The balm of Gilead.
There were those who treated the crimes and miseries of the nation as a trifling matter; they sought to "heal the hurt slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there was no peace" (Jeremiah 8:11). Not so the prophet. He is keenly alive to the dreadful evils of the time. He takes the sins and sorrows of the people on himself, makes them his own. Tender human sympathy, as well as Divine compassion, breathes in the words, "For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt." And it is not sorrow alone but "astonishment" of which be is conscious. "Why is not her health recovered?" Can it be that there is no remedy? The "balm of Gilead" is taken as the symbol of a healing moral power. Is it so, then, that the very nation that was called to diffuse a redeeming influence over all the world is unable to cure herself—has no medicine for her own diseases, or none to apply it? Such is the wonder with which a thoughtful, earnest spirit will often contemplate the moral condition of the world, in view of the fact that God's "saving health" in the gospel has so long been made known to it. Consider—
I. THE DIVINE REMEDY FOR THE MORAL MALADIES OF THE HUMAN RACE. This remedy is the spontaneous fruit of the love of God. On the ground of that love we may justly expect such a remedy. It is not likely that a God of infinite benevolence would leave the human race to perish. Though redemption is "of grace," yet there is everything to make it antecedently probable. Though nature contains no revelation of it, yet to the eye on which the light of the gospel has once fallen, the whole constitution of the universe is full of dim prophecies and promises of some such triumphant grace. The spirit of boundless beneficence that pervades and governs it—the fact that for every want there is a supply, for every appetite that which gratifies it, for every danger a safeguard, for every poison its antidote; above all, the silent witness in favor of mercy that is graven more or less deep on every human heart;—all this is so much in harmony with the great redemption as in a sense to anticipate it. But it is facts, not probabilities, with which we have to deal. The gospel is God's actual answer to our human necessities, the sovereign remedy his love has provided for the sins and sorrows of the world. He heals them by taking them upon himself in the person of Jesus Christ his Son. "He was wounded for our transgressions," etc. (Isaiah 53:5); "Who his own self bare our sins," etc. (1 Peter 2:24); "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound," etc. (Romans 5:20, Romans 5:21). Note respecting this Divine remedy:
1. It goes to the root of the disease. It does not effect a mere superficial reformation, as human methods for the most part do; does not flatter with the appearance of health while leaving the malady to strike its roots down deeper and deeper into the soul. It reaches at once the secret springs of all mischief, destroys the germs of evil in human nature, changes the outward aspects of the world's life by giving it a "new heart."
2. It is universal in its application. All national diversities, all varieties of social condition, of age, of culture, of intellectual development and moral life, etc; are alike open to its application, and it is the same for all.
3. It is complete in its efficacy. Every element of human nature, every department and phase of human life, bears witness to its healing power. A perfect manhood and a perfect social order are the issue it works out.
4. It stands alone, not one among many, but absolutely the only remedy. It enters into no kind of competition with other methods of healing. It has the solitary and supreme authority of that which is Divine. "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name," etc. (Acts 4:12).
II. THE HINDRANCES TO ITS UNIVERSAL EFFICIENCY. "Why then is not," etc.? The reason lies, not in any want of fitness in the remedy, or in any lack of power or-willingness in him who provides it, but in certain human conditions that nullify its action and thwart his purpose.
1. In the self-delusion that leads men to think that they have no need of cure. "They that are whole need not a physician," etc. (Matthew 9:12). The sense of moral sickness is the first step to healing.
2. In the vain self-trust by virtue of which men dream that they can cure themselves. How many and how plausible are the expedients by which the world seeks to rid itself of its own maladies! How slow is human nature to confess its helplessness!
3. In the obstinacy of spirit that refuses the Divine method. "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?" etc. (2 Kings 5:12). Anything rather than God's way of healing by the blood of atonement and the regenerating grace of the Spirit!
4. In the lethargy and neglect of those whom God has called to minister the healing power. Who shall say how much of the continued sin and misery of the world lies at the Church's door? If all who have themselves known the virtue of this sovereign balm were but more thoroughly in earnest in their efforts to commend it and to persuade men to apply it, how much more rapidly would the health of human society everywhere be recovered!—W.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
The bones of the dead idolaters cast out before their cities.
I. ASK HOW THIS SPOLIATION COMES TO PASS. One cannot suppose that it came by the intention of Jehovah. Rather would it arise as a necessary part of wholesale pillage. Considerable treasures might be lying in the tombs of these grandees of Israel, and much might also have been hidden in them for purposes of safety, and therefore, seeing that this hideous devastation had to happen, it was fitting to call attention to it beforehand. It was another indication of how completely, for its sins, Jerusalem had been handed over to the foreign destroyer. It makes all the difference to mention such a terrible circumstance beforehand, as an illustration of the severity of God's dealings. Thus it is seen that the spoliation cannot be laid to his charge. And though it must be taken as a sign how barbarous the ancient civilization was at bottom, this is but a consideration by the way. The real cause of this hideous spectacle was in the idolatry of those who had covenanted to love and serve Jehovah, to walk after him and seek him and worship him. These dead ones had forsaken God and taught their posterity to forsake him also; and now there was none among the living able to protect the bones of the dead from such horrible insult.
II. OBSERVE THAT THE HUMILIATION HAS A PECULIAR CONNECTION WITH THE IDOLATRY OF THE PEOPLE. Not only are the tombs emptied, but the bones are scattered before the host of heaven. The enemy was not thinking of this exhibition, but it happened so very opportunely. Sun, moon, and stars looked down upon the scene thus strewn with the bones of the illustrious, as if in rebuke for the use which Israel had tried to make of them. They had worshipped and served the creature in opposition to the Creator, and this was what had come of it. These bones had strengthened the living body to worship the sun, and now the sun shone steadily down on them, as if in public rejection of what was not only a mistaken honor to the creature but a shameful insult to the Creator. The very things we misuse become the instruments of our humiliation.
III. THE GENERAL QUESTION OF THE TREATMENT OF DEAD BODIES IS SUGGESTED FOR CONSIDERATION. Various are the customs of men with respect to the treatment of the dead, but many of them have one common element, in that they try to preserve the visible, tangible relics of life as long as possible. There is something very touching in the hopes and beliefs which are represented by an Egyptian mummy, as if the survivors felt that life had receded into some deep, inscrutable chamber, again to come forth in due time and reanimate its old tenement. We think of how Joseph must have been under the influence of a feeling of this kind, when he gave such strict commandment concerning his bones. Still, it is part of the salvation wherewith Christ saves his people, that we are lifted above these haunting considerations as to the corporeal frame. It is according to the Spirit of Christ that we should labor, by exercise and self-denial, to make the living body an efficient agent of his will; but when the life has gone, no sentimental treatment of ours can alter the fact that the body is mere matter, fast under the chemical laws which will soon resolve it into its constituent elements. Have not the bodies of God's saints been shamefully maltreated, both during life and after death? Think out of what a mangled and bleeding form the spirit of Stephen took its flight to everlasting bliss. If there be force in the injunction of Jesus not to fear what men can do to the sentient body, how much more may it be urged not to fear what they can do to the senseless corpse. The enemies of the noble and fearless witnesses of truth have shown more than once their contemptible spirit by the way in which they have treated the dead. They could not get at them when living, and they thought it was something of a triumph to insult their remains when gone; e.g. Wycliffe and Cromwell. The scattering of these bones before sun, moon, and stars would have been a thing to glory in, if the men to whom they belonged had been soldiers in the noble army of martyrs.—Y.