The title of my message today,
God never forgets us, never forgets his people, never. He said in
one place, I'll never, no never, no never, no never, no never
leave thee nor forsake thee. And look what it says here in
verse 14. But Zion hath said, or but Zion
said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten
me. That'd be an awful, that's an
awful thing to say about God, ain't it? It's an awful thing
to say. Can a woman forget her sucking
child? that she should not have compassion
on the son of her womb. Ye, they may forget, yet will
I not forget thee. Behold, I've graven thee upon
the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before me. Our covenant God has promises scattered all through
his word. This particular chapter here
is full of promises, full of promises of Christ coming to
be a covenant for the people, a light to the Gentiles, to be
our Redeemer, for God to uphold Him, God to establish Him. And
then He talks about what we have, that we'll go to a place where
their son won't bother us, Hunger no more, thirst no more, so we
see promises scattered all through God's blessed word. Promises,
you know, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and
they that cometh to me I'll no way cast them out. And he said,
I promise that I'll give them eternal life and they'll never
perish. Those are promises, just given all, just the Bible's full
of promises. First promise ever made was that
the Lord Jesus Christ would be born of a woman. Genesis 3 15
and he'd be born of a woman first thing that we had first promise
We have all these blessed glorious promises And of course all of
God's promises are yay Yay, they're they're real. They're not we
don't say yay and amen you know sometimes it's yay yay and sometimes
it's no no and But when we're dealing with God's promises,
they're all yay. And let me tell you something
else about them. There's no conditions on any promises that God's made.
Not one condition that you've got to meet for God to fulfill
one of His promises. Not one. God has no conditions
on His salvation. God has no condition on His promises. It's never, when we say yay,
you know, yay and amen, all the promises of God are in Christ
and they're yay, positive. We say yes to every single one
of them. It's not a yay and a nay. It's not I will if you will.
That's yay and nay preaching. If I, if God says, I will if
you will. I will if you will. If you accomplish
this, then I'll accomplish that for you. It's always, God says, I will,
and you shall. Or I shall, and you will. That's what's so wonderful about
God. You can trust a man, you can trust a God, when he says
something, mark it down, it's established. You know, he then
declared the end from the beginning. And he said, all my counsel shall
stand, and I'll do all my pleasure. You can trust him. Trust anything
he says. Trust any promise he makes. I
have intentions a lot of times. I say, well, I'm going to do
this, I'm going to do that, if. I've always put an if on me.
But you can't never put an if on God. No, no, you can't put
no ifs on God. You can't scratch your head and
you say, well, I wonder what He's going to do about it. No,
no, no, no. There's no condition to His promises. And this is one blessed promise
that God gives us. One blessed promise right here.
In verse 16, and this is bread for God's elect. This is bread
for God's spiritual children, Abraham's spiritual children.
He said, you know, a woman can forget her sucking child. He
said, yet I will not forget thee. And here's this blessed promise. I will not forget you. Why won't
I forget you? Behold, I'm craving thee upon
the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before
me. And I wanna go through this verse,
16, word by word by word by word. And our Lord said, I've graven
thee, graven thee. Job said, I would but my words
were graven in a stone, in a rock. But God said, I've got you on
the palms of my hands. And I'll tell you what, the first
word I want us to look at is that word behold, behold. Whenever you see that word behold,
it means stop, wonder, consider, think, look, it's what being
said. And it's something to be admired. You know when you say look, behold,
look at this, behold this. Look at what, behold unto us
this day born of the Savior, Christ the Lord. And this has
caused for us to wonder, it's like a sign. It's like a great
big sign. It says, turn here, this is the
way. Look, and I'll tell you where
you can look to. When it says behold, you look
up to heaven. You look up to heaven. look to
the angels, look to me and you, would God himself, look up in
the heaven and all the saints that's there, all the angels
and the elect angels, consider me, consider yourself, would
God almighty, God himself, take an engraving tool and engrave
our names upon his hands, the name of sinners, sinners like
us, would he take his holy hands in the palms of them and take
a engraving tool and engrave sinners' names in his hands? Sinners, Somebody from the top of their
head to the sole of their foot, from the inside of their heart
to the outside of their body. They're nothing but sin. They
can't think without sin. They can't talk without sin.
They can't pray without sin. They can't cry without sin. They can't repent without sin. And you go, why? Because we are
such, we're such frail creatures. And God said, I've graven you
on my hands. You look at yourself, what? You
say, God engraved me on his hands? A sinner like me? Oh my. If an angel come down and
said, I've got you, I've got graven you on my hands, it would
not mean anything. An angel couldn't save you. Angels
don't know nothing about, like angels don't know anything about
sin. And if an angel come and said, I've graven you on the
palms of my hands, it wouldn't mean anything. But God, God? Graves on his hands? Beggars
on a dunghill? O thou worm, Jacob, didst thou
mean to tell me he had right on his hands worms of the earth? Worms? Grasshoppers? That God himself had looked at
the... Listen! A woman can forget her
sunken child. She can walk off, forget about
it. But I can't forget you, I won't forget you, because I've got
the evidence in my hands. Now I can't forget you, I can't
forget you, huh? We, we who are but dust and ashes,
dust. He said from dust you are to
dust you'll go. Abraham, one time God said something
to Abraham, Abraham said, oh Lord, why would you, why would
you do any such thing for dust and ashes? You know what dust is? Wind can
blow it here and yonder. You know what ashes is? Left
after fire. Wind will blow it here and yonder.
Oh my. We deserve nothing but the wrath
of God, but he says, I have graven thee on the palms of my hands. Oh my. And he says back up there
in verse 14, but Zion hath said, Zion represents the church. That's
us. That's the Lord Jesus Christ
people. The Lord hath forsaken me. He's forgotten me. These are God's chosen people.
These are God's elect. What unbelief. What unbelief. How many times have you felt
like that you're such a miserable wretch that you loathe yourself? That you feel like you're the
sorriest human being that ever drawed a breath. I ain't fit
to sit among the Lord's people. But these are God's chosen people.
What unbelief. And then God says, how have I
forgotten you? How have I forgotten you? I've
graven you on the palms of my hands. Two things I think that we as
believers stand in amazement at. Two things. First, God's
faithfulness. Oh, how faithful is God. How
faithful God is. How faithful God is. You consider
your life from the day you confess faith in Christ You just consider
what you've done, what you've said, where you've been, things
you've done, and you just consider it. And then look at the maze. You stand amazed that God has
been faithful. I've been so unfaithful, but
God's been so faithful. I've been so uncaring, but God's
been faithful. I've been so unloving, but God's
been faithful. I've been so harsh, but God's
been faithful. I've been so hard-hearted, but
God's been faithful. I've talked about people, but
God's been faithful. I've been unkind, but God's been
faithful. I've been stingy, but God's been
faithful. I've been forgetful, but God's
been faithful. Oh, God's been faithful. I told you it's amazing how faithful
God's been. Faithful. He said, I'll never forget you.
Never forget you. And oh my, and I tell you the
second thing that amazes us is unbelief. Unbelief. How could I possibly, how could
I possibly not be full of faith consistently and constantly.
How could I doubt? How could I murmur? How could
I complain? How could I find fault? Our Lord Jesus was amazed at
two things in his ministry, in his life on this earth. He was
amazed at faith, I've not found so great a faith,
not in Israel. And the second thing was unbelief. He could do no mighty works because
of unbelief. And unbelief, oh, you say, I'm
not, I don't have, listen. We believe, but we're like that
poor man said, Lord, I believe. Please help my unbelief. How
many times has our unbelief kept us from doing things, thanking
things, going places. Oh, two things that's amazing.
God's faithfulness and my unbelief. I won't say ours. I've got enough
unbelief in here for everybody in here and a whole lot of others.
I've got it by bushel baskets. But thank God, God's faithful. And then also, that's behold.
That's the first word, behold. And he said, behold, this is
another thing. Zion hath forgotten me, forsaken
me, forgotten me. Oh my. Now that's an amazing
thing, ain't it? Then look at the next word in
that verse 16. Behold, it says, I. Whose I here he's talking about?
God? God? Sovereign? Omnipotent? Glorious in power? Wondrous in grace? Behold I,
I have graven thee on my hands. Our Lord Jesus and Brad preached
a message on this several years ago, John 15, 16. Know you not,
I want you to know this, you've not chosen me, but I've chosen
you. No one, listen to me, no one
can ride upon God's hands, but no one but God himself. Huh? Only God could write on
his hands. Only God himself could do it.
Oh, our merits, and I'll tell you what, in my opinion, some
of you got wonderful merits. And our prayers, our repentance,
our faith, can't write one letter on God's hands. Faith never wrote
anything on God's hands. Chance never wrote anything on
God's hands. Our wills could not write anything
on God's hands. Our names could not, anything
could not write our names. Not one, we couldn't make a scratch. Not even a scratch. But you take God's hand and he
could write on his own hand. And oh my, our loving God, from our Father, from the hand
of his omnipotence, his love caused him to write on his own
hand, to graven on his own hands. Oh, how dependent. How dependent are we upon Him?
How dependent are we? Utterly, absolutely dependent
on Him. There's nothing we got. Job asked
this question, can our righteousness add anything to God? Can our
righteousness add anything to God? Have we got anything that we
can make God more God-like? Anything we can say or do to make Him more holy, more righteous,
more glorious, more powerful, more loving? He said, I loved
you with an everlasting love. I wrote. I wrote. I graved. I knew your name, I
knew you before you was formed in your mother's belly. I wrote,
I agreed. I've got the power to write names. And I tell you, there's another
place he wrote some names down. It's called the Lamb's Book of
Life. When God writes something, it's
written for eternity. Huh? He said the Lamb's Book
of Life from the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
And listen, the names that are engraven on them hands, it fits
also in the Lamb's Book of Life. And if my name's in the Lamb's
Book of Life, you know the only thing I can do? is I can lift
up my hands, I can lift up my heart, I can lift up my voice,
I can lift up my soul, and say, God, thank you for your free,
sovereign grace, giving me in Christ before the world ever
began. That's all we can do. That's
all we can do. Say, Lord, thank you! That my name is written in the
Lamb's Book of Life. It was written there before I
ever was. Who wrote it? God did. Christ
in His blood. God in His power. And oh Lord
bless you for that free grace. That sovereign grace. That mighty
grace. That powerful grace. That free
grace. That's what I mean when nothing's
conditioned on anything. If God looked for us for anything,
there would be no hope for anybody. But God looked to His Son for
everything. That's why it's called the Lamb's
Book of Life. John said, look, I saw a lamb
as it had been slain. Oh my. And I tell you this, If
the Lord did write our names and has graven us on his hands,
there's no mistake about it. No mistake. There'd be no mistake
about this now. If someone else, if a human hand
had graven my name, don't mean anything. David lay down when
he was a shepherd boy. He laid down out there and looked
up. Sheep around and he laid down, he was looking up at the
stars. He said, Lord, when I consider the heavens that you have made,
when I consider the stars, he said, you know what I wonder?
What is man that you would even thank on him? Here I am. I see the heavens and I see the
stars. Who in the world am I that you
would even consider me? Huh? Oh my. We're fixed on his
hands by his eternal degree. He said, I, I did it. I did it. You reckon there's
a mistake somewhere? We go, you know we'll make a
mistake in the bulletin. Folks can find that quick. If you make a mistake on your
bank book or something like that, the bank will find it that quick.
You make a mistake, somebody will point it out to you real
quick. But God don't make no mistakes. If He said He's graven our names,
if He said He's put our Names in the letters, book of life.
You reckon it's done? It's an eternal decree. Huh? Oh my. And then I want you to
look again here in this verse 16. The first word was behold. The next word was I. Then the
next word is this. Have. I have. You know what a have means? It
means it's done. It means it's in the past. It means it's happened way back
yonder. He's not saying here, I will. You know, by the free will doctrine,
by Armenian doctrine, by any doctrine other than the free
grace of God in Christ, any other doctrine, it depends on somebody
else doing something besides God. And this, God said, I have
graven thee on my hands. It's not, I will. It's not I
will, well listen, when he believes, I'm gonna write his name down.
No, no. God says I have. It's not I will, or I'm gonna
do it. When he says I have, it's a thing
of the past. As long as God has been. How long has God been? How long
has God been? How long has God existed? How eternal is God? Well, before any worlds were
ever made. Before any galaxies or universes
were ever made. Before a star was ever put in
the heavens. Before anything ever existed
but God himself. God said, I have. Go way back. Go way back. Let me tell you
something about God. God's eternal. And everything
He does is eternal. He never said, I will do, I will
do, unless He accommodates to our language. He accommodates
words for our language, like this word right here. And here's the thing about it,
that everything He's done for us, He's done from eternity.
That's hard for us to get our poor little old puny brains around,
ain't it? We'll grasp it for just about two or three seconds
and it's gone again. You know, His work, He's eternal,
His work is eternal. And He's ever the same. He said,
I have, graven thee. When did He do that? Before every world was made. It was done. It was graven. He says, I have, I have. And
let me tell you how He did it. One day He sent His blessed Son
into this world. He was as eternal as His Father
was. He was eternal and He took Him and He put Him on a cross. And our Lord Jesus stretched
His hand out. And God said, now listen, our
Lord said, grave, grave, grave away. That's what it means to
be the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Grave, grave, grave. Go ahead and grave. Take your
nails. Father, take your holy hand.
Go right in my hands. Put them in the palms of my hands.
Oh my. I tell you. He said take that
graving tool. Graving tool. Start graving in
my hands. He knew us from the foundation
of the world. And never was a time we was not
in His heart. Never was a time we was loved
by Him. He said, I have. That means in
the past. That means it was something that
happened way, way, way long ago. That does something for my poor
soul and nothing else in this world does. Oh my. Let me give you the next
word. He said, I have graven thee. Graven. Behold I have passed. And then he says graven. You
know what the grave means? That means engraven. That means
engraven. He didn't say I didn't print
it. I didn't print it in my hand. I didn't stamp it on the surface
of my hand. And what he's saying, I have
permanently cut you into my hand. And it can't be removed. And
he did this by his omnipotence. You know, I've got my tombstone already.
And they took an engraving tool and they engraved my name in
there. They engraved the day, the month that I was born. And the year I was born, they
took a tool and engraved that in there. But out there in that
graveyard, there's all kinds of stones that weather and rain
and time has took all the engraving out of them. You don't know who,
they're just the tiniest bit of engraving left there. You walk around there and wonder
whose grave that is. You can't even tell, because
the engraving's worn and washed away. And one of these days,
if this world stays for two or three hundred years, all engraving
that's on that tombstone and Mary's tombstone and everybody
else's up there will be gone! Washed away! Withered away! But not my name on God's hands. He said, I pray for thee. He
didn't say, I'm going to print your name out here, read it.
I'm going to stamp it. You know, you go places and they
stamp your hand, you know. And then you get these stamps
to make us, you know, I paid my tax the other day. He said,
you don't have to fill it out. He said, all you just do is put
the number in there, how much, and we'll stamp, we'll stamp
it in there. God's not the way God does. No,
no. He says, I have permanently,
permanently cut you into my hands. And it can't be removed. He did
this by his omnipotent power. It was His omnipotent grace that
put the craving tool in the hands of our blessed Savior on Calvary. It pleased the Father to bruise
Him, to make Him acquainted with grief.
The Father leaned hard upon the Lord Jesus Christ His Son with
that engraving tool to write the chosen names, the names of
his chosen people. He said, I've graven thee upon
my hands. Oh my, graven thee upon the palms
of my hands. Now look at the next word. I have graven thee. You know what the first thing
I think of when I see that? I have graven thee." Me? Me? Me? You've graven me? Huh? You remember me? You remember me? No wonder we sang, to grace,
how great a debtor I'm constrained to be." Huh? Me? Lord, you've graven me? Me? How could it be? How can it be? How can it be
that thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me? Can my God who's
rest forbearing, me, the chief of sinners, spare? Now listen, I'm going to tell
you something right here. It doesn't say your name. No, no. Though it's there. But see the fullness of what
I'm going to tell you. When he said, I've graven thee,
he said, I've graven you person, who you are. He said, I've graven your person,
you, you, your person. I've graven your image. I've
graven your image. I know who you are. I know who you are. I've graven
your circumstances in my hand. I've graven your sins. I've graven your temptations. I've graven your weaknesses. I've graven your words. I've
graven your wants. I have graven everything there
is about you on my hands. Everything there is about you,
I put it on my hands. You know, people go get an image
of their wife or their girlfriend or something, you know, tattooed
on them. God said, I put you on my hand. Everything about you, your person,
your image. What image do you reckon he put
there? The image? of the righteousness
of God in Christ. Oh, I tell you, every circumstances
we're going through, you say, boy, my circumstance is awful
tough. Well, He's already got that in your hand, in His hand. He said, you don't know what
my sins like, they're in His hand. Oh, my. Oh, Lord, I go through
these awful temptations. I've got them in my hand. You just don't know how weak
I am. God do my in. I have graven thee. And then
look what else it says here. Oh my. Look what else it says
in this verse of scripture. Verse 16. There's two places
that God engraved. He said two places. The palms
of of my hands, both of them. Both of them. Both of them. You know, there's two hands that
we're in. We're in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
said, no man's able to pluck you out of my hand. And the Father
which given me, nobody's able to pluck you out of His hand.
But here's a hand that God himself, and you know when we see our
Lord Jesus Christ, when we see him in glory, we're gonna see the engraving
tool in his hands. And I tell you, you know how
much he thought of us? That he took both his hands and
crossed them above his head, and they put a great big nail
through him. And no wonder John got there
and said, there's a lamb as it had been slain. And old Dalton
Thomas, as you know, Zion said, God's forsaken me, God's forgotten
me. Thomas had that problem. He said, oh, they told him, said,
we've seen the Lord. We have seen the Lord. He's risen.
Thomas said, I ain't no way I can believe that. I'm just not going
to do it. About the time he said that,
our Lord Jesus stuck his hands out. You think, you forgot me. You doubted me. He said, I had
no belief. But I've not forgotten you. I've not forgotten you. Look
here, go ahead. That's what God's saying here.
He has forgotten, he's forsaken me. Our Lord said, go ahead,
look, look. Oh my, what a blessed, blessed
Savior is Jesus our Lord. What a wonderful, wonderful Savior
to me. He says, I've graven thee. This
shows you that God's remembrance of his people is constant, constant. Now, I don't know how your memory
is, but mine is pitiful. Pitiful. I'll be talking to somebody,
can't think of their name, and I've known their name about almost
all my life. It's pitiful. I think you glad God's not like
us. Oh, our memory's not good at
all. But God's perfect, His memory's perfect. Our memory's based in
time, but His remembrance is eternal. Could anyone erase anything
from His hand? Augustus Toplady wrote this line,
Once in Christ, in Christ forever, nothing from his love can sever. Oh, Zion hath forsaken me, forgot
me. Wait a minute. I ain't gonna never forget you.
I ain't never gonna, you may forget me, but I'm never gonna
forget you. Next time you're going through
something, you remember that. Our Father in the blessed name
of our Lord Jesus Christ, how we bless you and praise you and
thank you for the gospel, for the truth as it is in Christ.
Lord, your word is so precious, so powerful, so glorious. Your
promises are so real, so vital. And oh Lord, I believe every
one of them. I rejoice in you, rejoice in who you are. love
you the way you are, want you the way you are, need you the
way you are, need you to, oh, you're God, and I throw myself
on you, throw this congregation on you, knowing, Lord, you'll
never, never forsake us or forgive us. We bless you and praise you
in Christ's name. Amen. Let me see what that song
is. I think it's... Let me see if this is right. Yep, let's stand and sing 258.
Let's stand and sing this together. He hideth my soul Oh, what a
wonderful thing. He had his muscle.