EVERY one acknowledges that it is his duty to trust in God ; but we are prone to creature-confi- dence. Hence we are often left to faint under dif- ficulties from which we might easily have been extricated. Thus the Jews increased their distress by relying on the Egyptians for succour, when, if they would have trusted in God, they might have been delivered. The prophet therefore takes up this affec- tionate lamentation over them :
in what a state are your souls ! as far from salvation as if you had never heard of a Saviour, or had salvation offered to you in his name ! If the prophet then wept over the temporal calamities of his people, how much greater reason have I to weep over you! (chap. ix. 1.) Were your impending calamities temporal only, they were not worthy of a thought, in comparison of those which are shortly coming upon
you If your souls be not saved, no language can express, or
imagination conceive, the misery that awaits them.
II. His tender expostulation —
Gilead was famous for balm, which physicians were wont to use for their patients. Under that image the prophet tells them how effectually they might have been recovered, if they had sought help from God. Their destruction therefore was wholly of themselves. And may I not make the same appeal to you ? Has not Christ been set before you as the heavenly Physician ? Has not the efficacy of his blood to cleanse from sin been pointed out to you ? Would not the Lord Jesus have healed your souls, if you had applied to him ?
■ — Yes, verily it is your own fault that you are not recovered.
" Ye will not come to Christ that ye may have life."
Address —
1 . Those who are insensible of their danger —
Your danger is indeed both great and imminent ; and I entreat you to delay no longer, what in a short space of time there will be no pos- sibility of effecting
2. Those who after hopeful symptoms of recovery have relapsed — It were better never to have sought the Lord at all, than to have
turned back again to your sins. O bless your God that the summer is not yet quite ended ; and cease not to apply to the great Physician, till perfect health is restored to your souls.
3. Those who are in a course of recovery —
Fear not, but that the balm of Gilead will prove sufficient. Live nigh to God in the daily application of that balm to your souls, and you may set all your enemies at defiance. Your sins shall all be healed ; and Satan himself, as a vanquished foe, be bruised under your feet.