"Is there No Balm in Gilead?"

The Image of God in Judah’s Covenant Calling

From them, that part is clear. What the Lord has given to them passes away from them. What has the Lord given to them? Judah, as the remnant, the rest of Israel, they are God's chosen people. They're in special relationship with God.

There they are living with one another. They're supposed to be in this land of promise, living out His goodwill in the land, and they're to be blessed, living in the land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the image of God, loving God supremely, loving each other rightly, stewarding the abundant creation responsibly.

Here's the image of God in community, as the kingdom of God. Look at what God has given them, what blessings God has given to Judah. But what God has given to them will be taken away from them as the image of doom eclipses the image of God.

For not so long from now, not so long from now, having abandoned God, Judah will die together as pagan cannibals surrounded by a burning city, the anti -image of God. What do they say about this? Verse 14, they say, well, let's have one last defensive stand, one last great hurrah.

Let's all gather into the fortified cities and we'll choose the manner of our death and we will fight until we die for God has doomed us. They say, we have sinned against the Lord and so He has given us poisoned water to drink.

They reference the waters of Mara, the waters of Mara. Israel was led up out of the land of Egypt. They came to some waters and they were bitter. So they called them the waters of Mara and they had nothing to drink, but there was Moses and God through Moses sweetened the water and made it drinkable.

But now there's no more Moses. Now there's no more mediator and they are given poisoned water to drink and so they will die. The disaster has come. The disaster they had long denied and ignored has come.

It looms over them as impending disaster. Verse 15, we waited for peace, but no good came for a time of healing, but behold terror. From Dan has heard the snorting of his horses at the sound of the neighing of the stallions, the whole land quakes.

For they come and devour the land in its fullness, the city and its inhabitants. For behold, I am sending serpents against you adders for which there is no charm and they will bite you, declares the Lord.

False Peace, False Healing, and the Coming Judgment

If you take the verses in reverse order, I think you'll get the sense of it. Verse 17, the Lord says, you know what your disaster is gonna be like? It's gonna be like me sending in a wave of snakes and they're all going to be among you and they're all gonna bite you and poison you and you're going to die from the bites of terrifying snakes.

So that's a lot like the incident in the book of Numbers when the people complained against Moses and the Lord and God sent fiery serpents among them. And yet when they cried out to the Lord, God instructed Moses to create a serpent and put it on a pole and raise it up so that all who look to the serpent raised up in the wilderness would be saved.

But now notice there's no charm for these adders. There's no more Moses. There's no more mediator because Israel and Judah has continually turned their back upon the Lord. Particularly their disaster will come in the form of the mighty armies of Babylon.

Dan is the northernmost city associated with Israel. And so from Dan, from the North, from the very most Northern outpost, they begin to hear the sound of the horses, the sound of the Babylonian armies approaching.

And there's a quaking of the land. Now, what is this? Is this that the armies of Babylon are so large and their horses so mighty that they cause an earthquake in the land? Or is it the people of Judah hearing the enemy coming and they're the ones trembling and causing the quakes?

Probably a little of both. But notice verse 15, the real tragedies in verse 15. Do you see what they say? We waited for peace, we waited for Shalom, but no good, no Tov came. We waited for peace, but no good came.

We waited for a time of healing, but behold, terror. So you have to be reading through Jeremiah to get this. You have to be in the flow of Jeremiah to understand what they're saying here in this verse.

The prophets prophesy falsely and the people love to have it so. That's what Jeremiah said. That's what God said. The prophets are prophesying falsely and the people love to have it so. What are the prophets saying?

Well, they're picking and choosing out of a few selections from Isaiah and Hosea, a few selections out of the Pentateuch, a few selections out of Amos and Joel. And what are the prophets preaching? What are the false prophets preaching?

They're preaching this, peace, peace, Shalom, Shalom, everything's gonna be okay, everything's gonna be okay. And God says, but there is no peace. He says, they have healed the wound of my people superficially.

They have healed the brokenness of my people superficially. He says, the prophets prophesy falsely and the priests rule upon their own authority and my people love to have it so. Then he asked the question, but what will you do at the end of it?

Here it is, here's the end of it. We waited for peace, Shalom, Shalom. That's what they told us was gonna happen. That's what the prophets said were gonna happen, that we're gonna have Shalom, Shalom, peace, peace.

We're gonna have good. They said we will be healed, horizon. There's no hope. Do you see what happens at the end of it? Do you see what happens to people at the end of when the false teaching runs out?

When people are told time and time again, that just give more money, give more money, give more money and have faith and then you're gonna have a big bank account and you're gonna have lots of health and fame and power and at the end of it, when they're broken and they can't feed their families, they say, what happened?

What happens at the end of the false teaching? What happens at the end of this false teaching? The wrath of a holy God, righteous in his anger, powerful in his judgment, that is a complete turnoff. Hellfire and brimstone preaching is out.

What people need to hear today is how much God loves everybody. We must never ever speculate about whether our dearly departed are in hell. As for the fate of the unbeliever, especially those who never hear of Christ, who knows, God is merciful.

There is much we do not know. God loves you just the way you are. God is crazy about you. God's in love with you. He can't get enough of you. And in today's world and in the North American evangelical church, we have turned God into a dog who's just happy to see you and will take whatever you give him.

It's not the God of the scriptures. And even if you don't like the God of the scriptures, he's still God. What are you gonna do at the end of it? When you worship a dog instead of a God and you find out the truth, he really is God.

He really does hate sin. He really does have a day of reckoning. What are you gonna do at the end of it? God is merciful, which is why he warns. God is love, which is why he hates sin. God is good, which is why he judges sin.

And telling one side without the other is false teaching. That leaves people in a far worse condition than they ever were before. Now make no mistake, scripture does, it does speak of God's judgment and God's wrath in a way that terrifies.

And it is on purpose that it's to shake your soul. It's on purpose. But what is the more terrifying voice? You decide, what is the more terrifying voice? The one that comes through the scripture in which God reveals himself in a way to give light to those who are in darkness, to warn and call people to repentance and faith?

This voice or the one that comes from the throne on the day of judgment? Which voice is the more terrifying? Which voice is the more fearful? This is a merciful voice. It may be a severe mercy, but it is a merciful voice.

And there are proper ways in which to speak God's judgment and to speak of the day of reckoning, to speak of this and to speak it into a life, someone who is abiding under the wrath of God. There's a way to talk about it.

Hell, judgment, the day of reckoning. These are not themes. These are not the arsenal of the Christian church fired at people we don't like because they bother us. This is the stuff of the nightmares that keep us awake, praying for the souls of the lost.

Weeping Over Jerusalem and Speaking Judgment with Tears

And if there's any indication of the way in which we ought to speak the truth of judgment into somebody else's life, we take our cue from Jeremiah and Christ. What did Jesus do when he looked at Jerusalem, a city doomed under the judgment of God?

What did he do? He wept. He wept over it. What does Jeremiah do? What does Jeremiah do? He weeps. He weeps with someone who does not know Christ. Sit by their bedside. Sit with them in their suffering.

At the moment of kindness, whatever opportunity you have, sit with them and weep with them, telling them of your concern for their soul. If you know no other way to speak the truth of God's impending judgment, that is the way to say it.

That is the way to say it. This is not something that is talked about. This is not something that is preached about. I didn't really pick this passage. The passage picked us today. We're just preaching through the book of Jeremiah.

But we have to understand as the church, we are called the pillar in the ground of the truth. We have a job to do in this world. And it is to proclaim the truth of the scripture so that it is not lost in the static of this world.

There are people in everlasting eternal danger. My family and I were invited by our good neighbors, Philo and Joanne, to go to the Firefighters Museum here in Oklahoma City for a luncheon held for current and retired firefighters.

And it's a great little museum. And as I was reading around, Benjamin pointed out something about Ben Franklin. And look, Ben Franklin was the one who started the very first volunteer fire department in America, in Philadelphia.

And I read about that. And he had it all organized into different companies, ready to go to help. But there was one guy, there was one guy who stayed up all night in Philadelphia as part of the firefighting team.

He carried in one hand a flambeau, a type of torch. In the other hand, he carried a rattler, which is like a handle with this long piece of wood. And he would, if you ever wanted to swing it, it'd make a lot of noise.

It was his job to watch for flame. He was to look for smoke, watch for flame. And if he saw anything, he was to light his flambeau and run through the streets with his rattler going, waking everybody up.

His name was the Vigilant. He was the Vigilant. And there were people's lives at stake. And it was a disruptive, annoying, troublesome sound to have a man screeching through the streets and rattling his rattler.

But how absolutely essential for the wellbeing of the people. And sometimes we're gonna have to be the Vigilant in somebody's life. We're gonna have to be the Vigilant in someone's life. And we're gonna have to be disruptive to their soul and to their sense of security and challenge them ever so tearfully about their eternal destiny.

We're gonna have to be the Vigilant in someone's life. And you say, I don't wanna push them away from God. The Bible says they're running from God. You're not gonna push them away from God, praying for them, serving them, loving them, weeping for them, telling them about the day of reckoning and having to be right with God.

You're not gonna push them away from God. They're already running from God. And someone's gotta get in their way. We gotta be the Vigilant. The day of reckoning calls for a time of questioning. Now, down here at the table, we have broken bread and we have poured juice.

And these are symbols that remind us of a day of reckoning. That Christ's body was broken and his blood was shed for us and for our salvation, for our sins upon the cross, a day of reckoning. A day when God dealt with the sins of all who would ever believe in Christ.

Here's the proof that we have a just and holy God and a merciful and loving God. But a day of reckoning yet to come. Should cause us to have a time of questioning right here and now. We can't come to this table confessing by faith that we trust in Christ who died for us and for our salvation without questioning ourselves and examining ourselves about sin and salvation.

Assessing Sin, Exile, and the Brokenness of Judah

So first of all, question, have we rightly assessed our sin? Now let me read verses 18 through chapter nine, verse one again. And let's think about how Jeremiah assesses the sin of his people. My sorrow is beyond healing.

My heart is faint within me. Behold, listen, the cry of the daughter of my people from a distant land. Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not within her? Why have they provoked me with their graven images, with foreign idols?

Harvest is past, summer has ended, and we are not saved. For the brokenness of the daughter of my people, I am broken. I mourn. Dismay has taken hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?

Why then has not the health of the daughter of my people been restored? Oh, that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.

Have we rightly assessed our sin? Judah has not. Judah, Jeremiah gives a prophetic voice to what Judah's gonna be asking when they finally get taken away to exile. And here's what they ask from a distant land.

They think back on Jerusalem, they think back on the temple, and they say this, what happened? Is the King not in Zion? Is his throne not there? Is he not on the throne? They're literally asking, is God still on his throne?

They're literally asking that. Something's gone wrong, we're in exile. It's the wrong question. They're seeking to blame God. Fools in their folly will often shake their fist at God and say, where are you at?

And God responds by saying, no, no, where are you at? Where is your heart at? He says, in response to their question, he says, why have you provoked me with your graven images? Why have you provoked me with your foreign vanities?

That's the question that should be asked. Have you rightly assessed your sins? They say, verse 20, harvest is past, summer is ended, we are not saved, it's over. Jeremiah says, for the brokenness of the daughter of my people, I am broken.

I mourn, dismay has taken hold of me. It's a day of reckoning coming. It's a day of reckoning coming. Where is your heart at? It's only so long you can kick against the goads. It's only so long that you can launch folly at God's wisdom or raise lies against his truth or flaunt profanity at his holiness or raise arms against his authority.

It's a day of reckoning coming. The question is, have we rightly assessed our sins and our consequences? Does Jeremiah believe in a day of reckoning? Do you think he believes in it? Look at verse 18 and verse 21 and verse one of chapter nine.

Look at those three verses. Verse 18, verse 21 and verse one of chapter nine. Just read this to yourselves. You can tell he believes it. Do you know why? He's not just broken over his own sins. He is mourning and weeping over the sins of others because he knows they're facing a day of reckoning that they will not escape from.

Verse nine, oh that my head were watered and my eyes a fountain of tears that I may weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. That his whole life become weeping, that his whole life become mourning, that his whole life be nothing but crying and sobbing, still would never adequately grieve for those who are lost forever at the day of reckoning.

You know, when we're broken, grieving and mourning over not just our sins but the sins of others, this is when we really begin to rightly assess sin in light of the day of reckoning. Have we truly sought our salvation?

The Balm in Gilead and the Great Physician in Christ

Here's verse 22, here's our question. Actually three questions but verse 22 says, is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has not the health of the daughter of my people been restored?

Gilead was famous even in the days of Jacob and Joseph for its aromatic plants and their medicinal uses. When Israel finally took possession of the land, Gilead was on the other side of the Jordan but it was owned by Israel and the plants there were used for the physical healing of the nations even as Israel's priests and prophets were intended for the spiritual healing of the nations.

And so Jeremiah's lingering question then seems to be this, in Judah's deplorable condition, is there no healing for her? Is there no balm for Judah? Is there no physician within all of Judah who can bind up her wound?

Is there no balm in Gilead? The truth is for Judah's brokenness, there was no balm in all of Gilead. Hers was a wound without cure because she had resolutely turned her back on God as we've seen through the previous chapters.

Her only hope of salvation, she had abandoned. She had plenty of balm and plenty of physicians for a lot of different ailments, but even Gilead could not supply the healing that she needed and that caused no end of sorrow for Jeremiah over his people.

Now, what about us? Have we truly sought out our salvation? Have we truly sought out our salvation? Though Israel's prophets and priests dealt falsely and though the ointments of Gilead could not heal, we have a final prophet and we have a great high priest who alone can heal our brokenness and restore our souls and bring us out of exile back to God.

And in this way, the old spiritual is correct. There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. We have a great physician. As we turn to the table, we recognize that there's a day of reckoning.

God deals with sin in a holy and just way. As we turn to the table, it's a time for examination, time of questioning. Are we broken over sin? Have we repented from our sin? Do we turn to Jesus Christ as our only savior, our only hope to be healed, to be reconciled to God?

We truly ought to shudder to think that our day of reckoning has been resolved in Christ. The judgment of God has been rendered fully for us in Christ, for those who believe and trust in Christ. We ought to shudder to think that, to adequately deal with that in our souls.

And we ought to praise our glorious savior who has now been raised from the dead to die no more. It offers us everlasting communion, eternal life. This is appetizer of an eternal banquet with him. When we pass this out in a moment and we eat the bread and we drink the cup, what are we doing except testifying by symbol, our faith in Christ?

Yes, yes, your death for me. Yes, your blood shed for me, your sacrifice for me. We say, there is a balm. There is a balm in Gilead. Let's pray for just a moment and we'll sing a hymn together. Father, I ask that you would just bear us through this time and give us joy in Christ.

What a startling, striking passage about judgment that is difficult to bear. And yet you give it to us so that we may savor Christ all the more. I pray that you would help us now as we sing a hymn and as we partake in this communion, I pray that you would bless our time together.

That you would be greatly honored and praised in the way that we do this together. We pray these things for Christ's sake, amen. You'll take your black hymns, modern, ancient, and onward.