Thurs. - Jeremiah 8 - No Healing

  

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O have a good & affordable doctor, but to refuse to go see him or her when you have both the need and the opportunity to do so, would surely be foolishness. To possess the medicine that is known to be a cure for some ailment that you have, but to arbitrarily and stubbornly refuse to take it, again, is foolishness. The Jews of Jeremiah's day were mortally diseased. The description of their plight in this chapter is morbid and grim, but it wasn't hopeless. Well, it shouldn't have been hopeless (vs. 22).  They had both a Physician and a miracle cure, but they were unwilling (and had been unwilling for a very long time) to submit to any Providential prescription that included repentance, faith, holiness or humility (vs. 5-6).

I suppose with many illnesses there is a period of time when something can be done about that illness. But, if left untreated, in many cases it can eventually be too late to do anything about it. Evidently this was exactly where Israel ended up. They rejected God's expertise for so long that eventually their momentum was the only force remaining; and their momentum was taking them away from God (Jeremiah 8:9).  The time of hope had expired (Jeremiah 8:20). Even Jeremiah felt like all of God's efforts on their behalf were only wasted (Jeremiah 8:8).  If anything, they could only hope for palliative care as the nation lay on its deathbed and breathed its last breaths. They were not going to be healed (Ezekiel 14).