THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS – PART 31 – DESTRUCTION HAS TARNISHED THE GOLD; PEOPLE AS EARTHEN VESSELS - CHAPTER 4:1-2
Chapter 4 is another Alphabet chapter, and describes practical issues like the Temple’s destruction, boiling of children, pursuers who are relentless, and the total helplessness of the inhabitants. In fact this is a tragic chapter and miserably depressing. It depicts the scene as observed by Jeremiah and he must have been overcome with compassion and sorrow at what was happening all around him. I think of all 5 chapters in the book this one lives up to the name of the book more than the others. We have lament after lament.
Disobedience and sin will never bring happiness or success; they bring misery and tragedy and death. If we could only get people to flee from sin and turn to Jesus Christ for salvation, what a wonderful world this would be. Sin has locked up the world in a prison, and it takes the earthquake of the Lord’s deliverance to release individuals held captive there. For the survivors now in tragic circumstances in a ravished city, Babylon had been the earthquake. I trust the shock impelled those people in repentance and trust in the LORD God. I think many did.
PART [1]. TRAGEDY DESTROYS BEAUTY AND GOODNESS
{{Lamentations 4:1 “HOW DARK THE GOLD HAS BECOME. How the pure gold has changed. THE SACRED STONES ARE POURED OUT at the corner of every street.”}}
There are 22 verses in this chapter as there are in Chapters 5 and 2 and 1. That is because Jeremiah employs a technique based on the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. There are 22 letters in the alphabet and each letter begins a new division (These correspond to our verses in our English bibles. The literary technique strophe is used. It is an alphabet chapter.
Vision and perspective are influenced by circumstances, by the way we project ourselves into situations. When all is bright and happy the gold shines in all its glorious brilliance but when tragedy strikes, or a people has become displaced in the horror of war or disaster, then the influence of that gold has dulled and its attraction has been lost. Jeremiah says the gold has become dark. It is no longer of any priority. There is nothing like tragedy or misfortune to sharpen the reality of perspective.
Then he speaks of the pure gold which has changed. Pure is the best quality but it is no longer attractive when it is tarnished and unappealing. When you are struggling to survive and it is so bad that you resort to cannibalism which is what was happening, then gold has become of little value or appeal.
The Babylonians burnt the city and the temple suffered the flames as well. Some see the tarnished gold as the residue of soot and smoke that covered the gold which was used on parts of the temple. This is the literal understanding of that but there is another sense that could apply.
Israel/Judah, the nation, was the gold that became so tarnished that you had to look intently to discern its dark form. The nation was a precious jewel in its formation and when Israel was a youth the LORD loved him, but the nation turned to the ugliness and darkness of sin and the glory of its complexion became dark and unattractive. People who sit in misery having lost everything, do not find even decent things attractive. The defeated Jews were demoralised and suffering.
In our current world, the things of God are dark to its residents and the beauty of the purity of God is so tarnished that the world considers Christianity some dark form of restrictions and negativity. They see the abuses and greed in mega churches and turn away.
This world has changed the pure gold. Even the church (denominations and groups) has changed the pure gold in increasingly numerous places. This world is truly lost. It has made its trackless paths and can’t find its way. {{Proverbs 16:25 “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”}} Mankind is on a journey from birth to death. It begins with being born into sin and iniquity and that journey continues until death and the path does not deviate. Only IF the Lord intervenes, will that path be turned 180 degrees and the journey then tracks to heaven. Man thinks he has all the answers and that he is the crown of evolution, but he is a fool, because the one who dismisses God is a fool.
The spiritual life of nations has ebbed and flowed through history according to the life of individuals. In my experience following the Billy Graham crusade in Sydney in 1954, huge numbers attended and there were many conversions and this made New South Wales more godly than it had ever been. That was reflected in community values and education and in society. Society was calmer and more contented and decency prospered, but today many of those who were converted are with the Lord and a new influence covers the land, a godless socialism that hates both Jews and Christians. It has become a wilful evil.
Right as I compose this, in New South Wales, the Australian Labor Party (akin to the most extreme Democrats) is bringing an Abortion bill to Parliament where children up to the day of birth and even later I think is proposed by some, can be murdered. Just this last week, a man called Mike was walking near the Sydney Opera House with a small sign with a written bible verse, (John 14:6) and was accosted and threatened by police and told to leave. Some “official” from the City Council was an enemy and claimed “by-laws” he could not state. You can watch it here and it shows how low this nation is sinking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8I73TYtItU&t=27s
You may have to enter that link manually. It is an utter disgrace what is happening. Please take time to look at the way that Christian man was bullied in a public place. The Sydney Harbour bridge in on the other side of Sydney Cove. The opposition to Christians here is getting worse. Whatever people think of Donald Trump, he supports Christians and Jews. That video has had 1.4 million views.
Let us take a look at the expression, {{“The sacred stones are poured out at the corner of every street.”}}.
We come to these “stones”. There is considerable opinion about these. [[“stones of … sanctuary - the gems on the breastplate of the high priest; or, metaphorically, the priests and Levites.”]] (Jameison). That one thinks the reference might be to the overthrow of the priesthood.
[[“The stones of the sanctuary - Or, the hallowed stones, literally stones of holiness, a metaphor for the people themselves. The actual stones of the temple would not be thus widely thrown about as to be seen everywhere, but the prophet has already affirmed this of the young children dying of hunger.”]] (Barnes).
[[“the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street; in the literal sense it may regard the costly stones of the temple, which, when that was destroyed, not only lay in heaps; but many of them, at least, were separated and scattered about, and carried into every corner of the city, and the streets of it, and there lay exposed, neglected, and trampled upon; see 1 Kings 5:17; but, in the figurative sense, it designs the people of God; who, though they are taken out of the common quarry and pit of mankind, and are by nature as common stones;”]] (Gill).
Whatever these sacred stones are that are poured out at the head of every street, it is summed up by one word – destruction, and destruction from the results of unrepentant sins. We realise destruction everywhere now. It is in the church which is very sad. Some churches are entertainment centres and others are occupied with outlandish practices and behaviour (mainly on the charismatic side). It is in society, governments, organisations, the ethic of Islam, and all seem to be vying with one another to see who can be more destructive. It is no surprise for the end of the age is very close.
PART [2]. THE COMPARISON MADE AND IT IS SO REDUCED
{{Lamentations 4:2 “The precious sons of Zion, weighed against fine gold - how they are regarded as earthen jars, the work of a potter’s hands!”}}
On the scales one side is fine gold. On the other is placed the precious sons of Zion. It is very significant that Jeremiah calls the sons of Zion precious. These were sinners who wilfully rejected his message for many years but the sword ended all that and now those very sons of Zion (in a broader sense, the people who survive) are destitute with no apparent earthly hope. They despised the LORD but have had a severe wakeup call.
The LORD calls them precious. His earthly people are precious to God even though they had been the worst of sinners married to idolatry. Of course the prophet poured out his heart for his fellow Jews and the nation was precious to him also. This world where the Jews are despised and persecuted, will know the full wrath of God, for anyone who curses Israel or the Jews will be cursed by God.
These precious sons of Zion are regarded after their downfall, as mere earthen jars, just vessels of clay that the potter has worked. There is no comparison with fine gold. The glory of Judah has fallen.
The thing with clay and the work of the potter hand, is that God can take those old vessels and form a new lump of clay and mould a brand new nation out of it. Jeremiah was told this by the LORD – {{Jeremiah 18:2-7 “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I shall announce My words to you.” “Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter, so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make. Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, “CAN I NOT, O HOUSE OF ISRAEL, DEAL WITH YOU AS THIS POTTER DOES?” DECLARES THE LORD. “BEHOLD, LIKE THE CLAY IN THE POTTER’S HAND, SO ARE YOU IN MY HAND, O HOUSE OF ISRAEL. “At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it.”}}
The remodelling of Israel will be wonderful. God takes this man-rejected and man-abused and man-ravaged clay and moulds a nation that will be the chief nation in the earth. He does it in fulfilment of his promises to Abraham, and because He loves His people and because God will enact a new covenant with the house of Israel and Judah. {{Isaiah 19:23-25 “IN THAT DAY there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria and the Assyrians will come into Egypt and the Egyptians into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be the third party with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing IN THE MIDST OF THE EARTH, whom the LORD of hosts has blessed saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and ISRAEL MY INHERITANCE.”}}
The potter image always has a special relationship with Israel in the Old Testament but we have something of great importance in the New.
I remember a western flavour song from about 60 years ago that mentioned something like, “I am an old piece of coal, but I will be a diamond one day.” That song took up the fashioning of the Master to bring about a gem of such beauty. It will happen to the Church because one name for the Church is the Pearl, going back to the pearl of greatest price and the writing of Ephraim of Syria about 3-400 A.D. Jesus is the Merchantman; the sea where the pearl was, is the world; the clam is lifted from the sea (The Rapture) and is bought with the greatest price because Jesus purchased that Pearl with His sacrificial death.
The LORD will put Israel into the smelter and refine the nation when He returns at the Second Coming. They will come forth as the most pure metal. That will happen at the Second Coming – {{Malachi 3:2-4 “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. “And He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and HE WILL PURIFY THE SONS OF LEVI and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD, as in the days of old and as in former years.”}}
When the nation is restored the LORD would have dealt with all the sinful dross over the past few thousand years and the glory of Israel will shine. It will be as the finest gold; as the purest silver. {{Isaiah 19:25 whom the LORD of hosts has blessed saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.”}}
Before we close this message there is a verse – two of them – that have application to Christians and I want to investigate them. Does a Christian have a potter? Yes, and He is the Holy Spirit. It is true also to say the Lord is our Potter. We are to be the willing clay in the Potter’s skilful hands.
A potter moulds a vessel according to skill and beauty. These are the two verses – {{Romans 12:1 “I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies A LIVING AND HOLY SACRIFICE acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship,
Romans 12:2 and do not be conformed to this world, BUT BE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”}}
Presentation to God is handing over to God your life and all that God has entrusted to you. It is not an easy thing for it is a sacrifice as verse 1 says. In a potter’s studio we could say that “the clay has yielded itself to the potter, and then the potter applies his skill. As Christians we must yield to the Master Potter who will use that presented life to fashion for Himself a vessel of honour and service.
In Romans 12:2 the message is that we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds. How do we do that? Well, WE can’t. If we think we can then we become humanists. Only One can renew our minds – the Holy Spirit. What is required on our part is willingness in sacrifice. “Take me, Lord, and fashion me into a true servant doing the perfect will You have for me. Transform my mind to Your will.” That will then be the true Potter working the clay for His glory, and for our service and joy.
