HF123 - The Heavenly Balm
To: Hebraic-Foundations@yahoogroups.com
From: "Pastor Buddy Martin" <Bro.Buddy@ChristianChallenge.org>
Date: Wed, June 16, 2004
Subject: Bible Study HF123 - The Heavenly Balm
Hebraics,
You can almost feel the anguish of God's heart when He says, "My people are bent on turning from Me ... How can I give you up O Ephraim. My heart is turned over within Me, all My compassions are kindled." (Cf. Hosea 11:8,9)
We hear it again through Jeremiah the prophet, when the Lord says, "For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken; I mourn, dismay has taken a hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead?" (Jeremiah 8:20-22)
When God decided to walk among men, we again hear the same anguish of heart. Listen: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather you together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, 'Blessed is He [Jesus] who comes in the name of the Lord.'" (Matt23:37-39)
What did the prophet Jeremiah mean in asking if there was no balm in Gilead? There is a spiritual implication in this statement that we want to look at in our study. Actually there is a healing balm available to every human on this planet. Let's talk about it.
This is Bible Study HF123 - The Heavenly Balm.
First the natural side --- Josephus said that "balm" was first introduced to Israel when the Queen of Sheba gave it as a gift to Solomon. Thereafter the Balsam tree came to be cultivated on Mount Gilead. Gilead region was soon noted for its physicians and its curative balm.
The balm of Gilead was used both as a perfume base and as a curative anointing oil. People believed it had miracle medicinal powers. After Christ, a curse was placed on any Hebrew who gave the balm recipe to a Gentile. (According to rabbinic Judaism.) And so we have a costly and precious anointing oil whose fragrance was wonderful to the smell and whose curative powers was known all over the Roman Empire. It was so costly that rarely did any common person own any of it.
It is here that we need to go to the deeper spiritual significance of the balm of Gilead. In ancient time the prophets were seen as spiritual physicians. They often brought God's healing Word and wisdom to the sin-sick souls of men. Thus the sage said, "The tongue of the wise brings healing." (Pro12:18)
The prophet's message normally included an admonishment for repentance. The ancients were taught that repentance was actually a form of worship when it came to daily living. In a daily walk, repentance was simply making minor adjustments in keeping on a righteous course of life. There were also times for major adjustments and this is when the prophet-physician could be found bringing healing "balm" to those who would repent.
And so we have the statement, "Is there no balm in Gilead?" But Gilead had gone too far. The balm had been rejected. The inhabitants were steeped in idolatry. They cared nothing for the prophet's message of repentance. Listen to the preceding statements made about the Gileads:
"Were they ashamed because of the abomination they had done? They certainly were not ashamed, and they did not know how to blush; therefore they shall fall." (Jer8:12)
"...the Lord our God has doomed us and given us poisoned water to drink, for we have sinned (continuously) against the Lord." (v14)
"Harvest is past, summer is ended, and we are not saved." (v20)
Now let's bring this over into the new covenant. The blood of Jesus is the balm of heaven. His blood alone can bring heaven's healing to the sin damaged soul. The Holy Spirit effects the healing, but yet it is the tongue of the righteous through whom the healing flows. Thus we hear Jesus say of the born-from-above people of God, "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture says, from your innermost being shall flow rivers of living waters." (John 7:38)
Every believer has a capacity for bringing living, healing waters, or, if you prefer, heavenly balm, into the life of a sinner or into the life of a believer who has suffered a relapse into sin. The balm of heaven is designed to bring life wherever death is at work.
This reminds me of a 'signature' dream I had many years ago. I was walking through a large open field. The grass was dead. When I looked over my shoulder I saw a group of people at a distance, looking down at the ground. They would then look towards me. I wondered why they were looking at me. When I looked down where I had walked, each footstep had green grass in it. (A signature dream is given by the Holy Spirit. It has God's seal/signature on it.)
The next morning I pondered on the dream. I felt in my spirit that the dream wasn't simply about me. It had to do with God's people bringing life wherever they go. I was simply one of the God's life bringers. The truth is that believers are to be God's spiritual healers on planet earth. The water of life and the healing balm of heaven are simply two ways of saying the same thing. We are to bring the balm of heaven to tortured souls. In this sense all believers can be considered spiritual physicians. (Such as were the prophets of old.)
What then of God's weeping, and God's compassions, and God's dismay? I believe that deep within the heart of every child of God are those same feelings for the lost man and for the relapsed Christian, but I also believe that many Christians are being pulled aside by 'another' message. How often do folk turn to the television today only to hear and see another peacock prancing around the stage, glorifying himself, and spouting out some strange message about prosperity, prosperity, prosperity.
What is so strange about these 'other' messages is that according to the Scriptures, this is usually one of the defining messages of a false prophet and a false teacher. Is it possible that many of God's people are being pulled aside by messages that are not from heaven? Each believer must judge this for himself. (With the help of the Holy Spirit.)
Could it be that the Lord weeps over the church itself? Do you recall the confession of the Laodicean church? O yes, it was heavy into the confession message. Laodicea said, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing." (Rev3:17) But also notice that the Lord is on the outside of this church. He is knocking on the door asking to be let in. Seems the Laodicean Church had reached a place where they had "need of nothing," and the nothing even included the Lord, even if they did not realize it. (Could it be that this church was into godhood teachings?)
How did the Lord respond? He said, "Because you say, 'I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,' and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; AND EYE SALVE TO ANOINT YOUR EYES SO THAT YOU MAY SEE. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent." (vv17-19. Caps for emphasis.)
Isn't this odd? Here you have a church that is blind to its own condition - not only blind, but naked - and the eye salve could well represent that heavenly balm that is given to a repentant believer.
The balm is the blood of Jesus bringing its spiritual miracle medicinal powers to the soul. John said something very similar in 1 John 1:6,7; "If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin."
If we take these two portions of Scriptures together, then we have a church declaring itself in fellowship with the Lord, but that was simply a confession being made. It was not real. Can it happen in a believer's life today? Sure it can, and it does.
Back to the balm --- There is no sin so deep that the blood of Jesus cannot cleanse and purify it away. The result of the blood of the Lamb being applied is a soul filled with a wellness and a sense of holiness. The consciousness of the sin(s) no longer remains. The sin is as though it never happened. Such is the purified soul, and once again the restored believer begins to feel the passions of Christ for the lost man.
Since there is much more to be said, I'll leave off my part of the study for now. Feel free to make a contribution or ask questions.
The Lord bless you,
Buddy
Lawrence E. (Buddy) Martin, HF Host
email: Bro.Buddy@ChristianChallenge.org
Web: http://www.christianchallenge.org/
"See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled." (Heb12:15)