Jeremiah 8:22 Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered
Years ago, I was hiking across the Grand Canyon from North Rim to South Rim with some college buddies. We took our time, two or three days, so it was very doable. When we were at the bottom, hiking along Phantom Creek, one of my friends became very ill. Upon further examination we saw salt deposits on his temples. You could actually see where the water was evaporating off of his skin so quickly that it was leaving salt deposits on his temples. We came to realize he was thoroughly dehydrated. Here was a guy carrying a canteen with plenty of water, but who was literally dehydrated because he would not drink. I don’t know that he made a conscious decision not to drink, but he wasn’t drinking.
In our lives we often do the same thing. We have despair, despondency, or some kind of calamity and think there is no hope, but it is a self-imposed hopelessness. I’ve talked to people who had grave problems but who had a pastor to counsel and help them. But when the pastor gave them the course they should take, they refused to follow that course and then wondered why they were hopeless. Hope is a decision. Ultimately it is not a feeling or merely an aspiration or blind faith; it is a decision.
In Jeremiah 8, Jeremiah is continuing a message he began back in chapter 7 at the gate of the Lord’s house. In Jeremiah 8:19 he says, “Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people [Judah] because of them that dwell in a far country.” He is speaking of the Babylonians who subsequently took some of God’s people captive back to their own country. The verse continues, “Is not the LORD in Zion? is not our king in her?” Judah had boasted that they had the temple, the Lord’s house, but now asked, “Where is God?”
God replied, “Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities?” So, God is here. Both the just and the unjust can sometimes wonder where God is, and sometimes we can feel that hope is gone when the fact is that we have been ignoring God. Verse 22 is another question, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” Gilead was known for medicinal application of a healing balm. The implied answer to that question is that there was. “Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?” “God is here, and healing is possible,” is what he seems to be saying, yet these people seemed to be without hope. Why?
If you go the Jeremiah 2:25 you get a hint. God is contending with His people and He says, “But thou saidst, There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.” This is expressing will. “There is no hope. I am going after those who hate God.” They were committing spiritual adultery, ignoring God and His pleas and going after those who were in His place. Jeremiah 18:11 says, “Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.” That was a choice. Then God’s people said, “There is no hope, but we will walk after our own devices and everyone do the imagination of his evil heart.” They were expressing their will, not their hope. Hope is not a feeling; it is a choice. Hopelessness is a choice. God is here; healing is possible, but it requires honesty and action.
Jeremiah 8:5 says, “Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return.” Jeremiah 9:6 says, “Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD. Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, I will melt them…” So, hope requires honesty and action. In Revelation 3 the Lord is speaking to His churches and He tells them if they have an ear, then listen. He told Laodicea that He knew their work, that they were neither hot or cold. They were lukewarm and God was going to spew them out of His mouth because they said, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.” But God said they “knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked; I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire…and white raiment…and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.” Yet, in Jeremiah 8:6 He says, “No man repented…every one turned to his course.” It was willful hopelessness.
Maybe you feel down today. Maybe you don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe you don’t see any hope. To be sure, the rain falls on both the just and unjust. Maybe you are doing everything you know to be right, yet you feel as if God is wrong, that there is no healing and things are hopeless. If there is a God and you are obeying, then there is hope. Hope, like happiness, is a caboose not an engine. People are not happy or hopeful because they make that their goal in life. They can’t fabricate a feeling. People have hope and happiness to the extent that they know what is right and they have the courage, obedience, and willingness to do it.
No matter how far you have strayed, how badly you have done, or what you see for your prospects or in your past, if there is a God and if there is obedience, there is hope. Hope is a decision. It is not primarily a feeling. The feeling comes from the decision, a result of making choices. If we obey God, there is hope. May God encourage your heart and strengthen your resolve to know what He has said, to obey Him, and live in the hope that comes from that.