ENGRAVEN ON GOD’S HANDS
Isa 49:16
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR:
1. A man from New York came to Texas and bought a ranch. After 3 months, his best friend came to Texas to see his ranch. “So what did you name your ranch?” he asked.
2. “Well, my wife and kids and I all wanted to call it different names” admitted the new cowboy. “We couldn’t agree. We finally settled on the Double R, Lazy L, Triple Horseshoe, Bar-7, Lucky Diamond Ranch.”
3. “Wow!” His friend was impressed. “So where are all the cows?” “None of them survived the branding.”
B. TEXT: “Behold, I have engraven you upon the palms of my hands” Isa 49:16.
C. THESIS
1. This promise was given to all God’s people. God will not cast them away; He could no more forget them than a woman forget her nursing child.
2. This promise belongs to US — whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and for whom Jesus shed his blood. Every true believer should say, “This is what the Lord says to ME; He says this to give ME comfort and hope.” What do these words mean?
I. KEY WORDS EXAMINED CLOSELY
A. “BEHOLD” – AN OCCASION OF ASTONISHMENT
“Behold, I have engraven you upon the palms of my hands.”
1. “Behold,” is a word of wonder; it’s intended to excite admiration. It’s like an ancient sign board, indicating an amazing revelation being revealed.
2. It’s astonishing that God would engrave – on His hands – the names of sinners and rebels! No doubt the holy angels were lost in amazement when they heard of it.
3. To which of the angels did God say at any time, “I have engraven you upon the palms of My hands?” But to man, who is only a worm, formed of the dust, God has honored with this privilege!
4. Part of the wonder comes from the unbelief of God’s people. In the preceding verse Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, and my God has forgotten me.” God is amazed that they would think He had forgotten them!
5. God answers, “How can I forget you, when I have engraven you upon the palms of My hands?” He keeps his promise a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes us doubt Him. He never wavers, even though we are frequently disturbed with fears. What an awesome God we have!
B. “ENGRAVEN” – WHAT HE DID. “Behold, I have engraven you upon the palms of my hands.”
1. WHO IS THE ENGRAVER? The Divine Artist is none other than God Himself. No one can write upon the hand of God except God Himself. What DIDN’T cause Him to write? It wasn’t our merits, prayers, repentance, nor faith that wrote our names there, for our goodness can’t influence God to write upon His hands.
2. WHAT DID CAUSE HIM TO WRITE? It was the Father’s omnipotent love from His heart. If my name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life, God Himself had to place it there! No archangel could possibly have inserted it, only God.
3. GOD’S WRITING IS PERMANENT! Even in the great Egyptian monuments, written in hieroglyphics, there were known to be mistakes. But God makes no errors: MY NAME is written there.
4. There can be no erasures, no crossing out of what God has written. The powers of darkness can’t erase it because GOD put it there! “I have engraven you upon the palms of my hands.”
5. David said, “When I consider your heavens the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him?” (Ps. 8:4)
6. David far underestimated God. Not only is He mindful of us, His feelings run so deep that He couldn’t restrain Himself from engraving us in His hands!
C. THE “WHEN” OF THE ENGRAVING
1. When did He engrave it? In the most distant past: before the Pyramids of Egypt; before primordial man recorded his first records – here is an inscription older than them all.
2. Before the earth was formed, before the sun, moon and stars were hung in their orbits, before there was time itself – our Names were already written down!
3. Jesus is the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” Rev. 13:8. He bears in His hands the marks of His love for us!
4. CONCLUSION? God is no stranger to you. You were known to God from the foundation of the earth; he was always thinking of you; there’s never been a time when you weren’t in his mind and on his heart.
D. “YOU”
1. Someone may say, “Lord, do you mean me?” “Yes, even you, if you by faith cling to My cross.” Notice that He doesn’t say, “Your NAME,” but “I have engraven YOU.”
2. I have engraven your person, your image, your case, your circumstances, your sins, your temptations, your weaknesses, your longings, your works; I have engraven everything about you.
3. How could we imagine God could forget us? “Oh!” one says, “but I’m in such a trial today.” “I’m so weak and feeble!” That, too, is engraven there.
E. “UPON THE PALMS OF MY HANDS”
1. WHERE DID GOD ENGRAVE US? Not on a piece of paper; not on a ring on His finger, not on a stone tablet, but upon His hands!
2. Not upon the BACK Of His HANDS, but where He is most likely to look, so that He will never forget us.
3. NOT ONE HAND, BUT TWO! Two memorials to remind Him! At the Judgment Seat, when He tells those on his right hand, “Come you blessed,” and He sadly tells those on His left, “Depart you cursed,” His left hand will remind Him that I’m not one of them. Praise God!
II. MAGNITUDE OF HIS AWARENESS
A. HE IS CONSTANTLY THINKING OF YOU “I have engraven you upon the palms of my hands.”
1. You & I remember God sporadically, a few times a day, but God never stops thinking about you, but God’s infinite mind can perceive untold trillions of thoughts at once.
2. Because God’s mind in infinite, no second person ever interrupts His attention on you. Every moment of every day, year in and year out – God is continually thinking about you.
B. INDICATES HE WILL ACT ON OUR BEHALF
1. God’s hands symbolize His activity and God’s ACTIVITY is working all things together for your good.
2. God’s not a friend who lets His love end in thought. His faithfulness will act in our defense against every assault of the adversary and He will supply every need.
C. HE CAN DO NOTHING WITHOUT THINKING OF YOU
1. Just as virtually everything you pick up comes in contact with your palm, so everything God touches is left with a memory of his people on it.
2. Every work He has done has been stamped with our remembrance! Whether creating planets or instructing the angels, the whole of Creation is stamped with our memory.
D. GOD’S EXTREME WAY OF SHOWING AFFECTION
1. There was an Asian Queen who loved her husband so much that a grave for him wasn’t sufficient.
2. She had a strange way of proving her affection, for when her husband’s bones were burned she took the ashes and drank them day by day, so that her body might be her husband’s living tomb.
3. It was a strange way of showing love, and there was a degree of strange, fanatical fondness in it.
4. But how fanatical is the love that takes a knife and carves its devotion into the flesh? Such would require an intensity of feelings that few know or understand. Such is the love that God has for you!
5. The High Priest had the 12 tribes mounted on his breastplate so that he might never forget them. Jesus did one better: He branded His hands with His love for his people. Rest assured that He will never forsake you!
6. POEM: “If God...” If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, He'll listen. He can live anywhere in the universe, and He chose your heart. What about the Christmas gift He sent you in Bethlehem; not to mention that Friday at Calvary. Face it, friend. He's crazy about you. Author unknown.
III. WHAT THIS TRUTH TRANSMITS TO US
A. GREAT COMFORT IN OUR TRIALS
1. There is no sorrow to which this verse is not an antidote. If you are a child of God but a penniless bankrupt beggar; as long as you grasp this Scripture, you are rich beyond a miser’s dream.
2. The devil may attack you with a thousand lies, but if you know that “I have been engraven upon the palms of God’s hands,” you can counter him and rise victorious!
3. The dying thief’s prayer was “Lord, remember me!” Jesus has done far more!
B. PUT ASIDE ALL WORRY
1. Should we be fearful of the future since God has so boldly declared His love? No! Put aside all worry.
2. Should we allow sadness over our present circumstances to dominate our lives? No! We have a Savior Who loves us with an undying affection, Who spared Himself no suffering to ensure our eternal joy and happiness. He’s given us the Spirit now to begin enjoying His joy Now!
C. RECEIVE HIS LOVE
1. In ancient times, people put a tattoo of one they loved on the palm of their hand with indelible ink. As long as the palm lasted, there lasted the memorial of their loved one.
2. As long as eternity lasts – and after the universe has passed into oblivion – you will still be engraved on the hands of your loving Savior!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. A story is told about a father and his son who were minding their sheep in the highlands of Scotland one
spring night. The young son tugged at his father's pant leg and asked, "Daddy, how big is God's love?"
2. The father stopped a moment and then pointed and explained, "Son, beyond these gigantic mountains to the south and farther than the eye can see is England." "Aye," said the boy.
3. Then the dad turned, pointed, and said, "And to the north and beyond, farther than the eye can see is the great Atlantic Ocean." "Aye," said the son.
4. The father hesitated a moment and then said, "Well son, God's love is bigger than both those distances." The young son looked amazed, and with a Scottish smile on his face and looking directly into his father's eyes, he said,
5. "Oh daddy, isn't it wonderful! We're standing right here in the middle of it!" With tears in his eyes, the father picked his son up and hugged him. How true of us in Jesus Christ!
B. THE CALL
1. Is there someone here who says, “I’m not sure I’m saved; I want to be written in the palms of Jesus’ hands!” If you desire Christ, he desires you.
2. Jesus said, “I will never turn away anyone who comes to Me” (John 6:37; God’s Word Trans.). Let Jesus’ pardoning love fill your heart today.
[This is a rewrite of Charles Spurgeon’s message, “A Precious Drop of Honey.”]
