A Balm in Gilead

“Is there no balm in Gilead?

Is there no physician there?” (Jer. 8:22)

There is a Balm in Gilead and there is a Physician there. He is and must ever be, our only Hope. If there were no Balm in Gilead, what could we do but lie down in despair and die? For our sins are so great, our backslidings so repeated, our minds so dark, our hearts so hard, our affection so cold, our souls so wavering and wandering, that if there were no Balm in Gilead, no precious blood, no sweet promises, no Sovereign Grace, no Physician there, no Risen Jesus, no Great High Priest over the House of God, what well-grounded hope could we entertain? Not a ray! Our own obedience and consistency, these are a bed too short and a covering too narrow. But when there is some application of the Balm in Gilead, it softens, melts, humbles and at the same time thoroughly heals. Nay, this Balm strengthens every nerve and sinew, heals blindness, remedies deafness, cures paralysis, makes the lame man leap as a hart and the tongue of the dumb to sing and thus produces Gospel sight, Gospel hearing, Gospel strength, and Gospel walk. When the spirit is melted and the heart touched by a sense of God’s goodness, mercy and love to such base, undeserving wretches that it produces Gospel obedience, aye, a humble obedience; not that proud obedience which those manifest who are trusting to their own goodness and seeking to scale the battlements of Heaven by the ladder of self-righteousness but an obedience of gratitude, love, and submission, willingly and cheerfully rendered and therefore acceptable to God because it flows from His Own Spirit of Grace.