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Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?
Jeremiah 8:21-22
The region of Gilead was well known for it's healing balm, made from the resin of a flowering plant. The balm was very pleasant smelling and had healing properties. The prophet was saying there was plenty of natural healing balm there but the people were in need of a Spiritual healing balm.
Sorrow and faintness are in the heart of Jeremiah, as he mourns his people’s idolatry and hurt.
In the next chapter of Jeremiah 9:17-20 God says "Call for the wailing women to come...Let them wail over us...Hear the Word of the Lord....Teach your daughters how to wail, teach one another a lament." A lament is a passionate expression of grief and sorrow.
God is saying, Healing balm is available, bring in your intercessors to plead to God on the people's behalf! When is the last time you came to God weeping and wailing for the salvation of a loved one? Weeping and wailing for the chains and bondages to be loosed in someone's life? How often have you presented a true and passionate prayer that gets the attention of Almighty God? And God says to teach our children to wail, teach them and show them more than "Now I lay me down to sleep"!
Ezekial 22:30 says "I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.
We learn in life that we can't change people, we may move them with some emotion, but that's only temporary. Only The Holy Spirit can move and change people, and He can only do that if we are willing to let Him use us.
Just like in the time of Jeremiah, people are blinded, by the cares and material things of this world. How can the blinders be removed? By someone willing to stand in the gap and let the Holy Spirit work through them, interceding to the Father.
If sinners die, their own blood is on their heads, there is no remedy, no hope. The blood of Jesus is the balm of Gilead to bring hope for people in this life and in the Life to come.
The Holy Spirit is within us to do a work through us, His mission is to seek and save those that are lost, will we let Him do His work?