Check Yourself In

“Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?” (Jer 8:22 AV)

 

Judah lay sin-sick.  She had rejected the God whom they served for so many generations.  The leadership of Judah was enticed by neighboring potentates. They no longer desired to be the testimony to God’s holiness, for that would set them apart from their neighbors.  This separation caused grief upon Judah.  This separation invited unwarranted persecution.  Believing compromise would end the trouble, they welcomed heathen practices and gods into their nation.  They drifted away from the one true God and towards the gods of their neighbors.  They also allowed lax moral standards into their nation.  They abandon the Sabbath.  Judah was sin-sick and there was a cure.  The balm of Gilead was still there.  The physicians were still making house calls.  All they had to do was to ask.  All they had to do was to welcome the healing influence of the prophets and word of God and the consequences of their compromise would dissolve.  It was there, on the shelf, waiting to be accessed.  Yet, Judah was happy in their infirmity even though the consequences were painful.

To get better, there has to be a will to get better.  Men are horrible at seeking medical attention when they need it.  We want to toughen it out until the problem is unbearable.  If our employer didn’t require a yearly physical, we probably wouldn’t go.  We avoid the doctors like the plague.  Which is silly when one considers how awful the plague is.  For me, it is the dentist.  I cannot take going to the dentist.  I can count on two fingers where I allowed my teeth to get so bad, I was forced to go to the dentist.  One such time I remember distinctly because I learned I could not handle Vicodin very well.  It made me absolutely sick.  The first trip to the dentist revealed an infected tooth.  It needed a root canal but the infection was so bad, the dentist prescribed Vicodin and an antibiotic two weeks before the procedure.  I can remember laying on the sofa, sicker than a dog, as I was waiting for this medicine to work its magic.  It took several days, but eventually the infection cleared up and off I went to get a root canal.  It would be my first one and from what I heard from others, it was second only to medieval torture.  The other reason I can remember this particular root canal above all other dental work was how quick and painless it was.  I was astounded!  The dentist was so fast that I barely wrapped my head around what he was doing before I heard, “All set.  You are free to go.”  What made this silly was my tooth did not have to get that bad.  This dentist was the most popular in the county.  He was the best at pain management.  He had a waiting list a mile long.  Yet, I had an in.  There was balm at Gilead and the physicians were standing by.

Judah was sin-sick.  They needed healing.  Gilead was the birthplace of Elijah.  Gilead also possessed a school of prophets.  There was sufficient cure for what ailed a nation.  Today, the balm is in our churches.  The physicians are behind the pulpit.  Yet our nation stands as sin-sick as any nation has ever been.  We have allowed the perverted thinking of the world to destroy what was once a Biblically minded nation.  Our laws have changed over the last hundred years to reflect a more secular and godless culture.  We kill the unborn.  We promote sodomy.  We are entertained by the immoral.  We are lulled by the necromancer.  Our nation, if it continues much more, will not be able to defend itself.  She has gone the way of Rome and there lies at the door the Goths, ready to take what is not theirs.  Pleasure and prosperity have been our undoing.  We have not gone to the physician.  We have not applied the balm.  Now our teeth are rooting out and we may get to the point we cannot even save what has been repaired.  Time to seek healing in the only place it can be found.  That is, in a personal relationship with Christ.