Behold!

Engraved On His Hands

By: Charles Spurgeon



“Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” Isaiah 49:16


No doubt a part of the wonder which is concentrated in the word “behold” is excited by the unbelieving lamentation of the preceding sentence. Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my God has forgotten me.”


How amazed the divine mind seems to be at this wicked unbelief! What can be more astounding than the unfounded doubts and fears of God’s favored people? The Lord’s loving word of rebuke should make us blush, and he cries, “How can I have forgotten you, when I have engraved you on the palms of my hands? How can you doubt my constant remembrance, when the memorial is set upon my very flesh?”


O unbelief, how strange a marvel you are! We do not know which more to wonder at: the faithfulness of God or the unbelief of his people.


God keeps his promise a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes us doubt him. He never fails, he is never a dry well, he is never as a setting sun, a passing meteor, or a melting vapor—and yet we are as continually vexed with anxieties, bothered with suspicions, and disturbed with fears, as if our God were the mirage of the desert.


“Behold,” is a word intended to excite admiration. Here, indeed, we have a theme for marveling. Heaven and earth may well be astonished that rebels should obtain so great a nearness to the heart of infinite love as to be written on the palms of his hands.


“I have engraved you.” It does not say “your name.” The name is there, but that is not all: “I have engraved you.” See the fulness of this! I have engraved your person, your image, your case, your circumstances, your sins, your temptations, your weaknesses, your wants, your works. I have engraved you, everything about you, all that concerns you. I have put you altogether there.


Will you ever say again that your God has forsaken you when he has engraved you on his own palms?

Fire from Heaven

   One of the things that strikes me about the stories in the Old Testament is how God responds with fire from heaven. There are times it is a demonstration of His justice (Sodom etc) but there are those events at an alter where He demonstrates His pleasure, His acceptance of the sacrifice by sending fire from heaven and consuming the sacrifice. 1Kings 18 where He shows He is the living God in Elijah's challenge to the priests of Baal and Asherah; with Davids repentance in 1 Chronicles 21:26; or at the dedication of temple that Solomon built, recorded in 2 Chronicles 5-7 (see 2 Chronicles 7:1).
   Amazing stories, but how do they relate to us?
   Let's jump ahead in time to the Book of Acts, chapter 2:1. Here we see 120 followers of Jesus in the upper room, (We don't have the full list but in Acts 1:13 we find that the core of Jesus' followers are there)  when what sounds like a loud and violent wind "then what looked like flames or tongues of fire" fell on them and they experienced glossolalia (speaking in tongues).
   It must have been an amazing moment; the sound, intense and thunderous; the sight of flames both fearful and wondrous. Then the voices. I envision a heavenly cacophony, almost like a music, full of joy and praise lifting toward God.
   But let us focus on the tongues of fire. Here it is fifty days after Jesus death and resurrection. Jesus has become the sacrifice for the sins of all mankind; The Lamb of God without spot or blemish. And it is now through the sacrifice of Jesus that God sees the believers, and we can assume that at this time there were only 120 believers in the whole world, and pours from heaven fire of approval upon them all. But it is not a fire that burns up what is on the alter because we are now a living sacrifice Romans 12:1. What an amazing demonstration of the gospel. Jesus, the sacrifice, once and for all, is now fulfilling his promise that He would be with us and in us.
   And now we hear the voices speaking out in joy and praise.
   Our God is great and mighty! Our God reigns with love and majesty! Holy is the name of our God!