Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 8. I'll begin reading at that 18th
verse. When I would comfort myself against
sorrow, my heart is faint in me. Behold the voice of the cry of
the daughter of my people. because of them that dwell in
a far country. Is not the Lord in Zion? Is not her king in her? Why have they provoked me to
anger with their graven images and with strange vanities? The harvest is past, the summer
is ended, and we are not saved. For the hurt of the daughter
of my people am I hurt. I am black. Astonishment hath
taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of
the daughter of my people recovered? Jeremiah has been called the weeping prophet. In the book that follows, the
book of Lamentations, these are the lamentings of this prophet
Jeremiah. And he has a particular reason
for his weeping. His weeping is born out of concern
for the condition of his people. And it's the same with the gospel
preacher. It's the same with this preacher. And it's the same at this present
hour. You see, there are seasons in
the Lord's wisdom, in the Lord's purpose and time. There are seasons,
it seems like, of particular favor. These seasons come and they go,
and they do so just like Jeremiah
expresses it here. He says that the summer is ended
and another harvest is passed. And though we're thankful for
those seasons, we're thankful to God for those times, those
blessed times of harvest. harvest of men's souls to the
Lord Jesus Christ. When we pass through those times,
it still always remains the same. There are still those that are
not saved. If you look in the first verse
of the next chapter, which is just a continuation, listen to
what the prophet says. Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night. for the slain of the daughter
of my people. I thought about it, one of my great sorrows. As I reached the age that I now
am found to be, one of my great sorrows, one of my great sins, I'm afraid is that I've wept
so little, prayed so little for the souls of these that I've
had opportunity to preach to. Seems so little My concern oftentimes
so pathetic, I find myself like Jeremiah,
oh, that this business of men's souls, this business of knowing
God in Jesus Christ, this matter of proclaiming the gospel, that
it weighed so heavy on me that I'd just become a fountain of
tears, that I'd become a lamenting preacher. And he has these feelings. He
experiences these emotions. Because he knows the state and
condition of his people. He speaks of the people as being
like a sick man. A man with a terminal illness. Or a woman in sad health. But they were blind to it. They were already numb by its effects. They were all
so ignorant of the true remedy. They're just sad and sick. And the truth is, such a condition
is the natural condition of us all. You see, that's one of the
problems with my own self. That's still a hindrance to what
keeps me from being what I would be. This awful natural condition
is the state and condition of all people. And we're born into
this world with this condition. And no matter how we might differ
in many ways, some male, some female, some from here, some
from Kentucky, wherever it might be, some from the north, some
from the south, some young, some old, Some educated, some not
so educated. No matter what our differences
might be, we're still in this same condition. We still have
this same disease. And sin is that common disease. You see, we all sinned in Adam. Before we were ever born, we
sinned against God. We sinned in our representative,
the one who stood for our race naturally. And the Bible says
when he sinned, all sinned. And not only that, it tells us
that we are born in sin. We're born in sin, as the psalmist
said, and shapen in iniquity. That's all a sinner can do, beget
another sinner. And if your parents didn't give
you a big inheritance, It still doesn't change the fact that
they gave you your nature. They passed on that sinful image. We have a nature of sin. And by all these things, we are
described by God himself as sinners. all sinners. As a matter of fact,
he says that through the Apostle Paul in Romans 3. All have sinned without exception. Men who love the universality
of things, they seem to display, but of this one thing, they're
not so anxious to confront. This is the universal thing. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. You say, well, preacher, I'm
as good as you. That's a low standard. Or I'm
as good as these others in the assembly, I'm as good as they
are. You'll die in your sins being
as good as anybody. Because that's not the glory
of God. You see, the glory of God is
manifested in a single standard. The man Christ Jesus. How do you stack up against Him?
How do you measure up against perfection in human flesh? All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And not only that, this matter
is terminal. This disease always brings forth
death. Three kinds of death, which we
find in this book. It brings forth physical death. It brings forth legal death before
God, which Adam experienced when he ate of that tree. He didn't
die physically then, though he did die physically, but he died
spiritually. He died before God. He said,
the day you eat of this tree, you'll what? Surely die. An eternal death. That'll be
the consummation. Eternal death, which is separation
from God and everything that is good and true and blessed
worlds without end. You see, this world is not the
sum of it. It is appointed unto man once
to die, and after this, that's the part that's worrisome, after
that, the judgment. The judgment. In Adam, all died. Sin, when it's finished, brings
forth death. The soul that sinneth shall surely
die. Wages. The wages of sin is death. is so bad for you and for me
and for mine and for everybody in this world. You see, sin, according to what
we find God declaring, who knows us? Somebody said, if I know
my own heart, you do not. Because the heart of every person
is so deceitful, it's not only desperately wicked, so deceitful
that you will never know what your real state is until God
enables you to believe what He says that you are. And you can mark this down. You're
not what you think you are. And I'm not what I think I am. Not even in the most honest confession. We are so far worse as sinners
in reality, so far beyond our ability to comprehend, and I'm
sure even our ability to receive, should we know it to that degree. But we'll never know it. until
God the Spirit enables us to believe it. There's not a part
of us, whether it is our mind, whether it is our affections,
whether it is our will, whatever it is, there's not a part of
us that sin has not already permeated. and brought to a deadly state
just as if you'd been bitten by a serpent. It's coursed throughout us all. And so bad is the state physically
and spiritually of men that God gives a description of us in
Isaiah 1. We talk about total depravity. But we're not talking about men
and women being as bad as they could be. Thank God for His restraining
grace that He keeps men and women from being what they would be
did He not restrain them. Here and there He turns one loose. And they display the most unbelievable,
blatantly wicked and ungodly sales and acts. And all that
is, is God holding up a mirror to every sinner and showing us
this is us. But you know what we do? We say, I'm glad I'm not like
that fella. We say things like, I'd never
do that. I've got control of myself, all
of my emotions, all that pertains to me. I'd never do that. Don't ever say that. But when God would describe us,
And he described us many times using this very nation, this
very people that Jeremiah was a prophet to. You know what he
used? A leper. An awful leper. from his head to his toe, nothing
but sores, all these things, and he describes them just like
this. He said, why should ye be stricken
anymore? You will revolt more and more. These preachers haven't learned
that yet. They have a notion that you can
beat this out of men and women. That you can take law and you
can beat them with it. And it'll beat them long enough. Their notion is like that saying
I've heard not too long ago that the beatings will continue until
morale improves. But it never improves, does it?
We'll just keep beating them. We'll have something new every
week, and we'll beat these sinners into submission. We'll beat them
into holiness. Oh, my. We'll beat them into
righteousness. Not going to happen. They'll
just revolt the more. But he says, the whole head is
sick, and the whole heart faints. You're sick in the head, isn't
that what we say? And that good part, that part
that men and women say is preserved somehow, oh, I know he's a bad
boy, I know she's a wicked woman, but they got a good heart. No,
no, no. Head and heart. From the sole
of the foot, even unto the head, there is no soundness in it,
but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed,
neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Just an unkept,
uncared for, totally covered leper, whose flesh day by day
is being eaten away by the disease, the most horrible sight imaginable, that's a sinner. And I know everybody gets dressed
up. Especially when we come to church,
we get all dressed up and we get looking good and washed up
and smelling good and all these things. And I'm glad of that. But that's not what we are spiritually. We're sinners. I'm the chief of sinners. He says, as Paul does, I know
that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. You say,
well, I made some improvements. I'm afraid not. No good thing. In other words, it doesn't matter
what part of us we might talk about or express
a description of us. At the root of it is nothing
but this nature of sin. And that's right down to the
will. Somebody's got a free will. Yeah,
you got a free will like a man with a hundred-pound ball and
chain, chained to his ankle. And you may have four feet of
chain. You may be able to walk four
feet in that direction and four feet in that direction and four
feet in the other two directions, but you're just going to go so
far bound by your nature of sin. And not only that, with this disease, we are naturally
in a state of denial. Just like when a man or a woman
hears or begins to think by the symptoms that they may have some
deadly dread disease, and the first thing that they begin to
do is, oh, it can't be that. But it is. It is. We're in this state of denial.
And to make matters worse, we're not only ignorant of the one
remedy, we're at odds with the one physician
able to cure this disease. That's a bad state, isn't it? We're blind to the remedy. We
have no understanding and no knowledge of the cure and the
remedy, and worse than that, we hate the physician. How do you feel whenever you
find out that you have to go to a government office or something
like that or deal with somebody, and you already know a little
something, you think you know something about that individual,
and they say, well, you'll have to go to so-and-so to get that
taken care of. Oh, no. Not him. Not her. That's our attitude toward the
great physician. Because the carnal, the natural
mind is enmity against God. We're at odds with the only physician
able to cure this disease. And not only that, we've tried
all the home remedies. Mom and daddy told us a lot of
those home remedies. They start early. If you want
to be, if you want to go to heaven, you better be a good girl. If you want to go to heaven,
you better not do that. And all through life, there's
somebody standing there waiting to give you another of these
home remedies to deal with this problem of sin, especially as
it is before God, and they all have failed, haven't they? You
know they've failed. All these home remedies, they've
all failed, and worse than that, Most sinners have suffered this
disease, and it's only been amplified and worsened by a lot of religious
quacks, I'll call them. False prophets. If you'll do this, you'll be
better. If you do this thing, if you
give this money, if you sacrifice this, if you quit eating this
or drinking this or smoking this, if you start doing this and that
and the other and the list goes on ad nauseum, you'll be a Christian. I read something yesterday. And
it was in so many ways good, trying to show how salvation
is not of works and not of the will of man and all these things,
talking about a finished work. Guess what the last line was? All you have to do is say yes.
That's the problem. All you have to do is say yes.
That's just another work. Because it's impossible for a
sinner to say yes to anything God says about what they are
and the only way He saves sinners. Say yes. All we can say by nature
is no. No, no, no. And that's demonstrated
from us almost from our birth as little children. We're told
to do something by the authority God has established. And what's
the response? No. No. We learn two words by nature. We don't have to be taught them.
No and my. And we're like that hemorrhaging
woman in Mark 5. It says, she had suffered many
things of many physicians and had spent all that she had and
was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. That's all these preachers of
a false gospel, of a works salvation, and that's what they all boil
down to. Some may say you might bow down
to this idol, or you might receive this holy sacrament at the hands
of their priest, or some may say you may walk down the aisle,
or some may say you may abstain for all these things, but it's
always one thing, works. Something weird to do. This woman, she had gone to this
doctor and he said, try this. And this doctor said, do this.
And another doctor said this. And all the time, they're cleaning
her pockets out. But she grew worse. She just grew worse. That's the
way we are as sinners. There's a world of religion just
out there waiting for you. Come to our church. Bring your
children. We got something for them. We've
got something for you single people. We've got something for
you old and decrepit people. We've got something for everybody. Everything but the truth. And that's why they got so many
things, because the truth is a one-size-fits-all. And you read what the scripture
says. If you look over in Jeremiah again, if you look in Jeremiah
6 and verse 14, of all these false prophets in Jeremiah's
day, and they were there in his day, and they've been in every
day since then. In Jeremiah 6 and verse 14, it
says, they have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people
slightly. They've made them feel better
about themselves. They've given them temporary
happiness. They've soothed the conscience
for a few days. And they've done this by saying,
preaching, peace, peace, when there is no peace. They said you need to make peace
with God. You couldn't make peace with
God on your best day. If you'll look over again in
chapter 8 where we're at, at verse 11, he says, for they've
healed the hurt of the daughter of my people. You see, this is
something Jeremiah himself laments about. They've healed the hurt of the
daughter of my people slightly, saying, peace, peace, when there
is no peace. They'll talk about the Prince
of Peace come Christmas time. They'll talk about how God is
a God of peace, but not how He made peace by the blood of His
cross. Why? Because that means somebody
must be a sinner. Somebody must be in need, in
such a need, in a desperate state as a sinner, that it would require
the Son of God to come to this earth and take on human flesh
and save them the only way they can be saved, which is to die
for them. Think how foolish this is. How stupid would we think one
with such a terminal disease to be if they did not seek the
one physician that could cure them and take the one medicine
and remedy that he prescribed? You'd say, well, you're a fool.
You deserve to die. That'd be true of us. We deserve
to die. When you've got a disease, and
there is a physician that can deal with this disease, and there
is a remedy that can cure this disease, and you don't avail
yourself of that? That's stupid. And you know what
they say, you can't fix stupid. We can't fix stupid in ourselves. We talk about insanity. That's the greatest insanity
there is. To hate the physician and to
spit on and mock and crucify the cure. This is what Jeremiah says. And why he says what he does
in verse 22. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of
the daughter of my people recovered? Why will you die when there's
a cure? Will you live in your pride and
say, I'll just do it my way? Or I'll take care of this myself? Or I don't really believe there's
an eternity? I believe that when I die, I'll
just die? No. That'd be foolish. Jeremiah says, why will you die
when there's a physician? Why will you die when there's
a cure? Why then are you not recovered? Why are you not being treated? Why are you not saved? Is there
not a savior? Is it that you're not a sinner? What is a balm? A balm. I didn't say a balm,
I said a balm. B-A-L-M. What is a balm? Well, by definition, a balm is
an aromatic, medicinal substance derived from plants and trees. And in the Old Testament, quite
a number of times we find mentioned the balm or the healing ointment
that comes from Gilead. What was Gilead? Well, it was
a mountainous area and most likely Mount Gilead was a particular
mountain, all of these being east of the Jordan River and
known were plants or trees that had substances in them that was
used again and again as a cure and a medicine. In Genesis 37, It says, They sat down to eat
bread, and they lifted up their eyes, and looked, and behold,
a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels
bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down
to Egypt. They'd gone to get a lot of a
load of these spices and these medicinal qualities in all these
trees and plants and such as that. It's a medicine. And I'll guarantee you, a whole
lot of the medicines that you pay a whole lot for, if you could
dig down into them and see what the actual ingredients of them
are, it would be many of the same things. But it's packaged pretty, and
it's priced high. But it's probably the same thing.
It's a medicine. It's a medicine. And if that
be the case, what is the balm or the remedy, the cure, the
medicine for sin? Christ crucified. Christ crucified. You see, the saving remedy of
God's grace is in Him. It's by His blood. It's through His priestly work. And since He gives us the leper
as a picture of what we are as sinners, what we are in this
dread and deadly condition, He gave a law. by which a sinner was to be cleansed. I mean a leper. Turn over to
Leviticus chapter 14. Now you can go back and read
chapter 13 and you can learn a lot about this, but let me
just And let's just look at the summary of it in Leviticus 14
and verse 4, when this leper presented himself in his condition
to the priest. Verse 4 says, Then shall the
priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds,
alive and clean, and cedarwood and scallop and hyssop. And the
priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an
earthen vessel over running water. As for the living bird, he shall
take it, and the cedarwood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop,
and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird
that was killed over the running water. Number one, a sacrifice. Number two, a sacrifice of blood. Number three, a priest. All these things that we find
time and time and time again in the Old Testament with this
people and fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he shall sprinkle upon him
that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times and shall
pronounce him clean and let the living bird loose in the open
field. There goes his sin. Two things about that. Number
one, the priest had to pronounce the leper unclean. It wasn't
left up, I don't think this is leprosy. I know it's growing,
it's covering me. Covering the whole body. I'll never forget when my wife
first started manifesting the signs of the disease that she
died from. We thought we could look on the
internet and look at all the pictures and look at all the
descriptions and that we could kind of self-diagnose this and
get an idea of what she really had. more sores, more bumps, more
places, covering more and more of the body. But one day we walked in that
doctor's office, that oncologist's office, and he, with all solemnity
and soberness but kindness, told us the disease and said
there's no cure. Why? Because he was skilled in
these things. He had knowledge and understanding
of these things. And what he said it was, it was. And what he said would happen,
it did. The priest had pronounced the
leper unclean. That's what our priest has done.
He's not beat around the bush and said we're better than we
are or led us into fanciful thought about what we could be or are. He said, no, you're a sinner. Yep, that's what it is. It's
sin. But when that sacrifice was offered,
when that bird, that substitutionary sacrifice was offered, and that
blood was shed, and that living bird set free, like the scapegoat
turned loose to go out into the wilderness, never to be seen
again. That's our sin in Christ, flying away. Oh, me. We used to sing that song growing
up, I'll fly away. I'm more interested in my sin
flying away from me. But then that priest would be
the one who pronounced him clean. You're clean. That's what the gospel does. God sends his servants. He gives
them this good news, this glad tidings. Oh, it's tough when
you have to hear from Him first of all that you got the leprosy. But oh, what a blessing it is
when God brings us to confess it and confront it and look to
Christ and in Him we're pronounced clean, clear. You see, this is a complicated
case. The leprosy of sin's a complicated
case. Why? Because we're dealing with
God who is a just God and also a
savior. And try as we would, we can never
come up with a remedy that meets both needs. We're just not going to do it.
Because if we just simply deal with what men call grace, then
all we'll do is be saved at the expense of God's character. And if He just deals with us
in strict justice with no mercy and grace, we'll perish forever. But he says this. He says, I'm a just God and a
Savior. And what? Look unto me, therefore,
and be ye saved, whether ye a Jew or Gentile, young or old. Raise up one post there in the
middle of the camp, put a brazen serpent on the top of it, And
those who've been bitten by these fiery serpents whose venom has
permeated their whole being, if they look to this razen serpent,
they'll live. As a matter of fact, if they
look to that serpent, they're alive. That's the sign of life if you
look at Christ crucified. If you rest your hope in Him,
if you trust in Christ alone, whose blood is satisfied divine
justice in the matter of sin, who by one offering has put away
all the sins of His people. Because without the shedding
of blood, there's no remission of sin. That's why the only gospel is
the gospel of blood. You say, it's so messy. No, it's
so cleansing. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth
us from all sin. But who needs a remedy? Who needs
a cure? Those that are sick. And like I said, the effect of
sin in us is that it blinds us to just how desperate our condition
is. It numbs us to the reality. We're
like a man. I read this many, many years
ago when a writer was describing the physical effects of a man
freezing to death. They said just before he freezes
to death, he has a warm sensation. That's when we're most dead,
is when we feel all these warm sensations about ourselves without
Christ. Not only that, we imagine that
there are so many other things that are more needful, so many
other things that are more urgent, so many things that are more
important, most all of them involving the body. It's more important that I be
healthy physically, or it may be more important that I be happy,
or that I be, in that awful word, fulfilled. No. Christ said, fear not them
which kill the body. but are not able to kill the
soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul
and body in hell. This requires a rather painful
examination. It's painful, this procedure
that the Spirit of God has to do on us to cause us to know
and to see what our real condition is. When I went for my physical the
last time, the doctor started talking that dreadful word, colonoscopy. I said, I'm out
of here. Oh, what a painful thing it is
when the Lord brings us to realize. This is that serious? I'm in
this desperate estate. I'm so lost that I can't save
myself or help myself. I don't have a righteousness.
What about all these fig leaf aprons I've sewed together? That
which is highly esteemed of men is an abomination to God. Well,
that's a painful examination. Brother Richardson used to say
that the gospel is first bad news. And we only see light in
His light. Only when God begins to reveal
Himself in His glory as a holy God and a just God who frowns
upon sin, who must punish sin in that light, that's when we
see what we are. But if God ever brings us to
see what we are as sinners, I mean really see, it is so he can bring
us to see who Christ is as a savior. The good news will outweigh the
bad news. The remedy, the bitter at the
first, will surely in our bellies be sweetness. Sweetness. You see, God has written the
prescription for this disease clearly for these sick ones in
the Bible. He states it. He sends men to
proclaim it in the gospel. But it's just like every prescription
I ever saw written by a doctor. It's unreadable to us. I have no idea how those pharmacists
read some of those written prescriptions. But that's the way the gospel
is to us. We're blind to it. And until the Holy Spirit opens
our eyes and gives us understanding, gives us faith to believe it,
we can't read it and know it and believe that it is what God
says it is. He has to deal with us and bring
us to that one remedy, which is the one physician. And I'll
say one other thing about that too. On this prescription, this gospel
prescription, It has a warning label. You know what that is? You've seen it. Do not take with
other medicines. This is a single remedy. Grace. You do not mix it with
any works. As a matter of fact, when you
mix it with any human merit or work or act or deed, it becomes
poison. Don't you mix it. You'll be saved
by free grace. You'll be saved through this
gift of God, through this gift of righteousness, this gift of
faith, this gift of repentance. You'll be saved by God entirely. You'll be cured by the divine
physician or you'll perish. That's why he gets all the glory. Where was this balm to be found? And Gilead, Mount Gilead. That word Gilead, one of the
definitions of it, it's like in two parts, it means
a heap, like a mountain raised up, and the other part is testimony. That's why he says the church
is the light of the world. Here's a heaped up mountain,
a city set on a hill, and it has a testimony. What is that
testimony? The testimony of God. Not our opinion. You see, the
gospel of God's called the word of testimony. The psalmist said
the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony
of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. Where's the gospel
at? Mount Zion. Mount Zion. That's the church of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Mount Zion. The city on a hill,
the bride of Christ has this remedy, this gospel, this news. In the Song of Solomon, he says,
Behold, thou art fair, my love. Behold, thou art fair. Thou hast
dove's eyes within thy locks. Thy hair is as a flock of goats
that appear from Mount Gilead. You got your cure, you got your
beauty from Mount Gilead. from Mount Calvary, the Lord
Jesus Christ. You see, Christ is both the physician
and the medicine. We preach the person and the
work. We don't come over here and say,
well, salvation is just in a person. We don't come over here and say
that it's just simply all by this work, nothing else. It's
the person and work. It's Christ and Him crucified. If it wasn't for the person,
the work would be no good. If it wasn't for the work, the
person exclusively would be no good. The bride says, my beloved is
unto me as a cluster of camphor in the vineyards of Engedi. That's another one of those medicines. Jesus said, the well man has
no need of a physician. I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. You go home and you read Jeremiah
30. Jeremiah 30 and verse 12, God
begins to say concerning Israel, I've done all this and this and
that, or you've done all these things and I didn't help you,
but I'm the one that's gonna restore your health. But isn't that really something,
those last words? Why? Why? If there is a bomb, If there
is a physician, a medicine for your exact woe and sorrow and sickness, why are you not healed? He says in another place to this
people, why will you die? There's a savior. You say, well,
I don't know if I'm one of God's elect or not. That is not the
question. The facts are, here's the remedy.
The facts are, here's your condition. The facts are, here's the physician.
Why are you not healed? Has he refused you? I've always thought when I considered
the Lamb's Book of Life, it says their names were written, those
God saves, their names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life before
the foundation of the world. But if I were able to just sneak
a peek into that book and I would see the name Gary Shepherd, when
I was growing up I thought I was one of a kind. One day I sat
down and did a search on the internet for that name. Gary
Shepard that worked with ABC News, Gary Shepard that managed
the supermarket, I would bound to be sure that that was their
name written in it. But I can tell you this, if your
name's written in the Lamb's Book of Life, it's also written
in this book. Paul said this is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save condo sinners. That's my name. In due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. That'd be me. He came to seek and to save the
lost, the unrighteous. That'd be me. Is it you? Sometimes it's pride. Well, I
don't want anybody to know I'm really that sick. Most often it is just rebellious
enmity against the physician. Maybe it's because you didn't
know either before this. Maybe, like so many, you hoped
you'd get better. Or maybe you think there's, you
still think that there's another remedy. That's what old Nathan
thought. He was a leper, kind of a big
shot leper. But when he got dressed and he
put on all of his regal uniform as the captain of the
Syrian host, But all those gold broidered garments, shiny metal
helmets and what have you, sword and all those things. But hanging
out all that was leprous flesh. Came down to where the prophets
stay. Little old girl, little slave
girl. Told him, said, well, I would
that you were where the prophet's at. Jehovah's got a prophet down
there in the land, and if you were there, I believe there's
a remedy for you. So he finally went down there,
and the prophet told him. He didn't even come out where
he was. That's the way a lot of sinners are at the first.
They kind of drive up to the church and toot the horn. You
know, you ought to be glad to have me to come in. No? I'm not here to tickle your feet
and scratch your ears and make you feel good about yourself. But the prophet didn't even go
outside. He sent his servant out and he said, the prophet
said for you to go and dip yourself in the River Jordan seven times. And Naaman thought about how
humiliating that would be. That muddy, murky River Jordan. He said, but we've got rivers
in Syria that are so much more beautiful, the Havana and the
Farpar, I believe it was. He got mad. The gospel make you mad before
it makes you glad. And he started to whip his chariot
around and head for home. But he had servants, soldiers
that had more sense than he did. They said, Master, you know if
the prophet had told you to do something hard or give a lot
of money or something like that, you'd have done it just like
that. So finally he eases off of that
chariot or horse or whatever it was, and he goes and dips
in that River Jordan. And when he comes up that seventh
time, the scripture says his flesh was like baby's flesh. He didn't even go to a spa. He
went in that River Jordan and came out clean of his leprosy. And that Jordan is a symbol of
death. We are cleansed of the leprosy
of sin through the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ, through him
having brought us with himself into death and raised us up in
resurrection. Jeremiah says in chapter 46,
go up into Gilead and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt,
in vain shalt thou use many medicines, for thou shalt not be cured.
Just try them all if you want to. There's just one balm in Gilead. That old song says, there is
a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There's a balm
in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. I said, why have you not recovered? That means gone up to Gilead. An old preacher said there's
more in the balm to heal than there is in guilt to wound. Well, there's more in grace to
save than there is in sin to destroy. What about if you sin again? You will. Same remedy. What about when you have afflictions,
physical diseases? Same bomb. What about when you
have trouble? What about when you fail and
fall? What about when you're wracked
with sorrow and grief Same balm. There's a balm in
Gilead. That balm is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the physician who never
lost a case. He's the medicine that cures
from this dread disease of sin. Our Father, we bless your name. Summer's past, harvest ends, and yet so many are not saved. Is there not a balm? Is there not a physician? Yes, there is. Cause us to see. Cause us to
look to Christ. Cause us to believe what you
say in your word. Heal us. Help us. We pray and
ask it in Christ's name.