The Balm of Gilead
Jeremiah 8:22
Thesis: There is healing for a sin sick world.
Philip Yancy in his book Disappointment With God describes a time in his life when he was searching for evidence in replacing faith with just an image of God.
“Even back then I was searching for hard evidence of God as an alternative to faith. And one day I found it on television, of all places. While randomly flipping a dial, I came across a mass healing service being conducted by Kathryn Kuhlman. I watched for a few minutes as she brought various people up on the stage and interviewed them. Each one told an amazing story of supernatural healing. Cancer, heart conditions, paralysis, it was like a medical encyclopedia up there. As I watched Kuhlman’s program, my doubts gradually melted away. At last I had found something real and tangible. Kuhlman asked a musician to sing her favorite song, He Touched Me. That is what I needed, I thought, a touch, a personal touch from God. She held out that promise, and I lunged for it.
Three weeks later when Kathryn Kuhlman came to a neighboring state, I skipped classes and traveled half a day to attend one of her meetings. The atmosphere was unbelievably charged soft organ music in the background; the murmuring sound of people praying aloud, some in strange tongues; and every few minutes a happy interruption when someone would stand and claim, I’m healed! One person especially made an impression, a man from Milwaukee who had been carried into the meeting on a stretcher. When he walked yes, walked on stage, we all cheered wildly. He told us he was a physician, and I was even more impressed. He had incurable lung cancer, he said, and was told he had six months to live. But now, tonight, he believed God had healed him. He was walking for the first time in months. He felt great. Praise God! I wrote down the man’s name and practically floated out of that meeting. I had never known such certainty of faith before. My search was over; I had seen proof of a living God in those people on the stage. If he could work tangible miracles in them, then surely he had something wonderful in store for me. I wanted contact with the man of faith I had seen at the meeting, so much so that exactly one week later I phoned Directory Assistance in Milwaukee and got the physicians number. When I dialed it, a woman answered the phone. May I please speak to Dr. S, I said? Long silence. Who are you? She said at last. I figured she was just screening calls from patients or something. I gave my name and told her I admired Dr. S and had wanted to talk to him ever since the Kathryn Kuhlman meeting. I had been very moved by his story, I said. Another long silence. Then she spoke in a flat voice, pronouncing each word slowly. My husband is dead. Just that one sentence, nothing more, and she hung up. I can’t tell you how that devastated me. I was wasted. I half-staggered into the next room, where my sister was sitting. Richard, what’s wrong? She asked. Are you all right? No, I was not all right. But I couldn’t talk about it. I was crying. My mother and sister tried to pry some explanation out of me. But what could I tell them? For me, the certainty I had staked my life on had died with that phone call. A flame had flared bright for one fine, shining week and then gone dark, like a dying star.”
I. IS THERE NO BALM IN GILEAD? (22a)
A. Appears to be a question concerning someone who needs medical attention.
B. God’s refers to Israel as a person
C. The reference is a physical allusion to the spiritual condition of Israel
D. In order to understand this, we must understand how God views sin.
E. The disease of sin was destroying the spiritual life of Israel as an incurable wound or disease would destroy the life of a physical body.
II. THE BALM OF GILEAD. (22 b)
A. God had given them the balm of His Word, love grace, mercy and forgiveness.
B. God had sent both prophets and priests as physicians to Israel
C. Yes there is a balm in Gilead. Yes, there are physicians in the land.
III. THE DISEASE OF SIN. (22c)
A. The disease of sin was not limited to Israel or the time of Jeremiah but sin is a condition that plagues the entire human race and is running rampant today.
B. We see the effects of sin in many forms. War, famine, disease, crime, violence, hatred, immorality, broken homes and marriages, children left to themselves.
C. Sin is destroying the human race like cancer destroys the body. There is not a person alive who is not feeling the effects of sin in some way.
D. The good news is that there is a balm in Gilead.
IV. THERE IS A BALM IN GILEAD. (22)
A. Just as there was a cure for Israel’s spiritual condition, there is a cure for sin today
B. There is one who came as the supreme revelation of God’s Word, love, grace, mercy and forgiveness.
C. Jesus came to this earth as the healing balm for man’s sinful condition.
D. Jesus left his ministry in the hands of the church. Jesus’ work was that of applying the healing balm of God to peoples lives.
E. There is a healing balm in the world today. The church carries God’s Word, love, mercy, grace, the presence of Christ and the Holy Spirit
We must apply the healing balm as we travel through life we are all ministers and physicians to a sin-cursed world. When we find the broken, wounded, hurting, bleeding people, it is our responsibility to apply the healing balm of God’s grace and love. If we do not, then we have failed in the worst way. The bottom line is that while we must pray for the sinner we must also apply God’s healing balm in their life. God’s promise to Israel and the person who turns to Him will be healed of their wounds, saved and delivered.
