“How is the gold become dim! How is the most fine gold changed!” Lamentations 4:1
Dear saints, Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet. It was Jeremiah who said, “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” (Jeremiah 9:1) He wept over the spiritual ruins of his country. He saw that the beauty of Jerusalem was tarnished by Judah’s sin. God had sent judgment to the holy city because of their moral corruption. “How lonely sits the city that was full of people!”, laments Jeremiah. The beauty of the city had been splattered by the filth of idolatry, and now Jerusalem would pay the price. “For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears,” mourns the weeping prophet (Lamentations 1:16). Just as the gold of Jerusalem had grown dim, so the dignity of Man has been abased. Solomon the Preacher says, “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” (Ecclesiastes 7:29) Created pure in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, we have destroyed ourselves through self-inflicted wounds. Fashioned after the image of God, Man has molded deities to his own liking. We have blazed our own paths for living and invented creative modes of worship. Our minds are darkened, affections misplaced, priorities mismanaged, and our wills are in bondage to sinful preferences. Consequently, the original beauty of Man has become dim. As we approach the Lord’s Supper this coming Sabbath, this is where we begin. Oh, that the Holy Spirit would let us feel the hunger pains, that we would long for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ! Let the Church of Jesus look back and see the glory that once was Man, the gold now become dim, and our ruined estate. Only then will we feel our need for Jesus, the “image of the invisible God.” (Colossians 1:15)