Jeremiah 8:13-22
13 "I will surely consume them," says the LORD.
"No grapes shall be on the vine,
Nor figs on the fig tree,
And the leaf shall fade;
And the things I have given them shall pass away from them."'"
14 "Why do we sit still?
Assemble yourselves,
And let us enter the fortified cities,
And let us be silent there.
For the LORD our God has put us to silence
And given us water of gall to drink,
Because we have sinned against the LORD.
15 "We looked for peace, but no good came;
And for a time of health, and there was trouble!
16 The snorting of His horses was heard from Dan.
The whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of His strong ones;
For they have come and devoured the land and all that is in it,
The city and those who dwell in it."
17 "For behold, I will send serpents among you,
Vipers which cannot be charmed,
And they shall bite you," says the LORD.
18 I would comfort myself in sorrow;
My heart is faint in me.
19 Listen! The voice,
The cry of the daughter of my people
From a far country:
"Is not the LORD in Zion?
Is not her King in her?"
"Why have they provoked Me to anger
With their carved images—
With foreign idols?"
20 "The harvest is past,
The summer is ended,
And we are not saved!"
21 For the hurt of the daughter of my people I am hurt.
I am mourning;
Astonishment has taken hold of me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead,
Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no recovery
For the health of the daughter of my people?
Israel needed the Great Physician for their souls as a balm of Gilead to aid recovery from sin’s deadly toll. Their continuing unfaithfulness and idolatry as they rejected Him led to the earned consequence of unfruitfulness, death, and destruction. They learned that the wages earned by living for sin was death (Romans 6:23) of body and soul. Jeremiah mourned for his people because of the looming judgment of the LORD. He called them to confess their sins and turn to Him from them as he pointed out the consequences which they already were experiencing without peace of soul or health of body. Invaders had been sent as God’s instruments of correction as untamable and unstoppable serpents to inflict the sentence as the invaders. He sought comfort with a depressed heart of sorrow at their state and reminded the people how God was her King and the idols breaking the first commandment were heard far away. The seasons of life moved on and they still had not been delivered because they had not repented and done the former things commanded them from the beginning acc to His word. He felt their pain and suffering ad the LORD did, and was astonished in his sorrow of mourning as for the dead already passed. He ended by rhetorically asking why there was no great physician (Mark 2:17) with healing balm to enable his people to recover their physical and spiritual and be delivered from their hopeless state. We now know the answer is fulfilled in Christ who was not fully understood in the depth and width and height (Ephesians 3:18-19) of His work of healing grace to come as promised from the beginning of our fall in Eden (Genesis 3:15). This is the good news of deliverance from certain judgment earned by our sin against Him and recovery from its curse. We all need the Great Physician!
No comments:
Post a Comment