The Balm in Gilead

• You’re watching [music] KCMI TV. >> Well, I’m glad you joined me. And uh we’re going to take our key verse today out of the book of Jeremiah chapter 8 [clears throat] and verse 22. And it says, “Is there no bomb in Gilead? And is there no physician there?” Um, probably if you’ve been in church any length of time, you’ve [clears throat] heard the phrase uh the bomb of Gilead.
• And I want to talk to you about that today. Um, in in Old [clears throat] Testament times in Gilead, there was a balsom tree and um it was it was a very rare tree. And whenever it was wounded, they they cut the bark that out of this tree would begin to flow a substance, a resin, and it was used for medicine, for wounds and infections.
• And it was very rare. It was very costly, valuable and very expensive. And when people [clears throat] were were sick, uh they could come to Gilead and um it it there wasn’t a lot of it. In fact, history says that the substance of it was controlled by kings. And so when people were sick and they had wounds that wouldn’t heal, they could come to Gilead.
• And there was this tree that had in it the ability to heal. So out of that natural story, I I want to pull some things that I thought would help us [clears throat] because we know this that trees have always played a very very important part in the scriptures. We know that the story of man’s creation is centered around trees.
• The tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And the tree of life was a tree that if you ate of its fruit, even though Adam and Eve did not, it gave them eternal life, they would never die. Spiritually, they would always live. And then in the book of revelations uh the scripture says that in heaven or in the new earth there will be a tree of life and its leaves will be for the healing of nations.
• And so the metaphor has always been that a tree represents one of its properties and its abilities is it provides life and it provides healing. Jesus [clears throat] was the tree of life. Um, we know this and in Isaiah 53, we’re we’re familiar with this scripture, but it says that Jesus Christ was he was smitten of God.