“IS THERE NO BALM IN GILEAD?”
Panaceas—Physical, Political, Social, Moral.
THERE are many. Just before this writing we picked up a paper which declares in an advertisement that Dr. Blank, of Blank City, “has surely discovered the elixir of life; that he is able, with the aid of a mysterious compound, known only to himself, produced as a result of the years he has spent in searching for this precious life-giving boon, to cure any and every disease that is known to the human body.” Every sensible body laughs at the foolish claim, yet many will be deceived. Still that claim is no greater in its unreasonableness than are those put forth by various politicians who advocate a system which is a sure cure for all the ills which afflict or affect the body politic. It is “Socialism,” or “Single Tax,” or the “Initiative and Referendum,” or “Municipal Ownership,” or “Abolition of Trusts,” or something else, which of itself may be good enough, but which is utterly insufficient to meet the needs of a selfish humanity. Politics will never cure the ills of earth. Religious panaceas are about after the same sort. Some dose of something is expected to accomplish the work. Some one part of Christ’s teaching is segregated, cut off from the great fruitful tree of life, and warranted if shaken well and taken in proper doses to cure all ills. But it does not, and men become disappointed in “Christianity,” supposing they have had it. It is an age of nostrums and isms that fail and will fail, and in their sea of failure thousands of human craft will go down to ruin. Thousands more will reap sad disappointment. And yet there is a “balm in Gilead;” there is a “Physician there.” That balm is the blessed Gospel of the Word of God; that Physician is the personal Jesus, the Anointed of God, the center and circumference of the Gospel. There is in Him the cure for all earth’s ills. He does not heal en masse, as some of our modern physicians, religious and political are attempting to do; but He heals each individual soul who comes to Him of however sore sickness he may have. He asks no price; His healing is free. All that He requires is that the sick soul who comes shall yield all into His hands and accept Him for all that He would be—perfect healing. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” This is the prescription. If the sick one loves the disease more than the healing, there is no hope; but if he truly would be healed, there is hope for the worst case. The one disease which affects the world is the leprosy of sin. Every other evil is the fruit or consequence of this. No human remedy can cure it. No human physician can heal. But Christ Jesus heals the leprosy. He touched the loathsome carcass when on earth and it became as the flesh of the little child. He touches now the loathsome sinner, so unclean that he loathes himself, and the touch of the Master burns out the virus of sin, and creates new tissue of righteousness. But he who loves sin retains the leprosy. Whatever its form it must be given up, loathed, put away in heart and mind, and the soul must be opened to all the light and life and blessing of God. He who knows Christ Jesus by experience as the all-healing Physician will need no political scheme, no social régime, no religio-political laws to keep him. The Ten Commandments, The Sermon on the Mount, the Golden Rule, the Gospel of Christ will prove all sufficient. Human panaceas will be lost sight of in the all-sufficient efficiency and overshadowing glory of the Gospel of Christ Jesus.