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? There were those who treated the crimes and miseries of the nation as a trifling matter; they sought to "heal the hurt slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there was no peace" (ver. 11). Not so the prophet. He is keenly alive to the dreadful evils of the time. He takes the sins and sorrows of the people on himself, makes them his own. Tender human sympathy, as well as Divine compassion, breathes in the words, "For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt." And it is not sorrow alone but "astonishment" of which be is conscious. "Why is not her health recovered?" Can it be that there is no remedy? The "balm of Gilead" is taken as the symbol of a healing moral power. Is it so, then, that the very nation that was called to diffuse a redeeming influence over all the world is unable to cure herself - has no medicine for her own diseases, or none to apply it? Such is the wonder with which a thoughtful, earnest spirit will often contemplate the moral condition of the world, in view of the fact that God's "saving health" in the gospel has so long been made known to it. Consider - I. THE DIVINE REMEDY FOR THE MORAL MALADIES OF THE HUMAN RACE. This remedy is the spontaneous fruit of the love of God. On the ground of that love we may justly expect such a remedy. It is not likely that a God of infinite benevolence would leave the human race to perish. Though redemption is "of grace," yet there is everything to make it antecedently probable. Though nature contains no revelation of it, yet to the eye on which the light of the gospel has once fallen, the whole constitution of the universe is full of dim prophecies and promises of some such triumphant grace. The spirit of boundless beneficence that pervades and governs it - the fact that for every want there is a supply, for every appetite that which gratifies it, for every danger a safeguard, for every poison its antidote; above all, the silent witness in favor of mercy that is graven more or less deep on every human heart; - all this is so much in harmony with the great redemption as in a sense to anticipate it. But it is facts, not probabilities, with which we have to deal. The gospel is God's actual answer to our human necessities, the sovereign remedy his love has provided for the sins and sorrows of the world. He heals them by taking them upon himself in the person of Jesus Christ his Son. "He was wounded for our transgressions," etc. (Isaiah 53:5); "Who his own self bare our sins," etc. (1 Peter 2:24); "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound," etc. (Romans 5:20, 21). Note respecting this Divine remedy: 1. It goes to the root of the disease. It does not effect a mere superficial reformation, as human methods for the most part do; does not flatter with the appearance of health while leaving the malady to strike its roots down deeper and deeper into the soul. It reaches at once the secret springs of all mischief, destroys the germs of evil in human nature, changes the outward aspects of the world's life by giving it a "new heart." 2. It is universal in its application. All national diversities, all varieties of social condition, of age, of culture, of intellectual development and moral life, etc., are alike open to its application, and it is the same for all. 3. It is complete in its efficacy. Every element of human nature, every department and phase of human life, bears witness to its healing power. A perfect manhood and a perfect social order are the issue it works out. 4. It stands alone, not one among many, but absolutely the only remedy. It enters into no kind of competition with other methods of healing. It has the solitary and supreme authority of that which is Divine. "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name," etc. (Acts 4:12). II. THE HINDRANCES TO ITS UNIVERSAL EFFICIENCY. "Why then is not," etc.? The reason lies, not in any want of fitness in the remedy, or in any lack of power or-willingness in him who provides it, but in certain human conditions that nullify its action and thwart his purpose. 1. In the self-delusion that leads men to think that they have no need of cure. "They that are whole need not a physician," etc. (Matthew 9:12). The sense of moral sickness is the first step to healing. 2. In the vain self-trust by virtue of which men dream that they can cure themselves. How many and how plausible are the expedients by which the world seeks to rid itself of its own maladies! How slow is human nature to confess its helplessness! 3. In the obstinacy of spirit that refuses the Divine method. "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?" etc. (2 Kings 5:12). Anything rather than God's way of healing by the blood of atonement and the regenerating grace of the Spirit! 4. In the lethargy and neglect of those whom God has called to minister the healing power. Who shall say how much of the continued sin and misery of the world lies at the Church's door? If all who have themselves known the virtue of this sovereign balm were but more thoroughly in earnest in their efforts to commend it and to persuade men to apply it, how much more rapidly would the health of human society everywhere be recovered! - W. 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? |
    |