No. 605: THE HEALING POWER OF GILEAD S BALM

No. 605: THE HEALING POWER OF GILEAD S BALM Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? (Jeremiah 8:22). The prophet asks a most powerful question from a heart overwhelmed with painful feelings. Jeremiah was dealing with a situation beyond belief, a situation not comprehended by our natural minds. In verse 21 he said: For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. Why was the prophet so astonished? What circumstances made this so unbelievable? It was because Israel had forsaken the Lord, and I want you to see how synonymous this is with our nation today. We are known as a Christian nation. Our coins are inscribed with In God We Trust, and many government buildings in Washington, D.C., have similar inscriptions. This national began as a godly nation, and I believe what the prophet is speaking of here is synonymous with conditions in our nation, our churches, with our fellow citizens and the world today. We live in communities and in a nation where the gospel is proclaimed, the good news that we can again enter the kingdom of Christ, that we can be delivered from serving Satan and sin. The way of salvation through the perfect obedience and shed blood of Christ is being proclaimed. The balm of Gilead is here, the blood of Christ that can heal every wound and cleanse from every sin. This is what has so astonished the prophet. He sees how the way of salvation has been proclaimed. Why then is not the health of my people restored by that Great Physician? Why have they not come to the fountain that is open for all sin and uncleanness? Why are they not washed? Why do they not come to the gospel of Christ for cleansing? Look at what we read in Jeremiah 8:5-6: Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return. I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? If you speak to one of your loved ones who is walking in sin, and you tell them the good news of the gospel, that God has given His Son, and there is a

way open whereby we can reconciled to God, why do they not return? Why do they love to walk in sin and have no pleasure in the things of God s glory? The prophet was astonished at three things. First, at the hurt, that is, the deep and desperate wounds of God s church. He saw that the power of sin had overtaken the nation, and Jerusalem was headed for captivity. Second, at the greatness of the remedy God had provided. God had provided the blood of His own Son as the balm that whosever would believe would not perish but have everlasting life. Is it not the most astonishing thing that the Father of heaven and earth would send His own Son to suffer, bleed and die, and be our Substitute so you and I can receive a pardon? Third, seeing that the malady was so desperate and the remedy so great, why was not the health of His people recovered? Why was there no repentance? Have you ever thought about what the word repentance means? It means a change of attitude. Ephesians 4:22-24 explains what it means to repent: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Conversation is that which traffics your mind. We must put off these former things that occupy our thinking. The word spirit in the original means your mental disposition. So, we must be renewed in the mental disposition of our minds. Where was the problem with the people Jeremiah spoke about? They were living in sin, and they refused to be admonished. We read in Jeremiah 8:6: No man repented him of his wickedness. In other words, no person changed his attitude. They continued to live in sin and to live in deceit. FIRST, let us consider the desperate condition of the daughter of his people. Let us put ourselves on trial. I want you to understand that sin is a grievous thing. Every one of God s dear children either have, or will be made to feel

it is so. We must look into our own hearts. Where do our affections rest? Are our affections set on the things of this life or the things that are pleasing to the Lord? As you come into repentance and your attitude to sin begins to alter, as the Holy Spirit works in your heart, the first thing that happens is that sin becomes sinful. We begin to see how grievous sin is in the eyes of the Lord. We realize that the Lord cannot allow sin. Before He would let one sin go unpunished, He would rather place it on His own Son and allow Him to be crucified and put to death for that sin. We learn to understand the love of God and how He had such love for His people that He gave His own Son to take His wrath upon our sin. This makes sin become exceedingly sinful. When I was a little child, it was laid on my heart that if I did things that displeased the Lord that I was sinning against His love. Now we are not primarily concerned about whether we are going to heaven or hell, but sin becomes hateful because it is displeasing to God, and now we desire to do what is pleasing to the Lord. We read in Jeremiah 9:1: 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 was torn up over his people living in sin, in ways displeasing to the Lord. It is only in proportion as we see the extent of the malady of sin, that we will see the value of the remedy. I can talk to you about the Lord Jesus Christ, and I can talk about how He died for sins, but until you learn to see that you are a sinner, what value is that to you? We must learn that we have sinned in thought, word and deed, and that because of this, and if we are one of God s people, Christ had to come with our sins placed on His head in that crown of thorns. We must learn to distinguish between the secret will of God and the revealed will of God. The secret will of God is that the apostle Paul was elect from eternity and he was saved from eternity, but the revealed will of God was that he was a persecutor and that he was a sinner. The apostle Paul never saw the holiness of God s law until after he was apprehended by Christ. Look what he said in Romans 7:12-13: Wherefore

the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. When the Lord Jesus Christ apprehended him on the way to Damascus, he learned to see that he was persecuting Christ. He learned to see the nature of his sin. Our primary concern now is to be reconciled to God so we can receive a pardon and forgiveness and re-enter His service acceptably. We want His communion, nearness and love. We want to spend eternity basking in the sunshine of His love. The apostle now understood the spirit of the law. There is a difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. The letter says, Thou shalt not commit adultery, but in the spirit of the law, Christ said that if you lust after a woman you have committed adultery already. Now we are talking about heart sins. When we rightly understand the law, we are not primarily concerned about the act of sin alone, but we understand that the thought of evil is sin. If we have a hateful attitude toward our brother we have already committed murder. What the Lord wants is for our hearts to be renewed. A person can be a drunkard and live in adultery and have every vile affection, but then see that he is wrong and outwardly clean up his act, but that does not mean he has repented. His heart may still yearn for the things he has given up. Conversion is that of the inner man, when sin becomes exceedingly sinful, and we hate sin, not just its consequences. We look on our past with remorse over having sinned against such a loving God. We do not long for past sins or look back in pleasure on them, but we look at them with grievous remorse. It is easy for us to listen to a message from God s Word and wish someone else would hear it, but we must take the mirror of God s law and look into it ourselves. When we learn to understand our own hearts, we do not have one stone to throw at someone who is guilty of capital crime. Notice that the prophet did not point a finger at a fallen congregation, but look at his complaint in Jeremiah 8:21-22: For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the

health of the daughter of my people recovered? It is like when Daniel prayed for Jerusalem, he confessed his own sin along with the sins of the nation. When we understand the true nature of sin, we must marvel at the wonder of God s electing love and that He has delivered us from the power of sin. Do we not see that the blood of Christ is a balm for every wound? The prophet saw God s church was suffering under wounds that needed balm. Those wounds were so severe as to require the care of a physician. They had not recovered because they had not repented. God s Word has described this condition of fallen man in Isaiah 1:6: From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. This is where you and I are by nature. Our only consolation is in the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed to us. We have no claim on salvation because of what we have done. Our desire now is to know and do the will of God because we have learned to love what He has done for us. We are delivered from the power of sin because Christ s blood has cleansed us from sin. We are no longer servants of sin. When a man is bitten by a snake, the venom flows through every artery and vein and the man dies infected with venom. This is what happened in Paradise. Adam was created in the image of God, but he became infected with the venom of sin from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head and died spiritually. The venom goes straight to the heart, and that is why our hearts must be cleansed. We cannot think a thought that is perfectly right. That is why we need gospel repentance and gospel obedience. We need the blood of Christ to cleanse us from all iniquity. Until a person is quickened into spiritual life, all his spiritual senses are slain by the infection of the venom of sin. A dead person has no senses. Our spiritual senses were slain in the fall of Adam. When we are quickened we received new taste buds. We could not previously taste the sweetness there is in Christ, but when we are quickened, what we used to think was sweet becomes bitter. What we did not see as sinful we see as grievously sinful in the eyes of the Lord.

What we never saw in the Man who was acquainted with grief, the Man of sorrows, we despised and rejected Him, we now see as beloved and the chiefest among ten thousand. We have our eyes opened to see what we never saw before, opened to see the beauties there are in Christ. When the Holy Spirit comes to reprove us or to convince us of sin, He uses the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, to cut our conscience, inflicting wounds that nothing but the balm of Gilead can heal. It shows us the nature of our attitudes and the nature of our sins. Nothing but the blood of Christ can heal our bleeding consciences. As the Holy Spirit quickens our spiritual senses, we see from God s Word that the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint (Isaiah 1:5). The carnal mind, that is, the unregenerate mind, is depraved. The will chooses evil. The affections cleave to earthly things, but when the Lord works in our hearts, our affections are changed. We see in Romans 8:7: Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. By nature we cannot have pleasure in the law of God. The sword of the Spirit opens up the depth of the fall to make us sick of self. The knowledge of sin caused God s dear saints to deplore self. We see what David said in Psalm 6:2-3: Have mercy upon me, O LORD; for I am weak: O LORD, heal me; for my bones are vexed. My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O LORD, how long? In Psalm 6:6 we read: I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears. Jeremiah complained in Jeremiah 8:21: For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. When we learn to see by the enlightening power of the Holy Spirit, and when the sword of the Spirit cuts our conscience and lays it naked and bare, then we start to learn the hurt of the daughter of my people and the blessedness of the balm of Gilead. Now we do not remain selfish. Now we are not critical. Now we do not point a finger at another person. Now we weep when we see some of our blood relatives who are under the power of sin. Now we have such a longing desire and prayer that the Lord will come with His Spirit and bring them to Him.

Everyone who has received a faith s view of the co-equal Son of God agonizing in the garden and on the cross will never be able to slight the least sin. The least sin becomes exceedingly sinful when you see how it nailed our Saviour to the cross. SECOND, let us consider the remedy God has provided for this desperate condition. It seems clear that the prophet, thus almost overwhelmed with the sight and sense of sin, had a faith s view of the remedy. Therefore he cries out in our text: Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? (Jeremiah 8:22). As we see the nature of our sin, our eyes should focus on the cure. This is what makes Christ become precious in our sight. The prophet seems to be asking: Is the case so desperate that the sinner must die in his sin? Is there no hope for him? Has he wandered too far by sinning against such love? Is there no hope? Is there no remedy for such a loathsome disease? Is there no balm in Gilead? Is the supply exhausted, or has it lost its healing power? When the sword of the Spirit has laid our hearts open to see our need of that balm of Gilead, then Jesus says in John 16:14: He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. Our lovely Saviour s blood becomes such precious balm to our hearts when they are bleeding over our sins. We want to be grafted into the vine, and to do so, you must open a bleeding wound in the tree and place the branch into the tree and the two bleeding wounds will be grafted together. Our bleeding heart will be grafted into that precious redeeming love of the Son of God when it is bleeding over sin. Now we come to a Saviour who bled for sin and you put the two together and you have things in common because you are bleeding over sin. That blood of Jesus Christ is the healing balm for all sin. The Holy Spirit pours in that balm of Gilead into every wound sins before we are effectually called, sins after we are called, sins of thought, sins of word, sins of deed, sins of commission, sins of omission, sins against light, sins against

love, sins against the law, sins against the gospel, sins against God in every shape. Now the Father can look at us in the perfect atonement of His Son. The blood of Christ does not cleanse us from a thousand sins, not from a million sins, but from all sins. When the Holy Spirit has used the sword of the Spirit to wound the conscience over sin, what besides the blessed balm of Gilead can soothe the pain or bring the edges of the wound together again? I had a salve that if I cut myself I can put it on the wound and cover it with a band-aid and it will heal overnight, but what can cleanse a wounded conscience except for the blessed balm of Gilead? Such a wounded heart cannot find any soothing from human duties human merit or human observances of rituals. I mention all these because there is no middle ground between human merit and Christ s blood. The main end of the gospel is to drive out all that is of the flesh and bring in Christ. Anything of the flesh we think we can do to please God is not effectual. We find that we can only please God when He can look on us in the precious blood of Christ. Our best righteousness is only filthy rags outside of Christ. The question is also asked: Is there no physician there? We need a Physician who can diagnose the ailment, as well as we need the balm to remedy it. This is why we need Jesus Christ. We must come to grips with who we are and what we have done before we can truly repent. A physician must naturally be a man of deep skill and thorough knowledge, but also of great tenderness. Notice Hebrews 4:15-16: For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. The Lord comes with His Holy Spirit in our hearts to help us identify the sins we commit that displease Him.

One of my daughters explained to me a certain sin she was struggling with. She was terrified that she would become a victim of this sin. I could relate so well to what she was saying because as a child I had to struggle with that same sin. My heart was so touched, and then this verse came to me. We have a high priest who can be touched. It is such a blessing that we can come to a Physician who understands exactly what our problem is because He has suffered the temptation of that same sin. He knows all about it. He was tempted but never fell into sin. He understands this so intimately, and we can lay our hearts naked before Him and we can confess our sins to Him. I read an article one time about a doctor who was unkind to patients who were suffering. He could not believe that their pain was so bad. Then he had kidney stones himself, and confessed that now he knew how painful that condition could be. Then he had sympathy for those crying out in such pain. We have a Physician who not only has the balm to heal, but He can intimately understand the power of sin that we fall into. What a comfort it is when the balm of Gilead is applied to our sins because it heals us and pardons us. THIRD, let us consider the answer to the prophet s question: Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? Jeremiah saw by faith that there was balm in Gilead, and that there was a Physician there. The question that comes to us is why do we hesitate to come to Him? Why do we remain outside? The Holy Spirit may have wounded the conscience with the knowledge of sin. One may know there is balm and a Physician in Gilead, and yet they are not healed because they have not repented. This is the central theme of the gospel. We have to change our attitude toward sin. We cannot cherish sin and expect the Lord to answer our prayers. Look at Hosea 5:14-15: For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue him. I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early. The Lord tears at our hearts so we will understand the grievousness of sin. He waits at the mercy seat for us to return to Him.

We must put a crosshair on each one of our sins and not take a shotgun approach to them. Let me relate something that happened to me. A woman was to meet me one day at 11 for a job but by 2 p.m. she still had not arrived. I called her and she said she had decided not to take the job. I ask whether this caused her to forget her appointment, and she replied, Maybe so. I hung up on her but immediately called out to God. The fact that she did not consider my feelings did not mean that I could ignore hers. I wrestled with the Lord that He would forgive me the sin of being unkind. I called back 30 minutes later and asked her to forgive me. We must confess specific sins I acted unwisely here or I was proud there or I offended someone there or I offended the Lord there. We must identify specific sins, lay them before the Lord and ask Him to forgive them and to keep us from committing them again. What was the sin of Judah and Jerusalem? We see in Jeremiah 5:1-4: Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it. And though they say, The LORD liveth; surely they swear falsely. O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return. Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the LORD, nor the judgment of their God. The Lord wants us to be honest with Him and with our fellow man. Instead of repenting they joined their forces against the Lord s servant. Jeremiah 18:18 tells us: Then said they, Come and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words. Jeremiah s commission was to sort out the precious from the vile. Look at Jeremiah 15:19: Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them.

The Lord Jesus Christ said: I am the way, the truth and the life, and My word is truth. The apostle Paul spoke of Israel s rebellion in Romans 10:21: But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. This word gainsaying is taken from the Greek word antilego (an-til'-eg-o), which means to dispute, to refuse to hear, to answer again, to contradict, to deny, to speak against, to gainsay. When the Word of God is preached, people argue against it. That is gainsaying. The answer to Jeremiah s question, Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? is that they refused to repent. This is a call to repentance. The first word of the gospel Christ preached in Matthew 4 is repent. There is no remission of sins without repentance. In many cases the Lord delays His coming because of a spirit of selfrighteousness. They do not seek God with their whole heart. Look at Jeremiah 29:13: And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. The Lord wants a heart religion. He wants our hearts to be right with Him. Another reason why the wound is not healed is because we must wait for the Lord s set times. Look at 1 Peter 5:6: Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. The Lord has His set time to favor Zion as we see in Psalm 102:13: Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come. When it is the Lord s time, He will give repentance. Another reason why some of God s people are not healed, even though they know there is balm in Gilead, and that there is a Physician there is that they may still be embracing a known sin, or flirting with the serpent that bits them. If the Lord is not dwelling in your heart it may be because you have some sin you still cherish and have not repented of. We must come boldly to the Lord and confess our sins so He will deliver us from that sin.

Some may be halfhearted and drawn aside by pride. Their affections may go too much after earthly things. There are many reasons why the Lord withholds Himself. Ephraim s heart was divided. When he saw his sickness he ran after the flesh for help. Look at Hosea 5:13: When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb: yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound. Our own obedience is a bed too short and a covering too narrow. When there is an application of that balm of Gilead, it softens the hardest heart. It humbles the proudest heart and at the same time it heals every wound. This balm of Gilead strengthens every weakness, heals spiritual blindness, remedies spiritual deafness, makes the lame man leap as a hart and the tongue of the dumb to sing. The balm of Gilead produces gospel hearing, gospel sight and a gospel walk. A faith s view of God s mercy and love to such un-deserving wretches produces gospel obedience. Gospel obedience, that is, the imparted obedience of Christ, flows from love and gratitude. It is submission joyfully rendered and therefore acceptable before God. David said in Psalm 40:8: I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. It is the application of this divine balm that purifies the heart, makes sin hateful and Jesus precious. --------------------------------------------------- Gospel Chapel 23 5th Ave SE Conrad, MT 59425 Phone: (406)-278-5664 Web Site: http://www.gospelchapel.com Devotion Archives: http://archive.mail-list.com/devotion Sermon Archives: http://archive.mail-list.com/sermon

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