For thus says the LORD:
‘Your affliction is incurable, Your wound is severe.
There is no one to plead your cause, That you may be bound up;
You have no healing medicines…
Why do you cry about your affliction? Your sorrow is incurable.
Because of the multitude of your iniquities,
Because your sins have increased, I have done these things to you.
Jer 30:12-15
Did you know the word “incurable” in the text above is the same word translated “ill” in 2 Sam 12:15, speaking of the condition of the child born of adultery between David and Bathsheba? What did God say would be the outcome of this illness in v. 14? It was unto death! That’s pretty final, isn’t it? Is any doctor going to make that child better? Should David have called for the wise men of the kingdom to see if someone could find a cure for his child? It would have done no good! God said the child would die!
This is the word pronounced against Israel in Jer 30:12. This isn’t man saying, “You’ve got 6 months to live.” We’ve heard that before, and seen the result. We’ve got people with us still years after the doctor said he’d done all he could do! We can’t be sure when man makes such a pronouncement. But, this isn’t man voicing his diagnosis. This is God, and he said there was no cure! Your wound cannot be healed!
What awful words! What fearful judgment! You say, “I pray God never says such to me!” I want to tell you something that God by His Spirit has spoken concerning everyone reading these words. Every single one of you was born with an incurable wound. I can prove it to you in Jer 17:9. Here, the condition of the heart of man is that it is “desperately wicked”. That’s the same Hebrew word as “incurable” in our passage! You were born with a heart so vile and diseased, so contrary to God, that it is incurable! Did Jer 30:12 just become personal? Did this message just hit home? I’m not talking about the Jews thousands of years ago. I’m not giving a history lesson. I’m talking about you!
What hope do you have when God says your wound is incurable? Is the best advice to just lie down and die? That’s what Job’s wife told him to do. “Curse God and die!” But, is that what Daid did in the text we already referenced? In 2 Sam 12:16, we find that he “pleaded with God for the child”. Was David a fool? God said the child would die! And, did he? Yes, he did! David should have just swallowed it down, and given up on the child, right? Well, what did Hezekiah do when facing a similar situation–when God, not man, said he would die in 2 Ki 20:1? “Then he turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the LORD…” (v. 2) Why? God said He would die! His wound was incurable! You say, “I know what’s going to happen. God didn’t heal David’s child when he pronounced death upon him. There’s no hope!” Well, you’ve obviously never read v. 5-6! God extended his life by 15 years! David didn’t pray to God because he was a fool. He prayed to him because he had hope! He knew the character AND the ability of God! Listen to his him in 2 Sam 12:22: “Who can tell whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?” David may not have heard Christ say the words of Mk 10:27, but he knew them in his heart: “With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.” In the same passage we read the prophet saying man had an incurable heart (Jer 17:9), there he also cried out for God to heal him! (v. 14) Do you know how God gets the glory for your salvation? He didn’t wait until it was bad or until it was hard. He waited until it was impossible! “With men it is impossible, but not with God!”
Now, I’ve got to be honest with you. I have purposely hidden some verses from you! I have plucked our main text in a sense right out of context, but not to be deceptive. I have done so that the surrounding verses will be even sweeter to you in light of what we’ve already heard. Guess what God said BEFORE he said their affliction and their sorrow were incurable in Jer 30:11?
For I am with you,’ says the LORD, ‘to save you;
Though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you,
Yet I will not make a complete end of you.
But I will correct you in justice, And will not let you go altogether unpunished.’
Wow! God had made preparation for their deliverance BEFORE the disease was ever revealed! BEFORE the judgment was pronounced, God had determined to save! There was a beginning BEFORE it began with us! We woke up one morning like Isaiah and realized, “Woe is me! For I am undone! I’m a man of unclean lips! I’m a sinner! My disease is incurable!” But long BEFORE that was made real to us, God had made a Provision for sin! 1 Pet 1:18-20 says we may not have realized it until these “last times”, but God had salvation through Christ prepared from the beginning. Jesus Christ was a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world! (Rev 13:8)
If you’re outside of Christ today, I pray you see the great mercy of God in the message of hope He’s declared to you! You are without excuse! He’s told you how bad it is. It’s impossible! But, He’s also instructed you to follow Abraham’s example who “contrary to hope, in hope believed”! (Rom 4:18) With God, all things are possible! If you are in Christ, then I pray you see the great mercy of God in the message of hope He’s declared to you as well! Why are you fretting? I want you to ask yourself what the psalmist did in Ps 43:5: “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God!” If God has taken care of your incurable wound, what’s so big in your life now that He can’t handle? Sure, it took you by surprise, but not God! That storm you’re facing isn’t forces of nature in your life. It is an act of God, and guess what? It’s for your good! God’s got an end in mind, and you need to quit looking at the storm and look at Him! You need to follow Christ’s example as He headed toward the cross. He wasn’t looking at the suffering of the cross but rather at “the joy that was set before Him!” (Heb 12:2)
Maybe you can’t see Him working right now. You’re like Job saying “Look, I go forward, but He is not there, And backward, but I cannot perceive Him; When He works on the left hand, I cannot behold Him; When He turns to the right hand, I cannot see Him.” But he doesn’t stop there! He continues, “But He knows the way that I take; When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.” (Job 23:8-10) Guess what we read just after our text in Jer 30:16-17?
‘Therefore all those who devour you shall be devoured;
And all your adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity;
Those who plunder you shall become plunder,
And all who prey upon you I will make a prey.
For I will restore health to you and heal you of your wounds,’ says the LORD…
Jamie