“Why then has not the health of the daughter of my people been restored” (Jeremiah 8:22)? We know that question all too well, don’t we? Our loved ones languish. The doctors run tests. The nurses administer the medicine that is available. But sometimes, the sick don’t get any better. Their disease is simply impossible for mere man to cure.

That was the situation with Jeremiah’s listeners. Gilead, the area immediately to the east of the Jordan River, was known for its terebinth trees, the sap of which was used as a medicine for wounds. But Jeremiah told God’s people that their spiritual wounds would respond to no physical medicine. No merely human doctor could cure them of the idolatry that had gripped their hearts.

And the same thing is true of all of us. For there is no self-help program, no ritual, no offering, no spiritual discipline that can rid our hearts of our natural tendency to turn away from God, to set ourselves above other people, to prefer our own desires to His. There is no lecture, no sermon, no book, no course of study that by itself can heal our minds of the distorted thinking that insists we can determine for ourselves what is right and wrong, the reasoning that is confident we can choose our own way.

And our sin has consequences that are just as deadly, just as heart-breaking as any physical disease we might encounter. No, in the face of our sin, all we can do is what Jeremiah did: to weep day and night for those who have been ensnared and slain, cut off as sinners are from the Lord, the only source of light and life and truth.

But the good news, as the old gospel song tells us, is that there is in fact a balm in Gilead that can make the wounded whole, and that can heal the sin-sick soul. And that balm is the love of Jesus: a love that drove Him not just to weep over Jerusalem but to lay down His life for those who crucified Him. And it is only by His wounds that we can be healed from our lies and slanders and deceit, from our idolatrous unfaithfulness to God. It is only Jesus Who can fill us with the Holy Spirit, reviving our souls and opening our ears to hear and understand His Word.

So, let us not wait for the harvest to pass and for summer to end while we are still not saved. Let us not just weep over our sins and the sins of others. Let us turn to Jesus, the Balm of Gilead. For we can be sure that He will restore all those who trust in Him.

Jeremiah 8:18-9:11 (NASB)

18 My sorrow is beyond healing, My heart is faint within me!
19 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?”
20 “Harvest is past, summer is ended, And we are not saved.”
21 For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken; I mourn, dismay has taken hold of me.
22 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!
2 O that I had in the desert A wayfarers’ lodging place; That I might leave my people, And go from them! For all of them are adulterers, An assembly of treacherous men.
3 “And they bend their tongue like their bow; Lies and not truth prevail in the land; For they proceed from evil to evil, And they do not know Me,” declares the LORD.
4 “Let everyone be on guard against his neighbor, And do not trust any brother; Because every brother deals craftily, And every neighbor goes about as a slanderer.
5 “And everyone deceives his neighbor, And does not speak the truth, They have taught their tongue to speak lies; They weary themselves committing iniquity.
6 “Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit; Through deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the LORD.
7 Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, “Behold, I will refine them and assay them; For what else can I do, because of the daughter of My people?
8 “Their tongue is a deadly arrow; It speaks deceit; With his mouth one speaks peace to his neighbor, But inwardly he sets an ambush for him.
9 “Shall I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD. “On a nation such as this Shall I not avenge Myself?
10 “For the mountains I will take up a weeping and wailing, And for the pastures of the wilderness a dirge, Because they are laid waste, so that no one passes through, And the lowing of the cattle is not heard; Both the birds of the sky and the beasts have fled; they are gone.
11 “And I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, A haunt of jackals; And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”