Jeremiah 8:22 Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? or every wrong there is a remedy. God is Almighty. The prophets of old believed this. The Church of Christ, in all ages, professes to believe this. I. "THERE IS BALM IN GILEAD." And to Gilead we must go to seek and to find it. That is, the remedy for every wrong must be made the object of our effort to attain. Gilead — as all students of the Bible know — is the mountainous region east of Jordan, forming the frontier of the Holy Land. The name itself signifies "a hard, rocky region," and there the fragrant, resinous gum, possessed of such famous healing properties, was to be found — found, however, not by the casual, unobservant traveller who happened to pass by that way, but by the man who clambered up the rocks, scaled the heights, diligently searched among the precious, storm-stunted shrubs, yielding the healing gum. And so, surely, is it the same with that which the balm of Gilead symbolises. The remedy for every, or for any, wrong is not to be found in religious idleness. It must ever be a serious business — a search, requiring an effort upwards, taxing all the strength that is vouchsafed. And does it very much matter by what name they are called, who in sincerity attempt the search? or, indeed, whether the balm they find is all identical in outward appearance? For instance, "the balm of Gilead," the remedy for wrong, comes to us in modern times, certainly in one way, in the form of scientific truth. Scientific ignorance is the fruitful cause of how vast a waste of human life! — of disease, and wretchedness, and pain, and bereavement, and idiocy, and drink, and death! God's laws and nature's laws are one and the same, and the high priests of science serve at the altar of the Most High God. Or, again, the balm of Gilead, the remedy for wrong, comes to us in the form of philosophic thought. Social science, based upon historical research and experience, economic problems, thought out in the light of what has been, and what men are, and need — labelled by whatever name — if they are not self-condemned by insincerity, are all possessed with some healing virtue. So, too, with politics in the true and highest sense; but, alas! not with party "politicalism," unless indeed that balm serves the purpose of an emetic. Again, the true "balm of Gilead," the remedy for every wrong, is to be found upon the mountain top of revelation. The balm of revealed knowledge, the comfort of the Holy Ghost, the insight into the spiritual, is within the reach of all. II. BUT WHO IS THE PHYSICIAN QUALIFIED TO ADMINISTER THE BALM, to tell us how, and where, and in what proportion it should be applied? For, indeed, without proper knowledge, a remedy itself may become a poison; the cure may be more fatal than the disease. In matters social and spiritual we have many teachers, and some who seem to be more interested in their own nostrums than in the cures they effect. But is there no true physician, is there none whose direction and advice we may follow with absolute confidence? An answer to that question some will immediately give. "Our blessed Lord," they say, "is the good Physician" (a title which by implication only our Lord applies to Himself), "and to follow Jesus Christ is to be healed of all that is wrong." Nothing could be truer, and yet is this all the truth? Does not our Lord Himself point onwards, to the revelation of the Holy Ghost, as the perfect Physician, as the Teacher, and Leader, and Guide, and Comforter of men's souls? "He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you." Every spiritual man is a physician qualified, according to the measure of the light which he enjoys, to apply the healing balm to the sorrows and distresses of others. (A. A. Toms, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? |
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