I've said it before
and I've been wrong to say it. I say that people are just ignorant. They just haven't heard. They
just haven't been educated. That's wrong. That's wrong. Some people believe man needs
a little education, a little push in the right direction,
and he can be gold again. Some believe that when he fell,
it was damaging, but all he needs is some rules and guidelines,
and if you just give a man rules and laws, he'll be okay. No,
my friends. We've changed. We no longer bear
that same image as Adam. That image is gone, it's marred,
and we have become as clay pots. When Adam sinned against God,
he lost his first estate and was changed into nothing more
than a common earthen vessel. Man that was once of great value
has now become worthless. He is dead in sin. The kindness and compassion of
God is all around him, but he doesn't see any hope of salvation.
We are worthless. Man is created strong and intelligent,
but now he has become weak and foolish. Adam was able to stand
and to worship God in true holiness, but we've changed since then.
And we've all become as an unclean thing. We are like, as Job accused
his friends of, Job said, you are forgers of lies and a physician
of no value. That's exactly what we are by
nature. That's exactly who we are in
our flesh of no value. The image of God was so marred,
it lost all its worth and value. Now, to religion, the natural
man, they believe that he has value in the eyes of God. They
believe that God needs him. They still think they are gold
in the eyes of God. But I declare that all men by
nature add not one thing to God. You know what? God does not need
us. Do you realize that? God does not need us. We need
Him, but He does not need us. We add no value to God. None. None. We are of no value. We are earthen
vessels. By nature, Isaiah says, we are
all as an unclean thing. We are all our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. We do fade as the leaf. Does anybody value a leaf? Do
you value the leaves when they fall from the tree? Do you weep
for them? When they fall and die, do you weep for a leaf that
fades away? No, it's of no value to you.
My friends, we do fade as the leaf and our iniquities like
the wind have carried us away. Man here is likened not only
to gold, but to precious stones of the sanctuary. You see, man
was precious. He was precious in that he could
worship God. Man was at first able to worship
God, but now we have taken the stones of worship and by nature
we say, will not have this man to rule
over me. That's what we say by nature.
We cast this word behind us and said, God says this, but I say
this, and away with God. That's what we say. Well, preacher,
I don't like what you're saying. Of course you don't. Of course you don't. This is
offensive to the natural man. This is offensive to our flesh
to say we are worthless. I watched my little son's videos,
you know, those little Barney videos when he was a kid and
Andrew, and had this one song, You Are Special. You are special,
special. You see, man likes to think he's
special. He likes to think he has something to give God. Oh, how the fine gold is changed
to a pot of clay. Worthless. Worthless. In the eyes of God. Cast his
religion behind him. How far has man fallen? Oh, the
greatness of the fall of man. He did not fall and bruise himself. He does not need a band-aid.
He fell and broke his neck. And he needs life. That's what
man needs. Oh, how great we have fallen. Let me ask you this, of what
value is a dead man to you? You had a friend, best friend,
die. When he's dead, do you pick up
his corpse and take it home? Do you sit him up in a chair
and say, yes, this man has value to me? What can a dead man do
for you? What can he do? Can He help you
around the house? Can He earn His keep? No. The only thing He can do
is smell up the place. That's all a dead man is good
for, is to smell up the place. My friend, that's exactly what
we are by nature, rotting corpses. Good for nothing. The kindness and compassion of
our God is all around us. The message of hope and salvation
is placed in front of every dead sinner. And they can't do a thing
about it. They can't take it. They can't
receive it because they're dead. They can't feel it. They can't
enjoy it because they're dead. And the only thing they can contribute
is their vileness. And that's all we can contribute
to God is vileness, sinfulness. That's all we have. That's all
we are. It's all we're good for by nature
is to spread our sins. Isaiah said, from the sole of
our foot to the crown of our head is nothing but wounds and
bruises and putrefying sores. It's not been bound up. That's
all we are. I've been in a hospital before
and preached there many times, and many times I see people with
open wounds. And I'll tell you what, if they're
not treated, they stink. They are horrid. And that's exactly
what we are in the nostrils of God by nature. Oh, the great
loss of man who was fine gold has now become a worthless vessel,
a leaky pot, cisterns that hold no water. Isn't that right? We hold no water, hold no righteousness
in ourselves, have none. The writer of Lamentations gives
us an example of our vileness. Look at this. Look at this example
he gives in verse 3 and 4. He said, even the sea monsters
draw out their breast and give suck to their young ones. The
daughter of my people has become cruel like the ostrich in the
wilderness. The tongue of the suckling child
cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst." I know that there
is nothing more loving than a woman feeding her child. You know that? I know I saw the bond between
my wife and our children when she fed them from herself. It was a bond between them, a
loving bond. And yet now, this prophet tells
us that man has become a cruel woman that won't even give suck
to her child. He says, even the beasts, even
the monsters give suck to their children, and the daughter of
my people is so cruel that they won't even give any milk to their
children. God shows us the vileness of
our sinful nature and state by comparing us to a sea monster,
to an ostrich. You know what an ostrich does
with their young? They lay the eggs and they will turn around
and crush them. They'll lay them out in the open
and won't give them any protection. And when they're born, they won't
even acknowledge them as their own. The child is born with a
natural curiosity, but because of the wickedness of their parents,
they deprive their own children from the necessary food, which
is the Word of God. Men do that by nature. Men that
hate God by nature, look at how they treat their young. They
deprive them from the only thing that is any good to the nourishment
of their souls. Oh, they give them cars and things
and people, and they take them places and they entertain them.
But they tell them, don't go to church. Don't go hear that
man. Don't go listen to the Word of
God. It's like a mother taking her
child and taking her away from the breast and saying, don't
eat that and watching the child sit there with his tongue cleaving
to the roof of his mouth for nourishment. The young of our day are filled
with the food of this world, the riches of this world, but
man by nature hates God and will not suffer his offspring to taste
the Word of God. They will deny them the source
of bread. How cruel is a man to his own children who will
not suffer them to come and hear the gospel. Jesus said, Woe unto
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut up the kingdom of heaven
against men, and you neither go in yourselves. And that's
what men are doing today, even to their own children. Can you
not see that? Is it not plain that's what they're doing? The
children of this day are starving. Their parents, by their actions,
say there is no God. And what thought happens to that?
What is the result of that? If there is no God, then there
is no justice. Then there is no law. Then there
is no obedience. There's no heaven, there's no
hell. What purpose is there in life? And they end up killing
themselves before they even get through puberty. Can you not
see that? I can see that plainly. How far
has man fallen? It's just not what we see. And
yet, lost man encourages his children to do it. Because of
his wicked nature, he withholds the only thing that gives life. Can we not see this even more
in our day as the monsters we call mothers are killing their
own children? Can you not see how far we've
fallen? That a mother would allow a man
to come into her own womb and kill her own child. Is not God
right to call us ostriches to our own young? Of course He is. That's our nature. That's who
we are by nature. Oh, the greatness of the fall
of man. You say, oh, I wouldn't do that to my child. Oh, not
me, pastor. I'm not that evil. If you're
not, it's only because of God's restraining hand. Adam, look at verse 5, he did
feed delicately and are desolate in the streets. He was fed with
the communion of God. He was fed with the enjoyment
of God's presence. He walked in the cool of the
day with God as the object of his affection and love. Man loved
God. Yet now, because of sin, he is
desolate in the streets, and he has lost communion with God.
You that are believers in Christ, answer me this. How hard is it
to commune with God in prayer? You that love God, how hard is it to find the time
or the energy to get up and to pray? It takes every effort of
our soul to do that. How much farther has the lost
man fallen in communion with God? That communion is separated. As Adam blamed God, so does man
continually blame God for his sin. Well, I'm this way because God
made me like this. My friend, it's your sin. It's
my sin. God is not the author of sin.
It was man that brought sin into the world, and now, as a result
of that, we are so desolate. Look at this. Go back to verse
5. He said, they that fed delicately are desolate in the streets.
They that were brought up in scarlet... Listen to what we
do. Embrace dungheels. Isn't that what man does by nature? Embraces the dungheel of his
sin? The lust of His flesh? Yes. He only loves sin. That's what our natural condition
is. We only love sin. Let me ask
you this. Has your sin brought any satisfaction
to you yet? Has it? All those things you
just hoped for, all those things you wished for. Gee, if I could
just have this, oh, I'm going to be satisfied then. Oh, if
I can just get a hold of this, then everything is going to be
alright. And when you get it, what happened? What happened? It was like manure
through your hands. It did nothing for you. And yet
time and time again, we still embrace it. How far has man fallen? How low
have we come? You, who were fine gold, have
now become dim, just a picture of what you were in Adam. Our visage has become black as
coal, and our skin cleaveth to our bones for lack of bread.
And our sin is so great, we have sodden our own children for meat. Can we not see how far man has
fallen? Can we not see the ruin of man? But how does the Lord accomplish
life? If man has come so far and fallen so far, how is it
then that God can restore to us our former glory? Do you not
long for that? Do you not long to see what it
is to be completely whole? I do. How does the Lord accomplish
life? How does He bring it to pass? Look in verse 11. The Lord hath accomplished His
fury. He hath poured out the fierceness
of His anger. He hath kindled a fire into Zion.
He hath devoured the foundations thereof. You see, in order for
the Lord to accomplish glory, He must first destroy the foundations
of a man. What are the foundations of a
man? His religion. His self-righteousness. In other words, a man must be
brought down to the dust before God, or He will never bring you
to glory. You must first see the ruin before
you see the glory. I was reading the other day that
when God brings a sinner to mercy, He must first bring him to hell.
He must first accomplish his fury. He must first manifest
the great wrath of God against sin. Lamentations 3, 29, "...he
putteth his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope."
If there's any hope, a man must first see his ruin. Have you
seen your ruin? I know that God is still exposing
this to me. You see, I've not reached the
bottom of my ruin. Have you? I've not really seen
how far we fell yet, have you? As I study the Word of God, I
find out how much lower. Every time I read it, I get lower. You see, the Word of God always
abases man. Always. Always. Because that's where we need
to be. That's where we need to be. God must first bring us down
and expose it to us. Expose our vileness and our sins. I know that all He has brought
to the dust, He will give grace to keep us there at His feet. Is there any other place you
long to be than in the dust? I don't. I don't long to be any
other place but at His feet." Verse 12 says, "...the kings
of the earth and all the inhabitants of the world did not believe
that the adversity of the adversary and the enemy should enter into
the gates of Jerusalem." These verses are speaking of
the thoughts of the world. The lost man surely says, if
there are any who go to heaven, surely the Pope will go to heaven,
right? Isn't that what the world would think? Surely the gates
of the enemy have not entered into the gates of religion. Surely
sin has not entered into the church. Surely religious folks
are good to go. That fallen stuff must be for
the real wicked people and not for those people. Oh no, my friends. It's for all of us. All of us. Every single one of us has failed
to ruin. Every one of us. The sin nature does not escape
even the best of men. And the most religious of men
or the most moral of men. Everyone has the sin nature. Even prophets and priests and
sinners and preachers and popes. All are sinners. Every one of
us. Every one. Not one of us escaped
this. Have you seen this? Is this not
your flesh even now? Is this not the fall of sin and
wickedness? Are you still deceived to think
you are worth something to God? If God has caused you to see
the greatness of your fall, then He may by the same grace cause
you to see the greatness of the rise of man. You that have seen the fall,
you that are seeing the fall, you that know are ruined. Has
it not so that He has come to you with great grace to show
you that He has not kept us there? He has not kept us there. You
see, when Adam fell, the first thing he did was run and hide
from his sin, didn't he? You see, I don't run and hide
from my sin anymore. I know who I am. You see, I run to God for mercy. The ruined man runs away from
God, but a man that God exposes his sin to and comes to will
come and bow down before God. Just as sure as man fell and
lost everything, God has in His great mercy dealt with some of
Adam's race in great love by restoring what Adam lost. Adam
ran from God. If God in mercy comes to someone
here today and shows them the fig leaves of their own self-righteousness
and false hopes that they have, it will not be enough. God will
soon strip him like Adam and curse him, but He'll also cover
him." Isn't that what Adam did? Isn't that what God did? He cursed
Adam and then He covered him. You see, when God brings a man
to see the curse, He'll also bring him to see the covering.
The covering. I tell you, if God has convicted
you of your sin, then I tell you to wait. If you've not seen the mercy
of God, but you've been convicted of your sin, I tell you, wait.
Wait on the Lord. Come and seek Him. Hear His message. Hear His message of Christ. And
He will, in due time, give you grace to all that seek Him. I know that He gives it the same
way to every vessel of mercy. How did you get this understanding? How did you get this light? Was
it not by the preaching of the gospel? If God is going to save
any man, it will be under the sound of the gospel. No other way. No other way. And this is how the chapter ends.
The chapter ends not with sorrow, but with rejoicing. Not with
grief, but with joy. Look at this in the end of the
chapter, verse 22. Verse 22 says, the punishment
of thine iniquity is what? What does that say? Is accomplished. You see, there's nothing better
for a guilty sinner who deserves the justice of God, then to hear
the news, the justice of God has already been satisfied. The
justice of God has been accomplished. The punishment's over. Jeremiah
gives hope to the nation of Israel who was in utter ruin and carried
away waste before her enemies. The punishment of iniquity is
accomplished. And this is the message of hope
for ruined sinners. For a man that has been wasted
by sin and carried away in his iniquity, this is the message
of hope for God's elect. The message of joy that flows
like a river of peace to the heart and a spring of refreshing
to the soul. The punishment of thine iniquity
is accomplished. How? by the blood of Jesus Christ. That's how. You see, Jesus Christ,
when He died, did not make our salvation possible. He accomplished it. He said,
it is finished. What was finished? Our punishment. You see, when man failed, he
fell into the curse of God, and he deserves God's wrath. But I tell you that there's one
that has accomplished the punishment of God's wrath. His name is Jesus
Christ. And I say to you, behold, the
Lamb of God that accomplished salvation. You see, any other
Jesus that did not accomplish salvation is not Jesus at all.
That's just a fact. If your Jesus made salvation
possible, it's not the Jesus of this Bible. The Jesus of the Scripture accomplished
my salvation. This man named Jesus Christ,
made in the likeness of sinful flesh, yet without sin, made
of a woman, made under the law to redeem us from the curse of
the law by being made a curse for us. This was done and accomplished
by the offering of Jesus Christ Himself to God. This was pictured
time and time again by the offering of the atonement. You take that
goat and they placed the sins, they anointed the sins of the
people on the goat and the goat was carried away. And the other
goat was slain and that's exactly what Christ did. He bore our
sins. on the tree. He in His great strength carried
them away so that God, when He looks at a believer's heart,
He sees nothing but the righteousness of Christ. He sees nothing but
the righteousness of Christ. Oh, how the gold is restored
only by the blood of the Lamb. Only by the blood of the Lamb. Jesus Christ Himself said this,
in Psalm 69, these are the words of Christ prophesied. He said,
They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine
head. They that would destroy me, being my enemies wrongfully,
are mighty. Then I restored that which I
took not away. You see, only by Christ can we
be restored to glory. Only by Christ can we be restored
to glory from the ruin of our souls to the glory of God. How? By Jesus Christ alone. By
Jesus Christ alone. It is only through Him that we
may have value with God. You see, I hold no value in myself
before God. My value stands in Christ and
Christ alone. When you stand before God and
you will, Every one of us will stand before
God. What will be your standing? When God demands of you righteousness,
where will your righteousness come from? If it comes from yourself, hell is your portion. My friend, bow down to Christ. Believe God's Word. See Christ as your only hope. And let your rebellion go. Bow down. And those who have bowed down,
I give you joy this morning. Your heritage has been restored. Your heritage has been restored.
God has given you back more than Adam had. More than Adam had. Why? Because you don't have a
righteousness made by your hands, you have a righteousness made
by the hands of Christ. It is the very righteousness
of God given to us. Glory, glory, glory to the Son
of God who hath restored our heritage. He's made us gold again
in the eyes of God. To those who have bowed before
Christ, Let's stand and we'll be dismissed in prayer. I just
want to remind us that we have our fellowship luncheon after
the service. Everyone's invited. Come and
spend time and we'll fellowship together, Lord willing. Malcolm, would you dismiss us
in prayer please, brother?