I'm gonna ask you to take your
Bible and turn with me to the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah. I'd like to look at a few verses
out of Jeremiah chapter eight. Jeremiah chapter eight. I've entitled this message, There
is Balm in Gilead. The scripture declares in verse
21 of Jeremiah chapter eight, for the hurt of the daughter
of my people. Am I hurt? I'm black. astonishment has taken hold on
me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is
there no physician there? Why then is not the health of
a daughter of my people recovered? Is there no help for fallen creatures
of dust? Is there no Is there no remedy? Is there no medicine? Powerful? When man fell in the garden,
and we all know that he did, the scriptures declare this. Man was created upright, straight. Man was created that way by Almighty
God. When something happened in the
Garden of Eden, man disobeyed God. He did one thing. He did one thing. Man did one
thing. He took of a piece of fruit and
he took a bite of it. He ate it. That's all he did. You mean that's all? You mean
from that one bite, that one taste of that forbidden fruit,
you mean to tell me that all mankind fell from his standing
of uprightness before God? Yeah. By one act of disobedience. Beloved God Almighty is holy. He demands holiness for acceptance
with himself. He demands absolute right, straight. Man died spiritually. Now let me ask you this. You
know that we've heard that so many times. Let me ask you something. Does man by nature believe it? Does man by nature believe that
he died spiritually? What does that mean when you
say he died spiritually? I know we're sitting here, we're
all alive physically, we're all looking at each other, you hear,
you got ears, you got eyes to see, you see me standing here,
you hear my voice. but to die spiritually. What
does it mean? It means that there is nothing
in man alive before God. Man is dead. Now I know that
by the grace of God, that Almighty God has mercy and compassion
on whomsoever he will. I know that a believer, and what
is a believer? What do you mean a believer?
A believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is one that has
been given a new heart, a new spirit, new life. He's been made
anew. And we all come forth from my
mother's womb dead spiritually. We're all that way. We're all
born that way. We can hear, we can see physically, but dead
spiritually toward God. Now, the Apostle Paul was by
the grace of God, he was made to understand this, and he wrote
something that is an admittance of all of God's regenerated sheep. Paul the Apostle says, in me,
that is in my flesh, There dwelleth no good thing. Now if you want
to know the sign of spiritual life, here's life, here's life,
this is life right here. Spiritual life. There's nothing
in me that's good. There's nothing in me that's
able to reconcile myself back to God. Don't, don't, don't let a man,
don't let somebody lie to you. and tell you all you have to
do is, sentence, all you have to do
is get in the water and be baptized. All you have to do is straighten
up and fly a ride. No, man by nature is dead, dead
spiritually. But for every person regenerated
by the grace of God, there's a new understanding. There's
a new admittance of his heart. I need for the Lord to do something
for me that I cannot do for myself. I need a Savior. I need a Savior. Help but remember, I've told
you so many times, I grew up false religion. And how many
times I can remember hearing this and therefore I repeated
it. You know, men and women are floating down the river of life. And what we wanna do is we wanna
throw out the lifeline. Throw out the lifeline. Give them something to grab hold
of. pull themselves back in, throw out the lifeline. Let me
tell you something. If they can grab hold of a lifeline
and pull themselves back to safety, then they're not dead. But a
man or a woman that is spiritually dead, they can do nothing. Man by nature is dead. The scriptures reveal the evidence
of this. true spiritual death. I'm gonna
tell you something right now that we're just gonna have to
admit is so. It's true of me by nature, it's
true of you by nature. I can tell you something right
now. We're all born spiritually dead in trespasses and sins. Now let me give you something
that's gonna just, it's gonna hit you a little hard. And it
does me too. But this is the way it is. By
nature, though we're born spiritually dead, let me tell you an evidence
of it. We don't care. We do not care. We don't care. Man does not care
that he's born spiritually dead. Now, an amazing thing is set
forth in these scriptures, and I'm gonna look at a few scriptures
out of Jeremiah 8. Every animal that's born into
this world is born with an instinct. It's preservation, self-preservation. And whenever an animal, whatever
it is, you take the littlest bug in the world to the big line,
Everything that has life in this animal kingdom has an instinct
about it to seek some shelter. Jeremiah chapter 8, look at verse
7. Yea, the stork in the heaven
knoweth her appointed times, and the turtle, that is the turtle
dove, and the crane and the swallow observe, the time of their coming,
but my people know not the judgment of the Lord. Animals know. Whenever there's a coming danger,
animals, they're sensitive to an approach. I watch these animal
kingdom shows and stuff like it, and it starts talking about
these animals. for cows, whatever, a storm is coming, and they can
sense the danger of it. They understand that something
is not right here. Whenever the season of the winter,
you know, we used to amaze me, I'd hear about these birds that
would migrate. They'd fly down, you know, they're
going south, going south for the winter. Why? It's warmer.
They all came to Louisiana. I can remember that. I mean,
you know, that was where they, we'd have birds and things like
that that a lot of times wouldn't be here during the winter. But
there's an instinct about it. There's a sense in which they've
got to flee for some safety. But man, is oblivious. He's oblivious to his true danger. Now, I'm not going to say that
man is not going to react to natural peril, like, you know,
he's going to understand. You can't stand out there in
the middle of interstate and think that, you know, just stand
out there and pitch black, put on some black outfit and all
that kind of stuff at midnight and stand out there in the middle.
We've got enough sense to know that that's probably not what
would be the safest thing to do. But let me ask you this.
Apart from that natural understanding of danger, man does not realize the eternal
danger that exists in this world because of the fall. You have
a man stand up. I heard Brother Henry Mahan said,
you tell a man that he has a terminal disease. There's just something about the word cancer that just kind
of arrests a human being. And he hears that word right
there. There's something about that word that just stops him
in his track. He hears that word, and I'll
tell you what he does. And I can tell you this from
experience. Some of you have experienced this right here.
When you hear the word cancer, let me tell you what happens.
Immediately, your mind goes to the end. You think, that's not
gonna go well for me. That word right there has an
unbelievable power of being able to stop a man or woman in their
tracks. But let me tell you something
that is truly amazing. I can stand here or any other
gospel preacher can stand here and can say to men, to women,
there's coming a day when we leave this world and you're going
to face God. You stand before God apart from
being found in the Lord Jesus Christ. God Almighty is going
to cast every person outside of Christ into hell. You're going to die eternally
in the flames of fire, that rich man. Rich man and Lazarus, rich
man died, lifted up his eyes out of hell. I'm telling you,
it's something that is amazingly serious about hearing the truth
of we're going to leave this world. Oh, I know, I know that's
for other people. I get that. That's what we think. That's what we think. We think
that it's not gonna happen to us. Now there's just, we've had
some people in our community here this week that I heard about
that some of you knew, probably went to school with them, and
they died. I've told you this before. First
thing I think about whenever I hear about somebody dying. What's the first thing you think,
you that believe, what's the first thing you think about when somebody
dies? Did they know Christ? That's the first thing you think.
The first thing that comes through their minds, did they know the
Lord? Did they cast themselves upon
the mercy of God? There is absolutely nothing that
is more serious than realizing a man or woman leave this world
without the person, without the blood, shed blood applied by
faith. There's nothing is more serious
than that, leaving this world. Man was ruined in the fall. And the Spirit of God moved upon
a prophet named Jeremiah to speak concerning Israel's rebellion,
but here Israel is a picture of all of us by nature. Look
at, look at Jeremiah 8 verse 5. Why then is this people of Jerusalem
slidden back by perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to seed. They
refuse to return. Now this is the truth. Man by nature, born in trespasses
and sins. That's the way we all are. But there is an amazing thing
about all of us by nature. I just said it a minute ago.
We don't care. We don't believe God. We don't
believe Him. And the horror of leaving this
world. I can't even describe. The scripture declares that men
resolve to hold to their rebellion. They hold to being deceived,
but only by being exposed by the grace of God to their own
deception. Will they ever cast themselves
upon the mercy of God? A man or woman doesn't know God.
They don't care. Jeremiah, verse 6. The Lord says, and this is the
Lord speaking. He said, I hearkened and heard,
but they spake not aright. No man repented of his wickedness,
saying, what have I done? Everyone turned to his horse
as the horse rushes into battle. Nobody stops and thinks. Unless the Lord gives a man a
new heart to see something of his frailty, rebellion. Nobody says, unless God gives
them a new nature, nobody says, what have I done? What have I
done? I was talking to a brother here
a couple of days ago, and we were talking about this very
scripture of the rich man and Lazarus. When I just said the
rich man died and he lifted up his eyes out of hell. but he was cognizant of where
he was. Because he said to Father Abraham,
would you send Lazarus, would you send Lazarus and tell him
to go to my family, go to my brothers. I've got some brothers
over there. Would you send Lazarus to them? They hadn't died yet.
Would you send Lazarus to go tell them, don't come to this
place, don't come here. The scripture says that Father
Abraham says, no, they have the prophets. They have the law and
the prophets. And if they don't believe, if
they don't believe the law and the prophets, they will not believe
if somebody comes back from the dead and tells them, don't come
here, they won't believe you. I'm telling you, I read this
passage of scripture this week and I thought to myself, Lord,
If you don't have mercy upon me, I'm not gonna make it. I'm
just gonna go on my happy-go-lucky way, and I'm gonna leave this
world. Lord, have mercy upon me. Singing that song, Pat, just
saying, have mercy on me. You've heard me say this. You
know what, when we use the word mercy, you know what that means?
Mercy. Well, that means unmerited favor.
That's right, that's correct. Let me tell you the depth of
it. I'm guilty, I'm guilty. I'm guilty of rebellion against
God. Lord have mercy. Jeremiah chapter
eight, verse six, look at that again. I hearkened, the Lord said, I
hearkened and I heard, but they spake not a rite. No man repented
of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Do you realize it
is by the grace of God that a man or a woman, this side of death,
would say in their heart, What have I done? What have I done? What have I done? What have I
done concerning What in the world have I done?
No man repenteth him of his wickedness. No man calls himself into account
before God. No man will admit that I've resisted
the truth. How many times I wonder for myself,
how many times did I sit under the gospel? I sat a long time
under a lying gospel, which was no gospel at all. heard men telling
me all you got to do. I tell you what, I'd blow that
off. I thought, well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I've
got plenty of time. I've got plenty of time. I'm
not that old. I am now. But then I thought,
I've got plenty of time. I don't have to. That's for,
I don't know, weak people or something. I don't know what
I mean, because see, I'm still young. I had a stroke. I had a seizure
and I didn't even know it happened before I knew it. I found out that I had when I
woke up in the hospital. My wife had to tell me what happened
to me. I didn't even know it. Oh, by God's grace, the Lord
was pleased to arrest me as he does all of his people. and gave
me a heart to be astonished at my rebellion
against God, against my iniquity against Him. What have I done? What have I done? What have I done by resisting
what I've heard being preached all these years? What have I
done? hating God's Christ. The Lord
said, if you're not with me, you're against me. What have
I done? What have I done rebelling against
the word sent by the Holy Spirit of God, ignoring His providential
warnings? I told you somebody this week,
we heard that left this world. I mean, I'm talking about just
here in Farmington, but I mean, this happens all over the place. You know, somebody will die.
They heard about somebody could be over, you know, the next state,
something like it. You hear so-and-so died? You
hear they passed away? Did you hear that? No, I didn't
know that. I didn't even know that they
were sick. Yeah, yeah, it was sudden, all
of a sudden. My friend, that's God speaking.
The Lord said, now my sheep hear my voice. Whenever a believer
hears that someone has left this world, that's God speaking. You're gonna die. I'm gonna die. Oh, ignoring his providential
mercy, thinking nothing of his Holy Scriptures, spending no
time with Him in prayer, wasting His gifts to me. Oh, how long
did I find myself doing this very thing? I'm thinking, here
was, God had sent prophets, preachers into this world. I didn't care. I didn't care. What have I done? No man repented him of his wickedness,
saying, what have I done? Oh, but where sin abounded, grace did much more bound. I want you to stop with me for
just a minute and just realize, now listen to me. This ain't
my first rodeo. This is not the first time I've
been blessed to be able to stand before people. I'm going to tell
you something. We're going to leave this world. We're going to leave this world.
It's appointed unto man once to die. And then the judgment,
and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what any false
prophet has told you. It doesn't matter. The only thing
that matters, thus saith the Lord. Oh, I read chapter 8. I invite
you to read chapter 8 of Jeremiah and read what was the rebellion
of the people. For the sake of time, I won't
read it all. But oh, my heart was brought down to that 22nd
verse. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is
there no physician there? Beloved, there is balm in Gilead. When you hear that, the balm
of Gilead, it's speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the
soothing ointment of God's mercy and grace. He's the hope of helpless
sinners. Is there balm in Gilead? Yes.
How is he known? Through the preaching of the
gospel. A gospel preacher is going to tell you what you are
by nature. He's going to be honest with
you. He's not going to tell you you're good. He's not going to
tell you there's little good in all men. He's not going to
tell you that. He's not going to tell you that God wants to
save everybody, but they have to let him. A gospel preacher's
not going to tell you that. He's not going to lie to you.
He's going to tell you what we are by nature. He's going to
tell you where your hope is. And he's going to tell you. If
God Almighty grants you repentance, if God grants you repentance,
you say, well, I thought that God wanted to save everybody.
Whatever God wants to do, God does. He says, I'm the Lord. He does as He will in the army
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No man stays His
hand. No man stops Him. Oh, and when the Spirit of God
comes to a man or woman in power, Let me tell you what they want.
They want Him. Lord, save me. Like Peter. When Peter began
to sink, he saw the waves, he saw the wind. It began to sink.
What'd he say? Lord, save me. Lord, save me. I'm gonna perish. When the Spirit
of God blesses the preaching of the gospel. Let me tell you
what they are. They're made willing in the day
of God's power. When a sinner is made to see
something of his rebellion before God, his need of a savior, this
is what he's gonna say. What have I done? What have I
done? From this point right here, right
now, everything that happened in the past, you can't change
it. You ain't changing it. It's over, it's done. What think
ye of Christ right now, right now? Well, I did so-and-so back,
I remember, when I was 18 years old. What think ye of Christ
right now? Beloved, seeing the satisfaction
of Almighty God and His justice in the substitutionary death
of the Lord Jesus Christ, seeing His mercy, the helpless sinners,
that believer will cry out, look at Himself, What have I done? What, Lord, have I done? I love this story, this prodigal.
I'm gonna wrap this up. There was a prodigal son. This
man had two boys. One of them came to his daddy
one day and he said, I want everything that's coming
to me. Everything's coming. I want my
part of the inheritance. His daddy gave it to him. Scriptures declares that he went
out, he spent all that he had on riotous living, filthy living,
filthy. And he'd gone out, got hired
out to feed and husk to the hogs. And the scripture says, by the
grace of God, I love this, I love this part right here, I love
all of it, this part, but he came to himself. came to himself. Do you realize the blessedness
of those words? He came to himself. How did he
come to himself? God showed him something about
himself. That's what he did, came to himself. And he said,
my father's house, the servants, they're eating good. And I'm over here feeding hogs. What did he say he's gonna do?
I'm gonna go back. When I go back, I'll rise and
I'll go to my father and I'll say unto him, Father, I've sinned against you. I've sinned against heaven and
I've done it before you. This is what I've done. Lord, here's what I've done. I have,
because of my old filthy selfishness, I've sinned against you. I've
done it in your sight. I've done it in rebellion. And
I knew what I was doing. I did it on purpose. And I have
nothing to plea. The only thing I can ask for,
Lord, is mercy. Would you have mercy on me? Would
you have mercy on this? I don't wanna talk about what
I've done for you because everything I've ever done for you, all I've
done is bragged in it. I bragged on it. Well, I gave
my heart to Jesus. I've been all these years, I've
been faithful all these years. Beloved in myself, I've never
been faithful one moment, never. I'm gonna go back to my dad and
I'm gonna say, And he did, he went back. But you know the sweetness
of it? His dad saw him coming far off.
He saw him a long way off. I think about the mercy of almighty
God that he would see his people. That dad knew that that was his
boy. Oh, what a picture. What a beautiful picture of regeneration
by the grace of God. He knew, that boy knew what he
had done by God's grace, and we do too. Oh, the sweetness, the still
small voice of the master speaking, calling his people, my sheep
hear my voice. That passage that has always
amazed me, my sheep hear my voice. They hear it in the preaching
of the gospel, they hear it in Providence, but they hear it. Somebody says, well, how do they
hear it? The Lord knows, but they hear. And when they hear
the voice of the master, this is what they're going to say.
What have I done? To this day, I can think to myself,
I think back, God was pleased to call this center out of darkness. All of the religious hoopla all
of the arrogant things that I think I should be so proud of. I'm
an almighty God, give a man a heart. What have I done? The Lord said
concerning his people, none of them said, what have I done?
But I'll tell you what a believer will do. He'll confess what he,
this is what I've done. Lord, I've sinned against you.
I've done it. Lord, right there, why are you
just watching me? And but for your grace, I didn't
care, but thanks be unto God, you'd give me a heart right now.
Lord, would you save this sinner? Would you save me? I have nothing
in whom to boast but Christ Jesus, the Lord. I pray God bless these
words to our heart, cause us to see something of ourselves.
This is what a believer's gonna do. He's gonna see something
of himself, he's gonna see something of God's mercy in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not in his profession, not in
his, you know, Save me, or I'm going to perish.